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M ay Castellan is the first woman Hermes ever truly loves.

He’d thought of love, before that, time and time again. He had yearned for countless goddesses–Athena, of course, being the most notable of them–had chased after thousands of nymphs and mortals drunk on a heady lust he’d called love. 

There is something about her, something warm and inviting and knowing. Something that reminds him of his mother, in a way, and of Athena, in another. He falls in love in the same manner that he does everything else; rapidly, destructively. He doesn’t think of the consequences, not of the child he will surely sire or the way the future called to May. She is a brightly shining star, blinding him to the rest of the galaxy. 

Some myths had told tall tales of Hermes taking for himself a wife; a beautiful daughter of Aphrodite. Peitho had thought them as ridiculous as he had. Neither of them had ever truly loved each other, but she was beautiful and he was powerful and that was enough, from time to time. The first time he ever thinks seriously or fondly of marriage is six months into his time with May Castellan. She isn’t his fate-bound wife, but Poseidon had married Amphitrite, so why should he not marry May Castellan. He tells her it, curled together in her hot tub, the thoughts coming to a boil and bubbling from his lips. “I love you,” he says. “I think I could marry you.”  

May just looks at him, fondness in the crinkle of her eye. “Do you tell every pretty girl that?”

He tightens his grip on her waist; bruising, clawing. If he must let go of her, there will be signs of a struggle. “I tell you that.” 

“You cannot love me,” May tells him. She does not flinch from the harsh touch; she never has. “You are a god. I am a mortal. A thousand years from now, you will scarcely recall my name.” 

“Not if I marry you,” he comments. 

May sighs, but doesn’t argue further, just burrows her head into his collarbone. Hermes contents himself with the weight of her and a daydream of keeping her. He loosens his grip, but he doesn’t let go. 

He visits the fates about it. “I want to marry her,” he announces, standing before the three. They are withered as ever, yet there is something behind the wrinkles. Something ancient; something powerful. Hermes knows that power quite well; it binds him on his path, keeps him from interfering in certain futures, in his children’s lives. “May Castellan.” 

Atropos–the worst and the most powerful of the sisters–only laughs and snips a life thread. Hermes had thought the act awe-inspiring, as a godling. It has grown bland and monotonous now, the end of human life commonplace. “She is not your fated , godling.” 

“Poseidon married Amphitrite, who is not his own fated ,” Hermes protests. “Why must I be restrained when he may run free.” 

“ Poseidon is of the sea, a flighty domain not so bound to any fate” Atropos rebuts. “And he needed to take a bride and Queen born of Oceanus to settle the former King. You have no Kingdom to settle, godling, only a domain.”

“A vast one. I am a Lord Olympian, just as Poseidon is. Perhaps not a King, but I could make use of a consort. I am owed a consort.”

“My apologies,” Clotho says, not unkindly. “But a marriage to May Castellan is simply not what is written.” 

“And what is?”

“I imagine you will see soon enough, godling.” Atropos continues. “Now, be gone.” 

Hermes does not take kindly to being ordered about, but they are the fates, and so allowances must be made. 

I imagine you will see soon enough, he thinks, as he holds a sleeping May within his arms. Is he to meet his fated, soon? Are they the reason May Castellan cannot be his? Something in him feels almost betrayed at the thought of a lover aside from May. 

“I’m pregnant,” May tells him, with trembling hands and teary eyes, three days after his confrontation with the fates. “I’m pregnant…Hermes, I don’t know what to do.” 

He thinks he may have felt it then, something hovering about the edge of a tragedy, but he ignores it as he gathers her into his arms. “It will be alright,” he tells her, even as dread begins to poison his essence. “We’ll deal with it.” 

“I’m going to keep it–him,” she corrects, pushing him back just enough to look into his eyes. “I’m going to keep the baby. You’ll have to leave, won’t you?”

So perceptive, his May. “Not yet,” he tells her, pressing lips to her forehead. “Not yet.” And so he stays–nine months, long enough to watch her give birth to Luke Castellan, long enough to escort her home from the hospital, to laugh at the way Luke’s fingers curled around his own and to whisper that he’d do his best to protect him. 

“That isn’t a promise,” May says. 

“I know,” he responds, staring at the newborn within his arms. 

“You can’t make one, can you?” she asks. 

“You know the answer to that,” he tells her. “You’ve always been so perceptive.”

Luke is nine months old–almost old enough to remember the imprint of Hermes’ touch, almost old enough that Zeus will begin to poke his nose into Hermes’ affairs–when May declares that it is the Oracle that calls to her. “Don’t you see?” she asks, happily–too happily, for the fate that will surely befall her. “It’s been calling to me since I was a girl. This is my purpose, Hermes, can’t you feel it too?”

“The oracle has been cursed for nearly a hundred years, May,” he tells her. “Whether or not it calls to you doesn’t matter–it’s cursed. And even if it wasn’t, the Oracle is renowned for accepting only maidens. No Oracle has ever had sex, let alone been a mother. It would be irresponsible for you to–”

“I’m the irresponsible one, now?” May quirks an eyebrow at him, lips settling into a deep frown. “When you’re the one who will leave our son?”

It shuts him up well enough–at least, until later that night. “I’m begging you,” he murmurs against her neck, before pressing his lips to his throat. “It is dangerous , May. I will give you anything you want, just ask me for it and not that .”

She bares her throat, allowing him precious access, coils her fingers into his hair, and wraps a leg around his waist, pulling him in. “It will be fine, my Love,” she soothes, and the kiss she presses to his forehead is featherlight. “All will be well.” 

He stands next to Chiron, holding Luke. He is close enough to have a front-row seat to her screaming demise, and yet too far to be able to do anything to help. Hermes imagines that it shatters a part of him, to watch first-hand as the only woman he’d ever loved screamed and cried as agonizing visions burned their way into her head, as they snaked their way into her ability to even think, to watch as a woman whose wit and charm had drawn him in become nothing but a half-crazed shell of her former self. I imagine you will see soon enough, godling, Atropos had said. 

He sees now, watching half-baked visions of their son’s betrayal and demise dance across May’s mind. He asks Dionysus if there is anything to be done–he specializes in madness, after all–but his fellow Olympian only shakes his head and tells him to make her comfortable. 

He stays for as long as he can, trying to take care of Luke, trying to take care of May , all the while visions of their son’s demise danced in her eyes. He thinks of taking Luke away to Camp Half-Blood, but May’s doting, half-brained self couldn’t take the separation so soon, and Camp isn’t prepared for a newborn. He stays for as long as he can, but eventually even he has to go. Gods who grew attached to their mortal children tended to lose it a little when they died. Divine anger and grief could rip apart the earth itself, and Hermes had loved Luke since May had announced her pregnancy. 

Grief is a funny thing. Luke will not die until he is well into his twenties, and yet Hermes grieves for him the moment all those angry, righteous prayers begin to fade into a deeper, sorrowful silence. May’s frazzled prayers bleed into his essence as she tells him, Luke–where did he go? Luke, Luke, Luke. Where is he? Dinner is nearly ready. 

“Oh,” May says, brightly, as he steps into the kitchen. There are sandwiches and kool-aid on the counter, something burning in the oven. “It’s you!”

“It’s me,” he says softly. He takes a seat. Like this, he can almost imagine her as she could have been. His false heart still aches painfully at the sight of her. He still loves her; he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop loving her. 

“Did Luke tell you when he will be home?” May asks brightly, as she plates a sandwich for him. “I think he is done with school. I think he will be home soon!” 

“May…” he says gently, as she pours him a glass of koolaid. “May, I’m not so sure Luke will be coming home.”

“He is my boy,” May says, puzzled. “He will come home.”

“May…” 

“My boy,” May says. “My boy, my boy, my boy,” her voice slips into something more sorrowful. “My boy must come home. He must, he must, he must.” 

“Oh, May,” Hermes stands, gathers her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I failed.” 

May blinks up at him, confused. “You could never fail,” she tells him. “Don’t you remember? You are a god.” 

It burns with the sort of irony that only May Castellan could ever reflect. 

There is a sort of sinking feeling that accompanies the news of the lost lightning bolt. Hermes just does his best to ignore it and doesn’t search for the weapon with the type of vigor he could. 

Poseidon claims a pair of twins–his first ever–and among them is his first mortal daughter. No one looks twice at Luke anymore, of course they don’t. The timing is too perfect, and Hermes convinces himself that the Jackson twins are the thieves. Anything was better than admitting to himself that Luke had already become a lost cause.

Poseidon’s defensive of them. He was always defensive of his mortal children, always kept careful track of his sons and their feats. Hermes spins it into defense of his thieves anyways. 

He grows curious when they are sent Medusa’s head. 

“That type of impertinence is rare,” Apollo says, eyes gleaming. His brother is a collector of sorts, and the Jackson twins are children now, but if they grow up they will certainly be worthy of collecting. “And inviting.”

“Poseidon would drown you,” Hermes says, even if Apollo’s interest is only reflected by his own. Perhaps the idea of Apollo getting to them before he could irritated him. “You know that.”

“You’re probably right. Perhaps I can wait to catch a glimpse of them naturally ,” Apollo sighs, irritated by the very idea of not getting exactly what he wanted when he wanted it. “I imagine it will happen eventually–if there is war, especially.” 

“Yes,” Hermes muses, laying a gentle, guiding hand upon Apollo’s shoulders. “Let us not force it.”

He does not take his own advice. The moment he receives that emergency broadcast, clocks the god who must’ve sent the trio on that quest, and notes that there is only one dark-haired hero on his screen, he leaves to find Ares. He is curious–of the idea of thievery, of the idea of Poseidon’s mortal daughter, of the rumors that called her the Rhea Incarnate . 

“Did you seriously think it smart to take Poseidon’s daughter?” Hermes questions, as he comes across his half-brother, his back to him, a distinct smell of the sea emanating from behind him. “You might’ve taken the satyr instead, you know–less threat of retaliation.”

Ares doesn’t startle. Likely, he had known Hermes was there the moment he’d zapped his way into existence twenty feet from the door. He turns anyways, a macabre grin stretched across his face. “Leverage is leverage. The satyr could be abandoned; Percy Jackson won’t leave his sister behind for the world, and Poseidon’s daughter is a valuable trading piece for the success of the quest, so Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood won’t leave her either. Besides, I didn’t hurt her.” He turns, grasps the girl by her elbow, and drags her out from behind him. “Tell him, girl.” 

“Let me go and I might,” Her voice is a little deeper than he’d thought it might have been; mature, rich, honeyed. It is heady, rousing something within his chest. She raises her head, shakes her hair out of her eyes. 

He knows what she is to him the moment her eyes–sea green and piercing in a way that even Poseidon’s own weren’t–meet his. Something clicks into place in his chest; Andromeda Jackson burrows into his false heart. His fate-bound wife, his soulmate. 

For a moment he forgets everything else and simply looks at her. She is just a girl of twelve, but her features hold the promise of great beauty. Bronzed skin sheathes a lithe, still childish figure. Her collarbones peak from a rip in her orange shirt–a color that might have looked horrible on another just deepens the tan, contrasts the little muscle she has. Her face is a little grimy in the way of someone who had been hitchhiking for a week, and he imagines there is still youth that drapes along her features, marring the mature beauty she’d undoubtedly hold later on. Some of it still peaks through; in the straightness of her nose, within the fullness of pink lips, in the subtle glow of her skin breaking through the grime, in raven curls that cascaded down her back and framed her face. And even the baby fat, in its own way, was endearing; in the slight softness to her jawline and in round, blushing cheeks. 

There is sort of an airbrushed quality to her; a sort of divine beauty uncommon among gods and unheard of in demigods. And she is only just a girl, but there had been younger brides in ancient days, and all he can think is that she is his, already. 

His fingers twitch towards her, to take, to stake some half-baked claim. They are fate-bound, and he cannot bear the idea of leaving her to the world and the way it treats pretty girls. He understands them; Zeus and Hades and Dionysus. And he imagines something along the same lines, stowing the demigoddess away in his palace, where only he could have her. 

Hermes will think, later, that if they had met alone, in a world with no witnesses, nothing to shock him from the way everything suddenly revolved about her, he may very well have taken her. He may not have been his father, King of the Gods, but he was an Olympian all the same and none would have been able to find her unless he’d willed it. But they were not alone, and Ares had always talked too much. 

Demeter had once starved and burned the earth for her daughter, and she did not have her brother’s rage. If Hermes took Andromeda, and Ares told the tale, he imagined a world drowned, an army marching upon Olympus, his cadeucous against Poseidon’s trident. He thinks he may stand a chance, but only through divine tricks and lies.

The thought of Andromeda, ripped from his arms reminds him of May Castellan’s fate, the way he’d been too distracted with trying to suppress any feeling for their son to visit her, and suddenly he is not so desperate for her, suddenly his desperation seems like a betrayal. He still…he still wants her, Andromeda. It is biological; it is fate itself, drawing him to her. He just does not need her. Not like he had. His hands return to his sides, and mental capacity slowly creeps back to him. 

He clears his throat. “Let her go, Ares. And let me speak with her.”

Ares’ grin only seems to grow wider. “And why should I do that?”

“I asked nicely,” Hermes deadpans, though he wants to put Ares through a wall for daring to question his actions concerning his own fate-bound bride. “And because I’m curious enough to ask Poseidon about his daughter unless I talk to her firsthand.”

Ares frowns, but he seems to understand. “She’s still my leverage, though.”

“Sure,” Hermes agrees, amiable despite something possessive burning through him. The girl is his; Ares has no right to even look upon her. 

But he is not so stupid as to reveal his hand so early. 

Ares is gone within moments. Hermes takes a few moments to shield the air around them. No god will be able to find them. Andromeda rubs her arm–red fingerprints decorate her upper arm, setting off something territorial, something that makes whatever sanity he’d regained begin to waver again. Hades had said, once, that he’d never fully recovered from his first glance of Persephone. Hermes believes him. 

“The little Lightning Thief,” he muses, striving for something casual and ending up somewhere amused. “I’d wondered if you’d resemble your father.”

“I am no thief,” she says, indignant. There is a certain boldness to her; in the straightness of her spine and the way she crosses bruised arms across her chest. He wonders if it is their connection that makes her so bold or if she was simply her father’s daughter, a wrathful little thing through and through. Maybe it was both. 

He believes her. No one lies to the god of lies–at least not well. Maybe his fated would be capable, far into the future, when she knows him better than he knows himself, but she is far too young, too inexperienced to succeed at it now. A part of his heart sinks as his son rises to the forefront of his mind. He disregards it. The pain can come later, when denial is no longer possible. Luke can, for a time, still be good . “The timing is…perfect, but you’re telling the truth.”

“Of course I am,” she says. He thinks that if she were another demigoddess and he were another god, a younger god, an angrier god, he might have forcibly removed that straight-backed pride of hers. He should warn her of it, but the idea of scaring her, of removing whatever raw personality he was bearing witness to is too painful, and the idea of letting her know their connection was…well, he thinks that may scare her more. There is a certain charm to it; to her, young and naive and raw and unfiltered. He wants to…he wants to keep her like this, just for him, lock her in a glass display case and eviscerate anything that could change her. “I didn’t have any idea who my father was until like, three weeks ago.”

“Yet you are his spitting image,” Hermes muses. “I suppose you are interesting enough even if you are not the thief.” The moment he had realized who she was, he’d revolved around her, but interesting enough conveys the sentiment well enough for the time being. 

Andromeda narrows her eyes. “And what do you mean by that?”

“In four millennia, Poseidon has never sired a mortal daughter,” He responds, indulgent in the face of her demands in the way he wouldn’t be, not with any other demigod. “By default, that makes you rather exotic, Andromeda.”

“Don’t call me that,” There is something almost wary about her now, simmering in the green of her eyes. “ Exotic . And it’s Andy, not Andromeda.”

“Sure, Andy ,” he lets it roll off his tongue. It is less pretty than Andromeda, less mature. It reminds him of her youth in a way her round cheeks have begun to fail to do. 

“Why did you get Ares to leave?” She questions. He thinks that despite her youth and boldness, Andy wasn’t anywhere near stupid. Her wariness is illuminating–she knows what world she was born to. 

“Pettiness, really,” he responds easily. ( To keep you for myself, he nearly says, Because I enjoy protecting you. Because I couldn’t stand his hands on you, sweet soulmate ) “Most of us want to talk to Poseidon’s first, but forbidden, mortal daughter . I just wanted bragging rights for having done it first. Plus, Ares is a brute, and I’m always up for brownie points from your dad.” He nods to the red marks upon her arm. 

The wariness isn’t gone, exactly, but between his logic and the comfort their bond must have, on some subconscious level, provided, Andy seems to relax a bit, unfolding her arms. “Okay, then,” she says, not easily, but not quite forced, either. “What’s your grand plan to talk to me about?” 

Hermes chuckles, lets the sound wash over Andy Jackson. “To be fair, I didn’t quite think very far ahead. I just wanted to get a feel for you.”

She wrinkles her nose, “Weird way to phrase that.”

He smirks. “I didn’t quite think that far ahead either, apparently.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. He thinks he likes the way she’s begun to settle into herself. There is a sparkle in her eye that reminds him of Poseidon when he says something that makes Zeus huff in some measure of exasperation. “You don’t seem like you do much thinking.”

He snorts; half-amused and half-worried about that sharp wit and lasing anger, about what it might cost her (Something inside his heart seems to roar its insistence to save her, preserve her just as she is; a fly in amber). “Ares would kill you for that.”

“You won’t,” she responds, and she tilts her head like it’s some sort of challenge. He finds it almost endearing. 

“So you like to test boundaries,” he muses. “Y’know, you should be more careful with Olympians. We aren’t often fond of challenges.” 

“You seem fine with it.” 

(He is her soulmate, her husband of fate. Does he have an option other than indulging her? Does he even want to?)

“That’s different, Andromeda Jackson,” he smiles, flashing his teeth. “I’m special.” 

He leaves before Percy Jackson makes his reappearance, leaving his betrothed with a healed arm, a change of clothes, and a few gifts to remember him by, and a few words of advice to not tell Ares  

He decides, as he watches them, that she is just too young to be speaking with. Poseidon would kill him. If their roles were reversed, if Poseidon had claimed Luke , Hermes might have done his damnedest to kill Poseidon. He thinks that he is not quite interested in a girl so young, no matter what effect such a girl might have had upon him. Despite it all, he finds himself worried. She’s still a daughter of the Big Three. Poseidon’s oddly protective nature or not, Hermes knows that monsters will still be out for her blood and that gods will be out for her . 

( I heard from my Uncle that Andromeda Jackson is pretty enough to drown for, a pretty Nymph tells him, breasts pressed into him. Her lips come to meet his neck, and he’s struck with the irony that even while trying to escape her, he’d only managed to be reminded of her again. And I was just wondering, m’Lord, if it was true? )

He will not take her for himself, but he will guide her path. He will make sure no others decide to do what he would not. 

He whispers in the ear of a boy from the seventies. Tell her what movies you want to see in theaters. Tell her your birth year. Focus, boy. Speak to her. 

He guides mortal police away from them. He realizes that they are heading for Procrustes, and he slaughters him, tearing his heart out in recompense for the harm he would have done to his soulmate. He bribes Charon. They will have with them a dark-haired girl, blood of the sea, he says. You will let them convince you. 

He does not watch, in the Underworld. He means to, but somehow he cannot bear to. But he lends divine strength to Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, and helps them drag her away from Ares and lets the fight occur between Percy and Ares. 

The war is averted and they go back to camp and suddenly he can breathe again. 

“No war, I suppose,” Apollo sighs, falling into step beside him as they leave the throne room. Hermes had long grown used to the posturing between Zeus and Poseidon, and the news of Ares’ treachery had uplifted him, giving him some sort of hope that maybe Luke could still be innocent. Apollo can undoubtedly see the weight off his shoulders. “Perhaps it is a good thing. I never quite liked divine wars. But I did want to meet them–Poseidon’s forbidden children.”

“I as well,” lying has long since become easy as breathing to him, even to his closest brother.

“Whatever,” Apollo says. They step outside and a ray of sunlight hits him in that plotted, artificial manner, illuminating divine features. It gleams off his hair, his nose, his collarbones, slivers of abs that his chiton didn’t cover. He is beautiful and vain; the shining sun as always.

“The Great Prophecy still stands. We’ll see them soon enough. Come, the muses and I must write odes to the Jackson twins, and we all perform better with an audience.”

“You know I’d much rather join in,” He says, pointedly low. Apollo’s muses could drive all thoughts from his mind with surprising ease. It would be long from the first time. 

Apollo shoots him a wry grin. “Arrangements can be made, I suppose.”

Despite it all, he cannot banish the thought of the Great Prophecy. He cannot rid himself of whatever feelings he has for May Castellan–Andy Jackson had only managed to make them more complicated. And he cannot stop watching: Luke, Andromeda, May. 

Poseidon comes to Andromeda’s aid, after Luke poisons her. Hermes doesn’t. He freezes up and thinks of the murky doom in May’s eyes, about the way he’d promised to protect him. He visits May Castellan and sobs in her arms; his tears some divine sacrifice upon the altar of her hair. He thinks of the way he’d wanted to marry her; of the way he’d laughed as Luke’s fingers curled about his own. He thinks of Luke’s hatred. He thinks of the way he’d begun his own demise. 

He thinks of his fate-bound wife; Andromeda Jackson. He thinks of the way he’d wanted to marry May Castellan and of the fates’ denial and the way that everything that had spiraled down for it was so he could marry her. He hates the way he isn’t sure he even hates her for it. Not like he should. Not when everything about her drew her to him, not when the Great Prophecy hung like a blade over her neck, and not when his son had just tried to murder her, easy as breathing. The Titan Lord only wants one of you, he had said, and Hermes wonders if this divine war would be his own fault. 

When he speaks to Andy again, it’s because Percy leaves her for a moment and he’s watching–in the way he always seems to be now–and she stumbles. He cannot resist catching her. 

He’s glad she is simply wandering around the Big House infirmary. Poseidon would be able to sense him if he had been in his cabin, and he’d come with questions Hermes had no desire to answer. 

“Woah, there,” he says, as his arms encircle her waist and he pulls her to her feet. “Should you be out of bed?” Andy looks startled. He supposes he might be startled, too, but he covers her mouth before it can contort into a scream and hoists her onto the bed. “It’s alright, sweet girl. I won’t hurt you.”

“L-Lord Hermes,” She greets, as soon as she composes herself. Her confusion has faded away into some type of fear. He doesn’t like the look of her now; terror cowing her, a certain sickliness present within her. Andy looked vulnerable, weak, and it hits something within him, tugs at that quickly forming attachment to her. He wants to fix it, to wave a hand over her forehead and leave her strong and stable, able to hold her own. He wonders if even that would keep her safe– I heard from my Uncle that Andromeda Jackson is pretty enough to drown for –wonders if he should regret not taking her when he’d had the chance, preserving that confident, witty girl he’d first met. 

“I’m hurt,” he says, trying desperately to be something less than the terror he’d made himself into, trying to reverse thousands of years of gore and horror for a half-blooded girl of twelve. “I thought we were friendly enough for you to drop the titles.”

She arches an eyebrow, and he thinks perhaps the teasing has begun to work, “Are we?”

“Sure,” he agrees, easily. “Besides, I am much too curious about you to have you calling me proper titles.”

She seems to relax, then, slumping back into her bed. Young to life; young to the gods and the game. Naive enough that simple banter could reassure her. It is different for him, but he hopes that she is not so trusting with other gods. “Do you have something better to discuss this time?” 

“I had hoped that you’d take responsibility and come up with a list of questions. I’ve always been rather passionate about Q and A’s.”

“I put questions on my to-do list, but…” she waves her non-bandaged hand in a sweeping motion over her body. “I was incapacitated.”

He clicks his tongue. “Excusable, under the circumstances. But I will accept no more excuses, ‘dromeda.” 

Andy wrinkles her nose, “ Andy ,” she corrects, insistently. 

“I want to be original,” he argues. “Surely you won’t take my originality from me.”

“I will pay you.” She’s smiling despite herself, and he finds himself enchanted by it; drawn to it. 

“Hmmm,” he taps a finger underneath his chin. “I don’t know, ‘dromeda. My individuality comes at a high price.”

“I’ll give you all eighty-cents in my piggy bank.”

He barks out a laugh. “I don’t think so. Maybe if you offered me eighty-three, but I’m afraid that’s the lowest I can go.”

“Oh well,” She says, cheerily enough. “I suppose I’ll have to find my own nickname.”

“I suppose you will,” there is an ease to it–talking with Andy Jackson. He wonders if it is all their bond, or if he’d be fond enough of her regardless. He could test it out on Percy Jackson. He isn’t sure he wants to do that. 

The Great Prophecy may have begun to tighten like a noose about Andy’s throat, but she was not alone in it. He does not want to grow fond of him and then make him take the weight of the Great Prophecy–not when he already knew he’d push Percy into the sword himself if it meant Andy lives. And Luke…Hermes knows he will want someone to blame, when this was all over. It is easier to hate what is unknown. 

“I am sorry,” he says, his thoughts turning suddenly enough to startle the girl. To her credit, she understands quickly enough. 

“I don’t think you intended for Luke to do…this,” she says, hesitantly. 

“I was–I am not the best father.” Hermes came from a long line of not the best fathers. He wonders if that excuses it. He wonders if the ancient laws and he is half-mortal and I am not and My father will have my head came close to excusing it. Luke didn’t seem to think so. 

“No, you aren’t.” Andy says, gently, as if to avoid angering him. “I don’t think many of you gods are–not excluding my own father, by the way.”

And Poseidon was among the better ones. Hermes wonders just how much dissent there was among the campers, how long Luke’s rebellion had been brewing. He wonders how much more there would be if more of them made it to adulthood. “He tries, you know. To be–”

“I don’t need you to defend him,” she interrupts, snippily. She straightens on the bed and glowers at him; her father’s temper flaring to the surface. He thinks, somewhat morosely, that unlike her father, she is not quite strong enough yet to back up that temper. He would scare it out of her, were he a crueler god, if the sight of her fear now did not already turn his stomach. “I get that maybe he’s trying a little harder than some gods. It doesn’t make him a good father. It just makes him better than the worst.”

He holds up his hands in some measure of surrender, “And yet, you did not join Luke.”

“I did not join Luke,” she echoes, somewhat miserably. “He’s still my father. And what Luke wants…what Kronos wants...” she shudders. “I am not always…happy with my father. But my mother loved–loves him. So does Percy. I am loyal. To them, if nothing else.”

“Dangerous to tell me that,” he notes. “I am an Olympian. None would like such shaken faith. Especially not from you, Andromeda Jackson.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’ll talk to anyone about this,” she says, matter-of-fact. Naive, she may be, but she was not stupid, and she learned quickly. 

“You’d be right,” he admits. “Do you–I mean, you spoke with him. Is there anything you think I can do?”

She looks at him, forlorn. “I think the best we can do is prevent more defects and train. Kronos is coming. The demigods are unsatisfied. He wants war, Hermes,” he feels the way she says his name deep in the core of him. He feels her fear, too, resonating within him. Her eyes are wide and terrified, and her unbandanged fingers twist in the blankets. He fights some strange, instinctive urge to take her in his arms, stroke her hair, kiss the crown of her head, and whisper that she was safe, that he would never let anyone hurt her. But he thinks it would only frighten her, and there was no point in lying to the poor thing. “I think it’s inevitable.”

Perceptive girl. The Great Prophecy had been looming for decades, and now it was coming to a boil, with two children of the eldest gods nearing their thirteenth birthdays. Luke would raise Kronos, and Kronos would raise an army. If Hermes was smarter, he’d speak to Zeus of the way Andy Jackson clearly hovered somewhere between loyalty and disloyalty to her father. He’d take her, lock her away from such choices and the war that would follow. 

But he isn’t, and so he simply says, “I think you’re right.”

“You should talk to your children,” she tells him. “I may be interesting, but I’m new. And I’m the daughter of Poseidon. Things are different for Percy and I.”

“I understand.”

“You should talk to the other gods, too,” she says. “There is no reason that the children of the gods should be sleeping on ceiling rafters.”

“I’m not sure how well they’ll listen,” he admits, because listening was something born from respect, and it would be a cold day in Tartarus before the Olympians put aside their petty squabbles and regarded their peers with any measure of dignity. “But I’ll do my best, ‘dromeda.”

“ Andy ,” she corrects, with no bite to it. 

“You should get some rest,” he says. “You seem tired.” It’s an understatement. Andy looks like she hasn’t slept in a week. Hermes doesn’t like the reminder of his son’s betrayal painted across his soulmate’s body. 

“I am. Scorpion bite, remember? I feel a bit as if I have had my insides frozen and then reheated in a microwave with lots of microplastics seeping into them. Takes a lot out of a person.” 

“Well, I hope you decontaminate,” he tells her lightly, despite the wince she elicits at the reminder of his own son’s–his favorite son, his pride and joy–actions. “See you soon, ‘dromeda.”

The last thing he hears before he fades away is a soft, “Don’t call me that!”

Despite it all, he smiles.

Chapter Text

A ndy Jackson is not quite so naive that she’d try to escape the god holding her hostage. She would be kept alive–gods and monsters seemed to think that Andy meant something to her deadbeat father, and Ares had called her his leverage–but that did not guarantee that she would remain unharmed if she chose to struggle. 

That doesn’t mean she is smart enough to avoid talking to him. He’s got her backed against a wall, irritated with her questions and rolling eyes when he makes his first appearance. 

“Did you seriously think it smart to take Poseidon’s daughter?” Someone asks. They aren’t concerned, because nobody cared for the wellbeing of the twelve year old girl, only twisted amusements. And there it is again; a declaration of her father’s so-called care . She wonders where it had been when Gabe had been pushing their little family around and her mom had put up with it just to protect them because Poseidon damn well wouldn’t . She wonders how little the other Olympians cared for their children if the lukewarm aid her father had sent her and Percy’s way was considered love . “You might’ve taken the satyr instead, you know–less threat of retaliation.”

Ares turns; slowly and lazily, as if to showcase how little he cared for the power of whoever stood behind him. It seemed to be all these so-called great Gods cared for; amusements and demonstrations of power. “Leverage is leverage. The satyr could be abandoned; Percy Jackson won’t leave his sister behind for the world, and Poseidon’s daughter is a valuable trading piece for the success of the quest, so Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood won’t leave her either. Besides, I didn’t hurt her.” He turns, quick as a viper, and takes a harsh hold of her elbow so that he can drag her out by his side. It almost gives her whiplash, the speed at which it’s done. A harsh reminder of godly strength and speed compared to her own. He gives her a quick command. “Tell him, girl.” 

“Let me go and I might,” she says, raising her head to dislodge her hair from her eyes. She catches her first glimpse of him then. Divine and beautiful, she notes, but there was a youth to his features that Dionysus and Ares had not had. He looked perhaps seventeen, with rich chestnut curls, and eyes the color of electricity arcing across the night sky. Something was almost familiar about him; the shape of his lips, the sharpness of his nose and jaw, the playful arch to his brows. And underneath even that, there is something that almost clicks into place within her. As if she’d been waiting her entire life to lay eyes upon him. As if they were two halves of the same whole. As if she was made for him, and he for her. 

She shakes off the feeling as fast as it comes on, feeling utterly ridiculous, hoping that he couldn’t read her thoughts to discern whatever the fuck that was.

The god– Hermes, the smile of his was all Travis Stoll, the arch to his brow was Luke Castellan, the sharpness of his nose and jaw she’d seen in Chris Rodgriguez, and that mischief belonged to Cabin Eleven–clears his throat. The sound burrows deep into the hollow caverns of her chest, as if it was made just for her. “Let her go, Ares. And let me speak with her.”

