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Chapter Text

Percy and Annabeth were enjoying some down time at the shoreline. It was a well needed break after the war and many periods of rebuilding Camp Half-Blood and Olympus. Just as the couple was starting to truly relax a bright flash blinds them and they’re taken away.

The same happens to others around camp as well as in the city.

On Olympus, the winter solstice council was already progressing quite well when a blinding flash appeared in the middle of the room, interrupting an argument between Zeus and Hera all the gods have heard millions of times before. As Zeus prepared to berate the intruders, he had to do a double take. In front of them was a group of demigods, a satyr, two mortals, as well as the ever familiar Chiron. The blond girl in front seemed to be clutching a note.

“What is the meaning of this?” Zeus rumbled.

“I am unsure myself, my Lord.” Chiron hesitantly replies.

“What’s going on?” the black-haired boy in front asks, frustrated.

“That’s what we’d all like to know, kelp head.” The blond deadpans.

“Well, what are you holding then, wise girl?” he smirks.

She looks down shocked and unfolds the page. She begins to read:

Dear Gods, Demigods, etc.

We have brought you back in time to the 2004 Winter Solstice Council meeting, a year before Percy Jackson arrives at Camp Half-Blood. You will be reading about his 5 years once discovering his heritage. We are doing this with the hopes of solidifying bonds of family, correcting mistakes, and better understanding of struggles. However, the primary reasoning is to help prevent how much destruction and death occurred up until the war.

Please listen and use the information given wisely.

The Fates.

P.S. When introduced be sure to add your titles, that’ll be interesting.

Everyone was quiet for a while, letting the note sink in.

The black-haired boy groaned. “Why is it always me?” The blond girl just held his hand in support.

Zeus cleared his throat. “Very well, state your names and godly parent.”

The demigods all looked to the pair in front. Both rolled their eyes and the boy gestured for the girl to start.

“Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena and Architect of Olympus.” Athena smiled down at her daughter, but the rest of the gods were taken aback. ‘Architect of Olympus? What does that mean?’

The boy sighed heavy, “Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon, Hero of Olympus.” He said with as much confidence he could muster.

“POSEIDON!” Zeus and Hades bellow.

“Peace, brothers. Remember what the fates said, these stories are from my son’s perspective, that must be for a reason.” The Sea god smiles at his son, pleased with what he saw. The brothers looked rather displeased still, but what could they do? Percy beamed at his father, causing the other demigods to be rather jealous. Percy was the one with the best relationship with his godly parent, but then again, if anyone deserved it, it was Percy.

“Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares, Drakon Slayer.” Ares grunted, apparently pleased with what he saw.

“Will Solace, son of Apollo.” The Sun god glowed with happiness at seeing one of his kids.

“Connor…”

“…and Travis Stoll! Sons of Hermes!” the pair finished together. The messenger god waves excited.

“Chris Rodriguez, son of Hermes.” He too got a happy wave, which made him feel happier than ever.

“Oh boy, here we go… Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus and Lieutenant of Artemis.”

“Really Zeus? And you were angry with me?” Poseidon snarks. Hades just glares. Artemis on the other hand gently smiled, but was very confused. Just what had happened to Zoë. Hera was seething.

“Nico di Angelo, son of Hades and Ghost King. Oh, and I was born before the oath.” Nico quickly added on glaring at Zeus. Hades was shocked, last he knew his kids were in the Lotus Hotel.

“What about your sister?” He had to know.

Nico just looked down trying not to cry. Hades sucked in a breath. He was surprised to see his brother’s spawn as well as the satyr’s faces falling as well. ‘Did they know what happened?’

“Um, Grover Underwood, Finder of Pan, Lord of the Wild, and Leader of the Council of Cloven Elders.” The satyr stuttered out.

“Wait, you found my son?” Hermes smiles.

“Um, yes Lord Hermes.” Grover shutters in memory.

“What’s wrong? He was found that’s good! Right?”

“Um, we should just wait for the books to explain sir.” Percy tries to turn the conversation. Thankfully, Hermes lets it go. For now.

“Rachel Elizabeth Dare, mortal, and the new Oracle of Delphi.” The red-head states.

“Woo! My oracle finally changed bodies. Do you know why it wouldn’t?” Apollo celebrates.

“Um, we should let the books explain.” Apollo nods in consent.

The final mortal confused everyone, mainly because she was an adult.

“Uh, I honestly have no idea why I’ve been included in this, but I’m Sally Jackson, Percy’s mother.” She shares, trying not to be too intimidated.

“Mom!?” Percy sprints to her and hugging her tight.

“Sally?” Poseidon whispers, shocked. He shrinks down to human size and wanders over hesitant. The past lovers look at one another smiling. It’s rather obvious to everyone else that they still love each other. Aphrodite is squirming at the love between the pair. Percy smiles at his parents, he knew they still cared about each other, but to see it in person is a different story.

A small flash appears, and a small slip is found in Sally’s hand.

We figured you would like to hear about your son’s quests properly. Don’t be too hard on him for not completely sharing, you know how kids are.

She shows the note to her son, who smiles bashfully rubbing his neck.

“Hehe, right…”

Zeus clears his throat, “Well? Let’s start.” He asks getting impatient with waiting.

“Brother, would it not be easier if we were all closer and on the same level? I think it would be.” Hestia quietly interjects.

The Sky god looks to his sister, eyes softening. “Very well, sister. Could you conjure some seats for us?” he requests. It’s the nicest the demigods had ever heard him be.

With a wave of her hand couches appeared and the gods shrunk down to human size picking spots. Most demigods chose to sit next to their parents, it was rare they ever got to see them anyways. The others chose differently: Annabeth decided to sit by Percy (she knew he would need the support) this made Athena narrow her eyes, Clarisse sat next to Chris (he is her boyfriend after all, and she still wasn’t fully used to seeing her father in person), Sally sat by Poseidon as well (which was actually kind of adorable with how awkward the two were being), Rachel sat next to Grover who was next to Annabeth with Thalia next to her not wanting to be near her father for the sure tantrums he would be having later. There was even a thick cushion that Chiron could choose to rest on.

Another flash of light and a pile of books were found on a table in the middle of the seats.

“So, who wants to read first?” Percy questions. He sure didn’t want to read about his life, it was his life after all.

“I can.” Chiron offered picking up the first book and opening it.

Chapter Text

I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

Chiron read the title and the demigods snicker.

“I guess that’s one way to explain it, Perce.” Grover chuckles.

Percy shrugs, “Honestly, how else could I when I had no idea what I even did?”

That caused Poseidon to faulter. ‘A monster? Might as well prepare myself now.’

Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

“Nobody does.” someone mumbles.

If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advise is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

“Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work that way Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth sighs.

“It could give some more time to be normal.” Percy suggests.

“Maybe.”

Being a half-blood is dangerous.

“Yup.”

It’s scary.

“Absolutely.”

Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

“Double yup.” Many demi-gods look down, remembering those who didn’t make it in the past years.

The gods look among the group. Was it really that bad?

If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“Hey, you didn’t warn me!” Nico cried joking.

“’Cause I was struggling to not strangle you instead, Mr. Mythomagic.” Percy smirks. Causing Nico to flush.

My name is Percy Jackson.

“I thought it was Chiron.” Travis asked confused. Many roll their eyes.

“No, it’s Peter Johnson.” Connor giggles as do many others. The gods and Sally are just confused.

I’m twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

“Ugh, hated that place.” Percy muttered.

“Me too man, it sucked.” Grover readily agreed.

“Well, for the most part.” Percy corrected looking to Chiron smiling.

Am I a troubled kid?

“Yes.” All the demigods, other than Percy, answer.

“Hey! Rude.” Said boy pouts causing snickers to ring out.

Yeah. You could say that.

“Wow, thanks me.” He deadpans.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan – twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

“Sounds perfect.” Annabeth sighs. Her mother looks on proud.

“Sounds like torture” Hermes, Apollo, and Poseidon murmur.

I know – it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

Hestia giggles, “Like father like son.”

Said duo look to each other beaming. Sally watches the pair happy to see her son and ex-lover interact.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.

Chiron had to pause and give a smile to Percy. He had to admit, it was a rather decent description.

Percy did have to put out a quick disclaimer “Um, as decent as that description was, I will say that my brain can have very unflattering thoughts and I would like to not get smote since I don’t usually say them out loud.”

At that the gods had to glare at him briefly, but in the end they agreed. The fates probably wouldn’t want them to do anything to the demi-gods anyways.

You wouldn’t think he’d be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had his awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn’t put me to sleep.

“You slept in class, boy? It’s a privilege to learn.” Athena sneered at Percy.

“No offense, Lady Athena, but for demigods school is a real struggle. ADHD alone causes most teacher to outright despise teaching you because we can’t properly focus, add in dyslexia and the teachers just prefer to act like we don’t exist in their class because they can’t be bothered to try and find easier ways to help us. After having multiple teachers at multiple schools not even try to help, other than Chiron, i.e. Mr. Brunner, I gave up even trying and had to teach myself what I could.” Percy lectured, the other demigods nodding along. Seeing her own daughter nodding as well was a concern. ‘Is it really that hard? Surely not.’

“Man, you got Chiron as your teacher? School would’ve been so much better with him as mine.” Connor whines.

“Would have? Are you not still in school?” Athena had to ask.

“I’m not in a registered school if that’s what you mean.” Travis was the one to answer. “Most demigods at camp aren’t except for the few who were able to manage and then go to college in what their powers easily support. Then they teach us what they can. It’s not like we’d be interacting with the mortal world anyways since monsters and other stuff would always be interfering.”

Annabeth motioned for Chiron to continue before her mother could start questioning again.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn’t get in trouble.

“You just jinxed yourself, Kelp head.” Thalia drawled.

“Eh, with my luck it wouldn’t have mattered.”

“He has a point there, Thals.” Grover muttered.

Poseidon looked to his son worried. Percy saw the look and had to explain.

“My luck is terrible at the worst moment, but perfect in battle or fights.” That only worried his father more.

Boy was I wrong.

“Told you, Perce.”

All the demigods snort goodnaturedly.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn’t aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.

“How even?” Hermes laughed.

“I just wanted to see if it was a real cannon, usually they’re fake.” Percy crossed his arms defensive.

“I think the real question is why was said cannon loaded.” Sally had to add.

And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong level on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.

Apollo burst out laughing “Uncle P your kid is the best!”

Poseidon had to smirk at that memory. Oh, he would have loved to see that in person.

“You know, I’m pretty sure one of the sharks in the tank had told me to hit one of the switches and I thought it was a tour guide.” Percy sniggered as did his father.

And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.

“Aww man, I wanted more stories.” Nico whined acting close to his age for once.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Many shuddered at the thought of that sandwich combination.

“Ugh, that just sounds wrong on so many levels. Just gross.” Rachel shivered.

“Yeah, try wearing it.” Grover sighed.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated.

“Gee thanks man.” Grover grumbled.

“’Course, G-man.” Percy smirked.

He must’ve been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.

“This description is just getting worse, Perce.”

“Oh, just wait, I’m sure when I find out you’re a satyr will be even better.” Percy laughs.

He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don’t let that fool you. You should’ve seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

“Way to blow your cover, satyr.” Dionysus chastised.

“Yes, sir.” Grover said.

“Haha, that’s our goat boy. Give him enchiladas and he’s your friend forever.” Thalia giggled.

Grover flushed.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn’t do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death-

“WHAT!” Sally and Poseidon yelled.

“Let Chiron continue. Please.” Percy pleaded.

-by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

“I’m going to kill her,” I mumbled.

“Do it.” Everyone was shocked to see it was Artemis who said that. But she wasn’t forthcoming with a reason why. ‘I may be a man-hater, but I’d never condone a girl behaving like that.’

Grover tried to calm me down. “It’s okay, I like peanut butter.”

“Eww, not in your hair!” that was Aphrodite, for once many were nodding along in agreement.

He dodged another piece of Nancy’s lunch.

“That’s it.” I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

“You’re already on probation,” he reminded me. “You know who’ll get blamed if anything happens.”

Looking back on it, I wish I’d decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would’ve been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

“Longer than that, boy.” Athena snarked.

“Oh, give him a break, Birdy. He was still learning.” Poseidon was quick to defend his son.

“Don’t call me Birdy, Shell Head.” She retorted.

Poseidon snorted, not bothered at the name calling. “Just cut him some slack, huh? He was only twelve.” That made the Wisdom goddess do a double take, usually Poseidon was quick to retaliate and verbal spar. Apparently, he seemed to be holding it in, maybe due to his son being present. She wasn’t so sure.

Percy and Annabeth were quick to motion for Chiron to continue before they started up again.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting,

“Wait, you found it interesting?” one of the Stolls asked surprised.

“Well yeah. I did like Chiron’s class for a reason. I don’t like museums ‘cause my ADHD wreaks havoc on my attention, but I was trying.” Percy shrugged throwing a smile to Chiron. “And I do remember most of the stuff, it’s just not an instant recall so I seem slow. That’s why teachers can be annoying since they think I’m stupid.”

“Yes, that is unfortunately the problem when I have to find Percy a new school. Most just don’t want to even have an ADHD student registered with them. If it was just dyslexia there would be more leeway, but not ADHD and certainly not both.” Sally explained.

This caused many of the Gods to look down, they had never realized how difficult it could be for a such a simple thing as school. Hera on the other hand didn’t care. She hated demigods in general.

-but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

“Mrs. Dodds? Isn’t that the name you call…?” Nico started.

“Yup.”

“Oh boy.” Poseidon and Hades were confused at that exchange. ‘What did that mean? Is she a monster?’

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

At that description Hades eyes went wide. Thankfully, his brother had yet to see his reaction and he discreetly inched further away from the Stormbringer.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.

“No that’s Nico.” Thalia snickered.

“Yeah… hey!” Nico pouted causing light sounds of laughter.

She would point her crooked finger at me and say, “Now, honey,” real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

“Does she still call everyone honey?” Percy had to ask Nico.

“Yeah, just as creepy as you think it is.” Nico shuddered. At that confirmation Hades did let a smirk appear on his face. Alecto was the best at scares.

One time, after she’d made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn’t think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, “You’re absolutely right.”

“Wow, Grover, way to keep your cover.” Annabeth snarks.

“Hey! He had asked when he got back from that detention, by that time I was already tired, and my filter was nonexistent.” He defended.

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, “Will you shut up?”

It came out louder than I meant it to.

“Of course, it did.” Rachel sighed.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

“Mr. Jackson,” he said, “did you have a comment?”

My face was totally red. I said, “No, sir.”

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. “Perhaps you’ll tell us what this picture represents?”

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. “That’s Kronos eating his kids, right?”

At that the Gods shuddered, especially those who had been in the Titan.

“Why did it have to be that one, Chiron?” Hades whined, which made the demigods and some of the other gods look to him astonished at the tone.

“The boy needs to learn his history. Makes sense to start at the beginning.” Chiron answered matter-of-factly.

“Let’s just get this part over with quick.” Hestia hurried Chiron.

“Yes,” Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. “And he did this because…”

“Well…” I racked my brain to remember. “Kronos was the king god, and -”

“GOD! Boy-” Zeus boomed.

“Hold on, I got corrected! I told you it’s not a perfect recall. I knew there was a connection to gods and my brain spits out the first thing I can remember.” Percy hurriedly says.

The Thunder was still glowering, but settled down some.

“God?” Mr. Brunner asked.

“Titan,” I corrected myself. “And… he didn’t trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.”

“Because I’m mother’s favorite.” Zeus puffed up.

“You just look the most like a rock.” Hades snickered. Causing many to need to stifle giggles.

“And mother was getting tired of us being eaten and you were next to be born.” Poseidon added.

Zeus quickly deflated, but still ignored his older brothers.

“And later when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-”

“Eeew!” said one of the girls behind me.

“-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans,” I continued, “and the gods won.”

“You… you summarized an insanely long and difficult battle into ‘this big fight’ and ‘the gods won’?” Clarisse asks slow.

“Got the main point across. Not like I lived it to give details.”

“Fair enough.”

Some snickers from the group.

“Why are some laughing?” Athena asked. “He got it right, technically.”

“Knowing answers in certain school circles can make you seem like the teacher’s pet. Which at Yancy was me in Chiron’s class, since I did know the basics of the stories more than the rest, besides Grover.” Percy explained.

Athena frowned; it just didn’t make sense to her.

“Unfortunately, it is quite common in pretty much all schools.” Rachel cut in. “I know I struggled with that as well where I went before transferring to Goode.”

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, “Like we’re going to use this in real life. Like it’s going to say on our job applications, ‘Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.”

“And why, Mr. Jackson,” Brunner said, “to paraphrase Miss Bobofit’s excellent question, does this matter in real life?”

“Busted.” The Stolls murmur.

Grover and Percy smirk looking at each other and then the two brothers.

“Busted,” Grover muttered.

“Oh no, we think like a goat.” The pair fake cry. Grover bleated with indignation.

“Shut up,” Nancy hissed, her face even brighter than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong.

“That was always a welcome difference.” Percy beamed at his teacher. Chiron smirked rather proud of that fact. He looked back to the book, saw the next line, and snorted.

He had radar ears.

Others snort as well.

“More like horse ears.” Clarisse laughs.

I thought about is question, and shrugged. “I don’t know sir.”

“I see.” Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. “Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan’s stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. ”

“How was Percy supposed to know those details? Even I didn’t know them.” Surprisingly it was Annabeth who asked. The demi-gods looked to her shocked, they’ve never known her to not know something.

At that Chiron had no answer.

“Also, how does that relate to real-life? Well mortal real-life.” Chris drawled.

“Ah, well…” Chiron started, but cleared his throat and continued reading.

“ On that happy note, it’s time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?”

“Happy note?!” Rachel asked.

“Well Kronos was defeated… that’s a happy note.” Chiron muttered.

“So, you’re still struggling with changing conversation, eh?” Apollo winked causing the centaur to flush.

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

“Ugh, boys.” Artemis grumbles.

“My lady, please don’t judge too harshly. I agree that most boys are doofuses, but there are good, if not great, boys and men.” Thalia tries to stop that judgement early on.

Annabeth nodded, “Yes, Lady Artemis, in our time you even tolerated, maybe even vetted him personally when we all had met during a quest.”

This shocked the Huntress who looked to said boy who was bright red. That caused her to smirk, ‘it appears the boy can’t take a compliment.’

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, “Mr. Jackson.”

I knew that was coming.

“Whoa, can you tell the future? You’re not secretly related to Will are you?” Travis asked.

Percy looked at him incredulous, “What? Why would you even think that?”

“You knew it was coming? Hello, future!” Connor added.

“No!” Percy countered. “Chiron just held me back a bunch to talk. It was expected.”

The other demigods were rolling their eyes at the Stolls, it wasn’t a surprise they came up with that thought.

Poseidon wrapped an arm around his son, suddenly possessive for some reason. Zeus saw this and glared at his brother, who just stared back daring him to say something.

Chiron decided to start reading again before anything could happen.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. “Sir?”

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn’t let you go—intense brown eyes that could’ve been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

“You must learn the answer to my question,” Mr. Brunner told me.

“About the Titans?”

“About real life. And how your studies apply to it.”

“Oh.”

“What you learn from me,” he said, “is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.”

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

“For a reason, Perseus.” Chiron chided.

Percy flinched at the use of his full name; he still wasn’t used to it. “I know that now, but before entering this ‘world’ nothing really made sense in that respect."

“Wait, your name is Perseus?” Hermes interjects. “But that’s Dad’s son…”

The last bit caused Hera to scowl, well more than she already was.

“Ah, yeah it is… Mom?” Percy looked to his mother hoping she would take a hint and explain.

“Oh! Um,” the Gods turned to Sally causing her to tense some. “Uh, well, I named him Perseus because he was the only hero who was able to have a happy ending or at least live long enough to have family. I had hoped that maybe that would help him in the long run.”

At that some of the gods had to concede the point; it made sense in a vague way. Others were still unimpressed or just didn’t care.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: “What ho!” and challenged us, swordpoint against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.

“I would love to have had a class like that in school. Definitely would’ve tried harder some.” Chris said.

Rachel sighed, “Same here, all classes at prep school is awful.”

Percy, Thalia, Grover, and Annabeth had to cringe at the statement. They had forgotten the Oracle had agreed to go after getting her father to help her back to New York.

But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C– in my life. No—he didn’t expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn’t learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he’d been at this girl’s funeral.

“Sadly, I had.” Chiron sighed, nostalgic before continuing.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I’d ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We’d had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

The gods look to Zeus, questioning looks obvious. ‘Just what was he angry about?’

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady’s purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn’t seeing a thing.

Artemis had to sigh softly; girls like that tended to give such a bad reputation for others.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn’t know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn’t make it elsewhere.

“You are not ‘loser freaks’!” Thalia and Annabeth yell.

Grover and Percy duck their heads, shoulders hunched causing many to start. They never realized how low the pair’s self-esteem was, Percy especially. He always seemed to ooze confidence.

