Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

sing, o muse, of god-sires without warmth,
of fathers who love sons too much

to love sons like people. of sons thus
fated for disaster since birth.

tell the tale so it may be renewed:
what’s the use of stories if not

to be changed, to destroy themselves in
the sun’s fire for sugar and sap?

calliope, your silence—is it leave
for us to sing? you won’t. may we?

July 2021

The hour Pio Tanglao enters his fourth year in Camp Half-Blood, he falls out of the side of his canoe and nearly drowns in the lake.

Before this, he’d been no one. Children of Apollo, like him, were a dime a dozen; and he’d done nothing to shine in the cabin. He’s an older camper, but his younger half-siblings easily outdo him in things like archery and healing, the more heroics-oriented of their father’s domains and thus the more valued ones in camp. He helps the younger kids revise their poetry and is a talented speechwriter, but that’s it. Perhaps he would have been destined for a career in ghostwriting, or published a chapbook or two.

Then he falls.

His half-siblings scramble to fish his limp body out of the water, carry him to shore, and are relieved to see he’s breathing. Back in their cabin, they determine that he’d gone unconscious before falling in. Acting counselor Tamika Myers, Cabin 7’s best healer, determines that there’s no neurological cause, or any medical cause as far as she can tell.

“It might be a demigod powers thing,” she suggests, uncertain. Poetry wasn’t exactly a domain that manifested this dramatically.

There’s nothing to do but wait for him to wake.

When he does , it’s two days later. Pio rolls over and immediately throws up over the side of his medical cot. Thankfully, he’d known where they usually placed the bucket, so there wasn’t much of a mess.

His watcher, Lee, is simultaneously glad to see him wake and excited to spread the news—Camp’s generally a peaceful place, so Pio getting knocked out for no apparent reason is subject to curiosity and gossip.

Then Pio blinks blearily at him, and says, “Shit. Sorry about that. Uh. Who, who are you?”

Lee deflates. Pio should know who he is; he’d taught Lee how to play guitar. This question means Pio’s disoriented, and that’s a bad, bad sign. “I’m… your brother?”

Pio knits his eyebrows together, but there’s still no recognition on his face.

Lee sighs, and tries again. “Lee Fletcher?”

Immediately, Pio’s eyes widen, and he throws up again.

August 2021

Luke Castellan returns from his quest empty-handed.

He drags his feet over the grass of Half-Blood Hill, stomach churning with shame. He can’t even bear to look at Thalia’s tree. He’s glad that at least Hermes won’t be there to see him—he wouldn’t be able to stand his father’s disappointment on top of it all.

What he finds when he arrives at the mess hall is just as awful.

He hears the campers before he sees them. The clink of utensils against plates, the laughter, the bickering. For a moment, his mouth goes sour.

They’re all just kids . They know, in theory, how few of their kind survive, but they don’t know how bad things could go. They don’t know how little the gods care. The lightness of camp is artificial, Luke knows now. His wounds will remind him forever.

He climbs to the mess hall, and he hears the moment they begin to spot him: the tables hush, one by one.

And then he’s standing there empty-handed, clumsy bandaging over half his face, in front of the summer population of camp. Under everyone’s shocked gaze, his heart roils with shame, and not a little anger.

Chiron stands from the head table, and says, “We welcome Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, returning from his quest.”

That just makes the following silence worse.

The Apollo counselor, Tamika, stands. She says, “We’ll attend to his wounds,” and the campers snap out of their shock. They turn to each other, away from him, and slowly return to their meals and conversations.

Luke really ought to be grateful, but he can’t help but cringe as Tamika approaches. Her expression is concerned, but there’s pity in her eyes, soft and cloyingly sweet. He finds it’s worse than disappointment.

Then a guy stands from the Apollo table and rushes to catch Tamika’s arm, making her pause. He has soft Southeast Asian features and is around Luke’s own age, but strangely, Luke can’t place him.

“I’ll take it from here,” he says.

Tamika turns to give him a sharp look, and Luke can’t help but be relieved that her pity isn’t focused on him anymore.

“You sure?” she says. “Pio, you’re practically a patient yourself.”

“I’ll call you over if the wound is more complicated than it looks,” says the guy, Pio. “But he hasn’t bled out. It’s stitches at most, and I could use the experience.”

His half-sister’s expression transforms into one of understanding and, oddly, amusement.

“Alright,” she says. “Knock yourself out.”

A beat.

“Not literally,” she adds, stern.

Pio grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

When Tamika returns to their table, Pio glances at Luke and says, “I’m Pio, Cabin 7. Luke, right? Cabin 11?”

“That’s me,” he says, resigned.

Pio smiles. It makes him look a little more familiar as he jokes, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Luke fully expects to be grilled about his failed quest as they head to the cabins: he can’t think of any other reason this guy would volunteer. But Pio just gives him an assessing look, and says, “You got any other injuries?”

He stares, suspicious. “A few,” says Luke slowly. “Some scratches and bruises. But the ambrosia healed them, mostly.”

Pio hums. “Let’s take a look anyway, see if there’s anything we can do for them. Did you do first aid?” Luke nods, and Pio smiles, seemingly pleased. “That’s great. It’s good you made it here safely, but I wish you’d gone to a mortal clinic, gotten treated earlier.”

“And told them I was scratched by a dragon?” says Luke, more harshly than he’d meant to.

The other guy snorts. His smile doesn’t even go away; Luke can’t help but be annoyed. “Point taken. Does your wound have special dragon-caused problems? Like poison? Any unusual sensations, maybe numbing or burning?”

Luke glares at the ground. “Not as far as I can tell.”

“Noted,” says Pio. “Your other injuries, can you tell me about them?”

Luke answers shortly, and it continues this way until they get to the Apollo cabin. Pio asks if he has any other symptoms, asks him to rate his pain, and doesn’t ask anything else about the quest.

Pio opens the cabin door, and nods towards the medical cot. “Please, sit. I’ll get the materials.”

Luke sits, as he’d done so many times after training accidents or Capture the Flag. Despite himself, he feels tension begin to ebb from his body. He’d associated the Apollo cabin, with its yellow flowers and cedar beams, with safety. His stints here had meant breaks from responsibility, had meant the danger was over.

Pio returns with a bottle of water and a tray of medical supplies. Luke notices his camp necklace—there are four clay beads on it, one more than Luke’s own, which means he’s been here longer. Luke definitely should know him.

“Sorry,” says Luke. “Have we met before?”

Pio gives him an awkward smile. “Yeah. Um. I went by a different name when you left on your quest. And had longer hair.”

It doesn’t click.

“I figured out I was trans in the last few weeks,” Pio clarifies.

Luke’s eyes widen. “Ah,” he says, finally placing the face: an older Apollo kid, who wasn’t particularly good at their father’s more useful domains.

Pio coughs. “Yeah. So, new name, he/him pronouns.”

“That’s, that’s fine,” stammers Luke. “I mean, that’s great. I’m not. Judging. Congratulations. Uh, welcome to the boys’ club?”

Pio laughs, and the awkwardness goes away. “Thanks.” He sets the tray down beside the cot. “I’ll take a look at your wounds now, okay? Tell me if you want me to stop, or if anything hurts.”

He looks at the injuries Luke points out first, washing and dabbing something onto the open wounds. He attends to one on Luke’s hairline with a determined frown. This close, Luke can smell something orangey and floral on him, which is confusing.

Pio gives Luke a pill for the pain, makes him wash it down with the whole bottle of water, then cuts away Luke’s clumsy head bandaging.

Luke knows the wound doesn’t look pretty, ragged and bloody as it is; and he realizes, now, that it mars his face. He’s never thought of himself as vain, but the thought of seeing the marks of his failure every time he looks in the mirror fills him with resentment.

Pio doesn’t react at all, turning Luke’s head clinically to get a better look. “You cleaned it pretty well,” he says, which is about the last thing Luke expected. “That’s impressive—looks like it hurts like a bitch.”

“Feels like it too,” says Luke, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

Pio frowns. “I’m sorry to hear that. But it makes sense—this needs stitches.”

Luke groans.

The other guy chuckles. “That’s good, actually. Means it’ll heal faster and leave less of a scar. I’m surprised you got to camp quickly enough for this to be fresh enough to stitch, but it was a smart move.”

“I’m a permanent camper at Cabin 11,” Luke points out. “I got speed from my dad, for all the good it does.”

“Oh, I know a little about that ,” says Pio, in a tone dark enough to convince and surprise Luke, who doesn’t think a gift of poetry or whatever it is deserves that kind of vehemence. “But speaking of godly gifts, I’m not the best healer in the cabin, and this wound is bigger than I expected. I can get Tamika to sew you up if you like. She’ll be faster and neater.”

Luke thinks of the pity again, and shudders. “No, you do it,” he says, almost immediately.

Pio gives him a skeptical look. “Really?”

“I’m sure.”

He hums. “Okay,” he says, still sounding dubious. “You want anesthesia?”

“No,” says Luke.

Pio gives him an even more skeptical look. “It’ll hurt. I won’t judge.”

He hesitates.

“No one will know besides us,” adds Pio.

Somehow, Luke believes him.

“Fine.”

December 2021

Percy thinks the college-aged guy who’s trying to befriend him is weird at first. Obviously.

It doesn’t help that when he first sees the guy, it looks like he’d made Percy’s Mom cry . When he arrives from boarding school, he sees them sitting across each other at Smelly Gabe’s dinner table, and the guy’s smiling as Mom blows into a tissue.

“Mom?” says Percy.

She looks up, and her smile is trembling . “Oh, Percy,” she says in a falsely light voice. “You’re home early.”

“I took a taxi,” he says, setting down his luggage.

Percy’s weighing the pros and cons of attacking the stranger, when she gestures at the guy. “Percy, meet… um, Pio. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your full name.”

“That’s alright, Aunt Sally,” says the guy. He directs his smile towards Percy, who’s alarmed by how disarming it is. “My name is Orpeo Tanglao, but you’re welcome to call me Pio.” He hesitates, then adds, “I’d also be really pleased if you called me Kuya .”

Percy shoots his mother a questioning look, but Mom just nods. “Pio, meet my son Percy. Pio is a relative from your father’s side.”

A beat.

“What,” says Percy flatly.

“I’m pretty sure I’m your first cousin once removed,” says Pio. “I think that’s how the family tree works.”

Percy’s not even sure what that means. “I just. Why are you here?” He’s never even met his dad. Percy doesn’t know his name, let alone any of his relatives.

Pio shrugs, his expression shifting into one of embarrassment. “I heard about you, and I was in town, and I was like ‘Huh, this kid sounds a lot like me, maybe I can lend a hand.’”

That doesn’t sound right. People don’t work that way, in Percy’s experience.

He focuses on something else instead. “I didn’t know we had Filipino relatives.”

“You and I don’t actually share any DNA,” says Pio, which just makes the situation more confusing.

He crosses his arms. “So why are you here?”

“Percy,” says his Mom.

“What do you want ?” Percy presses.

Pio spreads his hands. “I honestly just thought you could use someone who kinda gets your situation,” he says—which, again, is not how people work. “And I came to bring some news to your Mom.”

Percy frowns, his mind jumping to the most extreme conclusion. “Did my dad die? Is that why Mom was crying?”

“What? No,” says Pio, looking a little amused. “No, your dad’s plenty healthy.”

His Mom sighs. “No, sweetheart, Pio just told me some news from your dad’s side of the family. It might make things more complicated than I’d thought.” She must spot Percy’s anger brewing on his face, because she hurries to add, “It’s not because of your dad, or Pio for that matter.”

“I found some things out that I thought Aunt Sally should know,” says Pio, almost flippant.

“Am I allowed to know?” says Percy, annoyed. “Or is this adults-only?”

Mom and Pio exchange a look, which tells Percy everything he needs to know.

“I think you should tell him some of it,” says Pio.

“Is it safe?” says Mom worriedly.

“Just… cut out the weird parts.” He gives Percy an apologetic look. “Sorry, Percy. It’d be dangerous for you, if you knew the whole picture.”

Percy stands his ground. A link to his father is sitting in their kitchen. He’s going to get some answers whether they like it or not. “You said there are weird parts.” He thinks of the strange creatures he sees, the winged horses and the multi-headed monsters. “Weird how?”

Pio looks way too knowing for this to be unrelated. “Probably close to what you’re thinking,” he admits.

“Pio…” says Mom.

He glances at her and softens. “You shelter him well, Aunt Sally, but you can’t protect him forever.” Pio reaches out and squeezes her wrist. “You gotta let him dip his toes.”

“But don’t push him in right now,” she says. “Let him stay innocent a little longer.”

“I’m ten, not a baby,” says Percy, indignant. “Whatever it is, I can take it.”

Pio covers his mouth in a move that annoys Percy, because Percy knows it means he’s trying not to laugh.

Mom frowns and says, “Honey, we mean well. If we tell you all of the truth, it’ll mean you’d be stressed out about it for the rest of your life.” Percy opens his mouth to insist, but she barrels on: “It also means you’d have to be away from me for a few months, and I’d rather put that off for another year if possible.”

Percy closes his mouth. “Away from you? Where?”

“There’s a camp on Long Island that members of our family attend when we, um, get plunged into the deep end,” Pio explains, snickering like he’d made a joke Percy doesn’t get. “It’s a year-round camp, but most people only stay through summer.”

“A camp,” repeats Percy, getting a bad feeling about this. “Like a boot camp?”

“Oh, no!” says Pio immediately. Then he pauses. “Or, well, kinda?”

Percy looks at his Mom, who says, “They’re not going to drill you, Percy, I wouldn’t allow that.” She shoots Pio a quelling look which, funnily enough, makes the guy look chastened even though Mom can’t be more than fifteen years older.

“We’re a fun outdoorsy type of camp,” assures Pio. “We sing campfire songs and do canoeing and horseback riding and everything. Just, you’ll also learn certain skills you’ll end up needing, because you’re one of us.”

“I’m not one of you,” says Percy firmly. “I don’t want anything to do with my dad’s side of the family. He’s never been there for us.”

Pio studies him. “Sorry, kiddo,” he says after a few moments. “You don’t really have a choice in whether you are or not.” Percy glares, and he backtracks. “It’s not up to us, Percy, it’s just the way of the world.”

“It can be good for you, honey,” says Mom, smoothing Percy’s hair.

“Camp is awesome,” says Pio. “I’ve never felt so understood anywhere. Most kids there are like us, you know, neurodivergent—it’s nice, there’s a sense of solidarity.”

Percy thinks about it. He’s never had a community of people like him. “You said you were a camper too?”

Pio smiles self-deprecatingly. “I was a year-rounder. I work there now.”

“You didn’t want to go home?” says Percy, surprised. He can’t imagine his dad’s side of the family being nicer than whatever other family Pio had.

“Percy,” says Mom warningly. “You don’t have to explain, Orpeo.”

“It’s okay, Aunt Sally. It’s simple, really. My dad was like yours, absent, and my mom was never chill with the ADHD,” explains Pio. “She and I fought a lot, and I couldn’t stay at home any longer. Camp’s safer than being unhoused.”

Percy opens his mouth, then closes it. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I prefer camp anyway. You’ll meet the best friends of your life there,” Pio promises.

“So this camp, it’s um—accepting?”

He lights up. “It’s kind of part of the package. Neurodivergent people are more often queer, did you know that? And we’ve got people of all colors and ethnicities, even kids from other countries. Most of us aren’t from traditional family structures either. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but it was like a miracle for me, Percy, being among that many kids my age who understood . I’m hoping it’ll be that way for you too.”

“That’s… cool.”

His Mom reads his face way too well: “You like the idea,” she observes.

“Okay, yeah, I’m interested,” Percy admits reluctantly.

She laughs. “I originally wanted you to go the summer you’re twelve, but well, Pio advised me you might want to go earlier. I was thinking about you going next winter break?”

“Wouldn’t summer make more sense?”

“It’s too early,” says Mom. “I’d like to have my little boy for one last summer, thank you.”

Percy blushes. “Mom,” he complains.

Pio clears his throat. Percy looks at him, a little embarrassed.

“Uh, I was hoping,” he says, “that you wouldn’t be opposed to me paying you visits before then? Just, checking on you and stuff. Take you for ice cream, stuff like that.”

“And you’ll, what, report back to my dad?”

Pio shakes his head. “Percy, I’ve never even met your dad. This is just… cousin to cousin.”

Percy stares at him thoughtfully, then says, “What do you think, Mom?”

Mom’s also measuring Pio up, looking the guy up and down. He’s short for his age, smiling nervously, and bundled in bright clothing. There are woven friendship bracelets on his wrist and he’s wearing at least two layers of shirts and jackets over a turtleneck, like he can’t stand to be cold. Percy can’t help but think that it makes him look scruffy but soft.

“I’m not against it,” says Mom slowly. “It’s up to you, hon.”

Percy nods, making a decision.

“Blue raspberry sherbet.”

Pio blinks. “Sorry?”

“Take me for blue raspberry sherbet and you have a deal.”

His cousin’s eyes brighten, and the smile that takes over his face is wide and sunny. “Deal.”

March 2022

One week before the month’s Capture the Flag, the new Apollo head counselor slips Annabeth a note in the arena.

He tries to be sneaky about it, slipping it into her pocket as he walks past, but he isn’t very subtle—Apollo kids never are. As he leaves with his half-siblings, he’s elbowed and teased, which Annabeth thinks doesn’t bode well.

Still, she unfolds it as her cabinmates start with their sword forms.

Please meet me at the armory before dinner. Will exchange important info —Pio Cabin 7

She does recognize that name. Pio Tanglao had been the subject of the rumor mill a year ago, having fallen unconscious into the sea just weeks after he’d come out as a trans guy. She’d just never connected his name with the quiet guy who replaced Tamika at counselor meetings.

More personally, he’d been rumored to like like Luke the year before that. That was probably what his siblings’ elbowing was about; everyone knows Annabeth and Luke are close. That tidbit about the crush had faded from gossip when Pio had done nothing about it, but it had made Annabeth take a dislike to him. He wasn’t good enough for Luke—he wasn’t even good at being an Apollo kid.

Still, Apollo kids have a reputation for sussing things out, and the note does say Pio has information. Annabeth goes to the little shed they call the armory at twilight, expecting something good.

Pio’s already arrived, which is unsurprising. He has his back to her and is waving an Ancient Bronze javelin around in a way that’s so far off form it’s ridiculous. That weapon isn’t going to be missed if he screws up, but it will be embarrassing if he injures himself, so she takes pity.

“Stick to the bow,” Annabeth advises, leaning against the doorway.

He jolts and turns to her, smiling like he’d been caught out. “Oh! Hi, Annabeth. Uh, I’m not abandoning the bow, I just need a close-combat option.”

“Javelins aren’t swords.” Is he stupid? “They’re for long range too.”

“I wasn’t thinking of using it as a javelin.” He takes one and reaches towards the blade at the end, untying it from the shaft and pulling.

“You’re definitely not supposed to do that,” she says, frowning. “What are you meant to do with a stick?”

He brandishes it in a way that looks like a form. “It’s an escrima stick,” he tells her. “Well—it will be two sticks when I reforge it.”

“That’s not a Greek weapon,” she points out.

He sets the blades down on a table. “Well, I can have this blade reforged a little bit, and then I can use it as a dagger, which is a Greek weapon.”

Annabeth scowls. “Is that what you called me here for? Weapon advice?”

“No,” he says sheepishly. “You know, you’re way more intimidating than I’d expect a twelve-year-old to be.”

“I’m eleven,” she tells him.

“More to the point.” He sets the weapon down and holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wanted to talk to you, man to man. Or camper to camper, as it were.”

She nods, satisfied with the change of topic. “You said you have information,” she says. “I presume it’s about Capture the Flag.”

“No,” he says. Then, “Well, sort of. That’s my excuse, and it is relevant.”

She frowns again. “What is it about, then?”

He scratches his cheek, still with that sheepish smile. “Mainly, I’m approaching you as Luke’s sister,” he says.

“I’m not his sister,” she says reflexively, not liking this one bit.

“If it makes you more comfortable, you can think of it as me approaching my Capture the Flag general about her other commander.” He crosses his arms. “I don’t think Luke’s been sleeping well.”

Annabeth thinks back to the last time she’d spoken to Luke: breakfast this morning. There hadn’t been bags under his eyes, but some people could stay awake without developing those, so that didn’t rule it out. He’d shown no other signs of fatigue, though.

“I need you to back up that claim,” she tells Pio.

He shakes his head. “I just have a source.”

“I don’t usually go around believing people without evidence,” she says, annoyed.

He huffs. “What reason do I have to lie to you?”

Anything. Annabeth can’t think of specifics right now, but she’s pretty sure there’s some reason. You couldn’t trust adults without evidence or prior goodwill.

Neither of them say anything for a long moment, then he sighs. “Annabeth, you’re my general. If you won’t trust me as a camper, then trust me as your third-in-command.”

“Fine,” she bites out. “We’ll talk to him tomorrow. Our cabins have archery together, and you can skip out on strawberry field duty.”

“ We’ll talk to him?” the Apollo counselor says in a high voice. “I think he’ll trust you more if you’re alone.”

“If you’re lying to me, then you’ll face Luke yourself.”

Pio reddens. “Fine.”

She half-expects him not to turn up the next day, which would be nice. Luke’s the busiest counselor in camp, so archery is one of the few times he and Annabeth are in the same space together.

Still, she’s a woman of her word.

“You’ll have to hang back from classes,” she tells Luke that morning, when they’re at the archery range. “Let someone else take charge. I’m waiting for someone to arrive; he wants us to talk to you about something.”

“Sure.” Luke smiles at her, a real smile. It’s as affectionate as ever. Annabeth basks in it, even as she searches for signs of tiredness. She comes away uncertain—was it less wide than usual? More crooked?

“Let the new kid lead,” she suggests after a moment.

“Michael?” Luke glances over at the East Asian kid who’s already shooting bulls-eyes only two months since he first held a bow. He was about Annabeth’s age, and clearly an Apollo kid. Everyone could see it—but he was still unclaimed, so what could they do? “I think he already is leading.”

“Good. I’ll go give Malcolm some instructions.”

She’s about to come back to Luke’s side when Pio bursts into the arena. He heads straight to her, his harried face smeared with dirt, still holding a trowel.

“Sorry, Annabeth, got a little held up by the kids, I didn’t mean to be late.”

“It’s okay,” she says, a little confused. She appreciates the usual Apollo kid promptness, but this level of stress isn’t warranted.

Luke plucks the trowel from his hands, and Pio seems to notice he’s there for the first time. “Oh, shit! Hi. Hello, Luke. Thanks, shouldn’t have been running around with that.” He looks appropriately embarrassed.

“I get it. The ADHD, right?” Pio nods. “I thought so.” Luke turns to Annabeth. “Is this who wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes. Luke, meet Pio Tanglao, head counselor of the Apollo cabin.”

“We’ve met,” says Luke, giving Pio a small smile. “You didn’t have to go through Annabeth to talk to me, Pio.”

Luke sounds more subdued than usual, Annabeth notes; he’s not his usual friendly, grinning self. She’s never seen him like this, even when he’s mad at someone; she isn’t quite sure what it means. She doesn’t like the feeling.

Pio, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to notice. He laughs awkwardly. “Sorry. I just thought it would be, um. Less weird.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “He asked me to ask you something, and I said ‘Talk to him yourself.’”

“Good call, Annabeth.” Luke looks back at Pio. “What’s up? My kids pranked yours again?”

Pio groans. The glitter prank must’ve been before he was counselor, but he clearly remembers it. “Ugh. No, nothing like that. I, um, I was worried about you, actually.”

Luke’s hand goes up to his scar. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“He said you haven’t been sleeping well,” says Annabeth. “Is that true, Luke?”

Luke’s hand stills, a subtle tell Annabeth had picked up on—it means he’s about to lie to her, but doesn’t particularly want to. “No, how’d you get that idea?”

“I have my sources,” says Pio vaguely.

“Well, they’re wrong, or lying. I’ve been sleeping like a baby.”

Annabeth isn’t sure why he’s lying about this. She trusts he has a good reason, but she can’t think of one, so she presses: “Are you sure? If you need help with your counselor duties, I can take some on.”

Pio beams at Annabeth, but she isn’t looking at him, so she spots when Luke gives him a glare she’s pretty sure she wasn’t meant to see.

“No. I’m fine, Annabeth, really,” he says gently as he turns back to her, not a trace of the glare on his face.

“No, no,” she says, crossing her arms. “I’m worried now. You should get rest, if only for Capture the Flag.”

Luke points at Pio. “Then you should be more worried about your other commander. He wakes up before dawn to practice his archery.”

Annabeth raises an eyebrow at Pio, who shrugs. “I need practice. I suck,” he says shamelessly. “But! You wouldn’t know about that if you didn’t wake up at least as early as me!”

“He’s right. Luke, don’t change the subject,” says Annabeth.

Pio looks honestly delighted. “You are the best ally ever, and I’m glad I came to you,” he says to Annabeth. “Listen to the Athena kid, golden boy!”

Luke actually growls , jabbing a finger into Pio’s chest. “You are insufferable, and I don’t know why I thought we might become friends,” he says. It’s so uncharacteristic that Annabeth becomes fully convinced that he’s sleep-deprived.

The other boy raises his eyebrows, but he just grins. Apollo kids are usually pretty cheerful, but Annabeth thought that was enough for any normal person to stop being so upbeat. She wonders again if he’s stupid, aware that it isn’t a very kind thought to have.

“You thought we might become friends?” says Pio. “I’m flattered.”

Luke reddens and glares, like he wants to say something. But what does someone say to that?

Annabeth sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re the Apollo counselor,” she says to Pio, “how do you fix his sleep patterns?”

Pio tilts his head. “We’ll have to monitor him for a couple nights, see what’s the root cause, but it’s usually a sleep hygiene thing. Earlier lights out, less tiring activities.”

“That’s impossible,” says Luke frustratedly. “I have twice as many campers as you, and they’re only getting manier .”

Pio shrugs. “I can take over your after-dinner duties until we figure your thing out.”

Annabeth scoffs. “That’s stupid, you can’t handle both the biggest cabins in camp on your own.”

Luke spreads his hands. “Yes, Annabeth, thank you. I’ll be fine, there’s no need for this… all this.”

She ignores him. “I’ll help,” she says to Pio.

Pio directs that bright grin at her again, and she shifts uncomfortably. “Great! Thanks, Annabeth. It’s all sorted out.”

