The rest of their morning training wasn't so easy to escape.

When Lavinia found out about their shadow-travel cheat, she laughed and complimented them for being so sneaky. Then she sentenced them to being the "first couple" for two hours of square-dance practice in the hot sun. By then, it had become clear to Nico that Lavinia Asimov was a daughter of Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, and she considered dancing a critical part of team building and combat training.

"Half sashay!" she yelled into a megaphone, which was completely unnecessary since she was standing right behind them. "Promenade! Look lively, Romans! A threat could arrive at any time! You've gotta be prepared to square-dance at a moment's notice!"

"Is it possible to love someone's vibe," Will whispered to Nico as they do-si-doed, "and still find them completely annoying?"

"I heard that!" Lavinia blasted the megaphone in their ears. "And I love you too! Now swing your partner, Blondie!"

Next, they did an hour of weight training. Then, when Nico's arms felt like overcooked noodles, Lavinia took the Fifth Cohort to the archery range.

"You can use a regular bow," she advised her legionnaires, "but all the real girlies use one of these!"

She brandished her weapon of choice—a heavy-duty two-handed crossbow called a manubalista.

"Nice," Nico said. "Was the armory out of rocket launchers?"

Lavinia grinned. "Funny! You're first up, pumpkin!"

Nico proved unable to hold the weapon upright, much less fire it, which delighted Lavinia. "Come on!" she chided him. "My girlfriend is stronger than that, and she's a poison ivy plant!"

Will used a very normal bow and was able to land all his arrows on the target. None were bull's-eyes, but he was clearly overjoyed to have made such an improvement.

Finally horns blew from the sentry towers, signaling lunchtime. Will and Nico trudged miserably to the mess hall, then realized they were already late for their afternoon meeting with Asterion. They grabbed sandwiches to go and trudged right back out across the Field of Mars. Nico hoped the Puffs were still asleep in the guest quarters. At least they could relax.

Asterion was waiting for them on the porch of the makeshift mansion. Somehow, he'd found himself an extra-large rocking chair, and was rocking back and forth, knitting what looked like a new sweater. Arielle sat next to him, sipping an iced red beverage that Nico fervently hoped was just KoolAid.

Nico found the scene strangely wholesome and domestic—Ma and Pa Mythic at home on the farm.

"Welcome!" the bull-man said in his deep voice. "I am glad you are here."

"You're late," Arielle noted. "Can we get this 'joint training' nonsense over with? There is more to be done on our...home."

She said the last word like it was from a language she didn't speak. Nico remembered when he couldn't imagine Camp Half-Blood as a place where he'd ever belong. He wondered if this was how all of Asterion's friends were feeling.

The bull-man rose from his chair. He held up his new sweater for them to see. It had broad pink and white stripes, with a slogan stitched across the chest in large red letters: I LUV DEMIGODS.

"What do you think?" He directed the question at Arielle. "I thought it might make you seem friendlier to our hosts."

The empousa glanced at Will. If she'd been able to charmspeak, Nico imagined she would have told him Please kill me now.

"There's no way I am wearing that," she said.

"I think it's lovely," Will offered.

"Hmm-moo." Asterion's massive shoulders slumped. "Perhaps pink is not Arielle's color. No matter. Please, demigods, come inside."

They were just crossing the threshold when Nico heard someone running up the front steps behind them. He turned and found Hazel, out of breath, dressed casually in boots, jeans, and an SPQR T-shirt. Her mass of curly brown hair was pulled back and tied off with a purple scrunchie.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. "We had to deal with a couple of campers who..." She glanced at the mythics. "Never mind."

Nico didn't ask, but he felt a lump of anger hardening in his chest. Why did people have to behave badly?

They walked inside together, and Nico's grumpiness dissipated as he scanned the room.

"Oh my gods," he said.

"Right?" Will said. "This place is...wow."

The mansion's great room was an open-floor-plan loft. Up in the exposed beams of the ceiling, Orcus had built a nest woven of straw and gold necklaces, no doubt because griffins loved shiny things. In the far-right corner was a hydroponic garden—a wide bed of planter boxes laced with irrigation tubing under panels of purple LED lights. The karpos Quinoa sprawled between two rows of seedlings with a dark visor over his eyes like he was having a tanning session.

In the opposite corner, the blemmyae Johan had set up a sort of tearoom salon. The sideboard overflowed with tiered pastry stands and teapots on lace doilies. Two plush velvet armchairs flanked a coffee table piled high with books. Johan himself was tinkering with some sort of contraption Nico didn't understand—it was like a clothes rack with a giant magnifying glass attached to one end and a music stand attached to the other. Johan's lair gave off a strong Sherlock Holmes vibe, if Sherlock Holmes had no head and a face in the middle of his chest.

Nico didn't see any areas marked off for Asterion, Arielle, or Semele, but several doorways led to other rooms. Maybe they each had their own private space. As usual, Nico wasn't even sure Semele was present. He looked for telltale signs of smoke but saw nothing.

