"They're real too, you know," Magnus says, tying off another tamale. "Those gods. I haven't met them, but my cousin's mom is Athena, and I visited her -- Annabeth, my cousin -- once in New Rome." He sighs. "She had to get special permission to live there, 'cause her mom is in her Greek aspect, not her Roman one. Honestly, it all seems really complicated. I was," he admits -- because he's comfortable specifically admitting this one thing with these two specific men, "a little jealous that the whole point of being a Roman demigod seems to be living long enough to get to grow up and get old in a little Roman demigod town."