red sky at morning

by RiverTuonen

Summary:

Luke is eighteen when someone steals Zeus' Lightning Bolt. Unfortunately, it seems that someone might have been him. Even worse, a sixth grader is getting blamed for the crime (that's definitely, probably, hopefully not his).

Meanwhile, Pelagia just wants to make it through a day of school where someone other than the nice substitute teacher sees her as more than a lost cause.

OR

Luke is assigned instead of Grover or Chiron to make a house call on the potentially very powerful demigod in New York. It's not his fault he and sad kids have a tendency to imprint on each other like ducks and ducklings, so he can't be held accountable for what happens next.

(currently in the process of undergoing minor typo edits before I continue after nearly a year's hiatus)

Notes:

The interested readership for this story is honestly probably just me, but I thought I'd try posting it. It's written by a mildly homesick New Yorker who has A Lot of Feelings about the many faults of the NY school system, which you'll mostly see in the first chapter. But some basic things to understand -

Astoria is an historically Greek neighborhood. It still is more Greek than a lot of the City, but the demographic has shifted significantly over the past few years. But for someone who wanted to leave Greece quick and didn't do a lot of research, it's the place that would have made sense to move, even if other areas are a lot cheaper.

It's hilarious to me that Camp Half-Blood is supposed to be in a valley. Long Island is nothing but flat highways, eternal traffic, and mattress stores. I've moved the camp to a barrier island somewhere between Fire Island and the Hamptons.

Some characters will show up early, some late, and some not at all depending on what the plot requires. The ages are also all over the place - it's very much only in the realm of MG/YA stories where everyone is in blocks of just a couple of ages, so it keeps friendships neat. This will be a little messier. Also, sixth graders start out as eleven-year-olds. A number of characters will be in college, so that Luke is allowed to have friends his own age.

A lot of characters' backgrounds are developed with a step to the left, mostly for realism.

What year is it? Who knows. Probably some time before 2020, because child immigration laws have changed since then, but either after 2009 because I wanted the Acropolis Museum to be a thing, or it just opened to the public earlier in this universe.

A weird mix of US and UK spelling will be used.

Chapter 1: the lightning thief

“Why not Grover?” Luke asks, in equal parts mystified and miffed, when Chiron and Mr. D call him to the Big House to discuss making a house call on a demigod in Queens. “Or Hedge? I thought half-blood collecting was satyr business.”

Mr. Dr rubs the side of his nose. The pot-bellied, aged-out frat boy look he usually takes on to express his extended displeasure has dropped for once, so he’s as apple-checked and golden haired as the old stories say. “Grover has begun his search for the Fleece,” he says, sighing, “and Gleeson is in California working another job. Be a good boy, Luca, and fetch me a bottle from the cellar, will you?”

If Chiron didn’t look two seconds from scolding the god, Luke probably would have said no, but he’s still pissed off enough at the old horse for refusing to send a car for Lacey after that hellhound attack that he goes. Besides, everyone knows Mr. D’s punishment is undeserved torture. “Went after the wrong nymph” is a real great way to explain away “tried to hide his follower before the Olympian Fuckboy could have his way with her.” There’s never been a general consensus around camp about what’s worse—cutting him off from the wine, or cutting him off from his wife.

Luke takes the side exit off the wrap-around porch, undoes the lock on the cellar door, and slips out of the sunshine into the darkened underbelly beneath the house. The lights flicker on automatically when he enters, revealing spare camp supplies and a mountain of wine. As he searches for a decent vintage among the shelves of dusty bottles, he goes over Chiron and Mr. D’s request. Why would they want to send him to some school in Astoria to check out a confirmed demigod? Why not collect her directly? And what’s a “house call?” Even Thalia didn’t get one of those, and her father made the request to get her directly, not some nymph or nereid. Because that’s what Chiron said, that a nereid appeared last night to request someone check on “the child.” Whose child, she didn’t say. Sea gods are notoriously protective; the parent could be anyone from Ceto to Poseidon himself.

It doesn’t make any sense why a satyr can’t do it. Why Chiron can’t do it. Do they know about his dreams? Luke wonders. Are they trying to get him out of camp because they think he’ll betray them?

Fuck them, if they think that. He’d never do anything that could put his family in harm’s way. Especially now, with the baby on the way.

When he returns with the wine, Chiron and Mr. D are arguing—“I still think we do a direct retrieval,” Mr. D is saying, while the old horse protests, “That was not the request, my dear friend,” like that should matter. They stop when Luke’s foot hits the actual porch and return to squabbling about pinochle. Luke rounds the corner to find them now seated directly across from each other around the small round, gingham-covered table, cards in front of them but not in hand. Past them, framed by porch’s whitewashed awning and its whitewashed rail, the sun is setting in a brilliant orange and pink over the Atlantic, varnishing the roofs of Hera and Zeus’ cabins in gold.

He sets the wine down on the table. “Look at this mislabelled bottle of grape juice I found,” he says as he twists out the cork. It’s the standard thing any camper says when they break the rules for the prisoner. Plausible deniability and all that. “Mind if I have some, Director?”

“Of course, Lawrence,” Mr. D says, waving his hand to conjure two cups, both labelled World’s Best Grape Juice. Neither offers any to Chiron, who eyes them with a distinct disapproval that only intensifies as Luke pours, corks the bottle, and resumes his seat. Mr. D sips, exhales in dramatic relief, and turns his purple eyes on Luke before saying, “Listen, my boy, with the two satyrs who could most logically fit the situation, as either a teacher or a sixth grader, otherwise occupied, it’s important that we get creative. And between some manipulation of the Mist, and your very real position as a student at Hunter, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to acquire you a job as some sort of substitute or teaching aid.” 

Even with the Mist that sounds like a stretch. Luke is eighteen, a freshman in his first semester with no official credits, and therefore, no transcript. He sips his wine to fortify himself. “What about Lee?” he asks. “Or Katie? They’re juniors. Silena’s a sophomore. Ethan and Al are seniors. Drew’s a freshman too.” And they’re all in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Queens. He and Silena might both be going to school in the City, but he’s joining her this year in her one-bedroom apartment in Flushing because anywhere outside of Queens is too expensive. Even that, they (she) can only afford because her dad is paying for it. 

Much too reasonably, Chiron asks, “Because none of them have ‘teaching’ down as their major, and you do.”

Curses. He knew he should have started out undeclared. Really, he isn’t even sure if he wants to teach, but his girlfriend pointed out that he’s good with kids, and that it would be better if he started out as something, or he was unlikely to commit to anything, and, well, Silena does tend to be right. 

“Fine,” he says, deciding not to start a fight he knows he can’t win. “But also, screw the request. If the kid’s in danger, I’m bringing them here immediately.” 

“Yes,” Mr. D says, with a glance that borders on a glare in Chiron’s direction. “After all, that is why we’re here. Now, rest up, Lorenzo, you’re off to experience the delicious madness that is higher education tomorrow. We’ll pass on the requisite details by the start to the public school’s term.” 

As if Luke wasn’t already dreading how hard his first semester would be. Between dyslexia, ADHD, the tutoring he’ll need to help survive his writing classes, and the monster attacks, he already had his work cut out for him. Screw whoever this kid’s parent is for making it worse. 

Maybe, he thinks as he walks to the dining pavilion, he can somehow bribe Apollo for help. Protector of Youth and all. The odds of it working are slim, but, Luke figures, it’s at least worth a shot. 

 

Luke endears himself to the kid the first time they meet because he pronounces her name right. Pe-lah-yeé-ah, not Pé-lah-gee-ah. Nickname Agi, Ah-yé. When he tries to speak to her in English, she only smiles vaguely and doesn’t respond; when he tries Ancient Greek, she beams. “Are you from Greece too?” she asks, also in Ancient Greek, probably not even realising that she isn't speaking the modern variety. Her eyes are wide on her heart-shaped face, a colour of blue-green he’s never seen before, like the tropical sea in the sliver when the brighter shallows give way to the darker depths at midday. 

“No,” he says gently. Her smile drops. In the front of the classroom, the IT person tries to fix the computer, and outside in the hall, students rush past in their effort to procrastinate entering until the first bell rings. “But my father’s from Corinthia.” 

She just nods and slides a little deeper into her chair. Living where she is in Astoria, a fair number of her classmates have parents or grandparents from Greece, but very few weren’t born in the States. Their ability to speak the language is limited. For the teachers, it’s nonexistent. 

Within a week, he realises that she’s one of several students with poor English-language skills that various teachers shove to the back room and ignore. Sara, an older woman substituting during her retirement, whispers to Luke during lunch one day that all these kids will squeak by with Ds or low Cs at the end of the year because no one will want to deal with the trouble of teaching them again. Plus, she says, it doesn’t look good for the school if more than a student or two is held back, even in a class of a thousand. And of course the teachers don’t do anything—they aren’t paid enough to care.

Sara levels him a look over her tupperware of reheated baked ziti, as if to say, Are you sure this is the route you want to go, Castellan? No, is the answer. Definitely, definitely not.

By the end of week two, Luke formally changes his major to environmental studies.

But he likes the kid. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, his days without classes, he substitutes one of her classes without fail, mostly thanks to the Mist. A cohort of other students have made it their mission to bully her, but when he tries to point out the literal, very obvious bruises administration, the Principle waves him off. “Our hands are tied unless we see anything,” he says, and amends his statement to “anything physical” and “it’s not ask though the girl understands, from what you say,” when Luke dryly points that he and several other teachers have at least witnessed Nancy Bobfit and her posse slinging words, if not sticks and stones. 

In a moment of desperation, he tries to ask the head of Accessibility Service's tutoring office at Hunter for advice, but Linda just levels him with a look of such pity he knows she won’t be able to help even before she says, “Why do you think I quit public school to work here?”

The result: when Agi starts asking him for extra help during recess, he accepts. It’s probably not good, but the way he figures, if anyone starts asking questions, then that’s what the Mist’s for. Or Silena. He’s never been great about how comfortable some of the Aphrodite kids are with manipulating ordinary people with Charmspeak, but if he sees one more bruise on Agi, then all bets are off. It’s not even the end of September.

Slowly, he works on teaching her English, but it’s difficult when she barely speaks and they’re both are dyslexic—and that’s its own issue, because she doesn’t understand, either, that she is dyslexic, considering she reads her native alphabet just fine. She never makes eye contact. To compensate for her ADHD, she's always spinning a pen between her fingers. When they sit side-by-side at the table in the teacher's lounge so he can go over what makes sentence or how to understand the dumb American system of measurement, he initiates all levels of interaction, and she reacts. Though eleven, she’s the size of an eight- or nine-year-old, much smaller than Annie was a couple of years ago. Her hair is the same blue-black as Thalia’s, but very messy, and very long, with bangs that flop over her eyebrows. Despite the late summer heat, she’s always in long sleeves, like she’s trying to disappear into herself. She’ll only share something about herself if he tells her about himself first. 

By October, she’s a weird, quaternary outlet for bitching about his horrible stats professor, after, primarily, Silena, then Lee, then Annabeth, who probably would’ve been first on the list if she wasn’t thirteen. “The man is a monster,” Luke tells Agi very seriously one rainy Tuesday, when all the other students are trapped during recess in the cafeteria, but they’re working on mathematical word problems in the teacher’s lounge. A couple of teachers are there, but none of them speak Greek, so the conversation is still private. “He tests us from the textbook—" He has to switch back into English for the modern word. "—but never teaches from it. Only someone like Annie can succeed, I think.” 

Agi glances up at him through her hair. “Annie?” she repeats. Her pronunciation is a little off. Ah-ní.

“My little sister,” he says as he flips over the worksheet to check out the next question: You have 15 yards of ribbon for your gift boxes. Each gift box receives the same amount of ribbon. You have 20 gift boxes. How much ribbon does each box get? If only stats was this simple, he thinks forlornly, as he adds, “Annabeth. I’m the only person who can call her Annie. Do you have siblings?”

She shakes her head. “Just my stepfather,” she says in a mumble, as she doodles trees in the corner of her worksheet.

Though he’s dying to know if she means that literally, or if her mother’s presence is just implied, he shelves the question for later. The kid’s about as tetchy as a feral cat—it’s not hard to get her on the defensive by asking too much directly. Fucking Bobfit might have something to do with that. Luke never realised that pestering someone with questions could be bullying, but this random middle schooler managed just fine. 

They turn their attention to the word problem. It’s another week before he casually lets drop that his mother lives out of state, and Agi says, “Mama’s dead.”

 “Oh,” he says, looking up from the sample sentences and down at the top of her head. She’s focused on her lap, her shoulders curled in, which makes the uncomfortable wooden chair look even more torturous. The pen spins between her fingers, but slower than usual. “I’m sorry. What about your dad?”

“Probably a tourist.” She bites out tourístas like the word hurts her. Rather than Ancient Greek and English, she swings back forth between versions of the same language, which is somehow harder to track. “I don’t look like any local from Agistri or Poros. Mama and Gavriil would visit his parents in Poros a lot before I was born. Yours?”

“He lives in New York now,” Luke says, careful to keep his tone even, though he’s still trying to figure out if she just implied that her mother cheated on her stepfather with her real father. “We don’t live together. I’m in college now.” What he doesn’t say: It was my father who suggested I go, and who suggested I move out, but he meant dorming, except then I went and knocked up my girlfriend. But a sixth grader doesn’t need to know that. He hesitates and says instead, “Castellan’s from my mom, though,” because he’s dead curious now she ended up with Jackson for a surname when her mother’s husband is Gavriil. 

Unsurprisingly, this is one of the many questions Bobfit levelled at the kid. Not that Agi understood, but still.

“Gavriil’s brother says America is more anti-immigrant than Greece and Hungary put together,” Agi says, finally looking at him more or less directly. Her focus is on his nose, but it’s better than nothing. This is the most she’s said the whole time he’s known her. “His store is Jackson Hardware. Gavriil changed our name so he would match. Giannopoulou.” 

That’s not the answer he was expecting, but he takes it in stride and holds out his hand. “All right, Pelagia Giannopoulou,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

With a cautious smile, she accepts the handshake. And for the moment, he doesn’t regret taking on this job at all.

 

 

Everything starts to go to shit in December. 

For Midwinter, all the year rounders and any local demigod who felt like joining head up to Olympus to witness the unfolding Family Drama firsthand, including Piper McLean, some actor’s twelve-year-old daughter who Hedge says he “couldn’t get out soon enough.” Distracted as Luke is with doing damage control over Connor and Travis’ borderline malicious prank on the Athena cabin and Silena’s new lethargy and dizzy spells, it takes longer than it should for him to realise that something’s…off about Aphrodite’s children. Downright weird. For some reason, whenever Drew comes within ten feet of the new kid, she disappears. Annie barely lets the younger girl out of her sight, and if she isn’t there, then Malcolm, Annie's older brother, is. 

When he finally has time to ask about it, he’s with his girlfriend in the beat-up Toyota he only uses to get to and from camp, since he takes the subway around the City (they could take the LIRR to camp, but at what cost?). That they’re alone is dumb luck; now that they live away from camp, it seems like one of their siblings is always glued to their sides once they come for a visit.

But whatever the reason, it’s just the two of them when he pulls onto Ocean Parkway after the third camp van. “Is everything okay?” he asks, sparing a glance at her, as she applies her makeup with the help of flap’s mirror. “You and your siblings seem kind of tense.”

She pauses in dabbing coverup onto a splash of acne to glance. With her sparkly copper eyeliner, the blue of them pops. “I’m not a hundred percent sure,” she says, as she returns to what she was doing. Like magic, all evidence of her constant exhaustion disappears. “Drew says Annabeth overreacted, and in a classic case of You Believe Who You Meet First, this turned Piper against at least Drew. And I’m just repeating what my sister said, so don’t shoot the messenger. But, I guess Annabeth was tasked with showing Piper around, so she was there when everything went down. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do feel for her—Piper, I mean. Seems like she grew up being told her mom was probably murdered, but no one’d ever find the body—details forthcoming, but if I had to guess, her dad must’ve seen Mom as Native, and, well, there is that stereotype, right? So this has just been a lot. Like, more than usual. She’s been on the edge of a panic attack since she arrived. Drew just wanted to calm her down—considering how much better she is with her Charmspeak than the rest of us, it’s usually easy—and Piper…I don’t know. Tapped back, I guess. But she didn’t understand what was going on, and Annabeth called it a ‘violation’ or something, so Piper took it badly. Like, that would be bad enough word choice for anyone, but throw in multigenerational trauma, and it’s just been a clusterfuck.”

Abruptly, Luke realises two things at once: first, that at least Drew, if not Drew and Silena, are using Charmspeak on more than just monsters and strangers, and second, that Piper must not just have Charmspeak, but a significantly stronger version than her sisters. Silena can’t use hers on Drew, but Drew is perfectly capable in the reverse. For someone to “tap back” against Drew, that’s got to be sorceress-level strength. It’s something to consider.

But any consideration will have to wait. “Did Drew ask her permission first?” he asks as he switches lanes to avoid one slowing line traffic, only to inevitably land in another. The sky is a bright winter blue, with a cold sun shining down from high overhead, all looking too cheery for a conversation he knows he isn’t going to like.

“There didn’t seem like much point,” Silena says, pushing the flap back up against the roof of the car. “She was going to hurt herself. Mama kind of overdid it. Celeb’s kid or not, Piper’s still only twelve. She couldn’t figure out how to get out of this completely unnecessary strappy cocktail dress. I saw a picture. Lacey took it before the freak out started. All Drew wanted was to calm her down enough so someone could help. It’s just that simple.” 

“Annabeth’s not acting like it’s that simple.” That sounds reasonable, but Annie is so one-dimensionally judgemental that frankly, she wouldn’t be hanging around one of Aphrodite’s daughters if she didn’t think she had good reason. As much as Luke’s tried to break her of it, she still thinks his girlfriend’s family is better to avoid.

Silena rolls her eyes. “Your ‘little sister’ doesn’t always understand people. One day she’ll be a wonderful CEO architect of a cut-throat architect firm because of it, but for now, she’s just made everything worse. Can you believe she prayed to her mother to let Piper sleep there? And that her mother accepted? It’s obviously because she and Mama have never gotten along—”

“Gods, Sil, what the fuck?” He tries to glance away from the road, but the stop and start traffic forces him to turn his attention back on the line of cars in front of him. In the next lane, several cars ahead, he sees the camp’s vans. Hopefully Annie and Piper aren’t in the same one as Drew. It’s not that he doesn’t get that Silena will always have her sister’s back, but it does sometimes put her and Luke at odds sometimes, because he’ll always defend Annie. “No, Annabeth wouldn’t ask for a new, non-related cabin mate without good reason. Sure, the gods might not actually give a shit where we sleep, but—”

“You always assume she’s in the right. You haven’t even talked to her!”

“And what will Piper say if I ask her?”

Silena sighs. Loudly. Dramatically. “You know,” she says, “I’d never ask if you checked for a car’s permission before you hotwired it. We all have our talents. But if you’re going to get worked up about this, I don’t think we can have the nice and calm conversation that I hoped.”

Her hand slips into his hair, the way she’ll do when they kiss or fuck. Something about it sets him on edge. “All right, fine,” he says, suddenly wary. “We’ll talk about something else.” 

Slowly, her fingers twine in his curls. He feels himself tense, though he can’t place why, even before she says, “You love me, don’t you, Luke?”

“Yeah,” he says cautiously. 

“And you’d help me if you could?”

“Yes?”

Despite the traffic, he chances another glance at her. Her eyes are the same colour as the sky, that perfect shade of blue. Then she smiles—

And Luke is on Olympus. 

“My boys!” his father says, blindsiding him as he appears behind him to throw one arm around Luke’s shoulder and the other around Chris’. “Come on, come on, group hug.” 

Considering Chris, the youngest of them, is a tall twelve-year-old, and their father’s not the tallest of gods, group hugs are always a little awkward. Still, they manage. His father smells like pencil shavings and fresh air when Luke leans into him, just as he always does. Always has, ever since Luke was too little to remember, and he’d show up to playact at being a normal American Dad. Catch in the backyard, drive-in movies during the summer, running down the strip of rocky beach at the end of the road, dinners as a family. Mom was a travel writer, then, so he got away with the visits by visiting her, as a follower protected by one of his domains, rather than his son. 

But then there was the Oracle. 

“I’ll swing by later to see you guys,” his father says when he and his brothers collectively end the hug. “It’s still my cheat day. But I got to talk to Luke alone for a bit, all right?”

Though not without the usual grumbling, Chris, Connor, and Travis leave for the elevator. The elevator? Not the reception hall? Fuck fuck fuck. It’s bad enough that Luke can’t remember getting here. Worse that he can’t remember hanging around with a bunch of gods for three hours. And where’s Silena? Or Annie? He’s in the courtyard near the bridge, the square one with the olive trees growing all around that he once heard Mr. D say pisses off Poseidon. 

When he looks back at his father, the concerned expression is so familiar he thinks he might be sick. Lately, he’s seen it in the mirror every time he goes to the public school in Astoria, when he has to worry over what Nancy Bobfit is going to do to Agi. 

“Are you all right?” he asks, leading Luke to a bench beneath one of the trees that faces that distinctly freshwater fountain. “You seemed distracted.” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says. From the way his father looks at him, it’s clear that he isn’t getting away with that lie. “I just—Silena and I got into a fight on the way here.” Which is true, he realises. He can’t quite seem to remember what the fight was about, but he does remember arguing. “Have you seen her?”

Chagrined, his father says, “She left with her sister.” A single brow quirks. Apparently, Luke didn’t do such a good job hiding his relief, either. “Must’ve been some fight.”

“I started it,” he says, as the details sluggishly come back to him. Piper, Drew. The blue, blue sky. Silena’s copper eyeliner. “There’s some kind of drama going on with the new girl. I guess she and Annabeth became fast friends, and not everyone’s happy with it. Which isn’t exactly unfair. Annie’s been sort of mean in the past.”

His father’s quiet for a long moment, as he just looks at Luke. “You know,” he says after a beat. “We’re all family here. But, still. I only have a few others I’d consider ‘friends’ in the way mortals think of friends. Aphrodite’s one. I’ve heard a lot about Piper over the past few years. It might be good for her to have someone like Annabeth on her side.”

Somehow, it never occurred to Luke before that the gods must talk about their kids before they reach camp. “It’s good for Annabeth to have more friends, too,” he says. He wants to ask his father how the meeting is already over, when the last thing Luke remembers is driving into traffic in Suffolk County, but also, he doesn’t want to have to see Mr. D again. It was bad enough after his quest a few years ago. 

He and Silena got together after that quest, when they were still reeling over Breckendorf’s death. Before that, they’d be a quartet, the three of them and Lee. It was a toss up over who would come, him and Silena or him and Lee or Lee and Silena, but ultimately, Lee had to focus on training Will to take over as head medic for when he left for college. There’s a chance that things started going wrong as early as that decision, though they’ll never know—though Luke hadn’t understood why until a year after his return, his father appeared before he could visit the Oracle, vehemently refused to allow him in the same room as the spirit, and gave the prophecy himself, as he knew it. Later, everyone said the quest failed because they never received a prophecy. That it was Luke’s fault he and Silena returned with his face slashed open, no apple, and nightmares of watching his best friend, who was her boyfriend, get eaten alive by a dragon. For awhile, even Lee drifted away in his grief, but Luke and Silena banded together in regret and anger. Anger at themselves and each other and their parents. For a year, Luke hated his father more than he already did, blaming him for blocking the prophecy, until they finally talked; if Silena ever forgave her mother for the promise “to make her love life interesting,” she’s never said. 

Two and a half years later, Luke still doesn’t know some days if what kept them together before the baby was real love, not the sort anyone could look at and consider good. It’s not the same as he felt when he linked pinkies with Thalia beside the campfire and swore they were in it with each other until the end, nor the way Lee’s good-natured teasing had started to make him blush not long before he accepted the quest. And the person Silena was with Breckendorf is gone, too. Breckendorf’s Silena’s compassion never felt fake. Sometimes when she tells Luke she loves him, he thinks she means, I hate you, instead.

He’s so lost in his own head that it takes him a moment before he realises his father just asked if Luke wants to be sent to camp. “No,” he says. “I should go talk to her. It was my fault. I’ll see you, I don’t know. For Trav’s birthday or something.”

Though his father seems uneasy, he ruffles Luke’s hair like he’s still six-years-old and says he’ll walk him to the elevator. Maybe he’s just overtired, he thinks as he steps inside. Overtired and anxious and this last fight with Silena was just one too many, so he’ll watch his temper better in the future. It’s always been too quick to light. And if he blacks out time like that again, he’ll ask Lee to check him out, but that won’t happen, because everything is fine, completely, totally, undeniably fine.

Which is completely, totally, undeniably not true, he finds out two days later, when Apollo appears in all his golden, youthful glory in the middle of Luke’s blandly off-white kitchen. It startles him so badly he almost falls off his chair, but even if he wasn’t hyper-focused on reading the reviews for a new vacuum cleaner, a god appearing out of nowhere is such a shock there’s no way he would have reached any differently. “Fuck!” he says loudly, as he knocks his laptop shut and stares up at his uncle, who stares back down with a concerned expression entirely too like Lee’s. “What are—why are you—”

“Is your girlfriend due back soon?” Apollo asks as he drops into the chair directly next to Luke. Even the dull light from the dying overhead light isn’t enough to wash out the god’s tan or dim his bright hair. Though it’s the middle of the day, the sky’s so dark from lightning-less storm clouds that it’s impossible to see without the lights on. 

Slowly, Luke’s heartbeat returns to normal. “No?” he says, confused. “She’s at work.” Silena does work-study at her university, something involving giving tours around fashion exhibits. The pay isn’t great, but it’s better than what he gets as a substitute.

“I have a question for you,” his uncle says, in a tone more serious than Luke’s ever heard from him before. Not that he’s met the god often, but still. “I want you to remember that I’m the God of Truth. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

As if those are words anyone wants to hear from a god. Freaked, Luke says, “Okay? What’s going on?”

“Someone stole my father’s Lightning Bolt on the Solstice,” Apollo says, which is so unexpected Luke doesn’t know how to react. “He’s tasked a few of us to track it down. Luke—”

“Are you about to ask if I did it?” he says, offended. Between his friendship with Lee and Apollo’s friendship with his father, he and his uncle have always been pretty good with each other, which makes the question worse. “When have I ever—”

Apollo cuts him off with a sigh. “It may have been suggested that only demigods capable of pulling off the theft are your father’s children,” he says, which doesn’t help. Luke’s not stupid, no matter what his stats professor might have implied about him; he understands that Zeus must have “suggested” this. 

“Let me guess,” he says, before his uncle can ask the actual question. “My dad’s not allowed to help with the search, is he?”

At least Apollo has the decency to squirm. “He’s not,” he says. Luke snorts. “I know, I know. But, unfortunately for you, he just happened to mention to me that he was worried about you after you left. Look, just yes or no, and I’ll be out of your hair. Did you steal anything when you were on Olympus during the Solstice?” 

“No,” Luke snaps, “and I doubt it was any of my brothers, either. Why would any of us want to start a conflict on Olympus? All we’d do is turn ourselves into collateral damage. My girlfriend’s pregnant.” 

“We’ll find the real culprit,” his uncle says. “Nothing’s going to happen. I promise.”

Whether Luke believes him is debatable, but he manages a nod. “Just because my dad’s my dad doesn’t mean we’re all klepto,” he says. “And Chris can’t even steal for shit.”  

“I know, I know.” Apollo looks like maybe he wants to say something else, but keeps it to himself. That should be the end of it, but then, after a long pause, he suddenly says, “So why were you upset that day?”

How shocking that he is not, as promised, out of Luke’s hair. “I just got into a fight with Silena,” he says, impatient for his uncle to leave. “Now, I really have to get back—”

“You’re lying.”

“What?”

Apollo cocks his head. Narrows his eyes. “I said,” he answers, “that you’re lying.”

“No, I’m—” Not, Luke means to say, but stops. He is lying, he realises, as he meets Apollo’s eye. Blue eyes, as blue as the sky, not too far off from Silena’s. And it comes back to him: her hand in his hair, her eyes, You love me, don’t you, Luke?

And then he was on Olympus. 

Something horribly cold spreads through him, incongruous with the apartment’s blasting heat. “I don’t remember,” he says.

“Don’t remember what?” Apollo asks, in the same coaxing tone Lee uses when he has to force the younger kids to take cold medicine.

“Anything,” Luke says. “I mean, anything between fighting with Sil about our sisters becoming friends til talking to my dad.”

“Has anything like this happened before?” his uncle says as he lays a hand on top of Luke’s head. “Hm. I don’t sense anything.” 

“No? I mean, I don’t think so.” But if it has happened before, how would he know?

After a moment, Apollo drops his hand. “Don’t tell that to anyone,” he says, which is almost scarier than being accused of theft. “If you lose time again, pray to me immediately. No, don’t ask the question you’re thinking. Don’t say it out loud. You already said no. Understand?”

Luke nods. It’s not as if he wants to be held accountable for stealing an arguable weapon of mass destruction, even if he’s now relatively sure he’s the one who did it. 

With another sigh, Apollo stands. “Everything will be fine,” he says, like a promise, except that all divine promises should be taken with a hefty grain of salt. “Just try not to worry, and remember to keep your mouth shut.”

 

Despite Luke’s avid claims that Professor Blackfriars was a monster, the man’s got nothing on Mrs. Dodds, Agi’s new math teacher. When he tells Silena about how the woman rearranged the classroom into a semicircle with a desk in the middle, where she sits any misbehaving student, his girlfriend’s first response is a very depressing “I had a second grade teacher who did that.” Between bites of the pineapple and shrimp stir fry she’s having him taste test, he points out that Dodds speaks Greek; Silena shoots back that of course someone speaks Greek in Astoria. So he says yeah, maybe that was true forty years ago, but no other teacher seems to now, and not only that, apparently Dodds is from California. Silena goes quiet, then finally says, “We could follow her home? It’s not like we don’t have the free time.”

It’s true. Right now they’re both in the couple week period where public school might have started, but the spring semester still hasn’t. 

And so this is how, two afternoons later, they find themselves stalking a math teacher down Steinway toward the East River in the rain. Dodds is surprisingly easy to follow, because Silena never loses sight of her “so ugly it’s ironically cute bucket hat.” Luke huddles with her under a clear umbrella they bought in October, when it seemed like it started to rain every other day. There used to be two, but a few days into Zeus’ massive temper tantrum, Silena’s blew inside out, and she wasn’t able to fix it. Though it’s early January, it’s just warm enough that it isn’t snowing, which Luke is convinced his grandfather is doing on purpose, because he’s categorically a dick.

“I don’t think there are any apartments this way,” Luke says in her ear, after they cross 20th Ave into an area he doesn’t think he’d like Silena going alone, even armed. In every direction, there are only signs for warehouses and video production stores.

“Yeah,” she says through chattering teeth, as up ahead, Dodds passes another parking lot without entering. “Maybe she could’ve parked really far away? I don’t like this.”

“I think I’ll just tell Chiron I’m suspicious,” he says, when the only other person on the sidewalk other than them or the teacher enters one of the square warehouse buildings on the left. “Come on. This feels like the start of a crime show.”

When they turn around, Dodds is still walking. There’s no one else on the street, other than cars. Though it’s only three-thirty, it’s already so dark every street lamp is on, leaving watery pools of light to show them their way to safety.  

Thanks to train traffic, it’s almost an hour before they reach home, where they IM Chiron together. He calls for someone walking by to fetch Chris, who can’t steal if his life depended on it, but can hack like no one’s business. A couple minutes later, Chris arrives, camp’s ancient laptop in hand. His check comes up solid; Mrs. Alexis Dodds from LA is fifty-five, was literally fired from her last job after an altercation during a PTA meeting, and now lives on Steinway Plaza, which means Luke and Silena probably would’ve seen her enter if a couple warehouses on a empty street hadn’t scared them away with bad vibes. 

“You may still be right,” Chiron says before they end the call. His bushy brows inch together, so no matter what he says, it doesn’t seem like he actually believes it. “It’s good to be vigilant. If anything happens, now you can be prepared.”

“Well,” Silena says, after they all farewell each other and Luke waves a hand through the call, “I believe you. Everything about her was a little off, in that way that monsters are when they’re pretending to be human, you know? No one actually wears their hair in that type of bun anymore. Very sixties. Like, housewife sixties, not fun flower child sixties. What are you going to do about the kid?” 

“I don’t know,” Luke says, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I could be overreacting. And she and her stepfather are only here on visa. She’s only here legally because he’s her real father on paper, I think. Even with a risk, removing her could be messy.” He doesn’t know a lot about immigration law, but he figures it would probably be better for both of them if a guy who’s been here less than a year didn’t have to call the cops in a panic because his daughter didn’t come home from school.

Concerns about things like visas and citizenship haven’t come up during Luke’s five years camp, where mostly everyone was born in America. Usually if they weren’t, they were born somewhere else in North America, like how Katie was born in Canada or Chris was born in the DR. It’s unlikely that Agi’s situation is anything new, but it’s still something Luke hadn’t expected and doesn’t know how to deal with. Unsurprisingly, neither does Silena. The thing that would make the most sense, they agree, would be to spring some kind of sleep away camp scholarship thing on the stepfather, and wait until summer to commence the kidnapping.

So for now, he just keeps an eye on the woman, and hopes that she isn’t what he thinks she is, considering that if he’s right, then either she’s there for him, or because Agi isn’t just any old sea deity’s kid. The only silver lining is that Dodds, who probably isn’t a real teacher, doesn’t care when Agi starts turning in all her work in Greek, so suddenly, math is her best subject. 

“I don’t—know,” she says in halting English a couple days after his spring semester starts, and his head is too full of numerical integration to entirely pay attention to her reading packet for The Boy Who Owned the School. “Óchi. Understand. Dodds is not nice, but is nice to—she lets me write Greek, and that is nice.” 

The door to the teaching lounge opens before he can respond that yes, it might be nice, but also, please be careful. Dodds just made a kid with Autism having a sensory overload sit in the middle of her semicircle, like this is still the age of dunce caps. Really, the fact that she wasn’t fired based on that alone further proves that she must be a monster, because only the Mist or Charmspeak could save a teacher without tenure from the Wrath of the Parents, and she’s definitely not pretty enough to be related to Silena.

Agi ducks her head back down to look at the worksheet as Luke mumbles some sort of greeting. “Okay,” he says, turning back to Agi and the book. “We’re on question three. Think you can read it?”

Though he expects Dodds to find a way to kick one or both of them out, she just sits at the end of the table with a stinky tuna sandwich she doesn’t actually eat, and says nothing while Agi stutters out, “‘Describe Jacob’s family.’” In Greek, she says, “His older sister is a fashion model, and his parents are alcoholics.” Though it's modern Greek, he's getting pretty good at understanding it. Languages come quick to him, just another side effect of being his dad's son.

And he definitely understood the audiobook of this middle school book he listened to last night. He might have only been half paying attention, but he’s pretty sure the parents aren’t alcoholics. “Where does it say that?” he asks. “Remember. You have to give page numbers.”

Even with the language barrier and dyslexia, she finds the quote faster than it takes him to read it. “No,” he says, relieved that he doesn’t need to even finish the sentence. “It says right here. ‘Not enough to be alcoholics—’”

“That’s what all alcoholics say,” she says. With authority.

“How do you know, Agi?” He wishes Silena was here. He wishes Dodds wasn’t. 

There’s an uncomfortable, noticeable pause before she says, “My grandfather. My stepfather’s father. It’s why he died.”

Oh, thank the gods. With Dodds, who’s probably a monster but might not be, right there, he wasn’t prepared to discover anything he’d be legally obligated to report to the school’s very mortal administration. 

Together, Luke and Agi manage to muddle through a few more questions, none of which actually assure him that those bruises he assumed came from fights with Bobfit don’t, in fact, come from her stepfather. Near the end of the recess period, he’s on the verge of asking directly if she feels safe at home when Dodds suddenly says in English, “Has your…father signed your permission slip yet for tomorrow, Miss Jackson?” 

Agi jumps and looks her math teacher’s way, before turning her large eyes on Luke. Then she jerks her head no and glances back at her hands, tugging her sleeves over them to worry between her fingers. 

“That’s a shame,” Dodds says. “It could have been a real learning experience.” She smiles, the expression just a little too sharp. “If you get your father to change his mind, I’ll make sure you’re on the bus.”

For some reason, Agi flinches. Is it because of her stepfather? Or does she maybe see something Luke doesn’t?

Before he can figure it out, the bell rings. She tosses everything in her bag and springs to her feet as he clears away the peels of the clementines they'd shared. He means to walk out with her, but right before he does, Dodds says, “Wait, Mr. Castellan.”

Agi pauses in the doorway. She half-turns in the doorway, glancing up at him. He forces himself to smile, even as heart makes a leap for his throat. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, though tomorrow is Friday, and he has his Principles of Biology lab first thing in the morning. Regardless of what anyone does or does not want, though, he just knows she’ll be on that bus, and so will Dodds, which means he should be, too. 

With one of her cautious smiles and nod, Agi disappears on a wave of students toward her language arts class. He should be heading to the algebra class he’s covering, but he turns back to the teacher’s lounge instead, where Dodds sits in the half-dark with her untouched sandwich beside her. 

Please don’t ask about the Bolt, please—

He smiles. “How can I help you, Mrs. Dodds?”

She doesn’t make a sound when she stands. “You can’t, Mr. Castellan,” she says as she crosses the room, “but I can give you some advice. Don’t invite yourself along on the trip. You already spend so much additional time with her. You wouldn’t want anyone to talk.”

“I’m teaching her English,” he says, caught between horrified and affronted. 

“Truth matters very little when it comes to belief,” she says with another unkind grin. “Think about it, Mr. Castellan. Until Tuesday.”