“You can’t do that forever,” Luke points out. “I’ll have to go back to Cabin 11 eventually. If you really wanna help, get your kids out of my cabin.” He jabs a thumb towards Michael, who’s started doing arrow tricks for the younger kids, shooting things they throw into the air.

Pio looks, and his eyebrows rise. “Yeah, okay, that’s definitely one of mine. What’s his name? When did he arrive?”

“That’s Michael Yew,” says Luke, a little more calmly. “He arrived two months ago.”

Suddenly, Pio looks sick to his stomach, which Annabeth thinks is a bit of an extreme reaction.

“Michael,” he repeats. “And he hasn’t been claimed by dad?”

Luke gives Annabeth a questioning look. She shrugs. Sure, Apollo claimed his children pretty consistently, but two months was hardly a lot of time to wait to be claimed—some kids died waiting.

“Don’t look so freaked out,” Luke tells Pio. “He has a sleeping bag, I’ve been taking care of him.”

“You shouldn’t have had to. Two months ,” repeats Pio. “He taught himself archery without even meeting his siblings, gods.”

“Most kids are like that,” says Annabeth. “I don’t know why you’re shocked.”

“No, I know, it’s just—it’s Michael Yew ,” he says, which explains nothing. “This isn’t right.”

“It’s not a simple fix,” says Luke. “It’s been like this forever. You’d have to change the gods .”

Pio’s mouth settles into a line. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Annabeth echoes, watching as Pio steps out of the shade of the clouds, into a beam of sunlight.

Luke’s frowning. “What is he—oh no ,” he says, as Pio cups his hands around his mouth and looks towards the sun.

“Dad!” he shouts. “Hey, dad! Claim your kid!”

“Are you seeing this?” says Luke, disbelieving.

“He’s not stupid. He’s insane,” says Annabeth, with a little reluctant admiration.

“Apollo!”

“Gods. Pio, stop,” says Luke, pulling him out of the sunbeam.

“Apollo, I got a haiku for you!” Pio continues yelling. “ Green grass breaks through snow/Your car is right above us/Claim your fucking kid .”

Luke puts a hand over his mouth. “Stop it. Stop, you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

Pio drags it away. “Have a little faith,” he says to Luke. Annabeth barely has time to process how ridiculous that is right now before he’s yelling again: “Dad, come on!”

Then the impossible happens: the clouds part, just over Michael Yew as he’s nocking an arrow into his bow. It gets into his eyes, and the arrow should have gone wildly off course. Instead it redirects itself midair, and hits its target right into the bull’s-eye.

To cap it off, a shining sunburst appears over Michael’s head.

The following silence is clearly stunned.

“What the fuck ,” Luke whispers.

Annabeth gets herself together before everyone else, which is only natural.

“The sign of Phoebus Apollo,” she announces. “The Great Physician. Far-Shooter, City-Founder, Rouser of Armies. Hail, Michael Yew, Son of the Sun God.”

As everyone lowers themself to bow, Annabeth glances at Pio’s face. She can’t help but think that his victorious grin looks a little terrified, too.

Good. Then her new ally isn’t completely insane.

June 2022

When Apollo comes calling, he calls the wrong name.

Pio comes anyway, on the hill where the sun rises on Camp Half-Blood. He’s somber in the way he’s been since that fateful birthday, when he’d become hyper-aware of how bad things could get for more reasons than just a near-death experience.

It’s dawn when his father arrives, quite literally blinding. He resists the temptation to look at Apollo’s godly form until he resolves into his mortal shape: a man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, blond and lithe with the shoulders of an archer. The air around him crackles with the scent of citrus and something metallic but sweet, like welding fumes.

Pio goes down on one knee and bows, only because it’s customary. “My lord.”

Apollo snorts. “You certainly didn’t have that much respect for your dad when you bandied my name around your camp,” he scoffs. “Rise, kid. Tell me about this new form you’ve taken.”

That’s certainly a poetic way to describe Pio’s new haircut and binder. “I’m transgender,” he says for the hundredth time as he stands. “I’m a boy, actually.”

His father claps once. “Oh, sick,” he says. Pio isn’t sure what he expected, but that wasn’t it. “Did you change your name? What are you called now?”

Suddenly embarrassed, Pio shifts his weight between his feet. “Um. Orpeo,” he says. “Pio for short.”

Apollo grins. “Classy, naming yourself after my apprentice. He was a good kid. I like it.”

It has nothing to do with Apollo, but Pio keeps his mouth shut. “Thank you.”

“Pity what happened to him and Eurydice,” sighs his father. “I’m not sure why you’d link yourself with that tragedy. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.”

“What is?” says Pio, cautious.

Apollo points at him. “Well, you pressuring me into claiming your brother, for one,” he says, as stern as he gets. “The haiku was a nice touch, but don’t do that again. I was gonna get to it!”

Pio’s head twinges with annoyance.

“Michael was in the Hermes cabin for two months,” he says, more snappily than he’d meant to. “It was obvious to everyone that he was our brother, but he couldn’t move in. And it sucks to stay in Cabin 11!”

Apollo raises an eyebrow, and Pio snaps his mouth shut, suddenly afraid.

But then he says, “It does?”

Pio wonders if the sharp expression on his father’s face is interest.

“Yeah,” he says, more carefully. “It’s overcrowded, you can’t step anywhere without tripping over a sleeping bag. There are so many people that the counselor can’t give you enough attention during training or if you’re stressed. And…” He hesitates. “It just sucks. To feel like you’re not even worth your dad’s acknowledgement.”

Apollo frowns. “Huh. I didn’t realize that.”

Pio looks back at him, mildly surprised. But it makes sense, given what he knows of his dad, and what he knows of his dad.

“I guess you were busy,” he mumbles.

“I would’ve made time if I’d known it was like that,” says Apollo. There’s displeasure on his divine face, but Pio isn’t sure what it’s directed towards.

“…It’s an easy fix,” says Pio hesitantly. “Just. You know. Claim your kids when they arrive.”

Apollo fixes his eyes on his son’s, and Pio is struck by his gaze. His father’s eyes are quite literally the color of the sky on a clear day: so blue they’re blinding.

Gods, he can’t help but think, Dad needs contacts.

“You think so?” says Apollo. Pio can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic.

“I just. I don’t get why you have to wait,” he says, scratching his cheek. “There’s no rule against it.”

Apollo tilts his head in a gesture that reminds Pio startlingly of himself. “Well. I figured it would mean more if you, you know—felt like you earned it,” he says.

He’s so incredibly wrong. “I think it hurts my siblings, actually. It makes them feel like they have to earn your acknowledgement,” says Pio slowly.

His father nods, seeming to process it. He finds a large, smooth rock on the ground and seats himself, for the first time looking like he might actually stay long enough to have a proper conversation. He still looks like a classical statue, but his pose makes him look so human .

“Gotcha,” he says. “Anything else I can do?”

Pio stares, genuinely shocked. “Pardon?”

“Is there anything else I can do?” Apollo repeats, not seeming annoyed at all.

His son scrambles mentally, not having expected this question at all. “Uh, you could come visit every couple weeks?” he says, unsure if this is even on the table. “Some of your kids are really young, they’d be ecstatic to see you.”

Apollo actually smiles . “Well, it would be nice to see you kids more often,” he says. “And you’ve already given me the perfect excuse.”

Pio has no clue what he’s talking about. “I have?”

“You need to be monitored, or you’ll mess things up and end up like Hal. No one wants that, not even my father,” says Apollo. “Hell, you’ve gone and meddled already. That’s actually the other thing I wanted to talk to you about.”

He has a bad feeling about this. “I’m not sure what you mean,” says Pio. “Is this about… what happened on my eighteenth birthday?”

“Duh. You went and had the longest vision anyone’s had since the Oracle of Delphi had a living host,” says Apollo, point-blank.

Pio flinches. It sounds so heavy when said out loud.

“You know about that?” he says. Then, “Sorry, right. God of prophecy.” He laughs nervously.

Apollo hums. “That wasn’t a prophecy, son. Not a true one, anyway,” he says.

It certainly seemed like one. “But… I saw things that haven’t happened yet. The future.”

“Not the future,” corrects Apollo. “More like, different tellings of it, yeah? There must’ve been clear differences.”

Pio nods. “I wasn’t there in those… tellings . It was like I didn’t exist, as far as I could tell.”

“Weird, but not impossible,” says his father, shrugging.

“In one of them a demigod slayed a gorgon using an iPod,” Pio recalls. “That can’t happen in the future, they stopped selling iPods since… I don’t even know.”

Apollo looks wistful. “Ah, iPods. Streaming just isn’t the same. But yes. I don’t know the specifics, but the broad strokes should be similar.”

Pio’s heart sinks.

“No.”

“Yes,” says Apollo gently. “That’s how the story goes, and as an Oracle, it’s your responsibility to let it be told.”

“I can’t accept that,” says Pio stiffly. Those futures he’s seen were bloody, full of the suffering of innocents and the deaths of siblings and friends. Even his father suffers in those futures, and even if he’s absent most of the time, Pio’s starting to find he actually likes Apollo. “It—I can’t just do nothing.”

“You have a gift even I don’t have,” says his father. “But it’s one that other gods will punish you for misusing. Fate and destiny—those aren’t our purview, kiddo. We just take peeks.”

Pio shudders. He turns on his heel, and paces. “You said that happened to Hal. The punishment. Do you mean Halcyon Green? I saw him too. He was punished for using his visions to meddle with fate, right?”

“Yes. He was my last child to see the future,” says Apollo, knitting his eyebrows together.

He inhales. “But you said— Dad , you said I didn’t see the future. Just… tellings of it.”

Apollo tilts his head again. “Where are you going with this?” he says, curious.

“Fate and destiny aren’t our purview, but stories are. Right? Poetry, song. Oral histories, passed from fire to fire in the old way. The hero’s journey, katabasis , nostos . Those are yours .”

His father seems to puff up with pride. “Right.”

Pio nods jerkily. “I wasn’t in those visions, I wasn’t an actor . That, that means this isn’t the same telling. And stories, when they’re retold, they change.”

He sees the moment Apollo understands what he means, because his father’s face slowly splits into a grin. “You’re saying,” Apollo says, “that you think maybe your vision wasn’t from my prophetic domain, but the poetic one.”

Pio sinks to his knees, simultaneously hopeful and desperate. “Dad,” he says. “Lord Apollo. Please, tell me I’m not an Oracle.”

Tell me I don’t have to watch him fall.

“Maybe not,” says Apollo, his face bright with excitement. “Maybe you’re what I intended you to be all along.”

It feels like the very earth is swaying under Pio’s knees. It feels like he’s about to do something embarrassing, like throw up on his godly father’s feet or burst into tears.

His voice cracks as he says, “Please.”

“You aren’t an Oracle, Orpeo.” His father smiles, and it’s beatific the way Pio’s youngest siblings must imagine it to be. “You’re a poet.”

Chapter Text

Later in June 2022

“Happy birthday!”

Luke groans playfully as he turns to the sea, already bracing himself for another birthday prank. The day had been full of them, and he wasn’t taking the confetti and misplaced whipped cream too well. He was sleep-deprived as usual, his night too full of Titanly enticement for things like restful dreams.

Kronos was angry, Luke was bitter. Luke didn’t like the idea of serving another authority, but surely anything had to be better than the gods. It made sense .

Still, he couldn’t give anything away to the kids, so he puts up a brave face.

But all he sees on the beach is Pio Tanglao, sitting on the sand in Luke’s usual spot, with a box on his lap.

“Oh,” he says, put out. “You.”

“Me,” says Pio cheerfully. “Sorry for taking over your hiding spot. I needed to get your attention for a moment.”

“Don’t you do that enough?” says Luke, settling in the spot next to him. “What with the sleep vigil?” He’s kind of annoyed, so he glares. He wouldn’t be so cross with anyone else, but Pio’s the rare camper who’s both older than him and not someone he seeks approval from: Luke doesn’t need to spare his feelings.

“The sleep vigil isn’t the best time for this,” says Pio, still blandly friendly as the sea breeze blows his hair into his face. He lifts the box into Luke’s hands. “Here’s your birthday present.”

Luke takes it numbly. He couldn’t remember the last time someone went to the trouble of wrapping him a present—he got presents, sure, but generally from kids whose ADHD barely let them hide it in the cabin, let alone make it look nice. The box in his hands isn’t in gift wrap, but it has a bow on it all the same: a type of ribbon he remembers from the arts and crafts pavilion. “You got me a present?”

Pio, the bastard, rolls his eyes. “That’s generally what you do on someone’s birthday, yes.”

“But—we’re not even friends .” Luke would know if they were friends, right? He’d feel something other than frustration around Pio, if that were the case.

“Maybe on your side,” says Pio. “But I care about you. Surprise!” He wiggles his fingers.

Luke can’t help the short laugh that escapes him. It probably sounds unintentionally condescending, but it makes Pio look quietly pleased with himself, which is at least less annoying than his usual grin.

“You should probably open it now.”

Luke nods, pulls at the bow, and takes the lid off. Underneath is a bunch of different things: two poetry books; a BEST COUNSELOR mug that Luke is definitely never using; a harmonica; a few button pins preserving crayon drawings from his younger kids, including one from Will, who’d been his for a day before being claimed by Apollo. There’s even an acid wash Star Wars shirt, which takes Luke aback—he didn’t think he’d ever mentioned his liking for Star Wars to anyone.

At the corner, there’s a nested box. Luke opens it, and sees a cake with messy off-white frosting, his name written unevenly on the top in what looks like freehanded sprinkles.

“I know it looks bad, but it should taste good,” says Pio. His smile looks sheepish. “I’m just not very good at icing.”

“You made this?” says Luke, disbelieving. “You?”

“Yeeeeees?” Pio scrutinizes his face. “Is that bad?”

“No. I’m sorry.” Luke drags a hand over his face, unable to decipher what he’s feeling. “No one’s baked something just for me in… I don’t even know. Years.”

Pio smiles, but there’s a trace of sadness on his face. It’s the first time Luke has seen him look something other than focused or pointlessly cheerful, and he’s frankly surprised by how well-worn it seems to be in Pio’s features.

“Come on. You know that’s not true.”

He doesn’t leave a moment for Luke to decipher that, because then he’s sticking a candle into the top and lighting it with sun-child magic sparks.

“Do you want me to sing you the song?” says Pio, waggling his eyebrows. The reflection of the flame flickers in his glasses.

Luke snorts, uncomfortable. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“As you like,” he says with a shrug. “Happy birthday, Luke. Make a wish.”

Luke hesitates, then wishes for a wild moment for everything to work out. For him to not have to go to extremes, to promise his soul to a great-grandfather who’d swallowed his children whole. For everything to change .

He blows out the candles. For a moment the wish hangs there, so ridiculous that it almost has form.

Then his reverie is abruptly broken by Pio’s applause.

“Happy 18 years,” says Pio. He’s grinning, but his eyes are—different. “Welcome to being an adult. May you have many years more.”

Before, Luke might have dismissed him as mocking. But now he looks at Pio and wonders if he’s just being really, painfully sincere. If people like that even exist in the world of demigods and monsters, of retribution and war.

Annabeth had said he was insane. Maybe he was insane in a specific way that allowed him to argue with the sun god and win, that let him think of Luke’s worst side as a friend.

“I might also have a bottle of pinot noir in my backpack,” chirps Pio. “Depends on whether or not you’ll snitch about it. I don’t know you well enough to know.”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose. “What’s your agenda?” he asks abruptly.

“I—huh?”

“What do you want?” he presses. “There must be something.”

Pio looks a little lost. “I wanted to do something nice for your birthday?”

“So pity?” Luke resists the impulse to touch his scar. “Or do you want something concrete? Come out with it now, so I can tell you if it’s possible or not.”

Pio’s lips press into a line, which is more like it. Luke can deal with frustration, not whatever it had been on Pio’s face before then. “I want you to be happy.”

“For what?” he demands. “Favors? Trust? Affection? Or do you just have a hero complex?”

“Can’t it be an end in itself?”

“Nobody wants that as an en—”

“I do!” says Pio loudly. “I’m trying to reduce the misery in this stupid world. Can you not interrogate me about it?”

He’s sitting bolt upright, breathing heavily, eyes shining fiercely behind his Coke-bottle glasses. Luke is possessed with an insane urge to pull him forward, which he ignores with sharp resolve.

“I don’t believe you,” he says. There must be a catch, somewhere.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” says Pio, sounding irritated for the first time in the years Luke’s been acquainted with him. “Do you want wine or not?”

Luke rubs his eyes. “That’s very illegal; I don’t know if it’s a good idea. How did you even get that?”

“If you don’t want wine, I don’t have wine.”

“I never said I didn’t want to try it, smartass,” snaps Luke.

Pio huffs, but there’s a half-smile on his face again, which means he somehow hasn’t been driven away by Luke questioning his thoughtful gifts. He pulls a bottle and two plastic cups from his bag, and pours a half cup of dark red liquid for both of them.

“You gotta swirl it first,” he advises as he passes one to Luke. “It oxidizes the alcohol, or so I’ve been told.”

Luke does as he instructs, then takes a sniff. “Is it supposed to smell like that?”

Pio gives him a narrow-eyed smile that Luke doesn’t like very much. “Yeah. First time?”

Luke glowers. “Where am I supposed to get it in camp, genius? And besides, no one wants me to be drinking alcohol when I’m in charge of three dozen kids.”

“You really are a golden boy,” says Pio, but it doesn’t sound malicious. Almost… admiring. “You care about your kids a lot, huh?”

“Doesn’t make it any easier,” says Luke, relaxing a bit at his tone. “Especially with all the newbies during summer, gods.”

“Ugh, I’ll drink to that,” grumbles Pio, raising his glass.

Their fingers brush when Luke clinks his cup against it, like he’d seen in a million movies. “To summer being the worst time of year.”

“May you have many more,” says Pio sweetly, and Luke rolls his eyes.

They drink.

August 2022

Percy gets called to the principal’s office on his second Friday at Yancy, which Grover thinks is early even for a demigod. Even for one Chiron personally went to scope out.

When the kid meets him at lunch with nothing but a little missive in a yellow envelope, Grover hides his relief. “So, what’d they want you for?”

“They just had mail for me, apparently,” says Percy, plopping down at their usual table. He tears the envelope open with absolutely no ceremony.

“What does it say?” he says, after a minute. Best to give demigods time to read; the dyslexia could be hard on them.

“My cousin’s in town,” says Percy, his expression brightening. “He’s invited me to lunch tomorrow.”

Grover hides his surprise. He hasn’t spoken to Sally yet, but this contradicts the info he got on his stakeout. “You said you didn’t have family on your mom’s side.”

“This cousin’s from my dad’s side,” says his charge, slipping the missive into his bag. “There are a lot of them, apparently? This is the only one who made contact, though.”

Now Grover’s alarmed. What is this cousin: a monster, a naiad, a rogue demigod ? “Your dad’s side? I thought you had no contact with him.”

“I know, it’s weird .” Percy huffs. “Mom’s really secretive about it, but I’ve met the guy who made contact like every few weeks, and he seems nice enough.”

So Sally trusts this cousin. That’s either a good sign, or a very bad one. Based on experience, Grover would bet on the latter. “That’s cool. I’m not close with any of my cousins. What’s it like?”

Percy makes a face. “Well, he’s super anti-phone,” he says, like that’s inherently a bad thing. “But he’s ADHD too, so he kinda gets it.”

This is definitely a demigod. Grover will have to follow Percy out of Yancy tomorrow, see who this cousin is.

“That slaps.” Percy doesn’t react, so Grover probably used that word correctly. “I’m just glad you have an excuse to get out of Yancy. Not even two weeks in here and I already feel like I’m in jail.”

Seriously, most demigods didn’t go to boarding schools . Or attract this much monstrous attention. Somebody probably had it out for Grover when the Council assigned him this kid.

Percy gives his hand a sympathetic pat. “There, there. I’ll bring you enchiladas when I get back.”

On second thought, maybe the gods loved him. “You’re the best.”

Grover thinks of enchiladas as he walks up to Chiron’s office that night.

“A rogue demigod,” the centaur muses behind his desk. It’s strange to see him in his false wheelchair, not to mention vaguely offensive.

“It might be nothing,” says Grover, although he doubts it. “Maybe it’s just one of our summer campers, who’s sniffed him out as being like them.”

“With a half-blood as potentially powerful as our charge, it isn’t wise to take our chances.” Chiron sighs. “It does sound best for you to follow him.”

Grover nods. “I was thinking we should give Percy a weapon earlier. In case this cousin turns out to be, you know. Violent.”

Chiron gives him an appraising look. “Very well. I trust you can plant Anaklusmos on his person.”

“Riptide?” says Grover with surprise. “Sir, I don’t like to question your judgment, but do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“We can only judge his worthiness to wield it when it is in his hands,” says Chiron. If he were a lesser being, he would be shrugging as he hands Grover an inconspicuous ballpoint pen.

Grover looks at it dubiously before he puts it in his pocket.

He’s slipped it into the pocket of Percy’s flannel by the time the kid takes the subway the next day. Grover’s not far behind, keeping one or two cars away from his charge. He’s unfortunately become quite good at the tailing schtick, one or two protectees after Thalia.

Eventually Percy ascends and starts making his way towards Central Park. There’s a bounce in his step, though whether he’s excited to see this cousin or simply happy to be away from Yancy and its bullies is anyone’s guess.

By the time they arrive at Bethesda Fountain, he’s caught one or two glimpses of Percy’s grin. So, it’s not a complete surprise when Percy calls across the fountain:

“Pio!”

On the other end, a guy in a striped sweatshirt turns and grins, and Grover gets one of the great shocks of his life as the head counselor of Cabin 7 runs to meet his unawakened charge and tackles him into a spinning hug that has Percy laughing.

Thankfully, neither of them seem to have spotted him. He edges closer, just enough to hear their conversation over the sound of the water.

“You’ve grown taller!” exclaims Pio.

Percy grins, pleased. “People my age tend to do that.”

“Well, stop! I can’t have my little cousin be taller than me, it’s embarrassing .”

Percy sticks out his tongue. “Nuh-uh.”

“I’m gonna be the short cousin,” bemoans Pio as he pulls back and looks Percy up and down. His eyes snag on the pocket of Percy’s flannel shirt, and even though there should be no way he would recognize Riptide, Grover’s heart seizes with fear.

“Oh, huh. This pen’s new,” he notes.

“What?” Percy glances down at it. “Uh, I guess. I’m not exactly the king of keeping track of pens.”

Pio makes a face. “I get it. I lose a fortune in pens whenever I’m off Concerta.”

“How did you even notice that this pen is new?” says Percy. “You didn’t even notice Gabe was in the room that one time you called him smelly.”

“I did notice. I was dropping hints,” says Pio cheerily.

“I wouldn’t call those hints .”

“I’ve been told that subtlety isn’t my forte,” he says, steering Grover’s charge away from the fountain. “Come on, I’ve been dying to try these chili dogs you were talking about.”

They get chili dogs and Cokes and find a bench by a pond. Pio gets out a big bag of birdseed. Grover uses his satyr powers to blend into the foliage as they feed the ducks, and the conversation turns to Percy’s first weeks at Yancy.

“I just don’t get it,” complains Percy, after he’s outlined the litany of things Nancy Bobofit has already put him through in two weeks. “I go to a new school, and I’m immediately the target of all the bullies there. It’s like I’m catnip, but for kids with anger issues.”

Pio stifles a chuckle, turning it into a sympathetic hum at the last second. “Well, I haven’t been to a proper school since I was fourteen, but it was like that for me too. I was, well….”

“A nerd,” Percy guesses, and Pio bursts into laughter.

“Yeah, a nerd! Except I was a nerd about English, not anything people would call useful .” He snorts. “Point is, you’re not alone. Being neurodivergent, it makes it hard for people to fit in—and bullies like to hammer the nail that sticks out.”

“And at camp, it’s not like that?”

Shit, Pio’s told Percy about camp. That’s very, very unsafe. Grover tells himself not to panic.

“Oh, it’s still like that.” Percy sags, and Pio hurries to add, “It’s like that everywhere—”

“That’s not really helping .”

“Sorry. I don’t like lying. Bullies are everywhere, Percy. We grow around them.”

“It shouldn’t be that way.”

Pio ruffles Percy’s hair. “I agree, Perce. If you want, I can go and put the fear of the gods in this Nancy girl.”

“No!” he says immediately. “That’ll make it worse. She’ll think I can’t speak for myself. It’s just, it’s so unfair,” he gripes. “I didn’t ask to be this way. And why are they mad that I’m a bad student?”

“You’re not a bad student—”

Percy sounds like he’s rolling his eyes when he says, “I know, I know. A good student isn’t the same thing as an easy student.”

“And?”

“And I’m a kid, I’m not supposed to be easy anyway.”

“See?” says Pio, pleased. “You remembered what I taught you. Learning and questioning, that’s what makes a good student.”

“Yeah, yeah.” But Grover’s charge does sound calmer. “Not everyone thinks that way, though.”

“It sucks,” agrees Pio. “The stigma, and the bullies. We’re working to change that, but people are slow to change. For now, these are the cards we’ve been dealt.”

“We just have to play them well,” Percy finishes.

“You are learning. Good work, my padawan.”

“You know I don’t understand your Star Trek references.”

“Star Wars !” squawks Pio. “I need to bring you those DVDs.”

“Not the freaking DVDs! If you let us stream them we would’ve seen those dumb movies ages ago.”

“Physical media is vastly superior, it’s always better to own your movies.”

“I’ll be sure to think of all the ways it’s better when I’m lugging around a suitcase of DVD cases,” Percy shoots back.

“Just put them in an album, it’s not that hard. Gods, do kids these days even know what an album is?”

“No. You’re so old ,” teases Percy. “What did mammoths taste like, old man?”

“Okay,” says Pio lightly. “So that you’ll know, I’ll get Aunt Sally to pull out your albums of baby pictures—”

“Oh my god.” Percy looks horrified even as he laughs. “Stop!”

“Take it back!”

“Fine,” he says, “you’re not that old. Happy?”

“Very,” says Pio, clinking their soda cans together.

The conversation lulls, and they both finish off their chili dogs.

“Hey, Perce,” says Pio, wiping his fingers on a tissue, “Why don’t you get us some sherbet?”

Percy tilts his head. “You’re not gonna come with me?”

“I need to wash my hands,” says Pio awkwardly. “Don’t get me wrong, that was delicious, but the residue ….” He shudders.

“I get it, you’re autistic.” Percy rolls his eyes. “I’ll get the sherbet. But you have to pay.”

