Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first year Will Solace had to stand at the top of Half-Blood Hill and wave goodbye to his siblings instead of running down into his own mom’s arms and getting in her car too, he managed to hold back the tears until everyone else’s mortal parents’ tail lights had disappeared down the road. Once he was pretty certain no one else was around, he turned and ran back past the pine tree, newly de-Thalia-fied (as his brother Michael had put it), the Golden Fleece from Clarisse La Rue’s quest gleaming in its branches, guarded by a baby dragon. He ran past the strawberry fields, the Big House, the amphitheater, and straight into his cabin, where he flung himself into his bunk and hid his face in his pillow to cry. He couldn’t have cried where there was any chance the Stolls could see him, or Sherman Yang and Mark Dillard from the Ares cabin, but alone—it was okay.

That he was alone was part of why he was crying. It was bad enough he had to become a school-year camper, instead of getting to start middle school with his best friends back home like a normal kid. His siblings Silas and Sophie, twins just six months older than Will, thought year-rounders were the biggest weirdos at camp. They’d said so when he told them he was going to be one. Then they had shut up about it when Michael dared them to say that to Clarisse’s face, but it still stung.

Worse, Will wasn’t just stuck here—he was the only one of his siblings who was. He’d be all alone in his cabin, usually full of laughter and music, dead silent now except for the sound of his own sniffling. He hated it.

But his mom was going on tour this winter, since she was about to release an album for the first time in a few years, and he would be safer here than at home with his grandparents, since they didn’t know he was a demigod and wouldn’t be able to deal with monsters if they showed up. So instead he was, quote unquote, “going to stay with his dad.” Will would have given a lot to go stay with his dad—to have a dad he could really “go stay with” at all—so the worst part was how that wasn’t even true.

“Will?” a small voice said from the front of the cabin. Will looked up, hurriedly wiping at his eyes, to see the small figure of Olivia Locke standing in the doorway.

Olivia was new this summer, and she and Will had become friends during a particularly harrowing canoe race. She was eleven, like him (though he would be twelve very soon, in September), and like Will she had been claimed her very first summer for no apparent reason. In her case, by Hermes, which never really felt like as big a deal as it was for everyone else, since it wasn’t like Hermes campers had to move into a new cabin with a bunch of new people.

He was glad, if he had to be at camp for school, at least she would be too. She had found out the very last week of summer, when her mom had called Chiron to ask if Olivia could try out his educational system, to see if maybe she would find less ways to get into trouble there than she had in her school district up in New Hampshire. Apparently she’d already been through all six elementary schools in her hometown—one for each year from kindergarten to fifth grade.

Will didn’t understand it. Olivia was great. Way nicer than most of her siblings, who were mostly either jerks who liked playing pranks on people, or worse jerks who had betrayed the other campers to go help Luke Castellan and Kronos. He couldn’t see why any school—or, for that matter, Olivia’s mom—wouldn’t want her around.

“Are you okay?” she asked now. “Were you crying?”

“I’m fine,” Will said. “Is it time for dinner?”

“Yeah, are you coming?”

“Yeah.” Will fumbled for a tissue to blow his nose, then joined her. Olivia offered him her hand as they walked out toward the dining pavilion. Will took it, grateful for the kind gesture. His big sisters liked to hold the younger kids’ hands for security, to make sure they didn’t wander off and get into trouble, and now that Will wasn't one of the cabin babies anymore he actually kind of missed it. It was comforting.

“Julia and I were thinking of asking Chiron if you can sit with us for meals, since none of your siblings are here,” Olivia told him. “And maybe you could even come stay in our cabin, if you want, so you don't have to be alone in yours.”

“That would be nice, I guess,” Will said, maybe not as enthusiastically as he should have—Olivia’s sister Julia was nice (not as nice as Olivia, but nice enough) but he wasn’t sure he wanted to put himself in Travis and Connor’s sights like that. They’d been at camp since they were really little, well before Will got here, and they were well-established by now as kind of the bane of everyone else’s existence. In his three summers here so far Will had learned it was best to fly under their prank radar as much as possible.

Rather than reject Olivia’s offer outright, though, he just said, “thanks, Olivia. That’s really nice of you guys.” He figured Chiron would never go for it, rules being rules and gods being touchy, so he wasn’t too worried about actually having to move to the Hermes cabin.

As it turned out, Will was exactly right—Chiron shot down the cabin-sharing suggestion right away, and the table idea too, though that part he seemed sorrier about. Meanwhile, Connor saw him holding Olivia’s hand and immediately started pointing and laughing about “Livvy has a boyfriend!”

Will dropped Olivia’s hand like it had scalded him. She looked sad about it for about half a second before she squared her shoulders and started talking back to her big brothers. Will left the bickering children of Hermes to their table, the fullest left with six of them set to stay year-round, and went to sit at his table alone.

He looked around at the other tables, most of them empty, and found himself catching—or caught by?—Thalia Grace’s eye. The daughter of Zeus sat alone at her own table. Will hadn’t seen her smile at anyone but Annabeth Chase since she… reemerged, but now she offered him a small, sad smile of lonely solidarity.

It helped a little. At least he wasn’t the only one stuck at a table alone, and at least it wasn’t summer anymore—Will could only imagine what it was like for Percy Jackson, and now Thalia too, he guessed, being completely alone while every single other table was full of laughing siblings. This sucked, but that would suck even more.

After dinner, Will walked back to his cabin by himself. Inside he pulled on pajamas and turned on the sun-shaped light attached to the underside of the bunk atop his. Apollo’s kids weren’t generally afraid of heights—some of them might love them a little too much, in fact, or at least that was what Lee had said to Michael when he almost got stuck in a tree this summer—so the top bunks were a lot higher up than most, leaving ample space for kids on the lower levels to sit up in bed. A smaller kid than Will probably could have stood upright on the mattress without hitting their head.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, actually, Will thought as he sat up reading by the artificial sunlight much later than Lee would have let him. There were some benefits to being the sole enforcer of his own lights-out. But—still, he thought, he didn’t like being all alone.

Will had grown up in Texas learning about one-room schoolhouses. Now he got to be in one, more or less. Chiron held many of their academic lessons—math and reading and stuff—in the Big House’s massive… parlor? Dining room? Will wasn’t sure what it had been in the olden days, if it had ever been anything but the schoolroom. All the kids learned there, arranged at square tables that reminded Will of how his elementary school teachers in Austin would put four desks together in blocks.

On one side of the room were the older kids’ tables, for the high schoolers, and one table just for the eighth graders—there were more of them than any other grade. With two years and the high school divide between them, the Stolls were seated at different tables, so they spent a lot of time turning their otherwise-untouched math worksheets into paper airplanes that could do elaborate tricks as they flew them across the room to each other. At the table she and Travis shared with Charlie Beckendorf and Silena Beauregard, Clarisse would snap at them for distracting her—she was actually a good student, Will realized, and really was trying to do her work and stay focused, as well as any of them could. It didn’t actually make her any less scary, but it made him like her a little better. Contrary to all logic, the older kids’ tables actually got louder after she left on her secret mission in October.

The elementary school kids had their own table, since there were just three of them. Will and Olivia were the only sixth-graders, so they sat at the fourth table with Sherman and Mark, who were seventh-graders, and did their math and reading assignments together.

Reading was the best part of learning from Chiron instead of in regular school. Will wasn’t sure where the old centaur had gotten an Ancient Greek translation of The Giver, but with the barrier of dyslexia removed it was the first time in his life he had actually enjoyed reading a book for school.

Mark and Sherman thought the book was “ugh, super gay,” though—there were a lot of things Mark and Sherman thought were “so gay”, like Hey There Delilah, and that Connor always threw M&Ms in the sacrificial fire for Hermes at dinner instead of getting rid of his vegetables that way like a lot of the other kids did, and history lessons that were about anything other than war—so mostly Will kept quiet about it. It put a bad feeling in his stomach when they started calling stuff gay, maybe for the same reason he’d been so desperate to avoid crying where anyone else could see. Cause gods forbid they think he was, for actually liking the book and the history lessons (he was ambivalent on Hey There Delilah), or for anything else. Not that there was anything wrong with it. He just didn’t want Mark and Sherman turning against him. They already called him a nerd all the time for being pretty good at math.

One day, though, they made the mistake of complaining about The Giver within earshot of Chiron. No sooner had the word “gay” left Mark’s mouth as a rude epithet than Chiron was looming over the middle schoolers’ table in full centaur form, his expression almost as thunderous as Thalia on a bad day. Will looked around, feeling like he too must have done something wrong.

“Evidently we are in need of a history lesson,” Chiron boomed. “Everyone, gather your things and follow me to the amphitheater.”

“Right now?” Mark complained, because apparently his guts were lined with pure celestial bronze.

“Right now,” Chiron said with terrifying finality, and trotted out of the room. Everyone stumbled after him, mostly looking confused, though Silena and a few of the other older students had sly looks on their faces, like they knew exactly what Chiron was going to teach them. Will wondered if maybe this had happened before.

History lessons at Camp Half-Blood were usually held outside, along with science and art classes. It was hard for a bunch of adolescent demigods to sit still indoors for very long, so Chiron didn’t try to make them. For science and art their projects might involve running around collecting stuff from camp and the woods, or going from place to place learning from their peers and the nymphs and satyrs, but history meant hanging out in the amphitheater under the always-blue sky while Chiron told them stories from his many centuries of life.

Sometimes those stories had to do with the kinds of things Will had grown up learning in public school in Austin, American history, wars and stuff (those were the lessons the Ares boys liked), but just as often they were about things that had happened far, far beyond living memory. Well—mortal memory. In those cases there was usually some kind of a lesson to the story, a moral for young demigods who might grow up to be the same kinds of heroes as the ones in Chiron’s stories. Never challenge a god unless you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is (and even if you win you’ll probably still die). Don’t get on Hera’s bad side. (Seriously.) Be careful what you wish for. Don’t look back.

That day, Will learned for the first time about another golden-haired boy Chiron had taught once, millennia ago, and the man he had grown up to love so much he would have died for him if his beloved hadn’t gone and done it first. As Chiron told them about Achilles and Patroclus, the anger in the old centaur’s voice turned into the wistful sorrow that was more usual when he told stories about heroes long dead, but the fire still simmered in the pointed way he looked at Mark and Sherman.

“Great heroes of history should not have the truth of their lives reduced to a means to slander what you do not like,” he said. “And nor should anyone else—any stranger on the street, maybe even some of your friends—great heroes or no.” He held their gazes until they both looked away, shamefaced, at their feet. Then, for an instant, his eyes flickered up to Will, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Sometimes Chiron looked at people like he knew things about them they didn’t even know about themselves.

Naomi played back-to-back shows in New York City on December 14th and 15th, so she let Will come and stay with her in the hotel those two nights. On the 14th he went to the concert and watched from backstage with his mom’s manager’s PA, a young woman named Leanna who handed him a multi-pack of fruit snacks by way of childcare—he wasn’t five, he wanted to protest. Then she spent the whole concert texting when she wasn’t running around doing stuff for Wade, Naomi’s manager.

Will just sat on the black floor, earplugs in since he was so close to the sound system, and watched a country-rock star who never felt anything like his mom perform, and ate maybe five fruit snacks total, and felt more than ever like he didn’t belong anywhere at all.

Then Naomi Solace finally came offstage after the encore and transformed back into Will’s mom. After a tense-looking discussion with Wade and Leanna, they went to the hotel and she let him order room service spaghetti and meatballs and stay up late watching Star Wars on pay-per-view—the TV only had the prequels, but it was better than watching weird old guys interview celebrities he knew nothing about. He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep midway through Attack of the Clones until suddenly it was morning.

That was the best day Will had had all year. After fancy breakfast in the fancy hotel, they spent the rest of it out in the city—pizza, riding the subway, Times Square, ice-skating. Will had thought it would be easy, cause he was a good runner and had those demigod reflexes and stuff, but he fell down three times before he figured out how to balance. Naomi cheered him on. The second concert was no different from the first, but it felt a lot better after actually getting to spend the day with his mom, not Naomi Solace, and this time Leanna had actually ordered more pizza for him instead of just fruit snacks.

It was wonderful. Will didn’t even see a single monster at all. But there was never a good thing without a bad thing to balance it out, especially for demigods, so if he’d been on his guard it shouldn’t have been half as much of a gut punch as it was to get back to camp the next day, hug his mom goodbye, and find—

“Will! WILL!” He reached the top of Half-Blood Hill to see Olivia tearing across the grass toward him, trailed by a dark-haired boy who must have been new. There were about 15 year-rounders total right now, and after three months stuck with them Will obviously knew them all, and this kid was not one.

“Olivia! Olivia!” he yelled back jokingly, mimicking her. “What’s up?”

“Will!” She tackled him, almost knocking him over. “You won’t believe what happened!”

“What?” Will squirmed out of her hold. Before Olivia could elaborate,

“Is your dad really Apollo?” the new kid asked him without the slightest preamble, brown eyes wide. He was maybe five feet tall, and wearing an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt that looked like it was fresh off the camp store rack. “He’s awesome! He has plus thirty health and two thousand defense and his car is really cool even though he wouldn’t let me drive it—”

“Um,” said Will. “Who are you?”

“This is Nico di Angelo,” said Olivia, who looked like she was trying very hard not to laugh. “He’s new.”

“O—okay,” said Will. In the distance, his eye was caught by what looked like a group of people in silver uniforms walking out of the cabin area. They definitely hadn’t been here when he left. “What did I miss?”

“Well,” Olivia started to say, but Nico got there first.

“My sister and I were at school, and then our teacher turned into a monster, but Percy saved us, and Thalia almost killed the monster, but this girl named Annabeth fell off a cliff, then Artemis came—” his mouth turned down for an instant, but he didn’t stop talking—“and then she called Apollo and he drove us here in the sun! Cause the sun is a car! But I guess you probably knew that,” he trailed off, finally seeming to actually think about the words coming out of his mouth, “because…he’s your dad.” Will swallowed hard around a growing lump in his throat.

“My dad was here?” he said to Olivia.

“Yeah,” said Olivia. “He was here yesterday. Not for very long—” she seemed to realize he wasn’t as excited about this news as she was, and definitely not as much as Nico (though it seemed like it was hard for any human to be as excited about anything as Nico was), and backtracked. “It was just—really cool,” she said. “But it’s okay! Did you have fun with your mom?”

“Yeah,” Will said, though it felt like all the joy of the past two days had vanished into a gnawing pit in his stomach. “I did. We had a lot of fun.” He looked at the ground for a moment. “I should go put my stuff away.”

“Okay,” Olivia said weakly as he brushed past her to trudge down towards the cabins. “I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Yeah.” Will sighed. “Right.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” Nico yelled after him.

“You too,” Will called back grudgingly.

His dad had been here, but hadn’t bothered to stick around long enough to see him. He hadn’t even left a note—there was no sign of him in the cabin. To add insult to injury, it turned out that not only had Artemis gotten his dad to bring Percy and Thalia and Nico to camp, Will’s aunt had also sent her Hunters with them. Now there was a “friendly” Capture the Flag game scheduled for tonight—and since Will hadn’t been here when that was decided on, they hadn’t saved him a spot on the Camp Half-Blood team.

Even the new kid got to be on the team, but not Will. Of course not.

“That’s all right,” Chiron said kindly. “We’ll keep you on the sidelines in case of any serious injuries. Your healing skill could save lives tonight.” It was nice of him to try and be reassuring, Will thought glumly.

But as it turned out, every single Ares camper managed to break at least one limb in the carnage that ensued, plus the Stoll brothers both had concussions. “I hate those Hunter girls,” Mark grumbled, while Sherman kept muttering “break my leg” mutinously. Since they had saddled Will with half the camp as patients when he was the only Apollo kid around, while none of the Hunters seemed to need medical attention themselves, he didn’t entirely disagree. He told the Ares boys to stop complaining anyway.

He had to admit—grudgingly—Chiron had had an actual point. His healing wasn’t all that powerful yet, not compared to Lee or his big sisters Izzy and Renee, but it was the only talent he seemed to have gotten from his dad, so all of them and Chiron were encouraging him to lean into it.

That was fine. It was easy enough—that was the main way it had manifested so far, actually, was how intuitive medicine felt to Will. While Chiron and the counselors met in the rec room (concussions and all), Will worked in the infirmary under Argus’ ever-watchful eye (well, eyes), setting bones, wrapping bandages, and administering nectar and ambrosia to speed the healing processes for the other campers. Gods, he wished Izzy was here to do more of the prayer-magic healing stuff she was so good at, or that Renee was here to make sure he was doing things right, but… at least, doing it on his own from memory, he was starting to feel more and more like he knew what he was doing.

It took a lot out of him, though. Especially the magic healing. It was like helping other people get some strength back totally sapped his. When he finally got to go back to his cabin, accompanied by Argus so the curfew harpies wouldn’t freak out, Will was so tired he was just glad he managed to make it to his bed before he collapsed.

In the morning Will went to breakfast to find that Thalia, two Hunters, and Grover Underwood had left on their quest. The third Hunter who had been supposed to go along was out of commission thanks to Olivia’s brothers, she told him—apparently the Stolls had given her a t-shirt sprayed with centaur blood. That was an even more vicious prank than Will usually would have expected from them. They must have been really mad about capture the flag.

When he offered to help, though, the Hunters turned him away.

“This cabin is holy ground, sacred to the Lady Artemis,” said the girl at the door, who looked no older than Will but sounded like she was from Shakespeare’s time or something. (His father’s forever-favorite son named Will, twenty-first-century Will thought sourly.) “No man may enter.”

“I’m not a man, I’m a boy,” Will pointed out. “I’m twelve. And Lady Artemis is my aunt! My dad’s the god of healing. I can help.”

“That you are a son of Apollo does not lend you as much credit as you seem to think,” the girl said imperiously. “We have had recent dealings with your father. We are well aware of what he is like.” She said it like seeing his father was a bad thing, not something Will would've given anything for. “As if we would allow any man access to our sister when she is in a vulnerable state, let alone one of his spawn.”

“But I’m not—” Will realized he didn’t know what he was trying to say—something he couldn’t quite articulate. “It wouldn’t be like that.”

“Whether or not that is so, we have our rules,” the girl informed him. “And we are perfectly capable of taking care of our own. Good day.” And she shut the door in his face.

As Will trudged down the steps, scowling at the ground, he almost crashed into what looked, in his peripheral vision, like a small shadow. Stumbling aside to avoid a collision, he realized it was Nico. The younger kid wasn’t looking where he was going either—his eyebrows were furrowed together in worry, his focus on a little metal figurine he was turning over in his hands. He looked up when Will moved, startled, and glanced between him and the Artemis cabin.

“Why were you trying to get in?” he asked.

“I heard someone got injured,” Will explained. “I’m a healer, so I thought maybe I could help, but apparently they’re ‘perfectly capable of taking care of their own,” he said, mocking the old-fashioned girl’s accent. The corners of Nico’s mouth curved up in a smile for a moment before it faded again. It was weird—he was so much more subdued today than he had been when Will had briefly met him yesterday, it was like he was a different person.

“Yeah, they wouldn’t let me in to see Bianca before she left either,” said Nico, “even though she’s my sister.” His expression darkened—upset, his eyes were surprisingly scary.

“Oh, is she one of the ones on the quest?” Nico nodded, eyes back on the little figurine. Ah. That would be where all the enthusiasm went, Will thought. “I’m sure she’ll be okay,” he told Nico, trying to make it sound encouraging. When he looked closer at the figurine Nico was focusing on, he realized it was a tiny silver model of Poseidon, trident in hand.

“She will,” Nico said, looking up again, darkness fading. He sounded a lot more sure than Will had. “Percy promised.” Will blinked.

“I thought Percy wasn’t going.” Based on the snippets he’d caught of the meeting in the rec room last night while he was tending to the Ares campers, it sounded like that was a whole thing.

“Like they could stop him.” Nico smiled a weirdly secret little smile.

“So, what’s up with the little Poseidon?” Will asked, figuring what rules Percy Jackson did or did not break wasn’t really his problem. “Is that from a game or something?” It looked like the little miniatures his big brothers and Beckendorf used to play Dungeons & Dragons, except made of real metal.

“Yeah, Mythomagic!” said Nico, finally perking up. “I have almost the whole original set.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that game!” said Will. That thing Nico had said yesterday about his dad having +30 health and 2000 defense finally made sense. “It’s like Yu-Gi-Oh, right? But with the real gods and monsters and stuff?”

“Maybe?” said Nico, eyebrows furrowing again. “What’s Yu-Gi-Oh?”

“What do you mean, what’s Yu-Gi-Oh?” Will exclaimed, scandalized, at the same moment Olivia emerged from the Hermes cabin and ran up to them.

“Nico, there you are—where’d you go?”

“He’s never heard of Yu-Gi-Oh!” Will told her indignantly.

“Maybe he’s just cooler than you,” said Olivia. “Nerd.”

“He has the whole Mythomagic set! How much cooler can he be?” Will shot back. Nico was giggling now, which was good to hear.

“I’ll teach you to play Mythomagic if you guys teach me about whatever Yu-Gi-Oh is,” he told them. Olivia put her hands up.

“I don’t know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh except that Will likes it, but I’ll still play with you,” she added when Nico’s face fell a little.

The kid’s enthusiasm returned as quickly as it had faded. It was really something to behold.

In all his months at camp without his siblings, Will hadn’t gotten to hang out with Olivia in his cabin because of the rule against two campers of different genders and godly parents being alone together, but now Nico was here, so it was fine. That was how Will, Olivia, and Nico wound up spending their afternoon sitting on the floor of the Apollo cabin with Will’s entire collection of Yu-Gi-Oh packs spread out around them.

To Will’s delight, both of them picked it up pretty easily. Olivia quickly developed the kind of casually chaotic tactics he would have expected from a Hermes kid, while Nico’s small face was deadly serious as he considered his cards and his opponent’s.

“You’re letting me win,” he accused Will halfway through their game.

“What? No I’m not!” said Will, who had absolutely been letting Nico win. Nico’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re letting me win and you’re a bad liar,” he said.

“Would you rather I kicked your butt?” Will asked. “Cause I could do that instead.” Nico blinked like he hadn’t been expecting that.

“Yeah,” he said, surprisingly. “Sure. If you can, I mean.”

“I definitely can,” said Will. “You’re doing okay, but you’re not that good yet.” Nico shrugged.

“Whatever. Bring it on. I’ll get you back when we play Mythomagic.”

“Okay, fine,” said Will, and spent the next fifteen minutes roundly trouncing Nico at Yu-Gi-Oh. He had been holding back because he figured the kid was already in a not-so-great mood with his sister gone on a dangerous quest, and he didn’t want to make it worse—his own younger siblings and mortal cousins were prone to tantrums if they lost at the best of times.

He supposed Nico wasn’t that much younger, though, and as it turned out he was completely serious about being willing to lose. By the end of the game Nico had lost by almost 5000 points and was laughing about it.

“Wow, you weren’t lying,” he said, looking at Will with shining eyes. “You are good.”

“Of course I wasn’t lying. You’d have known. Like you said, I’m a pretty bad liar,” Will pointed out. “I am pretty good at this, though. My one skill,” he added, mostly joking. He felt very self-conscious suddenly. Will was a relatively untalented younger child of a medium-important god—people didn’t usually look at him like Nico was right now, like he was cool.

“That’s not true,” Olivia said, shoving gently at his arm. “You’re a great healer and archer.”

“I am not a great archer. I’m, like, an okay archer on a good day.”

“You’re better than me!”

“Yeah, but your dad isn’t the god of it!”

“You’re talented and special, Will Solace!” Olivia insisted. “Get over it!” Unfolding her legs, she stood up. “Are non-Apollo campers allowed to use the Apollo bathroom?”

“Sure.” Will shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know what Lee would say, but Lee’s not here and I don’t mind.” Probably Lee wouldn’t mind either—Lee was like the nicest person in the world. Now, Michael...

“Who’s Lee?” Nico asked as Olivia excused herself, leaving him and Will alone.

“My half-brother,” Will replied. “He’s one of the oldest and he’s been here the longest, so he’s our head counselor.”

“Why isn’t he here?”

“Cause he just comes to camp in the summer. Most people do.”

“Why are you here, then?”

“Cause my mom is a musician and she’s on tour.”

“That’s so cool!”

“Yeah,” said Will, “I guess.”

“How many kids are there usually?”

“You mean during the summer?”

“Yeah.”

“About a hundred,” said Will. Nico’s eyes widened.

“Oh, wow! The gods have a lot of kids.”

“Yeah,” said Will, then amended, “some more than others. Like, Artemis is an eternal maiden, so she doesn’t have kids, just her Hunters. And obviously Zeus and Poseidon just have one each, Thalia and Percy, and they’re not really supposed to have any—Hades doesn’t—but my dad and Olivia’s dad probably have the most.”

“Why aren’t Zeus and Poseidon supposed to have kids?” Nico asked, frowning. “Percy and Thalia are really cool.”

“The Big Three—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades—they made a vow not to,” said Will. “Their kids are too powerful. They almost destroyed the world.” Nico nodded, still frowning thoughtfully.

“Percy’s really powerful,” he agreed. “So is Thalia. She got mad after capture the flag and shot lightning at him, then he almost dumped the whole river on her. It was awesome.” His eyes widened. “Are they going to destroy the world?” Will wanted to say no, because Percy and Thalia both seemed pretty nice (ish—Thalia was a little scary, and not just because of her being, as Sherman kept saying, “kind of a zombie”), but on the other hand he knew there was a prophecy that, from the rumors he’d heard in his years here, made it sound like at least one of them might, so,

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess we’ll see.” They sat in silence for a moment. Seemingly unperturbed by the non-zero chance of Thalia and/or Percy causing the apocalypse, Nico looked around at the cabin.

“How many siblings do you have?”

“Fifteen,” said Will. He pointed out their beds, at least the beds that would be theirs when they got back next summer—the bunk beds Lee shared with their sister Claire; the set Michael shared with their brother Jasper; Renee and Izzy's beds; the twins'; the new kids from this summer, Xavier and Leah’s; and the two youngest, the cabin babies, Hannah and Teresa’s. “And some other kids have gone to college now. So, fifteen. That we know of.” That was the joke Lee and Renee liked to make, a little bit at their dad’s expense—even in a pantheon of gods who (mostly) had affairs with mortals all the time, Apollo wasn’t exactly known for chastity, or for keeping very good track of his kids.

“Why wouldn’t you know about the other ones?” Nico asked, looking confused. Will considered whether he wanted to give this hyper-inquisitive ten-year-old (well, basically-eleven-year-old, as Nico kept insisting) the birds and the bees talk right here, right now, and decided he would rather have to deal with the whole Ares cabin getting food poisoning.

“Gods don’t always remember to check on their demigod kids,” he said instead. “I mean, you don’t know who your godly parent is, right?”

“No.” Nico frowned. “I don’t even know if it’s my mother or my father. Bianca and I—we don’t remember our parents.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Will didn’t pry—Nico didn’t look like he wanted to talk about it. Instead, after another moment of awkward silence he perked up again and asked,

“Are you Olivia’s boyfriend?” Will choked.

“No!” he exclaimed. “Gods! Why do people keep saying that?” Nico shrugged, looking taken aback by the strength of Will’s reaction.

“I don’t know. You’re a boy, and she’s a girl, and it seems like you like each other, so.”

“Of course I like her,” said Will, “she’s my friend, but I don’t like-like her. Just because—I don’t have to—boys and girls can just be friends!” He wasn’t sure why his stomach clenched so painfully. He just really didn’t like it that people assumed he was interested in Olivia like that, just because she was a girl, and his friend. He didn’t want a girlfriend. Being girl-crazy was fine for Mark and Sherman, but they were older than Will—for the gods’ sake, he was barely twelve.

“Sure, I guess.” Nico just shrugged, looking pensive. “Is Annabeth Percy’s girlfriend? They were dancing together at the dance before Dr. Thorn turned into a monster, and he seemed really upset that she’s gone.”

“I don’t know,” said Will. “It seems like they do like-like each other, but I don’t actually know them that well, you know. They’re cool older kids who get to be part of prophecies and go on quests. They don’t really hang out with the younger kids who don’t get to do stuff like that.”

“I guess my sister’s one of the cool older kids now,” Nico said grimly, his mood darkening again just in time for Olivia to finally come back from the bathroom.

“What did I miss?” she asked. Will looked at Nico, who shook it off and said,

“Nothing. Do you want to play against me? That way Will can’t beat us.”

“Hey!” said Will as Olivia flopped back onto the floor.

“Sure,” she said. “If I get Will on my team.” She grinned at him, batting her eyelashes overdramatically. Will shoved at her arm.

“That’s not how it works!” he and Nico protested at the same time. Will held out his hand for a high-five, because that was what his siblings always did when they accidentally spoke in unison or finished others’ sentences, which happened fairly often—their dad was the god of prophecy. Nico looked confused for a second, then he reciprocated, yanking his hand away just as fast.

“Okay, fine,” Olivia grumbled good-naturedly, settling into place cross-legged opposite Nico. “Let’s do this.”

The prank war between the Stolls and the Hunters only escalated in the week the Artemis cabin was occupied. First the Hunters retaliated for what the Stolls had done to Phoebe, unfortunately catching everyone else in the cabin in their net too—except Olivia and Nico, who were busy playing Yu-Gi-Oh in the Apollo cabin at the time. Then the Ares kids got in on it, out for revenge for their broken limbs. This time the Hunters’ response resulted in the roofs of both the Hermes and the Ares cabins catching on fire at two in the morning.

“You know, if Percy had been here,” Mark ranted while a bleary-eyed Will applied salve to a burn on his arm where a blazing shingle had fallen on him, “he could’ve just dumped water on the roof, but no, he’s Percy freakin’ Jackson and he just had to go on a quest he wasn’t even invited on, again, cause he thinks he’s so cool—”

“We get it, Mark,” Sherman interrupted, “you have a big gay crush on Percy.” Mark clammed up, looking mutinous. Will just sighed, shook his head, and moved on to setting Sherman’s leg, which was somehow broken again. “Ow!” Sherman yelped as Will pulled maybe a little bit too hard. “Will! Don’t break it more!”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Will snapped, his patience wearing thin. “Gods, you guys are immature, and I’m younger than you. When are you going to think of a better insult than just calling things gay all the time?”

“Hey,” Sherman said, “I call it like I—”

“Will’s right,” Olivia cut him off. “It’s super immature.” She was sitting two cots over, huddled under a blanket with Nico, who looked about as happy to have been woken up in the middle of the night as Will felt—he was scowling as he made his Artemis and Ares figurines fight. “And it’s not fair to gay people. Do you jerks need me to go get Chiron so he can explain about Achilles again?” Now Mark looked abashed again, and Sherman looked mutinous.

“Whatever,” he grumbled.

Things around camp didn’t necessarily get worse from there, but they sure didn’t get better. Unfortunately, the campers were basically on an early winter break while the Hunters were here—it wasn’t that Will liked school enough to miss it (he wasn’t that big a nerd), even if it was better than school at home, but he thought everyone having more time on their hands than usual was just making the pranks more elaborate. And dangerous. Which meant Will wound up spending hours in the infirmary, treating scrapes, bruises, and more burns.

Talk about getting better at healing—without his big sisters around, it was like a solo trial by fire. Sometimes literally. The more time he spent healing his friends and acquaintances and… school tablemates, the more Will could feel his own abilities—his own magic powers, which even after three years of knowing his dad was a god still felt unbelievably awesome to say—getting stronger. Sometimes he could make a scrape stop bleeding and vanish from a kid’s skin just by touching it and thinking about it really hard. It still took something out of him, too, but—it was less and less every time.

It made sense, when he thought about it, that demigods’ divine talents got stronger the more they practiced them, just like any other skill. The same way Clarisse trained constantly with her spear, and a lot of kids spent a lot of time practicing swordfighting, and most of Will’s siblings were always hanging around the archery range. Healing actually kind of sucked in this way, though, Will thought, because for him to be able to practice that much and get better this fast sort of required that everyone else keep getting hurt. Which, what with all their practice being fighting, maybe they would have anyway. But right now the reasons they kept getting injured, and Will got in so much healing practice, were just dumb.

He voiced all that to Chiron after the old centaur spent an afternoon coaching him through healing a stomach wound—poor Jake from the Hephaestus cabin had gotten shot with an arrow, the Hunter who did it swore by accident this time. Chiron just looked sad and said,

“I fear you are entirely correct, Will. And—I fear your opportunities to practice healing may only increase in the coming months. Perhaps even the coming weeks.”

“Because Thalia’s going to turn sixteen?” said Will. He didn’t know what the prophecy was, but he did know it had something to do with a child of the Big Three turning sixteen, and Nico had told him Apollo had said Thalia would do that very soon. And he would know, Will supposed, with the power of prophecy and everything. Chiron sighed.

“Assuming she makes it that far,” he said. “And if not, assuming Percy does.”

Will swallowed hard, startled—he had never heard Chiron sound that bleak. He usually kept a stiff upper lip with campers, at least the younger ones like Will. But now—

“Yes,” he said gravely, “before all is said and done, Will, I fear you may have the chance to become one of the finest healers this camp has seen in decades.” He smiled sadly and set a hand on Will’s shoulder for a moment—“You are certainly making an excellent start.”

Somehow, that didn’t make Will feel any better.

The conflict between campers and Hunters finally, finally flamed out because of two things. First, Clarisse got back from her super secret mission weirdly quiet and twitchy—whatever had happened, she seemed really haunted by it—and in a surprising twist her younger siblings seemed to lose their stomach for the fight, too. And second, as the week went by without any news about the quest, camp as a whole just got too preoccupied with worrying about it.

Will was anxious too, since nobody really knew whether no news actually was good news right now, but he was grateful for the reprieve from the injuries. It gave him more time to play Yu-Gi-Oh with Olivia, Nico, and sometimes Julia, and more time to read his books, curled up in his camp bunk.

Sometimes his friends joined him for that, too. One afternoon Olivia sprawled across most of Will’s bed while he sat cross-legged with his back against the slats at the foot, which probably shouldn’t have been allowed even though they weren’t alone in the cabin, but no one older was around to enforce the rules anyway. Nico, who Will was starting to think of as his friend too, sat on the floor examining some of his Ancient Greek mythology books, tracing the words with his small finger and mouthing them silently. He looked as fascinated by being able to read easily for once as Will still felt sometimes, like about his school assignments for Chiron.

Will was looking forward to having Nico in school with them, he thought. He would probably have to sit with Julia and the other two elementary-school kids, since he was a fifth-grader, but it would be cool just to have another friend around.

“Who do you think his parent is?” Olivia asked Will quietly one morning when it was just the two of them walking to breakfast. “I don’t think it’s my dad. It’s going okay, having him in the cabin, but he doesn’t seem like one of us.”

“I have no idea,” said Will, who honestly hadn’t thought about it much. Going by physical appearance alone, Nico actually looked more like Thalia than anyone else—dark hair, pale skin, piercing eyes, even if hers were very light and his were very dark—but her dad seemed impossible. Or at least, he should have been—obviously Thalia existing proved he wasn’t, exactly. But Will was pretty sure they all would have noticed by now if Nico could summon the power of lightning, and besides, looks weren’t everything when it came to whose parent was who. Will had been told he looked a lot like his dad’s usual human-ish form, and so did Lee and Renee and sort of the twins, but they also had siblings who didn’t look like them at all. Sometimes Will suspected people just said that cause they were blond. Not that he had seen Apollo recently enough to compare.

“I’m guessing either Demeter or Apollo,” Olivia said, tapping her finger against her lower lip speculatively. Will shook his head.

“Not Apollo,” he said immediately. He wasn’t sure why he was so sure, but he was. “I think I’d know,” he added when Olivia looked at him. “Power of prophecy or something. I don’t know.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” she agreed. “I guess it could be Hephaestus. It’s probably not Aphrodite, he’s too nerdy and not cute enough.” Will personally didn’t think the Aphrodite kids were really as pretty as everyone always said, but he supposed that didn’t have anything to do with Nico. “Maybe it’s Ares? But he’s not, like… you know…”

“Enough of a jerk?” Will suggested.

“Yeah, exactly.” Olivia smiled. “Gods, it’s been weird being on the same side with them this week.”

“The Hunters have really brought the camp together,” Will said. “Maybe we should throw them a party or something, you know, to thank them.” At that, they both dissolved into giggles.

The winter solstice passed quietly. On the morning of the 22nd, Will woke in Cabin Seven to find camp weirdly silent. When he looked out, there was no sign of—well, anyone—but across the horseshoe, Cabin Eight looked conspicuously more empty again than it had yesterday.

At breakfast, it turned out he was right. The Hunters of Artemis weren’t at their table. So much for throwing them a party. At the Hermes table, Nico kept glancing at the empty one, looking distraught. Will supposed it must be cause his sister had left.

He didn’t know why the Hunters would have just left—it seemed like either a very good sign, like the quest had succeeded, or a very bad sign, and the world was ending. But the world didn’t seem to be ending, so… Will assumed it meant the quest had succeeded, and Artemis had returned to meet her Hunters with Zoe and Bianca. And then they had left again, which was why Nico was unhappy. It made sense. If it was true, though, where were Thalia, Percy, and Grover? And had they found Annabeth?

He didn’t get his answer until after lunch, when he and Olivia and the Ares boys were having archery practice. Will was suffering. He was doing better than Sherman or Olivia, but he couldn’t seem to match Mark. It was embarrassing; he couldn’t help but feel like a shame to his father’s good name.

“Dude, it’s not your fault your dad has a bunch of different specialties to pass on to different kids,” Mark was trying to reassure him, which was unusually nice of him, though it wasn’t making Will feel any better. “My dad’s only thing is war. I just happen to be better at the archery part of war. Where would we be if the part of your dad’s stuff you’re good at—not that you’re bad at archery, you’re okay—but what would we do if you weren’t extra good at healing? Sherman wouldn’t have a leg left to stand on.” He looked at his brother. “Not that he’d shoot any worse without them.”

“Hey, fuck you,” said Sherman, and flipped him off for good measure.

“Sherman!” Olivia admonished him. “There are children present. Think of their delicate ears!”

“Oh, right. Sorry, Nico!” He sounded like he actually sort of meant it for once.

“I was talking about Will,” Olivia teased, grinning over her shoulder at him, “but sure, Nico too.” Will just shook his head. Reaching back into his quiver, he found it was empty, so he walked off to replenish it.

Will and Mark had offered to show Nico how to shoot a bow, since he said he hadn’t before, but the younger boy had turned them down. Instead he was sitting on the sidelines, half-watching them, shuffling through his Mythomagic deck.

“Hey,” Will said to him as he grabbed a handful of arrows, “you still have to teach me and Olivia how to play that, remember?”

“Yeah!” Nico perked up at the reminder. “Do you wanna do that after this? Unless Bianca gets back today,” he amended, “and then we could tomorrow.”

“Wait,” said Will, “Bianca didn’t leave with the Hunters?” Nico looked up at him like he was confused.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know where the Hunters went, but Bianca wasn’t with them when they left. Neither was that Zoe girl,” he added, frowning, “the leader.”

“Oh, okay,” Will said. “Maybe the quest is over and the Hunters went to meet them somewhere?” Nico shook his head.

“No, that can’t be it,” he said. “Maybe Bianca and Zoe are coming with the other quest people, and they’ll catch up with the Hunters later. But Bianca wouldn’t just… not come back. She wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

“No, of course not,” Will agreed, because if there was one thing he understood about Bianca di Angelo from listening to her brother talk about her like she held up the stars, it was that they were very close, and she cared about Nico a lot. He’d been wondering what it would have been like to have a sister like that—all his own siblings were halves, at least to him. Nico and Bianca had gotten to grow up together, like the twins, not just see each other every summer at camp.

Before he could head back out to his shooting mark, Olivia’s sister Julia came running up to the archery range.

“Travis and Connor just got summoned to the Big House,” she said excitedly. “The questers are back!”

Nico was on his feet before she finished the sentence. He looked at the others, then at Will.

“I guess Mythomagic can wait for tomorrow,” Will said. “You go ahead. We’ll see you later.”

“Okay!” Nico shoved his cards into his pockets and was off like a shot. Will hadn’t known anyone could move that fast on such short legs.

As they were putting their bows away a while later Will caught sight of Nico again, at a distance, walking across camp—not with Bianca, but with Percy. That was weird. But Mark was trying to give him a pep talk again, insisting he needed to stop being so hard on himself about archery—apparently Mark could be nice if it was about weapons training—so it was kind of hard to focus on anything else as Will headed back to his cabin. It wasn’t until he got to dinner that he thought about it again, and that was because, well.

Nico wasn’t at dinner. When Will asked Olivia about it, she shrugged helplessly, mouthed like she was going to say something, then just pointed towards Percy. Will looked at the son of Poseidon, who was sitting at his table alone looking as despondent as Will had ever seen him. A low core of worry settled in the bottom of his stomach.

“Oh, are you talking about Nico?” Travis asked around a mouthful of brisket. “Yeah, he disappeared.”

“—He what?” Looking back at Olivia, Will saw tears appearing in her eyes.

“Percy said he told him his sister died on the quest, then the kid got upset and ran off into the woods,” Connor explained. Oh, no. Oh, no, no. “Now nobody can find him. So Chiron figures he’ll have gotten picked up by Luke and—” he looked around his table, the kids who hadn’t left—“his guys—or eaten by monsters.”

“Honestly, better monsters than Luke,” Travis said, scowling. “Fuck Luke.” The other Cabin Eleven campers nodded. That betrayal must have felt personal for each of them, Will thought, in a way it hadn’t to people like him, who weren’t his siblings. And hadn’t had siblings follow him.

“Fuck Luke,” they all agreed now in a rousing chorus, except Olivia, who looked as miserable as Will felt.

“Oh,” was all he managed to say. Then he turned and walked back to sit down alone at his own table. Looking around, he noticed Thalia wasn’t there anymore—the rumor had already reached Will that she had chosen to join the Hunters rather than turn sixteen and trigger whatever the whole Big Three prophecy thing was. Will still wasn’t the only one by himself, though. Now Percy and Annabeth each sat alone at their own tables, neither of them looking happy either.

For the first time, Will felt like he had something in common with the cool older kids who got to be part of prophecies and go on quests. He just really, really wished it hadn’t been this.

Chapter Text

“Honey, are you okay?” Naomi asked less than halfway to the airport when she came to get Will the next morning so they could fly home to be with Grandma Ida and Grandpa Vern for Christmas. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you stay this quiet for this long when I’ve come to get you before.”

“I’m fine.” Will stared out the window, watching Long Island pass by outside. After a pause, his mom turned down the volume on the car stereo, quieting the Dixie Chicks.

“Did something bad happen at camp since the last time I saw you?” she asked. She always seemed to see right through him. “It’s only been a week.”

“Yeah.” Will sighed. “Some bad stuff happened at camp. But—I don’t want to talk about it.” He realized it as he said it—he’d always felt like he was able to tell his mom about everything that happened to him at camp before, but this was different. The amount of broken limbs he’d set in the last week, the cabins on fire in the middle of the night, kids who were supposed to be immortal dying, other kids going missing and presumed eaten by monsters—it just felt like too much. Will’s mom had always done her best to keep the scary things away from him back home, monstrous and mortal alike, but now he felt like he had to keep the scary things away from her. He didn’t want her to worry about him more.

“Okay,” Naomi said after a moment’s silence. “Whenever you do want to, you know I’m here.”

“I know, Mom.” Feeling worse now, Will went back to looking out the window.

Will had been going to camp every summer since he was nine. Unlike most kids who started that young, it wasn’t because of monsters or danger or anything cool—instead, it was for the very silly reason that one day when Will was in third grade, Eddie Mayweather’s fake shoe had fallen off.

Will had known Eddie as the special needs aide who’d been assigned to him to help with his dyslexia after he got diagnosed. He’d thought he was just a regular human, albeit a really cool one—a bearded hippie dude with a ponytail who was always really patient with Will and never acted like he thought he was just dumb, or lazy. It had seemed uncharacteristic, once Will realized he wasn’t human, when he tried to convince him he was imagining things.

Will wasn’t inclined to be hard-headed by nature, but when he set his mind to something he could be very persistent. By the end of the school year he had worn poor Eddie down enough to get the truth out of him: Will’s dad was a god. That was why he wasn’t around anymore, and why Mom didn’t talk about him much except to tell vague stories about him being handsome and funny and a good singer. It was like having the heavens open before him—in a very literal way.

And even better, there was a camp for kids like Will where he could go to learn archery and Ancient Greek and magic. Once he found out about that, it took much less to talk his mom into letting him go with Eddie. Probably mostly because Eddie had said at this point, now that he knew, they kind of had no choice, but Will liked to think he’d had something to do with it.

Naomi had looked sad, then—like she had always known that day would come. Will supposed maybe she had.

He had usually been glad to come home during the school year, since it was safe for him to do that. Monsters were interested in Will, but not so much that he couldn’t go home in August to the same elementary school in Austin, as long as his mom was careful never to let him go anywhere alone, and as a younger kid pretty much nobody ever would have let him go places by himself anyway. So it was fine for him to be a summer kid at camp. There didn’t seem to be any reason for him to stick around there when home was perfectly fine.

That was why, after Christmas, Will was only supposed to go back to camp until February, when Naomi would come home for good and so could he. The plan had been that he would finish sixth grade at his local public middle school. Will hadn’t thought twice about it before, so it was a surprise when two days before they left to go back to New York his mom sat him down and asked him if he still actually wanted to come home in couple of months—or, if he wanted to stay at camp through the rest of the year and the summer.

Will looked at the report card Chiron had sent Naomi. It felt kind of fake, because it wasn’t a regular school grading system, just Chiron, but—it was the first time in his life he’d had grades above a C or a check-minus or whatever meant he was just barely passing. It was never that Will was a bad student—it had just always been hard for him to be a good one in regular school, all things considered.

Since Chiron’s approach to educating young demigods was so different, meant to work with their brains instead of against them, things on the page looked pretty different. Will had As in math and “language arts” (it couldn’t rightly be called English class when all the books were in Ancient Greek, he guessed), and for science, Chiron had actually given him an A+. Maybe having to heal Mark and Sherman’s broken legs over and over was giving Will a leg up. So to speak.

“Will,” Naomi said gently, “you know I miss you like crazy, and I know we’ve both been looking forward to coming home—but it really seems like school at camp is going a lot better for you.” He nodded. “Do you want to go back and stay for the rest of the year?”

Will thought about it. He had been psyching himself up to go back to public school halfway through the school year, to have to catch up in his classes and field questions from his old elementary school friends about “staying with his dad”—assuming anyone would bother, assuming they weren’t already caught up in the cliques that probably would have formed without him.

But now that the option was in front of him, the idea of staying in school at Camp Half-Blood was like a weight off his shoulders. He could keep doing all his reading and writing assignments in Ancient Greek and learning history from Chiron in the amphitheater. He could stay at the younger middle school table with Olivia. And Sherman and Mark, but with everything else even that didn’t feel like such a downside—at least with them, he basically knew where he stood. Still, he couldn’t quite bring himself to voice a “yes” to that when the flip side of the question was “or do you want to come home?”, so he just nodded again.

He could tell his mom was sad, like she always was when he left—but just like every other time, she kept up a happy face, cheerful all the way across the country, right back to the foot of Half-Blood Hill. For the first time, Will was starting to understand exactly how she did it.

The rest of the school year passed quietly, the same as it had been in the fall. Mark turned thirteen and had a major growth spurt, so that by April he was 5’9 and still growing. He also got nicer, Will thought, as the year went on—he liked to think it was his and Olivia’s influence. Sherman, on the other hand, grew neither nicer nor that much taller. Even though he’d turned thirteen before his brother, he steadfastly remained 5’5 and increasingly mad about it. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Will outgrew Sherman in May even though he was almost a year younger, leaving the son of Ares, who used to be the tallest at the middle school table, taller only than Olivia. And only barely, cause she was growing too.

Will didn’t regret his choice to stay at camp, because camp school really was so much better than public school, and his grades continued to reflect that. Besides, he’d gotten used to it. It was cool to have a best friend in Olivia, and even if Sherman still kind of sucked sometimes, they’d all grown closer just from proximity, and Mark really wasn’t so bad. He was still surprisingly nice about archery practice—Will kind of suspected it was because he didn’t see him as a threat, not like his siblings who were actually really good at it, which did make it feel a little patronizing, but he’d take what he could get. It was better than having the twins make fun of him for not being able to hit the bulls-eye every time. And Mark didn’t call things gay or girls bitches anymore, after Olivia yelled at him enough times, and once in a while he even smacked Sherman when he still did it.

The one downside of being at camp was being right at the center of all the bigger demigod drama. Everyone was a little on edge that spring—there was a lot of anxiety to go around. They all knew Luke was still somewhere out there, helping Kronos grow in strength.

And amassing forces. Last summer, kids had kept disappearing from camp, mostly the ones who had really looked up to Luke, like his brother Chris, or who were just stuck in Cabin Eleven forever and really resentful about it, whether because they were still unclaimed after years and years there or because their parents were minor gods, like Ethan Nakamura. As summer approached, Mark and Sherman invented a nasty hobby of speculating on what other kids might not show up to camp this year—who else would betray them.

“Shut up,” Olivia finally snapped at them. “Josh and Max would never. They’re not your brothers—you guys don’t know them.” Technically, Will didn’t point out, nobody was sure Max Kimball was her brother, not definitely—he was as every inch as stealthy and mischievous as the Stolls, but Hermes had never claimed him.

“Do so!” Mark argued. That wasn’t unfair. He’d spent his entire first summer in Cabin Eleven before he finally got claimed shortly after camp started last year.

“Andy totally would, though,” Sherman said. “Even you can’t argue with that.”

“Yes, I can!” Olivia said. “You can’t predict who’s gonna betray you or not. I mean, I never met Luke, but from how people talk about him, nobody knew, did they?”

“She has a point, Sherman,” Mark admitted. Sherman shrugged.

“Whatever,” he said. “What about Will’s cabin? Which of those guitar-playing losers is gonna betray us? My money’s on the one with the glasses.”

“Who, Jasper?” Will said.

“Yeah, that dude.” Sherman nodded. “Isn’t he kind of an asshole?”

“Look who’s talking,” Olivia muttered. Like all the times she’d told him off for being a jerk in other ways, Will was relieved she had done it—he’d wanted to, but if he had, Sherman would have punched him. But he wouldn’t hit a girl, at least not one who wasn’t his sister. He did punch Mark, though, when his brother burst out laughing.

“Hey!” Clarisse barked from a few tables over, right away, before even Chiron could notice to intervene. “Knock it off, brats.” Sherman knocked it off.

“Jasper wouldn’t,” Will said, still glaring at him. “No one in my cabin would.”

“Yeah, but like Olivia said,” Sherman shot back, “I bet everybody thought that about Luke, too.”

So, all things considered, there was kind of a knot in Will’s stomach as summer arrived, and with it, campers—and, just as they’d feared, not as many as there should have been, even with new kids arriving. But that knot eased the last week of May, when at long last, Will wasn’t alone in his cabin anymore. Walking back to his cabin from the Big House one afternoon, he realized the door was open and he could hear voices. He ran the rest of the way up the porch and in the door, and suddenly he couldn’t stop smiling.

Lee was back. He was standing in the middle of the cabin, talking to a redheaded girl who looked a couple years younger than Will—ten or eleven. Lee grinned when he saw Will, clapped the girl on the shoulder, and came over to wrap him in a bear hug.

“Hey, kid! Looks like you’ve done all right holding down the fort for me.”

“Thanks,” Will said, hugging his brother back tightly. “I did my best.” Lee was the tallest and broadest of his siblings now, seventeen and about six feet tall, so he gave the best hugs. Gods, Will had missed that.

“Well, your best looks great,” Lee assured him, squeezing his shoulders hard. He stepped back to look at him—“Gods, when did you get so tall?”

“I don’t know,” Will said, “last week?” Lee grinned and held a hand up between the top of Will’s head and his nose.

“Renee won’t be happy, you’re almost as tall as her already. We’ve got to get you drinking coffee.”

“Coffee?” Will frowned. “Why?”

“Supposedly it slows down your growth,” Lee explained. “Beating Renee is one thing—but we can’t have you getting taller than me.”

“That doesn’t sound like a real thing,” Will said suspiciously. Lee laughed. Like most of Apollo’s kids’ laughs, it was like music.

“Oh, it’s definitely not. I’m just messing with you.” He ruffled Will’s hair for good measure. “Before I totally forget my manners, Kayla, this is our brother Will. Will Solace. Will, this is Kayla Knowles.” The redheaded girl waved. “Dad hasn’t actually claimed her yet,” Lee said, “but we’re about 95% sure he’s her godly parent.”

“How do you know?” Will asked, confusion beating his own manners until he remembered—“I mean, it’s nice to meet you, Kayla. Welcome.” He offered her his hand. She shook with a very firm grip for such a small kid—an archer’s grip, like a lot of his siblings’, so maybe that was how.

“Nice to meet you too!” Kayla said. “And I know cause my dad told me so.”

“Wait, what?” said Will, blinking in confusion. “Like—Dad dad? But—wouldn’t that mean you are claimed?”

“No, my regular dad,” Kayla explained. “My human dad. When he explained about me being a demigod he told me my other dad is Apollo for sure. He said ‘my arrival would be hard to forget.’”

“Wait,” Will said, looking at Lee, feeling kind of like the cabin floor was uneven suddenly. “Dad’s gay? Or—well—bisexual, I guess? Is that the right word?” Lee raised his eyebrows, looking kind of startled.

“Oh, man, Will, I’ve failed you,” he said. “Three years here and nobody’s told you about Hyacinthus, really?” As he said the name Hyacinthus, a warm breeze wafted through the cabin. It carried the smell of wildflowers, and as it passed around Will for a second he felt almost overcome by melancholy.

When his bearings returned to him, he was blinking away tears. So were Lee and Kayla. Will couldn’t have explained why he felt so heartbroken, but it was like a great weight had settled in his chest that he knew would never leave—at least, until it did. Lee shook it off fastest.

“Well—anyway,” he said, “yeah. Dad, uh—falls in love with mortal men too, sometimes, and sometimes he has kids with them. Don’t ask me how, I have no idea—god magic stuff, like Athena’s kids being born from her mind.” Kayla’s eyes went very wide as she mouthed, what? “Anyway,” Lee went on, setting a hand on Kayla’s shoulder, “Ricky Larchleaf had been keeping an eye on Kayla here and he figured it was about time for her to come to camp, so Chiron had me swing up to join them in case Luke and his goons tried to get to her first. I guess Chiron heard he's been doing that. Hopefully Dad will claim her soon.” He sighed. “Until then, Kayla, you’re going to have to stay in Cabin Eleven, with the Hermes kids. I’m sorry about that. It’s the rules—can’t be helped.” Kayla’s happy face fell a little.

“That’s okay,” Will said. “Come on, Kayla. I’ll introduce you to my friend Olivia. She’s a daughter of Hermes. She’ll look out for you.”

“Oh, okay!” Kayla said, cheering right back up and bounding out of the cabin after him. She was so excited she forgot her backpack—Lee had to run after them, laughing, to hand it to her.

“So, how’s life as a year-rounder?” he asked Will when he came back from the Hermes cabin. He had sat down on the lower of the bunk beds he shared with Claire and was pulling stuff out of his backpack. “Chiron told me you wound up staying on the whole year.”

“Yeah.” Will sat down on his own bunk on the other side of the room. “I guess I’m a weirdo now.” Lee gave him a look.

“Silas and Sophie don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said sternly. “Year-rounders are cool. You’re not weird now—at least, not any weirder than you were before,” he teased— “you’re in the loop. I was always crazy jealous of Jess and Taylor—” their big sisters, who were gone now—“cause they knew about all the camp gossip and Olympus drama before the rest of us even got here.”

“I guess.” Will shrugged. “I mean—I did like it. It was kind of fun, and I like going to school with Chiron.”

“See?”

“But I missed you guys,” Will added. “It was way too quiet.”

“Well,” Lee said, “I’m back. The New Yorkers—” Claire, Leah, Teresa— “will all be here in a couple days, Renee and Michael and Xavier get here next weekend, and the western kids are coming out first week of June, so maybe we should enjoy the quiet while it lasts,” Lee added with a grin. Will grinned too. He didn’t know if it was an actual child-of-Apollo thing, or just Lee’s personality that made his happiness so infectious, like literal sunshine, but when his big brother smiled it was hard not to smile back.

“I think summer camp is definitely better,” he said.

“Yeah, and I have a good feeling about this one,” said Lee. “It’s got to be better than last summer, right?” Then he made a face and rapped his knuckles on the wooden bedpost. “Well, as long as I didn’t just jinx it.”

They laughed it off, but Will was certain it had to be true. Just about any summer would have to be better than last summer. Right?

Lee was right—before too long, things in Cabin Seven were very loud again. Between Lee’s guitar, Claire’s guitar, Jasper’s clarinet, Claire’s flute, Leah’s violin, Claire’s ukelele—she could play all three, though not at once—“yet,” Michael said, to make the rest of them laugh—and everyone else usually either singing or, in the twins’ and Jasper’s case, yelling at the top of their lungs to piss them off—maybe Will did miss the quiet a little, after all.

It made the infirmary even more of a relief than it would have been already, with Izzy and Renee back so he didn’t have to be in charge and all on his own anymore. Even if he was—

“My gods, I think you’re better at this than I am,” Renee said, looking at him in surprise after he healed Malcolm Pace’s climbing-wall burn without praying to their dad or breaking a sweat. Will shook his head—

“No, that’s impossible.” Renee was Lee’s age, almost seventeen, and had been healing other campers for years. But she shook her head right back.

“It’s definitely not,” she said. “Izzy had outpaced me by the end of her first summer, remember, Izzy?”

“Yeah,” Izzy said, looking a little embarrassed about it—but also proud. She was fourteen this year, but had only been at camp since Will’s second summer, when she was his age now. Last year, Lee’s first year as their counselor, he (and Renee, Will thought, had a lot to do with it) had decided to let her take charge of the healing side of Cabin Seven’s activities, because she had such a natural talent for it. Plus, her mom was a doctor—a real one. Will thought it would be really cool to have demigod talents that were the same kind of thing his mom did—but compared to his siblings, he was about as musically untalented as they came. Instead, somehow, apparently, he’d gotten the medicine powers too.

Izzy having those powers made more sense. Sometimes, last summer, her friends would call her Doctor López as a joke, but her mom was actually Doctor López.

Some of Izzy’s friends were the kids who were missing now, though. Miranda Gardiner from Demeter’s cabin and Maia Haller from Aphrodite’s were still around, but Heather Ryle and Max Kimball hadn’t shown up to camp yet. Just like Sherman had said, Will had realized with a pit in his stomach, though Josh Carr and Andy Montez were here, so clearly Olivia was still basically right. And so was Will. All his siblings who’d been here last summer had come back, and even if Izzy did seem kind of sad and worried about her friends who’d disappeared, everyone was pretty happy to be together again. That was why it was so loud.

In the Hermes cabin, meanwhile, Olivia did look out for Kayla. As it turned out, she looked out for Kayla much longer than Lee had expected she would have to. May became June, then June inched toward July, and many a campfire and archery practice passed without any actual sign from Apollo.

It got to be pretty frustrating. Even without Kayla’s mortal dad’s assurances, it would have been plainly obvious to the Apollo cabin and everyone else that she was one of them. She had the same bright blue eyes as Will and Lee and Renee, and she had the voice of an angel. But more importantly, even though she was only ten, it was pretty hard to outshoot her.

That was probably in large part because her mortal dad was apparently an Olympic archery coach—Apollo did seem to like mortals whose careers and passions fell into his godly domains—and he had been letting her train since she was big enough to hold a bow. But if that had been all, the older kids in Cabin Seven still should have been able to beat her, and only Michael managed to do that regularly. Lee and Renee beat her a couple of times, Izzy and Jasper and the twins once apiece. Outside of their cabin only Mark’s big sister Dana, the Ares cabin’s other archer, came close.

Will never could, of course. He found himself resenting Kayla a little sometimes. He felt bad about it, because she was a sweetheart and seemed to think the world of him for some reason—he suspected that was Olivia’s fault—but he couldn’t help it. All Will had to prove he was Apollo’s were his dad’s looks and some healing ability. Kayla had all their dad’s coolest talents in spades. It made no sense that he didn’t just claim her already, when he’d claimed Will within a week, and Kayla was so much more a child he should want to his name.

Once Will thought about that, though, it was harder to feel the resentment. What right did he have to it, anyway?

Still, no dice. Kayla stayed in the Hermes cabin, though it became an unspoken rule among Will’s siblings that they tried to include her in Apollo cabin stuff anyway. Sometimes, Will thought, Lee took it a little far. That was what he grumbled to himself as he trudged over to Cabin Eleven at 3 in the morning, with permission from the very resentful curfew harpies, while his other siblings who were better at archery than him got ready to go after the Aethiopian drakon that was prowling around camp tonight. Jasper and Silas were way too excited about it.

The front door was open, so Will poked his head in. He had terrible night vision—one downside of being a child of the sun god—so he had to blink a few times and then wait a minute before he could even begin to tell one sleeping kid from another. Once he had worked out where Olivia was, he spotted Kayla in a sleeping bag on the floor next to her bunk.

“Hey.” Will crouched down next to Kayla and shook her shoulder gently. “Psst. Kayla.”

“Will?” Kayla barely stirred, but Olivia had blinked awake at the sound of his voice and was looking up at him with wide, sleepy eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to wake up Kayla,” Will whispered back. Olivia looked vaguely disappointed for about a second before she shook herself all the way awake and leaned down to poke at Kayla’s back too. Kayla buried her face harder into the balled-up sweatshirt she was using as a pillow.

“Livvy,” one of Olivia’s brothers grumbled, “tell your boyfriend he’s not allowed in the cabin at night.”

“I’m not her boyfriend!” Will hissed at the same time Olivia snapped,

“He’s not my boyfriend, Josh!”

“Jesus, okay,” Josh mumbled. As if summoned, half the cabin said in a sleepy chorus,

“That poser has no place here.” It was something Mr. D had supposedly said once, flippantly, well before Will’s time, but now a lot of kids just repeated it automatically whenever anyone mentioned Jesus.

Will groaned. Waking up the entire Hermes cabin really hadn’t been the plan.

“What’s going on?” Kayla finally asked, sitting up.

“Here.” Will handed her the smaller of the two bows Lee had pressed into his hands. “We have a drakon to try and kill.”

“A dragon?” Kayla jumped to her feet like having a bow in her hand had instantly filled her with energy. “Where?”

“Yeah, where?” said Josh.

“Nowhere!” Will whispered. “Go back to sleep!”

“Fine!” said Josh, and turned over very dramatically to pull his blankets over his head. Olivia reached out to grab at Will’s hand before he could move. She squeezed it.

“Be careful, okay?”

“Yeah,” Will told her, “we’ll try. Let’s go,” he said to Kayla, and she followed him out the door and after the drakon.

Of the twenty and some arrows they managed to put in the monster’s hide, eleven were Kayla’s and exactly zero were Will’s. He was just glad no one got hurt on their end—he was so sleep-deprived and frustrated by the time he got back to his own cabin, with the Atlantic horizon starting to glow a paler shade of blue, that he collapsed and slept through sunrise for once, right up until Lee shook him awake for breakfast.

Half the Hermes cabin was yawning as badly as the Apollo kids were, and some of them were looking daggers at Will. Fine. As long as they didn’t take it out on Kayla. Will rested his head on the breakfast table and closed his eyes.

That night, he felt a wave of relief—and kind of surprise—when a grim-faced Chiron exempted him and Izzy, instead of Renee and Izzy, from Quintus’ war games to be on infirmary duty. A year ago, Will would have been hurt, he thought—he would have wanted to prove himself, that he could fight just like his big brothers and the Ares boys. But maybe it was for the best, he thought now as he moved mindlessly through the motions of setting and healing Sherman’s leg yet again. Maybe he was just never going to be cut out for monster-hunting and heroics—maybe his place was on the sidelines, and it was time he accepted that.

“You really did become a super powerful healer when I wasn’t looking, huh,” Izzy said at one point, watching him with a kind of weird look on her face. He didn’t quite get why until, as they walked back to the cabin once tonight’s round of Percy And Annabeth Drama Hour had been resolved, she poked him in the arm. “Seriously—you’re already better than Renee. If I’m not careful, by the time this summer’s over, you’re gonna get better than me.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice this year,” Will explained.

“Well, it shows.” She ruffled his hair, a mannerism everyone had picked up from Lee. It was a lot funnier now that she had to reach up to do it. “You got taller than me, too. No fair. It’s bad enough you’re gonna put me out of a job.”

“No way,” Will said. “I’ve been the only one of us at camp all year and it sucked. Chiron needs as many healers as he can get.” Izzy shrugged. “It doesn’t matter who’s the best.”

“Sounds like something the guy who’s gonna be the best would say,” Izzy teased him, and the really scary thing was Will was actually starting to believe it.

Still—camp really did need as many healers as it could get. That became clear as soon as they learned about the Labyrinth, and that it led right into the woods, and that Luke was getting ready to lead Kronos’ forces through it. Whenever that happened—there would be a lot of injuries, and eight hands were better than just Will’s, but they only went so far when two of them were Kayla’s.

The reason they were so shorthanded was that aside from Izzy, who was in charge, all their siblings who were at least as good at archery as they were at healing were out on the defensive line surrounding Zeus’ Fist. That was everyone but Will and Hannah, who was just barely ten and a little too squeamish for anything gnarlier than herbalism yet. Kayla was in here, though, because Lee had declared her too young to be out there, over her objections. Will suspected part of it had to do with the fact that Apollo still hadn’t claimed her. If she died in the woods whenever the Labyrinth finally opened up, she wouldn’t get a golden shroud.

Kayla wasn’t much of a healer, at least nothing like Will and definitely nothing like Izzy—nothing like she was as an archer—but at least it was helpful to have her here to fetch things and hold wounds closed for stitches, and unlike Hannah she sure had a stomach of steel. So it was fine. And it was good that everyone else was on the front lines when all hell emerged from the earth, because from what Will heard from the wounded who got brought back to the infirmary tent they had set up on the outskirts of the woods so they wouldn’t have to carry people all the way to the Big House, the campers were already pretty badly outnumbered as it was. All they had was the advantage of the high ground, and being ready to try and bottleneck the monsters at the Labyrinth’s opening.

But gods, Will was torn—he still caught himself wishing more of them were back here, tending to the wounded and dying. If it hadn’t been just him and Izzy, maybe it would have been just the wounded, because maybe someone could have saved Castor.

Because Will couldn’t save Castor. Gods damn him, he couldn’t save Castor.

“Fucking dracaenae!” Sherman was yelling as Mark half-carried him into the tent, their brother Jesse right behind them. Will wiped Castor’s blood off his hands and blinked back the tears that had been looming since he realized there was nothing else he could do: the son of Dionysus was really, truly, permanently dead. Will had never felt someone’s life fade out under his hands before. He breathed for a beat before he turned to face the sons of Ares.

“What did you do this time?” he asked, giving Mark a hand to get Sherman the rest of the way to a cot while Izzy ran over to help Jesse, who was limping and wincing as he tried to hold his own side wound closed. Mark had a nasty-looking cut across his hairline, but Will could tell at a glance it wasn’t too deep and the blood had mostly coagulated. He was otherwise okay. Sherman, on the other hand, seemed unable to put weight on his right foot, while he was holding his left arm still against his ribs with his right.

“What did I do?” he snapped. “More like what did those creepy snake ladies—ssssss—shit,” he hissed in pain as Will pressed a hand to his arm, searching. It didn’t take more than a couple seconds of examining him to find the fractures—a broken ankle, and his arm in two different places.

“Let’s try to look on the bright side,” said Will. “This time it’s not just your leg.”

“Yeah, cause it’s my leg and my fucking arm, Will!” Sherman snarled. “How is that a bright side?” Will shrugged.

“It’s good to have new experiences?” he suggested.

“Gods, I hate you, Solace,” Sherman groaned. Mark laughed and, to Will’s absolute shock, reached out and squeezed his shoulder fondly.

“Probably not the smartest idea to tell your medic you hate him,” he told his brother. “Especially since you’ve got two broken limbs this time.” He let go of Will and stepped back, tossing him a casual salute. “I’m going back out there. Take care of my little brother.”

“I’m three months older than you, you—!” Sherman howled as Mark ran back out of the tent. Then he said, “do you have to set them first, or can I have some ambrosia now?” Then he snapped the fingers of his un-broken arm in Will’s face. “Hey! Earth to Will!”

“Sorry! Sorry.” Will hadn’t realized he was still staring at the tent flaps until now. “I’m going to set your arm, then you can have ambrosia while I set your leg,” he told Sherman.

“Fine.” Sherman gritted his teeth. “Just get it over with.”

“Can I do anything?” Kayla asked in a small voice.

“You can get me ambrosia—actually, no, hold that thought,” said Will. “I want you to watch what I’m doing so you can learn to do it too.”

“Okay.” She hovered over his shoulder while he set the first of the two breaks in Sherman’s arm, and only winced a little as Sherman screamed.

“Now, ambrosia,” Will told her, and did the second one while she wasn’t there. It was a compound fracture, bone poking through skin—Kayla had a lot of fortitude, but she was still ten. She didn’t need to see this just yet.

“Here you go.” She reappeared with the ambrosia. Will nodded at Sherman.

“I’m not the one who needs it. Go ahead.” Kayla held out the square to Sherman, who for once was actually calm and quiet as he took it from her hand. That could have been because he wasn’t as inclined to be a dick to a ten-year-old girl as to Will, or it could have been because his forehead was beaded with clammy sweat and his eyes were going glassy with shock.

Maybe both, Will decided. Might as well be both. Fortunately, as Sherman swallowed the ambrosia, the shock faded away again. Will set and splinted his ankle as efficiently as he knew how, hummed a hymn to his father, and focused until he felt the bones starting to knit back together. Then he finally took a moment to breathe.

It didn’t last, because Michael came barreling into the tent yelling for Izzy.

“It’s Lee,” he panted. “Please—he needs a healer right now—” Izzy didn’t move, struck still in the middle of sewing up Jesse’s side.

“Will, you go,” she said after a horrible pause. “You’re as good as me anyway, you go.”

“Kayla, you come too,” said Michael. “I don’t care what Lee said, we need reinforcements and you’re better than half our archers. Izzy, are you sure you can’t come too—?” Izzy shook her head firmly.

“O—okay!” Kayla let him pull her towards the door. Will was still staring blankly at Izzy.

“But—everyone here—” It would just be her and Hannah now.

“We’ll be fine,” she said grimly. “Go.”

Will went.

Will told himself what he would tell himself, every day for the rest of his life, was that it was already too late when they reached the battlefield. A giant had smashed Lee’s head in with a club. Will had never seen that much blood. If he hadn’t known Lee, if Lee hadn’t been his brother, if they hadn’t gotten the same hair from their glorious, never-around father, he never would have known Lee’s was ever blond. There was nothing he could have done.

He tried anyway. He knew it didn’t matter. At least everyone around him did too.

Renee had already been sobbing when he got there, but in the horrible silence as they realized the ragged breath Lee had drawn fifteen seconds ago—sixteen—seventeen—eighteen, more seconds than he’d get to live years—had been his last, she managed to say,

“Can you try to close the wound anyway?” She gulped. “So I can—so someone, we can clean him up, so he’ll be presentable for—” She couldn’t finish the sentence; she was crying too hard to speak again. Claire squeezed her shoulders. Will just nodded mutely and gently closed Lee’s eyes before he went to work.

He didn’t know if it would be possible to heal dead flesh and bone until he was doing it. Even then, it didn’t feel like divine healing was supposed to. Without Lee’s life force under his hands to react to the healing, the whole process just felt cold, clinical, like all Will was doing was trying to reassemble a broken object. Usually healing was a mutual interaction—even when someone was unconscious, he could still feel their strength fade in and out and return. Healing without that response felt pointless, cause there was no goal, really. It felt like it shouldn’t have worked. Maybe it shouldn’t, and Apollo just took pity on Will as he murmured his hymns. Will had no idea. All he knew was, in spite of all his instincts, it was working.

Sounds swam in and out. Michael was screaming curses and shooting arrows at Kronos’ forces, standing with Kayla, Teresa, and the twins over the other children of Apollo, watching their backs. The roars of monsters, metallic clashes of swords, and dull thwacks of arrows hitting their marks made a terrible kind of music all around them. Down here on the ground, Renee was saying, “oh, gods, I’m going to have to call Abby,” voice still heavy with tears—

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Claire said.

“Who’s Abby?” Xavier asked in a very small voice.

“Lee’s mom, dumbass,” said Leah.

“Don’t call him that,” said Renee.

“Uh, guys?” said Jasper. “Look.” Will didn’t look, too focused on getting Lee’s skull fused back together, until he heard Renee gasp. Then he looked up.

Kayla was surrounded by golden light. She didn’t seem to have noticed—she was still firing arrow after arrow, but as Will blinked in shock he realized she wasn’t pulling them from her quiver. It was empty. They were just appearing in her hand.

“Dad,” Renee said.

“He’s finally claiming her,” said Claire.

“Took him fucking long enough,” said Jasper.

“Hey, watch your language in front of the middle-schoolers,” Renee told him, gesturing vaguely around at Will and Leah and Xavier.

“Yeah, Jasper,” said Will, who had never said the f-word out loud before, “watch your fucking language.” Renee laughed wetly, and looked startled by it. Claire shook her head. Jasper smiled for a split second, but it faded quickly back into the bleak expression he’d had before behind his blood-spattered glasses. Lee’s blood, Will realized now he was looking up—Jasper didn’t seem to have a scratch on him.

Will looked down again and smoothed his hands over Lee’s hair. The wound was closed, far, far too late for it to matter. His own, a new aching emptiness inside of him, was just opening. His brother was gone.

He lost track of time after that. Something happened to turn the tide. People realized Will was out on the field, and started to come and grab him to tend to other injuries. He caught sight of Clarisse taking down three of the last few dracaenae at once. Both Stolls waved off his help for their wounds, saying others needed healing more. In his peripheral vision, Will saw Percy and Annabeth were back (of course they were; why else would they be having this battle?) and talking to a kid dressed in all black, which was weird—most of the demigods were wearing camp shirts and camp armor—but he was too busy being rushed over to help one of Beckendorf’s sisters to think much of it.

Chiron was down with three broken legs—that was horrible. It was the first time in his one-ish hour as a combat medic so far that Will wished they were in the infirmary. Still, he did his best, which was all he could.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he splinted the last one. “I wish I knew what I’m doing better, but I’ve only healed human bones before.”

“You’re doing very well,” Chiron assured him. “I’m only sorry to have been right this winter, Will, about the amount of healing practice coming your way.”

“Yeah, well,” Will said quietly after a moment of thinking about it. “This is my gift from my dad. It’s what I’ve got. Maybe I’m the one who’s in the right place at the right time.”

“Maybe so,” Chiron said as thoughtfully as Will supposed someone with multiple broken legs probably could. Around them, the battle was quieting down. Based on how Will was still alive and able to sit quietly and bandage Chiron’s legs, he assumed that meant they had won.

Distantly he watched as, on the other side of the grove, Silas and Jasper lifted Lee’s body onto a stretcher. There was a cloth over his face, hiding the blood. He had wanted this summer to be better, Will thought, and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t cry. Not yet. There were still people to heal.

Chapter Text

They laid Lee to rest under a golden shroud, his birthright. For the first time Will thought to wonder when that would be him. Not if— when. It could be a year from now or ten years from now or sixty years from now (it probably wasn’t going to be sixty years from now—he was a demigod), but it was coming. Death was one thing that could be relied on.

Will crashed after the funerals like everyone else, but he didn’t sleep until the early hours of the morning, tossing and turning in his bunk. It felt wrong to be resting when people were still hurt, and his brother was dead. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw Lee’s smashed skull again. In a way, once he did sleep the nightmares were a relief. At least they were about other people, and Will almost never remembered his dreams once he was awake. So much for the power of prophecy.

He woke in the morning feeling like he’d slept about five minutes, but once his eyes were open and the memories and knowledge crashed back in it was impossible to go back to sleep. Plus there was the fact that in the middle of the cabin, the oldest of his siblings were already up and sitting on the couches and the floor, talking quietly. As Will got up and dressed, he listened to their discussion about who should take over as head counselor. It was hard if not impossible for him to tune out nearby noises, and no one really considered it eavesdropping when all their brains worked the same way. Besides, he was part of this cabin—one of the more senior campers, technically, which was weird—so their conversation affected him too.

“You’re a year older than me,” Michael was saying to Renee. She was shaking her head.

“You got to camp first, you have seniority.”

“Only by like a week.”

“Michael, do you want to be head counselor?” Renee asked very seriously. “Cause I’ll do it if you really don’t want to, but I think it should be you. You’re a better archer than me and a better tactician. And, you’ll—be here longer,” she added. “Maybe it’s good that you’re younger.”

“You’ve got the people skills, though,” said Michael. “I guarantee the kids would rather listen to you than to me. I’m sure Chiron and the other counselors would rather it was you, too.” He didn’t say he didn’t want it, though.

“Maybe, but Renee’s right,” said Jasper. “We’re at war. We need a wartime leader.”

“Will, come here,” said Izzy, who had realized Will was up. “What do you think?”

“I—” Will sat down on the arm of the couch when Izzy tugged at his arm, but with all his older siblings staring at him he found it very hard, suddenly, to speak. “Come on,” he finally said weakly, “please don’t make me choose between you.”

“You’re not choosing between us,” said Renee. “It’s not a popularity contest for what sibling you love most. If you say you think Michael should be head counselor, then you and I are on the same side.” Will looked at Claire, who was actually the oldest child of Apollo here—she had graduated from high school this year, and was starting music school in the fall. She had the same number of beads on her necklace as Renee and Michael.

But Claire shook her head. “I already said no. I’m not coming back next year, especially after—” She looked down, chin wobbling a little bit. “It’s going to be Michael or Renee,” she said. Renee rubbed her shoulder comfortingly.

“Michael,” she said. “It’s going to be Michael. Okay?”

The truth was, Will wasn’t sure he wanted Michael to be in charge. He loved his big brother, and Michael definitely had his moments of quick tactical thinking, like bringing Kayla with them last night. But he had an equally quick temper, and sometimes quick thinking meant not fully thinking things through. Renee was the oldest after Claire and had been the closest to Lee of everyone, and she was the kind of big sister who’d always felt like team mom by default, watching out for the younger kids and putting out all their fires, both figurative and real. Even without being their official leader, leadership was what she did best. Michael was right—Will would much rather answer to Renee. But on the other hand, that did mean he wasn’t inclined to argue with her, and she and Jasper had a point.

“If y’all think it should be Michael, then I’m okay with that,” he said. Renee nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Michael, if you want to say no, you can say no and we’ll respect that. Otherwise, you’re head counselor.” Michael nodded, his face serious.

“I won’t say no,” he said. “If you guys want me to do it, then I will.” The rest of them nodded.

“Well, now that’s settled—I should go up to the Big House and call Abby,” Renee said again, like she had yesterday. She sighed. Now that Will looked at her, her eyes were still really red, like she’d been crying again, or like she’d been up all night.

“I’ll do it if you want,” Claire said.

“Or I will,” Michael added. “I can call Jess, too.” Renee shook her head.

“No, I want to,” she said. “It’s just going to suck, that’s all.” She didn’t move yet, though. They all sat in silence as around them, the rest of their siblings started to stir.

As wrecked as they had all been last night, they had at least remembered they needed to move Kayla’s stuff out of the Hermes cabin. She had chosen the bunk above Will’s. Now she climbed down in her pajamas, rubbing her eyes, looked around at all of them, and burst into tears.

“Oh, Kayla, sweetie.” Renee sprang up to hug her. “Come here.”

“Lee,” Kayla managed to say, then buried her face in Renee’s shoulder. Will looked down, swallowing back his own tears before they could overwhelm him.

“Izzy, I’m gonna go check on Five and Eleven,” he said. “A lot of them still need healing.” Izzy had been sort of in a reverie next to him, gazing at Renee and Kayla, her face miserable, but now she nodded.

“Before breakfast?” said Jasper.

“It’s a lot easier to eat breakfast when you’re not bleeding, right?” Will pointed out, grabbing his medicine bag off its hook next to his bunk.

“I mean, I guess?”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Izzy called as Will walked out of the cabin and down the steps and breathed.

On balance, Will decided he would rather deal with the Stolls than with Clarisse at this time of the morning, so he walked down to the Hermes cabin first. Travis was up and sitting on the steps, staring into the middle distance. He looked like he’d gotten about as much sleep as Will. There had been two Hermes cabin shrouds last night, Will recalled.

“Hey,” Travis said, focusing on him as he approached. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Will said. “Can we deal with those scratches now?” They weren’t visible, of course, since his leg was bandaged, but there were two horrible red lines running down Travis’ left calf where he must have been caught by some monster’s claws. Thankfully the wounds weren’t poisoned, which was why Will had been okay with putting this off overnight, but under the bandages someone had wrapped around Travis’ leg he was sure they were an infection risk. If they weren’t infected already.

“Sure.” Travis winced as he unwrapped the bandages. It wasn’t as bad as Will had been afraid it might be, but it wasn’t good. If they’d waited much longer the infection could have gotten really bad. He took a moment to curse himself for letting Travis laugh it off yesterday, then got to work on a poultice. “You doing okay?” Travis asked. Will shrugged. “Yeah. I’m really sorry about Lee.” Will glanced up at him curiously—he didn’t think he’d ever heard either Stoll sound that kind.

“Thanks.” He held Travis’ leg down with a firm hand on his ankle to make sure he wouldn’t reflexively kick him in the face out of pain while he applied the poultice. “I’m sorry about Megan and Ryder.” Megan was a daughter of Hermes a couple years older than Will, in between the Stolls’ ages; Ryder had been Will’s age, new to camp this summer, and unclaimed.

“Yeah,” Travis agreed through gritted teeth while Will muttered a prayer to his father to accelerate the healing. “It really sucks.” Will wound fresh bandages around his leg and secured them, then Travis stood up.

“Can you put weight on it?” Will asked.

“Yeah, I could before.” Travis shifted his weight back and forth for a moment. “Definitely feels better now, though. Thanks, Will.”

“Some nectar wouldn’t kill you,” Will let him know, “and it would help burn out any infection. Just a little, though. You know the drill.”

“Oh, sweet.” That finally got him looking a little cheerier.

“Who else needs healing?” Will asked. Travis sighed.

“A lot of people, but they’re mostly not up yet.” He glanced back into the cabin, jumped, and said, “oh, hey, Nico.”

Will’s head whipped up so fast he almost pulled something.

“Nico?” His jaw dropped as he stared at the boy who had appeared in the doorway.

He was definitely Nico di Angelo, but he looked so different from the kid Will had briefly befriended in December it was kind of alarming. He was skinnier and a couple of inches taller, his hair had grown longer and messier, and his already-light skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor. That was extra worrying considering it was summer, when most people’s skin did the opposite. After weeks of training and hanging out in the sun, Will and his siblings were all tan or covered in freckles or both. Nico looked like he hadn’t seen the sun since Apollo drove him here.

It didn’t help that he was wearing all black. Seriously, all black—Will didn’t know they made Converse sneakers with black rubber. Nico must have been the kid Percy and Annabeth were talking to yesterday, he realized. He would have been indistinguishable from the dim cabin interior behind him if his face and arms weren’t so pale.

“Will.” Nico’s eyes widened, and for an instant—there, that was one part of him that still looked the same. Then something else that hadn’t been there before snapped into place instead, something grim and untrusting where the brown used to be so warm and open.

“You’re alive?” Will exclaimed, too stunned for his blood to run as cold as it was probably supposed to.

“Yeah.” Nico finally emerged from the door and hopped down off the porch, and Will realized there was a very scary-looking black sword strapped to his belt too. He hadn’t noticed it before because, well, it blended in with the rest of him. “No need to get excited about it.”

“Excited? Of course I’m—Nico, we thought you died!” Will said. “We thought monsters got you or something!” Nico’s forehead creased.

“Percy didn’t tell everyone?” he said.

“What?”

“About me?” Now Nico shifted uncomfortably, eyes dropping to the ground. “Being a son of Hades?”

The earth tilted under Will’s feet, or it felt like it. That explained the all black, sort of, and the sword must have been Stygian iron. And he was so pale—had Nico been living in the Underworld all this time, or something?

“You’re a—” Will took an instinctive step back and immediately wished he hadn’t. Nico’s unhappy expression as he looked at the ground turned miserable. “No, he didn’t,” Will said, taking two steps back toward him to make up for it. “That’s okay. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Nico said with a lot of irony for an eleven-year-old. “Okay. That’s me.”

“So where have you—” Will started to ask, but he was interrupted by Travis and Connor appearing with two more groggy-looking Hermes campers in tow. One of them had a hastily-bandaged head, while the other was favoring her left leg. “Sorry,” Will tried to tell Nico, but when he looked back at where he had been standing, Nico had disappeared. “What the—”

“Yeah, that kid’s about 200% creepier than I remembered,” Connor said agreeably, helping Amanda, the girl with the wounded leg, sit down on the steps. “I mean, cool that he’s not dead and still on our side, but yeesh.”

“I don’t know,” said Travis, “I kinda like him better now. At least he’s not as annoying.”

“You don’t think the whole middle school emo Prince of Darkness thing is equally bad?” said Connor. Travis snorted.

“Baby bro, you don’t get to talk shit about middle school anything til you actually start high school.”

“Whatever,” said Connor. “Dude still looks like he ransacked a Hot Topic.”

“Yeah.” Travis shrugged. “I can respect a good ransacking, though.”

“True.” They high-fived. Will just rolled his eyes, trying to focus on Amanda’s leg. Fortunately there was no abrasion or risk of infection, just a bad sprain. Will wrapped it and prescribed nectar. Then he made a poultice for Kai’s head wound just in time for more campers to wake up in need of medical treatment.

Yesterday had been long. Today, Will was now realizing, might be longer.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too long before Izzy appeared to herd everyone off to the infirmary.

“What about people who can’t walk that far?” Andy Montez asked. He was leaning heavily on a crutch that was prominently labeled as belonging to a hospital in Urbana, Illinois. Will decided he didn’t need to think too hard about how it got to Long Island.

“Why aren’t you there already?” Izzy frowned. “I thought we moved everyone who needed to be moved last night.”

“Not me.” Andy shrugged. “I’m good, though. I’d rather stay here than go there.”

“I can keep making house calls,” Will suggested as Izzy looked uncertain, “and let anyone else who can get there know to come see you?”

“Sure, that works,” his sister agreed. “I’ll grab Hannah and Xavier. Renee’s already up there to make phone calls. Do you want me to send Kayla to come and help you?”

“Uh,” Will said, “sure?”

“Cool.” Izzy gave him a thumbs up. “You’re the best.” She said it kind of ruefully, and Will realized maybe she meant it in more ways than one.

“Thanks,” he said, unsure how else to acknowledge it. Izzy clapped him on the back.

“See ya.” She jogged off back towards Cabin Seven. Will climbed up to the Hermes cabin porch as most of the campers headed off towards the Big House and the infirmary—and on the way, probably breakfast. Will hadn’t thought through missing breakfast when he volunteered to make house calls. When he thought about it now, though, he decided food could wait until some other time, when he wasn’t still feeling the cold, nauseous aftermath of healing his dead brother’s caved-in head.

He sat Andy down on an empty cot in the cabin, now mostly empty, though on the other side of the big room a few stragglers were just stirring. Olivia was sitting up in her bunk, pulling on a t-shirt; Will quickly looked anywhere else. When she got her head through the collar and saw him she yelped.

“Will! Oh my gods!”

“Don’t worry, Livvy,” said Andy, “he’s not looking. Your golden knight is very chivalrous.”

“I’m not her—her what?” Will said, blinking in confusion.

“I hate you,” Olivia told her brother. “Are you coming to breakfast?”

“Not on this leg,” said Andy. “Why, will you bring me food to my sickbed?”

“Well, I was gonna offer until you were a jerk,” said Olivia. She poked Will in the back of the head. “What about you? Do you want anything?”

“Huh?” Will looked up. “Oh, I’m okay. Thanks.”

“Okay.” Olivia stepped back. “Guess I’ll see you guys later.”

“No, Livvy, wait!” said Andy. “Are you bringing me food or not?”

“I guess it’ll be a surprise!” Olivia called as she left. Shaking his head—gods knew Olivia on her own was great, but children of Hermes could be so exhausting in groups—Will finally got to focus his attention on Andy’s broken leg.

It only took a quick examination to determine the most immediate problem: he needed to get it properly set and splinted.

Doing his best not to jostle anything, Will undid the half-assed job someone, he assumed one of Andy’s siblings (any of Will’s would have done a better job than this with their eyes closed), had done yesterday, all the while praying it wouldn’t have set badly in the meantime.

“Have you had aspirin?” Will asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. And any nectar or ambrosia?” he asked, a little nervous to hear the answer.

“Nah,” Andy said, and added resentfully, “I wish I had, but Travis said not til Izzy gave the go-ahead.”

“Well, Travis was right,” Will said, relieved. “I’m going to have to reset it, then you can have ambrosia while it actually heals. Obviously I’m not Izzy, but I can give the go-ahead too.”

“Oh,” Andy said nervously. “Okay. Is that going to hurt?” Will glanced at him and suddenly remembered they were the same age. Andy was only twelve, just like he was. For a minute he’d forgotten that.

“Hopefully not too much.” He was glad when even that turned out to be overselling the pain level. Broken legs were easy enough by now—thanks, Sherman—that Will could do it pretty gently while still being efficient. Still, it took some focus to actually get the healing process jump-started, so while he was busy with that he didn’t hear Kayla come in.

“Hi, Will.” She appeared at his shoulder. It was a good thing he wasn’t actually holding Andy’s leg at that moment, with how violently he jumped. Andy snorted.

“Hey, Kayla.” Will glanced back at her, then did a double-take, all confusion and focus disrupted at the sight of his little sister—claimed now and everything. Her eyes were red and puffy and her expression was just lost. No ten-year-old should look like that. “Hey,” he said again, pausing what he was doing to turn around and offer his arms. “Do you want a hug?” After a moment’s hesitation Kayla nodded and stepped forward to wrap her arms around his ribs, hiding her face in his t-shirt.

Will hugged back tightly. Kayla was about six inches shorter than his mom, short enough that her head tucked under Will’s chin, but for some reason he found himself thinking of Naomi. He could really use a hug from his mom right about now.

“Don’t mind me,” said Andy, “I’m just a guy with a broken leg.”

“Do you have some ambrosia in your bag?” Will asked Kayla, stepping back. She nodded. “Great. Andy could use some.”

While Kayla found ambrosia for Andy, Will made a round of the cabin to check on the others still in there and make sure no one else needed healing. When he was satisfied that anyone else who needed to would get themselves to the infirmary, he and Kayla headed out to check on the Hephaestus cabin, who had a few scrapes and burns for Will to fix, then Ares. Kayla kept a nervous eye on the weapons mounted on the cabin roof as they walked up to the door.

They had moved Sherman from the infirmary tent to the actual infirmary last night, so he wasn’t around, and neither were many of the other Ares kids who Will had treated yesterday. When he stepped up to the open cabin door, Clarisse was sitting inside talking to Mark, their sister Dana, and an older kid who Will was 90% sure was named Derek. Or maybe it was Eric.

“What do you want, Solace?” Clarisse asked, looking up when Will knocked on the doorframe. Kayla ducked fully behind him.

“I’m making house calls,” Will explained. “In case anyone needs healing and hasn’t gone to the infirmary.”

“Like an old-timey doctor?” said… Eric? Aaron?

“Yeah, kind of,” said Will. “How are you guys doing wound-wise?”

“Most of us who needed healing are already in the infirmary,” said Clarisse. “Mark has a pretty nasty cut on his head you should probably look at, though.” For some reason, with that she stood up. “Meeting over. Let’s go to breakfast before those rat bastards eat all the food.”

“Sick,” said Aaron (?). Will stepped aside as Clarisse, Dana, and their brother who wasn’t Mark marched out of the cabin. Clarisse paused on the porch, looking down at Kayla, who was now hanging onto the back of Will’s t-shirt like he was some kind of shield.

“What’s with your shadow, Solace?”

“I think Kayla’s just never been this close to land mines before,” said Will.

“Get used to them, kid,” Clarisse told Kayla. “You’ll see a lot worse.”

“I already have,” Kayla piped up bravely. Will caught Clarisse’s eye and mouthed Lee. To his relief, rather than turn on Kayla, she just nodded grimly. Up close, Will could see the dark circles under her eyes. The truth was Clarisse hadn’t really been herself since she got back from the Labyrinth last winter with Chris Rodriguez in tow. It meant the aura of bullying menace that had scared him so much when he was Kayla’s age was mostly gone—but that didn’t feel like as much of a good thing as it should have.

Inside, Mark sat on a bunk with his arms crossed, looking less than pleased to have been volunteered to get healed.

“It’s fine,” he insisted before Will could even open his mouth to say hi. “You know it’s fine. If it wasn’t, you would’ve kept me back yesterday, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know about that. Things look different when you’re not in the middle of a battle,” said Will, setting his bag down on the bunk next to Mark and leaning over him to examine the cut. Sitting down, Mark was shorter than him for once—the top of his head was about level with Will’s nose. Will pushed his hair back gently, and Mark jerked away.

“Don’t touch my hair,” he snapped.

“Uh,” said Will. “I kind of have to, to be able to look at it.”

“Ugh. Fine.” Mark sat still and let him part his hair to look closer, though he was clearly uncomfortable. Will resolved to try and make this process as quick as possible. Knowing Mark he doubted he would actually lash out at him, but his instincts still weren’t inclined to keep within grappling distance of an on-edge son of Ares for any longer than was strictly necessary.

“If it’s as fine as you say, you’ll be lucky and we won’t have to shave any of this,” he said, looking closer. The cut was scabbed over, but the scab was yellow with pus and the whole area looked badly inflamed for almost an inch around the entire length of the cut. When he poked at it, Mark let out an involuntary yelp of pain. Will understood why. As soon as he touched Mark’s skin he could feel how badly infected the wound was. Again he cursed himself for letting it sit overnight—he never should have let this happen. “Shouldn’t have said that,” he admitted. “I probably jinxed it. We’ll need to shave around the infected area to make sure I can work on it properly. Or Izzy can,” he added—“actually, you should probably just go to the infirmary, since you can walk. That’s the deal.”

“Can’t you just do it?” Mark asked grumpily. “I don’t want to go back to the infirmary. Sherman’s gonna be such a fucking asshole about it.” Will smacked his shoulder. “Ow! What?”

“Language,” Will said. Maybe he was a hypocrite, since he’d said a bad word yesterday, but the battlefield was different. And anyway, for Kayla’s sake, he could be one.

“I’ll show you language, you little—” Mark muttered, but didn’t finish the sentence at the look on Will’s face. Instead he just scoffed, then said, “please, Will?” in a quieter tone.

“Fine,” Will reluctantly agreed. “I can take care of it here, but we still have to deal with your hair first.”

“I’ll just buzz my whole head,” Mark said after a moment’s thought, taking it weirdly in stride. “The scar will look even cooler then.”

“If you say so,” Will said doubtfully.

“It will! You’ll see,” Mark insisted. “Do I have to do it right now?”

“Yeah, that would be best. Do you want one of us to do it? That would probably be safer, so we don’t nick the inflammation—”

“Nah, I’ll just be a second.” Will stumbled back so Mark wouldn’t have to shove past him to get up and be off like a shot into what Will assumed was the Ares cabin bathroom. Now there was a place all the gods had surely forsaken.

“You doing okay?” he asked Kayla over the muffled sound of clippers buzzing on. She hadn’t said a single word the whole time, though at least she’d let go of his shirt.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Ares’ kids scare me.”

“I’ll tell you a secret about Ares’ kids,” Will said in an undertone— “They’re actually huge wimps. At least, Mark and Sherman are.”

“Really?” Kayla’s eyes widened.

“Totally,” he assured her. “Plus, they’re super rowdy and reckless and they’re always fighting each other in training, so they get hurt a lot, so they end up in our care more than anybody else. So they’re jerks, yeah, but they know not to mess with us. Usually,” he amended. Sherman was still getting it. Mark finally seemed to have, completely, which was good.

Mark reemerged from the bathroom a couple minutes later with his hair buzzed short all over. It was a little weird and haphazard in places, but Will was relieved to see he had managed to avoid reopening the cut on his forehead. Now that he didn’t have even half an inch of hair hiding it, though, the wound was a much more gruesome sight. Will heard Kayla gasp.

“Okay.” Mark sat down on th bunk. “Do what you need to do.” Swallowing nausea, Will did. It was easier to deal with once he was in it; healing always was.

"I'm still sorry I couldn't get to it sooner," he said.

“Don’t be sorry, dude, I’m excited,” Mark told him. He seemed much less grumpy now that his head was healed. “Not even Clarisse has a scar this cool. Don’t tell her I said that,” he added quickly.

“Okay.” To Will’s own surprise, he found himself holding in laughter. He hadn’t thought he would ever want to laugh again, or at least not today. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“You too.” Mark pointed at Kayla. That was even scarier than it used to be, Will thought, with the scar, but Kayla stood tall this time.

“I won’t,” she promised. “Scout’s honor.”

“Cool.” Mark stood and shook out his shoulders. “You guys headed to breakfast?” Kayla looked up at Will.

“You can go if you want,” he told her, “but I still need to check on the goddess cabins.” Kayla’s face set decisively.

“Then I’m going with you,” she said. “I want to help.”

“Whatever floats your boat. Or shoots your arrow, I guess,” said Mark, and clapped Will on the shoulder for the second time in twenty-four hours. “Thanks, Will, I owe you one.”

“Two,” Will corrected, the weird urge to laugh bubbling up in his chest again, “for not telling Clarisse you think you’re cooler than her.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Mark told him, and with that he went bounding out of the cabin. Will followed more slowly, then on the porch he had to stop and sit on the steps as the wild laughter overflowed. Kayla sat down next to him.

“Are you okay?” she asked after about a minute passed and Will didn’t stop laughing.

“No,” Will managed to say through his hysterics.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” He leaned forward to rest his forehead on his knees, closing his eyes, struggling to breathe. Once he could he looked up again. “I’m fine,” he decided. “Let’s go check on Aphrodite.”

Kayla’s small freckled face took on a look of concern that stayed as they passed by the Aphrodite cabin, which was empty. It was mid-morning by now and breakfast was probably almost over, but when Will told her she should go get food before it ran out she shook her head stubbornly. Fine. They moved on to Demeter. There, Will healed two sprained ankles, a twisted knee, and a really nasty stab wound in Billie Ng’s shoulder.

Yet again he wondered, how had these things escaped his and Izzy’s notice before? They really needed a better triage system in place before the next battle. That was a depressing thought—the next battle. But as long as Luke was still alive and kicking, there was no doubt in Will’s mind there would be one.

As he stood up from healing Billie, he almost lost his balance. Newly able to put weight on her knee again, Katie Gardner caught him by the arm.

“You look really pale,” she told him, sounding genuinely concerned.

“And your hands are shaking,” Kayla pointed out. Will held his hands up in front of his face, examining them. Now that she mentioned it, he couldn’t seem to get them to hold steady. He felt faint, he realized—his head was still spinning, and the spinning was getting faster.

“I’m going to go get someone from the infirmary,” Katie decided. “You guys stay here.”

“Okay.” Will wasn’t exactly in a position to argue. Kayla and Miranda helped him sit down on the steps outside the Demeter cabin this time. The fresh air was nice.

“Does healing other people take health away from you?” asked Miranda, who was not Katie’s full sister, Will had just learned today—their last names were actually spelled differently. Apparently Demeter just really liked people whose last names had to do with gardening.

“It used to,” Will managed to say. “But—I’m better at it now. I don’t know why this is happening.”

“Huh.” No one had anything else helpful to say until Izzy jogged up, well outpacing poor Katie.

“What are you doing here?” Will asked. “Who’s watching the infirmary?”

“Oh, no,” Izzy said, ignoring that and looking him over. “You got overextended, didn’t you.”

“I guess?” Will said. “I didn’t think that could happen anymore.”

“Yeah, you can still burn yourself out with healing. It takes a lot, but it does happen. Doesn’t matter how good you are.” Izzy sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you do all this by yourself, especially on an empty stomach.”

“It’s okay,” Will said.

“I’d give you nectar, but that’s probably a bad idea til you’ve eaten something,” she told him. “So, for now, I prescribe food and no more healing. You’ve got to rest for a day first.” Will nodded, or he thought he did. Whatever his head did made him dizzier.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I already fixed everyone out here that needed it anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s the spirit.” Izzy looked him over critically. “Can you walk?”

“Yes,” said Will.

“No,” said Kayla at the same time. “He almost fell over.” Will gave her a look. “What? It’s true.”

“Okay. Stay here,” Izzy told him, just as Katie had, “and I’ll send someone with some food for you.” She held a hand out to Kayla. “Come on, Kayla, you should have some breakfast too.” At a nod from Will, who after all had been trying to get her to go to breakfast for at least an hour, Kayla took Izzy’s hand and followed her away, leaving him sitting alone on the Demeter cabin’s steps waiting for whoever was going to show up.

That person turned out to be Olivia. That kind of made sense—Will suspected she’d volunteered for the job. It was nice of her, even if the only reason he took the scrambled egg sandwich she handed him was because he wanted to abide by Izzy’s prescription, not because he was especially grateful or excited about eating it. The squish of the eggs was uncomfortable in his mouth as he tried not to think about blood or guts or, oh gods, brains, and the toast tasted like cardboard. Even the sharp tang of cheese was muted somehow. Every bite felt like a chore.

Thankfully Olivia sat just as quietly as he forced it down, leaning forward with her arms crossed over her knees and her chin resting on them.

“Today sucks,” she said eventually. Will nodded. “Do you feel any better?” He shrugged.

“I’m gonna try to stand,” he warned her, and did. Thankfully he felt a lot steadier on his feet than before.

“Your sister said to tell you to go rest,” Olivia told him.

“Yeah, I know.” Will really, really didn’t want to go back to his cabin all by himself, but he wanted to go sit in the infirmary even less. “I guess I’ll do that.”

“Okay.” Olivia stood up too, looking uncertain. “What are you going to do while you’re resting?”

“I don’t know, probably go read.”

“Oh, okay.” Will got the sense she wanted to come and hang out while he did that, which was nice of her, but when he thought about it he found he really just wanted to go be alone.

“Did you end up taking Andy food?” he asked. Olivia shook her head, scrunching up her nose in disgust. “Would you?” Will asked. “I feel bad for the guy. And he’ll need to keep his strength up, especially if he’s going to have any more nectar.” Olivia’s disgust vanished.

“Yeah, I guess I could,” she said, not exactly grudgingly. Then she stepped forward and hugged him. Will was a little surprised, but he hugged back. “You’re a good person, Will,” Olivia said when she pulled away again.

“So are you,” said Will. Olivia gave him a very Hermes-kid smile at that, crooked, shaking her head.

“Nah, not like you. But it’s good one of us is.” With that, she walked off towards the dining pavilion again while Will, once he was sure he had his bearings, walked slowly across the big horseshoe of cabins and back to his own.

By the time Renee came back to the cabin and found Will lying on his bed staring blankly at the slats of the overhead bunk that was Kayla’s now, it was probably halfway through lunch. He looked up at her and realized it definitely was—she had brought him more food.

“Are you drinking water?” his big sister asked, setting a paper plate of fried chicken and strawberries on the mattress next to him.

“Yeah.” Will sat up and started picking at the food. Renee sat down next to him and offered her arm; he leaned against her shoulder gladly, letting her put it around him. “Are you sure I can’t come help this afternoon?” he asked.

“Izzy said you’d ask.” Renee shook her head. “100% sure, kiddo.”

“I’m feeling a lot better, though.”

“Well, we can see how you’re doing tomorrow,” Renee said.

“I want to be helpful,” Will said in a smaller voice than he meant to. To his surprise, Renee laughed.

“William Andrew Solace—”

“I never should’ve told y'all my middle name,” Will grumbled—

“Listen to me. You pretty much single-handedly healed half the camp yesterday, barely ate or slept, then got up this morning and healed half the rest. You’ve already been more helpful than just about anyone else around.”

“But there are still people injured.”

“Izzy and I can handle them,” Renee said firmly. “We’ve got Xavier and Hannah, too. Don’t worry about it.”

“But—” Will didn’t have a new argument, but it still didn’t sit right. Renee squeezed his shoulders tighter for a moment.

“If you need something else to do to take your mind off stuff,” she said gently, “you can borrow some of my books. Or art supplies. Anything you want.”

“But that's not useful. I want to be useful,” said Will.

“Hmm.” Renee picked at his t-shirt sleeve critically. “Well, maybe you should try mending some of your clothes, then.” Will made a face, and Renee squeezed him again. “Think of it as practicing your sutures. Seems like all your shirts have holes or tears in them. What even happened to this one?” The sleeve was a little bit lacerated, it was true.

“I don’t know,” Will admitted. “It was a hand-me-down from Lee.”

“Oh.” They sat there for a couple of seconds in the sadness, then Renee shifted so she could hug Will completely.

All these hugs today. Will couldn’t say he wasn’t grateful. He rested his head on his sister’s shoulder, closing his eyes. Even more than when he had hugged Kayla or Olivia, hugging Renee made him miss his mom.

“Well, I don’t think Lee would be mad if you mended it,” Renee finally said, “but if you want to leave it like that I get it, and that’s okay too. But here.” She stood up and went to rifle through her own stuff until she pulled out a little zippered pouch. “Take this. And I don’t know what Izzy told you about resting, but in my expert medical opinion you can get out of the cabin if you want—it feels kind of sad in here.” Oh, thank the gods.

That was how Will ended up wandering down to the beach with half his t-shirts and Renee’s sewing kit in his arms. It was a beautiful day (not that every day here wasn’t beautiful) and as he sat down at the edge of the grass where it met the sand, Will figured at least it was nice to sit in the sunshine. Hi, dad, he thought, mostly joking, and as usual got no answer.

It turned out sutures were actually easier, in some ways, than trying to sew up torn fabric. At least with skin, it was (hopefully) still attached to the body, to muscle and other skin, so there was some tension on it. Will didn’t have a ton of practice with sutures, but when he'd done it his stitches had usually ended up pretty neat. Mark's head wound had come out fine. The t-shirts in his hands, not so much. His stitches were awkward and uneven, pulling at the fabric and puckering it.

It was fine, Will figured as he soldiered forward—odds were he was just going to grow out of these in the next year anyway. Then they would become Xavier’s problem, or Hannah’s, or Kayla’s, or whatever other younger kids showed up next.

The third t-shirt was the worst yet. It had a huge slash in the side, which meant a really long seam and a lot of chances to mess it up. If Will remembered right, Lee had told him that was left over from a time when their big brother Evan, who had been the oldest when Will got to Camp Half-Blood and had gone off to college a couple years ago, had decided it would be fine if he sparred with Luke using real blades, not just practice swords.

Maybe they should have known, Will thought, when Luke did stuff like that in practice, years before he betrayed them. Now Lee was dead because of Luke’s army. Luke had caused that. Thinking of it that way actually made Will feel kind of better—so maybe he hadn’t been able to save Lee (no one could have, he reminded himself), but if it weren’t for Luke, there would have been no reason to have to try.

To Will’s surprise, he wasn’t the only one on the beach this afternoon. While he turned his clothes into Frankenstein’s t-shirts, people came and went. He caught sight of Silena and Beckendorf sitting on the dunes, looking deep in conversation. A few of Aphrodite’s other kids were sunning themselves a ways up the beach when he arrived, though they left not too long later when the Hundred-Handed One who had shown up during the battle arrived to build sand castles with Percy Jackson’s cyclops half-brother (Will was a little ashamed to realize he had forgotten the guy’s name). Percy himself showed up a while later and talked to them. Will couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they looked like they were having a good time.

Something moved in the growing shadows on this side of the dunes, and Will jumped halfway out of his skin before he looked and realized it was Nico di Angelo. He was sitting in the shade about ten yards away, chin on his forearms crossed over his knees, staring out at the ocean—no, glaring at it, Will thought, like it had personally wronged him. He didn’t seem to have noticed Will was here.

Will’s instinct was to call out to him, to say hi, but he paused. After their very brief conversation (if it could really be called that) this morning, he realized he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Nico anymore. He didn’t know if a friendly greeting would be welcome.

As the Hundred-Handed One disappeared into the Sound and Percy and his brother (Tyson—that was it!) started back up to the grass, Nico’s eyes flickered up to follow them for a second. Then, finally, he caught sight of Will.

Will waved. “Hi.” Nico looked at him like he wasn’t sure what to make of him, either.

“Hi,” he eventually said.

“How’s it going?” Will asked, gathering his stuff and moving down the beach a couple of yards so he sat closer and didn’t have to raise his voice to speak. Nico watched him warily, but didn’t make any move to stop him or walk away himself.

“How’s it going,” he repeated sourly, but also kind of like it was funny. “Well, I’m here again.” He said here like it was distasteful.

“What’s wrong with here?” Will asked, a little affronted. He knew not everyone liked camp as much as he did, but no one disliked it, either. Usually. It was the one place demigods could be themselves, right?

“What isn’t?” Nico muttered. Maybe, Will thought after another moment’s shock, it wasn’t that for Nico so much—it wasn’t like he had a cabin. His father wasn’t even an Olympian. Not really.

The whole son of Hades thing washed back over him, sending a nasty chill down his spine in spite of the bright summer sun. He had so many questions about that. Based on the mutinous look on Nico’s face, though, he doubted he’d take well to Will asking any of them. So, instead,

“It’s really good to see you,” Will told him after an awkward pause. “We were really worried. Me and Olivia, anyway.” Nico arched an eyebrow.

“Not worried enough to look for me,” he pointed out. Will was startled silent for a minute, sitting in pain and confusion—he hadn’t expected that kind of a gut punch. It seemed unfair, and also uncharacteristic. Not that he’d gotten to know Nico that well, before, but for how much he had, the kid had seemed, well, nice. Sweet. Friendly. He wasn’t acting like he was any of those things now.

“I mean—like I said, we thought you were dead,” Will finally said. “You disappeared into the woods. Everyone said monsters probably got you. I’m really glad they didn’t,” he added more firmly. “But we didn’t know.” Nico looked away again, resting his chin back on his arms.

“Your brother’s going to Elysium,” he said flatly, which was a total non-sequitur and also knocked the wind from Will’s chest again even worse this time. “That’s what you wanted to know, right? Why you’re talking to me?”

“No—I mean—no,” Will said, when he could speak again. “Thank you for telling me, but I didn’t even—I didn’t know that was a thing you could know. That’s a thing you can do?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Nico frowned. “Why are you talking to me, then?”

“I told you,” said Will, “it’s good to see you.” Now Nico looked at him again, and his face was finally a little softer.

“I’m sorry about your brother, even if he will get Elysium,” he said quietly. “I remember you talking about him. He sounded nice.”

“Thanks,” said Will, “he—he was,” and then he remembered with a jolt—”I’m really sorry about your sister, too. I never got to tell you before, because, you know.” Nico nodded, looking away.

“Thanks.” Before he could say anything else, another boy’s voice called,

“Hey! Will!” from over the dunes. Will turned around to see Mark and Sherman stumbling over the sand—well, Sherman was stumbling. He was leaning on a crutch. Walking on sand with a crutch struck Will as a really bad choice. It made sense Sherman would try it.

“What?” he called back, scrambling to stand up so he could see them better. “Sherman, shouldn’t you still be in the infirmary?”

“Izzy said I could go!” Sherman insisted.

“She asked us to come get you for dinner,” Mark explained as the sons of Ares neared. “It’s almost six.”

“Oh, shoot—” It was so close to the solstice still that the sun didn’t set until like 9 PM, so Will had barely noticed it was getting so late. “Okay, yeah.” He wasn’t really hungry, since his stomach just didn’t seem to be working right today, but if nothing else Will should probably go sit with his siblings so they could all be sad together. He looked down at Nico, only to find the younger boy was also on his feet.

“Oh, hey,” said Mark, “it’s the Grim Reaper.”

Any trace of softening, of friendly Nico, had disappeared again. He was staring at Mark and Sherman with a fierce look in his eyes Will couldn’t quite name—something both angry and frightened, on edge, like a predator nursing a hidden injury.

“You should come to dinner too,” Will suggested, though the words felt uneasy as he said them. “You can walk up with us if you want.”

“No thanks,” Nico said tightly, his eyes still on Sherman, still with that same feral look.

“Okay. Suit yourself,” Will said, gathering up his stuff and trying not to feel hurt again.

“What’s up with all the t-shirts?” Mark asked. “You doing laundry in the ocean or something?”

“No, it’s—never mind,” Will said, not really wanting to deal with these two’s reaction if he explained he was sewing. “Just a project for Renee.”

“Huh. Okay.” Thankfully Mark dropped it. “You coming?”

“Yeah, sure, I—” Will glanced at Nico, but Nico wasn’t there. He blinked, startled, staring at the spot where he had been. “Where did he—?”

“Ugh. I saw him do that last night, too,” said Sherman, shuddering. “It’s like he just—turns into a shadow.”

“Sorry you missed it,” said Mark. “It’s really cool-looking.”

“And creepy as shit,” Sherman countered. “Skeeves me out.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t fix you being a wuss,” Mark told his brother.

“You know I’d punch you if I didn’t need this arm for my crutch,” said Sherman.

“Yeah, I’m counting on it. Wuss.” Will shook his head, smiling against his better judgment, and Mark punched him gently in the arm. It didn’t hurt, but his arm did feel kind of weird suddenly. “What’s your problem, Solace?”

“I don’t have a problem,” said Will. “I think this is great. The more you guys are dicks to each other, the less time you have to be dicks to me.” Then, before they could react, he ran off, clutching his t-shirts and Renee’s sewing kit tight.

“Hey!” said Mark. “You little—”

“No, don’t chase him!” Sherman wailed. “Mark! I’m on crutches!”

“One crutch!” Mark yelled back.

“Yeah! That’s worse!”

Will just laughed as he outpaced them enough to lose them—the Ares boys might be tough, but he was fast—then rounded the path up to the dining pavilion. He bounded up the stone steps and slowed down to take his seat at the table where his siblings all sat, looking exhausted.

At the sight of them Will’s good mood evaporated, and he found he actually felt bad about it—for a moment there, running in the sunshine and laughing at Sherman and Mark, he had almost forgotten. Now it all flooded back in.

“Hey,” Izzy said when Will slid onto the bench next to her. “You’re looking a lot better.”

“I feel a lot better,” he admitted.

“Is that cause you actually did what I told you to, William?” his sister asked mock-sternly. Or maybe just regular sternly, but using his formal name made it feel more like a joke than she meant it.

“Yes, Isabella,” Will said, mocking back. “I rested. I sat on the beach all afternoon. It was nice.”

“Good.” She slung an arm around his shoulders and they leaned on each other. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, actually,” Will realized. He had thought he wasn’t at all, but it was like running up from the beach had changed something.

“Even better.” And it did feel good to eat, finally, and even if everyone at the table was sad and exhausted, the Apollo cabin was a cuddly one in times of stress—everyone was hugging someone, leaning on someone’s shoulder. Renee had Teresa pulled into her lap. Izzy kept her arm around Will on one side, while he had his other around Kayla. It was comforting. It also made Will feel doubly bad for Nico, who he’d noticed was hovering in the shadows of the pavilion, not eating anything, rather than sitting at the Hermes table.

After dinner he caught sight of him walking back towards the woods, a miserable-looking shadow with his hands shoved into his pockets. With a sinking feeling, Will got the sense that meant Nico was leaving again.

He supposed that wasn’t really a surprise, but it still sucked. Nico was different now—he seemed a lot sadder, a lot angrier—but Will realized he would have liked to get to know him again. He would have liked to know if they could still be friends. It seemed like Nico could use one.

Chapter Text

Gradually, painfully, things sort of went back to normal. It felt like they shouldn’t have, but they did.

What sucked the most, as far as Will was concerned, was that after the Labyrinth ordeal it actually was a pretty good summer. Nothing else majorly dramatic or dangerous happened. No one else died. Everyone just played capture the flag, did arts and crafts, raced canoes, and sang at the campfire. It was exactly, Will thought, like Lee had hoped it would be, except that Lee wasn’t here with them for it.

He said as much to Izzy a couple weeks after the battle, sitting on the floor of the infirmary playing go fish while they waited for Isaiah from the Hephaestus cabin to wake up from getting knocked out by an experimental grenade that had gone off while he was tinkering with it. Izzy nodded, her eyes downcast.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked. “I know we’re all grieving in our own way, but since things are going back to normal we’re not talking about it as much, and I feel like we should be more.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “It feels like all the other cabins want us to just move on, like he never existed.” Izzy nodded. “I’m doing okay, though,” Will added, “I just… I’m really mad at Luke, you know?” Izzy looked down again.

“Yeah. It’s your turn.”

“Oh. Do you have any sevens?”

“Go fish.” Izzy sighed. “I know. I feel the same. But at the same time—it is Luke’s fault, but it also feels like Dad’s fault a little bit.” Will looked up, startled.

“What? Why?”

“I mean…” she shook her head, eyes trained on her cards. “He was obviously there, in a sense, you know? Not there there, but in the way gods can be, like, present. He knew what was happening, because he chose that moment to claim Kayla. But he wouldn’t save Lee.”

“Well—” Will hadn’t thought about it that way, and it didn’t feel good to. “I mean, they’re different things, right? Gods claim their kids all the time, but saving a person from death would be interfering in mortal affairs. They’re not supposed to do that.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Izzy shook her head. “Got any aces?”

“Yeah.” Resentfully, Will handed her his ace of spades. He’d been hoping to keep that one.

“Thanks.” Izzy nodded towards the cot. “Want to check on Isaiah?”

“You don’t want to do it? He’s your patient.”

“Is he?” Izzy said sourly. “Michael doesn’t think so.” Will sighed. Apparently she was still mad about capture the flag. During last week’s game, Michael had refused to let her play as a healer—instead he’d had Will lead Hannah and Xavier as combat medics, and put Izzy with Jasper and the twins as an offense archer. She’d taken it weirdly personally.

“I don’t care!” Michael had said. “If we learned one thing from the battle, it’s that we’re going to need all the archers we can get, so you’re more useful as an archer than you are as a healer. Will’s more useful as a healer. It’s just a fact.”

“But I’m always a healer!” Izzy had protested.

“No one’s saying you’re not a good one,” Renee had said, trying to intervene. “But you’re also a good archer.”

“And we’re down one of those,” Michael had said. Will had no idea how he could be so business-like about their big brother having died, but… he was. “But we’re basically up a healer now that Will’s as good as you guys, so he can just take over for you.” He’s not totally useless after all, was how Will had heard that—he didn’t really get how Izzy had heard it as any kind of knock against her.

“You’re still in charge in here,” he protested now. Izzy shrugged.

“For now,” she said.

“I’m not trying to, like, replace you,” Will told her. “I promise.” Whatever his face looked like, it made her smile a little sadly.

“I know,” she said, less resentfully. “But still. You do it. You should get all the practice you can, if you’re going to be the best.” Will got to his feet. She did keep saying that. And it was starting to feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy, since he just kept focusing on healing more and more.

A weird thing Will hadn’t expected was that there were kids who arrived at camp that summer after the battle had already happened. A boy named Cecil, a girl named Lou Ellen, another boy named Austin—they all showed up in July, so they were there for most of the summer without having to experience the carnage. By the end of August it was easy to forget they hadn’t.

Austin even got claimed by Apollo towards the end of July and moved into the cabin, taking the bottom bunk of the empty set one over from Will and Kayla’s.

“Will you guys tell me about the battle?” he asked quietly his first night there, leaning across the narrow gap between his and Will’s headboards, which were really just single slats across the bedposts. Kayla was sitting on the slat on the end of Will’s bed with her feet near his pillow, while Will had his back against the wall, reading. It was only about six inches between bunks, so it was sort of like Austin was just leaning through a window right into the space. “Connor told me your—our big brother died.”

Kayla’s face fell, and Will set his book down and held out his arm instinctively. Natural as breathing, Kayla slid down to curl up against his side.

“Yeah.” Will put the arm around her shoulders. Austin looked at her, stricken.

“I’m sorry, Kayla, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” said Kayla, “I just miss him.”

“Lee helped her get here safely back in May,” Will explained. “So they were close. We all were,” he added. “Everyone loved Lee.” Austin nodded.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t here to get to know him before.”

“Thanks,” said Will. They all sat in silence for a minute, then Austin said uncertainly,

“It just feels kind of… weird.”

“Yeah. I get that,” Will told him. “I mean, I think I do. The summer I first came to camp, when I got here, one of our big sisters had already left on a quest.” With Luke, his memory supplied sourly. Thanks again, Luke. “Her name was Taylor. She didn’t make it back. So we mourned her, but I had never gotten to know her, and yeah, it is kind of weird, cause it’s like, it is your loss too, because they were your sibling too, but you didn’t know them.” Austin nodded.

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.”

“But seriously, don’t feel bad about missing the battle,” Will said firmly. “That part’s for the best. It wasn’t pretty.”

“It was really scary,” Kayla agreed.

“I guess,” said Austin. “I don’t know how good I’d be in a fight, anyway.”

“Unfortunately,” said Michael’s voice, startling all of them, “you’ll probably get to find out before too long here.” He sat up, looking over the back of the couch nearest them, where apparently he had been lying the whole time, listening.

“What do you mean?” said Kayla. Michael hopped up to sit kneeling on the cushions, leaning over the back of the couch to talk to them.

