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Chapter Text

seven halfbloods shall answer the call

to east and west the world will fall

an oath to keep with a final breath

and foe bear arms the Doors of Death

(graecus 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒌𝒔 )

επτά ημίαιμα θα απαντήσουν στην κλήση

προς ανατολάς και δύση ο κόσμος θα πέσει

έναν όρκο να κρατήσω με μια τελευταία πνοή

και ο εχθρός οπλίζει τις Πόρτες του Θανάτου

( legionnaires 𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒔 )

septem semis sanguinis vocationi respondebunt

ad orientem et occidentem mundus cadet

iuramentum servare cum finali spiritu

et hostes portant Ianua Mortis

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before we dive into the story, I wanted to highlight some very important points that I want people to be fully aware of so a). there's no confusion, and b). I don't get unnecessary backlash. so this 'chapter' is more of an introduction that will detail the main points of what is to come! please try to read this, and if you have a problem with any of them, don't be a hater, just click out of the story, thank you.

( ⏱️ ☞ ↦↦↦↦↦ ¯`*•.¸,¤°´ TIMELINES !!! ) : this is a huge thing, so I wanted to mention it first off so I don’t confuse anyone. the timelines are gonna be so much different than in canon, okay? in here, the lost hero takes place two years after the battle of manhattan, and the whole series will probably take place in the span of a year and a half, about, rather than everything crammed in, like, two months. based on this and my own interests, some of the characters ages will be different too; in the beginning, hazel will be 15 years (I still believe there was simply no reason for her to be 13), nico will be around 14-15 years, percabeth will be 17-18 years. travis & katie will be around 16 years during tlh, connor will be 15 years. everyone else will be relatively the same age as they were in canon, and of course they will age accordingly in the timespan of this fic. 

( ☝️ ☞ ↦↦↦↦↦ ¯`*•.¸,¤°´ A (LOOOONG) IMPORTANT NOTE !!! ) : HI OH MY GODS THIS IS IT GUYS, THIS IS IT!!! WE'VE COME SO FAR!! it was about a year ago?? when I posed the idea of a heroes of olympus rewrite au and it literally took off, much to my surprise, but I'm so happy it did. things sort of grew from there; I bought all the HoO books so that I can sticky-note the hell out of them, I scoured the 'rr crit' tag on tumblr and read the povs of people in certain ethnicities who have felt pushed aside by canon and most of the fandom, I used up a whole notebook and this fic has its own folder in my notes app (only fics I adore get that prestige lmao), and I still have thoughts and ideas teeming in my head that I cannot wait to share with you guys in this fic. I have done a fair amount of research, interacted with people in the minorities who aren't afraid to speak about what went wrong, and generally got a base of what I could do.

however, I want to say that while I have done all this, that does not mean this fic is the perfect version of HoO, I am not endorsing that. I want to say again that all credit for the canon series and characters goes to rick riordan, I am not rick riordan. I am only saying that I tried to do the best I can with the information I have and the ones I thought up, and that I hope that you guys, the readers, enjoy my longest and most extensive project by far. I put a LOT of thought and excitement into this, and I hope you like it as much I love planning, writing, and imagining it.

NOW onto the other stuff!! I want to be as straightforward as possible and lay the facts out before anyone gets invested or interested enough. I want people to be aware of certain things in this fic that might put them off for whatever reason. let's go through them one by one because, damn, I could get shade for this, but hey, my 'no hate' comment stands, btw; if I see any hate, I'll simply delete your comment, mkay? 

okay let's do this. (warning: I get pretty passionate in some of the points and end up partially ranting)

☞ MAJOR CANON DIVERGENCE !!! please please please understand me when I say things will be different from canon right from the start, okay? not wildly different--at least not at first, hint hint--but it will def be noticeable, okay? especially, say, if you're a jiper fan, this isn't the fic for you. jiper is not mentioned one bit here, and piper only has platonic feelings for jason and jason, himself, takes a while to open up to piper. and that's only a drop in the sea of divergence lmao percabeth isn't part of the Seven (that honor goes to tratie), frazel doesn't happen, neither does caleo, there will be more chb and cj povs along with the seven, these are just some instances, okay? just to get y'all to realize that things. are. going. to. be. different. (also chances are I won't be using the same physical descriptions as the actors cast in the show, I've had multiple chapters prewritten for this fic that use book descriptions of certain characters. this might be subject to change, but please don't think I'm undermining the show if I do not; as a poc, I would never.)

☞ NO SOLANGELO !!! ah yes. this was the big one I'm expecting an explosion for. yes, I'm being serious, there will be absolutely zero solangelo, not even a hint of it, sorry guys. idk I just never vibed with solangelo from the start; I tried to write stuff for them to try and get in the mojo, but I think it says a lot that the one solangelo fic I wrote is from an outsider's pov lmfao so yeah. I guess I can talk about them in a general sense, and I guess as long as they're a background pairing, I can write them, but considering I'm gonna be writing nico's pov often, that's not gonna work out. I think it's just me having a thing against solangelo's premise--and imo tsats just solidified my point (I haven't read it, but I have heard from 85% of the readers that it was...kind of a mess lmao).

nico does have a love interest but it is not will. you guys might have guessed from the tags who it will be--I hope you like him bc a). he's a canon character, and b). despite him also being in the healer field, he has a lot of depth to his character than being just a healer (but I'm not gonna go too deep about that bc it's a bit of a spoiler lmao). anyway their relationship is actually so wholesome and mutually beneficial on both sides. unlike solangelo, where it seemed like will was basically 'taking care of nico' at first (it felt like a doctor/patient kind of thing, please don't come at me), in this relationship both take care and help each other while also working on their own individual growth because sometimes you have to grow on your own in order to actually succeed. it's also a diverse relationship because a LOT of solangelo critics followed my train of thought that it was icky imo that a white guy was "helping" an italian one. idk just my thoughts, guys, don't come at me. there's also the fact that solangelo, no offense, came out of nowhere; in this fic, nico's relationship with pranjal is slow and steady and I am going to be writing chapters sprinkled even before BoO that showcases nico's pov and highlights this along with other stuff. also since it's a diverse pairing, I love that they can express their respective cultures to each other!!

☞ LET'S TALK OCTAVIAN !!! I wouldn't have mentioned this and let y'all figure it out for yourselves, except for some odd reason, 99% of the fandom despises octavian??? yeah he was a pathetic dipshit, but even pathetic dipshits get recognition from specific groups of people, but this guy? nope, only a meager handful. like I have asked and no one's given me an actual reason to hate this guy? one person came close, saying he tried to kill off the greeks; no offense but luke tried to do something similar by wiping out everyone yet he's hardly hated, so, like, I still don't get the gravity of your point rn, but that brings me to my point. I, personally, am neutral on octavian, but there is one thing I know: he was severely underdeveloped, THAT is why people hate him: because all his negative qualities are enhanced and he has...no redeeming factors. you can't help it; see a dumbass with no positives, you instinctively hate him. and I get that. luke was rick's magnum opus; he was the ideal villain with a hearty dose of tragic backstory and redeeming qualities that make people love him. so, I'm here to 'warn' y'all that the octavian coming up in this fic is gonna hold a lot of the negatives canon had but he's gonna have more incentive, more motives, he's gonna have more depth, basically, and he won't be a dumbass. he's gonna be strategic and emotionally volatile yet coldly contained, and he's gonna think for roman honor and his people. I'm going to actually make him into a three-dimensional character (I already have a chapter involving him prewritten and several scenes with him preplanned, so mark my words, I'm gonna put my all into this).

☞ CAMP JUPITER & NEW ROME !!! ugh, the child army situation. that is not happening here, but tbvh, idk how exactly to completely remove that without changing everything, so I tried to do the best I could. Camp Jupiter (aka the Twelfth Legion) is sort of like a bootcamp/training camp/summer camp mix that demigods around ten or eleven began to attend (before that, they either live with Lupa or stay in New Rome) until they're, like, seventeen/eighteen--then they're usually promoted to the New Rome army (any honor-bound roman would want to join that fucking army lmao). The Senate meetings are usually composed of designated ambassadors from both the Twelfth Legion (usually the demigods in it who are older) and New Rome, so there is an equal generational perspective. The war against Krios devastated the New Rome army, so Jason Grace united the Twelfth Legion into its first pseudo-army to try and assist their fellow comrades in battle (so, similar to Percy with CHB helping the Olympians). anyway, that's the basic gist. I'll be putting in worldbuilding info abt this throughout the fic!

☞ OC'S AND MINOR CHARACTERS WILL EXIST HERE !!! especially in the case of camp jupiter where literally no one was mentioned other than frank, hazel, octavian, dakota, michael kahale, and gwen most of them didn’t even get last names??). ocs will exist, they won't be as important as the Seven, but they will be there. minor characters will definitely be prominent throughout, and will be more three-dimensional than their canon counterparts. people like butch, drew, billie ng, connor, malcolm pace, pranjal, and obviously tratie, are just some examples of characters who will get their own spotlight.

☞ MINIMAL PERCABETH !!! (last one, I promise). initially I wasn't going to bring this up because I'd already mentioned it in passing with the 'canon divergence' bullet point, but I figured this was significant enough to warrant its own section. yeah, very little percabeth. they’ll be mentioned throughout though, assisting on the chb side, and there will still be moments involving them or them individually during the chb/cj-centric povs.

why, you might ask? because percabeth had five fucking books to shine, give the spotlight to some other people, goddamn! and, full offense, but HoO ruined percabeth's characterization, it sucked. initially I wanted to write it with percabeth and not tratie, but idk rick sorta ruined percabeth for me by shoving them in my face every book of his I read. I still like them, but idk, I don't get the urge or the interest to write for them. it's became sort of like clace to me; they're there, I guess, so what? I like reading and watching them, but tbh pjo was their peak dynamic and the main content of them I enjoy consuming.

besides, then I got the idea for tratie, and that took me by storm. travis stoll, counselor to a disgraced cabin and a still-grieving father, who has this desire to prove that the Hermes cabin still has its head high and, most of all, to prove to his dad that he's not luke. he's travis and he will do better. hera sees this drive, and obviously does the switch-er-oo with travis and jason instead. katie gardner, whose powers literally coincide directly with gaea the literal fucking primordial of the earth. both characters have the potential to be directly related to the gaea crisis. plus it gives much needed recognition to minor characters. (and imagine the stoll brothers tearing apart their respective locations looking for each other because of course the only person travis remembers is connor duh.) also you get the slow burn ‘do they don’t they’ frenemy pairing.

☞ anyway. those are the main ones I wanted to run through, if anyone has a problem with any of these and it’s seriously an issue for you then please click out of this story, don’t be a hater. obv there are plenty more significant changes—the cupid scene (nico isn’t even in it), piper as a character, gaea herself as a villain and how to defeat her, chb & cj’s dynamics, the amazons, etc etc—but if I hashed all those out, we’ll be here for days lmao

thank you for reading all this!

for the folks who are still here, hope you enjoy this rollercoaster!!

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zero. An Artistic Apocalypse

《 june 13, 2010 》

《 Camp Half-Blood, Long Island, New York 》

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RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE SHOT UP IN HER BED, the sheets tangled around her legs, one arm already reaching for the sketchpad on the nightstand. Flashes of her dream sprung in front of her like a distorted movie replay that she, for the love of the gods, wished she could pause; the imagery was fading as dreams tended to do, but the feelings remained, lingering in the aftershock.

Chaos, pain, grief, lots of fear—buckets of it—and, most perplexing of all, a morbid suffocation. While the last one wouldn't be classified as an emotion perse, the way it stuck around in Rachel's situation, the way her heart pounded quicker just by the thought of it, argued that it was nothing but an emotion. A feeling of suffocation. But not just any old suffocation; she didn't want to, but Rachel screwed her eyes shut and strained to grasp tighter to that particular feeling; it was stifling...it was panicking.

It was choking. As though pounds and pounds of dirt and soil and earth were boring down on her, going up her nose, into her mouth, preventing her heart from beating...

Tossing off the covers in a sudden fit of frenzied desperation, Rachel stumbled out of her bed, grabbing her sketchpad as she went, clutching the edges of the book hard to ground herself. From what, though? How can she ground herself when the very thing muddling her mind was connotating to the ground, itself?

Ironically, that question was enough to bring her back into focus and pick out the smaller details of the sensations running through her.

Ever since the whole 'becoming-the-host-of-the-Oracle-of-Delphi' thing she had undergone with Apollo (yes, the Greek god, her normal life had taken a turn for the odd as soon as she met Percy Jackson) last year after the Battle of Manhattan, it was like her senses had rocketed from zero to one-hundred. Chiron, the activities director of Camp Half-Blood, told her it was because her emotional state of being was connecting with her subconscious—like a direct hotline. Which was great and all, but why was she feeling all wired up from a simple non-prophetic dream? (And she knew it wasn't a prophecy because she didn't wake up to green smoke surrounding her and a bunch of concerned (and nervous) faces hovering over her.)

Maybe it's because of school.

Yeah, that made sense. School started in less than two months. No matter how many times she went there, Rachel would never be able to tamp down the trepidation of attending Clairon Lady's Academy. It seemed reasonable that her stress as the clock ticked down until she had to leave Camp and go back to her mortal life for the school year stemmed into her dreams.

It should make sense. It did make sense.

So why did that haunted atmosphere surrounding her refuse to dissipate?

Sighing, Rachel scrubbed a hand down her face as she surveyed the interior of her cave. Yes, her summer home was more of a summer cave, not that she minded. She liked the idea of living in a cave close to the woods with her art for solace and the prospect of company yards away if needed; it reminded her of those cottage-core forest aesthetics she liked to look through on Pinterest whenever she hung around in the mortal world.

Now, however, in the dimness of the early morning with the aura of her dream's aftereffects pressing down on her, her cave seemed a bit too similar to the claustrophobic feeling she had experienced in her sleep. The only thing repeating in her head is to get out, and get some air. 

She needed to breathe. To open her eyes.

Tucking her sketchpad under one arm and snagging two pencils, Rachel exited her cave and took in a deep gulp of the night air. The stars twinkled above, the trees swayed in the light breeze, all unbeknownst to the turmoil and havoc caused by the deities that walk the world. It was up to them, the heroes who slept in their cabins, to make sure the world stayed that way: peaceful and oblivious. And it was supposed to be up to her to get the premonitions that will help said heroes to win their wars.

Premonitions. Not crazy stress-induced dreams.

"You really have no idea what's going on around you, huh?" she asked the tree closest to her—a lone, thin thing, far away from its companions; she could relate.

Gods, she really must be going crazy with the stress. Talking to and relating to trees! Maybe all those Pinterest aesthetics were actually getting to her head.

Shaking her head, Rachel plopped down on the nearest rock and opened her sketchpad. A month after becoming the newest Oracle of Delphi, she found that drawing helped calm her down whenever the visions or dreams got the best of her. Art in general was a calming factor in her life—whenever her parents acted like...well, not like parents, or whenever she felt alienated by her peers at school—and so she used that same mechanism to deal with the stress of the visions. Sometimes the drawings she came up with wouldn't be related to the visions, sometimes they were. She couldn't say for sure. Her art was as spontaneous as herself.

First, she did her pre-drawing routine—some deep breaths to center herself—before putting pen to paper and simply letting herself draw. She let the action take her away, removing her conscious mind from her worries, and letting her subconscious speak for itself through the words of art.

The first time she'd done that, she'd replicated her own family in mismatched colors (her preschool teacher had brushed it off, all kids messed up their colors anyway; but her dad hadn't even glanced at the picture when she'd shown it to him, claimed it was too strange).

You have no idea, Dad, she thought wryly, imagining the look on her dad's face if he saw her now: sitting on a rock in front of a cave she called her summer home, art supplies strewn about, drawing under the moonlight instead of sleeping. 

Like a goddamn hippie, he'd probably say.

Yup, she surveyed her surroundings, then her sketchpad upon which a vague picture was in the midst of forming. A hippe that occasionally sprouts prophetic jargon in a cloud of green mist. Got it in one, pops.

She didn't bother trying to envision what her father would say to that. Thinking about the CEO of Dare Enterprises was as bad as waking up from a bad dream on most occasions; his mere presence in mind and in physical form had a habit of ruining everything, and Rachel wasn't keen on going that route particularly when she was doing something she loved—drawing. 

With renewed enthusiasm, she shoved any nagging thoughts away until she was merely letting herself be, allowing her hands to move, and the pencil to scratch across the surface of the paper; everything else was a blank canvas, and only her limbs led the way, depicting what was eating away at her subconscious.

Rachel didn't know how long she would've sat there staring at the sketchpad without really seeing it, her hands dancing across the page—probably for the entire night, if not for a sudden wind that lifted strands of her curls momentarily and broke her out of her reverie.

"Huh. I better not have spaced out for an entire hour and a half again," she muttered. (It had happened only once before and involved several Hermes campers rounding up as many Apollo campers they could find, believing that she was going to sprout another prophecy. The first and last time anyone tried to prank her.)

She refocused on the drawing, and jerked back, fumbling the sketchpad. Her breath quickened as she took in the image she'd created, lit eerily by the waning moonlight.

"Oh Hades," she whispered.

It was a depiction of Camp Half-Blood—specifically the border of camp. Everything looked per usual: the dining pavilion, the Big House, the array of cabins, it was portrayed perfectly that just looking at the image almost gave Rachel a sense of nostalgia despite being in the very location she had drawn.

Almost.

Because while camp itself looked normal, its surroundings were not. The first thing Rachel noticed was the sky. Dark, etched with such vigor that she glanced at her drawing pencil, seeing the tip rubbed raw and streaked with charcoal on the sides. She hadn't noticed she'd been applying so much pressure on the paper; drawing was an instinctive thing for her, since she let her hands do the talking, oftentimes she ended up with strange occurrences and stranger stories to tell her parents (like how she had ended up using the paint-sets in her elementary school art class even though the teacher had specifically told them they were off-limits; no one listened to her protests that she had been so lost in her art thoughts, so eager at the idea of adding a splash of color to her project, that she hadn't even noticed her subconsciously going to the storage cabinet).

Merging with the spirit of the Oracle of Delphi only served to enhance that trait of hers. Now instead of being labeled as a troublemaker with a flair for art, she was seen as a troublemaker with a flair for art and the occasional risk of being possessed. Yet, dry humor aside, Rachel couldn't deny the rightness of being the Oracle of Delphi; there was something so inherently correct about her and her character molding with an old spirit who dressed as a hippie and probably spent time as a recluse.

Okay, Rach, that's a sign that you need to get some sleep. Put the ominous drawing away and never think about it again. It's just a drawing, not a premonition.

Standing up, Rachel began to crumple up the drawing when something made her stop. The dark, crudely etched on the paper, sky stared up at her, winking at her like an inside joke that only she knew.

Hesitantly, she smoothed the paper out, and, against her better judgement, took in what she drew.

This time she ignored the rendition of camp, instead focusing on the exterior; the pinpricks of something—or was it some things, plural—situated right outside the border, a bright orange that looked alarmingly like fire flickering in the direction of the happily oblivious camp, a flag of some sorts rising high above the little groups with an emblem that, try as she might, Rachel could not make out.

No matter, the meaning was clear. A threat. Headed straight for camp. And no one was aware. Now Rachel was no pessimist, but from the looks of those bright pinpricks—and they looked like catapults—it was bound to be a massacre. There was no bright way to look at it. Camp Half-Blood had many amazing fighters, but not even the best, strongest, most capable fighter could withstand a sudden attack out of nowhere.

And that wasn't all. Looming high and great above the oblivious camp and the attacking unknown group, was what had turned Rachel's stomach upside down when she had first taken a glance at her drawing. The thing that had made her go Oh Hades.

The sky. It always came back to the fucking dark, harsh sky. But now that she took a closer look (by literally bringing the drawing a centimeter from her eyes), she realized with bone-chilling clarity that it wasn't the sky at all.

It was—jesus fucking christ—a literal wall of fucking earth, hoisted up like a tsunami of dirt and trees, blotting out the sky, making its slow but sure lumbering way of destruction and demise to the two warring groups, unbeknownst to this greater, far more dangerous threat on the horizon.

It was going to swallow them all, suffocate everyone and everything, leaving nothing behind in its deadly wake.

Rachel dropped the drawing, watching it flutter to the ground, chest heaving. Those words—she hadn't thought those words just now. It sounded like someone else, someone more ancient and wise, had whispered them into her ears.

Granted she had divulged a prophecy literally five seconds after accepting the spirit of the Oracle—the next Great Prophecy, Apollo had proclaimed far more enthusiastically than the situation deserved—but, oddly, she never really knew what the voice of Delphi sounded like. People told her whenever she went all 'possessed and green' that her voice turned raspy as though she hadn't used it in decades, but for her part, whenever the spirit of the Oracle took her over, it was like taking a short nap; she only 'woke up' once it was over and had no recollection of what had transpired.

However, she was sure, at that moment, the ancient voice that had whispered those words in her head, was not her own inner conscious. It had been the Oracle of Delphi.

But hosts were not known to communicate directly with the spirit of the Oracle...right?

She would have to ask Chiron about that.

For now, though, she set her eyes back on the drawing; her hand jerked, reaching out for it against rational thought. Might as well make some interpretations if she wasn't going to bed anytime soon.

Interpretations that aren't true, she told herself firmly. Because this is just a drawing, okay? It's a drawing you did while you were half-asleep. That should be enough of a reason. 

There was the sky that wasn't actually the sky but rather a wall of earth blotting the sky out and moving toward camp and that other unknown group who was also preparing to attack camp. So basically camp was in a fix; one threat at the border, and another significantly worse one up ahead. But there was something else too, she couldn't help noticing while inspecting the attacking group.

From the way they were spread out and the placement of their catapult weaponry, they didn't look like any old group—they looked like a seasoned army. Rachel wasn't an expert on warfare, but when you were friends with Annabeth Chase, you learned a tip or two or several.

Speaking of Annabeth, it would be wise to show this to her, ask her opinion about this...

No! Rachel crushed the edge of the drawing as her hands tightened. She wasn't going to unnecessarily spur worry into everyone just when they were assimilating into normalcy from an actual battle. It's just a stupid drawing, put it away, you're freaking yourself out!

But the army. The camp. The wall of earth. How neither the camp nor the army appeared to be paying attention to the bigger threat making its way toward them. The possibility that if they did, for one second, look up from their own battles and toward the horizon, if they banded together, they could possibly save themselves...

For some reason, she remembered her dream—the morbid suffocation, the stifling panic, how it felt like she was being...buried alive. Under tons of dirt.

See? This drawing was just a manifestation of the dream you had, Rach. Chill out, stop stressing. This isn't like the last time, this isn't like Kronos.

Unbidden, another memory resurfaced from the depths of her mind. To east and west the world will fall.

A wall of earth.

Suffocation.

Ugh!

Rachel crumpled the drawing, relishing in the sounds of paper tearing and crushing under her undeterred grip until it sat on her palm in a tight ball.

"You are not getting into my head anymore," she told it, aware that if anyone passed by just now (unlikely, her cave was situated way up among the rocks overlooking camp, you would be a fool to come trekking around at this time of night. Then again most demigods are fools on a bad day; absurdly heroic on a good one). "I am going to bed, and I am going to get a good nights sleep for the next three or four hours, and when I wake up and feel all refreshed, I am going to burn your wrinkly papery ass into nothing."

The crumpled ball of paper sat on palm, saying nothing as balls of paper tended to do.

Rachel shook her head. The audacity.

A sudden chill brought her back to her senses—and the yawn that overtook her a second later alerted her that she really needed sleep right about now. Maybe she could sleep off the weird dream and the ominous drawing.

