First Person: Lucy
"Who's Aunt Rosa?" Hazel asked as we trekked onward.
"Long story," Leo said. "She abandoned me after my mom died, gave me to foster care."
"I'm sorry, Leo," Emily said.
"Yeah well…what about you, Hazel? What Nemesis said about your brother?" Hazel blinked, like she'd gotten salt in her eyes.
"Nico…he found me in the Underworld. He brought me back to the mortal world and convinced the Romans at Camp Jupiter to accept me. I owe him for my second chance at life. If Nemesis is right, and Nico's in danger…I have to help."
"You're not the only one worried," I said. "Nico and Veon have a soul bond. He knows his brother is in trouble. He's known it since he was captured. If you're worried about Nico, imagine how he feels. His brother has now become the closest person to him in a way, and he's more terrified for Nico than Nico himself is scared of his capture."
"What did Nemesis mean about him having six days to live, and Rome getting destroyed?" Leo wondered.
"You can ask Veon about Nico. As for Rome, well I'd assume that's some kind of deadline for a plan the giant's have or something. So many deadlines. Honestly, when was the last time there was a quest without a deadline? Though I suppose that's what makes a quest a quest." Hazel climbed one of the largest boulders to get a better view. I decided I could look around on the ground, but Leo tried to follow and lost his balance. Hazel caught his hand and pulled him up so they found themselves atop the rock, holding hands, face-to-face.
"Um, thanks." He let go of her hand, but they were still standing pretty close. Emily was looking to them before she turned to something else curiously.
"When we were talking to Nemesis," Hazel said uneasily. "Your hands…I saw flames."
"Yeah," Leo said. "It's a Hephaestus power. Usually I can keep it under control."
"Oh." She put one hand protectively on her denim shirt, over the pocket where she was keeping Frank's little firewood piece, like she was about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Leo looked at the island. The opposite shore was only a few hundred yards away, and between here and there were dunes and clumps of boulders, but nothing that looked like a reflecting pool.
I sensed he was considering Nemesis's words about him being the seventh wheel. He'd spent months along in Bunker 9 at Camp Half-Blood, working on his ship while his friends trained together and shared meals and played capture-the-flag for fun and prizes. Emily, Audrey and I joined him in working on the ship often, but even we were guilty of leaving for our own personal time. Piper and Jason had started dating, and their "quality time" didn't really include Leo either. Festus had been reduced to a figurehead, and Leo didn't have the technical skill to repair his control disk. He must've felt pretty lonely. We'd be there for Leo, and we'd never leave him out. He was one of the most important people of this quest, with his mechanical expertise and fire power. Even my team lacks expert technological skill, and we just get by with my ability to hack things with electricity.
"Leo, you can't take what Nemesis said to heart," I said. He frowned.
"What if it's true?"
"She's the goddess of revenge. Whether she's on our side or not, she exists to stir up resentment. Ignore what she says, or accept it. Just don't allow stuff like that get to you. You belong with us, and all of us are outsiders in some way."
"We should keep going," Hazel said. "I wonder what Nemesis meant about finishing before dark."
"Hello, do you know anything about a cursed boy?" Emily asked.
"Cursed boy," A girl's voice responded. I looked over and saw a young woman standing about ten feet from the base of the boulder. Her dress was a Greek-style tunic that was the same color as the rocks; her wispy hair was somewhere between brown and blond and gray, so it blended with the dry grass. She wasn't invisible, per se, but she was almost perfectly camouflaged until she moved, and even then, it was hard to focus on her. If not for the enhanced vision from the goddess and that of an archer, I might have gotten dizzy trying to concentrate and find her every time I blinked.
"Who are you?" Hazel asked.
"Who are you?" The girl repeated. Her voice sounded weary, like she was tired of answering that question.
"Are you the cursed kind Nemesis mentioned?" Leo asked. "But you're a girl."
"You're a girl," She repeated.
"Excuse me?"
"Excuse me," She said miserably.
"You're repeating…" I muttered. "A girl cursed to repeat things…You're Echo."
"Echo," She agreed. She shifted, her dress changing with the landscape. Her eyes were the color of salt water, and the features of her face were near impossible to make out without my powers.
"I don't remember the myth," Leo admitted.
"You were cursed to repeat the last thing you heard?" Emily guessed.
"You heard," Echo replied.
"Poor thing," Hazel said. "If I remember right, a goddess did this?"
"A goddess did this," Echo confirmed.
"I think it was Hera," I said.
"It was Hera," She agreed. Leo scratched his head.
"But wasn't that thousands of years…oh. You're one of the mortals who came back through the Doors of Death. I really wish we could stop running into dead people."
