²Olden Crown, heroes of olympus

017.

OLDEN CROWN
━━ chapter seventeen

━━ BETWEEN AIRPLANES AND cannibals, Percy preferred the cannibals. He have rathered drove Grandma Zhang's Cadillac all the way to Alaska with fireball-throwing ogres on his tail, rather than sitting in a luxury Gulf stream.

He'd flown before. The details were hazy, but he remembered a pegasus named Blackjack. He'd even been on a plane once or twice. But as a son of Neptune ( Poseidon, whatever ), he didn't belong in the air. Every time the plane hit a spot of turbulence, Percy's heart raced, and he was sure Jupiter ( Zeus, again, whatever ) was slapping them around.

He tried to focus as Frank and Abilene talked. The brunette kept reassuring Frank that he'd done everything he could for his grandmother. Frank had saved them from the Laistrygonians and gotten them out of Vancouver. He'd been incredibly brave.

Frank kept his head down like he was ashamed to have been crying, but Percy didn't blame him. The guy had just lost his grandmother and seen his house go up in flames. His whole life up until six weeks ago. As far as Percy was concerned, shedding a few tears about something like that didn't make you any less of a man, especially when you had just fended off an army of ogres that wanted to eat you for breakfast.

( Though, Percy still couldn't get over the fact that Frank was a distant relative. Frank would be his ... what? Great-times-a-thousand nephew? It was too weird to try and explain with words. )

Frank refused to explain exactly what his "family gift" was, but as they flew north, he did tell them about his conversation with Mars the night before. He explained the prophecy Juno had issued when he was a baby—about his life being tied to a piece of firewood, and how he had asked Abilene to keep it for him.

Some of that, Percy had already figured out. He had hear them whisper back on the Pax before he ran the boat into the water. It had been a the start of a sort of deal between them—Frank telling Abilene about his lifeline, and her ... admitting something. Something she hadn't quite admitted yet. Percy could also tell that Frank was bothered by that. By their deal and Abilene's avoidance to keep up her end, Frank had shared his deepest secret and she hadn't done the same. But it also explained why even now—out of habit—Frank kept checking his coat pocket, and why he was so nervous around fire. Still, Percy couldn't imagine what kind of courage it had taken for Frank to embark on a quest, knowing that one small flame could snuff out his life.

"Frank," he said, "I'm proud to be related to you."

Frank's ears turned red. With his head lowered, his military haircut made a sharp black arrow pointing down. "Juno has some sort of plan for us, about the Prophecy of Nine."

"Yeah," Percy grumbled. "I didn't like her as Hera. I don't like her any better as Juno."

Hazel tucked her feet underneath her. She studied Percy with her luminescent golden eyes, and he wondered how she could be so calm. She was the youngest one on the quest—around fifteen—but she was always holding them together and comforting them. Now they were flying to Alaska, where she had died once before. They would try to free Thanatos, who might take her back to the Underworld. Yet she didn't show any fear. It made Percy feel silly for being scared of airplane turbulence.

"You're a son of Poseidon, aren't you?" she asked. "You are a Greek demigod."

Percy gripped his leather necklace. "I started to remember in Portland, after the gorgon's blood. It's been coming back to me slowly since then. There's another camp—Camp Half-Blood."