“Don’t make this about me,” her dad said. “I do the best I can, Piper. We’ve had this conversation. ”
No, she thought. You’ve cut off this conversation. For years.
Her dad sighed. “Jane’s talked to the police, brokered a deal. The dealership won’t press charges, but you have to agree to go to a boarding school in Nevada. They specialize in problems … in kids with tough issues. ”
“That’s what I am. ” Her voice trembled. “A problem. ”
“Piper … you said you’d try. You let me down. I don’t know what else to do. ”
“Do anything,” she said. “But do it yourself! Don’t let Jane handle it for you. You can’t just send me away. ”
Dad looked down at the picnic basket. His sandwich sat uneaten on a piece of gold leaf paper. They’d planned for a whole afternoon in the surf. Now that was ruined.
Piper couldn’t believe he’d really give in to Jane’s wishes. Not this time. Not on something as huge as boarding school.
“Go see her,” Dad said. “She’s got the details. ”
“Dad …”
He looked away, gazing at the ocean like he could see all the way to Ghost Country. Piper promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She headed up the beach toward Jane, who smiled coldly and held up a plane ticket. As usual, she’d already arranged everything. Piper was just another problem of the day that Jane could now check off her list.
Piper’s dream changed.
She stood on a mountaintop at night, city lights glimmering below. In front of her, a bonfire blazed. Purplish flames seemed to cast more shadows than light, but the heat was so intense, her clothes steamed.
“This is your second warning,” a voice rumbled, so powerful it shook the earth. Piper had heard that voice before in her dreams. She’d tried to convince herself it wasn’t as scary as she remembered, but it was worse.
Behind the bonfire, a huge face loomed out of the darkness. It seemed to float above the flames, but Piper knew it must be connected to an enormous body. The crude features might’ve been chiseled out of rock. The face hardly seemed alive except for its piercing white eyes, like raw diamonds, and its horrible frame of dreadlocks, braided with human bones. It smiled, and Piper shivered.
“You’ll do what you’re told,” the giant said. “You’ll go on the quest. Do our bidding, and you may walk away alive. Otherwise—”
He gestured to one side of the fire. Piper’s father was hanging unconscious, tied to a stake.
She tried to cry out. She wanted to call to her dad, and demand the giant let him go, but her voice wouldn’t work.
“I’ll be watching,” the giant said. “Serve me, and you both live. You have the word of Enceladus. Fail me … well, I’ve slept for millennia, young demigod. I am very hungry. Fail, and I’ll eat well. ”
The giant roared with laughter. The earth trembled. A crevice opened at Piper’s feet, and she tumbled into darkness.
She woke feeling like she’d been trampled by an Irish step-dancing troupe. Her chest hurt, and she could barely breathe. She reached down and closed her hand around the hilt of the dagger Annabeth had given her—Katoptris, Helen of Troy’s weapon.
So Camp Half-Blood hadn’t been a dream.
“How are you feeling?” someone asked.
Piper tried to focus. She was lying in a bed with a white curtain on one side, like in a nurse’s office. That redheaded girl, Rachel Dare, sat next to her. On the wall was a poster of a cartoon satyr who looked disturbingly like Coach Hedge with a thermometer sticking out of his mouth. The caption read: Don’t let sickness get your goat!
“Where—” Piper’s voice died when she saw the guy at the door.
He looked like a typical California surfer dude—buff and tan, blond hair, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. But he had hundreds of blue eyes all over his body—along his arms, down his legs, and all over his face. Even his feet had eyes, peering up at her from between the straps of his sandals.
“That’s Argus,” Rachel said, “our head of security. He’s just keeping an eye on things … so to speak. ”
Argus nodded. The eye on his chin winked.
“Where—?” Piper tried again, but she felt like she was talking through a mouthful of cotton.
“You’re in the Big House,” Rachel said. “Camp offices. We brought you here when you collapsed. ”
“You grabbed me,” Piper remembered. “Hera’s voice—”
“I’m so sorry about that,” Rachel said. “Believe me, it was not my idea to get possessed. Chiron healed you with some nectar—”
“Nectar?”
“The drink of the gods. In small amounts, it heals demigods, if it doesn’t—ah—burn you to ashes. ”
“Oh. Fun. ”