Chapter Text
Don’t ask how they came to be in the desert. It’s a long, and frankly stressful, story.
What matters is Percy and Annabeth definitely did not intend to come here, and yet here they definitely are, miles and miles and miles and miles from the nearest body of water, hobbling through an endless expanse of boiling sand.
Annabeth walks in front. She has long since peeled off the button-up top she was wearing and tied it on her head for protection. The white tank top she has on underneath is sweaty and clinging to her back. Her arms and legs are burned bright-red.
Percy follows slightly behind. “How much farther?” he pants, too exhausted to even shade the sun from his eyes anymore.
Annabeth sighs sharply. “How many times are you going to ask me that?” Then she pauses and says, “About twenty more miles.”
Percy stumbles as his stupid, clumsy feet trip in the sand. “Twenty more miles,” he repeats to himself, trying to ignore Annabeth’s attitude. She’s as miserable as he is at being stuck out here. “Awesome.”
Annabeth takes out their canteen and sloshes it around, peering inside. “Not much left,” she comments before taking a small swallow. “Here.”
Percy accepts the canteen and drinks an equally tiny amount, just enough to wet his tongue. He hands it back to Annabeth so he won’t be tempted to finish the whole thing.
She stows it in her bag and looks up to study the sky again. Percy has no idea what information she’s gaining by doing this, but it seems like she knows where she’s going so he doesn’t question it. “This way,” she says, altering their direction ever so slightly.
Walking down a sand dune is incredibly difficult, if you didn’t know. They’re just as slippery as a muddy or snowy slope, but sand dunes don’t have rocks or trees to hang onto while you’re going down. It’s just one, big stumble until you hit the bottom, whether that be on your feet or on your face.
Annabeth doesn’t have as much trouble as he does, though. She helps him up when he falls and dusts the sand off his back. For the first time since they got stuck out here, she smiles at him with a bit of warmth. “How are you doing?” she asks.
“Um.” He looks around at the sand, the sand, and the more sand. “Doing great. You?”
Annabeth sighs but squeezes his hand. “Yeah,” she says, almost humorously. “Me too. But I meant being so far from water. Does that…suck?”
Percy raises his eyebrows as if to say what do you think? But he knows what she means. Being a son of Poseidon, he’s always been drawn to water. It’s the source of his power, the place where he can concentrate the most. He’s always felt that being away from water drains him.
So, yes, as a matter of fact, it does suck. He hasn’t felt this wiped since…well, since he accidentally exploded that volcano and washed up on Calypso’s island. Seriously. He feels like a dried up, old sponge.
Of course, Annabeth doesn’t need to hear that right now.
“I’ll live,” Percy says, playfully shoving her. “Now, come on. Let’s get out of this desert before sundown.”
“Right.”
If it weren’t for Annabeth and her girl scout navigation stuff, Percy would be totally lost out here. It’s the exact opposite feeling he has when he’s on the ocean and he can rattle off exact coordinates and steer ships with his eyes closed. Out here, so far removed from his element, he can’t even figure out left from right. It feels like his ADHD is worse, too. Annabeth has been talking to him for, like, an hour and he hasn’t really heard any of it. He just can’t focus.
She must be beginning to notice too, because she stops him with a hand flat on his chest and says, “Hello? Earth to Percy?”
He blinks. “What?”
“Have you been listening to anything I said?”
“Uh, no,” he blurts out.
Annabeth gives him a withering look. “I said, we should start thinking about making camp.”
Even that takes him a second to process. “Why?” he asks. Then it dawns on him that the desert isn’t as bright as it was before. Gods, he didn’t even notice that the sun was going down. How far have they walked? It felt like a long time, he thinks…
“We’ve still got about…” She looks up, studying the sun, but now the stars too, which are faint against a pale, violet sky. “I don’t know, ten more miles? But only an hour of daylight left. And these deserts get cold at night.”
A sliver of ice stabs Percy’s heart at the thought of sleeping in this desert. It’s not that he’s particularly afraid, he just has a dreadful feeling that his dreams out here will be some of the worst he’s ever had. And waking up will only make him more disoriented and freaked out.
