Haunted || Leo Valdez

76 - I'm the Yeet of the Castle. Uwu, You Dirty Rascals

So far, Queen-Hunting was not going well.

Henry and Anne had been looking for half an hour and there was no sign of them. The longer they failed to find them, the grumpier Anne became.

"Why does searching Stonehenge take so long?" Anne demanded to no one in particular.

"Maybe they're having trouble," Henry said. "They can't travel overland because of Gaea, so they have to either sail or fly."

"Hmm," Anne hummed, unconvinced.

Henry looked over at her. At first, when Anne had announced in front of all of Camp Jupiter that she was the former Queen of England, Henry had been impressed. Sure, she didn't look that much like a queen, but all of that "Queen of this" and "Marquess of that" business made her seem like she acted like one.

Then she started talking in a Cockney accent and using modern slang in almost irrelevant circumstances. That shattered the illusion pretty quickly.

Henry still had a hard time figuring her out. Everything he said seemed to irritate or exasperate her. He didn't know if that was because he looked and had the same name as her ex-husband who chopped off her head, or if she was just like that with everyone. Henry doubted it. She was always joking around with Leo, Rebecca, and Piper, trying to get Jason and Frank to discuss whether brownies or cookies were better, using bizarre methods while teaching Hazel how to use the Mist, and generally annoying Hedge to death.

Why did he have to look like a king from the sixteenth century?

Jeez, that was a weird question. Henry wondered if he would ever get used to all the weird questions and declarations he made concerning his demigod life. In the past week alone he had questioned why rocks were throwing rocks, wondered if centaurs were insects since they had six limbs, and debated whether he should have been amazed or disgusted at the fact that Sciron could clean his feet with a flintlock.

What a strange life this was.

"We should head back now," Henry said.

"No," Anne said firmly. "They're going to show. I know it. Any second they'll send an I-M, which will appear right in front of us!" She gestured grandly at the spot in front of them. Both she and Henry stared at it for a while.

"Um," Henry said. "I don't know--"

"SHHHH!" Anne hissed. She gestured at the space in front of them. "Aaaaaaaaany second now."

Henry was resigned to stare at an empty space of air in front of him. He didn't think the Queens would show, and he didn't want them to. They talked too fast, and Anne of Cleves kept pranking him. She claimed the scene at the statue of Neptune in Venice was an accident, that she hadn't been meaning to scare him, but the way she'd grinned and flounced away made Henry believe otherwise.

Henry sighed. "Anne, I don't think they're gonna--"

"HALLOOOO, MATES!"

Henry dove for cover, which happened to be inside a nearby garbage can. There was the unmistakable, raucous laughter of none other than Anne of Cleves, who had just succeeded in scaring the crap out of him yet again.

"Why," Henry wondered as he heaved himself out of the garbage can.

Anne of Cleves was standing before him and Anne in Iris-Message form, wearing jeans, a T-Shirt that said "Queen of the Castle," and a red Abercrombie and Fitch hoodie.

"Just 'cause," she said, shrugging. She turned her attention back to Anne of the Boleyn variety. "So, you might not have noticed, but Stonehenge is taking longer than expected."