The girls grabbed the boy’s hands in support. They knew it would take work, but they would get it through the boys thick skulls they were liked.

“Detention?” Grover asked.

“Nah,” I said. “Not from Brunner. I just wish he’d lay off me sometimes. I mean—I’m not a genius.”

Grover didn’t say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, “Can I have your apple?”

Snorts and snickers ring out.

I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

That made the demigods and Sally look to Percy surprised. The boy never said no to food, let alone easily share.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom’s apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She’d hug me and be glad to see me, but she’d be disappointed, too. She’d send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn’t be able to stand that sad look she’d give me.

“Mama’s boy.” Ares snickered.

“Yeah, I am.” Percy said. “I love my mom, she’s the best. Can you say the same?”

At the taunt Poseidon grew worried. Looking at his son, he saw how defiant the boy was. Looking at his friends was more concerning though. None of them looked surprised, apparently used to this happening, or just resigned to the fact of it happening.

Ares was snarling, pissed at the boy. He began to stand hoping to get to pummel the brat when Hera pulled him back down. Looking to her he was shocked to see her glaring at him.

“Do not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, you’re supposed to be better than him. You are a god, act like one.”

At that the War god slumped down sulking.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

Hephaestus smiled at the mention of the technology still looking down at the scrap he was fiddling with. It appeared that he was able to complete that project after all.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she’d gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover’s lap.

“Oops.” She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

Aphrodite shivered at the image. “That girl is in serious need of a makeover.”

The others (gods included) just nodded agreeing, hopefully then she wouldn’t turn to them for makeovers as well.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, “Count to ten, get control of your temper.” But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears .

“So how long did it take to figure out he was Uncle P’s kid?” Hermes chortled.

“Too long.” Annabeth groaned. “I have no idea why we couldn’t tell.”

I don’t remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, “Percy pushed me!”

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

“Whoa that’s quick.” Apollo muttered. “Monster?”

Some demigods confirmed nodding, Percy just shrugged. Mrs. Dodds was rather tame compared to other monsters he faced; she just didn’t seem like such a big deal.

Some of the kids were whispering: “Did you see—”

“—the water—”

“—like it grabbed her—”

I didn’t know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

“As usual.” Percy grouched.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I’d done something she’d been waiting for all semester. “Now, honey—”

“I know,” I grumbled. “A month erasing workbooks.”

“Never guess your punishment!” Apollo, Hermes, and the Stolls yell.

“Too late now.” Percy shrugged.

That wasn’t the right thing to say.

“Come with me,” Mrs. Dodds said.

“Wait!” Grover yelped. “It was me. I pushed her.”

“Thanks for trying anyway, G-man.” Percy smiled.

“Was worth a shot.” Grover blushed. “Not that I’d be able to do much.”

“I don’t think she would’ve allowed anyone else to go with her.”

“Fair.”

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn’t believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

Grover flushed, frustrated at that admission.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood,” she said.

“But—”

“You—will—stay—here.”

Grover looked at me desperately.

“It’s okay, man,” I told him. “Thanks for trying.”

“Honey,” Mrs. Dodds barked at me. “Now.”

Nancy Bobofit smirked. I gave her my deluxe I’ll-kill-you-later stare.

The demigods shivered causing the gods to look on confused.

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad.” Hermes said.

“Well, if it’s anything like his father’s then it probably is.” Hestia apprised.

“Mhmm, sure.” Ares sneered.

Father and son were quick to glare at the God of War with twin ‘I’ll-kill-you-later’ stares. It took everything in the god to not show his shudder of fear.

Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn’t there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How’d she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I’ve missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

“Unfortunate side-effect of battle-instincts outside of battle.” Thalia said.

“Yeah, sucks.”

I wasn’t so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

“Chiron!” Poseidon screamed.

“I was aware of what was happening, but I couldn’t show I knew. Otherwise, we’d would have had a bigger problem.” The centaur explained.

The Sea God dropped the judgement at the explanation.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She’s going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

“Oh, if only it was that simple.” Percy shook his head.

But apparently that wasn’t the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Poseidon glared at his older brother, starting to get a clue as to what monster this teacher was.

Even without the noise, I would’ve been nervous. It’s weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…

“You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said .

I did the safe thing. I said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Whoa, Percy playing it safe? That, like, never happens.” Nico said surprised.

“Hey!” Percy said. “Okay, yeah. Good point.”

That didn’t comfort either of his parents.

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. “Did you really think you would get away with it?”

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She’s a teacher, I thought nervously. It’s not like she’s going to hurt me.

I said, “I’ll—I’ll try harder, ma’am.”

Thunder shook the building .

The Gods looked to Zeus, curious. The Thunderer was just as confused. Just what was he angered for?

“We are not fools, Percy Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said. “It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy I’d been selling out of my dorm room.

“Very nice.” Hermes said.

“Yup.” That was Apollo.

Sally playfully glared at her son, but she honestly wasn’t that upset. She got it; she’d been in school once too.

Or maybe they’d realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

Athena glared at the boy, “You should be grateful to be able to read novels such as that.”

“No offense, Lady Athena, but dyslexia alone makes reading such a hassle. Not including ADHD not allowing me to stay focused long enough to read properly.” Percy tried to calmly explain. “Besides, I’ve read it now. Annabeth found me a Greek copy and helped.”

Beside him his girlfriend flushed fighting the urge to hide her face in Percy’s chest. It wouldn’t be a good idea to show her mother they were together. Poseidon may not react harshly, but her mother most likely would.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Ma’am, I don’t…”

“Your time is up,” she hissed

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn’t human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

“A FURY!” Poseidon bellowed. “You sent a fury after my son?!” He started to approach the Underworld Lord.

“Dad! Calm down.” Percy stood before his father keeping him back. “Once you hear everything you’ll understand. Just listen, okay?”

At this Hades was surprised at his nephew. Grateful, because once Poseidon got started it was very difficult to fight him, yet surprised. Very few ever defended him, let alone stood between him and another. Well, Poseidon was always his favorite brother, maybe his son took after him.

Poseidon continued to glare but sat back down breathing deeply.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who’d been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

“What ho, Percy!” he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air .

“A pen?” Travis asked.

“You have no idea how my sword works do you?” Percy wondered.

Connor shrugged, “Never needed to think about it.”

Artemis’ eyes narrowed. That sounded like something familiar.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me .

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn’t a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner’s bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Poseidon and Sally relaxed slightly, at least now their son had a weapon.

Artemis’ eyes tightened. A sword? Really now?

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

“Wimp.” Ares muttered. The demigods ignored him, they’d all heard of Percy’s accomplishments, the War god didn’t really rate too high on his list.

Poseidon, however, moved his glare to his nephew. Ares decided to keep his eyes down not daring to look up.

She snarled, “Die, honey!”

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

“That’s natural?” Sally asked. She had never seen Percy fight before.

“Percy has some of the best reflexes I have ever seen.” Chiron stated.

The demigods nodded.

“Percy is a beast with a sword.” Nico said remembering him after bathing in the Styx.

Poseidon puffed up with pride.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

“You took a fury out with one hit?” Travis questioned.

Percy shrugged.

“Impressive, Prissy.” Clarisse said.

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me .

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn’t there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must’ve been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

“Why was the mist still effecting him so much?” Poseidon asked.

“I made it do so. I thought we would be able to keep him unaware a little longer, at least past the solstice.” Chiron explained.

“The solstice? What’s so important about that?” Athena inquires.

“I believe it will be explained in the book, my Lady.”

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, “I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt.”

“Who?” Shockingly that was Sally who was thrown by the sudden change.

I said, “Who?”

“Ha, like mother like son.” Poseidon smiled.

Said pair smiled, it was rare for the two to hear a comparison between them.

“Our teacher. Duh!”

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, “Who?”

But he paused first, and he wouldn’t look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

“We really need to teach you how to lie, G.” Connor sighed.

His brother and father were nodding furiously in agreement.

“Not funny, man,” I told him. “This is serious.”

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he’d never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. “Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.”

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it.

“Sir,” I said, “where’s Mrs. Dodds?”

He stared at me blankly. “Who?”

“The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher.”

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. “Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?”

“That’s how you lie, Grover.” Travis pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah.” Grover waved him off.

“That’s the end of the chapter.” Chiron said. “Who would like to read next?”

“I will.” Thalia offered reaching for the book.

She opened it and began to read.

Chapter Text

Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

“I’m sorry, what?” Annabeth said.

“Um… Have I never mentioned this?” Percy cringed.

“No, you have not.” She growled.

Percy hunched his shoulders, “I’m fine, let’s just read, okay?”

Annabeth relents and motions for Thalia to begin.

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I’d never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

“Who was she anyways?” Percy asked Chiron.

“Oh, she was a mortal. I have a few teacher connections with substitutes just in case school situations happen,” the centaur explained. “They’re all subs who are willing to just show up. Makes things easy.”

“Huh, would’ve never thought of that,” Percy shrugged.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

“Bet you Grover gave it away.” Travis told his brother.

“Not taking that bet. Too obvious.” Connor replied. Grover was blushing hard when Percy nudged him.

“You’ve gotten a lot better, man.” He said. Grover gave him a small smile in thanks.

But Grover couldn’t fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn’t exist. But I knew he was lying.

“It’s hard for satyrs to lie,” Dionysus spoke shocking everyone, “Have to be really lucky for it to pass off as true.”

“You’re paying attention?” Apollo asked incredulous.

“Of course not.” The Wine God scoffed going back to reading his magazine.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn’t have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

“How often?” Grover winced.

“Not as often as you think, but when I got stuck on the memory of the museum, I got them. So, maybe every few weeks? They freaked me out more than anything.” Percy shrugged.

Chiron frowned, he had never noticed Percy struggle those days.”

The freak weather continued, which didn’t help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

“Seems like you’re very connected with your father if your mood is changing so easily.” Hestia commented.

“Probably,” Percy shrugs. “My mood can change real fast.”

“The sea changes as fast as the tide.” Poseidon smirks.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn’t even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

That caused the demigods to burst with giggles.

“Haha, what does that even mean?” Travis struggles to ask.

“A drunk.” Annabeth answers finally calming down.

“Oh, so D?” Hermes chuckles.

The comment causes the laughter to start up again, this time a few of the gods joining in.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

“Poker parties?” Nico asks.

“It’s not Paul. You never met this guy.” Percy is quick to say. “Thankfully.” He mutters to himself.

Unfortunately, both his parents heard him and frowned; what was that supposed to mean?

And yet…there were things I’d miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I’d miss Grover, who’d been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he’d survive next year without me.

Grover smiled hearing his friend’s thoughts. He had never had another demigod friend who was worried for him like Percy. Sure, they had the empathy link, but it was nice to know he felt that way before knowing about the bond.

I’d miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner’s crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn’t forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and death for me. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d started to believe him.

“If only it could have lasted a bit longer.” Grover sighed.

“Eh, I don’t think it would have made much of a difference.” Percy argued. “If anything, it might’ve been worse.”

He received many confused looks from the campers.

“Think about what the timeline of my first quest and the events.” Percy pointed out.

At that there were sounds of agreement and nods.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room.

Annabeth and Athena gasp at the thought of hurting a book.

“I’m sorry, okay?! I was getting super frustrated; it definitely didn’t help that I felt like I was going insane!” Percy tried to justify to the glaring ladies.

Hearing that Annabeth had to reluctantly nod, it was difficult even she had had the urge to throw something every now and then. Just never a book.

Athena just continued to glare at the boy, furious.

Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards.

“Oof, that’s actually a great way to describe the dyslexia.” Thalia paused in her reading.

“Yeah, hurts after a while.” Someone groaned.

There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover look to each other trying not to burst out laughing at the memories.

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner’s serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I’d never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn’t want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn’t tried.

“I knew you were trying, Percy.” Chiron smiled proud.

Percy nodded, already hating how much this book was revealing. And they were only on chapter two!

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner’s door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover’s said “…worried about Percy, sir.”

I froze.

I’m not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

“Okay, I eavesdrop, like, all the time, but even I can agree there’s no way anyone wouldn’t have listened in that scenario.” Connor argued.

“Guess that habit decided to stay with you. Huh, Seaweed Brain?” Annabeth chuckled nudging her boyfriend.

Said boyfriend flushed, “Not my fault I always seem to be in the perfect place to hear stuff.”

I inched closer. “…alone this summer,” Grover was saying. “I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—”

“We would only make matters worse by rushing him,” Mr. Brunner said. “We need the boy to mature more.”

“Ah, I didn’t mean that badly.” Chiron cringed.

“No, I get that one, I mean I was only twelve.” Percy said dismissing the teacher’s worry.

“But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline—”

“Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can.”

“Sir, he saw her.…”

“His imagination,” Mr. Brunner insisted. “The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that.”

“Sir, I…I can’t fail in my duties again.” Grover’s voice was choked with emotion. “You know what that would mean.”

“That was not your fault, Grover!” Annabeth chastised. However, Zeus was growling. In his mind his daughter ending up as she did was definitely the satyr’s fault.

“I made my choice! You know I told you to save the others.” Thalia chided.

Grover nodded sadly, “I know, but I still feel bad, Thals.”

Thalia and Annabeth sigh heavy, maybe someday they’ll be able to get Grover to believe them.

“Speaking of you, how are you not a tree?” Apollo asked, blunt as ever.

“Percy.” She replied.

The gods looked to the boy who shook his head.

“Don’t look at me, it was Clarisse’s quest.”

Clarisse sighed, “Prissy, just accept you did it. You were the reason I even got the quest.”

“Whatever.”

“You haven’t failed, Grover,” Mr. Brunner said kindly. “I should have seen her for what she was. Now let’s just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—”

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

“No, don’t give away your position!” Hermes shouted.

“This has already happened man.” Percy chuckled.

“But… still.” The Messenger god deflated.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner’s office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer’s bow.

“You’re not disguised?” Zeus bellowed. He was getting annoyed at how much attention this demigod was receiving.

“We had a Kindly One attack, why would I not be prepared?” Chiron said looking unimpressed.

The Lightning Lord when silent. There wasn’t really anything he could say to that.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. “Nothing,” he murmured. “My nerves haven’t been right since the winter solstice.”

“Mine neither,” Grover said. “But I could have sworn…”

“Go back to the dorm,” Mr. Brunner told him. “You’ve got a long day of exams tomorrow.”

“Ugh, those were awful.” Both Grover and Percy groan.

“Come on, they couldn’t be that bad.” Annabeth said not believing them. Surely there was worse.

“Just wait, the book may mention them. At least Chiron’s should be.” Percy motioned.

Chiron was thankful nobody could see him flushing. He remembered that final. ‘Maybe it was a little too much.’

“Don’t remind me.”

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner’s office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he’d been there all night.

“Hey,” he said, bleary-eyed. “You going to be ready for this test?”

I didn’t answer.

“You look awful.” He frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“Just…tired.”

I turned so he couldn’t read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

“Wouldn’t help, Peter.” Dionysus muttered still shocking the others.

“Well, I didn’t know that at the time, did I?” Percy remarked.

The Wine god looked over his magazine at the boy eyebrow raised. Eventually, he returned his attention back to his reading, muttering under his breath.

I didn’t understand what I’d heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I’d imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I’d misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

“Oh gods. Really, Chiron? Three hours?” Annabeth whined. Her mother looked to her prepared to berate her daughter.

The girl saw her mother’s expression and was quick to cut her off. “Sorry mother, but even for me, and many more of my siblings, three hours is torture. ADHD would make that a horrible time and I may be able to tough out dyslexia better, but it does still affect me after a while.”

Athena sat there, mouth agape, quickly shutting it once she noticed. Surely, it’s not as bad as the children were saying. Yes, they were just exaggerating.

Meanwhile, Percy was cringing at the memory of what was about to occur.

For a moment, I was worried he’d found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn’t seem to be the problem.

“Percy,” he said. “Don’t be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It’s…it’s for the best.”

“Yup, you still suck at inspirational speeches.” Hermes chuckled.

Chiron winced looking down.

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

“Ah, maybe I should have waited until after.” Chiron grimaced.

“Might have helped.” Poseidon muttered.

I mumbled, “Okay, sir.”

“I mean…” Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn’t sure what to say. “This isn’t the right place for you. It was only a matter of time.”

“Just stop making it worse man.” Apollo said.

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn’t handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

“Right,” I said, trembling.

“No, no,” Mr. Brunner said. “Oh, confound it all. What I’m trying to say…you’re not normal, Percy. That’s nothing to be—”

“Thanks,” I blurted. “Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.”

“Percy—”

But I was already gone.

“Ah, Percy I never meant-” Chiron started.

“I know, I know. Just wasn’t the greatest thing to hear since I didn’t understand.” Percy murmured.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

“Nobodies, right.” Chris drawled.

“Well, a few of us are Nobody.” Annabeth smirked.

That caused the demi-gods who were on the Sea of Monsters quest to snicker. The gods look among them confused.

“Um, second book I believe will talk about it.” Percy breathed out still trying to stop laughing.

They asked me what I’d be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn’t tell them was that I’d have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I’d go to school in the fall.

“You don’t need to do that honey.” Sally said. “I’d figure it out.”

Percy winced this wouldn’t be a fun experience when they got to Gabe.

“Oh,” one of the guys said. “That’s cool.”

They went back to their conversation as if I’d never existed.

“Rude.” Hestia muttered causing many to jump. She had been so quiet.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn’t have to. He’d booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

“Ah, yes, convenient that.” Nico droned.

“Oh, shut up.” Grover muttered.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he’d always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I’d always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I said, “Looking for Kindly Ones?”

“Nearly gave me a heart attack there, Perce.” Grover chuckled.

“Well, you were the only way to get answers, G-man.”

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. “Wha—what do you mean?”

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover’s eye twitched. “How much did you hear?”

“Oh…not much. What’s the summer solstice deadline?”

He winced. “Look, Percy…I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…”

“Grover—”

“And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and…”

“Grover, you’re a really, really bad liar.”

“TRUTH!” the Stolls scream out startling everyone.

“Quiet!” Zeus thundered. He was getting irritated at all the interruptions. At this rate it would take forever to finish just this book. His brothers on the other hand were finding this all too humorous, especially at the sight of their little brother’s face.

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. “Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.”

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

“Why’s it in calligraphy?” Sally asked.

The demigods point to Dionysus. “Mr. D makes the cards.”

“It makes it look nice,” he defended.

“What’s Half—”

“Don’t say it aloud!” he yelped. “That’s my, um…summer address.”

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I’d never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

“Okay,” I said glumly. “So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion.”

He nodded. “Or…or if you need me.”

“Why would I need you?”

“PERCY!” Annabeth and Sally yell.

“Sorry!”

“Hold on, let me continue before you gripe at him too much.” Thalia interjected. Percy looked to her with thanks.

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

The ladies settled down in their seats at that.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam’s apple. “Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you.”

I stared at him.

All year long, I’d gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I’d lost sleep worrying that he’d get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

“Yeah, I can see how that didn’t sound right.” Grover acknowledged.

“Grover,” I said, “what exactly are you protecting me from?”

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we’d all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you’d notice if you didn’t break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood-red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I’d ever seen.

“No…” Poseidon whispered, clutching Percy to him tightly.

The other demigods saw this with jealousy, but that was quickly dispelled. If anyone deserved a parent’s worry it was Percy.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

A whimper was heard. Yup, it was the Sea God tightening his hold on his son.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

“No, no…” the plea could be heard by all.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

“Grover?” I said. “Hey, man—”

“Tell me they’re not looking at you. They are, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?”

“Not the time, Kelp head.” Annabeth growled.

“How was I to know?” Percy stuttered trying not to complain at his father’s tight grasp.

“Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all.”

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

“We’re getting on the bus,” he told me. “Come on.”

“What?” I said. “It’s a thousand degrees in there.”

“Come on!” He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.

A few exhales of laughter were heard, but the tension of the room was still high.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

“Darn right!” yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. “Everybody back on board!”

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I’d caught the flu. Grover didn’t look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

“Grover?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you not telling me?”

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?”

“You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They’re not like…Mrs. Dodds, are they?”

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, “Just tell me what you saw.”

“The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn.”

“How are you alive man?” Travis let out a breath.

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might’ve been crossing himself, but it wasn’t. It was something else, something almost— older.

He said, “You saw her snip the cord.”

“Yeah. So?” But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

“This is not happening,” Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. “I don’t want this to be like the last time.”

“What last time?”

“Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth.”

“And now you’re gonna start freaking him out.” Chris muttered.

“Grover,” I said, because he was really starting to scare me. “What are you talking about?”

“Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me.”

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

“Fat lotta good that did.” Grover said.

“Sorry.”

“Is this like a superstition or something?” I asked.

No answer.

“Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?”

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I’d like best on my coffin.

“Dude, seriously. How are you not dead?” Connor asked.

“It- Dad? Can you let up some?” Percy started, but couldn’t breathe right. Poseidon let up the hold a bit, still keeping his son in his reach.

