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“Yeah. Wild.”

“And now, if you leave her mansion in a state of disrepair…”

“Got it.”

“AndIrecommended you! I am a fool!”

“Don’t beat yourself up. A lot of people make the mistake of recommending me.”

She put her head in her hands. “All I wanted to do was help. So many talented young people in the world and they don’t all fit in the demigod camps! If Hecate still had her school, for instance, perhaps I could have placed those lovely nymph sisters after they fled Circe’s Island!”

“Ah, yeah. Them.”

“Instead, they went into retail!” She frowned. “I wonder how they’re doing.…”

I cleared my throat. This seemed like a good time to leave.

I stood, but I couldn’t make myself go when Eudora looked so distraught. I didn’t have my mom’s talent for comforting people; still, I felt like I had to try.

“I won’t fail,” I told Eudora. “This won’t blow back on you.”

She looked up at me. “Are—are you sure?”

“Totally,” I said. This was totally a lie. I had no idea how to solve our problems. I just knew they had to be solved—for our sakes, and Eudora’s, and even Hecate’s. Maybe believing I could figure it out was the first step to figuring it out.

“This has been a great pep talk,” I told her. “You’ve inspired me.”

“I have?”

“You bet. Just one last thing for luck. Trick or treat?”

She stared at me. I pointed at the Jolly Ranchers.

“Oh,” she said.

I must’ve looked like I needed all the help I could get. She handed me the entire jar.

Ihad swim practice that afternoon. Apparently, coaches don’t believe in giving the day off for Halloween. Big meanies. At one point, in the middle of practice, I remembered that, oh, right, we had invited our friends to the manse tonight. I’d forgotten to ask Grover to cancel the party. Maybe Grover and Annabeth had already taken care of it. Or maybe I was holding on to the totally unrealistic hope that by the time the party rolled around, we would’ve fixed everything.

By the time I got back to Gramercy Park West, night was falling. Groups of little kids and their parents were wandering the streets, trick-or-treating at stores and townhouses. I figured the older candy bandits and partygoers would wait until full dark. So would the real ghosts, ghouls, and whatever else we were able to summon from beyond the grave.

I found Annabeth, Grover, and the pets in Hecate’s kitchen. Annabeth had spread books and maps across a steel tabletop like she was planning a ground assault.

“Good, you made it,” she told me.

Not the warm greeting I’d been hoping for, but Annabeth got like that whenever she was in mastermind mode. She started juggling a thousand factors in her head, preparing for every possible situation. Sometimes that made her see me as another asset for the plan rather than her boyfriend. Once in a while, that was okay with me. As long as I was an asset and not a liability.

“Here’s what we’ve got.” She pointed at a city engineer’s schematic of Lower Manhattan. “Saint Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. Like I figured, it’s got one of the nearest cemeteries. It’s also the burial place of Peter Stuyvesant—you know, the Dutch colonial officer? We’re trying to figure out the least-crowded route coming back.”

The idea of raiding a church graveyard on Halloween made me uneasy. It was bad enough having the Greek gods mad at me. I didn’t need to be on Jesus’s naughty list, too.

“What if Pete doesn’t want to help us?” I asked.

Annabeth frowned. “I’m not going to lie—by all accounts, Stuyvesant wasn’t a nice guy. He was hot-tempered, prejudiced, rude, kind of a dictator.”

“Wow. I’m sold.”

“But he’s also the guy who built up this part of New Amsterdam back in the 1600s, before it became New York under the British. His spirit is woven into the roots of the city. Plus, he was efficient. He got stuff done. If anyone can oversee a supernatural house repair in just one night, it’s him.”