I told you I try not to live in the past and nothing could change the fact that my mum was gone. But I’m a liar. The truth was, I’d had one dream ever since I was six: to see my mum again. To actually get to know her, talk to her, go shopping, do anything. Just be with her once so I could have a better memory to hold on to.

Gaea?” Leo shook his head. “Isn’t that Mother Nature? She’s supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and dear and rabbits doing her laundry.” “Leo, that’s Snow White,” Piper said.

I try to craft books that are fun, that are sort of subversively educational so kids learn but they don't really feel like they're being lectured to, and I want kids to always finish one of my books and think, "That was great, where's the next one?"

Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants' revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and the dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera's rage.

They sped by a pack of sea lions lounging on the docks, and she swore she saw an old homeless guy sitting among them. From across the water the old man pointed a bony finger at Percy and mouthed something like 'Don't even think about it.' "Did you see that?" Hazel asked. Percy's face was red in the sunset. "Yeah. I've been here before. I...I don't know. I think I was looking for my girlfriend." "Annabeth," Frank said. "You mean, on your way to Camp Jupiter?" Percy frowned. "No. Before that.

Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards.

Annabeth frowned. "That doesn't make sense. But why were you visiting --" Her eyes widened. "Hermes said you bear the curse of Achilles. Hestia said the same thing. Did you . . . did you bathe in the River Styx?" "Don't change the subject." "Percy! Did you or not?" "Um . . .maybe a little.