The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3)(54)

“Charleston?” Jason said the name as if it brought back bad memories. “What exactly did you find in Atlanta?”

Frank unzipped his backpack and starting bringing out souvenirs. “Some peach preserves. A couple of T-shirts. A snow globe. And, um, these not-really-Chinese handcuffs.”

Annabeth forced herself to stay calm. “How about you start from the top—of the story, not the backpack.”

They gathered on the quarterdeck so Leo could hear the conversation as he navigated. Percy and Frank took turns relating what had happened at the Georgia Aquarium, with Coach Hedge interjecting from time to time: “That was awesome!” or “Then I kicked her in the head!”

At least the coach seemed to have forgotten about Percy and Annabeth falling asleep in the stable the night before. But judging from Percy’s story, Annabeth had worse problems to worry about than being grounded.

When Percy explained about the captive sea creatures in the aquarium, she understood why he seemed so upset.

“That’s terrible,” she said. “We need to help them.”

“We will,” Percy promised. “In time. But I have to figure out how. I wish…” He shook his head. “Never mind. First we have to deal with this bounty on our heads.”

Coach Hedge had lost interest in the conversation—probably because it was no longer about him—and wandered toward the bow of the ship, practicing his roundhouse kicks and complimenting himself on his technique.

Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. “A bounty on our heads…as if we didn’t attract enough monsters already.”

“Do we get WANTED posters?” Leo asked. “And do they have our bounties, like, broken down on a price list?”

Hazel wrinkled her nose. “What are you talking about?”

“Just curious how much I’m going for these days,” Leo said. “I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe…but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?”

“Hey!” Frank complained.

“Knock it off,” Annabeth ordered. “At least we know our next step is to go to Charleston, to find this map.”

Piper leaned against the control panel. She’d done her braid with white feathers today, which looked good with her dark brown hair. Annabeth wondered how she found the time. Annabeth could barely remember to brush her hair.

“A map,” Piper said. “But a map to what?”

“The Mark of Athena.” Percy looked cautiously at Annabeth, like he was afraid he’d overstepped. She must have been putting out a strong I don’t want to talk about it vibe.

“Whatever that is,” he continued. “We know it leads to something important in Rome, something that might heal the rift between the Romans and Greeks.”

“The giants’ bane,” Hazel added.

Percy nodded. “And in my dream, the twin giants said something about a statue.”

“Um…” Frank rolled his not-exactly-Chinese handcuffs between his fingers. “According to Phorcys, we’d have to be insane to try to find it. But what is it?”

Everyone looked at Annabeth. Her scalp tingled, as if the thoughts in her brain were agitating to get out: a statue…Athena…Greek and Roman, her nightmares, and her argument with her mom. She saw how the pieces were coming together, but she couldn’t believe it was true. The answer was too big, too important, and much too scary.

She noticed Jason studying her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and didn’t like it any more than she did. Again she couldn’t help but wonder: Why does this guy make me so nervous? Is he really on my side? Or maybe that was her mom talking.…

“I—I’m close to an answer,” she said. “I’ll know more if we find this map. Jason, the way you reacted to the name Charleston…have you been there before?”

Jason glanced uneasily at Piper, though Annabeth wasn’t sure why.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Reyna and I did a quest there about a year ago. We were salvaging Imperial gold weapons from the C.S.S. Hunley.”

“The what?” Piper asked.

“Whoa!” Leo said. “That’s the first successful military submarine. From the Civil War. I always wanted to see that.”

“It was designed by Roman demigods,” Jason said. “It held a secret stash of Imperial gold torpedoes—until we rescued them and brought them back to Camp Jupiter.”

Hazel crossed her arms. “So the Romans fought on the Confederate side? As a girl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say…not cool?”

Jason put his hands in front of him, palms up. “I personally was not alive then. And it wasn’t all Greeks on one side and all Romans on the other. But, yes. Not cool. Sometimes demigods make bad choices.” He looked sheepishly at Hazel. “Like sometimes we’re too suspicious. And we speak without thinking.”

Hazel stared at him. Slowly it seemed to dawn on her that he was apologizing.

Jason elbowed Leo.

“Ow!” Leo yelped. “I mean, yeah…bad choices. Like not trusting people’s brothers who, you know, might need saving. Hypothetically speaking.”

Hazel pursed her lips. “Fine. Back to Charleston. Are you saying we should check that submarine again?”