I am Persephone" she said, her voice thin and papery. "Welcome, demigods. Nico squashed a pomegranate under his boot. "Welcome? After last time, you've got the nerve to welcome me?" I shifted uneasily, because talking that way to a god can get you blasted into dust bunnies. "Um, Nico-" "It's all right," Persephone said coldly. "We had a little family spat." "Family spat?" Nico cried. "You turned me into a dandelion!

The pinecone is a fearsome tool of destruction! -Bacchus

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.

[Jason] faltered when he looked at Leo, who was mimicking taking notes with an air pencil. “Go on, Professor Grace!” he said, wide-eyed. “I wanna get an A on the test.

The sea does not like to be restrained.

Hazel screamed at the top of her lungs, but it was a scream of delight. For the first time in her life-in her two lives-she felt absolutely unstoppable.

But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects.