Page 27 of The Court of the Dead
As soon as they were gone, it was as if a mourning veil had been lifted from the place. The campers’ conversations increased in volume, became livelier. For the first time that evening, Nico heard laughter.
“Wow,” he said. “Will, did you notice that?”
“I did. Everyone’s relaxed now. Is it always like that?” he asked Hazel.
She sagged. “Always. Once Asterion or any of his friends enter a room, it’s like all the air disappears in an instant.”
“No one can relax around them,” agreed Frank.
“I understand why this is so hard,” Hazel said. “It’s where Frank and I are in total agreement.”
Frank squeezed her hand. “How do you change hundreds of years of teaching and tradition? We’ve literally taught some of these kids how to kill an empousa on sight.”
“Which is what Savannah tried to do,” said Hazel, “the first time she saw Arielle.”
Frank grimaced at the memory. “And her reaction was exactly what we’d want of her, right? As demigods, we’re protecting the world from nightmarish threats. But now those very threats are here, and they’re…they’re eating all the best cookies!”
Hazel rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “It’s hard for the mythics, too. They’re used to the chaos of Tartarus. Now they’re trying to live with a bunch of suspicious demigods they’ve been taught to hunt and kill.”
At the mention of Tartarus, where all “monsters” went to regenerate after their deaths on Earth, Nico frowned. He could feel his instincts kicking in, reminding him of what he and Will had gone through so recently.
Even Will’s good humor seemed to have dampened. “Your concerns…they make sense.”
“I don’t know how to serve both groups.” Hazel gave her food a desultory stab with her fork. “To protect the legion while asking them to reconsider what they’ve been taught. To offer Asterion’s group sanctuary but also ask them to adjust to an entirely new life. Ugh! This makes me feel like I’m going to explode.”
“Well, you’re not doing it alone,” said Frank. “I’m here. And as hard as this is, we’re going to figure it out. Especially now that we’ve got these two helping us.” He punched Nico’s arm playfully.
Hazel managed a laugh. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”
Nico felt better, seeing that everything between Hazel and Frank wasn’t stress and tension. “We’ll figure this out,” he agreed. “Starting tomorrow.”
Frank grinned. “I still think you’re gonna fold like laundry, Will.”
“You wish,” Will said. “I survived Tartarus. Camp Jupiter will becake.”
Nico gave him an encouraging smile, but he remembered his first visit to Camp Jupiter. It wasverydifferent from Camp Half-Blood.
No point telling Will this, though. Maybe he would do better than Nico feared. If not, at least Nico would be amused when Will realized how wrong he was.
“Wake up, Romans! Rise and shine!”
The voice echoed throughout the barracks. Nico’s eyes flitted open in the darkness a second before the lights blazed on. He got a hazy glimpse of a girl with pink hair looming over him, along with a whiff of her strawberry bubble gum. Then he buried his face under his pillow as Will groaned in the next bunk over.
“Up, up, up!” the girl shouted. “You gotta be prepared tobeprepared! A threat could arise at any time!”
“Aren’tyouthe threat right now?” asked Will.
“You better believe it!” said the girl. “Now get out of those bunks, unless you want to spend the next six hours tap-dancing!”
Tap-dancing?Nico must have misheard her.
He threw the pillow aside, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. On the opposite bunk, Will did the same. His hair looked like the wind spirits from the mess hall had played hopscotch in it.
Between them stood the pink-haired girl, wearing a strange combination of armor, blue jeans, and pink buckle-strap dance shoes. Her limbs seemed too long for her body, like she’d been stretched on a rack and just stayed that way. Her big eyes gave her a look of permanent surprise. She didn’t seem particularly threatening, but pinned to her breastplate was the insignia of a Roman centurion.
Nico groaned inwardly. “You’re the leader of the Fifth Cohort.”
She treated them to a tap-dancing riff that sounded like the chorus to “Look What You Made Me Do.”
