The Tower of Nero Read online

  Jo scoffed, but she looked pleased.

  “And Calypso?” I asked Leo.

  A flurry of emotions passed across his face—enough to tell me that Leo was more lovesick than ever over the former goddess, and things were still complicated.

  “Yeah, she’s good,” he said at last. “I’ve never seen anyone actually like high school before. But the routine, the homework, the people…She ate it up. I guess it’s just so different from being stuck on Ogygia.”

  I nodded, though the idea of an ex-immortal liking high school didn’t make much sense to me either. “Where is she now?”

  “Band camp.”

  I stared. “Excuse me?”

  “She’s a counselor at a band camp,” Leo said. “Like, for regular mortal kids who are practicing music and stuff. I don’t know. She’s gone all summer.”

  He shook his head, clearly worried, clearly missing her, perhaps having nightmares about all the hot clarinet-player counselors Calypso might be hanging around with.

  “It’s all good,” he said, forcing a smile. “You know, a little time apart to think. We’ll make it work.”

  Reyna passed by and heard the last part. “Talking about Calypso? Yeah, I had to have a heart-to-heart with mi hermano here.” She squeezed Leo’s shoulder. “You don’t call a young lady mamacita. You got to have more respect, entiendes?”

  “I—” Leo looked ready to protest, then seemed to think better about it. “Yeah, okay.”

  Reyna smiled at me. “Valdez grew up without his mom. Never learned these things. Now he’s got two great foster moms and a big sister who isn’t afraid to smack him when he gets out of line.” She flicked a finger playfully against his cheek.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Leo muttered.

  “Cheer up,” Reyna said. “Calypso will come around. You’re a doofus sometimes, Valdez, but you’ve got a heart of Imperial gold.”

  Next stop: Camp Jupiter.

  It did not surprise me that Hazel and Frank had become the most efficient and respected pair of praetors ever to run the Twelfth Legion. In record time they had inspired a rebuilding effort in New Rome, repaired all the damage from our battle against Tarquin and the two emperors, and started a recruitment drive with Lupa’s wolves to bring in new demigods from the wild. At least twenty had arrived since I left, which made me wonder where they’d all been hiding, and how busy my fellow gods must have been in the last few decades to have so many children.

  “We’re going to install more barracks over there,” Hazel told me, as she and Frank gave me the five-denarius tour of the repaired camp. “We’ve expanded the thermal baths, and we’re constructing a victory arch on the main road into New Rome to commemorate our defeat of the emperors.” Her amber eyes flashed with excitement. “It’s going to be plated with gold. Completely over-the-top.”

  Frank smiled. “Yeah. As far as we can tell, Hazel’s curse is officially broken. We did an augury at Pluto’s shrine, and it came up favorable. She can summon jewels, precious metals…and use them or spend them now without causing any curses.”

  “But we’re not going to abuse that power,” Hazel hastened to add. “We’ll only use it to improve the camp and honor the gods. We’re not going to buy any yachts or private airplanes or big golden necklaces with ‘H plus F 4Ever’ diamond pendants, are we, Frank?”

  Frank pouted. “No. I guess not.”

  Hazel ribbed him.

  “No, definitely not,” Frank amended. “That would be tacky.”

  Frank still lumbered along like a friendly grizzly bear, but his posture seemed more relaxed, his mood more cheerful, as if it were starting to sink in that his destiny was no longer controlled by a small piece of firewood. For Frank Zhang, like the rest of us, the future was open for business.

  He brightened. “Oh, and check this out, Apollo!”

  He swirled his purple praetor’s cloak like he was about to turn into a vampire bat (which Frank was fully capable of doing). Instead, the cloak simply turned into an oversize sweater wrap. “I figured it out!”

  Hazel rolled her eyes. “My sweet, sweet Frank. Could you please not with the sweater wrap?”

  “What?” Frank protested. “It’s impenetrable and comfortable!”

  Later that day, I visited my other friends. Lavinia Asimov had made good on her threat/promise to teach the Fifth Cohort to tap-dance. The unit was now feared and respected in the war games for their ability to form a testudo shield wall while doing the three-beat shuffle.

