Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Before the drop in the canyon,Leo had been having a great day.

      They were going to see the Grand Canyon from up close, something he had wanted to do for a very long time. He sat in the back of the school bus next to Jason, his best friend, and Piper, also his best friend. Jason had been sleeping nearly the entire drive while Piper and Leo chatted. A comfortable silence had settled over the two of them as Piper stared out of the window and he picked nuts and bolts from the pockets of his army fatigue jacket, creating things with stray wires.

      Jason began to stir, groaning slightly. He opened his eyes and looked around, a confused look in his eyes. Leo watched as he rubbed his eyes with his palms. he looked back over at the window. he began to zone out, fiddling with the wires in his hand.

      He winced as he felt the pointy end of the wire stab his palm, he instinctively closed his hand into a fist. The pain wasn’t bad, just a small sting but enough that it had brought him back to reality. He pulled the wire back, examining his palm. He inspected the red area of his hand, the small dent made from the pressure of impact and the small dot of blood.

      In front of the bus, Coach Hedge shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” He stood up in the aisle, barely visible to Leo over the sea of heads. One of the guys nearer the back called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!”

      “I heard that!” Hedge scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes landed on the back row, and his permanent scowl deepened. For a moment, Leo looked between Hedge and his two friends. Piper looked as confused as Leo felt, Jason stared at Coach Hedge with something that looked disturbingly like fear in his eyes.

      Finally, Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip I will personally send you back to campus the hard way!”

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

      Jason looked over at Piper. “Can he talk to us that way?”

      Piper shrugged. “Always does. This is the Wilderness School. ‘Where the kids are the animals.’” She joked, quoting Leo'scomment from a week or two ago.

      “This is some kind of mistake,” Jason said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

      Leo turned around in his seat, now facing Jason and laughed. “Yeah, right, Jase. We’ve all been framed! I didn’t run away six times. Pipes didn’t steal a BMW.”

      Piper blushed. “I didn’t steal that car, Leo!”

      “Oh, I forgot, Piper. What was your story? You ‘talked’ the dealer into lending it to you?” He raised his eyebrows at Jason, giving him an unbelieving look like he always did when Piper tried to convince them of her innocence.

      He drummed his fingers on the headrest of the seat infront of him, looking out of the window for a split-second before returning to his friends.

      “Anyway,” Leo said, “I hope you’ve got your worksheet, ‘cause I used mine for spit wads days ago.” Jason was staring at him, he frowned, bringing his hand up to his face. “Why are you looking at me like that? Somebody draw on my face again?” he brought back clean fingers, no trace of sharpie this time.

      “I don’t know you,” Jason said.

      Leo gave him a crocodile grin, chuckling at his friends ridiculousness. “Sure. I’m not your best friend. I’m his evil clone.”

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

      Leo winked at Jason. “Watch this.” He turned to the front, eyeing the megaphone clipped to the coach’s belt. “Sorry, Coach! 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. Leo bit back a chuckle. Throughout the bus, Hedge’s words reverberated with Darth Vader’s voice. He began to crack up along with everyone else. Hedge tried again, but this time the megaphone blared: “The cow says moo!”

      Everybody howled with laughter, and the coach slammed down the megaphone, glaring at him. “Valdez!”

      Piper stifled a laugh. “My god, Leo. How did you manage that?”

      Leo let his tiny Phillips-head screwdriver slip into his hand from his sleeve. “I’m a special boy.”

      “Guys, seriously,” Jason pleaded. Leo turned back to face him. “What am I doing here? Where are we going?”

      Piper knitted her eyebrows. “Jason, are you joking?” he could see Piper’s eyes begging that Jason would nod and tell her that he remembered them both.

      “No! I have no idea—”

      “Aw, yeah, he’s joking,” Leo said, hoping that Jason would just give up act already. “he’s trying to get me back for the shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, aren’t you?” he locked eyes with Jason, raising an eyebrow at him expectantly.

      Jason stared back blankly. Leo began to properly worry now, not that he'd admit it.

      “No, I think he’s serious.” Piper tried to place her hand on his shoulder, but Jason pulled away, leaning back into his seat.

      “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice surprisingly small. “I don’t— I can’t—”

      “That’s it!” Coach Hedge yelled from the front, catching me off guard, causing Leo to nearly fell out of his seat. “The back row has just volunteered to clean up after lunch!”

      The rest of the kids on the bus cheered.

      “That’s a shocker,” Leo muttered.

      Piper kept her eyes on Jason, he could tell she was worried. “Did you hit your head or something? You really don’t know who we are?”

      Jason shrugged helplessly, a look of utter confusion on his face. “It’s worse than that. I don’t know who I am.”

      The bus came to a stop and Hedge began shouting things again, the megaphone occasionally changing his voice or saying something ridiculous. They got off in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum. It felt weird to him, how it just sat there, in the middle of nowhere. A cold wind blew across the desert. Leo saw Jason shiver in his thin black windbreaker.

      “So, a crash course for the amnesiac,” Leo said, speaking with a semi-helpful tone that he hoped would break the tension. He placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder before he began. “We go to the ‘Wilderness School’”— he made air quotes with his fingers. “Which means we’re ‘bad kids’. Your family, or the court, or whoever, 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 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 around them, scanning the sea of students that had toppled out of the school bus. Leo could feel the concern build up inside of him. He rolled his eyes when Jason looked back at him, playing off his worry as annoyance.

      “You’re really gonna play this out, huh? OK, so the three of us started here together this semester. We’re totally tight. You do everything I say and give me your desert and do my chores—“

      “Leo!” Piper snapped.

      “Fine. Ignore that last part. But we are friends. Well actually we’re best friends, sort of like fam—“

      “Leo, he’s got amnesia or something,” Piper said. “We’ve got to tell somebody.”

      Leo scoffed. “Who, Coach Hedge? He’d try to fix Jason by whacking him upside the head.”

      Hedge was at the front of the group, barking orders and blowing his whistle whenever someone tried to touch something they shouldn’t touch. Every so often, he’d glance back at the them and scowl.

      “Leo, Jason needs help,” Piper insisted, Jason stared out into the desert, completely out of it. “He’s got a concussion or—“

      “Yo, Piper.” Leo looked away from Piper to look up at who had spoken: Dylan. He wedged himself between Jason, who soon came back to reality, immediately scowling at Dylan, and pushed Leo to the ground. He winced as he came in contact with the asphalt. Dylan flashed Piper a white smile as she glared at him. Jason looked down at Leo, concern and anger in his eyes.

      “Go away, Dylan,” Piper grumbled. Jason offered Leo a hand. “I didn’t ask to work with you.”

      “Ah, that’s no way to be. This is your lucky day!” Dylan hooked his arm through Piper’s and dragged her through the museum entrance. Piper shot one last look over her shoulder like, 911.

      Jason pulled him to his feet. “I hate that guy.” Leo offered Jason his arm, like they should go skipping inside together. “ ‘I’m Dylan. I’m so cool, 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, “you’re so weird.”

      “Yeah, you tell me that a lot.” Leo grinned, once again trying to hide his worry behind more jokes. “But if you don’t remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes. Come on!” Leo began to walk through the entrance, Jason followed closely behind with a small smile playing on his lips.

They walked through the building, stopping here and there for Coach Hedge to lecture them with his megaphone, which alternately made him sound like a Sith Lord or blared out random comments like, “The pig says oink.”

      Leo looked at the exhibits carefully, trying to absorbe all the information about the Grand Canyon and Hualapai tribe that owned the museum that he and his mama had always wanted to visit. He pulled nuts, bolts and pipe cleaners out of his army jacket and put them together, keeping his hands busy the whole time.

      Leo could tell Jason was distracted, he barely looked at the exhibits and seemed preoccupied by the scowls Hedge kept sending their way.

      “Don’t worry about it, man,” Leo said, placing a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Coach Hedge won’t actually hit you, not if you don’t touch anything or push someone down the ravines.” Jason turned to him, nodding, though Leo could tell he wasn’t really listening.

      Leo followed Jason’s stare to a group of girls, one of them being Isabel, the self-proclaimed ‘popular girl’. They kept looking over at Dylan and Piper and snickering. “Hey, Piper, does your tribe run this place? Do you get in free if you do a rain dance?” Isabel said. All the girls laughed, Leo spied Dylan holding back his own snicker. He could tell Piper was mad. Even with her hands hidden in her snowboarding jacket sleeves, he knew her well enough to guess she was clenching her fists.

      “My dad’s Cherokee,” she said. “Not Hualapai. Course, you’d need a few brain cells to know the difference, Isabel.”

      Isabel widened her eyes in mock surprise, so she looked like an owl with a makeup addiction. “Oh, sorry! Was your mum in this tribe? Oh, that’s right. You never knew your mum.”

      Leo clenched his fists. He hated when those girls insulted him or Piper like that, bringing up family.

      Piper charged her, but before a fight broke out Coach Hedge barked, “Enough back there! Set a good example or I’ll break out my baseball bat!”

      The group shuffled on to the next exhibit, but the girls kept calling out little comments to Piper.

      “Good to be back on the rez?” Hayley asked in a sweet voice.

      “Dad’s probably too drunk to work,” Beth said with fake sympathy. “That’s why she turned klepto.”

      Piper ignored them, Leo could tell Jason was angry at their comments, ready to punch one of them if they spoke against Piper again.

      Leo caught his arm. “Be cool. Piper doesn’t like us fighting her battles. Besides, if those girls found out the truth about her dad, they’d be all bowing down to her and screaming ‘We’re not worthy!’”

      “Why? What about her dad?”

      Leo laughed in disbelief, still with the idea that Jason was just trying to get back at him for that prank the week before. “You’re kidding? You really don’t remember that your best friend’s dad—“

      “Look, I wish I did, but I don’t even remember her, much less her dad.

      Leo whistled. “Whatever. We have to talk when we get back to the dorm.”

      They reached the far end of the exhibit hall, where some big glass doors led out to a terrace.

      “All right, cupcakes,” Coach Hedge announced. “You are about to see the Grand Canyon.” Leo felt himself getting giddy, he’d wished for this moment ever since his mama had introduced him to Native mythology. “Try not to break it.” Hedge continued. “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.”

      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.

      “Man,” Leo said. “That’s pretty wicked.”

      The canyon was bigger and wider than you could appreciate from 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 far as Leo could see in any direction, red and grey ravines cut through the desert like some crazy god had taken a knife to it.

      He looked over to Jason. He was pinching the bridge of his nose. He was pale and looked like he was about to be sick.

      “You all right?” he asked. “You’re not going to throw up over the side, are you? ‘Cause I should’ve brought my camera.”

