The Mark Of Athena

Hazel and Leo ride Arion to secure supplies. Before they left, Percy shared Hazel’s story: A daughter of Pluto, she had died in the 1940s and only recently returned to life. Arion drops Leo and Hazel at the beach, where Leo gathers salt that contains the lime he needs. He hears a message from Gaea telling him to “Walk away” but ignores it (54, italics in original). Hazel tells Leo he reminds her of someone she knew in New Orleans, Sammy, but Leo cannot be him or have known him since Hazel knew Sammy in her previous life.

Hazel, with her Pluto-inspired knowledge of precious metals, leads the way to the lake where they will find the celestial bronze Leo needs. They encounter a woman dressed in leather and surrounded by fortune cookies. She is Nemesis, the goddess of revenge. To Leo, she looks exactly like his Aunt Rosa from Houston, who abandoned him after his mother died. To Hazel, she looks like her cruel third-grade teacher. Her form is the same in Greek and Roman, since “revenge is universal” (57). She reveals that civil war between the Greeks and Romans is brewing, causing the Olympians to feel trapped between their two forms and incapacitated. The gods blame Juno/Hera, who has fled Olympus. The demigods can no longer expect her help. Leo feels ambivalent since the goddess has groomed him from childhood for his role.

Nemesis offers her help, since she enjoys humbling “the proud and powerful,” which in this case is Gaea, and warns Leo and Hazel that “[t]rue success requires sacrifice” (58). Hazel and Leo resent hearing this since both have lost loved ones. Nemesis directs them to where they can find the celestial bronze, warning Hazel that she only has six days to save her brother, Nico, before Rome is destroyed. Nemesis tells Leo that his hardest times are ahead of him: He “will always be the outsider” among his friends and “face a problem [he] cannot solve” (59). She gives him a fortune cookie that will solve his problems “when the time comes,” though opening the cookie will require him to make a sacrifice (60). He puts it into his tool belt. Nemesis’s parting words are that “an old wrong avenged” might bring unity to Olympus, if the demigods accept her help (60).

Hazel admits that Nico found her in the Underworld and brought her to Camp Jupiter, giving her a “second chance at life” (61). Though she has no insight into Nemesis’s warning, if Nico needs her help, she cannot refuse him. Leo privately doubts Nemesis would help anyone without an ulterior motive. He ponders Nemesis’s warning about always being the outsider among his friends, a feeling he has struggled with already, being the one demigod on the quest without a partner and having stoked war with the Romans by firing on their city. Hazel reminds him that Nemesis’s purpose is to “stir up resentment” (63).

Hazel and Leo encounter Echo, who leads them to a pond surrounded by nymphs photographing a handsome young man, Narcissus, staring at his reflection. The nymphs remind Echo that she lost her chance with him, since he “dumped [her] four thousand years ago,” and Hera had cursed Echo for talking too much (67). Leo pushes through the crowd of gossiping nymphs. Looking into the pond, he sees a submerged sheet of Celestial bronze. Narcissus will not allow him to take it because it is reflecting his image, which he is in love with. Leo offers him a mirror to trade, but Narcissus prefers the bronze. Hazel understands that Echo brought them to the pond to save Narcissus from himself. Nemesis had cursed him to fall in love with his own image because he “broke so many hearts” (69).

Hazel, Leo, and Echo retreat to decide what to do. Hazel believes that Narcissus cannot change his nature and will again stare at himself until he dies, but Leo reminds her that they need the bronze. If they take it away, Narcissus might have the motivation “to snap out of it” (70). Leo asks Hazel to summon the bronze while he and Echo create a distraction.

Leo creates a diversion by strolling among the crowd of nymphs and crowing that he is cool, and Narcissus is a loser; Echo repeats everything he says. His act works, drawing the nymphs’ attention and irritating Narcissus so that he turns his attention away from the bronze. By the time he turns back, Hazel has removed it. He threatens to leave, alarming the nymphs, unless they can get the bronze sheet back. He readies his bow and orders the nymphs to “kill those demigods” (74). Narcissus and the nymphs chase Hazel and Leo, while Echo tries to run interference. Hazel calls on Arion, who arrives just in time. Leo doesn’t want to leave Echo behind, but she wants to stay and save Narcissus.