“Obviously,” says Pio, sounding offended. “I’m not gonna make my broke little cousin pay .”

They exchange some bills, and Percy leaves.

Pio pours some hand sanitizer on his hands, but he doesn’t stand. Instead, he looks right at the copse where Grover is hiding.

“You can come out now,” he says.

Unnerved, Grover peels away from the trees. “How did you know I was there?” he demands.

“Child of Apollo,” says Pio, like it means something. “Oh, it’s you. Hi, Grover.”

So Pio did know him. Grover knew he’d made quite a scene when he’d arrived with Luke and Annabeth, but some demigods didn’t bother to know the names of any Protectors at all, besides their own.

“Who are you really,” asks Grover, “and what are you planning with Percy?”

Pio spreads his hands. “I’m just me. Orpeo, Cabin 7? And I’m planning nothing, I swear. I just thought Percy could use a friend.”

Grover narrows his eyes. “So what did you do ?”

“ Nothing . I talked to his mom about camp, talked her into sending him earlier. May have threatened his stepdad a bit. But we didn’t tell him anything about anything beyond the Mist , I swear.”

He relaxes incrementally. That would’ve been a lot of trouble.

Pio sees this, and gives a nervous grin. “I really just wanted to help.”

“Sure,” says Grover. “You just happened to want to help this particular demigod.”

He visibly bristles. “Look, I know you think Percy’s gonna be the hero of the Great Prophecy. But that’s not why I care about him.”

Grover blinks, but Pio barrels on.

“I care about him because he’s a good kid with a shitty stepdad and massive issues, and I’m in a position to help. I didn’t see any of you doing any—!”

Grover holds up a hand. “Wait. Back up. What prophecy?”

“The… Great Prophecy?” Pio backtracks when Grover gives him a Look. He’s still four years younger than Grover, after all, even if Grover does look like a teen. “You know, the one given after the end of World War II? A half-blood of the eldest gods/shall reach sixteen against all odds… blah blah blah, Olympus to preserve or raze .”

Grover feels the blood drain from his face at those last words. “I’ve… I’ve never heard of it.”

Pio blinks, then frowns. “Did Chiron not tell you about it? It seems kind of relevant, especially since you escorted Thalia too.” He seems actually put out on Grover’s behalf, which is something to analyze later. “Like, the prophecy’s the whole reason Percy’s a forbidden child, right?”

“No,” says Grover slowly. “Big Three kids are forbidden because their interference caused World War II. And yes, Chiron would have told me if there was a prophecy about Percy, but we don’t know he’s a Big Three kid.”

Pio levels a skeptical look at him. “Come on, dude. His parents met at a beach house in Montauk? He loves blue food? It’s painfully obvious.”

Grover did hear about that, and Chiron did have his suspicions when he’d reported it, so he doesn’t press the point. “Chiron would have told me,” he insists instead.

Pio’s leaning forward now, narrow-eyed like Grover holds the secrets of the universe. “You’re telling me,” he says, “that this Prophecy I heard of…”

“It doesn’t exist,” says Grover. “Which means your source is either bogus, or the gods are keeping more secrets from us than we’d hoped.”

“So…” Pio looks genuinely pained. “So I might legitimately have no idea what’s going on.” He exhales. “Fuck.”

September 2022

Luke is invited to Pio’s birthday get-together.

The celebrant himself had assured everyone that gifts were unnecessary, but when his eyes light up at the sight of Luke and Annabeth cresting over the hill, Luke wishes he’d brought something.

“It’s my homegirl A. Chase!” cheers Pio, slinging an arm over Annabeth’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you could make it. You too, Luke! Come on, we’re doing a capella karaoke.”

“Those two things are diametrically opposed,” says Annabeth, but doesn’t shrug him off.

Pio just grins, looking over their shoulders at Luke. “Come on, pretty boy. I wanna hear your singing voice.”

It feels wrong, for someone to be so happy just at another’s presence.

It’s a relatively small gathering, only him and Annabeth, the Cabin 7 year-rounders, and some older campers. They’ve taken over the Arts and Crafts pavilion, the paint-splattered wooden furniture decorated with a frankly sad scattering of balloons.

Luke had seen Pio run himself ragged earlier that day, sneaking around cooking spaghetti and pizza and fried chicken, things the dryads wouldn’t serve because they were too fatty or sugary or whatever. It’s paying off now—Annabeth slaps Luke’s arm in delight when she sees the pizza. It’s kind of painful.

“Happy nineteenth,” he says to Pio when everyone is digging in. “Sorry I didn’t bring you anything.”

“It’s okay,” says Pio cheerily. Luke shifts between his feet, and it must engineer a thought in the other guy’s brain, because he says, “If you really wanna do something for my birthday, how ‘bout you open those poetry books I gave you? Take a little time to yourself, and read a few verses in honor of me.”

He grins his usual annoying grin—he must know how ridiculous he sounds. There’s a smudge of pasta sauce at the corner of his mouth; Luke’s bad eye twitches just looking at it.

“Let me guess,” Luke drawls, “because you’re a demigod of poetry.”

“You know it, baby,” says Pio, raising his can of illegal Coke.

And yet something compels Luke to actually do it that night. When Cabin 11 is silent in sleep, he goes out into the moonlight and cracks open one of the books. It’s the latest issue of the annual chapbook edited by the Apollo cabin, he realizes. It’s dedicated to Calliope, which seems a bit trite.

He flips to the first poem subtitled by Pio Tanglao and reads:

harvest

1. you climb the tree in fits and starts because no one’s there to teach you. the earth slumbers undisturbed even as you fall and lose a tooth against her stones. your mother slumbers.
2. you ask the wind why it doesn’t care to carry your crying. it says it learned from the sky, who learned from time, who learned from the earth. you will learn too, says the wind. then it leaves.
3. someday a child will ask you to teach her how to climb a tree, and you will want to refuse. you had to learn how to climb on your own, so why shouldn’t she? why bleed for her? then you will have infinite choices, but only one will be truly different. only one will matter.
4. so maybe the wind doesn’t care, or the sky or time or the earth. maybe your heart is too prickly to grow tender things. but you have hands that can catch children, and your hands need not learn from the wind. you can choose to care. you choose to care. you choose to care.
5. maybe that’s not enough.
6. you just know no fruit has ever tasted as sweet as the one the two of you split, bleeding in the blistering sun.

Luke inhales the night air, ragged and cold. Then he exhales, and reads another poem.

(Pio, eldest child of the sun god in camp, is the one to find him outside the cabin in the wee hours of the morning, having fallen asleep midway through the book. He doesn’t mention the poems in Luke’s hand, but he beams in that annoying way that means he’s touched.)

December 10, 2022

Thalia would have been seventeen today.

Annabeth takes the day off from her counselor duties, as she has always done for the past four years. She’d arranged the schedule with Malcolm the night before. Her siblings will be fine without her for one day, as she spends the time thinking of the first girl to ever claim her as a sister.

Luke doesn’t do the same. She understands. Cabin 11 is a different beast from Cabin 6, and anyway Luke copes by throwing himself into his work. He can’t be blamed for it.

The first thing on Annabeth’s agenda is offerings. She burns some grapes in the dining pavilion for Zeus. She prays. Thanks him for saving Thalia’s life. She doesn’t think about how she’ll never be a girl again, never get to sleep in a warm cabin, never know what it’s like to have more than two people care about her as a person . It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t .

Thalia died a hero’s death. That’s what every demigod should want. Annabeth can’t expect anything better.

The second thing on the agenda is food. 

Annabeth climbs to the foot of Thalia’s tree like she’d done a hundred times before. Under it, she lights a fire, sits in the grass, and pops and burns a packet of cheesy popcorn. The smell of butter and toasted grain mingles with the smell of pine.

This isn’t an offering. Thalia didn’t become a god, and Annabeth doesn’t say a prayer.

But she does speak.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she says to the branches, “but I wanted to remind you that Luke and I miss you every day. I hope—I hope you’re at peace here. I hope you know that everyone”—her voice cracks—“looks up to you now. Like I did. Everyone knows how great you were. That you were a hero.”

Surely that’s just as good as, better than, what Luke and Annabeth have now? Being a hero, going down in camp legend and having your name spoken in the halls of the gods—that’s better than being an ordinary kid struggling to get your parent’s attention, surely. Better than being just another face. It has to be.

Then a squirrel squeaks in the branches. And Annabeth breaks.

She weeps under Thalia’s tree, ugly sobs wrenching themselves from her chest. Thalia had been kind about her crying when she had been—a girl. When they had both been girls. She’d braided Annabeth’s hair and made sure her portion of food was a little bigger than Luke’s and her own. She wouldn’t mind Annabeth crying here, surely, even if Annabeth is twelve now and too old to cry.

Annabeth wears herself out after a while, eyes too dry to cry any more even if she still doesn’t have control over her hiccuping lungs. She wipes her eyes and nose on a bandana.

She pulls herself together. She can’t be crying for the third item on her agenda.

She pulls a book from her bag: The Iliad , in the original, uncommentated Ancient Greek. She opens it to the page she’d marked on Thalia’s last birthday.

“I hope you’re ready for this,” she says hoarsely. “We’re near the end.”

She begins to read book twenty aloud.

Annabeth unwinds the story of how Achilles mourned his lost beloved with rage and steel and blood, doing voices and inflections like Castor and Pollux might. Her voice gets stronger as the sun sinks in the sky, when she can’t rely on the firelight to keep the page visible and turns on her flashlight, and the situation gets more familiar. It’s just like old times: as a kid, she’d read Luke and Thalia myths from the books when they’d made camp. Just like back then, she isn’t sure if Thalia’s listening.

She was pretty sure Luke hadn’t.

She turns to the last page.

“…They shared a splendid funeral feast in Hector’s honor, held in the house of Priam, king by will of Zeus. And so the Trojans buried Hector, breaker of horses.”

The sun had dipped below the horizon ages ago. Annabeth shuts the book and puts a hand against the bark of the pine.

“I hope you liked that,” she says. “Next year I’ll find you a copy of The Odyssey .”

The grass nearby rustles, and Annabeth looks up. She isn’t pleased to see who’s climbing up the hill.

“Annabeth,” says Pio Tanglao, a too-easy smile on his face. “You missed dinner.”

She clears her throat and takes the plate he hands her, carefully neutral. “Thanks.”

He looks up at the pine. “I didn’t know you had a tradition with Thalia.”

Annabeth tamps down on her irritation. “Yeah, well. She died a hero’s death. She deserves to be remembered.”

“She’d have deserved to be remembered even if she hadn’t died a hero,” he says.

She scowls. She knows that. “She deserves it even more because of it.”

He raises his hands. “I… don’t think that’s true?”

Annabeth narrows his eyes. “Are you saying you don’t think heroes deserve to be remembered better?”

“That came out wrong. I’m just saying, I don’t think demigods should have to become heroes. I don’t think Thalia should have needed to sacrifice her life to save you guys.”

“Well, she did. It was the only way to get any of us into camp!”

“Her father could have saved her,” Pio barrels on. “If he could turn her into a tree, he could have saved her.”

She inhales sharply as the sky rumbles. “Pio.”

“No,” says Pio, stubborn. “This has been bothering me for ages. If Zeus actually cared, he would have let her live her life. And he should! He should have cared.” The sky flashes. “The only reason he didn’t is because he treats his children like pawns instead of—”

Annabeth is just fast enough to jump away as the world crashes into thunder. Even though her eyes are shut, the light leaks through her eyelids and sears an image of the capillaries there into her retina.

When the ringing has faded from her ears, she smells the burning.

“Crap!” she curses, fear flooding her chest as she blinks the afterimage away. “Pio—Pio?”

The guy’s a few feet away. He’s half-collapsed on the ground and groaning, his skin lined with fractal red markings. The skin around the metal frame of his glasses is angry and burnt.

“Gods. Oh my gods.” Annabeth fumbles through her jacket and cuts out the emergency square of ambrosia she’d sewed into a hidden compartment in the lining. She ducks beside him, breaks off a piece and shoves it into his mouth. “Chew!”

He’s visibly struggling to move his jaw as he follows her orders. As he swallows, the burns get a little less red, layers of skin growing back. She gives him another piece, and another, until the whole bar is gone and he’s pained and panting on the grass, visibly thrumming with divine healing energy and on the brink of burning from inside out. But whole. Alive.

She kneels beside him as he pulls himself together.

When the tremors subside, he speaks in a shaking voice. “Jesus. Gods, f—crap. I, holy, my gods . I’m so sorry.”

“You should be,” Annabeth tells him, hands balling into fists, angry tears in her eyes. “That was stupid .”

Pio’s lucky to be alive. Some insane combination of demigod durability, early ambrosia, and some attempt to jump, probably. But he’s still wincing in pain, and his left arm is still webbed with ill-healed burns in the shape of lightning. He’ll need mortal treatment. It’ll probably scar.

“I know. I know, A.”

“ Do you?” she says sharply. “I knew you were insane, but I didn’t think you were an idiot.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounds genuinely remorseful. “I didn’t think. I didn’t mean to put you in danger.”

“You are stupid!” she cries. “You were in danger too, moron!”

“I knew that part,” he sighs, lying back down into the grass.

She can’t help it; she slams a fist into his shoulder.

“Ow!”

“If you knew you would get hurt, then why the heck did you do it?” she demands.

In a whisper: “It had to be said.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if anyone has ever said that. It had to be said. I don’t regret it.”

“That’s stupid,” she says. “You do understand how it’s stupid, right?”

He shuts his eyes. “If no one says it, then we forget. We can’t afford that.”

“You didn’t even know her.”

“You loved her. That’s enough.”

She hits his shoulder again; he flinches. “Well, you didn’t! It’s not your place to demand anything for her!”

Pio pauses, rubbing his shoulder.

After a while, he says in a soft voice, “Maybe not.”

“And you don’t get to tell me her story,” she says. “You didn’t know her .”

“I’m sorry.”

Annabeth sags, the energy leaking out of her body. “I don’t like how you do things,” she says plainly. “It’s not rational .”

He winces, but nods.

“But…”

“…But?”

She can’t say she thinks he might be right; Zeus might still be listening. “But you do care.”

He nods. “I do, A.”

“That’s the only reason I’m not telling you to stay away.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he says immediately.

She shuts her eyes briefly. “Okay.”

“How…” He swallows visibly. “How can I make things better? For you?”

“For starters,” she says, “you can’t help anyone if you’re dead. Stop putting yourself at risk for stupid things like this . It’s an inconvenience, and it won’t change anything.”

“It matters —”

“Not enough.”

He stops, then nods slowly. “Okay.”

“And mean what you say.” Pio tilts his head, so she clarifies: “You say we shouldn’t become heroes, so lead by example. Do good. But don’t—be dramatic about it.”

He smiles, self-deprecating. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“Try.” She gives him a stern look. “You’re needed here, lieutenant.”

Pio sighs, closing his eyes. “One day, we’ll stop being soldiers.”

“Well, that day isn’t today.”

He pushes himself onto his elbows. “Then I guess I should move down to the infirmary. Get your lieutenant back on his feet.”

“No. Stay put. I’ll call for help.”

December 18, 2022

Grover’s new kid arrives on a dark, snowy night.

“We were going to come tomorrow morning, but the plan changed,” Grover explains as he towels snow off his hair in the Big House. The sky is rumbling, and the newbie is changing in the next room, but he still leans in to whisper: “I spotted a Kindly One watching.”

Luke gapes. “An actual —”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“Shit. Why?”

“Chiron and I think he might be… you know.”

A beat. “No way. You think he’s like—like Thalia ?” And he made it into camp?

“There have been signs besides the monster attacks,” says Grover heavily.

“And what did his mortal parent say? Do they know who his godly parent is?”

“We didn’t have time.”

Luke frowns. “So we’re dealing with a kid who knows, what? Basically nothing?”

“Kind of. Not exactly.” Grover doesn’t elaborate. “Anyway, all the monster attacks can be a handful, but Percy’s a good kid. I’m just glad he’s safe now.”

Luke hesitates, then puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man. You did a good job getting him here.” He can’t bring himself to say You’re not to blame for Thalia, but he hopes Grover hears it anyway.

Grover’s silent for a moment. Then he nods, averting his eyes. “That means a lot. I’m putting him in your care now.”

“Putting who in whose care?” says a voice behind them.

Luke turns to see the newbie, curly blond hair still damp from the rain. He looks like a perfectly normal kid, no older than Annabeth is, no older than Thalia was . Luke can’t see why he would attract all those monsters. He can’t see why he would have survived, and not—

He shakes his head and smiles. “Hi, you must be Percy. I’m Luke, head counselor of Cabin 11. I’ll be taking care of you around camp.”

“Oh.”

“…Is something wrong?”

“Uh, I was kind of hoping I could stay in my cousin’s cabin? He’s a counselor too.”

Luke gives Grover a questioning look.

Grover just sighs. “He’s been in contact with Pio.”

He splutters. “Pio?”

Percy looks between them, eyebrows furrowed. “You know him?”

“Yes, I know him.” Luke pinches the bridge of his nose.

The kid actually smiles . “Oh, nice. Can I maybe see him tonight?”

Luke schools his face. “It’s a little late for that,” he tells him. He’d begged off his usual nightly supervision tonight. “Pio gets knocked out at lights out. But he wakes with the sun.” Like an absolute cliche.

“Oh. Okay. Can’t I stay in his cabin?”

“Cabin 11 takes all the unclaimed children. If he turns out to be your brother , on the other hand…”

Percy’s frowning now. “He was very clear about not being my brother. What do you mean—all the cabins just hold siblings?”

“Except Cabin 11.”

“And I’ll be staying in Cabin 11 because…?”

“We don’t know who your dad is yet.”

“Why don’t we just ask my mom? She would know.”

“It has to be your dad who claims you.”

“Weird, but okay. When will he do that?”

“No one knows. There are things you can do to make him take notice, though.” Luke sighs. “Did Pio really not tell you anything?”

“Yeah. He said it was too dangerous? Mom was going to explain things tonight, but Grover said we had to leave early or we’d be in danger.”

That, at least, makes sense. But the idea of having to explain that the gods are real and they suck to an unprepared twelve-year-old at midnight was still galling.

“I… look. I’m really sorry, but I’m exhausted. Would you mind waiting until morning for your orientation?”

He nods slowly.

“You can meet your cousin in the morning too.” That gives Luke an idea. “Hey, maybe he can explain things to you. He does know you better.”

Percy only nods again, but Grover gives Luke a conspiratorial smile.

Luke ushers Percy into Cabin 11. He’s at least well-packed, so the only thing Luke has to go and “borrow” from the camp store is a sleeping bag. Luke gets him a thicker one, just to avoid the potential earful from Percy’s so-called cousin.

Morning comes too quickly to have any dreams. Luke kicks all the year-rounders out of bed for showers, but lets Percy sleep in a little—the first night at camp is always a bit rough, no matter that he apparently has a loving mom.

Annabeth catches him taking a breather outside of the cabin, takes a look at Luke’s face, and immediately reads the situation.

“A new camper arrived last night,” she guesses.

Luke nods. “Still sleeping.”

She takes a peek through the cabin door. When she pulls back, she’s making a disapproving face. “He’s drooling.”

Luke peers in as well. The side of Percy’s face is squished onto the backpack he’s using as a pillow, and there’s a trail of spit going from the corner of his mouth.

It makes him look startlingly young. Thalia had been the same age, but there had been hardness in her face even in slumber, borne of an unforgiving life. This kid’s sleeping face is relaxed, like he’d never known what it was to be unsafe, like he’d always been held and spoken to gently in his home.

Luke envies that. But he’s also a little glad he’d gotten him the nice sleeping bag.

“So he is,” he says.

“Is he anything special?”

“Grover thinks so, and so does Pio, apparently.”

She frowns. “Pio? What does he have to do with this?”

“He’s been visiting the kid, according to Grover. Introduced himself as a cousin.”

“Huh.” Annabeth takes a second, more scrutinizing look. “This kid doesn’t look special. What did he see in him?”

“I guess we’ll have to ask him ourselves.”

Annabeth nods. “You might want to wake the newbie, then. Cabin 7’s still asleep; it’s a good time to catch Pio.”

That’s typical for the winter; every Apollo kid gets sluggish as the sun gets weaker. “Okay, I’ll go wake the kid. May as well introduce him to you, right? If he’s really something special, maybe he can help you get that quest you’ve always wanted.”

“I thought about that,” she admits, brightening. “You think he might be the one?”

“Or maybe he’ll be the one ,” teases Luke.

She shoves him into the cabin.

Luke creeps over and pats Percy’s shoulder. “Hey, Percy. Good morning.”

“Mm? Mrgh…”

Luke tamps down his impatience. “Would you like to take a shower or see your cousin first?”

It’s oddly effective: Percy’s eyes crack open, like how Travis’ would if promised part of Luke’s candy stash if he’d just get out of bed .

Luke gives him his patented older brother grin and straightens, offering his hand. “Come on. He should be in Cabin 7.”

Annabeth gives Percy a hard staredown as he comes out, rubbing his eyes, hair sticking out every which way. Percy does a double take when he sees her, and then quickly averts his eyes, like he can’t look at her for too long or he’d combust. Luke genuinely does grin at this: this is prime teasing material.

“Annabeth, this is our new camper, Percy Jackson. Percy, this is Annabeth Chase, head counselor of Cabin 6.”

“Head counse—?” he tilts his head in an unnervingly familiar gesture.

“I earned it,” she says shortly.

Percy glances at her again, and Luke thinks he sees what he must: this is just a kid, someone who he might find on the playground or wherever it is twelve-year-olds hang out outside of Camp.

Of course, that’s not an accurate assessment of Annabeth; she’s way more than that.

“Annabeth’s the general of the blue team in Capture the Flag. That’s our team. So don’t worry, she’s not mad at you. She’s just sizing you up, trying to figure out how you might fit into her battle tactics,” lies Luke, easy as the breeze.

Percy nods slowly. “Who else is on the blue team?”

“Oh, you’ll like this. Cabin 7’s also on the blue team. That’s your cousin’s cabin. In fact, we’re heading there now, if you’re ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” He steps away from the cabin.

“Dude, wait,” says Annabeth.

Percy turns to look almost too quickly.

“You drool in your sleep,” she informs him. “You might want to wash your face first.” She tilts her head towards the bathrooms.

Percy looks appropriately embarrassed as he scurries away.

Luke chuckles. “Go easy on him, Annabeth.”

“I am ,” she huffs. “I’m telling him what he’s doing wrong before anyone gets on his back for it. Camp isn’t a place you should walk around with drool lines on your face.”

He can’t disagree.

Percy returns, looking significantly more alert just from splashing water on his face, and they usher him towards Cabin 7.

Apollo’s humble wooden cabin, viewed from the right angle, glimmers like gold in the weak winter sun. It’s unsurprisingly quiet, though they could hear shuffling inside.

Annabeth knocks.

There’s shuffling again, growing louder. Then the door cracks open, and Lee Fletcher peeks through the door with bleary eyes.

“Lee,” Annabeth says, with barely readable surprise.

Lee glances between her and Luke. His eyes land on Percy for a brief moment, but there’s no recognition there.

“You’re here for Kuya Pio,” he guesses.

“Sorry to wake you. We sort of thought your head counselor would be the only one awake at this hour,” says Luke, genial.

Lee shrugs. “We had an incident.”

“Ah. Is this a bad time?”

“No, come in,” he says, pulling the door fully open. “Most everyone’s gone back to sleep.”

Luke glances at Percy, whose eyes are flickering around the interior of the cabin like he doesn’t know what to look at first. He lingers outside as Luke and Annabeth enter.

Cabin 7 smells like sage and clean linen, homey and warm even in the coldest time of the year. Most of the kids are still sleeping, clad in well-worn flannels Luke recognizes as hand-me-downs from before even he had arrived at camp.

Pio’s bent over the side of Will Solace’s bed. The kid’s asleep now, but his eyes are puffy like he’d been bawling. Pio’s tucking him in with crisp blankets. Luke can’t help but feel a pang of envy—Cabin 11 never had enough blankets to keep everyone warm at night, let alone extra just to comfort a younger kid.

“Hey,” says Annabeth.

Pio glances towards them. “Gimme a moment,” he replies, smoothing Will’s hair before he turns to face them. “Good to see you, A. Oh, and Luke!” He grins, eyes crinkling. “What can I do for my two favorite cabin heads?”

“You can collect your stray,” Luke says, unable to help himself.

“My—what?”

“A kid arrived at camp last night and immediately started looking for his cousin Pio,” says Annabeth, arching a brow.

Pio’s lips form a little O. “Blonde? About yay tall?”

“That’s him.”

“Percy? Percy’s here, and you’ve met him?”

Luke jerks his head towards the door. “Just outside.”

He beams and actually bounces on his heels before he runs towards the door, so sincerely that Luke doesn’t know whether to cringe away or stare. He settles for staring after all when Pio practically takes a running leap at the poor boy, who catches his hug with a surprised “Oof.”

“You’re early!”

“I’ve been here since last night,” says Percy, with a sheepish grin. “Whoa, what happened to your arm?”

“Long story.” Pio waves his lightning-scarred arm dismissively. “I did something you should definitely not do.”

“Okay?”

“I’m glad you seem okay.” He sounds relieved. “Aunt Sally?”

“We left her safe.”

Pio crows and picks him up by the waist, spinning him around like he’s a little kid (Luke supposes he kind of is). Then he takes Percy’s hand and drags him into the quiet corner of Cabin 7 where Luke and Annabeth have drifted.

“I’m so excited the three of you have met,” he babbles, putting an arm around Percy’s shoulder. “I wish I could’ve been there. Three of my favorite people, meeting for the first time, wow! What do you think of Luke and Annabeth, Perce?”

Percy blushes. “I don’t think you’re supposed to ask that in front of them.”

“Right, right. But they’re cool, right?”

Percy gives a small nod. “They’ve been nice,” he says, shy. He steals another glance at Annabeth, one so quick you’d think she were blinding as the sun. Luke can’t help but think his obviousness is sweet.

“I’m glad to hear it! And you two, don’t you think he’s cute? He’s so squishable, right?”

“Pio!”

Annabeth hides her smile behind her hand.

Luke gives Percy a second look. He’s pink-faced as he’s tucked in Pio’s arm; and Luke wonders how he could’ve compared this kid to Thalia. He seems a lot more like the guy who’d claimed him as a cousin—a little naive, sure, but gentle. The way half-bloods should be, before they get warped by the machinations of the gods.

He shrugs. “He seems nice enough,” he allows.