Running a hand through her frizzy hair, she packed up her supplies, and trotted back into her cave. Carelessly, she tossed the ball of paper into a corner, reminding herself to make do on her word and burn the damn thing first thing tomorrow (well...maybe not first thing, but definitely after breakfast and coffee). Alternatively, she lined up her pencils and eraser carefully on her desk. Rachel flopped onto her bed, pulled the covers up to her chin, and closed her eyes.

Five seconds later, she turned to one side. Then she turned to the other. 

Her eyes shot open.

Ah fuck. What now?

In response, her gaze went to the crumpled ball of paper, unfortunately still visible even from her bed, like the jackass that it was.

This time, another thought popped up—something that Percy Jackson had told her; about how, in one of his dreams, he had seen her draw depictions of people and events in the demigod world that were actually happening. A portrait of a younger Luke Castellan—whose past had been the key to ending the Battle of Manhattan—and a horrifying image of Typhoon shooting a hand out to crush the Empire State Building—Olympus—in its vaporous grasp while the gods were helpless to stop him. At that time, and even now, Rachel had no visual memory of either of those events; she still didn't completely know what Luke looked like (and never wanted to, especially after that conversation with Percy, no matter how many pictures of him Annabeth tried to show her), yet somehow she had drawn a, in Percy's word, perfect rendition of him as a kid. Then were the little moments during her vacation, as she'd stood with her toes in the sand, watching the sea and the culminating storm, feeling a prickling feeling run up and down the back of her neck to her spine. A sense of wrongness; it had been that wrongness that had sent her running back to New York and ultimately led to her accepting her role as the Oracle of Delphi. She had learned to trust that gut feeling of wrongness; more chances than not, it would end up saving a life.

She felt that same sense of wrongness now as she peeked over her covers at the crumpled drawing in the corner of her cave.

To east and west the world will fall.

The wall of earth.

Destruction.

But it was a drawing. If things were really so dire, couldn't the Oracle simply hijack her body and spew a prophecy?

But it had, whispered her inner subconscious, thankfully not that creepy ancient rasp. Remember where that line came from? To east and west the world will fall?

No. Rachel refused to believe it.

It was too soon. Hardly a full year had passed.

There was absolutely no way this was the beginning of another Great Prophecy. Apollo had told them it would take millennia before that prophecy would come into fruition. They couldn't be that unlucky.

But think about it. Wouldn't it make sense? You know it does, admit it.

No fucking way.

Pointedly, Rachel turned her back on the drawing in the corner, and curled into a tight ball, scrunching her eyes tightly shut, pressing her face into her pillow, as though by doing so, she could also push aside the nagging little voice and the image of the tower of dirt and trees cascading over them. 

It's just a drawing, just a drawing, just a drawing, nothing more, it's just a drawing. It doesn't mean anything, it's just a drawing.

She kept repeating this to herself until, somewhere along the way—maybe after the tenth repetition, the last she counted—she fell into a troubled slumber, face still pressed partially against the pillow.

One thought penetrated, just before she had fallen into unawareness, and she was too disoriented to distinguish whether it was her own or the Oracle's.

The gods were wrong before, couldn't they be once more?

Like it or not, perhaps the Great Prophecy was closer than they all thought.

(Like give or take, a-year-or-two-later close.)

(But she didn’t know that. Not yet.)

Chapter Text

September 29, 2011

11:24 pm

 San Francisco, California

Remember me? 

(Kidding, of course you do. Who else would be writing in here but me.)

I wanted to start off with a joke, you know. Because my life is turning into a grand one.

To put it lightly, I feel odd.

As though I'm being watched.

I mean, I suppose that makes sense—for someone like me. But this feels different. It started in August, after our annual celebration of defeating the Titans; at first, I thought it was because I had too much kool-aid to drink, Dakota loves to spike any drink he can find with it, and I worried that in my more lax state, I got careless and drank several glasses of kool-aid spiked juice. Sugar mixed with sugar is a hit or miss for us and our ADHD, sometimes it actually calms us down and makes us sleepy, and sometimes we're bouncing off the walls. People would say it's a good tactic for a stake-out during battles, but it's not strategic—drowsy combatants about to crash are also inefficient combatants. (I had to tell this to Dakota about twenty times now. He doesn't seem to get it. Obviously not. We're all influenced by our parents, after all.)

But it has been over a month since then and it hasn't subsided, if anything it's ricocheted up to an extreme. I had to stop myself from looking over my shoulder at times. Pins feel like they're running down my back. There is a tension in the air—like the calm before the storm. You can't go through war without always feeling a sort of tension hanging around after. Like a piece of it still sticks to you. Shards of glass or a half-rusted blade.

But this feels...I don't know. I can't explain it.

That concerns me more than the feeling itself. Paranoia is always at the corners of our brains, but we can't let it overrule. So many leaders have gone astray because of paranoia.

Though I'm not the only one. Octavian has been holed up at the shrines, with his scrolls. He let slip to Reyna that he had had a troubling dream. Well, according to Reyna, he hadn't exactly said troubling, but the look in his eyes implied it. He also told her not to tell me, for some reason, but she did. Leaders rely on each other, she told me. While that is very true, why hadn't Octavian mentioned this to me then? Technically he is a leader too. But he has been acting strange ever since receiving that horrible news during the war; I think he blames himself for not just that thing specifically, but also the carnage and aftereffects even though it's been two years since and restorations have finished for the past six months, it is the only time I've seen him in public act less like the person he puts out to be and more like a human.

Which is dangerous. Move on in order to be efficient: that's what we teach ourselves. Sacrifices are made daily, we can't think about each one when we have a whole community on our shoulders. You have to learn to live with that weight. It's heavy but bearable once you get used to it. It has to be or you'll be lost.

But if I tell him that, he'll probably kill me.

Anyway, I figured he was having another fatigue episode but with how closed-off he is, I'm not sure anymore. Usually, he doesn't mind seeing me when he's feeling particularly weak physically, but he's not letting anyone in this time. And he keeps staring at me, I can't place the look on his face.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure of a lot of things these past few weeks. Are we growing apart—the three of us? We went through thick and thin, we can't splinter now. Our people need us. Populus super omnia. We need to stick together.

They're all I know.

They've helped me before, why can't I seem to help them?

Do they even want me to? Am I missing something? It feels like I am.

Am I being paranoid?

Gods, I'm really losing it. This is it, I’ve cracked at last. All because of this stupid…whatever this is!

Maybe I should talk about it with them...

(Especially Reyna, she balances emotion and rationale in a way I strive to but never can achieve. I know she will try to understand.)

But it's stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And I am not stupid.

I'm sure whatever it is, I can handle it. That's what people like us like me do.

All I can say is gods I’m glad this book has a lock. You are the only one I can confide in truly. Imagine what everyone would think if they saw all this, it'd be crazy!

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⚡️ ¯`*•.¸,¤°´ book one. THE LOST HERO ¯`*•.¸,¤°´⚡️

《 December 13-22, 2011 》

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JASON HAS A PROBLEM. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus next to a girl. Apparently, she’s one of his best friends, Piper; his other best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids.” What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong. Who was he? What had he done wrong to end up here? Did it have something to do with what he was? Because he certainly wasn't an ordinary human; from the crazy storm spirit attacking them to the angry guy with the flying shoes demanding Jason know his brother's whereabouts basically clarified that. Everything seems...out of place, and Jason has no idea how to handle it. It only gets weirder when he finds himself in a place that feels so familiar yet looks so different; everyone seems to be wary of him, an outsider on top of being a newcomer. Honestly, all Jason wants is to remember where he came from. He wants his people, his familiarity, not this pseudo-haven that doesn't feel like one to him. The only things he has going for him are the flashes of memories that come and go frustratingly, a gold coin, inborn instincts that clash with the rest of the folks in this place, and a little pocketbook he can't open. Totally useful stuff. Things get more difficult somehow when one thing leads to another, and he's handed a quest. An impossible mission filled with death and rage and sewers of doom. Just like that, he's in his element; he makes a mental list: save the chained goddess, fight the bane of his father, get everyone alive back to camp, and survive. Seems easy enough. Though with each passing day, as dreams that don't really look like dreams plague him, Jason wonders what kind of person he was before—and if that person is worth being again.

PIPER HAS A SECRET. Her father hasn't been answering the few calls she manages to sneak out in the Wilderness School recently, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Guilt has been wracking her, especially considering the last conversation she and her father had had before the news of his disappearance. Now one of her best friends doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on? Will she be able to save her father? And, just as pressingly, will she lose the two best friends she'd grown to consider family during the past couple of months? Because if she follows through with her plan, she has a horrible feeling she definitely might, along with the trust of the people in the place she might actually consider a home. All she ever wanted was to belong somewhere, free of judgment, and it feels like cruel irony that just when it seemed like she had it, it was ripped away from her. Despite their differences in views, her father is the only person she relied on her whole life; even when he was far away, she sometimes felt him in her soul and the things they share, it's the only way she pretends that he's there with her. Then came Jason and Leo, two lifesavers in the midst of her personal hell that had led her to the Wilderness School, and she thought this was it, could this be her life? Honestly, if it meant sticking with her two best friends, she would take that crappy school any day. But everything is flipped now, and she's lost both her dad and her best friends. Now it's up to Piper to own up to who she is and not let anyone push her around—whether it's the other campers or the sketchy voice from her dreams. She likes to think she would do anything to save her dad, but is she ready to string along and stab in the back everyone else she holds near and dear to get there?

LEO HAS A WAY WITH TOOLS. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. In his opinion, tools are much better than emotions. He's kept his issues relating to the heart locked deep down within. His nightmares? Piece of cake, nothing to worry about if he stayed up all night. Past-trauma? All close-lipped; it's only something to consider if he actually thought about it! His crush on one of his best friends? Nope. Definitely not unpacking all that, especially under recent circumstances. And Camp Half-Blood is the best place to distract himself from those intrusive thoughts. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and cool people. What’s troubling, though is that a camper’s gone missing, and everything Leo's ever known turns out to not be true after all (starting from the so-called memories he's had of his best friend). Are all these connected to the fact that suddenly a ghost won't stop following Leo and talking about "breaking the curse"? Could it have any relation to the curse everyone's been talking about? But he's just a newbie, what chance does he have when it comes to ghostbusting and curse-wrangling? He can't even figure a goddamn crush out, how can he best a curse? 

DREW HAS A PREDETERMINED MINDSET. She does not want another traitor in the Aphrodite Cabin. Another betrayer to give the rest of camp the excuse to whisper behind her cabin's backs. An excuse to hide the obvious truth: that Silena Beauregard—as much as she changed her ways, as much as Percy Jackson near-threatened them after the war to never call her it again—was a traitor. And Drew isn't scared yet she also is to say those words out loud. Because she adored her older sister; she aspired to be like Silena—to have a proper relationship, to be as courageous and outspoken as she was—but all of that went out the window as soon as the news that Silena had been the spy reached her ears. Now whenever Drew thinks of her name, a stranglehold of bitterness and unexplainable anger fills her veins. Everything she believed about Silena turned a 180, because how could she trust her sister who'd so casually betrayed them for what? Because Luke was charismatic? Please! Which was why she makes sure the rest of camp, including her own cabin, knows she means business when it comes to weeding out possible traitors—call it paranoia, but she just can't move on from Silena's death as easily as everyone seems to have. This wasn't just anyone, it was her sister. And gods forbid, another person comes dancing into their cabin with the intention to betray everyone. But her dreams says otherwise; a dream foretelling a future traitor coming into their midst, a dream of notification...or warning. Which was why she doesn't trust those newcomers as far as she can throw them—especially the one who is supposed to be her sister—and why she chooses right away to go on that blasted quest to save Hera or whatever. She really hadn't been paying attention, she couldn't care less. The only thing that mattered is saving her cabin from more potential shame, even if everyone else seems to see her intentions differently.

HEROES WITH DIFFERENT AGENDAS, but they're all going to have to join arms to face the dangers lying ahead of them, and the ghosts following behind.

JASON GRACE'S PROPHECY

《 spoken December 18, 2011 》

Child of Lightning, beware the earth,

The giants' revenge, the seven shall birth,

The forge and dove shall break the cage,

And death unleash through Hera's rage.

( ⚡️ ¯`*•.¸,¤°´ ¯`*•.¸,¤°´⚡️)

Chapter Text

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one. Code Red: Jason Forgets Everything

《 december 13, 2011 》

《 the Grand Canyon in Arizona 》

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EVEN BEFORE THE WHOLE ELECTROCUTION PART, Jason was having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.

No, he wasn’t exaggerating. He never exaggerated. At least…he didn't think he did. You see, Jason didn't remember anything about who he was, where he was, and what was going on. 

Great start, wasn't it? So no. He definitely was not exaggerating. 

It all started when he opened his eyes and found himself on an unfamiliar bus that was like a thousand degrees. He was curled up in his seat in a way that would make contortionists awestruck. Next to him, a girl was in the middle of an intense finger game with the boy in the seat in front. Jason’s mind floundered as he tried to place a name to what they might be playing—finger chess? Chopsticks? 

Either way, they seemed to be really into it—laughing and ribbing each other as they played. Jason didn’t want to interrupt that, especially as he didn’t know who they were, so he turned his gaze to the window and rubbed his eyes blearily, trying to think.

There were probably thirty or so kids on the bus, chatting or napping or nodding along to whatever music they were listening to on their phones. One kid appeared to be face-timing someone special if the kissy faces they were making at the screen were anything to go by. They all looked his age; fifteen…sixteen? Okay, why on earth could he not remember his own age? 

In fact, the only thing he did know was that his mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert. The realization that he remembered what the Sahara Desert was and not his own name was beyond concerning.

Speaking of desert, it looked like they were in the middle of one. That was all he could see under a bright blue sky as he looked out the window. Which only served to confuse him further; he was almost positive he didn’t live in a desert. Right? 

God, he was doubting his own judgment now. Something was seriously wrong. 

The bus continued to rumble along a road so bumpy it was a wonder Jason even managed to get some sleep. He tried to think back...the last thing he remembered...

His mind drew a blank. 

“Yes!” the girl next to him cheered. She did a short victory wiggle in her seat and grinned at the boy in front of them. “Finally! I beat you!”

If Jason had to put a label on her style, he’d have to say ‘casual and comfortable’. She was wearing a gray hoodie that bunched up at the end around her waist, leggings, and converse sneakers. Part of her straight black hair was tied back into a modest half-up half-down style; several neatly braided bracelets adorned her wrists. 

The boy in front was grinning and rolling his eyes even though he had lost the recent match. “I felt bad for you, McLean.” His eyes drifted to Jason and they brightened. “Look, Sleeping Beauty’s up! About time too, I was wondering if I needed to kiss you awake or something.”

“Um…” Jason stared at him. The boy was looking at him with an expectant grin, as though waiting for a response he knew already. But Jason had no clue what to say. He hoped his face wasn’t heating up in embarrassment, that would be awkward. But this guy had to be joking, right? 

The girl shook her head, a small smile on her face. “I told you Leo, stop flustering Jason so much. What’s the matter—the girls here too catchpenny for you?”

“More like I’m too high-class for them,” said the boy, Leo, flexing his arms exaggeratedly.

“More like too much of a dope,” the girl teased. 

Leo gasped and leaned over his seat more to try to poke at the girl, who was dodging his attempts, peals of laughter escaping her. “You take that back right now!” 

Leo looked like the personification of the word ‘fun’. He had a small, upturned nose; ears that stuck out; dark eyes glimmering with amusement; curly dark brown hair; and a face that made him look maybe a year or two younger than his actual age. 

When she saw that Jason wasn’t indulging in their antics, the girl paused and raised an eyebrow. “Jason, you good?”

Jason shook his head. “I—who are you? How do you know my name?”

The girl opened her mouth to respond, looking mildly concerned now, when a sharp shout from the front of the bus stopped her. “Alright, cupcakes, listen up!”

The guy who'd spoken was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face like he’d eaten a lemon by accident. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt that would put the sun to shame. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!”

Snorts of laughter came from around the bus. 

“I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. “Robbie, that better not have been you, cupcake, you’re already on thin ice!” Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. 

A jolt went down Jason’s spine; he almost dropped his gaze but stopped himself at the last moment. It wasn’t like he was doing anything wrong. In fact, he had no idea why he was here! He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say.

Instead, Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. I’m sure I don’t need to explain myself again. You all know what you’re doing, I assume.”

It wasn’t a question, but one of the kids in the back row called anyway, “your mom!”

Coach Hedge glared at the offending person as more laughter rang from around the bus. “One more peep out of you, Robbie, and you’re going to explain to your mama why she’s got a letter saying her son has been transferred to the school for criminals and delinquents down in Arkansas.” At the sudden silence, Coach Hedge nodded grimly. “That’s what I thought. And if any of you precious little cupcakes cause any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way.”

He picked up a baseball bat and made like he was hitting a homer.

“Man, Robbie’s such a pissbaby.” Leo rolled his eyes. “He thinks he’s a riot until Coach brings up his mama. Not as bad as Dylan, though. Now that’s a guy who should’ve gotten transferred to that school already.”

“Please don’t mention Dylan,” groaned the girl. “I’m trying to forget the fact that he’s my partner.”

Jason couldn’t believe how nonchalant they were being. “Can he talk to us like that?” he asked, leaning toward them. “Coach Hedge, I mean. Is it even legal?” 

The girl shrugged. “Always does. This is the Wilderness School. ‘Where kids are the animals.’”

She said it like it was a joke they’d shared before.

“This is some kind of mistake,” Jason said, growing more and more anxious with every passing minute. “I’m not supposed to be here!”

Leo laughed, and leaned closer to Jason, like they were sharing a secret. “Yeah, right, Jason. We’ve all been framed! I didn’t run away six times. Piper didn’t cause a legal fiasco. We’re actually being secretly filmed for a thriller-mystery TV show!”

The girl, Piper, rolled her eyes. “And what would you be then? The comic relief?”

“Shut up, McLean, I’d obviously be the main character. People love a protagonist with a dashing personality wronged by society and striving to create a better future.” He used his fingers like frames in front of him, as though imagining it. Then he dropped his hands and said in a conspiratorial whisper to Jason, “She’s just jelly I beat her ten times in chopsticks.” 

“Not true!” yelped Piper, but she was smiling as she stuck her tongue out at Leo, who did the same to her. 

"Anyway,” Leo said, “I hope you’ve got your worksheet, Jay, ’cause I used mine for spit wads days ago. Why are you looking at me like that? Somebody draw on my face again?” 

“I—I don’t know you,” Jason said.

Leo gave him a Cheshire grin. “Yes, you’re exactly right.” 

Jason’s heart nearly stopped. Did Leo not know him either? 

Then Leo continued. “I’m not your best friend, I’m his evil twin,” he wiggled his slender fingers in a spooky manner and laughed. “Man, you’re so easy to fool. It’s like you never learn that seriousness and I don’t ever go together.”

Piper snickered. “He’s right, Jason. Your face right there—Why do you always fall for his tricks?”

Leo swept a hand through his hair. “‘Cause I’m good at what I do.”

“Leo Valdez!” Coach Hedge yelled from the front. “Problem back there?”

Leo winked at Jason. “Watch and learn.” He turned to the front. “Sorry, Coach! You know I love listening to what you say, but I was having trouble hearing you. Could you use your megaphone, please?”

Coach Hedge grunted like he was pleased to have an excuse. He unclipped the megaphone from his belt and continued giving directions, but his voice came out like Darth Vader’s (for some reason Jason knew who Darth Vader was, but not anything about his own life). The kids cracked up. The coach cleared his throat in confusion and tried again, but this time the megaphone blared: “The cow says moo!”

The kids shrieked in laughter. Coach Hedge slammed the megaphone down and roared: “Valdez!”

Piper stifled a laugh, shaking her head in awe. “My god, Leo. How did you do that?”

Leo slipped a tiny Phillips head screwdriver from his sleeve. “Piper, you’re like my platonic soulmate, I know, but geniuses can’t relay their secrets.” He gave a slight salute with the screwdriver.

"Guys, seriously,” Jason pleaded. “What am I doing here? Where are we going?”

Piper squinted at him. “Are you pulling a joke, Jason? Because no offense, but you’re terrible at fooling people.” 

“Yeah, your expression always gives you away,” added Leo, still grinning. “Like that skeleton in the closet incident—you were totally scared, dude, you went all kung fu on a Halloween decoration!” 

Jason turned to Piper desperately since she seemed the most likely to believe him. “No! I have no idea, I swear.”

Piper knit her eyebrows. She placed a hand on Jason’s forehead. “No fever,” she muttered to herself. “And you seem to be telling the truth…”

“C’mon, Pipes, he’s bluffing!” Leo said. “He’s trying to get me back for that shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, aren’t you?”

Jason stared at him blankly.

"No, I think he’s serious.” Piper looked him over nervously. 

“There’s no way you could’ve lost all your memories within the half hour you were asleep!” Leo protested. “You don’t remember anything, dude? A week ago? Last night?”

When he said the words ‘last night’ Jason thought he saw a flicker of something in Leo’s eyes. But it was gone before he could focus on it, so Jason decided he must’ve been imagining it. 

"I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t—I can’t—”

He glanced at the front of the bus again and saw Coach Hedge glaring at him like he was debating the best way to whack Jason with his bat. He and Jason looked at each other for a half second; then, Coach Hedge abruptly turned away and shouted “That’s it! The back row has just volunteered to clean up after lunch!”

“Thank god,” Leo muttered, as the rest of the class cheered at the unlucky group of kids. “My poor hands still ache from doing it last time.” He held up his hands which were calloused and thin.

Piper kept her eyes on Jason like she couldn’t decide whether to be hurt or worried. “Did you hit your head or something? You really don’t know who we are?”

Jason shrugged helplessly. “It’s worse than that. I don’t even know who I am.”

Right about then, the bus came to a stop in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that’s what it was: the National Museum of Nowhere, Jason thought, as he, along with Piper, Leo, and the other kids, exited the bus. A cold wind blew across the desert. Jason hadn’t paid much attention to what he was wearing, but it wasn’t nearly warm enough: jeans and sneakers, a purple T-shirt, and a thin black windbreaker. He crossed his arms tightly while following the group inside. 

"So, a crash course for your goldfish brain,” Leo said, in a helpful tone that made Jason think this was not going to be helpful. “We go to the ‘Wilderness School’” Leo made air quotes with his fingers. “Which means we’re ‘bad kids.’ Aka some totally helpful and ‘considerate to society’ adult, whoever that may be, decided you were too much trouble, so they shipped you off to this lovely prison—sorry, ‘boarding school’—in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn valuable nature skills like running ten miles a day through the cacti, getting skewered in dodgeball, going to motivational seminars, and weaving daisies into hats! And for a special treat, we go on ‘educational’ field trips with Coach Hedge, who keeps order with a baseball bat. Is it all coming back to you now?”

"No.” Jason glanced apprehensively at the other kids: about twenty guys, half that many girls. None of them looked like hardened criminals, but he wondered what they’d all done to get sentenced to a school for delinquents, and he wondered why he belonged with them. What had he done wrong in society’s eyes? Did it have anything to do with his amnesia?

Leo rolled his eyes. "Man, I can't believe you're really gonna drag this out. We already called out your bluff!"

"Actually," interrupted Piper, moving on from trying to psychoanalyze Jason instead to fiddling with the strings of her hoodie. "Goldfish have exceptional memory; if you train them to do something, they'll remember it for the rest of their lives. If you want to use Jason's weird amnesia as an analogy, now koalas, on the other hand..."

