vii. THE TRIO MEETS A GODDESS IN A WAFFLE HOUSE
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Once the dust settled, Orion was pretty eager to send them on their way. Luke didn't get involved, since he seemed to be preoccupied with avoiding eye contact at all costs. Gwen, however, gladly used Orion's embarrassment as a way to extort him for all the goodies he could offer.

"Got any drachmas on you?" She asked.

"What you're doing isn't very nice, kid," Orion said. "It's not fair to rob me, is it?"

"It's not very fair to get handsy with Cleo, either," she shot back. "Drachmas. Now."

He glanced at her open hand and huffed. Gwen watched him dig around in a pouch on his belt until he dropped a handful of drachmas into her palm. Pocketing the drachmas, she gave him another expectant look.

"I gave you what I could, missy," Orion said, his voice dangerously low.

Gwen hugged his quiver closer to her chest. "Cough up some mortal money or you won't be getting this back."

Grumbling to himself, Orion dug around in his pouch again. He kept shooting glances at Cleo, but Gwen snapped her fingers in front of his face a couple of times.

"Come on, she's a daughter of Aphrodite. You want Ares to find out about this?"

He shoved some crumpled-up bills into her waiting hand, and she brightened considerably. Finally, after taking one last look at his quiver, she tossed it to him.

"You can keep it," she said. "It's not even that cool."

Orion turned and immediately began murmuring something to Cleo. Gwen drew her flail, but Cleo gestured for her to put it away as she and Orion walked out of earshot.

As if. Just because Cleo was friendly with this guy didn't mean that she had to be, too. And "friendly" was pushing it.

Like a hypocrite, Cleo had one hand on the hilt of her knife. Gwen could see it from her spot by the campfire, curled up with some of the cushions Orion had summoned. Maybe Cleo was finally making a smart choice by putting her guard up around this guy.

Orion seemed to be telling her something that she didn't necessarily agree with. She returned to the campfire grim-faced and a little pale, but managed to plaster a smile on her face.

"Orion said that he would give us a ride to St. Louis," she said. "There's another bus that leaves tomorrow morning, eight o'clock sharp."

Gwen frowned. "No deal."

"He's being very generous, since you kind of robbed him, Gwen," Cleo said through gritted teeth. "He said he'll keep this campsite around for us to sleep in tonight."

The smug grin on Orion's face made her want to punch his teeth in, but Luke touched her arm and murmured, "Let's just take the offer, Gwen."

Sleeping on the ground sounded way worse than sleeping on some of the cushions Orion had summoned, so Gwen huffed and gave a shrug of her shoulders.

Orion grinned and shouldered his quiver. "You have a good night, then. And I'll be seeing you around, Miss Cleo."

With that said, he walked off into the underbrush again. The wind carried whatever tune he'd been whistling back to their clearing, and Gwen seriously considered holding a cushion over her ears until it died out.

But something had piqued her interest. Whirling on Cleo, she frowned. "What did he mean about seeing you again?"

"Who?" Cleo glanced up from the cushions she'd been stringing together. "Oh. It's nothing, Gwen."

Gwen settled for giving Cleo the stink eye as she slung her backpack onto the ground. Luke had already laid down for the night. Smart, since they had to be up in a few hours to catch a bus to St. Louis. Gwen also thought that seeing the girl he liked flirting with another guy had had a pretty significant impact on his mood.

She sat by the dying campfire, tossing leaves and sticks into it to keep the embers going. Eventually, Cleo sat down beside her, and it took everything in her not to scoot away. She settled for another dirty look.

"You don't have to look at me like that."

Busted. Gwen's heart twinged with guilt as she glanced over at Cleo.

"You're welcome for saving our lives," she added, quieter now. "He was going to kill us. I did it because he was going to kill us."

She didn't have to mention what "it" was― the image of Cleo sitting in Orion's lap would probably be permanently burned into Gwen's mind. Not even drinking from the River Lethe would wipe that from her memory.

"I think dying would have been better than seeing that again," Gwen shot back. "But I bet it came naturally to you, right? Since your mom is Aphrodite?"

Cleo bristled. "Look, I don't know what your problem is, but I didn't ask to be claimed by Aphrodite."

Even in the fading light from the fire, Gwen could see the tears welling up in Cleo's eyes. It made her feel a lot worse about starting this fight... And also maybe for ignoring her for the past month.

"Honestly, it's kind of sucked, because all the kids at camp― and now, apparently, you― see me as... I don't even know what!"

