| chapter twenty-four |

in which the junkyard of the gods is a real bitch

THEY RODE THE BOAR UNTIL SUNSET, which was about as much as Nia's back end or patience could take. Boar-riding was about as comfortable as riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day.

Fortunately, Percy had allowed Nia to rest her head on his back so she could get a little bit of sleep, but she hadn't managed to get much because of her uncomfortable position, elation, and panic.

Nia had no idea how many miles they had managed to cover, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat, dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser and sparser until they were speeding across the desert.

As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all. 

"This is as far as he'll go," said Grover. "We need to get off while he's eating." 

"Good enough for me," Nia said, eager to finally get off the boar.

Nobody else needed any convincing. They all slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then they all waddled away as best they could with their saddle sores. 

After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed and belched, then whirled around and galloped back toward the east. 

"I guess it likes the mountains better," Percy shrugged.

"I can't blame it," said Thalia. "Look." 

Ahead of them, was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoë Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that read 'GILA CLAW, ARIZONA' hanging crooked above the door.

Nia grimaced. "Nice place."

Beyond all that was a range of hills, but then Nia noticed they weren't regular hills; the countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever. 

"Whoa," said Percy.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked over at Grover. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?" 

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to Nia, but Grover looked concerned. 

"That's us," the satyr said. "Those six nuts right there." 

"Which one is me?" Percy asked. 

"The little deformed one," Zoë suggested. 

Nia snorted. "Nice."

Percy scowled at the two of them. "Oh, shut the hell up." 

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble." 

"A monster?" Thalia asked. 

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge. . ." He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet. 

"Not it," Nia mumbled.

THEY ALL DECIDED TO CAMP FOR THE NIGHT AND TRY THE JUNKYARD IN THE MORNING. No one wanted to go dumpster-diving in the dark. Besides, Nia couldn't figure out why, but something about the town and the desert set her on edge. It was right on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't remember why. Eventually, Nia just shrugged and put it out of her mind.

Zoë and Bianca produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of their backpacks. Their packs were enchanted to hold a lot much stuff, like Nia's hunting bag. The daughter of Artemis made a mental note to include sleeping bags inside of Moonglade if — no, when — they got back to camp.

The night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house; Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire; Nia doled out the last of her snacks and bottles of water from her hunting bag and — with some major concentration and unhelpful suggestions from her friends — managed to create some silvery extra blankets and pillows from the moonlight. Soon, they were about as comfy as you could get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere. 

"The stars are out," Zoë said. She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange. 

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way." 

"This is nothing," Zoë said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution." 

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said to her. 

Zoë raised an eyebrow at him. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you," Thalia corrected her. "Not thee." 

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence." 

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you." 

Zoë threw up her hands in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!" 

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right." 

Zoë nodded sadly. 

"Maybe it was the coffee," said Grover. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee. . ." 

Nia raised an eyebrow. "Grover, I love you, but I don't think that coffee is the explanation for what happened in Cloudcroft. Maybe you did something that caused Pan to show himself to you."

Grover shook his head. "I can't think of anything else that it could've been."

Percy hesitated before speaking. "Grover, do you really think that that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be." 

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've gotten in two thousand years. I was so close." 

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking over at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a shit ton more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them." 

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. Really, I don't. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames." 

"Maybe there's something special about your knife," Percy said. 

"It is the same as mine," Zoë said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine did not affect the warriors that way." 

"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," Nia speculated, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Bianca looked uncomfortable with everybody paying attention to her, though.

"Never mind," Zoë told her. "We will find the answer. In the meantime, we should plan our next move. When we get through this junkyard, we must continue west. If we can find a road, we can hitchhike to the nearest city. I think that would be Las Vegas."

"No!" Bianca immediately said, looking panicked. "Not there!"

Zoë frowned. "Why?" 

Bianca took a shaky breath. "I. . . I think we stayed there for a while. Nico and I. When we were traveling. And then, I can't remember. . ." 

Percy, Grover, and Nia all met eyes, remembering Percy, Grover, and Annabeth's quest during Percy's first year at Camp Half-Blood. The three of them had told Nia everything.

"Bianca," Percy said. "That hotel you stayed at. Was it possibly called the Lotus Hotel and Casino?" 

