“Like you said, Percy, a seven-year-old half-blood wouldn’t have made it very far alone. Athena guided me toward help. Thalia was twelve. Luke was fourteen. They’d both run away from home, like me. They were happy to take me with them. They were…amazing monster-fighters, even without training. We traveled north from Virginia without any real plans, fending off monsters for about two weeks before Grover found us.”
