The Tyrant's Tomb

“Thank you.” I looked up, but Lupa was gone. Nothing remained except
silver mist, blending with the smoke from Jason’s pyre.
I gave Reyna and Frank the simplest version: I had received the wolf
goddess’s blessing. I promised to tell them more the next day, once I’d had
time to make sense of it. Meanwhile, I trusted that word would spread
among the legion about Lupa giving me guidance. That would be enough for
now. These demigods needed all the reassurance they could get.
As the pyre burned, Frank and Hazel stood hand in hand, keeping vigil as
Jason made his final voyage. I sat on a funeral picnic blanket with Meg, who
ate everything in sight and went on and on about her excellent afternoon
tending unicorns with Lavinia. Meg boasted that Lavinia had even let her
clean out the stables.
“She pulled a Tom Sawyer on you,” I observed.
Meg frowned, her mouth filled with hamburger. “Whad’ya mean?”
“Nothing. You were saying, about unicorn poop?”
I tried to eat my dinner, but despite how hungry I was, the food tasted
like dust.
When the pyre’s last embers died and the wind spirits cleared away the
remnants of the feast, we followed the legionnaires back to camp.
Up in Bombilo’s spare room, I lay on my cot and studied the cracks in
the ceiling. I imagined they were lines of tattooed script across a Cyclops’s
back. If I stared at them long enough, maybe they would start to make sense,
or at least I could find the index.
Meg threw a shoe at me. “You gotta rest. Tomorrow’s the senate
meeting.”
I brushed her red high-top off my chest. “You’re not asleep, either.”
“Yeah, but you’ll have to speak. They’ll wanna hear your plan.”
“My plan?”
“You know, like an oration. Inspire them and stuff. Convince them what
to do. They’ll vote on it and everything.”
“One afternoon in the unicorn stables, and you’re an expert on Roman
senatorial proceedings.”
“Lavinia told me.” Meg sounded positively smug about it. She lay on her
cot, tossing her other high-top in the air and catching it again. How she
managed this without her glasses on, I had no idea.