"No, it clearly says San Diego Zoo right here!"

"Well, I don't see it! Maybe if you actually let me look at the map-"

"Do you not trust my judgement?"

"Not really, no! Slow down, I can't run that fast."

"Okay, both of you, shut up," Reyna grumbled. Jason and Gem miraculously quit arguing over the map. Gem caught up to Jason and yanked the map out of his hands.

Reyna sighed. "I know we're all tired, but we really need to find this leopard. The faster we do, the faster we can go home."

Jason tried to point to the map, then realized it was no longer in his hands.

Gem rolled her eyes. "Jason, I told you. That's not the zoo. The zoo's right here, see?"

"Oh," Jason said, peering over her shoulder. "We've been going in the wrong direction."

"You need glasses," Gem mumbled.

Reyna groaned. "Alright. Let's get moving. You two are acting like siblings."

Saying that was a mistake. It immediately made her think of Hylla. To hide the expression on her face, Reyna turned on her heel and took a sharp left..

Being lost in San Diego was not very fun. Gem kept holding the map upside down. Jason apparently was incapable of reading. Reyna often found herself quoting the Lion King to herself - "I am surrounded by idiots."

"So if we take another left here, and then go right, and then straight for a while, we'll be there," Jason said. "We will have to cross a massive highway, though."

"We will figure that out when we get there," Reyna decided.

They all turned left.

They had fortunately not gotten robbed yet this morning. Jason had told the girls to stay on guard, though. As if they had anything that could hurt mortals at all. On second thought, Jason could summon lightning at will, and Gem could (sometimes) turn weapons into tulips, so they'd be fine. Probably.

They arrived at the highway thirty minutes later.

"What were we worried about?" Jason said. "There's literally a crosswalk."

After Gem pressed the button about six times (she was fascinated by the beeping noise), the crosswalk signal finally turned green and they got across without being hit by a garbage truck.

They arrived at the zoo. At least, Reyna assumed it was the zoo, because it had a big sign that said San Diego Zoo.

"Okay," Gem said. "Do we use money to get in or is it free?"

"Money," Jason answered, taking out several bills, fumbling with them, and dropping one. Gem picked it up and handed it back to him.

"Gem," Reyna said as something occurred to her. "You probably are either going to be super excited or incredibly horrified by this zoo. Just... brace yourself."

"For what?" Gem asked. "It's just animals. Unless the people here are like those zoo truck drivers..." her expression darkened.

Jason walked up to the ticket booth and paid for three people. Gem suddenly seemed reluctant. Reyna grabbed her arm and pulled her through the gate.

"Oh," the daughter of Ceres - no, Demeter, Reyna needed to get that right - said once they were in. "This isn't so bad."

Reyna breathed a sigh of relief.

Reyna looked around, taking in the crowds, the enclosures, the animals.

Jason waved a map in the air. "They gave me one at the ticket booth," he said.

Reyna snatched it out of his hands before he could open it. "You don't get this. Neither does Gem." She unfolded the paper herself. "It looks like the big cats are this way." She pointed to the left.

"So, the mortals mistook an immortal leopard of Dionysus for an ordinary one?" Gem clarified.

"It seems like it," Reyna said. "Unless they have some sort of secret magical creature section..." She froze. "Oh my gods, they have a secret magical creature section."

Gem and Jason peered at the map. Reyna pointed out the section of the zoo that she hadn't seen before. "It's like it just appeared."

"Probably a trick of the Mist," Jason said.

"This can't be legal," Gem muttered.

"Probably not," Reyna agreed. "If the gods found out that sacred animals and magical creatures were being kept in a zoo, they'd burn this place to the ground."

Reyna studied the map a little more. The more she focused on the secret area, the less she was able to see it.

She folded the map back up in frustration and shoved it into her pocket. "Okay. Let's go."

When they got to where map said the entrance to the secret mini-zoo was, there was nothing there.

"Secret passage," Jason said. "To keep mortals out." he approached the wall.

"Yes, I figured that," Reyna snapped. "I say we brute force it."

"It could be trapped," Gem said. "And besides. What will we do, hit a brick wall with our swords?"

"Yeah, people are gonna think we're high," Reyna admitted.

"We could wait for someone to go in or out and see how they do it," Jason suggested. "Someone has to feed the animals. Even immortal animals."

"That's probably a better idea," Gem said. "And you're the leader of this quest anyway."

And so they went over to a bench to wait.

It wasn't long before a woman who Reyna singled out as a zookeeper approached the wall, muttered something under her breath that Reyna didn't catch, and walked right through the wall as if it wasn't there.

"Wow," Gem said. "That's some weird Harry Potter stuff right there."

"Ludum Venatorium," Jason said.

"Huh?" Gem asked.

"The password," Jason elaborated. "That's what she said."

"How did you hear that?" Reyna asked, bewildered.

Jason shrugged. "I trained under Lupa."

"Good point," Reyna said.

She didn't know much about the wolf goddess yet, only that she had raised the original founders of Rome and she was often the one who trained demigods before they were old enough to join the legion.

"What does it mean?" Gem asked. "Sorry. I'm not great with... Latin, was it?"

Jason nodded. "It was the term used in gladiator fights in Ancient Rome. For person versus animal, or animal versus animal."

There was a silence.

"That's ominous," Reyna commented.

Gem walked up to the wall. "Ludum Venatorium," she said confidently.

Then she walked right into the wall.

Not into the wall, like the zookeeper had. She didn't pass through it. She just hit her head. Reyna held back a laugh.

"Ow," Gem grumbled.

"Why didn't it work?" Jason asked.

"You tell me, Mister I-Trained-Under-Lupa-So-I-Have-Superior-Hearing," Reyna said.

"Maybe they need some sort of identification," Gem said. "Mumbo made one of those doors once and had Grian try to break in. Grian stole Mumbo's mustache and got in just fine."

"How does one steal a mustache?" Jason wondered. "And who- wait. We're getting sidetracked. I think we can agree that none of us want to knock out an innocent mortal zookeeper, so we should probably go with Reyna's plan and try force."

Reyna pumped her fist.

"Or just... climb the wall," Gem pointed out.

There was a silence.

We have been thinking way too hard about this, Reyna thought.

"I feel dumb," Jason admitted.

"We're all dumb," Reyna said. 

"Yep!" Gem said cheerfully, and a creeper promptly started to grow up the wall.

Gem gripped the vines and started to climb. Since when could she do that at will? Reyna didn't know. Maybe it was an impulsive thing. Reyna wasn't about to complain about an easy way through, though.

They dropped down the other side without incident.

"Alright," Reyna said. "Since the map is stupid, we're going to have to find this the hard way."

"Or the easy way," Jason said, pointing to the nearest enclosure. "I think that's it."

Reyna turned. It was a jungle habitat, complete with a tree, plenty of vines, and a leopard sprawled out over a branch. It looked ordinary. Except for the fact that it had purple eyes.

"Welp," Reyna said. "We've found it. Now to get it out."