 “And why should I do that?”

“I asked nicely,” Hermes deadpans. “And because I’m curious enough to ask Poseidon about his daughter unless I talk to her firsthand.”

“She’s still my leverage, though.”

“Sure,” the other god says amiably. Andy is almost hurt by it; his lack of regard for her, despite her lack of reason for it. 

They don’t speak for a few moments. Hermes seems too busy surveying her, and Andy’s busy taking in strange feelings rolling in her gut at the sight of them. Namely, the lack of fear. She had never met a god she had not instinctively feared–even Dionysus, as strange as he had been, had been intimidating, starkly inhuman––but there was something vaguely comforting about this god. Her instincts almost seem to dull, the electric feeling of danger dissipating even as she stood alone in his presence. She feels…well, almost safe . It is disconcerting. 

It is Hermes who speaks first. “The little Lightning Thief,” he declares. There is no bite to it; nothing to suggest he actually believes it. Only that same blatant amusement that colored every word he spoke. “I’d wondered if you’d resemble your father.”

“I am no thief.”

“The timing is…perfect, but you’re telling the truth.” It is the first thing he’s said that has felt anywhere near earnest. She appreciates it. 

“Of course I am,” she says. Even if she’d known who her father was, she wouldn’t have ever put her family in danger for the deadbeat god who claimed her like she was a jacket in the lost-and-found. It astounded her how far the Olympians seemed to assume the loyalty from child to divine parent should go, as if the knowledge that they were sired by some high-and-mighty god made up for everything they’d suffered, every indignity thrown at them. For the gods’ sake, half of them weren’t even claimed for years and yet obedience and subservience was not only expected but demanded . It made Andy’s blood boil. But she doesn’t say that. She just says, “I didn’t have any idea who my father was until like, three weeks ago.”

“Yet you are his spitting image,” The god muses, with no idea that she’d looked in the mirror her whole life trying first to piece together what her father looked like and praying that he’d come and save her. When that had failed, when that bone deep anger that seemed to weigh constantly on her now had lodged itself within her, she’d poked and prodded at her face, trying and failing to find any homage to her mother carved into her. The acknowledgement that nothing of Sally Jackson–her greatest role model–could be found within her burns more than she expects it to. Andy hopes that she doesn’t look as hurt as she feels. “I suppose you are interesting enough even if you are not the thief.” 

She isn’t sure she likes the idea of being interesting. Not after Medusa; not after the poor, cursed girl’s hissed warnings. ( You will be me, if you are not careful, the gorgon had said, mournfully, even as she stalked through the maze with the intention of killing her. I can save you from it, little Poseidia. Let me save you from it. Andy hadn’t been able to raise her sword against the gorgon in the end; had been saved for the umpteenth time by her twin brother. Let me save you from it ) “And what do you mean by that?”

“In four millennia, Poseidon has never sired a mortal daughter. By default, that makes you rather exotic, Andromeda.” 

Exotic . The word makes her feel like some rare bird, caged and captive, something to watch and pull apart and observe. She isn’t sure she likes the way he says it either; admiring, nearly bewitched. “Don’t call me that,” She wonders if her wariness will offend him, and then decides she doesn’t care. “ Exotic . And it’s Andy, not Andromeda.”

“Sure, Andy .” In equal parts, she both likes and dislikes the way her name rolls off his tongue, rough and deep and intoxicating. 

“Why did you get Ares to leave?” She questions, still wary. She wonders if this will be her life; questioning every motive, looking over her shoulder every second. The feeling is normal for any girl, but there is a supernatural element to it. It’s born from speaking with Medusa and knowing what her father had done to her, hearing myths and legends and having to reconcile them with the gods in front of her, looking in the mirror and acknowledging–with a newfound horror–that she wasn’t exactly ugly. It’s born from knowing that the world was created to harm girls and half bloods, and that she was both. 

“Pettiness, really,” he responds. She thinks he’s trying to calm her, and finds the way it works suspicious. “Most of us want to talk to Poseidon’s first, but forbidden, mortal daughter . I just wanted bragging rights for having done it first. Plus, Ares is a brute, and I’m always up for brownie points from your dad.” He nods to her arm, the red marks that would surely fade to purple bruises.

She uncrosses her arms in a demonstration of trust that she isn’t quite sure she means. “Okay, then. What’s your grand plan to talk to me about?” 

He chuckles, the sound raw and attractive. “To be fair, I didn’t quite think very far ahead. I just wanted to get a feel for you.”

She wrinkles her nose, driving away that strange feeling for the umpteenth time, “Weird way to phrase that.”

Hermes smirks, reminding her of Connor and Travis’ smirk right before she’d brushed her teeth with numbing cream. “I didn’t quite think that far ahead either, apparently.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. She isn’t thinking when she says; “You don’t seem like you do much thinking.”

He snorts, absolving her of any worry. “Ares would kill you for that.”

“You won’t,” she responds, tilting her head up in a challenge. 

“So you like to test boundaries,” he muses. “Y’know, you should be more careful with Olympians. We aren’t often fond of challenges.” 

“You seem fine with it.”

“That’s different, Andromeda Jackson,” he smiles with his teeth. It’s unsettling in the way she knows he means it to be; starkly reminds her of his divinity. “I’m special.” 

Hermes helps her clean up, cleaning and repairing her clothes with a wave of his hand. He lays two fingers on her arm and the red marks left by his brother disappear, along with every lingering pain and soreness that came with this quest. He gives her a bag; she will open it later to find the contents containing food, bottles of water, cash, drachmas, and a zip-up hoodie that she could slide over her Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt. It would probably help her be a little more incognito. 

Ares takes credit for it when Percy, Annabeth, and Grover return. He directs them onboard Kindness International –which is not, in fact, kind–and when Percy embraces her with trembling arms, she decides to follow his example. 

She doesn’t want to worry her twin any more than she already has; nor does she want to feel like any more of a dead weight, a carrot to dangle over her brother’s head to make him dance and sing. So she doesn’t speak to him about Hermes; the first in a long line of excuses to keep the god tucked away inside of her mind, hers and hers alone. 

The Lotus Casino is the first and last place where Andy is actually useful on this particular quest. It’s her that overhears the boy from the seventies talking about the movie he’s excited to see in theaters, it’s her that wakes from her haze when she realizes that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back had been out for decades. 

“When were you born,” she asks, gripping the boy’s shoulders too tightly. She’s too intense, perhaps, but something horrifying is breaking over her. “Tell me, now!”

“1965,” he says, his eyebrows pinched. “Why?”

“What year is it?”

“Are you stupid? 1980, obviously.”

Except it isn’t 1980. Except boys born in 1965 should look a lot older than fifteen. Except something was wrong. 

She finds Percy playing some stupid car game–he’d always been drawn to fancy cars, especially after reaching age 10–and bodily drags him away from it. “ Percy, ” She hisses, her grip on his wrist hard enough to bruise. “Percy, we have to get out of here.”

Percy frowns, “One more game,” he says, almost incoherently. “We don’t have anything better to do. C’mon, it can be two-player.”

“No!” she says, and grabs his chin. He tries to shrug her off, but she’s lucid and he isn’t, so it doesn’t really work. “Percy, we have to save our mom!”

Percy blinks at the mention of their mom. Lucidity seems to wash over him, and then that same abject form of horror. He shrugs her off of him, and this time she allows it. “Mom,” he says. 

“We need to find Annabeth and Grover. And we need to get out of here.”

“Right,” he says. “Uh…I don’t think we should split up.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. This place thrived off of separation and distraction; if they separated again, it would consume them. For good, this time. 

When they get out, Andy resolves to read more. Perhaps if she had actually paid attention when Annabeth had read her the Odyssey, she might have recognized the Lotus Hotel and Casino for what it was. Then again, she may not have. Annabeth didn’t make the connection, and at twelve was already twice as smart as Andy could ever be. 

Percy remains resolute in his determination to hear their father’s message, so they trek down to Santa Monica beach. Poseidon, Great God of the Sea, doesn’t even bother making a momentary appearance. He sends a Nereid of his court instead. “Your father believes in you,” The Nereid tells them, gaze soft and warm as she looks at her Lord’s children. She doesn’t say cares or loves , just believes . Because in the end, they are tools, Poseidon’s last card to draw. 

She gives them four pearls. 

They dodge mortal kids on the hunt for some adventure. They dip inside Crusty’s Waterbed Palace and lock the doors. Annabeth–the first one in–screams, the sound sudden and piercing. 

“Annabeth!” Percy calls, pushing his way to the front. Then his voice lowers, sounding disgusted, “Oh, gods .”

Andy and Grover exchange looks before moving past Percy and Annabeth to see what was so horrific. Grover lets out a choked gasp, and Andy just stares, horrified. Laying on the floor, in the center aisle between waterbeds, was a man. He was around seven feet tall, bald, and had gray skin with an almost leathery texture. His mouth was open in some expression of shock; a brutal grimace accentuated by teeth the color of lemons. He wouldn’t have made for a pretty sight no matter what condition he was in, but the true horror was the hole in the center of his chest, as if someone with the strength of ten men had just punched right through him. To the side of him lay what was certainly his heart; a large, veiny chunk of red muscle and fat. A growing pool of blood spread outwards from his body, a sign that whoever had done this had done it recently and hurriedly. 

“Crusty…” Grover murmurs, half-dazed from the shock of the dead fucking body . “I don’t think…”

“No,” Annabeth agrees. Andy watches on as her hands flex and tremble. “He wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what?” Andy asks, but she already knows the answer. Wasn’t human .

“Crusty,” Annabeth says. “His name tag…short for Procrustes, I think. In the myths, he used to stretch people…or cut off their legs, to make them fit in a bed.” She sweeps her hand outwards, towards the waterbeds around them. 

“He doesn’t smell human,” Grovers says, still faint and vaguely nauseous. “And I don’t think a mortal could’ve…” Andy doesn’t know what exactly he intends to say, but it must’ve been something along the lines of pulled the heart out of the chest of a seven-foot man.

“Who could’ve killed him?” Percy asks. “I mean…they must’ve been strong.”

Andy knows, intrinsically, that gods have better things to do, that they are not to interfere in demigod quests. So she pushes away the illogical thoughts of Hermes, all wrath and vengeance, putting his fist through Procustes’ chest and pulling out his heart. 

There was no reason for him to protect them. No reason for him to protect her . 

They move on to the underworld not because they don’t know that Crusty’s death wasn’t a coincidence, not because they don’t want to know who’d killed him, but because they can’t not move on to the underworld. Crusty’s killer had certainly counted on it, Annabeth tells them, a crinkle between her eyebrows. It would have been more discreet if they had time to investigate. 

They never find out who the message is from–or what the message is. Later, when they discover Luke’s treachery, Annabeth will write it off as Luke trying to get them through the gates of the underworld and into Hades’ hands. Percy will add to her logic, mentioning the way Charon seemed too easy to bribe, almost eager to guide them across the River Styx. They will say it is Kronos, and Andy will outwardly accept it (It isn’t Kronos–Andy knows it, feels deep in her gut who the killer is. She won’t truly decide on it, though, until much later). 

Andy’s pearl has to be smashed for her. She screams and pleads as the white film encases her and drags her out to sea. We can’t leave her, Percy, she screams, as if her brother could hear her over the sounds of his own revelation and heroics. Leave me, I never signed up for anything beyond this, and it’s true, because Andy had fully intended to save her mother. She had never cared about defending her deadbeat, entirely useless father’s honor. Percy promises that they’ll get her back another way, pleads with her to see the bigger picture. He’d always cared more about their father than Andy had ever managed to. In response, she spits out vitriol as they paddle towards shore: I will never forgive you.

Ares’ appearance makes her eat her own words with startling speed. He admits to it all as the four of them cling to each other on the beach. His eyes narrow at the backpack Percy had let Annabeth hang onto, and he demands to have it back.

In response, Andy demands the helm. “I’ll trade it,” she blurts. She ignores the horrified stares of Annabeth and Grover. “If you give me the helm, and a way into the Underworld. I don’t care about the bolt. I never did. I just want my mom.” She sounds teary, pathetic; a whiny child who’d just skinned her knees. 

Ares surveys her, eyes flicking up and down the length of her body. He grins, and it’s predatory and sickening and makes Andy feel years younger, as if the War God’s gaze was capable of stripping years from her. She’s left feeling like a six year old girl who’d just met Gabe’s wrath for the first time. And just like she had then, she only wanted her mom to comfort her. ( Go, she had commanded, hoarse with the fist around her throat, Run ). He smiles, diabolical in nature. “You are so uninteresting, girl,” He declares, as if it is the gravest of insults. “The first of your kind, and all you are is a weepy little girl who misses her mother and hides behind her brother. Will you let him die for you like your mother did?”

Tears prick at the corner of her eyes (Percy rushes forward, ready to fight the beast that killed their mother. Andy stands, frozen in shock, unable to truly comprehend that Sally Jackson was gone ). “I just want my mom,” she repeats thickly. “I’ll do whatever it is you want. I just want my mom.” She feels Annabeth’s hand on her shoulder, hears a hissed warning don’t offer anything , Andy, it’s suicide. 

“What I want is war,” Ares says. “Maybe a good fight. Will you give me that, little girl?”

Andy thinks she would rather face that cold, dark presence in the pit than live the rest of her life without her mother. “I’ll give you anything you–”

“Single combat,” Percy challenges, as soon as the offer begins to leave Andy’s mouth, pushing Andy into Annabeth’s arms. Her friend protests just as Andy does, but her hand closes around Andy’s upper arm anyway. “You and I. If I win, I get the helm. If I lose, you get the bolt. And you get to kill me.”

“No,” Andy shrieks. “Percy, don’t you dare –”

“I accept,” Ares says, a wide grin spreading across his face as he looks between her and Percy. He swings his baseball bat off his shoulder, and Andy watches, terrified, as it shifts to a sword on its way down. “If only to see the look on your sweet sister’s face as I take your head.”

Andy tries to lurch forward (She isn’t sure what she plans on doing–between the two of them, she certainly isn’t the fighter, and she doubts she’d hold Ares off for long–only that Percy was her twin, intrinsically a part of her. Her mother was lost to her. Her father…her father might as well have been dead. But Percy had been there since birth, throughout every step and she was upset with him but she’d die for him all the same), but Grover and Annabeth hold her back. Their grips are ironclad–she attributes their steely strength to adrenaline–and Andy struggles within them despite herself. “Get her away,” He grits out as he draws his sword, and he doesn’t meet her eyes as she pleads with him to stop, as Ares’ cackles overtake the sound of Annabeth and Grover dragging her further away from the fight, helpless to stop what will be her brother’s death, vision blurring through tears. 

Annabeth’s hands take her by the shoulders, her grip ironclad. “There has to be one of you,” She says, gray eyes boring into Andy’s own. “Andy, listen–if Percy can’t pull this off, one of you must remain to deliver the bolt.”

Andy doesn’t respond; isn’t entirely capable of even comprehending Annabeth’s words. Instead, she sobs and struggles helplessly and wonders if despite all her temper, all that power everyone claimed was her birthright, useless desperation would be her role forever. She cries out and tries to surge forward again when Percy is put on the defensive, backed towards the water. 

Andy’s brought back to Annabeth when the other girl shakes her harshly by the shoulders. “Andy,” Annabeth says, loud and forceful and direct. She slips the backpack from her shoulders. Faintly, Andy feels her fist close around the strap, the light pressure of Annabeth’s hand closing around her own. “Andy, you have to listen. You have to deliver the bolt. Go through the sea. He needs an invitation to truly enter your father’s domain. You will be safe to travel through it.”

Andy realizes with abject horror what Annabeth wants her to do. Abandon her brother to Ares’ sword. Abandon her friends to Ares’ mercy. “I don’t care about the damn bolt,” She says thickly. “I never did. I won’t leave you guys.” 

On principle, she makes a point of refusing to pray to her father. She hadn’t yet–not when she’d fallen from the Louis Arch, not when she'd figured out who her father was, not when Medusa hunted her, not when she’d made her way to the Underworld. Andy cares little for her father, and detests the idea of groveling at some deadbeat god’s feet for strength and protection. She hates the concept of useless pleading. Please, she prays now, to the deity who calls himself her father. Let him live. I cannot live without him. 

“Andromeda,” Annabeth says. Hands dig deeper into her shoulder, clawing, surely leaving deep imprints. Gray eyes bore into her own, and Andy’s taken off guard by the desperation in them. “You are the last hope for preventing a civil war that will tear the earth itself apart. Go to the sea. Give the bolt to Zeus or your father. We can handle ourselves”

“I said no ,” Andy bites out, vicious. “I left my mom. I got Percy into a doomed fight. I won’t leave him. I won’t leave any of you. If you just let me go– ”

“It’s single combat,” Grover interrupts. He sounds mournful. “It’s him and Ares now. Let her stay, Annabeth. Ares won’t let her go either way.”

Please, please protect him. Andy prays, demeaning herself yet again, tasting the salt of her own tears as Percy is pushed back. Her vision is half-blurred, and a part of her is glad for it if it means she won’t bear witness to his end. Please let him live. He is your son. Even to you, that must mean something. Please, you have to protect him. 

The tide rushes forward. The God of War is washed aside, and golden ichor is spilled upon white sand. Ares’ resulting roar is powerful enough to carve a crater in the earth. Percy wins. 

Percy wins. 

“If you ever do that again,” Andy threatens, the hardness of it weakened by the tears still wet on her cheeks, “I will kill you myself.”

Percy just hugs her back.

—

When Andy was five years old, she’d had her first day of kindergarten. She’d been well aware of the fact that it was just she, her mom, and Percy. But she hadn’t really been aware that she’d been missing out on something until perfect pairs of mothers and fathers had dropped off their perfect children, and Andy and Percy had trailed after their lone mother. 

“Where is dad?” Andy had asked that night. Her mom’s expression had been so pained that even Andy’s five year old self had noticed, and she hadn’t asked a similar question for years. 

She had wondered anyway. 

When she was seven years old, she had stared at herself in the mirror for a solid two hours, trying to decipher what her father must have appeared like. Gabe had drunkenly shoved her out of his way and she’d ended up with a skinned knee. She looked at herself, trying to imagine her father, trying to imagine him punching Gabe right in his stupid face–like men did in the movies. Her father would’ve kissed her knee like her mom did sometimes, wiped the tears from her eyes, and whispered that it was going to be ok. He would’ve told her that he was here now, that Gabe was going away, that she was safe. 

When she was ten years old any hope and longing and curiosity she’d felt towards her father was long gone. Maybe it was Gabe who’d crushed it out of her. Maybe it was her mother’s heartbreak. Maybe it was simply her own resentments towards what she couldn’t have. 

At twelve, she’d been almost betrayed to find out her father was alive. That her mother’s heartbreak was unwarranted, that every abuse their family had suffered at Gabe’s hands was unwarranted. That all this time, her father had been some all powerful being, nothing keeping him from his children but his own lack of responsibility. And then he’d sent them on a quest like she and Percy were his own personal errand monkeys–like them risking their lives was nothing to him, or worse, like it was an honor . 

She hates her father–she’d decided that time and time again. Percy had won his fight and Andy had almost been able to move past it all, and then she’s betrayed by her own disappointment when her father calls them unforgivable mistakes . We are your children, she nearly screams. 

The only thing good to come from meeting Poseidon was finding out that Sally Jackson was alive. She and Percy hold hands in the cab that brings them home, both of them beaming ear to ear. Every few minutes, one of them will squeeze the other’s hand–it grounds her, reminds her that this was real, they’d survived, their mother was waiting for them at home.

Sally Jackson doesn’t say anything when she opens the door. Her eyes water, and she extends her arms, and Percy and Andy move as a unit, and suddenly it's the three of them, crushed together. She hears her brother’s shuddering exhale, a muttered “Mom,” and lets out her own hiccuping sob.

“Oh, my babies,” Her mom says, and she’s crying too. Andy had always hated it when her mom cried–usually spent days beating herself up for questions that ended in misty eyes–but these are happy tears, she’s burying her head into her mom’s shoulder, bawling like a baby. “Oh, it’s alright.” Her mom continues, and Andy hears her brother’s distant hiccup. 

Funny–Percy hadn’t cried when he’d heard the news of their mom’s death, hadn’t sobbed himself to sleep like Andy had. He’d just sat quietly in shock, unable to process his emotions, unable to feel anything. But he was sobbing now–truly sobbing in a way Andy hadn’t seen in years. “Mama,” he sniffles. He hadn’t called their mother ‘Mama’ since they were eight years old and had thought ‘Mom’ sounded more mature. 

But for a moment, it’s nice to not be mature. To sob in her family’s arms and feel the weight of the world lift off her shoulders. There is no Camp Half-Blood, there is no quest, she isn’t the daughter of Poseidon. The world seems to shrink until it’s just the three of them, crying and embracing. Together again. 

When their mom pulls back, cupping their cheeks, Andy is struck by how beautiful she is. Curly brown hair, fair, freckled skin, ocean-blue eyes, red lips–so different from Andy’s own looks, and so gorgeous. That same age-old desire to look anything like her mother washes over her. “I’ve been so worried about you two,” Sally murmurs, her eyes darting nervously between the two of them, sweeping up and down their bodies–in a way that reminded Andy of the way she’d checked her over for injuries when she was five and skinned her knee or when she was seven and knocked her head against a countertop. “Gods–what happened ?”

“That,” Percy says, with a weak smile, “is a horribly long story. Andy and I could probably write a book.”

“I could,” Andy says, though her voice is still thick. “You’re illiterate and incompetent.”

“I could dictate the typing,” Percy argues. “And don’t act like you’re any more literate.”

“I’m not acting, I am .”

“Not bad enough to stop the two of you from arguing,” their mom says, with an amused huff. 

“Sorry mom,” they both respond. 

“Oh, don’t apologize,” she murmurs, eyes still misty with unshed tears. “You two have nothing to apologize for. Now–I simply have to know what exactly happened while I was gone.”

They alternate between the two of them. Percy doesn’t comment when she skips over the Medusa incident or the hostage incident, and she doesn’t comment when he skips over his little fight with Ares, and neither of them really talk about their interaction with their father, but they tell her most of it. 

“You’re far too young for any of this,” Sally Jackson tells them. Unshed tears glimmer in the corners of her eyes, as if their mother mourned for their lost childhoods.

Andy doesn’t feel quite so young anymore. She hadn’t felt the age she was for years, and what had happened to her mother had only exacerbated it. She nearly tells her that, tells her that it is worthless to mourn for something that was never in reach, but she imagines it would only add to her grief. 

“It’s alright,” Percy says meekly. 

“It’s not,” their mom says sharply. The harshness of the statement is cutting, especially in contrast with her usual softness. “You’re just children.”

“I don’t think half-bloods count as normal children,” Percy says softly. 

“You’re my children,” she says; hopeless desperation bleeding through. 

“Sally!” The grating sound of Gabe Ugliano’s voice interrupts them. “You useless bitch, where’s my fucking meatloaf?”

Her mother closes her eyes and sighs, “He won’t be happy with the two of you. The store had about a million phone calls. Some offer for free appliances?”

Andy smirks and looks directly at her brother, who dodges their mother’s glance to look down at the floor. Their mother just smiles weakly in response, “Just…don’t make him angrier. Be on your best behavior.”

Neither of them had ever done well at placating Gabe Ugliano. The thought of doing so now–after everything that had happened–seemed almost offensive, but her mother’s eyes were pleading, and she’d never had the willpower to turn down her mother’s requests. 

The apartment had gone to shit with only Gabe inhabiting it. Andy considers plugging her nose to ward off the stench, but she thought Gabe would be upset to see it. 

Poseidon had called their mother a Queen among Women. There is a certain irony to the trash-filled apartment Gabe had turned their home into; a Queen amongst Women and two children of a god, living in a pigsty, under the command of the pig. She wonders how Poseidon had permitted it, if he loved her mother as he said he did. 

Gabe and his ugly friends aren’t pleased to see them. His face grows tomato red at the sight of them, cigar dropping onto his lap. “Oh, you’ve got some fucking nerve, bringing those savages back here. The police–”

Before Percy or Andy could draw their swords and run him through for the insult against their mother, Sally Jackson interjects. “They aren’t fugitives anymore, Gabriel. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Gabe would’ve undoubtedly thought a wonderful occurrence to be their gruesome deaths, accompanied by a fat life insurance check. “Either you get them out of here, Sally,” he growls. “Or I’ll call the cops. I’ve dealt with the damn freaks long enough.”

“No,” their mother grounds out, folding her arms across her chest. Sally Jackson rarely stood up to Gabe. Andy was both surprised and proud of her for doing it now. 

Gabe seemed surprised too. “ No? You think I’ll put up with them? I’ll press charges for the Camaro.”

“I said–”

Gabe raises his hand, their mother flinches. 

A horrifying realization seems to seep through the room. Around her, into her, cementing itself within her bones. Gabe had hit her . Gabe had made a habit of it. Her mother had married him to protect her and Percy, and the sleazebag was not only emotionally abusive, but he’d laid hands on her. White-hot anger coils low in her gut. Andy is the daughter of a god–perhaps she was not fond of the god, but she would take her revenge just as her father would have, should have done.

Unbidden, she feels her hand close around her hairpin, the cold metal shocking awareness back into her bones. Andy had often dreamt of how she’d do it; when she was younger and Gabe’s words had cut too deeply, or more recently when his eyes had lingered on her for longer than normal. All that planning seems to dissipate as her fury rises to her chest. The only thing she really knew was that she wanted him dead. 

Gabe laughs, the sound pointedly cruel and mocking. “Oh, and what are you planning on doing? Touch me, and you’ll go to jail forever, understand?”

His friends shuffle all around him, laughing at the scene like it was the best entertainment they’d ever had. 

"I'll be nice to you, punks." Gabe says with a sneer. "I'll give you five minutes to get your stuff and clear out. After that, I’ll call the police."

“Gabe, you can’t–”

Gabe glowers at her, and Andy watches as her mother once again cowers, the same white-hot coil of anger heating again in her gut. “Five minutes, Sally.”

Their mother takes hold of their arms. Andy doesn’t want to move, and clearly neither does Percy, but neither of them had ever been able to resist her pleas, and they both allow themselves to be dragged towards their room. 

Their room doesn’t make anything better. It had been filled to the brim with Gabe and his junk, just the same as the rest of the apartment. Trash covered the floor, assorted junk lined every surface, and there was a rotting bouquet of sympathy flowers he’d gotten after his Barbara Walters interview. 

But there was a package, there on Percy’s bed. A battered cardboard box, a familiar cardboard box. Best wishes, it says, in Percy’s handwriting. Over that, Return To Sender is scrawled. An important decision, Poseidon had said. A package. 

( I have the strength to defend myself now, little Poseidia. But you do not, Medusa had said. But Percy’s sword had taken her head from her shoulders, and it lay there now, a spoil of war. A weapon. The strength Andy had never had, not against her stepfather)

Andy nudges her brother, nodding in the direction of it. Percy’s eyes widen in realization. “Mom, we know why you married him,” Andy says. She’d been angry about the marriage, before she’d known. Of course she had–Gabe had taken every opportunity to cut her and Percy down. The way his eyes had traveled over her left her feeling like a layer of grime coated her. She’d thought Gabe was her mother’s only flaw. But she hadn’t stayed with him because she was weak for him, because she loved him more than she loved Percy and Andy. She’d stayed with him because she was desperate to keep them safe. Andy thinks of the way her mother had flinched back from his raised hand, and imagines Gabe encased in cold marble with vicious satisfaction. Her mom lowers her head, as if ashamed. “But we know who we are now. Grover said–well, he said there could be no more hiding our scents.”

“I know,” Her mother says, sounding utterly heartbroken. Maybe she was. She’d spent her whole life dreading this, sacrificing piece after piece of herself to delay it, and here they were despite it all. 

“We have no use for him. Not anymore.”

“Do you want him gone?” Percy asks suddenly. He’s staring at the package, and Andy wonders if his eyes had ever left it. 

She had spent most of her life as the more temperamental one. But it’s Percy who speaks it aloud first. It’s Percy who offers to kill him. 

“Percy, Gabe–”

“Is entirely worthless to us now,” Percy interrupts. “He hurt you. He’s hurt Andy too. He’ll hurt anyone he’s near. We can’t just let him leave to ruin someone else’s life.”

Sally Jackson had never quite looked so fierce. Andy sees it now, in her upturned chin and determined stare, the Queen among mortals. “Taking care of that isn’t either of your jobs,” she declared. 

“It wouldn’t be hard,” Andy says softly. She nods in the direction of the package, and their mother’s gaze seems to sharpen. The most perceptive person Andy had ever known, as always. “I don’t think either of us could ever regret it.”

“You’re heroes now,” their mother murmurs, “I know that. But you’re still kids. My kids. I know…I know he has to go.”

“Then let me do this,” Percy pleads. “Please, mom. He deserves worse.”

And Percy’s right. Gabe Ugliano was a plague on any household he entered; thriving off of intimidation and fear. He was so vile he could hide the scent of two forbidden children. She and Percy were heroes now. Was ridding the world of monsters not their job now?

“He doesn’t deserve…” Their mother trails off and shakes her head, bites her lip. “It will take something from you, to do that,” the word murder hangs heavy in the air. 

“I don’t care what it takes from me,” Percy argues. 

“Neither do I.”

“I do.”

“Well he can’t just…continue,” Andy says. 

“I know,” she murmurs. “I didn’t say that he’d get to.”

Realization slowly washes over her. 

“Mom–”

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself,” Sally murmurs, slowly, gently. She says it like she’s said it a million times before, like she’s used it as a mantra a hundred times over, like it’s taken on a brand new meaning. “I told your father that. He wanted–he never wanted to leave us. He loves us.”

Andy knows her mother truly believes it. And she knows that the Poseidon her mom had witnessed during her year and three months was completely different from the father she had witnessed during the thirty minutes she’d been in his presence.

She doesn’t think it changes anything for her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever truly be able to believe that Poseidon loved her. 

People that loved each other would do anything for each other. People who loved each other made an effort for each other. Fathers who loved their daughters did not call them mistakes. 

Maybe her father had loved her mother—Andy could recognize that, just as she could realize that he certainly did not love his daughter. 

“He called you a Queen among mortals,” Percy says. 

Percy hadn’t ever resented Poseidon like she had. Andy wondered if he was even capable of it, the type of resentment so old and bone deep that it had calcified deep within the pit of her heart. 

“He was always good at compliments,” Sally sounds unbearably fond. 

“You deserve more than flattery,” Andy murmurs, “and you deserve to be out from under Gabe, too.”

“I know,” their mother says. “I know. But I can’t let either of you do that for me. I’ll take care of it myself.”

“I’ll leave the box,” Percy says. “One look…”

Sally Jackson’s lips press into a thin, determined grimace. “I’ll figure it out,” she murmurs. “And what about you guys? Where will you two go?”

“Half-Blood Hill,” Percy says. Andy half-wants to protest, to say that she’d stay with her mom. They’d fought their way across the country, and yes, they’d done it for their father. But it had really been about Sally Jackson, and Andy still feels a little anxious about the idea of leaving her, like her mother would disappear the moment she took her eyes off her. But they’d left Annabeth and Grover, and they have a responsibility to their new friends too. “We have some things to wrap up.”

Her mother’s hands twist together nervously, and Andy can only offer a smile in return. “For summer…or for forever?” She asks. 

