I don't own Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles or Harry Potter.

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I stared at the Athena Parthenos, waiting for it to strike me down.

Leo's new mechanical hoist system had lowered the statue onto the hillside with surprising ease. Now, the forty-foot tall goddess gazed serenely over the River Acheron, her gold dress like molten metal in the sun.

"Incredible," Reyna admitted.

She was still red-eyes from crying. Soon after she'd landed on the Argo ||, her pegasus Scipion had collapsed, overwhelmed by poisoned claw marks from a gryphon attack the night before.

Reyna had put the horse out of its misery with her golden knife, turning the pegasus into dust that scattered in the sweet-smelling Greek air. Maybe not a bad end for a flying horse, but Reyna had lost a loyal friend. I figured that she'd given up too much in her life already.

The praetor circled the Athena Parthenos warily. "It looks newly made."

"Yeah," Leo said. "We brushed off the cobwebs, used a little Windex. It wasn't hard."

The Argo || hovered just overhead. With Festus keeping watch for threats on the radar, the entire crew had decided to eat lunch on the hillside while they discussed what to do. After the last few weeks, I figured that we'd earned a good meal together - really anything other than firewater from a hipflask, both of which I still had in my pocket.

"Hey, Reyna," Ginny called. "Have some food. Join us."

The praetor glanced over, her dark brown eyebrows furrowed as if join us didn't quite compute. I had never seen Reyna without her armour before. It was onboard the ship, being repaired by Bufort the Wonder Table. I shuddered to think what would happen if Fred and George ever met Leo or the Stoll Twins.

Reyna wore a pair of jeans and a purple Camp Jupiter T-shirt. She looked almost like a normal teenager - except for the knife at her belt and that guarded expression like she was ready for an attack from any direction.

I sympathised. Ever since getting out of Tartarus, I had been on guard and on edge. I was constantly having to stop myself from telling the others to be quiet in case a monster heard us.

"All right," Reyna finally said.

We scooted over to make room for her in the circle. She sat cross-legged next to Ginny, picked up a cheese sandwich and nibbled at the edge.

"So,' she said. "Frank Zhang... praetor."

Frank shifted, wiping crumbs from his chin. "Well, yeah. Field promotion."

"To lead a different legion," Reyna noted. "A legion of ghosts."
Hazel put her arms protectively through Frank's. After an hour in sickbay, Frank looked better, but I could tell that neither he nor Hazel knew what to think about their old boss from Camp Jupiter dropping in for lunch.

"Reyna," Jason said. "You should have seen him."

"He was amazing," Piper agreed.

"Frank is a leader," Hazel insisted.

"He makes a great praetor," Ginny promised.

Reyna's eyes stayed on Frank like she was trying to guess his weight. "I believe you," she said. "I approve."

Frank blinked. "You do?"

Reyna smiled dryly. "A son of Mars, the hero who helped to bring back the eagle of the Legion... I can work with a demigod like that. I'm just wondering how to convince the Twelfth Fulminata."

I still couldn't get over how much Frank had changed. A 'growth spurt' was putting it mildly. He was at least three inches taller, less pudgy and more bulky, like a linebacker. His face looked sturdier, his jawline more rugged. It was as though Frank had turned into a bull, then back to human, but he'd kept some of the bullishness. He looked like he'd make a good Beater.

"The legion will listen to you, Reyna," Frank said. "You made it here alone, across the ancient lands."

Reyna chewed her sandwich as if it were cardboard. "In doing so, I broke the laws of the Legion."

"Caesar broke the law when he crossed the Rubicon," Frank said. "Great leaders have to think outside the box sometimes."

She shook her head. "I'm not Caesar. After finding Jason's note in Diocletian's Palace, tracking you down was easy. I only did what I thought was necessary."

I couldn't help smiling. "Reyna, you're too modest. Flying halfway across the world by yourself to answer my plea because you knew it was our best chance to peace? That's pretty freaking heroic."

Reyna shrugged. "Says the demigod who fell into Tartarus alone, closed the Tartarus-side of the Doors of Death and found his way back."

I flushed bright red and tried to think up a response.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when a group of birds suddenly flew off noisily into the sky.

So startled was I that I jumped to my feet and pulled out Syntyche, ready to fight for my life.

"Woah!" said Jason, jumping to his feet and resting a hand on my shoulder. "Calm down. Their just pidgeons."