"Jason doesn't have any type of weird amnesia, Pipes, he's just messing with us," Leo threw his hands up. "I mean, look at this guy. He really thought he could pull a fast one on us? On me? World-class prankster?"

"Come on," coaxed Jason. "Humor me?"

All he knew was that he wanted—no, needed—to know what he was supposed to be doing here, and this guy, Leo, looked like an expert on Jason's own life. 

Leo met his eyes, and his expression softened. "Alright, no need for the puppy eyes, you know I hate when you pull them. Okay, so the three of us started here together this semester. We’re totally tight. You do everything I say and give me your dessert and do my chores—”

“Leo,” Piper warned.

“Fine. Ignore that last part. But we are friends, until the very end, we would all say. We've gone through thick and thin—even dish duty for three consecutive weeks." He hesitated, on the brink of saying something, and Jason unconsciously leaned forward, eager to hear any possible piece of valuable information, but Leo only shrugged, eyes darting away. "Are you done with this elaborate prank now?" 

Jason wanted so badly to remember everything Leo had just said. Even the part about the consecutive dish duty. He wanted to remember being friends, thick and thin, with people like Leo and Piper, but try as he might, his mind just couldn't conjure up an image of the three of them. He felt like a clean slate: truly and utterly blank. 

"I really don't know who either of you are," he said gently. Because this felt like something he needed to break gently; not just for his own sanity, but for the hopeful look in Leo's eyes and the worried one in Piper's. 

Leo shook his head, not willing to buy it. "Alright, man, enough. This is going a bit too far even for me. You can't seriously not remember anything?"

“Hey, it'll be alright, we'll figure this out, don't worry," Piper said, meeting their eyes individually, and something within their dark brown depths made Jason's shoulders loosen. "You've got amnesia or something, Jason,” she continued. “We’ve got to tell somebody. Maybe Coach Hedge?"

Leo raised an eyebrow. "Coach Hedge? Our baseball-bat-wielding, tiny gym coach who talks about whacking people upside the head at the slightest misdemeanor? That Coach Hedge?"

Piper bit her lip. "Yes?"

Leo nodded. "Just making sure we're talking about the same Coach Hedge, because yeah, that will go along swimmingly. Along with this weird amnesia thing, he'll give Jason a frigging concussion too by whacking him on the head with his precious bat."

The coach was at the front of the group, barking orders and blowing his whistle to keep the kids in line; but every so often he’d glance back at Jason and scowl. He held his bat propped over one shoulder and, looking at it, the saying like cures like came to mind; maybe Piper was right, and Coach Hedge could cure Jason's amnesia by giving him a good old whack on the head. It was probably the worst plan he had ever thought up, from what he remembered which was basically nothing, but Jason was ready to do anything at this point. 

Besides, it's not like it could make things worse, right?

“I’m down with that,” said Jason, hoping he sounded more determined than he felt.

Leo stared at him. “You’re fine with getting your head whacked?”

“If it’ll help me possibly get my memories back, then yes.”

“Whoa, whoa, no one’s whacking anyone,” Piper cut in. She was messing with one of the bracelets on her wrists—thin and threaded with strings of various earthy tones—as she thought. "Okay, not Coach Hedge. But there has to be someone who could help us, Leo, and without requiring anything so…drastic,” she gave Jason a pointed look. 

"Hey, he was the one who agreed to it,” muttered Leo.

“Jason, maybe you’ve got like a concussion or something—"

“Yo, Pipes,” As the group was heading into the museum, one of the other guys dropped back to join them, wedging himself between Jason and Piper, and knocked Leo down. “Don’t talk to these losers. You’re my partner, remember? Gotta stick together."

"I've told you, Dylan, to not call me that," said Piper with a tight smile. 

"What, my partner?" asked Dylan, though from the glint in his mega-watt smile, Jason had a feeling he already knew what Piper was talking about.

"No, Pipes. My name is Piper."

The new guy looked like one of those jocks who would immediately set Jason's nerves on edge. His memories might not be quite there, but there was a little niggling in a corner of his mind, telling him that he had faced off against bullies like this guy before, which really didn't help lighten Jason's perspective of the guy. With dark hair cut Superman style, deep tan, and white teeth so blinding they should’ve come with a warning label: do not stare directly at teeth. permanent blindness may occur, Dylan grinned at them like he was worth more than all of them combined. He wore a Dallas Cowboys jersey, Western jeans, and boots, and he winked at the girls who passed them like he was God’s gift to the juvenile delinquent female populace. 

As if all that wasn't enough, the way he blatantly ignored Leo groaning and mumbling curses while getting to his feet made Jason hate him even more. 

“Go away, Dylan,” Piper grumbled. “I didn’t ask to work with you.” She leaned around Dylan and pulled Leo toward her by the arm, checking him over. 

Dylan shrugged, staying planted between the three of them. “Ah, that’s no way to be. This is your lucky day!” There was something creepy about the way he grinned while he watched Piper look Leo over, it made the hairs on Jason's arms rise. Unconsciously, his hand went to his jeans pocket, for some reason.

Dylan noticed the movement, giving Jason his full attention, looking positively gleeful, which only made Jason more weirded out. "What you got in there, buddy?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Leo had squeezed himself next to Jason and threw Dylan a sarcastic smile. He snagged Jason by the arm, called out "good luck dealing with this derp," to Piper, and herded Jason away from the bus to the museum. When Jason looked over his shoulder, Dylan was glaring at them and Piper was rolling her eyes.

“I hate that guy.” Leo huffed, their pace slowing when they were a sizeable distance away. Putting on an exaggeratedly high voice, he said, “‘I’m Dylan. I’m so cool, I'd kiss my reflection but that'd be too weird. I want to date myself, but I can’t figure out how. You want to date me instead? You’re so lucky!’”

“Leo,” Jason said, shaking his head, though he was unable to help the bubble of amusement expanding in his chest. “You’re pretty weird.”

Leo grinned. "Got it in one! Come on, or else Coach will really whack us with that bat of his. You're in for a treat, if you don’t remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes!"

Jason figured that he must have died somehow and this was his version of Hell: stuck by the side of a boy who simultaneously confused and entertained him for the rest of eternity. As far as punishments went, it didn't seem so bad. He followed Leo into the museum, holding out hope that he could remember anything, no matter how small.

The rest of their group was already halfway into the museum when Jason and Leo caught up. Coach Hedge was in the middle of lecturing them about something relating to sedimentary and erosion and other science jargon Jason couldn't remember (big surprise there). Not that he could if he wanted to because the coach kept using his megaphone, which alternately made him sound like a Sith Lord or blared out random comments like “The pig says oink.” 

In an effort to distract himself from worrying about the emptiness clouding his mind, he watched Leo pull out nuts, bolts, and pipe cleaners from the pockets of his army jacket and put them together like he had to keep his hands busy at all times. Between that and his own distracted thoughts, Jason managed to gather only that the museum was owned by the Hualapai tribe and held some sort of significance to the Grand Canyon. It wasn't like Jason wasn't trying to pay attention; it was just hard to when he couldn't even remember where he came from. 

"Lemme grab that real quick—" Jason started at the feeling of Leo's hand in his jacket pocket, pulling out an extra zipper. Jason didn't even know what the hell that was doing in there. 

"What are you making?" he asked, unable to help his curiosity.

Leo shrugged. "Whenever I'm bored, my hands do the thinking, amigo. My brain just sidles up for the ride." He flourished a contraption that looked like a combination between a slingshot and a windmill. "Voila! Cool, huh?"

"Yeah, it is," Jason admitted. 

Leo flashed him a smile. "Why, thank you, kind sir."

Nearby, a group of girls interrupted whatever Jason had been about to say. They were giggling, glancing at Piper and Dylan. In their strapless tops, Jason couldn't help wondering if they weren't feeling the slightest bit cold. He was wearing a windbreaker and still, he felt the chill in the air, even in the museum. 

"Hey, Piper," one of them called out. "You should pay more attention to this trip. Oh, but I forgot—maybe you get a free pass 'cause your tribe owns this place."

"I'm Cherokee, not Hualapai," Piper said coolly. "And the only people not paying attention are you and your friends, Isabel, so maybe you should take your own advice so that you can learn a thing or two."

That seemed like reasonable advice to Jason, and the way Piper had delivered it so levelly without rising to Isabel's bait was admirable. But Isabel wasn't deterred. "Whatever you may be, your daddy won't be happy if you come home with a failing grade. First his wife flakes, and now he's got to deal with a delinquent daughter." She shook her head mock-sadly. "Is he worried you're not Native enough, Piper? Is that why he sent you here?"

Piper pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why don't you worry about yourself, Isabel, and I'll worry about me. My culture, my dad, and what he thinks about me are none of your concern, so try not to work your brain up too much over it."

Jason's admiration for Piper's subtle snark was growing by the minute. Even as the girls kept calling out little comments to Piper—stupid stuff about “being back on the rez” and "wearing these feathers" and other whispers about her parents to try to get a rise—and Dylan, her idiotic partner, did nothing but hide grins now and then, Piper continued to keep calm, handling the situation with as much poise as she could muster, ignoring the jabs and listening to Coach Hedge.

Next to him, Leo was watching Jason carefully. "You're not going to jump in, are you? 'Cause Piper doesn't like people fighting her battles for her."

Jason shook his head. "What no, she already seems like she's got it under control, anyway." He lowered his voice. "Pretty impressive." He went to add more but a slight shift in his head, somewhere in the recess of his mind, prevented him; he grasped at it, positive that it was important information—an important memory relating to someone else who was just as calm under the fire as Piper was being right now—but, to his frustration, like water, it slipped between his mental fingers and disappeared back into the shadows it had appeared from. 

"Yeah, well, mean kids always want the satisfaction of getting a rise out of you. Piper can just be an extremely difficult individual to get a rise out of. Well, sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"Sometimes things get the better of her—it kinda relates to the reason she ended up here in the first place. She's levelheaded but also emotional. Not that that's a bad thing," Leo added hastily. "I'm just trying to paint a picture here, y'feel?" A flash of something flickered across his face but it was gone as quickly, and Leo was back to wiggling his eyebrows at Jason. "Me, though? Cool kids like Leo Valdez don't have time for emotions! We're awesome like that," he thumped his chest. "Nothing gets past the Valdeztron!"

Jason offered him an uncertain smile. "Sure?"

"Regardless, the day Piper whips back the curtain and tells them who her dad really is, that is the day she'll be hailed as a mothertrucking queen."

"Uh, what?"

That got a pause out of Leo. "Man, you've got to be concussed or something. I mean, I'll admit I didn't quite buy the whole thing you pulled back at the bus—"

Jason stared in disbelief. "So what you're saying is you didn't believe me when I said I probably have amnesia?"

"Yeah, man, just classic best friend concern, you know? I thought you were trying to pull a fast one on me, you know how it is. But dude, you actually don't know who Piper McLean's dad is?" He stared deep into Jason's eyes for a long moment, and Jason squirmed, feeling the sensation of prickles move up and down his back as Leo's dark eyes bore into him. Leo didnt seem to notice his internal dilemma; instead, he shook his head in incredulous awe and stepped back. "Holy crap, you are serious."

"Did you just stare at me to see if I was lying?"

"Something you're clearly not doing because I know how shitty of a liar you are. In other words, this is pretty concerning—like we've got a lot to talk about when we get back to our dorm."

Jason wasn't so sure this 'talk' was going to be any more useful than this trip had been thus far when it came to regaining his memories, but he nodded anyway. "I guess."

They reached the far end of the exhibit hall, where some big glass doors led out to a terrace, and Coach Hedge turned to face them. “All right, cupcakes,” he announced. “You are about to see the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you featherweights should be safe out there. If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork.”

"Watch it crumble under the weight of Dylan's butthurt ego," muttered Leo loud enough so that a couple of kids, including Piper, who was several feet away, covered their snickers. Even Jason hid a surprised snort of laughter. 

The coach opened the doors, and they all stepped outside. The Grand Canyon spread before them, live and in person. Extending over the edge was a horseshoe-shaped walkway made of glass, so you could see right through it.

"Damn," whispered Leo. In the sudden awestruck silence, his words carried like a shout. "That's pretty awesome."

Jason had to agree. Despite his amnesia and his feeling that he didn’t belong there, he couldn’t help being impressed. The canyon was bigger and wider than could ever be encaptured in a picture. They were up so high that birds circled below their feet. Five hundred feet down, a river snaked along the canyon floor. Banks of storm clouds had moved overhead while they’d been inside, casting shadows like angry faces across the cliffs; as though some cross god was looming down over him, ready to proclaim his verdict of doom. 

Jason staggered slightly, a bolt of pain piercing his temple. Cross god? Verdict of doom? Where the heck had he come up with that? Gods didn't exist...right? As he shook his head to clear away the lingering pain, he was positive that, like in the museum, he had come so close to an important tidbit of information relating to his lost memories. At the feeling, his body tensed up, and, at the look of those nasty storm clouds, he couldn't shake the terrible feeling that he was in danger.

"Everything all gucci?" asked Leo. "You look like you're about to hurl."

"I feel it too," groaned Jason, rubbing more vigorously at his head.

"If you're gonna actually throw up, can you try to projectile-vomit over the canyon wall? I've only ever seen that kind of stuff in cartoons and YouTube videos."

Jason grabbed the railing. His windbreaker stuck to him, and he was pretty sure he must have looked feverish because he certainly felt it—he was shivering and sweaty and had the urge to rip off his windbreaker while also tugging it closer around him like a second skin. He blinked rapidly, and, at last, the pain behind his eyes subsided.

"I think," he swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth. "I think I'm fine now."

Raising an eyebrow, Leo eyed his sorry state. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Just a headache."

A sudden blast of frigid wind nearly knocked them clean off their feet. Jason clenched the railing more tightly. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the hovering clouds cast an ominous impression overhead. Was it just him or did the sky just get dark all of a sudden? 

"Huh," Leo commented, squinting up at the sky. "Am I the only one finding it weird that the storm's right over us, but it's clear all the way around?"

Leo was right. A dark circle of clouds had parked itself over the skywalk, but the rest of the sky in every direction was perfectly clear. The bad feeling crawling up Jason's gut increased. 

"Pretty sure, from the size of those clouds, we won't be needing Dylan's overinflated ego to break this thing," Leo tapped a worn-down sneaker on the skywalk. Thunder rumbled as though in agreement.

Coach Hedge must have been thinking the same thing, for he glared up at the storm like it was bothering him too, and shouted, “All right, cupcakes! We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!”

Sounds of the storm above them echoed louder, and with every resounding noise, the pain in Jason's head became worse. As he did when facing Dylan, Jason reached a hand in his pocket—he felt something round and metallic bump his hand and brought it out to reveal a gold coin the size of a half-dollar, but thicker and more uneven. Stamped on one side was a picture of a battle-ax. On the other was some guy’s face wreathed in laurels. The smaller lettering read several letters like 'i' and 'v' that Jason's mind associated with Roman numerals.

A whistle from his side made Jason instinctively close his hand over the coin and whirl around. Leo was peering around him with great interest. "Where the heck did you get a sweet treasure like that? Is it actual gold?"

Jason shrugged, though he had a feeling it was, and, more concerningly, he would be needing to use it soon. He put the coin back in his pocket, feeling its weight in his jeans even though it must have weighed hardly more than a nickel. Nothing about this situation made any sense and seeing the coin didn't help his confusion. 

"It's nothing," he told Leo. "Just a souvenir."

He hoped that would be enough to pacify Leo, but the curly-haired boy stared at him like he had back in the museum—as though he was saying yeah buddy, I can see right through you, and you're lying. The same squirmy feeling came over Jason, but this time it was accompanied by an image of another pair of eyes, much lighter than Leo's but staring at him in a similar fashion, along with words hissing, reverberating, in his head: Let's hear who's talking when the gods use you as their pawn, as they do to every other hero, Jason.

Both the image and the words moved quickly in his mind's eye like watching a replay, and vanished when Jason's head gave a particularly violent throb. 

"Whoa!" Leo grabbed his arm, and it took Jason a second to realize he had stumbled forward a bit. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Fine," he panted, then cleared his throat and tugged his arm from Leo. "I'm fine," he repeated. But his mind was elsewhere. Had he just witnessed a memory? Those words, the pair of eyes—it was obvious they were both connected, and whoever they were they knew who Jason was because they had referred to him by name. But who could it be? 

Not for the first time today, frustration washed over him like an overwhelming tidal wave. He hated feeling so lost and helpless. 

In his state of disarray, he failed to notice the flash of hurt crossing Leo's face. When he managed to regroup his thoughts, Leo was a foot or two away, his expression betraying nothing. "If you say so." All of a sudden, as though his mind moved quicker than his hands—which it probably did—he offered Jason a mischievous smirk that Jason concluded must be his customary expression. "C'mon! Dare you to make the most obnoxious whale noise over the edge."

In the end, while Jason genuinely tried to fill out the worksheet, all his mind wanted to think about was the brewing storm overhead, the strange image and words he had vividly recalled several minutes prior, and his significant lack of memories. Leo was no help whatsoever, and when Jason asked him half-heartedly what was the answer to "name three sedimentary strata you observe” and “describe two examples of erosion" all Leo did was shrug and launch into an explanation of the miniature helicopter he was building out of pipe cleaners. 

“Hey, check it out!” He launched the copter. Jason expected it to plummet within a second, but the pipe-cleaner blades actually spun. The little copter made it halfway across the canyon before it lost momentum and spiraled into the void.

Momentarily distracted from his complicated thoughts, Jason asked Leo, "how did you do that?"

Leo shrugged. “Would’ve been cooler if I had some rubber bands.”

Jason didn't doubt that; if this guy, Leo, could make a partially functioning physical object out of insignificant things like pipe cleaners, then chances are that copter would have made it much farther if rubber bands were involved. “Seriously,” he said, “are we friends?”

Leo smirked crookedly. "Yeah, buddy. Last I checked."

"You sure? Absolutely positive?"

Leo snorted. "Okay, now you're making me second-guess, which is near-impossible because I'm not the one with a possible concussion."

"When was the first day we met? What did we talk about? Are we roommates? Do we share the same classes?” persisted Jason.

"Uh, yes we're roommates, and yes we share almost the same classes. But..." Leo frowned. "Man, I'm ADHD, you can’t expect me to remember details.”

"But I've got like no details at all. I don't remember anything or anyone. What if..."

"You’re right and everyone else is wrong?” Leo asked. “You think you just appeared here this morning, and we’ve all got fake memories of you? 'Cause I don't know, dude, that seems a bit too out there."

'Out there' or not, what Leo said was exactly what Jason thought. While he had attempted to fill out the worksheet, Jason had snuck glances at his supposed classmates, trying to connect any one of them to the glimpse of a memory he had witnessed—but no one had eyes as pale as the person in the memory, and no one on the skywalk with them sounded like the voice whispered like an echo in his mind. That coupled with his feeling of utter wrongness brought Jason to the conclusion that maybe he was right. Maybe he didn't belong here and was supposed to be somewhere else, far away from all these weird people, far away from Leo and Piper and their expectant faces. 

That's crazy though, said a little voice in his head, this one more logical and less quiet than the one who had insisted that Jason didn't belong here. It did sound crazy. Everybody here took him for granted. Everyone acted like he was a normal part of the class—except for Coach Hedge. But if Jason actually was a normal part of the class, then why couldn't he remember? Was it really just something as simple as a concussion? 

Jason took a deep breath. There was one person he could talk to and maybe, hopefully, get some answers. Coach Hedge had looked at him like he didn't know why Jason was here too. If there was anyone who could give a probable explanation, it might be him.

"Hang on, I need to talk to Coach Hedge," he told Leo, handing him the worksheet. "I'll be right back."

He left behind a protesting Leo and headed across the skywalk toward where Coach Hedge stood glaring up at the storm.

Now that he actually took the time to look around, Jason found it odd that there weren't any tourists.  Maybe it was too early in the day, or maybe the freak storm had scared them into staying inside with the doors and windows locked. Whatever the case, their school group had the place to themselves. Robbie was joking around with his friends at the far end of the skywalk, daring one another to hang as far as possible over the edge without falling. Isabel and her group of friends were taking selfies and pictures of each other, smiling widely for the camera. A little ways off were Piper and Dylan; Piper seemed to be trying to get work done, even with Dylan hitting on her again, leaning close over her shoulder, breathing down her neck, fiddling with her necklace, and other creepy things that made Jason's blood boil for Piper. And he didn’t let up even after the many times Piper kept swatting him away. Jason wanted to jump in and show Dylan what was up, but Piper gave a strained smile and made an 'it's alright' motion when he caught her eye. 

Remembering Leo's advice about Piper not appreciating people fighting her battles for her, Jason sent what he hoped was a reassuring smile. The smile slipped away pretty quickly, however, when he stepped up to Coach Hedge and the coach turned his glare onto him.

“Did you do this?” the coach asked him.

Jason paused, taken aback. It couldn't be possible, but he was sure Coach Hedge had just asked him if Jason had caused this storm. "Uh, what?"

Coach Hedge glared at him, his narrowed eyes glinting under the brim of his cap. “Don’t play games with me, kid. I'm up to my head with it all. Just tell me what's your deal here, and why are you messing up my job?”

Jason knit his eyebrows, hope building in his chest. "So...you don't know who I am?"

The coach snorted. “Never seen you before today, cupcake.”

The bubble of relief grew until it was so immense that Jason wanted to shout his thanks to the sky. Sure, he was still a bit disappointed that the coach couldn't offer any help on the matter of his missing memories, but at least now Jason knew he wasn't going insane. He'd been right, as crazy as that sounded. 

The words tumbled out of his mouth in his haste to eagerly explain his situation. "Listen, sir, I—I don’t know how I got here. I don't know anything, actually. All I know is that I woke up on the school bus, and I’m not supposed to be here. Something's seriously wrong.”

"Figured that out all by yourself, huh?" grumbled Coach Hedge. He twirled his baseball bat, looking it over pensively like he was debating how much of the problem he'd fix with one good whack to Jason's noggin. “You're pretty powerful with your little Mist tricks, kid. But I'm not like these people—" he nodded at the kids sprawled around all over the skywalk, and dropped his voice to a whisper, "—so you can’t fool me. I’ve been smelling an intruder for days now, a monster smell, you know how it is. I knew we had an infiltrator, and you would've been my prime suspect, but you don’t smell like a monster. You smell like a half-blood. So—" he clenched his bat tighter, "—let's get this over with so we can both go about our jobs: who are you, and where’d you come from?”

Most of what the coach had said went over Jason's confused head. But he decided the best way to go—mainly to avoid getting smacked with a baseball bat—was to be as honest as possible. "That's the thing, I don't know, I don't know who I am, I don't have any memories." At the last moment, he decided not to mention the weird memory flash he had gotten; Coach Hedge didn't know him, so he wouldn't know about Jason's memories—those flashes would be for Jason to figure out. "They're all gone, everything about me," he finished, hoping he didn't sound as helpless as he felt.

Coach Hedge studied his face like was trying to read Jason’s thoughts. It was eerily similar to how Leo had stared at him, and how those pale eyes in the memory he had seen bore into him. Jason wondered if he was really that easy to read, or if it was the opposite: if he was so hard to read and understand that people have to resort to staring intently at him to catch a slip-up.

"Great," muttered the coach finally. "You're telling the truth."

"Wha—of course I am, what, did you think I'd been lying?" Jason quickly corrected himself, "I mean, yes, sir, I'm telling the truth, sir. I really don't know what's going on, sir."

"You want to say 'sir' one more time, kid? I don't think I caught it the first ten times you said it."

