Chapter 18 I Bond with Clarisse by Trying to Kill Her #2
Argus still wasn’t present at dinner, which I took as a personal insult.
Best-case scenarios: He was up on Mount Olympus pleading for help, or he was rifling through dusty tomes looking for information the way he’d promised—the way Clarisse had actually done.
More likely: He was hiding because he didn’t have any answers and he didn’t want to face me.
And here I’d kept up my end of the bargain by having a “normal” day at camp.
After dinner, I was the first person in the kitchen for KP duty. I was already through half the dishes when the others started to arrive.
Harper’s eyes went wide. “How did you already get so much done?”
“I convinced some of your cabinmates to bring the dirty dishes down,” I said.
Harper frowned like he was trying to translate that statement from a foreign language. “You…convinced Aphrodite kids to help with kitchen chores? How? Bribery? Are you a charmspeaker now?”
“Nope,” I said. “I just explained to Olympia how the lava really opens up your facial pores. Great complement to her skin-care regimen.”
Zuri and Benny exchanged a look.
“That’s genius, actually,” said Benny.
I shrugged. “Well, nobody said we couldn’t outsource labor.”
As the others pulled on their fireproof gear and got to work, Zuri eyed me warily. We hadn’t spoken since the infirmary, and she was clearly still in a bad mood.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” she asked. “Got a hot date?”
“I do,” I said, lifting my chin. “With the Wild Omada, remember? We’re going back to the Wild Zone tonight.”
The silence that followed wasn’t exactly encouraging.
“Not to be negative,” Benny said, “but do we know any more than we did yesterday? I’ve had zero luck getting information.”
“Same,” Harper grumbled. “I admit I wasn’t on my A game…
.” He touched the thin scar on his lip. “But if we’re going into the Zone with no intel, personally I’d rather play Will He Eat This?
with Lex. Last night, for example, I learned that he won’t eat a gallon of bacon grease.
That smell is never gonna come out of my clothes. ”
I held up a hand. “I have new information. Several things. The first”—I turned to Zuri—“involves a blue-and-orange feather.”
“That’s nothing new.” Zuri patted her hoodie’s front pocket, where she must have been keeping her feather. “I showed you that yesterday.”
“Except a second one was found”—I looked around at the others and lowered my voice—“near Silas’s panpipes, after he disappeared. Right on the border of the Wild Zone.”
Now I had everyone’s attention. Harper didn’t even seem to notice the lava dripping off a plate he was holding until a floor tile exploded with a loud POP!
“So something did take Silas,” Benny said.
“Seems like it,” I said. “Probably the same thing that took Grant.”
I waited for Zuri to speak up. The night before, she’d hinted pretty strongly that she knew what kind of monster we might be dealing with. But now she just continued rinsing dishes, her eyes smoldering almost as much as the lava.
“That’s not all,” I continued.
I proceeded to tell them everything I’d learned from eavesdropping on Argus and the satyrs (not much), and then actually talking to Argus (still not much), and then comparing notes with Clarisse (a fair amount, with the bonus of polearm-fighting to the death…well, near-death).
Harper shook his head. “So…wait. This doesn’t make sense. You’re saying that for hundreds of years Chiron has been sprinkling dangerous magic items around the Wild Zone like Easter eggs? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I don’t think he ever intended them to be found again. Something happened. Something changed.”
I remembered the fissure in the woods. What had the hooded man called it? Collateral damage. A mere scratch. He’d warned I would have to go deeper into the Wild Zone to find answers.
“But there are legit, dangerous magical artifacts in the Wild Zone,” I said. “And something is guarding them.”
“Except your ring isn’t magic,” Zuri said. “We saw you put it on. Nothing happened.”
“Yeah, about that…” With a deep breath, I took off my gloves, slid the ring on my finger, and twisted the band.
Zuri dropped her jaw.
Harper dropped a plate.
Benny dropped a curse word that probably would’ve shocked his cows back home.
I glanced down to make sure the ring hadn’t developed the ability to make only my clothes invisible or something. That would be just my luck. But nope, all of me was gone.
A feeling of smug satisfaction washed over me. The other newbies were staring in awe at the place they’d just seen me, as if they couldn’t believe I was capable of doing something so amazing. Idiots. Maybe if I dunked their heads in lava…
“Gah!” I yanked the ring off my finger.
Even though they’d literally seen me disappear, everyone jumped.
“I knew it!” Harper punched the air with his fist. “It’s the One Ring!”
I didn’t share his enthusiasm. “It certainly feels cursed like that. Whenever I put it on, these evil impulses smash through my skull and terrorize my brain.”
Zuri’s nostrils flared. “Okay, that’s a horrifying way to describe intrusive thoughts.”
I leaned wearily against the wall. “I learn a lot of synonyms doing crosswords.”
Harper almost stroked his chin, but then remembered he was wearing steaming hazmat gloves. “Well, since we can’t take the ring to Mordor, maybe you had the right idea before, to drop it in lava.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think we should quite yet. The ring could still be useful.”
“Sure,” said Zuri. “If it doesn’t make you power-bomb every woodland creature we come across.”
I blinked at her. “First of all, my ring rage seems to be limited to people.”
Or trees, I thought. Or hallucinations.
But I decided not to bring that up.
“Second,” I said, “if this ring is part of some monster’s treasure stash, the monster might want it back.”
The others grew still.
“You’re talking about using yourself as bait,” Benny said.
“Absolutely not,” Harper said.
“It might work,” Zuri said.
We all stared at her.
She spread her hands. “Look, I don’t know if this thing in the woods is really…
” She grimaced, as if she couldn’t make herself say the word.
“I don’t know if it’s what I fear it is.
I don’t see how it could be, for—for a number of reasons.
But whatever it is, if it’s abducting people, we have to find it and kill it. ”
She said this in the same casual tone I might’ve used to say We have to finish our diorama for science class.
“Are you sure you’re not the one we have to worry about power-bombing woodland critters?” I asked.
Harper raised his hand, now ungloved. “Can I just question the glaringly obvious? Why are there dangerous monsters in the Wild Zone to begin with? We keep asking that, but I haven’t heard a good answer yet. How did they even get through the camp’s borders?”
Benny stacked the last of the clean plates. “Some mythical creatures can be allowed in. Like the harpies.” His brow furrowed. “But you’ve got a point. Whatever this thing is that took Grant and Silas, the counselors and security team clearly can’t handle it. They don’t even seem to know about it.”
“But Chiron did,” I said.
“Okay,” Benny said. “Let’s assume Chiron allowed a hugely dangerous, people-eating monster inside the camp’s boundaries and then confined it to the Wild Zone. Why? Just so he could bring it shiny cursed magic items from time to time?”
The rest of us fell silent.
I shook my head. “The only way we’re getting those answers is by going back into the Wild Zone. We can’t wait any longer. We have to find Silas and Grant.”
“If they’re still alive,” Zuri muttered. “Which I doubt.”
I spun to face her.