mastermind - percy jackson

viii. "blessing"

"a blessing from the wild"

They arrived on the outskirts of Cloudcroft, New Mexico. It was nestled into the mountains and was as far as they could tell, just another little ski town.

The air was cold and thin with the roofs of cabins being heaped with snow and dirty mounds of it were piled on the sides of the streets. Tall pine trees overlooked the valley.

Everyone was freezing besides Cassandra who had given Bianca her parka after she noticed she was shivering, leaving her in nothing but a thin t-shirt. But even then she felt fine. The cold felt like a normal perfect temperature day which made Percy look at her funny and Thalia glare at her.

Then again, Percy had been looking at her funny ever since he had woken up.

Percy explained his conversation with Apollo and how they needed to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.

Grover looked uneasy "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."

The group stopped in the middle of the town. You could pretty much see everything from there: a school, a bunch of tourist stores and cafes, some ski cabins, and a grocery store.

"Great" Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."

"There's a coffee shop!" Grover said.

"Yes" Zoe said. "Coffee is good."

"I could use a warm drink" Cassandra said.

"And pastries" Grover said dreamily "And wax paper."

Thalia sighed, "Fine. How about you three go get us some food. Percy, Bianca, and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."

They nodded and Cassandra turned towards Zoe before walking towards a coffee shop down the street.

Grover walked ahead of them, urging them to go faster to get pastries, wax paper, and coffee.

"When did you get thy bag and a necklace?" Zoe asked her.

"Apollo gave them to me. I guess the necklace is a gift from Nemesis." The blonde stated, her hand playing with the moon pendant.

"He visited thee?"

"Yes. Spoiled my book for me too," She huffed.

"Why did he give thee the necklace?" Zoe asked.

"I don't know. He just said the time was right and that I couldn't lose it."

Zoe looked confused. "That doesn't sound good."

"I want to know what it is. It can't just be a necklace" Cassandra said, examining it once again.

"Maybe it is a weapon?" Zoe suggested. Cassandra simply shrugged.

"Come on. I don't feel like listening to this satyr yell at us to hurry up, anymore."

They reached the coffee shop and entered. "Hi can we get three coffee's, just throw some creams and sugars in the bag, three hot chocolates, and six of your best muffins?" Cassandra asked the lady working the register.

"Whipped cream on the hot chocolate?" The lady, whose name tag said she was named Hillary, asked.

"Two with and one without. Oh and marshmallows in the two with whipped cream" Hillary nodded, pushing her glasses up on her nose as she tapped buttons on the computer

"Twenty eight dollars." Cassandra reached into her bag, pulling out her wallet and handing her two twenties. "Keep the change."

"Thank you." Hillary said before leaving to make their order. Moments later she came back holding two drink trays which she set on the counter before going to get their muffins. When she came back with the muffins they said thank you before walking outside holding the trays and pastries.