Nico let go of the Cocoa Puff. It scurried back to the demonic cuddle puddle on the comforter.
“A little better,” Nico admitted. “But I could use a hug.”
“Favorite tool in my arsenal,” Will said with a smile.
Will held him in a warm embrace, and Nico reallydidfeel better because of it.
If the dictionary had an illustration for the worduneventful, Nico figured it would show a picture of everything that happened during his second full day at Camp Jupiter. The caption would read:This is not uneventful.
The chaos started at breakfast. Nico and Will had just finished their predawn calisthenics-and-tango workout with Lavinia’s Fifth Cohort when they strolled into the mess hall and saw Asterion loading up his tray at the breakfast-taco bar.
“Hello, friends!” Asterion called.
Unfortunately, the bull-man wasn’t watching his surroundings. He raised his arm to wave and knocked the tray right out of Centurion Maurice’s hands. Scrambled eggs went flying.
“Dude!” Maurice cried out, wiping food off his purple Camp Jupiter tee.
“I’m so sorry,” Asterion rumbled. “Let me help.”
He leaned down to pick up the fallen tray, but when he stood up again, his horn hooked the tablecloth. Since he wasn’t a magician, when Asterion pulled the cloth out from under the buffet, the entire contents of the taco bar went flying in a volcanic eruption of cheese, eggs, tortillas, and chorizo that rained down on the nearest sitting area, which happened to belong to the elite First Cohort.
“Oh, gods.” Will tented his hands over his mouth as he watched one of the most fearsome characters in Greek mythology stutter apologies and pick corn chips out of the Romans’ hair. The tablecloth still hung from Asterion’s horn like a hot-sauce-stained drape.
“Leave!” pleaded Terrence, the centurion of the First Cohort. “We’ll get it. Please stop helping!”
Wind spirits rushed in to clean the disaster area. Asterion hung his head and lumbered toward the exit. Nico and Will escorted him out of the mess hall.
“You didn’t mean any harm,” Nico consoled him, painfully aware that he’d said the same thing about Semele the night before when she’d walked through the girl with pigtails.
“It is my fault nonetheless.” Asterion heaved a sigh. “I am not used to operating in such small spaces, with so many small people.”
Nico heard the sadness in his voice. Belatedly, he realized that Asterion had been the only mythic in the mess hall. Where were the others?
Before he could ask, Hazel came running down the Via Praetoria and crashed right into him. “There you are! I—” She faltered when she saw Asterion. “Why are you wearing breakfast? Never mind! Nico, I need your help.”
“What’s up?”
“No time to explain!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the nearest shadow.
It was the first time Nico had shadow-traveled as someone else’s passenger. The sensation wasviolent. He felt like a piece of origami being twisted and folded over and over. Was this what it was like for demigods of different parentages? He suddenly felt bad for ever having put anyone through this.
They stumbled out into a patch of sunlight with the roar of traffic all around them. Nico shielded his eyes. He flinched as an SUV raced past, blaring its horn.
He was back on the median of Highway 24, right outside the Caldecott Tunnel. Cars zipped by in both directions.
“Why are we—?”
“Over there!” Hazel pointed.
Nico’s throat constricted.
About thirty yards away, stuck smack in the middle of the southbound lanes, the tiny griffin Orcus cowered in fear on the asphalt, his head tucked beneath his wings.
“Oh,no,” Nico muttered. “What is he doingthere?”
“I made a mistake,” Hazel said. “Orcus wanted to start surveillance, but he wasn’t ready. He flew too far outside camp, I guess, and…” She gestured helplessly at the griffin.
Nico started to ask why Orcus couldn’t simply fly away. Then the answer dawned on him. Just like with Savannah the day before, panic attacks weren’t logical. They robbed you of reason and paralyzed your ability to do even the simplest of things.