But what other choice do they have?
While Annabeth collects kindling and tries to get a fire started, Percy sits across from her. “So, I’ve been kind of chewing on an idea for a while now,” he tells her, and surprised, grey eyes meet his.
“Really? Care to share with the class?” She smiles a little, always pleased to hear battle strategy.
“Well, I need to ask you a question first, because if the answer’s no, there’s no point in even bringing it up.” He folds his hands and sits forward, but then the fire that Annabeth has been trying to build sputters like it’s been splashed with water and Percy grimaces. “Ah, sorry.” He slides back. Fire doesn’t like to burn around him.
“So, what’s this question?” Annabeth asks, starting the fire from scratch.
“Is there any way to remove salt from seawater?”
She eyes him. “Uh, yeah. A few ways. Reverse osmosis, for one. Thermal plants do this one by forcing saltwater through a membrane, which holds the salt and lets the water pass through. Using heat is another way,” she says. “You boil the water and collect the steam, which is pure.”
Percy frowns. “Neither of those sound very easy.”
“Oh, they’re not,” she assures him. “Why do you ask?”
“Because there’s no way either of us are walking ten miles tomorrow in that heat without something to drink.”
Annabeth grimaces at her little, smoky embers. “I know,” she says quietly, like she was thinking the same thing.
“I can summon a ton of seawater,” he reminds her. “But it’s going to really wipe me out. I want to make sure we can actually use it before I try.”
Annabeth shakes her head. “I don’t think so, Percy. We just don’t have the kind of equipment we would need. And drinking seawater would only dehydrate us faster.” She glances up. “Is there any way for you to summon fresh water?”
He blows air through his lips. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never tried.”
“Well…” She leans down, cupping the tiny flame with one hand and gently blowing into it. Before Percy’s eyes, it grows to a decent-sized fire. Annabeth places it on ripped scrap of his hoodie, which he ditched a while ago anyway, and it lights up.
“Nice job,” Percy says and they bump fists. “Annabeth Chase, Fire Starter!”
She giggles and rolls her eyes. “I know it’s exhausting, Percy,” she continues. “But you’re right, neither of us will survive tomorrow without a drink. Maybe you should try. At least you’ll be able to rest for a few hours if it doesn’t work.”
She’s right.
He stands up and walks a long way away from their camp, which is just their camp hoodies lying in the sand like little beds, with a fire in the middle.
Once he’s a safe distance away, he closes his eyes and searches deep inside of himself, looking for that swell of ocean water that flows in his blood.
It’s weak this far from the sea, but he can feel it.
There’s a tug in his gut when he grabs ahold, a subtle burning sensation. “Freshwater,” he says out loud, hoping that does something. He tries to visualize a running creek, freshwater ponds, ducks, swans—wait no, focus, ADHD. “Come on, fresh water,” he says again, taking out his canteen and holding it in front of him.
The pain in his stomach intensifies. Percy squeezes his eyes shut and breathes through his nose. He can feel Annabeth behind him, watching him.
He can smell sea water now, rising in the air like someone just plugged in an electric candle. His hair rustles gently as if in an ocean breeze and then—
A column of water erupts out of midair.
It sprays around with the force of a burst fire hydrant and Annabeth shrieks as it soaks her, but Percy feels his canteen grow heavy. His hands shake as he hurriedly caps the lid “Annabeth!” he yells. “Give me your canteen! Hurry!”
His blood is on fire. Annabeth presses her canteen into his hands and he fills it to overflowing. She takes it back and screws on the lid, but the water keeps spraying.
“Okay, Percy!” she calls. “We have enough! You can stop now!”
His muscles are stiff like he’s been electrocuted. The water rushes around him, wild, unstoppable. A raging hurricane in the middle of the desert.
He screams and wills it to stop, but the ocean doesn’t like to be controlled, even by him. He can feel it, like a voice in his head, its craving to keep flowing, build waves, fill this whole desert, turn it into a great sea—
“STOP!” Percy cries. “NOW!”
