Chapter 1: Reverent ✦ Aesthetics
Chapter Text
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Jason 'Jace' Matthias Grace
Oh, gosh darn!
Son of Jupiter, Member of the Fifth Cohort, Saviour of Rome, Saviour of Olympus, Vanquisher of Krios, Hera's Champion, Former Praetor of Rome.
Appearance: As described.
Age: 18
Weapon of Choice: Ivlivs (Golden coin, turns into a javelin & sword) & Gladius (Gift from Hera)
Jupiter: The God of Sky, God of Lightning, God of Thunder, God of Weather, God of Fate, God of Justice, God of Kingship, God of Law, God of Order, Son of Saturn, Son of Ops, Brother of Neptune, Pluto, Juno, Vesta & Ceres, Olympian, Big Three, King of The Gods, King of Olympus, Father of Gods. Lawful-Evil.
Greek equivalent is Zeus.
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Piper 'Pipes' Mclean
Well, this was unexpected
Daughter of Aphrodite, Head Counsellor of Cabin 10, Saviour of Olympus.
Appearance: As described.
Age: 18
Weapon of Choice: Katoptris (Looking Glass; Formerly belonged to Helen of Troy).
Aphrodite: The Goddess Of Love, Goddess of Beauty, Goddess of Lust, Goddess of Fertility, Goddess of Pleasure, Goddess of Procreation, Goddess of War, Born of Sea Foam, Olympian. Neutral-Evil.
Roman equivalent is Venus.
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Ethan 'Eddie' Nakamura
You dramatic bitch
Son of Nemesis, Protector of Olympus, Saviour of Olympus, Head Counsellor for Cabin 16, Cabin 5's adopted child, The pirate, Nico's big brother, Helena's brother.
Appearance: As described.
Age: 17
Weapon of Choice: Ruby (Gifted to him by Helena Colette [gifted to her by her father, Ares])
Nemesis: The Goddess of Retribution, Goddess of Vengeance, Goddess of Revenge, Goddess of Balance, Goddess of Misfortune, Goddess of Indignation, Personification of Resentment, Personification of Hubris, Embodiment of Jealousy, Envy, and Anger, The Dispenser of Dues. True-Neutral.
Roman equivalent is Invidia/Rivalitis or Nemesis .
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Leonidas 'Leo' Valdez
So is having one eye supposed to be a fashion statement or what?
Son of Hephaestus, Head Counsellor of Cabin 9, Fire Twin, Saviour of Olympus.
Appearance: As described.
Age: 18
Weapon of Choice: Magical Tool Belt & A Hammer.
Hephaestus: The God of Fire, God of Smiths, God of Forges, God of Metalworking, God of Stonemasonry, Son of Zeus, Son of Hera, Olympian. True-Neutral.
Roman equivalent is Vulcan.
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Niccolò 'Nico' Di Angelo
Dude, you're half blind. Shut up!
Son of Hades, Protector of Olympus, Saviour of Olympus, Head Counsellor for Cabin 13, Cabin 5's adopted child , Evil Spawn, Ethan's brother, Helena's youngest brother.
Appearance: As described
Age: 16
Weapon of Choice: Stygian sword
Hades: The God of the Underworld, God of the Dead, God of Riches, God of Wealth, God of Agriculture, Son of Saturn, Son of Ops, Brother of Neptune, Pluto, Juno, Vesta & Ceres, Olympian, Big Three, Ruler of the Underworld. Lawful-Neutral.
Roman equivalent is Pluto.
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Reverent
(a.) Expressing or characterised by reverence: worshipful; feeling or showing deep and solemn respect.
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Through the light of perseverance, she is reborn.
ᴏʀ ɪɴ ᴡʜɪᴄʜ
Ethan Nakamura goes on a quest to save his sister's boyfriend, but that's not all he saves.
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Chapter 2: 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝓈𝓉 𝐻𝑒𝓇𝑜
Notes:
It's FINALLY HERE!!!!1
We all cheered! I mean I cheered idk about yall lmao
I put of editing Cathrtic for so long it feels insane that i can FINALLY allow myself to start writing this!
Anyways! Expect an update soon!
Yor <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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Child of lightning, beware the earth.
The giants' revenge, the nine shall birth.
Balance yearns for fire,
Heavenly light leads to the rebirth of ire.
The forge and dove shall break the cage.
And death unleashed through Hera's rage.
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MEET THE GANG !
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Ethan 'Eddie' Nakamura
I succumbed to peer pressure... I can feel my sister's disappointment all the way from the underworld
18. Son of Nemesis. Greek.
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Jason 'Jace' Matthias Grace
No, I don't remember; that's kind of what amnesia is
18. Son of Jupiter. Roman.
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Piper 'Pipes' Mclean
He's kinda cute...Ew, I immediately regret saying that; I take it back
18. Daughter of Aphrodite. Greek.
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Leonidas 'Leo' Valdez
Siri play fireball by Pitbull
18. Son of Hephaestus. Greek.
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Notes:
✦ Whose ready????
I can't see any of you or read your thoughts but if anyone's first thought wasn't 'me!' I'll cry :((
Anyway! How do you guys think this will play out???
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 3: 𝒾. Where's your other eye? Where's his other shoe?
Notes:
CHAP 1 IS FINALLY HEREEEEEE!!!
AH!!!!!
I hope you guys enjoy <3
Yor <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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Stop looking at me
With those eyes
Like I could disappear
And you wouldn't care why
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✦ Ethan was going to scream.
He won't, though. His sister would come back from the underworld just to smack him for yelling at a woman, so instead, he takes a deep breath.
"I already said I have no idea where the idiot is. Go ask Ms Jackson— Blofis. Whatever her last name is now."
Annabeth glares at him. "Are you hiding him in there? Percy!"
She tries to push open the door, but tenses when she feels something sharp touch her throat.
"Take one step into this apartment," Ethan said, voice dropping several octaves. "And I'll gut you. He isn't here. Fuck off."
Annabeth takes a step back. "Fine. Call me if—"
Ethan slams the door on her face. "Stupid fucking owl."
"Was the dagger really necessary?"
Ethan glares at Percy. "You got a problem with it, Jackson?"
"Nope," Percy said as he kicked his feet up on the table, his eyes still locked onto the movie they had chosen to watch for the night. "No problems here. Also, it's Jackson-Blofis."
"Whatever," Ethan grumbles. "Get your feet off my table."
"I'm going to ignore that because I know for a fact that you put your feet up on this table all the time."
"I'll tell Helena."
Percy takes his feet off the table. "That's a low-blow, kid."
"I'm literally only a year younger than you."
"Still a kid."
"Just say you're old and shut up."
"I'm not old!"
"That's what old people say."
"I'll stop driving you to class."
"You're younger than I could ever hope to be," Ethan said. "You're so cool. When I grow up, I want to be just like you. You're my role model. When Nico grows up, I want him to be just like-"
"Okay," Percy laughs. "Stop. If Nico ever acts like me, then please know that's an impostor."
"I'm not stupid, Jackson."
Percy snorts. "Trust me, I know. Dude, what are you even studying?"
"That's for me to know," Ethan said, plopping down onto the opposite side of the couch. "And for you to find out."
"What am I supposed to become, a detective or something?"
"Exactly."
Percy huffs out a laugh. The boys watch the movie Ethan
"Why didn't you want to see Chase?" Ethan asks.
"Do I have to be with her all the time?"
"No," Ethan frowns lightly. "But... It's odd."
Percy hums, his eyes flicker to the closed bedroom door at the end of the hallway.
"I just... didn't feel like pretending today."
Ethan blinks.
"I'm tired of always pretending I'm okay," Percy sighs. "I'm tired of pretending that I'm getting better. I'm just...so tired."
Ethan's gaze fell onto the ring on his finger. Ever since Helena had gifted him Ruby, it had taken the shape of a silver ring, and it seemed he had picked up his sister's habit of twisting them.
"I understand."
"I know you do," Percy smiles softly at him. He lets out a deep breath and stands. "Well, the movie's finished. I'm off to bed. Wake me if you need anything."
"I won't need to," Ethan said. "In fact, you can just go home."
"To a screaming baby and her stressed parents? I don't think so."
"Estelle doesn't scream."
"That's because she likes you, for some reason."
"I'm a likeable person, Jackson. What can I say?"
"Goodnight, Ethan."
Ethan watches him hesitate in front of the bedroom door before he finally opens it and closes it behind him.
"Night," Etham mumbles.
Little did Ethan know he wouldn't see Percy for months afterwards.
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Ethan rolled his eyes as he watched Annabeth Chase jump off the chariot before it landed.
He was not carrying her if she injured herself.
He eyed the canyon beside them. Maybe he could throw her off? It’s not like anyone would know…
“You getting off, Ethan?” Butch asked.
Butch would know. Ethan sighs.
The owl gets to live another day.
Ethan groans, watching her interrogate the most confused group of demigods he had ever seen. Seriously, what was up with them?
"Where is he?" Annabeth demanded.
“Where’s who?” The blond guy, Jason, asked.
Point proven.
She frowned like his answer was unacceptable. Then she turned to the two others. “What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?”
Ethan looks up, his eye narrowing on the suspiciously clear sky.
The scrawny-looking boy cleared his throat. “He got taken by some… tornado things."
“Venti,” Jason said. “Storm spirits.”
"Venti?" Ethan repeats. "Interesting."
Annabeth looks at him weirdly. "You mean anemoi thuellai? That’s the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?”
"I prefer Venti," Ethan said.
The blond guy, Jason, did his best to explain, and Ethan noticed him constantly breaking eye contact with Annabeth. He raises an eyebrow, yet another person who found those grey eyes unnerving.
About halfway through the story, Butch came over. He stood there glaring at the trio, his arms crossed. Ethan snorted as Jason's confused eyes locked onto the tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps.
Out of everything that happened, Jason was looking at the rainbow tattoo like it was the weirdest part of his day.
"Interesting," Ethan nodded as Jason finished his recap.
“No, no, no!" Annabeth said, tugging on her roots. "She told me he would be here. She told me, If I came here, I’d find the answer.”
“Annabeth,” Butch grunted. “Check it out.”
He pointed at Jason’s feet.
Jason hadn’t thought much about it, but he was still missing his left shoe, which had been blown off by the lightning. His bare foot felt okay, but it looked like a lump of charcoal.
“The guy with one shoe,” Butch continues. “He’s the answer, right? Ethan, what do you think?”
Ethan opens his mouth to answer, but Annabeth cuts him off.
“No, Butch,” the girl insisted. “He can’t be. I was tricked."
"Or maybe," Ethan said. "You're just stupid."
"All you have said was interesting, and now you decide to use more words?" She glared at him. Ethan shrugs. Annabeth glares at the sky as though it had done something wrong. “What do you want from me? What have you done with him?”
"Sure, scream at the queens of the gods," Ethan huffs. "'Cause that's wise."
The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.
"Right," Ethan clicks his tongue, turning to Jason, Leo, and Piper. "I think now would be an amazing time to leave. Butch, can you get the owl?"
Annabeth was still screaming at the sky.
“Annabeth,” Butch calls. “we gotta leave. Let’s get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back.”
She fumed for a moment. “Fine.”
She fixed Jason with a resentful look. “We’ll settle this later.” She turned on her heel and marched towards the chariot.
Piper shook her head. “What’s her problem? What’s going on?”
“Seriously,” Leo agreed.
"What isn't her problem?" Ethan snorts. "Everybody on the chariot. Let's go."
“We have to get you out of here,” Butch said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“I’m not going anywhere with her.” Jason gestured towards the blonde. “She looks like she wants to kill me.”
"Don't worry, blondie," Ethan pats his shoulder. "I'll probably kill her first."
Butch hesitated.
“Annabeth’s okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem.”
“What problem?” Piper asked.
“She’s been looking for one of our campers, who’s been missing,” Butch said. “She’s going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he’d be here.”
“Who?” Jason asked.
“My sister's boyfriend," Ethan answered. “An idiot named Percy Jackson."
"Where's your other eye?" Leo asks.
"I don't know," Ethan looks him up and down. "Where's your friend's other shoe?"
Touche, Pirate man, Leo thought. Touche.
"I'm not a pirate."
Shit, can he read minds?
"Yes."
"Wait," Leo said. "Can you actually read minds?"
"I don't know? Can I?"
Leo stares at him skeptically.
This Ethan guy might be weirder than he was.
Ethan grins as he watches the trio get onto the chariot. Leo kept shooting him looks as if checking to see if he could actually read his thoughts.
He couldn't actually read minds, but how would they know?
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Notes:
✦ Chapter ONE!!!!!!!!
AHHHHHHH! It's a short chapter, but what do we think?
Lowkey had no idea how to start this, so im sorry if it's... odd. lmao
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 4: 𝒾𝒾. Master Jedi Nakamura and his young padawan
Notes:
I totally updated this fic days ago on wp and forgot to update on here too lmaoooo
Anyways enjoy <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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Easy come, easy go
You just want whatever you like
Playing hot, playing cold, baby, you gon' have to decide
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✦ Ethan watched Piper and Leo in thinly veiled amusement.
Piper was standing with an iron grip on the chariot while Leo was half-dangling off the edge, talking about the possible schematics of the chariot.
A son of Hepesteus, Ethan thought. He had to be. As for Piper and Jason…
Piper had to be a daughter of a female goddess, not Athena, no, that didn’t fit quite right, Tyche perhaps? Aphrodite? The most likely candidate.
Ethan’s eye narrowed as he looked at Jason. Something about him was off. He did not belong with their little group.
The scales were tipping, and the son of Nemesis wasn’t about to disregard the tugging in his chest. His mind wandered to the prophecy Rachel foretold after the defeat of Kronos last year.
“Interesting,” Ethan muttered while leaning against the edge of the chariot.
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The chariot rose over the Grand Canyon and headed east, icy wind ripping straight through their jacket. Behind them, more storm clouds were gathering.
The chariot lurched and bumped.
It had no seat belts and the back was wide open, so Piper wondered if Jason would catch her again if she fell. The one-eyed guy, Ethan, was leaning against the edge of the opening of the chariot without a care in the world, and briefly Piper wondered if he could fly the way Jason did.
She glances at him.
All semester, she’d worked on a relationship, trying to get Jason to notice her as more than a friend. Finally, she’d gotten the big dope to kiss her.
The last few weeks had been the best of her life. And then, three nights ago, the dream had ruined everything—that horrible voice, giving her horrible news. She hadn't told anyone about it, not even Jason.
Now she didn’t even have him. It was like someone had wiped his memory, and she was stuck in the worst “do over” of all time. She wanted to scream.
Jason stood right next to her: those sky blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair, that cute little scar on his upper lip. His face was kind and gentle, but always a little sad. And he just stared at the horizon, not even noticing her.
Meanwhile, Leo was being annoying, as usual.
“This is so cool!” He spat a pegasus feather out of his mouth. “Where are we going?”
“A safe place,” Annabeth said. “The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood.”
“Half-Blood?” Piper was immediately on guard. She hated that word. She’d been called a half-blood too many times—half Cherokee, half white—and it was never a compliment. “Is that some kind of bad joke?”
“She means we’re demigods,” Jason explained. “Half god, half mortal.”
Annabeth looked back. “You seem to know a lot, Jason. But, yes, demigods. My mum is Athena, goddess of wisdom. Butch here is the son of Iris, the rainbow goddess. Ethan-”
“Son of Nemesis,” Ethan cuts her off. “Goddess of Retribution, Balance and Revenge. I can speak for myself. You can go back to navigating like the good little owl you claim to be.”
Annabeth’s jaw clenched as she glared at Ethan, but he didn’t seem to care; in fact, he seemed amused.
Leo choked, looking at Butch. “Your mum is a rainbow goddess?”
“Got a problem with that?” Butch said.
“No, no,” Leo said. “Rainbows. Very macho. So... like Ethan, my bro… ever got revenge against someone?”
Ethan raises a brow, the corner of his lip ticking up. “Yes.”
“Are you going to elaborate?”
“No.”
“Right, good talk. We are good, right?”
Ethan sniffs and looks away.
“Butch is our best equestrian,” Annabeth chimes. “He gets along great with the pegasi.”
“Rainbows, ponies,” Leo muttered, discreetly inching away from Ethan.
“I'm gonna toss you off this chariot,” Butch warned.
“Demigods,” Piper said. “You mean you think you're ... you think we’re—”
“Incoming,” Ethan sniffs. “You might want to tighten up your grip on the chariot.”
“What-” Piper asks, but is cut off as lightning flashes.
The chariot shuddered, and Jason yelled, “Left wheel’s on fire!”
“Finally,” Ethan groans. “Some excitement.”
Piper stepped back. Sure enough, the wheel was burning, white flames lapping up the side of the chariot.
The wind roared.
Piper glanced behind them and saw dark shapes forming in the clouds, more storm spirits spiralling toward the chariot—except these looked more like horses than angels.
She started to say, “Why are they—”
“Anemoi come in different shapes,” Annabeth yells above the wind. “Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending on how chaotic they are. Hold on. This is going to get rough.”
Butch flicked the reins.
The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Piper's stomach crawled into her throat. Her vision went black, and when it came back to normal, they were in a totally different place.
A cold, grey ocean stretched out to the left. Snow-covered fields, roads, and forests spread to the right. Directly below them was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on three sides and water to the north.
Piper saw a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake, and a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire. But before she could really process all she was seeing, their wheels came off and the chariot dropped out of the sky.
Annabeth and Butch tried to maintain control.
The pegasi laboured to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of five people was just too much.
“And that’s my cue,” Ethan sighs. He looks over at Piper and offers the crook of his arm to her. “Shall we go?”
“What?” Piper said. “Where?”
“The lake!” Annabeth yelled. “Aim for the lake!”
Piper remembered something her dad had once told her, about hitting water from up high being as bad as hitting cement. She grabs Ethan’s arm.
“You should close your eyes. I heard it helps.”
The moment Piper closes her eyes, she feels a tug and then, nothing. Her vision blacks out, and the floor disappears from under her.
“Well,” Ethan said. “That was fun. You can open your eyes by the way.”
Piper listens, slowly opening her eyes, to find herself on the ground. She looks up when she hears screaming and sees the chariot they were just in plummeting towards the water.