I flushed as red as blood. Sadly, I was well-acquainted with such a shade of red. I had lost so much blood during Tartarus that Leo had put me on an IV drip soon after I woke up after the amputation.

Where Leo got an IV-drip, I didn't know. Apparently, he had prepared for any situation when he was stocking the sickbay before departing for Camp Jupiter.

I had only recently been released from sickbay, but the time spent in Leo's care (I was surprised, too, that Leo was the chosen medic) had done me a world of good.

Of course, my skin was still a collage of injuries from my time in Tartarus. I was severely emaciated, and I still struggled to walk with my peg leg. Still, other than that, I was mostly fine (Physically. Mentally... that was another story).

Ever since Tartarus, though, I had suffered from a body-wide bruise that I could feel but could not see. A bone-breaking ache had settled over my body, sending jolts of pain through my muscles every time that I dared so much as twitch. Not that I had told Leo that. He would never have let me leave the sickbay, otherwise. He was even worse than Madam Pomfrey.

Jason's eyes were pulled towards Syntyche.

"Where did you even find that?" he asked, confused. I just smiled painfully at him.

"I made it," I said. "I scrapped Syntyche together with a rock, a shard of black-glass, and a leather strap from the shield that Tyson made me a few years ago."

Speaking of the shield, I was seriously in Leo's debt. He had fixed up the shield in about five minutes, complete with a whole new leather strap, so I didn't have to dismantle Syntyche.

Jason stared at me. "I have so many questions," he said. "About everything. Like the drakon tooth, and why you made... Syntyche, was it? ...when you already had Riptide, and how you learnt to fight like that-"

"Jason," I cut off the son of Jupiter. "It's complicated."

Ginny sighed in frustration and decided to break the tension. "Come on, guys," she said, "Let's not argue. Harry will tell us what happened down there when he's ready."

Jason and I saw back down, and we all ate in silence for a bit. I was pleased to find that it wasn't awkward. Gradually, a conversation started back up, and laughter filled the air. I couldn't help but smile to see my family so happy. It felt good to be surrounded by people I loved. Heck, just being in the mortal world felt good, breathing un-poisonous air, enjoying actual sunshine on my back.

After a while, though, the laughter died down, and it was all business.

Leo pulled a tiny screwdriver from his tool belt. He stabbed a chocolate-covered strawberry and passed it to Coach Hedge. Then he pulled out another screwdriver and speared a second strawberry for himself.

"So, the twenty-million-peso question," Leo said. "We've got this slightly used forty-foot-tall statue of Athena. What do we do with it?"
Reyna squinted at the Athena Parthenos. "As fine as it looks on this hill, I didn't come all this way to admire it. According to Harry, it must be returned to Camp Half-Blood by a Roman leader. Do I understand correctly?"

All eyes turned to me, and I nodded. "I had a dream down in... down there. I was on Half-Blood Hill, and Athena's voice said, I must stand here. The Roman must bring me."

I studied the statue uneasily. I'd never had the best relationship with Ginny's mother. I kept expecting Big Mama Statue to come alive and chew me out for getting her daughter into so much trouble - or maybe just step on me without a word.

"It makes sense," Nico said.

I flinched. It almost sounded like Nico had read my mind and was agreeing that Athena should step on me.

The son of Hades sat next to me, in between Jason and me. His left knee touched my right in a silent show of support, and I appreciated it. I could tell that he knew exactly what I was going through. Nico was eating nothing but half a pomegranate, the fruit of the Underworld. I wondered if that was Nico's idea of a joke.

"The statue is a powerful symbol," Nico said. "A Roman returning it to the Greeks... that could heal the historic rift, maybe even heal the gods of their split personalities."

Coach Hedge swallowed his strawberry along with half the screwdriver. "Now, hold on. I like peace just as much as the next satyr-"

"You hate peace," everyone except Reyna said in unison before erupting in laughter.

"The point is, cupcakes, we're only - what, a few days from Athens? We've got an army of giants waiting for us there. We went to all the trouble of saving this statue-"

"I went to most of the trouble," Ginny reminded him, and I laced our fingers together. Ginny glared down at the place that my missing finger should be. She had been outraged when I was finally released from sickbay, only to tell her - and the rest of the Argo ||, subsequently - that I was missing a finger.