      Jason grabbed the railing. He was shivering and sweaty. Leo stepped forward, ready to help him if he needed to. Jason blinked and looked back at him.

      “I’m fine,” he managed. “Just a headache.”

      Thunder rumbled overhead. A cold wind almost knocked Jason sideways.

      “This can’t be safe.” Leo squinted at the clouds. “Storm’s right over us, but it’s clear all the way around. Weird, huh?”

      Jason looked up at the sky, a dark circle of clouds had parked itself over the skywalk, but the rest of the sky in every other direction was perfectly free of clouds.

      “All right, cupcakes!” Coach Hedge yelled. He frowned at the storm like it bothered him, too. “We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences.”

      The storm rumbled, and Leo noticed Jason reach into his jeans pocket. He brought out a coin— a circle of gold the size of a half-dollar, but thicker and more even.

      “Dang, is that gold?” Leo asked, staring at the coin like it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen. “You been holding out on me!”

      Jason put the coin away, a look of confusion plastered on his face.

     “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a coin.”

      Leo shrugged. He began to walk across the railing. “Come on,” he said, taking his mind off the coin. “Dare you to spit over the edge.”

They didn’t try very hard on the worksheet. Leo was busy building a helicopter out of pipe cleaners while Jason stared at the sheet of paper. Once he was done making this helicopter, he held it up to show Jason.

      “Check it out.” Leo launched the copter. The pipe-cleaner blades spun and it flew through the air. The little copter made it halfway across the canyon before, to Leo's disappointment, it lost momentum and spiralled into the void.

      “How’d you do that?” Jason asked, turning to him with wide eyes.

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

      “Seriously,” Jason said. “are we friends?”

      “Last I checked.”

      “You sure?” Leo nodded. “What was the first day we met? What did we talk about?”

      “It was…” He tried to remember but his brain came up blank. “I don’t remember exactly. I’ve got ADHD, man. You can’t expect me to remember details.”

      “But I don’t remember you at all. I don’t remember anyone here. What if—“

      “You’re right and everyone else is wrong?” Leo asked, shaking his head at the mere thought. “You think you just appeared here this morning, and we’ve all got fake memories of you?”

      Jason looked away from him, obviously having thought something along those lines. Leo saw Jason glance over his shoulder.

      “Take the worksheet.” Jason handed Leo the paper. “I’ll be right back.”

      Before he could protest, Jason headed across the skywalk.

      Leo watched Jason walk over to Hedge, who was leaning on his baseball bat, studying the storm clouds.

      He watched them talk, Jason took a step back when Coach Hedge said something and the coach glared at him.

      He couldn’t get himself to concentrate on the worksheet, or even another invention as he watched Jason and Hedge’s conversation. His hands were completely still and he was so quiet he could hear his heart beating in his chest and the sound of his own breathing.

      Jason stumbled back, Leo took a step forward. Coach Hedge caught him quickly.

      As Jason straightened up, lightning crackled overhead.

      Leo looked up at the sky. The clouds had gotten thicker and darker, they hovered right over the skywalk.

      The wind picked up with a vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire building shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.

      Hedge grabbed his megaphone. “Everyone inside! The cow says moo! Off the skywalk!”

      Leo heard Jason shouting over the wind, “I thought you said this thing was stable!”

      “Under normal circumstances,” Hedge shouted back, as Leo began to rush towards the door but the wind worked against him. “which these aren’t. Come on!” Hedge finished.

Chapter Text

The strom churned into a miniature hurricane. Funnel clouds snaked towards the skywalk like tendrils of a monster jellyfish.

      Kids screamed and ran for the building. The wind snatched away their notebooks, jackets, hats and backpacks. Leo saw Jason skid across the slick floor.

      Leo lost his balance, the wind pushed him back towards the railing, nearly sending him flying over the edge, but Jason grabbed his jacket and pulled him back. 

      "Thanks, man!" Leo yelled as he tried to stand again. 

      "Go, go, go!" said Coach Hedge.

      Piper and Dylan were holding the doors open, herding the other kids inside like sheep. Piper's snowboarding jacket was flapping wildly, her dark hair all in her face. She stood calm and confident, teeling the others it would be OK, encouraging them to keep moving.

      Leo, Jason and Coach Hedge ran towards them, but it was like running through quicksand. The wind seemed to fight them, pushing them back towards the void.

      Dylan and Piper pushed one more kid inside, then lost their grip on the doors. They slammed shut, closing off the skywalk.

      Piper tugged at the handles. Inside, the kids pounded on the glass, but the doors seemed to be stuck.

      "Dylan, help!" Piper shouted.

      Dylan just stood there with an idiotic grin, his Cowboys jersey rippling in the wind, like he was suddenly enjoying the storm.

      "Sorry, Piper," He said. "I'm done helping."

      He flicked his wrist and Piper flew backwards, slamming into the doors and slidding to the skywalk deck. 

      "Pipes!" Leo tried to charge forward, but the wind was against him, and Coach Hedge was pushing him back.

      "Coach," Leo said, desperately trying to get to Piper. "let me go!"

      "Leo, Jason, stay behind me," the coach ordered. "This is my fight. I should've known that was our monster."

      "What?" Leo demanded, pausing in his attempt to get to Piper as she stirred. A rogue worksheet slapped him in the face, but he swatted it away. "What monster?" Leo asked, looking from Hedge to Dylan.

      The coach's cap blew off, and sticking up above his curly hair were two bumps as tall as Leo's index. Coach Hedge lifted his baseball bat, but it wasn't a normal bat anymore. It had turned into a thick, knobly tree-branch club. Twigs, knots, leaves and all.

      Dyaln gave him that psycho happy smile. "Oh, 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."

      Dylan pointed at Piper as she began to sit up, and a funnel cloud materialized around her. Piper flew off the skywalk like she'd been tossed. Somehow she managed to twist in midair and slammed sideways into the canyon wall. She skidded, clawing furiously for any handhold. Finally she grabbed a thin ledge about fifty feet below the skywalk and hung there by her fingertips.

      "Help!" she yelled up at them. "Please! I can't hold on!"

      Coach Hedge 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 his thumb at Dyaln— "while I get Piper."

      "Get her how?" Jason demanded. "You going to fly?" 

      Leo would have laughed at the suggestion if he wasn't so scared of losing Piper.

      "Not fly. Climb." Hedge kicked off his shoes, and Leo almost had a coronary. The coach didn't have any feet. he had hooves— goat's hooves. 

      A look of understanding flashed over Jason's face as he stared at Hedge's hooves. "You're a faun," Jason said.

      "Satyr!" Hedge snapped. "Fauns are Roman. But we'll talk about that later."

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

      "Isn't that cute!" Dylan turned towards Jason. "Now, it's your turn, boy."

      Jason threw the club. Leo watched as the tree-branch club flew right at Dylan, smacking him in the head so hard Dylan fell to his knees. 

      Dylan rose, blood— golden blood— trickled from his forehead. The club rolled down the skywalk, it fell through the railing. Fortunately, a twig caught on one of the metal poles and it hung there.

      "Nice try, boy." Dylan glared at Jason. Leo felt a shiver run down his spine. "But you'll have to do better."

      The skywalk shuddered. Hairline fractures appeared in the glass. Inside the museum, kids 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, same brilliant white smile, but his whole form was suddenly composed of swirling black vapour, his eyes like electrical sparks in a living storm cloud. He sprouted black smoky wings and rose above the skywalk. If a hurricane and an angel had a child, Leo decided, it would look exactly like this.

      "You're a ventus" Jason said. Leo stared in stunned silence as Dylan floated towards them. "A storm spirit."

      Dylan's laugh sounded like a tornado tearing a roof off. "I'm glad I waited, demigod. Leo and Piper I've known about for weeks. Could've killed them at any time. But my mistress said a thrid was coming— someone special. She'll reward me greatly for your death!"

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

      Jason clenched his fists next to Leo, ready to charge at Dylan, but he never got the chance.

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

      Leo felt his heart stop. Jason’s fists unclenched as a scream of pain echoed around the desert.

      Jason was on his back, body limp and face scrunched up in pain. His shoe had been blasted off when the lightning exited his body, his toes were blackened with soot.

      The storm spirits were laughing. The winds raged. Leo felt tears in his eyes as he watched Jason’s face contort in pain. He took a step towards him but was stopped when a strong gust of wind pushed him back towards the railing. Leo grabbed hold of it, trying desperately not to topple over the edge.

      Out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw Coach Hedge climbing the cliff with Piper on his back. Dylan loomed over Jason.

      “Stop,” Jason croaked. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and Leo felt a wave relief wash over him.

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

      “My turn.” Jason said, his voice low and raspy.

      He reached into his pocket and fished out the gold coin. He flipped it into the air like it was second nature. He caught it in his palm, and suddenly he was holding a sword— a wickedly sharp double-edged weapon. 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, fingers crackling with electricity.

      Jason 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 absorded 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?”

      Leo stared at Jason in stunned silence. “Jason, how…?”

      Then Coach Hedge leaped back onto the skywalk and dumped Piper like a sack of flour.

      “Spirits, fear me!” Hedge beloowed, 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!”

      Piper got to her feet, breathing hard. She looked completely humiliated, her hands bleeding from clawing at rocks. “Hey, Coach, I nearly took a drop down the Grand Canyon! I think we’ve had enough challenges for today!”

      Dylan hissed at them, but Jason stood tall and confident. “You have no idea how many enemies you’ve awakened, half-bloods. My mistress will destroy all demigods. This war you cannot win.”

      Above them, the storm exploded into a full-force gale. Cracks expanded in the skywalk. Sheets of rain poured down, and Leo had to tighten his grip on the railing, his knuckles going white under the pressure.

      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!”

      Leo tackled Dylan as he lunged for Jason. Somehow, he managed to grab hold of Dylan’s smoky form. The two of them went sprawling. Jason, Piper and Coach Hedge surged forward to help, but the spirit screamed with rage. He let loose a torrent that knocked everyone backwards. Jason and Coach Hedge landed on their bums. Jason’s sword skidded across the glass. Piper hit the back of her head and curled on her side, dazed and groaning.

      Leo was thrown off of Dylan’s back and hit the railing. Hard. He tumbled over the side and grabbed the edge of the slippery skywalk, hanging from one hand over the abyss.

      Leo heard Dylan scream, “I’ll settle for this one!” and saw him rise in the air, Piper in hand, towing half-conscious below him. The storm spun faster, pulling them upwards like a vacuum cleaner.

      Leo felt his fingers slipping off of the glass surface of the skywalk.

      “Help!” He screamed over the wind. “Somebody!”

      The rain made the skywalk even harder to keep holding on. He tried to bring his other arm up to grab hold of the skywalk with a second hand but everytime he tried, Leo felt his grip loosening.