A heartbeat-two and then—BOOM.
She watched as the chariot made contact with the lake. She looks back at Ethan, who was watching everything unfold with indifference.
“You can let go of my arm, you know,” Ethan said, not taking his eyes off the scene in front of him.
Piper was quick to let go, gazing back at the lake as girls with long black hair and glowing yellow eyes tossed Jason, Leo and Annabeth, gasping and shivering, onto the shore. Nearby, Butch stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off the pegasi.
Fortunately, the horses looked okay, but they were flapping their wings and splashing water everywhere. Once Jason, Leo, and Annabeth were on shore, they were surrounded by kids giving them blankets and asking questions.
Apparently, kids fell into the lake a lot, because a group of campers ran up with big bronze leaf blowers—looking things and blasted the trio with hot air, and in about two seconds their clothes were dry.
“Aw,” Ethan pouts. “They should have let the owl stay like that. Maybe she would get sick and not leave her cabin for days. Ugh, bliss.”
Piper gave him an odd look. “What do you have against her?
“What don’t I have against her?” Ethan grumbles. “Let’s go join your clueless friends. Actually, let’s stand here for like two more minutes.”
“Why?”
“Do you want to get scolded by a child? If so, then please, be my guest.”
At least twenty campers were milling around—the youngest maybe nine, the oldest college age, eighteen or nineteen—and all of them had orange T-shirts like Annabeth’s.
Piper looked back at the water and saw those strange girls just below the surface, their hair floating in the current. They waved like, toodle-oo, and disappeared into the depths.
A second later, the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.
“Annabeth!” A guy with a bow and quiver on his back pushed through the crowd. “I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!”
“Will, I'm sorry,” Annabeth sighed. “I'll get it fixed, | promise.”
Will scowled at his broken chariot. Ethan and Piper rejoined the group.
“You couldn't have gotten all of us out of there?” Annabeth hissed.
“Who? Me?” Ethan frowns. “I was just so tired, you see. Could barely get myself out of there.”
“But you got her out?”
Ethan shrugs. “She was right there, and I was raised a gentleman, what can I say?”
Will rolled his eyes. “Okay, break it up.”
Then he sized up Piper, Leo, and Jason. “These are the ones? Way older than thirteen. Why haven’t they been claimed already?”
“Claimed?” Leo asked.
Before Annabeth could explain, Will said, “Any sign of Percy?”
“No,” Annabeth admitted.
The campers muttered. Piper had no idea who this guy Percy was, but his disappearance seemed to be a big deal.
Another girl stepped forward—tall, Asian, dark hair in ringlets, plenty of jewellery, and perfect makeup. Somehow, she managed to make jeans and an orange T-shirt look glamorous.
She glanced at Leo, fixed her eyes on Jason like he might be worthy of her attention, then curled her lip at Piper as if she were a week-old burrito that had just been pulled out of a Dumpster.
Piper knew this girl’s type. She’d dealt with a lot of girls like this at Wilderness School and every other stupid school her father had sent her to. Piper knew instantly they were going to be enemies.
“Well,” the girl said, “I hope they’re worth the trouble.”
“They weren’t,” Ethan sighed. “I’m going to bed. Wake me up, hmm, never.”
Leo snorted. “Gee, thanks. What are we, your new pets?”
“No kidding,” Jason said. “How about some answers before you start judging us—like, what is this place, why are we here, how long do we have to stay?”
Piper had the same questions, but a wave of anxiety washed over her. Worth the trouble. If only they knew about her dream. They had no idea...
“Jason,” Annabeth said, “I promise we'll answer your questions. And Drew,”—she frowned at the glamour girl—“all demigods are worth saving. But I'll admit, the trip didn’t accomplish what I hoped.”
“Hey,” Piper said, “we didn’t ask to be brought here.”
Drew sniffed. “And nobody wants you, hon. Does your hair always look like a dead badger?”
Ethan snorts and then coughs. “Sorry. Animal comparisons always get me.”
Piper stepped forward, ready to smack her, but Annabeth sighed, “Piper, stop.”
She did. She wasn’t a bit scared of Drew, but Annabeth didn’t seem like somebody she wanted for an enemy.
“We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome,” Annabeth said, with another pointed look at Drew. “We'll assign them each a guide and give them a tour of camp. Hopefully by the campfire tonight, they'll be claimed.”
“Would somebody tell me what claimed means?” Piper asked.
Suddenly, there was a collective gasp.
The campers backed away. At first, Piper thought she’d done something wrong. Then she realised their faces were bathed in a strange red light, as if someone had lit a torch behind her. She turned and almost forgot how to breathe.
Floating over Leo’s head was a blazing holographic image—a fiery hammer.
“That,” Annabeth said, “is claiming.”
“Called it,” Ethan smirked. “Damn, I’m good.”
“What'd I do?” Leo backed toward the lake. Then he glanced up and yelped. “Is my hair on fire?”
He ducked, but the symbol followed him, bobbing and weaving so it looked like he was trying to write something in flames with his head.
“This can’t be good,” Butch muttered. “The curse—”
“Butch, maybe now isn’t the best time,” Ethan deadpanned. “Maybe after dinner, though? Hey, elfie, you just got claimed.”
“By a god,” Jason interrupted. “That’s the symbol of Vulcan, isn’t it?”
All eyes turned to him.
“Interesting,” Ethan mutters, clocking his head at Jason. “Very interesting.”
“Jason,” Annabeth said carefully, “how did you know that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Vulcan?” Leo demanded. “I don’t even LIKE Star Trek. What are you talking about?”
“You don’t like Star Trek,” Ethan frowns.
“What about Star Wars?”
Leo bows. “Padawan Valdez at your service.”
Ethan snorts. “Welcome to camp, young padawan, Master Jedi Nakamura at your service. Something tells me you and I are going to be good friends.”
“Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus,” Annabeth said, cutting off their conversation. “The god of blacksmiths and fire.”
The fiery hammer faded, but Leo kept swatting the air like he was afraid it was following him. “The god of what? Who?”
Annabeth turned to the guy with the bow. “Will, would you take Leo, give him a tour? Introduce him to his bunk-mates in Cabin Nine.”
“Nuh uh,” Ethan said. “I’ll show him around. Come, young padawan.”
“What's Cabin Nine?” Leo asked as Ethan steered him towards the cabins. “Master, teach me all you know!”
“Of course, my willing disciple.”
Annabeth rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Jason. Usually, Piper didn’t like it when other girls checked out her boyfriend, but Annabeth didn’t seem to care that he was a good-looking guy. She studied him more like he was a complicated blueprint.
Finally, she said, “Hold out your arm.”
Piper saw what she was looking at, and her eyes widened.
Jason had taken off his windbreaker after his dip in the lake, leaving his arms bare, and on the inside of his right forearm was a tattoo.
How had Piper never noticed it before? She’d looked at Jason’s arms a million times. The tattoo couldn’t have just appeared, but it was darkly etched, impossible to miss: a dozen straight lines like a barcode, and over that an eagle with the letters SPQR.
“I've never seen marks like this,” Annabeth frowns. “Where did you get them?”
Jason shook his head. “I’m getting really tired of saying this, but I don’t know.”
The other campers pushed forward, trying to get a look at Jason’s tattoo. The marks seemed to bother them a lot—almost like a declaration of war.
“They look burned into your skin,” Annabeth noticed.
“They were,” Jason said. Then he winced as if his head was aching. “I mean... I think so. I don’t remember.”
No one said anything. It was clear the campers saw Annabeth as the leader. They were waiting for her verdict.
“He needs to go straight to Chiron,” Annabeth decided. “Drew, would you—”
“Absolutely.” Drew laced her arm through Jason’s. “This way, sweetie. I'll introduce you to our director. He’s... an interesting guy.”She flashed Piper a smug look and led Jason toward the big blue house on the hill. The crowd began to disperse, until only Annabeth and Piper were left.
“Who's Chiron?” Piper asked. “Is Jason in some kind of trouble?”
Annabeth hesitated. “Good question, Piper. Come on, I'll give you a tour. We need to talk.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Notes:
✦ NEW CHAP YAY!!!
Ethan and Leo instantly getting along is everything! They are gonna be best buds fr
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 5: 𝒾𝒾𝒾. I 100% agree with what you just said. What did you just say?
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
They could describe everything with one single word
You know? Like
Boba Tea?
Gnarly.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
✦ Piper realised pretty quickly that Annabeth's heart wasn't in the tour.
She talked about all this amazing stuff the camp offered—magic archery, Pegasus riding, the lava wall, fighting monsters —but she showed no excitement, as if her mind were elsewhere. She kept muttering under her breath, cursing Ethan's existence and running hypothetical statistics that made Piper's head hurt.
Annabeth explained how Camp Half-Blood was mostly a summer camp, but some kids stayed here year-round, and they'd added so many campers that it was always crowded now, even in winter.
Piper wondered who ran the camp and how they'd known Piper and her friends belonged here. She wondered if she'd have to stay full-time or if she'd be any good at the activities. A million questions bubbled in her head, but given Annabeth's mood, she decided to keep quiet.
Why couldn't Ethan offer to give her a tour as well?
As the duo climbed a hill at the edge of camp, Piper turned and got an amazing view of the valley—a big stretch of woods to the north-west, a beautiful beach, the creek, the canoe lake, lush green fields, and the whole layout of the cabins—a bizarre assortment of buildings arranged like a Greek omega, Ω, with a loop of cabins around a central green and two wings sticking out the bottom on either side.
Piper counted twenty cabins in all. One glowed golden, another silver. One had grass on the roof. Another was bright red with barbed wire trenches. One cabin was black with fiery green torches out front.
All of it seemed like a different world from the snowy hills and fields outside.
"The valley is protected from mortal eyes," Annabeth said. "As you can see, the weather is controlled, too. Each cabin represents a Greek god—a place for that god's children to live."
She looked at Piper like she was trying to judge how Piper was handling the news.
"You're saying Mum was a goddess."
Annabeth nodded. "You're taking this awfully calmly."
Piper couldn't tell her why. She couldn't admit that this just confirmed some weird feelings she'd had for years, arguments she'd had with her father about why there were no photos of Mum in the house, and why Dad would never tell her exactly how or why her mum had left them.
But mostly, the dream had warned her this was coming.
Soon they will find you, demigod, that voice had rumbled. When they do, follow our directions. Cooperate, and your father might live.
Piper took a shaky breath.
"We should know soon," Annabeth said.
"I guess after this morning, it's a little easier to believe. So who's my mum?"
"You're what—nineteen? Gods are supposed to claim you when you're thirteen. That was the deal."
"The deal?"
"They made a promise last summer... well, long story... But they promised not to ignore their demigod children anymore and to claim them by the time they turn thirteen. Sometimes it takes a little longer, but you saw how fast Leo was claimed once he got here. It should happen for you soon. Tonight at the campfire, I bet we'll get a sign."
Piper wondered if she'd have a big flaming hammer over her head or, with her luck, something even more embarrassing. A flaming wombat, maybe.
Whoever her mother was, Piper had no reason to think she'd be proud to claim a kleptomaniac daughter with massive problems.
"Why thirteen?"
"The older you get," Annabeth said, "The more monsters notice you and try to kill you.' Round thirteen is usually when it starts. That's why we send protectors into the schools to find you guys and get you to camp before it's too late."
"Like Coach Hedge?"
Annabeth nodded.
"He's—he was a satyr: half man, half goat. Satyrs work for the camp, finding demigods, protecting them, and bringing them in when the time is right."
Piper had no trouble believing Coach Hedge was half goat. She'd seen the guy eat. She'd never liked the coach much, but she couldn't believe he'd sacrificed himself to save them.
"What happened to him?" she asked.
"Hard to say." Annabeth's expression was pained.
"When we went up into the clouds, did he... Is he gone for good?"
"Storm spirits... difficult to battle. Even our best weapons, Celestial bronze, will pass right through them unless you can catch them by surprise."
"Jason's sword just turned them to dust," Piper remembered.
"He was lucky, then. If you hit a monster just right, you can dissolve it and send its essence back to Tartarus."
"Tartarus?"
"A huge abyss in the Underworld, where the worst monsters come from, kind of like a bottomless pit of evil. Anyway, once monsters dissolve, it usually takes months, even years, before they can re-form again. But since this storm spirit Dylan got away—well, I don't know why he'd keep Hedge alive. Hedge was a protector, though. He knew the risks. Satyrs don't have mortal souls. He'll be reincarnated as a tree or a flower or something."
Piper tried to imagine Coach Hedge as a clump of very angry pansies. That made her feel even worse.
She gazed at the cabins below, and an uneasy feeling settled over her. Hedge had died to get her here safely. Her mum's cabin was down there somewhere, which meant she had brothers and sisters, more people she'd have to betray.
Do what we tell you, the voice had said. Or the consequences will be painful. She tucked her hands under her arms, trying to stop them from shaking.
"It'll be okay," Annabeth promised.
"You have friends here. We've all been through a lot of weird stuff. We know what you're going through."
I doubt that, Piper thought.
"I've been kicked out of five different schools the past five years," she said. "My dad's running out of places to put me."
"Only five?" Annabeth didn't sound like she was teasing.
"Piper, we've all been labelled troublemakers. I ran away from home when I was seven."
"Seriously?"
"Oh, yeah. Most of us are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or dyslexia, or both—"
"Leo's ADHD," Piper said.
"Right. It's because we're hardwired for battle. Restless, impulsive—we don't fit in with regular kids. You should hear how much trouble Percy—" Her face darkened. "Anyway, demigods get a bad rep. How'd you get in trouble?"
Usually, when someone asked that question, Piper started a fight, changed the subject, or caused some kind of distraction. But for some reason, she found herself telling the truth.
"I steal stuff," she said. "Well, not really steal ..."
"Is your family poor?"
Piper laughed bitterly. "Not even. I did it... I don't know why. For attention, I guess. My dad never had time for me unless I got in trouble."
Annabeth nodded. "I can relate. But you said you didn't really steal? What do you mean?"
"Well... nobody ever believes me. The police, teachers—even the people I took stuff from: they're so embarrassed, they'll deny what happened. But the truth is, I don't steal anything. I just ask people for things. And they give me stuff. Even a BMW convertible. I just asked. And the dealer said, 'Sure. Take it.' Later, he realised what he'd done, I guess. Then the police came after me."
Piper waited. She was used to people calling her a liar, but when she looked up, Annabeth just nodded.
"Interesting. If your dad were the god, I'd say you're a child of Hermes, god of thieves. He can be pretty convincing. But your dad is mortal..."
"Very," Piper agreed.
Annabeth shook her head, apparently mystified.
"I don't know, then. With luck, your mum will claim you tonight."
Piper almost hoped it wouldn't happen. If her mum were a goddess, would she know about that dream? Would she know what Piper had been asked to do? Piper wondered if Olympian gods ever blasted their kids with lightning for being evil or grounded them in the Underworld.
Annabeth was studying her. Piper decided she was going to have to be careful what she said from now on. Annabeth was obviously pretty smart. If anyone could figure out Piper's secret ...
"Come on," Annabeth said at last. "There's something else I need to check."
They hiked a little farther until they reached a cave near the top of the hill. Bones and old swords littered the ground. Torches flanked the entrance, which was covered in a velvet curtain embroidered with snakes. It looked like the set for some kind of twisted puppet show.
"What's in there?" Piper asked.
Annabeth poked her head inside, and her jaw clenched, fury lighting her eyes. "What are you doing in here?"
Leo jumps and whirls around in surprise, but Ethan doesn't even lift his head from the beanbag he was lounging in.
"Did you hear something?" Ethan asks Leo before shrugging. "Must have been the wind."
"Ethan!" Annabeth hissed. "You aren't allowed to be here."
"Actually, annoying voice that won't go away," Ethan said, lifting his head. "I am the only one of us allowed in here. So really, I should ask what you are doing here, you featherless owl. If your pea-sized brain can recall, Rachel loves me."
"Whatever," Annabeth huffs. "Let's go, Piper."
Leo glanced at Piper, who shrugged.
"Piper," Ethan calls out.
Annabeth grabs Piper's upper arm and starts to drag her out of the cave. "Don't bother. Any conversation you have with him is pointless."
"Your friend Jason..."
Piper stopped and turned to look at Ethan. "What about him?"
"How did he kill the storm spirit?"
"He used his sword."
"And his sword was what colour?"
Piper opens her mouth to answer, but Annabeth cuts her off.
"Why does that matter? It was obviously celestial bronze."
Ethan ignores her and stares expectantly at Piper.
"Gold," Piper answers. "It was gold."
Ethan hums. "Interesting. And your godly parent is your mother, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
Ethan looks at her curiously, his head tilting slightly as he inspects her. "Has anyone ever just given you what you asked for? No questions asked?"
Piper blinks. "How did you-"
The corner of Ethan's mouth ticks up. "You'll get claimed tonight."
"How could you possibly know that?" Annabeth demands.
"Scales must be balanced before a journey can commence," Ethan said, like it were obvious. "Isn't that right, Padawan Valdez? Don't touch that."
Leo dropped the bone he had been holding. "Uh, yes. I agree. I one hundred per cent agree with what you just said. What did you just say?"
Ethan groans as he stands and pats Leo's shoulder. "See, owl. Leo gets it."
Annabeth rolls her eyes and tugs Piper out of the cave.
"What were you looking for in there?" Piper asks.
"Nothing, right now. A friend's place. I've been expecting her for a few days, but so far, nothing."
"Your friend lives in a cave?"
Annabeth almost managed a smile.
"Actually, her family has a luxury condo in Queens, and she goes to a finishing school in Connecticut. But when she's here at camp, yeah, she lives in the cave. She's our oracle, who tells the future. I was hoping she could help me—"
"Find Percy," Piper guessed.
All the energy drained out of Annabeth, like she'd been holding it together for as long as she could. She sat down on a rock, and her expression was so full of pain, Piper felt like a voyeur.
She forced herself to look away. Her eyes drifted to the crest of the hill, where a single pine tree dominated the skyline. Something glittered in its lowest branch—like a fuzzy gold bath mat.
No... not a bath mat. It was a sheep's fleece.
Okay, Piper thought. Greek camp. They've got a replica of the Golden Fleece.