"-Because that prophecy called it the giant's bane," the coach continued. "So, why aren't we taking it to Athens with us? It's obviously our secret weapon." He eyed the Athena Parthenos. "It looks like a ballistic missile to me. Maybe if Valdez strapped some engines to it-"

Piper cleared her throat. "Uh, great idea, Coach, but a lot of us have had dreams and visions of Gaia rising at Camp Half-Blood......"

She unsheathed her dagger, Katoptris, and set it on her plate. At the moment, the blade showed nothing except the sky, but looking at it still made me uncomfortable.

"Since we got back to the ship," Piper continued. "I've seen some bad stuff in the knife. The Roman Legion is almost within striking distance of Camp Half-Blood. They're gathering reinforcement: spirits, eagles, wolves."

"Octavian," Reyna growled. "I told him to wait."

"When we take over command," Frank suggested. "Our first order of business should be to load Octavian into the nearest catapult and fire him as far away as possible."

"Agreed," Reyna said. "But for now-"

"He's intent on war," Ginny put in. "He'll have it unless we stop him."

Piper turned the blade of her knife. "Unfortunately, That's not the worst of it. I saw images of a possible future - the camp in flames, Roman and Greek demigods lying dead. And Gaia..." Her voice failed her.

I remembered the god Tartarus in physical form, looming over me. I'd never felt such hopelessness and terror.

You might as well try to kill the earth, Tartarus had said.

If Gaia was that powerful and had an army of giants at her side, I didn't see how seven demigods could stop her, especially when most of the gods were incapacitated and unable to help. We had to stop the giants before Gaia woke, or it was game over.

If the Athena Parthenos was a secret weapon, taking it to Athens was pretty tempting. Heck, I kind of liked the coach's idea of using it as a missile and sending Gaia up in a godly nuclear mushroom cloud.

Unfortunately, my gut told me that I was right. The statue belonged back on Long Island, where it might be able to stop the war between the two camps.

"So, Reyna takes the statue," I said. "And we continue to Athens."
Leo shrugged. "Cool with me. But, uh, a few pesky logistical problems. We've got - what? Two weeks? -until that Roman feast day when Gaia is supposed to rise?"

"The Feast of Spes," Jason said. "That's on the first of August. Today is-"

"July eighteenth," Frank offered. "So, yeah, from tomorrow, exactly fourteen days."

Hazel winced. "It took us eighteen days to get from Rome to here - a trip that should've only taken two or three days, max."

"So, given our usual luck," Leo said. "Maybe we have enough time to get the Argo || to Athens, find the giants and stop them from waking Gaia. Maybe. But how is Reyna supposed to get this massive statue back to Camp Half-Blood before the Greeks and Romans put each other through the blender? She doesn't even have her pegasus anymore. Uh, sorry-"

"Fine," Reyna snapped. She might be treating us like allies rather than enemies, but I could tell Reyna still had a not-so-soft spot for Leo, probably because he'd blown up half the Forum in New Rome.

She took a deep breath. "Unfortunately, Leo is correct. I don't see how I can transport something so large. I was assuming- well, I was hoping you all would have an answer."

"The Labyrinth," Hazel said. "I- I mean, if Pasiphaë really had reopened it, and I think she has..." She looked at me apprehensively. "Well, you said the Labyrinth could take you anywhere. So, maybe-"

"No," Ginny and I spoke in unison.

"Not to shoot you down, Hazel," I said. "It's just......"

I struggled to find the right words. How could I describe the Labyrinth to someone who'd never explored it? Daedalus had created it to be a living, growing maze. Over the centuries, it had spread like the roots of a tree under the entire surface of the world. Sure, it could take you anywhere. Distance inside was meaningless. You could enter the maze in New York, walk ten feet and exit the maze in Los Angeles - but only if you found a reliable way to navigate.

Otherwise, the Labyrinth would trick you and try to kill you at every turn. When the tunnel network had collapsed after Daedalus died, I had been relieved. The idea that the maze was regenerating itself - honeycombing its way under the earth again and providing a spacious new home for monsters... that didn't make me happy. I had enough problems already.

"For one thing," I said. "The passages in the Labyrinth are way too small for the Athena Parthenos. There's no chance you could take it down there. And even if the maze is reopening, we don't know what it might be like now. It was dangerous enough before, under Daedalus' control, and he wasn't evil. If Pasiphaë has remade the Labyrinth the way she wanted...."