“C’mon mom,” Andy says, teasing, “You don’t think we traipsed across the whole of America and back for you just to stay at camp forever?”

They leave their mother with her fate held in her own hands for the first time in a long time. 

Camp treats the both of them as heroes. 

Camp Half-Blood celebrates her for saving her father, despite her lack of intention to. And Luke Castellan tries to kill her for it. 

“Fuck this place,” Luke announces. It’s sudden; startling, a strange thing to hear from such a prominent figure at camp. And there's something truly vicious about the way he says it; spiteful and vengeant, like he’d be happiest watching Camp Half-Blood burn “I won’t end up like all those dusty trophies in the Big House attic.” 

A nervous feeling creeps up the back of her neck, gooseflesh rising and prickling. 

“You make it sound like you’re leaving,” Percy says.

Luke smiles, something almost pitying. But it isn’t directed at Percy–it’s aimed right at Andy. It isn’t conscious, but her hand lands around her brother’s wrist anyways, ready to retreat with him in tow. “I am leaving, Percy. I brought you down here to say goodbye…and to tie up some loose ends.” His eyes don’t leave Andy, even as he so clearly addresses her brother. He snaps, and a small fire erupts, burning at her feet. Out of it crawls a glistening black scorpion. Percy’s free hand goes straight to his pocket, where Riptide resides.

“I wouldn’t,” Luke says, still so pitying. “You’ll confuse it.”

And she thinks of the shoes Luke had gifted her, the backpack that Percy had only worn because it had gotten too heavy for her, the dreams that had called for Percy’s allegiance. Not hers. Never hers. Leverage, Ares had called her, and she knew what it meant. The useless twin, the lesser child of Poseidon. You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, the Prophecy had said. She remembers that voice in her dreams; so familiar, the sound of it itching across her skin. 

It wasn’t Clarisse. It had never been Clarisse. 

Percy’s hand twists up to grab her own wrist, and gentle pressure places her just a step behind him. “You,” Percy whispers. “ No .”

Luke had trained her brother, had watched them both with a critical eye and a kind smile. He was Annabeth’s brother , their first mentor, the most impressive swordsman Camp Half-Blood had seen in three hundred years. And he was going to kill her. 

“ Me ,” he smiles. It is not friendly, like it always had been before. The edges are sharp as his blade.

“ Traitor,” Andy snarls, jeweled hairpin clutched in her hand. “How could you!” The problem is, she knows how he could. She had been out in that world, a pawn for the gods and a wildcard for her father. She had chafed at the idea of being little more than a piece on a chessboard for a father who’d never cared. 

And Poseidon wasn’t the worst of the godly parents. 

“You know exactly how,” Luke says. “You both saw it, the injustice, the unfairness of it all. The gods don’t deserve it–they don’t deserve our loyalty. Not when they treat us as pawns on a chessboard. This has been brewing for a long time.” 

And she still understands, even when Percy protests, “They’re our parents,” he says, almost heartbroken. “Don’t you love them?”

“No,” Andy says, voice cracking. It’s pathetic, the fear. But she’d gotten back to camp, and she’d stopped expecting to die. The peace she’d made with it feels distant now, her heart racing and her forehead beading with sweat. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Your sister hates them too,” Luke says. He looks smug; superior. As if Andy’s dislike for her father meant approval for his war. 

But these gods had learned disastrous parenting from someone, and Zeus and Poseidon had not been nearly goaded into disastrous civil war by someone who cared about the fate of demigods and mortals. 

“I don’t agree with them,” Andy murmurs. “It’s not the same as hating them. And it’s not the same as agreeing with the war you’re calling for, or the master you serve.”

“Kronos,” Percy blurts. “That’s your master.”

Luke’s smug smile drains slowly into a sneer. “The gods are a disease, and they have to be dug out by the root. My master understands that. You’ll come to understand that, Percy. And Andy…” the scorpion clings to the edge of her shoe while she remains frozen in fear. He shakes his head, like it's pitiful. “Well, the Titan Lord only wants one of you. Too many variables with the two of you.”

“I won’t let you hurt her,” Percy says, defensive and prickly and entirely powerless to stop it–Andy feels it deep in her bones, as she stares at the scorpion perched on her shoe and clutches her hairpin tightly in her hands. He can’t stop it. There’s no possible way her brother could be fast enough to save her, not this time. 

“It will be quick,” Luke says quietly. The funny thing is, he seems entirely sincere. “60 seconds, give or take. I’m sorry, Andy Jackson. You don’t deserve to die.” 

“And what makes you think I’ll just join you,” Percy is terrified, she notes in some disjointed manner, and desperate; grasping at straws. The reason– herself –seems laughably far-fetched. Everything feels slow, hazy, and certain. She wonders if her mother had felt like this, wonders if this feeling seals her fate. “If you hurt my sister, I’ll never join you. You have to know that.”

She had always done her best to find similarities between her and her perfect mother. Andy thinks it’s pretty ironic that she’d find what she’d been so desperate to in death of all things. 

But Sally Jackson lived now, and Andy Jackson was going to die. So maybe even in that she was not her mother’s daughter, just another of her father’s nameless half-bloods. Would Poseidon even mourn her? She doubted it. Out of his thousands of children, a twelve year old girl was certainly not remarkable. 

The thought would have hurt, once, but it doesn’t even sting in the haze of certain death. 

“You will recover. And you will understand,” Luke declares. 

“I won’t !” Percy exclaims. Andy tilts her head and wonders if her brother would eventually be glad he could stop taking care of her. If she was no longer his heaviest burden. “I’ll hunt you down, and I’ll kill you myself .”

Andy doesn’t quite realize what she’s done until her sword is extended, there's a dead scorpion at her feet, and Percy and Luke are staring at her. Luke is pitying; eyes fixated on her face. I’m sorry, he mouths. He looks so pitiful she almost believes him. And then there’s Percy, eyes wide, staring at her hand. 

She feels it then, the rush of white-hot poison in her veins. She looks down at the source and gasps audibly when she’s met with a piercing, pus-filled blister. Red lines spread from the source of it, and she can already feel it, leeching her energy away. The terror, pushed away by the haze, comes back in full force just enough to where her heart pounds, almost as if to make up for the beats that were inevitably going to be lost. 

She takes a woozy half-step towards her brother; vision blurring, poison racing through her veins. “ Per –” 

The last thing she remembers is a terrified scream and the distinct feeling of arms keeping her from collapsing entirely. 

( “Am I going to die?” A girl asks a god. 

A kiss is laid upon the girl’s forehead, cold and claiming. “No,” the god says. His fingers slide beneath her chin, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. 

“How do you know?” The girl asks, and she is terrified. Of pain, of darkness, of the unknown, of the realm of her Uncle. 

“Because you are mine, sweet soulmate,” The god says, and his eyes glow with an inhumane sheen of divine power. “And I shall not lose you.”)

Chapter Text

“I know your secret,” Apollo announces. 

Hermes tenses, his back straightening and nearly seizing with the force of it. Andy, he thinks, frazzled. No–he can’t. If Apollo knew, then the rest would soon find out, and interest would be raised at the same time that Poseidon would try and kill him. Prime time for someone to get too curious or to seek some revenge. His hands twitch, mind spinning with ways to keep Apollo quiet, ways to protect Andy; a half-botched plan of simply absconding with the girl spinning to the forefront of it all. She wouldn’t like that, whispers the part of him who knew her, who liked the way she smiled and laughs, the part of him that wanted her to be young and happy and carefree, the part of him who knew she deserved that. It doesn’t matter, answers a darker, deeper, more possessive side of him, who cares little for happiness; only the claim he had on the girl. 

“You expanded your cabin.”

He manages to calm himself enough to deliver a dry, “Really, I should’ve done that a while ago. I won’t have my kids sleeping in the rafters because you’re too lazy to claim yours.”

Apollo’s nose scrunches, illustrious and golden and beautiful as ever. “I’m not too lazy, I’m just waiting for them to prove themselves. I won’t honor mediocrity.”

“You sired them,” he says, perhaps a bit too snippily. Andy and Luke flash to the forefront of his mind. His son–a traitor because of his brethren’s lack of common decency towards their own children. His ‘ dromeda –bitter and angry already, all because of a difficult life Poseidon should have been able to prevent. “You ought to at least claim them.”

“Your traitor really got to you, huh?” Apollo says, with the cruel accuracy of the god of truths, laughing that same snooty, sun-filled laugh that had made him the perfect companion for eons, that only makes Hermes want to punch him now, watch golden blood drip from his perfect nose and make an indent in his perfect face. “I guess even our pride-and-joys can turn out all wrong . No wonder you’d so easily celebrate the average.”

Hermes grits his teeth, “He has a name.”

“Yes,” Apollo says. “ Luke Castellan. Pretty boy–shame he turned out the way he did.” There’s something snakelike in the way he smirks, the way he squeezes up against all of Hermes’ most painful wounds with ease. 

“He is my son,” Hermes says. 

“Like you have not fucked my children.”

The thought of Apollo’s progeny would usually appeal to him. They were often beautiful, perfect like their father. Hermes had found hazy pleasure with many a golden daughter or shining son. But nowadays he often finds himself shamefully searching out raven curls or green eyes, always daughters, always young, always with soft, pliant forms. “I just do not want to hear of him. Not now.”

Apollo softens and sighs. “Poseidon applauds the expansion idea.”

“Of course he does,” Hermes says, hoping his irritation did not bleed through and that if it did, Apollo would blame it on leftover bitterness from Luke instead of annoyance from the way that his brother always managed to bring up topics– people –that Hermes was desperate to avoid discussion of. “He adores his children.”

“The Jackson twins,” Apollo says, dreamily, with a breathy sigh. “Kaos, I grow impatient of simply hoping to run across them.”

“I must admit my intrigue as well,” Hermes says, even though he does not care to meet Percy Jackson and has seen Andy Jackson at least once a week ever since that scorpion bite. It’s half-true, enough for the god of lies to be able to twist into something that the god of truth would accept. He will always be interested in Andy. 

She will be his wife, after all. 

“You’re late,” Andy tells him, when he finally makes an appearance. She turns from where she’d been facing the window, and the subtle glow of the night sky bathes her in a gentle luminescence. He enjoys the idea of it; his moonlit maiden, eternally eager, awaiting his return. 

“You have a brother,” He says. “I’m sure you know how demanding they can get.”

Andy grimaces. “Ares?”

She isn’t a fan of his war-mongering brother, doesn’t know that he isn’t a fan either—he speaks little of his siblings, unwilling to summon them by name alone. Unwilling to endanger his sweet soulmate in such an errant manner, “You really shouldn’t say names, ‘dromeda. They have power.”

“How does that work, exactly?” 

“It tugs on our consciousness. It doesn’t matter so much when a mortal says it, or even a lesser half-blood. But with you…”

“I am no lesser half-blood,” she declares. She doesn’t look quite happy about it. Hermes wonders if Poseidon had any clue what little fondness his youngest–and only, for all intents and purposes–daughter held for him. The sea god had made no moves to impress his fondness for his children upon his daughter. 

“You’ve proved that well enough.” Ares had once been right to call her only leverage on Percy Jackson; she was not naturally inclined for battle like her brother was. Every hint of progress she’d made with a sword had to be coaxed out of her, and though she could wield divine power with an ease that startled even him, Andy had possessed no clue about what she was capable of on that quest. But that was no longer true. She’d done a lot of growing in the past months; something obvious, even on a surface level. While her body had retained some of it’s softness, there was now a layer of rigid muscle that curled just under the surface of her skin. She was more alert, wary, with reflexes as sharp as a cat’s. She was quicker on her feet, her movements light and graceful. And there was something more, a subtle aura that lingered, bubbling up underneath her skin, with a potency that only the divine had. She was growing powerful enough to back up that temper he remembered fearing so vividly, and even that had begun to shift and temper with age and experience. Andy Jackson was…a little too young, a little too gentle, a little too naive for him still. But she was growing, and growing fast. 

“And I’ll keep proving it,” she says, with a determined grimace that he thinks mars the serene beauty she often displayed. “Are they asleep?”

He reaches out strands of his consciousness–not too much, nothing that would alarm them if they were awake and nothing that would seep into their unconscious thoughts. He wouldn’t be so careful with many others, but Percy Jackson was a son of Poseidon, and Sally Jackson was…perceptive, to say the least. He senses their heartbeats, their breaths. Slow, steady, and restful. “They’re asleep,” he says. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be?” 

Hermes finds himself watching her with a frequency he would’ve described as alarming a year prior. He justifies it to himself, of course, calls it protection, or rationalizes it as keeping her company . He had noted dark circles under her eyes and a drooping head in the mornings after he visited her, an ailment that often made his heart pang with sympathy and regret. 

“I’ll survive,” Andy says. “I mean–it’s kinda between a few hours of sleep and the ability to protect myself.”

The idea of her having to protect herself grates on him. In a perfect world, no one would ever lay a finger upon her. In another, he’d be allowed, encouraged, and able to eviscerate anyone or anything that dared try. But he’d thought himself able to protect May and Luke, and neither of them were pretty daughters of the sea god or heroes of a doomed prophecy. “...yes,” he says. “Come on, then. I’ve got a deal to fulfill.”

He extends his hand, and notes that whatever hesitancy she’d once had was now long gone. He can’t help but take a strange sort of exhilaration from it. 

—

Of course there was guilt involved in his visits to May Castellan. But until nine months ago, it had been all I’m sorry your life is ruined, sorry I cannot protect him, sorry I did not protect you. That’s still there now, but it’s taken on a deeper flavor, because Luke’s well and truly gone and he’d wanted to marry May Castellan, but he visits a thirteen-year-old girl every week and forgets more and more about the both of them with every moment he spends in his soulmate’s captivating presence. 

He would wed Andromeda Jackson, and Luke and May Castellan would fade into dusty, painful memories that he’d ignore in favor of his beautiful wife and the green-eyed children he’d undoubtedly sire. There was little he could do to prevent it, and even less that he’d even dare to attempt. Hermes could not bring himself to stray far from her side. 

May isn’t entirely gone when he arrives–something he’d have rejoiced over a year ago, and something he dreads now. Even a half-lucid May, swimming in bouts of occasional insanity, would be more perceptive than most. Hermes is half-sure she’d be able to tell, that she’d just be able to sense Andy Jackson, that the girl’s aura would roll off him in waves that betrayed all of his dreams and desires.

( A thousand years from now, you will scarcely recall my name , May had told him once, a lifetime ago. Hermes had never wanted to admit she was right)

“Hermes,” she greets, making no effort to move. He doesn’t blame her. Action often makes her lucidity pass more quickly, and he has no intentions of forcing delirium upon her. “It has begun.”

He doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t know exactly what she’s speaking of as he takes a seat on the opposite side of the couch. May’s feet knock gently against his thighs, but neither of them make any effort to move. “I tried,” he says, letting the heavy words wash over the two of them. Hermes had once delighted in the way his son’s fingers wrapped around his hand and now he dreaded the skill Luke had with his hands wrapped about a sword. 

May sounds bitter, exhausted. “There was no preventing it. I know that. You know I know that.”

He thinks of Andy Jackson, of the way he circled her now; a predatory bird, ready to swoop down and take its prize. Fate chained her to him, but it was he that chased and pursued and refused to stop orbiting her. He thinks of the improvements he’d made to his cabin, the children he’d claimed and all of their grateful prayers. He thinks of every deliberate choice he’d made and every half-hearted justification he’d given. 

“Inevitable because I made it so,” He tells her, laying a gentle hand on her ankle. He turns to her, taking her in like he hadn’t before, not in years. Age and insanity had not been kind to her, turning once cornsilk blond hair into a wispy gray mess, forming deep creases around laugh and frown lines, and turning once clear blue eyes foggy. She is still beautiful to him, but there had never been a contrast so steep between them; her, weathered by decades of murky visions, and he, the eternally youthful golden god. It unsettles him to think of what they had once been, of how far they were from it now (twenty years should’ve been nothing to an Olympian such as himself, and yet it feels like a lifetime previous). “I’m so sorry, May.”

She smiles at him, gentle as ever. He can’t help but think of Andy, of his apology to her. The girl had been gentle while ripping him apart, a steel bat wrapped in a bow. May would never be so harsh. He’s proven right when she says only, “It is more my fault than yours. I was so convinced it was my fate .”

Some cold realization seeps down his spine, old words echoing through his core; y ou will see soon enough, godling, Atropos had said. The moment he had laid eyes upon Andy Jackson he had thought her the answer, and perhaps she was a part of it. 

Anger coils, low and red-hot, in his stomach, winding him up until he has no choice but to stand.  “That’s because it was,” he says, with dreadful certainty and godly rage. It reverberates within him, looking for an outlet and only growing stronger with every passing second. If he is not careful, he will burst out of his human form and into his pure divine one. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

He is within sight of the fates within moments. The sisters are neither alarmed or frightened, and he feels himself grow only more wrathful at the sight of it. “Hermes,” Clotho says in greeting, collected as ever. 

“ You did it purposefully ,” He snarls out. 

“To care for the child properly, you’d have to love its mother,” Lacheseis interrupts them both with a shrug. “This war will teach many lessons. It will be better for all, godling, if you remember them.”

“You made me love her. You drew her towards her own doom, put the idea in her head that she was special, that fate itself called to her, that she’d be safe. You could’ve used another –”

“It had to be someone you truly loved, godling,” Lacheseis says. “This has to hurt.”

When May had gone mad, Hermes had nearly gone off the ledge with her. He had grieved for years as if she was dead, shed tears like a mortal, watched painstakingly as their son marched towards his fate. All to find out that they’d drawn her to insanity purposefully, solely so that the inevitable war would hurt . “ Bullshit, ” he growls. “What did I do to offend you so grievously that you’d drive my only love to insanity and doom our child?”

“You were fairly compensated,” Clotho says, with glittering eyes. “You would find it difficult to make it up to your soulmate if you’d married your traitor’s mother.”

The truth of the statement burns, but not as much as the mention of Andy, as the idea of her being his compensation, just another pawn on the fates’ chessboard. “ Do not speak of her .”

“We bound her to you,” Atropos says. “It seems your little wife pleases you. I will hear of nothing but thanks.”

“You drove May Castellan to insanity, you turned Luke from me, just to get my attention –the war could’ve happened as it was supposed to with another.”

“And yet, it didn’t. You will learn from pain, Hermes,” Clotho says. “This path cannot be taken back. This war will be fought. If you do not learn, it will happen again and again. Perhaps your wife will turn the tides.”

Your wife, Clotho says, and Hermes thinks of is poor May Castellan and how much he’d wanted to have her forever. He’d give up a great deal of things to have her back, to keep her by his side. He just isn’t sure–in a terribly guilt inducing way–if he’d give up his soulmate.

He finds himself in Andy’s room, only feeling half-lucid, tugged by that same connection between them. Hermes usually has a plan in place before visiting her–usually makes sure Sally and Percy Jackson are asleep, or at least away. He has not even a hint of such a plan tonight, just is hurt and just knows she’ll dull it. It’s late, luckily, and everyone in their apartment is asleep.

Wrath finds no home in the sleeping presence of Andy Jackson; every violent feeling slows and dulls the moment his eyes rake over her sleeping form. She faces away from him, curled up and encapsulated by a mass of blankets. A fan of raven ringlets fans out in a pillow behind her, and through gaps in her hair he notes a sliver of bare shoulder. Suddenly, he can’t bear the idea of waking her, of taking her from her peaceful slumber. It would be enough for him, enough for eons, enough until she gave him more, to simply keep vigil over her limp form–admiring as always. 

Andy has other ideas, stirring within moments and slowly rolling to face him. It nearly knocks the breath out of him, the sight of her. She’d always been pretty, had always been composed of a promise of greater beauty still, and yet he thought she’d grown lethally exquisite as of late. She looks unearthly in the glowing moonlight, all long blinks that showed off longer lashes, pouty pink lips, and sharp angles that contrasted with the softness of her cheeks. 

(He lets himself–if only for a moment lose himself in fantasies of a future where she woke, bleary in his bed, soft form curled around his own, those loose curls tickling his nose)

Her lack of panic–bleary blinking and his whispered name seems the extent of her actions–is a testament to their bond. She lazily props herself up on her elbow, exhaustion seeping throughout every movement. Despite that, she sees through all of his pretenses within moments. “What’s wrong?” She asks, sweet and soft; tamed by brutal exhaustion. 

“I loved his mother, y'know,” he manages to say, forgetting every learned instinct that should’ve kept him from upsetting her with mentions of another woman. “That’s why it had to be him.”

She moves slowly yet fluidly as she rights herself. “Luke?” She questions, and her hands close around the edge of her bed. “His mother?”

“Yes,” he confirms. Andy’s eyes flash with something–maybe it’s sympathy. Maybe it’s something else, something deeper. They draw him in, dark pools shining in the dim moonlight. Hermes could swim in them, could drown himself within her. He wants to; exist only within the depths of her; suffocate within her. “She went mad. I think it was purposeful. This war is supposed to teach me .”

If there had been anything darker before, it was gone now, replaced by sympathy. “I don’t have kids,” Andy says, and he’s suddenly drawn to the idea of it, dark-haired boys with his blue eyes, green-eyed daughters with his brunette ringlets. His eyes move to her flat stomach, as if envisioning it round with his child. ( Young, he remembers with a start, so, so young) “And I’ve never been in love . So I don’t really understand what you’re feeling. But I’m sorry, Hermes, truly I am.”

He doesn’t say anything; responses measured in the way he surveys the girl he will marry. She had been nothing but fight and fury when he’d first met her, but whatever trust lingered between the two of them had illuminated a sweetness reserved only for those closest to her. He desperately wants to preserve it, and he’ll end up corrupting it. 

“You could sit,” she murmurs, so softly he almost cannot hear her. “I know company helps.” 

He had always come to her–for the past nine months–under the pretense of wanting something, of having a message to deliver, a promise to fulfill, a curiosity to sate. It is no longer the case, startlingly obvious as he sits next to her on her own bed. It hadn’t been the case since he’d just come to her for no reason other than his own distress. 

Her calf presses gently against his own, the only contact between the two of them. Neither of them make any effort to move. “I said I made Ares leave out of pettiness, when I first met you,” he says, breaking his silence. To her credit, the subject change doesn’t startle Andy. She simply hums, gently, in acknowledgement. “I was lying.” 

He could tell her; of the bonds tying them together. Of the way he’d nearly locked her away, just for him. Of how his hands shook, restraining themselves even now. He wants to; tired of keeping it a secret, tired of moving secretly about her, tired of pretending their friendship is fueled by curiosity and pettiness. 

“Then why did you make him leave?”

If she told anyone, if word got out it would intensify the target painted so cleanly on her back. If Poseidon found out…he loved his daughter in that possessive, bright-hot way gods loved. Either Hermes would take her and Poseidon would declare war or Poseidon would take her and Hermes…Hermes thinks of the itch that settles deep in his ichor when they part for too long, of the comfort she brings him, of the pain she dulls. 

He would raze the earth; the seas; the skies to get her back. 

“I was curious,” he says, “that much was not a lie.” Hermes is the trickster, the god of lies, the silver-tongued Olympian. Andy; for all that she is too powerful and too divine and too quick a study, does not yet know him well enough to discern all of his half-truths and well written lies. Not when he is their god and master, not when falsehoods leave his lips more easily than truths. He speaks them into existence now, just enough of the truth to balance out his lies of omission. Just enough of a solid front to hide the illusion behind it. “I thought you…You were…I wanted to become acquainted with you.”

In the dark, he can only imagine the glimmer of amusement he’s sure resonates within her eyes. “And you couldn’t do that with Ares around.” 

“I’m possessive of my friends.” 

“That sounds like pettiness.”

“They’re very different. Especially for Olympians.” That much is true. They were all petty, in every breath that they took, with every move that they made. It was starkly different from raw possessiveness–the tingling urge in his fingers to reach out and take, the way staying away from her made his very soul itch, the primal rage that courses through him when any god made mention of his Andy, the way he thought he’d go to war for her, even now. 

She doesn’t say anything. He wonders idly if he’d frightened her with his admission, if he’d toed too far over the line and he’d wake to the tips of her father’s trident at his neck. And then she does. “Percy’s going after him this summer,” she whispers. The statement is tinged with heartbreaking fear; soft, scared, sweet. He knows why she’s so scared. He remembers the paralyzing fear that had coursed through him when she’d been attacked, the utter relief he’d felt when Poseidon had waved his hand over his daughter’s forehead and dulled the poison enough to where she could be saved, the starkly different girl he’d been confronted with afterwards–weak, scared, so childlike it burnt. “He wants revenge.”

If anyone else had touched a hair on her head, Hermes would’ve hunted them down himself. He would’ve made them scream and cry and beg for mercy. He would have torn their heart from their chest and made them eat it. He would’ve killed them, and he would have stood there; a god of the Underworld, as their soul was eternally judged and given his own command. He would have smiled with bloodstained teeth as they begged again for divine mercy. He would’ve said you offered my Andromeda no mercy, and he would’ve guided their spirit to eternal agony. 

And he would’ve relished in it. 

Luke is different. His son, his pride and joy. May’s son. May’s only child. Hermes thinks Luke could rip Olympus to shreds and he would not be able to bring himself to kill him. He does not often find himself grateful for Andy’s brother, but there is a certain relief for the vengeance he’d bestow. Andy will have her rightful vengeance, and Hermes can lay the blame for the death of his favored son– May’s only child –at the feet of another. He could curse and scream and smite and yet Andy would be avenged and he would not have to look at Luke’s face as he did it himself. 

(Andy would hate him if he touched a hair on her brother’s head. She would have eons to forget, and eons still to forgive)

“Good,” Hermes says softly. 

“I didn’t think you’d approve.”

“You deserve to be avenged,” he murmurs. “You nearly died–you were on the brink. I could feel it, days later, mostly healed. He nearly killed you. He wanted to.”

“I know,” Andy says. “Better than most.” She flexes her hand, and even in the dim lighting he can see the stark white scar–the only physical remnant of what his prodigal son had done to her. His hand reaches out of its own accord and he takes her hand in his own, thumb tracing over the white line. 

“I’m so sorry for that, ‘dromeda.” 

“I understood him,” she says slowly, with wide, frightened eyes. “That was the worst part. He was going to kill me, and I understood it. I’d never join Kronos. I know that. But I knew what he was talking about.”

“If it had been anyone else,” Hermes says, hesitantly. “Even amongst my own children…I think I would’ve hunted them down, stopped the threat before it could grow too large. Kaos, I would’ve done it for you .”

“You still love him,” Andy murmurs, her shoulders slumping. “And I still understand him.”

He doesn’t say anything back; can’t, past the lump in his throat and the stinging tears and every regret and half-based excuse he’d ever used. Luke had deserved more than Hermes could ever and would ever give him, and he’d either destroy Olympus or die for it. 

“Percy’s going after him,” Andy says softly, finally. Her calf, still pressed to his, seems to brand him with its warmth. He still cannot bring himself to pull away. Let her mark him. He is hers already. “I won’t let him go alone. I can’t .”

Hermes knows what she means–that she’d have to go up against Luke, that she’d never let Percy die just so Luke could live, that she would protect her brother. “Do what you must.” He considers saying, I won’t blame you for it, but it wouldn’t be true. He’d have to blame whoever killed Luke. It would be the only way he’d ever recover. But he wouldn’t kill her for it. “I won’t punish you for it.”

“I’m going to try and talk to him,” Andy says; brave and hopeful and still so obviously petrified. Of what Luke had done, of what he could and would do. “Maybe…maybe all hope is lost. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe I can convince him that Kronos will only make things worse.”

“Maybe,” Hermes says. He wonders if he sounds as doubtful as he feels. “If anyone…” He wants to say it would be you, but it wouldn’t be. Not Andy; claimed so soon into camp, who’s father had aided her along her quest, who succeeded in her quest, whose father had saved her as she lay dying. “If someone at least tried .” They would fail, undoubtedly, but then Hermes would know for sure that Luke was beyond redemption, beyond him. 

“I’ll do my best,” she murmurs. Her hands twitch, still encapsulated in his own, and he traces the thin white scar again in a manner he hopes is comforting. 

“That’s all I could ever ask,” he responds. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Don’t be,” Andy says. She smiles at him, a weak thing, and disconnects their hands, laying back down. Her leg still brushes gently against him; purposeful, he notes. “You looked like you needed to talk to someone.” 

He lays a hand over her ankle. “And you look like you could use some sleep.”

“I could,” she says, shamelessly blunt, endlessly amused. 

He chuckles, low in his throat, mindful of the way Sally and Percy Jackson were never far away. “I’ve smited demigods for less disrespect.”

“You could never hurt me,” she says, entirely teasing, entirely spot on. He would do a great number of things before he laid a harsh hand on her. The thought made his stomach turn. The intensity of it all stuns him speechless. He doesn’t respond until minutes later when her heartbeat had slowed, dimming in sleep. It was comforting, the gentle lull of it. He thought he might be content like that forever; gentle hand on her ankle, listening to the even thrumming of her heart. 

“I could never hurt you,” he whispers, affirming. He adjusts her blankets, tucking her in. 

And he leaves her to her slumber. 

___

If one was to guess the most perceptive of the gods, they might choose Apollo; god of truths, or Zeus; keeper of oaths. They would be wrong. The most perceptive amongst them was Aphrodite; goddess of love and lust and beauty. 

Hermes had done his best to avoid her for close to a year–not that unusual, not for Olympians who’d lived for eons and would live for eternity more, but strange enough that she whispers of it to Apollo, strange enough that his half-brother takes her with him the next time they meet for dinner. 

He thinks about fleeing the moment he lays eyes on her and notes that she no longer looks anything like May Castellan. Aphrodite had always been viciously curious when it came to her own domain, and there was no chance she didn’t recognize–at the very least–that cornsilk blond hair had turned to raven curls, pale blue eyes to sea green ones, red lips to soft pink ones, features now awash in some divine glow she’d been without the last time he’d seen her. But he thinks running would rid himself of any defense, and it would certainly expose his secret to not only Aphrodite but Apollo–the biggest gossip amongst them. 

And so he sits through lunch, trying desperately to ignore the suspicion in Aphrodite’s stare and the melodic, honeyed voice he recognizes all too well. The moment Apollo is gone, she is upon him, her nails digging harshly into his arm. ”Why do I look like Rhea Ourania?” she demands.

Hermes had nearly forgotten Andy’s similarities to the Titan Queen; the way rumors had dictated her the mortal incarnate of Rhea herself. “Perhaps I have simply recalled the great beauty of the Queen Mother,” he drawls, smirking. 

Aphrodite glares at him “No. You were in love with May Castellan. Rhea wouldn’t comp…” she trails off, and then smirks at him, realization glittering in those sea-green eyes. “ Andromeda Jackson .”

Hermes laughs, cruel and heavy and dismissive, despite the way his mind spins with terror and apprehension, plotting ways to keep and protect. He shrugs her off his arm with a slow, purposeful roll. “I’ve never even met Poseidon’s newest brat.”

“No?” Aphrodite’s eyes–so starkly different from Andy’s, despite the way they were identical now–glimmer. “Then how could you possibly be in love with her ?”

“I have simply grown to admire the beauty of your dear half-sister,” He sighs, airily. “Rhea Ourania is one of the greatest beauties of all time. I dreamt of marrying her in ancient times,” Lie, Hermes had never yearned for the bonds of marriage. But falsehoods are the foundation of his divinity, and he breathes them into existence with practiced ease. His eyes rake up Aphrodite’s form ( Andy’s form—aged, but hers nonetheless) ; lecherous in a way that half makes him sick with the disrespect and half delights him—for this was an indulgence he did not allow himself with his young bride. “Or at least fucking her,” he says crudely. “There have been many reminders of the Titan Queen lately.” He pauses for a moment, stares hungrily at Aphrodite. “By Kaos, you may as well be her.” 