"Dead people," Echo said, like she was chastising him. He realized Hazel was staring at her feet.
"Uh…sorry. I didn't mean it that way."
"That way." Echo pointed toward the far shore of the island.
"You want to show us something?" Hazel asked. She and Leo climbed down the boulder.
"You sure you're real?" Leo asked. " I mean…flesh and blood?"
"Flesh and blood." She touched Leo's face and made him flinch. I touched her wrist and felt she was warm.
"She's alive as any other creature," I confirmed.
"Alive as any other creature," Echo agreed.
"So…you have to repeat everything?" He asked.
"Everything." A smile creeped onto Leo's face.
"That could be fun."
"Fun," She said unhappily.
"Blue elephants."
"Blue elephants."
"Kiss me, you fool."
"You fool."
"Hey!"
"Hey!"
"Nice one, Echo," I said.
"Nico one," She agreed.
"Leo, don't tease her," Emily ordered.
"Don't tease her," Echo agreed.
"What were you showing us? Do you need our help?"
"Help," She agreed emphatically. She gestured for us to follow and sprinted down the slope. It was hard to track her progress if not for the movement of the grass where she walked and the shimmer of her dress as it changed to match the rocks.
"Better hurry or we'll lose her," I said and we hurried after her. Echo led us down into a grassy meadow shaped like a blast crater, with a small pond in the middle. Gathered at the water's edge were several dozen nymphs, similar to the ones at Camp Half-Blood, wearing gossamer dresses. Their feet were bare, they had elfish features, and their skin had a slightly greenish tinge. They were all crowded together in one spot, facing the point and jostling for a better view. Several held up phone cameras, trying to get a shot over the heads of the others, they were bouncing up and down and giggling excitedly. I had never seen nymphs with phones before, but there was a vague memory of this from Zyanya's memories. I couldn't recall it right away, the memory of a god hard to sort with my human brain, but it did seem familiar.
"What are they looking at?" Emily wondered. "They seem pretty excited."
"They're fangirl-ing at something," I realized.
"Something," Echo sighed.
"Only one way to find out what," Hazel said. She marched forward and began nudging her way through the crowd. "Excuse me. Pardon me."
"Hey!" One nymph complained. "We were here first!"
"Yeah," Another sniffed. "He won't be interested in you." The second nymph had large red hearts painted on her cheeks, and over her dress, she wore a T-shirt that read: OMG, I 3 N! Yep, they were fangirl-ing.
"Demigod business," I announced. Make way, please."
" We pose no threat," Emily said. "Please allow us through." The nymphs grumbled, but they parted to reveal a young man kneeling at the edge of the pond, gazing intently at the water. He had a chiseled face with lips and eyes that were somewhere between feminine beautiful and masculine handsome. Dark hair swept over his brow. He might've been seventeen or twenty, it was hard to say, but he was built like a dancer - with long graceful arms and muscular legs, perfect posture and an air of regal calm. He wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans, with a bow and quiver strapped to his back. The weapons obviously hadn't been used for a while, as the arrows were covered in dust and a spider had woven a web in the top of the bow. His face was unusually golden, and I realized that the light of the sunset was bouncing off a large flat sheet of Celestial bronze that lay at the bottom of the pond. He seemed fascinated with his reflection in the metal.
"He's gorgeous," Hazel said. Around her, the nymphs squealed and clapped in agreement.
"Really?" I asked in disbelief. Sure, he wasn't ugly, but I wasn't one to swoon over him. Now I wasn't a person who cared much for looks in someone. Where most people complained about their appearance (acne and such) I found people looked fine and didn't have to cover up with makeup or anything. Hygiene was important, of course, but those with acne didn't necessarily look bad, and dressing elaborately just overdid things. People looked more natural when they weren't trying too hard. My point? I really didn't understand why these girls were so obsessed with this guy. Granted, that was how I felt about most people who had fangirls and thought they were the best looking thing in the world.
Now Veon looked like he was barely trying in the morning, his hair always a mess, his outfit basically the same every day and wrinkled like he'd just thrown on whatever was closest. I sometimes questioned if he wore the same shirt every day or whether he just had a million black shirts in his wardrobe. He always wore dark colors and wasn't a guy who was looking to be popular like this with a bunch of girls all over him (thank goodness considering I was dating him). He was a son of Hades, making him dark and intimidating, able to give a death glare that would have anyone cowering in fear, but I liked that for some reason. I wasn't someone to swoon over anyone or anything, but he made me the closest I'd ever get. What were we talking about again? Oh, right. Dude with a bunch of fangirl nymphs.
"I am," The young man murmured dreamily, his gaze still fixed on the water. "I am so gorgeous." One of the nymphs showed her iPhone screen.