“We beat back Luke’s forces and made a real dent in his numbers,” he explained, “but he’ll be regrouping. And Percy turns sixteen next year, so whatever happens then, it’s probably going to be big—sorry, so,” he said, backtracking at the confusion on Austin and Kayla’s faces, “there’s this prophecy about a child of the Big Three turning sixteen, and right now Percy Jackson is the most likely candidate for prophecy kid. Before there was this girl named Thalia, but—basically, long story short, it’s not her. It’s probably Percy. So if the battle this year was bad, next year is probably going to be worse.” Kayla hid her face in Will’s shoulder. He squeezed hers a little tighter. “Unless he dies between now and then, I guess,” Michael added. “Then we’d be back to waiting for someone else to show up.”

That wasn’t exactly true, Will realized—Michael must not know, or maybe he just forgot. If Percy died, the prophecy kid could end up being Nico. For some reason that thought bothered Will a lot more than the idea of the prophecy being about Percy.

“Oh,” said Austin, swallowing hard. His eyes were very wide. “Um. Cool?”

“It’ll be fine,” said Michael. Will was pretty sure he was trying to sound reassuring, but there was just a little too much grim excitement in his voice at the thought of a big battle for it to totally work. “We’ll get you all trained up as an archer, Austin, you’ll see. By the time it matters, I’m sure you’ll be great in a fight.”

At the end of the summer Will went home. Chiron had agreed to let him not start seventh grade until October, so he had the entire month of September to stay with his mom and try not to think about camp. It was weird to be back in Austin doing nothing when everyone else was starting school, but all worth it—finally, finally, Will got to hug his mom. He was as tall as her now, but it was still just as comforting.

“You know, I was kind of worried you would come back and have reached that middle school boy phase where you don’t want to hug your mom anymore,” said Naomi as Will snuggled up next to her on the couch to watch a movie.

“Not yet,” he said.

“Maybe it kicks in when you become a teenager,” she teased. “I guess I’d better hug you extra the next couple weeks before you wake up on your birthday and decide I can’t anymore.”

“I’m not going to decide you can’t hug me, Mom,” Will mumbled. “I promise.”

“Sure,” said Naomi, rubbing his shoulder. “We’ll see.”

Will turned thirteen the last week of September, and he did not stop hugging his mom. Even though he did get pretty annoyed after a lot of back and forth with her about whether or not he was having a party.

“I really think you should,” she kept saying. “Don’t you want to invite Allie over? And Diego? And what about Quinn?”

“Mom, I haven’t seen them in more than a year,” Will pointed out. “It’s not like we’re really friends anymore. What would we even have to talk about?”

“I’m sure you’ll find something,” said Naomi. “I know it’s been a while, but I bet once you see each other it’ll be like nothing’s changed.”

“Fine,” Will relented, but only for his friend Allie. They had been inseparable from kindergarten until fifth grade. In some ways, being friends with Olivia now felt kind of like a replacement for his friendship with Allie, not that he liked to think of it that way—and anyway, the difference between mortal friends and demigod friends was like day and night.

Still, Allie was the only one of his mortal friends who had made an effort to keep in touch. They had sent each other postcards from summer camp for a few years now; sending them during the school year hadn’t been so different. Seeing her would probably be fine.

And it was fine. Basically. Their moms took them to get pizza and then to a movie, and it was only kind of weird. At the pizza place it was a little awkward until Allie’s mom made a big deal about how tall Will had gotten and how handsome he was and how all the girls up there in New York had better watch out. Once she’d done that, for whatever reason, the tension evaporated as Will and Allie both groaned and ignored their moms to talk about literally anything else instead.

Allie caught him up on how middle school was going for her and Quinn and Diego in a lot greater detail than postcards allowed—sadly, Will had been right to suspect that his friends would have drifted apart into different cliques. It sounded like Quinn had become a sporty, popular kid while Diego had gotten into computer geek stuff Allie didn’t really understand, and for herself she hung out with an artistic crowd and was increasingly into manga. In turn, Will told her half-truths and stories about Chiron and the middle school table that omitted a lot of background details, like the fact that Olivia, Mark, and Sherman weren’t just his friends—they were sort of his only classmates.

After pizza they went and saw the new Indiana Jones. Will had grown up with the Indiana Jones movies (and Star Wars—Harrison Ford was just so awesome), and he remembered being about eight and having nightmares about melting faces for a week after watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. The parts that were supposed to be scary always had been scary to him.

Now, though, watching Allie squirm and have to cover her eyes during some of the more violent and gory parts, he realized none of it remotely fazed him anymore. He’d seen a lot worse in real life.

Going back to camp was kind of a relief. It also brought on a wave of homesickness like Will hadn’t felt in years. It was probably having had a glimpse at what he was missing in the mortal world—part of Will really wanted to just stay in Texas, to go to middle school with Allie and Diego and Quinn. To dare monsters and Luke and whatever else to come after him. To deal with the questions, and the lack of accommodations, and just see where he fit in.

But, he figured he also had a duty to his family and friends at camp. The longer he’d been away, the more worried he’d gotten—Izzy, Renee, and Xavier had all gone home for the school year, which meant with Will away the camp was basically without an Apollo cabin healer for a month. That felt like too long. Kayla and Austin were there still, but they didn’t really know what they were doing yet healing-wise, and a lot could happen in a month.

Thankfully nothing really bad had. When he got back everything was pretty much normal, except that the tables had switched around some. Even though there had been less campers over the summer, more kids were staying for the school year—camp was the safest place for demigods to be right now.

As a result, this year there were five tables instead of four. The table of older high school kids was exactly the same, but there were three sons of Hermes at the younger high school table now that Chris was back to join Connor and Josh, Will realized—that was a recipe for trouble. The youngest table was overcrowded, with five kids instead of four, and the middle school tables had the starkest difference: Mark and Sherman had moved to sit with Jake Mason and Miranda, who were actually ninth-graders. Olivia had left a place for Will at the fourth table, where she was seated with Lou Ellen from her cabin, an eighth-grader, and Rebecca Kazan, a sixth-grade daughter of Athena.

Once he was sitting at Olivia’s right like always, Will was relieved to find it wasn’t as hard as he’d feared to get back into the usual rhythm of school. After as quiet a morning of math and reading as was possible at Camp Half-Blood, Chiron led them out to the amphitheater for a history lesson.

Will sat down on a mid-level ring of stone seating. Lou Ellen sat down next to him. Olivia poked at Lou Ellen’s shoulder.

“What?”

“I want to sit by Will.”

“What? Why?” Lou Ellen asked. Will didn’t appreciate the scorn in her voice, even though he knew she was teasing. Mostly. He was pretty sure. It was hard to tell with her sometimes.

“Because he’s my friend and I missed him?” Olivia said, more than matching the energy.

“Okay, fine.” Lou Ellen scooted over a couple of feet, and Olivia folded herself down to sit cross-legged on the amphitheater ledge beside Will.

“For what it’s worth, I missed you too,” he told her. Olivia smiled at him.

“Course you did, nerd. I'm sure your life was super boring without me.” Before Will could come up with a good rejoinder,

“Hey, Will! You’re finally back.” Mark sat down on his right.

“Hey, Mark.” Will hadn’t realized how nice it would be to see him. The scar had faded a lot since June, now just a slash down his forehead that was a little lighter than the rest of his skin, and he had to admit Mark had been right—it did look pretty cool, especially now that his hair had started to grow back. Will had actually kind of… missed him? That was weird. It didn’t last, of course, because Mark opened his mouth again.

“So, how d’you like sitting at the girls table?” he asked. Will rolled his eyes.

“Have you been planning that line for a whole month?” he asked. “That’s sweet, Mark. I didn’t know you’d miss me so much.” Mark shoved him. Will shoved him back, harder.

“He’s just jealous,” said Sherman, getting in a shove of his own so his brother wouldn’t fall on him where he sat on Mark’s other side. “He wishes it was him sitting at a table with three cute girls.”

“I do not,” said Mark, then seemed to realize what he’d said as Sherman started laughing—“I mean—I don’t not—you know what I meant!”

“Aw, Mark,” said Olivia, “do you miss me too?”

“No way,” said Mark, though his cheeks went a little pink and he wouldn’t quite look at Olivia. That was interesting. “Good riddance to both of you brats.”

“Then why’d you come sit with us?” Will pointed out, leaning over to nudge him with his shoulder, teasing.

“Cause he misses you guys,” said Sherman after a beat when Mark said nothing, just sat there increasingly red-faced. “Like a big sap.” Mark punched him in the side. Sherman expertly maneuvered away. Mark escalated, tackling him backwards into the amphitheater wall. “Ow!”

“Please don’t break any of his bones, Mark,” said Will, “I’ve only been back like three hours.”

“Killjoy,” said Mark, and sat up again, arms crossed over his chest, conspicuously not looking at the seventh-graders.

“So basically nothing changed while I was gone,” was Will’s analysis when he turned back to Olivia.

“Yeah, pretty much,” she agreed.

Surprisingly little changed as the school year went on, either. Except for what Will was realizing, day by day, had changed. Or maybe it had been there for a while? Maybe Mark had had a crush on Olivia all along, and Will was just oblivious.

Either way, he never brought it up. Not to Mark, because he was pretty sure if he did Mark would cross a line he generally didn’t with Will and find some way to physically injure him rather than talk about it. Hopefully mildly, but still. He didn’t say anything to Olivia either, because if she didn’t know that wouldn’t be fair to Mark, and if she did, well, Will figured he probably wasn’t who she’d want to talk to about boys. Since he was one.

And besides, he still didn’t totally know how he felt about the idea of Mark liking Olivia. Something about it didn’t sit right. It was hard to figure out what, though, because when he thought about it for too long his chest got tight.

As fall wore on it started getting worse to ignore it. Will spent most of December thinking maybe it was about Olivia. Maybe everyone who had spent two years teasing them about their friendship, calling him her boyfriend, had a point. Maybe Will did like her, after all, and maybe this feeling like his heart was trying to crawl out of his chest was what jealousy felt like.

But when he tried to think about Olivia that way, it was like he hit a wall. If he liked Olivia, then he would want to, like… date her, right? Actually be her boyfriend? Hold her hand? Kiss her? But he didn’t feel those things at all. When he came back from Texas after Christmas and felt almost the exact same way about hugging her as he had about hugging Kayla and Austin, that settled it. If Mark liking Olivia didn’t feel right, the idea of Will liking Olivia was definitely wrong.

The next day Mark made a really bad joke while they were on the climbing wall, and Will very nearly slipped into the lava as, for the first time, it occurred to him that maybe the bad feeling wasn’t about Olivia at all. He definitely didn’t want to think about it anymore after that. That was just too much.

School was pretty much the same as last year, though, aside from the math being a little harder and the books being different. Will’s table read Ancient Greek editions of Little Women, which was pretty good—and mostly just a relief to read without Mark and Sherman whining, which Will imagined they would have if they’d still been in this group; Fahrenheit 451, which was also good, if depressing; and Watership Down, which managed to be both more depressing than Fahrenheit 451, despite being about rabbits, and kind of anxiety-inducing what with everything that was going on outside of school.

The war with Kronos stayed as cold as the weather outside. That was what Clarisse kept saying, anyway, and eventually Will got Mark to explain what she meant—that everyone knew they were at war, and fighting was bound to start again sooner or later, but right now no one was really sure which one it would be. Rumors went around, of course, fueled by the occasional appearances of monsters on the border and Chiron looking increasingly haggard in class.

One day in late winter they all got to the classroom to find that Chiron wasn’t even there. Instead there was a note taped to the blackboard. Beckendorf took it down and read it to them.

“‘Dear students,’” he said in his calm, reassuring voice. “‘I regret I cannot join you for class today. An emergency requires my presence—” a nervous murmur rose among the older kids—“though I assure you it will not otherwise affect Camp Half-Blood.’ Okay.” Everyone quieted down again. Beckendorf skimmed down the page. “Okay, he says we’re going to spend the morning doing a science project, then the afternoon doing whatever our counselors say we’re doing. Sweet. Okay. ‘For the science project, students will be working with partners or in groups of three—’”

“I call Sherman,” Mark said too loudly. At Will’s table, Olivia grabbed his arm in an iron grip.

“Ow,” he complained, pulling away.

“Sorry!”

“‘I have already assigned these groupings’,” Beckendorf went on, with a warning look at Mark, and went down the list. Will was amused to notice Chiron was separating the happy couple at the table of older high schoolers, instead pairing Beckendorf with Travis and Silena with Clarisse. Beckendorf took that in stride. Sherman got partnered with Miranda and Mark with Jake, which Mark looked grumpy about. Sherman was noticeably less so. And—“Olivia and Rebecca, and Will and Lou Ellen,” Beckendorf said, gesturing to their table—

“Oh, come on!” Olivia said under her breath, but put on a smile to turn back to Rebecca. Rebecca looked unimpressed. Will smiled to himself—he liked Rebecca. She was the youngest at the table, but being the only Athena kid she was probably as smart as the other three of them put together, so she always held her own.

He was less sure how to feel about Lou Ellen. They’d spent a decent amount of time together once she’d shown up, since as a daughter of Hermes close to the same age Olivia had wound up becoming her unofficial guide to camp. They’d spent even more time together since he’d gotten back for school, since they sat at the same table. And even after all that time, Will didn’t entirely know what to make of her.

So far Lou Ellen had been here going on seven months without being claimed. A lot of unclaimed kids struggled with having to stay in the Hermes cabin indefinitely. Lou Ellen didn’t seem to. In fact, she had enough in common with Hermes’ kids that it was kind of surprising she was so certain she wasn’t one of them.

“Why not?” Will had asked once.

“My mother’s a goddess. My mom always said so.” But she said she didn’t know which one. If Will had to guess he would have said Athena, not so much because Lou Ellen seemed like a child of Athena as because she seemed even less like a child of Aphrodite or Demeter—but every child of Athena had gray eyes, and Lou Ellen’s were green.

Whatever the answer to that mystery, Will found her kind of unnerving. The reason she fit in so well in the Hermes cabin was that she shared some of their worse traits: she had a mischievous personality and sometimes very little regard for others’ feelings. It was something deeper than that, though. He always got the sense there was something he was missing with her, something hidden just around a corner he couldn’t quite turn. Walking next to her as Beckendorf led them out towards the edge of the woods, he was a little bit wary.

Their science project was to identify as many medicinal plants as they could in an hour. For a worksheet, they had a chart with little drawings of leaf and flower shapes and checkboxes to mark when they found them. Will suspected they were working in pairs for safety more than anything, since Chiron was sending them a little ways into the woods. Enforced buddy system.

At any rate, it was an easy enough assignment for Will, since Renee and Izzy had made sure he knew most of the ones that grew in the woods here off the top of his head. While he pointed out plants as they tramped along between trees, Lou Ellen appointed herself scribe, holding up their group’s clipboard so officially she kind of reminded Will of Annabeth on cabin inspection duty.

“That one’s Saint John’s Wort.” Will pointed it out.

“Doesn’t look like a wart,” said Lou Ellen.

“Wort, with an o.”

“Weird.” She checked it off. “Why are dandelions on here?”

“I don’t know, actually,” said Will, glancing over her shoulder at the worksheet. “I know you can eat the leaves, like, in salad, but Izzy never told me about any healing properties. Oh, hey—” looking up, he veered a little off the path. “Look, witch-hazel.”

“Oh, I know that one,” said Lou Ellen, checking it off. They walked on. Most of the forest was pine, but Will knew there was a small stand of quaking aspen trees somewhere not too far in. When they came to it, he paused and patted down his pockets, suddenly regretting leaving his bag up in the classroom. “What are you doing?” Lou Ellen asked, looking at him like he’d gone a little crazy.

“I wish I could collect some bark, that’s all,” said Will. “It’s good for an analgesic, and after this summer we’re running a little bit low. But I didn’t think to bring a pocketknife.”

“I have a knife,” said Lou Ellen, reaching into her pocket. “You can borrow it if you want.” Will looked at the knife she held out. It was much bigger than a pocketknife—the handle was elaborately carved and looked like some kind of bone. The blade was in a leather sheath, but had to be at least four inches long. With a motion so quick Will barely saw the change, Lou Ellen flipped it around so she was offering him the handle.

“Uh, sure,” he said, taking it. “Thanks. I’ll just be a second.” Drawing close to the trees, he paused to say a blessing for the quaking aspen dryads. Lee and Renee had taught them all well that if they were going to take medicinal supplies from trees, they needed to be as polite about it as possible. Angry dryads were no joke.

A breeze stirred through the branches around him. Very well, child of Apollo, a soft voice seemed to whisper in the rustling leaves. Take what you need.

“Thank you,” said Will, and carefully set the knife’s sharp edge to a branch to peel away a strip of bark.

The instant he applied a little pressure something went wrong. An unearthly shriek pierced the air, startling birds out of the trees surrounding. The knife slipped on the bark without catching any, like the tree had rejected it, and Will couldn’t pull back fast enough to keep it from sliding and sinking into his other hand where he had been trying to hold the branch steady. When he lost his grip it snapped back in a much stronger wind, smacking into his arm.

“Ow,” Will said faintly, staring at the cut. It was very deep. He knew better than to do anything but press hard on the flesh and keep it together, so it wasn’t like he could see it, but he had felt the awful scrape as the blade hit bone.

He was not going to pass out, he told himself firmly. He’d dealt with far, far worse than this. Sure, that had been on other people—it was different when he was the one feeling the pain himself—but honestly, the pain wasn’t even that bad. And yeah, that was probably adrenaline, and maybe the beginning of shock setting in, but it was going to be okay. Really. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Will tried to breathe slow and deep, to think. If he was healing someone else—Kayla, his brain suggested. He might not know how to take care of himself, but at least he knew he’d do his best to take care of her. So, Kayla. Okay. If this had happened to Kayla, what would he need to do? Keep pressure on it. Good. He was doing that. Passed step one.

Behind him, Lou Ellen was screaming. The tree branches were still shrieking and snapping back and forth, and Will wasn’t sure why—he was too focused on making sure the edges of the cut stayed together as he pushed his hand against his thigh to maintain pressure, probably permanently ruining this pair of jeans. Once he had a hand free again he crouched down, out of the way of the tree branches, and fumbled for the knife where it had fallen to the ground.

It was hard to get a grip on it when his fingers were slick with blood, but once Will had it he managed to hold onto it just long enough to nick the hem of his t-shirt. The fabric gave. Will dropped the knife again so he could rip a strip off. Looping it around on itself, he tried to get it as tight around his forearm as he could to make a tourniquet. Then he tore off another, wider strip to wrap around his hand.

He’d gone to so much trouble fixing this t-shirt last summer. Oh well.

“Will!” Lou Ellen had finally managed to get past the branches, ducking under them to kneel at his side. “Are you okay?”

“Is he okay?” a furious voice snapped from above them. Will and Lou Ellen looked up to see a woman emerging from the tree. “His wellbeing is nothing. The boy tricked me! His blessing was given in deceit!”

“No—I didn’t! It wasn’t!” Will cried, but the Quaking Aspen dryad’s fury didn’t even seem directed at him—she was towering over Lou Ellen, who looked scared out of her mind.

“Your knife burns, witch! To be cut by its blade in turn was no more than the boy deserved!”

“I’m sorry!” Will said, drawing her attention back to him. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you or trick you, I swear on—on the River Styx, I wasn’t. I swear.” That finally got the dryad to calm down a little. An oath on the Styx was no joke; Will wouldn’t have made it if he wasn’t entirely certain what he said was true.

“Well, whether you intended to wound me or not, wounded I am.” She held out her pale green arms. Will could see what looked like scorch marks on them.

“Di immortales,” he whispered. “Why would that have happened?”

“I told you! The witch’s knife. There is dark magic on it,” Quaking Aspen declared, standing tall, her eyes alight with fury again. “It burns like her mother’s torches. Treacherous flames!” she spat. Will looked at Lou Ellen. Her eyes were wide with terror and brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice shook. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it would do that either.”

“Well.” Quaking Aspen tossed her head. Will couldn’t have explained how, but her hair shivered like leaves. “See that you don’t do it again.” She turned away, stepping back into her trees.

“Wait,” said Will. “I’m, um—I’m a healer, I—maybe I can help?” The dryad shook her head.

“No mortal power will truly heal me,” she said, suddenly a little wistful. Her mood really seemed to change as fast as—well—the wind. “There is only one who could have, and the satyr Grover Underwood claims he is dead.” And with that she melted back into the bark.

Will and Lou Ellen sat there on the ground for a moment, Will trying to decide whether he thought he was in shock or not and whether he would even be able to tell if he was in shock without being able to examine himself objectively from the perspective of a healer who wasn’t in shock, Lou Ellen sobbing into her hands.

“What did she mean about your mother’s torches?” Will finally thought to ask. Lou Ellen gulped.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I am, I’m so sorry—”

“Okay, it’s okay,” Will reassured her.

“No, it’s not. I’ve been lying to everyone.” Lou Ellen dug her palms into her eyes for a moment. “My mother—I do know who she is.”

“Oh.” Will frowned. “But you haven’t been claimed.”

“No, I have, just… not like the Olympians do,” said Lou Ellen. “But my mother isn’t an Olympian, she’s Hecate.” She drew in a shaky breath and repeated herself: “I’m a child of Hecate.”

“Oh,” Will said again.

“She claimed me before I got here. That’s actually, um—it’s why I’m here. She sent me here.”

“Wait.” Will frowned. He probably was in shock, he thought, because if he wasn’t he would definitely have a lot stronger feelings about this. “Hecate? But isn’t she working for Kronos?”

“Yes,” said Lou Ellen miserably.

“Then if she sent you here—” oh, this was why he should have stronger feelings. “Wait, are you a spy?”

“No!” Lou Ellen said fiercely. “See, this is why I couldn’t tell anyone. Everyone would just think I was!”

“Then what do you mean she sent you here?”

“I mean she asked me if I wanted to come to Camp Half-Blood, and when I said I did, she... sent me here. With magic. My mother values free will,” said Lou Ellen.

“Well, that’s good, right?” said Will. “I mean, I’m Will, and I like being free.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” But his terrible joke got her to smile weakly through her tears. “My mother wants everyone to make their own choices. She knew that as a demigod, as her daughter, I would have to make one in this war, so she came to me on her own before the rest of Kronos’ forces could get there, since they wouldn’t have actually let me decide for myself.” She sniffled. “And I chose to come here.”

“Why?” Will asked over the increasingly loud ringing in his ears. The strip of t-shirt around his hand was soaked through with wet blood and starting to drip on his pants. He really needed to get a better bandage on that, and the cut would probably need stitches. He just had to get back to the Big House. Problem was, he wasn’t sure he could walk that far. Or get up at all.

“Because Kronos doesn’t really want to help the minor gods,” said Lou Ellen. “He only wants to help himself—Will?” Her face swam in his field of vision. He was pretty sure she looked worried.

“I’m fine,” Will assured her, “don’t worry about,” me, he was going to say, before he passed out.

For the very first time in his life, Will woke up in a bed in the infirmary. He blinked awake slowly, trying to figure out where he was, how he had gotten there, what had—

“Whoa, whoa, easy,” said Beckendorf, setting a broad hand on his shoulder to keep him from overbalancing and falling out of bed when he tried to sit up. “Don’t hurt yourself more.”

“How long was I out?” Will asked. It came out muddled. His tongue felt too heavy in his mouth.

“Not long, don’t worry.” Beckendorf released his grip when Will settled back down. Everyone else was crowded into the infirmary behind him, but it was hard to focus on that, or really anything. “Just enough time for us to get you up here and your hand fixed up a little.” It didn’t feel like anyone had stitched it up or tried to heal it, but there was at least a real bandage on it now. “Are you feeling okay?” Will shook his head to try and clear it. Beckendorf looked startled. Belatedly Will switched to nodding, so it didn’t look like he was saying no.

“I am okay. I think. I need to do stitches,” he said. “On my hand.”

“Do you think you can stitch yourself up?” Beckendorf asked. “You won’t pass out again?”

“I can do it.”

“... Okay,” said Beckendorf after a doubtful pause. “I’m gonna sit right here with you, though, okay? Just in case.” Will nodded.

“Can someone get me some suture thread and a needle?” he asked. “They’re in that cabinet over there.” He pointed. Kayla, who of course had already known that, came and set them on the bed in front of Will as he pulled his knees up to sit cross-legged. He glanced up at the assembled campers. All 20 or so of them really had crowded in here. Lou Ellen’s eyes were still puffy, and she was hanging onto Olivia, who looked pretty freaked out. Will gave them a weak smile.

“Hey, guys,” said Silena at a look from Beckendorf, “let’s give him some space. Volleyball courts, anyone?”

“Fuck yeah,” said Connor, earning a smack in the back of the head from Chris.

“You stay,” Will told Kayla. “I mean, if you want. Austin, you can too,” he called as the other campers started to shuffle out of the big room.

“Oh, okay.” Will’s siblings both sat down on the next cot over, watching as he unwound the fresh bandage on his hand. It seemed like kind of a waste when from what Beckendorf had said someone had just done it, and done it pretty well at that, but he needed to get the cut stitched up before he could do anything else.

In a sense it was a good thing he’d been holding the knife when he got cut, because it meant the hand the blade had fallen on wasn’t his dominant one. It wouldn’t be too hard to stitch it up. Once the bandage was off and he'd had a sip of nectar at Beckendorf's insistence, Will rubbed a smooth stone Renee had blessed with a temporary numbing spell over the cut and got to work.

Kayla and Austin sat rapt, paying attention and listening to Will’s explanation of what he was doing, and he had each of them come sit with him and take a turn to do a couple of stitches. Kayla went at it fearlessly, just like she did everything; Austin took a little more care. Will found himself feeling really proud of them. They weren’t that much younger than him, but the last few months he’d started realizing they looked up to him, especially when he was the oldest one in the cabin right now. It was kind of weird. Regardless, they both did a good job, and between the three of them they made quick work of the sutures.

Actually healing the wound was a different matter. Will carefully brushed it with nectar to speed the process. Then he closed his eyes and tried to tug at the energy he would need to knit his flesh back together, but it was like trying to get a string tied around something when it wasn’t quite long enough for the ends to meet. Pulling at his own energy just took the rest with it. When he felt for it, he couldn’t find the other side of his energy where he needed it to respond.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Beckendorf caught him when he lost the ability to hold his head up on his neck and the world started fading out. “Physician, is healing thyself not working?”

“What?” Will asked, very confused and not sure he’d understand even if he was more lucid.

“Take a breather, Will.” Either Beckendorf’s hands were very warm, or Will had come over clammy. Maybe both. “I don’t know how your magic healing deal works, but is it even possible for you to heal your own wounds? I’ve never seen any of your siblings try to do that.”

“Oh.” Will looked at his hand. “I don’t know.”

“We could try it,” Austin suggested. “I don’t know much about healing, but Kayla and I both have the power too, right?” Will nodded.

“Yeah, we can try that. You guys come here.” He took each of their hands and wrapped them around his. “I know Izzy showed both of y’all a little about healing last summer?”

“Yeah, she had me try when Percy got that scrape on the climbing wall,” said Austin. “It worked okay.”

“I don’t really get it,” Kayla admitted.

“That’s okay. Close your eyes.” They both did. So did Will, for good measure. “Can you feel the flow of energy?”

“Yeah,” said Austin.

“No,” said Kayla.

“Okay. Try kind of like—reaching out through your fingertips,” said Will. He wasn’t sure how else to explain it. “Like there are strings coming out of your hand and extending under my skin. Like a bowstring,” he added, trying to think what might make sense to Kayla, “but it’s strung between your fingers and my bones.” Austin giggled.

“Gross.”

“Can you feel it now?”

“... Yeah, I think so.” Kayla sounded surprised. “It feels weird.”

“Now try pulling on it.” He felt the tug when they did, the way his energy pooled in his hand. “Not that hard. Careful.”

“We don’t want him to pass out again,” Beckendorf put in. He still had his arm behind Will’s back, propping him up with a wide hand between his shoulder blades. Will was starting to think the answer was that Beckendorf was just really warm. He supposed Hephaestus had a fire connection sort of like Apollo did, with the forge and all, so it made sense his kids would be warm too. It was nice. Silena was lucky, Will thought, in an objective sense, of course, then remembered he should be focusing on what his siblings were doing. What were his siblings doing?

“I can feel the cut,” said Austin. Will felt him shiver in the way his fingers shuddered on his hand. “It’s down to the bone.”

“I’m aware,” Will said dryly, focusing. He was focusing. “Can you feel how to heal it?”

“We pray to Dad, right?” said Kayla. “And then he does it?”

“Not really. We do most of it ourselves—use the energy to help the muscle and skin go back where they’re supposed to be. That’s the main thing, really, not the praying. Most things you can do without needing to bother dad at all.”

“Maybe you and Izzy can,” said Austin doubtfully, “but I’m not sure about us.” Will nodded.

“That’s fair. Go ahead and pray to Dad, then.” Quietly, his siblings started to sing the Ancient Greek hymn Izzy usually preferred. It was different from the prayer Will used when he needed it. For whatever reason his ear wasn’t cut out to get pitches and intervals right, not like every single other one of Apollo’s children, so rather than run the risk of offending his father’s perfect ear so much he made things worse Will stuck to a three-note chant.

When he was younger it had bugged him more. Now he found he could enjoy listening to Austin use his own fantastic ear to harmonize with Kayla’s melody as, slowly, Will’s hand was flooded with the warmth that came with flesh knitting back together.

He opened his eyes to look at it. It wasn’t as perfect as Izzy could have gotten it, or as Will could have done himself if this had happened to anyone else. The sutures should probably stay in overnight, he guessed, and he was pretty sure there was going to be a scar. None of that mattered, though. The cut barely hurt anymore, and when Will flexed his hand everything moved like it was supposed to, pretty much exactly as it had before.

“Awesome job, you guys,” he said, looking up at Austin and Kayla, who both looked nervous and elated and kind of wiped. Will held out his arms, and his siblings pounced for a group hug that knocked him over on the cot, almost crushing Beckendorf’s arm. “Sorry,” said Will, looking up at him. Beckendorf shook his head.

“No sweat. That was amazing. I’m glad we have you guys around.”

“I’m glad it’s not just me this year.” Will patted both his siblings on their backs and pushed them away gently so he could sit up again.

“It’s about time for lunch, and you guys all look like you could use some sandwiches,” said Beckendorf. “I know I could.” Will nodded.

“You guys go,” he told Kayla and Austin, “I’m going to clean up.”

“Do you need any help?” Austin asked.

“Y’all’ve helped so much already. Seriously, go.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” said Austin, then, “well, I guess you actually did. But you don’t have to tell me thrice!” He and Kayla ran out of the infirmary.

Beckendorf stuck around while Will got things cleaned up and put away, which was nice of him. Will got the sense he was watching him to make sure he really was okay and not about to pass out again. When everything was back where it was supposed to be, they left for lunch. Will was really hungry suddenly, and pretty tired.

“Hey, Will.” Beckendorf stopped on the porch of the Big House, setting a hand on his shoulder. “I just wanted to say, cause I know none of your big siblings are here to tell you this, you’re doing great running your cabin and the infirmary without them right now. And you were a good teacher in there today.”

“Thanks,” said Will, surprised. “I mean, I only knew all that cause Renee and Izzy taught me.”

“Sure. That’s how it goes,” said Beckendorf. “We become the older siblings and pass it on. It happens to all of us.” Will nodded, his mind on Lee. Apparently Beckendorf’s was too, because he squeezed Will’s shoulder sympathetically and said, “I’m sure if Lee were here he’d be super proud of you. If he can see us from down there in Elysium he’s got to be. And Renee will be when she gets back.” Will swallowed, unable to find words suddenly. He wasn’t going to cry, he told himself, and definitely not in front of Beckendorf. The older boy just smiled. “Let’s get some food. I’m starving.”

Will could feel everyone’s eyes on him at the Apollo table as he sat with Kayla and Austin and ate about twice as much lunch as he usually would. All three of them were ravenous, and they didn’t talk much. Well, Will didn’t. He just sat and ate three sandwiches and listened to Kayla and Austin talk about warrior cats (Chiron really could get literally any book in Ancient Greek, apparently) without really following, mulling over what Lou Ellen had told him now he had a minute to think about it again.

“What are we doing this afternoon?” Austin asked him as the other tables started to disperse. Will blinked.

“I don’t know. What are we doing?”

“Beckendorf said Chiron said our counselors would decide,” said Austin, “and I think you’re technically the counselor.”

“Oh.” Will shrugged. “What do you guys want to do?”

“Archery contest,” said Kayla, at the same time Austin said,

“Play warrior cats.”

“Play warrior cats,” Kayla amended. Will managed to keep himself from facepalming.

“If you guys want to play warrior cats you can go ahead,” he said. “I’ll just, uh, supervise.”

“You have to play too!” said Kayla. “Our clan needs a medicine cat.”

“I’m not a medicine cat! I’m a medicine human!” That just made both of them break into giggles. Will shook his head. “Fine,” he said, “you guys can play warrior cats, and I’ll be nearby, and if any of the imaginary warrior cats hurt you, come find me and I’ll do pretend cat healing or whatever.”

“Cool!” They all got up and followed the other campers out of the pavilion. Kayla and Austin dragged Will back towards the edge of the woods, where he sat down with his back against a tree—a nice sturdy pine he figured would have no reason to be mad at him—and kept an eye on them while they ran around. It was nice to just sit alone for a while. He loved having siblings at camp during the school year, but sometimes he also kind of missed the quiet and privacy he’d had in the cabin before.

Whatever the real counselors were doing to try and keep their siblings in line clearly wasn’t working, or maybe the high schoolers had just decided they didn’t care if the younger kids stuck to their activities. Within an hour the other kids from Kayla and Austin’s school table had come to join them—apparently all the fifth and sixth-graders were into warrior cats—and before too long Will looked up and realized his tree was being swarmed by his own friends.

“Are you okay?” Olivia sat down next to him. Mark and Sherman both sprawled on the grass nearby. Lou Ellen leaned against the tree. When Will glanced up at her she looked like she kind of felt sick. He tried to smile reassuringly, but he wasn’t sure she saw.

“I’m fine,” he told Olivia. “Kayla and Austin did a good job.”

“You should probably change your clothes,” said Olivia, wrinkling her nose. Will looked down at himself and realized he was still wearing his bloodstained jeans and the t-shirt he’d torn pieces off of to wrap his hand. Whoops.

“Are you going to have a scar?” said Sherman.

“Probably.”

“Let’s see it.” Mark rolled over to prop himself up on his elbows and gave a little beckoning gesture. Will held out his hand for Mark to take and examine. Mark nodded approvingly. “Sick. Not the coolest place for a scar, but still awesome.”

“Since when are you the scar judge?” said Sherman.

“More qualified than you.” Mark let go of Will’s hand and pointed at his forehead. Olivia giggled, and he looked pleased with himself.

Will pulled his hand back, resisting the urge to shake it out. He took a deep breath, not quite able to look at Mark. He wished he’d stuck to not thinking too hard about why he didn’t like seeing him get like this around Olivia. Will had always heard crushes were supposed to feel good, like butterflies in your stomach, but instead whatever he was feeling was in his chest and it hurt.

“What are they doing?” Sherman asked, jerking a thumb towards the younger kids and blessedly interrupting Will’s train of thought.

“Playing warrior cats,” Will said.

“Playing what?”

“I don’t know,” said Will, putting up his hands when they all looked at him, “it’s a book series about cats. Who are warriors.”

"Really?" said Olivia. "You don't know warrior cats? Aren't you into a lot of fantasy stuff?"

"I don't know." Will shrugged. "I guess I just never got into those books." He was more of a sci-fi guy, really.

“Is Gavin playing with them?” Mark asked, squinting across the grass. Will looked too, and yes: the youngest child of Ares at camp was, in fact, running around pretending to be a cat too. Sherman groaned.

“Gross. The little nerd.”

“Hey, I read some of those books in elementary school,” said Olivia. “They’re kind of weird, sure, but they're actually super gory and violent.”

“They’re about cats!” said Sherman incredulously.

“Yeah, but cats who kill each other, like, all the time. You guys probably would’ve liked them, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Yeah, but Livvy,” said Will, “first they’d have to read, and reading is for losers—”

“Exactly,” said Mark. “See, Will gets it.”

“And that’s why they never bothered learning how,” Will said placidly, ignoring how his chest flooded with warmth. Olivia and Lou Ellen giggled. Mark punched him in the shin, as usual not really hard enough to hurt. Will kicked back.

“Boys, boys,” said Olivia, shoving gently at Will’s leg, “violence is never the answer.”

“That’s a total lie,” said Sherman. “Violence is the answer at least 70 percent of the time.”

“80,” said Mark.

“Okay, maybe, like, 10,” Olivia admitted.

“10?” the sons of Ares exclaimed in furious unison.

The ensuing argument lasted almost half an hour. Will mostly kept quiet, resting his arms on his knees and his head on his arms. He was suddenly very aware of Lou Ellen still leaning against the tree behind them, not really engaging either. They should probably talk about what happened this morning, he thought, but they couldn’t really do that with Mark, Sherman, and Olivia around.

“Hey, everybody!” Beckendorf’s deep voice eventually rang out across the grass between the dining pavilion and the woods. “Dinner!” Mark and Sherman were up and off like shots, Olivia following behind. Will saw his chance, and scrambling to his feet, he grabbed Lou Ellen’s arm before she could go too.

“What?” Lou Ellen shook him off.

“I just wanted to say—” But now that he had the chance, Will wasn’t actually sure what he wanted to say. “Did you tell them what you told me?” he asked.

“No.” Lou Ellen’s eyes narrowed. “Are you going to?”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” said Will. “It’s your secret to tell.” Lou Ellen looked at the ground, chewing on her lip.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked. Will shook his head before she had finished asking.

“No, not at all.”

“It’s kind of my fault you got hurt, though.”

“No, it’s fine,” Will repeated. “You didn’t know the knife would do that. Right?” Lou Ellen shook her head vehemently.

“I swear I didn’t.”

“And I believe you.” Will sighed. “I just—wanted to make sure you know, your secret’s safe with me. I’m not going to tell anyone until you’re ready to tell them yourself.”

“Okay.” Lou Ellen looked up at him again. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” For a very weird second Will thought about asking if she’d do the same for him, if he could tell her—but no. He wasn’t sure he was ready to say his own secret out loud yet.

Chapter Text

It was a huge relief when June arrived. Michael, Renee, and Jasper arrived with it, and just like that Will was no longer the oldest, and no longer in charge.

It wasn’t that he disliked being in charge. Not anymore. Izzy wasn’t going to get to camp until July this year because she was camping with her mom and stepdad in the Sierra Nevada, so Will was definitely still in charge of the infirmary, and that was fine—not as scary as it used to be, now he had another year of it under his belt. This whole year, it had been fine. But it was still a weight off his shoulders.

Michael got to work right away, making good on last year’s promise to get the younger kids trained up. First he got the cabin going for early-morning jogs, which Will didn’t mind too much but still complained about with the others because apparently that was how his siblings were bonding this year. Then came the battle strategy sessions, which were fine, and the guerrilla archery drills, which had the opposite effect of the morning jogs—Will’s siblings loved those, while he felt… otherwise. Trying to figure out how to shoot Kayla out of a tree while she hung upside-down from a branch like a freaking bat, shooting rubber-tipped arrows back at him with much better aim, was not his idea of a good time.

But Michael was taking the whole wartime leadership thing very seriously. He wasn’t the only one. Between him, Clarisse, and Annabeth as counselors of the three most martially-oriented cabins, plus Beckendorf and the Stolls keeping everyone stocked up on devices and dirty tricks, Camp Half-Blood felt a lot more ready for whatever Luke and Kronos had to throw at them than they had this time last year.

It made for a lot of excitement when Chiron announced this year’s first game of capture the flag. Everyone had been looking forward to the chance to test out their skills and battle strategies. Apollo was allied with Hermes and Hephaestus for this round, against Ares, Athena, and Aphrodite. The two war deity cabins didn’t usually ally, but it felt less unbalanced this time since Will’s team had Percy on their side.

Not that he was all that helpful, since apparently he and Beckendorf got sidetracked by a bronze dragon in the woods and managed to stumble right into Annabeth and Silena capturing them, but Will didn’t hear about any of that until later. While Renee and Xavier took point as medics, he spent most of the game sitting around with Leah as a mostly-decoy guard while Kayla and Austin hid in the trees above them like snipers.

Their efforts didn’t even matter in the end, not really. Michael and the Stolls led three separate teams of further decoys from their cabins to draw Clarisse’s fire and split the other team’s attention, while Josh and Olivia, who was becoming quite the stealth fighter in training this year, snuck behind enemy lines. It didn’t work; they got captured too. Clarisse’s sister Dana did manage to shoot Kayla and Austin out of their trees, and the Athena cabin was on Will and Leah before they could move. In all, the game itself was kind of anticlimactic.

In Will’s opinion it was probably better that way. Anticlimactic should be the goal, right? Anticlimactic meant people mostly didn’t get hurt.

Mostly.

“I can’t decide if I’m disappointed or impressed,” he said when, like clockwork, Mark carried Sherman out of the woods with his first broken limb of the summer.

“Either way you can shove it,” said Sherman. Will raised his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest. Sherman’s resolve withered. “I mean, hi, Will, can you please fix my arm? It wasn’t my fault, I swear. Ow!” Mark, laughing, dumped him unceremoniously in the grass next to Will.

“Is that because it was your fault?” Will asked, looking up at him as he crouched down to examine Sherman. Mark had hit six feet this spring, which Will personally thought was just excessive. “Cause that’s basically the same thing.”

“Technically it was Chris’ fault,” said Mark, “for not warning us about where his cabin put their traps.”

“Of course he didn’t,” said Will. “He wasn’t on your team!”

“Yeah, but he’s Clarisse’s boyfriend!” said Sherman. “He’s basically an honorary member of the cabin! He knows our battle plans and he probably helped you guys use them against us!” He looked at Will suspiciously. From what Will had heard, Chris had point-blank refused to tell Travis and Michael a thing about Clarisse’s strategy, actually, in the name of loyalty and fair play and all those things he’d missed when Luke had turned him, but he decided it wasn’t worth arguing about.

“You still won, though,” Will pointed out resentfully.

“Yeah, so quit being a sore loser and heal me,” said Sherman. “Loser.” Will rolled his eyes.

“Fine,” he said. “Whatever. Just hold still and I’ll do what I can, but only if you’ll quit being an asshole for ten minutes.”

“Like you wouldn’t do it, anyway,” said Sherman.

“You want to test that?” said Will.

“Aw, we know you’re a big softie,” said Mark. Will kept his eyes trained on Sherman’s arm. This wasn’t at all what he needed right now.

The anniversary of the Battle passed quietly and sadly. Then July hit, and contrary to what Will had been promised it didn’t bring Izzy with it. Instead it just brought hot weather and reports of Kronos’ forces massing inland.

“Maybe Clarisse was onto something about the weather and the war,” Will said to Mark. “It seems like it’s heating up.” He meant to make him laugh, and it worked. He should probably stop doing things like this—it was pointless, and he knew that, and at the end of the day it really only made him feel worse. But.

“Yeah, maybe we’re finally going to get to see some action.” They were waiting their turn for targets to open up on the archery range. Mark was here because he wanted to practice; Will was here because he had been ordered to by Michael, who seemed to be under the impression that if he made Will practice shooting a bow enough he would magically develop the supernatural talent for it that he had failed to inherit from their father.

Okay, that wasn’t fair—Michael meant well, and it wasn’t like more practice would make him a worse archer, and he had a point that Will at least needed to be able to defend himself. Monsters wouldn't care if he was designated healer. It was just frustrating to be reminded of how he stood out among his siblings for being mediocre at an Apollo thing again, when this past year he’d gotten used to standing out for being excellent at healing. It didn’t help his mood to stand there watching as Silas and Sophie monopolized the camp’s general supply of arrows with perfect shot after perfect shot. Will was pretty sure they were trying to see how many they could fit into the bullseyes before the fabric just ceased to exist.

“What are you doing for the fireworks tomorrow?” Mark asked out of the blue. If Will had been drinking water, he would have done a spit-take. For older campers, the Fourth of July fireworks were a whole thing around asking the person you liked—like Camp Half-Blood’s version of high school prom. Will wasn’t used to thinking of himself and his friends as old enough for that part of it yet. He definitely wouldn’t have expected Mark to bring it up to him, and now he didn’t know what to do.

“What?” he managed to say.

“I was, um, I was thinking of asking Olivia,” said Mark, whose face was turning a little red, “but I know you guys are close, so if you already had—”

“Oh, uh.” Will ignored the way his stomach was clenching. “No, not at all. I was just going to sit with my cabin.”

“Okay.” Mark looked relieved. “Do you think she’d say yes?”

“I have no idea,” Will said honestly. He and Olivia were friends, sure, but she didn’t talk to him about boys. He didn’t talk to her about boys either. Not that he talked to anyone else about boys—that wasn’t something anyone else knew about, for him.

Yet. He’d thought about telling his siblings, like, maybe at least Renee and Izzy, when she eventually got here—after all, they were children of Apollo, who apparently fell for mortal men as often as women, so he thought it would probably be okay; probably they wouldn’t think any less of him—and it would be nice to have someone he could talk to about it, like his big sisters he knew he could trust with everything else—but he just hadn’t been able to work up the courage, or find a good time. All of the war preparations hadn’t really allowed for one.

“Huh.” Mark shrugged. Silas and Sophie had pulled their bouquets of arrows out of their shredded targets and were cleaning them up, so Will gestured to the open spaces.

“After you.”

“No way. You’re the one who needs to practice,” said Mark, and shoved Will towards the lines. Pretending his shoulder wasn’t on fire now, Will flipped him off and went to grab a bow.

At the Fourth of July fireworks he sat with the other younger kids in his cabin—Renee had come with Travis, which Michael and Jasper had been teasing her about all week, while for himself Jasper was sitting with a daughter of Demeter named Angela. Michael didn’t have a date, so he was sitting on the sunburst mandala beach blanket with the rest of them. “Counselor duties,” as he’d said.

Somewhere further up the beach, Will knew Olivia was sitting with Mark. He was trying his best to ignore that. Fortunately (or unfortunately), Leah, Austin, and the twins were busy teaching Kayla every patriotic American song they knew, which made for a pretty solid distraction. Especially because they were doing it at the top of their lungs about three feet away.

“Guys, seriously?” Michael groaned as they launched into a slightly altered version of “God Bless America,” replacing “God” with “Dad.” “You’re gonna make Aunt Artemis mad with that night with the light from above line.”

“From the mountains, to the prairies—”

“I don’t think our dad is the one you want to pray to for the oceans white with foam, either,” Will pointed out. Leah was the one who made the edit, yelling on the next line—

“Percy’s dad bless America—” to a wave of giggles from the nearby cabins.

“Oh, come on!” Annabeth yelled from somewhere, as Percy yelled,

“Darn right!”

Flopping onto his back so he was looking up at the fireworks and not at anything, or anyone, else, Will’s mind wandered back to the question of where Izzy was. Michael and Renee weren’t too worried about her absence yet. Apparently when Renee had last talked to her in April all she’d said was they would be camping “until July,” and they figured that could mean any time in the whole month.

But she wasn’t the only camper who’d turned up AWOL this summer, was the thing—there were a lot of people missing. With so many monsters out there, everyone knew the general assumption was they were dead. There was also the possibility some had joined Kronos.

Neither option was good, Will thought as he and Michael packed up the blanket to take the younger kids back to the cabin, but if Izzy didn’t show up soon he found himself perversely hoping for the second one. Even if someone (he couldn’t think about it as her yet, he couldn’t bring himself to) turned to Kronos’ side, they could still be brought back. Chris was proof it was possible.

But dead was dead—there was no coming back from that. After losing Lee, they all knew that all too well, and Will couldn’t stand the idea of losing any more of his siblings.

“Okay, sunshines, gather round.” Michael had pushed the couches aside and spread out a big map on the floor at the center of the cabin. Will didn’t know why he had assumed it would be of Long Island, or Manhattan, or the whole United States or something, but he was surprised when instead it was a map of… New Jersey.

“Uh, what’s with the shoes?” said Jasper. Michael seemed to have collected all the shoes in the cabin that weren’t currently on people’s feet.

“Us and them,” said Michael, and started arranging shoes on the map, mainly marking cities and roads. One of Xavier’s light-up sneakers became the Empire State Building in the chunk of New York that was visible at the top. Manhattan looked a lot smaller next to all of New Jersey.

Michael tossed one of Kayla’s orange converse off the eastern edge and right at Will’s feet. Will jumped out of the way. “Hey!”

“That one’s camp,” said Michael, pointing at it. “And this one—” he set down one of Will’s flip-flops—“is where Pollux heard through the grapevine, pun definitely intended, that Kronos has a bunch of demigods setting up for an attack.”

“Is that Philadelphia or Camden?” said Leah, leaning in to look at it. “The shoe is on both sides of the river.”

“It’s—oh, come on. It’s Philly.” Michael scooted the flip-flop a little bit west with his foot. “Why would Kronos have set up camp in Camden?”

“I don’t know,” said Jasper, “why would Chiron have set up camp at the ass-end of Long Island?” Kayla and Xavier giggled. Renee smacked Jasper in the arm.

“Anyway,” said Michael, “Clarisse and I are gonna go raid them.” Everyone immediately started badgering him with questions.

“Just you and Clarisse?” Renee asked, frowning. “At least take one of us to play medic.” And keep you from killing each other, she didn’t say, but everyone knew it was what she meant.

“Isn’t that kind of a long way to go for a preemptive strike?” said Jasper. “Why not one of the encampments closer to us?”

“Can I go?” said their brother Gabriel, who was the only new Apollo kid this summer. There weren't a lot of new kids this summer in general.

“Me too, Michael, I want to go, please,” said Kayla.

“No, we’re gonna, we’re not stupid; yes, but there are no monsters at this one, just other demigods; no; and, no,” said Michael, pointing at each of his siblings in turn as he answered their questions. “Clarisse is bringing Darren and Laura. Silas and Sophie, I’d like you guys to come along. And Will.”

“What?” Will looked up from counting the other shoes spread throughout New Jersey. There were a lot of monsters out there. “Me?”

“Yep. You’re gonna play medic, like Renee said.” Will looked around.

“You don’t want to take someone older?” Like… well, Renee would really be the only option, without Izzy here. Gabriel was fourteen and Jasper was fifteen, but Gabriel was pretty green and Jasper wasn’t much of a healer. The twins were fourteen now too, but they were already slated to go.

“You’re the strongest healer, plus you have the most combat medic experience after last year,” said Michael. Renee was nodding. “So yeah, I’d rather bring you.” Will swallowed.

“Okay,” he said. “When are we going?”

“First thing Saturday morning. We’re taking pegasi.” Silas and Sophie looked at each other with kind of terrifying expressions of delight. Will just stared down at the map. He didn’t mind flying by pegasus, but he’d never expected to have to travel across the entire Garden State that way.

Saturday morning Michael shook them out of bed at dawn as usual. While everyone else got up for their mandatory morning run, Will and the twins gathered their things and put on armor. That part felt weird—Will had only ever worn armor for capture the flag before. And sure, capture the flag was dangerous, but almost no one ever actually died. Certainly no one got killed on purpose—campers were supposed to maim at worst in defense of their flags, not kill. Putting on armor knowing he was going into a situation where people might actually be trying to kill him felt really different.

Looking back on last year’s battle he probably should have been wearing armor, but he hadn’t had time to put any on before he ran into the woods. In a way, wearing it now made him more anxious than he had been then.

The Ares cabin kids met them at the stables. A tiny part of Will had sort of wished Sherman and Mark (okay, mostly Mark) were coming on this mission, but on the other hand he was probably better off not having friends along. This way there would be less distractions, and if something embarrassing happened to him they wouldn’t be there to see it, so there was less likelihood he would spend from now until high school graduation being teased about it. Assuming they all made it that far, of course.

“You’re bringing babies?” Clarisse asked Michael, looking unimpressed at the sight of the twins and Will. “This is a serious mission.”

“They’re not babies,” said Michael. “Well, not anymore. You’ll see.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Darren sarcastically. He was the one whose name Will could never remember—honestly, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to pick him out of a crowd, either. The guy was about as nondescript as a blond dude could be, and that was coming from a blond dude.

“Whatever,” said Clarisse. “If it’s your funeral, then it’s your funeral. Let’s head out.”

They saddled the pegasi, made sure their gear was in order—Will was a little more burdened than his siblings, who just had their bows and quivers while he also had to carry his medicine bag—and took flight. Circling up over camp, Will kept his eyes on the western horizon so as not to be blinded by the rising sun.

“Do you think we’ll see Dad?” Silas screamed to the rest of them over the rushing wind.

“Bit late for him!” Michael yelled back.

“Everyone form up!” Clarisse called. They flew in a V-formation like geese, Clarisse in the lead and three of them on either side. Will was in the middle on one side, between the twins. Once they were in position he dared to look down.

Long Island spread out beneath them, woods giving way to suburbs as they headed west. The Sound and the Atlantic sparkled silver in the early morning light. Will didn’t catch more than a glimpse, because just looking for an instant was enough to make him feel sick. It wasn’t that he was afraid of heights, or even flying—he’d always loved being in the window seat on planes, getting to watch the world roll by from 30,000 feet—but looking down from inside a pressurized metal cylinder was pretty different from sitting on a flying horse with just a single lead keeping him tethered. He closed his eyes again, hiding his face in his pegasus’ mane and wrapping his arms tight around her neck.

“Don’t throw up!” Michael yelled at him. Will nodded.

“I’m fine!” he raised his head enough to yell back. He wasn’t sure if anyone could hear, or if the wind caught it, but Michael gave him a thumbs up.

Thankfully the sky was clear between Long Island and Philadelphia, and the flight was pretty even, without too much turbulence. Pegasi still couldn’t match planes for speed, but they did fly faster than cars could drive on the interstate—it was only about an hour and a half before they landed on the banks of the Schuylkill River, in the shadow of a large building on a hill. Dismounting from their pegasi, they all squinted up at it.

“Hey,” said Darren, “are those the Rocky steps?”

“Oh my gods, those are the Rocky steps,” said Michael.

“The what?” said Laura.

“Those steps.” Michael pointed up at them. “That’s the Philly Art Museum. You know in Rocky, when he’s running up the steps?” Laura shook her head. Will knew of the movie Michael was talking about, but he’d never seen it.

“Can we go run up the Rocky steps?” Darren asked. “Just real fast, before we do the mission?”

“Sure,” said Michael, at the same time Clarisse said,

“No.” They glared at each other for a moment. Their younger siblings all looked at each other nervously. “I’m calling the shots here,” Clarisse said flatly, turning away. “Survive the mission, then we can talk about the steps.” She pulled a folded piece of printer paper out of the pocket of her cargo pants, unfolded it, and looked it over. “All right,” she said. “According to our intel, they’re camped out on the other side of that bridge.”

Leaving the pegasi to graze, they walked warily along the running path that led under the bridge, single-file, Clarisse out front, Michael behind her with his bow. His arrow wasn’t quite nocked, but Will had seen him go from balancing his bow on one finger as a joke to shooting two arrows at once in the blink of an eye before. He was readier than he needed to be.

A few mortals jogged past in running clothes. None of them seemed to think much of a bunch of heavily-armed teenagers taking up their running path—they just veered around them. Good old Mist.

They crested a hill and dropped down behind a low stone wall when Clarisse hissed, “duck. They’re right over there.” Peering over the wall, Will saw… a skate park. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, and looked again. Still a skate park, but there were at least a dozen demigods camped there, most of them up and walking around in black and purple armor. They were outnumbered about two to one. Great.

When Will glanced at Michael and Clarisse, though, neither of them looked particularly concerned. Maybe they figured they’d faced worse odds. Actually, scratch that—last year, they had definitely faced worse odds, and prevailed. That thought sort of made him feel better, except that it also brought back all his memories of Lee’s death in a rush. For a second it was like he could feel the scrape of bone on bone, the coldness of healing dead flesh, all over again.

They had prevailed. Will hadn’t.

“The Mist is really thick here,” Clarisse muttered. Will tried to focus on her voice. “If they’ve managed to make it so even we can’t see the campsite too well, that probably means they’ve got a child of Hecate with them.”

“Or the goddess herself could be helping,” Michael pointed out. “She’s on their side.” Clarisse nodded grimly.

“Either way, take care. Children of Hecate are nasty little fuckers.” She said it with such conviction the nausea in Will’s stomach turned, suddenly, to low-burning righteous anger.

Now was not the time to defend Lou Ellen, he reminded himself. Besides, there was no way to do it without revealing her secret, and he’d promised not to.

They had gone over the plan several times. The Ares kids would go in first, the Apollo kids following behind for ranged cover. The counselors had all agreed camp policy would be that they fought to wound and incapacitate, not to kill, as much as possible when fighting Kronos’ demigods; Will had been kind of surprised by Clarisse’s enthusiasm about that rule until he thought about Chris. Clarisse probably knew better than anyone that the other demigods were still just kids like them.

Will had been told with no small certainty that he was to bring up the rear and stay as far back as possible, watching their backs and prepared to rush in if someone got injured—but to avoid fighting if he could help it. They had learned last year that Kronos’ forces in general didn’t care much about the conventional rules of war, but there was a chance that demigods would still have the human instinct to avoid hurting medics.

He still didn’t entirely get why he was on this mission if he wasn’t going to be more useful. Even if someone did get hurt, the twins could both heal pretty well in a pinch. Hanging back as the others charged in, he felt kind of unnecessary.

The other demigods were clearly caught off guard, not expecting to be visible. That meant even though the campers didn’t have the Mist, they did at least have the element of surprise. Only for the first thirty seconds—Kronos’ soldiers rallied quickly. But it was a critical thirty seconds.

It was a weird fight to watch, because the heavy Mist kept the camp flickering in and out, and once Clarisse, Darren, and Laura leapt down into the skate park and were fighting within its borders they would disappear too. It was a good thing Michael and the twins were so quick on the draw. They could shoot into the spaces that appeared fast enough to hit their marks pretty consistently. Here and there, a few black-armored demigods collapsed with arrows in their arms and legs, screaming, while others fell to Clarisse’s spear, Darren’s sword, and Laura’s mace.

Laura was the first camper to go down, taking a nasty sword slash across her thigh that had her falling hard on the concrete. Michael yelled at Will to go, so Will went, sprinting across the grass to duck through the Mist barrier as it flickered out again and praying he wouldn’t emerge in the middle of two swords. Fortunately he was able to keep out of anyone’s reach, weaving through the battle to crouch next to Laura. She was doing well—holding her leg, putting pressure on the cut. That was going a long way to staunch the bleeding, which could have been a lot worse.

“Can you crawl?” Will asked. Laura shook her head. “Okay. Can I—? Okay.” When she nodded, he got his hands under her arms and pulled her a little farther out of the way of direct combat. Setting a hand on her leg, he could tell the cut wasn’t deep, which was a good thing, but it would need stitches—a lot more than he could do right now. No time to make sure it was perfectly together. For now he focused on stopping the bleeding, speeding coagulation and knitting the flesh back together where he could.

“Ambrosia?” Laura asked hopefully as he bandaged her leg.

“Sure.” Will took out a plastic bag of squares and held it open so she could take one herself instead of having to take it from him when his hands were covered in blood. Her blood, to be fair, but still.

Around them, demigods were still fighting. A few more of Kronos’ minions had shown up with a flying chariot, which was unfortunate, because it meant now they were swooping around overhead firing arrows and dropping things that looked like round stones and had the effect of smoke grenades. The twins were down in the fray now, and when they weren’t shooting back at the chariot they were sabotaging the camp, seizing what supplies they could and destroying what they couldn’t. Will didn’t like it—a lot of Kronos’ demigods were already pretty badly injured under his siblings’ and the Ares kids’ not-so-tender ministrations, and making it harder for them to heal and recover went against all of his instincts—but he knew it was part of their assignment. They had to weaken Kronos’ forces however they could.

Meanwhile, Michael had somehow made his way up a tree to perch on a branch, perfectly balanced and not missing a shot. Clarisse was as terrifying as ever, and Will hadn’t realized until this moment that Darren was a swordsman almost to rival Percy—or Luke, in the good old days of Will’s first couple years at camp. At least he seemed like it. In Will’s assessment. He was kind of mesmerizing to watch, ducking and kicking and slashing in individual patterns of movement that each looked deceptively easy as he wove from one to the next.

“It’s this one!” Clarisse yelled suddenly. Will looked at her, pulled out of his distraction. She stood at the center of the skate park, holding a scrawny dark-haired boy in a headlock with a dagger at his throat. He was struggling, kicking at her, until she jabbed the point a little closer to his jaw—not enough to bleed, but it had to be enough to feel like a very real risk of death if he kept trying to move.

“Let him go, Clarisse!” another voice called. Will felt like the ground collapsed underneath him. It didn’t, of course, but hearing her felt like the concrete had crumbled away and he was falling through space.

A trio of demigods stood on the lip of the skate park at the far side from where the campers had charged. None of them was wearing a helmet, and Will realized he knew all of their faces. That was Max Kimball, who everyone was sure was Hermes’ son but had never been claimed, and Heather Ryle, a daughter of the minor god Aristaeus (who was technically Will's half-brother)—and they were flanking Izzy, who had an arrow nocked and aimed at Clarisse’s head.

Will had been right. This was, at least, better than her being dead. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt more than just about anything else ever had.

“Izzy, put it down!” Michael shouted. Izzy twisted, grabbed a different arrow, and fired at the trunk of his tree, setting it ablaze. Michael yelped and jumped down, landing hard on the ground—and wrong on his ankle, based on the way he cursed. Izzy had another arrow ready in the blink of an eye.

“Don’t!” Will cried out. Izzy spun around. Even from here he could see her eyes had gone wide.

“Will?” She looked between him and Michael. “Why would you bring him here?” she snapped at Michael. “He’s not a fighter!” Michael looked at Will, and Will realized: this. This was why. In case their fears were realized, and she was here. He must have been worried about this too.

“Izzy,” he said, standing up carefully, keeping both hands visible to those black-armored demigods who were still on their feet, “what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Will?” Izzy snapped.

“Betraying us!” Darren yelled. “Why aren’t you guys shooting her?” Michael did have his bow up and trained on Izzy again, wincing through whatever had happened to his ankle. Will was sure he could be quicker on the draw than she was, but her arrow was trained on him too—if he shot her now she would probably let go, and that he might not be fast enough to avoid.

Besides, Will doubted Michael would be able to kill his own sister. He hoped. The same went for the twins, but they had disappeared anyway. So had the flying chariot. Both seemed concerning, but Will wasn’t focused on that. “It looks like you’re working for Kronos,” he said, ignoring Darren. Well, the second half of what he’d said, anyway. “You did betray us. Why?”

“He spoke to me, and he told the truth,” said Izzy. Her expression changed as she said it, her eyes going a little dreamy for a second. Crucially, her limbs went loose and her bow lowered a couple of inches, her grip on the arrow slackening. Will glanced at Michael in that instant, terrified—but Michael didn’t shoot, though he kept a steady aim. His expression was conflicted. “That’s more than Dad’s ever done. When has Dad even bothered?”

“He helps us heal,” said Will, cautiously walking closer. “He answers our prayers. That’s a lot more than a lot of the gods do—” but Izzy’s face twisted into a sharper scowl.

“Do you hear yourself?” she said. “Like that’s a good thing. Because our dad sucks a little less than all the others, we should be grateful?”

“Uh, Izzy?” said Max, but she was too focused on Will, and her bow was trained on Michael again.

“Think about it, Will,” she said. The dreamy look had returned. “What has Dad ever done for you? Sure, he made you a healer—the best one, he took that away from me—” well, that hurt like she might as well have actually shot him. “But has he ever actually been there for you? Or for your mom?”

“Don’t listen to her, Will,” Michael called. Will shook his head. Like he was going to be convinced by any of this. Sure, Izzy had a point—his father hadn't given him the time of day since he was a little kid, just silently fulfilled healing prayers like he was in an office somewhere stamping forms without reading them—but that didn’t mean she was right in the grand scheme.

“This isn’t just about Dad,” he said. “This is about our whole family. You and me, Michael, Renee, Hannah. Lee. How could you join the people who killed Lee?”

“Dad let Lee die!” Izzy spat. “He could have saved him!” It felt like something shattered in Will’s chest.

“No, I let Lee die!” he said. “I couldn’t save him!” It came out so raw his throat hurt. Izzy’s eyes widened, and for a second every trace of Kronos’ influence was gone.

“No, it wasn’t your—” but she broke off, looking up. “Shit!” There was a great rush of wind as something very large swooped down out of the sky to land hard on the grass near Michael, flinging up clumps of dirt and grass. Will blinked at the two pegasi that definitely had not been standing up there two seconds ago.

“I tried to warn you,” said Max.

“Get in, losers!” said Sophie, grinning ear-to-ear. Silas, holding the reins, wore an identical expression. “We’re going chariot-flying.”

Everything happened very fast. Darren scooped Laura up into his arms like a child and ran for the chariot. Clarisse threw her captive over her shoulder and did the same while he, and the rest of his teammates, screamed at her to put him down. Sophie hopped out to help Michael climb up, while Silas snapped the reins to get the pegasi going.

“Will, come on!” he yelled. But Will, startled, had stayed still a second too long, because suddenly a hand grabbed the back of his t-shirt and yanked him up onto the lip of the skate park. Max had him in an iron grip. Apparently he was stronger than he looked, too, cause Will was a lot taller than he had been the last time he’d seen Max, and now they stood eye to eye.

“I bet you won’t leave without your precious healer!” Max yelled. Then he screamed something much more profane. In the blink of an eye, Michael had done what he did best and put an arrow in Max’s thigh. The son of (probably) Hermes fell and toppled down the curve of the skate park to collapse on the concrete, where he stayed, unmoving. It looked like he might have hit his head.

Fighting against the instinct that told him to run down and help a fellow camper, Will caught Darren’s hand when the chariot came by and helped pull himself up into it as the pegasi took flight. It was big enough for them all to huddle in the base while Clarisse and Silas stood at the front with the reins. Laura was resting, clutching her leg. Sophie and Darren were working on getting the Hecate kid, who was apparently going to be their prisoner now, bound and gagged. Sophie was weaving strips of tourniquet between his fingers, which was weird until Will figured maybe if his hands were just tied at the wrists he still could have used them to cast spells somehow. Michael was perched on the edge, bow at the ready.

“Circle around to the others,” Clarisse called. Silas did, flying over the bridge so Michael could whistle for the pegasi they’d ridden here. They seemed a little perturbed to be interrupted in their happy grazing, but still they reared and flapped their wings and joined them in the air.

An arrow whistled in the wind around them, then another. One caught the pegasus that had been Sophie’s in the ribcage, and they all watched, horrified, as he disintegrated into golden dust in midair. Below, Izzy was nocking two more arrows.

“Take her out!” Clarisse shouted. Michael hesitated, his face a mask of pain. That could have been his ankle, but Will didn’t think that was all of it. “Do it!”

“Fuck,” Michael whispered, and loosed an arrow. Will watched as it arced true, catching Izzy in the shoulder. The shot wasn’t fatal (Will doubted Michael had meant it to be), but it was effective; her own arrows fell short as she fell to her knees.

It would be a treatable wound, Will told himself. The kind he’d dealt with lots of times. Though of course, for that to really be true there would have to be another healer in the camp. Will had no idea if there was.

“Don’t worry,” Laura told him grimly as they turned northeast and Philadelphia faded from view. “I’m sure we’ll see them again.”

They arrived back at camp to a ton of excitement. It didn’t feel warranted, but Will tried to put on… at least a less-miserable face for his younger siblings as they swarmed the chariot.

“This is so cool!” Austin exclaimed. “Whose is it?”

“Ours,” Clarisse and Sophie both said at the same time. Clarisse glowered down at Sophie; Michael hopped down from the chariot—his ankle wasn’t broken, thankfully, just badly sprained, and Will had gotten it stabilized on the flight east—and stepped between them, glowering back up at her.

“It’s ours,” he said. “Sophie and Silas captured it. I didn’t see you helping.”

“It was my mission,” Clarisse said dangerously.

“It was our mission!”

“Guys,” said Renee, stepping in, “we can argue about this later. Was Izzy there?” she asked Michael. His face fell, and he nodded.

“You were right. They got her.”

“Damn it.” Renee looked at Will. She must have had some kind of prophetic hunch, he realized—most of them got those once in a while, since it was one of their dad’s domains, but Renee got the most, and was the best at recognizing and interpreting them. Right now Will almost wished she wasn’t. “Are you okay?” she asked. He shrugged.

“Not really,” he admitted. “But I have to go finish fixing Laura’s leg. Come on.” Before Renee could step in to try and comfort him—he was beyond comfort right now—he turned and walked away, beckoning to the other two children of Ares. Darren, carrying Laura again, followed him to the Big House.

“Michael and Sophie aren’t serious about the chariot thing, right?” he asked once Laura was safely deposited on a cot. “Our cabin led the mission. We get first pick of the loot. It’s tradition.”

“I don’t know,” said Will. He knew it was tradition, but in his opinion it was a stupid tradition, especially when Sophie and Silas had done all the work of actually capturing the chariot. He agreed with Renee, though—he wasn’t inclined to get into it right now.

“Whatever.” Darren jogged back out of the infirmary. Will turned to Laura.

“You’re going to need stitches,” he told her. She made a face.

“Fine. Let’s get it over with.”

No one in the Apollo cabin slept very well that night, or any of the next few. Michael told everyone what had happened, what he and Will had learned—Renee quietly told Will later she wished he hadn’t, or at least hadn’t explained it so bluntly, because it only upset the younger kids. Hannah and Xavier were especially distraught. They had spent the most time in the infirmary learning healing after Will, and for the first time he realized they missed Izzy as much as he did.

Increasingly there were a lot of things Will (and, he suspected, Renee and Jasper) wished Michael hadn’t said or done. The longer he and Clarisse went back and forth about the chariot, the more incandescent Michael’s anger grew. Sophie and Silas, indignant over having their prize claimed by people who’d had no direct part in winning it, fanned the flames. Kayla and Austin and the other younger kids got in on it mainly because they thought it was really fun to get to ride in the chariot and drop stinkbombs on the roof of the Ares cabin, which did nothing to improve Clarisse’s mood. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.

As much as Will felt Michael and the twins were right about the chariot, he had to admit there were probably better ways to convince Clarisse of their right to it without, uh, starting a war. In the middle of another, bigger war. But that was what seemed to be happening, and no one could stop it. Chris, Silena, and Beckendorf tried and failed to talk Clarisse down, while Renee, Katie, and the Stolls tried to reason with Michael. It was weird to see Katie and the Stolls on the same side of something for once. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough: their best efforts didn’t work either.

“Are you mad at each other now too?” Lou Ellen asked Will and Mark on day three of hostilities.

“I’m a little mad this asshole keeps healing his siblings after we take them down,” said Mark, elbowing Will in the shoulder. “Be nice if they’d quit respawning.” Will rolled his eyes.

“Are we talking about how much we hate Will now for being an Apollo kid?” Sherman asked, joining them. “Cause yeah, grr. Super mad.” He shoved at Will’s other shoulder, jokingly ineffectual.

“Y’all are idiots,” Will told them.

“Well, there’s a lot of that going around,” said Olivia.

“Hey,” said Mark. “Watch your mouth about our big sister.” Olivia rolled her eyes. The two of them seemed to have emerged from fireworks night still as just friends, if a little more awkward now. Will wasn't sure how he felt about that, any more than he had been at any stage of this mostly-unspoken drama. He probably should have been relieved, and he was, sort of—but it wasn’t like there was anything to really be relieved about. Mark seemed very obviously straight. Maybe if he and Olivia had ended up dating it would have been easier for Will to push his own stupid feelings down.

“I didn’t say I was talking about Clarisse,” Olivia said now, “but if the shoe fits.”

“Hey!” a voice yelled. They all spun around to see Clarisse storming towards them. Speak of the devil, Will thought. “What do the two of you think you’re doing, talking to him?”

“Who, us?” said Sherman as Clarisse grabbed them by the necks of their t-shirts like kittens and dragged them away. Mark was tall, but Clarisse was taller. It would have been funny to watch if the whole thing hadn’t sucked.

“Will, quit fraternizing with the enemy!” Michael yelled from somewhere overhead. Will looked up to see the chariot flying by. They just had to keep flaunting it.

“Di immortales, they’re not your enemy!” Olivia yelled back. “Kronos is the enemy!”

“Yeah,” Kayla called down, “but right now we’re fighting them, and if Will’s in the way it makes it harder to aim!”

While the other campers took sides mainly to counsel and goad, Annabeth and the Athena cabin stayed out of the whole thing, which struck Will as, well, wise. Of course, Annabeth also seemed a little distracted by the fact that Percy was, apparently, on vacation from camp. No one was sure when to expect him back. They just figured he had to show up before his birthday, August 18th—and since that was next week, he was getting uncomfortably down to the wire. When he finally did come back, walking out of the Atlantic scorched and shaken and bearing the gut-wrenchingly awful news that Beckendorf was dead and someone at camp was a spy, everyone almost dared to hope that might be enough to knock some sense back into Clarisse and Michael.

It wasn’t.

“We’re about to be fighting a battle for Olympus without enough medical supplies to heal everyone if this goes on any longer,” Will pointed out to Michael as he sat on the porch of the Apollo cabin, healing his big brother of a sword wound for the fifth time in two days.

“Maybe Clarisse should’ve thought of that,” Michael muttered.

“Clarisse isn’t the one whose cabin will get the blame,” Will said tightly. Michael’s face turned stormy.

“You got a problem, Will? Voice it.”

“I just did,” Will snapped. “We’re running low on bandages, nectar, hemostatics—you name it. Right when we’re down our best healer, too.”

“Wrong. We’ve got our best healer right here,” said Michael, cuffing him in the shoulder. Will glared at him. After what Izzy had said in Philadelphia, hearing Michael call him the best just put a horrible feeling of guilt in his stomach.

“Look, I can voice my problems all day, but is there anything I can say that’ll get you to actually take them seriously?”

“We’re going to be fine,” Michael assured him. “We beat Luke—er, Kronos’ army, last year. We’ll do it again.”

“Without Ares’ kids?” Will said doubtfully.

“They’re a bunch of blowhards,” said Michael, which wasn’t really an answer to the question. “All bark, no bite.”

“This wound sure seems like some bite,” Will pointed out. Before Michael could respond, there was the sound of a very big explosion from the direction of the Ares cabin, then screaming. Michael sprang up.

“Shit, what was that?” He ran off, Will close behind.

What it was, was that the Ares cabin was on the front lawn of their cabin with a giant grenade launcher aimed at Kayla and the twins. The sole two archers in the Ares cabin were out too, shooting into the air. The pegasi were panicking, the chariot rocking back and forth precariously; Will could see Kayla clinging on for dear life.

“Stop it!” Will yelled before he quite knew what he was doing, running up to Mark, who was nocking an arrow next to his sister Dana. “What are you doing?” Mark shoved him away so hard he fell to the ground.

“Fuck off, all right? / You don’t even fight!” he yelled. So the rhyming couplets hadn’t worn off yet. Or Sophie had reupped the curse. She was way too proud of it. Winded and furious, Will pulled himself back to standing.

“What, you’re going to shoot them out of the air?” Renee had followed them from the cabin, and now she was yelling at Clarisse. Will had never heard her sound like this. “You can’t do that! They’re kids!”

“Those stupid kids have been firebombing our cabin!” Clarisse snapped. “You want us to just sit here and take it?” Apparently she wasn’t afflicted. Maybe Mark had just been unfortunate enough to get hit with a cursed arrow or something.

“So if you can’t have the chariot you’d rather destroy it?” said Michael. “What’s wrong with you?” Before anyone could answer, Mark’s arrow zipped through the air, and then there was a horrible scream. It was Sophie: the arrow had lodged in her shoulder. Knocked off balance, she toppled off the back of the chariot and fell at least two stories to land hard on the ground. There was a horrible cracking sound. She didn’t move.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Will screamed at Mark before he quite knew what he was saying. Mark looked stunned.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Save it.” Will ran to Sophie’s side, shoving Ares kids out of the way. They all looked too shocked to protest.

Sophie was breathing shallowly and with great effort. Mark’s arrow had mostly broken off when she fell, leaving just an inch or two of the shaft outside her skin. The arrowhead had lodged deep in the flesh of her shoulder, scraping her collarbone. Her leg was clearly broken from how wrongly it was bent, and from setting his hands on his sister’s torso Will could tell she had four broken ribs. One had punctured a lung.

At least her spine was intact. That had been his fear, hearing the crack—that and her skull, after Lee. Will couldn’t lose someone else that way. He just couldn’t. Kayla and Silas must have regained control of the chariot enough to land, because Silas ran over to kneel next to his twin, eyes bright with terror.

“Is she okay?” he asked Will. Sophie coughed, drawing his attention, and reached up weakly to take his hand.

“I’m okay,” she said hoarsely. “It’ll take more than that to kill me.”

“That’s right. We’re going to get you to the infirmary,” Will told her. He looked up. No one was moving. “Well, gods of Olympus, someone get a stretcher!” he snapped. A couple of people ran off—he wasn’t even sure who they were, what cabins they were from. They were back within moments, lowering the stretcher near where Sophie was struggling to breathe. Mark was with them, still looking stunned, and deeply guilty. Good, Will thought furiously. He had better be.

“Sophie, I’m sorry,” Mark said, “that wasn’t planned for me.”

“That phrasing doesn’t really make sense,” Silas pointed out, helping Renee and Kayla lift Sophie onto the stretcher. Will kept a hand on her ribcage as they stood to carry her to the Big House, wanting to be sure he would know if anything worsened internally on the way up.

“Please don’t ignore me,” said Mark, still in the poorly-executed rhyme.

“Fuck off,” Will told him as they walked away. He wasn’t sure he’d been this furious with anyone in his life. Even though it was Mark—in fact, he thought he was this mad because it was Mark. If nothing else, friends didn’t shoot friends’ sisters out of the sky.

“I hope you’re happy now,” he could hear Michael shouting at Clarisse. Renee was still yelling too.

“Fuck you,” Clarisse yelled back. “You know what? Fuck all of you. I hope you all die.”

Will spent the rest of the afternoon in the infirmary doing one of his least favorite things: trying to heal wounds he couldn’t see. He didn’t count on much help from Apollo—the gods of Olympus were all a little busy fighting Typhon. Instead he tried to do all he could himself.

For the most part it went well. He got the ribs that had punctured Sophie’s lung knit back together, and the puncture sealed, the lung re-formed. By that time he was a lot calmer—healing could be so meditative—and also deeply, deeply exhausted, in a way he wouldn’t have been if he’d been able to lean on his father’s divine intervention.

Will didn’t know how they were going to heal everyone who would need it when it came to an actual battle with Kronos at this point, if Apollo wasn’t available to answer all their prayers. He supposed he could try Asclepius, the god of medicine—technically, his brother. Last he’d heard Asclepius was one minor god who was still on the Olympians’ side. He should probably write himself a note to remember before the ADHD knocked that bright idea back out of his head as fast as it had appeared.

He’d put Sophie out hours ago so she could be unconscious for the worst of it, and once he’d been sufficiently reassured that his twin would be fine, Silas had gone to help Kayla and Michael with repairs on the chariot from where the Ares cabin’s grenades and arrows had gotten it. So, the infirmary was dead silent when Will sat down on the next cot over, head spinning. He recognized the signs of healing burnout now, and knew his first step should be to eat something, but he didn’t have anything right on hand, so for now he just sat.

That was another thing, for the inevitable battle. They should all be carrying granola bars or something along with their medical supplies. He grabbed a prescription pad to use as a notepad. Not that formal prescriptions themselves mattered that much here, where they wrote and filled them themselves, but Renee and Izzy used them anyway to make sure they had records of who had been given what, when.

No. Will couldn’t think about Izzy right now.

A few minutes later, help arrived in the form of Renee, knocking on the frame of the open infirmary door. She took one look at him and said,

“I diagnose burnout. That sound right to you, patient?” Will nodded. “Okay. Let’s get you to the kitchen.”

“The Big House has a kitchen?” Will asked.

“Course it does,” said Renee, “it’s the Big House.” She led him through the infirmary’s interior door and down a hallway he’d never explored before. A door at the end did indeed open onto a kitchen. “Not that it’s all that well-stocked,” she amended—“PB&J okay with you?” Will just nodded. Renee was nice enough to let him sit at the kitchen table while she made three sandwiches. Two she put on a plate and handed to him; the other one she kept for herself.

They sat on the back porch to eat. Will wolfed down the first sandwich in what felt like seconds, then took his time on the other. Renee set her own empty plate aside.

“You doing better? Good,” she said when he nodded. “I’ve never seen you lose your temper like that, earlier.”

“Same to you,” said Will. Renee sighed.

“Yeah, I’m not proud of that,” she admitted. “It wasn’t helpful, and we may live to regret it. How about you?” she asked. “How are you doing now?” Will didn’t answer right away, having just shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth. Chewing gave him time to think, which unfortunately meant time for some of his anger to come back as his blood sugar did.

“Why did you have to put Michael in charge last year?” he asked her. “This never would have gone like this if you were head counselor. Would it? You would’ve just given Clarisse the chariot.”

“Yeah, I would,” Renee agreed after a moment. “But I don’t know if that would be a good thing. We still need Michael in charge for all the reasons it’s a problem right now. We’re at war, and in war he stands his ground.”

“Good generals should listen to their lieutenants,” said Will.

“He is. I don’t hear anyone else saying let’s capitulate,” Renee pointed out. “Do you think we should give Clarisse the chariot?” Will was silent. He wanted to say yes, because as far as he knew Renee was always right—but in principle, his answer was no. Plus he was mad about it, now more than ever. “See,” said Renee.

“If no one from the Ares cabin will fight, we’re all going to die,” Will said. It was the obvious thing no one would seem to admit.

“Maybe,” said Renee. “Even if they do fight, we might all still die. Or,” she added, “we’ll do the impossible, which demigods seem to do a lot, and we’ll pull through. Either way it’s up to the Fates.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Will muttered.

“Power of prophecy’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” said Renee. “All of life is up to the Fates. I’m sorry to have to tell you.” Will almost smiled. Almost.

“We’re so fucked,” he said, looking out at Half-Blood Hill.

“That’s another thing,” said Renee, cuffing him gently in the arm. “When did you start using that kind of language, young man?” She was clearly mostly joking.

“Since we became so fucked,” said Will. Renee nodded.

“It does seem like we’re pretty fucked,” she agreed. “But don’t give up on us yet. We can’t fight if we lose our Will.”

“Ha, ha,” said Will.

“Come here.” Moving their plates out of the way, his big sister pulled him into a hug. Will was a couple inches taller than her now after how much he’d grown in the last year, but just like with his mom last fall, he still felt small in her arms. “If we all die, at least we’ll go down fighting, and we’ll all be together,” she said. “That’s the best we can do, and we’re gonna do it. Yeah?” Will nodded.

“Yeah.” He looked up at Thalia’s pine, the Golden Fleece gleaming in its branches. Renee had a point. Demigods did do impossible things all the time.

Chapter Text

“Fine,” said Michael on the morning they heard the apocalypse was about to start. “I’ll give the bitch the fucking chariot.”

“Okay,” said Renee. “Maybe don’t say it that way when you tell her?"

“No promises,” Michael said through gritted teeth, and stalked out of the cabin.

"And don't talk that way about our friends generally!" Renee yelled after him.

"She's not my friend!" Michael yelled back.

“It’s not going to work,” said Jasper.

“Shut up, Jasper,” said Will. He was right, of course, and they all knew it; that didn’t mean he had to call the outcome down upon them out loud. They were all supposed to be doing their best to keep morale up.

It didn’t work. Michael returned to the cabin stone-faced, but it was like the argument with Clarisse had invigorated him—rather than demoralized, he was more determined than ever. They all put on their armor, got their weapons and healing supplies in order (Will made sure everyone had a couple of granola bars in their pockets), and loaded up in the vans to drive to the city.

While Kayla and Austin sang along to the mix CD of upbeat psych-up music Michael had conjured up, possibly literally, to blast on the way, Will leaned his head on the van window and wondered if this was the last time he’d get to look out at the woods flying by along the Long Island Expressway. This morning he’d waited his turn to get to use camp’s one and only phone to call his mom in Texas. When she’d picked up, he hadn’t known what to say. What was there to say to the person who’d given birth to you, who’d fed and clothed and raised and loved you for almost fourteen years of life, when the reason you were calling was to let them know that life might be about to end?

Naomi knew, though. Parents didn’t usually get phone calls from camp unless their kids had died, or were about to go do something so dangerous they’d probably die. When Will thought about it, he realized probably a lot of campers’ mortal parents knew exactly what they would say to their kids when they got that call, hoping they would be lucky enough to get the second version.

So Will’s mom told him she loved him, and was so proud of him. She said she knew his dad was looking out for him, and she’d be praying—and she asked him to try and come home safe, but she promised even if he didn’t she would still love him forever. He could barely tell her he loved her back, then, because if he tried to talk too much he would start crying.

There was one thing Will thought about saying, and maybe should have, but didn’t. He didn’t want to tell his mom he was gay over the phone, especially when he wasn’t 100% sure how she would react. He was pretty sure it would be okay, but if it wasn’t—if she reacted badly—he didn’t want that to be the last conversation for either of them. Better to just tell her he loved her, and let her tell him the same, and leave it there.

If he made it out of Manhattan, they could have that talk later, and if he didn’t, well. What would it have mattered anyway?

For now, there was something really cathartic about screaming “I’m just a kid, and life is a nightmare!” along with Michael’s magic CD. It was a weird mix of pop, hip-hop, and punk rock; as far as Will could tell, all the songs had in common with each other was a pounding beat and being very loud. This one in particular was more the twins’ kind of music than Will’s—well, Silas’, here and now; Sophie was still in the infirmary recovering from her injuries.

She was really mad about that. She wanted to fight with the rest of them, and had been cursing the entire Ares cabin in both English and Ancient Greek when Will left the infirmary for what was hopefully not going to be the last time. Their little sisters Hannah and Teresa were also there, tasked with watching over her. Michael had wanted to bring Teresa because she was a pretty good archer, but she was even younger than Hannah—not Kayla, but there was no stopping Kayla from going today—so at the look of terror on her face, Renee and Will had talked him into letting her stay behind.

Now those three were the only kids out of the entire Apollo cabin not headed into the city. If no one in the van came back—well, really, if no one in the van came back that probably meant no one was coming back at all, on the scale of their whole civilization. So maybe that wouldn’t make a difference either.

Everyone who was in the van was in a different mood. Michael looked surprisingly relaxed in the shotgun seat, sitting back with one foot braced on the dashboard, while Renee was somber in the seat behind him, staring out the window. Next to her, Silas was breaking every seatbelt law to lean over the back of his seat and crack jokes with Gabriel and Leah, who was trying to smile but also kind of looked like she might throw up. Hard to say if that was nerves or motion sickness. Meanwhile, Jasper was on edge and kept snapping at anyone who tried to talk to him. Will was glad he wasn’t sitting up front with him and Renee.

Xavier, Kayla, and Austin, the three youngest in the van, were downright giddy. They and some of the Hephaestus campers sharing the van were all laughing and singing along to the music at the top of their lungs:

“BUT NOW I’M STRONGER! THAN YESTERDAY! NOW IT’S NOTHING BUT MY WAY! MY LONELINESS AIN’T KILLIN’ ME NO MORE!”

They were so little, Will thought. Not so much literally—Kayla was only about five feet tall, but Austin and Xavier were both growing as fast as he was, just a year or two behind—and it wasn’t like they were even that much younger than him, but glancing at them he thought they looked like any regular, happy kids. Like the war had never touched them.

It wasn’t true, of course. Will knew Kayla still cried herself to sleep some nights in the bunk above his, even if they didn’t talk about it much anymore. Xavier had looked like he’d seen a ghost ever since they got back from the chariot mission with the bad news, and Austin seemed to have gotten some power of prophecy in a really bad way with how much worse his nightmares could be than anyone else’s. But right now, no one would have known the difference.

Privately Will swore to himself that if anyone was making it out of Manhattan, it was them. He’d put his own body between them and the monsters if he had to. No twelve-year-old should die this week.

Those who hadn’t been quiet before quieted down as they drove through Brooklyn and into Manhattan. By the time the van stopped at the foot of the Empire State Building, the only sound came from the CD player, still blasting ‘Eye of the Tiger.’ When the ignition shut off and the music abruptly stopped, there was a very loud silence before everyone broke into nervous giggles. Even Renee and Jasper smiled a little.

“Okay,” Michael said when they’d all calmed down. “Let’s do this.” Stepping onto the sidewalk, Will found he felt a lot better—it was like everyone had gotten some of the jitters out of their systems.

Will hadn’t been to Olympus before. Most people here today hadn’t, except maybe a few of the oldest counselors. People found themselves there when returning from big quests sometimes—as far as anyone else knew, Olympus was probably like a second home to Percy and Annabeth at this point—but the last time regular campers had been allowed to visit was the winter solstice three years ago. After the whole master bolt incident, with conflict on the rise, Chiron or the gods or whoever made the call hadn’t signed off on any more field trips.

Now all forty or so of them—almost the whole remaining group this summer, minus those who were too little, wounded, or the entire worthless Ares cabin—shuffled through the doors of the Empire State Building. Percy bribed the guard at the lobby desk, and they crowded towards the elevator. The first group to go up was mostly the counselors and other senior campers. Jasper and Silas pushed forward to go with Michael. Will hung back with Renee and the younger kids. They’d get their turn.

“How long does it take to get all the way up there?” Kayla asked.

“Can’t be too long,” said Josh from the Hermes cabin. “It’s only the six hundredth floor.” A ripple of nervous laughter passed around the twenty of them still assembled in the lobby. About five minutes after the elevator doors closed behind the first group, there was a ding and they slid back open.

Will had been standing close to the doors, so he got squished into the back of the elevator. Kayla got smushed into his side, and he was glad to look over and see Olivia and Lou Ellen had managed to push through to stand near him on the other.

“Missed you on the van ride,” said Olivia. “We were playing I Spy.”

“Never play I Spy with Hermes’ kids,” said Lou Ellen. “They’re the worst rules lawyers.”

“Never play any game with Hermes’ kids,” said Nyssa from the Hephaestus cabin, who’d been in the van with the Apollo kids on the way out, to a wave of boos from the Hermes kids in the elevator.

“What about you guys?” Olivia asked, rolling her eyes along with her siblings.

“We were listening to Michael’s psych-up music,” said Will. “You know, ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and stuff.”

“Should’ve had this on there,” said Olivia, jerking her head to indicate the music playing in the elevator. It was ‘Stayin’ Alive’. “This should be, like, our theme music for this trip.” A couple people started singing along jokingly.

“Hey, speaking of which, a first aid tip,” Will realized, raising his voice so everyone would hear. “If you’re trying to do CPR, which—well, if you haven’t been trained, you should go find a counselor or someone from Cabin 7—but in an absolute emergency, this is a good song to time the compressions to.”

“Thanks for the tip, Dr. Solace,” Josh said a little mockingly. Will felt his face going red.

“It’s just a good thing to know,” he said weakly. “Aside from the song being, you know, inspirational.”

“You might say it’s aspirational,” Renee suggested, and after a beat a bunch of campers got it and laughed, Will included.

The elevator chimed, the doors opened, and they all went silent again as they stepped out onto a marble walkway and gazed up at Olympus, awestruck. Whatever Will had ever imagined the mountain might look like, the reality surpassed it.

The first group of campers were waiting for them outside the elevator. Percy led the way and the camp followed, moving in small groups up floating stairs towards the city of golden palaces and gardens.

“Wow,” Kayla whispered, keeping in step beside Will. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Which one do you think is Dad’s house?” Austin asked. Will had no idea. Renee, though, pointed up and to their left.

“It’s somewhere up there,” she said. “I don’t remember which palace exactly—they sort of all look the same. But I remember the garden. Full of hyacinths and marigolds.” She sounded a little sad.

“Whoa, you’ve been there?” Kayla asked, wide-eyed.

“Yeah.” Renee sighed wistfully. “When I was your age. We visited at the summer solstice once, you know, before, and Dad took me and Lee and Jess to visit his palace.” Jess Harper had been head counselor Will’s first year at camp, before she left to go to college and Lee took over. The three of them had seemed kind of like gods themselves back then, to him—all-knowing, superpowered, inseparable. He knew Jess and Renee still talked sometimes.

“What is that?” Pollux yelled suddenly from up ahead, pointing into the sky. When Will looked, there were little lights flying through the sky toward them. Some of the other campers ducked instinctively, but the lights fizzled out before they got too close. They kind of reminded Will of those fireworks that traced wiggly lines into the sky, except blue instead of gold.

The counselors seemed to decide that if the lights weren’t coming near them, they weren’t something to be worried about. Percy beckoned, and everyone walked on up into the city. It was obvious where they were headed: the giant palace at the peak. As they walked up the steps, through the open doors, and into the throne room, it was like Will’s breath fled his chest.

“Oh my gods,” Leah whispered, “look—Dad’s throne.” All the thrones were enormous, the seats higher than Will’s head, and they were all magnificent to look at. In fact, Apollo’s was kind of hard to look at—it was plated in gold so brightly-polished it reflected light like, well, the sun.

Will had met his father a few times as a younger kid, the most recent time his first summer at camp. He could pretty clearly picture him lounging in the throne, the enormous golden sunburst at the top of the high back ringing his head like a halo. It tugged at his chest a little—he wished Apollo was here right now, to help them out and tell them everything was going to be all right.

Which was the whole point of this journey, after all. Now that they had arrived in the gods’ throne room, they just needed to get in touch with Zeus. So, up in front of the crowd, Percy was bowing before a… little girl?

“Lady Hestia,” he said. Oh—of course. The goddess of the hearth. Will had seen her from a distance before, tending the fire at camp. He had never spoken to her himself, but Renee seemed to know her pretty well, and had pointed her out. Quickly, everyone else bowed too.

“I see you went through with your plan,” Hestia said to Percy. “You bear the curse of Achilles.” Will frowned. The main things he knew about Achilles were that he had fought in the Trojan War and been in love with Patroclus. Neither of those things seemed like curses. Aside from the part where they had both died tragically, anyway.

“What’s the curse of Achilles?” he whispered to Renee. She looked equally confused.

“I’m not sure. A lot of bad things happened to Achilles towards the end.” Not reassuring. Whatever Hestia meant, maybe it was what made Percy almost collapse where he stood. Annabeth caught him.

He recovered quickly. “Lady Hestia,” he said, sounding very authoritative, “we’ve come on urgent business. We need to see—”

“We know what you need,” said a voice that could only come from a god. The air shimmered next to Hestia, and suddenly Hermes was standing beside her. A frisson of excitement went through the Hermes campers, who all stood a little taller, looking at their father hopefully. Glancing at them, Will saw Lou Ellen’s mouth turn down a little in their midst. She looked at the ground.

Hestia vanished. Percy parlayed with Hermes. Well, he tried:

“We need to talk to Zeus. It’s important.”

“I am his messenger,” Hermes said coldly. “May I take a message?” There was a long, awkward pause. Everyone looked at each other. The Hermes cabin deflated a little.

“You guys,” said Percy, “why don’t you do a sweep of the city? Check the defenses. See who’s left in Olympus. Meet Annabeth and me back here in thirty minutes.”

“But—” Silena started to say. The Stolls looked a little mutinous, too, until Annabeth quickly added,

“That’s a good idea. Connor and Travis, you two lead.” That got them right back on board.

“We’re on it!” said Travis, and started ushering everyone else back out of the throne room like the whole thing had been his idea. With a last fleeting glance at his father’s throne, Will adjusted his bag on his shoulder and walked out with his siblings.

The cabins re-formed outside the palace, families gravitating towards each other as they split off into groups for reconnaissance. Michael surveyed the nine Apollo kids assembled before him.

“Okay,” he said. “Silas, Will, Leah, and Austin, you guys come with me. Renee, take everyone else and go west.” Kayla and Austin looked disappointed to be separated, as did Silas and Jasper. Silas gave Will a resentful look as he stepped up to walk alongside him where Jasper had been.

Even though they weren’t far apart in age and the twins had started at camp just a month or two after him, Will and Silas had never been close. Nor him and Sophie. It wasn’t for lack of trying on his part, at least not at first—but the twins had never really given him the time of day. Part of that was because they spent most of their time together, so much that it was kind of weird seeing Silas in the wild without Sophie.

But it wasn’t like they weren’t close to any of their other siblings, or friends from the other cabins. No, Will suspected it ran a little deeper with him. Showing up at a magical camp for demigods where you got to be part of a big happy family and do cool stuff, only to learn you had another brother born the same year as you—that while your mom was pregnant with you, your divine deadbeat dad had been off falling for someone else and having another kid with her—couldn’t be the best feeling in the world.

So Will got it. Except for how he didn’t. It wasn’t like he held the same thing against Leah. It wasn’t any of their faults.

The group of siblings made their way down the road, veering off to the east while Renee did what Michael had said and took the other party west. They walked down pretty lanes lined with columns and gardens with jasmine that somehow smelled even better than the regular kind, past a grove of olive trees, and found themselves in a park made up of several terraces at the base of the mountain. It was so beautiful up here Will found himself feeling calmer almost in spite of himself. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way—every demigod he saw looked looser, happier, than when they had come up in the elevator. It was hard to imagine fighting a war when they were surrounded by such splendor.

Along the way they saw almost no one and nothing, save for a few nymphs—all of whom turned and hastened away at the sight of them, not staying to talk. Considering what some of the myths about their dad were like, Will supposed he couldn’t blame them. In the park, Leah and Silas hopped down the terraces while Michael stood atop the low stone wall with his arms crossed, craning his neck back to look up at the palace. Will looked out at the clouds, and beyond them the dark sky, trying not to think too hard about how they could breathe this far up into the atmosphere. At least the blue lights seemed to have stopped. He assumed that was a good thing.

“Uh, guys?” Leah called from the terrace below them. She was perched on the metal ring at the base of a pair of park binoculars, looking through them. “This is weird.”

“What’s weird?” Michael jumped down and jogged over, the rest of them right behind him. Leah just pointed down over the guardrail. Michael stepped up onto the ring as she hopped back down and looked through the binoculars himself. Then he put his fingers to his lips and whistled so shrilly everyone winced and covered their ears. He’d taught those who could get the hang of it to do that in preparation for needing to signal each other in battle. It had made for a really unpleasant night in the cabin—and probably all the other cabins around them too.

“Gods almighty, what?” a Stoll’s voice yelled from the street about fifty feet up.

“Get down here,” Michael called. “And somebody go get Percy and Annabeth. They need to see this.”

“What’s going on?” Will asked. They all took turns at the next pair of binoculars over, surveying the city. From up here it looked like everything had just… stopped. Cars frozen in traffic, people collapsed on the sidewalks.

“What did they do to my city?” Percy snarled when he appeared, shoving Michael out of the way to see for himself.

“Are they dead?” Silena asked, having asked much more politely to look through the binoculars Will had been using.

“Not dead,” Percy said after an awful pause. He looked up. “Morpheus has put the entire island of Manhattan to sleep. The invasion has begun.”

With that, the nervous energy in the park skyrocketed again. The counselors were efficient about herding their cabins back into formation, not that it took much effort—everyone was pretty much quiet and compliant suddenly, too freaked-out not to be. A fringe benefit of not having the Ares cabin around, Will thought sourly as he walked back across the bridge to the elevator with Kayla and Austin on either side. Everything went more smoothly and a lot less noisily.

They went back down in roughly the same groups. This time Will wound up squished in between Connor Stoll and Josh, which was not as comforting as being stuck with Kayla and Olivia had been.

“Keep an eye on your pockets, Will,” Lou Ellen advised from the other side of Josh. Will looked at Connor suspiciously. Connor winked. Will looked down again, praying his face wouldn’t turn red. There was nothing in his pockets that was really worth stealing anyway, and he was pretty sure even they wouldn’t be able to pickpocket his medicine bag.

They regrouped in the street on Fifth Avenue. It was getting to be very late in the evening. If Will had been able to feel anything in his stomach but anxiety, he supposed he should have been hungry—dinnertime must have been a while ago now.

The counselors huddled around Annabeth’s shield, which apparently worked kind of like a crystal ball now. When they turned back to the rest of the campers, their faces looked grim. Kronos’ forces were on the way, and the gods weren’t. It was on them to hold Manhattan.

“They have boats,” Michael pointed out. Percy’s eyes gleamed in the dying daylight.

“I’ll take care of the boats,” he said.

“How?” Michael asked. Unnecessarily, in Will's opinion. Of course the son of Poseidon could deal with boats.

“Just leave it to me,” Percy promised. “We need to guard the bridges and tunnels. Let’s assume they’ll try a midtown or downtown assault, at least on their first try. That would be the most direct way to the Empire State Building.” He pointed at Michael. “Take Apollo’s cabin to the Williamsburg Bridge.”

“Yes, sir,” said Michael, stepping back to join ranks beside Renee and Jasper as Percy continued to assign defensive positions to the other cabins. Will looked down at Kayla as she seized his hand, gripping it tightly.

“You okay?” he whispered. She nodded. “Austin?” Will asked. Austin was on Kayla’s other side. His eyes were very wide.

“Guess I’ll get to see how good I am in a fight,” he said.

“You two are going to be fine,” Will promised them. It was maybe a stupid promise to make when all he could do to keep it was his best, and that might not be enough—but he’d already promised it to himself, so he figured he might as well.

“Percy,” Jake Mason was saying, “you forgot the Lincoln Tunnel.” Percy’s eyes widened. An awful pause hung heavy on all of them until a girl’s voice broke it.

“How about you leave that to us?” Thalia Grace called. The Hunters of Artemis had appeared on the other side of the street. Now they crossed it to join ranks with the campers.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Renee murmured. Thalia, Percy, and Annabeth were exchanging greetings and hugs, and with the Hunters’ arrival, the problem went away as soon as it had appeared.

“Those monsters won’t know what hit them,” said Thalia, grinning. “Hunters, move out!” When she touched a bracelet on her arm, suddenly she was holding a shield with a horribly real imitation of the head of Medusa at the center. Kayla yelped in terror and backed away so fast she almost pulled Will and Austin off their feet. She wasn’t the only one freaked out by the shield—all around them, campers were scrambling away.

“Whoa,” said Will. “Careful.”

“Sorry!” said Kayla.

With the Hunters gone, all eyes fell back on Percy. “You’re the greatest heroes of the millennium,” he told them. “It doesn’t matter how many monsters come at you. Fight bravely, and we will win!” He said it with such conviction Will found a small core of hope blossom in his chest for the first time in weeks. Thrusting his sword into the air, Percy yelled, “For Olympus!”

“For Olympus!” everyone yelled back. Will screamed it so loud his throat hurt. When the echo faded, they were left in dead silence again. Well—sleeping silence.

“All right, everybody!” Michael called, turning to face the cabin. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Will didn’t know New York very well. He’d only been here a handful of times, and always with his mom or older campers deciding where to go and figuring out how to get there. He’d spent a lot of time looking at maps in preparation for this—they all had—but things looked really different from the ground. If someone had asked him to navigate around Manhattan, he wouldn’t have had a clue where he was going.

He suspected that was about to change very quickly. Assuming they didn’t all die on this bridge.

“All right,” said Michael when they arrived at the western end. “We’re here.” He hopped up on the hood of a Toyota, looking out over the bridge, then turned back to face the rest of them. “We have to assume the enemy will hit us at every point. The boats are down, but there’ll still be land forces trying to get in at every bridge and tunnel. They’ll be trying to find the weak spot. Well, it’s not gonna be us. Right?” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Okay. We don’t know how long we have until they show up, so let’s get to work.”

After some discussion, Michael decided they should set up their defensive line halfway across the bridge. That would leave them with plenty of space to retreat if they needed to while still keeping the enemy far from Manhattan. The oldest kids with the most combat experience—Michael, Renee, Jasper, and Silas—would be out front, with the younger archers—Gabriel, Leah, Kayla, and Austin—behind them. Will and Xavier would be on call as medics at the back. Of course, since there were only ten of them, and since the Geneva Conventions really didn’t apply when fighting monsters, there was no doubt in Will’s mind they would end up using the bows slung on their backs too. Still, he supposed they could hope.

As they walked across the bridge he reminded everyone to eat something, even if they had to choke it down. Most of his siblings complied. There went the first granola bars. Will ate one himself, even though it tasted like ash in his mouth.

Meanwhile, Renee and Michael could both drive, and Jasper had a learner’s permit, so Renee suggested they should start moving cars off the bridge and onto what would hopefully be side streets—get the mortals out of harm’s way. Michael shot her down.

“We leave the cars,” he said. “They’ll be useful as cover, and if worst comes to worst, explosives.” That idea put a really bad taste in Will’s mouth—even worse than the granola bar. Fortunately, before he had to decide whether to speak up, Renee did it for him.

“Michael!” she exclaimed. “We’re not blowing up mortals!” Their other siblings looked equally uncomfortable with this idea.

“No, no, of course not,” said Michael, putting his hands up and backtracking quickly. “By all means, move the people. But leave the cars.” Slowly, Renee nodded. Jasper was still frowning.

“Some of these cars were probably really expensive…” His eyes were on a white stretch limo a ways down the bridge toward the Brooklyn side.

“Who cares?” Michael snapped. “They all have insurance, and if we fail, they’ll all have a lot bigger problems to deal with anyway. So let’s do everything we can to not fail.”

“Fine.” Jasper’s face set back in his on-edge mask from the van ride earlier. He, Renee, and Silas walked off across the bridge to start moving people out of cars and taking them towards the Brooklyn side. Gabriel ran off after them, while Will, Leah, and Xavier took on the same duty on the Manhattan side. Michael led Kayla and Austin away to start setting traps.

“Let’s start with that school bus,” said Will, the bottom dropping from his stomach as he noticed it. “See if there’s any kids in there. Them we’ll definitely want to get out of the way.”

Pulling people out of their cars, carrying them off the bridge, and coming back for more was a grueling process. At least they got all the kids off the school bus, but there was no way to get all the drivers to safety in time. That much was obvious as soon as Will was in it, and it became a problem much sooner than he had hoped.

“Form up!” Renee was yelling as she ran back towards them, ducking between cars with four of their brothers hot on her heels. “They’re coming!” Will did a head count—

“Where are Michael and Kayla?” he yelled, panic rising in his chest. Renee pointed up. Following the vector, Will caught sight of the two of them running along the steel girders overhead on either side of the bridge, shooting backwards as they went.

The bridge was starting to shake under their feet, a dull roar rising around them as the enemy forces approached. As Will watched, Michael almost lost his footing for a second. Will, Jasper, and Renee all screamed at once—but Michael caught himself, hopping down to the sidewalk and vaulting over a car to take his place beside Renee on the front line. Safely on solid pavement too, Kayla ducked in from the other side to stand next to Austin.

“Aw, you guys were worried,” said Michael. Will shook his head as he crouched down to get his bow and bag arranged so he would be able to reach either easily.

“Christ, Michael.”

“That poser has no place here, Will, you know that.” Michael reached back to ruffle his hair the way Lee used to. Before Will could respond, there was a blood-curdling roar—not from the sound of monsters’ footfalls, but from a single, outraged source.

“Oh, fuck,” Jasper whispered.

“What is it?” Leah asked. On the back line, she was starting to look nauseous again. Michael jumped back up to stand on the roof of the school bus, shading his eyes with his hands even though it was the middle of the night and squinting into the distance. Under the streetlights, which were thankfully still working even when the mortals were asleep, Will could see all the blood drain from his face.

“The Minotaur,” he said. “That’s definitely the Minotaur.” Renee looked up.

“Do you think we should call—”

“Try and call in the guy who beat that thing unarmed at age twelve?” Michael nodded. “Yeah, seems like a good idea. If, you know, he’s got a minute.” He pulled a borrowed cell phone out of his pocket and hopped down from the bus on the other side, running off to get a little farther away from the monsters and the noise.

“Make it fast!” Renee yelled. “They’re coming!”

“Um, who beat the Minotaur unarmed when he was twelve?” Austin asked. “How is that even possible?”

“Who do you think?” said Jasper. “Prophecy boy himself.”

“Oh.” Austin nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Ha,” said Silas. “Percy Jackson, more like Prophecy Jackson.”

“Oh, that’s actually kinda good,” said Jasper. Renee rolled her eyes. Then she yelled,

“Dracaenae! Get ready!” And they were in it.

The line held for the first couple of minutes, at least. The archers shot in volleys. Will quickly realized that with this many targets this close together it didn’t really matter if he couldn’t aim to save his life, and joined in for the first wave. Together the whole cabin launched flaming arrows, smoke arrows, net arrows that tangled dracaenae together at the legs so they tripped and disintegrated as they were trampled by their own allies. Michael even had a couple of sonic arrows, inherited from Lee—he had loved those things. Will had never actually seen one in action before. Or heard, rather. They screamed through the air, then hit their marks in huge blasts of sound that decimated the monsters unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius.

That was cool, but it still barely made a dent. Will wondered if the Stolls had it this bad on the other bridges down south of here, or if Apollo’s cabin had just gotten unlucky enough to get the brunt of the forces crossing from Brooklyn. As much as he loathed it, he’d have given a lot right now for that grenade launcher the Ares cabin had been shooting at the twins and Kayla the other day.

The monsters kept coming. Will and his siblings did their best to hold, but the dracaenae pressed them back yard by yard, pushing cars out of the way, lighting others on fire. Michael grabbed Kayla and took her back up to perch on the girders again, shooting flaming arrows with deadly precision into cars behind the enemy’s line. Will tried not to think about the mortals they hadn’t been able to get out of their cars. That tactic was even more effective than the sonic arrows for taking out a lot of monsters at once, when the engines exploded, but it still wasn’t enough.

It was hard to tell what time it was, or how much time was passing. It might have been hours, but it felt like minutes. Will found himself setting up a makeshift field hospital in the back of an empty pickup truck. It would last ten minutes at the most, at the rate they were being forced to retreat, but that was ten minutes he could use to heal an awful burn on Kayla’s arm and keep Xavier from bleeding out from a slashed artery in his leg. Will had done combat medicine before, but not like this. There was no time to worry about getting things perfect, or even right—he had to focus on coagulation and external mending. That was fine for these injuries, which were mostly surface wounds anyway, but it gave him an awful feeling about what might happen later for people who got hurt worse.

A spear sliced through the air overhead, and with it Michael’s arm where he was perched on the roof of the truck, guarding Will’s space. Michael cursed furiously, but he didn’t move. When Will looked up he was horrified to realize his brother was making no effort to even put pressure on it—just letting it bleed freely while he kept shooting.

“Gods, Michael, stand down a second and let me get a bandage on that.” Michael hopped down to take shelter with him in the truck bed. Will pressed down on the cut and put just enough energy into healing to stop the bleeding temporarily. He got a bandage on it quickly—probably the sloppiest work he’d done in years—then said, “ok, you’re good.” In all it took probably thirty seconds.

“Thanks.” Michael jumped back up onto the roof of the truck. “Get down and a couple yards back,” he advised Will, “they’re almost on us. It’s time to light this one up.”

“Okay.” Will scrambled down, keeping a tight hold on his bow and his bag, and ran back a couple car lengths to duck behind a taxi that had rolled onto its side. Leah and Austin had sheltered here too, jumping up as soon as they had arrows nocked to fire at the monsters before they ducked down again. They were starting to run low on arrows, Will noticed, but he couldn’t worry about it.

There was a huge explosion—that would be the pickup truck. The taxi rocked with the force of it. For a horrifying second it seemed like it might roll over on top of the three of them, but Will and Austin braced their shoulders against the undercarriage and it stabilized where it had been. Will breathed a sigh of relief.

“Hold!” Michael yelled. Peering around the bumper, Will could see the dracaenae had reached the blazing truck. Michael had made it to the roof of the school bus a few yards up, where he was looking out over the approaching army. “Okay, form the line right here!” He pointed to an open space between a few cars. Austin and Leah ran over to stand behind Renee and Jasper again. For a minute, they rallied and held again as Michael called orders. “Ready—fire! Ready—fire!”

Then a couple of enormous black forms leapt over the line of dracaenae, and everything became so much worse. With a swipe of a paw one knocked over the school bus Michael was standing on.

“Hellhounds!” Jasper yelled, unnecessarily—they all had eyes.

“Michael!” Renee screamed.

“I’m fine!” Michael shouted from somewhere. “Change of plans! Fall back!”

The younger kids didn’t need to be told twice. They turned and ran, followed by the front line a second later once they’d loosed a last volley. A couple arrows hit their marks, and the hellhounds disintegrated into shadows, floating away like smoke on the wind.

“Move the line!” Michael yelled, having pulled himself back up to stand on the side of the school bus, as he put a flaming arrow right in the eye of the hellhound that had flipped it. “Everyone get at least two cars behind—Silas!”

Silas hadn’t been as quick to retreat as Jasper and Renee, and when Will turned to look he saw a hellhound had grabbed his brother’s entire body in its jaws. Silas screamed for help as the monster shook him like a ragdoll. Then it bit down with a sickening crunch, and his screams stopped. The hellhound dragged his body behind a car.

“No!—” Jasper made a move as if to run back towards the hellhound, but Renee flung an arm across his chest and dragged him back. “Silas!” he screamed.

“Come on!”

“But it’s—it’s gonna eat him!”

“I know.” Renee turned her head away, wincing at the sounds coming from that direction. “We can’t think about it. Just keep—ahh!” A flaming spear sailed over their heads, so close it would have set her hair on fire if she hadn’t ducked, pulling Jasper down with her. “Shooting!” They ducked behind the school bus.

“Kayla, Austin, start laying traps farther west!” Michael yelled. “We’re moving the line back! Will!” When Will looked up at him, stunned from watching Silas die, Michael pointed at a car in the right lane. “Go help her!”

Somehow Will’s legs stayed under him enough that he could run a few yards to what was now the back of the line and yank open the door of the abandoned Honda Civic Michael had indicated. It was one of the cars they hadn’t been able to empty—the driver was slumped in her seat. Will wasn’t sure if Michael had meant for him to help the driver, or Leah, who was crouched behind the car’s rear bumper and actually throwing up now, but he decided to start with the driver. At least Leah was conscious.

It got quieter as he carried her down the bridge toward Manhattan, away from the fighting. For the first time in his life Will realized he didn’t want quiet—without the battle raging in his ears it was like he could hear Silas’ anguished screams echoing again. He closed his eyes for a second when he’d set the sleeping mortal down, bracing his arms against the side of the bridge and leaning his forehead against them. Another brother dead—and they wouldn’t even be able to bring his body back to Sophie.

Will bit back tears and bile. There wasn’t time.

When he got back to the Civic Leah had stopped vomiting. Will ducked out of the way of another flying spear and crouched behind the open driver’s door. It wouldn’t make a great shield, he knew, but it would let him imagine himself safe for the moment. Xavier had climbed onto the roof with his bow, his face pinched with a focus that made him look a lot like Michael, aiming and firing.

“You good?” Will yelled up at him. He nodded. “Okay!” He turned to Leah, who was sobbing as she wiped her mouth. “What about you?” Leah shook her head. Will scooted back to crouch closer to her, avoiding the vomit. He gulped, willing his own stomach to keep everything down, and pulled a water bottle out of his bag. “Here, drink some water. Get the taste out. Slowly, slowly—”

“Sorry,” Leah said hoarsely.

“It’s okay. Just don’t want you to throw up again.” Will stood up partway so he could look through the car window. From back here, the battle somehow looked even more grim—the army of monsters seemed a lot bigger from farther away, when he could see all of it. Between them and the shield line of dracaenae, everything was on fire.

In the distance, the Minotaur roared, and the white stretch limo launched into the air. Wide-eyed, Will watch it arc through the night sky over the East River. Two dark shapes swooped out of the sky around it: pegasi carrying demigods. As they approached, he could see one rider’s ponytail was as blonde as Renee’s. The other—

“It’s Percy and Annabeth!” Xavier yelled. How he still had the ability to sound excited, Will had no idea.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he whispered. Not that their arrival meant they were saved for sure— eleven against hundreds of monsters was still as impossible of odds as ten, now nine, had been—but if anyone had proven they could do the impossible on the regular, it was those two.

Percy and Annabeth swooped down behind the school bus, leaping off the pegasi’s backs to the ground while their mounts were still in flight. Michael ran over to talk to them.

“You should have some ambrosia,” Will told Leah. “But if I try to give you more later, remind me how much you had now, okay? We only want monsters disintegrating tonight.” She nodded and chewed the square he handed her. Color returned to her face—thankfully, this time the hue wasn’t green. Drawing her bow, she scrambled up to the roof of the next car over from Xavier.

Will collapsed against the bumper of the Civic for a second. Only for a second. There wasn’t going to be any more time than that. The army was still coming. Around him, his siblings were still yelling and shooting.

Then, abruptly, the dull roar quieted. The army had stopped moving. When Will looked up, he realized it was because Percy had stepped out from behind the school bus and was walking toward the dracaenae’s shield line. It parted as the Minotaur let out a ground-shaking bellow.

“Hey, Beef Boy!” Percy shouted back. “Didn’t I kill you already?” Monsters surged toward him, but the Minotaur stopped them. Percy brandished his magic sword. “One on one?” he yelled. “Just like old times?”

Will shook his head, awed. No matter how cliche it got, people like Percy always managed to make trash talk seem badass.

And it was an incredible fight to watch—for the minute or so it lasted. Percy broke the Minotaur’s terrifying battle-axe, sliced through his giant horns like butter, then goaded him into charging right into his own axe blade. He used the monster’s own deadly momentum to flip him off the side of the bridge. By the time the Minotaur would have hit the East River’s surface, the piece of his axe was all that remained to sink beneath the water.

“Holy shit!” Xavier yelled as Percy spun on his heel and charged straight into the monster army. At a screamed order from Michael the cabin surged forward behind him, pushing their line back towards the original place at the middle of the bridge, shooting as they went.

“I think I know what the curse of Achilles means now!” Renee yelled to Will as he ran alongside her.

“What?” he yelled back.

“Look at him!” She nodded toward Percy, who was somehow killing monster after monster without any of their blades or claws ever touching him. “Achilles was invulnerable, remember? The River Styx!”

“Oh, wow,” Will said to himself. He hadn’t thought about that at all—mainly because it didn’t really seem like a curse either. And honestly, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Percy was just that good. Aside from the time everyone had thought he’d died in the Mount St. Helens eruption, the guy had always seemed basically invincible anyway.

Indeed, it might have been infuriating to watch Percy tear through two hundred monsters single-handedly in about ten minutes flat after they’d spent hours struggling, retreating, and in Silas’ case, dying—if it hadn’t been such a relief, and if he hadn’t looked so darn awesome doing it. As the last couple dozen monsters seemed to realize they didn’t stand a chance and turned to retreat, the campers rushed forward to chase them off.

“Yes!” Michael yelled, pumping his fist in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!” In the distance ahead, Will realized the horizon was growing lighter. A tiny part of him hoped that maybe—maybe—the sunrise would mean Apollo arrived to help them.

He crushed it down. Percy had said back at the Empire State Building there would be no reinforcements—the gods were too busy with Typhon. They wouldn’t be coming.

“Percy!” Annabeth was yelling. “Pull back! We’re overextended!” She was right, they all realized too late, as the retreating monsters reached the other end of the bridge and the campers saw what they were running towards. Demigods in black armor, mounted on skeletal horses. This time they outnumbered the campers three to one. Will’s heart rose in his throat.

“One of them’s Izzy,” Renee whispered. Will looked at her. Her eyes were full of pain.

“Are you sure?” His sister nodded. “How?”

“I don’t know. Power of prophecy, maybe.” She swallowed hard. “Oh, this is going to be bad.” At the Brooklyn end of the bridge, the enemy demigods’ leader took off his helmet. The first rays of dawn caught in his blond hair. Luke.

No. Kronos.

“Now we pull back,” said Percy, a little late, as Kronos’ demigod cavalry charged.

“Archers!” Michael yelled, and everyone—even Will, silently praying no one would hit Izzy—rained down arrows on the riders. A few hit marks. Will doubted any had been his.

“Retreat!” Percy told the Apollo cabin. “I’ll hold them.”

“Come on!” Michael beckoned, and Will’s siblings all turned to race away, but it was too late. The riders were on them, swords slashing down from their mounts. Most of them did converge on Percy and Annabeth, pushing them back slowly, but a few chased after the Apollo cabin as they retreated. Michael and Jasper spun to shoot point-blank into their spectral horses’ legs, disintegrating them; demigods fell to the ground around them, a few landing hard enough to hurt pretty badly.

“Get up!” a familiar voice snapped to his companions. Apparently Max Kimball had survived his fall back in Philadelphia. Not entirely intact, though—without his horse he was limping pretty badly. That would probably be the aftermath of Michael shooting him, too, but right now his eyes fell on Will. From behind his grim helmet, they were filled with hatred. “You!” He started toward him.

Bows weren’t really melee weapons, but it was working for Michael and Jasper, and Will figured at point-blank range it didn’t really matter if he could shoot straight or not. Just like Michael's last week, his arrow went clean through Max’s good leg, leaving him without one to stand on. Xavier grabbed Max’s sword as it fell to the ground and out of his hands. Max screamed ineffectually.

“Damn, Will!” Michael called, offering a high-five as they turned to run again. “Sweet! Didn’t know you had that in you.”

“Me neither,” Will said, feeling sick suddenly. Do no harm was his thing, usually—he found he didn’t like the opposite.

Max aside, the black-armored demigods around them had rallied, and some of them were outpacing the Apollo kids as they ran towards Manhattan. They were getting close to the end of the bridge. Michael, Jasper, and Kayla were still shooting at them, doing what Will had done and aiming for their legs and feet. Xavier slashed wildly with the sword, managing to keep their enemies at bay surprisingly effectively for a kid whose weapons training was all ranged.

But they weren’t all enemies, Will reminded himself. Maybe none of them were—not really. One definitely wasn’t. He caught sight of a familiar brown ponytail under one of the purple-plumed helmets at the same time Renee did.

