#tttspoilers

Just a lull before the really bad things happen. And Apollo just has a nice quiet vacation before he has to go back to destroying Python and/or Nero.

1. There was no malice in Reyna’s laughter, she didn’t do it to hurt Lester. She literally goes up to him after the battle to explain and to thank him for inadvertently helping her understand the “curse,” and she clarifies that she’s not turning him down for being an unattractive mortal immediately after the laughter, she just really doesn’t want to date anyone (an important message to send to girls: you’re allowed to just not want to date anyone, you don’t need a specific reason or excuse to say no when someone asks you out.)

2. She had absolutely no reason to say yes. She knew people who get romantically involved with the gods tend to meet terrible ends, she had no emotional connection to Lester, she figured she would never see him again after a few days, etc. Also keep in mind this is a god who’s known for falling for a different person every three seconds. The idea of HIM being the one to stay steady in Reyna’s life after people like Jason couldn’t is pretty ridiculous.

3. It really was completely out of nowhere from her point of view. Apollo had been staring at her weirdly for a while and acting scared and jumpy, she was probably low-key worried that he had betrayed Rome or cursed her while he was a god or something. When she asked him what was going on it was clear that romantic interest was the farthest thing from her mind, so the reveal that the only thing that Apollo had been worried about was whether he was supposed to date her, she would’ve been incredibly relieved/ surprised, which translates to laughter a lot

So Apollo’s going back to New York in the next book, right? Which will take place soon after TTT (which ends Apr 9) so even if the book takes place over the course of a month, it’ll still be only May

Meanwhile, in the Ship of the Dead, Annabeth calls Magnus (in mid June!!!!) and tells him she received bad news AFTER arriving at Camp Jupiter

This means one of four things:

Rick Riordan messed up with continuity and didn’t catch it until it was too late to fix. Honestly, this is the one I’m hoping for at this point, but it’d be deeply unsatisfying nontheless

Apollo, for whatever godforsaken reason, doesn’t tell Percy and Annabeth about Jason in The Tower of Nero. Very unlikely based on how he acted in TTT, also would be insatisfying, but still theoretically possible???????

Percy and Annabeth don’t appear in The Tower of Nero. We never see them again in a Rick Riordan book. Everyone is sad.

Expect varying amounts of crack theories

1) Hera had originally chosen Jason as her champion to run Camp Jupiter and fight some specific battles in the future, and had Frank was her second choice. The fates mentioned very vaguely that a hero had to die young for some quest and let her choose because she had some bargaining chip with them for some reason. She chose that Frank would die young, (but still, gave him some control over his destiny by blocking the curse with the stick,)because she prefereed Jason to be praetor for the quest (to spite Zeus or something) and then dedicated a lot of time to training Jason to grow up to be the perfect praetor. She switched him over to Camp Half Blood to unite the camps, but wasn’t expecting him to realize he didn’t want to be praetor and give up the position. Now that Frank was praetor and Jason was useless, Hera looked back over the prophecy and decided it was best for the world if she switched things around so Jason died instead. She purposely messed with the ambiguous parts of the prophecy the fates gave her, doesn’t tell anyone about it, and now Jason is dead and Frank’s stick is no longer cursed.

2) Hera was completely bluffing the entire time, she just gave Frank the stick to make him beleive he was special and/ or for team bonding reasons so he’d have more trauma to share with the group.

3) Hera really liked baby Frank for whatever reason and decided to make him immortal (like Demeter with Triptolemus) , but the gods wouldn’t allow it, so she only made him conditionally immortal, where he couldn’t die as long as he had the stick. Frank didn’t know this, but the last remnants of his immortality made him survive the Greek fire, and he’s mortal now

4) Hazel went back to carrying Frank’s stick again without telling Frank, she still has it now, Frank didn’t know but he was carrying a decoy stick the entire time. The reason it caught on fire so quickly is because Apollo unintentionally used his godly sun power to heat it up, and the reason Frank didn’t die is because he can’t die until his stick burns up

5) Frank was already mostly dead, he was scratched by a eurynomos weeks ago but it took until now to fully set in, he died in the fire and was instantly reborn as undead, but the fire washed all the evil away and now he’s back to his normal self but also low-key a zombie

6) Frank wasn’t actually in the tunnel, Leo and Frank switched places with the help of magic disguises because Frank needed to take a break from his duty as praetor, and he couldn’t have spies knowing where he was going. The real Frank is currently flying to Indiana with Piper, and the person we saw burn in the tunnel was Leo, who, as we all know, is fireproof.