𝒊. 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒

𝒙𝒗.

A Coast Guard boat picked them up, but they were too busy to keep the teens for long, or to wonder how four kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to mop up. Their radios were jammed with distress calls.

They dropped them off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around their shoulders and water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people.

Their clothes were sopping wet, even Percy's. When the Coast Guard boat had appeared, he'd silently prayed they wouldn't pick him out of the water and find him perfectly dry, which might've raised some eyebrows. So he'd willed myself to get soaked. Sure enough, his usual waterproof magic had abandoned him. Percy was also barefoot, because he'd given his shoes to Grover. Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of them was barefoot than wonder why one of them had hooves.

After reaching dry land, they stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. Noelle tried to focus more on the sunrise then what had happened in the Underworld. She couldn't believe Percy would leave his mom for the sake of the quest. Noelle was more than willing to let her friends leave, even if it meant her eternal damnation. But she knew that was her fatal flaw talking.

Percy felt as if he'd just come back from the dead-- which he had. His backpack was heavy with Zeus's master bolt. His heart was even heavier from seeing his mother.

"I don't believe it," Noelle said. "We went all that way-"

"It was a trick," Percy said. "A strategy worthy of Athena."

"Hey," Annabeth warned.

"You get it, don't you?"

She dropped her eyes, her anger fading. "Yeah. I get it."

"Well, I don't!" Grover complained. "Would somebody-"

"Percy..." Noelle said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry...."

Percy pretended not to hear her. If he talked about his mother, he was going to start crying like a little kid.

"The prophecy was right," he said. "You shall go west and face the god who has turned.' But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades's helm, and framed me because I'm Poseidon's kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I'll have caused it."

Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"

Percy stopped in his tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee, let me think."

There he was, waiting for them, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its head-light turning the sand red.

"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see Percy. "You were supposed to die."

"You tricked me," he said. "You stole the helm and the master bolt."

Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power-- that's a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands."

"Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice."

Noelle knew it wasn't Clarisse. The voice she'd heard talking to the one on the pit was obviously male. Sure, Clarisse's voice is deep, but she doesn't sound like a man.

The idea seemed to amuse Ares, though. "Doesn't matter. The point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See,you've got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt, so Zeus'll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this..."