"It's not a replica."
Piper startled, Ethan and Leo had somehow managed to sneak up right beside her. Ethan sneaking up on her made sense, but how did Leo...
"Can you read minds?"
"I don't know," Ethan frowned. "Can I?"
Piper shakes her head, and her eyes find their way back to the base of the tree.
At first, she thought it was wrapped in a pile of massive purple cables. But the cables had reptilian scales, clawed feet, and a snake-like head with yellow eyes and smoking nostrils.
"That's—a dragon," she stammered.
"Awesome," Leo breathes out. "On a scale of one to never, how likely would it be for me to ride the dragon?"
"Never," Ethan said, amused. "Piper?"
She forces her eyes away from the sight before her. "That's the actual Golden Fleece?"
"I did say it wasn't a replica," Ethan sniffed. "Not important right now. I have another question."
"If you are going to keep butting in," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you just finish her tour?"
Please, Piper thought. Finish my tour!
Ethan ignores her. "Your blonde friend."
"Jason?" Piper said. "What about him?"
"His gold sword. Do you know where he got it?"
"No," Piper frowns lightly. "But Annabeth said it was probably luck that the spirits died."
"I think it was a bit more than luck."
"What do you mean?"
"Anyway," Ethan sighs. "We should get going. Let's go, Leo. Say bye to Piper."
"Bye, Piper," Leo repeats. "What about Anna-"
"I don't see anyone else. Let's go."
Piper blinked as the two disappeared in a cloud of shadow. Annabeth rolled her eyes. Her shoulders drooped. She rubbed her face and took a shaky breath.
"Sorry. I'm a little tired."
"You look ready to drop," Piper said.
"How long have you been searching for your friend?"
"Three days now."
"And you've got no idea what happened to him?"
Annabeth shook her head miserably.
"Winter break was supposed to start early, but Percy said he would be coming to join us later. He wanted to stay with his mum and his sister a little longer."
"Sister?"
"Estelle," Annabeth sighed. "She was born in March. Anyway, according to Ethan, he just disappeared. He said Percy crashed in his apartment, and when he went to wake him up in the morning, he was gone. Ethan thought he went back to his mum's place, but Sally hadn't seen him either. Sally called me. We've tried to reach him every way we know how. Nothing. He just disappeared."
Piper was thinking: Three days ago. The same night she'd had her dream.
"So were you guys like, almost dating or?"
"Dating? Percy and Me?"
"You don't like him?"
"No. Plus, he has a—" She cuts herself off, her eyes drift towards the cabins. "When did you meet Jason?"
"August eighteenth," Piper said. "But we've only been together a few weeks."
Annabeth winced. "Piper... about that. Maybe you should sit down."
Piper knew where this was going. Panic started building inside her, like her lungs were filling with water.
"Look, I know Jason thought—he thought he just appeared at our school today. But that's not true. I've known him for four months."
"Piper," Annabeth said sadly. "It's the Mist."
"Missed ... what?"
"M-i-s-t. It's a kind of veil separating the mortal world from the magic world. Mortal minds—they can't process strange stuff like gods and monsters, so the Mist bends reality. It makes mortals see things in a way they can understand —like their eyes might just skip over this valley completely, or they might look at that dragon and see a pile of cables."
Piper swallowed. "No. You said yourself, I'm not a regular mortal. I'm a demigod."
"Even demigods can be affected. I've seen it lots of times. Monsters infiltrate places like a school, pass themselves off as human, and everyone thinks they remember that person. They believe he's always been around. The Mist can change memories, even create memories of things that never happened—"
"But Jason's not a monster!" Piper insisted. "He's a human guy, or demigod, or whatever you want to call him. My memories aren't fake. They're so real. The time we set Coach Hedge's pants on fire. The time Jason and I watched a meteor shower on the dorm roof, and I finally got the stupid guy to kiss me...."
She found herself rambling, telling Annabeth about her whole semester at Wilderness School. She'd liked Jason from the first week they'd met. He was so nice to her, and so patient, he could even put up with hyperactive Leo and his stupid jokes. He'd accepted her for herself and didn't judge her because of the stupid things she'd done.
They'd spent hours talking, looking at the stars, and eventually—finally—holding hands. All that couldn't be fake.
Annabeth pursed her lips. "Piper, your memories are a lot sharper than most. I'll admit that, and I don't know why that is. But if you know him so well—"
"I do!"
"Then where is he from?"
Piper felt like she'd been hit between the eyes. "He must have told me, but—"
"Did you ever notice his tattoo before today? Did he ever tell you anything about his parents, or his friends, or his last school?"
"I-I don't know, but—"
"Piper, what's his last name?"
Her mind went blank. She didn't know Jason's last name. How could that be?
She started to cry. She felt like a total fool, but she sat down on the rock next to Annabeth and just fell to pieces. It was too much. Did everything that was good in her stupid, miserable life have to be taken away?
Yes, the dream had told her. Yes, unless you do exactly what we say.
"Hey," Annabeth said. "We'll figure it out. Jason's here now. Who knows? Maybe it'll work out with you guys for real."
Not likely, Piper thought. Not if the dream had told her the truth. But she couldn't say that.
She brushed a tear from her cheek. "You brought me up here so no one would see me blubbering, huh?"
Annabeth shrugged. "I figured it would be hard for you. I know what it's like to lose someone."
"But I still can't believe... I know we had something. And now it's just gone, like he doesn't even recognise me. If he really did just show up today, then why? How'd he get there? Why can't he remember anything?"
"Good questions," Annabeth said. "Hopefully, Chiron can figure that out. But for now, we need to get you settled. You ready to go back down?"
Piper gazed at the crazy assortment of cabins in the valley.
Her new home, a family who supposedly understood her—but soon they'd be just another bunch of people she'd disappointed, just another place she'd been kicked out of.
You'll betray them for us, the voice had warned. Or you'll lose everything.
She didn't have a choice.
"Yeah," she lied. "I'm ready."
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Notes:
Hey, hey, hey!!!
I know I disappeared for a bit, but I'm back now, yay!!
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this chap!
Yor <3
Chapter 6: 𝒾𝓋. Toolshed of nightmares
Chapter Text
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
When everything's quiet
Nothing on the tip of your tongue
But a beautiful silence
And it lets me know
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
✦ Piper stared at the worn-out gardening shed in front of her.
“Every demigod needs a weapon,” Annabeth said.
"I'm going to find weapons in there?" Piper asked. "What is it supposed to throw off invaders if they are in a toolshed of my nightmares? Seriously, this is how all horror movies start."
The corner of Annabeth's mouth quirks up, and her eyes sparkle in amusement.
Annabeth unlocked it, and inside were not gardening tools, unless you wanted to make war on your tomato plants. The shed was lined with all sorts of weapons—from swords to spears to clubs like Coach Hedge’s.
“Hephaestus makes the best weapons,” Annabeth said. “But we have a pretty good selection, too. Athena’s all about strategy—matching the right weapon to the right person. Let’s see…”
Piper didn’t feel much like shopping for deadly objects, but she knew Annabeth was trying to do something nice for her. Annabeth handed her a massive sword, which Piper could hardly lift.
“No,” they both said at once.
Annabeth rummaged a little farther in the shed and brought out something else.
“A shotgun?” Piper asked.
“Mossberg 500.” Annabeth checked the pump action like it was no big deal. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt humans. It’s modified to shoot Celestial bronze, so it only kills monsters.”
“Um, I don’t think that’s my style,” Piper cringed.
“Mmm, yeah,” Annabeth agreed. “Too flashy.”
She put the shotgun back and started poking through a rack of crossbows when something in the corner of the shed caught Piper’s eye.
“What is that?” she said. “A knife?”
Annabeth dug it out and blew the dust off the scabbard. It looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day in centuries.
“I don’t know, Piper.” Annabeth sounded uneasy. “I don’t think you want this one. Swords are usually better.”
“You use a knife.” Piper pointed to the one strapped to Annabeth’s belt.
“Yeah, but…” Annabeth shrugged.
“She’s obviously different,” a voice comes from the entrance of the shed.
Annabeth exhales heavily. “Are you following us?”
Ethan looks here over. “Do I look like I want to follow you? I’m here because Malcom offered to let Leo look through here before going over to nine. If you ask me, I think he’s putting off meeting them.”
“I am not,” Leo argues.
“Are too.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Yuh-ha.”
Leo glares at him, but Ethan ignores him and looks at Piper.
“Pretty knife. Suits you.”
Piper looks back at the knife. It was pretty.
The sheath was worn black leather, bound in bronze. Nothing fancy, nothing flashy. The polished wood handle fit beautifully in Piper’s hand. When she unsheathed it, she found a triangular blade eighteen inches long, bronze, gleaming like it had been polished yesterday. The edges were deadly sharp. Her reflection in the blade caught her by surprise. She looked older, more serious, not as scared as she felt.
“It does suit you,” Annabeth admitted. Ethan rolled his eye. “That kind of blade is called a parazonium. It was mostly ceremonial, carried by high-ranking officers in the Greek armies. It showed you were a person of power and wealth, but in a fight, it could protect you just fine.”
“I like it,” Piper said. “Why didn’t you think it was right?”
Annabeth exhaled. “That blade has a long story. Most people would be afraid to claim it. Its first owner… well, things didn’t turn out too well for her. Her name was Helen.”
Piper let that sink in. “Wait, you mean the Helen? Helen of Troy?”
Annabeth nodded. Suddenly, Piper felt like she should be handling the dagger with surgical gloves.
“And it’s just sitting in your toolshed?”
“There are a lot of things just sitting here,” Ethan huffed. “More things in the attic, but no one really goes there anymore.”
Leo perks up.
“I’m not taking you to the attic, Valdez.”
“I didn’t want to go there anyway,” Leo grumbles.
“We’re surrounded by Ancient Greek stuff,” Annabeth explains. “This isn’t a museum. Weapons like that—they’re meant to be used. They’re our heritage as demigods. That was a wedding present from Menelaus, Helen’s first husband. She named the dagger Katoptris.”
“Meaning?”
“Mirror,” Annabeth said. “Looking glass. Probably because that’s the only thing Helen used it for. I don’t think it’s ever seen battle.”
Piper looked at the blade again. For a moment, her own image stared up at her, but then the reflection changed. She saw flames and a grotesque face like something carved from bedrock. She heard the same laughter as in her dream. She saw her dad in chains, tied to a post in front of a roaring bonfire.
She dropped the blade, her eyes finding Ethan. His eye glinted like he knew exactly what she saw. Piper gulps.
“Piper?” Annabeth shouted to the Apollo kids on the court, “Medic! I need some help over here!”
“She’s fine,” Ethan said. “She should avoid fire for a while, though.”
Annabeth looked confused. “What? Piper?”
“No, it’s—it’s okay,” Piper managed.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I just…” She had to control herself. Glancing at Ethan quickly, she picked up the dagger with trembling fingers. “I just got overwhelmed. So much is happening today. But… I want to keep the dagger, if that’s okay.”
Annabeth hesitated. Then she waved off the Apollo kids.
“Okay, if you’re sure. You turned really pale, there. I thought you were having a seizure or something.”
“I’m fine,” Piper promised, though her heart was still racing.
“Is there… um, do you have a phone I could use? Can I call my dad?”
Annabeth’s grey eyes were almost as unnerving as the dagger blade. She seemed to be calculating a million possibilities, trying to read Piper’s thoughts.
“Yeah,” she said. “Most demigods, if they use an ordinary cell phone, it’s like sending up a signal, letting monsters know where you are. We managed to modify them so they should work as normal.” She slipped it out of her pocket. “You can use mine until we can organise one for you.”
Piper took it gratefully, trying not to let her hands shake. She stepped away from Annabeth, avoiding Ethan’s gaze and turned to face the commons area. She called her dad’s private line, even though she knew what would happen. Voice mail. She’d been trying for three days, ever since the dream.
Wilderness School only allowed phone privileges once a day, but she’d called every evening and gotten nowhere. Reluctantly, she dialled the other number. Her dad’s personal assistant answered immediately.
“Mr. McLean’s office.”
“Jane,” Piper said, gritting her teeth. “Where’s my dad?”
Jane was silent for a moment, probably wondering if she could get away with hanging up.
“Piper, I thought you weren’t supposed to call from school.”
“Maybe I’m not at school,” Piper said. “Maybe I ran away to live among the woodland creatures.”
“Mmm.” Jane didn’t sound concerned. “Well, I’ll tell him you called.”
“Where is he?”
“Out.”
“You don’t know, do you?” Piper lowered her voice, hoping Annabeth was too nice to eavesdrop.
“When are you going to call the police, Jane? He could be in trouble.”
“Piper, we are not going to turn this into a media circus. I’m sure he’s fine. He does take off occasionally. He always comes back.”
“So it’s true. You don’t know—”
“I have to go, Piper,” Jane snapped. “Enjoy school.”
The line went dead. Piper cursed. She walked back to Annabeth and handed her the phone.
“No luck?” Annabeth asked.
Piper didn’t answer. She didn’t trust herself not to start crying again. Annabeth glanced at the phone display and hesitated.
“Your last name is McLean? Sorry, it’s not my business. But that sounds really familiar.”
“Daughter of wisdom, my ass,” Ethan grumbles to himself. “Valdez, stop putting off the inevitable. Time to meet your family, let’s go!”
“What?” Leo said, his head coming up and hitting a shield. “No! There might be a knife I could use here, too!”
Ethan stared at him.
“Five more minutes?”
Ethan’s eye narrowed.
Leo’s pious, his shoulders slumping. “Fine.”
Ethan grins, grabbing Leo’s shoulders and leading him towards Cabin Nine. “That’s the spirit.”
“It’s a common name,” Piper answered Annabeth’s earlier question, blinking at the interaction she just witnessed.
“Yeah, I guess,” Annabeth frowned. “What does your dad do?”
“He’s got a degree in the arts,” Piper said automatically. “He’s a Cherokee artist.”
Her standard response. Not a lie, just not the whole truth. Most people, when they heard that, figured her dad sold Indian souvenirs at a roadside stand on a reservation. Sitting Bull bobble-heads, wampum necklaces, Big Chief tablets—that kind of thing.
“Oh.” Annabeth didn’t look convinced, but she put the phone away. “You feeling okay? Want to keep going?”
Piper fastened her new dagger to her belt and promised herself that later, when she was alone, she’d figure out how it worked.
“Sure,” she said. “I want to see everything.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
All the cabins were cool, but none of them struck Piper as hers. No burning signs—wombats or otherwise—appeared over her head.
Cabin Eight was entirely silver and glowed like moonlight.
“Artemis?” Piper guessed.
“You know Greek mythology,” Annabeth said.
“I did some reading when my dad was working on a project last year.”
“I thought he did Cherokee art.”
Piper bit back a curse. “Oh, right. But—you know, he does other stuff too.”
Piper thought she’d blown it: McLean, Greek mythology. Thankfully, Annabeth didn’t seem to make the connection.
“Anyway,” Annabeth continued, “Artemis is the goddess of the moon, goddess of hunting. But no campers. Artemis was an eternal maiden, so she doesn’t have any kids.”
“Oh.” That kind of bummed Piper out. She’d always liked the stories of Artemis and figured she would make a cool mom.
“Well, there are the Hunters of Artemis,” Annabeth amended. “They visit sometimes. They’re not the children of Artemis, but they’re her handmaidens—this band of immortal teenage girls who adventure together and hunt monsters and stuff.”
Piper perked up. “That sounds cool. They get to be immortal?”
“Unless they die in combat, or break their vows. Did I mention they have to swear off boys? No dating—ever. For eternity.”
“Oh,” Piper said. “Never mind.”
Annabeth laughed. For a moment, she looked almost happy, and Piper thought she’d be a cool friend to hang out with in better times.
Forget it, Piper reminded herself. You’re not going to make any friends here. Not once they find out.
They passed the next cabin, Number Ten, which was decorated like a Barbie house with lace curtains, a pink door, and potted carnations in the windows. They walked by the doorway, and the smell of perfume almost made Piper gag.
“Gah, is that where supermodels go to die?”
Annabeth smirked. “Aphrodite’s cabin. Goddess of love. Drew is the head counsellor.”
“Figures,” Piper grumbled.
“They’re not all bad,” Annabeth said. “The last head counsellor we had was great.”
“What happened to her?”
Annabeth’s expression darkened. “We should keep moving.”
They looked at the other cabins, but Piper just got more depressed. She wondered if she could be the daughter of Demeter, the farming goddess. Then again, Piper killed every plant she ever touched. Athena was cool. Or maybe Hecate, the magic goddess. But it didn’t really matter.
Even here, where everyone was supposed to find a lost parent, she knew she would still end up the unwanted kid. She was not looking forward to the campfire tonight.
“We started with the twelve Olympian gods,” Annabeth explained. “Male gods on the left, female on the right. Then last year, we added a whole bunch of new cabins for the other gods who didn’t have thrones on Olympus—Hecate, Hades, Iris—”
“What are the two big ones on the end?” Piper asked.
Annabeth frowned. “Zeus and Hera. King and queen of the gods.”
Piper headed that way, and Annabeth followed, though she didn’t act very excited. The Zeus cabin reminded Piper of a bank. It was white marble with big columns out front and polished bronze doors emblazoned with lightning bolts.
Hera’s cabin was smaller but done in the same style, except the doors were carved with peacock feather designs, shimmering in different colours. Unlike the other cabins, which were all noisy and open and full of activity, the Zeus and Hera cabins looked closed and silent.
“Are they empty?” Piper asked.
Annabeth nodded. “Zeus went a long time without having any children. Well, mostly. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the eldest brothers among the gods—they’re called the Big Three. Their kids are really powerful, really dangerous. For the last seventy years or so, they tried to avoid having demigod children.”
“Tried to avoid it?”
“Sometimes they… um, cheated. I’ve got a friend, Thalia Grace, who’s the daughter of Zeus. But she gave up camp life and became a Hunter of Artemis. My friend, Percy, he’s a son of Poseidon. And there’s a kid who shows up sometimes, Nico—son of Hades. Except for them, there are no demigod children of the Big Three gods. At least, not that we know of.”