      Then he slipped, screaming as he fell.

      The wind wipped around him and Leo flailed widly as the sides of the canyon raced past like a film on fast-forward. This was not how he’d hoped his day would end. Much less his life.

      Leo closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of death coming closer and closer to him as he fell.

      Hands grabbed his sides, Leo snapped his eyes open to see Jason holding onto him.

      That idiot, Leo thought, all this would do was kill two people instead of one.

      The wind whistled in his ears, Leo grabbed hold of Jason’s arms, bracing himself for impact.

      Suddenly the wind died. Leo's scream turned into a strangled gasp as he took everything in. They were no longer falling, they were floating in midair, a hundred feet above the river. Jason’s eyes were shut and his chest was rising and falling fast, too fast. Jason’s hugged him tight, and Leo repositioned himself, grabbing onto his arms that were wrapped around him.

      “Ja-Jase…” Leo managed. Jason opened his eyes. He stared at him for a moment, his electric blue eyes boring into his soul.

      “How did you…” Leo asked.

      “I didn’t.” Jason said, shock and confusion obvious in his voice. “I think I’d know if I could fly.”

      Leo's heart beat hard against his chest, so loud he was scared Jason could hear it. They were so close, he could feel his hot breath fanning his cheek. It smelled sweet, like caramel.

      Suddenly they shot up in the air, a few feet higher. Leo yelped and gripped Jason tighter.

      “The air, it’s supporting us.” Jason said.

      “Yeah, well, tell it to support us more! Get us out of here, man!”

      Leo looked up, the sky had began to clear up of clouds but the ones that were left still rumbled and crackled with lightning. Piper was still up there. What if Dylan hadn’t left? What would happen to her and Hedge?

      “We have to help them,’ Leo said, Jason looked back at him. “Can you—“

      “Let’s see.” Jason closed his eyes and instantly they shot skyward.

      The moment his feet touched the wet surface of the skywalk, Leo pushed away from Jason. His face was hot with embarassment and his eyes still prickled with tears. He quickly wiped them away with the sleeve of his army jacket and rushed over to Piper.

      She had managed to sit up, her hair covered in monster dust and her snowboarding jacket soacked from the rain and stained with the blood from her cut up hands.

      “Where’s Coach Hedge?” Jason asked, walking over to them.

      “The storm guys—“ “venti,” Jason said.

      “Yeah, the venti took him.” Piper looked at Leo like she was going to be sick. “Leo, tell me that didn’t actually happen. Hedge isn’t a goat, right? A-and Jason’s not got some weird gold sword, he remembers us. Right?” Piper asked, desperation pooling in her multicolour eyes like tears.

      “Pipes, I’m sorry.” Piper closed her eyes, she looked like she might start crying. Leo rubbed her shoulder awkwardly, unsure of what to do to help her.

      Jason looked around, he walked over to the doors to the inside of the museum and picked up his gold sword. Leo watched as he flipped it. It turned back into a thick gold coin in midair and landed in Jason’s palm.

      Leo looked up at Jason, a question burning in his mind.

      “Jason,” he looked over, dazed. “Those storm things, the venti or whatever they are, you…” Leo paused, unsure of how to ask his question. Jason stepped closer to them, watching Leo intently. “You acted like you’d seen them before, with the fighting and the names. How? I mean, who are you?”

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

      “So you really can’t remember us? Nothing at all?”

      “Nothing.”

      The storm dissipated. The others, who were still locked inside the building, were staring out of the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working on the locks now, but they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

      “Coach Hedge said he had to protect three peopple,” Jason said. “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 sat down next to Piper, and stared up at sky. “Don’t know what demi means,” he said. “But I’m not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?”

      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 interuppted, looking up into the sky. “Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses.”

      Jason and Piper looked up, both wearing incredulous looks on their faces. Then, both faces contorted into shock.

      Up in the sky, a dark shape descended from the east— too slow for a plane, two large for a bird. As it got closer, I could make out a pair of winged animals— grey, 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.

      “Reinforcements,” Jason said, breaking the stunned silence that had fallen over them. “Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us.”

      “Extraction squad?” Leo struggled to his feet, lending a hand to Piper to help her up the moment he was steady on his shaky legs. “That sounds painful.”

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

      They 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 blond girl maybe a little older than Jason, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. They both wore jeans and orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs. The girl leaped off before the chariot had finished moving. She pulled a knife and ran towards us while the bulky dude was reining in the horses.

      “Where is he?” the girl demanded. Her grey eyes were fiecre and a little startling.

      “Where’s who?” Jason asked.

      She frowned like his answer was unacceptable. The she turned to Leo and Piper. “What about Gleeson? Where’s your protector, Gleeson Hedge?”

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

      Leo cleared his throat when he realized no one was going to speak up. “He got taken by some… tornado things.”

      “Venti,” Jason said. “Storm spirits.”

      The blonde girl arched an eyebrow. “You mean anemoi thuellai? That’s the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?”

      Jason did his best to explain, Piper and Leo occasionally piping in to help though Leo tried not to. Everytime he spoke, the blonde girl fixed his with those scary grey eyes.

      About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. 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, the blond girl didn’t look satisfied. “No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I’d find the answer.”

      “Annabeth,” the bald guy grunted. “Look.” He pointed at Jason’s feet.

      Leo followed his finger and saw what he was pointing at. Jason’s left shoe had been blasted off when Dylan had electrocuted him (Yes, Leo cried. What of it?) and his toes were black with soot. Jason hadn’t had time with everything happening to put his shoe back on.

      “The guy with one shoe.” said the bald dude. “He’s the answer.”

      “No, Butch,” the girl insisted. “He can’t be. I was tricked.”

      She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. “What do you want from me?” she screamed. “What have you done with him?”

      The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.

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

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

      She turned on her heel and marched towards the chariot.

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

      “Seriously,” Leo agreed.

      “We have to get out of here,” Butch said. “I’ll explain on the way.”

      “I’m not going anywhere with her.” Jason gestured towards the blonde. “She looks like she wants me dead.”

      Butch hesitated. “Annabeth’s OK. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem.”

      “What problem?” Piper asked.

      “She’s been looking for one of our campers, who’s been missing for three days,” Butch said. “She’s going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he’d be here.”

      “Who?” Jason asked.

      “Her boyfriend,” Butch said. “A guy named Percy Jackson.”

Chapter Text

The chariot lurched and bumped. It had no seat belts and the back was open. Piper gripped the side of the chariot so tightly, her knuckles were white.

      "You OK, Pipes?" Leo asked her quietly.

      She nodded, her face relaxing the tiniest bit when she saw him. She smiled, her eyes greatful. 

      Leo rubbed her back gently. "Everything'll be OK, Jason'll get his memories back and Hedge will be fine." he said. "I mean, how much damage can Dylan cause?" I joked, though deep inside, Leo knew the answer wasn't truly reassuring.

      The bald guy, Butch, handled the reins while the blonde girl, Annabeth, worked with a navigation device. 

      Jason stood at the front, not too near Annabeth but near enough to ask questions. Leo turned back to Piper, trying to mask my worry. 

      "Hey, at least you'll never have to see Isabel, or Hayley, or Beth, or any of the others." Leo said, trying to sound upbeat. Piper looked like she was going to start crying if he didn't stop talking. He shut his mouth and turned back to the front, giving Piper some space.

      "Where are we going?" Leo asked, not really to anyone in particular.

      "A safe place," Annabeth said. "The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood."

      "Half-Blood?" Piper said, almost spat, like it pained her to speak the word. Immediately Leo understood why. She'd been called a half-blood many times by Isabel and her gang— half Cherokee, half white. "Is that some kind of bad joke?"

      Leo turned back to her, about to speak up and say it wasn't about her ethnicity when Jason spoke up for the first time since they had gotten into the air.

      "She means we're demigods," he said. "Half god, half mortal."

      Annabeth looked back. "You seem to know a lot, Jason. But, yes, demigods. My mum is Athena, goddess of wisdom. Butch here is the son of Iris, the rainbow goddess."

      Leo choked on his own saliva. "Your mum is a rainbow goddess?"

      "Got a problem with that?" Butch said.

      "No, no," Leo said. "Rainbows. Very macho."

      "Butch is our best equestrian," Annabeth said. "He gets along great with the pegasi."

      "Rainbows, ponies," Leo muttered. I mean seriously, Leo thought, how was the biggest guy on the chariot a pony boy?

      "I'm gonna toss you off this chariot," Butch warned.

      "Demigods," Piper said. Her face had taken on a green tinge. "You mean you think you're... you think we're—"

      Lightning flashed. The chariot shuddered, and Jason yelled, "Left wheel's on fire!"

      White flames were lapping up the side of the chariot. Leo jumped back. His back hit something hard. He didn't have time to look behind him when I saw dark shapes forming in the clouds.

      The wind roared. More storm spirits were spiralling towards the chariot— except these looked more like horses than angels.

      "Why are they—" Piper started.

      "Anemoi come in different shapes," Annabeth said. "Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending on how chaotic they are. Hold on. This is going to get rough."

      Butch flicked the reins and Leo felt something— someone— grab onto him. The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Leo stomach crawled into his throat. His vision went black, and when it came back to normal we were in a completely different place.

      A cold grey ocean stretched out to the left. Snow-covered fields, roads and forests spread to the right. Directly below us was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on the three sides and water to the north. Leo saw a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake and a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire. But, before Leo could really process all I was seeing, the wheels came off and the chariot dropped out of the sky.

      Annabeth and Butch tried to maintain control. The pegasi laboured to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of five people was just too much.

      "The lake!" Annabeth yelled. "Aim for the lake!"

      Leo felt strong hands wrap around him. He turned to see who it was.

      And then— BOOM.

      The biggest shock was the cold. Leo was underwater, with whoever it was still holding onto him. He was so disoriented that he didn't know which way was up.

      Leo was pulled away from his stupor when he felt someone pull him up and above the water. Gasping and shivering, he looked around his to see that it had been Jason, holding onto him.

      Nearby, Butch stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off the pegasi. Fortunately, the horses looked OK, but they were flapping their wings and splashing water everywhere. 

      Next to him, Jason stood up and grabbed him by the hand, hauling him up and onto his feet. Annabeth stood near them as tons of kids in orange T-shirts gave them blankets and asked questions. Leo stayed silent as Annabeth and Jason answered them. 

      Out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw someone help Piper stand. Someone blasted Piper with a big bronze leaf-blower looking thing and, in about two seconds, she looked completely dry.

      The wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.

      "Annabeth!" A blonde guy with a bow and quiver on his back pushed through the crowd towards Leo, Jason and Annabeth. "I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!"