When she pushes past him, he automatically steps back into the room. The seconds are ticking by until he needs to be three doors down, but his mind whirs from adrenaline with no outlet. The threat blindsided him; he was expecting some monster red of tooth and claw, not some underhanded bullshit that could have significantly worse consequences in the long run. It might have been better if she accused him of stealing. At least that was (probably, definitely, somehow) true.

His eyes land on the untouched sandwich with a minute and thirty seconds to spare. Barely letting himself think about it, he snags the mostly dry piece of sourdough toast off the top, slips into the faculty bathroom, removes his lighter from the pocket, and sets the driest edge of fire. Hi, Apollo, he prays to the burning toast. I think your uncle sent someone after the wrong person, and I could use some help avoiding her inevitable death. Thanks?

He leaves the toast burning in the sink and locks the bathroom behind him from the outside, before rushing to class. When the fire alarm doesn’t go off, he chooses to believe that means his prayer was answered. 

Chapter 2: the cuckoo leaves the nest

Summary:

At the age of eleven, Agi knows this about herself: she misses her home like she misses her mother, doesn't like museums, and is just some tourist's daughter.

Notes:

Agi and Luke are both unreliable as narrators in their own unique ways.

Warnings: victim blaming, implied CSA, directly depicted child abuse, museological slander, dual faith worship, and general distain for tourists.

The cabins work a little differently.

A week after the Acropolis Museum opened to the public, Agi, Mama, and Gavriil trudged onto the early ferry from Skala to Piraeus, and joined Theíos Christos and Theía Katerina for a visit. There wasn’t a lot everyone in the family agreed on, especially after Theíos and Theía moved to America and Gavriil started doing business with the guy from Kalamata, but they all had the same opinion of the museum. Look at it, this innovative space up to all of UNESCO’s codes! How could any country say theirs is unfit to care for their own cultural heritage now? 

They all separated on the top floor, when Theía went to make a reservation at the restaurant and her husband and Gavriil disappeared to have A Very Important Talk, so Mama picked Agi up and brought her over to the window facing the Acropolis. “Glaukopis will never love anyone who belongs to the sea these days,” she said, as they looked at the at the cracked open, roofless structure that once must have been the greatest temple in Hellas, standing tall above the olive trees and stucco apartments and old stone wall, “but she still deserves more than to have the pieces of her Parthenon scattered around the world. The British Museum, the Louvre. They all steal from us, even when they still build monuments to gods they tell themselves aren’t real. But it looks like things are changing.”

Surprise, surprise, the British Museum still has the Elgin Marbles. Agi doesn’t know if the Met’s just a bunch of thieves too, but if it’s possible for news from the living world to reach Hades, she doubts Mama would be happy. There’s a reason she didn’t even bother asking Gavriil. And considering that the math teacher who wants her to go along is actually a monster, it probably would’ve been better if she’d just accepted the makeup work instead of Nancy’s offer to get her older brother to forge Gavriil’s signature. 

Nancy and Maria make sure to sit Agi in between them in a three-seater on the bus, even if Mrs. Donohue, the substitute that’s here instead of Luke, glares at them. “What a bitch,” Maria says under her breath, before glaring right back. Though Agi expects Mrs. Donohue or Mrs. Dodds to split them up again, the driver shouts something into the intercom that seems to be about buckling their seat belts, so neither teacher gets the chance. 

It wouldn’t be the first time it happened; for some reason, every adult at school is just as determined as Gavriil that Agi shouldn’t be allowed to have friends. Mostly, it’s Nancy and Maria, but along with them come Katie and Vivian, too. The other girls talk a lot more than Agi, and fast, and loud (Nancy doesn’t seem to get what “inside voices” means) and ask a lot of questions that by now, she can usually understand, but can’t always piece together enough words to answer, so her sentences come out slow and broken up. Mostly, it’s fine, because Maria’s mama talks the same way, so she’s good at translating Aggie-speak, as she puts it. But half the teachers seem to think this is bad, like maybe Agi’s supposed to figure out everything on her own, or she’s just so stupid that no adult can understand why anyone would like her.

But she has high hopes for today. Mr. Renshaw let them pick their groups, so even if he didn’t seem happy about Agi’s choice, he didn’t try to stop it, either.

The drive isn’t long, so the museum’s only just opened when they arrive. The trip is two homerooms combined (Renshaw and Dodds), fifty kids in total, which split up in groups of ten chaperoned by parents or substitute teachers. When Agi’s group ends up with Dodds, even though Renshaw’s their homeroom teacher, she isn’t shocked; getting attacked by some kind monster among some probably stolen statues seems fitting, honestly. Maybe. Dodds’ shadow has wings, and her eyes are dying embers, so she definitely isn’t human, but Agi can’t figure out what she actually wants. Usually monsters just sort of…attack. None’ve ever just hung around before, let alone bothered to teach a bunch of kids math all day. And she’s mean enough, but also, she lets Agi get an A in class, which is weird if the point is some long game to decide the best way to kill her. 

They enter through the side entrance, not the long steps, so they walk into a room with a series of lockers and bathrooms. “Come on,” Nancy says, when the guide announces that they’ll need to share. She grabs Agi by the elbow, right over bruise Gavriil left two nights ago when he twisted her arm behind her back.

Agi squeaks, the pain shooting up from the bruise to her shoulder to her neck. 

“Nancy!” Mrs Donohue snaps. Nancy drops Agi’s arm so fast she stumbles. “Don’t manhandle your classmates. Pelagia, why don’t you—”

Agi laces her elbow through Nancy’s and levels the woman with the glare that Gavriil says makes adults want to smack her. Mrs Donohue shuts up. Nancy turns with her chin held high and her orange curls swinging behind her, like a popular girl in a movie, and together, they find a locker next to Maria and Vivian.

For not the first time this morning, Agi wishes Luke was here. He understands her. He listens to her. Almost no one else does—Gavriil’s not wrong when he says people don’t care about what an ungrateful bastard from nowhere important thinks, so it’s better not to speak until spoken to—but Luke cares enough to help her, though he’s probably not getting paid for it. It could be that he’s just nice. Or maybe it’s that he’s like Yiayia. Mama’s mama, not Gavriil’s mama. Even in the church pews, rumour had it she was the daughter of a god. 

The thought that Luke might be like that, too, never would have occurred to Agi if Dodds hadn’t asked to speak to him alone. 

Dodds passes out worksheets with questions like how does the work of art indicate its function (what?) and which works suggest a story or narrative? (Nancy tries to explain the difference, but to Agi, they both just sound like istoría). “Have you been to here before now?” Agi asks Nancy in a whisper as they follow Dodds up the stairs into the Hall of Greek and Roman Art (and isn’t that also stupid, lumping Greece and Rome together). 

“Well, duh,” Nancy whispers back, raising one brow so pale it’s basically invisible. “It’s, like, the thing you do with your kids in New York.” 

“The Middle East area’s the best,” Maria adds, also whispering, as the guide starts droning on about Roman statuary. “There’s all this pretty tile and these huge rugs. Why are the statues naked?”

Agi shrugs. From what she knows about the gods, even Aphrodite isn’t likely to run around without her clothes on, at least these days. 

At some point, they all start dragging their feet. At some other point, Riptide finds her way into Agi’s hand, slipping back and forth between her fingers. Dodds keeps glaring at her and her friends, but she should either attack soon or deal with it, because this is boring. The Acropolis Museum had been so cool! This is just a bunch of random stuff placed on pedestals or in glass by geographical area, like that’s enough to tie them together, with some crammed in stuffy, windowless rooms that lead nowhere. The model rooms are pretty interesting, but Agi, who’s the smallest in the group, keeps getting shoved to the back every time they stop to look. How did they get all this stuff? she wonders, as the guide stops them in front of a bronze statue of Eros to tell the blandest version of the story of Agi’s ever heard. Is it all stolen, like the Elgin Marbles? Or did the curators make real deals? The guide never says. Agi doesn’t ask. 

“Why are there so many lions?” Vivian asks when they pass a broken marble piece of a “lion” eating something. For a second, Agi thinks she sees the back of Luke’s head disappearing into one of the side rooms, but that can’t be. “None of them look like lions.”

“None of them even look like cats,” Katie says, as she tilts her head and squints. “Did, like, some guy just see a lion in Africa, and a bunch of artists tried to go off what he said it looked like or something?”

“There were lions,” Agi says, still trying to peer past the piedmont toward the room. “Back home. In the past.” Turning attention back to the marble, she motions at the creature eating the other creature, and finishes, “Bad art.” 

Nancy snorts. 

“Girls,” Dodds says. Her voice, loud and strangely high, carries over the guide’s lecture on a statue of an Amazon who’s missing one of her arms. “Care to share with the class?”

“No, Mrs. Dodds,” the other girls chorus as Agi glances down at her beat up shoes. 

Before the guide can start going on about the state of the Amazon’s chiton, Dodds says, “Can you tell me what this krater shows, Miss Jackson?”

As always, she puts a hard emphasis on Agi’s fake name. She grits her teeth. If Gavriil hadn’t made trouble with the guy from Kamalata, she wouldn’t be here with her new stupid name, but the one time she pointed that out, he knocked her so hard into the table he had to get the nurse down the hall to give her a couple stitches in her eyebrow.

The guide starts to explain the purpose of the krater—a bowl or jug where her ancestors mixed wine and water—but Dodds cuts him off, asking him to wait for Miss Jackson. Agi raises her eyes to look enough to take in the side of the calyx-krater facing her, and drops her gaze again. “It’s Panhellenios giving his ba—father a—like from the krater, but with the yellow sauce from sandwiches, not water. And it made his father…be sick, and his kids, uh, came back from his mouth. They’re gods, so they were fine. This made the Titanomachy start.”

Dodds looks about to say something, but the guide claps. “Very good,” he says. “For the rest of you, Zeus Panhellenios is something called an epithet. It means ‘Zeus of All Gods.’ And the Titan—” 

“And what, Miss Jackson,” Dodds asks, ignoring him, “can we learn from this story?”

Frustrated, Agi looks up into her math teacher’s burning eyes and smiles. “Never take drinks from strange men,” she says. 

More than one groupmate laughs. The guide coughs. 

Even later, Agi won’t be able to say how exactly she goes from walking away from the krater to the corner of a room that’s deserted, except for Cycladic figurines of people hugging themselves, all lined up in glass cases. Through the case is another case, and past that, a window shaped like a half-circle facing the bare trees of the park, which billow in the wind. No reflection in the glass, not even her own. It’s not until the growl rises from behind her that she realises she can’t hear anyone moving around outside the room. 

“You’ve been a problem for us, little girl,” Dodds in Greek says as Agi pivots. The monster still looks like a sad math teacher: brown slacks and a sweater of a slightly different shade of brown with a black leather jacket, her hair twirled back like the Yiayia who runs the kitchen in Limenaria. Her shadow’s too pale on the wall to make out its wings. But then she smiles, and her teeth are a little too sharp. “An interesting move, calling you here from halfway across the mortal world. Hilarious. He risked having you in the air. You. Did you—”

“What are you talking about?” Agi asks, confused, even though she knows better than to ask adults questions. Though, does a monster really count as an adult? “What are you?”

The monster bears her teeth. “I am Alecto the Erinys,” she says over a roll of thunder that worsens the sudden uptick in Agi’s heartbeat. “Confess to your crime, Pelagia Giannopoulou—”

“I didn’t do anything!” she says, as she jams her hands into her zip-up pockets and fishes for Riptide. She doubts an agent of Hades cares that she spends after school running messages between the different Jackson Hardware stores, both of which are just dens for money laundering. Whatever this is, it’s not about her stepfather’s stupid decision to get himself into debt with the worst crime family on the Peloponnese. “I—”

But then the Fury’s jacket is melting into large, leathery wings, her glowing eyes sink into a face of shrivelled skin, her fingernails grow into talons. And this—this is a little more serious than the occasional vrykolakas or harpy who shows up to terrorise the locals in Metoxi. A Fury’s more like the Minotaur, and it’s family legend that the Minotaur’s what did in Yiayia.

The Fury leaps. 

Agi drops. 

When Alecto screeches and launches herself straight down from the top of the glass case, Agi rolls out of the way. She gets the pen’s cap off with a flick of her thumb and swings up as Alecto flaps over her, shrieking curses, so the xiphos’ leaf-shaped blade slices through a wing. It hits tendon, flies from her hand—Alecto lands on her with all of her weight—I’m going to die, no no no, I don’t want to die—

There’s a pain across her stomach, so intense it’s not even real. Is that Agi screaming? Is it Alecto? A slow death, the Fury’s saying. Something something something recompense something your crime.

And then she’s off. Her talons are out of Agi’s skin. 

When she tries to attack again—not Agi, someone else, someone standing—Agi’s instincts kick in. Hand in her pocket, curling around her blade. Cap, off. A hard thrust up as the Fury’s rushing forward, and here’s Agi, covered in golden dust. 

“Fuck,” Luke says, somehow here, on his knees at her side. “’Lo!”

She must be dreaming, one foot in the grave, because there’s no way the face that appears in front of her own isn’t the Phoebus Apollo. “You’re going to be okay, little cousin,” he says, with a broad grin that crinkles the sides of his eyes and reveals his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. When his hand touches her stomach, her whole body jerks. “Or niece. Or sister. But I think you’re my cousin. You’re the splitting image of your sister. And there we are! All healed.” The pain is gone as quickly as it came. Thank him, she thinks, but all she does is turn on her side and curl into herself instead as he says to Luke, “Well, that’s me done, you two. If anyone finds out I did this, there goes my visitation rights, so the rest’s on you.”

“We’ll sacrifice you something nice, Dad,” says a man who isn’t Luke, as a hand touches her shoulder. 

As she sits, Apollo disappears. “Hey,” Luke says quietly, so she glances away from the spot where the god was, but is no longer, and over to him. He’s on his knees; standing behind him is another guy who isn’t Apollo, but looks like him. “Guess we don’t need to explain as much as I thought. But we do need to get out of here.”

She blinks at him. It’s almost as hard to believe he and the stranger are here as it is to believe a god healed her, or a monster attacked her. She’s not special. If Yiayia’s mother hadn’t had a one night stand with Heracles, odds are Agi would’ve grown up going to the white little church overlooking the hill with all those peafowl at the bottom as more than just lip service. There’s nothing about her that’s worth much, other than a sword Heracles passed on to his daughter, which her daughter didn’t want, so landed in Agi’s hands instead.

Only the children of gods are important enough these days to attract the attention of something like a Fury. Apparently walking around with Heracles’ sword in her pocket was enough to trick both an agent of the Underworld and Apollo into thinking any godly blood in her isn’t so watered down by the generations and her own uselessness that she can be more than a waste of space.

Suddenly, she’s too terrified to move. Either Luke or his friend says, “You need to breathe, Agi.” His friend tries to touch her; she flinches. The hand retreats. But Luke says, “Can I pick you up, Agi?” and even though she’s too old to be carried, she nods.

Her arms wrap around his neck and her legs around his waist when rises from his knees to her feet. When she presses her face into the space between his neck and his shoulder, he doesn’t comment, or at least she doesn’t think. Whatever he says to his friend isn’t in English, nor any of the other languages she learned bits and pieces of so she could understand all the Eurotrash tourists.

How they leave the museum and reach the car without anyone asking questions is a mystery, especially now that it’s pouring. As Luke drops her to feet to open the door to the backseat, she spares a moment to consider what Mr Renshaw and her friends will think about her and Dodds disappearing, but she suspects it doesn’t matter. No one walks away from a Fury attack and expects to go on with their life like everything is normal, if her life ever was. The fact that it’s not shows itself in the church again, in the incense and the flat-faced saints she knew wouldn’t protect her from what went bump in the night, and the cemetery that would never accept a bastard like her for burial. 

Luke slides into the backseat after her. His friend folds himself into the passenger’s seat. The driver is the girl from Luke’s lockscreen, all long dark hair twisted up in a messy bun and skin like whalebone. “Hi, ylikia mu,” she says as she pulls onto the street, before switching entirely to Greek. “I’m Silena. Are you hurt?”

Someone honks. She shakes her head and shuts her eyes, not wanting to see the museum as they drive by. Mama and Gavriil were right, she thinks. Nothing good ever does come out of those places. 

The friend says something in that other language again, before adding, “I’m Lee Fletcher, Agi. Son of the Sun God. Luke is the son of Hermes. Silena is Love Goddess' daughter. We’re going to take you somewhere safe for people like us, so you don’t need to worry about any other Kindly Ones. And everything will be fine with your school. You’ll see. Right, Luke?”

“Right,” Luke says. “There won’t be any trouble. But the drive’s about an hour and a half without traffic, so we’re going to stop at mine and Sil’s place first to get something to eat.”

Probably, this counts as kidnapping. No, definitely. Will Gavrill and Theíos think the Apostolopoulos made her disappear, like how they made Mama disappear? Mama. Mama always had rules for her: wear the string bracelet with Evil Eye if you go into the water or, gods for forbid, have to fly in the air; never pray in church, even by accident; never blindly follow a voice into the pines; remember that your babas would love you, if he knew you were here. She liked everything blue. Door frames, ceilings. Food. Clothes. This is how you’ll be safe. Mama never wanted Agi to touch Yiayia’s world, not beyond prayers or ritual or the inevitable otherworldly creature come to terrorise the locals who could see them. If Riptide wasn’t a family heirloom, she never would have had it in her pocket. 

What’s left of Mama now is the sword, some pictures, one blue sweater, and the bracelet Agi hasn’t worn since she touched down on American soil, because she never wanted to seem like a freak. Gavriil doesn’t deserve any of it. Maybe Agi doesn’t, either, but it’s better than the thought of what he would do if he found the artefacts of his late wife’s life hidden behind the TV stand, so she says, “I need to go home. There are things I can’t leave there.” 

The others agree, though they don’t sound happy about it. If she had to guess, allowing the kidnapee to run home and pack is just bad kidnapping form, but also, they planned to stop for snacks, so they’re not very good at this anyway. 

They reach the apartment twenty minutes later. Reluctantly, Silena double parks after quickly realising that there’s no such thing as free spaces on 33rd Ave. “I’ll wait here,” she says. “I’m sorry, but try not to take too long.”

“I’m going alone,” Agi says, as Luke’s hand touches the door handle. When he starts to protest, she cuts him off, though that’s rude. “No, my neighbour across the hall is a nosy old lady. She’ll call the police if she sees me enter the apartment alone with strangers in the middle of the school day.”

“Is your stepfather home?” Luke asks.

Again, she shakes her head. Even if Gavriil is, he’s most likely passed out. In the bedroom, hopefully. It’ll be easier to sneak in and out if he isn’t on the sofa.

Silena says something in the other language; Lee answers, then Luke answers. Impatiently, he sighs and says, “Fine. If you aren’t out in fifteen minutes, I’m coming after you. Apartment two-zero-one-beta?”

Fifteen minutes should be enough, so Agi agrees and slips out of the car and into the storm before Luke can find a reason to invite himself along after all. Whether or not her stepfather is there, she doesn’t want anyone to see where she lives. It’s not a bug-infested hovel or anything, but there’s only so much cleaning she can do to keep up with the spilled beer or discarded cans or the dirty dishes in the sink. And she really doesn’t want to explain the one-bedroom sleeping situation, because it’s inconsistent enough to be confusing. Whoever doesn’t fall asleep on the bed sleeps on the sofa, which is usually Gavriil, since he gets home so late. They almost never end up in bed at the same time, because he always cries after.

She sneaks in quietly, thankful that she had her keys in her pocket instead of the bag that’s still in the locker she shared with Nancy (and what will Nancy think, when she opens the locker door to find two backpacks inside?). The apartment’s dark, which is a good sign, but even in the gloom, Agi can see that the bedroom door is only half-closed, so she’s not positive if he’s here. In the narrow kitchen immediately to her right, she spots a pile of dirty dishes so high it just validates her decision to let herself be kidnapped. Alecto the Fury was reason enough, but still. Fuels, flames. Dirty dishes and the discarded Pabst can she almost steps on when passing the sofa are just extra water on a grease fire. 

Despite her nerves, she thinks she might be okay enough to even grab her toothbrush, right up until the movement of the bundle behind the TV stand knocks a bottle free from its surface. Crash! It shatters across the wooden floor as she jerks bag, freeing the sweater and everything tucked inside it, and falling back with it clutched to her chest. 

Down the short hall, she hears the bed creak. 

In her scramble to get to her feet, she puts her left palm down on a shard of broken glass. The pain is sharp, clear. She bites on her other hand to stop herself from screaming, and starts to stand again, but then the lights are on, and Gavriil’s saying, “Pela? What the fuck?”

“School ended early,” she says as she turns. She still holds the bundled sweater and its contents flat against her. Her hand burns for attention. “Burst pipes.” It’s the best excuse she can think of; their last fight, just a few days ago, ended when every pipe in their building decided to break at once from the cold. “But, I’m going over a classmate’s for a group project, so—”

“No,” says Gavriil. He steps closer. His words come out stinking of stale beer and morning breath. “Schools call when pipes burst. What’s that you got there?”

He makes a grab for the sweater. She steps back, backing into the TV stand. Her shoes crunch on broken glass. When he makes a grab for it again, he tugs it free, so all the pictures flutter to the floor. 

She doesn’t move when he reaches down to pick one up. Folds himself like an accordion to do. Uncoils again to stand straight. “I wondered where you’d hid these,” he says, glancing from the photo to her face. His is blotchy red from drunk sleep and too many wakeful nights. “You wouldn’t’ve taken these out without some reason. You’re running away.”

It’s not even a question. “What do you care?” she snaps. “I’m not yours. Just don’t tell anyone I’m gone, and it’s all daisies. You don’t want me.”

That he grabs her really shouldn’t be the surprise that it is. “Yeah, girl,” he says. “You’re the cuckoo in my nest. That means you owe me.”

She wrenches her away; he hits her across the face. It sends her to the ground as fast as Fury landing on her chest, but this time, she tries to catch herself. It doesn’t work—all she does is get her hand around another mostly-empty bottle, the hand with the glass, so it just shoves the shard deeper into her palm. Above her, he’s going on about ungrateful bastards and thought you’d make trouble for me, did you, as he tries to get a grip on her hair, but she ducks, scoots away. Away from him, away from the glass. Then his fist catches her ponytail, and she throws the bottle at his head. 

Somehow, it misses. It does, however, force him to step aside, which would be great, if he wasn’t wearing shoes and went left, not right. Instead, he lands his foot on the hand with the glass, then keeps it there, so when she tries to pull herself out, something cracks and pops. 

Nothing really makes sense, after that. 

 

Agi wakes up in the back of a moving car to Lee Fletcher’s golden curls, tweezers picking glass from her palm, and a back-and-forth argument in see-sawing between English and Greek. In snatches, she catches: “know how hard this is, doing it in the fucking dark” and “can’t believe you didn’t bring—” and “oh, if I wasn’t pregnant, then—”

Her eyes shut. When she opens them again, it’s to the back of a seat. The shadow of raindrops drips across the fake leather. Her head is on Luke’s lap, which she knows right away because his voice comes from right above her when he says in English, “I fucking hate Long Island. Who decided Long Island was the ideal location for camp?”

“You’re from Connecticut, love,” says Silena. “You have literally no room to talk.”

“You think everything that isn’t sunny Southern California or Saigon is terrible,” Lee says, now from the front sea. “Oh, hérete,” he adds when Agi stirs, which makes him sound old. No one says hérete anymore, unless they’re ancient.

“How’re you doing?” Luke asks, switching back to Greek, as he helps her sit. Outside the windshield, she sees a line of cars stretching on forever. When she slides back down, dizzy, he lets her. There’s a taste in her mouth like the pistachio butter they would buy sometimes from Aegina. “We got some nectar in you, but not a lot, so—”

“Nectar?” 

“Food of the gods,” he says, as if it’s perfectly reasonable to force feed a mortal something that can burn her up from the inside. At least Lee saw her blood. They should know it’s not more than a little shiny.

But her head hurts too much to ask what they were thinking. Unfortunately, as her eyes start to close again, Lee says, “Hey, hey. Look at me, Agi.” She does, though it’s hard. He’s twisted around in the front seat still. Between the dark sky and the car lights pressing around theirs, his already angular face is so sharp it could cut glass. “I’m going to look at your eyes with a light, then ask you a few questions. This’ll probably hurt.”

He clicks on a flashlight. A flinch runs through her whole body.

“Sorry,” he says when the light turns off. He doesn’t tell her to open her eyes again. Luke’s hand is steady on her shoulder. “Just a couple questions, and you can go back to sleep. What’s your name?”

“Pelagia,” she answers in a mumble.

“Your age?”

“Eleven.”

“What neighbourhood are you living in?”

“Astoria.”

“What museum did you visit today?”

“The Met.”

He says that’s good, and maybe something else, but if so, she misses it, because already, she’s tumbled back into sleep. 

 

When Agi wakes a third time, it’s to warm sunlight filtering through sheer curtains. Luke and Silena are there, both asleep in chairs beside the cot, his head on hers, and her head on his shoulder. Even through her chunky sweater, Agi sees the baby bump. For the first time, she wonders how old the two of them and Lee are. 

Lee is here, too, along with Will, his brother, who must only be in high school, but still looks like his twin. They wake up the others when they realise Agi’s conscious and try to kick them out; there’s a lot of glaring before Will reluctantly agrees they can stay. When he turns back to her, he says, “I fixed your concussion and the cut on your hand, but your left wrist should stay in a brace for a couple of days. It’s more of a fracture than a break by now, but still, you don’t want to make it worse. If it's your dominate hand, you’ll take a break before starting any activities. Do you remember what happened?”

 “My math teacher was one of the Semnae,” she says. “She almost killed me. Your father healed me.” 

“Great. What happened after?”

This, she realises, is trickier. There was Luke, carrying her down to the car. The ride to Astoria. You have fifteen minutes, he said. And then there was her stepfather, but anything more concrete than the words cuckoo in the nest is as tangible as dust. 

“I don’t know,” she says. 

Will doesn’t like that answer, but all the others, she notices, seem relieved. 

For the next few hours, he keeps her “under observation.” Around noon, Luke and Silena both leave. Only Luke comes back, bringing with him a pair of black leggings and a cable-knit sweater he says are Silena’s sister’s. That seems like the cue for Will to let her shower, which, as she expected, makes her feel infinitely better, so when he asks, “Do you feel like you could meet the directors?” she says yes.

That Luke is the one to lead her to “the Big House” is only to be expected by now. As they walk across a grassy field, he points to the buildings they pass—the cabins dedicated to various gods, where their children sleep, the dining pavilion, an archery range, and behind them, the infirmary. Between that and the smell of the sea, it reminds her of home, except that it’s all new. There’s nothing crumbling here. Nothing carted off and stolen. Luke says, “This is Camp Half-Blood,” and he says, “It’s the only safe place for people like us,” and she thinks, Well, good for you. This place is like a modern sculpture’s reimagining of a Hellenic statue, meant to show how it must have looked when it was all done up in pigment. Almost right, but not quite. Maybe Disney World, but with real swords and a lava wall. 

Objectively, she knew that the gods’ main seat of power was in the States now, but it’s different seeing it. It’s the same as when she realised no one else could see that Dodds’ eyes were coal, or that her teeth were too sharp, or that her shadow had wings, even though Theíos had already said, “They’re worse than the tourists. Every American is blind.” Whatever it is that keeps the tourists from realising almost half the crime in Athens comes from monsters deciding to snack on more than the homeless apparently works overtime here. There was a not-quite-unspoken understanding around the country that no one mentioned what they saw outside the privacy of their own home—no need to prove those old stereotypes of superstitious Greek backwardness, after all. They were a people of contradictions, Mama would say, because while not many were like their family, who only attended church on holidays for appearances, even a priest’s bride will ask Hera for a blessing on her wedding day, or a mother might leave an offering for Asclepius if their child falls sick. Demigods sporadically appeared, but so what? No one was the child of an Olympian anymore. A son of Iris can calculate taxes as well as the daughter of a fisherman. The gods made sure their heritage pales, on average, to cynicism and Jesus the second they chose Hellas’ Roman conquerors over the people they previously claimed as theirs. They didn’t even bother to come back when Rome fell and Byzantium remained strong. 

But, whatever. She can’t fix approximately two thousand years of her country becoming other countries’ plaything while the gods went off to enjoy themselves among the empires that helped pick Greece apart bit by bit. If Gavriil can’t touch her here, that’s good enough for her.

Other than a few of the cabins, the Big House is the first building here that she looks at and thinks American. It’s Evil Eye blue with white shutters, two storeys with a pointy extra bit for an attic, and a white wraparound porch. In one corner of the porch is a table, where a centaur sits with his legs folded beneath him. Beside him is a god seated in a chair. 

“That’s Chiron,” Luke says as they near, “and Mr. D. Mr. D’s supposed to be one of the young-looking gods, but his father punished him for being a decent person, so now he pretends to be a disgruntled middle-aged man to remind everyone that this is unfair.” 

“Mr. D,” she repeats, staring at the ruddy cheeks and blue-black curls and bulbous nose, and beside him, the famed Trainer of Heroes who must have taught her great-grandfather, “You mean Eleutherios?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “‘The Liberator?’ Haven’t heard that one yet. But, guess we don’t need to explain about avoiding names. Come on.”

He leads her up the three porch stairs and over to the table, where the centaur and the god break off their discussion about strawberry liqueur to look at him. “Ah, yes,” says Dionysus, God of Madness and Wine. With his bloodshot eyes and blotchy skin, he looks like he’s coming out of the other side of a bender. “Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. I suppose I must say it.” He sighs. “Well, what are you waiting for? Sit, Lester, Perse.”

“We are glad to see you here, Pelagia,” Chiron says, before she can correct the god. Luke tugs her into the chair next to his, but gently. “I must say, you did take Luke rather by surprise. It’s very rare to send a satyr or other camper to seek out another half-blood, only to discover that they already know enough that we may dispense with the orientation film. Not much of a surprise, though, now that we know where you’re from. I understand you already have a weapon? May I see it?”

Though she wants to tell him absolutely not, she takes the pen from her pocket and hands it over. He removes the cap; the pen becomes a sword. “Oh,” he says, raising both his brows, as he turns it this way and that, so the mid-afternoon sunlight catches on the inscription: Ανακλυσμός. “It’s been a long time since I last saw this blade. There’s a long and sad history behind it.” He touches the cap to the tip, returning it to pen form, and lets her take it back. “Did you receive it from your father?”

“My mother,” she says, slipping it back into her pocket. She looks past him toward the sliver of the sea she can see between the dunes, and steels herself for the chance that they’ll kick her out. “It was hers from her mother, who got it from her father. It was his first. She was the demigoddess. Not me.”

A noise that could almost be called a laugh bubbles out of Dionysus, startling her. “Brilliant,” he says. “Tell me, then, who’s your father?”

Shrugging, she says, “Some tourist.” When she was little, she thought it was Gavriil. Eventually, though, it became clear she looked about as much like him as she looked like Mama. The story came out then: Poros, his ailing parents, her need to escape the sick room, the night-time walks through Poseidon’s deserted temple. There was no dig that summer, so he wasn’t an archaeologist. And no one on the island had her eyes, so the likelihood that he was a local was slim.

But for some reason, even Luke’s looking at her like she’s crazy. “A nereid came and literally asked us to check on you,” he says, ignoring Chiron’s sharp glance in his direction. “We don’t know which one, but you’re definitely a sea deity’s kid. If you’re also another god’s great-granddaughter, then, well. How you were able to take out a Kindly One makes sense. Were you ever trained?”

She shakes her head. “Yiayia died when Mama was a baby,” she says, though she’s not paying much attention anymore. Instead, she’s reviewing every ruptured piece of plumbing, how often the sea back home always seemed to mirror her mood, that no matter how badly she’s hurt, she’ll walk out of the shower with nothing worse than bruises. “Mama could never get it to open. I don’t know—” Why it worked for me, she almost says, except, she does. Mama wasn’t a demigod. Agi is.

“Set her up in Cabin Eleven, Lester,” Dionysus says, sighing, “and find someone to give her a tour. Her father clearly knows she’s here. If he doesn’t claim her by the end of the week, I suspect we can make an educated guess as to who he is.”

Luke mutters something in English too complicated for her to understand, but whatever it is, it has Dionysus rolling his eyes. “Let’s go,” Luke says, cocking his head toward the stairs leading off the porch. She just nods and follows, remembering as an afterthought to say her thank yous and goodbyes. 

At the bottom of the steps, something draws her attention back to the house. She glances over the shoulder, and catches sight of the curtain in the round attic window move. “What’s up there?” she asks, pointing.

There’s a beat before he says, “The Oracle,” with an edge to his voice she hasn’t heard before. When she turns back to him, she finds that his shoulders are tight. “Don’t go there.”

“The Oracle’s bad?”

“She’s certainly something.” He turns, making clear the conversation is over, and starts to walk away, so she has to hurry up her stride to fall into step with him. As they reach the U of one-storey cabins. “So up here are where everyone sleeps. Twelve in total, a few of which are empty, or mostly empty. You can kind of think of them as live-in temples. So they’re divided by parent—or relative, I guess. See, those two that match up there are King and Queen’s. Hers is almost always empty, but if, let’s say, two campers left and got married and come back to visit for Haloa or something, then they can stay there. For him, it’s his own kids and the kids of minor gods. God of Hospitality and all. Currently, he has no children. That one that looks like a beach house is probably where you’ll end up. Technically, it’s the Sea God, but the children of most other sea gods can stay there, too, unless they and the Atlanteans have got issues. No one’s there right now. Sea gods don’t have too many half-blood children, at least not these days. That one with the boar is War God’s. Smokestacks—that’s the God of the Forge. Gold roof’s Lee's dad. His Muse’s kids stay there, too. Glass roof’s the Goddess of the Harvest. That’s Mr. D’s, which really means his and his wife'—we’ll go over divine genetics later. Over there is Sil’s mom’s, but her children’s children have stayed there before. The Goddess of Wisdom’s is there. Remember I mentioned Annabeth? She’s her daughter. I’ll introduce you to her and Piper later. That’s Hestia tending the fire, wave hello. And here are we. Well, for now. Cabin Eleven, my dad’s, so my brothers and anyone unclaimed.” 

Compared to some of the other cabins, Eleven is a little worn, with chips in the wood and the paint on its door and shuttered faded, but she likes it instantly. It just looks like a log cabin, something very storybook, something old and new and homey. 

When they enter, it’s almost empty, though it’s clear every one of the twenty-odd bunk beds are occupied. In the centre of the room is a round shag rug, where four slightly older kids sit playing with a deck of cards. “Hey,” Luke says, stopping her before she can creep behind him. “This is Agi Giannopoulou. Agi, this is Travis and Connor Stoll—” The two boys raise their hands in unison, so she can’t tell who’s who. “—my half-brothers, Annabeth Chase, and Piper McLean. I was going to find you two when I was done here. Mind giving Agi the full tour?” 

Sure, the girls agree. Fine. But, Annabeth says in English, can she finish destroying everyone at rummy first? 

Luke laughs. “Go ahead,” he says (in English). “Agi, I’m setting you up over here, by the window. It’s technically my bunk, but I’m only here for a few days, so I’ll stay with Silena.”

“Gross,” Piper says (still in English), without looking up from her hand. “If I have to hear Drew make any more jokes about you guys ‘properly worshiping Mom’—”

“And here you are,” he says loudly, over everyone else’s giggles. Even his ears are red as he directs her to a bottom bunk below a window overlooking a forest so thick it’s straight out of a fairy tale. Returning to Greek, he says, “Don’t let anyone convince you to trade. Lee doesn’t want you climbing anything for at least a couple of days. Here’s shampoo and stuff from Silena.” He points to a caddy hanging off the end of the bed, where there’s soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, and a rolled-up towel. “She and one of her sisters have gone out to Massape—to figure out clothes for you. Now, I got to go meet up with Lee and Al so we can handle a few things back in the City. You’ll meet at Al later. I’m sure Annabeth will let you join the game. Everyone,” he adds to his brothers and the girls, who look up in such a perfectly synchronised movement it could have been rehearsed. “Stick to Greek as much as you can for now. Agi’s still learning English.”

Piper and Travis made space between each other for her to sit. Cautiously, she does. On Luke’s way out, he ruffles Connor’s hair and shouts over his shoulder for them to all play nice. 

This does not, Agi thinks, bode well.

Notes:

Full disclosure: my love of the Met is second only to my love of AMNH.

Let me know what you think! Voting's open til the end of The Lightning Thief.

Chapter 3: (never) trust your instincts

Summary:

No matter what Piper says, Annabeth is definitely not jealous.

Notes:

I didn't originally mean to give Annabeth a POV, but she demanded it. You can kind of think of this as my original, pre-MOA interpretation of Annabeth meets not-for-kids!Piper.

Next chapter will start going back to Agi and Luke's POVs.

Warnings include: ableism, mentions of drug use, emotional abuse, a blatant rip-off of Fire Island, and an unrepentant first crush.

On the third day after Agi arrives, Annabeth all but declares, “I’m not jealous.”

It needs to be said. Piper’s giving her that look, the one that says she thinks Annabeth is getting too up in her feelings again. “Sure you aren’t,” her friend says. “And Drew didn’t break up Alabaster and Ethan last week just because she thought it was fun.” 

“I’m not,” Annabeth says, but harder. She glances away from her friend to her right, in the direction of the practice ring, where Luke is showing Agi a more advanced set than most trainees will learn in a year. “Being jealous of her would be like being jealous of a sick kitten.” Even Clarisse and her siblings won’t touch her, despite the apparently true rumours that she killed a Kindly One. Part of it's her age—Agi’s too young for Clarisse, the ringleader, to do anything real–but it's still the Ares’ kid prerogative to demonstrate their dominance after hearing something like that. Still, even Sherman isn’t dumb enough to think those injuries Agi came in were the result of a fight against a monster.

