The Tower of Nero

was dressed in an XXL men’s work shirt with ELECTRONICS MEGA-MART stitched over the pocket. She wore a fluffy turquoise towel around her waist like a kilt, because, she informed me, the only other pants in the apartment large enough to fit her were Sally’s old maternity pants and, no thank you, Lu would just wait for hers to get out of the dryer.
Sally and Paul provided us with heaping plates of salad, lasagna, and garlic bread. It wasn’t Sally’s famous seven-layer dip, but it was a family-style feast like I hadn’t experienced since the Waystation. That memory gave me a twinge of melancholy. I wondered how everyone there was doing: Leo, Calypso, Emmie, Jo, little Georgina.…At the time, our trials in Indianapolis had felt like a nightmare, but in retrospect they seemed like happier, simpler days.
Sally Jackson sat down and smiled. “Well, this is nice.” Shockingly, she sounded sincere. “We don’t have guests often. Now, let’s eat, and you can tell us who or what is trying to kill you this time.”

I WISHED WE COULD HAVE HAD REGULAR small talk around the dinner table: the weather, who liked whom at school, which gods were casting plagues on which cities and why. But no, it was always about who was trying to kill me.
I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s appetite, especially since Paul’s savory family-recipe lasagna was making me drool like Estelle. Also, I wasn’t sure I trusted Luguselwa enough to share our whole story.
Meg had no such qualms. She opened up about everything we’d been through—with the exception of the tragic deaths. I was sure she only skipped those to spare Sally and Paul from worrying too much about Percy.
I don’t think I’d ever heard Meg talk as much as she did at Sally and Paul’s dinner table, as if the presence of kindly parental figures had uncorked something inside her.
Meg told them of our battles with Commodus and Caligula. She explained how we had freed four ancient Oracles and had now returned to New York to face the last and most powerful emperor, Nero. Paul and Sally listened intently, interrupting only to express concern or sympathy. When Sally looked at me and said, “You poor dear,” I almost lost it again. I wanted to cry on her shoulder. I wanted Paul to dress me in a yellow onesie and rock me until I feel asleep.
“So, Nero is after you,” Paul said at last. “The Nero. A Roman emperor has set up his evil lair in a Midtown high-rise.”
He sat back and placed his hands on the table, as if trying to digest the news along with the meal. “I guess that’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. And now you have to do what…defeat him in combat? Another Battle of Manhattan?”
I shuddered. “I hope not. The battle with Commodus and Caligula was…hard for Camp Jupiter. If I asked Camp Half-Blood to attack Nero’s base—”
“No.” Lu dipped her garlic bread in her salad dressing, proving her barbarian bona fides. “A large-scale assault would be suicide. Nero is expecting one. He’s hoping for one. He’s prepared to cause massive collateral damage.”
Outside, rain lashed the windows. Lightning boomed as if Zeus were warning me not to get too comfortable with these kindly surrogate parents.
As much as I distrusted Luguselwa, I believed what she said. Nero would relish a fight, despite what had happened to his two compadres in the Bay Area, or maybe because of it. I was afraid to ask what Lu meant by massive collateral damage.
An all-out war with Nero would not be another Battle of Manhattan. When Kronos’s army had stormed the Empire State Building, entrance to Mount Olympus, the Titan Morpheus had put all the mortals in the city to sleep. The damage to the city itself, and its human population, had been negligible.
Nero didn’t work that way. He liked drama. He would welcome chaos, screaming crowds, countless civilian deaths. This was a man who burned people alive to illuminate his garden parties.
“There has to be another way,” I decided. “I won’t let any more innocents suffer on my account.”
Sally Jackson crossed her arms. In spite of the grim matters we were discussing, she smiled. “You’ve grown up.”
I assumed she was talking about Meg. Over the last few months, my young friend had indeed gotten taller and— Wait. Was Sally referring to me?
My first thought: Preposterous! I was four thousand years old. I didn’t grow up.
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “The last time you were here, you were so lost. So…well, if you don’t mind me saying—”
“Pathetic,” I blurted out. “Whiny, entitled, selfish. I felt terribly sorry for myself.”
Meg nodded along with my words as if listening to her favorite song. “You still feel sorry for yourself.”
“But now,” Sally said, sitting back again, “you’re more…human, I suppose.”
There was that word again: human, which not long ago I would have considered a terrible insult. Now, every time I heard it, I thought of Jason Grace’s admonition: Remember what it’s like to be human.
He hadn’t meant all the terrible things about being human, of which there were plenty. He’d meant the best things: standing up for a just cause, putting others first, having stubborn faith that you could make a difference, even if it meant you had to die to protect your friends and what you believed in. These were not the kind of feelings that gods had…well, ever.
Sally Jackson meant the term in the same way Jason had—as something worth aspiring to.
“Thank you,” I managed.
She nodded. “So how can we help?”
Lu slurped the last of the lasagna from her plate. “You’ve done more than enough, Jackson Mother and Blofis Father. We must go.”
Meg glanced out the window at the thunderstorm, then at the remaining garlic bread in the basket. “Maybe we could stay until the morning?”
“That’s a good idea,” Paul agreed. “We have plenty of space. If Nero’s men are out there searching for you in the dark and the