“It wasn’t mine.” Percy got blank and incredulous stares. “It’s kinda like they were warning me. Like my fate was tied with another’s. It’s hard to explain.”

Thalia let out a held breath. “Okay, on that note. Who wants it next?”

Apollo waved a hand. “I will!” He got looks for his excitement. “What? I’m the god of prophecy. Clearly if something hasn’t happened to him, and he’s obviously sure of the answer I see no reason to not agree with Percy. Anyways I haven’t noticed anything since meeting him, usually that would have happened by now.”

Impressed sounds are heard. It was rare to see Apollo be so serious.

The Sun god cleared his throat and read out the next title.

Chapter Text

Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

Despite the tension of the room, laughter bubbled out of everybody. Well, all except Grover who was bright red.

Once he caught his breath Chiron was able to ask, “I assume this is when Percy first sees you are a satyr?”

Grover nodded, still too embarrassed. Percy ruffled his hair good-naturedly, “Don’t worry G-man, you’re our best goat boy.”

At that the satyr glowered but was fighting a smile blooming on his face. He looked to Apollo pleading with him to start reading.

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

“Percy!” Many yell.

“He was freaking me out!” Percy cried.

I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering “Why does this always happen?” and “Why does it always have to be sixth grade?”

“Yeah, okay I’d do the same.” Travis agreed.

“Totally.” That was Connor.

Whenever he got upset, Grover’s bladder acted up, so I wasn’t surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.

“Wow, thanks for sharing Perce.” Grover muttered.

“Sorry,” his friend apologized.

Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

“East One-hundred-and-fourth and First,” I told the driver.

At that address the Stolls perked up quickly getting ideas.

“We don’t live there anymore,” Percy was quick to stop that train of thought.

“Though, if you promise not to do anything you're welcome to visit.” Sally states. “We have many visitors from camp.”

“Really?” Artemis asks.

“Yeah! Sally’s place is kinda like a halfway house to camp.” Thalia says. “The hunters have stayed a few nights when we needed a place to rest between hunts.”

The Huntress smiled at the mother thankful. “I must thank you then.”

“Oh, I just help how I can.” Sally flushed.

Poseidon and Percy were beaming, they loved when Sally was seen as the amazing woman she was.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

“Perfect.” Percy sighed.

“Amazing.” Annabeth smiled.

“The best.” Nico grins.

“Perfect.” It was Poseidon who whispered that warm eyes watching Sally who was blushing hiding a smile.

Aphrodite was holding in her screams, ‘They still love each other!’

Zeus was looking murderous; they had laws for a reason! He never even noticed how hypocritical he was thinking nor the glare he was receiving from Percy for his look.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she’s the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn’t care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

“You have lived a difficult life dear.” Artemis says.

“It’s been a rough one, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Sally smiles.

“Couldn’t have been an easy life with Seaweed Brain here.” Annabeth chuckles nudging her boyfriend.

“Hey!” that was Percy, although he was smiling at his mother. He knew he was a difficult child to raise.

Apollo smiled looking at the next line.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

Poseidon smiled puffing up his chest, causing a few laughs to break out. Sally pat his hand softly causing him to look to her.

“Tone it down bit, yeah?” she said.

“No need for a big head dad.” Percy snickered. “Mom will get rid of that real quick.”

“Yeah Uncle P.” Hermes laughed. Poseidon playful pouted at him.

I don’t have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn’t like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

“They never do.” Clarisse sighs with the other demigods nodding in agreement.

See, they weren’t married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

“A lie, but not a lie. Very nice.” Hermes said. “Uncle P, you’ve got yourself quite a woman.”

Poseidon grabbed Sally’s hand, with a warning glare to his nephew.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn’t an easy kid.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

“That’s how you choose to explain it? Really?” Annabeth asks.

“Unfortunately, that’s pretty accurate.” Sally winced, Grover frantically nodding along.

Athena was starting to see how intelligent this mortal was, question was why would she have chosen Poseidon of all people?

Between the two of us, we made my mom’s life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along…well, when I came home is a good example.

Percy softly exhaled, time for reactions.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Shudders rake through many at the idea of the room.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, “So, you’re home.”

“Where’s my mom?”

“Working,” he said. “You got any cash?”

That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?

“Wait, what?” Sally asked. “Percy?”

Percy rubbed at his neck, "Yeah that happened a lot Mom.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” at that Percy just shrugged leading to concern arising.

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

Aphrodite was shaking at the thought of such a man. She was surprised by a hand taking hers in comfort. Turning she was shocked to see it was her husband, Hephaestus, supporting her. Looking over to Ares the goddess was angered to see he wasn’t even giving her the time of day. Maybe it was time to focus on her marriage more.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don’t know why he hadn’t been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our “guy secret.” Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

Silence.

The smell of salt water was getting stronger and deep breaths could be heard being taken. Everybody looked to the Sea God to see his expression murderous and the woman at his side even more enraged.

“Percy, please tell me he didn’t.” Sally tried to calm her breathing.

“Mom…” Percy started.

“Honey…”

“We don’t have to deal with him anymore anyway Mom,” Percy muttered. “I just wanna forget about it. He got what he deserved in the end anyways.”

“Well, I’m gonna enjoy that again more the second time apparently.” Sally growled.

Poseidon had finally been able to calm down some and was hugging his son. He could feel Percy’s stuttering breaths into his chest, clearly trying not to cry. The god motioned to Apollo to continue on, anything to get the focus off of Percy.

“I don’t have any cash,” I told him. He raised a greasy eyebrow. Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should’ve covered up everything else.

“You took a taxi from the bus station,” he said. “Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?”

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. “Come on, Gabe,” he said. “The kid just got here.”

“At least one of them is decent.” Artemis sneered. Men were so disappointing.

“Am I right?” Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

“Ugh, disgusting.” Aphrodite gagged. Hephaestus kept stroking her hand in solidarity.

“Fine,” I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. “I hope you lose.”

“Consider it done, Pedro.” Dionysus grants. Looking up he’s annoyed to see all eyes on him. “What? Just because I don’t like the brats doesn’t mean he deserves that!”

“Thanks, Mr. D.” Percy muttered slowly coming out of his father’s chest.

“Your report card came, brain boy!” he shouted after me. “I wouldn’t act so snooty!”

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn’t my room. During school months, it was Gabe’s “study.” He didn’t study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

Apollo had to pause his reading, “Can I just say that I absolutely love your sarcasm, Percy.”

“He does share it at some pretty great moments.” Grover says.

“And some of the worst.” Annabeth adds.

“What can I say? Sarcasm just flows out of me.” Percy says giving a small smile. The demigods grin seeing their leader getting back to his usual self.

Gabe’s smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady’s shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover’s look of panic—how he’d made me promise I wouldn’t go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

“They were getting worse, huh?” Grover comments.

“Yeah, sucked.” Percy says.

Then I heard my mom’s voice. “Percy?”

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.

“Aww!” Aphrodite coos. “Family love is the best!”

Hera may not like demigods, but even she had to admit the bond between this mother and son was one she longed for. Her own children didn’t even try and connect with her, haven’t for millennia.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She’s got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it’s like she’s seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I’ve never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

Sally had taken over holding Percy who was looking far more content than any of the demigods had ever seen him be. His mother was just glad she was able to do something for her son in the crazy world he was a part of.

“Oh, Percy.” She hugged me tight. “I can’t believe it. You’ve grown since Christmas!”

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She’d brought me a huge bag of “free samples,” the way she always did when I came home.

“Aww man, your thoughts are making me hungry, Percy!” Connor whined.

“Me too!” his brother followed.

“How about we take a break in a chapter or so?” Hestia offered. A break would probably do some good for everyone.

Sounds of agreement were heard.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn’t put in my letters. She didn’t mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn’t seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, “Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?”

I gritted my teeth.

So did everyone in the room. Well excluding a few (Ares and Zeus) who didn’t seem to care.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should’ve been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

“Like a god?” Hermes chuckled.

Percy shrugged, “Would’ve been better.”

Poseidon sighed at that, if not for the laws his son and lover’s life would have been so much better.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn’t too down about the expulsion. I’d lasted almost the whole year this time. I’d made some new friends. I’d done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn’t been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

Until that trip to the museum…

“What?” my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. “Did something scare you?”

“No, Mom.”

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

“You should have told her, boy.” Athena deadpanned.

“Well, sorry for thinking I was going crazy.” Percy replied.

“Yes, in this scenario the Mist wasn’t very helpful, was it?” Chiron asked.

“The Mist has never been on my side, Chiron.” Percy said.

“That’s true, your luck is the worst.” Annabeth said remembering their first quest.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn’t push me.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said. “We’re going to the beach.”

My eyes widened. “Montauk?”

“You still go?” Poseidon asks awed.

Sally was blushing, “Every chance we get. It’s the easiest way to be close with you, for both of us.”

The Sea God couldn’t stop the smile brightening his face.

“Three nights—same cabin.”

“When?”

She smiled. “As soon as I get changed.”

I couldn’t believe it. My mom and I hadn’t been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn’t enough money.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, “Bean dip, Sally? Didn’t you hear me?”

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom’s eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

“I was on my way, honey,” she told Gabe. “We were just talking about the trip.”

Gabe’s eyes got small. “The trip? You mean you were serious about that?”

“I knew it,” I muttered. “He won’t let us go.”

“Of course he will,” my mom said evenly. “Your stepfather is just worried about money. That’s all. Besides,” she added, “Gabriel won’t have to settle for bean dip. I’ll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works.”

“Bribery, nice.” Hermes approved.

Gabe softened a bit. “So this money for your trip…it comes out of your clothes budget, right?”

“Clothes budget!” Aphrodite screams, “How dare he!”

“Don’t worry dear, I don’t think the mortal woman cares.” Hephaestus mutters.

The Love Goddess looks to the woman for confirmation. Seeing her nod the goddess lets out a breath leaning back into her seat.

“Yes, honey,” my mother said.

“And you won’t take my car anywhere but there and back.”

“We’ll be very careful.”

Gabe scratched his double chin. “Maybe if you hurry with that sevenlayer dip…And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game.”

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

“Do it!” Ares and Clarisse say both for different reasons though. Clarisse was angered at the pig’s treatment of Percy’s mother. The War God on the other hand was just wanting some action, he was getting bored.

But my mom’s eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I’m really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now.”

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

“I’d be surprised if he even knew what sarcasm was.” Thalia snarled.

“Yeah, whatever,” he decided.

He went back to his game.

“Thank you, Percy,” my mom said. “Once we get to Montauk, we’ll talk more about…whatever you’ve forgotten to tell me, okay?”

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I’d seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom’s bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his ’78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.

“Not a scratch on this car, brain boy,” he warned me as I loaded the last bag. “Not one little scratch.”

“Like he’d be driving,” Nico said. “He’s twelve!”

Apollo laughed at the statement.

Like I’d be the one driving. I was twelve.

“Ah, I knew I was rubbing off on you, cousin!” Percy laughed.

“No, no. I can’t be a kelp head!” Nico fake whined.

“Of course not.” Thalia says. “Your Death Breath.”

“Yay! Wait a minute!” Nico cries.

The demigods are left fighting for breath with laughter. Most of the gods and goddesses were neutral to the interaction, but a few were enjoying the scene. Hades and Poseidon were pleased to see their children interacting, the Lord of the Underworld especially satisfied with the others being so welcoming of his son.

But that didn’t matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he’d find a way to blame me. Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can’t explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I’d seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he’d been shot from a cannon.

“How did you do that?” Hermes asks the boy.

“Huh?” the ever-intelligent response from Percy.

“That’s satyr magic,” the Messenger God explained, “You shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“Oh, um Grover?” Percy looked to his friend, hopeful for a reason.

The satyr pondered an answer, “It could be possible we had the beginning of our empathy link. I mean it developed really quickly once I thought of making it.”

A few nods at the idea, Chiron hypothesized as well, “Add in how powerful Percy is could also explain how he could tap into your link easily.”

That unnerved some of the gods, it was rare to hear of such a powerful demigod and usually it never ended well.

Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn’t stay long enough to find out.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

“Only way to ride.” Ares smiled.

“Mhmm, and then you end up in my infirmary.” Apollo grins.

“And your bike in my shop.” Hephaestus sniggered.

“Oh, shut up!” the War God yelled.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

“Huh?”

“I don’t get it…” the Stolls muttered very confused not noticing the others rolling their eyes.

I loved the place.

“Ah, there it is.” The brothers cheer, “Wasn’t making sense since Percy never shuts up about Montauk when he gets started.”

We’d been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she’d met my dad.

The pair of ex-lovers were smiling, lost in old memories.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin’s windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

“What’s with all the blue?” Chris asked not as close to Percy as the others.

Apollo read the next line:

I guess I should explain the blue food.

“Yes please,” the Stolls reply as if Apollo was the one speaking.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn’t totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

“Percy, you live a rebellious life. There’s no way it’s just a streak with you.” Annabeth chuckles.

“What can I say? The sea doesn’t like to be contained.” Percy smirked.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom’s eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

“He was kind, Percy,” she said. “Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes.”

Everyone looks to the father and son to see.

“You know? He’s a mini–Uncle P.” Hermes says.

“Interesting.” Hades murmurs, all of his brother’s previous demigod children only had a few of his traits. This one was almost his clone, apparently, he had his father’s power levels as well.

“It’s fascinating since the gods don’t exactly have DNA. And monster children obviously only get powers from the gods not looks and…” Annabeth rambles before Percy clamps a hand over her mouth.

She glares at him, “You were droning on, Wise Girl. I’m sure the gods would like to make some progress before we take a break.” Percy hesitantly says.

Annabeth nods at that holding in her thoughts to think on later and motions for Apollo to keep reading.

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. “I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud.”

“I am.” The Sea God whispers in his son’s ear. He may not know of what his son has accomplished, but just seeing the man he was now? How could he not be proud?

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

“How old was I?” I asked. “I mean…when he left?”

She watched the flames. “He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin.”

“But…he knew me as a baby.”

“No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born.”

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember…something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

“You broke one of our sacred laws!” Zeus boomed.

“He’s my son! Of course, I would see him at least once.” Poseidon countered. “Don’t tell me you have never visited, even if it was only one time.”

Thalia had to support her uncle on this point, especially since she herself hated the no interference law.

“You know, I did have a younger brother. Mom mentioned he was fully related to me.” She drawled waiting for the fallout.

Hearing that tidbit revealed Zeus gulped going pale.

“You cheated on me twice! With the same woman!” Hera screamed with rage.

Her husband hunched down in his seat knowing it would be pointless to try and defend himself.

Thalia was rather neutral at the byplay; her father had never really done anything for her, so she felt no real need to defend him.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I’d felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he’d never even seen me…

I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He’d left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

Poseidon looked to his son with worry.

“Don’t worry Dad, I don’t feel that way anymore. It’s just… hard to accept, especially when you find out about all the rules against it.” Percy assures.

“Percy’s right, a lot of campers really struggle with accepting the distance between campers and gods.” Annabeth said. “It’s gets really hard on those who never get claimed by their parent. Once they realize they’re basically never going to be claim they just stew in the hatred before they decide to leave camp.”

“The laws were actually a huge factor in the war.” Chris added. “Those who were unclaimed or those who were the children of minor gods that never got the recognition they deserved were quick to join the enemy. I personally was gaslighted by the enemy until I was injured and saved by Clarisse who was able to tell me the truth. Even then I was only claimed at the end of the war.”

Hermes looked shocked at his son, “I never claimed you?”

Chris shook his head, “I had been at camp close to two years before I left.”

“You expect us to believe you, after you willingly told us you were with our enemy?” Zeus sneered.

“Yes, there is a reason I was brought here by the Fates. Even then, my injuries had me down for weeks if not months before I recovered. Anytime then I could have been dealt with, but I told them everything I knew, because I was clearly nothing more than a pawn for the enemy. Although I can’t confirm if we demigods aren’t the same for the gods.” Chris sneered. Yes, he was still very bitter, he may have forgiven his father, but everyone else could beg for all he cared.

Zeus’ eyes couldn’t get any colder. How dare this child speak to him like this? Of all the insolent things! He was stopped by his eldest brother cutting off his train of thought.

“Maybe we should just continue? After all the faster we get through these books, the faster we can go.” Hades reasoned.

Zeus exhaled heavily, still angered, but nodded glaring at his son to keep reading.

“Are you going to send me away again?” I asked her. “To another boarding school?”

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

“I don’t know, honey.” Her voice was heavy. “I think…I think we’ll have to do something.”

“Because you don’t want me around?” I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

My mom’s eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. “Oh, Percy, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away.”

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

“Because I’m not normal,” I said.

“What even is normal?” Travis questioned.

“Who cares? Normal is boring.” Connor jumped in.

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing, Percy. But you don’t realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you’d finally be safe.”

“Safe from what?”

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I’d tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

The gods sent Poseidon a look of ‘really?’

“What? I wasn’t directly involved.” Poseidon argued smirking. “Loopholes are your best friend.”

Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I’d somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

“Just like Hercules.” Zeus boasted.

“Don’t EVER compare me to that jerk!” Percy yelled causing Zeus to scowl once again and Artemis’ eyes to widen in surprise.

“Ah, right, Percy greatly dislikes being compared to Hercules so I would limit doing so.” Annabeth explains. “I’m sure it’ll eventually be explained, but none of us here care for that particular ‘hero’.”

At that Zeus’ scowl deepens. ‘All these brats should be delighted to be compared to my son!’

Apollo cleared his throat at the tension and began reading.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn’t make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn’t want that.

“You should have told me, honey.” Sally chided.

“I don’t think much would have changed Mom. I’m sure it would have always been a difficult night.” Percy groaned.

“Still didn’t help that I had no idea where you guys were.” Grover muttered.

“Sorry, man.”

“I’ve tried to keep you as close to me as I could,” my mom said. “They told me that was a mistake. But there’s only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just…I just can’t stand to do it.”

“My father wanted me to go to a special school?”

“Not a school,” she said softly. “A summer camp.”

My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn’t even stayed around long enough to see me born—talk to my mom about a summer camp?

And if it was so important, why hadn’t she ever mentioned it before?

“I’m sorry, Percy,” she said, seeing the look in my eyes. “But I can’t talk about it. I—I couldn’t send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good.”

“For good? But if it’s only a summer camp…”

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream.

“Ugh, demigod dreams are the worst.” Clarisse whines.

“Are they truly that bad?” Artemis asks. Her hunters who had once been demigods have gone so long without dreams, she’s never had to experience them first-hand.

“They can get pretty bad, but Percy’s dreams are regrettably worse than others.” Annabeth says.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse’s muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle’s wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

The Gods look to Zeus and Poseidon. It was obvious the pair was fighting over something.

However, the Lightning God had turned to glare at his eldest brother. Hades must be trying to take over.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse’s wide eyes, and I screamed, No!

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, “Hurricane.”

“Uncle P, why you so upset?” Hermes asks.

“Well apparently I’m fighting my brother over something.” The Sea God said, glaring at his brother. It was clear that he was getting blamed for something; his younger brother never fought him unless he was blaming him.

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice— someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn’t…he wasn’t exactly Grover.

“I bet that was a weird sight to see in the middle of the night.” Connor snickers.

“You’re telling me. Threw me for a loop.” Percy smirked.

“Searching all night,” he gasped. “What were you thinking?”

My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he’d come.

“Percy,” she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. “What happened at school? What didn’t you tell me?”

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.

“O Zeu kai alloi theoi!” he yelled. “It’s right behind me! Didn’t you tell her?”

“It certainly took you a while to snap out of it, huh Perce?” Grover sniggered.

“Oh, like if you were in my position, you’d do different?” Percy pouted.

I was too shocked to register that he’d just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I’d understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn’t have his pants on—and where his legs should be…where his legs should be…

“Spit it out already!” Travis cried.

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she’d never used before: “Percy. Tell me now!”

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

“Lightning?” Nico asked.

“These two were still fighting.” Percy gestured to the pair of brothers.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, “Get to the car. Both of you. Go!”

Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn’t running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

“Took you long enough, Perry.” Dionysus deadpans.

Percy shrugged not really caring about the comment.

Zeus sneered, “Well apparently I’m worrying about the wrong brother.”

Hades groaned, “You can’t honestly believe that was me laughing? I have no want to rule! The Underworld alone is too packed and don’t even get me started on the paperwork!”

Nico was nodding his head at the mention of the Underworld. The Gods were surprised to see Annabeth, Percy, and Grover nodding as well.

“Why do you three know that?” Poseidon asks worried.

“Um… spoilers?” Percy grimaced.

“We can confirm that it’s not Lord Hades you should be worrying about.” Annabeth interjected.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t learn that until later so sorry for the upcoming blame game on you, my Lord.” Grover rambles.

“It’s fine, as long as I’m not blamed in the end.” The Silent One waved the satyr off.

“Okay!” Apollo yells. “Who’s next?” he asks waving the book around.

