VAL THANKED THE gods for the uneventful evening. At least, until the dinner, but that didn't matter.

She'd went and played the piano in her room, missing the feel of the pedals and the keys sinking under her fingers and the notes ringing out. It was like Elysium. She'd missed this feeling.

At least, until Piper opened the door and leaned on the doorframe. "Could you please stop?" She asked. "I don't want to disrupt Jason."

Didn't you want him to wake up? Val asked herself, trying very hard to not roll her eyes. "Okay," she said softly.

"Thanks, Val," Piper said, then closed the door. And that was that, apparently. Val knew that she should've turned on the soundproof setting in her room. Thank the gods for the Hecate kids that she'd managed to become friends with.

So then Val put on her pointe shoes and started practicing ballet. It was a skill of hers that she'd kept quiet. Not for any reason other than the fact that it was never really brought up. Whenever asked for a hobby that she did, she said piano. Occasionally she said ballet, but also she never really had a chance to do it randomly.

She'd turned on the soundproof walls, so all that was flowing around her was the music and her limbs as she twirled and kicked and tried to remember the little things that she needed to work on — to actually remember what third position was, to point and not flex her toes occasionally.

But after an hour, she grew tired. That, and the fact that Val had had to stop to throw up twice. Stupid curse. So she'd gathered up her clothes and shadow traveled to the bathroom, because she desperately needed a shower. Maybe it was the ballet or the Roman camp.

Val sighed as she turned on the water. Hot. So hot. She adored hot showers with her entire being. They were just so relaxing, and she liked it when the water was borderline hot but not too hot. She never used to like hot showers before she got the curse.

Or maybe it was because of Annabeth.

Either way, Val stepped into the shower, sighing and just standing there for a second. She couldn't forget that she was here because she needed to save the world, judging by the dark wood around her in the unfamiliar bathroom.

The fact that she could save the world was a horrible thought. The fact that she could fail was a worse thought than that.

Absentmindedly she scrubbed her body as she thought about the world going into ruins and snow, for no reason. Maybe snow would be the reason why the world would be in ruins. Val hated snow.

Those thoughts had occupied her mind enough to not make her notice when someone had opened the door and came in until that person spoke, "Val? We need you! It's dinner."

"Annabeth, you can't do that to someone," Val nearly tripped over the surprise in hearing her voice, and Annabeth had instantly rushed over to prevent her from falling. It would've been cute, if she hadn't been standing on shower tiles. Because she was taking a shower. And Annabeth had just walked in. "Especially in the shower, oh my gods."

Annabeth just laughed. The one that Val loved. "I'm sorry, Tina. I went to go get you and, well, you didn't lock the door."

That fact was true. She didn't think that anyone would go in, because they could hear the shower from out there. And she'd shadow traveled in.

"It's alright," Val said lightly. "Just give me, like, ten minutes, okay?"

Annabeth snorted. "It's your skincare night, and you haven't even done your hair yet. You are not going to finish in ten minutes."

Despite the fact that she was bound to get wet, Annabeth reached over and got Val's shampoo, and she turned around as Annabeth massaged shampoo through her hair.

It was strangely domestic. Val both hated and loved it.

In barely over five minutes, Annabeth had finished both shampooing and conditioning Val's hair, which honestly explained why her hair wasn't on par with Val's, and she did her skincare routine as Annabeth brushed through her hair. It took a while, because, of course, Val's hair was curly as hell, but that didn't matter.

"You're gorgeous," Annabeth said as Val pulled on a bra and shorts, pulling on a jacket. "How are you that pretty?"

Val's breath stopped for a second as she took out the blow dryer. "Thanks," she breathed out, plugging it in. "You can leave now. I'm sure they need you in there."

"For?" Annabeth asked.

"I don't know. Diplomacy?" Val smiled as she looked over her shoulder at the blonde.

Annabeth pursed her lips, then leaned into kiss Val. Her lips slid against hers naturally, and Val melted into the kiss.

"Annie . . ." Val pulled away, sighing. She shouldn't have done that. Why did she do that? "They need you in there."

"They need you as much as you need me, Tina," Annabeth's fingers brushed her lips, and, goddamn it, they were probably red. So were Annabeth's. But she left, and Val let out a sigh of relief, before gripping the sink like a vice as she pushed down the roses threatening to come up.

All she wanted to do was dry her hair, and this is what she got.

But after failing to do that and not throw up in five minutes, she waltzed into the Mess Hall. Fashionably late. As per usual.

"Don't you dare," Val honed in on Leo, sending him the look that she'd send Connor and Travis. And then Drew ended up insulting her looks anyway. But Val would always adore Drew.

"I wasn't going to say anything!" Leo put his hands up, as if in surrender. "But, seriously, were you planning on going anywhere?"

Val let out a shaky laugh as she plopped herself down into the last chair available. "Yes. To hell. Were you guys talking about something?"

"I'll tell you later," Annabeth supplied. Val nodded, but avoided looking her directly in the eyes.

"So where to now?" Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. "I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there's still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic."

