A dryad greets them at the top and takes them into the room Nero is in. In the room with Nero are the 11 imperial children, a handful of servers, half a dozen Germani, and Luguselwa who still looks damaged from their previous encounter. Nero thanks their guide and Apollo realizes that he's enslaving dryads as a power move. After Lu talks about how they gave themselves up like she said they would, Nero starts to question Apollo. He says he believes Meg would, but he doesn't get why Apollo would. Nero then goes on a rant on good acts and traditional Roman values. Apollo wonders where he's going with this monologue until he mentions bad acts. He suspects Apollo's surrender falls under one of these bad acts. So instead of learning Celtic languages, I’m now learning the language of the film industry, which definitely has its own lingo,” Riordan says. “But I do feel excited. I’m guardedly optimistic.” All of the kids that I write about, at one time or another, have been in my classroom

MY BABIES HAVE GROWN UP. I’m still not an Apollo fan because he just cannot compare to Seaweed Brain or the Seven or Reyna or Nico, but I loved how his narrative developed.They are then called by Dionysus to discuss Nero’s ultimatum. Meg says they need to trust Luguselwa’s plan and surrender themselves so they can destroy the fasces. Apollo knows he will have to face Python once Nero is defeated. Nico realizes he needs to go to a group known as the cavern hunters despite Will’s protests, and he tells Apollo and Meg to rest. Apollo travels through camp, dismayed that he cannot find good advice on how to escape Nero. Eventually, he speaks to the Arrow of Dadona, which he believes sees something in the future that it is unwilling to share. Apollo then goes to Meg and the two agree to go to Nero together, even though Apollo is worried about Meg returning to her abuser. Apollo developed so much throughout this series, and this book is certainly where we see him at his best. (Not physically, of course. He's still a squeaky teenage boy with acne. No shame, bro.) We also see the reappearance of my cinnamon rolls, Nico and Will, along with the one and only Meg McCaffrey. *sniffles* my precious demigods. *pat pat*

The other passengers ignored him. No doubt the Mist warped their perceptions, making them see just another commuter. The snake made no threatening moves. He didn’t even glance at us. For all I knew, he was simply a working-stiff monster on his way home.Once the Council is dismissed, only Zeus and Apollo are left in the room. Zeus tells Apollo he knows he thinks what he did was harsh, and Apollo just doesn't reply. He continues going on about how only Apollo could have erased Python from existence and only he could have freed all the oracles. He says that he's proud of him and while Apollo has so many things to say to him, he keeps it short. He says he understands, and Zeus welcomes him home. Apollo rises asking to be excused since he has several other places to be.