Pio gives him an earnest grin. “I’m happy you see it too! Now come on, Perce. I’ll introduce you to my siblings!” He sweeps a hand, indicating everyone else in the cabin. Lee gives a little wave. “I need to wake everyone up anyway.”

Percy blinks twice. “These are all your siblings?”

“Only about a third of my siblings! Most of my siblings are staying with their other parent for the holidays.”

The kid looks frankly horrified. “What is your dad doing ?”

Pio tilts his head. “Probably driving?”

“That doesn’t explain anything!”

“You should probably fill him in,” suggests Annabeth.

“Oh!” He looks to Luke. “You weren’t able to explain?”

“I thought you should do it,” says Luke, feeling a bit petty.

“Huh, I did tell him I would do that. Okay!” He nods. “So, Percy, the gist is that everyone in camp—you and I and Annabeth and Luke and my siblings—are all half-bloods.”

Percy scrunches his eyebrows together. “Half-what?”

“Half-bloods.” Percy just looks more confused, so Pio clarifies, “It means we’re half-mortal.”

“…What? So what’s the other half?”

“Well, we’re half-gods. Like the Greek gods.”

“Half-what!?”

Luke can already feel his headache building.

December 22, 2022

Luke’s still awake as dawn breaks over Percy’s fourth day unclaimed.

He and Pio, the head counselors of the two biggest cabins, had been poring over the plans for the annual field trip to Olympus all night. They’re bent over the huge cedar desk in the Big House, now scattered with forms and flyers. They’d hit a snag in the logistics—the Delphi Strawberry Service trucks they’d normally use to travel to NYC are tied up with a rush shipment of strawberries Katie Gardner hadn’t been able to refuse for fear of blowing the camp’s cover.

Even in his exhaustion, he couldn’t bring himself to get mad at the girl fidgeting uncomfortably across the desk. She did the right thing. They’re just in a stupid situation again, where their very identities as children of the gods required them to do gymnastics just to exist. Luke has given up on counting the number of times something like this has happened.

“This wouldn’t be so hard if we could just use phones ,” Pio whines as he’s sorting through ragged flyers for buses for rent in the area.

Luke gives him a glare that sends Katie squeaking in surprise. He manages to school his face into a more genial expression, and she looks relieved but still scurries out of the wooden doors. Once she’s out of his line of sight, he relaxes into the glare again. “Well, how do you propose we find a phone, genius?”

Pio actually laughs . “I’m sure you could think of a few ways, golden boy.” He hands Luke the flyers. “But do you think it’s worth the risk?”

Luke shakes his head sharply. “Gods, no. That would be stupid even for you.”

Not that Luke didn’t want to do the same thing. If they just had phones, or even a landline, they could’ve been done with this hours ago. It’s a real fucking pity that as demigods, using electronics turns them into monster magnets. So they were awake at a stupid hour, again .

Even in this, Hermes’ blood is a curse.

“Mm, okay.” Pio chuckles, totally oblivious. “I’ll draft up some letters to these renters. We can’t leave camp, but we can get someone to run out and play courier, yeah?”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, let’s do that. I’ll recruit Chris, he knows the area best.”

Pio smiles at him, so sweetly it’s disgusting. “I’ll count on you for that.”

Half an hour later, they see Chris head out of camp in Argus’ van with several typewritten letters, and go back to the Big House to continue their work.

About fifteen minutes in, Luke can’t stop the yawn that escapes his mouth. Pio gives him an alarmed look, which seems a bit hypocritical, considering he’s on his sixth cup of coffee for the night.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he says, bodily pulling Luke from behind the desk. “Nap time for you.”

Luke scowls and shakes his head. “We still have to arrange the itinerary for when we’re in Olympus.” They’d only gotten the gods’ schedule earlier in the night, and the campers were supposed to stay out of the gods’ way at all times, except for when they give their presentation.

He tugs the papers from Luke’s hands. “I’ll do it.”

Luke gives him a skeptical look.

Pio pouts. “Don’t look at me like that, I can do it. I’m smart enough.”

He sighs. “I don’t doubt that. I just don’t understand why you’d do it. This is my responsibility; you have nothing to gain.” Besides, it was still winter; children of Apollo would normally be sleeping like rocks during this time.

“I want to do it because you’re my friend,” declares Pio. “I like to do nice things for my friends.”

Luke stares at him, then shakes his head. “I don’t understand you.”

Pio cocks his head as he looks back, his bespectacled eyes surprisingly calculating. At length, he says, “I think you do.”

“I don’t —”

“You just don’t believe it.”

He closes his mouth.

Pio takes the opportunity to nudge him towards the couch and press him down by his shoulders into the cushions. “Sleep,” he commands. “Doctor’s orders.”

Luke peers up at him. “You’re so full of bullshit.”

The guy huffs a laugh. “I think you’ll find that I’m full of sincerity and good intentions.”

He scoffs, even as he can’t help but sink into the cushions. “No half-blood stays like that. The world beats it out of us early. Hell, it’s right to.”

“It’s a choice to bring it back.” Pio sweeps Luke’s curls out of his face with his lightning-scarred hand, the same way he did for Will a few days ago. Somehow, being touched the way Pio had treated Will rankles. “I’d rather be burned than be cold forever.”

“That’s stupid,” says Luke, furrowing his eyebrows through the drowsiness. “You’ll get killed.”

Pio shrugs, his eyelids drooping closed for a moment. “The cold kills too. Besides, I’m older than you, I don’t think you have the authority to tell me how to survive.”

“Hm. You’re just lucky.”

“Maybe.” Pio pulls his hand away. “Or maybe I understand something you don’t.”

Pio drifts back to their work with a half-smile on his face that makes Luke think, That’s very, very unlikely . He watches through half-lidded eyes as Pio stretches his archer’s shoulders aggressively as he works, trying to stay awake enough for the entire camp to avoid the wrath of the gods.

Definitely lucky. And no one can be lucky forever. Luke certainly hadn’t.

He’s thinking of his mother when he slips into sleep.

When Luke opens his eyes again, he’s in a familiar expanse of empty desert. He lowers himself to sit in the cold sand and looks at the sky: it’s pitch-dark, like it had never been touched by the sun.

He waits under its vastness. In this desert, time doesn’t matter: one of the things that’s oddly comforting about it.

It takes a while for him to notice that someone is humming to his left.

He turns to look, and his heart stops.

In the sand, there’s a near-perfect replica of a kitchen he’d known once: linoleum counters, a leaky faucet, a wind chime tinkling somewhere out of sight.

He ghosts towards the dining table and collapses into a chair.

The woman who’s humming by the stove is— whole . There aren’t any tangles in her dark hair, and her dress is clean. The counters are tidy. The kitchen smells of soap and vanilla, none of the acridity of burning.

“Mom?” Luke can’t help but say.

He already knows that he’s wrong even before she turns. In the time he’d known her, May Castellan had never been whole.

She gives him a smile, but instead of his mother’s brown eyes, the woman’s are a cold, metallic gold.

That, at least, is familiar in its own way.

“Luke,” Kronos says in his mother’s voice. “I’m so glad you’ve made it.”

He stands to bow, more gracefully than he’d thought would be possible with how stiff his limbs have gotten. “My lord.”

The Lord of Time raises a delicate hand. “Oh, please, sit. How have things been?”

“Everything is proceeding smoothly,” says Luke automatically. Kronos already knows this.

“Good, good. And your trip to Olympus for the solstice?”

With a jolt, Luke remembers the real world, where Pio is probably bouncing his leg, trying to map out how they’d navigate Olympus. “In order, my lord.”

Kronos smiles with his mother’s mouth. “Very good. I have a task for you while you’re there.”

It’s the first time Kronos has actually asked something of him.

Luke listens.

He’s not sure he likes it, but he knows better than to say otherwise.

There’s exactly enough time for him to get the details down before the desert and its false kitchen dissolves, and Luke’s lying on the musty Big House couch again, being shaken awake.

“Eugh. What…?”

“I looked at you and you were scowling in your sleep,” says Pio, standing over Luke, one hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t look like you were having a good time.”

Pio doesn’t look like he’s had a good time making their itinerary, either. His glasses are askew, and his sweater has a new coffee stain on it.

Luke rubs his eyes with the base of his palm. Somehow, he doesn’t quite feel the pressure. Like someone’s describing it to him, and he’s only imagining it.

“How long was I out?” he asks.

“Just enough for one sleep cycle.”

His bad eye twitches. “And how long is that?”

“Not going to call me a smartass? Careful, I’m gonna start thinking you like me.” Pio smiles. “A sleep cycle is about one hour and forty minutes. Happy?”

“Hardly.” Luke rolls off the couch reluctantly, the weight of his body alien. “Cabin 11 is late for breakfast.”

Pio makes a dismissive hand motion. “Chill, I brought your kids to the dining pavilion twenty minutes ago.”

“I… oh. Thanks?”

“Hey, what are friends for?” He winks. “Go and shower. I’ll be at the mess with everyone else.”

Luke drifts on autopilot, out of the Big House towards Cabin 11. The world around him has a surreal quality, like he’s still dreaming: the sky is too uniform, the snow glistens too much. He puts his hand on the hilt of his sword, trying to ground himself with its presence. It doesn’t help much.

As he rummages through his bags in the cabin, looking for clothes for the day, he finds something else entirely. Without taking it out of his backpack, he touches the intricately engraved helm and feels numbness seep into his fingertips like death.

He hesitates, then takes the backpack with him.

His hands are still numb, even when the kids have been piled into the buses and are driven away from camp. The Hermes kids take up a whole bus. His siblings’ singing and gossip from the bus seats are muted in his ears, like he’s hearing them through a pillow. It doesn’t seem real when he looks out of the window and sees the Long Island beach from another angle.

Luke can’t feel the wind as it hits his face. He wonders if his mother’s seen Long Island from any angle. If she’s been out of their Connecticut home at all, since he’d left.

He might want to throw up.

They arrive at the Empire State Building before banking hours. It hasn’t changed, since before he’d come to camp: still shiny, still a marvel of human architecture that the gods have co-opted for themselves.

They take the elevator up in batches.

In the lobby, time seems sluggish and too slow at the same time. At one point, spots Annabeth and Pio whispering to each other and glancing over at him, concern obvious on their faces. Annabeth begins to make her way over, but then it’s Cabin 11’s turn, and Luke enters the elevator with his siblings.

His siblings are so young . Mothers had been a taboo topic in his cabin; he wonders briefly if any of the year-rounders know where theirs are.

The Muzak stops, and the doors ding open at the 600th floor.

Olympus is—Olympus. Ancient architecture, finely carved and grand in proportion, all in tribute to the gods. It’s disgusting. Luke takes in the first timers’ awe and wonders vaguely if he’d looked like that the first time too. It seems unlikely.

He’s still out of it, so he tries to be grateful when Pio leads the campers through their tour without him asking. They gape at the various temples, the grand fountains, the infinite-seeming Olympian library.

They’re given a couple hours just to wander the shelves. Pio corners Luke as his siblings scamper off, unusually enthusiastic about a library for a bunch of middle-schoolers.

“ You need a break,” he advises, speaking somewhat slowly for him. There are bags under his eyes and a bruise on his cheek from wrangling one of Luke’s kids off the shelf he’d climbed on. “You’re totally out of it, dude. I need you to go find a bathroom and splash some water on your face.”

“Are there even bathrooms on Olympus?” says Luke, just to be contrary.

Pio actually groans . Luke counts that as a win. “You know there are. Go! Shoo!”

Luke leaves, grumbling to himself.

Olympus’ layout still doesn’t make sense to him, even though this is his fourth time here and he’s always been skilled with navigation. He gets kind of lost before he admits to himself that he needs to consult the map. He’s perched on the steps of a temple and has just pulled his papers out when he hears someone coming from inside .

He ducks into the alley just fast enough.

There’s a woman’s laughter. She sounds a couple years older than Luke. “I can’t believe I actually get to see Olympus! The same Olympus from the myths!”

(A mortal?)

A muffled sound, then the shadow of a man falls across the temple steps and meets her shadow in a kiss.

She sighs as they part. “You’re really taking me here during your super-important Solstice meeting?”

Then a familiar voice:

“Of course. This is when it’s most beautiful.”

The papers slip from Luke’s grasp. They flutter as they fall to the ground, and he ducks down to get them, hands shaking.

The shadows pause. “Did you hear something?” says the woman.

“Mm. No,” teases Hermes. “I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my heart beating for you.”

“Aww, you jokester! Do gods have hearts?”

“Well, I love you, don’t I?”

Luke presses into the wall as they pass by his hiding spot, willing his powers cloak him in the shadows as they do for thieves. He sees their retreating backs: the messenger god in his full golden regalia, a small dark-haired woman in a coat clinging to his arm.

He dry heaves as they disappear down the block. Something bitter burns in his chest and throat. He can’t quite put a name to it: anger? Disgust?

Some other time his mother had been just like this woman. Some other time Hermes had told her he loved her too. This girl—would she be a mother to another of his siblings? Another child just like Luke, abandoned when they needed him most?

His hand curls around the hilt of his sword.

He can’t allow that. He has a way to stop that. He would be a fucking idiot if he didn’t take it, even if it makes him an enemy to the gods he’d served all his life, whose children he’d basically raised .

Someone has to be their enemy. It may as well be someone who’ll get satisfaction out of it.

Luke breathes. Pulls himself together. He unfolds the map, memorizes the path. Then he puts on the Helm of Darkness and makes his way to the throne platform unseen.

The path shines. The wind smells strangely like artificial cherry. Luke’s invisible sneakers track dirt on the smooth stone, the golden filigree. It feels appropriate.

The gods’ stone thrones stand empty. Beside them, placed arrogantly out in the open, are the most powerful weapons in the world: the keys to the sun chariot, Artemis’ bow, Demeter’s sickles.

Luke walks up to the grandest throne of all and picks up the weapon of the supreme ruler of the universe. It hums with power, like a supercharged resistor. As he feels the weight of it in his hand, it’s like the world comes bursting back into color.

He’s doing this. He’s really doing this. There’s no turning back.

He places the master bolt in his ratty backpack.

It’s easy. So easy.

(Almost like the Fates have conspired towards this moment.)

Luke doesn’t hurry back to the library—something he’d learned from years on the run, stealing to survive: it’s more important to be unsuspicious than quick. He takes the helm off a block from there, and ambles back like nothing’s wrong.

When he gets there, Pio’s slumped alone on the steps outside, a can of Coke in his hand.

“I needed a break.” He gives Luke a tired grin. “Found the bathrooms?”

“I did,” Luke lies, returning the smile.

Here’s what Luke expects: Pio, who’s proven terrible at reading people, will smile and accept it. Luke will tell him the truth later, and he’ll accept that too. Pio loves his siblings as much as Luke loves his, and he clearly cares about Luke too, somehow. He’ll understand. He may even help, for whatever measure of help he can provide.

This is what actually happens:

Pio stares.

Luke looks back, a little surprised but unwavering.

Then Pio’s smile fades, and he closes his eyes as if in pain. When his eyes open again, they’ve gone tense, and his mouth draws back.

“Luke.”

“…Yes?”

“Don’t.”

Luke raises his eyebrows, the confusion in his face not totally feigned. “Don’t what?”

A whisper: “Don’t walk out of here with that.”

It’s like a bucket of ice has been poured down his back. Luke resists the urge to step back, and meets Pio’s eyes. There is no truth in eye contact: this won’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please, Luke,” says Pio, drawing himself onto his feet, can of Coke forgotten on the steps. “Luke, I don’t want to say it where people might hear. Please, just listen.”

Pio steps forward, and Luke does step back, drawing bronze as a reflex.

Pio shuts his eyes briefly as Luke raises the point of his sword towards his neck. “Luke, I don’t want to fight you.”

“You’ll have to,” says Luke, sounding more certain than he is . “You’ll have to fight me if you want me to give this up.”

“I won’t.” Pio sidesteps the blade, trying to get closer again, and Luke moves the other way so that they’re circling each other. “I refuse to.”

“I didn’t expect you to be this stupid ,” drawls Luke, raising his sword so that the flat touches Pio’s chin, but doesn’t cut.

“Don’t do this,” says Pio recklessly. The motion of his speech makes the tip graze his neck, and a small drop of red bleeds out of the wound. “Please.”

Luke wills his resolve to harden. “I’m not a good person by the standards of the gods; you of all people should know that. This shouldn’t surprise you.”

Pio, annoying as ever, cracks a smile.

“That’s the thing about faith, golden boy,” he says. “It’s about believing you’ll be surprised.”

Luke snarls and pulls back to strike.

Pio meets his blade midair with crossed Celestial Bronze sticks , and parries with just enough strength to keep the flat away from his body. He stumbles back as Luke presses forward, his face screwing up in concentration as he puts up defense.

Luke twists his sword as Pio has it sandwiched between the sticks, and one of them comes flying out of his hands. As he glances back at it, Luke gets a clear look at his face.

He was more scared earlier .

Luke strikes overhead, and their weapons clang as Pio blocks it with his remaining stick. He pulls back, and Pio tries to disarm him with a sword trick that doesn’t work with the bulk of his weapon. He goes back on defense as Luke attacks, their weapons ringing as they meet.

“Fight back,” growls Luke. “Fight back, damn you!”

Pio pants as he blocks, but his eyebrows are together, determined. “No.”

“Why the fuck not!?” he cries. His sword slips against the surface of one of the sticks, making the blade veer wildly to the side, and he lets it hang there, unmoving.

Pio’s lips part, and he pauses too.

“Why not?” Luke asks again, the heartache consuming his chest, even as he holds his sword aloft.

Pio gives him a long, intense look, like he’s drinking Luke in.

Finally, he says, “Fighting won’t help. Fighting won’t make this better.”

“But it feels like it will,” says Luke, frustrated. “Fucking— fight me .”

Pio drops his remaining stick to the ground and raises his hands in surrender.

Luke wants to scream. But all he’s able to do is stare.

“Look,” says Pio. “You’re clearly going to beat me. I can’t make you put it back . But if you want to walk out of here with—with that , then stick with me. Don’t leave my side again, while we’re on Olympus.”

Luke lowers his sword.

“…What?”

“You heard me.” Pio scowls. “If you insist on doing this, then don’t go wandering off where I can’t protect you.”

Luke glosses over what an absurd thought that is, when Pio can’t even beat him in combat. “But—you don’t like what I did .”

He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. “What you did puts you in danger . If you’re not going to undo it, let me keep you from getting into more trouble.”

A drop of blood leaks sluggishly out of the wound Luke had torn into Pio’s neck.

“I don’t understand you,” Luke snaps, sword arm lowering to hang limply at his side.

Pio gives him a mournful smile. “Maybe not.”

“How can I trust you?” he demands. “Why shouldn’t I disappear you here and now, if you know what I’m carrying?”

The other boy gives him an even look.

“Because,” he says, “because I don’t think you don’t want to.”

“I’m going to do more things you won’t like.” Luke lifts his sword forward once more. “I’m going to fail this—this faith you have in me again. It’ll be for nothing.”

Pio tilts his head, going a little cross-eyed as he looks at the blade. “That’s not what it’s for.”

“Then what is it for ?”

He breathes. “…I think you know.”

A beat.

Luke shakes his head. His hand trembles as he sheathes his sword.

“Damn it,” he says, because he’s right. “Damn you.”

Chapter Text

December 24, 2022

Luke’s resolve to ignore Pio in camp lasts for exactly one day.

On the bus home from Olympus, his backpack heavy with two artifacts from the eldest gods, Luke had figured that there are plenty of reasons to start ignoring the guy. Foremost is that he knows what Luke has , and Luke doesn’t know what he intends to do with that information. He might… threaten Luke, for one. He can’t threaten Luke if Luke doesn’t talk to him.

The second reason is that Pio is clearly holding something back. Based on his track record, he shouldn’t have been able to peg that Luke had stolen the master bolt back on Olympus. Which meant that Pio might have gleaned something about Kronos from studying Luke’s sleep, or he had another informant. Either way, Luke can’t trust someone who’s holding something back.

The third reason to ignore him is that he’s a pain in the ass . Yeah. Luke’s cold shoulder strategy comes with the fringe benefit of a reason to avoid the most annoying person in camp.

So it’s a real pity that everyone but him seems to veto it.

The first argument against it is made by Pio himself. Not through the words he’s so proud of, no. He makes eyes at Luke every time they walk past each other: big, wet, hurt puppy dog eyes, like he’s a child.

It’s not supposed to be hard to ignore that. But somehow Luke’s eyes keep snagging on his annoying face and his annoying glasses and his annoying eyes.

The solution: physically avoid him. Luke arranges for the Cabin 11 activities schedule to be as far away from Cabin 7’s as possible.

The next is made by Percy.

“So, my cousin has been really upset recently,” he says as they’re walking between activities.

“Which one?”

He gives Luke a flat look. “You know who I mean. He’s been like that since we went to Olympus.”

“Oh, really.”

“You guys were alone for a bit. Did something happen?”

He wants to say None of your business. More politely, he says instead, “It isn’t your job to manage conflicts between people older than you, Percy.”

“I know that. I don’t want to—to be your therapist, but everyone’s schedules are changing because of you two. I just think… whatever he told you, couldn’t you have let him down easy?”

Luke doesn’t think they’re talking about the same thing. “We’re past that now.”

Percy makes a frustrated noise. “You can still fix your friendship. He cares about you a lot, and I know you care about him too, even if it’s not in the same way.”

“It’s complicated—”

“It always is until you stop making it complicated,” says Percy, vehement. “I’ve been here for like a week, and everything here is way more complicated than it needs to be. Become important just to have a bed. Gain glory just to be claimed . Families don’t work like this. People don’t work like this.”

“I agree,” says Luke. “But at least with everyone else, I know where I stand. I don’t know what your cousin wants from me.”

Percy throws up his hands. “Just be friends! That’s all he ever wants. That’s what people should want.”

“You’re a quick learner,” he says, suddenly tired. “You know our parents’ world doesn’t work that way.”

“It should,” he asserts, “so maybe we shouldn’t question it when someone’s trying to make it that way. Just— talk to each other.”

The third argument is made by Annabeth.

It doesn’t start out that way. She comes to Luke’s side during their cabins’ joint archery classes and says, “So how’d he screw up?”

“Sorry?”

“Pio. How’d he screw up?”

He lays out a cover story: “We just had an argument. I told him to stop meddling.”

“He’s still doing that? Ugh. I’ll talk to him, then. He needs to patch this up before Capture the Flag.”

“Don’t!” he says quickly.

She cocks an eyebrow.

Luke thinks. He can’t let her go to Pio; Pio might tell her what Luke has, which is potentially… dangerous.

Besides, she might question how he came into possession of two of the most powerful weapons in the universe, which means Luke will then have to explain what’s been happening with Kronos, and how he can’t decide what the best thing to do about it is . How confusing it has been, trying to pick at the knot of logic and feelings at the root of that problem, alone.

“I think,” he says, “I think he may have been right to meddle.”

Even Luke doesn’t know if that’s a lie.

Annabeth looks concerned. “Did something happen?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he says smoothly.

“If it’s going to affect our performance in battle, it’s my business.”

Luke realizes he's backed himself into having to talk to Pio. He sighs.

“It won’t. I’ll sort it out.”

At the mess hall right before the campfire that night, Luke pulls the object of his frustration aside.

“Let Lee lead the singing.”

Pio gives him a wounded look. “I know you’re not talking to me, but my singing can’t be that bad.”

“I don’t—” He scowls, aggravated. “Look, that’s not what I meant. We need to talk. I left Chris in charge of Cabin 11; just arrange things so you’re free to leave the campfire.”

The guy actually lights up . “We’re gonna talk?”

Luke wants to throttle him. “Is that the only thing you heard?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make sure I can leave.” Pio smiles at him, tentative but hopeful. “Thank you. For giving me a chance.”

He shifts, uncomfortable. “It’s not for you.”

“It still means something.” Pio nods, and goes off to find his second-in-command.

Once Luke has made sure his cabin is settled around the campfire, he goes to pull Pio away. Michael gives his older brother a thumbs up as they go. It’s a little annoying, but at least if everyone assumes this is some kind of romantic situation, no one has reason to suspect Luke of anything.

Pio follows him into the forest like a wide-eyed lamb to slaughter. Luke holds a flashlight aloft; Pio’s cupping sunlight in his hands, which is a neat trick. The cicadas are silent, made dormant by the winter chill, so as the campfire song fades into the distance, the only sound becomes their feet crunching into the fragrant pine needles littering the ground and Pio singing to himself.

It’s a Hozier song, Luke thinks. They don’t exactly have Shazam in camp.

They come to a stop at a circle of ruined columns in the woods.

Luke inhales and turns to look at Pio, and is momentarily stunned to find a grim look on the other man’s face as he surveys the place.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Something like that.”

“That’s not vague at all,” says Luke wryly. “Have you been here before?”

“No.” He doesn’t elaborate. “This place—you think it’s safe to talk at?”

“Sure, as much as I think anywhere is safe to talk at.” Luke settles on the dead grass in the middle of the circle, placing his flashlight on a broken column so it illuminates both their faces. “Come on.”

Pio sits across from him without hesitation. He looks ashy in the LED light.

Luke opens his mouth, and realizes he’d come here with only the vaguest of plans for what to say. He closes it.

The silence becomes awkward.

Pio breaks it not even a minute in, apparently unable to stand it. “Was there anything specific you wanted to know?”

Many things. But the most important of all is this: “Have you told anyone?”

Pio frowns. “Of course not.”

Luke gazes at him for a few seconds, trying to gauge his honesty. Pio looks back, eyes guileless behind his glasses.

“Do you not believe me?”

Luke considers it. “I don’t think you’re lying,” he says at length. “What I don’t understand is: why not?”

“How would telling anyone help? We can’t ask for help from the kids, and the people older than us will get you into trouble. It won’t help .”

Therein lies the crux of Luke’s questions. “What exactly do you want to happen?”

“I want you to return it,” says Pio immediately.

“Why? You clearly have no love for who I took it from.” He gestures towards Pio’s arm, struck with fractal scars.

“Oh, I’m no loyalist. Fuck that guy.”

“And you know why I took it? Who I took it for?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why?” he presses. “If you hate the rule of the gods, why do you want me to stop trying to bring in the only things that can help us replace them?”

Pio holds up a hand. “Whoa, skipped a few steps there. I’m angry at the gods, yeah; they suck in some huge ways. I never said I wanted to overthrow them.”

“But—” Luke makes a frustrated noise. “If you agree that they suck, why don’t you want to do something about it?” Pio is no coward, at least on that front.

