The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3)

by Rick Riordan

The Friday before winter break, my mom packed me an overnight bag and a few deadly weapons and took me to a new boarding school.

The essentias

Annabeth, Thalia, and I hadn’t seen each other in months, but between the blizzard and the thought of what we were about to do, we were too nervous to talk much. Except for my mom. She talks more when she’s nervous. By the time we finally got to Westover Hall, it was getting dark, and she’d told Annabeth and Thalia every embarrassing baby story there was to tell about me.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait?” my mother asked. “No, thanks, Mom,” I said. “I don’t know how long it will take. We’ll be okay.” “But how will you get back? I’m worried, Percy.” I hoped I wasn’t blushing. It was bad enough I had to depend on my mom to drive me to my battles.

“It’s okay, Ms. Jackson.” Annabeth smiled reassuringly. Her blond hair was tucked into a ski cap and her gray eyes were the same color as the ocean. “We’ll keep him out of trouble.” My mom seemed to relax a little. She thinks Annabeth is the most levelheaded demigod ever to hit eighth grade. She’s sure Annabeth often keeps me from getting killed. She’s right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Annabeth started to say, “I wonder where—” The doors slammed shut behind us. “Oo-kay,” I mumbled. “Guess we’ll stay a while.”

I don’t know what to do!” Grover looked at Thalia desperately. I tried not to feel upset by that. Used to be, Grover looked to me for answers, but Thalia had seniority. Not just because her dad was Zeus. Thalia had more experience than any of us with fending off monsters in the real world.

Annabeth had grown taller than me since last summer, which I found kind of disturbing. She used to wear no jewelry except for her Camp Half-Blood bead necklace, but now she wore little silver earrings shaped like owls—the symbol of her mother, Athena. She pulled off her ski cap, and her long blond hair tumbled down her shoulders. It made her look older, for some reason.

“So…” I tried to think of something to say. Act natural, Thalia had told us. When you’re a half-blood on a dangerous mission, what the heck is natural? “Um, design any good buildings lately?” Annabeth’s eyes lit up, the way they always did when she talked about architecture. “Oh my gods, Percy. At my new school, I get to take 3-D design as an elective, and there’s this cool computer program…” She went on to explain how she’d designed this huge monument that she wanted to build at Ground Zero in Manhattan. She talked about structural supports and facades and stuff, and I tried to listen. I knew she wanted to be a super architect when she grew up—she loves math and historical buildings and all that—but I hardly understood a word she was saying.

The truth was I was kind of disappointed to hear that she liked her new school so much. It was the first time she’d gone to school in New York...

“Dance, you guys!” Thalia ordered. “You look stupid just standing there.” I looked nervously at Annabeth, then at the groups of girls who were roaming the gym. “Well?” Annabeth said. “Um, who should I ask?” She punched me in the gut. “Me, Seaweed Brain.” “Oh. Oh, right.”

I put one hand on Annabeth’s hip, and she clasped my other hand like she was about to judo throw me. “I’m not going to bite,” she told me. “Honestly, Percy. Don’t you guys have dances at your school?”

The wind blowing through my ripped clothes was so cold that I felt like a Percysicle.

I never got the chance to argue with her, because just then an invisible force slammed into me.

Looking back on it, Annabeth’s move was brilliant. Wearing her cap of invisibility, she plowed into the di Angelos and me, knocking us to the ground.

And before anyone could react, the monster, with Annabeth still on his back, leaped over the cliff and tumbled into the darkness.

“Annabeth!” I yelled. I started to run after her, but our enemies weren’t done with us. There was a snap-snap-snap from the helicopter—the sound of gunfire.

“Annabeth!” I yelled. “You have to let us save her!” The auburn-haired girl turned toward me. “I’m sorry, Percy Jackson, but your friend is beyond help.” I tried to struggle to my feet, but a couple of the girls held me down. “You are in no condition to be hurling yourself off cliffs,” the auburn-haired girl said. “Let me go!” I demanded. “Who do you think you are?”

“No,” the other girl ordered. “I sense no disrespect, Zoë. He is simply distraught. He does not understand.” The young girl looked at me, her eyes colder and brighter than the winter moon. “I am Artemis,” she said. “Goddess of the Hunt.”

After seeing Dr. Thorn turn into a monster and plummet off the edge of a cliff with Annabeth, you’d think nothing else could shock me. But when this twelve-year-old girl told me she was the goddess Artemis, I said something real intelligent like, “Um…okay.”

