First Person: Emily

After Shrimpzilla had sunk into the deep and disappeared along with our friends, Annabeth, Coach Hedge, and Buford the table rushed around repairing things so that the ship wouldn't sink. Percy, despite being exhausted, searched the ocean for our missing friends. Jason, also exhausted, flew around the rigging like a blond Peter Pan, putting out fires from the second green explosion that had lit up the sky just above the mainmast.

As for Piper, she stared at her knife desperately trying to find them. The only visions she saw were the ones she didn't want to see: three black SUVs driving north from Charleston, packed with Roman demigods, Reyna sitting at the wheel of the lead car. Giant eagles escorted them from above. Every so often, glowing purple spirits in ghostly chariots appeared out of the countryside and fell in behind them, thundering up I-95 toward New York and Camp Half-Blood. She tried concentrating harder, but only saw the nightmarish images she had seen before: the human-headed bull rising from the water, then the dark well-shaped room filling with black water as Jason, Percy, Audrey, and she struggled to stay afloat.

"Piper, that's enough," I said, and she sighed before sheathing Katoptris. "They're going to be fine. If Zy and Audrey went down to save them, then it's unlikely that they're dead."

"But what if they're trapped somewhere, like they were kidnapped underwater or something? And if Percy can't find them, then it means something bad." Festus creaked something, but none of us could understand what he was saying. Maybe Festus is getting some kind of signal from them. It could've been a distress signal, or it could've been a "we're fine" signal. I was going for the latter. I convinced the others to stay calm, but they refused to go to sleep.

By the time the sun rose, no one had gotten any rest. Percy had scoured the seafloor and found nothing. The Argo II was no longer in danger of sinking, though without Leo, we couldn't do full repairs. The ship was capable of sailing, but no one suggested leaving the area - not without our missing friends. I knew that Hazel and Veon would want us to continue on to Rome for Nico, as we were running out of time, but the worry that the remaining crew shared was firm. We weren't going to leave without them. With Zy, Veon, and Audrey down there, not to mention Kaze, I knew that they would protect Leo, Frank, and Hazel no matter what, and they just needed a little more time to figure things out and then get back to the surface.

Piper, Annabeth, and I sent a dream vision to Camp Half-Blood, warning Chiron of what had happened with the Romans at Fort Sumter. Annabeth and I explained the exchange with Reyna, and Piper relayed the vision from her knife about the SUVs racing north. The kindly centaur's face seemed to age thirty years during the course of our conversation, but he assured us he would see to the defenses of the camp, and that Zy had promised she'd send some help as well earlier. She didn't say what, but she promised on the Styx that Camp Half-Blood would not fall under her watch. Tyson, Mrs. O'Leary, and Ella had arrived safely. If necessary, Tyson could summon an army of Cyclopes to the camp's defense, and Ella and Rachel Dare were already comparing prophecies, trying to learn more about what the future held. The job of the seven demigods aboard the Argo II, Chiron reminded us, was to finish the quest and come back safely, and Zyanya's team had to make sure they did no matter what.

After the Iris-message, the demigods paced the deck in silence, staring at the water and hoping for a miracle. I could sense the tension ten-fold, or six-fold, really, since I could feel the combined worry of all the crew members, including myself. Everyone wanted to believe they were okay, and they wanted them to get back right now. They had to be back soon. We were having an inner conflict, of how much time we could possibly waste waiting for them. Nico still needed us, the Mark of Athena had to be followed soon, as Camp Half-Blood was running out of time, and we needed to stop Gaea and the giants in Greece. Every second we wasted, the more tension and concern grew within us.

Then, finally, a bunch of pink bubbles burst at the surface of the starboard bow, ejecting Frank, Hazel, Leo, Audrey, Veon, Zy, and Kaze, Zy holding a picnic basket. The entire group suddenly overwhelmed me with relief and excitement, but I wasn't complaining because that's how I felt as well. Piper was euphoric. She cried out with relief and dove straight into the water. She didn't bring a rope or a life vest or anything, but at the moment, she was too happy to care. She paddled over to Leo and kissed him on the cheek, which kind of surprised him.

"Miss me?" Leo laughed. Piper was suddenly furious.

"Where were you? How are you guys alive?"

"Long story," Veon said.

"Brownie?" Zy offered.

"Burauni!" Kaze repeated excitedly, a little robotic hippocampus swimming around him with its little head peaking out of the water. It seemed to be just as happy as Kaze at the prospect of brownies, even though it most likely couldn't eat brownies.