Reluctantly, the ocean slows and then stops pouring around him.
He sways, and then collapses into the muddy slick that was once a sand dune.
“Oh, my gods,” Annabeth says, sloshing toward him. “Percy!” She splashes to her knees next to him, patting his cheeks. “Are you okay? What happened? Why wouldn’t it listen to you?”
“I don’t know,” he gasps, clutching his still-burning abdomen. “It’s…so hard to…control,” he pants.
“I’m sorry I asked you to do that,” she says, and her voice is shaking a little. It must have looked scary on the outside, all the water and wind, him screaming…
“No, it’s okay,” he assures her, his eyes drifting shut. Gods, he needs sleep. “Is it fresh or salt water?” he asks, already dozing off.
Annabeth uncaps her canteen and takes an experimental sip. “Fresh!” she says, happily. “You did it, Percy! That was incredible! Percy?”
She shakes him awake and he startles, disoriented. “Sorry, but you can’t sleep here. You’re soaking wet. You’ll freeze to death. Come on.” She helps him up and they trudge back to the campfire and collapse.
Percy strips off his wet shirt and shoes and immediately falls asleep, so Annabeth isn’t as shy about taking off her own wet clothes. She slips her hoodie back on instead and curls up near the fire for warmth.
A bit of drool is already running down the corner of Percy’s mouth and she smiles tiredly at the sight of it, shaking her head. It’s a good thing he’s asleep, or he would have a lot of questions about why she reaches out and straightens a lock of his hair.
Annabeth draws her hand back and closes her eyes.
In the morning, she wakes to Percy shaking her shoulder. He looks…well, pretty bad. But better than last night, for sure.
“We gotta go,” he says. “I think we overslept.”
He’s right. The sky is blazing and the sand underneath her is painfully hot. It must be nearly late morning already! How on earth did they sleep through this heat?
Annabeth kicks out her fire, which has actually grown since last night, and she and Percy change back into their clothes. After that, they munch on ambrosia squares and nectar for breakfast while they walk. Unfortunately, the only bad thing about nectar is, it’s not very hydrating. Sure, it will heal what ails you, but they can’t waste it. What if one of them got hurt or sick?
Thankfully, because of Percy’s show last night, they have water to drink today.
“How are you feeling?” Annabeth asks him.
“Ahh…” He shrugs. “Hot. Dry.” He smacks his lips, making a face. “Kind of…pasty.”
Annabeth chuckles at him. “Well, drink, Seaweed Brain. You didn’t almost explode last night for nothing.”
“Good point.” He takes a generous gulp from his canteen and almost immediately looks refreshed. “Ten more miles, right?” he asks. “We can do that.”
Except today is exponentially hotter than yesterday, which is frankly shocking. Annabeth didn’t think that was possible. Yesterday must have been over one-hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Right now, it feels more like one-hundred-twenty.
The hot air actually ripples around them, and suddenly, Annabeth gets the whole concept of mirages. She keeps seeing shapes out of the corners of her eyes, silver bolts like lightning or a light on someone’s front porch. Once, she swears she even sees someone waving at them, but when she stops, there’s no one there. Just empty desert.
“Oh, come on,” Percy moans as they come to the top of another sand dune. “Desert or not, you’d think there’d be some kind of road or something.”
Annabeth sighs in agreement and gulps down some water. By the position of the sun, they’re still traveling east, which means they should reach the nearest town in about eight more miles. But that’s when she feels…something. A…creeping sensation up her spine.
Percy has started down the hill, but Annabeth doesn’t follow. She turns, scanning behind her.
“Annabeth?” Percy calls when he realizes she isn’t behind him. “Are you coming?”
But she’s too busy to answer him.
Annabeth can’t see anything in behind them, but she swears she felt something just then…like eyes on her.
There was a smell, too. A very subtle one.
Half-bloods aren’t good at smelling out monsters, but she swears that’s what it smelled like: that rotten-meat, mildew-y smell that is so distinctly monstrous. And out here, where everything smells the same (like dirt and heat), the most subtle change is very noticeable.