“I do ,” says Pio quickly. “I just don’t like your—your sponsor.”

Luke steels himself. “Listen, I know he’s not… sunshine and rainbows. But under him, humans lived like gods; we never had to suffer . And he hates the gods as much as we do, if not more.”

“Hmm, wait.” Pio gazes thoughtfully into the trees for a few seconds, fiddling with his rings, before his eyes snap back to Luke. “Okay. Here’s the thing. He hates the gods more than us, I don’t disagree.”

“Yeah,” says Luke, a little relieved. “So you agree—?”

Pio holds up a finger. “Let me finish. The problem with him is that he has no love for us.”

It’s like a slap in the face.

“He’s offering us the power to change our lives,” says Luke. “What greater love do you want ?”  

“One that won’t treat us like pawns!”

“The gods do that too,” he says sharply. He catches himself touching his scar and snatches his hand away. “But they’ve already screwed up their end of the bargain, for us and the mortals. The Titans haven’t.”

Pio scrunches his eyebrows. “You’re very convincing,” he admits reluctantly. “But I can’t budge on this point.”

“Why not?” Luke demands. “Why won’t you listen to reason ? They’re offering us lives free of suffering as well as glory, what else do you want? None of them are going to love us the way parents should; that’s not how any of them work.”

Pio grabs Luke’s wrist. Luke tries to pull back, but his fingers are strong . “Luke. You know what comes with glory?”

“I don’t know, importance ?”

“Yes. Importance, heroism.”

“I don’t get what you’re saying. Those are good things.”

Pio shakes his head once. “Maybe in the proportion that mortals get them. But us, we’re myth .”

Luke balks at the thought. “I… what’s your point?”

“Do you know why the Age of Heroes had to come way after the Golden Age?” says Pio.

He scowls. “Does anyone?”

“Sure. Heroes couldn’t exist in the Age when no one suffered,” says Pio, “because mythic heroism comes with suffering. ‘Name one hero who was happy.’ You can’t—for us with the blood of mortals, glory and pain are intertwined, always.”

Luke crosses his arms. “You’re saying that we shouldn’t strive for glory because we’ll suffer.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s bullshit. We suffer anyway.”

“True,” Pio concedes. “But looking for glory, that’s courting disaster. Looking for glory means—it means committing to doing everything violently. Explosively.”

Luke can’t help it. His voice rises: “Maybe that’s the right thing to do. Maybe the violent way is the right way.”

“Not like this!”

“Why not ? They have it coming!” he cries. “You don’t know what they did to me; you don’t know what they did to my mother. They deserve to bleed. They deserve it if things blow up in their face!”

Pio’s face crumples, and he lets go of Luke’s wrist. For a split-second, Luke’s almost disappointed—and then he shuffles forward and, infinitely gently, folds Luke’s face into his shoulder.

Luke freezes like a rabbit caught in a snare.

“Maybe they deserve it. But you don’t.” Pio’s throat rumbles against Luke’s temple as he speaks. “You don’t.”

“Shut up,” growls Luke, voice muffled into Pio’s collarbone. “The hell does that even mean?”

“You don’t deserve to be that explosion. Even if it brings glory and justice.”

Luke fists a hand into Pio’s shirt collar, his hands grasping and violent even as he’s caught in the other man’s arms. “If you’re implying that I would destroy myself for—”

“You would.”

“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t ,” he repeats, like saying it again would make it more true.

Pio’s hold grows tighter; Luke grows limp in it, feeling helpless despite his greater strength. “You’re not dumb, Luke. The guy you’re serving ate his own children ‘cause he was afraid of how they’d threaten him. You know, don’t you—that he was never going to let us rule the world?”

Luke says nothing. What can he even say?

Pio nods against Luke’s hair like this confirms it. “That’s not what you wanted,” he speculates. “You just wanted to hurt the gods back. You didn’t care what you’d lose in the process. Or if you got hurt.”

“No,” says Luke, but even he isn’t sure what he means. He doubles down: “I wouldn’t be that weak.”

“I don’t care if you’re weak.”

Luke’s breath hitches. “I—what do you want from me?”

Pio cups his lightning-scarred hand around Luke’s nape, and pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes. Luke finds himself missing the warmth, and he hates himself for it.

“I want you to live,” murmurs Pio, his voice just barely audible over the winter wind whistling through the woods. “To seek out what makes you happy, but also feel sadness when it comes. To—to buy tchotchkes you find in thrift stores, to think about whether you want to go to college, to make small talk with strangers on trains. To visit your mom and eat her cooking again. To grow and change and do all the boring, horrible, wonderful work of being a real person.”

It’s… some kind of confession, Luke thinks. But Pio doesn’t even look embarrassed. His entire face is so open and affectionate that it’s painful to look at.

Luke, on the other hand, feels raw. Flayed.

“That’s not me,” he says hoarsely. He fights dragons, he mentors heroes. He gets messages from dead deities and rages against the ones that run the universe. “I don’t… I’m not just some guy who gets to live like that.”

“But maybe you could become one,” says his friend. “Don’t you want to?”

He’d never thought about that, never in his life considered it a possibility. What is it even like to be a real person?

He tries to imagine it. Going to college, living in a dorm, drinking shitty coffee to cram for projects. What would he even major in? Brushing shoulders with strangers as he gets out of the subway, towards a routine job, something stupid like accountancy. Would he find it fulfilling, or would he hate it and keep chasing a better one? He’d do groceries, learn how to work an oven, and have his own bedroom. He’d name his houseplants, if he could keep them alive.

Would he even live on the East Coast? Maybe he’d travel the country, free of quests and godly oversight, and find a small town in the middle of nowhere to settle in. Or maybe he’d—come home. Live in Connecticut, somewhere he can walk to his old house and hug his mom every day. And maybe she’d never be whole, but neither would he. Maybe they’d be okay. Maybe real people fracture in patterns like his, and don’t shatter. Maybe he could live.

Luke doesn’t know. But at that moment, he wants so badly to find out.

Pio has leaned forward, looking at him expectantly. His nose is red from the cold, and as he breathes his glasses fog up. Luke wants to take them off and see his eyes more clearly.

An explosion could never do something so gentle.

“I want it,” he breathes.

Pio tilts his head just a little bit forward, touching his forehead to Luke’s. “I hoped you might say that.”

Luke exhales, leaning into the contact. “I guess you’re going to say that I can start by returning what I took,” he says drily.

He smiles. “Maybe you know me after all, golden boy.”

“…Not enough,” says Luke at length. “I can’t—I can’t totally trust you yet.”

The smile slips away; Luke wishes he could snatch it back like a leaf from the wind. “Tell me why,” says Pio, sounding as if he already knows.

“You’re keeping something from me.”

Pio heaves a breath and pulls away, nodding reluctantly.

Luke misses the touch. “You’re not going to deny it?”

“I have exactly one secret,” he says.

“ One secret?” repeats Luke. “That’s… rare.”

“I don’t like lying. But it’s a big one, and it’s not pretty.”

“Oh,” says Luke, disheartened.

Pio groans. “Don’t make that face! I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you.”

“…Uh?”

“You think this is what’s keeping you from trusting me, right?”

“I do,” admits Luke. “You know what I’ve been holding back now, but I still know what it’s like to be a liar. You can’t rely on someone keeping secrets.”

“Then I’ll tell you mine,” says Pio. “But it can’t be unheard.”

Luke inhales, genuinely shocked.

Pio only sighs and puts a hand on Luke’s cheek. Luke is—frozen. He can’t bring himself to move away, even as Pio leans in, so close that their noses brush.

But he only kisses Luke on the cheek. It’s feather-light, soft and warm like a sunbeam.

“Sorry,” says Pio, “I had to do that at least once.” Then, before Luke can react, he plows on: “My demigod power is that I’ve seen other worlds.”

Luke blinks, still a little dizzy. “Pardon?”

“Only my dad knows this, but I got a…vision,” he clarifies.

“A vision?” Luke echoes. At the idea, fear stabs him like cold steel in the heart. Again? “Of—of the future?”

“Not the future,” says Pio hurriedly. “The futures of other worlds. And their pasts.”

“And you’re, you’re okay?”

Pio grabs his wrist. “I need you to understand that these are alternate timelines ,” he commands. “They’re not this world. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Luke breathes raggedly. “You—I—”

“Inhale,” orders Pio, and Luke tries. “Deeply,” he says, more gently. 

He struggles for a few moments longer, but he gets it under control.

“Okay,” he says, a little less breathlessly. “Okay.”

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah. You suck at delivering news,” he informs him.

Pio laughs, surprised. “I missed that.”

Luke blinks. “You missed me being mean?”

“You being blunt. It’s funny.”

“I…” Luke shakes his head. “Okay. Prove it.”

He pauses. “I’ve never been to Connecticut,” he says, non-sequitir. “I need you to accept that premise.”

“Sure?” says Luke. “You were from Portland, and you went pretty much straight to camp. I remember.”

“Right. So without the visions, there’s no way for me to know something about your childhood that you’ve never told me.”

“Okay, tell me something I’ve never told you.”

Pio nods. “You loved chocolate chip cookies as a kid,” he says.

He scoffs. “I did not —”

“Until,” he interrupts, “until your mom started making them every day.” He squeezes Luke’s hand. (When did he start holding Luke’s hand?) “ Every day.”

Luke stiffens, clenches his jaw. “You know about that?” he says, deeply uncomfortable.

“I do. I have for the past two years. I’m sorry,” says Pio. Yet he doesn’t let go.

Luke could pull his hand away. Pio’s holding it like a baby bird; it would be easy.

That’s probably the only reason he doesn’t.

“If you’re telling the truth, then you couldn’t help it,” he says at last. “But I don’t tell anyone about this because I don’t want pity. So if all this , this want to help me, is pity, I don’t want it.”

“You’re gonna have to clarify that for me,” says Pio, scrunching his brow. “What’s the difference between sympathy and pity to you? Because I don’t think I can stop feeling bad that it happened to you and your mom.”

“Uh,” Luke says, thrown off. “I guess… pity is when you look down on me?”

Pio snorts. “Good, I don’t think I can do that. You’re Luke Castellan . Master swordsman, cool older brother, lover of justice, all-around badass. Not pity material.”

“Oh,” says Luke blankly. He shakes himself. “Damn right I am. Okay. Okay, well, why keep your whole thing a secret?”

“It’s dangerous to know your fate,” says Pio. “Even if it’s not really your fate.” Luke opens his mouth to ask, but Pio beats him to the punch: “I’m not telling you what happened to the other yous.”

Somewhat disgruntled, Luke asks, “And it’s not dangerous for you ?”

Pio shrugs. “If there are other mes in the multiverse, I didn’t see the universes they exist in.”

That seems a bit sad, but Luke doesn’t have the energy to get into it at the moment. “Okay. Okay. You say you didn’t see the future. So what did you see, then?”

“Bad stuff,” says Pio. “Alternate bad stuff, but they’re still possible here. I’ve been trying to prevent some of them.”

“Me stealing what I took, is that one of them?” Is that how he knew?

“Kinda.”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?” he probes. “If you knew I was going to do something you thought was bad?”

Pio tilts his head. “I thought you might not do it,” he admits.

“That’s stupid,” says Luke, and a smile ghosts across Pio’s face.

“Maybe. But that’s a risk of putting faith in people.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop saying that stuff.”

“But it’s true,” insists Pio. “I have faith in you.”

“You knew that some other mes did it, and you thought I might not?” says Luke, skeptical. “Are these other mes in your visions worse than this me or something?”

“Real you is cuter, for one,” says Pio.

Luke feels himself flush, but he glares until Pio stops giving him that dumb smile.

“Yeah, you aren’t so different,” he concedes. “But the story can always change.”

“That’s so unlikely,” Luke points out. “Didn’t some guy say that was insanity? To do something again and again and expect something different?”

“This isn’t Groundhog Day ,” says Pio. “ This world has never happened before, golden boy. Those yous aren’t the real you.”

“Still,” says Luke, stubborn. “Surely even you have to admit that statistics mean something.”

Pio pauses, and gazes at him for a long while. Luke tries not to crumble under his stare, until he finally speaks, in a soft voice:

“I’m not giving up on you. We’re going to change your life yet.”

Unnerved, Luke forcibly snorts. “Don’t be so dramatic, Jiminy Cricket.”

Pio chuckles, self-deprecating. “Maybe I am dramatic. But I’m not going to put stock in numbers .”

“Oh, sure,” says Luke lightly. “Just going to ignore one of the constants of the multiverse, no biggie. Surely your big heart and positive attitude can change the world. Gods , stop acting stupid.”

He pouts. “It’s not stupid to hope.”

“It is when you’re being passive about it,” he says. “You were, what, just befriending people and dropping hints and hoping I get it?”

Pio opens his mouth, but seems to have no rebuttal to that.

Luke laughs, incredulous. “Oh my gods, you were .”

“It worked,” he protests. “I got you to commit to returning what you took, right?”

“Yeah, because I initiated a talk, because I didn’t want to disappoint Annabeth by having shitty coordination in Capture the Flag,” says Luke. “Be real for a second.”

Pio cocks an eyebrow. “I counted on your love superseding your anger,” he counters. “That’s not a gamble, pretty boy; that’s a plan.”

Luke’s speechless for a few seconds, scrambling to formulate a response. “Be honest,” he says finally, “you didn’t plan for this to happen.”

“Okay, I didn’t,” admits Pio. “But having faith has worked out so far, right?”

“It’s not always going to.”

“But—”

“You said you wanted to change my life, Pio. Did you mean that?” demands Luke.

He exhales. His breath blows, warm, across Luke’s face. “…With all my heart.”

“Good,” he says, surprised to find he means it too. “Then stop half-assing it .”

Pio hesitates, but nods.

“I’m going to return the bolt and the helm,” says Luke. He takes a moment to relish the smile that erupts on Pio’s face like a supernova, before he continues: “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to try to give up on my plot, and turn on a Titan . I expect you to put in the same energy.”

“Okay.” Pio’s grin is giddy . “Okay, Luke.”

Luke punches his arm. “Now put your divine visions to use, and help me come up with a plan.”

December 25, 2022

The first step of the plan is to admit they couldn’t make it on their own.

The news about the stolen bolt breaks in camp subtly. One of Luke’s own campers overhears Chiron and Mr. D speaking about it. They tell their bunkmates, who scatter the news around camp. Luke hears about it in the night, but by mid-morning the next day, it has already reached Pio’s ears.

Zeus has broken his silence. The two of them were going to have to be extra careful, which meant they couldn’t risk failing just because of their personal shortcomings. So, they couldn’t make the plan on their own.

“You’re terminally optimistic,” Luke says when they meet at the Arts and Crafts pavilion, in between activities. “And we’ve established that my realism can be manipulated.”

Pio fiddles with his friendship bracelets. “I wouldn’t call it realism …”

“It doesn’t matter what you call it, smartass; the point is that I can’t be trusted to have an objective view when making plans, and neither can you.”

He nods reluctantly. “Fair. So we have to bring in a third person. I have a couple ideas—”

“I want Annabeth in.”

Pio’s head snaps up. “Luke, no. She’s twelve .”

“She’s also the single best tactician in camp,” he points out. “Besides, she’d never want to hurt me, and she’d be hurt if she found out I was in danger and she didn’t get to help.”

“Those are all true, but isn’t this too much responsibility for a kid?”

“Then we keep her out of the implementation,” he reasons. “Let her work on the theory, and keep her name out of trouble if things go south. It doesn’t make sense to deprive ourselves of her strengths.”

Pio obviously hesitates.

Luke stops, and sighs. “I don’t want to lie to her again,” he confesses in a low voice.

Pio’s expression softens right away, and Luke’s mind boggles. He had been telling the truth about his motives, but it’s crazy how easy it would be to lie to Pio, if Luke were ever to put his mind to it.

“Well, when you put it like that, I don’t think I can deny you,” complains Pio.

So they bring in Annabeth.

Luke seeks her out before lunch, and they pull her aside by the lake. She seems unusually dismayed to be there, frowning and not meeting either of their eyes, even before they say anything.

“I need to tell you something.”

“I already figured it out,” she says. It sends a bolt of shock down his spine before she continues: “The two of you aren’t subtle. Congratulations.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke lies. “I’m like, 75% sure you haven’t heard about this.”

“That’s kind of a low estimate,” says Pio. “I wouldn’t tell anyone without your say-so, even A.”

“Shut up, Pio,” says Luke reflexively. “This is Annabeth we’re talking about, she could’ve figured it out somehow.”

“She’s twelve, dude, I don’t think—”

Annabeth holds up a hand. “Can we get back on track?”

“Yes.” Luke meets her sharp, dark eyes, and steels himself for the hero-worship there to crack. “Annabeth, I screwed up.”

She raises her eyebrows, more surprised than Luke had ever seen her outside of battle. “What do you mean? What did you guys do?”

“Why am I under suspicion?” whines Pio.

“Maybe because the king of the gods felt the need to smite you personally,” she suggests.

“Come on, A, that was like two weeks ago.”

Annabeth seems skeptical, so Luke confirms: “Pio has nothing to do with it. It was all me. I… you’ve heard the rumors? About the thing that was stolen on the winter solstice?”

She nods, tilting her head. “Yeah. I’ve been hearing my cabinmates speculate that someone was—someone was trying to start a war between the gods by stealing a symbol of power.”

Luke swallows, and forces himself to say: “It was me.”

Her frown deepens. “What do you mean?”

“Annabeth…” his voice drops into a shamed whisper: “I’m the lightning thief.”

Her face shifts through several different expressions: blank-eyed incomprehension, disbelief, analysis, acceptance, and finally fear , as sure as the fear that had been there when she’d been seven.

Luke can’t know for sure if it’s fear for him, or of him. But his little sister had always been a smart kid.

She inhales, then blows out a breath made visible by the winter chill. “…Why?”

This is even more painful to force out. “I was so angry.” No. He corrects himself: “I still am. The lot we have in life, Annabeth, it’s not right.”

“That’s just the way it is,” she says, but her eyes are flicking around in that way that means she’s thinking. She’s hearing him out, at least.

“No,” he says. “It could be better. Our godly parents could be better. They need to be.”

“What does this have to do with you stealing… that? Were you just—trying to get back at Thalia’s dad? You’re smarter than that. You wouldn’t do something that risky if you didn’t think it would accomplish something real.”

So faithful, even now. It scares him for reasons he can’t quite grasp.

“I had a plan to get back at them in big ways, and help everyone out,” Luke admits. “Well, I had—orders, that I’ve stopped following.”

“Orders?” she echoes. “From whom?”

And he tries to say the name, even a title, but trying to get them to pass his throat is like pulling teeth without pain relief: painful, shame-inducing, and so terrifying it makes his blood run cold.

Somewhere out there is a Titan he’s double-crossing. Speaking the name would make it real . That particular fear may be irrational, but he thinks his reaction is a little justified.

Annabeth’s waiting.

Then there’s a gloved hand on Luke’s shoulder. He looks to his side, and meets Pio’s brown eyes. 

“If it’s too hard, I can say it,” murmurs Pio. “Breathe.”

Luke realizes that his breaths have grown ragged. He tries to take back control, only just remembering to nod.

Pio squeezes Luke’s shoulder, then lets go.

“The Lord of Time,” says Pio in a low but clear voice. “The Crooked One.”

Annabeth puts a hand over her mouth.

“He’s been appearing in Luke’s dreams for a while now,” he explains. “That’s why he hasn’t been sleeping well.”

“The Titan ?” she whispers.

“Possibly the only beings with the raw power to take on the gods, and the motivation to knock them off Olympus,” says Pio. “It would make sense…”

“You don’t have to sugarcoat your opinion,” Luke rasps, “you’ve made it clear that you think it’s dumb.”

“Shh, I’m trying to be nice. Anyway, I was saying that it would make sense if the main Titan weren’t an actual cannibal who would throw us away at the first opportunity.”

“There it is,” mutters Luke.

“I’m just saying, the concept of half-blood rights isn’t half bad, but your plan needed feedback.”

“Why tell me now?” says Annabeth.

“We need your help,” says Luke, at the same time that Pio says, “Luke didn’t want to keep secrets from you anymore.”

Luke glares at him, but he only shrugs. “What? I can’t tell A when you say sweet things behind her back?”

“Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“Those came out of your mouth first. I just put them back in. Like dentures.”

“Gross,” says Annabeth.

“Very poetic,” snarks Luke.

Annabeth crosses her arms, turning to him. “So the—thing, did you hand it over to… you know.”

“I haven’t,” says Luke. “He’s in Tartarus, so even if I hadn’t decided to call it off, it would’ve taken a quest to the Underworld to get it to him.”

“It’s still with you.” She nods thoughtfully. “That’s probably a good thing. Okay, let’s do a risk assessment. Do we think Thalia’s dad will give you mercy, if we give it back and grovel?”

“Maybe, but—”

“We are not doing that,” says Pio sharply, surprising them both.

Luke gives him a befuddled look. Pio had always been the one to give the gods the benefit of the doubt—why stop now? “It’s worth thinking about. It scares me too, but I got here by lying; it seems right that my way out would be honesty.”

“Yes, and he’s Thalia’s dad, so maybe in her name—”

Pio shakes his head, vehement. “We can’t count on him. He would let Jason die. Jason . Luke has more kindness in his little finger than that man has in his entire body.”

A pause.

Luke questions, “Who the heck is Jason?”

He blinks, like he hadn’t realized he’d said something out of place. “Thalia’s little brother? Jason Grace?”

“What.”

“Thalia never mentioned having a half-brother who died,” says Annabeth, dubious.

“Oh, no. He’s a full brother,” says Pio, missing the point. “Also, he’s still alive.”

“What,” Luke says blankly. “Their dad had two kids with the same woman? Where’s Jason, then? Why wasn’t he with Thalia?”

“Long story, tell you later,” says Pio. “But he should be safe for now.”

“Ugh. I guess I have to trust your word on that.”

“My word is very trustworthy,” grumbles Pio.

Annabeth gives him a measuring look. “I think I’m missing something here,” she says at length. “I don’t like it.”

“Uh—”

“Explain,” she commands.

Pio looks like he’s gearing up to say something embarrassing before he says: “I’ve secretly been a seer this whole time. I got visions from parallel timelines, past and future.”

A beat.

“Bullcrap.”

“It’s true,” says Luke reluctantly. “He’s proven it.”

Annabeth stares; Luke knows her brain is working at a million miles a minute. “Okay. Say I believe you. How far into the future did you see?”

“Six years, I think. Those were super eventful years, though.”

“Did—”

“Nope, nope! I’m not telling.”

She scowls. “So what’s the point of you having visions?”

“I’ll tell you what’s relevant and nothing more,” he says firmly. “I don’t know how accurate I will be anyway. For all we know, I could be no better than a magic 8-ball.”

“That’s not how oracles work,” she says. “Prophecies contain fate absolutely; they just tell it in riddles.”

“I’m no oracle, thank my dad for that,” says Pio. “My domain is poetry, so I’m pretty sure that what I saw are, like, mythic tropes. Other tellings of your story.”

“Wait, wait,” interjects Luke, “care to expound on that?”

“In the olden days, most people couldn’t read, so stories were told orally. If someone is told an epic, that’s one telling,” explains Pio. “But another rhapsode could go to another group of people and tell the story differently. Keep the characters and premise, but alter the plot beats. Theseus gives the Minotaur mercy. Orpheus doesn’t turn back.”

“That doesn’t change what actually happened,” Annabeth points out. “It doesn’t matter .”

“Doesn’t it?” he says. “For the Orpheus of that retelling, it’s real, and he gets to go home with his beloved. Maybe it didn’t go that way for the other Orpheus whose story was told in this world. But it matters a lot to him .”

“What you’re saying is that this, us—the real us—we’re another telling,” Luke realizes. “We get to inform the story with the version your visions gave, but what you saw doesn’t dictate our ending. And since the telling is in process, we can change the story with our actions.”

“Bingo. At least, that’s the hope.”

Luke’s head spins. “That’s—kind of a mindscrew.”

“We were born myths,” says Pio. “We may as well exploit it, right?”

“Okay,” announces Annabeth, “you’ve thought way too much about this to actually be spouting crap. Also, you suck at lying, and I don’t think you can keep it up for this long.”

Pio blinks. “…Um, thanks, I think?”

She folds her arms. “We can’t come clean, and we can’t keep the bolt. That means we have to put it back in the right place with subterfuge. Lucky for you, that’s my specialty.”

“You’re saying I have to pull a reverse heist,” says Luke, already daunted by the thought—it seems way harder than just marching up to the thrones, especially since the Olympians are most likely on high alert. He’s dug himself into a pit.

“I think you mean we’re pulling a reverse heist,” corrects Pio, tiptoeing to sling an arm over Luke’s shoulder.

“Obviously,” says Annabeth. “We’re not gonna let you do this alone, Luke. We’re in this together.”

Together in the pit. Luke wills himself not to tear up.

“Thanks,” he says, and is proud of how stable his voice is. “Where do we start?”

Chapter Text

December 26, 2022

“Phase One of the plan is to make sure we’re at liberty to move,” says Annabeth. “Chiron and the other adults will try to stop us if we’re suspicious. We need to appear as legitimate as possible.”

When the news of the stolen bolt gets so ubiquitous that the adults can’t ignore it anymore, Chiron calls for a counselors’ meeting at the Big House.

“The keyword is calm ,” he sums up at the end, to the twelve counselors huddled around the ping-pong table. “There’s no need to react drastically, and there is no need for action at this moment. Keep your campers calm and try to wrangle the wilder rumors. Any questions?”

Pio raises his hand.

Luke cringes internally as Mr. D slurps his can of Diet Coke loudly, obviously wanting to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible. This is necessary, he tells himself, suppressing the urge to drag Pio away by the ear.

Not noticing the impatience of the Olympian at the table, Pio says, “Actually, I have an objection.”

Chiron looks a little miffed. “That’s not what I asked for, but proceed.”

He smiles, somewhat sheepishly. “As the most senior resident of Cabin 7, it’s my opinion that we should get the jump on this problem before it escalates. At the very least, we should check whether the Oracle has a prophecy to issue.”

Mr. D scoffs. “Prophecy isn’t something to be taken lightly, boy. Is there a reason behind this suggestion ?”

Pio looks away. “Just a gut feeling, sir.”

Luke catches Annabeth’s eye across the table. This isn’t the first time Pio’s attempts at subterfuge have been transparent. But in this case, it’s strategically useful: Annabeth isn’t smiling, but her eyes twinkle as Chiron leans back, the obvious falsehood making him think that the oldest child of the god of prophecy in camp has an emergent reason behind wanting to consult the Oracle of Delphi.

