chapter fifty-two

─── my dad has no regard for my life it would seem

          𝕬ndi's horse, Blackjack, gave me a ride down to the beach, dodging the harpies as we went. I shivered at the cold breeze, waiting for Blackjack to touch down before I jumped off.

It's down there. Straight down, Blackjack nodded, a glint in her eyes.

"You do realize I'm not Andi and can't survive deep water, right?"

Is that supposed to be my problem?

"Wow," I muttered. "I can see why you're Andi's horse."

I jumped off of her back, left my bag with Blackjack, before stepping into the icy cold water. I shivered, cursing everything, before diving into the water. My body complained, shivering and tensing up at the ice, but I powered on, swimming down until I saw what the problem was.

Three hippocampi swam in a circle around an overturned boat. The hippocampi were beautiful to watch. Their fish tails shimmered in rainbow colours, glowing phosphorescent. Their manes were white, and they were galloping through the water the way nervous horses do in a thunderstorm. Something was upsetting them.

I got closer and saw the problem. A dark shape—some kind of animal—was wedged halfway under the boat and tangled in a fishing net, one of those big nets they use on trawlers to catch everything at once. Andi hated those things, complaining to me often enough about the terrible uses that they had as she spent time helping marine organizations for her degree.

Apparently this poor creature had been mucking around on the bottom of Long Island Sound and had somehow gotten itself tangled in the net of this sunken fishing boat. It had tried to get out and managed to get even more hopelessly stuck, shifting the boat in the process. Now the wreckage of the hull, which was resting against a big rock, was teetering and threatening to collapse on top of the tangled animal.

The hippocampi were swimming around frantically, wanting to help but not sure how. One was trying to chew the net, but hippocampi teeth just aren't meant for cutting rope. Hippocampi are really strong, but they're not all that smart.

Who are you? A hippocampus said when it saw me. The others joined in, asking the same thing.

I swam in for a closer look at the tangled creature. At first I thought it was a young hippocampus. But then I heard a strange sound, something that did not belong underwater: "Mooooooo!"

I got next to the thing and saw that it was a cow. I mean...I'd heard of sea cows, like manatees and stuff, but this really was a cow with the back end of a serpent. The front half was a calf—a baby, with black fur and big, sad brown eyes and a white muzzle—and its back half was a black-and-brown snaky tail with fins running down the top and bottom, like an enormous eel.

The creature looked at me sadly. "Moooo!"

But I couldn't understand its thoughts. Despite my father being the god of travellers, I wasn't that adept at speaking animal languages and even with the tablets that my father had gifted me, it seemed that I was limited to horse.

We don't know what it is. Many strange things are stirring, one of the hippocampi said.

Tell me something I don't know, I thought to myself, before drawing Backbiter. The half bronze blade glowed in the dark.

The cow serpent freaked out and started struggling against the net, its eyes full of terror. It thrashed around and got even more tangled. The boat started to tilt, stirring up the muck on the sea bottom and threatening to topple onto the cow serpent. The hippocampi whinnied in a panic and thrashed in the water, which didn't help.

I put away the sword and started moving as calmly as I could so the hippocampi and the cow serpent would stop panicking. I didn't know if it was possible to get stampeded underwater, but I didn't really want to find out. I was slowly losing all the air in my lungs as well, so I needed to get this done quickly.

Free it, they pleaded. I began to think. How could I free the cow serpent when it was panicked at the sight of a blade? What would Andi do?

Grabbing the hippocampi, I moved them into place, my lungs begging for oxygen. I counted down, before motioning for them all to push, which they did. We managed to shift the wreckage so it was no longer threatening to collapse on the baby cow serpent. Then I went to work on the net, untangling it section by section, getting lead weights and fishing hooks straightened out, yanking out knots around the cow serpent's hooves. I had to take stops, getting the hippocampi to take me up to the surface so that I could breathe, before I went back down again to untangle some more.

Finally, the net came off and the cow serpent zipped through the water and did a happy somersault. 

The hippocampi whinnied with joy. Thank you!

"Moooo!"The cow serpent nuzzled me and gave me the big brown eyes. I patted it on his head, before the hippocampi took me back up to the surface. I stumbled out onto the beach, shaking salt water from my hair and taking deep breaths.

Success then? Blackjack pranced over, allowing me to pull myself onto her back.

"Yeah. Rescued a baby sea cow serpent thing. Took forever and almost died in the process,"

Good deeds are normally dangerous, Blackjack shook her mane out, prancing quite 

I couldn't help thinking about my dream, with Andi crumpled and lifeless, Annabeth struggling to hold her up. I wanted to go to them, to help save them, but I knew that place from my dream. I knew what it meant.

