TERRIFIED . . . annabeth chase

sixty five.

VAL COULDN'T BELIEVE how hard it was to find deadly poison.

All morning she, Piper, and Frank had scoured the port of Pylos. Frank allowed only Val and Piper to come with him, thinking their charmspeaking abilities might be useful if they ran into his shape-shifting relatives.

As it turned out, Val's powers were more in demand. So far, they'd slain a Laistrygonian ogre in the bakery, battled a giant warthog in the public square and defeated a flock of Stymphalian birds with some well-aimed vegetables from Piper's cornucopia.

Val saw posters of Piper's dad around the place, which was fine, she guessed. She didn't really care about Tristan McLean. Will had a phase at one point, and Drew enjoyed watching his movies for shits and giggles. Her words, not Val's.

Around one in the afternoon, Val finally put her charmspeak to work. She spoke with an Ancient Greek ghost in a Laundromat (on a one-to-ten scale for weird conversations, definitely an eleven) and got directions to an ancient stronghold where the shape-shifting descendants of Periclymenus supposedly hung out.

After trudging across the island in the afternoon heat, they found the cave perched halfway up a beachside cliff. Frank insisted that Val and Piper wait for him at the bottom while he checked it out.

Piper stood on the beach. Val decided to lay down on the sand, ignoring how much of it got in her hair. She'd take a shower later.

A stretch of white sand hugged the foot of the hills. Sunbathers sprawled on blankets. Little kids splashed in the waves. The blue sea glittered invitingly.

The ruins of an old castle clung to the ridge of the cliff's summit. Nothing moved on the parapets. The entrance of the cave sat about seventy feet down the cliff face – a circle of black in the chalky yellow rock like the hole of a giant pencil sharpener.

Nestor's Cave, the Laundromat ghost had called it. Supposedly the ancient king of Pylos had stashed his treasure there in times of crisis. The ghost also claimed that Hermes had once hidden the stolen cattle of Apollo in that cave.

Val didn't want to know about Apollo's cows, but she'd thanked the ghost anyway.

She laid there in silence, because, naturally, her and Piper didn't talk unless they needed to. And right now, Val just wanted to lay on the ground with her sunglasses on and enjoy the beach. As much as she could, with the benefit of throwing up every so often.

Then she heard Piper gasp, and she sat up, staring at the cliff. Frank appeared at the cave entrance. Next to him stood a tall grey-haired man in a white linen suit and a pale yellow tie. The older man pressed a small shiny object – like a stone or a piece of glass – into Frank's hands. He and Frank exchanged a few words. Frank nodded gravely. Then the man turned into a seagull and flew away.

Frank picked his way down the trail until he reached Val and Piper.

"I found them," he said.

"I noticed. You okay?" Val asked him.

He stared at the seagull as it flew towards the horizon.

Frank's close-cropped hair pointed forward like an arrow, making his gaze even more intense. His Roman badges – mural crown, centurion, praetor – glittered on his shirt collar. On his forearm, the SPQR tattoo with the crossed spears of Mars stood out darkly in the full sunlight.

He looked good in his new outfit. The giant warthog had slimed his old clothes pretty badly, so Val and Piper had taken him for some emergency shopping in Pylos. Now he wore new black jeans, soft leather boots and a dark green Henley shirt that fitted him snugly. Not what Val would've chosen, but that's fine. He'd been self-conscious about the shirt. He was used to hiding his bulk in baggy clothes, but Piper assured him he didn't have to worry about that any more. Since his growth spurt, he'd grown into his bulkiness just fine.