Talos cocked his head to one side, like he was hearing strange new music. He started moving his arms and legs in weird ways, doing the Funky Chicken. Then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.
“Go, Bianca!” I yelled.
Zoë looked horrified. “She is inside?”
The monster staggered around, and I realized we were still in danger. Thalia and I grabbed Grover and ran with him toward the highway. Zoë was already ahead of us. She yelled, “How will Bianca get out?”
The giant hit itself in the head again and dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his whole body and he staggered toward the power lines.
“Look out!” I yelled, but it was too late.
The giant’s ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. I hoped the inside was insulated. I had no idea what was going on in there. The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG!
His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints.
Talos began to run.
“Wait!” Zoë yelled. We ran after him, but there was no way we could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in our way.
The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed. When we reached the wreckage we searched frantically, yelling Bianca’s name. We crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. We searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.
Zoë sat down and wept. I was stunned to see her cry.
Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant’s smashed face.
“We can keep searching,” I said. “It’s light now. We’ll find her.”
“No we won’t,” Grover said miserably. “It happened just as it was supposed to.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
He looked up at me with big watery eyes. “The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain.”
Why hadn’t I seen it? Why had I let her go instead of me?
Here we were in the desert. And Bianca di Angelo was gone.
FOURTEEN
I HAVE A DAM PROBLEM
At the edge of the dump, we found a tow truck so old it might’ve been thrown away itself. But the engine started, and it had a full tank of gas, so we decided to borrow it.
Thalia drove. She didn’t seem as stunned as Zoë or Grover or me.
“The skeletons are still out there,” she reminded us. “We need to keep moving.”
She navigated us through the desert, under clear blue skies, the sand so bright it hurt to look at. Zoë sat up front with Thalia. Grover and I sat in the pickup bed, leaning against the tow wench. The air was cool and dry, but the nice weather just seemed like an insult after losing Bianca.
My hand closed around the little figurine that had cost her life. I still couldn’t even tell what god it was supposed to be. Nico would know.
Oh, gods . . . what was I going to tell Nico?
I wanted to believe that Bianca was still alive somewhere. But I had a bad feeling that she was gone for good.
“It should’ve been me,” I said. “I should’ve gone into the giant.”
“Don’t say that!” Grover panicked. “It’s bad enough Annabeth is gone, and now Bianca. Do you think I could stand it if . . .” He sniffled. “Do you think anybody else would be my best friend?”
“Ah, Grover . . .”
He wiped under his eyes with an oily cloth that left his face grimy, like he had on war paint. “I’m . . . I’m okay.”
But he wasn’t okay. Ever since the encounter in New Mexico—whatever had happened when that wild wind blew through—he seemed really fragile, even more emotional than usual. I was afraid to talk to him about it, because he might start bawling.
At least there’s one good thing about having a friend who gets freaked out more than you do. I realized I couldn’t stay depressed. I had to set aside thinking about Bianca and keep us going forward, the way Thalia was doing. I wondered what she and Zoë were talking about in the front of the truck.
The tow truck ran out of gas at the edge of a river canyon. That was just as well, because the road dead-ended.
Thalia got out and slammed the door. Immediately, one of the tires blew. “Great. What now?”
I scanned the horizon. There wasn’t much to see. Desert in all directions, occasional clumps of barren mountains plopped here and there. The canyon was the only thing interesting. The river itself wasn’t very big, maybe fifty yards across, green water with a few rapids, but it carved a huge scar out of the desert. The rock cliffs dropped away below us.
“There’s a path,” Grover said. “We could get to the river.”
I tried to see what he was talking about, and finally noticed a tiny ledge winding down the cliff face. “That’s a goat path,” I said.
“So?” he asked.
“The rest of us aren’t goats.”
“We can make it,” Grover said. “I think.”
I thought about that. I’d done cliffs before, but I didn’t like them. Then I looked over at Thalia and saw how pale she’d gotten. Her problem with heights . . . she’d never be able to do it.
“No,” I said. “I, uh, think we should go farther upstream.”
Grover said, “But—”
“Come on,” I said. “A walk won’t hurt us.”
I glanced at Thalia. Her eyes said a quick Thank you.
We followed the river about half a mile before coming to an easier slope that led down to the water. On the shore was a canoe rental operation that was closed for the season, but I left a stack of golden drachmas on the counter and a note saying IOU two canoes.
“We need to go upstream,” Zoë said. It was the first time I’d heard her speak since the junkyard, and I was worried about how bad she sounded, like somebody with the flu. “The rapids are too swift.”
“Leave that to me,” I said. We put the canoes in the water.
Thalia pulled me aside as we were getting the oars. “Thanks for back there.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Can you really . . .” She nodded to the rapids. “You know.”
“I think so. Usually I’m good with water.”
“Would you take Zoë?” she asked. “I think, ah, maybe you can talk to her.”
“She’s not going to like that.”
“Please? I don’t know if I can stand being in the same boat with her. She’s . . . she’s starting to worry me.”
It was about the last thing I wanted to do, but I nodded.
Thalia’s shoulders relaxed. “I owe you one.”
“Two.”
“One and a half,” Thalia said.
She smiled, and for a second, I remembered that I actually liked her when she wasn’t yelling at me. She turned and helped Grover get their canoe into the water.
As it turned out, I didn’t even need to control the currents. As soon as we got in the river, I looked over the edge of the boat and found a couple of naiads staring at me.
They looked like regular teenage girls, the kind you’d see in any mall, except for the fact that they were underwater.
Hey, I said.
They made a bubbling sound that may have been giggling. I wasn’t sure. I had a hard time understanding naiads.
We’re heading upstream, I told them. Do you think you could—
Before I could even finish, the naiads each chose a canoe and began pushing us up the river. We started so fast Grover fell into his canoe with his hooves sticking up in the air.