- Written By: ThomasProofread By: EbonyPOV: Third personDeaths: Grover (6), Annabeth (3)
Ebony says that they're toning down the story to make it more accepting (it's hard to be less accepting than they are), but won't shy away from warning people about the dangers of sinning. Apparently, that means that Thomas, while giving a spiel about Jesus' gift to man, can also verbally bash his brother, Arcadiarika and BookObsesserNumberOne. Ebony doesn't call him out on this, but insists that she is not a Goth and has not "done the thing" yet.
Annabeth panics and wants to get Grover out as quickly as possible, wondering if Satan made his way into the camp, or if there's a "tractor" inside. Given that "traitor" was consistently spelled correctly in the previous Evil Gods, back when it had practically achieved Arc Words status in the first half, this puts the lie to Ebony being a better proofreader.
Jason's confused as to why Annabeth thinks there's a traitor (although at least he knows what one is), saying that he'd been under the impression that she'd purified the country. She says that there's still people who worship the devil even though it's illegal (I imagine because the Prayer Warriors made it so), and they never found the traitor last time (Does this mean that it wasn't Ethan or Mary?).
Annabeth laments this development and asks why the Satanists are causing so much suffering. In the absence of Annabeth's other friends- Jerry's fighting against Stalin (as well as Grover) and Percy's missing- Jason comforts her, and helps drag Grover to the courtyard. There, he and Leo take Grover's head, with the narrative dismissing Annabeth as too weak to do so, and dunk it in the well. Annabeth, however, does know exorcism procedure- leave Grover's head underwater for 5-10 minutes while reciting a prayer.
One would think that Grover would drown from this, and it seems Jason realizes the danger; after five minutes, he hastily tells them to say the prayer. Despite, or because of this, the prayer fails and Grover drowns. As Annabeth mourns his passing, Jason and Leo bury the body while discussing who the traitor might be.
Soon afterward, an old man named Chiron- who is actually a centaur and doesn't seem all that old, at least in the graphic novel version- arrives with bad news; Annabeth killed herself while the others were away.
As you can see from the death numbers on top, the number of times characters have died and come back is getting quite ridiculous.
Next Installment: The surviving Prayer Warriors go to the nation's capital to search for the traitor.