Cleo took a second to fix her hair with trembling hands. In a lower voice, she added, "But for the sake of the quest, we need to talk this out. Or else it's going to get us killed."

Gwen didn't think of Cleo as "easy" or anything. She didn't really know why she said that thing about Aphrodite in the first place.

Probably because she knew it would hurt Cleo.

But she didn't even want to hurt Cleo, really, because it made her feelings hurt, too.

To tell the truth, she wasn't mad that Cleo got claimed. Cleo had been waiting years to be claimed― it frustrated her more that Drew got claimed in a week.

No, she was mad because Cleo made her feel pretty. Not typical "Aphrodite kid pretty," but tomboy pretty. Before she got claimed, Cleo didn't really care about makeup or nice clothes, so long as she thought she looked good. And to Gwen, that was perfect.

But now that she had learned how to do real makeup and dress nicely, Gwen felt like she had been left in the dust. And she wouldn't have cared as much as she did if she didn't look up to Cleo like a big sister.

"I'm not mad." Gwen scuffed her feet in the dirt a little before she mumbled, "I just feel left behind."

Her voice got really tiny when she said that, and she didn't look up until Cleo began to laugh a little bit. She whirled around, ready to throw out some fighting words, but Cleo sobered up pretty quickly.

"You know, I'm still weird," she said. "If I went back to high school right now, I'd be failing tests left and right, just like every other demigod."

Gwen shrugged. "I just miss how things used to be."

Cleo put a hand on her shoulder and said, "Things are still the same. I just don't have to sleep on the floor anymore."

That made her smile a little. "I miss it. And so does Luke. He just doesn't say so."

They both glanced over at the lump on the other side of the fire. Either Luke had fallen asleep or he didn't want to get involved, because the lump stayed quiet.

"Are we good?" Cleo asked, and nudged her. "No more fighting?"

Gwen smiled. "Yeah. I guess."

She was still mad about some things, but none of them really had to deal with Cleo anymore. Yeah, it was gross to see her with Orion, but Gwen didn't doubt that he would have killed them in a heartbeat without Cleo distracting him.

And now that she had stopped letting the sound of Cleo's breathing bother her, Gwen could sulk about what Chiron had told her before she left camp.

Do not go on this quest in the hopes that your godly parent will claim you.

Great advice, really.

What bothered Gwen was knowing that there were twelve gods she could be the child of― actually, there were ten, since Artemis was an eternal maiden and Mr. D wasn't going to be having demigod babies anytime soon. That made her odds a lot better... Maybe.

Ten gods, and she was going to see most of them on Olympus when they finished this quest. Would she get claimed straight away? Or would she have to do something special for a god like Hermes or Athena to admit that this twelve-year-old punk was theirs?

One time, Beckendorf had tried to cheer her up by saying that she could be a child of a minor god. Gwen asked where their kids slept. She wasn't too happy with his answer.

She must have dozed off during her sulking session, because she woke up to Cleo shaking her.

"Gwen. Gwen. We have to go."

Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Gwen pushed herself into a sitting position and glanced around. Luke and Cleo were both on their feet, and the sun had already climbed pretty high in the sky.

"You're gonna have to navigate for us," Luke said, and smiled. "But do it double-time, okay?"

Gwen just nodded and set off through the woods. When she looked back, the campsite they'd slept in had vanished. She didn't like thinking that Orion was still around somewhere... But he hadn't booby-trapped the campsite to kill them in their sleep, so she couldn't complain too much.

They reached the station just in time. Settling into the back row, Gwen claimed the window seat and dragged Luke to sit with her again.

"You should talk to Cleo," she whispered as the bus's engine started up.

Luke raised a brow. "Do we have to do this now?"

"Uh, yeah." Gwen kicked him and said, "She feels really bad for last night. Just be nice to her."

"That's funny, coming from you."

She puffed up her chest to say, "We made up last night. You were sleeping."

To prove it, she beamed at Cleo from across the aisle. A little confused, Cleo waved to her, then opened the map she'd nabbed from one of the service desks in the bus terminal.

Luke gave her a funny look, but Gwen had already curled up in her seat. If they had to be stuck on a twelve-hour bus ride, she was going to get some rest. A cushioned bus seat would still be a better place to sleep than Orion's campsite.

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It was almost ten o'clock when they finally disembarked in St. Louis. And not ten o'clock in the morning, mind you, but ten o'clock at night.