“Annabeth?” Percy’s hand on her arm causes her to jump. “Sorry,” he says, stepping back, but his green eyes watch her closely. He looks concerned. “Are you okay?”
“Didn’t you feel that?” she asks him, still looking around.
“Feel what?”
“Like…we’re being watched.”
Percy doesn’t answer right away. He, too, is looking around now, but not purposefully like he felt anything. “No,” he admits. “But my senses are all out-of-whack out here. What do you think it was?” She notices his hand going to his pocket, where his sword is kept at all times, and she’s a little touched at how easily he trusts her.
“It felt like a monster,” she says. “But I don’t feel it anymore, and I don’t see anything.”
“Well…maybe we should keep going, then. If something is out here, we don’t want to wait for it to find us.”
“You’re right,” Annabeth says.
Whatever it was, it felt big and terrifying. And she’s not eager for it to find them.
However terrible she feels, Annabeth knows it’s twice as bad for Percy.
When they woke up this morning, she had half a hope that summoning all that water hadn’t drained him as much as they feared, but evidently, that isn’t the case. He’s been silent for the last two miles and he’s beginning to lag behind. His steps are slow and clumsy, and for every one time Annabeth trips in the sand, Percy trips three times.
He even falls once, flat onto his stomach with an “Oof!” and it takes him several seconds to stand back up.
“Maybe we should take a break,” Annabeth suggests, trying to keep a smile on her face even though he’s really starting to worry her. As a son of the sea god, Percy doesn’t burn easily, but his skin is as red and chapped as hers and his eyes are glassy and blood-shot like he’s terribly dehydrated. “Here.” Annabeth pushes his canteen into his hands and he drinks, but she knows that isn’t the problem.
He’s like a fish out of water out here.
They sit at the bottom of a sand dune, hoping the steep slope will shade them from the sun and eat some more ambrosia and nectar to get their strength up. It seems to help him a little and he’s ready to walk again a few minutes later. As they tiredly climb to their feet, that’s when Annabeth shivers again and spins in a circle.
“What’s wrong?” Percy asks, his voice hoarse and dry.
“It’s that feeling again!” she insists, grabbing for her sword. “Something is following us!”
Percy takes out his pen and looks around. His eyes are a bit more alert now, but Annabeth has a feeling neither of them would be exactly effective in a fight right now.
And maybe the monster knows that too, because as soon as the thought occurs to Annabeth, the ground below their feet starts to tremble.
Percy grabs Annabeth’s hand and pulls her back just as a column of sand erupts from between her feet and something horrible crawls out.
It looks like a giant scorpion, fifteen feet tall and fifty feet long. Its ginormous stinger curls up over its back, poisoned over them like a mac truck. I don’t think we need to worry about venom, Annabeth thinks to herself, gaping at the size of it. One hit with that thing will run us through!
“Run!” she yells.
They dodge out of the way as the tail strikes down, blasting sand into the air like a smoke bomb.
“Percy!” Annabeth calls through the cloud of sand. “Try to get its attention!”
“Hey, look at me! I’m a target!” comes Percy’s voice from somewhere. She can almost hear him jumping and waving his arms.
Surely enough, the giant scorpion turns to chase him. Annabeth can only hope Percy is strong enough to outmaneuver it for a while.
Think, think, think… She races through the plume of sand, bursting into fresh air. From out here, she can see the monster’s back and tail rising toward the sky, readying to strike. “Dodge, Percy!”
The tail goes down and the scorpion keeps running, so she has to assume it missed.
Come on, think! How can we kill this thing?
Its purple-ish-black armor has got to a foot thick. Got to find a weak spot.
Annabeth grips her sword and charges.
The scorpion’s legs crash down with the weight of an elephant, shaking the earth with every step. Annabeth sprints toward it. The instant she’s within reach, she stabs upward, cutting off the creature’s back-most leg.