Jason’s face flamed. “Sorry, sir—I mean, what was all that about monsters and half-bloods? Are those code words or something? Are you part of the FBI?” Was he some sort of spy too? Funny, Jason couldn’t picture himself as a Men in Black kind of guy.

“Not a spy,” Coach Hedge assured him. “Though that would be pretty cool.” He seemed to drift off to some distant thought, and Jason waited patiently. After remembering he was in the middle of something, the coach surveyed Jason critically. “Look, kid. I don’t know who you are. I just know that you being here has gotta mean trouble. Now I got to protect three of you rather than two. Are you the special package? Is that it?”

Jason blinked at the continuous unfamiliar words thrown at him at rapid speed. “Look, and I’m sorry, but what exactly are you talking about?”

Hedge peered at the storm from under his cap. The clouds were getting thicker and darker, hovering right over the skywalk. Not a good sign, Jason’s internal radar pinged. Danger, danger! “Alright fine, but you better not be bluffing me, kid.”

Jason raised his hands. “I swear it.”

“Hmph. Well, I got a message from camp this morning. Something about an extraction team on the way to pick up a special package, but they wouldn’t give me details. Of course, they wouldn’t because who’d bother to tell an important protector anything, am I right? But that’s fine. Everything’s going by great anyway—except for the fact that there’s a potential monster stalking the two I’m watching—I can smell the monster, but...” he probably would’ve grabbed at his hair if a). he wasn’t holding his baseball bat, and b). his hair wasn’t covered by his cap.

“Monster?” asked Jason. Something about that part of Coach’s explanation made his internal danger radar ping harder. The weight of the gold coin in his pocket grew heavier too. Now Jason might not know the first thing about this entire situation, but he had a feeling the coin, this possible monster, and what his radar was trying to tell him were all connected. He was just smart that way.

“Yeah, it’s been driving me up the wall, I can’t get a fix on who it might be. I figured that’s why the camp was suddenly frantic. But then you pop up out of nowhere and make my job a hundred times harder. So, are you the special package?”

The throbbing behind Jason’s eyes got worse after certain words Coach Hedge said—like monster, Camp, special package. He stumbled, and Coach Hedge grabbed his arms in a surprisingly firm grip. “Whoa, easy there, cupcake. You’d make things more complicated falling into the Canyon.” He tutted. “You said you don't have any memories, right? Obviously, you don’t know a thing either. I’ll just have to watch you, too, until the team gets here. We’ll let the director figure things out.”

But there was a word resonating in Jason’s head. Something told him it was important, that he needed to inform Coach Hedge of his knowledge of it. 

“Half-blood,” he wheezed, pushing himself into a standing position instead of hunched over like an old man. “I don’t—is that important?”

Coach Hedge was watching him warily. “Yeah, that’s what you and the other two I’m watching are, kid. Like I said though, we’ll let camp figure things out.”

“What camp?” asked Jason. “Who’s coming to take us?”

Coach Hedge shook his head. “They’re better at explaining this than I am. Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully, nothing happens before—”

Lightning crackled overhead, arcing downwards toward the skywalk. The wind picked up with a vengeance, sending worksheets into the Grand Canyon. The entire bridge shuddered, and kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.

Coach Hedge swore like a sailor. “Jinxed myself,” he muttered. Then bellowed into his megaphone: “Everyone inside! The cow says moo! Off the skywalk! Move move!”

“I thought you said this thing was stable!” Jason shouted over the wind; the skywalk was shuddering and kids were stumbling as they ran to the doors, but Jason remained balanced, even as the winds ripped past him, which he thought was pretty strange. Then again, everything about this situation would fall into the ‘strange and insanely weird’ category. What’s one more thing to add to the bunch? At this point, his shock levels had reached numbing heights.

“Under normal circumstances,” Hedge agreed, “which, naturally, these aren’t. Come on!”

Chapter Text

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two. The Airhead Bully Is An Actual Airhead

《 december 13, 2011 》

《 the Grand Canyon in Arizona 

& Camp Half-Blood, Long Island, New York 》

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YEAH SO, JASON REALLY WAS HAVING AN ABSOLUTELY ROTTEN DAY. (In case he hadn't mentioned that enough.)

Mentally, he made a list:

        • Waking up without any memories on a school bus next to a girl who spoke to him like he was her best friend (thank god, they weren't holding hands. That would have made an awkward situation even more awkward).

        • Realizing he had another best friend who talked faster than a machine gun, and whenever he glanced at Jason, for some reason, Jason felt his stomach twisting into knots. (But he decided not to think about that; things were already confusing enough without potential intestinal predicaments.)

        • As the metaphorical cherry on top, they were out in the middle of a freak storm; and their only chaperone was a man half Jason's height.

        • Oh and they were at the Grand Canyon, so one slip could result in an ugly death.

...Ironically, that mental list made him feel a whole lot calmer than he was ten seconds ago. Signs that he was losing it? Definitely.

On the other hand, this was definitely more confusing than Chemistry, which was a useless analogy considering Jason didn't remember a single thing about Chemistry. Though he might not remember much, but was anything more confusing than Chemistry?

The storm, in question, churned into a monster hurricane. Funnel clouds snaked toward the skywalk like the tendrils of a monster jellyfish. Beyond the bridge, the other kids of the Wilderness School were screaming and shoving their way through the doors into the safety of the building, where Piper and Dylan stood holding the doors open on either side. Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with a vengeance. Stray worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Thankfully, Jason remained balanced. He grabbed ahold of Leo's arm as the other stumbled.

“Jason, Leo, stay behind me,” Coach Hedge ordered. “This is my fight. I should’ve known that was our monster.”

“What?” Leo demanded. A rogue worksheet slapped him in the face, but he swatted it away. “What monster?”

The coach’s cap blew off, and sticking up above his curly hair were two bumps—like the knots cartoon characters get when they’re bonked on the head. Coach Hedge lifted his baseball bat—but it wasn’t a regular bat anymore. Somehow it had changed into a crudely shaped tree-branch club, with twigs and leaves still attached.

"Holy shi—" Leo gaped at the coach. "Where the heck have you been hiding that killer bat, Coach?"

Before Coach Hedge could answer, Dylan the Blockhead, after smiling like he was the best thing the world had to offer, flicked his hand and Piper flew backward, slamming into the doors and sliding to the skywalk deck.

"Coach, let me at him," Jason insisted, glaring at Dylan. 

Dylan gave them a psycho-happy smile. “Aw, come on, Coach. Let the boy attack me! After all, you’re getting too old for this. Isn’t that why they retired you to this stupid school? I’ve been on your team the entire season, and you didn’t even know. You’re losing your nose, grandpa.”

The coach made an angry sound like an animal bleating. “That’s it, cupcake. You’re going down.”

“You think you can protect three half-bloods at once, old man?” Dylan laughed. “Good luck.”

Before Jason could react, Dylan pointed at Leo, and a funnel cloud materialized around him. Leo flew off the skywalk like he’d been tossed. Somehow he managed to twist in midair and slammed sideways into the canyon wall. He skidded, clawing furiously for any handhold. Finally, he grabbed a thin ledge about fifty feet below the skywalk and hung there by his fingertips.

“Help!” he yelled up at them. “Rope, please? Bungee cord? Something?”

"Leo!" Jason shouted. His eyes flicked from where Leo hung to Piper slouched motionless on the skywalk deck. His mind whirled. Who should he help first? How could he help one without leaving the other defenseless?

Coach Hedge solved the problem for him. He cursed and tossed Jason his club. “I don’t know who you are, kid, but I hope you’re good. Keep that thing busy”—he stabbed a thumb at Dylan—“while I get Leo.”

“Get him how?” Jason demanded. “You going to fly?” No offense to Coach, but Jason didn't understand how someone who looked not one inch more than five feet could get Leo and haul him up to safety.

“Not fly. Climb.” Hedge kicked off his shoes, and Jason almost had a coronary. The coach didn’t have any feet. He had hooves—goat’s hooves. Which meant those things on his head, Jason realized, weren’t bumps. They were horns.

“You’re a faun,” Jason said automatically.

“Satyr!” Hedge snapped. “Fauns are Roman. But we’ll talk about that later.”

Hedge leaped over the railing. He sailed toward the canyon wall and hit hooves first. He bounded down the cliff with impossible agility, finding footholds no bigger than postage stamps, and dodging whirlwinds that tried to attack him as he picked his way toward Leo.

“Isn’t that cute!” Dylan turned toward Jason. “Now it’s your turn, boy.”

Jason felt a stab of white-hot anger. He wasn't going to let some wind bully mess around with and kill anyone, no matter whether they were his friends or not. He threw the club. It seemed useless with the winds so strong, but the club flew right at Dylan, even curving when he tried to dodge, and smacked him on the head so hard he fell to his knees.

Piper wasn’t as dazed as she appeared. Her fingers closed around the club when it rolled next to her, but before she could use it, Dylan rose. Blood—golden blood—trickled from his forehead.

“Nice try, boy.” He glared at Jason. “But you’ll have to do better.”

The skywalk shuddered. Hairline fractures appeared in the glass. Inside the museum, the other kids from the Wilderness School stopped banging on the doors. They backed away, watching in terror.

Dylan’s body dissolved into smoke as if his molecules were coming unglued. He had the same face, the same brilliant white smile, but his whole form was suddenly composed of swirling black vapor, his eyes like electrical sparks in a living storm cloud. He sprouted black smoky wings and rose above the skywalk. If angels could be evil, Jason decided, they would look exactly like this.

“You’re a ventus,” Jason said, though he had no idea how he knew that word. “A storm spirit.”

Dylan’s laugh sounded like a tornado tearing off a roof. “I’m glad I waited, demigod. The other two, I’ve known about for weeks. Could’ve killed them at any time. But my mistress said a third was coming—someone special. She’ll reward me greatly for your death!”

"Mistress?" asked Jason. "Who's that?"

Dylan's smile kicked up a notch. "I'd tell you, demigod, but that would be tattling, wouldn't it."

Two more funnel clouds touched down on either side of Dylan and turned into venti—ghostly young men with smoky wings and eyes that flickered with lightning.

Piper stayed down, pretending to be dazed, her hand still gripping the club. Her face was pale, but she gave Jason a determined look, and he understood the message: Keep their attention. I’ll brain them from behind.

Smart and strategically violent. It would've been nice having her as a best friend.

He clenched his fists and got ready to charge, eyeing around for any weak points that could distract Dylan enough for Piper to strike from behind. But he never got a chance.

Dylan raised his hand, arcs of electricity running between his fingers, and blasted Jason in the chest.

Bang!

Jason flew into the air and slammed onto the ground so hard he bit his tongue. His mouth tasted like metal and burning aluminum foil. He lifted his head and saw smoke curling up from his body that he was more than a hundred percent sure was coming from his clothes. The lightning bolt had gone straight through his body and blasted off his left shoe. His toes were black with soot.

Realistically, he knew he should have been dead or at least close to it by now; but all he felt was a mild tingling, dizziness, and a lot of annoyance. 

The storm spirits were laughing. The winds raged. Piper was screaming defiantly, but it all sounded tinny and far away. Rolling over, Jason spat out some blood from his mouth.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw Coach Hedge climbing the cliff with Leo on his back. Piper was on her feet, desperately swinging the club to fend off the two extra storm spirits, but they were just toying with her. The club went right through their bodies like they weren’t there. And Dylan, a dark and winged tornado with eyes, loomed over Jason.

“Stop,” Jason croaked. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and he wasn’t sure who was more surprised: him, or the storm spirits.

"How are you alive?” Dylan’s form flickered. “That was enough lightning to kill twenty men!”

Even in his charred state, Jason managed a small smirk. “My turn,” he said.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold coin. He let his instincts take over, flipping the coin in the air like he’d done it a thousand times. He caught it in his palm, and suddenly he was holding a sword—a wickedly sharp double-edged weapon. The ridged grip fit his fingers perfectly, and the whole thing was gold—hilt, handle, and blade.

Dylan snarled and backed up. He looked at his two comrades and yelled, “Well? Kill him!”

The other storm spirits didn’t look happy with that order, but they flew at Jason, their fingers crackling with electricity.

A crackle of power flitted between Jason's fingers, his sword glowed, and after a quick once-over at the charging storm spirits, Jason sprang into motion.

He swung at the first spirit. His blade passed through it, and the creature’s smoky form disintegrated. The second spirit let loose a bolt of lightning, but Jason’s blade absorbed the charge. Jason stepped in—one quick thrust, and the second storm spirit dissolved into gold powder.

Dylan wailed in outrage. He looked down as if expecting his comrades to re-form, but their gold dust remains dispersed in the wind. “Impossible! Who are you, half-blood?”

Piper was so stunned she dropped her club. “Jason, how…?”

Jason shook his head, which had begun to throb again. "I—I don't—"

Coach Hedge leaped back onto the skywalk and dumped Leo like a sack of flour next to them.

“Spirits, fear me!” Hedge bellowed, flexing his short arms. Then he looked around and realized there was only Dylan.

“Curse it, boy!” he snapped at Jason. “Didn’t you leave some for me? I like a challenge!”

Breathing hard, Jason switched his sword from his right hand to his left and reached down to help Leo up, residual power tingling in his veins. "Sorry, Coach."

Leo accepted his hand and got to his feet, breathing hard. He looked completely humiliated, his hands bleeding from clawing at the rocks. “Yo, Coach Supergoat, whatever you are—I just fell down the freaking Grand Canyon! Stop asking for challenges!”

Dylan hissed at them, but Jason could see fear in his eyes. “You have no idea how many enemies you’ve awakened, half-bloods. My mistress will destroy all demigods. This war you cannot win.”

"I'd really like to know who this 'mistress' is," muttered Jason.

Above them, the storm exploded into a full-force gale. Cracks expanded in the skywalk. Sheets of rain poured down, and Jason had to crouch to keep his balance.

A hole opened in the clouds—a swirling vortex of black and silver.

“The mistress calls me back!” Dylan shouted with glee. “And you, demigod, will come with me!”

He lunged at Jason, but Piper tackled the monster from behind. Even though he was made of smoke, Piper somehow managed to connect. Both of them went sprawling. Leo, Jason, and the coach surged forward to help, but the spirit screamed with rage. He let loose a torrent that knocked them all backward. Jason and Coach Hedge landed on their butts. Jason’s sword skidded across the glass. Piper flew off Dylan's back, smacked the back of her head, and lay sprawled, dazed. Leo hit the railing, tumbling over the side until he was hanging by one hand over the abyss.

Jason started toward him, but Dylan screamed, “I’ll settle for this one!”

He grabbed Piper's arm and began to rise, towing a half-conscious and weakly struggling Piper below him. The storm spun faster, pulling them upward like a vacuum cleaner.

“Uh, help? Again?” Leo yelled. “Coach Supergoat? Jase? Somebody!” Then he slipped, screaming as he fell.

“Jason, go!” Hedge yelled. “Save him!”

The coach launched himself at the spirit with some serious goat fu—lashing out with his hooves, knocking Piper free from the spirit’s grasp. Piper dropped safely to the floor, but Dylan grappled the coach’s arms instead. Hedge tried to head-butt him, then kicked him and called him a cupcake. They rose into the air, gaining speed.

"How?" Jason yelled up at the grappling duo. "I can't fly!"

But Coach Hedge shouted down once more, “Save him! I got this!” The satyr and the storm spirit spiraled into the clouds and disappeared.

Jason ran to the railing and peered down. Below he saw nothing but the dark valley. He knew if he risked a jump right now, he'd fall to the ground next to Leo in a Jason Pancake. But the thought of Leo falling to his death, screaming for help, made his insides twist uncomfortably. He glanced at Piper who was staring at him with bleary eyes, like why are you overthinking this? Listen to the coach! Or maybe that was just his subconscious nagging him.

Jason sighed, readied himself for immediate death via canyon floor, and vaulted over the railing.

He wasn’t scared of heights. He was scared of being smashed against the canyon floor five hundred feet below—a pretty reasonable fear, in his opinion. He figured he hadn’t accomplished anything except for dying along with Leo, but he tucked in his arms and plummeted headfirst. The sides of the canyon raced past like a film on fast-forward. His face felt like it was peeling off.

In a heartbeat, he caught up with Leo, who was flailing wildly. Blood was trickling down the side of his head, and his eyes were wide and terrified. Jason tackled him by the shoulders and closed his eyes, waiting for death. Leo screamed. The wind whistled in Jason’s ears. He wondered what dying would feel like. Probably not so good. He wished somehow they'd never hit bottom.

Suddenly the wind died. Leo's scream turned into a strangled gasp. Jason thought they must be dead, but he hadn’t felt any impact.

“J-Jason,” Leo managed. He took in a shaky breath. "Dude, look."

Jason opened his eyes. They weren’t falling. They were floating in midair, a hundred feet above the river.

After the initial shock, jubilation coursed through him like the river they were floating above. He laughed with an edge of hysteria and hugged Leo tight. Leo repositioned himself so he was hugging Jason too. They were nose to nose. Leo's heart beat so hard that Jason could feel it through his clothes. 

For a second they simply stared at each other, grinning and coming down from their high of not dying. Then one second became a second too long, and Leo cleared his throat, raising his eyebrows. 

"Well, Superman, you have a lot of explaining to do."

Jason laughed again. It was weird; being around Leo made him feel carefree yet more aware of everything too. "Superman?"

"Oh yeah. That nickname isn't going away anytime soon. You got that Superman vibe, for sure," Leo said grinning.

Jason just shook his head, feeling light and relieved. They'd survived. And apparently, he was Superman to Leo. Jason didn't know how to feel about that last bit, honestly.

"I don't know how I'm doing this right now," he told Leo. "The whole flying thing—"

Leo peered down. His curls tickled Jason's nose. When he looked back up, his eyes were sparkling with deep interest. "You're not really flying. Look, don't you feel it?" He firmly pressed a foot down, and Jason felt a pressure under their feet tremble lightly. Like they were on top of a geyser. "Jason, you made the air support us somehow!"

Jason looked down. It was true; they weren't exactly flying, more like floating. And the way Leo looked at him as though he'd done something awesome made Jason feel a little better about this entire situation. But only a little.

The easiest thing would be to sink gently to the canyon floor, but he looked up. The rain had stopped. The storm clouds didn’t seem as bad, but they were still rumbling and flashing. There was no guarantee the spirits were gone for good. He had no idea what had happened to Coach Hedge. And he’d left Piper up there, barely conscious.

“We have to help them,” Leo said as if reading his thoughts. “Does this thing have a reverse?”

“Let’s see.” Jason thought Up, and instantly they shot skyward.

The fact he was riding the winds might’ve been cool under different circumstances, but he was too much in shock. As soon as they landed on the skywalk, they ran to Piper.

Leo knelt next to Piper as she groaned. Her hoodie was soaked from the rain. Her hair glittered gold from rolling around in monster dust, and a bright purple bruise bloomed under one dark brown eye. But at least she wasn’t dead.

"You alright, Beauty Queen?" asked Leo gently.

"Been better," she groaned in response. "Where's our goat coach?"

They looked around. The skywalk was deserted except for them. Inside, the other students pressed their faces to the glass, watching with wide eyes. But Coach Hedge was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't think he came back down," said Piper. She'd gotten to her feet with a little help from Leo and Jason and now stood holding the back of her head gingerly with one hand. "He saved my life and he...oh god, he can't be..."

"No," Jason said firmly. Even though he wasn't sure for a fact, he knew that, for the sake of Leo and Piper, he couldn't let them think Coach Hedge had sacrificed his life for them.  

Leo shook his head. “What even happened? The tornado guy, the gold sword, blond Supermans…I hit my head. That’s it, right? I’m hallucinating?” He pointed at Piper. "You hit your head too—so you must be hallucinating as well. And..." his finger drifted to Jason.

Jason had forgotten about the sword. He walked over to where it was lying and picked it up. The blade was well-balanced. On a hunch, he flipped it. Midspin, the sword shrank back into a coin and landed in his palm.

“Yep,” Leo said. “Definitely hallucinating.”

Piper shivered in her rain-soaked clothes. “Jason, those things—”

“Venti,” he said. “Storm spirits.”

“Okay. You acted like…like you’d seen them before. Who are you?

He shook his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t know.”

"He can ride the winds too," Leo put in. "It was wicked! He was like Superman. He saved my life."

Piper shook her head, looking somewhere between awed and wary. "Jason, what?"

"I don't know," Jason insisted. "Really! I told you, I'd never seen either of you before, and I don't even know who I am."

The storm dissipated. The other kids from the Wilderness School were staring out the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working on the locks now, but they didn’t seem to be having any luck.

“Coach Hedge said he had to protect three people,” Jason remembered. “I think he meant us.”

“And that thing Dylan turned into…” Piper shuddered. “God, I can’t believe it was hitting on me. He called us...what, demigods?”

Leo flopped to the ground, staring at the sky. He didn’t seem anxious to get up. “Don’t know what demi means,” he said. “But I’m not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?”

"Not a chance," Jason told him honestly. Piper murmured in agreement.

There was a brittle sound like dry twigs snapping, and the cracks in the skywalk began to widen.

“We need to get off this thing,” Jason said. “Maybe if we—”

“Ohhh-kay,” Leo interrupted. “Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses and a dude with flying shoes coming towards us.”

At first, Jason worried Leo had hit his head too hard. Then he saw a dark shape descending from the east—too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer he could see a pair of winged animals—gray, four-legged, exactly like horses—except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted box with two wheels: a chariot. Speeding next to the chariot was a lone figure who, as Jason squinted to see better, was wearing, yes, shoes with wings. 

“Reinforcements,” he said. “Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us.”

“Extraction squad?” Leo struggled to his feet. “That sounds painful.”

"And where are they extracting us to?” Piper asked.

Jason watched as the chariot landed on the far end of the skywalk. The flying horses tucked in their wings and cantered nervously across the glass as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot—a tall girl maybe a little older than Jason, with light brown hair, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. The guy with the winged shoes landed in a run toward Jason's group. Both boys wore jeans and orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs, though the girl wore a spring dress with black leggings and an orange jean jacket. 

"Where is he?" the guy with the winged shoes demanded. His hazel-green eyes were perceptive and eager, flitting around the group as if looking for something. He must not have found it, however, because his face soured and his eyes dimmed. "Where the fuck is he?"

“Where’s who?” Jason asked

The boy hardly looked at him. He turned to Leo and Piper. “What about Gleeson?"

Piper and Leo exchanged glances. 

"Uh, who?" asked Piper.

"Gleeson Hedge," explained the guy exasperatedly. "Your protector. A satyr about ye tall—" he gestured to about his upper chest.

The coach’s first name was Gleeson? Jason might’ve laughed if the morning hadn’t been quite so weird and scary. Gleeson Hedge: football coach, goat man, protector of demigods. Sure. Why not?

Leo cleared his throat. “He got taken by some…tornado things.”

“Venti,” Jason said. “Storm spirits.”

"Venti?" asked the guy.

"Anemoi thuellai, Connor. That’s the Greek term," said the girl, joining them. She smoothed down her dress and arched an eyebrow at Jason. "You speak Latin?"

Jason frowned. Did he speak Latin? Yes seemed like the best answer plus it was what his brain was telling him, so he nodded.

The guy, Connor, stared. "Sorry, did you just say that you speak Latin?"

Technically he hadn't quite said he spoke Latin, but Jason decided not to bring that up. "Uh, yeah? Is that a problem?"

"Yes, it very much is a problem! I've been pulling all-nighters for three days. I literally cannot take much of this bullcrap. Why in the name of Zeus's underpants are you speaking in Latin?"

"Hey, don't insult Jupiter," snapped Jason.

