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Piper leaned against the control panel She’d done her braid hite feathers today, which looked good with her dark brown hair Annabeth wondered how she found the time Annabeth could barely remember to brush her hair

"A map," Piper said "But a map to what?"

"The Mark of Athena" Percy looked cautiously at Annabeth, like he was afraid he’d overstepped SheI don’t want to talk about it vibe

"Whatever that is," he continued "We know it leads to soht heal the rift between the Roiants’ bane," Hazel added

Percy nodded "And inabout a statue"

"Um…" Frank rolled his not-exactly-Chinese handcuffs between his fingers "According to Phorcys, we’d have to be insane to try to find it But what is it?"

Everyone looked at Annabeth Her scalp tingled, as if the thoughts in her brain were agitating to get out: a statue…Athena…Greek and Rouether, but she couldn’t believe it was true The ansas too big, too important, andher, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking and didn’t like it any ain she couldn’t help but wonder: Why does this guy make me so nervous? Is he really on …

"I--I’m close to an answer," she said "I’ll know more if we find this map Jason, the way you reacted to the nalanced uneasily at Piper, though Annabeth wasn’t sure why

"Yeah," he ado We were salvaging Iold weapons from the CSS Hunley"

"The what?" Piper asked

"Whoa!" Leo said "That’s the first successful military submarine From the Civil War I alanted to see that"

"It was designed by Roods," Jason said "It held a secret stash of Iht them back to Camp Jupiter"

Hazel crossed her arirl whose grandmother was a slave, can I just say…not cool?"

Jason put his hands in front of him, palms up "I personally was not alive then And it wasn’t all Greeks on one side and all Roods make bad choices" He looked sheepishly at Hazel "Like so"

Hazel stared at hi

Jason elbowed Leo

"Ow!" Leo yelped "Ipeople’s brothers who, you know, "

Hazel pursed her lips "Fine Back to Charleston Are you saying we should check that subed "Well…I can think of two places in Charleston we ht search The museum where they keep the Hunley--that’s one of them It has a lot of relics from the Civil War A map could be hidden in one I know the layout I could lead a teao," Leo said "That sounds cool"

Jason nodded He turned to Frank, as trying to pull his fingers out of the Chinese handcuffs "You should coht need you"

Frank looked surprised "Why? Not like I was ood at that aquarium"

"You did fine," Percy assured hilass"

"Besides, you’re a child of Mars," Jason said "The ghosts of defeated causes are bound to serve you And the hosts We’ll need you to keep theulped Annabeth reoldfish, and she resisted the urge to sain without seeing him as a koi

"Okay" Frank relented "Sure" He frowned at his fingers, trying to pull them out of the trap "Uh, how do you--?"

Leo chuckled "Man, you’ve never seen those before? There’s a siain with no luck Even Hazel was trying not to laugh

Frank grimaced with concentration Suddenly, he disappeared On the deck where he’d been standing, a green iguana crouched next to an empty set of Chinese handcuffs

"Well done, Frank Zhang," Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur "That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs They turn into iguanas"

Everybody busted out laughing Frank turned back to human, picked up the handcuffs, and shoved theed an embarrassed smile

"Anyway," Frank said, clearly anxious to change the subject "The museum is one place to search But, uh, Jason, you said there were two?"

Jason’s s about, Annabeth could tell it wasn’t pleasant

"Yeah," he said "The other place is called the Battery--it’s a park right by the harbor The last tilanced at Piper, then rushed on "We saw sohost or solowing and floating along We tried to approach it, but it disappeared whenever we got close Then Reyna had this feeling--she said she should try it alone Like irl She went up to the spirit by herself, and sure enough, it spoke to her"