"His latest YouTube video got a million hits in like, an hour. I think I was half of those!" The other nymphs giggled.
"YouTube video?" Leo asked. "What does he do in the video? Sing?"
"No, silly!" The nymph chided. "He used to be a prince, and a wonderful hunter and stuff. But that doesn't matter. Now he just…well, look!" She showed the video. It was exactly what we were seeing in real life - the guy staring at himself in the pond.
"Riveting," I said with heavy sarcasm.
"He is sooo hot!" Another of the girls said. Her T-shirt read: MRS. NARCISSUS.
"Narcissus?" Emily asked.
"Narcissus," Echo agreed sadly.
"Oh, not you again!" Mrs. Narcissus tried to push Echo away, but she misjudged where the camouflaged girl was and ended up shoving several other nymphs.
"You had your chance, Echo!" Said the nymph with the iPhone. "He dumped you four thousand years ago! You are so not good for him."
"For him," Echo said bitterly.
"Wait," Hazel said, clearly having trouble tearing her eyes away from Narcissus. "What's going on here? Why did Echo bring us here?" One nymph rolled her eyes. She was holding an autograph pen and a crumpled poster of Narcissus.
"Echo was a nymph like us, a long time ago, but she was a total chatterbox! Gossiping, blah, blah, blah, all the time."
"I know!" Another nymph shrieked. "Like, who could stand that?! Just the other day, I told Cleopeia - you know, she lives in the boulder next to me? - I said: "Stop gossiping or you'll end up like Echo." Cleopeia is such a big mouth! Did you hear what she said about that cloud nymph and the satyr?"
"Totally!" Said the nymph with the poster. "So anyway, as punishment for blabbing, Hera cursed Echo so she could only repeat things, which was fine with us. But then Echo fell in love with our gorgeous guy, Narcissus - as if he would ever notice her."
"As if!" Said half a dozen others.
"Now she's got some weird idea he needs saving," said Mrs. Narcissus. "She should just go away."
"Go away," Echo growled back.
"I'm so glad Narcissus is alive again," Another nymph in a gray dress said. She had the words NARCISSUS + LAIEA written up and down her arms in black marker. "He's like, the best! And he's in my territory."
"Oh, stop it, Laiea," Her friend said. "I'm the pond nymph. You're just the rock nymph."
"Well, I'm the grass nymph," Another protested.
"No, he obviously came here because he likes the wildflowers!" Another declared. "Those are mine!" The whole mob began arguing while Narcissus stared at the lake, ignoring them. I put my hand to my forehead and muttered a few things in Japanese.
"Hold it!" Leo yelled. "Ladies, hold it! I need to ask Narcissus something." Slowly the nymphs settled down and went back to taking pictures. Leo knelt next to the handsome dude. "So, Narcissus. What's up?"
"Could you move?" Narcissus asked distractedly. "You're ruining the view." Leo looked into the water and saw his own reflection rippling next to Narcissus's on the surface of the submerged bronze. There was no doubt that the metal was a sheet of hammered Celestial bronze, roughly circular, about five feet in diameter. What it was doing in this pond, who knew? Celestial bronze fell to earth in odd places. A lot of it was from Hephaestus's various workshops, who would lose his temper and toss away the scraps of projects that didn't work out. This piece looked like it might have been meant as a shield for a god, but it hadn't turned out properly. I would think that it might be enough for the ship's repairs.
"Right, great view," Leo said. "Happy to move, but if you're not using it, could I just take that sheet of bronze?"
"No," Narcissus said. "I love him. He's so gorgeous." I looked to see the nymphs swooning and nodding in agreement. Only Hazel seemed appalled, wrinkling her nose as if she'd come to the conclusion that Narcissus smelled worse than he looked. Emily looked mostly confused by the nymphs' reactions, and I just rolled my eyes.
"Man," Leo said to Narcissus. "You do realize that you're looking at yourself in the water, right?"
"I am so great," Narcissus sighed. "He stretched out his hand longingly to touch the water, but held back. "No, I can't make ripples. That ruins the image. Wow…I am so great."
"Yeah, but if I took the bronze, you could still see yourself in the water."
"Here," I said, pulling out a hand mirror from my bag and giving it to Leo. "Try that."
"I'll trade you." Narcissus took the mirror, reluctantly, and admired himself.
"Even you carry a picture of me? I don't blame you. I am gorgeous. Thank you." He set the mirror down and returned his attention to the pond. "But I already have a much better image. The color flatters me, don't you think?"
"Oh, gods, yes!" A nymph screamed. "Marry me, Narcissus!"
