Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
97
97
"Neither did I," she said. "My dad's crazy into aviation. Plus, Daedalus had some notes on
flying machines. I just took my best guess on the controls."
"You saved my life," Rachel said.
Annabeth flexed her bad shoulder. "Yeah, well . . . let's not make a habit of it. What are you
doing here, Dare? Don't you know better than to fly into a war zone?"
"I—" Rachel glanced at me. "I had to be here. I knew Percy was in trouble."
"Got that right," Annabeth grumbled. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have some injured friends
I've got to tend to. Glad you could stop by, Rachel."
'Annabeth—" I called.
She stormed off.
Rachel plopped down on the curb and put her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, Percy. I didn't
mean to . . . I always mess things up."
It was kind of hard to argue with her, though I was glad she was safe. I looked in the
direction Annabeth had gone, but she'd disappeared into the crowd. I couldn't believe what she'd
just done—saved Rachel's life, landed a helicopter, and walked away like it was no big deal.
"It's okay," I told Rachel, though my words sounded hollow. "So what's the message you
wanted to deliver?"
She frowned. "How did you know about that?"
"A dream."
Rachel didn't look surprised. She tugged at her beach shorts. They were covered in
drawings, which wasn't unusual for her, but these symbols I recognized: Greek letters, pictures from
camp beads, sketches of monsters and faces of gods. I didn't understand how Rachel could have
known about some of that. She'd never been to Olympus or Camp Half-Blood.
"I've been seeing things too," she muttered. "I mean, not just through the Mist. This is
different. I've been drawing pictures, writing lines—"
"In Ancient Greek," I said. "Do you know what they say?"
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I was hoping . . . well, if you had gone with us on
vacation, I was hoping you could have helped me figure out what's happening to me."
She looked at me pleadingly. Her face was sunburned from the beach. Her nose was
peeling. I couldn't get over the shock that she was here in person. She'd forced her family to cut
short their vacation, agreed to go to a horrible school, and flown a helicopter into a monster battle
just to see me. In her own way, she was as brave as Annabeth.
But what was happening to her with these visions really freaked me out. Maybe it was
something that happened to all mortals who could see through the Mist. But my mom had never
talked about anything like that. And Hestia's words about Luke's mom kept coming back to me: May
Castellan went too far. She tried to see too much.
"Rachel," I said, "I wish I knew. Maybe we should ask Chiron—"
She flinched like she'd gotten an electric shock. "Percy, something is about to happen. A trick
that ends in death."
"What do you mean? Whose death?"
"I don't know." She looked around nervously. "Don't you feel it?"
"Is that the message you wanted to tell me?"
"No." She hesitated. "I'm sorry. I'm not making sense, but that thought just came to me. The
message I wrote on the beach was different. It had your name in it."
"Perseus," I remembered. "In Ancient Greek."
Rachel nodded. "I don't know its meaning. But I know it's important. You have to hear it. It
said, Perseus, you are not the hero."
I stared at her like she'd just slapped me. "You came thousands of miles to tell me I'm not
the hero?"
"It's important," she insisted. "It will affect what you do."
"Not the hero of the prophecy?" I asked. "Not the hero who defeats Kronos? What do you
mean?"
"I'm . . . I'm sorry, Percy. That's all I know. I had to tell you because—"
"Well!" Chiron cantered over. "This must be Miss Dare."
I wanted to yell at him to go away, but of course I couldn't. I tried to get my emotions under