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“Percy Jackson!” the woman howled. “How dare you show your face here!”

“Oh, good, you know me,” I said. “Well, uh, Ms. Aye-aye-aye—”

“What?” she demanded again.

“What?” I asked. “Isn’t that your name?”

My plan to confuse her until her head exploded was going well. She looked at me, then back at the sign on her storefront, then at Grover, as if wondering how a reasonable-looking satyr could hang out with someone so dense.

“My name is Filomena,” she said, her jaw clenched. “Aeaea was my home island. But you don’t evenremember, do you?”

“Oh. Um…”

“He totally remembers!” Grover offered. “He never forgets a friendly face! He told me all about you. You helped him on…Aeaea! When he was on the island of Aeaea, which is where you’re from.”

He nodded so vigorously I worried his horns would fall off. Maybe he thought he could make her believe him through sheer enthusiasm.

“I never helped him,” she snarled. “I wasnothis friend.”

“Oh, he never forgets an enemy face, either!” Grover said. “That’s what I meant to say.”

Filomena wagged her finger at me, which couldn’t have been easy while holding a bunch of vials. “My sisters and I won’t tolerate your interference. If you think you’ll deprive me of my turn with the weasel—”

“Your turn?” I asked. “Sisters?”

“It’s not a weasel,” Grover muttered, but I elbowed him to be quiet.

“Where is Gale?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” she screamed.

“That’s…kind of what I just said. Sorry, how do you know me? I can tell I offended you at some point, and I apologize for that, but I offend so many people—”

“BAH!” She threw a fistful of vials at our feet.

My first instinct was to put myself between Grover and danger. Grover’s first instinct was to put himself between me and the same danger. We ended up running into each other and both being directly in the splash zone. Five different fragrances splattered us from the waist down. A noxious purple fog started to rise around us. I recovered my senses, yelled, “Aeaea!” (because it was on my mind), and blasted the potion fog right back at Filomena.

“Ack!” she complained, now speckled head to toe in magical whatever-it-was. “How dare you!”

She burst into a fine rose-scented mist. The rest of her vials clanked on the asphalt and rolled into the nearest storm drain.

Grover and I looked at each other. Our legs were starting to smoke.

I cursed, then concentrated as hard as I could to pull every bit of potion off my friend. Droplets floated away from his cargo shorts and his fur like a cloud of bees. I must have gotten carried away, because sweat popped from his pores, too. Tears floated from his eyes. I threw the cloud of moisture at the pavement.

My blood was starting to hum. My skin burned. I closed my eyes and used my last bit of strength to expel the liquid from my system.

The next thing I knew, I was passed out on the sidewalk. Grover was shaking me.

“Hey, hey, wake up,” he said.

My eyes fluttered open. “What…? Are we still alive?”

“Thanks to you,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Super thirsty.”

“Yeah. I think you dehydrated us. Here.” He handed me a Gatorade.