Gwen had a red mark on her face from where she'd fallen asleep on Luke's shoulder. Before he could even think about teasing her for it, she began to gripe about how he made a terrible pillow. That got them a few weird looks from the other people waiting in the terminal.

"C'mon." Luke steered them outside. "We need food."

"Agreed," Gwen muttered. Right on cue, her stomach rumbled loudly. She started to whine as she added, "But it's so late... Nothing will be open."

Cleo held up another stolen map from a service desk. "There's a Waffle House, like, twenty minutes from here. Those are open all night."

Breakfast for dinner sounded pretty good to everyone. Honestly, any kind of real food sounded good after living off of trail mix and granola bars for two days, so Cleo crammed them into a cab and they were off.

Going to a Waffle House had never been so appealing. Gwen's stomach rumbled at the very smell of greasy diner food, and she dragged them into a booth.

"We have to be smart," Cleo said. "We can't blow all of our money on―"

Gwen broke into a wicked grin. "It's fine, we have Orion's money now."

"I can't believe you robbed a giant," Luke said, laughing. "I think you made a friend out of every Hunter today."

They would have gone on like that, but just then, a waitress came to take their order, and they had to shut up about Hunters and giants real fast.

She was beautiful. Her reddish-brown hair had been tried back, but a few strands had fallen loose. She looked them over with big brown doe eyes, and Gwen squirmed in her seat. This lady was almost too pretty― definitely too pretty to be waitressing. She probably should have been on a magazine cover instead.

"Are your parents around?" She asked, glancing between the three of them. "It's awfully late for you kids to be out."

"Oh, um..." Luke cleared his throat and said, "We're orphans. We ran away from the orphanage last week, and now..."

Gwen and Cleo nodded eagerly and tried to look as pitiful as possible. It wasn't hard to act like starving runaways. Maybe they'd even get a free side or something.

Pretty Waitress Lady frowned. "Well, that's horrible. Can I get drinks for you three?"

They exchanged glances. She seemed to have bought the story, so Cleo put in her order. Once Pretty Waitress Lady walked away, she murmured something to Luke, and he craned his neck to get a better look at her.

"What?" Gwen hissed. "Is she a monster? Does she have a tail or something?"

She didn't like the weird look on Luke's face. She didn't like sitting across from him and Cleo, either, because she was obviously missing out on something.

Pretty Waitress Lady came back with their drinks, and Gwen busied herself by chugging the glass of milk in front of her. She stopped just long enough to order, wiping away the milk on her upper lip. Luke and Cleo seemed embarrassed, but Pretty Waitress Lady just laughed.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "You remind me of my own kids."

"You have kids?" Gwen asked.

"Oh, sure." Pretty Waitress Lady sighed. "All boys. They make me so proud..."

She must have caught the looks they were exchanging around the table, because she snapped out of it and said, "I'll go tell the kitchen what you three want."

With that, she started off for the kitchen, hurriedly tucking some loose strands of hair behind her ear. Luke and Cleo began whispering among themselves again.

Gwen couldn't stand the whispering, but she tried to put up with it for a few minutes. Eventually, though, she got sick and tired of feeling like she was really missing out on something.

"So? Is she a monster or not?" She muttered.

Before either of them could answer her, Pretty Waitress Lady had set steaming plates of waffles and eggs in front of them, and they forgot about everything not food-related.

"Can I get you a refill?" She asked.

It took Gwen a second to realize that she was asking about her empty glass of milk. She broke into a little grin, a forkful of chocolate-chip waffle halfway to her mouth.

"Do you serve alcohol at the Waffle House?" She asked.

Across the table, Cleo put her head in her hands.

Pretty Waitress Lady didn't answer right away. She had a weird look on her face, one that made Gwen worry that she was about to get booted from the restaurant. Then Pretty Waitress Lady broke into a smile, and she relaxed.

"You sound like my husband," she said, and flipped open her notepad. "He used to make jokes like that."

Luke and Cleo exchanged another look. Gwen didn't like the unease on their faces, but she pressed on.

"You married an alcoholic?"

Luke kicked her under the table. Before Gwen could protest, he jerked his head in the direction of Pretty Waitress Lady.

Frowning, Gwen glanced at her again. She looked like your regular mortal in her Waffle House uniform. Upon closer inspection, her name tag read ARIADNE. Which was a weird name, but not totally out there.

