XXII Frank

Iris pulls Frank aside, acknowledging the half-burned stick that binds his life and revealing Juno once saved him because he has “too many gifts.” She conjures a rainbow vision of Frank’s childhood: his mother’s protection from a bear, stories of heroic ancestors from Pylos and China, the family home of Li-Jien, and the promise that Frank “can be anything.”

Iris challenges Frank to choose his own path rather than obeying Mars or Juno, offering a tempting alternative life with her ROFL co-op. Frank wrestles with the idea—thinking of his grandmother’s mortality and Hazel’s fragile return—but refuses to abandon his friends or Camp Jupiter.

Accepting the quest, Frank asks for practical help. Iris cannot see into Alaska but advises seeking the seer Phineas in Portland for Thanatos’s location. She warns that if Phineas is still plagued by harpies, Frank must not kill them, as they are her sisters, and must win his aid another way.

Iris points out that basilisks encircle the hill, preventing the group’s departure, and that only Frank can defeat them—ideally with weasels, but otherwise by using Mars’s spear. Before parting, she suggests Frank might entrust his fatal firewood to a trusted demigod. Frank thinks of Hazel but keeps his secret.

Resolved to continue, Frank takes up his father’s spear and marches outside to face the basilisks while Iris checks on his friends.