Pio does, of course. It’s just not emergent .

“Perhaps that gut feeling is a sign,” Chiron says finally, clearly deciding that the clear lie isn’t worth digging further into. “Mr. D and I will convene and decide on a camper to enter the attic.”

Annabeth’s hand flits onto the table, like she’s playing a particularly competitive game of slapjack. “I would like to put myself forth as a candidate.”

Chiron gives her a warning look. “All things in time, Annabeth.”

The meeting is dismissed.

Later in the day, during Cabin 11’s turn on the strawberry fields, Luke makes his way to the Big House as planned.

Chiron and Mr. D are on the table on the porch, cards spread between them in an arrangement characteristic of a game of pinochle. At a glance, Luke can tell that Mr. D is winning, which is unsurprising.

“Ah, Duke,” says Mr. D as Chiron deliberates over his cards. “Come to make our game more interesting?”

Luke stamps down the usual feeling of aggravation, pulling himself into a stance like a soldier reporting to a superior. “That would have been my honor, sir,” he says, carefully polite and glossing over the misnomer as always. “But I actually came here regarding the meeting earlier today.”

Mr. D smiles at his etiquette—an achievement for some other camper, surely, but Luke only feels tired. “Well, speak.”

“Thank you, sir,” he says. “I’m concerned about Annabeth. I think that if she’s not granted the privilege of consulting the Oracle, she may try to climb up there without permission.”

They look at him more closely—he and Annabeth famously go back years; they probably think that no one knows her better than he does. Luke stays steadfast and doesn’t squirm under the attention like some other people might.

Chiron puts his cards on the table, clearly glad for a reason to ditch the losing game. “Why do you think so?” he asks.

“She told me that she thinks Percy Jackson’s the person you were talking about,” he says. “The one who’s fated to go on a quest you can’t stop, that she can undertake.”

Luke pauses, but Chiron doesn’t deny it.

He inhales, and continues: “She thinks this stolen bolt is that quest, but Percy doesn’t have a pretext to receive the prophecy. I think she put herself up as a candidate to go to the Oracle because she’s in a better position in camp to do it. But if she doesn’t get permission, I think she’ll just sneak up there with him and receive it anyway.”

Chiron nods slowly. “I see.”

Mr. D is scowling now. “I always thought that Peter kid was trouble. Give us a moment, Duke.”

Luke nods and steps several paces off the porch, just far enough to give them privacy. He doesn’t really feel bad about tying Percy’s name into all this, but Pio had fretted over it despite their assurances that it would work based on what he’d told them. Luke had promised Percy wouldn’t get dragged in, but for some reason Pio had only agreed with the plan when Annabeth had promised the kid would be safe.

He hopes he’d performed well enough to let them keep their promises.

“Luke,” Chiron calls out. “Come and sit.”

Luke turns back, and seats himself at the table. “Yes, sir?”

“Mr. D and I have agreed on the best candidate to go to the Oracle,” he says.

“Oh, that’s great,” says Luke. “Who is it?”

“You,” says Mr. D, pointing with his can.

Luke blinks, with the appropriate shock of someone who hadn’t even realized he was on the table. “Sir?”

“I believe Annabeth is right, in some ways,” Chiron explains. “She is fated for this quest, if there is to be a quest at all. However, Mr. D and I agree that it would be… best, if Percy were left out of the equation for now. If she believes he should be on it, then we cannot allow her to be the primary quest-taker.”

“Can I ask why?” says Luke, as if he didn’t already know that they were trying to keep Poseidon’s kid under wraps.

“No,” growls Mr. D.

Luke gulps. “Understood, sir.”

“We’re choosing you because we think you have discretion,” says the wine god. “Don’t prove us wrong, Duke.”

Like Annabeth had predicted, they’re trusting Luke. Isn’t that ironic?

“I’m sure Luke will prove more than up to the task,” placates Chiron. “Luke, if a prophecy is given, we need you to choose Annabeth to be on your quest. You may choose any person to be your third, barring Percy Jackson.”

Luke nods quickly. “I can do that. I have some ideas for our third member—”

“Apollo’s son,” Mr. D predicts.

Luke blinks again, genuinely thrown off this time. “Sorry, sir?”

Mr. D raises an eyebrow at him. “The guy you’ve been sneaking off into the woods with? Come on, you didn’t think I was off the camp gossip trains.”

“I understand Pio is quite friendly with Mr. D’s children,” says Chiron.

Luke remembers the bottle of pinot noir on his last birthday. “Ah,” he says, embarrassed to have his… whatever with Pio being put on the table with these two people, even if their understanding of it doesn’t seem totally accurate. Though the rumor that they’re dating is providing a convenient cover for their conspiracies. “Should I not choose him then, sir?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Mr. D. “Having complicated relationships with your questmates is a longstanding demigod tradition.”

Luke looks to Chiron, who shrugs. “There’s no camp policy against it.”

“Right,” says Luke, trying to feel relieved that the plan hasn’t gone off the rails instead of the vague discomfort he’s feeling now.

“Just don’t screw this up,” Mr. D orders.

It is with very real trepidation that Luke says, “Yes, sir.”

He meets Annabeth in front of Cabin 11 after that afternoon’s activities.

“Go time,” he says.

She gives him a self-satisfied little smile. “Remember to take a pen.”

With her blessing, Luke climbs the creaky stairs to the attic of the Big House for the first time in two years, writing implements in hand.

Dust drifts from the floor as he steps forward. The mummy, he sees, is as shriveled up as ever. Luke tries not to think about his mother as green smoke spills out of its mouth, and it speaks:

“Hail, trickster’s son, return your spoils.
Two blameless this journey embroils.
Take light from the unlit, take freedom from the chained,
Failure arrives with messenger profaned.
All three will bear the flame towards the throne,
But the descent must be taken alone.” 

Luke takes notes. There’s really nothing else he could do.

He tells Annabeth and Pio about it first, and they construct a less incriminating version for Chiron and Mr. D to hear. Luke kind of wishes he could hear a less doomed-sounding version too.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Pio. “People think too deeply about prophecies around here. That's why everything’s nuts.”

Luke tries to take his advice.

December 28, 2022

“In Phase Two, we scope out our target. We find out what new protections the Olympians have put on their thrones, and devise ways to overcome everything that could make putting the bolt back in right hands difficult.”

After some tearful goodbyes—mainly Pio with his cabin and Percy—the camp is kind enough to give them a ride to NYC in a little white van driven by the hundred-eyed Argus, who drops them off at the edge of Queens in the morning. Together, the three of them elect to take the train and make their way towards a subway entrance using an honest-to-gods paper map.

Luke has sort of forgotten how loud the city is, even in the winter. Motorcycles roar past them, speeding way over the limit; an advertiser walks alongside them, chatting relentlessly, until Pio reluctantly takes a pamphlet for SAT reviews; and a kid actually pickpockets Annabeth as they get into the subway.

Annabeth pats her coat pocket, looking alarmed, before starting after him, yelling “Hey!”

Luke pulls her back by the shoulder before they attract attention, and pulls her onto the escalator with him and Pio, shaking his head.

“Luke—!”

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says, and she goes along, even with her eyebrows furrowed.

When they reach the bottom, he leads them by the tiled wall and flashes her the little silver dumbphone she’d nearly lost. “Looking for this?”

She puts a hand over her mouth.

“I stole it back as he ran past,” he says. “Care to explain why you have a phone?”

“Luke…” says Pio.

“I’m not mad,” says Luke.

Pio presses his lips together, but physically as well as metaphorically steps away. Satisfied, Luke turns back to his sister.

“This is dangerous, Annabeth,” he says. “It’s like being a walking monster magnet. In NYC .”

“I know that,” she says, as short as she has ever been with him. “Don’t you think I know that? It’s off .”

“Did you have this in camp?” he asks.

She looks away, which is all the confirmation he needs.

He sighs. “Why?”

“You remember when I went to visit my father?”

Luke turns the phone over in his hand and gives it a second look, somewhat surprised. “There’s a contact for him here?”

He could read the beginnings of a scowl on her face, but she’s making a valiant effort not to glare. Fondness bubbles up in his chest as she says, “Yes. He said I just had to call.”

Luke opens his mouth to reply, but finds that he’s not sure what to say.

It hurts a little bit, to think that she hadn’t told him this. It was normal for his other siblings to hide things from him as they grew up. He had accepted it, but Annabeth was different . At some point, he had started thinking of himself as—her surrogate father, he supposes. So for her to have a secret, and for that secret to be that she’d held on to her actual dad…

Well, it aches, like stumbling and spraining his ankle. He should be glad, he thinks. But he’s a little, well, jealous that she has other adults to turn to if it comes to it. As a brother, but also as someone who’d been a kid once too.

He hands the phone back to her. Annabeth’s clearly itching to snatch it back, but makes herself take it from him casually.

“Annabeth…”

She won’t meet his eyes. “I know you think it’s childish.”

Pio elbows Luke, raising his eyebrows like he thinks Luke should know what his expression should mean.

Luke does not, so he’s fumbling blind as he tells Annabeth, “That’s okay. It’s not stupid.”

Her frown deepens. “But you do think it’s childish.”

He doesn’t deny it. “Annabeth, I’m—glad,” he forces himself to say. “You being a kid, it isn’t something you should be ashamed of. It’s just a phone.”

“I’m on a quest with you,” she says tersely. “I can’t be a child.”

Gods . Had he made a mistake after all, bringing her into the fold? Luke looks to Pio for help, feeling a little lost.

Pio, who’d been standing to the side pretending not to listen the entire time, is practically vibrating with the need to say something and looks happy to be roped in. “A, I think what Luke is saying is that it’s normal to be a kid. You want her to have space to be childish with you, even on this quest, is that right?”

“Yeah,” Luke says, relieved that someone else could say it. Sometimes it pays to have Pio around, after all.

“I can carry my weight,” she insists.

“No one’s doubting that,” says Pio. “Right, Luke?”

“I… You’re the most capable girl I know, Annabeth,” he says. “But we don’t need you to; you don’t have to, to act grown up, and I don’t want you to.”

To his horror, her face crumples and tears spring into her eyes.

Pio swoops in, handing her a folded paisley bandana in lieu of a handkerchief and looking for all the world like he’d like to coo (he could be a dick too, huh). Annabeth’s hands do a strange little dance, shoving him away and grabbing the bandana in practically one motion.

“Did I say something?” says Luke helplessly.

Pio looks between the two of them, and behind Annabeth’s back, makes a big obvious gesture for Luke to hug her.

He didn’t have to tell Luke that. Luke may not be an actual prophet, but he was a big brother too, thank you very much.

“I’ll get us tickets,” says Pio, stepping away abruptly. Go, he mouths to Luke. Back in ten.

When he leaves, Luke rushes forward and hugs his sister.

Annabeth doesn’t say anything, just hiccups softly into his shoulder and holds on tight, her face warm with tears. Somehow, Luke gets the sense that nothing he could say would make this better, either. So he smooths her braids and just holds his sister like he had when she was very small. It does feel good, still being able to give her comfort.

When Pio returns, Luke and Annabeth are sitting beside each other on a rusting bench in a side hug, Annabeth drying her face with the bandana.

He hands Annabeth a mineral water. “Here, A.”

Annabeth nods in acknowledgement, and takes the water.

Pio shifts on his feet, unaccountably nervous-looking. “Are we, uh. Are we cool?”

“Yes,” she says, as smoothly as she can after having wept. “We’re cool.” She twists the cap and drinks.

He gives her a nervous grin. “I’m glad. You feeling up to get moving?”

She nods, and stands. “Let’s go.”

The subway ride is uneventful. There’s still an odd tension between the three of them, which is relieved when Pio complains about the ugly color of the train seats, prompting Annabeth to give him a snippy lecture about subway architecture and interior design that he actually seems to take an interest in.

“That’s so cool,” Pio says, sounding genuine, as they step off the train into Penn Station. “Maybe I can forgive the ugly colors, then.”

She cocks an eyebrow at him. “I told you, no one makes things ‘ugly’ for fun. Architects are artists too.”

He looks suitably chastened. Annabeth smirks, which makes Luke grin.

Then the three of them climb into the weak sunlight, and immediately fall silent.

Compared to the bustle of Queens and the subway, 31st street is eerily quiet. The street is closed and the wind is unnaturally biting, so the few mortals passing by have the collars of their coats turned up.

Most crucially, all the lights are out, here and in the surrounding streets as they walk past. The windows are dark, the signs are unlit, and the various advertising screens are a flat black. The clouds in the sky above are gray and impenetrable, blocking out the sun; together, those things make the street look like evening even though it was nearly noon.

Annabeth exhales, her breath visible in the air. “There should’ve been a generator in at least some of these buildings,” she says. “This can’t be mundane.”

Luke nods. “Keep your cap in hand,” he says, putting his own hand on the hit of his sword.

“Way ahead of you.”

He smiles grimly. “And bolt if something looks off.”

She gives him a betrayed look. “No!”

“I agree,” says Pio. “Y-you’re outvoted. Uh, Ath—Athena, Athens, democracy something something, Gods , it’s so damn cold.”

He’s shivering. Luke digs out an extra scarf from his coat pocket and hands it to him, and Pio arranges it around his neck, fixing Luke with a gooey smile. It puts a warmth in Luke’s chest that he decides not to examine too closely.

“I hate the two of you,” grumbles Annabeth. 

Luke and Pio give each other a look.

“After you, quest leader,” says Pio.

Luke rolls his eyes and takes point, Celestial bronze sword aloft, navigating the ghost streets towards the Empire State Building. Pio takes up the rear, his bow in hand, all but walking backwards as he scans the street behind them. Annabeth reluctantly takes the middle.

“Uh,” says Pio, “is it just me, or is it getting darker?”

It is. It’s past evening-dark, more the darkness of a moonless night.

Wine-dark, something in Luke’s memory insists.

“No,” says Annabeth. “It’s not just you.”

She takes out a Camp-issued flashlight and flicks it on. It turns on, Luke can see the end of it lit up, but it does nothing to pierce the darkness. Annabeth points it at a car, and it reflects nothing back.

There’s a dull clang , and Luke turns to dimly see Pio rubbing his forehead.

“Did you—”

“Shut up,” grumbles Pio.

“You walked into a post ?” says Annabeth.

Pio’s face twists, but all he says is, “Yes, general.”

Annabeth laughs, shocked.

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up,” he grouches. “We can’t keep walking around blind.”

“Well, there’s an easy solution,” says Luke, tilting his head. “Light it up, sunshine.”

Pio glares. Or, he tries to—his face twitches, and breaks into a pleased smile. Luke huffs as Pio slings his bow and cups his hands, and warm light spills through his palms, turning the skin of his fingers a glowing red and casting light all around, like he held the sun itself in his hands.

Beautiful, thinks Luke.

“That’s useful,” says Annabeth approvingly.

“Wanna touch it?” Pio holds his hands out towards her, and she hesitates before placing her own hands on them.

“It’s warm,” she says wonderingly.

Luke makes himself turn back to their trek, now lit by strangely-angled sunlight.

When they stop at the doors of the Empire State, it’s blacker than midnight except where Pio’s light touches. The darkness seems to be emanating from the lobby, like the inverse of light rays. Luke’s eyes don’t seem to be adjusting, even though he has great night vision.

“It really must be the gods who made this darkness, then,” says Annabeth. “They know someone might be coming. We’ll have to be careful.”

“You should take point,” Luke tells Pio.

Pio nods, and puts a lit hand on the door—

“Pause!”

Pio pulls his hand away as if burned, and Luke whips around.

On the other side of the street stands a tall, faintly glowing blond man in an expensive-looking white shirt, with a guitar case slung across his back. The eyes of the mortals walking past slide right past him, and his hand is held up in the signal for stop .

“…Dad?” says Pio, confused.

”Orpeo,” says the man.

“Lord Apollo!” gasps Annabeth, falling to one knee.

Remembering himself, Luke kneels too.

“Oh, stand up,” says Apollo, crossing the street without so much as a glance to the side.

“I… Dad,” says Pio. “I don’t mean to offend, but why are you here?”

Luke and Annabeth catch each other's eyes as they rise. Annabeth raises an eyebrow, as if to ask, ‘Pio really met his dad before?’

“To stop you from giving yourself up,” says Apollo. “Honestly, kiddo. You’ll put both of us in danger.”

Pio looks down at his hands. “You mean—”

“Your sunlight, yes,” says Apollo. “It’ll work, sure, but think about it for a second. Olympus will be watching—what do you think they’ll think if it’s sunlight breaking through the darkness they put up?”

Pio frowns, and extinguishes his light, leaving them in the darkness. “They’ll think it was you.”

“Or one of my kids,” agrees Apollo. “It’s bad enough I didn’t tell them about your friend’s prophecy. Don’t make trouble for us.”

“This darkness… it’s not exactly in Olympus’ purview.”

“No. It was put up by my uncle.” He clarifies, “The one six feet under.”

Hades. The darkness isn’t protective , Luke realizes: it’s an attack on Olympus by the owner of the Helm in his possession. One that, purely by chance, is also in their way.

“So it’s definitely mythological darkness. We’d have to find an alternate way to light it up,” says Pio.

“You already know where to find that,” says Apollo. “It was all in the guidebook.”

“All in the prophecy,” interprets Pio. He quotes: “Take light from the unlit, take freedom from the chained. I thought it would be metaphorical.”

“Goes to show what you know,” Apollo says peaceably.

“The chained…” says Luke.

“I think I know what that means, now,” Annabeth says.

Pio nods. “Do you happen to know where it means?”

Annabeth hesitates, then shakes her head.

Apollo claps once. “Good kids. Ask me one question. Go on!”

Annabeth looks at him, then says a non-sequitur: “Where is the Caucasus now?”

Apollo grins, baring straight white teeth. “A tall, unlit pillar at a border, always in sight of my father,” he says. “Does that bring anything to mind?”

Annabeth covers her mouth. “Ah.”

“Clever girl.”

Luke exhales, nodding like he knows what’s going on. “Thank you for your blessing, Lord Apollo.”

“Thank you,” chimes Annabeth.

“Yeah,” says Pio. “I realize you didn’t have to do that, Dad. Thanks.”

Apollo glows . “Are you kidding? This is the most interesting thing that’s happened since that one kid got adopted by wolves.”

Wait, what—

In a sudden motion, Apollo looks directly at Luke, who jolts.

“You, Luke Castellan,” he says, “whatever bed you lie in will be of your own making.” He smiles sharply then, dazzling and dangerous as a solar flare. “Make it well.”

He gives them a two fingered salute—a signal for them to avert their eyes as he assumes his true, godly form—and disappears, leaving nothing but an image burned on Luke’s retina.

There’s a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” says Pio quietly, concerned. “Do you need a moment?”

Luke exhales a shuddering breath. “Your dad is fucking scary.”

“A tall, unlit pillar in view of Olympus,” says Annabeth as the three of them pore over the map on a plastic McDonald’s table, a few streets away. “That’s fairly specific.”

“There’s a lot of tall things in view of Olympus,” complains Pio. “And a lot are unlit buildings, especially now.”

Annabeth gives him a withering look over her soda. “None of those are worth a mention by the Oracle of Delphi. Only one thing in the area has historical significance for losing its light,” she says.

Luke nods as he finishes a fry, piecing together what she’s said. “The Statue of Liberty. They replaced its torch. It’s not internally lit anymore, it only reflects light.”

”Bingo,” says Annabeth.

“You two said you know what we’d find there?”

“Light from the unlit, freedom from the chained,” recites Pio. “A giver of light who’s bound. There’s one guy like that.”

Annabeth nods matter-of-factly. “Prometheus.”

Luke recoils. “Isn’t he a Titan?”

Pio nods, squeezing Luke’s shoulder. “In the other worlds, he fought on—the Crooked One’s side,” he says. “But in this one, I don’t know that he’s turned. We might still be able to get what we need from him without a fight.”

“That’s ideal,” says Luke, “but I don’t think it’s very likely. Take freedom from the chained —think that means we’ll be forcing him to give up his chance to be free?”

“It’s not much of a free life,” says Pio quietly. “If he has to serve under—well.”

They fall silent for a few moments, not meeting each other’s eyes.

“I think,” Annabeth says, “we’ll have to get him to give us some of the first fire.”

“The first fire…you mean the fire he stole from the gods, for mortals. The Mortal Fire. Right?”

“A mythological light source, but it belongs to mortals now,” muses Luke. “That must mean it can pierce through the darkness at the Empire State, but it can’t be tracked to any one demigod.” He nods to himself: it makes sense.

Pio cracks a smile, eyes sparkling. “Cool.”

“Cool?” says Annabeth. “Pio, we have to convince a Titan to help us stop the rise of his kind.”

“I mean, it’s cool that we’re drawing on our mortal side.” He shrugs. “I’m not my mortal parent’s biggest fan, but humanity in general is pretty cool, right?”

“Well, I don’t like it.” She scowls. “We’re not trained to do this the mortal way.”

“I don’t think anyone is,” says Pio, popping a fry.

Luke stands, and stretches. “Well, I know one thing,” he says wryly. “Mortal or not, we have to catch the ferry.”

They use some of their camp-provided quest allowance to make their way to Battery Park. Luke pays for passage onto the ferry to Liberty Island, noting that their money is disappearing faster than he’d like. But he also knows, the same way Annabeth knows how to win a game of Capture the Flag, that it’ll last them.

Stupid money sense.

Luke only second-guesses himself when they’re on the ferry and Pio insists on them getting photographed by a guy using instant film. He forks over the cash reluctantly and takes the photo.

“What d’you think?” says Pio. “Worth it?”

Luke stares at the polaroid in his hand. It shows Pio, Luke, and Annabeth shoulder-to-shoulder by the ferry railing, hair windswept, with the Statue of Liberty looming large in the background.

Annabeth looks harried, and if Luke’s honest, kind of adorably confused. Pio’s grinning wide, holding up a peace sign.

Luke looks—well. Not how he’d expected. Instead of just tense, he also looks… contented. There’s a small smile on his face that’s maybe even excited .

Weird. But good weird.

He puts it in their wallet. “Worth it…? Sure.”

Pio grins. “You like it,” he says delightedly.

“I don’t ,” he denies. “It was a stupid use of money.”

But when Annabeth wanders away to get a better view, Pio lays his hand on Luke’s on the railing, and Luke doesn’t pull away. He turns his own hand over instead, and catches Pio’s palm in his.

The nice shade of red that flushes Pio’s face makes Luke glad he did.

It’s not too long before they alight onto Liberty Island.

“Okay,” says Annabeth, blinking at the statue’s shadow. It really is colossal , and Luke thinks that the green of oxidization lends Lady Liberty an aura of worldliness. “We should be systematic about this. Divide the island into quadrants, and search it part by part.”

“Well, I think he’ll be chained at the torch,” says Pio.

They both look at him, and he raises his hands. “It makes sense! Poetically speaking.”

Luke opens his mouth to say something like life isn’t a poem , but then he remembers what Pio said about them being myth, and then shuts it again.

“It’s worth a shot,” he offers. “We can always do systematic later.”

Annabeth frowns, but shrugs. “It’s your quest.”

They put their heads together. There’s two ways to get to the torch, as far as they can figure. They could climb legally to the pedestal, and Luke could strap on his stupid winged Converse and fly up to the crown, alone. Or, they could go legally up to the crown and climb from there.

Luke hesitates. “We should stick together.”

“Nah. I’ll have to stay behind,” says Pio.

Luke spins to face him, upset. “What? Why?”

“You have your shoes, and Annabeth has her Yankees cap—you can keep hidden,” he reasons. “But there’s no way I can climb there without being seen. Unless A’s willing to lend me her hat?”

To Annabeth’s credit, she does stop and think about it for a second. “No.”

Pio raises his eyebrows at Luke, like ‘Told you.’

”But, what if we need someone to—”

“To what, spout poetry at Prometheus?” Pio laughs. “Be for real.”

“I mean, sure. Spout poetry!” says Luke. “We have to convince him to give us fire somehow, right? I can’t steal from him. I shouldn’t .”

“What, you want me to, like, instill faith in him like what he had in mortals ages ago?” Pio purses his lips. “I mean, okay. Maybe poetry will help. But you can do that too.”

Luke lowers his hands, nonplussed. “Me?”

“Why not?” says Pio plainly. “You’re a perfectly fine guy.”

“I”—Luke lowers his voice into a hiss—“I stole from Olympus!”

Pio gives a careless shrug. “So? I can’t imagine Prometheus giving a…a crap about someone stealing from the guy who chained him there. Actually, I think he’d be jazzed.”

Luke glares. “You know what I mean. I’m not exactly an upstanding mortal example.”

“Dude, you definitely are,” says Pio.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks Annabeth.

”Well, he cares a lot.”

Luke throws up his hands. “I have no idea what that means .”

“Giving a crap is prime mortality,” says Pio, nodding to himself. “Like, why do any of us do anything?”

Annabeth tilts her head, and says indulgently: “Why?”

“It’s all about love, baby,” says Pio sagely. “Love’s the problem, but sometimes it’s also the solution. And it’s always the motivation. And this guy is full of it.” He points at Luke. “You care . So go up there and show it.”

Luke looks between the two of them. Pio’s is completely serious, while Annabeth is slowly beginning to grin. But neither of them are budging .

“If you can’t convince him, I’ll find a way,” says Annabeth, spreading her hands. “But I think it’s worth a try.”

Pio pats her shoulder. “Yeah, our girl can Odysseus-in-the-cave the situation if things go south!”

Luke complains: “This is insane.”

Pio foists his bow onto him, before Luke and Annabeth climb to the crown.

“You’ll be safe getting down?” he asks her, when they’re at the top.

She nods. The thing is, he’d seen her complete the rock climbing wall at Camp a million times, and that was above lava—arguably on par with a 22-storey fall, in terms of danger. She’d never once fallen. The hero-trainer in him tells him he shouldn’t be this worried.

Still.

“You wouldn’t rather take my flying shoes?”

She rolls her eyes. “That would probably be more dangerous.”

“If you slip—”

“ If I slip, I’ll take off my cap and yell your name so you can catch me.”

No hesitation at all. Luke flexes his hands, nervous. He’s fast, divinely fast, but it scares him how much trust his sister has, even after he’s proven himself fallible.

She must see something in his face, because her expression loses a bit of its steel. “Luke, come on. This is my first quest. You can’t baby me if I’m going to prove myself.”