  Tyson and Ella were happily back at work in their bookshop. The unicorns were still weaponized. The Jason Grace temple-expansion plan was still moving forward, with new shrines being added every week.

  What did surprise me: Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase had arrived and taken up residence in New Rome, giving them two months to adjust to their new environs before the fall semester of their freshman year in college.

  “Architecture,” Annabeth said, her gray eyes as bright as her mother’s. She said the word architecture as if it were the answer to all the world’s problems. “I’m going to focus on environmental design at UC Berkeley while dual-enrolling at New Rome University. By year three, I figure—”

  “Whoa, there, Wise Girl,” Percy said. “First you have to help me get through freshman English. And math. And history.”

  Annabeth’s smile lit up the empty dorm room. “Yeah, Seaweed Brain, I know. We’ll take the basics together. But you will do your own homework.”

  “Man,” Percy said, looking at me for commiseration. “Homework.”

  I was pleased to see them doing so well, but I agreed with him about homework. Gods never got it. We didn’t want it. We just assigned it in the form of deadly quests.

  “And your major?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, uh…marine biology? Aquaculture? I dunno. I’ll figure it out.”

  “You’re both staying here?” I gestured at the bunk beds. New Rome University may have been a college for demigods, but its dorm rooms were as basic and uninspired as any other university’s.

  “No.” Annabeth sounded offended. “Have you seen the way this guy throws his dirty clothes around? Gross. Besides, dorms are required for all freshmen and they aren’t co-ed. My roommate probably won’t arrive until September.”

  “Yeah.” Percy sighed. “Meanwhile, I’ll be all the way across campus in this empty boys’ dormitory. Two whole blocks away.”

  Annabeth swatted his arm. “Besides, Apollo, our living arrangements are none of your business.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “But you did travel across the country together to get here?”

  “With Grover,” Percy said. “It was great, just the three of us again. But man, that road trip…”

  “Kind of went sideways,” Annabeth agreed. “And up, down, and diagonal. But we made it here alive.”

  I nodded. This was, after all, about the most that could be said for any demigod trip.

  I thought about my own trip from Los Angeles to Camp Jupiter, escorting the coffin of Jason Grace. Percy and Annabeth both seemed to read my thoughts. Despite the happy days ahead of them, and the general spirit of optimism at Camp Jupiter, sadness still lingered, hovering and flickering at the corners of my vision like one of the camp’s Lares.

  “We found out when we arrived,” Percy said. “I still can’t…”

  His voice caught. He looked down and picked at his palm.

  “I cried myself sick,” Annabeth admitted. “I still wish…I wish I’d been there for Piper. I hope she’s doing okay.”

  “Piper is a tough young lady,” I said. “But yes…Jason. He was the best of us.”

  No one argued with that.

  “By the way,” I said, “your mother is doing well, Percy. I just saw her and Paul. Your little sister is entirely too adorable. She never stops laughing.”

  He brightened. “I know, right? Estelle is awesome. I just miss my mom’s baking.”

  “I might be able to help with that.” As I had promised S
ally Jackson, I teleported a plate of her fresh-baked blue cookies straight into my hands.

  “Dude!” Percy stuffed a cookie in his mouth. His eyes rolled up in ecstasy. “Apollo, you’re the best. I take back almost everything I’ve said about you.”

  “It’s quite all right,” I assured him. “Wait…what do you mean almost?”

  SPEAKING OF PIPER MCLEAN, I EMBARRASSED myself when I popped in to visit her.

  It was a lovely summer night in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The stars were out by the millions and cicadas chirred in the trees. Heat settled over the rolling hills. Fireflies glowed in the grass.

  I had willed myself to appear wherever Piper McLean might be. I ended up standing on the flat roof of a modest farmhouse—the McLean ancestral home. At the edge of the roof, two people sat shoulder to shoulder, dark silhouettes facing away from me. One leaned over and kissed the other.