The most eye-catching part of the great room was the conversation pit. A sunken square of dark green sofas framed a twenty-by-twenty-foot section of pink shag carpeting, except...

Nico's stomach twisted. That wasn't shag carpeting. The pink surface was stippled with tufts of black hair, large white pustules, and streaks of red bumps that could only be described as a rash.

The carpet was a very particular kind of skin. And unfortunately, Nico recognized it.

Will must've had the same realization. He exhaled like he'd been punched in the gut. "That's what the ground looks like in Tartarus."

Asterion smiled, obviously pleased. "Indeed, Will Solace. We cut it out ourselves, rolled it up, and brought it with us. I was not sure it would survive the journey."

Orcus flew down from his nest and landed at Hazel's side. "We're still not sure it will survive. But we had to try."

Nico fought down a sense of panic. He tried to keep his tone neutral. "You brought it...why?"

"Ha!" Quinoa barked from his hydroponic tanning bed. "My friends here ain't plant-based life, kid. We can't just stick 'em in the soil and water 'em if they get injured. What happens if one of your demigods gets worked up and wounds one of them? Or, gods forbid, kills one?"

Will's eyes widened. "That's...ingenious, actually. You're trying to grow a regeneration bed so you don't have to return to Tartarus if the worst happens."

Nico looked at Hazel. "You knew about this?"

She nodded, her expression grim. "We're not advertising this to the legion, though."

Nico could see why. The idea of growing a mini Tartarus in the middle of Camp Jupiter terrified him. If the legionnaires knew, they'd have a lot more to worry about than just graffiti and occasional scuffles.

Arielle stepped into the pit. She lounged across one of the sofas like she was posing for a photo shoot. "You wouldn't begrudge us a memento from our homeland, would you?"

Will clutched his stomach. "I feel queasy."

"RAWK!" Orcus ruffled his feathers. "I will never understand the weakness of human stomachs. I could eat all day without feeling the need to regurgitate!"

"Not helping," Will muttered.

"Perhaps we should begin," said Asterion. "Hazel Levesque, I understand you have arranged for a group of demigods to meet us on the Field of Mars?"

Hazel dragged her gaze from the shag Tartarus carpet. "I...Yes. The Second Cohort has agreed to train with you."

"Excellent!" Asterion beamed at his comrades, who didn't look nearly as enthusiastic. "But before we go, we have been discussing ways we might contribute to Camp Jupiter during our time here."

"Oh?" Hazel asked.

Johan stepped forward, twiddling his thumbs. "I'm very good at lots of things! In particular, I love reading and history, libraries, and archives. Although I do require corrective lenses." He gestured back at the contraption in his tea salon.

It dawned on Nico that blemmyae must have terrible depth perception, given that their huge eyes were set into their chests. That magnifying glass on the rack was a clever long-distance reading device.

Johan's challenges certainly hadn't dampened his enthusiasm. He looked at Hazel eagerly. "Are we going to have a document-filing competition on the Field of Mars? If so, I will win!"

"Hmm," said Hazel. "Probably not. But the legion archives in the principia are a mess. We have centuries of records and boxes of artifacts—"

"Excellent!" Johan said. "I would love to organize your archives if you will allow me. I don't think you could find a better fit for the job."

Arielle clicked her tongue. "Don't pat yourself on the back too hard," she grumbled.

Johan frowned. "I cannot reach my back with my arms. I am not anatomically designed for that."

"Arielle," chided Asterion, "I do not see why you need to be so antagonistic."

"And I don't see why you need to bend and shape yourself to others' whims."

"No one is bending or shaping," said the bull-man. "No one is forcing you to do anything."

"Oh, no?" the empousa growled.

Will tried to intervene. "Arielle, what do you want to do?"

"I want to be left alone," she said matter-of-factly. Then she sized up Will in his Roman armor. "Although I suppose you could stay."

Nico fought down his irritation. "Then what's keeping you here?" he asked. "You can go anywhere, can't you?"

"Of course we can't," she snapped. "They'd eventually find us and—" She stopped herself.

"And what?" Nico pressed. "Who is they?"

Arielle shook her head in disgust. The mythics looked glum. Maybe she'd been talking in general about the gods and other immortals who summoned creatures from Tartarus to do their bidding, but Nico got the sense she'd had a more specific they in mind.

"The important thing," Asterion said, "is that here we are safe. We have a chance to build something new."

"But are we safe?" Arielle demanded. "How long will it be until demigods attack us? Weeks? Days?"

"No one is attacking anyone!" Hazel said desperately.

Will and Nico exchanged a concerned look of agreement. This is already way more complicated than we expected.

"Okay," said Will. "Just for the sake of discussion, what would you like to do if you stayed at Camp Jupiter? Other supernatural beings have made it work. The Lares. The wind spirits in the mess hall—"

"You want me to serve food to mortals?" Arielle's eyes flashed like lightning. "That's your idea?"

Will held his hands up. "No. I just thought—"

"We empousai were forced to serve Kronos, you know," she continued. "And after that, Gaea. We weren't given much of a choice in their terrible wars. Either we fought for them and caused untold devastation, or we would be snuffed out. I have no interest in serving anyone. Not a Titan or a god, and certainly not a mortal. I don't want to be forced to do anything ever again!"

