Page 57

I leaned over and kissed her. “No conflict. No second thoughts. I told you. I’m not leaving you ever again.”

“Okay.” She wrinkled her nose. “Although it’s fine if you want to leave for a few minutes to brush your teeth. Your breath is a little...”

“Hey, you woke me up.”

“Which reminds me.” She held up her vial of concentrated nectar. “We ought to get going soon.”

“It’s earlier than early—”

“I know,” she said. “But thirty minutes for you to get ready, because you’re slow.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Forty-five minutes to make it to Washington Square Park. Then to do our job and get you back in time for school—”

“Ugh with the math.”

Annabeth has this magic power where she can look into the future and figure out how long it will take to do certain things. She calls her power “scheduling,” which directly overrules my magic power of procrastination.

I went to the bathroom to get ready. Thirty minutes, right. Sure. Quick shower. Grab my clothes. Brush my teeth. Put on my shoes.

It took me thirty-one minutes.

Stupid magical scheduling power.

At five fifteen, we slipped out of the apartment and headed to the train, toward what might be my last chance to find Ganymede’s chalice... or maybe we wouldn’t find Gary, and it would turn out to be just another Monday at school. I honestly wasn’t sure which scared me more.

Grover brought mochi donuts.

Bonus points for the G-man.

The three of us stood under the big white archway at Washington Square Park while we munched our sugary breakfast and scanned our surroundings.

I’d never been to the park so early. The sun was just coming up, pouring rosy light through the streets and washing the brick facades of the buildings around the square. In front of us stretched the main plaza—a giant circle of gray stonework radiating from the central fountain. Annabeth said the design reminded her of a sundial or a wheel. To me, being born a New Yorker, it looked like a massive manhole cover.

The fountain itself wasn’t running. In the summertime, it made a great wading pool for kids, but now the basin was dry. I imagined it watching me, thinking,Oh, great. Here’s Percy. Now I’ll have to explode or drown a monster or something.As I may have mentioned, water fixtures don’t tend to like me much.

As far as people were concerned, there weren’t many around. A lady was walking her dog down one of the paths. A few commuters hustled across the plaza. A couple of old guys were playing a chess game at one of the tables under the elm trees. The place was about as empty as anywhere in Manhattan ever gets.

“Ready?” Grover asked. He was trying to look brave and determined, but the image was undercut a little by the green sprinkles of matcha in his goatee.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

I’d eaten the last Cookie Monster donut—obviously the best flavor, being fluorescent blue—so now there was nothing left to do but find Gary.

Annabeth wrapped up the rest of her purple ube mochi, stuck it in her backpack, then passed around the tissues and menthol rub.

“Isn’t this what cops do before they examine dead bodies?” Grover asked, plugging up his nostrils.

“Let’s not make that comparison,” Annabeth suggested. “No dead bodies today, okay?”

“Oh-tay,” I said, which was all I could manage with wads of Kleenex up my nose. My eyes watered from the menthol. My throat stung like I was being given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by a koala, but I supposed it was better than going into a nectar coma.

“Here we go.” Annabeth took out her glowing vial and twisted off the cap.

She tipped the vial ever so slightly, and three golden droplets trickled out. Instead of falling, they caught the breeze and floated through the air like soap bubbles. Each one drifted in a different direction.

“That’s not helpful,” Annabeth observed. “Should we split up?”