“Izzy!” she yelled. “You don’t have to do this!” Spinning on her heel, Izzy glared. She didn’t have a bow today—she was wielding a sword like the rest, and holding it in the wrong hand at that. She must not have been able to get her shoulder healed after Michael shot her. When she slashed out at Jasper, it was ineffective, but by sheer luck her backslash caught Renee in the arm. Renee pressed her hand over the wound, mouth dropping open in surprise.

“Izzy, stop!” Will said. To his relief, that did get her to falter. “You’re not yourself.” He said it as much for their siblings, and the other demigods around them, as for her. “This isn’t you, this is Kronos’ doing. You heal, you don’t destroy. And you wouldn’t hurt your own family.”

“We’re not a family!” Izzy snarled. “All we have in common is a dad who’s never cared about us!”

“Like he gives a shit either!” Jasper yelled, pointing behind them to the center of the bridge, where Kronos and Percy were locked in battle. “He just wants you to die for him!”

“So do the gods!”

“That’s not true!” Will felt so helpless suddenly, standing on the bridge, facing her—he didn’t know what else he could say to change her mind. But there had to be something. It had worked on Chris. It had to be possible—

Izzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever, maybe Dad cares about you—”

“That’s not what he meant, Izzy!” Renee looked like she would have reached out and shaken Izzy if she hadn’t been keeping pressure on her wound, and Izzy hadn’t been holding a sword between them. “What Dad does or doesn’t do—we have more in common than that! We’re a family, and we love each other. We love you.” Izzy blinked. For a second, she looked like she had in Philadelphia after Will said it was his fault Lee had died. Like herself, without a trace of Kronos’ influence.

“Still?” she asked at the same moment Xavier paused in his sword slashing, realizing what was going on, and said,

“Izzy?” He was startled a second too long. One of Kronos’ other demigods was already slicing through the opening his stolen sword wasn’t rising to meet. The wicked-looking blade cut right across Xavier’s throat.

“No!” Will heard himself scream. He had promised himself—but it was too late. Xavier fell to the ground, wide eyes empty, mouth still open in shock.

“Xavier,” Izzy whispered, staring down at their little brother’s corpse. “Family—oh, gods.”

Before anyone could move, a shock wave hit them that echoed with the sound of Kronos’ angry bellow. Cars skidded across the asphalt with awful scraping sounds, a few with enough force to crash through the guardrails and topple off the sides of the bridge into the river. Will didn’t entirely realize he had been flung into the air until he landed hard on the sidewalk, skidding dangerously close to a broken stretch of guardrail before he stopped moving. A couple more feet and he would have gone over with the car that left the opening.

Others weren’t so lucky—a few black-armored demigods were thrown off the bridge by the force of their own leader’s fury. Will watched, helpless, as Leah went flying towards the edge too. For an instant it almost looked like she might manage to grab hold of the guardrail, but her momentum was too much. It slipped through her fingers and she plummeted toward the East River, screaming. Will closed his eyes for a second, struggling to breathe.

Three. Three of them gone. It was already too much, and the battle wasn’t near over.

A much closer scream split the air. When Will looked up, Renee and Izzy were crumpled on the ground not far off. Renee was hanging onto Izzy for dear life; Izzy was screaming, Will realized, because Renee had kept her from following Leah off the side of the bridge by grabbing the arm attached to her bad shoulder.

Will stood up carefully, taking stock. He’d lost his grip on his bow when he fell. Now it was somewhere at the bottom of the river, but he was basically out of arrows anyway—and wasn’t too sorry to lose the chance to use them. What mattered was he still had his medicine bag, and was relatively uninjured. No broken bones, despite the hard landing, and fortunately his armor had taken the brunt of the friction when he skidded. It couldn’t protect him completely, though—there was a large rip in the left calf of his jeans from a nasty abrasion that stung when he moved. Trying his best to ignore it, Will ran over to his sisters.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Renee braced a hand on the guardrail and pulled herself to standing. She winced. Her jeans were torn even worse than Will’s, the scrapes underneath bleeding freely.

“I am. Are you?” she asked Izzy, who had scooted back to curl against the guardrail, clutching her shoulder. She was staring blankly down at the water.

“None of them care,” she said quietly. Will realized there was blood on the hand that was pressed to her shoulder. He crouched next to her.

“Maybe not,” he admitted, “but we do. Is your shoulder bleeding?” Izzy nodded, still distant. It wasn’t the dreamy expression she’d had under Kronos’ influence, though—more like a thousand-yard stare.

“Go, you guys! Keep moving!” Michael was shouting, gesturing at his remaining siblings to keep retreating even as he ran the other way. Izzy blinked and snapped out of it.

“Worry about that later.” She took Will’s hand with her good one and let him pull her up. They ran for Manhattan.

“Michael, go!” Percy yelled from somewhere behind them.

“Michael, come on!” Renee yelled too. Will looked back. Michael had climbed up the girders to perch high on an intact suspension cable, his last arrow nocked and ready.

“Percy, the bridge!” he shouted. “It’s already weak!”

“So get back here!” Renee called. Michael ignored her.

“Break it!” he told Percy. “Use your powers!”

“No, Michael, wait—” Renee shook her head. Will had never seen her look this helpless. Percy thrust his sword into the road, and immediately water started to spout high into the air, like he’d somehow tapped into a pressurized spring in the middle of a man-made asphalt bridge.

“Man, what can’t he do?” Will heard Jasper mutter. The bridge cracked, shuddering as huge chunks of it fell into the river. At this end, everyone scrambled back as far as they could get, ducking as the cables and girders swayed ominously. When the noise stopped, they looked up again.

Percy was standing on the Manhattan side of a massive chasm, with Kronos and his remaining forces stuck on the other and retreating back to Brooklyn. The center of the bridge had been blown out, taking everything that had been in that space—a couple dozen cars, Xavier’s body, and probably some of Kronos’ demigods too—along with it. The girders and cables were still in place, but—

“Where’s Michael?” said Gabriel. Apollo’s children all stared at the place on the suspension cables where their brother had been. No one was there. His bow lay in the road.

“No!” Percy had realized the same thing. He raced over to Michael’s bow, looked down at it for a second, then looked up at the rest of the Apollo cabin, his face a mask of horror.

“Michael, Michael, no. No, no, no—” Renee wasn’t screaming. Closer to whispering, heartbroken, shaking her head. She ran to the guardrail. Will and Jasper followed. Below them, the East River flowed on like everything was normal. Aside from a few broken arrows and spears bobbing on the surface, everything that had fallen into it during the battle must have sunk. There was no sign of Michael, dead or alive. Percy sank his hands into his hair, screaming in frustration.

The awful stillness after the echo faded was broken by a cell phone ringing. It was startling—not the most familiar sound for a bunch of demigods. Percy pulled one out of his pocket and listened for a minute. Whatever he heard, it made him even unhappier. When he walked over to where Renee, Jasper, and Will were standing his expression was grim.

“Who’s Michael’s second-in-command?” he asked. The three of them looked at each other.

“Renee,” Will and Jasper said in unison. Renee shrugged. She looked like she wasn’t so much holding back tears as beyond them.

“I guess so.” Percy nodded.

“Okay. Have your siblings keep looking. If he’s—” he shook his head. “Just do everything you can, then come to the Plaza. We’re regrouping there.”

“All right.” Renee shook out her shoulders as the rest of their siblings came over to see what was going on. With the most heroic effort Will had ever seen, she managed to smile and stop her voice from shaking as she said, “Come on, guys. Let’s look for Michael. He could still be nearby.” They fanned out across the wreckage, looking between cars and under them. Before Will could move to join them, Percy set a hand on his shoulder.

“You come with me to the Plaza,” he said. “They—Annabeth needs a healer.”

Will paused. He sort of wanted to be mad at Percy—he was the one who’d broken the bridge, when Michael’s perch on it was so precarious—but it had been Michael’s idea, and it was hard to be upset with someone who looked almost as devastated by the result as the rest of them felt. So he just nodded, and followed Percy off the bridge and back into Manhattan.

It was possible Will was losing it, because as numb and heartbroken as he felt, he found himself almost laughing when the thought occurred to him that it was a good thing he’d already figured out he liked boys. If he hadn’t, riding on a stolen motorcycle behind Percy Jackson probably would’ve clued him in, and that would be the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of things he couldn’t deal with emotionally right now.

Fortunately (sort of) he lost his capacity to really think about anything that was happening as Percy gunned the engine. It stopped feeling very significant to ride on a motorcycle with his arms wrapped tight around a hot guy’s waist when the reason was that said hot guy was driving the motorcycle through stopped traffic at about 90 miles per hour while Will just hung on for dear life. After five absolutely terrifying minutes of weaving, curb-hopping, and too-tight turns, Percy finally pulled to an abrupt stop next to a big fountain.

“Ow,” Will muttered as inertia slammed him hard into the back of Percy’s armor. He hopped down from the motorcycle and stood still for a minute on shaky legs, holding his head and praying he wasn’t about to throw up in the fountain. From the way the statue on the fountain was yelling at Percy (if Will didn’t know better than to question weird stuff like that by now he would’ve thought he was definitely losing it), she probably wouldn’t have appreciated that.

Then the statue started throwing metal fruit at them, so they ran for cover.

Will had heard the Plaza Hotel mentioned in books and movies, but he’d never seen it before in real life. It looked like Morpheus had caught the place in the middle of some kind of social hour with how many rich people were asleep on the fancy furniture. A lot of them still seemed to have their jewelry and watches, though, so either the Stolls weren’t here or someone was keeping them on a tight leash.

Percy barreled right through the lobby without so much as stopping to look around. Will hurried after him, ignoring the pain from his scraped leg, and followed him into the elevator where a Hunter directed them.

It dawned on Will as the elevator doors closed that he had never really talked to Percy before, or been around him much before the past ten minutes; he certainly hadn’t been stuck in a contained space alone with him. As intimidating as he was, Percy was also pretty friendly to everyone, so it wasn’t like they’d never interacted at all—but he was a couple years older than Will and mostly hung out with the other high school-aged campers and sometimes the Athena cabin, since he and Annabeth were… dating? Best friends? In love but oblivious? No one at camp really seemed sure, especially with how Annabeth was acting after Percy had been gone from camp this summer.

“I’m sorry,” Percy said now, glancing down at Will. “If I’d known what would happen—Michael told me to do it, so I assumed he’d get out of the way.”

“You think he fell?” Will asked, swallowing down the lump that rose in his throat. It was what Renee seemed to think, however happy a face she’d put on, and Will knew it was probably true, but until now Percy had been acting like he thought it was possible Michael had survived. If he didn’t actually, then there really was no hope.

“Yeah,” Percy said sadly. “I think if he didn’t, we’d know where he was.” Will nodded, looking at the floor. “I’m really sorry,” Percy said again. “It sucks. Especially after Lee.” Will shrugged. He felt too empty to think about Lee right now.

“Renee’ll be a good counselor.”

“I’m sure she will.” The elevator chimed. They had reached the top floor. Percy went back into hyper-focus, practically running down the hall looking through doorways until Jake Mason stopped him.

“Percy! We’re getting reports—”

“Later,” said Percy. “Where’s Annabeth?”

“The terrace.” Jake visibly swallowed, looking nervous now. He pointed at a doorway. “She’s alive, man, but—” Percy shoved past him and was gone before he could finish his sentence. Will gave Jake an apologetic wave and followed.

Out on the terrace, they brushed past a bunch of Athena kids to find what they had gathered around: Annabeth, lying on a lounge chair with Silena tending to her. She was pale, clammy, and shivering, her eyes far away. Will frowned—this was too intense to be shock, and it seemed to him it couldn’t have been long enough for infection to have gotten this bad. He hadn’t actually seen how she got injured, but it must have been since the last time he saw her on the bridge—less than an hour ago, as the Apollo cabin was retreating from Kronos’ demigods while Percy and Annabeth stood and fought.

When he unwrapped the bandages someone had put on her arm, it became clear what was going on. Whatever blade she’d been stabbed with must have been poisoned. Around the gash, her skin was turning green. Standing over them, Percy looked like he might pass out.

“Annabeth,” he whispered. Someone should probably get him a chair, Will thought. Not him—he was too busy feeling out the extent of the damage. What he found was heartening. The wound looked scary, sure, but they’d gotten here in time, and as healing jobs went it really wouldn’t be that complicated.

“Poison on the dagger,” Annabeth said weakly. “Pretty stupid of me, huh?” Percy shook his head.

“It’s not so bad, Annabeth,” Will said, as much to reassure Percy as for her. “A few more minutes and we would have been in trouble, but the venom hasn’t gotten past the shoulder yet.” If that happened, things would become more complicated very fast, but he was pretty sure he could get it done before then. “Just lie still,” he told her. “Somebody hand me some nectar.”

Percy fumbled in his gear and pulled out a canteen, which he passed to Will with shaking hands. Then he took one of Annabeth’s hands. Will pulled out a clean cloth from his bag and poured a little of the nectar on it. “This is going to sting,” he warned her before he started using the cloth to dab at the wound. Annabeth tensed up, but she didn’t move, just clung to Percy’s hand and whispered a series of “ow”s and curses. Once the wound was cleaned out Will took out a little jar of ground flaxseed and a bottle of silvery morning dew. It was fresh—he had taken Austin and Xavier to collect it from the leaves of dryads’ trees just this morning.

No, yesterday morning. Today was a new day; Will had just been up all night, awake for about twenty-four hours now, though he barely felt it. And Xavier was dead, and yesterday morning felt like a week ago.

“Can one of y’all get me some water?” he asked the Athena kids. Rebecca nodded and disappeared into the hotel for about a minute, then reemerged holding a minibar vodka bottle. Will looked at it suspiciously. “Rebecca,” he started to say—

“It’s water!” she insisted. “I know vodka looks like water, but this bottle was empty. I just filled it in the sink.”

“What—what happened to the vodka?” Will asked. Rebecca shrugged. “... Cool.”

“I know Travis grabbed a bunch of those before,” said Malcolm. “I think maybe he was going to use it to clean wounds? Since the alcohol content is so high.”

“That’s a lot of faith to put in Travis,” Silena muttered. Annabeth managed a weak laugh. Will just shook his head and started mixing together the flax meal and water in his mortar bowl. With the eyedropper from the dew bottle, he added a couple of drops, turning the whole mixture silver. The dew itself didn’t have very strong healing properties—the flax poultice would do most of the work of draining the wound and drawing out the poison and any potential infection—but it would speed up the process by a lot, and time was something none of them could afford to lose today.

Will spread the poultice over the wound and chanted his hymn more out of habit than actual supplication. Apollo was busy—Will had spent the whole night healing his siblings basically by himself, and now he healed Annabeth by himself too. He could feel his own energy draining into the healing process even as the poison drained out of Annabeth’s bloodstream.

He wrapped her arm in fresh bandages and stood up, swaying on his feet. He felt the twenty-four hours now, he thought. If this went on—it wasn’t going to be sustainable to heal everyone he would need to with magic. With Xavier dead, the cabin was down one of their better healers in the field, and even if Izzy seemed to be back on their side she was still badly wounded herself and probably not in great shape focus-wise.

“That should do it,” he said, struggling to think. “But we’re going to need some mortal supplies.” Malcolm was holding a pad of hotel stationery; he passed it to Will when he beckoned for it, along with a pen. Will wrote down everything he could think of and handed it back over. “There’s a—what’s the New York version of CVS?—”

“Duane Reade?” said Silena.

“Right, one of those,” said Will, “on Fifth, right? Normally I would never steal—”

“I would,” said Travis, who had come out to the terrace at some point along with Connor and a couple of their siblings. He looked sober in every sense, so maybe they really had been using the minibar liquor for first aid. Will still glared at him.

“Leave cash or drachmas,” he told him, “whatever you’ve got, but this is an emergency. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to have a lot more people to treat.” Travis nodded.

“Come on guys,” he said, with a hint of his usual grin, “let’s give Annabeth some space. We’ve got a drugstore to raid… I mean, visit.” People started to shuffle off the terrace. Will looked at Percy and Annabeth.

“Thanks, Will,” Annabeth said weakly. Percy barely glanced away from her, but he said,

“Yeah, thanks.” Will nodded and decided Travis was right—they should all probably give both of them some space right now. He followed the Athena and Hermes campers back into the hotel.

“Seriously,” he said, catching up with the Stolls, “please leave some money or something when you go.”

“I guarantee you we won’t,” Connor said cheerfully. “But it’s adorable that you’re still trying.” Will shook his head.

“At least don’t take anything that isn’t on that list?”

“Don’t bother, Will,” said Olivia from where she sat on the end of a very fancy bed. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

“Hey, I’m not old!” Connor protested.

“Come on.” Travis grabbed him and pulled him out of the room. Will sank down against the foot of the bed where Olivia was sitting, leaning his head back against the mattress. Olivia slid down to sit next to him.

“You okay?” she asked. Will shook his head.

“Silas is dead,” he said quietly, “and Xavier, and Leah. And Michael—they’re still looking for him, but I mean—”

“Oh, my gods.” Olivia’s eyes went very wide. “Holy shit, Will, I’m so sorry.”

“Did anyone die where you were?”

“No, we all made it,” she said. “Aimee got killed, on Connor’s team, but I was on the Brooklyn Bridge with Travis, and there weren’t—he must not have sent very many our way.” Will closed his eyes.

“I guess we got the vanguard.” He’d sort of figured, when Kronos himself showed up. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

“I’m really glad you’re alive, di immortales.” She reached up and pulled him into a hug. Will hugged back, wrapping his arms tight around her, letting his head rest a minute. “I’m really glad you’re alive,” Olivia said again, softer.

“Shit, are we interrupting something?” said Lou Ellen’s voice. Will looked up as Olivia quickly pulled away. Lou Ellen was standing in the doorway with Olivia’s brother Cecil, her cabinmate. He was grinning mischievously, while one of Lou Ellen’s eyebrows was raised very high.

“No, not really,” said Will, a familiar surge of annoyance rising in his chest. Everyone always wanted to read so much into him and Olivia being close. It was becoming a pretty good incentive to say, screw it, and come out already, just so that would stop. Assuming he made it out of this alive. “What’s up?”

“Your cabin’s arrived.” Lou Ellen’s mouth turned down. “Well—you know. Those who are left. Kayla was looking for you.” Will nodded.

“I’ll go find them.” He stood up with some difficulty—partly from the exhaustion, part pain. Olivia gasped as he moved.

“What happened to your leg?” Will just shook his head.

“It’s fine. I’ll get it dealt with.” He looked at Lou Ellen. “Where’d you see them?”

“Down there.” She pointed, at the same time Will caught sight of a flash of red hair anyway. When Kayla saw him in the hall she ran at him, almost bowling him right over with the force of her hug.

“Ow,” said Will, bracing himself on the wall.

“Sorry.”

“S’okay.” Will hugged her back. “Did you, um—did y’all find—” Kayla shook her head, face hidden in the front of his shirt. Will’s heart sank for good. “Okay.” He rubbed her shoulders. “Where’s Renee and everyone?”

“Come on.” Kayla took his hand and led him to the living room of the penthouse, where their other five remaining siblings were gathered. Jasper had sprawled on a couch. Austin and Gabriel were sitting nearby on the fancy rug, Austin binding Gabriel’s leg—Will hadn’t noticed he was hurt before. Izzy was standing next to Renee, looking at the floor, while Renee argued with Drew Tanaka from the Aphrodite cabin.

“There’s already a spy,” Renee was saying fiercely, “and we haven’t found them yet. What would Kronos gain from sending in someone way more obvious?” Drew shrugged.

“I don’t know, to distract us so we aren’t looking for the other spy?”

“Well, in that case, wouldn’t you be playing right into his hands by freaking out about it?” Renee snapped. Drew glared at her. Renee glared back.

“Oh, go paint your nails or something,” Jasper heckled from the couch. Renee broke her if-looks-could-kill contest with Drew to roll her eyes.

“Shut up, Jasper,” she said. “You’re not helping.” Drew tossed her head, sending her high ponytail bouncing.

“Fine. Whatever. But you’d better not give her a weapon. Healing only!” She jabbed her finger at Izzy and stormed off. Renee sighed, shook her head, and set a gentle hand on Izzy’s good shoulder.

“Let’s find you a camp t-shirt,” she said. “And some other armor.” Izzy nodded mutely. Catching Will’s eye, Renee beckoned him over. “Her shoulder’s in pretty bad shape,” she told him quietly. “Can you guys go somewhere private and work on getting that healed?” Will hesitated. After healing Annabeth, he was hovering on the edge of burnout. But of course he nodded; it was Izzy.

They set up in a bathroom out of the way, which was how Will learned the bathrooms at the Plaza were as big as his whole bedroom back at his mom’s house in Austin. He helped undo the straps Izzy couldn’t reach on the black Kronos armor. Without it, she looked much smaller, and much more like herself. It was also much easier to see that the arrow wound from last week had reopened. There was a dark, sticky spot on her t-shirt over her right shoulder where blood was soaking through.

“Can you lift your arms enough to take your shirt off?” Will asked. Izzy tried, winced, and shook her head. “Okay. Can I cut it off you?”

“Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “Renee’s bringing another one anyway, right?” She sat still on the broad marble counter while Will pulled out a pocket knife and sawed at her t-shirt, peeling it away.

For the most part, the Apollo cabin was about as comfortable with getting dressed and undressed in front of each other as a group of awkward adolescents could be—they were all siblings, and those of them who healed saw bodies up close all the time. No one really minded. Most of the other times Will had had to cut someone’s clothes off them for medical treatment, that someone had been Sherman, who very much did mind. So it was nice how much smoother this went.

Renee had been right, and so had Will in all his fears about this wound last week—there must not have been another healer available, so it seemed someone had just treated the wound with rubbing alcohol and wrapped it in a bandage that looked like it hadn’t been changed recently enough. She flinched away when he touched the area, but that touch was enough to tell how badly infected it was. Will measured out flax meal into the mortar again, mixing it with water from the fancy sink, and added a couple drops of dew. He tapped in a little nectar, too. There was no stopping it from scarring now, but the nectar would help the deeper flesh and muscle heal.

He avoided looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. He didn’t want to know how bad he looked, or to have to meet his own eyes.

“Why aren’t you praying to Dad?” Izzy asked quietly as Will spread the poultice on and searched through his bag for an appropriate length of bandage.

“Dad’s a little busy right now,” said Will, “you know, with Typhon.” Izzy looked down.

“I’m really sorry,” she said. Will leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

“It’s okay. Lift your arm up here.” He started winding the bandage.

“No, it’s not.” Izzy did as he said, wincing as she moved her arm. “I should never have listened to Kronos. I knew—I should have known he was lying. We all did know that.”

“It’s still not your fault,” Will told her. “I saw you. You weren’t yourself.”

“I believed him, though,” said Izzy. “I still—I mean, I still do, a little, about parts of it. He has a point. The gods don’t care. Just because he doesn’t either—that doesn’t change it.”

“Yeah, but…” Will shook his head. “It wasn’t all you, is my point. He was using some kind of magic to control you. To influence you, at least.”

“What if he does again?” Izzy asked hollowly. “I could turn on you guys. Maybe Drew’s right—”

“Okay, no. Drew’s definitely not right,” Will said firmly. “About literally anything, ever.” Izzy finally smiled a little, right as there was a knock at the door. “Occupied!” Will called out.

“It’s me.” Renee peeked in. “I found a shirt for you, Iz. How’s it going?”

“Just about done.” Will finished securing the bandage, then closed his eyes and tried to jump start the poultice for drawing out the infection. He didn’t want to work on getting the flesh healed until the danger was gone—

“Whoa, whoa.” Renee caught him as his feet went out from under him, staggering and almost overbalancing herself with the effort—he was taller than her now, and probably weighed about as much. “Sit down, Will. When was the last time you ate?” Will thought about it.

“On the way to the bridge,” he said. His own voice sounded far away, like he was listening to it from across a room. Renee said a Greek curse so violent Izzy laughed nervously. Her laughter was nice to hear, anyway.

“Okay, don’t just sit down, you need to lie down. No more healing til you’ve slept and eaten.”

“I’m fine,” Will insisted. Renee smacked him gently in the arm.

“None of us is fine,” she pointed out. “You definitely aren’t. I’m sorry I asked you to do this at all, I should’ve just done it myself.” She held out her hands to Izzy. “Is it okay if I do it myself?”

“Sure,” Izzy said softly. “Go ahead.”

“Will, seriously, go lie down,” said Renee. “The other kids are in a bedroom two down on the right, and they’ve got food. Katie and Miranda made a bunch. Go eat if you can, and get some sleep. From the sound of it tonight’s gonna be another long one.” Will managed to stand without passing out. Still he hesitated. “If it needs to be an order, it will be,” Renee told him.

“Okay, fine.” Will saluted her. “Counselor.” Renee smiled bitterly. They were all still for a minute. Will finally let himself touch the surface of the pain.

Michael really was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. They’d lost two counselors in two summers.

“Go,” said Renee. So Will did.

Chapter Text

In the room where Renee had sent Will, Kayla and Austin were already curled up asleep on one king-size bed. Jasper had crashed on the very fancy couch. There was a second bed lying unoccupied. It was tempting to just sink onto the mattress, but Will knew how burnout worked by now. Food, not sleep, needed to come first. Fortunately, as soon as the smell of food hit his nose, he realized he was actually really hungry.

Gabriel was sitting on the floor, eating pizza off one of several platters strewn around. Most of them were empty, just crumbs, but there was still the pizza, two of some kind of burger, half a plate of french fries, a bunch of bananas, and a mixing bowl of green salad. Will sat down next to his brother, leaning against the foot of the unoccupied bed, and grabbed one of the burgers. He was pretty sure it was some kind of veggie burger—it definitely wasn’t beef—but he was too tired to mind. It wasn’t like it tasted bad.

They ate in silence for a while, both staring at nothing. The pizza had exactly none of the things Will would have liked on it, but once his burger was gone he ate it anyway. As he started peeling a banana, Gabriel leaned back against the couch and finally said quietly, “This isn’t what I thought this summer was going to be like.” Will shook his head.

“It usually isn’t,” he told him. “It was better before. I mean—last year was pretty bad too, at least for us, but it’s never been like this.”

“Do you think we’re all going to die?” Gabriel asked. He was about a year older than Will, but right now he seemed younger. This did have to be the worst possible year to be a new camper, Will thought. He shrugged.

“We’ve got, what, until midnight before it’s Percy’s birthday and the Great Prophecy hits?” he said. “Or until tomorrow morning, maybe? So just focus on staying alive until then, and maybe he’ll save us all.”

“Or destroy us all,” said Gabriel.

“I don’t think he’s going to,” Will said, sort of thinking out loud. “He’s too much of a hero.”

“He might not mean to,” Jasper said quietly. Apparently he was still awake, or maybe they’d woken him up. “Prophecies are nasty motherfuckers. There’s always some kind of catch. It’s why a lot of heroes are tragic heroes, right? Percy might make a choice that seems like the right one, but actually has terrible consequences.”

His younger brothers both just looked at him. Jasper shrugged.

“He didn’t mean to kill Michael, either, but it happened.” With that he took his glasses off, dropped them on the floor, and rolled over to face the inside of the couch and away from them. “Now quit talking and go to sleep so I can too.”

He had a point about sleeping, at least. Now that Will had eaten it was getting harder to keep his eyes open. “Do you want the bed?” he asked Gabriel in an undertone.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of who wants it,” said Gabriel. “These beds could fit like four people. Come on.” They kicked their shoes off. Gabriel took the left side, Will took the right, and blessedly, he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

All demigods had nightmares. Some were worse than others. A lot of Apollo’s kids had dreams that were sort of unmoored from time, dreaming of the past or the future in disjointed order. A weird side effect of their dad’s power of prophecy, even though that was one Apollo skill none of his kids really got in a useful sense. Leah had had the clearest prophetic dreams—Austin got them sometimes too—and Renee got her flashes of insight, but even she couldn’t really tell the future. Apollo had Oracles for that.

Will had no idea if his dreams were ever prophetic. Just like anyone, some demigods remembered their dreams when they woke up, and could use them to figure out what was happening in the world; that at least was useful. But others... didn’t, and Will was on the second team. He knew he had dreams, usually pretty scary ones, but once his brain was fully awake he could never piece them together in any meaningful way the way, say, Jasper could. When he woke up again late in the afternoon he had a brief sense of having dreamed something about the Underworld. It was fleeting. Then everything that had happened yesterday crashed back into his brain, and he was so awake he wished he wasn’t again.

At some point while he slept he had moved, or been moved, from the side of the huge bed to the center. Now Izzy lay where he had started, curled up facing him. She was still asleep, and she was back in an orange t-shirt. Newly awake and remembering, looking at his sister, for the first time Will really felt everything—the grief, the anger, the relief. He had missed her so much.

Resisting the urge to hug Izzy—he didn’t want to wake her up if he didn’t have to—he sat up carefully. On the other side of him, facing away, Gabriel still seemed to be out. So were Kayla and Austin. Renee was awake, sitting on the corner of the other bed with Kayla’s sleeping head in her lap, stroking her hair. When she saw Will was getting up, she beckoned him over.

Sliding down the end of the bed, Will looked down and realized his leg was healed. “Hey, did you do this?” he whispered to Renee as he padded across the carpet to sit down on the edge of the other bed near her. Jasper was awake too, sitting on the floor near the bed with his back against the wall, a map of Manhattan spread out at his feet. Renee nodded.

“You might want to stitch up the tear in your pants,” she told him quietly. “Don’t make it easier for monsters to hit skin.” Her own jeans were still torn too. Bandages peeked out through the rips. Will nodded, but he found himself frowning now that he was looking at his sister up close. There had been dark circles under her eyes when he left to go to bed this morning; they were even deeper now.

“Did you sleep?” he asked, eyes narrowing. Renee smiled sadly.

“I tried.” She looked down at Kayla in her lap. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve had nectar and a lot of coffee.”

“How much nectar?”

“Not enough to be a problem.”

“Yet,” said Will. Renee shrugged.

“We were just talking plans for tonight,” she said, conspicuously changing the subject. “Percy and Thalia went to parlay with one of Kronos’ people a couple hours ago, which was… unproductive, and now the Hunters are out scouting. Whenever they get back, we assume things will start up again. And we’re going to be spread pretty thin.” So far on their side, she explained, there were eight dead—their four, Aimee from the Hermes cabin, Sage from the Demeter cabin, and two Hunters. Pretty much everyone else had been wounded. Renee had made a start on healing them, but it was good Will was up, and they should wake Izzy soon too, because there were a lot more people who needed to get back in fighting shape.

But they’d held Manhattan, and everyone was determined that tonight they would do it again.

“We’re not going back to the Williamsburg Bridge,” said Renee. “I don’t think that would be good for anyone’s morale. Besides, it won’t be as much of an option for Kronos since Percy—you know.” Will and Jasper nodded grimly. “I say we offer to take one of the midtown tunnels,” she said. “They should be a little easier to hold with just the seven of us, knock on wood, and that way we’ll be in a more central location if—when—people need us to help the wounded.” She indicated the tunnels on the map, using an arrow as a pointer. The Empire State Building was highlighted in orange.

“Sounds good to me,” said Will. “Well, not good, but no worse than anything else.”

“Then we’re agreed.” Renee set down the arrow. “Let’s get everyone up and fed, then Will, you take Izzy and go work on healing. Make sure you’re ready to get up and go at any minute. I doubt we’ll have much notice.”

The second night of the battle passed a lot faster than the first. Later, Will could remember almost every agonizing detail of what had happened on the bridge, the first night. The battle in the streets of Manhattan, though, was just a series of blurs between horrible events.

Renee went up to the reservoir with the other head counselors to strategize and prepare for battle. She returned with a good report: the Aphrodite cabin had agreed to let Apollo take over the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, and would head down to join the Hermes cabin at the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges instead. So, as the sun went down, while the Athena cabin fought Hyperion’s forces in Central Park, the Apollo cabin headed to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and built up barriers with emptied cars. They knew the enemy forces couldn’t be forced to bottleneck, since hellhounds or giants could just shove the cars out of the way, but this way dracaenae, telkhines, empousai, and any demigods would certainly be encouraged. The tunnels already did half the work for them. Renee had been right about that.

Jasper and Austin took one side while Kayla and Gabriel took the other, stationing one archer on either side of the tree-lined medians above the tunnel openings. Renee, Will, and Izzy set up in the central space, prepared to go where they were needed. Will and Izzy were both without bows after last night; Renee balanced Michael’s in her hand and looked between the two of them.

“Will, do you want to keep a bow on you?” she asked him.

“Not really,” Will admitted. “I don’t think I’ll do much good. You should take it,” he told Izzy. She looked conflicted.

“Drew said—”

“Fuck Drew,” said Renee, then, “sorry,” when they both looked at her in surprise. She was usually the one who would tell them off for using language like that. “But she was wrong to say it, and she was a jerk about how she said it. I trust you, Izzy, and I want you to be able to defend yourself.”

“And you’ll get a lot more use out of a bow than I will,” Will told her. Izzy chewed on her lip.

“Okay,” she said, and took Michael’s bow gingerly when Renee handed it to her. “But I need you guys to keep a close eye on me, okay? If it looks like I’m back under Kronos’ influence—”

“We’ll snap you back out of it,” Will promised. Izzy shook her head.

“You should be ready to kill me.”

“Not going to happen.” He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. She smiled, if anxiously.

“As for you, you do still need to be able to defend yourself too,” Renee told him. “Do you have a knife on you?” Will shrugged.

“I’ve got a pocketknife and a couple scalpels.”

“Not good enough. Here.” She unclipped a small scabbard from her belt and handed it to him. Will pulled out a celestial bronze knife—not a large blade, only about eight inches long, but still a lot bigger and scarier than anything else he had on him.

“I don’t really know how to fight with a knife,” he reminded her. Renee nodded.

“When in doubt, stab, and if that doesn’t work, run.”

“Running I can definitely do,” said Will. Then Jasper yelled,

“Telkhine!” And it all started over again.

Their strategy at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel proved as effective as they’d hoped, but it quickly became clear they had bigger problems. The enemy had made it into Manhattan from the north and was fanning out. The Apollo cabin could hold, but if they stayed here they would end up cut off from their allies and trapped between two wings of Kronos’ forces.

Renee wasn’t willing to risk that, she said—last night had already been too much of a massacre. They weren’t losing anyone else. So, they pulled back.

Even though it was a bad sign in strategic terms, Will was kind of glad: he’d been feeling pretty useless running back and forth between the tunnel openings to check on his siblings, who were shooting from the high ground and all completely fine. As the monsters pushed them back into the streets of Manhattan he started running into friends from camp who actually did need help.

“Don’t let those telkhines near you,” Nyssa said through gritted teeth while Will stitched up the gaping wound in her side where one of the dog-faced creatures had taken a swipe at her. They were huddled in an alley where Will had half-carried her to get a moment’s peace from the fighting.

“That’s the goal,” he said. “There, that should do it.” He broke off the suture and set a hand over the wound site for a moment, closing his eyes. There wasn’t enough left in him right now to heal something this bad himself. Maybe, he thought, it was time to try his idea of praying to Asclepius.

“O Asclepius, god of medicine,” Will said in Ancient Greek, making it up as he went, “son of Apollo, in your name and our father’s,” because he knew better than to leave Apollo out of anything entirely, “please hear your brother’s supplication: heal this wound and keep out infection. And I promise I’ll sacrifice you some really good food if I make it back to camp.”

There was no clear response—it wasn’t like he ever got those from Apollo, either. But Will thought he heard a faint chuckle that carried a warm sense of brotherly fondness. It reminded him of golden summer days when he was younger, of Lee singing at the campfire and Michael leading them in canoe races. That warmth flooded through his hands and into Nyssa’s side, healing the wound completely. Will didn’t even think it was going to be worth putting on a bandage.

“Whoa,” said Nyssa, touching the spot first gingerly, then without fear. “What was that?”

“Something a little different.” Will shrugged. “How does it feel?” He stood, offering her a hand.

“Great. Like new.” Nyssa shook out her shoulders. “Thanks, Will.”

“No problem at all.” He waved it off as Nyssa ran back out of the alley and right into the fray. Will took a deep breath, said a quiet, “thanks, Asclepius,” drew Renee’s knife, and followed.

The battle raged on. Will must have run a mile as he dashed from place to place at the worst of it, tending to the wounded as calmly and efficiently as he could with people fighting all around him. He had to use the knife a couple of times—he managed to stab a telkhine before it could get at him with its claws, which he was pretty proud of—but for the most part he found he had enough cover to focus on his tasks. The other campers, at least, cared about maintaining the safety of medics in the field. Usually another demigod or two would stay near him and cover his back while he worked, deflecting any enemies from coming near.

In the fleeting moments when he was within sight of his other siblings who healed he would see someone doing the same for them—even for Izzy. She looked surprised by it, but no one seemed to hesitate. That kind of made Will want to cry, but of course he couldn’t; he had to keep moving.

Asclepius kept helping when Apollo couldn’t. Will owed him food worth several whole meals in sacrifices at this point. Maybe he’d try ordering a pizza, he thought, and see if he could get to the delivery person before they got too confused this time.

He amused himself with that idea while he healed a stab wound in Pollux’s shoulder. Camp Half-Blood seemed very far away right now, and the possibility of ever returning there felt even more remote. And it wasn’t supposed to be possible to get outside food into camp at all. But if he did make it back, by all the gods, Will was going to order a pizza and throw the whole thing directly into the fire for his divine brother.

Most of the wounds he ran into would have been treatable even without divine intervention. The people who were hurt worse—well, those wounds were mostly bad enough that by the time Will got to them they were already dead. Isaiah from the Hephaestus cabin got hit with a giant’s club on Park Avenue around midnight, the force of it bodily flinging him into a building. That brought back awful memories of Lee’s death, but Will was quickly distracted. Unfortunately, the distraction was Josh from the Hermes cabin falling to his knees, then face-first onto the ground, blood pouring from the gaping wound where one of Kronos’ demigods had just cut his throat. When Will caught sight of his face he realized with a horrible jolt that he knew the boy covered in Josh’s blood—Noah Shane, who had been at camp unclaimed for two summers before he disappeared. He and Josh had lived under the same roof.

Will swallowed down nausea and kept moving with the hours as they raced by and the demigods were forced to retreat foot by foot. Sometime—who could even say when anymore—he was kneeling on the sidewalk just a block from the Empire State Building, applying burn ointment for one of the Aphrodite girls who’d had an unfortunate run-in with a hellhound, when he was startled by a tap on his shoulder so gentle it felt incongruous with reality right now. He looked up and realized Olivia had taken on medic-guarding duty for the moment.

“Hey,” she said, glancing rapidly back and forth over her shoulder between him and the battle, apparently trying to keep an eye on both. “Cecil and I dropped by a Starbucks. Do you want some coffee?”

“Oh my gods, yes,” said Will, and took the cup she passed to him. “Thanks.” It was cold, but that was probably better than hot right now, and at this point he didn’t even care that it was stolen—coffee would be a safer fix to his flagging energy than continuing to dose himself with nectar the way he’d been doing on and off all night. He couldn’t quite feel fire in his veins yet, but just mathematically he knew he was getting close to the danger zone.

“You doing okay?” Olivia yelled as she stabbed an empousa who came too close.

“I’m fine. You?”

“I’m alive!” she called. “You’d better stay that way too!” Then she was gone again. Francesca, the Aphrodite girl Will was working on, giggled to herself. Will rolled his eyes.

“Don’t you even start with that nonsense,” he warned her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Francesca sing-songed, then, to his surprise, kissed his cheek before she ran back into the battle. It was kind of a shame Jasper wasn’t a healer, Will thought; he would have gotten a lot more out of that than Will had.

He hadn’t seen Jasper in a while. That didn’t feel great. He knew roughly where Izzy, Austin, and Kayla were, which was at least a little comforting, but right now Gabriel and Renee were unaccounted for in Will’s mental map of the battle too, and tonight not knowing where his siblings were felt too much like not knowing where Michael’s body had gone.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he raced past the two of them camped out in a store entryway, shooting above the melee with their sights set on taking out giants. And later, as they were pushed back up East 33rd, Will finally caught sight of Jasper. He was fighting off dracaenae beside Jake Mason, using a short sword he must have borrowed or taken off a fallen enemy. His bow was nowhere to be seen.

Jasper was a lot better with the sword than Xavier had been, definitely better than Will was with the knife, but it was hard for him to match the reach of the dracaenae’s spears. One leveled hers at him, hissing. Jasper successfully blocked one of her allies while Jake cut her clean in two with his broadsword. She disintegrated—but not before she thrust her spear past Jasper’s guard. He couldn’t bring his blade up fast enough.

“Holy—gods, no!” Will yelled, running toward his brother as his body collapsed to the ground. “Jasper!” But just like when Lee died, he was already too late, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He was pretty sure this wound must have killed Jasper instantly. The dracaena’s spear had shattered the right lens of his glasses and gone straight through his eye socket. His left eye stared blankly out of his ruined face. Will had a pretty strong stomach, generally—he had to—but this was testing it.

“Shit!” Jake stood stunned where he was, despite the dracaenae closing in.

“Watch out!” Will warned him, thankfully fast enough that Jake did manage to block another spear, his blade slicing it in two and finishing its arc in the wielder’s sternum. The dracaena hissed a curse as she disintegrated.

“Thanks.” Jake pulled a grenade from his belt, yanked the pin out with his teeth, and threw it into the midst of the dracaenae. “Duck.” Will ducked. A couple seconds later there came not a bang but a muffled squishing sound. The dracaenae screamed in agony as they were drenched in noxious slime, though the screams faded away as quickly as their physical bodies. Jake crouched down next to Will. “Let’s get him out of here,” he said grimly.

They carried Jasper’s body to a spot clear of the fighting, laying him down at the base of the Empire State Building. Will took his brother’s destroyed glasses off his face and closed his remaining eye. He was pretty sure Renee had a couple of actual golden shrouds with her, but she wasn’t in his sightline; for now, he just cut a piece of bandage large enough to lay over Jasper’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said hollowly. “I wasn’t fast enough.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Will said. Jake shook his head, though not quite like he was disagreeing.

“Nah.” He looked around them bleakly. “We were never gonna be able to hold. There weren’t enough of us.” Kronos’ forces had them backed up all around. The Titan Lord himself was riding toward them from the east, heralded by a rising golden light that felt like a cruel parody of Will’s father. Percy Jackson stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue, flanked by those campers who could still stand.

Jake was right. There weren’t enough of them. It wasn’t just a matter of doing the impossible anymore—all around, demigods’ mouths were moving, praying to their parents for any divine intervention they could muster. Will doubted any of the Olympians would be able to do anything, let alone enough, but even so he tried too. Please, Dad. Give us a miracle.

A horn sounded somewhere in the distance, breaking through the tension. Will’s eyes flew open. Everyone, campers and Kronos’ forces alike, was looking around in confusion. More horns sounded—and just like that, their miracle arrived.

Which wasn’t to say it was any of their parents’ doing, or realistically more than just a really convenient turn of events. No, this was all on Chiron. The Party Ponies drove Kronos’ forces back far enough to set up a perimeter a few blocks out again. Will stayed back by the doors, waiting to see if it took, if it could hold more than a couple minutes.

It did. The campers running back to Fifth Avenue were running for efficiency, or just out of the exuberance of sheer relief, not because they were being chased. Kayla appeared at the corner of Fifth and 34th, caught sight of Will, and ran over to hug him again. Her orange t-shirt was covered in blood, which was absolutely terrifying for a second until they made contact and he realized none of it was her own. She didn’t have a scratch on her. Will found himself actually laughing in relief, and hugged back so hard he lifted her into the air.

Kayla laughed too. “Will, put me down!” The others were converging on them, regrouping. Austin launched himself at Kayla and Will, making it a group hug. Their older siblings had a little more self-control, but their moods seemed so much lighter too.

“Chiron said there’s five hundred of them!” This was the closest to genuinely cheery Will had seen Renee since—possibly when Travis asked her out for the fireworks, actually, a month and a half ago. Which made it suck all the more when she looked around at the other five of them and said, “wait, where’s Jasper?” Instantly all the lightness collapsed, probably with the look on Will’s face.

“He’s—” he gestured. Renee looked where he was indicating and pressed a hand over her mouth, shaking her head.

“Oh my gods, no—” She turned back to Will with a look of horror. “What happened?”

“Dracaenae.”

“Oh gods, gods—fucking damn it!” Renee ran her hands down her face.

“Renee—” Izzy set a hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Renee shook her head. “I said we weren’t losing anyone else!”

“We won’t!” said Gabriel. “The tide’s turning now that the centaurs are here. We’re all going to get out of this alive.” Renee nodded grimly.

“Yeah, I’m holding all of you to that.” She met Will’s eyes sadly. “Okay. We have to keep moving forward, so. Chiron and Percy and them are putting up a command tent on this side of Fifth. I propose we set up a med tent on that side.” She pointed across the street. “Gabriel, Austin, Kayla, you guys start gathering the wounded together. Will, Izzy, you know what to do. Let’s make ourselves useful.”

The next hour or two stayed a blur, but it was a much less hectic one. The mood stayed light, the campers less tense. Occasionally Will thought he even heard the sound of laughter. The Hermes cabin scrounged up sandwiches from somewhere within the perimeter, and again Will was so grateful he didn’t bother questioning the origin of the tuna salad Cecil brought him.

Almost everyone needed some kind of medical treatment (except Percy—Will continued to find it difficult to see the so-called “curse of Achilles” as a bad thing), which was more people than they had space to treat in their makeshift field hospital, so they spent the first part of it triaging. Those fighters they would be able to get back on their feet fastest stayed down on 5th Avenue. The rest, Renee, Annabeth, and Travis concluded grimly in a quick council as the sun started to rise, should retreat to Olympus for now.

Those they healed were in the process of moving everyone else into the Empire State Building lobby and up to Olympus in shifts when the air was filled with a bone-chilling roar. It shook the asphalt under their feet as the eastern sky darkened again. Then there was a heavy thud, a cracking sound, and a couple pieces of building facade fell to the sidewalk as one of the largest creatures Will had ever seen landed on the skyscraper on the other side of Fifth. Everyone in the street looked up, frozen in terror.

“What is that?” Gabriel asked. Renee swallowed.

“A drakon,” she said. It was bigger than the one they had fought last summer, and Will thought it looked hungrier. “Kayla, Austin, get upstairs now.”

“Shouldn’t we try and shoot—”

“Go.”

“—okay.” To Will’s relief, and he could see also Renee’s, they did as they were told without any more argument, racing back towards the doors.

“You guys should go too,” Renee told him and Gabriel, “this could get really bad really fast.” Will and Gabriel looked at each other and shook their heads.

“No way,” said Gabriel. “I’ve got arrows to spare. If you’re staying, I’m staying.”

“Me too,” said Will. Renee nodded.

“Okay. Just stay close.” It didn’t matter, though, because Percy Jackson had finally reemerged from the Empire State Building—

“I’ll take the drakon!” he yelled. “Everyone else, hold the line against the army!”

“Well, we have our orders,” said Renee. “Let’s go.”

As usual, Renee was right: things did get really bad really fast. Then they got worse.

In spite of the danger Will was still glad he had stayed down in the street, because if there was one thing he’d realized in the last two summers it was that he would rather be where he was needed most, and in a battle like this that was the thick of the fighting. Being down here meant he could tend to those who needed it right away, fast enough to save people he maybe couldn’t have if someone would’ve had to bring them to him. Or him to them.

But Will could only do so much. It was down to the people he healed to hold the line, and once again they couldn’t do it. While Percy and Annabeth made very little headway with the drakon, Kronos’ forces pushed the campers and centaurs back towards the Empire State Building again, until they found themselves standing right where they had been just hours ago, before the Party Ponies showed up. For all the good they were doing now.

The Empire State Building loomed over them, a reminder of what they had to lose—what they had to defend. Even if they couldn’t see Olympus from the ground, here in the mortal world, they all knew it was there, and it sure felt like right now Olympus could see them. Will was kneeling in its shadow, fixing Olivia’s wounded arm with a boost from Asclepius—he’d just have to add garlic knots to the pizza order, he thought, and almost laughed again at how surreal that thought was right now—when the street started to rumble again.

Will’s first thought was, another drakon. That’s it. We’re done. His second thought, when he looked up to face his death head-on, wasn’t really translatable except as a series of curses. If only he’d known any strong enough to match just how he felt seeing a line of chariots roll into battle under red banners, and hearing their war cry:

“ARES!”

About fucking time, was the best Will could do once his thoughts became more coherent than just a mixture of relief and outrage. So he said it out loud: “About fucking time.”

“No shit,” said Olivia, jumping back up to her feet and brandishing her knife. "If you see Mark and Sherman, tell them I'm gonna kick both their asses when we get back."

"I'm sure Mark'll like that," said Will before he could stop himself, and instantly regretted it. There was a reason he didn't usually tease either of his friends about this—it felt like wearing a mask he didn't like very much.

"Oh, shut up." Olivia rolled her eyes before she ran off.

As they plunged into battle, the dozen red chariots broke into two wings: one group charged Kronos’ forces, led by a girl Will was pretty sure had to be Dana, while Clarisse herself led the other six straight for the drakon.

The Ares kids' arrival in the battle reinvigorated the campers and the centaurs. That wasn’t to say they regained any ground—but they stopped losing it. They held what little they still had. Will pulled the wounded out of the street and onto the sidewalk, treating them just inside the door and keeping an eye on Renee and Gabriel as best he could. They were both as far from the front line as was possible when the front line was basically the only line, shooting to take down giants again.

Gabriel smoked a hellhound and he and Renee high-fived. Will caught himself grinning for a second. He might not be the most badass person at camp, but at least his siblings were.

Sort of surprisingly and sort of not, the Ares campers fighting the drakon weren’t doing much better than Percy and Annabeth had. They managed to avoid its sprays of poison for the most part, though one boy got showered with the stuff and ran screaming into the Empire State Building as his armor started to melt. Will really, really hoped that wasn’t Sherman—he was too short to be Mark, and was carrying a sword, not a bow. He hadn’t been able to catch sight of Mark yet. Not that he’d been trying.

Another Ares kid didn’t manage to dodge the drakon’s snapping teeth. Will really hadn’t needed to see someone else get eaten by a monster, and his legs went a little weird while he was running. The drakon roared in a way that sounded uncomfortably like a belch and slashed out with its claws, raking—impaling, really—a daughter of Ares as it did. It shook its claws to dislodge her corpse, flinging her against the side of the Empire State Building not far from where Will was and sweeping up another of her siblings with her for good measure. He landed with an awful crash as his bow went flying—

“Oh, gods, no. No.” Usually, Will probably knew better than to run into the drakon’s range, but right now he didn’t know anything except that his legs were moving under him. He ducked another swipe of the drakon’s claws and dragged the fallen Ares archer as far away from the monster as he could get.

This close to where the two bodies had landed, he could see the impaled girl was Laura—but it was too late for Will to try and help her. She had been dead long before she hit the ground. Mark, though, wasn’t.

“Will?” Blood was seeping down Mark’s forehead from under his helmet, hiding the scar he was so proud of. His skull hadn’t cracked all the way open, though, it wasn’t like Lee—but the internal damage was heavy. “Hey. Good to see you’ve—you’ve made it this far—”

“Shut up.” Will could have punched him, or he could have kissed him, and of course he didn’t do either. He just set a hand on his chest, examining, trying to figure out where to start. “Here.” He helped Mark hold his head up just enough to pour nectar down his throat.

“No, it’s—” Mark said hoarsely once he’d swallowed it down, closing his eyes for a second. “It’s good. I get to say I’m sorry. When Clarisse said—I was afraid you’d die before I got to say sorry.” He grimaced. “Guess that’s me instead.”

“No, you’re not—”

“I’m sorry, Will. For what I did.” His voice was barely a whisper. All the nectar in the world couldn’t help him draw in air when his lungs had both caved in.

“Okay.” Will nodded. “Okay. Thanks.” Now that he’d given Mark nectar, he could maybe get his lungs whole again—he had some experience with that recently. Which was all Mark’s fault. But Mark had apologized for that. It had been important to him, to apologize to Will—

“We’re good?” Mark managed to grate out.

“Of course we’re good,” Will snapped. “Would you shut up and let me—” but suddenly his voice went wherever Mark’s heartbeat had just gone. “Mark?” He pushed at his shoulder. “Mark. Mark—” Stayin’ Alive, he thought, and got his hands aligned for compressions.

Will tried. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing. CPR couldn’t work right on collapsed lungs, not even with magic, and Will knew from experience healing dead flesh without a life force to respond didn’t work the same way. Above him, the drakon roared in agony. Someone, somewhere, was screaming, and all around them people were still fighting. Over here, in Will’s tiny corner of the world, Mark was dead, and death was a barrier Will couldn’t break through.

He tried praying to Asclepius, remembering the myths that said maybe he could, but this time he got no response. No warmth flowed through his hands. It was all just nothing. Will sat back against the wall next to Mark’s body, pulling his knees up and sinking his hands into his hair. His fingers curled in on his palms, tightening into fists as he struggled to breathe, and not to cry, until he was tugging on it hard enough to hurt.

That snapped him out of it, or maybe back into it.

Will pushed himself up off the wall and ran as fast as he could back into the battle, racing down 5th Avenue. He ducked dracaenae’s spears and telekhines’ swipes, stabbing back where he could with Renee’s knife, pausing to wrap wounds when it was safe. He just had to get as many actions, as many helpful, useful moments of saving people, between him and—that. Again he found himself sort of thankful for the noise and the chaos. It meant he didn’t have to think.

Somewhere back in front of the Empire State Building, the drakon bellowed. Then a cheer went up as Clarisse slayed it. A minute or two later she was charging into battle on—gods, the fucking chariot. Will thought of Clarisse shouting at Michael that she hoped he died—that they all died. And then Michael had. In a heartless moment, he hoped she was happy with the results, now that she hadn’t bothered showing up to the battle until the Apollo cabin was already halfway to seeing her wish fulfilled.

She didn’t look happy, though. Not in the slightest. And he couldn’t deny she was the force that single-handedly turned the tide until they finally, finally got Kronos’ army on the run again.

Will paused to heal Miranda where she had dragged herself into a doorway on a badly-cut leg. Then, as he got up to head back towards the fray, he heard an awful scream rise in a too-familiar voice from half a block up, right on the edge of the retreating enemy lines. Any thought of what had just happened to Mark fled from Will’s mind as he turned to see Renee lying on the ground, trying desperately to fight off two telkhines as they clawed at her.

“Get away from her—” He ran at them, drawing her knife, and had stabbed them both almost before he knew it had happened. The demons disintegrated, leaving just Will standing over Renee where she lay on the ground, gasping for breath while blood poured from her body.

Just from looking at her he could see it was bad—her stomach was torn open too many ways. She was bleeding out at a rate it would be hard to meaningfully stop. He fell to his knees next to her and applied pressure anyway.

As soon as he touched her he knew it wasn’t just bad. There was too much blood, and too much else was compromised with it. This wasn’t going to be possible. Not before—

Wrong, Will told himself. It has to be possible. We have to do the impossible. There were too many places to start, so he worked on closing the external wounds. At least he could try to staunch the blood loss that way.

“Lee?” Renee whispered. Her eyes were unfocused.

“No,” Will said, trying to keep his voice steady. “It’s Will. Stay still, okay?”

“Lee, I—”

“It’s Will,” he repeated a little louder. Renee blinked.

“Will.” She managed to focus on his face. “You know, you—you look like him.”

“I know,” said Will, “I remember.”

“Just like him, when we were kids—” she took a long breath that sounded painful. “Oh, Will, you’re just a kid. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Will told her firmly. “We’re going to get you healed, and everything will be fine.” He was making progress, he told himself. This wasn’t like what had happened with—what had just happened. He’d been able to close the worst of Renee’s wounds, so she wasn’t losing blood quite as fast, and it was coagulating faster. There wasn’t enough left in her body, but nectar could fix that. And Will could fix the organs, the flesh. He could. If there had just been enough time.

Renee gazed up at him. There were tears in her eyes.

“I’m a healer too,” she reminded him hoarsely. “I know that’s not true.” Will shook his head.

“It has to be.”

“Will, I don’t—I don’t want to die,” said Renee. Her voice caught. The tears overflowed. Will stared down at her, realizing for the first time in a long time—she was his big sister, the one who took care of everyone else in the cabin, but she wasn’t so much older than him. She was barely eighteen. They’d celebrated her birthday in July. That was older than a lot of demigods got to be—older than Lee had been, older than Michael, than Jasper, than Xavier and Leah and Silas—but if hers had been a regular mortal lifespan she was still so, so young. “I don’t want to die.” Will swallowed hard against more tears of his own. He wasn’t going to cry. There wasn’t time.

“I know. You’re not going to.”

“No, listen. When Lee died—” she took a harsh, rasping breath. “I had—a flash of insight, a, a sense, you know. An under—understanding. The power of prophecy. It was—” she closed her eyes for a second. “I’m going to see Lee again, soon. I knew it then, that I’d see him again—next year. This year now. The next time I saw Olympus, I wouldn’t come back.”

“You will.” He shook his head. “You can’t die, Renee, not now. We need you.”

“Will, it’s the Fates,” Renee choked. “I don’t want to die, but you can’t—it’s the Fates.” Will shook his head, even though he could feel it—her energy was growing sluggish under his senses, her life force fading. There was too much blood. There wasn’t enough blood. Renee fumbled for his hand, gripping his fingers over top of where he was trying to keep pressure on the worst of the wounds.

“I hate the Fates,” Will whispered. Renee nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m sorry—but sweetheart, you’re gonna be fine.” Will shook his head again. “It’s all you now,” Renee said. “You’ll do great.”

“Renee!” someone screamed, and then Kayla was here—where the hell had she come from? She was supposed to be on Olympus—skidding to a halt on her knees next to Will. Gabriel was right behind her. “Renee, no.” She was crying before she got there.

“What happened?” Gabriel asked, sounding choked up himself.

“Damn telkhines,” Renee managed. “But Will killed ‘em for me.” Her breath was getting shallower. Her eyes were slipping out of focus again, and her chest heaved with something between a laugh and a sob. “You know, I told my mom I—I wanted to take a gap year.”

“You’re going to,” said Kayla.

“Kayla…” Will started to say, shaking his head, but Kayla shook her head right back.

“No,” she told Renee, echoing Will’s denials through the tears pouring down her face. “You can’t die. You can’t—”

“I don’t want to.” Renee closed her eyes for a second. “I don’t. I—I love you guys so much. Wish it wasn’t happening—” she coughed weakly. “Power of prophecy sucks, you guys. No, nobody should—should know how they’ll—”

They sat still for what felt like a very long time. Kayla’s sobs became a low scream that didn’t seem to fade even after she ran out of breath. Renee’s hand had gone slack on Will’s, and he could feel her energy go—he felt his sister die—but he couldn’t move. It couldn’t be over. This couldn’t be it.

“We should get her body somewhere safe,” Gabriel finally said. Will nodded slowly, and wiped his hands on his already blood-soaked jeans, then with an alcohol wipe from his bag, before he reached out to close Renee’s eyes.

“Olympus,” he said. It was the safest place for now, but the word sounded wrong in his mouth. How long could it really hold? Everything was wrong. Nothing would ever be right again.

But, it would do for now. Will carried her. Gabriel picked up her backpack, dripping with blood now, and slung it over his shoulder. Kayla pulled it together enough to have their backs, keeping her bow at the ready as she shadowed them up the block toward the Empire State Building. Will barely noticed the battle still raging up the street, Clarisse and the campers pushing the monsters back, until the lobby doors shut behind them and he realized how quiet it was suddenly.

Izzy was sitting on the floor near the elevators healing the Ares camper who’d had his armor melted by the drakon’s acid, which involved a lot of burn treatment paste. Will had to do an awful double-take when he realized, to his horror, that was Sherman—but at least he was just unconscious. If he had been dead, he reminded himself, Izzy wouldn’t have been applying the ointment. But she was. So Sherman was alive. Will didn’t have to add yet another friend to the list of fallen loved ones just yet. It was a small comfort, but it was something.

Izzy looked up at their approach, eyes settling on Renee’s body. It wasn’t like there had really been light in her eyes before, but what wasn’t there went out further. Her brown eyes became empty voids in a mask of horror.

“No,” she said. “No. No. Is she—” Will shook his head. Izzy dropped the jar of ointment, which thankfully didn’t shatter or wake up Sherman, and pressed her hands over her mouth. “No, no, no—” she closed her eyes for a moment. Then she took a deep breath, opened her eyes again, and went back to applying the paste. She didn’t look back at them, keeping her eyes trained on her work. Will understood that impulse. He wanted to go hug her, but he was carrying Renee, so instead he just shoved back tears—yet again—and walked on.

The elevator was upstairs; it took a while after Gabriel pushed the button before the doors slid open with a chime. He and Will carried Renee’s body inside, where Will gently set her down and knelt beside her. “Stayin’ Alive” wasn’t funny anymore. Right now it felt like the elevator music was mocking them.

Finally they reached the six hundredth floor, and the bridge. They walked her across it carefully and carried her up into the small, quiet park off the main path where they’d set up the med tent earlier. There were a couple people resting there who Will had healed before. They looked up as he and Gabriel laid Renee down on the grass. Pollux scrambled up to standing, looking horrified.

“Oh my gods, Renee—”

“She had a couple shrouds in there,” said Will, indicating the backpack. “We should cover her body, just—give her some dignity.” Gabriel unzipped it and handed it to him. Will found the golden cloths folded at the bottom of the bag. There were three. As he pulled them out and unfolded the one that looked the least bloodstained, it gleamed dully in the starlight. None of the braziers were lit up here anymore. All the fires had gone out.

Renee had known she was going to die, Will thought numbly. She’d gone into battle carrying her own shroud. A sob tore through his throat, too fast and painful to be held in this time. He dropped the shroud in the grass and covered his face with his hands, shaking with the effort it took to stop crying.

“Will?” Gabriel sounded like he was on the verge of tears too. On Will’s other side, Kayla wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” Will forced himself to breathe until the tears went away again and he could look up. “Can y’all go get Jasper’s body, too, so we can make sure he has a shroud? And—” he swallowed hard. “And any of the Ares campers who are down. Anyone you can find, really.” Josh. Isaiah. “We should start moving the bodies up here, too, just to make sure they’re—you know, accounted for.” His siblings glanced at each other, nodded, and left him alone with the wounded and the dead.

Will shook out the shroud and spread it over Renee’s body. Dad, he thought, I don’t know what kind of favor you have in the Underworld, but she’d better get Elysium. Probably the answer to that question was not a lot, he knew; Apollo, or his children, anyway, didn’t historically do great with letting the dead stay dead, and no doubt Hades resented them for that. Hadn’t Will himself just been begging Asclepius to bring back Mark if he could?

Renee would go to Elysium, he told himself; she had to. She’d said she would see Lee again, and last year Nico had told him Lee was there for sure.

Will’s thoughts drifted. Not for the first time, he wondered where Nico was, what he was doing. He’d disappeared last summer and hadn’t been around since. Will had heard rumors he’d been seen in the woods from time to time, talking to Percy, but no one really knew what his part in all this was. They were pretty sure he was still on their side, as much as a son of Hades could be—Hades wasn’t on the best terms with the Olympians, but had no love for Kronos, and the enemy of their enemy was their friend, right?

Ought to have been their friend. But Nico didn’t seem to care much for friends.

“Are you okay?” Pollux asked, crouching near Will. He had one arm in a sling, but he looked otherwise fine.

“I’ll be fine,” Will said shortly. “Who else needs to be healed?”

Chapter Text

Gabriel and Kayla reappeared on Olympus after a while, carrying Jasper’s body on a stretcher. Behind them, a couple Ares campers brought up Mark and Laura, while another of their siblings helped Izzy carry a still-unconscious Sherman up to the park where Will was working. Izzy had gotten his burns cleaned up and on the mend, but she was out of bandages, and he needed them pretty much all over his body. While Will did that, Izzy collapsed on the grass next to him, leaning against his side.

“Hi,” said Will.

“Hi,” said Izzy. They didn’t say anything else. They didn’t really need to.

Kayla pulled Izzy away to get another field hospital set up in a nearby park. Gabriel and Austin were working on the same thing a ways up toward the palace. Percy and Annabeth walked by, stopping briefly to talk to Pollux and other campers who’d been brought up for healing. They didn’t bother Will or his siblings, which was good of them—right now they were all focused on their own tasks.

Once he was done bandaging Sherman, Will used the second-least-bloody shroud to cover Jasper, laying him next to Renee. He hung onto the third just in case. They had better not need it—and then there were five, he thought—but it wasn’t like they had their other siblings’ bodies to bring back. Xavier and Leah were at the bottom of the East River, and most likely so was Michael, even if they hadn’t seen him fall. Silas was just… gone. They would burn four empty shrouds for them, if they ever saw Camp Half-Blood again.

The Ares cabin didn’t have shrouds on hand, but they used the red banners from some of their more destroyed chariots to cover Mark, Laura, and another camper who had fallen against an empousa. Will watched them from a distance as he tended to their brother Vinnie, who’d gotten hit with the drakon’s acid breath too.

Field hospital, field mortuary. In war, maybe they were just two sides of the same coin.

“Whoa, where am I?” Sherman asked a couple minutes later, sitting bolt upright as he woke. “Will? What’s—”

“You’re on Olympus,” Will told him.

“What ha—”

“You’re pretty badly burned, but you’ll heal. Clarisse killed the drakon.”

“Shit,” said Sherman, “good for her.” They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment. Will had no idea what his face looked like right now, but whatever was on it, it was clearly making Sherman uncomfortable. “So, uh—how’s the battle been going?” he asked, putting on a brave face. “Did we miss a lot of good action?”

“Fuck you,” Will said flatly, turning away.

“Hey! I wanted to come, it’s just that Clarisse—”

“Yeah, whatever.” Will shook his head, keeping his focus on what he was doing. “Half my cabin is dead. I don’t want to hear it.” He was too tired to say it with much emotion.

“—Shit,” Sherman said again. “Holy shit, Will, I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“Yeah.” This time the silence wasn’t awkward so much as just painful.

“Hey,” Sherman finally asked more tentatively, “have you seen Mark? Do you know if he’s okay?”

Will tried to reply, but it was like his voice got stuck. He just stared down at Vinnie’s bandages in his hands, trying to think of what to say. After a couple of seconds Sherman gulped. He looked over at the bodies under the red flags.

“Okay. Right.” He lay back on the grass and turned away, bandages permitting, so he lay on his side with his back to Will. “Right.” His voice went out. Will finished securing Vinnie’s bandages and pretended not to notice Sherman was crying. He’d give him that dignity.

Just as Will looked up again and started to think about triaging for his next task, there was a commotion at the bridge. He looked over to see Thalia Grace and a couple of campers racing up the mountainside.

“They’re rallying!” Jake yelled, stopping in the parks while Thalia continued up toward the palace. Going after Percy and Annabeth, no doubt. “Kronos is leading the army right back to our door! Anyone who can fight, get down to Fifth Ave right now!” Will stood. Sherman also tried to stand.

“No way in hell,” Will told him, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him firmly back down.

“He said anyone who—”

“Yeah, and you can’t fight. You’re staying right where you are.”

“But—”

“Do I have to say doctor’s orders or something? Cause I will. Stay here.” Leaving a very grumpy Sherman behind, he ran up to the road. His siblings were all racing down it towards him.

“What do we do?” Austin asked as they gathered. Will looked around at the four of them. They were all looking back at him. Oh, gods, he thought blankly, am I in charge now?

“I’m going down there,” he said. “If Kronos is coming back, camp’s gonna need a combat medic. None of y’all have to go if you don’t want to—we’ve already done more than our share, we’ve lost way too many—”

“We’re going,” Gabriel said fiercely, tightening his grip on his bow. Kayla and Austin nodded with similar determination alight in their eyes. Izzy—

“You should stay up here, Iz,” Will found himself saying at the look on her face. “Someone needs to finish healing everyone, and—” he raised his voice—“keep an eye on any stupid Ares boys who try to go fight when they’re still too badly hurt—”

“Fuck off!” Sherman called in the distance. Izzy laughed weakly. She looked absolutely relieved.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll do that. Guys—”

“We know,” said Kayla. “Come back alive. We’ll do our best.” Izzy nodded tightly.

“Come on.” With his siblings in tow, Will ran for the elevator. They barely made it in time, dashing in just as the doors closed.

The elevator chimed and began to move. The campers stood there in silence, listening to the now-familiar pulse and whine of ‘Stayin’ Alive’: Jake, Andy from the Hermes cabin, three children of Ares, and four of the only five children of Apollo left in Manhattan. This was it—all the reinforcements the demigods on Olympus could provide.

Aside from Percy and Annabeth, anyway, Will reminded himself. There was always Percy and Annabeth. Percy still just might save the world.

What followed was the worst rout Will had ever seen, or ever hoped to. They made it down to the street just in time for the onslaught: all the forces of Kronos against about twenty of them.

Within minutes it didn’t even seem like it would matter if Percy and Annabeth made it down too. Will crouched against the wall of the Empire State Building, watching helplessly as Jake lay bleeding from a stomach wound. He was doing his best to keep pressure on it with his own hands, grimacing, and he wasn’t losing blood as fast as Renee had been, but he also wasn’t the only one badly in need of medical attention. And Will couldn’t get to any of them.

Kronos stood less than twenty feet from the doors, flanked by his entire army. Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia had appeared in the doorway, but they were too late: the only person still standing on the side of Olympus was Chiron, an arrow nocked, drawn, and aimed directly at the Titan Lord’s face. All around, Dracaenae stood with spears at the ready. Will didn’t dare move.

“You’re a teacher,” Kronos was saying, dripping with contempt, “not a hero.”

“Luke was a hero,” Chiron said. “A good one, until you corrupted him.”

“Fool!” Kronos bellowed. His voice sounded too big for Luke’s body. “You filled his head with empty promises. You said you cared about me!” No one breathed.

“Me,” Chiron said softly. “You said me.” Kronos faltered, and Chiron took his opening—only to be flung aside by Kronos’ fury with a force that collapsed the wall of the building.

“No!” Annabeth screamed, drawing her knife. Percy tried to grab her, to hold her back, but she shook him off and launched herself at Kronos. When she tried to stab him through an opening in his armor, though, it was like the knife glanced off a hard surface. Now Percy did manage to pull her away.

Watching, Will’s heart rose in his throat. Kronos—Luke—must have done the same thing Percy did. Maybe that was why Percy had.

Kronos raised his scythe for a final strike. Will looked at Percy—had that been it? If he hadn’t pulled Annabeth away, could she have killed Kronos? Had Jasper been right, and the hero had made the wrong choice for a good reason?—

Then a hellhound’s howl chilled the air around them. Even Kronos was startled into lowering his scythe. Slowly, his army parted. A giant black dog was walking through it—but not one of the slavering monsters they had been fighting for the last two nights, not like the one that had eaten Silas. This was Percy’s tame hellhound, the one he had inherited from Quintus last year. Next to her walked a small, black-clad figure.

“Mrs. O’Leary?” Percy called, sounding like he could hardly believe it. “Nico?”

“I got your message,” Nico di Angelo called. Even from here Will could see he was smiling. This was nothing like the smile on that sweet kid from two years ago, though—this was kind of terrifying. In a cool way. “Is it too late to join the party?” Kronos gripped his scythe tighter, turning to look at the newcomers.

“Son of Hades.” He spat on the ground as if to indicate what he thought of his grandson, or maybe the God of the Dead himself. “Do you love death so much you wish to experience it?” Nico’s smile just widened.

“Your death would be great for me,” he said. Kronos scoffed.

“I’m immortal, you fool!” he snapped. “I have escaped Tartarus. You have no business here, and no chance to live.”

“I don’t agree,” said Nico, reaching for the scabbard clipped to his belt and drawing that same black sword he’d had last summer. All around the Empire State Building, the earth began to shake. It wasn’t like the rumbling when the drakon had arrived, nor the chariots, earlier—this came from within the earth itself. And then, so did the dead.

A war horn rang out through downtown Manhattan, making everyone jump. Will yelped, lost his balance, and fell on the sidewalk as a fissure opened in the concrete and a zombie holding a mace crawled out of the ground about five feet away. He scrambled back against the wall, not so worried about conspicuous movement. Kronos’ army’s focus was elsewhere, and he wasn’t the only one—wounded campers all around him were struggling to move out of the way of the undead warriors rising out of the street.

“Hold your ground!” Kronos bellowed. Again his voice seemed larger than his form, echoing supernaturally off of the buildings overhead. “The dead are no match for us!” But it wasn’t just Nico and his ghost army they had to contend with. The sky went dark as Hades himself rode up 5th Avenue in a chariot pulled by horses that looked like they were made of the same stuff as hellhounds, only frozen in the moment of annihilation, when they became shadows. He was flanked by two goddesses whose chariots were much less scary, decorated with plants instead of death and disembowelment. One of them must be Persephone, Will supposed, which probably meant the other was Demeter.

It wasn’t like Will had never been within spitting distance of gods before—his own father, for one, and Mr. D was quite another thing—but he had never seen this many divine beings all in one place at once. The air hummed with power. It was terrifying—or maybe that was just Hades’ helmet, which Will found he couldn’t quite look at directly. When he did glance at it, something about it made him feel like he might as well have died already. He tried to focus on Hades’ face instead.

That wasn’t a whole lot better, but it’d do.

“Hello, father,” said Hades, smiling in the exact same way as his son. It was, of course, a lot scarier on him. “You’re looking young.”

“Hades,” said Kronos. “I hope you and the ladies have come to pledge your allegiance.” Behind Hades, the goddess Will assumed was Demeter scoffed.

“I’m afraid not,” said Hades. “My son here convinced me that perhaps I should prioritize my list of enemies. As much as I dislike certain upstart demigods—” he looked very conspicuously at Percy as he said it, while Nico’s eyes dropped to the ground at his feet, his smile fading—“it would not do for Olympus to fall.”

Kronos’ eyes narrowed. His forces’ nervous energy ratcheted up a notch, all their focus on the Underworld contingent now. Will seized his chance to crawl over to Jake and get his wound closed. Fortunately the internal damage wasn’t severe—whatever monster had stabbed him hadn’t managed to hit anything major. Will murmured his prayer to Asclepius, which was getting pretty rote at this point, and moved on to where Katie was cradling a broken arm. Two cracked ribs, too, when Will examined her, but those at least were a fix he could do without any divine intervention. Without breaking a sweat either.

Dealing with the arm, he did find himself grateful for the Hermes kids’ sandwich heist earlier this morning. He would have burned out by now, possibly literally from all the nectar, if he hadn’t had food. Instead he could keep moving, ducking from person to person and administering whatever aid he could to get them back on their feet and ready to fight monsters.

Around them, Kronos had broken the spell that had engulfed Manhattan, sealing only the demigods and the entrance to Olympus. Cars started up again—some of them started moving, having frozen with their transmissions still in drive. That had the potential to be a serious problem. Some mortals woke up confused, others screaming. Distantly Will wondered about the woman he’d pulled out of her car last night, the kids they’d gotten off the school bus—were they waking up too? Would the cars they hadn’t destroyed be driving off the edge of the chasm and right into the East River?

But a little more immediately on his mind was the fact that the distraction had given Kronos and his—calling them “cronies” felt too on the nose—the cover they needed to make it into the lobby of the Empire State Building. Will felt like he’d failed somehow, since he was in the shadow of the caved-in wall where Thalia was still desperately trying to unearth Chiron, not far from the doors. Maybe he should have tried to stop them. But he reminded himself that even if he hadn’t been getting ready to stitch up a nasty gash in Lou Ellen’s shoulder, he was no match for any of Kronos’ vanguard, and he wasn’t about to die on his siblings too. They weren’t using this third shroud, gods damn it.

“We’ll handle the enemy,” he heard Nico say surprisingly close by. He twisted to see him, Percy, and Annabeth, and—two middle-aged mortals?—racing past him on the sidewalk toward the Empire State Building. “You have to get Kronos!”

“Come on, Seaweed Brain!” Annabeth snapped at Percy. They disappeared into the building. Nico glanced down at Will and Lou Ellen.

“Oh, hey, Will,” he said, then drew his sword again and whirled away into the battle. Lou Ellen gasped. Will snapped back around, worried he’d accidentally hurt her in his inattention, but she was staring after Nico.

“Is that the Ghost King?” she asked, a little awed.

“The what?” said Will. “That’s Nico. He’s—” my friend, he almost said, but that wasn’t really true. “The son of Hades.”

“He is, then. Wow.” Lou Ellen shook her head. “I don’t know why, but I thought he’d be taller. More like Percy-sized, you know?”

“He’s only, like, twelve,” Will pointed out, not looking up from the skin he was stitching. “What do you mean, the Ghost King?”

“That’s what he’s called in the Underworld,” Lou Ellen explained. “He took the title from King Minos, like, claimed it. Declared himself it. Last summer. I don’t even know if he did it on purpose, I guess he’s a kid so it might have been kind of like a joke—but words like that have power. It was a big scandal in the Underworld cause it royally pissed Minos off—”

“Ha, ha—”

“And I know about it cause, you know, my mom—technically kind of works with his dad.”

“Oh, right.” Will had sort of known that about Hecate, but had forgotten. Lou Ellen’s mouth twisted as she added,

“Well, she did, anyway. Don’t know how good of terms they’ll be on now that Hades has decided to formally side with the Olympians.” And side with them he definitely had. Up and down 5th Avenue, the forces of the Underworld were outmatching the battered forces of Kronos, not so much driving them back the way the forces of Olympus had been doing all day as just completely destroying them. It was kind of a heartening change of pace.

Will caught sight of Nico, twisting and slashing with his void of a sword, taking down monsters two or three at a time. He was really good, Will realized. Sure, it helped that the blade was Stygian Iron and consumed monsters’ souls on impact, but Nico also was just surprisingly skilled at using it for someone who was about five foot two, concerningly skinny, and had never trained at camp. Maybe he’d been training in the Underworld.

Nico vanished from view again behind a pair of Laistrygonians. Will blinked and realized he was still kneeling on the sidewalk, even though as soon as he’d secured Lou Ellen’s bandage she’d drawn her knife and raced back into the fray. Gulping back fear, he pushed himself up and followed.

The cacophony of battle was so loud that Will hardly noticed the thunderous booms from overhead until he looked up. The sky was swirling with menacing clouds rolling in from the west, and above the spire of the Empire State Building lights were flickering between them—like a lightning storm, but gold. Kronos must have made it to Olympus.

Will tried not to think about Izzy and the wounded, stuck up there with Kronos. There was still a lot to worry about down here. He ducked out of a dracaena’s reach, fumbling in his bag for cubes of ambrosia to press into people’s hands when they fell. They’d all had too much already, but there was no time.

The ground had been shaking under them for a while as Hades kept summoning more and more waves of undead warriors to reinforce his army—it was a really, really good thing he’d decided to side with the Olympians, Will thought with a shudder—but now it rocked with enough force to knock most everyone fighting along 5th Avenue off their feet. Will landed hard on his back, winded. As he struggled to breathe again he stared up at the sky, uncomprehending, as the clouds parted as swiftly and smoothly as the elevator doors rolling open to Olympus, letting an even brighter golden light shine through.

“Does—does that mean it’s over?” someone asked.

“Who won?”

“Dude, I think—we did?” Jake Mason sat up a couple yards from Will. Slowly, carefully, they all did. The street was steaming black and gold all around the demigods as the monsters of Kronos’ army dissipated into the asphalt—bound, Will hoped, for Tartarus.

Whatever Percy’s choice was, he must have made the right one. Jasper had been wrong after all.

“Look!” Katie yelled, pointing up. Everyone looked back at the sky. High overhead, a group of flying chariots swooped up from the west and vanished into the light. “The gods are returning to Olympus! That must mean we did win!” A cheer went up around the battlefield from all the orange-clad demigods. It would have been massive, except there were so few of them left that their joy echoed dully off the buildings around them and faded quickly.

“Well,” said Demeter from the midst of the debris. “I suppose I ought to join them.” She snapped the reins of her chariot, and her horses less galloped than rippled up into the air, sort of like leaves on the wind or a wheat field in a summer breeze. Persephone, by Hades’ side, turned to her husband.

“If Olympus is saved, I fear I must return there as well,” she said. “It is summer for just a little longer.”

Hades frowned. He looked around at the demigods, who all stayed very still as the Lord of the Underworld surveyed them. Then he looked at his army of the undead, who all turned to face him as if awaiting further orders. His eyes moved to the doors of the Empire State Building, now completely unguarded, then up into the sky, following his mother-in-law as she circled up past the spire and into the gap in the clouds. Towards Olympus.

“My love,” Persephone said, her voice colder than before and much more dangerous. She flickered in the sunlight—for a moment her golden hair looked black, her youthful white chiton a gown stark as bone. Then Nico stood up, placing himself between Hades and the doors.

“Father,” he said, looking up to meet Hades’ cold gaze—and matching it. Anyone else, Will was pretty sure, would have cowered. “You promised.” Hades frowned down at his son.

“You should think hard about where your love and loyalty are ever likely to be rewarded, my son,” he said, more stern than angry. Nico’s expression went from brave to—something Will couldn’t quite name. Broken, maybe. But he stayed where he was, standing his ground.

Hades turned back to his army—and with only another second’s hesitation he clenched his fist. The ghostly warriors crumbled into silvery dust that slipped, like sand, between the tiniest cracks in the pavement, returning to the Underworld.

“It is only a little longer,” he agreed, turning back to Persephone. Across the space between their chariots, he took her hand and raised it to his lips. “Until then, my love.” Persephone smiled sadly. Then, with a blast of fresh springtime air, tinged with the sweet, morose scent of lilies, she took flight after her mother.

Now that the air was cleared, it was like a great weight was lifted from everyone’s shoulders. All around the street, demigods stood up and stretched—those who could. There were still wounds to tend to. Before he could think about that, though, Will (like everyone else who was mobile) started moving through the crowd of campers, searching for his siblings. He had lost track of them all in the course of the battle, and now that it was safe to worry his heart was in his throat. If any of them had—

“Will!” Kayla and Austin barreled into him, Gabriel limping slower behind them on an injured leg.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Will managed to say, “you’re all okay. Thank the gods.”

“We’re all okay,” Austin assured him.

“Well, mostly,” said Gabriel. Will kissed the tops of his younger siblings’ sweaty, bloody heads, pulled away just long enough to help their older brother sit down on the sidewalk, then pulled them all back in for a group hug. Kayla and Austin stayed clinging to him as he examined Gabriel’s leg, stabilized it, and gave him one of the last few aspirin in his medicine bag. People noticed the Apollo cabin gathered together on the sidewalk and started bringing other injured campers over. Without intending to, Will found himself setting up yet another makeshift field hospital down there, right in front of the Empire State Building. Overhead, the top spire lit up blue. No one seemed to know why, but everyone figured it had something to do with Percy.

Will wasn’t sure where Hades and Nico went. He was a little busy.

“What’s happening?” he asked the Stolls, tugging at Connor’s pants leg to get their attention as the two of them darted past. “Is everyone on Olympus okay?”

“Don’t know,” said Travis. “We tried going up there, but Kronos destroyed the bridge.”

“And, you know,” said Connor, “most of the mountain.”

“Looks like they’re working on rebuilding it.”

“Okay, thanks.” Will swallowed the fear in his throat. Izzy was probably fine, he told himself. She was smart, and tough, and a lot better at fighting than he was. She had to have made it.

As the campers gathered on this side of the street, Will caught sight of another group congregating on the other—half a dozen of the demigods who’d fought for Kronos. All that were left of them. A few of them weren’t moving so well either.

“Can y’all take over for a second?” he asked Kayla and Austin. They nodded. “Great.” Will hopped up and jogged across the street to where the small group of black-armored demigods was sitting. They looked up and watched him nervously. As he drew near, one of them stood up and took off his helmet.

“What do you want?” he asked warily. Will was stopped in his tracks for a moment—the guy looked so much like Lee, except that his hair was strawberry-blond instead of golden. Was he?—no. There was no way. Probably. But what if he was?

“Hi,” Will said, offering his hand. “I’m Will Solace. I’m, um—I’m from the Apollo cabin at Camp Half-Blood.”

“You’re Izzy’s little brother,” said one of the girls sitting on the sidewalk. Will nodded. “Of course,” she said, face twisting painfully. “You're the only one her dad ever actually gave a shit about. Gods, she hated you.”

Well, that was a gut punch. Will did his best to ignore it. As far as he could tell, he and Izzy were good again—and if not, that was something to address with her, not this stranger.

“I don’t know about that,” he said carefully. “But I am a healer. And it looks like y’all’ve got some wounds over here that could use treatment.” The other boy frowned.

“Why would you help us?” he asked, looking down at Will’s outstretched hand. Will drew it back, uncertain. “You were on the Williamsburg Bridge, right? I remember seeing you there. We fought you. We would have killed you all in a heartbeat.”

Will took a deep breath. He wanted to launch into the same things he’d been saying to Izzy since yesterday—it wasn’t your fault, you weren’t in control, that was all Kronos—but he wasn’t sure that would go over any better than it had been with her. He also wasn’t sure it was entirely true. Sure, Kronos influenced people, but as far as Will knew he hadn’t completely brainwashed anyone. Everyone who’d joined him did have a reason of their own. Will had thought most of Kronos’ demigods were defectors from camp, but they had all heard he was recruiting others, too, and none of these demigods looked familiar to him—maybe none of them had been to camp—so they were almost definitely unclaimed, or the children of minor gods, which at Camp Half-Blood wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyway. Even though Kronos was gone, they would probably still be mad at the Olympians. They would probably still be mad at him and his friends, too.

“Are you still fighting us now?” he asked. The others looked at each other nervously. The redheaded boy’s eyes narrowed.

“No,” he said slowly. “The Titan Lord—Kronos, he’s gone. You guys won. We’re not—” he shook his head. “No.”

“Then I’ll help you,” said Will, looking him in the eye and repeating, “I’m a healer. I see folks in need of healing. I’d like to provide it, if you’ll let me.” Slowly, the redheaded boy nodded. Will offered his hand again, and this time he shook it.

“Will, you said?” Will nodded. “I’m Corin,” the boy told him. “Um—thank you.”

“Of course,” said Will. “Now, who’s injured?”

The demigods who’d fought for Kronos were clearly still uncertain of Will and his intentions, but they warmed up a little as he sat down with them and started triaging. He learned their names: Shane had very nice brown eyes and a nasty stab wound his allies had been unable to heal for two days. He was the most visibly relieved Will was here to help. Jenny wore glasses and had her auburn hair in twin french braids, though wispy curls were coming out all over the place after days of battle. Hayden was the most sullen. He sat on the curb fiddling anxiously with a two-headed coin. Quentin had the same bottle-green eyes as Lou Ellen, which made Will wonder if he might be another of her brothers.

Ashlyn was the one who’d asked if he was Izzy’s brother. Apparently they’d become friends this summer, while serving Kronos. She was relieved to hear Izzy was alive the last time he’d seen her; they’d all thought she went down with the bridge yesterday after she didn’t return with them, and they couldn’t find her body. That was why she'd spoken to him so harshly at first, Will realized—grief. He'd felt the same way with Sherman earlier. It made him feel a little forgiving now.

“Are you praying to Asclepius?” Quentin asked curiously. “I thought you said you were a son of Apollo.”

“I am,” said Will. “But my dad’s been busy, so I’ve been praying to Asclepius some, since he’s the god of medicine. And he’s technically my brother,” he added. “It’s been good. He’s been really helpful.” The other demigods nodded thoughtfully.

“I thought you campers didn’t care about the minor gods,” said Hayden, eyes narrowed. “Your parents don’t.”

“A lot of people forget about them, it’s true,” Will agreed. “It’s too bad. A lot of them are the kids of Olympians too, right? We have things in common. And y’all—” he waved to indicate the group of them—“you know, we’re all demigods. We all have similar problems. I doubt monsters care that much about which god’s kid they’re eating.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, “we probably all just taste like chicken to them.” Jenny laughed weakly, and Will laughed too. Even Hayden smiled a little.

“Hey, Will,” Connor called across the street, hands cupped over his mouth, “Jake says they fixed the bridge.” Will looked up from setting Ashlyn’s broken leg, heart back in his throat.

“Thanks!” he yelled back, and tried not to rush the job as he finished getting her all splinted and bandaged. He closed his eyes and focused, trying to get the bone to knit back together enough that she would be able to walk.

“What does that mean, they fixed the bridge?” Corin asked.

“It means we can get to Olympus through the building,” Will explained. “I’ve been waiting for it—it’s just, Izzy was up there treating people when Kronos went up. I need to go make sure she’s okay.” Before he was done explaining, Ashlyn was nodding.

“Yeah, you’d better go, then,” she said. “Shoo.” Her accent sounded a couple hundred miles further east, but she waved a hand at him in a way that reminded him strongly of his grandmother, back in Texas.

While he worked it was starting to dawn on Will that against all odds, the battle was over and he had actually survived. He was going to get to go back to camp. He was going to get to go back to Texas; he was going to get to call his mom and tell her he was okay, and in a couple of weeks he would get to hug her again. It was all really overwhelming to think about. Mostly in good ways—but it also seemed impossible that he, a boy who could barely fight, should have survived, when six (six, gods) of his siblings, the boy he liked, and probably more of his friends than he even knew about yet, hadn’t. It didn’t seem fair. He felt kind of guilty about it, even. But he was still so, so relieved.

“I hate to leave this unfinished,” he told the demigods. “If it’s okay with everybody, can y’all come over to the other curb so my siblings can take care of you? They can heal too, and they’ll make sure everyone’s in as good of shape as possible.” Corin and Jenny looked at each other, clearly conflicted.

“I don’t know if anyone wants that,” said Jenny. Will nodded.

“I get that,” he said. “If you don’t want to, I really do. But I think we’ll all be better off if we help each other.” Slowly, Jenny nodded. Corin and Ashlyn were nodding too.

“All right,” said Ashlyn. “Let’s try it.”

“Come on!” he urged them as he crossed the street to explain to Kayla and Austin what was going on. The other demigods followed him warily, and were met with equally wary looks at the curb.

“Will, are you sure we want to—” Gabriel started to say. Standing over him, Connor didn’t look too happy about the idea of helping Kronos’ former allies either.

“Yes,” Will said firmly. “They’re no different than Izzy.” Kayla and Austin nodded in agreement. “Make sure everyone has nectar and the chance to rest,” he told them. “If I come back and find out y’all’ve been jerks, well—I’d better not, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” It was pretty much an empty threat and they all knew it, but Gabriel looked sufficiently chastened. Will dashed into the Empire State Building and got in the elevator with a crowd of his companions just in time for the doors to shut.

Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk—

“Man, fuck this song,” said Jake as they rose up past the top floor and into the metaphysical ones. Even Will managed to laugh.

When the elevator doors opened at the 600th floor, Will sprinted across the bridge and up toward the park where he’d last left Izzy, before Kronos launched his last offensive and the armies of the Underworld arrived. What he found sent the bottom of his stomach falling back towards Manhattan. Connor had been right when he said Kronos had destroyed an awful lot of the mountain, and that included the parks. Trees were torn up by the roots and overturned—thrust back into the ground top-down, actually, like a sickening mockery of themselves. The med tents were flattened. The injured demigods they’d left convalescing here—and the dead in their shrouds—were nowhere to be seen.

“Izzy!” Will yelled. His voice cracked horribly. “Izzy! Sherman? Pollux?” He got no answer. After an awful moment’s silence he ran forward into the park, pushing between tree roots to try and get through.

“Will?” a voice called from somewhere behind him. “Is that you?” Will turned back to see Pollux limping down the road towards him.

“Is everyone okay?” he asked. Pollux nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, everybody’s fine,” he explained. Slowly, Will’s insides returned to their usual places. “We got everyone out and moved them up to the palaces. Figured it was safer than staying here.” He surveyed the park with a shudder. “Come on.”

Will followed him up the main road, towards the gods’ palace at the mountain’s peak. All around, the few minor gods and dryads who remained were working on getting things back in order: parks cleaned up, houses and plazas rebuilt. Near the top of the road, Katie, Jake, and Travis stood talking to Percy Jackson, who looked surprisingly—or maybe not so surprisingly, all things considered—unscathed.

“Hey, Will,” said Percy, looking up as they arrived. “Good to see you alive and well. We’ve been doing our best to care for the wounded, but they could really use the rest of your cabin’s help.” Will nodded.

“They’re downstairs,” he said. “Um—is Izzy okay?” Percy nodded, after a slightly awkward pause.

“Yeah, she’s doing okay. It’s a good thing she was up here. Grover and I are okay at first aid, but for the nastier stuff—yeah.” He frowned. “When, uh—when did she get back on our side, anyway?”

“After the bridge,” said Will. “There are actually a few more of Kronos’ demigods downstairs who survived, and I think they might—well, I started healing them,” he stumbled through explaining, to raised eyebrows from Katie and Travis—“cause they said now that Kronos is gone they’re not fighting us anymore, and some of them were pretty badly injured, so—I don’t know, I think maybe there’s a chance we could make peace. And amends. Or something.” Percy was nodding. He was looking at Will a little weirdly, but not in a bad way. Sort of like he was… proud?

“Good,” he said firmly. “That was good of you to do.” Will looked down, suddenly a little nervous under that warm sea-green gaze.

“It’s what anybody would do.”

“Nah, I don’t know that it is.” Percy clapped him on the shoulder in a very big-brotherly way. “Good on you.” He turned back to the other older kids. “But Katie, what were you going to say about Rachel?”

“Where are they?” Will asked Pollux quietly as Katie started explaining something about a person whose name he didn’t recognize. Pollux pointed, clearly wanting to stick around and listen to the counselors’ conversation. Will started down that way, but he’d barely walked ten yards when he saw Izzy running up towards him.

“Will!” she yelled. He waved, and was about to call out to her, too, but before he could speak or move a melodious voice cried out,

“Can it be?” Will turned back so fast he almost fell over. He knew that voice. Before him stood a teenage boy, about four or five years older than Will—or at least Apollo looked like one. He looked a lot like Lee had, really, only with more perfectly-coiffed hair and perfectly-chiseled muscles and facial features. Just more perfect, generally.

Will’s father took off his sunglasses, grinning brightly. In this form, at least, he had the same eyes as Lee, too: the same blue eyes he’d given Will, and Kayla, and Renee, and… maybe also Corin, the (ex-)Kronos demigod downstairs? It was hard to dwell on that, though, when Apollo was talking.

“My incredible kids?” he said. “Here on Olympus? How lucky can a god get in one day?”

“Dad?” Izzy said quietly, sort of wonderingly, as she drew up beside Will on the marble road. “Um—Apollo?”

“In the flesh,” said Apollo, spreading his hands dramatically. “Or the dark matter, or whatever. Wow, it’s amazing to see you guys! It’s been so long.”

“Yeah,” said Izzy in a weird tone of voice, “forever is a long time.” Will looked at her, startled. Had Izzy actually never met Apollo before? Gods, no wonder—

“I know! You were just a baby last time I saw you!” said Apollo, clearing that up. “And you, you were like this!” He held his hand a lot lower to the ground than Will had actually stood at age nine, but whatever. “And look at you now. How does it feel to be the saviors of Olympus?” Will glanced at Izzy, who was looking at the ground.

“Uh,” said Will, “I’m pretty sure Percy—”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess what he did was pretty cool.” Apollo waved it off. “But you two! Healing the wounded, keeping everybody else strong—you’re the real heroes in my book. And Will, calling on your big brother—” Will’s heart leapt into his throat; would Apollo feel slighted? But, no—“Genius!” Apollo pressed his thumb and forefinger together and brought them to his mouth like a stereotypical chef’s kiss. “That’s the essence of creativity, baby. Work with what you’ve got! Praying to Asclepius when I’m busy—that’s like the slant-rhyme of medicine! By my own divine self, I’m so proud of you. Both of you,” he added firmly. “Isabella, working miracles without blinking an eye—you’re tough as nails, kid. Your mom’s got to be so proud of you too.”

“Um, thanks,” said Will, suddenly feeling very overwhelmed, and also a little uncomfortable with how tense Izzy clearly was next to him. “Thanks, Dad.” Izzy didn’t say anything.

“But there must be more of you, right?” Apollo asked, looking between the two of them. “One thing I know about me, I have an awful lot of kids. Where are the rest of them? Michael, Renee, uh—Leah! Man, that kid puts Vivaldi to shame.” Will swallowed hard.

“They all, um,” he said, “they didn’t make it.” Apollo’s face falling then was literally like a cloud passing over the sun. “Kayla and Austin are okay, though,” Will added quickly, “and Gabriel. They’ll probably be up here soon too.” Apollo nodded, pursing his lips.

“Well,” he said slowly. “That’s really—that’s unfortunate. Yeah. Wow.” He shook his head. “Well, I’m sure they all died heroes, but if I need to I’ll see if I can pull some strings. A couple of my kids—like my other Will, you know, Shakespeare, he sits in judgment down there sometimes. And there’s always Uncle Gloom-and-Doom himself.” He looked them over again, more critically this time. “Well, it sounds like you’ve had a rough couple of days. Me too. I think we could all use a hug,” he decided, holding out his arms and beckoning. “C’mere.”

Will had hugged his father before, but not since he was about five years old. Cautiously, he stepped forward and let Apollo wrap him in an embrace. He squeezed his eyes shut tight against his shoulder. Apollo wasn’t exactly soft or comfortable to hug—whatever gods were made of (had he really said dark matter?), it felt kind of dangerous to the touch. But he was, at least, very warm. Like sunshine.

“You too,” said Apollo, beckoning behind Will’s back. Will twisted to see Izzy standing up hesitantly, eyes wide. “Come on, Isabella. Bring it in.” Izzy’s mouth twisted.

“Izzy.”

“Oh, man, you go by Izzy!” Apollo smacked himself in the forehead. “That’s right. Knew I was forgetting something. Godly foot, meet divine mouth. You definitely need a hug now.” He beckoned again. Will stepped back, uncertain, and he was kind of surprised when Izzy did step forward into their father’s arms too. A good surprise, though. “Where’ve you been, kid?” Apollo asked. “You never call, you never write. I used to hear your prayers on the daily! What gives with the radio silence?” Izzy said nothing, leaving the three of them standing there in a painful silence. Then she broke it by bursting into tears.

“I’m so sorry, Dad—”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Apollo looked like he didn’t know how to deal with a crying kid at all. “There, there.” He patted her awkwardly on the back.

He didn’t know, Will thought. Apollo must not have been paying close enough attention to realize Izzy had gone over to Kronos’ side. She had been right. Sort of. But even as he thought it, Apollo looked up to meet Will’s eyes over top of Izzy’s head, his face suddenly very serious. For the first time in his life Will got a sense of what the power of prophecy was like.

No—of course Apollo had known. He was the god of prophecy, of foresight. He might not keep the closest of tabs on his children, but he knew the arcs of each of their lives from the moments of their birth. Will shifted uncomfortably where he stood, wondering what his father had seen for him. About him.

As he thought that, Apollo’s expression eased back into a smile that was like the warmest June sunshine.

“Look at you,” he said again, squeezing Izzy tight as she sniffled. “Of course, you were bound to be awesome—you’re my kids—but I gotta say, you’re doing it with style.”

Will looked down at himself, at his tattered camp shirt and jeans, all drenched in other people’s blood. He looked back up at Apollo. His doubt must have shown on his face, because,

“Well, conceptually, anyway,” Apollo amended. “In the abstract. Call it poetic license. But we can fix that.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly Will and Izzy were both dressed in fresh clothes. Thankfully the outfits weren’t too different from before—at least they still looked like their styles. Will’s camp shirt was just a regular t-shirt now, and he had on a plaid shirt on over it, while Izzy got a denim jacket with goldenrod-yellow racing stripes appliqued down the sleeves. Something also settled around Will’s wrist. He held his hand up to look at it.

The bracelet was made of a leather cord with brightly-colored glass beads knotted at intervals. Rainbow-colored beads, specifically. Arranged in that order. Will could feel his face warming. When he looked up at his father, Apollo winked.

“It’ll be sooner than you think,” he said cryptically, then turned, his attention caught by the rest of the cabin arriving. The three of them that had survived. “Hey, what do you know! Here come a few more of my super awesome kids!” As Kayla and Austin started yelling with excitement, Will slipped the bracelet off his wrist and shoved it into the pocket of his new jeans. He wasn’t quite ready for the questions he would get if the rest of the cabin saw it.

“Do you know what he meant by that?” Izzy asked, turning to look at him. “What’s coming soon?” Will shook his head. He was pretty sure he did know what Apollo meant—that soon he would find the right time—but right now didn’t seem like it, when they had just lost so many. And that part hurt in itself. He would never get to come out to Michael, or Lee, or Renee—he would never know how they would have reacted, and they had died not entirely knowing him.

Actually, screw the right time, Will decided. Maybe that was what Apollo had meant.

“Okay, yeah, I do,” he admitted, quietly enough that only Izzy would hear him—their siblings were distracted anyway. “He meant, um, the right time to tell y’all, that, um. I’m gay.”

He’d never actually said it out loud before, not even by himself, and now when he finally did it felt like the world stood still. Maybe because Izzy did for a second, looking at him wide-eyed. Then she smiled. Painfully, but that was clearly because smiling at all was painful right now. It would have been for Will, too.

“Oh, Will, that’s great!” she said. “I guess you found it.”

“For you, anyway.” Will looked at the sidewalk. “I’m too late for a lot of people.”

“Yeah.” Izzy looked down for a second too. “Can I hug you, too?”

“Yeah, of course.” Will hugged her tight. This felt a lot more normal than hugging Apollo had. Among other reasons, he didn’t need to worry that Izzy might forget to not be the sun.

“Shit,” she said into his shoulder. Her voice was heavy, like she was about to cry again. “You’re so tall now. You must’ve grown, what, another three inches since last summer?” Izzy shook her head. “And I missed it. Gods, Will, I’m so sorry—”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Oh, no, Will realized, now he was starting to sound like their dad had just moments ago.

“It’s really not.” She stepped back, looking down, face twisted into an awful look of anguish. They stood there for a moment, not saying anything.

“Well, it’s gonna be,” Will tried. “We’ll all forgive and forget, because we have to if we’re going to move forward. We’ll rebuild. It’ll be okay.” Izzy nodded. She managed to smile a little as she looked back up at him.

“Yeah, there’s my new counselor.”

“I—I don’t know about that,” said Will. It was sort of how everyone had been acting since Renee died, but—“I mean, you’re older—” But he had seniority, he realized. He’d been here longer than anyone else left.

“I don’t know that everyone can forgive and forget that fast,” said Izzy. “But you’ll be fine.” Will swallowed.

“That’s what Renee said too.” She must have known, after Jasper died, or at least she would have done the bead math. The despair on her face—no, he couldn’t think about that right now.

“She was right.” Izzy wiped her eyes on her sleeve and smiled up at him sadly. She finally looked more like her old self. “I’ve got your back. We all do.”

“You’re not mad at me?” Will asked quietly. “It kind of seems like you’ve been mad at me.” Ashlyn had said she hated him, and honestly, with the way she’d yelled at him back in Philadelphia, that was kind of what it had felt like. Just because it didn’t feel like that here and now didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt before. Izzy nodded.

“Let’s sit down,” she said, gesturing to the low marble curb on the side of the road.

They sat down. Will hadn’t really sat down in two days, he realized; not without knowing he had to be ready to jump up and into battle again at any minute. He felt very heavy, suddenly, and a lot older than almost-fourteen.

“I’ve been mad,” Izzy agreed. “I’m not mad at you. Well, I’m trying not to be, cause I feel bad about it. I know it’s not fair to be mad at you. It’s not your fault you’re gifted and I’m not.”

“Okay, that’s not fair either,” Will insisted. “You are gifted. You’re kind of more gifted than I am, cause all your Apollo eggs aren’t in one basket.” Izzy grinned, clearly in spite of herself.

“It’s just—sometimes you remind me a lot of my half-brother. My other half-brother,” she clarified quickly, “my mortal brother. He’s a gifted kid in the normal way, you know, amazing at school and stuff, no learning disabilities, perfect student, and then, you know, there’s me.” Will nodded. He remembered what mortal school had been like. “So then I come to camp,” Izzy went on, “and I have this other super gifted half-brother. So I’d been trying really hard not to be mad at both of you, for a really long time, and this past year I guess I just kind of… combusted.”

“I get it,” Will said quietly, after a moment’s thought. “I mean—I get why you’d be mad. That can’t feel good, and I’m really sorry. I wish I could do anything to change it.”

“Nah, you don’t have anything to apologize for.” Izzy shook her head. “If you weren’t as good as you are we’d all be dead, so. I shouldn’t be mad. You and Isaac—you’re both my little brothers and I love you, and right now you, Will, need all the love you can get.” She bumped her shoulder against Will’s. Unexpectedly, he felt tears pushing at his eyes again. “So I’m going to stop being mad at you, and if I am, we can talk about it, but I’m not going to let it fester. Deal?” She held out her hand. Will nodded, swallowing back the tears—yet again—and they shook on it.

“Deal.” He smiled. “And I love you too.” Izzy hugged him again. Their heights didn’t feel so different sitting down.

“Hey, guys,” Travis called from up on the steps of the palace. “The gods are holding council. You’re gonna want to see this.” Will and Izzy looked at each other.

“Well,” said Will, standing up, “I guess we should go see what the gods do next.”

“Yeah.” His sister took his hand and held onto it as they raced to catch up with their siblings. They all grabbed on too, and so the five surviving children of Apollo in Manhattan walked into the throne room of the gods hand in hand.

Chapter Text

Olympus had been dark and quiet when Will was up here before, but now that the battle was over the ruined mountain was filled with light and music again. Almost everyone was in a celebratory mood—they had lived through two nights of almost-unceasing death and destruction, but they had lived. Will was as burned-out as he’d ever been, his grief for his siblings an endless pit, but even his spirits were lifted by everyone else’s joy.

There were other reunions between gods and their children, some louder than others. Even when he seemed to be at his happiest, Will could understand why Clarisse still looked kind of terrified of Ares. Dionysus, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically quiet and somber as he just hugged Pollux even tighter than Apollo had hugged his kids. Everyone cheered for Nico and Hades when they arrived, and father and son wore identical expressions of surprise at the adulation. Kayla and Austin fell asleep on Will during Zeus’ speech.

People got thanked, rewarded, and promoted. Everyone gasped when Percy turned down immortality—everyone except Annabeth, who looked like she might cry with relief.

Instead, Percy used his moment of recognition to demand recognition for everyone else: a cabin for Hades—for Nico, who was gazing up at Percy with wide, shining eyes as he mentioned him by name, looking more like the kid Will used to know than he had in years—to be built at camp, and cabins for the minor gods to be built too, and for the gods of Olympus to claim all their children by the time they turned thirteen. No more kids stuck in the Hermes cabin for life when they didn’t belong there. Will caught Lou Ellen’s eye and smiled. She looked pretty wrecked after everything—he supposed he probably did too—but she managed a weak smile back.

Will, Izzy, and Gabriel spent an hour sorting out the dead. As the medicine cabin it was also sort of their job to be camp coroners; they’d just never had to do it on this scale before. Where was a son of Hades when you needed him? Will thought, though of course he figured he knew—just like last year, Nico had shown up for the battle, done something terrifying and magnificent, and now just like last year he had probably disappeared into the shadows again.

Then again, maybe not: he’d gotten his laurels this time, and he was getting a cabin, after all. So where had he gone?

The good news was that in the end, there were only about a dozen of their friends’ bodies to bring back. More than good news. Kind of miraculous, all things considered, even if Will couldn’t feel as happy about it as other campers did with how many of the dead were his siblings, and how many more of their bodies couldn’t be recovered at all.

The Stolls helped them gather all the black-armored bodies they could identify, too, since a lot of them had lived in their cabin before they turned: Heather Ryle. Savannah Mendes, who had gotten to camp the same year as Will. Garrett Allison, a son of Hermes who had been close to Chris. Noah Shane, even though Will pulled Connor aside and told him he’d watched Noah kill his brother. Connor’s mouth hardened, but he shook his head.

“He should still get the rites and stuff,” he said. “Kronos tricked them all. It wasn’t their fault. Even Luke—and you know how I felt about Luke—I hear even he was a hero in the end.” Will had never been a big fan of either of the Stolls, but he decided he liked Connor a little better after that.

Once they decided they’d found all the bodies they would be able to, Will went and found Katie. Out of the older counselors he figured she was his most level-headed option. “Do you know how we’re getting back to camp?” he asked.

“I think Argus and the harpies parked the vans outside where we figured the combat zone would be,” she told him, “so... hopefully they’re still there.” Then she did a double-take. “Wait a sec, are you—oh my gods, that’s right, I heard—” She stared at him. “I’m so sorry.” Will smiled grimly.

“Thanks.” He was having to deal with a lot of that. As the day went on older kids from other cabins would look at Will, then look again, then do the math, and then give him that same look of shock and pity. It wasn’t like he would be the youngest ever—Annabeth and Connor had both been younger when they became counselors a few years ago now—but especially in a cabin like Apollo’s, where there would usually be a lot of kids, a middle-schooler becoming counselor was rare. It was dawning on everyone that the Apollo cabin had left camp with ten and was returning with half that number.

Clarisse wouldn’t look Will in the eye at all. He couldn’t decide if he thought that was to her credit or not.

Argus stood by until they were ready to go. They all trusted the harpies, sort of, but no one was inclined to leave them alone with the dead bodies, so Argus drove the van they were using as a mass hearse, while the remaining campers—those who hadn’t already flown back to camp on pegasi—piled into the two harpy vans. Will wasn’t sure if the van he and his siblings climbed into was the same one they’d rode in on the way here until the harpy driving it turned on the ignition and Michael’s mix CD started blasting again.

And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night—

“Can we turn that off?” Will called as Kayla and Austin’s faces crumpled. “Please?” In the shotgun seat, Jake quickly hit the button to kill the music, looking stricken himself.

It wasn’t exactly quiet in the van on the way back—people talked; Gabriel and Austin played the alphabet game with license plates—but it sure wasn’t as loud as it had been on the way there, two days ago. Will spent the drive out to camp in silence, leaning on the window again and staring out. He reached into his pocket to make sure the rainbow bracelet was still there. He wasn’t quite ready to wear it yet, but rubbing the glass beads between his fingers was kind of soothing.

Will couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for his sisters in the infirmary, waiting to see if the world was going to end, unable to do anything about it. Hannah and Teresa’s joy now, as the five of them walked up the porch, just made it hurt more to have to give them so much bad news. At least Sophie didn’t yell at Will when he told her Silas was dead. She cried—most of them had been crying since they walked in the door, they were all so relieved to see each other—but she also nodded.

“I know. I knew he was gone. I mean, I was hoping—” Sophie gulped. “I was hoping I was wrong. But I sort of, I don’t know, felt it? I always knew when he was hurt before.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, which seemed to get her centered a little. “What about everyone else?” Will sat down carefully on the cot where he’d set his stuff.

“So, um,” he said, in a voice that didn’t really sound like his own. “Guys, listen. It was a really long and intense battle, and our cabin, um—we took pretty heavy losses.”

“No.” Sophie shook her head, but he watched her realize—she looked around at the rest of them, glancing from Will, to Kayla, to Gabriel, to Austin, to Izzy. “No way. This isn’t—”

“This is it,” Will confirmed. “The eight of us, we’re… it’s just us now.”

“What?” Teresa’s jaw dropped. “But—”

“Oh my gods,” Sophie whispered, sinking forward with her head in her hands. “Michael? Renee? Seriously? Jasper, oh my gods, oh my gods—”

“Leah’s not coming back?” Teresa asked in a very small, very wobbly voice. “She—she died?” Will nodded.

“What about Xavier?” Hannah asked. Izzy, who she’d almost knocked over with the force of her hug when they arrived, pressed a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Hannah lost it too, then, hiding her face in Izzy’s shirt as she burst into tears again. Somehow Will managed to hang on by a thread.

“We’ll honor all of them,” he managed to say. “We’ll—we could only recover Renee and Jasper’s bodies, but we’ll burn shrouds for the rest. For now, guys—” he struggled to think. “Kayla, Austin, can you take everyone back to the cabin? Unload your stuff, change your clothes, shower, whatever you need to do. I’ll be right there, but I need to talk to Sophie.”

“Okay.” Kayla and Austin both looked on the verge of tears again too, but they nodded and did as Will asked them. He and Sophie sat quietly as the rest of their siblings left, not quite looking at each other.

“It felt like it was really painful,” she said once the rest of them were gone. “For Silas, anyway.” Her voice was heavy and wet from crying. “Was it? What happened to him?”

“Do you really want to know?” Will asked. She nodded, jaw set firmly enough that he didn’t ask twice. “He, well—a hellhound got him. We think it must’ve, um, eaten him.” His sister made an awful sound of disgust and buried her face in her hands.

“That’s why you couldn’t bring his body back,” she said, muffled. “What about the others?” Will explained about the bridge, the dracaena that had killed Jasper, the telkhines that had gotten Renee. It had all happened in the last day and a half, but telling it felt like he was recounting events from his distant memories. “Shit.” Sophie looked up again when he was done, wiping her hands over her eyes. “What did you want to talk to me about? Was that it?”

“No, um.” Will gripped the edge of the cot tightly. “So—since Michael, Renee, and Jasper are gone, we kind of agreed—well, everyone’s kind of been operating, anyway, like I’m going to become counselor now. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with that, cause—you know, it could be you instead. You’re older than me, and you’ve been here just as long.” Sophie snorted at that. That wasn’t the response Will had been expecting at all.

“Gods, you sound just like Michael last year.” She shook her head. “Look, I don’t—I don’t care. I can’t even think about this right now, Will, not when—so yeah, you be in charge. You’ve already stepped up. I’m not gonna challenge that.”

“Okay.” They sat quietly for a moment. “I’m really sorry,” Will said. “It all—it happened really fast.”

“Yeah.” Sophie leaned back on her pillows, crossing her arms over her chest and wincing a little.

“How are you doing?” Will asked. “How’s your pain level?”

“Better. Still not great.”

“When’s the last time you had aspirin?”

“Last night.”

“Okay, you should have some more.” Will pulled the bottle out of his bag and tapped out his very last capsule into his hand. Sophie swallowed it dry.

“Can I go back to the cabin now that everyone’s back?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course,” said Will. “You can rest there as well as here. You can go right now if you want.”

“Cool.” Carefully, his sister stood up. Before she left she paused and said, “at least tell me some of those Ares bastards kicked it too?” Will’s stomach turned, and the lump in his throat got heavier.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you know, some of those Ares bastards were my friends.”

“Yeah, sorry,” said Sophie. She didn’t sound very sorry.

“It’s fine. Go on, I’ll be there soon.” When Sophie left, Will slid down off the cot to sit on the floor with his head on his knees, the infirmary blurring around him as his eyes filled with tears. It was the first moment of real privacy and quiet he’d had in days, and it was probably the last one he’d get for a while. So, for a couple of minutes, he let it all hit him: Silas, Xavier, Leah, Michael, Jasper, Mark, Renee.

With three days of tears repressed until now, Will didn’t know how long he sat there sobbing, holding his head, not quite tearing his hair out. It was just too much. Every time he caught his breath, he thought of another death—Isaiah; Silena; Beckendorf, before the big battle had even happened, gods; Josh; what he’d done to Max Kimball himself—and lost it again. But he did run out of tears eventually, and eventually sobbing started to make his throat, his chest, his whole body hurt, kind of like he might throw up, so he had to just sit there in silence with his head between his knees until it stopped spinning.

When he could, Will stood up again, bracing himself on the infirmary wall for a moment to be sure he could stay upright. There were almost no supplies left in his bag, but what he did have he put away before he left to walk down towards the cabins on shaky legs. He had shrouds to gather.

They held the funerals at the campfire that night, burning bodies when they had them and just shrouds when there were none. Will’s newfound respect for the Stolls (okay, mostly Connor—the jury was still out on Travis) deepened when he saw the Hermes cabin had made a shroud for Ethan Nakamura with his godly parent’s symbol, and another for Heather Ryle, with hers. Noah had been unclaimed and never had a clue, but they burned a Hermes shroud for Max as if their father had done right by him the way he should have all along.

There were some new faces on the living at the campfire, too. Welcome ones, in Will’s opinion: Nico was a somber shadow by the bier, watching the funeral rites, and Will did a double-take as he caught sight of four of Kronos’ former demigods sitting quietly near the top of the amphitheater on the other side. Jenny and Shane had made themselves small, while Ashlyn leaned back in a way that looked deceptively casual, surveying the campers still with a wary look on her face. Corin was sprawled across the seats with his head propped on his arms, watching the flickering pyre with an unreadable expression. Will hadn’t realized they had actually come to Camp Half-Blood when the forces of Olympus returned. He found he was really, really glad.

Their friend Hayden was nowhere to be seen, but Quentin was there too, though he wasn’t sitting with the other four. Instead he was with a dark-haired boy who Will recognized as the one they’d taken captive in Philadelphia. Will wasn’t entirely sure where he had been since then—he thought he’d heard someone say something about locking him in the Big House basement—and he’d never caught the kid’s name, either, but he and Quentin seemed to know each other pretty well, which added to Will’s suspicion that Quentin was a child of Hecate too. He caught sight of Lou Ellen eyeing her half-brothers from where she sat, still with the Hermes cabin.

The Aphrodite and Ares cabins lit Silena’s pyre as one. Then Ares had their own siblings to lay to rest. They burned an empty shroud for Darren—it turned out he had been the one the drakon ate. Then Laura’s body went up in flames. Then Mark. Sherman held the torch. Will looked away, pressing one of the glass beads in his pocket into the pad of his thumb until it left an indent.

Finally it was the Apollo cabin’s turn. They walked down to the bier as a group, sort of like pallbearers. Sophie carried Silas’ shroud. Will had given the other three to Gabriel, Austin, and Kayla. Renee and Jasper’s bodies were laid out on the bier already, under the shrouds Will had covered them with back on Olympus. He took the torch from Sherman and had to close his eyes for a moment before he could set the torch to the edge of Renee’s shroud. Izzy lit Jasper’s, then they stepped back to let their siblings throw the other four shrouds on the flames, one after another. As they lit the shrouds, they said their names. Then they returned to their seats to cling to each other and watch the pyres burn together.

Will knew enough about the human body to know flame alone couldn’t turn one completely to ashes—regular cremation still left skeletons intact. What mortals called ashes were mostly ground-up bone. But when funeral pyres burned down in the amphitheater at Camp Half-Blood, ashes really were all that was left. Some kind of magic. Will had never been so grateful for that before.

Most of Apollo’s kids were sobbing again. Will sort of felt like he wanted to cry too, but he couldn’t—like his eyes hadn’t had enough time to produce more tears yet after he cried them all already. So he just sat back with his arms around Kayla and Austin and watched as sparks drifted up into the night sky, golden points of light mingling with the silver stars before they burned out.

They kind of reminded him of his siblings.

Once they’d all had a couple of days to recuperate—to finish healing the wounded, sleep and eat and scald the blood and grime off in the showers, and start trying to live with the survivor’s guilt and the renewed nightmares—Chiron called a counselors’ meeting. In the aftermath of the battle, there was a lot to debrief about. Will pulled on the shirt his father had given him over his camp t-shirt and tried to square his shoulders as he walked up to the Big House.

He wasn’t the first one there. Nico was standing on the porch.

“Hey,” said Will as he walked up the steps and Nico looked up. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Hey.” Nico regarded him with unreadable eyes. Now that Will had the chance to really look at him up close he noticed there were deep circles under them, like Nico hadn’t slept in a week. Will increasingly knew the feeling.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, “am I supposed to bow before royalty?” Nico cocked his head to one side.

“What?”

“Because you’re the Ghost King?” said Will.

“How do you know about that?” Nico asked, looking at him with a weird expression. “Did Percy tell everyone or something?” He’d asked the same thing last year, Will remembered—wondered if Percy was telling everyone at camp his secrets. Though Will supposed this wasn’t exactly a secret, if it was a title he had claimed for himself, so he wasn’t sure why Nico would care if Percy talked about it.

“No,” he said, “one of my friends told me. She’s a daughter of Hecate, so she heard about it cause of—I don’t know, magic or something.”

“Huh,” said Nico.

“Percy doesn’t go around gossiping about you,” Will assured him, “don’t worry.”

Nico just frowned, looking down.

“I guess since you’ll have a cabin you get to be a counselor now,” Will said. “That’s cool.”

“You’re a counselor now too,” Nico pointed out.

“Yeah.” That part was less cool. That part just made Will’s stomach hurt. There was a painful moment of silence.

“I’m sorry,” Nico told him. “If it helps, they’re all in Elysium.”

“Thanks,” said Will. “That’s—I appreciate it.” The words must have come out as hollow as he felt, because the corner of Nico’s mouth twisted into an ironic half-smile.

“I know it doesn’t do much,” he said. “But it’s all I can do to help anyone living.”

“I can’t imagine that’s true,” said Will. “After what you did in Manhattan?” Nico shrugged. “It’s really good to see you back here,” Will tried. “Do you think you’ll stay for the school year?”

“I don’t know how long I’ll stay at all,” said Nico. “What Percy did—it was kind of him,” he added, softer, “but I’m not sure anyone really wants me here.”

“Well, that’s definitely not true,” Will told him. Before either of them could say anything else, though, Connor and Travis came bounding up the porch steps, followed by Katie and… Drew. Great. Will found himself moving toward the door, sort of herded along with the older counselors. He was almost inside the house when he realized Nico wasn’t following. “Are you coming?” he asked, holding the screen door open behind him.

“I’ll be right there,” Nico said, not looking at him—he was still staring out over camp. Okay then. Will let the screen door swing back to slam shut as he followed Drew into the rec room. He took a seat by Jake, who grinned at him a little weakly.

“Hey, Will. It sounds kind of wrong to say it’s good to see you here, but, you know.”

“Same to you,” said Will. Jake had really taken charge in Manhattan, since he’d had to, but he’d still only been a counselor for less than two weeks. They were kind of in the same boat. Jake was just older, and had a couple more war councils under his belt.

