We arrived at the ship's pier early in the morning, just after sunrise. The Princess Andromeda looked just like it had in the brochure, down to the figurehead on the front of the ship. Why anyone thought a chained and frightened woman made for a great figurehead, especially for a cruise ship, was beyond me. Mortals did the weirdest things. Thankfully, the pier and the boat's deck seemed to be deserted so we managed to get on the boarding ramp with a minimum of sneaking around and broken locks.

Our problems began when Rainbow absolutely refused to set foot aboard the cruise ship without assistance.

"You need to carry me." She said to Hector.

"What? But why?" He asked, eyes wide.

"If I were to trot, fly, or otherwise move myself across the threshold onto the Princess Andromeda, I will set off alarms. But halfbloods get to circumvent most rules, and the spells are not geared towards detecting them. You carrying me across is essentially a loophole."

"I'm not letting him set foot back on board that ship." Emily protested. "We've come this far, but this is where I put my foot down. I can't go back aboard the ship, and I'm not letting Hector go anywhere without me. Especially after these last few days."

Aww, she was so adorable when she tried to act like she was in charge. Luckily for her, I had absolutely no interest in babysitting a halfblood longer than was necessary. Our plan called for us to leave both of the kids here at the boarding ramp to await our return.

Rainbow shook her head. "He doesn't have to come with us, merely get me across the threshold."

Emily seemed to agonize over this, and I took charge. "Come on Hector, I'll help. You can go back to your sister once we're done."

Hector and I moved to pick up Rainbow, and I almost immediately threw out my back attempting to lift her.

"How much do you weigh?" I asked incredulously.

"You're really heavy." Hector agreed bluntly.

"Are you calling me fat?" Rainbow asked ominously.

I hesitated. "No, just dense. What are you even made of?"

"Primarily Gallium."

After a lot of straining, much grunting, and three breaks for rest, Rainbow was deposited on the decks of the cruise ship. And by deposited, I mean unceremoniously dropped on the deck. Hector scurried back to his relieved sister, and Rainbow and I found our way into the ship.

The first soul we came across was a member of the ship's crew. I almost immediately understood what Hector meant by them acting like broken robots.

"We're having a great time on the Princess Andromeda. The trivia game starts in six hours. We're having a great time…" The woman said in a daze. Her name tag identified her as Ana, of Slovenia.

I snapped my fingers in front of her face but got no response.

"It would be best for us to move on." Rainbow commented softly.

As we left the poor woman behind, something turned within me. How long has that woman been going through that routine? How long has it been since she was fully in control of herself? I was perfectly fine with using the Mist to mess with the perception of mortals, but this? What even was the point of it?

We came across a monster next. She was a telekhine, which brought up rather uncomfortable memories of Dogbreath. I turned to the side to see how Rainbow was taking the reminder and found myself alone.

"Man, that was one crazy day yesterday." The telekhine said as she joined me in my walk down the hall.

"Uh, yeah, totally." I hazarded. I really wasn't in the mood for shooting the breeze, but I also didn't want to arouse suspicions.

"I'm kind of glad Agrius and Oreius are gone. Oreius kept hitting on me in really awkward ways, and Agrius would make it worse by telling his brother to punish himself."

I nodded, pretending I knew what she was talking about.

"What did you think of the centaurs?"

"Uh, they have lots of legs." I said. I cursed myself for such a lame and vague statement, but the telekhine didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah, their lower body is amazing. Almost as great as the upper body…"

This was very uncomfortable.

"And the way they just rode to the rescue of those halfbloods, it was such a knight in shining armor moment. Well, you know, if the knight was half drunk and his armor was a party hat."

"Halfbloods?" I asked before I could stop myself.

The telekhine looked at me strangely. "Yeah, you know, Luke's totally not-girlfriend and the son of the sea god. Did you sleep through the fight yesterday in Miami or something?"

There had been a son of Poseidon on board? "Yeah. Sorry, I was up all the night before."

The telekhine whistled. "You missed out. Want to hear about it over breakfast?"

Shaking my head, I slithered faster. "No, I'm headed elsewhere. Don't let me keep you."

The telekhine seemed saddened, but went in a different direction at the next intersection. A moment later Rainbow descended from… somewhere, and rejoined me.

As we neared the cabin indicated on our brochures, I wondered about both my recent conversation and Rainbow's inexplicable knowledge of what magical protections this ship had. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe these kinds of spells were actually pretty common, and maybe a fight between monsters, centaurs, and halfbloods the day before was just a random event. Maybe there was a perfectly innocent explanation for this.

But my gut told me otherwise. It all but screamed that she was hiding something from me, and I didn't like it one bit. Not only because my gut rarely screamed anything other than 'FOOD!', but also because I thought she trusted me. If not a lot, then at least enough to explain what we were getting into fully.

I needed to find out. "So you're familiar with this ship? You seem to know what magic is protecting it."

She bobbed her head up and down, not looking back at me.

"So what is the story behind this ship? Why is someone going to all the trouble of mind whammying these mortals?"

She froze for a second, before resuming her trot. "The Princess Andromeda is controlled primarily by monsters. It also has a very small complement of halfbloods who are working with them. They are led by Luke Castellan."

That name rang a bell. I wanted to say he was part of that whole Thalia incident that had happened years ago, but I wasn't sure. In any case though, this was very quickly becoming more than just a random sorcerer if you had halfbloods and monsters working together.

Sure, I might be working with a halfblood; that happened sometimes. Monsters and halfbloods entering into short-term alliances were nothing new, and usually ended badly. But for this to have been going on for at least several weeks, and to involve numerous monsters and several halfbloods? And for them to fight other halfbloods?

"Rainbow, what's going on here? You aren't telling me something."

"Cabin 14A." She said in response, pointing at a door just up ahead.

I glared at her, but then focused on our objective. I found the door unlocked and opened it to reveal a homely little cabin. There were three suitcases, two green and one pink. Clothing and possessions were strewn about, and a unicorn stuffed animal sat on one of the beds.

There was just one thing missing. Unfortunately, that thing was the sibling's dad.

"Well this is a problem."

Meanwhile, at the Hermes travel security office aboard the Princess Andromeda…

"We're having a great time aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have you found my children yet? They seem to be missing." Asked a man in a daze.

The security officer looked back at him blankly. "We're having a great time searching for your kids aboard the Princess Andromeda. No, not yet."