I shook my head. "Hazel, maybe your underground senses could guide Reyna through, but no one else would stand a chance. And we need you here. Besides, if you got lost down there-"

"You're right," Hazel said glumly. "Never mind."

Reyna cast her eyes around the group. "Other ideas?"

"I could go," Frank offered, not sounding very happy about it. "If I'm a praetor, I should go. Maybe we could rig some sort of sled, or-"

"No, Frank Zhang," Reyna gave him a weary smile. "I hope we will work side by side in the future, but for now, your place is with the crew of this ship. You are one of the Seven on the prophecy."

"I'm not," Nico said.

Everybody stopped eating. I stared at Nico, trying to decide if he was joking.

Hazel set down her fork. "Nico-"

"I'll go with Reyna," I said. "I can transport the statue with shadow-travel."

"Uh..." Ginny raised her hand. "A year ago, you said that transporting just yourself was dangerous and unpredictable. A couple of times, you ended up in China. Transporting a forty-foot tall statue and two people halfway across the world-"

"I've changed since I came back from Tartarus," Nico's eyes glittered with anger, and I understood his indignance perfectly. The others just didn't understand - no one went through Tartarus without coming out stronger.

"Nico," Jason intervened. "We're not questioning your power. We just want to make sure you don't kill yourself trying."

"I can do it," he insisted. "I'll make short jumps - a few hundred miles each time. It's true - after each jump, I won't be in any shape to fend off monsters. I'll need Reyna to defend me and the statue."

"But-" Piper tried. I cut her off, suddenly irritated.

"Guys!" I said sharply, causing everyone to look at me in surprise. I softened my tone. "I don't want Nico to get himself killed any more than you do, but I trust him to know what he can and can't do. He's not stupid. If he says he can do it, then he can do it."

Nico gave me a grateful look, and I smiled at him.

Reyna had an excellent poker face. She studied the group, scanning their faces, but betraying none of her own thoughts. "Any objections?"

No one spoke.

"Very well," she said, with the finality of a judge. If she'd had a gavel, I suspected she would have banged it. "I see no better option. But there will be many monster attacks. I would feel better taking a third person. That's the optimal number for a quest."

"Coach Hedge," Frank blurted.

I stared at him, not sure I'd heard correctly. "Uh, what, Frank?"

"The coach is the best choice," Frank said. "The only choice. He's a good fighter. He's a certified protector. He'll get the job done."

"A faun," Reyna said.

"Satyr!" barked the coach. "And, yeah, I'll go. Besides, when you get to Camp Half-Blood, you'll need somebody with connections and diplomatic skills to keep the Greeks from attacking you. Just let me go make a call- er, I mean, get my baseball bat."

He got up and shot Frank an unspoken message I couldn't quite read. Even though he'd just been volunteered for a likely suicide mission, the coach looked grateful. He jobbed off towards the ship's ladder, tapping his hooves together like an excited kid.

Nico rose. "I should go, too, and rest before the first passage. We'll meet at the statue at sunset."

Once he was gone, Hazel frowned. "He's acting strangely. I'm not sure he's thinking this through."

"He'll be okay," Jason said.

"I hope you're right." She passed her hand over the ground. Diamonds broke the surface - a glittering Milky Way of stones. "We're at another crossroads. The Athena Parthenos goes west. The Argo || goes east. I hope we choose correctly."

I wished I could say something encouraging, but I felt unsettled. Despite everything we'd been through and all the battles we'd won, we still seemed no closer to defeating Gaia. Sure, we'd released Thanatos. We'd closed the Doors of Death. At least, now we could kill monsters and make them stay in Tartarus for a while. But the giants were back - all the giants.

"One thing bothers me," he said. "If the Feast of Spes is in two weeks, and Gaia needs the blood of two demigods to wake - wake did Clytius call it? The Blood of Olympus? - then, aren't we doing exactly what Gaia wants, heading to Athens? If we don't go, and she can't sacrifice any of us, doesn't that mean she can't wake up fully?"

Ginny took my hand. I drank in the sight of her, now that we were reunited. I had been so afraid of never seeing her again down in Tartarus. Now, I felt so glad to see her alive and well that I wanted to cry. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to me, kissing her head lovingly. I cherished the human touch