The monster roars in pain, and if you’ve never heard a gigantic scorpion shriek, consider yourself lucky. It’s so loud that Annabeth feels it in her teeth.
It stops running after Percy and falters for a moment, its balance thrown off with the loss of its leg. Thick, yellow blood oozes from the open socket and when it touches the sand, it smokes like acid.
“Percy!” she yells. “Its legs! Cut them off!”
She dodges as the tail crashes into the ground next to her. As she’s recovering, the scorpion cries out again and falls awkwardly to the front, where Percy has chopped off another leg. Annabeth races over and starts slicing.
Leg after leg come off until the sand is soaked with yellow goo and the air tastes weirdly like mustard and burns like tear gas.
The killing blow comes from Percy, who sinks Riptide’s blade into the scorpion’s head once all six legs have been severed and its tail flailing around desperately.
Once it’s dead, it breaks into ash and blows away on the dry, desert wind.
Annabeth doubles over, panting hard. Sweat rolls down her face and she doesn’t bother to wipe it away. “Percy?” she gasps. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he replies, just as breathless. “You?”
“Fine.”
They stand there, catching their breaths, feeling slightly bad. It’s not like this monster was specifically out for them, it was probably just hungry. Still, they’ve got to survive.
Annabeth fishes out her canteen and chugs a whole mouthful. It’s getting pretty light now, much to her dismay. They’ve still got hours of walking to do and there’s no way she’s asking Percy to do again what he did last night. She’s pretty sure it would kill him if he tried.
As the dust settles, she spots him and starts walking over. “As much as I hate to say this,” she says. “I think we need to keep moving. We’ve got a long way to go and not very many hours of daylight left to do it in.”
It’s times like these Annabeth almost wishes she were human. They would just walk at night to save themselves the heat, but half-bloods can’t do that. Too many monsters out at night and she and Percy can’t see well enough in the dark to fight them.
“Yeah…” Percy agrees, but he doesn’t sound thrilled. “Just…give me a minute…”
“Yeah, sure.”
He’s still doubled over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. His skin has gone sort of pale, despite his sunburn, and she can see his rapid pulse in his neck. More than that, he’s starting to sway on his feet the way campers do when they’ve been hit on the head and are about to fall over.
“Percy…” Annabeth says slowly, putting out her hands to catch him if he falls. “Maybe you should sit down.”
He tries to look up at her, but squints like he can’t focus on her face. “No,” he insists, waving her away. “I’m fine. I just need to catch my breath.”
“Are you sure?” She moves closer, putting a hand on his back, which is radiating heat like a stove. “I really think you should rest. Take a drink.” She hands him his canteen, which thankfully still has some water in it.
He reaches for it but misses entirely, and then pitches sideways and lands on his butt. Annabeth gasps and reaches to steady him, but before she can, his eyes roll back and he sags to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Percy is unconscious for several seconds.
Annabeth yells his name and slaps his cheeks, anything to get him to wake up, the whole time her brain screaming statistics at her on how many people die of heat exhaustion every year. And sure, most of them are mortals, but Percy wouldn’t be the first half-blood to succumb to exposure…and the slackness of his face is really starting to freak her out.
“Percy!” she yells for probably the fifteenth time. “Come on! You have to wake up!” She rattles him. “I can’t carry you all the way to town! You have to wake up!”
That’s when he makes a small noise in his throat, halfway between a groan and a whimper, and relief blossoms in Annabeth’s heart. “Oh, thank gods…” she whispers, and gently pats his face again, just to pull him the rest of the way out of it.
When he opens his eyes, he looks confused and his gaze skirts around like a pebble on a frozen lake.
“Percy?” she says. “Percy, can you hear me?”
“Annabeth?” he says like he’s dreaming.
She smiles and strokes his cheek. “You really scared me, Seaweed Brain.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “Sorry,” he says, then his eyes start to flutter. “Tired…”
“Ah, ah!” She pats his cheeks and he startles. “No sleeping. I’m sorry, Percy, but we have to keep moving or we’ll bake in this heat. We’re not far from town.” She looks up at the murderous sun. “Three more miles,” she assures him. “That’s all! That’s easy.”