Her eyes widened. "How could you know that?" 

Percy grimaced. "Oh, wonderful."

"Wait," said Thalia. "What's the Lotus Casino?" 

"A couple of years ago," Percy said, "Grover, Annabeth, and I got trapped there. It's designed so you never want to leave. We stayed for about an hour. When we came out, five days had passed. It makes time speed up." 

"No," Bianca shook her head. "No, that's not possible." 

"You said somebody came and got you out," Percy said.

"Yes." 

"What did he look like?" Percy pressed. "What did he say?" 

"I. . . I don't remember. Please, I really don't want to talk about this." 

Zoë sat forward, her eyebrows knit with concern. "You said that Washington, D.C., had changed when you went back last summer. You didn't remember the subway being there." 

"Yes, but—"

"Bianca," Nia said slowly, "can you tell me the name of the president of the United States right now?"

"Don't be silly," Bianca said. She told them all the correct name of the president. 

"And who was the president before that?" Zoë asked her. 

Bianca thought for a while. "Roosevelt." 

Zoë swallowed. "Theodore or Franklin?" 

"Franklin," Bianca said. "F.D.R." 

"Like FDR Drive?" Percy asked, confused.

Nia glanced at Percy in disbelief. "You're kidding, right? F.D.R. like Franklin Delano Roosevelt — the former president. No? Nothing? Seriously, Jackson?"

"Bianca," Zoë said. "F.D.R. was not the last president. That was about seventy years ago." 

"That's impossible," Bianca said. "I. . . I'm not that old." She stared at her hands as if to make sure that they weren't wrinkled. 

Thalia's eyes turned sad, probably because she knew what it was like to get pulled out of time for a while. "It's okay, Bianca. The important thing is you and Nico are safe. You made it out." 

"But how?" Percy said. "We were only in there for an hour and we barely escaped. How could you have escaped after being there for so long?" 

"I told you." Bianca looked about ready to burst into tears. "A man came and said it was time to leave. And—"

"But who? Why did he do it?" 

Before she could answer, a blazing light from down the road hit them all in the face. The headlights of a car appeared out of nowhere. Nia and her friends quickly grabbed their sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of them.

The back door of the limo opened right next to Percy. Before he could step away, the point of a sword touched the son of Poseidon's throat. 

Immediately, Nia was on guard. She drew her bow, notched three arrows in the string, and pulled back, ready to fire.

As the owner of the sword got out of the car, Percy moved back very slowly. He had to because he was pushing the point under his chin. 

He smiled cruelly. "Not so fast now, are you, punk?" He was a big man with a crew cut, a black leather biker's jacket, black jeans, a white muscle shirt, and combat boots. Wraparound shades hid his eyes, but they all knew what was behind those glasses — hollow sockets filled with flames. 

"Ares," Percy growled. 

The war god glanced at Nia and the rest of her friends. "At ease, people." He snapped his fingers, and all of their weapons fell to the ground.

"Hey!" protested Nia.

"This is a friendly meeting." Ares dug the point of his blade a little farther under Percy's chin. "Of course, I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady." 

"What lady?" Thalia asked. 

Ares looked over at her. "Well, well. I heard you were back." He lowered his sword and pushed Percy away. "Thalia, daughter of Zeus," Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good company." 

"What's your business here, Ares?" she asked, teeth clenched. "Who's in the car?" 

Ares smiled, enjoying the attention. "Oh, I doubt she wants to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them." He jutted his chin toward Zoë and Bianca. "And definitely not you." He gestured to Nia, who made an indignant sound of protest. "Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? Only take Percy a few minutes." 

"We will not leave him alone with thee, Lord Ares," said Zoë. 

"Besides," Grover managed to say, "the taco place is closed." 

Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life. The boards flew off the door and the 'CLOSED' sign flipped to 'OPEN'. "You were saying, goat boy?" 

"Go on," Percy told his friends. Nia could tell that he was trying to sound confident. "I'll handle this."

"You heard the boy," Ares said. "He's big and strong. He's got things under control." 

Reluctantly, everyone except Nia headed over to the taco restaurant. Nia was still biting her lip, not wanting to leave. 

"Percy. . ." Nia trailed off worriedly.

"It's fine, Nia," Percy told her. "I'll see you soon."

