“Everything becomes much, much harder when you wake the Beast. I imagined her putting down her own roots, mooring herself in place. But if we’re going to take that kind of risk, I’ll need you at my side with your wonderful powers. We don’t have to surrender him to Python. “Apollo might still be allowed to live, if that’s really what you want. “Now, Meg.” His voice hardened, letting her know that his patience was strained. “My dear Meg,” Nero said, his voice even, “we’ve talked about this before. His wolf-headed comrade offered him a Kleenex.
His Germani seemed unperturbed, as if this sort of thing happened a lot. Nero calmly brushed the pollen from his face and clothes. With a grateful collective sob, they vanished. They were huddled together trembling, burn marks steaming on their arms. Not being complete fools, Nero’s children scrambled away from their newly aggressive houseplants. The dryads’ trees began to grow, roots breaking through their pots and anchoring to the floor, new leaves unfurling to replace the singed ones, branches thickening and stretching out, threatening to entangle their demigod minders. The demigods’ torch flames spluttered and died. Verdant dust coated the throne room-Nero, his couch, his guards, his rugs, his windows, his children. A storm of allergens exploded from Meg’s body, as if she’d released an entire season of oak pollen in a single blast. “We will have to try something else.” He gestured to the demigods, who lowered their torches into the plants.
Meg stiffened, apparently realizing what Nero intended to do. “These dryads don’t have the courage or the spirit to do what’s necessary.” “Perhaps you’re right, Meg,” he conceded. He glanced at me with a mixture of humor and pity, as if saying, Now look what you’ve done. I do! But we can’t interfere with justice.” If I could have just kept her looking nowhere but at me, perhaps we could’ve survived in a small bubble of our old friendship, even surrounded by Nero’s toxic environment. She recoiled when she saw them, but I pressed them into her hands. I did trust her-not in spite of her past with Nero, but because of it. She had chosen me, but I had also chosen her. I meant it, despite all my doubts and fears, despite all my complaints over the months about Meg being my master.
“There’s only one person here you need to listen to: yourself. I had to concentrate on her eyes, framed by her wonderfully horrible cat-eye glasses, and ignore the new wispy haircut, the smell of lilac perfume, the purple gown and gold sandals and-OH, GODS!-someone had given her a pedicure. For the moment, her old spirit seemed rekindled, but it was difficult to visualize her the way she used to be. Her first whispered question was not the one I’d been expecting: “Is Lu alive?” I would have been overjoyed to get this attention from her if we hadn’t been in the middle of Nero’s throne room, or if I could just, you know, breathe. She knelt and put her hand on my shoulder, studying my scrapes and cuts and my ruined, bandaged nose with an agonized expression. The others backed off, leaving me on my hands and knees, gasping, bruised, and bleeding. The ficus sobbed with relief and released her hold around my neck.
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