"No me!" Another cried. "Would you sign my poster?!"
"No, sign my shirt!"
"No, sign my forehead!"
"No, sign my-!"
"Stop it!" Hazel snapped.
"Stop it," Echo agreed. Echo was kneeling on the opposite side of Narcissus, waving her hand in front of his face as if trying to break his concentration, but Narcissus didn't even blink. The nymph fan club tried to shove Hazel out of the way, but she drew her cavalry sword and forced them back. Emily was holding her hands out, trying to keep a fight from breaking out. No doubt a bunch of angry nymphs would cause some harm.
"Snap out of it!" Hazel yelled.
"He won't sign your sword," The poster nymph complained.
"He won't marry you," The iPhone girl said. "And you can't take his bronze mirror! That's what keeps him here!"
"You're all ridiculous," I muttered. "He's so full of himself. How can you possibly like him?"
"Like him," Echo sighed, still waving her hand in front of his face. The others sighed along with her.
"I am so hot," Narcissus said sympathetically.
"Oh please," I muttered with another eye roll. I didn't care any for guys who were hot, and if anything, it just made me want to toss them off a cliff and bring them down to earth. Veon, now he was more cute than hot, not overdoing it but still being annoyingly irresistible even though he didn't seem to know it. He smelled like death, which I oddly enough found nice. I digress. Moving on.
"Narcissus, listen," Hazel said, keeping her sword at the ready. "Echo brought us here to help you. Didn't you, Echo?"
"Echo," Said Echo.
"Who?" Narcissus said.
"The only girl who cares about what happens to you, apparently," Hazel said. "Do you remember dying?" Narcissus frowned.
"I…no. That can't be right. I am much too important to die."
"He died staring at himself," I remembered. "Nemesis was the goddess who cursed him, because he broke so many hearts. His punishment was to fall in love with his own reflection."
"I love me so, so much," Narcissus agreed.
"You finally died. There are a couple versions of the story. You either drowned yourself or turned into a flower hanging over the water or…Well, you get the picture."
"The point is you're alive again," Emily said. "You have a second chance. That's what Nemesis was telling us. You can get up, and get on with your life. Echo is trying to save you from what happened last time. You can move on with your life, or you can stay here and stare at yourself until you die again."
"Stay here!" All the nymphs screamed and I wished, for once, that I didn't have the sensitive ears of an Apollo descendant. They screeched like banshees, for Order's sake.
"Marry me before you die!" Another squeaked. Narcissus shook his head.
"You just want my reflection. I don't blame you, but you can't have it. I belong to me." Hazel sighed in exasperation. I glanced at the sun and saw that it was setting fast.
"Leo, Hazel, Emily, can I talk to you for a minute?" I requested, nodding towards the edge of the crater. "Echo, want to come with too?"
"Come with too," She confirmed. The nymphs clustered around Narcissus again and began recording new videos and taking more photos. We walked off until we were out of earshot.
"They were certainly…different," Emily commented.
"Nemesis was right," Hazel said. "Some demigods can't change their nature. Narcissus is going to stay there until he dies again."
"It is a curse from Hera. I don't think he has a choice in the matter."
"No," Leo said.
"No," Echo agreed.
"We need that bronze. If we take it away, it might give Narcissus a reason to snap out of it. Echo could have a chance to save him."
"A chance to save him," Echo said gratefully. Hazel stabbed her sword in the sand.
"It could also make several dozen nymphs very angry with us, and Narcissus might still know how to shoot his bow."
"That bow was in no condition to be used anyway," I said. "Those things take maintenance if you're not a god like Apollo. As for the nymphs, well, I might be able to hold them off long enough if we can get the bronze. Hazel, have you learned to summon the metal to you yet?" She frowned.
"Sometimes I can summon things, yes. I've never tried with a piece of Celestial bronze that big before. I might be able to draw it to me through the earth, but I'd have to be fairly close. It would take a lot of concentration, and it wouldn't be fast."
"Be fast," Echo warned.
"I might be able to give you a power boost thanks to my mother's properties, however we're most likely going to need some kind of distraction even then. Narcissus is looking at the thing all the time, and there's no way that he's not gonna notice it disappearing, no matter how fast Hazel is."
"All right, we're gonna have to try something risky," Leo said. "Hazel, how about you try to summon the bronze from right here? Make it sink through the sand and tunnel over to you, then grab it and run for the ship. The rest of us will cause a distraction."
"Distraction?" Echo asked.
"Have anything in mind?" Emily asked.
"Yes, I'll explain. Are you willing?"
"Willing," Echo said firmly.
"We're in," I said. "I think I know what you're going to say."
"Great, now let's hope we don't die."
