She tied her blond hair back with a strip of denim torn from her pants leg, and in the fiery light of the river, her grey eyes flickered. Despite being beat-up, sooty, and dressed like a homeless person, she looked great to Percy. So what if they were in Tartarus? So what if they stood a slim chance of surviving? He was so glad that they were together, he had the ridiculous urge to smile.

That sounded about as likely as Apophis and Ra becoming Facebook buddies, but I decided not to say anything.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The passengers cheered. Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody get back on board!

It’s not important,” Silena insisted. “We have to find Charlie!” Another first: a child of Aphrodite uninterested in jewellery.

The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream. "Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?" Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.) He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face. "Nothing," he muttered. "we were just cuddling. Um, what's going on?

I love teaching. I love working with kids... maybe some day I'll go back to the classroom. I'm not ready to say it'll never happen.

After all the dangerous adventures I'd had, I couldn't die like this. Sadie would be devastated. Then, once she got over her grief, she'd track down my soul in the Egyptian afterlife and tease me mercilessly for how stupid I'd been.