He sighs. “Yeah, piece of cake.”
“Can you stand?” She helps him sit up, and his head lulls forward against her shoulder, his black hair tickling her cheek. Once his dizziness settles down, they stand up together and she takes half his weight, telling herself it’s only three more miles. That’s, like, barely an hour.
As they start walking, Annabeth frowns up at the sky and mutters, “Give us a break, Apollo. Please. We could really use one right about now.”
By the time the town comes into view, Percy is weighing so heavily on Annabeth’s shoulder that she can’t be sure if he’s awake or if his legs are just moving out of muscle memory.
It gets even hotter when they reach the road, the black asphalt literally sizzling in the heat. If she dropped an egg on it right now, it would cook in seconds. She drags Percy across it as fast as she can, not eager to be any warmer.
The town is a little Western pueblo straight out of a cowboy movie. A waist-high clay wall surrounds the whole place with a wooden sign dangling from the only entrance. It creaks in the slow wind, reading CIUDAD DE CIELO. “City from heaven.”
And while she might argue with the word “city” for this five-building town in the middle of nowhere, it definitely looks like a slice of heaven. There’s a well in the town center, tons of hand-planted shade trees, benches, and an inn! An honest-to-gods inn!
She drags Percy to the well and sits him down, hoping the presence of water will perk him up. While he’s resting, she runs inside the inn.
The floors are old wood, misshapen planks that barely fit together. The walls are also wood, covered in framed photos from the 1800s and mounted rifles. There’s a paper cut-out cowboy with the face removed so tourists can take pictures as an outlaw. Rickety tables and chairs are set up all over so the place looks like a saloon from a Clint Eastwood movie, and the oldest man in the world is standing at the bar.
Honestly, he’s so old.
“Excuse me?” Annabeth says, relishing in the air conditioning.
The old, old man looks up and his wrinkled eyes almost pop out of his head. “Well, hey there, miss!” he says in a heavy Texas accent. “You okay, there? Where you come from?”
“My friend and I—” She points outside. “We, um, were camping and got lost in the desert. We just barely made it here.”
“Good Lord!” he cries, rounding the bar. “You need an ambulance? I can’t promise when it’ll get here, but ya’ll oughta get checked out by a doctor!”
“No, no,” Annabeth says, trying to smile and look reassuring when all she wants to do is get back to Percy. “We’re just tired and need a place to sleep. Have you got any rooms?”
“Of course, of course.” He hobbles back around the bar and grabs a key from underneath. “We got plenty of rooms. Here.” He presses one into her hand. “Room 1, right at the top of the stairs there. Is your friend okay? He looks kind of beat.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t do well in the heat,” Annabeth agrees quietly, staring at Percy’s slumped figure outside. “Thank you so much.” She digs into her backpack and then remembers she didn’t bring any mortal money. So she produces a single, golden drachma. “Do you take gold coins?”
The old man just stares at her.
Annabeth helps Percy up the steps and lets them into their room. There’s only one bed, but she decides that’s a problem for another time. Closing the door, she pulls Percy into the bathroom and lays him down in the tub.
Seeing him against the backsplash of a pure, white, porcelain tub, she realizes why the innkeeper gaped at her the way he did. They’re filthy, all covered in a layer of grime, sweat, and sand. And their skin is bright red and peeling.
She turns on the water, puts it halfway between warm and cool so as to not shock Percy’s system, and lets the tub fill all the way up. Not only will that help cool him down, but she hopes that being surrounded by water will heal him faster.
With Percy taken care of, Annabeth finally feels the last of her strength run out. She flops down on the cold, bathroom floor and lays down, tugging up her hot curls so that the back of her neck touches the blessedly cool tiles.
She doesn’t plan on falling asleep, but as she closes her eyes, she drifts off. In her sleep, she dreams that she and Percy are back at camp, swimming in the canoe pond with Grover and Juniper. The sky is cloudy and the air is cool, and Percy laughs and swims over to her, cutting through the water as easily as a fish.
