Invisible ― Jason Grace

xi. welcome to seattle

FRANK BORROWED A napkin and a pen from a food truck vendor. Phineas scribbled something on the napkin and put it in his bathrobe pocket. "I swear this is the location of Alcyoneus's lair. Not that you'll live long enough to read it." 

Percy drew his sword and swept all the food off the picnic table. Phineas sat on one side. Percy sat on the other. 

Phineas held out his hands. "Let me feel the vials." 

Percy looked at the hills in the distance, lost in thought for a moment. 

Phineas curled his fingers in a grasping motion. "Losing your nerve, Percy Jackson? Let me have them." 

Percy passed him the vials. 

Camilla watched the old man compare their weights. He ran his fingers along the ceramic surfaces. Then he set them both on the table and rested one hand lightly on each. A tremor passed through the ground—a mild earthquake. Ella cawed nervously. 

Phineas grinned wickedly. He closed his fingers around the left-hand vial. "You were a fool, Percy Jackson. I choose this one. Now we drink." 

Percy took the vial on the right. 

The old man raised his vial. "A toast to the sons of Neptune." 

They both uncorked their vials and drank.

Immediately, Percy doubled over. 

"Oh, gods," Hazel said.. 

"Percy!" Camilla gasped. 

"Nope!" Ella said. "Nope, nope, nope."

Phineas grinned in triumph, sitting up straighter, blinking his eyes in anticipation. 

"Yes!" he cried. "Any moment now, my sight will return!" 

"Percy!" Frank gripped his shoulders. "Percy, you can't die!" 

He gasped for breath. 

At the same moment, Phineas hunched over like he'd been punched. 

"You—you can't!" the old man wailed. "Gaea, you—you—"

He staggered to his feet and stumbled away from the table, clutching his stomach. "I'm too valuable!" 

Steam came out of his mouth. A sickly yellow vapor rose from his ears, his beard, his blind eyes.

"Unfair!" he screamed. "You tricked me!" 

He tried to claw the piece of paper out of his robe pocket, but his hands crumbled, his fingers turning to sand. 

Percy rose unsteadily. "No one tricked you," he said. "You made your choice freely, and I hold you to your oath."

The blind king wailed in agony. He turned in a circle, steaming and slowly disintegrating until there was nothing left but an old, stained bathrobe and a pair of bunny slippers. 

"Those," Frank said, "are the most disgusting spoils of war ever." 

Hazel prodded the robe with her sword. There was nothing underneath—no sign Phineas was trying to re-form. She looked at Percy in awe. "That was either the bravest thing I've ever seen, or the stupidest." 

Frank shook his head in disbelief. "Percy, how did you know? You were so confident he'd choose the poison." 

"Gaea," Percy said. "She wants me to make it to Alaska. She thinks... I'm not sure. She thinks she can use me as part of her plan. She influenced Phineas to choose the wrong vial."