  I didn’t mean to, but I was so flustered I flashed like a camera light, inadvertently changing from Lester to my adult Apollo form—toga, blond hair, muscles, and all. The two lovebirds turned to face me. Piper McLean was on the left. On the right sat another young lady with short dark hair and a rhinestone nose stud that winked in the darkness.

  Piper unlaced her fingers from the other girl’s. “Wow, Apollo. Timing.”

  “Er, sorry. I—”

  “Who’s this?” the other girl asked, taking in my bedsheet clothing. “Your dad has a boyfriend?”

  I suppressed a yelp. Since Piper’s dad was Tristan McLean, former A-list heartthrob of Hollywood, I was tempted to say Not yet, but I’m willing to volunteer. I didn’t think Piper would appreciate that, though.

  “Old family friend,” Piper said. “Sorry, Shel. Would you excuse me a sec?”

  “Uh. Sure.”

  Piper got up, grabbed my arm, and guided me to the far end of the roof. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “I…Uh…” I had not been this tongue-tied since I’d been a full-time Lester Papadopoulos. “I just wanted to check in, make sure you’re doing okay. It seems you are?”

  Piper gave me a hint of a smile. “Well, early days.”

  “You’re in process,” I said, remembering what she had told me in California. Suddenly, much of what she and I had talked about started to make sense. Not being defined by Aphrodite’s expectations. Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “I’m happy for you.” And I was. In fact, it took effort for me not to glow like a giant firefly. “Your dad?”

  “Yeah, I mean…from Hollywood back to Tahlequah is a big change. But he seems like he’s found some peace. We’ll see. I heard you got back on Olympus. Congratulations.”

  I wasn’t sure if congratulations were in order, given my general restlessness and feelings of unworthiness, but I nodded. I told her what had happened with Nero. I told her about Jason’s funeral.

  She hugged her arms. In the starlight, her face looked as warm as bronze fresh from Hephaestus’s anvil. “That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad Camp Jupiter did right by him. You did right by him.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said.

  She laid her hand on my arm. “You haven’t forgotten. I can tell.”

  She meant about being human, about honoring the sacrifices that had been made.

  “No,” I said. “I won’t forget. The memory is part of me now.”

  “Well, then, good. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “What?”

  She pointed back to her friend Shel.

  “Oh, of course. Take care of yourself, Piper McLean.”

  “You too, Apollo. And next time, maybe give me a heads-up before popping in?”

  I muttered something apologetic, but she had already turned to go—back to her new friend, her new life, and the stars in the sky.

  The last and hardest reunion…Meg McCaffrey.

  A summer day in Palm Springs. The dry, blistering heat reminded me of the Burning Maze, but there was nothing malicious or magical about it. The desert simply got hot.

  Aeithales, the former home of Dr. Phillip McCaffrey, was an oasis of cool, verdant life. Tree limbs had grown to reshape the once fully manmade structure, making it even more impressive than it had been in Meg’s childhood. Annabeth would have been blown away by the local dryads’ environmental design. Windows had been replaced by layers of vines that opened and closed automatically for shade and cool, responding to the winds’ smallest fluctuations. The greenhouses had been repaired and were now packed with rare specimens of plants from all around Southern California. Natural springs filled the cisterns and provided water for the gardens and a cooling system for the house.

  I appeared in my old Lester form on the pathway from the house to the gardens and was almost skewered by the Meliai, Meg’s personal troupe of seven super dryads.

  “Halt!” they yelled in unison. “Intruder!”

  “It’s just me!” I said, which didn’t seem to help. “Lester!” Still nothing. “Meg’s old, you know, servant.”

  The Meliai lowered their spear points.

  “Oh, yes,” said one.

  “Servant of the Meg,” said another.

  “The weak, insufficient one,” said a third. “Before the Meg had our services.”

  “I’ll have you know I’m a full Olympian god now,” I protested.

  The dryads did not look impressed.

  “We will march you to the Meg,” one said. “She will pass judgment. Double-time!”

  They formed a phalanx around me and herded me up the path. I could have vanished or flown away or done any number of impressive things, but they had surprised me. I fell into my old Lester-ish habits and allowed myself to be force-marched to my old master.

