The Titan's Curse

“Wow,” Thalia muttered. “Apollo is hot.”

“He's the sun god,” I said.

“That's not what I meant.”

I couldn’t believe I’d come all this way and suffered so much only to lose Bianca to some eternal girls’ club.

It was bad enough I had to depend on my mom to drive me to my battles.

“Wow,” Thalia muttered. “Apollo is hot.”
“He’s the sun god,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant.”

She smiled slowly. “All right, Seaweed Brain.”

“I, uh, was thinking we got interrupted at Westover Hall. And… I think I owe you a dance.”

She studied me with concern. She touched the new streak of gray in my hair that matched hers exactly—our painful souvenir from holding Atlas’s burden.

Athena looked almost sorry for me. “Kronos knows your flaw, even if you do not. He knows how to study his enemies. Think, Percy. How has he manipulated you? First, your mother was taken from you. Then your best friend, Grover. Now my daughter, Annabeth.” She paused, disapproving. “In each case, your loved ones have been used to lure you into Kronos’s traps. Your fatal flaw is personal loyalty, Percy. You do not know when it is time to cut your losses. To save a friend, you would sacrifice the world. In a hero of the prophecy, that is very, very dangerous.”

A voice inside me was screaming Ask about Annabeth! That’s what I cared about most.

“Seven hundred feet tall,” I said. “Built in the 1930s.”

“Five million cubic acres of water,” Thalia said.

Graver sighed. “Largest construction project in the United States.”

Zoe stared at us. “How do you know all that?”

“Annabeth,” I said. “She liked architecture.”