[1] 𝐼𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑢𝑠 - 𝑃𝑒𝑟𝑐𝑦 𝐽𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑜𝑛

3.10

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BACK AT THE PLAZA, Percy had Thalia lock the pithos in a safe and passed out.

He had no idea when the next opportunity for sleep would be and he had to take this one.

But of course sleep only brought more nightmares.

Percy saw the undersea palace of his father. The enemy army was closer now, entrenched only a few hundred yards outside the palace. The fortress walls were completely destroyed. The temple his dad had used as his headquarters was burning with Greek fire.

Percy zoomed in on the armory, where his brother and some other Cyclopes were on lunch break, eating from huge jars of Skippy extra-chunky peanut butter (and don't ask how it tasted underwater, because Percy doesn't want to know). As he watched, the outer wall of the armory exploded. A Cyclops warrior stumbled inside, collapsing on the lunch table. Tyson knelt down to help, but it was too late. The Cyclops dissolved into sea silt.

Enemy giants moved toward the breach, and Tyson picked up the fallen warrior's club. He yelled something to his fellow blacksmiths—probably "For Poseidon!"—but with his mouth full of peanut butter it sounded like "PUH PTEH BUN!" His brethren all grabbed hammers and chisels, yelled, "PEANUT BUTTER!" and charged behind Tyson into battle.

Then the scene shifted. Percy was with Ethan Nakamura at the enemy camp. What he saw made him shiver, partly because the army was so huge, partly because he recognized the place.

They were in the backwoods of New Jersey, on a crumbling road lined with run-down businesses and tattered billboard signs. A trampled fence ringed a big yard full of cement statuary. The sign above the warehouse was hard to read because it was in red cursive, but Percy knew what it said: AUNTY EM'S GARDEN GNOME EMPORIUM.

He hadn't thought about the place in years. It was clearly abandoned. The statues were broken and spray-painted with graffiti. A cement satyr—Grover's Uncle Ferdinand—had lost his arm. Part of the warehouse roof had caved in. A big yellow sign pasted on the door read: CONDEMNED.

Hundreds of tents and fires surrounded the property. Mostly Percy saw monsters, but there were some human mercenaries in combat fatigues and demigods in armor, too. A purple-and-black banner hung outside the emporium, guarded by two huge blue Hyperboreans.

Ethan was crouched at the nearest campfire. A couple of other demigods sat with him, sharpening their swords. The doors of the warehouse opened, and Luke stepped out.

"Nakamura," he called. "Lord Kronos wants to speak with us."

One of the other demigods snickered. "Nice knowing you."

Ethan stood warily and walked close to Luke. He started whispering conspiratorially. "Does he know?"

"I don't know," Luke said, just as quiet. "But he suspects something."