The Tyrant's Tomb

adorable fuzzy black mess of cowlicks that made me wonder if she slept on
that side—and, again, that was none of my business.
Curled on the carpet at her feet were two automatons I hadn’t seen before
—a pair of greyhounds, one gold and one silver. They both raised their heads
when they saw me, then sniffed the air and growled as if to say, Hey, Mom,
this guy smells like zombie. Can we kill him?
Reyna hushed them. She dug some jelly beans out of the jar and tossed
them to the dogs. I wasn’t sure why metallic greyhounds would like candy,
but they snapped up the morsels, then settled their heads back on the carpet.
“Er, nice dogs,” I said. “Why haven’t I seen them before?”
“Aurum and Argentum have been out searching,” Reyna said, in a tone
that discouraged follow-up questions. “How is your wound?”
“My wound is thriving,” I said. “Me, not so much.”
“He’s better than before,” Meg insisted. “I grated some unicorn-horn
shavings on his cut. It was fun.”
“Pranjal helped, too,” I said.
Frank gestured at the two visitors’ seats. “You guys make yourselves
comfortable.”
Comfortable was a relative term. The three-legged foldable stools did not
look as cushy as the praetors’ chairs. They also reminded me of the Oracle’s
tripod seat in Delphi, which reminded me of Rachel Elizabeth Dare back at
Camp Half-Blood, who was not-so-patiently waiting for me to restore her
powers of prophecy. Thinking about her reminded me of the Delphic cave,
which reminded me of Python, which reminded me of my nightmare and
how scared I was of dying. I hate stream of consciousness.
Once we were seated, Reyna spread a parchment scroll across the table.
“So, we’ve been working with Ella and Tyson since yesterday, trying to
decipher some more lines of prophecy.”
“We’ve made progress,” Frank added. “We think we’ve found the recipe
you were talking about at the senate meeting—the ritual that could summon
divine aid to save the camp.”
“That’s great, right?” Meg reached for the jar of jelly beans but retracted
her hand when Aurum and Argentum began growling.
“Maybe.” Reyna exchanged a worried look with Frank. “The thing is, if
we’re reading the lines correctly…the ritual requires a death sacrifice.”
The fish sticks began sword-fighting with the french fries in my stomach.