“Give it here, Sunny.” Hermes motioned to his friend.

“Sure, Wings. The Sun god tosses him the book nailing him in the face in retaliation for the nickname.

“Oof, rude.” Hermes grumbled opening the book.

Chapter Text

My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

As soon as the Messenger God read the chapter title Percy and Grover went rigid. Sally, on the other hand, let out a deep sigh. Oh boy, this was going to be interesting.

Poseidon looked to the three worried at what was to come. Would this be as bad as he imagined? Worse? The Sea God clenched his hands into fists trying to control his nerves.

Hermes looked around the room and decided to start reading.

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn’t know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

“Ah, my kind of driving!” Ares cheered.

“And you wonder why I’m never surprised to see you in my infirmary.” Apollo snickers.

“That bike of yours is such a death trap.” Aphrodite states surprising the War God since she had never said anything of the sort before. He looked to her questioningly with barely hidden rage.

“Oh, you have to know I hate that bike. Why do you think we always took my car?” the goddess asks sarcastic. That took the god back a bit, he always assumed it was because the car allowed for ease of… activities.

The War God’s thoughts were apparently obvious based off the look on his face, brining looks of disgust to everyone’s face, not that the God himself noticed.

Surprise was clear on the faces of the virgin goddesses who were still hesitant about their thoughts of the male demigods. Artemis was easily beginning to see that this group was not as insufferable as other males; Athena on the other hand was still very against the boys, especially the Sea God’s son who seemed too close to her daughter for her liking.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I’d gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo—lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

“Wow, thanks man.” Grover deadpanned.

“No problem, G-man.” Percy smirked.

All I could think to say was, “So, you and my mom…know each other?”

“You couldn’t have found a less awkward way to ask that?!” Annabeth laughed out gasping for breath.

“You know me… I’m awkward at the best moment.” Percy shrugged.

Grover’s eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. “Not exactly,” he said. “I mean, we’ve never met in person. But she knew I was watching you.”

“Wow, stalker alert!” Travis grinned.

“I am not a stalker!” Grover yelled.

“Uh huh. Totally not a stalker… just weirdly following someone around for information.” Connor sniggers.

Grover flushed, though it was unclear if it was from anger or embarrassment.

“Watching me?”

“Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn’t faking being your friend,” he added hastily. “I am your friend.”

“Um…what are you, exactly?”

“That doesn’t matter right now.”

“It doesn’t matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—”

“Bad idea Perry.” Dionysus mutters behind his magazine.

“How was I supposed to know!” Percy threw up his hands.

Grover let out a sharp, throaty “Blaa-ha-ha!”

Everyone looks to Hermes in shock at the amazingly accurate bleat.

“What?” Hermes looks around confused.

“That was scary similar to a satyr.” Grover stated slowly.

“Well, Pan is my son. I’ve heard him enough to easily replicate it.” The Messenger God pointed out.

“Huh, point taken.” Percy muttered.

Hermes decided to start reading again while everyone was quiet.

I’d heard him make that sound before, but I’d always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

“Goat!” he cried.

“What?”

“I’m a goat from the waist down.”

“You just said it didn’t matter.” Nico drawled.

Hermes snorted and read out the next line.

“You just said it didn’t matter.”

“No!” Nico fake cried causing the others to laugh.

“Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!”

“Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like…Mr. Brunner’s myths?”

“Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?”

“So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!”

“That’s what you choose to focus on?!” Clarisse asks incredulous.

“Sorry for wanting confirmation that I wasn’t going insane after months of thinking I was!” Percy yelled irritated.

“Ah, right.” Clarisse muttered.

At Percy’s claim Chiron had to hide a wince. ‘Maybe using the Mist was ill-timed.’

“Of course.”

“Then why—”

“The less you knew, the fewer monsters you’d attract,” Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. “We put Mist over the humans’ eyes. We hoped you’d think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are.”

“Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?”

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

“Percy,” my mom said, “there’s too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety.”

“Safety from what? Who’s after me?”

“Oh, nobody much,” Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. “Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.”

“Grover!” Many of the demigods tell.

“Well, I was technically correct…” Grover said, “… at the time anyways.”

At that admission Poseidon turned toward his brother with a hardy glare only to be stopped by a hand settling on his arm. Turning he finds his son giving him a look of warning.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Dad. Anything Uncle Hades does during this quest was reasonable since he didn’t know any different.” Percy explains.

At that the Sea God relents still nervous as to what would happen. Meanwhile, the Lord of the Underworld was surprised at the ease his brother’s son called him uncle. It was rare to hear a demigod refer to him positively.

“Grover!”

“Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?”

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn’t do it. I knew this wasn’t a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The summer camp I told you about.” My mother’s voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. “The place your father wanted to send you.”

“The place you didn’t want me to go.”

“Please, dear,” my mother begged. “This is hard enough. Try to understand. You’re in danger.”

“Because some old ladies cut yarn.”

“Those weren’t old ladies,” Grover said. “Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you’re about to…when someone’s about to die.”

“Whoa. You said ‘you.’”

“No I didn’t. I said ‘someone.’”

“You meant ‘you.’ As in me.”

“I meant you, like ‘someone.’ Not you, you.”

“Huh?” Travis asks.

“Did you even understand that?” Connor questions.

“I didn’t understand it…” Hermes muttered, “…and I’m the one who read it.”

Athena and Annabeth roll their eyes exasperated, Annabeth’s more playful than her mother’s.

Hermes decided to move past the confusing section and continue.

“Boys!” my mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she’d swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

“What was that?” I asked.

“We’re almost there,” my mother said, ignoring my question. “Another mile. Please. Please. Please.”

“Gosh, we were just overloading you, huh sweetie?” Sally groans.

“Uh, probably.” Percy said rubbing his neck, “Honestly, I try to not think about this much. It wasn’t a great beginning to camp.”

The other demigods wince at the claim. It was a tough just to get to camp, let alone a child of the Big Three. Out of all the ones they knew, Nico’s was probably the easiest and that was really because of Percy, Annabeth, and Grover.

Meanwhile, Sally was wincing at the current memory while Poseidon was looking between his son and ex-lover concern growing by the second.

I didn’t know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she’d changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn’t been human. She’d meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner…and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

“What happened?!” Poseidon growled grabbing Percy and Sally close.

“Um, it’ll probably explain considering how detailed this has been so far.” Percy mumbled lost in memories.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver’s seat and said, “Ow.”

“Percy!” my mom shouted.

“I’m okay.…”

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn’t dead. The car hadn’t really exploded. We’d swerved into a ditch. Our driver’s-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning. That was the only explanation. We’d been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. “Grover!”

“No! Not Goat-boy!” Travis and Connor fake cried.

“Shut up you two! We wanna hear the story!” Clarisse yelled whacking them on the heads.

Simultaneously, Poseidon was giving is younger brother a glare that, if he were his elder brother, Zeus would be dead. Zeus would never admit it, but Poseidon did worry him more so than Hades.

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you’re my best friend and I don’t want you to die!

“Aw thanks, Perce.” Grover smiled.

“Sure, Goat-boy.” Percy grinned.

Then he groaned “Food,” and I knew there was hope.

The demigods burst into laughter, a few of the gods quietly joining.

“Ah, that’s our Goat-boy!” Thalia cheered.

“Shut up.” Grover flushed.

“Percy,” my mother said, “we have to…” Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

“Is that?” Chris whispers.

“Uh huh.” Annabeth replies soft looking to Sally and Percy worried.

Poseidon seemed to have caught on to who was after his family and moved his glare to his older brother. Hades refused to show is fear and hid his shutter at the look.

I swallowed hard. “Who is—”

“Percy,” my mother said, deadly serious. “Get out of the car.”

My mother threw herself against the driver’s-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might’ve been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

“Climb out the passenger’s side!” my mother told me. “Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?”

“Hey, it’s me!” Thalia mentioned.

“Gotta point you out, Pinecone Head.” Percy sniggered.

“What?”

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree–sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

“That’s the property line,” my mom said. “Get over that hill and you’ll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don’t look back. Yell for help. Don’t stop until you reach the door.”

“Mom, you’re coming too.”

“She can’t, boy.” Hera sneered.

“How was he supposed to know that?!” Annabeth sneered right back causing the Gods to look to her upset. However, looking among the other children they were surprised to see additional looks of disgust towards the goddess.

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

“No!” I shouted. “You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover.”

“Food!” Grover moaned, a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn’t be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head…was his head. And the points that looked like horns…

“Jeez, you’re slow kid.” Ares snarked wishing for some kind of action, this story was boring.

The god didn’t seem to realize that there was no one even listening to him, well other than his mother.

“He doesn’t want us,” my mother told me. “He wants you. Besides, I can’t cross the property line.”

“But…”

“We don’t have time, Percy. Go. Please.”

I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.

Nico snorted, “Grover the goat.”

The other demigods fighting to stifle their giggles at Grover’s flushed face.

I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. “We’re going together. Come on, Mom.”

“I told you—”

“Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover.”

‘Loyalty. Loyal to a fault.’ Athena thought. ‘Dangerous flaw to have.’

I didn’t wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn’t have carried him very far if my mom hadn’t come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover’s arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other ’ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear —I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would’ve looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

It took a minute to conjure up that image in everyone’s heads, so once it finally set in of course someone had to make a comment.

“I’m sorry, did you say underwear?” Chris asks baffled at the thought.

“Yeah, it was definitely a weird one. Never seen another monster wear something like that again.” Percy stated trying to think back on others he had fought.

Poseidon was struggling between laughing at the picture or clutching his family closer. The idea that they had already experienced this and came out fine didn’t assure him in the slightest.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn’t get from an electric sharpener.

The demi-gods shuddered.

“Percy, your explanations make me feel more scared than the actual monsters.” Chris shuddered.

“Sorry…” said boy apologized.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn’t be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. “That’s—”

“Pasiphae’s son,” my mother said. “I wish I’d known how badly they want to kill you.”

‘Smart woman. Shame she fell for the Sea Idiot.’ Athena silently mused. If the mortal had fallen for any other god, she would have been less annoyed and more favorable.

“But he’s the Min—”

“Don’t say his name,” she warned. “Names have power.”

“Yeah, don’t think Percy will ever take that lesson to heart.” Annabeth muses while Grover groans in agreement. The Sea God’s worry builds more at the concurring nods from the other children.

The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn’t sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

“Food?” Grover moaned.

“Shhh,” I told him. “Mom, what’s he doing? Doesn’t he see us?”

“His sight and hearing are terrible,” she said. “He goes by smell. But he’ll figure out where we are soon enough.”

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe’s Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.

“Hehe, oops.” Nico snickers.

Oops.

The demigods just giggle, Nico not even attempting to joke about sounding like his cousin.

“Percy,” my mom said. “When he sees us, he’ll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can’t change directions very well once he’s charging. Do you understand?”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me.”

“Keeping me near you? But—”

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He’d smelled us.

The tension in the room seemed to sky-rocket. All the demigods grew tense, Percy and his mother grow quieter while lost in thought. Annabeth was squeezing Percy’s hand trying to give him some kind of support, but this was one fight of her boyfriend’s that she didn’t know how to handle. Yes, she knew he survived, but she doesn’t know how he felt or what it was like for him. It had been his first real monster after all.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn’t getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he’d be on top of us.

My mother must’ve been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. “Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said.”

I didn’t want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn’t work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

The tension seemed to ease some at that.

Hermes kept reading hoping to get through this section with as little stress as possible, not that it seemed to be happening that way.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We’d reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We’d never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

“Run, Percy!” she told me. “I can’t go any farther. Run!”

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she’d told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

“No…” Poseidon whimpered, hugging Sally to him. He was so confused, Sally was here and the children obviously knew her, so how did they get out of this?

“Mom!”

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: “Go!”

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother’s neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply…gone.

Poseidon straightened up some, giving Hades a short nod of thanks. The Lord of the Underworld nodded back but was still curious. Just why would he take the mortal? It didn’t really make any sense.

“No!”

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I’d gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

“Ooh, Percy’s angry.” Travis sing-songed.

The gods look to the boy confused at the comment. It was his brother that provided an answer.

“An angry Percy is a scary Percy. He’s like a demon when he’s like that.” Connor stated.

The other demigods were making sounds of agreement. Nico was remembering Percy after bathing in the Styx, Annabeth was thinking back during the war against battalions of soldiers, Thalia was remembering Percy at the Museum against the skeletons and the Nemean Lion, and well you get the idea.

The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn’t allow that.

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

“Hey!” I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. “Hey, stupid! Ground beef!”

“Subpar insults, but I’ll blame it on the situation, Prissy.” Clarisse joked trying to lighten the mood.

“Raaaarrrrr!” The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.

I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I’d jump out of the way at the last moment.

“Decent plan.” Ares muttered. ‘Not that it would do much, he doesn’t even have a weapon.’

But it didn’t happen like that.

“Of course, it didn’t.” Annabeth says. “Percy’s plans never really work out, unless it seems like they’d never work.”

That didn’t bring any confidence to Poseidon.

‘Then again, my plans tend to go the same way.’ The Sea God mused, getting happier. It seemed his son was more like him than at face-value.

The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn’t jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature’s head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.

At that Hermes had to pause and look to Percy amazed, the other gods were quick to follow. Just how powerful was this kid?

Hermes looked back to the book and relaxed slightly at the next lines.

How did I do that? I didn’t have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster’s head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I’d bite my own tongue off.

“Food!” Grover moaned.

The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.

“Ha good try kid, but no dice.” Ares gaffawed.

The children try to keep straight faces, fully aware of Percy’s first spoil of war.

The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

“Wait, that’s how you got the horn?” Nico asked awed. He had always believed Percy was just lucky to have it after defeating the Minotaur an easier way.

Percy shrugged, he’d never believed it was such a big deal. “The rain was helping, don’t know what to tell ya. I’m not that powerful.”

Clarisse chuffed “You can’t be serious Prissy? You’re the strongest demigod at camp.”

“No I’m not.”

“Percy, Mount St.Helens.” Annabeth deadpans causing the demigods, Grover and Sally to go wide-eyed remembering what happened with the volcano.

“That’s different.”

“No son, this is baffling. Rain shouldn’t make you feel stronger like that, only the sea would give you a strong power boost.” Poseidon explains slowly.

“But all water gives me a boost, always has. Only difference is for how long.” Percy says confused.

“Interesting.” Hades says. At this point he was rather resigned to the fact that one of his children was not the Chosen One, but based off what he could sense, it was better that way.

Zeus on the other hand was fuming. No demigod should be that powerful, excluding his own, not that he would willingly admit that.

The monster charged. Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

“Holy Hera. That was awesome.” Connor whispered.

Hera had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from cursing the boy using her name. No, she wouldn’t sink to their level.

Poseidon had puffed up with pride for his son. He was choosing to focus on Percy’s victory rather than the apparently temporary loss of Sally.

Percy, meanwhile, was trying to disappear into the couch, uncomfortable with all the stares he was getting.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I’d just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn’t going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess’s. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, “He’s the one. He must be.”

Both Percy and Annabeth went bright red, the demigods snickering at the two.

“Silence, Annabeth,” the man said. “He’s still conscious. Bring him inside.”

“And done. Whew, no reading for me for a while, ‘kay?” Hermes exhaled.

“A princess, ey Perce?” Thalia chuckled ruffling Percy’s hair.

“Don’t forget, ‘He’s the one’ Thals.” Grover added nudging Annabeth.

The couple was trying their hardest to disappear, Annabeth longing for her invisibility cap.

Hestia decided to cut in and spare the couple, “Well, let’s break for food. Shall we?”

That caused all the demigods to straighten, the thought of food exciting them.

Chapter Text

With a wave of her hand Hestia had conjured up a wide-ranging buffet. The demigods were quick to run up and fill some plates but paused at the remembrance of their normal offerings at meals.

“No need to worry about offerings, young ones. We gods are already here after all, right?” Hestia smiled to the demigods before giving the other gods a look of ‘don’t argue with my decision.’

“Right, let’s eat!” Apollo came charging over to get himself a couple of plates stacked high. The other gods and goddesses reluctantly following, some as excited as the Sun God, just better at hiding it.

Poseidon had chosen to sit with his son and ex-lover. He wanted to get to know his son and he wanted to see how Sally had been. He still loved her after all; he knew they couldn’t be together, he was married after all, but the love they had was real. He just wanted to keep his family safe.

Sally had been mostly quiet for their time here and she knew it seemed odd to the kids, usually she was a social butterfly. Always chatting and catching up with people, wanting to know how they were doing, but since coming here it’s been different. Getting to be with her son, of course she’s going to be happy she’ll soak up all the time she can get with him, but getting to hear all about his quests? That was a different story. Yes, she knew they were dangerous, such is the life of a demigod. In all honesty, she was glad that Percy would gloss over certain aspects and only focus on the “cool” points of the adventures. To be completely truthful, she had pretty much no idea of what monsters her son had faced, and now that she was hearing about it? Let’s just say the image of her son in bubble wrap for the rest of his life was an appealing one.

On the other hand, getting to see Poseidon was a plus. She knew they would never be able to be with each other, but it was nice to catch up with him. He was her first love after all and who forgets the first person they truly loved? Add to the fact that he was her son’s father and a great man. Not to mention the person she would probably consider her best friend if they were able to have more regular contact, which had become more apparent since the god had reentered their son’s life. Besides she had Paul now and he was amazing. She was happy and she just wanted to share that with her friend.

Meanwhile Annabeth had decided to sit with her mother and was hoping to at least lighten up her mother’s anger towards Percy. Athena approved of him in the future, why not start the process now since she would learn everything they have been through. She knew her mother would fight against her tooth and nail, but Annabeth knew she could convince the Wisdom goddess to at least see Percy as a decent guy. He wasn’t like every other boy they knew after all.

Percy was still feeling uncomfortable with all of his thoughts being aired out to everybody, but if it helped for the new future, he would deal with it. Maybe the gods would get an idea of how hard it is for a demigod. Either way, Percy was going to have to tolerate the readings. Maybe if Tyson was here, he’d be a little better, he missed his baby brother after all. Maybe the fates would bring him later. At least Percy hoped they would, Tyson was a huge help during quests and battle.

As food was easily consumed and conversations flowed, abet some more awkward than others, everybody had finished eating and were beginning to get antsy to continue reading. Hestia, who had been quietly enjoying the atmosphere of the room had noticed talks were slowly growing more stagnant and decided to get the others ready to read.

“Well, I think that was a good break. Shall we continue reading?” she smiled.

The demigods all nodded, they all favored the Hearth Goddess other than some of the other gods, happily agreeing and snagging plates of snacks, like cookies and other classic sweets kids would nab. The kids rushed to the couches to reclaim their seats all grabbing treats to nibble on as they settled in, the gods following with only a few grabbing some treats as well.

“Okay, who would like to read?” Hestia asks.

“I will, my lady.” Chris said taking the book. He opened the book and prepared to begin.

Chapter Text

I Play Pinochle With a Horse

After Chris had read the title Percy let out a wheeze due to the elbow Annabeth shoved into his gut.

“Ow, Annabeth! I can’t help my thoughts!” Percy yelled.

“Ugh, such a Seaweed Brain.”

“Hey!” Percy turned to Chiron apologetic, “Sorry about whatever comes up in my head here sir.”

“It’s fine Percy. I’m sure it won’t be the worst I’ve heard in my lifetime.” The teacher muses with a small smile on his face.

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

Snickers could be heard from the campers while Grover went beet red.

“Ha, sounds like G-man over here.” Percy chuckled ruffling the satyr’s head.

I must’ve woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.

“Wow, you were hooked from the start Annie.” Thalia chuckled.

“No, I wasn’t!” Annabeth protested.

“Um, hate to tell you this, but why else would you be nursing Percy rather than an Apollo camper?”

“Oh, I’m sure the reason will come up.” Annabeth grumbles.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, “What will happen at the summer solstice?”

I managed to croak, “What?”

“See! I just wanted to know if he knew anything!”

“Uh huh, sure Annie. It’s not like Perce here is the one or anything.” Thalia sniggers.

“Thalia!”

“Oh, just let her have this, Wise girl. She wasn’t there those first two years anyways.” Percy interjects hugging Annabeth to him.

Annabeth huffs and relaxes into his arms.

“Yeah, let her see all we had to deal with before you became the camp power couple!” Travis cheers, oblivious to the reactions from his statement.

Athena’s head was quick to turn to the pair, noticing how close her daughter was to the sea spawn. She saw red.

“Just what do they mean by couple?” the Wisdom Goddess sneered.

“It means we are together, Lady Athena.” Percy answers carefully.

Annabeth could see that her mother was close to an eruption of rage and quickly cut into the conversation.

“Mother, Percy and I are together. We’ve only been a couple for a short while, but we’ve pretty much always known we’d end up together in the end.”

“But why did it have to be one of his sons?” Athena whined, which was quite a surprise for the campers who would have never imagined seeing a god acting like a child more so than their own child.