Piper leans against the half-wall surrounding the practice ring, so the sunlight draws out all the shimmery undertones in her hair and shifts her eyes from green to blue. Even weeks after their first meeting, Annabeth’s still fascinated by her friend’s eyes. One of her brothers called them brown; she knows Luke sees them as blue. Their appearance from one person to another is as changeable as Aphrodite’s face. Most of the time, Annabeth tries not to consider if it means anything that they never settle for her. 

She follows her friend’s gaze out to the practice ring, where Silena laughs at something Luke said. He’d knocked Agi over, but she springs back to her feet with a boundless energy that—all right, that Annabeth envies. 

“Well, I like her,” Piper says, “but I really hope either she’s claimed soon or the semester starts, because Silena and Luke are like a sugar rush. They need to be separated for the sake of everyone else’s health and safety.” 

If she thinks they’re bad, she should’ve seen him with Thalia. If Silena and Luke are sugar rush, then Thalia and Luke were a cavity. 

“You could come stay with me again,” Annabeth says, turning her back on the practice ring. She leans against the wall, arms crossed. “Just because Chiron made his noises about it being improper doesn’t mean you actually needed to leave. He doesn’t need to know.”

With a sigh that seems to ripple across her body, Piper says, “I know. But Drew apologised, and I don’t think she does that too often, so sticking around is only fair.”

If Annabeth had to guess, Drew apologised because Silena made her, and Silena only did that because Luke was upset. Silena’s great apologising, or her personal favourite, which is the non-apology that makes Luke apologise instead. How he never seems to realise that she Charmspeaks him all the time is godsdamned mystery, but then again, no one else seems to notice, either. Drew tried it on Annabeth once during a game of Capture the Flag; it worked, and then it didn’t, and she punched the older girl so hard in the nose that she hasn’t tried again.

Or, at least Annabeth thinks she hasn’t. But Annabeth doubts she wouldn’t know, considering that shivery, slimy feeling that sank itself in the back of her mind left her with nightmares for months.

Though she promised herself she would never trust one of Aphrodite’s children after that, she trusts Piper. And because she trusts Piper—because she likes Piper—it’s completely fair that Annabeth would rather her friend stay far, far away from Drew and Silena, who don’t view Charmspeak as something meant for monsters, and monsters only. Just because Piper managed to block Drew once doesn’t mean she’ll always be able to. Maybe. Probably. In any case, Annabeth, as Athena’s daughter, prefers to avoid unknown variables. 

Agi is a completely different sort of unknown variable, but at the very least, she doesn’t seem to be a dangerous one. The problem is that she killed a Kindly One, and Hades doesn’t send his agents after just anyone, so she must be a child of Zeus or Poseidon, which probably means she’s the one Annabeth’s destined to go on that quest with. She might be the prophecy child. These are both bad things, because for years, Annabeth’s been holding out the hope that at least the former would be Thalia. After all, that is why Zeus turned his daughter into a tree—he said as much, loudly, in a conversation a gossipy nature spirit was meant to overhear, so the nymph would spread the news that the Golden Fleece could save her. 

All the satyrs are out looking for a trail to it now. If they ever find it, three campers will get a quest. Annabeth just always thought Luke would save Thalia, who he smiled at like that, and then Thalia would take Annabeth along to do, well. Something big. World-saving-prophecy-big, but not for The Great Prophecy, because whichever demigod accepts that is going to die. 

But now there’s now Agi. Now there’s Luke, crouching down in front of Agi to check her recently healed wrist like he used to check Annabeth’s scrapes and bruises, before she got good enough not to fall. 

There’s a number of reasons Annabeth doesn’t (want to) like the girl, but she doesn’t deserve to die, either.

“Anyway,” Piper says, pushing away from the wall to look at Annabeth, “Luke still feels…lightest around you. Well, and Lee.”

It’s so matter of fact how Piper says this that Annabeth rolls her eyes. “This whole empathy thing is definitely bullshit,” she says. “You’ve barely known any of us for more than like a month.”

Shrugging, Piper says, “Plenty of time. But hey, don’t knock ‘this whole empty thing.’ I never would have trusted Hedge enough to call him without it. Now if you’re done lying to yourself about not being jealous, can you show how to do that thing with Katoptris?”

“I’m not lying.” And she’s not! Everyone says Annabeth is a little too honest, so obviously, she’s telling the truth.

But Piper just makes some disbelieving noises. Sighing, Annabeth drags her into the practice ring, but the opposite side from her older brother and his new adoptee. Almost no one regularly in camp these days uses a knife or a dagger, so she’s mainly been the one teaching her friend how to fight. 

Practice lasts an hour, until the sun sinks too low against the sea for it to be worth it. “Hey,” Luke says, jogging over, before they can split for much needed showers. Agi trails after him, the expression on her little face as guileless as ever. “Jake’s putting a movie night together. You coming?”

Every so often, the Hephaestus cabin is able to scramble the signal for the TV in the Big House’s common room, so at least the year-round campers can watch something. “Is it anything good?” she asks, sheathing her dagger. 

“I don’t know,” he answers. “He said it’s a new release. ‘A treat.’”

“As long as it isn’t King of Sparta,” Piper says, so, of course, it is.

 

When Annabeth was seven, her teacher brought her to the guidance counsellor’s office, where a man in a tweed suit asked her a lot of questions and had her choose toys to play with while Mrs. Sanchez answered a questionnaire. Whatever the test was for (ADHD, presumably), Mrs. Sanchez had not gotten Dad and Caroline’s permission to do it first. They were livid when she called them in to give them the results. There’s nothing wrong with her, Caroline had said. She was made to be perfect.  

Now, when Annabeth thinks of her pre-Luke and Thalia childhood, she considers that to be The Beginning of the End. 

Before, her father and stepmom never cared that she preferred her own company or that of adults to other children, or that she liked it when Dad would bring her to work so she could sit in the back of his lecture hall, or that she faked sick in PE so she could read in the nurse’s office instead. Caroline organised playdates left and right, even with Mira Hollaway, who always tugged on Annabeth’s pigtails at recess; she had to start talking at the dinner table, not reading; if she tried to avoid echoing noise and bright lights of the gym by sneaking to Nurse Stucky’s, she was grounded. She had to “socialise,” Caroline said, or how else would she developmentally catch up to her younger brothers? 

Annabeth might have only been eight by the time the spiders came, but from the moment her stepmother claimed the bites all over her body were self-made cries for attention, she understood that the best strategy at her disposal was a tactical retreat.

Five years later, she’s aware that she can’t look at another person and just get them the way that Piper or Luke can, but she’d also be a pretty awful tactician if she lacked any intuition. But, she doesn’t understand how Luke or Piper or anyone like them can trust intuition alone, when intuition, by its definition, doesn’t come from a place of conscious reasoning. Usually, she can ignore any “gut feeling” when confronted with logic that contradicts it, so it frustrates her that she can’t explain why Silena reminds her so strongly of her stepmother, other she just does. Sure, the flagrant use of her Charmspeak isn’t great, but Annabeth is still friends with Connor and Travis, and they once used their inherent sneaking powers to leave a tarantula in her bed; she’s rivals with Clarisse, but will still defend her against anyone who talks shit behind her back, which people do because the other girl exerts the skill with weaponry she inherited from her father to prove her superiority all the time; sometimes Thalia would joke she was practicing for her supervillain era because she’d do something sketchy with lightning. But there are times when Silena smiles, and Annabeth remembers that the saying her skin crawled exists for a reason.

This is probably the only reason she offers to tutor Agi in English—Silena offered first, at least until the spring semester started, and in the moment, Annabeth’s distrust of her brother’s girlfriend outweighed her general distaste over his new project. “Doesn’t it make more sense for her to have the same teacher the whole time?” she argued, when it looked like Silena was going to put up a fuss. Luke interceded on her behalf immediately, clearly and annoyingly glad she was willing to try to make friends. 

So really, it’s Silena’s fault that Annabeth finds herself here, on one of the Adirondack chairs on the dock, with Agi beside her and a book for ELL students on the low table between them. “Has anyone explained what’s wrong with the letters yet?” Annabeth asks in Ancient Greek, before they start. She doesn’t know how else to describe dyslexia in a language where the word doesn’t exist. 

“Greek demigods are made to read Greek,” Agi says, “so no other alphabet makes sense. Just like we’re all ADHD.” She shrugs. In the weak, early morning sunlight slipping through clouds, she seems almost to glow. “Back home, everyone just said I had a lot of energy.” 

“Many of us here can’t last a year without, uh, expulsion,” Annabeth says, realising for the first time her limitations in Ancient Greek, or just the limitations of the language in general. She always prided herself in being one of the best speakers in camp, but Agi’s code switching between Modern and Ancient is far smoother than everyone else’s need to transition into English for modern words. More than that, Annabeth understands, without being told, that the dialect they practice at camp is Attic, and that as a daughter of Athena, the dialect she naturally knows is also Attic, but Agi’s speaking Doric. But Annabeth will save asking why for another day, she thinks, as she says instead, “That didn’t happen to you?”

Agi motions to the textbook. “I could understand what I read all the time,” she says, “and the school was safe. School here’s awful. I hate it. No wonder no one noticed the math teacher wasn’t human. She wasn’t that different from anyone else.”

There is such a thing as good teachers—Annabeth should know, having had several herself—but admittedly, the mediocre and the bad outnumber them two to one. Maybe even three or one. “It’ll be better here,” she says. “Normally there are Ancient Greek lessons, which one of Lee’s brother’s comes back to teach, but it doesn’t make any sense for you to do that, so you’ll have English tutoring. How much do you understand?”

“I think a lot if someone’s speaking,” Agi says, “but not if they’re speaking really fast. And it takes me a while to think of how to answer. Reading’s terrible. Writing’s worse. I was only a mark above failing every class but the Kindly One’s.”

“Well, I guess she was kind for something,” Annabeth says. Agi smiles, like she doesn’t realise Annabeth was being serious. “All right. Let’s start with sentence structure. It might help you feel more comfortable answering. So, every sentence needs at least a subject and verb. A subject’s a noun. What’s a noun?”

That, at least, Agi can answer. They work through “Chapter 3: Beginner’s Syntax” slowly, but carefully, combining reading and speaking skills for the next hour. Throughout the lesson, she twirls the pen Annabeth knows is a sword between her fingers. At one point, as practice, Annabeth asks, “Do you have a favourite myth?” and Agi, “Perseus, because he lived, or Heracles, because he was a—uh, Nancy would say ‘he was a dick,’ but he was family.”

“Family?”

“Yiayia’s father.”

And with that, Annabeth is profoundly glad she’ll have this girl on her team for Capture the Flag. 

 

Camp holds Capture the Flag every second Friday. That way, there’s one week to prepare, one evening to play, and one week to reap the benefits of having won the previous challenge. The Ares cabin usually leads the Red Team; the Athena, Apollo, and Hermes cabins trade off for who leads Blue. Mr. D’s cabin, Hephaestus’, and Demeter’s always side with Red, while Aphrodite and Zeus tend to swap their alliances back and forth—or more accurately, if Luke and Silena are around, then the Aphrodite cabin joins the Blue Team, so the minor gods’ kids get stuck with Red whether they like it or not in the name of numerical fairness. 

Siding with the Aphrodite cabin always sucks, because winning with them just feels like cheating. The play is almost always the same, though the exact mechanics aren’t: Silena and Lee take defence, while Drew takes offence with a cohort of protectors to demand the flag. It’s boring. Even with Silena out of the games for now, Drew is still on offence. Defeating them is way more fun, even if it is harder. But it’s the strategy that makes the most sense, so obviously, it’s the one the Blue Team has to play if they’re allied. 

But not this time. Annabeth feels a certain vindictive pleasure when she looks at Drew across the rec room table they, Luke, and Lee are using to make their plans, and declares, “You should be the defence. You know, for Piper to take offence instead.”

Drew is murderous. “She just caught me off guard that day,” she snaps, as if everyone in this room isn’t perfectly aware she hadn’t tried to Charmspeak her newest sister since. “And even if the shit people’re saying was true—” Like what, Annabeth thinks, that your Reign of Terror’s coming to an end? “—then it’s still not like Piper will ask for the flag, since you’ve all convinced her that’s so terrible, so what’s the point? Just because you’ve got the—”

“Maybe that’s enough,” Luke cuts in, but not like he’s mad. Annabeth’s just perplexed. Just because she’s got the what? “It’s not a bad thing to change up the strategy. Clarisse will know what to expect.”

“Whatever,” Drew says, as she falls back into her chair, arms crossed. The movement makes her perfectly sized ringlets bob. “If you want to risk losing because Little Miss Movie Star is a shrinking wallflower with the self-esteem of a dry Foodtown cupcake, be my guest.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. The only reason she doesn’t remind Drew that Charmspeak isn’t the be-all and end-all of Capture the Flag is because Luke will be disappointed if they start fighting. So Annabeth bites her tongue, and lets Lee say, “You’re just jealous that you don’t have your own Wikipedia and IMDB pages. Is our flag by the creek or the Fist?”

“Creek,” Luke says, without glancing at the map spread out across the table. There’s no point. By now, they all have it memorised. “I have ideas about the guard. Annie?”

“I’m guessing we have the same ideas,” she says, right before she realises that great, she just put Drew on defence, and even she can’t place why, she doesn’t want Agi and Drew anywhere near each other. 

But that makes even less sense than Annabeth’s inexplicable association of Silena with her stepmother. Fact #1: Drew Tanaka is kind of a self-centred bitch who likes to compel people to do her chores for her. Fact #2: Pelagia Giannopoulou is potentially a daughter of Poseidon. Fact #3: Facts 1 and 2 have no bearing on each other whatsoever, but obviously Annabeth has some neurons misfiring in her frontal cortex, because instinct tells her that the two in conjunction are an unwanted combination. 

She decides to trust in logic, and finishes, “Are you joining them, Lee, or do you want to swap with Michael?” Archers, as traditionally defensive fighters, are one of the reasons why it’s so good to have the Apollo as an ally; they can hide in the wood and shoot the unsuspecting Red Team at will. But as Lee and Michael are the best of the lot, usually one of them is by the flag.

“I’ll do it,” Lee says. “Clarisse dunked Kayla’s head in the toilet last week—I’ve been looking for an excuse to shoot her.”

“What about Bryce?” says Luke, glancing past Annabeth’s shoulder and out the window. “You know, my new cabin mate. The kid who showed up this morning.”

“There’s another new kid?” Annabeth says as Drew asks, “He’s allowed to join? Has he even had a single lesson yet?”

Luke nods. “One,” he says. “Kid’s got to be the son of a war deity or something. I mean, Agi’s a fast learner, but she’s still a learner. Bryce said he’s never held a sword before, but he was using forms. Real forms. Not ours, but it was something.”

“Three new campers in two weeks?” Annabeth says. “In winter?” That’s almost unheard of in the height of summer, when demigods are most likely to get chased over the border. 

Or simply stroll over, in Bryce Lawrence’s case. “Stick him with us,” Lee says, nodding to Drew. “I don’t trust him. He looked just a little too happy when he said the burn scar on his arm came from a house fire. And he doesn’t speak Greek.”

“There’re other demigods that don’t speak Greek,” Luke says. “Usually just means they’re not dyslexic, and they’re never leaving my cabin. For some reason. But, sounds good to me. Annabeth, Drew?” 

They agree. Annabeth, to her relief, puts any concerns about Drew, Agi, or this new unknown variable out of her head until the following afternoon.

 

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Piper says ten minutes into the game. She says it so quietly that Annabeth doubts anyone else can hear, but still—the words “a bad feeling” make her want to bash her head into a tree. Considering how heavy her helmet is, it’s not like it’ll hurt. “The forest feels, I don’t know. Malicious.”

Godsdamn Aphrodite-blessed “empathy.” It’s nothing but trouble. “You’re just nervous,” Annabeth says, also under her breath, as they cross under the thick boughs of the sunken forest’s canopy. “And I know the woods take some getting used to. But just stay focused, keep your knife out, and you’ll be fine.”

The forest is always a little intense, even ignoring the monsters kept stocked in it. It’s surrounded on either side by tall secondary dunes carpeted in bush vegetation, so the area itself isn’t big, but cramped with evergreen hollies and hardwoods and in summer, way too much poison ivy. And that’s not even getting into the mosquitoes and ticks during the warmer months. Annabeth would take a harpy or kobalos any day if it meant she never needed to waste three hours de-ticking herself ever again. 

Even now, in the middle of January, enough of the trees are fully blooming and green that the sunlight filtering through the branches has a spring-like quality to it. It’s almost hazy, as if the whole forest is as dusty as the old attic. Maybe Piper is right, she thinks as her heartbeat jumps, before she quickly shuts that shit down. No. An interesting trick of the light and a newbie’s nerves are not a good reason for someone as experienced as Annabeth to lose her cool. 

Except, within fifteen minutes, Luke and the Stolls keep glancing over their shoulders. When she finally gets fed up enough to hiss out, “What’s wrong?” Luke whispers back that he’s going to check their flag and leaves them.

Annabeth stops, so Piper stops. “What’s going on?” Piper asks. 

“We heard something,” Connor says. The usual mischievous gleam in his eye is gone. Travis hasn’t turned his attention away from the direction of the creek. “We’ve got heightened senses. Thief powers, you know? Let’s just make this quick.”

Part of the fun of Capture the Flag is dragging it out just because they can, even if that means sometimes enacting tactics counterintuitive to optimal success. To openly admit that they could complete the game faster borders on taboo. Still, if Luke and the Stolls can back up Piper’s bad feeling with auditory evidence, then Annabeth feels just fine removing her baseball hat from her sword belt and fitting it on Travis’ head. “We’re the decoys,” she says as he disappears. “When we’re close enough, you get the flag.”

They’re halfway to Zeus’ Fist when one of Lee’s siblings whistles a warning, an arrow flies overhead, and Mark from the Ares cabin screams. That’s all the warning they get before Clarisse and her other brothers surround them. 

“Where’s Castellan?” Clarisse asks as Annabeth shoves Piper out of the way before she blocks the other girl’s spear with her dagger. “What, did he and Tanaka go ahead? Why’s she out? Trying to live up to her mom’s Areia title?”

“So what if I am?” Piper asks, while Annabeth jumps back and back away from Clarisse’s incredibly pointed thrusts. Both Piper and Connor are tied up in their own fights with Clarisse’s younger brothers. Where are her sisters? With the flag? Gods, Annabeth would almost rather fight them all together. Individually, each of them is a powerhouse, but they collectively have the critical thinking skills of a statue missing its head. 

Well, except Clarisse. Sometimes she has flashes of unexpected brilliance, but, thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case today. 

Annabeth gets her back against a holly tree, as if cornered, and waits one beat, two, until Clarisse’s next lunge brings the spear so close she feels the crackle of electricity raise the hair on her arm, and then she ducks, throwing herself forward so that as its tip imbeds in the truck, she knocks the girl flat on her back. There’s a nasty sound when Clarisse’s helmet hits a rock, but that’s what the armour’s there for, so before she can regain her wits, Annabeth punches her solidly in the nose. It cracks. Loudly. 

And then Clarisse breaks hers. 

“You bitch!” they both shout, as Annabeth springs off, her hand cupping her nose. 

As Clarisse starts to rise, though, one of the Apollo cabin’s netting arrows flies from the trees and explodes over, encasing her as surely as the gods so often trap each other. She howls about the unfairness of it all and how Chase, you’ll pay this and all that, as Annabeth cracks her nose back in place (with a squeak she wishes was less undignified) and rejoins her friends. Both Clarisse’s brothers are similarly trapped. Connor looks all right, but the cut on Piper’s arm has to count as a gauge. 

There goes Sherman’s dessert privileges. 

“Sorry,” Piper says, over all the yelling. “I’m terrible. If it’d been Drew here—”

“Then I never would’ve broken Clarisse’s nose,” Annabeth says (she selectively ignores when the other girl shouts back that the nose breaking was a two-way street). “Come on. We should go before the yelling attracts anyone else. Connor, you’re good?”

Lowering his voice, he says, “I’m fine,” as they resume the walk to the Fist. “Travis took him out before he could shishkebab me. He went ahead. We’re pretty close anyway.” 

They never do reach their destination; they’re rounding a thicket of short juneberries when the enemy flag, seemingly on its own, comes flying past. Thin on the breeze is Travis’ voice: “Help, help, help!” Which is completely fair, Annabeth realises when she and the others get over their shock. She’d probably be shouting for help, too, if three of Ares’ daughters, Castor and Pollux, Katie and Miranda, and almost half of Zeus’ cabin were chasing after her. A blunt-tipped arrow slams Connor in the solar plexus, so he crumbles to the ground, gasping, while vines start creeping up Annabeth’s legs to pin her in place. Oh gods, she thinks. So this is how we lose. 

“STOP!”

Piper’s voice hits the Red Team like a tidal wave. Even Annabeth freezes, as she watches with a mix of fascination, relief, and horror as the onslaught trips over each other. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Piper’s hands cover her mouth. She’s shaking. Annabeth might be shaking. Definitely, several of the Red Team are, and all of the Ares girls are slinging curses, but no one is moving. They’ve all just…stopped. 

In all of Annabeth’s five years here, she’s never seen one of Piper’s siblings do something like this. Not even Drew. 

When Piper crouches down to cut away the vines, Annabeth still doesn’t move. Then Piper reaches over to take Connor’s hand, grabs Annabeth’s, and tugs. The nonverbal cue breaks the Charmspeak’s hold on her, so they’re pelting back toward the creek long before anyone on the Red Team manages to move. 

“How did you do that!” she calls as they run, but Piper just shakes her head, and doesn’t answer. Well, fine. Annabeth will just have to ask later. 

They break through the dead blueberry bushes, and stumble onto the scene of Travis threatening his second new cabin mate with an arrow, while Drew tells him to calm the fuck down, Lee gathers up broken, bloody, size four armour, and Luke tugs his own shirt over Agi’s head. “We’ll tell Chiron what happened,” Luke’s saying, before Annabeth and the others make so much noise they’re impossible not to notice. “Hey. You all right?”

“Yeah,” Annabeth says, taking in the scene. Bryce’s normally pasty face is flushed unevenly, somehow highlighting his squirrellishness. “What happened?” 

“Hellhound attack,” Lee says. “These two heard it before any of us could see it. It attacked Agi, but she’ll be okay. You’re not,” he adds to Piper and Annabeth. “That’s—who the fuck did that? Get over here so I can heal you. Both of you.”

“I cracked it back into place!” Annabeth says, but he just reaches over, snags her arm, and drags her over. “Hey! Piper’s way worse than a broken nose.”

“Oh, she’s coming over here, too, aren’t you, McLean? So who did it?”

Miserably, Piper shuffles across the underbrush until she’s next to them, but when she mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “no one,” Connor loudly says, “Let the records show it was Sherman and Clarisse.” He motions to Bryce just as Lee’s singing knits Annabeth’s bones back together, which, ouch. “How’d he get involved?” 

“Fucker laughed,” says Travis, who lowered the arrow, but still looks like he’s calculating where best to stick it. “We’re stuck with him, but we’ve lost Agi, Con. The Sea God claimed her after the water healed her.” 

With something that might generously be called a smile, Agi says, “I’ve been told this is not surprising.” 

“Honey,” Drew says, as the first clanging, rumbling sounds of the Red Team running through the forest in all their armour reaches them, “you jumped into the Atlantic in winter during a canoe race because a nereid wanted to ask you about the Aegean. It’s literally never been a mystery.” 

“This needs ambrosia,” Lee says, when Piper’s cut continues bleeding everywhere, despite his healing hymn. “All right, you two, Stolls, Annabeth, let’s get out of here. Drew and Luke can handle the angry mob. Everyone will be too enamoured by his shirtlessness to be angry.” 

Though Annabeth wouldn’t mind hanging around to see the Ares cabin’s faces when they realise the Blue Team won even with something as crazy as a hellhound attack getting in the way, Agi’s wobbling on her feet and Piper seems ready to bolt. Annabeth didn’t know the other girl could “look pale,” but even her lips are faintly off-colour. Must be the blood loss. If Sherman somehow talks his way into keeping his dessert privileges after this, Annabeth’s lodging a complaint. Somehow. She doesn’t know if there’s a way to do that, but she’ll manage. 

With a sigh, she trails alongside her friends out of the forest. Something just shifted. Something big. World-saving-prophecy-big. Poseidon just claimed a forbidden daughter; Piper stopped a baker’s dozen campers with a word; Luke’s been as weird as the weather ever since the solstice; a hellhound found its way into camp. As they pass onto the dune-bracketed boardwalk leading back to the main camp, Annabeth considers the various pieces, and feels that part of her hardwired for warfare click to ON. 

 

 

 

A monster can only enter camp from an inside source. Inevitably, by the next morning, the hellhound attack warrants a full investigation. 

“Who do you think it is?” Piper asks around mid-morning, when she and Annabeth take a break from lessons in the otherwise deserted practice ring. Though Lee said Piper had to leave her right arm be for a few days, it turns out she’s at least half as nuts as Luke, and decided to train with her left. 

Annabeth shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, without looking up from her latest pipedream scribble of separate minor gods’ cabins. Her response is true, though it doesn’t feel like it. She could say that Bryce kid or your sisters, and that would be equally true, but also, she has zero proof. How could someone who’s only been here a day and had no prior knowledge of the gods summon a monster? He doesn’t speak Greek. And even she knows—or at least she thinks—her distrust of Silena and Drew has to do with a worry that they’ll manipulate people, not physically harm anyone. They’re inconsiderate, not evil. 

Though the etiquette of conversation deems she should now ask Piper what she thinks, Annabeth doesn’t (not, if she’s honest with herself, because she won’t take the answer seriously, but because she’s scared she will). “Why are you afraid of Charmspeak?” she asks instead, finally looking up from her sketch. Piper, somehow, manages to look wrung out to dry while also being so stupidly beautiful that the word beauty is almost an insult.

“Probably the same reason as you,” she says. “I’m guessing it freaks you don’t like being out of control. Not really. Well, I don’t like the thought of taking away anyone’s control.”

“Yeah, basically,” Annabeth says. “Does anyone like being out of control?” The thought freaks out Luke, too, she knows, which is why she really, really cannot understand how he and Silena work. When they were on the run with Thalia, they were in close quarters, so it was hard not to overhear his confession that he’s terrified of losing his mind like his mom. 

But Piper just shrugs and says, “No, honestly, but unless you’re roofied or something, people who lose control usually choose to do it. Pretty much all my dad’s friends and him do coke. It’s just what you do when you’re super rich. Dad always used to say I wasn’t allowed to touch the stuff—I mean, not like I wanted to—because he didn’t want me turning out like Drew Barrymore, but there was this party, and I don’t know, it was a ‘bonding activity.’”

“What the—”

“But, yeah, my ADHD went completely out of control. I talked someone—I don’t even remember who—into giving me their phone and called Hedge. That’s why I ended up here at like, six in the morning. He got us on a red-eye.” Again, Piper shrugs. At this point, she’s distinctly not looking at Annabeth, who stares at her. “I don’t think Charmspeak feels the same way, but if it’s even a little like that, I don’t want to do it.” 

For a long moment, Annabeth can’t think of how to respond. Here in camp, the closest to drugs and alcohol anyone gets is the literal wine cellar, but no one’s stupid enough to touch that. It’s essentially Mr. D’s punishment locker. “That’s messed up,” she settles with eventually. “Stay here year round. You’ve got me. I ran away from home because my stepmom basically forced me out. Or it felt like that anyway.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever read Coraline?”

“I’ve seen it?”

That’s probably good enough, though Annabeth didn’t know it was a movie. “Sometimes I felt like I was in the button universe,” she says, “and everything would be fine and perfect and I’d fit in if I could just sew the buttons over my eyes. Dad wasn’t as bad, but he wasn’t around much, and I don’t think he liked little kids, so he just tended to believe whatever she said about my younger brothers and I. She’d be all smiles one minute, and talking about this summer’s family vacation and the fun we’d have, and then something would happen, and she’d need to fix it. My brothers are mortal, so it should be easier for them, especially if I’m not around for them to ask me questions.”

Or so she hopes anyway. 

“I’m sorry,” Piper says, reaching out to touch her arm. “That sounds rough. I was already planning on staying year round. I don’t think he’ll even notice, not with the Mist. And I want to get better at fighting so I don’t have to rely on Charmspeak, except maybe with monsters. It’s probably okay with monsters, right?”

“Right,” Annabeth says, standing. She wraps Piper’s hand in hers and drags her to her feet. “We’re supposed to kill them anyway. Why not make it easier? On that note, ready?”

Piper says she’s ready. Annabeth knocks her dagger out of her hand in thirty seconds flat, but it’s her left, so really, who’s counting?

 

When the search for the hellhound comes up empty, Annabeth isn’t shocked (mostly because Drew could get away with murder, who would ever suspect the pregnant nineteen-year-old, and Bryce Lawrence is new). Though it probably shouldn’t, what does surprise her is when, a couple of days later, Chiron calls her to the Big House. 

As she nears, she hears Chiron saying, “It’s not a quest if she doesn’t receive a prophecy,” in such strong exasperation that she knows he has to be talking to Luke. The Oracle is creepy, everyone knows, but he’s the only one with an active vendetta against her. 

“She’s literally cursed,” Luke insists. “A dried out husk. I’m going with Agi.”

“That’s not how it’s done,” Chiron says as Annabeth reaches the steps. “A hero always receives their prophet alone.”

“Why?” Agi says. “Delegations used to consult the Oracle together to help with interpretation, right? That’s part of the history of the Peloponnesian War.” 

Mr. D barks out a laugh. “We haven’t had a child who knew more than the mythological history in a long time,” he says. “I forgot how entertaining it was. What’s the harm, Chiron? Come here, Bessie. You’re above eavesdropping.”

Bessie isn’t anywhere close to Annabeth! And she wasn’t eavesdropping, even if she had slowed down a bit passing around the corner to reach where the party of four sits. There are Chiron and Mr. D in their usual places, framed by the roof and railing of the white porch in front of the uncharacteristically grey sky, and between them, a scowling Luke and wide-eyed Agi. As always, she resembles a prey animal. It’s hard to imagine she’s the child of Poseidon, especially compared to Thalia, who always crackled with her father’s aggression. 

But Agi isn’t Thalia. She’s like a knock-off version of her that Annabeth will just have to put up with if it means getting her quest. “Hi, Mr. D, Chiron,” she says, nodding in their directions, before glancing at her brother and her not-quite friend. “There’s a quest?”

“As direct as ever,” says Chiron directly, but fondly. “Yes, yes. You’ve been waiting a long time for such an opportunity, and Pelagia has agreed that you would make a good questing partner. While she—” He sighs, getting across all his displeasure. “—and Luke visit the Oracle, we’ll explain. It’s grave tidings, I fear.”

Why can’t she go see the Oracle? If Luke’s tagging along, it’s only fair. For him to be here, especially without Silena and Lee, who also treat Agi like some kind of pet, Annabeth can only assume he’s the third member. Still, it’s Chiron asking, and the look Mr. Dr sends her way suggests she better listen, so she shelves all ideas of protests, and occupies the last available seat. “Does this have to do with why the weather’s been strange?” she asks. It doesn’t take a daughter of Athena to see there’s something wrong. With the exception of the three newbies, everyone knows that the skies shouldn’t be this consistently overcast. 

“Yes, yes,” Mr. D says, “and now that Old Barnacle Beard has decided to acknowledge his wrongdoing, it seems I’ve been summoned back to Olympus.” Of course, he sounds absolutely thrilled. Anyone who’s ever seen him making out with Ariadne at the solstice meetings can guess how he spends his time up there. “I still say we’d all be better off if I simply vaporised her atoms. Her parents and Lorenzo would get over it in time.”

“You’re not vaporising anyone,” Chiron says patiently. “What would your wife say, if you extended your parole?” Mr. D sighs again, even more dramatically. “Annabeth, during the solstice, your grandfather’s Bolt was stolen.”

“What?” she says, shocked. “How?”

“How do you think, Andromeda?” Mr. D says. Not rhetorically. 

The answer comes to her instantly: a demigod must have done it, as one god can’t steal from another. When she says as much, he claps, but sarcastically. Chiron narrows his eyes at him, unimpressed. “It would certainly seem so,” he says, “though who’s responsible remains unknown. He accused Pelagia’s father of organising the crime. Now that she’s been claimed, blame has landed on her shoulders, though her, uh, unique situation leaves that possibility quite impossible. She was simply in neither the physical nor emotional position at the time that the event occurred to have done it.”

“Then why can’t she swear on Styx?” Annabeth asks, confused. If the point is to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and Agi really isn’t responsible, that makes the most sense.

“It would absolve her, but not her father,” Chiron answers, “which, frankly, is more important. And he won’t do so as a point of pride. The best solution would be for her to find the real culprit in his name. I have my suspicions as to who it could be, so will attempt to point the quest in the right direction. You’ll join her. She’ll need experienced partners to guide her.” 

Mr. D rolls his eyes. “Be honest, Chiron,” he says as he stands. “Penelope also needs someone who speaks proper English to survive this monolinguistic nightmare of a country. Now, I best be off. If she’s still here when I return, I’ll promise I will turn her into a dolphin.”

“Some member of her family will simply turn her back.”

“Oh yes, but it’ll be fun in the meanwhile.”

Annabeth averts her eyes as the god flashes away to Olympus, leaving behind the lingering smell of wine and wildflowers. When she raises her gaze again, she finds Chiron staring at the front door. “They are taking any awfully long time,” he says, more to himself than to her.

Could that mean that Agi hasn’t received the prophecy? Some of Annabeth’s numb shock disappears as considers what it would mean if Oracle doesn’t dispense the words of not-wisdom. Will she be allowed to go instead? Chiron did say she was destined to go on her first quest with a child of the Big Three, but in retrospect, that doesn’t necessarily mean Agi would have to be the one to lead it. Wouldn’t Annabeth, who’s older and has been training for five years rather than a week, make much more sense?

Before she can chase that thought any further, the door opens and Agi flies out in a blur of black and orange with Luke at her heels. At the railing, she turns; he says something in Modern Greek, and she, shaking like a proverbial leaf, flows into his arms. She doesn’t even reach his shoulder. In the grey light filtering through the overcast, his old scar looks the most violent it has in years.

When Chiron makes as if to walk over, Luke glares and shakes his head. 

It’s hard not to be offended. Not because of the hug—she isn’t jealous, thank you very much, Piper, she just grew out of hugs like that years ago—but because someone who’s supposed to lead a quest should be such a scaredy-cat they’re afraid of the Oracle. No, Luke’s weird hatred of the Oracle doesn’t count. 

At least it’s not that long before she calms down enough that they return to the table. She doesn’t look at anyone, but he says something to Chiron in Vietnamese, clearly just to exclude her and Annabeth, which seems massively unfair. Chiron answers in the same language, but turns to Agi before an argument can start and asks, “What did the Oracle say? Her exact words.” 

Agi, by this point, is fiddling with her pen-that’s-a-sword. “It was in Greek,” she says, flitting a quick glance around at all of them before dropping her gaze back to her lap. “Modern Greek. So, uh. Do you want the translation to Ancient or English for Luke and Annabeth?” Mostly Annabeth, she doesn’t say, but it’s what she means. As a son of Hermes, Luke picks up languages quickly, even if he isn’t perfect right away. 

As frustrating as it is to be the odd one out, Annabeth isn’t about to complain.

“I suppose that will do,” Chiron says. 

“I have to head west,” Agi says, gesturing vaguely in that direction, “to, uh, confront a god—or gods, or something, the Oracle used ‘zevgári,’ like ‘duás’ to mean a natural pair—that’s changed his, or their, allegiances. I’ll—she was using ‘egó’—find, I don’t know, I guess more than one thing that was stolen—she used the plural ending—and return them. Maybe she’s just bad at Greek? She switched to ‘emís’ after, so we’ll save, uh, another pair of something lost to time, but we won’t be able to fix some broken oath in the end. Except she said ‘iusiurandum,’ not ‘órko’ for some reason. I apparently know Latin?” 

Chiron noticeably pales, before he clears his throat and says, “Perhaps she’s simply growing confused in her old age. Interesting use of Latin and adverbial numerals aside, I believe your destination is clear. Think, Pelagia. If your father and uncle weaken each other in war, who stands to gain?”

“Uh, the God of War?”

“No, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth says, pointedly ignoring the displeased look Luke sends her. She was here first. He’ll get over his random duck/duckling imprinting on the new girl eventually. “Chiron means your other uncle. He sent the Kindly One after you.”

“But why?” Agi says, as she shifts in her seat and finally looks up. “I mean, Euripides and Aeschylus call them goddesses, but at least that one died like a monster. Can they cut deals with other gods, if they’re more like goddesses? Because she wanted me to confess to a crime. Why would the person who did the theft send a goddess-monster of vengeance after a kid?”

Annabeth hasn’t read Euripides or Aeschylus yet—that’s next this coming semester—but that does make sense. Regardless, Chiron has thousands of years of experience, which matters more than anything a sixth grader thinks they know. “The Underworld’s in LA,” she says. “No other god’s based out west. Chiron, when do we leave?”

“Tomorrow at first light, I should say,” he answers, “though only after Pelagia chooses your final companion. The choice is hers.”

“It’s not you?” Annabeth says, turning to Luke. With him here, she assumed he would be.

“No,” he says, with a sad half-smile. “I just invited myself to the meeting. I’ve got a baby on the way, Annie. The semester starts Monday. No quests for me.”

As much as she wants to argue, that unfortunately makes sense, too. School’s important. So are babies.

Before she can suggest Travis, who’s old enough for his fake driver’s license to be passably real, Agi says, “I want Piper.” 

“Piper is also new,” Chiron says, “and it’s preferable that at least one member on the quest be able to drive. Now, if I may I suggest—”

“I want Piper,” Agi says again. “You said it’s my choice. Luke and Lee aren’t available, so I want Piper. If she says yes, I mean.” 

