The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(55)

‘Of – of course,’ he said. ‘We’ll need a car. And I’ll need an excuse to leave campus.’ He looked hopefully at Piper.

She got to her feet. ‘Fine. I’ll go talk to the office. Meg, come with me, just in case we run into that empousa. We’ll meet you boys at the front gate. And, Jason –?’

‘Yeah?’

‘If you’re holding anything else back –’

‘Right. I – I get it.’

Piper turned and marched out of the room. Meg gave me a look like You sure about this?

‘Go on,’ I told her. ‘I’ll help Jason get ready.’

Once the girls had left, I turned to confront Jason Grace, one son of Zeus/Jupiter to another.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘What did the Sibyl really tell you?’





23


It’s a beautiful

Day in the neighbourhood – Wait

Actually, it’s not





Jason took his time responding.

He removed his jacket, hung it in the wardrobe. He undid his tie and folded it over the coat hook. I had a flashback to my old friend Fred Rogers, the children’s television host, who radiated the same calm centredness when hanging up his work clothes. Fred used to let me crash on his sofa whenever I’d had a hard day of poetry-godding. He’d offer me a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, then serenade me with his songs until I felt better. I was especially fond of ‘It’s You I Like’. Oh, I missed that mortal!

Finally, Jason strapped on his gladius. With his glasses, shirt, trousers, loafers and sword, he looked less like Mister Rogers and more like a well-armed paralegal.

‘What makes you think I’m holding back?’ he asked.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t try to be evasively prophetic with the god of evasive prophecies.’

Jason sighed. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing the Roman tattoo on the inside of his forearm – the lightning bolt emblem of our father. ‘First of all, it wasn’t exactly a prophecy. It was more like a series of quiz-show questions.’

‘Yes. Herophile delivers information that way.’

‘And you know how prophecies are. Even when the Oracle is friendly, they can be hard to interpret.’

‘Jason …’

‘Fine,’ he relented. ‘The Sibyl said … She told me if Piper and I went after the emperor, one of us would die.’

Die. The word landed between us with a thud, like a large, gutted fish.

I waited for an explanation. Jason stared at his foam core Temple Hill as if trying to bring it to life by sheer force of will.

‘Die,’ I repeated.

‘Yeah.’

‘Not disappear, not wouldn’t come back, not suffer defeat.’

‘Nope. Die. Or more accurately, three letters, starts with D.’

‘Not dad, then,’ I suggested. ‘Or dog.’

One fine blond eyebrow crept above the rim of his glasses. ‘If you seek out the emperor, one of you will dog? No, Apollo, the word was die.’

‘Still, that could mean many things. It could mean a trip to the Underworld. It could mean a death such as Leo suffered, where you pop right back to life. It could mean –’

‘Now you’re being evasive,’ Jason said. ‘The Sibyl meant death. Final. Real. No replays. You had to be there. The way she said it. Unless you happen to have an extra vial of the physician’s cure in your pockets …’

He knew very well I did not. The physician’s cure, which had brought Leo Valdez back to life, was only available from my son Asclepius, god of medicine. And, since Asclepius wanted to avoid an all-out war with Hades, he rarely gave out free samples. As in never. Leo had been the first lucky recipient in four thousand years. He would likely be the last.

‘Still …’ I fumbled for alternate theories and loopholes. I hated thinking of permanent death. As an immortal, I was a conscientious objector. As good as your afterlife experience might be (and most of them were not good), life was better. The warmth of the actual sun, the vibrant colours of the upper world, the cuisine … really, even Elysium had nothing to compare.

Jason’s stare was unrelenting. I suspected that in the weeks since his talk with Herophile he had run every scenario. He was well past the bargaining stage in dealing with this prophecy. He had accepted that death meant death, the way Piper McLean had accepted that Oklahoma meant Oklahoma.

I didn’t like that. Jason’s calmness again reminded me of Fred Rogers, but in an exasperating way. How could anyone be so accepting and level-headed all the time? Sometimes I just wanted him to get mad, to scream and throw his loafers across the room.

‘Let’s assume you’re correct,’ I said. ‘You didn’t tell Piper the truth because –?’

‘You know what happened to her dad.’ Jason studied the calluses on his hands, proof he had not let his sword skills atrophy. ‘Last year when we saved him from the fire giant on Mount Diablo … Mr McLean’s mind wasn’t in good shape. Now, with all the stress of the bankruptcy and everything else, can you imagine what would happen if he lost his daughter too?’

I recalled the dishevelled movie star wandering his driveway, searching for imaginary coins. ‘Yes, but you can’t know how the prophecy will unfold.’