Eventually, Nia nodded with pursed lips. With one more apprehensive look at Ares and Percy, she hurried off to catch up with their friends.

MUCH TO NIA'S DISAPPOINTMENT, the tacos at the restaurant weren't all that good.

When Nia and her friends left the restaurant, it instantly disappeared. The limousine, road, and the whole town of Gila Claw was gone. They were all standing in the middle of the junkyard, mountains of scrap metal stretched out in every direction. 

"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked Percy, once he had told them about meeting Aphrodite.

Nia wasn't too thrilled about that one. Artemis and Aphrodite didn't exactly have the best relationship, mostly because the goddess of love hated that Artemis had some people who believed in the virgin goddess who stayed single and didn't fall in love. The only thing Aphrodite approved of when it came to Artemis was Nia's very existence.

"Oh, uh, not sure," answered Percy. "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. Oh, and not to pick anything up." 

Zoë narrowed her eyes. "The goddess of love would not make a special trip to tell thee that. Be careful, Percy. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray." 

"For once I agree with Zoë," Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite."

"Hey," Nia said to Percy quietly. "You. . . You know you can tell me what Aphrodite really said, right?"

Percy shrugged. "That is what she said."

Nia sighed. "Fine. Don't tell me."

"I'm being serious! She, uh. . . She just. . ."

"Just what?"

"She just. . . She just kind of looked like. . . Never mind."

Nia furrowed her brows in confusion. "Wait, what are you talking—"

"So," Percy cut Nia off, looking anxious to change the subject, "how do we get out of here?" 

"That way," Zoë said. "That is west." 

"How can you tell?" asked Percy.

"Ursa Major is in the north," she said, "which means that must be west." She pointed west, then at the northern constellation, which was hard to make out because there were so many other stars. 

"Oh, yeah," Percy said. "The bear thing." 

Zoë looked deeply offended. "Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent." 

"You act like it was real."

Nia smirked a little, knowing that with Zoë and how long she'd been alive, the Ursa Major most likely was real. "Uh, Perce—"

"Guys," Grover broke in. "Look!" 

They'd reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines, and computer monitors. 

"Whoa," Bianca said. "That stuff. . . some of it looks like real gold." 

"It is," said Thalia grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."

"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver, and jewels. It was broken on one side, as if it had been split by an axe. He bit off a point and began to chew. "You call this junk? It's delicious!" 

Thalia swatted the crown out of his hands. "I'm serious!" 

"Look!" Bianca said. She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in the moonlight. "A Hunter's bow!" She yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink, and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. "It's just like Percy's sword and Nia's bag!" 

Zoë's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca." 

"But—" 

"It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed." 

Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down. Thalia gripped the shaft of her spear. "I don't like this place."

"You and me both," muttered Nia, clutching Moonbeam. Her skin was starting to crawl. That weird feeling of the desert was creeping back up again.

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked.

Thalia gave him a hard look. "Zoë is right, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard." 

"That's the second time you've agreed with Zoë," Percy muttered. Nia sharply jabbed him in the ribs, but Thalia ignored him.

We started picking our way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, they definitely would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same. 

Nia would like to say they left the stuff alone, but there was too much cool junk not to check out some of it. 

Percy found an electric guitar shaped like Apollo's lyre. Grover found a broken tree made out of metal. It had been chopped to pieces, but some of the branches still had golden birds in them, and they whirred around when Grover picked them up, trying to flap their wings. Nia even spotted a compact gold spyglass telescope that could give close-up images of billions of stars and planets. It took everything in her not to pocket it.

Finally, the edge of the junkyard showed up about half a mile ahead of them, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert. But between them and the road. . . 

"What is that?" Bianca gasped.

Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together. 

Bianca frowned. "They look like—" 

"Toes," Grover said. 

Bianca nodded in agreement. "Really, really large toes." 

Zoë and Thalia exchanged nervous looks. 

"Let's go around," Thalia said. "Far around."

"But the road is right over there," protested Percy.. "Quicker to climb over."

Ping.

Immediately, Thalia hefted her spear; Zoë drew her bow; and Nia gripped the hilt of her knife, all of them ready for an attack. But then they all realized that it was only Grover. He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.

"Why did you do that?" Zoë demanded.

Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"

"Come on." Thalia swallowed hard. "Around."

No one argued. The toes were freaking them all out. Who in their right mind sculpted ten-foot-tall metal toes and then stick them in a junkyard? 

After several minutes of walking, they finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.

"We made it out," Zoë said. "Thank the gods."

But apparently, the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, Nia heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal and whirled around. Behind us, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and Nia realized why they looked like toes. 

They were toes. 

The thing that rose from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor. He was impossibly tall — a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He looked down at us, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armored chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words 'WASH ME'. 

"Talos!" Zoë gasped. 

"W-who's Talos?" Percy stuttered. 

"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small."

Nia looked over at Thalia with alarm. "That's too small? It's as tall as the Empire State Building!"

Thalia continued: "A prototype, maybe. A defective model."

The metal giant didn't seem like the word defective. He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but it didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.

"Someone took something," Zoë said. "Who took something?" 

The Hunter stared accusingly at Percy which made Nia purse her lips, but the son of Poseidon shook his head and held up his hands. "I'm a lot of things, but not a thief." 

Bianca didn't say anything, her eyes trained on the ground. Nia raised one eyebrow and opened her mouth to call Bianca out, but before she could, because the giant defective Talos took one step toward us, closing half the distance and making the ground shake. 

"Run!" Grover yelped.

Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance all of them without breaking a sweat — literally. 

Nia called out to her friends, "Split up!", like they did with the Nemean Lion. Maybe if they could confuse the defective Talos, they'd be able to live enough to figure out a way to destroy it.

Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. The giant swung his sword and took out a row of powerlines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path. 

Zoë's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal. Bianca, Percy, and Nia ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot. 

"You took something," Percy said to Bianca. "That bow." 

"No!" she said, but her voice quivered. 

"Give it back!"

"Throw it down!" Nia followed up, gesturing to the pile.

"I-I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late." 

Nia furrowed her brows. "What do you mean? What'd you take?"

Before she could answer, she a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky.

"Move!" Percy tore down the hill, Bianca right behind him. Nia was almost too late to run, but she managed to gather her wits fast enough to avoid Talos. 

The giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground right where they'd been hiding. If Nia had stayed in her spot just a second longer, she would've been a human pancake. Nia cursed herself; what was wrong with her? Her distraction almost got her killed.

"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at Nia, Bianca, and Percy.

Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed power lines began to dance. One of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf The lines sparked and sent a jolt of electricity up the giant's backside. 

Talos whirled around, creaking and sparking. Grover had bought them a few seconds.

Better make them count.

"Come on!" Percy told Bianca. But she stayed frozen. From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a statue of a god. "It. . . It was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have."

"How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?" Percy asked. 

There were tears in her eyes. 

"Throw it down!" Nia said to her desperately. "Maybe the giant will leave us alone."

Bianca dropped it reluctantly, but nothing happened. The giant kept coming after Grover. It stabbed its sword into a junk hill, missing Grover by a few feet, but scrap metal made an avalanche over him, and then Nia couldn't see him anymore. "Grover!"

"No!" Thalia yelled. She pointed her spear, and a blue arc of lightning shot out, hitting the monster in his rusty knee, which buckled. The giant collapsed, but immediately started to rise again. It was hard to tell if it could feel anything. There weren't any emotions in its half-melted face, but I got the sense that it was about as ticked off as a twenty-story-tall metal warrior could be. 

He raised his foot to stomp and Nia saw that his sole was treaded like the bottom of a sneaker. There was a hole in his heel, like a large manhole, and there were red words painted around it, which she deciphered only after the foot came down: FOR MAINTENANCE ONLY. 

A lightbulb went off in Nia's mind. If they could manage to get under that foot. . . Nia and Percy glanced at each other, both of them obviously thinking the same thing.

"Crazy-idea time," said Percy.

Bianca's eyes flickered between Nia and Percy. "Anything." 

"There's a maintenance hatch underneath its foot," started Percy. "There might be a way to control the thing. Switches or something."

"How?" Bianca asked. "One of us will have to stand under its foot! You'll be crushed!" 

"Distract it," said Percy. "I'll just have to time it right." 

Bianca's jaw tightened. "No. I'll go."

"What? No! Bianca—," Nia started, but Percy cut her off.

