"Y ou remember Briares throwing those boulders?" I asked.

 

Annabeth gave me a grudging smile. "And Grover causing a Panic?"

 

We locked eyes. I thought of a different time last summer, under Mount St.

Helens, when Annabeth thought I was going to die and she kissed me.

 

She cleared her throat and looked away. "Prophecy."

 

"Right." I put down the scimitar. "Prophecy."

 

We walked over to the window. On a three-legged stool sat the Oracle — a

shriveled female mummy m a tie-dyed dress. Tufts of black hair clung to her

skull. Glassy eyes stared out of her leathery face. Just looking at her made my

skin crawl.

 

If you wanted to leave camp during the summer, it used to be you had to come up

here to get a quest.

 

This summer, that rule had been tossed. Campers left all the time on combat

missions. We had no choice if we wanted to stop Kronos.

 

Still, I remembered too well the strange green mist — the spirit of the Oracle —

that lived inside the mummy. She looked lifeless now, but whenever she spoke a

prophecy, she moved. Sometimes fog gushed out of her mouth and created strange