the_blood_of_olympus_-_rick_riordan

xxi
Reyna
AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T END UP ON ANOTHER CRUISE SHIP.
The jump from Portugal had landed them in the middle of the Atlantic, where Reyna had spent her
whole day on the lido deck of the Azores Queen, shooing little kids off the Athena Parthenos, which
they seemed to think was a waterslide.
Unfortunately, the next jump brought Reyna home.
They appeared ten feet in the air, hovering over a restaurant courtyard that Reyna recognized. She
and Nico dropped onto a large birdcage, which promptly broke, dumping them into a cluster of potted
ferns along with three very alarmed parrots. Coach Hedge hit the canopy over a bar. The Athena
Parthenos landed on her feet with a THUMP, flattening a patio table and flipping a dark green
umbrella, which settled onto the Nike statue in Athena’s hand, so the goddess of wisdom looked like
she was holding a tropical drink.
‘Gah!’ Coach Hedge yelled. The canopy ripped and he fell behind the bar with a crash of bottles
and glasses. The satyr recovered well. He popped up with a dozen miniature plastic swords in his
hair, grabbed the soda gun and served himself a drink.
‘I like it!’ He tossed a wedge of pineapple into his mouth. ‘But next time, kid, can we land on the
floor and not ten feet above it?’
Nico dragged himself out of the ferns. He collapsed into the nearest chair and waved off a blue
parrot that was trying to land on his head. After the fight with Lycaon, Nico had discarded his
shredded aviator jacket. His black skull-pattern T-shirt wasn’t in much better shape. Reyna had
stitched up the gashes on his biceps, which gave Nico a slightly creepy Frankenstein look, but the cuts
were still swollen and red. Unlike bites, werewolf claw marks wouldn’t transmit lycanthropy, but
Reyna knew firsthand that they healed slowly and burned like acid.
‘I’ve gotta sleep.’ Nico looked up in a daze. ‘Are we safe?’
Reyna scanned the courtyard. The place seemed deserted, though she didn’t understand why. This
time of night, it should’ve been packed. Above them, the evening sky glowed a murky terracotta, the
same colour as the building’s walls. Ringing the atrium, the second-storey balconies were empty
except for potted azaleas hanging from the white metal railings. Behind a wall of glass doors, the
restaurant’s interior was dark. The only sound was the fountain gurgling forlornly and the occasional
squawk of a disgruntled parrot.
‘This is Barrachina,’ Reyna said.
‘What kind of bear?’ Hedge opened a jar of maraschino cherries and chugged them down.
‘It’s a famous restaurant,’ Reyna said, ‘in the middle of Old San Juan. They invented the piña