There had never been any throwing Aphrodite off the trail when it came to her own domain. She was a deadly force to be reckoned with, fierce and unstoppable. She’d eat your heart wearing the face of the one you loved most, and she’d call to you in the voice of your love while she did so. She was cruel and vicious just in the way love itself often was, and she was so beautiful that most forgot it until it was too late. 

“I know my domain, Hermes,” Aphrodite says, with narrowed eyes ( Andy’s eyes; focused and determined in that way she got when she was concentrating especially hard) . “Do not insult me.”

“I do not intend to,” He says. 

“Then do not lie. You are in love with Poseidon’s daughter, and yet none of us were supposed to have even encountered her,” She arches her eyebrow in the same way Andy did when she was daring him to argue with her, but where Andy’s stance usually held a little uncertainty born of a girl challenging a god, Aphrodite was as overtly confident as an Olympian should be. He tries fruitlessly to cling to the small changes, differentiate the two of them as well as he can bear to. It’s uncanny– Andromeda’s face stretched atop Aphrodite’s divine form. It’s unsettling . It makes him feel as if the goddess had peeled away every layer of protection he’d cast, every layer of secrecy he’d entrenched them in. 

He would hate her for it, if she wasn’t wearing the skin of his soulmate. If she didn’t speak like her, if she didn’t mirror her mannerisms, if she didn’t have those godsdamned eyes. 

“I am not in love with her ,” Hermes argues. He isn’t. Andy’s just so unbearably young , and he still has lingering feelings for May Castellan and considerably more complicated feelings about Luke Castellan. He thought it might be some sort of betrayal to be in love with Andromeda already, even if he knew of the inevitability of it all. But he had paused before he’d spoken, let the idea linger too long, stopped dead in his tracks by the sight of her face. Aphrodite grins with sharp teeth, a bloodhound who’d sniffed out the first drop of blood. 

“I won’t harm the poor girl,” Aphrodite coos, dripping with condescension. Hermes had never heard that sound from Andy’s voice. He imagines the same sound, years from now, imagines her teasing him with that voice and running from his feigned wrath. She’d let herself get caught, in his daydreams. And that itch would finally leave him. I’m going mad, he thinks, and he barely cares. “I’m just curious, Hermes. Indulge me.” 

“You always harm,” Hermes says. His mouth tastes faintly of ichor as he remembers eons by Apollo’s side, the ever lovesick, masochistic god, maimed time and time again by the love goddess and all of her beautiful, tragic tales. He thinks of May Castellan’s broken eyes and the way he’d sobbed into her hair. He cannot bear the thought of Andy’s life over before it could even begin–selfishly, he cannot bear the thought of her life ending before he could have her. “You think it fun.” 

“I am no different than the rest of us,” Aphrodite smiles, disarmingly Andy’s . “You were always cruel to mortals and to gods. Perhaps more so, trickster. You always did enjoy your ruinous laughter.” 

She’s right. Hermes had always enjoyed mortal misfortunes. His ancient self had been especially vicious and vindictive. But he’d mellowed. Aphrodite hadn’t–love would never stop being the most vicious of afflictions, and neither would she. “I won’t have you be needlessly cruel to her,” Hermes says, and his mouth tastes acrid (like hypocrisy) when he says, “She’s only a girl.”

Aphrodite’s eyes twinkle. If it were anyone else, Hermes might have believed her lighthearted and joking. “A girl you love,” she murmurs, leaning close like she was sharing a secret–and perhaps she was. 

“I don’t–” He cuts himself off when she raises a single eyebrow. She would not leave him be, not until he gave her something she could rationalize. “Not yet. I’m fond of her. I’ll love her someday.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “She’s your fated .”

He doesn’t say anything, and his hesitancy only seals his fate. The love goddess knows. He isn’t sure how to spin this–how he will defend his visits to the Sea God. An innocent desire to see her safe? Selfless and kind hearted? They had never been selfless. They had been about the way her soul called to his divinity. They had been about the way he felt uncomfortable in his mortal form, bursting at the seams with divine power that longed for the presence of his soulmate. They had been about preserving whatever future he could scrape up with the only girl he’d ever love and marry. 

And Poseidon would be the best of the fallout. Her new status would make her a somehow even more direct target, and curious gods would finally decide if Hermes is allowed, I should be too.  

She was stronger now, a hero, a true daughter of Poseidon. But that didn’t make her a godkiller. And his kind remained the same as ever; cruel and impatient and entitled. 

“She and I do not lay within your domain,” Hermes tells her. Aphrodite surely needs the reminder; as irritating as it was, fate transcended them all. “You may not meddle.”

“I know my bounds, trickster,” she sniffs. “Do you? Even you cannot deny the Great Prophecy–your bride lives on borrowed time.”

Of course he knew of the Great Prophecy. It had consumed his thoughts since May had been lost. And of course he knew that it could very well be Andy’s prophecy. But he had thought long and hard about it, and he knew there were other possible children of the Prophecy. “She is not the only forbidden child,” he murmurs. “She has a twin brother, after all.” 

“The demi-divine fall so quickly,” Aphrodite’s smile is sharp and cutting. “And Andromeda is said to love her brother. She may very well detest you for eons if you harm him.” 

“Thalia Grace remains in stasis,” he says. “There are ways to reverse that. Father will enjoy the boost to his ego–perhaps he would even defend me from his brother.”

“Your father will take any chance to argue with his brother,” Aphrodite says. “That is not your concern. What will you do if you cannot recruit another? If there are no others?”

“There are ways to keep her from aging.”

“She cannot join the Hunt,” Aphrodite says. “Just as I cannot interfere, neither can Artemis. If you wanted to keep her from aging–”

“I’d have to marry her,” He says. “I know.” 

Andy had never seen marriage in a positive light. He could gather that from Gabe Ugliano. Hermes, after all, had bought the stone corpse. She would never willingly marry him–not anytime in the near future–and she would never abandon her brother to a ceaseless war. She’d have to be drug to the altar, heels digging into the ground, eyes wet with protestant tears, pleading with him to stop, to see reason.

And she’d hate him for it for centuries, mayhaps eons. And yet he would not have to lose her. And he would have her, willing or unwillingly tied to his side. So long as he did not lose her, Hermes thought he could bear the undeniable weight of her hatred and latch onto the way she’d be his wife . 

He wonders, idly, if there’d ever be someone he could love and let go of easily, without leaving claw marks and fresh bruises on their skin. A brand declaring his inability to let go. 

“She’s so young,” Aphrodite states, as if he did not already know. As if it didn’t weigh heavily upon his meager conscience. “I doubt she’d be especially willing.”

“I doubt she’d be eager to die,” Hermes says. He wonders if she’d see it that way; life or death, or if she’d hate him for taking away her choice nonetheless. For declaring to the gods–to Poseidon himself–that he’d marry her as the fates themselves decreed. For following through with it, the girl willing or unwilling. He’d save her from whatever doomed fate the Great Prophecy wished to incur. Would it be worth the loss of her autonomy, at least in that of who she loved, who she spent her life entwined with? 

If it came down to it, Hermes thought he knew the answer. 

“And should I resign myself to losing my soulmate?” He questions. “Stand idly by as war claims her life, all so I can say she had a choice?” 

Aphrodite frowns. “No,” she murmurs. “No, of course not. I only mean that you should take care to make her a willing bride. She could be angry for eons, you know. It would make the two of you miserable if that was the case.” 

“Andy’s temperamental, but her moods shift quickly,” He tells the love goddess. “She’s not the type for–”

“Grudges?” The goddess asks, with knowing eyes ( Andy’s eyes . Hermes could admit that seeing those particular lips declare how his wife would hate him for eons was rather eery). “If you don’t understand the consequences of what you’re doing, reconsider exactly what you’re planning on doing to that poor girl. And make her comfortable beforehand. If she can’t escape it, it’s the least you can do.” If Aphrodite was capable of sympathy, Hermes would say it was apparent, emerging in the crease between her brow and the rare earnest cadence to her tone. 

Her own marriage, Hermes recalled, had been something she’d had no say in. It still was something she had no say in. And Hermes recalled the way Hephaestus had rarely done anything to make her situation better. He did not even leave her to pursue her happiness with the one she clearly wanted–always interfering and embarrassing her. 

“I won’t…” He nearly says be like him , but that wasn’t entirely true. He cannot imagine letting her take another lover, standing idly by as the goddess he’d married gave her heart to another and flaunted it in front of the Olympian court. He thought he might chain her to his side and rip off the heads of her lovers before he allowed that. But he would not be cruel. He would help her adjust, as best as he could. He could be kind. “I won’t be purposely cruel.” 

“And you should try…” She pauses and lets out a brief sigh–something that might have gone unnoticed if he had been a mortal man. “You should try to give her a choice. I’m not saying let her kill herself. I’m just–”

“Try to make her happy?”

“Don’t strive to make her miserable.”

“Aw,” he drawls. “How sweet of you to care.”

She rolls her eyes and sighs, brushing past the moment with practiced ease, “You will need a witness and an officiate.”

“Are you offering your services, Dite?”

The goddess shrugs, the movement fluid and graceful. “I have never cared much for Poseidon’s judgment. And we have gone far too long without an Olympian wedding.”

Chapter Text

A ndy forgets most of the dreams. They aren’t like normal demigod dreams, burned into her mind with a white hot iron. They’re hazy and unclear when she’s asleep, and impossible to remember let alone decipher when she’s awake. 

But she doesn’t forget Hermes; entwined with all of those hazy, indecipherable dreams. Perhaps it’s why she makes the deal—she still remembers the imprint of his laugh, still craves the feeling of safety she’d known so intimately in those damned dreams. Maybe she knew she needed extra tutelage in order to survive—it wasn’t as if Andy was the poster child for good with a sword (at most, she could be called decent and even then she was leagues behind her brother). Maybe she simply enjoyed his company. 

Either way, she makes the deal.

( “Indulge my curiosity,” the god says, inclining his head as if studying her. She is not fond of being looked at as some exotic bug, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she would have three weeks ago. “Let me train you. I’m not quite so into swordplay as Chiron, but I know divinity better than he ever could.”

“It doesn’t seem like you get much out of this,” she says. 

“I get to see the power you wield firsthand. I’m old,” he says, and then pauses and looks at her. His eyes are his father’s and his son’s, but she thinks them prettier set in his face, thinks them softer when he says. “I don’t get many firsts anymore.” 

“I’m not as special as you seem to think,” Andy warns. “But sure. I’ve got to learn how to defend myself anyways. What about Percy? Can he come?” 

The god frowns, and that should’ve been her first hint. “No,” he says. He almost sounds angry at the prospect. “He’s nothing special. I’m only interested in fun ones—like you.”

Strangely, Andy takes it as a compliment) 

The dreams don’t stop.

On nights she spends with Hermes, they disappear. Andy wakes up with no lingering, confusing, half-formed memories. She reasons with herself that it’s because she’s simply too exhausted to dream. When it’s been longer than usual, she wakes up and feels as though she’s gotten no sleep at all. She attributes this to her body having adjusted to a routine and disliking breaking from it. 

It doesn’t change the facts: there seems to be no peaceful sleep without Hermes. 

(She will not learn why for many months. She will not learn how to subvert it for longer still)

Andy doesn’t ask him about it. They talk about Poseidon and Gabe Ugliano and May Castellan and Sally Jackson and Percy Jackson and Luke Castellan; everything that seems a little too personal, everything that makes her feel like he’s peeling back layers upon layers of her skin. But she can’t fathom telling him about the dreams, the way they dissipated when she’d seen him recently and the way she felt like there was some sort of unscratchable itch under her skin when they separated for longer than a few days.

The longest they part is for nine days. By the end of them, her undereyes are dark and she feels as though she hasn’t slept in weeks. Everytime she wakes, she swears she can feel the imprint of some important realization, swimming to the forefront of her mind before vanishing suddenly, leaving no trace of it to be found. She falls asleep when she takes a break during their training session, and wakes up with her shoes off, neatly tucked into her bed, feeling more rested than she had for over a week. 

By the time the school year begins to wind down, Hermes feels like a permanent facet in her life. Andy had not been at all inclined to befriending an Olympian when she’d first discovered the Greek World, but now Hermes knows her better than anyone–her best friend, of sorts (though she didn’t think she’d ever say it aloud). She longs for his company in a manner she would’ve deemed pathetic not too long ago. 

“I’m worried,” she grunts out, spinning to a harsh downward strike. Andy had never been particularly muscled, but she’s fast and flexible and she’s learned to defend herself with maneuvers based more in dodging than counter-attacks. 

Hermes continues forward, using slow but brutal swings of his sword to slowly back her up. She feels a trickle of sweat make its way down her back and wishes–not for the first time–that she could be just as unaffected as he was. “Tyson or Percy?”

Nowadays, Andy is constantly worried about Percy. He seemed to spend the vast majority of his time talking about his grand plans for the summer; all of which included reuniting with their friends, getting a prophecy, and hunting Luke Castellan down. Andy didn’t need a prophecy to know it wouldn’t end well. And she certainly didn’t need one to know Hermes would probably punish Percy for Luke’s death.

( I won’t punish you for it, he had said, and she’d been stuck ever since on the you )

But it isn’t Percy she’s thinking about now, a week from the end of the year at Merriweather Prep. 

“Tyson,” she manages, crouching and pivoting away from the wall he’s leading her towards. If she wanted to win this, she’d need to turn on him, make herself into an offensive player. He was a creature of unlimited strength, speed, and stamina–only the element of surprise would ever work. And she rarely took an offensive stance. “It’s nearly the end of the year,” she continues. “And his scholarship hasn’t been renewed. I’m worried–I don’t know how to help him if I don’t know where to find him.”

Hermes’ brow furrows in concentration as he directs a heavy blow and she counters–the resounding clank startling a few birds perched in the trees above them as his blade glances off the hilt of her sword. She drives forward, using the surprise of her counterattack and the momentum that brought her to her to swiftly slash upwards–he deflects, but it’s only barely, and then she swings her sword back out again. He doesn’t manage to deflect this time, and her sword leaves a thin gold line across the wrist of his sword hand. 

First Blood . She’d won, for only the third out of dozens of tries. And the first one didn’t truly count, either, because neither of them had been sure who’d drawn first blood. Hermes grins at her, a wily thing. “Impressive. Lulling me into a false sense of security, then turning the tables on me. I like it; very trickster.” 

Andy rolls her eyes. “You just turned my victory into a way to compliment yourself,” she complains, though she hardly means it. 

“You, my sweet Andromeda,” she ignores the heat in her cheeks at the casual endearment, “are a monument to my teaching skills. Why should I not compliment myself?  You have just felled an Olympian.”

“I would not have stood a chance in true combat,” Andy retorts. “So don’t get too cocky.”

Hermes frowns; as if truly upset at the notion of her fighting another Olympian, of the fate that would surely befall her if she did. Myths and legends herald him as the divine trickster, and yet he had multitudes of subjects she was not to joke about. “You drew the blood of a god,” he murmurs. He looks at her in that same intense manner that makes her feel as though he’s peeling the flesh from her bones, taking into consideration everything under her skin. Accounting, she supposes, for the progress she made and how ineffectual it still might be in a true fight. “It’s a start.” He allows, though his jaw tightens. 

Sometimes, she wonders what casual acquaintanceship justified the intensity of the god in front of her. Other times, she accepts that they’re different creatures entirely; that Hermes and she likely had entirely different thought processes and attachment habits and that he was perhaps simply used to clinging to his mortal companions tightly.

(Somewhere in the back of her mind, she accepts denial for what it is, glosses over it in favor of the attachment she’d formed) 

“...Thanks,” she mumbles. 

He gives her a tired half-smile. “You’ve come a long way,” he allows. “I’m proud of you.” 

She doesn’t like the red-hot heat that rises to her cheeks at the statement, the praise making her far too giddy to mean anything good. She ducks her head. “Thanks.”

He looks at her and smiles brightly; surface level wariness gone. In its place, a false enthusiasm she’d grown well acquainted with.  “As for Tyson; don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” 

“How sweet,” she teases, turning mocking. “ I’ll take care of it .”

“Anything for you,” He tells her, dead-serious enough that she knows it must be a farce. Her heart beats a little faster anyways, the idea of a god bending himself to her will. The idea of Hermes, truly caring for her–in the same manner that she’d begun to care for him. The idea of him solving all of her mortal problems for her with a snap of his fingers; a childish fantasy, and yet one she indulged in all the same. It makes her heart beat faster to think of; something special about a nice thing done for her, perhaps a product of Gabe Ugliano or Poseidon’s lack of care and basic human decency. 

(Sometimes, when she wakes in the middle of the night to a pacing god, wanting reassurance of some kind, she finds herself believing that he does care for her. That he valued her company, her time and her presence. Sometimes, when her leg brushes up against his own she could swear he was branding her, marking her as his own. The strangest thing; she cannot bring herself to care)

Andy rolls her eyes, deflecting, “Whatever.”

He smirks, and she’s struck by how entirely attractive it is; his lips pulled up at one side, soft, plump, and pink. The way electric blue eyes glittered when he did so, the cocky nature of it all reeling her in. She didn’t often think of men as pretty, but Hermes certainly was. She knows he’s certainly teasing when he says, mockingly, “ Whatever. ”

Andy puts her hands on her hips, conscious of the way she still held her sword in her right hand and the odd angle it stuck out at. “Are you going to make fun of me or are you going to train me?” 

“Make fun of you, of course,” Hermes says. “Did you think these sessions were free? My price is your embarrassment.” 

“You’ll need to do better than a mocking tone if you want to embarrass me.” 

“Lovely Andromeda,” He murmurs, low and pretty. Her cheeks heat against her will and he grins, a crooked thing. “Evidently, it doesn’t take much to embarrass you.”

“Unfair. I don’t take compliments well,” She declares, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant child. She narrows her eyes and says, accusingly, “You knew that, though.”

Hermes tilts his head and hums, acquiescent. “I play dirty sometimes,” he whispers, conspiratorially, as if he spoke some great, unknown secret and not something one could locate on his Wikipedia page. “You know, I’m called the divine trickster.”

“What a startling revelation,” Andy tells him, heavy sarcasm coating her words. “The cleverest of the gods; the sharpest Olympian.” 

“Don’t let my half-sister hear you,” Athena, he means, though he doesn’t say it. Andy had long since accepted that he did not like to say the names of his brethren–afraid to call them to their location, afraid to expose her to them (“You are notorious for not playing well with gods–my siblings especially.” “Truly?” “ Notorious.” ). 

“Don’t want to lose horrifically in a battle of wits?”

“Don’t want to stand next to your smoking corpse.” He deadpans–a joke, she knows. If it were real he’d get that somber look in his eye she often saw when she discussed her death or her fate or her future. 

She hums. “A depressing idea, thanks.”

“My pleasure, beautiful Andromeda.” 

Heat still rises to her cheeks at the new endearment. “You play horrifically dirty.”

Hermes just winks, unbearably and undeniably proud of himself. “C’mon,” he says. “You’ve drawn First Blood. I think you deserve sleep.”

Andy’s bones ache; the toll of drawing golden ichor. “Yes,” she agrees. “I deserve fourteen hours of it.”

Hermes just smirks again and holds out his hand. An invitation. She takes it with none of her earlier hesitance, and she’s asleep in thirty minutes. She wakes us feeling more rested than she has in days–not a single hint of those godsdamned dreams. 

“School says I come back next year,” Tyson tells her, three days later. 

She flashes a quick smile at the boy and files away a mental note to thank Hermes. 

“That’s great!” Percy enthuses, leaning in front of her desk to speak with Tyson. “We were worried.”

Tyson gives them both a large, crooked grin, His teeth still have remnants of his lunch of them–peanut butter smeared across them. “Really?” He sounds heartbreakingly hopeful, like the idea that someone might care for him is foreign and priceless. It breaks Andy’s heart in that same way her first look at him did, and she’s quick to pat his shoulder in hopes of comforting him. 

“Of course we were,” She confirms. 

Their teacher shushes them, and Andy turns her head back to her book. Percy gives her a suspicious once-over when he thinks she can’t see him. 

(“You’re so tired all the time,” his eyes, reflections of her own, narrow. “But you always go to bed so early.”

“Dreams,” she tells him, a muttered half-lie she hopes comes across as demigod dreams, not whatever muted realities span her consciousness now.)

“Tyson’s been offered another year of his scholarship,” Andy tells Hermes, two nights later when he deigns to visit her again. She’d had a viciously realistic dream the night before, and yet despite it’s harsh impact on her quality of sleep, she didn’t remember a second of it. “Thank you.” 

“I did say I’d take care of it,” Hermes says. He crosses his arms over his chest, as if trying not to look proud of himself. “No need for thanks.”

The great gods, always so eager for mortal worship and praise. Or maybe just Hermes. Andy’s father had never seemed especially keen on his daughter’s approval–perhaps more eager to displease than to please. 

“Well, thank you anyways,” she tells him. “I was really worried for him–especially because Percy and I will be gone all summer.” 

A glimmer of a shadow briefly crosses the plains of his face. Discomfort, she decides. “Andy…” he says, hesitant and too gentle.​​ “There’s been a…development at camp.”

She doesn’t like his tone; apprehensive and tender, as if he thought her something delicate, something that would shatter at a rough touch. She especially doesn’t like the implications of it all, the way her mind spins through a thousand things that could’ve gone wrong at their home for happy, healthy child soldiers and eventually lands on Luke Castellan and Kronos. 

“What’s wrong?” She questions, hating her own alarm. 

She wasn’t the biggest fan of Camp Half-Blood—how could she be. How could she enjoy knowing that the children she was surrounded by were assigned value based on a deadbeat godly parent who didn’t give two shits about them. That they all fought and died for the glory of some great god who—best case scenario—barely mourned for them. But Percy loved it, enjoyed the idea of being a part of something, of fitting in with a community (even if the two of them, by nature of the god they were born to, were different even within the camp). And it was Annabeth’s home. And for all its faults, when their quest was said and done, Andy had found herself almost enjoying herself, almost sad to leave it behind, and almost excited to rejoin its ranks. 

Hermes grimaces. “It is no longer…safe,” he explains, half-heartedly, as if the idea was embarrassing. It better have been, considering the gods provided one singular semi-safe place for their half-blooded children. And now even that had been contaminated. “I would prefer if you stayed away this summer.” 

“Tell me what happened,” she demands, bypassing his warnings and commands. If Camp Half-Blood had fallen…Andy was not it’s biggest fan, but the idea of all of them together, in a camp with failed borders, the biggest hotspot for monsters on the map. 

(She had dreamt, once, of the horde that had killed Thalia Grace. She didn’t see how any of them could survive it)

His eyes narrow, dangerous and powerful, obvious within the slight glow of them and the way something otherworldly rolled off him in waves. “If I was another god—“ 

“You would smite me, strike me down for my insolence,” Andy interrupts, impatient and a little scared. She wonders if it’s apparent, to this god who probably knows her better than the girl she called her best friend. She wonders if it would draw sympathy. “Don’t threaten me with things we both know you won’t do.” 

( Not to me remains unsaid) 

Hermes glowers at her, unused to the casual impudence of a half-blooded girl, all divine, holy wrath that had sunk ships and burned cities. Something powerful rolls off him in waves–he’s like a supernova, she decides, a being composed of pure, raw, explosive power, hiding behind some false mortal shell. She flinches back, an instinctual thing; prey cowering before predator. For a moment, she truly wonders if he would hurt her–if she’d crossed some invisible line between them, between god and hero. 

She catches the moment he registers her fear; smug satisfaction she finds unsettling rolling across his face. Got you, it seems to convey. It only lasts a mere second before something akin to regret flashes within his eyes and the god visibly softens and huffs out a long-suffering sigh. “Someone has poisoned Thalia Grace’s tree,” he tells her, a soft thing that makes her think he’s sorry for scaring her, that he thinks her soft and delicate and too-breakable. She hates the notion, and wonders anyways if she is, especially in comparison to the vast power he possessed. “The camp boundaries are no longer safe or stable.” 

Andy should fear him more. That power she’d felt–only a glimpse, only a momentary, instinctual raging reaction born of years of godhood, of Olympianhood –had been overwhelming and terrifying. That satisfaction had been overtly arrogant and cruel, and the whole thing had been eye-opening towards the true nature of an Olympian—or at least it should’ve been. But that softened look, the way it had dimmed near immediately, the way he’d looked so sorry for scaring her, the way he’d spoken so softly. She doesn’t fear him. Andy isn’t sure she can . 

“ Someone ,” she says, softly, because they both know who did it and she knows how sore of a subject his prodigal son is. 

Hermes dips his head. “Someone,” he agrees, mournful. “I would warn you–”

“I can’t stay away,” Andy says. She couldn’t stay back as half-bloods died, massacred by monsters who sought revenge against untouchable entities through their forgotten children. She couldn’t do nothing, couldn’t step aside as their only protections failed.

“If the borders fail, it will mean death for most people inside,” Hermes warns. His eyes lock onto her own, intense and warring with something she can’t quite decipher. He settles on something–Andy isn’t quite sure what it is, and says, gently, “I would not have you bear witness to that.”

(Faith in your abilities, she thinks, even as her heart pounds a little faster. Half-flattered, half-terrified by the prospect of this god, coming to her rescue. Faith in the ocean surrounding Camp. Faith in the skills he helped install) 

The idea of it; the deaths of that eight year-old girl in Athena, that six year old who’d stumbled into Hermes last year, that ten year old in Apollo, it spurs her into action. 

She understood Luke Castellan. She didn’t agree with him, especially not in this, not in the deaths of little children who sought nothing more than protection. For all his anger towards the gods, all his resentment at being who monsters targeted their rage at, he still struck at the half-bloods like the rest. 

She couldn’t stand back and allow it to happen. 

When Percy heard of it, he’d go after Luke Castellan, take his crimes as incentive to hunt him down for the retribution he’d promised while she lay prone in her hospital bed. And Andy would follow him, like she’d promised she would, like she always did in regards to her twin brother. 

“I will speak to him,” She tells Hermes. To his credit, the subject change doesn’t startle him. The god knows exactly to whom she refers, what she means by it. 

( Percy’s going after him this summer, she’d said once. He wants revenge)

“He will not listen,” Hermes warns, an admittance of sorts. His eyes lower, and he nearly seems to choke on a bout of melancholy regret. “He…my boy is too far gone.”

Andy wonders what it was like, to love from afar and to know, for certain, that the person you loved so much was well and truly doomed. It seemed nearly cruel, that Luke was the sole half-blood child Hermes truly loved, and that it was him who’d lead the charge against the gods, against Hermes. 

( I loved his mother, y'know, he’d blurted, like he couldn’t help the truths spilling from his lips. That’s why it had to be him )

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. She means it, despite what all Luke Castellan had done to her, despite every crime the Great Olympians had commited. 

“It isn’t your fault, sweet Andromeda,” he murmurs, and for once, her heart doesn’t palpitate at the nickname. She thinks of enfolding him within her arms, letting him bury his sadness in the crook of her shoulder. A part of her thinks she’d find her own comfort within his embrace. There's something almost unbearably fond about the way he says; "How could anything ever be your fault?"

She offers him her hand, and smiles softly at the warm weight of his own encapsulating the both of them. 

—

They arrive at Camp Half-Blood to the wrath of Clarisse, and the age old sadness of Chiron, scapegoat for a crime he never would’ve dreamed of commiting. 

“It will be alright, my dear,” the Centaur tells Annabeth. But he is not the one to hold his pseudo daughter as she cries. It’s Andy, who despite her frustration with Annabeth in regards Tyson, follows her distressed friend into the bathroom and lets her cry softly into her shoulder, glaring at anyone who entered behind them.

“We can fix it, Beth,” she murmurs, a soft thing she’s sure the other girl hears more through the vibrations of her vocal chords than through her ears. “There’s still time.”

Annabeth’s watery, determined eyes meet hers as they walk out, like she’s holding Andy to her consolations like they’re a promise she can’t find within herself to break. 

There is no justification for the way Tantalus speaks to Tyson, only prejudice and arrogance that Andy takes particular pleasure in overturning. 

“And now, before we proceed with tonight’s activities, one slight housekeeping issue. Percy and Andy Jackson have seen fit, for some reason, to bring this here.” Tantalus lifts Tyson’s hand, and the eyes of the entire camp are drawn to him. He flushes, unused to the attention and embarrassed by it. Andy’s fists clench, an instinctual, protective reaction she’d developed over months of having been his friend, of defending him from mortal bullies. Tantalus wasn’t so different from them, and she didn’t particularly care for the idea of indulging him, either. “Now, of course, Cyclopes have a reputation for being both bloodthirsty and brainless. I should release it into the woods, and have you all hunt it down–”

“Except, of course,” Andy calls out. She smirks as the gazes of the camp fall upon her. Even if she’d been entirely powerless last summer, no child of the Big Three would ever have to beg for attention. “That it would be rather rude to hunt down someone who took out a Bronze Bull, and helped enforce our camp’s boundaries.” 

Murmuring spreads throughout the tables. She cannot quite make out what they are saying, but she sees several eye both Tantalus and Tyson uneasily and figures they’re deciding what they’re going to do, who they’d stand for in this moment. 

Sometimes, Andy wishes she had that power Hermes had displayed. Wishes that she had an aura that exuded raw power, the ability to burn cities and topple empires, something that would persuade the Camp faster than vengeant words ever could. 

But she supposes whispers are a power of their own; something that had a tendency to be heard. Tantalus’ lips curl, displeased at his authority being questioned so early into his reign. “ Ms. Jackson ,” he says. Andy doesn’t like the way he says it. “Feel free to see me in my office, before the campfire.” 

Chiron’s office looks strange like this. On the surface, it remains the same; wooden desk, wooden bookshelves, carpeted floors, leather chairs, a computer to separate the two, and a singular window that Andy likes to imagine herself crawling out of. She even recognizes Chiron’s boombox on one of the shelves, with a box of CD’s next to them. It feels almost haunted, not quite the same and yet not entirely different either. Andy doesn’t like it, finds it eerie, unsettling. 

Tantalus makes her feel small in a way Chiron had never. He’s paper-thin and reedy in a way that makes it seem as if a strong wind would blow him away, but something dark clouds around him, suffocating, choking anything and anyone within his presence. And he has forced her to take the seat opposite him, but elected to stand. It makes her feel off-balance, caged, inferior. 

“Ms. Jackson, Ms. Jackson, Ms. Jackson,” Tantalus tuts, smug and superior. “I was warned of you.”

Dionysus, surely. He had never liked her, had seemingly settled into his grudge against her within three seconds of meeting her. He was probably right to warn Tantalus about her, considering the man reminded her of Gabe Ugliano (Andy dreamt of her stepfather sometimes–some dreams involved her cowering, reliving her past terrors, and others involved a bloody knife, a smoking gun, her white-knuckled fists clenching about his neck). He seemed like a bully, and after twelve years of them, Andy was not fond of bullies. 

“I’m sure you were,” she tells him. 

“Arrogant,” he notes. “The same as your father.” 

The same as your father. Everyone in the Greek world had always seemed so eager to cast her father’s personality upon her, as if it made anything they did to her justifiable. Medusa had called her stubborn, like her father. Hades had said she had inherited his brother’s arrogance. Chiron had told her she had her father’s temper. Andy feels that same temper rising now, bubbling just under the surface of her skin. If he wanted her father’s daughter, Andy could give it to him. She could give him the stormbringer’s rage, could feel her birthright now, bubbling right beneath the surface of her skin. She hums, giving him no answer, letting her power fester. 