The two newcomers plus Piper and Leo blinked owlishly at him. Then Connor laughed, though there was an edge of disbelief to it. "Jupi—don't tell me that's a Latin term too."

"Connor..." said the girl warningly.

"Katie, stop." He waved her off, then turned back to Jason. "Besides, why should I listen to you? Is Zeus your daddy or something?"

"Connor enough!"

Connor glared, then turned so that he was facing the chariot and the buff guy reining the horses. He ran his hand through his hair several times in agitation before throwing his hands up in Jason's general direction. "This guy isn't making any sense, Butch! You gotta help me, buddy. Maybe—maybe the vision was wrong or something," his voice choked up on the word 'wrong'.

The buff guy, Butch, called something back that was unintelligible to Jason, but Connor groaned as though he had expected a similar response.

The girl, Katie, sighed. She turned to Jason, Piper, and Leo. "I'm sorry, Connor's just distraught," she murmured. "Now can you tell us who you are and what happened?"

Jason did his best to explain. Katie's warm brown eyes and the way she held herself, loose and casual, untensed his shoulders and encouraged him to relax after Connor had riled him up. About halfway through the story, Butch came over from the chariot. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which seemed a little unusual.

When Jason had finished his story, Connor whipped back around. “No, no, no! She told you he would be here, right?" He said to Katie. "That's what you said! She said if we came here, I’d find the answer.”

“Connor,” 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,” said the bald dude. “He’s the answer.”

Connor stared at Jason's foot for a solid two seconds, then let out a half-scream of frustration. He grabbed at the ends of his curly hair and tugged at it. “What do you want from me?” he yelled up at the sky. “What have you done with him?”

The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.

“Guys,” said the bald dude, Butch, “we gotta leave. Let’s get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back.”

Katie gave the sky an apprehensive look. "Butch's right," she told Connor. Jason noticed she was keeping her voice as quiet and gentle and unthreatening as possible, like she was talking to a skittish animal. "We have to leave or else we'll all fall to our deaths if this skywalk gives."

Connor fumed for a moment. “Fine.” He fixed Jason with a resentful look. “We’ll settle this later.”

He turned on his heel and marched toward the chariot.

Piper shook her head. “What’s his problem? What’s going on?”

“Seriously,” Leo agreed.

“We have to get you out of here,” Butch said. “Explanations can happen on the way.”

“I’m not going anywhere with him.” Jason gestured toward Connor. “He looks like he wants to throw me off the skywalk.”

Butch hesitated. He glanced at Katie, then at Connor's retreating form, then back at them. “Connor's okay. You gotta cut him some slack. Katie, here, had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. When she told Connor, he was super eager. He got his hopes up. This was supposed to be the answer to his problem.”

"I shouldn't have said anything," said Katie miserably.

"You know it's not your fault," Butch told her. "You want to find him as much as Connor does."

"Sorry, but, what problem are we talking about here?" asked Piper.

“He's been looking for one of our campers, who’s been missing three days,” Butch said. “He's going out of his mind with worry."

Katie nodded. "We hoped he’d be here."

“Who?” Jason asked.

“His brother,” Butch said. “A guy named Travis Stoll.”

[ JASON ]

Katie and Butch manned the chariot while Jason, Leo, and Piper stood in the back. They rose over the Grand Canyon and headed east, the icy wind ripping past them. Behind, more storm clouds were gathering. Jason could see Piper edging away from the chariot's open back; he subtly moved so that if she happened to fall, she'd hit his body first. The chariot lurched and bumped. Leo stood at Jason's other side, watching with undisguised curiosity as Katie adjusted a bronze navigation device. Butch handled the reins, and Connor flew along beside them.

As they whipped through the sky, passing clouds that were large and gray, Jason found his mind wandering. He stared at the horizon, lost in thought. Today had been so...complicated. So confusing. His mind struggled to figure it out. He felt like he wasn't in his own skin, as though his own body was somewhere below the clouds, somewhere far far away—a place which Jason had no idea nor recollection of. Who was he? What was he? Those were the questions that made his chest squeeze in panic. How could he go through his life if he had no idea where he stood?

Meanwhile, Leo was asking questions in his rapid-fire machine gun way. “This is so cool!” He spat a pegasus feather out of his mouth. “Where are we going?”

“A safe place,” Katie said. “The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood.”

Piper tensed. “Half-Blood?” she asked in a guarded tone. Jason remembered how the girls from the Wilderness School had made fun of her for being Cherokee. “Is that some kind of bad joke?”

“She means we’re demigods,” Jason said, almost as a way to reassure her. “Half god, half mortal.”

Katie looked back. “You seem to know a lot, Jason. But, yes, demigods. My mom is Demeter, goddess of grain and agriculture. Connor is the son of Hermes, god of roads, travel, gymnasiums, athletes, diplomacy, orators, thieves, commerce, trade, and invention."

"Wow, that's a mouthful," Leo muttered. Then he looked quickly out the chariot as though worried that Connor had somehow heard.

"Butch, here, is the son of Iris, the rainbow goddess,” continued Katie.

Leo choked. “Your mom is a rainbow goddess?”

“Got a problem with that?” Butch said.

“No, no,” Leo said. “Rainbows. Rainbow pride, am I right?"

Leo's cheeks were a bright red, though Jason couldn't figure out why. What was the big deal about 'rainbow pride'?

Butch sighed as though he knew exactly what was on Leo's mind.

“Butch is our best equestrian,” Katie said. “He gets along great with the pegasi.”

“Rainbows, ponies,” Leo muttered. “Let me guess—My Little Pony was your favorite show as a kid?”

“I’m gonna toss you off this chariot,” Butch warned.

“You didn’t deny it,” Leo said in a sing-song voice.

“Demigods,” Piper still seemed hung up about that part. “You mean you think you’re…you think we’re—”

Lightning flashed. The chariot shuddered, and Jason saw white-hot flames licking up the side.

“Left wheel’s on fire!” he called out.

The wind roared. Jason glanced behind them and saw dark shapes forming in the clouds, more storm spirits spiraling toward the chariot—except these looked more like horses than angels.

Piper started to say, “Why are they—”

“Anemoi comes in different shapes,” Katie said. “Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending on how chaotic they are. Hold on. This is going to get rough.”

Butch flicked the reins. On his side, Jason caught a glimpse of Connor grabbing ahold of one of the chariot's rods. The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Jason's stomach crawled into his throat. His vision blurred; when it returned back to normal, they were in a totally different place.

A cold gray 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. Jason 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.

Before he could really process all he was seeing, their wheels came off and the chariot dropped out of the sky.

Katie and Butch tried to maintain control. The pegasi labored 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. Connor's head popped out from around the chariot.

"You're falling!" he yelled.

"Gee, thanks, I didn't get the memo before," Katie shot back sarcastically.

"I'll try to slow it down! You guys try not to die!"

"Aim for the lake!" Katie called to him as he ducked around to the chariot's back. 

Connor latched on the ends of the chariot's back with both hands and did a weird pull-and-heave thing that probably took all his strength. His face was red with effort and his lips pressed together as he steered the falling chariot toward the lake. Somehow, against all odds, it worked. With Butch's maneuvering and Connor's strength, the chariot momentarily slowed its descent, and Jason breathed a sigh of relief. He wished he could do the cool wind riding thing and help Connor, but he worried that it was a one-time thing. He certainly had no idea how he did it, in the first place, and figuring it out while helping a falling chariot might not be the best idea.

Then—BOOM.

The biggest shock was the cold. He was underwater, so disoriented that he didn’t know which way was up. His limbs froze for a split second, which gave an opportunity for the water to seep into his system, making his bones and brain cold and near-useless.

Jason clenched his eyes shut and willed away the cold and surprise. When he opened them, he saw light from up above and used his numbing legs to kick in its direction. He broke the surface, gasping for breath, water making his vision a little blurry. There was a firm grip on his legs and waist, and he found himself propelled into the air, landing on the shore, wet and shivering.

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. Leo, Connor, and Katie were already on shore, surrounded by kids giving them blankets and asking questions. Jason got to his feet and nearly jumped when Piper was tossed on the shore beside him. He looked back at the water; several girls just below the surface, smiled at him, their hairs floating in the current. They gave him and Piper one last wave and disappeared into the depths. 

Apparently, kids fell into the lake a lot, because a load of campers ran up with big bronze leaf–blower–looking things and blasted them with hot air; in about two seconds their clothes were dry. A second later the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.

There were at least twenty campers milling around—the youngest maybe nine, the oldest college age, eighteen or nineteen—and all of them had orange T-shirts like Connor's.

"Katie!" 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,” Katie sighed. “I’ll get it fixed, I promise.”

A girl and another boy pushed through the crowd. The girl had blonde hair tied up in a ponytail and intense gray eyes that made Jason feel immediately on edge. The boy next to her was taller, more slender, and had messy black hair, and easygoing sea-green eyes. Though, the aura of power around him didn't soothe Jason one bit.

The girl sized up Jason, Piper, and Leo. “These are the ones? Way older than thirteen. Why haven’t they been claimed already?”

“Claimed?” Leo asked.

Before anyone could explain, the boy said, “Any sign of Travis?”

"No," admitted Connor, looking like it took his all to say that one word.

The campers muttered. Jason had no idea who this guy Travis was, but his disappearance seemed to be a big deal.

"Well," said the blonde girl. She appeared to be some sort of leader. She certainly talked that way. "Let's make sure to show these three around and give them a proper welcome. No use sulking around when we could be making use of our time." She looked at Connor as she spoke, and the son of Hermes averted his eyes, a frown creasing his features.

"Annabeth, I have to get out there," he argued. "So what if this was a dead-end? Travis might need my help—"

"And you're no good running off to save Travis if he does, looking like that," Annabeth interrupted, nodding at Connor's disheveled state. "Rest up. Eat. Then we'll make a plan."

Another girl stepped forward—tall, Asian, dark hair in ringlets, plenty of jewelry, 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.

“Well,” the girl said, “I hope they’re worth the trouble.”

Leo snorted. “Gee, thanks. What are we, your new pets?”

“No kidding,” Jason said. He didn't like the way the girl had looked at him—as though he were an interesting new specimen. “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?”

“Jason,” Katie said, “I promise we’ll answer your questions."

"And Drew," Annabeth frowned at the glamour girl. “All demigods are worth saving. But I’ll admit, the trip didn’t accomplish what many of us had hoped."

Awesome, thought Jason. What a way to make us feel welcome.

Then he felt guilty. Clearly, this place was looking hard for someone important. He wondered whether the place he'd come from was looking just as frantically for him too. Was he important to anyone?

“We didn’t ask to be brought here," Piper was saying.

Drew sniffed. “And nobody wants you, hun. Does your hair always look like a dead badger or is this a new fashion trend you're trying to start? Because it's sorely lacking.”

Piper frowned, her hackles rising. Jason, remembering what Leo had said about Pipet losing sight of her emotions sometimes, braced himself for a catfight, but Katie said, "Guys, stop."

Surprisingly, Piper did, and even Drew backed off a little. But the two girls continued glaring in a way that said they would not be BFFs anytime soon if ever. 

“We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome,” Katie said, with a pointed look at Drew. “We’ll assign them each a guide, give them a tour of camp. Hopefully by the campfire tonight, they’ll be claimed.”

Annabeth nodded. "In Camp Half-Blood, there's always a place for a demigod—claimed or unclaimed."

“Would somebody tell me what claimed means?” Piper asked.

Suddenly there was a collective gasp. The campers backed away. At first, Jason thought he was doing that weird air-floating thing again. Then he realized their faces were bathed in a strange red light as if someone had lit a torch behind him. He 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.”

“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.

Something itched in the depths of Jason's brain. A memory struggling to surface. That fiery hammer...he recognized that symbol...

“This can’t be good,” Butch muttered, watching Leo duck about. “The curse—”

“Butch shut up,” Connor said. “Leo, you’ve just been claimed—”

"By a god,” Jason interrupted. “That’s the symbol of Vulcan, isn’t it?”

All eyes turned to him.

"Oh gods, not this again," muttered Connor.

“Jason,” Katie 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?”

“Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus,” Annabeth said, “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 sea-green eyes. “Percy, would you take Leo and give him a tour? Introduce him to his bunk-mates in Cabin Nine.”

Percy gave her a jaunty salute. "Aye aye, Wise Girl."

“What’s Cabin Nine?” Leo asked. “And I’m not a Vulcan!”

“Come on, Mr. Spock, I’ll explain everything.” Percy put a hand on his shoulder and steered him off toward the cabins.

Annabeth turned her attention back to Jason and studied him like he was a complicated blueprint. Jason felt the urge to stand up straighter and barely held himself back from shifting uncomfortably. Finally, she said, “Hold out your arm.”

Puzzled, Jason held his arm out.

Piper, Katie, and Connor's eyes widened.

On the inside of his right forearm was a tattoo. It was darkly etched, impossible to miss: a dozen straight lines like a bar code, and over that an eagle with the letters SPQR.

“I’ve never seen marks like this,” Annabeth said. She turned to Katie and Connor. "Have you?"

They shook their heads, looking mystified.

"It looks like a sort of branding," said Connor.

"Certainly not something we've seen before," added Katie.

“Where did you get them?” asked Annabeth.

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 his tattoo. The marks seemed to bother them a lot—almost like a declaration of war.

“They look burned into your skin,” Katie noticed.

“They were,” Jason said instinctively. Then he winced as his head ached. “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. She smelled like designer perfume—the kind that made his head swim. “This way, sweetie. I’ll introduce you to our director. He’s…an interesting guy.” She flashed Piper a look and led Jason toward the big blue house on the hill.

As he and Drew walked away from the group, he distantly heard Piper ask “Who’s Chiron? Is Jason in some kind of trouble?”

He didn't get to hear the response, but he dearly hoped he wasn't. How could you be in trouble if you didn't even remember what for?

Chapter Text

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three. Rachel Gets Possessed

《 december 13, 2011 》

《 Camp Half-Blood, Long Island, New York 》

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PIPER WAS ASSIGNED CONNOR AND KATIE AS HER GUIDES.

        She was not happy about this.

       She’d had a terrible dream with a terrible voice, three days ago; one mentioning something ominous about her dad. Since then, she'd tried to make use of her allotted phone time in the Wilderness School and call her dad but had received no answer. She wanted to get out there and figure out where he was, if he was okay; but here she was, listening to a guy give her the most apathetic tour in existence.

        She supposed she should cut Connor some slack. The guy had lost his brother, after all. As someone who's lost family and currently has missing family, Piper sympathized. But did he have to be such an ass because of it?

        Katie's heart didn't seem to be on the tour either. But, for Piper's sake, she managed to keep herself cheery and upbeat enough to balance out Connor's listlessness. She talked about all this amazing stuff the camp offered—magic archery, pegasus riding, the lava wall, fighting monsters—but even though she tried to stay upbeat, there was something in her tone that told Piper that her mind was elsewhere. She pointed out the open-air dining pavilion that overlooked Long Island Sound. (Yes, Long Island, New York; they’d traveled that far on the chariot.)

        Connor explained how Camp Half-Blood was mostly a summer camp, but some kids stayed here year-round, and they’d added so many campers 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. Could you flunk out of monster fighting? A million questions bubbled in her head, but given Connor and Katie's moods, she decided to keep quiet.

        As they 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 northwest, 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,” Katie 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 Mom was a goddess.”

        Katie 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 Mom in the house, and why Dad would never tell her exactly how or why her mom 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, or we will find your father.

        She didn't want to betray the first group of people to take her seriously. Who seemed to understand her. But with the threat of her dad...she didn't know what to think anymore. If saving her only family meant going against all these people...would she do it?

        Piper took a shaky breath. “I guess after this morning, it’s a little easier to believe. So who’s my mom?”

        “We should know soon,” Connor said. “You’re what—fifteen? 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, 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. 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 daughter with massive daddy issues. Especially with the prospect of her being a traitor. “Why thirteen?”

        “The older you get,” Katie said, “the more monsters notice you, try to kill you. That’s why we send protectors into the schools to find you guys, get you to camp before it’s too late.”

        Piper remembered back when she was five; her assistant preschool teacher had turned out to have only one eye, right in the center of their head. She hadn't told anyone about this discovery, mainly because she never had many friends in school. Also, no one else seemed to notice this oddity. The next day, the assistant teacher was gone and it was as though they'd never existed in the first place.

        And that wasn't the first time weird instances had occurred in her life. But Piper had brushed it off as her seeing things. She knew if she told anyone (even her dad) about it, they'd think she was asking for attention. Piper was many things, she admitted, but never an attention-seeker.

        Then she remembered Coach Hedge, the goat-man, who had saved their lives. “So you're saying Coach Hedge is one of those protectors you mentioned?"

        Connor nodded. “He’s—he was a satyr: half man, half goat. Satyrs work for the camp, finding demigods, protecting them, 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—he was a menace when it came to Phys. Ed—but she couldn’t believe he’d sacrificed himself to save them.

        “What happened to him?” she asked. “When we went up into the clouds, did he…is he gone for good?” The question had been troubling her since the Grand Canyon. Even though Jason had disagreed with the idea of Coach Hedge dying, his words nor his firm tone hadn't been enough to comfort her.

        “Hard to say.” Katie's expression was pained. She glanced at Connor, maybe for help, but the son of Hermes had turned to stare blankly at the hills. “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 them, send their essence back to Tartarus.”

        “Tartarus?”

        “A huge abyss in the Underworld, where the worst monsters come from. It's crazy evil," Connor said, "No demigod's gone into it...at least, none have gone into it and survived."

        "Cheery," muttered Piper.

        Katie nudged Connor. "Don't be crass! Anyway, to answer your question more concisely, Piper, it's kind of like a bottomless pit of evil. 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 mom’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,” Katie 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 confessed. “My dad’s running out of places to put me.”

        “Only five?” Katie didn’t sound like she was teasing. “Piper, we’ve all been labeled troublemakers. I..." her breath caught, but she forged on. "I left my house when I was ten. That was when I became a year-round camper."

        Piper didn't want to put Katie in the spotlight, especially after a confession like that, but she couldn't help gaping. “Seriously?” She might have her differences with her dad and how his fame meddled in their family lives, but she would never imagine leaving him.

        Katie nodded. "Yeah. Connor, here, has broken into more stores than not."

        He shrugged. "No biggie. They were all asking for it, anyway."

        Piper stared at him. "You've broken into places?"

        For the first time since she'd met him, a mischievous twinkle sparked in his eyes. "Autographs and swooning later."

        Piper rolled her eyes. Of course, he'd have an ego about that. 

        "Plus most of us are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or dyslexia, or both.” 

        “Right," said Katie. "Because we’re hardwired for battle. Restless, impulsive—we don’t fit in with regular kids. You should hear how much trouble Travis—” Her face darkened and she looked quickly at Connor, whose face had gone blank again. “Anyway, demigods get a bad rep."

        "How’d you get in trouble?” asked Connor abruptly.

        Usually, when someone asked that question, Piper started a fight (verbally, of course; she didn't have the most advantage when it came to physical fights), changed the subject, or caused some kind of distraction. But for some reason she found herself telling the truth.

        "Sometimes, the stuff I say...it ends up affecting people more seriously than I intended," she said softly.

        Katie tilted her head to one side. "What do you mean?"

        Piper shook her head, smiling bitterly. "My dad never had time for me. Unless I got into trouble, that is...and sometimes, I just can't help feeling like trouble keeps following me. And not the light, brush-it-off kind. I mean, the serious kind of trouble. Where legal stuff is involved."

        Connor nodded. “I can definitely relate. Especially with the latter part."

        "Trouble always has a knack for following demigods," Katie agreed. "But what did you mean when you said the stuff you say affects people seriously?"

        “Well…nobody ever believes me. The police, teachers—even my dad might say he's on my side, but I know he doesn't fully believe me. But...I just say stuff, and I don't mean it in a deep way, or anything, but a lot of the time, the words I say affect people in ways I never intended. Like they're obeying my every command, which is weird because I'm not that popular enough in the schools I've gone to. Like, in my last school, there was this girl who kept teasing me about..." she took a breath in. She'd never discussed the details of why she'd ended up in the Wilderness School with anyone. Not even Leo. There was prickling in the corners of her eyes, and her throat closed up.

        She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up. Connor stared down at her, his hazel-green eyes unreadable, but there was a tone of encouragement when he said, "about...?"

        "About my heritage," she choked out. "She kept making fun of my Cherokee lineage, and...it's just ugh. Out of everything to make fun of, she picked that? What do people get off on making fun of culture and ancestry and whatnot," she fumed. "Anyways, I reached a breaking point after some months of this, and just...told her that she should just stop talking if she hates me and what I stand for so much because I'm not changing who I am for her. I don't know how, but...the next day, she wasn't in school. And the day after that. Finally, after a week, her parents visited my house and told my dad that apparently her vocal cords had been severely ruptured or something, and because of that, she couldn't talk properly anymore. There was a load of legal mess that even my dad couldn't back me up on, so his only option was either...put me in juvie or the Wilderness School." She looked up desperately at Katie and Connor. "But I swear I would never do that to anyone, bully or not! I don't even know how I did something like that. I swear—"

        "Hey hey," Katie took her hand and squeezed it. "We believe you."

        Piper's breath went out with a whoosh. She hadn't realized how badly she needed to hear those three words until Katie said them.

        "Besides, you don't seem like the type to wish deadly harm on anyone," added Connor. He squeezed her shoulder and let go. "That girl seems like such a bitch though."

        "Connor!" scolded Katie. But Piper gave a shaky laugh.

        "She definitely was."

        "But if your dad were the god, I’d say you’re a child of Hermes, god of thieves. Aka my half-sister," Connor said with a quirked smile. "But your dad is mortal…”

        “Very,” Piper agreed.

        Connor shook his head, apparently mystified. “I don’t know, then. With luck, your mom will claim you tonight.”

        "She probably will," Katie said, giving Piper's hand a supportive squeeze. "Your mom would be happy to have you as her child."

        Piper wasn't so sure about that, but she knew Katie was just being supportive so she simply nodded and hoisted up a small smile. Deep down, though, she almost hoped it wouldn’t happen. If her mom 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.

        Connor was studying her. Piper decided she was going to have to be careful what she said from now on. Connor was obviously pretty observant. If anyone ended up figuring out Piper’s secret...

        “Come on,” Katie said at last. "Let's check out the cabins."

        On the central green, a group of campers was playing basketball. They were incredible shots. Nothing bounced off the rim. Three-pointers went in automatically.

        “Apollo’s cabin,” Connor explained. “Bunch of showoffs with missile weapons—arrows, basketballs.”

        "Hey, Stoll!" called one of the players. "Wanna have a shoot-off?"

        "Hey, Lake," Connor called back pleasantly. "Why don't you shove off?"

        One of the basketballs bounced and rolled to a stop by Piper's sneaker. Picking it up, she looked around for someone to toss it to, when a voice called from behind.

        "Hey, pass!"

        She turned. A girl around her age with choppy red hair and green highlights was waving at her, grinning brightly. Fumbling the ball a bit, Piper's face heated, but she threw the ball at the girl, who caught it in one smooth motion.

        "Thanks!" she called, winking. Then threw the ball into an effortless three-pointer.

        Piper's face flamed, this time for an entirely different reason. Oh.

        She'd found out recently that she liked athletes; she'd also found out that she liked guys and girls. A combination of the two was lethal to her heart.

        "That's Kayla, one of the Apollo campers, an amazing archer too." Katie nudged her. "Come on. I don't feel like getting roped into a scrimmage."

        They walked past a central fire pit, where two guys were hacking at each other with swords.

