Unmaking Percy

Part III - V, continued (The Dizzy Tent)

"Gods, son, you look more sour than curdled milk. Are you no longer the bard's favourite?"

She could tip an ox with a single look. Percy scowled as he sat on the floor of their room, and grudgingly accepted the hunk of bread she handed him. This, he thought, was how he knew that deep down she liked him; he had never seen her feed someone she disliked.

"Well, if it's Tombert causing all this while unaware of their own power, they're not keen to admit it" he reported, chewing his bread and his words together in a display of inelegance that earned him a grimace from Valeria. He kept at it just for the sake of annoying her. Everyone needed a little honey on their bread from time to time. "They're giving another concert tonight, though. We ought to go, just to look it over again – although, when there's no curse to break in the first place... what are we even supposed to do?"

All the while, Evans had been listening with his hands held up in a conch shape, because he did not wish to carelessly drop the crumbs of his breakfast on the carpeted floor. He sat pensive for a moment, holding up the breadcrumbs in his palms like an offering to the gods, but said nothing.

In the hours that followed, Percy did not know what to do with himself. Of all the miserable states to be in, that was perhaps the one he loathed the most. When he suffered, he could convince himself that he did so for a cause. When he was insulted or betrayed, he could at least enjoy the peculiar pleasure of being wronged. But not knowing what to do was a matter he was not equipped to deal with. In the past, when he had been unable to decide how he should be busy, others had done it for him.

To his frustration, his friends seemed to have their own purposes for the day. Evans vanished soon after breakfast, Percy knew not where. Valeria sauntered off to see her antique dealer, offering no excuses, no justifications, and no hint of embarrassment, which was, in Percy's eyes, her most impressive display of strength he had so far witnessed. As for Myrtle, she gathered the rest of the pamphlets she had been handing out in the party, tucked them neatly under her arm, and declared it was best to strike when the iron was hot.

Percy decided to follow her. He joined her as she spoke to people in packed hallways, low-lit lounges and shops filled with trinkets and incense. At times, between a laugh heard in the distance and a blond head turning a corner, he would remember his encounter with Leo, and he would blush for no one's eyes.

They sat at a table in a mess hall that soon became crowded with festival-goers. They all carried their hangovers from the previous night, some in obvious misery, others with a haughty pride for how they spent their time: living so fully that they could not remember three thirds of their night, why their left shoe smelled of sick, and who exactly had drawn a dandelion on their forehead. Much of their pride could have been undone by anyone asking to pass the salt a little too loudly; but, for now, the mess hall was nothing but gentle murmurs.

As Percy sat at the table, bemused by Myrtle and her savagely unyielding persuasion, a few strange words crawled up to him like snakes. They came from a group of men behind him, gathered around mugs of ale. One of them vaguely reminded Percy of a well-polished brass doorknob, with a tan that tried too hard and golden hair that looked offensively shiny and soft. Percy took a breath-quick dislike to him. He recognized him as the man Evans had been talking to the night before, at the party.

"And then we talked about some bullshit like... gods, I can't remember, I think it was horticulture or some mind-numbing crap like that. I don't know, I was bored out of my mind by then."

"Yeah, but I saw you smiling your best smile" joined another voice, dripping grease.

"Well, yeah, how else was I supposed to get my prey?"