“And Hera?” Piper looked at the peacock-decorated doors. The cabin bothered her, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Goddess of marriage.” Annabeth’s tone was carefully controlled, like she was trying to avoid cursing. “She doesn’t have kids with anyone but Zeus. So, yeah, no demigods. The cabin’s just honorary.”
“You don’t like her,” Piper noticed.
“We have a long history,” Annabeth admitted.
“I thought we’d made peace, but when Percy disappeared… I got this weird dream vision from her.”
“Telling you to come get us,” Piper said. “But you thought Percy would be there.”
“It’s probably better I don’t talk about it,” Annabeth said. “I’ve got nothing good to say about Hera right now.”
Piper looked down the base of the doors. “So who goes in here?”
“No one. The cabin is just honorary, like I said. No one goes in.”
“Someone does.” Piper pointed at a footprint on the dusty threshold. On instinct, she pushed the doors and they swung open easily.
Annabeth stepped back. “Um, Piper, I don’t think we should—”
“We’re supposed to do dangerous stuff, right?” And Piper walked inside.
Hera’s cabin was not someplace Piper would want to live. It was as cold as a freezer, with a circle of white columns around a central statue of the goddess, ten feet tall, seated on a throne in flowing golden robes. Piper had always thought of Greek statues as white with blank eyes, but this one was brightly painted, so it looked almost human, except huge. Hera’s piercing eyes seemed to follow Piper.
At the goddess’s feet, a fire burned in a bronze brazier. Piper wondered who tended it if the cabin was always empty. A stone hawk sat on Hera’s shoulder, and in her hand was a staff topped with a lotus flower. The goddess’s hair was done in black plaits. Her face smiled, but her eyes were cold and calculating, as if she were saying: Mother knows best. Now, don’t cross m,e or I will have to step on you.
There was nothing else in the cabin—no beds, no furniture, no bathroom, no windows, nothing that anyone could actually use to live. For a goddess of home and marriage, Hera’s place reminded Piper of a tomb.
No, this wasn’t her mum. At least Piper was sure of that. She hadn’t come in here because she felt a good connection, but because her sense of dread was stronger here. Her dream—that horrible ultimatum she’d been handed—had something to do with this cabin.
She froze. They weren’t alone. Behind the statue, at a little altar in the back, stood a figure covered in a black shawl. Only her hands were visible, palms up. She seemed to be chanting something like a spell or a prayer.
Annabeth gasped. “Rachel?”
The other girl turned. She dropped her shawl, revealing a mane of curly red hair and a freckled face that didn’t go with the seriousness of the cabin or the black shawl at all. She looked about seventeen, a totally normal teen in a green blouse and tattered jeans covered with marker doodles. Despite the cold floor, she was barefoot.
“Hey!” She ran to hug Annabeth. “I’m so sorry! I came as fast as I could.”
They talked for a few minutes about Annabeth’s friend, Percy, and how there was no news, et cetera, until finally Annabeth remembered Piper, who was standing there feeling uncomfortable.
“I’m being rude,” Annabeth apologised. “Rachel, this is Piper, one of the half-bloods we rescued today. Piper, this is Rachel Elizabeth Dare, our oracle.”
“The friend who lives in the cave,” Piper guessed.
Rachel grinned. “That’s me.”
“So you’re an oracle?” Piper asked.
“You can tell the future?”
“More like the future mugs me from time to time,” Rachel snorts. “I speak prophecies. The oracle’s spirit kind of hijacks me every once in a while and speaks important stuff that doesn’t make any sense to anybody. But yeah, the prophecies tell the future.”
“Oh.” Piper shifted from foot to foot. “That’s cool.”
Rachel laughed. “Don’t worry. Everybody finds it a little creepy. Even me. But usually I’m harmless.”
“You’re a demigod?”
“Nope,” Rachel said. “Just mortal.”
“Then what are you…” Piper waved her hand around the room.
Rachel’s smile faded. She glanced at Annabeth, then back at Piper.
“Just a hunch. Something about this cabin and Percy’s disappearance. They’re connected somehow. I’ve learned to follow my hunches, especially the last month, since the gods went silent.”
“Went silent?” Piper asked.
Rachel frowned at Annabeth.
“You haven’t told her yet?”
“I was getting to that,” Annabeth said. “Piper, for the last month… well, it’s normal for the gods not to talk to their children very much, but usually we can count on some messages now and then. Some of us can even visit Olympus. I spent practically all semester at the Empire State Building.”
“Excuse me?”
“The entrance to Mount Olympus these days.”
“Oh,” Piper shrugged. That was probably the most believable thing she heard today. “Sure, why not?”
“Annabeth was redesigning Olympus after it was damaged in the Titan War,” Rachel explained. “She’s an amazing architect. You should see the salad bar—”
“Anyway,” Annabeth blushed, “starting about a month ago, Olympus fell silent. The entrance closed, and no one could get in. Nobody knows why. It’s like the gods have sealed themselves off. Even my mom won’t answer my prayers, and our camp director, Dionysus, was recalled.”
“Your camp director was the god of… wine?”
“Yeah, it’s a—”
“Long story,” Piper guessed. “Right. Go on.”
“That’s it, really,” Annabeth said. “Demigods still get claimed, but nothing else. No messages. No visits. No sign the gods are even listening. It’s like something has happened —something really bad. Then Percy disappeared.”
“And Jason showed up on our field trip,” Piper supplied. “With no memory.”
“Who’s Jason?” Rachel asked.
“My—” Piper stopped herself before she could say “boyfriend,” but the effort made her chest hurt. “My friend. But Annabeth, you said Hera sent you a dream vision.”
“Right,” Annabeth said. “The first communication from a god in a month, and it’s Hera, the least helpful goddess, and she contacts me, her least favourite demigod. She tells me I’ll find out what happened to Percy if I go to the Grand Canyon skywalk and look for a guy with one shoe. Instead, I find you guys, and the guy with one shoe is Jason. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Something bad is happening, ” Rachel agreed. She looked at Piper, and Piper felt an overwhelming desire to tell them about her dream, to confess that she knew what was happening, at least part of the story. And the bad stuff was only beginning.
“Guys, ” she said. “I—I need to— ”
Before she could continue, Rachel’s body stiffened. Her eyes began to glow with a greenish light, and she grabbed Piper by the shoulders.
Piper tried to back away, but Rachel’s hands were like steel clamps.
Free me, she said. But it wasn’t Rachel’s voice. It sounded like an older woman, speaking from somewhere far away, down a long, echoing pipe. Free me, Piper McLean, or the earth shall swallow us. It must be by the solstice.
The room started spinning.
Annabeth tried to separate Piper from Rachel, but it was no use. Green smoke enveloped them, and Piper was no longer sure if she was awake or dreaming. The giant statue of the goddess seemed to rise from its throne. It leaned over Piper, its eyes boring into her. The statue’s mouth opened, its breath like horribly thick perfume.
It spoke in the same echoing voice: Our enemies stir. The fiery one is only the first. Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. FREE ME!
Piper’s knees buckled, and the last thing she thought was,
Wow, this bitch was needy.
Then everything went black.
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Notes:
✦ I'm lowkey bored, I need the quest to start soon or I might lose my mind lmao
Anyways,
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 7: 𝓋. He was so dead
Notes:
*You guys will notice I've skipped like 3 chapters for this because I'm impatient and I need the quest to start, so I start feeling more motivated to write for this book*
*Anyway, hoping you guys know the main gist of Leo's chaps because that's practically what I skipped. I love you, Leo <3*
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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That's the way every day goes
If the sky is pink and white
If the ground is black and yellow
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✦ Jason froze as he looked at the house in front of him.
Oh, yeah. He was so dead.
"Here we are!" Drew said cheerfully. "The Big House, camp headquarters."
It didn't look threatening, just a four-story manor painted baby blue with white trim. The wraparound porch had lounge chairs, a card table, and an empty wheelchair. Wind chimes shaped like nymphs turned into trees as they spun.
Jason could imagine old people coming here for summer vacation, sitting on the porch and sipping prune juice while they watched the sunset. Still, the windows seemed to glare down at him like angry eyes.
The wide-open doorway looked ready to swallow him. On the highest gable, a bronze eagle weathervane spun in the wind and pointed straight in his direction, as if telling him to turn around. Every molecule in Jason's body told him he was on enemy ground.
"I am not supposed to be here," he said.
Drew circled her arm through his. "Oh, please. You're perfect here, sweetie. Believe me, I've seen a lot of heroes."
Drew smelled like Christmas—a strange combination of pine and nutmeg. Jason wondered if she always smelled like that, or if it was some kind of special perfume for the holidays. Her pink eyeliner was really distracting. Every time she blinked, he felt compelled to look at her. Maybe that was the point: to show off her warm brown eyes. She was pretty. No doubt about that. But she made Jason feel uncomfortable.
He slipped his arm away as gently as he could.
"Look, I appreciate—"
"Is it that girl?" Drew pouted. "Oh, please, tell me you are not dating the Dumpster Queen."
"You mean Piper? Um ..."
Jason wasn't sure how to answer. He didn't think he'd ever seen Piper before today, but he felt strangely guilty about it. He knew he shouldn't be in this place. He shouldn't befriend these people, and certainly he shouldn't date one of them.
Still... Piper had been holding his hand when he woke up on that bus. She believed she was his girlfriend. She'd been brave on the skywalk, fighting those venti, and when Jason had caught her in midair and they'd held each other face-to-face, he couldn't pretend he wasn't a little tempted to kiss her. But that wasn't right. He didn't even know his own story. He couldn't play with her emotions like that.
Drew rolled her eyes. "Let me help you decide, sweetie. You can do better. A guy with your looks and obvious talent?"
She wasn't looking at him, though. She was staring at a spot right above his head.
"You're waiting for a sign," he guessed. "Like what popped over Leo's head."
"What? No! Well... yes. I mean, from what I heard, you're pretty powerful, right? You're going to be important at camp, so I figure your parent will claim you right away. And I'd love to see that. I wanna be with you every step of the way! So is your dad or mom the god? Please tell me it's not your mom. I would hate it if you were an Aphrodite kid."
"Why?"
"Then you'd be my half-brother, silly. You can't date somebody from your own cabin. Yuck!"
"But aren't all the gods related?" Jason asked. "So isn't everyone here your cousin or something?"
"Aren't you cute! Sweetie, the godly side of your family doesn't count except for your parent. So anybody from another cabin—they're fair game. So who's your godly parent—mom or dad?"
As usual, Jason didn't have an answer. He looked up, but no glowing sign popped above his head. At the top of the Big House, the weathervane was still pointing in his direction, that bronze eagle glaring as if to say, Turn around, kid, run while you still can.
Then he heard footsteps on the front porch. No—not footsteps—hooves.
"Chiron!" Drew called. "This is Jason. He's totally awesome!"
Jason backed up so fast he almost tripped. Rounding the corner of the porch was a man on horseback. Except he wasn't on horseback—he was part of the horse.
From the waist up, he was human, with curly brown hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a T-shirt that said World's Best Centaur and had a quiver and bow strapped to his back. His head was so high up he had to duck to avoid the porch lights, because from the waist down, he was a white stallion.
Chiron started to smile at Jason. Then the colour drained from his face.
"You..." The centaur's eyes flared like a cornered animal's. "You should be dead."
Didn't Jason just think that?
Chiron ordered Jason—well, invited, but it sounded like an order—to come inside the house. He told Drew to go back to her cabin, which she didn't look happy about.
The centaur trotted over to the empty wheelchair on the porch. He slipped off his quiver and bow and backed up to the chair, which opened like a magician's box. Chiron gingerly stepped into it with his back legs and began scrunching himself into a space that should've been much too small.
Jason imagined a truck's reversing noises—beep, beep, beep—as the centaur's lower half disappeared and the chair folded up, popping out a set of fake human legs covered in a blanket, so Chiron appeared to be a regular mortal guy in a wheelchair.
"Follow me," he ordered. "We have lemonade."
Probably poisoned, Jason thought. Note to self, don't drink the lemonade. Or eat anything they offer you. Unless it's from Ethan, he seemed oddly trustworthy, if you put his murderous tendencies aside.
The living room looked like it had been swallowed by a rainforest. Grapevines curved up the walls and across the ceiling, which Jason found a little strange. He didn't think plants grew like that inside, especially in the winter, but these were leafy green and bursting with bunches of red grapes.
Leather couches faced a stone fireplace with a crackling fire. Wedged in one corner, an old-style Pac-Man arcade game beeped and blinked.
Mounted on the walls was an assortment of masks—smiley/frowny Greek theatre types, feathered Mardi Gras masks, Venetian Carnevale masks with big beaklike noses, carved wooden masks from Africa. Grapevines grew through their mouths so they seemed to have leafy tongues. Some had red grapes bulging through their eyeholes.
But the weirdest thing was the stuffed leopard's head above the fireplace. It looked so real, its eyes seemed to follow Jason. Then it snarled, and Jason nearly leapt out of his skin.
"Now, Seymour," Chiron chided. "Jason is a friend. Behave yourself."
"That thing is alive!" Jason said.
Chiron rummaged through the side pocket of his wheelchair and brought out a package of Snausages. He threw one to the leopard, who snapped it up and licked his lips.
"You must excuse the décor," Chiron said. "All this was a parting gift from our old director before he was recalled to Mount Olympus. He thought it would help us to remember him. Mr. D has a strange sense of humour."
"Mr. D," Jason said. "Dionysus?"
"Mmm hmm." Chiron poured lemonade, though his hands were trembling a little.
"As for Seymour, well, Mr. D liberated him from a Long Island garage sale. The leopard is Mr. D's sacred animal, you see, and Mr. D was appalled that someone would stuff such a noble creature. He decided to grant it life, on the assumption that life as a mounted head was better than no life at all. I must say it's a kinder fate than Seymour's previous owner got."
"Right," Jason said, stepping away from it. "How... interesting. Where's the rest of him?"
"Better not to ask," Chiron said. "Please, sit."
Jason took some lemonade, although his stomach was fluttering, and he didn't drink any. Chiron sat back in his wheelchair and tried for a smile, but Jason could tell it was forced. The old man's eyes were as deep and dark as wells.
"So, Jason," he said, "would you mind telling me—ah—where you're from?"
"I wish I knew," Jason told him the whole story, from waking up on the bus to crash-landing at Camp Half-Blood. He didn't see any point in hiding the details, and Chiron was a good listener. He didn't react to the story, other than to nod encouragingly for more.
When Jason was done, the old man sipped his lemonade.
"I see," Chiron said. "And you must have questions for me."
"Only one," Jason admitted.
"What did you mean when you said that I should be dead?"
Chiron studied him with concern, as if he expected Jason to burst into flames.
"My boy, do you know what those marks on your arm mean? The colour of your shirt? Do you remember anything?"
Jason looked at the tattoo on his forearm: SPQR, the eagle, twelve straight lines.
"No," he said. "Nothing."
"Do you know where you are?" Chiron asked. "Do you understand what this place is, and who I am?"
"You're Chiron the centaur," Jason said. "I'm guessing you're the same one from the old stories, who used to train the Greek heroes like Heracles. This is a camp for demigods, children of the Olympian gods."
"So you believe those gods still exist?"
"Yes," Jason said immediately. "I mean, I don't think we should worship them or sacrifice chickens to them or anything, but they're still around because they're a powerful part of civilisation. They move from country to country as the centre of power shifts—like they moved from Ancient Greece to Rome."
"I couldn't have said it better." Something about Chiron's voice had changed. "So you already know the gods are real. You have already been claimed, haven't you?"
"Maybe," Jason answered. "I'm not really sure."
Seymour the leopard snarled.
Chiron waited, and Jason realised what had just happened. The centaur had switched to another language, and Jason had understood, automatically answering in the same tongue.
"Quis erat—" Jason faltered, then made a conscious effort to speak English. "What was that?"
"You know Latin," Chiron observed. "Most demigods recognise a few phrases, some more than others. It's in their blood, but not as much as Ancient Greek. Very few in this camp can speak Latin with such fluency. In fact, you met one of them, Ethan."
Jason tried to wrap his mind around what that meant, but too many pieces were missing from his memory. He still had the feeling that he shouldn't be here. It was wrong—and dangerous. But at least Chiron wasn't threatening. The centaur seemed concerned for him, afraid for his safety.
The fire reflected in Chiron's eyes, making them dance fretfully.
"I taught your namesake, you know, the original Jason. He had a hard path. I've seen many heroes come and go. Occasionally, they have happy endings. Mostly, they don't. It breaks my heart, like losing a child, each time one of my pupils dies. But you—you are not like any pupil I've ever taught. Your presence here could be a disaster."
"Thanks," Jason said. "You must be an inspiring teacher."
"I am sorry, my boy. But it's true. I had hoped that after Percy's success—"
"Percy Jackson, you mean. Annabeth's friend, the one who's missing."
Chiron nodded. "I hoped that after he succeeded in the Titan War and saved Mount Olympus, we might have some peace. I might be able to enjoy one final triumph, a happy ending, and perhaps retire quietly. I should have known better. The last chapter approaches, just as it did before. The worst is yet to come."
In the corner, the arcade game made a sad pew -pew -pew -pew sound, like a Pac-Man had just died.
"Ohh-kay," Jason said. "So—last chapter, happened before, worst yet to come. Sounds fun, but can we go back to the part where I'm supposed to be dead? I don't like that part."
"I'm afraid I can't explain, my boy. I swore on the River Styx and all things sacred that I would never..." Chiron frowned. "But you're here, in violation of the same oath. That too should not be possible. I don't understand. Who would've done such a thing? Who—"
Seymour the leopard howled. His mouth froze, half open. The arcade game stopped beeping. The fire stopped crackling, its flames hardening like red glass. The masks stared down silently at Jason with their grotesque grape eyes and leafy tongues.
"Chiron?" Jason asked. "What's going—"
The old centaur had frozen, too. Jason jumped off the couch, but Chiron kept staring at the same spot, his mouth open mid-sentence. His eyes didn't blink. His chest didn't move.
Jason, a voice said.
For a horrible moment, he thought the leopard had spoken. Then dark mist boiled out of Seymour's mouth, and an even worse thought occurred to Jason: storm spirits.
He grabbed the golden coin from his pocket. With a quick flip, it changed into a sword.
