BLOOD OF OLYMPUS

choice. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Music Man.’
They made the trade.
‘Excellent!’ Apollo turned the levers of the Valdezinator, which made a sound like a car engine on
a cold morning. ‘Hmm … perhaps it’ll take some practice, but I’ll get it! Now let us find your friends.
The sooner you leave, the better!’
Hazel and Frank waited at the Delos docks. Artemis was nowhere in sight.
When Leo turned to tell Apollo goodbye, the god was gone, too.
‘Man,’ Leo muttered, ‘he was really anxious to practice his Valdezinator.’
‘His what?’ Hazel asked.
Leo told them about his new hobby as a genius inventor of musical funnels.
Frank scratched his head. ‘And in exchange you got a daisy?’
‘It’s the final ingredient to cure death, Zhang. It’s a super daisy! How about you guys? Learn
anything from Artemis?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’ Hazel gazed across the water, where the Argo II bobbed at anchor. ‘Artemis
knows a lot about missile weapons. She told us Octavian has ordered some … surprises for Camp
Half-Blood. He’s used most of the legion’s treasure to purchase Cyclopes-built onagers.’
‘Oh, no, not onagers!’ Leo said. ‘Also, what’s an onager?’
Frank scowled. ‘You build machines. How can you not know what an onager is? It’s just the
biggest, baddest catapult ever used by the Roman army.’
‘Fine,’ Leo said. ‘But onager is a stupid name. They should’ve called them Valdezapults.’
Hazel rolled her eyes. ‘Leo, this is serious. If Artemis is right, six of these machines will be rolling
into Long Island tomorrow night. That’s what Octavian has been waiting for. At dawn on August first,
he’ll have enough firepower to completely destroy Camp Half-Blood without a single Roman
casualty. He thinks that’ll make him a hero.’
Frank muttered a Latin curse. ‘Except he’s also summoned so many monstrous “allies” that the
legion is completely surrounded by wild centaurs, tribes of dog-headed cynocephali, and who knows
what else. As soon as the legion destroys Camp Half-Blood, the monsters will turn on Octavian and
destroy the legion.’
‘And then Gaia rises,’ Leo said. ‘And bad stuff happens.’
In his head, gears turned as the new information clicked into place. ‘All right … this just makes my
plan even more important. Once we get this physician’s cure, I’m going to need your help. Both of
you.’
Frank glanced nervously at the cursed yellow daisy. ‘What kind of help?’
Leo told them his plan. The more he talked, the more shocked they looked, but when he was done
neither of them told him he was crazy. A tear glistened on Hazel’s cheek.
‘It has to be this way,’ Leo said. ‘Nike confirmed it. Apollo confirmed it. The others would never
accept it, but you guys … you’re Romans. That’s why I wanted you to come to Delos with me. You
get the whole sacrifice thing – doing your duty, jumping on your sword.’
Frank sniffled. ‘I think you mean falling on your sword.’