There’s only one thing he can say. “I’ll be there.”

They set off, Annabeth invisible with her feet on Lady Liberty’s eyebrows, and Luke in flight.

The torch resolves into view, an oxidized copper structure with a sculpted flame at its peak. And on its sides…

Well, Luke will be damned.

On one of the grilles, the air—the Mist—ripples to reveal an eagle .

It’s huge, about three feet tall. It shakes out its wings, and Luke realizes that its wingspan is as long as a man is tall. Zeus’ eagle. It pulls back, and its beak is covered in golden ichor and chunks of gore. Luke gets the irrational urge to cover Annabeth’s eyes, even though they’d definitely seen worse things when they were still on the run.

He hangs back. The great bird hasn’t noticed him yet—was there a way to slip around?

Somewhere to his right, his sister whispers: “There’s no way around it if we don’t want to be seen.”

Damn it. Pio would’ve been good to have after all. He was a born archer . He wasn’t the best of his siblings, sure, but the children of Apollo just seemed to have a higher skill cap at archery than the average demigod. Luke had been training with bows since fourteen, but could he hit this shot from fifteen paces away, between the uneven wingbeats of his shoes?

He has to try.

Luke nocks an arrow. He sucks in a shaking breath, and—

—looses the string with his exhale.

The arrow strikes true.

Just then the clouds above split and, for a moment, a ray of direct sunlight falls upon where the eagle dissolves into golden dust. Luke blinks, and it’s gone, as quickly as a wink.

A whisper: “Good shot.”

“I think someone was looking down just then,” says Luke, unnerved.

Then—there’s deep, hoarse laughter, from the torch’s crucible.

Luke instinctively looks towards where Annabeth is, as it grows harsh and pained. Hesitantly, he hovers closer.

There’s a man in the crucible.

No, it’s not quite a man. He must be more than a foot taller than Luke. Luke can’t be sure, since the man is curled pathetically on the floor, his arms bound above his head by a pair of bronze handcuffs. He’s balding, with his remaining hair in a loosened ponytail, and he’s dressed in a suit that would be impeccably tailored if not for the mangled, ichor-stained tear in his side, under his ribcage. The flesh there is—Luke doesn’t want to look at the flesh there.

He lifts his head, mirthful tears in his eyes, and Luke is startled to see at least four long, pale scars slashed all over his face. One is torn over his right eye, long healed over, but deep.

Luke can’t help but touch its mirror on his own face.

Prometheus huffs one last laugh when he sees that motion, the wound in his side slowly oozing gold. Then he sniffles and stops, the sound somehow derisive.

“You must be his little hound.”

Luke opens his mouth, sure that he should be outraged. But what comes out of his mouth is: “I didn’t know gods could scar.”

Prometheus pauses, tilts his head consideringly. His side shifts with the motion; Luke fights the urge to wince in sympathy. “Most would consider me a Titan.”

“I-I guess,” says Luke, taken aback.

“I found the distinctions were blurred, once,” he says. “But it seems to matter ever more. Unsophisticated, don’t you think?”

“Names matter,” Luke says, somehow spurred to speak the first thing on his mind.

“Insightful,” says Prometheus, and Luke can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic. “Well, I suppose I owe you for the reprieve. But the eagle will return as soon as the King notices it’s gone. What are you here for, little hound? He hasn’t called me forth, yet.”

“I’m not a hound,” snaps Luke. “Not anymore. And I don’t think you want to be, either. So help me stop it.”

Something in Prometheus’ pale eyes sharpens. “What gives you that idea?” he says, nonchalant.

“Give me a bit of the Mortal Fire, and I’ll free you.”

Prometheus smiles. It’s not nice. “You can’t,” he says. “Nothing short of the wholly divine can break my bonds now. They’ve learned their lesson since Hercules.”

Luke draws his sword. Prometheus gives him a sardonic look as he moves to strike the handcuff chain.

The blade glances off without really touching the chain, like two magnets with the same pole. Luke tries again, then reaches for the chain himself.

He can’t touch it either.

“Do you see? So tell me. Why should I help you on this… ill-advised straying?”

Luke hesitates, all of his justifications suddenly seeming paper-thin and ephemeral as he collapses onto the floor into a squat, across the Titan. “I… I don’t think that what he wants is what you want.”

“Hmm. What makes you think I don’t want him on the throne?”

“Because…”

“The current King of Olympus has me chained on this good for nothing rock, having my liver pecked out for eternity. Why wouldn’t I want someone who would free me?”

Luke latches on his first coherent thought. “The Statue of Liberty is not a good for nothing rock,” he says indignantly, Annabeth’s influence peeking through.

Prometheus barks a laugh. “Demigods, you’re all alike.”

He steels himself. “You’re the last person who should be calling a work of art worthless.” Luke narrows his eyes. Prometheus must be messing with him somehow.

”How do you figure?”

“You wanted this,” accuses Luke, gesturing towards the statue’s austere face. “All this, this science, this art, you wanted this! You made mortals, you stole fire for them. You wanted them to flourish, and this statue is a sign of that. This is what you wanted.”

Prometheus considers him. “And it got my liver pecked out for the rest of time ,” he says coolly. “Have you considered that I might have changed my mind? Tell me, why shouldn’t I turn you in to a higher power right now? The father or the son, who shall I choose?”

Luke falls silent.

Prometheus shakes his head. “I thought s—” 

“Because I wanted the same thing.”

A beat.

“Excuse me?”

“I defied the will of the gods,” he says evenly, trying to own his arrogance. “I defied them because I wanted something better for the people under their rule.” Luke narrows his eyes. “You defied the gods because you loved mortals. I did it because I—I loved my kids. I loved my family.”

He thinks of Thalia on the run, of Michael burning offerings at the brazier. Of Percy on the cabin floor.

Of his mom, making cookies and kool-aid forever.

Luke shakes his head. Focus. He looks straight at Prometheus, who’s watching him impassively, and gets angry . He grinds out: “I care about demigods, and no one else did. So maybe I fucked up by defying the gods. Maybe I was too angry. Well,” he snarls, “maybe someone had to be! Someone has to give a shit. Isn’t that the entire fucking point?”

He recognizes that he isn’t being entirely coherent. Still, he barrels on: “You’re the Titan of Forethought. That’s your name . You knew that stealing fire would get you chained and tortured forever, but you still did it. You never expected anyone to free you. You thought mortal life would be more important than your own safety. And I think you still do.”

He pauses, gives Prometheus time to deny it.

He doesn’t, and Luke nods, self-satisfied. “The Titans wouldn’t be good for mortals, either.”

“Not any worse than the gods,” Prometheus shoots back.

“Really?” says Luke. “The gods at least think mortals are amusing, think they’re special enough to sleep with. The rest of the Titans would think they’re no better than ants. They’ll tear continents apart and flatten mountain ranges without thinking of all the lives there. Humans didn’t suffer under the Titans because they weren’t human enough to suffer , yet. But now we’re wiser, and shorter-lived, and maybe we have the capacity to be horrible, but we have the capacity to be great too. You gave mortals the ability to suffer. That means it’s your responsibility to let them suffer as little as possible.“

“ Mortals are my responsibility,” Prometheus says. “Not you, half-bloods.”

“We count,” says Luke. “We grow up among mortals, we feel like mortals, we bleed red. We suffer and die. Sounds mortal to me.”

Inexplicably, there’s pride burning at the base of his heart. But Luke has always loved his mother more than his father.

He beseeches: “You thought mortals should be able to grow. Well, I think their children should be able to grow up . Please… please give me the chance to give that to everyone.”

Prometheus closes his eyes, as if praying inward.

Luke holds still, as if set on a scale.

“My jacket pocket,” he says at last. “Use it well.”

Luke should’ve known better than to expect gravitas, but he’s quietly disappointed when it turns out that the Mortal Fire is a kitschy green matchbook. It has old-timey lineart of the Statue of Liberty on the cover in gold foil, and lettering saying “It’s been waiting for you.”

When he flies out of the crucible, Annabeth appears and launches herself into his arms, gushing about how he’d talked his way out of the situation. (Luke privately thinks that she was glad she didn’t have to try Odysseus-in-the-cave after all.) They fly back towards the crown safely.

Pio hadn’t seen what happened, as it turns out, but he demands to hear all about it later on.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll make things up,” he warns. “I’ll make you sound so cool and heroic, the newbies won’t shut up about you for years.”

Luke snorts in place of a laugh. “Don’t look so happy,” he says, but he’s grinning too. “We’re not done yet.”

Chapter Text

December 28, 2022

“Phase Three is when we try to actually return the bolt. We get past all the hurdles we found in Phase Two, and claim the prize. Or return the prize, in this case.”

They find a motel room at the edge of the city. Luke and Pio agree that Annabeth should take one of the beds, and play rock-paper-scissors for the other. Luke loses, so he has to take the mattress on the floor.

Not his worst sleeping arrangements ever, by far; but he’d never thought he’d miss his bunk in Cabin 11.

While Annabeth’s in the shower, Pio peers over the edge of his bed.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” says Luke from the mattress, eyes still closed.

”I just wanted to say, uh… as a friend, I’m really proud of you.”

He stops, then opens his eyes, squints at Pio. “For what?”

“I guess in general. But also for today.” Pio looks flustered, behind Luke’s lashes. “This quest, what you’re doing, it’s huge, you know. For the world, sure, for demigods—but also on a personal level. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision. It’s really hard to own your mistakes. But you’ve been putting your best foot forward. And I’m… I’m proud that you’ve made such a big step for yourself.”

He sounds sincere, but so hesitant, so unlike himself. Luke has heard Pio give praise before, but never like this. Usually he’s loud about it, ruffling hair and lifting kids in the air. And maybe that’s it, maybe it’s different because he’s speaking to a peer rather than a charge, and he doesn’t know how it’ll be received.

Luke isn’t sure how to receive it, either. It’s like coming back from a failure, injured and tired, expecting pity and derision—and receiving gentleness instead. He’s always had to show steel when he failed, had to pat his own back when he succeeded. Had to spread an emotional wall like a parachute in anticipation. And now…

He rolls his shoulders as he sits up, and leans on the bedframe. Then he says, just as quietly, “Thanks. Uh, it feels good to hear that.”

Pio smiles, soft as a sunrise. His glasses are crooked and fogging over from the cold; Luke’s hand twitches with the urge to pluck them off his nose.

“I’m glad you came with me,” he says, “that time you came back from your quest. I’m glad you let me stay in your life. I’m glad I’m here now.”

“You didn’t give me much choice,” Luke jokes nervously.

Pio wrinkles his nose (cute). “You always have a choice.”

Luke’s tense smile fades. It had never felt that way before. A death in the service of the gods or a death trying to tear down Olympus—no choice at all, really. He looked to the future and saw tragedy. His siblings looked at him and saw an impossible paragon. Kronos looked at him and saw a chess piece; his father looked at him and saw a leaf in the wind. Towards the end, his mother looked at him and saw nothing at all.

But Pio looked at him and saw something else entirely. Luke doesn’t know what it is, but he thinks he’s beginning to understand.

He wants to see what Pio’s made of too. So far, he admits that he likes what he sees. Luke huffs a laugh, making Pio raise his eyebrows. He can’t believe he gets to have this.

Pio shifts on the bed, props his cheek on his palm. His friendship bracelets slip down his lightning-scarred arm as a grin spreads across his face, glittering and full of heart, and then Luke can’t resist it anymore.

He flips Pio’s glasses onto his forehead, savors the rare surprise in his eyes, leans up, and kisses him.

Pio’s frozen at first, but then he makes an encouraging sound—a stupid little “Mmh!” like he’s eating a cake—that sends a surge of affection through Luke’s chest, as well as a sense of triumph.

Somehow this awkwardly positioned kiss, on a motel room floor with their noses bumping and Pio’s lips tasting of sour lemonade, feels like the biggest win of Luke’s short life.

Pio’s hand shifts to Luke’s jaw. Luke tries to place his on Pio’s nape, but he does it with a little too much force: Pio makes a breathy oof sound before chuckling and pressing back down. Pio’s pressure is to the right of aggressive, and his lips are clumsy, making him a truly terrible kisser. But it’s weirdly like him, which shouldn’t be attractive, and yet it is ; and when Luke groans it’s a little bit from frustration about his own taste in men.

Luke’s probably terrible too, but when he pulls back, Pio’s grin is back and his dark eyes are shining. Maybe shining a little too much, actually…

“Nice,” says Pio, voice wobbly.

Luke hasn’t accounted for this at all, so he thinks it’s fair if he panics a little. “Gods, don’t cry!”

“I am not,” he denies, but he’s pressing the heels of his palms on his eyelids as he does, which is not reassuring.

Luke feels every inch of his limbs as he clambers onto the bed and grips Pio’s shoulders. “Was it kissing me?” he says quietly. “Was that what upset you?”

“I’m not upset .” Pio sniffles. “Ugh, sorry for making it weird.”

“If you’re not upset, why are you crying?”

“I’m… happy?”

“You don’t sound so sure,” worries Luke.

Pio chuckles then, which is a relief to hear. “No, I’m definitely happy. I’m just not sure if I’m crying because I’m happy. I mean, I probably am, but about what , I’m not—”

As he begins to babble, Luke kisses him again on impulse, before immediately drawing back. “Shit, sorry. Sorry, keep talking.”

That gets Pio to pull his hands off his eyes, and pout back at him. “No, don’t be sorry, I liked it.”

Luke stares, just a little bit. “You’re so confusing ,” he bemoans.

And Pio laughs, wetly, but bright and true. He takes Luke’s face into his hands and kisses him briefly, like he’s placing a period onto the end of a verse. “You like it,” he accuses delightedly. “You like me.”

“I do,” says Luke, rolling his eyes. “Don’t be so surprised.”

When she comes out of the shower, Annabeth catches them sitting innocently side by side on Pio’s bed, and narrows her eyes.

“I don’t want to know,” she says.

“We’re not even doing anything,” Pio complains.

“We’re holding hands right now,” Luke reminds him.

“Ah, damn it.”

Annabeth huffs, annoyed. “Gross. Do you have to?”

Pio winks. “All the better to walk out of the narrative with, my dear.”

When Luke goes to sleep, it’s dreamless.

December 29, 2022

In the morning, Pio insists they all have a complete breakfast before they march back to Olympus. Annabeth’s still half-asleep by the time they reach the Denny’s booth, but Luke’s nerves are beginning to feel like strings pulled too tight.

He drums his fingers on the table, bounces his leg, clenches his jaw. Pio notices, squeezes his hand under the table as he taps his spoon against his plate. It only helps a little.

“Okay,” says Pio, sopping up the syrup on his plate with a bit of pancake. “Anyone wanna outline the agenda for today?”

Luke nods jerkily. “We need to ride the subway to the Empire State, light the Mortal Fire, ride the elevator to Olympus, avoid any witnesses, and put the bolt back,” he rattles off. Gods, where was Ritalin when he needed one?

“And get back to street level, don’t forget that part,” says Pio, pointing the slice of pancake at him.

“Duh,” says Annabeth. It turns into a half-yawn as it leaves her mouth. Luke resolves not to tell her it had actually slipped his mind. “Point one, do we have everything we need?”

“Money for the subway,” says Pio.

“We’ve got enough,” says Luke.

“Mythic items?”

“Hat,” says Annabeth, pulling it from a jacket pocket.

“Shoes,” says Luke. They’re on his feet already.

“Prophetic visions,” Pio jokes. “Weapons and ambrosia? Not that we’ll need them, hopefully.”

All there.

“MacGuffin?”

The master bolt was in Luke’s backpack.

“Okay,” he says. “Mortal Fire?”

Luke pulls the matchbook out. Pio laughs a little when he sees it again: Luke supposes that might be from nerves, but Pio’d laughed the first time too. It is kind of funny, knowing that the fire that kindled human history is a stupid little matchbook that fits in his pocket.

“We have to use the matches themselves, I asked,” says Luke. If they lit a torch with them, it’d just be regular fire, unable to pierce mythical darkness.

“How many matches do we have?” asks Annabeth. “It’d be ideal if we could each carry one.”

Luke flips it open.

There are exactly nine. Three of threes.

“Shit,” says Pio.

“Language,” Luke says automatically.

“Are these matches enhanced?” says Annabeth. “How long would they stay lit?”

“They won’t stay lit forever,” says Luke, “but longer than normal ones, and they won’t blow out. I was told to expect around the length of a birthday candle.”

“Not long at all,” says Pio, frowning. “But nine should be enough for a round trip. You’ll hold the match, golden boy, obviously.”

“Obviously,” echoes Luke.

They pay for their food, take the subway, and walk back into the dark miasma surrounding the Empire State Building.

New York City is more oppressive, in the darkness and the foreboding silence. Luke gazes up to the surreal sight of unlit towers: looming facades of concrete and glass panes that have barely any light to reflect, and looks back at his companions.

“Moment of truth,” he says when they reach the door to the lobby.

He strikes a match.

For a moment, it flares , and Luke squints as a twenty-foot radius around him is suddenly bright as sunlight. Then it settles into a tiny, birthday candle-like flame, and recedes into something more like ten feet.

“It works,” he breathes.

Annabeth and Pio don’t say anything, so he turns to look at them. They’re staring only vaguely in his direction. “Is there a problem?”

“Luke…” says Annabeth. “I can’t see the light.”

He looks at Pio, who shakes his head, agreeing.

“What the— heck ,” says Luke. “Here, see if it works.” He passes the match to Annabeth, and he too is plunged into darkness. He sees the flame, but it seems to give off no light or heat. Vaguely, he can see his sister blinking in surprise.

“ Now it’s lit up,” she says.

“Can I see?” says Pio, and the match goes to him. “Hmm, yeah.”

“It’s dark again for me.” A thoughtful pause. “I have a theory.”

“Yeah?” says Luke.

“The Mortal Fire doesn’t work perfectly for us because we aren’t perfectly mortal,” says Annabeth. “The same thing that shrouds us from the gods shrouds us from each other.”

“Meaning one match only lights the place up for one person,” says Pio.

“Exactly.”

“Damn it,” he says, laughing humorlessly as he passes the light back to Luke. “I should’ve seen this coming. The descent must be taken alone .”

Luke can see again when Annabeth shakes her head. “There’s no time to think about this. The match is already burning,” she points out. “Luke, you have to go on your own.”

He feels cold. “I can’t.”

“You have to,” she says firmly. “We’re wasting firelight.”

Pio fumbles his way over to Luke, and blindly puts a hand on his cheekbone. “Go,” he whispers, as Luke places his hand over the back of Pio’s palm. “We’ll wait for you.”

“But…” But what if he chickens out, what if he runs away, what if he screws up?

Pio smiles. There’s just a little too much teeth. “You have faith in me, right?”

“Yes,” Luke says immediately.

“Well,” says Pio, “I have faith in you.” He goes on tiptoes, and presses a kiss to Luke’s forehead. “You just have to put them back. You’ve got this.”

But, but. “And if I don’t?”

“Then life will go on,” says Pio. “We’ll be here to find out what happens.” He smiles. “See you at the Dunkin in, say, forty minutes?”

Luke journeys in.

There’s a nymph behind the front desk, but she doesn’t seem to see him, and no one stops him from pressing the button to call the elevator, then the button to the 600th floor, just like he had on half a dozen field trips.

He’s never more grateful for muzak than when it staves off the silence on the way up. Girl from Ipanema plays softly as the first match burns down into his fingers and the fire snuffs out, leaving him in the darkness with no sensation but the weight of his backpack on his shoulder—and the muzak.

“Tall and tan and young and lovely/The girl from Ipanema goes walking…”

Then Strangers in the Night plays, then Fly Me to the Moon . Luke taps his feet impatiently.

“In other words: please, be true/In other words: I love you…”

A chime, and the elevator doors slide open.

Luke steps out into the air of Olympus. It smells like cliffs by the sea before a thunderstorm, mineral and electric all at once. He can kind of see the outlines of the gods’ temples and pavilions throughout the place, connected by massive stone bridges that in ancient times would have taken decades to construct.

Something curdles in his stomach at the sight. Here are the palaces of the gods, so immense as to exceed his ability to fathom. And somewhere in Long Island Sound, his siblings are shoulder-to-shoulder, only thin sleeping bags separating them from the cold hard floor.

Annabeth had read him a passage from the Iliad once. Something about there being two jars at the feet of Zeus, one with the water of suffering, one water mixed with the wine of blessings. An implied third, somewhere, with just wine, for only the gods to drink.

He’d thought he was stealing a little wine for his family. But it was never that simple.

He lights the second match.

The sound of the spark sends something with wings gliding towards him. He spins, spooked, to find an owl perched on the railings, mere inches from his face. He’s frozen for a moment before he sees its eyes—even though they’re illuminated by his match, there’s no reflection there at all.

He hasn’t been spotted. Unharmed but creeped the hell out, he ventures forth.

He knows the way back to the throne pavilion like the back of his hand. How could he forget the path that almost doomed him, and may doom him yet?

It’s past the library, past the first row of temples, then up a majestic set of stairs. The shadows shift in strange ways, almost as if someone is following him. Luke shakes it off, pushes past.

On the way, he has to light the third match.

When he gets to the base of the staircase, he hears something that roots him to where he stands.

A sound like something smoother than skin moving over itself. Something like scales. A slithering .

Luke turns slowly.

There. Winding around a pillar, a massive winged serpent with subtly glimmering scales, its claws scraping shrilly against the carvings in the stone—it’s clearly stationed to guard the thrones of Olympus. The size alone makes it worthy of the position. Its skull must be the length of Luke’s arm.

Annabeth would be able to name this specific dragon, and then Pio might be able to tell him how to kill it. But Luke was the only one here, and all he knows is that this isn’t the same dragon he’d fought and been scarred by in the Garden of the Hesperides.

Luke draws his sword very slowly, so that it would not sing against the scabbard. Then he takes a cautious step towards the thrones—landing on the ball of his foot, rolling towards his heel, light as a bird. Maybe he can sneak past it, not have to fight it at all?

As if it would ever be that easy.

Right when Luke is a mere foot away from the dragon, holding his breath as he inches away—

Heels patter across the pavement, growing louder, then skitter then around a temple corner. Then, an out of breath, desperate voice: “Wait!”

The dragon hisses.

Luke, practically eye-to-eye with the monster, doesn’t startle. His eye widens, his hand spasms around the match. But he stays rooted where he is.

Which is why the dragon lunges right past him, towards the woman who’d called out.

Luke is frozen for a split-second, then another, then another.

Then: “Fuck!”

He breaks into a run.

The dragon writhes midair, confused by the second sound behind it. Luke sees an opportunity—yells nonsensically, “Pick on someone your own size!”

But the aggression in his tone does the job. The dragon decides he’s the bigger threat, and it flaps into an about-face. It’s distracted. The woman is safe, for now.

So Luke strikes. 

His blade doesn’t penetrate the scales. He thinks he can see a dent he left there, a change in the pattern of firelight, but that isn’t going to be enough. He grabs the serpent’s body, using it as leverage to slide under it, to its other side, and dances away, his steps quick and quiet.

While the dragon is disoriented, he has a second to think.

He can’t hit through the scales; he has to hit something fleshy. The wings are scaleless, membranous with blood vessels shadowing through, but he doubts hitting those will be enough.

He has to go through the eyes.

He circles towards its face. As he does, he misses a step on the stairs, landing a little too loudly, and the dragon snaps towards him with dagger-like teeth. He leaps out of the way and has to maneuver the jump into a roll down the steps.

He feels an edge dig into his cheek, but otherwise it’s a soft landing. Still, he curses silently as he brings himself up. Trust a dragon to make him forget his footwork!

Luke needs another approach. He steps away from where the dragon must have heard him last, swift but quiet, and moves softly towards its neck, careful to predict its movements so he doesn’t make contact too soon. Then he reaches out—

And hoists himself onto its back.

The dragon bucks wildly, sending Luke’s legs flailing through the air, even as his arms hold onto its neck for dear life. He drags himself forward, towards its eyes, and stabs.

The dragon roars with pain, but Luke loses his grip on its back at the last second and is thrown wildly off.

He scrambles away from where he’d crashed, and takes a look at his blade. In the fading matchlight he can see that about three inches of it is slick, streaked with blood but coated mostly with the clear vitreous fluid from inside the eye. In any case, the dragon is still alive, which means he hadn’t stabbed deep enough to reach the brain and kill it.

He has to try again. That kind of pisses him off.

The dragon’s great wings beat, bringing it up into the air and out of reach. It lands higher up, at the top of the staircase by the Olympian thrones. It shakes its head, and some blood splatters out of its eye socket, landing on Ares’ seat.

Luke prowls up the stairs. Droplets of blood drip silently from his sword as he ascends, favoring the beast’s blind side.

He can’t do the same thing and try to mount it—dragons are intelligent; it’ll be expecting that at this point. There isn’t much choice: he has to take the direct approach.

That’s never been his strong suit.

The match—the fragment of the Mortal Fire—burns down to his fingertips. With numb fingers he strikes the fourth one, and the dragon’s snout snaps towards his direction.

“Maia!” he yells as it lunges towards him.

His shoes’ wings unfurl, and he takes to the air.

The dragon, naturally, hears. It gives chase, terrifyingly fast. Its flight is not as graceful as before, pain making it unsteady but no less dangerous.

Luke can’t escalate infinitely; the lower he attacks, the greater his advantage. So he just—goes for it. Pivots midair, and moves to strike.

But he isn’t as silent on wings as he is on foot. The dragon hears, turns, opens its maw—

It’s too late to move away. Luke presses on, aiming for the roof of the mouth—

There’s a burst of sharp pain, but his sword pierces through the dragon’s skull with a squelch-crack . From his angle he can just barely see a moment of sheer terror in the creature’s remaining eye.

He can’t help but feel pity.

And then the light fades. Then the massive body is falling, his blade still stuck inside, dragging him down with it.

He does not pull it back artfully. Instead he wrenches away with all his strength, panic numbing the pain near his neck as he tears his sword free through that graceful face.

The dragon crashes onto the stairs so hard Luke hears the stone give, cracking under the monster’s mass. Its limbs bend in ways they shouldn’t, head gored in half.

But instead of feeling triumph, or some kind of joy at having redeemed himself against a dragon, all he feels is pity.

“I’m sorry,” he says into the wind, as the creature crumbles into dust.

He lands at the bottom of the staircase, light as a feather.

“Maia,” he says, before hearing the click of heels behind him.