“You know, I could have gotten with someone much worse than Percy.”

“Daughter…”

“In our future you pretty much gave Percy your blessing to be with me after the final battle.” Annabeth said, “Actually most of the gods who had reservations about Percy all had a change of thought after quests or the final battle.”

The Wisdom Goddess huffed, “We’ll see.”

“Oh, let the children be, our quarrel shouldn’t have anything to do with them anyways.” Poseidon grumbles.

“In the beginning, Annabeth was big on us not being even friendly due to your rivalry.” Percy shrugged.

“Which I found funny since the two of you work really well together.” Grover said.

She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. “What’s going on? What was stolen? We’ve only got a few weeks!”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, “I don’t…”

Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

“Ha that’s a fast way to shut Prissy up!” Clarisse laughed.

“Yeah, yeah…” Percy grumbled good-naturedly.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes—at least a dozen of them—on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

“You have an interesting way of describing people, you know that?” Nico asked.

Percy grinned, “Oh just wait, I can remember some of my thoughts vaguely and those should be interesting.”

“Yeah Mr. Mythomagic.” Thalia nudged her cousin, who paled at the thought.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

“Ugh, why can I imagine how that felt myself?” Travis groaned.

“I’m appalled at my own description man. I can remember the feeling and hearing that made the memory worse.”

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.

My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

“Careful,” a familiar voice said.

Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.

“Ooh, new nickname for hooves here!” Conner jeered.

“Dang it, that’s gonna catch on now, isn’t it?” Grover moaned.

“Sorry, goat boy. This one’s sticking.” Thalia smiled. She was enjoying the time spent here, she hadn’t been able to just hang out and relax with the campers, especially since she joined the hunt so soon after returning. She had missed the playful jeers and jokes, the memories; yeah, she knew hearing of the years before returning would be difficult, but to be here now? She could deal with it.

Grover was still grumbling, but there was a smile on his face at the laughs going around. Sure, he may not really care for the nicknames being tossed around, but he knew it was in good fun. These campers here? Well, they knew him best, Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia most of all. He wouldn’t trade these moments for the world.

So maybe I’d had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we’d stopped here at this big house for some reason. And…

“You saved my life,” Grover said. “I…well, the least I could do…I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this.”

Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.

Inside was a black-and-white bull’s horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood.

It hadn’t been a nightmare.

Sally let out a sigh. She loved how close her son was with her, but there were drawbacks to that closeness. The mother just knew how hard Percy was going to take this. Knowing her son, he would believe that it was his fault she was taken and that somehow, with no training, he should have been able to do something to save her. Her son had the habit of taking the world on his shoulders and not knowing how to accept others help.

Poseidon was in a similar state as his ex-lover. From what he could tell of his son so far, he seemed to be the type to be far to self-sacrificing, most likely loyal to a fault as well. It seemed like his son was very much like him, more so than his other demigod children. They were both rather laid back, at least until someone they cared for was threatened. And if that were to happen, nothing short of a miracle could stop them from their plan. The Sea God hoped his son wasn’t truly as powerful as the other children were making him out to be. That could end up being a problem, especially knowing his immortal family as well as he did.

“The Minotaur,” I said.

“Um, Percy, it isn’t a good idea—”

“That’s what they call him in the Greek myths, isn’t it?” I demanded. “The Minotaur. Half man, half bull.”

Grover shifted uncomfortably. “You’ve been out for two days. How much do you remember?”

“My mom. Is she really…”

He looked down.

I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight. My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold.

Nothing should look beautiful.

“As depressing as this moment is for you Percy, that description was beautiful.” Thalia softly smiled.

Said boy returned her smile with a small one of his own, hoping they could get past this section faster so he wouldn’t have to remember it again.

“Hey, and you even included me!” the daughter of Zeus adds, trying to lighten the mood.

She succeeded, her comment causing laughter to bubble out of the demigods.

Slowly the laughter died down and Chris continued.

“I’m sorry,” Grover sniffled. “I’m a failure. I’m—I’m the worst satyr in the world.”

He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.

“Oh, Styx!” he mumbled.

Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

“Drama queen.” Hades huffed causing his youngest brother to turn and glare at him. An opportunity that the other gods took to breakout smiles and soft laughs, well except for Hera and Athena.

As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.

Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I’d find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs.

All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with…Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I’d do something.

“The idea is sound, but hate to say it Seaweed Brain, it would never work.” Annabeth smiles.

“Huh?”

“Prissy, back then you were a twig, there was no way you would have passed for 15, let alone 17.” Clarisse chuckles.

“Hey!”

“They’re not wrong.” Sally muttered.

“Mom!”

“Honey, you’re the type of person who gets a few big growth spurts rather than gradually growing. So yes, they’re correct, the idea wouldn’t have worked.”

“Okay, fair. Doesn’t mean I like to hear it though.” Percy grumbled.

Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid—poor goat, satyr, whatever— looked as if he expected to be hit.

I said, “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you.”

“Did my mother ask you to protect me?”

“No. But that’s my job. I’m a keeper. At least…I was.”

“But why…” I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Grover said. “Here.”

He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn’t that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom’s homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn’t go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.

“Man, I know it’s supposed to taste like our favorite thing, but can mine change?” Travis moaned, “Percy’s sounds so much better than mine.”

“Same.” His brother agreed.

“Man, now I want some Ms. Jackson cookies.” Annabeth whines.

Sally smiled. This was sweet to hear. “Well, maybe I can make some during our next break?” she offered.

“Yeah! Thanks Mom!” Percy cheered, the other campers following his lead.

Before I knew it, I’d drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I’d just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn’t even melted.

“Was it good?” Grover asked.

I nodded.

“What did it taste like?” He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.

“Sorry,” I said. “I should’ve let you taste.”

“Don’t do that, boy. You’d kill your precious satyr here.” Athena sneered, till irritated with Percy, clearly.

“Sorry for trying to be polite, my lady.” Percy drawled.

The gods were looking at Percy wondering if he had a death wish or something. Poseidon’s worry grew stronger when he noticed the other campers weren’t even looking surprised at his son’s tone.

His eyes got wide. “No! That’s not what I meant. I just…wondered.”

“Chocolate-chip cookies,” I said. “My mom’s. Homemade.”

He sighed. “And how do you feel?”

“Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards.”

“That’s good,” he said. “That’s good. I don’t think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. “Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting.”

“Ooh goodie, Perce’s first look at camp.” The Stolls clapped.

The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.

My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I’d paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn’t going to let it go.

“I remember you didn’t let that thing out of your sight for weeks.” Grover snickered.

“With campers like those two?” Percy gestured to the Stoll brothers, “Of course I took it everywhere with me. It’d be gone in a heartbeat if I hadn’t.”

The Stolls just shrugged, they couldn’t deny it.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.

We must’ve been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn’t process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school–age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover’s were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who’d spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.

“I’m going to be the blonde girl for a while, aren’t I?” Annabeth grimaced.

“Eh, probably. Not like my entry to camp was smooth. You didn’t help much at first to remedy that either.” Percy shrugged.

The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels—what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That’s it. He looked like a cherub who’d turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would’ve fit right in at one of Gabe’s poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could’ve out-gambled even my stepfather.

Percy grimaced at that description, that wasn’t a great one. He could see the Wine God’s anger building behind his magazine.

“Sorry, Mr. D. Our introduction isn’t the greatest.” The boy apologized, surprising the god.

Percy did feel bad about many of his previous thoughts of the Wine God. He knew how rough his punishment was to stay at camp. Also, the god did aid them during battles.

“That’s Mr. D,” Grover murmured to me. “He’s the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that’s Annabeth Chase. She’s just a camper, but she’s been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron.…”

He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.

First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

“Mr. Brunner!” I cried.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple-choice answers B.

“Man, I still can’t believe you got to have Chiron as a teacher!” Nico complained.

Chiron grinned at the accompanying sounds of agreement. Here were just a few reasons why he loved being a teacher.

“Ah, good, Percy,” he said. “Now we have four for pinochle.”

“Still have no idea how to play…” Percy muttered.

“You know, I don’t think any of us do?” Annabeth commented.

“Huh.”

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don’t expect me to be glad to see you.”

“Really D? That’s the best you could do?” Apollo asked.

“Hey! You’re not the one stuck there. You try having to be at camp 24/7 except for meetings here.” Dionysus refuted.

“Honestly, knowing why Mr. D is at camp I don’t blame him for how he acts anymore. I’d probably be the same.” Percy interjected.

The gods turned to him surprised, Dionysus more than the others. Maybe, just maybe this demigod wasn’t as bad as the previous ones.

“Uh, thanks.” I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

“Annabeth?” Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.

She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. “This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don’t you go check on Percy’s bunk? We’ll be putting him in cabin eleven for now.”

Annabeth said, “Sure, Chiron.”

She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.

“I’m sorry?” Annabeth growled lowly. Percy was quick to motion Chris to continue before he got hurt.

They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

“Oh.” Annabeth lightened, “Yeah I probably was.”

She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you’re so awesome! or something like that.

“Man, you really didn’t know Annabeth. She’d probably throw you before complimenting you like that.” Travis snickered.

“I was just hoping for a more positive thing to associate with the horn. So far it only reminded me of what I had lost.” Percy shrugged.

At that there was an uncomfortable air of silence. Chris decided to break it by clearing his throat and continuing to read.

Instead she said, “You drool when you sleep.”

“You still do.”

“Not like I can help it!” Percy grumbled.

Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

“So,” I said, anxious to change the subject. “You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?”

“You were told his name and still called him that?” Clarisse asked.

“Hey you try knowing someone for months and suddenly learning everything you thought you knew wasn’t true!”

“Not Mr. Brunner,” the ex–Mr. Brunner said. “I’m afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron.”

“Okay.” Totally confused, I looked at the director. “And Mr. D…does that stand for something?”

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I’d just belched loudly. “Young man, names are powerful things. You don’t just go around using them for no reason.”

“Oh, ease up D, he was just being polite.” Hermes groaned.

The Wine God just huffed and turned the page of his magazine.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“I must say, Percy,” Chiron-Brunner broke in, “I’m glad to see you alive. It’s been a long time since I’ve made a house call to a potential camper. I’d hate to think I’ve wasted my time.”

“House call?”

“My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to…ah, take a leave of absence.”

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

“You came to Yancy just to teach me?” I asked.

Chiron nodded. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that’s always the first test.”

“Wow, way to make him feel better.” Thalia deadpanned.

Chiron grimaced briefly, he knew he wasn’t the best at speeches and such.

“Grover,” Mr. D said impatiently, “are you playing or not?”

“Yes, sir!” Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn’t know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

“You do know how to play pinochle?” Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

“I’m afraid not, sir,” he said

“Sir,” I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.

“Well,” he told me, “it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules.”

“Wasn’t it invented like a couple centuries ago?” Percy pondered.

“Yes, makes sense why you kids would have no idea about it.” Poseidon was the one who answered. He seemed to have finally relaxed after all of his worrying.

“I’m sure the boy can learn,” Chiron said.

“Please,” I said, “what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun— Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?”

Mr. D snorted. “I asked the same question.”

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

“Percy,” he said. “Did your mother tell you nothing?”

“Um, you know she hadn’t Chiron…” Connor was confused.

“True, but it had been so long since we had a camper starting basically from scratch and I had hoped his fight at the museum and entering camp had ‘opened his mind’ shall we say.” The instructor explained.

“She said…” I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. “She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn’t leave. She wanted to keep me close to her.”

“Typical,” Mr. D said. “That’s how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?”

“What?” I asked. He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

“I’m afraid there’s too much to tell,” Chiron said. “I’m afraid our usual orientation film won’t be sufficient.”

“Orientation film?” I asked.

“No,” Chiron decided. “Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know”—he pointed to the horn in the shoe box—“that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive.”

“That explains so much!” Clarisse exclaims.

“Huh?” was Percy’s brilliant response.

“Prissy, you were so behind on explanations of camp. Like way slower than most, which is apparently due to not seeing the orientation video.”

“Well, it’s not the greatest one to have.” Chiron muses.

“Hey! That orientation film is fantastic!” Apollo refutes.

The campers and gods struggle to hide their laughter.

I stared at the others around the table.

I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, “Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!” He cackled as he tallied up his points.

“Mr. D,” Grover asked timidly, “if you’re not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?”

“Eh? Oh, all right.”

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

“Wait,” I told Chiron. “You’re telling me there’s such a thing as God.”

“Well, now,” Chiron said. “God—capital G, God. That’s a different matter altogether. We shan’t deal with the metaphysical.”

“Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—”

“Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That’s a smaller matter.”

“Smaller?”

“Smaller?!” All the gods yell in time with Chris’ reading.

“In the matter that there are multiple deities rather than one who controls everything.” Chiron cautiously says, quietly motioning for Chris to continue.

“Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class.”

“Zeus,” I said. “Hera. Apollo. You mean them.”

And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.

“Always such a drama queen brother-dearest.” Poseidon smirked while the other gods went back to trying to hide their agreeing expressions.

“Young man,” said Mr. D, “I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you.”

“But they’re stories,” I said. “They’re—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They’re what people believed before there was science.”

“Ooh, bad thing to mention.” Annabeth cringes.

“Well, I’m sorry that everything I knew had a scientific explanation and gods were just stories.” Percy snarked.

“Science!” Mr. D scoffed. “And tell me, Perseus Jackson”—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—“what will people think of your ‘science’ two thousand years from now?” Mr. D continued. “Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That’s what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they’ve come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me.”

I wasn’t liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if…he wasn’t. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.

“Percy,” Chiron said, “you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?”

I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron’s voice made me hesitate.

“You mean, whether people believed in you or not,” I said.

“I wonder if we were able to push mortals to believing in Greek gods again if that would have helped in the war.” Annabeth says.

“Could have helped, ‘specially since beliefs are basically just down to demigods and clear-sighted mortals.” Percy added.

The campers all seemed to have expressions of curiosity causing the gods to wonder just how bad this war had been.

“Would have definitely helped one specific god.” Grover said, voice sounding dull and upset.

Percy, Annabeth, Rachel, and Nico were quick to offer words of comfort to the satyr who tried to shake himself out of the memories. The others struggling to do the same.

“Exactly,” Chiron agreed. “If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?”

My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn’t going to let him. I said, “I wouldn’t like it. But I don’t believe in gods.”

“Oh, you’d better,” Mr. D murmured. “Before one of them incinerates you.”

Grover said, “P-please, sir. He’s just lost his mother. He’s in shock.”

“A lucky thing, too,” Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. “Bad enough I’m confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don’t even believe!”

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.

“Mr. D,” he warned, “your restrictions.”

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

“Dear me.” He looked at the sky and yelled, “Old habits! Sorry!”

More thunder.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

“Um, quick question.” Percy slowly interrupted, causing most to turn to him.

He flushed at the attention, but continued on, “Um, the restrictions on Mr. D…”

That caused the Wine God to look up at him thunderous eyes focusing on him, which only made Percy more uncomfortable as he continued.

“Uh, wouldn’t restricting his access to wine basically be torture?” Percy was finally able to get out.

“It would make sense in a way since wine is his domain.” Annabeth stated allowing the attention to move from her boyfriend.

At that the other gods gain stunned looks on their faces. They had never thought of it that way before.

Dionysus on the other hand had eased his temper. Maybe this would end beneficially in his favor.

It was a surprise to the younger gods that Zeus appeared to look chagrined and with a gentle wave of his hand a goblet appeared before his son who gained a very shocked expression.

“I will lift you ban, but you must still be at the camp.” The Lightning God stated, but his son wasn’t even listening. Dionysus had already picked up the goblet and was savoring the drink.

Seeing as conversation had died down Chris continued.

Chiron winked at me. “Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits.”

“A wood nymph,” I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

“Yes,” Mr. D confessed. “Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn’t stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. ‘Be a better influence,’ he told me. ‘Work with youths rather than tearing them down.’ Ha! Absolutely unfair.”

“A nymph?!” that was Hera who was clearly livid. Zeus looked like he was trying to disappear while the other immortals looked on snickering.

“So how long have you been at camp Mr. D?” Percy questioned.

“Too long, Pedro.” Was the god’s response.

“Hmm. You know it would be really cool if you guys could switch or rotate who was watching over camp.” Percy threw out an idea.

“Yeah! That’d be awesome. You could even teach us and stuff!” Travis beamed.

“Could even help get campers claimed and improve relations among campers and immortals.” Annabeth contemplated.

“It would be nice. I can only do so much and only a few campers can actually help instruct.” Chiron said.

“Not a bad idea son.” Poseidon smiled.

“Just don’t put me on rotation for a few years yeah?” Mr. D interjected.

“Quiet!” Zeus boomed, “We shall have to think about it.”

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

“And…” I stammered, “your father is…”

“Di immortales, Chiron,” Mr. D said. “I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course.”

I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.

“You’re Dionysus,” I said. “The god of wine.”

Mr. D rolled his eyes. “What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, ‘Well, duh!’?”

“Y-yes, Mr. D.”

“Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?”

“One of the few times he’s said my name right.” Percy grinned.

“Hey, we should keep a tally!” Connor offered.

“Oh, hush you, knowing our ADHD we’d all forget eventually.” Annabeth said.

“Oh, yeah…”

“You’re a god.”

“Yes, child.”

“A god. You.”

“Risky Percy.” Thalia said.

“What, he looked like a normal guy, and I was still trying to deny pretty much everything.” Percy refuted. “Anyway, I did better than Nico.”

At that the campers laughed at the reminder while said son of Hades went scarlet.

Poseidon looked to his son, hoping for an explanation.

“Trust me, it-it’ll be better when you hear it for the first time yourself.” Percy stuttered out between giggles.

Finally, Chris had managed to get his breath back and pick up where he left off.

He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straitjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

“Would you like to test me, child?” he said quietly.

“No. No, sir.”

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. “I believe I win.”

“Woah, wait what? D beat Chiron?!” Apollo yelled out.

“Give it a minute.” Hermes replied, he knew how Chiron liked to shut down his brother.

“Not quite, Mr. D,” Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, “The game goes to me.”

“And there it is.” Hermes sniggered.

The Wine God just sighed, he didn’t really care at this moment in time, still pleased to be having a proper drink.

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.

“I’m tired,” Mr. D said. “I believe I’ll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment.”

Grover’s face beaded with sweat. “Y-yes, sir.”

Mr. D turned to me. “Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners.”

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

“Will Grover be okay?” I asked Chiron.

“Thanks for asking Perce.” Grover smiled, Percy was a true friend, regardless of how different they started out.

“’Course G-man.”

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. “Old Dionysus isn’t really mad. He just hates his job. He’s been…ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can’t stand waiting another century before he’s allowed to go back to Olympus.”

“Mount Olympus,” I said. “You’re telling me there really is a palace there?”

“Well now, there’s Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there’s the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It’s still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do.”

“You mean the Greek gods are here? Like…in America?”

“Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West.”

“The what?”

“Oh, you’re just overwhelming him.” Sally groaned. This was going to be an interesting first camp experience.

“True, it wasn’t a great start.” Chiron acquiesced.

“Come now, Percy. What you call ‘Western civilization.’ Do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps— Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods.”

“And then they died.”

“Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they’ve ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren’t very fond of Rome, either —America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here.”

“Talk about information overload.” Travis said.

“My head hurts just hearing that.” Connor groaned holding his head.

It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron’s we, as if I were part of some club.

“Who are you, Chiron? Who…who am I?”

“Woah, deep.” Connor said awed.

“No, no, no. He’s the one, remember?” his brother jumped in only to get head-slapped by a scowling daughter of Athena who was trying valiantly to not blush.

Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

“Who are you?” he mused. “Well, that’s the question we all want answered, isn’t it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s’mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate.”

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn’t move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn’t underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn’t a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must’ve been magic, because there’s no way it could’ve held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobbykneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

“Again, I love your description man.”

“They are interesting to hear.”

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse’s trunk.

“What a relief,” the centaur said. “I’d been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let’s meet the other campers.”

“Well, that ended very anticlimactically.” Travis stated causing his fellow campers to look to him shocked. “What?”

“I didn’t think you even knew a word remotely close to that.” Thalia said.

Sounds of agreement ring out.

“Well, I do live to surprise.” The Stoll brother grins.

“Well, who wants to read next?” Chris asks.

“Oh, I can.” Rachel puts her hand out reaching for the book.

She opens it and notices the title.

“Well, this’ll be a fun one.” She chortles.

Chapter Text

I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

Laughter burst out throughout the room. The demigods and a fair few of the gods were clutching their stomachs, aching from deep belly laughs.

“Man, you have the best thoughts!” the Stoll brothers cried out, struggling for breath.

Clarisse on the other hand was NOT laughing. This chapter was going to be so embarrassing. Chris managed to calm down his laughter and tugged his girlfriend into his side giving her a smile for comfort.

Rachel took a deep breath and settled in to start reading.

Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him.

Percy was sent a glare from Annabeth and her mother and wasn’t that terrifying.