Percy was eating a piece of pie, which was completely blue — filling, crust, even the whipped cream. Damn, was Val in the bathroom for so long they'd moved to dessert? "We need to put some distance between us and Camp Jupiter," he said. "Frank spotted some eagles over Salt Lake City. We figure the Romans aren't far behind us."

Piper raised a hand as if they were in school. "I don't suppose we should go back and try to reason with the Romans? Maybe — maybe I didn't try hard enough with the charmspeak."

Jason took her hand, the one that was in the air. "It wasn't your fault, Pipes. Or Leo's," he added quickly. "Whatever happened, it was Gaea's doing, to drive the two camps apart."

Piper shifted in her seat. "Maybe if we could explain that, though—"

"With no proof?" Annabeth asked. "And no idea what really happened? I appreciate what you're saying, Piper. I don't want the Romans on our bad side, but until we understand what Gaea's up to, going back is suicide."

"She's right," Hazel said. She looked a little queasy, but she was trying to eat a few saltine crackers. The rim of her plate was embedded with rubies, and Val was pretty sure they hadn't been there when she came in. "Reyna might listen, but Octavian won't. The Romans have honor to think about. They've been attacked. They'll shoot first and ask questions post hac."

"You're right," Piper decided. "We have to keep going. Not just because of the Romans. We have to hurry."

Hazel nodded. "Nemesis said we have only six days until Nico dies and Rome is destroyed."

"Wait, Nico's gonna die?" Val felt worry bubble up in her stomach. "We've gotta go save him."

"We will," Hazel said, though if it was to assure herself or Val, she didn't know.

Jason frowned. "You mean Rome Rome, not New Rome?"

"I think," Hazel said. "But if so, that's not much time."

"Why six days?" Percy wondered. "And how are they going to destroy Rome?"

No one answered.

"There's more," Piper said. "I've been seeing some things in my knife."

Frank froze with a forkful of spaghetti halfway to his mouth. "Things such as . . .?"

"They don't really make sense," Piper said, "just garbled images, but I saw two giants, dressed alike. Maybe twins."

Annabeth stared at the magical video feed from Camp Half-Blood on the wall. Right now it showed the living room in the Big House: a cozy fire on the hearth and Seymour, the stuffed leopard head, snoring contentedly above the mantel.

"Twins, like in Ella's prophecy," Annabeth said. "If we could figure out those lines, it might help."

"Wisdom's daughter walks alone," Percy said. "The Mark of Athena burns through Rome. Annabeth, that's got to mean you. Juno told me . . . well, she said you had a hard task ahead of you in Rome. She said she doubted you could do it. But I know she's wrong."

Annabeth took a long breath. "Reyna was about to tell me something right before the ship fired on us. She said there was an old legend among the Roman praetors — something that had to do with Athena. She said it might be the reason Greeks and Romans could never get along."

Leo and Hazel exchanged nervous looks.

"Nemesis mentioned something similar," Leo said. "She talked about an old score that had to be settled—"

"The one thing that might bring the gods' two natures into harmony," Hazel recalled. "'An old wrong finally avenged.'"

Percy drew a frowny face in his blue whipped cream. "I was only a praetor for about two hours. Jason, you ever hear a legend like that?"

Jason stiffened. His aura suddenly felt off.

"I . . . uh, I'm not sure," he said. "I'll give it some thought."

Percy narrowed his eyes. "You're not sure?"

Jason didn't respond.

Hazel broke the silence. "What about the other lines?" She turned her ruby-encrusted plate. "Twins snuff out the angel's breath, Who holds the key to endless death."

"Giants' bane stands gold and pale," Frank added, "Won through pain from a woven jail."

"Giants' bane," Leo said. "Anything that's a giants' bane is good for us, right? That's probably what we need to find. If it can help the gods get their schizophrenic act together, that's good."

Percy nodded. "We can't kill the giants without the help of the gods."

Jason turned to Frank and Hazel. "I thought you guys killed that one giant in Alaska without a god's help, just the two of you."

"Alcyoneus was a special case," Frank said. "He was only immortal in the territory where he was reborn — Alaska. But not in Canada. I wish I could kill all the giants by dragging them across the border from Alaska into Canada, but . . ." He shrugged. "Percy's right, we'll need the gods."

Val gazed at the walls. She really wished Leo hadn't enchanted them with images of Camp Half-Blood. It was like a doorway to home that she could never go through. She watched the hearth of Hestia burning in the middle of the green as the cabins turned off their lights for curfew.

She wondered how the Roman demigods, Frank and Hazel, felt about those images. They'd never even been to Camp Half-Blood. Did it seem alien to them, or unfair that Camp Jupiter wasn't represented? Did it make them miss their own home?

"So . . ." Leo pushed his chair away from the table. "First things first, I guess. We'll have to put down in the morning to finish repairs."

"Someplace close to a city," Annabeth suggested, "in case we need supplies. But somewhere out of the way, so the Romans will have trouble finding us. Any ideas?"

No one spoke.

"Well," Piper ventured, "how do you guys feel about Kansas?"

"needed val" my ass but honestly i just wanted a valenbeth moment. even if i planned for them to make out in the shower. but.

also i swore i updated this yesterday but updates will be kinda slowing down ( so far im like 30 chapters ahead but ap test in may so :((

<3 maybel