“Yeah, well. I don’t try to be awesome. It just comes natural.”

“Flight 2039 to Boston is now boarding at gate 14A," a voice announced over the PA system.Nellie sighed. "I love Irish accents." She paused. "And Australian accents. And English accents." A dreamy look came over her face. "Theo had an awesome accent."Dan snorted. "Yeah, there was just that one tiny problem. He turned out to be a two-timing, backstabbing thief.”

“Thanks for not freaking out," I said."Oh, I'm freaking out," Paul promised, his eyes wide. "I just think it's awesome!”

“Hey, can I see that sword you were using?"I showed him Riptide, and explained how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it."Cool! Does it ever run out of ink?""Um, well, I don't actually write with it.""Are you really the son of Poseidon?""Well, yeah.""Can you surf really well, then?"I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh."Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried."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.)”

“Um," Grover said. "Percy?""Yeah?""I thought you'd want to know.""Yeah?""Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice.After that...well...he's hungry.”

“If we can’t repair things with the Romans—well, the two sets of demigods have never gotten along. That’s why the gods kept us separate. I don’t know if we could ever belong there.”Percy didn’t want to argue, but he couldn’t let go of the hope. It felt important—not just for him, but for all the other demigods. It had to be possible to belong in two different worlds at once. After all, that’s what being a demigod was all about—not quite belonging in the mortal world or on Mount Olympus, but trying to make peace with both sides of their nature.”

“Leo,” Jason said, “you’re weird.”“Yeah, you tell me that a lot.” Leo grinned. “But if you don’t remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes...!”