“Everything was still very new; you can’t blame me for having thoughts like that. I just wanted to normalize what I was seeing.” He said hands raised in surrender.

I’d done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I’m sorry, I did not trust Chiron’s back end the way I trusted his front.

Dry snorts are heard. A few winces are seen as well.

“Sorry, Chiron.” Percy grimaces.

“It’s fine, my boy. I’ve heard much worse.” Chiron assured his student.

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, “That’s him.”

Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn’t normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

“Can you?” Travis asked.

“What?” Percy questioned.

“A flip.” Connor continued.

“Oh, well I can now…”

“Really?! Prove it!”

“Children, why don’t we continue and save things for our next break?” Hestia, the ever-calm hearth goddess, managed to interject before the kids could start arguing.

“Yes, let’s.” Hades states, giving his sister a look of thanks before motioning for the mortal girl to continue.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I’d realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weathervane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

“My oracle moved?!” Apollo exclaimed giddy at the thought.

“You know, it is weird that she only ever moved when Percy was involved…” Annabeth murmured.

Percy shuddered, “Don’t remind me.”

“What’s up there?” I asked Chiron.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. “Just the attic.”

“Somebody lives there?”

“No,” he said with finality. “Not a single living thing.”

I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.

“Come along, Percy,” Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. “Lots to see.”

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. “It pays our expenses,” he explained. “And the strawberries take almost no effort.”

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

The campers groaned at the mention.

“Those strawberries are sooo good!”

“Delicious!”

“Man, now I’m hungry again.”

The last one was Percy, causing the campers and his mother to laugh. A hungry Percy was pretty much always expected.

Apparently, Dionysus was feeling quite pleasant, it MUST have been the allowance of wine, because he conjured up a big collection of fruit (strawberries included). The campers were quick to dig in, the gods leaning in as well, some fighting to grab some by the bunches.

Rachel, with her reasonably filled bowl of fruit, sat back with the book beginning to read once again.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

“Grover won’t get in too much trouble, will he?” I asked Chiron. “I mean…he was a good protector. Really.”

“Thanks, Perce.” Grover nudged his friend smiling.

“’Course, G-man. Gotta look out for my goat boy.” Percy laughed ruffling the satyr’s curly hair.

Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horse’s back like a saddle. “Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill.”

“But he did that!”

“He did. They only really ran into trouble because he had to search for Percy.” Thalia pointed out.

“I might agree with you,” Chiron said. “But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I’m afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there’s the unfortunate…ah…fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover’s part.”

“Stupid council…” Grover grumbled remembering how the elders used to be.

I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover’s fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn’t given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.

“He’ll get a second chance, won’t he?”

Chiron winced. “I’m afraid that was Grover’s second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He’s still so small for his age.…”

“How old is he?”

“Oh, twenty-eight.”

“What?!” the Stolls yell.

“You didn’t know that?” Clarisse asked the pair, “I thought everybody knew the ages of the satyr’s at camp.”

“Uhhh, well.” The brothers shrug.

“Whatever.”

“What! And he’s in sixth grade?”

“Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years.”

“That’s horrible.”

“You don’t know the half of it…” Grover moaned. “I’m just glad I got my searcher’s license. High-school would’ve been torture.”

“Quite,” Chiron agreed. “At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career…”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?”

Chiron looked away quickly. “Let’s move along, shall we?”

But I wasn’t quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother’s fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire— started forming in my mind.

“Oh Percy…” Sally whispered. It was pretty obvious where her son’s thoughts were heading.

Some of the gods seemed to be making the same conclusion.

“Chiron,” I said. “If the gods and Olympus and all that are real…”

“Yes, child?”

“Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?”

Chiron’s expression darkened.

“Yes, child.” He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now…until we know more…I would urge you to put that out of your mind.”

“What do you mean, ‘until we know more’?”

“Come, Percy. Let’s see the woods.”

“Awful segue there, Chiron.” Apollo chuckled.

“Yes, well, I had hoped seeing the rest of camp would turn his mind away from the thought.”

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

Chiron said, “The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed.”

“Stocked with what?” I asked. “Armed with what?”

“You’ll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?”

“My own—?”

“No,” Chiron said. “I don’t suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I’ll visit the armory later.”

“Ha, that threw him off.” Nico sniggered.

“Oh, you weren’t much better. I could see it in your eyes how you wished you could be in multiple places at once.” Percy refuted causing the son of the Underworld to flush.

I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn’t seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

“Sword and spear fights?” I asked.

“Cabin challenges and all that,” he explained. “Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there’s the mess hall.”

“I still don’t get why you were surprised by the armory.” Clarisse said.

“Camps mortals have that potentially include sparring and the like are done with false weapons or more gentle objects in place of real weapons.” Rachel explained. “Especially for younger kids they’ll use weapons made from like foam and stuff like that. Usually because the camps don’t want to be overrun by lawsuits.”

“Huh, weird.”

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

“What do you do when it rains?” I asked.

“Really should have let him watch the orientation film Chiron.” Chris said.

“Yes, yes I get it.” Chiron waved him off, “I still say Percy did rather well for not getting all the information new campers typically get.”

“Um, wasn’t there a huge storm near the camp area that year though?” Rachel wondered aloud.

“Mhmm.” Percy affirmed looking to Rachel and slowly motioned his eyes toward Zeus who was thankfully not paying attention to them.

Rachel softly nodded in understanding.

Chiron looked at me as if I’d gone a little weird. “We still have to eat, don’t we?” I decided to drop the subject.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I’d ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

As the descriptions were read out each god and their children would perk up.

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

“You saw me.” Hestia comments awed. The other gods were in a similar state as the hearth goddess.

“I probably would’ve stopped and at least said hi if I wasn’t on a tour.” Percy shrugged. He didn’t think it was such a big deal to see the goddess.

The campers were looking at Percy trying to hide their surprise. Those who had gone with Percy to Olympus during the final battle now understood how the son of the Sea God was not surprised to see the goddess at the time.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks

“Zeus and Hera?” I guessed.

“Correct,” Chiron said.

“Um, I do have a question for Lady Hera.” Sally gently interjects receiving a small nod from said goddess.

“Um, why would you want a cabin at camp in the first place? If you know you wouldn’t be having demigod children then wouldn’t say a statue or something similar be better?”

The question actually threw Hera for a moment, but she was able to come up with an explanation.

“Well, when the camp was built we just made the cabins representing each of us on Olympus. Decorative things and such came much later when it got to be more stable.” The goddess said, withholding some information. She didn’t want these mortals to know how she demanded the same representation as the other gods.

The goddess of marriage was thankfully not paying attention to the campers who all had looks of disbelief on their faces. They had all heard over the years just how dramatic and argumentative said goddess was.

Sally had in fact seen the children’s faces, as well as some of the other gods as a matter of fact. So she pretended to nod in understanding and motioned to Rachel to continue.

“Their cabins look empty.”

“Several of the cabins are. That’s true. No one ever stays in one or two.”

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.

Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn’t high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that!”

Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Come along, Percy.”

“Love that cabin.” Percy said with a wide grin on his face, his father following shortly after with a similar reaction.

“Sounds nicer than mine…” Thalia muttered hiding a shiver at the memories. Staying in the Zeus cabin had been awful. The many statues alone gave her the creeps, not to mention that there was no bathroom. She definitely preferred staying in the Artemis cabin.

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar’s head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

“Ooh, sorry Clarisse.” Percy grimaced.

“If I didn’t know how bad our first meeting was I’d kill you for that.” The war daughter growled.

“At least I didn’t say it out loud?” Percy offered, realizing how flimsy the statement was.

Clarisse rolled her eyes and hunkered down in her seat.

I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron’s hooves. “We haven’t seen any other centaurs,” I observed.

“No,” said Chiron sadly. “My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I’m afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won’t see any here.”

“Party ponies!” the campers cheered.

“You guys have met them?” Apollo asked.

At the ecstatic nods the Sun god lets out a laugh as a few of the others join him.

“Man, they throw the best parties!”

Meanwhile, Chiron was pinching the bridge his nose. If his kinsmen ever invited any of the people here at the same time he would need to make a plan to prevent the chaos that would inevitably occur.

“You said your name was Chiron. Are you really…”

He smiled down at me. “The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am.”

“But, shouldn’t you be dead?”

“Subtle, Seaweed Brain.” Annabeth deadpanned.

“Understandable though.” Chris said.

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. “I honestly don’t know about should be. The truth is, I can’t be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish…and I gave up much. But I’m still here, so I can only assume I’m still needed.”

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn’t have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.

“Doesn’t it ever get boring?”

“No, no,” he said. “Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring.”

“Why depressing?”

Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

“Oh, look,” he said. “Annabeth is waiting for us.”

“Well that conversation got dark…”

The blond girl I’d met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

“How long am I the ‘blond girl’?” Annabeth groaned.

“Pretty sure this was the last time.”

When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.

I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn’t make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn’t even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

“It was.”

“Annabeth,” Chiron said, “I have masters’ archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cabin eleven,” Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. “Make yourself at home.”

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor’s symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it…? A caduceus.

“You can remember caduceus, but struggled with remembering Echidna?” Annabeth asked incredulous.

“To be fair most of the myths I did know, she wasn’t included in.” Percy shrugged.

“Echidna?” Poseidon asked.

“Umm… later?” his son hunched in his seat.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

“This is why you need to claim your kids!” Hermes ranted.

Thankfully, hearing the description of the messenger god’s cabin caused many of the gods to cringe and nod in agreement.

Chiron didn’t go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

“Well, then,” Chiron said. “Good luck, Percy. I’ll see you at dinner.”

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren’t bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I’d gone through it at enough schools.

“Ego much?”

“Just stating facts, they were in fact not bowing.”

“Well?” Annabeth prompted. “Go on.”

So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

The campers let out some snickers again.

“Ah, classic Percy.” Thalia laughed.

Annabeth announced, “Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven.”

“Regular or undetermined?” somebody asked.

I didn’t know what to say, but Annabeth said, “Undetermined.”

Everybody groaned.

“Why?” Hades asked.

“There are many campers who are still unclaimed. Some have even been waiting a few years to be claimed.” Annabeth explained despondent.

With that explanation the gods seemed to wince at the reminder.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. “Now, now, campers. That’s what we’re here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there.”

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

“This is Luke,” Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could’ve sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. “He’s your counselor for now.”

“You’re too damn observant, Kelp head.” Annabeth muttered.

“Yeah, it’s a dam shame.” Thalia smirked.

“It’s dam annoying.” Grover added with a smirk of his own.

“Dam right it is.” Percy laughed playing along.

Everybody was looking at the group with confusion. Noticing the looks Percy just said, “Third quest.”

“For now?” I asked.

“You’re undetermined,” Luke explained patiently. “They don’t know what cabin to put you in, so you’re here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers.”

I looked at the tiny section of floor they’d given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur’s horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

“Like Annabeth said, too observant.” Travis griped.

I looked around at the campers’ faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

“How long will I be here?” I asked.

“Good question,” Luke said. “Until you’re determined.”

“How long will that take?”

The campers all laughed.

“Come on,” Annabeth told me. “I’ll show you the volleyball court.”

“I’ve already seen it.”

“Come on.”

She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, “Jackson, you have to do better than that.”

“What?”

“Jeez, Annie relax.” Thalia said.

“I know, I know. I had bad priorities back then.” The wisdom child replied.

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, “I can’t believe I thought you were the one.”

“What’s your problem?” I was getting angry now. “All I know is, I kill some bull guy—”

“Don’t talk like that!” Annabeth told me. “You know how many kids at this camp wish they’d had your chance?”

“To get killed?”

“To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?”

I shook my head. “Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories…”

“Yes.”

“Then there’s only one.”

“Yes.”

“And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So…”

“Hoo boy, really girl?” the Thunder daughter asked.

“Bad priorities…”

“I think we can claim that you had a heavy case of cabin fever.” Chiron added gently.

“Monsters don’t die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don’t die.”

“Oh, thanks. That clears it up.”

“They don’t have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you’re lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form.”

I thought about Mrs. Dodds. “You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—”

“The Fur…I mean, your math teacher. That’s right. She’s still out there. You just made her very, very mad.”

“How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?”

“You talk in your sleep.”

“You almost called her something. A Fury? They’re Hades’ torturers, right?”

“No tact…” Hades smirked.

“Eh, Alecto is always gonna keep me on her bad side.” Percy shrugged.

“Well, you keep calling her Mrs. Dodds.” Nico pointed out.

“Well, it annoys her ever so much.” The son of the sea grinned.

Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her. “You shouldn’t call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all.”

“Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?” I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn’t care. “Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there.”

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. “You don’t just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or…your parent.”

She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

“My mom is Sally Jackson,” I said. “She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to.”

“I’m sorry about your mom, Percy. But that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about your other parent. Your dad.”

“You’re about to overwhelm him more aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“He’s dead. I never knew him.”

Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she’d had this conversation before with other kids. “Your father’s not dead, Percy.”

“How can you say that? You know him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then how can you say—”

“Because I know you. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t one of us.”

“You make us sound like a cult.” Chris laughs.

“We kinda are from a mortal standpoint.” Annabeth answered.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“No?” She raised an eyebrow. “I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them.”

“How—”

“Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too.”

“Well, that’s not creepy.”

I tried to swallow my embarrassment. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Taken together, it’s almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That’s because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you’re impulsive, can’t sit still in the classroom. That’s your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they’d keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that’s because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal’s. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don’t want you seeing them for what they are.”

“You sound like…you went through the same thing?”

“Most of the kids here did. If you weren’t like us, you couldn’t have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar.”

“Ambrosia and nectar.”

“The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would’ve killed a normal kid. It would’ve turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you’d be dead. Face it. You’re a half-blood.”

A half-blood.

“That sounds so offensive. Demigod is much nicer.” Rachel pauses with the thought.

“It is more pleasant to hear than half-blood.”

I was reeling with so many questions I didn’t know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, “Well! A newbie!”

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

“Ah, right. This.” Clarisse groaned. This was not going to be an enjoyable moment for her.

“Clarisse,” Annabeth sighed. “Why don’t you go polish your spear or something?”

“Sure, Miss Princess,” the big girl said. “So I can run you through with it Friday night.”

“Erre es korakas!” Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for ‘Go to the crows!’ though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. “You don’t stand a chance.”

“Annabeth!” Athena chastised her daughter.

“This was so long-ago Mom.” Annabeth said.

“We’ll pulverize you,” Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn’t sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. “Who’s this little runt?”

“Percy Jackson,” Annabeth said, “meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares.”

I blinked. “Like…the war god?”

Clarisse sneered. “You got a problem with that?”

“No,” I said, recovering my wits. “It explains the bad smell.”

“Ooh, burn!” the Stoll brothers cheer.

“I tell ya, Percy, when you think of a quip they are comedic gold!” Apollo chuckled.

Clarisse growled. “We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy.”

“Percy.”

“Whatever. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Clarisse—” Annabeth tried to say.

“Stay out of it, wise girl.”

“Wait. That’s where you got you nickname for Annie?” Thalia asked.

Percy shrugged his shoulders, “Apparently so.”

“Huh, who would’ve thought.”

Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn’t really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.

I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinderblock building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

“Miss. La Rue,” Chiron gave Clarisse a disappointed look. “I thought we talked about this ‘initiation’ before.”

Said girl flushed, “Sorry Chiron.”

I was kicking and punching. I’d been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls’ bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should’ve been able to afford classier johns.

Clarisse’s friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I’d used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn’t there.

“Like he’s ‘Big Three’ material,” Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. “Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking.”

“You already believed him to be one of the ‘Big Three’s’ kids?” Poseidon questioned.

“Yeah, none of the other campers would have been strong enough to take out the Minotaur with their bare hands.” Annabeth nodded.

Her friends snickered.

Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.

Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won’t.

Clarisse cringed, she remembered where this was going.

Poseidon was beaming, the sea was stubborn after all.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse’s grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

“Whoa.”

“Awesome!”

“It was pretty great.” Annabeth smiled at her boyfriend who was red with embarrassment.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn’t been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn’t been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

“I got lucky it was only the shower water.”

“Shut up, Wise girl!” Clarisse yelled.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn’t have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Annabeth said, “How did you…”

“I don’t know.”

“How did it take us so long to figure out his parent?” Chris asked.

“Denial most likely. After what happened with Thalia, I think we all were extremely cautious.” Chiron said.

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse’s hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. “You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead.”

I probably should have let it go, but I said, “You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth.”

“Another fantastic quip!”

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Annabeth stared at me. I couldn’t tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.

“What?” I demanded. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” she said, “that I want you on my team for capture the flag.”

“Ugh, that sucked.”

“Sorry, Percy.”

Rachel snapped the book closed throwing it on the table, “Well! Who wants to read next?”

Sally had picked up the book and seen the title of the next chapter.

“I will, this chapter seems tame enough.” She said settling in to begin.

Chapter Text

My Dinner Goes Up In Smoke

“Ugh, this’ll be a boring chapter.” Connor whines at the title.

“Shut up!” some of the campers yell.

At that Connor slumped down in his seat preparing to be bored throughout this chapter.

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn’t get to the top fast enough.

“Lava?” Sally paused in her reading.

“I don’t go on it much, Mom!” Percy tried to relax her.

“We’ve never had any critical injuries from the wall, Ms. Jackson.” Chiron informed the mother.

“Besides, we provide the camp with nectar and ambrosia, so any major healing is relatively quick to be treated.” Apollo added.

Hearing all this Sally was able to relax again and continue reading.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

“I’ve got training to do,” Annabeth said flatly. “Dinner’s at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall.”

“Annabeth, I’m sorry about the toilets.”

“Whatever.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

Snorts can be heard from basically everyone in the room.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Percy waved them off.

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I’d made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn’t understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

“’One with the plumbing.’ Very nice.” Connor snickered. ‘At least this part will still have some laughs in it.’

“You need to talk to the Oracle,” Annabeth said.

“Who?”

“Not who. What. The Oracle. I’ll ask Chiron.”

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.

I wasn’t expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

“Ah, the naiads.” Poseidon said, “They’re sweet. Can be quite helpful in skirmishes.”

“They are one of the more pleasant water-based myths I know.” Percy agreed.

I didn’t know what else to do. I waved back.

“Don’t encourage them,” Annabeth warned. “Naiads are terrible flirts.”

“Dolphins are worse.” Percy groaned, his father nodding in agreement.

“Not to mention fish, they never shut up.” The Sea God moaned.

Meanwhile, all the others were looking at the pair with mixed expressions. Some were baffled at the topic, others were startled at the similarities of the father and son, and the rest were just confused in general. Of course, the pair was unaware of the looks they were getting and were trapped in their thoughts.

Sally had managed to drag her focus back to the book in front of her and continued.

“Naiads,” I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. “That’s it. I want to go home now.”

“That’s what makes you want to leave, Prissy?” Clarisse questions.

“More like it was the last straw on top of a pile of more stress-inducing information.” The boy explains.

Annabeth frowned. “Don’t you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us.”

“You mean, mentally disturbed kids?”

“We are kinda ‘mentally disturbed’ aren’t we?” Chris smirks.

“Oh yeah.” Percy smiles.

“Well, from a mortal standpoint you’re definitely crazy.” Rachel jokes.

“Hey! When we met was a one-time thing!” Percy yells.

The others look at the two utterly confused.

Rachel was the one to notice the looks and just smiled, “I’m sure it’ll come up in one of the upcoming books.”

“I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human.”

“Half-human and half-what?”

“I think you know.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

“God,” I said. “Half-god.”

“No half-dog.” Someone deadpanned causing the kids to giggle.

Sally decided to continue over them.

Annabeth nodded. “Your father isn’t dead, Percy. He’s one of the Olympians.”

“That’s…crazy.”

“Is it? What’s the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they’ve changed their habits in the last few millennia?”

“But those are just—” I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron’s warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. “But if all the kids here are half-gods—”

“Demigods,” Annabeth said. “That’s the official term. Or half-bloods.”

“Then who’s your dad?”

“Of course, you assume her parent is male.” Athena sneered. “Typical of sea-spawn.”

“So sorry that most Olympians are male. Didn’t help that other than Lady Aphrodite, the goddesses I knew are virgin goddesses.” Percy grumbled.

“He does have a point niece.” Hades indicated. “Also, he knows basically nothing about your daughter at the time. So, his assumption makes sense.”

“Didn’t help that he only knew of the Big Three, Hermes, and Ares at that moment.” Annabeth added, much to her mother’s dismay at the support of the boy.

The Wisdom Goddess huffed and settled back down in her seat.

Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I’d just trespassed on a sensitive subject.

“My dad is a professor at West Point,” she said. “I haven’t seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history.”

“He’s human.”

“What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?”

“Jeez, Annie.” Thalia groaned.

“I know. I was annoyed at his apparent lack of information. Everything makes much more sense now.”

“Who’s your mom, then?”

“Cabin six.”

“Meaning?”

Annabeth straightened. “Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle.”

Okay, I thought. Why not?

“And my dad?”