        “Real blades?” Piper noted. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

        “That’s sort of the point,” Katie said. “Uh, sorry. Bad pun." —Connor snickered— "That’s my cabin over there. Number Four." She nodded to a light brown building with wildflowers and roses growing on the porch. The roof was constructed of growing grass and had tomato vines growing on the walls. Through the open doorway, Piper could see that the floor was grassy, and there was an oak tree in the middle of the cabin that stretched high enough that it seemed to hold the ceiling.

        “Speaking of blades,” Connor said, “you wanna choose your own weapon?”

        Piper was sure she'd misheard. "I'm sorry, my own what?"

        "Every demigod needs a weapon. We kinda need one to survive," he said with a short laugh. Though Piper didn't find what was so funny.

        "How about after the tour?" asked Katie upon seeing Piper's expression. "It'll give us more time to show you the cabins and see if any...fit with you or anything."

        Piper nodded, feeling relieved. "After the tour sounds great."

        Connor shrugged. "Alright then, I guess."

        They did a walk-through in front of each cabin, and they were all 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?” Katie asked.

        “I did some reading when my dad was working on a project last year.”

        “I thought he did Cherokee art," said Connor, a layer of suspicion in his voice.

        Piper bit back a curse. She had told them shortly after confessing about the reason she had ended up in the Wilderness School that her dad was a Cherokee artist. It was her go-to excuse whenever people wanted to know about her family. “Oh, right. But—you know, he does other stuff too.”

        Piper thought she’d blown it: McLean, Greek mythology. Thankfully, Katie didn’t seem to make the connection. However, Connor kept eyeing her shrewdly. She avoided his gaze.

        “Anyway,” Katie 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,” Connor 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.” He scowled a bit, "they have a thing against boys, though I can't fathom why."

        "Oh really? You're sure you can't?" Katie teased.

        "No," he grumbled, crossing his arms and pulling a face that looked as though he were close to pouting.

        Piper bit back a smile. When he wasn't being egotistic or grumpy, Connor wasn't actually so bad. At the sight of him and Katie ribbing each other, Piper thought they'd be cool friends to hang out with.

        Forget it, Piper reminded herself. You’re not going to make any friends here. Not once they find out.

        "So no Artemis," she concluded. "What about...oh."

        The next cabin, Number Ten, had an exterior built like a mansion; pale-gold polished paint with elegant off-white pillars adorning the front and a smattering of carnations on the large bay windows. It was average in size, certainly not as big as the two huge colosseum-type cabins at the very end, but its molded Greek aesthetic and modern rich-people-manors resulted in an aura so effortlessly charming, the cabin seemed bigger than it was, no joke. Unlike the forced grandeur she had seen of many supermodels' houses, this was the kind that did it so well it made your mouth water.

        Not that she knew firsthand; her dad's house was pretty cool, she never really saw it in any other way except for it being her home, but her former friends from one of her old schools had looked awestruck whenever she showed them her place.

        (Those friends also kept her around because of her father, but that was beside the point.)     

        Connor smirked at her prolonged silence. “Aphrodite’s cabin. Goddess of love. Good ol' Drew is the head counselor.”

        “Figures,” Piper grumbled, turning away from the showy cabin.

        “They’re not all that bad,” Katie said fairly. “The last head counselor we had was great. Plus when it comes to problems and battles, the Aphrodite Cabin is known for unconditional support."

        She hesitated at the words: unconditional support. Which made Piper wonder what exactly had happened to the last head counselor of Aphrodite.

        “What happened to her? The last head, I mean,” she couldn't help asking; her curiosity winning out.

        Both demigods' expressions darkened.

        “We should keep moving," said Katie.

        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; being Katie's half-sister would be pretty cool. 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.

        As they meandered through the central green, she noticed that she wasn't the only one becoming more withdrawn as the tour went on. When they'd started looking through the cabins, Connor had retained a bit of the energy that made Piper second-guess if he was always a grump. But minute by minute, he became more waspish and gave shorter answers. When the tour ended at the last cabin--the Hypnos one--he was barely paying attention to the tour and had reverted back to his listless self.

        Meanwhile, Katie was still in Lecture Mode. “We started with the twelve Olympian gods. Male gods on the left, females 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—”

        "I think she got it, Kates," interrupted Connor. "You don't need to make her ears bleed with a barrage of information."

        "Oh." Katie paused, her ears reddening. She scuffed her sneakers on the dirt, looking fairly embarrassed. "Sorry."

        Maybe it was the stress of the day taking a toll on her stretched nerves, or the sight of Katie looking so downtrodden—a sight that reminded Piper of when she was younger and believed everyone was as open-minded and non-judgemental as the picture books said. Either way, the words were out of her before she could make sense of them.

        "Just because you lost your brother doesn't mean you should walk around under the notion that everyone will take your crap," she snapped to a surprised Connor. "Yes, I understand it's a terrible time for you, but everyone else misses Travis just as much as you do. You have to understand people like Katie want to help you too."

        She almost said 'my dad may be missing and I can't do a thing about it, but you don't see me walking around insulting people and being a great grump' but stopped at the last moment, with a pang of panic. She'd almost outed her secret. All because she had decided to stand up for someone who believed in her. 

        She stood there, breathing heavily, as though she'd run a marathon. Next to her, Katie was wide-eyed and looking between Piper and Connor quickly.

        Connor, himself, was silent.

        For a crazy moment, Piper expected him to deck her; instead, he said in a low voice, nearly a whisper, "You're an only child, aren't you?"

        Thrown off, Piper answered after a second's pause. "Um, yes?"

        "Then you don't have the slightest idea what I'm going through. You don't know what it feels like when your other half, basically, your support pillar is unexpectedly ripped away from you." He was breathing heavily too now. "You don't understand what it's like when your backbone is just...gone. And now you're floundering around trying to get a handhold in an ocean that seems suddenly so deep and menacing without them." He took a step forward, but this time, Piper knew he wasn't doing it to deck her or to be threatening. His eyes looked too shiny for that. "Also, for the record, you don't have a goddamn clue how much I miss him. No one else misses him as much as I do. That's a fact."

        He turned and stormed down the hill, calling over his shoulder, "If you want, we can get your weapon or whatever. With an attitude like that, you definitely need one, or else you'll get skewered your first day here."

        Piper wanted to call out to him, but he was already out of earshot. She turned helplessly to Katie. "I'm—I mean, I didn't—"

        Katie gently steered her down the hill, back towards the Athena Cabin. "It's okay," she promised, "you tried to stick up for me. Thank you. But Connor's also right, partially."

        "How?" Piper asked in disbelief. "I saw how everyone reacted when they heard Travis wasn't there! They clearly care about him—"

        "Not more than Connor does," said Katie. "He was right. Even if everyone missed Travis to the moon and back, it wouldn't be an inch to what Connor feels. Those two—" the expression in her eyes was pained "—they were inseparable. You can't see one without the other somewhere close by. So, it's a change of perspective, both for Connor and for the rest of camp, to see him milling around without Travis by his side." She smiled sadly. "I know you have a good heart, Piper, that's why you stood up to him, but this is how Connor reacts. Actually, he doesn't know how to react—how to feel about all this—that's why he's so moody, you see. His heart can't compute."

        "Is Travis...is he...?"

        "No!" Katie said firmly. Then paused. "Well, I don't know for sure."

        Something in her tone made Piper ask carefully, "Katie...do you have a crush on Travis?"

        "What? No!" Katie said, whipping her head around to stare at Piper as though she'd asked if they wanted to go skinny-dipping. "Why would you ever assume that? He's so annoying, he's even more annoying than Connor, actually!" 

        Then, before Piper could respond, she walked down the hill, saying over her shoulder, "Come on, Connor's probably pulling his hair out waiting for us."

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[ PIPER ]

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Piper followed Katie around the side of Cabin Six, to a big metal shed that looked like it was meant for gardening tools. Connor had already unlocked it and was standing waiting for them, arms crossed.

        "Thank the gods, I thought you'd gotten lost," he grumbled. He barely gave Piper a second glance. She wondered if she should apologize; Katie's words still at the forefront of her mind: Even if everyone missed Travis to the moon and back, it wouldn't be an inch to what Connor feels.

        But before she could open her mouth, Connor swung open the door of the shed, and all other thoughts were driven from her mind at the sight before her.

        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 Hedges'.

        “I did mention every demigod needs a weapon,” Connor said. “Hephaestus makes the best, but we have a pretty good selection, too. Athena is good with weapon-choosing, but Hermes is all about figuring out the right weapon for the right person for maximum swing, we're versatile like that y'know. Let’s see…”

        Piper didn’t feel much like shopping for deadly objects, but after the whole debacle with Connor, a niggling worry surfaced that maybe having a weapon handy would be beneficial for her.

        Connor handed her a massive sword, which Piper could hardly lift.

        “No,” all three said at once.

        Connor rummaged a little farther in the shed and brought out something else.

        “A shotgun?” Katie asked skeptically. "For Piper?"

        He shrugged. "We don't have many firearm sharpshooters around here. Maybe she could be a valuable addition." He checked the pump-action like it was no big deal. “Mossberg 500.” He must have caught a glimpse of Piper's face because he added, "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 said.

        “Mmm, yeah,” Katie agreed, chuckling. “Too flashy for her.”

        Connor 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?”

        He 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.” Connor 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 Connor's belt.

        "Yeah, well...I use an assortment of weapons. Being a Hermes kid means you're also proficient in almost all sorts of weaponry," he said. "Besides..." he shrugged. "Well, take a look, if you want."

        The sheath was worn black leather, bound in bronze. Nothing fancy, nothing flashy. The polished wood handle fitted 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, and not as scared as she felt.

        “It suits you,” Katie admitted. “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. She looked at Connor. “Why didn’t you think it was right?”

        Connor 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?”

        Connor nodded.

        Suddenly Piper felt like she should be handling the dagger with surgical gloves. “And it’s just sitting in your toolshed?”

        “We’re surrounded by Ancient Greek stuff,” Connor reasoned. “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,” Katie said. “Looking glass."

        Connor scoffed. "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.

        “Piper?” Katie asked. "Oh gods, is she going to pass out?"

        Connor shouted to the Apollo kids on the court, “Medic! I need some help over here!”

        “No, it’s—it’s okay,” Piper managed.

        “You sure?” asked Katie worriedly.

        “Yeah. I just…” She had to control herself. With trembling fingers, she picked up the dagger. “I just got overwhelmed. So much happening today. But…I want to keep the dagger if that’s okay.”

        Katie hesitated. She exchanged a glance with Connor. 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, a phone at camp? Can I call my dad?”

        Katie's green eyes seemed almost illuminated in the gloom of the shed. Looking at her made Piper feel equally like she was surrounded by sunlight and warm green grass, and as though the earth itself was scrutinizing her.

        “We aren’t allowed phones,” she said. “Most demigods, if they use a cell phone, it’s like sending up a signal, letting monsters know where you are."

        Connor clicked his tongue. "If you're done listening to Rule-Follower Katie. I’ve got one.” He slipped it out of his pocket. “Kind of against the rules, but who cares about that?"

        "Literally, Connor!" Katie sighed, though she looked as though she had expected something like this.

        Connor waved the phone at Piper with a small smirk. "If it can be our secret…”

        Seriously this guy had fluctuating moods. But Piper took it—grateful for the phone and maybe also because Connor didn't seem mad at her anymore. Trying not to let her hands shake, she stepped away from the duo 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, and after an amount of hesitation, she dialed 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.”

        Normally, Piper would've said something...gentler to dissuade the situation so that she could hopefully get a straight answer, but her nerves were frayed and her eyes had started to sting as soon as Jane answered, so Piper sort of let loose a little. “Maybe I’m not at school,” she said. “Maybe I ran away to live among the woodland creatures.”

        Not that Connor and Katie and those storm spirits could classify as 'woodland creatures' but she wasn't about to tell Jane that.

        “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 Katie and Connor were too nice to eavesdrop. “When are you going to call the police, Jane? He could be in trouble.”

        But deep down, she had a feeling wherever her dad was, even the police couldn't help him. She remembered the horrible voice from the dream and shuddered.

        “Piper, we are not going to turn this into a media spiel. I’m sure he’s fine. He does take off occasionally on errands only he knows of. He always comes back.”

        “So it’s true. You don’t know." The stinging was getting harder to ignore. "Jane, please, just this one time, can you listen—"

        “I have to go, Piper,” Jane snapped. “Enjoy school.”

        The line went dead. Piper cursed, swiping a hand across her eyes angrily. She walked back to Katie and Connor and handed him the phone.

        “No luck?” Connor asked.

        Piper didn’t answer. Keeping the tears at bay was a feat in and of itself. She had been holding them back for one reason or another ever since the Grand Canyon when Jason, her best friend, looked at her as though she were a stranger. (Which, maybe she was, but Piper wasn't going to go down that route. She probably would break down, if she did.)

        Connor glanced at the phone display and hesitated. “Your last name is McLean? Sorry, it’s not my business. But that sounds really familiar.”

        “Common name.”

        “Yeah, I guess...” He didn't look convinced but he put the phone away. “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.”

        And so they did. 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.

       Katie peered through the doorway, then sighed and continued on, giving an expectant Connor a headshake. “Nothing, right now. A friend’s place. She's our Oracle.”

        "Oracle?"

        Katie gave her a wan smile. "Yeah, she lives in this cave and basically tells the future. I was hoping she could help us—”

        "Find Travis," Piper guessed. It wasn't a hard guess, really, especially with the general mood around camp and the glances Katie and Connor kept giving each other which they thought were discreet.

        All the energy drained out of Katie like she’d been holding it together for as long as she could. She sighed, a loud exhale like she was letting out all the pain and stress from her body. Now that she looked closer, Piper saw dark bags under her eyes and her hair was unkempt as though she hadn't cared for it in days.

        Travis may not be a crush like Katie said, but he was clearly something to her.

        Next to her, Connor was staring at the empty cave with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Like if he stared hard enough, he could simply will their Oracle to arrive.

        Piper felt like she was intruding on a private moment. She had the sudden urge to back away from the two and the pain they had concealed from her for most of the day.

        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.

        Then she noticed 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 snakelike head with yellow eyes and smoking nostrils.

        “That’s—a dragon,” she stammered. “That’s the actual Golden Fleece?”

        "No, it's the fake one," Connor said sarcastically. 

        Piper decided to take Katie's word of advice and ignored him. 

        Katie just nodded, looking at the dragon, though Piper sensed she wasn't really seeing it.

        “You two look ready to drop,” Piper said. “How long have been searching for him?”

        Connor was the one to reply monotonously. “Three days, six hours, and about twelve minutes."

        “And you’ve got no idea what happened to him?”

        He gave her a look. "If we did, then we wouldn't be picking straws here, right?"

        "Okay, listen, I'm just trying to see if I can help," she fired back, her temper flaring. 

        "Well, you can't," Connor retorted mulishly and turned back to resume his staring contest with the cave.

        "I know how it feels to have your life spun on end," Piper said after a moment. She spoke softly and carefully. This entire conversation was a minefield and she didn't want to cause a ruckus. "Though I know I don't have a clue how it feels for you and what you're going through, I do know how it feels...to have a solid presence you've believed will be with you for a long while to just disappear. I know how that feels."

        She hadn't been talking about just Jason. She'd also been hinting at her dad's disappearance, but naturally, Katie and Connor didn't know about that. 

        Katie winced. But she looked a bit relieved at the distraction. “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. She hadn't meant for them to talk about what had happened with Jason and all that, right now. She had just been saying it as a way of comfort. Throughout the day, she had been pushing the thought of what was wrong with Jason to the far recess of her mind. But now, it was time to bring it out.

        "He truly doesn't know me," she said miserably. Better to get the truth out before the false lies she'd tried to hide behind hurt her more.

        “Piper,” Katie 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. “But 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 schools, pass themselves off as humans, 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—”

        The memory of her preschool assistant teacher, along with every other weird instance throughout her life where a teacher or a counselor or even a random person on the street had made her double back and look at them again because of some strange, unusual feature or another, came to Piper's mind. There was truth in Katie's words, she sensed it. 

        “But Jason’s not a monster!” Piper insisted. “He’s a human guy, or demigod, or whatever you want to call him. He's my best friend. He and Leo and I—we were a trio! My memories can't be fake," her throat was clogging up again. "We had so much fun together—we three were inseparable. When Leo and I pranked Jason for the first time, and when the two of us got the stupid guy to stop being such a goody-two-shoes all the time..."

        She found herself rambling, telling Katie about her whole semester at Wilderness School. She could feel Connor watching her carefully like she was a ticking bomb about to explode. But she didn't care how weirdly they looked at her. Jason had been the first person, after Leo, to include her in something. He and Leo had been the only two people in her life to make her feel happy and content with herself and who she was. No strings attached. They respected and valued every part of her, even the ones other kids in her previous schools had mocked her for. And in turn, she'd helped them with so many things too! She'd helped Leo with his love issues...his nightmares...his claustrophobia. For Jason, she'd helped him on how to nicely reject girls he didn't like...on tapping into his rebellious side and disregarding the rules more so...she'd helped him realize his sexuality too...

        Everything was right there! They all couldn't be fake...right?

        Katie 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?” interrupted Connor. He was still giving her that careful look.

        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?

        Her emotions swept over her like a tidal wave, and she started to cry. She felt like a total fool, but she sat down on the rock next to Katie and just fell to pieces. It was too much. The one time she started to believe she had found a group of friends who wouldn't shame her for who she was, and now that was taken away too? She couldn't believe she'd lost her dad and best friends in less than a week. Because if Jason didn't know her, then what was to say Leo wouldn't want to hang around either? Jason had been the backbone of their crazy friendship; if he wasn't around, would Leo still want to be her friend?

        Piper scrubbed at her eyes viciously. She hated crying in front of other people. But 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,” Katie said. “We’ll figure it out. Jason’s here now. Who knows? Maybe you three can rekindle that same friendship.”

        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?”

        Katie shrugged. “I figured it would be hard for you. We both know the concept of loss a little too well.”

        “But I still can’t believe…We were friends. And he cared so much about us. And now it’s just gone, like he doesn’t even recognize anyone. If he really did just show up today, then why? How’d he get there? Why can’t he remember anything?”

        “Good questions,” Connor said. “Hopefully Chiron can figure that out. But for now, we need to get you settled because it's about time for dinner. 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.”

        They descended down the hill away from the cave. A cool breeze swept past, brushing Piper's bangs. She noticed, though, that even though it was close to winter, the camp looked like it was in the middle of summer. The strawberry fields were green and flourishing; and the breezes were cool and refreshing, which reminded her of when she'd gone hiking in the woods behind her dad's mansion. The open air and tantalizing sky had made her feel boundless; it made her feel free, if only for just a couple of moments, from everything tethering her to reality.

        As they passed the ring of cabins, Piper noticed the two large ones at the very top that hadn't been talked about during the tour.

        “What are the two big cabins on the end?” she asked.

        Katie paused. “Zeus and Hera. King and queen of the gods.”

        Intrigued, Piper headed that way, and, after a moment, Katie and Connor followed. 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 colors.

        Unlike the other cabins, which were all noisy and open and full of activity, the Zeus and Hera cabins were closed and silent.

         “Are they empty?” Piper asked.

        Katie 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?”

        Connor snorted. "Do you really think Greek gods can go their lives without consorting with mortals? Of course, they broke their pact!"

        "But isn't that very dangerous?" asked Piper. The Zeus cabin stood in front of her, imposing and grand. She wondered how a child of Zeus and the other Big Three gods would feel at being labeled as 'dangerous' upon arrival. Probably pretty bummed out, she thought. Imagine being ostracized in a community where you're supposed to feel included.

        Connor shrugged. "Yeah, sure, but the idea of a bounty over the heads of their children hasn't stopped the gods from acting like utter—"

        "Connor! Be careful!" hissed Katie. She glanced up at the sky nervously, but everything remained calm and peaceful. 

        "Sorry," said Connor, though he didn't sound very sorry. "Anyway, there's a couple of Big Three kids around here. There's Thalia—she's a daughter of Zeus. Then Percy Jackson, Annabeth's boyfriend, he's a son of Poseidon; he's giving your friend, Leo, a tour right now."

        "And Nico di Angelo," finished Katie. "He stops by once in a while, and he's a son of Hades." She picked at her nails while giving the Zeus cabin an apprehensive look. "See, the thing is being a child of the Big Three doesn't just mean you have a Danger label over your head. Your life kinda...well, sucks, to put it bluntly. A demigod's lifespan is pretty short, but one of a Big Three kid? It can get even shorter."

        "And you call me the crass one," said Connor.

        But Piper had stopped paying attention after the words 'a demigod's lifespan is pretty short'. Well, it wasn't like she had the thought that demigods would live to a ripe old age and die peacefully or whatnot, but the way Katie had said it—so bluntly and casually like it was something they'd already gotten used to—made the nervousness creep back up. She didnt want to die before twenty!

        In a desperate bid to change the subject, Piper looked at the peacock-decorated doors. The cabin bothered her, though she wasn’t sure why.

        “Goddess of marriage,” Katie said, following her gaze. Her tone was carefully neutral. “She doesn’t have kids with anyone but Zeus. So, yeah, no demigods. The cabin’s just honorary.”

        “You two don't have a good history,” Piper noticed.

        "It's not that," said Katie. "She just has a habit of seriously meddling with the lives of demigods. Like, she was the one who sent me this dream vision after Travis disappeared."

        "That's what you guys were talking about back at the Grand Canyon," guessed Piper, looking from Connor to Katie. "You were expecting Travis to be there because of that vision."

        "And guess what, he wasn't. What a fucking surprise," muttered Connor. He was looking down at the ground and overturning some loose dirt with the toes of his sneakers.

        “It’s probably better I don’t talk about it,” Katie said. “I’ve got nothing good to say about Hera right now.”

        That wasn't the only reason, though, Piper noticed as Katie gave Connor a worried look. She 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.

        Katie hesitated. “Um, Piper, I don’t think we should—”

        "Relax, Kates," said Connor, pushing past her into the cabin. "Besides, if Hera's here or something, I have some words for her that I've been dying to tell."

        Katie sighed, watching him go inside. Then she turned to Piper with a resigned look. "I suppose you want to follow him in, don't you?"

        Piper couldn't help the small smile, already walking towards the door. “We’re supposed to do dangerous stuff, right?”

        When she stepped inside, Piper wasn't sure what she was expecting, but Hera's cabin was definitely not someplace Piper would want to live. The cold air hit first, causing her to shiver and rub her arms. A circle of white columns ringed 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 the eyes were cold and calculating as if she were saying, Mother Gothel-style: Mother knows best. Now don't cross me or I will have to step on you.

        Piper held back a shiver. 

        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 mom. 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. 

        Connor had wandered to the base of the statue and was currently glaring up at it as though it had personally ruined his family. Which...she supposed, it might have.

        She half-spun around, taking in the entirety of the cabin at once, and 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.

        Behind her, Katie called excitedly, "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 hurried to give Katie a hug and held her hands. “I’m so sorry! I came as fast as I could. I just heard about...you know...”

        "Don't worry about it," Katie assured her. "We just wanted to know whether...I mean, if there were any news...?"

        Rachel was already shaking her head sadly. "I'm sorry, but the Oracle's been silent. Wherever he is, Travis is far out of reach from her range."

        Both girls turned to give identical looks of concern at Connor who now looked as though he were cursing the Hera statue in his mind. Then Katie remembered Piper.

        “I’m being rude,” Katie apologized. “Rachel, this is Piper, one of the half-bloods we rescued today. Piper, this is Rachel Elizabeth Dare, our oracle.”