      "Will, I'm sorry," Annabeth sighed. "I'll get it fixed, I promise."

      Will scowled at his broken chariot. Then he sized Piper, Leo and Jason. "These are the ones? Way older than thriteen. Why haven't they been claimed already?"

      "Claimed?" Leo asked.

      Before Annabeth could explain, Will said, "Any sign of Percy?"

      "No," Annabeth muttered. Leo had no idea who this guy Percy was, but his disappearance seemed to be a big deal.

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

      "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. "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," Annabeth said. "I promise we'll answer your questions. And, Drew—" she frowned at the glamorous girl— "all demigods are worth saving. But I'll admit the trip didn't accomplish what I hoped."

      "Hey," Piper said. "we didn't ask to be brought here."

      Drew sniffled. "And nobody wants you, hon. Dpes your hair always look like a dead badger?"

      Piper stepped forward, ready to smack her and Leo clenched his fists around his blanket. 

      Jason placed a hand on his shoulder, Leo looked up and he gave him a look. "You told me not to fight for her, so don't think I'll let you do the same."

      "Piper, stop." Annabeth said. Piper did, stepping back.

      "We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome," Annabeth said, with another 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."

      "Would someone tell me what claimed means?" Piper asked.

      Suddenly there was a collective gasp. The campers backed away. Jason took a step away from Leo and stared at the top of his head. His face was bathed in a strange red light, like he was a holding a torch to his face.

      "That," Annabeth said, "is claiming."

      "What'd I do?" Leo backed away towards the lake. Then he glanced up and yelped. Floating over his head was a blazing holographic image— a fiery hammer. "is my hair on fire?" Leo ducked, but the symbol followed him, bobbing and weaving so it looked like he was trying to right something in the air in flames with his head.

      "This can't be good," Butch mutter. "The curse—"

      "Butch, shut up," Annabeth 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.

      "Jason," Annabeth said carefully, "how did you know that?"

      "I'm not sure."

      "Vulcan?" Leo demanded, "I don't even LIKE Star Trek. What are you talking about?"

      "Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus," Annabeth said, "the god of blacksmiths and fire."

      Leo froze. He must have misheard her. Fire?

      The fiery hammer faded, but Leo continued to swat it like it was following him. "The god of what? Who?"

      Annabeth turned to the guy with the bow. "Will, would you take Leo, give him a tour? Introduce him to his bunkmates in Cabin Nine."

      "Sure, Annabeth."

      "What's Cabin Nine?" Leo asked. "And I'm not a Vulcan!"

      "Come on, Mr Spock, I'll explain everything." Will put a hand on his shoulder and steered him away from Jason, off towards the cabins.

      Leo turned to Will, trying to gently shimmy away from the hand he had placed on his shoulder. “Will Pipes and Jason be OK?” he asked. Will turned towards him. He must have gotten the message because he removed his hand from Leo’s shoulder, letting it hang by his side. He gave him a reassuring smile. “They’ll be fine. You’re in good hands here, at camp.” Will said.

      Leo nodded, looking at the grass beneath his feet. “So, camp. What’s it like? Like, is it a summer camp?” Leo asked nervously. Will nodded. “Yeah, most people, like me, are only here for the summer. But some people stay the whole year, mostly because of bad home life, but sometimes it’s because of monsters.” Will explained.

      “Monsters?” Leo asked.

      “Yeah. Think hellhounds or empousai.” Will answered.

      “What?” he stared at Will, dumbfounded.

      “Hellhounds, they’re these hounds from the underworld. Usually they’re under the control of Hades, but sometimes they come up to the mortal world and attack mortals and demigods. They’re sort of like shadow dogs.” Will explained.

      “And empousai?” Leo asked.

      “Empousai are these vampire-ish girls with one metal leg and one goat’s leg. They try to seduce you and kill you.” Will said. “I’ve never met one.”

      Leo nodded. In the distance, he could see a sort of arena, filled with demigods in armor, each one holding a weapon. Most had swords but a small few held daggers. Leo noticed that about half of them were fighting against life-sized dummies while the other half sparred against one another.

      Leo turned back to look at where he was walking. Ahead was a horseshoe of cabins, other cabins seemed to have been littered around the horseshoe, as if they had been added later.

      “Wait,” Leo said, remembering something Will had said. “If you’re only here for the summer, how come you’re here right now?”

      “My ma’s going on tour, so if I went back to Texas I’d just be stuck at home doing nothing because she wouldn’t be there.” Will said.

      Leo’s eyes darkened at the mention of his home state. “You’re from Texas too?” he asked.

      Will nodded. “I’m from Austin, what part of Texas are you from?”

      “Houston. I haven’t been in years though…” Leo trailed off. Will didn’t seem to take much notice, or if he did, he didn’t comment on it.

      The two continued walking to the cabins. Leo started hearing the sounds of people. He could hear laughter coming from a pink cabin, arguing from a red one and a disturbing silence from a black one.

      Will pointed to a large hearth in the middle of the horseshoe.

      “That’s the Hearth of Hestia. She’s a maiden godess so she doesn’t have a cabin.” He said. 

      “And which is Cabin Nine?” Leo asked, looking around. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly but he expected to see a cabin in flames, just to prove his rotten luck.

      Will pointed to a metal cabin. It looked like it was made completely out of scrap metal, the walls were shiny strips of iron with metal-slatted windows. The entrance looked like a vault door like you see as the bank door in any bank heist film ever. Luckily, Leo saw no fire.

      “We’ll visit Cabin Nine after the tour, then you can get settled in and get ready for dinner.” Will said, steering them away from the Heart of Hestia and towards a row of cabins, each with an even number above the doorway.

      Leo looked back at the Hearth and swore he saw a young girl tending to the flames. She looked eight-ish and definetly too young to be anywhere near the fire— though Leo wasn’t one to judge when it came to handling fire at a young age— until she looked up at him and caught his gaze. She stared at him with red eyes. It was like instead of eyeballs, she had a blazing fire in the sockets of her eyes. Leo looked away and when he looked back again, she was gone.

Will showed Leo around the cabins. Each of the cabins in the horseshoe of cabins was dedicated to one of the Olympian gods. A few of them were barren, only honourary cabins like Hera’s, Zeus’ and Artemis’ cabins. Will explained that the black cabin at the end of the horseshoe, connecting the two ending cabins, was the Hades cabin. It had only been added recently, after the Titan War.

      “There’s a whole load more cabins over in the clearing near the ampitheatre,” Will said, “they were all added last summer, when the gods promised to claim their kids, even the minor gods like Iris or Nemesis.” Will pointed somewhere, all Leo could see were more trees but he nodded like he saw exactly what Will was pointing at.

      “What else is there? If this is a summer camp, there must be activities, right?” Leo asked. Will nodded.

      “Right this way!” Will said excitedly. Leo followed after him as they walked towards the arena Leo had seen earlier.

      It was way emptier now, most people had gone back to their cabins or gone to do other activities. There were only two people. They sparred expertly, blocking and parying like they knew each other’s moves by heart. At some point, they stopped to catch their breaths and have a drink and they saw Will and Leo. They looked like twins, the same crooked smiles and gleam in their eyes.

      “Hey Will, new camper?” One called out. Will looked to Leo and raised an eyebrow as if to ask if he wanted to engage or not. Leo nodded and Will smiled back at the two boys.

      “Yeah, how’s training?” Will asked. The two shrugged and the other one— who hadn’t spoken yet— said, “Good but Travis is being predictable again.” He said. The other boy— Travis— gave him a look. “Connor, you’re the predictable one, not me.” He argued. Connor rolled his eyes. His gaze fell on Leo.

      “You undeterminded, kid?” Connor asked. Before Leo could answer, Will spoke, “He’s a son of Hephaestus.”

      Travis and Connor shot Leo a concerned look, like he was some sort of disease ridden piece of meat or a defenceless animal that was just under the knife that would kill him.

      “I’m giving him the tour,” Will warned, “You know, incase it bothers your sparring.”

      Connor and Travis both shook their heads. “We were just about to leave, anyway.” Travis said, and, to prove his point, picked up his bag and walked out of the arena. Connor gave Will and Leo a smile and picked up his own bag, following Travis away from the arena.

Will explained everything about the arena, the training and the different weapons. Then they went to the dinning pavilion and then Will brought him around the rest of the camp, the other cabins for the minor gods, the forest, the Big House and the canoe lake.

      “Usually we have Mr. D here, he’s the camp director but he was recalled to Olympus not too long ago. Now we just have Chiron and Argus.” Will said as they walked.

      “Who’s Mr. D?” Leo asked.

      “Dionysus, god of wine. He was sent here as punishment from Zeus for chasing after some nymph that Zeus decided was off-limits.” Will explained.

      Leo nodded. “And the other two? Chiron and Argus?”

      “Chiron is the activities director and the archery instructor. He’s been training heroes for millenia, he trained Achilles. And Argus is the head of security.” Will said, completely losing Leo the moment he said training heroes for millenia. How could he have survived long enough to do that? But then again, Leo’s dad was an immortal god so maybe some immortal archery instructor wasn’t too far fetched.

      “Cool. By the way, I never asked who your… what did you call it, godly parent?” Leo asked, turning to face Will.

      “Yeah, that’s right. My dad’s Apollo, god of—“ Will started. “—archery, medicine and music, right?” Leo interrupted. Will nodded.

      “You know your mythology, huh?” Will said.

      “My old nanny used to tell me stories, never thought it’d come in useful.” Leo admitted.

      Will turned toward the cabins. “I should take you to Cabin Nine before dinner so you can meet your siblings.” he said.

      Leo nodded. Will began walking towards the horseshoe of cabins and Leo stared intently at the Hearth of Hestia. He couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl he seen in the hearth, tending to the flames with her stick.

      “Hey, man, who was that little girl in the Hearth of Hestia?” Leo asked. Will gave him a confused look, turned to him then looked back infront of him.

      “Not sure but it was probably Hestia. She tends to every hearth at some point in time. I’ve heard of a lot campers asking about the lady of the hearth.” Will said.

      “Gods visit often?” Leo asked.

      Will shook his head. “Only Hestia and Mr. D. But with Mr. D back at Olympus, I don’t know what Lady Hestia is doing at Camp.”

      Leo nodded slowly and decided to drop it, staring at the metal cabin that was going to be his new home… until the next time he ran.

Chapter Text

Leo's tour was going great until he learned about the dragon. 

      The archer dude, Will Solace, seemed pretty cool. Everything he showed Leo was so amazing it should have been illegal. Real Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts and 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! And the camp was overflown with fine-looking girls and boys. Leo didn't quite understand the whole related-to-the-gods business, but he hoped that didn't mean he was cousins with everyone. That would suck.

