Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods(4)

“And—”

“My son.” The edge to his voice told me it would be best to stop listing my greatest hits. “If it were up to me, I would waive this ridiculous requirement altogether. Alas, someone”—he glanced up, someone being code for my unreasonable brother Zeus—“is a stickler for rules. You were never supposed to be born, so you are technically ineligible for New Rome University.”

I couldn’t believe this.

Also, I could totally believe this.

Just when I thought I might catch a break, I didn’t. The Olympian gods seemed to think I was their personal kickball.

I relaxed my jaw to keep from grinding my teeth. “So, three recommendation letters.”

Poseidon brightened. “Zeus wanted it to be twenty-five. I talked him down to three.”

He looked like he was waiting for something.

“Thank you,” I grumbled. “I don’t suppose you could write one for me?”

“I’m your father. I would be biased.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want any bias.”

“I’m glad you understand. To earn each letter, you will have to undertake a new quest. All three will have to be completed before the application deadline of the winter solstice. Each time a god writes you a letter of recommendation, give it to Eudora, and she’ll put in your file.”

I tried to think of gods who might cut me some slack and give me simple quests. I’d helped lots of immortals over the years. The trick was coming up with some who would remember I had helped them—or even just remembered my name. “I guess I can ask Hermes. And Artemis . . . ?”

“Oh, you can’t go asking the gods. They’ll have to come to you. But don’t worry!” Poseidon looked really pleased with himself. “I took the liberty of putting your name on the Olympian quest board.”

“The what now?”

Poseidon snapped his fingers and a neon-yellow flyer appeared in his hands. It was an ad with my photo and this copy:

PERCY JACKSON WILL DO YOUR QUESTS

(IN EXCHANGE FOR COLLEGE RECOMMENDATION LETTERS)

The bottom of the flyer was cut into little strips with my home address on each one.

The photo looked like it had been taken from inside my bathroom mirror, which raised a whole bunch of disturbing questions. My hair was wet. My eyes were half-closed. A toothbrush was sticking out of my mouth.

“You already posted this, didn’t you,” I said.

“It wasn’t a problem,” Poseidon assured me. “I had my sea sprites put them up all over Mount Olympus, too.”

“I am so . . .”

“Grateful.” His hand settled heavily on my shoulder. “I know. I also know you weren’t expecting this extra obstacle, but just think! Once you get into college, you should have a much easier life. Monsters hardly ever attack older demigods. You and your girlfriend . . .”

“Annabeth.”

“Yes. You and Annabeth will be able to relax and enjoy yourselves.”

Poseidon straightened. “And now I think I hear my interior designer calling. We still haven’t decided whether the bathroom tile should be seafoam or aquamarine. Wonderful to see you again, Percy. Good luck with the quests!”

He thumped the base of his trident against the patio stones. The floor opened, and I was flushed right back through the ocean floor without even a plastic chair to sit in.





“You have to do what?”

Annabeth and I sat on the fire escape outside my bedroom, our feet dangling over 104th Street. Over the past few weeks, as summer wound down, the fire escape had become our happy place. And despite everything that had happened today, I was happy. It’s hard to be sad when I’m with Annabeth.

I filled her in on my first day at AHS: the classes, the headaches, the unplanned field trip to the bottom of the sea. Annabeth swung her legs—a nervous habit, like she wanted to kick away mosquitoes or pesky wind spirits.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Maybe I can get my mom to write you a rec.”

Annabeth’s mom was Athena, goddess of wisdom, so a college rec from her probably would have gone a long way. Unfortunately, the few times we’d met, Athena had sized me up with her piercing gray eyes like I was a deepfake.

“Your mom doesn’t like me,” I said. “Besides, Poseidon was pretty clear. I have to do new quests for three gods. And the requests have to come from them.”

“Ugh.”

“That’s what I said.”

Annabeth fixed her gaze on the horizon, like she was looking for a solution way out in Yonkers. Do solutions come from Yonkers?

“We’ll figure it out,” she promised. “We’ve been through worse.”

I loved her confidence. And she was right. . . . We’d been through so much together already, it was hard to imagine anything we couldn’t face.

Occasionally, somebody would ask me if I’d ever dated anybody besides Annabeth, or if I’d ever thought about dating someone else. Honestly? The answer was no. When you’ve helped each other through Tartarus, the deepest and most horrifying place in the universe, and you’ve come out alive and stronger than you were to begin with . . . well, that isn’t a relationship you could ever replace, or should ever want to. Yeah, okay, so I wasn’t even eighteen yet. Still . . . no one knew me better, or put up with me more, or held me together as much as Annabeth, and I knew she could say the same about me—because if I were slacking as a boyfriend, she would let me know real quick.