        “You're the one 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 snorted. “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.” Even though it reminded her of nearly every horror movie she's watched in the past.

        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 Katie, at Connor, then back at Piper. “Just a hunch. Something about this cabin and Travis's disappearance. They’re connected somehow. I’ve learned to follow my hunches, especially the last month since the gods went silent. Then there was Drew's dream..." she trailed off, her eyes widening, apparently realizing that she'd said too much.

        "What?" Katie asked. "What dream? Drew never spoke about that."

        "It's nothing," Rachel said quickly. "Nothing that might interest you. Just stuff about her mom hinting at a possible...well, it's not related to Travis, I'll say that. I'm supposed to keep it a secret, you see."

        Piper wondered what Rachel had done to get someone like Drew to open up about her dreams. Drew didn't seem like the type to voluntarily give information—helpful or otherwise. 

        “Anyway,” Rachel said, “a mini crash course for the newbie, starting about a month ago, two years after the Titan War, Olympus fell silent. The entrance closed, and no one could get in. Nobody knows why. It’s like the gods have sealed themselves off. 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,” Rachel 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 Travis 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 “best friend,” but the effort made her chest hurt. “Another new demigod. But Katie, you said Hera sent you a dream vision.”

        “Right,” Katie said. “The first communication from a god in a month, and it’s Hera, and she contacts me, though I have no idea why. She could have contacted Connor, but she chose me. She tells me I’ll find out what happened to Travis 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. She couldn't keep this to herself, what with all the tension circulating in this place. Maybe her dream could be a key to helping prevent this bad stuff from happening. 

        “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. Katie 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. Somewhere beyond, she heard faint shouts of Katie calling to Connor to get over here. The statue’s mouth opened, its breath like those horribly thick perfumes that overwhelm you as soon as you step into a Macy's. 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 everything went black.

Chapter Text

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four. Yay, More Ghosts For Leo

《 december 13, 2011 》

《 Camp Half-Blood, Long Island, New York 》

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LEO'S TOUR WAS A WONDERFUL WAY TO DISTRACT HIMSELF FROM THE MESS THAT WAS TODAY.

        Percy Jackson, his tour dude, seemed pretty cool. Okay no, he was definitely very cool. Even though he represented everything Leo wanted to be, he couldn't resent the guy; especially when he made a fountain of water sprout up when they'd passed the circumference of the lake. 

      Everything Percy showed Leo was so amazing, it should’ve been illegal. Real Greek warships moored at the beach with the occasional practice fights involving flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts & crafts sessions where you could make sculptures with chainsaws and blowtorches? Leo was like, Sign me up! The woods were stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone? Nice! Plus everyone he passed looked awesome; the girls were gorgeous and the guys were handsome. Honestly, this was all way too much for Leo's ADHD brain to take in, he felt like he was going to combust from excitement. He dearly hoped his hair wasn't on fire; that tended to happen when he got too excited.

        First, they stopped at the Infirmary so Leo could get his head tended to.

        "It could get infected," Percy explained as they ducked inside. "Or your blood could clot and you'd collapse."

        With that happy thought, Leo was more than eager to get the wound on his temple from where Dylan the Storm Spirit of Doom had thrown him checked out. Several healers were happy to assist, though, in the end, it was Will Solace—the guy whose chariot they'd destroyed—who patched him up with a bandage after cleaning the wound with some antiseptic. 

        "Make sure you come to me before turning in so that I can change your bandage," Will told Leo before they left. "It doesn't look too bad, probably some bruising once the wound starts to close up, but you can never be too sure. Imminent death starts from a small wound, as they say."

        Leo exited the infirmary, wondering if all healers were as cheery as Will.

        Percy showed him the cabins, the dining pavilion, and the sword arena.

        “Do I get a sword?” Leo asked.

        Percy glanced at him like he found the idea equally disturbing and amusing. “You’ll probably make your own, seeing as how you’re in Cabin Nine.”

        “Yeah, what’s up with that? Vulcan?”

        “Usually we don’t call the gods by their Roman names, not even Annabeth and her half-siblings who always want a challenge,” Percy mused. “The original names are Greek. Your dad is Hephaestus.”

        “Festus?” Leo had heard somebody say that before, but he was still dismayed. “Sounds like the god of cowboys.”

        “He-phaestus,” Percy corrected. “God of blacksmiths and fire. And he's definitely not a 'howdy pardner' kinda guy."

        Leo wanted to point out that, as a former resident of the South, they all didn't say 'howdy pardner' as Percy had pictured, but he was too busy trying not to think about the first part of Percy's response. The god of fire…seriously? Considering what had happened to his mom, that seemed like a sick joke.

        “So the flaming hammer over my head,” Leo said. “Good thing, or bad thing?”

        Percy took a while to answer. “You were claimed almost immediately. That’s usually good.”

        “But that Rainbow Pony dude, Butch—he mentioned a curse.”

       "…Look, it’s nothing. Since Cabin Nine’s last head counselor died—”

        “Died? Like, painfully?”

        Percy took a deep breath in like the memory was too painful for him. “I ought to let your bunkmates tell you about it.”

        “Yeah, where are my home dawgs? Shouldn’t their counselor be giving me the VIP tour?”

        “He, um, can’t. You’ll see why.” Percy forged ahead before Leo could ask anything else.

        “Curses and death,” Leo said to himself. “This just gets better and better.”

        It wasn't like those two followed him around everywhere he went.

        He was halfway across the green, lost in his own thoughts, when he spotted his old babysitter. And she was not the kind of person he expected to see at a demigod camp. 

        Leo froze in his tracks.

        Percy walked a couple more steps before realizing Leo wasn't with him. “What’s wrong?” 

        Tía Callida—Auntie Callida. That’s what she’d called herself—and there she was standing next to one of the great white cabins. The catch was Leo hadn’t seen her since he was five years old. She was just standing there, in the shadow of a big white cabin at the end of the green, watching him. She wore her black linen widow’s dress, with a black shawl pulled over her hair. Her face hadn’t changed—leathery skin, piercing dark eyes. Her withered hands were like claws. She looked ancient but no different than Leo remembered.

        “That old lady…” Leo said. “What’s she doing here?”

        Percy tried to follow his gaze. “What old lady?”

        “Dude, the old lady. The one in black. How many old ladies do you see over there?”

        Percy frowned. “Right, so I don't really know how to handle hallucinations—"

        "I'm not hallucinating, man!" She was literally right there. How could Percy not see her? And it wasn't like she was a ghost or anything, she looked corporeal. 

        "I think you’ve had a long day, Leo. The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?”

        Leo wanted to protest, but when he looked back toward the big white cabin, Tía Callida was gone. He was sure she’d been there. Almost as if thinking about his mom had summoned Callida back from the past.

        And that wasn’t good, because Tía Callida had tried to kill him.

        But that was a whole other t

        “Just messing with you, man.” Leo pulled some gears and levers from his pockets and started fiddling with them to calm his nerves. He couldn’t have everybody at camp thinking he was crazy. At least, not crazier than he really was. 

        Plus it had been a long day, Percy was right. He wasn't sure he could take much more stress. The notion that his memories of Jason being apparently fake was already taxing enough. He didn't need to suddenly start seeing ghosts everywhere he looked.

        “Let’s go see Cabin Nine,” he said. “I’m in the mood for a good curse.”

        They passed the central green; past other cabins—some decorated grandly, others inconspicuously. But when they came to Cabin Nine, Leo knew he had found his place. From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked like an oversized RV with shiny metal walls and metal-slatted windows. The entrance was like a bank vault door, circular and several feet thick. It opened with lots of brass gears turning and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke.

        Leo whistled. “They got a steampunk theme going on, huh?”

        Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. Steel bunks were folded against the walls like high-tech Murphy beds. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems, and interlocking gears. Leo figured each camper had his own combination lock to release his bed, and there was probably an alcove behind it with storage, maybe some traps to keep out unwanted visitors. At least, that’s the way Leo would’ve designed it. A fire pole came down from the second floor, even though the cabin didn’t appear to have a second floor from the outside. A circular staircase led down into some kind of basement. The walls were lined with every kind of power tool Leo could imagine, plus a huge assortment of knives, swords, and other implements of destruction. A large workbench overflowed with scrap metal—screws, bolts, washers, nails, rivets, and a million other machine parts. Leo had a strong urge to shovel them all into his coat pockets. He loved that kind of stuff. But he’d need a hundred more coats to fit it all.

        Looking around, he could almost imagine he was back in his mom’s machine shop. Not the weapons, maybe—but the tools, the piles of scrap, the smell of grease and metal and hot engines. She would’ve loved this place.

        He pushed that thought away. He didn’t like painful memories. Keep moving—that was his motto. Don’t dwell on things. Don’t stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness. He was trying to do the same thing with the whole deal about Jason. It just seemed like cruel irony that all this memory shit happened right after that particular conversation they'd had. Or apparently, they hadn't. Because, you know, fake memories. 

        Dios, this was too confusing.

        He picked a long implement from the wall. “A weed whacker? What’s the god of fire want with a weed whacker?”

        A voice in the shadows made him jump. “You’d be surprised.”

        At the back of the room, one of the bunk beds was occupied. A curtain of dark camouflage material retracted, and Leo could see the guy who’d been invisible a second before. It was hard to tell much about him because he was covered in a body cast. His head was wrapped in gauze except for his face, which was puffy and bruised. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a beatdown.

        “I’m Jake Mason,” the guy said. “I’d shake your hand, but…”

        “Yeah,” Leo said. “Don’t get up.”

        The guy cracked a smile, then winced like it hurt to move his face. Leo wanted to know what had happened to him, but he was afraid to ask.

        “Welcome to Cabin Nine,” Jake said. “Been almost a year since we had any new kids. I’m head counselor for now.”

        “For now?” Leo asked.

        Percy Jackson cleared his throat. “So where is everybody, Jake?”

        “Down at the forges,” Jake said wistfully. “They’re working on…you know, that problem.”

        “Oh.” Percy changed the subject. “So, you got a spare bed for Leo?”

        Jake studied Leo, sizing him up. “You believe in curses, Leo? Or ghosts?”

        I just saw my evil babysitter Tía Callida, Leo thought. She’s got to be dead after all these years. And I can’t go a day without remembering my mom in that machine shop fire. Plus I've been cursed from the moment I was born. Don’t talk to me about ghosts and curses, doughboy. 

        But aloud, he said, “Ghosts? Pfft. Nah. I’m cool. A storm spirit chucked me down the Grand Canyon twice this morning, but you know, all in a day’s work, right?”

        Jake nodded. “That’s good. Because I’ll give you the best bed in the cabin—Beckendorf’s.”

        Percy stiffened. “Whoa, Jake, you sure?”

        In response, Jake called out: “Bunk 1-A, please.”

        The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiraled open like a camera lens, and a full-size bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system on the headboard, a glass-door refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side.

        Leo jumped right in and lay back with arms behind his head. “Ohhhh I can handle this.”

        “It retracts into a private room below,” Jake said.

        “Heck yes,” Leo said. “See y’all. I’ll be down in the Leo Cave. Which button do I press?”

        “Hold on,” Percy protested. “You guys have private underground rooms? Can I just say, unfair.”

        Jake probably would’ve smiled if it didn’t hurt so much. “We got lots of secrets, Perce. Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under Cabin Nine for almost a century. We still haven’t found the end. Anyway, Leo, if you don’t mind sleeping in a dead man’s bed, it’s yours.”

        Suddenly Leo didn’t feel like kicking back. He sat up, careful not to touch any of the buttons. “The counselor who died —this was his bed?”

        “Yeah,” Jake said. “Charles Beckendorf.”

        Leo imagined saw blades coming through the mattress, or maybe a grenade sewn inside the pillows. “He didn’t, like, die in this bed, did he?”

        “No,” Jake said. “In the Titan War, last summer.”

        “The Titan War,” Leo repeated, “which has nothing to do with this very fine bed?”

        “The Titans,” Percy said like Leo was an idiot. “The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost destroyed Mount Olympus. A—a lot of demigods died trying to stop them.”

        “I’m guessing this wasn’t on the news?” Leo said.

        It seemed like a fair question, but Percy shook his head in disbelief. “You didn’t hear about Mount St. Helens erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St. Louis?”

        Leo shrugged. Last summer, he’d been on the rocks, hanging with some people on the wrong side of the tracks to hide his trail from his extended family and child services. Then a truancy officer caught him in New Mexico, and the court sentenced him to the nearest correctional facility—the Wilderness School. During all that, news-watching wasn't really high up on his to-do list. “Guess I was busy.”

        “Doesn’t matter,” Jake said. “You were lucky to miss it. The thing is, Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then—”

        “Your cabin’s been cursed,” Leo guessed.

        Jake didn’t answer. Then again, the dude was in a body cast. That was an answer. Leo started noticing little things that he hadn’t seen before—an explosion mark on the wall, a stain on the floor that might’ve been oil…or blood. Broken swords and smashed machines kicked into the corners of the room, maybe out of frustration.

        The place did feel unlucky.

        Jake sighed halfheartedly. “Well, I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be…really nice.”

        He closed his eyes, and the camouflage curtain drew itself across the bed.

        “Come on, Leo,” Percy said heavily. “I’ll take you to the forges.”

        As they were leaving, Leo looked back at his new bed. He could almost imagine a dead counselor sitting there—another ghost who wasn’t going to leave Leo alone.

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[ LEO ]

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They were five feet into the woods when Leo finally asked the question on his mind since they'd left Cabin Nine.

        "How did he die? Beckendorf, I mean."

        Percy didn't answer for so long, Leo thought he hadn't heard. Then he said, his voice strangely rough, “Explosion. Beckendorf and I blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn’t make it out.”

        Leo inwardly cursed. Why the heck had he asked that? Now, he sounded insensitive. He didn't know what to say—whether to apologize or comfort Percy—he wasn't ever good with emotions. Not as good with them as he was with machines. So he kept quiet and let Percy lead him deeper into the greenery. 

        “He was awesome,” Percy said after a while. “It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake—he became head counselor in the middle of the war. He did his best, but he never wanted to be a leader. He just likes building stuff. Then after the war, things started to go wrong. Cabin Nine’s chariots blew up. Their automatons went haywire. Their inventions started to malfunction. It was like a curse, and eventually, people started calling it that—the Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jake had his accident—”

        “Which had something to do with the problem he mentioned,” Leo guessed.

        “They’re working on it,” Percy said without enthusiasm. “Here we are.”

        The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. White marble columns lined the soot-stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. Leo heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring, and hammers ringing on anvils.

        They stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who’d been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.

        “’Sup, guys,” Percy said. “This is your new brother, Leo—um, sorry, what’s your last name?”

        “Valdez.” Leo looked around at the other campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from some big families, but he’d always just had his mom—until she died.

        Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Leo knew he’d never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming.

        None of them looked like the others—all different face types, skin tones, hair colors, heights. You’d never think, Hey, look, it’s the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn’t have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.

        And all the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Several looked like they’d been physically beaten up, too. Leo counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Ace bandages, and about seven thousand Band-Aids.

        Honestly, they reminded him of one of the groups of kids he'd hung out with on the streets—the sight of his half-siblings had Leo thinking about his old comrades. He wondered how they were doing.

        Percy nudged him, jerking him out of his musings.

        “Well, all right!” Leo said. “I hear this is the party cabin!”

        Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.

        Percy patted Leo’s shoulder. “Okay Party Guy, I trust you won't cause mass panic with terrible jokes and bad puns?"

        "I have no idea what you're talking about, my jokes are a classic," Leo replied.

        Percy cracked a grin. "I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?"

        “I got it,” one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms, and a red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.

        “Cool,” Leo said. “I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.”

        Nyssa didn’t smile. “Come on, joker boy. I’ll show you around.”

        She led him farther into the building, and although Leo was no stranger to workshops—He’d grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. His mom used to joke that his first pacifier was a lug wrench—he’d never seen any place like the camp forge.

        One guy was working on a battle-ax. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the ax cut into the slab like it was warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.

        “What’s he planning to kill with that thing?” Leo asked Nyssa. “A battleship?”

        “You never know. Even with Celestial bronze—”

        “That’s the metal?”

        She nodded. “Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrates monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instance—”

        “You mean dragons?”

        “Similar species. You’ll learn the difference in monster-fighting class.”

        “Monster-fighting class." He remembered the storm spirits. The memory of Jason holding him in the Grand Canyon insisted to be mulled over, but he shoved it away. "Yeah, I already got my black belt in that.”

        She didn’t crack a smile. Leo hoped she wasn’t this serious all the time. His dad’s side of the family had to have some sense of humor, right?

        They passed a couple of guys making a bronze windup toy. At least that’s what it looked like. It was a six-inch-tall centaur—half man, half horse—armed with a miniature bow. One of the campers cranked the centaur’s tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, yelling, “Die, mosquito! Die, mosquito!” and shooting everything in sight.

        Apparently, this had happened before because everybody knew to hit the floor except Leo. Six needle-sized arrows embedded themselves in his shirt before a camper grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to pieces.

        “Stupid curse!” The camper waved his hammer at the sky. “I just want a magic bug killer! Is that too much to ask?”

        “Ouch?” Leo said, belatedly.

        Nyssa pulled the needles out of his shirt. “Ah, you’re fine. Let’s move on before they rebuild it.”

        Leo rubbed his chest as they walked. “That sort of thing happens a lot?”

        “Lately,” Nyssa said, “everything we build turns to junk.”

        “The curse?”

        Nyssa frowned. “I don’t believe in curses. But something’s wrong. And if we don’t figure out the dragon problem, it’s gonna get even worse.”

        “The dragon problem?” Leo hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, maybe one that killed cockroaches, but he got the feeling he wasn’t going to be so lucky.

        Nyssa took him over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the camp—a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound on the north shore, the woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.

        “It’s got to be in the hills,” the first girl said.

        “We looked in the hills,” the second argued. “The woods are a better hiding place.”

        “But we already set traps—”

        “Hold up,” Leo said. “You guys lost a dragon? A real full-size dragon?”

        How the literal fuck was that even possible?

        “It’s a bronze dragon,” Nyssa said. “But yes, it’s a life-size automaton. Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back when Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it. It’s been helping protect the camp, but, um, it’s a little unpredictable.”

        “Unpredictable,” Leo repeated.

        “It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs.”

        “Oh...that's pretty unpredictable.”

        Nyssa nodded. “Beckendorf was the only one who could control it. Then he died, and the dragon just got worse and worse. Finally, it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes something, and runs away again. Everyone expects us to find it and destroy it—”

        “Destroy it?” Leo was appalled. “You’ve got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?”

        “It breathes fire,” Nyssa explained. “It’s deadly and out of control.”

        Leo tried not to think about how his Aunt Rosa had said something very similar about him when his mother had died. "But it’s a dragon!" he protested. "Dude, that’s so awesome. Can’t you try talking to it, controlling it?”

        “We tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw how well that worked.”

        Leo thought about Jake, wrapped in a body cast, lying alone on his bunk. “Still—”

        “There’s no other option.” Nyssa turned to the other girls. “Let’s try more traps in the woods—here, here, and here." She pointed at certain spots on the map. "Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil.”

        “The dragon drinks that?” Leo asked.

        “Yeah.” Nyssa sighed regretfully. “He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he springs a trap, we can come in with acid sprayers—should melt through his hide. Then we get metal cutters and…and finish the job.”

        They all looked sad. Leo realized they didn’t want to kill the dragon any more than he did.

        “Guys,” he said. “There has to be another way.”

        Nyssa looked doubtful, but a few other campers stopped what they were working on and drifted over to hear the conversation.

        “Like what?” one asked. “The thing breathes fire. We can’t even get close.”

        Fire, Leo thought. Oh, man, the things he could tell them about fire…But he had to be careful, even if these were his brothers and sisters. Especially if he had to live with them.

        “Well…” He hesitated. “Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don’t any of you have like fire resistance or something?”

        Nobody acted as if it was a crazy question, which was a relief, but Nyssa shook her head gravely.

        “That’s a Cyclops ability, Leo. Demigod children of Hephaestus…we’re just good with our hands. We’re builders, craftsmen, weaponsmiths—stuff like that.”

        Leo’s shoulders slumped. “Oh.”

        A guy in the back said, “Well, a long time ago—”

        “Yeah, okay,” Nyssa conceded. “A long time ago some children of Hephaestus were born with power over fire. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that has been born in centuries. The last one…” She looked at one of the other kids for help.

        “Sixteen sixty-six,” the girl offered. “Guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London, destroyed most of the city.”

        “Right,” Nyssa said. “When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don’t need any more catastrophes.”

        Leo tried to keep his face clear of emotion, which wasn’t his strong suit. “I guess I see your point. Too bad, though. If you could resist flames, you could get close to the dragon.”

        “Then it would kill you with its claws and fangs,” Nyssa said. “Or simply step on you. No, we’ve got to destroy it. Trust me, if anyone could figure out another answer…”

        She didn’t finish, but Leo got the message. This was the cabin’s big test. If they could do something only Beckendorf could do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured out how would be a hero.

        A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting up their tools and projects. Leo hadn’t realized it was getting so late, but he looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. His ADHD did that to him sometimes. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam—the day was over.

        “Dinner,” Nyssa said. “Come on, Leo.”

        “Up at the pavilion, right?” he asked.

        She nodded.

        “You guys go ahead,” Leo said. “Can you…give me a second?”

        Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened. “Sure. It’s a lot to process. I remember my first day, it was all crazy for me too. Come up when you’re ready. Just don’t touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill you if you’re not careful.”

        “No touching,” Leo promised.

        His cabinmates filed out of the forge. Soon Leo was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels, and small machines clicking and whirring.

        He stared at the map of camp—the locations where his newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong.

        Very rare, he thought. And always dangerous.

        He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not callused like the other Hephaestus campers’. Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He’d survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, and tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he’d learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren’t scared, you usually didn’t get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humor was a good way to hide the pain.

        And if that didn’t work, there was always Plan B: Run away. Over and over.

        There was a Plan C, but he’d promised himself never to use it again. He felt an urge to try it now—something he hadn’t done since the accident, since his mom’s death. He could still hear his Aunt Rosa's shrieks in his head.

        "Diablo! Get away from me and my family!"

        Leo took a breath in and cautiously extended his fingers. He felt them tingle like they were waking up—pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.

Chapter Text

⚡️ ¯`*•.¸,¤°´ CHAPTER FIVE ( ❛ the lost hero ❜ )

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five. Drew Draws to Destress

《 december 13, 2011 》

《 Camp Half-Blood, Long Island, New York 》

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AS SOON AS JASON SAW THE HOUSE, HE KNEW SOMETHING WAS TERRIBLY WRONG.

Well, he had initially known something was wrong ever since he woke up on that hot-as-the sun-itself bus, obviously, but seeing the Big House cemented that fact.

“Here we are!” Drew said cheerfully. “The Big House, camp headquarters.”

It didn’t look threatening, just a four-story, well, house 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 brown eyes.

She was pretty. No doubt about that. But something about her made him feel uncomfortable. Maybe it was the way she looked at him, as though expecting him to do crazy stunts or something. Or maybe it was the weird aura surrounding her. Jason was pretty good at reading people's auras, though if asked he couldn't have answered how he knew that. Drew's vibe consisted of overly enthusiastic sweetness, yes, but for some reason, Jason felt that that was merely a facade hiding a more carefully...contained side of her. A side he wasn't sure he was brave enough to prod.

He slipped his arm out 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 knew two things: 1). they definitely weren't dating, and 2). he didn't like her that way. He knew he shouldn’t be in this place. He shouldn’t befriend these people, and certainly, he shouldn’t date one of them. But...Piper wasn't the one swaying that mentality. Not even close. Though he knew if he told Drew that, it would cause a whole load of problems that had no relation to petty jealousy. 