“Ah, well.” Jake shrugged. “Bullshit comes to us all in time, I guess. That’s what Charlie used to say.” Will nodded. Beckendorf had said kind of the same thing to him, once. “With any luck I won’t be for long,” Jake added. “As soon as somebody better suited to being counselor comes along, I’m gonna step down.”

“Oh.” Will hadn’t thought about that as an option—and he didn’t really now, either. He still thought Izzy was more qualified to be in charge than he was, but she didn’t want to do it. Will was who his siblings had turned to. He wasn’t going to argue with that.

When Nico did come in, he was trailing behind Percy and Annabeth, who walked in holding hands—since the battle, the issue of what was going on with them seemed to have pretty much settled on dating, and also possibly soulmates—and Clarisse, who was joking with them. When she took her seat and looked around, Will was able to look her in the eye for about half a second before he had to look away.

When he looked up again, Clarisse’s good mood was gone. Instead she looked kind of sad. It only got worse when Chiron came in.

“As you all can see, we have some new faces in this room,” he said without preamble. “I expect we will see more as new cabins are founded in the coming weeks. While we will continue to celebrate our victory in the Battle of Manhattan—and rightly so—we must also remember that Camp Half-Blood has suffered its most severe casualties in centuries. Now more than ever, it will be important for everyone to care for each other. Your siblings will need your support, especially for those of you whose cabins sustained casualties—” as he circled the ping-pong table, he set a fatherly hand on Will’s shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze—“but don’t forget to be there for your friends as well.”

Will spent the meeting watching and listening, mostly. Everyone discussed how their cabins were doing and gave current headcounts. The gods were claiming kids every day since Percy lit a fire under them, so a lot of campers who’d been in the Hermes cabin before (some for years) were moving out, while a bunch more demigods who had somehow survived or avoided the war were suddenly arriving all at once to fill it right back up—until they got claimed too, anyway. The Demeter cabin had three new kids, including Jenny, and Shane had been claimed by Hephaestus. So far Apollo hadn’t claimed anyone new, but Will was sure it had to be coming. His father was who he was, for better or worse—and Will still had a hunch about Corin.

Next, the counselors ran through their supply and armory shortfalls in the aftermath of the battle. Jake wrote furiously on a big yellow notepad, making lists and plans for Hephaestus cabin projects that filled page after page after page in Ancient Greek. Will found himself the center of attention briefly when Katie turned to him and asked what the infirmary would need resupplied in terms of herbs and botanicals.

“Flaxseed,” said Will. “Lots of flaxseed, please. And aloe vera.”

“All right,” said Katie, who had a smaller yellow notepad of her own. “Noted.”

“Will,” Travis stage-whispered. “Ask her for medical marijua—hey!” Without looking up, Katie had flicked her pencil at his head. She pulled a new one out of her bun to keep writing with like nothing had happened.

“Ow!” said Connor, who hadn’t ducked as quickly as his brother. Looking from Katie to the Stolls and back, Will shook his head.

“Uh—yeah, no, I don’t think I’m gonna do that, Travis.”

“Dammit,” said Connor. “Lee never would either.”

“We were almost making headway with Michael,” Travis said mournfully. “So much for that.”

“Dude,” said Percy, and then, to everyone’s surprise, Clarisse growled,

“Show some respect, asshole.” Will looked up, more startled than anyone. They were all looking at Clarisse, but she wasn’t looking at them—she had her eyes trained on a gash in the table that looked like it had probably been left by her knife.

“Um—may he rest in peace,” Travis added quickly. “Sorry, Will.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” There was an awkward pause. Clarisse glared at the table. Will looked down too as everyone else just kind of looked at each other, no one knowing what to say. Fortunately Annabeth stood up and steered them back on track.

“Can we move on to the layout for the new cabins?” Without waiting for an answer, she unfurled a massive scroll and spread it out on the ping-pong table. As she explained the blueprints, most people’s eyes kind of glazed over. They didn’t need to know the technical details of the project, which wouldn’t make sense to them anyway—not to mention none of the other counselors present, aside from maybe the Stolls, had much of a stake in this project. No one was against building new cabins, but everyone here already had one.

Except Nico. But he didn’t seem to be paying attention to Annabeth, Will noticed—he was gazing at the floor, frowning like he was thinking about something else. Every so often, his eyes would flicker up to Percy, who was leaning back in his chair listening to Annabeth with a look of adoration so sweet Will almost felt embarrassed to witness it. When he looked at Nico instead, he wasn’t sure what to make of the expression on his face. Kind of resentful, kind of just miserable. Lost.

Nico seemed to realize he was being watched. His head swiveled towards Will and they made eye contact for an awkward second—Will quickly looked down, even more embarrassed to have been caught watching him—and when he glanced back up, Nico was staring at the floor again, looking more panicked than before. There were pink spots on his cheeks.

When the meeting ended, Nico was the first one out the door. Percy looked a little surprised at how fast he got up and vanished, but it got forgotten quickly. Some of the older counselors stuck around a couple minutes to talk—Travis was giving Annabeth a list of minor gods with demigod children in the Hermes cabin that didn’t have cabins on her blueprints yet. Will tried to follow Jake and Katie out the door, but when he was halfway there Clarisse stood up and grabbed him.

“Hey, Solace. Can we talk?” Will jerked his arm out of her grasp. Clarisse let him, pulling her hand back.

“What?” Will asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He wasn’t totally surprised she wanted to talk to him, after her surprise outburst in Michael’s defense, but he was still wary. And mad. He was still mad.

“Uh…” Clarisse looked around at the other counselors still in the room, whose eyes were all on them now. “Let’s go outside.”

“No,” said Will, looking her in the eye. He had to crane his neck up to do it—Clarisse was very tall, so he consoled himself with the knowledge that basically everyone except Chiron did too.

Clarisse stared him down, but there was no real malice in it. Not in a way that was actually scary. Even if she had been trying to be, Will hadn’t really been scared of her in a couple years now. He knew she knew she needed him on her side just as much, if not more than he needed her on his. At one time that had applied to the whole Apollo cabin, for the whole Ares cabin, but somewhere along the way they seemed to have forgotten that. And as angry as he was with Clarisse and as hard as he was mourning his brother, Will also knew that was partly Michael’s fault, too.

Everyone else in the room was still looking at them, a dozen demigod eyeballs flicking back and forth like they were watching the most weirdly-balanced tennis match ever.

“Whatever you have to say to me, you can say right here,” Will told Clarisse. He was very proud his voice didn’t shake or crack as he said it. Clarisse sighed miserably.

“Fine,” she said. “I just figured—I probably owe you an apology. For Michael and Renee and everyone. I don’t know if I called it down on you guys, or if I did how much difference it made, but I shouldn’t have said I hoped they’d die. I wish they hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t said it. So I’m sorry. That’s all.”

Will breathed in and out in the dead silence. He nodded.

“Thank you,” he managed to say. “I accept your apology. Not as a counselor, I’m not speaking for the rest of my cabin, but I accept it.”

“Are you telling me I have to apologize to all you fuckers one by one?” Clarisse growled.

“Yes,” said Will. “I mean, I guess you don’t have to—I can’t make you do it—but you should.” Clarisse glared. “At least apologize to Sophie,” Will added. “She’s the one whose twin got eaten by a hellhound while she was recovering from M—from your brother shooting her out of the sky.” It hurt to grate out. Clarisse’s glare turned into a grimace.

“That’s fair,” she said, quieter. “Look—apology or no apology, and I really am sorry, can we at least have peace?”

Will blinked at her. He hadn’t entirely realized they were still at war—but he supposed it wasn’t like anyone had actually declared an end to hostilities. He had just sort of assumed when the Ares cabin showed up in Manhattan, that meant Clarisse had had a change of heart.

But it hadn’t actually been Clarisse who showed up, after all.

“Clarisse asking for peace?” said Travis. “Am I having a stroke or something?”

“I mean, we already had the flying pig,” Connor pointed out. He high-fived Percy. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

Clarisse gritted her teeth and turned on them. “Look, the big war’s over. Solace’s cabin lost a lot of people. My cabin—we lost people too. This little war isn’t gonna do shit for us now.” She turned back to Will and held out her hand. “What do you say? Peace?” Will looked down at her hand, then back up at her face.

“Give us back the chariot,” he said, following a very Jasper-like impulse to take the low road and be a little shit. “Then we can talk about peace.” For a split second he really thought it was about to get him punched. Clarisse’s face twisted into a scowl.

Then, instead of punching him, she laughed.

“My little brothers always said you got balls of steel,” she said. “I believe it now.” Will raised his eyebrows.

“Does that mean you’re going to give us the chariot?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Clarisse. “Take the chariot. It’s yours. You all paid pretty dearly for it, and that’s on me.”

“Okay,” Will agreed. “Then as soon as we have the chariot, we’ll have peace.” Clarisse nodded. Will shook her hand with the firmest grip he could muster.

“I guess I also want you to know I appreciate you healing my cabin even though we did all that shit to you,” Clarisse told him. “After I did the shit I did. Sherman and Vinnie—they wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for you and your sister. Anything you need, Solace, from here on out I’ve got your back, okay?”

“Okay.” Will wasn’t sure what to say to that—he’d been surprised enough to get a straightforward apology. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“That goes for all of us,” Annabeth added, walking over to set a hand on his shoulder. “I know what it’s like to be the youngest counselor in the room.”

“Yeah,” Connor echoed, “I do too.” Technically Nico was the youngest counselor, Will thought about pointing out, but he wasn’t actually in the room anymore.

“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate it.” And he really did. It was a good reminder that even though his older siblings were gone, there were still other older kids at camp he could turn to.

The last week of camp went by way too fast. Will got Connor and Olivia to help him successfully smuggle a delivery pizza over the line for the first time, as far as they knew, in Camp Half-Blood history. And just as he had promised, Will did indeed throw the whole thing on the fire for Asclepius. It became a bit of a spectacle. Other campers gathered round to stare.

“Seems like such a waste,” Connor said mournfully, gazing into the flames with an exaggerated look of woe. “Our very first pizza success, and you’re just gonna burn it?”

“Watch it,” said Will. “I might need to call on Asclepius again someday, and if you’re gonna say that you’d better hope it’s not to heal you.” Olivia giggled.

“Good point.” Connor grimaced. “Sorry, Asclepius! You totally deserve a whole extra large deluxe pizza and garlic knots all to yourself!” Faintly, once again, Will felt like he could hear the god of medicine chuckling.

Clarisse, Dana, and Sherman brought the flying chariot back to Cabin Seven to much rejoicing from Sophie and Kayla, though of course it was still tinged with anger and grief—just because there was peace between the Apollo and Ares cabins again didn’t mean everything would be fine between the campers immediately. Will and Clarisse both knew that. It was okay. Things like this would take time.

The next afternoon Percy and Annabeth got caught making out in Percy’s cabin, which was against just about every rule in the proverbial book—and had a lot of the older campers exchanging drachmas behind their backs, because it turned out the Stolls had been running a betting pool on how long it would take for that to happen. (Apparently “one week” had actually been considered a generous estimate based on Travis’ odds.) And Will’s suspicions about Corin were proven right a week after the battle when Kayla and Izzy came running up to the cabin, dragging him between them by one hand each. He was glowing golden.

“Corin’s our brother!” Kayla announced, as if it wasn’t obvious. “We have another brother!” She looked happy, and also a little bit like she was on the verge of tears, like she didn’t know how to feel about this. Will understood—it did feel kind of weird to realize for the first time that the empty bunks in their cabin would slowly be filled again. When Corin chose the one above Izzy’s Will had to fight down the instinct to yell no—that bed had been Renee’s.

But Renee wasn’t coming back. And Corin seemed most at ease being near Izzy, which made a lot of sense, so him taking that bed made sense too. It just also hurt.

“I should’ve known you were my brother,” Izzy told Corin the first night he sat with them at dinner, sandwiched between her and Will. “You fit right in.” And as it turned out, it was kind of true. Corin was no great healer, but he was an excellent archer and, they all learned at campfire, had the voice of an angel. Even as camp wound down in the last week of August, it started to feel sort of normal to have him around.

The hurt would fade, Will told himself. It would be fine. Eventually.

Demigods kept arriving, which was kind of weird when summer was about to end—but most of them seemed to be kids who had nowhere else to go. Who’d been kicked out, or run away, or just had terrible things happen to their mortal parents, or any combination of those. Of the demigods who had fought for Kronos, it sounded like Ashlyn was in the first group, though she wouldn’t talk about why, while Corin, Quentin, and Shane were in the second category, and Jenny’s mortal father had died of cancer a year ago. When Luke showed up, she said, it had been a relief. Finally she had something else to focus on, a way to channel all her anger and grief.

Once again Will was really glad Luke hadn’t gotten to Nico. He didn’t really know what had kept him from taking the exact same path as Jenny after his sister died—he suspected it had something to do with Percy and Annabeth. But it seemed to Will he so easily could have. That he hadn’t, felt like a blessing.

Will was spending a lot of time with the newcomers, since a lot of the other kids were still kind of wary, and he figured they could use friends. Besides, Ashlyn and Corin especially were close with Izzy. She’d been really unsure about hanging out with them at first for fear that the rest of camp would think they were all plotting or something, since they’d been on Kronos’ side, but Will and Corin had convinced her that was silly. There wasn’t a Kronos’ side to be on anymore. Friends should get to hang out together.

So Will hung out with them too, and even got Olivia and Lou Ellen to join him sometimes. If anyone did try to start something, they and their Manhattan cred could stand in the way. Fortunately, they never had to use it.

Will found himself grateful the new kids were around sometimes. He loved his friends, but when the new kids left and it was just the three of them—it was weird, because of what was missing. During the school year and this summer up until all the bullshit with the chariot, Will and Olivia and Lou Ellen had become a pretty tight-knit group with Mark and Sherman. But Mark was gone. And Sherman wasn’t really hanging out with them now, maybe because that would be even more weird, and too painful.

Will got that. It would probably be too painful for him, too. Mark was a bruise he didn’t dare press on for a lot of reasons. So this was fine, it was just—something he’d have to adjust to.

“I can’t believe you’re abandoning us,” Olivia said one afternoon like that, flopping very dramatically back on the grass next to Will where he’d laid down in the sun.

“And for Texas of all places,” said Lou Ellen. Will didn’t have a great comeback to that—he loved the part of Texas that was home and his mom, but understood her disdain for the part of Texas that was the last President. And his grandparents. So instead he just stuck out his tongue. “You know, I could literally make your face freeze like that,” Lou Ellen told him.

“Please don’t,” said Olivia.

“She wouldn’t,” said Will, and, “I did the same thing last year, Livvy, it’s not like it’s new.”

“Yeah, but. You know. This year’s been a lot.” She rolled over to lie on her stomach and rest her head on her hands, looking at him. Her expression was kind of fond, and also kind of bleak. Will closed his eyes.

“Yeah, I do know.”

“But I get it. It’ll be nice to see your mom, right?” Olivia sounded a little jealous. In the two years she had been here full-time now, she had only seen her mom once a year at Christmas—she wasn't the only demigod whose mortal parent had kind of checked out as soon as they got the chance, but that didn't make it suck any less.

“Yeah, I guess.” Will got anxious every time he thought about it. He’d never gone home with this big a secret before. Well, okay, he supposed he had, but not in a way he’d been able to explain until now. He knew he should probably take the chance to come out to his mom while he was home, since he wanted to do it sooner rather than later, and he knew it would probably be fine—Naomi was so liberal, and Will knew she had gay friends, at least gay acquaintances, in the music industry, so it had to be, right?—but it still felt so overwhelming. But he couldn’t explain all that to Olivia and Lou Ellen.

Except, he thought now, couldn’t he? Olivia had always been right there with him telling off Mark and Sherman for calling stuff gay. And Lou Ellen had a mortal mom along with her godly mom the same way Kayla had two dads.

“It’s just,” he started to say, then stopped.

“Hmm?” Olivia raised her eyebrows. “It’s just what?”

“I just have stuff I should talk to my mom about, but it’s scary, and like, I’m sure it’ll be fine, but—I don’t know.”

“Oh gods, I can’t imagine telling my mom about the battle,” said Olivia.

“Me neither,” said Lou Ellen.

“It’s not about the battle,” said Will. “I’m definitely not telling her about that either, I don’t want to worry her.”

“Wait, what is your thing, then?” Olivia asked, propping herself up on her elbows, looking concerned.

“Uhhh.” Will covered his face with his hands. That made it feel a little easier to say, “so, um, this last year I kind of figured out that I’m gay.” There was a pause. He peeked out through his fingers.

“Wait, what?” Olivia pushed herself all the way off the ground now, sitting bolt upright. “You’re gay?”

“Yes?” Will said nervously.

“That’s cool, Will,” said Lou Ellen, though she was looking at Olivia. “We support you. Right, Livvy?”

“Yeah, of—of course,” Olivia said quickly. When Will looked at her, her expression had gone kind of distant and weird, but she smiled at him. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks.” Will let his hands fall back to the grass and the sun hit his face again. The late-summer air tasted a lot sweeter, suddenly, as he found himself breathing easier. Like a literal weight off his chest.

“So you’re going to come out to your mom?” Lou Ellen asked, finally looking from Olivia back down to Will. He sighed.

“Yeah, I think so. And my mom’s cool, and I’m sure it’ll be fine, but it’s still—scary.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Lou Ellen said after a pause. “I really, really get that.” She sighed. “Do you want a hug?”

“Yeah, sure.” Will sat up and hugged her. He wasn’t sure he’d ever hugged Lou Ellen before, he realized—she was a lot nicer to hug than her usual personality would suggest.

Olivia was being uncharacteristically quiet, but when he pulled back from Lou Ellen she held out her arms too. They hugged tight. When Olivia pulled away, she still just looked kind of blindsided. Will could sort of understand that, he thought—they had been friends for so long, in her shoes he probably would have been wondering how he hadn’t known before.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell y’all sooner,” he said. “It was just—there’s been a lot going on.”

“It’s okay, don’t apologize,” said Lou Ellen. “If you weren’t ready, you weren’t ready.” Will shrugged. “Have you told anybody else yet?” she asked. “Are we the first?”

“No, sorry,” Will said, “I told Izzy.”

“Seriously, don’t apologize. That makes total sense—she’s your sister.”

“That’s it, though,” he said. “Just her and you two. And, uh—don’t tell anyone else yet, okay? Definitely not until the rest of my siblings know.”

“Of course we won’t,” said Lou Ellen, with another glance at Olivia, who nodded firmly. “It’s your secret to tell. You get to decide when you tell it.”

In the meantime, Lou Ellen’s own secret was out to everyone. One night at the campfire, Hecate claimed all her children at once: there was Quentin, Brian from Philadelphia, a little girl named Amanda who had turned up since the battle, and of course, Lou Ellen. And because people’s secrets were theirs to tell, for a second Will was righteously upset for his friend, who’d been hiding her parentage for a year now only to have it announced for her as a glowing pair of torches above her head.

Fortunately, Lou Ellen seemed fine with it. If anything she looked kind of relieved. That made some sense—the stakes were different, Will figured. When people would look at Lou Ellen differently now, it was because now they knew better than ever not to mess with her.

Now, of course, the Hecate kids were working on building a cabin. It was going to be covered in magical runes, and so far it looked pretty cool, if kind of frightening—though not as much as Nico’s, across the U-shape. His crew of zombies and skeletons was almost done constructing a building that looked more like a mausoleum than a cabin. That did kind of seem appropriate, Will supposed. At least, the whole obsidian monument aesthetic would suit Nico—since last year, he didn’t seem to have added any color to his wardrobe. In fact, Will wasn’t entirely sure he had a wardrobe other than the clothes on his back. It really looked like he was wearing the same black jeans and skull t-shirt every day.

That wasn’t as impossible as it sounded. The harpies did the camp’s laundry at night, so it was totally plausible Nico was managing to wear the same clothes every day without them getting filthy. If that was the answer, though, it was a wonder his clothes weren’t in tatters after that many extremely violent wash cycles.

So things were different, but in general, things were okay. Everyone was adjusting. The new normal was settling.

“Hey, Will.” Izzy poked him in the arm as they were walking back to their cabin one afternoon to gather their siblings for dinner. “No pressure at all, but are you gonna tell everyone else what you told me on Olympus?”

“Um. Yeah.” Will sighed. “I told some of my friends—”

“Oh, that’s great!”

“But everyone else—I don’t know. There’s been so much going on—” he broke off. Izzy nodded.

“Yeah, of course,” she said gently. “I get that. Obviously you don’t have to—it’s whenever you’re ready. But you know everyone’s just gonna be supportive, right?”

“Maybe in our cabin.”

“Yeah,” Izzy said after a moment’s thought. “Other people will be too, though. I mean, maybe some won’t, but as soon as they say shit they’ll be talking in limericks, this I vow in the name of Apollo, so who cares?” And they would—Will knew from experience she’d cast that curse for real now by appealing to their dad. It made him smile, which made Izzy smile back.

“I want to tell our siblings,” Will said. “I’m ready to do that. But I mean—what am I supposed to do, call a cabin meeting to announce I’m gay?”

“I don’t see why not,” said Izzy. Will almost tripped over his own feet, staring at her in disbelief.

“Seriously?”

“I mean, in a couple days we’re all leaving and you’re not gonna see most of us again until June. If you really want to do it, now’s kind of your window.” Izzy shrugged. “Do you want me to call the cabin meeting for you? We can do it right now if you’re okay with it.”

“Um—” Will swallowed hard. “Yeah, sure.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” Will said more firmly. “Yeah. I am.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” Izzy offered her hand, and Will took it. He was surprised by how comforting it was to have his sister literally hold his hand for this, but he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do it otherwise. When they got to the cabin Izzy said, “hey, everyone, can we have a quick meeting? I promise it’ll be super fast. Will just has something he wants to tell you.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Will. Will tried to avoid eye contact with any of them.

“Hi,” he said. “Um. So. I have this thing I—I want to tell everyone, eventually, but y’all are my family, so I wanted to make sure y’all hear it first, and hear it from me. Which is that, um, I’m gay.”

“Wait, really?” said Sophie after a beat.

“Yeah?” said Will. “Is that—surprising?” Sophie scrunched up her nose, waving a hand like, sort of.

“I mean, yeah,” said Gabriel. “I wouldn’t have seen it coming.” Will wasn’t sure what to make of any of that—whether to be offended or not. But then Kayla swung down from her bed and said,

“Yeah, you’d probably assume my dad was straight if you met him too. And that’s why you shouldn’t.” She ran over to hug Will, and Izzy squeezed his hand, and he could breathe out.

“Well, anyway, that’s cool, Will,” said Sophie, grinning completely genuinely now. “Thanks for telling us first. We’re all happy for you.” With that, everyone else was shaken into a chorus of “yeah!” and “awesome!”, and Will found himself swarmed by more hugs. Austin launched himself at Will and Kayla so enthusiastically he almost knocked them over, and Hannah and Teresa weren’t about to pass up a group hug. Fortunately Izzy and Gabriel caught Will before their little siblings could overwhelm him.

“Yeah, I’m glad you can like—be yourself and stuff,” Gabriel said in Will’s ear. “I’m probably just a dumbass.”

“No worries,” said Will, and hugged him too. The only person who was hanging back at all was Corin—but he smiled and gave Will two thumbs up, so Will figured that was more about him being new than anything else.

“Corin, come on,” he said, beckoning. “If you want.”

“Okay.” Corin was a little older than Will, already fourteen, and they were almost the exact same height. When he let go after a much shorter hug than the others—he was still new—Will was startled to see his brother looked a little teary. “I love this cabin,” Corin whispered. “I love it here.” He was grinning. His smile, at least, was almost like looking in a mirror. Will grinned back.

“Yeah,” he said, looking around at his siblings, “me too.”

On the second-to-last day of camp, they all got up early (not that Apollo’s kids weren’t usually up early) and worked hard to get the cabin ready for final inspection. Will knew the drill well enough by now that he kept his bunk pretty tidy just habitually, but it was definitely a new experience to have to supervise everyone else trying to get their stuff packed up and together. He certainly learned some new things:

“Kayla,” he said, poking his head up to the bunk above his for the first time in, apparently, too long—“isn’t it kind of dangerous to sleep with a bow and arrows in your bed?”

“I knew she was hoarding arrows somewhere!” said Sophie, running over and hopping up on Will’s headboard to look too. “Sweet Artemis, Kayla, are you trying to build a bird’s nest or something? She’s got a whole armory up here!” she announced to the rest of the cabin.

“I just want to be ready to fight if we need to!” Kayla protested. Will sighed as his heart sank—she probably hadn’t meant that to come out as sad as it made him feel, anyway.

“I don’t think we’re going to need to fight on short notice again in a while,” he said, and rapped his knuckles against his bedpost so as not to jinx it, but still—“Kronos is gone. I think we can all relax for now.” Kayla pursed her lips, looking anxious.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, “they can go back in the general stash. Just some, though. I want to hang onto a quiver.”

“Okay,” Will relented. “Whatever makes you feel safe.” His sister smiled gratefully.

Mid-morning, Percy and Annabeth knocked on the open doorframe for the actual inspection. Everyone else was out of the cabin doing something music-related, but Will, the only child of Apollo in a century with a tin ear, looked up at them in surprise.

“Didn’t y’all have inspection duty just the other week?”

“That was Annabeth’s round,” said Percy. “This is my turn.”

“I’m here cause he can’t be trusted to do it right,” Annabeth explained, smiling fondly when Percy gave her a look of joking betrayal. “Last time he did cabin inspection by himself he let the Hephaestus cabin get away with a bunch of live wires in the bathroom.”

“Beckendorf had a very reasonable explanation!” Percy shrugged. “Anyway, this looks good to me, I’m gonna give you guys ten out of ten.”

“Percy! You have to actually look first!”

“Do you see any problems?”

“... No,” Annabeth admitted, after walking around examining the cabin for a minute. “Good job, Will. You guys really seem to be holding together.”

“Thanks. We’re all doing our best.” Will shrugged.

“Hey,” said Percy, “do you want to come with us too? You’ve never done this job before, right?”

“Uh—no, I haven’t,” said Will. “I guess I’m gonna have to, huh?”

“Yeah, come on. We’ll train you.” Percy walked Will through the Ancient Greek checklist on his clipboard on the way down to the Hephaestus cabin, where the bathroom was thankfully de-electrified this time. Jake just looked relieved to pass the inspection. Next door, the Hermes cabin still looked kind of like Typhon himself had swept through, in spite of the Stolls’ best efforts. Not that “the Stolls’ best efforts” was much of a standard, and nor did it seem to bug them to get a low mark. Frankly it was probably better than usual—even Annabeth seemed inclined to be lenient with how much traffic the Hermes cabin was dealing with right now.

Before, Will figured, they probably would have crossed to the Dionysus cabin and gone down the other row. But now the U-shape was getting filled in, the row of new cabins crossing what used to be open space. Instead of going to Dionysus next, he followed Percy and Annabeth as they walked up to the newly-finished Hades cabin.

The obsidian walls looked cool, but they definitely weren’t soundproof. As they approached Cabin Thirteen, Will couldn’t place the music Nico was listening to—the band, the song—but he could sure hear it blasting. Some kind of emo punk rock, like what the twins were into (well, just Sophie now), which… kind of made sense, given everything else about him.

“Nico!” Percy yelled at the top of his lungs, banging on the door. “Cabin inspection!” The music shut off, and the door creaked open.

“What? Oh—hi,” said Nico. His forehead creased as he looked past Percy to survey Annabeth and Will. “Um—what are you all doing here?”

“I’m on cabin inspection duty,” said Percy. “Annabeth is following me around for no reason—”

“He needs adult supervision,” Annabeth muttered, which didn’t quite get Nico to smile, but it looked close.

“—and Will, my young padawan, is being trained in the ancient Jedi art of making sure everyone’s socks are put away,” Percy added. Nico looked at him blankly.

“He’s your what doing what?”

“Oh, right, you probably haven’t seen Star Wars, have you? Never mind.”

“You’ve never seen Star Wars?” Will repeated, shocked. Nico frowned.

“Is that the one with the laser swords?” he asked, eyes still on Percy.

“Lightsabers!” Will exclaimed.

“Whatever!” said Nico, finally glancing at Will with a flash of annoyance. Will couldn’t help but feel a little hurt.

“Anyway, can we come in?” Percy asked. “I just need to look at your cabin so I can check the box that says I did.”

“Percy!” Annabeth shook her head. Percy grinned at her and, grudgingly, she smiled back. Nico glanced between the two of them, then looked at the floor.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, stepping backwards and out of the way to let them through the door. Will stayed back towards the doorway, standing near Nico, while Percy and Annabeth looked around at the interior of Cabin Thirteen.

It looked more like a temple than a cabin, the same way Cabin One did—plain walls, tiled floor, a massive hearth with green flames flickering at the center of the back wall. At least there wasn’t a giant statue of Hades like Zeus had, but there was also no discernible place for anyone to hang out, or do activities, or even sleep. The only personal belongings Nico seemed to have in the room were a Discman CD player sitting on the hearth, connected to a black and white speaker that didn’t look like it should be powerful enough to shake the walls like that. Nico’s black sword in its scabbard was leaned against the wall nearby, and his jacket was balled up on the floor next to it.

Annabeth looked concerned. Percy looked confused. Will looked at Nico, who was leaning back against the obsidian wall, arms crossed, and looking up at the ceiling.

“Uh, dude,” said Percy, finally turning back to look at Nico, “do you not have a bed?” Nico shrugged.

“I don’t really need one. I just sleep in front of the fire.”

“Is that comfortable?” Percy asked doubtfully. “You wouldn’t rather sleep in a bed?” Nico shrugged again. Percy and Annabeth looked at each other.

“You should at least have a bed,” Annabeth said firmly. “And a footlocker. Someplace to keep your stuff.”

“I don't have any stuff," Nico pointed out flatly.

“...Right,” said Percy. “Well, let’s go look at the bathroom. You did build yourself a bathroom, right?” he added, with a look of faint horror. Nico rolled his eyes.

“Of course I have a bathroom.” So Percy went and looked at the bathroom, Annabeth close behind. Will crossed the room to look at the hearth.

“How’d you make the flames green?” he asked Nico, who was back to staring at the floor with a miserable expression on his face. It took a second before he looked up at Will.

“Huh?”

“The fire’s green,” Will said again. “How did you do that? Is it Greek fire?” That seemed kind of hazardous to just have burning in a cabin.

“Oh. I don’t know.” Nico shrugged. “The builders just did it that way.”

“It looks super cool,” said Will.

“Thanks.” Nico looked back at the floor.

“So have you decided if you’re going to stay year round?” Will asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I bet you’d like school here,” Will told him. “It’s a lot better than regular school. We don’t have homework or anything.”

“That’s right,” said Nico, “you live here during the school year.”

“Yep.” Will put his hands in his pockets, walking back over to stand on Nico’s side of the room again. He slipped his fingers through the loop of the glass bracelet. He hadn’t worked himself up to actually wearing it regularly yet—for now it was just kind of like a comfort object, always there, waiting for him when he was ready. “Well, mostly,” he added. “I’m going home for a month, but I’ll be back in October.” Nico didn’t say anything. “Hey,” Will said, “you know, I never did get to learn how to play Mythomagic.” Now Nico looked up, frowning.

“What?”

“Two years ago you said you’d teach me to play, remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Nico looked back at the floor. “I don’t play that game anymore. I got rid of my cards.”

“Why?” Will asked, surprised. Nico shrugged.

“It’s kind of dumb to play a card game with gods and monsters when all that stuff is happening in real life.”

“Oh.” Again, Will felt weirdly hurt. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well,” said Percy, reappearing hand-in-hand with Annabeth, “the bathroom looks good, anyway. Zero risk of electrocution. I’m gonna give you a seven out of ten.”

“Percy, he doesn’t have a bed,” said Annabeth.

“He doesn’t want a bed, you heard him!”

“Nico, you need a bed,” Annabeth said, letting go of Percy’s hand and crossing her arms over her chest as she turned to Nico. “Trust me, you’ll want one when winter comes. We’ll help you get one out of the Big House if you want, there’s a ton of old furniture in storage there.”

“Or if you want a bed that isn’t probably haunted, I’ll drive you to IKEA or something,” said Percy. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

“You just want an excuse to drive.”

“Hey, I turned sixteen against all odds! I earned that driver’s license!” Even bickering, they were looking at each other in that too-sweet way that made Will feel a little like he was intruding again. Nico seemed even less happy about it, now outright glaring at the floor like—like he was Cyclops from X-Men or something, Will thought, and he was trying to drill a hole right down to his father’s domain so he could go be there instead of here.

Will had heard, at some point, the gossipy theory that Nico had a crush on Annabeth. He certainly seemed to be having trouble looking at her, and Will had just seen her come the closest to making him smile of anyone since the battle. But if that was the case, Will thought, it seemed like he should be jealous of Percy, and instead Nico usually looked at him like he held up the sky. Well, still held up the sky, since apparently Percy and Annabeth had both literally done that. They had the gray streaks in their sixteen-year-old hair to prove it.

Thinking about it, watching the three of them, for the first time Will started to wonder if maybe he and Nico had more in common than he had known.

“Whatever,” Nico was saying. “I’ll think about it.” He turned his glare on the clipboard in Percy’s hands. “Are we done here?”

“Sure. How’s five out of ten?” Percy asked, as much to Nico as to Annabeth. Annabeth shook her head resignedly. Nico shrugged.

“I don’t care.”

“Cool. Five it is.” Percy wrote it down on his inspection sheet and checked off a box. “Keep up the good work. See you later.” He reached out, then stopped awkwardly, like he had been about to clap Nico on the shoulder but thought better of it.

“See you around,” Will said to Nico as they left.

“Yeah,” Nico muttered, not looking at any of them, “see you.”

As the door shut behind them and they walked down the porch, the music started blasting again. This song Will did know, he realized when the lyrics started. Sophie had this CD.

Am I more than you bargained for yet? I’ve been dying to tell you anything you wanna hear—

“I guess it’s good he’s discovered modern music.” Percy pitched his voice a little higher to be heard. Will had no idea what he meant by that, but then Percy said, “Let’s go visit Lou Ellen, shall we?” and started off across the grass toward the Hecate cabin on the other side of the construction zone. With Fall Out Boy fading into the background behind him, Will followed.

He still just wished he understood Nico better, was all he could think. If his new suspicion was right, Percy was clearly oblivious. But it would explain—a lot. It would definitely explain why Nico kept pushing people away, but if anything that made Will feel more hurt and rejected. He could use a friend who was like him, and Nico could use a friend in general.

Except that he didn’t seem to want any. That part was what hurt the most, and that part Will couldn’t understand at all.

Chapter Text

“Everyone ready?” Will asked as the seven of them in the cabin who were headed home gathered their stuff.

“As ready as I’m gonna be.” Sophie looked kind of sick. Will knew she wasn’t looking forward to having to go home to her mom without Silas. After she and Chiron had made that phone call, Sophie had come back to the cabin and cried for almost three hours straight while Will, Izzy, and Hannah tried to console her. Now she would have to go through the grieving process all over again—her mom’s mourning, a whole nother funeral, all of it.

“Same,” said Corin, who had no idea what he was going home to since he’d run away, leaving only a vague note for his mom, he said, almost a year ago.

“Then let’s go,” Will said. “Kayla, Austin, you guys sure you’ll be okay while I’m gone?”

“Absolutely,” said Austin. “If we have a problem we can’t deal with ourselves we’ll just go next door and ask Jake.”

“That’s right. See you in October.” Will gave each of them one last hug, then shouldered his backpack and walked with his siblings out towards Half-Blood Hill, and JFK, and home.

Landing in Austin had always felt like landing on another planet, ever since Will had been going to camp. This year more than ever. Driving home, watching the familiar streets roll by outside, Will almost felt like he was seeing something he remembered from a movie, not his real life.

“I want to tell you up front, Liz called,” Naomi told him, sitting down on his bed while Will was unpacking his stuff in his room. He looked up, startled. Liz Whittier was Renee’s mom—for years, since demigods couldn’t really have cell phones, Renee, Michael, and Lee and Jess before them had been going through their mortal mothers to keep in touch with the younger kids in the cabin during the school year. Will hadn’t realized Liz still called his mom even though he went to school at camp now. “She told me about Renee,” Naomi said gently. “And she said there were others. Sweetheart, I’m so, so sorry.”

Will nodded, looking back down at his half-empty suitcase. Renee’s knife was in the bottom of this one, since they’d checked it and it wasn’t like he could take a celestial bronze dagger through TSA—but some impulse had told him he should probably start carrying a weapon when he was out in the mortal world. Probably the same one that had led Kayla to start keeping weapons where she slept.

Naomi took a deep breath. “We don’t have to talk about anything until you’re ready, Will, I just wanted you to know, I’ve heard, and I’m sorry, and if you do want to talk about it—I’m here.” She set a hand on his head, smoothing down his hair. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Will said, knowing he would never tell his mom about what had happened in Manhattan. Even if he could talk about it—he just didn’t think she would understand. The bridge, the centaurs, the drakon, Nico and Hades and their zombie army. What mortal could?

“What do you want for dinner?” Naomi asked. “I was thinking burgers.” Thinking about burgers when he was thinking about Manhattan just made Will remember the Plaza, and suddenly he didn’t feel hungry at all.

“Can we go get tacos instead?” he asked.

“Sure, honey,” said Naomi. “It’s your homecoming. Whatever you want.”

For the first week, being in Texas was basically the same as it had ever been. When his mom was busy at the studio and doing other work stuff, Will stayed home alone with his books, video games, and the tv channel that only showed Star Trek reruns to occupy his time—and Renee’s knife close at hand, just in case. He never had to use it, of course, but he figured better safe than sorry.

Usually, though, Naomi was around. She had changed her schedule around some to be as available as possible while Will was home. So most days she took him out to do fun things: movies, the swimming pool, the mall for “back-to-school” shopping since he’d outgrown the half of his clothes that weren’t too torn and bloodstained for him to wear in everyday life, especially out here in the mortal world. Naomi raised her eyebrows at those, but she didn’t ask. Will was grateful.

“Well, at least you’ve got one pair of un-stained pants that still fit you,” she said, sitting on his bed again sorting out his laundry. “What size are these?” She frowned at the waistband of the jeans that Apollo had given him. “Will, honey, do you know where the tag went?”

“I don’t think there ever was a tag,” said Will. “Those came from Dad.” Naomi turned to look at him, eyebrows raised.

“You didn’t tell me you saw your dad!”

“Yeah, I, uh—we kind of went to his house,” Will explained.

“As in—” Naomi lowered her voice, even though they were alone in their house. “Mount Olympus?” Will nodded. “What was it like?”

“Really pretty,” Will said, thinking of what it had been like before the battle. “It was just—yeah. Really beautiful. I went to the sun palace, and we got to go in the gods’ big throne room, too, that was cool.”

“It sounds cool,” said Naomi. “How was he? Apollo?”

“Uh—he was good, I guess,” Will told her. “He was in a good mood. And he gave us gifts—those clothes and stuff.”

“Good. That’s good.” Naomi sighed. “I’m glad you got to see him.” Will wasn’t sure what to think of the way she said it—kind of sad, kind of not. Naomi never really talked about Apollo, except to maintain the lie that Will was staying in New York because his dad was there. He always got the sense that maybe she missed him, even now, but she didn’t want to let Will see her unhappy about it. But that was true of most things.

When Will wasn’t with his mom or home by himself, he spent a few afternoons hanging out with elementary school friends, too. It was weird—he could feel the gulf between his own life on the one hand, and Allie and Diego’s lives on the other, getting wider and wider. The social circles of Austin’s public middle schools had as much petty drama as camp, but the difference was their petty drama never led to anyone dying.

Another part of it was just that camp was so isolated from the regular world; Will quickly realized he didn’t spend nearly as much time on the internet as his old friends, and increasingly that made a difference. Actually, he had barely used the internet at all—camp only had a couple of computers, and the only one connected to the internet was in Chiron’s office. Most kids only got to use it once a week or so to email their parents if that was something they could do. Will didn’t even do that, because he and Naomi both preferred phone calls.

Since being home he’d gotten to use Naomi’s computer some, but that was mostly to play games. He wasn’t on forums or instant messaging like Allie and especially Diego. It felt like half their conversations went flying over Will’s head.

“Your school sounds weird,” said Diego when Will explained all this in very, very broad terms. “They should be teaching y’all to use computers. It’s the future. I don’t know how you’re supposed to, like, get ready for college and stuff without them—one weirdo school principal isn’t gonna stop technology from taking over.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Will didn’t have a better answer to that. He figured he’d learn to deal with computers if he ever got to come back to the mortal world—and that felt like a pretty big if, considering he had to survive for another five years first. With the luck his cabin seemed to be having, his life expectancy didn’t feel that long right now. Renee had been so, so close to making it out—Beckendorf and Silena too—but instead they were gone.

There was always a chance, though. That was what he had to tell himself, and after all, the whole time Will was in Texas he didn’t see a single non-mortal being. Maybe, he thought, all the monsters that had filtered down through Fifth Avenue were still too freshly back in Tartarus to re-manifest in the world for a while. But that theory seemed too good to be true.

“I can’t believe you don’t have a phone yet!” said Allie in the meantime. “Seriously, your school won’t let you?”

“Yeah, unfortunately—” Will did have a better explanation for this one, though. “Most of us have ADHD and stuff, it’s like a whole thing to help deal with that, and they’re too distracting.”

“Ugh. I guess that makes sense.” She frowned. “It would just be so much easier to text than keep sending postcards, you know?”

“Yeah, but I’m still gonna send you postcards, so you’d better,” said Will.

“Yeah, of course.” She sighed. “I wish I could mail you Naruto episodes. Or are you not allowed to watch TV, either?”

“No, we do.” There was a huge television in the Big House living room that they used for movie nights sometimes, and a few of the cabins had their own TVs. There was actually one in the crawlspace in Cabin Seven, Will was pretty sure. Maybe he should see about pulling it out and fixing it when he got back. If nothing else, he might want to watch the news. He was learning even more about the mortal world right now from watching NBC in the evenings with his mom.

It was weird to see the Mist-filtered version of what had happened this summer. According to the news, a volcano in Washington had been erupting on and off for a whole year now, a massive storm system had swept across the country, and there had been a freak earthquake in New York that caused electrical blackouts and the Williamsburg Bridge to collapse. The bridge part was hard to hear, as was “destruction at the Plaza Hotel,” but when the anchors talked about “mass looting in the streets of downtown Manhattan,” Will suddenly found himself laughing so hard Naomi looked a little concerned.

“You know something about that?” she asked, eyebrows raised. Will shook his head.

“Nothing. Never mind.” Travis and Connor were still at camp—they probably wouldn’t realize their escapades had made national news. He’d have to tell them when he got back.

“What was the earthquake like in New York?” Diego had asked him when they hung out. “My mom was worried about you.” Will shrugged, and as he seemed to be doing a lot on this trip, lied:

“It’s not like I live in New York City, dude, my summer camp’s all the way at the other end of Long Island. We barely even felt it.”

On the Friday before Labor Day weekend, they drove out to the lake where Will’s grandparents had retired this year. They’d had the lake house for a long time—Will had spent most of his summers there before he learned he was a demigod, with Grandma Ida watching him when Naomi was working or on tour—but now, Naomi explained, it was their permanent home. They’d sold the house in town. Will had spent a lot of time there, too, after school. More time than he ever had in the big ranch house where his mom lived now, the home he came home to, since they hadn’t moved there until he was ten. He hadn’t realized he’d be this sad about his grandparents’ house being gone—he hadn’t realized it would be gone so soon, after all.

“Will! Oh goodness—” Grandma Ida wrapped him in a hug when they got there, then held him at arm’s length. “Look at you, so tall! Must get it from his dad’s side, don’t you think, Vern?” Will was taller than Grandpa Vern now, he realized.

“Must be. What are they feeding you up there at that New York school?” Grandpa Vern joked, giving Will one of those awkward masculine side-hugs. “They got you playing football yet?”

“No, Grandpa,” said Will, “I don’t think I’m gonna play football—”

“Baseball, then?”

“I don’t know, maybe,” said Will. “I’ve just been running miles a lot.” That, at least, was true—Michael’s mandatory morning runs this summer had gotten him in pretty good shape for cross-country, if he needed an extracurricular lie to settle on for his grandparents.

“Good, good. We’ll make an athlete out of you yet,” said Grandpa Vern, looking so relieved it made Will kind of uncomfortable. “Well, come on, get inside! I’ll get your things—”

“No, Dad, don’t worry about it,” said Naomi, “let me.” So Will followed his grandparents in and sat down in the living room. On the television, a Fox News anchor was saying something about the storms and the President and how he was handling the disaster relief. His take was very different from what NBC had been saying this week—very critical of the new President, who Will knew his mom had voted for and liked a lot, and Grandpa was nodding along.

Will was kind of used to the divide between his mom’s politics and his grandparents’, having grown up with it, but it hadn’t felt this stark before. Mortal politics barely came up at camp; it wasn’t like what went on in the mortal world wasn’t important to some people, especially the older kids, but when they were actually at camp they were usually pretty cut off from the news and stuff. Chiron got a whole bunch of mortal newspapers delivered every day, but the only campers Will had ever seen reading them were Athena kids and sometimes Katie and Renee.

And even before he’d been at camp, he’d just been too young to pay much attention to the big picture. In his world it had been about littler things, like Grandpa banning the Dixie Chicks from his house and Naomi, in response, making sure to blast them in the car whenever she came to get Will just to piss him off. And so, of course,

“Dad, could we change the channel?” Naomi asked when she finally came in from unloading her and Will’s stuff. “Aren’t the Rangers playing or something?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Grandpa Vern changed the channel to sports. “It’s a damn shame, is all, the way your fellow in the White House treats the heartland—”

“He’s doing a hell of a lot better with this mess than Bush did with Katrina, Dad,” Naomi snapped, immediately taking the bait. Will was never bold enough to argue with his grandparents about politics, but he got the sense his mom always did it just to make sure she kept up the example for him.

“Ida, you hear Naomi say something?” said Grandpa Vern. He winked at Will, who just bit the inside of his cheek and kept his eyes on the baseball game. Grandma Ida just sighed and shook her head.

“You two, I swear,” she said. “Naomi, hon, you want to help me in the kitchen?”

“Sure, Mama.” Naomi glanced at Will before she left. He smiled at her weakly. He could deal with Grandpa and baseball on his own for a while.

So he thought, anyway. Then Grandpa Vern said, “so, Will. You got a girlfriend yet?” and, great. This was happening now.

“No, Grandpa. I don’t think I’m really old enough to be dating yet, do you?”

“Sure you are, you’re a teenager!” said Grandpa Vern. “But a young one, it’s true. You’ve got plenty of time for girls. At least you’ve got to have a crush, right? Come on, tell me about her.”

“Uh—” Will swallowed, not wanting to think about the actual crush he’d spent the year having at all. “I don’t know. There are a lot of girls at school who are cute, I guess.” That was factually true, anyway—objectively, he supposed he could say Olivia and Lou Ellen were cute. If worst came to worst.

“Oh, I see,” Grandpa Vern chuckled, “you’re gonna play the field, are you? Take after your old man?” Nor had Will ever thought much about what his grandparents thought about his father—he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard either of them bring him up before. Apparently he was getting his answer.

“No! No,” he said quickly. “I just—I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it. I’m so busy with school and stuff.”

“Well, like I say, you’ve got time. Plenty of time for all those pretty girls.” Grandpa Vern sat back in his recliner, looking satisfied. “Good, good. Here I was getting worried that New York school was gonna turn you gay or something.”

Oh.

“Have the Rangers been playing this good all season?” Will asked after way too long a pause, a little too loudly. The bottom of his stomach felt like an empty pit.

“Eh, they’re doing all right.”

“Cool,” said Will. “I’m gonna go see how dinner’s coming.”

“Sure, go on.” Will tried not to move too obviously fast walking out of the living room, suppressing the urge to sprint. In the kitchen, his mom was chopping carrots for a salad. She looked up, startled, when he came and hopped up on the counter next to her.

“You okay, honey?”

“I’m good,” Will lied. “Hungry.” That was also a lie. Mostly. Probably he would have been hungry if he hadn’t kind of felt like throwing up. When it finally was time for dinner, he managed to choke down one serving of everything, at least.

The nauseous feeling hardly went away the whole rest of the weekend. The only moments Will felt some respite were when he got to go swimming in the lake on his own—in the cool water, far from the dock where his grandparents were sitting, he could close his eyes and imagine being back at camp, swimming with his friends in the canoe lake there. That was weird. He’d never wished he was back at camp when he was in Texas before.

“You feeling okay?” Naomi asked when they were driving back into town on Monday afternoon.

“I’m fine.”

“Will, honey, you barely said two words this weekend, and you hardly touched your Grandma’s cooking.” Naomi reached across the car to put a hand on his forehead. Will ducked away. “What’s going on?”

“Has it always been like this and I just didn’t know before?” he asked, glaring out the shotgun side window so he wouldn’t have to look his mom in the eye when he let just a little of the hurt surface. “All the sniping about politics and stuff, and Grandpa—his backwards ideas. It sucks.”

“Oh, is that what’s up with you?” Naomi sighed. “I was wondering if you might be getting old enough it’d bug you. Well, at least that means I raised you right. I worried sometimes, having you in that house with them all the time.”

“I think sending me to camp’s helped too,” Will admitted. Naomi nodded. “But why do you put up with it?”

“I don’t know that I’d say I put up with it,” said Naomi. “That’s why all the sniping, honey. I’d never want you to think I agree with my dad on everything—most things—or that you should.”

“Yeah, but—why bother going to see Grandpa so much if you know you’re just going to argue with him the whole time?” Naomi hummed softly, nodding and pursing her lips as she gazed out the windshield at the road. She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful.

“Well.” She sighed. “I guess you’re also probably old enough to understand that a lot of parents, even more liberal ones than mine, wouldn’t react too well to their daughter running away to be a musician, then turning up again at twenty-three with a baby and no ring. I feel very lucky to have parents who’ve always stood by me,” Naomi explained. “Stood by me, and stood by you. You don’t see the half of it, Will, but they’ve given us so much help and support over the years, there are some things it is worth putting up with to me. That make sense?”

“I guess.”

“And our many differences aside, your grandparents sure love you,” Naomi told him. Will nodded, the lump in his throat suddenly so big it was hard to breathe.

“Yeah, I guess so.” For now, he didn’t say. In the driver’s seat, Naomi frowned.

“Did they say something that made you think any different?”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Will managed to lie again.

“Okay.” Naomi was quiet for a minute, eyes on the road. Then she said, “well, sweetheart, if you ever want to talk about anything, your grandparents or things at camp or whatever else you’re feeling, you know I’m here.”

“I know, Mom.”

“Kind of a broken record, huh?” They laughed, then, and the mood lightened a little for the rest of the drive. Still, Will had never felt so relieved to get out of the car, go to his room, and be able to shut the door behind him.

The next two weeks were probably the worst of Will’s life. On the one hand he mostly spent them in the basement playing video games, which should have meant those two weeks were awesome—but that was only once he could drag himself out of bed. Mostly he wanted to stay there and hide under the covers and not have to think about anything. Not the news, not being gay, not his responsibilities at camp, definitely not Manhattan. The video games just helped by giving him something to hyperfocus on, drowning out everything else.

For the first time in his life Will was sleeping late, past ten or eleven some days, not least because he was struggling to get to sleep at night. He still couldn’t remember his nightmares, but based on how tense and exhausted he still felt when he woke up every day, he suspected they were getting worse.

“I’m getting pretty worried about you,” Naomi told him a couple days before his birthday. “I know teenagers get depressed sometimes, but this seems bigger. Is it about whatever happened this summer, that you’re not telling me about?” Will shrugged. It was and it wasn’t. “Do you think it would help to talk to somebody else, who isn’t your mom? A therapist or something?”

“Probably not.” Will kept his eyes on his chicken. “What would I even talk to them about? I can’t tell a therapist my dad’s a god.”

“No, I guess not,” said Naomi. “But therapists can help people deal with loss and grief. Maybe if you talked about it in really broad terms, or made up a different story about how it happened—”

“I don’t think so,” Will said, suddenly gripped with a visceral memory of the noises the hellhound had made after it grabbed Silas. We probably all just taste like chicken to them. He put down his fork, repulsed by the idea of eating any more. “It wouldn’t—I couldn’t talk about it without saying what happened.”

“I don’t suppose you’re ready to tell me about what happened?” Naomi asked. Will shook his head. “Okay.” There was a long pause.

“I don’t want you to worry about me, Mom,” Will said. “I’m fine.”

“Honey, you’re clearly not fine,” Naomi said gently.

“I’ll be better when I’m back at camp,” Will told her. He meant it to sound reassuring, but instead, to his horror, his mom dropped her fork too and pressed her fist to her mouth over a barely-suppressed sob. It was the closest he had seen her come to actually crying in—years, probably. “Mom?”

“I’ve been wondering if I should even send you back to camp,” Naomi admitted. “If it’s that dangerous, that even kids older and more experienced than you could—could die—”

“No, no, it’s—” Will shook his head frantically, suddenly panicking at the idea of not going back. “I have to go back, Mom. I have to. I know I don’t always tell you stuff, cause I don’t want to scare you, and it’s not that it’s not dangerous, but I promise you I’m not usually in danger. You know how my dad’s the god of music?” he said, scrambling to explain himself. “He’s also the god of healing, and that’s my thing. That’s what I can do. So I’m not a fighter, I’m not usually—not in the line of fire.” Like he couldn’t have died dozens, hundreds of times during the battle this summer, like what happened to Silas and Xavier and Jasper and Renee couldn’t have happened to him if he’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the way what happened to Leah almost had—but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “Please don’t keep me here. I can’t do it. I have to go back.” The silence after that stretched on a lot longer. Naomi looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Sorry,” Will said weakly.

“It’s okay,” his mom said slowly. “That was a lot. But I hear you. And I know camp has been good for you, especially going to school with Chiron. But Will—” Naomi shook her head. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep things from me so I won’t worry. I’m always going to worry about you, cause I’m your mom. I’d rather you tell me what’s happening to you than get phone calls at six in the morning to say goodbye, just in case, and then spend days thinking you must be dead until I finally hear you’re okay.”

“Oh,” was all Will could say. “Okay.” Then, all at once, the tears came in a flood. “I’m sorry, Mama—”

“Oh, sweetie, come here.” Naomi pulled him out of his chair to hug him, then abandoned their half-finished dinner to go sit on the couch with him and just hold him. “You know, I heard what you said in there, about healing,” she said when Will had managed to stop crying. “Do you mean you have some kind of healing magic, like your dad?” Will nodded. “Wow,” Naomi breathed, shaking her head. “That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.” She squeezed him tight.

“Thanks,” Will said through his stuffed-up nose.

“We always figured with the music genes, and the music god magic—but I guess that’s not how it turned out, huh?” Will shook his head, smiling weakly.

“No, not at all.”

Will didn’t have a birthday party this year, just turned fourteen quietly and had cake at home with his mom. Naomi did ask if he wanted to go out to the lake for his birthday, to include Grandma and Grandpa, but thankfully she didn’t argue when he said no. Then it was the last week of September, and Will realized he was running out of time to have the one conversation he did want to have with his mom.

He sort of planned to have it on the way back from seeing his grandparents one last time before he went back to New York—Grandpa Vern hadn’t said anything too hard to deal with today, nothing like last time, but Will figured complaining about politics again would be a way to broach the subject—but then a too-familiar guitar and drum line came in on the oldies station Naomi had on the radio, and suddenly Will’s head was swimming. He couldn’t breathe.

“Can we change the station?” he managed to choke out. It was like he could smell the metallic tang of Renee’s blood again, could feel the weight of her body in his arms. Man, fuck this song, Jake laughed in his head, and Will had laughed too, but it wasn’t funny. Nothing was funny. It was the perfect CPR beat, but Mark was dead under his hands.

“What have you got against the Bee Gees?” Naomi asked. Will had no idea what his face must have looked like, or what his body and breath were doing, but apparently it was enough to convince her, because he sure couldn’t find the words, or his voice. “Okay.” She turned the dial and got static, then hit the button to turn the radio off altogether. “Will?” Now Naomi sounded scared. “You with me, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know,” Will said in a very small voice, and pulled his knees up to his chest, his feet on the car seat, to hide his face in his arms.

“Okay.” They drove on in silence for a couple minutes, then Will finally looked up again as he felt the car come to a stop. Naomi had pulled off in a Dairy Queen parking lot. Now she put the car in park, unbuckled her seatbelt, and said, “can I give you a hug?” Will nodded. His mom reached across the gearshift, unbuckled his seatbelt too, and pulled him into her arms. Will hid his face in her shoulder and tried to breathe. “Was it the radio, honey?” Will nodded. “Do you want to tell me about it? Can you?” Will swallowed hard.

“All of the really bad stuff that happened this summer,” he said, “when, um—when Renee—and everybody else, it happened when we were in Manhattan.”

“Was that the earthquake?” Naomi asked gently. Will nodded. “I figured that was where you’d gone, when it happened after you called.”

“Yeah. And Olympus—it’s over the Empire State Building, right? Did you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” Naomi said. She was using her soothing mom voice, the one she used to tell stories in to try and get him to sleep when he was little. “You’ve told me before.”

“Yeah. So we were going to Olympus, and that—that song was playing in the elevator when we’d go up.”

“Oh, I see.” Naomi pressed a kiss to the top of his head, keeping her face in his hair for a moment. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Will breathed in deep. It was getting easier. Maybe Naomi had been right about how he should tell her stuff.

“I’m sorry,” he found himself saying, feeling bad now for panicking over something as silly as a disco song. “It’s stupid.”

“It is not stupid,” Naomi told him. “It’s no different than when kids come home from the bullshit wars in the Middle East and can’t deal with fireworks, cause they sound like IEDs.” Will hadn’t thought of it that way, but his mom was right—he and his friends had fought a war too. His siblings had, and a lot of them hadn’t come back.

“Okay,” he said, and pulled away to sit up again, running his hands over his face. “I’m okay. I’m better. I’m sorry. Can we go home now?”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, honey, and yes, of course we can.” Naomi turned the key in the ignition again, but she didn’t put the car in drive right away—she looked speculatively at the Dairy Queen where they’d stopped. “Do you think ice cream would help?”

“Ice cream always helps,” Will said, surprised to find himself smiling.

“Okay. Let’s get ice cream, then let’s go home.” So they went through the drive-through first, then Naomi found a country station—“I bet they don’t play this at the Empire State Building, right?” and Will shook his head—for the rest of the drive home, Naomi singing along, Will quietly eating his Blizzard. It was the most like an actual kid he’d felt in months.

It brought back some of his nerve. Enough, anyway.

“Hey, Mom?” he said as they pulled up to the front of the house.

“Hey, son?” said Naomi, and gods, the words had been on the tip of Will’s tongue a second ago and now—“What’s up?” Naomi asked after a minute passed in silence, Will staring at the dashboard, Naomi looking at him increasingly concerned.

“You love me no matter what, right?” he managed to ask.

“Always,” Naomi assured him without hesitation. “I love you forever. There’s nothing you could say or do to make me stop.”

“Okay. I think I’m gay. I mean—I don’t think,” he added, stumbling over his words a little, “I know it. I’m gay.” Again it was like time stopped, because the silence was probably only seconds but it felt like minutes—

“Okay.” Naomi turned the car off and set her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Thank you for telling me. I love you more than anything, okay?” Will nodded numbly, heart still in his throat regardless. “Can we get out of the car for this hug?”

“Sure,” Will whispered, and almost tripped getting out as his mom ran around the front of the car to meet him and pull him into her arms. Will hugged back, closing his eyes as Naomi reached up to cradle his head against her shoulder, even though he was four inches taller than her now and had to lean down for her to do it. Finally he felt himself start to relax. It was okay; it was really okay.

“I’m so proud of you,” Naomi said in his ear. “Was that a really hard thing to say?” Will nodded. “I’m so sorry it was hard. I was never gonna be upset, you know that, right?” Will nodded again.

“I know, but—”

“We live in Texas?”

“And—you know, Grandpa.”

“Oh, shit.” Naomi hugged him tighter. “Did he say something to you, sweetheart? Is that why you were so upset when we were out there a couple weeks ago?” Will shrugged.

“He just said—he was worried living in New York was gonna—um—turn me gay,” he said, hoarsely by the end of the sentence. Tears weren’t springing in his eyes, but he could feel them in his throat.

“Motherfucker,” Naomi whispered, and instead of crying suddenly Will was laughing—he couldn’t help himself. He’d heard his mom curse before, but never quite that violently. “Sorry. Sorry. I guess I’m gonna have to rethink what I’ll put up with from him. I’m so sorry, baby.”

“It’s okay—”

“No, it’s not. But we’ll figure it out.” Naomi kissed his cheek before she let him go. “Gods, you’re growing up,” she said, looking up at him. Will smiled—he didn’t usually hear his mom say gods, plural, the way demigods did, since she was a regular human living among other regular humans, but it was nice to know that impulse was there in her too. Naomi grinned back. “There’s my sunshine baby. Let’s go inside and you can tell me everything you need to.”

“I told my mom,” Will told Izzy, later. He had thought about running the risk of actually calling her—he had all his siblings’ mortal families’ phone numbers on a list in his backpack, in case of emergencies—but then he remembered he had a glass rainbow sitting right there on his bedside table. When he held up the bracelet and shone a flashlight on the beads at the right angle, it projected a rainbow on his bedroom wall just clear enough that it took the drachma he threw at it.

On the third try, anyway. He hoped the first two clanks of the coin bouncing uselessly off the plaster hadn’t worried Naomi.

“Is everything okay?” his sister asked him now, her face shimmering in the Iris-message.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. My mom’s cool.” He had always known it, but saying it out loud was kind of like realizing it all over again. Will found himself grinning. “My mom’s awesome.”

“You’re lucky,” Izzy said. She smiled too, a little wistfully. “Not that my mom isn’t cool too, like, if I was gay I don’t think she’d mind, but—I don’t know. Lots of people’s aren’t.”

“Yeah,” Will said, not sure what else to say. “Do you think more of our siblings are gay? Or bi?” The thought hadn’t really occurred to him before, but he supposed—“Or other people at camp, I mean, Dad’s bi or pan or something, he doesn’t discriminate, and a lot of the gods are the same way, right? So are their kids—?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” said Izzy. Then she smiled guiltily—“Well—actually, I do know. There are definitely others at camp. But it’s their business to tell you about, not mine.”

“So I’m not alone!” Will didn’t know why that was such a relief.

“You’re definitely not alone,” Izzy told him. “Trust me. You’re never alone.”

“What about you?” Will asked. “How’s being home?” Izzy sighed.

“It’s fine, I guess. My parents never knew I wasn’t just at camp like usual. It’s not like I’m gonna tell them any different.”

“Yeah.” Will pulled his knees up and leaned his chin on his arms. “My mom keeps asking me to tell her stuff about the war, and I just—can’t. I told her a little, but—” he shook his head.

“Yeah.” Izzy nodded. “It’s weird as hell being back at school with my mortal friends, and like—yeah. I’m kind of jealous you get to go back to camp,” she admitted. “It’s a lot easier there. Everyone there gets it, so it feels more normal.” Will nodded.

“You could always ask to go year-round,” he said. “School’s kind of better there too. Maybe your mom would let you.”

“No, I think it’s better for me to be here.” Izzy’s smile was a little pained as she said it, but her voice was firm. “Living a mortal life and stuff. Camp’s not going to last forever, you know? We’ll have to grow up eventually. No,” she added, with some dark humor now, “we get to grow up. How cool is that, that we get to grow up?”

“I’m really sorry we can’t hug right now,” Will said after a long pause, in which they both were clearly swallowing back tears. His sister nodded.

“Yeah. Me too.” But she smiled. “I’ll owe you one when I see you in June. I’ll be there for sure this time. I promise.”

Chapter Text

Izzy was right: going back to camp, Will felt surprisingly light. It was the first time in almost two months he hadn’t felt a heavy burden looming over him, sometimes so much that it felt like real weight on his shoulders. The war was over. Most of his siblings had gone home. With any luck, he got to come back to a normal school year with Austin and Kayla, or at least as normal as school at camp could be. Yeah, coming out to other people at camp was still scary—but Izzy said there were others. And his mom had his back, and so did his siblings, and his friends did too.

The real friends, anyway. He was already mentally preparing to take Sherman off that list, which hurt—a lot, he couldn’t lie, and the pain still felt extra complicated in a world without Mark—but if that was what happened, well. It wouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Just because Sherman didn’t call everything gay as a pejorative all the time anymore, at least not in front of Chiron—that didn’t mean he didn’t think it was gross. Nothing else about his and Mark’s behavior had ever really changed. So Will suspected that wasn’t going to go well.

Still, as he walked down the hill into camp he pulled the leather bracelet out of his pocket and finally secured it around his wrist where it belonged. The rainbow of glass beads gleamed in the sunshine that never quite seemed to leave Camp Half-Blood, even in October.

Just like last year, it wasn’t too hard to get into the rhythm of school, even though Will was arriving late. Chiron had left a spot for him with Olivia and Lou Ellen again; this year they were sitting with Rebecca’s big brother Malcolm, a ninth-grader. There were a lot of ninth-graders this year since so many of the new kids were staying. Jenny was the next table over, and Shane was sitting with Sherman, Miranda, and a girl named Lila who hadn’t been claimed yet. Ashlyn wasn’t a ninth grader—she was older, a junior in high school—but she was there too, sitting with Jake and Connor, who were both in tenth grade this year.

There were a lot of seventh-graders, too, but there was one notable absence. Will walked into the schoolroom, looked around—and his heart sank. No one at any of the middle school tables was wearing black.

He probably shouldn’t have been this disappointed that Nico wasn’t there. It shouldn’t be that unexpected, Will told himself; Nico had said he didn’t know if he would really stay. Will just wished he could have had more time to—he wasn’t even sure what he would have done. Convinced him to be his friend? Made him realize there were people here who definitely did want him around?

Like that would have worked anyway, said a small, weirdly bitter voice in the back of his mind, when the only person whose opinion Nico actually seemed to care about was… probably Percy. Will definitely wasn’t Percy, or Annabeth, for that matter. He wasn’t a hero like them and Nico. Never mind what Apollo might say—as far as the real heroes were concerned, Will was just another camper.

Whatever. It was still good to be back. Will wasn’t about to let a twelve-year-old mall goth ruin that for him, no matter how much he liked him. Or wanted to like him. Or something.

how r u? Lou Ellen wrote on his notebook page when Chiron wasn’t looking.

I’m ok, Will wrote back.

all well in texas?

all good

I like ur breaclet, Lou Ellen wrote, or probably that said bracelet, and drew a little smiley face. Will smiled back. Olivia glanced up at them, questioning; Will angled the notebook so she could see. Her eyes flicked down to the bracelet, taking it in. She smiled too, sort of sadly, nodded, and dropped her head to focus closely on her own paper. Huh.

“What’s up with Livvy?” he asked Lou Ellen when they all packed up to go outside not too long later—Chiron never tried to keep them sitting still for more than an hour at a time. Olivia had shoved her stuff into her bag haphazardly and walked off to join her sisters Julia and Alice rather than go with the two of them like she always would have last year.

“Oh, she’s fine,” Lou Ellen said, not super convincingly. “I don’t know what those three are up to. Knowing them, probably not anything good.”

“Did something happen while I was gone?” Will asked, anxiety starting to grip his stomach.

“Uh—Ashlyn got claimed, she’s a child of Ares. And that guy showed up.” Lou Ellen pointed out one of the high school kids, the only one Will hadn’t recognized. “He’s a son of Iris, his name’s Butch. And the ghost king left.”

“Yeah, where’d Nico go?”

“Nobody knows.” Lou Ellen shrugged. “He left a couple days after you did. We all just woke up one morning and he’d disappeared. I guess Percy and Annabeth said that happens sometimes.”

“Huh.” That wasn’t exactly heartening, but at least it sounded like there was some chance Nico would be back. “I meant with Olivia, though,” Will said. “Did something happen to her?”

“No, I don’t think anything happened while you were gone,” Lou Ellen said carefully, after an awkward pause.

“She’s not, like—upset about—” Will gestured vaguely. It turned out it was really hard to string the words together to say, is my friend I thought supported me actually upset that I’m gay? “She’s not—?”

“I promise you it’s not a homophobia thing. I promise,” Lou Ellen assured him. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” About that, at least, she sounded a lot more confident, so Will tried to take that advice to heart. “Anyway, you want to go do arts and crafts?”

“Sure.” They walked down towards the forges. “This may be a weird question,” said Will, “but—did anyone else come out while I was gone?”

“Uh, not that I know of,” said Lou Ellen. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I talked to my sister and she said something about me not being alone here.” Will shrugged. “I don’t know who she was talking about, though.”

“Huh.” Lou Ellen shrugged too. “Well, I’m not close to any of your sisters, so I doubt it’s what she meant—but you definitely aren’t alone. I didn’t say anything before cause I didn’t want to, like, steal your coming-out thunder, but I’m bi.”

“Oh, awesome!” Will grinned, and Lou Ellen laughed as she accepted his high five. “But you’re not, like, out? Have you told anyone else?”

“No, I am, I mean—sort of. I barely even had to come out to my mom, cause obviously she’s also, you know, not straight. And Livvy knows, and the rest of my cabin. But I guess I could stand to tell more friends around here, too.”

“Well, that’s something we both have to do,” Will pointed out.

“Maybe we should make t-shirts,” said Lou Ellen. “Camp Half-Blood LGBT Phalanx or something.”

“Camp Half-Blood: The Rainbow Strikes Back,” Will suggested.

“We’re Here, We’re Queer, And So Are Our Godly Parents?” said Lou Ellen.

“That’s a little long for a t-shirt.”

“Yeah,” Lou Ellen agreed. “We’ll keep working on it.” She smiled. “It kind of makes sense, you know? I always knew there was something I liked about you.”

“Maybe that’s why we’re friends,” said Will. Lou Ellen nodded.

“Yeah. Maybe we always knew, like, subconsciously—we’re alike.”

Catching up on the couple weeks of school he’d missed, Will decided he liked algebra; it helped that he had Malcolm sitting there to ask for help when things got confusing. Not that Malcolm was learning algebra, of course, he was on to trigonometry now, but he said he’d learned the math Will and Lou Ellen were learning (Olivia was still on pre-algebra) when he was nine, so he knew what he was doing. Will had never spent much time hanging out with Malcolm before. It turned out he was cool and very smart, as Athena kids were, if a little spacey—but with the demigod ADHD, really, weren’t they all?

Will was just glad Chiron had kept him and Lou Ellen at a table together, even if she was the opposite of Malcolm in terms of being helpful with school. They spent more time than they probably should in silent discussions on each other’s notebooks, doing their best to write in English sometimes and writing more easily in Ancient Greek at others, mostly depending on what language they were speaking out loud in a given lesson, while Malcolm rolled his eyes at them and Olivia took his distraction as an opportunity to cheat off his paper for their non-math lessons. Will supposed no one should have expected anything else—seating a Hermes kid next to an Athena kid for classroom activities had been Chiron’s strategic error two years in a row now, and it was Chiron’s problem if he wanted to deal with it.

Which he seemed not to. Whenever the old centaur passed by their table to check on them, he was usually conspicuously looking anywhere but its surface.

“I’m not really cheating,” Olivia argued when Will and Lou Ellen pointed out that her luck might run out eventually. “If anything I’m doing the opposite. Whenever I’m not sure about an answer, I look at Malcolm’s paper, and I put something he didn’t. It’s a really good way to get Cs and Ds.” Will and Lou Ellen looked at each other.

“Is that… your goal?” Will asked, confused. Olivia shrugged.

“My goal is to do just badly enough in school that when I go home for Christmas, my mom will be too distracted by that to ask me about how my summer went,” she explained. She said it pretty cheerfully, but it was still so sad they didn’t question her any further.

Olivia was drifting away. It hurt, and it was confusing, but eventually Will started to chalk it up to, well, sometimes friends just… drifted. He knew that. He didn’t get why, but nor could he ever find the words to ask, so it just sort of happened. At least all the jokes about them dating had finally stopped, between their not being as close and the other kids gradually realizing Will was gay.

The nice thing about coming out to friends was that it got easier every time. Most people seemed kind of surprised at first, which Will didn’t totally get—he knew there were a lot of stereotypes about gay people that he didn’t necessarily fit, but like Kayla had said, why did people assume? They took it in stride, though—mostly—and as the weeks went by it sort of became common knowledge around camp. Oh, yeah, Will’s gay. Who wants to have a canoe race? Fire arrows, anyone?

At least, that was what they said to each other. When it came to Will... a lot of kids seemed like they didn’t quite know how to talk to him anymore, girls and boys alike—okay, mostly boys. Not like he’d talked to Ellis that much before, but Sherman suddenly giving him a wide berth did hurt exactly as much as he’d figured it would. Group activities felt more awkward when Will was in them, as hard as Lou Ellen and his siblings tried to fill the gap. It wasn't like he'd been the most popular kid at camp before, but sometimes it felt like the three of them were the only people who really wanted to hang out with him anymore.

But he supposed he could live with that. The important thing was that, to Will's neverending relief, no one started in on bullying him. Not really. Drew Tanaka, of all people, did get even snippier than she had been before, on the (thankfully) very rare occasions Will spoke to her. And, it turned out, when he wasn’t speaking to her:

“Ugh! It’s fine that he’s gay, like, whatever, be yourself and stuff,” he overheard Drew saying to a few of her siblings and friends one afternoon as Kayla dragged him to the archery range, insisting,

“Michael always said you just need to practice more, so you have to sometime! Come on! Do it for Michael!”

“Kayla,” Will had been saying gently while her face set angrily, “Michael wasn’t always—” but before that could turn into a very sad conflict, they overheard Drew and ducked behind a tree to eavesdrop.

“It’s just, like, what a waste,” Drew was saying. Um. What?

“Yeah,” one of Drew’s sisters said sadly, “he’s so cute.” Will could feel his face going red. Kayla mimed vomiting, so Will kicked her in the shin, and she just giggled. He put a hand over his own little sister’s mouth, not wanting to be discovered—and, of course, Kayla licked it. Will shook his head, wiping his hand on his jeans.

“Ew, Amber, that’s not what I meant. Honey. You know better,” Drew was saying while they were scuffling. “That beanpole nerd?”

Behind the tree, Will’s mouth fell open. Beanpole nerd? He wasn’t sure why he was so offended—Drew’s opinion meant basically nothing to him, he knew better—but maybe it was that Kayla was laughing even harder now, pressing her own knuckles into her mouth this time to stay silent.

“Are you kidding?” Drew went on, voice dripping with disdain. “Do you want to wear the shoes?”

“No!” Amber said quickly. “No, of course, not, Drew, I’m sorry, you’re right—”

“I mean it’s a waste of a gay person. If there was going to be a gay kid at camp, why couldn’t it have been someone cool?” Drew sounded so resentful.

“But you don’t think anyone at camp is cool,” her brother Mitchell pointed out.

“Of course not.” Drew sighed. “What about you, Mitchell, sweetie? Could you come out already?” Will blinked, startled, and Kayla stopped laughing, eyes going wide. They glanced at each other, probably both with the same question: did that mean Mitchell—?

“Um, I’m still pretty sure I’m straight—” Mitchell said nervously, dashing that idea. “Sorry, Drew.”

“And that’s a waste too!” Drew exclaimed. “Like you’ll ever get any girls with that face.” On this side of the tree, Kayla made a weird strangled sound. Will glanced at her, eyebrows raised—her face was as red as her hair. It was his turn to laugh.

“Something to share with the class, Kayla?” he whispered, poking her in the arm.

“Nope!” Kayla whispered back. “Let’s go shoot at stuff.” She seized his wrist to drag him along, taking a shortcut (or maybe it was the long way around) so the Aphrodite kids wouldn’t see them. Will, too full of mixed feelings and confusion to argue again, just went with it.

When he repeated what they’d overheard to Lou Ellen later, she laughed so hard she almost threw up.

“Sounds like Cabin Ten’s very own Regina George is mad cause she wanted the gay kid at camp to be, like, her stereotypical gay best friend who would gossip with her and tell her she looks fabulous and stuff,” she explained when she could breathe again, waving away Will's concern. “That’s how girls like her think all gay guys are.”

So Drew’s was a weird response Will hadn’t expected, but at least she was only at camp on the weekends, since she went to school in the city. And he'd barely talked to her before, and had no plans to start now. What mattered was that Malcolm, at his school table, didn't seem to care either way. Neither did Jake, thank the gods. And the Stolls treated him exactly the same as they ever had, and no one in their cabin or Clarisse’s really got on his case—or anyone else, but those were who he’d been most worried about. Instead, if anything, Clarisse got even more into this weird new thing where she was kind of protective over Will. She seemed to be taking her vow from the last counselors’ meeting really seriously.

This was possibly also because Ashlyn was the same way. She never said as much, but Will got the impression Izzy's friend had decided to fill in for her in the role of big sister since she wasn’t around. This consisted mostly of Ashlyn, who unlike Izzy was actually taller than Will at like six feet, ruffling his hair and calling him a nerd, but coming from her he didn’t mind that. It was a lot better than the mild tension they’d started out with, when Ashlyn still seemed kind of mad at him on Izzy’s behalf at first. Now she was over that.

And now that they knew they were sisters Clarisse and Ashlyn were thick as thieves suddenly. All the new kids who’d come over from Kronos’ side were settling in well: Miranda and Jenny seemed to be pretty close now too, and Shane was fitting in nicely with the rest of the Hephaestus kids. From the sounds of it, he and Nyssa were hard at work on some terrifying new inventions. Clarisse and Ashlyn were just terrifying in general. And it was great. Really great, as it turned out—

The whole coming-out thing was going so well, or at least so not terribly, that Will actually kind of forgot about the curse Izzy had called down for him before they left back in August. At least, until he walked by a group of Ares kids and heard Sherman speak for the first time in two days. Not that he’d spoken to Sherman much at all since he’d been back. They didn’t sit near each other in the schoolroom anymore, and Sherman was still keeping his distance. Will had sort of been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, figuring it was still weird and painful for all of them with Mark gone—well, he’d been trying until now.

He hadn’t really thought through the full ramifications of the curse when Izzy made it, and now that this was happening he wasn’t sure she had either. Having to find out someone had said something homophobic behind his back by hearing them talking in limericks sucked. He wasn’t sure if it was actually worse than not knowing would have been, but it still really, really hurt.

“Oh.” Ashlyn looked up when she saw him. “Um—hey, Will.” Sherman looked up too, looking guilty. Ellis looked from Will to Sherman and back and started backing away slowly, which in any other situation probably would have been funny.

“Hi.” Will didn’t look at Sherman. “Did he just say a limerick?” he asked Ashlyn, while Ellis ran off outright now. She sighed.

“Yeah. So—”

“Great,” Will muttered. “Just great.” He turned away.

“Will, there once was a dumbass named me,” said Sherman—

“I don’t want to hear it.” Will started to walk off, crossing his arms like that would do something to staunch the pain and anger simmering in his chest.

“Who said something stupid and mean, but now I regret it and want to forget it—” he said, talking faster and following after Will—

“Dude, leave him alone,” said Ashlyn, “if he doesn’t want to talk to you that’s your own fault—”

“—So can you just break the curse, please?” he begged.

“It’ll wear off in like a week,” Will said coldly. “Probably.”

“Probably?” Sherman wailed. “This one’s even worse than the couplets—shit, what the fuck rhymes with couplets—? Look, seriously, Solace, I’m sorry, I promise—so please can you just say, like, drop it—s?” The flipside of this curse, Will realized, was that the practical effect made it kind of hard to be mad.

Will was up to the challenge, though. He turned around to face Sherman again. Ashlyn was trying to yank her brother back by the collar of his t-shirt like an unruly puppy or something—it was a very Clarisse-like gesture. It wasn’t very effective, though, because Ashlyn wasn’t as tall as Clarisse, and Sherman seemed to be finally hitting his growth spurt. That all would have been funny too, except, well.

“I don’t know what to tell you, dude,” Will said, “Izzy’s really good at curses.” Even better than Sophie, which was why this one was so much worse than the couplets—and seemed to be a little more powerful. The slant-rhymes Sherman was being forced into weren’t quite as weak as what he’d heard Mark get away with.

“Wait, it was Izzy’s curse?” said Ashlyn, breaking into a grin now. Her hold on her brother’s collar loosened enough that he managed to break out of it. Ashlyn just shoved him in the arm. “Aw, Sherman, you’re super fucked.” It always sounded kind of funny to Will’s ear, hearing her swear just like any other Ares kid in her sweet Southern-belle accent. Knowing the bare basics of how she felt about her hometown and mortal family, though, he suspected that was sort of the point.

“Shit!” Sherman punched at the air uselessly. Apparently the curse did let people swear without having to say a whole limerick. Small blessings, Will thought. Sort of.

“You brought it on yourself, asshole!” Ashlyn shook her head. “Will, for whatever it’s worth, I think he really is sorry. Clarisse shut him down as soon as he said it, gods bless her, and I’ve given him a talking-to. I think he gets why it was wrong.” Sherman nodded fiercely.

“Thanks,” said Will, a little surprised. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Nah, I did,” Ashlyn said firmly. “It wasn’t just for you. I’m, uh,” she added, quieter, “pretty gay myself, so.”

“Oh.” Will blinked, as some puzzle pieces slotted together in his mind. So Ashlyn was probably who Izzy had meant when she told him he wasn’t alone. And—maybe that had to do with whatever had gone down with her mortal family, and why she hadn’t talked about it much, at least not that Will had heard. He wasn’t about to press on that, though, so he just said—“Cool. I’m glad we’re not alone.” Ashlyn beamed at him for that.

“Yeah, me too. Do you know how to lift the curse?” she asked. “Like, did Izzy leave in a way to undo it?” The truth was it would be pretty easy for Will to lift the curse—Izzy had brought it down in the name of their father, so Will assumed he could just pray to Apollo to reverse it—but, on the other hand.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know how to fix it. I’m just not sure he deserves that.” Sherman scowled.

“Fuck you and your whole stupid cabin,” he said, “I think you could all use a stabbin’—” Ashlyn burst out laughing at that, and in spite of how hurt he was Will found himself smiling too—“but,” Sherman said through gritted teeth, “I don’t like this curse, and I want it reversed, so I’m sorry for the… bigoted... gabbin’?” He looked disgusted with himself for that one.

“Are you really sorry, though?” Will asked, while Ashlyn actually doubled over laughing. “Or do you just want me to lift the curse? Cause it kind of sounds like you’re just apologizing so I’ll undo it.” Sherman sighed. His shoulders slumped.

“Will, what I said was a dumb thing to say,” he said, much more contrite. “I don’t actually care that you’re gay. I know I’m a fool, and we don’t have to be cool, but will you please make this shit go away?”

“What did he say?” Will asked Ashlyn. She stopped laughing.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked doubtfully. “I’m not sure knowing will help.”

“I do want to know,” Will decided. There was a difference between the kind of casual homophobia Sherman had always tossed around and, like, calling Will a slur behind his back. One he could maybe deal with. The other, not so much. Ashlyn sighed.

“Okay. Just—I don’t think he’d say it again. But if you really want to know,” she said reluctantly, “he said something like, he should’ve known you were gay since you’re always, like, touching other boys to heal them.” She shot a truly murderous look at her brother. “Which was a shitty joke, and we told him so.” Sherman looked miserable.

Will stood still for a second, taking that in, feeling kind of nauseous now. It was far from the worst thing Sherman could have said—it wasn’t really that different from anything else he’d ever said to Mark and Will when they were younger—but it still felt bad, and somehow a lot scarier now that it was real. Was that what everyone would think now, when Will healed them?

“Okay,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Well, Sherman, if that’s how you feel, next time you break a limb I guess you can hope somebody else helps you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ashlyn, looking super guilty now—“I knew I shouldn’t have told you—”

“No,” Will assured her, “I asked. It’s not your fault your brother’s an asshole.”

“Will, I swear to you I didn’t mean it,” Sherman said frantically, actually reaching out and grabbing at Will’s arm as he stepped back, turning to leave again.

“Now who’s touching who, huh?” Will snapped, jerking away. “Seriously? After all the times I’ve healed you?”

“Yeah, you’re legit as a healer, I’ve seen it—if I could go back and choke on that dumb fucking joke, I’d, uh... put soap in my own mouth to clean it?” Will just glared at him.

“Look, Will, you’re right to be mad,” Ashlyn said a little hesitantly. “But I do think this’d go better if y’all could just talk normally.” Will sighed. Well—it sounded like she got it, he figured, so—

“Okay, fine,” he said. “In the name of Apollo, be released from his bond.” He didn’t feel anything change, but it wasn’t like he’d felt the curse come down either.

“Can I talk now?” Sherman asked warily—“oh, thank the gods. You’re the man, Apollo,” he called in a generally skyward direction. “But don’t tell my dad I said that.” Ashlyn snorted.

“Thanks, Will,” she said. “Do you want me to stick around, or should I let you two talk?”

“You can go,” said Will at the same time Sherman said,

“Stay?”

“Wimp,” said Ashlyn, shaking her head. “I’ll see you later. Don’t get yourself cursed again, and don’t come crying to me if he kicks your ass.”

“Like he could,” Sherman muttered. “He can barely even shoot straight—”

“Excuse me?” Will snapped, like he hadn’t made that joke himself to Lou Ellen the other day—but it was different coming from Sherman.

“Ow!” Sherman whined as Ashlyn smacked him in the back of the head and walked away, shaking hers. “Sorry,” he said to Will, “I shouldn’t’ve said that either. It’s not gonna?—no, okay, no limericks.”

“Guess not. So say what you actually want to say,” Will said tightly. Sherman looked at his feet.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Like I said a bunch already, I’m really sorry, Will. I made a shitty joke, and I really wish you hadn’t found out, cause I don’t actually think that about you, and I’m sorry I said it. I know you’re like—you take healing really seriously, and we all take your healing seriously too, I promise. If we didn’t we’d all be dead.”

“True.” Will crossed his arms over his chest.

“So I shouldn’t’ve joked about it,” Sherman went on. “I know—I guess I also shouldn’t joke about you being gay in general, cause it’s not a laughing matter.” Will raised his eyebrows. “That’s what Ash said,” Sherman admitted.

“Yeah, that makes more sense.”

“But I get it. I mean, I guess I probably don’t, but I feel really bad about it.” Sherman looked down at his feet, scuffing at the grass with the toe of his sneaker and fidgeting with the pocket of his jeans. Will sighed.

“Okay,” he said, “I accept your apology. But if I ever hear you say something like that again, especially in an actual medical emergency—”

“I won’t. I won’t. I swear.” Sherman was deadly serious, and his eyes turned sad as he added, “And, Will—I know I’ve always said lot of dumb shit, like when we were younger—me and Mark both did—and, I don’t know. If any of that made it harder for you to like—accept yourself or whatever—I’m sorry about that too. I didn’t realize. We weren’t thinking. But I’m thinking about it a lot now, I kind of can’t stop thinking about it since Ash chewed me out—and I’m really sorry for all that too.”

“Oh.” Will never would have expected to hear any of that, so he had to stand there blindsided for a second. In a good way, though. “Okay. Um—thanks. I’m okay, though.” He wasn’t sure why he said it until he did. It was true. He was actually okay. Not great, but.

“Okay, good.”

“That doesn’t make it okay that you said it, though.”

“No, I know.” Sherman shoved his hands in his pockets to stop fidgeting, a familiar move—they all did that around here. “For whatever it’s worth, I’m pretty sure Mark would’ve felt the same way. If, you know, he was around. He was always trying to be a good friend to you, probably more than I ever have been, so I’m sure he would’ve felt just as bad about it when he found out.” Will exhaled the too-sharp breath he’d held in at the words Mark would’ve felt the same way, because obviously Sherman didn’t mean that the way his stupid brain had wanted to hear it. Mark never would have felt the same way in the way that mattered. Will knew that. Whatever.

“Thanks,” he managed to say again. “That means a lot. Are we still friends?”

“I guess I should ask you that,” said Sherman. Will shrugged.

“I kind of thought you didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Cause of all that stuff you said when we were younger.”

“Dude, I definitely still want to be your friend,” said Sherman. “You’re a good friend to have, and I’m gonna try to be a better one now. I don’t really care if you’re gay—actually, I think it’s great,” he added, “cause I have a way better shot with all the girls our age if you’re out of the game.”

“Wow,” said Will, not sure what else to say to that. “Okay. Good to know you literally have your priorities straight.”

“Hey!” said Sherman. “What, so it’s okay when you joke about it?”

“Yes. It is.”

“—Yeah, okay.” Sherman sighed. “Sorry. Was that a bad thing to say too, about girls?”

“It’s—whatever.” Will wasn’t even sure he could make enough sense of why it bothered him to explain right now if he’d wanted to. “You’re fine. We’re good.”

“We are?”

“Yeah.” Will glanced sunward. “But I’m not sure I can break the curse altogether, so if I catch you spouting limericks again you’re on your own.”

“You won’t,” Sherman assured him. “I swear on my dad.” Will didn’t want to know what would happen to someone who broke a vow by Ares. That was more than good enough for him. “Will, um,” Sherman added before he could walk away, “will you fix it for Ellis, too?” Will raised his eyebrows.

“Why, what did Ellis say?” he asked. Was that why they both hadn’t been talking to him, or looking him in the eye? They didn’t want him to hear them speaking in limericks?

“Oh, you know, he just said he didn’t want to go to arts and crafts cause it’s—you know.”

“‘Super gay’?” Will said in his best impression of Sherman.

“Yeah,” Sherman himself said, shamefaced. “Sorry. Don’t know where he could’ve picked that up.” Against his better judgment, Will found himself laughing.

“Yeah, I think he can deal with that til it wears off,” he said. “Tell him I said so.”

“Fair enough,” Sherman said as Will finally walked away, shaking his head—but feeling weirdly hopeful. If this could be okay, maybe everything could be.

Everything wasn’t, though. Nights in the cabin especially were a lot more difficult than they had been when everyone else was around.

Kayla was still sleeping with a full quiver tucked in next to her, when she did sleep—most nights she was staying up way too late reading. She only got away with it because she was on the top bunk and the glow from her flashlight stayed mostly contained up there. And because Will had started drinking valerian tea sometimes to help himself sleep without having to wait, tossing and turning, for his body to get so exhausted it just knocked him out.

He still woke up in the morning feeling tense and discomforted without quite knowing why—since he didn’t remember his nightmares (though he figured he could pretty much guess)—but at least he woke up rested. Mostly.

Austin’s nightmares, though, were so bad he’d started sleeping in Will’s bed while he was away. It made him feel safer to be closer to Kayla and her arsenal. The first night Will was back Austin apologized profusely—he really didn’t have to be sorry, Will assured him, it was okay—and went back to his own bunk. Then, around two in the morning, he woke up screaming and sobbing, curled up in a little ball. Once Will and Kayla had crawled into his bunk with him and held him until he was okay again Will decided maybe they should just swap beds.

Everyone seemed to do better that way. Not great—Will still woke up some nights to Austin thrashing and crying in his sleep—but better. Whatever small improvements they could make, Will figured they should. They tried valerian for Austin, too, but all that did was make it harder for Will to wake him up when the nightmares still came.

Will had never felt this useless. It wasn’t even like the times in battle when he hadn’t been able to save someone from a wound (Castor, Lee, Mark, Renee—then he had to stop thinking about it like that because he couldn’t breathe). This should have been fixable. It wasn’t like it was killing him—instead it was just lasting longer and longer, hurting more and more, because Will couldn’t find the right treatment.

But the days were good, and as normal as anything at camp ever had been. Will made sure Austin and Kayla ate their vegetables, kept their bunks neat (ish), and didn’t kill anyone by accident practicing trick shots at archery. That was sometimes less about managing his siblings and more about healing the people who got hit, but that was pretty much par for the course at Camp Half-Blood. Will was used to it by now.

Kayla turned twelve that fall and got into a new fantasy series, this one about a teenage queen fighting against what sounded to Will like a stand-in for the Roman Empire—a teenage queen with red hair and a bow, which seemed to be most of why Kayla was so excited about it. At least she and Austin weren’t begging Will to be their medicine cat anymore.

Austin, meanwhile, was really focusing on music this year. Which was great—except that it meant he drove Will and Kayla up the wall practicing scales on his saxophone over and over. Other times he would sit at the old upright piano in the back of the cabin that somehow always stayed in tune, though it looked ancient, to compose. That was a lot nicer to listen to, since then Austin was playing actual music and playing it beautifully.

Until Kayla would go over to join him. Then it all went to hell.

dum dum DUM DUM dum dum DUM DUM—

“No!” Will groaned as, for the third time that day, his little siblings started plunking out “Heart and Soul.” And he had thought Gabriel with the “Viva La Vida” chords over and over was bad. He almost wished Sophie was back to keep playing that high-G descent from the opening of that MCR song again. But no. Will was stuck here by himself with Austin, Kayla, and “Heart And Soul.”

That was what finally got him to snap, or rather cave and get Travis and Connor to smuggle him in noise-cancelling headphones. That way he could listen to the iPod he’d gotten for his birthday—one of the few electronics demigods could safely use, since it didn’t take any kind of signal—in peace.

“Thanks,” he told them. “I appreciate it. In fact, I’m so grateful, I’m not even going to ask if you paid for these.” Connor grinned.

“Sweet. We’re wearing you down.” Will rolled his eyes.

“Speaking of which,” said Travis. “About that whole, uh, medicinal herbs idea—”

“No,” Will said flatly.

“Aw, come on!”

“Don’t worry. We’ll get him someday,” Connor said to his brother. “Now we know he’s corruptible.” He winked at Will, who rolled his eyes. Connor Stoll was not cute, he reminded himself firmly. He was immature and—and capricious, a vocab word from the eighth-grade list this week. Capricious. Impulsive. Careless. Both of the Stolls were, and it wasn’t an attractive quality, not at all.

Besides, he was about 90% sure Connor was just messing with him. It did feel a little weirder now that he definitely knew Will liked guys—but he’d been just the same before as he was now. Nothing had really changed. At least, Will figured, the Stolls were consistent.

The headphones weren’t Will’s only reprieve from the music practice. Reading Chiron’s newspapers to see what that was all about, he had learned from the TV listings that Long Island also apparently had a channel that played only Star Trek reruns (the original series, not any of the newer ones his mom preferred). He had pulled the old TV out from the cabin crawlspace, dusted it off—and, with a little help from Jake and Nyssa, got it to play.

Will was pretty sure his siblings weren’t as into it as he was, but nor did they seem to mind watching Star Trek with him. Movies, too, because Jake had gone hunting in Cabin Nine’s apparently endless stash of electronics for a VCR/DVD player combo that still had all its parts.

“Nah, it’s the least I can do,” he said when Will, thanking him politely, said he shouldn’t have. “After all, you’ve had to heal us a lot lately.”

It was true—Cabin Nine was always a pretty hazardous place, with the number of traps and explosives its denizens were usually tooling around with, but lately the children of Hephaestus were getting injured even more than normal. Dumb accidents that usually would have been avoided, coincidences that felt a little too ironic, and even simple inventions malfunctioning.

It didn’t help that the bronze dragon Beckendorf had tamed last summer had kind of reverted to feral since he died. No one else seemed to be able to handle it—the beast (if a machine could really be called that? Will wasn’t sure) had gone haywire. Even Jake’s best efforts to deal with the creature landed him in the infirmary. And how.

“Just when I was starting to get our burn ointment stock back up, too.” Will shook his head. Much of Jake’s body was covered in burns—thankfully none too severe, just a lot of surface area—and he had two broken ribs, a broken arm, and a shattered hip. Not to mention the cuts, abrasions, and the pretty nasty lump on his head.

Will was just glad nothing too bad had happened to his skull, spine, or lungs. The automaton had knocked Jake clear across the field this side of the woods, so he’d fallen hard and without armor, but he’d also flown far enough that he’d lost some momentum along the way. And he’d landed on grass. This wasn’t like Mark (or Isaiah) getting slammed point-blank into the side of a building.

“I’m sorry, man.” Jake winced, though that could have just been from pain as Will spread the concoction of aloe vera, chamomile, and nectar over his blistering skin. It should have a numbing effect as well as healing and cooling, but he knew it stung a bit. The good news was there probably wouldn’t be much scarring.

“It’s not your fault. What you did was brave.” Will tried and failed to force himself to relax. He could feel his own hesitance and awkwardness as he worked. In the back of his mind he was cursing Sherman—sure, he’d apologized and they were okay, but the idea of guys at camp being uncomfortable with Will healing them was haunting him now. Probably would be for a while.

At least Jake didn’t seem to care. He barely seemed to notice. “I don’t know,” he was saying glumly. “Ever since Charlie died… nothing’s gone right. It kind of feels like we’re cursed. And all the bad stuff’s been happening under my leadership, you know? I have to wonder if it is my fault somehow.”

“Your cabin’s not the only one that lost a counselor in the war, though.”

“I know.” Jake grimaced. “Sorry.”

“I don’t just mean us,” Will pointed out. “Aphrodite lost Silena too.”

“Yeah, but see? You guys aren’t cursed.”

“I don’t know,” said Will, “maybe my cabin’s bad luck just hit all at once in Manhattan. And now the Aphrodite kids are stuck with Drew as their dictator—I mean, counselor—” That got Jake to smile weakly. “Sure seems like a curse to me.”

“I don’t think so,” said Jake. “This seems pretty different. But it’s nice of you to say. Good bedside manner.”

“Thanks.” Will tried shaking out his shoulders again as he set aside his jar of burn ointment. It went a little better this time. “I’m going to set and splint the breaks now, okay? Then I’ll get a start on healing those.” He had done this part first so that at least when he had to move limbs around, he wouldn’t be hurting the burned skin more. Even so—“It’s probably going to be really painful, especially the hip. I can knock you out with an anesthetic draught for this part if you want,” he offered.

“Wait, I could’ve been knocked out this whole time?” said Jake.

“I’m sorry—”

“Nah, it’s okay. I’d appreciate it now, though.”

“Okay,” said Will. “Let’s do that.”

Once Jake was out and all the breaks were set, Will went to get Chiron’s help for a cast. Usually he and his siblings could heal bone fractures well enough that their friends didn’t need full casts, just splints to keep their limbs stabilized while things healed fully. Especially since they had ambrosia available to speed the process. But the shattered hipbone was a little more complicated than any of the relatively easy breaks Will had dealt with before.

After they did the casts Will got back in his normal clothes, bracelet and all, and wandered out of the infirmary, leaving Jake to sleep off the rest of the draught. He didn’t really process what he was doing until he found himself in the kitchen, making a peanut butter sandwich.

He’d never know what did it, what made him actually stop and think about it, but suddenly his hands were too shaky to hold the knife and rather than cut the sandwich he went sinking down to the floor with his back to the cabinets, hiding his head in his arms. He stayed there for a while, sort of crying, sort of not. He was a little too burned out to actually cry. It was just that for a moment, it had all become too much to deal with.

When he could get up and move again, Will went to sit on the back steps of the infirmary and eat his sandwich. Not even three months ago, Renee had sat him down here and done this for him, treated his burnout with a PB&J. It felt like so much longer. Now she was dead, and so were five more of their siblings and a dozen more of their friends. Will wasn’t sure how long he sat there, staring out at the woods in the quiet. The Golden Fleece didn’t look as warm as usual under the cold sunlight.

He missed his sisters, the ones who were dead and the ones who were alive but not here. He missed his brothers too. And sure, at school with his friends he was fine, mostly—he had Lou Ellen, and Malcolm was cool, and so was Jake, and apparently Sherman was too now, sort of—but he missed being close with Olivia, and he missed Mark being alive. He missed who he had been, he thought, before Manhattan.

Will knew he was better off now than he had been in August in some big ways: he had his siblings’ and friends’ love and support, and his mom’s, had it for sure, without having to omit anything. He had new friends, too, and had grown closer to others. He had Izzy back. Kronos wasn’t looming over any of them anymore. But on balance, he was pretty sure everything—on the scale of the whole world, not just him—was still worse. Not for the first time, he caught himself wishing he could go back. Maybe if things had just gone a little differently—if they’d gotten Michael off the bridge, or worked harder to convince Clarisse to come in the first place—

But, he knew better than to go too far down this road. It was what had happened, and so it was what was meant to be; it was the Fates, like Renee had said. Everything was up to the Fates.

Eventually the sun started going down. See you tomorrow, Dad, Will thought out of habit, not that Apollo was probably listening. The air was getting chillier as the shadows grew longer. Will knew he should probably get up and go check on Jake. Then he could go to dinner, then to campfire, then back to the warmth of his cabin with his siblings who were here—but he didn’t really want to move.

Footsteps on the porch behind him made him turn. “Hey,” Will said, surprised to see Olivia. She frowned at the sight of him, which sadly wasn’t really new anymore. “What’s up?”

“Kayla’s looking for you. And Jake’s waking up. He’s pretty groggy, though.” She sat down on the other end of the steps. “Are you okay?” So maybe the frown had been concern.

“Is anyone around here really okay?”

“Okay, fair.” Olivia leaned her head against the stair rail, staring out at Half-Blood Hill. Not looking at Will. There was an awkward pause.

“Are we okay?” Will finally, finally caved and asked. “You’ve barely talked to me since I’ve been here. It’s like I came back from Texas and everyone forgot to tell me we’re not friends anymore.”

“Of course we’re still friends,” said Olivia, and then nothing else. Will wasn’t okay with that being the end of the discussion; he moved over enough that he could reach her arm to poke it. She jerked away sharply.

“Sorry. But what’s going on?” Will asked. Olivia sighed.

“I just had some stuff to figure out,” she said. “But I’m working on it.”

“What stuff?” Will frowned. “You know, whatever’s going on, you know it’s probably better not to try and deal with it alone—”

“Oh, come on!” Olivia leaned forward to rest her head in her hands for a moment. “Will, did you really not know I’ve had a crush on you for like two years?”

“—No,” Will, blindsided, said after another awkward pause. “Um. No. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Olivia, “it’s just—”

“Yeah.” Now Will mirrored her, sinking his hands into his hair. “Oh my gods, I didn’t—I’m so sorry.” Now that he thought about it, as much as he could when his brain was full of panicky static—“I definitely should have. All the signs were there, I was just wrapped up in my own stuff.”

“Obviously,” said Olivia. “I get that now. All the signs were probably there with you, too, I just didn’t want to see them. And I’m getting over it. It’s just, you know.” She sighed. “I figured you didn’t feel the same way when you didn’t care about Mark asking me to fireworks this summer, but I still thought, maybe someday. But now I know that’s not happening.” And now Mark was gone, she didn’t say, but.

“Right.” Will couldn’t quite stop a horrible laugh from bubbling up from his chest. “Sorry. I’m not laughing at that or at you at all, I swear, it’s just that, um.” He put his hands over his eyes for a moment. “Actually, never mind.”

“What?” When he didn’t respond Olivia started poking him back, much harder, repeatedly. “Will. Tell me. Tell me, tell me, tell me—”

“Ow, Livvy, oh my gods!” Will shoved her arm away. “Okay. It’s just kind of funny, but also sad, cause I did care about that, it’s just—cause I liked Mark.” Olivia’s face fell.

“Oh.” She looked down. “Oh, gods, that sucks.”

“Yeah.” It was weird—everyone knew Will was gay now, but he’d still never actually told anyone that part before. “So I guess that’s what I’m getting over.”

“That and all the other stuff,” said Olivia.

“Yeah, all the other stuff.” They sat quietly for a minute. “I am sorry,” Will told her, “if I ever, like—I don’t know, gave you false hope or something.” Gods, he’d been dumb. His stomach felt like an empty pit now, thinking about how much he’d probably hurt his friend—

“It’s whatever. Not your fault.”

“Okay. But still. Thanks for telling me.” Will glanced at her. “I get it if we can’t go back to normal, but at least now I know why.” Olivia shrugged.

“Where’d you get your rainbow bracelet?” she asked—clearly trying very hard to change the subject, which was okay with Will. “It’s really cool.”

“My dad gave it to me.” Will held his wrist up to the dying light so the glass sparkled. “On Olympus.”

“Wow.” Olivia sighed. “That seems like it was so long ago now.”

“It does. I was just thinking about that,” Will admitted. Olympus itself seemed kind of like a dream now. If Will didn’t have the bracelet and the clothes Apollo had given him still sitting in his drawer, he wasn’t sure he would have believed otherwise.

“I don’t know if you want another bracelet,” Olivia said hesitantly, “but if you did, we could make friendship bracelets or something. I haven’t been a very good friend lately, but I’d rather be your friend than be nothing, so.” She was talking faster and faster the longer she talked. “But, I mean, it’s not like—not just for us. I bet Lou Ellen would make one too.”

“Yeah, we should all do that,” Will agreed. “Should we make one for Malcolm so he doesn’t feel left out?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Olivia smiled, finally relaxing a little. “I’d like to see the look on his face.”

“Confusion?” Will suggested. Now she laughed.

“Yeah, exactly.” They sat quietly for a minute. It felt both more and less awkward than it had before. Will couldn’t have explained how that worked, but he did know it felt better.

“If Jake’s waking up, I should probably go check on him.” He stood up. Thankfully his head only spun a little bit. “Seriously, um—thanks. For telling me. And I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Olivia, standing too. “Let’s just never talk about it again, okay?”

“O—okay.” Will took her hand hesitantly when she offered it, and they… shook on it? “Okay.” Olivia hopped down the stairs, and he watched her walk off and disappear around the side of the Big House.

So many conversations, lately, he hadn’t been expecting to have at all. Probably it was good people kept surprising him. Just more proof that people could change, could grow—and could be things not what they seemed, whether that was good or bad or more likely neither.

It was kind of nice, Will thought, to be reminded of that.

“Holy shit, Jake,” said Nyssa when Will and Chiron helped him back to Cabin Nine. “Uh—sorry, Chiron. How long til you’re back in action?” she asked her brother, who looked at Will.

“At least six weeks,” Will told the cabin at large. “Might be more like two months.”

“Carajo! Sorry, Chiron.”

“No need to apologize,” Chiron assured her. “Believe me, I’ve heard every curse you know and a vast multitude you don’t.” He patted Jake’s shoulder. Jake winced.

“Well,” he said, “things can only get better from here, right?”

“Dude,” said Shane.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” Jake shook his head. “Come on, I know better than that. We’ve already got one curse to deal with, I’m not about to invite another.”

Chapter Text

Things did not get better, for the Hephaestus cabin or anyone else. Instead, they kept getting worse.

In November, they all woke up one morning to find that Mr. D had disappeared. This shouldn’t actually have been all that worrying—Dionysus was Dionysus, after all, so it wasn’t like the campers weren’t used to him going off to do god stuff occasionally—except that unlike every other time this had happened, it did seem to be worrying Chiron.

“I don’t know how long Mr. D will be absent from camp this time,” he told them grimly at dinner. “Zeus has closed Mount Olympus.” There were a number of quiet gasps and murmured questions—“He did not give a reason,” Chiron went on, “but he has called the other gods home and forbidden them from communicating with the mortal world.” Everyone looked at each other.

“Does that mean they can’t answer prayers?” Will asked. Having Apollo be busy had been bad enough—

“Yeah!” Nyssa and a few others chimed in, as nervous chatter rose up at all the tables now. Miranda looked kind of panicked.

“How are we supposed to do anything we need divine power for?” So she and Will were on the same page. Maybe Nyssa was too—Will wasn’t actually sure how much of the Hephaestus kids’ tinkering worked like his healing or Miranda’s green thumb, reliant in part on support from their parents. If something weird was going on with the gods, maybe that would explain Cabin Nine’s problems?

“For now, we must remain calm,” said Chiron. That quieted everyone down. It wasn’t a real answer to their questions, though, just the opposite—having Chiron sidestep actually made Will more nervous than anything else. “I’m certain we will learn more in the coming days,” the old centaur went on. “Rest assured that camp will remain protected, and we will try to operate as normally as possible regardless of what happens this year.” None of that was very reassuring, Will thought, but Chiron was good at projecting a sense of calm authority that made it seem that way regardless.

“Are we gonna have healing problems?” Austin asked him on their way back to the cabin after an unusually subdued campfire. The flames had almost looked blue at points—which in a normal fire would mean they were burning hot, but at Camp Half-Blood meant kind of the opposite.

“I don’t know yet,” Will admitted. “Hopefully we won’t have to find out for a while, anyway, cause hopefully no one’s going to need intensive healing any time soon—” it was kind of a good thing Jake’s disaster with the dragon happened before this, if it had to—“but it’ll be all right. If there’s something you can’t heal without Dad, I’ll take care of it.”

“Are you sure?” Kayla asked doubtfully. “Isn’t that hard on you?” Will shrugged.

“It’s not so bad. Gets easier every time, and I know how to deal with burnout. Don’t worry about it.” His siblings looked at each other.

“Okay,” said Austin. “We’ll just keep an eye on you so Izzy doesn’t have to kill us when she gets back.”

“Hey!” But Will laughed. His siblings had a point.

The good news was, as the days went by it seemed like the gods were still answering prayers. So that much was fine. When the Hephaestus kids got hurt, Will could appeal to his dad to heal them instead of having to rely on his own power. Miranda could still supply him with aloe and chamomile as he worked on re-upping the burn ointment stock.

Still, it was weird to know the gods weren’t available. It wasn’t like they were the most involved parents to begin with (just the opposite), but usually someone had some sort of visitation, awake or in dreams, about once a week.

Not anymore. Olympus was silent.

On the other side of Will’s family, November wore on and suddenly it was the week of Thanksgiving. Time to go back to Texas. He got in the van with his heart in his throat, and there it stayed—right up until he walked out of the secure area and into his mom’s hug.

“If anything happens—if anybody says something, and you need to leave, just tell me, and we’ll leave,” Naomi assured him on the way out to the lake. Unlike Labor Day Weekend, for Thanksgiving Uncle Chris’ family came down from the panhandle to spend the holiday with Grandma and Grandpa too. They were very Christian and pretty conservative, so that was another layer of anxiety—but Will thought his mom was overreacting a little. It wasn’t like he was going to come out to them any time soon. He shook his head.

“I’m not about to ruin Thanksgiving, Mom.”

“You wouldn’t be the one ruining it,” said Naomi. “I don’t care what Chris and Sue think, and I can handle Mom and Dad. All I care is that you don’t have to. You’re my kid. That’s not your job.”

“I’ll be fine. Just as long as no one starts playing disco,” Will joked. Naomi clearly didn’t think it was funny.

“I think you were right about going back to camp and doing better,” was all she said. “You’re so much lighter than when you left here a couple months ago.”

“Yeah.” Will shrugged. “I feel normal at camp.” Well—that wasn’t totally true, not anymore, not with the whole coming-out process—but as far as his feelings about Manhattan went, the bad dreams and the surprise waves of grief and the moments when some small thing would remind him and it was like he couldn’t breathe, all that was something he shared with everyone else who’d been there.

The upside of Chris and Sue Solace being who, and how, they were, was it meant they had four kids. All but one of them were older than Will—Annie and Chris Jr. were in college now, while Jacob and Jenna were two years apart on either side of him, fifteen and thirteen. With so many other grandkids available for interrogation it was kind of easy for Will to just fade into the background.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Thanksgiving Dinner itself was a whole thing: predictably, Naomi and Chris got into it about politics with Sue plastering on a placating smile and trying very hard to change the subject at one end of the table, while Grandpa Vern grilled Annie and Chris Jr. about college and boyfriends and girlfriends at the other. And in the middle, Will, Jacob, and Jenna just sat quietly and let Grandma Ida stuff them full of pie.

It actually, Will caught himself thinking, wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like the worst days of the whole nonsense with the chariot this summer, or three summers ago when Tantalus was holding court at camp for some godsforsaken reason. At least his mortal family’s bickering and prying never ran the risk of anyone getting maimed or cursed, and his mortal grandfather didn’t have the power to smite anyone. Or turn them into trees.

Not that Zeus would be doing much of that right now, since Will was pretty sure smiting would technically qualify as communication with the mortal world. He had allowed a very small part of him to hope that just maybe, when he got back to camp, Zeus would have changed his mind about closing Olympus. Maybe Percy Jackson would have done some kind of quest over the break that fixed everything—it had happened before. But of course, no dice. Everything at camp was just the same as when Will had left three days ago.

Well, almost everything—

“Kayla, what the hell.” She had been one of the only kids at camp over the weekend, since Canadian Thanksgiving was back in October and she never went home for it anyway. Now Will and Austin walked into the cabin to find that Kayla, in their absence, had dragged half the twin camp mattresses off most of the bunks to fill the central space between the couches, tied together all the sheets and blankets, and draped them across the backs of the couches and a lump that looked like an armchair at the center. Altogether, she had transformed about a third of Cabin Seven into a blanket fort of a size that would probably give the Guinness Book a run for its money.

“Hi!” Kayla poked her bright head out through a gap between blankets nearest the door. Her face fell a little at the look on Will’s—whatever it was. He had no idea what his own face probably looked like, staring at the scene she’d made. “I’ll clean it up before bedtime, Will, I promise.”

“Aw, does she have to?” Austin asked Will plaintively. Will glanced at their three bunks—it looked like she had left all their mattresses and bedding where they were, using their siblings’ who weren’t here instead.

“I wasn’t gonna say that,” he said, feeling bad now he’d accidentally made his siblings feel bad. “Can we come see inside?”

“Sure!” Brightening back up, Kayla held the blankets open as her brothers dropped their stuff and crouched down to crawl into the blanket fort. Even though none of the three of them could have stood up even halfway under the “ceiling” of the space, because that ceiling was made of white sheets it felt surprisingly spacious. Light and airy, when they all laid back on the mattresses.

“You did all this by yourself?” Will teased his sister. “Three days without us here and you went this stir-crazy?”

“It was four nights,” Kayla pointed out.

“So you’ve been sleeping in here?”

“Yep.” She poked the sheet overhead, sending the whole structure billowing up for a moment. “It’s really cool. Feels like camping inside a cloud.”

“Sure, it’s cool,” said Austin. “Just tell me where to sit so I don’t get poked with any arrows.” Kayla stuck her tongue out at him.

“There aren’t any arrows. They’re still up on my bed, dummy.”

“Hmm.” Will rolled onto his stomach, resting his chin on his hands and thinking about that. “Can we sleep in here too? This is awesome.”

“Yes!” said Kayla. “Everyone can sleep in here.” So Sunday night, after dinner and a brief campfire, they all found spots on the mattresses and curled up to sleep in the blanket fort. Monday morning Will woke up feeling tense and disoriented as usual—maybe even a little more disoriented, here inside the blanket fort—but Austin and Kayla were both sleeping soundly, and it dawned on Will he hadn’t been awakened in the night by Austin’s nightmares. Whatever about this thing worked for his sister, it was clearly working for his brother too.

“D’you think when everyone else gets back next summer they’ll want to sleep in the blanket fort too?” Kayla asked after a week of it. Will decided he felt more comfortable in his own bed and had gone back to sleeping there, since the blanket fort didn’t seem to affect the quality of his sleep either way, but his little siblings were both doing visibly better than they had been before Thanksgiving. Kayla’s eyes were brighter, Austin’s less haunted. It really seemed like the best thing for them was to keep sleeping in the blanket fort for the foreseeable future. But.

“Uh, probably not.” It was a nice thought, and it was kind of funny to picture what the looks on Izzy and Sophie’s faces would be, but Will seriously doubted they’d go along with it. “We’ll have to clean it up in May so everybody else has their beds back. But it’s six months until then,” he added when Kayla pouted. “Y’all’ve got plenty of time to enjoy it.”

“Yeah,” she said sadly, “I guess.”

“And in the meantime,” Will said more gently, “maybe we should work on finding other things that can help you sleep better in your own beds. Both of you.” Kayla and Austin looked less than pleased with this idea—or maybe it was just defeat. That was how Will had been feeling about the idea of any of them ever sleeping soundly again, before Kayla built the blanket fort. Defeated.

“I’ll be fine,” Kayla said, shaking it off dismissively. “I’ve got arrows.”

“Kayla…” Will sighed. “Sure. Fine. You’ve got arrows. But Austin—do you think it’s time for us to talk to Chiron and see if he has any ideas? He is a healer, and he’s been training heroes for literally millennia. You can’t be the first one with nightmares this bad.”

“I don’t know.” Austin, sitting in the open doorway of the blanket fort, pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. “I don’t even know what else could make it better.”

“That’s why we should talk to Chiron,” Will said. “If anyone’s gonna know, it’d be him. Gods know I haven’t been able to figure it out.” If the looks on his siblings’ faces were anything to go by, a little of his own misery must have spilled over. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Austin and Kayla looked at each other. “You don’t have to know everything, Will,” Austin told him. “Yeah, you’re our counselor now, but you’re still only a year older than me.”

“Year and a half,” Will said before he could stop himself. Austin threw a pillow at him. Will spiked it back at him like it was a volleyball.

“You don’t have to try and be Renee, is the point,” Austin said, catching the pillow and shoving it back into the blanket fort. “Or Michael.”

“Or Lee,” Kayla added. “Just cause you look like mini-Lee—well, okay, not really mini-Lee, you’re like almost as tall as he was now—”

“You’re still a kid too.”

“Okay, okay.” Will put his hands up. “I get it.”

“But yeah,” Austin said, shoulders slumping, “I’ll think about talking to Chiron. Maybe he would know what to do.”

December brought no more answers about the gods, just colder and colder weather. Camp was always kind of insulated from the changing seasons, with the enchantments that kept it sunny or at least not raining or snowing most of the time, but whatever the magic was, it couldn’t keep the temperature from dropping entirely. The sunshine was growing a little paler and more distant, and not just because Apollo was out of touch. Winter was coming.

Maybe, Will couldn’t help but hope, something would change with the solstice. That was always an auspicious day for the gods; good or bad, every couple years something big seemed to happen on December 21st. A week before anything could, though, Annabeth showed up at camp in a panic—

“Percy is missing!” she explained at the emergency council meeting she and Chiron called. “He disappeared overnight and he wasn’t at school yesterday. Sally—” Percy’s mom’s name, they all learned now—“and I were up all night trying to find him, but he’s not even answering Iris-messages.”

Everyone looked at each other across the ping-pong table. It was a slightly different group than the last time they’d done this, since not all the counselors were year-round campers—Miranda took over for Katie during the school year, and even though Annabeth was obviously back today Malcolm was attending too. Nyssa sat in for Jake, since he wasn’t really mobile enough to come up to the Big House. And Lou Ellen, Butch, and Clovis hadn’t had cabins established yet to be counselors for back in August, so they were here now too. Even Thalia Grace had shown up, dressed in silver and promising Annabeth the Hunters’ help. The rec room was getting a little crowded.

Will thought it was great—it made the whole thing feel a lot less daunting to be able to sit by Lou Ellen and Malcolm as Annabeth, Thalia, and Clarisse debated options for mounting a search operation. Lou Ellen was knotting a new round of friendship bracelets for her cabinmates, while Will fiddled with a long strip of leather, working on an emergency tourniquet. All the bracelets in his life suddenly had given him the idea of making leather straps he could wrap around his wrists a few times and wear like that, so he would always have one literally at hand. It was almost like a regular day of arts and crafts.

Among all the different faces was one person who was the same, but who Will wouldn’t have expected to see at all: Nico di Angelo. The son of Hades had appeared out of literally nowhere and was sitting in Annabeth’s shadow, looking even more pale and gaunt than he had in August. At least he seemed to have found some warmer clothes—instead of his jacket he was wearing a long black trenchcoat. It kind of made him look like he was trying to look like a character from The Matrix, but Will assumed in battle, with the Stygian iron sword and all, he would look pretty badass.

“I can search too,” Nico said when the older girls had exhausted their list of ideas. Everyone turned to look at him. He cleared his throat kind of nervously, and when he spoke again his voice was quite a bit deeper. “I have a few… not leads, but ideas.” Nico was too young for his voice to break completely—Will’s hadn’t yet—but it had clearly started changing since the summer, and now he sounded like he was on his way to becoming a low, intimidating baritone. Kind of like his father. “There are places he could be.” Chiron looked at Nico kind of oddly when he said that; Nico distinctly avoided the old centaur’s gaze.

“Are you gonna have to take the red pill first, Neo?” said Travis. So Will wasn’t the only one who’d had that thought. Connor and Clarisse snickered. Clovis snored. Nico frowned.

“My name is Nico—”

“He knows that. He’s just making a dumb joke about a movie,” Annabeth cut in, shooting Travis a sharp look. “Thanks, Nico. It means a lot that you want to help.”

“Of course,” said Nico, sparing the Stolls a last uneasy glance before he looked up at her. “We’ll find him, Annabeth. He has to be somewhere.”

“So you can confirm he’s not—you know?” Clarisse said with uncharacteristic tact. She was always a lot gentler where people she cared about were concerned, Will had noticed as he’d gotten to know her better, and since Silena died this summer Annabeth was probably her closest friend.

“On a one-way trip to visit your dad?” Connor apparently had no such reservations. All the color went out of Annabeth’s face. Everyone glared at Connor, Will included.

“No. Percy’s alive,” Nico said grimly. “I would know if he wasn’t. I would have felt it.” Now most everyone looked kind of uneasy. Will figured maybe some of the others, especially from the new cabins, hadn’t known about Nico’s sixth sense—whatever the Hades-kid instinct was that let him know things about the dead.

“Just let us know if that changes,” said Clarisse.

“Don’t say that. It won’t.” Annabeth looked sick. “It can’t.”

“No, I mean, I’m sure it won’t—” Clarisse backtracked, setting a hand on Annabeth’s arm.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Annabeth,” Nico assured her. Something in his dark eyes had hardened. “It’ll be fine.” Before anyone could ask what he meant by that, which was the question on the tip of Will’s tongue, he stood up. “If I learn anything useful, I’ll let you know.” And with that, he stepped back into the shadows in the corner of the room and vanished into darkness.

