²OLDEN CROWN. heroes of olympus

012.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter twelve

━━ "WE'LL NEED SOME of your food." Percy shouldered his way around the old man and snatched stuff off the picnic table—a covered bowl of Thai noodles in mac-and-cheese sauce, and a tubular pastry that looked like a combination burrito and cinnamon roll.

               Before he lost his fight with the urge to smash the burrito in Phineas's face, Percy said, "Come on, guys." He led his friends out of the parking lot.

               They stopped across the street. Percy took a deep breath, trying to calm down. The rain had slowed to a halfhearted drizzle. The cold mist felt good on his face.

               "That man ..." Hazel smacked the side of a bus stop bench. "He needs to die. Again."

               It was hard to tell in the rain, but she seemed to be blinking back tears. Her long curly hair was plastered down the sides of her face. In the grey light, her gold eyes looked more like tin.

               Percy remembered how confident she'd acted when they first met—taking control of the situation with the gorgons and ushering him to safety. She'd comforted him at the shrine of Neptune and made him feel welcome at Camp. Now he wanted to return the favor, but he wasn't sure how. Hazel looked lost, bedraggled, and thoroughly depressed.

               Percy wasn't surprised that she had come back from the Underworld. He'd suspected that for a while—the way she avoided talking about her past, the way Nico di Angelo had been so secretive and cautious. But that didn't change how Percy saw her. She seemed ... well, alive, like a regular girl with a good heart, who deserved to grow up and have a future. She wasn't a ghoul like Phineas.

               "We'll get him," he promised. "He's nothing like you, Hazel. I don't care what he says."

               She shook her head. "You don't know the whole story. I should have been sent to Punishment. I—I'm just as bad—"

               Abilene wrapped an arm around the daughter of Pluto's shoulder. "Hazel, there's nothing you could do to be as bad as that guy—er, old man. Phineas is evil and selfish and only cares about what people can do for him; you actually care about people, about how they are and how they feel."

               The two had seemed close before, from what Percy saw. Hazel relied on Abilene to help defeat the gorgons back at Camp. They were comfortable enough to share the work of showing Percy around. They were close enough to tell each other things before at Camp—but something was different. They seemed to have some understanding; it was like there had been a wedge removed so they could be much more open. It happened after the fight with the karpoi, and Percy figured fighting a bunch of cherub grain monsters would bring people closer together. But Abilene didn't even seem shocked to hear Phineas say that Hazel was supposed to be dead, not like how Percy and Frank seemed shocked.

               "Abilene's right," Frank decided, clenching and unclenching his fingers. He looked around like he was searching for anybody who might think different, that Hazel was as bad as Phineas. "Hazel's a good person!" he yelled across the street. A few harpies squawked in the trees, but no one else paid them any attention.

               Abilene gave him a look. "Frank, not so loud. We don't need to draw attention to ourselves."

               Unfortunately, Frank seemed wrapped up in his own thoughts. He slung his spear off his back and gripped it uneasily. "I could intimidate that old man," he offered. "Maybe scare him—"