“I suppose I did,” Chiron says, folding his arms. Annabeth very carefully schools her expression, so he isn’t disappointed by her own feelings on the matter. “Run along, then, all of you. You best ask her now, so you have time to consider a secondary option if she refuses.” 

Even to Annabeth, that ‘if’ sounds an awful lot like a ‘when.’

Despite Chiron’s prediction, when she and Agi extricate Piper from her cabin’s hour at the lava wall, the girl only needs a little cajoling before she says yes. 

Notes:

Luke/Silena and Pipabeth are currently winning. I've also gotten:

"anything but solangelo" and "anything but perpollo," and an interesting, "queerplatonic nicercy, filled with all the angst but none of the romance, but totally interferes with their actual romances because they're each other's number ones."

Thoughts? Reviews are good for the soul & also updates. Especially this late in the semester.

Chapter 4: is medusa the jersey devil?

Summary:

This chapter may include, but is not limited to: social studies homework, lots of snow, children of Greek gods reading Genesis, Grover Underwood, girl bonding, and New Jersey.

Notes:

Warnings: mentions of child abuse and colonialism.

“I know it’s not much,” Silena says as she ties the bracelet around Agi’s left wrist, “but you mentioned the charm you weren’t able to get back from your apartment. Drew helped out with it. I hope it’s okay.”

“Thanks,” Agi says, before even looking down at it. It’s all beyond awkward, considering Silena’s literal sister and her pseudo-sister-in-law are right there. There’s no logical reason why she should be singled out. “Did you do this all last night?”

When Silena smiles, she reveals only one dimple. Over her shoulder, Agi watches Luke and the Stolls talk to her quest-mates. She really, really does not want a new version of something her mother once gave her, but forces herself to smile back when Silena says, “No. It’s been ever since you woke up. I asked for Drew’s advice on the design. I hope you like it.”

Agi glances down at her wrist. It looks simple enough, just a blue, black, and white eye held onto her with a thick string, but the shade of blue is off. Is that enough to be a problem? She doesn’t know. “I do,” she says. “Thank you.”

“Come back safe,” Silena says and hugs her, before switching places with Luke and his brothers. There are more hugs and another promise to return all in one piece, and a third promise to listen to Annabeth, and finally, they’re allowed to meet Argus entrance to the bridge leading back to the mainland.

“Annabeth brought her homework,” Piper says as she climbs into the backseat after Agi. “Who does that? We’re exempt!”

“That doesn’t mean we just gain the knowledge, McLean!” Annabeth says, hopping in last and closing the door behind her. “It’s the first week. Without consistent study—”

“You’re just weighing yourself down! Literally!”

“A quest is no excuse for slacking off!” Leaning to look past Piper, Annabeth motions to Agi and says in English, “Consider Giannopoulou. It’s practically a week of language immersion. You can’t get more study-focused than that.”

Argus chuckles. He never talks, apparently, because he has eyes on his tongue or something. At least, that’s what Connor and Travis said. Lee said to only believe about 80% of anything any son of Hermes except Luke ever tells her, but considering that she never has heard the guy talk, she’s willing to believe them this time.

“I never asked for it,” she says as he pulls onto the bridge. The second they touch the pavement, they’re over the barrier, so instead of mostly sunny skies, they’re driving right into snow flurries. “I haven’t seen snow in years. It snows in Attica or the Peloponnese at sometimes, and that’s close, but not so much on the islands.”

“Snow’s not common in Southern California, either,” Piper says, “but I visited Oklahoma in winter when I was younger, and it snows there. And Dad’s filmed movies in mountains and stuff, but at least I’ve never needed to clean a driveway.”

“Where’s Oklahoma?” Agi has to sound the name out: Oak-la-home-ah. Of course, she’s heard of Oklahoma—it’s a song and everything!—but she’s terrible at US geography. With Europe, she’s mostly fine, though she’s sure she rearranges, like, the Baltic States or something, which is the equivalent to rearranging New England, and she’s fine with North Africa and the Middle East, because they were always relevant thanks to proximity and wars and refugees, but the only countries she can break down into small parts are her own, Cyprus, and sort of Italy. 

As Piper starts trying to describe how to locate a random state to someone who only knows the East Coast and the famous ones (so “above and right of Texas” helps), Annabeth reaches into her backpack and pulls out a US history textbook. “The map of the country’s on the cover,” she says, handing it over. “It’s the state with the handle, like a pot. I’m from Virginia. It snows there every year, but everyone always acts like it’s the end of the world.” 

While Agi can’t say she expected to start off her quest with a geography lesson, it’s probably a good idea, considering they’re about to travel across the country. It lasts until they reach Queens, when she, distracted by the large sign welcoming them to the borough, says, “We’re back to the City and saw no monsters. That’s good.”

“Don’t tempt fate like that,” Annabeth says in a tone so harsh that Piper actually hisses out her name.

“‘Tempt?’”

Annabeth says the sentence again, but in Ancient Greek. Offended, Agi leans past Piper to look at the other girl’s face and asks in the same language, “Why do you hate me all of the sudden? We were friends two days ago.”

“I don’t hate you.” 

“Yes, you do.”

Annabeth glances at Piper, as if hoping for an out, but she just folds her arms in a gesture that seems to say it’s your bed, so make it yourself. Finally, Annabeth scowls and says, “We’re not supposed to get along, all right? Our parents are rivals—”

“Our parents?” Agi repeats, throwing herself back against her seat. “Oh, hése mas, Athenides. I’ve stood in the ruins of your mother’s temple and you’ve swum in the sea, and neither of us are dead, so I think we’re fine.” 

Begrudgingly, Annabeth admits that Agi might have a point. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from snapping out anything else, mostly because she still isn’t sure how she feels about what she knows. For years, she thought Mama taught her so many myths about the sea just because they were from an island. To find out that the real reason is because those myths are family history is something else altogether. 

No one back home is the child of an Olympian anymore. How is she, the idiot who managed to get gutted twice in one week, the exception to the rule?

Around the time that all the signs outside switch from English to Korean and Chinese, the others start mapping out how to reach California through a mix of buses and trains. Annabeth knows the most about what to do once they reach Penn Station, which makes sense; the Chiron and the older campers handed her all the information, while Piper only went once when she was five and, it seems, acted in her one of her few film credits as her own father’s daughter. Agi’s never been there at all. Maybe she would have, if she’d trusted that she could have gotten away with following up on Nancy’s invitation to sleep over her dad’s house Downtown, but Gavriil liked her having friends about as much as he liked her on the subway. There were too many stories of the train being used as a murder weapon, he said. No need to tempt fate.

Gavriil’s weird like that. Depending on what he does and his level of sobriety, sometimes he’s guilty enough after that he can’t look at her for days. Other times, he remembers to lay out exactly how she messed up, so there’s no confusion. He took a beating for her once, when the guy who came to collect the payment Gavriil didn’t have dragged her out from under the table to demonstrate consequences, but when the man was gone, her stepfather gave her such a hard thrashing that her back still has scars from his belt. 

Though she was all for leaving, she also hopes he isn’t dead. Maybe. Sometimes, she wanted him dead so badly it hurt, but at times, she wanted to be the other who was dead, and at others, the thought of being without him—her last living parent, her connection to Mama—terrified her. Now, mostly, she’s just been trying not to think about how no one will fill her in about what she doesn’t remember. 

Argus leaves them outside an entrance of multiple steel doors, which homeless men dressed in ragged coats hold open in hopes for a tip almost no one gives them. Given their limited funds, Agi and her maybe-friends are just as bad as everyone else. Annabeth doesn’t even seem to notice, hyper-focused in that way she gets as she prattles out architectural facts about an extension to the building that’s been in the works for years. Who knew so much planning went into improving city infrastructure? Definitely not Agi. In Greece, the real key to get anything done was bribes.

When they get on line for the Amtrak tickets, Piper says she’ll buy them, because their $100 doesn’t even cover fare for three to Philadelphia. “Even if my father notices,” she says in Greek, when Annabeth argues that they should take a bus then instead, “I already told him I was going on an academic trip. He won’t ask what the money was for.”

“You talked to him?” Annabeth says, her brow creasing. “How? I thought he didn’t know the truth.”

“He doesn’t,” Piper says, then pauses, and says in English, so Agi has trouble following, “He thinks I’m at Problematic Rich Kids Boarding School, so as long as I call him sometimes, it’s fine.”

“Call him?” Annabeth says. “Like, on the phone?”

“Why are phones a problem?” Agi asks, because she caught at least that much. It’s frustrating how hard it is for her to learn. Everyone says it’s because of the dyslexia, but she still feels stupid. She knows bits and pieces of other languages, but she never thought trying to become fluent would take this long. 

Returning to Greek, Annabeth says, “To use one lets monsters know where you are, if you’re a demigod. Don’t tell me you had one in Greece.”

Agi shrugs. “We don’t have the Mist there the same way you do here,” she says. “Who cares if you have to stab a cyclops outside the taverna if everyone’s just going to cry ‘yammas' and buy you or your parents a drink?” 

“My grandpa used to say stuff like that,” Piper says, before taking an ordinary cell phone out of her coat pocket. They’re third in line now, inching closer to the ticket across the yellow, dirty, cracked tile floor. “It’s fine. Alabaster did a spell, so no one can find us if I use it.”

“Alabaster?” Annabeth says, doubtful. “Not Mason or one of his siblings? Because confusing signals is strictly a child of the Forge God’s skill.”

“But doesn’t his mother control the Mist?” Agi says. “Why can’t he do it too?”

With a single-shoulder shrug, Annabeth says, “I don’t know. There are things that Katie and her siblings can do with vines that Castor and Pollux can’t, but not the other way around. But Alabaster’s inherited magic doesn’t, I don’t know, stick or something to that—” She gestures to the phone. “—or anything like it. We’d all have one otherwise.”

They all quiet for so long, each afraid to voice their separate thoughts, that they reach the ticket counter. The woman behind it squints as she does a double take between Piper’s card and Piper herself, but seems to decide that commenting on the film star’s daughter and her company of other children is not worth the trouble. “Platform twenty-two,” is all she says. 

“So about the phone,” Piper says in English as they all their way toward the Amtrak platform. Penn Station is loud and crowded and dirty and smelly, and so distracting that Agi’s having trouble focusing on what the other girl is saying. “How about I throw it out, then call my dad from a payphone somewhere to say I broke it?”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Annabeth says, as Piper fishes from her phone from her pocket and starts pressing buttons. “What’re you doing?”

“Deleting everything,” Piper says. “So, are we telling Chiron?”

“Why can we say his name,” Agi adds, completely off topic, “but not any other?”

The two other girls, who were walking a little in front of her, stop and turn around. “Huh,” Annabeth says, with a tilt of her chin—her thinking look. “I never thought about it. I suppose because even if his name calls to him, he won’t show up and kill us.”

Though that makes sense for, say, Medusa, it’s still an unsatisfactory answer. “But the gods don’t want to kill us,” Agi points out. Even if she’s semi-new to this, she understands that much. Outside of the weird Christian/pagan worship that goes on back home and their kids, who else is really keeping the gods going with their faith? 

“I think that’s just being polite,” the older girl says. “Their conscience draws toward the sound of their name or something. Also, I’ve heard it’s good not to get in the habit, so that you don’t say your mom or dad’s name when you’re doing something you don’t want them to see.”

Piper giggles. “Apparently Silena has a ‘horror story,’” she says, though, thankfully, she doesn’t tell it. It’s always uncomfortable to hear people talk about sex. “I’m going to throw this out over there. Seriously, though, what’re we saying?”

“I don’t know,” Annabeth says, as she and Agi follow Piper to the rubbish bin conveniently beside the door leading down to their platform. “Alabaster was really only in camp for a summer before he went to college. Lou Ellen might not have told him that Mist-manipulation doesn’t work on everything.” There’s a long, long pause, where Piper and Agi just look at her, before she says, “But his mother is an Underworld goddess.” 

And so far, she doesn’t say, Agi’s been attacked by Alecto and a hellhound. What Annabeth also isn’t saying: Alabaster is friends with Luke, Chiron is surprisingly touchy, and just because she realises something makes sense, as Athena’s daughter, doesn’t mean she’s immune to ignoring what she doesn’t want to be true. From the way Piper glances behind her friend to meet Agi’s eye, Agi’s pretty sure she isn’t the only one reading between the lines. She knows she isn’t very bright, but she was raised around people who said one thing but meant another, or only spoke in half-truths. Even if she still doesn’t know how to feel about learning that Mama was one of them—Mama, who was the one person she always, always trusted to tell the truth—she’s decent enough in recognising when others do it. 

But she doesn’t think Annabeth’s holding anything back to be mean or tricky, so she doesn’t say anything. Neither does Piper. Agi assumes, from the other girl’s silence, that’s making the right choice. 

On the train, they manage to find four seats facing each other. Agi sits next to Piper with Annabeth across from Piper, and Annabeth’s back on the empty seat, as though they’re holding it for someone else. No one even looks at them, at least not yet, until the train pulls away from the station and the ordinary, very mortal conductor comes by to check their tickets, and smiles at them, like everything is fine and normal and okay. 

 

It’s actually amazing, how godsdamn stupid the course is. The Republic and Genesis? First week, and Texts and Contexts: Great Books is genuinely trying to place random excerpts from the Republic and Genesis side by side, like they can really relate to each other? Each two week section is based around a question; this one is: “What makes a text a cornerstone of culture?” Luke just wishes Professor Lynn, the postdoc teaching the course, bothered to ask his recitation section if they agreed with the forced connection rather than why they connect. What about the Iliad and the Odyssey? Luke would shoot back, given the chance. And why, in his father’s name, did the course coordinator choose the fucking King James Bible, the worst of the worst, for the Genesis translation?

There are a lot of better ways that Luke could spend his time than listening to the tale of Eve and the serpent. He could be sleeping, for one. Buying Silena’s over-priced European chocolate bars, for another. Debating about whether they want to know the baby’s sex, again. Even staring off into space, waiting for Annie to IM with an update about the quest would be more interesting than this.

Halfway through the recitation section (which is on Friday morning, because whoever designed this course is a sadist), Professor Lynn declares that they all must turn to the person next to them and discuss the connection, if no one but Molly is willing to volunteer. Luke and Drew shift to face each other, because Drew, by a quirk of both their class and work schedules, is also in this class. 

She leans one elbow on the table and raises a brow as he reaches for the coffee. “Fucking bullshit?” he says in a murmur low enough for the professor not to hear. 

“I straight up didn’t read Plato when he was assigned in high school,” she says, sighing. “Believe me, I didn’t read it this time, either. Are you saying you did?”

“I read Plato my first year at camp,” he says. “Unfortunately, I did read Genesis for this. ” 

“Tell me, oh Marvellous One,” she says, using a translation of the Ancient Greek address that essentially meant oh you marvellous fool, “what’s your take away on Christian interpretation of nudity’s great evils?”

“I think your mother probably has interesting thoughts on the matter.”

Though he meant to make her laugh (Silena would have), her mouth twists into a scowl that cracks her lipstick. “My mother,” she says, in that same bitter tone he’s used to hearing from Silena, but not Drew. “Have you ever seen one of our parents play favourites like that?”

Before Luke can ask what she means, the professor materialises in front of the desk with a smile that reveals the gap between his teeth. “Drew, Luke,” he says, to show off that learned their names already, “what have you discussed?”

“Herodotus’ Histories was way more interesting than the Republic,” Luke says. 

“And Homer,” Drew says. “The romance of Achilles and Patroclus transcends time.”

“Not Penelope and Odysseus?” 

“Please, Lu. The way that upheld traditional gender roles is on par with Adam and Eve.”

Drew smirks. Luke smirks back. Uncomfortable, Professor Lynn shifts in his sneakers, which squeak on the well-waxed floor, and says, “You two certainly know your Greek literature. Do you already know each other?” 

In something close to a drawl, Drew answers, “Oh no, Professor. I’ve never seen this boy in my whole life.” 

Understandably, the professor doesn’t look like he believes them for a minute, but he doesn’t call them out on their lie, either. Freshman core courses are all about making new friends, not hanging out with your girlfriend’s sister. “Right,” he says. “Well, five more minutes, and we’ll turn this over to a class discussion. Try to consider why the course uses the Republic over other possible options.”  

He drifts on to the next group. On the projector at the front of the classroom, the screen with his PowerPoint goes to sleep, shifting instead to the stock photo of a mountain. The lights are so bright that Luke feels on the edge of sensory overload. It’s the lack of sleep that’s doing it. Silena’s gone from endless fatigue to borderline insomnia, and her restlessness keeps him up as much as it does her. It’s hard to say if it’s just an evolution in the side effects of the pregnancy, or of their relentless, mutual stress—over the baby, over Silena’s health, over their sisters and Agi, over the start of the new semester. Sometimes, he looks at her when she’s pouring her cereal or wiping off her makeup or pacing in the moonlight across the main room’s paisley rug, and wonders if the same thought that haunts him haunts her: could he save them if he just confessed to the crime that was actually his?

Except, there are risks to his confession that go beyond his own punishment. Apollo told him to keep his mouth shut for a reason. What would Luke even say, if the God of Truth asked directly for what happened in front of an Olympian tribunal? Sorry, but I only think I did it in the four hours of my life that seem to be missing, between my Charmspeaking girlfriend asking if I love her and walking toward the elevator. It sounds bad. He knows it does. And that’s even without admitting that last time he saw her apply copper eyeliner, he almost threw up.

Drew rips him from his spiral of how he’s definitely connecting dots that aren’t there when she suddenly says, “I mean Piper.”

“What about her?” he says, trying to find his footing in the conversation again. They only have a few minutes before they open to class discussion. 

“Favouritism,” Drew says, as she sits back, slums down in her chair, and folds her arms. “It’s total bullshit. Of course you wouldn’t understand. You and your brothers can all do the same things, mostly. I mean, I’m convinced what Chris can do with a computer is a Gen Z experiment or something, but it’s basically just the techy version of the rest of you. But me and my siblings? How much or what ‘favour’ she ‘bestows’ on you all depends on how much and which side of her loved your parent. My Charmspeak’s stronger than Sil’s, but the way she understands global beauty trends is basically a superpower; Lacy can’t Charmspeak at all. Do you know how screwed up it is that McLean didn’t even know who Mom really is, and Piper’s the one who—”

When Professor Lynn calls for attention, she cuts herself off. This is probably a good thing, because Luke has no idea how to react to anyone’s burst of anger, for any reason, at approximately 8:30 in the morning. Two cups of coffee is just enough to deal with emotion. 

It’s not enough, he decides, to deal with his professor’s off-beat zeal over the original sin, either. The list of dos and don’ts the gods laid out for their mortal followers could go on for days, but at least he was raised without anyone ever telling him he was inherently evil just because he was born. And his kid won’t be raised with that belief either—even if they are, in Silena’s words, an “inevitable thief of hearts and car keys.” That’s something he and Silena agreed on immediately, despite her father’s pointed suggestions about how she should celebrate all the usual holidays now to uphold an air of normality. He knows about what his daughter is, but as a man who runs a bestselling fashion magazine, he has very particular thoughts upholding a good public image.  

He’d liked Breckendorf, but then again, who didn’t? Luke is worse than the knock-off version, even without considering that he’s the one who got his friend killed. 

Professor Lynn releases his class a whole three minutes early, with a disappointed sigh and request that they come prepared to discuss Gilgamesh and Zhaungzi next time. Luke and Drew are the first two out of the room, abusing their superior demigod skills to flee before the professor changes his mind. “I have to get to work,” he says, when they pause beside the study tables outside the door. Now that he no longer needs to pretend to be a substitute teacher, he found a job at the Starbucks around the corner. “Swing by later, if you can. Sil misses you.” 

“Will you be there?” Drew asks, already half-turned away, ready to flee to her very easy, but much less annoying French class.

“Depends,” Luke says. “I work til five. Silena’ll be there around noon, though.” 

“Guess I’ll see you Monday, then,” Drew says, before she turns heel and walks away. 

 

The Erinyes board in Trenton, which, Agi learns, is the capital of New Jersey.  

“Oh no,” Annabeth says, once they reach the space between their train car and the one in front of it. Piper curses as she tries the next door, only to find it locked. “I left my social studies homework on my seat.”

Agi giggles, though hysterically, not because it was funny. Silena taught her a word a few days ago: distraught. That’s Annabeth right now—bitten lip, her brows drawn, her eyes very wide and very pale in the bright lights beaming down from the ceiling, distraught. Not because of the monster-goddess of vengeance after them, no. Because she left her homework. 

For a moment, Agi has such warm affection for the other girl it hurts. “It’s fine,” she says, as she removes Riptide from her pocket. “I can’t believe I have to kill my math teacher more than one time.”

“Every girl’s dream,” says Piper, extracting her dagger from her sleeve, while Annabeth unhooks her invisibility hat from her belt loop. “Are you doing what we did with Trav for Capture the Flag?”

“No,” Annabeth says, as she tries to shove the hat into Agi’s free hand. “Take this. You can hop over the seats to get past them while Piper and I—”

“That’s not good for trains,” Agi says, shoving the hat back. “And we’re three and they’re three. We shouldn’t be two.” 

“But they’re here for you—”

Thankfully, Piper cuts in, “You wear it, Annabeth. You’re the best here, so shouldn’t we be the distraction?” 

Annabeth clearly doesn’t like the plan, but their time is too limited for argument; she puts on the hat. No sooner does she pop out of existence than does the door to the train car slide open. 

Three shrivelled, naked old women with wings and whips of fire somehow manage to enter all at once, despite the doorway only allowing single-file. Alecto leaps at Piper; Tisiphone and Megaera rush Agi. “Where is it?” they keep saying, in their hissing voices. Annoyingly, they’re speaking English. “Where is it?”

“It?” Piper says, as she ducks under another crack of Alecto’s whip that would have done a lot worse than singe her winter coat. “What’s ‘it?’”

Tisiphone rears back when something (Annabeth) pins her in place, so Agi stabs Riptide through her eye. More insistently, and with about four times the Charmspeak, Piper repeats, “What’s ‘it?’”

“The Helm!” Megaera shouts, as she pounces on Agi and almost knocks her flat, except there’s not enough room for that. 

“Our Lord’s Helm!” Alecto shouts, as she misses her next hit on Piper so spectacularly Annabeth must have intervened, and strikes the smoke detector on the ceiling instead. 

The alarm is instantaneous and loud. In ensuing chaos of the man on the loudspeaker saying safety things, the flickering lights, and the train’s speed decreasing, Agi manages to punch Megaera in the face. They’re in too close quarters for Riptide to be an effective weapon—when she tries to stab forward, she misses Megaera’s main body and just tears through her wing. With a noise like a howl, though, she leaps back, flapping her wings uselessly, just Alecto bursts into dust. Ichor drips from the tattered wing to the floor. 

Agi is terrified, but she manages to keep her voice mostly even when she says in Greek, “Tell him: I swear on the River Styx, I haven’t touched the Helm or the Lightning Bolt.”

And in Megaera’s moment of surprise, Agi slashes her across the chest and kills her. 

The train comes to a stop. Piper grabs Agi’s backpack and tugs her toward the door to the outside world as Annabeth hits the button that opens it. There’s no platform; they fall into a pile of winter coats and bony limbs right onto the track, but have to navigate their way onto their feet before anyone from the train notices that they aren’t evacuating in a neat and orderly fashion. A man shouts. Annabeth swears a swear she definitely learned from a summer-only camper. Even as they untangle the rat’s nest of their bodies, a squall of thick black clouds swells overhead to darken the sky. 

Annabeth’s on top of the fence, and Agi and Piper nearly when the bolt of lightning strikes the train. Boom! With a shriek, Annabeth tumbles off to land on the grass on the other side; Agi slips, but managed to land all right; Piper knocks her already bloody forehead into the top railing. 

That Agi and Piper make it over the top and down the other side without worse injuries seems like a miracle. Annabeth is on her feet, but all her weight is on one leg, and behind them, mortals are screaming, and the train is burning up, so none of them stops to talk about before Piper wraps Annabeth’s arm around her shoulders and Agi darts forward to scout ahead with Riptide in her hand.

 

At the first bus stop the three girls find, they drop onto the sheltered bench and snack on ambrosia to heal their various wounds. Piper’s cut and the ache in Agi’s shoulder fade away, but Annabeth’s ankle still remains tender, so they wrap it in an ace bandage. As solutions go, it’s not perfect, but she insists she’ll be better by tomorrow.

Though they should probably move in, they take a moment to just sit and breathe. “What does swearing on Styx mean?” Piper asks as she removes wet wipes from her backpack. 

Agi leans her head against the filthy glass, which separates the bus stop from the pine forest beyond the road, now hidden through the dusting of snow that coats the shelter. “It’s the most serious promise anyone can make,” she says, “and doing it is supposed to be stupid, but one uncle trying to make our quest fail is bad enough. We don’t need two. Did you know the Helm was stolen?” she adds, glancing at Annabeth.

Shaking her head, the other girl says, “I don’t think Chiron did, either, or why would he tell us to go to the Underworld? It’s the Helm of Darkness, Piper. His object of power, like the Bolt. It renders the wearer invisible, like my hat. He was there for the Solstice. That means the thief stole both.”

“But why wouldn’t he say anything about it?” Agi asks, as she uses a wet wipe to clean the dirt off her skin. “What’s the point?”

“To play all the Olympians against each other?” Piper says. “That’s just…I don’t know. World history. Europeans and Americans used tricks like that all the time to get tribes to fight each other instead of them.”

Even if Agi’s knowledge of American history still borders on nonexistent, she at least understands occupiers' tactics. Most of her history lessons in school so far amounted to and then the Ottomans did this on this date and this is how many people died. And after that, it was the Italians and Nazis. “So do we find the Helm too?” she says. “And then what? Go to the Underworld to return it?”

“If we find the Bolt, we find the Helm,” Annabeth says, “so that makes sense. We should figure out where this bus goes.”

Though Annabeth is injured and Agi knows even less about New Jersey than Piper, they get up together to check the schedule printed on the pole that marks the stop. Agi doesn’t actually bother glancing at the schedule, which is probably the only reason why she notices the booth selling Valentine’s Day chocolates from a booth on the shoulder across the street and three old ladies beside it. 

The three old ladies, who are knitting. Those three old ladies. 

She pokes Piper hard in the back. “What?” the other girl says, as she and Annabeth turn. “Are those—”

“No, no, no,” Annabeth says, grabbing both of them to drag them toward the pines. “We’re getting as far away from here as we can. No, Agi, don’t look!”

But Agi does look, even as she stumbled after her friends. The Fates are knitting about five different scarves at once, all in different colours. One is thicker than the rest, done up in technicolour, but mainly black; the smallest is pure, shimmering gold mixed with green and blue, sometimes on the same strip of yarn. 

That’s my string, she thinks, with unexpected and inexplicable clarity. It’s mine.

Right before Annabeth leads them over the tree line into the darkened, snowy forest, Atropos the Inflexible raises her head and meets Agi’s eye. Her smile is toothless when she takes her scissors and snips apart the blue-green string from the black. 

 

Luke meets Grover on a patch of snowless dead grass in Central Park’s East Green for a last minute coffee after work, instead of heading straight home. “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” he says as the satyr pours him coffee from an overly large thermos into the camper’s mug. “Was your last lead a bust?”

“Worse,” Grover says, morose. “We found the gorgon. The gorgon. In Jersey of all places. Uncle Fern didn’t make it.”

“Di immortales,” Luke says. “I’m sorry. Shit. Are you okay?”

Grover bleats. “I will be,” he says, “but I’m taking a break til next year. Uncle Fern deserves the full mourning, you know? I know—I mean, I know finding the Fleece is my responsibility, but—”

“Hey, no. You’re allowed to take a beat.” It’s useless reminding him that what happened to Thalia wasn’t his fault, Luke knows. To say it was would mean he should have left Annie behind, which is unthinkable. The only what if left behind in the wake of Thalia’s sacrifice and transfiguration is what if Hades wasn’t much a dick. Collectively, their band consisted of a twenty-eight-year-old satyr on his first protection mission, a fourteen-year-old with a weapon and powers she didn’t know how to use, a thirteen-year-old who could pick a pocket but not throw a punch, and an eight-year-old who cried when she got stuck in a crowd. They were not a group meant to withstand a cyclopes den; Thalia was in no way prepared to handle hellhounds and a Kindly One. That Grover took the blame is bullshit. 

By now, though, the Council has Grover conditioned to believe it. They’re just salty, because Zeus (indirectly, but undeniably) ordered the satyrs to put their Search for Pan on hold until after the Fleece was found and his daughter restored. Grover’s not going to earn his Searcher’s License unless he finds it personally, which Luke and Annie agree is bullshit. 

But given all that, their friend is allowed to be glum when he shrugs and says, “I don’t know. Uncle Fern deserves it, but Thalia shouldn’t be a tree any longer than she has to. And I know there are other satyrs out there, and that they have more experience, and that they’re better qualified, but…I just don’t know. It feels like my destiny. Full circle.”

“And then Annie and I will go get it,” Luke says. “Full circle.”

Grover leans forward to rest his arms on his knees, as he watches the joggers run past on the paved path. “What’s been going on with you?” he asks in a graceless subject change. “I IM’d you before coming to camp, so I haven’t heard anything. Has Annie forgiven your brothers for the spider incident yet?”

“Oh, she did that ages ago,” Luke says, which still surprises him. “Sil’s pregnant.”

“What?” Grover stares at him, wide-eyed. “When—why didn’t you—”

Uncomfortable, Luke shrugs and pours himself more coffee. He doesn’t want to watch Grover put together why they’re here, outside in Central Park, instead of in a warm apartment, when Luke hates the cold. They haven’t spoken in months, but the fact that Silena doesn’t like to hear about the search for the Fleece isn’t exactly news. She’s not normally the jealous type, but he supposes that it’s fair for her to have complicated feelings about the pending resurrection of his childhood sweetheart, especially when there’s no chance she’s getting hers back. 

There was a point when Thalia was his whole world. He very actively doesn’t wonder if she’ll be fourteen when she returns, or if she aged in time with her tree, and if she’ll remember being a tree, or if she’ll come back with no memories of anything. There’s no good option, except that every one of them is better than her never coming back at all. 

“The baby’ll be born around May,” he says. “Other than that? Honestly, kind of a lot’s happened in the last few weeks. Someone stole the Lightning Bolt.” Grover makes noises like he’s going to interrupt, but Luke continues on, “Three new campers showed up. Silena has a new little sister. Piper. She’s Annie’s new best friend. This unclaimed kid who’s a fucking creep. Bryce. I think camp’d kick him out if it was allowed. And, uh. There’s Agi. Thalia’s cousin. Under the sea cousin.” 

Grover releases a low whistle through his teeth. “Oh man,” he says. “So the prophecy’s back on?”

“Yeah,” Luke says, sounding pretty morose himself. “They’re on a quest—her and Annie and Piper. I don’t think Silena or I are getting any sleep til they’re back.” And not just for their sisters, though he lets his friend assume as much. What he won’t say: that he and Silena and Lee did some sketchy shit, including asking Al to call in a favour from his own mom, to erase Pelagia Jackson from existence after Luke somehow didn’t kill her stepfather.

“Annie’s been training for this for years,” Grover says, setting a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “With her there, the quest’s bound to succeed. No doubt about it.”

Except, Luke thinks, that they’re heading to the Underworld. Hades already got Thalia killed. Annie was almost caught in the crossfire. And now he’s already gone after Agi twice. The likelihood that he’ll just ignore Annie and Piper, by extension, is slim.

He and Grover talk until the cold officially becomes too much to stand. They make plans to meet again, next time at camp when Annie and the others return from the quest, before separating at the entrance to the subway. As Luke descends underground, he thinks, This is Hades’ realm, and tries to ignore the goosebumps that break out across his skin. 

 

 

Stone statues all depicting hyper-realistic faces marred by absolute terror? A tempting smell of food, which Annabeth says is cheeseburgers, but Agi definitely knows is spanakopita? Yeah, no. There are better ways to spend a Friday night than meeting her step-first cousin once removed, no matter what Annabeth thinks. 

At least Piper hasn’t lost herself to temptation—all she smells are the pines and the snow, apparently. “Look,” she says, as she loops elbows with Annabeth on one side and Agi does the same on the other, “I want shelter and a shower as much as you do, but I only want to sleep for, like, a few hours, not forever.” 

“What’d’you mean?” Annabeth says, bewildered, as Agi and Piper half-drag her back toward the trees before Medusa notices them. Or at least notices them enough to want to hunt them on a snowy night. Presumably her snakes are cold-blooded, so winter must not be fun. 

“Snake woman,” Agi answers. “She makes you stone.” 

“Oh,” Annabeth says. There’s a moment when that visibly clicks. “Oh, that’s bad. Run?”

They run.

It’s hard in a dark, unfamiliar forest, where every tree looks like a monster and all they have to guide them is a compass with a backlight. Clearly, everything Agi has ever heard about New Jersey (it’s an industrial wasteland, it’s all suburbs, it’s gross) is a lie, because this forest with its tall evergreens and its sandy ground go on and on forward. Back home, she could walk from one end of the island to the other in two and a half hours by the time she was ten, if she followed the coast and the road. Already, they’ve been in the trees longer than that, and the only man-made establishment they’ve passed was actually monster-made. 

Eventually, they stumble across a welcome sign that Piper and Annabeth struggle to read, until they figure out that it’s some kind of wildlife refuge. “Maybe there aren’t security cameras,” Piper says hopefully as they trudge down the gravel road into the preserve. Annabeth holds their one remaining flashlight, which she jumps from the path to the trees, as if looking for CCTV.

There are none in the trees, though. None at the entrance of the Visitors Centre, either, and when they glance through the window, none of them see a blinking red light to indicate there’s any inside. Annabeth picks the lock. “Luke taught me,” she says with obvious pride, when the door swings open. 

Inside are taxidermy animals on the walls with informative text none of them have the patience to try to read underneath, a cash register covered in brochures, maps, scavenger hunts for children, stickers, and keychains. One wall is covered in books. There are stuffed animals and tote bags and reusable water bottles and mugs. Most importantly, though, there’s a bathroom. 

After they’re all changed into fresh clothes with their teeth brushed and their bodies washed as well as they can be in just a sink, they blatantly steal blankets from one of the shelves, and make a nest against the one wall without windows. As Piper uses the convenient landline behind the counter to call her dad for the mandatory five-minute check up, Annabeth lays down next to Agi and asks in Greek, without looking at her, “How did you avoid falling for the trap? Piper and her siblings are mostly immune to that kind of manipulation, but you aren’t.”

Agi considers that before she tells the ceiling, “I felt it. But I think growing up without monsters being a secret to anyone makes it easier to look at scared stone faces and recognise where they came from.”

There’s a long moment where Annabeth doesn’t speak, so they can both hear clearly when Piper tells her dad that Yancy Academy, her fake school, invited all the seventh graders to the Grand Canyon for a culture trip. In the beat of silence that follows, Annabeth rolls on her side and says, “What was the Acropolis like?” 

“Amazing,” Agi says, rolling on her side, too, so she faces her friend, who definitely is her friend, because this question is the olive branch. “But sad, too. You can’t go inside the Parthenon, but it’s still beautiful. My favourite part is Dionysian theatre the level below, though, but you can’t go in that, either. Athina—my babas should never hear this, probably, but everyone knows Athens was the best city in the whole world before the plagues and the Macedonians and the Romans and everything. Some parts of the Acropolis are gone forever, but a lot of other countries have pieces of it. You don’t get it,” she finishes bluntly. “I don’t need to be your sister or anything to be mad because your mother deserves better.”

If she was older, maybe, she could explain her complicated feelings about the Acropolis better than this, but Annabeth accepts it. “I really like swimming,” she says, in a way that manages to sound like an apology. “Thanks. I want to see it in person one day. You’ll have to come with me.” 

“As long as it isn’t July or August,” Agi says. “Summer’s too hot. And we’ll go to the museum.”

“What’re you talking about?” Piper asks, as she comes to lie down on Annabeth’s other side. She, somehow, looks even more exhausted than Agi feels. 

“Athens,” Agi and Annabeth say together, but just Annabeth continues, “You’ll come. We killed the Kindly Ones together. That means we’re a team.” 

She leaves no room for argument, though Agi had no plans to protest. It does, however, put an end to the conversation, so she rolls over and goes to sleep. 

 

In the morning, they stumble across a railway station where they can’t find the ticket booth, sneak onto the train, and make it to “Philly,” where they tragically end up on a bus. Almost a full day later, they arrive in St Louis, Missouri (which is not the capitol, Agi learns) for six hours before the next leg of their journey, where Annabeth declares she wants to see an arch. Why an arch is supposed to be impressive, Agi doesn’t know, but Annabeth says, “It’s an architectural marvel!” and “We have time!” so of course, Agi and Piper have to agree. 

This happens to be a horrendous decision. 

Reason 1: it’s just an arch, even if it is big, which is stupid. 

Reason 2: they have to take a crowded elevator to the top, which does bad things to Agi’s claustrophobia. 

Reason 3: the frumpy woman in the fluffy cardigan and her tiny dog are neither a woman nor a dog. 

But before the woman and elevator, there’s the annoyingly long line in the cold. “It’s worth it,” Annabeth assures them, as she keeps herself warm by buzzing with excitement. Then she proceeds to say lots of facts, but all in English, using big words that Agi can’t follow. She turns down the jellybeans Piper and Agi share, and doesn’t seem to care when they pass out of the stupidly cold outside world into the museum space on the ground level. 

“Oooo, look at that,” Piper says under her breath when they pass a covered wagon from the nineteenth century. “A celebration of colonialism. This is what Americans consider ‘old.’”

Confused, Agi glances at the older girl and says, “Aren’t you American?”

