Page 44 of The Chalice of the Gods

“And, uh, do I get hamster-flavored Snakie Bakies?”

“You won’t need them.”

“Then what am I supposed to distract them with? And more importantly, how do I get away from them once I’ve gotten their attention? Because, you know, those are the kinds of details I like to have covered.”

Annabeth’s smile told me I was going to hate her reply almost as much as I hated getting pushed off ledges. “You’ve got Iris’s staff. You’ve got the best job of all.”

Ican now crossskipping through a field while making rainbowsoff my bucket list.

By the time I got out of the river, a few hundred yards downstream, Grover was playing his song of last resort. Distant strains of “YMCA” echoed through the cavern. I knew this was a signal that he was running out of energy and breath. Because when somebody plays “YMCA,” it is almost always a cry for help.

Annabeth had instructed me to skip through the fields while holding Iris’s staff. She was pretty sure this would create a beautiful rainbow, which would draw the serpents’ attention with a high level ofOoh, pretty.Meanwhile, she would turn invisible, find Grover, and escort him to safety, tossing Snakie Bakies as needed to keep the serpents away from them.

“And if I can’t get the staff to work?” I asked.

“I have faith,” Annabeth said.

I was pretty sure she was trying not to laugh.

“And if I can’t lose the serpents once they’re following me?”

“Just shut off the rainbow,” she said. “Once you go dark, you should be fine. And whatever you do, don’t stop skipping, Skippy.”

Being a good soldier, I did what she told me. As soon as I trudged out of the river, I put on my shoes and socks—which had washed up in a nearby clump of reeds—and started skipping through the grass.

That lasted about ten feet. Then I realized Annabeth must have been trolling me.

I could run a lot faster than I could skip. I doubted the staff would care. I took off across the fields. Sure enough, after only a few steps, the staff began to glow.

Shimmering ribbons of light unfurled from the Celestial bronze headpiece, glowing brighter the longer I ran. Soon I was trailing a fifty-foot gossamer rainbow, making the fields glow all the colors of a crayon box.

I had a flashback to when I was a kid—likeactuallya kid, not last week at Hebe Jeebies. My mom had taken me to the East Meadow in Central Park to fly a kite for the first time. I remembered running across the field, grinning with delight as my big blue nylon octopus rose into the air. It kind of made me sad thinking about how long ago that was—and also how the kite had gotten zapped by lightning (in the middle of a sunny day) as soon as it was airborne. Even back then, before I knew I was a demigod, Zeus had been watching me. Because that’s what you do when you’re the king of the gods. You spend your valuable time being as petty as possible, frying forbidden kids’ kites out of the sky for fun.

Anyway, it felt good to have another chance. I sprinted on, holding up the staff, filling the cavern with my one-man rainbow parade. It wasn’t long before I heard the sounds of rustling and hissing in the grass behind me. Snakes—lots of them—were closing in, excited to follow theOoh, prettyand eat whatever was causing it.

That thought helped me run faster.

After another hundred yards or so, I made the mistake of glancing back. The entire field was crashing toward me like a surfer’s wave, the grass collapsing under the weight of thousands of slithering serpents.

Somewhere in the distance, Grover’s music faltered to a stop on theYof “YMCA.” I hoped that meant he was safe and Annabeth was now escorting him out of the cave. If I could just keep running for a while longer, I could shut off the rainbow and veer back toward the mouth of the cave....

Hold on. Wherewasthe mouth of the cave?

A bit too late, I realized I’d lost my bearings. I was up to my eyeballs in grass with no other landmarks in sight. All I could hear was the rumbling of the Horned Serpent Battalion behind me. I assumed I was still heading west, directly away from the river, but I couldn’t be sure. The rainbow light was playing tricks on my eyesight. And my growing sense of panic wasn’t helping me think.

I started veering right, hoping I could lead the snakes in a wide arc back toward the river. I didn’t factor in how tired I was, though. Exploding the River Elisson had taken a lot of energy. My legs were getting heavy. My lungs burned.

I was losing speed. The snakes were closing in.

So naturally, I chose that moment to trip on a rock.

I bit the dirt. My ankle screamed in pain. Even after enduring sword wounds, acid burns, and fiery dragon breath, it’s a bummer how much a normal thing like a twisted ankle canhurt. When I tried to stand, it felt like steel spikes were shooting up my leg.

I hobbled a few more feet, using the staff to support my weight, but I was now a slow-moving target. The snakes swarmed me. I staggered to the nearest outcropping of rocks and started to climb, so at least I could see the serpents. When I reached the top, I wasn’t happy about the view.

A sea of snakes completely surrounded my previous resting place. Their eyes gleamed red in the light of the Iris staff. Their horns were terrifyingly adorable: little pink-and-white hooks shaped like goal posts. As the serpents closed in, admiring the rainbow light, their mouths all opened on cue, red throats hissing, black tongues flicking to taste the air. Their tone saidYUM!

“Hey,” I said weakly. “Can we talk about this?”

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