I don't feel that way anymore," Nico muttered. "I mean... I gave up on Percy. I was young and impressionable, and I- I don't..." His voice cracked, and Jason could tell the guy was about to get teary-eyed. Whether Nico had really given up on Percy or not, Jason couldn't imagine what it had been like for Nico all those years, keeping a secret that would've been unthinkable to share in the 1940s, denying who he was, feeling completely alone- even more isolated than other demigods. "Nico," he said gently, "I've seen a lot of brave things. But what you did? That was maybe the bravest.

It’s hard to look in charge when you’re hunched over like Quasimodo.

Getting something and having the wits to use it...those are two different things.

Never seen Jason fly before," Percy grumbled. "He looks like a blond Superman

He'd changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He look like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.

Aphrodite: Pfft. That's not the point. Follow your heart. Percy: But... I don't know where it's going. My heart, I mean.

Stacy Schiff is that rare combination: a first-rate historian and a brilliant storyteller. Using a wide range of sources, she spins straw into gold, conjuring the world of Ptolemaic Egypt in full vibrant color, and returning the voice of one of the most powerful, fascinating, and maligned women in history. Cleopatra is impossible to put down.