"You can't. You're new at this! You'll die."

"It's my fault the monster came after us," Bianca said. "It's my responsibility. Here." She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into Percy's hand. "If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him. . . Tell him I'm sorry." 

"Bianca—,"  Nia started to say, but Bianca looked Nia dead in the eyes and spoke:

"Take care of him for me."

"Bianca, no!"

But she wasn't waiting. Bianca charged at the monster's left foot. Thalia had its attention for the moment. She'd learned that the giant was big but slow. If you could stay close to it and not get smashed, you could run around it and stay alive. At least, it was working so far.

Bianca got right next to the giant's foot, trying to balance herself on the metal scraps that swayed and shifted with his weight.

Zoë yelled, "What are you doing?"

"Get it to raise its foot!" she said.

Zoë shot an arrow toward the monster's face and it flew straight into one nostril. The giant straightened and shook its head.

"Hey, Junk Boy!" Percy yelled. "Down here! "He ran up to its big toe and stabbed it with Riptide. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze. Unfortunately, Percy's plan worked. 

Talos looked down at the son of Poseidon and raised his foot to squash him like a bug. Luckily, Percy had the good sense to turn and run. 

The foot came down about two inches behind him and he was knocked into the air. He hit something hard and sat up, obviously dazed.

The monster was about to finish Percy off, but Grover somehow dug himself out of the junk pile. He played his pipes frantically, and his music sent another power line pole whacking against Talos's thigh. The monster turned. 

Grover should've run, but he must've been too exhausted from the effort of so much magic. He took two steps, fell, and didn't get back up. Nia was too far away to help.

"Grover!" Thalia and Percy both ran toward him, but Nia knew that they'd be too late.

The monster raised his sword to smash Grover. Then he froze. Talos cocked his head to one side, like he was hearing strange new music. He started moving his arms and legs in weird ways, doing the Funky Chicken. Then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.

Nia couldn't help but laugh at the sight.

"Go, Bianca!" Percy yelled. 

Zoë looked horrified. "She is inside?"

The monster staggered around, and Nia quickly realized that something of that much mass falling would absolutely demolish Nia and her friends if they stayed around any longer. The daughter of Artemis immediately started running with Zoë.

"Percy! Thalia! Grover!" Looking back, Thalia and Percy grabbed Grover and ran with him toward the highway. 

Zoë yelled to Nia, "How will Bianca get out?"

But a now-horrified Nia didn't have an answer for her.

The giant hit itself in the head again and dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his whole body and he staggered toward the power lines.

"Look out!" Percy yelled, but it was too late. 

The giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG! 

His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints. Talos began to run.

"Wait!" Zoë yelled. They all ran after him, but there was no way they could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, forcing to dive and dodge to stay alive.

The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed. When they approached the wreckage after the dust settled down, they all searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. They searched until the sun started to rise, but no Bianca.

Immediately, Nia knew what had happened. She remembered the line of the prophecy that she had managed to escape her memory up until then.

Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face. Zoë slumped down to the ground and wept. Silent tears streaming down her face, Nia knelt beside Zoë and pulled her into a one-armed hug. To Nia's surprise, Zoë let her. 

Nia stared at the wreckage, a flurry of blame and regret and fury hitting her all at once.

How could she have been so stupid? How could she have let Bianca go instead of her? How could she have not remembered the prophecy in time to warn the others?

"We can keep searching," said Percy. "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No we won't," said Grover miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?" Percy demanded. 

"The prophecy," Grover choked out. "One shall be lost in the land without rain."

Here they were in the desert, just like the prophecy had predicted.

And Bianca di Angelo was gone.

well i've been pretty radio silent lately, haven't i? but it's a pretty long chapter; hope that makes up for it?

and guys, for someone so observant, nia is so dense sometimes. like honestly miss girl i—

and bianca di angelo, sadly, is dead. honestly, this scene hurt a lot to write. maybe that's why it took so long. . .

i could give you all my personal opinions on bianca di angelo — since the pjo fandom seems to pretty split on whether or not they like her — but today is not that day

in real-life news, i have a huge research paper due soon, but i'm decidedly procrastinating to write instead!

yay!

i work better under pressure, anyway

talk soon!

—icedcoffeemug