Ariadne. Ariadne. Was this a mythology thing? The name sounded familiar enough. Gwen racked her brains, trying to think about all the myths she'd been taught that involved a lady named Ariadne and drunk people.

"No." She looked from Ariadne to her friends. "Are you kidding?"

Ariadne wasn't just from any old myth― she was the Cretan princess who became Theseus's girlfriend. And after he killed the Minotaur and escaped Crete with her, he abandoned her on an island... Where the god Dionysus found her and fell in love with her.

She tried to picture this beautiful woman voluntarily marrying Mr. D. The image definitely didn't come easily.

"You're that Ariadne?" She asked.

Ariadne smiled. "In the flesh."

"Your husband's a jerk," she said, wrinkling her nose. "And you're, like, way out of his league."

Cleo's eyes widened. "Gwen!"

"What?" Gwen shot back. "I'm right!"

Ariadne just laughed and said, "Oh, I'm well aware that my husband isn't happy training demigods. Every now and then, when Zeus calls a meeting between the gods, he'll come to Olympus and whine about how terrible you all are."

Gwen made a face. "And you put up with him for thousands of years?"

She probably should have had a little more decorum, since Ariadne was technically a goddess. That, and she didn't want Ariadne telling Mr. D that one of his campers was badmouthing him. But Mr. D couldn't exactly smite her when she was in Missouri, could he?

"You don't know him the way I do," Ariadne replied. "He's very different when he isn't being confined to Camp Half-Blood."

"Okay, but... You wanted to marry him?"

"What?" She smiled and said, "He was charming. And he saved me, remember?"

Gwen didn't like the way that Ariadne was actually blushing over Mr. D. She also wasn't particularly interested in how noble he was two thousand years ago, since he was a huge jerk in the present day and age.

"There goes my appetite," she muttered, and pushed the waffles around on her plate.

"Oh, one day you'll understand what it's like to be in love," Ariadne replied. She grinned at Luke and Cleo and said, "I'm sure you two remember being disgusted by love at her age."

Luke and Cleo just gave noncommittal shrugs and mumbled some words in reply. They seemed to be taking the "respecting Mr. D's wife" thing a little too seriously.

Gwen didn't exactly care about respecting the gods at the moment. Maybe it was stupid and petty, but she was trying to exact some revenge on Mr. D by annoying his wife.

"So does it bother you that he has other kids?" She asked. "Like, at camp, there are these twins―"

Ariadne turned back to her and said, "Why would it bother me?"

"Because he's your husband?" Gwen frowned. "And he's having kids with other women?"

That just made her smile. Gwen exchanged a look with Cleo, who just shook her head. Maybe she really was pushing it.

"I'm not that type of goddess," she said. "And who said that I couldn't have flings of my own?"

Ariadne laughed at their bewildered expressions and pointed back to the kitchen. One of the line cooks passed the little window slot, saw Ariadne looking his way, and waved to her, grinning like an idiot.

"Nick and I have been seeing each other for months," she replied, and winked. "Our little secret."

Ariadne got a lot cooler in Gwen's eyes after that.

Just then, a new customer walked in, and she hurried off to seat them and take their order. Gwen looked between Cleo and Luke, and she was happy to see that they looked as confused as she felt.

And maybe it was horrible of her, but it felt good to know that Mr. D was getting cheated on in return.

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Once they had wolfed down their food, they paid in drachmas, mostly to save what little mortal money they had. Before they left, Ariadne gave them each a hug, but she lingered a little more on Gwen.

Between Phaedra's reaction to the quest and Ariadne hugging her at the Waffle House, she started to get the feeling that people felt bad for her because she was so small. That definitely didn't make her feel any better about going to the Garden of the Hesperides, where she would be fighting a literal dragon for some golden apples.

"Now, I don't know what kind of quest you three are on, but stay safe," Ariadne said. "And you two watch out for her."

She had said that to Luke and Cleo, but when she turned back to Gwen, she started to laugh. Pulling a rag from her apron, she dabbed at the corners of Gwen's mouth. Gwen pushed her hand away, but she could already hear Luke and Cleo snickering behind her.

"You're not my mom," she huffed.

"Well, you can't go out killing monsters with chocolate on your face," Ariadne replied. With a wry smile, she added, "But can you blame me? I never had any daughters."

"Maybe when your stupid husband leaves camp you can make that happen," she muttered, and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

Ariadne just laughed and tucked her rag back into her apron. "Best of luck to you three heroes. I'm sure you'll make your parents on Olympus very proud."

