La Vie en Rose // Percy Jackson

xvii. the prophecy comes true

We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest. According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful - gray silk with embroidered owls - Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told him to shut up.

My shroud was pink and had hearts and various symbols of my mother. I hated the idea of having to burn it. Percy turned to me and opened his mouth.

I held a hand up. "Don't tell me I should be buried in it."

Percy closed his mouth. "Then I won't. But you should be."

I glared at him and huffed.

Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn't have any cabin mates, apart from himself, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.

It seemed fun to burn.

As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and passed out s'mores, Percy was surrounded by his old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth's friends from Athena, my friends from Aphrodite, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past."

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told Percy they'd never forgive us for disgracing their dad.

That seemed to be okay with Percy.

Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen our spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday...."

Percy moved back into cabin three, but it didn't seem to so lonely anymore. He had friends to train with during the day.

I did my best to settle back into normal camp routine, but I found myself longing for the thrill of adventure.

Torri handed me my makeup bag. "Drew told me to give this to you."

I let out a sigh. "Thanks. How come she can leave her stuff in there and we can't?"

"Does she really need a reason?"

"You and I both know she doesn't."

"Can't you use your power on her?"

"It doesn't work like that. Just like I can't use it on her, she can't use it on me."

"I wish you could."

"So do I."

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They'd anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. Annabeth and I told Percy the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of hundred-foot-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

As Annabeth, Percy and I were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell us good-bye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks he'd started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He'd put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.