The mist took the form of a woman in black robes. Her face was hooded, but her eyes glowed in the darkness. Over her shoulders, she wore a goatskin cloak. Jason wasn't sure how he knew it was goatskin, but he recognised it and knew it was important.
Would you attack your patron? The woman chided. Her voice echoed in Jason's head. Lower your sword.
"Who are you?" he demanded. How did you—"
Our time is limited, Jason. My prison grows stronger by the hour. It took me a full month to gather enough energy to work even the smallest magic through its bonds. I've managed to bring you here, but now I have little time left, and even less power. This may be the last time I can speak to you.
"You're in prison?" Jason decided maybe he wouldn't lower his sword. "Look, I don't know you, and you're not my patron."
You know me, she insisted. I have known you since your birth.
"I don't remember. I don't remember anything."
No, you don't, she agreed. That was also necessary. Long ago, your father gave me your life as a gift to placate my anger. He named you Jason, after my favourite mortal. You belong to me.
"Whoa," Jason said. "I don't belong to anyone."
Now is the time to pay your debt, she said. Find my prison. Free me, or their king will rise from the earth, and I will be destroyed. You will never retrieve your memory.
"Is that a threat? You took my memories?"
You have until sunset on the solstice, Jason. Four short days. Do not fail me.
The dark woman dissolved, and the mist curled into the leopard's mouth. Time unfroze. Seymour's howl turned into a cough like he'd sucked in a hairball. The fire crackled to life, the arcade machine beeped, and Chiron said,
"—would dare to bring you here?"
"Probably the lady in the mist," Jason offered.
Chiron looked up in surprise. "Weren't you just sitting ... why do you have a sword drawn?"
"I hate to tell you this," Jason said, "but I think your leopard just ate a goddess."
He told Chiron about the frozen-in-time visit, the dark, misty figure that disappeared into Seymour's mouth.
"Oh, dear," Chiron murmured. "That does explain a lot."
"Then why don't you explain a lot to me?" Jason said. "Please."
Before Chiron could say anything, footsteps reverberated on the porch outside. The front door blew open, and Annabeth and another girl, a redhead, burst in, dragging Piper between them. Piper's head lolled like she was unconscious.
"What happened?" Jason rushed over. "What's wrong with her?"
"Hera's cabin," Annabeth gasped, like they'd run all the way. "Vision. Bad."
The redheaded girl looked up, and Jason saw that she'd been crying.
"I think ..." The redheaded girl gulped. "I think I may have killed her.
Well, shit.
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Notes:
✦ New chap yay!
Sorry for taking so long; I swear I'm working on the next one rn because this chap was short asf; it's almost criminal actually
The good news is that the quest is starting soon yayyyyy!
Anyways
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 8: 𝓋𝒾. Isn't that fantastic? Say that again
Notes:
Another chap so quick, who am I?
Lmaoooo
Enjoy reading, my loves <3
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
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Distant flickerings, greener scenery
This weather's bringing it all back again
Great adventures, faces and condensation
I'm going outside to take it all in
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✦ After the botched attempt in the Hypnos cabin to help regain his memories, Jason couldn't help but feel defeated.
There was still that nagging feeling in him that he shouldn't be here, at camp, but he tried his best to push it down.
Piper hadn't shown up to dinner, which had worried him initially, but Ethan had told him she would show up to the campfire. He had assumed campfire had been a codeword for something until he followed the one-eyed boy to a literal campfire.
Note to self, Jason thought. Not everything Ethan said had a double meaning.
The moment Piper saw the campfire, she immediately wanted to leave. It made her think of that huge purple bonfire in the dreams, and her father tied to a stake.
The amphitheatre steps were carved into the side of a hill, facing a stone-lined fire pit. Fifty or sixty kids filled the rows, clustered into groups under various banners.
Piper spotted Jason in the front next to Ethan. Leo was nearby, sitting with a bunch of burly-looking campers under a steel grey banner emblazoned with a hammer.
Standing in front of the fire, half a dozen campers with guitars and strange, old-fashioned harps—lyres?—were jumping around, leading a song about pieces of armour, something about how their grandma got dressed for war. Everybody was singing with them and making gestures for the pieces of armour and joking around.
It was quite possibly the weirdest thing Piper had ever seen—one of those campfire songs that would’ve been completely embarrassing in daylight, but in the dark, with everybody participating, it was kind of corny and fun. As the energy level got higher, the flames did too, turning from red to orange to gold.
Finally, the song ended with a lot of rowdy applause. A guy on a horse trotted up. At least in the flickering light, Piper thought it was a guy on a horse.
Centure, Piper noted. Not the craziest or the weirdest thing that had happened to her recently.
He brandished a spear impaled with toasted marshmallows. “Very nice! And a special welcome to our new arrivals. I am Chiron, camp activities director, and I’m happy you have all arrived here alive and with most of your limbs attached. In a moment, I promise we’ll get to the s’mores, but first—”
“What about capture the flag?” somebody yelled. Grumbling broke out among some kids in armour, sitting under a red banner with the emblem of a boar’s head.
“Yes,” the centaur said. “I know the Ares cabin is anxious to return to the woods for our regular games.”
“And kill people!” one of them shouted.
“However,” Chiron said, “until the dragon is brought under control, that won’t be possible. Cabin Nine, anything to report on that?”
He turned to Leo’s group. Leo winked at Piper and shot her with a finger gun. The girl next to him stood uncomfortably. She wore an army jacket a lot like Leo’s, with her hair covered in a red bandanna.
“We’re working on it.”
More grumbling.
“How, Nyssa?” an Ares kid demanded.
“Really hard,” the girl said.
Nyssa sat down to a lot of yelling and complaining, which caused the fire to sputter chaotically. Chiron stamped his hoof against the fire pit stones—bang, bang, bang—and the campers fell silent.
“We will have to be patient,” Chiron said. “In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
“Percy?” someone asked. The fire dimmed even further, but Piper didn’t need the mood flames to sense the crowd’s anxiety.
Chiron gestured to Annabeth. She took a deep breath and stood.
“I didn’t find Percy,” she announced. Her voice caught a little when she said his name, Ethan rolled his eye. “He wasn’t at the Grand Canyon like I thought. But we’re not giving up. We’ve got teams everywhere. Grover, Tyson, Nico, the Hunters of Artemis —everyone’s out looking. We will find him. Chiron’s talking about something different. A new quest.”
“It’s the Great Prophecy, isn’t it?” a girl called out.
Everyone turned. The voice had come from a group in back, sitting under a rose-colored banner with a dove emblem. They’d been chatting among themselves and not paying much attention until their leader stood up: Drew.
Everyone else looked surprised. Apparently, Drew didn’t address the crowd very often.
“Drew?” Annabeth said. “What do you mean?”
“Well, come on.” Drew spread her hands like the truth was obvious. “Olympus is closed. Percy’s disappeared. Hera sends you a vision, and you come back with three new demigods in one day. I mean, something weird is going on. The Great Prophecy has started, right?”
Piper whispered to Rachel, “What’s she talking about—the Great Prophecy?”
Then she realised everyone else was looking at Rachel, too.
“Well?” Drew called down. “You’re the oracle. Has it started or not?”
Rachel’s eyes looked scary in the firelight. Piper was afraid she might clench up and start channelling a freaky peacock goddess again, but she
stepped forward calmly and addressed the camp.
“Yes,” she said. “The Great Prophecy has begun.”
Pandemonium broke out.
Piper caught Jason’s eye. He mouthed, You all right?
She nodded and managed a smile, but then looked away. It was too painful seeing him and not being with him. When the talking finally subsided, Rachel took another step toward the audience, and fifty-plus demigods leaned away from her, as if one skinny redheaded mortal was more intimidating than all of them put together.
“For those of you who have not heard it,” Rachel said, “the Great Prophecy was my first prediction. It arrived in August. It goes like this: ‘Nine half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall—”
Jason shot to his feet. His eyes looked wild, like he’d just been tasered.
Even Rachel seemed caught off guard. “J-Jason? What’s—”
“Ut cum spiritu postrema sacramentum dejuremus,” he chanted. “Et hostes ornamenta addent ad ianuam necem.”
An uneasy silence settled on the group. Piper could see from their faces that several of them were trying to translate the lines. She could tell it was Latin, but she wasn’t sure why her hopefully future boyfriend was suddenly chanting like a Catholic priest.
“You just … finished the prophecy,” Rachel stammered. “—An oath to keep with a final breath. And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death. How did you—”
“I know those lines.” Jason winced and put his hands to his temples. “I don’t know how, but I know that prophecy.”
Suddenly, Ethan laughed. Everyone around him shifted uncomfortably, inching away from him, but he just nodded at Jason like he had just answered all his questions.
“In Latin, no less,” Drew called out. “Handsome and smart.”
There was some giggling from the Aphrodite cabin.
God, what a bunch of losers, Piper thought.
“Drew?” Ethan called, eye alight with a dangerous glint.
“Yeah?” Drew answered, sitting a bit straighter under his attention.
“I’ll sew your lips together. Shut up for a minute, yeah?”
She paled, cleared her throat and looked away. Piper looked at Ethan, damn, he was kind of cute now that she thought about- ew. Ew, ew, ew. She immediately regretted thinking that; she took it back.
The campfire was burning a chaotic, nervous shade of green.
Jason sat down, looking embarrassed, but Ethan just patted his shoulder and muttered something into his ear. Rachel Dare still looked a little shaken. She glanced back at Chiron for guidance, but the centaur stood grim and silent, as if he were watching a play he couldn’t interrupt—a tragedy that ended with a lot of people dead onstage.
“Well,” Rachel said, trying to regain her composure. “So, yeah, that’s the Great Prophecy. We hoped it might not happen for years, but I fear it’s starting now. I can’t give you proof. It’s just a feeling. And as Drew said, some weird stuff is happening. The seven demigods, whoever they are, have not been gathered yet. I get the feeling some are here tonight. Some are not here.”
The campers began to stir and mutter, looking at each other nervously, until a drowsy voice in the crowd called out,
“I’m here! Oh … were you calling roll?”
“Go back to sleep, Clovis,” someone yelled, and a lot of people laughed.
“Anyway,” Rachel continued, “we don’t know what the Great Prophecy means. We don’t know what challenge the demigods will face, but since the first Great Prophecy predicted the Titan War, we can guess the second Great Prophecy will predict something at least that bad.”
“Or worse,” Chiron murmured.
Maybe he didn’t mean everyone to overhear, but they did.
“Thank you for that,” Ethan said, sarcastically. “Real reassuring.”
The campfire immediately turned dark purple, the same colour as Piper’s dream.
“What we do know,” Rachel said, “is that the first phase has begun. A major problem has arisen, and we need a quest to solve it. Hera, the queen of the gods, has been taken.”
Shocked silence. Then fifty demigods started talking at once.
Chiron pounded his hoof again, but Rachel still had to wait before she could get back their attention. She told them about the incident on the Grand Canyon skywalk—how Gleeson Hedge had sacrificed himself when the storm spirits attacked, and the spirits had warned it was only the beginning. They apparently served some great mistress who would destroy all demigods.
Then Rachel told them about Piper passing out in Hera’s cabin. Piper tried to keep a calm expression, even when she noticed Drew in the back row, pantomiming a faint, and her friends giggling. Finally, Rachel told them about Jason’s vision in the living room of the Big House.
The message Hera had delivered there was so similar that Piper got a chill. The only difference: Hera had warned Piper not to betray her: Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. Hera knew about the giant’s threat. But if that was true, why hadn’t she warned Jason and exposed Piper as an enemy agent?
“Jason,” Rachel said. “Um … do you remember your last name?”
He looked self-conscious, but he shook his head.
“We’ll just call you Jason, then,” Rachel said.
“What else would we call him?” Ethan muttered. Rachel sighed, moving so she stood behind him and slapped the back of his head.
“As I was saying, it’s clear Hera herself has issued you a quest.”
Rachel paused, as if giving Jason a chance to protest his destiny. Everyone’s eyes were on him; there was so much pressure, Piper thought she would’ve buckled in his position. Yet he looked brave and determined.
He set his jaw and nodded. “I agree.”
“You must save Hera to prevent a great evil,” Rachel continued. “Some sort of king from rising. For reasons we don’t yet understand, it must happen by the winter solstice, only four days from now.”
“That’s the council day of the gods,” Annabeth said. “If the gods don’t already know Hera’s gone, they will definitely notice her absence by then. They’ll probably break out fighting, accusing each other of taking her. That’s what they usually do.”
“The winter solstice,” Chiron spoke up, “is also the time of greatest darkness. The gods gather that day, as mortals always have, because there is strength in numbers. The solstice is a day when evil magic is strong. Ancient magic, older than the gods. It is a day when things… stir.”
The way he said it, stirring sounded absolutely sinister—like it should be a first-degree felony, not something you did to cookie dough.
“Okay,” Annabeth said, glaring at the centaur. “Thank you, Captain Sunshine. Whatever’s going on, I agree with Rachel. Jason has been chosen to lead this quest, so—”
“Why hasn’t he been claimed?” somebody yelled from the Ares cabin. “If he’s so important—”
“He has been claimed,” Chiron announced. “Long ago. Jason, give them a demonstration.”
At first, Jason didn’t seem to understand. He stepped forward nervously, but Piper couldn’t help thinking how amazing he looked, with his blond hair glowing in the firelight, his regal features like those of a Roman statue. He glanced at Piper, and she nodded encouragingly. She mimicked flipping a coin.
Jason reached into his pocket. His coin flashed in the air, and when he caught it in his hand, he was holding a lance—a rod of gold about seven feet long, with a spear tip at one end.
The other demigods gasped. Rachel and Annabeth stepped back to avoid the point, which looked sharp as an ice pick.
“Wasn’t that …” Annabeth hesitated. “I thought you had a sword.”
“Um, it came up tails, I think,” Jason said. “Same coin, long-range weapon form.”
“Dude, I want one!” yelled somebody from Ares' cabin.
“Better than Clarisse’s electric spear, Lamer!” one of his brothers agreed.
“Electric,” Jason murmured, like that was a good idea. “Back away.”
Annabeth and Rachel got the message, but Ethan stayed rooted to his spot, raising a challenging brow. Jason raised his javelin, and thunder broke open the sky. Every hair on Piper’s arms stood straight up.
Lightning arced down through the golden spear point and hit the campfire with the force of an artillery shell.
When the smoke cleared and the ringing in Piper’s ears subsided, the entire camp sat frozen in shock, half blind, covered in ashes, staring at the place where the fire had been. Cinders rained down everywhere. A burning log had impaled itself a few inches from the sleeping kid, Clovis, who hadn’t even stirred.
Jason lowered his lance. “Um… sorry.”
Chiron brushed some burning coals out of his beard. He grimaced as if his worst fears had been confirmed.
“A little overkill, perhaps, but you’ve made your point. And I believe we know who your father is.”
“Jupiter,” Jason said. “I mean Zeus. Lord of the Sky.”
“No, you meant Jupiter,” Ethan mumbled, but no one heard him.
Piper couldn’t help smiling. It made perfect sense. The most powerful god, the father of all the greatest heroes in the ancient myths—no one else could possibly be Jason’s dad.
Apparently, the rest of the camp wasn’t so sure. Everything broke into chaos, with dozens of people asking questions until Annabeth raised her arms.
“Hold it!” she said. “How can he be the son of Zeus? The Big Three… their pact not to have mortal kids…
“Which we all know only Hades followed,” Ethan commented.
“How could we not have known about him sooner?” Annabeth finished, sending a glare at Ethan, who ignored her.
Chiron didn’t answer, but Piper got the feeling he knew. And the truth was not good.
“The important thing,” Rachel said, “is that Jason’s here now. He has a quest to fulfil, which means he will need his own prophecy.”
"Oh, joy!" Ethan grumbled.
Rachel closed her eyes and swooned. Two campers rushed forward and caught her. A third ran to the side of the amphitheatre and grabbed a bronze three-legged stool, like they’d been trained for this duty.
They eased Rachel onto the stool in front of the ruined hearth. Without the fire, the night was dark, but green mist started swirling around Rachel’s feet. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing. Emerald smoke issued from her mouth. The voice that came out was raspy and ancient—the sound a snake would make if it could talk:
Child of lightning, beware the earth,
The giants’ revenge the nine shall birth,
Balance years for fire,
Heavenly light leads to the rebirth of ire.
The forge and dove shall break the cage,
And death unleashed through Hera’s rage.
On the last word, Rachel collapsed, but her helpers were waiting to catch her. They carried her away from the hearth and laid her in the corner to rest.
“Is that normal?” Piper asked. Then she realised she’d spoken into the silence, and everyone was looking at her. “I mean… does she spew green smoke a lot?”
“Gods, you’re dense!” Drew sneered. “She just issued a prophecy—Jason’s prophecy to save Hera! Why don’t you just—”
“Drew,” Etham smiled at her. A needle and thread appeared in his hand, and he shook it. The daughter of Aphrodite huffed but backed down. “Thank you.”
“Drew,” Annabeth snapped. “Piper asked a fair question. Something about that prophecy definitely isn’t normal. If breaking Hera’s cage unleashes her rage and causes a bunch of death… why would we free her? It might be a trap, or—or maybe Hera will turn on her rescuers. She’s never been kind to heroes.”
“More like you just don’t like her,” Ethan said. “I mean, most of the heroes she doesn’t like are Zeus’s; I, for one, wouldn’t be kind to kids my husband had out of wedlock either.”
Jason rose. “I don’t have much choice. Hera took my memory. I need it back. Besides, we can’t just not help the queen of the heavens if she’s in trouble.”
A girl from Hephaestus cabin stood up—Nyssa, the one with the red bandanna.
“Maybe. But you should listen to Annabeth. Hera can be vengeful. She threw her own son—our dad—down a mountain just because he was ugly.”
“Real ugly,” snickered someone from Aphrodite.
“Shut up!” Nyssa growled.
“Anyway, we’ve also got to think —why beware the earth? And what’s the giants’ revenge? What are we dealing with here that’s powerful enough to kidnap the queen of the heavens?”
No one answered, but Piper noticed Annabeth and Chiron having a silent exchange. Piper thought it went something like:
Annabeth: The giants’ revenge… no, it can’t be.