“No denial?” he chides. He stares down at her, mad gleam in his eye, and Andy restrains herself from commenting about the state of his breath. It smells as if he’s accumulated thousands of years worth of morning breath, a fume that seems to follow him wherever he goes. 

“I didn’t think you wanted denial from me,” She tells him instead. “You seem eager enough to call me my father’s daughter and treat me like it.” 

“Arrogant and disrespectful,” Tantalus smiles, but it’s a thin thing, stretched to it’s very limit. It exposes his teeth; all varying shades of yellow and brown, decorated with various chips. “Whatever shall I do with you.” It isn’t a question, she notes. 

He already knows. He’ll give her some overly harsh or humiliating job to do, to make some sort of example of her, to send a message that disrespect would never fly. As if that mattered, considering the place he now reigned over was about to be wiped off the map as soon as that tree died. 

She wonders, idly, what Thalia Grace would make of this camp. What she would say to Tantalus. Annabeth had called her vengeant, once, but also considerate, kind when she wanted to be. Kind to Annabeth, certainly. But Andy doubted she’d be nice to Tantalus. And she thinks that the girl who’d sacrificed herself to save two half-bloods wouldn’t stand idly by as the camp borders fell and children were slaughtered for it. 

Andy stands, meets Tantalus’ stare. “There are bigger problems,” she tells him. “The borders are failing. This camp is about to be wiped–”

“Sit down, Ms. Jackson.” 

Andy normally wouldn’t listen, but the way Tantalus says it sends a cold chill down her spine, leaving goosebumps in it’s wake, chilling her father’s wrath in her veins. She sits, reluctant but a little scared. 

“This isn’t about the inconsequential problems of this little camp,” He tells her, his hands spread and gripping opposite edges of the desk so hard they’d turned white. 

“But–”

His right hand curls into a fist and slaps down upon the desk, the resulting thud shaking the lamp and the computer. Almost against her will, Andy shrinks in on herself. She had never liked violent men. “ Behave ,” Tantalus grits out. “Do you want to see me truly angry, girl?”

“...No, sir” she admits, quieter than she’d imagined it to be. She wonders if that made her a coward, if Thalia Grace would’ve said the same, or if she would have watched his slam his fists and flipped the desk in retaliation. 

(She is Poseidon’s only daughter. She drown him in the water he wanted so desperately with a flick of her wrist, could force him to breath it in, to choke on it, to drink and drown in his own tears. But it’s hard to remember it when he looks down at her like that)

Tantalus’ hands retract from the edges of the desk. “Good,” he murmurs, and it’s less cold and more predatory in a way that makes her skin crawl with disgust. “As I was saying, this meeting between us has nothing to do with your camp’s little problems, and everything to do with that mouth of yours.” He smiles at her, revealing those awful teeth, and his eyes creep along her form. “Transitions from one leader to another are pretty difficult,” he croons, false sympathy lining the predatory way he stares at her. “I understand that. I could see how that might upset a sweet girl like you.”

Andy’s fists clench in her lap and her jaw grinds as something between fear and anger clouds her mind and keeps her down, fidgeting with some unknown emotion dwelling within her. She wants out of his office, out of this place before she either bursts into tears or chokes this man with his own blood, leaves him drowning in his own spit. 

“...yes, sir,” she murmurs, so quiet she wouldn’t have thought he’d heard it if his grin hadn’t stretched to a truly grotesque length. 

“I could make an example of you,” he muses. He begins to make his way around her side of the death. Andy–valiantly–resists the urge to scoot her chair backwards. He lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. She forces herself to meet his gaze, tries her best to remain unwavering, reinforce it with steel. “Couldn’t I, girl? Toss you from camp for your disrespect, send the Harpies to chase you away. Your brothers could watch–perhaps Ms. Chase, too.” 

For a snide comment, she thinks, except it wasn’t even truly snide . She doesn’t respond, too afraid of what he’d do if she truly disrespected him. She bites her tongue and barely manages to nod, her knuckles white and trembling in her lap. 

(Everyone had long since called her the angrier twin, the wrathful daughter of the stormbringer and the earthshaker. She wonders how accurate that is, cowering in a chair, cornered by a man. She had been bolder with gods than she had with this lowlife Gabe Ugliano ripoff)

“Not to worry, sweetheart,” he tells her, and his fingers once again squeeze into her shoulder blades. “I know you’ll behave, hmm?” 

She has to crane her head up to look at him, and he smiles down at her, something too wide to be real. She nods, a quick thing that could be mistaken for a twitch of her head.

“ Hmmm ?” He repeats. 

Andy swallows around the blockage in her throat. “Yes, sir.” It’s quieter than she would’ve likes, but he takes his hand off her shoulder and nods towards the door. 

“You may leave, girl,” he murmurs. Quiet, deadly, sharp. “I will not be so forgiving again.” 

She stands and leaves with her head down. 

Percy waits for her outside, guilty and concerned in equal parts. “What did he do?” he asks, immediately. Sea green eyes, mirrors of her own, stare at her. Sometimes she feels as if her brother can peer within the layers of her consciousness. 

“Nothing,” she murmurs, in some dazed tone she isn’t quite familiar with. “He let me off with a warning.” 

Something close to suspicion flashes across his face, but Percy’s quick to school his features into a look of surprise. “For real?” 

“Yeah,” she says, painting on amazement. “Yeah. For real.” 

Percy grins, the suspicion long gone. He slings an arm around her shoulders. “Awesome,” he tells her, steering her back towards Cabin Three. “Lets go. Tyson’s waiting.” 

“Is it ok?” Tyson asks, once Percy’s fallen asleep. Andy wonders if the big guy can sense the resentment and fear rolling off the campers. She rolls over, from her stomach to her back and stares at the wooden beams above her. 

“Is what ok, bud?” 

“That I am here?” It’s such a pitiful statement, innocent and doe-eyed and childlike, and it breaks Andy’s heart a little. My brother, she thinks, something protective swelling within her. 

“Of course it is,” she reassures. “You’re a child of the gods. Of course it is.”

(She doubts the other campers would say the same)

Andy doesn’t hear anything for a few moments and debates going over to him, checking to see if her new brother was alright. She doubted it–being claimed as a child of Poseidon had been difficult enough for she and Percy, and they’d had each other. And much more importantly, there had been no prejudice against them. Nobody whispered monster in the shadows, nobody’s hands rested about the top of their swords when they passed by. 

Maybe he could use a hug, she thinks, shifting on her mattress. 

“...ok,” Tyson says. “Trust you, sister.” 

She shifts back on the mattress and feels pinpricks of tears in her eyes. Andy hadn’t lied to him–this place was for the children of the gods, and Tyson was one of them just as the rest were–but still, he was no demigod, and she knew the campers would give him hell for it. Would he still trust her, after everything he’d inevitably go through. Would he think her as cruel as the rest of them, for raising false hopes and false comforts?

Andy doesn’t raise her concerns, just blinks away the tears and drifts off to sleep. 

(She dreams of Hermes–as always. More specifically, of perfect possibilities. She marries him, in this one, still young but more mature somehow. Her mother smiles at her when she pins the veil to her brow and tells her she reminds her of herself. Her father tells her he’s proud and walks her down the aisle. Hermes takes her hands in his own and tells her he loves her more than the air in his lungs, the nectar the sustained him, the power he so relied on. In the dream, she reciprocates. She won’t remember anything of it in the morning, will only feel some distant warmth and a drowsiness that would linger until she saw him again)

Annabeth and Percy take charge of the chariot races. Andy lets them with no protest, much more interested in the Border Patrol and spending time with her brother (bodyguarding him, really). She grows violent in defense of Tyson, breaking an Ares kid’s nose when he insulted him and cursing out anyone who even dared to look at him the wrong way. 

It doesn’t quell Tyson’s hurt. She doesn’t even think it makes him think of her in a better light. 

(But she likes it, in a unsettling way. She likes the illusion of control, the reminder of what being Poseidon’s daughter should mean, the reminder that whatever she had acted like with Tantalus didn’t define her)

Percy and Annabeth have a fight. Annabeth is her best friend, and Percy is her twin brother and usually she thinks she’d remain firmly in the middle of whatever argument they would have, but Percy whispers that she’d called Tyson a monster and Andy–increasingly upset over the way he’d been treated–elects to take Percy’s side. 

The campers whisper just as much as they had the year previous–except this time it’s less about her forbidden father and more about her temper and the way she’d grown a little more prone to violence. Her temper isn’t helped by sleep deprivation–she’d not had a restful, dreamless sleep since before she’d left for camp, and it was quickly catching up to her. 

(She misses Hermes. She feels a little bit off when he’s not around, as if his company was some missing piece of her, like she was a puzzle that would forever be incomplete without him. Sometimes when she goes too long without seeing him, she misses him so much her stomach pangs with nausea like she was in physical pain. 

Andy would never admit that to him–she doesn’t think she’d ever hear the end of it. She thinks she might die of embarrassment if Hermes wrinkled his nose at the idea of her missing him.  And from what she’d heard of gods, they enjoyed the chase, they enjoyed curiosity and fun, and they did not enjoy clingy, whiny half-bloods. Andy doesn’t want to admit it and have him turn away from her for good, because without the chase what was the fun in it?)

She hears Micheal Yew warning a younger girl–Kayla, she thinks–to stay away from her, because she’s unstable and temperamental and powerful. She can’t even find it in herself to be upset about it. 

To make matters worse, Andy had also recently discovered that something was wrong with Grover Underwood, that he was in some sort of dire trouble. Percy hadn’t told her as soon as he’d had the first dream–she’d been irritated about that. 

“I thought it was just some sort of nightmare, at first,” he says, eyebrows scrunching together in earnest confusion. “I’m sorry Ands. I really just didn’t know.” 

She forgives him; gives him an apology of her own. It’s not as if she couldn’t understand denial. 

Worst of all, Andy still had concocted no grand plan to save Thalia’s tree. She didn’t even have an evacuation plan. Time counted down, pressure weighing her down, and everyone seemed concerned with border patrol or chariot races, as if that would help anything when the borders failed. 

On the day of the chariot races, Percy convinces her to take a break from worrying and cheer for him. He plays dirty, mentioning how Tyson had wanted her to witness his craftsmanship, and Andy folds. 

She doesn’t sit by anyone. She wants to think it’s because of her father, but she’s pretty sure the reason can be traced back to her own anger issues. Even Clarissa La Rue, the camp’s most prodigal child of Ares, didn’t bother her unless she had to. 

When the stymphalian birds attack, she follows Percy and Annabeth to find Chiron’s boombox, and she watches as they’re scared off and shot down by Apollo’s children. She watches as Tantalus crowns Clarisse the winner and turns to her with a sinister look on his face. “Ms. Jackson ,” He says, loaded with false displeasure stretched over righteous satisfaction. He tsks, in a way that would’ve saddened her if he were Chiron, and only serves to scare her now. “Come with me. And bring your friends.” 

Tantalus doesn’t say anything that scares her. He doesn’t get unnecessarily close. He doesn’t squeeze her shoulder. He doesn’t call her a sweet girl , as if she were some child or some girl he was fucking. He just throws his weight around the whole conversation and sentences Percy and Annabeth to dish duty. 

And then, when it’s just the two of them, he stares at her as if he could see right through her. “Remember to be a good girl,” he tells her. He smiles at her in a way that bares yellow, chipped teeth. She thinks it reminds her a bit of a shark, desperate and hungry for it’s next meal. “Or I’ll have no choice but to punish you.” 

“Yes, sir,” she mumbles, ashamed of how dull her temper had become at the idea of this man’s punishment . She should tell him to go fuck himself; feels the statement burning her tongue, trying to escape her. Andy doesn’t like the way he says punishment , though, feels visceral fear roll around in her stomach at the thought of it. 

She wants Chiron back–more importantly, she just wants Tantalus gone. She wants someone to care enough to get rid of him. 

( Dad loves us , Percy had told her, when she’d told him she didn’t give a shit what a man who’d never cared thought of her. I know it. She wonders if he loved them enough to overrule Dionysus and be rid of Tantalus)

“That’s a good start,” he tells her, still smiling. Always smiling. “I’ll see you at dinner, Ms. Jackson. And I’d like to see you afterwards. I have a request of you.” 

He squeezes her upper arm before he leaves, fingertips grazing the side of her breast.

Andy bites her tongue so hard she tastes blood.

Chapter Text

Catholics begged forgiveness from their God inside wooden stalls, with priests listening in. They pleaded with him to absolve them of sin, allowed their holy faith to wash away their guilt and shame. They allowed their priests to guide them towards a path of enlightenment. Perhaps, when it was all said and done, they felt peace. 

Hermes thought he would like that; to speak his atrocities aloud and have their stains washed away, to have the rivulets of blood he’d often spilled race down his hands and away from him. 

But how did a God go about absolving themselves of sin? Of shame and regret? Hermes had once thought himself above such a feeling, but he sometimes felt like ever since he’d laid eyes on May Castellan, that was all he had ever managed to feel, coiling around and restricting any other emotion that might try and surface.

He finds one of those churches, for that religion that had branded his own followers heretics millenia ago, and he sits in a pew as if it would absolve him of guilt. He thought they might kneel, and wonders how they did it without bruising their knees. Mortals were so delicate, after all.  

“I told you not to scare the girl,” A honeyed voice murmurs, low and seductive. Andy’s voice ; filtered and distorted through the lens of the love goddess herself. A presence seats itself to the right of him. He catches a whiff of salt and storm and thinks that even when she was a world away, Andy Jackson would never cease to haunt him. “To be kind. To be considerate. To make her a willing bride. You are too quick to anger.” 

She has Andy’s eyes; a shade of frosted green one could only find in the seas, so clear Hermes can see his own reflection. They are just as expressive as the girl who they’d originated from, reminding him of the flash of fear he’d seen in them. He looks down, away from accountability and the pain of it all. 

“We all are,” Hermes mumbles; shifting accountability and dreaming up excuses for the thousandth time. He imagines he speaks with different people, all those he’d undoubtedly been too quick with before. The ‘Great’ Gods, Andy would say, with a bitter scoff. Divine deadbeats, Luke would mutter, fists clenching. Your nature, May would hum, kissing his forehead to comfort him. 

“You must be.” Aphrodite hums. Hermes wonders if Andy’s voice would sound like that, when she had fully matured, when she was a goddess equal to him. He thought he might like it, if it did. He wonders if he’d miss her as she was now, unspoiled by war and by him . “If you wish to be happy with your bride, you must be kind to her.” 

“We are the gods,” Hermes says. “When have we ever changed?” 

And he means it; for they had always been proud and vain and angry. They had always been the very dredges of humanity, spoiled and lazy and divine. Hermes had taken three hundred years to expand his cabin, after all, and it had taken no more effort than a snap of his fingers. Perhaps Andy–with all her disrespectful cynicism and childish naivete–was right. 

“We are always changing,” Aphrodite tells him, with a honey-filled laugh that scratches at the very core of him. Like she was Andy herself, plunging a blade in his chest. “We shift, as the mortals do. We mirror them. We always have; violent when they are turbulent and mellow when they are calm. We are their gods, and they, our reflections.” 

“Insightful,” he remarks. “Still–they remain cruel. As do we.”

“They are capable of love,” Aphrodite hums. “Of kindness . As are we.” 

“Is Ares always kind to you?” Fighting words, to be sure. Hermes cared little. He didn’t like Aphrodite to look at him with her face and speak to him in her voice about the way he acted around her. “Is the war god soft for you, ‘Dite.” 

“We are different,” Aphrodite says, and infuriatingly enough, her tone does not betray even a hint of anger. “We are love and war. And neither of us is a thirteen year old halfblood.” 

For all that Hermes was reminded of her age, it takes the love goddess to truly remind him of it. Thirteen . As beautiful, as powerful, as cursed as she already was, Andromeda Jackson was only thirteen. Luke had been babyfaced at thirteen, he remembered, and he had misliked him even then, but it had not yet grown so poisonous, so tortured. 

“This church is tacky,” She murmurs, and she stares at him like she can see within him, like she can peer through divine essence and piece together exactly what he thought of. “You beg forgiveness of an invisible force like you are not a god yourself. You know as well as I you will find no salvation on this bench.”

“There is little else to do.” 

“You may try the girl,” Aphrodite says, and even then she does not list Andy by name. As if she was scared of summoning her; like Hermes’ half-blooded girl was a goddess, like she could sense when her name was spoken. He half-considers that she may be able to. Sometimes, Andy seemed more god than human, lingering power clouding about her, as if a storm lay in wait within her bones. “Ask forgiveness from her. I doubt she could ever spurn you.” 

“I appreciate the confidence,” Hermes announces. It is dry and sarcastic and entirely sincere. 

____

He finds her on Camp Half-Blood’s beach and Hermes thinks he’d laugh at the predictability of it all ( What belongs to the Sea shall always return to it) if he wasn’t sure Andy would dislike it, proving her father right, wouldn’t chafe at the idea of belonging to her godly father and his domain. He imagines even that disobedience would prove her father right. He also imagines Andy wouldn’t want to hear it. 

He comes across her hear sundown, with pink light washing over the white sands and emerald green of the sea–the same color of Andy’s eyes, he notes. She’s sitting with her back to him, her hair a little wild and windswept, loose and free down the plains of her back, her knees folded to her chest, arms draped along them and her head chin resting atop it all. 

Hermes watches for a moment, reluctant to intrude upon the peace of it all. Andy doesn’t have the same qualms—attuned to his presence, he notes, in a way that suggested divine connection. “Hermes,” she murmurs, a quiet thing that’s barely audible over the winds. It doesn’t sound quite as confident as usual, underlaid with fear and some tangential sadness. For a moment he fears that it’s him, that he had well and truly terrified her. “Don’t lurk. It’s creepy.” 

Andy stands; graceful as a nymph, brushes sand off herself, and turns to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. She doesn’t look happy, he notes. Her eyes were red, like she’d been crying, and her lip was bruised, like she’d bitten into it. He asks before he can bring himself to stop. “Are you alright?”

She gazes at him with wide eyes that serve only as reminders of her youth and gentility. Hermes would defend her from whatever had upset her–or at the very least, avenge her. “I’m fine,” she whispers, the sound scratchy and barely stretching the distance between them. 

“You do not look it,” he tells her, softer than he would’ve allowed himself to be with any other. 

Andy grants him a watery, soft half-smile. “It’s just been…” she clears her throat. “It’s been a long week.” She admits, terse and wary and exhausted. 

He remembers Selene, the Moon before his half-sister Artemis. Her husband had been mortal–a fated, perhaps, though he had never asked and the Titaness had long since faded. He had rested in eternal slumber. Preserved, Selene had called him. He wonders if it would be easier, if Andy was preserved , kept eternally undisturbed and at peace. Hermes thought of her, still and silent in a glass coffin, still so godsdamned beautiful, away from any pain the world could force her to bear. Hermes wonders if Andy herself would think it easier, or if the idea would make her face scrunch in that way it often did when she was angry. He imagines it would be the latter.

(He thought, as appealing of a notion it might have been, he enjoyed her company too much to keep her like that; still and silent, a trophy of ethereal beauty. He’d much prefer a pretty cage, all golden wiring and pillowed walls, even if it meant going up against her rage like a tidal wave, battering relentlessly against him) 

“And what has made it so, my ‘dromeda?” He asks, even if he could give a fair guess as to the struggles within this camp. She doesn’t even grant him that precursory blush he’d begun to take for granted, when he called her my . 

Andy shrugs, trying her hardest to appear unbothered, but coming across as barely holding herself together. Hermes wants to take her in his own arms, hold her together himself. She seemed too young for whatever weighed her down now—Hermes wonders if there had been any way her youth could’ve been preserved, or if it had been doomed the moment it was conceived. A hero, a wife, but not a girl. Never a girl. 

Something stirs in the pit of his stomach—guilt, perhaps, and certainly regret, tainted by blame. Poseidon should’ve hidden her, stowed her away until she was older, more malleable, harder to break. Hermes should’ve tucked her away the moment he’d laid eyes on her; for it he could not preserve her youth than he at least could have preserved her spirit. 

“The borders are failing,” she murmurs, “Percy and Annabeth have concocted a plan to save them, and to save Grover Underwood—because he’s in danger, too, and the godawful camp director Mr. D chose to replace him has decided to send Clarisse La Rue to fix everything.” 

Clarisse La Rue, Hermes remembered, was Ares’ prodigal daughter. Stronger than any of my sons, Ares had bragged, astonished like he couldn’t believe it could be the case. 

Across the surf, Hermes notes that the once peaceful waves had begun to grow more violent, toiling in time with their mistress’ emotions. He wonders if Andy even noticed. 

(She had called herself ungifted, once, possessing none of her brother’s natural talent with a sword. But what she lacked in that, she made up for with the ease in which she commanded her father’s domain. Made for divinity, he had often thought, more god than human) 

“Ah,” Hermes clears his throat. “And you are afraid? For the fate of the camp? For your friend?” 

“Of course,” Andy lowers her eyes, and he senses, in the same way she could always sense his presence and he could always find himself calming within hers, that he had not listed it all. 

“And Chiron?” He questions. “You miss him?” 

He imagines she did. Chiron had always been respectful towards the gods, good at mediating between gods and half-bloods, had always cared deeply for his students and had always been well-respected in return. Hermes didn’t believe that the old Horse had poisoned Thalia’s tree–he believed that Zeus was paranoid and easily offended, and that Dionysus would’ve rather painted a scapegoat of an innocent than admit to his own failings and be punished more severely, in turn. 

“Yes,” Andy breathes out, barely audible, still looking down. He doesn’t like it, wants her eyes on him, wants to look at her and be able to appraise any emotion that flitted across her face. Behind her, the tide that should’ve been receding had crept forward even further, as if she reached for the source of her power instinctually, and it couldn’t help but to answer her call. 

“Look at me,” He says, more gently than he would have imagined possible a year ago. “Andromeda, please.” 

She looks up. Andy is strikingly beautiful, and the evening light that gleams off her makes her look radiant, shining, effervescent; a golden goddess, divine and demanding the worship of her pious followers. If she had been a goddess in the ancient days, all would’ve praised her for her looks. They would’ve said she was as beautiful as Aphrodite and as warm as Rhea. They would’ve worshipped her. They would’ve loved her.

For a moment he is so awestruck by the sight of her; glowing in the evening light, that he nearly overlooks unshed tears in watery green eyes. Something tugs in his cavernous heart, a physical pull to the half-blooded girl he so cared for. “Oh, Andy,” he murmurs, and he steps forward until he can cup her cheek, run his thumb across her sharp cheekbone. Her head is small within his hand–Hermes imagines he could cover nearly the entirely of her face with his hand. Her lip twitches, his eyes drawn to them; pink and plump and quivering as if she were near tears. And perhaps she was. “What’s wrong?” 

Andy’s face crumbles, and tears rise to the surface, rolling down her cheeks. She makes a wet, hiccuping sound and begins to cry in earnest. Hermes’ heart throbs within a hollow chest, pulling him towards his sobbing soulmate, and he wraps his arms around her, folding her to his chest, putting her face within the crook of her neck and feeling her tears soak his shirt. “It’s alright,” he murmurs, gentle and coaxing as one hand presses her close and the other strokes small circles into soft skin. “Shhh, sweetheart, it’s alright.” 

She feels smaller than usual, crying in his arms. Frail, even, as if one harsh prod would shatter her. As Andy lets out a harsh sob, Hermes wonders if she had not already shattered. He presses a gentle kiss to the crown of her head and feels his lips burn at the contact, set alight by the press of them to her skin. “You’re alright,” he soothes, when that only serves to set off another round of harsh, choked sobs. “You’re just fine.” 

He sits with her in his arms, folding her little body up in his lap and forcing her to curl inwards and into him. Mayhaps it didn’t help her, but it made him feel as if he could encompass all of her, hold her together and protect her from the cruelty of the world from all sides. She trembles and sobs and he strokes gentle circles into her back and whispers sweet reassurances to her. Eventually, she manages to choke out a mumbled sentence. “I can’t fucking stand him,” she says, so hushed and interspersed with hiccuping cries that he doesn’t think he would’ve caught it if his body did not enfold her own.  

“Who?” He questions, the harsh inquiry burning his tongue on the way out. The idea of some half-blood, some mortal upsetting his sweet soulmate to the point of tears churns into redhot flames, cursing alongside the flow of his ichor. He feels her tremble; a gentle thing, and softens his tone. “Who?”

“The new camp director,” she whispers into the crook of his neck. “Tantalus.” 

Shock stills him in place; carving him into a stone statue, folding around Andy. Tantalus . Hermes well remembered him–who would not. He had fed the Olympians the flesh of his own children, as if to punish them . Hermes remembered his own anger at it; the mortal who tried to make himself a god above even the Olympians. He remembers sitting at the side of Hades, whispering of vicious eternal punishments, laughing, cruel and heavy as one was chosen. 

Tantalus? Sitting above the children of the gods? Commanding them? Dionysus was bitter and resentful of a position he neither wanted nor deserved, any Olympian knew that well–but to sentence their children to the tyrannical rule of the mortal who’d thought himself above the gods, who’d served his children’s flesh to them and had shed no tears of remorse, it seemed a burning betrayal. 

More than a betrayal, perhaps, he muses, as he considers his little soulmate’s tears. “And what has he done to you?” He questions. When she doesn’t respond immediately, he tugs gently, firmly, at the base of her hair. “Andromeda. Look at me. ” 

Reddened eyes meet his for a brief moment, terror and shame in equal parts surfacing within them, before her gaze is directed downwards. “He is…” her voice is hoarse and scratchy, tears having taken a toll upon her poor throat. “He is simply cruel.” 

Andromeda is unearthly and ethereal, the very image of the Titan Queen. She is the only mortal daughter to ever be born of the Sea God, and she looks as if she was born of him alone, as if Poseidon had drained his own golden ichor onto stone and willed his daughter into existence. 

(Perhaps he had. Hermes would never know)

She may very well be the rarest half-blood to ever be born, and Tantalus would’ve known it. Would’ve relished in taking out his vengeance through the most beautiful of their daughters, in taking a trophy of the rarest of half-bloods. He wouldn’t have even had to know how Hermes was tied to her–Tantalus might have simply heard Dionysus speak of how the girl’s father adored her, and have laid eyes upon her, so beautiful and so young, so moldable. 

Andromeda would not have known to defend herself, nor how to. She was alluring and formidable and godly sometimes even he forgot, but she was still only a girl of thirteen. 

No matter now. She did not need to know how to defend herself; should have never been put in such a position. Her defense had been his own responsibility from the day he’d laid eyes on her. Hermes had once thought that he would lay waste to cities in her name. What was a singular man, in comparison? 

(Aphrodite had told him to not be cruel, to make her a willing bride. He wonders if the vengeance he will lay out could be taken as a kindness. Perhaps she would enjoy it, even, to watch at his side as he tore out Tantalus’ heart and fed it to him)

He doesn’t bother asking how so . He thinks he knows, finds it evident in her red eyes and shaky voice. And it doesn’t matter anyways; Tantalus had upset her. Hermes would fix it. 

“I can’t stay here any longer,” she confesses, sounding ashamed, moving to bury her face back in the crook of his neck, his hand coming up to pet her hair as she went limp in his arms. Hermes would usually protest, but she’s right. She shouldn’t have come here in the first place, not when the camp borders were slowly failing and the Titan King who’d tried to kill her the summer previous was so clearly responsible. And she shouldn’t have remained–not when Tantalus was so obviously targeting her, harming her. 

He wants her to go home–he wants her in his home, safe and warm in his bed, where the danger that would forever encroach upon her could be held at bay. Hermes could wed her now, call leaving her be a grand failure, say that she’d been harmed and that he could not remain at bay. Aphrodite would officiate, even if Andy cried and protested and the goddess clucked her tongue at her tears. Poseidon would rage, but he would have married her already, and he could wave in the Sea God’s face in his own failure to protect his daughter. 

His hands move back to supporting her back and shoulders, crushing her to his chest in a gentle suffocation. He imagines himself laying brands there; handprints that would show anyone that dared to look upon his girl that she was off limits. Andy looks up at him with those teary eyes that so gutted him, her brow crinkling in confusion. “...Hermes?” she murmurs. There’s a tinge of fear to her that he hates; doesn’t want to be the one to scare her, doesn’t want to haunt her dreams. But Hermes had always known of necessary evils, and perhaps this was just one of them. 

“It’s going to be alright,” He tells her, forcing himself to lighten his grip and soften his gaze. He smiles at her, trying his best to make it warm and soothing. He would need to be warm to her, he reminds himself, warm and kind and supportive, even in the face of the protests she would likely offer. “I promise, my ‘dromeda.” 

Her brow creases; confused and alarmed, “Hermes–”

“ Andy! ” A male voice bellows from the wake. It’s sloppy and childlike, Hermes notes, but deep with age. He releases her and stands as if he’s been burnt, noting with alarm that if whoever was yelling her name had noted her presence, then he had forgotten to shield his presence–too desperate for her forgiveness and comfort to remember to protect them from the gaze of the gods. He would simply have to hope none had grown curious as to his whereabouts. “Is that you, sister?” 

Andy stands quickly and moves to face the sound, “Tyson?” she calls.

Hermes gazes over the sandy dunes, pinpointing the voice’s owner. He lands on three approaching figures. Two boys and a girl. 

The first boy, leading the charge, is Poseidon in miniature, Andy as a boy. His wife’s twin brother–Percy Jackson–in the flesh. He had not wanted to meet him, inclined to hate him for what he would inevitably to do his son, and he had always thought it easier to hate that of which he knew nothing of. 

There is another boy to his right, and with closer examination Hermes notes his singular eye. He must’ve been the one with the childlike voice who’d called Andy sister . He wouldn’t exactly be the first of Poseidon’s more monstrous offspring.

 He clocks the girl to Percy’s left as Athena’s most prodigal daughter, Annabeth Chase, in a heartbeat. He had seen her before, scurrying around May’s house as he spoke to Luke. And Andy had described the girl she called her best friend often enough. Besides, Hermes had once fancied himself in love with Athena. He would recognize those pale grey eyes anywhere, even set into her mortal daughter’s face. 

Hermes clenches his fists to quell the shaking in his hands and the urge to finish what he had started. Too many witnesses, he thinks, and takes a step back from Andy Jackson. 

The three are quick to approach. Andy gives her half-brother a hug that Hermes thinks nearly squeezes the life out of her before stepping to his right. Likely to avoid the suspicious gaze of her twin brother, though it does little but point out the severity of Percy’s gaze. It’s Annabeth Chase that fully clocks the situation, or at least a version of it, first. 

“Lord Hermes,” She greets, inclining her head, a hand on her waist where her dagger was sheathed. Hermes isn’t entirely surprised at the bare anger in her gaze–why should he be? Luke Castellan had called her his little sister, had essentially raised her, and he had been so angry with Hermes that he had left her. 

Annabeth reminds him of Luke in a way that seems to rip into barely closed wounds, leaving him weak and bleeding at the mere sight of her. He wonders, if this is what it cost him to see her, the toll the sight of his son would have. 

He inclines his head, “Athena’s girl?” He asks, callously, as if he did not know exactly who she was. 

“Annabeth Chase,” Andy states, and she looks at him with a crinkled brow, obviously confused as to why he’d pretend he barely knew of her. “My best friend.” 