“Undetermined,” Annabeth said, “like I told you before. Nobody knows.”

“Except my mother. She knew.”

“Maybe not, Percy. Gods don’t always reveal their identities.”

“My dad would have. He loved her.”

At that Poseidon had let out a small sigh. He had been lucky to meet Sally, only to discover she was clear-sighted. But in the end, she didn’t care. She knew exactly who he was and accepted it, and for that he couldn’t help but fall for her. What they had had been beautiful and amazing, resulting in the birth of his son. Perseus was everything he would have hoped a demigod child of his would be. Yes, he had his heir, and of course he loved Triton. But learning of what the demigods live through? Percy was just proving how worthy he was, and he couldn’t be prouder. Poseidon just hoped Amphitrite would not take her anger at him out on Percy. He didn’t believe she would, but she would definitely show indifference towards his son. Triton on the other hand would need to be watched, potentially.

Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn’t want to burst my bubble. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’ll send a sign. That’s the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens.”

“You mean sometimes it doesn’t?”

Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. “The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don’t always…Well, sometimes they don’t care about us, Percy. They ignore us.”

At the mention, most of the gods wince. It was relatively true after all.

The campers on the other hand were solemn. They remembered those campers that had decided to leave or who passed never learning who their parent was.

I thought about some of the kids I’d seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I’d known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn’t have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.

“So I’m stuck here,” I said. “That’s it? For the rest of my life?”

“It depends,” Annabeth said. “Some campers only stay the summer. If you’re a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you’re probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it’s too dangerous to leave. We’re year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they’ll ignore us until we’re old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you’d know them. Some don’t even realize they’re demigods. But very, very few are like that.”

“So monsters can’t get in here?”

“Not usually…” Grover muttered. Those who had gotten into camp during and after this quest had been dreadful.

Thankfully none of the gods had heard the satyr, but the campers did who all gained annoyed and angered looks at the memories.

Annabeth shook her head. “Not unless they’re intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside.”

“Why would anybody want to summon a monster?”

“Practice fights. Practical jokes.”

“Practical jokes?”

“We don’t do that!” The Stoll brothers cry out, even they knew the limits of pranking.

“The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm.”

“So…you’re a year-rounder?”

Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke’s, except Annabeth’s also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.

“I’ve been here since I was seven,” she said. “Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I’ve been here longer than most of the counselors, and they’re all in college.”

“Why did you come so young?”

“Ooh bad question to ask so early on, Perce.” Thalia cringed.

“Yeah, found that out quick.”

She twisted the ring on her necklace. “None of your business.”

“Oh.” I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. “So…I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?”

“It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D’s or Chiron’s permission. But they wouldn’t give permission until the end of the summer session unless…”

“Unless?”

“You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time…”

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn’t gone well.

“Back in the sick room,” I said, “when you were feeding me that stuff—”

“Ambrosia.”

“Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice.”

Annabeth’s shoulders tensed. “So you do know something?”

“Well…no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn’t have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?”

She clenched her fists. “I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won’t tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal.”

“Yeah, too normal.” Annabeth whispered.

“You’ve been to Olympus?”

“Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others— we took a field trip during winter solstice. That’s when the gods have their big annual council.”

“But…how did you get there?”

“The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor.” She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. “You are a New Yorker, right?”

“Oof, I can feel the disbelief and I wasn’t even there during this.” Thalia smirked.

“Oh, sure.” As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.

“We really should’ve just shown you the orientation film, huh?” Grover said.

“Would’ve surely helped some.”

“Right after we visited,” Annabeth continued, “the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I’ve overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn’t returned by summer solstice, there’s going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping…I mean—Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she’s got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something.”

I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.

“Ah yes, and a hungry Percy is a terrible privilege to deal with. Add on tired and you have basically a monster to wrangle.” Annabeth sniggered.

“Hey!”

“I’ve got to get a quest,” Annabeth muttered to herself. “I’m not too young. If they would just tell me the problem…”

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must’ve heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she’d catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

[line break]

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

“Found you a sleeping bag,” he said. “And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store.”

I couldn’t tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

“He wasn’t.”

“I figured.”

I said, “Thanks.”

“No prob.” Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. “Tough first day?”

“I don’t belong here,” I said. “I don’t even believe in gods.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn’t get any easier.”

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

The campers huffed; it had taken them too long to notice something was wrong at camp. Thalia in particular was taking hearing about Luke quite hard. He was so different from what she remembered him to be.

“So your dad is Hermes?” I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. “Yeah. Hermes.”

“The wing-footed messenger guy.”

“That’s a new one.” Hermes snorted.

“That’s him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That’s why you’re here, enjoying cabin eleven’s hospitality. Hermes isn’t picky about who he sponsors.”

I figured Luke didn’t mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

“You ever meet your dad?” I asked.

“Once.”

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he’d tell me. Apparently, he didn’t. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they’re mostly good people. After all, we’re extended family, right? We take care of each other.”

The campers were getting annoyed with this part. Luke sure knew how to make everything seem fine and dandy.

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should’ve steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He’d even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

It was starting to become clear why Percy had taken Luke’s turning as badly as the others. He had clearly looked up to the guy only to have him be everything he believed him not to be.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. “Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being ‘Big Three’ material. Then Annabeth…twice, she said I might be ‘the one.’ She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?”

Luke folded his knife. “I hate prophecies.”

“Don’t we all.” Percy moaned getting nods of agreement from the other campers.

At the nods, Apollo gained a look of hurt. He could understand there mindsets though, prophecies for demigods tend to be more negative than positive.

“What do you mean?”

His face twitched around the scar. “Let’s just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn’t allowed any more quests. Annabeth’s been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He’d had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn’t tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn’t destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until…somebody special came to the camp.”

“Somebody special?”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Luke said. “Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she’s been waiting for. Now, come on, it’s dinnertime.”

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I’d never heard one before.

“Can you do that with anything involving the sea?” Travis asked.

“Haven’t found anything I don’t seem to just seemingly know.” Percy shrugged.

“Cool!”

Luke yelled, “Eleven, fall in!”

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods—and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven’s was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

“Hey, why aren’t we allowed to sit anywhere? Wouldn’t that at least solve one space issue?” Percy asked.

“It’s just always been like that.” Annabeth shrugged. She had similar thoughts long ago.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

At the mention Hephaestus paused in his tinkering and pulled out a journal and began sketching a new design, a determined glint appearing in his eyes.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares’s table. She’d apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. “To the gods!”

Everybody else raised their glasses. “To the gods!”

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, “Speak to it. Whatever you want—nonalcoholic, of course.”

I said, “Cherry Coke.”

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. “Blue Cherry Coke.”

Annabeth snorted, “Of course you did.”

Percy turned to her with a smile and playful eyes.

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

Sally let out a sigh, her son apparently was going to take the loss of her to her for a while.

Hera also let out a minute sigh, she wished she could have the devotion from her sons like this demigod had for his mother. Alas she had not been blessed with such a relationship with any one of her children. Hera was so wrapped up in her longing that she never took into account her actions in the relationship she possesses with her children.

She’s not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She’s in the Underworld. And if that’s a real place, then someday…

“Here you go, Percy,” Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

“Come on,” Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

“Percy, your thoughts are making me hungry again!” cried Travis.

Sorry! I’m making myself hungry too man.”

Luke murmured in my ear, “Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell.”

“You’re kidding.”

“It does smell fantastic.” Apollo mused.

“Yes, but you can’t live off of the fumes alone like you and wings here were dumb enough to try.” Artemis drolled.

“Was interesting to try. Made the return to nectar and ambrosia all that much better.” Hermes shrugged.

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn’t help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food. Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. “Hermes.”

I was next.

I wished I knew what god’s name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.

‘I will.’ The Sea God swore.

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn’t gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn’t have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

“Not for a lack of trying.” Apollo grumbled crossing his arms across his chest.

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. “Yes, I suppose I’d better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels.”

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

“Personally,” Mr. D continued, “I couldn’t care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson.”

Chiron murmured something.

“Er, Percy Jackson,” Mr. D corrected. “That’s right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on.”

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo’s cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s’mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn’t feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

All the campers let out a longing sigh. They all missed how simple it used to be, before all the Titan drama started.

Sally felt solemn, this was why she was hesitant to send Percy to camp. She feared every year would be the last time he would decide to come home to her. Taking in a breath she presses on hoping to finish up to get a moment to herself.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn’t realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur’s horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I’d known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

At the last line she read Sally looked to her son hoping for an explanation. Afterall, she didn’t know what happened after she had been taken by Lord Hades.

Unfortunately, her son wasn’t forthcoming with an answer he just motioned to the book in her hands.

‘Well, guess we’ll find out.’

“Who’d like to go next?” Sally offered out the book.

“I’ll do it Ms. Jackson!” Travis waved his hand out.

“Please be serious when you read Trav…” Annabeth warned him.

“Why, Annabeth, it’s like you don’t think I can!” Travis faked his hurt.

“Dear Annie, my bro is the most serious of serious!” Connor played along.

Chris just shook his head at his brothers, he knew they could be serious, but di immortales does this group need some tension breaking.

“Here you go honey.” Sally smiled to the son of Hermes who grabbed the book beaming.

Chapter Text

We Capture a Flag

“Yay! Action again!” Travis cheers.

“Fighting, excellent.” Ares smirks.

The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don’t count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.

“Ah yes, the camp experience every child imagines.” Rachel smiles.

“Imagination is a wonderful thing.” Percy muses. “Death boy over there felt like camp was a dream come true.”

“Quiet, Kelp head!”

Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn’t that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.

“You read many books now.” Annabeth beams.

“Well, I did have help.” Percy smirks.

The rest of the day, I’d rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at. Chiron tried to teach me archery, but we found out pretty quick I wasn’t any good with a bow and arrow. He didn’t complain, even when he had to de-snag a stray arrow out of his tail.

“Ah, right. None of my children can use a bow effectively.” Poseidon cringes rubbing his neck.

“I’ve actually had a great shot once.” Percy shrugs causing everyone to look to him in disbelief. Well, everyone other than Annabeth, Grover and Nico.

“It was quite a shot.” Grover reminisces, the other three nodding along at the memory.

Connor decided to continue reading, breaking the stunned silence.

Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They’d had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.

At that point snorts ring out at the image.

And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.

Ares hummed in approval at his daughter’s feat.

“There’s more where that came from, punk,” she’d mumble in my ear.

The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn’t the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

“Dude you didn’t just excel at canoeing, you basically flew across the water.” Chris deadpanned.

“Seriously, how did it take us so long to figure out his parent?” Clarisse whined.

Unsurprisingly nobody had an answer for her.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren’t having an easy time of it. I wasn’t as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn’t have Hephaestus’s skill with metalwork or—gods forbid—Dionysus’s way with vine plants. Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack of-all-trades, master of none. But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn’t know what to make of me either.

“Man, no wonder it hit you so hard after that quest.” Travis paused in his reading.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nico asked, after all he doesn’t know how the war really started.

“Percy was new to camp, and everybody was basically ignoring him. Only Luke was decent to him and gave him the time of day. I mean I know from our cabin Percy didn’t talk to anyone unless he had to. Annabeth only taught him because she was told to; Grover, I don’t doubt he would have hung out with Percy, but he was busy with satyr stuff he missed while at the school, not to mention he was already in trouble with the council.” Travis explained shocking everyone with how well thought out it was.

At that explanation, the campers had cringe at the memories. They had really only started to interact with Percy after his quest had finished.

Meanwhile, Percy was tuning out the conversation and was getting comfortable lounging next to his mom and Annabeth. He knew Annabeth was sorry, he figured that out easily during the quest, but he could easily admit that life at camp could have been more pleasant.

Seeing the forcefully neutral faces of basically everyone, there were those few gods who clearly didn’t care with the drama, Travis picked up where he left off.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I’d always had, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back.…

At that Sally let out a harsh sigh. Her boy was amazing, of course he was, but with thoughts like that he was setting himself up for disappointment.

I started to understand Luke’s bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn’t they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn’t my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?

Poseidon stifled a whine. Why was it taking him so long to claim his son? Was the stupid argument with Zeus really taking up so much of his time?

The Lord of the Underworld was observing his brother who was deep in thought. He was just as confused as the Sea god. In the past Poseidon had always claimed his children within days.

Thursday afternoon, three days after I’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

“Ooh yes, I never saw this, but I heard it was awesome!” Grover cheered causing Percy to smile at his friend.

“Definitely surprised everyone who had been there.” Chris smirked.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

The problem was, I couldn’t find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

“Really?” Travis asked, it hadn’t looked like that was the issue when he saw Percy fight initially.

“Yup, has to do with needing a weapon forged in the sea.” Percy explained, his father nodding along with him.

“It’s something all my children have struggled with. I’m sure the other gods’ children have similar problems.” The Sea god stated.

“No kidding, I could use any sword at camp, but once I got mine from the Underworld, I couldn’t use any other as well.” Nico said.

“Makes sense I suppose.” Sally mused.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.

“Doubt that was the reason…” Annabeth mumbled, still hurting at the thought of Luke.

“Good luck,” one of the campers told me. “Luke’s the best swordsman in the last three hundred years.”

“That’s my boy!” Hermes cheered, oblivious to the expressions on the camper’s faces.

“Not anymore.” Chris said softly, “That’s Percy now.”

That brought a smile to Poseidon’s face. The Sea god had been watching the campers rather closely, more so than the other gods and seemed to notice the avoidance of anything to do with this particular son of Hermes, Luke. He assumed there was a reason, but knowing how the children have been this far, they wouldn’t be telling until it was read.

Hermes on the other hand had a playful pout on his face at the information, but let it drop quickly. He was excited to hear about his son. He wondered why Luke wasn’t in the group here though.

Travis had seen the happiness on his father’s face and was worried about how he would be at the end of the first book. Everyone at camp knew what Luke had done to Percy, but the Hermes of this time? Well, he held out hope for Luke. With a heavy sigh Travis pressed on.

“Maybe he’ll go easy on me,” I said.

The camper snorted.

Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. “Keep your guard up, Percy,” he’d say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. “No, not that far up!” Whap! “Lunge!” Whap! “Now, back!” Whap!

“Those stung real bad, let me tell ya.” Percy reflected.

“Oh please. After all you’ve been through, that’s nothing!” Annabeth said slapping her boyfriend’s arm.

“Hey!” he cried, “Didn’t mean it didn’t hurt!”

“Percy everything after this was worse than some sword slaps.”

“You’re right, but still!”

“Mount St. Helens.” She deadpanned causing all the children to look at Percy wide-eyed. They knew it erupted, but they didn’t know Percy was behind it.

All the stares caused Percy to flush scarlet; he just didn’t get why they were so surprised. ‘It’s not like I’m all that powerful.’ He was just trying to avoid looking towards his mom, who he knew was beyond scared at that admittance.

Percy hastily motioned in Travis’ face and got him reading again.

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.

“That explains a lot.”

“But it’s not sea water?” Chris said confused.

“All water helps me in some way. The only difference is for how long.” Percy shrugged not understanding the confusion.

The gods were all shocked, this demigod was a powerful one. How he didn’t realize they had no idea. Poseidon was just amazed; he had never had a demigod child like Percy. How Percy had the abilities he does made no sense.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn’t feel so awkward.

“Okay, everybody circle up!” Luke ordered. “If Percy doesn’t mind, I want to give you a little demo.”

Great, I thought. Let’s all watch Percy get pounded.

Snorts rang out from the campers.

“Perce, I don’t think you’ve ever been truly beaten in a fight.” Grover said.

Hearing that Percy had to wince. Percy has had plenty of moments where he had been, the Chimera and Echidna from this quest alone was bad enough. He had never even told Grover or Annabeth about that.

Poseidon had seen his son’s wince and began to worry once again.

The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they’d been in my shoes before and couldn’t wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy’s blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

“A good move, doubt the brat can do it though.” Ares snickered at his own comment.

The War god was so lost in himself that he never noticed the campers amusement. They were eager to see how the god would react.

“This is difficult,” he stressed. “I’ve had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique.”

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

“Now in real time,” he said, after I’d retrieved my weapon. “We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?”

The campers started to get antsy at the thought of the spar. Percy’s descriptions were so detailed that they knew it would be a good read.

I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.

You could feel the excitement in the room rise as the fight went on. The campers were struggling to sit still, and the gods were trying to hide their intrigue.

Sally was trying to be as nonchalant as possible. It helped that Chiron had been softly explaining to her how somethings were conducted at Camp Half-Blood. She would have been a complete wreck otherwise. Sally knew it was going to be extremely difficult once they get to her son’s quests, but nevertheless she would try and be strong. Afterall her son was the one who loved them, she would be there to support him however she could.

The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn’t right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, What the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

My blade hit the base of Luke’s and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang.

Luke’s sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.

The gods were all silent with shock. A demigod managing to disarm someone so easily, on his first try!

Everyone was quiet until Apollo suddenly burst out giggling.

“Lo-look at ah-!” the Sun god struggled to get out and easily pointed to Ares laughter getting stronger.

Turning to the War god, the other couldn’t help but start laughing as well. Seeing said god with his mouth gaping and eyes wide was a hilarious picture.

The only ones who weren’t joining the laughter was Hera and Zeus. The former struggling to console her son, who really wasn’t even giving her the time of day; while the latter was sulking and wanting to curse this spawn of his brother.

It took a while, but eventually everyone managed to calm down enough for the reading to continue.

The other campers were silent.

I lowered my sword. “Um, sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing! That was awesome!” Nico yelled.

Percy shrugged, “Habit.”

Everyone gritted their teeth at the subtle reminder of Gabe.

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

“We all were.” Chris commented.

“Sorry?” His scarred face broke into a grin. “By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!”

I didn’t want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, “Beginner’s luck?”

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised me with an entirely new interest. “Maybe,” he said. “But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword.…”

“The impossible…” Nico said a hint of awe clear in his voice. He easily remembered Percy defeating his father’s army at the River Styx, not to mention during the final battle.

The other campers were nodding along quickly agreeing, even Clarisse though a bit reluctantly. They did say Percy was the strongest of them for a reason, whether he believed it or not.

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a neardeath experience on the climbing wall. Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.

“Ah yes, the great goat boy pretty much flew up that wall.” Percy sniggered others following while Grover blushed.

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.

“Thanks for asking, Perce.” Grover said getting a smile from his best friend.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.

“Fine,” he said. “Just great.”

“So your career’s still on track?”

He glanced at me nervously. “Chiron t-told you I want a searcher’s license?”

“Well…no.” I had no idea what a searcher’s license was, but it didn’t seem like the right time to ask. “He just said you had big plans, you know… and that you needed credit for completing a keeper’s assignment. So did you get it?”

“It was nice of you to ask.” Annabeth said squeezing Percy’s hand.

Grover looked down at the naiads. “Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn’t failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he’d consider the job complete.”

My spirits lifted. “Well, that’s not so bad, right?”

“Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest…and even if you did, why would you want me along?”

“Gotta have my Red Baron as back up!” Percy grinned ruffling Grover’s curls.

“You know, I’ve always wondered where that particular nickname came from.” Thalia mentioned.

“Oh! Yeah, that’s this quest.” Percy smiled.

“Of course I’d want you along!”

Grover stared glumly into the water. “Basket-weaving…Must be nice to have a useful skill.”

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

“Pros and cons?” Athena sneered.

“Well, you have to admit there are positives and negatives to each godly parent.” Percy shrugged.

“True, like how I may have wisdom, but if a spider is anywhere near me, I’m useless.” Annabeth agreed.

“Yup. Like how I may have water powers, but I can’t fly because Zeus won’t allow me to be a few feet off the ground.” Percy added.

“Yeah… that’s just messed up since Nico and I can go to the beach with no problems.” Thalia whined.

“I’ve never felt the need to bring my brother’s children problems. My issues are with them not the children.” Poseidon shrugged, he was known as one of the more laid back gods for a reason.

“Huh.”

“Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis,” he said. “She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn’t have one, she’d be mad.”

“No, it’s for my hunters.” Artemis grumbled.

“Percy still didn’t know much about the gods, milady.” Thalia explained.

“Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?”

Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. “No. One of them, number two, is Hera’s,” he said. “That’s another honorary thing. She’s the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn’t go around having affairs with mortals. That’s her husband’s job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos.”

“Zeus, Poseidon, Hades.”

“That’s risky, boy.” Hephaestus stated startling everyone. The inventor had been pretty silent up until now.

“Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what.”

“Zeus got the sky,” I remembered. “Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How was that even decided?” Annabeth wondered.

“We drew cards.” Hades grumbled. He always thought it had been a stupid way to decide.

“Seriously?!” Percy exclaimed.

Poseidon and Hades nodded; Hestia added her own input.

“It wasn’t the best way, but we honestly had no other ideas of how to choose.” She explained.

“But Hades doesn’t have a cabin here.”

“There’s one now.” Nico grinned. Hades looked to his son amazed.

“Really?” the Silent One asked.

Nico hummed and pointed at Percy.