Chiron: Don’t speak of it here. Don’t scare them.
Annabeth: You’re kidding me! We can’t be that unlucky.
Chiron: Later, child. If you told them everything, they would be too terrified to proceed.
Piper knew it was crazy to think she could read their expressions so well—two people she barely knew. But she was absolutely positive she understood them, and it scared the jujubes out of her. Annabeth took a deep breath.
“It’s Jason’s quest,” she announced, “so it’s Jason’s choice. Obviously, he’s the child of lightning. According to tradition, he may choose his companions.”
Someone from the Hermes cabin yelled, “Well, you, obviously, Annabeth. You’ve got the most experience.”
“No, Travis,” Annabeth said. “First off, I’m not helping Hera. Every time I’ve tried, she’s deceived me, or it’s come back to bite me later. Forget it. No way. Secondly, I’m leaving first thing in the morning to find Percy.”
“It’s connected,” Piper blurted out, not sure how she got the courage. “You know that’s true, don’t you? This whole business, your friend’s disappearance—it’s all connected.”
“How?” demanded Drew. “If you’re so smart, how?”
Piper tried to form an answer, but she couldn’t.
"She's right," Ethan answered. "It's connected, only an idiot wouldn't realise that. I thought you were a smart girl, Drew... Maybe I was wrong?"
Drew's face flushed pink. Annabeth agreed with Ethan for once, but Piper had a feeling it was more for her benefit than his.
“If this is connected, I’ll find out from the other end—by searching for Percy. As I said, I’m not about to rush off to rescue Hera, even if her disappearance sets the rest of the Olympians fighting again. But there’s another reason I can’t go. The prophecy says otherwise.”
“It says who I pick,” Jason agreed. “The forge and dove shall break the cage. The forge is the symbol of Vul—Hephaestus.”
Under the Cabin Nine banner, Nyssa’s shoulders slumped, like she’d just been given a heavy anvil to carry.
“If you have to beware the earth,” she said, “you should avoid travelling overland. You’ll need air transport.”
Piper was about to call out that Jason could fly. But then she thought better of it. That was for Jason to tell them, and he wasn’t volunteering the information. Maybe he figured he’d freaked them out enough for one night.
“The flying chariot’s broken,” Nyssa continued, “and the pegasi, we’re using them to search for Percy. But maybe Hephaestus's cabin can help figure out something else to help. With Jake incapacitated, I’m the senior camper. I can volunteer for the quest.”
She didn’t sound enthusiastic.
Then Leo stood up. He’d been so quiet, Piper had almost forgotten he was there, which was totally not like Leo.
“It’s me,” he said. His cabinmates stirred. Several tried to pull him back to his seat, but Leo resisted. “No, it’s me. I know it is. I’ve got an idea for the transportation problem. Let me try. I can fix this!”
Jason studied him for a moment. Piper was sure he was going to tell Leo no. Then he smiled.
“We started this together, Leo. Seems only right you come along. You find us a ride, you’re in.”
“Yes!” Leo pumped his fist.
“It’ll be dangerous,” Nyssa warned him. “Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, Leo didn’t look so excited. Then he remembered everyone was watching. “I mean … Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let’s do this.”
Annabeth nodded.
“Then, Jason, you only need to choose the third quest member. The dove—”
“Oh, absolutely!” Drew was on her feet and flashing Jason a smile. “The dove is Aphrodite. Everybody knows that. I am totally yours.”
Piper’s hands clenched. She stepped forward. “No.”
Drew rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Dumpster girl. Back off.”
“I had the vision of Hera, not you. I have to do this.”
“Anyone can have a vision,” Drew said. “You were just at the right place at the right time.”
She turned to Jason.
“Look, fighting is all fine, I suppose. And people who build things…” She looked at Leo in disdain. Well, I suppose someone has to get their hands dirty. But you need charm on your side. I can be very persuasive. I could help a lot.”
The campers started murmuring about how Drew was pretty persuasive. Piper could see Drew winning them over. Even Chiron was scratching his beard, like Drew’s participation suddenly made sense to him.
“Well …” Annabeth said. “Given the wording of the prophecy—”
“No!” Piper’s own voice sounded strange in her ears—more insistent, richer in tone. “I’m supposed to go.”
Then the weirdest thing happened. Everyone started nodding, muttering that hmm, Piper’s point of view made sense too. Drew looked around, incredulous. Even some of her own campers were nodding.
“Get over it!” Drew snapped at the crowd. “What can Piper do?”
Piper tried to respond, but her confidence started to wane. What could she offer? She wasn’t a fighter, or a planner, or a fixer. She had no skills except getting into trouble and occasionally convincing people to do stupid things.
Plus, she was a liar. She needed to go on this quest for reasons that went way beyond Jason—and if she did go, she’d end up betraying everyone there. She heard that voice from the dream: Do our bidding, and you may walk away alive. How could she make a choice like that—between helping her father and helping Jason?
“Well,” Drew said smugly, “I guess that settles it.”
Suddenly, there was a collective gasp. Everyone stared at Piper like she’d just exploded. She wondered what she’d done wrong. Then she realised there was a pinkish glow around her.
“What?” she demanded.
She looked above her, but there was no burning symbol like the one that appeared over Leo. Then she looked down and yelped.
Her clothes… what in the world was she wearing? She despised dresses. But now she was adorned in a beautiful white sleeveless gown that went down to her ankles, with a V-neck so low it was embarrassing. Delicate gold armbands circled her biceps. An intricate necklace of amber, coral, and gold flowers glittered on her chest, and her hair…
“Oh, god,” she said. “What’s happened?”
A stunned Annabeth pointed at Piper’s dagger, which was now oiled and gleaming, hanging at her side on a golden cord. Piper didn’t want to draw it. She was afraid of what she would see. But her curiosity won out.
She unsheathed Katoptris and stared at her reflection in the polished metal blade. Her hair was perfect: lush and long and chocolate brown, braided with gold ribbons down one side so it fell across her shoulder. She even wore makeup,
better than Piper would ever know how to do herself—subtle touches that made her lips cherry red and brought out all the different colours in her eyes.
She was...
“Beautiful,” Jason exclaimed. “Piper, you … you’re a knockout.”
Under different circumstances, that would’ve been the happiest moment of her life. But now everyone was staring at her like she was a freak. Drew’s face was full of horror and revulsion.
“No!” she cried. “Not possible!”
“This isn’t me,” Piper protested. “I—don’t understand.”
Chiron the centaur folded his front legs and bowed to her, and all the campers followed his example.
“Hail, Piper McLean,” Chiron announced gravely, as if he were speaking at her funeral. “Daughter of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love.
“I love being right.” Ethan cackled as he stood. He dusted his pants and pointed at Jason, Leo and Piper as he spoke. "Child of lightning. The Forge. The Dove and I'm balance. And that makes four. Isn't that fantastic?"
"Say that again," Leo said on autopilot. Ethan grinned at him.
Jason didn't have any doubt that Leo would find something to help them on their quest, and Ethan obviously had experience and a weird sense to analyse his surroundings. He would never say it out loud, but Ethan accompanying them filled him with relief; something about him radiated safety and protection, and that was something he needed.
Jason nodded at his group, satisfied.
An odd team of four to save the world, what could go wrong?
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Notes:
✦ The answer is a lot...a lot could go wrong heheheh
Another chap because the last one was short asf and I felt bad. The lyrics at the beginning of each chap are actually making me rack my brain because why do I suddenly not know any lyrics or songs soooooo
Drop song lyrics that u think fit this act or characters! Please, I beg <3
Anyways
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 9: 𝓋𝒾𝒾. Nope, he'd definitely seen the fire
Notes:
I uploaded this chap to wp like 2 days ago and i literally JUST remembered I forgot to cross-post it onto here. 😭
Forgive me!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Congratulations on your new improvements
I bet your light rod is, like, bigger than Zeus's
Hey, wait, can you lift my car with your hand?
You were an ugly kid, but you're a sexy man
Sorry, I did not see the vision
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
✦ Leo had no idea what he had gotten himself into.
He'd stood up in front of a bunch of stronger, braver demigods and volunteered—volunteered—for a mission that would probably get him killed.
He hadn't mentioned seeing Tía Callida, his old babysitter, but as soon as he'd heard about Jason's vision—the lady in the black dress and shawl—Leo knew it was the same woman.
Tía Callida was Hera. His evil babysitter was the queen of the gods. Stuff like that could really deep-fry your brain.
He trudged toward the woods and tried not to think about his childhood—all the messed-up things that had led to his mother's death. But he couldn't help it.
The first time Tía Callida tried to kill him, he must've been about two.
She was looking after him while his mother was at the machine shop. She wasn't really his aunt, of course—just one of the old women in the community, a generic tía who helped watch the kids. She smelled like a honey-baked ham and always wore a widow's dress with a black shawl.
"Let's set you down for a nap," she said. "Let's see if you are my brave little hero, eh?"
Leo was sleepy. She nestled him into his blankets in a warm mound of red and yellow—pillows? The bed was like a cubbyhole in the wall, made of blackened bricks, with a metal slot over his head and a square hole far above, where he could see the stars.
He remembered resting comfortably, grabbing at sparks like fireflies. He dozed and dreamed of a boat made of fire, sailing through the cinders. He imagined himself on board, navigating the sky. Somewhere nearby, Tía Callida sat in her rocking chair—creak, creak, creak—and sang a lullaby.
Even at two, Leo knew the difference between English and Spanish, and he remembered being puzzled because Tía Callida was singing in a language that was neither. Everything was fine until his mother came home.
She screamed and raced over to snatch him up, yelling at Tía Callida, "How could you?"
But the old lady had disappeared.
Leo remembered looking over his mother's shoulder at the flames curling around his blankets. Only years later had he realised he'd been sleeping in a blazing fireplace.
The weirdest thing? Tía Callida hadn't been arrested or even banished from their house. She appeared again several times over the next few years.
Once when Leo was three, she let him play with knives.
"You must learn your blades early," she insisted, "if you are to be my hero someday."
Leo managed not to kill himself, but he got the feeling Tía Callida wouldn't have cared one way or the other. When Leo was four, Tía found a rattlesnake for him in a nearby cow pasture. She gave him a stick and encouraged him to poke the animal.
"Where is your bravery, little hero? Show me the Fates were right to choose you." Leo stared down at those amber eyes, hearing the dry shh-shh-ssh of the snake's rattle. He couldn't bring himself to poke the snake. It didn't seem fair.
Apparently, the snake felt the same way about biting a little kid. Leo could've sworn it looked at Tía Callida like, Are you nuts, lady? Then it disappeared into the tall grass.
The last time she babysat him, Leo was five. She brought him a pack of crayons and a pad of paper. They sat together at the picnic table in back of the apartment complex, under an old pecan tree.
While Tía Callida sang her strange songs, Leo drew a picture of the boat he'd seen in the flames, with colourful sails and rows of oars, a curved stern, and an awesome masthead.
When he was almost done, about to sign his name the way he'd learned in kindergarten, a wind snatched the picture away. It flew into the sky and disappeared.
Leo wanted to cry. He'd spent so much time on that picture—but Tía Callida just clucked with disappointment.
"It isn't time yet, little hero. Someday, you'll have your quest. You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense. But first, you must face many sorrows. I regret that, but heroes cannot be shaped any other way. Now, make me a fire, eh? Warm these old bones."
A few minutes later, Leo's mum came out and shrieked with horror. Tía Callida was gone, but Leo sat in the middle of a smoking fire. The pad of paper was reduced to ashes. Crayons had melted into a bubbling puddle of multicoloured goo, and Leo's hands were ablaze, slowly burning through the picnic table.
For years afterwards, people in the apartment complex would wonder how someone had seared the impressions of a five-year-old's hands an inch deep into solid wood.
Now Leo was sure that Tía Callida, his psychotic babysitter, had been Hera all along. That made her, what—his godly grandmother? His family was even more messed up than he realised.
He wondered if his mother had known the truth. Leo remembered that after the last visit, his mum took him inside and had a long talk with him, but he only understood some of it.
"She can't come back again."
His mum had a beautiful face with kind eyes and curly dark hair, but she looked older than she was because of hard work. The lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her hands were callused. She was the first person from their family to graduate from college. She had a degree in mechanical engineering and could design, fix, and build anything.
No one would hire her. No company would take her seriously, so she ended up in the machine shop, trying to make enough money to support the two of them. She always smelled of machine oil, and when she talked with Leo, she switched from Spanish to English constantly—using them like complementary tools.
It took Leo years to realise that not everyone spoke that way. She'd even taught him Morse code as a kind of game, so they could tap messages to each other when they were in different rooms:
I love you. You okay? Simple things like that.
"I don't care what Callida says," his mum told him.
"I don't care about destiny and the Fates. You're too young for that. You're still my baby."
She took his hands, looking for burn marks, but of course, there weren't any.
"Leo, listen to me. Fire is a tool, like anything else, but it's more dangerous than most. You don't know your limits. Please, promise me—no more fire until you meet your father. Someday, mijo, you will meet him. He'll explain everything."
Leo had heard that since he could remember. Someday, he would meet his dad.
His mum wouldn't answer any questions about him. Leo had never met him, never even seen pictures, but she talked like he'd just gone to the store for some milk and he'd be back any minute. Leo tried to believe her.
Someday, one day, everything would make sense.
For the next couple of years, they were happy. Leo almost forgot about Tía Callida. He still dreamed of the flying boat, but the other strange events seemed like a dream, too.
It all came apart when he was eight. By then, he was spending every free hour at the shop with his mum. He knew how to use the machines. He could measure and do math better than most adults. He'd learned to think three-dimensionally, solving mechanical problems in his head the way his mum did.
One night, they stayed late because his mum was finishing a drill bit design she hoped to patent. If she could sell the prototype, it might change their lives. She'd finally get a break.
As she worked, Leo passed her supplies and told her corny jokes, trying to keep her spirits up. He loved it when he could make her laugh. She'd smile and say,
"Your father would be proud of you, mijo. You'll meet him soon, I'm sure."
Mum's workspace was at the very back of the shop. It was kind of creepy at night, because they were the only ones there. Every sound echoed through the dark warehouse, but Leo didn't mind as long as he was with his mum.
If he did wander the shop, they could always keep in touch with Morse code taps. Whenever they were ready to leave, they had to walk through the entire shop, through the break room, and out to the parking lot, locking the doors behind them.
That night, after finishing up, they'd just gotten to the break room when his mom realised she didn't have her keys.
"That's funny." She frowned. "I know I had them. Wait here, mijo. I'll only be a minute."
She gave him one more smile—the last one he'd ever get—and she went back into the warehouse.
She'd only been gone a few heartbeats when the interior door slammed shut. Then the exterior door locked itself.
"Mum?" Leo's heart pounded. Something heavy crashed inside the warehouse. He ran to the door, but no matter how hard he pulled or kicked, it wouldn't open."Mum!"
Frantically, he tapped a message on the wall: You okay?
"She can't hear you," a voice said.
Leo turned and found himself facing a strange woman. At first, he thought it was Tía Callida. She was wrapped in black robes, with a veil covering her face.
"Tía?" he said.
The woman chuckled, a slow, gentle sound, as if she were half asleep. "I am not your guardian. Merely a family resemblance."
"What—what do you want? Where's my mom?"
"Ah... loyal to your mother. How nice. But you see, I have children too... and I understand you will fight them someday. When they try to wake me, you will prevent them. I cannot allow that."
"I don't know you. I don't want to fight anybody."
She muttered like a sleepwalker in a trance, "A wise choice."
With a chill, Leo realised the woman was, in fact, asleep. Behind the veil, her eyes were closed. But even stranger: her clothes were not made of cloth. They were made of earth—dry black dirt, churning and shifting around her.
Her pale, sleeping face was barely visible behind a curtain of dust, and he had the horrible sense that she'd just risen from the grave. If the woman was asleep, Leo wanted her to stay that way. He knew that, fully awake, she would be even more terrible.
"I cannot destroy you yet," the woman murmured. "The Fates will not allow it. But they do not protect your mother, and they cannot stop me from breaking your spirit. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me."
"Leave my mother alone!" Fear rose in his throat as the woman shuffled forward. She moved more like an avalanche than a person, a dark wall of earth shifting toward him.
"How will you stop me?" she whispered.
She walked straight through a table, the particles of her body reassembling on the other side.
She loomed over Leo, and he knew she would pass right through him, too. He was the only thing between her and his mother.
His hands caught fire.
A sleepy smile spread across the woman's face, as if she'd already won. Leo screamed with desperation. His vision turned red. Flames washed over the earthen woman, the walls, the locked doors. And Leo lost consciousness.
When he woke, he was in an ambulance.
The paramedic tried to be kind. She told him the warehouse had burned down. His mother hadn't made it out. The paramedic said she was sorry, but Leo felt hollow. He'd lost control, just like his mother had warned. Her death was his fault.
Soon, the police came to get him, and they weren't as nice. The fire had started in the break room, they said, right where Leo was standing. He'd survived by some miracle, but what kind of child locked the doors of his mother's workplace, knowing she was inside, and started a fire?
Later, his neighbours at the apartment complex told the police what a strange boy he was. They talked about the burned handprints on the picnic table.
They'd always known something was wrong with Esperanza Valdez's son.
His relatives wouldn't take him in. His Aunt Rosa called him a diablo and shouted at the social workers to take him away. So Leo went to his first foster home. A few days later, he ran away.
Some foster homes lasted longer than others. He would joke around, make a few friends, pretend that nothing bothered him, but he always ended up running sooner or later. It was the only thing that made the pain better—feeling like he was moving, getting farther and farther away from the ashes of that machine shop.
He'd promised himself he would never play with fire again. He hadn't thought about Tía Callida, or the sleeping woman wrapped in earthen robes, for a long time.
He was almost to the woods when he imagined Tía Callida's voice: It wasn't your fault, little hero. Our enemy wakes. It's time to stop running.
"Hera," Leo muttered, "You're not even here, are you? You're in a cage somewhere."
There was no answer.
But now, at least, Leo understood something. Hera had been watching him his entire life. Somehow, she'd known that one day she would need him.