Once Audrey raised them out of the water, hugs of relief were exchanged, and everyone changed into clean clothes (Frank borrowing a pair of pants from Veon; they were actually pretty close in size, so there wasn't much of a problem). The crew gathered on the quarterdeck for a celebratory breakfast - except for Coach Hedge, who grumbled that the atmosphere was getting too cuddly for his tastes and went below to hammer out some dents in the hull. While Leo fussed over his helm controls, Hazel, Frank, Zy and Veon related the story of the fish-centaurs and their training camp, with Zy translating Kaze's part. Kaze's hippocampus, Neko, had turned into a cat once it was on board again, and it was sitting on his shoulder, looking at another sphere his owner was fiddling with, which was probably going to be Neko's brother, and eating brownies like there was no tomorrow.

"Incredible," Jason said. "These are really good brownies."

"That's your only comment?" Piper demanded. He looked surprised.

"What? I heard the story. Fish-centaurs-"

"Ichthyocentaurs," Zy said. She said that every time someone said "fish-centaurs" since she was trying to teach everyone the official word.

"Mer-people, letter of intro to the Tiber River god. Got it. But these brownies-"

"I know," Frank said, his mouth full. "Try them with Esther's peach preserves."

"That is incredibly disgusting," Hazel said.

"Pass me the jar, man," Jason said. Hazel and Piper exchanged a look of total exasperation like "Boys."

"Burauni!" Kaze said happily, his robotic cat raising its front paws in celebration like it was doing the wave.

"Gotta admit they're awesome," Veon said.

"Zy, you and I are making more of these the next chance we get," Audrey agreed. Percy, for his part, wanted to hear every detail about the aquatic camp. He kept coming back to the same point though.

"They didn't want to meet me?"

"It wasn't that," Hazel said. "Just…undersea politics, I guess. The mer-people are territorial."

"The only reason they saw me was because I came with Frank," Audrey said. "Plus, I was under supervision as well. I'm pretty sure those sirens thought I was a mer-person who had been cursed with legs or something. They were great singers though. They made This is Gospel sound mesmerizing. Anyway, the good news is they're taking care of that aquarium in Atlanta. And they'll help the Argo II as we across the Atlantic." Percy nodded absently.

"But they didn't want to meet me?" Annabeth swatted his arm.

"Come on, Seaweed Brain! We've got other things to worry about."

"She's right," Hazel said. "After today, Nico has less than two days. The fish-centaurs said we have to rescue him. He's essential to the quest somehow." She looked around defensively, as if waiting for someone to argue.

"I know," Veon said. "As we get closer to Rome, I can feel that we're getting closer to him. Every time he has to eat a pomegranate seed, his waking allows me a slight connection to him. It's freaking terrifying, and I'm not even there and fully connected to him." It wasn't hard for me to feel what Veon did. Even without that, I could easily imagine what Nico was feeling, stuck in a jar with only two pomegranate seeds left to sustain him, and no idea whether he would be rescued. His connection to his brother must make it so that he knows we're coming for him, but he must also be worried since he's no doubt being used as bait for us. Still, no matter what fate we faced, we were going to rescue him. I could feel everyone's resolve to do so, and Nico di Angelo was going to be saved.

"Nico must have information on the Doors of Death," Piper said. "We'll save him. We can make it in time. Right, Leo?"

"What?" Leo tore his eyes away from the controls. "Oh, yeah. We should reach the Mediterranean tomorrow morning, then spend the rest of that day sailing to Rome, or flying, if I can get the stabilizer fixed by then…" Jason suddenly looked as though his brownie with peach preserves didn't taste so good.

"Which will put us in Rome on the last possible day for Nico. Twenty-four hours to find him - at most." Percy crossed his legs.

"And that's only part of the problem. There's the Mark of Athena too." Annabeth didn't seem happy with the change of topic. She rested her hand on her backpack, which, since we'd left Charleston, she always seemed to have with her. She opened the bag and brought out a think bronze disk the diameter of a donut.

"This is the map that I found at Fort Sumter. It's…" She stopped abruptly, staring at the smooth bronze surface. "It's blank!" Percy took it and examined both sides.

"It wasn't like this earlier?"

"No! I was looking at it in my cabin and…" Annabeth muttered under her breath. "It must be like the Mark of Athena. I can only see it when I'm alone. It won't show itself to other demigods." Zy took the bronze disk and glared at it, as though it would be intimidated into showing its secrets. Then her eyes changed from brown to light green before glowing like there were little LEDs in her head.