"You won't be," said Hazel.

"How can I trust you?"

"Because Gaea manipulated me, too!"

The group fell silent. The pain in Hazel's voice made Nico's heart ache.

The anger in Arielle's eyes dimmed. "I did not know."

"I don't talk about it much," said Hazel. "I lost my mother and my life because of Gaea. If it wasn't for Nico here, I'd still be wandering the Fields of Asphodel."

Orcus lifted his beak, sniffing the air around Hazel. "You died? You smell very alive to me."

"She is," said Nico. "I found her down there and brought her back, gave her another chance at life. That's what you all are looking for too, right?"

The mythics were silent, apparently pondering that idea.

Arielle's expression softened. "I'm not promising anything, but I suppose I could help with combat training...." She talked like she was dipping a toe into a pool.

"She is fierce against her opponents," confirmed Asterion.

Arielle kept her eyes still fixed on Hazel. "Also...I apologize for my hurtful comments, Praetor Levesque."

"Thank you," Hazel said. "And no pressure, but if you ever want to talk, I'm here."

Arielle looked stunned, like she wasn't sure how to process that offer. "I — Yes. That would be appreciated."

Nico squeezed his sister's hand, prouder than ever to be related to Hazel.

"Well," he said, trying to keep the conversation moving, "what about anyone else? Any skills or powers that you feel like sharing?"

Quinoa hopped off his hydroponic bed, his leafy wings fluttering. He hiked up his burlap diaper and waddled over.

"Obviously, I'm a terror on the battlefield too," he said in his gravelly voice. "But really, I wanna work with kids."

"What?" cried Orcus, horrified. "Why would anyone want to work with children?"

Quinoa bared his fangs at the griffin, demonstrating just how cute and cuddly he would be with little ones. "You joking? Kids love me. We see eye to eye."

Nico couldn't argue with that. In fact, the grain spirit would've had to look up to most toddlers.

Will's mouth twisted in confusion. "That's— I mean...would you teach or—?"

" 'Course!" Quinoa said. "I don't want to criticize, but you mortals are absolute fertilizer when it comes to gardening. Adults just don't wanna hear it. You gotta start with the younger generation, teach 'em to respect the earth and whatnot. That's why you guys call it nursery school and kindergarden, right?"

Nico was pretty sure that's not why kindergarten was called kindergarten, but he also didn't want to get punched in the face by a pseudo-grain.

"Sounds great." He looked at Hazel for support.

"Um, yes," she said half-heartedly. "We do have primary school for the families in New Rome. I could ask."

"RAWK!" Orcus let loose a nervous fart. "If that makes you happy, Quinoa. Me, I never want to be reminded of the young. Not wanting to have children is why I got exiled in the first place!"

"Wait, is that a bad thing among griffins?" Will asked.

"It is sacrilegious!" Orcus said, his voice rising in pitch. "We griffins are expected to have as many hatchlings as possible to further our bloodline." He shook his head and made a gagging sound. "The idea makes me sick! Sentencing others to this...this small, flatulent existence? I would rather do anything else than have children."

"Oh, Orcus..." Asterion said in his deep, comforting voice, but the griffin's next fart made it clear he did not want to be consoled on this subject.

"Well..." Hazel said into the awkward silence, "maybe you could help with camp surveillance. You're pretty great at flying, right?"

Orcus immediately perked up. "Flying? I love flying!"

And with that, the griffin launched into the air. He looped around the rafters, dive-bombed Arielle, who shrieked in outrage, and then made a surprisingly delicate landing on Hazel's shoulder, where he perched like a black-and-white cat parrot.

Nico offered him a wide smile. "You're fast!"

Orcus preened. "I'm the fastest, boy!"

"Surveillance it is!" Hazel said excitedly. "I think you'd be a wonderful addition to the team."

"I like the sound of that," said Orcus.

Asterion smiled. "This conversation has been an excellent start. Now, Hazel, what will be the nature of our training with the Second Cohort?"

"Filing documents?" Johan said hopefully.

"Gardening?" asked Quinoa.

"Surveillance?" asked Orcus.

"Uh, well, just basic hand-to-hand combat today," Hazel said. "You know, hitting each other with wooden swords and poles."

"May I hit small children with these poles?" Quinoa asked. "They can hit me back."

"No...no," Hazel said, "just legionnaires."

"Hmm." Quinoa glowered. "Very well."

Hazel's shoulders sagged with relief. "Great. And I agree with Asterion. I think this is a good start!"

Asterion and his friends headed excitedly out the front door, except for Arielle, who trailed behind, literally dragging her bronze foot. As for Semele, Nico still had no idea if she was absent or observing quietly, but he supposed she could join in later....

They had to begin somewhere. So why not with a little light hand-tohand combat training? Nico and Will would be there to supervise. What could possibly go wrong?

He would later ask Johan to file that in the archives under Famous Last Words.