And my son’s little sister, he nearly says, the words searing his tongue and teeth as he fights to keep them contained. He nearly asks Annabeth why she hadn’t done more to keep Luke there, why he hadn’t loved her enough to stay, why she hadn’t cared enough to run after him. 

He swallows the questions he knows Andy would be irate at, and gives her a softened half-smile. “Yes, I know,” He looks back to Annabeth Chase, with her pale grey eyes and those blonde curls he thought truly made her look like Luke Castellan’s little sister. “Just checking.”

“Hermes?” Percy Jackson’s brow crinkles in the same manner as his twin sister. He’s her mirror, Hermes notes. He can’t help but think of Apollo and Artemis, and something akin to sympathy washes over him as he glances as Andy and recognizes that his plan to save her life was centered about taking her twin brother from her. 

“Hasn’t anyone told you that names have power, boy?” 

It’s easier to find youth within the face of a boy not made for him than it is to find within the face of his sister. He almost finds it refreshing, even as Percy scowls, blatant disrespect scrawled all over him. “Many,” he replies, short and curt and overtly suspicious. “You aren’t original.” 

His sister, in the flesh. Hermes would find it more endearing if it came from her pretty mouth instead of the mouth of his son’s future killer. He chuckles, forced and dry, anyways, and Andy gives him an odd look. 

She knew little of the machinations of the Great Prophecy. She knew little of anything to do with fate and prophecy. His own fault, he supposes. 

“Your brother is exactly like you, ‘dromeda” He drawls, smirking at Percy Jackson. “Like a clone.” 

“Like a twin?” Andy asks, her tone familiar and sarcastic in a way he knows will raise questions. Perhaps he could spin them–leave them more manageable, more answerable. 

Percy looks at his sister, sharp and suspicious, eyes narrowed and mouth parted like he’d come to some big revelation. “You two know each other?”

“Just in passing,” Hermes says. Percy’s concern and mistrust rolls off him in waves, as he shifts from foot to foot and crosses his arms over his chest. He tries to make himself look larger, more intimidating, by flexing his shoulders and standing ramrod straight, but it only serves to make him look like a pale imitation of Poseidon; a little boy playing dress-up in his father’s clothes.

He supposed the son of Poseidon’s concern was not misplaced. He had, after all, interrupted Hermes’ own attempt to drag the girl away. 

(Ruined it, he notes bitterly, witnessed it. A private affair, and this overeager boy had ruined it. And what was he to do now? Poseidon would know, Poseidon would interfere before Hermes could bind Andy to him. Poseidon would listen to no explanation, leave him rallying his siblings to war if he wanted Andromeda back. Demeter had once starved and burnt  the earth for her daughter, and the Stormbringer, the Earthshaker, was liable to do worse, no matter what law he broke.

If there had been a chance, Percy Jackson had stolen it)

“Just in passing,” Annabeth echoes. She has her mother’s intelligence, Hermes can see it in those grey eyes. He swears he can see plots and machinations dance within them; traits of the wisdom goddess rising to the surface. He swears she can see more than she is supposed to. 

“Andy Jackson asked for my help,” Hermes says. He smiles at the group, flashing white teeth. “Who was I to deny Poseidon’s only daughter?” 

He doubts Andy would argue with his lie, doubts she knows any better thing to assuage her brothers and her best friend. And perhaps it would work, to aid the four of them on a quest. He could watch them. 

(While they were gone, he could avenge her)

“We need to save Grover,” Andy says, lie rolling off her tongue with earnest desperation. “And we need to find the fleece, to save the camp. We can’t entrust that to Clarisse.”

“Lucky for you, I can help,” Hermes says. He cannot imagine a world in which Andy Jackson asks him for something and he does not help her, provide her with what she so desired. “You know the coordinates, yes?” 

“30, 31, 75, 12.” Percy says, still standoffish. Hermes could understand it; Andy needed to be defended, and he would’ve ripped the spine out of another god if he’d come across them and her in the same position. He still finds it disrespectful. He is still an Olympian.

“That will take you straight to the heart of the Sea of Monsters,” Hermes says. “A ways away, unfortunately. I would pray to the Sea God. Surely he would help his children and their companion find their way onto a ship.” 

“I thought you said we could rely upon your help, Lord Hermes,” Annabeth Chase says, nearly bitter. She may not be a traitor, like his son, but she sounded nearly identical to Luke, eight years prior. The idea of it burns, and he wants her and all of those painful comparisons out of his sight. He thinks he might do it, rip her throat open or snap his fingers and be rid of her just to spare himself the pain of it all if Andy’s eyes weren’t wide and hopeful and centered on him. 

Instead, he heaves a soft sigh. “You can, child.” 

He thinks back to what he remembers of the Sea of Monsters, and summons what he thinks may be necessary to survive it. Duffel bags appear at his feet with an absent minded snap of his fingers. “You’re all packed,” he says. 

“Thank you, Lord Hermes,” Andy says softly, her hand toying with her camp necklace. She’s nothing less than radiant in the fading sunlight, and that same all-consuming fear rises to the surface, coiling around his throat and restricting his breath. Hermes knows the danger of the Sea of Monsters well–and here he is, aiding the girl he will one day marry to navigate the unforgiving depths of it. 

At least he will have a clear path to holy vengeance. Andy would not wake to news of Tantalus’ gruesome death, wouldn’t hear of the godly manner of it all and glance at him suspiciously. None of those campers would hear of it and declare it Andy Jackson’s own revenge, toss her out for it. He would simply be gone . 

“It’s no issue, ‘dromeda,” He murmurs,  soft and genuine. She gives him a brave smile in return and his heart aches, as if it beat outside his own chest, vulnerable and undefended. Looking at Andromeda, raven curls gleaming in the dying sunlight, he thinks that perhaps it was true, that his heart was undefended. That it was vulnerable. “Look out for your sister, Perseus Jackson.” 

Percy just nods, jaw clenching. 

Hermes waits until the next day to exact his revenge. He waits until everyone wakes up and discovers that the children of Poseidon and Annabeth Chase are missing, until Tantalus himself declares that they are gone. 

“They are, henceforth, expelled from camp,” he announces. Hermes can feel the vile resentment bubbling up in the wraith. “If you see them, you must alert me. I will deal with them myself.” He does not want to imagine what dealing with them would amount to, especially for Andy. He had never seen Andy cry before, the sight of it so sudden and startling that he was sure it had burrowed into his false heart, piercing it through, making him bleed in sympathy. She was not unshakeable–he had known that–and yet even when Luke had nearly killed her she had not been so alarmed. His preconceived notions of her, everything he’d witnessed over the past year, didn’t quite fit with the girl who’d sobbed in his arms, who’d shuddered as her cries wracked her body, who’d felt so very frail, folded and tucked into his arms. And perhaps he had always known mortals were fragile, that Andromeda could be harmed easily, that she was only just a girl, a pretty one, in a world where that never ended well. But it had seemed so much more tangible when she’d been crying in the crook of his shoulder, and when she’d said the name, Hermes had wondered if she’d known she’d signed his death sentence, if she knew now how his hands trembled with the need to take and how he’d repurpose that energy now, take revenge instead of her. 

(As Hermes lurks within the Big House, he wonders if his half-brother knows that he’s here, if his half-brother knows why he’s here. Or maybe Dionysus was far away, dreaming of breaking their father’s rules, of wine and his wife and that pretty nymph the two of them had been so interested in. He imagines it would be the latter–Dionysus cared little for this camp, for it’s inhabitants and for his co-workers. He wouldn’t care if a nefarious presence settled over camp, and he wouldn’t care about Hermes’ presence either)

Hermes can feel as Tantalus approaches, can sense his presence, traces it from room to room as he makes his way towards Chiron’s office. He debates how he will exact his revenge. Should he take his eyes, carve them out with a knife or scoop them out with his own blunt fingers? Should he carve open his own wrists, let him choke on his own wish for divinity as ichor burned through his mortal remains? Should he take his hands– coveting what belonged to the gods, yet again? If Andy were here he thinks he might offer her his hands. Maybe he would rip out his heart the way he had done to Polycrustes, offer her it on a platter, let her drink in the blood. Then again, that death was far too quick. There would be hardly any time for futile protests, and he wanted to hear him scream . 

A fair punishment–a tribute to Andy’s own tears. 

Tantalus’ smile drops a half-shade when he enters Chiron’s office and finds Hermes there, sitting on the desk like a languid cat, toying with one of Chiron’s pens. It fades into a more stoic expression, and Hermes can sense his fear, radiating out from him. It wasn’t everyday an Olympian came to call, after all. And it wasn’t as if Hermes could fault him for it, not when the wraith had signed a warrant for the most exquisitely violent trip back to the Underworld that the Olympian could dream up. “Lord Hermes,” Tantalus says. He gives a customary, stiff bow. Hermes would like to see him on his knees, pleading his apologies. He thinks he might get some satisfaction from watching him kneel at Andy’s feet, pleading her forgiveness. He’d let her carry out the sentence, watch those green eyes harden, let her turn to him and nod, watch her take tribute from pieces of the body he’d destroy in her name. He could give her his eyes, he mused, or maybe his hands. 

“Oh, you can bend lower than that,” Hermes says, soft and deadly calm. He raises a two fingers in the air, lazily, and smiles as he bends them. Tantalus grimaces in pain as his body is contorted, forced into a low bow that nearly folds his body in half, has his head knocking at his shins. He flicks his fingers upwards and Tantalus’ upper body flies back in place. He overcorrects a little too much and Tantalus cries out in pain as his back pops. “Oops,” Hermes says, with the glee of a sadistic child presented with a kitten, a lion shown an injured lamb. He smiles, bright and predatory, flashing his teeth. “I think you overdid it a little there.” 

“A pleasure to see you again after all these years, my Lord,” Tantalus says, through clenched teeth as he clutched at his back. 

Hermes hums gently. “Yes, I’m sure you’re delighted by my presence. I assume my half-brother brought you back. He was more fond of you than I ever was. And I suppose he relates–his plight, you must know, is to refrain from drinking. Just as yours is to refrain from everything. Kindred spirits, Birds of a Feather, all that jazz. He probably thinks it quite poetic.” 

“I am eternally grateful to Lord Dionysus for allowing me another chance in the mortal plane.” Tantalus says, still hunched from the small pain Hermes had inflicted upon him. He would suffer worse, he thought, remembering how Andy had shuddered in his arms. He is…He is simply cruel, Andy had said. Hermes would pay back whatever cruelties a hundredfold. 

Hermes notes the way he’d referred to Dionysus, not by Mr. D or the wine god as most would have, but by his full name, invoking his presence. He wanted Dionysus’ attention, wanted the god to come to his aid, to watch Hermes and and ask him to refrain from harming Tantalus. He grins, sharp and cutting, the scent of putrid fear rotting in the air. 

“I suppose you’re confused,” Hermes says, airily. He considers Tantalus from his perch and wrinkles his nose at the sight of his dirty hands–undoubtedly he had tried and failed to eat something at lunch, and had gotten dirty in the process. Would he even be able to wash his hands, or would the water flinch away from him still? “It isn’t everyday an Olympian deigns to visit you–aside from my bored half-brother.” 

“Yes,” Tantalus grits out. “Why have you come for me, my Lord? And does Lord Dionysus know that you’re here.” 

A wide grin creeps it’s way across Hermes’ face. “Lord Dionysus won’t care that I’m here,” he says. “My brother cares little for mortals–and desperate souls like you are easy enough to come across. And even if he did care, he wouldn’t intervene with what I’ve got in store for you.”

“And what is that, my Lord?” Tantalus’ voice wavers ever-so slightly on the last word, and Hermes can taste his fear. Distinctive, rotten, and satisfactory. It’s cloying, something that crowds the air and suppresses the mortal’s form. The last time he had felt such emotion from the wraith had been eons ago, when he’d stood to the right of King Minos and delivered Olympian judgement and Olympian vengeance upon the mortal. 

“Divine punishment,” Hermes drops his smile and calls pieces of himself back, letting divine essence infiltrate the room and feeling a rush of power. It’s toeing the line–he can feel his mortal form trying to tear into itself, to explode into a burst of power–and he can tell he’s lost control of some aspects of it as his fingers momentarily burst into golden flames. “What else?” 

Tantalus’ eyes widen, and his knees hit the floor with a speed Hermes wouldn’t have imagined possible from such a crippled man. “My Lord,” he cries out. “I have served eons in the Fields of Punishment. I have learned my lesson–I now serve at the pleasure of Lord Dionysus–”

“ Stop speaking ,” Hermes says, irritated with the begging and blubbering, and Tantalus’ lips, unable to stop themselves from following Divine command, seal together. Hermes watches with morbid disinterest as the pink flesh bubbles and seals, and thinks that Andy may not have liked his tongue as a tribute after all. “I am not here for punishment already dealt–if my half-brother freed you, then I am not subject to worry about it. I am here for a worse sin,” Hermes continues, wondering if Tantalus can even hear him over the rising presence of his own panic and hysteria, trying to exit through his sealed lips. “I am here for crimes commited against Andromeda Jackson, daughter of Poseidon. My soulmate .” 

Tantalus’ eyes widen in frightened recognition. Hermes swears he can see her , as beautiful, as young, as divine as ever, in the reflection of them. He swears to the phantom of her that he would have vengeance for it, and watches as she only smiles and nods in response, as if bestowing her approval. His vengeance, divinely sanctioned. 

“You recognize the name,” Hermes says, with a predatory lilt. “Of course you do. My little wife has always been so distinctive , so noteworthy, so beautiful. Even a crass, heathen, despicable mortal like you could pick up on her divinity.”

Tantalus tries to speak, the habit so ingrained in him that he forgets about the way his lips are fused together. It just comes out as muffled pleas, but Hermes gets the jist of it well enough. Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Mercy. My Lord, Mercy. “You may as well stop that pleading. It won’t change anything–your fate was sealed the moment you laid eyes on her.” 

Reading the minds of mortals is easy–a gentle prodding and he can see every secret, can feel all of their feeble emotions, can judge their souls. And so he does, prods gently into Tantalus’ mind and watches as eons of torment unloads. If Hermes cared, he might take time to watch, but he’s only interested in dealing judgement for one specific crime. He finds Andy in Tantalus’ mind. He finds a thirst for power, a desperate need to stay out of the Underworld, to control Camp Half-Blood’s inhabitants like he couldn’t control his own children, to take some muddled revenge through the demigods. And then, when he narrows in deeper, he sees Andy, and feels a dark coil of want .

“You will burn for that,” Hermes murmurs, red-hot anger curdling in his stomach. “And when your mortal soul returns to the underworld, I will stand beside the judges and pass judgement of my own.”

He curls his fingers and lets his form; tangential and bursting at the seams with raw power, finally give in. Watches as Tantalus tries to scream, hears them muffled by fused lips. He burns from the inside out, starting in his vile heart and turning outwards. Flames lick out from his pores and spread–from his chest, to his limbs, climbing up his neck and cooking his skin red and raw and eventually black and charred. 

Hermes rises from Chiron’s desk and steps forward. He reaches for his flaming face, feels the fire lick at his fingertips, and listens in delight as his muffled screams intensify tenfold when he plunges his fingers into his eye sockets and pulls . Tantalus’ eyes plop with a wet squelch into Hermes’ hands, and he watches in grim satisfaction as flames consume the rest of his body, leaving nothing but charred bones and grey ash. 

Chiron’s office is left the same as it ever had been, untouched and unaffected by Tantalus. All that remains of him are blood-stained eyes, and when Hermes stares into them, he swears he can see Andromeda in their depths, smiling in grateful approval. 

“The Jackson brat is your fated ?” Dionysus steps into the room, grimacing at the sight of the eyes in Hermes’ hand. Hermes’ stomach sinks. “Poseidon won’t be thrilled.”

Chapter Text

“Y ou know him,” Percy accuses, not five minutes after they’d boarded the Princess Andromeda . He’s upset, obvious in the tension lining his shoulders and the pinch of his eyes. He doesn’t wait for the two of them to be left alone, either, allowing Annabeth and Tyson to remain, witnessing the impending argument. Whatever he would now accuse her of had been building the whole time they’d rode over here, and now it would erupt, unstoppable. “You know–you’re familiar with–you’re friends with him,” He barks out a cruel, incredulous laugh. “You will complain about our father until the world catches fire, but Luke Castellan’s father, you’ll give a second chance. You’ll bat your fucking eyelashes at him and–”

“Percy, enough,” Annabeth says. Percy looks at her like a mirror, her own rage reflected back at her. Annabeth looks at her mournfully, like some great tragedy had befallen her. If there is shame in her actions, Annabeth’s pitiful gaze is what calls it to the surface. 

Percy snaps his head around to her, and Andy nearly wilts when the pressure of his glare is removed. “Of course you’d understand,” he snarls. “You’ll forgive Luke Castellan for nearly killing my sister, but giving Tyson a fair chance is too much of a reach. Of course you understand double standards and secrets.” 

Andy’s nerves are jangled; leftover fear and shame from Tantalus, embarrassment drawn from crying into Hermes’ chest, dread for the argument she and Percy were getting into. But yelling at Annabeth and causing a problem with Tyson wasn’t something she wanted to let slide. 

“ Enough, Perseus.” She snaps, crossing her arms defensively, straightening her spine, and glaring at her twin brother. “You’re pissed at me. Not Annabeth. Not Tyson. Me.” 

Her brother glowers at her, arms crossed, spine straight. They are mirror images of each other. Clones. Reflections. Twins. And she had kept something major from him, had lied many times, had hidden away a secret friendship with a being she had always claimed to hate. Had done it all while resenting his loyalty to their father. 

“Tyson,” Andy says, gentle despite the way she was bristling. “Would you mind going with Annabeth to check and see if any other rooms are open? I’d hate to have to all cram in here.” Tyson isn’t completely unaware of the rising tensions between his siblings. He frowns. “Are you ok, sister?” 

“I’m fine—“ 

“C’mon, Tyson,” Annabeth says. It’s gentler than she usually sounds when referring to the Cyclops, but it’s still punctuated with an exasperated sigh that Andy would argue with her over if she wasn’t already mid argument with her brother. 

Her cyclops brother follows the blond out the door with no argument, only a soft wave. 

Percy looks like their father. He always had; all dark haired and strong jawed, eyes set in that same glittering shade of sea green that almost seemed to glow in the dark. He’d always been an inch or two taller than her—their height contest something she’d always sworn to defeat him in eventually—but he’d sprung up three inches over the past year in comparison to the half-inch Andy had eked out. He was probably a solid half a foot taller than her now, and he’d likely grow taller still. She undoubtedly looks much less intimidating in comparison; shorter, more slender, everything strong about him nearly birdlike in her own, light and thin and breakable. 

They had been nearly identical as toddlers—Andy had seen pictures—and she thought that while they were similar, if one took a moment to look closer, their differences had begun to grow chasm-like, uncrossable. 

(Maybe she just felt like this because this was a real fight. A true argument—not born of desperation or playfulness or anything, only betrayal and the unending anger of the Stormbringer’s children) 

“Is he what kept you up all night this year?” Percy asks, stonily. Accusing as he is, he knows the answer. “Did you lie to me for an Olympian, after spending all your time complaining about the so-called great gods ?” 

“Yes,” Andy says, because there is no point anymore in trying to deny it. He knew. 

“Let me get this straight—you can’t fucking consider that our father might be something more than a monster, but you can become best friends with a god? You can get mad at me about not telling you about my dreams of Grover, but you’ll keep your relationship with an Olympian secret. You do know his son tried to kill you , right?” 

“Hermes isn’t Luke,” Andy murmurs, something almost akin to resentment building within her, burning through whatever affection had kept her mouth closed for the last year. “Same as you aren’t Father, even if you think you’re mine.”

“I don’t think I’m your father–”

“You act like my babysitter, Perseus . You won’t let me have friends outside of you.” 

“Becuase you pull shit like this, Andromeda ,” Percy grounds out. He points at her, his finger in his face. “You nearly fucking killed yourself last summer– twice . Whenever anything goes wrong, you sit there shellshocked. You refuse to defend yourself. Not against the Minotaur, or against Medusa, or Echnida, or Ares, or even Luke. Am I supposed to just leave you to die?” 

Andy had nearly sacrificed herself to Ares last summer. She had willingly jumpstarted the timer on her own death when Luke had nearly killed her. She had stood, catatonic, when her mother had been taken last summer, and Percy had to thrust her out of the way. She hadn’t been able to swing a sword against Medusa, had to be pushed out the Arch to escape Echnida. In the most classic definition of it, Andy had been dead weight last summer. And she’d detested herself for it. 

She’d spent nine months doing her best to become something more than that. She’d honed her skills in combat. She’d learned how to wield her divine powers with a breathtaking ease. When they’d gotten to camp, she’d tried her best to demonstrate it to anyone who would watch, hoping to prove that she was more than the scared, defenseless girl she’d been last summer. 

It stings, to still be considered the same girl. Had Percy paid so little attention? “I don’t need you to defend me,” she tells him, except it’s less of a tells and more of a shouts . 

“And yet, in the minimal amount of alone time you have, you’re being preyed upon by an Olympian.”

Her skin prickles, defensive. “He’s being nice to me,” Andy argues, too vehement for a girl defending a mere acquaintance. “I’m allowed to speak to the gods, Percy, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re half-god ourselves.”

“They don’t work without ulterior motives!” Percy shouts, throwing his hands up. “You understand that with every god—including our father— except for him. Andy, he fucking wants something from you–”

“He says he’s curious–” 

“He’s curious about fucking you,” Percy says. “You do know how fucked that would be, even if he wasn’t a god? And you are well aware that whatever he wants with you is doomed. You probably won’t survive it, and it will definitely fuck you up beyond repare.” 

“He doesn’t want to fuck me!” Andy argues back. She knew the difference between wandering eyes and friendships, had begun to develop a radar of sorts the moment she’d hit a disastrously early puberty. “Can’t you imagine that someone could want something from me that isn’t my body?” 

Percy glowers at her. “You know the stories our mother tells us. And you know gods.” 

“And I know Hermes is different,” Andy says. “He’s kind, Percy, to me. After everything I’ve been through—“ 

“ We’ve been through,” Percy argues. “Everything we’ve gone through in the past year, we’ve gone through together . Except for this—this friendship with an Olympian.” 

Andy laughs, incredulous. “You’re fucking jealous, aren’t you? Can’t stand that I’m the curiosity this time, because it’s always been you .” 

A spark of true, genuine hurt flashes across her brother’s face, and angry as she is, Andy finds herself almost guilty anyways. “You think that lowly of me?” 

“I think it makes sense. Why else would you care who I’m friends with?” 

“I’m concerned about you, because you’re my sister and I love you. When has this sort of thing ever gone well?”

Any guilt she has disappears as he insults Hermes again, some protective instinct coiling in her gut. She points her finger at him. “I don’t have to listen to you slander someone who's been nothing but kind to me.” 

And fed up, she pivots to march out the door and find Annabeth. 

As she does, she hears Percy shout, “Fine, get yourself fucking killed . What do I care, I’m just jealous of it!” 

The door slams shut behind her. 

—————

She and Annabeth sleep in the same room, both of them pissed at Percy, and Percy only speaking to Tyson. And as Andy notes the awkward silence between the two of them, she can’t help but think maybe there were a few lingering complaints between the two of them two. They crawl into bed and face away from each other, as if ignoring one another will help them lessen the presence of the elephants in the room. 

Annabeth breaks the silence first, thirty minutes into the two of them tossing and turning in complete silence. “I don’t forgive Luke,” she admits, a quiet confession that the night air swallows gratefully. “I remember how you looked when Percy dragged you through the woods. I remember being so scared for you. I thought it would kill you. I know it nearly did. You’re my best friend, Andy. I can’t forgive what he did to you. Even if Percy seems to think I can.”

The admission, soft and sincere, leaves Andy’s eyes stinging with tears. She moves her hand backwards, roaming until it finds Annabeth’s own hand, clasping their two hands together. “He’s your brother,” Andy murmurs, her throat hoarse from unshed tears. “He was your only family for years. Of course you still love him.” 

“I’m sorry for that,” Annabeth says, and then continues, in a low whisper. “I wish Percy understood that.” 

“He never cared for Luke like that,” Andy murmurs. “He’s never been betrayed like that. He can’t understand what you’re going through. I can’t either, if I’m being honest.”

“I hope you don’t have to.” 

Andy hums in agreement. “I think you’re the strongest amongst us,” she whispers, quiet as if not to alert imaginary others in on it. “Standing against him takes guts.” 

Annabeth laughs, a dry, bitter thing. “I don’t feel very brave,” she admits. “Just scared, I think. Of how he’ll react. Of what he’ll say. Of how difficult it will be to stay angry when I see him.” 

“I won’t let anything happen, Beth,” Andy assures, because she thinks that might be what she would want to hear. “I won’t let you go to him.” 

Annabeth, to her credit, doesn’t take it as an insult. Andy hears a heady sigh of relief and a grateful, “Thank you.” 

“No problem.” 

They fall quiet for a few seconds, and then Annabeth asks, gentle and probing. “And Hermes?”

“We’re friends,” Andy assures, even if the way he’d held her had nearly convinced her there was something more. “Nothing else.”

 “Be careful,” Annabeth urges. “The gods don’t work without ulterior motives.”

“Hermes is different,” Andy says, stifling a yawn. “He’s my friend.” 

Annabeth hums, something hovering between accepting and disbelieving. 

She’s rocked to sleep by the boat’s gentle creaking. Her dream that night is the most vivid one yet. In it, Hermes avenges every predatory glance and purposeful touch Tantalus had laid her way. She dreams he looks to her for approval, that she nods, permissive, and he pulls out his eyes and burns him alive. She doesn’t remember anything when she wakes up, except: You will burn for that, spoken by a silver-tongued god. 

Sleep doesn’t solve all problems, evidenced by the way they all speak to each other the next morning—curt and tense, Tyson doing the majority of the speaking. Andy and Percy sit opposite from each other, glowering at and looking away from each other in measured turns. 

Things are still monumentally awkward by the time they’re dragged into Luke Castellan’s office. 

Andy almost wants to hate the son of Hermes on principle. He nearly killed her last summer; she still remembered the burning of poison flooding her veins, still remembered the weeks-long recovery process, and still had a white scar on her hand, the place where the pit scorpion had survived. 

Percy hated him on principle. He’d been plotting to track him down and bring him to justice since Andy had woken up—promised her that he’d kill Luke Castellan, muttered it over her bedside, holding her uninjured hand. Everyone had always said that Percy was their mother’s son, and Andy had seen why, protective gleam in his eye mirroring their mother’s own. 

Andy imagines she might have hated Luke more if it had been Percy. She thinks she would’ve hunted him down the moment she’d been assured he would live, and maybe she would’ve had no hope against him with a sword, but Hermes often called Andy her father’s daughter, and she thinks her anger and all that power she’d inherited from her father would’ve consumed him either way. 

But he hadn’t tried to kill Percy. And try as she may to remember lingering pain, she understood where Luke Castellan was coming from. She sympathized. Andy knew her anger—hatred, at times—at Poseidon well. She’d carried it with her since she was ten years old, and it had calcified within her, eating away what little care she may have had for him once. Luke had lived with it for much longer, and she imagined his own anger eating away whatever loyalty he might’ve had to anyone, leaving only burning resentment and a need for revenge. For acknowledgment of all that had been taken from him. She could sympathize, of course she could. 

(Sometimes, Andy thinks if she was not tied to Percy, and in turn tied to Percy’s undeserved love for their father, she may have joined Luke Castellan) 

And she knew Hermes loved him. He’d admitted it to her, hushed words spoken in the quiet of the night, seeking her comfort from the weight of it; still loving his traitor son. She had given it to him freely; her comfort, her forgiveness. And she had promised to try and speak to him, reason with him, pull him back from the ledge. 

(Sometimes, Andy thinks that she could never join Luke, as long as he promised to tear down his father. Not when she cared for him, in some deep, painful way) 

Annabeth loved him too–and there must’ve been something good about him, once, if the daughter of Athena could still draw up some care for him even now. 

Andy can’t manage to truly hate him, even when his minions take hold of the four of them and force them to their knees in front of him. Luke Castellan smiles at them, but it isn’t the boyish thing from last summer. It’s sinister, dark and desecrated by whatever sins he’d committed in the name of progress. “My dear cousins,” he says, and Andy can’t tell if he’s delighted in some sadistic manner or in a I-missed-my-sister maner. “What a welcome surprise.” 

Percy struggles vehemently in the bear twin’s grip, half-feral in his need for revenge. Hermes had called him as loyal as a hound, once, and Andy thinks him right in this moment. 

“Oh, stop that, Perseus,” Luke says, surveying her brother with a vaguely uninterested look. “Andy Jackson lived to see another day. Sit, all of you.” 

They’re released by the bear twins, if only to be jabbed in the back with the sharp point of javelins. Even Percy, upset as he is, sits. 

“Did you really do it?” Annabeth says. She sounds younger, sadder, and Andy’s heart twists in her chest. Luke Castellan had been Annabeth’s only family for years. This betrayal was white-hot and deeply personal. “Did you poison Thalia’s tree?” 

“Yes,” Luke says, sharply. Decisively. Andy almost wishes she knew him better, that she could read him better. Maybe she just wants to see regret.

Annabeth’s face scrunches in anger, “That was all we had left of her, Luke. How could you?” 

“Because that is all we have left of her,” Luke says. “Because her own father couldn’t be bothered to do anything more. Because of the gods.” 

“You dishonor her memory and blame it on the gods?” 

“I didn’t,” Luke says. “The gods did. Thalia would be on my side, Annabeth.” 

The blond girl recoils as if she’d been slapped. “ Liar! ”

“There’s so much you don’t understand—“ 

“If those borders go down, the camp will be swarmed with monsters. Demigods will be slaughtered, like Thalia,” Andy interrupts. She sounds more detached than she feels. Bland and smooth and gentle. “You set it all in motion, Luke. How does that make you any better than the gods?” 

Luke turns to her. Whatever familiarity, whatever warmth he’d reserved for Annabeth Chase fades when he looks at her. “They will all be offered a choice.” 

Quietly, she says, “Like the one you offered me?” 

Andy holds up her hand, presenting the white scar that stood starkly against the bronze tan of the rest of her skin. A thin, pressing reminder of how close to death she’d come. The Titan Lord only wants one of you, he had said. 

The memory of it makes her head hurt, a flash of pain, a cold kiss on her forehead. A week of groggy, murky dreams she remembered next to nothing of. 

Next to her, Percy stills. Andy didn’t speak of it often. She didn’t like the way the memories burned, the way they twisted and turned her head. 

Luke looks somewhat apologetic. “Perhaps the Titan Lord was too hasty,” he murmurs. He doesn’t face her eyes, but looks instead to Percy. “But if you knew what was coming, you’d understand.” 

“I dragged my sister’s half-dead body across the woods. screaming for help. I could feel her heartbeat fading,” Percy says. The admission feels raw, festering like an open wound. “I’ll never understand that.” 

“Sacrifices must be made,” Luke says. He looks at her with his father’s eyes; electric blue and intense. Andy tries to reconcile the Hermes she knows with the one who’d left his son—one that he loved— with this soul deep hatred. She finds she can’t. But there must have been something redeemable about him, because Hermes loved him and Annabeth loved him. “There is a new age coming. We could use you—all of you—your power, your intelligence—“ 

“Because you have none of your own,” Annabeth sneers. 

Luke narrows his eyes at his once-sister. “What do you know of intelligence, blindly following the gods, pretending you’ll die for them and they’ll think it memorable ?”

