He liked Frank, but he didn’t like the idea of anyone or anything making Hazel’s life harder. Also, his growling stomach was making him irritable. What did a guy have to do to get a brisket sandwich around here?
“He’s afraid that I’m too close to this,” Hazel said. “That because I’ve been judged unfairly in my life, I see myself in Asterion and his group.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Will asked. “We demigods are used to being judged. We should be willing to empathize with others.”
Hazel turned up her hands. On the inside of her forearm was her legion tattoo:SPQR,then a row of lines indicating her number of years in the legion, then the symbol for Pluto, which always reminded Nico of a hand mirror.
Nico usually liked tattoos. Will had a nice sun design on his chest. But the legion tattoos had always made him uneasy. They seemed more like SKU or QR codes…a way of categorizing you, marking your value.
The voice from Nico’s nightmare returned to him:You cannot escape your nature.He tried to push it back down into his subconscious.
“Frank’s having a hard time,” Hazel said at last. “I think it’s partly his parentage. He’s usually so easygoing, I sometimes forget his father is Mars. It makes Frank a phenomenal fighter, but it also gives him a stubborn, suspicious streak. He’s having trouble believing that Asterion and the others aren’t pulling some kind of trick on us. I mean, I get it! We’ve spent our whole lives training to fight otherworldly creatures. Now I’ve invited a bunch of them to live among us.”
I, Nico noted. Notwe. The decision to accept the refugees had been Hazel’s alone.
“You’re brilliant, Hazel,” Nico assured her. “I’m sure you’re doing the right thing. Will and I are going to help you.”
“Absolutely,” said Will. “I love a good challenge!”
At last, a wind spirit deposited a plate of food in front of Nico: brisket, bread, potato salad, and baked beans. Praise the great god Barbecuius.
Immediately, a horn sounded at the entrance of the mess hall. The legionnaires stood up and started clearing their plates. Lunch was over.
“Time for afternoon activities,” Hazel said. “We should head out.”
Nico stared longingly at the potato salad. He quickly put together a brisket sandwich to go before the ventus could come back and take away his plate.
“Where to?” he asked.
“To meet the other mythics.” Hazel sounded even more troubled than she had when she introduced them to Asterion. “No sense putting it off any longer.”
Nico munched on his sandwich as the three of them made their way toward the Field of Mars. According to Hazel, a makeshift barracks had been constructed for the refugees at the far end of the training grounds.
Despite the cloudless sky, there was a chilly breeze in the air. Nico pulled his bomber jacket tight. He wondered if Will was regretting his choice of cargo shorts. A group of demigods in purple jogging suits ran past them on the Via Praetoria while a ghostly general, floating several feet above the ground, barked orders. Nico was glad he wasn’t training like that, especially right after lunch. He hoped to go the rest of his life without having to run for fitness ever again.
The Field of Mars was under construction, as always. A team of legionnaires was digging trenches and raising posts for a new fort, while Hannibal, the camp’s elephant, pushed over the walls of a half-burned older building that must have been used for yesterday’s mock battle. Nico didn’t consider war games a fun pastime, but the Roman demigods loved them. They would build an entire castle in one day, spend the next day attacking it and burning it to the ground, and then start all over the day after that. Nico didn’t get it. At least Hannibal seemed to be enjoying himself. The elephant lumbered around, pushing brick walls until they collapsed and then stomping through the rubble and trumpeting with glee. Probably very therapeutic.
Hazel led them across the north end of the field, toward a building that looked nothing like a “makeshift barracks.” Nico had to remind himself that the Romans sometimes fit the stereotype he’d heard about Texans—they liked everything big. The structure they’d slapped together for their mythic guests was a towering wood-and-stucco edifice with a columned portico, large bay windows, and a red-tile roof like the ones spread across New Rome. Nico would’ve called it a mansion.
Out front, a young woman was applying a coat of whitewash to the columns. Nico figured she was a legionnaire—she wore a purple camp T-shirt with denim cutoffs. Then he did a double take.
Her legs were strangely mismatched. One glinted like it was sheathed in armor. The other was shaggy and bent the wrong way…like a satyr’s, except it ended in a larger, un-cloven hoof. And the sunlight shone especially bright on her long red hair.
Nico stopped short. Oh, wait. Her hair was made offire.
“Oh my gods,” said Nico. “Is that an empousa?”
The vampire daimon must have heard him. She turned and made eye contact, her pupils glowing red.
Hazel quickly stepped between them. “Nico, Will…meet Arielle.”
Nico reminded himself that these mythics were not here to hurt anyone, but Arielle’s harsh scowl made it hard for him to relax. Her face was breathtakingly beautiful, haughty, and otherworldly—like those of some goddesses he’d met. White flecks of paint speckled her body from her nose to her mismatched legs—one of which was the limb of a donkey, the other a Celestial bronze prosthesis.
She examined Nico and Will with obvious distaste. “Demigods. More of the same.”
“But they’renotthe same,” said Hazel. “They’re from Camp Half-Blood on the other side of the country. They’re here to—”
“Greek or Roman, it doesn’t matter.” Arielle set down her paint can and brush. “You demigods are all the same. You either want to kick us out, kill us, or gawk at us like zoo animals.”