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

      "Do I get a sword?" Leo asked. 

      Will glanced at him like he found the idea disturbing. "You'll probably make your own, seeing as you're in Cabin Nine."

      "Yeah, what's up with that? Vulcan?"

      "Usually we don't call the gods by their Roman names," Will said. "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." Will corrected. "God of blacksmiths and fire." 

      Leo had heard that, too. But he was trying not to think about it. The god of fire... seriously? Considering what had happened to his mum, that seemed like a sick joke. 

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

      Will took a while to answer. "You claimed almost immediately. That's usually good."

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

      "Ah... look, it's nothing. Since Cabin Nine's last head counsellor died—"

      "Died? Like, painfully?"

      "I ought to let your bunkmates tell you about it." 

      "Yeah, where are my home dawgs? Shouldn't their counsellor be giving me the VIP tour?"

      "He, um, can't. You'll see why." Will forged ahead before Leo could ask anything else. 

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

He was halfway across the green 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. 

      "What's wrong?" Will asked. 

      Tía Callida— Auntie Callida. That's what she called herself. But 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?" 

      Will 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?" 

      Will frowned. "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 towards the big white cabin, Tía Callida was gone. He was sure she'd been there. Almost as if thinking about his mum had summoned Khalida back from the past.

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

      "Just mess him 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. 

      "Let's go see Cabin Nine," he said. "I'm in the mood for a good curse."

From the outside, the Hepaestus cabin looked like an oversized motorhome 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’ve got a steampunk theme going on, huh?”

      Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. High-tech steel bunks were folded against the walls. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems and interlocking gears. Leo figured each camper had their own combination lock to release their 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 floor above, even though the cabin didn’t appear to have another floor from the outside. A cicular 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 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 mum’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. Away from the pain and the guilt. 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 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 said, “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 puzzy and bruised. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a beat down.

      “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 wondered 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 counsellor for now."

      "For now?" Leo asked.

      Will Solace cleared his throat. "So where is everybody, Jake?"

      "Down at the forges," Jake said wistfully. "They're working on... You know, that problem."

      "Oh," Will 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 mum in that machine shop fire. Don't talk to me about ghosts, doughboy.

      But aloud, he said. "Ghosts? Pfft, nah, I'm cool. A storm spirit chucked me down the Grand Canyon 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."

      "Whoa, Jake," Will said. "You sure?"

      Jake called out, "Bunk 1-A, please."

      The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiralled open like a camera lens, and a full-sized bed popped up. Bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in 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 laid back with arms behind his head. "I can handle this."

      "It retracts into a private room below," Jake said.

      "Oh, heck yes," Leo said. "See y'all. I'll be down in Cave Leo. Which button do I press?"

      "Hold on," Will protested. "You guys have private underground rooms?"

      Jake probably would have smiled if it didn't hurt so much. "We've got a lot of secrets, Will. You Apollo guys can't have all the fun. 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 counsellor who died— this was his bed?"

      "Yeah," Jake said. "Charles Beckendorf."

      Leo imagined saw-blades coming through the mattress, or maybe a grenade sewn into 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," Will said, like Leo was an idiot. A tone of voice Leo was used to hearing. "The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods, they tried to make a comeback last year. 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 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 Will 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 run from his last foster home where he'd been treated downright horribly. Then a truancy officer caught him in New Mexico, and the court sentenced him to the nearest correction facility— the WIlderness School. He felt a sudden, weirdly familiar, feeling of fear at the thought of the place that he couldn't explain. He shook it off as unease about the memories of his foster home. "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 corner 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," Will said. "I'll take you down to the forges."

      As they were leaving, Leo looked back down at his bed, and he could almost imagine a dead counsellor sitting there— another ghost who wasn't going to leave Leo alone.

Chapter Text

"How did he die?" Leo asked. "I mean Beckendorf."

      Will Solace trudged ahead. "Explosion. Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn't make it out."

      There was that name again— Percy Jackson, Annabeth's missing boyfriend. The name sounded familiar, like a name he faintly remembered seeing on a missing poster back in Kentucky. That guy must've been into everything around here, Leo thought.

      "So, Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "I mean— before he blew up?"

      "He was awesome," Will agreed. "It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake— he became head counsellor in the middle of the war. Same as I did, actually. Jake did his best, but he never wanted to be a leader. He just liked 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," Will said without enthusiasl. "And here we are."

      The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into a Greek Parthenon and they had fused togethor. 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," WIll said. "This is your new brother, Leo— um, what's your last name?"

      "Valdez." Leo muttered as he 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 mum— 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. He'd never been good in these kind of situations, however much he tried to pretend he was.

      None of them looked like the others— all different face types, skin tones, hair colours, heights. You'd never think, Hey, look, it's the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with callouses 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, a pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Tubigrip bandages and about seven thousand Band-Aids.

      "Well, all right!" Leo said, trying to cut through the tense atmosphere. "I hear this is the party cabin!"

      Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.

      WIll patted Leo's shoulder. "I'll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it's time?"

      "I've got it," one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, stained with oil, 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."

Leo was no stranger to workshops. He'd grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. His mamá used to joke that his first dummy was a lug wrench. But he'd never seen any place like the camp forge.

      One guy was working on a battleaxe. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the axe cut into the slab like 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 disintigrates 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. 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 humour, right?"

      They passed a couple of guys making a bronze wind-up 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 pîeces.

      "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.

      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 walcked. "That sort of thing happen a lot?"

      "Lately," Nyssa said, "everything we build turn to shit."

      "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 that maybe killed the roaches, but he got the feeling he wasn't going to suddenly start getting 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 life-sized dragon?"

      "It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa said. "But, yes, it's a life-sized automaton. Hepaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back, when Beckendorf—" Nyssa paused when she said his name, hey eyes were filled with grief for a moment before she cleared her throat and carried on. "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, thinking of all the times adults had used that word to desribe him, the amount of foster parents had refused to take him in because of it.

      "It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs."

      "That's pretty unpredictable." Leo agreed.

      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 beserk 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-sized bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?"

      "It breathes fire," Nyssa explained. "It's deadly and out of control."

      "But it's a dragon! Dude, that's so awesome. Can't you try talking to it, controlling it?"

      "We tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw how that worked out for him."

      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. Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil."

      "The dragon drinks that?" Leo asked.

      "Yeah." Nyssa sighed, her eyes sad and her tone filled with remorse. "He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he srpings 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 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 they were his brothers and sisters. Especially if he had to live with them.

      "Well," he hesitated, looking down at his hands as guilt tried to take over. "Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don't any of you have like fire resistance or something?"

      Nobody acted as if it were 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, ok." Nyssa conceded. "A long time ago, some children of Hepaestus were born with some kind of control over fire. But that ability is very rare, and always dangerous. The last time there was a kid like that..." Nyssa paused.

      "Sixteen sixty-six," a girl offered. "A guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London. Burnt most of the city down."

      "We haven't had that kind of power in our cabin in centuries." Nyssa said. "Whatever you might think of is either impossible or already tried. We have to kill it." Nyssa said when Leo opened his mouth. "When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we do not need more catastrophes."

      Leo tried to keep his face void of emotion, something he had never really become good at doing even with all the foster homes and all the pain. "I guess I see your point. Too bad, though. If you could resist flames, you could get close to the dragon."

      "Then it would just 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 finsh, 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 the curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured it out would be a hero.

      A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting away 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. That happened to him a lot. For whatever reason, the ADHD maybe, time seemed completely relative, sometimes five minutes felt like five hours, other times, five hours felt like five minutes. Or sometimes Leo would just completely forget. Like he would just forget everything that had happened for an amount of time. As if he had never even been there, like his mind had taken a trip away from his body for a moment or two. It was not something Leo enjoyed. I mean, imagine doing something and then bam— it's been an hour and your suddenly doing something completely different with no recolection of what happened between then and now. He never got those memories back but he could always tell when they were missing.

      "Dinner," Nyssa said, snapping Leo away from his thoughts, bringing him back to reality. "Come on, Leo."

      "Up at the pavilion, right?" he asked.

      She nodded.

      "You guys go ahead," Leo said. "Could you... give me a second?"

      Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened. "Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost everything in this room could 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— locations where his siblings were going to out traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong.

      Very rare, he thought. And always dangerous.

      He held out his hands and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not calloused like the other Hepaestus campers'. Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He'd survived in tough neighbourhoods, tough schools, 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 beaten up. Usually. Of course there were exceptions, but there were always exceptions. Euven the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humour was a good way to hide the pain. To bury it deep inside you forget about it. 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 the urge to try it now— something he hadn't done since the accident, since his mum's death.

      He extended his fingers and 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

When Leo went down to the pavilion to eat, he noticed almost instantly that Piper wasn't there. Out of the three of them— Piper, Jason and Leo— Leo was the only one at dinner, and it worried him.

      He thought about how bad Piper had been feeling on the chariot to camp and Leo suddenly felt guilty for not checking in the moment they'd landed in the lake. Instead, he'd gotten distracted by Jason and then being claimed and the tour around camp and the forges. Leo tried to shake the thought away but guilt had never been something Leo could just— ignore. It followed him around from city to city, state to state. It had followed him from Texas to Nevada and Leo knew it would follow him to the ends of the earth.

      "Just tell it what you want." Nyssa's voice interrupted his train of thought.

      "Huh?" Leo blinked at her. He realized he'd been staring at his empty cup, the food on his plate untouched— other than the portion he'd chucked in the fire for his dad.

      "Your cup, you tell it what drink you want and it'll fill for you." Nyssa explained.

      "No alcohol, though!" Harley warned. Leo wondered where and how the six year old had learned what alcohol was. That, too, worried him.

      Leo turned to his cup and stared at it for a second. "Champurrado."

      The cup filled with the creamy chocolate drink, pipping hot with steam curling up into the open air. Leo felt his eyes water at the sweet chocolatey smell of the drink. He hadn't had a cup of champurrado since he was eight, when his mum died.

      Nyssa smiled gently at him, then she turned to her plate and started to eat her chicken.

Leo ate in silence, refilling his cup of champurrado until he felt he might burst— or cry, whichever came first.

      Piper and Jason still hadn't shown up by the time dinner was finished. Leo kept looking around like they might magically show up, but they never did. Not until the campfire at least.

      Leo felt slightly terrified by the huge red flames. The shadows danced around the ampitheatre as everyone laughed and sang and played music. Leo hadn't let himself be so near fire since he was eight and the sudden exposure was not helping Leo stop worrying about his friends in the slightest.