Piper blinks, before her expression does something Agi can’t read. “Right,” she says. “Sorry, my dad’s so famous I’m used to it being common knowledge. Yeah, technically. I mean, I’m an American citizen and everything, but I’m also a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, so I’m really more American than probably anyone else here. My dad’s…It’s complicated. But Cherokee’s Native American. Do you know what that means?”

Agi nods. “Not a lot, though,” she says. As embarrassed as she is by her lack of knowledge, though, she doesn’t want to lie. 

“That’s fine,” Piper says. “I know basically nothing about Greek history after the Peloponnesian War.”

“Well, I’m from near the Peloponnese,” Agi says, “though Agistri’s actually Attica. And you’re from Oklahoma?” She has to sound it out slowly again, but it’s smoother than last time.

“Yeah, I was born there, but I grew up in California,” Piper says, “and the Cherokee people aren’t actually from Oklahoma anyway. That’s just where the American government forced them to move—by walking, literally—from the southeast around the same time that was built” She nods to the carriage. “Like, North Carolina and Tennessee and those places, if you need to picture states. And now California has the most Cherokees living in it than any other state. But Dad moved there for his career, not because of culture or whatever.”

They reach the ticket counter, where Annabeth pays for the three of them with the money from camp, before Agi can respond. And then it’s off to the elevator, where they get shoved into the very back by virtue of being first on. Instinctively, Agi removes Riptide to spin between her fingers, trying to calm her nerves. She hates tight spaces. No one ever locked her in a cupboard under the stairs or anything, so she never really understood—

Oh. Right. She’s the daughter of Poseidon. As in, the God of the Sea. No wonder she doesn’t like being confined. 

The elevator dings. As the smallest person inside, she gets shoved even more to the back, so she’s the last one out behind her friends. It’s just as she’s about to make that final step to freedom that someone shoulders past Piper, pushes Agi hard in the chest, and bangs on the button to close the doors before anyone on the observation deck even realises what’s happening. 

“What?” Agi says, scrambling to her feet, as the elevator shoots down for all of ten seconds, then judders to a stop. “What the—”

“Alone at last, little hero,” the scaly-skinned goddess she thinks might be Echidna as the miniature chimera at her feet starts to grow in size, until its lion and goat heads brush the roof and its snake tail smashes open the panel with the buttons. “You should be honoured, Pel—”

Agi swings Riptide up in a slash before she even realises she uncapped it. Both the chimera and his mother seem so shocked that Agi didn’t let Echidna finish talking that she manages to draw blood across its nose. This does not make the monster happy; it roars with its lion’s mouth and bursts fire from its goat head, bursting open the wall behind her, but missing her, as she dodges, rolling out of the way, to land in front of its mother. When Agi thrusts the blade forward, the snake tail whips out to catch her, sinking its claws into her forearm. 

She screams. Her sword tumbles from her hand, as the snake flings her to the ground at the lion head’s feet. Barely thinking, she grabs a piece of burning scrap metal from the exploded wall and thrusts it vertically into the lion’s mouth before it can eat her. Though chomps through it easily, the second’s delay allows her enough time to pull herself out of the way again. She reaches her hand in her pocket with her uninjured arm as Echidna chatters about lack of trust in the gods and poison, and manages to remove Riptide. 

The chimera lunges. She raises her blade to stab him in the eye, as she steps her foot back, except instead of ground, she finds only empty air. 

And then she is falling, falling, falling into the river six hundred feet below.

Notes:

I've decided on what direction to take this story in! I'm very excited. Hopefully so are you.

Review please?

Other intriguing suggests to put on the table: several people have proposed eventually shipping Agi with several different gods (including Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite, and Mars) and someone said genderswap Nicercy. Thoughts? Or about how you think the series will go?

Chapter 5: in which annabeth learns adults are fallible

Summary:

This chapter may include: nitrogen pollution, prophecies, The Sisterhood of the Zebra-Lion Liberation Front, questionable adoption practices, egg tarts, and a certain casino.

Notes:

Warnings: mentions of substance abuse, implied sex, and Luke and Silena's very complicated relationship.

Agi hits the river with enough force that she would definitely have died, if she wasn’t a daughter of Poseidon. 

Distinctly not dead, she drifts to the grubby bottom, dry as if she was standing on land, and feels the chimera’s poison eke out of her to join the nitrogen pollution clogging up the Mississippi. How she knows it’s nitrogen pollution, she isn’t sure, but the term comes to her as easily as Riptide always returns to her pocket. It hurts a little, but despite the discomfort, she spares a moment to just laze on the riverbed. Down here, the sun is a watery, sepia reflection of itself, and the sound of the sirens is so muffled she can almost pretend she imagined it. 

Then a voice says, “Enjoying yourself, kochyliki mu?”

“Mama?” She floats up onto her feet and comes face to face with—not Selini Georgiadi. 

The goddess or nereid smiles. Her curls, a mass of dark brown, swirls around them from the current, though they’re both dry, and the long skirts of her blue dress remain immaculate, despite dragging through the mud. Her eyes and Agi’s are a match, which is to say, they’re echoes of the Aegean. She smells of pure sea salt. “Something like that,” she says. 

“So, you’re my stepmother?” Agi guesses. 

“Something like that, too,” Amphitrite, Queen of Atlantis, answers, as she steps closer and takes Agi’s face in her hands. Her skin is cool. “Look at you. I always thought you would take after your mother. How are you the splitting image of your sister instead?”

“My sister?”

“Rhode. Your half-sister.” Amphitrite taps the tip of Agi’s nose. “Oh, you’ll meet her eventually. But I’m glad I came, even if it is difficult. How about you call me ‘Mom?’”

A little dazed, Agi can only nod. “Thank you,” she manages after a moment, “for, uh. Saving me? Mom.”

 “That was your father,” Amphi—Mom says. Is this normal for non-Hera godly stepmothers? Maybe Castor or Pollux will know. “I’ll pass along the message, but try not to tell more than your quest-mates that you’ve had assistance. He does wish he could be here, but with all those fussy rules about parents interfering with their children’s quests—well, even this is cheating, I suppose. I wasn’t the one to carry you, but relationships are more than, oh, that’s a discussion for when you’re older, isn’t it? But I can’t stay long in freshwater, so here’s your message: head west to Santa Monica Pier. I’ll meet you there. Don’t trust gifts from anyone who thinks themselves more clever than they are. Remember that your father and I believe you. And good luck.” 

She presses her cool lips to Agi’s forehead, and in the space of a breath, fades into the water and out of sight. 

“It could be worse,” Piper says in Greek, after the three friends make it on to their next Greyhound. The seats, though padded, still manage to be uncomfortable, and the bus stinks like a well used bathroom, but then again, all buses do. “You could be considered a—a person who hurts other people on purpose or something, instead of a victim.”

According to the news, a little girl of approximately nine years of age (she’s eleven and almost-a-half, thank you very much!) probably escaped some kidnapper trying to snatch her, though she’s also probably dead. The City and State Police are already collectively dredging the river for her body. No, they have no idea how the kidnapper escaped, but there were ample witnesses to the woman trapping the little girl in the elevator, so here’s a blurry picture of culprit. Best be on the lookout, St Louis. 

Of course, no one in St Louis will be finding Echidna. At least, Agi hopes not. Here in the States, monsters don’t seem to attack mortals the way they do back home, but there’s a first for everything.

“No more sightseeing,” Annabeth says, but in English, presumably because there is no translation for ‘sightseeing’ in Ancient Greek, just like there’s no word for terrorist. She sits in between Agi and Piper with a book she stole from the Arch’s gift shop on her lap. “We need to IM Chiron at our next stop.” 

“And find a place to shower,” Piper says wistfully. “I miss showers.”

“It should be Luke,” Agi says, without turning away from the window, where the cityscape rolls by at a snail’s pace because of all the traffic. “Chiron will just figure out how to say it’s my uncle again, but it’s not.” 

After an uncomfortable pause, Annabeth says, “Chiron’s been doing this for thousands of years. He had his reasons.” 

Reasons, Agi thinks, that Annabeth doesn’t agree with anymore. 

Though the others start debating what these reasons might be, Agi bundles her winter coat against the window and lets herself drift to sleep. She’s so tired that it’s easy to do. She’s so tired that she, stupidly, assumes she won’t dream. 

When she wakes, hours later, it’s to Piper’s widened brown eyes, a tree-lined highway, and the night sky. “You’re all right,” she says, drawing Agi into a hug. “Even if what you saw was premonition or whatever, it can’t hurt you now.”

“Piper, uh, talked you awake,” Annabeth says, before Agi can ask when the others changed seats. “What did you see? You were literally telling yourself to wake up.” 

“I think I heard the real thief,” she says, once she’s breathing normally again, and Piper releases her. “Or someone involved in the theft. I don’t know. It could’ve just been a dream.”

Even Agi can hear how bad of a lie that is. They don’t even bother calling her out on it; all they do is stare at her. Sighing, she says, “It was weird. I don’t know. They were speaking in English, so I didn’t understand all of it, but a man was talking, and he said something about how ‘he’—not ‘I’ or ‘me’—doesn’t remember anything thanks to ‘her.’ And it was all dark, but I—I could tell there was a cliff nearby, and water under it, and then the other voice noticed me and dragged me down.”

She shudders. Piper lays a hand on her shoulder. “To the Underworld?” 

Agi shakes her head. “Lower,” she says, and adds, “I think,” because she doesn’t want to admit that the voice told her as much right before he said, I have no gift of prophecy, but I sense that this is to be your home. 

“If the voice is from down there,” Annabeth says, “that’s serious. It was already serious, but more serious. Do you have any idea which prisoner it was?”

“The thief person called him something, I think,” Agi says, “but I didn’t understand it. But it sounded like—like krokódeilos, but not as long. Like the animal.” 

“Crocodile?” Piper says, as Annabeth says, “Please tell me you don’t mean ‘Crooked.’”

“That sounds right?”

Annabeth releases a noise that makes several seat members shush them. “Oh gods,” she says, more quietly. “This is so bad. That was, uh—great, what did Homer use? Ankulométés. ”

While that’s enough to turn Agi’s insides to ice, it doesn’t help with Piper’s confusion. As she starts to ask, Agi cuts in, “My grandfather. The, uh. Hungry one.”

“Wow, so we’re really—”

“Shhhh,” shushes some lady in one of those blankets with sleeves from a few rows in front of them. Piper sticks her tongue out. With a gasp, the woman turns back around and settles back in her seat. 

Though Agi doesn’t sleep again, the others do. She stays awake, watching forest turn to suburbs turn to mountains, and tries not to think about the voice insisting that Tartarus is where she belongs. 

Luke and Silena are struggling through a book of baby names when the call comes through. “Hey!” he says, much too cheerfully, as they quickly draw a throw blanket over themselves. “How’s the—”

“It’s two in the afternoon there!” Piper says, askance. “We never thought we’d be interrupting anything. Oh my god—s. ”

Silena covers her rapidly colouring face with her hands as poor Agi slips out of view. Though both Piper and Annabeth are obviously horrified, at least they haven’t had their literal trauma triggered. Just, gods. No. “We weren’t doing anything!” Silena says through her fingers. This is terrible! The worst! How will they ever look at these three again? 

“Not anymore.” Annabeth says, like the brat she is. “Oh my gods. I need to go clean my eyes out with soap. The sterile hospital kind.”

If it was possible to die from mortification, there’s no way Luke wouldn’t just expire right now. He would become an ex-Luke. Completely cease to be. Delving into the luxury of afternoon sex seemed like a great idea when he and Silena returned home from their classes at the same time, and determined that any further than the couch was too far a distance to cross before losing their clothes. Not moving after, but just giving into the general air of postcoital laziness, also seemed like a brilliant plan, so Silena had reached for the baby name book they bought at The Flea. The light coming through their tenth floor window is so bright that they don’t even need to worry about walking across the room to turn on the lamp yet. And the heat was, and still is, actually on for once, which is so rare it might be a godsend.

So of course this would be the day their little sisters finally called. Neither Luke nor Silena have ever received Tyche’s blessing. 

Slowly, she lowers her hands. “Your eyes are too pretty for that, Annabeth,” she says. “Why are you calling?”

“Agi had a dream,” Annabeth says, folding her arms, “and…I think Chiron isn’t right?”

Chiron’s often not right, a lesson all campers must learn in their own time. Luke and Silena share a chagrined glance before he turns back to the girls. “Okay,” he says. “And that’s why you’re calling us? Can you get Agi back here? Tell her we’re decent?” Decent enough, anyway. At least all their relevant parts are covered.

For a moment, Piper disappears. When Agi returns with her, the girl doesn’t look any higher than the ground. She mumbles out an explanation in a mix of modern and Ancient Greek, which means he’s probably the only one who fully understands (her speech is like someone’s attempt to fix a broken wall with scotch tape). It’s not good. Kronos, Tartarus, Hades’ Helm. There’s no part of it that’s any better than world-endingly bad. 

Luke reaches for his clothes the second the call is over. “I’m going for a walk,” he says, when Silena asks what’s wrong. He avoids looking at her, too afraid of what he might say or ask if he does. 

“Why?” she says, sitting up. The movement forces him to look at her, at her red mouth and her sex-mussed hair and the high cut of her cheekbones beneath her blue eyes. One look at her face, and he thinks, I need to get out.

“That was a lot,” he says honestly. “Just have to clear my head. I’ll be back soon.” 

He leaves while she’s heading for the shower. At the FamilyMart around the corner, he lifts a lighter and his favourite chocolate bar, then makes his way to Flushing Meadows. There aren’t many places in Flushing where a person—especially a natural blonde—can light any type of food on fire without arousing suspicion, but enough weird shit goes down in the park that no one bats an eye. Hi Apollo, he prays, it’s about the thing. 

That his uncle appears two minutes later is not a shock, considering how desperate Olympus is to find the missing Bolt. What is surprising is the Hong Kong egg tart in the grease paper he immediately holds out for Luke. “The place will go out of business in a few years,” Apollo says when he leans against the side of a dry fountain beside Luke. “The owners will retire. Why shouldn’t my favourite nephew get all the dàntă he wants in the meantime? These are the best in town.”

“The place on Roosevelt?” Luke says, momentarily distracted from his misery and purpose by horror. “But it’s a neighbourhood staple!”

“You humans get old,” Apollo says, shrugging. “Their kids are hedge fund babies. What can I say? But the city will be sadder without it. So, what’s the news?”

“Did you know your uncle’s Helm is missing?”

“What? No.” The god shakes his head, genuinely shocked. “The night of the Solstice? How do you know?”

“Piper’s Charmspeak is insane,” Luke says, but only after he swallows down half of his egg tart. For the last few years, ever since he and his friends started their solo trips into Queens, this has been what nectar tastes like for him. “Apparently she asked a Kindly One why they were attacking Agi, and she answered. Agi swore on Styx and everything it wasn’t her, so it seems like your uncle’s off her back for now. Is my dad still in timeout for being the God of Thieves?”

Clearly pained, because Apollo advertises everything he feels as much as any mortal, the god says, “Unfortunately. And he’s still on thin ice from last time, so it won’t be good if any of this could be tied back to him.” Last time, meaning a couple of years ago, when Dad removed Connor and Travis from a house rapidly filling with carbon monoxide, and dropped them at camp for Lee and Will to save before they could die in an ER waiting room.  

“It’s just stupid that none of you are allowed to directly interfere with your kid’s lives,” Luke says. He barely manages to bite back “fuck the Fates,” mostly because he doesn’t want such an ignominious end as three old ladies killing him with knitting needles or something. Still, it would be great if he could. Dad showing up for their birthdays and camp’s version of Hermaea is nice and all, but it would be better if he didn’t risk losing one of his domains whenever he tried to save one of his children’s lives. “Shit’s probably going to get bad fast. Agi had a dream that this was all because of, you know, your grandfather, but there’s no way that’s—di immortales, what the fuck!”

Apollo’s eyes glow his Oracle’s green. His face is blank. When the prophecy spills from him, his voice is hollow. It’s in Ancient Greek. The smoke pours from his mouth to swirl around Luke’s body, formless, stinking of its usual sulfur, until the winter’s cold touches him at a place so deep it must be his soul.

And then a voice says,  “Breathe, Luke.” It’s Apollo’s, normal. There’s a hand on Luke’s back. “In—hold it. Now out. Slowly. There we go.” 

After a few times of repeating the process, the world rightens itself. There are the park’s dead cherry trees, the dead flower beds, the Columbian food stalls cooking up whatever it is that smells amazing. It’s late enough in the day that there are kids running around, more than just a little happy to be out of school. He vaguely remembers those days, back before Mom thought accepting the Oracle would be a fabulous idea, and his biggest worry went from trying to convince Ashley Reiner not to do a one-handed cartwheel for the first time over asphalt to wondering if his mother would even let him leave the house. 

Yeah. So he might have some Oracle-related trauma. It’s not like this is anything new. It doesn’t help that just a week ago, he had to watch the mummy’s green smoke turn into Agi’s abusive stepfather. 

“Sucker-punched by own Oracle,” Apollo’s saying, mostly to himself, as if allowing Luke a moment to pull himself together. “It’s been centuries since that’s happened. Centuries! So, what did I say?”

Luke shudders, before finally composing himself. “What?” he says, turning to his uncle, who looks even younger than he did a minute ago. Maybe seventeen instead of twenty. “Wait, you mean you don’t remember your own prophecies? Seriously?”

“No,” Apollo says. “Isn’t that ridiculous? Getting them alone is terrible. A complete waste. It’s the main reason there’s supposed to be an Oracle in the first place. But you were here this time! So you can tell me.”

 “I think you just rewrote the Great Prophecy,” Luke says. He repeats what he got of it, though it was the longest prophecy he’s ever heard, and he wasn’t paying attention by the end. But he has the highlights down: “the daughter of the Sea” is definitely the one, it at least sounds like she’ll die at sixteen (she better not), an oath unmade, nine half-bloods that might be eighteen half-bloods because the use of the ‘duás’ adjective, that the East can’t fall then rise if the West doesn’t do the same, a second great adversary kept at bay for a price too high to bear, an ancient cursed blade, and then something about rule breaking and mortals and gods (referenced, again, as ‘duás’) and consequences. When he finishes the very long explanation, he asks, “What does it mean? What oath?”

“I can’t tell you,” his uncle says. “Literally. So don’t bother asking your father, either. It’s that sort of oath. But it sounds as though you’ll discover it eventually. You must be involved.” 

How wonderful. Just what Luke wants to hear, right after finding out that he (maybe, definitely) stole not just one but two objects of power, possibly at the behest of his evil great-grandfather or his girlfriend. Or his evil great-grandfather working through his girlfriend. All options are bad. 

Apollo leaves to continue his fruitless search for the thief, but Luke stays behind, to wander and wander the park in a failed effort to clear his head. 

When the bus next breaks in this place called Colorado (is that the state? the town?), Agi and the others duck into Letty Lou’s Cafe & Diner. They know this is the name because it’s written on a black sign in white block print, which is great for dyslexic eyes. Just for that, it seems like a sign that the place is safe to enter.

“Table for three?” the woman at the door asks. She’s dressed like a stereotype from a 60s period drama, in a blue dress hemmed in white with her blonde hair done up in neatly coiffed curls. She speaks like Will from the Apollo cabin. If everything from the too-bright lights glaring off the shiny formica tabletops to the red booths didn’t also fit the stereotype, Agi would have assumed she was a monster who failed to get with the times. 

 Before any of them can respond, a large hand lands on Agi’s back. She stiffens. The waitress’ red-lipsticked smile turns brittle, noticing the reaction, but she doesn’t react beyond that when a man says, “That’d be four. We’d like a window seat.”

His voice rumbles out from somewhere deep in his chest. When Agi glances above her, she catches sight of a hard jaw and skin like hers, thick curls so black they’re almost blue. He’s wearing sunglasses. His other arm is draped over Piper’s shoulder. 

The waitress hesitates. The god nods to a booth by the window, which overlooks snowy mountain peaks and a semi-frozen river. “That table,” he says. “My stepdaughter and her friends could use some coffee.”

Stepdaughter. Odds are Hephaestus won’t like that, because this is definitely Ares. He’s too symmetrical for the opposite to be true.

“Mom’s not coming?” Piper says, voice surprisingly even. 

Ares hmms. “Can’t make it,” he says. “The table, sweetheart?”

After another moment’s hesitation, the waitress removes menus from the host’s stand and leads them to the booth nearest the door. Agi and Annabeth sit on one side, with Ares across from Agi and Piper across from Annabeth. Other than two old men in colour-coordinated flannel shirts across the room and the waitress, they’re alone. Before she walks away, the girls jump on the opportunity to order generic diner food they can guess is there without checking the menu: French toast with blueberries for Annabeth, avocado toast for Piper, and a garden omelet for Agi, who knew how to say omelet, at least, but then the waitress made her pick what type, so Piper added “garden” for her. Four coffees. Piper asks for a check with the meal. 

With one last, wary look at Ares, the waitress promises it’s all coming right up and leaves. Before she’s even out of earshot, Agi asks, “Why are you here?”

Annabeth coughs. Ares grins. “So you’re my newest cousin,” he says, as he removes a knife from somewhere and starts cleaning out his nails with the tip. Gross. Nodding to Piper, he adds, “I’m here for her. Your mother hasn’t had a child like you since Aeneas, kid. I forgot how much fun it was when one of you inherited her violent streak.” 

“I thought he was the child of Venus,” says Agi, just to piss him off, but then the god’s form…flickers? For a second, he has a beard, and his leather jacket shifts to something more militaryish. They all jump. But then he’s just Ares again. Pretending that didn’t just happen, she adds, “If you’re here to make things hard for us, won’t her mom murder you?”

Annabeth lashes out under the table to grip her knee in warning, but Ares only laughs. In the nearly deserted diner, the sound booms. “Cute,” he says, as he adjusts himself to lean back against the window, to better view the three of them equally. “This is the real you, isn’t it? All this pent up aggression threatening to come out—not that spooked foal you’ve pretended to be for years. You’ll be a masterpiece of a soldier if you live long enough.” 

“My mama always said to leave violence to bullies and drug dealers,” she says. “I won’t do it. What do you want, cousin?”

Though the grip on her knee tightens, Annabeth’s expression remains impassive. “What Agi means is,” she starts, but Ares just waves her off, saying, “Pelagia knows exactly what she means, don’t you?”

The waitress returns with water and the coffees, individual jugs of milk, and paper packets of sugar. Before she can even finish laying down the check, Piper hands over her card. “Actually,” she says in English, “could we maybe get our food to go please?”

“Course, hun,” says the waitress, with another brittle smile. “Ya’ll just sit tight. Won’t be a minute.”

As she walks away again, Agi repeats, “What do you want?” 

“I can’t want to help Ditoula’s daughter out of the goodness of my heart?” he says. Piper chokes on her coffee. “I’ve decided you can consider the children I’ve had with your mother your full-siblings. I mean, what you did to the Erinyes—”

“That was a joint effort,” Piper cuts it. 

“But,” he goes on, as if she hadn’t spoken, “accepting you as my child limits my ability to help you. I’ve set up a quest for you, to get around the Ancient Laws. Of course, it can’t be too easy now that you’re mine—” Piper twitches. Annabeth’s looking a little green, metaphorically speaking. “—or the consequences just won’t be worth it. But how ‘bout this? We’ll do it out of order. I’ll get you transportation to where you need to go. Throw in an extra goodie bag, even, for your efforts. I’ll do all that just to get you to the quest instead of after. If you don’t tell anyone I gave you the reward before the risk, then I won’t either. I’ll be our secret.”

Even if Agi still doesn’t understand how the Ancient Laws work, she knows that Ares just did something sketchy to avoid helping them while also trying not to piss off his girlfriend, maybe. Whatever it is, she doesn’t trust this deal. Still, no one just turns down an order from a god. Agi’s not that stupid.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t allowed to ask questions. “Where are we going?” she says. “What’re we looking for? How’ll we let you when we’re done?”

“It’s in Vegas,” Ares says. Vegas as in Las Vegas, she assumes. The city with the gambling and the drunk weddings. Gavriil’s dream city, which was stupid, because the only thing he was worse at than gambling was sobriety. She can’t remember what state that’s supposed to be in, and has no idea where it is in relation to where they are now, but she at least knows what it is. “There’s a hotel. You’ll know it when you see it. The most I can tell you is that you’re looking for a couple of kids. Siblings. Younger boy, older girl. When you’re ready, call on me.” 

She glances at her friends. They both nod, Piper more obviously than Annabeth, who barely twitches. So, turning back to Ares, Agi lifts her mug of lamentably bad coffee and says, “Yamas, cousin. We have a deal.”

The waitress returns again as Ares rises and heads for the door. Though at this point, the others must be as hungry as she is, they don’t change their mind and start on their food in the diner. Piper signs the check. As they stuff the takeaway in their separate backpacks, Piper asks under her breath, “Did he just claim me as an adopted daughter? How does that work? They aren’t even married?” 

Neither Agi nor Annabeth have an answer for her, so, shouldering their backpacks, they follow Ares outside to the parking lot. There aren’t too many cars; there is, however, a truck with live animals in it, according to the words on the side. “Your ride,” he says, beaming, right before he chucks another backpack at Agi. Inside, she discovers a pack of Papadopoulos vanilla biscuits, golden drachma, a plastic bag of American dollars, and three changes of clothes. “Better hurry up and get on before you miss it,” he adds, as he swings a leg over his motorcycle. “Get off at the first stop.” And with one last nod at Piper and a “Make me proud, daughter,” he speeds off toward town.   

All three girls shriek in harmony when a spider the size of a non-New York rat drops from the ceiling. That the drivers don’t hear them is a miracle, possibly literally. If so, Agi just hopes that whatever deity is looking out for them doesn’t think that murdering the spider with Katoptris and Riptide simultaneously is overkill. 

When they all calm down enough to decide no illegal animal trafficker is about to stop the truck and knife them, Annabeth asks, “You don’t like them either?”

“Does anyone?” Piper asks, as Agi turns to the zebra and assures him that no, the humans are not about to commit acts of violence on anything with fewer than eight—no, six legs (except butterflies and ladybirds and dragonflies, obviously). 

The zebra passes on the message to the lion, who makes a tragic little noise somewhere in his throat that’s not even the suggestion of a roar. Oh, would Moufasa weep. The antelope doesn't do anything at all.

In the faint glow of their weapons, Agi watches Annabeth’s silhouette shrug. “The Stolls?” she says. “But they’re not scared of anything. Why are you? You’re not my siblings.”

“Because they’re terrifying,” Piper says. “I mean, just the way they move. It’s pure evil! You should—you should definitely not ever see the ones in my grandfather’s place. I think those were poisonous.” 

“Mama used to say arachnophobia was natural and reasonable,” Agi adds. There was also something about evolution and gender roles, so it Gavriil’s sworn husbandly duty to kill all the spiders, or why else would men be tall enough to reach the ceiling, at least on chairs? He always did it, but he also said that spiders and cockroaches were why men invented ouzo and beer. “Is it worse for you? Because of your mother?”

After a beat, Annabeth nods. “It’s why I ran away. Or, the final straw anyway. Whole swarms started showing up at night. My dad believed me at first, but my stepmom was convinced that I even made the bites myself for attention. I lasted two nights. On the third, I ran. My mother showed up, even if she wasn’t supposed to, and led me to—to people who could protect me. She would’ve been in a lot of trouble if she took me straight to camp.”

“Mortal step-parents are the worst,” Agi says. And it’s true! Or at least she thinks it is. At least so far, she has no evidence to the contrary. “How often do you talk to your mother now?” 

“As often’s as allowed,” Annabeth says. “Usually in dreams. She manages in-person for our birthdays every year, and then there are the solstices. Your mom will show up like clockwork on Valentine’s Day, Piper—which I guess is your birthday.” 

“Why aren’t gods allowed more interaction with their kids?” Piper asks. “I mean, they seemed all-in in the myths.”

In a voice that manages to sound like a scowl, Annabeth answers, “Apparently the Fates decided the gods intervening disrupted the world too much once monotheism took over, which makes no sense to me. Some get away with it more than others. And sometimes there are ways around it, like Katie can visit her mom for a night or something in summer by technically visiting her sister, but there’s no loophole for my brothers and I. Or you, since your mom and her husband hate each other,” she adds to Piper, before saying to Agi, “I have no idea how it works with you.” 

Neither does she, since she doesn’t know how her half-siblings feel about her, and she can’t get her head around anything Amphi—Mom said. “Maybe I’ll find out,” Agi says, before quickly changing the subject. “You know, if your father and his wife ever divorced, do you think you’d try again?”

“No,” Annabeth says, “and I doubt he’d want to. Could I trust him anyway, if he went back to deciding I was a good enough daughter just because he divorced her?”

“I don’t know,” Agi says, as she thinks about Mama, who lied to her for her whole life, but was still the best person in the world. “I think people are messy.” 

“My mom leaving made my dad messy, I think,” Piper says from Agi’s side. “Fame just made it worse. He has no idea who she actually is. When they met, he was a community college student living with his parents on the rez—the Cherokee Reservation, Agi, it’s land the government forced all the Cherokee to live on. He was just a member of a theatre club. So when I randomly showed up on the doorstep and she never appeared again, they—him and my grandparents—tried to report her missing. They just assumed she’d been murdered when she never showed up again. He got cast for a Shakespeare remake that won like four awards a year later and hasn’t looked back since.”

Agi has no idea how to explain what happened to her mother in either Ancient Greek or English, but if the others are sharing terrible things about their pasts, then she thinks that the code of friendship means she’s obligated to do the same. “My mama died last year,” she says, as she picks at a string on the leggings Ares left for her. “My stepfather does work for…people who get money in bad ways, and they killed her.”

“Your stepfather’s in the mob?” Annabeth says in English, voice suddenly high and a little breathy. “Oh gods. Does Chiron know? Does Luke?”

“No?” Agi says, startled. “No one’s even really talked to me about what happened before I came to camp. It’s not like they asked.”

Piper fumbles in the dark to take Agi’s hand, then stretches across the glowing weapon pile for Annabeth. “We’re all going to be at camp year round,” she says, “after doing this crazy quest together. We definitely aren’t going to die, and then we won’t have to deal with Evil Stepmothers or the mafia or my dad not going to rehab. So, sisters?”

“Sisters,” Agi and Annabeth agree at once, as they reach for each other’s hands.

Around six, Luke brings home an egg tart for Silena and takeaway from the cash-only dim sum place on Prince Street, which might be their newest obsession. When he arrives, she’s stretched out on the sofa with her computer on her lap, listening to a New York Times article through a program her university actually has the money to provide for free. 

She finishes as he places the radish cakes on the narrow kitchen table. “Thanks,” she says, as she presses a kiss to his cheek, right on the scar. “Feel any better?” 

“Yeah,” he lies. “Want to grab the sriracha? I’ll get plates.”

They spend dinner discussing work and their classes, without touching on their sisters’ quest or that Luke basically fled the apartment. If she notices that he’s still weirdly jumpy, she’s kind enough not to say it. All in all, the night seems to be passing normally, until they clear away dinner and she breaks out the egg tart, which is somehow cue for her to say, “So, I was thinking. We don’t know any other babies like ours, right? What if they inherit our special brand of dyslexia? Maybe we should use an Ancient or mythological name after all. It’ll be easier to teach them how to spell it.”

“But I thought you didn’t want that,” he says. She’d been pretty adamant about it. Her decree was that the name should have nothing to do with their parents, and not from the top twenty of the popular lists, but not so usual that the kid will be bullied, either. 

“There are plenty of perfectly normal names,” she says, “like Alexander or Sofia or Cassandra—no, not Cassandra. That's just bad karma. Or more unusual ones with normal nicknames. Watching Drew try to spell her name in either language is always a nightmare, and it’s only four letters.”

For the first time in hours, the radiator clicks on, blessing them with a couple hour’s heat. It’s their cue to move back to the living room, where they can make the most of their stingy landlord’s concession to New York City’s health codes. The baby name book is still on the coffee table, open to the Cs. Each name is colour-coded: blue for boys, pink for girls, green for “androgynous.”  

For some reason, the fact that he and Silena are having a baby hits him all over again.

“We should get married,” he says, interrupting her musings on how the name Sofia is nice, but she doesn’t want it to seem as if they’re trying to please Annabeth’s mother. She stops. Cocks her head. Blinks her lovely blue eyes at him. Then he realises what he said and amends it: “Sil, do you want to marry me?”

The considering look stays firmly in place. “Luke,” she says, “I love you. I love you so much. But you’re eighteen. I’ve been twenty for like minute. My dad’ll flip. He pays for this place. He already doesn’t know you’re living with me.”

“There’s no reason he needs to know this, either,” says Luke, son of the God of Mischief and Thieves, who rarely thinks twice about deception. “Look. My, uh, grandfather’s wife basically hates all of us. She really doesn’t like you and your sisters. She’s been known to curse demigod marriages before for things like having babies ‘out of wedlock.’ I know marriage needs a lot more than I love you and you love me to work, but we’re already having a baby. Co-parenting will be complicated, too.”

There’s nothing he says that isn’t true—he does love Silena, and Hera’s wrath is a concern—but it is, of course, more complicated than all that. It’s not what he had with Thalia, which had the pure, desperate sweetness that adulthood never had the chance to tarnish. Loving Thalia was spun sugar; loving Silena is guilt. It’s the memory of his best friend’s death. It’s the fear that she might have used him to start a war. 

The thing is, though, growing up the way he did taught him early on how to separate emotion from basic pragmatism. Well, mostly. Even if Silena wasn’t pregnant, there isn’t a world where he’d throw her to Olympian mercy, no matter if he had confirmation for what’s currently just a suspicion. He loves her. He owes her. But also, he can’t get that the prophecy used the ‘duás’ adjective to describe the nine half-bloods out of his head. A week ago, he wouldn’t have noticed the significance, but then Agi pointed it out in her own prophecy. Does that mean, what, that nine demigods will defect to fucking Kronos while nine main demigods from camp handle quests or something for their parents to fight back? 

Luke hopes he’s wrong, but if he’s not, legal marriage is more likely to guarantee him a stake in any disagreement about post-relationship custody for the kid. Which won’t happen, of course. Somehow or another, he won’t let it. 

To his relief, Silena nestles into his side and tucks her head beneath his chin. “We’ll do it at the courthouse this weekend,” she says. “White’s out the window, but I want to do it before I get too big for that red dress. Drew and Lee can be witnesses.”

“Sounds good to me,” he says and drops a kiss on her shoulder.

“Oh no,” Annabeth says when they come to a stop in front of their destination. “This has to be it. The Lotus Hotel? Not good.”

Of anything that might have been thrown at them, Agi can’t say she expected the lotus-eaters. “Piper should be able to keep us on track, right?” she says as she looks away from the pink neon lotus beside the hotel’s name to the doorman trying to get their attention. 

“Probably not,” says Annabeth. The two girls exchange the sort of look adults share when they want to exclude kids from the conversation, which is really unfair, because Piper’s not even two years older than she is. “Piper’s immune to Charmspeak weaker than hers and resistant to Mist-manipulation, but the lotus in the poem is—great, how do I say it—bad medicine. She’s not resistant to that.”

“Just what I need,” Piper says dully. “Let’s just finish this. What does it do?”

In English, Annabeth explains about forgetfulness and time. When she says ‘seda-something,’ Piper flinches and mutters what sounds like “at least it’s not an upper,” whatever that means. There’s a chance Agi would understand in her Greek, but Ancient Greek is limited, so it’s impossible to avoid the language barrier entirely. 

When that’s done, Annabeth turns back to the hotel and glares at the name, like it can be held personally accountable for all their bad luck. “I don’t like that we don’t know what we’re looking for,” she says, “and I don’t like that we have no way to give ourselves a time limit, but I guess we don’t have a choice. We shouldn’t split up for anything, even if we’d cover more ground that way.”

Agi nods. She hopes it isn’t obvious how relieved she is, but she doesn’t like the idea of being separated from them even without taking into account mind-altering substances.

The man at the door smiles when they cross the street. His teeth are too perfect to be natural. “Hey, kids,” he says in English. “You look tired. How about you come in and sit down?”

“Charmspeak,” Piper says quietly as the man turns to lead them in. “Shake it off.”

Until she said, Agi hadn’t realised her movement to follow him inside was involuntary. Right. That’s bad. 

When she actually sees the inside, she almost forgets her mounting panic. It’s like something out of a film! She’s never been to an arcade before, but those are definitely arcade games. Is that a water slide? And a climbing wall! And—

“Hi!” A bellhop appears, standing much, much too close to her face for comfort. When she shrinks back, Annabeth slides in front of her in a way that’s in equal parts comforting and embarrassing, but the man doesn’t seem to notice. “Welcome to the Lotus Casino. Here are your room keys.”

Piper takes them. “Thank you,” she says. “What else should we know?”

The man gives the usual details about additional services as he leads them toward the elevators, before handing over more cards, this time to Annabeth. “And these are your LotusCards. They work anywhere inside the hotel and casino.”

“Do they work outside?” Annabeth asks, which seems to stump him. Yes, apparently, though it’s obvious he had to think about it, which is weird. “What’s the limit?”

He laughs, revealing canine teeth that are just a little too much like fangs. “That’s sweet,” he says, in a voice like a dream. “Enjoy yourselves. You can stay as long as you want.”

Notes:

Let's all have a moment of silence for the bakery in Flushing. It's now a bubble tea place.

This is obviously a series now - feel free to comment on ships throughout this story. From this chapter you should be able to tell the direction I'm going in...mostly.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Chapter 6: three deaths and a wedding

Summary:

This chapter brings you: gods helping their children with paperwork, feral pigeons, that one fight on the beach, and emergency medicine.

Notes:

Warnings: technically unintentionally drug use if you count the lotus blossom as a drug (that's how I discuss it here) and very mild suicide ideation.

The elevators are decorated with filigree depicting the mythical lotus tree. When the one nearest to them opens, Agi and Annabeth step toward it, but Piper grabs their arms. “Look, as much as I’d like a shower,” she says, leading them toward the explosion of light and noise that must be coming from the game area, “we’ve got to stay on task. That wasn’t just Charmspeak—we’re definitely breathing something in.”