“I know what you’re doing is wrong. I know you can’t blame your father for this one,” Annabeth says. “And I know Thalia would’ve struck you down for this herself.”

There’s a flash of hurt in his eye, so discernible even Andy can pick up on it. He goes silent for a beat, “…or maybe she’d gut you, for this…” he glances over at Tyson, “…choice of company.” 

“Hey!” Percy protests. 

“Traveling with a cyclops,” Luke chides, a gentle thing that reminds Andy of her mother, on one of those rare times Sally Jackson needed discipline. “Talk about dishonoring Thalia’s memory. I’m disappointed in you, Annabeth. You of all people—“

“Stop that,” Percy commands, as Annabeth buries her head in her hands. He positions himself in front of her, shielding her from Luke Castellan. What he’d said must have stung, because Annabeth—not one to be shielded—lets him protect her. 

Andy, eager to protect Annabeth in whatever minuscule way she can, interrupts. “Your father says he still loves you,” She blurts, desperation seeping through.

Luke glares at her, hard and icy. “You don’t know anything about my father—“

“I know he loves you,” Andy interrupts, and she thinks of that hurt look in his eye, the way he’d sought her out, desperate for comfort. “He expanded his cabin, did you know? Claimed all his kids. He changed for you.” 

“A pittance,” Luke sneers. “Barely a half-step towards reparations.”

“More than the rest of them,” Andy says, proud that Hermes had improved and bitter that her own father would never even consider trying in equal parts. “He loves you, Luke. He told me it himself. He loves you. He loves your mother—“ 

Luke stands abruptly, “You don’t fucking speak about my mother, you hear me? ,” He takes hold of a lamp from the side table next to him and launches it at the wall. Andy watches as the glass rebounds onto the floor. He looks like his father when he’s angry. Andy remembers that half-flash of it she’d seen from Luke’s father. She remembers thinking that despite the anger, she had nothing to fear from Hermes. The same can’t be said for his son, with his white knuckles on his sword hilt and harsh glare. She’s half-sure he’s going to take her head off himself. “You know nothing, you self-righteous bitch.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she notes Percy positions his body towards her own. Ready to fight her battles for her, like he always had. 

She doesn’t want that, this time, her eyes on Luke Castellan. 

“I know he cried for her,” She murmurs, so quiet she’s almost sure he doesn’t hear her. But he does, face contorting. “I know he told me it hurt.” 

“Oh, so he cried? Do you know what he did to her? Do you know what he left me to? What was left of her when he was fucking finished with her?” Luke snarls. “He cried, he said it hurt, and he watched it happen all the same. Too lazy to help us. And now, after he’s abandoned thousands of his children, and we’ve begun to rise up, he’s scared and he wants to make little half-steps towards reparations. Now he wants to say he loved us all this time.”

“He meant it,” she says. “I saw it.” 

“You know nothing of my father.” 

And perhaps Andy didn’t know anything of Hermes. She, after all, had only known the god for the past year. One year, out of thousands, surely made no dent in the god’s experience. And a thousand years from now, after she inevitably died young, he would scarcely remember the daughter of Poseidon he’d taught to fight. But there was a part of her–who looked at the raw pain in that god’s eyes, who cried in his arms, who had heard his grievances and had known in her gut they were true, raw, brutal and bleeding–that thought maybe she was beginning to, that one day she would know him, that maybe a thousand years from now he’d think, from time to time, about her. “I doubt you know much of him, either.”

Percy starts, “Andy–” 

Luke interrupts, staring at her as if he could peel back her skin and bones and see exactly what was inside her mind. “And isn’t that the issue, Andromeda Jackson?”

“He is trying, now–”

Luke shakes his head. “I ran away from home at nine,” he says. “I was hunted by monsters for five years. I watched as my best friend in the world, my fiercest companion died in front of me, for me. I nearly died on a quest for him at seventeen. My father is years too late. I’m done with him. I won’t rest until I’ve torn down his throne and the thrones of all the other great gods who treat the demidivine like the shit under their boot. My…friends at camp say you have some similar beliefs, Andromeda Jackson. Join me. The Titan Lord will welcome your power.”

“I thought I was a liability,” Andy sneers. “A wildcard.” 

Luke shrugs, “My friends at camp say we have some…aligning views. We could use your power, Andromeda Jackson. WIth it, we will topple your father from his throne. You will laugh as he kneels at your feet, and Kronos will present his head to you on a silver platter.” 

Andy was consistently angry with her father. She had been since she was ten years old, and last year that almost misplaced anger had grown deeper, seeped through her veins and calcified within her heart. She had left every interaction with him with a bitter taste in her mouth, something acrid searing her tongue. And she had laid awake and thought often of her poor mother and what she’d endured because Poseidon couldn’t be bothered to look out for her. She thought often of the way he’d called them unforgivable mistakes , and sometimes it made her so angry she could feel power ricocheting in her veins and wreaking havoc on plumbing and other times it was so depressing that she could barely breathe, that she laid awake and sobbed quietly about what she could’ve done wrong. Sometimes, she really did want his head on a platter, or to have him at her feet, pleading her forgiveness. Sometimes–most of the time–she really did hate him. It wasn’t as if he’d given her another option. 

But in a strange way, her friendship with an Olympian, the sincere despair in his eyes when he’d declared that he loved May, that he loved Luke, had built up some sympathy, a degree of understanding she didn’t think any other could achieve. A degree of understanding that had her almost sympathizing with the rules and strains her father surely had placed on him. And all of that was only bolstered by Sally Jackson’s unending love and admiration–Andy had always sought out any similarities between her and her mother–and the way Percy Jackson–quite possibly the most important person in the world in Andy’s eyes–clearly loved their father, for some strange reason. 

So she didn’t quite hate her father. Not with the same poisonous vitriol Luke did. She was his daughter and she thought they deserved better, but she was his daughter and she didn’t want him ripped to shreds and scattered across Tartarus for it. 

Kronos, however, had left her bedridden and close to death for weeks. He had left Percy unable to leave her side for months, had left her mother driving up to camp early and sobbing at her bedside. He had plans that would lead to the brutal, torturous deaths of every demigod who didn’t agree with him, who were loyal to their godly parent. He had poisoned the only thing left of a girl who’d died for her friends, and he had twisted the minds of vulnerable young half-bloods. 

Andy knows the weight of true, irrepressable hatred well. And she knows she hates Kronos. And she knows–at the end of the day–her allegiance was with her family. As upset as she was with him, her primary loyalties lay with Percy–who bowed to their father, and so would she. 

“Friends at camp,” Percy says. “Spies.” 

Luke tilts his head at Andy’s brother, considering. Surveying in a clinical, methodical way that makes Andy’s skin crawl with the emptiness of it all. Andy wonders what it was like to be so wrapped up in hatred that you forgot how to care–to look at a thirteen year old boy and examine him as nothing but a chesspiece on a board, nothing but a warm body with a scrap of power. She wonders–with some degree of horror–if that was her own future, if Luke Castellan was a looking glass, if she’d forget whatever semblance of morality she had just to tear her father down. She does not want that. She cannot stand the idea of it. “You could say that.” He murmurs, and then continues slowly, like he’s testing the weight of the word on his tongue. “ Spies.” 

“You fucking traitor –”

“Is it betrayal?” Luke ponders. “The gods may use and abuse us, and we have to sit there and take it, but to finally take a stand is to betray them . Fuck, Percy, Andy, do you two even know whats in store for you if you were ever allowed to reach sixteen–or do they hope to blind you from your own fate? From the Great Prophecy.”

And he says it like it’s ground-breaking, life-altering. The Great Prophecy, like it could topple a dynasty of gods, like it was something that fanatics gathered upon their knees to worship, like whatever it was had been building for generations, like it had been decided upon their births. If there was one thing Luke Castellan could do well, it was throwing her off. Sixteen. In Store. Great Prophecy. She doesn’t know what to say. 

Percy does. “I know you nearly killed my sister. I know I’d like to watch you drown for it.”

Luke sneers, like what had occurred last summer was some grand jest and not something that had left her comatose for a week and nearly bedridden for a good while afterwards. “Last chance,” he declares. “Join us.” He sweeps his hand in one broad movement in the direction of the large, elevated golden sarcophagus.

A chill sweeps over the room. It’s a faintly familiar one; She remembers scrabbling at the edge of the Pit and feeling a lingering presence. Andy recalls standing in a darkened throne room– Cronus , she had said, only later realizing she had switched tongues, the name demanding some deeper reverence. She knows this dark presence, rolling about the room like a heavy fog, deep and dark and dangerous, tangibly demanding respect and obescience. 

And she knows, with startling clarity, who exactly lingers in that sarcophagus. 

Kronos. King of the Titans. Father of the Gods. Her dearest grandfather. 

Annabeth knows too, by the horrified expression on her face. Percy grimaces, disgusted. “You can’t mean–”

“The Titan Lord grows stronger,” Luke murmurs. He stares at Andy like he can peel into her brain and extract and expand her mislike for her father. “It is only a matter of time before he rejoins us, for good. Don’t put yourselves on the wrong side of history. There is a new dynasty coming. You’d all be important parts of it.”

“You are insane,” Annabeth declares. 

“I only speak the truth.” 

“I’d die before I joined you,” Andy murmurs. She looks at the rest of them: Annabeth, all righteous anger and the wisdom of Athena. Percy, loyal to a fault and scarred to the bone from Luke’s previous betrayal. Tyson, the little brother who she thinks she might die for and vice versa, and imagines they all feel the same. Percy nods at her, the determination in his eyes a mirror of her own, and suddenly everything they’d argued about means nothing in the face of the way he was her twin brother–her other half. If he was concerned about Hermes, she’d take it seriously, and he’d take her own judgement of him seriously, too. And no matter their difficulties, she thought there was no one she knew better or trusted more. “We all would,” she says, and she’s certain she isn’t mistaken.

Luke gives a sharp sneer. “Oh well,” he murmurs, and a slow, menacing grin spread across his face. “If that is how you all want to be, it’s fine. The Titan Lord always has another plan. Besides–it’s about time we feed the Aethiopian Drakon.”

Chapter Text

N o one dared to say it out loud, but the truth of it resonated throughout the Great Hall.

Hermes was on trial.

If Andromeda Jackson were any other girl, it wouldn’t even be a discussion. She was bound to Hermes. She was Hermes’. Of course there was no trouble in merely speaking with the girl, even if she was too young and naive to truly understand the implications of it all. If she was just some mortal girl, Hera would’ve been planning a wedding. His brethren would sneer at his idiocy, leaving her vulnerable and undefended for so long. 

But Andromeda is the apple of Poseidon’s eye. She is his coveted, only girl-child. She’s a contender for the Great Prophecy. It complicated manners—fate was pulling her a hundred different directions, and sometimes Hermes felt that even his claim was not solid enough to ground her. 

He stands in front of the other Olympians, and takes in all of the glowering, the neutrality, the small, amused half-grins. 

“You have desecrated my baby,” Poseidon accuses. He’s beyond angry. It reflects in the form he takes: twenty-five or so, bearded and fierce, none of the smile lines and gray strands in his beard to crease his face and soften it. He looks like he had during ancient times; when the stormbringer's wrath had been all-encompassing and brutal, when the earth shook and quaked under his feet, pulsing in time with his temper. When he consumed empires with a flick of his wrist, when sea-bound mortals thought him the worst of all them, the undisputed King of the Gods. Poseidon still struck fear into the hearts of men, but he had been the worst of them in ancient times. Hermes does not like the reminder of what Poseidon is, what he could do. “My only daughter.” 

“There have been younger brides,” Hera interrupts, and there’s an eager light to her eyes. She’s right, of course. In ancient times, thirteen had been an entirely normal age to marry off daughters. Hermes himself had thought of it often–especially in the earliest days, when Andy had been brand new to their world. “The girl is hardly a babe.” 

“ Andromeda ,” Poseidon corrects his sister with a snarl. His pupils have expanded, his eyes solidly green, his mortal form struggling to contain divine rage and power. Hermes is half-sure he’s about to shift forms, become the pure energy of their true selves. “She is a girl of thirteen. A child . My child. I will not have you pretend she is a woman grown.” 

“She is not exactly a babe, either,” Dionysus says. “Certainly cognitive enough to make trouble.” 

“And yet,” Poseidon says, as cold as ice, and his voice trembles and rattles like a caged animal. “not yet old enough to defend herself from an Olympian. To say no to an Olympian. He has desecrated my daughter, and I would see him punished for it.” 

“I have done nothing of the sort.” 

“You burnt my new help alive and pulled his eyes out of his sockets for that damned girl.” Dionysus says, annoyance coloring his tone as if it was Hermes’ fault that Tantalus had lusted after the wrong half-blood. “Now what am I supposed to do?” 

“He lusted for her,” Hermes argues. “If you want, I can revive him, set him after your soulmate and you can leave him be if his help is so greatly required.” 

“ What?” Poseidon cuts in sharply. “Who has done what to my little girl?”

Hermes faces the rest of them, “Dionysus saw fit to bring Tantalus himself back from the Fields of Punishment to lead Camp Half-Blood.” 

The Council erupts in a wave of disagreements and outbursts of anger. Of course–Dionysus had seen to put Tantalus in charge of their children. Tantalus, the man who had sacrificed his children, served and eaten their flesh, all to fulfull some petty vengeance. The tensions among them grow hot and suffocating, a combustion of godly power as they all demand clarification and lodge complaints and threats. 

It is Demeter, the mother, who’d torn the earth apart once for her daughter, who faces Zeus and exclaims, “You allowed this?” she questions, and ivy rises and curls at her feet, feeding on her agitation. “Do you not remember–Tantalus cut up and tried to feed us his own children. You trusted him with ours ?”

“And you fired Chiron,” Apollo muses. He sprawls languidly in his throne, but even his sunglasses do little to disguise the heat of the sun behind his eyes. Perhaps his brother cared little for his half-blood children, but he could take insult as well as any of them–which was to say, not at all. “Who has done well to train and defend our mortal children for eons, now.”

“I could not trust Chiron,” Zeus declares. Lightning crackles and circled around his brow, some macabre crown, born of his own power. Discarding their concerns with a reminder of his own rule. King of the Gods, he seems to say, and the air smells of ozone and crackles with power. “My daughter’s tree, poisoned under his watch.”

“If we were to blame Chiron for every atrocity that occured under his watch, he would’ve died millenia ago,” Aphrodite murmurs, soft and sweet in the way of slowly dripping poison. “Your decision was born of pettiness, Zeus.”

“Would you have had me let the desecration of my memorial to my daughter’s last stand go unpunished?”

“As you demanded my daughter’s own poisoning go unpunished?” Poseidon asks, knuckles white around his trident. “ Yes , you hypocritical bastard.” 

“Andy Jackson got into an argument–”

“She was nearly murdered because our father commanded it,” Poseidon declares. “I will not have you deny this. And still, you deny me the simple pleasure of hunting down the boy myself–”

“As it goes against the Ancient Laws–”

“That you cared little for, preserving your daughter,” Poseidon snarls. His brows scrunches, dark and angry. He is the very image of his daughter, Hermes notes. He can see her there, ghosting in his features. “You were angry because someone poisoned Thalia’s tree, so you took it out on Chiron. And in your laziness– ”

“Do not speak to me like that,” Thunder crackles as his father glares back at his brother. “I am King.” 

Poseidon just chuckles, the sound of it deep and sarcastic. The earth chuckles with him, a slow, lazy rumble under their feet. “I granted you that title,” he declares. “As I will grant you a trip–”

“Enough,” Hera demands. She toys with thin gold chains that link around her wrists and fingers, the gentle click of them rhythmic, almost soothing and certainly as she speaks. “I mislike this subject.”

“Sorry, dearest,” Zeus murmurs, a gentle thing, certainly only meant to appease. 

“You always say that,” Hera says, serenely. She glares at her husband with those deep cobalt eyes, and she is the goddess of motherhood, but Hermes thinks she has never been warm. He does not believe it any fault of her own, not constantly surrounded as she is by a council of her husband’s bastard children and her siblings who had done better, who were regarded higher. Queen of the Gods, she was called, and still it meant nothing. “And you always, then, sire another bastard.”

His heart aches to think of Andy, relegated to such a fate. Cannot stand the idea of it; watching her grow cold and unfeeling, unphased by him, unphased by anything, truly. He is not sure he wants to be Zeus, either, detested by his wife, misliked by his siblings and children, even if that made him King.

“My love–”

“I will have no more of this,” Hera sniffs, every inch the straight-backed queen. “Reinstall Chiron. Half-Blooded they may be, but they are our warriors and quest-takers, and I will not have them suffer because you’re upset about the memorial of your bastard girl. ”

“My love, you know I cannot.”

“I know you will not ,” Hera spits, venom coloring her tone. Hermes thinks she is quite like a cobra, cold and ready to strike, coiled and hissing in warning. “Why should you listen to me?” She asks, and the gold chains about her wrists clink again. “You trick me into a marriage, you cannot hear no, you cannot listen to any other. You promise you love me and inflict this upon me, time and time again, and I cannot retaliate against you and I am the villain when I mislike it. And now you cling foolishly to your misplaced pride, even as our brother’s only daughter suffers for it. As your son’s soulmate suffers for it, evidently.” 

Zeus does not dignify his wife to even glance at her, even as Hera’s eyes bore into him like they could carve him open and tear out his treacherous heart. “I will not reinstall Chiron,” Thunder claps in the sky, lightning searing the room. “That is final.” 

“You may cling to that pride, brother,” Poseidon says, danger evidently in his low tone. “But unless you wish to court war with Atlantis, I would have Tantalus removed and replaced.” 

Hermes thinks of Tantalus’ gory fate in the end, muffled screams from sealed lips, face melting and collapsing in on itself, bloodstained eyes in the palm of his own hand. “I took care of it,” he says, lowly, with a predatory grin, and showcases the man’s bloodstained eyes, held aloft in the palm of his hand. “Did you imagine I wouldn’t have?”

Poseidon meets his eyes, and the two of them do not agree, but they do understand what had needed to be done.

“Yes,” Dionysus snaps. “He did take care of it. And in the process, took away my only help.”

“I would not call that man help ,” Poseidon says, low and deadly. 

Dionysus waves an absentminded hand. “I was tiring of his company anyways. But I would have Hermes help me find new help.” 

“I’ll go myself,” Hermes snaps. “Your choice didn’t exactly work out, and clearly you do not do well at guarding our children.” 

“Not only has my daughter been desecrated at the hands of your sons.” Poseidon says, his fists clenched and knuckles white around the hilt of his trident. He stares at his brother, and Zeus shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. “But she has been neglected, too–by your own command .”

The King of the Gods clears his throat, his discomfort palpable. “If your girl is truly my son’s fated—“

“If you doubt my word, you may ask the Fates themselves. She is bound to me.” 

Ares snorts, “Explains the weird behavior when you met her.” 

Poseidon’s head snaps towards his nephew. With the weight of his brother’s stare off of him, Zeus slumps ever-so-slighty into his throne. “ You knew of this?” 

Ares grins, exposing sharp teeth and a vicious countenance. “I knew he was cuntstruck the moment he laid eyes on her. Desperate for time alone with her—“ 

“I was defending her,” Hermes says, looking at his uncle. “Ares kept your daughter as a hostage to ensure your son’s complacency.” 

Poseidon stands in one fluid motion, knuckles white and protruding against the shaft of his trident. He’s a mirror of his daughter’s wrath, the downturned scowl, narrowed eyes, and pinched brows. The air feels nearly electric, the Stormbringer’s wrath tangible in the air. 

Hermes extends his arm and feels the cold bronze of his caduceus solidify in his hand. He calls the majority of his presence together, feeling a rush of power as his form begins to de-solidify, unable to hold together the divinity of it all. 

The two gods consider each other, father and husband to quite possibly the most important girl in the world. 

He’s startled out of the face off first when he hears a familiar voice, jolting around to find the source. “The ancient laws call her Hermes’ bride,” Aphrodite says. She looks at him with Andy’s face, and for the first time, he finds himself glad of it. It’s nice to imagine, at least, that in this meeting Andy might stand at his side, against the father she cared so little for. “He holds the sole claim over her—“ 

“ Sole claim,” Demeter scoffs. “That is what you heathens told me when Hades absconded with my own daughter. She is a mere girl. Leave her to her father, at least until she turns sixteen. She’ll be a proper adult then.” 

“Perhaps an option, if Poseidon did a half-decent job of defending his child,” Apollo mutters, sprawled lazily like a sunlit cat atop his own throne. 

“Like you have any right to speak of defending your half-bloods,” Poseidon snarls. “I am restrained by the ancient laws.” 

“Then, as I said, leave her defense to her husband,” Aphrodite murmurs, gentle and soothing, green eyes glittering with schemes and intelligence. “As the laws of fate dictate. Besides, better a soulmate bond then whatever fate may have befell the poor girl otherwise. You are all monstrous when it comes to pretty girls.” 

Poseidon’s jaw clenches, his teeth audibly grinding. “ Brother ,” He grounds out. “Tell your heathen children to stay leagues away from my child.”

Ares frowns. “I care little for the brat—“ 

“Another word of my wife and I’ll pull your tongue from your mouth.” 

Poseidon lunges forward in a leap impossible for a mortal and yet simple for a god such as he. Hermes feels the tip of his trident plunge through his own thigh, feels it strike against his bone, feels golden ichor burn as it gushes out, and bellows in pain. “ Speak of my daughter as if she is a woman grown again,” Poseidon grounds out. Calloused hands grip his jaw, tight and bruising, blunt nails dragging more burning golden ichor from his face. “ I fucking dare—“ 

Hermes swings lands a solid punch on the other god’s jawline, knocking him back and dislodging the prongs of his trident from his thigh, which gushes golden ichor in turn. Poseidon looks at him with pure, undisguised hatred clear in his eyes. Hermes points his caduceus at him, the prongs rattling with electricity. 

Everything about the ssssweet sssssoulmate, George hisses, unable to recognize when to shut up. 

Sssssshut up, Martha hisses back. 

“ Enough,” his father announces. Zeus, King of the Gods, stands from his throne. Lightning crackles in his hand, born from the master bolt Andy Jackson had nearly died retrieving. “Brother–cease your mutilation of my son.”

“You would think the parent at fault,” Demeter scolds. About the base of her throne, ivy grows from her agitation, coiling up the sides and about her ankles. “You did the same to me.”

“For the last time, sister, Hades promised war if I did not allow his marriage to his fated, and Persephone was eager enough to agree. What would have me do?”

“You could have had him approach her in a kinder way,” Demeter scowls at her brother. “He stole her away, gave her little choice in the matter. My girl was only a babe–”

“Just as my Andromeda is–”

“The difference is, Uncle, that I did not steal her away,” Hermes declares, pointedly ignoring how very different yesterday might have went, if they had not been interrupted by Percy Jackson. “I have only ever endeavored to keep her safe.”

Poseidon glowers at him, but there is nothing he can truly argue, not with Andromeda free and Tantalus dead, not unless he can prove Hermes did something unsavory. 

“I can attest to that,” Aphrodite purrs, sending shivers down Hermes’ spine. He wishes she would speak in a different voice, at least. He cannot stand the sound of Andy’s voice on her tongue. Or at least the false promise of it, the hope that it was not her but instead Andy who wove pretty words in his defense. “Hermes was so vehement that he did not love the girl yet. Too young, he protested to me. He truly only endeavored to keep her safe.” 

“So you admit it,” Poseidon says, satisfaction rolling across his features. Truly, he was the image of his son. “She is too young for the unsavory plans you surely have for her.” 

“ Unsavory,” Hermes grumbles. “I have only protected her—I only want to keep her safe.” 

“And how , pray tell,” Poseidon murmurs, low and dangerous. “Do you intend on doing that?” 

“He ought to marry her,” Hera declares. “It would solve a great deal of problems—and it has been so long since any of you married.” 

Artemis glowers at their stepmother. “So you all think the solution is to drag that little girl down the aisle? She’s too young—she’ll resent it for eons.” 

“And if he doesn’t?” Athena questions silkily. “Andy Jackson dies, and Hermes is deprived of his bride? Andy Jackson, without the proper guiding hand, topples Olympus? Andy Jackson fights a war on her own, and Hermes must abandon our pursuits to defend her?”

“Is she not capable of anything herself?” Artemis questions. “She is just a girl, and so there must be some arbitrary claim over her. She is Hermes’, she is Poseidon’s, she is the Great Prophecies’. Can none of you all fathom that she may have a will of her own?”

“You understand little, sister,” Hermes says. And it’s true, because cold-hearted Artemis was the eternal maiden. She had never taken so much as a lover. How should she know what it was to have one’s own heart exist outside their form, trapped within a delicate, defenseless mortal girl? She knew nothing of fondness, of feminine softness, and lesser still of love. 

Artemis glares at him with the cold fury of her adult form; rare as it was. She’s unsettling, the opposite of her twin brother in nearly every way, eternally virginal, cold, and rough. Her teeth sometimes resemble that of a wolf’s. Hermes has no desire to have her sink them into him, to tear him to shreds the way she did to men who dared to happen upon her. “I am a woman,” She declares, and Hermes thinks it may only be half-true for the eternal maiden. “I understand. And I understand you and Poseidon and fate itself are pulling that little girl three entirely separate ways, all the while refusing to give her any say of her own. How frustrated she must be. How powerless.”

“Believe me,” Dionysus grumbles. He’s still bitter; punished with Camp Half-Blood, now in charge of running it alone. Hermes wonders if he’s supposed to regret it, if that’s what his brother wants from him. “The brat seldom feels powerless.” 

“How should you know that,” Artemis argues. Hermes lets out an exhale as she turns her razor-sharp gaze upon Dionysus instead. “You know little of humanity—it has been eons since you were demi-divine—and you know nothing of womanhood.”

“And the girl knows nothing of godhood,” Apollo retorts. Rare, that he stands against his sister. Hermes is oddly touched. “Why should we cope with miserable human standards? We are Olympians, and the girl is Hermes’ very soul. Are we to let her roam free and get herself killed? All for the sake of giving her a choice, of serving the mirage that is free will?” 

“The girl knows much of godhood,” Poseidon bites out. “She is my daughter.” 

“I agree,” Dionysus says. “The girl isn’t a weakling. One only has to stand beside her to feel Poseidon’s blood.”

“ Enough,” Zeus commands, his brow lowered into his hands, massaging away a supposed migraine. Dramatics, as usual. Olympians only get migraines one way, and the Greeks and Romans have not a clue about each other. “I grow tired of ceaseless, circling debate. We will have a vote.”

“You cannot put my fated to a vote, father—“ 

“I can when she is Poseidon’s daughter , as well,” Zeus says. To his right, Poseidon nods, grimly. “It is the only way this will end, even somewhat peacefully. And I will not have us at war with each other.” 

“And what are we voting upon, husband?” Hera murmurs, her everlasting anger a mere undercurrent in her cold tone. 

“Unless, of course, circumstances drastically change, will we leave the girl to her own devices as well as can be managed,” Zeus says, and then he draws a ragged breath. “Or will she marry Hermes tonight.” 

Hermes isn’t entirely sure how he feels about that; marrying Andy tonight. Perhaps more certain than he had been a year ago, when she’d been brand new to their world, before puberty had truly begun to transform her from girl to woman grown. More certain than he had been before Tantalus, before he’d held his sobbing soulmate in his arms and then ripped out the eyes of the offender. 

Sometimes, when he stood next to her, he could feel something hovering at the edge of a tragedy. Would she see it as such, when he took her from the Sea of Monsters to the altar, dressed in white? She would see reason, he thinks. Would see that he could make her happy. 

“Fine,” Poseidon snarls. He surveys the room, glaring at them all, as if to remind them firmly of their places beneath him. His fingers are white around his trident, and if one checked the news they’d note that there had been minor earthquakes felt around the globe. Poseidon thinks it a tragedy, Hermes knows. Perhaps he thought his daughter his own, perhaps he had wanted to remove Andromeda from their influences. It would have been useless–for even without Hermes, her fate had been sealed the moment she was born. “We will put it to a vote.”

“I will refrain,” Zeus announces.“As will Poseidon and Hermes—one already knows which direction the two of them would vote.” 

“Fine then,” Aphrodite says, low and melodic, as if from the tongue of his bride. She nods in Hermes’ direction, certainly with the intention of being reassuring. All she manages is to remind him of the stakes, staring at him with her face painted atop her own. “Start the vote, Zeus Horkíos ”

Zeus flinches ever so slightly in his seat, his hands white around the arm of his chair. Zeus, keeper of oaths, Aphrodite names him. What of our oaths to the Fates, she leaves unsaid. But regardless, he is still Zeus, King of the Gods, and he ignores, turns to his son. “Dionysus?” His father questions. 

His half-brother doesn’t even dignify Hermes with a look, instead directing his stare to the ground. “The girl is of Poseidon’s blood. I have felt her power–and whatever my feelings on soulmates, she has divine blood. Let her stay free. It is her right.” 

“Aphrodite?” 

“I would not leave Hermes’ soulmate undefended,” The goddess murmurs. If Hermes tries hard enough, he can almost imagine it’s Andy herself, speaking to him, commanding him to help her, to save her. He finds that he wants to, so bad it aches and burns and festers deep in his gut. “And if Poseidon had any sense at all, he’d see that this is better than whatever brutal death will find her. Free her from the Great Prophecy, Hermes, save her life and marry her.” 

“Hephaestus?”

“I am not one to agree with my wife,” Hepheastus says, gruff and simple. 

“Artemis?” 

“I do not wish to dignify this farce with a vote,” Artemis says, with a deadly flash of teeth. “Andy Jackson ought to decide her own fate.” 

“Apollo?” 

“She will marry Hermes either way,” His brother says, with a shrug of his graceful shoulders. All of the sudden, Hermes finds himself grateful for Apollo. Perhaps he could’ve trusted him sooner. “Why torment them both in the process?”

“Athena?” 

“If she is Hermes’ wife, she cannot endanger the world with the Great Prophecy,” Athena murmurs. Hermes remembers being in some strange mockery of love with her once, following her about and wishing she would shrug off that infernal vow of eternal maidenhood. “For the good of this council, my brother ought to make good on his fated duty.” 

“Ares?” 

The god of war smiles at him with his teeth, and Hermes knows then that he is going to be made to pay for what Andy Jackson had him suffer for. “The girl can make her own mistakes.” 

And then it is over, before it even begins. He knows which way Demeter will vote, and he knows that if she could prevent it, no god would ever take a wife with divine blood. His heart crushes itself within his chest and sinks to his stomach. 

“Demeter?” 

“I would not sentence another divine child to another brutish god.” 

“Then it is settled,” Hera murmurs. She frowns; a regal thing, disapproving all the same. “My vote would not shift the tides. 4 to 5, Andy Jackson will make her own decisions.” 

White-hot indignity, slow broiling throughout the sham of a council meeting, finally lances up Hermes’ spine. “This is disgraceful,” he spouts. He stands from his throne in one fluid motion, feels the cool bronze of his caudecus in his hand, alight with electric power, and the cold kiss of a bronze laurel perched upon his head. All his great power, all his pure, divine blood, and still unable to take his own soulmate to wife. “An indignity—do my rights as an Olympian mean nothing to you all?” 

“Does my daughter’s Olympian blood mean nothing to you?” 

“ Enough,” his father commands, to the rumble of thunder. “The matter is settled. Hermes, you will have her eventually, but while the girl is still a child she will have a choice, unless Poseidon himself tells you otherwise—“ 

“Am I not to see her, then, my soulmate?” 

