“In our neck of the woods?” I finished. “Probably the same reason Mount Olympus is hovering above New York, or Camp Jupiter is in the Bay Area.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” Frank admitted. “Still, if the tomb of a Roman king was near Camp Jupiter, why would we just be learning about it now? Why the attack of the undead?”

I didn’t have a ready answer. I’d been so fixated on Caligula and Commodus, I hadn’t given much thought to Tarquinius Superbus. As evil as he might have been, Tarquin had been a minor-league player compared to the emperors. Nor did I understand why a semilegendary, barbaric, apparently undead Roman king would have joined forces with the Triumvirate.

Some distant memory tickled at the base of my skull…. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Tarquin would make himself known just as Ella and Tyson were reconstructing the Sibylline Books.

I remembered my dream of the purple-eyed entity, the deep voice that had possessed the eurynomos in the tunnel: You of all people should understand the fragile boundary between life and death.

The cut across my stomach throbbed. Just once, for variety, I wished I could encounter a tomb where the occupants were actually dead.

“So, Ella,” I said, “you suggest we find this tomb.”

“Yep. Go in the tomb. Tomb Raider for PC, Playstation, and Sega Saturn, 1996. Tombs of Atuan, Ursula Le Guin, Atheneum Press, 1971.”

I barely noticed the extraneous information this time. If I stayed here much longer, I’d probably start speaking in Ella-ese, too, spouting random Wikipedia references after every sentence. I really needed to leave before that happened.

“But we only go in to look around,” I said. “To find out—”

“The right things. Yep, yep.”

“And then?”

“Come back alive. ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ the Bee Gees, second single, Saturday Night Fever motion picture sound track, 1977.”

“Right. And…you’re sure there’s no more information in the Cyclops index that might actually be, oh, helpful?”

“Hmm.” Ella stared at Frank, then trotted over and sniffed his face. “Firewood. Something. No. That’s for later.”

Frank couldn’t have looked more like a cornered animal if he’d actually turned into one. “Um, Ella? We don’t talk about the firewood.”

That reminded me of another reason I liked Frank Zhang. He, too, was a member of the I Hate Hera club. In Frank’s case, Hera had inexplicably tied his life force to a small piece of wood, which I’d heard Frank now carried around with him at all times. If the wood burned up, so did Frank. Such a typical controlling Hera thing to do: I love you and you’re my special hero, and also here’s a stick—when it burns you die HA-HA-HA-HA-HA. I disliked that woman.

Ella ruffled her feathers, providing Aristophanes with lots of new targets to play with. “Fire with…something, something bridge. Twice something, something…Hmm, nope. That’s later. Need more words. Tyson needs a tattoo.”

“Yay!” said Tyson. “Can you also do a picture of Rainbow? He’s my friend! He’s a fish pony!”

“A rainbow is white light,” Ella said. “Refracted through water droplets.”

“Also a fish pony!” Tyson said.

“Hmph,” said Ella.

I got the feeling I had just witnessed the closest the harpy and Cyclops ever came to having an argument.

“You two can go.” Ella brushed us away. “Come back tomorrow. Maybe three days. ‘Eight Days a Week,’ Beatles. First UK release, 1964. Not sure yet.”

I was about to protest that we had only four days before Caligula’s yachts arrived and Camp Jupiter suffered another onslaught of destruction, but Frank stopped me with a touch on the arm. “We should go. Let her work. It’s almost time for evening muster anyway.”

After the mention of firewood, I got the feeling he would have used any faun-level excuse to get out of that bookstore.

My last glimpse of the special-collections room was Ella holding her tattoo gun, etching steaming words on Tyson’s back while the Cyclops giggled, “IT TICKLES!” and Aristophanes used the harpy’s rough leather legs as scratching posts.

Some images, like Cyclops tattoos, are permanent once burned onto your brain.

Frank hustled us back to camp as fast as my wounded gut would tolerate.

I wanted to ask him about Ella’s comments, but Frank wasn’t in a talkative mood. Every so often his hand strayed to the side of his belt, where a cloth pouch hung tucked behind his scabbard. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I assumed this was where he stored his Hera-Cursed Life-Ending Souvenir™.

Or perhaps Frank was somber because he knew what awaited us at evening muster.

The legion had assembled for the funeral procession.

At the head of the column stood Hannibal, the legion’s elephant, decked in Kevlar and black flowers. Harnessed behind him was a wagon with Jason’s coffin, draped in purple and gold. Four of the cohorts had fallen into line behind the coffin, with purple Lares shifting in and out of their ranks. The Fifth Cohort, Jason’s original unit, served as honor guards and torch bearers on either side of the wagon. Standing with them, between Hazel and Lavinia, was Meg McCaffrey. She frowned when she saw me and mouthed, You’re late.

Frank jogged over to join Reyna, who was waiting at Hannibal’s shoulder.

The senior praetor looked drained and weary, as if she’d spent the last few hours weeping in private and then pulled herself back together as best she could. Next to her stood the legion’s standard bearer, holding aloft the eagle of the Twelfth.

Being close to the eagle made my hairs stand on end. The golden icon reeked of Jupiter’s power. The air around it crackled with energy.

“Apollo.” Reyna’s tone was formal, her eyes like empty wells. “Are you prepared?”

“For…?” The question died in my throat.

Everyone was staring at me expectantly. Did they want another song?

No. Of course. The legion had no high priest, no pontifex maximus. Their former augur, my descendant Octavian, had died in the battle against Gaia. (Which I had a hard time feeling sad about, but that’s another story.) Jason would’ve been the logical next choice to officiate, but he was our guest of honor. That meant that I, as a former god, was the ranking spiritual authority. I would be expected to lead the funeral rites.

Romans were all about proper etiquette. I couldn’t excuse myself without that being taken as a bad omen. Besides, I owed Jason my best, even if that was a sad Lester Papadopoulos version of my best.

I tried to remember the correct Roman invocation.

Dearly beloved…? No.

Why is this night different…? No.

Aha.

“Come, my friends,” I said. “Let us escort our brother to his final feast.”

I suppose I did all right. No one looked scandalized. I turned and led the way out of the fort, the entire legion following in eerie silence.

Along the road to Temple Hill, I had a few moments of panic. What if I led the procession in the wrong direction? What if we ended up in the parking lot of an Oakland Safeway?

The golden eagle of the Twelfth loomed over my shoulder, charging the air with ozone. I imagined Jupiter speaking through its crackle and hum, like a voice over shortwave radio: YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.