Maybe those Fates she mentioned could tell the future. Leo wasn't sure. But he knew he was meant to go on this quest. Jason's prophecy warned them to beware the earth, and Leo knew it had something to do with that sleeping woman in the shop, wrapped in robes of shifting dirt.
You'll find your destiny, Tía Callida had promised, and your hard journey will finally make sense.
Leo might find out what that flying boat in his dreams meant. He might meet his father, or even get to avenge his mother's death.
They cannot stop me from breaking your spirit, the sleeping woman had said. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me.
"Believe me, lady," Leo muttered. He took a deep breath and plunged into the forest. "I remember. And whoever you are, I'm gonna face-plant you hard, Leo-style."
But first things first. He'd promised Jason a flying ride.
Not the boat from his dreams—not yet. There wasn't time to build something that complicated. He needed a quicker solution.
He needed a dragon.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Ethan's eye followed Leo as he made a hasty exit after Piper was claimed.
Leo stopped at the edge of the woods, looking back in the direction of the cabins once before squaring his shoulders and walking into the forest. The corner of Ethan's mouth quirks up as he follows Leo into the woods at a distance close enough to intervene if anything were to go wrong, but far enough for Leo not to notice him.
The son of Hephaestus was getting straight to work then.
Ethan trailed after him, disappearing and reappearing in puffs of shadow when some monsters got too close for his liking.
Leo stumbled along through the woods until he came to a halt. He looked back in the direction of the cabins and nodded, then he summoned fire. Flames danced along his fingertips, casting enough light to see.
Ethan cocked his head to the side and watched the flames flicker in Leo's hand. That was not something he had accounted for or even considered.
Leo kept walking, looking for dragon-type clues—giant footprints, trampled trees, swaths of burnt forest. Once Ethan glimpsed a large, furry shape, but it stayed away from Leo's fire, which was one less monster he had to worry about.
Soon they reached the bottom of a clearing, and they saw the first trap—a hundred-foot-wide crater ringed with boulders.
In the centre of the depression, a metal vat the size of a hot tub had been filled with bubbly dark liquid—Tabasco sauce and motor oil. On a pedestal suspended over the vat, an electric fan rotated in a circle, spreading the fumes across the forest. Could metal dragons smell?
The vat seemed to be unguarded. But Leo looked closely, and in the dim light of the stars and his handheld fire, he could see the glint of metal beneath the dirt and leaves—a bronze net lining the entire crater. Or maybe see wasn't the right word—he could sense it there, as if the mechanism was emitting heat, revealing itself to him.
Six large strips of bronze stretched out from the vat like the spokes of a wheel.
They would be pressure sensitive, Leo guessed. As soon as the dragon stepped on one, the net would spring closed, and voilà—one gift-wrapped monster.
Leo edged closer.
"I wouldn't get too close if I were you," Ethan called out.
Leo whirled around, fire in his hands sputtering out. Ethan jumped off the tree branch he was sitting on and sauntered forward, coming to a stop next to Leo.
"I was there when they did a trial run, and it isn't something I would like to experience again."
"You-I-" Leo stuttered. Alarms were ringing in his head. Ethan had seen the flames. "I can explain."
Ethan blinked at him and motioned to the trap. "Please do."
Leo gawked at him. Ethan thought he meant the trap... had he not seen the fire?
"Oh, and Valdez? Summon the fire again," Ethan said. "It's so dark, I can't see shit."
Nope, he'd definitely seen the fire.
"You going to explain this contraption or not, kid?"
Leo sighed, moved forward and put his foot on the nearest trigger strip. As he expected, nothing happened.
"They set the trap to trigger for a specific weight," Leo explained. "It's set to register heavy weights or else the trap would trigger for anything in the woods."
"Should have known they would account for that," Ethan hummed. He turned and looked at Leo. "Well? What's the plan?"
"You..." Leo trailed off. "The fire.. I can explain-"
"Look, kid," Ethan sighed. "It's clear you don't want anyone to know, so I won't tell. My sister can do the fire thing too."
"But I can't control it?"
Ethan raised a brow. "Kid, fire isn't meant to be controlled. It's a destructive force of nature."
"But I could hurt someone!"
"My sister blew up a volcano."
"Exactly! And that's why I should- Wait, did you say she blew up a volcano?"
"Mt Saint Helens."
Leo slowly blinks at him. "The huge eruption that displaced millions?"
"That's the one," Ethan nodded, "Putting that aside, you aren't going to hurt me, fire can't burn shadow, so let's move on and find whatever it is you're looking for, yeah?
Leo nodded. Ethan's sister blew up a volcano.
"Stop thinking about it," Ethan grumbled. "Or I'll pour ice water over you."
"It's pretty hard not to think about it. I mean, she-"
"Leo."
"And I've stopped thinking about it. Wow, what's that down there?"
Leo picked his way down the crater and approached the vat with Ethan trailing behind him. The fumes were almost overpowering, and his eyes started watering. He remembered a time when Tía Callida—Hera, whatever—had made him chop jalapeños in the kitchen, and he'd gotten the juice in his eyes.
The worst pain he had ever felt, like ever, by the way.
But of course, she'd been like, "Endure it, little hero. The Aztecs of your mother's homeland used to punish bad children by holding them over a fire filled with chilli peppers. They raised many heroes that way."
A total psycho, that lady.
Leo was so glad that he was on a quest to rescue her. Tía Callida would've loved this vat, because it was way worse than jalapeño juice.
"I think," Ethan frowned. "I'll stay up here and guard the perimeter."
Leo gave him a look, but Ethan just shrugged.
"Hey, man. You are fireproof, I am not."
Leo looked for a trigger—something that would disable the net. He didn't see anything. He had a moment of panic.
Nyssa had said there were several traps like this in the woods, and they were planning more. What if the dragon had already stepped into another one? How could Leo possibly find them all? Although he probably could ask Ethan to find the dragon, and he would.
Leo continued to search, but he didn't see any release mechanism. No large button labelled off. It occurred to him that there might not be one. He started to despair—and then he heard the sound.
"Uh. Valdez?" Ethan called from above. "We gotta go."
It was more of a tremor—the deep sort of rumbling you hear in your gut rather than your ears. It gave him the jitters, but he didn't look around for the source.
"Valdez," Ethan said as he leaned forward into the pit. "Anytime now."
Leo just kept examining the trap, muttering under his breath. "Must be a long way off. It's pounding its way through the woods. We gotta hurry."
Then he heard a grinding snort, like steam forced out of a metal barrel.
His neck tingled. He turned slowly. Ethan had frozen, turned to look at Leo rather than his surroundings.
At the edge of the pit, fifty feet away, two glowing red eyes were staring at them. The creature gleamed in the moonlight, and Leo couldn't believe something that huge had sneaked up on him so fast. Too late, he realised its gaze was fixed on the fire in his hand, and he extinguished the flames.
He could still see the dragon just fine. It was about sixty feet long, snout to tail, its body made of interlocking bronze plates. Its claws were the size of butcher knives, and its mouth was lined with hundreds of dagger-sharp metal teeth. Steam came out of its nostrils.
It snarled like a chainsaw cutting through a tree. It could've bitten Leo in half, easy, or stomped him flat. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, except for one problem that completely ruined Leo's plan.
"You don't have wings," Leo said.
"Acute observational skills," Ethan huffed next to him. "Shouldn't we be running?"
The dragon's snarl died. It tilted its head as if to say, Why aren't you running away in terror?
"Hey, no offence," Leo said. "You're amazing! Good god, who made you? Are you hydraulic or nuclear-powered or what? But if it were me, I would've put wings on you. What kind of dragon doesn't have wings? I guess maybe you're too heavy to fly? I should've thought of that."
Ethan gave Leo a helpless look. God, what was it with fire users and their rambles and fascination with the way things work? Helena had been exactly the same.
The dragon snorted, more confused now. It was supposed to trample Leo. This conversation thing wasn't part of the plan. It took a step forward, and Leo shouted,
"No!"
The dragon snarled again.
"It's a trap, bronze brain," Leo said. "They're trying to catch you."
The dragon opened its mouth and blew fire. Ethan flickered out of existence beside him. A column of white-hot flames billowed over Leo, more than he'd ever tried to endure before. He felt as if he were being hosed down with a powerful, very hot fire hose. It stung a little, but he stood his ground.
When the flames died, he was perfectly fine. Even his clothes were okay, which Leo didn't understand, but for which he was grateful. He liked his army jacket, and having his pants seared off would've been pretty embarrassing.
Ethan reappeared at the edge of the clearing, watching the exchange carefully, sword now in his hand.
The dragon stared at Leo. Its face didn't actually change, being made of metal and all, but Leo thought he could read its expression: Why no crispy critter? A spark flew out of its neck like it was about to short-circuit.
"You can't burn me," Leo said, trying to sound stern and calm. He'd never had a dog before, but he talked to the dragon the way he thought you'd talk to a dog. "Stay, boy. Don't come any closer. I don't want you to get caught. See, they think you're broken and have to be scrapped. But I don't believe that. I can fix you if you'll let me—"
The dragon creaked, roared, and charged. The trap sprang. The floor of the crater erupted with a sound like a thousand trash can lids banging together. Dirt and leaves flew, metal net flashing. Leo was knocked off his feet, turned upside down, and doused in Tabasco sauce and oil. He found himself sandwiched between the vat and the dragon as it thrashed, trying to free itself from the net that had wrapped around them both.
The dragon blew flames in every direction, lighting up the sky and setting trees on fire. Oil and sauce burned all over them. It didn't hurt Leo, but it left a nasty taste in his mouth.
"Will you stop that!" he yelled.
The dragon kept squirming. Leo realised he would get crushed if he didn't move. It wasn't easy, but he managed to wriggle out from between the dragon and the vat. He squirmed his way through the net. Ethan appeared in front of him, offering him his hand and heaving him out. Fortunately, the holes were plenty big enough for a skinny kid.
Before Leo could move, Ethan managed to grab his arm.
"I got this," Leo said. "Trust me."
"Fine," Ethan sighed and let his arm go. "You're the expert. Call if you need help."
Leo ran to the dragon's head. It tried to snap at him, but its teeth were tangled in the mesh. It blew fire again, but seemed to be running out of energy.
This time, the flames were only orange. They sputtered before they even reached Leo's face.
"Listen, man," Leo said, "you're just going to show them where you are. Then they'll come and break out the acid and the metal cutters. Is that what you want?"
The dragon's jaw made a creaking sound, like it was trying to talk.
"Okay, then," Leo said. "You'll have to trust me."
Ethan sat nearby and watched him work.
It took Leo almost an hour to find the control panel. It was right behind the dragon's head, which made sense. He'd elected to keep the dragon in the net because it was easier to work with the dragon constrained, but the dragon didn't like it.
"Hold still!" Leo scolded.
The dragon made another creaking sound that might've been a whimper.
Leo examined the wires inside the dragon's head. He was distracted by a sound in the woods, but when he looked up, it was just a tree spirit—a dryad, Leo thought they were called—putting out the flames in her branches.
Fortunately, the dragon hadn't started an all-out forest fire, but still, the dryad wasn't too pleased. The girl's dress was smoking. She smothered the flames with a silky blanket, and when she saw Leo looking at her, she made a gesture that was probably very rude in Dryad and disappeared in a green poof of mist.
Leo returned his attention to the wiring. It was ingenious, definitely, and it made sense to him. This was the motor control relay. This processed sensory input from the eyes. This disk ...
"Ha," he said. "Well, no wonder."
Creak? the dragon asked with its jaw.
"You've got a corroded control disk. Probably regulates your higher reasoning circuits, right? Rusty brain, man. No wonder you're a little... confused."
Ethan snorted. A little?
"I wish I had a replacement disk, but... this is a complicated piece of circuitry. I'm gonna have to take it out and clean it. Only be a minute."
He pulled out the disk, and the dragon went absolutely still. The glow died in its eyes. Leo slid off its back and began polishing the disk. He mopped up some oil and Tabasco sauce with his sleeve, which helped cut through the grime, but the more he cleaned, the more concerned he got. Some of the circuits were beyond repair. He could make it better, but not perfect. For that, he'd need a completely new disk, and he had no idea how to build one.
He tried to work quickly. He wasn't sure how long the dragon's control disk could be off without damaging it—maybe forever—but he didn't want to take chances. Once he'd done the best he could, he climbed back up to the dragon's head and started cleaning the wiring and gearboxes, getting himself filthy in the process.
"Clean hands, dirty equipment," Leo muttered, something his mother used to say.
By the time he was through, his hands were black with grease and his clothes looked like he'd just lost a mud-wrestling contest, but the mechanisms looked a lot better. He slipped in the disk, connected the last wire, and sparks flew. The dragon shuddered. Its eyes began to glow.
"Better?" Leo asked.
The dragon made a sound like a high-speed drill. It opened its mouth and all its teeth rotated.
"I guess that's a yes. Hold on, I'll free you. Ethan?"
Ethan stood walking over to him. "What do you need?"
"Help? We gotta release the clamps and set him loose."
It took fifteen minutes for both of them to find the release clamps for the net and untangle the dragon, but finally it stood and shook the last bit of netting off its back. It roared triumphantly and shot fire at the sky.
"Seriously," Leo said. "Could you not show off?"
Creak? the dragon asked.
"You need a name," Leo decided. "I'm calling you Festus."
"Festus?" Ethan repeated. "Really?"
The dragon whirred its teeth and grinned. At least Leo hoped it was a grin.
"Cool," Leo said. "But we still have a problem, because you don't have wings."
Festus tilted his head and snorted steam. Then he lowered his back in an unmistakable gesture. He wanted them to climb on.
"Where are we going?" Leo asked.
But he was too excited to wait for an answer. He climbed onto the dragon's back. Ethan pursed his lips.
"Oh, what the heck," he muttered as he climbed on. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Festus bounded off into the woods.
Leo lost track of time and all sense of direction. It seemed impossible that the woods could be so deep and wild, but the dragon travelled until the trees were like skyscrapers and the canopy of leaves completely blotted out the stars.
Even the fire in Leo's hand couldn't have lit the way, but the dragon's glowing red eyes acted like headlights.
"Hey," Leo said. "I don't think I've met her, by the way."
"Who?" Ethan asked.
"Your sister. The one that blew up a volcano."
Ethan huffed. "I'll have to introduce you guys one day."
"That would be so cool," Leo grinned. "Maybe she could help with, you know, the whole fire thing."
Ethan hummed.
Finally, they crossed a stream and came to a dead end, a limestone cliff a hundred feet tall—a solid, sheer mass the dragon couldn't possibly climb.
Festus stopped at the base and lifted one leg like a dog pointing.
"What is it?" Leo slid to the ground. He walked up to the cliff—nothing but solid rock. The dragon kept pointing.
"It's not going to move out of your way," Leo told him.
The loose wire in the dragon's neck sparked, but otherwise, he stayed still.
"I think it's an entrance," Ethan said. "Put your hand on it."
"What, like a secret door? You guys have those things?"
"Yeah," Ethan muttered, scanning the door with a frown. "We have those things."
Leo put his hand on the cliff. Suddenly, his fingers smouldered.
Lines of fire spread from his fingertips like ignited gunpowder, sizzling across the limestone. The burning lines raced across the cliff face until they had outlined a glowing red door five times as tall as Leo.
"Secret door," Leo whispered. "So cool."
He backed up, and the door swung open, disturbingly silently for such a big slab of rock.
"Perfectly balanced," Leo muttered. "That's some first-rate engineering."
The dragon unfroze and marched inside, as if he were coming home.
Leo stepped through, and the door began to close. He had a moment of panic, remembering that night in the machine shop long ago, when he'd been locked in. What if he got stuck in here?
"We aren't trapped," Ethan said.
"What if the door doesn't open?" Leo questioned.
"I'll shadow us out," Ethan shrugged. "Simple. At least we aren't underground."
The lights flickered on—a combination of electric fluorescents and wall-mounted torches.
"Festus," Leo muttered. "What is this place?"
The dragon stomped to the centre of the room, leaving tracks in the thick dust, and curled up on a large circular platform.
The cave was the size of an aeroplane hangar, with endless worktables and storage cages, rows of garage-sized doors along either wall, and staircases that led up to a network of catwalks high above.
Equipment was everywhere—hydraulic lifts, welding torches, hazard suits, air-spades, forklifts, plus something that looked suspiciously like a nuclear reaction chamber. Bulletin boards were covered with tattered, faded blueprints. And weapons, armour, shields—war supplies all over the place, a lot of them only partially finished.
Hanging from chains far above the dragon's platform was an old, tattered banner almost too faded to read. The letters were Greek, but Leo somehow knew what they said: Bunker 9.
Did that mean nine as in the Hephaestus cabin, or nine as in there were eight others? Leo looked at Festus, still curled up on the platform, and it occurred to him that the dragon looked so content because it was home. It had probably been built on that pad.
Do the other kids know? Leo's thought.
"No," Ethan answered. "No one knows about this."
Clearly.
This place had been abandoned for decades. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. The floor revealed no footprints except for theirs and the huge paw prints of the dragon. They were the first ones in this bunker since... since a long time ago. Bunker 9 had been abandoned with a lot of projects half-finished on the tables. Locked up and forgotten, but why?
Leo looked at a map on the wall—a battle map of camp, but the paper was as cracked and yellow as onionskin. A date at the bottom read, 1864.
"No way," he muttered.
"Hey, Leo?" Ethan called, standing not too far from him, staring at something on the wall. "Look at this."
Leo walked over and spotted the blueprint Ethan was looking at, and his heart almost leapt out of his throat. He ran to the worktable and stared up at a white- line drawing almost faded beyond recognition: a Greek ship from several different angles. Faintly scrawled words underneath it read: prophecy? Unclear. Flight?
It was the ship Leo had seen in his dreams—the flying ship. Someone had tried to build it here, or at least sketched out the idea. Then it was left, forgotten... a prophecy yet to come. And weirdest of all, the ship's masthead was exactly like the one Leo had drawn when he was five—the head of a dragon.
"Looks like Festus," he murmured.
"Because it is," Ethan said, eye narrowing at the blueprint. "Interesting."
"Okay, I get why Annabeth doesn't like it when you do that."
"Do what?"
"You know the thing. Interesting."
