There were other boats in the water with them. Plenty of them. It was Reyna's turn to row, and she had to navigate through them. They were too big to see her.

But the amount of boats told Reyna that they were close to a port city.

She remembered when they had gone through the Panama Canal. It had been warm down there. The pirates had killed the people who asked for the toll.

Reyna winced to think about it.

Her arms burned, but at least rowing was somewhat mindless.

Gem had woken up about an hour ago. She seemed slightly disturbed, but when Reyna asked her what was wrong, she just replied, "a dream," and fell silent. They hadn't said anything since. Hylla was asleep now.

And then the boat abruptly tipped to one side. Reyna yelped and instinctively leaned the other way, looking back to see what has caused the imbalance.

Gem was leaning over the side of the boat, making excited cinnamon roll noises, and pointing at the small dark blotch on the horizon.

Land.

As it came into view over the next hour, Reyna made out a certain tower, thin but bulging dramatically towards the top. The Space Needle.

Well, at least that explained the freezing humidity and the cold drizzle that was starting to fall from the sky.

"Welcome to Seattle, I guess," Reyna said.

"Where's that?" Gem asked dreamily.

Reyna stared at her. How did she not know-

"In Washington," Reyna answered. She had gotten sort of used to Gem's strange questions over the months that they had been on the pirate ship. "USA."

"Is that close to New York?"

Reyna laughed. "No. On the other side of the country."

Reyna knew why Gem was interested in New York. That place she kept talking about - Camp Half-Blood - was on Long Island. It was apparently safe. Reyna didn't know if it was safe for her, though. The gods Gem mentioned were all Greek.

They dragged onto a small pebbly beach close to a huge pier. There were a few people there, but Reyna didn't really care about the stares. A sign nearby labelled the place Pocket Beach.

"This is cute!" Gem beamed.

Reyna shook Hylla's shoulder. Her sister woke up and looked at Reyna groggily. "Food?"

"Better," Reyna said. "Land."

Hylla sat up, her eyes wide. "Showers," she gasped.

"Bathrooms," Reyna added, because she really needed to use one.

Gem laughed. "Food and water."

"I'm sick of water," Hylla grumbled.

"Fresh water," Gem amended.

Still ignoring the confused passerby, they abandoned their lifeboat and ran for the nearest public bathrooms.

"No showers," Reyna announced after they had relieved themselves. "But we can get into a public pool or gym or something if we need to."

"Uh- are you okay?" a particularly concerned lady asked.

Reyna nodded at her. "Just, our... fishing boat... capsized and we ended up in the lifeboat. We're fine, really."

"Do you need help?"

"No," Hylla said. "We live here, we can find our way back." she started to herd Reyna and Gem out of the bathrooms.

"No, but it's obvious you do," the lady said. Her eyes were glowing. Why were her eyes glowing?

Hylla cursed under her breath.

Reyna blinked, and suddenly the lady had leathery bat wings.

"Fury!" Gem shrieked.

"You seem to have lost your way," the Fury purred, moving to block the exit. "Let me give you some directions." she lunged at them with a whip that burned with fire.

Reyna leaped in front of Gem, blocking the lash with her sword. Like it had a mind of its own, the whip coiled around her weapon and yanked it out of her hand.

"You don't need to be a part of this," the Fury hissed.

Gem had her golden cutlass out by now, and had gone around to attack the Fury from the side. "Die, bat lady!"

Hylla snort-laughed and pulled out her daggers, twirling them dramatically in her hands before going in for the kill.

Spoiler alert, the kill did not end up as a kill.

The Fury clawed Hylla across the arm and lunged at Gem again, who jumped out of reach and dug into her pouch of... bonemeal, she had called it. Apparently coming out empty, Gem went in to attack again. The Fury threw her against a stall door with a crash. The hinges gave out, and the door flew off its hinges. There was a cracking noise, and toilet water leaked onto the floor.

Gem seemed mostly unharmed, so Reyna gagged from the stench of public bathroom and picked up her sword, going back in to attack. She slipped on the water and her head slammed into the wall below the sink.

Reyna's vision doubled for a minute. It looked like there were cracks in the floor...

Wait. There were cracks in the floor.

Despite it being winter and way too cold for plants to be growing, they were - creeping up in between and through tiles on the floor. Reyna was too dazed to get up. They wrapped themselves around her legs and feet - and apparently the Fury's as well. She shrieked with anger, unable to move.

Reyna looked toward the stall where Gem had crashed. The demigod was standing there, one hand extended toward the floor, the other still holding her cutlass, an expression of eerie calm on her face.

The Fury cracked her whip one last time at Gem, but the demigod pointed at the weapon with her free hand and it promptly turned into a tulip.

Gem lunged forward with her sword, and the Fury exploded into dust.

"I'd like to stay living, thanks," Gem said.

Then she collapsed.

Reyna cut through the weeds with her sword and ran to her friend. "Gem?"

Gem didn't answer for a minute.

Reyna shook her. "Gem!"

Gem finally stirred. "Five more minutes," she muttered, and conked out again.

Reyna breathed a sigh of relief.

Hylla came up next to her, holding a hand over where the Fury had scratched her. Her face was pale with pain. "I don't know if Fury claws are poisonous. We need first aid."

Reyna looked up at her sister and nodded. She and Gem still had injuries from the pirate ship - ambrosia or at least bandages would be extremely useful.

"I think we find a supermarket," Hylla suggested. "Or something like that." She picked up Gem, wincing,  and left the bathroom.

Reyna picked up Gem's sword and sheathed her own, then followed, not really knowing what else to do. "We're gonna ask her how she did that when she wakes up, right?"

Hylla was already leading the way into the city. "Yeah. After she has time to heal, though."

"Be ready for ambushes," Reyna muttered. "Monsters are everywhere, as we just noticed."

"That they are," a voice said.

The two of them looked into a nearby alley. There was a girl there, casually twirling a dagger with one hand.

The dagger told Reyna that she was not a mortal. Reyna took out her sword.

"Seriously, you shouldn't just go around basically saying you're demigods," the girl said. She was probably about seventeen. "Not a very smart thing to do. Like a third of the mortals you come across are actually not mortals at all."

"Sorry?" Reyna apologized.

The girl laughed. "Just watch it next time."

"So what about you? Are you a monster?" Hylla asked, with her daggers out.

"No," the girl said, smiling and shaking her head. "I'm just a clear-sighted mortal."

"Then who are you?" Reyna questioned cautiously. "God? Demigod?"

The girl finally stopped twirling her dagger and stepped into the light. She had brown hair and was wearing grey camouflage.

"My name is Chelsea. I'm a warrior of the Amazons."