      Jason had finally shown up with Annabeth, which relieved Leo to know at least one of his friends was alive and well but there was definetely something wrong. Whenever Leo looked at Jason, he looked awkward, weirdly out of place, like he was the last piece of a puzzle but someone had taken him from the wrong puzzle box and had forced him into the empty space.

      Jason and Annabeth stood off to the side, Annabeth stayed with him instead of joining her cabinmates under the grey banner with owl painted onto it.

      The ampitheatre steps were carved into the side of the hill, facing the stone-lined fire pit where the now golden flames burned high in the sky, matching the general mood of the campers.

      Finally the song being played ended, although with a lot of rowdy applause. A guy on a horse trotted up. But, as Leo looked closer, he realized it wasn't a guy on a horse, the guy was half horse. A centaur. He was half white stallion and half middle-aged man with curly hair and a trimmed beard. He held a spear impaled with toasted marshmallows. "Very nice! And a special welcome to our new arrivals. I am Chiron, camp activities director, and I'm happy you have all arrived here alive and with most of your limbs attached. In a moment, I promise we'll get to the s'mores, but first—"

      "What about capture the flag?" somebody yelled. Grumbling broke out among some kids in armour, sitting under a red banner with the emblem of a boar's head. The Ares cabin.

      "Yes," the centaur said. "I know the Ares cabin is anxious to return to the woods for our regular games."

      "And kill people!" one of them shouted.

      "However," Chiron said. "until the dragon is brought under control, that won't be possible, Cabin Nine, anything to report on that?" 

      He turned to Leo and the Hepaestus cabin. Nyssa stiffened next to Leo. Leo turned away to look around for Jason. Instead, he saw Piper.

      He hadn't even see her arrive, but she was stood off to the side with a girl with curly red hair. When Piper turned to him, Leo winked at her and shot her with a finger gun.

      Nyssa stood up, shoulders tense. "We're working on it."

      More grumbling. 

      "How, Nyssa?" an Ares kid demanded.

      "Really hard," Nyssa grumbled. Leo felt like throttling the guy when he sneered at her response. He didn't know how much she— and the rest of the cabin— wanted to find a way to save the dragon. He had absolutely no right to be mad at her when he was doing nothing to help. With a struggle, Leo kept his anger at bay as Nyssa sat down.

      The fire sputtered chaotically as campers yelled and complained. Leo flinched away, leaning back as the fire spat at him, like it was attacking him personally. Chiron stamped his hoof against the fire pit stones— bang, bang, bang— and the campers fell silent.

      "We will have to be patient," Chiron said. "In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to discuss."

      "Percy?" someone asked. The fire dimmed further and Leo relaxed as the flames turned smaller, shying away from him as the crowd's anxiety heightened.

      Chiron gestured to Annabeth. She took a deep breath and stood.

      "I didn't find Percy," she annouced. Her voice caught a little when she said his name, the same way Nyssa's had when she'd mentioned Beckendorf's. "He wasn't at the Grand Canyon like I thought. But we're not giving up. We've got teams everywhere. Grover, Tyson, Nico, the Hunters of Artemis— everyone's out looking. We will find him. Chiron's talking about something different. A new quest."

      "It's the Great Prophecy, isn't it?" a girl called out.

      Everyone turned. THe voice had come from a group in the back, sitting under a rose-coloured banner with a dove emblem. They'd been chatting among themselves and not paying much attention until their leader stood up: Drew.

      Everyone else looked surprised. Apparently Drew didn't address the crowd very often.

      "Drew?" Annabeth said. "What do you mean?"

      "Well, come on." Drew spread her hands like the truth was obvious. "Olympus is closed. Percy's disappeared. Hera sends you a vision and you come back with three new demigods in one day. I mean, something weird is going on. The Great Prophecy has started, right?"

      Everyone turned in Piper's direction. Leo stared at Piper for a second then realized they weren't looking at her, they were looking at the girl next to her.

      "Well?" Drew called down. "You're the Oracle. Has it started or not?"

      The girl's eyes looked scary in the firelight. Leo was tempted to look away and cower, but he decided that would probably look stupid if no one else reacted like that. She stepped forward, looking like some kind of ethereal being, in the scariest yet human way possible.

      "Yes," she said. "The Great Prophecy has begun."

      The camp was thrown into chaos. 

      When the talking finally subsided, the girl took another step towards the audience, and fifty-plus demigods leaned away from her, as if she scared them just as much as she scared Leo.

      "For those of you who have not heard it," the girl said, "the Great Prophecy was my first prediction. It arrived in August. It goes like this:

      Seven half-bloods shall answer the call.

      To storm of fire the world must fall—"

      Jason shot to his feet. His eyes looked wild, like he'd just been tasered.

      Even the Oracle girl seemed caught off guard. "J-Jason?" she said. "What's—"

      "Ut cum spiritu postrema sacramentum dejuremus," he chanted. "Et hostes ornamenta addent ad ianuam necem."

      An uneasy silence settled on the group. Leo could tell from their faces that several of them were trying to translate the lines. Leo could tell it was Latin, some of the words were close enough to Spanish that he could guess their meanings but too many of them were impossible for him to translate fro it to make any sense.

      "You just... finished the prophecy," the Oracle stammered. "—An oath to keep with a final breath, And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death. How did you—"

      "I know those lines." Jason winced and put his hands to his temples. "I don't know how, but I know that prophecy."

      "In Latin, no less," Drew called out. "Handsome and smart."

      There was some giggling from the Aphrodite cabin. Leo felt anger boiling in his blood. Jason was not only obviously shocked and uncomfortable but he looked like he was in pain and all they cared about were his looks? Sure, Jason was a good-looking guy, there was no doubt about it but none of that mattered, not when he looked so hurt, massaging his temples, his eyes shut tight. The campfire burned a chaotic, nervous shade of green and Leo couldn't tell if it was because of just how disgusted he was with the girls' behavior towards Jason or if it was how visibly uncomfortable Jason looked.

      Jason sat down, looking embarressed and in pain, but Annabeth put a hand on his shoulder and muttered something to him. Leo felt a pang of worry and something else— something Leo couldn't quite place. Jason needed him and Piper and neither of them could be there for him. Instead, he was being reassured by some girl he'd just met. Though, Jason had been adament about not knowing Leo so maybe it wouldn't have changed anything if it were him whispering in his ear.

      The Oracle girl still looked a little shaken. She glanced back at Chiron, for guidance maybe, but the centaur stood grim and silent, as if he were watching a play he couldn't iterrupt— a tragedy that ended with a lot of people dead onstage.

      "Well," she said, trying to regain her composure. "So, yeah, that's the Great Prophecy. We hoped it might not happen for years, but I fear it's starting now. I can't give you proof. It's just a feeling. And, like Drew said, some weird stuff is happening. The seven demigods, whoever they are, have not been gathered yet. I get the feeling some are here tonight. Some are not here."

      The campers began to stir and mutter, looking at each other nervously, until a drowsy voice in the crowd called out, "I'm here! Oh... were you calling roll?"

      "Go back to sleep, Clovis," someone yelled, and a lot of people laughed.

      "Anyway," the girl continued, "we don't know what the Great Prophecy means. We don't know what challenge the demigods will face, but the first Great Prophecy predicted the Titan War, we can guess the second Great Prophecy will predict something at least as bad."

      "Or worse," Chiron murmured.

      Maybe he didn't mean everyone to overhear, but they did. The campfire immediately turned dark purple.

      "What we do know," she said," is that the first phase has begun. A major problem has arisen, and we need a quest to solve it. hera, the queen of the gods, has been taken."

      Shocked silence. Then fifty demigods started talking at once.

      Chiron pounded his hoof again, but the Oracle still had to wait before she could get their attention.

      She told them about the incident on the Grand Canyon skywalk— how Gleeson Hedge had sacrificed himself when the storm spirits attacked, and the spirits had warned it was only the beginning. They apparently served some great mistress who would destroy all demigods.

      Then the Oracle told them about Piper passing out in Hera's cabin. Leo looked over at Piper, brows furrowed in concern. She wasn't looking at him, her eyes fixed on the fire as it burned purple, her eyes filled with a fear that sent a chill down Leo's spine. She was obvioulsy trying to keep a brave face but Leo could tell she wasn't doing too good. The girl told them about Jason's vision in the living room of the Big House.

      "Jason," the Oracle said. "Um... do you remember your last name?"

      He looked self-conscious, but he shook his head. Leo suddenly realized he, too, didn't know Jason's last name. After a year of being friends, he must have learnt Jason's last name at some point, right? However, his mind came up blank when he tried to search his brain for the missing information about his best friend.

      "We'll just call you Jason, then," she said. "It's clear Hera herself has issued you a quest."

      She paused, as if giving Jason a chance to protest his destiny. Everyone's eyes were on him; there was so much pressure Leo was sure anyone would buckle in his position. Yet he looked brave and determined. He set his jaw and nodded. "I agree."

      "You must save Hera to prevent a great evil," the girl continued. "Some sort of king from rising. For reasons we don't yet understand, it must happen by the winter solstice, only four days from now."

      "That's the council day of the gods," Annabeth said. "If the other gods don't already know Hera's gone, they will definitely notice her absence by then. They'll probably break out fighting, accusing each other of taking her. That's what they usually do."

      "The winter solstice," Chiron spoke up, "is also the time of greatest darkness. The gods gather that day, as mortals always have, because there is strength in numbers. The solstice is a day when evil magic is strong. Ancient magic, older than the gods. It is a day when things... stir."

      The way he said it, stirring sounded absolutely sinister— like it should be a first-grade felony, not something you did to cookie dough.

      "Ok," Annabeth said, glaring at the centaur. "Thank you, Captain Sunshine. Whatever's going on, I agree with Rachel. Jason has been chosen to lead this quest, so—"

      "Why hasn't he been claimed?" somebody yelled from the Ares cabin. "If he's so important—"

      "He has been claimed," Chiron announced. "Long ago. Jason, give them a demonstration."

      At first, Jason didn't seem to understand. He stepped forward nervously, his hair glowing gold in the fire light. Then, he fished something out of his pocket— his golden coin.

      His coin flashed in the air, and when he caught it in his hand, he was holding a lance— a rod of gold about seven feet long, with a spear tip at one end.

      The other demigods gasped. Annabeth and the Oracle— Rachel, Leo now knew— stepped back to avoid the point, which looked sharp as an ice pick.

      "Wasn't that..." Annabeth hesitated. "I thought you had a sword."

      "Um, it came up tails, I think," Jason said. "Same coin, long-range weapon form."

      "Dude, I want one!" yelled somebody from Ares.

      "Better than Clarisse's electric spear, Lamer!" one of his brothers agreed.