“Whoa, what the fuck!” Nyssa almost fell out of her chair; Clarisse kept it, and her, upright with a steady hand on the back. “Okay, did any of you guys know death kid could do that?”

“Yeah,” said Annabeth and Thalia, while Will, Clarisse, Malcolm, and the Stolls all raised their hands, looking around at each other.

“Okay, fine.” Nyssa shook her head. “Jesus. Freaked me the hell out, that’s—oh, shut up!” she said as everyone else muttered, that poser has no place here, out of habit.

“Anyway, sounds like we have our game plan,” said Clarisse. Annabeth nodded.

“Agreed. Thalia and the Hunters will do as wide a sweep as they can—” Thalia, who had her silver combat boots kicked up on the table just like Clarisse, gave her a little salute—“Grover, Tyson, and Nico will use their own unique abilities to search, and we’ll keep trying to IM Percy from here.”

Two days later, of course, that plan went completely out the window when Annabeth showed up at Will’s cabin door around seven in the morning, looking frantic.

“Hey, Annabeth—are you okay?” Stupid question, Will thought immediately. Of course Annabeth wasn’t okay; Percy was missing. She didn’t look like she’d slept much.

“Will, I—hold on. Is that a giant blanket fort?” Annabeth asked, peering around him.

“Um. No?” Will said, feeling his face go bright red as he tried to step through the door without opening it far enough for her to see. And so they wouldn’t wake up his siblings—he had been awake for half an hour already, jolted out of sleep by nightmares he couldn’t recall, but Kayla and Austin were still sound asleep in there. “Of course not, because, um, no counselor would let their siblings make the whole cabin into a blanket fort—”

For a second Annabeth almost looked like she might laugh. “Will. It’s okay if you let your siblings build a giant blanket fort. Compared to the kind of stuff Clarisse and Travis let their campers get up to?”

“Okay.” Will relaxed. “Well—anyway. What’s going on?” Instantly, Annabeth snapped back into her deadly serious planning mode.

“I had a vision,” she said. “Can I borrow your cabin’s flying chariot?”

Annabeth (and Butch, who’d gone along to play pegasus-whisperer) returned just hours later. Will was at archery practice—which was to say, Kayla had managed to drag Will to archery practice—when camp was rocked by a resounding, concerningly wet crash. Will and his siblings all looked at each other.

“Um,” said Austin. “Not to jinx it, but that sounded an awful lot like a flying chariot hitting the lake.”

“No!” Kayla looked horrified. “My chariot!”

“It’s not your chariot, it’s our chariot—”

“Sophie said I’m in charge of the chariot while she’s gone!”

“But Will’s in charge of you, so—”

“I’ll, uh, go see what’s going on,” Will decided, and left his bickering siblings behind to run down towards the lake. Everyone else had had the same idea, apparently—campers were gathering and staring. Will pushed through the crowd to the beach, only to be met with exactly the sight he’d been afraid of—“Annabeth!” he cried. “I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!”

“Will—” Annabeth, soaking wet, looked so miserable as she looked up at him that he immediately felt bad for yelling. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it fixed, I promise.” Will nodded, sizing up the damage. The chariot itself looked intact… ish, but there were some nasty scorch marks and the wheels were nowhere to be seen. Kayla was not going to be happy.

Then he looked at the three shivering teenagers Annabeth and Butch had brought back. They all looked a year or two older than Will—high school kids. Two of them had brown skin and dark brown hair, but other than that, they looked nothing alike. The girl had choppy straight hair and was very pretty and a little taller than the boy, who was about Austin’s height, with messy curly hair and features that made Will wonder if he might be a son of Hermes. The guy looked kind of like the Stolls, if he squinted.

The third, and the tallest by far, was a pretty ripped-looking blond guy. Will didn’t get a strong sense of brother? from him like he had with Corin, so probably not another child of Apollo. He didn’t really fit the archer mold anyway—he kind of looked like Darren had, actually, blond hair buzzed short, built more like a swordsman and with some nasty-looking battle scars to boot. He must have met monsters in the mortal world already.

None of them was Percy.

“These are the ones from your vision?” Will asked. “They’re way older than thirteen, though. Why haven’t they been claimed already?” Annabeth shrugged. That question was mostly rhetorical anyway. Definitely not rhetorical was, “um, any sign of Percy?”

“No,” Annabeth said shortly. No wonder she looked so miserable. Before Will could offer some kind of nice, normal response to that, like, say, I’m sorry,

“Well,” Drew said from behind his shoulder, “I hope they’re worth the trouble.” Oh, great. Miss Empathy USA was here now.

“Gee, thanks,” said the short boy without missing a beat. “What are we, your new pets?” Will got the feeling he was going to like this kid.

“No kidding,” said blond guy. “How about some answers before you start judging us? Like, what is this place, why are we here, how long do we have to stay?”

“Jason, I promise we’ll answer all your questions.” Annabeth said firmly, drawing herself back up to her full height and settling her shoulders back. A leader. “And Drew, all demigods are worth saving. But I’ll admit, the trip didn’t accomplish what I’d hoped.”

“Hey,” said the new girl, with an edge in her voice that reminded Will of Izzy on a bad day, “we didn’t ask to be brought here.”

“And nobody wants you, hon,” Drew fired back. “Does your hair always look like a dead badger?” Will resisted the urge to facepalm. Read the godsdamn room, Drew—he certainly wasn’t surprised when the other girl shifted forward like she was about to slap her.

“Piper, stop.” Annabeth sounded so done with everything, everyone went quiet and gave her their attention. “We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome. We’ll assign them each a guide, give them a tour of camp. Hopefully by the campfire tonight, they’ll be claimed.”

“Would somebody tell me what claimed means?” Piper asked, still with that edge. As soon as she said it, somebody did—but not any of the campers.

“That,” said Annabeth, eyes on the giant flaming hammer floating over the short boy’s head, “is claiming.” Definitely not a child of Hermes, then—Will’s intuition was decent, but Kayla and Austin were right in more ways than one that he’d never be Renee.

“What’d I do?” The son of Hephaestus looked up and yelped. “Is my hair on fire?” He started hopping around and ducking like he was afraid the sign would actually cause that.

“That can’t be good,” Butch started to say—“the curse—” Will opened his mouth to tell him to shut up, but Annabeth got there first.

“Leo,” she added, “you’ve just been claimed—”

“By a god,” said the blond guy—Jason, had she said? “That’s the symbol of Vulcan, isn’t it?”

Thankfully, Will just managed to stop himself from blurting out, the planet? He never would’ve lived that one down, not with Drew standing three feet away.

“Jason,” Annabeth said slowly, warily, “how did you know that?” Jason frowned.

“I’m not sure.”

“Vulcan?” said Leo. “I don’t even like Star Trek! What are you talking about?” At least someone was on the same page as Will. Sort of. Except in an obvious big way, but Will could let that slide.

“Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus,” Annabeth explained. “Will—”

“Huh?” Will looked from Leo back to Annabeth, startled.

“Would you take Leo, give him a tour?” she asked, talking over Leo as he continued spouting questions and protests. “Introduce him to Jake and his bunk-mates in Cabin Nine?”

“Sure, Annabeth,” said Will, feeling weirdly pleased. Outside the infirmary, he still wasn’t used to being asked to do responsible camp leadership things. A lot of the older counselors still treated him like the baby of the group—which, to be fair, he was, especially since Nico hadn’t stuck around. Not Annabeth, though.

“What’s Cabin Nine?” Leo demanded, turning to Will now. “And I’m not a Vulcan!” Will squared his shoulders and reminded himself he was a counselor. Leo might be older than him, but Will had been at camp for five years now. He was infinitely more qualified to deal with this. Also, taller.

“Come on, Mr. Spock,” he said, pulling Leo away. “I’ll explain everything.”

That had not been a very smart promise to make, Will quickly learned. The more time he spent walking Leo around camp, the more he got a strong sense of deja vu.

It took a minute before he could place it: Leo kind of reminded him of a very young Nico, that first week, years ago, with the number of words his mouth could produce at warp speed (or just regular old lightspeed, since he seemed to be so adamantly against the Star Trek jokes). Kayla had been the exact same way in her own first couple of weeks. So had Xavier, Will remembered, and was sad about that for a whole split second—before Leo distracted him.

They’d gotten the “Dude, Texas?” “Dude! Texas!” part out of the way fast, pretty much as soon as Will opened his mouth—though as Leo had been quick to point out, Will’s version of Texas as a white kid from Austin probably wasn’t quite the same as a Mexican-American kid from Houston’s. Even so, Will thought it was going to be cool to have somebody else from the Lone Star State around. There were so many New Yorkers at camp. Sure, camp was in New York, and it was a big city where tons of people lived, but the U.S. was a huge country. Hell, it was a huge world. By all rights, Will had always thought, there should’ve been demigods from all over.

And yet, camp was seriously lacking in kids from west of the Mississippi. There was Will; Clarisse, who was from Arizona; Sherman and Lou Ellen, both from Southern California; Butch, who was from Montana; a few of Will’s siblings, and a handful of the Stolls’—but the east coast campers outnumbered them about three to one.

Of course, the sad reality was probably the longer the journey, the harder it was for demigods to make it to camp alive. But still—Texas was huge, the northwest had big cities, and wasn’t California way bigger than Texas or New York? Where the hell were all the western demigods, anyway?

Well, here was another one. And he had a lot of questions.

“Are those real warships? What’re they called—triremes? Biremes? What’s the difference, anyway?”

This kind of insatiable curiosity was pretty common for ADHD demigods, except Leo’s was dialed up to eleven. And much louder. And unlike the rest of the kids Will had seen this from before, he wasn’t ten years old, so Will’s answers to the many, many questions were met with a lot more (very enthusiastic) swearing.

“Am I gonna get to go on the triremes?”

“Sometime, sure.”

“Fuck yeah! Do we, like, race each other?”

“Yeah,” said Will, “and sometimes we do practice naval battles, with flaming arrows and cannons and stuff.” Leo’s jaw fully dropped.

“You’re shitting me!”

“Promise I’m not.”

“Cabrón!” He shook his head. “That’s fuckin’ awesome, dude. Are you an archer? Do you shoot flaming arrows?”

“Not really.”

“Why d’you have a bow, then?”

“I was practicing.”

“But you’re not an archer?”

“That’s why I need to practice,” Will said dryly.

“Oh.” Leo nodded. “Makes sense. Which god is your dad? Or mom, whatever?”

“Dad,” Will told him. “I’m a child of Apollo. I’m our counselor, actually.”

“Sweet!” said Leo. “I think. What’s Apollo the god of again?”

“Well—archery,” Will admitted. “And music, poetry, prophecy, and the sun, and also healing, which is more my speed.”

“That’s a lot of stuff to be god of.”

“He’s a busy guy.” If Leo noticed his voice going a little sour as he said it, he either didn’t let on or just didn’t care. More likely he was too distracted by all the other stuff around to look at. This was always a cool thing about new campers—after so many years here, Will had kind of gotten used to all the awesome, badass stuff about Camp Half-Blood. He took it for granted. Showing Leo around reminded him what it looked like to someone who’d never experienced the triremes, or the woods, or the lava climbing wall before.

“Is that like a gladiator arena?” Leo asked when they passed by the sword pavilion and Will pointed it out.

“I think gladiators were a Roman thing, not Greek,” said Will, “but yeah, basically. That’s where the sword fighters do sword practice and stuff.” Not a place he spent a ton of time himself, but Sherman and Olivia sure did.

“Do I get a sword?” Leo asked.

“Um,” said Will, as all the injuries less overenthusiastic kids at camp had caused by accident over the years flashed before his eyes. “You’ll probably make your own, seeing as how you’re in Cabin Nine.” When he explained that Hephaestus—not Vulcan, what was up with these new kids and their Rome fixation?—was the god of blacksmiths and fire, Leo’s excited expression darkened. For just an instant, Will thought he saw a flicker of… fear? Maybe?

“So, the flaming hammer over my head,” Leo said, finally speaking a little closer to normal human speed. “Good thing or bad thing?”

Wasn’t that the question. On the one hand, Will didn’t want to believe there was a curse on the Hephaestus cabin. Definitely not one caused by Beckendorf’s death—sure, life wasn’t fair, especially for demigods, but that just seemed cruel of the Fates. On the other hand… he had seen firsthand what even a casual, basically accidental curse could do to a cabin, if Clarisse was right that her thoughtless words had played a part in his older siblings’ deaths in Manhattan. Just because what was happening to Cabin Nine wasn’t as clearly traceable to some curse didn’t mean it wasn’t totally possible it could be one.

“You were claimed almost immediately,” he pointed out. It felt weak to his own ears. “That’s usually good.”

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

“Uh—look, it’s probably nothing,” Will told him. “Since Cabin Nine’s last counselor died—”

“Died? Like, painfully?” Leo’s eyes had gone very wide. Will sighed. So many demigods had introductions like this—Corin after Manhattan, Austin after the Labyrinth opened, even Will himself, five years ago, after Taylor left on her quest with Luke and never came back. And speak of the (dead) devil, he could only imagine what it must have been like for Hermes cabin kids the last few years. Gods, the cycle never ended.

“I ought to let your bunkmates tell you about it,” he decided.

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

“Yeah, he, uh, can’t,” said Will. “You’ll see why.” They had reached the circle of cabins; Will beckoned, and Leo followed, muttering something about how “this just gets better and better.” Tell me about it, Will thought. They were past the new cabins and halfway across the green toward the gods’ side when he realized Leo had stopped walking a couple yards back. He was staring toward the honorary Zeus and Hera cabins like he’d seen a ghost. Will looked at the big cabins, then back at Leo. “What’s wrong?”

“That old lady,” said Leo. “What’s she doing there?” Will looked again. Just like before, there was no one there. A chill ran up his spine.

“What old lady?”

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

“Um—I think you’ve had a long day, Leo,” Will said, trying to ignore the creepy feeling on the back of his own neck now. “The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?” Leo turned to him, looking like he was about to argue, but then when he turned back to look his eyebrows knit together in confusion. He recovered quickly.

“Just messing with you, man.” Leo wouldn’t meet his eyes suddenly; instead he pulled some mechanical-looking stuff out of his pocket and started fidgeting with it. Definitely a Hephaestus kid—no question of that. It would’ve been funny if Will hadn’t been so creeped out. “Let’s go see Cabin Nine,” said Leo. “I’m in the mood for a good curse.”

A good thing, too, because when they got to the cabin Jake decided to offer him Beckendorf’s old bed. Kind of a weird choice, but Will could practically see the gears turning in his friend’s head. Here was a new kid, full of energy and on the older side, without the shadow of Kronos hanging over him, and who must have Hephaestus’ favor in spades if he’d gotten claimed this fast even with Olympus shut down.

Will couldn’t imagine turning leadership in his own cabin over to someone brand new, without strong relationships with the other campers, but he knew Jake had been just waiting for someone else to come along who could take up the counselor mantle, since none of his other siblings wanted to run a cursed cabin. Leo, who was at the very least putting on a brave face about the curse, seemed like a promising candidate.

“It retracts into a private room below,” Jake was explaining.

“Oh, heck, yes,” said Leo. “See y’all. I’ll be down in the Leo cave. Which button do I press?”

“Hold on, you guys have private underground rooms?” Will’s jaw dropped.

“We’ve got lots of secrets, Will,” said Jake. “You Apollo kids can’t have all the fun.” Will rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Leo, if you don’t mind sleeping in a dead man’s bed, it’s yours.”

“The counselor who died—this was his bed?” Leo asked, sitting bolt upright again, wide-eyed. “He didn’t, like—die in this bed, did he?”

“Nah, he died in the Titan War,” Jake explained, “last summer.”

“The Titan War?” Leo looked at the both of them blankly. “Which has nothing to do with this very fine bed?” Will looked at Jake. Jake looked at Will.

“The Titans,” Will repeated. “The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods? They tried to make a comeback last summer.” He explained about Kronos. “A lot of demigods died trying to stop them.”

“I’m guessing this wasn’t on the news?” Leo said. Will stared at him. He supposed, to be fair, it probably didn’t seem that serious to Leo when he hadn’t had to live through it, but—

“You didn’t even hear about Mount St. Helens erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St. Louis?” Or the bridge that collapsed in New York, he didn’t say, though the unspoken words felt like acid on his tongue. Leo just shrugged.

“Guess I was busy.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Jake said quickly. “You were lucky to miss it. The thing is, Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then—”

“Your cabin’s been cursed.” They all stood—well, Will stood; the sons of Hephaestus were sitting—in silence for a minute. Leo looked around nervously.

“Well,” Jake finally said, “I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Leo. It used to be really nice.” Will would have liked to check on his friend’s dressings, and maybe his mental state—he sounded so hopeless—but before he or Leo could move, Jake’s camouflage curtain closed around his bunk again.

“Come on, Leo,” Will decided. “I’ll take you to the forges.” Jake had said the rest of the cabin was there; maybe Nyssa and Shane could be more of a welcoming committee. Harley definitely could.

“How’d he die?” Leo asked quietly as they walked out. “I mean Beckendorf.”

“Explosion,” Will said shortly. “Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn’t make it out.”

“So—Beckendorf was pretty popular?” Leo asked. Quick deduction. “I mean, before he blew up?”

“Yeah, he was awesome.” Will found himself smiling sadly. Everything had happened so fast they’d barely been able to take time to grieve, and Will had been so wrapped up in missing his own siblings sometimes he forgot—“it was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake—he became head counselor in the middle of the war. Same as I did, actually.” He sighed. “Jake did his best, but he never wanted to be leader. He just likes building stuff.”

Leo nodded, like that was relatable. Will explained about everything that had gone wrong, and Jake’s theory about the curse, on the way to the forge. When they got there, the whole rest of the Hephaestus cabin turned to look at them—first at Leo, then at Will, expectantly. He knew them all pretty well by now after spending the whole fall patching them up, but having that many eyes on him at once was kind of intense.

“Sup, guys,” said Will, squaring his shoulders again. “This is your new brother, Leo—” oh, shit. “Um, what’s your last name?”

“Valdez,” Leo supplied, looking around at his siblings. One by one, the children of Hephaestus came up to him and introduced themselves, each shaking his hand very firmly. Will almost winced sympathetically until he figured, Leo was one of them—his hand probably wouldn’t get crushed as badly as Will’s would. Once they’d all said hello, “Well, all right!” Leo said, grinning kind of awkwardly. “I hear this is the party cabin.” No one else said anything. Leo’s grin faded. Now Will found himself wanting to laugh, inappropriate though it would be—points for trying, Leo.

“I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted.” He patted Leo’s shoulder, trying to be encouraging. “Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?”

“I got it,” said Nyssa. She and Will exchanged thumbs-ups.

“Cool,” Will heard Leo say as he walked off. “I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.”

Will smiled to himself, shaking his head. For all his exuberance was a little grating, maybe Leo was just what the Hephaestus cabin needed. Maybe some new kids would be what camp needed in general, with Manhattan still weighing heavy on all the veterans’ minds. A shake-up. Some light in dark times.

A “sea change,” was the (bad) joke Travis made at the campfire that night, when they all found out Jason was a son of Zeus. If he had to say it, Will figured at least he was out of earshot of Annabeth. Not that he wouldn’t have been on board to see Travis get punched.

“See, cause we lost our son of Poseidon,” Travis explained, unnecessarily, “but now—”

“Yeah, we get it,” Clarisse snapped. Maybe, Will, thought, there was still some hope of Travis getting punched; then Chris set a calming hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder. So much for that.

It had been a while since Camp Half-Blood had sent a trio of heroes on a formal quest—the last time, Will was pretty sure, was when Percy, Annabeth, and Grover had gone into the Labyrinth the week before Lee died. This past summer, with the war and all, had been more about missions, and there wasn’t a lot of ceremony or tradition around those. There hadn’t been time for it. So it was weirdly nostalgic, in a way, when Rachel Elizabeth Dare stood up and said,

“The important thing is that Jason’s here now. He has a quest to fulfill, which means he will need his own prophecy.”

Of course, this part—having a real live teenage girl as the Oracle of Delphi, instead of a creepy cursed mummy people had to go on pilgrimages to the attic to petition—was still new. It was really welcome, though. Will had never visited the mummy himself, of course, but he’d seen her once, so he could understand why people who did always came back looking very uncomfortable.

Though—maybe that was just prophecies. Like Jasper had said before he died, those were nasty motherfuckers.

They had planned out how it would work when Rachel had first been at camp, those last couple weeks of summer before she had to go back to school. If she felt a prophecy coming on, assuming she could warn them in time, Will, Austin, and Kayla would help keep her upright and find her somewhere to sit. They’d put a stool in the amphitheater for this very purpose. They figured as children of Apollo, it was only right they should be the ones to help out his Oracle.

Will liked Rachel, though he didn’t know her very well yet. Nor did he always know what to make of her. There were a lot of parts to her that didn’t seem to fit together neatly—she was a mortal, but one who could see through the Mist even better than most demigods, from the stories Annabeth told. Apparently her dad was super rich, but her clothes were usually even rattier than some of the most stained and damaged pants Will owned. She went to some fancy prep school in the city, but at camp she had been psyched to get to live in a literal cave in the hills.

She was such a free spirit, and so dedicated to art. In that way, at least, it made sense that Will found her so likable—in that way she reminded him a little bit of his mom. Maybe that was why Apollo had taken to her, too. If what Will had heard about his siblings’ mortal parents over the years was anything to go by, his father liked people who were secure in their individuality. Passionate about the things they loved, following their own paths, and fearless about it. That was definitely Will’s mom, and Austin’s, and Kayla’s dad. And Izzy’s mom, Dr. Kristen López, had wound up raising a demigod daughter during her residency as a pediatric surgeon, while Sophie’s, Dr. Georgia Hayward, had met Apollo when she was in Bolivia with Medecins Sans Frontieres. They were brilliant and sure of themselves. Though of course Apollo’s interest in her was pretty different—Will hoped, anyway—that, too, was Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

“You feeling all right?” Will asked as she started to wake up. Once the prophecy was done Kayla and Austin had helped him carry her off to the side, where it was a little quieter and she could rest not quite so in the middle of things.

“I’m fine.” Rachel sat up, scrunching her face uncomfortably. “Can I get some water or something? No offense to your dad, but that magic smoke leaves one funky aftertaste.”

“Sure.” Will had taken to keeping a stash of mini water bottles in his med kit after Olivia and Cecil had brought him a bunch—definitely stolen from Duane Reade, but whatever—during those fleeting hours in Manhattan between the Party Ponies and the drakon when they’d gotten to set up with some semblance of actual order. It made him feel kind of like his grandma, who always had a couple of these in her purse, but they were just the right volume to use for mixing most poultices. He handed one to Rachel now. She chugged it in one gulp. “Does that help?”

“Yeah, that’s a lot better. Thanks.” Looking over Will’s shoulder, she frowned at whatever was going on with the rest of camp—more drama with Drew and the new girl, Piper. Will had kind of tuned them out, too focused on helping Rachel. Now, “holy shit!” Rachel said as a flash of bright light behind Will illuminated her freckled face, so that her red hair glowed… pink?

“What?” Will looked back to see that the light’s source was Piper—she was glowing, and also suddenly dressed like an Ancient Greek princess or something, in a… peplos? Was that what that kind of dress was called? With golden armbands and a plunging neckline that Will was pretty sure was not traditional.

“Just wow. That’s all.” Rachel shrugged. “Makes sense that Piper would be a child of Aphrodite. She’s one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Will said, joking—objectively, he knew Piper was gorgeous. Looking at her in her new outfit, though, he felt kind of bad for her—she didn’t look very comfortable, and that dress seemed really impractical for December, even with camp’s weather magic. Wouldn’t she get cold? Will had treated hypothermia once before, when Sherman, Mark, and the Stolls had decided to have a “polar bear plunge endurance contest” in the canoe lake back in January (idiots), and he wasn’t keen to do it again.

With Piper claimed, though, that seemed to settle the dove piece of the prophecy puzzle. Jason looked beyond relieved to be taking Piper along instead of Drew. They left the next morning, though not after something even more dramatic happened—

“It’s cool!” Leo, covered in soot and… motor oil? yelled from his perch atop the bronze dragon. “Don’t shoot!”

Kayla and Austin hesitantly lowered the bows they’d grabbed when the alarm went up, dragging everyone out of bed in their pajamas at 7 in the morning. Kayla had pulled on a breastplate over her t-shirt, and Austin had a helmet perched kind of haphazardly on his head. Will, armorless and standing on the frost-covered grass, was really wishing he’d put on shoes before they’d scrambled out of the cabin.

Then the dragon shot a plume of fire into the sky, and everyone screamed again.

“People of earth, I come in peace!” Leo called, hopping down onto the grass. He really couldn’t complain about Star Trek jokes if he was just going to open himself up to them like that, Will thought, but now definitely wasn’t the time. “Festus is just saying hello.”

“Are you kidding? That thing is dangerous!” Clarisse yelled. She had managed to put on more armor than the rest of them—there were leather greaves strapped over her camouflage pajama pants. “Kill it now!”

“Stand down!” said a deep, authoritative voice. Will looked around, half-expecting Chiron—but instead he saw Jason running toward them, followed by Annabeth and Nyssa. “Leo, what have you done?”

“Found a ride!” said Leo, crossing his arms over his chest and grinning like a proud parent. “You said I could go on the quest if I got you a ride. Well, I got you a class-A flying bad boy. Festus can take us anywhere.” Nyssa, mouth agape, started in on a flurry of questions about the dragon and how Leo had tamed it, while Jason frowned, scratching his head.

“You named him Festus?” he asked when he could get a word in edgewise. “You know in Latin that means happy, right? You want us to ride off and save the world on Happy the Dragon?” A few campers chuckled nervously. Kayla giggled too. Their laughter stopped quickly when the dragon shuddered, flapping the enormous wings Leo had unearthed… somewhere. Nyssa had asked, but he wouldn’t say. Will wondered if Jake might know.

“That’s a yes, bro!” said Leo. “Now, um, I’d really suggest we get going, guys. I already picked up some supplies in the, um, the woods. And all these people with weapons are making Festus nervous.” Kayla lowered her bow again when he said that, looking remorseful.

“But—” Jason’s frown deepened. “We haven’t planned anything yet. We can’t just—”

“Go,” Annabeth told him. That was what finally drew everyone’s eyes away from the dragon; they looked at her instead. “Jason, you’ve only got three days until the solstice now, and you should never keep a nervous dragon waiting. This is certainly a good omen.” When she said that, everyone finally started to relax. People were nodding, Will among them. “Go!” she said again.

They went. Watching the bronze dragon circle up and away into the December sky, Will felt weirdly hopeful. Annabeth was right—Leo taming the dragon after months of terror could only be a good sign. Right?

Chapter Text

“Lou,” Will said when he looked up from fidgeting with a bandage and realized just what his friend was doing, “stop that.”

“What?” Lou Ellen was clearly trying to feign innocence, but that was pretty much impossible when she was holding Miranda’s literal nose just out of reach, shoving their poor friend away while she strained desperately towards Lou Ellen’s fingers.

“Lou, come on.” Will rolled his eyes. “Give it back.”

“Hey, don’t use your counselor voice on me,” Lou Ellen said, disgruntled, “your fellow counselor, at the council meeting—”

“I don’t have a counselor voice—”

“Do so.”

“Let’s come to order,” said Chiron, with a stern glance in their direction (as always, Will could have sworn he saw a flicker of amusement)—“Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back.” Oh, now she did it.

In the less than 24 hours they had been back from their quest, all three of the new demigods had managed to get themselves named senior counselors. Well—Jason got to be one by default, the same way Percy and Nico were (had been), since he was the only child of Zeus (or Jupiter?) at camp. Piper replacing Drew just like that was a surprise, and Will had to admit, kind of a relief. And Leo—of course, Will had seen Leo’s ascension coming a mile away.

Jake had looked so relieved he could cry, telling Will about it when he dropped by for a checkup after lunch. Not only did he get to step down, it was because Leo had found a massive bunker in the woods—so that was what was on the other end of those tunnels Jake had been telling them about—full of cool steampunk tech children of Hephaestus had been building a hundred and fifty years ago, during the Civil War. Including blueprints for a massive flying ship they planned to build now.

It was everything Jake could have dreamed: someone to step up and take charge instead, and a massively cool project to work on. As for the reason for the project…

“You expect us to believe there’s another camp with demigods, but they follow the Roman forms of the gods?” Clarisse said now, boots on the table as usual. “And we’ve never even heard of them?”

“The gods have kept the two groups apart,” Piper explained, “because every time they see each other, they try to kill each other.” A few people looked at Jason nervously. This explained why he had said he was a son of Jupiter—he literally was. Clarisse shrugged.

“I can respect that,” she said. “Still, why haven’t we ever run across each other on quests?”

“Oh, you have,” Chiron said sadly, “many times.” He explained that the rivalry went back to the Trojan War—yes, that Trojan War—and something about Aeneas, who Will knew they had learned about in history class but didn’t remember that much about. He already knew the Romans worshipped gods who were similar to the Greek gods, but not quite the same—

“More warlike,” Jason said. “More united. More about expansion, conquest, and discipline.” Clarisse nodded approvingly. Not everyone looked so comfortable—

“Yuck,” said Travis, while Connor wrinkled his nose. Jason shrugged, looking unperturbed. He explained that ever since Aeneas, demigods had been divided. Some were Greek, like the campers here, and others were Roman, like those at the camp where Jason had come from. They weren’t just the children of gods—they were the children of those gods’ specific aspects. Will was pretty sure Apollo’s Roman counterpart was still just… Apollo. That might get confusing. How did his Roman half-siblings know the difference?

Roman half-siblings. Will was still wrapping his head around the idea of other demigods, but if they were out there—it might mean there weren't as few of Apollo's kids left as he'd thought, after last summer. Only, if that was true—

“But this is crazy,” Annabeth was saying, like she could read Will's mind. “Chiron, where were the Romans during the Titan War? Didn’t they want to help?”

“They did help, Annabeth,” Chiron admitted. “While you and Percy were leading the battle to save Manhattan, who do you think conquered Mount Othrys, the Titans’ base in California?”

“Hold on.” Travis leaned forward. “You said Mount Othrys just crumbled when we beat Kronos.”

“No,” said Jason. “It didn’t just fall. We destroyed their palace. I defeated the Titan Krios myself.” That would explain the battle scars, Will thought.

There was a long silence after Jason said that. Everyone looked at each other. Will understood why Travis looked so betrayed—this was something pretty big that Chiron had clearly been hiding from them all for a long time. But on the other hand, now that they knew there were more demigods out there, that other people had fought the Titans… so often, in Manhattan, Will had felt so small and hopeless. It was kind of nice to know he and his friends hadn’t been fighting alone.

“The Bay Area,” Annabeth said thoughtfully. “We were always told to stay away from it because Mount Othrys was there. But that wasn’t the only reason, was it? The Roman camp—” Jason was nodding. “It’s got to be somewhere near San Francisco. I bet it was put there to keep watch on the Titans. Where is it?” Annabeth, and everyone else, looked at Chiron expectantly.

“I cannot say,” said Chiron. “Honestly, even I have never been trusted with that information. My counterpart, Lupa, is not exactly the sharing type. Jason’s memory, too, has been burned away.”

“Yeah.” Jason sighed. “The camp’s heavily veiled with magic, and heavily guarded. We could search for years and never find it.”

“But you’ll try, won’t you?” said Rachel. “You’ll build Leo’s boat, the Argo II. And before you make for Greece, you’ll sail for the Roman camp. You’ll need their help to confront the giants.” She said it with so much authority everyone looked around, like, does this count as a prophecy?

Sort of, Will thought. It was about the prophecy—the new Great Prophecy that Rachel had apparently spoken shortly after becoming the Oracle. If anyone was an expert on a prophecy, he had to assume it would be the girl who made it.

Now, it seemed, the prophecy was in motion. Seven half-bloods would answer the call, apparently, and everyone was pretty sure at least four of them were here—Jason had been plucked out of his old life for this specific purpose, Annabeth was picking up the phone whether Hera wanted her to or not, and where Jason went, Piper would clearly follow.

And then there was Leo. To storm or fire, the world must fall was one of the scarier lines of the prophecy, but also one of the easiest to parse. If Jason was really what the Fates meant by storm—which was clearly what he, Annabeth, and Rachel thought, but it was hard to say; prophecies were tricky—then Leo was obviously fire.

“Oh my gods—” Jaw dropping in horror, Will was at the Hephaestus kids’ sides in an instant the first time he saw Leo grab a hot anvil with his bare hand. It wasn’t the most common injury-causing accident at camp, but it happened more often than it should have. A bunch of teens with short attention spans and metal that wasn’t hot enough to glow red, but still hot enough to cause some nasty burns, wasn’t the safest combination in the world. “Could somebody get some water—?”

“Take a chill pill, Will,” said Shane. Nyssa snorted. “He’s fine.”

“Fireproof.” Leo held up his hand, wiggling his fingers in front of Will’s nose. They were covered in soot, but otherwise fine. “My gift from Dad.”

“Leo’s a special boy,” Nyssa cooed, like she was talking to a baby. She grinned when Leo punched her.

“So that’s how you dealt with the dragon.” Will shook his head. “Okay. Never mind, then. The rest of y’all take care, though,” he warned, pointing at Nyssa, Shane, and Harley. “Don’t let him lull you into a false sense of security or whatever, or Miranda’s going to have to up her aloe production.”

“Yeah,we don’t want that,” said Leo. “That’d take energy away from the grow-op.” Shane smacked his shorter brother in the arm. Leo clapped his less-sooty hand over his own mouth, but too late—

“I’m sorry,” said Will. “The what?”

“The nothing!” said Leo, giving him a very unconvincing grin. “Hey, Harley, can I get your input on something over here?” He led his littlest brother away to the other side of the forge as Will crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows at Nyssa and Shane.

“Grow-op means weed, right?” he asked. “Is Miranda growing weed in the Demeter cabin?” Will wasn’t a violent person by nature, just the opposite, but gods, he was going to kill Travis Stoll. The two children of Hephaestus looked at each other.

“You’re still in eighth grade, right?” said Nyssa. Will frowned.

“Yeah, why?”

“I just forget, cause you hang out with Lou and Malcolm and Sherman.” She grinned. “And you’re a beanpole.”

“Why do people keep calling me that?” Will grumbled.

“Cause you are,” said Shane, who was about the same height as Will—but, to be fair, a lot more muscular.

“Nah,” Nyssa was saying, “you’re not quite old enough yet.”

“You guys are only one year older than me!” Will protested. “Not even literally, cause my birthday’s early in the school year.”

“Yeah, but you still gotta wait til you’re in high school,” Shane agreed. “We’ll show you the smoke spot then.” He patted Will’s shoulder, jokingly condescending.

“I—no, I wasn’t asking cause—” Will felt his face going red, and not just because of the heat of the forge. Or how long Shane’s eyelashes were. “Never mind. I’ve got a bone to pick with Travis, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t we all,” said Jake, who had been sorting through ore this whole time and only now walked back over to where his siblings were working. It was just so good to see him up and moving again, finally. “What’s yours?”

“Nothing,” said Will as Nyssa and Shane burst into giggles.

“It has to do with the devil’s lettuce,” Shane confided in his brother. Jake snorted.

“Oh, is he still bugging you about the whole medical marijuana thing? Just keep ignoring him. I’m a hundred percent sure he’s just doing it to mess with you.” Now Will was, too—that was the whole issue.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. “What are you making?” Leo was working on his very first much-anticipated sword today, but Jake had probably made so many swords in his time he could do it in his sleep. Right now he was squinting at a piece of notebook paper with a pencil drawing on it and notes scribbled in Ancient Greek.

“Part of the mechanism for the oars,” he explained, angling the paper so Will could see it more clearly. The schematic looked like a magnifying glass to his untrained eye, but he was pretty sure that couldn’t be right. Reading in Ancient Greek was so normal now that it was sort of disorienting when the hardwiring had to kick in for a second—Will had heard the word “oarlock” in English before, what with all the boats around camp and at the lake at home, but he had never seen it written down in Ancient Greek. It was like a record skip in his brain before the word locked into place and the notes on the page made sense again.

“Oh, for the boat?” he said as Jake showed him the prototype he was forging, which was big enough either of them could have worn it as a hat, or more like a very weird crown.

“What else?”

Having long-term special projects was normal for the Hephaestus cabin—for all the ADHD demigods, really, with their tendency towards hyperfixation. It was kind of unusual, though, to see them all working on one big thing: the boat.

The Argo II, Leo had already named it. At first Will had assumed it was just a cute joke about Jason being in charge of it, since that also seemed to be part of the plan, but it turned out the boat was about the only thing in the world that Leo took completely seriously. So, even though he himself called it “the boat” all the time, if anyone else did within earshot Leo would say,

“Hey! Put some respect on my baby’s name!” He was always clearly joking, except for how he also wasn’t joking at all.

“Okay, sorry, sorry,” Will said the one time he forgot and said “the boat” while Leo was standing there. “No offense to your baby.” He tried not to feel jealous of the boat; it would be dumb to be jealous of a boat.

Not that he actually wanted Leo to call him his baby—probably. Leo was cute and sarcastic and Will liked his smile, but having a crush on anyone felt weird since Manhattan. Will wasn’t totally sure how getting over a crush was supposed to work when the person was dead. Sometimes he thought maybe it would be best if he just never let himself have feelings like that again, at least while he was among his fellow demigods, since it was so likely they’d get hurt and die.

Besides, among his fellow demigods—the ones at this camp, anyway—all the other boys seemed to be straight. Or at least, no one had let on otherwise. Will did privately wonder, sometimes, about things like Leo never getting a girlfriend despite being one of the most outwardly girl-crazy boys Will had ever met, and Butch’s entire deal, not that being a child of the rainbow goddess made a person gay—of course it didn’t. But he never said he wasn’t when people made rainbow jokes, just made them admit there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that and then moved on. And then of course there was Connor, who always seemed to be kind of flirting with everyone around his age, regardless of gender—even Will.

But if anyone else was gay or bi or anything else but straight, either they hadn’t figured it out yet or they didn’t want to say. So it felt kind of pointless to crush on anyone—dangerous, even, because even if everyone was chill about him right now, Will figured a lot of the other boys still wouldn’t take well to having the gay kid like them, if they found out. If he was too obvious.

Not that all that could stop it from happening, necessarily, but whatever. Will had ignored a crush on a straight boy before; he could do it again, as many times as he had to. And gods, all through the winter and into the spring, he had to, several times. He could talk himself out of liking Leo, but there was still Leo’s brother Shane with the big brown eyes, and Lou’s brother Quentin with his soft-looking hair, and then Piper’s brother Jonah with his crooked smile that only ever seemed to be aimed at Miranda, who never gave him the time of day.

Of course, “Jason’s so hot!” was what he kept hearing from most of the girls at camp. That, at least, Will didn’t really see. Objectively, it made sense—Jason was built like a superhero, with a kind smile, and now that his hair was growing out from the Roman legion buzzcut he was starting to look a lot more chill. Sure, he was a stable leader, an all-around solid guy, and as the school year passed Will was grateful to have him around. But he didn’t get the appeal. Jason was a little too perfect.

The good news was Will’s brain seemed to have settled Sherman and Jake pretty firmly in the friend category, enough that it only really occurred to think about whether either of them was cute in the first place when Lou Ellen admitted that she kept catching herself thinking Sherman was.

“Sure, I guess,” Will shrugged. “Now that he’s tall and kind of ripped.”

“It’s the cheekbones,” Lou Ellen said grumpily. “Stupid cheekbones.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“You said that already.”

“I don’t have anything else to say. Sorry.” Will could see where she was coming from; he just thought he had a little too much history with Sherman as younger kids to ever have feelings like that. And he and Mark had always been inseparable, before—it was just too close.

Besides, Jonah wasn’t the only boy at camp who only had eyes for Miranda, much to Lou Ellen’s present chagrin. She laughed it off, but Will suspected she was still kind of sad about it under the sarcastic facade. He definitely got how much that kind of thing sucked.

The bad news, on the other hand, was Will’s brain was still kind of confused about stupid godsdamn Connor. But Will refused to have a crush on Connor Stoll. Those words didn’t even belong in the same sentence.

“Riiiiight,” said Lou Ellen.

“Shut up,” said Will.

In the meantime, Leo picking on people for calling the boat “the boat” just made everyone else do it more behind his back. In Jake’s case, it wasn’t even just “the boat”—it was “Leo’s precious boat,” or “the godsforsaken boat,” or once, memorably, “this stupid motherfucking piece of shit boat.” It wasn’t that Jake didn’t like the boat; as far as Will could tell, Jake loved the boat almost as much as Leo did. He just had a different way of showing it.

But even if they didn’t take the formalities seriously, Hephaestus’ kids sure were serious about engineering. In any spare moment when they weren’t occupied with schoolwork (and some moments when they were supposed to be), Cabin Nine was building the boat. A celestial bronze-plated warship, two hundred feet long—incorporating Festus’ remains, which was weirdly uncomfortable to think about. Even though Will knew the dragon was basically a robot, made of metal gears and mechanisms and stuff, everyone talked about him like he had been a living thing with a personality and free will. And then they turned around and built stuff using his metal corpse.

If they said it was the best and fastest way to get it done, though, Will wasn’t about to argue. They had given themselves a deadline of a couple days before the summer solstice to get the boat finished. Then, the four heroes out of the seven who were here at Camp Half-Blood could sail, or maybe soar, all the way to California, where they were all crossing their fingers that they would find—

“Does anyone have any news about Percy?” Sitting down, Thalia could use her little brother’s shoulder as an armrest, despite the fact that standing he was half a foot taller than her. Jason was bearing this indignity with, well… Grace.

“None.” Annabeth was slumped over the ping-pong table, hands tangled in her hair, slowly dragging flyaway after flyaway out of her ponytail. “Nothing.”

“Nada,” Leo supplied unhelpfully. “Zilch. Ow, Piper!” She must have kicked him under the table.

“Tyson hasn’t been able to find him,” Annabeth was saying hollowly. “Grover says it’s like his empathy link is on hold—and who knows where the hell Nico went. I haven’t heard from him since December. Totally AWOL.” Kind of like Percy, Will thought, and thankfully everybody had enough sense not to say.

“He did say he’d let you know if he found anything,” he pointed out. “Probably that just means he hasn’t yet either.”

“Yeah.” Annabeth sighed. “It’s just—it’s been four and a half months. How can Percy have been gone for longer than we got to be dating?”

“Yeah.” Thalia leaned over to rub Annabeth’s shoulder consolingly. On her other side, Malcolm did the same. “I know,” said Thalia. “I’m so sorry, Annabeth.” Malcolm nodded. Annabeth didn’t quite smile, but the corner of her mouth curved up a little. “How’s progress on the incredible flying boat?” Thalia asked, looking at Leo.

“Yeah, about that.” Leo leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the edge of the ping-pong table. “We’re making good progress, but there are some parts on the blueprint that we think were in Bunker Nine at some point, but they seem to’ve, uh, gone missing.”

“Gone missing?” said Jason. “Where could they have gone?” Leo shrugged, still tapping his fingers.

“Ain’t that the question. I thought the same thing—Bunker Nine’s a contained space, y’know? And supposedly nobody had been in there before me. But, I figure it’s been a hundred and fifty years. A lot of weird shit could’ve gone down in that time. Gods only know where stuff gets to, especially with all the supernatural shenanigans that go on in the woods.” The drumming was getting louder and louder. Unable to take it anymore, Will reached out to set a hand over Leo’s, stopping him. Children of Hephaestus were warm; Leo was always like a godsdamn furnace.

“Dude. I get the need to fidget, but could you maybe find another outlet?”

“Oh, sorry. Sure thing, Will.” With a rueful grin, Leo pulled his hand back to rummage in his tool belt for his usual supply of gears and wires. Will hid his own hand under the table for a second so he could shake it out without looking like a weirdo, to try and get his fingers to stop feeling all tingly—why did this kind of thing always have to happen when he touched cute boys? Across the table Clarisse winked at him like she knew exactly what was going on in his head. Will gave her his best death glare, which she had told him before was about as effective as an adorable golden retriever puppy’s, but whatever.

“So you’re missing some key pieces that you need to finish your project,” Travis was saying.

“Some MacGuffins, you might call ‘em,” said Connor.

“Sounds to me like a quest is in order,” said Travis. Leo pointed finger guns at both Stolls.

“I like the way you think,” he said. “I mean, it’s kind of a sidequest. But hey, you can’t spell sidequest without quest, right?”

“Right,” said Jason, looking like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

“So, same diff,” said Leo. “For a quest we need a prophecy, right?”

“Rachel?” said Annabeth. Rachel shrugged.

“Sounds good to me.” She looked at Will, who was sitting closest to her. “Will? Can you catch me?” Will nodded, sitting up and alert.

“You know he’s gay, right?” Travis said in a stage-whisper. Suddenly Will desperately wished Katie was here with a pencil to throw at him. Miranda had a better death glare than Will’s, which she was exercising now, but she just didn’t share her big sister’s gift for Stoll-wrangling.

“And fourteen,” Lou Ellen said in an undertone. Rachel just rolled her eyes.

“Maybe that’s why I’m asking him and not you, Travis.”

“Ooooh.” Connor poked his brother in the shoulder. “Oracle burn.”

“Could you two idiots shut up?” said Will.

“Hey!” said Connor. “I’m on your side!” Will just gave him a look. “Okay, sorry. Continue.”

“Okay.” Rachel shook out her shoulders and closed her eyes. A couple seconds passed. She frowned. “Why—why isn’t it working?” Everyone looked at each other.

“I… don’t know,” said Annabeth. “Will, do you?—okay,” she said as Will shook his head quickly. Of his father’s many domains, prophecy was probably the one he knew the least about.

“Uh—I’m sure a lot of Oracles have trouble performing under pressure?” said Connor.

“Dude,” it was Travis who said this time, “don’t make dick jokes about the Oracle. Are you trying to piss off the Fates?”

“No, guys, this is really weird.” Rachel looked genuinely freaked out now. “Before, when Jason needed a prophecy, it was like the spirit of the Pythia, she just—took over. I didn’t really have to think about it. But now—it’s like I have to try and summon her myself, and I can feel her, but she’s just out of reach.”

“Okay.” Annabeth’s eyes were wide, but she was keeping her voice calm. “Maybe we should try going to the amphitheater. That’s where it worked before.” For some reason, she looked at Will again. He shrugged.

“It’s as good an idea as any.” So, in a cacophony of chairs scraping, the whole council got up and shuffled out of the Big House to walk down to the amphitheater. Along the way they got a lot of weird looks from their friends and siblings, and some of the older campers ran up to join them.

“What’s going on?” Sherman asked Miranda. He and Olivia had come from the arena, swords strapped to their jeans and all.

“We’re trying to get a prophecy,” she said. “So Leo can go on a quest.”

“Oh, sweet.”

“Whoa, I don’t know about that,” said Leo. “Somebody’s going on a quest. Never said it was me.”

“You’re going on another quest?” Jake asked, appearing near Leo and Will where they were walking towards the front, Will keeping a close eye on Rachel in case it turned out the Pythia was just, like, stuck in traffic or something.

“I hope not,” said Leo. “On the one hand, traveling the world? Killing monsters? Awesome. But I’m kinda quested out, at least til the boat’s done. And when it is...” He trailed off, but they all knew: that would be the quest to end all quests. Maybe literally.

In the amphitheater, they all trudged down the steps and settled uncomfortably in the first couple rows, while Will grabbed the Oracle stool. Jason stepped up to help him spot Rachel.

Everyone sat in silence for a minute.

“Maybe if you petition her directly?” said Annabeth. “Before, you know, Rachel, we’d always have to go up to the attic and ask for a prophecy.”

“Not always,” Connor pointed out. “Remember that time she walked out to the woods in the middle of capture the flag?” Thalia nodded ruefully. Sherman shuddered.

“No, Connor, I don’t,” Annabeth snapped. “I was a little busy being held captive by Atlas—”

“Okay, okay.” Jason stepped forward, holding his hands out placatingly. “Leo, do you want to do the honors?”

“Uh—sure?” Leo looked around nervously, then walked up to Rachel. “Hi.” He waved.

“Hi, Leo,” Rachel said dryly. “What’s up?”

“Okay.” Leo cleared his throat. “So. Hey, uh, Rachel—I mean, o mighty Oracle, we’ve got a problem, so now we need to… do a quest. So I humbly beseech, um, your… Highness?” Sitting next to Annabeth, Piper snorted. “Could we get a prophecy, please?”

Silence.

“You could try bowing?” Travis suggested.

Before Leo could be even more awkward, though, Rachel gasped and finally passed out. Will had been so distracted by the whole charade he just barely managed to catch her in time. Jason helped him hoist her onto the stool, and they stood there holding her shoulders as green mist swirled at their feet. Will could understand how it left a weird aftertaste—it didn’t smell bad, exactly, but given the option he still probably would rather not be standing in the middle of it.

Rachel’s eyes flew open, glowing green, and the creepy voice of the Pythia spoke at last:

For Greece to cross the great divide,

With child of the forge who stepped aside,

Go grieving brother and gardener brave,

To the land of lost things, Hunter’s grave.

The Oracle sounded a little different than she had in December—kind of distant, like she was calling in with a bad connection. Standing this close, Will noticed Rachel kept twitching weirdly, too. Like the spirit of the Pythia wasn’t able to maintain total control of her body.

One the trireme’s heart to gain, the Oracle went on,

One to see a beloved slain,

And one to—

The voice of the Oracle stuttered, then abruptly vanished. The green mist turned to dust. Will hadn’t known that could happen. With a strangled scream, Rachel doubled over, coughing so hard she retched. Jason caught her, and Will fumbled in his bag for water.

“Whoa.” Jason held her hair back, eyes wide as she spat up dust and bile. “What happened?” In the amphitheater seats, everyone was murmuring questions, all various degrees of freaked out. Jake’s face was faintly green, and Thalia looked like she had seen a ghost.

“I don’t know,” Rachel managed to gasp. She took the water bottle Will held out and gulped it down, cheeks puffing as she swirled the water in her mouth before she swallowed. “Fuck, that was not pleasant.”

“What happened?” Annabeth asked too, running up to set a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Rachel? Is the Oracle—”

“I don’t know, Annabeth.” Rachel wiped her watering eyes on her sleeve. “It was like she just—got yanked out of my brain. It hurt so much.”

“Do you need aspirin?” Will asked. “I have aspirin.” Rachel smiled weakly.

“Not really physical pain, Will. I just don’t know how else to describe it. Thanks, though.”

“That last line,” said Annabeth. “There was more to it, right?”

“There has to have been,” said Jason. Rachel nodded.

“It was the last line, I know that, but I don’t know what it said. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Annabeth started to say—

“It is not okay!” Leo exclaimed. “How do we do a quest without knowing the whole prophecy?”

“It’s not her fault,” Annabeth clarified. “And it sounds like we got almost all of the prophecy, Leo. Maybe we can extrapolate.” She turned to face the rest of the council and assembled campers. “This prophecy actually sounded clearer than most. We know one thing for sure—”

“Yeah.” Jake stood up on shaky legs. “Child of the forge who stepped aside. That’s me, isn’t it?”

“I—” Annabeth nodded. “Yeah. I don’t see who else it could be.” She sounded like she really wished she could think of an alternative. Will understood why—lately the Fates seemed to just love making Jake do things he hadn’t signed up for. First Beckendorf had died and put him in charge when he didn’t want to be, leaving him to deal with a dragon that almost killed him, and now, when he’d finally gotten those problems solved—

“Well, that’s fine.” Jake squared his own shoulders and put on a brave face, though his eyes stayed grim. “Hey, Leo, you got your wish. You don’t have to go.”

“Yeah. Sorry, bro,” said Leo, looking less than happy now himself. “But hey, you heard the prophecy—somebody’s gonna find the ‘trireme’s heart’. At least that probably means your quest’ll be successful, right?”

Everyone nodded nervously. The other destiny they’d heard sounded really bad, though—no one wanted to see a beloved slain. Will could attest. And without the last line of the prophecy, they had no idea what would happen to the third person.

“What about the other two?” Jake looked around at them. “Gardener brave? That sounds like—”

“Me.” Miranda stood up from where she’d taken her seat between Lou Ellen and Sherman. She looked even more nauseous than Jake. “I mean, it could be Jenny. But for all we know, it might even be my name. So I’ll take it.”

“Okay.” Jake smiled encouragingly. It wasn’t like he’d been a bad leader, Will thought, even if he hadn’t enjoyed it, and already his friend was starting to slide back into that role. “Thanks, Miranda. It’ll be good to have you along.” The best Miranda seemed to manage was a grimace. She walked over to stand next to Jake, followed by Sherman’s wide-eyed gaze.

“Okay. We’ve got two,” said Leo. “Who’s on third?”

“Could be a lot of people. Since the Titan War, we’ve got a lot of grieving brothers around here,” said Jake. He glanced at Will. Will’s stomach dropped as, for the first time, it dawned on him he could very well be that person in the prophecy—the shoe definitely fit—but before Jake could say anything—

“The land of lost things,” said Thalia. “Hunter’s grave. That’s got to be the Junkyard of the Gods, in New Mexico.” Annabeth’s eyes widened.

“Where Bianca died?” she said. Thalia nodded grimly. Annabeth frowned. “Do you think—”

“I mean…” Thalia shrugged. “Talk about a grieving brother.” Everyone else’s eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them, confused. Will had a feeling he knew where Thalia was going with this.

“Let’s see if we can reach him,” said Annabeth. “We can use the fountain in Cabin Three.”

“You sure you’re okay with that?” said Thalia. Annabeth winced, but she nodded.

“I’ll be fine. We’ll be right back, guys.” And she and Thalia ran off toward the cabins. Everyone else looked at each other.

“Uh,” said Piper. “Can anyone explain what all that meant?” Right—Piper, Jason, and Leo had shown up after the December council. They wouldn’t know about Nico.

“I’d guess they’re Iris-messaging the di Angelo kid,” Clarisse said before Will could get there. “Nico. The son of Hades. Couple years back his big sister joined the Hunters of Artemis, then died on her very first quest.” She clearly had some opinions on just how useless a warrior had to be to die on their first big mission, but fortunately, Will thought, she had grown enough tact over the years not to get into it. “That place Thalia said,” she explained instead. “Maybe cause the prophecy mentioned his sister dying there, they figure the brother’s got to be Nico.”

“I hope it’s not,” Jake said. “I know that sounds mean, but—we don’t really know him. I’d rather take another camper, somebody who’s already a friend.” Miranda nodded. Jake glanced at Will again. Will wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of going on a quest, especially one with the word slain in it.

But if Jake asked him directly, how could he say no?

“Well, I guess we’ll see,” said Jason. They were all quiet for a couple minutes. Will crouched back down by Rachel, who was leaning against the side of the stool, looking a little out of it.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Huh?” She looked up at him with glassy eyes. Oh, shit.

“Hey,” said Will, cursing himself for getting too distracted to notice Rachel was on the verge of shock. “Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable, okay? Jason, can you help me?” Together, they helped Rachel up to sit on the amphitheater seating a little ways from the rest of the campers. “Here. Drink this.” Will handed her a bottle of Gatorade from his bag, then looked through it for something that would heal a mortal.

He couldn’t give her nectar or ambrosia, which tied his hands a little. At the bottom of a side pocket, though, there were a couple sticks of rhodiola gum. There was no godly stuff in that—it was made with green tea and Rhodiola ambrosca, a magical variant of the flowering plant that had no relation to actual ambrosia. Will was pretty sure it wasn’t divine, just boosted by the satyrs who tended it through the power of the Wild and stuff.

“Try chewing this,” he said. “It’s supposed to restore vital energy. We’ll see if it helps. If not, we might need to carry you to the infirmary.”

“Okay.” Rachel stuck the gum in her mouth and made a face. “Wow. This tastes awful, Will.”

“Sorry.” Will shrugged. As Rachel chewed the gum, color was returning to her face.

“Worse than the smoke.” She grimaced. “But I do feel better. Thanks.”

“Well?” said Clarisse, breaking through the quiet hum of people murmuring to each other. “What did zombie brat say?” Will looked up—Annabeth and Thalia had come back, both looking kind of annoyed.

“It’s not him,” said Annabeth. “He was… insistent.”

“We told him the prophecy, what of it we heard, anyway, and he hung up on us.” Thalia shook her head. “I guess I can’t fault him too much. Rudeness kind of runs in the family.” Will wondered if she was talking about Hades or the Big Three generally, since Thalia wasn’t always the most polite person herself.

“Okay.” Jake looked kind of relieved. “That means the grieving brother is somebody here.” They all looked at each other. A lot of people, Will realized, were looking at him, Annabeth included. And Jake.

Just ask, Will thought—don’t make me choose. Going on the quest would mean leaving Kayla and Austin, possibly forever. He might never see Izzy again, or Gabriel, or Sophie. How could he do that, when they’d already lost half their family last summer? But if it meant helping a friend, and making sure the boat got finished so Annabeth and Jason could succeed—and a chance to be a real hero after all, a small voice in the back of his head whispered—

“Uh—if it’s okay with you, Jake, I’d like to volunteer.” Sherman stood up from where he’d taken a seat with Olivia, near Miranda’s now-empty spot. “Growing up, I always thought someday I’d go on a quest with my brother Mark, but now—that’s never gonna happen. So maybe that’s what the prophecy meant about a grieving brother.” Clarisse was nodding slowly, her expression a painful mixture of sadness, approval, and pride as she looked at her little brother.

“I’d nominate Sherman,” she agreed. “He’s ready.” Sherman flashed her a surprised smile. Clarisse gave him two thumbs up. So did Ashlyn, who’d wandered down to see what they were up to and taken her usual place by her sister. Olivia gave Sherman a joking shove, so he stumbled down onto the amphitheater floor to go stand by Jake.

Miranda was shaking her head. “Are you sure?” she asked him. “It could be a lot of people. Another Hephaestus kid, or Will—”

“I think it’s me,” Sherman said, more confident now. “Jake? What do you say?”

“I’d say we have our three,” said Jake.

“No,” Will heard Miranda whisper. She looked like she was about to cry as Jake whipped out his yellow notepad to start planning.

“I’ll get some medical supplies together for you,” Will went over to say, setting a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Jake gave him a grateful smile and nod, already half a page deep in notes. “Don’t worry. I’ll include plenty of burn ointment. And splints, for when this guy inevitably breaks his leg,” he added, grinning at Sherman.

“Aw, fuck off,” said Sherman, but without any malice—just friendly affection. “Hey, Will,” he added later, talking quietly as Will distributed the supplies he’d gathered to the three questers. “I want you to know, I wasn’t trying to steal your thunder or anything. I know it could’ve been you, but—it just felt right for me to go.”

“It’s okay.” Will met his friend’s gaze evenly, so Sherman could see he wasn’t mad. “I’m glad you’re going. It’s about time you got to do a quest.” Sherman nodded. “Just come back alive. I’m not losing any more friends.”

“I will. I promise,” said Sherman, then, to Will’s surprise, held out an arm. “Come here, dude. Bro hug.” Will raised his eyebrows.

“You’re not gonna make it weird?” he teased.

“Hey—!” Sherman shook his head, chuckling. “Nah. Bring it in.” He hugged Will with the one arm, pounded him on the back (ow), then let him go. “Well, see you in a week.”

He walked off to rejoin Jake and Miranda, and Will watched as the three of them started off toward the camp border. He’d seen a lot of people head off on quests in his time—almost five years at camp. Five beads on his necklace. Until now, though, he hadn’t been old enough for the people going on big quests to be his peers, let alone his close friends—people he really cared about. And at least one of them might not come back.

He hadn’t realized how much he would want to cry.

“They’ll be okay,” said Olivia, who’d come with some other campers to see them off too.

“Maybe,” said Will. Olivia gave him a half-smile.

“I was gonna say we can pray, but I don’t know how much use that’ll be right now. But we can hope.” She patted his shoulder. “Come on. Dinner.” At least, Will thought, things with the two of them were back to normal.

“Okay.” Will followed Olivia and the rest of their friends back down into camp proper. He couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder one last time, though—just in time to see the distant figures of Jake, Sherman, and Miranda disappear over Half-Blood Hill.

Chapter Text

It was a bright, sunny Tuesday morning in the second week of May—the kind of day late in the school year when everyone was at their least happy to be stuck in the Big House.

“Just an hour,” Chiron had promised them. “Then we’ll have a break before history, and no other indoor classes for today. We just have to get through math.” Will was finding it a little difficult to concentrate on parabolas, though, so he was staring out the window—which was why he saw the three red pegasi land at the edge of the woods. He was on his feet so fast he almost knocked over his chair.

“Uh, Will?” said Lou Ellen. Olivia followed his gaze to the windows. Malcolm was too focused on his own math assignment, but Will’s other two tablemates both jumped out of their seats.

“They’re back!” Leo had noticed too. Will was already racing out of the schoolroom—he doubted Chiron would be mad given the circumstances, and more importantly, right now he didn’t really care if he got in trouble. As he ran down the porch steps, Olivia and her sister Sierra were close on his heels, Leo and Shane just a couple steps behind.

“Hey!” On the grass outside, Jake had dismounted from his pegasus and was untying a pair of saddlebags. Miranda and Sherman were still climbing down. Jake looked up as Will approached, giving him a friendly wave. “How’ve you been, Will—? Oh, shit. Hold on, hold on, wait—”

But it was too late. Leo and Shane barreled practically through Will to tackle Jake, knocking both of them to the ground. They collapsed in a laughing tangle of limbs—from the contact, Will knew right away no one got injured at all, so he laughed too as he rolled away to let the sons of Hephaestus hug their brother.

“Boys.” Olivia, standing over them with her hands on her hips, shook her head. “So emotional.” Will just grinned and held up a hopeful hand; she rolled her eyes, but clasped it to help pull him up.

“You guys suck,” said Lou Ellen, bringing up the rear—aside from all the other campers, who had finally started emerging from the house too. “Stupid tall people.”

“Tall?” said Leo, who wasn’t tall by any stretch of the imagination—but was, Will supposed, technically about an inch taller than Lou. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“How are y’all doing?” Will asked, looking from Jake to Sherman and Miranda, who were—holding hands? When he raised his eyebrows at Sherman, his friend blushed. Will was pretty sure he’d never seen that before. “Great to see there’s still three of you.” The three questers looked at each other, and a shadow passed over all their faces at once. “What?”

“Uh—we’ll explain later,” said Jake, glancing from Sherman to Miranda and back. He had finally managed to extract himself from his brothers, and now he got to his feet. “For now, all that’s important is that we got what we needed.”

“And then some,” said Miranda as Jake opened the saddlebag and tossed it on the ground to show celestial bronze machine parts sparkling inside. Leo’s face lit up like Christmas had come early. Harley came skidding up to hug Jake, almost knocking him down all over again—for such a tiny kid, Harley was strong—then started sorting through the stuff alongside Leo and Shane. Jake continued unpacking stuff between more very forceful hugs from Nyssa, Christopher, and their sister Maddie. He set a pair of celestial bronze daggers and a scary-looking sword, serrated from the hilt halfway up the blade with a regular edge on the top half, a safe distance from his overenthusiastic siblings.

“We grabbed some awesome weapons, too,” Sherman explained.

“You grabbed some weapons,” Miranda said a little bitterly.

“Okay, yeah, I grabbed some weapons. And paid the price. And I’m sorry.” Sherman kissed the top of her head, then blushed a lot redder when he looked up again and saw everyone was looking at them now.

Will among them: he crossed his arms over his chest, grinning as he looked the two of them over. He’d figured Sherman liked Miranda for a long time, and had been starting to wonder if maybe it was also vice-versa—they’d been seated near each other in the schoolroom for a couple years now, and they were always teaming up for assignments and sitting by each other in the amphitheater and stuff—but he’d never taken it all that seriously.

Apparently he should have. Lou Ellen certainly looked unsurprised (resigned, was probably the word; Will figured they would have much to discuss later). Olivia was grinning almost as brightly as Will, and a lot more mischievously—as was only natural. Sherman gave them and his siblings a warning glare.

“I’ve already called dibs on that one,” he added, pointing at the sword. “It’s mine.” His brothers Ellis and Gavin looked very unhappy about that for all of five seconds, before Jake pulled out the next awesome thing to look at.

“The gods throw stuff away cause it’s damaged to them,” Jake explained, “but a lot of it’s still useful to us. With a little cleanup, anyway.”

“Yay, more projects!” Harley piped up. Jake smiled at his littlest brother.

“Plus,” said Sherman, “we brought back these guys.” The arm Miranda wasn’t holding onto was in a sling, but Sherman gestured toward the pegasi with his elbow. Will saw how he winced.

“They’re gorgeous,” Butch murmured. He was holding Jake’s mount’s head in his hands and pressing his forehead to its nose like they were communing or something.

“Izzy said they were a gift from your dad,” Miranda told Will.

“Oh, yeah, Izzy says hi, Will,” said Jake.

“Y’all saw Izzy?”

“Yeah. We were in New Mexico, and we needed a healer, so we hit her up.” Jake shrugged. “She’s doing good. She said to let you know she’ll see you in a couple weeks.”

“And… my dad?” That would explain why the pegasi were bright red, just like Apollo’s sacred cattle, but... Will exchanged a look with Jason. Aside from Hera, and maybe Artemis (Thalia was being very cagey about it), no one had heard from any of the gods in six months.

“You’d have to ask her,” said Miranda. “Obviously we didn’t see him. She just said he’d given her the pegasi, and to take good care of them for her.”

“... Huh,” said Will. “Okay. Butch, you okay with being delegated to?”

“Absolutely.” The other pegasi had decided they wanted Butch’s friendship too, so now all three of them were nudging at the son of Iris’ broad shoulders. He looked over the moon.

“This is it!” Leo was saying, holding up what looked to Will like a weird celestial bronze gyroscope, but had all the Hephaestus kids gazing in awe. “And there’s so much more here. This stuff is gonna solve all of our problems.”

“Hermano. Don’t jinx it,” said Nyssa. Leo winced.

“Yeah. Sorry. This stuff is gonna solve most of our problems.”

“Trireme’s heart gained?” said Jason. Leo nodded. Jake gave him a thumbs up.

“Definitely. Come on, guys,” Leo said to his siblings, “let’s get to work.” Then he stopped, looking up at Chiron, who had just cantered up to loom over them all in his full centaur form. “I mean, uh—Chiron, d’you mind if we duck out for the rest of math class? It’s almost over by now anyway, right?”

“We’ll still be doing math,” Nyssa pointed out. “Engineering is just practical math.”

“Yeah, it’s math that isn’t dumbed down and pointless,” said Leo. “I mean—mmph!” Nyssa had put a hand over his mouth. “Leggoame,” Leo said, muffled.

Chiron sighed. “Very well. Cabin Nine is excused from math class.”

“I should probably take a look at Sherman’s arm,” said Will, seeing his chance to get away from the parabolas too. “Make sure it’s healing right.”

“My arm’s fine,” Sherman grumbled. Will gave him a look, like, shut up, but thankfully Chiron was already relenting:

“All right. Cabin Seven is also excused.” Kayla and Austin cheered.

“I think we should do an inventory on the weapons Sherman found,” Ellis piped up. Clarisse snorted, and Ashlyn muttered something that sounded a lot like bold move. Chiron pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“Fine,” he finally said. “We’ll all resume our math lessons at the usual time tomorrow. Everyone is excused until after lunch, when I expect to see you all in the amphitheater for your history lesson.”

“Except Cabin Nine,” said Leo.

“Right.” Chiron frowned. “Wait. No, I did not—” But the children of Hephaestus were already racing into the woods with their loot, bound for Bunker Nine.

Kayla and Austin had clearly thought being excused from class meant they could go do whatever they wanted, and they weren’t too happy at first when Will dragged them along to the infirmary. As it turned out, though, he thought they were both glad they were there: it meant they got to be in on the drama.

Jake and Miranda were both completely fine, they assured him—they had been wounded on the quest, but that had been the part they got Izzy’s help for. Sherman, predictably, had just managed to break his arm again since then. But more importantly—

“What the fuck,” Will said the second he touched Sherman’s arm, then, “sorry, sorry,” when Kayla and Austin gasped in fake horror. “But dude, you’re—”

“Dead,” Sherman said. “Yeah. I know.” Miranda, kneeling on the cot beside him, cringed. “Sorry,” said Sherman.

“You’re clearly not, though.” Will shook his head. “I don’t get it, it’s like—you were dead, but only temporarily.” He could feel a kind of emptiness he had felt from corpses before, but Sherman’s vital energy was still there. He definitely wasn’t dead, or even undead in the sense of being, like, a zombie. He was very much alive, like he had never been dead at all—yet death lingered.

It was, in scientific terms, weird as shit. Will didn’t understand it at all. He wondered if Nico would—it seemed like if anyone could, it would be him. The next time he came to camp, Will would have to ask. If he ever came to camp again.

“We can’t explain it any more than you can,” Jake said uneasily from his seat on the other cot. “What happened was, Sherman got—really badly injured.”

“Mortally wounded,” said Sherman.

“Yeah. My dad built a lot of safeguards to try and keep people from stealing stuff from the junkyard. That’s how Bianca di Angelo died in the first place, that’s why the Oracle called it Hunter’s grave. I don’t know what took her out, exactly, I’d have to ask Thalia, but we ran into these three automatons.”

“Giant metal dracaenae,” Sherman put in.

“Yeah, their tails were really cool.” Jake looked kind of mournful for a second. “I wish I could’ve gotten a look at the gears…”

“Not the point,” said Miranda.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” Jake nodded. “So, giant metal dracaenae. They called themselves the—”

“Loss prevention sisters,” said Sherman. Jake frowned at him. “What? They killed me, man, I think I’ve earned the right to say the punchline.”

“Okay, but can you please not joke about the dying part?” Miranda said. “Too soon.”

“Yeah, sorry.” With his mobile hand, Sherman rubbed her shoulder. She smiled.

“So, the part in the prophecy,” Will said. “About—you know.” Miranda nodded.

“One to see a beloved slain,” she said. “Yeah, that was my beloved.” She rested her chin on Sherman’s shoulder, nose against his cheek.

“Hey, at least it wasn’t mine,” said Sherman, and turned his head to kiss her. Will looked away—they were very cute, but he felt that same kind of secondhand embarrassment as he had with Percy and Annabeth being cute before. Jake met his gaze with a long-suffering smile.

“They’ve been like this… since he died and came back, basically,” he said. “It’s been a very long three days.” Without breaking the kiss, Sherman flipped him off.

“So, the last line,” said Will. Jake nodded.

“Yeah, Izzy and I have a theory about that. We think it was probably something like, one to—”

“Find the earth again,” Austin said at the same time Jake said,

“Rise and live again.” Will, and everyone else, turned to look at his younger brother. “Well—your version actually makes more sense,” said Jake. “Prophecies are usually more vague than that, you’re right.”

“Austin, was that—the real line?” Miranda asked, looking back and forth between all the children of Apollo. “You guys can kind of do that sometimes, right? Cause of your dad?”

“Yeah, it was,” Austin said casually. Then he frowned. “Wait, why do I know that?” Now everyone looked at Will.

“I don’t know!” he said. “Why does everyone keep thinking I’ll know anything about the power of prophecy? I’m the least good at most Apollo stuff.”

“Find the earth again,” said Jake. “Does that mean something about Gaea?”

“It could be just a vaguer way of saying your and Izzy’s version,” Miranda said hopefully.

“Yeah, I guess.” Jake frowned. “Especially cause of, uh… how it happened. Sherman, you want to explain that?”

“Yeah.” Sherman wrapped his arm a little tighter around Miranda’s shoulders. “So, I… died. And I was in, like, the Underworld’s waiting room—”

“The Underworld has a waiting room?” said Kayla.

“Yeah, of course, cause people have to get judged,” Sherman explained. “But it’s the Underworld, so you’d think there wouldn’t be a way out, right? But there was just… a door, in the middle of the wall. It was like nobody else saw it. But I did, so I opened it, and then… I was back. Completely fine.” Will was going to have a lot of questions for Nico, actually.

“And a good thing, too,” said Jake, “cause otherwise the loss prevention sisters would’ve taken out all three of us.”

“So we fought them off and got out of the junkyard, but we were all hurt really bad, so we IM-ed your sister,” Sherman explained, “and she flew there with those pegasi, healed us enough that we could travel, then took us back to Santa Fe.”

“And her mom fed us,” said Miranda. “They have all these citrus trees in their yard. I was so jealous.”

“Dreams come true, yeah they do,” said Austin, “in Santa Fe.” Will glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. “Newsies! Come on, you’re the gay sibling.”

“I’m a healer, not a theater kid.” Austin snorted.

“Okay, Bones.” Kayla giggled. Will shook his head.

“Anyway,” he said to Sherman, “how’d you break your arm again?” Sherman made a face.

“That’s not important.”

“He fell off his pegasus,” said Jake. Sherman kicked him.

“A couple hundred feet up,” Miranda added. Sherman did not kick her.

“Wait, you died twice?” said Will. Sherman rolled his eyes.

“No, I was holding onto the reins, so I didn’t actually fall til about fifty feet, I just… landed wrong.”

“Fifty feet? You’re lucky you didn’t break anything worse.” Incredibly lucky. Sherman shrugged with his good shoulder.

“Maybe the Fates figured they owed me one.”

“I think you probably owe them one, if you got to walk out of Death’s waiting room,” Will pointed out. “Maybe now you owe them two.”

“Oh, gods,” said Miranda, looking stricken. “I hope not.”

If Sherman did owe the Fates for his good fortune, at least it didn’t seem like they were anxious to collect.

“I almost think—I don’t know, maybe it was some kind of test?” he told Will a couple days after he got back, when Will was doing another check-up on his arm. “Like—I’ve only told Miranda this, so don’t tell anybody else, but when I saw the door—I thought about just staying. I’d been trying to get myself to accept death, and—and I’d already thought, it would have been nice,” Sherman admitted, voice going a little hoarse, “assuming I got Elysium, you know—to just hang out with Mark and Darren for eternity. I was kind of looking forward to seeing them again.”

“Yeah.” Will hadn’t really thought about what he would have chosen in the same circumstances until this moment, but now that he did—here in the sunlit infirmary, with his heart beating, it seemed like it would be so easy to choose to come back. It wasn’t like he would have chosen to die in the first place. But the idea of seeing his older siblings again, being freed of his mortal responsibilities and problems, would probably be pretty tempting.

“But now I think maybe that was the point,” said Sherman. “Like, hey, grieving brother, remember there’s still a lot to live for too.” Will nodded.

“I’m glad you did open the door,” he said. “I’ve never heard of that kind of test happening to anyone else, though. It’s not in any legends, is it?”

“No, I guess not.” Sherman frowned. “Chiron looked really freaked out when we told him. Well, as freaked out as Chiron gets,” he added. They both laughed, and the mood in the infirmary lightened again. Will knew these thoughts would stick with him, though. And whether it was a test or not—yet another question for Nico.

At his friends’ request, and Chiron's, Will didn’t tell anyone else about Sherman’s brief visit to the Underworld. Kayla and Austin were sworn to secrecy too, and to Will’s relief, as far as he could tell, they managed to keep it.

In the meantime, “Guys, I’m sorry,” Will told his siblings at the end of May. “It’s time.”

Kayla sighed, casting a mournful look over the cabin. Blanket Fort Seven, as they’d taken to calling it after everyone learned about Bunker Nine, had changed form and layout many times over the last six months. Austin had covered two whole mattresses in satin sheet sets Will had gotten through the Stolls so he could sleep wherever, however he wanted without his braids frizzing, while Kayla had managed to partition off a whole miniature room, with an upturned wooden crate for a bookshelf, so she could stay up late reading even inside the blanket fort. Will had talked her into stopping that after a week of it, since half the point of the blanket fort was she didn’t need to do that.

“Are you sure?” she asked now. “I think everybody else will like it.”

“I think everybody else is gonna want their normal beds back,” Will said firmly. Austin stuck his lower lip out, overdramatic. Will shook his head. “We’ll probably have some new siblings this summer, too,” he pointed out. “They’ll probably be kind of nervous to meet us as is. We all know each other, but would you want to sleep in a blanket fort with people you’ve never met before?”

“Ugh. Fair point.” Austin sighed. “Okay, fine. Kayla, it’s two to one now—”

“Hey, this is not a democracy!” said Will. “I already made the call!” Austin looked at Kayla, and they both laughed at him. “Hey!”

“Sure, Will.” Kayla patted his arm very condescendingly for a twelve-year-old who was almost a foot shorter than him. Gods damn it.

“You want to do the honors?” he asked her. “This was your project to start with.”

“Yeah. So long, Blanket Fort Seven,” said Kayla. “You will be missed.” And with that, she grabbed the edge of the first blanket and yanked it off.

It took them hours to get the cabin cleaned up, but at least the effort was so exhausting they all slept like stones that first night without it. The second night…

Actually, Austin and Kayla both slept fine. Will was the one who kept waking up in a panic, expecting to find his siblings wracked with nightmares. Each time he would sit up to peer through the slats between the bunk beds to check on Austin, then carefully stand up on the edge of his mattress and lean over to look at Kayla—to find them sleeping peacefully instead.

“That meditation stuff Chiron’s been teaching you must really be working,” he said to Austin in the morning. His brother shrugged.

“Maybe. I think it might be that the power of prophecy’s still kind of… missing.” Austin’s surprising recitation in the infirmary aside, it did seem like prophetic abilities in general were on the fritz. The plus side was that Austin’s dreams, he explained, had calmed down a lot lately. And though Will still had no idea how many of his own dreams were prophetic as opposed to just regular demigod nightmares about monsters and stuff, he had noticed he was sleeping better himself, last night aside. All that was kind of hard to be unhappy about.

But Rachel’s connection to the Pythia was getting fuzzier and fuzzier, or maybe it was that the Oracle spirit herself was getting weaker—she had told the council she was getting worried that the next time someone needed a prophecy, the Pythia might not appear at all. That part was definitely not good.

It didn’t seem like there was a lot they could do about it, though. Chiron, Rachel, and Annabeth all figured it probably had something to do with Apollo being out of commission—whether that was because of Zeus’ edict, or conflict between the gods’ Greek and Roman sides. Or something else, but Will really hoped it wasn’t something else. He wasn’t sure what he would do if it was something else.

Whatever was going on with Apollo, there was always Asclepius, he told himself. Asclepius wasn’t confined by Zeus’ edict—well, okay, Asclepius was actually very much confined by Zeus’ edict, but a different one, was the point. He wasn’t an Olympian. He’d helped Will when Apollo had been busy before, and probably he would again.

Of course, with any luck they wouldn’t need that, but Will figured he had to be realistic. They were staring down the barrel of another divine war this summer. Foes would bear arms to the Doors of Death, whatever that meant, and to storm or fire the world would fall, and then there was the matter of the other camp. Realistic was the most optimistic Will could be right now, when the new Great Prophecy made it hard to be anything but fatalistic.

On the bright side, as it turned out, Will was right to expect new kids. The first child of Apollo to arrive at camp that summer wasn’t any of the siblings he’d said goodbye to at the end of the last, but a ten-year-old girl who came stumbling over the border Memorial Day Weekend.

Leo, Miranda, and Will were in the infirmary with Harley when the new demigod and a satyr appeared on the hill outside. The accident Will had been just waiting for had finally happened—watching Leo handle hot metal with his bare hands in the forge, the youngest child of Hephaestus had forgotten he couldn’t do that too. Only for a couple seconds, of course, but those were the seconds that mattered.

Now, since they were the closest-by campers, they went out to greet the newcomers. The new girl’s name was Mandy, and she and Brian Hayseed had been running from a pack of lycanthropes for a week.

“Like, werewolves?” said Miranda, hugging Brian tightly. He was one of the younger satyrs, and he had been good friends with Demeter’s daughters before he left for this demigod-seeking mission. “Are you guys okay?”

“Aw, we’re fine,” said Brian. He patted Mandy’s shoulder. “This kid’s a tough cookie.” Mandy grinned up at him affectionately. She had warm brown eyes and skin just a little darker than Austin’s, her hair in twin pigtail puffs. There was a large celestial bronze knife strapped to her pink belt.

“Did you see a guy with, like, fur robes and a crown made of skeleton fingers?” Leo asked. Will and Miranda both looked at him, like, what are you talking about? Leo shrugged. “Just wondering if it was my old pal Lycaon.”

“Um… I don’t think so?” said Mandy. “But I wasn’t really looking at their outfits.”

“Kinda hard to focus on anything but their teeth,” said Brian.

Apollo might be out of commission for most everything else, but even though Olympus was shut down all the gods had kept claiming their kids pretty quickly all these months. Just like Leo back in December, Mandy had been at camp about five minutes when she started glowing golden and the sign of a harp appeared over her head.

“Hey, awesome!” Leo punched Will in the arm. Ow.

“That sign means your godly parent is Apollo, Mandy,” Miranda explained. Brian nodded, like that made sense. “Which makes Will here your big brother. And cabin counselor.”

“—Yeah!” Will said, a little belatedly—he had been stuck looking up at the sign, missing his dad. “That’s awesome. Welcome to Cabin Seven,” he said to Mandy, who was looking up at him now, a lot more nervously than she had been looking at Brian. Will tried to turn his wistful smile welcoming. “If you want to bring your stuff, I can help you get settled in right away. We’ll find you a bed and you can meet our other siblings that are here.”

“Okay!” Mandy shouldered her battered pink camouflage backpack. “That sounds cool.” She followed Will down through camp, staring wide-eyed at everything around them—and peppering him with questions. Not as fast and furious as Leo, but still, here it was again. Will couldn’t stop smiling suddenly. Last year, having Corin get claimed right in the wake of Manhattan had felt weird and sad as much as it had been exciting, but this year, it seemed, having new siblings could feel joyous again.

Not that there wasn’t still grief to go around, he thought as he pointed out the bunks in Cabin Seven that weren’t currently claimed so Mandy could take her pick. It just wasn’t as sharp. Still, Will skipped over Silas’ bed; he didn’t think it would feel good for anybody if Sophie came back to camp to discover her twin’s bunk had already been claimed by a new kid.

“How many siblings do we have?” Mandy asked. She was still glowing as she set her stuff on the bed that used to be Xavier’s, though it was starting to fade. “The rest of these beds belong to other kids, right? And they’re all our siblings?”

“Yeah, there should be—hang on.” Will counted. “Ten of us this summer, now that you’re here.” He told her all their names, pointing out their beds. “You’ll meet Kayla and Austin soon, they should be back any minute now.”

“How old are they?”

“Kayla’s twelve, Austin’s thirteen.”

“Huh.” Mandy frowned. “Are there other kids my age?”

“No, sorry.” Will gave her a rueful smile. “You’re gonna be the cabin baby this year, unless somebody younger shows up. It’s not a bad thing to be, don’t worry—I was the youngest back when I first got here. I was only nine.”

“How old are you now?”

“Fourteen. And a half.”

“Are you in charge cause you’re the oldest?” Will shook his head.

“No, I'm not—well—I’m the oldest right now, but once everybody else gets back I won’t be. Our sister Izzy’s the oldest now, she’s sixteen, but I’ve been at camp the longest,” he explained. “That’s why I’m in charge.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Five years.” Will counted out the beads on his necklace. The golden apple from Luke’s quest that first year; the trident for Percy’s arrival; the Golden Fleece; the Labyrinth; and the Empire State Building, with his siblings and friends’ names etched around it. “This’ll be my sixth summer. At the end of it, you’ll get a bead too.”

“What’ll be on it?”

“Don’t know yet. Depends what happens this summer.”

“Cool,” Mandy said, looking around. “Are we allowed to play the piano?”

“Sure,” said Will, “knock yourself out. Do you know Heart and Soul?”

“No?” Mandy frowned up at him, confused.

“Good,” Will told her, then added resignedly, “though I bet you will soon.”

Izzy got to camp the next weekend. So would Sophie and Corin, just a day later. Will had gotten their exact arrival dates a couple months ago, when he got it together to sit down with the Big House phone and call everyone’s mortal parents he could reach, just like Renee used to do. It hadn’t been as scary as he’d thought it would be. His siblings’ mortal parents (his step-parents? Sort of?) were just as nice as his own mom, in their own ways.

“Oh my gods,” was the first thing Izzy said, alerting Will to her arrival. He spun around to see her standing in the cabin doorway.

“Izzy!” Will dashed to the door and swept her up in a hug. His sister squeaked as her feet left the floor for a second. When he stepped back, she looked kind of stunned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Izzy shook out of it, smiling up at him. “Thought I was looking at Lee’s ghost for a second, that’s all. Deja vu. Who gave you the right to get so tall?”

“I’m not that tall,” said Will, “I’m only five-eleven.” Though he was hoping to hit six feet by the end of the summer.

“Yeah, only,” Izzy mocked affectionately from half a foot shorter, grabbing her duffel bag from where she’d dropped it on the porch to carry it inside and dump it on her bed. “Do we have a new kid?” she asked, nodding towards the stuffed animals on Mandy’s bed.

“Yeah.” Will sat down on Izzy’s while she unzipped her bag to start unpacking into her half of the set of drawers by her and Corin’s bunk bed. “Her name’s Mandy. She’s ten.”

“Aw, a new baby. Teresa’ll be glad.” Izzy reached out to ruffle Will’s hair. “See, this is better. Just stay down here.” Will smiled. Looking at his sister was straining at his chest a little—he was so happy he could cry, but maybe it was also some kind of sadness. He wasn’t entirely sure. “Are you doing okay?” Izzy asked, smiling back at him with her eyebrows drawn together. Maybe it was showing on his face.

“Yeah.” Will shrugged. “It’s just good to see you back.” Izzy nodded, looking down again. Will figured they both knew there was a lot they could have said about a lot of things, but maybe that meant they didn’t actually need to.

“It’s good to be back,” was all Izzy said. “And I’m back for good. I promised.”

“I know.” Will pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged, leaning against the slats at the foot of her bunk.

“How’s Jake?” Izzy asked. “And Miranda and Sherman?” They had IM’ed to make sure she knew they got back okay last month.

“They’re all fine,” Will said. “Jake’s in crunch time on the boat, and Sherman and Miranda are… a lot. But at least they’re happy, I guess.”

“Aw, good.” Izzy smiled. “I’m rooting for those two crazy kids.” Will laughed. “And what about my pegasi?”

“They’re good too. Butch is taking good care of them. By the way, uh, about the pegasi—”

“Where’d they come from?” Izzy finished the question for him. Will nodded.

“Did Dad actually—show up with them?” he asked. “Cause, you know, Zeus closed Olympus in November—”

“Right. Jake and Miranda told me.” Izzy sighed. “No, he didn’t, and I guess that explains why.”

“But—”

“Why?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.” Now she gave him a sort of crooked, sardonic smile. “So—the thing with Dad. It turns out that, you know, everything I did last summer—”

“Yeah.”

“That I’m still really sorry aside, well—when it comes to Dad, apparently it was a really effective guilt trip.” Will snorted a laugh before he could stop himself. Izzy paused for a second to do sarcastic jazz hands, and he laughed harder. “I think the crying was the clincher. So up until Zeus shut everything down, anyway,” she went on, “he was trying to like… make up for it, I guess. Be a more present father or whatever. It was... a lot,” she said, eyes widening for effect. Will could only imagine. Apollo was very well-intentioned… but. “And I guess he figured, what does every girl want Daddy to buy her?”

“Oh my gods.” Will couldn’t stop laughing now. “So he got you a pony!”

“Even better. Three ponies!”

“That can fly!” He rolled onto his side, tears streaming down his face.

“Exactly.” Izzy was laughing too. “I hadn’t heard from him for a couple weeks, and I figured maybe he’d gotten distracted and lost interest again—now I know it’s cause Zeus put him on lockdown, of course, but—then lo and behold, these three bright-red pegasi show up on my sixteenth birthday.”

“Your sixteenth birthday?” said Will, wiping his eyes. “Wait, are you sure this was Dad’s version of giving you a pony? Or was it Dad’s version of giving you a car?”

“Oh my gods.” Izzy’s jaw dropped. “Shit. You’re right!”

They were both laughing so hard they almost wouldn’t have noticed the knock on the doorframe, except that it was accompanied by a very tall child of Ares sticking her head through the door.

“Hey, is—Izzy!” Ashlyn’s face lit up at the sight of her, and Izzy was already on her feet and launching herself across the room to hug her friend so fast Ashlyn actually looked a little startled as she caught her. “Hey!”

“Ash! I was about to come see you next.” When Ashlyn lifted her off the ground, Izzy just laughed some more.

“Well, you didn’t come see me fast enough.” Ashlyn put her down and stepped back. They had agreed to be pen pals through the school year, Will knew—half his updates about Izzy had come from talking to Ashlyn, not from his sister herself.

“I guess not! I love your hair!” Izzy exclaimed, beaming up at her friend.

“Thanks!” When she’d come to camp last summer, Ashlyn’s dirty-blonde hair had been in a long braid over one shoulder—no more. She’d chopped it all off this spring, just before her seventeenth birthday, with some help from her cabin. Now she had… basically the same hairstyle as what Jason’s hair had done the reverse and grown into. Short, kind of scruffy. Will had heard her jokingly call it her big lesbian haircut. “It’s, um… a lot more manageable,” she said now, kind of weakly. Izzy nodded thoughtfully, still smiling.

“You look… more like you,” she said.

“Yeah.” Ashlyn’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “I feel more like me.” They just grinned at each other for a minute. Then,

“Hey, speaking of,” said Izzy, glancing back at Will, “I hope there haven’t been any limericks since I’ve been gone?”

Ashlyn and Will just looked at each other and laughed.

Since schools around the country all got out at different times, June was always a slow trickle of demigods arriving. That none of the cabins were quite at full strength, though, didn’t stop the Stolls from proposing they hold one game of capture the flag before the Argo II left, since they hadn’t gotten a good game in last summer when everyone was too busy getting ready to fight Kronos.

“Aren’t we getting ready to fight the giants now?” Will pointed out.

“Yeah, but Jason says the Romans do war games all the time to stay in fighting shape!” said Piper. She had shown up to ask if Will wanted to ally Cabin Seven with her and Annabeth’s cabins. “And Annabeth says capture the flag is basically our version of that.”

“It is definitely... violent,” said Will.

“I mean, with how excited Clarisse is about it, I kind of figured,” said Piper. “Do you not like it?” Will sighed.

“It’s fine, it’s just that capture the flag usually ends with me having to be in the infirmary all night, healing people,” he explained. Piper grimaced.

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“But I’m happy to team up. Is it just us, Athena’s kids, and Jason?”

“Miranda’s cabin too,” said Piper. “At least, I think so. I guess her sister’s in charge in the summer?”

“Yeah, I think Katie’s getting here this weekend.” Will nodded. “She’ll definitely want to be on our team, though, since Travis is on the other side.” They were playing war-v-war, the way they usually did—Ares and Athena on opposing teams—and Clarisse had allied herself with Leo and the Stolls on the red team.

“Yeah, what’s the deal with them, anyway?” Piper asked, her eyes narrowing. “Amber and Maia are always giggling about Katie and Travis and how she’s gonna change her tune when she gets back and realizes he got hot.” Got hot? As far as Will could tell, Travis hadn’t changed that much over the school year—he was exactly as hot as he’d been last August. Which was, like, fairly, sure, but not incredibly. He wasn’t even the cuter Stoll brother, said a traitorous part of Will’s brain he wanted to stomp to death. “Is that, like… a thing?” Piper asked.

“Who knows.” Will shrugged it off. “With the way they bicker I think everybody figures it’s just a matter of time.”

They all spent the next couple days preparing. Will didn’t have very high hopes for the blue team to win this one, not with the chips falling the way they were. Under normal circumstances, war-v-war meant a pretty good balance, with Clarisse’s brawn on one side and Annabeth’s brains on the other, which was why this alignment was standard practice. But right now Annabeth’s strategic brilliance was focused on other things.

Things much bigger than capture the flag, to be fair—the Argo II’s journey and how they would deal with the Roman camp were much more important than this, and Will understood that, but it meant Jason had kind of taken charge of the planning, and Jason was just so… rigid. He was definitely smart, of course, almost as good at this stuff as Annabeth, but he was a very straight-lines kind of thinker. Jason didn’t cut corners, and Will got the sense it was hard for him to understand how the opposing team definitely, definitely would.

“I don’t s’pose there’s any chance you guys would chill out on the dirty tricks for this game?” he asked Connor with exactly no hope. As he’d known he would, Connor laughed in his face.

“Why? Does Julius Caesar not know how to deal with subterfuge? Et tu, Brute?”

“Oh, we can handle it,” Will assured him. “It would just be cool if, you know, maybe you didn’t do a bunch of underhanded stuff for once?”

“Yeah, keep dreaming.” Connor winked at him. Why did he always have to do that? “You know, Will, maybe if you’d get on board with medical marijuana—”

“Okay, why the hell do you even care about medical marijuana?” Will asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “You guys steal stuff and smuggle it into camp against the rules all the time, and I know Miranda’s already growing weed in her cabin.”

“Oh.” Connor looked like he hadn’t ever expected to actually get called out on that. “Oh, you, uh, know about that, huh?”

“Yeah. Le—Some people let it slip.”

“Shit.” Connor frowned. “But you didn’t tell—?”

“No, of course I didn’t tell Chiron.” Will sighed. “And I’m not going to. But could you quit getting on my case about it? Now that I know it doesn’t make any real difference to you, as if it would have in the first place.”

“Yeah. Fair enough.”

“What do you even get out of this, anyway?” Will asked, frowning. Connor grinned.

“Aw, we just do it to see that angry look on your face. It’s adorable.” He actually reached out and patted Will’s cheek. Will slapped his hand away, maybe a little more violently than was strictly necessary. “Ow! Dude, chill. We were gonna tell you next year, I swear. The Demeter cabin's been growing weed for years, Katie's totally in on it, and Lee used to smoke with the older kids and stuff, Travis just always brings it up at council to mess with you guys.”

Will hadn’t known that about Lee—which made sense, since he’d been the cabin baby then, and only twelve when Lee died. It wasn’t like Will was about to tell even Kayla or Hannah what the high school kids were up to, let alone Mandy. But it still kind of bugged him.

There were probably a lot of things he didn’t know about his older siblings, he realized, mulling it over as he walked away. He knew Jasper had run into trouble with the law back home during the school year before he died, but he’d never known the details—he’d gotten the sense his brother didn’t want to talk about it at camp. Apparently Lee had smoked weed; what about Renee and Michael, since they’d all been so close? And Renee had gone to the fireworks with Travis last year, but Will had no idea if they’d ever been, like, dating, or if it had been as friends, or something in between, whatever that would have meant, or how she’d really felt about Travis at all. Or maybe Travis had just been trying to make Katie jealous, since all the older kids were so sure he was head over heels for her.

That thought made Will kind of want to punch Travis, even though he knew, logically, that he didn’t know, and it wasn’t really his business, nor his place. It was just yet another new kind of grief, the not knowing and never getting to. Will was getting pretty sick of experiencing those.

And then there was Connor.

“Hey,” Will said to Olivia, “I normally wouldn’t ask this, and you don’t actually have to tell me, cause people’s business is their business and stuff—but does Connor like guys, or is he just… I don’t know, messing with my head?”

“W—sorry, what?” Olivia, sitting outside the arena getting ready for practice, blinked up at him for a second while she processed that. In her defense, Will supposed, he had basically walked right up to her and started ranting. “Oh. Okay. I get what you mean.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I think he likes Maia from the Aphrodite cabin, but I guess that doesn’t rule it out. If he is bi or something, though, he hasn’t told me.”

“Okay.” Will sighed. That cleared up nothing.

“Why?” Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Do you like him?”

“No! Absolutely not, he’s just—”

“Good. Don’t. You could do so much better.”

“Thanks, Avril Lavigne.” Will collapsed on the grass. “I’m not sure that’s actually true,” he pointed out. “Since right now, at least at camp, the best I can do is no one. There aren’t any other boys like me around.”

“I doubt that,” said Olivia. “Aren’t gay people like a tenth of the population or something? There’s got to be some others, they’re just… not out yet.” She deflated a little as she said that.

“Yeah, which is still functionally zero,” Will said glumly. “Just another part of my life that would’ve been easier if I was straight, I guess.”

“Uh, duh,” said Olivia. “Then instead of worrying about my stupid brother you could’ve just dated me.” Will glanced at her, feeling his eyebrows furrow. Her face fell a little. “Sorry,” she said, “is it still too soon to joke about that?”

“I mean, I’m fine,” said Will, “I was more worried about, like—how you feel, joking about it.” Last he knew Olivia's plan was to never speak of it again. Now, she just shrugged.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve gone through, like, three more crushes this year, Will, I’m very over you.”

“Wait, you have?” It wasn’t totally surprising, considering he had too, but—

“Yeah,” said Olivia, “you’re not that special.”

“Hey!” Will protested as she laughed. “Who do you like now, then?” Olivia hid her face in her hands.

“Oh, gods, are we talking about boys now?” she said, her voice about an octave higher than usual. It was true—they’d gotten back to an easy, normal friendship since the fall, but while Will and Lou Ellen talked about crushes constantly, with Olivia he had never been sure if that was a line it would be okay to cross.

“I mean, we don’t have to if you don’t want, but you kind of walked us into this—”

“Ugh, fine. Shane,” she said, dropping her hands so he could see her face was bright red. “I like Shane.”

“Oh, nice,” said Will, smiling against a sad sort of twinge in his stomach. At least Olivia might have an actual chance at Shane liking her back. “He’s cute.” Olivia smiled weakly.

“Yeah, isn’t he?”

“He has pretty eyes.”

“Are you talking about boys without me?” said Lou Ellen, who had walked up and dropped the bag she was carrying on the grass next to Will. It clanked concerningly as it landed, like it was full of jars or bottles or something. Now she sat down. “Rude.” Will and Olivia looked at each other. Lou Ellen looked at both of them expectantly. “Well, you’d better continue!”

“Can you make me a love potion so I can get Shane to ask me to fireworks?” Olivia asked.

“Nope,” said Lou Ellen. “That would be wrong. Just ask him yourself.”

“Is that allowed?” Olivia looked astonished. “Okay, maybe I will.”

“What’s in the bag, Lou?” Will asked, changing the subject before this conversation could turn to him.

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty golden head about, William.” Lou Ellen ruffled his hair. “Just making plans for capture the flag.”

“Wait, no,” said Will, horror dawning, “don’t tell me Leo and Clarisse got to you first.” Lou Ellen smiled sweetly. “Oh, we’re so screwed.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” she agreed.

“Hey, you’ve got your terrifying sisters, and Jason’s lightning powers,” Olivia pointed out. It was nice of her to try. “And Annabeth’s whole cabin. You could outfox us yet.”

She wasn’t totally wrong—Annabeth might be kind of out of commission, but Malcolm was a good lieutenant, and even if he wasn’t the best strategist for working with Greek demigods it was true that they’d never played capture the flag with Jason in the mix before. No one could say how his powers might change the balance. Will’s siblings who were better at combat than him were experienced war veterans now, and Sophie had arrived to retake her rightful place as flying charioteer. And some of the Demeter kids were pretty good sword fighters—Miranda beat Sherman in practice almost as often as he beat her.

“Um, are you okay?” Will asked Lou Ellen, later, when they had followed Olivia into the arena to watch their friends spar. Down on the sand, Miranda had just flipped her boyfriend onto his back with her sword point at his throat, and up here in the stands Lou had dropped the bottle of potion she was mixing up. Apparently that was what had been in the bag—Will was now about ninety percent sure they were going to be dealing with some kind of magic molotov cocktails tomorrow night.

Whatever this potion was supposed to be, he supposed he should count himself lucky it wasn’t done yet. Instead of causing any kind of magical explosion or curse, all it did was cover Will’s jeans in green goo that smelled kind of like sulfur. Lou Ellen was cursing, apologizing, and trying to clean up the goo and mend the broken glass with magic; Will was just amused, looking at how hard she was blushing.

“I’m fine!” she hissed. “Just—sweet gods of Olympus, why do they have to do stuff like that?” Down on the sand, Miranda had given Sherman a hand up, and now they were kissing. “I don’t even know which of them I’m more jealous of anymore!” Will doubled over laughing. Lou Ellen hit him in the shin. “Shut up!”

“What is this stuff, anyway?” Will asked, figuring that would distract her back into a better mood faster than anything else. He was exactly right: Lou Ellen grinned up at him wickedly.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Chapter Text

Capture the flag went exactly as badly as Will had expected. Maybe even a little worse; everyone, Will included, had been so amped up about Jason being in the game they’d forgotten to really account for Leo. Specifically, Leo in combination with the Stolls, Lou Ellen, and—Sherman, to Will’s disappointment if not entirely surprise, was very enthusiastic about having the chance to firebomb the blue team.

“Dude, seriously?” Will yelled from the tree he’d scrambled up to get away from the flames rippling across the grass. It maybe hadn’t been the best move, tactically speaking, since now the fire was licking at the foot of the trunk below him. “You’re gonna burn the woods down!” He really should’ve seen this coming, he thought—Lou Ellen’s gooey, sulfury project had been green. Of course it was some new recipe for Greek fire. Of course.

“Yeah, so? You guys almost burned our cabin down with firebombs last year!” Sherman yelled back from the tree a few yards away where he’d been lying in wait to drop the jar when Will ran by.

“Oh, come on! We settled that ages ago!” And nobody from the Ares cabin had any right to talk shit about the chariot thing after Manhattan, but Will was a little too busy trying not to fall out of the tree and into the sea of flames on the forest floor to get any madder about that right now.

“Whatever! You can’t deny it looks really cool!”

“Yes!” Will yelled. “I definitely can!” Sherman flipped him off.

“Don’t rain on my parade, Solace!” Right then, as if he’d just jinxed himself, a massive thunderclap shook the air around them and the sky started dumping rain. It drenched the fire instantly… and Will, Sherman, and everyone and everything else for twenty yards around.

Usually water alone wouldn’t be enough to put out Greek fire, but then Will wasn’t entirely sure this was ordinary Greek fire—it was burning more yellow than green, and didn’t seem to be quite as explosive. And this was clearly no normal rain. It almost never rained at Camp Half-Blood anyway, and definitely not just like that.

“Clarisse!” Will heard Leo wail from somewhere nearby. “I thought you had him!” Then someone chuckled very close to his ear, startling him so much he almost fell out of the tree.

“Hey.” Will wiped his dripping hair out of his eyes so he could more clearly see Jason. The son of Jupiter was floating in the air next to his branch. “How’d you get away from Clarisse?”

“Piper talked her into it,” Jason told him. “I don’t know why they didn’t account for charmspeak, but it didn’t take much.”

“Huh. Okay.” Charmspeak made Will a little uncomfortable, maybe mostly because until Piper arrived the only times he’d seen it had been Drew bending people to her will for selfish reasons. But Piper seemed—generally—to have better intentions than Drew, and he had to admit it was good to have Jason back in the game if the other team’s plan was, apparently, to light the woods on fire.

“Dude, he can fly?” Sherman was yelling from the other tree. “No one fucking told me he could fly!” Jason just grinned. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started.

“Need a ride down?” he asked Will, holding out an arm. Okay—maybe Will did kind of get the whole Jason Grace appeal. Just a little bit.

“Uh—sure. Thanks.” He wrapped his arms around Jason’s neck, prayed nothing embarrassing was about to happen, and let go of the branch. It took just seconds for Jason to float them down.

“There you go,” Jason said as Will let go and dropped the last few feet to the ground. The soles of his sneakers squished in the wet ash.

“Thanks,” he said again. Somewhere overhead, Sherman wolf-whistled. Will felt his face go bright red. Jason just rolled his eyes.

“No problem,” he said, giving Will an even, reassuring smile. “What do you think we should do about him?” He jerked his thumb up towards Sherman’s tree.

“I can shoot him down!” Kayla offered from a branch right overhead. Will jumped—he hadn’t even noticed she was up there.

“Do you have rubber-tips?” he asked, craning his neck up to look at his sister. Kayla shook her head.

“No, but I can do one better.” The arrow was loosed before Will could even blink. An instant later Sherman shrieked and came tumbling out of his tree—struggling, wrapped in a net. It tangled in the branches enough that he didn’t fall all the way to the ground, but wound up suspended in midair about twenty feet up.

“Okay, that was genius,” said Jason. He stretched his hand above his head for a high-five from Kayla. Will walked over to stand under Sherman in his net, slowly rotating overhead while he struggled ineffectually to right himself. He glared down at Will. Will grinned back.

“Man, where’s R2-D2 when you need him?” he asked. Sherman groaned.

“Don’t bring Star Wars into this!”

“He can’t help it!” Kayla called from her tree. Will rolled his eyes. As Sherman struggled, another glass jar came loose from his belt and fell through a hole in the net—“Will!” Kayla shrieked, and an arrow whizzed through the air not far above his head. Will ducked, covering his head as a low boom shook the woods and a blast of hot air singed his fingers and hair. There was another scream. Then something heavy and damp landed half on top of him, knocking him to the ground.

Will’s head spun. Some of the ashy mud had gotten in his mouth; the taste made him retch as he squirmed, trying to get out from under whatever was pressing him down into it. Winded from slamming into the forest floor, it took a couple seconds before he realized the injuries he was feeling weren’t his own, and a couple more before he could piece together what must have happened. Kayla’s arrow had detonated the firebomb in midair before it could land on Will—his sister had probably saved his life—but the blast had caught Sherman, who couldn’t move out of the way. It had burned away the net, and now—

“Ow,” Sherman said hoarsely as Will squirmed out from under his legs and sat up to examine him. Fortunately, if uncharacteristically, he hadn’t broken anything in the landing, just bruised a couple ribs. That he’d had Will to break his fall had probably helped. The damage from the blast wasn’t too bad, either—the right sleeve of his t-shirt was charred, exposing some blistering skin, and his wet leather armor was still smoldering a little. The burns stung, Will knew, but they weren’t serious. A little burn ointment would probably heal them before the game was even over.

“I’m so sorry, Sherman!” Kayla said. She’d run over to stand near them, hands pressed over her mouth. Sherman shook his head.

“’S fine. Sorry about the bomb, I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He looked up at Will. “I’m not gonna die again or anything, right?”

“Yeah, you’re okay,” Will assured him. “It’s not nearly as bad as it could have been.”

“Yeah. That Greek fire’s kind of watered down, no pun intended.” Sherman sighed. “So much for that plan, though. That was my last jar.”

“Was the plan to set the woods on fire so only Leo could get through to our flag?” Jason asked, standing over them with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Basically,” Sherman admitted. “Lou Ellen tweaked the recipe or did something magical or something so it wouldn’t actually burn the trees. Something about already having too many dryads pissed at her. The plan only worked if Clarisse and Dana kept you locked down, though, so you fucked that up,” he said to Jason, who just smiled. “Not that you guys are home free just cause our main offense plan’s shot, though, we’ve still got backups—and a couple layers of defense.”

Right on cue, someone screamed, “Medic!” from somewhere else in the woods. Then they specified: “Will! Will, help!” Will sighed.

“I suppose that’ll be the defense?”

“Probably.” Sherman grinned kind of sheepishly.

“Fantastic.” Will rummaged in his bag for a jar of burn ointment and pressed it into a startled Kayla’s hands. “Get his armor off him and rub this on the burns. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” She nodded. Will took his red cross armband out of his bag’s front pocket. Before he put it on, he looked up and said to Kayla, “once the ointment’s on, you should take him to Annabeth at blue base camp as a prisoner. I mean, get Jason to help you so he can’t just overpower you and get away, but make sure she knows you captured him. That’s your victory.”

“Hey!” Sherman protested as Kayla grinned proudly. “You can’t be blue team right now! If you’re on medic duty, you’re supposed to be impartial!”

“Yeah,” said Will, tying the armband around his left bicep and getting to his feet, “and now I’m on impartial medic duty.”

“Ugh.” Sherman let his head fall back in the mud. “Whatever. I surrender.”

“Good. By the way, what did you mean, die again?” Will heard Jason ask as he ran off into the woods.

The woods got kind of murky around twilight, but since tomorrow was the solstice it was still light out even this late in the evening, and pretty easy to see what was going on. Will wasn’t the only one who’d scrambled up a tree to avoid the flames—members of both teams dotted the branches overhead as he ran as fast as he dared on the muddy forest floor. Miranda and his siblings all waved. Mostly the red team kids caught sight of the armband before they tried shooting at Will or throwing stuff, but apparently Vinnie wasn’t paying close attention when he dropped what was thankfully just a stun grenade. Will realized in time to clap his hands over his ears and duck out of the way.

“Hey!” he yelled when it seemed safe to uncover his ears, holding up his arm to show the red cross. “I’m on medic duty right now!”

“Sorry!” Vinnie yelled back. “I thought you were Malcolm!”

“Screw you!” Malcolm’s voice echoed from a tree nearby. Will shook his head, pulled himself up, and kept moving.

Cabin Seven had another new kid since the older campers had arrived, a thirteen-year-old named Logan who was, thankfully, another good healer—but a decent archer too, unlike Will or Hannah. Will caught sight of him perched in a tree with Austin, locked in a firefight with Dana. She was having a much harder time aiming than they were, since they had the camouflage of the tree; hearing Logan giggle at one of her more colorful curses, Will wondered how many of those he’d be hearing around the cabin now.

Some of his teammates hadn’t been as lucky, or maybe just as fast, as Austin and Logan and the others. Katie was curled up under a tree, her face twisted in pain while Hannah, who had also put her armband on, rubbed burn ointment on her legs. Her little sister Eliza sat nearby with her feet already bandaged. Will saw a lot of injuries as he made his way, ranging from easy fixes to potentially life-threatening. Where they hadn’t set the ground on fire, the red team had laid bear traps in a perimeter in the underbrush that had nearly taken a couple blue team members’ feet off, and on the red team there were a decent number of Ares and Hermes kids nursing wounds too. Izzy was helping Ashlyn get an arrow shaft out of her thigh that one of their siblings had undoubtedly put there.

Will thought about stopping to help in places, but the one time he did—Mitchell’s foot actually had been fully severed from his leg—Sophie waved him off.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” she told him. “Somebody’s calling for you specifically, you’d better go.”

Red team had claimed Zeus’ Fist as their central point, and that was where the voice led Will. Stumbling into the clearing, his heart sank a little when he realized who it was that was calling for help.

It was a very weird tableau, lit by a ring of torches burning with the same yellow-green Greek fire as the red team had used on the woods. In the center, the red flag was draped over the pile of rocks. Cecil and Andy from the Hermes cabin were both collapsed on the ground, unconscious but with wide smiles on their faces like they had swooned from happiness. They probably had—Drew stood over them, in front of the flag, clutching her right arm in her left hand. Lou Ellen was sitting cross-legged on top of Zeus’ Fist, still conscious and looking very pleased with herself.

Will’s stomach dropped like he’d missed a stair as he realized that where Drew’s right wrist should have been, instead there was a smooth stump. Her detached hand was gripping the flag—it looked like it was stuck to it.

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed when she saw him. “You’re here. This witch took my hand!” It didn’t sound like witch was the word she actually meant, but to be fair, Lou Ellen’s laughter in response could only really be described as a cackle.

“Gods’ sake, Lou,” Will said. His friend shrugged.

“It’s a good spell!” she said cheerfully. “I don’t know what she thought calling you in would do, though, it’s not an injury. There’s nothing you can do to fix it.”

“You really think you’re something special, don’t you, hon?” Drew sneered. “It’s cute how you delude yourself. Anyone can learn magic. I’d probably know enough to undo this dumb spell myself by now if I wasn’t busy having a life.”

“Yeah, right.” Lou Ellen rolled her eyes, but Will could see her bravado wavering. He’d never quite been on the receiving end of one of Drew’s withering monologues, not directly, but he couldn’t imagine it felt good.

“Hey, lay off,” he said. “Drew, is there something I can actually do to help here?”

“Sure,” said Drew. “Gods only know why, but she’s your friend. And you may be a medic, but you’re on my team. Take that stupid armband off and tell her to give me my hand back.” Will sighed.

“There’s a lot of people on our team who actually need to be healed,” he said, “so I think I’m gonna take my stupid armband back into the woods and—”

“Oh, sure.” Drew cut him off with an airy wave of her hand. “Of course, Will. I get it. Is that how you’ve survived this long, hon? By running from fights while all your siblings died?” Okay, so, apparently this was how it felt.

Will didn’t care what Drew thought of him, he reminded himself, through hot tears rising unexpectedly at the back of his eyes. Drew was never right about literally anything, ever—he’d said that himself! And Renee had said fuck her—and then Renee had died, because Will couldn’t save her. Just like all his other siblings.

“Hey!” Now Lou Ellen hopped down from the rocks to get in Drew’s face before Will could collect himself enough to even think about reacting. “Don’t listen to her, Will. What’s wrong with you?” she asked Drew. “Must be a lot, if you have to make everyone else feel like shit for you to feel good about yourself in comparison.”

“Yeah,” Will finally managed to say. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar?” Drew rolled her eyes.

“Oh, sweetie. Better vinegar than cliches.” She pursed her lips. “But I can show you honey.” She turned back to Lou Ellen, focused on her, and said, “Now, you should really undo the spell and give me back my hand.”

“Wait,” said Will, as Lou Ellen’s eyes widened and his stomach turned, “hang on, no—” He’d never been on the receiving end of charmspeak, either, though thankfully—

“No,” Lou Ellen managed to say. “No. It’s not going to work, Drew. I’m not going to do that.” Drew cocked her head to one side.

“But sweetheart,” she said, “don’t you want to?” Will could sort of hear her put more into it, somehow, her voice dripping with sweetness and fake sincerity. At least, from here he could tell it was fake. Standing right in front of her…

“Well—n—yeah. I guess I do,” Lou Ellen said uncertainly. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Drew.” She snapped her fingers, and like that Drew’s hand was back to its usual place. Drew flexed it, smiling.

“Fantastic, hon,” she said, back to her normal voice. “You did the right thing.” Lou Ellen blinked.

“Hey, wait a second!” she protested. But it was too late. Drew had grabbed the flag and taken off. “Fuck!” Lou Ellen looked like she was the closest to crying that Will had seen her in a couple years. He wasn’t much better off.

Fortunately—or not fortunately, since Will was technically on her team, but right now he was so mad he didn’t really care—Drew didn’t get far. At the edge of the clearing she ran headfirst into Clarisse, who was carrying Lacy over her shoulder and accompanied by Chris and Ashlyn, limping a little but thankfully arrow-free. Drew fell to the ground; Clarisse looked down at her, unimpressed, while Drew’s little sister kicked and pounded her fists on her back uselessly.

“What the hell happened?” Clarisse asked Lou Ellen, whose fists clenched at her sides.

“She charmspoke me,” she said miserably. Clarisse nodded ruefully, setting Lacy down.

“Yeah, I got a dose of that too. Not fun, huh?” Lou Ellen shook her head, blinking hard. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” said Clarisse, “cause we’re going to win in about twenty seconds.”

“Wait, what?” said Will.

Clarisse stepped aside, jerking her thumb back into the gloom just in time for Connor and Leo and—Sherman? Gods damn it, how had he gotten away?—to come barreling through the trees together. They were all covered nearly head to toe in mud, trailing the blue team flag behind them, and whooping at the top of their lungs. The whole red team swarmed the clearing around Zeus’ Fist, cheering, with the members of the blue team who could still run yelling curses on their heels.

“Congratulations,” Will said to Lou Ellen, raising his voice to be heard over the cacophony. “You won.”

“Yeah,” she said bitterly, “no thanks to me.” Will squeezed her shoulder.

“Do you want a hug?” he asked. Lou Ellen sort of smiled—it came out more like a grimace.

“Sure.” When he held out his arms, his friend stepped into them. That was nice for about five seconds. Then Olivia barreled into them, covered in blood and soot and yelling something that sounded like a garbled VICTORY! Will and Lou Ellen both stumbled, barely managing to stay upright.

“Wait,” Olivia said, pulling away and holding Will at arm’s length, frowning up at him. “You’re not on our team! You don’t get a victory hug. VICTORY!” she yelled again, shoving Will away and pulling Lou Ellen back into a hug, jumping up and down. Lou Ellen laughed, finally, and Will, figuring his own work here was done, stepped away to start triaging injuries—all the work he would have to do next.

Just like the winter solstice, the summer solstice passed without any sign of anything from Olympus. Will spent it in the infirmary. He and his siblings had gotten a lot done on the ground during and after capture the flag, but as always, it wasn’t enough. Even as capture the flag games went around here, this had been a very violent iteration.

The way Sherman had broken free, it turned out, had involved slamming Jason into a tree, knocking him out, stealing his gladius, and doing a lot of stabbing people’s legs at the blue base camp. That was how Leo and Connor had gotten the flag—Sherman (and Olivia, who’d gotten in plenty of stabbing of her own) had provided the distraction while they ran through and snatched it. Will was just glad Kayla had been back in the trees by then. And Mitchell wasn’t the only kid with a reattached limb from the bear traps that needed observation, and neither Sherman’s arm nor Katie’s feet were the worst burns caused by the red team’s forest fire stunt. A lot of people whose cabins had been on blue team were very unhappy, Will among them.

No one was as willing to go to extremes about it as Katie, though: “I think we should ban Greek fire from capture the flag,” she said at the first council meeting of summer proper, though everyone was really thinking of it as the last council meeting before the Argo II and its four heroes left.

“Hell no!” said Clarisse, the loudest voice in a general wave of angry exclamations.

“Really, Clarisse? You don’t want to ban charmspeak after the stunts Piper and Drew pulled?” Katie shot back. Next to Will, Lou Ellen shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but she didn’t speak up.

“No!” Clarisse actually sat all the way up in her chair, boots off the table and everything. “If there’s a chance we could run into something in a real fight, it stays in capture the flag. What’s the point otherwise?” Annabeth nodded. So did Jason.

“To have fun?” Katie suggested.

“I don’t know, Katie,” Travis said smugly, “I thought this round was plenty fun.” No one could say he’d gotten out unscathed, either—he was still recovering from multiple arrow wounds. No one would actually own up to shooting him directly in the buttock, but Will was fairly certain that had been Sophie’s doing, mainly because whenever anyone brought it up she started giggling uncontrollably. Though there could have been some other reason—maybe the Aphrodite girls were right, and Travis had gotten hotter since last summer, and Will just hadn’t noticed since he’d been here through the whole process?

Anyway, Travis and Katie were bickering now. Everyone else looked like they were doing their best to tune it out. Clarisse was holding her head in her hands. Connor dropped his to the table with a groan. From the way the older counselors talked, this had been a regular feature of summer council meetings for a long time.

“Guys, come on,” said Jason, finally breaking through. “Clarisse is right. If capture the flag is the Greek counterpart to Roman war games—a training tool—it won’t be as effective of one if you start removing dangerous elements out of spite.”

“Yep, that’s pretty much exactly what I already said, Grace,” Clarisse said, looking up—calmly, but there was a warning in her voice. “You got any actual thoughts of your own?” Jason visibly swallowed, eyes widening.

“Um—I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, of course. Like I said. They just weren’t listening to you, so I thought—”

“We’d listen to you?” said Katie. “Why would we? For all we know you could still be a Roman spy.”

“Hey!” Piper and Leo both jumped out of their chairs to their feet, while Jason sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest, his expression, well, stormy. Will might have expected Annabeth to join his defense, after all the time she and Jason had spent together planning their upcoming journey—but instead she just glanced at the son of Jupiter, raised her eyebrows, and said nothing.

“You haven’t been here all year, Katie,” Travis pointed out. “The rest of us know Jason by now. He’s a good dude. We trust him.” Most of the other counselors nodded, Will included, though still not Annabeth.

“Oh, like you’re in any position to be judging people’s character,” Katie snapped. She and Travis glared at each other so furiously Will almost expected one of them to explode.

“Let’s move on,” Chiron said from his wheelchair. “The rules of capture the flag will stay the same: all weapons are allowed, including your individual powers and magical abilities, so long as you do not intentionally use them lethally against your friends.”

“Fine,” said Katie, and sulked for the rest of the meeting as everyone else moved on to discussing progress on the Argo II. Yesterday had been Cabin Nine’s unofficial deadline, but evidently they weren’t quite done—the time it had taken for Jake’s quest had set them back a week, and now, running systems tests on the boat, Leo kept finding bugs he needed to fix.

“Probably just one more day,” he kept saying. Will knew Jake and Nyssa thought he was just being a perfectionist (though Jake had some more choice language), but no one was inclined to argue with him. Especially when Annabeth was in the same mode of freaking out about every tiny detail of the boat, and the plan, and contingencies, and Piper trusted Leo and Annabeth’s judgment. Jason was a pretty stoic guy—but somehow he couldn’t seem to get a handle on his more anxious (manic, was one word Jake used) crewmates.

They finally left on the morning of the 24th. Annabeth, Jason, and Piper got their stuff together while Leo and the rest of Cabin Nine ran the final final checks. The whole camp gathered in Bunker Nine to watch the boat get christened with what Travis had promised Chiron was not real champagne (it definitely was), then Leo, Annabeth, Jason, and Piper got on board, Gleeson Hedge kissed his cloud nymph wife Mellie goodbye and got a back-pounding hug from Clarisse, and everyone else ran back out of the woods to watch from Half-Blood Hill as the flying ship rose out of the bunker.

It was magnificent. Even though most every camper had seen it up close at some stage in the construction process, the boat was so big that standing onboard or right beneath it didn’t give much of a sense of what it actually looked like. Two hundred feet of celestial bronze plating gleamed in the summer sunshine, beautiful and fearsome with the billowing white sail and bronze dragon figurehead.

As the trireme flew over, three rows of oars secured by Jake’s mechanized oarlocks whirring through the air, there was a noise like a couple dozen firecrackers all popping off in sequence. The campers on the ground shifted uncertainly for a split second, probably all thinking the same thing Will thought—was that supposed to happen?—but then first the Stolls, then everyone else, realized what was happening and erupted in cheers. Confetti and colorful streamers rained down from ports in the side of the Argo II, just like it really was an old-timey ship leaving port.