A shower sounds like a dream after the trip they’ve had, but Agi manages to shake herself of the lotus’ influence just enough to focus on the off-putting details as they enter the massive game room: this one old guy’s mullet, those girls’ flapper dresses, that knot of boys in literal chitons, and don’t forget the pack of teenagers with arm tattoos, like they’re in some kind of gang, playing Whack-a-Mole in one corner. They dodge the workers. Agi breathes shallowly, though the air smells so sweet it’s instinct to take in a lungful, and tries not to look too closely at the bright bright bright, colourful lights that dazzle from the chandeliers and games and the decorations of the real trees and shrubs, and even the floor. Though she’s never been high, she imagines that this is what it feels like. 

She doesn’t like it.

At the hour mark, she starts to despair. They already almost lost Annabeth to a brainy architecture game that would bore anyone who isn’t a girl genius to tears, and Agi was distracted by the aquarium in the centre room, because the fish wanted to ask for news about the various dams and river drainages. If the Nile perch—the tank’s currently elected leader—hadn’t started on the world’s dullest tale of his uncle’s death in the name of reform against the imminent Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, she doesn’t know that Piper would have been able to drag her away. She directs them toward the card games that tempt none of them, but to get there, they have to pass through a section of chess tables, which is the only reason they stumble across what they’re seeking. Or, more accurately, who.

“I think that’s who we’re looking for,” Agi says, pointing to the girl, who plays White against an elderly man at the edge of the section, with the boy leaning against a pillar beside her. Why she knows, she isn’t sure, but at the sight of them, it’s like the fog from the lotuses lifts, leaving her clear-headed for the first time since she walked in here. 

It says a lot either about Annabeth’s developing trust in Agi, or how severely the lotus has affected her that she doesn’t even question her. “Them?” is all Annabeth says instead, as she tilts her head and inspects them. “When are they from?”

“Looks like thirties or forties to me, based on the clothes,” says Piper. “Dad played a spy for a World War Two movie once and all the costumes looked like that. Jeez, do you think they’ve been here that long?”

The thought’s horrifying, because it begs the question of how long they’ve been here. But still, they waste a moment to take stock of the two kids. The boy, who’s maybe Agi’s age, is a scrawny kind of skinny, so the bagginess of his grey trousers and short-sleeved button down seems all the worse. A worn leather belt holds up his pants. A newsboy cap flattens his wild hair; meanwhile, the girl tried and failed to tame her own by doing it in two braids. Between that and her black dress with its white peter pan collar, the girl looks like a tall, older version of Wednesday Addams. Despite how long they’ve been here, they both have Agi’s type of olive tan. 

Cautiously, Agi and her friends approach. The girl does something clever on the board that forces her opponent to call her something very rude in Italian, but weird Italian. Maybe it’s an old kind? Before either of the siblings can respond, Agi slides up beside the boy and says in her own limited (normal) Italian, “Ciao! We have looked for you and your sister everywhere. Come with us now. You will love the thing we want to show you.”

He doesn’t throw her off, but he turns to her, brow knit. “You know me?” he says, with a lilting accent that has a soft edge to it, almost like the Castilian lisp. “Do we know you?” 

“Of course!” she says, grinning. “Will you come with us?”

“We’re in the middle of a game!” says the girl’s opponent in Greek, so Agi assumes he must be a worker. “Interrupting games is against the laws of the establishment.”

“But aren’t you bored?” Piper asks, sidling nearer until she’s right next to the man. For her to use Charmspeak, she must have come to the same conclusion. “Wouldn’t now be the right time to surrender?” 

Face blank, the man tips over one of the pieces, then rises from his chair, and leaves without a word. Shocked, the girl says, “What did you just do?”

“You’re in danger,” Annabeth says. “We’re here to rescue you.”

“Rescue us from what—”

 

 

(It would be pertinent to interrupt the girls’ adventures to elucidate readers on the going-ons surrounding The Wedding. 

Today is Saturday. Six hours ago, Luke and Silena married each other at the local municipal court in their best clothes for $125, which is probably less than Silena’s ring, but Luke can’t be expected to know for certain. Lee and Drew were their witnesses. Aphrodite popped up with a bouquet for her daughter that must mean something—pink carnations and some sort of fruit blossoms and a white flower he doesn’t recognise interspersed with non-poisonous ivy. Luke missed their conversation; he was busy with his dad dealing with the paperwork at that point, because nothing makes a better ally against a middle-aged clerk’s judgement and tiny font than an actual god. Hey, Luke kind of wanted to snap, but didn’t. We’re demigods. Our life expectancy rate is approximately thirty. We’re more past our prime than you. 

Now, they lie side by side on their narrow bed and flip through the photos her sister took, all of which hide any evidence of baby Evander or Xanthe—name pending. Impressive, Luke says, that Drew even pulled it off with the candids. Silena laughs. It’s a gift, she says. What other point does Beauty have, except to hide what no one wants to see?

And then she kisses him. They lose the digital camera to the side of the bed, and don’t think for a while about sisters or parents or the things that go bump in the night.)

 

“Hey,” cuts in Agi, drawing the boy’s attention back to her, “where are you from?”

He blinks. “Italia,” he says. 

“Where in Italy?”

There’s a long, long silence, where he has a few false starts in answering, before he pales and turns to his sister. “Bianca,” he says, voice laced with the beginnings of panic. Whatever he says next is in that odd form of Italian again, which she can’t follow.

But the girl—Bianca is shaking her head, her hands hovering over her mouth. “Nico,” she says, and seems to ask, “where are we,” but instead of dove siamo, she says, dove semo.

“The Lotus Hotel,” says Agi, who at least followed that, “in Las Vegas. That’s why so many people are speaking English.” 

Before the two can start freaking out too badly, Annabeth tries Greek again to add, “We’ll explain more, I promise, but we need to leave right now.”

“But who are you?” Bianca asks, even as she stands. She reaches behind her without looking as Nico reaches forward and takes her hand. 

“I’m Annabeth.” As Annabeth starts walking, she motions first left, then right, and adds, “This is Piper and this is Agi. We were sent to get you.”

“By who?” Obviously, Bianca is the siblings’ spokesperson.

“Your cousin.”

“Our cousin?”

Annabeth doesn’t answer as they duck behind a half-wall. On the other side, between them and the front doors, are three bellhops holding yet more LotusCards. 

Though now’s not the time, Agi asks, “Cousin?” so quietly it’s barely more than a thought. “You know who they are?”

“I have suspicions,” Annabeth says, with barely a backward glance. “Can you make a distraction? If there’s saltwater somewhere?”

Agi hesitates. Has she ever done anything with water on purpose before? Every pipe she ever burst was an accident.

When she doesn’t answer, Annabeth twists around to look at her. “Thalia used to say it was just about intention,” she says, just as quietly, “so just focus.”

There’s literally no way it can be that simple, but all right, fine. With pained effort, Agi pushes aside the tricks the drugged atmosphere are starting to play on her mind again, and, for the first time, actively tries to sense water. 

The result is like being punched. 

Whatever lingering effect the lotus had on her disappears as the awareness rushes in—of the water running through the massive, intricate plumbing system in the walls, of the waterslide, of the multiple pools several floors below, of the decanters at the bar, of the freshwater aquarium. No salt water, but what should that matter? She breathed in the river just fine! Water is water—or, is liquid just liquid? 

No. Distraction first, before she lets herself be distracted. She closes her eyes, tries to quiet the onslaught, and explodes the sprinkler system. 

Nico and Bianca screams. Agi reaches behind her, grabs the hand of whoever’s there—Nico, it seems—and drags him along, forcing him to move past his shock so the five of them can sprint to freedom. 

“No, don’t stop!” Piper shouts when the siblings stumble over each other, overwhelmed to suddenly be dropped, fully aware of themselves and their surroundings for the first time in the gods only know how long, into the glittery, glitzy disaster of Las Vegas. “Come on. I think the bus station was that way.”

“Absolutely not,” Annabeth says, walking in the opposite direction toward the taxis. “That taxi. We have five credit cards with unlimited money. We can get a ride.”

“Where are we? Who are you? What cousin?” Bianca asks, as they hurry away from the Lotus Hotel and the bellhops, who’ve started emerging from the front door. At some point during the escape, one of her braids came undone; Nico lost his hat. 

As Agi undoes the second braid, she says, “We can tell you in the—in the auto.” Of course, there’s no word for car or taxi in Ancient Greek. “ Il auto? Gli auto? ” 

The siblings are too out of it to correct her, so she steps aside and lets them get in first. It’s one of those large cabs she associates with tourists going to hotels in Athens, with the two back rows, so they fit. Agi and the siblings sit in the way back; Annabeth and Piper take the centre. Annabeth’s bickering with the driver about schlepping it out to California, but the man agrees when she shoves his credit card in his hand and says, “Here. It’s unlimited. If you can get Piper McLean to her father’s shoot at Santa Monica Pier—”

“ANNABETH!”

“—you can keep it.”

There’s some awe at the news that the Tristan McLean’s daughter is in the back of this ordinary man’s taxi, but whether it’s that or the credit card that convinces him to peel off down the highway toward California, Agi can’t say. Either way, they have a ride. 

By the time Agi and the others start their explanation, the taxi’s past the local airport and speeding down the highway at ninety miles per hour, so that despite Piper’s best, non-Charmed efforts to soothe them, Nico and Bianca are freaking out at the speed, the view, and every new piece of information. Bianca starts crying once Annabeth reaches her clinical breakdown of how the Lotus Hotel halted the flow of time, but Nico is so excited he’s practically vibrating. The only reason he stops interrupting with questions about this or that is because his sister snaps at him to let the girls finish. 

At guess, Nico is Agi’s age. He reminds her of some of the more hyperactive boys in her class back in Astoria, and they’re about the same size. But his sister? Other than older, it’s hard to tell. Maybe Annabeth’s age. Once she stops crying, though, she’s so cross it ages her. 

When they finally finish, the sun is low over the distant mountains and her tears are dry. “Do you know who our parent is?” she asks. “I think I believe you. I saw what you did with the water, and the lights of the city weren’t what I know. It’s what you say or witchcraft.” 

“Sorcerers do exist,” Annabeth says, “but not us. I don’t think you are, either. Children of the Goddess of Magic are usually easy to tell by sight. My brother’s friend’s with one of her sons. Do you speak English, by the way?” she adds, in English.

“Little,” Bianca says, also in English, as she holds her thumb and forefinger close together. Nico nods. 

In Greek, Piper says, “That’s all right. Agi is learning too.”

“I’m from Greece,” Agi says, before realising that if these two really are from the forties, like Piper thinks their clothes imply, then they were in Italy at the time that their country was invading hers. Hopefully that won’t be a problem.

Their memories are gone, though, so it doesn’t occur to them. All either of them seem to know is that they’re Bianca and Nico di Angelo, they’re from somewhere in Italy, and really like games. For her, it’s chess. For him, it’s a mythology-related deck of cards. When they ask where Agi learned Italian, she lies and says it was friends, because it’s better than admitting her limited knowledge only exists as a result of tourists being terrible.

Eventually, the two of them fall asleep. For the half hour before that, Piper and Annabeth were having some sort of whisper-conference in English, while the di Angelos held Agi hostage with her bad Italian to squeeze out more answers, most of which she couldn’t give. The second she’s sure they’re out, though, she unbuckles her seatbelt and leans forward to place herself between her friends. “What are you saying?” she asks, also in a whisper. 

The other girls both glance over her head before Piper says, “They can’t come with us to the Underworld. If they’re not his children, then they’re your other uncle’s.”

“How do you know, though?” Agi says, confused. 

Annabeth sighs. “There’s this prophecy,” she says, “about children of the Big Three. I found out about it years ago, after Thalia died. It’s just not specific, so it could be any child of any of the three, depending on who reaches sixteen first. Thalia was fourteen when she died. You’re eleven. And you and Thalia—you’re a lot alike. I think it’s pretty obvious you’re about as likely to move against Olympus as she was. So, if you were a divine being literally known for crooked-counselling, what would you do?”

Though Agi isn’t sure what to comment on first, the impending prophecy she’s only hearing about now or how this theory makes a depressing amount of sense, she’s saved from needing to decide on a response when Piper says, “And we all agree a certain god is involved?”

“You mean your father?” Annabeth shoots back. Piper pretends to gag. “Yeah. I guess—I guess Agi was right.” 

Saying it clearly hurts her. Good. Maybe next time, she’ll take Agi seriously. “We need to keep them away from him, too,” she says. “Hey, my, uh. Remember the message not to trust the gifts? I thought that was Piper’s phone, but what if it’s the backpack he gave us?”

The other girls look at each other, then down at the backpack between their seats, then back at Agi. Suddenly shaken, Annabeth says, “We should leave it with them. Piper was saying her dad has an apartment in—nevermind, but it’s on the way. We’ll ask this guy to make the stop and just take a taxi on the way back from the Underworld.”

“I need to go to Santa Monica,” Agi says. “The beach, then the Underworld.” 

“Just a normal Tuesday,” Piper says, sighing, before she leans forward to update the driver on their plans. 

 

 

“There’s no such thing as free lunch,” says Annabeth when she sees the three pearls in Agi’s hand. They and Piper are on the beach below Santa Monica’s boardwalk, just a half hour after the taxi driver dropped them off, and two minutes after the hippocampus deposited Agi back on the surface after her too-brief conversation with her other mother. The pale light of chilly dawn turns the sand a pale yellow. “What’s the price?”

Agi frowns and glances at the hat hanging from Annabeth’s waist. “You mean that wasn’t ‘free lunch?’”

“It was a birthday present,” she says, folding her arms. In the hazy light filtering through the cloud cover, her eyes are almost colourless. “That’s different.”

“Maybe it’s supposed to make up for missed birthdays,” Agi says, “or maybe the price is to stay alive. Ares has Hades’ Helm of Darkness. Once he figures out that I know, there’s no way he’ll let me—”

At the same time Annabeth shouts, “Agi!” and Piper says, “Not his name!” a third voice interrupts, “You just had to figure it out, cousin. Our uncle was supposed to kill you. Where’re the kids I sent you for?”

They whirl around, kicking up sand and greeting a gap between them that reveals Ares, who looks out of place on this peaceful beach in his leather jacket, khakis, and combat boots. His dark hair is slicked back like one of the men Mama always said to avoid. In his hand, he holds a kopis, a giant cavalry sword. 

Her own xiphos is going to look like a toothpick in comparison, she thinks, even as she slides in front of her friends. 

“They’re safe,” she says. The anger she feels as an echo of his aura keeps her voice and hands from shaking, which is good, because her plan won’t work if he thinks she’s scared. “So. Are we doing this or not?”

“Agi!” Annabeth says, taking her by the arm, while Ares just stares, like he can’t figure out if Agi’s crazy or ballsy. Probably the former, she thinks, or this plan wouldn’t have been premeditated. “This is—you can’t just—”

Annabeth stops when Ares laughs. The sound is gunfire and broken glass. “Piper,” he says, as he flicks his wrist and forms a squealing boar from the wet sand, “don’t even think about opening your mouth. Tell me where the kids are, and I promise my niece won’t suffer in death.”

“Hey,” Agi snaps, wrenching her arm from Annabeth’s grasp. “I’m your only opponent. You gods take on new aspects of every civilisation, right? Well, I’m appealing to Mars Augusts ’ sense of honour—I win, I take the Helm and the kids, and you let us live. You win, you get everything. I swear on the River Styx. No outside interference. Swear it.”

The plan formed in the middle of the night, in the way that mad schemes so often do, once everyone but Agi and the driver were asleep, and she had nothing to do but watch the blue and grey desert roll by outside the window. Three facts came together at some point during that seemingly endless stretch of the drive: that the Oracle referred to a single god as a pair, how Ares’ form changed for the split second when she mentioned Venus, and Annabeth saying, during their English lesson, that the American version of her mother liked trivia games. Agi’s conclusion: gods might be ever-changing, but they’re also eternal, so if they shift along with each culture they inhabit, shouldn’t at least an echo of every past version remain? 

She doesn’t trust Ares to keep his word. Maybe, though, she can trust Mars. 

Still, the plan is the definition of half-baked, so she’s genuinely shocked when his face ripples, broadening, growing a beard. His curls grow out to loose waves falling past his ears, his jawline hardens. The kopis shifts to what must be the Roman equivalent. “You’re interesting, graeca,” he says as he swings the blade experimentally, and she hands the pearls to Piper. “To call on me? On a gamble that I exist?” Thunder rumbles in acknowledgement. He smiles again. “My other side’s mistakes aren’t quite my own, but fine. I give Styx my oath on his behalf. There shouldn’t be direct involvement, but the God of War can’t be seen running from a fight. Eh, I suppose this might be fun.”

This will definitely not, she thinks, be fun. “Good,” she says anyway, as she readies herself. “Annabeth, Piper, get back.”

Piper drags Annabeth away before the girl can do something stupid, like declare herself Agi’s second. Ares, no, Mars barely waits for them to be a fair distance before he calls start, and presses forward so fast she only manages to block at the last second. 

Her plan hinged on tricking him into letting him reach the water, but she’s dumb, obviously, because Mars is not Ares. There’s no talking. No taunting. Steadily, he directs her further and further from the waves and the wet sand, while forcing her on the defensive. No no no no. Not good. He brings his sword down in a chop over her shoulder; she parries, tries a riposte, he blocks her, but then she blocks his slash.

It takes longer than it should before she realises he’s not drawing out the fight like he’s toying her, but like he’s teaching her. What in Hades? He hasn’t drawn blood on her yet, but he manages to bruise her when he knocks her down once, twice, but then repeats the move, so she learns to block and counter, even if her body aches and her breath is starting to come short, and Luke’s lesson feel more and more like a distant memory in the back of her head. 

When he notices her noticing, he laughs, and brings his sword down so fast she barely has time to dodge. “Oh don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll still win, once you’re all tired out. But if I’m not killing you, then you’re learning to respect the virtue of War. Sea’s right there, kid, and it can’t help you. You’re mine.”

And that—really pisses her off.

It doesn’t matter who her Other Family is, when she was born the Aegean as much as she was to Mama. She had a childhood of the sun and the sea and the sky and the pines, but mostly, always, there was the water. Even in the centre of the island, where the pines are thickest and mastic weeps from their trunks, a person can smell the salt of the ocean on the breeze. The sea was her escape from her parents’ every fight, from each rude tourist, from the bruises on her skin. There is no virtue in war—war upon war is one of the reasons why the gods left her country—but the sea will always be hers.

Why should it matter if she’s standing directly in the surf? She just exploded a magical casino’s whole sprinkler system. 

She makes an obvious feint to the left; he knocks the sword from her hand. When she dodges his next attack, it forces him to turn his back on the water. She throws out her hands, as if meaning to uselessly try to block, and grabs on to the current, before dropping down to curl in on herself to avoid the strike that could have taken off a limb—drawing in her arms, more importantly, and drawing out the tide. 

A funnel of water slams against the god with enough force to knock him flat. 

In an instant, she’s on her feet, Riptide in hand. He’s pushing himself up, trying to rise. No you don’t, she thinks as uncaps the pen and brings the sword down to slice his upper arm. 

The world quiets. She stands, poised with her sword pointed at his back.  

Then Mars, laughing, pushes himself to his feet. 

“I should’ve known not to underestimate one of my uncle’s brats,” he says, as he actually ruffles her hair. “Here.” Another backpack appears, this one clearly weighed down with something heavy inside. “I’m not the one who stole it. Gods stealing gods’ shit just can’t be done. And I can’t say how I ended up with it, cause that’s thanks to my worse half. How come I can’t sense the Bolt anywhere when he’s the one who gave it to you?”

Agi hugs the Helm of Darkness against her chest and tries not to overthink what’s happening. When she looks up at Mars’ face, his sunglasses are off, so she has an unimpeded view of the fire replacing his eyes. “Uh, the backpack was the right shade of blue,” she says, “so I drew the Evil Eye on it.” That was during the bathroom break in Tristan McLean’s “apartment,” which is actually a penthouse. She saw a Sharpie on the counter and went for it. “How’s it the Bolt?”

“It’s the sheathe,” he says. “Hiding it just involved tampering with the magic. But that’s—that’s hilarious, kid. I’d love to see my father’s face when he sees that, but I should probably lay low for a while.” He turns and starts walking away, heading toward the motorcycle. Halfway there, he glances over his shoulder to say in English, “By the way, we’ve speaking Latin, princepula,” and with a snap of his fingers, he and it disappear. 

 

 

On the walk away from the Pier, Agi explains what she planned and everything that she and Mars said, because neither of her friends understand more than rudimentary Latin. She tries not to think about what it means that she just carried a whole conversation without even realising she made a linguistic switch. 

“Thalia was wild,” Annabeth says when Agi’s done, “but you might actually be insane. No one just picks a fight with a god. Especially not that god. Or a version of that god? I can’t believe you figured that out.”

Translation: I can’t believe I didn’t figure that out.

It’s completely fair, though, that Annabeth would never consider a strategy that involves picking a fight with a deity, or consider that maybe different aspects exist. Agi’s decisions were based on the knowledge that she has some control of the natural world, and her gamble about Ares/Mars came from experience that her friends would never have just by learning their history at camp. Annabeth and Piper are both smarter than Agi, but that doesn’t mean they know more than she does. They just know different things that sometimes overlap. 

But she’s not getting into that now. There’s too much to worry about first. 

“It was a lucky guess,” she says, which isn’t that far from the truth. “What happened to Thalia? Is that the pine tree on your necklace?”

Annabeth drops her hand. She’d been playing with the bead. As Piper leads them down another block of coffee shops and salad bars, Annabeth says, “Has anyone bothered to explain what the Oath is to you yet?”

“No?”

Apparently, Babas and his brothers swore on Styx not to have anymore mortal babies in the forties because their kids are too powerful, which sounds fake, but whatever. When Piper points out that their kids being too powerful would never convince gods to ‘keep it in their pants,’ Annabeth follows the rebuttal up with her own counter-argument that clearly, none of them had. Well, except maybe Hades. Even if the di Angelos are his children, they were definitely born before some stupid promise.

Whatever the reason, though, the Kindly Ones are in charge of enforcing the punishment for broken oaths. Since they can’t go after mortals, “punishment” meant going after Thalia. Piper says that’s stupid; Agi says nothing in mythology ever would have happened if that wasn’t true. Annabeth just sighs.

“Grover was her sworn Protector,” she says. “He’s a satyr. He wasn’t supposed to let there be any distractions, but Thalia and Luke had already sworn their undying love for each other by the time Grover even found her, and then they all found me about a week later, and Grover wasn’t about to leave any of us, but since we were a larger party, it took us longer to get to camp. The Kindly Ones were on us by the time we reached the border. Grover and I were injured. Thalia had Luke take us over the border while she made her last stand. But then her father intervened before she actually died and turned her into a tree, so she’s not dead. Just gone. There’s this prophecy that the Golden Fleece could heal her, so the satyrs have been looking for it for years. She was amazing. You two would probably like each other, Piper. Her mom was an actress, too, though just for TV. Sometimes she would say something that made no sense to us, but would probably for you.”

“Really?” Piper says curiously, as they automatically lock hands to fight through the growing crowd without losing each other. “Who was she?”

“Beryl Grace,” Annabeth says, “which is the worst—”

“Thalia Grace?” Agi cuts in. She’s still too full of nervous energy from her fight not to laugh. “That’s funny.” 

They stumble into a suddenly deserted street. Something about Los Angeles reminds her of Athens, this night-and-day street-by-street thing, where one will be bright and crowded and safeish, while the one right next to it just feels dangerous.  

By unspoken consensus, they follow that sense of danger. 

It’s as they were walking past their twentieth or so alley that a man’s voice suddenly calls out, “Hey, girls.”

Collectively, they’ve battled Furies, hellhounds, the God of War, and all his children, but it’s the gang of older teenage boys that makes them freeze. 

“You’re looking a little lost, girls,” says the one closest to Piper as five boys surround them. Her mouth opens, closes. Agi glances at the face of the one closest to her, at its oily pimples and how his eyebrows are so pale they’re barely visible against his skin. “Maybe we can help you—”

He’s the first one to scream when the feral pigeons start their attack. Annabeth, recovering from her shock first, takes Agi by the back of her shirt as she drags her and Piper into the nearest store. 

“I think we lost them,” Piper says when the door swings shut behind them with a little jingle, and Annabeth releases them. “Thanks. What just—”

“Lost who?” 

They jump. Agi hits her knee on the corner of the windowsill. When they turn, she finds her face to—well, to chest with the tallest man she’s ever met. He’s wearing a lounge suit. He’s bald. His eyes are very deep-set, and very, very black. When he smiles, it’s unnaturally wide. His teeth are yellow.

She pastes on her own smile. “Hi!” she says cheerfully, sticking to Piper’s English, even though this man is definitely part of their world. In a bad way. “Who are you?”

“I’m Crusty,” he says, which at least matches the state of his teeth. “This is my store. Want to see home waterbeds?” 

He drops a hand on Piper’s shoulder, and half-steers, half-pushes her toward the display room without checking if Agi and Annabeth are following. As they do, Annabeth whispers, “Beds. Procrusteus.” 

Oh, gross. That means they’re siblings. Agi only vaguely remembers the story, because it involved Theseus, and she sort of hates Theseus, but there was something about beds and stretching and death by excessive hospitality. Bad news, basically. Knowing that much is enough for her to slip Riptide from her pocket, just as Annabeth slides her knife from her sleeve.

“Try this one over here, honey,” he’s saying to Piper, as he points to a bed with a weird, pointy lamp embedded into one corner. “We’ll see if we can make it the right fit.”

“But you don’t want me to!” she says, right before he can push her onto it. Agi uncaps her pen. Carefully, behind his back, she and Annabeth inch closer. “You want to stand right there and tell me your sales pitch, Mr. Crusty!”

Whatever his sales pitch is, they never had to hear it; Agi swings for the neck as Annabeth stabs him in the back. He bursts into dust before he even has a chance to realise that he’s dying. 

“That was good,” Agi tells Piper. “Did your mother send the birds?” Doves are basically pigeons, right?

She grimaces. “I think so,” she says. “I’m pretty sure one was trying to claw that boy’s eyes out. He tried to touch me. But anyway, should we see if the local LA monster has the address to the Underworld lying around here anywhere?”

The answer is yes. DOA Recording Studios, it’s called. Currently, it’s recruiting for talent and offering a large commission for heroes’ souls. They find the flyer right behind the front desk, along with a map, and a large bag of drachmas they slip into Annabeth’s backpack.

Best thing yet, it’s only a block away. 

 

 

Agi’s never had a problem with the idea of dying. It’s not that she wants to die. It’s just that it’s always felt inevitable. She’s spent most birthdays wondering if she’ll reach the next one; sometimes, when she lies awake at night, she daydreams of all the ways she might go. Will it be the kallikantzaroi one winter’s night? An encounter with a drunk tourist on a moped? Gavriil’s bad decisions? 

So it’s easy, when Charon looks her in the eye and asks, “How did you all die, then?” to lie, “My stepfather did it.” 

Charon tilts his head. His hair is shiny, like he used too much gel. Past him is a wide window, where mortals walk past, clueless that just a few feet away, souls awaiting eternal rest have to listen to bad elevator music while a ferryman collects his dues. 

“You seem very accepting,” he says mildly. 

She shrugs. “He threatens to murder me a lot,” she says. “I’m just surprised he killed my friends, too.” 

Annabeth and Piper do their best to look very depressed. Charon clucks his tongue. “I suppose you don’t have payment,” he says, sighing. “Usually for adults, we can just charge it to their card in the case of sudden death, but, I do suppose even for them, it’s a little different when murder is involved. Oh? What’s this?”

“He killed us in a casino,” Annabeth says, as she lays one of their LotusCards on the counter. “This is supposed to be unlimited. Is that enough?”

For a long moment, Charon just stares at it. Then, slowly, he raises his gaze to look at each of them individually. “I see,” he says carefully. “Unlimited, you say?”

“Yes,” she says. “Forever. No expiration date.” 

There’s no way Charon doesn’t know what they are by now, but obviously, he’s as greedy as anyone else who wears a suit that nice, so he just dings the card on a machine three times, then slides it covertly in his pocket. “The boat’s almost full anyway,” he says. “Come along. Do ignore the freeloaders.”

The freeloaders being, Agi assumes, the sad wispy ghosts who try to grab hold of them, only to fade into whispers and smoke upon contact. It seems wrong to leave them, but with the situation being what it is, they shouldn’t draw more attention to their not-deadness. 

He leads them to a crowded elevator, where he shoves them in and pushes hopefully stowaways out. As the doors clang shut, Piper asks, “What happens to the souls in the lobby?”

“Nothing,” he answers, as he swipes his card. “Nothing for forever, or until I’m feeling generous. Whichever comes first.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“Death isn’t fair, little half-blood,” he says, looking down at the three of them. Piper’s hands ball into fists at her side. As his skin and hair disappear, leaving nothing but bare skull, Agi debates the merits of trying to hide behind Annabeth again. “You’ll find this out soon enough. Possibly today, if Lord Hades decrees it so.”

Before any of them declares that no, they’ll definitely make it out alive, they all sway on their feet, suddenly unsteady. Agi’s dizzy as she releases that instead of down, they elevator is going forward, as the walls and ceiling peel away, until they’re standing on a crowded wooden barge that Charon, the skeleton dressed in his floor-length robes, poles through the cluttered waters of the River Styx.

Annabeth and Charon talk about something in English, while Agi watches grey mist rise off the water. Is that a woman’s face down there, in the water? Narrow nose, thin lips, eyes like slits. She blinks. She disappears and reappears in the gaps between the rubbish. Hello, my forbidden child, a voice—her voice—says as a murmur in the back of Agi’s head. Will you not join me for a swim?

“Hey!” Piper’s arms wrap around her, tugging her back, until Agi practically falls in the other girl’s lap. Wild-eyed, she looks behind her at Piper’s face and beyond her, the mass of disinterested spirits. “What were you doing?”

“I think I just met Styx,” Agi says, dazed. “The goddess.”

“Oh.” Charon says. “Look, little godling. Company for your journey.”

Together, Agi and Piper stand and peer at the far shore of the Underworld. Waiting there is Mrs. Dodds. 

When the barge lands, she says, scowling, “I am here to escort you to my lord.” She glows a little, if it’s possible for darkness to exude its own life. No matter how hard Agi tries, she can’t draw the Fury into focus. “Charon, you will leave them with me.”

“Wait!” Piper turns back to the ferryman before he can push away with something in her hand. “This should pay for all the souls in the lobby. And any that come after.”

A skeletal hand takes their last LotusCard. “Compassion will do you no favours here, daughter of Aphrodite,” he says, with a clacking of his teeth, before he steps back into his boat and leaves them in the semi-darkness of the beach.

 

 

Alecto feels the need to bring them on the scenic route, which mostly consists of pointing out all the ways that people are miserable. It’s when they’re passing through the Fields of Asphodel that a force yanks Agi by the wrist, wrenches her shoulder, and rips her downhill.

She screams. 

Her arm pops from its socket when Alecto jumps on her back, pinning her in place. With a talon, the Fury tears the Evil Eye charm from Agi’s wrist and leaves a bloody gash on the back of her hand. “Who gave this to you?” Alecto asks, rolling Agi over. In her fist, the string bracelet struggles to fly free. 

“My friend,” she says, as the line of the prophecy she kept to herself comes back to her: and you will be betrayed by one you call friend.

“You three will wait,” the Fury says as she stands and unfurls her wings. “I will return.”

She flies off in the direction the charm is trying to go as Piper and Annabeth take her place. The souls around them drift among the long grass and the asphodels, never getting too close, and never looking their way. Death, it seems, is the end of curiosity.  

“I need to—to get your arm back in before I give you ambrosia,” Annabeth says, like she meant to say something else, but didn’t have the word for it. “And it’s going to hurt a lot, because I’ll have to touch the cut. We don’t have bandages. Piper, can you hold her other hand?”

Of all things, why are they missing bandages? Agi wonders as Piper takes her position, and Annabeth wraps both her hands around Agi’s wrist. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Annabeth says, as she starts rotating Agi’s arm in little excruciating circles. “This’ll hurt, but then you’ll feel better, I promise.”

Maybe she passes out for a second. Or maybe she just blocks out the pain. Either way, she wakes to Piper shoving ambrosia in her mouth while Annabeth cleans her hands of Agi’s blood with water and hand sanitizer. 

Alecto returns just as Agi swallows. “A shame,” her old math teacher says. One hand is still balled into a fist. “You haven’t died. Come.”

This time, there is no sightseeing. Eventually, they reach an unmarked wooden door. Alecto conjures a key from nowhere, turns it in an old fashioned lock, and ushers them through. “Touch nothing,” she says when she files in behind Piper, who entered last. “Ignore the temptation to eat.”

It’s Queen Persephone’s garden. And it’s beautiful.

There are no neat rows and paths, but twisting trees and shrubs pointing visitors safely through from one side to the next. Pomegranate and apple and mango and passion fruit trees grow side by side. Hyacinths bloom next to hibiscus, and mistletoe drapes itself from laurels. There are more herbs and wildflowers than grasses. Everything is poison or food, and many look interchangeable. As they pass by a fairy ring of toadstools, Agi realises she can sense the difference.

But that’s a worry for tomorrow, she decides, as finally, Alecto waves her hand, and a wall slides open like a pocket door. “After you, half-bloods,” she says, and doesn’t follow them inside. The door closes behind them, leaving them in a frigid art deco nightmare throne room, where skeletons in ancient armour line the walls as equal parts decorations and security guards. 

At the other end of the hall sits Hades on his throne of bones, dressed in a black chiton with a band of braided gold in his black curls. He looks stunningly like his son, even if Nico’s just a boy and not pasty pale. 

“You surprise me, niece,” he says, with a snap of his fingers. Her backpack appears on his lap; when he removes the Helm, it’s large enough to fit his whole godliness. “Hm. I knew it was unlikely you were the thief once you swore the oath, but I hadn’t expected you to return it.”

“We happened to find it,” she says, as she laces her fingers behind her back to stop from fidgeting. Neither of her friends so much as twitch. “Which is good, dear Uncle, because now we can talk.”    

In one step, he’s off his throne and standing in front of her, reduced down to the size of a very tall human. “About this, perhaps?” he asks, holding up the bracelet Silena had tied around her wrist. “Whoever gave this to you wished you great harm. It would have dragged you to Tartarus, had Alecto not intervened.” 

“To your father,” she says. “I’ve had dreams about him talking to the real thief.”

“My father is chained in pieces on the floor of the Pit.”

“But, Lord Hades,” Annabeth says, as he tenses to say more, “couldn’t gaining a following help at least some of his conscience come out?”

Hades slips the bracelet into an unseen pocket. “It’s not impossible,” he says, stroking his beard. “I would say highly improbable, yet even a child of my own would lack the power necessary to charm an object like this. I will investigate. Now, I’ll send you to New York. Consider it repayment for returning my Helm without obligation.”

“Can I ask for a different favour, Uncle?” Agi says quickly. “You can just send us back to LA. Or we can leave ourselves. It’s fine.”

He lifts a brow. “A different favour?”

“Look,” she says, dropping all pretense of politeness, “it’s really stupid that you don’t have your cabin at camp, and also that you were the first suspect when that made no sense.” He blinks, taken aback, but she continues on, “So as this favour, if you or Aunt Persephone purely hypothetically had children, could they stay in my cabin at camp with me?”

“We don’t have new demigods,” he says, as the lift brow lowers and draws in to meet the other. “You know something.” 

“We suspect something,” Agi says. “Annabeth figured it out first. But it’ll cause a lot of problems if anyone finds out she’s right.” 

His eyes rove over them before he asks, “Names?”

“Bianca and Nico di Angelo,” Piper answers. 

“And how,” he says, in an even voice that doesn’t match his gold-flushed face, “did you come to meet them?”

Together, they manage to explain about the diner and the quest to the Lotus Casino. When they’re done, his face is still a little too golden, but he says, “I must discuss this with my wife. Yes, Pelagia Giannopoulou, your cousins may stay with you, with your father’s permission. I won’t have children of mine sleeping on the floor. ”

Then with a snap of his fingers, he sends the girls crashing to Tristan McLean’s living room floor.

Chapter 7: no one likes a family reunion

Summary:

Luke confronts his latent childhood trauma while Agi suffers the fact that she's eleven.

There’s a card in Agi’s coat pocket declaring three things: Bianca (13, born the 21 December) and Nico (11, born 31 August) di Angelo are the children of Queen Persephone and an unlisted mortal parent, they are from Venice, and they will be staying in Cabin 3, pending Poseidon’s acquiescence. It does not list years for dates of birth. 

When Agi uses a mix of Ancient Greek and her limited Italian to explain the situation, Bianca says, “Flowers,” and Nico says, “Death.” And that basically tells Agi and her friends everything they need to know.

“I don’t know when it started,” Annabeth says, after the di Angelos are asleep again, and she, Agi, and Piper hide away to talk. Just for the chance to shower and actually brush their teeth with not-public bathroom water, they’re taking the opportunity to spend the night at Tristan McLean’s ridiculous penthouse. The girls huddle under blankets on a bed in one of the many, many rooms with just a lamp to illuminate them, as Annabeth explains, “I think it has to do with today’s ideas about family. And gods are gods. They don’t have DNA. Castor and Pollux are Mr. D’s and his wife’s and their mom’s. But technically, Castor’s Mr. D’s and Pollux’s his wife’s because of who was actually pregnant. They explained it to Travis once. It’s really confusing. So maybe their situation is the same thing. Not everyone is Thalia’s stepmother.”

