Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
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103
"You think I was lying about that?" It sounded like a challenge, but a pretty halfhearted one,
like she was asking it of herself.
"I didn't say you were lying. It's just… he seems okay. Your stepmom, too. Maybe they've,
u h, gotten cooler since you saw them last."
She hesitated. "They're still in San Francisco, Percy. I can't live so far from camp."
I didn't want to ask my next question. I was scared to know the answer. But I asked it
anyway. "So what are you going to do now?"
We flew over a town, an island of lights in the middle of the dark. It whisked by so fast we
might've been in an airplane.
"I don't know," she admitted. "But thank you for rescuing me."
"Hey, no big deal. We're friends."
"You didn't believe I was dead?"
"Never."
She hesitated. "Neither is Luke, you know. I mean… he isn't dead."
I stared at her. I didn't know if she was cracking under the stress or what. "Annabeth, that fall
was pretty bad. There's no way—"
"He isn't dead," she insisted. "I know it. The same way you knew about me."
That comparison didn't make me too happy.
The towns were zipping by faster now, islands of light thicker together, until the whole
landscape below was a glittering carpet. Dawn was close. The eastern sky was turning gray. And up
ahead, a huge white-and-yellow glow spread out before us—the lights of New York.
How's that for speedy, loss? Blackjack bragged. We get extra hay for breakfast or what?
"You're the man, Blackjack," I told him. "Er, the horse, I mean."
"You don't believe me about Luke," Annabeth said, "but we'll see him again. He's in trouble,
Percy. He's under Kronos's spell."
I didn't feel like arguing, though it made me mad. How could she still have any feelings for
that creep? How could she possibly make excuses for him? He deserved that fall. He deserved…
okay, I'll say it. He deserved to die. Unlike Bianca. Unlike Zoe. Luke couldn't be alive. It wouldn't be
fair.
"There it is." Thalia's voice; she'd woken up. She was pointing toward Manhattan, which was
quickly zooming into view. "It's started."
"What's started?" I asked.
Then I looked where she was pointing. High above the Empire State Building, Olympus was
its own island of light, a floating mountain ablaze with torches and braziers, white marble palaces
gleaming in the early morning air.
"The winter solstice," Thalia said. "The Council of the Gods."
Chapter Nineteen
The Gods Vote How To Kill Us
Flying was bad enough for a son of Poseidon, but flying straight up to Zeus's palace, with
thunder and lightning swirling around it, was even worse.
We circled over midtown Manhattan, making one complete orbit around Mount Olympus. I'd
only been there once before, traveling by elevator up to the secret six hundredth floor of the Empire
State Building. This time, if it was possible, Olympus amazed me even more.
In the early-morning darkness, torches and fires made the mountainside palaces glow twenty
different colors, from bloodred to indigo. Apparently no one ever slept on Olympus. The twisting
streets were full of demigods and nature spirits and minor godlings bustling about, riding chariots or
sedan chairs carried by Cyclopes. Winter didn't seem to exist here. I caught the scent of the
gardens in full bloom, jasmine and roses and even sweeter things I couldn't name. Music drifted up
from many windows, the soft sounds of lyres and reed pipes.