Ethan raises a brow. "I don't say it like that."
"You totally do."
The masthead gave Leo an uneasy feeling, but his mind spun with too many other questions to think about it for long. He touched the blueprint, hoping he could take it down to study, but the paper crackled at his touch, so he left it alone. He looked around for other clues. No boats. No pieces that looked like parts of this project, but there were so many doors and storerooms to explore.
Festus snorted like he was trying to get Leo's attention, reminding him they didn't have all night. It was true. Leo figured it would be morning in a few hours, and he'd gotten completely sidetracked. He'd saved the dragon, but it wasn't going to help him on the quest. He needed something that would fly.
Festus nudged something toward him—a leather tool belt that had been left next to his construction pad. Then the dragon switched on his glowing red eye beams and turned them toward the ceiling. Leo looked up to where the spotlights were pointing, and yelped when he recognised the shapes hanging above them in the darkness.
"Festus," he said in a small voice. "We've got work to do."
Ethan backed away from Leo and the tools surrounding him.
"Where are you doing? Leo asked.
"I'm going to get food," Ethan answered. He waved his hand around, motioning to things around the room. "This is out of my area of expertise. I'm here for... moral support. You've got this kid."
Leo blinks, and shadows wrap around Ethan before he disappears.
Moral support... right.
This was fine. What's the worst that could happen?
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Notes:
✦ Once again, so sorry I forgot to cross-post; my dumb ass just completely forgot to do this TT
Anyways
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
Chapter 10: 𝓋𝒾𝒾𝒾. Their saving grace
Notes:
✦ Back from the dead! AND I hate uni for than ever!
SO SO SOOOO SORRY THIS CHAP TOOK SO LONG! Life has been... interesting to say say the least lmaoooo
Also realised I completely (once again) forgot to cross-post this update on here, so forgive me please<3
Anyways enjoyyyyy my lovesssss!!!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Oh, how I'd kill
To see you again
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
✦ Jason waking up to the sound of thunder had become the new norm.
Above his cot, the domed ceiling was decorated with a blue-and-white mosaic like a cloudy sky. The cloud tiles shifted across the ceiling, changing from white to black. Thunder rumbled through the room, and gold tiles flashed like veins of lightning.
He stared up at the ceiling, recalling his dream.
He had dreamt of a wolf. A giant she-wolf, several feet taller than Jason. Her eyes glowed silver in the fog, and her coat was a warm, chocolaty red. Lupa. The name had come to him as had small flashes of memories, ones where she nurtured and protected him.
You are our saving grace, as always. The she-wolf had curled her lip, as if she had just made a clever joke. Do not fail, son of Jupiter.
Jason huffed out a breath, sitting up and swinging his legs over and off the bed. How was he meant to save anyone without his memories?
Except for the cot that the other campers had brought him, the cabin had no regular furniture—no chairs, tables, or dressers. As far as Jason could tell, it didn't even have a bathroom. The walls were carved with alcoves, each holding a bronze brazier or a golden eagle statue on a marble pedestal.
In the centre of the room, a twenty-foot-tall, full-colour statue of Zeus in classic Greek robes stood with a shield at his side and a lightning bolt raised, ready to smite somebody. He studied the statue, trying and failing to find something in common with the god.
Zeus looked like a really buff and angry hippie. Which was slightly amusing but also really off-putting.
Jason rubbed his neck. His whole body was stiff from bad sleep and summoning lightning. That little trick last night hadn't been as easy as he had let on. It had almost made him pass out. Next to the cot, new clothes were laid out for him: jeans, sneakers, and an orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. He definitely needed a change of clothes, but looking down at his tattered purple shirt, he was reluctant to change. It felt wrong somehow, putting on the camp shirt. He still couldn't believe he belonged here, despite everything they'd told him.
He thought about his dream, hoping more memories would come back to him about Lupa, or that ruined house in the redwoods. He knew he'd been there before. The wolf was real. But his head ached when he tried to remember. The marks on his forearm seemed to burn.
If he could find those ruins, he could find his past. Whatever was growing inside that rock spire, Jason had to stop it.
He looked at Hippie Zeus. "You're welcome to help."
The statue said nothing.
"Thanks, Pops," Jason muttered.
He changed clothes and checked his reflection in Zeus's shield. His face looked watery and strange in the metal, like he was dissolving in a pool of gold. He didn't look as good as Piper had last night after she'd suddenly been transformed.
Jason still wasn't sure how he felt about that. He'd acted like an idiot, announcing in front of everyone that she was a knockout. Not like there'd been anything wrong with her before. Sure, she looked great after Aphrodite zapped her, but she also didn't look like herself and wasn't comfortable with the attention.
Jason had felt bad for her. Maybe that was crazy, considering she'd just been claimed by a goddess and turned into the most gorgeous girl at camp.
Everybody had started fawning over her, telling her how amazing she was and how obviously she should be the one who went on the quest—but that attention had nothing to do with who she was. Jason felt like he understood that.
Last night, when he'd called down lightning, the other campers' reactions had seemed familiar to him. He was pretty sure he'd been dealing with that for a long time—people looking at him in awe just because he was the son of Zeus, treating him like he was special, but it didn't have anything to do with him. Nobody cared about him, just his big, scary daddy standing behind him with the doomsday bolt, as if to say, Respect this kid or eat voltage!
After the campfire, when people started heading back to their cabins, Jason had gone up to Piper and formally asked her to come with him on the quest. She'd still been in a state of shock, but she nodded, rubbing her arms, which must've been cold in that sleeveless dress.
"Aphrodite took my snowboarding jacket," she muttered. "Mugged by my own mom."
In the first row of the amphitheatre, Jason found a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
"We'll get you a new jacket," he promised.
She managed a smile. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, but he restrained himself. He didn't want her to think he was as shallow as everyone else—trying to make a move on her because she'd turned all beautiful.
He was glad Piper was going with him on the quest. Jason had tried to act brave at the campfire, but it was just that—an act. The idea of going up against an evil force powerful enough to kidnap Hera scared him witless, especially since he didn't even know his own past. He'd need help, and it felt right: Piper should be with him. But things were already complicated without figuring out why he liked her.
He'd already messed with her head enough.
He slipped on his new shoes, ready to get out of that cold, empty cabin. Then he spotted something he hadn't noticed the night before. A brazier had been moved out of one of the alcoves to create a sleeping niche, with a bedroll, a backpack, and even some pictures taped to the wall.
Jason walked over. Whoever had slept there had been a long time ago. The bedroll smelled musty. The backpack was covered with a thin film of dust. Some of the photos, once taped to the wall, had lost their stickiness and fallen to the floor.
One picture showed Annabeth—much younger, maybe eight, but Jason could tell it was her: same blond hair and grey eyes, same distracted look like she was thinking a million things at once. She stood next to a sandy-haired guy about fourteen or fifteen, with a mischievous smile and ragged leather armour over a T-shirt. He was pointing to an alley behind them, like he was telling the photographer, Let's go meet things in a dark alley and kill them!
A second photo showed Annabeth and the same guy sitting at a campfire, laughing hysterically. Finally, Jason picked up one of the photos that had fallen.
It was a strip of pictures like you'd take in a do-it-yourself photo booth: Annabeth and the sandy-haired guy, but with another girl between them. She was maybe sixteen, with black hair choppy like Piper's—a black leather jacket, and silver jewellery, so she looked kind of goth; but she was caught mid-laugh, and it was clear she was with her two best friends.
"That's Thalia," someone said.
Jason turned. Annabeth was peering over his shoulder. Her expression was sad, like the picture brought back hard memories.
"She's the other child of Zeus who lived here—but not for long. Sorry, I should've knocked."
"It's fine," Jason shrugged. "Not like I think of this place as home."
Annabeth was dressed for travel, with a winter coat over her camp clothes, her knife at her belt, and a backpack across her shoulder.
"Don't suppose you've changed your mind about coming with us?"
She shook her head. "You got a good team already. I'm off to look for Percy."
Jason was a little disappointed. He would've appreciated having somebody—other than a cryptic Ethan—on the trip who knew what they were doing, so he wouldn't feel like he was leading Piper and Leo off a cliff.
"Hey, you'll do fine," Annabeth promised. "Something tells me this isn't your first quest."'
Jason knew she was most likely right, but that didn't make him feel any better. Everyone seemed to think he was so brave and confident, but they didn't see how lost he really felt. How could they trust him when he didn't even know who he was?
He looked at the pictures of Annabeth smiling. He wondered how long it had been since she'd smiled. She must really like this Percy guy to search for him so hard, and that made Jason a little envious. Was anyone searching for him right now? What if somebody cared for him that much and was going out of her mind with worry, and he couldn't even remember his old life?
"You know who I am," he guessed. "Don't you?"
Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. She looked for a chair to sit on, but of course, there weren't any.
"Honestly, Jason ... I'm not sure. My best guess, you're a loner. It happens sometimes. For one reason or another, the camp never found you, but you survived anyway by constantly moving around. Trained yourself to fight. Handled the monsters on your own. You beat the odds."
"The first thing Chiron said to me, " Jason remembered, "was you should be dead."
"That could be why," Annabeth said. "Most demigods would never make it on their own. And a child of Zeus—I mean, it doesn't get any more dangerous than that. The chances of your reaching age fifteen without finding Camp Half-Blood or dying—microscopic. But like I said, it does happen. Thalia ran away when she was young. She survived on her own for years. Even took care of me for a while. So maybe you were a loner too."
Jason held out his arm. "And these marks?"
Annabeth glanced at the tattoos. Clearly, they bothered her.
"Well, the eagle is the symbol of Zeus, so that makes sense. The twelve lines—maybe they stand for years, if you'd been making them since you were three years old. SPQR—that's the motto of the old Roman Empire: Senatus Populusque Romanus, the Senate and the People of Rome. Though why you would burn that on your own arm, I don't know. Unless you had a really harsh Latin teacher ..."
Jason was pretty sure that wasn't the reason. It also didn't seem possible he'd been on his own his whole life. But what else made sense? Annabeth had been pretty clear—Camp Half-Blood was the only safe place in the world for demigods.
"I, um ... had a weird dream last night," he said. It seemed like a stupid thing to confide, but Annabeth didn't look surprised.
"Happens all the time to demigods," she mused. "What did you see?"
He told her about the wolves and the ruined house and the two rock spires. As he talked, Annabeth started pacing, looking more and more agitated.
"You don't remember where this house is?" she asked.
Jason shook his head. "But I'm sure I've been there before."
"Redwoods," she mused. "Could be Northern California. And the she-wolf ... I've studied goddesses, spirits, and monsters my whole life. I've never heard of Lupa."
"She said the enemy was a 'her.' I thought maybe it was Hera, but—"
"I wouldn't trust Hera, but I don't think she's the enemy. And that thing rising out of the earth—" Annabeth's expression darkened.
"You've got to stop it."
"You know what it is, don't you?" he asked. "Or at least, you've got a guess. I saw your face last night at the campfire. You looked at Chiron like it was suddenly dawning on you, but you didn't want to scare us."
Annabeth hesitated. "Jason, the thing about prophecies ...the more you know, the more you try to change them, and that can be disastrous. Chiron believes you should find your own path, find out things in your own time. If he'd told me everything he knew before my first quest with Percy... I've got to admit, I'm not sure I would've been able to go through with it. For your quest, it's even more important."
"That bad, huh?"
"Not if you succeed. At least ... I hope not."
"But I don't even know where to start. Where am I supposed to go?"
"Follow the monsters," Annabeth suggested.
Jason thought about that. The storm spirit who'd attacked him at the Grand Canyon had said he was being recalled to his boss. If Jason could track the storm spirits, he might be able to find the person controlling them. And maybe that would lead him to Hera's prison.
"Okay," he said. "How do I find storm winds?"
"Personally, I'd ask a wind god," Annabeth said. "Aeolus is the master of all the winds, but he's a little... unpredictable. No one finds him unless he wants to be found. I'd try one of the four seasonal wind gods that work for Aeolus. The nearest one, the one who has the most dealings with heroes, is Boreas, the North Wind."
"So if I looked him up on Google maps—"
"Oh, he's not hard to find," Annabeth promised. "He settled in North America like all the other gods. So of course he picked the oldest northern settlement, about as far north as you can go."
"Maine?" Jason guessed. "Farther."
Jason tried to envision a map. What was farther north than Maine? The oldest northern settlement ...
"Canada," he decided.
"Quebec." Annabeth smiled. "I hope you speak French."
"I do actually," a voice came from behind her. "How did you know?"
Ethan was leaning against the wall behind her, arms crossed, a faint glimmer of amusement in his eye as he saw Annabeth's face sour at the sight of him. Jason actually felt a spark of excitement. Quebec—at least now he had a goal. Find the North Wind, track down the storm spirits, find out who they worked for and where that ruined house was. Free Hera. All in four days. Piece of cake... hopefully.
"Thanks, Annabeth." He looked at the photo booth pictures still in his hand. "So, um ... you said it was dangerous being a child of Zeus. Whatever happened to Thalia?"
"Oh, she's fine," Annabeth reassured, as she glared at Ethan. "She became a Hunter of Artemis—one of the handmaidens of the goddess. They roam around the country killing monsters. We don't see them at camp very often."
Jason glanced over at the huge statue of Zeus. He understood why Thalia had slept in this alcove. It was the only place in the cabin not in Hippie Zeus's line of sight. And even that hadn't been enough. She'd chosen to follow Artemis and be part of a group rather than stay in this cold, drafty temple alone with her twenty-foot-tall dad—Jason's dad—glowering down at her. Jason didn't have any trouble understanding Thalia's feelings. He wondered if there was a Hunters group for guys.
"Who's the other kid in the photo?" he asked. "The sandy-haired guy."
Annabeth's expression tightened, and Ethan's turned murderous. Touchy subject.
"That's Luke," she said. "He's dead now."
"Wish I killed the fucker myself," Ethan scowled, glaring at the photo like alone would make it erupt into flames. "Should be burning in the fields of punishment, but instead, he gets reincarnated because he felt bad when he was dying. What bullshit."
Annabeth's glare turned murderous. "He died a hero."
"He died with the blood of hundreds on his hands," Ethan hissed. "Death was a mercy for the shit he pulled. Some fucking hero if it weren't for him, then Hel-"
He cut himself off, gaze locking on Jason like he just remembered he was standing there. Instead, he chose to lean back against the wall and scowl.
Jason decided it was best not to ask more, but the way Annabeth said Luke's name, he was someone important to her. His gaze flitted over to Ethan, and for the first time since he met him, Jason felt on edge as he took in the gleam in his eye. Whoever this Luke guy was, there was obviously some complicated history.
He focused again on Thalia's face. He kept thinking this photo of her was important. He was missing something. Jason felt a strange sense of connection to this other child of Zeus—someone who might understand his confusion, maybe even answer some questions. But another voice inside him, an insistent whisper, said: Dangerous. Stay away.
"How old is she now?" Jason asked.
"Thalia was sixteen, and then she died," Ethan sniffed. "Then she was a tree, then she was sixteen again, then she was almost seventeen, and now she's immortal since she joined the hunters."
"What?" His expression must've been pretty good, because Annabeth stopped glaring at Ethan and snorted.
"Don't worry," Annabeth said. "It's not something all children of Zeus go through. It's a long story, but... well, she was out of commission for a long time. If she'd aged regularly, she'd be in her twenties now, but she still looks the same as in that picture, like she's about... well, about your age. Sixteen or seventeen?"
Something the she-wolf had said in his dream nagged at Jason. He found himself asking,
"What's her last name?"
Annabeth looked uneasy. "She didn't use a last name, really. If she had to, she'd use her mom's, but they didn't get along. Thalia ran away when she was pretty young."
Jason waited. Ethan raised a brow.
"Grace," Annabeth said. "Thalia Grace."
Jason's fingers went numb. The picture fluttered to the floor.
"You okay?" Annabeth asked.
A shred of memory had ignited—maybe a tiny piece that Hera had forgotten to steal. Or maybe she'd left it there on purpose—just enough for him to remember that name, and know that digging up his past was terribly, terribly dangerous.
You should be dead, Chiron had said. It wasn't a comment about Jason beating the odds as a loner. Chiron knew something specific—something about Jason's family.
The she-wolf's words in his dream finally made sense to him, her clever joke at his expense. He could imagine Lupa growling a wolfish laugh.
"What is it?" Annabeth pressed.
Jason couldn't keep this to himself. It would kill him, and he had to get Annabeth's help. If she knew Thalia, maybe she could advise him.
"You have to swear not to tell anyone else," he said.
"Jason—"
"Holy shit," Ethan breathed out. "No way."
"Swear it. Until I figure out what's going on, what this all means—" He rubbed the burned tattoos on his forearm. "You guys have to keep it secret."
Annabeth hesitated, but her curiosity won out. "All right. Until you tell me it's okay, I won't share what you say with anyone else. I swear on the River Styx."
Thunder rumbled, even louder than usual for the cabin. Jason picked up the photo from the floor.
You are our saving Grace.
"My last name is Grace, " he said. "This is my sister."
Annabeth turned pale. Jason could see her wrestling with dismay, disbelief, and anger. She thought he was lying. His claim was impossible. And part of him felt the same way, but as soon as he spoke the words, he knew they were true.
"Fuck," Ethan whispered. "This is not good."
Before Jason could question him, the doors of the cabin burst open. Half a dozen campers spilled in, led by the bald guy from Iris, Butch.
"Ethan!" he said, and Jason couldn't tell if his expression was excitement or fear. "Man, we've been looking for you! Hurry! The dragon is back."
"I leave the kid alone for five minutes and he does this," Ethan groaned. "Jason, let's go get the final member for our little quest group."
Oh no, Jason thought.
What had Leo done now?
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Notes:
✦ Procrastinated writing this chapter when I opened the doc, but it's finally over! Tried to shorten and merge some info like Jason's dream chapter, cause I wasn't bothered actually writing it lmao
A LOT of this chap is the same as the book, and that's just unavoidable sometimes! Hoping the next few chaps turn out with more original stuff!
Anyways
Thoughts? Theories? Opinions?
✦ Yor <3
arsonwasdone on Chapter 3 Fri 02 May 2025 11:20PM UTC
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