The Last Olympian

she didn’t say anything, my life literally flashed before my eyes. Suddenly I was twenty. Then I was a middle-aged man. Then I turned old and withered. All the strength left my body, and I saw my own tombstone and an open grave, a coffin being lowered into the ground. All this happened in less than a second.
    It is done , she said.
    The Fate held up the snippet of blue yarn—and I knew it was the same one I’d seen four years ago, the lifeline I’d watched them snip. I had thought it was my life. Now I realized it was Luke’s. They’d been showing me the life that would have to be sacrificed to set things right.
    They gathered up Luke’s body, now wrapped in a white-and-green shroud, and began carrying it out of the throne room.
    “Wait,” Hermes said.
    The messenger god was dressed in his classic outfit of white Greek robes, sandals, and helmet. The wings of his helm fluttered as he walked. The snakes George and Martha curled around his caduceus, murmuring, Luke, poor Luke .
    I thought about May Castellan, alone in her kitchen, baking cookies and making sandwiches for a son who would never come home.
    Hermes unwrapped Luke’s face and kissed his forehead. He murmured some words in Ancient Greek—a final blessing.
    “Farewell,” he whispered. Then he nodded and allowed the Fates to carry away his son’s body.
    As they left, I thought about the Great Prophecy. The lines now made sense to me. A hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap . The hero was Luke. The cursed blade was the knife he’d given Annabeth long ago—cursed because Luke had broken his promise and betrayed his friends. A single choice shall end his days. My choice, to give him the knife, and to believe, as Annabeth had, that he was still capable of setting things right. Olympus to preserve or raze. By sacrificing himself, he had saved Olympus. Rachel was right. In the end, I wasn’t really the hero. Luke was.
    And I understood something else: When Luke had descended into the River Styx, he would’ve had to focus on something important that would hold him to his mortal life. Otherwise he would’ve dissolved. I had seen Annabeth, and I had a feeling he had too. He had pictured that scene Hestia showed me—of himself in the good old days with Thalia and Annabeth, when he promised they would be a family. Hurting Annabeth in battle had shocked him into remembering that promise. It had allowed his mortal conscience to take over again, and defeat Kronos. His weak spot—his Achilles heel—had saved us all.
    Next to me, Annabeth’s knees buckled. I caught her, but she cried out in pain, and I realized I’d grabbed her broken arm.
    “Oh gods,” I said. “Annabeth, I’m sorry.”
    “It’s all right,” she said as she passed out in my arms.
    “She needs help!” I yelled.
    “I’ve got this.” Apollo stepped forward. His fiery armor was so bright it was hard to look at, and his matching Ray-Bans and perfect smile made him look like a male model for battle gear. “God of medicine, at your service.”
    He passed his hand over Annabeth’s face and spoke an incantation. Immediately the bruises faded. Her cuts and scars disappeared. Her arm straightened, and she sighed in her sleep.
    Apollo grinned. “She’ll be fine in a few minutes. Just enough time for me to compose a poem about our victory: ‘Apollo and his friends save Olympus.’ Good, eh?”
    “Thanks, Apollo,” I said. “I’ll, um, let you handle the poetry.”
    The next few hours were a blur. I remembered my promise to my mother. Zeus didn’t even blink an eye when I told him my strange request. He snapped his fingers and informed me that a bright blue flag fifty feet wide was now flying from the top of the Empire State Building. The mortals would just have to wonder what it meant, but my mom would know: I had survived. Olympus was saved.
    The gods set about repairing the throne room, which went surprisingly fast with twelve superpowerful beings at work. Grover and I cared for the wounded, and once the sky bridge re-formed, we greeted our friends who had survived. The Cyclopes had saved Thalia from the fallen statue. She was on crutches, but otherwise she was okay. Connor and Travis Stoll had made it through with only minor injuries. They promised me they hadn’t even looted the city much. They told me my parents were fine, though they weren’t allowed into Mount Olympus. Mrs. O’Leary had dug Chiron out of the rubble and rushed him off to camp. The Stolls looked