Piper nods like all of this makes perfect sense, but Agi’s confused. Is this like what Mom said in the river? Does that mean Mama was also cheating on Gavriil with Mom? But this is different. This is the birds and the bees, but worse. 

Reluctantly, she’s willing to concede that it’s the sort of thing that might be clearer once she’s older. 

They fall asleep in the bed together and wake with the sunrise. Agi makes coffee, which only Bianca drinks. For a couple of hours, they update the di Angelos on the modern world, who at least remember the thirties and forties in the abstract. Bianca cries from relief when they tell her about Mussolini and Hitler being extraordinary dead; they don’t know what to make of the internet and cell phones and digital clocks; most of their knowledge of mythology comes from Nico’s card game, which is all in Italian. Still, Bianca revives the dead flowers on the kitchen windowsill as fast as Nico kills them, so it’s obvious they’ve had some practice. 

Neither of them remember Venice, either, unfortunately, but they do know that they’re speaking Venetian, which is a start. They don’t know how they ended up in the casino. They do, however, both have their LotusCards. This is great news, because there’re only so many times Piper can use her own card because her dad starts asking unwanted questions. 

“It’s not that he doesn’t love me,” she says, when she tries to explain it, as she looks from the card to the screen. “I think it’s just, like…money is security and security is happiness, so a bank account is better than a hug. He was raised so poor it's kind of hard to imagine, so it’s not like I don’t get it. And now I get that maybe if I wasn’t my mother’s daughter, that’d be okay?”

“What do you mean?” Agi asks, watching over her friend’s shoulder as she finally reaches the confirmation page. They’ve been fighting with the Amtrak website to buy tickets from LA to Chicago, then Chicago to New York, for the last hour. Now that they have access to a computer, they can plan the trip without guesswork. 

Piper hits the print button. “Well, Mom’s the Goddess of Love, right?” she says, finally standing. “Love’s not just sex. Silena explained it. We need, I don’t know, love, I guess, the way you probably need water.”

That makes about as much sense as Annabeth’s explanation about godly genetics, but Agi pretends she understands anyway.

With the few hours they have left, they take a take back to LA, and go shopping for new clothes, an experience almost as terrifying as her as it is for the di Angelos. Neither Piper nor Annabeth care about fashion, but they both understand about quality, which means Agi suffers through the nicest store of her entire life. The lights are stunningly bright. The floor sparkles. Every sales rep is dressed in all black. A few do a double take when Piper walks by, but she’s wearing a hat with her hair twirled up inside it, which seems to be an effective enough disguise that no one approaches them.

They find the di Angelos winter wear: coats, scarves, gloves. Then for all five of them, they buy not just one change of clothes but two, since it’s not as if they’re paying with their own money. Bianca refuses to wear anything but dresses, while Nico’s so fascinated by the world that he’s willing to try anything and everything, except that one scratchy sweater or the colour pink. 

In the train station’s warren of bathroom-related hallways, they have a run in with the Minotaur. Agi kills it. Annabeth laments that she’s stealing all the glory. Piper fixes their low mood by pointing out that on the train, at least they have their own compartment. Ah, the wonders of unlimited funds.

For the next eighteen or so hours, things are weirdly calm, even if sticking five demigods with too much energy on a train with nowhere to run is just a lot. They sleep in shifts. Nico shows Agi and her friends how to play his card game (though Agi thinks one of the other girls has ‘a talk’ with Bianca beforehand, because she abruptly stops rolling her eyes every time her brother mentions it). Agi teaches everyone how to swear in Greek; Bianca teaches them how to swear in Venetian-Italian, though only once Nico’s asleep. At random times, they remember to head to the dining car and scavenge something to eat. There are no monster attacks. 

 It’s wonderful. 

And then they reach Chicago. 

“I hate Chicago,” Annabeth declares, once they make it on to their next train. “We’re never coming back.”

“I’m pretty sure Chicago isn’t responsible for Laestrygonians,” Piper says, as she flicks a burned scrap of fabric off her arm. They’re all a little scorched. What did the mortals think just happened, some improvised school yard game? Annabeth took care of most of them, thanks to her hat, while Piper and Agi were the distractions, and the di Angelos hid with the trash cans. 

Personally, Agi’s glad she was the distraction. It definitely smelled the least bad.

Miserably, Bianca asks, “This is our life now?” The smudge of soot on her face matches her tone. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Agi says, with a glance at Nico. He’s taking this well, at least. Like a typical boy, he’s just excited he learns how to fight. 

“Can I see your sword again?” he says, completely unbothered by the fact that cannibalistic giants almost burned them all alive in a crowded train station in Annabeth’s new most hated city. Not Agi’s, though—that title goes to St Louis. Or maybe Argos. St Louis had the chimera, sure, but Argos is so boring it should be illegal.

She removes Riptide from her pocket. “For a minute,” she says. “You can get your own at camp. There’s a whole armoury.”

“An armoury,” Bianca repeats. Miserably.

The conductor announces that the doors are closing. Agi hugs the Bolt close to her chest, leans her head against the window, and watches as the train slides out of the station into a storm. 

 

 

On the one week anniversary of Luke’s wedding, his mom calls and asks to meet for coffee. She even sounds lucid.  

Silena comes with him, though she sits several tables away, where she sips at an herbal tea and pretends to do something on her laptop. When he tried to say she didn’t need to be there—when he was thinking that maybe the right thing to do would be to not go at all—she raised her chin, folded her arms, and said, “It’s a good opportunity for closure. But if she goes bonkers for even a second, and it looks like she’s going to hurt you, I’m convincing her to walk out and leave you alone. It’s okay to have someone on your side, Luke.”

The thought of Silena Charmspeaking his own mother is sickening, but to imagine meeting her without some form of backup is even worse, so despite any moral scruples he might have, he agrees. 

They meet in an overpriced cafe in Midtown that’s close enough to the station that she won’t get lost. By design, Luke and Silena arrive first. He buys two coffees and finds a seat facing the door, easy for his mother to spot. And then he waits. It involves a lot of fidgeting. He debates begging the barista to play anything but the godsawful Valentine’s Day-inspired love songs cooing out over the speakers, but has better manners than that (he was raised by a centaur, not wolves). Though it realistically isn’t long before the door opens and May Castellan walks through, he still manages to tear his napkin to thread. 

When she sees him, she smiles. Absolutely beams. Like that’s—like that’s allowed. Is it allowed? Gods, probably. Free country and all. 

She sits. There’s grey mixed in with her blonde corkscrew curls and her smile creates a spider web of wrinkles spreading out from the corners of her eyes. “Hi, love,” she says, in that voice he last heard come from a Cyclops’ mouth. “You’ve grown so much. How are you?”

Thankfully, she doesn’t reach out to touch him. He doesn’t know how he would have reacted, but their conversation probably wouldn’t have lasted long enough for the words to unstick from his throat. “I’m good,” he says, which feels, somehow, like both a lie and the understatement of a year. He and his girl—wife are about to have a baby! He has a 3.8 GPA! Travis finally asked out Katie! But also, there’s the matter of the theft, and the fact that he hasn’t heard an update about the quest in days, and did he mention the baby? “That’s it? That’s what you’re going with?”

He stares at her. She sighs. She hasn’t even bothered to unzip her overly large winter coat. “It looks different,” she says, as her gaze drifts to his cheek. “I never Saw it scarred.” 

“How are you, Mom?” he asks, before she can start one of her rambles. He stuffs his hands in his hoodie pocket to hide their shaking. 

“Oh, there are good days and bad days,” she says, almost dreamily. “The countdown to the bad days’ end has already begun. By the time the next Oracle is ready to take on the burden, the Curse will be lifted. No longer will I share custody of her spirit with a corpse.” 

Though the man working on his laptop next to them looks over in alarm, he doesn’t do anything. Luke wonders what the mortal reading on the situation is though, to see this obvious mother-son pair sitting with their untouched coffees as she goes on about curses and spirits, and he slides down in his seat. Maybe it’s not even that far off from the truth. 

There are a thousand questions he wants to ask, but he learned as a kid that sometimes it’s better to just let her talk. “I’m sorry for my behaviour when you were a child,” she’s saying, as if behaviour is good enough to summarise locked your bedroom door and lit it on fire with you inside so your father had to bring you to his sister. He’s not angry at his mother for doing it. For years, he was angry at his father, and now, he’s sort of resignedly angry at whoever cursed the Oracle, but that doesn’t make him any less afraid of her. So he really doesn’t know what to feel when she continues, “I only See flashes, of course. And for so long, I Saw for you the worst of fates. But no one is less tied to the shackles of their strings than tricksters and their sons. Snakes, you know. You did so well to change your scales. The aftermath of victory may be worse for us all, but you will live, and that’s all I’ve ever cared about. In the new world, maybe we can try again. I would love to meet your—”

“I think that’s enough, Mrs. Castellan,” Silena says, as she slides into the chair between them before either Luke or the eavesdropping mortal can react, which is great, because if his heart beats any faster, it might stop. “You should leave.” 

Mom turns to her. When she smiles, Silena reaches into Luke’s hoodie pocket, finds his hand, and laces their fingers. “Oh,” Mom says. “It’s you.” She stands and shoulders her handbag, which is the same carpet bag monstrosity she’s owned his whole life. “It was lovely seeing you, darling,” she says to him, before adding to Silena, “Make smart choices, dear. How dreadful it would be if any child of yours remembered you as mine does me.” 

 

 

After leaving the di Angelos at a Starbucks across from Penn Station, Agi and her friends make their way to the Empire State Building. She tried to suggest they head to camp to pass on the story without her, but Annabeth pointed out that a, she wanted to see her mother, b, Piper would have the opportunity to meet hers, and c, it would be a lot easier to accuse Ares with more than one person’s testimony. 

Piper handles the definitely-not-mortal desk attendant, who lets them onto the elevator without question. The music is terrible. Absolutely awful. Worse yet, it plays for all 600 floors. 

Ding! The doors slide open. “Oh wow,” Piper breathes out as they step onto a long marble catwalk. In front of them is an ancient polis built on a mountain peak hovering in the clouds, which only grew more amazing as they walked through it. Temples are of all different orders: Doric, Corinthian, Ionic. Unlike modern cities, the streets aren’t built on any sort of grid. The agora is huge, surrounded by large municipal-type buildings and crowded with colourful tents, and the decorations on the buildings’ lintels are so intricate that a single glance isn’t nearly enough to appreciate them. 

Though it’s not a city in ruins, there’s a part of Agi that lights up at the sights all around her and thinks home.

There’s no doubt of their destination; where else would Olympian gods hold court, except the summit of their city? The residents let them pass without obstacle, though not without lots of staring. She just tried not to look at any of them. 

Annabeth knows the way once they reach the…court. Or whatever it is. Agi doesn’t know, other than it vaguely reminds her of the Acropolis, until they reach the large hall with all the ridiculously large thrones and Aunt Hestia’s hearth. When they enter, eleven of the twelve Olympians (Ares, unsurprisingly, is missing), are gathered in the centre of the room at human-height, loud-talking. It’s not arguing, but definitely the passionate discussion that outsiders always mistake as fighting just because of a few raised voices. 

Yeah. They’re definitely still Greek all right. 

All eleven turn to them at once. Agi freezes. Her eyes land on her father, who looks so much like her it’s impossible not to recognise them as kin. “We, uh,” she says, still focused just on him, and on his eyes that are so much like her own, “found the Lightning Bolt. Something tampered with the magic to turn it into this, though, and we don’t know how to turn it back.” 

In a blink, it’s out of her arms and in her uncle’s hands. “No mere half-blood did this,” he says as he removes the Bolt from the previously deflated bag. His brow furrows when he notices the Evil Eye. There’s a resemblance there, between him and Babas and Uncle Hades—and her, she realises. Of course there is. Mere half-blood or not, she’s his niece. “Leave us. All of you. I wish to hear the details of the quest from the girl directly.”

“Annabeth and Piper were important,” she says, at the same time Babas protests, “As her father, I am entitled to remain.”

“So still you claim her?” Uncle Zeus says. “Aphrodite, Athena. Remove your daughters. Dionysus, remove yourself to camp. The rest of us will reconvene later.”

Everyone clears out quickly after that, until it’s only Agi with Babas, her uncle, and a weapon of mass destruction. They all eye each other warily, before she turns and bows to her father. “Pateras,” she says, deliberately using the modern Greek form of the word so they’ll switch languages. Trying to explain her quest in Ancient Greek or, gods forbid, English sounds like a headache. 

“Should you not address the master of the house first, girl?” her uncle says. 

“Peace, brother,” Babas says. “It’s right for a child to defer to her father first.”

“So you do, then? Claim this child you sired outside the sacred oath?”

Babas says something to him in language she doesn’t know. Maybe it’s about Thalia, considering her uncle actually shuts up. 

“Pelagia,” Babas says, “look at me.” She does; he looks back, expression impassive. That’s fine, though. He wouldn’t have helped her if he didn’t care. “Address your uncle. Tell him what happened.”

So she did. 

Annabeth and Piper probably could have done a better job of it, but she thinks she tells everything that’s relevant (except about the di Angelos). By the end, she can’t decide what part they like the least: that she kept talking about Mars, or that Uncle Hades confirms that something is stirring in Tartarus, which is probably Kronos. 

In one identical movement, Babas and Uncle Zeus cross their arms and share a glance. Though they’re speaking in that language again, she catches a few words: pater, gígas, Pythia. Kronos? Giants? The Oracle? What? She has a feeling she doesn’t want to know.

“Did you learn the identity of the human culprit?” her uncle asks. She shakes her head. “It would be prudent to remain vigilant. Now, I must purify this thunderbolt in the waters of Lemnos, to remove the Sea’s taint from its metal. Poseidon, see that she finds her way out before I return.” 

He disappears in a flash of lightning that leaves Agi blinking furiously to try to rid her vision of the dancing white spots. Sighing, Babas says, “Your uncle always had such a flair for the dramatic. Come. Let’s speak somewhere more interesting than this.”

Then, before she can say anything, he rests a hand on her shoulder and displaces them to an underwater cliff overlooking an oceanic plateau. “Sit,” he says, as she tries to take in black sea around her. There’s just so much information: depth and coordinates and temperature and salinity levels all popping into her head at once, the realisation that she can see the small creatures floating by clear as day, how she’s sensing the whale carcass drifting further and further down toward the plain. 

“Your eyes are glowing” is the first thing she can think to say, when the touch of his hand on her back pulls her unspooling consciousness out of the current and back into her body.

“So are yours,” he says, as they sit. He dangles his legs over the impossible drop; she imitates him. It’s not like she can fall to her death anyway. “You made your mother and I very proud. I’m sad that Selini wasn’t here to see it.” 

And isn’t that a trip, to have mother in a sentence that doesn’t refer to Mama. For not the first time, Agi decides to worry about that later. “I was worried I’d get here,” she says, “and my uncle’d hold a vote to kill me anyone or something. Or not believe me.”

“Maybe if circumstances had been different,” her father says, “that would have been the case. But something has changed unexpectedly. He’s thrilled, of course, as now it’s only my problem.” He rubs his forehead with his fingertips. “I am sorry. Selini and I bought you a hero’s fate with your birth. I’ve done so well in the past keeping my half-blood daughters away from this life that mortals believe I had none. I never meant for this.”

“I don’t think Mama did, either,” she says. “It’s all right. I know I’m an accident. I mean, she was married, and I’m not his.” 

“Selini was a queen among mortals,” he says. “We offered a place of honour in Atlantis, before you were conceived. But after the death of her husband’s parents, she decided to stay. We didn’t know of you. I suspect Selini wanted to give you a chance to live a mortal life, free of the stifling expectations you would have back home. It was an Evil Eye she had you wore, wasn’t it? To hide you from the worst of the monsters? Unfortunately, it also hid you from us.”

This might, she thinks, be even worse than finding out about all the lying. “So how did you find me?”

Babas’ hand rests against her back, the touch light. “When her husband’s brother brought you to Rockaway,” he says, “you had no concealment charm. I sent a member of the Court to Chiron and my nephew within the day.”

That was a late birthday present, right after she came to the States. A few days later, she was in school, and so was Luke. “Okay,” she says, rather than ask more questions. Maybe later. Right now, she’s too overwhelmed to try. “What changed?”

“Much,” he says cryptically. She rolls her glowing eyes. He chuckles. “You don’t have much respect for authority, do you?”

“I’ve been told it’s a problem.” Routinely. Mostly by Gavriil.

“I suppose that’s my fault,” Babas says. “The sea doesn’t like to be restrained.” He pauses for a heartbeat before he continues, “By now, I assume you’ve heard that there’s an important prophecy. It was rewritten a few days ago. You won’t like this, but I’ll tell you when you’re older, Pelagia.”

“What? But—”

“You’re eleven,” he says, very seriously. “By all rights, a child. I will be frank enough to say it involves you, unless it refers to events far in the future. But it’s also complex, and until we discover more of its meaning, it would be foolish to share it with anyone.”

“Does it involve your father?” she asks, because she thinks she at least deserves to know that much. 

“We don’t know,” he says. “Quite possibly, though it could refer to other forces at work, and at the moment only seems as though it’s him. Your uncles may already be discussing the matter. True cooperation between my brothers and I are few and far between, but even we can communicate when we have no choice. And investigating matters in Tartarus can be complicated, but not impossible. If we have any luck, it won’t be long before I can offer a better answer than that. Still, the prophecy itself will have to wait until you grow up a bit. Make friends. Have fun. A time will likely come for conflict, so enjoy what peace there is while it lasts. I’ll see about sneaking you down to Atlantis to meet your family when the opportunity arises.”

Make friends? Enjoy herself? As far as advice goes, that’s a weird one. And her father shouldn’t be offering to sneak her down to Atlantis directly, without an excuse, if it means breaking another Ancient Law, especially considering he’s known about her for less than six months. Does the prophecy say she’s going to be an important person or something? She doubts that. No, it has to be something else. 

Then it comes to her. 

Oh gods, she thinks, startled. I’m going to die.

Notes:

I know this is a short chapter, but for various reasons, I need to put this story on a brief hiatus. I figured this was as good a spot as any to do it. At latest, I'll be able to post again at the end of January, so I guess add an alert?

Chapter 8: beauty queen

Summary:

Piper returns from her first ever quest with her friends, but their trials and tribulations are far from over.

Notes:

After nearly a year's hiatus, I give you Piper's POV.

There's a lot in here about Cherokee folklore.

To Piper, Mom’s looks are static: skin like all the women on the rez, straight brows, her long hair black and smooth as silk. Her figure is scary perfect. Until this moment, Piper never realised how much her idea of beauty matched an Sharon Irla painting. 

The only thing off are her eyes. But Piper can ignore that if she wants. 

When they’re finally alone, it’s probably not good, all in all, that the first question out of her mouth is “Did Dad see you like this?”

Mom blinks those grey eyes at her and cocks her head, contemplative. Behind her, the fountain acting at the centrepiece for this Olympian courtyard bubbles merrily. “I don’t know,” she says. “I never know how others perceive me, Piper, dear.”

“Seriously? How?”

“Do you always know how others perceive the colour of your eyes?”

And to that, Piper has no answer. All right, she thinks. Point taken. “Why did you let him think you were dead?” she asks instead. She doesn’t know what she’s meant to feel, standing here across from her mother, who abandoned her in so many ways, but she’s not quite as angry as maybe she should be. But that doesn’t mean she’ll just sit quiet and accept this reunion without demanding answers. 

“I have no gift of prophecy,” Mom says, spreading her hands, so the sleeves of her airy pink chiton flutter. Or whatever it’s called. “Even Apollo, had I asked, can’t See on demand, you know. In many ways, we’re as blind as mortals. I thought contriving a situation where a talent scout would visit the college would be a sort of recompense for my leaving—it was all your father ever wanted. He was so steady then. I never predicted fame would so quickly and severely turn his head.”

Piper, who was raised with no religion but the piecemeal Cherokee tales her father confessed when drunk, can accept this lack of all-knowingness easily. Does it make things better? Not really. Does it make her feel like she needs to press for more information? Not really to that, too. Her bar for decent adulting is low; even Dad was world’s better than most of the parents who haunted Hollywood, just for the fact that never pushed her to be a child star. Her few film credits are all cameos as her father’s daughter, because audiences find that sort of thing sweet.

Maybe in the future, when she isn’t surrounded by olive trees and oleander and a fountain in the peace of Olympus, and not so exhausted from her quest, she’ll be able to muster more of a reaction to meeting her mother. For now, though, when Mom holds open her arms for a hug, Piper practically melts into it. It’s nice. It’s the hug Piper’s always wanted. She smells of all the good things Piper associates with comfort: sunflowers in late summer, woodsmoke, a hint of the sea. 

Eventually, they pull away, then talk for a few more minutes about the quest before it’s time for Mom to send her back to camp. Just before she does, the edge of smirk teases the corner of Mom’s mouth, and she says, “Ares, you know, may have claimed you for…questionable reasons, but when the opportunity arises, I suggest you exploit that for all it’s worth. Remember to always trust your instincts. Now, I’ll see you soon, darling. Have a wonderful rest of the day.” 

 

 

Bryce Lawrence is still there when Piper returns to camp with Annabeth and the di Angelos, but Agi is nowhere in sight. Piper files this away as a later concern; Bryce is immediate.

“That one,” she says, indicating the boy with the barest nod of her head where he’s learning the lesson all campers must some day—do not fight Clarisse when she’s having a bad day—as their small procession of four passes the training ground. “Stay away from him.” 

Annabeth catches her eye over Nico’s head, brows raised, but not like she disapproves of Piper’s trust in her own instincts. Bianca, on Piper’s other side, says in an undertone, “Why? Is he bad?”

Unfortunately, Ancient Greek doesn’t have a good way to express the depths to which Bryce Lawrence is a creep, so Piper just nods. “Agi was hurt before the quest,” she says by way of explanation, “and he laughed. No idea what’s wrong with him, but stay away.”

“That’s not very nice,” Bianca says, frowning. It’s a small thing, but enough for Piper to decide she likes the girl after all. She’s been on the fence about that so far; having never had a sibling herself, she’s always a little jealous of people who do, so the older girl’s blatant dismissal of everything that makes her brother happy just because it’s childish hasn’t sat right.

“When can we choose our weapons?” Nico says, watching, riveted, as Clarisse calmly knocks Bryce onto his ass. “Are all swords magic like Agi’s?”

“Well, there aren’t just swords,” Annabeth says, pointing further in the distance toward the archery range. “A lot of our best fighters are archers. And they’re celestial bronze—that means they’re mined on Mount Olympus—so all at least a little magic, but Agi’s is a family heirloom, so it’s different. Some of the weapons in storage are too, though. Piper’s is. Weapons like that choose their wielder.” 

The di Angelos turn to Piper, their movement freakishly in sync. Nico’s all wide-eyed hero-worship; Bianca’s just wary. “Why did it choose you?” she asks. 

Uncomfortable, Piper shrugs. She unsheathes the dagger. “Don’t touch it,” she says, as Nico automatically reaches for the handle. “It’s, um, supposed to be cursed. Well, except for me, I guess. Just comes from being a child of Aphrodite.” She knows the blade is meant to show the future, but she’s seen only flashes, all so quick to fade she thinks she might have imagined it. 

Frankly, she assumes it only chose her because Drew showed even less interest in looking for a weapon than Bianca. Drew, Piper firmly believes, would be a much better fighter than Piper is if she ever bothered with a lesson beyond basic self-defence. 

Nico watches the dagger longingly as Piper slips it back into its sheathe, but Bianca’s attention is on the distant strawberry fields. “How is it so green?” she says. “And warm?”

The “in winter” is implied. Annabeth launches into her way too technical lesson on godly weather control, which Bianca finds just fascinating, and Nico obviously thinks is boring as the growing grass. Leaving the other girls to their discussion on how Camp Half-Blood is basically a greenhouse, Piper leads Nico away the ten feet needed to reach the weapons storage. “Now,” she says, pulling open the doors, “you won’t start practising with what you choose right away. Clarisse or her siblings will probably start you off on these things called staves.” Not that Piper had, but that’s because Annabeth had trained her, and Annabeth is at least half-crazy. 

Not, of course, that this means Piper doesn’t love the girl to pieces any less. Her absolute lack of common sense is just as endearing as her absolute lack of people skills. 

But that’s neither here nor there right now, unless she decides she wants to replace Piper with Bianca as The New Best Friend (Agi doesn't count, being an equal part of their trio). What’s important now is watching Nico practically bounce off the walls as he searches for a weapon to call out to him. “This is so—so—” He says something in Italian, which Piper assumes means cool. “I want a sword. Can I just pick one?”

“I think so?” Like she does, most keeps seem to keep their weapons once they pick them, though only Ares’ kids walk around with them on display on the time. The only reason Piper still has hers on her is because she hasn’t been able to bring herself to stop at the Aphrodite cabin since returning to camp.

It’s weird. Meeting Mom was…good. It felt like all the things Piper almost, but doesn’t quite remember: a smile, a lullaby, the hands that pulled her from the waves when the riptide threatened to drag her under. But the live-in temple built in her honour doesn’t feel like that. She wonders what her grandfather would have said, had he known that the place she associates with home now is the Athena cabin, which is marked by an owl above its door. 

One of the few words she knows in Cherokee is “tsgili.” Great-horned owl. Witch. Owls are bad luck, even Dad would say, on their rare visits to his childhood home. Piper doesn’t really understand why, other than it involves some sort of connection to death—Dad never explained—but it’s the sort of thing that stuck. Still, there’s nothing about Annabeth or her brother or their cabin that feels unlucky. 

When she appears in the doorway with Bianca, Agi is with them. She must have stopped to talk to Chiron and Mr D first, because only the God of Wine would dress her in a fresh t-shirt reading, WORLD’S BEST GRAPE JUICE. “Babas gave his permission,” she says by way of hello. “Bianca and Nico can stay in cabin three.”

Nico and Bianca immediately start chattering in Italian, so it takes a while before she proclaims that she wants to find out what she’s good at first before deciding anything, and would much rather take a nap. Piper doesn’t blame her. A nap sounds great just about now. 

All the way to cabin three, Nico shows off his new sword to Agi, who probably understands far less than Nico thinks, though she’s a good sport about nodding along all the same. Despite not seeming at all tired himself, when Bianca declares they’re both resting, he only pouts a bit before agreeing. Piper and the others promise to steal them clothes (well, to politely ask Travis and Connor to do some stealing), then leave them to settle in two of the empty bunks. The second they’re out of earshot, Annabeth says, “Gods, she’s more of his mother than his sister. She kept asking me which activities are safe for children.”

“She’s barely older than he is,” Agi says, miffed. She has the right to be, given she’s Nico’s age. Annabeth, who’s Bianca’s, definitely hasn’t looked at Agi once like she needs coddling. 

Maybe this sibling business isn’t as great as Piper thought.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says quickly, turning to Agi. Her eyes are a shocking blue green in the false summer sunshine. Someone should probably trim her bangs. “How was the talk with your dad and uncle? Do they have any idea who the real thief was?”

Agi shakes her head. “There’s a new prophecy,” she says, as she slips her hands into the pockets of her zip-up. “It rewrote the old one or something, so it’s—I don’t know. He wouldn’t really tell me anything except to be careful. Your moms didn’t say anything?”

“Mom’s worried,” Annabeth says, furrowing her brow. “I mean, not that she said it, but she spent the whole conversation knitting. It’s a bad sign when she starts doing handicrafts. No one knows where the chihuahua and its owner went. I’ll be honest, I thought it was my grandfather trying to get you to confess, but they have no idea who let her out of…down there. And if she could come out, Mom said, then—”

“Who else could?” Piper finishes. Neither Annabeth nor Agi answer, which is, in itself, an answer. “Well, my mom told me to trust my instincts.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. Piper, however, retains the right to be as smug about this as she wants. Obviously Annabeth can’t say anything about her relying too much on her instincts now if it turns out they're literally goddess-given.

“What’s important about instincts?” Agi says, frowning. Her pen’s out, spinning between her fingers. “You mean like when you look at someone and know they’re safe?”

“Sort of,” Piper answers, as Annabeth says darkly, “Or that they’re not.”

Piper and Agi turn to her—Agi, confused, and Piper, startled. “You know something,” Piper says, the words coming out like more of an accusation than she intends. 

There’s a long pause before Annabeth, not looking at her, asks, “What do you feel?”

Past Annabeth, through the alley between cabins five and six, Piper watches Bryce Lawrence throw his sword on the ground as Clarisse and Sherman break into full-bodied laughter. A prickle she’s been trying to ignore blooms on the back of her neck, like they’re being watched. She swallows hard. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” she asks in an undertone, glancing between her friends. Yesterday, that could have been cabin three, but not anymore.

“There’s my place,” Annabeth says. “Even if Malcolm’s home, I’d trust him with anything.”

That level of trust is also based on instinct, but Piper chooses not to point this out. Before she can agree, Agi half-raises her hand and says, “How about the bottom of the bay? I can make a bubble.”

“Would the nereids hear?”

Agi’s brow knits. “I don’t know,” she says after a beat, which means cabin six it is. Though Piper hasn’t been at camp long, all it takes is a few days to understand the nereids and dryads are notorious gossips. 

Malcolm is there, fulfilling the usual Athena-kid brainiac stereotype by challenging himself to nightmare sudokus on a tablet that doesn’t connect to WiFi or data. As Annabeth shuts the door behind her, he pauses the game and reaches for his oversized glasses to cram on his face. His eyes are the same shade of grey as hers. As the colour Piper saw on her mother’s face. 

But she doesn’t have to think about that right now. Or ever.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, squinting at them despite the glasses. Necessary because his prescription is too weak, or just habit? Impossible to say, but it does emphasis how stupidly adorable he is, from his knobbly knees to his painfully fluffy curls. “Did you get in trouble for doing something dumb on the quest, Anna?”

“I’d never do anything dumb,” she says, sitting on the edge of her bed. Automatically, Piper takes a seat on her left, and Agi on her right. “No, we’re talking about instincts.”

She says it like it’s a dirty word, which means Piper is contractually obligated to roll her eyes. 

As Malcolm, the brat, apparently shares this unfair opinion, the three of them need to recap their quest (mostly), ending with Mom’s advice-warning, before he finally asks, in the same tone his sister had, “Well, what do you feel?” 

Right, so it’s bad vibes abound in camp. Piper feels so validated. “Bryce,” she says, folding her arms. “If he was Clarisse’s brother, he’d have been claimed already, right? I think he’s better than just a ‘fast learner’ because he already had training.” 

“There’ve always been rumours about solo demigods,” Malcolm says, like this isn’t such a shock. “You know, ones who strike out alone. Loners. But how would a loner be trained?”

“What if they aren’t ‘loners?’” Annabeth says carefully. “Agi didn’t fight Clarisse’s dad.” 

She lets the implication sit: what if, somewhere out there, there’s a straggling band of misfit demigods born to the gods’ other halves? It makes perfect sense to Piper—if humans can be two-faced, why can’t gods—but Agi says, “No way. Trust me, everything about Olympus was Greek. They were Greek, the buildings were Greek, all the clothes were Greek. If they had other, I don’t know, selves or something that were strong enough to have kids, wouldn’t you see that in Olympus?” 

“Maybe they play favourites,” Malcolm says. “Greece was way better than Rome.”

“It’s still better,” Agi says, with all the fervor of someone who actually loves their country. Piper wouldn’t know the feeling; she’s never felt like the United States is hers, no matter what her father likes to pretend. 

Annabeth shifts, clearly uncomfortable. “Any other feelings?” she says.

Piper hesitates. Drew, she thinks, though she doesn’t think it’s a real answer. After all, if Piper’s reacting to…ill-intent or whatever it is, then her sister is just so jealous of her that she’s getting confused. “The thing with my phone,” she says instead, glancing from Annabeth to Agi, then Malcolm, who’s caught up enough to know what she means. “We all agree that wasn’t a mistake, right?”

“That’s backed by evidence,” he says, sounding exactly like his sister. “But what would we even do about it? There’s no hard proof. Unless he’s the one who charmed that Evil Eye Drew and Silena gave Agi?”

“I don’t know,” Piper says, unsure how to feel about that, other than intense discomfort. “I don’t feel, you know, great around Drew, but I’m fine around Silena.”

“I’m not,” Annabeth says under her breath, as Agi says, “Silena said Drew designed it, I think. But it’s not like Charmspeak works on objects. How would she make it do that?”

With a shrug, Malcolm says, “Maybe they’re working together. But why? I mean, Drew commutes, but Alabaster lives in the dorms. He’s not even here.” 

“And we have no proof,” Annabeth says. “If we tell anyone, they’ll ask for proof.”

At the same time, Agi and Piper stand, obviously both coming to the conclusion that the only thing to do now is to pace. It must be very annoying for Annabeth and Malcolm to watch them walk in opposite directions like this, but the siblings are kind enough not to mention it. “Babas said it’s probably my grandfather,” Agi says, “but it might not be. That other powers could be at work or something.” 

Malcolm worries his thumbnail; Annabeth also jumps to her feet. “You can’t mean—”

“I don’t know,” Agi says, frustrated. “He said he’d tell me when I’m older.”

When Piper laughs, even she hears how hysterical it sounds. “What’s he waiting for?” she says. “Your period? We need to know. Like, yesterday.” 

“I have an idea,” Annabeth says, reaching out for Piper’s hand, so she’s forced to stop. The other girl’s mouth is set in a line and her gaze is unfocused, as if she can see every strategy and their possible outcome growing into a tangle at some point past Piper’s shoulder. “Cabin heads are unofficially supposed to be fifteen and older, but they can technically be thirteen at a minimum—well, or younger, if there’s only one camper, but that’s not the point. Your birthday is in a week. Challenge Drew for the position.”

“No way,” Piper says, jerking out of her friend’s hold. “She’s nineteen! That’s suicide—”

“It’s not,” Malcolm says, bouncing to his feet in his excitement over the formation of A Plan. “Drew’s always trusted in her Charmspeak so much she never bothered to really learn how to fight. And even with that, your Charmspeak scares her. Maybe she’ll be so embarrassed she’ll dorm.”

Piper blinks. “What did she do to you?” 

“Nothing,” he says, far too quickly to be telling the truth. “What do you say?”

“Fine,” she says. “But if I embarrass myself and lose, I fully blame the two of you.” 

Though Annabeth and Malcolm both insist nothing everything will be just fine, Piper catches Agi’s eye, and finds the other girl already looking at her like she’s planning her funeral. 

 

 

A week later, someone (Drew) leaves a happy birthday card on Piper’s bed. The drawing inside is of a dead owl. Obviously, this is not meant to represent a thwarting of evil witchcraft—it’s about her stupid crush on her best friend. 

Abruptly deciding that the plan to challenge her older sister is a great idea, Piper finishes dressing, grabs her dagger and the card, and heads down to the dining pavilion. Drew is there with Lacy, who keeps glancing around furtively, as if expecting disaster, and Silena and Luke, out from Queens with just the most gorgeous chocolate birthday cake. Her conviction wavers at the sight of them—will this stress Silena out too much? is it true stress is bad for babies?—before Drew notices her and fucking smiles. 

It’s not a nice smile. The sight of it sends a shudder through Lacy’s whole body. Silena and Luke whip around, both varying levels of surprised and confused. Ignoring all three of them, Piper marches right up to Drew and lays open the card in front of her. “Should’ve done your research, sis,” she says with a bright smile of her own. Drew’s drops fractionally. “Where I’m from, this is a threat.” Well, she thinks. Next time she gets the chance, she should probably check all the things owls mean. “So, I challenge you for the position of Head Counselor.”

By now, the rest of the dining commons have figured out something interesting is going on, so not a single person misses what she says. Drew’s mouth actually falls open in shock. Silena starts, “Piper, honey, maybe you should—”

“What the fuck, Drew?” says Luke, holding the card open in front of him, but at arm’s length like he thinks the drawing of the dead owl will bite, before Mr. D and Chiron descend, and the god plucks it out of his hand. 

“She’s overreacting,” Drew says, to everyone who isn’t Piper, though her main focus seems to be Luke. “It was a joke.”

“Yeah, a fucking tactless—”

Chiron cuts in, over the swearing, “You’ve only been here for a few months, Piper, and you’re still young. Is there another way to resolve this?”

Before she can answer, Mr. D snorts. “Drusilla here sent Penelope a death omen,” he says, passing the card to Chiron. “I suggest you accept the consequences, Drusilla. Do you accept the challenge or forfeit your rights as Head Counsellor?” 

Drew stares at Piper. Piper stares right back, unblinking. Finally, reluctantly, Drew says, “I forfeit,” and when Piper sits, stands and leaves without a word. 

“Good luck, Penelope,” Mr. D says, gliding away. Grim faced, Chiron just nods and follows. 

The moment they’re gone, Lacy runs around to Piper’s side of the table and squeezes her into a hug. “Happy birthday,” she practically squeaks, as Silena says, “You didn’t need to do that. It’s not like she knew what it meant.” 

“Your sister’s idea of a fun time is getting couples together and breaking them up,” Luke says dryly, as he tears the card in two. “Yeah, I’m going to say this was a threat.” To Piper, he adds, “She won’t forget this. Watch your back.”

 

 

Despite Luke’s warning, nothing happens, as Drew decides instead to be petty and move in with Ethan, who goes to one of the other CUNYs. Months pass in relative calm, where it’s just Piper and Lacy in the cabin, and the most exciting thing that happens is that Lacy starts making friends. Meanwhile, Piper continues to struggle in math, but helps Annabeth teach Agi and the di Angelos English for extra credit; every other week or so, she calls her dad from the one phone in the office to prove she’s still alive; Chiron makes arrangements for Piper to be accepted to a fake Problematic Rich Kids summer camp to explain why she isn’t coming home; and tragically, Annabeth still isn’t looking at her as anything more than a friend. 

The thing is, Piper never considered her sexuality until she came here. Until she came here, she’d never even looked at someone and liked them. And then she met Annabeth. 

