Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
TWENTY SIX, monster donut
❀ ✿ ❀ ✿
"THERMOS!" Aster screamed as they hurtled towards the water. "Percy!"
"What? " Annabeth must've thought she'd lost her mind. She was holding on to the boat straps for dear life, her hair flying straight up like a torch.
But Tyson understood. He managed to open Percy's duffel bag and take out Hermes's magical thermos without losing his grip on it or the boat.
Arrows and javelins whistled past them.
Percy grabbed the thermos, and Aster prayed to every god she could think of. "Hang on!"
"I am hanging on, dipshit!" Aster yelled.
"Tighter!"
Percy hooked his feet under the boat's inflatable bench, and as Tyson grabbed Annabeth, Aster, and Percy by the backs of their shirts, he gave the thermos cap a quarter turn.
Instantly, a white sheet of wind jetted out of the thermos and propelled them sideways, turning their downward plummet into a forty-five-degree crash landing.
The wind seemed to laugh as it shot from the thermos, like it was glad to be free. As they hit the ocean, the boat bumped once, twice, skipping like a stone, then they were whizzing along like a speed boat, salt spray in their faces and nothing but sea ahead.
Aster heard a wail of outrage from the ship behind them, but they were already out of weapon range. The Princess Andromeda faded to the size of a white toy boat in the distance, and then it was gone.
Aster was still shaken up after her conversation with Luke, so she didn't say much in the Iris-message to Chiron as they raced over the sea. Percy figured it was important they let somebody know what Luke was doing, and Aster agreed when he said they didn't know who else to trust.
The wind from the thermos stirred up a nice sea spray that made a rainbow in the sunlight—perfect for an Iris-message—but the connection was still poor. When Annabeth threw a gold drachma into the mist and prayed for the rainbow goddess to show them Chiron, his face appeared, but there was some kind of weird strobe light flashing in the background and rock music blaring, like he was at a dance club.
They told him about sneaking away from camp, and Luke and the Princess Andromeda and the golden box for Kronos's remains, but between the noise on his end and the rushing wind and water on their end, Aster wasn't sure how much he heard.
"Percy," Chiron yelled, "you have to watch out for–"
His voice was drowned out by loud shouting behind him—a bunch of voices whooping it up like Comanche warriors.
"What?" Percy yelled.
"Curse my relatives!" Chiron ducked as a plate flew over his head and shattered somewhere out of sight. "Aster, you shouldn't have let Percy leave camp! But if you do get the Fleece–"