Abruptly, he remembers the woman who the dragon had almost attacked. He turns to see a short East Asian woman with straight dark hair, clad in a coat that looks vaguely green in the light of his match. She doesn’t look much older than him—she looks maybe twenty-five, twenty-six?

Luke stares, a deer caught in headlights, before she gives him an equally unsure smile. A smile no goddess would put on her face.

This is a mortal woman. She can see with the Mortal Fire, and she’s just witnessed him slay the guardian left by the gods.

“Who are you?” he says, and he doesn’t mean it to sound as hostile as it does. As it is, he’d practically spat it out, and she shrinks back, the shadows enveloping her a little more.

He takes in a shaking breath, and attempts a smile. “Sorry. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m—” Luke, he almost says. “Not a god.” He can’t avoid having a witness now, but he could at least try to conceal his identity as much as he can.

She laughs, nervous, bordering on hysterical. “That’s good to know,” she says, the lightness of her words an olive branch. “You kind of looked like one.”

Luke glances dubiously down at his bloodstained, faded graphic shirt and hand-me-down jacket.

“Well, not now , but when you were fighting. It was—” she shudders. “Um, is there anything I can do about your wounds?”

“Wounds?” he says blankly.

“On your shoulder,” she says.

He looks down again, and is startled to see a huge gash over his clavicle, bleeding quite freely. Almost like his body was reminded too, the adrenaline drains away and he suddenly feels the pain, keen as anything, and half-collapses, half-sits on the stairs.

“No,” he hears himself say, “gi-give me a moment.” He fumbles with his jacket pockets and produces a square of ambrosia in a crumpled Ziploc. He tears it open with his teeth and bites down, tries not to think too hard about how it tastes like chocolate chip cookies.

When his wounds have mostly knitted themselves back together and he isn’t an active fainting risk, he turns his attention back to her.

“...Thank you,” he says, hesitantly.

“Of course,” she says.

He could leave it at that. He should leave it at that, spend as little time in her presence as possible and leave little for her to say if pressed for an account. But her presence snags at a thought in his mind. It bothers him.

“Uh, no offense,” says Luke, “but you’re mortal.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Yes? I realize you’re on some kind of quest, but aren’t you mortal too?”

He elects to ignore that, and scrambles for something sensical to say. “What’s your name?”

She relaxes minutely. “I’m Avery. I work in social media, I’m a software engineer.”

“Nice to meet you, Avery,” he says, habit kicking in. “Can I ask why you’re at the heart of Olympus, at the height of a godly cold war, alone?”

Avery stiffens. “A cold war? Really?”

“Please answer the question,” he says.

She shuffles in place, hesitating, before she gives in. Luke suspects it’s more about having someone, anyone to speak to than her trusting him at all. “Well, I’ve been here for—gosh, almost a week. Before Christmas.”

“That’s a long while.”

Shyly, as if she doesn’t like to brag but has to say it: “Hermes took me for a tour of the place on the Solstice.” 

Right then a wind kicks up, and Luke shivers. Mouths his father’s name, as he sits cold on the steps of Olympus, aching and soaked in his own blood.

“I saw you,” he says, numb. “You were with him.”

“Really?” she peers at him curiously, then shakes her head. “Anyway, there was a big commotion. I don’t know what happened exactly, but while I was still here all of Olympus went dark. Hermes couldn’t bring me back downstairs; he said it was safer for me to stay in his temple here anyway. That’s where I’ve been. It was comfortable, at least, and he’s been there a lot of time. But it really was dark. Until you came, at least.” She nods at the fourth match, burning in his fingers.

Luke can read between the lines: Avery must have become a suspect for stealing the bolt—for his crime—and Hermes kept her here so the gods could investigate her in peace. That she’s roaming freely must mean she’s been cleared, but he still doesn’t quite understand.

“Why are you out now ?”

Shame-faced, she says: “I saw the light and got curious. Hermes is great, but… it gets lonely, not having anyone else to talk to. I’m sorry. It looks like it’s my fault you got hurt.”

Luke falls quiet. His mind feels jumbled, half-formed thoughts rattling around.

“Take this,” he says finally, presenting her with the fifth and sixth matchsticks and tearing off a piece of phosphorus to go with them. After a moment’s hesitation, he gives her the seventh. Two for while she’s on Olympus, one for after the elevator.

Three matchsticks left with him, including the one that has its flame burning more than half of the way down. He should hurry.

“Oh… thank you?” she takes them gingerly.

“That fire will burn enough for you to see through the darkness.”

“That’s nice, but—”

“You should use them to leave,” he says, the words tumbling out of his mouth.

Avery blinks. “I’m sorry?”

”You should leave Olympus,” he says. “And Hermes too while you’re at it.”

Her expression shutters. “I’m sorry, but even if you saved me, I don’t feel comfortable having a stranger pry into my private affairs.”

He barks a bitter laugh. “Private. Good one. Look, you should get out while you have the chance. They’ll ruin you.”

“Ruin me? Well, I’m familiar with the myths,” says Avery. “He isn’t Z—”

Luke shushes her. “Don’t say his name.”

She, thankfully, cuts herself off. “What I mean to say is, Hermes isn’t so bad, in the stories and in person. So thank you, but I think I’ll take my chances. There’s no one I’d rather be with.”

She turns on her heel.

Luke makes a wordless shout of frustration, tearing at his hair. “The myths don’t say everything the gods have done, you know!”

Slowly, Avery turns back. “…What?”

“Olympus is still standing. What makes you think that the gods have stopped—fucking around, all these years?”

She stares. “I don’t follow.”

She would have thrown her life away for his father . Luke can’t let that happen. Hermes doesn’t deserve that.

And if Luke can’t have justice for him and his mother—surely someone would forgive him for ruining this one thing for his father.

“The gods took many lovers in the myths. What makes you think they’ve stopped?” says Luke. “That there aren’t dozens, hundreds of mortals whose lives they’ve ruined?”

“I… understand this is important to you,” says Avery carefully, “but if you’ve gotten your heart broken by a god, that doesn’t mean the same will happen to me. Let us have—”

“Don’t be absurd,” snaps Luke, bowled over by how insane her implication is. “I could never love a god.”

“Then, why?”

Luke can’t excuse what he does next.

There’s one piece of leverage that will convince her of his authority on this subject. When he says it, it will ruin his mission—but he will have convinced her to leave. He feels a cruel thing in him unfurl, something that wants nothing more than to take this thing his father built with this woman and shatter it into a thousand tiny pieces.

Let Hermes feel even a little of the hurt he has.

Failure arrives with messenger profaned.

The fourth match burns to cinders, and he strikes the eighth.

“I didn’t introduce myself properly,” he says coldly. “Let’s start over.

“My name is Luke Castellan. I’m the oldest living child of Hermes.”

Elsewhere

“It’s been a while,” says Pio.

He and Annabeth are sitting in a Dunkin Donuts down the street from the Empire State. Ostensibly he’d taken them there because he didn’t want her to get cold, but she’d laughed at him outright when he’d said that.

“I’ve wintered on the street before,” she’d pointed out. “Just say that you get cold.”

Now, Annabeth sips a hot latte that Pio hadn’t been able to talk her out of. Picking at a donut hole, she says, “I agree. It’s been forty minutes already.”

A sense of foreboding settles around Pio’s shoulders.

“We should check on him,” he says, somehow feeling like he’s reading through a script. It feels—unpleasant. Doomed.

She looks at him like he’s stupid. “Why?”

Pio blinks at her, feeling like he’s missed a step. “Because we’re his questmates?”

Annabeth rolls her eyes; he sees her irises literally move in a circle. “I know that, dummy. What I mean to say is, what do you think we can do ?”

“Ah! You mean because the Empire State’s in darkness.”

“No duh ,” she says. “Luke has all the Mortal Fire matches. Which, if I may remind you, are the only safe way to traverse the godly darkness there.”

He nods. “The only safe way.”

She narrows her eyes. “Don’t tell me…”

As Pio cups his palms to summon sunlight, Annabeth dives across the table to wrench his hands apart. Their plastic basket crashes to the tiles, the donut holes rolling away.

The New Yorkers around barely pause to look at them, but Pio looks mournfully at the floor. “I wanted the cinnamon sugar one.”

“Gods, don’t be an idiot,” Annabeth hisses. “You can’t march in there with your—sunshine magic!”

“I realize that Olympus will trace it back to my dad, or me and my siblings,” he says fiercely. “But if Luke’s in trouble—”

“It’s worth it?” she challenges. “Is that what you were going to say? Think about this clearly, Pio. It’s not just your head on the line. You like your dad—he’ll be in trouble too.” She presses on: “Think about, about Lee. Think about Will!”

“So I’ll turn myself in,” says Pio. But the reckless fire stoked in his heart a few moments ago has dimmed.

“And get me and Luke in trouble?” she says, offended. “This is an official quest. Olympus knows we’re journeying together, even if they don’t know the details.”

Shit. Yeah, he can’t get Annabeth in trouble. That had been one of their conditions, at the very start.

“But what if he got hurt and can’t heal himself?” says Pio fearfully. “What if he got caught and is on trial? What if he lost the matches and he’s stuck in the dark?”

Annabeth takes a hard look at him. “Listen, I know we’re questmates and that means we’re responsible for each other. But this was always Luke’s quest.” She shakes her head. “I want to get out there and get glory too, believe me. But I accepted when we split up that I was going to have to leave it to him.”

Of course Annabeth trusts him to take care of himself—he’s her older brother, she has a bias. But does Pio?

“I need some air,” he says, and as he says it he knows that it’s true.

He pushes roughly out of his chair and marches out of the doors, into the street. Annabeth doesn’t follow.

Pio inhales the air, sharp and biting cold in his lungs.

Then he takes off a friendship bracelet, fidgets it across two fingers, and thinks furiously.

What’s the right thing to do?

The thing is. The thing is, ever since he’d gotten his visions he’d known that this world was his responsibility. As the one person who didn’t exist in those worlds, it had felt like his actions mattered the most . Like all of the world was a stanza for him to revise.

But is that true?

(More to the point—does he believe in that enough to place not just his head, but his family’s on the chopping block?)

Even at the start he’d known that his scope was going to be limited. He’d never been a particularly powerful demigod. He’d always known that his best bet was to integrate himself into the lives of those who were important to the story, change their lives as much as he was able, and let them change the world.

That’s what this is, wasn’t it? Leaving Luke to change the world, hoping he’d changed enough in Luke already?

Is that going to be enough?

He hears the door open behind him, the heat leaking out for a moment.

“Annabeth,” he says without looking, “what’s the right thing to do?”

She snorts as she comes to stand beside him. “Never thought you were the type to ask that,” she says. “Isn’t your thing about not doing what we’re supposed to do?”

He looks at her, confused. “What?”

“You know, ‘the right thing to do,’ what you’re ‘supposed to do,’” she says, “those don’t sound like ‘escaping the narrative.’”

“You’re right,” he says, dumbfounded.

She nods. “You named yourself Orpheus,” she says, apropos of nothing.

He frowns. “Orpeo.”

“Orpeo, same thing. Why?”

“Because,” he says, “if I succeed, then it’s like he gets to succeed too, in a way. And then the myth changes in the retelling.”

She snorts, the puff of air visible in the cold. “That’s so sentimental. Exactly what I’d have expected.”

“Though, it’s really not so bad that Orpheus doubted,” says Pio thoughtfully. ”Or whatever it was that caused him to do what he did. It was proof he loved Eurydice. For the story to have changed, for them to have made different choices, they would’ve had to be different people.”

“You are different people,” Annabeth points out. “And anyway, I think it would’ve been a sign of love either way.”

He gives her a curious look. “Really?”

She shrugged. “He already went all the way down to the Underworld.”

Pio smiles a little at that, remembering another Annabeth from another world. She’d been so loved.

This Annabeth would be too.

“I guess I never thought it would be so literal,” he muses. “I always meant to lead people out of their doom, but this… It really doesn’t feel good.”

“Well, you told us the myth can change,” she says. “It’s time to prove it.” She turns back to the door.

Pio needs to trust that he’s already done enough. That Luke can make it back down on his own. It has to be enough. It has to.

“You coming?”

He startles, then turns on his heel and goes after her. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t look back.

Later on December 29, 2022

Avery leaves Olympus.

Luke doesn’t, not yet, though must have doomed the heist by telling Avery who he was, thus telling Hermes and Olympus. If nothing else, he doomed himself by giving into the impulse to hurt his father.

Still, there was a war to be averted. Even if he doesn’t get to grow up and do stupid shit like become an accountant, everyone else needs to. Possibly more. At least he’d given Annabeth and Pio plausible deniability by leaving them outside Olympus. He hopes.

There’s a fissure running through the staircase where the dragon had landed. He ascends step by unstable step and pulls the humming, metal master bolt from his backpack. Without much fanfare, he sets it on the largest, most ornate throne.

He takes a moment to just look at it. For something that had taken up so much space in his life—that would kill him—it mostly just looks dumb.

He turns away.

And that was the master bolt returned.

Of course, he still has to worry about Hades’ helm of darkness, but there's plenty of time to do that after he gets caught. Maybe they’d deliver it straight to Hades when they scavenge it from his ashes.

It’s only a matter of time.

Luke deliberates. He could literally wait it out, sit down on the steps by the thrones and surrender with dignity when the gods find out. That might be the preferable option—he gets to save face, spare anyone else liability.

But even as the idea occurs to him, he knows he isn’t strong enough to do it. There’s too much animal instinct in him. Like a rabbit in a snare, all he wants is to go home.

So he turns away from the thrones of the gods. He goes down the staircase, past the first row of temples, past the library, towards the elevator. He presses the down button and waits.

The doors chime open, and he steps in.

The muzak sounds almost mocking. The match burns steadily towards his fingertips.

Then the flame flickers, and the words of the muzak warp and garble. Luke narrows his eyes at the red LEDs making up the floor number, still counting down from 600.

That hadn’t happened on the way up. Had it?

Another flicker, and he feels the elevator stall: there’s a catch in its movement, before it continues on.

Luke reaches out to the panel. Transportation had never been his strong suit, but he must have some gift for it. He closes his eyes, learning the mechanisms of the elevator through his fingertips, and wills it to go down .

There are no further problems—at least until the eighth match burns out. Then the elevator just stops , the LED number halting at 454 .

Luke grits his teeth, shoving his will at its inner workings: “Move!”

For a brilliant moment, it works: the floor grinds down, and the number changes to 453 , 452 , 451 …

And stops there.

He realizes: he’s got no choice but to light the last match.

It’s bound to burn out before he reaches the main entrance. He doesn’t know how he’s going to navigate the pitch darkness of the lobby, but maybe it could at least take him to the ground floor. He could fumble his way out of a lobby—getting stuck in an elevator down from Olympus would just be humiliating .

So Luke strikes the ninth fragment of the Mortal Fire.

It flares, and the elevator begins to move down again, buttery smooth. 450, 449, 448… long enough that Luke starts to think it might be smooth sailing again.

Then it decelerates.

447, 446… 445…

444.

It stops.

Luke might scream.

Then, out of nowhere: a ding. The doors slide open; Luke takes a fearful step back.

444 is, of course, not a real floor. Instead of the strange sea air of Olympus or the clean halls of the Empire State, all Luke sees is a pitch black corridor. He does not want to know what happens if he steps outside his elevator, so he stays firmly in. He jabs the door close button, to no avail.

The corridor isn’t silent. At first Luke thinks he’s imagining it, but there are quiet footsteps, growing louder and louder until this person is in the reach of Luke’s matchlight.

He thinks, No fucking way .

Faintly lit by the Mortal Fire, in a red waistcoat and cap like an old-fashioned liftboy, is his father.

“You’re a difficult man to catch, son.”

Hermes smiles. It’s irritatingly boyish, even with his stupid facial hair. Luke wants to stab him.

Luke pounds his fist against the door close button. Nothing happens, so he grits his teeth and takes the loss.

“Hermes,” he grinds out, lowering his body into the most demeaning bow of his life.

“It’s alright, straighten up,” says his father. “May I come in?”

As if Luke could do anything to stop him. He stands, tries not to make it sound too mocking as he says, “By all means.”

So Hermes steps into the elevator. He doesn’t even face Luke, the coward—he faces straight ahead, towards the doors, like they’re just two guys going down together. So Luke doesn’t look at him, either.

The doors slide closed. And just like that, Luke is in an elevator with the god who had ruined his mother’s life. Who had never let Luke have a life to live.

He doesn’t know where to start.

He feels the elevator crawl downwards, but as the floor numbers change, they stop making any sense, the lines of the numbers lighting up in random patterns like it’s glitched out.

“I think we should talk,” Hermes says after a while.

“You think?” He can’t help but sneer. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

A moment of silence. Luke does not look at his father.

“Luke, I know what you’ve done.”

Luke doesn’t ask how. “Alright. Do you have anything to say about it?”

“I never understood what drove you to work with grandfather,” he says. His tone is neutral—it makes Luke want to tear his hair out.

But something about it catches in his brain. “You say that like you‘ve always known.” Hadn’t he found out about Luke’s betrayal from Avery?

“Yes, son. I did.”

Luke stiffens, then forces his posture to relax. “You… then why didn’t you try to stop me?”

“If there’s anything I’ve learned,” says his father, voice low, “it’s that no god has power over the Fates. Not even me.”

He scoffs. “That’s an excuse if I’ve ever heard one.”

“It isn’t, I promise you.” Hermes sounds like he’s being honest, but Luke knows better than to believe his father. “It’s just the way the wind blows.”

“That means nothing,” says Luke, voice hard. “So how mom is, was that fated too? Me having to run away and growing up on the streets? Having to give up the rest of my childhood to raise other kids?”

“I’m sorry, Luke. I really am.”

“Oh, fuck you!” he snaps. “You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, do you?”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it,” says Hermes as Luke catches his breath.

“No!” Luke turns sharply, slams his father into the mirrored wall. The Mortal Fire lands on the floor, forgotten but still burning. “I don’t give a damn about that. But you didn’t even try,” he cries. “You just left mom like that. You left me with her like that, then you let me leave and be fucking homeless, you didn’t even try to bring me to camp, didn’t even say hi . I was nine!”

Luke can see Hermes, wide-eyed and blurry. Why was he blurry?

“You know I almost starved that first winter?” he spits. “I didn’t know where to go, I was so hungry . Eventually a bunch of mortals brought me to a Burger King where they didn’t lock the dumpster. Saved my life.

“And afterwards I thought—my father is a god, he’s up there somewhere drinking wine. And here I am eating garbage to survive. And my mom is crazy, and it’s so goddamn cold all the time.

“When I got to camp I was just grateful to be warm. And that I wasn’t going to worry about where our next meal was gonna come from, and Annabeth had other siblings to teach her to not be a rat like we were. Do you know how fucked up that is? Thalia died !” he yells. “Thalia died and I was a piece of shit who was just happy I had a place to stay.”

Luke draws back his fist and punches his father.

The back of Hermes’ head bangs against the mirror with the force, fracturing the image. But he still doesn’t say anything, only watches Luke with brown eyes, even as a trail of golden ichor drips from his nose.

“And you,” Luke growls, gripping his father’s collar, “after that, you had the gall to have me raise your other kids. Had the gall to make me love them! Proof you’d moved on from us, that you were elsewhere playing house while mom was trying to kill the both of us, and I would fucking die for them.

“That was my big fate you wouldn’t tell me when we first met, wasn’t it?” he says hoarsely. “They told you I would die young for the stupid godly war the Titans were trying to start. Because I was too fucking stupid to realize it wasn’t going to be good for us half-bloods. That was it, right?”

It takes a moment for Hermes to respond. “Yes,” he rasps.

Luke lets go, disgusted. He falls onto the floor, his back hitting the opposite wall, and buries his face into his hands.

“And you let it happen,” Luke says, his voice tremulous. “You didn’t stop it. You didn’t even try .”

It was Luke’s fault he stole the bolt. His fault that he would die for his mistake. But Hermes knew. Hermes knew, and he had let it happen, didn’t even think it was worth it to try and guide his son away from choices that would kill him.

Luke gasps for air, and realizes that he’s sobbing.

Vaguely he hears Hermes maneuver his body to sit beside him, the movements as awkward as any human’s.

He doesn’t touch Luke. Good. Luke would’ve sunk his teeth into his father’s flesh.

“I’m sorry.”

“Too little,” Luke grits out between heaves, “too late.”

“Still, I’m sorry,” says Hermes. “I really am, Luke. You’re right. I should have tried.” He sighs. “This is my fault.”

It really isn’t. Still, Luke coughs out a “Damn right.”

“I do love you, you know.”

Luke pulls his hands from his face, trying to catch his breath. “If you do, Hermes, it’s not in a way that—”

That matters, he was going to say. But doesn’t it?

Maybe his father loving him, as he claims, hadn’t changed anything. But it matters to Luke. Despite everything, his soul latches onto the idea.

He has never felt so small.

“You don’t love me in a way I understand,” he settles on.

“I’m sorry for that, too.”

Luke inhales a deep, shaking breath. “I’m not sorry for punching you.”

“Okay. Okay, Luke.”

He nods, tired. “Alright. Turn me in and let’s be done with it.”

A pause.

Luke frowns. “What?”

“Luke,” says his father, “look at me.”

Reluctantly, he does.

Hermes’ eyebrows are scrunched together. There’s ichor on his lips. He meets Luke’s eyes as he says, “I’m not going to do that.”

Luke’s brain stalls.

“What?”

“I’m not going to tell anyone you were here,” says Hermes.

Luke stares. “I—why? I don’t deserve that.” He’d failed, plain and simple; not from a virtue, but from indulging his own fatal flaw.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“I told you,” Hermes says, laying a hesitant hand on his shoulder, “I love you, Luke. That’s all this is.”

A fresh crop of tears fills his eyes at the gesture. He doesn’t acknowledge them.

Luke coughs, looks away, disbelieving. “Okay.”

“I’ll get you out of here, too. And get that helm back to its owner. Okay?”

Luke turns his head, narrows his eyes at Hermes suspiciously.

“I don’t expect this to make up for anything,” says Hermes, drawing back his hand. “Consider this just… me being a father.”

Luke hums. Then he runs his mouth: “I guess it’s not too late for firsts.”

Hermes gives a surprised chuckle.

Luke hesitates. Then, as if pulling teeth, he says: “If you really mean it—then, thanks, dad.”

“It’s okay.” Hermes squeezes his shoulder.

“Let’s get you home.”

Chapter Text

December 29, 2022

A bell rings in the Dunkin.

Almost listlessly, Pio and Annabeth look towards it, expecting another mortal in search of a coffee.

But it’s Luke. Finally, it’s Luke: bloody, tear-stained, but alive .

“Holy shit,” says Pio without thinking, the feet of his chair scraping as he stands.

Annabeth leaps out of her place and runs, latching onto her brother’s torso in a blink. “Luke!”

“Hey, guys,” says Luke, plainly exhausted, but smiling.

“You did it?” says Pio, approaching.

He nods.

The hesitance in Pio’s face shatters, and he starts to cry. “Oh my gods,” he says, throwing his arms around Luke. “You did it.”

Luke presses a kiss into his hair. “Yeah,” he says. “Thank you.”

December 30, 2022

In Luke’s dream, a scorching wind blows through the desert.

There’s a pit in the sand, dark and yawning. Somehow, he recognizes it as the entrance to Tartarus.

He turns and walks away.

The pit remains silent.

December 31, 2022

“You’re leaving?” cries Percy.

They’re walking along the camp beach. Percy’s kicking rocks into the water. Annabeth and Luke are further down the shoreline, sharing sandwiches.

Pio smiles sheepishly. “Not right away. I want to be there as training wheels for Lee as the new counselor. Luke and I did hand in our resignation letters, though.”

It had been a first in the memory of those at camp. Counselors, resigning! Even Pio only remembers two or three ‘graduating.’

“Well, we’re leaving tomorrow. But we’re coming back! For like three months, or more. And we’ll visit!”

“Good,” says Percy, looking mutinous. “I can’t believe you’d leave! You spent like two years hyping this place up for me.”

Pio laughs. “Well, I said it was a good place to grow up. Luke and I have done our fair share of that already, but this place will still serve you well. Besides, A will still be here.”

Percy glances back in Annabeth’s direction, unsubtle. He doesn’t blush or anything, but Pio has hope for them yet.

“Besides,” continues Pio, “I still have to get you settled in. I owe Aunt Sally that much.”

”Yeah! Help me out here, before you go—have adventures. Where are you going, anyway?”

“Ah, well, I’m thinking of a university. But I haven’t brought it up to Luke yet.” He sneaks his own unsubtle glance. Luke’s laughing at something his sister said, so sunk into his hilarity that a lesser soul might call it ugly. Not Pio, though.

“There’s some stuff he has to know that might lead us on adventures. But that’s up to him.”

“You’re so freaking sappy,” complains Percy. “Maybe it’ll be nice to get away from you.”

He laughs again.

They keep walking down the shore, Percy talking animatedly about everything he’d seen while Pio was gone—this Ares camper who doesn’t like him, his fascination with horses, Grover’s girl troubles. Their feet are sunk into an inch of seawater. Percy seems to brighten as the tide gets higher.

Pio pauses in the middle of an anecdote about Percy’s first time at the forge to fish something out of the sand. A green pearl, the exact shade of Sally Jackson’s eyes.

“ Kuya ! What are you doing?”

“Ah, I just found something cool. I’ll show you later.”

He has a feeling he needs to give the pearl to Percy today. Somewhere very public.

January 1, 2023

“Having second thoughts?”

Luke shivers on the street, squeezing Pio’s hand through his gloves. “Can you blame me?”

“Never,” Pio says loyally.

The house looks very different from when he’d last seen it. His swing is still under the apple tree, rusted through; the porch still has the million windchimes whose sound had driven him crazy.

But the white facade is yellowed, and there are at least a dozen stuffed animals lining the walkway. Or, well, not animals—Luke thinks he sees a hydra. A wilted wildflower seems to have grown out of one of its necks.

They flank the path, as if leading him home. It should’ve been creepy, but it was oddly comforting.

“On your mark,” says Pio.

Luke lets go, and walks towards the door, Pio on his heels.

He pauses, then knocks.

A familiar voice: “Come in!”

He opens the front door slowly, taking a bracing breath.

“Mom? It’s me.”

A crash from the kitchen. A few moments of silence that have Luke fearing the worst.

Then his mother, curly-haired and wild-eyed, tumbles into his vision.

He finds that he’s crying as she pulls him into her arms.

“Luke! Luke, baby, don’t cry. Oh, I have snacks in the kitchen…”

Luke steps over the threshold, and is home.