As Blackjack flew back toward my cabin, I happened to glance at the dining pavilion. I saw a figure—a boy hunkered down behind a Greek column, like he was hiding from someone. It was Nico, but it wasn't even dawn yet. Nowhere near time for breakfast. What was he doing up?

"Blackjack," I said, "set me down over there, will you? Behind that column."

I almost blew it. 

I was coming up the steps behind Nico. He didn't see me at all. He was behind a column, peeking around the corner, all his attention focused on the dining area. I was five feet away from him, and I was about to say What are you doing? real loud, when it occurred to me that he was pulling a Grover: he was spying on the Hunters.

There were voices—two girls talking at one of the dining tables. I sighed, before crouching down. Son of Hermes meant locks and being sneaky were two of my specialities. If I didn't want to be seen then I wouldn't.

 I couldn't see the girls very well in the dark, but I knew their voices: Zoe and Bianca. It sounded like they were arguing.

"It cannot be cured," Zoe was saying. "Not quickly, at any rate."

"But how did it happen?" Bianca asked.

"A foolish prank," Zoe growled. "Those Stoll boys from the Hermes cabin. Centaur blood is like acid. Everyone knows that. They sprayed the inside of that Artemis Hunting Tour T-shirt with it."

"That's terrible!"

"She will live," Zoe said. "But she'll be bedridden for weeks with horrible hives. There is no way she can go. It's up to me...and thee."

"But the prophecy," Bianca said. "If Phoebe can't go, we only have four. We'll have to pick another."

"There is no time," Zoe said. "We must leave at first light. That's immediately. Besides, the prophecy said we would lose one."

"In the land without rain," Bianca said, "but that can't be here."

"It might be," Zoe said, though she didn't sound convinced. "The camp has magic borders. Nothing, not even weather, is allowed in without permission. It could be a land without rain."

"But—"

"Bianca, hear me." Zoe's voice was strained. "I...I can't explain, but I have a sense that we should not pick someone else. It would be too dangerous. They would meet an end worse than Phoebe's. I don't want to risk another Hunter and the only other camper I trust to come, will not for perfectly valid reasons."

Bianca was silent. "You should tell Brooke the rest of your dream."

"No. It would not help."

"But if your suspicions are correct, about the General—"

"I have thy word not to talk about that," Zoe said. She sounded really anguished. "We will find out soon enough. Now come. Dawn is breaking."

Nico scooted out of their way and I watched Bianca and Zoe go running past. "The lights of the Big House are on. Hurry!"

I could tell what Nico was thinking. He took a deep breath and was about to run after his sister when I stepped out of the shadows and cocked an eyebrow "Now, what are you up to?"

He almost slipped on the icy steps as he spun around to find me. "Where did you come from?"

"I've been here the whole time."

He mouthed the word invisible to himself, which caused me to grin. "Wow. Cool."

"How did you know Zoe and your sister were here?"

He blushed. "I heard them walk by Eleven. I don't...I don't sleep too well at camp. So I heard footsteps, and them whispering. And so I kind of followed."

"And now you're thinking about following them on the quest," I guessed.

"How did you know that?"

"Because if it was my sister, I'd probably be thinking the same thing. But you can't."

He looked defiant. "Because I'm too young?"

"Yes and because they won't let you. They'll catch you and send you back here. You remember the manticore? There will be lots more like that. More dangerous. Some of the heroes will die."

He shoulders sagged. He shifted from foot to foot. "Maybe you're right. But, but you can go."

"Nico," I tried to form words, but one glance at the flying shoes on my feet reminded me that I had little choice whether or not I wanted to go on this quest. My father had given me the shoes and the backpack just as he had done the first time, so I was stuck. "I am going on the quest."

"I won't tell on you."

"Thanks."

"But you have to promise to keep my sister safe." Nico bartered and I paused.

"I can't do that, Nico, not on a trip like this," He pouted, eyes going wide and bottom lip trembling but I was immune to puppy eyes. "There are so many things that could go wrong. Zoe will look after Bianca, and I'll be keeping an eye on Brooke and Grover."

"But..."

"Zoe will look after her, that I promise you," I smiled at him, squeezing his shoulder. "Now, go on, back to the cabin. Chiron won't be impressed with you if you're out of bed."

I watched him go, before turning and jogging up the hill. Argus and the Hunters were already gone, which didn't bode well for me, but I had drachmas somewhere in my backpack and I could get the chariot of damnation.

If I were any cleverer of a horse, I would say you need a getaway ride, Blackjack appeared next to me.

"Cleverer isn't a word,"

Do you want a ride or not?

∘☽༓☾∘

Hiya,

Blackjack and Luke are just funny because she is for sure Andi's horse. Also, Luke doesn't want to go on the quest cause he's got a large amount of trauma from that place, which I think is fair, but Hermes isn't letting him not go.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx