I tapped my fingers on the door frame and glanced ahead. The gridlock showed no signs of clearing.

"I'm hungry. Do you think I have enough time to go to get something to eat before we go anywhere?"

"Uhhhhhhh."

"I don't want McDonald's. I was just going to go in that convenient store."

"Uhhhhhhh."

"Excellent conversationalist," Vigil said.

"You just have to read between the lines. What is Jules-Albert really saying," I told him.

"Uhhhhhhh," Jules-Albert agreed.

I decided to wait until we got out of the city. It might take awhile but maybe I could find something better then.

I opened my book again. I had been reading about the demigod Zazu Nova and her role in the fighting and rioting in 1969 Greenwich Village. The writer was also a demigod and it was written through that lens.

I still preferred the stories from San Domino.

When I was little, my mother used to frighten me with stories of that island; if I didn't get it together I would end up there.

To keep up with a certain appearance, officials sent men and boys like me into exile on that island. It was meant to be a prison. Yet they were given the freedom to be themselves. They were accepted, even idolized by the locals.

It was supposed to be a prison and all I found were stories of hope and tolerance and free expression from the 'inmates'. Until they had to go home again.

Maybe I had found my San Domino.

I wouldn't change my identity to conform to the Romans. I would always be a Greek demigod. I just needed to be in New Rome for awhile.

I blinked and the sun was setting. I tried not to panic but several hours had passed without me noticing.

"What did you do," I yelled at Vigil.

I didn't get an answer from him but a sense of confusion. It hadn't been him and probably wasn't the Ghost King either.

I settled back in my seat and sighed. Nothing much had happened, we were finally out of the city. But the absences were happening more often; gaps in my memory that I couldn't account for.

What had I been doing during that time?

"Uhhhhhhh?"

"I'm fine. I'll be fine. That's why I'm going to New Rome."

"Uhhhhhhh?"

"The next town over. It's still an hour away."

I thought about the forced public outings and arrests preceding the riots and San Domino and how Will said marriage was an option nowadays.

Another blank space. I was sitting on a bed in an empty hotel room. I figured I had lost two hours or so. I didn't know if I had snuck in or paid for the room.

I paced the floor and tried to fight off the panic setting in. What happened? What had I done? How had I gotten here?

I filled the bathroom sink and sent Will an Iris Message. His image appeared in the water. He was doing paperwork. "Hey, I aced my AP exam. I just have one more semester to go before I can leave."

"That's great."

"You okay?"

"It's been... weird. It feels weird."

"Yeah. It might take awhile to get used to things."

There was a Mythomagic deck on one of the tables. I picked it up and flipped through it. It was a good deck. It gave me an idea.

"Maybe we could play a game or two," I said, feeling embarrassed even mentioning it.

"I don't have any...," he broke off mid sentence. He grabbed some blank paper and started drawing little images onto it. Card sized images. "I don't have any cards but I can make my own." He cut them into squares. "The Big Three and 12 Olympians plus a few monsters I know about. You can explain as we go."

I looked at the 'cards' and looked at him. Making fake cards just so he could spend time with me, this was such a Will Solace thing to do.

"You can't start a game with all those cards. It would be way overpowered. You can only have one of the Big Three per deck."

"Okay," he said pulling two cards out. "Goodbye, Poseidon and your dad. Sorry but I have to go with my grandpa. Not sure if Zeus would like me calling him that or not. I'm still using the cards I made for us."

"You did not make cards for us."

He grinned at me. "Yeah I did." He held them up for me to see. "There's a stipulation though. They work better together than separated."

"You're a dork."

"I wear it proudly."

"Okay, well the newest player has first round. So your turn."