“Bye!” they could just barely hear Leo yelling from the sky, jumping up and down and waving manically from the upper deck. Piper and Jason were a little more subdued, but they’d come to the railing to wave goodbye too. Hedge blew kisses to Mellie. Annabeth was nowhere to be seen. “Hold down the fort for me!” Leo yelled. Jake, who had emerged from the woods with Nyssa and Shane close behind, cupped his hands over his mouth.

“Don’t die!” he bellowed back. Leo gave him two thumbs up.

“You got it, boss!” he called. His voice faded out quickly as the ship picked up speed and sailed off over the trees.

Most campers dispersed after that, but a few of them hung around until the Argo II wasn’t even a speck on the horizon anymore: Cabin Nine, Clarisse and Chris, Sherman and Miranda, Will, Malcolm, Mitchell and Lacy. Nyssa had an arm around her sister Maddie, who was sobbing and rubbing at her eyes furiously. She seemed to be mad that she was crying at all, which of course only made her cry harder.

“Wow,” Jake said. “We’re done.” He sounded exhausted. Miranda reached up to rub his shoulder affectionately, and even his smile looked tired.

“Damn,” said Shane. “Now what do we do all summer?” Everyone looked at each other.

“Try to have as normal of one as possible, I guess.” Sherman shrugged.

“While we wait for the world to end,” Malcolm said. He looked almost as wiped as the Cabin Nine kids, and his words put a damper on everyone’s mood. While they’d been building the boat, it had been sort of easy to focus on the project, and forget what it was actually for. Now there was no great goal standing between them and the giants anymore.

Malcolm was right, Will thought as they all finally headed back down to camp—they were all living on borrowed time. Beating Kronos had more than decimated them. When the time came, how would they possibly be able to hold off the literal earth?

For almost a whole week after the Argo II left, it was a pleasantly normal summer. More schools got out, and more kids arrived. All nine children of Apollo who’d made it out of Manhattan one way or another were back now—were home now, Will kept catching himself thinking, though he knew probably none of the rest of them would see it that way as much as he did. Mandy and Logan were fitting in. So was the third new kid who got claimed a few days later, a quiet twelve-year-old named Zahra. She’d been in Cabin Eleven for a week, and like most such kids seemed relieved to move somewhere quieter.

“Is it okay if I have my cello in the cabin?” she asked Will when he was walking her and her stuff over. “It’s been in the Big House cause Chiron said that would be safer than taking it to Cabin Eleven, and, well… I miss it.”

“Of course! We’ve got a place for musical instruments and everything,” Will explained, leading her up the porch stairs. “I’ll show you.”

Zahra’s dark eyes widened at the sight of all the instruments in the back corner. Will explained about the piano, the campfire lyres, Austin’s saxophone, and Lee’s old guitar that Renee had decided they all collectively inherited after he died. Will had given Leah’s violin and Xavier’s flute to Chiron after Manhattan so he could return them to their mothers, but Jasper’s mom had said they could hang onto his clarinet. There were a dozen other stringed instruments and woodwinds of various ages in the crawlspace, some in better shape than others—Will kind of assumed those had come to be in the cabin the same morbid way, but they’d all been here since well before his time, so he didn’t know much about their stories.

Now Zahra’s cello joined the mix, and Austin, Hannah, and Sophie started teaching her the campfire repertoire. Will had noticed Austin picking out campfire songs on the piano all through the school year, but he’d figured that was just like Sophie sounding out pop songs during the summer—he hadn’t realized his brother was actually working on arranging them. Now he had fully-notated sheet music for some of the songs that hadn’t been written down before, just passed on by ear when Renee and Jasper taught them to him, or when Lee had taught them to Hannah before.

It was something Will had thought about sometimes, how losing their most musically-skilled older siblings, who’d been at camp the longest, could have brought them dangerously close to losing some of the songs entirely. It was just another problem Will didn’t have the skills to fix. But Austin did.

The cello was as welcome an addition to campfire songs as Zahra was to the cabin. It added something very warm and cozy, Will thought, sitting under the darkening sky with one half of his cabin as the other half led the camp through “Old King Midas Had A Farm”.

“No offense to anyone, but this is one of the dumber ones,” Corin whispered to the other older kids. He wasn’t wrong, but...

“That’s kind of the point,” Will whispered back. It was just Old MacDonald but with ‘gold’ in front of all the animals, and then instead of saying animal noises everyone went silent. On the first verse it made the younger kids giggle. By the last verse most people could barely sing because they were laughing too hard. If the campfire wasn’t blazing a happy red before they sang it, it always was when they were done.

It already had been, though. Spirits were high. It was the week before fireworks, so of course everyone at camp was losing their minds with nerves and gossip about who would ask who, and who would go together. Will supposed it was always this way, but it really felt like it kept getting worse every year—probably just because he was getting older, so more and more of his friends were getting to be the age where fireworks became a dating event.

Assuming they were all still here to watch the fireworks, anyway. Not even six days after the Argo II’s departure, Will found himself summoned to the Big House again for his very first war council. Unfortunately, it wasn’t about the giants.

“I’m sorry, what?” Katie said. “There’s a what camp from where on their way to do what, exactly?”

“Romans! From California! Did Miranda not fill you in?” Connor said, uncharacteristically snappish.

“Oh, no, she did,” Katie said, “it’s just so unbelievable!”

“She’s not wrong,” Jake said from the side of Will that wasn’t Lou Ellen’s seat. “It’s a lot to take in. Us year-rounders are just used to it by now, but remember how hard it was to believe back in December?” He was filling in for Leo again, temporarily, while the prophecy kids were away—and Drew had taken over for Piper. Will wasn’t sure she was going to be so willing to have it be temporary. Especially since, last he’d heard, Piper’s plan had been for her brother Henry to fill in, not Drew—which kind of made everyone think she was charmspeaking her cabin again. No one was sure what they could do about it, though.

“Unfortunately, it is all too believable to me,” Chiron said grimly. He seemed very old, suddenly. “Since the time of Aeneas, conflict between the Greek and Roman demigods has come and gone in cycles. I fear we are approaching the height of another. Now that Leo has fired the first shots—”

“Hey, he didn’t mean to!” Jake said, as Clarisse started to protest too. Chiron held up a hand for quiet.

“No, judging from what Annabeth said about the eidolons, it was not Leo’s fault. But they cannot prove this to the Romans. All the leaders of Camp Jupiter know for certain is that a Greek warship entered their camp and fired on it. To the Romans, that is a grievance that must be corrected.”

“Sounds like this Reyna chick can be reasoned with, though,” Clarisse said.

“Jason always spoke highly of her, too,” Rachel pointed out. She had come to stay at camp full time as soon as her fancy prep school got out, just like any demigod; even if the power of prophecy was hazy at best right now, Will was glad to have her around. “She sounds honorable. But I don’t like the sound of this augur, Octavian.”

“Me neither,” Will grumbled. “Sounds like he’s giving Apollo a bad name.” He and Rachel exchanged a commiserating look.

“Shot through the heart,” Lou Ellen sang under her breath, “and he’s to blame—ow.” Will had kicked her.

“They said he’s just a descendant of Apollo, right? A ‘legacy’?” Connor asked. “Does that mean he’s, like, your nephew, Will? Or your great nephew, or something?”

“More like his not-so-great nephew,” Travis said, to a high-five from his brother. Will rolled his eyes.

“Annabeth said she asked Reyna to try to stall him,” Malcolm said, gray eyes pensive. “Even if she does, how long do you think that will work, Chiron? Based on your knowledge of the Romans.”

“It is difficult to say,” Chiron said. “Much will depend on the Praetor herself. But Malcolm is right that we are unlikely to face an immediate assault,” he added to the council at large. “The full Twelfth Legion numbers two hundred and fifty—” a few jaws dropped around the ping-pong table; even with their numbers swelling since Kronos’ fall, there were still only about a hundred campers—“It will take time for their Praetor to coordinate the arrival of their full forces. Piper observed only three vehicles in her vision from Katoptris—for now, we outnumber them.”

“Then let’s meet them halfway and take them out when they get to New York,” Clarisse said. “We defended Manhattan before, we can do it again.”

“Some of us did,” Connor muttered. Clarisse glared at him. He winced. “Okay, sorry. We all did.”

“Say, ‘thank you for killing the drakon, Clarisse’,” Travis told his younger brother, mockingly stern.

“Thank you for killing the drakon, Clarisse,” Connor repeated in a monotone. Clarisse rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. Point is, we could set up in the city again, be ready for them when they get here. What’s stopping us?”

“Um, I’m not on board to march my cabin back into Manhattan for another massacre,” Will said.

“Oh, come on!” Clarisse snapped, turning on him now, but she deflated as he raised his eyebrows and stared her down pointedly. “It wouldn’t be a massacre, Will. Not like last year. Three transport vehicles—that can’t be more than thirty warriors, maybe forty, forty-five. We’ve got them beat at least two to one. Three to one, including the satyrs and nature spirits.”

“But we aren’t all warriors,” Drew said. “Some of us would rather run from fights. Will knows that better than anyone, don’t you, Will?”

“Drew, what the hell is it with y—?” Will started to say—but Jake set a heavy Hephaestus-kid hand on his shoulder, keeping him in his chair and quieting him. Drew’s eyes glittered as she gave him a sickly-sweet smile. She must be so pleased with herself, Will realized to his horror—she knew she’d found a sore spot. Now she’d press on it whenever she wanted to push him around, for whatever reason. It was what she did with everyone. And he knew it, so hopefully he could keep his cool and shrug it off, but it was still going to suck.

“Even if they’ve got as many as fifty in New York, that means there are still two hundred out west,” Jake pointed out. Malcolm nodded.

“A preemptive strike—well, another preemptive strike, on purpose this time—would be a bad move,” he agreed. “Drew has a point—not about Will, Will’s smarter than half the rest of you combined—”

“Uh, thanks?” said Will, feeling his face go a little red as everyone looked at him this time. Connor wiggled his eyebrows at him suggestively. Will rolled his eyes—Malcolm had never said anything like that to him before, and he doubted it meant anything like what Connor seemed to be implying.

“—but we aren’t all great fighters,” Malcolm continued, oblivious, “and our forces—our demigods, at least—skew young and inexperienced right now, probably younger than theirs, since a lot of our oldest leaders and strongest warriors died last summer. And the rest are sailing to Europe. Present company excluded, of course,” he added, inclining his head toward Clarisse, Katie, and Travis. Clarisse grunted. “Sure, we would probably be able to defeat the Roman vanguard,” Malcolm went on, “but depending on how good they are, we would take casualties ourselves. Our forces would be strained and our resources depleted. Especially, speaking of Will, our healers. Then, when the other two hundred Romans got here, extra mad now cause we killed their leaders—” he slammed his hands down on the ping-pong table with enough force it buckled a little, startling everyone so much they jumped. “Bye-bye, Camp Half-Blood.” Finally Malcolm seemed to realize everyone was staring at him. He blushed. “I mean. Probably.”

“Okay, doomsayer,” Clarisse said, recovering fastest. “And how the hell is waiting for them to attack us first going to go any better?”

“I’m not saying we’ll win either way.” Malcolm shrugged. “We might not. But I personally would rather fight two hundred fifty Romans at full strength, with as much training and preparation as we can get in between now and whenever they do attack, than two hundred after a Pyrrhic victory. Just mathematically speaking.” Around the table, everyone else nodded.

“Okay.” Clarisse looked down at the knife scar in the ping-pong table, frowning, but when she spoke again, she was calm. “Point taken, Pace. You’re doing Annabeth proud.” Now Malcolm blushed even harder.

“So, we need to ramp up training again,” Travis said resignedly.

“And make preparations,” said Lou Ellen. She had a thoughtful look on her face that Will thought should make the Romans very nervous, if the firebombs from capture the flag were anything to go by.

“We should probably reinstate night patrols,” said Malcolm, and everyone groaned—night patrols had been a lot of campers’ least favorite part of the Titan War. Sure, it meant a reprieve from the harpies, but it still sucked.

“Should we still do Fourth of July fireworks?” Jake asked. The defeated tone Will remembered from last fall was already creeping back into his voice. “Seems like maybe there are better uses of my cabin’s time and resources.” Not just defeated—he sounded disappointed, actually. Will hadn’t known he cared about the fireworks so much.

“Nah,” said Travis, “we didn’t cancel fireworks last year. Besides, it’s good for morale.”

“For once, I agree with Travis,” Katie said. “The fireworks show must go on.”

“Okay,” said Logan, leaning against one of the armchairs at the center of the cabin where Will had called them all to a meeting, “let me get this straight. Our parents are Greek gods, but there’s a whole other camp of demigods whose parents are Roman gods, we somehow have a historic rivalry even though no one’s ever heard of them before, and now they’re coming to New York to…”

“‘Raze our camp and salt the earth’,” Corin quoted unhelpfully from the big couch, where he was sprawled across two thirds of it. Suddenly Will really regretted telling the other older kids the exact words Annabeth had relayed from the Praetor. Zahra’s eyes were very wide, and Mandy was clinging tightly to Hannah. “Yep.” Izzy, on the remaining third of the couch, smacked his leg. “Ow! What?”

“Oh my gods,” said Kayla, perched on the back of the big couch behind them, “it’s just like in Cry of the Icemark.”

“—What?” Will said as everyone blinked at her, confused.

“It’s a book! I read it last fall, remember? There’s this kingdom, and the queen’s an archer, and they fight fake Romans—”

“Yeah, but Kayla,” Austin said, “These are real Romans.”

“They’re not real Romans,” Sophie corrected, “they’re Americans.”

“So are we, but I guess we’re sort of Greeks too,” Izzy said.

“Hey, I’m not American,” said Corin, who was from Quebec. He and Kayla high-fived in some kind of Canadian redhead solidarity.

“It’s all Greek to me,” Gabriel joked.

“Okay, none of this is remotely the point,” said Will. “The point is that the Romans—”

“Americans—”

“Shut up, Soph—are coming, and there are more of them than there are of us, and they have a lot of weapons, and they want to use those weapons to kill us. We may be able to make peace before it comes to that, but… it sounds like probably not,” Will said weakly, wishing there was a better way to give that news. “So, we’re going to start up full-scale war training again.” Reactions from the Manhattan veterans were mixed—Corin and Austin nodded seriously, Izzy looked conflicted, Kayla’s eyes lit up, and Gabriel just groaned.

“Does that mean Michael’s Mandatory Morning Runs are back?” he asked.

“Who’s Michael?” Logan asked.

“He was our counselor last year,” Gabriel explained. “Great guy, but he made us all run a mile every morning at the ass-crack of dawn. And then he, uh… died.” There was an awkward pause, in which most everyone looked at the floor.

“Oh.” Logan bit his lips, looking a lot more nervous now. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” Sophie said, smiling thinly.

“Well—I think we should bring back morning runs, yeah,” Will said. “Sorry, Gabriel. But they’re really good for conditioning.” Zahra and Hannah both made unhappy faces.

“Does this mean archery drills are back, too?” Kayla asked, practically bouncing up and down. Now Will repressed the urge to groan.

“Those I can get behind,” said Gabriel. “Archery drills last summer ruled.”

“Agreed.” There was a light in Sophie’s eyes that Will couldn’t quite read. Sharp. Excited. Furious. She had been so mad not to get to fight last summer, before and after—she’d never said it out loud, but he’d gotten the sense she felt like if she had been able to go to Manhattan with them, she could have saved Silas. Maybe everyone else, too. Will was kind of glad it had never actually come up, because having been there, he knew better—one more archer wouldn’t have magically solved the equation of hundreds of monsters, thirty brainwashed demigods, and a Titan Lord against a dozen kids on a bridge—but he didn’t want to have that fight with his sister.

“Well, archery isn’t really my department,” he said carefully, “but Sophie, Gabriel, Kayla, if y’all want to run drills like Michael did last year I’ll patch everybody up as needed.”

“Oh, so you get out of it?” Sophie teased. “Sure, Will.”

“Hey, I know my strengths,” Will said, hoping he sounded confident and not like there was a little Drew voice in the back of his mind calling him a coward. “This year, I want our focus to be making sure nobody dies, okay? Nobody at all, ideally, but especially nobody in this room.” Izzy nodded. So did Kayla, finally looking like she was taking this seriously. “That’s the goal, and we’re each gonna put our energy where it’ll be most effective to make sure it happens.”

Meanwhile, preparations for the fireworks continued—and with them, the drama. Of course Sherman and Miranda were going together—that wasn’t really a source of gossip, just a fact—and Lou Ellen’s brother Quentin asked Sophie, to the surprise of both their siblings and possibly also themselves. Olivia managed to squeak out the news that she had worked up the courage to ask Shane, and he had said “sure,” before she hid her face in her hands as Lou Ellen pounced on her in an excited victory hug of her own.

Connor did indeed ask out Maia from the Aphrodite cabin. Olivia watched Will’s face very carefully when she told him that—

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “I don’t care. Good for them.”

“Okay,” Olivia said, still squinting at him suspiciously. “Good.”

Will just shook his head. He definitely wasn’t about to tell her that her own fireworks date, for the second year in a row, made his heart ache even more than Maia’s.

Besides, the most confusing piece of drama didn’t involve Will’s own feelings at all. Just by accident of being friends with the one and brother to the other, he kept finding himself in the middle of weirdly awkward interactions between, of all people, Jake and Izzy. Finally, alone in the infirmary with his sister the day after the war council, he seized his chance to ask—

“Is something going on with you and Jake?”

“Oh, gods.” Izzy lost her grip on the pestle she was working with, sending it clattering against the mortar. “No. He just asked me to fireworks, and I said no, and now it’s awkward.”

“Oh.” Will blinked. “Oh. Yeah, that’s…”

“Awkward?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Will leaned against the counter, looking at her. “Why did you say no?” He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard of someone turning down a fireworks invite before. Surely it had to happen, though, right? He’d just been too young to pay attention.

“I—” Izzy chewed on her lip for a moment, looking uncertain. “I don’t know. I mean, I do know, it’s cause I don’t like him like that—but it’s not like I don’t like him, you know?”

“I really don’t,” said Will. “But, I mean—if you don’t want to go out with someone, then you shouldn’t. Jake’s a good guy, I’m sure he gets that—right?”

“Yeah, of course. He was very… gallant,” Izzy said. “About it. But I still feel kind of bad,” she admitted. “Cause he is a great guy, and I guess he does feel that way, maybe? And… I don’t know, we spent a lot of time together when he was in Santa Fe since Miranda and Sherman were being—you know—” Yes, Will very much did know. “And we talked a lot, so I know he’s had a hard year, and he’s not… not always in a good place,” Izzy said carefully.

Will nodded. He knew about that too—between the accident last fall and when Leo had shown up, Jake had been very depressed. The whole curse rumor had weighed heavy on him, and the going had been slow on getting him fully healed, and he’d just seemed so sad and defeated, so much of the time. So much so that Will had worried about him. A lot. Nyssa and Christopher too.

“And we did talk about how we have a lot of that stuff in common,” Izzy added. That much was news to Will, though then again, when he thought about last summer—was it? “So I guess I don’t know if, like, with any of that—if I made him think I was interested.”

“I don’t think it’d be your fault,” Will said after a moment’s thought. “Cause it’s not like you were ever, like, trying to lead him on, right?”

“No, of course not,” Izzy said a little sharply. Will raised his hands, placating, and she shook her head, shoulders falling. “I just never thought for a second that it would—it never would’ve crossed my mind,” she explained. Will nodded. He got that. Hadn’t he spent half of middle school doing the exact same thing to Olivia? Well, not exact—at least, as far as he knew, Izzy actually liked boys.

She wasn’t going with anyone else, though. Like Sophie, Gabriel had a date, which his sisters had been teasing him about mercilessly all week—Francesca, one of the nicer Aphrodite girls—but Izzy (and Corin, as far as anyone knew) would be hanging out on the cabin blanket with Will and the younger kids.

The biggest gossip of all somehow didn’t reach Will’s ears until July 3rd: “Drew asked Travis and he turned her down,” Lou Ellen told him with evil delight.

“Wait, what?” Will shook his head. “Drew doesn’t even like Travis. Does she?”

“Does Drew actually like anyone?” Lou Ellen pointed out. Will raised his eyebrows. She had a point—even with guys she seemed to be genuinely trying to get with, like Jason last year, Drew still gave the impression she was mostly in it for the attention, and for her reputation as a pretty girl. Like a hot boyfriend would be just another accessory.

“Where’d you hear this?” he asked.

“Uh—from Jenny, who got it from Miranda, who heard it from Sherman, cause Chris told Clarisse and she told her whole cabin,” Lou Ellen recited. “Apparently Drew told Travis he should take her to make Katie jealous, and he said something like—if he was trying to make Katie jealous, why would he want to make her think he had terrible taste?”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Will said. Lou Ellen looked at him like he’d said something weird.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, Travis is kind of a jerk. But she’s said equally awful or worse stuff to just about everybody.” Will included, and recently, but still, he wasn’t sure that meant they should fight fire with fire.

“I guess.” He poked her in the arm. “What about you? Are you going to the fireworks with anybody?”

“No, of course not,” Lou Ellen said, only a little sadly—for all she joked about how hot Sherman and Miranda both were, she was kind of between crushes right now, he knew. “My little siblings need someone to keep an eye on them, you know?”

“Ugh. Don’t try to talk to me about younger siblings,” Will groaned, and Lou Ellen just laughed at him.

The Fourth of July dawned and darkened, still with no sign of the Roman Legion. Will pulled the sunburst mandala blanket out of the Cabin Seven crawlspace to carry down to the beach. Feeling the heavy wool between his fingers, for a second he had to stop and swallow back tears, thinking about last year—Leah and the twins singing at the top of their lungs, Michael complaining, Xavier laughing. A lot of things were different this year.

One thing was a lot better, though. As the first volley of fireworks sparkled red, white, and blue over the Sound, Will watched them reflect in Izzy’s wide eyes. She looked like her feelings were as mixed as his—maybe even more.

“I can’t believe I missed this even once,” she said quietly between booms. Will nodded.

“Glad to have you back,” he whispered. She took his hand and squeezed it for a second before she let go again.

“This is so cool!” On the other side of Izzy, Corin’s eyes were equally wide. “I didn’t know fireworks could do that.”

“Hey,” a familiar voice said near all their ears another round later. Will jumped—he and his other older siblings were sitting at the back of the blanket, letting the younger kids take the front space to sprawl out, but he hadn’t heard Ashlyn creeping up behind them in the sand. “Scoot over, Corin,” she said now. Corin did, and Izzy scooted a little closer to Will’s side so Ashlyn could fit between her two friends.

“Hey, Ash,” said Corin. “Weren’t you with your cabin?”

“Yeah, I was,” said Ashlyn, “but all of ’em worth hanging out with have dates, even Bailey, and I couldn’t deal with Vinnie and Ellis a second longer, so I figured, what other cabins have people worth hanging out with? And y’all’ve got at least three, so.” She grinned.

“Wait,” Will whispered, “who’s the third one?”

“You, dumbass.” Ashlyn reached over Izzy’s head to ruffle his hair. Izzy made a face, Will figured at being reminded how much shorter she was than either of them, and swatted at Ashlyn’s arm. Ashlyn slung it around her neck instead, pulling Izzy into a hug against her side. Izzy hugged back, and when they let go she stayed closer to Ashlyn than to Will, their arms pressed together.

“You know, Ash, I thought about asking you to this,” Corin said, “so we could be each other’s beards, but Izzy tells me you don’t need one.” Ashlyn snorted.

“Izzy told you right. D’you really think anybody would’ve bought it, anyway? A six-one dyke and a scrawny ginger?”

“Fair point.” Corin laughed. “I guess I don’t really need to do that either, now that you mention it.” Will felt like he’d missed some very important piece of this conversation.

“Wait,” he said, leaning around Izzy, “Corin, are you—?”

“Oh, I’m bi,” Corin said casually. “Didn’t you know? I know it’s never come up, but I figured Izzy would’ve told you.” They both looked at Izzy, who put her hands up.

“Sorry,” she said. “I err on the side of caution.”

“Yeah, she hadn’t told him about me, either,” said Ashlyn.

“Oh.” Corin grinned awkwardly. “Well, hey. You’re not the only one Dad passed it on to.” He offered Will a high-five, and Will reciprocated it, laughing now.

Izzy shook her head at them, smiling a little distantly, and adjusted how she was sitting so she was leaning away from Will. That put her feet almost in his lap; when he poked at her shoe, she stuck her tongue out at him. Will grinned—for a second it was like they weren’t fourteen and sixteen and tired, but ten and twelve again, happy and carefree.

It got hard to carry on a conversation after that, between the brilliant blasts overhead and Austin and Hannah bringing back “Dad Bless America” with all of Leah’s innovations from last summer to teach the giggling younger kids. A lot of the other cabins joined in this year. It felt extra bittersweet, Will thought, knowing no one had seen their parents in eight months—and from the sound of it, right now the gods really couldn’t do much to bless America, or them, or anything else.

Will woke at dawn. That wasn’t too unusual by itself, though he had been sleeping better lately—what was unusual was that it was because Izzy was shaking his shoulder.

“What?” he asked, and made a face as his voice cracked awkwardly.

“Nyssa came by. Cabin Nine was doing night patrol and they saw this Roman herald guy coming to the border,” his sister explained. “Apparently Chiron asked for all the senior counselors to go meet him.” She grinned. “Pretty glad I got out of that right now, but you’d better get out there.”

“Oh, shit. Okay.” Running a hand through his hair so hopefully it would at least look kind of normal, Will pulled on jeans and a buttoned shirt over his t-shirt, rolling his sleeves up on his way down to the border. He shivered, already wishing he’d taken the time to put on sneakers instead of sandals—even though it was July, it was only like quarter to six, and the dew on the grass was kind of chilly.

On Half-Blood Hill, no one really looked any more awake than Will felt, save Chiron, in his full centaur form and the top half of a three-piece suit, and Peleus, who stood in front of the Golden Fleece with his back arched like a cat, spitting angry sparks into the wet grass. Clarisse was yawning, but at least she had actually put on a leather cuirass and was carrying her latest electric spear. Drew, too, seemed to have put some effort into looking presentable—her hair wasn’t in its usual loose curls, instead pulled back into a high ponytail, but she was wearing street clothes and her eyeliner was as perfect as ever. Travis and Connor, on the other hand, were still in pajamas, their curly bedheads near mirrors of each other. Connor was wearing two mismatched sneakers.

“All this for one scrawny kid?” Jake, in jeans and a scorched MIT sweatshirt, was grumbling to Malcolm. Lou Ellen stood nearby, so Will went to join the three of them.

“He doesn’t look scrawny to me,” Malcolm said, looking down at the boy at the foot of the hill like he was some kind of puzzle to solve. Will had to take Malcolm’s side on this one. The Roman kid looked about fifteen, around their age, and was probably as tall as Will—taller than Malcolm—and even if he wasn’t as stocky as most of Hephaestus’ children he was definitely buffer than either of them. He was in full armor, even at this time of the morning, as was the pegasus grazing happily next to him. In addition to the massive scroll he was holding, the herald also had a very large sword strapped to his belt. Clarisse was eyeing it speculatively.

“Is this all of you?” he called up the hill now. He sounded bored.

“Is this all of us?” Clarisse asked, looking over the rest of them—“for fuck’s sake, where’s Clovis?”

“’M here,” Clovis’ sleepy voice mumbled from the back of the crowd, where he’d finally shuffled up, dressed in a fluffy bathrobe. “What’s going on?”

“This seems like a very disorganized leadership system,” the Roman herald observed, stirring up angry grumbles from some of the older counselors.

“I’ll show him disorganized,” Will heard Travis say.

“This is the council of Camp Half-Blood,” Chiron said, his voice more steely than usual. He was in his centaur form, towering over the herald, and wore a full three-piece suit jacket and vest on his human half. “They have come to hear your Praetor’s message.”

“Very well.” The herald stood at attention. “Hail, graeci! I am Jacob Everett, legacy of Venus, aquilifer of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata.” Whatever the hell that meant. “I come to you in the name of our Praetor, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, bearing a formal declaration of war signed by her hand.”

“So much for reasoning with her,” Lou Ellen muttered.

“Camp Half-Blood and this… ‘council’—” he didn’t actually make air quotes as he said it, but the implication was definitely there—“must answer for the acts of aggression committed against New Rome by your representative, Leo Valdez, and for the assorted crimes of Perseus Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Piper McLean, and the traitors Jason Grace, Hazel Levesque, and Frank Zhang, in aiding and abetting him.”

“Jason Grace and who?” Jake whispered.

“Must be the other demigods from the prophecy,” Malcolm whispered back. “He said seven names.”

“Why should we have to answer for Roman demigods?” Lou Ellen grumbled. “Jason, sure, he’s one of us now, but—”

“Shh,” Will hissed. The herald was still talking.

“But Praetor Ramírez-Arellano asked me to relay that she is not eager for a battle which will surely destroy your camp and its inhabitants,” he continued, “and nor is she unreasonable. I bring you her proposed terms for your surrender.” He held out the scroll to Chiron, who unfurled and skimmed it, his grim face growing grimmer with every line.

“Surrender?” Clarisse said. “For something we didn’t even do? Not fucking likely.” Jacob shrugged.

“The grievances of New Rome will have redress,” he declared. “The Praetor advises you to consider her proposal carefully. Compared to what will come to you should you refuse, I assure you, her terms are generous. More generous still, she will give you two weeks to consider them. If the sun sets on the fourteenth day and she has received no answer, she will assume the answer is no, and the Legion will attack.”

When Jacob the herald finished talking, he was met with dead silence. All the counselors on the hill just stared down at him.

Jacob dropped out of his stiff stance. For a second, Will thought, he looked like just as awkward a teenager as any one of them. “Um… that’s the whole message,” he said, sounding a lot less full of himself. “The Twelfth Legion Fulminata will await your surrender. Goodbye.” With that, he climbed on his armored pegasus and flew off into the sky.

Chapter Text

The sun was still hovering on the eastern horizon, and Will was probably the least popular person at camp. He was definitely the least popular person in his cabin.

“I don’t remember y’all whining this much when Michael made you do it!” he finally snapped at Gabriel and Sophie, cutting off their endless streams of complaints.

“Michael—was! Scarier! Than you!” Sophie shot back between gasps, panting a little as she ran.

“I can be scarier than this!” Will said. “You want to see me be scarier? I will!”

“No he can’t!” Kayla yelled from up ahead, at the same time Austin called,

“Don’t listen to him!” All their younger siblings giggled. Will shook his head and kept running.

“Will, I love you,” Izzy said when they all got back to the cabin, mostly drenched in sweat and panting, “but this does suck.”

“I don’t care,” Will said. “If it keeps you alive, it’ll be worth it. What, Sophie?” His sister had raised her hand like she was a student in class.

“Do you think doing this every morning last summer had any actual bearing on whether you lived or died?” she asked. “Everybody who died did it too. I’m just saying.”

“I—but—that’s not the point!” Will said, trying not to grind his teeth. “Sure, it might not make a difference, but what if it does? A lot of what happens in a big battle is up to the Fates, we all know that, but—”

“Um, I don’t know that,” said Logan, looking much more freaked out than before. “What?”

“I think what Will’s trying to say,” Izzy said, “is building endurance is only gonna make it easier to stay sharp in battle longer. Maybe it won’t save your life in the end—but there’s also a chance it might. That’s why it’s worth it.”

“Yeah. What Izzy said.” Will smiled grimly as she patted his shoulder. “Good job, guys. Let’s get cleaned up and go to breakfast.”

His siblings’ morning crankiness aside, the first week of ramped-up training since the council meeting where they’d called for it had mostly gone well. At least, by Will’s personal metrics, which basically came down to, almost everyone was taking it seriously and so far, nobody had gotten too badly injured. A couple stab wounds in unimportant places, one broken wrist—little things. Things he and Izzy and Hannah could deal with on their own.

Will was a little worried about Hannah. She was twelve this summer, as old as he had been when Kronos’ forces attacked through the Labyrinth and Lee died, and in his opinion she was now almost as skilled a healer as he had been then—but battle training wasn’t going as well for her as for the others.

He probably should have expected that—Hannah had never been as athletic as the rest of the cabin, or really most of the rest of the campers. Not to say Will was the most athletic himself, but he was tall and lean, and a fast runner, and had enough upper body strength to manage the climbing wall or carry wounded kids out of danger. Hannah was none of those things, and she was really struggling with morning runs. Most days she and Zahra lost their momentum halfway through, walking up to the cabin a couple minutes behind everyone else—but Zahra’s endurance was improving. Even she was starting to leave Hannah in the dust.

“It’s okay,” Will heard Gabriel reassuring her the first day Zahra managed to keep pace with Teresa and Mandy the whole way, leaving Hannah the last to the porch by about ninety seconds—they cheered her on—“you don’t have to be as fast as everyone else. You just have to be fast enough to stay alive.”

Hannah nodded miserably and made some excuse about needing to go to the bathroom before breakfast. When she came back out Will was pretty sure she had been crying—but if long experience with the rest of his siblings was any indication, he was pretty sure if he tried to ask her about it that would only make it worse.

He wasn’t sure what to do except keep giving her lots of assignments she was good at in the infirmary, so she could succeed at some things. That was what Renee and Izzy had always done for him when he was younger, and got upset at not being able to shoot like everyone else.

Meanwhile, there was one major health thing going on at camp that was completely unexpected—at least, to Will. Mellie the cloud nymph, Coach Hedge’s wife, was pregnant. And the baby was due pretty soon.

“Wait, seriously?” he’d said when Clarisse and Izzy told him. “But—they’ve only been married for like a month!”

“Will,” Izzy said so condescendingly he knew she was teasing, “come on. You’re almost fifteen years old.”

“And you grew up with a single mom just like the rest of us,” Clarisse said. “Right?”

“I didn’t grow up with a single mom,” Ashlyn put in. Izzy shook her head too—they both had stepdads and younger mortal half-siblings. It sounded like Ashlyn had almost as many as she did demigod half-siblings at camp, though she was probably exaggerating when she said that. Still, Will knew some Christian fundamentalist families back in Texas—she might not be exaggerating all that much. So, “Still know where babies come from, though,” she added, grinning, “and it ain’t marriage.”

“I know where babies come from!” Will snapped, face going bright red as the older girls all laughed. “Ash, why are you even here?” Clarisse cared because she was close to Hedge and had promised to watch out for Mellie, and Izzy was still the most senior healer as far as Will was concerned even if he was in charge most of the time (and realistically she was a little more qualified to deal with a pregnancy than he was in several regards), but Ashlyn had just sort of... wandered in. Now she shrugged and silently gestured at the other two. Fair—she was pretty much always hanging out around one or the other of them, and right now, for once, they were in the same place. “Okay, whatever,” Will said. “My point is, if her baby’s due next month, how is this only news now?”

“Well, nature spirit pregnancies aren’t like human pregnancies any more than divine ones,” Izzy explained. “It’s a shorter timeframe. Mellie didn’t even know she was pregnant until after the Argo II left.” Will threw up his hands in exasperation.

“Okay, then why’d y’all have to make fun of me for asking?” Clarisse and Ashlyn looked at each other.

“Cause it was funny,” Ashlyn said, ruffling his hair affectionately while Clarisse grinned. “I’d think that was obvious.”

At least, from the sound of it, in addition to being shorter in duration, nature spirit pregnancies also tended to be easier than human ones. Clarisse was just taking her duty to Mellie and Hedge really seriously, and wanted to make sure the healers were all aware. Chiron would handle the birth, since he, at least, had actually delivered babies before in his many millennia of life. This wasn’t even the first time a baby would be born at Camp Half-Blood—and, if the very tired look on Chiron’s face when he said that was any indication, they probably hadn’t all been satyrs and nature spirits.

So, there really wasn’t much for the Apollo kids to worry about. Mellie wasn’t likely to need serious medical intervention.

Which was good, because even though the injuries so far were little things he could heal himself, Will had still tried to call on Apollo for help when Crispin from the Demeter cabin came to him with that broken wrist—and instead of the warmth, the little divine boost he was used to, he’d felt nothing. It had been terrifying—all through this awful school year, even if none of the gods were communicating or appearing to their kids, at least Will had known Apollo was there. He’d sent Austin prophetic dreams, even if most of them were vague, horrible nightmares. He’d sent Izzy the pegasi. He’d answered her healing prayers for the questers in New Mexico, and Will’s whenever someone got hurt at camp—now it was like he was just gone. As far as Will knew, that had never happened with a god before. Definitely not an Olympian.

But it wasn’t like there was anything Will could do about it. Definitely not right now, when there was a legion of Roman demigods getting ready to attack them.

“This is her idea of stalling?” Clarisse had snarled at the pre-breakfast emergency war council they held over the herald’s surrender terms. “Two weeks to decide whether to submit to their total authority, which we’ll never do, or they march in to destroy us? We lose either way! And that two weeks—total horseshit. That’s probably just the time it’ll take her to get the rest of her forces here. She’s not stalling them, she’s stalling us!” Beside her, Travis nodded grimly.

“Or, she’s banking on Annabeth to come through before then,” said Malcolm, gripping the edge of the ping-pong table so tightly it was a good thing he wasn’t a son of Hephaestus—the thing would’ve splintered if Jake had grabbed it like that. “They left on the 28th to get to Rome on the 1st—at the same speed, they should be back any day now. The Praetor’s not stupid, she’s made that calculation too. If opinion in the Legion is divided, she probably has to at least make it look like she’s serious about their threat to us—”

“Well, she’s damn well convinced me!” Clarisse snapped.

“Clarisse,” Will said, “we have two weeks. Even if nothing else changes, that’s plenty of time for us to figure out some other way around this, and if not, to get ready.” That calmed her down some, anyway.

“See?” Malcolm muttered. “Smarter than half of you.”

That was nice of him. It also got Connor back on his whole thing, unfortunately.

“Sooo,” he was still saying two days later, following (and annoying) Will down to the hearth to do sacrifices before dinner after yet another long day of training, “want to weigh in on the odds of you and Malcolm becoming an official camp couple before the Romans kill us all? I’ve got it at three to one, personally, but Travis wants to set it more like five or six. He’s not a believer,” he said sadly. “In the power of love.”

“I don’t even like Malcolm like that,” Will said through gritted teeth, “and I promise you, Connor, he definitely doesn’t. I sat by him in school all year, I think I would have noticed.”

“You sat by my sister for two years and never noticed she had a crush on you,” Connor pointed out. Will stopped in his tracks. “Did you think I didn’t know about that? Uh huh. You see?”

“Okay, but—” Will sighed. “Look, you’re basing all this on Malcolm saying I’m smart. Even if he likes boys, which—I don’t know—”

“In his words, he’s ‘open to the likelihood of sexual fluidity’,” Connor said in lofty tones that didn’t actually sound anything like Malcolm (Connor’s impression was bordering on a fake British accent), “and agreed I could quote him on that, so I’m gonna mark that down as a yes—”

“O—okay,” Will said, startled into losing his train of thought for a second. “That’s—huh. Okay. Cool.” Connor wiggled his eyebrows again. There it was. Will rolled his eyes. “But thinking I’m smart doesn’t mean he likes me.”

“Mm, I don’t know. Brains come first with Athena kids,” Connor said—wisely, which was ironic on many levels. “He thinks you’ve got those. Sooner or later he’s gonna notice your pretty face, too—” Explain Annabeth and Percy, then, Will had been planning to say, but now that Connor had gone and said that—

“Oh my gods.” Will set his plate down on the edge of the hearth with enough force he was glad it didn’t shatter. “And what about you, Connor?”

“What?” Connor looked confused. “What about me?”

“What do you even get out of this?” Will asked again. He wasn’t quite bold enough to actually ask if he was flirting with him on purpose, but—“Calling me pretty and adorable and stuff? I always thought with you it was just to make the other straight dudes uncomfortable, but you know I’m not straight, so what’s the point with me? Is it a power trip for you? Do you actually like guys? What the hell is your deal?” Connor stared at him for a second, kind of looking like the questions had frozen his brain.

“Uh,” he said. “I—I don’t know. I guess I’ve never thought about it that much.” Will could feel a vein twitching in his own temple.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, until you do, could you give it a rest? It’s not fun for me. And all this nonsense about Malcolm definitely isn’t. He’s not even my type.”

“Yeah, fine.” Connor wouldn’t quite look him in the eye suddenly. “Uh, what is your type, then? The better to set our gambling odds.” Boys with dark hair and attitude problems, was unfortunately the first thing that sprang to mind, but Will wasn’t exactly about to tell Connor that at this point in this godsforsaken conversation.

“None of your business,” he snapped.

“But making odds on everyone’s love lives literally is my business!” Connor threw a pack of peanut M&Ms into the fire. Weird sacrifice—the Stolls’ always were—but as far as Will knew he’d been doing it for years, and it didn’t seem like Hermes was unhappy with it. Probably he was proud of his son for smuggling enough outside candy into camp to do it this regularly.

“Well, get a different business, cause this one sucks.” Will tossed a couple of the juiciest grapes and the most perfectly golden tater tot into the fire for Apollo, wondering if it even mattered, if Apollo wasn’t going to answer prayers anyway—and with that in mind he threw in a couple tots for Asclepius, too. If the Romans did attack, and Apollo wasn’t back by then…

“Whoa, hold on.” Connor set his plate down, frowning. “What’s that?” Leaning forward, he reached into the fire and plucked something out. It was white and fluttery and… a napkin? “Shit!” He dropped it on the hearth, shaking out his hand.

“Dude, what the hell?” Will had been about to walk away too, desperate to end this whole excruciating encounter, but instead he stopped short. “Did you just burn yourself?”

“Eh, it’s not too bad.” Connor held out his hand for examination. Will gripped it just long enough to heal the minor burns on his fingertips, and really wished his own hand wasn’t all pins and needles now. “Thanks. How’d the napkin not catch fire?” Connor picked it up and looked at it—“oh, shit, it says my name on it!”

“What?” Pulling himself together, Will looked over his shoulder at the inscription, written in ink that almost looked like celestial bronze—“‘Connor, give this to Rachel. Not a prank. Don’t be a moron. Love, Annabeth.’ Well, that sounds like Annabeth—and she sure knows you.”

“Fuck off,” said Connor. “What do you s’pose it says?”

“Maybe Rachel will tell you,” Will said. “If you’re not a moron.” Connor flipped him off. “Go give it to her!”

Rachel sat at the high table with Chiron for meals—they’d talked about having her sit at the Apollo table, since she was his Oracle, but decided it wouldn’t be quite as appropriate. Now Connor ran up to hand her the note as ordered, Will not far behind. From his own table, he watched Rachel read it, her face going from surprised to curious to absolutely horrified in the span of about twenty seconds. That, Will thought, was a sure sign of another emergency war council tonight.

He was right. While their next-oldest or next-most-responsible siblings wrangled their cabins for campfire, the counselors gathered in the rec room to hear what the note said.

“Tartarus?” This was the first time in a while Will had seen genuine fear on Clarisse’s face, or genuine shock. “Well—should we be trying to help them get out?” Now everyone else looked shocked. “What?” Clarisse snapped.

“You’re suggesting we help Percy Jackson with a quest?” Katie said.

“Percy and Annabeth. They’re my friends,” Clarisse said tightly, “and it’s not just a quest—Tartarus is some scary shit. Don’t get me wrong,” she added, “Annabeth’s tough as nails, and Percy can do some scary shit himself, but I don’t see how anybody could survive down there on their own. Not for long. Doesn’t matter how powerful they are.”

“They’re not on their own,” Rachel pointed out, eyes still on the bronze writing on the napkin. “They have each other. Besides, Annabeth didn’t ask for help—at least, not on the Tartarus side of things.”

“This does complicate things,” an ashen-faced Malcolm said. “It certainly explains why they’re not back yet. I mean, fuck. Tartarus?” Everyone went quiet then, like a moment of silence for their friends.

“Are you okay with what she asked?” Will asked Rachel. “Meeting with the Romans? Do you want one of us to go with you, at least?”

“I’d go,” Clarisse said. “I want a look at that Praetor bitch before I kill her.”

“Okay, so Clarisse definitely isn’t going,” Butch said dryly. Everyone else chuckled, the tension breaking; Clarisse flipped him off and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms grumpily over her chest.

“I think it’s best if I go alone to deliver the message,” Rachel said thoughtfully. “Maybe Grover or one of the other satyrs could go, too, just to be safe—but between our camp and the Romans, I think I’m the closest thing to a neutral party we have. I’m not a demigod, and I mean, not to sound totally self-centered, but I’d like to think being the Oracle of Delphi might give me some credit.”

Even if the Pythia herself seemed to be as AWOL as Apollo, but nobody really wanted to bring that up.

That night Chiron and Rachel sent a message to the Romans in the city. They had been hoping to hear back first thing in the morning, but at breakfast, Will gathered, there was no word—and nor had they heard anything by lunchtime. He and Jake came back from running a very harrowing arts and crafts session to find a bunch of the other counselors, and a few satyrs and nature spirits, gathered in front of the high table.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Carly, the thirteen-year-old daughter of Dionysus who’d taken over Cabin Twelve now that Pollux was in college, was saying. “With so many more monsters running around right now?”

“I’m not too worried about monsters,” Rachel said, shrugging—“they’re not as interested in me as they are in you guys. If I go back to my parents’ house, I can use my dad’s resources to figure out where the Romans are staying, and then Grover and I can find them ourselves.” So that was the plan they were talking about.

“I don’t like it.” Juniper the dryad was frowning. “What if they capture you?”

“Or shoot you on sight?” said Clarisse. Juniper winced.

“That would be pretty dumb of them,” Malcolm said, “cause then we’d have grievances of our own to counter theirs, and their argument for wanting to attack us wouldn’t hold as much water.”

“And we’d have a pretty strong argument for them to consider their grievances settled,” Travis pointed out. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.” Katie smacked him in the arm at the same time Clarisse, on his other side, cuffed him in the ear. “Ow! What? Oh—sorry, Juniper,” he added, indignation fading as the dryad began to cry. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Grover put an arm around Juniper’s shoulders.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll know we’re coming and hear us out, and if not, I’ve gotten out of worse. Well—” He made a face. “Dammit, Percy. Why’d you have to be in Tartarus? But we’ll figure it out.”

“If you do get captured, just IM us and we’ll come get you,” Clarisse said a little too cheerfully. “See how the Romans like us then.” For once no one argued with her about attacking the Romans in New York—in that situation, even Will would definitely be on board.

Thankfully they didn’t end up needing to storm the Roman hideout on a doomed rescue mission. The next morning at breakfast Rachel and Grover were back, and Chiron stood up in the middle of the meal to call all the counselors to yet another emergency war council once they’d finished eating. There, Rachel told them all about what had happened in Manhattan—the Praetor’s agreement, and her warning as well.

Feelings in the rec room were clearly mixed. No one was sorry to hear that Reyna Ramírez-Arellano apparently intended to go along with Annabeth’s plan, but neither were they pleased by the idea of her leaving Octavian unattended—or as Clarisse colorfully put it, that “nobody’s gonna be holding the crazy augur’s leash.”

“Do you think he’ll still respect the two weeks?” Elena from the Hebe cabin, who almost never talked at these things, asked Rachel. “Or will he just attack now?”

“I’d attack now if I was him,” Clarisse said.

“We know,” Travis and Katie said in unison—then, rather than high-fiving as Will thought any normal people would do, or even saying “jinx!”, they glared at each other.

“It seems like the centurions respect Reyna,” Rachel said slowly. “Octavian clearly has a lot of sway, but as long as Reyna outranks him—I don’t think the other officers would defy her direct orders. We can’t assume that will last forever, especially the longer she’s away, but I don’t think we need to worry about an immediate attack any more than we did yesterday.”

“Then for now, we shall continue to operate as if the two-week deadline is in effect,” Chiron said. “Ten days of it remain. We will keep working on our strategy to avoid it.” With that they adjourned. Will had been planning to spend this morning in the infirmary anyway, so instead of leaving the Big House he walked out to the back porch with Jake, who’d been sitting by him in his usual seat looking like his mind was somewhere else through the whole thing and now just kind of followed.

“Is this gonna be every single day now?” Will asked, sitting down on the steps next to him. “Just war council after war council?” Jake rested his head in his hands.

“It was like that for the week before the battle last summer,” he said. “Probably more, I was just in the forges or the shop all the time. I’m not sure I can take two weeks of it this year. I don’t know how Charlie managed.”

“I’m not surprised Michael did,” Will said. Jake laughed, though not with a lot of humor.

“I’m not sure I can take another war at all,” he admitted. “Ever since the boat left… I don’t know.” Will looked at him, concerned. “I keep thinking about asking Nyssa to step up,” Jake said. “Or Christopher. Even Shane—he hasn’t been here that long, but neither has Leo, and he’s a good kid.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Leo asked me to fill in again cause I’m the oldest, and I did before, but I feel like anybody else would be better at this than I am.”

“You’re doing fine, though,” Will told him. “You’re not a bad leader, Jake. The whole curse thing—I mean, I still don’t know what that was about, but it wasn’t your fault. It’s not like it’s come back now that you’re back in charge, so it can’t have been you before, either.” Jake made a face like he still doubted it. “You’re a good counselor,” Will said firmly, “and you did great on the quest this spring.”

“I got one of my teammates killed,” Jake pointed out. “We just got lucky that didn’t have lasting consequences. That we know of.” He thumped the wooden deck with his fist.

“Look, I wasn’t there,” Will said, “but I know Sherman pretty well, and from the way he and Miranda talked about it, it really sounds like it was his own fault if it was anybody’s. It’s not like there’s anything you could’ve done differently, right?”

“I could’ve prayed harder to my dad. I don’t know.” Jake looked down. “I could have died instead.”

“That wouldn’t have helped,” Will said. Jake shrugged.

“You’re probably right,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d have made the choice Sherman did, anyway. Coming back. Well—I mean—probably I would’ve. I had obligations to fulfill, for my siblings and my friends. Still do, I guess.” Whatever was on Will’s face made Jake smile sadly and set a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Sorry. Don’t worry about me, Will. I’m fine.” There was something about the way he said it—too much like the cheery facade Will put on for his younger siblings sometimes.

“If it would help you to have Nyssa step up—”

“I’m not gonna ask her to do that, not when we’re about to be at war. I couldn’t put that on my little sister.”

“Your little sister, but she’s older than me,” Will pointed out. “It’d be fine. She was great filling in for you last year when you were recovering. And nobody on council would think less of you. Actually, you’d be setting a good example for Drew,” he pointed out. That almost got Jake to smile.

“I doubt anyone could set an example good enough to get Drew to see the light,” he said. “But I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. Good.” Will frowned. “None of this has anything to do with my sister, does it?”

“What—Izzy? Oh, no.” Jake shook his head. “This kind of thing, the depression, the bad dreams… it’s not something a girl can magically fix by liking you. Or guy,” he added, nudging Will. “So, like, it doesn’t feel great to get rejected, but it’s not like it made things any worse for me. They’re two separate things, you know?”

“Not really,” Will said. “But I’m glad it’s not, like—worse because of that. I guess.”

“Trust me, my love life—well, lack thereof—it’s usually the last thing on my mind,” Jake said. “No offense to Izzy. She’s great. Obviously.” He sighed. “But there’s a lot more important stuff going on than crushes.”

“I wish I could relate to that,” Will muttered. Immediately he wondered if he shouldn’t have—he’d never actually talked to Jake about this kind of thing before. That wasn’t what their friendship was about. Will wasn’t actually sure Jake had ever acknowledged him being gay before the last thirty seconds, even though he definitely knew, just like everyone did. He had no idea, he realized, what Jake even thought about that. It was weird. Will was so used to everyone at camp just sort of accepting him by now, he hadn't realized he could still feel anxious about the idea anyone wouldn't.

Jake chuckled. “I mean,” he said, and Will relaxed some, hearing the teasing in his voice was gentle, “to hear Connor tell it, you and Malcolm—”

“Oh, don’t listen to Connor,” Will said, “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Now Jake laughed outright.

“Well, obviously if you don’t like him you don’t like him,” he said, “and that’s fine, but you could do a lot worse than Malcolm.” Will shook his head, annoyed—but also relieved.

“Shut up, Jake,” he said. His friend patted his shoulder.

“Sure thing.”

The tension around camp ratcheted slowly upward as each day passed, but the first week drew to a close without any sign of an incoming Roman invasion. The satyrs and nature spirits keeping an eye on them from Central Park reported no signs of major movement—Roman scouting parties were spotted up and down Long Island daily, but Octavian and the centurions were still holed up in Manhattan. Their forces were multiplying as the rest of the Legion arrived from the west, though.

“Fuck it,” Clarisse said on Day Eight, as Will was counting them up in his head when he woke every morning. “I’m calling a mini-war council.”

“With me?” Will blinked up at her, now thoroughly distracted from bandaging Miranda’s calf where Kevin from the Hermes cabin had accidentally slashed her in a sparring bout. Sherman was here, because of course he was: Miranda was hurt. “Why?”

“You and Malcolm.” For a split second Will was afraid this was going to have something to do with Connor’s ridiculous betting pool. Fortunately, “We’re the most tactically important cabins,” Clarisse explained. “Brawn, brains, and more brawn plus healing.” Will wasn’t sure that was entirely fair to a lot of the other cabins—Hephaestus, Hermes, and Demeter were all pretty strategically important, and increasingly so was Hecate—but Miranda was right here, and she wasn’t jumping to Katie’s defense or anyone else’s. “I’m pulling this kid in too,” Clarisse added, and flicked Sherman in the side of the head.

“Ow!” Sherman rubbed at his temple. “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Clarisse said, “I just gotta start training you up for when you take over.”

“For—for when I what?” Sherman looked kind of blindsided now, blinking up at her. Miranda’s jaw had dropped, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “Like—the cabin?”

“Yeah, dumbass, the cabin.” Clarisse sat down on the bench next to him. “I’m retiring. Assuming I make it through this war, I’m going to college, and I’m done with this place. Someone’s gonna have to be counselor, and I’ve decided it’s gonna be you.”

“But—” Sherman frowned. “I mean, I’m honored and all, but… I’m not exactly the next-oldest. You don’t think Jesse and Bailey will be mad?”

“Not that I have to explain myself to you,” Clarisse said, “but you’ve been at camp, what, four years? Five? That’s as long as Jesse, longer than Bailey, and way more than Ash. Seniority rules. Just like with this kid.” She jerked a thumb towards Will. “And speaking of, if any of you tell anyone else I said this I’ll kill you, I’m not joking, but there’s a diplomacy piece to being on council. It can be useful to be friends with the other counselors. And you’ve already got these two in your corner, right?”

“Uh, sure,” Will said when Clarisse and Sherman both looked at him.

“Obviously.” Miranda leaned over and kissed her boyfriend’s cheek.

“You’ve also done a quest,” Clarisse went on, “which is more than any of those other losers in our cabin, and you kicked ass during capture the flag last month. Sure, you’re a dumbass sometimes, but I know the rest of the council would say I’m not exactly one to talk—again, one word of this to anybody and you’re dust under my boots,” she added to Will and Miranda. It didn’t look like Miranda was any more worried about that actually happening than Will was, but Sherman still moved over and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Clarisse,” he said. “Quit threatening to kill my girlfriend.”

“What about me?” Will said. Sherman shrugged.

“Eh.” Miranda jabbed him in the ribs. “I mean, yeah, whatever, don’t kill Will either, I guess.” Clarisse just laughed.

“You’re a good kid, Sherman,” she said. “You’ve got good friends and a halfway-decent head on your own shoulders. So as long as you don’t die—again— ” so Clarisse knew about that too; made sense, Will supposed—“you’re gonna be in charge when I leave. Unless you want Jesse or Ash to duel you for it,” she added. “You could ask them. I bet Jesse’d do it. He might even win.” She thumped Sherman on the back. He didn’t look reassured. “I’m gonna go grab Malcolm,” Clarisse said. “You guys come meet me in the schoolroom, okay?” And with that, she walked away.

“Sherman!” Miranda threw her arms around his neck. “You’re going to be a counselor!”

“I—yeah,” Sherman said, still looking kind of blindsided. Dazed. “I guess so.”

“About time you started pulling your weight around here,” Will said. That snapped Sherman out of it enough to kick him. Will scrambled back before his boot could make contact, laughing. “Y’all can be the council’s new power couple once school starts,” he teased from just out of reach. Miranda raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, Will, according to Connor—”

“Gods, I’m going to kill Connor,” Will groaned. “That asshole.” Sherman burst out laughing. “What?”

“Just the idea of sweet little Dr. Solace killing anything—”

“Okay, you’re, like, one inch taller than me—”

“It’s at least three, I’m six-two now—”

“You’re six-one and a half, Sherman,” Miranda said. “And very hot, so get over it.” Sherman’s face went bright red now. Will rolled his eyes.

In the schoolroom, when they finally made it there—after Sherman gave Miranda what Will considered an excessively long kiss goodbye—Malcolm had tacked up a huge piece of butcher paper over the whiteboard, and was drawing on it using Chiron’s rainbow of dry-erase markers. In lime green, Will could pick out the lines of the hills along the borders, mostly because Malcolm had doodled a dark green tree in the southeast corner with a yellow blob on it he figured had to be the Golden Fleece.

“Hi, Will,” Malcolm said, glancing back at him and Sherman as they walked in. His cheeks went kind of pink, but: “I hear Connor thinks I have a crush on you. No offense, but I don’t.”

“Um—cool,” Will said. “I don't have a crush on you either. No offense.”

“None taken,” Malcolm said mildly, switching to a light blue marker to draw a box on the left side of his map that Will assumed was supposed to be the Big House.

“What am I?” Sherman muttered. “Chopped liver?”

“Hi, Sherman,” said Malcolm. “I also don’t have a crush on you.”

“Good.”

“Neither do I,” Will said, “just to be clear.” Sherman shifted his weight like he was about to punch him, so Will ducked instinctively aside, but then Sherman actually looked at him and seemed to think better of it. Instead he just rolled his eyes and said,

“Shut the fuck up, Solace.”

“Good talk, guys,” Clarisse said. She was sitting in the middle of one of the school tables, dirt-caked combat boots and all. “Glad we got that out of the way.” Ignoring her, Malcolm drew a sloppy red star in the middle of the blue box, then wrote YOU ARE HERE next to it in Ancient Greek. Sherman snorted.

“Cool map,” Will said, perching on a different table, keeping his own dusty sneakers off the surface. Sherman pulled out one of the chairs from Clarisse’s table and settled into it. Within seconds his bootheel was tapping against the hardwood floor—already fidgeting. “But,” Will said, trying hard to tune it out, “if they’re based in New York right now, wouldn’t they be attacking from the west?” The eastern boundary line was in the middle of Malcolm’s map, like it would be the central point for this hypothetical battle.

“If they did they’d have to get through the woods,” Malcolm said. “I find it highly unlikely they’d do something that stupid.”

“Yeah, they won’t,” Clarisse agreed. “If I was launching a full-scale assault on camp, I’d do it from the east. Northeast, almost as far from Half-Blood Hill as I could get. The hills give us the advantage anywhere, at least for the first wave, cause—”

“It’s over, Anakin?” Will said. “I have the high ground?”

“Ew,” Malcolm groaned, “not the prequels.”

“Hey, I agree they suck! I’m just saying!”

“Even the prequels don’t suck as much as your Obi-Wan impression,” Sherman said. Will flipped him off.

“Nerds,” Clarisse grumbled. “Oughta shove you all in a locker. You’re right, though—the hills are a problem for an invading force no matter what. But—” she hopped off the table and pointed out a place up near the corner of Malcolm’s map—“the boundary’s weakest here. I mean, it’s still pretty strong, but the farther from the Thalia tree you get, the less power it’s got.” She swept her hand along the line to indicate what she meant. “So it’s the easiest place to punch through.”

The way she was explaining it all with such confidence gave Will the impression Clarisse had spent a lot of time thinking about how to destroy Camp Half-Blood. He found himself more grateful than ever that she was on their side, and had been all through the Titan War—well, okay, mostly, but least she hadn’t ever turned to Kronos. Not even when half the camp hated her (even if it was usually pretty justifiably so), not even in the lead-up to Manhattan when she was so furious about the chariot. Luke had been so beloved around camp, when Will was little, and look how he’d turned out—Clarisse was just the opposite.

“Course, normally,” she was saying, “you’d want to stay a little bit south of the very farthest point, cause get too close to the beach, and you’d have a big Percy-shaped problem.”

“Yeah.” Malcolm nodded. “Jason said the Legion’s divided into cohorts of fifty or so—if they went too near the Sound, Percy alone could wipe out at least one of those, probably without even breaking a sweat.” Will shuddered, remembering the Williamsburg Bridge.

“But Percy’s not here,” Clarisse went on, “and the Romans know that. So if I was them right now, I’d actually run a two-pronged strategy. Take half my forces all the way around to go up the hills, and bring in the rest by sea from the north to attack the beach. That way we’d have to divide up too, and they outnumber us.”

“Won’t they do that, then?” Sherman asked. “Why isn’t the beach on the map?” Will knew the answer to that from the big war councils, but Sherman hadn’t been to those, so—

“All our reports say they don’t seem to have any naval power,” Malcolm said, stretching towards the top of the map to draw a line of blue waves there anyway. “It’s all infantry. Which is kind of unfortunate for us, cause we’ve trained a lot for naval combat, and we’ve got a lot of resources allocated for it—but we can’t sail the triremes up to the hills.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Well—actually, I mean, the Argo II would suggest we can. Maybe we should talk to Jake about retrofitting them.”

“The Argo II took like six months to build,” Will pointed out. “Making it fly took an entire quest. Sherman literally—” He stopped himself just in time, remembering Malcolm probably wasn’t supposed to know.

“Yeah, I should know,” Sherman said quickly, “I was there. Mad respect to Jake and Cabin Nine, but I’m not sure even they can pull out another flying boat in a week.”

“Which sucks,” Clarisse said, “cause the Romans have these giant fucking eagles, and we’ve got no air power at all.” Sherman’s jaw dropped: giant eagles? he mouthed.

“Yeah.” Malcolm stood back to look up at his map. “We’ll just have to find other ways to deal with that. Will, how are our ranged numbers?”

“We’ve got ten archers,” Will said, already knowing that wasn’t going to be enough. Maybe if they could focus all their energy on the eagles, and let everyone else deal with the Legion...

“Twelve,” Sherman said. Clarisse frowned.

“Dana and...?” Mark, Will realized, his stomach dropping. There had always been two archers in the Ares cabin—until Manhattan.

“Oh.” Sherman’s face fell. “Eleven. Right. Sorry, I know it’s been a year, I just—yeah. I got nothing.” Clarisse actually gave him a sad smile.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Lately I keep walking into all these war councils expecting to see Silena and Beckendorf.” She didn’t say Michael too, but her eyes flickered to Will for a second.

“Right,” Will said, pushing down the lump in his throat. Double lumps. Triple. So many things to hurt about. “Um. Eleven, I guess, but ten in my cabin. Some better than others, but just cause nobody’s Michael doesn’t mean anybody’s bad, and we’re getting the new kids trained as fast as we can.”

“Aren’t there twelve of you?” Malcolm asked.

“Hannah and I aren’t archers,” Will explained. “In battle, we’re strictly medics. Ideally Izzy and Gabriel should be field medics too, but it seems like we’re going to need all the firepower we can muster, so they can be spared for extra archers.” As he heard the words come out of his mouth, he realized it was the exact same thing Michael had said during the Titan War—now that Will was in his shoes, he completely understood the strategy. Especially now that they had less people in the cabin, total, after losing so many. He should probably talk to Izzy about it one-on-one, though, after how she'd felt before. Probably, this time, it would be okay—they were a lot closer. Still, he felt a little weird about it. “And—I’ll fill in the gaps, I guess,” he added.

“Can you make up for two whole other people?” Clarisse asked doubtfully. “I know you’re good, but—”

“I’ll figure it out.” Will waved it away. Clarisse looked unconvinced, but she moved on, running through the other cabins’ numbers so they would at least know what they had to work with in terms of infantry. Ares had seventeen kids at camp this summer, including her and Sherman, though as in Will’s cabin some of them were pretty little. Malcolm’s cabin had eight—

“Nine if Annabeth gets back,” he said, “but if Annabeth gets back hopefully none of this will matter, so. Anyway. We can all fight, not as well as any of you guys—except you, Will, no offense—but we’re okay. And most of us multiclass—sorry, uh, right. This is real life,” he backtracked, blushing as Clarisse muttered something about fucking nerds again. “Most of us can use a bow as well as a sword, is what I meant. So we can go where we’re needed.”

“There’s at least four Demeter swordsmen,” Sherman put in. “Sorry—swordspeople, Miranda would want me to say. Her and Katie definitely, and Jenny’s pretty good too. Crispin’s not bad. Violet and Eliza are probably too little, but Billie and Jared are getting there. We’re working with them.” Clarisse was grinning at him with raised eyebrows. Sherman blushed. “Oh, shut up. Like Chris hasn’t basically lived in our cabin the last couple years.”

They kept running down the list of cabins. With Leo gone, there were—appropriately—nine children of Hephaestus at camp, most of them as solid of fighters as they were mechanics with those big hands and muscles. Most of the Aphrodite kids could hold their own, too. On the stealthier side, no one was quite sure how many kids were in the Hermes cabin right now, but it was somewhere between twenty and thirty. And Apollo’s kids had always said their dad was prolific, Will thought; but then, Cabin Eleven hadn’t lost as many people last year.

“Okay,” Malcolm finally said, “I think there are probably about another twenty solid fighters across all the other cabins we haven’t mentioned—those Nike kids are scary—”

“Gods love ‘em,” said Clarisse.

“—So we’re at about ninety, plus two full-time healers and some other non-combatants who can support other ways, like Lou Ellen’s cabin, and assorted kids who are too little, or... asleep all the time,” Malcolm said. “Versus two hundred-fifty. Plus, we've got the satyrs, dryads, and Tyson’s cyclopes. That’s…”

Not that bad, Will thought. Not compared to what they’d been up against last year.

Malcolm echoed his thoughts. “And that’s just an estimate. We’ll be able to get more definite numbers when we discuss this with the whole council,” he said, and frowned. “We are going to bring this to the whole council, right, Clarisse? You’re not involving us in some kind of weird coup here?”

“Well, now that you mention it,” Clarisse said. Malcolm’s eyes went very wide. “Just kidding.”

Malcolm wasn’t wrong, though, apparently—a kind of coup was how the others seemed to see it. The Stolls especially. On Day Ten, when the son of Athena arrived to the next full war council hauling the huge roll of butcher paper and explained how it had come to be, Travis was so furious there were a couple minutes when it seemed touch-and-go whether he and Clarisse were actually going to come to blows. Jake and Katie weren’t too happy either, and Lou Ellen gave Will a hurt look he was pretty sure wasn’t as serious as the others—but he still whispered,

“Sorry,” wretchedly enough that she shrugged, rolled her eyes, and let it go.

“Chill the fuck out,” Clarisse said over the Stolls’ protests, steel-toed boots clanging for emphasis as she set her feet on the ground for once so Malcolm could spread out the map on the ping-pong table. “Somebody needed to at least lay the groundwork for some actual planning, instead of just bickering about it.”

“Whatever,” Travis said. “You should’ve brought the rest of us in. This isn’t how we operate.”

“It’s not very Greek,” Drew agreed. “In fact, it seems kind of Roman.” Clarisse stood all the way up out of her chair. Jake and Malcolm seized her arms and dragged her back down. “Aren’t we supposed to be a democracy, Malcolm?” Drew said sweetly, unperturbed. “Like Pericles or whoever would have wanted?”

“Strong words from the girl who charmspoke her cabin into letting her usurp the person they actually wanted in charge the minute Piper left,” Connor pointed out. Drew’s face froze in a mask of shock. Everyone looked at Connor, who just shrugged. “What? We all know that’s why she’s here, right? I don’t know why nobody else’ll say it.” The worst thing about Connor, Will thought, was the number of times when he was actually great.

“Whatever,” Drew said, tossing her hair and regaining some of her composure, though she still looked a little shaken. “Secret meetings where just a few of you make decisions for the rest of us? We can all agree that’s not cool.”

“It wasn’t a secret,” Will protested.

“And nobody’s made any decisions,” Malcolm said with a surprisingly steely edge in his voice, unclipping the net from the table so the map could lie completely flat. “That’s what we’re doing now. With everyone’s input. In the future, we can ask permission and form subcommittees or whatever, but right now this is what we’re working with, so can we please focus?”

He and Clarisse had a point about doing it this way, most everyone had to admit by the time they all left for dinner (no one really seemed to be crediting Will with much of a part in this, though that also meant they weren’t blaming him for it, so whatever). It really was the most productive full war council they’d had so far. They got a hard head-count of their forces, laid out a couple possible defense scenarios to account for different formations the Romans might use based on Malcolm’s own research into Roman battle strategy, and everyone left with assignments for their cabins to work on to prepare.

Days Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen passed in an awful blur. Will had been thinking the wait would be agonizingly slow, not knowing what the Romans were going to do when the surrender deadline hit without their Praetor on this side of the Atlantic, but instead he found himself wishing for more hours in the days. More time to make sure the infirmary was more fully stocked, his siblings more fully prepared, and more time to spend with them not getting ready for war. If they were all going to die tomorrow, he knew he’d have a lot of regrets about not having been there for them more in these last days.

On Day Fourteen, they all took turns patrolling the hills in small groups, waiting for the Romans to arrive. Since the deadline Jacob the herald had given them was tonight at sundown, they were operating on the assumption that if the Romans were going to attack—if the Praetor had left standing orders to comply with the original plan in her absence, which Rachel doubted but nobody else was fucking around with—their forces would start arriving during the day.

They weren’t entirely wrong. In the middle of the afternoon war council, a horn blast rang across camp—the scouts at Half-Blood Hill. Lou Ellen, Olivia, and Cecil were up there. Will might not have been a warrior like most of the other counselors, but he was fast. He and the Stolls had outpaced everyone else by a few dozen yards by the time they got up there. Connor was still holding a half-eaten tray of Oreos.

“Sweet,” said Cecil, snatching them out of his big brother’s hand before Connor could blink. “Livvy, look! Connor brought snacks!”

“Hey, give those back!” Connor exclaimed. While their brothers scuffled, Travis and Olivia gave each other long-suffering looks. Lou Ellen snapped her fingers, and a couple of the Oreos vanished from the plastic packaging to appear in her hand instead.

“Cecil, you just ate lunch,” Olivia pointed out. “We’ve only been on shift for like 20 minutes!”

“And I’m a growing boy!” Cecil protested.

“Oreos have like zero nutritional value, though. Right, Dr. Solace?” said Olivia.

“Technically nothing has zero nutritional value,” Will said, “it just depends what element of nutrition you’re looking for.” Lou Ellen, mouth full of Oreos, nodded sagely. Olivia rolled her eyes.

“Nerd.”

“Yep. What’s going on?” Will asked, glancing over his shoulder—oh, good. Clarisse and the Victor twins were catching up. It had suddenly dawned on him that he was outnumbered four to one by children of Hermes up here—and Lou Ellen, but hanging out with her former cabin mates always kind of made her lean into those qualities they still shared. It was never a good place to be. “What did you see?”

“Definitely something, but we’re not sure what to make of it. C’mere.” Olivia beckoned, and Will and Travis followed her up to the crest of the hill, the rest of the council on their heels. They all stayed just this side of the tree, in the boundary line.

“Hey, Peleus.” Clarisse scratched the dragon between his horns. He made a sound kind of like a cat purring, if the cat was a jet engine. “You ready to fry some Romans for us, boy?”

“Not sure he’ll need to just yet.” Travis frowned down at the road. Below the hill, a train of black SUVs was winding its way past.

“I’ve counted at least a dozen so far,” Olivia said, and as they stood there Will counted a dozen more. When the Mist flickered for a second he could see what they would look like to mortals: New York State Patrol cars caravanning along the country road. A chill ran up his spine.

“That’s definitely the Romans,” Rachel said. “Those are their transport vehicles. Seven-seaters, so they’d need at least thirty for the full legion.”

“That’s a lot less efficient than the strawberry vans,” Clarisse said. “And there’s more of them than there are of us, too.”

“Probably comfier, though,” said Travis.

“Wimps,” Clarisse pronounced.

“Where are they going?” Laurel asked, shading her eyes against the July sun. Down the road a ways, the cars were turning off somewhere.

“Looks like the winery,” said Travis. “Goldsmith’s. They made a great Pinot Grigio back in the day—I mean, uh, so I’ve been told. What? They’re basically next door,” he said when everyone looked at him suspiciously. “Knowing stuff about them is just neighborly.”

“Sure, Travis,” said Jake. “That sounds legit.”

“No, he’s right,” Carly said. “Dad would never confirm it, but rumor has it old Mr. Goldsmith was one of—well, my older siblings. Much older.” She made a face like that was weird to think about—with the whole Octavian thing, Will could relate. “So he set up next door. I doubt the Romans are visiting them for any reason to do with the wine, though. Definitely not in those numbers.”

“Nah,” Travis said, “didn’t old Mr. Goldsmith die this year?” Carly nodded sadly. “As far as I can tell his kids put it on the market, and nobody’s buying. It’s basically abandoned.”

“Must be where they’re setting up camp,” Connor agreed from the ground, where he was still tussling with Cecil over the Oreos—at least, until Peleus lunged forward and seized the whole tray in his sharp teeth, gobbling it all down and snorting sparks that had the two sons of Hermes yelling and scrambling backwards. Jake stumbled back too, eyes full of panic, and almost lost his balance on the uneven ground. Will and Travis managed to catch him before he fell.

“Sorry,” Jake muttered, shaking out his shoulders like nothing had happened. Travis slung an arm around them.

“It’s okay,” he said in an undertone. “Happens to everyone sometimes.”

“Peleus!” Connor whined. The dragon just puffed out smoke from his nostrils that smelled a lot like sugar and burnt plastic.

“Okay, I’ll admit we probably deserved that,” Cecil said as Lou Ellen, now the only demigod who’d actually gotten any of the Oreos and smiling smugly about it, gave him a hand up.

“Speak for yourself,” Connor grumbled, getting to his feet on his own and dusting himself off, like that would get rid of the new grass stains on his jeans. “What do we do now?”

“Now we wait.” As the last of the Roman SUVs vanished in the distance, Chiron came trotting up to the top of the hill. “All of camp needs to be on alert. The Romans have moved to begin their invasion—come sundown, we must be prepared for it.”

The invasion didn’t come. At least, not yet. All afternoon and into the night the defensive fighters sat in their formations, waiting for the Romans to arrive. By midnight Clarisse pointed out keeping them up all night could be a strategy in itself, so she and the Stolls agreed to break the campers up into shifts and let their forces all get at least two-thirds of a good night’s sleep.

Will stayed up all night anyway. He wasn’t the only one—none of the other Manhattan vets could sleep, nor half the rest of their siblings, so they all sat up in the infirmary with him helping get things ready.

It was weird compared to last year. It wasn’t like any of them wanted another big battle—for a lot of them, their third in as many years, counting the Battle of the Labyrinth two years ago—but they all seemed to have accepted it with grim determination. Will was worried, because how could he not be? But even so, he didn’t feel nearly as anxious as he had on the way to Manhattan a year ago. Maybe it was that he was more experienced now, or maybe that the whole thing just didn’t feel as cataclysmic, with fewer enemies and without the fate of Olympus in the balance. Next to defending the whole island of Manhattan from an immortal Titan lord, old friends he had corrupted, and several thousand monsters, defending Camp Half-Blood against a couple hundred demigod strangers, even well-trained ones… It just didn’t feel as big.

Kids from other cabins went in and out, all in the same anxious-yet-calm state, looking for first aid supplies just in case—and, clearly, other people in the same boat to hang out with. The volume in the infirmary went up, and the atmosphere got strangely lighthearted. Will put Hannah and Logan to work putting together extra trauma kits, and Izzy handed Corin the deck of cards they kept around for long shifts with convalescing patients.

That was how, by about 2 in the morning, Will found himself stepping over and around a crowd of mostly Hermes, Aphrodite, and Ares kids sitting on the floor playing Hearts, Go Fish, and Slapjack, at least until Connor and Bailey had to call a time-out on that one—instead of slapping the jacks, Vinnie, Ellis, and their brother Ben had started slapping everyone else.

“Just keep it in for a couple hours, guys,” Connor told them as he dealt out cards for Go Fish again. “There’ll be more than enough violence to go around then.”

“Thanks, Connor,” Will muttered. “Super helpful.”

“It was!” Connor apparently heard him; now he pointed at the three sons of Ares, who were sitting there looking chastened. And somehow also excited. Will just sighed, shaking his head.

“So much for the whole good night’s sleep plan,” he muttered, walking far enough away that no one would be able to hear him this time but Izzy and Hannah. It wasn’t just the strongest healers—a lot of camp’s best fighters were in here, wide awake.

“We’ll be okay,” Izzy said. “Renee was up for two days straight in Manhattan, and she was still pretty sharp.”

“Yeah, until she died,” Hannah said, surprisingly bitterly.

“She’d tell you that was just the Fates,” Will pointed out. Hannah shrugged, and when he reached out to try and set a comforting hand on her shoulder she shrugged him off.

“Adrenaline goes a long way, was my point,” Izzy said, “but we should probably still eat and have coffee.”

So, a while later, around 4—not long now before the sun would rise—Will ducked out of the infirmary and into the Big House kitchen. He knew where the peanut butter and jam were. He wasn’t as sure about the coffee pot, but he was determined to find it.

Instead of finding those, though, Will found Hannah curled up on the floor, sitting with her back against the counter, crying.

“Go away,” she said, hiding her face in her arms.

“Oh, I wasn’t—I was just gonna get everyone something to eat.” Will sat down against the counter opposite her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Hannah’s shoulders hitched. “I didn’t want to come back to camp this summer,” she admitted quietly. “I asked my dad, but—there were just so many monsters around, he thought I’d be safer here. But I’m not really.”

“Are you scared?” Will asked. “You’re gonna be fine. Malcolm’s pretty sure the Romans will actually respect the rules of war—” not like monsters—“so we shouldn’t be in too much danger.” They had already made plans to mark themselves as medics, wearing armbands like in capture the flag. Hannah clearly wasn’t reassured, though—she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes, kind of resentful.

“Easy for you to say,” she said. “You’ve done it before, and you can run.”

“You can run,” Will protested—

“No, I can’t!” Hannah snapped, voice harsh with frustration. “I can’t! I’m fat and useless and I’m going to die and I wish you’d all stop pretending I’m not!”

“But—” Will wasn’t sure what to say to that. His instinct was to say of course she wasn’t any of those things, but clearly that would just make her more upset. It also would only be partly true. Hannah was chubby—and where Will and the rest of their teenage siblings had mostly shed any baby fat when they hit puberty, she was clearly gaining more. But she wasn’t the only kid at camp who wasn’t as thin as most, just in the cabin, and it wasn’t like it made any of them useless. Vinnie was as terrifying a fighter as his siblings, when he wasn’t being a dumbass—though that itself was true of pretty much every Ares kid. Lou Ellen wasn’t the best fighter, but she could hold her own in a pinch. More importantly, she was ingenious with magic and everyone on the council, at least, knew she was indispensable. Myles from the Hypnos cabin… okay, he was usually pretty useless for most intents and purposes, like all his siblings, but that had nothing to do with his body type.

And Hannah was a stronger natural healer than pretty much anyone else but Will or Izzy (or Chiron, but Will didn’t usually count him, since he was too busy doing everything else around camp and only stepped in when they were really shorthanded). She wasn’t as squeamish as she used to be, either—she’d proven that this summer, after that awful game of capture the flag.

Will hadn’t ever had to deal with a lot of body image stuff, not really—sure, at a camp full of ripped teenagers with huge biceps and washboard abs it didn’t feel great not to be one of them, but at worst Sherman called him scrawny and he rolled his eyes. It was different for girls, especially girls like Hannah. But hearing his sister call herself useless—that was all too relatable. He’d been a twelve-year-old Apollo kid who was only great at the one thing not so long ago. He’d felt pretty useless then too. Now he was old enough to know better.

“Okay. I won’t pretend anything,” he said carefully. “Promise. Will you listen to me?” Hannah shrugged.

“Whatever.”

“Okay. Listen, you’re not useless—without you, since all the archers need to be focusing on fighting, for healing we’d be down to just me. I’m really glad we’ve got you, and you’re a really good healer. I would know, and I wouldn’t lie to you about that.” Hannah gazed kind of past him, eyes distant and miserable.

“I can’t heal anyone if I’m dead,” she pointed out. “A lot better fighters than me died in the big battles. What chance do I have?”

“I’m not a great fighter,” Will said, “and I survived.”

“But you can—!”

“Run, yeah, I know. But—look, do you think Kayla’s a better archer than Michael was? I mean, okay, yeah, she’s pretty close,” he amended when Hannah looked doubtful, “but not quite yet. Better example—was Gabriel a better fighter than Silas? Can Izzy run faster than Jasper could? No. I know nobody wants to hear it, but a lot of it is luck. Maybe not for people like—like Percy Jackson or Nico di Angelo, who have magic swords and awesome powers and stuff, but for the rest of us? It’s not like strength and athletic ability hurts, but it really is about whether you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time or not.”

“I probably will be,” Hannah said darkly.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Will shrugged. “If it would make you feel better, you could have, like, a battle buddy who is a fighter. We kind of did that in Manhattan without making it official—while we were healing, somebody with a bow or a sword would watch our backs. I bet Teresa would do that for you.” Hannah shrugged.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said. “I’ll ask her.” She frowned. “Wait—who’s that other person you just said? Nico di who?” Will blinked.

“You know, the son of Hades?” he said. “He was here for a couple weeks last summer after the battle. I guess maybe you never met him.” It wasn’t like Nico had spent a lot of time hanging out with the other campers even when he was there. Just Percy and Annabeth sometimes—and Rachel, who he’d also known before she became the Oracle, though gods knew how. Something to do with those two. Will supposed he could ask Rachel, since she, at least, was here.

As long as they didn’t die first.

“Oh, that goth kid.” Hannah nodded. “Right. He was creepy.” Will frowned.

“I don’t think he’s creepy.”

“Yeah, but you have weird taste in friends,” Hannah told him. Will raised his eyebrows, taken aback.

“Excuse me?” He ran through a mental list of his friends—okay, if she thought Nico was creepy she might think Lou Ellen was too, but Olivia? Sherman? Jake? Malcolm? They were all pretty normal, as demigods went. Will thought so, at least.

“Sorry.” Hannah winced. “That’s just what Sophie says. I guess it’s not very nice.”

“—Yeah, that makes sense. It’s okay.” Will tried to smile. “I really do think you’re going to be fine,” he assured her. “For whatever it’s worth. I’m not pretending, I promise.” Hannah nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks. I’ll… try not to think about it.”

“I think that’s best,” Will agreed. “Just focus on healing. That’s the most important thing for you to do. The rest is up to the fighters and the Fates.”

After that he was glad when Hannah went back into the infirmary—it might have been good to have an extra set of hands working on sandwiches and coffee, but being alone meant Will didn’t have to worry about other people seeing tears well in his eyes. Right at that moment, making sandwiches and reassuring his little sister and talking about the Fates, he really missed Renee.

At dawn a sentry horn sounded from Half-Blood Hill again. Will grabbed his medicine bag and Renee’s knife—maybe it had been long enough it was just his knife now, but he didn’t think he’d ever think of that way—and gave Izzy and Olivia hands up so they could run up there with him, most of the rest of their friends and siblings in tow.

When they got to the crest, there wasn’t an army. Instead, once again, Will looked down at just one teenager and an armored pegasus. Jacob the herald was back.

“Hail, graeci!” he called, just like last time, only this time Clarisse cut him off:

“Get to your point before we shoot you in the mouth, Everett!” Next to her, her sister Dana aimed her bow and nocked an arrow. The other campers stirred nervously around them. Down at the foot of the hill, Jacob scowled.

“I bring a message from Octavian, Pontifex Maximus of New Rome!” he yelled up at them.

“Wait,” Izzy said, “this Octavian guy’s the demigod Pope? Since when?” Will shrugged.

“In light of Praetor Ramírez-Arellano’s absence,” Jacob announced, “our terms have changed. Octavian invites your so-called leaders to see our encampment for yourselves before they choose to doom your camp to destruction, so they’ll have enough information to make a more enlightened decision.”

“Like—all of us?” Travis called after a beat in which the assembled campers shifted uncomfortably, all looking at their counselors. “He wants the whole council there?”

“I have given you the message that was given to me, graecus,” Jacob said. “The pontifex maximus will await your delegation.”

“Okay, a delegation,” Travis said, “so he doesn’t want to meet everybody?” Jacob turned and walked away across the grass. “Hey! Can I get an answer, Marc Antony?”

“Looks like that’s a no,” Will said to him as the herald mounted his pegasus and flew away. Dana’s arrow tracked his flight line until he disappeared into the vineyard. Then she lowered her bow with a sigh.

“Should’ve just shot him,” Clarisse muttered. “Saved us all the trouble.”

For the first time, Will almost found himself agreeing.

Chapter Text

“So,” said Malcolm, “who do we send?” They were back in the rec room. It felt like about five minutes since the last time Will was here, before the first horn sounded on Half-Blood Hill yesterday, and at the same time kind of like that had been last week.

“I’m going,” Clarisse said, in a tone that brooked no argument this time—and this time, no one did argue. Even so, kind of surprisingly, she elaborated: “I think the odds are good this invitation’s some kind of trap, and I’m willing to take on that risk. I’ll fight my way out if I have to.” Malcolm and Travis nodded.

“Yeah, it’s some kind of trap for sure,” Travis agreed.

“I’d be willing to go too,” Malcolm said. Clarisse shrugged.

“Sure. War and war, show ‘em not to fuck with us.” But to Will’s surprise, and clearly Malcolm’s, Chiron shook his head.

“I am not sure your going would be… well, wise, Malcolm,” he said. “The Romans put a great deal more stock in Minerva’s status as a virgin goddess than the Greeks do with Athena. Even though you were not born by... the usual means, they may still find your existence discomfiting.” Why didn’t he or Jason bring that up before they sent Annabeth off to New Rome? Will had to wonder. Malcolm frowned.

“That’s a good point,” he said. “The Romans prioritized the gods differently. We should consider that. All the more reason to send Clarisse, actually,” he noted—“I think Mars ranks pretty high with them, so they may be inclined to respect a daughter of Ares.” Chiron nodded. Clarisse looked proud, and kind of surprised—it wasn’t often her godly parentage got her praise around here, Will supposed.

“Well, how do they feel about Hermes? Uh, Mercury?” said Connor.

“Better than we do about Hermes,” Malcolm said dryly. “I don’t know, though…” He looked uneasy at the thought of sending Travis or Connor, which made sense. Sending Clarisse into a meeting with Octavian was one thing—she wasn’t exactly diplomatic, but she was tough and intimidating, and Will was pretty sure she could handle it as long as she stayed calm—but she and the Stolls in combination did tend to bring out the worst in each other. At least he knew Clarisse would take it seriously. Connor and especially Travis? Not so much.

“You should take me, Clarisse,” Drew said suddenly. “I should go.” To his own surprise, Will found himself nodding with the rest of the council. Sure Drew had her faults, but she actually might be a good person to send. If anyone could handle Octavian… Maybe she could even use her charmspeak to talk him into not attacking them.

Wait. Charmspeak Was she—?

“You’re right,” Malcolm said, sounding surprised himself. “The Romans held Venus in high esteem, right? So the Legion probably does too.”

“Then maybe they’ll be pleased to see me! Perfect.” Drew beamed. “When do we leave?”

“When I say so,” said Clarisse, scowling. “You can go, Tanaka, but I’m still calling the shots here.” So maybe it wasn’t charmspeak, after all—or maybe Clarisse had been watching out for it since capture the flag. Will knew Lou Ellen was trying to do that, since supposedly being aware of it made it harder for it to work. He hoped his own suspicion meant it wasn’t working on him right now.

“Of course,” Drew said a little too diplomatically, raising her hands in surrender. “I’ll await your orders.”

“Hang on,” Rachel said. For a second Will wondered if she was immune to charmspeak, if that really was what was happening here—he wasn’t sure now, since what Malcolm said had made what Drew said make sense, with or without it—he was pretty sure without it—but instead she said, “I think I should go too. Same reasons as last time. And I think we should take Will.”

“Wait, what?” Will said, totally distracted from his concerns (were they concerns?) about Drew. “Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Rachel said, while Clarisse frowned even deeper. “Octavian seems to put a lot of stock in his divine ancestry, so bringing our actual Apollo counselor makes sense to me.”

“Uh, not to me,” Clarisse said. “I don’t want to take either of you. You both have great powers, don’t get me wrong, but you’re not fighters. If it is a trap—” Will would have agreed with her, except that Drew was nodding now. He wasn’t about to give Drew another opportunity to call him weak.

“No, Rachel’s right,” he said. “I’ll be fine. I’d like to meet my not-so-great nephew, anyway.”

“Hey, that’s my joke!” Travis leaned over the ping-pong table, holding out his hand for a high five. Will rolled his eyes.

“I’m not high-fiving you for that.” Travis lowered his hand, disappointed, and right on beat Connor raised his own with a hopeful grin. “I’m definitely not high-fiving you,” Will told him. Connor made a sad-puppy face that was so extremely not at all cute Will had to look away, hopefully not too conspicuously.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Rachel agreed. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“Okay.” Clarisse still looked uneasy about it, but—“Just keep an eye out, Delphi. Let us know if you foresee any double-crossing.” That wasn’t very likely, Will knew, with the power of prophecy apparently on vacation, but Rachel just shrugged. “We’ll go tomorrow,” Clarisse decided. “That herald kid didn’t give us a deadline, and if we’re doing this, I’m sure as hell not doing it on no sleep—or on an empty stomach.”

So, for now they all went back to their cabins, charged with sleeping and regrouping. When Will got back to Cabin Seven, Izzy had already put everyone to bed who hadn’t been there already. She wasn’t in her bed, though—she was curled up on the biggest of the couches in the middle of the room with the top blanket from her bed pulled off and wrapped around her. Will crouched down next to the couch and set a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“What happened?” Izzy asked sleepily, without opening her eyes. Apparently she was awake.

“I’m going to go meet our great-nephew,” Will whispered.

“Pope boy?”

“Is that what something something Maximus means?”

“Pontifex, yeah. That’s how we use it now, anyway.” Izzy yawned, and now she did open her eyes. “Must’ve meant something different in, like, pre-Christian Rome. I guess you could ask.” She blinked at him slowly and frowned. “Right now?”

“No, no. Right now I’m going to bed.”

“Good.” It wasn’t until Will had changed into pajamas and crawled into his bunk that Izzy spoke again, startling him—he’d thought she had to be asleep by now. But, no. “You’re not going by yourself, are you?” she asked.

“No, Clarisse and Drew are going too.”

“Oh, good—wait. Clarisse and Drew? Is that a good idea?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. But Clarisse was the first to volunteer, and Drew talked us into it.”

“Well, hopefully they’ll… keep each other in line,” Izzy said. “Or something.”

Or something seemed about right. As planned, they visited the Romans on what Will had unfortunately woken up thinking of as Day Fourteen, Episode Two—or was it Episode Three by now? At breakfast Clarisse cuffed him in the shoulder as she walked by the Apollo table and announced they’d leave right after and hopefully be back by lunch.

“Assuming we make it back,” she said way too cheerfully.

“Great,” Will said, looking down at his toast. Suddenly it wasn’t so appetizing.

The winery was close enough to camp that they could have walked or taken one of the vans, but Jacob the herald kept flying in on an armored pegasus, so Clarisse and Rachel agreed that was what they should do too. It was more impressive. They would look much more badass, as Clarisse said, appearing from the sky than they would climbing out of a car. Will didn’t mind—he got to ride the same pegasus he had when they flew to Philadelphia last summer, a sweet palomino who nuzzled at his shoulder affectionately when he went to give him a carrot beforehand.

“Hey, full offense, Solace,” Sherman said, leaning against the stable wall with Miranda leaning against him, among other friends and siblings who’d come to see them off, “but if this is some kind of trap and you get my big sister killed trying to protect you, you’d better hope there’s still a door down there, cause if not I’m gonna have to go back to the Underworld myself to kill you again and I won’t be happy about it.”

“Uh—okay,” Will said. “So in this scenario I’m also dead?”

“Obviously,” said Sherman. “If Clarisse bites it there’s no way in Tartarus you’re making it out.”

“Wow, thanks.” Will knew it was true, but still.

“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Miranda said, patting her boyfriend’s arm reassuringly. Will was moderately sure she did that just as an excuse to touch his bicep.

“Yeah,” said Lou Ellen, “besides, if anyone gets them killed it’ll be Drew, not Will.” Drew must have had, like, god-level hearing—she was all the way at the other end of the stables, saddling a dark roan pegasus, but she leaned her head out of the stall far enough to shoot Lou Ellen a venomous look.

“Really?” said Miranda, looking unimpressed. “I’d think if anything Drew might save their asses. If the Romans double-cross them, she can just charmspeak them out of it.”

“Just like she charmspeaks everyone else,” Lou Ellen grumbled.

“Hey, I know she was kind of a jerk at capture the flag, but she used her powers fair and square,” Miranda said. “Need I remind you, you guys set the woods on fire?”

“Plus we still won,” Sherman pointed out smugly. Miranda rolled her eyes.

“I’m not talking about that,” Lou Ellen said defensively. “She’s definitely charmspeaking her cabin. There’s no way Piper would’ve left her in charge when she left, but here she is on the council again, charmspeaking her way onto big missions!”

“Hold on.” Miranda looked at Lou Ellen like she’d said something insane. “What are you talking about? Piper did leave Drew in charge.”

“Wait, seriously?” Will said. “But Connor said—”

“Since when do you want people to listen to anything Connor says?” Miranda snapped. Will shut up. “Drew’s chilled out a lot since last fall—Piper really humbled her. Maia says everything’s been fine in the cabin. Do you guys ever actually talk to the Aphrodite kids?”

Will shifted awkwardly. The honest answer was no—Piper was pretty cool, and Mitchell was okay, but their cabin mostly made him kind of uncomfortable with their gossip and teasing. And for the same reasons, as far as he knew Lou Ellen didn’t have a very high opinion of any of them, not just Drew.

“Well—no, but—why’s she still being such a bitch to Will, then?” she snapped back now. “And the rest of the council?” Miranda sighed.

“I’m not saying she’s a nice person now,” she said, much quieter. “But she’s not charmspeaking her cabin. If everyone on council thinks she is, that probably wouldn’t exactly endear you guys to her, would it?” Before either of them could respond, Clarisse grabbed Will’s shoulder and tugged him away.

“Come on. We’re taking off.”

“Bye!” said Lou Ellen.

“Good luck!” said Miranda.

“Don’t get anybody killed!” said Sherman.

“Thanks, guys,” Will said, climbing onto his pegasus. Rachel and Drew were already in the air. As he and Clarisse joined them, Rachel gave him a sympathetic smile. They were kind of allies in this, Will thought: both representing Apollo in their way, but more importantly, they were the pair on this adventure who weren’t a ticking time bomb.

Last summer, when they flew out on pegasi, Will had been so focused on not falling or panicking that he hadn’t really looked down at Camp Half-Blood on the way out. Now, from above the treetops, it was cool to see it spread out below. The amphitheater, the cabins, the woods… gods, Will always forgot just how far west the woods went. As they circled over camp, it was stupidly obvious why Malcolm and Clarisse had been so quick to dismiss the idea that the Romans would try attacking from that side. The forest sprawled out twice as wide as camp itself, probably a solid mile of dryads, satyrs, and assorted monsters—Will had never seen them himself, but he’d heard rumors about giant, carnivorous ants—all accustomed to the underbrush and uneven terrain as even campers with years of capture the flag under their belts still weren’t. The Legion definitely wouldn’t be.

What the Legion was clearly accustomed to, though, was strict order. That was also obvious as they flew toward the old Goldsmith Winery. Beyond the eastern hills, less densely-wooded than the forest to the west, large fields stretched from the beach down to the road, most full of dead grapevines. At the eastern end of the property there was a huge farmhouse with a wraparound porch, overlooking the northernmost field—where the Romans had set up camp, tents in rows even neater than the grape fields, surrounded by spiked trenches and guard towers.

Will’s stomach turned, and not from flying. The Goldsmith farmhouse looked a lot like the Big House, giving some sense to what Carly had said about a son of Dionysus setting up next door: really, the whole property reminded him of Camp Half-Blood. It should have been welcoming—it was so familiar. With the Roman Legion camped out there, though, it was more like Mirror Universe Camp Half-Blood. It looked wrong.

“Look at these assholes,” Clarisse called from her pegasus, casting a sweeping hand toward the rows. “It’s like fucking graph paper down there. Who the fuck do they think they are?”

“Rome,” Rachel said grimly, and not, Will thought, all that helpfully. Drew just rolled her eyes.

“So, fearless leader, what’s your plan for the approach?” she called to Clarisse.

Before Clarisse could respond, someone yelled from the ground and something whizzed past them through the air. Will’s pegasus reared under him in midair—for a second he thought his heart actually stopped, but he was already holding on tight around the palomino’s neck and didn’t fall off. It was an arrow, he realized. The Romans in the guard tower must have spotted them, and now they were shooting on sight.

“It was a trap!” Clarisse yelled, spinning around in midair. “Fuck this, we’re—”

“No, wait!” Drew’s high voice rang out in unison with another, much deeper, booming from the ground. Down on the edge of camp, an enormous Roman warrior was running toward the southwestern guard tower.

“Hold your fire!” he bellowed to the guards. “They’re not attacking! Octavian sent for the graeci. They’ve come to meet with him. You’ve come to meet with him, right?” he added, turning toward the four of them and cupping his hands over his mouth like a megaphone.

“Yes!” Drew called down before Clarisse could say anything. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Are you sure, Centurion Kahale?” a guard yelled back. “They’re wearing armor!”

“So are we,” Centurion Kahale pointed out. Waving up at the riders, he called, “Set down over here.” He gestured to an open space at the west end of the encampment. Finally shaken out of it, Clarisse wheeled her pegasus around to descend. The rest of them followed.

“Too late to turn back now?” Will said quietly to Rachel as they dismounted. She grimaced.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine. But that’s just my own intuition—nothing prophetic to back it up.”

“Yeah.” He tried to put on a more confident smile than hers as the centurion jogged over. “Here goes nothing.”

Just from looking at him, Will had assumed the centurion would be a son of Ares or Hephaestus—well, Mars or Vulcan. He wouldn’t usually judge a book by its cover, but he’d never met a demigod with that kind of massive build who wasn’t one of theirs. Butch came close, but… it was definitely a surprise when instead he introduced himself as,

“Michael Kahale, Centurion of the First Cohort. Son of Venus. And you I’ve already met,” he added to Rachel. “Good to see you again, Oracle.” She inclined her head with a guarded expression.

“Centurion.”

“The rest of you are new,” Centurion Kahale said. Will would have been inclined to think of him by just his first name, not some stupid title, which was probably very Greek of him, but some always-present core of grief couldn’t stand to think of him as Michael, so the stupid title it was.

“Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares. Or Mars, or whatever,” Clarisse said, in a tone Will thought was clearly trying to provoke him. Centurion Kahale didn’t let it. Drew had started smiling as soon as he finished talking and now,

“Drew Tanaka,” she introduced herself. “Your half-sister, I guess.”

“A daughter of Aphrodite, right? Good to meet you,” Centurion Kahale said, smiling in a way that looked totally genuine to Will. He seemed nicer than he would have expected a Roman centurion to be. Then again, Jason was pretty nice, too. “You know, I kind of forgot we’d all have relatives over there.”

“Yeah, lots of us,” said Clarisse, elbowing Will, who tried to stand up straight. For a given definition.

“I’m Will Solace,” he said, “son of Apollo. I guess I’m the, uh…” he wasn’t going to try with the whole Latin Pope title. He’d probably just mess it up. “Octavian’s great-uncle, or something like that.”

“Makes sense,” said Centurion Kahale, nodding. “I’m sure he’ll be, um... interested to meet you. All of you. Come with me.”

As the centurion led them down the central thoroughfare of his encampment Will had to wonder if he was doing it just to intimidate them. The herald had said something about coming there to see what they were getting themselves into. The tents, the demigods marching around in neater and stronger-looking armor than theirs, polishing golden weapons like that sword Jason had even though they were already gleaming in the July sunshine—it all felt like a show of force. Centurion Kahale kept a friendly tone, answering Drew’s questions about the camp and how the Legion was organized, but as he explained Will thought everything he actually said was to tell them how much better-trained, better-armed, and better-prepared the Romans were than the Greeks. Maybe that was uncharitable, but they were at war, or about to go to war, or something, and the Romans were the ones who were really invested in making that happen.

Well, mostly the Romans. It wasn’t like Clarisse usually looked friendly, but right now, glaring around at the red and white tents lined up on either side of their path, her scowl was about the most dangerous Will had ever seen it. Some of the Romans scowled back or rolled their eyes, while others barely seemed to notice there were Greek demigods visiting, but a few looked understandably nervous at the sight of the heavily-armed and armored daughter of Ares. Drew, too—she couldn’t project the kind of aura of menace Clarisse could, but mean girl was even scarier in some ways. As she chatted up her half-brother, Will could hear the dangerous edge in her friendly, innocent tone that far outmatched his. And then there was the longsword strapped to her belt.

Rachel wasn’t at all intimidating, though she carried herself with yet another kind of confidence, and Will didn’t think he was intimidating either, but that was okay. Clarisse and Drew were enough to scare at least some of the Romans. A girl with pink hair and a huge crossbow-looking thing stopped dead in the middle of the path in front of Centurion Kahale and stared at them all, wide-eyed, before she turned and ran back the way she’d come, yelling for someone named Dakota.

At the east end of the encampment, the heavy wooden spikes lining the trenches opened up. The Romans who dug them had left some earth at grass level to form kind of a bridge, just wide enough for two large-ish adults (or teenagers) to walk side by side. Will and Rachel stepped back to let Clarisse and Drew take the lead as they followed Centurion Kahale across it and up the path to the farmhouse. Now that they were close, it was even weirder to look at the place—it really did look a lot like the Big House, wraparound porch and everything. But unlike the Big House, the place was pretty run-down, badly in need of some new shingles and a fresh coat of paint, and the Romans had set up the front porch with a throne at the top of the steps, like it was a dais for someone very important to sit on.

Someone was sitting there, looking like he thought he was very important indeed. Will assumed this must be Octavian: he was an older teenager, probably the same age as Clarisse and Drew, and he wasn’t dressed like the other Romans they had seen, who’d all been in purple t-shirts and armor—instead he wore a long white robe over his jeans and t-shirt, with a white scarf, or shawl, or something over his head. All the white kind of made sense with his whole Pope thing. Jacob the herald was standing behind him, holding a big golden pole with a gold sculpture of an eagle on top of it. Will wondered why he hadn’t brought that with him before. Maybe it was too hard to carry it when he was riding a pegasus.

Now that he had seen Octavian, Will could see how they were related—there was some family resemblance to some of Apollo’s kids. The ones who looked like Will. It wasn’t quite as strong as the resemblance between Will and, say, Lee, though—Octavian was blond, but a light blond, not golden, and very pale, like a version of Lee who had been washed too many times and had all the color wrung out of him or something.

Kind of like what Lee had looked like dead, Will realized. It was a warm day, but that thought made his blood run cold.

“Pontifex,” said Centurion Kahale. “The delegation from Camp Half-Blood is here.”

“I see that,” said Octavian. “And you’ve given them the grand tour?”

“Just as you ordered,” said Centurion Kahale. Octavian smiled thinly.

“Good. At ease, and stand by.” Centurion Kahale nodded shortly and stepped back to stand off to the side of the porch steps. Octavian sat forward in his chair, looking the four of them over. “So. These are your council’s representatives, ‘Oracle’?” Jacob had done the implied air quotes thing too, but coming from Octavian it felt much nastier.

“Yes,” Rachel said. “This is Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares; Drew Tanaka, daughter of Aphrodite; and Will Solace, son of Apollo. They are the senior counselors for their cabins at Camp Half-Blood.” Octavian’s icy gaze fixed on Will as soon as Rachel said Apollo: narrowed blue eyes, sizing him up. His lip curled.

“I see,” he said. “Your ‘cabins’ are made up of your siblings, I gather?”

“That’s right,” said Drew, eyes narrowing right back at him. Octavian surveyed the four of them. The tension felt tighter than Kayla’s drawn bowstring.

“As barbaric as I thought,” Octavian pronounced. “In the Legion we fight together out of loyalty to our cohorts and New Rome, not silly tribal clannishness.” Spoken like someone who’d never lost a sibling in one of those fights, Will thought. Probably not even a friend. He’d only known the guy about ninety seconds, but he sort of doubted Octavian actually had a lot of real friends.

“Who’s ‘we?’” Clarisse growled. “Cause you don’t look like you do a lot of fighting yourself, Scarf Boy.” That rankled a little—Will wasn’t a fighter either, though he figured she probably just wasn’t thinking about that, and thankfully Drew didn’t bring it up either.

“I am a Centurion of the First Cohort,” Octavian said, “a veteran of the Battle of Mount Othrys, and I have served New Rome as augur for many years more than your so-called Oracle—”

“Watch who you’re calling so-called,” Rachel said a little too casually. “I’ve taken on Kronos and walked away.”

“You have?” Will said, surprised. Rachel waved him off.

“Shh.”

“Bet you couldn’t even say the same about a satyr,” Clarisse was muttering. Behind Octavian, Jacob shifted uncomfortably on his feet.

“Enough of this,” Octavian snapped. “You’ve seen our forces and our armaments, graeci. You must know you cannot win. Now will you reconsider your foolish refusal to surrender?” There was a moment of dead silence as the four of them looked at each other. Then Clarisse snorted.

“Yeah, right,” she said, turning back to Octavian. “Oh, sure, you’ve got some sweet weapons, and your Legion can march in straight lines like fucking show dogs. Very impressive. But now that I’ve seen you?” She scoffed. “We’ll never surrender to you. I’ll die before I bend the knee to a self-important loser on a fake throne who’s probably never held a sword in his life.” For a second, Octavian actually looked rattled.

“What a shame,” he replied, and didn’t sound at all like he meant it. “To have all the evidence you need to make the smarter choice before your very eyes, and still choose your camp’s certain destruction. But then, I would expect no better from a daughter of Ares. Your father’s Greek form is the idiot of Olympus, and I can see your mother must not have had enough of a brain to give you what he couldn’t.”

Oh, fuck, Will thought, now we really are going to die.

“Don’t you dare talk about my mother,” Clarisse snarled, adjusting her grip on her spear. Centurion Kahale’s hand went to his sword hilt.

“Hey,” Will said. “Don’t let him get to you.”

“Little late for that, Solace,” Clarisse growled. He set a hand on her arm. She shrugged him off.

“Will’s right,” said Drew. Will had to appreciate the backup for once—though he could also hear the charmspeak layering into her voice. “He’s trying to provoke you into attacking him. Then they’ll have a definite reason to destroy us, without the confusion of Leo being possessed or whatever. I know you don’t actually want to give him that, hon.”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Clarisse said, though she was relaxing out of her fighting stance, loosening her grip on her weapon. Centurion Kahale hesitantly let go of his own. He was looking at Drew warily, like he was just now realizing what he had let into his camp, and his leader’s presence. Apparently children of Venus knew about charmspeak just like their Greek half-siblings—though it didn’t sound like the Romans spent a lot of time with their siblings.

“At least Mars has some intelligence.” Octavian was still monologuing, somehow, eyes alight with malice. “And Roman discipline. But then our gods are all superior to yours,” he went on. “That’s why they replaced yours in history, and why they will replace them again in our times. It is inevitable. If you don’t surrender now, you’ll go the same way. The Legion will destroy your camp—”

“You can’t know that,” Will protested. Octavian looked shocked to be interrupted. Good. “Even if you’re the augur, as a descendant of Apollo, his power of prophecy isn’t—”

“But I do know, Will Solace,” Octavian said. Gods, he even said Will’s name like he doubted its legitimacy. “It has already begun. Your father, my ancestor, the mighty god Apollo, has promised me his favor. He has given his approval to New Rome, and our mission here. Small wonder,” he added, “if you are the best his Greek bastards could come up with to lead our line. A foolish child.” His tone dripped with disdain as he actually turned up his nose at Will, the better to look down it.

“Hey!” Rachel yelled, grabbing Will’s shoulder in what was probably supposed to be a supportive gesture. “We didn’t come here just to be insulted, Octavian! Will’s a better representative for his father than you’ll ever be.” Not much of one right now, Will thought. It was his turn to stare at Octavian in shock, mouth hanging open. Greek bastards? Foolish child?

“If that were true, he would know I’m right,” Octavian said coldly, “and advise you all to surrender. Reyna may have chosen poor timing for her proposed invasion, but there are more auspicious days to come.” He shook his head. “You’re all fools. I should have known better than to invite graecus scum into our encampment. I can see now that in my kindness, offering you the chance to surrender in full understanding, all I’ve done is allow you access to our camp and our preparations. Now, of course, you cannot be allowed to return to your own.”

“You little—” Clarisse actually started forward this time, and Centurion Kahale actually started to draw his sword, before Drew intervened again:

“Stop!” She stepped forward even as she pushed Clarisse back. “You’re the fool,” she told Octavian. “Being a dick to everyone will barely even make your own Legion respect you, never mind your enemies.”

“I don’t need respect from the likes of you,” said Octavian.

“Of course not,” Drew said. “You and I both know you never really wanted us to surrender. You want to go to war. You want to destroy us. You’ve been looking for any excuse, and if you couldn’t find one, you were always going to create one.”

“You don’t know anything, you stupid girl,” Octavian snarled. “Mike—”

“Clarisse, don’t,” Will whispered, grabbing her arm again as she automatically shifted toward battle posture. This time she didn’t shove him off. She was looking at Drew like she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing.

“Mike’s not going to hurt us,” Drew said sweetly, turning her gaze—and the full force of her charmspeak, Will imagined—on her half-brother. “Will you, hon? No, of course not. He respects you for now, Octavian, but you have to know it won’t last forever. When you’re only in charge cause everyone’s scared of you, they’re all gonna turn on you the second they get the chance. And I do know that, sweetie,” she said, walking up to the foot of the steps. Kahale stayed perfectly still. “Cause I used to be just like you. Maybe I still am.”

Will couldn’t see what Drew’s face looked like—she was a few steps ahead of the rest now, back to them—but he could hear the charmspeak slip out of her voice for a second. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Drew sound that honest before.

“So I know it’s a hard habit to break,” she said. “But you can. It’s not too late.” The honesty faded again—or maybe not, Will thought, but it got coated in enough layers of sickly-sweet charmspeak that he couldn’t really hear it anymore. “Let us walk out of here,” Drew told Octavian. “Turn your Legion around, and go back to California. We won’t follow you on any quest of vengeance, and your people will respect you more if you show mercy.”

“Our vengeance is the stronger claim,” Octavian said, though he sounded kind of uncertain. His face contorted in confusion. Then his eyes narrowed. “No. Rome does not turn tail and run, and you Greeks don’t deserve mercy. Your beguilement won’t work on me, witch!” Assuming Will survived the next five minutes, he was looking forward to telling Lou Ellen about Drew getting called a witch, too. “Kill her!” Octavian snapped at Kahale. “Kill them all!”

“Don’t,” Drew said again, this time before the centurion could even move. “You don’t really want to kill us today,” she told Octavian. “Then you wouldn’t get to watch us die with the rest of our camp. What’s this auspicious day you’re thinking of attacking, hon?”

“A—August first,” Octavian said, eyes still narrowed in distrust. He sat back in his throne, though. “The Feast of Spes.”

“That sounds like a super auspicious day,” Drew said sweetly, kind of like she was talking to a four-year-old. “We’ll put up the best fight we can, but I’m sure you’ll still defeat us. If you really have Apollo’s blessing.”

“I do,” Octavian said fiercely.

“Great!” Drew said perkily. “Then it’s inevitable, like you said. Now, why don’t you let us go so we can get ready? Beauty sleep and all.”

“Yes.” Octavian nodded. “Yes. Centurion Kahale, let them go.”

“Are you sure?” Centurion Kahale asked hesitantly, looking back and forth between Octavian and Drew. “Cause—”

“He’s sure,” Drew told him. “And so are you, right, Mike?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.” Kahale nodded. “You are free to go. Your pegasi will have been seen to.”

“Wonderful,” said Rachel, stepping forward. “Pontifex, Centurion, great to see you again. Let’s go, guys.”

“Soon as we’re across that bridge, we book it,” Clarisse said in an undertone as they turned and walked away from the farmhouse. “Drew’s charmspeak won’t last forever.”

“Unfortunately,” Drew agreed. They passed between the sharpened stakes, and Clarisse said,

“Now,” and they all took off running. The Romans looked startled as the Greek campers raced between them, and a few yelled warnings and orders, but none of them really seemed to know what was going on. Will could hear Drew saying things like, No, you don’t need to do that! and, Everything’s fine! and, It was great to meet you guys! Today, he really appreciated having her charmspeak on his side. Miranda had been right.

They made it back to the pegasi just in time for the shouts of alarm to get angry. Someone must have realized what was wrong. Maybe Octavian had snapped out of it, or Kahale—but it didn’t matter. Will and Drew swung up onto their pegasi, and Clarisse set Rachel on hers. She had been losing ground, being shorter than and not as conditioned as any of the demigods, so Clarisse had fully picked her up halfway across the Roman camp and fireman-carried her the rest of the way. As she got into her saddle Rachel looked a little dazed, but she shook out of it and steered her pegasus up to follow them.

“Tower guards!” some officer was yelling as they flew away. “Fire at will!”

For a split second, Will was very confused, and kind of offended. Then he remembered what that actually meant. The Roman’s order didn’t even matter, though—it was too late. Clarisse guided her pegasus down to fly between the tallest treetops, and the rest of them followed suit. Hopefully they were already out of range, and maybe the trees could provide enough cover to keep them out of sight, too.

It seemed to work. No Roman arrows or crossbow bolts whizzed past, and within minutes they were landing back on the field outside the stables, with their siblings and friends swarming around to greet them. Kayla slammed into Will’s chest, followed shortly by Austin and Izzy.

“I’m fine, guys,” he told them, ruffling Kayla’s hair and squeezing Austin around the shoulders and hoping he looked and sounded less shaken than he felt. “Our great-nephew really sucks, though.” He met Izzy’s eyes over the top of Kayla’s head. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“What did you learn?” Malcolm was asking Clarisse as he gave Rachel a friendly hand down from her pegasus.

“Plenty,” Clarisse said. “Tanaka got him to—wait, where did she go?”

As his siblings let go, Will looked around. As far as he could tell, none of the people surrounding them had come to greet Drew. Now he caught sight of the back end of her pegasus disappearing into the stables.

“Well, anyway,” Clarisse said, “we got some intel. Come on, I’ll give you the rundown.”

“—And like, you know I’m a firm believer in do no harm, but—” It was hours later, after lunch and a council meeting and a really awful afternoon for climbing wall injuries. The infirmary was finally empty again except for Will and Izzy. As Will took the opportunity to tell his sister about this morning’s mission, and Octavian, he found himself pacing back and forth across the floor, fists clenching and unclenching on thin air. In the chaos of everything else, he’d kind of forgotten he was this upset.

“Yeah,” Izzy said from her perch on the counter. “Sounds like some harm needs doing.” Will hissed out a sharp breath between his teeth, shaking his head.

“Gods, I wish Michael were here.” Now that he’d met the Romans’ Michael, he couldn’t stop thinking about how different all this would be if their own was still around.

“Dammit, Percy,” said Izzy, mostly sarcastically. There was always a little very real anger in that, though, Will thought, for all of them.

“Dammit Percy to everything!” he exclaimed. “Between whatever he did at the Roman camp, and—gods. I mean—I guess if Michael were here and dealing with Octavian, we’d probably be at war already. But, I don’t know.” Will sighed. “Maybe that would be better. Maybe Clarisse was right all along—”

“I’d like to see Michael’s face if he could hear you say that,” Izzy said dryly.

“I know, but—we’re all exhausted, morale’s low, and there’s barely been a single shot fired,” Will said. “Maybe just getting it over with would be better than all the back and forth. And Michael was our wartime leader. That’s what he was for.”

“Yeah.” Izzy shifted uncomfortably. “I guess.” Will supposed she hadn’t been on their side for any of the part of the war where Michael had really led. Not in combat, anyway. Her main experience of Michael at war would have been when he shot her in Philadelphia.

“I just mean maybe he’d know what to do,” he said, deflating a little as he remembered the look on her face and his heart started hurting all over again. “Cause I sure don’t.”

“You’re doing fine,” Izzy told him.

“Am I?” Will asked helplessly. “I don’t feel like it. Octavian called me a child, and... he wasn’t wrong. I’m just a kid. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to stop a war, let alone win one.”

“Are any of us really just kids anymore?” Izzy asked rhetorically, and shook her head. “You’ve been a good leader so far, Will. Don’t doubt yourself.” Like he could help that, especially with Octavian’s voice still ringing in his ears. “And it’s not like you’re on your own.”

“No, I know I’m not.” Will sighed. “How are you doing?” he asked, walking over to lean against the counter next to his sister. “With all the stuff about Dad?”

“You mean him disappearing on us for months, then this Roman prophecy dipshit showing up and claiming he has the favor of Apollo, his mighty ancestor, and Dad told him it’s totally cool if he attacks us and burns our camp to the ground?” Izzy said. The irony in her voice was kind of brutal now.

“Yeah,” Will said softly. “With all that.” Izzy sighed and chewed on her lip for a moment, looking out over the infirmary. Then she scooted over so their shoulders were pressed together and leaned her head on Will’s.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what Renee said last year,” she said. “On the bridge, right before Xavier—you know. That it’s not about Dad, it’s about us.”

“She was right,” Will said. He could still hear her yelling it like it was yesterday. It was nice to have her voice replace Octavian’s for a minute—nice to know he hadn’t forgotten it.

“I know.” Izzy smiled sadly. “I’ve thought about that like every day since she died.” Will nodded. “And it’s true. We’re a family, but not just because we share a dad. None of us really grew up together, except maybe you and Austin and Kayla, since you all live here—but it’s not like we share DNA. Well, except for Sophie and Silas, but—”

“Yeah.”

“We’re a family cause we choose to be,” Izzy said. “Because we care about each other. That’s a lot more meaningful than whatever bloodline bullshit Octavian has going on with Dad.” Will turned to wrap his arms around her, pressing his face into her shoulder. He hadn’t really been able to do that in years—she was his big sister, but she hadn’t been taller than him since he was eleven. Izzy hugged him back tight. “So I’m gonna keep choosing you guys,” she said into his hair. Will nodded.

“Me too,” he said.

“Well, yeah,” said Izzy, laughing gently, “I don’t think anyone ever doubted that.”

“I wish Silas was here too,” Will said as he drew back, wiping his eyes a little. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to sic him and Jasper on Octavian.” Izzy laughed much harder at that.

“See,” she said, “you’re fine at battle strategy. We just don’t have the forces we’d like to.”

“Sure.” Will sighed. So did Izzy, almost in unison, and that made them laugh again.

“There’s a lot of stuff that happened last year I’ve been thinking about,” Izzy said. Her voice was more hesitant now, and her shoulders went a little tense. “A lot of things. I feel like I got really lucky yesterday, cause we didn’t have a battle and I didn’t have to learn the same lesson you learned last summer.”

“What lesson I learned?” Will looked at her, concerned.

“You know,” Izzy said carefully, “about coming out to people before we all die. Like, I should probably have done that. Now I guess I have another chance.” Will blinked at her as the confusion cleared and it dawned on him what was happening.

“Wait, but, Izzy, you never—”

“No, that’s my point. You know how I’m the first person you came out to?” she said, smiling now. “It seems only fair to have that go the other way, too.”

“—Oh. Oh.” Will pulled her into a hug again. They held each other tight for a minute. “I mean, you kind of were,” he said, cause it was going to bug him. “Dad had already—”

“Dad doesn’t count,” Izzy said, “he’s omniscient.” Will laughed.

“Okay, fair. What, um—sorry, what are you coming out as?”

“Y’know, that is the question,” Izzy said. “I think… maybe bi?” She pulled away a little, so he could see her face again. She looked very conflicted. “I might just be a lesbian, but I don’t know, I mean—I don’t know. I just know I like girls.”

“Okay.” Will held out his hand, and Izzy smiled and high-fived him. “Well, cool. Any, uh,” he said, as something clicked in his head—a lot of things that happened last summer, she’d said—“any specific girl?” Now his sister winced, but she also smiled wider.

“—Ash,” she admitted. Will nodded, grinning back. Yep.

“Well, hey, you’re already way ahead of me,” he said, nudging her affectionately, “as gay camp crushes go, cause at least you managed to find one who’s... also gay.”

“Ash and Corin think Connor’s definitely bi,” Izzy said. “He just hasn’t figured it out yet.”

“I don’t like Connor!” Will protested, happy mood dropping. Gods, he’d gotten so used to people giving him shit about Malcolm lately he’d forgotten there were people who did actually know him better than that. Izzy raised her eyebrows.

“Sure, kiddo.”

“Don’t call me kiddo,” Will grumbled.

“Sure, liar,” Izzy said. “Is that better?” Will shoved her. Izzy just grinned.

“I don’t know if I’d actually want to date Connor,” Will said. He still wouldn’t admit it, not ever, but he could… talk around it. “He’s—I mean, he’s gotten better as we’ve grown up, I guess, but he’s… I don’t know. I still don’t really trust either of the Stolls as far as I can throw them. I mean, I trust them to be loyal and stand with us against the Romans and anyone else, and Connor’s the better one for sure, but I don’t trust him, like—”

“With your heart?”

“Ew, Izzy!” Will made a face that hopefully looked as awful as it felt. “Yeah. Whatever.”

“Yeah.” Izzy rubbed his shoulder fondly. “You’re right. You need a boy who’s as sweet as you are.” Will rolled his eyes. “What’s this I hear about Malcolm Pace?”