      "Electric," Jason murmured, like it was a good idea. Leo closed his eyes, the image of Jason at the Grand Canyon, screaming out in pain when Dylan had shot a lightning bolt through him tattooed behind his eyelids. "Back away."

      Annabeth and Rachel got the message. Jason raised his javelin, and thunder broke open the sky. Every hair on Leo's arms stood straight up. Lightning arced down through the golden spear point and hit the campfire with the force of an artillery shell.

      When the smoke cleared, and the ringing in Leo's ears subsided, the entire camp sat frozen in shock, half blind, covered in ashes, staring at the place where the fire had been. Cinders rained down everywhere. A burning log had impaled itself a few inches from the sleeping kid Clovis, who hadn't even stirred.

      Jason lowered his lance. "Um... sorry."

      Chiron brushed some burning coals out of his beard. He grimaced as if his worst fears had been confirmed. "A little overkill, perharps, but you've made your point. And I believe we know who your father is."

      "Jupiter," Jason said. "I mean Zeus. Lord of the Sky."

      Everyting broke into chaos, with dozens of people asking questions until Annabeth raised her arms.

      "Hold it!" she said. "How can he be the son of Zeus? The Big Three... their pact not to have mortal kids... how could we not have known about him sooner?"

      Chiron didn't answer. Leo got the feeling he was holding back on a grim truth, or at least one that no one would like.

      "The important thing," Rachel said. "is that Jason's here now. He has a quest to fulfill, which means he will need his own prophecy."

      She closed her eyes and swooned. Two campers rushed forward and caught her. A third ran to the side of the ampitheatre and grabbed a bronze three-legged stool, like they'd been trained for this duty. They eased Rachel onto the stool infront of the ruined hearth. Without the fire, the night was dark, but green mist started swirling around Rachel's feet. When she opened her eyes, they were glowing. Emerald smoke issued from her mouth. The voice that came out was raspy and ancient— the voice a snake would have if it could speak.

      "Child of lightning, beware the earth,

      The giant's revenge the seven shall birth,

      The forge and dove shall break the cage,

      And death unleash through Hera's rage."

On the last word, Rachel collapsed, but her helpers were waiting to catch her. They carried her away from the hearth and laid her in the corner to rest.

      "Is that normal?" Piper asked, her voice echoing in the silence of the campers. Everyone turned to look at her. "I mean... does she spew green smoke a lot?"

      "Gods, you're dense!" Drew sneered. "She just issued a prophecy— Jason's prophecy to save Hera! Why don't you just—"

      "Drew," Annabeth snapped. "Piper asked a fair question. Something about that prophecy definitely wasn't normal. If breaking Hera's cage unleashes her rage and causes a bunch of death... why would we free her? It might be a trap, or— or maybe Hera will turn on her rescuers. She's never been kind to heroes."

      Jason rose. "I don't have much choice. Hera took my memory. I need it back. Besides, we can't just not help the queen of the heavens if she's in trouble."

      Nyssa stood up, everyone turned to her. "Maybe. But you should listen to Annabeth. Hera can be vengeful. She threw her own son— our dad— down a mountain just because he was ugly."

      "Real ugly," snickered someone from Aphrodite.

      "Shut up!" Nyssa growled. "Anyway, we've also got to think— why beware the earth? And what's the giant' revenge? What are we dealing with here that's powerful enough to kidnap the queen of the heavens?"

      No one answered. Leo kept repeating the third line of the prophecy in his head. The forge and dove shall break the cage. The forge was the symbol of Hephaestus, the dove the symbol of Aphrodite. So a Hephaestus camper and an Aphrodite camper had to go on this quest with Jason. Who better to go than Leo? He knew Jason and— and he could get them a ride. The dragon. A huge bronze dragon would be perfect for a quest to save Tía Callida if they had to stay off the ground. They could fly up, high in the sky and avoid the earth. The idea was perfect. He could save her and help Jason at the same time. He could barely contain himself when he realized Nyssa was still speaking.

      "—need air transport."

      Suddenly, Leo remembered that Jason could fly. His mind froze. If he could fly, then he probably wouldn't even need the dragon. But Jason stayed silent, not volunteering that information. Maybe that meant the plan for the dragon would still be worth the effort.

      "The flying chariot's broken," Nyssa continued. "and the pegasi, we're using them to search for Percy. But maybe Hephaestus cabin can help figure out something to help. With Jake incapacitated, I'm senior camper. I can volunteer for the quest."

      She didn't sound happy about that, so Leo took his chance. He stood up, everyone turned to him. Harley grabbed his sleeve and tried to pull him back down, the others grabbing his shoulders and attempting to push him back down in his seat but Leo resisted. 

      "It's me." he said. His cabinmates all tried to get him to sit down again but Leo stayed firm on his feet.

      "No, it's me." Leo said. "I know it is. I've got an idea for the transportation problem. Let me try. I can fix this!"

      Jason studied him, Leo was almost sure he would say no for a moment. The way his eyes scanned him up and down told him something he couldn't understand. Then, Jason smiled. "We started this together, Leo. It's only right that you come along. You find us a ride, you're in."

      "Yes!" Leo pumped his fist.

      "It'll be dangerous," Nyssa warned. "Hardships, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive."

      "Oh." Leo felt his excitement fade away. Jason was looking at him, something— concern— filled his electric blue eyes. Leo remembered that everyone was watching him. "I mean... Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this."

      Annabeth nodded. "Then, Jason, you only need to choose the third quest member. The dove—"

      "Oh, absolutely!" Drew was on her feet and flashing Jason a smile. Though, Jason didn't see it, he was still staring at Leo. "The dove is Aphrodite. Everybody knows that. I am totally yours."

      "No." Leo turned to see that Piper has stepped forward, her hands clenched. 

      Drew rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Dumpster girl. Back off."

      "I had the vision of Hera; not you. I have to do this."

      "Anyone can have a vision," Drew said. Leo could still feel Jason's eyes on him. "You were just at the right place at the right time." Drew turned to Jason at the same time as Leo did. Jason's eyes were locked on Leo, not even sparing a glance at Drew or Piper. "Look, fighting is all fine, I suppose. And people who build things..." Drew glanced at Leo, but he wasn't concentrated on her. No, he couldn't stop thinking of the look in Jason's eyes as he stared deep into Leo's soul, like he was searching for something. "Well, I suppose someone has to get their hands dirty. But you need charm on your side. I can be very persuasive. I could help a lot."

      Finally, Jason tore his gaze away from Leo and looked at Drew. What Drew was saying made sense, she was pretty and she did have quite a persuasive way of speaking.

     "Well..." Annabeth said. "Given the wording of the prophecy—"

      "No!" Piper snapped. "I'm supposed to go." 

      Leo nodded. That made sense aswell. She had started with Jason just as Leo had so it only made sense she came along. And, Leo didn't know any else who could convince a car dealer to lend someone a car just with a few words.

      "Get over it!" Drew snapped at the crowd. "What can Piper do?"

      Piper didn't answer. No one did. But Leo could see that some still believed Piper should go. He knew he believed she should, and he was sure Jason thought so too.

      "Well," Drew said smugly, "I guess that settles it."

      Piper started to glow red. Her clothes changed into a long white sleeveless dress. It was an open-back dress, the marred skin of her back exposed for the whole camp to see. Her hair grew ringlets and became even, the feather she braided into it gone. Gold armbands wrapped around her biceps. All Leo could concentrate on were the long lines going down Piper's back.

      Some were red and deep, others nearer white, creating little mountains on her skin. It looked like the cavernous desert they had driven through that morning on the bus. Caverns and hills dotting the earth, now dotting her back. Just looking at them, Leo knew exactly what they were. Scars. Piper had been struck with a belt enough times that the scars overlapped, some recent, some old. Just the sight of them made Leo's own back sting. Sympathy pains, he thought. He didn't have any scars on his back anyway.

      "What?" Piper demanded. Leo looked away from her back, unable to look any longer without tears prickling the corners of his eyes as the sting of his back worsened.

      Before anyone could answer, Leo stood up. With everyone focused on Piper, he could sneak way without being seen.

      He couldn't take it. The sight of those horrible scars on Piper's back made Leo's eyes water, and his back burn. An image of Piper crying, sobbing on the floor, her back bleeding flashed through his head. He shook his head. He couldn't dwell on this. Not if it kept making his body hurt so much.

      Either way, he had a dragon to catch.

Chapter Text

Leo couldn't believe what he'd done. By the time he was a few metres away from the ampitheatre, Piper's red glow had dimmed to the point where there was no longer any light coming from the amitheatre. All Leo knew was he needed to get to the woods to find that dragon. He walked past the forges on his way, stopped and stared at the spot where he'd seen Tía Callida. It made him wonder why he was doing this. 

      He'd stood up in front of a bunch of stronger, braver demigods and volunteered— volunteered— for a mission that might get him killed.

      He hadn't mentioned seeing Tía Callida, but as soon as he'd heard about Jason's vision— the lady in the black dress and shawl— Leo knew it was the same person. Tía Callida was Hera. His evil babysitter was the queen of the gods. Stuff like that could really deep-fry your brain.

      He trudged towards the woods and tried not to think about his childhood— all the fucked up things that had led to his mother's death. But he couldn't help it.

The first time Tía Callida tried to kill him, he must've been about two. Tía Callida was looking after him while he mother was working at the machine shop. She wasn't really his aunt, of course— just one of the old ladies of the community, a generic tía who watched the kids. She smelled like honey-baked ham and always wore a widow's dress and a black shawl.

      "Let's set you down for a nap," she said. "Let's see if you really are my little hero, eh?"

      Leo was sleepy. She nestled him into his blankets in a warm mound of red and yellow— pillows? The bed was like a cubby-hole in the wall, made of blackened bricks, with a metal slot over his head and a square hole far above, where he could see the stars. He remembered resting comfortably, grabbing at sparks like fireflies. He dozed, and dreamed of a boat made of fire, sailing through the cinders. He imagined himself on board, navigating the sky. Somewhere nearby, Tía Callida sat in her rocking chair— creak, creak, creak— and sang a lullaby. Even at two, Leo knew the difference between English and Spanish, and he remembered being puzzled because Tía Callida was singing in a language that was neither.

      Everything was fine until his mother came home. She screamed and raced over to snatch him up, yelling at Tía Callida, "How could you?" but the old lady had disappeared.

      Leo remembered looking over his mother's shoulder at the flames curling around his blankets. Only years later had he realized he'd been sleeping in a blazing fireplace.

      The weirdest thing? Tía Callida hadn't been arrested or even banished from their house. She showed up many times again over the next few years. Once when Leo was three, she let him play with knives. "You are to learn your blades early," she insisted, "if you are to be my savior one day." Leo managed not to cut himself, but he got the feeling Tía Callida wouldn't have cared much either way.