“Kelp head got more cabins introduced to camp after the war.”

Percy tried not to shrink under the looks he was receiving, “It was needed.”

“No. He doesn’t have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here…” Grover shuddered. “Well, it wouldn’t be pleasant. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I apologize Lord Hades; my previous experiences were not the best.” Grover explained.

The Lord of the Underworld waved off the satyr, “It’s fine, makes perfect sense why you would believe that way.”

“But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?”

“A bazillion?” Annabeth giggled.

“Oh hush, you know what I meant.”

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. “About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn’t sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx.”

“More like I was forced, even though I rarely had demigod children.” Hades sneered.

“It was more baby brother than me, you know that.” Poseidon shrugged, “I’ve had fewer demigods than he has.”

Thunder boomed.

“Dramatic much?”

The smell of ozone started to permeate the room at Zeus’ irritation.

“Oh relax, otherwise you’ll be irritated the entire time we’re here.” Hades chided.

I said, “That’s the most serious oath you can make.”

Grover nodded.

“And the brothers kept their word—no kids?”

“Of course, they didn’t!” Hera snarked, she was appalled with the other gods.

Grover’s face darkened. “Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo—he just couldn’t help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia…well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he’s immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter.”

“Yeah, thanks Dad.” Thalia grimaced. Life had been rough for her, she wondered how bad it would have been if Jason was alive.

Zeus was looking to his daughter concerned. Thalia didn’t like being his daughter? ‘I guess I could have done more for her…’

“But that isn’t fair! It wasn’t the little girl’s fault.”

“Thanks Percy.”

Grover hesitated. “Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn’t too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she’d befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill.”

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I’d fought the minotaur. “All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a hoard of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn’t want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That’s why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill.”

“Grover that was never your fault. I made the decision to stay.” Thalia said.

“Doesn’t make it any less hard to accept.” The satyr mumbled looking down at his hands.

I stared at the pine in the distance.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn’t seem like much. I wondered, if I’d acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

“Jeez Percy, you couldn’t have done anything different.” Thalia griped.

The son of the Sea god just shrugged; he’d always felt like he could have done better.

“Grover,” I said, “have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?”

“Man, already?” Clarisse asked.

“Had nothing better to really think about.”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini.”

“And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?”

“No. Never. Orpheus came close.…Percy, you’re not seriously thinking —”

“No,” I lied. “I was just wondering. So…a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?”

Grover studied me warily. I hadn’t persuaded him that I’d really dropped the Underworld idea. “Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems.”

“And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special.”

Grover looked as if I’d just led him into a trap. “I didn’t…Oh, listen, don’t think like that. If you were—you know—you’d never ever be allowed a quest, and I’d never get my license. You’re probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don’t worry, okay?”

I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.

“I was.” Grover confirmed.

“Was pretty obvious, G-man.”

That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

“Finally!” Ares celebrated.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar’s head.

I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, “Those are the flags?”

“Yeah.”

“Ares and Athena always lead the teams?”

“Not always,” he said. “But often.”

This caused the two gods to smirk with pride, they were war gods after all.

“So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do—repaint the flag?”

He grinned. “You’ll see. First we have to get one.”

“Whose side are we on?”

He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn’t. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. “We’ve made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help.”

“Mhmm, help sure.” Percy groaned.

“Sorry…” Annabeth cringed.

“It’s fine Wise girl, worked out for the best.”

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded —shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I’d seen, Dionysus’s kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter’s kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff, but they weren’t very aggressive. Aphrodite’s sons and daughters I wasn’t too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Hephaestus’s kids weren’t pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares’s cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

One by one the gods and goddesses smiled at the description of their children.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.

“Heroes!” he announced. “You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!”

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, ox-hide shields coated in metal.

“Whoa,” I said. “We’re really supposed to use these?”

Luke looked at me as if I were crazy.

“Man seeing real weapons was such a shock.” Percy mused.

“I bet.” Rachel agreed, “Kinda like how I was at the Hoover dam.”

“You’re never gonna let that go are you?”

“Nope.”

“Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You’ll be on border patrol.”

“Border patrol. Sure that’s what it was.”

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena’s side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.

Annabeth yelled, “Blue team, forward!”

We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.

I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. “Hey.”

She kept marching.

“Harsh, Annie.” Thalia muttered.

“Yeah, we didn’t have a great start.” Annabeth mused, “Sorry Seaweed Brain.”

“Eh. You got better.”

“So what’s the plan?” I asked. “Got any magic items you can loan me?”

Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I’d stolen something.

“You totally thought I was a Hermes kid for a second, huh?”

“The thought had been there.”

“Just watch Clarisse’s spear,” she said. “You don’t want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don’t worry. We’ll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?”

“Ooh right, sorry Clarisse.”

“Whatever Prissy.” The War daughter waved him off. She already knew this wasn’t going to end well for her.

“Border patrol, whatever that means.”

“It’s easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan.”

“Uh huh. What a plan.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“I know, I know.”

She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “Glad you wanted me on your team.”

Annabeth grimaced, it was definitely a rough start for the couple.

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Annabeth stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.

Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I’d tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.

There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?

“I still absolutely love your sarcasm, Percy!” Apollo grinned.

“It is one of my better aspects.” Said boy played along.

Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

Great, I thought. I’ll miss all the fun, as usual.

Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

“Wait. It was already there?!” Annabeth cried.

“Apparently. I’d honestly forgotten about that.”

“What is it?!” Poseidon asked worried.

Annabeth just motioned to Travis to read again.

I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.

Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.

“Cream the punk!” Clarisse screamed.

“Miss. La Rue.” Chiron looked to Clarisse disappointment clear.

The daughter of Ares hunched down in her seat, “Sorry Chiron.”

Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made me feel any better.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.

“Ha like you’d be able to do that brat!” Ares arrogantly sneered not noticing the look on his daughter’s face at the memory.

I managed to sidestep the first kid’s swing, but these guys were not as stupid the Minotaur. They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back.

“Well, it is the best thing to use against you Water boy.” Thalia chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Pinecone Face.”

Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.

They could’ve kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

“Give him a haircut,” Clarisse said. “Grab his hair.”

“No! Not the hair!” Connor cried.

“What?!” Percy was so confused.

“Dude, your hair is like magnificent!”

“He’s not wrong. It is rather great; you’d look weird if it was different.” Annabeth gave him a once over.

“Uh, okay.”

I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.

“Oh, wow,” Clarisse said. “I’m scared of this guy. Really scared.”

“The flag is that way,” I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn’t come out that way.

“You gave away the flag!?” Annabeth yelled.

“It didn’t say I pointed the correct way! Besides the Ares campers didn’t care!”

“That is true, we were more bothered by the bathroom incident.” Clarisse reluctantly confirmed.

“Yeah,” one of her siblings said. “But see, we don’t care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid.”

“You do that without my help,” I told them.

“Ooh burn!” Apollo cheered.

“Really a sun joke?” Artemis groaned.

“That wasn’t intentional, but that makes it that much better!”

It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say.

“You don’t say.”

Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn’t been wearing an armored breastplate, I would’ve been shish-kebabbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.

“Seems I need to have a discussion with your cabin Clarisse.” Chiron said.

“We don’t normally do this. We just got pissed at Percy. You know we’re not good with anger.” She explained.

“Nevertheless, a refresher is needed.”

Seeing my own blood made me dizzy—warm and cold at the same time.

“No maiming,” I managed to say.

“Oops,” the guy said. “Guess I lost my dessert privilege.”

“WHAT?!” Sally screamed.

“I assure you, Sally that is not the punishment for maiming.” Chiron tried to calm her, “That consequence is for when the campers are bound up after being disarmed.”

Sally was taking deep breaths while trying to remember that this had just been an exercise. Her son was completely fine.

He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I’d just had a bag of my mom’s double-espresso jelly beans.

Poseidon gained a smug grin on his face. These kids were in for it now.

Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do.

“Woah, you just instinctively know to fight?” Connor asked.

“I don’t know why. Any fight I’ve had I just followed by instincts.” Percy answered.

“Percy does have some of the best reflexes I’ve ever seen in my years.” Chiron mused.

I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy’s head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy’s horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn’t look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

“Ooh not good.”

“Yeah why do you think she and I stay away from each other basically always?”

“Ah!” she screamed. “You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!”

She probably would’ve said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.

“Impressive kid.” Dionysus said. He was starting to like this demigod. He so rarely paid attention to the games other than his sons either way, so to hear about his uncle’s son do that was interesting.

Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team’s banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.

“A trick!” she shouted. “It was a trick.”

“A good plan, daughter.” Athena praised Annabeth who shrugged.

It was technically a good plan, not that she was that proud of it anymore.

They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over. We’d won.

I was about to join the celebration when Annabeth’s voice, right next to me in the creek, said, “Not bad, hero.”

I looked, but she wasn’t there.

“Ah yes, a rather ingenious artifact.” Chiron smiled causing Athena to preen slightly; not that anyone noticed.

“Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?” she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she’d just taken it off her head.

I felt myself getting angry.

“Oh no, Percy’s angry again.”

I wasn’t even fazed by the fact that she’d just been invisible. “You set me up,” I said. “You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out.”

Annabeth shrugged. “I told you. Athena always, always has a plan.”

“A plan to get me pulverized.”

“Yeah, not the greatest of my plans.” Annabeth frowned.

“You’ve had better ones.”

“Shh!”

“I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but…” She shrugged. “You didn’t need help.”

Then she noticed my wounded arm. “How did you do that?”

“Sword cut,” I said. “What do you think?”

“No. It was a sword cut. Look at it.”

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.

“Woah, that’s wicked.” The Stoll brothers say.

“It can heal you?” some of the campers ask.

“Yeah. Water for me is pretty fantastic.” Percy explained, “It heals, it energizes me, I can control it…”

“Dude, do you even know all your powers?” Chris wondered.

“Um no. I mean there have been something that have only ever happened once so I’m not 100% sure.”

As the Sea son spoke some of the gods were growing more and more concerned. Just how strong is this demigod and why?

“I—I don’t get it,” I said.

Annabeth was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse’s broken spear, and said, “Step out of the water, Percy.”

“Ah, now she gets it.”

“What—”

“Just do it.”

I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.

“Right, that is a side effect if it’s not ocean water.” Percy scratched his neck.

“Not an awful one though.”

“True.”

“Oh, Styx,” she cursed. “This is not good. I didn’t want…I assumed it would be Zeus.…”

“Uh, why?” Hermes questioned.

“Well, we already knew about Thalia. Nico wasn’t brought to our attention until later and even then, he was born before the oath.”

“Makes sense I guess.”

Before I could ask what she meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

“Oh no, not this.” Percy winced; his mom was not going to like this part. He was proven correct when he was crushed to her as she clutched him in a hug.

The campers’ cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: “Stand ready! My bow!”

Annabeth drew her sword.

There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

“A hellhound!” Poseidon howled, “How even?”

“It’ll be explained later Dad.” Percy said pulling his father’s focus to him. Apparently, that settled the Sea god as he nodded and leaned back in his seat.

It was looking straight at me.

“Of course, it was.” Poseidon groused while Sally clutched her son tighter.

Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, “Percy, run!”

She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hound’s neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.

Sally let out a small whimper as Percy tried to soothe her.

“Mom, I was fine. I got healed soon after I promise.”

She relented her grip some, but still waited for confirmation of this.

By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn’t want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would’ve turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.

“Eww, why Percy?”

“Sorry!”

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

“Di immortales!” Annabeth said. “That’s a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don’t…they’re not supposed to…”

“Someone summoned it,” Chiron said. “Someone inside the camp.”

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yelled, “It’s all Percy’s fault! Percy summoned it!”

“Oh, and he ordered it to attack him?!” Nico shrieked.

“I was upset about that fight and my spear okay! I knew it wasn’t him!”

“Be quiet, child,” Chiron told her.

We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

“You’re wounded,” Annabeth told me. “Quick, Percy, get in the water.”

“I’m okay.”

“No, you were not!” Sally wailed.

“Yeah, not my best response.” Percy blanched.

“No, you’re not,” she said. “Chiron, watch this.”

I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.

Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.

“Look, I—I don’t know why,” I said, trying to apologize. “I’m sorry.…”

But they weren’t watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.

“Ah finally you’re claiming him brother.” Hades drawled.

“Took me long enough.”

“Well, you do have a flair for the dramatic.”

The Sea god was so absorbed in the moment he didn’t even hear his elder brother’s comment.

“Percy,” Annabeth said, pointing. “Um…”

By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.

“Your father,” Annabeth murmured. “This is really not good.”

“In multiple ways. Huh, Annie?” Thalia joked.

“Quit it Thals!”

“It is determined,” Chiron announced.

All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn’t look happy about it.

“My father?” I asked, completely bewildered.

“Poseidon,” said Chiron. “Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”

“Woah, those are some awesome titles.” Travis breathed once he finished reading.

“Cool thing is Percy taps into all of those titles.” Annabeth beamed while Percy just blushed.

Unfortunately, that statement brought more worry to the gods and goddesses.

Seeing this, and the still worried look on Sally’s face Hestia clapped her hands getting everyone’s attention.

“Well, why don’t we take a quick break?”

Chapter Text

Interlude II

“Stormbringer? That brings up a standout memory for me.” Connor nudged Percy.

“Let’s not talk about that just yet man.”

“Hey, you ever do anything that falls into ‘Earthshaker’, Prissy?” Clarisse questions.

“Um, I honestly have no idea.” Percy answers looking to Annabeth for help. Unfortunately, she just shakes her head; she can’t remember a time if he ever did.

“Well, we all know he can talk to horses.” The daughter of Athena offers.

“That one freaked me out the most, honestly. Suddenly hearing someone else talking to you in your head? Talk about a surprise.” Percy said, “Didn’t help that it happened when we were in a tight spot.”

“Huh?” Grover looked over confused.

“Vegas.”

“Oh, right.”

On the other side of the room the gods were sitting around each other taking in all that they had heard so far from the story. Some were intrigued, others didn’t care, some were worried, the others just didn’t care. It wasn’t hard to tell who thought what just looking at the immortals.

Finally, it was Hades who was the one to break the silence.

“You know, you have always had a flare for dramatic entrances brother-mine.” The Silent One states, “It makes sense that you would wait for the perfect time to claim the boy.”

“Oh hush, at least I’m not as dramatic as this one.” Poseidon snarks waving a hand in Zeus’ direction.

At that the smell of ozone intensified and crackling could be heard from the sparks appearing on the god’s hands.

“Oh, let it go brother, you’re just proving his point.” Hestia placated the Lightning God.

“Hmph. Well, I have to say that boy of yours is too powerful, Poseidon! He needs to be contained!” the god boomed.

The ground quaked some as the Earthshaker grew angry, “You shall leave my son alone! I have never, never done anything to your children, demigod or otherwise, so stay away from mine! I have no ideas as to why my son is as powerful and capable as he is, but there must be a reason. Afterall the Fates brought us here to listen to his story.”

As he talked the rumbling had seized, but the look in his eyes intimidated his brother more. It seemed that maybe Zeus was starting to use his brain and think. However, everyone knew it would take quite a while for the Sky God to fully accept the Fates’ reasons.

Hestia jumped in between the pair and was quick to break up the fight.

“Why don’t we table all these thoughts for later and join the others? I’m sure some of us gods would like to interact with them.” The Hearth Goddess said.

Reluctantly nodding the brothers separated and joined those who had set out to look for the rest of the group. They surprisingly found them in the kitchen where upon entrance they found the children either watching or helping Sally make cookies. Those watching were all laughing at Percy who was being playfully scolded for eating the dough when his mother wasn’t looking. He had clearly been caught considering how he had the bowl in his hand and a spoon stuck in his mouth, eyes wide.

“C’mon mom, you know I can’t help it!” Percy whined.

“Well, I need the dough to make enough for everyone Percy!” Sally said laughing. “You know there’s already some finished baking.”

She motioned to the counter where a plate piled high with blue cookies was present.

“Yeah, but the dough is the best part!”

“He does speak the truth, Sally.” Thalia said snagging her own spoonful out of the bowl.

“Hey!” Percy cried clutching the bowl to his chest turning sideways.

“This is true.” Nico agreed from Percy’s other side scooping some as well.

“Hey!”

“Share, Seaweed Brain!” Annabeth yelled snatching the bowl out of her boyfriend’s hands.

“Annabeth!”

Sally could help but laugh along with the rest of the group as the four fought over possession of the cookie dough.

Hestia was glowing at the scene; this is what the gods need a touch of. This group was a family, that much was obvious.

Poseidon had entered the room and was basking in the happy energy of the room. While the group had been watching the four tussle he had zoned in on the plate of cookies and snagged one. Taking a large bite, he groaned loudly causing everyone to look at him.

“What?” he muttered, “I missed these!”

Percy was quick to run over and snag his own cookie, joining his father. The duo couldn’t have looked more alike as they had the exact same face of delight.

Like a wave, the campers reigned in on the treats, thankfully leaving some for the gods as well. Of course, the other gods just had to see what all the fuss was about and grabbed some for themselves.

“Oh, this is almost as fantastic as ambrosia.” Apollo sighed.

“If I could live off these alone I totally would.” Hermes said dazed.

“Ah, I can understand the boy’s reasoning now. These are delightful.” Artemis complemented.

Additional murmurs of praise rang out from the rest of the gods, even those who had so far been less than friendly to the mortals.

Sally stood deeply flushing at all the complements; Afterall, it wasn’t every day you heard multiple gods think so highly of something.

Eventually, and much to the dismay of everybody, the cookies were finished, and the group had relocated back to the room.

“Okay, so we can read a few more chapters before calling it a day.” Hestia beamed still high off of the positive feelings in the room, “Now, who would like to read next?”

Surprisingly, it was Hephaestus who reached for the book.

“I will Aunt Hestia.” The God of Fire said opening to the next section. He was intrigued to see what would happen next, it seemed pretty interesting so far. And maybe these children really would change things.

Chapter Text

I am Offered a Quest

“Wow that’s quick huh?” Hephaestus comments once he notices the title.

The comment brings out looks of confusion to which the blacksmith is quick to read out the title. He didn’t want to deal with the unnecessary explanations.

Once read sounds of understanding rang out while the campers all seemed to just nod at the memories.

The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.

I didn’t have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur’s horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call “lights out” whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

“Sounds awesome.” Connor grinned.

“Definitely.” His brother added.

And I was absolutely miserable.

“Why? It’s like every kids dream cabin experience?!” Travis moaned.

“Yeah, no definitely not great.” Percy mused.

Just when I’d started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you’re a half-blood—I’d been separated out as if I had some rare disease.

“Oh.”

Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

“Yeah, the rumors surrounding that incident were not off to the greatest start for Percy.” Chris grimaced.

“My cabin had some unsavory ones, that’s for sure.” Clarisse added, “Prissy getting a quest definitely didn’t help things.”

The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I’d done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn’t afraid to bruise me up in the process.

“I do wonder why he got so much tougher.” Percy wondered, “It just didn’t make sense.”

“What are you talking about?” Annabeth muttered.

Percy took a look around and thankfully none of the gods were paying the couple any attention.

“Think about it, if he wanted to get me on Kronos’ side, wouldn’t he have tried to get closer to me? I mean I understand making sure I can fight of course, but from the get-go? It makes no sense.” He whispered in her ear.

“Hmm, food for thought I guess.” She replied focusing back onto the story.

“You’re going to need all the training you can get,” he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. “Now let’s try that viper- beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions.”

Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I’d just poked her between the eyes.

“Ah yes, the great Annabeth scowl!” Thalia joked, “That was the cutest when you were little!”

“Thals, don’t say that!” Annabeth whined covering her blushing face.

“But you thought it made you look all intimidating! More like an angry puppy, Annie.” The daughter of Zeus said smiling wide causing snickers and giggles to be heard no matter how hard people tried to muffle it.

Percy was quick to pull his girlfriend to him preventing her from charging Thalia.

“You’re a cute puppy, Wise Girl.” the Son of Poseidon mumbled kissing her softly, much to the displeasure of her mother. That unsurprisingly got the girl to quiet down, but she was quick to smile at him.

“Better a puppy than a guinea pig.” Annabeth smirked, causing Percy to start grumbling at the reminder of the humiliating event.

“Guinea pig?” Clarisse beamed, “That’s interesting, I vaguely remember somewhere having a large number of-”

“LET’S KEEP READING!” Percy jumped in stopping the War daughter.

Hephaestus happily continued reading.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: “Quest… Poseidon?…Dirty rotten…Got to make a plan…”

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I’d rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

“Really, Prissy?”

“It was some type of interaction…” Percy shrugged. “Everyone was ignoring or avoiding me unless they were made to. The only one who freely hung out was Grover, but he was busy with the counsel and Chiron was teaching like all the time.”

At that the campers had cringed in remembrance. It was true, once claimed they had taken to avoiding the son of the Sea for some reason or another, all of which were dumb reasons anyways.

I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.