"Interesting…" Frank scooted back like the disk might explode from the green light being shown on it. He had an orange-juice mustache and a brownie-crumb beard that made me want to hand him a napkin.

"What the-? Can you see what it has?" He asked nervously. "And what is the Mark of Athena? I still don't get it."

"It's hard to decipher, but it shows a spot on the Tiber River in Rome. I believe that's where Annabeth's quest will begin, the path she must take to follow the Mark." The glow in her eyes faded before her eyes turned back to brown and she passed the bronze disk back to Annabeth.

"Maybe that's where you meet the river god Tiberinus," I suggested.

"But what is the Mark?" Piper asked, agreeing with Frank.

"The coin," Annabeth murmured. Percy frowned.

"What coin?" Annabeth dug into her pocket and brought out her silver drachma.

"I've been carrying this ever since I saw my mom at Grand Central. It's an Athenian coin." She passed it around. Zy made sure she took it before Kaze could get his hands on it and passed it onward.

"An owl," Leo noted. "Well, that makes sense. I guess the branch is an olive branch? But what's this inscription, ΑΘΕ - Area Of Effect?"

"Alpha, Theta, Epsilon," Zy corrected. "In Greek, it stands for "Of The Athenians," or you could read it as "The children of Athena." It's sort of the Athenian motto."

"Like SPQR for Romans," I guessed. Annabeth nodded.

"Anyway, the Mark of Athena is an owl, just like that one. It appears in fiery red. I've seen it in my dreams. Then twice at Fort Sumter." She and I described what had happened at the fort - the voice of Gaea, the spiders in the garrison, the Mark burning them away. Percy took Annabeth's hand.

"I should have been there for you."

"But that's the point," Annabeth said. "No one can be there for me. When I get to Rome, I'll have to strike out on my own. Otherwise, the Mark won't appear. I'll have to follow it to…to the source." Frank took the coin from Leo, staring at the owl.

"'The giants' bane stands gold and pale, won with pain from a woven jail.' What is it…this thing at the source?"

"A statue," Jason interrupted before Annabeth could speak. "A statue of Athena. At least…that's my guess." Piper frowned.

"You said you didn't know."

"I don't. But the more I think about it…there's only one artifact that could fit the legend." He turned to Annabeth. "I'm sorry. I should have told you everything I've heard, much earlier. But honestly, I was scared. If this legend is true-"

"I know," Annabeth said. "I figured it out, Jason. I don't blame you. But if we manage to save the statue, Greek and Romans together…don't you see?"

"If used properly, it could heal the rift," Zy said.

"Hold on," Percy said, making a time-out gesture. "What statue?" Annabeth took back the silver coin and slipped it into her pocket.

"The Athena Parthenos," She said.

"The most famous Greek statue of all time," Zy continued. "It was forty feet tall, covered in ivory and gold. It stood in the middle of the Parthenon in Athens. Zyanya remembers it. The statue disappeared, one of the biggest mysteries in history. Some people thought the statue was melted down for its gold, or destroyed by invaders. Athens was sacked a number of times. Some thought the statue was carted off by Romans. To break the Greeks' spirits, the Romans carted off the Athena Parthenos when they took over the city of Athens. They hid it in an underground shrine in Rome. The Roman demigods swore it would never see the light of day. They literally stole Athena so she could no longer be the symbol of Greek military power. She became Minerva, a much tamer goddess, though she wasn't happy about it. Imagine being stolen from your home, forced to be someone else and then thrown to the sidelines when you were once a leader among the people, one people looked to for wisdom and power in battle. That would be like if someone else came along one day to replace you all in the Prophecy of Seven, thrown to the sidelines when you were told you were destined for greatness and promised you'd be able to make a difference in this war. Can you imagine how aggravating that would be?"

"The children of Athena have been searching for the statue ever since," Annabeth said. "Most don't know about the legend, but in each generation, a few are chosen by the goddess. They're given a coin like mine. They follow the Mark of Athena…a kind of magical trail that links them to the statue…hoping to find the resting place of the Athena Parthenos and get the statue back."

"So if we - I mean you - find the statue…" Percy began. "What would we do with it? Could we even move it?"

"I'm not sure," Annabeth admitted. "But if we could save it somehow, it could unite the two camps. It could heal my mother of this hatred she's got, tearing her two aspects apart. And maybe…maybe the statue has some sort of power that could help us against the giants." I admired the weight Annabeth had taken onto her shoulders, especially since she knew she had to do this alone.

