𝐱. 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬?

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°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・ ENDGAME} act iii. . .
. . .true love, that doesn't exist

CHAPTER TEN°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・
                  — 'new powers?"

ೃ࿔*:・                          — 'new powers?"

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°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・Rayn°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・

We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town called Cloudcroft, New Mexico. The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow.

As we walked, Thalia told us about Apollo visiting her and telling her to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.

Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."

I tried not to get too depressed about our chances. The deadline was coming. The Winter Solstice was Friday, only four days away.

We stopped in the middle of town. You could see everything the small area had in it.

"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."

"There's a coffee shop!" Said Grover.

"Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good."

"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper."

Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about Zoe, Grover and Percy get us some food. Rayn, Bianca and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."

We agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes.

Inside the store, we found a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow to snowboard, they sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there's no easy way out of this town without your own car.

"You could call a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, would take at least several hundred dollars."

The clerk looked so lonely, I bought a rubber rat. Then we headed back outside and stood on the porch.

"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion."

"But the clerk said—"

"I know," she told me. "I'm checking anyway."

Bianca and I stood together awkwardly. I wasn't sure what to say, especially now that she was a Hunter and everything.

"Nice rat," she said at last.

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