He grabs her by her waist and pulls her beneath the surface of the water, and even though if the dream, he doesn’t create a bubble of air around their heads, Annabeth can breathe anyway. He kisses her deeply and she loops her arms around his neck and everything is perfect.
When Annabeth wakes, the bathtub is empty.
The water is drained out and Percy is gone with no sign that he was ever there, except for the layer of grime where the waterline once was. Annabeth sits up, startled, and calls his name. She feels rested, but her limbs are heavy and sore. Getting up is extremely hard.
But before she can really start to worry, she hears footsteps thumping up the stairs and Percy’s head pokes in their door. “Annabeth!” she says, smiling in relief. “You’re awake!” He surges forward and hugs her.
He smells good, she realizes. Like fresh laundry. That’s when she notices that his camp clothes are gone, replaced with a plain, white tee-shirt and a pair of blue boardshorts with a watery pattern printed on them. He’s barefoot too and his skin looks like it’s healed. No burns or anything.
“Sorry, I stepped out to get you some fresh clothes.” He hefts a paper shopping bag. “I would have waited for you, but I didn’t know when you’d wake up.” He hands her the bag with a sheepish look on his face. “The lady said you’d like these.”
Annabeth peers into the bag. It looks like a blue-and-white striped tank top and a pair of grey shorts. Pretty cool stuff, but Annabeth is more concerned about Percy at the moment. “Thanks,” she says, setting the bag on the edge of the tub. “But how are you feeling? You look so much better,” she marvels, shamelessly scanning him up and down.
He smiles and Annabeth’s heart seizes a little, not that she would ever show it. “Way better, thanks to you,” he says. “You saved my life out there. Thank you.”
Annabeth smirks and tries to look cool, but she says, “You’d have done the same for me.”
“I Iris-messaged camp,” he says. “They’re sending Blackjack and one of his buddies to bring us home.”
“Thank gods,” Annabeth says.
“Oh, and one more thing.” Percy grins the way he does when he feels cool. Then he ruins it by doing a really cheesy bow and proclaiming very fervently in a sappy voice, “Oh behalf of the sea-god Poseidon, a gift.” He unfolds his hand and, inside of it, is a beautiful, white pearl.
Annabeth blinks in shock and picks it up. “This is from…your dad?” she gasps, staring at Percy. “When did you even see him?”
“In my dream,” he says. “He came to me when I was sleeping and healed me.” That explains how he looks so healthy. “And he told me to thank you for him. He said you acted bravely and that your mother is very proud.”
Annabeth almost tears up hearing that.
“And he also said to give you that pearl.”
“It’s beautiful,” she says, twisting it in her fingers so the light makes it shine.
Percy chuckles at her and steps closer, taking the pearl out of her hand. “Yeah,” he agrees lightly. “But you’re supposed to swallow it.”
She blinks at him. “Excuse me?”
“Just trust me, Wise Girl.”
Annabeth frowns skeptically but pops the pearl into her mouth and swallows. She feels it dissolve before it even reaches her stomach, and the rush of energy that blasts through her is unlike anything she’s ever felt. Suddenly, she feels like she could run a marathon, fight a hydra, and sprint through that whole desert all over again. And before her eyes, her skin heals and returns to its naturally tanned color.
“Wow,” she breathes, marveling at her arm. When she looks up, Percy is smiling warmly at her.
“I guess this means my dad likes you,” he teases, and Annabeth’s face flushes.
“Well, my mom hates you,” she reminds him. “So at least that’s one out of two parents.”
He snorts and nods his head. “One is better than none,” he agrees.
That’s when heavy horse hooves thump on the roof and Percy rolls his eyes and says, out loud, “Shut up, Blackjack.”
Whatever the pegasus said, Annabeth doesn’t know, but she has a feeling it must have been something embarrassing because Percy’s face is bright red all over again as he climbs out of the window and onto the roof.
They mount their pegasi and take off, destination: Camp Half-Blood, safe and sound.