      When Leo was four, Tía found a rattlesnake for him in a nearby cow pasture. She had given him a stick a encouraged him to poke the animal. "Where's your bravery, little hero? Show me the Fates were right to choose you." Leo stared down at those amber eyes and couldn't bring himself to poke the poor animal. It didn't seem fair. Apparently the snake felt the same way about biting a little kid. Leo could've swore it looked at Tía Callida like, are you nuts, lady? Then it slivered away into the tall grass.

      The last time she babysat him, Leo was five. She brought him a pack of crayons and a pad of paper. They sat at the picnic table behind the apartment complex, under an old pecan tree. As Tía Callida sang her strange songs, Leo drew a ship of flames. The boat he'd seen in the flames when he was two. Colourful sails and rows of oars, a curved stern and an awesome masthead. When he was almost done, about to sign his name in red, the winds picked up and stole the paper from his little hands. It flew into the sky and disappeared.

      Leo had wanted to cry. He'd spent so much time on that picture— but Tía Callida only clucked in disappointment.

      "It isn't time yet, little hero. You will find your destiny, you will have your quest and all of this will make sense. But first, you must face many sorrows, I regret this but heroes cannot be shaped any other way. Now, make me a fire. Warm these old bones, eh?"

      A few minutes later, Leo's mum came out and shrieked in horror. Tía Callida was gone. Leo was sat in the middle of a smoking fire. The pad of paper dissolved into ashes. Crayons melted into a bubbling pool of multicoloured goo. And Leo's hands were ablaze, burning through the picnic table. For years afterwards, people in the apartement complex would wonder how someone had burned the impressions of a five-year-old's hands an inch deep into solid wood.

      Now Leo was sure that Tía Callida, his psychotic babysitter, had been Hera all along. That made her, what— his godly grand-mother? His family was even more fucked up than he realized.

      He wondered if his mother had known the truth. Leo remembered after the last visit, his mum took him inside and had a long talk with him, but he only understood some of it.

      "She can't come again." His mother had a beautiful face with kind eyes, and curly dark hair, but she looked older from years of hard work. The lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her hands were calloused. She was the first of their family to go to college. She had a degree in mechanical engeneering and could design anything, fix anything, and build anything.

      No one would hire her. They didn't take her seriously. That's how she ended up working in the machine shop, barely scrapping through to support Leo and her. She always smelled of machine oil, and when she talked with Leo she switched from Spanish to English constantly—  using them like complementary tools. It took Leo years to realize not everybody spoke like that, even today, he sometimes forgot. She'd even taught him some Morse Code as a kind of game so they could tap to each other when they were in seperate rooms. I love you. You OK? Simple things like that.

      "I don't care what Callida says," his mum told him. "I don't care about destiny or the Fates. You're still too young, you're still my baby."

      She shook his hands, looking for burn marks that she would never find. "Leo, listen to me. Fire is a tool, like anything else, but it's more dangerous than most. You don't know your limits. Please, promise me—  no more fire until you meet your padre. Some day, mijo, you will meet him. He'll explain everything."

      Leo had heard that since he could remember. Someday he would meet his father, someday everything would make sense. His mum never answered questions about him. Leo had never met him, never even seen any pictures, but she talked about him like he'd just run off to the shop and he'd be back any minute. Leo had tried to believe her. He really had.

      For the next couple of years, they were happy. Leo had nearly forgotten about Tía Callida. He still dreamed about the boat flying through flames but the other things that had happened to him seemed much like a dream, too.

      It all came apart when he was eight. By then, he was spending all his free time in the machine shop with his mum. He knew how to use the machines. He could measure and do maths better than most adults. He'd learned to think three-dimentionally, to solve mechanical problems in his head like his mum did.

      One night, they stayed late because his mum was finishing a drill-bit design she was hoping to patent. If she was able to sell the prototype, it would change their lives. She could finally catch a break.

      Leo handed her tools and told her corny jokes to keep her spirits up. He loved when he could make her laugh. She'd smile and say, "Your padre would be so proud of you, mijo. You'll meet him soon, estoy segura."

      Mum's workshop was at the far end of the machine shop, so when they wanted to leave, they had to walk through the entire building, through the break room and out into the parking lot, locking the doors behind them. It was sort of creepy at night, because they were the only ones there. Each sound they made echoed around the dark workshop. This never bothered Leo though, as long as he was with his mum. And if they were in different rooms, they would keep in touch through Morse Code. 

      That night after finishing up, they'd just got to the break room when his mum realized she didn't have her keys.

      "That's funny, I'm sure I had them with me." she frowned. "Wait here, mijo, I'll only be a minute."

      She gave him one more smile— the last smile she'd ever give, and the last he'd ever get— and wandered back into the warehouse. 

      She hadn't been gone long when the interior door slammed shut. Then the exterior door locked itself.

      "Mamá?" Leo's heart pounded in his chest. Something heavy crashed inside and he rushed to the door but no matter how hard he kicked or pulled, it wouldn't open. "Mamá!' Frantically, he tapped a message on the wall: You OK?

      "She can't hear you." A voice said.

      Leo turned and found himself face-to-face with a strange woman. At first he thought it was Tía Callida. She was wrapped in black robes, her face covered by a thin veil.

      "Tía?" he whispered.

      The woman smiled gently. "No, child. I am but a family resemblance." She spoke like she was in a trance, her eyes closed behind her veil.

      "What— what did you do? Where's mi mamá?"

      She chuckled lightly. "Ah, loyal to your mother... You know, I have children of my own.. I know that you are to fight them one day. when they atempt to wake me. This is not something I can let you do."

      "I don't want to— I— I don't want to fight anyone." Leo stammered.

      The woman nodded slowly, like she didn't believe him. "Yes, a wise choice." She moved towards him. She didn't step towards him exactly— more like she glided across the earth.

       "I cannot kill you, hero, but the Fates do not stop me from breaking your spirit." Her robes swiveled around her like they weren't truly connected. When Leo got a closer look, he realized they weren't. The woman's robes were made of bits of earth, floating around her. Her veil was made of a thin layer of dust like you'd find settled over old books that hadn't been touched in a long time.

      "Nor do they prevent me from harming your mother." The woman murmured. "Remember this night when they ask you to oppose me."

      Leo felt his chest tighten at her words. "Leave mi mamá alone!" Leo didn't know what to do. What had she done to his mother? The woman glided closer.

      By this point, Leo was sure she was asleep. Her voice was thick like when you'd just woken up and her eyes were shut tight. 

      The woman moved like an avalanche, her earthen robes compacting into mud, dripping dirty water onto the asphalt. 

      Leo panicked. He felt a tingle in his fingertips, then his hands were ablaze. 

      He felt mud coat his body, fire blazed against the mud, turning it dry and crumbly. He felt the lack of oxygen suffocating him. He was sure he would die in that moment, trying desperately to get to his mother. Just as he began to feel the asphyxiation, the dirt crumbled away and the flames jumped to the warehouse building.

      Before Leo could react, his vision blurred and he lost consciousness.

      When he woke, he was in an ambulance.

      The paramedic tried to be kind. She told him that the warehouse had caught fire and that they had not been able to save his mother. The paramedic told him she was sorry. Leo felt his heart shatter. He felt like all that was good was taken from him, left with only the bad. The face of the earthen woman etched in his mind, forever to taunt him about his mother's death. He had lost control, he'd used the one tool his mother had told him not to use. Fire. The warehouse had burned down because of his fire, his mother had been killed by his fire. It was all his fault.

      Soon the police came, and they were no where near as nice. The fire had started in the break room, right where Leo had been standing. He'd survived by some mircale but what kind of kid locked the doors of his mother's workplace, knowing she was inside, and started a fire?

      Later, his neighbours at the apartment complex told the police about how strange of a boy he was. They told them about the little handprints on the picnic table. They'd always known that there was something wrong with Esperanza Valdez's son.

      His relatives wouldn't take him in. His Tía Rosa called him a diablo and screamed at the social workers to take him away. Leo was sent to his first foster home. A few days later, he ran away. After that, he was sent to foster homes all around the U.S. from Texas to Maine and he ran from almost all of them, if they didn't call the social workers to take him away first. Some were OK, others were absolutely horrible. He would joke around, make friends, but he always left in the end. It was the only thing that made the pain better— feeling like he was moving, getting further away from the ashes of that machine shop.

      He'd promised himself he would never play with fire again. Not even a little spark to light the dark night. He hadn't thought about Tía Callida, or the sleeping woman wrapped in earth, in years.

He was almost to the woods when he imagined the voice of Tía Callida whispering in his mind: It wasn't your fault, little hero. Our enemy wakes. It's time to stop running.

      "Hera," he muttered. "you're not even here, are you? You're trap in a cage somewhere."

      No answer came to him, no voice in his head. Just silence. Deafening silence.

      But Leo understood something. Hera had been watching him his whole life. Somehow, she'd known that she'd need him. Maybe those Fates she had mentioned could tell the future. All Leo knew was that he was meant to go on this quest. Jason's prophecy had said to beware the earth. Leo was sure this had something to do with the sleeping woman wrapped in earthen robes that could turn from shifting dirt to wet, asphyxiating mud in mere seconds.

       You will find your destiny, Tía Callida had promised. You will have your quest and all of this will make sense.

      Leo might find out what that flying boat in his dreams meant, he might meet his father, he might even avenge his mother's death.

      But first things first. He'd promised Jason a flying ride.

      As much as he wanted it to be the boat of flames, he knew he hadn't the time to make it— not yet at least. No, he needed a dragon. A life-sized bronze dragon.

      He hesitated a the edge of the woods, peering into absolute blackness. Owls hooted, and something far away hissed like a chorus of snakes.

      Leo remembered what Will Solace had told him: no one should go in the woods alone, definitely not unarmed. Leo had nothing— no sword, no flashlight, no help.

      He glanced back at the lights of the cabins. He could turn around now and tell everyone that he was joking, or that he couldn't get Jason a ride. Nyssa could go on the quest, and his cabinmates could help figure something out for Jason and—  Leo was sure—  Piper. He could stay at camp and learn to be of Hephaestus cabin, to be part of a family for the first time—  second, he reminded himself. He could never forget the boy who had saved him the first time he'd come to live at Long Island. He could be a part of a family for the second time since he was eight. And maybe this one would last, maybe this time no one would die in a freak tornando.

      The Fates do not stop me from breaking your spirit, the sleeping woman had said. Remember this night when they ask you to oppose me.

      "Believe me, lady," Leo muttered. "I remember. And whoever you are, I'm gonna face-plant you hard. Leo-style."

      He took a deep breath and plunged into the forest.