"Thank you so much, my lady," Cleo said, and nudged Luke until he mumbled something similar.

Once they had said their goodbyes, she pulled them out of the restaurant before Gwen could make a snippy comment about how she didn't actually know who her parent on Olympus was, thank you very much.

Through the glass front doors, Gwen saw Ariadne steal a napkin from an empty table and dab at her eyes with it. That also wasn't a great sign for the journey ahead.

"When we go back to camp and get put on stable-cleaning duty for a month, I'm blaming you," Luke joked.

"If Mr. D can't handle a little criticism, that's his fault," Gwen shot back. "I'll just tell him that his wife has a boyfriend that's not him."

"Yeah, and then you'll get turned into a dolphin."

Cleo grinned and said, "It was nice knowing you, Gwen."

Gwen rolled her eyes. "Whatever. He's not really gonna turn me into a dolphin."

She didn't like how silent Luke and Cleo got. And she really didn't like the way they grinned at each other.

"Right, guys?"

Luke shrugged. He had that devilish look in his eye, the typical grin of a Hermes kid who was about to steal your lunch money out from under your nose. Gwen made sure to walk closer to Cleo.

They'd made it about twenty more feet when a voice rang out behind them.

"Luke?"

All three of them whirled around in the direction of the Waffle House. Ariadne had called out to them, but nobody had come out of the restaurant.

"Luke! Gwen!"

Cleo had drawn her knives. Luke had one hand on the hilt of his sword. But instead of a horrifying mythological creature popping out at them, a mutt wandered onto the sidewalk from an alleyway.

Gwen grinned and stepped towards it. "Aw, it's a dog."

"Are you crazy?" Cleo called. "Gwen, stay away from that thing."

The mutt let out a warbled bark. Gwen dropped to her knees and began to stroke its matted gray fur, and its tail began to wag. She felt around for a collar on its neck, but found nothing.

"It's a stray," she said, and frowned. "Poor thing. It's probably hungry."

Unzipping her backpack, she grabbed a handful of trail mix and held it out for the mutt to inspect. The dog rubbed its snout around in her palm for a moment, nibbling at a few of the granola pieces.

Behind her, she heard the voice again: "Cleo! Cleo― help, I―"

Gwen had turned her head to locate the voice, still absently petting the mutt. It licked the side of her face right after the voice died out, which made her giggle. She decided to reward it with some belly scratches.

"That's not funny, Gwen," Cleo said.

"I didn't say anything," Gwen replied. Frowning at the mutt, she said, "Right? I didn't say anything to Cleo. She's being silly."

"That was your voice."

Gwen glanced at her long enough to say, "Well, obviously it wasn't."

She heard Cleo sigh deeply, and the mutt started nuzzling around her neck again. It made her wish that she had a dog back home in Philadelphia. Maybe a Labrador, or a Chihuahua, or even a terrier...

Just as the mutt let out another warbling bark, the voices started up again. This time it was Luke's phantom self, calling for help.

A lot happened in the next ten seconds.

The mutt jumped out of Gwen's lap and snapped its jaws at Cleo. In a flash, she had unsheathed her knives and driven one right into its throat.

Gwen leapt to her feet, her eyes brimming with tears. "You killed it!"

"I saved your life!" Cleo shot back, and pointed at the mutt. "Is that a dog to you?"

On closer inspection, the dying mutt looked less and less normal. It kept letting out garbled whimpers, but every now and then Gwen could hear a distinct "Luke!" in its voice― that was actually her voice.

Cleo stepped away to clean off her knives and sheath them again. Luke took Gwen by the shoulders and gave her a once-over, his brow furrowed.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"I'm fine," she muttered.

He took her hand and said, "No, you're not."

The dog-thing had left a scrape on the back of her hand when it used her as a launch pad. Gwen hardly cared, but Luke gave her a chunk of ambrosia to eat and insisted that they settle down for the night.

They wound up sleeping in the woods behind a gated community. Each time Luke tried to check up on her, Gwen pulled her sleeping bag tighter around herself.

"I'm okay," she kept insisting. "I'm just... Sleepy..."

It was a lot easier for Luke to take care of her when she was weighed down by exhaustion. He took her hand, slapped a bandage over the scrape, and ruffled her hair.

"Done." He chuckled. "Get some rest, Gwen."

He didn't need to tell her twice. She had conked out by the time he finished putting the bandage on her hand, and for the first time in ages, she fell into a dreamless sleep.