Besides, he was still trying to figure his feelings out as well, so it wasn't like he was the right sense of judgment about all this. He didn’t even know his own story. He couldn’t play with anyone's 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 confusedly. “So isn’t everyone here your cousin or something?”

“Aren’t you cute! 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, while you still can.

He wondered how nicely he could tell Drew that he wasn't interested in what she was hinting at (though it was far more than hinting at this point) when he heard footsteps on the front porch. No—not footsteps—hooves.

“Chiron!” Drew called. “This is Jason. He’s totally awesome!”

Jason didn't know much about being awesome, but he did know he was definitely feeling at least a little bit freaked out when Chiron rounded the corner. Jason backed up so fast that he almost tripped. Chiron looked like 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 color drained from his face.

“You…” The centaur’s eyes flared like a cornered animal’s. “You shouldn't be here!”

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[ DREW ]

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AFTER THAT totally unwarranted dramatic reaction from Chiron, the centaur escorted—more like ordered—Jason inside. Seriously. Forget training heroes, Chiron could get a spot easy in theater.

Then he’d rudely, in her not-so-humble opinion, told her to basically get lost. 

Jason had given Drew a confused look to which she had shrugged at, conveying she had absolutely no idea what the old centaur was on. 

The minute the door of the Big House clicked shut, her expression of coy bewilderment sagged into exhaustion and disquiet—a momentary reprieve from the daily act she indulged in from the moment she woke up until she went to bed. 

Life isn’t a stage, Dee her older sister, Silena Beauregard, had told her once. 

Drew wondered if she’d said that before or after agreeing to spy on them for Luke Castellan. 

Shut up, she thought to herself fiercely. Don’t think about her. You know what’ll happen if you do. 

She would’ve run a hand through her hair except she’d styled it perfectly this morning—not a strand out of place first try—and gods know how difficult it is to get hair done right on the first try. It was always such a hassle—though a hassle she loved to do nonetheless—she couldn’t bear to mess it up simply because a pretty boy and his not-so-interesting friends were making things annoying for her.

Straightening her shirt, she turned her back on the Big House and strode away, wondering what she could possibly do. Keeping herself occupied was the best way to keep her thoughts at bay. If she thought too hard, she might back out of the current stance she’d taken—and had taken since the battle against Kronos and his army. 

She passed the cabins, climbing the path toward the woods. The other two newbies were probably getting their tours right now. Which brought her mind unfortunately to how she thought about them in the first place. 

The curly-haired short one seemed alright. Too quirky and funny—and not in a good way; but although that was very annoying to Drew, she had to admit that the kid didn’t pose a threat to the camp. He was just annoying the way all teenage boys at fifteen were annoying.

The girl, however…

Drew stopped in her tracks. There was something…unseemly about her, that Piper girl. The way she’d held herself, the way she’d gotten so riled up from Drew’s offhanded command…well, Drew considered herself an expert with emotions—you had to be when your mom was a literal goddess of love—and everything about Piper seemed off. Between the way she’d looked after Jason and Valdez when they’d been escorted away, how she seemed unsurprised about all this…almost like someone had already informed her about them before. 

She recalled the words her mother Aphrodite had relayed to her: Beware, my daughter, the shadow of a traitor is upon us once more. Don’t let history repeat itself.

But there was no way Piper was a daughter of Aphrodite, right? Drew nearly scoffed aloud. That girl was far from the Aphrodite type! From the way she held herself it was obvious she didn’t want to stand out; Drew was the exact opposite. They couldn’t be any different. But still, despite her reassurances, Drew’s nervousness didn’t subside.

Gods, she hated being a demigod. She even hated the stupid instinct that made her say ‘gods’ in the plural form. She could’ve been a famous teen fashion designer, probably primping up Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. Her name would’ve been on posters and gilded invitations masqueraded as pleas to help touch up popular artists and actors, but nope. Her mom just had to be a goddess and she just had to fall in love with her poor dad. And now Drew was stuck in a camp with a freaky dream-omen-thingie and no one to speak her woes to. 

She was so mad, she wanted to punch something. Except she couldn’t because that meant ruining the acrylics she had taken a whole two hours to do. All she could do was fume and steam and tell herself to stop getting so paranoid. That Piper girl was probably a daughter of Hecate or Demeter or some other deity. Anyone but Aphrodite. There was nothing to worry about.

“Deliberating the most efficient way to launch a sneak makeup attack on unsuspecting Hecate campers?”

Drew almost jumped five feet into the air. She whirled around and realized that, so engrossed in her thoughts, she’d unintentionally wandered over to the strawberry fields. Her thoughts mixing with her ADHD amplified them being a huge distraction—and it had only become worse after the war, getting away from her to such a degree that her feet would take her practically anywhere unless someone or something stopped her in her tracks.

In this case, it was a someone; leaning against the tree closest to her was Billie Ng, daughter of Demeter and a complete nuisance. 

“The Aphrodite cabin does not deal in petty revenge,” said Drew haughtily, her usual mask sliding as easily into place as a puzzle piece. “Demeter might stoop so low, but not us. We actually care about our blood pressure, it’ll mess up our looks.”

This wasn’t necessarily true. Ever since the Hecate cabin had made all of Cabin Ten’s perfumes smell like rotten fish, Drew had worked up her cabin-mates into a vengeful mood, and they were in the process of planning a revenge plan involving eyeliner pencils and an absurd amount of foundation, but she wasn’t about to prove Billie right by telling her that!

Billie smirked like she knew exactly what Drew was thinking (or trying not to think. Whatever).

"Yeah, okay. Then what's got you worked up now?"

"Absolutely nothing," Drew replied, crossing her arms.

In response, Billie eyed the way Drew's nails tapped rapidly on her arm. Drew gritted her teeth, making a purposeful effort to stop. The history she and Billie Ng shared was....to put it lightly, complicated. At least from Drew's point of view. The Ares cabin loved to use whatever they had as ammunition to get under Drew's skin, teasing her that Billie had a crush on her, pondering mockingly aloud how such a nice daughter of Demeter could ever fall for a harpy like her. On the bad days, the Nike cabin joined in, and Drew found out the hard way that this subject was the only thing the two cabins agreed on. (And when the Nike and Ares cabins set their minds onto something or someone, it was a one-way trip to Crazytown for the unfortunate victim. In this case, Drew.)

If it were just the Nike and Ares cabins, she would've brushed it off, but Katie Gardner had waylayed her two weeks ago, telling her seriously to treat her half-sister as she deserved: kindly. The words 'not be a bitch' was heavily implied, and Drew would've said some choice words to Gardner right then and there, but her grudging respect for how protective and considerate the head counselor of the Demeter cabin was to her cabinmates got in the way. She couldn't really stay mad at Katie Gardner for being a mother hen; Silena would've done the same if she hadn't turned out to be a lying traitor for a guy who was, at best, a seven out of ten in the looks department.

So that was three cabins who believed this stupid theory that Billie had a crush on her. And Drew wasn't obtuse; she could hear the excited whispering from her own cabin whenever Billie grinned at her or shot her a two-fingered salute (Drew would only roll her eyes and pointedly turn away in response, but that never deterred Billie), and Lacey had even approached her asking her to not break Billie's heart like she had with all her previous lovers. The nerve!

Irritation and embarrassment made her snap at Lacey to mind her own business and that she didn't like Billie Ng nor would she ever. As the cherry on top, she assigned her for trash duty for the next week. Later, she thought maybe that had been too overboard—trash duty sucked, and Drew had been slacking off on doing it for the cabin lately—but the idea of everyone seeing her as this ditzy Aphrodite girl who fell for any random girl who smiled at her left Drew tasting metal in her mouth—it reminded her too much of how Silena had fallen so easily for Luke's charms.

No, Drew wasn't going to be like that. She was going to weed out the bad from the good in her cabin, and she was going to do it wearing her title as the Heartbreak Queen proudly on her sleeve.

But Billie, herself, was an issue.

The cabins Drew could deal with by snapping at them, threatening to step on their fingers while wearing her heels accidentally during Capture the Flag, the surpluses of threats went on. But facing Billie Ng was a whole other issue that, to her annoyance, was proving harder and harder every time.

Why? Because the girl didn't let up. Popping up and roping Drew into a conversation, and then dipping before Drew could think to shoot her down. Throwing those dumb winks, salutes, and waves; the other day she'd surprised Drew with a bouquet of flowers that apparently reminded her of Drew. Honestly, what was this girl thinking? Whenever Drew acted particularly harsh, she would give her this disappointed look and say something dumb like "I know this isn't really you" and lo and behold, Drew would be the one guilty for the rest of the night for some reason. Their interactions were off-footing for her too; Drew always had to raise her defenses higher with Billie than anyone since it felt like the other girl always saw right through her; she would notice her little ticks—the stuff she got by doing due to no one else noticing—like Drew was an interesting species of flora she didn't quite know yet and wanted to observe.

Huh. Now that she really thought about it, maybe Billie did have a crush on her. Drew knew she was a catch—a magnificent one, in fact; with her perfect looks and her sense of fashion, plus the random talents she picked up on—like running in heels or even fighting in them. She reveled at the way people tripped over their feet when they asked her out. Just like how she reveled in breaking each of their hearts because who knew when they would be the next Luke Castellan and use their charm to sway her to do something that went against her cabin's values?

But if that was the case for Billie then poor girl. Billie might not let up, but Drew certainly wouldn’t either.

Billie was still staring expectantly at her so Drew sighed, long and loud but classy—through her nose, gently but pointed, like in the movies. "Full offense, sweetie," she snapped, layering the pet name with a dose of mockery, "but you're not my therapist. So back off."

Any ordinary individual would have backed off instantly, but then again Billie had proven to not be any ordinary individual.

She raised her hands in surrender. "Alright, don't get your panties in a twist. I was just concerned, y'know."

"Well, don't be," Drew countered, ignoring the way her heart jumped a little at that. Don't be stupid, she chided it. This isn't a sappy romance movie. Chill out.

Billie's shoulders slumped a bit. "Fine."

Before Drew could consider maybe an apology or a semblance of one for...for something because this didn't feel right, Billie's face lit up. "Oh, I have an idea!" She searched the ground until coming up with a sturdy branch, which she tossed at Drew who barely managed to catch it without getting a splinter. "How 'bout a match of Draw It Off?"

Draw It Off started as a joke. When Billie caught Drew cursing under her breath and kicking at pebbles close to the border of the forest, it had led to one of the few instances when they'd had a consistent conversation without Drew putting a halt to it--probably because that evening, she had been thinking about the war and gotten too into her head that her emotions were all over the place, she hadn't the energy to even get pissy with Billie for butting in. (In fact, a small part of her had actually appreciated the company.)

The conversation had diverged from the war to their individual hobbies. Billie talked expansively of gardening and collecting pressed flowers; of her flora journal that she actually ran back to her cabin to get and show Drew with an excitement that had made Drew's being ache. She missed being like that, excited at the slightest thing, ready to discuss whatever it was with her half-siblings. The war had changed all of them in ways they didn't even notice.

For her part, Billie had noticed that Drew wasn't in a chatty mood, and had gently probbed her for what she liked to do. The only thing that Drew thought of had been drawing even though she hadn't touched her sketchbook since that fateful August, but Billie latched onto it with the same excitement. Since Drew was feeling too lazy to go back to her cabin with all its memories just to find her sketchbook, Billie had found another unconventional solution in the form of using a stick and scratching out a drawing that Billie would, then, try to guess.

"Sorta like charades except you're drawing off your stress!" She beamed. Drew didn't have the heart to say no to those bright eyes. The thing was Draw It Off did work, as much as Drew didn't ever want to say so; it helped Drew to destress by laying out her subconscious worries onto the ground and scuffing it with her shoes later, and it gave Billie an opportunity to ooh and ahh her drawing skills.

("They're just scratches on the ground," Drew had told her.

Billie had vehemently disagreed. "They're works of art!")

And it gave her the opening to make do with her challenge to make Drew laugh or at least crack a smile by procuring wild guesses of what her drawings were. Normally Drew would've given shit to anyone who belittled her stresses by guessing such absurd things, but the way Billie did it made Drew think of those problems as stupid and silly as Billie's guesses.

Again, not that she would ever tell Billie that.

Since then it had become a sort of a tradition to use Draw It Off when it came to Drew and her bothers.

Now, she weighed the branch in her hand, contemplating. "I don't know if your brain can comprehend the complexity of my stresses this time," she said.

Billie smirked. "Give me some more credit, I've got an eye for the Drew Tanaka art. Hit me with your worst."

Drew rolled her eyes. "Oh, alright. Keep in mind this isn't because of you. It's because I need to destress and this just happened to be the best solution."

A mere smile was Billie's only reaction.

Focusing hard on the ground in an attempt to ignore Billie's eyes boring into her, Drew crouched down, taking care not to let her knees touch the dirt, and began to scrape her branch on the ground.

Despite still having not touched her sketchbook even with the addition of Draw It Off in her life, the moment she started to sketch on the dirt, her shoulders loosened. It was like the tension holding her up was seeping out of her through the branch and onto the ground, leaving her mind blank like an empty slate—but in a good detoxifying way!

When she came back to herself, she set aside the branch, and together, she and Billie took in her drawing.

Billie cleared her throat. “Well, uh, this is certainly something.”

Drew rose to her feet, flicking away specks of dirt on her clothes with her fingers. “You see what I meant? Too complicated.” She added a sneer to cover up the sudden panic of Billie seeing that drawing specifically, even if it was just a crude stick figure.

A crude stick figure lying on the ground with x’s for eyes and hair sprawled around her. She wore a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt.

Billie bit her lip. "So, uh, is this meant to be an unspoken threat to the new girl in camp, because—"

"I have to go," Drew said abruptly.

Billie blinked, looking at her. "What?"

"I have to go. I just...remembered something."

A flimsy excuse and both of them knew it, but Drew needed to get out of there before she lost her shit. That stupid stick-figure drawing with the x's was pulling at her composure, and the nicer side of her didn't want Billie around when she inevitably exploded.

Billie tilted her head confusedly. "Drew, what—"

"Ng!" Drew growled, harsher than intended.

A flicker of hurt flashed through Billie's eyes, and a pang of guilt shot through Drew that she brushed off. "Well, okay, um, hope you find whatever you're looking for." Billie tugged at the ends of her short coppery hair. "Talk to you later, I guess?"

But Drew was already striding past her, down the rows of strawberry plants, her ears buzzing. Once or twice she had to pause and wrench her high heels free from the soft ground, and with each pause, her irritation grew. Draw It Off usually calmed her down, but this time...this time was different. 

It wasn't Billie's fault. She joined camp soon after the Battle of Manhattan, so she didn't know to the fullest extent the gravity of grief they'd gone through. She didn't know the way the Apollo cabin became a shell of themselves for three whole months before the Demeter and Aphrodite cabins had to pull them out into the sunlight kicking and screaming because they'd lost two head counselors in a row in the span of one year; or the way Nico di Angelo took it upon himself to join forces with the Athena and Hephaestus cabins—an unlikely alliance—to create the best cabins they could for the cabins of the minor gods and Hades in an effort to focus on the good that came about. She didn't know about how Clarisse was a raging inferno of grief and pain for weeks and weeks after Silena's death until Chris and the Ares cabin had to physically strap her down to get her to eat something. She didn't know how chaotic the Aphrodite cabin became in the wake of the news of their head counselor's betrayal and, soon after, her death.

When Drew became head counselor during the aftermath of the war, at first she didn't know where to start. Her cabin was a mess, the other cabins were wrapped up in their own grief, and Percy Jackson wasn't making things any better by preaching about Silena being a hero and confusing her cabinmates even more. Because how was a traitor a hero?

Resentment had formed into genuine anger then. Here she was, all alone in the midst of chaos with no one to turn to. Thrown into a leadership position all because her older sister—the one who was supposed to be there for her, for all of them—made a huge, shitty decision that they all had to pay for. Drew had channeled that anger into fuel to get her through those rough first few months when no one took her seriously, she had made them understand that she meant business; that she wasn't going to let what happened with Silena happen with any of them.

The memory of Silena Beauregard never left her, though. Sometimes it was at the forefront, sometimes she could put it on the backburner and focus on other things. But there always ended up something or someone that poked at that memory.

This time it was her own fucking subconscious, drawing Silena dead in her camp t-shirt despite being a fucking traitor who didn't deserve to wear that shit. Drew hated today, she hated what it represented for her. She hated that she drew the memory of Silena on her fucking birthday, and no one even realized it was her birthday because they'd all moved on already while she was stuck where she was two years ago. She hated her and she missed her, and she hated how she missed her.

It took Drew a couple of seconds, but she recognized the path her feet were taking her.

If the Ares and Nike cabins were an unlikely alliance, then Rachel Dare and Drew Tanaka were, for sure, an unlikely-as-hell friendship that came out of nowhere. A mortal oracle of Delphi and a daughter of Aphrodite with a Mean Girl persona, it shouldn't have amounted to anything, yet it did, and it started when Drew found herself standing in front of Rachel's cave a year after the Battle of Manhattan, her nightmares replaying over and over in her head. She hadn't intended to enter Rachel's cave; ironically one of her favorite spots in camp was coincidentally also mere feet before Rachel's cave entrance. One thing led to another, and Drew got the scare of her life one night when Rachel asked from behind if she was cold.

(She had been, and Rachel had noticed despite Drew saying otherwise, defenses raised.)

Entering Rachel's cave for the first time had been like entering a sanctuary from the godly world. No memories of war, no flashbacks, no trauma, just a mortal girl who occasionally sprouts prophetic gibberish in green smoke living her life as normally as she could. It was so opposite from Drew’s lifestyle, she couldn’t get enough of it.

Rachel, herself, was so different from Drew as well; no regard for her appearance or fashion style, she lived for her art and creativity. As someone who drew here and there, Drew could appreciate that (even if the girl’s clothing sense is atrocious). Somehow Drew let slip in casual conversation that she drew too, and that was how an unexpected friendship was born.

Now, whenever she needed to talk to someone outside of the godly world, she went to Rachel. It wasn’t like she meant to sometimes, her feet would just take her there. And Rachel never judged, she wasn’t afraid to call Drew out on her bullshit just like how she wasn’t afraid to throw a blue plastic hairbrush at Kronos’s eye (she’d told that story to Drew too many times, it was a camp favorite), but she wasn’t a bitch. Something else Drew appreciated. Hypocritical, yes, but sue her, there can only be one dramatic beautiful bitch in camp, and that spot was already taken by her.

This time, though, she didn’t really know what she was going to do or say when she reached Rachel’s cave. Blubber about her dead traitor half-sister? Bemoan about how she had probably scared away the only demigod who treated her like a friend?

Huffing as she scaled the last of the rocks to the cave, Drew found that she didn’t have to worry after all. It was empty.

Well, that was a waste of time and energy.

Disappointed and dreading the thought of making the trek back down the rocks, Drew looked out at the camp and spotted a familiar head of blonde curls passing by the incline of rocks she stood on.

Quickly, Drew picked her way down the rocks, not exactly rushing as she didn’t want to break a heel, but moving fast enough to make headway before calling out.

“Chase! Blondie—“ with a horrendous hairstyle, she wanted to add but figured that was totally not something Annabeth Chase would like to hear in public.

(Or maybe she would? Children of Athena were so weird, it was a pain to predict them when it came to style and class. But Drew knew she would be horrified and pissed if it were her.)

“Annabeth!”

Finally, Annabeth turned, gray eyes surveying Drew attempting to maneuver down the rest of the rocks. Thankfully, she decided to stop and wait.

“Drew?” she questioned when the daughter of Aphrodite reached her. Her eyes flicked up to Rachel’s cave, where Drew had come from. The furrow between her brows made it clear their friendship stumped even the daughter of the goddess of wisdom. Drew considered that a win in her book. Anything that stumped Athena’s kids always was; those people needed a reality check once in a while.

“Are you…okay?” Annabeth went on.

“Where’s Rachel?” asked Drew.

The furrow between Annabeth’s eyebrows deepened. “Rachel?”

“Oracle of Delphi? Frizzy redhead? Paint all over her twenty-four-seven?”

Annabeth shook her head. “I seriously don’t get how you two became friends.” She tapped her chin in thought. “Last I heard, she’s still at school, but if she’s at camp already, I’m assuming she’s at Hera’s cabin.”

Drew wrinkled her nose. “What’s Rachel doing in Hera’s cabin?”

“Something about receiving a premonition from her. She told me over text that she wanted to make sure as soon as she got here.” Annabeth’s mouth quirked up wryly. “If Hera is giving premonitions to our Oracle, we better take cover.”

But Drew was focused on another part of Annabeth’s response. “Text? You have a phone?”

Annabeth shifted her feet and Drew was shocked to see that the other girl was actually sheepish. “Yeah. For school, Project Olympus, and extra notes, stuff like that. I keep it on the down-low.”

Drew clicked her tongue, moderately impressed. “Damn, Chase, you always seemed like the goody-goody type. Jackson must really be rubbing off on you.”

“Shut up.” Annabeth scowled as her face reddened. “Anyway, yeah, Rachel’s probably in Cabin Two. I was just headed there, myself. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her—“

A yell came from the cabins.

Exchanging concerned looks, Annabeth dashed down the hill. Drew trailed behind. When she reached the source of the noise—Hera’s cabin, go figure—it was to see a jumble of motion. Annabeth was at the doorway, holding the door wide open for Katie Gardner and Connor Stoll, both of whom appeared to be lugging the unconscious form of—ugh of course it was her—the new girl (as if Drew needed any more reason to be suspicious of her). Rachel Dare hurried behind them, face panicked and blotchy and her eyes teary.

“Oh gods,” she was rambling as Drew got within earshot. “Did I kill her? Oh gods, I killed her, I definitely killed her. I don’t even know what I did, but I definitely killed her.”

“What happened?” Annabeth demanded. She kneeled so that she was eye-level with Piper’s lolling head, and pressed two fingers to her pulse point. After a couple of seconds, she looked up at Rachel.

“She’s not dead, don’t worry. Just unconscious, but she does need medical attention.”

“Did she pass out from seeing such sheer grand display for the first time?” sneered Drew whilst gesturing at the majestic architecture of Hera’s cabin.

“Drew,” Annabeth said warningly.

“You should’ve gotten here a minute sooner. Then we could’ve said she passed out because of you,” Connor cut in. “It’s not like that will be a surprise.”

“Connor!” Katie and Annabeth admonished.

Connor subsided with a petulant mumble of “She started it.”

"Katie?” asked Annabeth, nodding at Piper.

“We’re taking her to Chiron,” said Katie, green eyes roving over Piper worriedly. (Something Drew noticed with a touch of sardonic amusement. Mother hen decided to take you under her wing too, dumpster girl? Lucky you.)

Annabeth glanced from Katie to Rachel. “Something else went down in that cabin, didn’t it?”

Katie took a deep breath. “Rachel said some stuff to Piper.”

“Which I don’t remember at all,” Rachel interjected, still distraught. “I wish I did but my mind is blank.”

Connor nodded. “It was like she was in one of her prophecy funks except there was no green smoke. She just grabbed Piper by the shoulders and spewed shit at her.”

Annabeth’s eyes narrowed, and Drew leaned forward too, intrigued in spite of herself. “Spewed shit at her?”

“It’s, well...” Katie heaved Piper’s body farther up over her shoulders. “It’s a lot. We’re going to talk to Chiron about it. Because…it looks like we may have a problem.”