Page 7 of The Chalice of the Gods

“Incoming.” Annabeth dumped the stir-fry mixture into the oil just as our doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” I said, and ran to let in our fifth for dinner.

As soon as I opened the door, Grover Underwood shoved a basket of fruit into my hands. “I brought strawberries.” His nose quivered. “Is that tofu stir-fry?”

“Hello to you, too,” I said.

“I love tofu stir-fry!” Grover trotted around me and made a beeline for the kitchen, because Grover knows what’s good.

My best friend had allowed his appearance to go a little wild, which is saying something, since he is a satyr. His horns and his curly hair were having a race to see which could be taller. So far the horns were winning, but not by much. His goatish hindquarters had grown so shaggy he’d stopped wearing human pants to cover them, though he assured me that humans still saw them as pants through the obscuring magic of the Mist. If anyone looked at him strangely, Grover just said, “Athleisure-wear.”

He wore his standard orange Camp Half-Blood shirt, and still used specially fitted tennis shoes to cover his cloven feet, because hooves are noisy and hard for the Mist to cover up. I guess the explanation “athleisure-wear plus tap-dancing shoes” didn’t work so well.

My mom hugged Grover and gushed over the basket of strawberries as I put them on the kitchen counter.

“They smell wonderful!” she said. “Perfect dessert!”

“Last crop of the summer,” Grover said wistfully.

He gave me a sad smile, like he was ruminating about how this had beenmylast summer at camp as well. Once demigods graduate high school, if we live that long, most of us transition out into the regular world. The thinking is that by then, we are strong enough to fend for ourselves, and monsters tend to leave us alone because we’re no longer such easy targets. That’s the theory, anyway....

“Now we have to get ready for gourd season,” Grover continued with a sigh. “Don’t get me wrong. I love decorative gourds, but they’re not as tasty.”

My mom patted his shoulder. “We’ll make sure these berries don’t go to waste.”

The rice cooker chimed just as Paul turned off the burner on the stovetop and gave the steaming wok one last stir. “Who’s hungry?”

Everything tastes better when you’re eating with people you love. I remember each meal my friends and I shared in the galley on board theArgo II—even if we were mostly just chowing down on junk food between life-and-death battles. These days, at home, I tried to savor every dinner with my mom and Paul.

I spent most of my childhood moving from boarding school to boarding school, so I never had the whole family-dinner thing growing up. The few times I was home, back when my mom was married to Smelly Gabe Ugliano, supper together had never been appealing. The only thing worse than Gabe’s stink was the way he chewed with his mouth open.

My mom did her best. Everything she did was to protect me, including living with Gabe, whose stench threw monsters off my trail. Still... my rough past just made me appreciate these times even more.

We talked about my mom’s writing. After years of dreaming and struggling, her first novel was going to be published in the spring. She hadn’t made much money on the deal, but hey, a publisher had actuallypaidher for her writing! She was presently wavering between elation and extreme anxiety about what would happen when her book came out.

We also talked about Grover’s work on the Council of Cloven Elders, sending satyrs all over the world to check out catastrophes in the wilderness. The council had no shortage of problems to deal with these days.

Finally, I filled in Grover about my first day at school, and the three recommendation letters I was supposed to get from the gods.

A look of panic flashed across his face, but he suppressed it quickly. He sat up straighter and brushed some rice out of his goatee. “Well then, we’ll do these quests together!”

I tried not to show how relieved I was deep down. “Grover, you don’t have to—”

“Are you kidding?” He grinned at Annabeth. “A chance to do quests, just the three of us? Like old times? The Three Musketeers!”

“The Powerpuff Girls,” Annabeth suggested.

“Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey,” I said.

“Wait a minute,” Grover said.

“I’m fine with this,” Annabeth said.

Paul raised his glass. “The monsters will never know what hit them. Just be careful, you three.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Grover said, though his left eye twitched. “Besides, it always takes a while for word to get around among the gods. We’ve probably got weeks before the first request comes in!”

The first request arrived the next day.

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