As anxious as I felt about Annabeth—all I wanted to do was search for her—I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the di Angelos. I remembered what it was like for me when I first learned I was a demigod.

“Do not despair for Annabeth,” the goddess said. “She was a brave maiden. If she can be found, I shall find her.” “Then why won’t you let us go look for her?” I asked. “She is gone. Can’t you sense it, Son of Poseidon? Some magic is at work. I do not know exactly how or why, but your friend has vanished.” I still wanted to jump off the cliff and search for her, but I had a feeling that Artemis was right. Annabeth was gone. If she’d been down there in the sea, I thought, I’d be able to feel her presence.

Almost…except for the pain in my shoulder and the guilt weighing me down. I couldn’t believe Annabeth was gone. And as angry as I was at Thalia, I had a sinking feeling that she was right. It was my fault. What had Annabeth wanted to tell me in the gym? Something serious, she’d said. Now I might never find out. I thought about how we’d danced together for half a song, and my heart felt even heavier.

He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn’t answer that one.) If Annabeth’s mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn’t Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)

“Are you surprised by my age?” she asked. “Uh…a little.” “I could appear as a grown woman, or a blazing fire, or anything else I want, but this is what I prefer. This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray.” “Go astray?” I asked. “Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves.” “Oh.”

“Zoë rarely kids about anything,” Artemis said. “My Hunters follow me on my adventures. They are my maidservants, my companions, my sisters-in-arms. Once they swear loyalty to me, they are indeed immortal…unless they fall in battle, which is unlikely. Or break their oath.”

“So,” I said glumly. “We’re going to get a ride from your brother, huh?” Artemis’s silver eyes gleamed. “Yes, boy. You see, Bianca di Angelo is not the only one with an annoying brother. It’s time for you to meet my irresponsible twin, Apollo.”

I wondered if the teachers had even noticed the di Angelos and Dr. Thorn were missing yet. I didn’t want to be around when they did. With my luck, the only name Mrs. Gottschalk would remember was “Percy Jackson,” and then I’d be the subject of a nationwide manhunt…again.

I didn’t want to be rude. I mean, I knew the legends about Apollo—or sometimes Helios—driving a big sun chariot across the sky. But I also knew that the sun was really a star about a zillion miles away. I’d gotten used to some of the Greek myths being true, but still…I didn’t see how Apollo could drive the sun.

I looked. And I couldn’t believe it. It was my car. Well, the car I wanted, anyway. A red convertible Maserati Spyder. It was so awesome it glowed.

The driver got out, smiling. He looked about seventeen or eighteen, and for a second, I had the uneasy feeling it was Luke, my old enemy. This guy had the same sandy hair and outdoorsy good looks. But it wasn’t Luke. This guy was taller, with no scar on his face like Luke’s. His smile was brighter and more playful. (Luke didn’t do much more than scowl and sneer these days.) The Maserati driver wore jeans and loafers and a sleeveless T-shirt. “Wow,” Thalia muttered. “Apollo is hot.” “He’s the sun god,” I said. “That’s not what I meant.”

“So what’s up?” he interrupted. “Got the girls with you, I see. You all need some tips on archery?” Artemis grit her teeth. “I need a favor. I have some hunting to do, alone. I need you to take my companions to Camp Half-Blood.” “Sure, sis!” Then he raised his hands in a stop everything gesture. “I feel a haiku coming on.” The Hunters all groaned. Apparently they’d met Apollo before. He cleared his throat and held up one hand dramatically. “Green grass breaks through snow. Artemis pleads for my help. I am so cool.”

“No problem!” Apollo checked us out. “Let’s see…Thalia, right? I’ve heard all about you.” Thalia blushed. “Hi, Lord Apollo.” “Zeus’s girl, yes? Makes you my half sister. Used to be a tree, didn’t you? Glad you’re back. I hate it when pretty girls turn into trees. Man, I remember one time—” “Brother,” Artemis said. “You should get going.” “Oh, right.” Then he looked at me, and his eyes narrowed. “Percy Jackson?” “Yeah. I mean…yes, sir.”

Zoë ordered the Hunters to start loading. She picked up her camping pack, and Apollo said, “Here, sweetheart. Let me get that.” Zoë recoiled. Her eyes flashed murderously. “Brother,” Artemis chided. “You do not help my Hunters. You do not look at, talk to, or flirt with my Hunters. And you do not call them sweetheart.”

