the_blood_of_olympus_-_rick_riordan

All eyes turned to Hazel.
‘How?’ Annabeth asked.
Frank put his arm around Hazel. ‘In Delos, Leo pulled the two of us aside. He pleaded with us to
help him.’
Through her tears, Hazel explained how she had switched the physician’s cure for an illusion – a
trick of the Mist – so that Leo could keep the real vial. Frank told them about Leo’s plan to destroy a
weakened Gaia with one massive fiery explosion. After talking with Nike and Apollo, Leo had been
certain that such an explosion would kill any mortal within a quarter of a mile, so he knew he would
have to get far away from everyone.
‘He wanted to do it alone,’ Frank said. ‘He thought there would be a slim chance that he, a son of
Hephaestus, could survive the fire, but if anyone was with him … He said that Hazel and I, being
Roman, would understand about sacrifice. But he knew the rest of you would never allow it.’
At first the others looked angry, like they wanted to scream and throw things. But, as Frank and
Hazel talked, the group’s rage seemed to dissipate. It was hard to be mad at Frank and Hazel when
they were both crying. Also … the plan sounded exactly like the sneaky, twisted, ridiculously
annoying and noble sort of thing Leo Valdez would do.
Finally Piper let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. ‘If he were here right now, I
would kill him. How was he planning to take the cure? He was alone!’
‘Maybe he found a way,’ Percy said. ‘This is Leo we’re talking about. He might come back any
minute. Then we can take turns strangling him.’
Nico and Hazel exchanged looks. They both knew better, but they said nothing.
The next day, the second since the battle, Romans and Greeks worked side by side to clean up the
warzone and tend the wounded. Blackjack the pegasus was recovering nicely from his arrow wound.
Guido had decided to adopt Reyna as his human. Reluctantly, Lou Ellen had agreed to turn her new
pet piglets back into Romans.
Will Solace hadn’t spoken with Nico since the encounter at the onager. The son of Apollo spent
most of his time in the infirmary, but whenever Nico saw him running across camp to fetch more
medical supplies, or make a house call on some wounded demigod, he felt a strange twinge of
melancholy. No doubt Will Solace thought Nico was a monster now, for letting Octavian kill himself.
The Romans bivouacked next to the strawberry fields, where they insisted on building their
standard field camp. The Greeks pitched in to help them raise the earthen walls and dig the trenches.
Nico had never seen anything stranger or cooler. Dakota shared Kool-Aid with the kids from the
Dionysus cabin. The children of Hermes and Mercury laughed and told stories and brazenly stole
things from just about everyone. Reyna, Annabeth and Piper were inseparable, roaming the camp as a
trio to check on the progress of the repairs. Chiron, escorted by Frank and Hazel, inspected the
Roman troops and praised them for their bravery.
By evening, the general mood had improved somewhat. The dining hall pavilion had never been so
crowded. The Romans were welcomed like old friends. Coach Hedge roamed among the demigods,
beaming and holding his baby boy and saying, ‘Hey, you want to meet Chuck? This is my boy,