The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3)(104)

She thought the plot was silly—a princess escapes her minders and falls in love with an American journalist in Rome—but she suspected her dad liked it because it reminded him of his own romance with the goddess Athena: another impossible pairing that couldn’t end happily. Her dad was nothing like Gregory Peck. Athena certainly wasn’t anything like Audrey Hepburn. But Annabeth knew that people saw what they wanted to see. They didn’t need the Mist to warp their perceptions.

As the baby-blue scooter zipped through the streets of Rome, the goddess Rhea Silvia gave Annabeth a running commentary on how the city had changed over the centuries.

“The Sublician Bridge was over there,” she said, pointing to a bend in the Tiber. “You know, where Horatius and his two friends defended the city from an invading army? Now, there was a brave Roman!”

“And look, dear,” Tiberinus added, “that’s the place where Romulus and Remus washed ashore.”

He seemed to be talking about a spot on the riverside where some ducks were making a nest out of torn-up plastic bags and candy wrappers.

“Ah, yes,” Rhea Silvia sighed happily. “You were so kind to flood yourself and wash my babies ashore for the wolves to find.”

“It was nothing,” Tiberinus said.

Annabeth felt light-headed. The river god was talking about something that had happened thousands of years ago, when this area was nothing but marshes and maybe some shacks. Tiberinus saved two babies, one of whom went on to found the world’s greatest empire. It was nothing.

Rhea Silvia pointed out a large modern apartment building. “That used to be a temple to Venus. Then it was a church. Then a palace. Then an apartment building. It burned down three times. Now it’s an apartment building again. And that spot right there—”

“Please,” Annabeth said. “You’re making me dizzy.”

Rhea Silvia laughed. “I’m sorry, dear. Layers upon layers of history here, but it’s nothing compared to Greece. Athens was old when Rome was a collection of mud huts. You’ll see, if you survive.”

“Not helping,” Annabeth muttered.

“Here we are,” Tiberinus announced. He pulled over in front of a large marble building, the facade covered in city grime but still beautiful. Ornate carvings of Roman gods decorated the roofline. The massive entrance was barred with iron gates, heavily padlocked.

“I’m going in there?” Annabeth wished she’d brought Leo, or at least borrowed some wire cutters from his tool belt.

Rhea Silvia covered her mouth and giggled. “No, my dear. Not in it. Under it.”

Tiberinus pointed to a set of stone steps on the side of the building—the sort that would have led to a basement apartment if this place were in Manhattan.

“Rome is chaotic aboveground,” Tiberinus said, “but that’s nothing compared to below ground. You must descend into the buried city, Annabeth Chase. Find the altar of the foreign god. The failures of your predecessors will guide you. After that…I do not know.”

Annabeth’s backpack felt heavy on her shoulders. She’d been studying the bronze map for days now, scouring Daedalus’s laptop for information. Unfortunately, the few things she had learned made this quest seem even more impossible. “My siblings…none of them made it all the way to the shrine, did they.”

Tiberinus shook his head. “But you know what prize awaits, if you can liberate it.”

“Yes,” Annabeth said.

“It could bring peace to the children of Greece and Rome,” Rhea Silvia said. “It could change the course of the coming war.”

“If I live,” Annabeth said.

Tiberinus nodded sadly. “Because you also understand the guardian you must face?”

Annabeth remembered the spiders at Fort Sumter, and the dream Percy had described—the hissing voice in the dark. “Yes.”

Rhea Silvia looked at her husband. “She is brave. Perhaps she is stronger than the others.”

“I hope so,” said the river god. “Good-bye, Annabeth Chase. And good luck.”

Rhea Silvia beamed. “We have such a lovely afternoon planned! Off to shop!”

Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn sped off on their baby-blue motorbike. Then Annabeth turned and descended the steps alone.

She’d been underground plenty of times.

But halfway down the steps, she realized just how long it had been since she’d adventured by herself. She froze.

Gods…she hadn’t done something like this since she was a kid. After running away from home, she’d spent a few weeks surviving on her own, living in alleyways and hiding from monsters until Thalia and Luke took her under their wings. Then, once she’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood, she’d lived there until she was twelve. After that, all her quests had been with Percy or her other friends.

The last time she had felt this scared and alone, she’d been seven years old. She remembered the day Thalia, Luke, and she had wandered into a Cyclopes’ lair in Brooklyn. Thalia and Luke had gotten captured, and Annabeth had had to cut them free. She still remembered shivering in a dark corner of that dilapidated mansion, listening to the Cyclopes mimicking her friends’ voices, trying to trick her into coming out into the open.

What if this is a trick, too? she wondered. What if those other children of Athena died because Tiberinus and Rhea Silvia led them into a trap? Would Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn do something like that?