She’s privately mopping about Annabeth and unrequited love on the day Drew returns for spring break. “Oh,” her sister says, as Piper freezes, and drips blue nail polish on her bedspread. “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Piper says, turning her attention back to her toes to hide her discomfort. “I mean, I do live here, you know.”

Drew’s bag lands on her bed with a thunk, announcing that she’ll be here for the week. “That’s a good colour for you,” she says. Piper jerks her head up in surprise. Annoyingly, she can’t read her sister’s expression at all. “What colour are you doing for your hands?”

“That,” Piper says, nodding to the pearly polish next to her. Even more annoyingly, she realises it’s only a few shades off from what Drew’s wearing. 

“Want help?”

“I—sure? Thanks.” Maybe this is an olive branch. Piper hopes it’s an olive branch. Even if she doesn’t want Drew back full time, it would be nice if they didn’t fight while she’s here. And also if it turns out she isn’t evil. 

Yeah, that’d just be grand. 

For now, she lets Drew do her manicure, which obviously looks much better than when Piper does it herself. Until Lacy wanted to do it as “sister bonding,” Piper was about as interested in her painting her nails as she was in makeup, but she’ll admit there’s something oddly calming about it. As she finishes the bottom coat, Drew says, “Have you finally acknowledged there are better people out there to like than Little Miss Perfect?”

“Don’t start.”

Drew rolls her eyes. “Look,” she says, “I admit I might’ve gone too hard at the end—”

“You think?”

“—but in my defence, I had no idea I’d be stepping on any cultural toes.” 

In absolutely no culture is receiving the picture of a dead bird a good thing, if Piper had to guess, but she holds that thought to herself. If this is a Mean Girl’s equivalent to an olive branch, then so be it. Piper can be the better person and accept it. 

But that doesn’t mean she needs to start confessing her love life woes. “Bygones are bygones,” she says. “How’s your semester?”

Thankfully, Drew lets her change the subject, and even offers some good future advice (namely: take French as an easy language elective), before they both hit their limits on playing nice. Piper thanks her and skedaddles, quick to find Annabeth with Clarisse at the practice ring. “Hey,” she says, jumping the low wall separating the grass from the sand to sit with the girls, who are taking a water break. “Where is everyone?”

“Michael had the audacity to say the worst of his siblings is better than mine at archery,” Clarisse says with a smirk. “Seems he forgot about Will. So mostly everyone’s out there waiting for it to start.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Hasn’t started yet,” Annabeth says. “Mal promised to get us when it is. And Agi’s giving Nico and Bianca swimming lessons. Can you believe two kids from Venice don’t know how to swim?”

Shrugging, Piper says, “The canals are basically straight up poison, I’ve heard. Dad filmed a scene there for that Bond movie he did, and his ‘cultural liaison’ told him swallowing canal water is like swallowing death.” 

“Gross,” Clarisse says, reaching for a sword, not her electrified spear. “Want a go, McLean?”

What that question really means is if Piper is ready to be swiftly and humiliatingly defeated, but she still nods. She feels jittery from playing nice with Drew, and needs to burn the energy, so she agrees. She runs back to the cabin quickly for Katoptris, where she finds Drew has left, before returning to the practice ring. As she reaches the others, she hears Clarisse say, “Bet you a drachma Beauty Queen won’t last five minutes.”

“A whole drachma?” Annabeth answers, so taken aback that Piper thinks her friend is about her defend her. Her soaring heart crashes and burns, though, when Annabeth adds, “That’s way too much. I bet you a dollar she’ll last longer.”

Well. Just for that, Piper better stay on her feet for exactly five minutes. Then neither of them can win. 

Unsurprisingly, this plan does not work. This is not, as expected, because Clarisse proves her obvious superiority, but because a minute in, Piper suddenly catches sight of an image in her blade. She fumbles and drops it; Clarisse takes the opportunity to kick her flat on her back. The pain is bad shock ricocheting through muscle and nerves, as all the air leaves her in a rush. “That’s a dollar you owe me, Chase,” Clarisse says, laughing, as Piper forces herself to breathe. Above her, the sky is the most insane blue she think she’s ever seen, unobscured by a single cloud, and the sun is a bright white disk she closes her eyes against. The second they’re shut, she sees the flicker of the image again: Agi lying on sand and leaves in the shadow of branches, her long hair spreading out around her, a pair of bright lavender and white shoes just in view. 

Piper opens her eyes and scrabbles for her knife, which lies half-hidden in the sand. For a moment, there’s nothing—did she imagine it?—before the image returns. Oh yeah, she thinks. Those are definitely Drew’s Sambas. 

“We have to go,” she says, stumbling to her feet. Her vision goes a little grey around the edges, then clears. Great. She must’ve hit her head. “Agi’s in the forest. She might already be hurt.”

“What’re you talking about?” Clarisse says, as Annabeth reaches for her knife and the water. “Wait, does that thing seriously show visions?”

“Apparently,” Piper says, scanning the image in the blade for anything to help her figure out where in the first her friend is. “Okay, I think she’s by that weirdly big holly tree with the knobs that look like a face. You know, near the creek.”

Without even considering the possibility of finding anyone to help, the three of them dart toward the forest. “Can you see anyone else?” Annabeth asks, as they pass out of the warm sunshine and into the eternal gloam of the woods. “Or who’s doing it?”

“Drew’s shoes,” Piper says, as she glances from the image to the forest floor and back up. “And there’s something else moving, like, I don’t know. Annabeth, want to check on the di Angelos?”

“What?” the other girls say at once, before Annabeth continues alone, “What the hell? Clarisse should go—”

“Hey, I’m—”

“Agi’s my friend too—”

“Annabeth.” Piper doesn’t stop walking, but she does look up at her friend, so of course, she stumbles over a root. It says a lot about the situation that Clarisse doesn’t laugh. “The movement—I’m pretty sure it’s a spider. A big one. I won’t pretend to know a lot about your mom’s drama with a certain someone, but—”

“A potentially summoned monster spider,” Clarisse finishes, “and you are a bad combination. She’s right, Chase. Go find Bianca and Nico.”

Annabeth looks between the two of them before nodding. “I’ll get Will too,” she says, and runs back the way they came. 

Without her, the forest feels darker and emptied and scarier, though Clarisse, let it be said, is good as far as allies go for forays in dark, empty, scary forests. She leads, as she can navigate this place much quicker than Piper can, as long as she has a destination in mind. They’re nearly there when a hand suddenly wraps around Piper’s mouth. 

Before she even knows what’s happening, there’s a second hand on her arm and she’s being dragged back, unable to scream, as Bryce just appears, emerging so effortlessly from the forest that Clarisse barely has time to parry the strike. 

Piper bites down on the hand. Hard. 

With a yelp Alabaster jerks away. “You bit me,” he says, so incredulous that he stops reaching for Katoptris at her waist. Bad luck for him; she unsheathes it and makes quick work of stabbing him in the leg.

In retaliation, he punches her in the eye. 

Instinctively, she screams, except—what? It’s soundless. Just an exhalation of breath, a sort of stuttered gasp. You stole my voice, she thinks, staring up at his face, at his blue eyes as pale as water. He has his sword out now, bearing down on her. One solid hit and there won’t be much left of her for Will to heal. 

She side-steps, avoiding the strike, then bolts. 

Could she defeat Alabaster in a fight? Gods no. He lasts approximately seven minutes on average against Luke, last she checked, but she still can’t make it past four. Clarisse will be fine against Bryce, and even Alabaster, if he decides to stop chasing Piper through the underbrush. But she doesn’t have time to try her luck in a fight with him when Agi might need help right now. 

“No sudden movements, love,” Drew’s saying, as Piper bursts through the strangler vines onto the narrow strip of muddy bank beside the creek. “We wouldn’t want you getting your—”

There’s a rush of movement in the leaves, something small and black jumps at Piper’s sudden movement, and a sharp pain bursts to life on leg.

Notes:

The next chapter will be the last one for this work, so if you're interested, follow the series.

Chapter 9: happy birthday!

Summary:

This chapter includes: serious conversations, Hera in a smart pants suit, word play, and a homecoming.

Notes:

Here we are, at the last chapter of book one! Thank you for holding on, and I hope you like where the story goes from here. If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the series so you know when the next one comes out!

At the same time Agi is murdering a scorpion and Piper’s dying in the muck, Luke and Silena are discovering that they’re not about to have a child. No. According to Artemis and Hera, they’re having two. Twins.

“I hope you’ve chosen sensible names,” Hera says crossly, looking from Silena to Luke. She’d tried to kick him out of the room, which is, apparently, the official birthing room for all new gods and children of two demigods, but between Dad, Artemis, and Aphrodite arguing that times have changed, he’s still here at Silena’s side. It’s all so unexpected, from the fact that this is happening a month earlier than the mortal doctor predicted to the location to seeing Hera in a pinstriped pant suit rather than her old-school solstice fancy wear. Silena squeezes his hand and breathes when Artemis tells her, not paying attention to the Queen of Olympus in the slightest, so Luke’s alone in dealing with the brunt of her raised brow and questioning “Well?”

All Luke wants is to pet Silena’s hair or something and tell her it’ll all be over soon, not have to come up with comprehensive answers for his grandmother. “Uh, I guess,” he says. “Xanthe for a girl, and Evander for a boy.”

Hera sniffs. “Honouring your father for the boy, I see,” she says, as if she thinks they should be honouring her instead. Right. They’re definitely not doing that.

Silena’s next contraction hits, so Artemis manhandles her to her feet to have her walk. Apparently, this is meant to help the pain, though Luke can tell from Silena’s face that it does not. Luke hovers, supporting her as they pace across the floor. It’s all mosaic, small chips of colourful, gleaming depicting some idyllic nature scene rather than anything symbolic about creation or whatever. All the columns look like trees. Is it meant to be calming? Probably. That would explain the pervasive smell of lavender anyway, except that lavender gives him a headache.

When Silena stumbles and swears in Vietnamese, it’s back to the bed/sofa birthing place for her. Luke’s just helping her down when there’s a sudden commotion from outside, where some aspect of their parents are waiting. 

As Hera and Artemis suddenly stiffen, Aphrodite’s voice suddenly carries in, shrill as a mortal. “I don’t care,” she’s saying. “I won’t be turning any child of mine in fucking foliage.”

Silena’s grip on Luke’s arm is sudden vice. “Luke,” she says, drawing his attention down at her. Her blue eyes are wide from terror. “You have to find out—”

She cuts herself off with a shout of pain. Artemis tells her to calm down. 

“I’ll be right back,” he says, not wanting to leave her but also needing to know what the snippets of conversation sneaking through the open doorways will mean: send Apollo and ignored warning signs and we’ll know soo. When Luke steps out, they all turn to him, as if shocked to see him. It’s not just Dad and Aphrodite anymore; Athena and Ariande are also there. Zeus too, just to get in the opposite end of the alphabet.

Even he stops arguing when Luke steps out, as if they’d all forgotten there’s no actual door to this room, or maybe why they’re there, until they see him. “What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at his dad, who’s by far the most reasonable god here, without bothering to waste time on showing Zeus his respect. “Who’s hurt?” 

“Piper,” Dad says, folding his arms, “and Nico and Bianca are in an enchanted sleep. Seems like—” 

“It’s good you’re here,” Athena cuts in, using that crisp tone Annabeth will when everyone stops listening to her in Capture the Flag. “We can start with you.”

“You’re not,” Dad starts, as Aphrodite snaps, “As I’ve told you for millennia, there’s no sensing Charmspeak after it’s worn off.” 

Ice trickles down Luke’s spine as Zeus says Dad, “The fact still remains that no one could have done it but one of your children.”

“Does it matter if they did?” Ariadne says. “Apollo questioned them. If their truth is that they weren’t responsible, then they were used, and therefore lack ill-intent. What matters is that one of those three summoned a pit scorpion into camp.”

“Three?” Luke repeats, expecting nothing, but to his surprise, he gets an answer. 

Evander Castellan is born while Luke’s just outside, forced to learn that the sister-in-law he doesn’t like almost murdered the sister-in-law he does, because she meant to murder to Agi after failing to turn her to fucking Kronos’ side. Xanthe Castellan is born when the rest comes out: that Alabaster, someone Luke considers a casual friend, knocked out the di Angelos and Agi with a sleeping curse, and that Bryce, the creepy new kid, managed to keep Clarisse busy long enough for the pit scorpion to strike. The gods can’t sense where they are, which is bad, obviously, because it means Kronos is a lot stronger already than they could have predicted. 

Still reeling from the onslaught of information, Luke returns to the room to find nymphs swaddling his children, and Silena sitting upright with a glass of what must be nectar in her hand. Hera and Artemis are gone, probably off to figure out the mess. The confused mix of emotions he feels is so extreme—relief that Silena and the babies are okay, equal parts trepidation and excitement because what the fuck, they’re parents, worry and fear over what happened at camp—that he has no idea what his face is doing, but she takes one look at him and says, “What’s wrong? Who’s hurt? Where’s Mom?”

It’s been literal years since she asked for her mother, but maybe having Hera attend a birth instead does that to a person. “She’s arguing with Granddad,” he says, perching on the edge of the seat next to Silena’s hip. “How’re you feeling? How’re—”

“Fine,” she says. “Why’re they arguing? Who—” She cuts herself off when the nymphs float over, practically cooing over how darling the children are, and shove a sleeping baby into their respective arms. Luke has Xanthe, which he really only knows because her name is embroidered in golden thread on the hem of the blanket. Minutes after being born, the babies are, of course, already the best babies to have ever existed, but they’re also identical in size and the degree of scrunch to their faces. “Oh gods,” Silena says, “we’re parents.”

He looks up at her, meeting her eye for the first time in ages, and suddenly, the fact that he definitely stole the lightning bolt and she definitely ordered him to do it then forget doesn’t matter in the slightest. “We’re parents,” he repeats. 

For a moment, they just stare at each other. He sort of wants to kiss her, but that would probably crush the children, so thinks better of it.

Then reality sets back in. She blinks. “Who’s hurt?” she asks again. 

“Piper,” he says. There’s no point in telling her they can talk about it later when that’ll only make her worry more. “Someone summoned a pit scorpion into camp. I think Lee’s dad is with her, so she’ll be fine.”

It’s telling that Silena doesn’t ask who did it or why, but he tries not to think about it. “A pit scorpion?” she says instead, voice wavering. “Like from—from down there? Can even a god heal that poison?”

“Yeah,” he says, though he has no idea. “But he’s about to get in trouble for going, or your mom for asking, I think, because I’m pretty sure You Know Who tried to tell her the sensible option was turning Piper into a plant to save her.”

Silena’s eyes narrow, but whatever retort she has is cut off when Dad just appears, in the way gods so often do, even if the door can’t be more than twenty feet away. “There’s no need to compare your grandfather to Voldemort,” he says as he crouches down beside them. “Look at these perfect babies! How are you feeling, Silena?” 

“Fine.” Her smile is tight. “Is my mom with Piper or is she in trouble?”

Dad grimaces. “It’s not as bad as it could be,” he says, which isn’t comforting, “but it’ll be a while before you or your siblings see her. But,” he adds quickly, before either she or Luke can do anything stupid, like insult Fates for their archaic non-interference laws, “we’ve had a talk. Do you want to stay in Flushing, or move to Manhattan?”

“What?” Luke says, glancing at Silena, before glancing back at Dad, who rises to his feet.

“Well, you need at least a two-bedroom,” he says, “and a place where the heating’s pipes aren’t exposed. These are mortal babies! Trust me, they’re delicate. And stupid. The second they start crawling, one of them will knock into those, and it’ll be all tears and hospital bills.”

He has a point, Luke realises. Somehow, in the months since they found out Silena was pregnant, they never discussed the issue of their apartment’s incredibly dangerous exposed pipes. “What do you think?” he asks, turning to Silena. It’s really her decision, since her dad is paying for their current place. He already doesn’t know Luke is there, or that they’re married, and possibly not even that she was pregnant. 

“Upper East Side,” she says immediately. “This might be years away, but the schools up there are actually good.” 

“Great!” Dad says. “We’ll arrange it. And I’ll update you when I know more about camp. Congrats—and good luck!”

Two days after all their suspicions were proven correct, Agi, Annabeth, Clarisse, and the di Angelos not-so-casually stalk Chiron and Mr. D to the medical tent, where they find that Piper’s finally awake. She tries to smile at the sight of them, but it’s weak. Though it’s not true, she somehow looks as if she hasn’t seen the sun in weeks. “Hey,” she says, gaze settling on Agi. “Glad you’re okay.”

Agi is, but Piper isn’t. And Agi’s never felt so guilty about anything in her whole life. 

“How do you feel?” she asks, as she and the others crowd around the cot. There’s only one chair, which Clarisse takes without checking if anyone else wants it. Will watches them warily, obviously ready to kick them out if Piper faints or something, but at least Chiron and Mr. D are gone. 

“Like someone froze my insides, then melted them,” Piper says. “Mr. D said that’s normal. Can you believe Drew used a scorpion? That’s just so gross.”

Clarisse snorts. “I can,” she says, folding her arms. “I mean, she forfeited the duel with you without bothering to try. If that was me and my siblings, the challenger wouldn’t even have finished issuing it before there were weapons drawn.” 

“Well, obviously that’s why your dad ‘adopted’ Pipes, not—”

“Annabeth!”

As Agi hadn’t been here when her friends relayed the tale of their of the quest, she assumed this little detail came out, but apparently not, because Clarisse splutters in indignation and disbelief over the news. Not Nico or Bianco, because they already knew from all the merciless teasing Agi and Annabeth did on the way back, which is probably why Bianca’s hiding her smile behind her hand. Nico isn’t even bothering to do that. 

Once Clarisse switches to all out denial, and Piper’s facing is worrying red, there’s a sudden glow, and sword and shield appear over her head the way a trident had appeared over Agi’s that day in the woods. Will, who’d been making his way over, freezes; the rest of them fall silent, even Nico and Bianca, who’ve never seen this before. 

Well, all except Piper, who calls out in aggravation, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” before breaking into a fit hacking coughs that sees the rest of them evicted from premises. 

“Chase, you’re with me,” Clarisse says the moment they’re outside in the sunshine. It’s so bright that it’s like Apollo’s trying to make up for the weeks of Zeus’ temper tantrum.

“What, why?” Annabeth says, taken aback. 

“Because you’re the only other one stupid enough to fight with a knife,” the other girl answers, “and McLean’s still a shit fighter. We need to figure out a practice regime for her to get her up to scratch so she won’t embarrass the family name.”

She unceremoniously drags Annabeth off before anyone can get in another word, leaving Agi to do the explaining, even though she hates being responsible for any sort of explaining. Obviously, it’s not her calling to ever become a teacher. 

The siblings turn to her. Maybe it’ll change once Nico’s older, but for now, they’re freakishly identical when they move in sync like that. “What was the thing?” Bianca asks in English, motioning above her head. They both try to speak in English as much as possible, but like Agi, they’re still nowhere close to fluent. 

“It’s called claiming,” she says carefully. “You didn’t need it to happen because the note I had for Chiron told who your mother is. I didn’t know a kid could be claimed two times.” 

With that look on his face like he almost remembers something, Nico switches to Venetian to say what Agi thinks means “a god wouldn’t do that without reason.” Maybe. 

Before she can ask for a translation, a shriek of alarm suddenly rips through the air. It’s Miranda’s. A shock of adrenaline floods Agi so quickly her head spins, so she finds her feet are already moving, even before all the other shouts and curses follow. Did Drew or Bryce or Alabaster come back? Is it another pit scorpion? A hellhound? Worse? 

In the space between the cabins, the Big House, and path to the dining pavilion, she runs into a semi-circle of other campers so thick neither she nor Nico can see what’s going on, though Bianca can get a view over Travis’ shoulders if she stands on her toes. “It’s a dead woman,” she says in a horrified whisper, lowering herself again, just as the Oracle begins to speak.

It’s a long prophecy, all in Ancient Greek, about death and the daughter of the sea and unravelled oaths, and a ridiculous amount of duality: of cardinal directions, gods, demigods, something about an oath. That’s not the worst of it. Apparently it’s already begun. 

At the end, she says, The Curse is lifted. Find me my new host, Heroes, if you Dare.

Travelling with not-even-week-old twins seems like a bad idea in any circumstance, not even accounting for the horror story that is the traffic out of Manhattan to Suffolk County, so Luke and Silena leave them with Katie and Lee, and drive out for a few hours. 

They’re caught in the usual dead-stop on the Cross Island when Silena suddenly says, “It’s complicated, you know, being my mother’s daughter.”

“What?” He takes his eyes off the road for just a second to look at her, staring out at the endless sea of cars as she is, before returning his focus to the traffic.

“We just feel so much at once,” she says, “all the time. It’s exhausting. And we can usually parse out what they are, not like poor Annabeth. You’d think that would help, but no.  It’s just so easy for positive to turn negative. Hate’s really another flavour of love, and anger’s just a type of passion, and pleasure, like beauty, is to each their own. And that’s not even getting into the tangle of normal emotions, or how empathy makes it worse.” She pauses, but before Luke can even think of how to respond, goes on, “I have no idea what Al’s issue with gods are, or where that Bryce kid even came from, but I know Drew’s always blamed Mom for not intervening when her dad was killed.”

The same summer of Luke and Silena’s failed quest, the one where they lost Breckendorf, Hedge practically dragged Drew into camp. Her dad had driven her, along with Hedge, after Medusa’s sisters attacked at recess. The crash they caused on the parkway killed Mr. Tanaka, but not Drew and Hedge.

This never became a camp cautionary tale. Too many kids had living parents they probably wouldn’t mind meeting a similar end for it to stick.

“Not that that doesn’t make sense,” Luke says, as he knows all about anger and grudges himself, “but there’s a big leap between ‘making snarky comments to your parent at dinner’ and ‘trying to murder a sixth grader in the woods to start a war.’” 

Silena shakes her head, a movement he catches out of the corner of his eye. They’re moving again, but in jerking stops and starts that require all his concentration. “I didn’t know she wanted to start a war,” she says, in just about a whisper. “Just cause a panic for a bit, something fixable, nothing with lasting consequences. I’m so sorry, Luke. I—”

“Don’t say it,” he cuts. She startles, looking at him in that brief second he takes to look at her. As he turns his focus back on the road, he reaches out and takes her hand. “I figured it out weeks ago. Just don’t—don’t do it again.” 

She squeezes his hand, then shifts to lace their fingers. After a long pause of nothing save a quiet sniffle, she says, as a complete non sequitur, “Our parents didn’t just offer us a new flat because we needed a nursery, you know.”  

“What? Then why?” Never for a second did Luke doubt that as a reason. It’s not that uncommon for gods to gift their demigod children flats or houses or something once they age out of camp, like some sort of reward for reaching adulthood. 

Another pause, shorter this time. “I told my dad,” she says. “You know, about the pregnancy and that we were getting married and everything—did it before the wedding. He was livid.” Her voice wavers. “Said if we went through with it, he’d pay for the apartment until the lease ran out, but after, we were on our own.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Sil, that’s—”

“It’s fine.” To his surprise, she actually laughs, though the sound is wet. “The warning sign should have been when he told me to have friends over and celebrate Christmas to appear normal, wasn’t it? Before I could even get a word in, he was asking if I was too far along to ‘fix my mistake,’ so I told him to go fuck himself, and thought it would just be us and Drew and Lee in that courthouse, but then Mom and your dad were, too. It meant a lot more to me than I expected to have someone other than a kid or a college student tell me we’d be good parents instead of saying we’re headed for disaster just because this wasn’t planned.” 

The traffic abruptly dissipates as quickly as it came, revealing a bad wreck on the opposite of the road that meant this was all just rubbernecking. As Luke switches to the middle lane and gains speed, he says, “I’m sorry your dad’s a dick.” He’s always thought this, of course, but there’s no reason to say it. “Look, whatever’s going on with Drew and, uh, everything else, we’ll figure it out.”

Distractedly, she nods. “I’m scared,” she says, which contradicts the gesture. “I fucked up, and now there’re the twins, and there’s—there’s you, and I love you so much—I know you don’t believe that, not always, but it’s true, and it’s not as if anyone associated with camp doesn’t know, and if—”

“We’ll figure it out,” he says again. “I can take care of myself, and if there’s any threat to the kids, literally no one will care if we bring them to camp. And I do know,” he adds. It’s mostly true. “I love you too.”

“I know,” she says, then breathes in deeply, exhales slowly, and continues, “Obviously we are bringing the twins to camp once they’re old enough, but at the point that they can start talking, Travis and Connor are not babysitting for them. I refuse to have their first words be swear words. In any language. But Chris is fine. He’s sweet.” 

“That’s fair,” Luke says, glad for the change in the subject. While he doubts any god is listening in on their conversation (they have better things to worry about), he doesn’t want to risk Silena directly stating that she used Charmspeak to get him to steal the Bolt. “Honestly, they shouldn’t be allowed to babysit anyway. I don’t trust either of them not to wander off. Will or Michael’d probably jump on the chance though.”

They debate the babysitting merits of their various cousins and siblings as they speed down 495 toward camp, so that for the moment, everything is normal. 

Agi is in Atlantis. 

“Mother and Father always share mortals,” Triton, her brother, says as they meander the Garden of Contemplation. He’s been tasked with showing her around. Sibling bonding, their parents called it, before heading for an adult chat. “Always have, though she likes to blame him solely for Theseus. It’s why there are no stories of her divine wrath.”

As Agi still doesn’t know how to process the sheer insanity of her parentage, she just says, “So Theseus really was as bad as all the myths say?”

“Oh, worse,” Triton says, scowling, as they enter a section of landscaped seagrass meadow. “Usually, it’s the reverse, but Thesus was just a prick. Jason was even worse than he was, but that’s on Hera. What do you think of Father’s palace?”

Personally, she thinks the sheer size of it is overwhelming, and she wishes they’d eased her into the tour with a brother she’d never met, but she’s not about to say that. “How’s it made out of coral?” she asks instead. “Coral’s alive, so.” She has no idea how to end the sentence, and decides to just let it sit instead. 

“It shaped itself in honour of our family’s rule on the day of Mother and Father’s wedding,” he says offhandedly, which is wild. Our family. That our seems important. Would he be this nice to her if she was only Babas’ daughter, the thing that makes sense? Palace guards have been bowing to her since she arrived. Somehow, she’s gone from the illegitimate stepdaughter of a money launderer to a legitimate princess of Atlantis. 

Gods. Talk about social climbing. 

There’s at least one other—Rhode, who Mom mentioned—but for the most part, gods and gods are assigned so many different parents in ancient texts that she can’t say who else there is. But at least Agi knows she’s the only mortal. Her parents confirmed that much. Given all the immortal family she suddenly has, she doesn’t know if she could take any more surprises, so she’s not complaining. 

“Can I ask a question?” she says, as she speeds up around a turn to keep in line with Triton. That he’s swimming with a tail gives him an unfair advantage. “It’s probably rude.” 

Though he doesn’t roll his eyes, she senses him doing it on the inside. “You’re mortal,” he says. “Inherently ignorant. You can be forgiven social missteps until you learn better.”

Which is, well, rude. 

But whatever. At least it means he won’t take that trident and stab her through the heart with its tines for uncouth behaviour. “Well, you’re a god,” she says. “You’re all gods, so you’re immortal. So why’re you an ‘heir?’ Why does there need to be an heir if you can’t die?”

To her complete shock, he isn’t offended. Even more shockingly, he doesn’t tell her she’s eleven, so they’ll discuss these terribly adult matters when she’s older. “There are worse things for Deathless Gods to endure than the Asphodel Fields,” he says, pausing a fork in the seagrass. “Our uncles are fools not to declare heirs themselves. Should Father be taken, Atlantis will not fall as long as I remain.”

“Then why don’t our uncles do that too?” she says, frowning. “That just seems like common sense.”

From behind her, it’s Babas who answers, “Because Zeus foolishly assumes he’s untouchable, and Hades seems to believe that dire necessity would be enough for Demeter to release Persephone from the vow to spend spring and summer aboveground. Perhaps they’ll all rethink that decision now that war’s on the horizon. How do you like the garden, little one?”

“It’s cool,” she says awkwardly, now facing him. This is true, but she has no idea how to talk to anyone in her family, especially when her brother’s next to her with a tail, and her father might have legs, but those khaki shorts and that Hawaiian shirt are a travesty. “I didn’t know seagrasses could grow this deep.”

There weren’t any meadows around Agistri, where even underwater, a person had to swim out far before they reached an area that wasn’t just slick rock, but she knows what they are. They hold 10% of the ocean’s carbon! Twice as much as a rainforest! She read about it in a book on sea sponge diving once in her school library back home, but she’s pretty sure they aren’t meant to be at the bottom of oceanic trenches. 

But Babas just waves his hand, as if dismissing the idea of the natural order. “Anything grows here,” he says, “as long as my gardeners will it. Have you shown your sister the fountain yet, Triton?”

“No, Father,” Triton says, with something like a smirk. “I thought you might appreciate telling the tale.” 

Agi assumes they mean the fountain that acted as the source for the saltwater spring in Athens, the one that lost out to Athena’s olive trees, as everyone in Attica knows that story, after all, but it’s definitely a new experience hearing Babas’ tell it (and Triton, who can’t help but chime in). Mom’s there when they reach it, seated on the rim and combing her long hair. Her hair, which is a match for Agi’s own.

Sighing, Mom says, “Oh, stop talking of the past. It’s too depressing, and I’ll be forced to say ‘I told you so’ all over again.” The comb disappears with a wave of her hand. “Triton helped your father contrive this inane idea,” she adds to Agi, still discussing the past. She pats the bit of stone rim beside her,, so automatically, Agi sits. “I told him a new type of horse would be better, but he said it wouldn’t have been special enough.”

“And I stand by that,” Babas says. This time, Triton does roll eyes. It’s so shameless she has to fight the urge to giggle. “The trees weren’t special, either—had anyone there travelled more than five miles from their home, they would have known they already grew further south.” 

Mom just hmms, not really listening, and conjures something out of thin air. Or water. “For you, little one,” she says, holding up a necklace with the three pearls Agi tried to return to her. They form a pendant at the end like three teardrops, long enough that they’ll disappear under her shirt even when she grows, attached to a cord of what looks like finely braided seagrass.

“Thanks,” she says, confused, “but I don’t need them anymore.”

“Don’t be silly,” Mom says, slipping it over her head. She taps the top of Agi’s nose, as if for good measure. “It’s always good to have a way out of danger. You are of the sea. You’ll always find your way back here.”

Yeah, she thinks, until I die.

So far, everyone’s avoided mentioning that, even though they all know she now knows the prophecy. The Oracle (ex-Oracle?) might not have said her name, but she’s the only mortal child of Poseidon alive right now, so it has to mean her. And that means she has a very set expiration date of sixteen-years-old. 

At least her uncle seems nice.

Her family sends her back in time for lunch, so she doesn’t stay long enough to alert any magical rule-enforcers of such flagrant rulebreaking (was all this secrecy an oath? is fixing things so the gods can hang out with their kids the oath that’ll be unmade?). The first people she sees are the di Angelos; Bianca jumps at her emerging from the water, but Nico beams. “Were you in Atlantis?” he asks, not bothering to say hello, nor with speaking English. “Does everyone have a tail?”

Bianca sighs. “Nico,” she says, also sticking to Ancient Greek for the first time in ages, “just because they all have tails in that game—”

“A lot do,” Agi says. She’s still not sure what Bianca’s problem is with Nico liking games. Kids in the school in Astoria played games like his at recess all the time. “And some had shells like crabs or turtles, and some just looked like us. Are you ever visiting your mom?”

“Yeah,” Bianca says, glancing around, before lowering her voice. “End of June, she said, because if she takes us back with her, no one will realise we were down there.”

“Oh,” Agi says. “Smart.” 

Nico, she notes, seems way more onboard with this than she is, even if they’re in the same situation. Maybe the two knew about all the weirdness in the forties, so remember without actually remembering? That seems sad. Just the thought of it is enough to make the healing wound of the grief she has for her mother ache. At least she can grieve. She’d rather hurt than know there was something missing, but not what. 

There’s an awkward pause, like maybe they know what she’s thinking. Then he says, “Luke and Silena are here.”

“They didn’t bring the babies,” Bianca adds crossly, like they failed in their duty. 

“That’s mean of them,” Agi agrees. “Why’re you out here?”

“Will won’t let anyone else in the medical tent but them and Annabeth,” Nico says, “so we thought we’d wait for you. All we’re doing is missing Arts and Crafts.”

Neither of the di Angelo siblings likes Arts and Crafts. Neither does Agi.

The gong sounds, signalling mealtime. “Come on,” she says, turning toward the pavilion. “I want to see something on my plate that isn’t kelp.” 

That she doesn’t want to eat seaweed all the time is apparently astounding news; she spends the rest of the walk defending her choice of a varied diet, which yes, admittedly includes a lot of seafood. “It’s not like you two only eat pomegranates,” she says, by way of a final argument, as they take their seats at cabin three’s table.

“But we could eat it every day,” Bianca says, answering for both of them, and just to prove it, they order pomegranate juice. 

Agi does not order kelp. 

Three thousand miles away, Jason Grace and his friend Dakota are on sentry duty when Bryce fucking Lawrence appears at the mouth of a tunnel, bleeding profusely from his head and arm. Naturally, the first thing Jason does is shove the point of his javelin against the boy’s neck. 

“We thought you were dead,” he says, before Bryce can even open his mouth. “Where the hell have you been? Where’s John?” John Ross was Bryce’s centurion, one in line to take over as praetor once he finished his degree. When Larry, the third member of the questing party, stumbled back alone months ago, raving about monsters kidnapping Bryce and eating John alive, everyone else seemed to buy it, but not Jason. Reyna hadn’t either. 

John was a good one, but Larry is a rat. Bryce, Jason always thought, deserves his own warning label. 

Now, Bryce’s bottom lip quivers like he might cry, when he probably never shed a genuine tear once in his life. He keeps his right eye shut to avoid getting blood in it, and holds up his arm so the gash is above his heart. He’s covered in dirt. “What’re you doing, Grace?” he says, panic fraying his voice. “They’re after me. You’ve got to let me in.”

“Bullshit,” Jason says, looking from one injury to the other. Bryce could have inflicted both himself. He’s the sort who would probably think that’s a brilliant idea. “I—”

Dakota suddenly grabs Jason’s arm, yanking him away. “He’s not kidding,” he says, pointing skyway, where two gorgons have just taken to the air across the highway. “What the—Lawrence, in, in!”

Though Jason’s every instinct is still shouting at him to keep Bryce Lawrence out of his home, he shoves him into the tunnel and falls into defensive position. This would be a great moment for an archer, but the legion’s short on those, so they’re at an automatic disadvantage when it comes to battling flying opponents. Gods, Jason’s never even done it before. Should he throw his javelin? No, no point when there’s two of them. It’s not like the coin will come back to his pocket, so he shouldn’t literally toss his one weapon away until he knows there won’t be a second attack. 

They descend fast. Jason, with his longer reach, stabs upward and catches one of the sisters in the stomach with the tip, then rips sideways. Even if he hadn’t electrocuted the gold at the same time, that normally would have been enough to finish a monster, but gorgons are so old they predate even the Empire. They’re powerful, more than a match for a little electricity. Still, it’s enough to ground her. He tries to ignore what’s going on next to him, which is a lot of Dakota slashing upward just to keep the other sister away from Jason, but not actually managing to hit her, as he charges his weapon again and stabs his own opponent in the chest. 

She dies like that, but not before raking her clawed foot down his leg in a kick an ostrich would envy first. 

Gritting his teeth, he turns back to Dakota’s fight. His friend’s bleeding from the arm in almost the exact same place as Bryce, and doesn’t seem to have gotten a single hit in on the gorgon. Jason rips the javelin out the grass, readies himself for the throw, and the moment before she turns around and sees him, puts as much force behind the toss as he can. 

Which was too much force, apparently, because she might disappear into gold dust, but his weapon embeds itself in the stone wall above the tunnel. 

He groans. Dakota sighs and pats his shoulder. “We’ll pay a faun to get it for you,” he says. “Come on, lean on me. You’re not making it back to the city on that leg.” 

Unfortunately, he’s right. Jason wraps his arm around his friend’s shoulder, leaning into his uninjured side, and together, they make their slow, painful way back to camp. Now that the fight’s done, the cuts on Jason’s leg are throbbing. Each step weeps more blood onto the dirt floor of the tunnel, then the grass of the sunlit meadow, then the bridge that always appears over the Little Tiber when legionnaires and citizens reach its bank. Though there’s no one here, he can hear excited chatter rising from not far away, probably the first courtyard past the bathhouse at the edge of New Rome. 

And so he’s right; by the time they finally make it there, it seems like the whole legion’s crowded into the small space, all talking excitedly as the camp’s head medic patches up Bryce’s head right there in the square. Octavian is on his right, hand on his shoulder, and Larry on his left, wiping his eyes over the fact that at least Bryce came home. 

It’s all so touching Jason sort of wants to throw up. Or maybe that’s the pain. 

Whatever the reason, he takes in the scene around him, and feels the spark of an incoming storm as clearly as he does when there’s one brewing over San Francisco. Something is coming, he thinks as he searches out Reyna in the crowd. They make eye contact; she sets her mouth to a line and nods, the movement barely perceptible, and he amends the thought: Something is already here. 

Notes:

Ship-wise, Annabeth/Piper and Luke/Silena were almost (not quite, but nearly) unanimous. I think platonic!Nicercy and Agi/Apollo pretty much tied (these obviously don't contract each other), but nothing is happening with Agi and a god until she’s at least seventeen (age of consent in New York). Romance will always be a side plot, but it's a fun one.

Notes:

Vote on ships! I plan to write at least the first five books, if not also the next five.

But yeah, my general question: what if instead of the Aphrodite cabin getting dismissed, her kids were the ones that scared all the others?

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of finders of lost things