“Is this really the sun? I thought Helios and Selene were the sun and moon gods. How come sometimes it’s them and sometimes it’s you and Artemis?”

Thalia tried to protest, but Apollo was absolutely not going to take “no” for an answer. He hit a button on the dashboard, and a sign popped up along the top of the windshield. I had to read it backward (which, for a dyslexic, really isn’t that different than reading forward). I was pretty sure it said WARNING: STUDENT DRIVER. “Take it away!” Apollo told Thalia. “You’re gonna be a natural!”

couple of times that fall, my mom had taken me out to Montauk when the beach road was empty, and she’d let me try out her Mazda. I mean, yeah, that was a Japanese compact, and this was the sun chariot, but how different could it be?

I made the mistake of looking out the window again. We were at airplane height now—so high the sky was starting to look black. “Ah…” Apollo said, and I got the feeling he was forcing himself to sound calm. “A little lower, sweetheart. Cape Cod is freezing over.”

“There!” Apollo pointed. “Long Island, dead ahead. Let’s slow down, dear. ‘Dead’ is only an expression.”

“Well,” said Apollo with a brave smile. “You were right, my dear. You had everything under control! Let’s go see if we boiled anyone important, shall we?”

Chiron turned to Mr. D. “We should launch a search for Annabeth immediately.” “I’ll go,” Thalia and I said at the same time. Mr. D sniffed. “Certainly not!”

“In which case,” said Mr. D, “I’m afraid she will have to be smart enough to escape on her own.” I got up from the table. “Percy.” Chiron’s tone was full of warning. In the back of my mind, I knew Mr. D was not somebody to mess with. Even if you were an impulsive ADHD kid like me, he wouldn’t give you any slack. But I was so angry I didn’t care.

I took Annabeth’s baseball cap out of my backpack and set it on my nightstand. I’d give it to her when I found her. And I would find her.

“Why should I trust you?” Annabeth asked. Her voice was filled with hurt. “You shouldn’t,” Luke said. “I’ve been terrible to you. But if you don’t help me, I’ll die.” Let him die, I wanted to scream. Luke had tried to kill us in cold blood too many times. He didn’t deserve anything from Annabeth.

“She said ‘How are we to get orders from Artemis if Artemis is lost?’” “What do you mean lost? Like she needs directions?” “No. I think she meant gone. Taken. Kidnapped.” “Kidnapped?” I tried to get my mind around that idea. “How would you kidnap an immortal goddess? Is that even possible?” “Well, yeah. I mean, it happened to Persephone.” “But she was like, the goddess of flowers.” Grover looked offended. “Springtime.” “Whatever. Artemis is a lot more powerful than that. Who could kidnap her? And why?”

He gave me the brochure. It was about the Hunters of Artemis. The front read, A WISE CHOICE FOR YOUR FUTURE! Inside were pictures of young maidens doing hunter stuff, chasing monsters, shooting bows. There were captions like: HEALTH BENEFITS: IMMORTALITY AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU! and A BOY-FREE TOMORROW! “I found that in Annabeth’s backpack,” Grover said. I stared at him. “I don’t understand.” “Well, it seems to me…maybe Annabeth was thinking about joining.” I’d like to say I took the news well. The truth was, I wanted to strangle the Hunters of Artemis one eternal maiden at a time.

The rest of the day I tried to keep busy, but I was worried sick about Annabeth.

“I have a question,” I said a little louder. “I need to know about Annabeth. How can I save her?”

Then I noticed a pink silk scarf with a label attached to it. I picked up the tag and tried to read it: SCARF OF THE GODDESS APHRODITE RECOVERED AT WATERLAND, DENVER, CO., BY ANNABETH CHASE AND PERCY JACKSON I stared at the scarf. I’d totally forgotten about it. Two years ago, Annabeth had ripped this scarf out of my hands and said something like, Oh, no. No love magic for you! I’d just assumed she’d thrown it away. And yet here it was. She’d kept it all this time? And why had she stashed it in the attic?

was about to break it to him that he didn’t, when Thalia said, “Blue team! Follow me!” They cheered and followed. I had to run to catch up, and tripped over somebody’s shield, so I didn’t look much like a co-captain. More like an idiot.

But Thalia held out her spear. “You want some, Seaweed Brain?” Somehow, it was okay when Annabeth called me that—at least, I’d gotten used to it—but hearing it from Thalia was not cool.