This Cold Year ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase²

―xiii. spectacular things

AS THEY SAILED FOR PORTLAND, Hazel and Frank traded stories about the events at Rainbow Organic Foods. Frank told them about the blind seer Phineas in Portland, and how Iris had said that he might be able to tell them where to find Thanatos. Frank wouldn't say how he had managed to kill the basilisks, but Naomi got the feeling it had something to do with the broken point of his spear. Whatever had happened, Frank sounded more scared of the spear than the basilisks. 

When he was done, Hazel told Frank about their time with Fleecy. 

"So this Iris-message worked?" Frank asked. 

Hazel gave Naomi and Percy a sympathetic look. She didn't mention their failure to contact Annabeth. 

"We got in touch with Reyna," she said. "You're supposed to throw a coin into a rainbow and say this incantation, like O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Except Fleecy kind of changed it. She gave us her—what did she call it—her direct number? So I had to say, O Fleecy, do me a solid. Show Reyna at Camp Jupiter. I felt kind of stupid, but it worked. Reyna's image appeared in the rainbow, like in a two-way video call. She was in the baths. Scared her out of her mind."

"That I would've paid to see," Frank said. "I mean—her expression. Not, you know, the baths."

"Frank!" Hazel fanned her face like she needed air. Naomi cracked a faint, amused smile. "Anyway, we told Reyna about the army, but like Percy said, she pretty much already knew. It doesn't change anything. She's doing what she can to shore up the defenses. Unless we unleash Death, and get back with the eagle—"

"The camp can't stand against that army," Frank finished. "Not without help."

After that, they sailed in silence.

Naomi sat tucked under Percy's arm and tried not to dwell on their inability to contact Annabeth, to no avail. The farther north they sailed, the blurrier her memories of Annabeth became. She couldn't quite remember what her voice sounded like, or her laugh. It was like she knew the tune but not the lyrics—the harmony but not the melody. 

But she remembered she loved her, and that Annabeth had loved her back. For now, that had to be enough. 

Her thoughts wandered. She wondered where she had seen the lady cyclops before, how long and well she might have known Jason and Leo and Piper—whoever they were. Had they been friends? She liked to think they had been, but she couldn't recall a single thing about them.

After a few hours, Naomi noticed Percy's eyes starting to droop. He managed to quite literally rope a killer whale into guiding them farther north, then finally settled down for a nap, taking Naomi's lap hostage as a pillow. She didn't mind. She just curled her fingers into his hair and listened to the sound of the sea all around them. 

Not too long into Percy's nap, Frank finally caved and settled down for one of his own, sitting down on the floor of the ship and leaning back against the seat. It couldn't have been even remotely comfortable, but he was out in seconds. 

Hazel offered Naomi a small smile. She nodded at Percy, still dozing away. "You two are cute together. You really seem to love each other." 

Naomi's face warmed. "We do," she said, as sure of it as her own name. Quietly, she confessed, "I think... I think he and Annabeth are the closest thing I have to family."

Hazel nodded, but her expression looked a tad troubled. After a moment, she said, "Nico... He told me about his sister, Bianca. We didn't talk about her a lot, but I knew about her. But sometimes I think he... he slipped up, or something. He'd say something like, My sister makes really bad hot chocolate—present tense. Or my sister got me this book, and it would be something from this decade. It made me wonder..."