“Ugh, not you too!” Will groaned. Izzy’s eyebrows drew together.

“He just seems nice,” she said. “And I heard someone say he likes boys, or he might—not that you have to date someone just because they’re the only option, of course not, but, you know, you’re both nice and smart and into nerdy stuff.”

“I know. And he is all those things,” Will agreed. “But we’re friends. He doesn’t like me like that, and I don’t either, and we’ve both made that clear. It’s literally just something Connor invented to swindle people out of drachmas in his stupid camp romance betting pool.”

“—Yeah, please don’t date Connor,” Izzy agreed.

“I’m not going to!”

“And I’ll tell people that,” she added. “About Malcolm. If I hear it come up again. That sounds really annoying, and I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.” Will smiled weakly.

“Gotta look out for my little brother.” Izzy ruffled his hair, smiling back.

“Are you gonna tell Ash, too?” Will asked, and her smile vanished really fast.

“I don’t know.” She winced. “I probably should, right?”

“I mean, of all the people I’d think you’d want to tell before we all die.”

“I guess.” Izzy sighed. “Just, if she doesn’t feel the same way, and we do die, you know, I wouldn’t want to die having made it weird.” Will thought about the look on Ashlyn’s face when Izzy got back to camp at the start of this summer and smiled.

“I think you should tell her,” he said. “You never know.”

Meanwhile, since the invasion-that-wasn’t, morale around camp was taking a nosedive. Will wasn’t sure if he was more worried about the younger kids, all the new ones who’d come to camp since the Titan War, or the older kids, who had fought in it alongside him. Either way, there were more than enough nightmares to go around. Hannah wasn’t the only crying kid Will had to try and console that week.

Now that Octavian had brought his forces so close, people were getting antsy. Concentration wasn’t most demigods’ strong suit to start with, but right now it was hard for anyone to focus on much of anything, even the things they enjoyed, or the things they all knew they had to be doing if they wanted a chance at survival. Inattention meant accidents, which meant time in the infirmary, which was time taken out of training and healing resources used up that might have been nice to have for the actual battle. Will increasingly thought there really was something to the idea of just getting it over with—after two weeks of training and preparing and worrying, to now have to do it all again, for almost another two weeks, was brutal.

They couldn’t get it over with, though, not now. It was too late to launch a preemptive strike—the Romans had entrenched themselves, literally, and though Malcolm and Clarisse went around and around as she tried to argue there had to be a way to punch through, there had to be, Malcolm just didn’t see it, and if he didn’t Will definitely couldn’t think of one. If they tried to get through with a ground assault, they would run into the trenches and the spikes, and even though Katie and Jake had some good ideas for how their cabins could deal with those, it wouldn’t be enough. If they tried attacking from the air, on pegasi, between the tower guards and the giant eagles they would probably all die before they could get close. Plus, Katie, Butch, and Chiron agreed it would be poor repayment for the pegasi’s centuries of service to ask them all to sacrifice themselves like that.

So Will still took Malcolm’s side in the war councils that, once again, never seemed to end. Especially as the Romans’ new… friends started to arrive. When it had just been Camp Half-Blood against the Legion, maybe. But the monsters that were setting up camp in the winery’s empty fields…

It wasn’t like their odds were completely hopeless, Will had to tell himself. As Clarisse put it, their defenses were solid, and the campers were as ready as they would ever be. Lou Ellen and her brothers Quentin and Brian had spent days figuring out how to fortify the magical wards and barriers around camp, making them even stronger than they had been when Clarisse was dreaming up her hypothetical invasion plans, and meanwhile their cabin was also working on lots of magical tricks and weapons to use in actual combat. Will hadn’t seen any sign of the modified Greek fire again, but he was wary, especially since he knew Lou Ellen had also been brainstorming ideas with Olivia and Cecil. Their cabin had… “appropriated” pretty much all the grenades, mines, and traps Cabins Five and Nine had lying around—“how do you steal live landmines?” Clarisse grumbled during yet another war council—to make the hills all the more impassable. Still,

“She’s not wrong, you know,” Jake said the next day, after another meeting where they all reported what they already knew and then went in circles arguing about it. “We’re fucking screwed. At a certain point all the preparations are doing is giving us false hope—we’re still too outnumbered for any of it to matter, and it’s only getting worse by the day.”

“Maybe.” Will stared out at the Sound. “I wish Percy was here. Do you think there’s any way we could get more reinforcements by sea, since they don’t have any naval forces?”

“Probably not without him,” Rachel, standing on the front porch with them, agreed. “I can talk to Tyson, but I suspect he’s brought all the cyclopes who’ll follow him, and it sounds like the rest of Poseidon’s kingdom is in shambles from the gods’ version of this conflict.”

“What if we could get some of us out that way, then?” Will said. “We could take one of the triremes—”

“What, like, evacuate?” said Jake.

“Maybe.” Will hadn’t even been thinking about evacuation, but it wasn’t actually the worst idea in the world. He didn’t love the idea of leaving Camp Half-Blood to be razed, but if it meant his family survived… No way Clarisse would stand for it, though, and there were a lot of other campers who wouldn’t be so willing to abandon their home to destruction. Not after the lengths they’d already gone to make sure Camp Half-Blood wasn’t going down without a fight. “Or just to get a message out, since it’s our only way that isn’t blocked by the Romans right now.”

“I don’t know that it is, really, if what Clarisse said about those eagles is true,” Jake said grimly. “They might just pluck us out of the sea or something.”

“Yeah,” Will said. “And I guess I don’t know who we’d even be sending a message to.”

They hadn’t heard from anyone on the Argo II in a couple weeks now—the world didn’t seem to have fallen to storm or fire yet, so they had to hope at least some of them were still alive, but no one knew anything. Rachel had no idea what had happened with the Praetor and Annabeth’s plan, and no one had spotted any more napkins from Tartarus. If the Romans knew where Reyna Ramírez-Arellano was, they hadn’t shared that information, and nor, Will figured, was Octavian likely to.

As for outside help—last year they’d have been toast without the Party Ponies, but Will figured if they were an option Chiron probably had his own ways of contacting them, and would have done it already. And he supposed there probably wasn’t much hope of Nico arriving with an undead army again. Gods only knew where he was—or if he was still alive, either.

For now, the minutes marched forward, turning rapidly into hours and days. During the first stage of the siege, when they all thought the Legion would attack on the eighteenth, Malcolm had tacked up a piece of butcher paper almost as big as his map and drawn a huge calendar on it for the month of July. Every day, at the start of the war council, he X-ed out another day. For this second stage, of course, the original deadline had been scribbled out, replaced with an extra box he’d drawn at the end of the calendar for August 1st.

Now more than three-quarters of the boxes had big red X marks in them. They were in the final week.

Will thought time was supposed to fly when you were having fun, but no. The last couple weeks had proven that at least at Camp Half-Blood, it went fastest when they were running out of it. Maybe it figured time was a dick, since Kronos had been the lord of it. Will should probably quit pondering time—he had let himself get distracted watching the alarm clock Clovis had brought to the next day’s war council for some reason. It had about a dozen different hands, and trying to figure out what they were for was a lot more interesting than listening to Clarisse and Malcolm and the Stolls chase their tails again.

Suddenly the alarm clock went off with a horrible, shrill ringing. The entire council jumped; Malcolm tumbled backwards in his metal folding chair, landing with an even louder crash.

“The fuck?” Clarisse yelled, going for her knife. Thankfully Jake grabbed the clock and turned it off before she could stab it or smash it, as Will figured she would have.

“Huh?” Clovis, who had been sprawled out on the ping-pong table snoring this whole time, sat up. “What’s going on?”

“Your fucking demon alarm clock,” Clarisse snapped. “What was that for?” Clovis blinked at her slowly.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “The alarm clock. It was to wake me up.”

“Pretty standard use of an alarm clock,” Connor said in an undertone. Travis snorted. Clarisse shot the Stolls a warning look.

“What did you need to wake up for?” Jake asked in a much more patient tone than Clarisse’s.

“Gotta, uh…” Clovis yawned. “Deliver a message. From Nico di Angelo.” For a second, Will wasn’t sure he’d heard that right—it felt like he’d missed a step. “Was gonna do it yesterday—” another yawn—“but I forgot.”

“Oh yeah?” Clarisse frowned, looking totally unrattled. “What’s death kid got to say?”

“Where is he?” Will asked. “The last time anyone talked to him was in May, right?” Everyone else shrugged.

“Yeah,” said Lou Ellen, “how’d you get this message?”

“Ran into him in my dreams the other night. Well—his dreams, actually,” Clovis said, like that made any sense. “I don’t know where he is, exactly, but he’s on his way here. He said to tell Chiron he’s bringing the—you know, the big statue. Athena Parsomething.”

“Parthenos,” Malcolm said, pulling himself back into his chair and rubbing his shoulder where he’d banged into the rec room wall. “Does he know anything about Annabeth? Are she and Percy okay?”

“I don’t remember.” Clovis sighed. “Dream messages get fuzzy when you’re awake. Dunno why we can’t all be asleep all the time, it’d be much easier to communicate.” Everyone looked at each other. None of them seemed to be interested in arguing.

“What else did Nico say?” Travis asked. “If you don’t know where he is, did he at least tell you when he thinks he’ll be here?”

“Yeah, yeah. Before the first,” Clovis said. “They’re trying to get here in time. He’s with the, uh… The Praetor.”

“Reyna,” Rachel supplied. Chiron nodded thoughtfully.

“Yeah, her. And the satyr that went with them, Whatshisface.”

“Coach Hedge.” Clarisse heaved a huge sigh of relief and sat back in her chair. “Oh, thank the gods, he’s okay.”

“How are they getting here?” Connor asked.

“His shadow-travel thing,” Clovis explained. Most everyone else nodded—after the December meeting when Percy disappeared, the council, at least, was familiar. Clovis yawned again. “If he told me anything else, I can’t remember, so that’s all the message I’ve got. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“Sure,” said Clarisse. “Message received.” Chiron held up a hand.

“If you see Nico in your dreams again, please let him know we heard his message, and we’re looking forward to seeing him soon,” he said. “Now… yes, I suppose you can go back to sleep.”

“Cool,” said Clovis, and proceeded to pass out again.

“Okay.” Jake’s shoulders slumped, but Will thought it was a good thing—relaxing, not sinking into (further) misery. “So maybe we do still have a chance. If they get the statue here by the first, and Annabeth’s right about it working—”

“Which she will be,” Malcolm said. Rachel nodded. There was a pause—no one here was inclined to disagree with Annabeth. Well, almost no one.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, hon,” Drew said. Everyone looked at her. “I mean, your sister’s smart and all, but she isn’t always right.”

“No, not like you think you are,” said Connor. A few other counselors had to try and muffle their laughs, including Lou Ellen at Will’s right.

“I’ve seen the Roman camp,” Drew shot back. “And I don’t think a statue’s gonna solve this.”

“The plan—” Malcolm started to say—

“The plan was for the Praetor to return it to us, right?” Drew cut him off. “But we’re not the problem here.”

“Yeah, Drew’s got a point,” said Clarisse, sounding like she was surprising even herself. Will hadn’t caught any hint of charmspeak when Drew was talking, though—Clarisse’s agreement actually seemed genuine: “We met Octavian,” she went on. “Dude’s got serious issues. Biggest ego I’ve ever seen outside my own cabin.” Connor and Travis looked duly impressed by that show of self-awareness, which was kind of ironic, Will thought, coming from them. “I doubt he’s gonna give a single shit about the statue, especially if it’s a Roman gesture of peace—he’s just gonna see it as more stuff for us that’s not fair to him and his.”

“But the point is the statue has power of its own,” Malcolm said fiercely. “It’s a source of conflict between Roman and Greek gods and demigods, so when it’s returned to its rightful place, with us, it’ll help stop the conflict within the gods. Then, when our parents are at peace and in balance again, there won’t be a reason for us to go to war.”

“Malcolm, I hear what you’re saying,” Will said, “and we all agree—” Clarisse waved her hand, like, eh, and Jake smacked it down. “But I don’t think Octavian cares if there’s actually a reason.”

“Well, once the Praetor’s back, that won’t matter!” Malcolm said. He sounded angrier and more stubborn than Will had ever heard him. “She’ll be in charge again. It won’t matter whether Octavian cares, cause she obviously will if she’s the one bringing us the statue as a peace gesture!”

“The Legion does respect her more than Octavian,” Rachel agreed. “Or they did. But—”

“But what, Rachel?” Malcolm snapped.

“Well—it sounded like her going to Europe, to the ancient lands, was against New Roman law,” Rachel said. “That might not sit well, even if it was for a good reason. And Octavian’s had two weeks to kick up a fuss about it and turn them against her.”

“They do seem like a bunch of goody-two-shoes nerds,” Clarisse agreed.

“No offense to you and Will,” Drew told Malcolm too sweetly.

“Hey!” Will said, genuinely hurt. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought going on the mission to the Roman camp together and, well, saving their asses, would have changed Drew or how she treated him, but it was still disappointing that it hadn’t.

“Fuck you,” Malcolm said flatly. His voice wobbled—Will glanced at his friend, startled and concerned, and saw his jaw was set in a way that looked like he was trying to push down tears. “Look, if Annabeth was here—she could explain it better than I can. But she’s—” He stopped talking, looking down and swallowing hard, and he didn’t start again.

There was a long pause.

“I think Annabeth’s plan still has a high likelihood of success,” Chiron said firmly. “At least, I cannot imagine it could make anything worse. So, assuming Nico di Angelo’s estimate is accurate, and he and his companions arrive by the end of July, that may go some way toward resolving things. If it does not, we will fight, just as we have been planning to. At worst, our situation remains unchanged, except that now there is some hope.” One by one, the counselors nodded. Chiron was good at that, Will thought—at putting difficult, scary things in the best possible light, so they didn’t seem quite so difficult and scary after all. Just another thing he wished he was better at.

They adjourned after that—everyone needed some time to cool down—and went their separate ways. Will spent some time on the back porch with Jake and Katie, trying to console Malcolm, who burst into tears as soon as they were away from the rest of the council—

“I can’t be Annabeth,” he kept saying, “I don’t know how—”

“You don’t have to be,” Will told him, rubbing his shoulder, thankful Connor wasn’t here to see it and make it into a thing. The words felt a little hollow with the amount of time he spent thinking how he couldn’t be Renee or Michael or Lee, but they were what Izzy kept saying to him about that, so maybe it would help.

Once Malcolm had calmed down and Jake and Katie had walked him away, Will stood in the doorway looking at the infirmary for at least a solid minute before he decided he just couldn’t. Not right now.

Instead he wandered down to the cabin. It was the middle of the afternoon, so most of his siblings were out doing various camp activities, but Austin and Zahra were in the back corner practicing piano and cello together—something classical-sounding, not a campfire song—while Sophie lay on a couch throwing darts at the ceiling. There was an actual dartboard on the wall, but no one ever seemed to like to use it. Getting that many bulls-eyes must get boring after a while for the rest of them, Will supposed.

“How are you gonna get those down?” he asked, curling up in one of the armchairs next to her.

“They’ll drop eventually,” Sophie said. Reassuring, Will didn’t say. “How was the council meeting?” There was a little bit of an edge in her voice when she asked. Sometimes Will wondered if she regretted not taking leadership from him last summer, when she was so deep in grief—if she thought she would be doing a better job now. It made him nervous. He never really wanted to ask, because he wasn’t really sure what he would do if the answer was yes.

“A lot of arguing.” He sighed. “So, pretty much the usual. There was some good news, though—Nico di Angelo’s coming back with Coach Hedge and the Roman Praetor. They’re bringing the statue.” Most of the older kids at camp, not just the council, were up to date on preparations and Annabeth’s plan—Will certainly hadn’t seen any point in keeping it from his siblings.

“That sounds like the start of a really weird joke,” Sophie observed. “A son of Hades, an angry satyr, and a Roman Praetor walk into a bar…”

“How do those jokes usually end?” Will asked. “I’ve never actually heard what the punchline’s supposed to be.”

“I have no idea.” Sophie threw another dart. It looked pretty firmly lodged in the crossbeam to Will, but he’d take her word that it would fall down eventually. Hopefully not on anyone.

“Well, hopefully this one ends with them saving the day.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Hopefully.”

The days kept passing: the sun went up, the sun went down, though since Apollo was out of contact Will supposed they had no way of knowing whether he still had anything to do with it.

This time, he made a conscious choice to spend the last days before the Romans would attack with his siblings. Lately the foolish child epithet that rang in his ears since meeting Octavian had given way to that other thing he had said, about the cabins being some kind of silly tribal clannishness.

“So he’s decided if he’s the Roman emperor, we’re the barbarians on his borders,” Gabriel said when they talked it through, the five oldest—him, Sophie, Izzy, Corin, and Will. None of them were the same age Renee or Lee had been. Will hadn’t even started high school yet, and Sophie, Gabriel, and Corin were only one year in, but they were what their younger siblings had.

“So-called barbarians,” Izzy said.

“Weren’t the barbarians the reason Rome fell?” Corin said with a smirk. “Bodes well.”

“Chiron says a lot of things caused Rome to fall,” Will said. “But yeah, Octavian clearly thinks we’re the uncivilized people he’s here to conquer.”

“More like wipe out,” Sophie said. “What else are those catapults for?” This morning’s scouting report had been that the Legion had acquired six very scary ranged weapons, big enough to launch projectiles the size of cars. Clarisse said they were called onagers.

“Either way, it’s bullshit,” said Corin. “I love that our cabins are our families, literally.” Will met Izzy’s eyes, figuring both of them were thinking about their conversation before. A family that cared about each other. “It’s been the best thing about being here, having all these siblings after growing up with basically nobody.”

“It is nice,” Sophie agreed quietly. “Knowing I still have you guys.”

“To silly tribal clannishness,” Gabriel said, holding up his orange plastic water bottle from the camp store like he was making a toast, and the rest of them all giggled and tapped theirs together too.

If Will tried really hard, he could sort of see where Octavian was coming from, where the whole Roman approach did. Fighting alongside your siblings, in family units instead of military ones, was probably less disciplined, and Will had to admit it probably did make it hurt more when they died—but he thought that probably also made them fight and work and love all the more fiercely. For him it definitely did.

So he could also see how Octavian might see their system as a threat. It was harder to keep a tight leash on people who saw you as basically an equal, just another one of them, even if you were older, but everyone being basically equal also meant people like Octavian didn’t come along very often. Camp Half-Blood didn’t really have demagogues. There was Luke, of course—but he hadn’t seized power over camp, he’d turned on it entirely. Clarisse wielded power with a bully’s hand, or she used to, but only ever over her own cabin, and whatever random smaller kids happened to get in her way. And then there was Drew.

“You know, you were really awesome at the Roman camp,” Will summoned all his courage to say when Drew twisted her ankle badly falling off the climbing wall and he was the first Apollo kid Maia grabbed. Working on wrapping it, he took the opportunity of a quiet, private moment to ask what he’d been wondering since the war council where they’d gotten Clovis’ message. “You saved the day. I know you know we’re all on the same side, and I know you’re not actually charmspeaking your cabin again.” Drew looked up at him, visibly startled. “So why do you still act like you hate everyone, and why didn’t you stand up for yourself about the charmspeak thing before?” Drew was quiet for a minute.

“I don’t know,” she finally said, far too flippant for this to be anything good, “why didn’t you tell Mark Dillard you were in love with him before he died? Or come out at all?”

“I—what?” Will froze, staring at her. “Hold on, you—but—” How did she know that? Why did she remember something even he almost, almost managed to forget about sometimes? It had been almost a year. Drew just raised her eyebrows.

“I’m my mother’s child, sweetie. You’ve never been that subtle. Want to talk about Shane Kowalski? Or Connor Stoll?” Now Will glared at her. She shrugged. “Too far? Well, I know why. People like… well, like you, talk a big game about Camp Half-Blood being a place where we can all be ourselves, but that’s not really true, and I think you know that. We’re still a bunch of teenagers, and teenagers are mean. If you show them any vulnerability you’re just giving them the weapons they need to destroy you.”

“No, that’s—not true,” Will said, still kind of stunned where he sat. “I don’t know that at all. I mean,” he amended, “maybe sometimes, but it’s cause people like you are the ones who do it.” Drew shrugged.

“What’s that cliche, since you just love those? The best defense is a good offense?” Will shook his head.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Drew,” he said, feeling anger rise in his throat as he went back to wrapping the bandage, maybe a little more tightly than he would have before, “but I’ve made myself pretty damn vulnerable this past year, and no one used it to hurt me. Just the opposite. People would be kind to you if you’d let us.”

“What, cause Clarisse didn’t let her idiot little brothers gay-bash you into the ground the minute you started wearing that stupid bracelet?” Drew rolled her eyes. “That’s not about kindness. She just likes you cause you’re not Michael. She can push you around. And she calls it watching your back, so now she’s got you grateful for it.”

“None of that is—what?” Will shook his head. “That’s not fair or true.” This wasn’t even just anger—she was just so blatantly, willfully wrong. Even if Clarisse was that malicious, which she wasn’t, he wasn’t sure she was constitutionally capable of being so underhanded, and… well, by her idiot little brothers he figured she mostly meant Sherman, who probably was capable of it, but also wasn’t at all the same person he used to be when they were younger. “If you think Clarisse pushes me around,” he added, trying to lighten his tone a little, “you must not have been paying attention in a single council meeting this whole month.”

“Whatever,” Drew said. “I was never going to get that kind of treatment, not from her or anyone. You're not Michael, but I’m not Silena. The girl so perfect she gets remembered as a hero, even though up until, like, the last five minutes, she was a spy.” She scoffed. “Not that you care. You and your stupid rehabilitation complex, or whatever it is—you took your traitor sister right back in like betraying us was nothing, and your traitor brother and their little traitor friends too.” It took a lot of effort not to take that bait, but Will pushed through and ignored it.

“You could’ve been a hero too,” he told her, “after that meeting with Octavian, if you hadn’t run away as soon as we got back and let Clarisse take all the glory.” Drew rolled her eyes again.

“No one at this camp was ever going to make me a hero, Will.”

“I would have,” Will said as he secured the bandage. “Me and my stupid rehabilitation complex. But, in your words, whatever.” He stood up, shouldering his bag. “You’re good to go. But you know, there’s one thing Clarisse and her idiot little brothers have learned that you clearly still haven’t, and it’s that you should at least be nice to your medics. Good luck in battle, Drew.”

He regretted saying that as soon as he walked away—as he replayed it in his head, it sounded more like a threat than he’d meant it. It wasn’t like he would ever refuse to treat a patient just because they were being a jerk, or put any less effort into healing them than he would anyone else. Sherman was living proof many times over.

Time kept flying, and as the boxes on the calendar counted down—five, four, three, two days left—there was no sign of a son of Hades, an angry satyr, or a Roman Praetor anywhere. If they’d found a bar to walk into, it wasn’t on Long Island.

Increasingly, no one really talked in council. Instead they just sat in silence, looking at each other, the ping-pong table, the paneled ceiling and all the pencils Travis and Connor had managed to get stuck in it over the years, and in Clovis’ case, the inside of his own eyelids. Someone would bring up an idea, someone else would shoot it down, someone would ask a question, no one would have an answer. At this point, it felt like all they could do was wait and hope.

“Chiron, is there anything more you can do?” Malcolm finally asked on the 30th. “What about the Party Ponies?”

“Unfortunately, my relatives are not available to help us,” Chiron said grimly. “They are too busy dealing with Gaea’s rise. Earlier this month, half the Colorado chapter was wiped out, and the Midwesterners are not faring well either. However…” He sighed. “I have not yet tried communicating directly with my counterpart, Lupa. She does not directly supervise her students the way I do, and prefers not to get involved with the activities of the Legion—but she trained Octavian, and short of Apollo or Jupiter himself, she is the one person he might still listen to.”

“Wait, you could have called in Mama Wolf this whole time?” Clarisse said, jerking upright in her seat. Chiron shook his head.

“If I treat with Lupa, we must meet on neutral ground, away from the conflict. I would have to leave Camp Half-Blood for at least a day, and that has not seemed wise.”

“Well,” Malcolm said, “I don’t claim to be the expert on wisdom, just her son, but—” he shrugged. “We’re kind of out of options. It doesn’t seem like we’re going to get a literal deus ex machina from any of our parents at this point. If you can pull one off with the wolf goddess, Chiron, I think it’s worth a try.” Chiron sighed.

“Very well,” he said. “I will contact Lupa, and see if I can arrange a meeting. Whatever happens, I promise, I will return by dawn on August first. If it still comes to war, I will be by your side.” Everyone nodded.

The 31st came. Will really, really didn’t want to call his mom, much less than last year—maybe because this year he was even less certain he would get to make that second phone call in a couple days to tell her he was okay. But he remembered what she had said last fall about preferring to know exactly what was going on, so he forced himself to go to Chiron’s office and use the phone. He didn’t even have to ask, cause Chiron wasn’t here.

“Okay,” Naomi said once he’d explained about the Romans, the older kids’ quest to Europe, and Gaea waking. “Thank you for telling me.” Her voice sounded heavy and teary on the other end. “I’ll be praying, and I have faith in you, and I have to think it won’t be as bad as it sounds right now, but you know no matter what happens I’ll still love you.”

“I know.” He didn’t tell her Apollo wasn’t listening. Who knew? Maybe he just wasn’t listening to them. He also was never sure if the Olympian gods were all of who she prayed to, anyway. “I love you too.”

“Well, hey,” Naomi said, “it sounds like if it really goes wrong it’ll be the end of the world for everyone, so in that case we’ll just see each other even sooner than we planned, okay?”

Will struggled to smile. Would Apollo pull those strings he’d talked about in Manhattan for one of his mortal lovers? If he was even available to do that. Of course Will thought his mom deserved Elysium, no question, but he wasn’t sure the Underworld would see it that way. He wasn’t even sure he would make it, except that it was his impression that demigods who died in battle usually got labeled heroes sort of by default. He’d have to ask Nico to be sure—if he made it to camp before it was too late, anyway. And what if the Romans won? What if it was Pluto presiding in the Underworld when he got there, not Hades? Would that change things?

So, “Yeah,” was all he said. “Maybe we will.”

Walking back down to the cabins, Will thought camp already kind of felt like a ghost town. It wasn’t like anyone had left—not like last summer, when people kept going AWOL—but morale was the lowest he had ever seen it, so things were unusually quiet. He kept thinking about Renee, silently gazing out the van window on the hour and a half drive into Manhattan last year, knowing she wouldn’t be back. Right now he thought everyone probably felt something like she had.

“We’re gonna be fine tomorrow,” he told his siblings that night at dinner, as much to convince himself as them. He had to believe it. If he stopped believing for a second they had a chance, however small, what would be the point? “I have faith in us. Just remember our goal.”

“What goal?” Corin said through a mouthful of macaroni and cheese.

“No one dies this year,” Will clarified. Next to him, Izzy nodded.

“Man, you’re aiming high, huh,” Sophie said without a trace of sarcasm. For mortal teenagers at normal summer camp, no one dying might be the absolute bare minimum expectation, but for them, right now, it really did feel like an incredibly ambitious goal.

“Okay, I get that’s what we’re hoping for,” Gabriel said, “but weren’t you the one who said it’s up to the Fates? What if they decide it’s time for us to go?” That… was a good point. Hannah raised her eyebrows at Will pointedly. Fair. He had said that to her pretty specifically.

“I don’t care,” Will decided. “I can’t stop the Fates from taking people, but if any of you guys die, I’ll just come walk y’all out of the Underworld.” His siblings all looked at each other.

“Like Orpheus?” Kayla said doubtfully.

“Exactly like Orpheus. He was a son of Apollo too, you know.”

“Will, we love you, but at least Orpheus could sing,” Austin pointed out, “and it still didn’t actually work—”

“Yeah, but I’m more stubborn than Orpheus,” said Will. You don’t say, Kayla mouthed. Will cuffed her in the arm. “I can totally make it out of the Underworld. I know a guy. But nobody better die in the first place!” he added.

“Doctor’s orders, guys, you heard him,” Izzy said with a sly smile, getting all the younger kids to burst into giggles. Will couldn’t help but grin with them. Nobody had really laughed all day, so it was great to hear.

“Don’t forget that goes for you too,” Austin told Will, reaching across the table to poke him in the shoulder. “We’re on a two-year losing streak for our counselors dying in battle. If you make it three we’ll all come and Orpheus you ourselves.”

“And we can actually sing,” said Kayla. Will rolled his eyes, but he kept smiling. He had this weird feeling like once he stopped, it might be a while before he smiled again.

Once all their plates were cleared, they headed to the campfire—all the cabins had agreed they should have the loudest, most exuberant one they could muster tonight, and do final preparations afterwards. Izzy and Sophie both ducked out, though, saying they’d rather attend to other things. Will wasn’t going to keep them. If he wasn’t so worried about his youngest siblings, he probably would have been going over things in the infirmary until dawn again.

They weren’t the only older kids missing from the amphitheater. Everyone sat crowded together, cabins mingling freely, which made it a little harder to spot individual absences, but Sherman and Miranda weren’t around, kind of surprisingly, and neither were Ashlyn, her sister Bailey, or even more surprisingly Jake or Shane.

But most of camp was here, joining together for what no one would say out loud might be their last campfire ever. Nyssa was sitting with Maddie and Harley and their brother Hector, looking up at the stars like she was just waiting for the Argo II to fly across the moon and home to save the day. Clarisse was with Chris and Travis, with her little sister Penelope curled up in her lap. That was even more surprising, but really sweet.

Closer to Will, a couple Aphrodite girls joined the Apollo kids—Francesca came to sit with Gabriel, since they’d kind of been dating since the fireworks (that felt like forever ago now), and Mandy tugged Maia from the Aphrodite cabin over by the hand so she could sit in her lap too. She had sort of adopted Maia as an extra big sister this summer, since there were no older black girls in the cabin, and none of the others knew how to do her hair quite like Maia could. Izzy did have curly hair, but, as she’d had to explain to Will, not the same type of curly hair, so she had introduced Mandy to Maia, her and Austin—Maia had been helping him out with his braids all through the school year, too, and taught him to do hers.

Austin himself was down on the stage with Zahra and Logan and Corin, helping lead campfire songs. Watching them, Will found himself blinking back tears. He was so godsdamn proud of Austin. Corin, too—he’d been in Manhattan too, after all, and on the losing side. They knew what they were up against tomorrow. Zahra and Logan, on the other hand—they really were just kids. They’d never seen battle. Gods, Will wished they didn’t have to.

There was still some hope, he supposed, that Nico and Hedge and the Praetor would make it to camp in time. But at this point it didn’t seem very likely. Octavian had formally declared his intent to attack at dawn, and now that was less than twelve hours away.

“Why the long face?” Suddenly Lou Ellen and Olivia were on either side of him, followed by Cecil on Lou’s other side. Olivia nudged Will’s shoulder with hers. “Aren’t you excited to heal us tomorrow?”

“Thrilled,” Will said. She just smiled. “Do I want to know what y’all have been up to?”

“Nothing good,” Lou Ellen said too cheerfully.

“Figures.” Will looked at Olivia, startled, as she slung an arm across his back and leaned against his shoulder. Hesitantly, he put his arm around hers. “Is this okay?” he whispered. “It’s not weird?”

“Nah, not weird at all.” She grinned. “As long as it’s okay with you. You just looked like you needed a hug.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Will relaxed, and felt Olivia relax with him. He felt like he’d barely seen her in a month, maybe because he sort of had—he’d barely seen a lot of his friends between all the war councils, preparing the infirmary and his stock of supplies, and taking care of his cabin. Lou Ellen had been at most of the war councils, and of course there he had Jake and Malcolm too, but Sherman wasn’t a counselor yet, and it was Miranda’s off-season, and Olivia wasn’t a counselor at all. He didn’t regret prioritizing time with his siblings, but he found himself really glad to have his friends nearby tonight.

“Lou and Cecil have a plan to deal with the onagers,” Olivia told him quietly. “That’s what we’ve been up to. It’s a good one—should fuck them up pretty royally. They just need Travis to give them the go-ahead.”

“Oh, awesome.” That was more hope, assuming it did work. But if Will had faith in anything, those two’s ability to fuck things up had to be near the top of the list. Cecil especially—Olivia was more of a stealth kid, as Hermes’ kids' various talents went, but Cecil was developing a real gift for setting traps nobody would ever see coming.

As the campfire was winding down, flames fading from the warm red of kids with their minds taken off their impending doom to the sickly blue-green of kids who had just remembered, a nature spirit—a dryad, Will was pretty sure—came racing down to the amphitheater and to Clarisse’s side. As they talked to her, she sat up very straight, lifted Penelope out of her lap, then jumped to her feet, looking around frantically. Her gaze settled on Will. She beckoned him over.

“Be right back,” Will told his friends and siblings, “I mean, I think—”

“I’ll get them back to the cabin if you’re not,” Gabriel promised. Will squeezed his shoulder.

“Thanks.” Picking his way up to the rim of the amphitheater, he raced around to where she was standing now. The two dryads had run off, back towards the cabins. “What’s going on? Is it—”

“Mellie,” Clarisse said grimly. Will felt his own eyes go very wide. In the anxiety of planning for their potential annihilation tomorrow, he’d completely forgotten about the pregnant nymph.

“Oh, gods,” he said, “is she in labor? Chiron’s still not back, is he?”

“Nope,” Clarisse said, grabbing his arm to drag him along with her as she started away from the amphitheater. “And Rowan said the baby’s coming right now. Where the hell did your sister go?”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “I can go find her, there’s only so many places she could be, but—where’s Mellie now?” As far as he could tell, Clarisse was pulling him toward the cabins.

“She’s been in the Hypnos cabin,” she confirmed. “Only place she could sleep and stay calm. But it’s no place to deliver a baby.”

“Okay. Okay.” Will tried to breathe, to hold off the panic, and to keep up with Clarisse’s strong legs, even longer than his, since she was taller. “If it’s possible to move her to the Big House, we need to do that. But that’s a long way to walk, so if it’s too late—” Think, he told himself. If the Hypnos cabin was no place for a birth, Clarisse’s was even less so, and honestly Will’s wouldn’t be either. Either one of them would have too many siblings to relocate, and it was the night before battle—everyone really needed to get a good night’s sleep in their own beds.

For a split second he thought about appropriating Percy’s cabin, or Nico’s, since neither of them were here—but, no, that seemed liable to upset their dads, and nobody wanted that. Then it dawned on him.

“Do you think we could move her to Cabin Two?”

“Huh. That seems kinda risky,” Clarisse said doubtfully. “From what Annabeth always said, Hera’s not a goddess you want to piss off.”

“She’s a married woman giving birth to her first child,” Will pointed out. “We might as well pray to Hera anyway, right? Besides, it’s just our backup plan.”

“On your own head, Solace,” Clarisse said. “I’ll go help her. You find Izzy.”

“Okay.” They parted ways as they reached the cabins—Clarisse headed for Fifteen, Will for Seven. He raced up the porch steps and found… no one. No Izzy. Not even Sophie, though he’d suspected she had been headed for the archery range to blow off steam when she decided to skip campfire. Izzy… he had no idea where else she might be.

There were only so many places. He’d just said that himself. But camp was really big, and a lot of those places really far apart.

Wincing at an awful scream from the direction of the Hypnos cabin, Will ducked back out of his and ran back out of the omega-shape, looking around at the rest of camp for any sign of life. It was still dead quiet, but up at the Big House, a few windows were lit up against the twilight. Will squinted at them. He was pretty sure at least one of them was in the infirmary. After the cabin, that seemed like the next most likely place.

Halfway across the grass between him and the Big House, Will’s legs started to feel weird. It was a little like he was running through mud—not in a way where he felt like he might slip and fall, but like when he picked up his feet there was some drag on them from the ground. He tried to press forward, but suddenly it was like the earth billowed up under him like—like a sigh—and he found himself falling backwards and to the side, landing hard enough he was pretty sure his right thigh was going to have some nasty bruises.

SOON. It reverberated through his bones. THEY COME TO ME. THEIR BLOOD WILL SPILL UPON THE EARTH, AND THEN ALL WILL FALL. Then, as abruptly as it had started to move and speak, the earth went silent again.

Will sat there on the grass for a few moments before he realized his teeth were chattering. His whole body was trembling with fear, hard enough that the tears welling in his eyes tumbled out of their own accord. He had known Gaea was waking—that was the whole point of the new Great Prophecy—and they had all heard the reports of her appearances, but they had always come sandwiched in between arguments at war council. Will hadn’t really felt the reality of it until now.

Gods, even if they could survive the Roman attack tomorrow, what would it matter? All will fall.

That didn’t matter, Will told himself, pushing up off the ground and dusting himself off. Not right now. Right now, all that mattered was the poor cloud nymph about to give birth without her husband or a healer who actually knew how to deliver a baby. The best they could give her was Will and Izzy, and right now they were short the Izzy half of that equation, so he had to find her. That was all he was allowed to think about.

Even so, if he ran a little faster the rest of the way, with all the hair standing up on the back of his neck, he hardly thought anyone could blame him. Across the grass, around the side of the house, and up the porch steps—

“Hey, Izzy, are you—? Oh!” Will stopped short in the infirmary’s outer doorway, pressing his hands over his mouth. Any thought of either Mellie or Gaea had vanished for the moment. Izzy was there—she was perched on the counter again, this time with her knees on either side of Ashlyn’s hips and her arms flung around her neck as she kissed her.

“Oh, shit.” Ashlyn’s head jerked back up at the sound of his voice, and she stumbled back from Izzy as she turned to look at the door. “Wha—um. Hi there.” She clearly relaxed a little as she realized Will was Will, and not anybody else, but her eyes were still kind of wild.

“Who—?” When Izzy saw him, her face flushed dark red under the freckles and she grinned kind of awkwardly. “Oh. Hi, Will!”

“Hi!” Will said, equally awkward, grinning back. “What do I say here? Congratulations? I’m sorry for interrupting?”

“—Yeah,” Ashlyn said, “something like that.” Izzy laughed nervously and hopped down from the counter.

“So, um,” she said, “I told Ash.” Ashlyn smirked.

“Uh huh.” Will nodded. “I kind of got that.” Izzy rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling.

“What’s up?” she asked. “Did you need something? Is everyone okay?” Oh, shit. Right.

“Uh—yes, I need your help,” Will said, all the panic returning. “I’m so sorry for the timing, but—Chiron’s still away trying to contact Lupa, and Clarisse says Mellie’s baby is coming right now.” The blushes faded from Izzy and Ashlyn’s faces so fast he probably should have been worried, just medically speaking, but right now there were a lot of things higher on the triage list.

“Fuck,” Ashlyn said. “I mean—can y’all do it? Are you gonna be able to?” Izzy gulped.

“I guess we’re gonna find out.”

Chapter Text

The miracle of birth, Will was learning in all-too-vivid detail, was neither as simple nor as enjoyable, for anyone involved, as the word “miracle” made it sound.

By the time everyone got there, it seemed pretty clear they were going to have to go with their backup plan. Mellie was in too much pain to move very far, and besides, Izzy pointed out, the infirmary probably wasn't going to be a good place for her and the baby to recover later. Not when the best case scenario for the next twenty-four hours, most likely, was still going to involve a lot of wounded teenagers.

While Clarisse, Ashlyn, and Clovis helped Mellie, Will went to actually look at Cabin Two. Now that it was happening, he already doubted his own plan. Cabin One wasn’t exactly hospitable to demigods trying to live there, though they’d tried to make it a little more comfortable for Jason this past winter, but Cabin Two was never intended for anyone to really go in there at all. Not only did Hera have no demigod children, since cheating on her husband would go against her nature as much as it seemed essential to his, but it wasn’t like there were a lot of teenage demigods in need of her blessing or counsel.

Standing on the threshold of what was much more a temple to the goddess of marriage and family than an actual cabin, Will’s stomach twisted with the worst sensation of not belonging he had felt—probably in his entire life. It wasn’t like he had thought about it very much in the course of figuring himself out these past couple years, since his odds of making it through high school had never seemed all that good (and tonight his odds of making it to fifteen felt close to zero), but... Even if Will did get to have a future, it wasn’t like those things were certainties for him. Marriage was barely even a possibility—only in, like, three states, none of them home. Never mind what Hera would make of him—he wasn’t sure how he felt about her.

This wasn’t about him, though, so he ignored the acrid taste in his mouth as he said as respectful and reverent a prayer as he could come up with. The others did the same as they entered. There were no beds in Cabin Two, since no one would ever need them (so they had thought), so Izzy sent Clovis and Myles to gather Cabin Fifteen’s stock of extra blankets and pillows, while Will and Ashlyn pulled Jason’s mattress out of Cabin One, since it was right next door and they figured if Jason did ever turn up again they could just find him another one. With help from Rowan, Mellie’s dryad friend, they used the bedding to build a kind of nest in the middle of the huge stone room.

Then they waited. It took all night—if this was the easier version compared to human labor, Will owed his mom a lifetime’s worth of apologies. While Izzy and Clarisse tended to Mellie, he sat by a brazier and read through the explanation of childbirth in one of his favorites out of the infirmary’s many medical textbooks. He felt kind of dumb for not doing this earlier—Izzy had a month ago, which was one of the main reasons she was taking point now—but no one had thought Chiron would be away when it happened. When she wasn’t right by Mellie’s side, Clarisse was pacing around Will’s end of the room quietly berating herself for being so quick to support the Lupa plan.

“It’s okay,” he told her around five in the morning, when he had read and re-read the chapter enough he could probably recite it. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is not okay!” Clarisse snapped. In the pile of blankets and pillows on the mattress, Mellie was near tears, saying,

“No, it can’t be time, Gleeson’s not here yet! He was supposed to be back by now—”

“I’m so sorry,” Izzy said gently. “I know. But pretty soon we’re not going to have a choice.” She was clearly doing her best to keep calm, but her voice was shaking, and her light brown skin looked almost gray. Will hoped it was just the dim lighting.

“No, okay,” he said to Clarisse, “maybe it’s not okay, but it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. We didn’t know. Besides, Chiron said he’d be back before dawn, and that’s not so far away now.” At that, Clarisse stopped pacing, but it was to slam her fist into the stone wall.

“Shit,” she said, rubbing her knuckles, “Lady Hera, I apologize, I meant no disrespect. But motherfucker, Will,” she added, angrier, “you don’t have to fucking remind me.”

“Sorry,” Will said wretchedly. Clarisse shook her head.

“Whatever. It’s not your fault your piece of shit great-nephew’s… well, a piece of shit.” She clapped him on the shoulder.

Before Will could figure out how to respond to that, something happened that really did feel miraculous: a frazzled satyr barreled into the cabin with an equally freaked-out Lou Ellen in tow, yelling,

“Where is she, where’s my wife? They said she was here—oh, gods of Olympus, Mellie!”

“Coach!” Clarisse grabbed Hedge to stop his freakout. “It’s okay. She’s right here. Everything’s fine.” Will had never known Clarisse could sound so soothing. It was a rapid turnabout from the way she’d been snarling at him just a few seconds ago.

“I was just—going to get Cecil,” Lou Ellen said to Will, “and he just grabbed me and started asking where she was—”

“Gleeson!” Now Mellie did burst into tears. Coach Hedge was instantly at her side, kneeling in the pile of blankets and giving her his hand to hold.

“It’s okay, baby,” he said. “I’m right here.”

Just in the nick of time—the actual birth part was about to happen, and now Mellie could at least have her husband there to help, well… coach her through it. Right away, though, things went off the rails again. One moment Izzy was kneeling in front of Mellie, still murmuring encouraging words. The next she said,

“Oh, I see its head!” and collapsed on the floor.

“Shit,” said Hedge. “Guys? I think your healer fainted.”

“Oh, gods!” Mellie cried. Will wasn’t sure if that was panic, or pain.

“It’s okay,” he found himself saying, since everyone else around him seemed to be stunned in place—except Ashlyn, who pulled Izzy away and was trying to wake her up—“I can take over until she’s better.”

But that thing about nature spirit pregnancies being both faster and easier than human ones apparently included birth, because now that it was happening everything moved very fast. Will wasn’t sure if it really was just a couple minutes, or if it just felt that way, but by the time Izzy was up and back at his side his clothes were drenched in what fortunately seemed like mostly water—she was a cloud nymph, he supposed, trying very hard not to go into hysterics about it, not yet—and there was a squalling satyr baby in his hands. At least all the water meant he was already pretty much clean.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Izzy was saying.

“It’s okay,” Mellie said softly as Will handed the baby to Rowan, who wrapped him in a little blanket shaped like a leaf before she set him in Mellie’s arms. Mellie smiled down at him tenderly. “Everything’s okay now.”

“Seriously, Will, I’m so sorry,” Izzy said again as she and Ashlyn walked him and a very wide-eyed Lou Ellen out to the cabin steps. “Do you want us to get you some dry clothes?”

“Do you want us to knock you out so you’ll have memory loss?” Ashlyn offered a little too cheerfully. Before he could respond to either of those very different options,

“Do you guys want to come meet the baby?” Rowan asked from the cabin doorway. Izzy, Ash, and Lou all hopped up again, but since Will had very much met the baby already—“I’ll say,” said Rowan—he stayed where he was, taking square breaths in the cool night air and watching the other cabins start to light up as more people woke and started preparing for the coming battle. In—Will had taken off his watch for the birth, so he pulled it out of his shirt pocket, where it had thankfully stayed dry—about forty-five minutes, gods. Square breathing became harder when he realized that, and worse when he thought about the voice in the earth last night. They had brought a new life into the world just in time for the world to be destroyed. Storm or fire. Or something.

Thankfully, Coach Hedge and Clarisse came out to join him and provide a welcome distraction. Sort of. Mellie and the baby were sleeping now, they explained, so—

“Cigars all around! I’m a father!” Hedge said cheerfully, handing a cigar to Clarisse, who looked way too excited about this. “You want one, doctor kid?”

Will stared at him. “Uh—I’m fourteen.” Hedge frowned.

“Shit, you are? Screw cigars, you need a drink.” Clarisse burst out laughing. Will kept staring, trying to figure out how the hell that made any more sense. Hedge just shrugged, lit his cigar, then passed his lighter to Clarisse so she could do the same. Will tried to be subtle about shifting away from them on the steps. At least he was upwind.

“Where’d you get those?” he asked. “Did Travis get them in for you?” Hedge let out a puff of smoke and a hearty guffaw.

“I’m a grown satyr, kid. I don’t need your little Hermes mafia to help me out. I actually picked ‘em up in Venice,” he added. “These babies have been to hell and back—though I guess maybe I shouldn’t say that now that there are kids running around who’ve done just that.”

Will blinked. In the commotion of, well, delivering a baby, he had completely forgotten that if Hedge was back, it meant—

“—Holy shit,” Clarisse realized at the same time. “That’s right. You’re back. Where the hell are di Angelo and the Praetor?”

“On their way. Reyna said to let you all know she’ll fly the statue in at dawn.” He pointed a finger at Will. “You’d better let your cabin know not to shoot her down.”

“Yeah, I—I will,” Will promised. “What about Nico?”

“Not sure.” Hedge frowned. “He was supposed to be helping some of the Romans sabotage the invasion plan, but… I just hope he hasn’t taken himself out with the shadow-travel.”

“What do you mean, taken himself out?” Will asked, concerned.

“I’m not sure how to explain it,” Hedge said. “That kid’s powerful, don’t get me wrong, scary powerful—” he shuddered—“but he pushed himself to his limits getting us across the Atlantic, and now he’s… fading. It’s like the darkness is trying to claim him or something. Came damn close a couple days ago, that’s why we’re so late getting here. I managed to get him back with a little applied sports medicine, but…” Will just stared at him. Screw his list of questions for Nico—this was much bigger.

“Kids who’ve been to hell and back, you said.” Clarisse’s mind was clearly elsewhere. “Annabeth and Percy—does that mean they—”

“Yeah, they made it out of Tartarus okay too,” Hedge confirmed. Clarisse slumped forward, heaving a huge sigh of relief. “We got ’em back. They’re a little busy dealing with Gaea and the giants back in the ancient lands, but I’m sure they’d want me to say hi.”

“Aw, man.” Clarisse sighed. “Guess they’re not making it back for the battle, then.” It wasn’t like any of them had really had that much hope of that, but Will’s heart still sank too. Then he frowned. There was one word in what Coach Hedge had said that stood out—

“Wait, what do you mean they got out too?”

“Well, Nico was there first,” Hedge explained. “Went looking for the Doors of Death, I guess. Can’t imagine that’s made things any easier on him, the poor kid.”

“Di immortales,” was all Will could get to come out of his mouth. On the other side of Hedge, Clarisse’s jaw hung open in shock. Then Lou Ellen stepped outside and shattered the silence hanging over them.

“Gods, dryads really do not like me,” she was grumbling. “Hey, did I just hear you say the Praetor’s bringing the statue?”

“Sure did,” Hedge confirmed. He gave Clarisse a slap on the back—maybe that was where she’d picked up the habit—and stood up, extinguishing his cigar. “I’m gonna go check on my son. You want to come, godmother?” Clarisse shook her head.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. Will and Lou Ellen looked at each other, then as soon as Hedge was back inside the cabin,

“Godmother?” Will repeated, grinning. Clarisse rolled her eyes.

“Shut up, Solace.”

“If the Praetor’s bringing the statue, maybe we don’t need to run our plan after all,” Lou Ellen mused. “I’ll go tell Cecil—”

“Hold on—I don’t think you should.” Will stood up so he didn’t have to crane his neck to look at her. Instead he was looking down. “I think Drew was right—the statue won’t be enough to stop the war now. Some of the Legion, maybe—” it sounded like at least a few of them were acting in open defiance of Octavian now, if they had been planning some sabotage of their own—“but if Octavian gets even one onager to fire, we’re still fucked.” Clarisse nodded.

“Okay, fair.” Lou Ellen chewed on her lip for a second. “I’ll go grab Cecil like I planned, then. If we’re going, we need to go now. We’re running out of time.”

“Hey, can I come with you?” Will asked. “I could use, um—a distraction.”

“Yeah, sure.” Lou Ellen grinned. “You do look kind of traumatized.” Clarisse snorted.

“Okay. Thanks.” Will looked around, thinking what to do next—“You grab Cecil. I need to go change my clothes.”

“Wear black,” Lou Ellen advised. “We’re trying to be stealthy.”

“—I don’t think I own black pants,” Will realized. “Or… black anything else.” He had, like, one t-shirt, and it had a huge graphic on it anyway.

“You can borrow something,” Clarisse offered. “We’ve got loads of different tactical clothes lying around in storage. You’re a lot scrawnier than most of us, but I bet some of Mark’s old stuff would fit you.”

“Oh—that’s okay,” Will said, maybe a little too quickly. “Thanks, but—it’s fine. I’ll see if I can borrow something from one of my own brothers.” The lights were on in Cabin Seven. Hopefully Gabriel or Sophie or Corin or all three were up and getting everyone ready. With any luck he would be back before the battle—with any luck, if everyone’s plans went right, it wouldn’t happen at all—but if not, he would trust the other older kids to lead the cabin into it, and meet them there. “Where are we meeting?” he asked Lou Ellen, who had a look on her face like she was physically forcing herself not to say something else in response to Clarisse. Will gave her a warning look, and she gave him back a very bad impression of innocence.

“Half-Blood Hill,” she said. “As soon as you can get there.”

“Good thing I’m a fast runner,” Will said, and ran.

About ten minutes later, he ran up to join Lou Ellen and Cecil at the foot of Half-Blood Hill, kitted out entirely in stuff that had at some point belonged to one of his siblings or another—an old henley that had been Jasper’s (and wasn’t really black, more like dark charcoal gray, but close enough), some less-than-well-fitting cargo pants that were currently Gabriel’s, and he’d grabbed Renee’s knife just to be safe.

“So,” Lou Ellen said, because apparently she just couldn’t control this impulse any longer: “I know it’s been a year, but still, you didn’t want to take the opportunity to literally get in Mark’s—?”

“Okay, actually, you know what?” Will turned and started to walk away again.

“No, come on! I’m sorry.” Lou Ellen grabbed his arm and held him back. He didn’t fight her—he wasn’t actually going anywhere. “I know it was a bad joke. Sorry. But hey, at least I didn’t say it in front of Clarisse!” And at least she’d said it in an undertone, quietly enough that Cecil didn’t seem to have heard.

“It’s a really bad joke,” Will said. “He’s dead, Lou.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She did look genuinely remorseful, mostly, so Will sighed and shrugged.

“Fine. I forgive you.”

“Cool,” Lou Ellen said. “Now take these—” binoculars—“and let me put this stuff on you.” She and Cecil both had smears of black greasepaint on their cheeks and foreheads.

“Are we trying to look like football players?” Will asked. “Cause I don’t think I’m gonna fool anyone.” He was joking, but really, none of them would—Cecil was shorter and even skinnier than he was, and Lou Ellen was 5’5 and a girl.

“No, it’s camouflage!” Cecil insisted. Will had his doubts about that—especially since Cecil had used it to draw a giant villainous mustache on himself, so he kind of looked like a thirteen-year-old Waluigi with war paint—but he leaned down and let Lou Ellen smear some across his cheeks too. She put a dab on his nose and stepped back, like she was admiring her handiwork.

“You’re right. You look really dumb,” she pronounced. Will rolled his eyes.

“So what’s this brilliant plan?” he asked.

“Well, to start with,” said Cecil, “we’re gonna scope them out. Get a solid headcount—and try to figure out which ones are on our side, or at least the enemy of our enemy and therefore our friends, cause Lou said you said there are some who are gonna be trying to undermine Octavian too, right?” Will nodded.

“Yeah,” Lou Ellen said, “then I’ll shroud us in Mist and we’ll go around the perimeter. Cecil will sabotage the onagers. You can help with that, or watch our backs.”

“Are you gonna be okay with just the knife?” Cecil asked. “There’s still time to grab a bow.”

“I’m not an archer!” Will said, maybe a little too defensively: Cecil put his hands up placatingly.

“Sorry, sorry. The knife’s fine if you can use it.”

“I can. I’ve killed monsters with it before. Not a lot, but.” Will sighed. “I’d prefer to only use it against monsters now, but realistically if we’re screwing with the onagers the Romans are going to be our problem. So if I have to fight I’ll just... aim for stuff that isn’t major, I guess.”

“Well, you are very qualified to do that,” Lou Ellen agreed, patting his shoulder.

“Seriously, thanks for volunteering to come with us,” Cecil told him. “I tried to talk Livvy into it, but she said she wanted to get as much sleep as possible.”

“Yeah, well, I was never gonna get that either way,” Will said—Lou Ellen giggled a little too shrilly—“so. Let’s do this.”

“I know we’re gonna be fine,” Cecil said as they started up the hill, “cause we’re geniuses and this plan is gonna work, but I can’t help but think if Percy, or Jason, or Annabeth, or Leo, or, y’know, preferably all of them were here, it never would’ve gotten this far in the first place.”

“Yeah.” Will had been thinking that a lot—of course all this had to happen when the heroes of the prophecy were still, from what Hedge had said, on the other side of the Atlantic.

“Makes you wonder… where have all the good men gone?” Lou Ellen asked.

“And where are all the gods?” Cecil replied in a conversational tone. Gods, wasn’t that just the question.

“Where is the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?” Lou Ellen went on. As it dawned on Will where they were going with this—he, too, had gone to the Stolls’ semi-illicit Shrek marathon in the arts & crafts cabin last weekend—Cecil nodded, stroking his face thoughtfully (and smearing his Waluigi mustache into oblivion).

“Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed—?”

“Guys,” Will said, cutting him off as they crested the hill a few yards north of Thalia’s pine and a little lower. “Are you sure we’re going to have enough time to do this? It’s almost dawn.” He pointed toward the eastern horizon, where the edge of the sky over the Atlantic Ocean was starting to glow blue. Lou Ellen and Cecil looked at each other.

“Well,” said Lou Ellen. “I guess that means we’re literally holding out for a hero til the end of the night.” Cecil clapped a hand over his own mouth to muffle a too-loud laugh.

“Oh my gods,” Will groaned, shaking his head. Then, before any of them could say anything else, they all went still at a rustling sound from Thalia’s pine that didn’t sound like just wind.

“Evil,” said a low voice from somewhere up the hill, around the base of the pine. “This is evil.” Now Will and Lou Ellen looked at each other, then Lou Ellen beckoned to Cecil and they all moved up the hill, keeping low, until they found the voice’s source.

It was Nico. If they weren’t trying to maintain cover, Will could have laughed as hard as Cecil. Not because Hades’ normally monochromatic son was wearing a bright red shirt with parrots and palm trees on it—though in literally any other circumstances that would have been hilarious—but out of sheer relief. After what Coach Hedge had said about the danger Nico was in, what he had been through, it was great just to see him alive.

“Nico?” he said. Then Nico spun around, spooked, and his terrifying black sword almost sliced through Will’s neck. Will ducked. “Put that down!” he hissed. “What are you doing here?” Hadn’t Hedge said Nico was with the Romans?

For a moment Nico just stared at him.

“Me?” he said. “What are you doing? Getting yourselves killed?”

“Hey,” Will said, stung, “we took precautions. We’re scouting the enemy.”

“You dressed in black with the sun coming up,” Nico pointed out, more scathing than Will thought was really necessary. “You painted your face but didn’t cover that mop of blond hair. You might as well be waving a yellow flag.” Lou Ellen coughed conspicuously. Will could feel her shaking next to him with the effort it took not to laugh outright. He would have shoved her, but all he could do was stare back at Nico. He could feel himself going red.

“Lou Ellen wrapped some Mist around us too,” was the only comeback he could find. “Nobody’s gonna see us.” Nico raised his eyebrows, glancing at Lou Ellen.

“You were at the meeting in December,” he said less-than-certainly, like he wasn’t sure if it was a question.

“Sure was! Hi. I’m Lou Ellen.” She gave him a little wave. “We’ve never been introduced, but I’ve heard a lot about you. And this is Cecil from the Hermes cabin.” Cecil waved too.

Nico surveyed the three of them for another second. Then he crouched down next to them. A little shakily—it wasn’t very obvious, but Nico was clearly moving a little gingerly, and Will noticed the tremors in his legs as he moved. Straining the limits of his powers must have weakened him physically, too. That wasn’t really too surprising, Will supposed, considering he got the same way when he’d poured too much energy into healing—not to mention Nico looked like he was pretty much skin and bones under that gaudy shirt.

“Did Coach Hedge make it to camp?” he asked. Lou Ellen snickered again.

“Did he ever,” she said. Now Will did elbow her in the ribs.

“Yeah,” he said, gathering himself together, “Hedge is fine. He made it just in time for the baby’s birth.” At that, to his shock, Nico’s face lit up in a bright grin.

“The baby!” he said, sounding as delighted as he looked. And there he was, for a split second—the happy kid Will had first met, almost three years ago. Right about in this same spot, actually, on Half-Blood Hill. He faded away again just as fast, back to serious. “Mellie and the kid are all right?”

“Fine. She had a cute little satyr boy. But—” Will shuddered involuntarily as the very memories he’d come on this mission to try and stop thinking about all came, uh, flooding back. “I delivered it. Have you ever delivered a baby?”

“Um,” said Nico, eyebrows furrowing. “No.”

“It’s—um—I had to get some fresh air,” Will explained. “That’s why I volunteered for this mission. Gods of Olympus, my hands are still shaking—here, see?” Finding an opportunity to sneak a check-up, he reached out and took Nico’s hand. His own stupid hand went less shaky and more tingly then, annoyingly—but Nico pulled his away like Will’s touch burned.

Which, to be fair, might not be far off. It was all relative, Will supposed, and Nico’s hands were freezing. Well beyond the normal human range of, like, cold hands, warm heart territory—this was like the chill of the void or something. A dark, empty cold.

Will looked at the son of Hades more closely, concerned. Whatever was going on with Nico, it didn’t feel quite like any other malady he had ever sensed out. His fingers itched to touch Nico again so he could examine it further, but it seemed like that might not be well-received. What he did know for sure was that aside from some pretty bad injuries to his arms, Nico was hovering on the verge of something that did, indeed, feel sort of like a mirror version of the healing burnout Will was so familiar with. Hedge was right—he had strained his powers to their limit. Any more, and he would shatter.

“Whatever,” Nico snapped, back to serious—and weirdly annoyed. He wouldn’t meet Will’s eyes anymore, instead turning his gaze back to the field below them. “We don’t have time for chitchat. The Romans are attacking at dawn and I’ve got to—”

“Yeah, we know,” Will said, cutting him off before he could finish the thought his sightline was telegraphing: “But if you’re planning on traveling to that command tent, forget it.”

“Excuse me?” Now Nico turned back to look at him, eyebrows flying up.

“Coach Hedge told me about what your shadow-travel’s been doing to you,” Will said. “You can’t try it again.” Nico glared at him. His eyes were almost as cold as his skin had felt.

“I just did try it again, Solace,” he said icily. “I’m fine.” For a moment he looked just like his father, trying to make a foe cower with the force of his ominous presence alone.

“No, you’re not,” Will said more firmly. He held Nico’s gaze. He wasn’t that scary—hell, even Hades wasn’t really. Will was honestly a little offended Nico would try this shit with him. “I’m a healer, remember? I could feel the—the darkness as soon as I touched your hand. Even if you made it to that tent, you’d be in no shape to fight. But you wouldn’t make it. Use your powers again, and you won’t come back.” Nico’s mouth twisted like he was going to argue again—“You are not shadow-traveling.”

“I—”

“Doctor’s orders.” Lou Ellen snorted. Will ignored her.

“The camp is about to be destroyed,” Nico started to say through gritted teeth—

“And we’ll stop the Romans,” Will told him. “But we’ll do it our way. Well—their way,” he said, gesturing to Lou Ellen and Cecil. “Lou Ellen will control the Mist, and we’ll sneak around, do as much damage as we can to those onagers. But no shadow-travel.”

“But—”

“No,” Will snapped. Lou Ellen and Cecil were looking back and forth between them nervously. Nico looked past them and over their heads, eyes moving over camp where it spread out beneath them. For a second he looked weirdly wistful.

“Whatever,” he said. “But we have to hurry. And you’ll follow my lead.” Will and Lou Ellen glanced at each other. Nico definitely wasn’t a white knight on a fiery steed, but apparently he was what they were getting. Will figured they could do worse.

“Fine,” he said. “Just don’t ask me to deliver any more satyr babies and this should go great.”

Sabotaging the first onager did go okay. It helped that whatever Nico had worked out with the Romans happened right before they got there, distracting the Legion.

“I think I know which ones are on our side,” Will said in an undertone.

“Fuck yeah,” said Cecil, and he and Lou Ellen high-fived as they all jogged around the south end of the field, trying to stay close together so Lou Ellen wouldn’t have to stretch the Mist too far. There were about a dozen guards on each onager, and they had dug spiked trenches around the huge catapults, just like with their base camp, but with the benefit of Lou Ellen’s Mist work these ones were pretty easy to jump.

“No,” Nico hissed when Cecil brought out the Greek fire. “If we make the damage too obvious, we’ll never get to the other ones in time. Can you recalibrate the aim—like, towards the other onagers’ firing lines?” For a second Will wondered if Cecil would be offended—he didn’t know him all that well, not like he knew some of Cecil’s siblings and (ex) cabin-mates, but gods knew Will didn’t like to be told how to do his job by anyone but Izzy or Chiron. Maybe Cecil was nicer than him, though, or maybe he’d just gotten more sleep last night.

“I like the way you think,” he told Nico, grinning, and got to work.

Will knew he was supposed to be keeping an eye on the Romans, like Nico was doing, but instead he caught himself keeping an eye on Nico. He was impressed—he’d kind of forgotten that Nico wasn’t just powerful, he was also really smart. It was a really good plan, even better than Cecil’s original one, and he’d come up with it just like that.

“All right. Let’s move.” Cecil had finished recalibrating. They jumped back over the trench and started toward the next onager. Cecil was maybe a little overenthusiastic about getting there, though, because he got too far ahead of the rest of them and outside the protection of Lou Ellen’s Mist manipulation.

“Hey!” one of the Roman guards yelled, pointing right at him. Shit. Shit. Lou Ellen must have panicked too, because the guard locked eyes with Will now—

“Got this,” he said, and took off running back the way they’d come. It probably wasn’t the smartest move, but at least it split the Romans’ attention, and if he ran in a wide enough circle maybe he could keep some of them away long enough for Cecil to do his thing and then rejoin his friends.

“I got him!” one of the Romans behind him yelled, which was how Will realized they were gaining on him faster than he’d thought. Then the Roman boy yelled, “Ow, shit!” at a much higher pitch and collapsed. Nico had just kicked him in the groin. Actually, Will realized, Nico had torn through the whole half-dozen of them without killing a single one. That was—great, and somehow not what Will would have expected from him. And now Nico was standing here glaring at him, which seemed less great, but Will kind of couldn’t help being delighted anyway.

“Whoa, thanks for the assist!” he said, clapping Nico on the shoulder. Nico jerked away, glaring harder. “Six at once isn’t bad.”

“Not bad?” Nico said through gritted teeth. “Next time I’ll just let them run you down, Solace.”

“I was fine,” Will told him. “They’d never catch me.”

“They were literally—” Nico shook his head. “Whatever.” Cecil was beckoning to them, and he and Lou Ellen were starting toward the next onager. Will ran back over to catch up, and Nico followed him. He could hear him muttering curses behind him. He seemed to have learned quite a few since the last time they met.

They didn’t make it very far this time before another guard spotted them.

“Shit!” Lou Ellen hissed. “They’re expecting an attack now. The Mist doesn’t work well against alert enemies.” She looked at Cecil. “Do we run?”

“I can run,” Will volunteered. Nico rolled his eyes.

“No,” he said. “Let’s give them what they expect.” Something in his eyes went even darker than usual as he focused, holding out his hands. Beneath their feet the earth shivered and cracked—and before Will’s eyes, so did Nico. For a second it looked—not that Will could have explained it, but—like his whole body flickered, giving the rest of them a glimpse into the void.

“Fuck—” Will hissed through his teeth as five skeletons crawled out of the grass, and Nico collapsed like a ragdoll. Fortunately it seemed he’d been wrong about Nico’s limits before, since he was still alive, but as Will caught him he could sense what felt like hairline fractures in his energy. Any more pressure—“You idiot!” Will shook his head. “I told you, you can’t keep doing Underworld magic.”

“I’m fine,” Nico insisted. His voice was a little slurred, and sounded weirdly far away. At least he was surprisingly easy to manhandle, for someone so powerful—Nico was a couple inches taller than he had been in December, but he was concerningly light. Maybe even more concerning was that he didn’t try to push out of Will’s hold once he had him, but instead sort of leaned against him, like he couldn’t even support his own (insubstantial!) weight.

“Shut up. You’re clearly not.” With the hand that wasn’t attached to the arm keeping Nico upright, Will fumbled in his pocket for a stick of rhodiola gum. He hadn’t brought his whole bag on this mission—it wasn’t very well suited to stealth or moving quickly. He was regretting that now, since it meant all he had were his tourniquet bracelets and what he’d stuck in his pockets in the rush to get dressed and out of the cabin: some antiseptic wipes, a couple Ace bandages, and the gum.

At least he had that. He wasn’t totally sure how the mixture would complement Nico’s powers, but the idea was to boost and stabilize a person’s vital energy, their essence. Maybe it could at least stop Nico’s from shattering.

“Take this,” Will told him.

“You want me to chew gum?” Nico asked doubtfully.

“It’s medicinal. Should keep you alive and alert for a few more hours.” As long as he didn’t do anything stupid, but Will figured there was no point in saying that—apparently warning him wasn’t enough to deter Nico from doing stupid things.

“Tastes like tar and mud,” Nico observed, smacking his mouth in distaste. Will rolled his eyes.

“Stop complaining.” If he weren’t so worried about him he would have had to take a moment to just be impressed by his sheer audacity. Talk about people who hadn’t learned to be nice to their medics.

“Hey. You guys kind of missed the fight.” Cecil and Lou Ellen ran back over—well, Cecil limped back over.

“Dude, your leg—”

“I’m fine.” Cecil waved him off. Will wasn’t sure he bought it.

“Thanks for the skeletons,” Lou Ellen said to Nico. “Great trick.”

“He won’t be doing it again,” Will said, more for Nico’s benefit than hers. Now Nico shoved him away, like it was Will’s fault he had been leaning on him in the first place.

“I’ll do what I need to!” he snapped. Will shook his head.

“Okay, death boy, I guess if you want to get yourself killed I can’t—”

“Do not call me death boy!” Nico snarled. Before Will could find another comeback, Lou Ellen’s eyes went very wide, looking over his and Nico’s shoulders.

“Um, guys—”

“Drop your weapons!” Oh, shit. Will knew that voice. Slowly, he turned to face Octavian.

Today Pope Dude had exchanged his white robes for purple and wore a golden laurel wreath in his hair—what, had he declared himself emperor too?—and he was leading about forty demigods, all in purple under their armor too. For a horrible second, Will was back on the Williamsburg Bridge, watching Kronos-Luke and his contingent of brainwashed demigods approach. Thankfully—sort of—Octavian’s voice snapped him out of it again:

“Well, well. Graecus saboteurs. Tear them apart.” That part he said to the half a dozen dog-headed men flanking him—cynocephali, Malcolm had said they were called, and thanks to Travis, Will knew exactly how to deal with them.

“You know that horrible whistle Michael used to do?” he’d said.

“Yeah?”

“Can you do that?”

“Yeah?” Michael had taught the whole cabin before Manhattan, though Leah had never quite gotten it. Not that it would have saved her.

“You’re right, Travis,” Malcolm had said thoughtfully. “I bet it would really mess with canids.” So now, as the cynocephali charged and Nico raised his weapon to face them, Will did.

“Dude.” Cecil popped his ears. “What the actual Hades?” Nico visibly twitched. “A little warning next time?”

“Sorry. If it helps, it’s worse for the dogs.” Will shrugged. “Ultrasonic whistle’s one of my few musical talents.”

“Lucky for us, I guess,” Cecil grumbled. Nico had stood there staring while the dog-men collapsed in agony; now he took the opportunity to just sort of poke each of them with his magic sword, so that one by one they dissipated into nonbeing. Smart. Having contributed all he could for the moment, Will knelt to heal the strain in Cecil’s calf.

“My—my elite guard!” Octavian looked around at his cohort, who were all stunned where they stood, their resolve clearly wavering. “Did you see what he did to them?” Nico raised his sword again, leveling it at the Pontifex Whatever.

“Some dogs need to be put down,” he said. “Like you.” Standing again, Will raised his eyebrows. Not ten seconds ago Nico had been doing something very pragmatic. Now he was doing… this?

But it wasn’t totally ineffective, he realized. It was just a flicker, but for a second, Octavian actually looked scared.

He snapped out of it quickly, yelling, “You will be destroyed!” His soldiers got back into their fighting stances, leveling their spears right back at Nico, who suddenly looked very small standing there facing a whole cohort with just himself, and his sword, and not, Will knew all too well, enough energy to actually use it.

Now it was like that moment on Williamsburg Bridge gone wrong—Will’s heart was in his throat for a different reason this time, because Nico was powerful, but he wasn’t Percy. He wasn’t invulnerable. He was just the opposite.

“You graeci sneak around,” Octavian said, “sabotaging our weapons, attacking our men—”

“The weapons you were about to fire at us?” Cecil pointed out.

“And the men who were about to burn our camp to the ground?” said Lou Ellen.

“Just like a Greek!” Octavian snarled. “Trying to twist things around. Well, it won’t work! You—you—you and you!” He swept a hand out to indicate four Romans. From the way he said it, Will kind of doubted he actually cared enough to remember their names. “Go check all the onagers and make sure they’re operational. I want them fired as soon as possible!” While they ran off, Octavian marched up to Nico. “Tell me, son of Pluto,” he hissed. “Why are you helping the Greeks?”

Hang on. What? Will stared at the two of them, struggling with the implications of—son of Pluto?

“What have they offered you?” Octavian was demanding, right in Nico’s face. Now that they were face to face, it was clear he knew Nico, and Nico knew him—that James Bond-sounding line hadn’t been just bravado. “A place in their camp?” Octavian went on. “They won’t honor their agreement.”

“But he’s—” one of us, Will started to say, but—

“I don’t want a place in their camp,” Nico snarled. “Or yours.” Was that where he had been, all this time? Camp Jupiter? Had he secretly been a Roman demigod all along, or was Camp Half-Blood just not good enough for him? Was—? “When this war is over, I’m leaving both camps for good.”

“What?” Will stared at him. “Why would you do that?” Nico glanced over his shoulder at him, scowling.

“It’s none of your business,” he said harshly, “but I don’t belong. That’s obvious. No one wants me. I’m a child of—”

“Oh, please!” Will heard his own voice come out a lot more upset than he’d expected. “Nobody at Camp Half-Blood ever pushed you away. You have friends—or at least,” he added wretchedly, glancing at Lou Ellen, “people who would have liked to be your friends. You pushed yourself away. If you’d get your head out of that brooding cloud of yours for once, maybe you’d—”

“Enough!” Octavian yelled, waving a dismissive hand. Foolish child. “Di Angelo, I can beat any offer the Greeks could make. I always thought you would make a powerful ally—I see the ruthlessness in you, and I appreciate it. I can assure you a place in New Rome. All you have to do is step aside and allow us to win. The god Apollo has shown me the future—” Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“No!” Will stalked over to get right in his stupid great-nephew’s face now, pushing Nico aside. “I am a son of Apollo, you anemic loser. My father hasn’t shown anyone the future, because the power of prophecy isn’t working. But I—I know him, and all this—” he gestured broadly at the Legion, not really caring how close he came to slapping Octavian in the face in the process—“is not what he would want!”

“You lie,” Octavian said coldly. “The god told me personally that I would be remembered as the savior of Rome. I will lead the legion to victory, and I will start by—” he looked up as the onagers rumbled into action, launching their projectiles into the air, and his cold fury turned to horrible glee—“by destroying the Greeks! The days of Camp Half-Blood are over!”

Nice try, Will thought, knowing what was coming and ducking in advance. Octavian looked at him like he’d gone insane. Then the projectiles collided in midair. The overhead explosion rocked the entire valley, a blast so hot Will thought they were lucky no one’s eyebrows got singed off. Or maybe that was a shame—it had been very funny when that happened to Jesse during capture the flag. On Octavian, it would probably be even funnier.

As soon as the echo faded, Octavian was screaming for his soldiers to reload. But instead, a whole other cohort started marching toward his, while the others struggled to form up between ranks of Octavian’s monstrous allies who were clearly getting restless, riled up by the explosion.

“We have new orders from Reyna!” the centurion of the other cohort—all Will knew was he wasn’t Michael Kahale—declared. “She’s ordered us to stand down.”

“Reyna?” Octavian actually laughed. “You mean the outlaw I sent you to arrest? The ex-praetor who conspired with this graecus to betray her own people?” He poked Nico in the chest. Nico didn’t shove him away. Now wasn’t the time to get resentful about that. “You’re taking orders from her?”

“Reyna is the Praetor until voted otherwise by the Senate,” the centurion said calmly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“This is war!” Octavian cried indignantly. “I’ve brought you to the brink of ultimate victory and you want to give up? First Cohort!” he turned to the group behind him—now that Will knew that was who they were, it was kind of weird that Kahale was nowhere to be seen. He hoped he hadn’t been punished for Drew’s actions somehow. “Arrest Centurion Dakota and any who stand with him,” Octavian ordered them. “Fifth Cohort, remember your vows to Rome and the Legion. You will obey me!” Yeah, Will thought, there was no way the statue was going to fix this. He shook his head.

“Don’t do this, Octavian,” he said, as if there was a chance in Tartarus Octavian would listen. “Don’t force your people to choose. This is your last chance to stop this.”

“My last chance?” Octavian spat, rounding on him—and smiling horribly. “I will save Rome! Now, Romans, follow my orders!”

“Romans!” another voice shouted, then. Will looked up to see all of Camp Half-Blood coming up over the hills. Clarisse, at their head, raised her spear. “You have fired on our camp! Withdraw or be destroyed!”

No one would call them a legion, but they were impressive, Will thought. They were all in full armor, decked out with weapons, and standing roughly with their cabins—though, picking out his friends and family, he could see from here that Izzy was standing with Ashlyn, behind Clarisse, so Sophie, Gabriel, and Corin stood together at the head of the Cabin Seven archers, who were joined by Cabin Six with Malcolm at their head. Sherman stood with Miranda, kind of between their contingents, off to Katie’s left and Clarisse’s right, both holding swords. Chiron was there—he had made it, thank the gods. But—Will looked around frantically, remembering their last hope—the statue—

Was here too. Seven pegasi swooped out of the sky, all ones Will thought he recognized from the Camp Half-Blood stables, even the one carrying a dark-haired girl in a purple cloak. She had to be the Praetor: the other pegasi behind her were rigged up with tethers, carrying a massive white statue that gleamed in the dawn light. They were flying in from the north, over Camp Half-Blood—behind the line of campers facing down battle. There was no stopping Octavian, now screaming orders in Latin, but Will had to hope he could still stop Clarisse. He whistled again.

“Don’t be stupid!” he yelled when she looked down at him, startled. “Look!”

Everyone, Greeks and Romans, looked. Will found himself grinning for an exhilarating second. Was this what Drew felt like when she used charmspeak?

“Greek demigods!” The Praetor’s voice rang out over the valley. “Behold your most sacred statue, the Athena Parthenos, wrongly taken by Rome. I return it to you now as a gesture of peace! Romans!” she went on, as the pegasi flew into position and lowered the statue onto Half-Blood Hill, between the southern end of the Greek forces—Holly and Laurel’s cabin—and Thalia’s pine. “I do this for the good of the legion,” Reyna declared, “for the good of Rome. We must stand together with our Greek brethren!”

“Listen to her!” Nico pushed between Will and Octavian to stride out into no man’s land, doing a very good impression of someone who wasn’t on the verge of collapse. “Reyna risked her life for all of you! We brought this statue halfway across the world, Roman and Greek working together, because we must join forces.” Those didn’t sound like the words of a boy who really wanted to abandon either camp forever, Will thought, never mind both. “Gaea is rising!” Nico shouted. “If we don’t work together—”

Will felt it in his stomach first this time, like he was standing on a boat in choppy water, going over a swell—but the water was the earth, shifting under his feet.

YOU WILL DIE, said the voice he had heard last night, cavernous and ancient. A FUTILE GESTURE. BUT IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY, YOU MAY DIE TOGETHER.

“No,” Octavian said, “no, no, no—” Will couldn’t even appreciate seeing him scared again, because then—

The screams started.

Chapter Text

Will might not usually remember his nightmares, but he knew there were generally two kinds. There were the demigod nightmares, dreams about divine plans and monstrous deeds and coming disasters. Then there were the mortal nightmares—normal ones all kids had, like forgetting to study for a test on a subject they weren’t even learning, or going down to breakfast having forgotten to put on pants.

Standing on the hillside surrounded by Greek and Roman demigods and the horde of angry monsters Octavian had summoned—who was the fool now?—with the earth rising beneath them like Gaea rolling out of bed, facing down a battle without his medicine bag, Will felt like he was experiencing both kinds of nightmares at once. In broad daylight, wide awake.

“Come on!” he yelled to Lou Ellen and Cecil as he started up to join their comrades on the hills. Well—tried to. The moving earth made already-uneven terrain almost unnavigable, and as they raced up the rise north of where the statue had set down Cecil grabbed Will and Lou Ellen and pulled them down, yelling,

“No, don’t, there’s a—!” At first Will thought that was about the cynocephalus he’d just noticed running at them on an intercept course, but then the ground exploded in a bright flash of Greek fire underneath the dog-headed man’s boots. With an awful howl, he dissipated into golden dust. “—Landmine,” Cecil finished belatedly.

“Thanks,” Will said, staring at the scorched patch of dirt and ashes where his own feet had been about to land. “Any others you want to warn us about?”

“Just follow me.” Cecil gave Lou a hand up, and the three of them kept running as best they could when the grass and the soil tugged at their feet, taking a meandering route across the hillside as Cecil led them around his cabin’s traps.

Once they reached Camp Half-Blood’s lines, they all went in different directions. Will lost track of Cecil when he rejoined the Hermes cabin, ducking between the Stolls, who were yelling about something to do with the landmines. Lou Ellen raced toward the back of their forces, where she and her siblings had been planning to stay out of direct combat while they managed camp’s wards and used the Mist to do whatever they could. Himself, Will darted up toward the northern hill where the archers were set up, desperate to reach his siblings, just trying to avoid getting caught between swords—or sinking into the earth. The awful screams that kept piercing the air weren’t from kids dying at the hands of monsters, at least not yet. As the ground moved under their feet, people tripped, and when they did it was like the earth turned to quicksand beneath them.

Thanks to Nico and Hades and their zombie army, the Manhattan veterans, at least, had a little experience fighting on shaking ground. But that had been flat asphalt—this was grassy hills. A lot of people went down, and they had to just hope there was someone nearby who could help. Will paused in the middle of the Ares fighters to help Sherman and his brother Jesse pull Ellis out of the earth where he had sunk in knee-deep. It took a lot of effort—he wasn’t just sinking, Will realized, the earth was trying to swallow him.

“You okay?” he asked Ellis once they’d gotten him out. The kid was clearly on the verge of panic, but he swallowed and nodded. “Good,” Will said. “Stay that way!” Then there was another scream nearby.

“Gavin!” Sherman’s little brother had tripped and gone tumbling down the hill. They couldn’t get there in time—all they could do was try, and watch in horror as the earth opened up and pulled him under, muffling his screams in dirt. Sherman skidded to his knees where Gavin had been, pounding the dirt with his fists and letting out a wordless scream of his own.

“Sherman, get up!” Will grabbed his friend’s shoulders, trying to pull him back to standing. It was kind of like playing an awful game of tug-of-war: the earth was pulling on him too.

“Come on, asshole!” Clarisse yelled, appearing out of nowhere and grabbing the back of Sherman’s armor. “I’m not losing any more of you fuckers than I have to!” She was a lot more effective. Sherman stood, dusting himself off and blinking away tears, and launched himself right back into the fray.

Going downhill again had brought Will much closer to the front lines, and Izzy was on them: almost back to back with Ashlyn, firing into the surging crowds of monsters without really aiming at any in particular. Will figured there were enough of them her arrows would eventually hit something.

“Hannah has your med kit!” she yelled at Will as he ran by. Oh, gods, he’d forgotten about Hannah.

“Thanks! Stay alive!” He raced up the hill again much more frantically, shoving past demigods and monsters alike this time until he reached the crest where the rest of his siblings were stationed.

“Oh, thank the gods!” Austin was the first to catch sight of him. He flung his arms around Will, bow in hand and all. Will hugged back tight.

“I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m doing fine.” Austin shrugged. “Y’know, as these things go.” Will laughed grimly, and his brother smiled grimly back.

“Good,” Will said, clapping him gently on one armored shoulder. He looked around at the rest of their siblings, counting—“Wait, where’s Hannah?”

“Down there. With Teresa.” Austin pointed. A little ways down the hill on the other side, Teresa stood over Hannah just like they’d talked about before, guarding her with her bow at the ready. Hannah was carrying two med bags, straps crossed so she had one on each hip—Will’s, and her own. She was crouched down and pulling frantically on a daughter of Hermes’ arm. One of the Sierras. There were two of them, and they didn’t look alike at all—this Sierra was a white girl with short reddish-brown hair, the other a black girl with long black-brown braids—but Will could never remember which one was Sierra P and which was Sierra S. Whichever, she had gone down with a centaur’s arrow in her leg, and now the earth was trying to claim her.

“Shit.” Will raced down to join her, almost falling on his own face in the process when the earth tugged at his sneaker just a little too hard, overbalancing him. That was a terrifying split second, but he figured at least it was a shot of adrenaline. He’d been awake about twenty-four hours now. He could use it.

“Will?” Hannah was in tears when he got there. Whether frustration or fear, he didn’t know. “Help!”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Will got his hands under Sierra’s other arm and pulled. With both him and Hannah working together, they managed to get her out. Tears were pouring down her face, too—Will figured that had to be pain. “It’s going to be okay,” he told her, trying to keep his voice calm. “We’re going to get you off the battlefield. Is it okay if I lift you?” Sierra nodded. “Okay.” She was a couple years older than he was, but a solid half a foot shorter and pretty light, so Will could carry her relatively easily. Hannah hurried along at his side as he pushed back up the hill, which felt like walking through sand, while Teresa brought up the rear, still watching their backs.

To Will’s relief, Gaea’s focus seemed to be on fucking up the battlefield itself—as they crested the hill and started down the other side, the ground felt firmer, not moving or pulling at them so much. Will set Sierra down just low enough there wouldn’t be much chance of another stray arrow reaching them, and held out his arm. He’d meant for her to hand him his med bag, but he wasn’t sorry when Hannah hugged him instead. Probably everyone could use a hug right now. In war, it was even nicer than usual to have human contact that wasn’t violence.

“Are you guys okay here?” Teresa asked. “If you are, I’m gonna get back up there.”

“We’re good,” Will agreed, taking his med bag as Hannah shrugged it off. “Listen,” he told her quietly as Teresa ran back up to the crest to join the rest of their siblings. “This isn’t what we planned for. Monsters aren’t going to abide by the rules of war—neither is Gaea. If you want, you can stay back here and be our field hospital behind the lines, and I’ll take over the first response out there.” Hannah’s shoulders slumped in relief, but—

“Will you be okay by yourself?” she asked, wide-eyed. Will nodded.

“I can do it.” He figured Chiron would do what he could if he was needed, and at worst Will would pull Izzy in too. At least it seemed like the Romans were on their side now, so maybe Camp Half-Blood could spare an archer—they weren’t standing alone.

“Okay.” She rummaged in her bag and handed him something wrapped in foil. “You weren’t there for breakfast, so I saved you this.” When Will opened the foil, it was a chocolate chip waffle, and it was still warm. He found himself pushing back tears at the kindness of it.

“Thank you.” Will hugged Hannah again, then sat on the grass and ate the waffle probably faster than he’d eaten anything in his life. Once it was gone, he pulled out a mini water bottle from his bag and filled the empty space at the top with nectar, almost to the rim. Capping it, he shook it so the nectar mixed with the water, diluting it. Then he took a sip. Even better than adrenaline.

“Be careful with that,” Hannah warned him, not looking up from Sierra’s leg. She’d bound a tourniquet around her thigh, and was working on getting the arrow out. Sierra was eating a square of ambrosia and looking a lot happier than she had before.

Will shook his head. “I know. Come on, who taught you that?”

“Izzy,” Hannah said flippantly. Fair enough. Will balled up the foil and shoved it in his bag with his nectar bottle.

“Good luck,” he told her. “You can do this.” Hannah nodded, now focused on cleaning Sierra’s wound with nectar from her own bag.

“Don’t get killed,” she told him. “You heard Austin. Don’t make us Orpheus you.”

Back at the top of the hill, a little north of his own cabin, Will set a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder to alert his friend to his presence without spooking him.

“How are we doing?”

“Not too bad.” Malcolm fired off the arrow he’d had nocked, piercing a two-headed warrior’s jugular—well, his left jugular, but that was enough to take him out. “That was a good speech di Angelo gave. Realistically I s’pose it was more the circumstances and the Praetor than what he said, but they are doing it.”

Will nodded, taking in the battlefield below, scanning all the while for people who might need help. Along the hills, the two Roman cohorts who’d been on the brink of fighting each other over Octavian half an hour ago were fighting side by side with the Greek demigods now, like there had never been a problem between any of them. The Praetor stood atop Half-Blood Hill shouting orders in Latin, and from the way her forces over here were fighting in lockstep Will assumed they were following them. He couldn’t catch sight of Octavian—maybe he had run off, or been killed by a monster. Will didn’t like that a little part in the back of his mind kind of hoped it was the latter.

The rest of the Roman Legion was stuck on the other side of the field, divided from their allies by the sea of monsters—no pun intended, Will supposed, since that was actually a real place. Their flock of giant eagles circled over it like something out of Lord of the Rings, picking up monsters and dropping them on other monsters so both monsters disintegrated at once. It was hard to tell from here how the demigods themselves were doing, but Will didn’t focus on them for long. Not that he wouldn’t heal Roman demigods if they needed it, especially now they were all on the same side, but he wouldn’t be able to reach the three cohorts on the northeastern front even if they did. Besides, there were probably healers among their own ranks—surely Octavian couldn’t be the only descendant of Apollo the Romans had around.

His own allies were holding up. Chiron was acting like a counterpart to the Praetor for the moment, galloping up and down the hills bellowing orders, not that his campers were following them quite as closely as hers. Clarisse, her brother Jesse, and Nico were out ahead of the rest, wading through hordes of monsters that quickly became clouds of gold dust when they met spear and sword—or, in the case of Nico’s, dissipating shadows getting sucked into the Stygian iron void.

Will had no idea where Nico could possibly have summoned the energy to fight like that, in the state he knew he was in, but he was, he had to admit, a lot better swordsman than anyone just looking at him standing still would have guessed. Better than he had been last year in Manhattan. He must have been training at Camp Jupiter, Will thought kind of sourly. If that really was where he’d been.

Watching Nico wasn’t the point. Will forced himself to look away. The Hermes cabin was doing well. Connor and Travis weren’t Percy or Jason or Jesse or even Nico, but they could hold their own with swords too, and Will breathed a sigh of relief when he caught sight of Olivia fighting alongside Cecil and Alice. The Aphrodite cabin might get a bad rap for their focus on looks and gossip in normal times around camp, but they were always vicious fighters too when it came to it, and of course the Ares cabin was kicking the most monster ass—maybe not as much overall as Hermes, since there weren’t as many of them, but definitely more per person.

Izzy was still fighting down there with them, still close to Ashlyn. And they both still looked relatively unscathed—more relief. So did Bailey and Sherman. As Will watched, Nyssa tossed Sherman a grenade, and Sherman pulled out the pin and threw it far into the center of Gaea’s forces. He would have made a great pitcher in another life, said the part of Will’s brain that was still Vern Solace’s grandson, as the point where the grenade had landed exploded in a huge green blast of Greek fire, taking out at least a dozen cynocephali.

Christopher and Shane were on the front lines—Shane was wielding a massive flamethrower that also looked like it was full of Greek fire, which was pretty awesome—but Jake was hanging back a little, launching grenades of his own rather than fighting with his sword. Will couldn’t blame him. His own siblings weren’t exactly out in front, and maybe Drew (currently stabbing a dog-headed man in the throat down near the Stolls) would call it his cowardice talking, but gods, he was grateful for it.

Over here, Kayla and Sophie were laser-focused on taking out the wild centaurs, who made up a lot of Gaea’s ranged forces. Half of Malcolm’s cabin had traded bows for swords to join the melee—multiclassing, Will supposed. Meanwhile, Katie and Jenny had dropped theirs to focus on trying to keep the grass a little calmer, so the ground around them wasn’t pulling at people quite as much. Miranda and their brother Jared were down on the front lines. That left the younger children of Demeter as their main backup on the next hill over, which had the potential to get really bloody, really fast—and the instant Will realized that, it did.

Three cynocephali broke through their lines and charged up the hill, right at Crispin, Eliza, and Billie. Crispin managed to stab one in the stomach, destroying it, and another caught a stray arrow from his own centaur allies, but the third brought down his glowing sword in one massive stroke, decapitating Eliza and slashing across Crispin’s chest on the downswing.

Billie dropped her sword and stumbled backwards, screaming. Crispin fell to his knees, clutching his torso, and Eliza’s head rolled downhill as her body collapsed.

“Malcolm, cover me!” Will yelled, then ran towards the Demeter kids without waiting to see if his friend could follow through. The cynocephalus advanced on Billie, huge sword dripping with her siblings’ blood, but before he could bring it down again Malcolm’s arrow pierced his ribs and instead he fell back, howling as he disintegrated. Will grabbed Billie’s shaking shoulders. Gods, she was tiny—and only thirteen. “Do you need to go be somewhere else?” he asked her seriously. She looked up at him, but he wasn’t sure she saw him. Down below them, there was an awful, almost inhuman scream—when Will looked, he realized Eliza’s head had just come to a stop at Miranda’s feet. Her body had already vanished into the earth. “Go,” he told Billie, pointing uphill, where Katie and Jenny were staring in horror. “Take a minute. I’ll take care of Crispin.”

The son of Demeter was still alive, but only barely. The sword had cut deep. First priority had to be getting the wound closed so he wouldn’t bleed out, but the ribs and lung on his left side were in pretty bad shape.

“Is he going to be okay?” Katie had stumbled downhill to join them, cradling Crispin’s head in her hands. He looked up at her with glazed-over eyes, struggling to breathe. The shock—that wasn’t good either.

“I’m not sure,” Will admitted. He could feel Crispin’s energy flickering, like his grip on life was slipping. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know.” Katie smoothed back her little brother’s hair from his forehead. “I know.” As Will worked, the lines between them and the monsters got closer and closer. Crispin’s eyes drifted closed.

“No! No.” Will fumbled for ambrosia, giving Katie the plastic baggie so she could feed him some without getting blood on it. “Stay awake,” he told Crispin as he started working on the lung.

“I can’t,” Crispin said hoarsely, though he chewed and swallowed and stopped shivering so much. His eyes were still far away. “I need to—to rest—

“Don’t!” Katie said, as sternly as she ever snapped at the Stolls. “You’d better not.” Will closed his eyes and tried to push out all the sounds and smells of the battle, to just feel the healing he needed to do. When his father helped him, or when Asclepius had last summer, that was what it felt like—not doing things piece by piece, the way Will had learned to work when he was healing on his own, but putting everything back as it should be just by… doing it. Warmth flooded through his hands, into Crispin’s chest, and when Will opened his eyes again the wound was healed, Crispin’s lung and ribs all back in one piece.

“Whoa.” He raised his hands to examine them, flexing his fingers. As he did what he thought he had seen faded, so he wasn’t totally sure he hadn’t just imagined it—but for a second, Will could have sworn his skin was glowing.

“Oh, thank the gods.” Katie hugged her brother tight as he sat up. “And thank you, Will,” she added, then told Crispin, “come on, grab your sword. We haven’t seen the worst of it yet.”

She was right. Even the archers had been forced to retreat south, so everyone on their side of the battlefield was crowded up on Half-Blood Hill proper now. When Will counted them, there were a couple of people missing—Malcolm’s brother Jordan had vanished, and Will couldn’t catch sight of Sophie either. For a second his head spun, and it was a struggle to breathe. No one was supposed to die this year. It was too late for that, of course, since Gavin and Eliza were dead, but at least in his cabin—they’d all promised each other.

Just because she wasn’t visible on the battlefield didn’t mean she was dead, Will reminded himself. Maybe she’d been injured and now she was behind the lines with Hannah. He couldn’t worry about it right now. The Praetor had spurred her pegasus down to the front lines, where she and her sword had a huge advantage fighting from his back—gods, why didn’t they always use cavalry?—and the line was holding for the moment, but just barely. Will moved uphill, hoping to use the high ground to scope out healing needs again.

He made slow progress between the earth tugging at his shoes and the battle raging around him, and pausing wherever people needed to be healed and he could find enough space to do it. This wasn’t like any field medicine he’d done before: the battlefield wasn’t as spread out as Manhattan, with nowhere to take cover. At least when the Labyrinth opened there had been trees. Out here, not only did Will have to pray someone would cover his back while he worked, he also had to hope he and his patient, whoever they were at the moment, wouldn’t get trampled.

That, at least, didn’t happen. People fought. Monsters fell. Will healed Kayla and Ellis’ sword wounds, Nyssa’s broken arm, and an awful slash from a cynocephalus that had caught Olivia’s brother Andy in the eye, though the eye itself was beyond Will’s power to save—not that Andy seemed too upset by the prospect of wearing an eyepatch. He healed a cut from a poisoned blade that was going to leave Gabriel with a scar on the right side of his jaw, and healed Ash when a centaur’s arrow got her lower calf—

“Right in the Achilles spot!” she said. Will had no idea how she was joking right now, but then he supposed she was an Ares kid. She was also right—the arrow had, indeed, sliced right through her Achilles tendon. “If you die on me, I’m gonna have to find a Hector to kill.” That part was directed at Izzy.

“Not planning on it!” she yelled from where she stood over them, doing guard duty. Ash just grinned, and once Will was done and she could stand again she hopped up and pulled Izzy into a kiss before she drew her sword and ran back into the melee.

“Do you need me to do anything?” Izzy asked kind of breathlessly before she followed. Will shook his head.

“I’m okay.” He was getting increasingly close to that not actually being true, but only because he had been relying on his own resources and energy, not calling on any gods yet. He could still do that. And he had his nectar bottle at hand to keep his energy—maybe not up, but at least present—and more importantly, he had started to figure out who the Roman healers were. They had white sashes over their armor. Of the two he had spotted so far, one was an older boy with brown skin and floppy black hair; the other was a shorter-haired black boy about Will’s own age, who had caught sight of him healing Ellis and said,

“Hey, you’re breaking the rules of war! Healers are supposed to be marked, and we aren’t supposed to carry weapons!”

“I wouldn’t be if we’d just been fighting you!” Will had snapped. “We’re not the ones who called in the monsters.” The boy had grimaced.

“Okay, fair point.” Will had stood and offered his hand as Ellis, all fixed up, rejoined the fray.

“Will Solace.”

“Dante Carson. Oh, shit—” Now that Will knew his name, he could pick out the Roman demigod screaming it too. They nodded at each other, and Dante ran off to help before Will could ask what his godly ancestry was—were they brothers? Was Dante his nephew? Not that it really mattered right now, but maybe, if the world didn’t end, he could find out later.

He never got the other healer’s name, but he did learn his divine parentage not long after he and Izzy parted ways with a hug. Crouching to heal their actual Hector’s collarbone, shattered by a two-headed man’s pommel, Will’s head started spinning and he realized he was at his limit—he couldn’t do this one on his own.

“I know it’s been a while,” he murmured, “but if you can hear me—please help me, Asclepius, brother.” There was an awful second where Will felt nothing, and thought, oh gods, he’s gone too—but then he felt that wave of brotherly affection, and the warmth of it poured from his hands into Hector’s chest. Apparently Asclepius still could hear him. Good old Asclepius. And he wasn’t the only one—a little delayed, Will’s ears finally processed that not far off a deeper voice had been speaking almost in unison with him:

“Please help me, Asclepius, father.” Will looked up. He and the older boy just stared at each other for a moment. Then a couple of centaurs charged through the space between them, and Will had to grab Hector and roll out of the way. He didn’t catch sight of the son of Asclepius again.

Even though his collarbone was back in one piece, there was no way Hector was going to be able to fight again today—he was in too much pain, even with aspirin and nectar—so Will got Christopher to carry his brother behind the lines to Hannah instead. Then he and Travis helped Henry from the Aphrodite cabin pull his brother Ethan out of the earth as it tried to swallow him, though they got there too late. The pressure had snapped his spine and caved in his ribs. At least, Will thought hollowly as Henry sobbed, the Aphrodite kids would have his body to lay to rest—today, like last year, not everyone was so lucky.

There had been a lot of death in Manhattan, but it wasn’t like this. That had been stretched out over days and nights; it was all so fast now. Greek and Roman demigods alike fell to arrows, blades, and a few just plain bludgeoning.

Once the ogres made it to the front of the monsters’ lines it got really bad. A group of them forced two Hermes kids, Kevin and—gods, was that Emma or Emily?—onto the part of the hill Cecil had been so careful of before, where their own cabin had set their landmines. Well, Clarisse’s landmines, but they were well beyond the point where that had much meaning, let alone made any difference. Trying to hold the lead ogre at swordpoint, Kevin stumbled towards them. Will watched helplessly, with no one to pray to who could help—until someone wrapped an arm around his chest from behind and dragged him back just like Cecil had done earlier, just before the ground exploded.

Lying there gasping for breath with the wind knocked out of him, ears ringing, Will realized the person hanging onto him was Connor. He’d launched both of them uphill so they wouldn’t be caught in the blast of Greek fire. When the smoke cleared, Connor’s two siblings were gone, and half the ogres had been blown apart too. The others shook their heads, dazed—then, undeterred, they kept charging, grabbing the first demigod they could catch. It was Jesse from the Ares cabin. Two ogres grabbed each of his legs, another grabbed his arms, and—

Will turned away so he didn’t have to see, but he heard—more than heard. He felt that sound with his whole body, and he would probably keep hearing it until he died too. Whenever that was going to happen.

“Oh, fuck,” Connor was whispering as he finally let go of him. Will collapsed on the ground, unable to get his limbs coordinated enough to catch himself. At least they were still attached to his body, he thought kind of hysterically, even if his arms felt like they were made of rubber as he pushed himself up to his hands and knees. “Oh, fuck, oh fuck.” Was this shock? This had better not be shock. “That’s not where those landmines were supposed to be.”

Will tried to say something, to make some snarky remark, but when he opened his mouth he threw up instead. Connor scrambled away at first, with a disgusted noise—but then, to Will’s surprise, he scooted carefully back to pat his shoulder almost fondly.

“Hey, better out than in. Ambrosia?”

“I’ve got plenty,” Will managed to say hoarsely. His throat burned. So, he was sure, did his face, for lots of reasons, but that wasn’t important. “You keep fighting. I’ll be fine.”

Connor did keep fighting, and once he’d had some nectar-water and could stand again Will kept moving, trying to get all of that out of his mind and make it to the high ground. It’s over, Anakin. Shut up, Will. This wasn’t anywhere near over—the high ground could only do so much when they were so hopelessly outnumbered by monsters.

He had almost reached the top of the hill when there was a horrible thunk and an awful strangled sound near him, and a body collapsed right in front of him: Sherman’s brother Vinnie, with a wild centaur’s arrow in his throat.

“Shit—!” There was nothing Will could heal. Vinnie’s eyes were wide open, gazing at nothing, dead before he hit the ground. All anyone could do now was get his body somewhere safer, so Will grabbed his shoulders and started trying to pull him uphill. Even if Vinnie hadn’t been taller and bigger than him, though, he would have been fighting a losing battle. It felt like the ground was pulling harder and harder as minutes passed—had it been an hour yet?—and the earth came more and more awake.

To his relief, Jake appeared, alive and in one piece, and grabbed Vinnie around the waist. Between the two of them they were able to overcome the earth’s pull and get him up and over the crest. Jake just jerked his head toward a spot below Thalia’s pine, not far from where Will, Lou Ellen, and Cecil had made their way up—what felt like days ago now.

Horror dawned as Will realized there were already two bodies laid there. One was Malcolm’s sister Sydney, her bow split in half beside her, and the other was Christopher, who he’d last seen carrying his brother Hector towards Hannah’s station—and the archers. Both were covered in blood. It looked like they had been run through, probably with those dog-men’s awful swords.

“I’m so sorry, Jake,” Will said when he had his hands back, trying to set one on his friend’s shoulder. Jake shrugged him off. He didn’t say anything, just shook his head and started back toward the battlefield. Will stayed where he was for a moment. Furious tears welled in his eyes—not at Jake, of course not, nor even at Gaea and the monsters, but at himself, because in the first moment when he’d seen the bodies all he had felt was relief that neither of them was Sophie.

Another massive boom from overhead shook the valley again, and Will out of it. Oh, gods, was Octavian still trying to execute on his onager plan? He sprinted back up the hill, half-expecting to see another one of those projectiles headed straight for him.

When he got there, he could scarcely believe his eyes. Something was blazing through the sky toward Camp Half-Blood, but it wasn’t on a direct collision course—and it wasn’t one of the onager payloads. It was the Argo II.

The boat. Leo’s precious boat. Even though it was, well, on fire, shedding burning shrapnel as it went—a chunk of what was probably the mast landed squarely in the middle of the enemy ranks, flattening a platoon of ogres—a cheer went up from the Greek fighters as they caught sight of first the boat, then the figures flying down from it. At first they blended in with the shrapnel, but it quickly became clear they weren’t in freefall—Jason was flying toward the Greek forces with Piper hanging on, and—

Oh, fuck, was that a drakon? No, Will realized as the beast swooped out of the sky, it was too small, and the eagles weren’t attacking, so it probably wasn’t an enemy at all. Just… a dragon. A real life dragon, about Peleus’ size. Somehow. It was carrying people down from the ship, too—three of them, one riding on its back and two in its claws, all too small and far away to make out as they flew down to join the rest of the Roman legion on the other side of the field.

Will’s heart leapt into his throat. There were supposed to have been seven demigods on the boat, the all-important Seven of the prophecy. Jason and Piper, who had landed near the Praetor and launched themselves right into battle alongside their friends like they’d never been away, were two of them—but Will could spot only five returning, and three of them had gone to join the Romans. Where were Annabeth and Leo? And what about Percy?

The Argo II sailed over Camp Half-Blood and disappeared into the hills beyond the woods, far enough away that if there was a crash when it landed, Will couldn’t even hear it. Maybe it was just the cacophony of the battlefield, where the half of the Legion in the distance had started to make real headway in getting through the monsters, though suddenly the dragon was nowhere to be seen. It wouldn’t be long now before the two demigod forces converged on the northern line. And on the southern—

Will’s stomach dropped. Apparently he hadn’t been wrong to wonder what Octavian was up to. Down at the second onager, going counterclockwise from the hill—the second one Cecil had sabotaged this morning, two hours or perhaps two days ago—he caught a huge flash of purple as Octavian leapt over the spiked trench to reach the massive weapon.

Will didn’t know much about siege weapons, but Clarisse did, and Will had listened to her and Malcolm talk about these ones for what felt like years of his life at this point. He’d seen those payloads up close. He’d felt what happened when they collided in midair. He had no idea what Octavian was planning to aim at, but whatever it was—the tree, the statue, the Big House, if he was still trying to destroy Camp Half-Blood even now, which Will wouldn’t put past him—gods, even if Octavian had good intentions and was trying to launch one of those things into the middle of the monsters, especially at such close range, he would probably take out the whole valley too.

At least Octavian didn’t seem like the kind of leader who knew a lot about his own weapons, nor the kind who would have listened to anyone who did—all that was probably grunt work to him. Beneath his dignity. That meant they—hopefully—had some time. Will ran down the hill, taking a wide arc around the part where the landmines were, trying to think who might be able to stop him, cause gods knew he probably couldn’t do it alone.

There was the Praetor—Octavian clearly didn’t like her, but she held power over him, and she was very intimidating on her pegasus with her purple cape and all. But he also thought she was an outlaw, and her authority illegitimate. He might not listen to her. And besides, she was pretty busy directing the rest of her forces.

Presumably Octavian knew Jason, since he had also been a Praetor at Camp Jupiter—but Will had no idea what either of them thought of the other (well, knowing Jason some, he assumed he wouldn’t like Octavian any better than Will did). And Jason had been away so long. For all he knew, they might have replaced him by now, and Octavian wouldn’t feel the need to give a shit what he thought.

Who else was there? That guy who’d led the mutiny, Centurion Dakota—Will hadn’t looked at him long enough to memorize his face, and he had no idea where he was. Centurion Kahale seemed like someone who might be able to talk some sense into Octavian, but gods only knew where he was—or if he would take Will’s side even if he could find him.

There was Nico, he realized. Octavian had at least claimed to respect him, when he’d been trying to bribe him into turning on Camp Half-Blood—and Will had seen fear in his eyes when Nico threatened him. He seemed to like leveraging that fear, if the way he’d tried to intimidate Will and his friends earlier was any indication. Maybe he could do that to Octavian.

Or he might just kill him, said a small voice in the back of Will’s head. Then it was answered by another that said, would that really be the worst thing in the world right now?

“Nico!” He darted and ducked between combatants, narrowly avoiding going the same way as Eliza once or twice, trying to find any sign of him—a red shirt, or a swirl of shadow. “Nico?”

There was a very real possibility, Will realized as he gave Miranda’s whirling sword a wide berth, that Nico was already dead himself. The last time he had seen him, he had been hanging on by a thread anyway, and by now he would have been fighting for hours, already wounded and totally drained. But then Will finally reached the very center of the battle, the front of the front line, and there he was, tearing through monsters right beside Jason and somehow looking just as alive and well.

Will paused until he saw an opening where he hopefully wouldn’t run into a terrifying magic sword, then ran up to Nico, grabbed his right arm—since it wasn’t the one attached to one of those—and yelled,

“Nico! Octavian!” close enough to his ear that he would be able to hear over the cacophony of battle. Nico double-decapitated a two-headed man in the same movement he spun around to look at Will—holy shit, how did these godsdamn sons of the Big Three just do stuff like that?—

“Where?” he asked, dark eyes deadly serious. Will tugged at his arm.

“Come on, I’ll show you. We have to hurry!”

“Jason, I have to go!” Nico yelled, jerking his arm out of Will’s hold as he tried to drag him away.

Whatever. He still followed. Will went back to his darting and ducking, moving as fast as he could, figuring if Nico could still fight monsters like that he could probably keep up.

They raced past cyclopes, satyrs, and nature spirits, all using their own gifts and abilities to fight the monsters; Crispin and Jared, battling one of the scary clay spirits that had started rising from the earth, which Will imagined was a really bad sign but couldn’t take the time to think about; Clarisse, holding down a whining cynocephalus with her boot on its chest before she thrust her spear into its heart and the whining stopped; Drew and Jonah, who were trying to get their sister Amber’s body off the field; and the Stolls, yelling about the landmines, which thankfully everyone but the monsters were avoiding now. Behind them, there was a roar of renewed battle cries as the other Romans finally broke through the monster army to rejoin their compatriots. At last, the demigod forces fought as one.

That surge of victory didn’t last long. The ground had been shifting the whole time—Will figured if he survived this, he’d have whatever the earth-mother apocalypse version of sea legs was called for days—but as they neared the foot of the hill, getting close to the more even ground where Octavian had set up the onagers, a massive tremor rocked the hills, knocking half of both sides’ forces to the ground. Will almost went down, but Nico seized the back of his shirt and he managed to regain his balance.

“Santo Ade,” Will heard him say. He followed Nico’s sightline up—and up—and up. The ground erupted a few hundred yards north of them, flinging a few demigods and monsters into the air as a column of dirt swirled into the form of a woman made of stone and clothed in grass. Gaea stood as tall as the gods did when they took their thrones on Olympus—Will almost would have thought she’d be taller, but then, she didn’t have to be. Staring up at her, frozen in place, he was already so completely, viscerally afraid.

Kronos had seemed so scary, a year ago. Facing down his forces had felt like facing the end of the world. But all that was nothing to this. This wasn’t just the end of the world, its destruction—this was the world itself rising up to destroy them.

LITTLE FOOLS, Gaea intoned in that terrible voice. THE PALTRY MAGIC OF YOUR STATUE CANNOT CONTAIN ME. She raised her arms, laughter booming like thunder. Will remembered Kronos—how his voice had seemed too big for Luke’s body. Gaea’s voice was exactly as great as her form, because—THE WHOLE EARTH IS MY BODY, she thundered, as the ground started to collapse underneath them.

All day the grass had been tugging at Will’s shoes when he moved, but before he could step out of it. Not now. He grabbed for Nico’s arm again, but it wasn’t like he was doing much better. Everything was sinking—even Gaea’s own forces. South of them, the first onager teetered on the edge of its trench, then fell into the earth with an awful, creaking groan. Shame it wasn’t the second one. Who knew what they would find when they reached Octavian—if they reached Octavian at all now.

Gaea smiled serenely, and yet completely evilly, as falling demigods screamed all around her. Will was really glad he didn’t remember his nightmares when he was awake—he suspected that smile would haunt them for years. HOW WOULD YOU FIGHT THE GODDESS OF—?

Suddenly she was cut off by a roar of wind overhead, the flapping of huge metal wings. The screams on the ground turned from terror to shock and even delight as everyone realized what was happening: a bronze dragon—Festus?—swooped down and seized the earth mother in his claws as easily as a hawk catching a rabbit. The earth stopped moving, the ground evening back out towards what it had been before. As Gaea got farther and farther away from the ground, Festus—and Leo on his back!—becoming a tiny speck against the early-morning sky, it seemed her control over her own domain faded. Will dusted himself off, while Nico just stared up at the dragon, mouth agape.

“What—how?”

“No idea,” Will said. “But I doubt there’s much we can do about that. We have other problems.” Nico’s mouth snapped shut again.

“Right.” He followed Will as he took off running again. For better or worse, the second onager was still right where they’d left it earlier, and Octavian was still right where Will had last spotted him, fucking around with the targeting levers. His stupid royal robes or whatever kept getting caught on the gears.

“Octavian!” Nico yelled, stalking toward him, sword in hand. On catching sight of him, Octavian stumbled backwards with another flash of fear. Will’s stomach turned. Now that he was here, actually looking at Pope Boy—as much as he really didn’t like Octavian, it wasn’t so easy to be flippant about the idea of seeing him slaughtered, even inside his head. Maybe it would be a not-so-bad thing, but Will had already seen so many demigods killed today. He wasn’t sure he wanted to watch Nico kill another one.

“Oh! I see!” Octavian called as Nico stopped at the edge of the spiked trench, Will right behind him. “I see. Come to steal my glory, have you? No, no, son of Pluto. I will be the savior of Rome. I was promised!” There was something weird going on with the gold on his armor and jewelry, too—a gold haze rising around him, the closer he got to the projectile. Jason had explained once that imperial gold, the divine metal Romans used, was more volatile than celestial bronze. If Octavian got much closer to that payload, gods only knew what might happen to all of them.

“Octavian, get away from the onager,” Will said before Nico could say anything, holding out his hands to try and look peaceful. “This isn’t safe.”

“Of course it’s not safe!” Octavian sneered. “It’s a war machine, you idiot! I’ll shoot down Gaea with it.” She had asked how they would hope to fight her, Will supposed. If he could get the trajectory right, it might not be the worst idea. But—Octavian was standing between them and the payload, like it was a toy they might take away from him, and as he backed up against the onager his long robes were getting tangled in the trigger rope.

There was a thunderclap. Will looked up. Overhead, clouds were swirling around the distant figure of Jason as he and Piper rose back into the sky, towards where Leo and Festus were still circling with Gaea in their clutches—storm or fire. Oh, shit—it made sense now.

“You see!” Octavian shouted, pointing up. “A sign! The gods approve of my actions.”

“That’s not the gods making that storm, it’s Jason!” Nico snapped. “If you fire that onager, you’ll kill him and Piper, and—”

“Good!” Octavian cried. “They’re traitors. All traitors!” Any trace of fear was gone—with a sinking feeling, Will realized the whole intimidation plan wasn’t going to work short of actually having Nico kill him. But with Jason, Piper, and Leo in Octavian’s crosshairs too, the problem had just gotten so much worse. They couldn’t let him fire the onager. But—

“Octavian, listen.” He gave it one last try: “This is not what Apollo would want. Besides, your robes are caught—”

“You know nothing, graecus!” Octavian cut him off as usual. “An onager such as this is the only way to defeat the earth mother. I must act now, before they get any higher. I will singlehandedly—”

“Centurion!” another voice Will knew boomed from behind the onager. Michael Kahale came stumbling around the trench from the other side. He didn’t look like he was in such great shape—there was a lump on his forehead that, if the stumbling was any indication, had probably left a nasty closed-head injury.

“Michael!” Octavian exclaimed. “Excellent! Guard me while I fire this onager. Then we will kill these worthless graeci together!” As Kahale looked from Octavian to the two of them and back, Nico shifted his weight like he was getting ready to fight. Good luck with that, Octavian, Will thought—sure, Kahale had a sword, plus about a foot and probably a hundred pounds of mostly muscle on Nico and most of those on Will, but he was in no condition to fight the way Nico… somehow seemed to be. Or to outrun Will.

It didn’t seem like Kahale found it all that likely that was going to happen either, since he made no move to mirror Nico’s. Instead he just asked, “Are you sure, Octavian?”

“Yes!”

“Absolutely certain?”

“Yes, you fool!” Octavian snarled. “I will be remembered as the savior of Rome! Now keep them away while I destroy Gaea.”

“Octavian, no,” Will said, “we can’t let you—”

“Will,” Nico said quietly. “We can’t stop him.” Will stared at him.

“But—” Nico met his gaze, jaw set hard, like he was daring Will to argue. Instead of doing that, Will shut his mouth and swallowed hard. Nico was right. Octavian was clearly beyond the point of fear mattering, and it wasn’t like he would listen to Will. They really were helpless to stop him. The one person Octavian might listen to was Kahale, and as he ordered him to stand guard and keep the two of them from interfering—Kahale didn’t try to stop him. Instead he complied.

“As you wish,” he said. “Centurion, do what you must.” What was he doing?

“A good friend to the last,” said Octavian, jerking a lever sideways. “Goodbye, Gaea! Goodbye, Jason Grace the traitor!” There went the catch—like turning off the safety on a gun. If he cut the rope—

He did, and in an instant he was gone, pulled right into the payload by the trigger rope snapping back and launched along with it up towards the clouds. His scream still wasn’t as horrible as Jesse’s had been.

“Goodbye, Octavian,” Kahale said quietly. Without another word, just a grim look at Will and Nico, he walked away—just in time for the sky to explode in a burst of golden fire.

Will ducked to the ground, instinctively throwing an arm across Nico’s chest to try and drag him down too. Instead his hand went through Nico. As the blast echoed through the valley, the sound a split second delayed, Will stared up at him in shock. So that was what Hedge had meant when he said Nico was fading.

Nico stared back at him, wide-eyed, and for just a moment everything stood still. A hush had fallen on the battlefield. The only sound was the giant eagles screeching as they circled up into the sky. Then Will heard a wonderfully familiar voice, one he hadn’t heard in almost a year, shout a battle cry—oh, thank the gods, he had made it back after all—and the demigod forces surged forward in a last rally against the remaining monsters.

Nico’s face twisted in a way Will couldn’t read at all. Before he could move, let alone speak, Nico turned and disappeared back into the fray, running toward the sound of Percy Jackson’s voice.

It went easily after that, if not quite quickly. With Gaea apparently gone, the monsters that had manifested by her power dissipated just like the ones Kronos had summoned in Manhattan last year. That left only the remainder of the reinforcements Octavian had originally brought in, who were sorely outmatched by now and clearly knew it. The ogres and cynocephali kept fighting to the bitter end, but two troops of centaurs beat a hasty retreat into the eastern hills, followed by the survivors from the tribe of two-headed men.

Will waded back through the demigod lines toward the hills, avoiding the front lines where his allies were still trying to head off, round up, and destroy the last few monsters. At the foot of Half-Blood Hill, he ran right into Gabriel, almost literally—

“Oh, thank the gods.” His brother wrapped him in a hug that reminded him a lot of Lee. “You got my pants all muddy.”

“Yeah, in the battle against Mother Earth,” Will said next to his ear. “I don’t think you can really blame me for that.” Gabriel laughed, drawing back. “If you’re okay with it, this—” Will waved a hand in the general direction of Percy’s charge—“looks like they can spare an archer now we’ve got them on the run. Can you drop out of the fight and help me triage?”

“Sure.” It didn’t take any more words than that. They split up to fan out across the battlefield, healing life-threatening injuries and any quick and easy minor ones, and getting people in order to take those in the middle back to camp. Both camps. They had fought together; Will was more than willing to work with the Romans to get through the aftermath together too, if they were.

They seemed to be. He certainly helped enough of them in that disorganized final hour of the battle. The really serious injuries had to number more than a hundred, maybe even closer to two, between Camp Half-Blood’s forces and Camp Jupiter’s—which probably meant the casualties were at least a few dozen, but Will couldn’t think about that right now. The wounded were all intermingled on the battlefield where they had fallen while those who could still fight followed Percy’s lead. It made it a lot easier to triage; for the first time all day, Will felt like he had enough space and time to breathe.

Centurion Dakota had a dislocated shoulder. The pink-haired Roman girl Will had seen at their camp had a nasty cut on her leg. She told him her name was Lavinia, and from her he learned the older son of Asclepius he’d seen earlier was named Pranjal. Will spotted him and Dante doing the same thing he was, running around healing Romans and Greeks alike. Jacob the herald—aquilifer, he corrected, and explained it meant eagle-bearer, so now Will finally understood that—recognized him and apologized for being such a dick when he’d come to relay messages before.

“It’s just, I had to say what Octavian told me to say, you know?” Will nodded. He supposed he couldn’t totally blame him. “Where is Octavian, anyway?” Jacob asked.

“Gone,” was all Will said. Jacob exhaled sharply. Will wasn’t sure if it was a sigh of disappointment or relief. Maybe a mixture of both. That was sort of how he felt about it, not that he had time to sort out all of his feelings right now.

While he healed and triaged, he looked out for his siblings, keeping a mental checklist. He found Kayla; she was fine. So was Corin, who told him they’d sent Mandy back to work with Hannah pretty early on, about when Eliza got beheaded and they realized just how bloody it was going to get. He also had the very important news that Sophie was alive, if not necessarily okay—a cynocephalus had broken her shooting arm, so she was back with Mandy and Hannah and their patients too, and not, Will imagined, very happy about it.

Before he could ask about anyone else, there was a roar from behind him that chilled his blood—that was definitely an ogre. Corin’s eyes widened. He shoved Will out of the way and drew one of his last couple arrows, yelling for Will to run, so Will did.

“You’d better not die now!” he yelled over his shoulder. Behind him, he thought he heard his brother laugh.

Will kept moving. Jenny was dead: another one of those centaurs’ well-aimed arrows. Katie and Miranda were a mess over losing her and Eliza, but physically they were basically okay. Crispin wasn’t so much—he was alive, but badly bruised and unconscious after getting knocked out by one of those clay spirits Will had seen him fighting earlier. Another had bludgeoned a son of Hermes named Matt to death. He had been in Will and Olivia’s grade, but Will never knew him—still, it was always weird when kids his same age were the ones who died. It just felt all the more like it could have been him. It didn’t help that Matt had died with a crushed skull, so Will couldn’t look at his corpse without flashing back hard to Lee. He tried not to look again.