  We found her digging in the dirt alongside her former Nero family members—showing them how to transplant cactus saplings. I spotted Aemillia and Lucius, contentedly caring for their baby cacti. Even young Cassius was there, though how Meg had tracked him down, I had no idea. He was joking with one of the dryads, looking so relaxed I couldn’t believe he was the same boy who had fled from Nero’s tower.

  Nearby, at the edge of a newly planted peach orchard, the karpos Peaches stood in all his diapered glory. (Oh, sure. He showed up after the danger had passed.) He was engaged in a heated conversation with a young female karpos whom I assumed was a native of the area. She looked much like Peaches himself, except she was covered in a fine layer of spines.

  “Peaches,” Peaches told her.

  “Prickly Pear!” the young lady rejoined.

  “Peaches!”

  “Prickly Pear!”

  That seemed to be the extent of their argument. Perhaps it was about to devolve into a death match for local fruit supremacy. Or perhaps it was the beginning of the greatest love story ever to ripen. It was hard to tell with karpoi.

  Meg did a double take when she saw me. Her face split in a grin. She wore her pink Sally Jackson dress, topped with a gardening hat that looked like a mushroom cap. Despite the protection, her neck was turning red from the work outdoors.

  “You’re back,” she noted.

  I smiled. “You’re sunburned.”

  “Come here,” she ordered.

  Her commands no longer held force, but I went to her anyway. She hugged me tight. She smelled like prickly pear and warm sand. I might have gotten a little teary-eyed.

  “You guys keep at it,” she told her trainees. “I’ll be back.”

  The former imperial children looked happy to comply. They actually seemed determined to garden, as if their sanity depended on it, which perhaps it did.

  Meg took my hand and led me on a tour of the new estate, the Meliai still in our wake. She showed me the trailer where Herophile the Sibyl now lived when she wasn’t working in town as a Tarot card reader and crystal healer. Meg boasted that the former Oracle was bringing in enough cash to cover all of Aeithales’s expenses.

&n
bsp; Our dryad friends Joshua and Aloe Vera were pleased to see me. They told me about their work traveling across Southern California, planting new dryads and doing their best to heal the damage from the droughts and wildfires. They had lots of work still to do, but things were looking up. Aloe followed us around for a while, lathering Meg’s sunburnt shoulders with goo and chiding her.

  Finally, we arrived in the house’s main room, where Luguselwa was putting together a rocking chair. She’d been fitted with new mechanical hands, compliments, Meg told me, of the Hephaestus cabin at Camp Half-Blood.

  “Hey, cellmate!” Lu grinned. She made a hand gesture that was usually not associated with friendly greeting. Then she cursed and shook her metal fingers until they opened into a proper wave. “Sorry about that. These hands haven’t quite been programmed right. Got a few kinks to work out.”

  She got up and wrapped me in a bear hug. Her fingers splayed and started tickling me between the shoulder blades, but I decided this must be unintentional, as Lu didn’t strike me as the tickle type.

  “You look well,” I said, pulling away.

  Lu laughed. “I’ve got my Sapling here. I’ve got a home. I’m a regular old mortal again, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I stopped myself from saying Me, too. The thought made me melancholy. It would have been inconceivable to the old Apollo, but the idea of aging in this lovely desert tree house, watching Meg grow into a strong and powerful woman…that didn’t sound bad at all.

  Lu must have picked up on my sadness. She gestured back to the rocking chair. “Well, I’ll let you two get on with the tour. Assembling this IKEA furniture is the toughest quest I’ve had in years.”

  Meg took me out to the terrace as the afternoon sun sank behind the San Jacinto Mountains. My sun chariot would just now be heading toward home, the horses getting excited as they sensed the end of their journey. I would be joining them soon…reuniting with my other self, back at the Palace of the Sun.

  I looked over at Meg, who was wiping a tear from her eye. “You can’t stay, I guess,” she said.

  I took her hand. “Dear Meg.”

  We remained like that in silence for a while, watching the demigods work in the gardens below.