"This could change everything," Piper muttered. "It could end thousands of years of hostility. It might be the key to defeating Gaea. But if we can't help you…" She didn't finish, yet the question seemed to hang in the air: "Was saving the statue even possible?"

"We can help her now," I said. "We can prepare her, give her some supplies, get in some training maybe, give her all the information we can muster." Annabeth squared her shoulders, and I knew she was terrified inside, but did a good job of hiding it.

"I have to succeed," Annabeth said simply. "The risk is worth it." Hazel twirled her hair pensively.

"I don't like the idea of you risking your life alone, but you're right. We saw what recovering the golden eagle standard did for the Roman legion. If this statue is the most powerful symbol of Athena ever created-"

"It could kick some serious booty," Leo offered. Hazel frowned.

"That wasn't the way I'd put it, but yes."

"Except…" Percy said, taking Annabeth's hand again. "No child of Athena has ever found it. Annabeth, what's down there? What's guarding it? If it's got to do with spiders-?"

"'Won through pain from a woven jail,'" Frank recalled. "Woven, like webs?" Annabeth's face turned as white as printer paper.

"Well, that either means she has to escape from a woven jail, or she has to somehow make a woven jail for her enemy, right?" Veon said. "Athena was a good weaver, right? I'd vote for the latter. Better make sure Annabeth has some string or something when she goes.

"It's going to work out," I promised the others, sending waves of calmness to sooth their nerves. "Annabeth is going to kick some serious booty. You'll see."

"Yeah," Percy said. "I learned a long time ago: Never bet against Annabeth."

"And don't bet against the Hermes kids," Zy said. "They always seem to win at poker. Even Kaze, and he doesn't know what poker is!"

"Burauni?" Kaze asked, hearing his name. Smiles and a couple chuckles went out throughout the group as Kaze looked around in confusion, a brownie in his mouth. Not being able to understand the conversation, he was oblivious to the dark mood in the room (if everyone's half-eaten breakfasts were anything to go by), and he seemed to brighten things. His little cat Neko helped too, looking around with the same confusion. Though the cat wasn't capable of making many facial expressions, you could see the confusion on his face that mimicked Kaze.

"Well!" Leo said. "Good pep rally, but there's still a ton of things to fix on this ship before we get to the Mediterranean. Please report to Supreme Commander Leo for your super-fun list of chores!"

We spent the rest of the day working on the Argo II, cleaning up the mess left from the ship having tilted, and making repairs to the hull, oars, engines, etc. Veon's tar abilities patched up a bunch of holes, and he resolved to work on as much of the ship as possible to make it stronger and allow him to summon things from the tar when we had an attack. So, if the oars were knocked out of alignment again, for example, he could still summon a bunch of spikes or have the tar try and eat whatever attacked and turn it into more tar that he could command. Not to mention that he'll have the Kako available all over the ship to make quick repairs or hold the thing together. It was like we had a second crew made just for helping out with the ship. I wonder how we could pay them back for their hard work.

Zy worked to fix everything she could with some green magic, (Audrey said she had become like Maleficent), ordering Kaze to help as well. She said she didn't know much of how her powers worked, but that she simply needed to concentrate hard enough and things would happen at her command. She pointed or stared at objects, and they glowed with that green color before moving and doing things she ordered them too. Though it did strain her, she was learning pretty quickly. She explained that she'd made a promise on the Styx not to use a bow after her brother's death, to punish herself for letting her brother die. When she'd used the bow, Styx said that her punishment was responsibility, that she would have this power, and anything that went wrong would be her fault because she didn't do something about it. With all of us working with our powers, the ship was much better by the dinner bell.

Dinner wasn't much, but we tried to stay on the bright side of things. Kaze ate the rest of the brownies, apparently saying that working on the ship all day made him need a lot of calories, and Zy used the recipe to make the rest of us more, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed, especially Kaze. Zy had to mother him into eating a couple sandwiches as well, the whole "you only get dessert after you eat your dinner" thing. Other than that, dinner was uneventful, for the first time in a while, and it was better than a war meeting where we're thinking about all our problems and basically bringing everyone down. The threats of the world could wait until tomorrow. We've had enough for today, and another night came sooner than I expected, as this entire day was used to repair the ship. Let's have at least one night of peace before our hectic lives continue, I prayed.