He kept running into Hermes kids. Impending victory had the Stolls in spirits so high it was almost offensive. In Travis’ case, his good mood was at odds with his physical condition. His left arm and half his torso were covered in (fortunately) mostly first-degree burns, another casualty, he explained, of the misplaced landmines. Chris was with them, helping Travis, and a lot more subdued; Clarisse was still downhill leading the last front-line charge, so Will figured probably he was worried about his girlfriend.

Cecil had a broken leg, so Will directed Connor and Chris to come back and get him off the field once they’d helped Travis. He was a little embarrassed to look at Connor after he’d seen Will throw up in the middle of a battle, but Connor acted like he’d already forgotten it, so maybe it wasn’t going to be a thing. Will wasn’t sure he could forget the humiliation so easily, though, and not just because it had been Connor who’d been there. He was a healer—the healer, usually. His stomach was supposed to be stronger than that.

Olivia was in even worse shape, Cecil told him while they were waiting for Connor and Chris to get back. She’d taken one of those godsdamn arrows to the chest—not in the heart, thank the gods, but from what Cecil described it sounded like it might have hit a lung. Will was ready to race off to find her and heal it, but Cecil said they’d already sent her back to Hannah, and there were a lot more people between here and there. Will told himself he could wait to see her later, and for now, pray.

He found Logan and Teresa huddled together over Butch, who had taken a spear to the torso. Logan was the better healer between those two of Will’s siblings, but he had a pretty bad cut in his own side, and neither of them had any supplies. All three looked relieved when Will arrived.

“Here,” he said to Teresa, “get Logan’s wound cleaned and bandaged. I’ll check it when you’re done, but I’m sure you can do it. Butch, hold still.”

“Not a lot of other options,” the son of Iris joked through gritted teeth. Will closed his eyes and tried to focus, the better to sense out the damage. From what he could tell, it seemed like the spear hadn’t hit anything major, which made Will’s job an awful lot easier. Just a matter of coaxing the blood to coagulate and the wound to close enough that it could be safely bandaged and his patient could get himself to the infirmary.

Once Butch was able to stand, Will checked over Logan’s new bandage, told Teresa she’d done a great job, and stood up himself—only to almost get knocked right back over by the draft from a giant eagle’s wings. Teresa did fall down; Will helped her up, then looked around to see what the huge birds were doing.

Two of them had landed a few yards away, each with the limp form of a demigod held gently in its claws. Heart in his throat, Will raced over.

“Piper!” Lacy shrieked at the sight of her big sister’s body—her unconscious body, thank the gods. It took only seconds to find her pulse and Jason’s. Will wasn’t the only one who’d realized what was happening: the surviving Aphrodite kids gathered round. Even Drew looked genuinely terrified until Will met her eyes and nodded.

“They’ll be okay,” he confirmed. “Somebody needs to go get stretchers, then carry them to the infirmary. Henry, Mitchell, Maia—okay, good. And—”

“We’ve got Jason.” Connor had returned from doing the same thing for Cecil. Travis was by his side now, covered in bandages and Will assumed burn ointment. They gave him nearly-identical smiles. Will gave them a doubtful look.

“He’d better not wake up with a Sharpie mustache or anything, or I swear to his dad—”

“Come on, we wouldn’t do that to Jason,” Connor protested.

“Yeah,” Travis agreed, “Sharpie mustaches are our special thing with Cabin Five. They’d be so hurt if we did it with anyone else.”

“It’s a miracle y’all still have all your fingers,” Will told them. Connor winked before they ran off. Of fucking course he did. Will hoped his face wasn’t burning now.

Speaking of burning.

“Where’s Leo?” Nyssa had shoved through the growing crowd, Jake right behind her. Now they both frowned down at Jason and Piper. Must have gotten that look from their dad—they looked nothing alike, but their frowns sure did. “Has anyone seen him?”

“I don’t know,” Will said when, for some reason, everyone looked at him. “I’m sorry. He’s got to be somewhere, right?” he said hopefully, meeting Jake’s anxious gaze. “I mean, if these two survived—” It was an explosion, yeah, but Leo was fireproof. Slowly, his friend nodded.

“Yeah,” he said uneasily. “Maybe. We’ll keep looking. Come on, Nyssa.”

Will stayed with Jason and Piper until the stretcher crews returned to take them away, then continued his search for injuries to heal—and the people he hadn’t been able to account for yet. He was getting a little anxious about still not having found some of his siblings, nor some of his closest friends. He found Zahra after just a couple of minutes, wrapping Quentin’s sprained ankle. Lou Ellen was with them. When she looked up at him, Will realized her whole face was red and puffy from crying.

“She got Brian,” she said when he sat down next to her, giving Zahra a thumbs-up. “He was just—in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to keep the barriers up, and when she rose—”

“Oh, gods.” So Lou Ellen’s brother had been one of the demigods he’d seen go flying. “I’m so sorry.” Lou Ellen shrugged.

“I know it’s gonna sound dumb and terrible after you’ve lost so many of your siblings, but I—I don’t think I really thought any of them could die until now.”

“It’s not dumb.” Will put an arm around her shoulder and let her lean on him. “Or terrible. You’re just learning it later than I did, that’s all.”

“I didn’t want to learn it,” Lou Ellen said quietly.

“Yeah,” Will said. “Nobody should.”

He would have stayed there with his friend as long as she needed, but a trio of ogres had just gone down, so some of the front-liners were on their way back. Even from here, it looked like a few would need medical attention. Corin was with them, looking as alive and well as before—thank the gods—but he was still about as good at healing as Will was at playing the lyre, which was to say, there was a very good chance he’d just make things worse. Will squeezed Lou Ellen’s shoulders and, on an impulse, kissed the top of her head like he would with his sisters.

“I should go help those guys,” he told her. “Corin can’t heal for shit.” She snorted at that, so he figured she was probably going to be okay.

“Oh, hey, Will!” Percy said when Will came across him and Annabeth halfway up the hill, freshly returned from ogre-slaying. He was very cheerful for someone whose face was mostly covered in blood, dripping from a shallow but messy abrasion on his forehead. Will stared at him for a moment, confused.

“Weren’t you invulnerable?” he asked as he pulled out a cleaning cloth to mop it up and a little nectar to pour on the cloth, just for good measure. The wound was too fresh to be infected yet, but he could still use the boost to keep it from scarring. “Like Achilles? What the hell happened?”

“Yeah, not anymore. It’s a long story.” Percy waved a hand as he sat down to be healed. “Weren’t you a lot shorter than me?” It was almost equally weird for Will to be almost eye-to-eye with Camp Half-Blood’s greatest hero, after not seeing him for about nine months.

“Says the guy who was such a dick about finally getting taller than me again last year,” Annabeth teased him. “It’s called puberty, Seaweed Brain.” Percy laughed.

“Okay, fair,” he said, then, “ow, shit!” as Will started the actual cleaning part.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, dude. Thanks for healing me. I’m just glad you’re still in one piece to do it.”

“You too,” Will said, looking at Annabeth. “Both of you. Good to see y’all in the world of the living.” Annabeth smiled and, to his surprise, hugged him around the shoulders and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

The corners of Percy’s mouth turned down a little at that. Will rolled his eyes. Even if he had been remotely interested, like Percy Jackson of all people had anything to worry about. He might not be invulnerable anymore, but he was still really hot. And a hero of the ages, and stuff.

“Hey, have y’all seen Nico?” Will asked them before he moved on. He hadn’t spotted Nico since he rejoined the battle after the explosion, and now his stomach dropped a little as Percy and Annabeth both shrugged.

“I think he went back up to camp already,” Percy said. “Or he might have gone with Hazel and Reyna…” He gestured vaguely toward the northern front where a crowd of mostly Romans was stamping out the very last pack of ogres.

“I’m sure he’s fine. Did you need him to do something?” Annabeth asked.

“I don’t know, I just… hadn’t seen him.” Will shook his head. “It’s not important.” It felt like a lie, but as he walked away, he wasn’t sure he could have articulated why. It just felt like—like witnessing something like what had happened to Octavian, going through that together, needed some kind of closure.

Also, the part where he was fading. Will really wanted more information about that.

That thought didn’t last long, because one minute the Praetor on her pegasus was shouting something about victory that sounded like it was going to become a speech, and the next someone much closer was screaming Will’s name. A familiar voice. A tenor voice, more musical than his own.

“What is it?” Will asked, shoving past two Hermes kids to get to Corin, who was cradling someone in his arms. Will saw the elaborate cornrows first—“oh, gods, no, Austin.” He skidded to his knees facing Corin and pulled their brother’s head into his own lap. Austin was breathing, but shallowly, and there was blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. That was a really bad sign. Something—ogre or cynocephalus, it didn’t really make a difference now—had torn into his chest with a blade and enough force to shatter his sternum.

“Still gonna Orpheus me?” he asked, smiling weakly. Will shook his head.

“I won’t need to. You’re going to be fine.” He could do this. He’d healed Crispin, hadn’t he? This wound wasn’t so different.

“I don’t think—”

“No. I’m not having another sibling die in my arms.” Will said it almost before his brain fully formed the thought. He pulled the mini water bottle out of his bag and swallowed the last sip of his diluted nectar to get himself centered before he closed his eyes, set his hands on his brother’s ribcage, and tried healing by instinct again, not by thought, not in steps. Just… doing what needed to be done, to fix what was broken. He could do it. He had to.

Just like before, warmth flooded from Will’s hands, kind of like when he prayed to Asclepius and his godly brother worked through him, and also kind of different—it didn’t feel as much like he was channeling anything. This was all him.

Unlike before, everything went kind of fuzzy. When Will opened his eyes again, Austin’s chest was closed and he was breathing normally, if a little too frantically. Shock, or panic, or some of each. Will fumbled for ambrosia, and as he did it occurred to him that someone else’s hands had been holding him up.

“Uh,” said Corin, “did you just faint?”

“No,” Will lied.

“You definitely did,” Corin told him, looking over his head, Will assumed at whoever it was behind him. “You started, like, glowing, and then Austin’s wound magically closed, and then you passed out.”

“Whatever,” Will said. “I’m fine.” The hand that had been supporting him smacked him in the back of the head—not all that hard, but he still protested, “ow!”

“Oh, you think that’s bad,” said Ashlyn’s voice. “Wait til Izzy hears you passed out.”

“I know.” Will was a little focused on Austin, whose fingers were trembling almost too hard to hold the square of ambrosia. “Eat that. Do you need me to feed you?” Corin snorted. Will glared at him. “It’s not a joke. Whatever you need, Austin, it’s okay—”

“No, no—I can do it.” Austin bit into the ambrosia while Will pulled him into a hug, trying to warm him up and hoping the pressure would help too. It had always helped with the nightmares, this awful, awful year. His brother leaned his head on his shoulder. “I’m okay now, Will,” he said.

“Good.” Will rubbed his arm and kissed the side of his head, murmuring a prayer of thanks under his breath. He didn't know who it was to, exactly, but all that mattered was he could feel Austin warming up as he calmed down. Once he was breathing normally and his skin wasn’t so clammy, Will reluctantly let him go. Corin helped him off the field, and Will forced himself to relax, turning to face Ash. “Where is Izzy?”

“She’s fine,” Ash assured him, “the battle’s done now, so she’s switched to healing too,” and there—that, Will realized, counting down his mental list, was all his siblings accounted for. They had all made it, every last one.

He wasn’t expecting to burst into tears at all, never mind so suddenly and so hard. Probably he should have. Ash chuckled sadly and pulled him into a hug, letting him cry on her shoulder until he could breathe again. Then she ruffled his hair and told him he could be done now—Izzy could take it from here. Will should go eat breakfast. Or, by now, more like lunch.

He didn’t, though. The other surviving Ares kids had been a little busy taking down the last cynocephali, but now they were starting to regroup over here, and Izzy was busy on another part of the battlefield, so Will stuck around. Ash rolled her eyes and wandered off, he assumed to get Izzy, but whatever. The ambrosia he ate to restore his strength didn’t make him spontaneously combust, so he was fine, and her siblings all seemed pretty damn glad to see him. Dana had left the front line and gone with Hannah a while ago, Bailey told him—she had either a sprained ankle or a broken one. Gaea’s doing.

Will couldn’t quite stop a snarky remark from tumbling out of his mouth about what a sign of growth it was that Sherman hadn’t managed to break any bones in the whole battle, when his friend came trudging up. To his shock, Sherman didn’t snark back—not about that, or about how obvious it had to be that he’d been crying. Instead he just rolled his eyes and smacked him in the arm. Will frowned, grabbing his arm as he tried to pull it back—

“Oh, shit.” He’d been wrong. Sherman hadn’t broken any limbs, it was true, but now Will realized he had two broken ribs and a hairline fracture in his skull from a hit that had caused a concussion, even though his helmet. There were also a few wounds on his arms and chest that weren’t too deep—but already on their way to infection.

None of that was bad enough to kill him, at least not yet, but that he’d been running around still fighting in this condition made Will feel sick all over again.

“Get him off the field and take him to the infirmary,” he told Bailey and Ellis. “Right now.”

“Oh, come on!” Sherman said.

“Get Miranda to help if he pitches a fit about it,” Will added, and that got Sherman to shut up. Ellis grumbled something Will thought it was maybe for the best he didn’t catch, but he did as he was told. He was probably going to have some new scars at this rate, including one on his forehead that would sort of match the one Mark used to have, but he wasn’t too seriously injured.

Their brother Ben, on the other hand… He had almost gone the same way as Ethan from the Aphrodite cabin, Clarisse explained, but they’d managed to pull him out before he sank in any higher than the waist. His legs and lower spine were pretty badly damaged—but he was alive. They’d already sent him up to camp on a stretcher.

Clarisse herself had taken a sword swipe to the ribs and had been fighting on it for hours, to Will’s horror, but she actually seemed disappointed not to have been hurt worse—

“Coulda used some cool new scars to take to college,” she grumbled. Will just shook his head. Chris, who had come running back down from Half-Blood Hill to find her when the Praetor declared the battle over, gave her a long-suffering smile. She smiled back. Will had thought he’d already seen Clarisse at her gentlest, until now. “Whatever. How soon til I’m healed?” she asked him once the wound was closed and bandaged.

“That depends on how willing you are to rest,” Will told her. “I know it’s nobody’s favorite thing to be stuck on bed rest, but—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Clarisse sighed, leaning her head against Chris’ shoulder. “I’ll rest. We’ve all earned it.”

“Not me just yet,” Will said, looking out over the battlefield at the dozens of wounded still being carried back up the hill. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

Chapter Text

Years later, when Will looked back on the three days that followed the battle, he would never be able to piece together a clear timeline of what happened. That was partly because they were so overshadowed by what happened on the next three days, but even before those days happened the first three blurred together, hours and hours of healing, healing, healing, then resting (usually when someone else forced him to), drinking way too much coffee and giving himself tiny doses of nectar all the while so he wouldn’t burn out. A few individual moments stuck out, but he couldn’t piece together what order they happened in.

Unfortunately, his worst instincts had been right about the injury count. Last year they’d been so hopelessly outnumbered—but their small force (and painfully high attrition rate) had limited the number of people, injuries, treatments, and nectar schedules they’d had to keep track of after the battle. This year, between how much the Greek numbers had multiplied since Manhattan, and the arrival of even more Romans to fight and get wounded alongside them, there were more than two hundred demigods in need of medical care. And the infirmary only had two dozen beds.

“We can expand out into the Big House,” Chiron agreed when Will asked. “By all means, use the empty bedrooms.” At one time, all the campers had lived in the Big House—hundreds of years ago, and it hadn’t lasted long before everyone decided it would be better to divide them up into cabins. There were a lot of camp legends about why. Will’s personal favorite was that a son of Ares had killed a son of Hephaestus in his sleep—a dishonorable murder in cold blood, the last straw—and his ghost still wandered the halls at night, messing with the TV and kitchen appliances.

Whatever the reason, it meant there was a lot of unused space. Now Will and Gabriel used it, setting up annex infirmaries in some of those bedrooms on the back side of the house, where they could stay close by. That about doubled their capacity, but it still wasn’t enough. A lot of people would just have to stay in their cabins, Will decided, and he could do house calls like he’d done a couple years ago, after the Battle of the Labyrinth.

Using the bedrooms also created a new problem: there weren’t enough Apollo healers available to have one person in each room. At least that much would change soon—part of the issue was that Sophie and Logan were recovering from their own injuries. Once they were healed enough to heal others, then Will, Gabriel, and Hannah would get, if not a full reprieve, at least a few more hands to lessen their own loads.

Austin, too. Will would have preferred to have him stay in the cabin to recover for at least a day like the others were doing, but his brother was insistent that he could step in now.

“No,” Will tried to say, “not just yet. You need to rest. You almost died.”

“Yeah, and then you set me back right,” Austin said. “I’m healed, now let me heal.”

“But—” Will started to say, but Austin crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows and gave him a stern look, so much like the ones Will had probably given him a hundred times in their two full years at camp together that he found himself laughing. He was so used to being in charge by now that sometimes he forgot Austin wasn’t so much younger than him—only a few months younger now than Will had been in Manhattan, and probably more mature already than he had been at the same age. The wars had done that to him and Kayla alike. The youngest ones to make it out of both.

“What?” Austin’s eyebrows knit together. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing.” Will pulled his brother into a hug. Austin was clearly startled, but he hugged back. “I just really love you.”

“Really love you too, big bro,” Austin said, patting his back. “Does this mean you’ll let me help?”

“Yeah, fine,” Will agreed, stepping back again, “but I don’t want you working alone, so you’re gonna stick with me, okay? Or Izzy or Gabriel, whoever’s on duty. Just in case. I’m still figuring out this new… style of healing. I don’t know if there might be complications, or things I’ll have missed—”

“Yeah, sure.” Austin nodded. "Could you do it to Sophie’s arm? Then she can come help out too.” Will shook his head.

“I’m pretty tapped out, at least until we eat again."

"You could show me how to do it," Austin suggested. "I'd like to learn—It was really cool." Will hesitated.

"Maybe later," he said. "On somebody else. I will, I promise, but not til you've at least eaten and slept." Austin nodded. "And Hannah already did a fine job—Sophie should be all better tomorrow, she just needs to rest overnight too.”

“She’s gonna feel like you’re giving her the short end of the stick again,” Austin warned him, “just like always.” Will looked at him, surprised.

“Since when do I—?”

“I mean, not that it’s you,” Austin said quickly. “Usually it’s just, like, the universe, or the Fates.” He shrugged. “Kayla and I have been hanging out with her more this summer, since she doesn’t have Silas anymore and you’ve been so busy. I think you guys don’t give each other enough credit. That’s all.”

“O—okay.” Will sighed. “Well, we can work on that after we’ve healed everybody.” Austin nodded.

“Deal. Let’s get on it.”

So now there were four of them, not just three. And they did have more reserves. Kayla, Teresa, and Zahra weren’t top of the list in terms of healing skill, so Will had sent them to Jake and Annabeth to help with clean-up around camp and such, and since Mandy was the littlest he’d given her the assignment of “watching” the older kids recuperating in the cabin. Hopefully Sophie and Logan wouldn’t let slip that really they were watching her. At any rate, Will still had the option to call in any and all of his siblings if they were needed, even Corin—even if he couldn’t heal very well, at least he could cut bandages and run errands and stuff.

Will had no idea where Izzy had gotten to. Last he'd seen her, she and Ash were walking off the field hand in hand, and he hadn't seen either of them since. Izzy would have made up Will’s healing capacity over again—and then some, probably, at this point—but... he was inclined to give her the afternoon. He was pretty sure Izzy would have told him if she’d told Ash about her feelings before last night, so as far as he knew all they’d gotten was a first kiss before they’d had to go take care of Mellie and the baby all night, then go from there right into fighting an apocalyptic battle. Now against all odds they’d both made it out of that battle alive, so it seemed to him they could probably use a couple hours to just be happy and in love and stuff. He could rain on that parade tomorrow. There was no doubt in his mind they’d be at this for a few days at least.

For now, the four healers on duty decided, Will and Austin would take on the infirmary, while Gabriel and Hannah would each manage two of the annex bedrooms—Hannah took the first floor, Gabriel the second, for the wounded who were mobile enough to make it upstairs. That way they each had about ten or twelve beds to deal with, averaged out for Will and Austin. Plus all the house calls Will had assigned himself, but that was fine. He could handle it.

“Hey, Will,” Austin did say at some point after lunch, as they were walking around camp triaging who should come up to the Big House and who could recuperate in their cabins, “weren’t you up all night? Before the battle?”

“Yeah.” Will waved it off. “I’m fine.” Austin looked unconvinced. “I am! I’ve had a lot of nectar and a ton of coffee.” If there really was a three-hundred-year-old son of Hephaestus haunting the Big House, at least he hadn’t touched the coffeemaker in the kitchen.

“Do you think you should still take a nap, maybe?” They were right outside Cabin Seven. Austin jerked his head toward the door. Will could hear Kayla and Logan arguing about something inside, while someone was playing the piano in fits and starts—Sophie, he assumed, since he was pretty sure that was a Green Day song she was figuring out. One-handed, since her right arm was in a sling until the bone fully healed. At least, it had better still be.

“Like I could get to sleep with that racket anyway.” Will shook his head. “I’m too wired. I’ll sleep tonight.”

“Okay.” Austin still looked doubtful, but fortunately he went back to his very good strategy of not arguing.

Izzy, when she did turn up, had no such qualms. It must have been that first night—yeah, it was that first night, right after dinner, when she got Ash to come threaten to carry Will back to Cabin Seven if he didn’t walk himself there of his own accord right now.

So much for being happy for them. Apparently Will’s sister having a girlfriend who was taller and stronger than anyone in their cabin wasn’t such a good thing for him.

“You’re no good to anyone if you burn yourself out,” Izzy was still lecturing him as they got to the porch. “You’ve been awake for like thirty-six hours—”

“And you haven’t?”

“No! I took a nap!” So that was where she had been all afternoon. There were still deep circles under her eyes, but—“So I’m gonna take the overnight shift with Austin and Kayla, and you’re gonna sleep, and if I catch you in the Big House any earlier than noon tomorrow—”

“Okay, fine,” Will said, and at this point his impulse control was probably in the negatives, if that was possible, so he couldn’t help but mutter, “just gotta make sure you don’t catch me, then—”

“William Solace!”

“Ooh, is Will in trouble?” Sophie poked her head out of the door. “I didn’t know counselors could get in trouble.”

“Have you met the Stolls?” Will pointed out. Sophie grinned.

“Don’t let him leave,” Izzy ordered her. “Sit on him if you have to.”

“Like that’ll work,” Will said, “she’s smaller than me—”

“Get Corin to help.”

“What? I’ll help,” said Corin. “What am I helping with now?”

“I hate all of you,” Will said miserably, and tried to just go curl up in his bed—

“Nope. Put on pajamas,” said Izzy, then stood there with her hands on her hips until he did. Will had more protests to offer, he was sure, but he didn’t end up getting to—he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

One thing he knew was he didn’t go to the infirmary before noon on the second day, because he slept almost eighteen hours and didn’t wake up at all until then. Right away, it was something to regret. Intellectually Will knew that if there was nothing Izzy could do, there probably wasn’t anything he could have done either, because even if she didn’t think so he really thought they were pretty much on par. But the guilt still hit instantly—

“The damage to her lungs was just too bad,” Izzy explained as Corin and Gabriel carried Maddie’s sheet-draped body out to take her to the field they were using as a morgue. The youngest daughter of Hephaestus at camp had almost drowned in the earth when Gaea rose. She’d coughed up a lot of dirt when Jake and Shane pulled her out, and at first they’d thought she’d make it, but then, overnight, she had stopped breathing. “She slipped away too fast,” Izzy said, as tears started falling down her freckled cheeks. “I couldn’t stop it.”

Will comforted his sister, but he couldn’t help kicking himself some—for having a patient die while he slept, and for not checking her over better before. She’d been in the infirmary, in his section, and she’d been in such good spirits yesterday. What had he missed? What had he done wrong?

“It’s not your fault,” Jake said, but Will believed him even less. His friend had already lost two brothers in the battle—Cabin Nine hadn’t been able to find any trace of Leo (or, for that matter, Festus). Officially he would have been just missing in action, but then Annabeth said Nico said it felt like Leo really was dead. It hit Will like a gut punch every time he remembered—and he kept having to, because he kept almost forgetting, maybe because it still seemed so impossible that Leo could be dead at all, but if Nico said so…

And now Jake’s little sister had died too, on Will’s watch. Well, Izzy’s watch—but she’d been on Will’s watch all day before that. It felt like his fault far more than anyone else’s.

“You get used to it,” Pranjal told him. Will knew he was trying to be kind, but it still grated a little. There was something really weird about having a nephew who was older and a more experienced healer than him. It didn’t help that Pranjal was so kind, and patient, and smart, and—just overall, better, or at least he seemed that way to Will, even if in terms of skill and power they seemed fairly evenly-matched.

Shit. Was this what Izzy had felt like for the last couple years? Will owed her a lot of hugs and apologies.

“I know,” he said tightly. “This wasn’t my first war either.”

“I can tell,” Pranjal assured him. “But this is pretty different from last year. For us, too.” Will forced his shoulders to relax.

“Last year, there weren’t a lot of us,” he admitted. “And everyone who walked away from the battle alive stayed that way.” Until yesterday, anyway, he supposed. A lot of the dead had fought in Manhattan too.

He was glad Pranjal was here, even if his presence took some adjustment. All the Greek healers were still getting used to the Roman ones, and Will supposed vice-versa—to be totally fair to them, they were the ones in a strange environment. At least this was Cabin Seven’s home turf.

Since they’d joined forces for the battle and the field medicine right after, they’d decided to combine their efforts for this too. Sometime after the Greek healers got their system sorted out, it got upended all over again with the arrival of six Romans at the infirmary’s back door.

“Hi,” said a very tall, very broad-shouldered Asian-American boy (well, at the time Will thought he was American—he assumed, and that was on him). He was wearing one of those purple Roman t-shirts and had a purple cape like Reyna’s pinned to his breastplate. “Is this the infirmary?”

“Yes,” Will said. “I’m Will Solace.” He offered his hand, and the taller boy shook it.

“Oh, good,” he said. “Annabeth said you were the person to talk to. I’m Frank Zhang.” The name rang a bell—he must have been one of the Romans Jacob the herald (sorry, aquilifer) had mentioned when he first came to Camp Half-Blood to say they had to answer for the Seven’s crimes and stuff. “I’m, um, the new Praetor.”

“Yeah he is!” Jason yelled from his infirmary bed, not far from the door. He was awake by then. Frank grinned kind of shyly. Oh no, Will thought, looking up at him, and didn’t bother finishing the thought. There were too many other things going on right now. It was more important for him to be able to look Frank in the eye.

“Uh, anyway, this is Pranjal Singh,” Frank explained, indicating the boy next to him, who Will recognized from the field. “He’s our head healer—I hear you’re Camp Half-Blood’s? Reyna and Chiron and I thought it might be a good idea if you guys coordinated.”

Chiron and Reyna and Frank were working out a lot of things, Will gathered, not that he knew what any of them were. He was having a little trouble keeping up on the many things happening around camp, since he was mostly stuck in the infirmary and only got news in snippets from the people he saw when he made house calls. At least he had a lot more time to do that now that the Romans were here.

They’d moved their own camp into the strawberry fields and set up a field hospital, but there were some pretty serious injuries in their ranks too, so now Will and Pranjal ran through triage all over again to see what Romans should get transferred to the Big House—which patients, and which healers. In the end, Pranjal left his half-sister Ariel and Will’s half-brother Elliott to run things in the Roman camp, and brought the other two Roman healers to help out in the Big House. Dante, Will learned now, was his half-brother too, a Roman son of Apollo—

“Named after the poet,” he explained. “Not exactly his second coming, though.”

“Yeah, I’m never gonna hold a candle to Shakespeare, either,” Will said. Dante grinned and Will accepted his high-five, laughing. It felt good to laugh. There wasn’t a lot of laughter, as the days went by, but with Dante around at least there was some.

As it turned out, now the battle was over, it was really easy to get along with his half-brother—or were they half-half-brothers, as Dante joked? Would that make them quarter-brothers? Could that be a thing? No one really understood how this whole multiple-aspects thing worked out for the gods’ demigod children. But it didn’t really feel that much different from hanging out with Gabriel or Austin. It just felt normal.

The youngest Roman healer was a twelve-year-old girl named Bethany. She was a legacy of Apollo, like Octavian had been, but she said they weren’t related—at least, they weren’t from the same legacy family. Octavian’s family went way back, she explained, like a hundred years; Bethany was a much more recent legacy, technically Will’s niece. Her mom, Stephanie, was a daughter of Apollo who’d served in the Second Cohort (where Bethany served now) back in the ’80s. That made her... about Will’s mom’s age. That was very weird to think about, so Will didn’t dwell on it too long.

The more he talked to his Roman relatives, the more Will started to think Octavian had to have been lying about Apollo’s blessing and all that destiny nonsense. Unless it was a really long time ago—because Dante and Bethany didn’t know any more about Apollo’s whereabouts than Will did. They had been working the exact same way he had all this time, relying on their own strength and praying to Pranjal’s dad instead when it failed.

“Convergent evolution,” Pranjal said delightedly when Will explained he’d started doing that last summer. “That’s awesome. My dad definitely approves—I don’t hear from him much, since he’s, you know—” In a divine prison, yes. Jason had told them all about where his new glasses came from pretty much as soon as Pranjal walked in. “But he’s always been okay with his Roman siblings praying to him, so I assume it’s the same for you.”

“Yeah. My dad approves too,” Will said. “At least, he did. He said he did the last time I saw him.” It felt like his whole life ago.

“You’ll see him again,” Pranjal said. “I’m sure of it.” Will wished he could feel that confident about it. All the other gods seemed to have returned to normal since their children joined forces and Gaea fell, their Greek and Roman aspects back in balance and their manifestations stabilized, but there was still no sign of Apollo. No healing prayers answered, no power of prophecy. Jason was a lot less enthusiastic about explaining that.

“I’m not totally sure what happened,” he said uneasily. “Our father… he seemed pretty angry. He said there would be consequences for Apollo. But he didn’t say what they’ll be.” Until that moment, Will had never really thought about Jason as being his father’s little brother—but now that he saw the family resemblance it was hard to unsee (as much as he might wish he could). Technically, he realized, Jason was a lot of campers’ uncle in the same way Will was technically Pranjal’s and Bethany’s.

Nope. Too weird. Will added that to his mental things to never think about again list. It wasn’t like most of the Olympians’ relationships to each other were much like mortal family relationships anymore, if they ever had been—no more than the different cabins considered each other family. Only their siblings were really related to them.

Even without Apollo, now that all of the healers were working together, nobody felt quite so shorthanded. There were still far too many wounded demigods to manage all in one place, but at least Will didn’t have to worry about leaving anyone unattended when he went on house calls, or even just needed to focus on one particular patient.

Some were a lot in much worse shape than Maddie, their conditions more precarious than hers had seemed. Her death made him even more worried about people like Olivia, who was still coughing up blood and not getting enough oxygen saturation even though he and Austin had healed her lung, and Shane, who’d had his right arm pretty thoroughly shattered by an ogre, and Sherman, whose infected wounds weren’t healing as fast as they should have with the amount of nectar Will was giving him.

At least Shane was cheerful, and encouraging Ben to look on the bright side too. Both of their injuries were severe enough it wasn’t going to be possible for Will or Izzy or even Chiron to return them to exactly the states they’d been in before. Will had never met a wound he couldn’t heal until now, but—Shane would never be able to use his right hand to hold a sword or a hammer like he used to. Ben might walk again, with time and ambrosia and a lot of physical therapy, but even if he did he’d probably still need to use a wheelchair most of the time. Shane was already teaching himself to write and draw with his left hand as he convalesced in the next infirmary bed over so he could design him “a really cool one, with spikes and razor blades and stuff so I can use it to kill people,” as Ben had requested.

“He’s just such a sweet guy,” Olivia said fondly, watching them.

“Yeah.” Will wasn’t sure he’d always call Shane sweet, but obviously he got what Olivia saw in him. He figured it was pretty much the same things he had, when Shane had been his big crush a couple months ago: he was funny in kind of a sarcastic way, and he had strong hands (like all Hephaestus kids) and really pretty brown eyes. “What’s going on with you guys, anyway?” Will asked as he checked her over and got her nectar dose ready.

“I don’t know.” Olivia sighed. “We said we’d want to be, like, boyfriend and girlfriend if we both survived the battle, and now we both did, so maybe that’s what.” She shrugged with the shoulder that wasn’t heavily bandaged, and still winced in pain even so. “Assuming I live to see it.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Will said more confidently than he felt about it. He was pretty sure she’d live, since she hadn’t died yet, but—gods, were any of them really ever going to be fine again?

“I hope so.” Olivia shrugged it off with a giggle, like she had a secret to tell in more hushed tones: “He’s a good kisser.” Will raised his eyebrows.

“How would you know if he wasn’t?” he asked. Her face fell a little, even as she blushed.

“Well, I mean, he’s… better at it, you know.” She shrugged, not quite meeting his eyes. It took a second for Will to realize who else she had probably kissed. Oh. Right. That felt kind of weird—he hadn’t even realized Olivia had actually kissed a boy this summer, never mind the last. Hadn’t known Mark had kissed her.

Fortunately (sort of), he didn’t have long to dwell on not having any boys around who’d probably want to kiss him at all, and not knowing when he’d ever get to do anything like that. There were more people to tend to. Things did get a little quieter on day two and especially day three, as injuries healed and it started being okay to let kids go back to their cabins to convalesce instead, but Will wasn’t about to let all of them do that at once—that put way too much pressure on their own counselors to take care of them and keep an eye out for any complications he and his siblings might have missed.

That wasn’t pressure most of them needed. Annabeth was busy directing clean-up and interfacing with the Romans, Malcolm at her side, and once Piper was up and better she was working with them. Clarisse and Travis and Butch were all still recovering from their own injuries. Connor was running a lot of errands and messages around camp, for once acting like the son of the messenger god instead of just the god of mischief—he did keep bringing the healers snacks he’d definitely smuggled into camp, but that was just nice of him. Jake had a lot of stuff to fix and three siblings to mourn. Meanwhile, Katie and Miranda were trying to get the earth back in order, such as they could, and there was mourning to spare in their cabin too.

Death wasn’t done with them, either. Overnight—not the same night as Maddie, so it must have been the second night after the battle, probably—Crispin started having seizures, which was bad, and then the seizures stopped, which was worse, because his heart did too. Miranda came running into Cabin Seven at four in the morning, ducking the curfew harpies, to get Will and Gabriel so maybe they could come and heal him, but by the time they got there it was too late. No chance for even “Will’s glowy thing,” as Austin and Corin had started calling it.

Neither of them could even figure out what had happened, exactly—Will’s best guess was it was something to do with a brain injury, since Crispin had been hit so hard and knocked out fighting that earth spirit. They hadn’t noticed anything else wrong when he first woke up, but now he was gone.

“I’m so sorry,” Will said numbly, while Violet, the littlest daughter of Demeter and one of the few kids who hadn’t gone anywhere near the battle, sobbed into Katie’s shoulder, and Billie and Jared just stood there looking helpless.

“It’s okay,” Miranda said. “You didn’t know.” Will shook his head.

“It’s not okay, though.”

“No, but…” Miranda trailed off. There was nothing behind her eyes but exhaustion. “Yeah. No. It’s not. But it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault but Gaea’s.”

Gods, it didn’t feel that way. Not at all. Will hadn’t expected having his greatest, most impossible wish fulfilled would come with such a heavy side of guilt. To get to make the follow-up call and tell his mom he was alive, and not have to ask Chiron to make any of the other kind… He’d felt survivor’s guilt before, after Manhattan, a battle it still seemed so wrong for him to have walked away from sometimes, but now he felt it on the scale of his entire family.

Seven wasn’t the only cabin where everyone had survived the battle—Dionysus’ cabin was fine, and Nike and Hebe and Hypnos’ kids were all alive, and then of course there were Percy, Jason, and Nico (as far as Will knew—he still hadn’t seen Nico since the sky exploded). But Apollo’s was the only really big Olympian cabin where no one had died. Aphrodite had lost two, Ares had lost three, and now so had Hephaestus and Demeter. Hermes had lost six. Even Athena’s cabin, who hadn’t lost anybody in Manhattan, had to use an owl-emblazoned shroud for Sydney.

“We lost six people last year,” Gabriel reminded him. “Everybody else’s casualties just got spread out more. And there are always more Hermes kids. It’s proportional.”

“I guess.” Will didn’t like thinking of their losses as proportional, like there was some number of dead teenagers that was okay, or normal. All he knew was last year they had burned almost two dozen shrouds—sixteen for fallen campers, another six or so for the friends who’d succumbed to Kronos’ manipulation and lost their lives for it. This year, between the Greeks and the Romans, they were burning more than twice that. It was too much to bear.

And speaking of dead teenagers:

“D’you think I could beat him in a fight?” Sherman asked Will when he brought him his nectar on a dosage round. He was glaring across the infirmary, where Jason and Piper were still resting at that moment. They hadn’t left yet. Frank had come to visit them again—this time he was joined by a very pretty black girl with dark reddish-brown hair, pulled back in a tight bun as utilitarian as her overalls. She was wearing a purple t-shirt under them, so Will figured she had to be Roman too. She looked tiny next to Jason and especially Frank, though to be fair, Will thought, pretty much anyone under six feet tall would.

“Who, Praetor Zhang?”

“Yeah, Frank.”

“No way in hell,” Will said without a moment’s hesitation. Sherman was strong, and Will knew from long experience he could get pretty far on sheer spite, but Frank was taller and even bulkier and, Will had been informed, could turn into various large animals, like a bear or a giant eagle or a dragon—he was the one he’d seen fly down from the Argo II when the prophecy heroes arrived.

Apparently that wasn’t what Sherman had wanted to hear, based on how he glared up at Will from his cot. Will stared him down.

“Definitely not right now, when you’re still healing. But probably not ever. Why would you want to? Is it just cause he’s taller than you?” It was a stupid reason, but he wouldn’t put it past Sherman.

“He’s my brother,” Sherman said mutinously. “A son of Mars. He’s like nine months older than me, he turned sixteen in June. So fucking Mars, Ares, whatever, had two sons with Chinese moms in the same year, and that nerd gets to be the cool one?”

“Welcome to my world,” Sophie said as she passed by, reaching up and flicking Will in the back of the head. Her arm must have healed by then—or, no, it hadn’t yet, she had just gone so stir-crazy in the cabin she’d walked herself up here to hang out anyway and do some non-magical tasks, like measuring nectar and cutting bandages, the way they had Corin doing now.

“Ow!” Will complained, rubbing his head.

“Our dad had three blond kids in the same year,” Sophie went on, “and this nerd gets all the glory?” Sherman snorted.

“I’m not sure I’d call it glory,” Will grumbled. Maybe Austin was right that he and Sophie didn’t give each other enough credit, but gods knew that went both ways. “You’re the one with the archery skills, chariot captain. Silas was too. I’m just your glorified clean-up crew.”

“Gotta have glory to be glorified.” Sophie shrugged.

“I guess. But,” Will said, turning back to Sherman, “Mark was your age, and you never wanted to fight him.” Sherman rolled his eyes.

“That’s different. Mark and I whaled on each other all the fucking time, and I know I could’ve kicked his ass if I’d been trying. If he’d just lived long enough for me to get through my growth spurt, too...” He sighed. “That asshole. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since he got himself killed.”

“Yeah.” Will smiled sadly. They still didn’t talk about Mark much; maybe now that it had been almost a year, it would be easier. Will never planned to share most of his old thoughts and feelings about him with Sherman, no matter how okay they were now, but probably it would be good for Sherman to express his grief in healthier ways than just killing things. And getting himself killed too. “You know,” he pointed out, trying to lighten the mood, “I think Miranda would disagree that you’re any less cool than Frank Zhang.” Sherman rolled his eyes, but he smiled a little too.

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.”

Will did look at Frank differently now he knew he was a son of Mars—it was weird to think about him as a half-brother to Cabin Five, with how much he wasn’t like the children of Ares at all. Will’s Roman healer half-siblings, and even his nieces and nephew, fit right into the Cabin Seven mold, such as there was one. They were cheerful, funny, mostly pretty kind, and dedicated to their work. But Frank and Sherman were like night and day, never mind him and Clarisse. Frank was just so nice. Gods knew Will was pretty fond of a lot of children of Ares, but he wouldn’t call any of them nice. At their best they were loyal to a fault and had moments of gruff kindness in between all the yelling and mocking and shoving and stabbing.

Maybe, Will thought, it had something to do with their godly parents’ aspects—Apollo was still Apollo to Rome, probably pretty similar whichever form he took, while from what he’d heard Mars was a lot less… chaotic, was probably what Malcolm would say, than Ares. But even so, Will kind of doubted Mars was nearly as gentle as Frank seemed.

The Roman girl visiting Jason and Piper, Will learned when he went to check on them, was Hazel Levesque, the other “traitor” Jacob had mentioned; all that seemed to be forgiven now, with Octavian gone and the Praetor returned. No—Reyna. Jason and Annabeth and Frank and even Pranjal never used her title, so even though he’d still only spoken maybe three words to her Will was getting used to thinking of the Praetor as just Reyna. In general, the Romans didn’t actually seem as strict about their titles as he had expected—maybe it had just been an Octavian thing, or maybe just a Jacob thing, being all formal in delivering his messages. Hazel was a centurion for the Fifth Cohort, the same one Jason and Frank had been in, but no one ever called her Centurion Levesque—just Hazel.

And now that she was here, she was holding Frank’s hand. Of course a guy as sweet as Frank would have a girlfriend. Hazel seemed really nice too, and funny—whatever she’d just said when Will walked up had made Piper laugh until she cried.

“It’s great to meet you,” she said when Will introduced himself, in an accent that sounded pretty Southern, though he couldn’t quite place it. “Dante told me you’re the best healer he’s ever met.”

“That’s nice of him,” Will started to say, “it’s been great to—” but then he shook Hazel’s hand, and his voice fell out of his throat. “Uh. Have y’all around,” he managed to say. “Hazel, I actually have a question for you about—someone from the Fifth Cohort. Can we talk outside?” Will was about done with his round, and right now Corin and Sophie were both here to keep eyes on Austin—and he on them. He could step away for a second, he told himself.

“Sure,” Hazel said, following him out to the porch. Now that they were standing, Will realized she didn’t just look tiny next to Jason and Frank—she was even shorter than Kayla, even though he thought she was probably about his own age. “What’s up? Is everybody okay?”

“I think so,” Will said, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to think whether there was a polite way to ask a girl he’d just met 90 seconds ago, hey, you didn’t happen to have died and been resurrected, did you? “It’s actually a question about you, if you don’t mind,” he said carefully. “It’s just—I have a friend who got killed on a quest a few months ago, but found a way out of the Underworld and came back.” Hazel’s eyes widened. “Since I’m a healer,” Will explained, “I can kind of—feel people’s energy, when I touch them, and his feels a little off to me now. Like, I can tell he was dead, even though he isn’t anymore. And when I shook your hand just now, I felt the same thing from you.” Hazel took a deep breath, shoulders rising and falling.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I saw the same thing happen to one of my friends a few months ago. And—you’re right. I was dead too. For a much longer time,” she added. “My brother found me in the Underworld and brought me back to life.”

“Your brother,” Will repeated, feeling like he’d missed something. Just like Jason and Dante and Frank and every Roman he’d met, Hazel had a tattoo on her arm with the symbol of her godly parent over the SPQR, but unlike with the others it wasn’t a symbol he recognized. A crossed line with horns on the top and a dot in the middle, kind of like… Saruman’s staff from Lord of the Rings, or something.

“Nico,” Hazel said. Will stared. “You know him here too, right? Percy and Annabeth did.”

“Yeah, I… I know him,” Will said. Gods, talk about siblings who were nothing alike. “So you’re a child of Hades too? Do you know what was going on in the Underworld, why people were getting out?”

“Pluto,” Hazel corrected. “And yes, I do. Gaea had the Doors of Death chained down so she could keep them open to bring her legions out of Tartarus, and for a while she had Thanatos chained down too so he couldn’t stop it or put anybody back who’d gotten out.”

“...Oh,” Will said. He’d heard bits and pieces about what had happened on the quest in Europe since Jason and Piper had been in the infirmary—and even without hearing it all from one of the seven half-bloods themselves, the camp gossip mill was quickly piecing together what the lines of the Great Prophecy had meant. “But the Doors of Death are closed now, right?”

“Right.” Hazel nodded. “We dealt with that.” Will chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, another question on his tongue, not sure he wanted to know the answer—

“Would you know if anybody else got out?” he asked. “Other—other demigods, like you, who’d died… before.” Hazel gave him a sad smile now, shaking her head.

“I have no idea,” she said. “But I doubt all that many would have found their way out without help. I definitely wouldn’t have. For Gwen and I’d guess for your friend too, they hadn’t made it all the way to the Underworld yet. Hadn’t been judged. But those in Asphodel—most of the spirits lose all memory of themselves, who they were and what they wanted in life.” There was something deep and painful in her voice as she said it, like she spoke from experience. It made Will wonder just how long she had been dead, but he figured he’d pried into her personal business quite enough here.

“I think the ones I’m thinking of would be in Elysium,” he said. “I mean, I’m pretty sure.” Hazel nodded.

“Well, Elysium…” She shrugged. “Maybe. But unless they’re being reborn, I don’t know that anyone in Elysium would choose to leave.”

All that made sense. Will hadn’t really gotten his hopes up, because he knew there wasn’t much of a chance—but still, if two, no, at least three demigods, Greek and Roman alike, had come back through the Doors of Death this year… why couldn’t any of them have been his siblings? And why couldn’t they still be open now?

In his mind and probably most of his heart, he understood why the seven heroes had to close the Doors. There were reasons death should... usually be permanent, good ones. Gods knew his siblings had earned peace and rest and hopefully some happiness, in Elysium. But if Sherman and Hazel and that other girl she’d mentioned, Gwen, could come back from the dead just fine, a small, rebellious part of Will whispered—the part that was brother to Asclepius and to Orpheus, he supposed—why shouldn’t everyone else?

It wasn’t all gloom and doom in the days after the battle, of course. How could it be, when Will was surrounded by his family in the Big House, all of them semi-literal rays of sunshine? And some of the memories that stuck with him were nice things, funny, happy moments that somehow felt all the funnier and happier against the backdrop of suffering. Or maybe it was the other way around, and they just made the suffering a little more bearable.

Like the music—that was a bright spot. Earlier in the summer Austin and Hannah had talked Will and Izzy into getting some help from Jake to rig up modern speakers, with an aux cord, so they could play music from their iPods in the infirmary instead of the dated collection of mix CDs and the bigger, even more dated collection of mixtapes their much-older siblings of yore had left lying around. For years now, campers had been recuperating to a weird combination of Madonna, Boys II Men, the Smiths, Celine Dion, and for some reason the soundtrack from Grease. On balance, Will wasn’t sure some of them thought Hannah’s playlists full of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga were all that much better than John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, but,

“Healers pick the music!” he told a sour-faced Ellis, putting on the most cheerful smile he could muster. “Why, did you have a complaint? Any choice adjectives you wanted to apply to this?” He waved a hand around to indicate “Love Story” playing from the speakers. Will still wasn’t totally sold on the pop stars—too synthetic—but in spite of Sophie’s many, many complaints, he did like Taylor Swift. Her whole pop-country thing wasn't always so far off from his mom’s alt-rock-country music, and if he’d listened to “Teardrops On My Guitar” a few times in the last year, well—nobody but Lou needed to know about that, but he wasn’t in any position to complain.

“No,” Ellis grumbled. “I’m not dealing with those fucking limericks again. Also,” he added when Sherman punched him in the arm, “that would be wrong.”

“There you go.” Will was pretty sure the limerick curse was actually long gone, especially without Apollo around to address it, but he supposed he should probably ask Izzy just to be sure. And even if he was right, he wasn’t about to tell Ellis.

“I think it’s fine, but I actually kind of miss Grease,” Miranda said from where she was curled up on Sherman’s bed with him, mostly in his lap. Will might have been unhappy about her sitting on his wounded patient, but he figured they were both dealing with a lot of loss right now, and if cuddling made them even a little bit happy, it probably helped more than it could hurt.

“You’re the only one, babe,” said Sherman. Miranda kissed his cheek.

“‘Met a boy, cute as can be’,” she half-sang, teasing. “‘Summer days, drifting away, to whoa-oh, those summer nights!’” She wiggled her eyebrows. Sherman laughed. Ellis mimed vomiting, and Will just shook his head and walked away. It was good to see Miranda smiling, anyway. The memory of her scream when she saw Eliza’s head was going to linger for a while.

Fortunately for the naysayers, it wasn’t all Top 40 pop in the infirmary now. Austin’s music shifts were usually the calmest, with a lot of jazz and show tunes. In sharp contrast, Sophie took every chance she got to make them all listen to Fall Out Boy and Green Day. And Will’s own iPod was loaded with the mixture of rock and country he’d grown up listening to, from the serious stuff to the outright cheesy—

“Why would you inflict this garbage on us?” Sophie groaned. “Hasn’t everyone in here suffered enough?”

“You inflicted all 9 minutes of ‘Jesus of Suburbia’ on everyone this morning!” Will argued. Vaguely he heard at least a couple people mutter that poser has no place here, though he wasn’t sure who all they were.

“It’s 9 minutes and 8 seconds,” Sophie corrected him. Will stared at her pointedly. “Ugh, fine. But never in the history of the universe has a tractor been sexy.”

She didn’t complain so much about the Beach Boys albums—Lee and Evan had really loved those when they were around, so Will figured they both had good memories of those. Malcolm had helped him figure out how to digitize the records this year. So that was fun, until “California Girls” came up—then Will just got sad, and surprisingly, not even about Lee this time. There had been a week back in April where Leo had discovered just how much that song annoyed Piper and started serenading his long-suffering best friend at inopportune moments, with backup vocals from Connor, once he got in on it—until Piper shut them up by threatening to do violent things to sensitive body parts. Clarisse had been so damn proud.

Gods, Leo had only been here six months, but still—camp wasn’t going to be the same without him.

With the Greeks and the Romans in the same place and not fighting each other, suddenly there were a few happy, unexpected meetings and reunions. Among the wounded was a Roman son of Mercury named Danny who looked so much like Cecil the two of them got halfway into planning a whole Parent Trap thing with camp and the Legion before Olivia put a stop to that. For herself, apparently Olivia had gone to elementary school with a daughter of Venus named Hailey before they went their separate ways to their separate camps. They had a great time catching up once they realized that, at least when Olivia had any energy for it. And the first time Corin walked into the infirmary when Will and Austin called him in to help out with the menial tasks—

“Oh, oh my gods,” their brother said, stopping in his tracks and staring at one of the Roman demigods, a teenage boy with a heavy tan and dark hair who Will had thought, in passing, looked kind of familiar. He’d slept for most of the afternoon since Dante brought him in, but right now he was awake and eating a jello cup. “Hayden?”

The Roman kid looked up, startled, then his face broke into an astonished grin and he launched himself out of his bed—

“Hey!” Dante protested. “You’re supposed to be on bed rest, Jasso!”

“Corin!” Hayden flung his arms around Will’s brother’s neck. “Holy shit!”

“I didn’t think we were ever gonna see you again!” Hugging him back, Corin looked completely bowled over. Now that Will had this context, seeing them next to each other, it was coming back—there had been one other kid he met in the streets of Manhattan last summer, right after the battle. He just hadn’t come to Camp Half-Blood afterwards. “So that’s what you meant when you said this wasn’t the place for you,” Corin was saying. “You’re Roman.” Hayden shook his head.

“Nah, dude. Well—yeah, obviously it turned out my father’s a Roman god. Janus. But I didn’t know about Camp Jupiter yet either. I was just mad.” He smiled sadly. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. I’m just so glad to see you again.” Corin shook his head wonderingly. “I’ve got to tell—Izzy!” he said as she walked into the infirmary and stopped, wide-eyed, staring at the two of them now too. “Look who’s with the Romans now!”

“Hayden?” Izzy said in almost the exact same astonished tone as Corin.

“Wait, Hayden’s here?” Shane had finally noticed, sitting bolt upright in his own bed at the other end of the room. “And no one told me?” Will sighed.

“Okay,” he said. “Guys, don’t crowd the doorway. Hayden, could you get back in your bed, please?”

“Wow, it’s like the Brotherhood of Evil Demigods over there,” Cecil observed as Shane, ignoring Will’s reproach just as Hayden had ignored Dante’s, got up from his bed and went over to join Corin and Izzy sitting by Hayden’s. Will gave the son of Hermes a sharp look. “Formerly-Evil?” Cecil tried.

“Don’t call them that.” Will was pretty sure Drew was solidly in the minority about still seeing his siblings and their former comrades as untrustworthy traitors—most people got that they had been brainwashed, or at least Will thought they did—but what she had said before the battle still rankled.

“It’s an X-Men joke!” Cecil explained. “Like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.”

“Yeah, I get it. But none of them were ever evil,” Will said fiercely. Cecil put his hands up.

“Yeah, neither is Magneto! It doesn’t literally mean they’re—”

“I don’t know,” said Hayden, who could apparently hear them. “I think I might’ve been kinda evil for a while.” Shane laughed uncomfortably. Izzy looked down, her face troubled.

“Well, I don’t,” Corin said firmly, giving Hayden’s shoulder a fond squeeze. Will had never asked his brother how he figured out he liked boys any more than Corin had asked him, but watching him with his old friend now, he was starting to formulate a guess. Probably something to ask him, and maybe Izzy, about later.

Some stuff that happened was just funny. The thing about rest and recovery was it could get pretty boring, so as the days passed, the campers and legionnaires started coming up with more and more elaborate—and disruptive—ways to amuse themselves. Sometimes it was normal things, like playing I Spy or putting on the Grease soundtrack (“for old times’ sake!” said Cecil) and having a singalong. At some point Will had to break up a game of Never Have I Ever among some of the oldest kids that was threatening to get inappropriate, to the disappointment of the younger kids avidly listening in.

“I wanted to hear what drugs Travis has done!” Cecil whined.

“Oh, I’d just tell you that,” said Travis, who’d come in to visit people with Chris and Clarisse and surprisingly Katie, and instigated the game Will was now trying to kick him out to stop. “I’m an open book.”

“It’s not actually that exciting a list,” Chris said in an undertone. “He wants everybody to think he’s much cooler than he actually is.” Katie giggled. Travis punched his brother in the arm.

“Ask me once you’re out of here,” he told Cecil, “so we can have a brotherly heart-to-heart without Mr. Golden Sun here trying to set us on fire with his UV ray eyes.”

“I don’t have UV eyes, Travis,” Will said, glaring harder, “that would be insane.”

“Insanely awesome!” said Cecil. If Will hadn’t known the kid well before, he sure was getting to know him now. He got why he was one of Olivia’s favorite siblings, and why Lou Ellen liked hanging out with him too. But gods, he was such, such a Hermes kid.

The most memorable time something ridiculous happened, Will returned from the bathroom to discover that in the, like, minute and a half he was gone, his charges (mostly Cecil again, he’d bet money if Connor offered those odds, and Olivia was definitely in on it this time) had broken into a supply cabinet and stolen about a dozen surgical gloves. They’d blown them up like balloons, and now they were batting them around with their hands while Cecil yelled out scores for an incomprehensible game Will suspected he was making up as they went. As he stared at the scene before him, torn between getting mad and joining in, Sherman batted one directly into his face—it seemed like mostly by dumb luck—to a roar of laughter from the whole infirmary.

Will assumed he’d be hearing about that until he went to college or died, whichever came first. On the bright side, college was actually starting to look like a distant possibility again.

And then there was the mattress debacle. It wasn’t really funny—at least, Will didn’t think so, but the older teenagers involved sure did. Will had Jason and Piper rest in the infirmary overnight, just to make sure they were okay after getting blown out of the sky by Octavian, but he wasn’t going to keep them longer than he needed to when there were other demigods who needed the beds, and their cabins needed them.

Well, Piper’s cabin—for Jason, it was more like the entirety of both camps. The minute he got out of the infirmary Reyna had marched up with Frank, Percy, and Annabeth, and stuck a nametag on him that said “HELLO! MY NAME IS: Praetor Emeritus.” Percy had a matching one. For diplomacy, Malcolm had said vaguely when Will mentioned it.

But in the chaos of the battle, there was one thing Will, Izzy, Ash, and Clarisse had all completely forgotten—Jason didn’t have a bed anymore, since they had appropriated it for Mellie. It wasn’t until shortly after dinner the second night that they were reminded, when Jason came back to the infirmary and very politely asked if Will knew what had happened to it, because apparently Clovis had pointed the sleepy, sleepy finger at him. Will felt so bad for forgetting that he asked Izzy to sub in for the night shift early and went up to help Jason and Connor drag another spare mattress out of the Big House’s storage and down to Cabin One.

“I’m really sorry,” he told Jason again once they’d shoved the mattress back into the alcove where the son of Zeus slept.

“Quit apologizing,” said Clarisse, who’d come over to see what was going on and made an uncharacteristically nice apology of her own. Just one, though. “It was an emergency. Jason gets it.”

“I do get it,” Jason agreed. “Seriously, it’s fine. Kinda funny, even. No harm done.”

“I’m still sorry,” said Will. Jason patted his shoulder.

“Will, I never thought I’d say this about anyone,” he said, “but I think you might be too nice.” Before Will could respond to that, Connor snorted.

“Will’s not that nice. He can be a real dick if you piss him off enough.” Clarisse nodded sagely. Will rolled his eyes.

“I think what that means, Stoll,” he said, “is Jason’s a lot nicer than you.” Connor shrugged.

“We all know that, Solace. It’s part of my natural charm.” He grinned at him crookedly. Will crossed his arms over his chest.

“Connor,” he said sternly, pulling himself together enough to look him square in the eye now they weren’t in the middle of a battlefield, “we talked about this.” Connor winced, deflating.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking away awkwardly. “—I’ll stop.”

“Stop what?” said Clarisse, looking back and forth between them with narrowed eyes now. “What did you talk about?” Connor sighed.

“Apparently I ‘flirt with everyone’,” he said, actually making air quotes with his fingers, “and it makes Will uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t actually say—” either of those things, Will started to say, but Clarisse laughed over him.

“He’s not wrong,” she said. “You do flirt with everyone.” She clapped Connor on the shoulder. “Except me, but I figure that’s cause you’ve got a healthy sense of self-preservation.” Now Connor looked even more uncomfortable.

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Will muttered, then backtracked when Clarisse raised her eyebrows dangerously—“I just mean, healthy sense of self-preservation? Connor Stoll? Really?”

“Healthy enough,” Connor shot back. “I’m still here, aren’t I?” Which they couldn’t say for a lot of their siblings and friends. Connor winced again, like he’d only now realized what just came out of his mouth. “—Sorry.”

Everyone told him it was fine, cause it wasn’t that it wasn’t fine, but it did kind of kill the mood. They all left Jason to get some sleep after that, and Will headed to bed too, and when Miranda came and woke him up at four in the morning because Crispin was dead he still heard Connor’s words ringing in his ears.

I’m still here, aren’t I? Flippant. Callous. But on the other hand, Will thought, it was the best any of them could hope for—or be grateful for, now the battle was over.

It wasn’t like he could fall back asleep after that, so on the third day Will was back in the infirmary before sunrise and stayed there until the sun was going down. He was glad he did it, because it was the last day the Romans were here—Reyna and Frank had announced they would be returning to California tomorrow, as Pranjal and Dante thought one more day was all they would need for the injured legionnaires to all be well enough to travel.

Will mostly agreed. There were a few borderline cases, and he planned to keep a few of his own patients in the infirmary at least a day longer—he was still pretty worried about Olivia, and he planned to keep Sherman around mostly because he didn’t trust him to keep his own bandages clean without supervision. Overall, though, he was really relieved by how quickly and thoroughly most of the wounded demigods had been able to recover.

The deaths would linger on his conscience, he knew—the two he hadn’t been able to save—but really, Will thought, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“Good. I’m glad you can see that,” Izzy said when she came to drag him down to dinner and he mentioned it. “Now can you relax and rest? I really don’t want to have to take you back to the infirmary as my patient, but I can feel the exhaustion, Will.” She squeezed his wrist. Will supposed that was fair.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I guess I can try.”

“You want to have valerian tea after dinner?” Izzy suggested. Will shrugged.

“Sure,” he said. “I haven’t had coffee in, like, four hours, so it might actually work.” Izzy gave him a look.

“You’re about to be fourteen with a caffeine addiction,” she said.

“No,” Will corrected, “I’m about to be fifteen with a caffeine addiction. It’s way too late to stop it for fourteen.”

“Great.” Izzy sighed, shaking her head. “Even better.”

Will did take valerian that night, but on the fourth day—well, the third day, not counting the day of the battle itself—he still woke up early, tense and uncomfortable like he hadn’t been in a while. This time, he thought it probably wasn’t because of dreams—this time it was that as soon as consciousness hit he sat up in a panic, wondering what would have gone wrong while he was sleeping this time. If they’d have lost any more campers.

“Good morning, sunshine!” Kayla’s head appeared upside-down in the space between their bunks about four inches from Will’s face, startling him into yelling and jumping so violently he hit his head on the underside of the top bunk and fell out of his bed. Kayla jumped down to help him up, her profuse apologies undermined a little by how hard she was laughing.

“What the hell, Kayla,” Will groaned, rubbing his head.

“I’m sorry—I was just gonna say, Izzy said I’m supposed to tell you everything is totally fine, nothing bad happened to anyone overnight, and if you go back to the infirmary today she’ll be very unhappy with you.”

“Where—” Will lowered his voice when Kayla pointed and he realized Izzy was curled up in her bunk on the other side of the room, bundled in her covers facing the wall so all they could see was a pile of curly brown hair. “Okay. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.” Kayla frowned at him.

“You should rest.” Oh, great—now he was getting it from her, too.

“Hmm.” Will hid his face in his footlocker so he didn’t have to see Kayla’s stern expression as he pulled out fresh jeans and a scrub shirt. Izzy and Austin (and Gabriel and Corin and Hannah and, increasingly, Dante and Pranjal too) had been bad enough.

“Will!” Kayla crossed her arms over her chest at the sight of the green scrub fabric.

“I’m just going to go check in,” Will insisted. “See my friends and stuff. Besides, the Romans are leaving today, so we don’t have as many hands to be on deck.”

“Ugh. Fine.” Kayla didn’t try to stop him from walking out of the cabin once he’d changed, but he was sure she’d be tattling on him to Izzy the moment their big sister woke up. Whatever. She’d been on the night shift with Logan, so Will probably had at least six hours until then.

Will paused on the porch, looking around at camp. It was early, but he wasn’t the only one up and moving. Beyond the strawberry fields, the Romans were already packing up to leave. Will had hugged his half-siblings and sort-of-nieces and nephew goodbye and promised to keep in touch and everything last night, after dinner. As much as he’d liked having them around, he was looking forward to things getting back to normal. As normal as they could be, anyway. The new normal.

A little closer, Travis was standing in front of Cabin Four’s porch talking to Katie, who was leaning on the railing with her chin in her hands. Not screaming at each other for once. That was nice, and surprising. And over at Cabin Thirteen Jason was—hugging Nico?

Will frowned. Nico had been in the back of his mind for the last couple days, when he wasn’t focused on something else. He’d lost track of him after the sky exploded and the dust settled, since he had been a little focused on making sure his siblings were alive. And caring for the wounded. All two hundred and something of them.

While Nico had been doing… what, exactly? In the three days since the battle ended Will had barely seen him anywhere, while he’d been running around camp tending to his friends. He certainly hadn’t been doing what he should have been doing, which was getting his wounds treated and recovering from the battle in the infirmary with everyone else. He hadn’t been part of any of the clean-up crews either, or doing diplomacy with Jason and Percy and Annabeth and the Romans, as far as Will knew. Until yesterday, when he’d been at the high table at dinner, he had almost been starting to think Nico had made good on his threat and just… left.

Or used his powers again and shattered into darkness completely, but up til then he’d been trying really hard not to think about that possibility—he already had enough people to mourn, enough to blame himself for not doing more to prevent. And now he thought of that…

For the first time he wondered if Nico also felt weird about what had happened with Octavian. If he thought Will was going to judge him badly for not stopping his terrible great-great-nephew from killing himself, and Leo, and almost killing Jason and Piper. It wasn’t that Will didn’t feel weird about it himself, in the few spare seconds he’d been able to think about it since then, but in the grand scheme of things… Jason and Piper had survived, when a lot of other people hadn’t, and Will would be lying if he said he hadn’t wanted to see Octavian dead. And he never would have expected an explosion to kill fireproof Leo, not even one like that, and surely Nico hadn’t either. That wasn’t on them. Hell, none of it was totally on them, not really—Michael Kahale was the one who’d encouraged Octavian, and kept Will and Nico from interfering even if they’d wanted to.

If Octavian was the issue, maybe that would explain why Nico hadn’t come to the infirmary, not even to visit his friends with his sister—never mind recuperate. The son of Hades hadn’t been injured in the battle, not in the blood and guts or broken bones way, but there were those scratches on his arms—and Will was still quite certain that, unless he had some kind of secret antidote, he was still in danger from his whole shadow thing. He had gone by Cabin Thirteen a couple times on his house call rounds, hoping to make sure Nico was okay. But each time he’d checked, to all appearances, he hadn’t even been there.

It was almost, Will couldn’t help but think now, like Nico had been avoiding him.

On the doorstep of his cabin, Nico’s eyes wandered—it was hard to tell from a distance, but it looked like he had that same kind of wistful expression on his face as before the battle, looking around camp. Seeing his chance, Will waved at him, trying to catch his eye. Nico froze in place, staring at him. Will hopped down from the porch and pointed at the ground in front of him, gesturing for Nico to come over. Nico looked back at Jason, said something, and then, finally, came jogging over.

“So, where were you?” Will asked him as he drew near. Nico frowned.

“What do you mean?” he asked, like he’d been walking around camp in plain view this whole time and it was somehow Will’s fault for not noticing.

“I mean, I’ve been in the infirmary for like two days straight,” Will said. “You never came by or offered to help.” Nico looked at him blankly.

“I—what?” he said, eyes narrowing and eyebrows furrowing. “Why would you want a son of Hades in the same room with people you’re trying to heal? Why would anyone want that?” Will just stared at him. You should be one of the people we’re trying to heal! was what he wanted to say, but based on how his best efforts before the battle had just made Nico clam up and insist he was fine—

“You can’t help out your friends?” he said instead. “Maybe cut bandages? Bring us a coke or a snack? Just say, how’s it going, Will?” Nico stared back at him, looking even more confused. Will shrugged. “You don’t think I could stand to see a friendly face?”

“What?” Nico blinked, like what Will was saying didn’t make sense. “My—my face?” Will sighed.

“You’re so dense,” he said. Nico opened his mouth like he was about to argue—“I hope you got over that nonsense about leaving camp, at least?”

“I—yeah.” Nico nodded, still looking uncertain. “I did. I mean, I’m staying.” His eyes darted back towards the row of new cabins, where Jason had wandered off to talk to one of the Hebe kids.

“Good,” said Will. “So you’re dense, but you’re not an idiot.”

“How can you even talk to me like that?” Nico asked, looking up at him and frowning again. “You know I can summon zombies and skeletons and—”

“Yeah, all too well.” Will crossed his arms over his chest, raising his eyebrows. “But right now you couldn’t summon a wishbone without melting into a puddle of darkness, di Angelo. I told you, no more Underworldy stuff. Doctor’s orders,” he added. Nico rolled his eyes. The circles under them looked even deeper than when he had arrived at camp three days ago. That was concerning. “Have you slept?” Will asked, knowing he was a hypocrite—but Nico wouldn’t.

Nico didn’t answer the question, just glared up at Will, which was pretty much all the answer he needed.

“Okay. You owe me at least three days of rest in the infirmary, starting right now.” Izzy was going to kill him. That wasn’t important. Will held Nico’s gaze, watching the animosity melt away to leave his brown eyes more uncertain than unhappy.

“Three days?” Nico lost the staring contest first, eyes darting to the ground. Will hadn’t really noticed how long his eyelashes were before, but that definitely wasn’t important right now. Nico chewed on his lower lip for a second. “I—I suppose that would be okay.”

Will felt sort of like he’d missed a step—he had expected Nico to keep arguing. But he wasn’t about to question him actually agreeing.

“Good,” he said. “Then let’s—” Before he could finish the sentence, Nico’s head whipped around at a loud yell of joy from Percy, who was sitting with Annabeth by the hearth.

“I, uh, I’ll be right back,” Nico said. Of course. Will tried not to sigh too audibly. “Promise on the Styx and everything,” Nico added, and then instead of being annoyed Will found himself shaking his head in amazement as Nico walked over to his friends.

“What kind of dumb, dramatic—”

“Did I just hear you say you’re going back to the infirmary for three days?” Kayla’s voice demanded. Will jumped and looked up to see her perched on the porch railing.

“No,” he said, “I said Nico has to go to the infirmary for three days.”

“Okay,” Kayla said, looking at him suspiciously. “I’m still telling Izzy on you.”

“Okay.” They glared at each other for another second. Then Kayla did an I’m watching you gesture, hopped down from the railing, and disappeared back into the cabin. Will looked back at the common—whatever Nico had said, it was earning him a high-five from Annabeth, and as he walked back toward Cabin Seven his demeanor was a lot lighter.

“Well?” he said, looking up at Will. “Three days, you said?”

Chapter Text

“Why three days?” Nico asked from a couple paces behind Will as they walked up toward the Big House. Will was still kind of surprised this had been so easy, but once he’d told Jason where he was going, and to tell Hazel and anybody else, Nico had just… followed him.

“Cause that’s how long it’s been since the battle, and you should’ve been up here recuperating that whole time,” Will told him, “but you weren’t. So you’re making it up now.”

“I’m fine, Solace.”

“Whatever,” said Will. “You can say that as many times as you want, but it isn’t going to make it true.”

“You know, I remember you being a lot nicer before,” Nico said a little resentfully as they came around the side of the porch and up the infirmary steps. It was quiet this early in the morning—most of the lingering patients were still asleep, so Will directed Nico to a cot at the far end, figuring he’d probably want to be a little ways away from other people too. Will definitely wasn’t going to inflict Sherman and Ben on him. As Nico hopped up on the bed, his sleeves rode up a little, revealing the stitches on his arms again. A good place to start, Will decided.

“You used to be a lot nicer too,” he pointed out as he grabbed needles, suture thread, and nectar. “I’m pretty burned out, di Angelo,” he admitted. “It’s been a long three days in here. And now I’m back for more.” Until my sister gets our brothers or her girlfriend to drag me kicking and screaming out of here, he didn’t say, though he smiled ruefully thinking about it.

“That’s not my fault,” Nico muttered.

“Maybe not totally.” Will pulled the hanging curtains closed around the cot. “Now, could you take off your shirt?”

“Excuse me?” Nico’s head snapped up. He stared at Will with a look kind of like a deer in the headlights.

“I know you’ve got some kind of wounds on your upper arms that really need to be looked at,” Will told him, hoping his own face wasn’t going red. This was a serious medical thing. “The easiest way for me to do that is for you to take off your shirt. If you’re not comfortable being shirtless, we can find you a tank top or something, but—”

“Whatever.” Nico yanked that ridiculous tropical-print shirt off over his head and dropped it on the cot.

“—either way I’ll get you a clean t-shirt to rest in,” Will finished saying, trying not to start worrying about how Nico was even more deathly pale under his clothes, or how stark his ribs were under his skin. Those kinds of issues were important, but for now they had to stay at the bottom of the triage list—the inflamed, questionably-sutured lacerations on his biceps were a much more immediate concern. “What happened here?” Will asked, stepping closer to set a hand on Nico’s shoulder, a little above the wounds so he could feel them out without (hopefully) causing his patient any more pain.

“I got in a fight with Lycaon in Portugal.” He said it so casually, like that was a normal, everyday event. Maybe for Nico di Angelo, it was.

Will blinked. “The werewolf guy?”

“Yeah, the werewolf guy.”

“Did he, uh…” Will frowned. He didn’t sense anything that would suggest any kind of, like, werewolf… germs? Venom? Whatever turned a person into one. But he also wasn’t sure he would even know what werewolf germs felt like.

“Bite me?” Nico finished the sentence for him. “No. Just the claws.”

“Okay, good.” That meant Will’s job was probably just as easy as it looked. “How long ago was that?”

“I don’t know. A couple days.” Nico frowned. “No, wait—more like a week by now. I think. It’s been a little hard to keep track.”

“Okay.” That wasn’t great, and explained how bad the wounds looked, but at least, Will figured, the infection hadn’t managed to kill him. Focus on the positive. “Who did the stitches?” Nico was already pretty tense under his hand, but now he tensed even more.

“Reyna,” he said warily. Will glanced up at him, meeting his eyes for a second; Nico’s were weirdly defensive. “Why?”

“The Praetor? She did a good job for field sutures, that’s all.” When Will said that, Nico relaxed some. “It makes sense. All our leaders have some first aid training too.” He squeezed Nico’s shoulder gently. “We’ll have to get you all trained up now that you’re staying. Since you’re a counselor and all.”

“Right.” Shifting uncomfortably, Nico shrugged out of his grip. Will let him.

“Still, I’m going to take the sutures out. We’ll get everything cleaned up, redo the stitches, and get you bandaged. Unfortunately, I don’t think I can keep these wounds from scarring,” he told Nico, opening the trauma kit to take out the supplies he would need. “Maybe if I could’ve—well, if anyone with healing powers had gotten to you sooner, but even then, I guess werewolf scratches probably aren’t like regular scratches, so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Creature wounds are always harder to heal than just regular weapon wounds anyway, and especially when there’s some kind of venom or poison or whatever lycanthropes have going on—you know what?” Will said, catching himself before he could go fully down this rabbit hole. “Never mind.”

“Okay. I won’t.” There was something about the set of his mouth—if Will hadn’t known better, he could have sworn Nico was trying not to smile. “It’s not like I don’t have scars already.” It was true. Gods, he had so many scars—had he not been near a healer at all in the last few years?

“Great,” Will said, trying to stay positive. “Then we’re just adding to your collection.”

“Right.”

“Taking out the stitches will probably hurt,” Will warned him. “So will cleaning them with nectar.”

“I don’t care.”

“Okay. I’ll still try to be efficient.” To Nico’s credit, he actually did a pretty good impression of not caring. He barely winced as Will clipped the sutures and drew the thread back out of his skin. Either his pain tolerance was ungodsly, Will thought, or he was in some kind of dissociated state. Could have been both. It wasn’t shock, though—Will kept checking to make sure, but Nico basically looked and felt like he was still with it. When Will got the nectar out and started dabbing at the wounds, then Nico did start hissing curses through his teeth a little bit, but he managed to stay still. “You’re doing great,” Will told him. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t talk,” Nico grated out.

“It’s called having a good bedside manner,” Will said.

“I don’t give a fuck about your bedside manner.”

“Good to know.” Will rolled his eyes and kept working.

Nico’s energy did still feel pretty volatile under his hands, like glass or ice that had been shattered without falling apart quite yet. Hovering on the edge. Usually Will would treat his own burnout with food, nectar, and sleep, so those pretty much made up the regimen he was mentally planning for Nico while he stitched the wounds back up a little more neatly. That part was more difficult than he had expected—unfortunately, he was now starting to realize why taking the old sutures out had been so easy, and so relatively painless for Nico. As Will slipped the suture needle through his skin, the stitches he formed kept slipping back out. The fading, or maybe it was more like flickering, might not be as dramatic as it had been—but it was still happening.

“So,” Will said carefully, wondering how far he could get with asking before Nico got all defensive and pushed back again. “This thing where you keep, um—losing physical, like, solidity?”

“What about it?” Nico said. Maybe not very far, then.

“When I saw Coach Hedge, he told me that you—that it almost happened permanently,” Will said. “But he stopped it with, uh, ‘sports medicine’. Do you know what he did, exactly?” Nico made a foul face.

“No idea,” he said. “I was passed out. I just know it involved smearing a lot of mud all over me.” Will caught himself before he smiled, but it was close.

“Sounds super fun to wake up to.”

“I’ve woken up to worse,” Nico said.

“O—okay.” Will finished the stitches on his right arm—at least, he hoped they would all stay in place—and rolled his medical stool around to the left. “I’ll ask him, I guess. Is there anything else that’s helped? Have you been taking nectar?”

“Nectar didn’t do much,” Nico said. “Reyna had me try unicorn draught. That seemed to help.”

“Huh.” Will was pretty sure they had some powdered unicorn horn in a cabinet somewhere, but it wasn’t an ingredient he’d used a lot. Then again, he’d never seen anything quite like this before. “Did the gum help?” Now Nico stiffened a little.

“... Yeah,” he admitted. “For a while. It sucks, though.”

“Trust me, I know,” Will said, trying to sound sympathetic. Nico, snorting in obvious disbelief, seemed determined to make that difficult. Will just shook his head. Unicorn draught. Rhodiola. Mud. There had to be some combination he could figure out here. “Okay,” he said once he finished off Nico’s left bicep. “I’m going to get some ointment on here, then we’ll get you bandaged up. Stay where you are.”

“Not going anywhere,” Nico grumbled. Still, Will kept an eye on his bed curtains while he grabbed a standard anti-venom poultice—hopefully that would work fairly normally on werewolf… stuff—along with gauze, tape, and a couple lengths of bandages he thought should be enough to wrap the wounds effectively. He might even be overshooting it. Nico did have some muscle on him—he had to, to fight like he could—but like zero body fat, and not on a very large frame. Will was used to bandaging taller, more muscular people.

“Is that death brat?” Speaking of those. In one of the beds nearer the cabinets, Sherman had propped himself up on his elbows, blinking in the morning sunlight. “Why’d you bring him in here?”

Why would you want a son of Hades in the room where you’re trying to heal people? Nico had said. Why would anyone want that?

“To heal him,” Will said, maybe a little too sharply. If he was going to convince Nico people actually did want him around, he didn’t need his own friends undermining him from the start. “To teach him to fucking tap dance, Sherman, what do you think?”

“Well, good morning to you too, I guess,” Sherman grumbled, and rolled over to hide his head back in his pillow. Feeling a little bad now, Will went back to Nico’s cot and ducked back through the curtains.

“I am going to give you nectar to start with,” he told him while he dabbed on the poultice. “For the wounds, and your energy generally. And I’d like you to try and sleep, if you can.” Nico gave him a doubtful look. Will shrugged. “I told you. Three days of rest.”

“I don’t have to sleep to rest.”

“Yeah, when you haven’t slept in—how many hours has it been? Doesn’t matter. Yeah, you do,” Will said firmly. “Now, you can either try and sleep of your own accord, or I can give you a sleep aid. There are a few options—”

“I can sleep on my own,” Nico said, cutting him off.

“Okay,” Will said. “Will you, though?”

“Yes,” Nico said more sharply. “If you’ll just leave me alone for ten seconds.” Will supposed that wasn’t totally unfair.

“Sure—just let me get these done.” He got the gauze taped down, then wrapped the bandages around each arm to make sure the dressings were airtight.

For some reason, this was the first time Nico seemed really uncomfortable. Will could feel how tense he was, like he was struggling not to squirm away. Maybe he was ticklish?

“Okay. Hang on a second longer,” Will said once the bandages were secured and he’d measured out some nectar for Nico. “I said I’d get you a clean t-shirt. What do you want me to do with this one?” He picked up the red shirt with the palm trees and parrots, stained with blood and dirt and gods knew what else, with two fingers. “Burn it?” he suggested, only kind of as a joke. He was expecting another I don’t care, but instead Nico actually—almost smiled into his nectar cup, shaking his head.

“Actually, I think I want to keep it,” he said quietly. “Can somebody wash it?”

“Sure. I’ll stick it in the infirmary laundry and get it back to you.” Will did the first part of that, then washed his hands and went to rummage through the infirmary’s supply of t-shirts, sweats, and pajama pants that had mostly come into their possession over many, many years of never being claimed by anyone else. A lot of camp shirts in various states of wear and tear, a few tie-dye projects that had come out wrong, various random band and tourist tees, some high school and college gear people had left behind—mostly by dying, unfortunately, Will thought as his stomach clenched at the sight of a varsity soccer shirt with the name of Lee’s high school on it.

Fortunately, the next thing he found made him grin.

“Here, this should suit you,” he said when he went back through the curtains, holding it up for Nico to see. Nico’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.

“Who the hell made a t-shirt for the Styx?” he asked. “Not that many people actually visit the Underworld, do they?” And make it back, he didn’t say.

“It’s not the river, it’s the band,” Will said. Nico looked at him blankly. “Seriously? You’re the son of Hades, and you don’t know about the band Styx?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Nico rolled his eyes. “Why does it have Charon on it, then?”

“I mean, of course the band’s named after the river.” Will shrugged as he handed the dark blue t-shirt over. Again he thought he’d misjudged—the shirt looked like it was going to be a size or two too big on Nico. At least that should be comfortable for healing. “I brought you these, too,” he added, handing Nico a pair of black sweatpants he’d grabbed. “Up to you, but in my expert medical opinion you probably don’t want to recuperate in jeans.” Especially ones as ripped and dirt-caked as those. “I’ll leave you alone now if you want to change before you go to sleep.”

“Okay.” Nico smoothed down the front of the Styx t-shirt over his bandaged chest. “Thank you.” He didn’t even sound that grudging anymore.

“Sleep,” Will reminded him sternly before he left.

“Yes, doctor,” he heard Nico mutter.

The next time Will checked on Nico, about ten minutes later, he really was fast asleep. And as far as he could tell, he stayed that way for more than a full day.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be—oh, thank you!” Olivia said, taking the bagel Will handed her when he got back from breakfast. Eating in the dining pavilion again was great, and also kind of weird and sad, with some of the tables missing so many people. It was like that last year, too.

“No problem. Enough people have brought me food the last few days, I feel like I need to start paying it forward.” Will sat down on the foot of her bed. “You want to play Crazy Eights?”

“Sure, but aren’t you supposed to be off duty?” Olivia asked.

“I am off duty.” Will pulled the rubber band off the deck and started dealing the cards. “If anybody asks, I’m resting and visiting my friends.” Olivia looked at him suspiciously.

“You say that like it’s not what you’re actually doing,” she said. Will shrugged, trying to look innocent. “I’m my father’s daughter, Will, and you’ve never been a very good liar. What’s going on?” Okay, fair.

“I am visiting my friends,” Will insisted. “But I’m also keeping an eye on Nico.” He jerked his head toward the curtains, the only ones in the infirmary that were all the way closed.

“Oh, that’s who’s in there?” Olivia said. “When did he come in?”

“Earlier. You were still asleep,” Will explained. “He’s asleep now.”

“I didn’t realize he was still here,” Olivia said, echoing Will’s own thoughts of the past few days. “I figured he’d disappear again.”

“He said he’s staying this time.”

“Well, that’s cool.” Olivia gave him kind of a curious look. “I didn’t know you guys were still friends. I haven’t actually talked to Nico since the first time he was here.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t know if we’re still friends, exactly,” Will said. “He doesn’t make it easy to try and be friends with him.”

“Aw.” Olivia shoved at his knee gently. “You sad there’s finally somebody you can’t sunshine into liking you?” Will rolled his eyes. “After it worked so well on all of Ares’ kids. Diamonds,” she added, slapping down an eight.

“I hate you.”

“They’re a girl’s best friend.” Olivia shrugged. She seemed a lot higher-energy today, and was moving a little easier. Not wincing as much. That all seemed really good, Will thought.

Between the Romans leaving and kids healing, the number of injuries that still needed close observation had dropped enough they’d all agreed they could move people from the auxiliary rooms in the Big House back into the infirmary. Hannah and Gabriel were on duty this morning, working on it. Will offered to help—but they told him no, he wasn’t allowed to do any work in here today. So instead he just sat and hung out with Olivia and Cecil and eventually Lou Ellen when she came in to visit too, while around them the infirmary got louder and more crowded again.

He glanced in at Nico every time he walked by his corner, worried the rising noise level would wake him, but he must have been a really heavy sleeper. Not even half the infirmary screaming along to Paramore when Sophie plugged her iPod in was enough to make him stir. Will was glad to see he had changed into the sweats. He grabbed Nico’s discarded jeans and threw them in the laundry with the tropical shirt.

Percy and Annabeth and Jason came in at one point, asking to see him—

“Sorry.” Will shrugged. “He’s sleeping.”

“For how long? Can we wake him up yet?” Percy asked. Annabeth elbowed him in the side.

“No,” Will said firmly. “We’re gonna let him sleep however long he needs to. Come back this time tomorrow,” he added. “We’ll see how he’s doing then.”

“Is it true that Nico’s actually staying this time?” Lou Ellen asked him later, as they walked down to the dining pavilion to get lunch—they’d promised Olivia and Cecil they would bring them, in Cecil’s words, “whatever fried potato products you can get your hands on, by whatever means necessary.”

“That’s what he told me.” Will shrugged.

“Do you know if he means year-round? Or just for the summer?”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “I mean—I assume year-round, cause I don’t think he has a mortal family to go to.” He didn’t know much about Nico’s family, except for his father, of course, and his sister who had died—and, he supposed, now his other sister, who… had also died, but her he’d brought back. Did he have aunts or uncles? Grandparents? Will had his mom, sure, but when he was younger and her career was busier and he hadn’t had camp yet he’d spent a lot of time staying with his grandparents. “I can ask,” he said.

“You don’t have to.” Lou Ellen shrugged. “I assume we’ll find out.”

“I mean, we’ll have to sooner or later.” Will glanced at his friend as he grabbed a sandwich and some fruit for himself, then loaded up a second paper plate with tater tots for their friends. “Why do you care? I mean,” he backtracked, realizing that sounded kind of harsh, “are you hoping he’ll stick around for school and stuff?”

“Yeah.” Lou Ellen shrugged. “I have a lot of stuff I want to ask him about. With the Underworld, and magic. My mother…” She sighed. “I respect her decisions, like she respects mine, but even before the gods got all fucked up she wasn’t very… forthcoming. Especially since I, uh, sided with you guys last year.”

“I thought she said that was your choice.” Will frowned. Lou Ellen made a face.

“Doesn’t mean she didn’t hold it against me. And Quentin and—and Brian—” she swallowed, face falling—“they got so much more of her attention, more time to learn, cause they were working for Kronos.”

“But you’re better than Quentin,” Will said. “Aren’t you?”

“Am I?” Lou Ellen shrugged. “I’ve worked hard trying to catch up, and yeah, I’ve taught myself magic he’s not as good at yet, but there’s still stuff he learned from our mother that I can’t teach myself, or learn from anyone else. I don’t know if Nico would know anything about that, but—he’s the son of Hades. He definitely knows a ton of stuff about the Underworld and its operations, and my mom is sort of a part of those. Besides,” she added, “don’t you think Nico’s just... cool? I want to get to know him better. Like those other people who’d like to be his friend.” She bumped Will’s hip, almost upsetting the tater tots.

“Sure.” Will was a little thrown off by all that about Hecate. He had sort of gotten a sense of some of it before, but for all the many very personal things he and Lou Ellen talked about… they didn’t talk about parents much. Mostly, around camp, it felt kind of pointless to dwell on, especially this last year—everyone’s godly parents were absent at best. “I’m sorry,” he said now. “About your mom.” Lou Ellen shrugged.

“It could be worse. It is worse for lots of people—you know Hermes doesn’t even remember, you know… fathering Cecil? Zero memory of his mom, never mind him.” She grimaced. “Oh. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Will said, and grabbed some extra tater tots for Cecil, just cause.

Around three, Izzy finally came looking for him. Her hair was wet, and she was carrying a paper cup of coffee that looked suspiciously like it had come from outside of camp. So was Ashlyn, who was following her, looking kind of like an overgrown puppy. Will supposed they were both old enough to have driver’s licenses—Ash hadn’t gotten hers when she actually turned sixteen, since she’d been busy doing... Kronos stuff, at the time, but this past school year it had been a whole thing with Argus teaching her and some of the 10th graders to drive in one of the beat-up camp SUVs.

For the first time in a while Will wondered if that was how he would be spending next summer, learning to drive in preparation for turning sixteen in the fall. It was weird to be thinking past fourteen again.

“Hey.” Izzy set a hand on his shoulder where he was sitting on Olivia’s bed again, across from Lou Ellen at the foot of Cecil’s. “Kayla told me you’ve been up here all day.”

“He’s not working or healing or anything,” Olivia said before Will could. “He’s just hanging out with us.”

“And doing a science project,” Cecil said much less helpfully.

“Hmm. That sounds like working or healing,” Izzy said. Will shrugged.

“I’m just trying to figure something out.” So far all he’d really done was find the jar of powdered unicorn horn and powder some R. ambrosca to go with it. It wasn’t like he’d actually be able to test any combination of healing ingredients on Nico until he woke up. “Are you here to step in?” he asked. Izzy shook her head.

“I’ll do the overnight again. My sleep schedule’s already all fucked up. I was just coming to check on you. Is that your special patient over there?” she asked, nodding at Nico’s closed curtains.

“My special patient?” Will repeated. His friends all laughed at him, which made him blush, which made Izzy raise her eyebrows and look like she believed him even less when he said—“He’s not my special patient, he’s just a patient.”

“Okay. Whatever.” Izzy squeezed his shoulder and let go. “Ash and I were gonna go visit the Hedges and check on Mellie and Chuck. Would you like to come with us, or are you busy with your project and your completely normal patient?”

“Oh, well—” Really he was busy with the game of Hearts he and his friends had been playing, using a medical stool between the two beds as their table, but—“I’d love to come. I actually need to talk to Coach Hedge about something.”

“Aw, man!” Cecil complained.

“It’s okay.” Will glanced around. “Somebody else can play my hand. I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Say hi to the baby for us!” Olivia called after them as they left.

Since things had started to calm down, Clarisse and some of the nature spirits had helped Hedge and Mellie move back to the little grove near the edge of the woods where they made their home. Will hadn’t been there yet, but Izzy and Ash knew the way, so he followed them there.

In the center of the grove, Mellie was sitting with Chuck in her arms on a soft pile of moss, kind of like a very large beanbag chair. She looked up, smiling, as the demigods ducked between low branches to make their way in.

“Chuck, look who’s come to visit us!” She tapped her son’s tiny nose. The baby let out a tiny, adorable baa.

“How are you guys doing?” Izzy asked, sitting down on the moss a couple feet from mother and baby. Ash sat down right next to her, and Will hesitantly knelt on Mellie’s other side. He hadn’t come to see her and Chuck since the birth—he hadn’t had any time—and it was slightly weird to try and look Mellie in the eye after that whole experience.

Focusing on the baby was a lot more fun. It was incredible how different he already looked—how much bigger, small as he still was. His curly hair was really fluffy now it wasn’t all wet and sticking to his head, and his bright eyes looked huge in his chubby little face. He was dressed in a tiny green onesie that was kind of just a sack from the chest down. Maybe that kept him from kicking anybody with his little hooves.

“Oh, we’re fine,” Mellie said. “He’s just woken up from a nap and had his lunch.” She smiled at Will. “It’s so sweet of you all to come check in—and awfully nice to see you again. Chuck, look!” She turned so the baby in her arms was a little closer to facing Will. “Do you remember Will? His face was the first one you ever saw!” Chuck blinked at Will sleepily. Will couldn’t help grinning.

“Would it be okay if I—can I hold him?” he asked.

“Sure, of course that would be okay,” Mellie said. “Just for a little while.”

“Have you ever held a baby before, Will?” Izzy asked.

“Um—just him, you know, right when he was born,” Will admitted as he reached out for Chuck, “but I know how you’re supposed to do it. Support the head, right?”

“That’s right.” Mellie set Chuck in his arms, and just like that, Will was holding the baby.

“Don’t worry,” Ash joked, “satyr babies are a little more durable than human ones.” Izzy gave her girlfriend a warning look.

“Only a little,” Mellie said.

“I’ll be careful,” Will said, pretty focused on the baby. “Oh, gods. He’s so sweet, Mellie. He’s beautiful.” He wasn’t sure if there was something special about this baby, if it was just because Will had been there when he was born—more than just been there—or if he would feel this affectionate holding any baby, but holy shit, he was adorable. “Hi!” he said to Chuck, as the tiny satyr looked up at him with his huge eyes. “I’m Will. We’ve met before, but you know, I get it if you don’t remember, cause there was a lot going on.” Mellie laughed. Chuck squirmed a little, like he was trying to look around for the sound of his mother’s voice. So much for the onesie keeping him from kicking—Will could feel the little hooves pushing at his arm through the fabric.

“Try giving him your finger to hold,” Ash stage-whispered. Will tried that. The baby satyr had a surprisingly strong grip.

“Is Coach around?” Will asked, glancing up at Mellie, who was watching him and Chuck like the world’s nicest, sweetest hawk.

“He’ll be back soon,” she said, “he just had to run an errand for the Council.” It took a second for Will to realize she meant the Council of Cloven Elders, not his council.

“Oh, okay. I just have a question to—hang on, Chuck, no—” Will pulled his finger back as Chuck tried to put it in his mouth. “I don’t think we want to do that.” Now the baby’s little face screwed up like he was about to—“Uh-oh,” Will said, “maybe you’d better go back to your mom.”

“Oh, come here. It’s okay. It’s all okay.” Mellie pulled her baby back into her arms and rocked him until he stopped crying. Will felt kind of sad letting him go, and tried not to be jealous when Izzy got to hold him for much longer once he was happy again.

They’d been there maybe half an hour when Coach Hedge came barreling into the grove. “Where’s my big boy? Here he is!” He hefted Chuck in his arms. The baby cooed. Coach Hedge planted a big smacking, kiss on his son’s forehead, then stooped down to give Mellie a sweet peck on the lips.

“Hi, babe,” she said. “He ate a while ago now—can you do the dirty work?”

“Course,” Hedge agreed. Will would have assumed that meant changing his diaper, but instead Mellie draped a towel over her husband’s shoulder and he stood back up to arrange Chuck so he was upright against his chest, leaning on that shoulder. He patted the baby’s back, then there was a wet sound as Chuck spit up on the towel. “Oh, good one!” Hedge said good-naturedly, then winced. “... Feels like even more than we budgeted for there, buddy.” Will couldn’t see what the back of the Coach looked like, but on the other side of him Izzy and Ash were giggling now. There was a little shuffling of the baby and the towel, then Hedge plopped down on the moss to look at the rest of them. “Hey, kids. Nice of you to come visit.”

“We just wanted to see how everyone’s doing,” Izzy said. “We won’t stay much longer, but—Will?”

“Yeah—Coach, if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you about Nico.” Hedge’s boisterous demeanor went serious very fast when Will said that. He nodded.

“Yeah. All right.” He stood right back up, beckoning. “Walk with me, kid.”

“O—okay.” Will stood up a little more awkwardly, since he’d been sitting in a weird position on the moss for half an hour.

“We’ll say our goodbyes too,” Izzy decided, so Will thanked Mellie again for letting him visit and hold the baby before he followed Coach Hedge back out of the grove.

“Jason let me know you’d finally gotten the kid to the infirmary,” Hedge said as they walked through the trees. “Don’t know what the hell took him so long. Stubborn little bastard. I mean, thank the gods he is,” he added before Will could say anything, “cause if he weren’t I’d be growing into a literal hedge by now, but—how’s he doing?”

“Last I checked he’s sleeping,” Will said. “I got his wounds from Lycaon fixed up, so those should finally be healing properly. But I’m trying to figure out what to do about the—the shadow travel problem, this thing where he’s fading.” Hedge nodded. “You said you got him back with sports medicine—he told me that involved, um, mud?”

“Yep.” Hedge chuckled. “That’s basically it. You coat bandages in the muck, then you wrap up whatever needs fortifying and let it sit and work its magic. Right then, Nico’s whole being needed fortifying, so I bandaged him all over. I doubt he’ll take kindly to having it done more than once, but—” he looked Will over and snorted. “I suppose you could try.”

“Okay,” Will said. “I’m not sure if it’ll come to that, but—I was wondering what goes into the mud, like, what ingredients.” Hedge nodded.

“Well, mud,” he said. “Just plain old mud. Plus herbs and nectar. But the key element’s Aegean clay. You’ll have some of that in your infirmary, I expect.”

“I think we do. What herbs do you use?”

“Whatever you’ve got available that you think’ll help.”

“Huh,” Will said. Hedge raised his eyebrows.

“You got a problem with that, healer kid?”

“Well—it’s just—herbalism isn’t my strongest area,” Will admitted, “my little sister’s better at it. But—usually, I mean, when I’ve used herbal medicine it’s mostly really specific potions or poultices, with certain properties,” he said. “I guess I don’t get how you can just use whatever plants you have lying around and have them do the same thing.” Hedge nodded.

“It’s not about the specific plants so much. It’s got a spiritual thing to it,” he said. “Your healing does too, doesn’t it?”

“Sometimes.” Will sighed. “I haven’t exactly had my dad around to pray to lately.”

“Yeah.” Hedge patted his shoulder in a very fatherly manner of his own. “Well, the power of nature magic doesn’t come from prayer. It’s a deeper magic, earth magic.” Will frowned.

“Wait, but—earth magic? Isn’t that Gaea’s magic? Was it safe to do that, when she was rising—?”

“Yeah, it was a little bit of a risk, I’ll admit, but satyrs and nature spirits’ve always had a little different relationship to Gaea than you kids,” Hedge explained. “What I did—it can fortify the wounded or exhausted, but it’s not only that. It’s something we’d do for satyrs who’ve been lost in deep places or other realms, who are losing their connection to the earth, to the Wild. The mud, covering them in concentrated nature, helps them get back their tether to the world. I figured what was happening to Nico wasn’t so different, and—well, it worked all right, so I don’t think I was wrong.” Will nodded slowly.

“Okay.” And now he supposed Gaea was dissipated, anyway—her power was still accessible, just not to her. That was what he’d heard the Cloven Elders had said. “So—do you think there’s a spiritual piece to his fading, too? It’s not just that he was overdoing it physically?” For the first time, Hedge’s demeanor shifted, and he looked a little uncomfortable.

“Look, what I know or how I know it’s—not my place to explain,” he said, “but that kid’s seen a lot of shit, and he’s got a lot of stuff of his own to figure out, or at least learn to live with. I don’t know how much of his shadow fading deal might be about that, but I can’t imagine it’d help keep him solid if he wants to disappear. But—” he pointed a stern finger at Will, stopping them both in their tracks. They had reached the edge of the woods. “That’s not something for you to try and fix, healer.”

“What?” Will blinked at him. “I’m not—I’m just trying to get him physically stable.”

“Right. So focus on that,” Hedge said, “I’m a satyr, kid. I’m older than I look. I’ve seen a lot of demigods come and go, and I know a lot of your kind—the healers—you like to try and fix more than just bones and muscles.” He said it gruffly but not unkindly. It made sense he got along so well with Ares’ kids, Will thought. “But trying to solve other people’s problems for them, before they’re ready to do it themselves—more often than not, it just makes new ones.” Slowly, Will nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “I, um, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Good.” Hedge clapped him on the shoulder. “Listen, Will, my wife and I owe you a big debt, so if you have any other sports medicine questions, or just want to come by for a visit—you’re always welcome. Hang in there.”

“Thanks, Coach.” Will managed a smile as the satyr turned and trotted back into the woods. They’d emerged not far from the Big House, so he headed back up to the infirmary, turning what Hedge had said over in his mind. That thing about Nico maybe wanting to disappear—what the hell did that mean?

On the fifth day—the second second day—Will actually woke up feeling refreshed again. Somehow, he’d gotten ten full hours of sleep. He declared himself back on rotation, ignored Kayla and Gabriel’s objections, got to the infirmary, and found Nico was… still asleep.

He looked mostly solid, though Will wasn’t exactly inclined to test that, for fear of waking him. Instead he just grabbed an orange camp water bottle out of the lost and found, washed it, and set it by Nico’s bed with a granola bar from the infirmary stash, just in case he woke up when Will wasn’t looking. Then he got back to work on his project.

It seemed to Will that if Coach Hedge’s mud technique was an emergency measure that had as much to do with a person’s spirit as their body, it probably wasn’t going to be all that useful as a long-term solution to the immediate physical problem. For now, he sifted together his dried and ground R. ambrosca with some matcha powder, like what was in the gum, and a teaspoon of powdered unicorn horn from the dusty, mostly-empty jar in the back of the cabinet. Will was just glad there was enough there for a few experimental batches—but he was a little worried about running out, if Nico’s “corporeality issue,” as Chiron had him calling it now, persisted.

“It’s much more commonly used in Roman remedies,” Chiron had said when he asked, looking thoughtful. “If you do find our stock runs low, we can ask the Praetors and their healers if they would be willing to share some of their supply with us. I imagine Praetor Ramírez-Arellano will be—she seems to have grown very fond of Nico di Angelo.” So Will did have Reyna and Pranjal in his corner, he suspected, if it did become a problem. But it wasn’t yet.

He stirred his solute into a mixing cup of water and watched as it shimmered blue-green in the daylight from the windows. Weird—Will would have expected it to be a brighter green, from the tea and the rhodiola, but maybe the way the unicorn horn interacted with it changed something. Finally, he uncorked a jar of nectar and poured first the mixing cup of solution, then the nectar, into a bigger jar. Nico had said nectar didn’t do much, but Will figured he would still need it for the more ordinary injuries.

Now, as he stirred it all together, the liquid turned a more golden green, or maybe it was greenish gold. Satisfied—pending the opportunity to actually test the stuff on Nico—he ducked into the kitchen and tucked the jar in the otherwise pretty barren Big House fridge. Nectar didn’t need to be kept in any specific temperature range, but he wasn’t sure about the botanicals. Keeping it cold seemed safest for now.

Will was starting to think about heading down to lunch when he poked his head through the curtains for the fifth time that morning—just in time to meet Nico’s eyes as he pushed up to his elbows, looking disoriented. He stared at Will blankly. Will grinned.

“Hey, you’re awake!” he said, sliding onto the wheeled stool he’d left next to the bed yesterday and rolling over toward Nico. “How are you feeling?” Rather than answer,

“What time is it?” Nico asked.

“Around 11:30,” Will said. “But it’s tomorrow. For you, I mean. You slept more than a day.”

“Oh.” Nico blinked and smacked his mouth, wrinkling his nose. “No wonder my mouth tastes like death. And I would know,” he added darkly. Was he—making a joke? It was kind of hard to tell. His voice stayed the exact same.

“Well, then, you should drink something.” Will grabbed the water bottle and held it up. “Here. Your very own camp water bottle, for all the time you’re gonna spend at camp from now on.”

“Great,” Nico said unenthusiastically. “Thanks.” He reached out for it, and Will handed it to him, and the next second it was on the floor. Nico’s eyes widened at the crash. “Shit.” The water bottle had gone right through his hand.

“Totally fine. That plastic’s pretty unbreakable.” Will set it back on the table and ran off to get a dose of his experimental solution—and the clipboard he’d realized he should get ready for when Nico woke up. “Okay,” he said, ducking back through the curtain. “Try this.”

“What is it?” Nico asked warily, peering into the cup.

“One part nectar, two parts unicorn draught, mixed with the stuff from the gum I gave you,” Will explained. “I’m hoping it’ll all work together to help you maintain corporeality—and I know you said the nectar didn’t work, but you still need it for your other wounds, and I’m hoping it’ll make up for the bad tastes.” Slowly, Nico nodded. “You down to try it?”

“I guess.” Nico shrugged. “Though I’m not sure how I’m supposed to try anything if I can’t hold stuff.” Will blinked.

“Uh—I mean, I suppose I could feed it to you—”

“No.” Nico grabbed the cup out of his hand. His fingers kept physical coherence this time, at least long enough for him to bring it to his mouth and take a sip. “It’s not as bad as the gum was, but that’s not saying a lot.” He downed the rest of it in one gulp and made a face. “Now I definitely need the water.”

While Nico chugged half the contents of the orange bottle, Will set a hand on his other arm now that it seemed to be—yep, totally solid. His skin still felt cold, but he didn’t feel like he was about to implode into darkness anymore. Some of his strength had returned. Will suspected a lot of that was just from having let himself rest, though. It would take some time before he could get a good idea of how much effect the medicine would have.

“It doesn’t seem to be hurting,” he observed. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to have you take that much every few hours today, and we’ll see if we think it’s helping.” Looking a little uncomfortable, Nico pulled his arm away.

“Who’s we?” he asked.

“You and me,” Will said. “And Chiron, and I’ll let my sister know what we’re doing since she’ll be on the night shift.” Nico shrugged.

“Whatever.”

“Okay,” Will said. “Next thing. Eat this granola bar.” He set it in Nico’s hand, then picked up the clipboard and pulled out the pen stuck in the clip.

“What’s that?” Nico asked, unwrapping the granola bar and eyeing the clipboard suspiciously.

“Well, since you’re up—” Will uncapped his pen, and Nico’s shoulders jerked like he almost flinched. Will raised his eyebrows. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Nico snapped. Then he relaxed, rolled his eyes, and said more quietly, “I’m kind of used to that sort of pen turning into a weapon when you do that.” Oh, right. Will had almost forgotten about Percy’s magic sword.

“Well, this one’s totally normal. See?” He held up the pen. Nico looked unamused.

“What’s the pen for, Solace?”

“Well,” Will said, “almost everybody else has a camp medical record, but you don’t. I think it was my own oversight when you were here before. In my defense, I was twelve.” Nico said nothing. “So, since you’re here again, and you’re going to be for the foreseeable future—” Will went on, putting extra weight on the words—Nico rolled his eyes again—“I’m starting one for you. What’s your date of birth?”

“January 28th, 1931,” said Nico. Will got through 01/28/19 before he stopped, suddenly processing what Nico had actually said.

“I’m sorry, nineteen what?”

“1931.” Nico swallowed his bite of granola bar and raised his eyebrows. “My sister and I were in the Lotus Hotel for sixty-five years. I thought everyone knew that by now.”

“Um, no,” Will said, startled and weirdly hurt. “Everyone did not. But you’re not—” he set a hand on Nico’s wrist again to make sure he wasn’t missing something—how could he have missed it?—“obviously you don’t look old, but your physiology isn’t seventy-nine either.”

“Could you stop touching me?” said Nico, pulling his hand back sharply. Will froze as that thing Sherman had said last fall flashed through his mind again.

“I’m sorry,” he said as his stomach clenched. “I—I am going to have to keep touching you sometimes, so I can heal you, but if it makes you uncomfortable I’ll try and limit it.” His thoughts raced, trying to remember—he’d definitely never talked to Nico directly about being gay, right? The timing wouldn’t make sense. But that didn’t mean someone else hadn’t told him. Any of the campers who’d been on the Europe quest might have mentioned it. Now that he was thinking about it, Will remembered briefly wondering about Nico and boys last summer, but—he could have been wrong. And—1931, Nico had said. If some kids from nowadays still weren’t all that comfortable with Will—

“Thank you,” Nico said, icily polite. Then he added, “It’s not you. I just—don’t appreciate being touched by strangers.”

Oh. That was a relief. It also hurt in a completely different way.

“I’m not a stranger!” Will snapped. Then he took a breath, counted to five, and said, “I mean, of course. I’m sorry. Again.” He forced himself to relax—it’s not you, Nico said, so at least the thing he was always on guard for wasn’t the issue at all. He could live with this.

“Yeah, fine.” Nico crossed his arms over his chest, not looking at him. “I guess you’re not a stranger, but—whatever. Of course I’m not physically seventy-nine. Time is slowed down in the Lotus Hotel—”

“Oh, like the Land of the Lotus Eaters,” Will realized, way delayed by the confusion spiral. “Odysseus went there, right?” Nico nodded.

“Exactly. I don’t think I aged more than a month or two while I was there.”

“That’s so weird,” said Will. Nico shrank in on himself a little.

“Wow, thanks.”

“I don’t mean you’re weird, just that the whole thing—sorry. Never mind.” Will tapped the pen against the paper, leaving a faint ballpoint ellipsis after the 19. “Okay. Since you’re definitely not physically 78, just for medical accuracy’s sake I’m going to put January 28th, 1997.”

“1996,” Nico corrected. Will frowned. “It’s 2010 now, right?”

“Yeah, but aren’t you thirteen?” He tried to count back in his head—hadn’t Nico been ten two and a half years ago, about to turn eleven?

“No,” said Nico. “I’m fourteen.”

“But two years ago you said—”

“I know. I didn't remember yet. But I know now. Someone screwed up the math.” Will frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Alecto, I guess. When she was pretending to be a lawyer,” Nico explained, as if that made any sense and didn’t just leave Will with several hundred more questions—“I think when we first got to the hotel, it was fall, and I was almost eleven—about two months shy. But then when Alecto brought us back out, it was summertime, after my birthday. So everyone said I was ten, cause on paper I was ten for an extra six months or so, when I really should have been eleven. Plus however long in the hotel. I have no idea exactly how old I am physically.” He shrugged. “January 28th was always my birthday, so I guess you can put that. But I’m fourteen, not thirteen.”

Will’s head was spinning a little. He was good at math, but this was too much for him. He was also pretty sure that was the most words he’d heard Nico say at a time in two and a half years.

“Okay,” he said, “then 1996 it is. My birthday’s September 23rd, 1995, so we’re actually not too far apart.” Nico looked unimpressed, but to Will, that was even weirder—he’d gotten used to thinking of Nico as younger than him, Austin and Cecil’s age, but actually they should be in the same grade.

The rest of the questions went a little faster, sort of—

“Place of birth?”

“Venice.”

“Like in Italy?”

“Si,” Nico said dryly. Will definitely didn’t speak Italian, but he had a tiny bit of Spanish from elementary school, hanging out at Diego’s house—and the half of eighth grade he’d spent at camp with Leo and Nyssa swearing at each other in Spanglish—so at least he knew si.

“That’s so cool,” Will said, because it was, and maybe also to try and make up for how he’d made Nico recoil by saying that’s so weird. Nico shrugged. “Okay, height?”

“Don’t know.”

“Weight?”

“Don’t care.”

“Okay, let’s go over here and check those—” five foot six, was the answer, and Nico’s body mass was so low Will was actually a little nervous about the idea of giving him more nectar at all. He almost wished he’d lowered the proportion in the medicine. Maybe he could dilute it with more unicorn draught? “Any allergies?”

“Stupid questions,” Nico muttered. Will gave him a look. “And shrimp.” Will wrote down compliance, too, just to amuse himself.

“No allergies to any medications?”

“How would I know that?” Nico asked. “The only medications I’ve ever had are aspirin and ambrosia. And—all of that.” He jabbed a finger at the empty cup. Will supposed that was fair. Then he turned to the next page, and his stomach dropped again—

“Shit. Wait a second, you said you were in the Lotus Hotel for sixty-five years? Have you gotten any vaccines since then?”

“I—what?” Nico blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Like, have you had, I don’t know, the polio vaccine?”

“There’s a vaccine for polio?” Now Nico looked astonished.

“Oh my gods.” Will had to set the clipboard down for a minute and just hold his head in his hands. “Yes,” he said, remembering himself when he glanced up to see Nico looking uncomfortable again—“There is a vaccine for polio. Modern kids get, like, a ton of vaccines for different diseases that kids used to die of all the time. Measles and diphtheria and stuff too.” Nico nodded, relaxing ever so slightly. “Most people here probably got the shots when we were really little, and demigods have way stronger immune systems than regular mortals anyway, so you’re probably fine. We can worry about catching you up later.” It wasn’t like he had a polio vaccine just lying around, ready to be used on any time-displaced zombie overlords who happened to wander through. This was probably an issue for Chiron, anyway.

“I already had chicken pox,” Nico said hesitantly, “when I was five. So you don’t need to worry about that.” Will found himself smiling.

“Good to know.”

It turned out the whole time thing meant there were a lot of spaces they had to leave blank—Nico said his memory and Bianca’s had both been mostly washed away in the Lethe, so his knowledge of his own childhood was vague at best. Things like chicken pox and Venice were blips, completely random things he couldn’t explain why he remembered. Which all meant he couldn’t tell Will much of anything about his family history. His mortal grandfather was surely long-dead now, but had been alive in 1941, and if he had any health conditions Nico didn’t know. And his mother had died from “Zeus,” he said darkly. Will decided to just skip the rest of that section.

A lot of things did make a little more sense now Will knew about all that, though—mostly, why Nico’s knowledge of pop culture seemed equally spotty and random. It was how he’d reached the age of fourteen without ever seeing Star Wars (still—Will checked). He knew Fall Out Boy and Good Charlotte, but not the Beatles. Or Styx. He’d known about Mythomagic, but not Yu-Gi-Oh, at least until he first arrived here—

“I could bring some cards over if you want something to do,” Will offered at some point that afternoon, after watching Nico just sort of lie in his bed and glare at the ceiling with his arms crossed for a while. He’d opened the curtains so Nico wouldn’t be quite so cut off from the rest of the room, in case he wanted to talk to anyone else, but—so far, it seemed like he didn’t.

Now Will had come and sat back down on the rolling stool, and instead of glaring at the ceiling Nico was glaring at him instead.

“We’ve all been playing card games with a regular deck,” Will explained, ignoring that, “like Hearts and Crazy Eights and stuff, but all my Yu-Gi-Oh stuff is still in my cabin. You’re welcome to it. I bet we could even scrounge up a Mythomagic deck from somewhere.” Nico shook his head. “Okay. But you still owe me a Mythomagic lesson, you know.”

“That was two years ago,” Nico said mutinously. Will shrugged.

“Yeah, but I’ve never been dunked in the Lethe, so I forget nothing.” That just made Nico glare at him harder. Will tried to smile apologetically. “Sorry.”

Nico didn’t smile, exactly, but his expression completely shifted, so for a split second Will actually thought he was getting through to him—but then he realized Nico’s wide eyes weren’t on him anymore, but something over his shoulder. He spun around in the chair to see Percy and Jason had returned. Something in Will’s stomach plummeted. He tried to ignore it and smile.

“Hey! You guys back to see Captain America here?” Annabeth was nowhere in sight this time—it was just the two of them walking over.

“Captain America?” said Nico, looking back at Will now with a mixture of confusion and annoyance that was becoming familiar. “What?”

“You know, like the comics,” Will said—“oh, I guess you wouldn’t know, actually. Captain America’s this guy from World War II who got frozen in ice for, like, decades, then they brought him back in the modern world to be a superhero.”

“Oh.” Nico frowned, but he said, “okay, yeah. I get it.”

“I don’t know. I think Jason’s more like Captain America,” said Percy. Will nodded.

“Fair point,” he said, glancing at Jason. “He does look like him.” A little less now that he was wearing his magic glasses, but he was still six foot whatever, blond, and built kind of like an actual action hero.

“Yeah, he’s got that corn-fed Iowa farm boy look,” Percy agreed.

“That’s Superman,” said Jason.

“So? You’re him, too, dude, you can fly.”

“Superman’s from Smallville,” Will pointed out. “Which could be in Iowa, I guess, but I think in the movies it’s in Kansas. Maybe you’re thinking of Captain Kirk. From Star Trek,” he added, for Nico’s benefit. “You know, he’s from Iowa, he just works in space.” Percy laughed.

“Wow, Will, I didn’t realize you were this much of a nerd.” He didn’t say it at all unkindly, though—if anything he sounded kind of impressed. Then he glanced at Nico and his smile faded a little. “No wonder you’ve made a friend, Nico.” Nico shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Percy’s eyes.

“You guys do have a lot in common,” Jason said thoughtfully, glancing between Nico and Will. Nico frowned.

“Has he told you about Mythomagic yet?” Percy asked Will. Before Will could decide how to answer that—where to begin?—

“We’re not friends,” Nico said, not looking at any of them now. In the awkward pause, Will summoned his sunniest smile and said,

“We’re working on it.” He almost reached out to pat Nico’s shoulder, but realized what he was doing in time to draw back again, flexing his hand uncomfortably. Instead he stood up, gesturing for Percy or Jason to take the stool, and stepped away. “Anyway, I’ll, uh—let y’all visit.” It wasn’t like he was short on other things to do.

He decided to start with the lavender. A week ago Miranda and Katie had put it up to dry, not knowing if they’d live to see it be dried enough to use. Now it was, and they had, so Miranda had brought it over this morning, while Nico was still asleep. It was a bittersweet thing. A lot of Miranda’s siblings hadn’t lived to see it. Will had hugged her, and then he had decided it was about time he released Sherman to go back to his cabin, anyway, so both his friends had left a lot happier than Miranda had arrived.

Now the flowers needed to be stripped for use in sleeping draughts, mostly. That was pretty mindless work, so while Will got started on it at the counter he could still sort of keep an eye and an ear on the sons of the Big Three. He found he felt really jealous suddenly, watching them. The truth was Nico already did have friends at camp; he always had. For whatever reason, Will just never got to be one of them.

“As far as superheroes go, Nico’s definitely Batman,” Jason was saying. He had taken a seat on the edge of Nico’s bed, which put him pretty close, since there wasn’t much room. Nico didn’t look totally comfortable with that, but he also wasn’t moving away from Jason at all, or complaining. Maybe Jason wasn’t so much a stranger in Nico’s eyes, after all their adventures in Europe—but, the little hurt corner of Will’s head insisted, Will had known him first.

“Okay. Why?” Nico asked warily.

“Well,” said Jason, “Batman wears all black and has a tragic backstory, right?”

“He’s also super rich,” said Percy, “and your dad is also the god of wealth, right? That’s where Hazel got her powers. Plus, Batman built himself the Batcave, and the cabin you built here is kind of like a cave—damn,” he said, “why does this work so well? Nico, I think you might actually be Batman.”

“I mean, no one’s ever seen them in the same room,” said Jason. “Kinda suspicious.”

“Batman doesn’t have powers, though,” Cecil yelled from across the room. “That’s, like, his whole thing.”

“Good point!” Percy yelled back. Nico rolled his eyes.

“What superhero are you, then?” he asked Percy.

“He’s Aquaman,” said Jason, “obviously.” Percy shoved him affectionately in the arm, though his face fell.

“That’s what Leo would say.” The three of them all sat quietly for a minute, sad. Will turned his gaze back to the counter. “I think I’m more like Spiderman,” Percy decided, in a lighter tone. “Just a regular kid from New York who, you know, got bitten by a radioactive… uh... dolphin?”

Nico actually laughed at that. It took Will a second to realize he’d frozen in place with his hand halfway between the lavender and the jar—he was pretty sure he hadn’t heard Nico laugh since that one week when he was ten. Or eleven. Or something.

“Hey, no need to bring Frank into this,” Jason joked.

“Who said anything about Frank? Frank was never a radioactive dolphin, just a crazy one,” said Percy.

“Okay, fair enough.”

“Um—I’m sure I’m going to regret asking, but what are you talking about?” Nico asked.

“Okay, so, on our way to Rome,” Jason started explaining, and he and Percy went on to tell a very dramatic story about how Percy had outsmarted some pirate guy in the Mediterranean who was apparently his half-brother. On the Greek side, of course.

“Hang on,” said Nico. “You have more than one immortal half-brother who’s a pirate?” He sounded kind of like he was going to laugh again, but this time it was verging on hysteria a little bit. When Will glanced at him, concerned, Nico had both hands over his mouth. His eyes were very wide.

“I don’t know,” said Percy, looking confused. “Do I?”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Jason, “when you were in Tartarus we ran into this dude named Sciron—” and then he told that story, with Nico adding in little bits from his own perspective.

Will wandered off to check on other patients, then, so he wouldn’t have to keep listening. It wasn’t that the stories weren’t interesting—of course they were nothing short of epic, in a pretty literal sense—but that stupid jealousy kept poking at his ribs again.

Will had thought he was used to his place on the sidelines by now. He’d been at peace with it for years, really, but lately all those feelings of inadequacy he’d had to fight down as a kid—a younger kid; he supposed he still was a kid, sort of, even if he never felt like one anymore—gods, those feelings just seemed to keep bubbling back up.

Thanks to Drew, mostly, and he knew she’d been wrong all those times she said, or, well, implied he was a coward—but it wasn’t like he was a hero, either. Odds were Will would never battle ancient immortals, or save the gods, or walk through Tartarus. He was just a healer.

“Are you ever going to let me out of here?” Olivia asked when Will came to check on her.

“Of course,” Will said. “That’s why I’m here, to see if you’re ready to go yet.”

“Oh. Okay.” She laid still while he sat down and set a hand against her ribs, feeling out the lung. He tried to be careful—he’d learned in the last few days she was really ticklish. (Unfortunately for her, so had Cecil, since he was just in the next bed over.)

“How does it feel to you?” Will asked. The muscle all basically felt fine to his healing sense, but he could still feel a little hesitance in her breathing.

“It still hurts a little,” Olivia said. “Like, when I draw a full breath. Not every time, just sometimes. But I’m mostly better.” Will generally agreed. She hadn’t coughed up blood in two days—whatever was causing that, the nectar had taken care of it. And her oxygen intake was back up to reliably normal.

“Okay,” he said. “I can’t find anything wrong that would explain the pain. I’m sorry. It might be some kind of phantom thing.” Olivia nodded slowly. “But I think—for now,” Will decided, “you’re probably okay to get discharged and head back to the cabin. You too,” he added to Cecil, “your leg’s been fully healed for two days now, it’s past time for you to leave.” Cecil stuck out his tongue.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, “you’ve humored me long enough.” Really Will had let him stay back to be nice to Olivia, so she’d still have her brother around to hang out with, but he wasn’t about to tell either of them that. He didn’t need the Hermes cabin, or its counselors, thinking he was a pushover. Any more than they did already. Whatever.

Not long after Will finished the discharge records for Olivia and Cecil and let them run out of the infirmary all excited, no doubt on their way to find Lou Ellen and start making up for all the mischief they hadn’t been able to cause while they were in here recuperating, the timer he had stuck next to Nico’s bed started beeping. Will sighed and went to grab the jar out of the kitchen, and then he had to go back over… there.