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TWENTY THREE, the sea of monsters
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ASTER WASN'T SURE TANTALUS'S face could get more punchable. She was proven wrong when he spun a wildly inaccurate tale of the attack on the chariots. According to Tantalus, the Stymphalian birds had simply been minding their own business in the woods and would not have attacked if Annabeth, Tyson, Aster, and Percy hadn't disturbed them with their bad chariot driving and loud mouths. Aster had to retrain herself from sending him back to the Underworld the hard way.
Percy had told Tantalus to go chase a doughnut, which made the spirit even more upset. The four of them got sentenced to kitchen patrol—scrubbing pots and platters all afternoon in the underground kitchen with the cleaning harpies. The harpies washed with lava instead of water—to get that extra-clean sparkle and kill ninety-nine point nine percent of all germs—so Annabeth, Aster, and Percy had to wear asbestos gloves and aprons.
Tyson didn't mind. He plunged his bare hands right in and started scrubbing, but the other three had to suffer through hours of hot, dangerous work, especially since there were tons of extra plates. Tantalus had ordered a special luncheon banquet to celebrate Clarisse's chariot victory—a full-course meal featuring country-fried Stymphalian death-bird. Delicious.
The only good thing about the punishment was that it gave Annabeth and Percy a common enemy to hate, which meant they were on good terms again—Aster was extremely relieved. She didn't know how much more running around and playing peacekeeper she could take. She knew it wasn't her cup of tea, but it was good to know for sure.
Kitchen duty gave them lots of time to talk. Percy told them about his dream of Grover communicating through an empathy link. He was apparently dressed in a wedding dress, due to marry Polyphemus in two weeks. Grover had also found something that could help the camp, possibly heal Thalia's tree.
"What could he have found to help the camp?" Aster asked.
Percy shrugged, but Annabeth had that I have an idea glint in her eye.
"Oh gods, it couldn't be..." she murmured, really only talking to herself. "If he's really found it, and if we could retrieve it–"
"Care to clue us in?" Aster's eyes flickered to Annabeth after dunking a cup into the lava.
Percy nodded. "You act like this... whatever-it-is Grover found is the only thing in the world that could save the camp. What is it?"
"I'll give you a hint," Annabeth said, gray eyes flickering between Aster and Percy. "What do you get when you skin a ram?"
"Messy?" Percy asked stupidly.
"A fleece. The coat of a ram is called a fleece. And if that ram happens to have golden wool–"
"The Golden Fleece. Are you serious?"
"It all makes sense now," Aster whispered to herself, scraping a plateful of death-bird bones into the lava. "Percy, remember the Gray Sisters? They said they knew the location of the thing you seek. And they mentioned Jason. Three thousand years ago, they told him how to find the Golden Fleece. You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts, right?"