“No—“ 

“You may see her, for that is her choice as well. And when you marry her, that is her choice too.”  Zeus says. Hermes thinks then, of the word choice. Of ultimatums and tossed, golden apples and dreamed whispers. Of ways to manuever around Zeus’ rulings and this infernal vote. “But you will not trick her. Her choice must be unencumbered to be valid, or Poseidon may toss you to the pit himself.”

“And I will,” the god of the sea threatens, and he looks at him with his daughter’s eyes, so distant and cold that he nearly wonders how he’d spawned Andy Jackson. 

“And when you find your fated, Uncle, I will endeavor to strip you of your rights, and keep them from you,” Hermes declares. “I vow it, on the Styx. I vow it for all of you who endeavored to keep mine from me.” 

Poseidon looks faintly unimpressed. “I only endeavor to keep my daughter from being preyed upon by the likes of you.” 

“I do not prey upon her,” Hermes declares. “You will regret this, when she lies cold in a grave, all because you selfishly wanted her for yourself.” 

Poseidon makes to respond, but it doesn't matter. Hermes is long gone. 

—-

“You are lucky he did not take your head,” His mother chides gently. She waves her hands over the crusted ichor adorning his shirt, but Hermes waves her off. He is long since healed, and he needs no such coddling. “Truly, Hermes, what were you thinking? Sneaking around with Poseidon’s only daughter?” 

“I did not sneak,” He protests, siphoning the ichor away with a flick of his fingers. He sits as his mother ushers him, slumping into a comfortable armchair. Maia’s cave is comfortable and homey and dimly lit; it reminds him of his own birth and formative years in a way that washes over him, gliding gently over his skin and soothing the burning injustice of it all. 

“And yet you did not flaunt,” Maia murmurs, perching herself on the arm of his chair. “My sweet boy, you carved yourself into the suspicious figure born to steal away Poseidon’s only daughter in the darkness of night. Molded yourself after the rest of them. A brute, a swindler, a rapist.” 

“What would you have had me do, mother?” Hermes grumbles. He would be angrier, he thinks, more affronted if it were not his mother who spoke to him, Gentle Maia, so beautiful she’d reeled in the King of the Gods, and so sweet she’d yoked a son from him, too. “What should I have done, confronted with such a girl?” 

“Perhaps you should not have kept it a secret, my son,” Maia murmurs, and she threads her long fingers through his hair soothingly, “It only looks suspicious, now.” 

“Mother, it was a delicate situation—and the girl is mine, I should not need explain—“ 

“And yet you did,” Maia’s fingers freeze, tangled in his curls, and she tugs his head gently back to look at her. She’s a true beauty; chestnut curls and hauntingly deep brown eyes, a high bridged nose that added depth to her faintly bird-like features, face dotted with freckles and tanned in a manner that made her glow. He could see why Zeus fell for her as she did; she looks motherly, soft and warm and sweet in her divine softness, and she is. “Because Poseidon would’ve hunted for his child no matter what you did. Because the girl is not your own.” 

“ She was born for me, made for me—“ 

“And yet, she has her own mind, her own heart,” Maia chides, rougher now. Her fingertips scratch roughly at his scalp in her agitation. Hermes wonders if they’d yet drawn anymore golden ichor from him. He should probably care more, but already he could’ve spawned twenty golden children from the blood he’d shed at Poseidon’s hands. What was the harm in a few more drops upon his mother’s nails. “Her own family and desires. Her own ambitions—“ 

“She is a girl—“ 

“And that does not make her life insignificant,” Maia says. “You Olympians, you Gods, you always seem to think your own wants so above others that they are, in essence, insignificant.”

He does not know what to say to that. He does not know how to respond to the way she had clearly not just spoken of him. Of the way she knew only one other Olympian. 

“She will be your wife,” Maia says, and she resumes stroking gentle fingers through his hair. “But she is not your possession. And you must be gentle with her, because she is only a girl, and because she is your fated.” 

“I know to be gentle with her,” Hermes grumbles. It was all anyone ever told him, to be gentle, as if he needed reminding of that when he looked at her and felt as if he’d begun to dissolve; sugar in the rain. When he looked into the reflective surface of her eyes and saw the nothing but the carnage he’d be so willing to commit in her name. When he had felt her fear once and stayed away, pleading forgiveness from a god who he did not know. “I have always known to be gentle with her.” 

“You are gentle like a child with his favorite toy, I am sure,” Maia says, and it is pointed and jagged and harsh in a way uncharacteristic of the nymph-goddess. “Only barely careful enough to not shatter your favorite possession. But she is not a toy, do you know that?” 

“...Of course,” he says, but he hesitates because his perception of what Andy Jackson is to him shifts like the tide, like a riptide, like a ferocious storm. In one breath she stands before him a girl he must protect and abstain from and in another he wishes to have her on display in a golden cage.

And Maia looks at him as if she can see beneath it all and as if she knew the answer better than Hermes himself did. “No,” she says. “No, you don’t.” 

Hermes draws up the same tired excuse, because perhaps deciding exactly what he wanted–for himself, from her, with her–was too difficult, to all-consuming. It was easier, he thinks, with poor, doomed May. At least then he knew when to claw and cling to her, and when to leave, leaving behind red gouges in his wake. Even with all the pain and strife he’d left behind, he’d known he’d be able to recover eventually. To move past and on and through. How could it ever be the same with Andromeda Jackson. “She was born for me—“

“And do you not believe the inverse, too, to be true? That you were born for her—“

“I am an Olympian,” Hermes says, and the title tastes bitter on his tongue, hard to swallow around. “It’s different.”

“And that is exactly why Poseidon wants your hands off his daughter,” Maia says. She steps back and away, as if whatever discovery she had made of him meant it was difficult to stand his presence. “You have grown into your father’s crown, Hermes.” 

——

You have grown into your father’s crown, Hermes. 

Hermes knew of his mother’s distaste for his father. It was the same bitterness worn by most of his father’s dalliances, the same browbeaten slump of every lowly goddess who’d had the attention of the King of them all and then been left, pregnant and alone and defenseless against Hera’s wrath. 

The shame of her child by Zeus had faded over the eons, helped along greatly by the birth of her Olympian son, but Maia had never forgiven his father. Not when he’d known all to well what position she’d end up in. Not when sisters still didn’t quite meet her eyes. 

Hermes did not depend on Maia’s perception of him. But she had still given birth to him, and he still valued her words, and he still detested when she compared him to Zeus. You have grown into your father’s crown, Hermes, she says, and it burns bright and hot as she surely intended it to. 

Idly, he wonders if Luke felt that way, when he was compared to him, and a flush of shame rises in him, red and uncomfortably warm. 

He is not a good father. He had never been one. Not to Pan; the most recognizable of his children. Not to any of them; born to mothers he had liked or disliked. Not even to Luke, who’s mother he had well and truly loved, who he had well and truly loved himself. More and more he wonders if he’d ever had a chance to be a good father, or if he was doomed–a son of Zeus who was a son to Kronos who was a son to Ouranous, all of them atrocious at parenthood, all of them poisoning their bloodlines. 

Hermes thought of his murky bloodline often nowadays. It seemed nearly unavoidable–Luke rebelling against them, Andy’s distaste for her own father polluting all mention of him. With his father’s lack of support; letting his own son stand trial for what others had done, too, purely because he did not want a spat with his brother. 

He did not enjoy the comparisons. Despite all his father’s power and influence, Hermes had no desire to become him. He did not want to be a feared deity to his own children any longer. 

“Come here to fight me, brother?” Dionysus questions, as Hermes materializes in front of him. He doesn’t make a move to stand from what must have been Tantalus’ chair. “Or perhaps simply to rip my eyes out as well?” 

“Strangely enough, neither,” Hermes replies, watching his own hands with an air of casual disinterest as his form rippled, changing from a near-invisible presence to a solid body with practiced ease. 

“I did not call that meeting,” Dionysus says, crushing an empty can of Diet Coke and launching it into a trash can across the room. It hits the rim and bounces off. His brother sighs with exasperation and waves his hand instead, vanishing the can. “You did not shield yourself on that beach, and the moon passed you by. And you did not shield yourself in that office either–did not seem to be aware of anything besides your own want for revenge.”

Hermes had gathered that much. Dionysus detested council meetings even more than he detested being stuck here in this camp, and he never would’ve been concerned enough for any half-blood to endure a council session he did not have to. But he had not supported Hermes’ own needs and endeavors, choosing instead to side with Poseidon, so while he does not boil with rage, he is certainly not elated, either.

But he has a purpose to being here, and strangely enough, it does not revolve solely around Andy Jackson. 

“I am not here for your head,” Hermes says. “You said it yourself. I killed your help. I want to replace him.” 

Dionysus squints at him, suspicious. “You don’t.” he says, with an air of finality.

“You’re mistaken. I do .”

Dionysus stares at him as if he’d awarded Tantalus Elysium. “This camp is a nightmare sentencing,” he murmurs. “The borders will fall, a legion of monsters will converse upon them, and father command us to step back and let them die. I promise you, brother, you will quickly grow tired of sitting back and helplessly watching your children die. Watching all of them die.”

“I am tired of not caring at all in the pursuit of avoiding pain,” Hermes says. “And the children grow tired of watching us become Zeus, and Zeus become Kronos. They’ll topple Olympus for it.”

His brother snorts, madness dancing in his eyes. “With your son leading the charge,” he says. “I didn’t take you for one to fear the demi-divine.”

Hermes thinks of Luke. He thinks of Andy, thinks of the way she’d said the name of their grandfather. Kronos. “They have grown hateful enough to raise worse demons in their steead,” he muses. “I did not fight in the first Titan War. Still, I have heard the legends and I am not eager for a second.”

“Worse demons,” Dionysus snorts. “An apt term for our dearest grandfather. I am surprised our father is not so proactive on this particular matter–of all the times to let go of his paranoia…”

“He does have a habit of choosing the most obstinate path,” He agrees. “But maybe he just wishes to live in denial. The Titan King is no great comfort.”

Dionysus snorts. “And gods know father would rather die than admit he feared something.” 

Above them, thunder rumbles, an intimidating crackle. A sign that Zeus was listening, and was unhappy about what they were speaking of. 

“For Kaos’ sake, you’re such a nosy bastard,” His brother grumbles. “Take action, then! Prove us wrong!” He shouts, the sound of it reverberating and echoing through at the house. A crack of thunder in it’s own right. 

“You’re dedicated to lengthening your punishment, it seems,” Hermes remarks, perching himself upon the edge of Chirons desk. 

Dionysus’ eyes drag over Hermes: a vibrant, bright purple that had driven mortals and lesser gods over the cliffs of insanity. He had always half-wonders what Dionysus could inflict upon him, what visions he would drive into Hermes’ mind before his divinity would drive them out and away. When May Castellan had first been driven to insanity, Hermes had nearly asked him to try. To drive him insane enough to match her, to understand her, to live his eternal life as her equal. Clawing at the way things had been with a desperate ferocity.

It makes him sick to think of it now; murky visions of blonde curls drifting in violet depths. 

“This job will make you mad,” He says, simply. “You do not want it, brother. It’s not worth whatever scheme you have.”

Hermes spreads his hands. “You know little of what I want. And there is no scheme.”

“There always is, with you. It is your nature, god of tricks and lies. I liked that about you in ancient times, but it grows tiring now, and will only grow worse as I deal with it during this already tedious punishment,” Dionysus says, with admiration and exhaustion and a hint of the type of knowledge that Hermes often heard from Athena. “And I can name one camper you want much of.”

“You won’t say her name?” Hermes questions. He wonders, idly, if Dionysus thought her a goddess who would sense her name and appear. If he was scared to invoke her presence. 

“Should I?” The god responds, lazily. “Or will the sound of it drive you into a mad frenzy.” It is not, perhaps, the question his brother feigns at. 

Hermes grins, baring sharp white canines. “What do you think?”

Dionysus just chuckles. 

“I am not here for Andromeda alone,” He admits, after a pause. “I want to keep an eye on her, sure–”

“An eye on her is an understatement, I imagine.”

“And I wish to keep a closer eye on my children,” Hermes says. “Staying so far removed was what made Luke turn in the first place. And you said it yourself; I killed your help.” 

Dionysus stares at him blankly; disbelieving. “It is a miserable affair,” he says. “Truly, brother, I do not think you want this position.” 

“I want to try out Chiron’s position. At least until he comes back,” Hermes muses. “I wish to begin reparations. I don’t want to become our father.”

The other god blinks, a long and slow and disbelieving thing. “Fine,” he relents. “But you will ask father.” 

“Well enough,” Hermes says. “He owes me, anyways.”

Chapter Text

“I need you to be more careful,” The god chides, and Andy could speak but why would she, when the alternative is to stare at the electrifying blue of his eyes and the pretty pink of the lips he speaks from. “He nearly killed you.”

“I did not intend it that way,” Andy manages. “Besides, he’s your son. Shouldn’t you care more that I failed to return him to you?”

He shakes his head and Andy watches, enraptured by the gentle movement of tousled chestnut waves. “I could watch you tear his heart out and not blame you,” he whispers. “Not punish you for it.”

“How sweet,” she drawls, “from the infamous god of lies.” 

“I could never lie about you, my love,” Hermes tells her, a low murmurs that makes scarlet heat rise in her cheeks. “ Wake up, we’re here . ” 

She wakes up with a start, groggy from dreams she’d never be able to remember, and feeling distinctly wrong, like she was missing something integral. Almost instinctually, she checks to ensure all her limbs are still attached. They are, but the throbbing doesn’t abide, and she’s still missing some unknown entity. 

“I’ve been calling for you,” Percy says. It’s blunt with anger, her twin still obviously upset. “It’d be nice if you woke up when I called.” 

“Stop being petty. It won’t help anyone,” Annabeth calls from where she’s slumped in the front of the raft. Her eyes are red and puffy, and Andy wonders if she’d slept at all, or if memories of the man they’d just escaped had kept her wide awake. 

“I’m not being petty,” Percy protests, with a distinct whine. 

Annabeth just glares at him; a sharp, cutting thing. 

Wisely, Percy shuts up. 

Andy rolls to her feet and brushes past her brother, deliberately shoulder checking him. Percy stumbles a little, but Annabeth doesn’t stand for that either. “ Andy .”

“Sorry, Beth,” Andy says, as she joins the blonde girl at the front of the raft. In the distance, miles of green forestry stretches, too vast to truly make heads or tails of. “Where are we?”

“Near shore,” she hears. It’s Tyson, she notes, sitting in a corner, speaking with a wide, gaping grin. “Sister, you excited?”

“Very,” Andy responds, shooting her youngest brother a bright smile that doesn’t quite reach the corners of her eyes. “I desperately need to stretch my legs.”

“Yes!” Tyson enthuses. “Love sea and love daddy. But want to walk.” 

“Yeah,” Andy echoes, stirring up as much enthusiasm she can. It’s difficult not at at least want to feign it, in Tyson’s presence, her little brother just so uplifting. “I want to walk.” 

The very moment they get to the shore, Andy’s exhausted all over again, as if she’d gone weeks without sleep, like her father’s domain had been the only thing keeping her up and alert. It isn’t noticeable enough to truly bug her; an easy enough thing to write off as a sleepless night in an uncomfortable position. 

Annabeth seems to notice her drooping eyes, raising a perplexed eyebrow. You good, she mouths, brow pinched with concern. 

Just tired, Andy mouths back. Didn’t sleep well. 

Annabeth nods in understanding. Undoubtedly, she thought Andy was dealing with demigod dreams. She’d heard that most half-bloods were relentlessly haunted by visions and surreal nightmares, or some disturbing mix of the two. Percy certainly did; Andy had watched her brother scream and thrash and wake up in a cold sweat enough times to know it for certain. 

Andy…Andy didn’t suffer from the same issue. She couldn’t even be sure she did dream anymore; given that she never remembered anything. But she didn’t enjoy sleep, because recently she’d been waking up groggy and confused, as if she’d never slept at all. It didn’t happen all the time–sometimes she woke up clear-headed and alert. Sometimes, though, it was worse, and she’d go for hours unforgiveably nauseous, her head pounding rhythmically inside her skull. She’d begun to dread it–sleep–because of how miserable it was to wake up. But whatever she was suffering from, though, certainly wasn’t nightmares.

When Annabeth takes them to the shelter and explains who exactly had built it, Andy can’t help but notice the blatant anger crossing her brother’s face. Angry with Luke Castellan–Andy could understand that well enough–and undoubtedly angrier that Annabeth still loved him. 

Sometimes, Andy thought that Percy didn’t quite understand what Luke had been to Annabeth. That it was difficult to go from only having one person to having to hate them. 

It wasn’t Percy’s fault–Andy thought she’d be in the same position if their roles had been reversed. But all the same, he couldn’t see it the same way Annabeth did, and so he was undeniably upset about it. 

It’s weird between the three of them when Tyson leaves. Undeniably tense, in a way that itches, flaring under her skin and crawling through her veins. Andy’s upset with Percy and Percy’s upset with Annabeth and Annabeth’s upset with Percy and Percy’s upset with Andy and around and around it went. Whatever solidarity she and Annabeth had managed to come to didn’t even truly help matters. 

Should Andy had told Percy about Hermes?

Growing up, they’d shared damn near everything. A womb, a mother, a bloodline. Clothes and toys and schools. Even friends; because Percy had Grover so Andy had him too. And she’d always felt second place, too. Because Andy and Grover were friends and Grover and Percy were best friends. Because Percy was their mother’s perfect child and Andy was the difficult one, who stormed out of arguments and left her brother to comfort her mother. And then they’d come to Camp Half-Blood and there Andy had still been second-place. Because Percy was innately gifted and Andy was just Percy’s sister. Because Percy killed the Minotaur and Andy did what she always did–froze. Because Ares used her as leverage. Because Percy had fought Ares. And she was always just there , frozen on the sidelines, always second to a perfect brother. 

And then Hermes had come along, and he’d stared at her like he knew her, like he could peel back the layers of her mind and read her perfectly. More importantly, he’d seemed to like it. And then he’d come around again, and he’d taken her side. Over Luke’s, his favored, prodigal son. He’d taken her suggestion–expanded his cabin. And maybe he hadn’t done it for her, but he’d done it all the same. He’d called her special, told her that Percy didn’t need to know; perhaps not the greatest sign, but Andy–second, always –had been enchanted. He kept coming, too, and he spoke sweetly to her and laughed with her and trained her and called her my, and Andy had relished in it. In having something, even if only for a bit, that was wholly her own.

She thinks, somewhat arrogantly, as she casts a sidelong glance at her brother, that she deserved this, that Percy’s simply jealous of her, because he was used to it. Used to being first place, to being the gifted one, the hero. He couldn’t stand that this time, it was Andy who was first. That a god was paying careful attention to her. 

So she doesn’t apologize. And Percy–headstrong and stubborn as he is–doesn’t make a move to, either. 

They don’t speak to each other, not in ways that matter, not until Tyson sacrifices himself and Percy nearly dies and she and Annabeth drag him up out of the water and she’s not quite ready to put it entirely aside but she loves him, dammit. 

“Tyson…” Percy croaks, and his eyes are red and his hair is messy, and Andy had lost one brother and nearly lost the other, too. She feels the effects of it coiling deep in her stomach, aggravating some reclusive gag reflex and tugging at her heartstrings. 

( Tyson’s dead , and neither of them could prevent it )

Andy shakes her head, burning tears searing her eyes, and Percy’s face crumples. He sags, a puppet with his strings cut, and Andy hugs him like she can support him and hold him together singlehandedly. He hugs her back, clinging tightly, and Andy’s ribs protest the tightness of it, but she understands. She reciprocates, clawing at his back and digging her nails in like if she let him go he’d disappear too. She doesn’t think she can stand it; the idea of losing another brother. She almost wants to shackle this one to her, and whatever disagreements they’d had seem so childish, so secondary and ridiculous that Andy almost can’t believe they’d had them. 

Annabeth and Percy seem to forgive each other. There’s no grand apology, but as Andy drifts off to sleep she hears quiet murmuring. I’m sorry, Annabeth says. I forgive you, Percy says, automatically, like it’s automatic, easier than breathing, like forgiving Annabeth is integral to his very lifeforce. 

When she’s shaken awake later by Annabeth, she notes that Percy’s still awake, like he couldn’t bring himself to face sleep. But he tries, when the blonde girl bids him to with a gentle murmur, and Andy is left to stare at the open sea, alone with her thoughts. 

—-

Circe’s Island looks like a true paradise at first. It had been designed that way, she will learn. It is made to lure in hungry, thirsty, exhausted heroes with the false promise of paradise. 

If she was older, stronger, wiser, she would’ve felt it. She would’ve recognized the enchantment in the air, tasted the sickly sweet poison of it all, seeping through her pores and taking root in her blood, altering her mind with swift ease. 

She doesn’t. The attendants are human; sweet and pretty girls who treat them kindly and Andy hasn’t gotten true sleep in what feels like weeks and her little brother is dead and if she doesn’t carry on, Grover will die too. 

And then she sees Circe for the first time. 

She’s devastatingly gorgeous; divinity compiled and compacted in human form. She wears a white off-the-shoulder dress that drapes around perfect curves and showcases the faint outline of her collarbone and sharply angled shoulder. Her hair, dark and wavy and interwoven with gold, falls perfectly into place. There is not a single piece out of place, no section that lays awkwardly. Her features are sharp, angled jawline and high cut cheeks and straight-nose, olive-skinned and lightly freckled. But most beautiful of all features are her eyes. They are a bright, shining gold that reminds Andy of the sun, and she has never met the sun god, but she can imagine this woman, born from a shaft of sunlight, a dazzling ray of light compacted into human form. 

The attendants swirl about her; planets revolving about the shining sun, and of course they do. What else could someone do? This woman was meant to be followed, meant to be surrounded by deferential worshippers and pretty, pretty girls who did her bidding. 

“Hello, there,” the beautiful woman says. And Andy winces, because that is the only ugly thing about her. Her voice is like the screeching of a halk, ugly and awful, and it grates on her like nails dragged down a chalkboard. “I am C.C.” she introduces, “Welcome to my island.” 

They’re quickly dragged along. C.C. says they are desperately in need of makeovers, and Andy stares down at her ripped, grimy clothes and her tangled hair and compares it to the perfect elegance of C.C. and she cannot help but agree. She nearly protests when C.C. takes Percy to a separate room, but it makes sense. Women needed privacy, after all. Or perhaps that’s just what C.C. tells her, whispering sweet affirmations into her desperate ear. 

Andy and Annabeth stay together, and they’re taken on a quick tour. A dark-haired attendant– Hylla, she calls herself–points out the golden library, sculpted white terraces and balconies, and plush rooms for each of C.C.’s attendants.

It’s not beautiful–it’s something beyond even that, something beyond paradise. Otherworldly, maybe, something intoxicating about the air itself. Andy finds herself sucked into it, unable to truly breathe in such a lovely place. 

They get makeovers. Hylla turns them towards a mirror with a disapproving frown and Andy’s treated with a view of herself. Her clothes are ripped and torn and her face is streaked with grime and crusted with the salt of the sea and her hair is so tangled it’s almost matted. 

Hylla tsks. Andy understands why; she looks disgusting . All her life, people had told her she was beautiful. She isn’t , not here. Here, she’s monstrous, subhuman even. Something akin to terror mounts inside her–she wants to peel her face from her skull, wants to retreat into a quiet night. She is ugly, so ugly she cannot bear the idea of standing here and allowing witnesses to it any longer. 

“The before, ” Hylla announces, grimly. And then she taps the glass and the vision of herself is transformed. And Andy is… 

Andy is…

She had always known she was pretty. There had been a time when she had thought it her sole value. She was pretty, in a way most weren’t. It was reflected in the way men looked at her, even as a small child, in the warnings people made sure to toss her way, and in the sculpted appearance of her twin. 

If nothing else, she was pretty. 

But the girl in the mirror is enchanting. She wears a white dress, sleeveless and embroidered with gold, and she looks like C.C. in it; with those sharp collarbones and that thin line of muscle. She’s lovely in it, ethereal, a nymph in renaissance art. Dark hair spills over her shoulders in smooth, glossy sheaths, loose and free but certainly not messy. It contrasts beautifully with the bronze of her skin, the curve of her chin, the sharpness of her cheekbones. Her eyes are a deep emerald that seems to illuminate the room around them. 

She’s confident, in the way Andy pretended to be, but she doesn’t need her father’s temper to line her spine and puppet her movements. Andy can see it in the way she holds herself, that perfect chin upturned with a hint of well-deserved arrogance. She can see it in the girl’s subtle smirk, adorning pink lips. She can see it in her glistening eyes, gleaming with a secret that none knew but her. 

Andy is not vain. She had never needed to be; she was pretty and she had known it. But this girl…this girl gleams with the light of a thousand suns, and Andy wants it so badly she can taste it. It is in her heart, in her mind. The want poisons the very air she’s breathing, and she’s choking on it, she’s dazed with it. 

To her right, Annabeth exhales, under her breath. Like the image in the mirror had made her dizzy, like it had stolen the breath from her lungs, like it had wormed its way inside her blood and poisoned her, too. And if Andy could bear to look away from the dazzling woman in front of her, she’d turn. But she can’t, because the green eyes in front of her sparkle with something that whispers to her: I know you want this . Because they’re right. 

(She cannot imagine that this girl’s father could ever abandon her. She cannot imagine that this girl would ever let her little brother die for her. She cannot imagine this girl; freezing at the very sight of an angry man. How could she, when she is the center of the universe? When she is every ideal?) 

“They could be you,” Hylla tells them, in a low murmurs. And the poisoned words drip into her consciousness and bleed into an unconscious need. “We can make them you.”

Andy agrees, without a single sidelong thought. Her thoughts are a cacophony and a roar of need, and she cannot spare any for her brother. Cannot even hear Annabeth’s subsequent agreement. 

(And later, she will wonder what it is that kept her so focused on that mirror. Eons of enchantments, interwoven to prey upon your every insecurity, developed with the brightest minds and strongest witches of the past four millenia , Hermes will tell her, with a sad smile. And he will tell her that he sometimes doubts if a golden-blooded goddess could resist its pull)

Hylla taps the mirror and the woman fades, leaving only the girl. And suddenly every flaw is magnified, and she is not pretty at all, and she cannot bear to look at the place where the woman had stood. 

Someone’s hand lays itself on her shoulder, soft and well-manicured. A redheaded girl, all pretty ringlets and dotted freckles, looks down at her and smiles. “Don’t worry, sweetling,” she croons, and her voice is smooth and rich, “We must all start somewhere. And you will be the fairest of all, soon.” 

“Will I be?” She says, and her voice cracks, a heartbroken child. 

The redhead’s soft hand angles her head up, and her eyes are a rich hazel Andy thinks she could swim in. “We will make you it,” She vows. “If you want it. If you cooperate.”

“I will,” Andy whispers. “I swear it.” 

The redhead smiles at her, a sweet thing that exposes perfect white teeth. “Then follow me.”

She’s separated from Annabeth as they bathe, and she pays it no mind. They clean her, scrubbing so hard she’s left feeling red and raw but clean, like she hadn’t since she’d left home. The girls around her move, quick and efficient, and none speak to her except the beautiful redhead, who calls herself Delia. 

“You must be a daughter of Aphrodite,” Andy tells her, as Delia hovers over Andy’s jagged nails with a trimmer. “You’re beautiful.”

Delia laughs, the sound like compacted sunlight. “No, my dear,” she says, and it’s punctuated by the sharp click of the trimmer. “My mother was just a nymph. My father was the god of dreams; Hypnos.” 

“I do not know him,” Andy says, tasting regret. 

Delia touches her chin, gently, hazel eyes a vortex that threatens to swallow her whole. “Of course you do not,” she murmurs. “You are a Princess of the Sea. I would call it blasphemy to concern yourself with gods beneath you.”

“He is your father.”

“He is worthless to me, even now,” Delia laughs, eyes crinkling with the joy of it. It sounds like sunlight, dazzling and golden. “I do not need my father’s power, here.”

Andy falls silent, choking on desire. 

A young girl with hair like spun gold oils Andy’s hair with scented perfume and weaves it into a long braid, woven with strands of gold thread and gemstones that catch and reflect the light. She lines her eyes with dark makeup that makes her eyes glisten, and Andy’s sure they’d shine from halfway across the room. 

Andy dresses herself in an off-the-shoulder white dress that shimmers in the afternoon sunlight and gold accessories: bracelets and necklaces and rings that make her look regal. Princess of the Sea, Delia had called her, and Andy nearly believes her, standing in the mirror.

Nearly.

“I am not her yet,” Andy says, frowning, displeased, because she is no longer ugly, but that girl in the mirror still feels a thousand miles from her reach. She turns to Delia, distressed, and the older woman lays a calming hand on Andy’s shoulder. 

“Only C.C. can make you her ,” Delia soothes. “Trust me, sweetling.”

“I do,” Andy says, and she means it.

Annabeth’s jaw drops when she first lays eyes on Andy. Andy understands, because she’s entirely sure her own jaw is in a similar condition. 

Annabeth was beautiful, Andy had always known that. She was genetically blessed in the way children of the gods often were, with her honey-blonde princess curls and intense grey eyes. But she looks different now; older, regal, graceful. Her hair is loose and free, interspersed with little braids woven with gold strands that make her hair shimmer and catch the light in a nearly artificial light. Her grey eyes glimmer with some hidden wisdom that Andy had always envied. Her long legs were emphasized by the slits in the long, white, and flowy dress she wore, and her tan had evened out, become something of a perfect california girl’s dream. 

“You look stunning,” Annabeth tells her, eyes wide. 

“So do you,” Andy says. 

Hylla cooes, as if the exchange was the most adorable thing she could ever conceptualize. “You two are sisters already,” she says. Andy wants nothing more than to be Annabeth Chase’s sister. 

“Can we be?” Annabeth asks, breathless. 

Hylla lays a manicured hand on Annabeth’s shoulder and murmurs, “We’re all sisters here, my dear. Is there any other way to survive, than sisterhood, when men are so vile?”

Andy thinks of men; of Gabe Ugliano and Poseidon and Tantalus. She thinks of how powerless she had felt, and how disgusted she had been with herself. And they were all like that, men, all of them sick and depraved and violent. Andy does not want to be another man’s victim. No, there could be no other way to survive. She needs this, sisterhood and the power to defend herself and her sisters. 

Neither of them respond, but Hylla seems to understand anyways. “Come, girls,” she says. “C.C. will see you now. We must unlock your full potential.”

Something almost like concern spins through Andy’s mind when C.C. turns to greet them, Percy nowhere in sight. 

“Girls, welcome,” C.C. greets, and Andy does her best not to wince at the screeching sound of her voice. “You beautiful, my dears.” 

Andy almost wonders how anyone could appear beautiful next to C.C., who was undoubtedly the most bewitching woman she’d ever laid eyes on. 

“Thank you, Ms. C.C.” Annabeth says. 

A soft scent; seawater and salt brine, drifts through the air. It reminds her of weekends at Montauk, her head in her mother’s lap, splashing in the waves with her twin. Percy, she thinks suddenly. 

“My brother,” she announces, brows furrowing with the sharpness of the statement. “Where is he?”

C.C. smiles at her, and something warm washes over her. It no longer smells like the sea, and Andy lets the woman soothe her as the memory fades. “He is fine, my dear. Men always need a more…transformative makeover.” 

“Oh…” Andy breathes. “Of course. Will he be joining us later?”

C.C’s eyes glimmer with some untold knowledge. “I have been waiting for you a long time, Andromeda Jackson. I will not soil our meeting with talks of men .”

In the back of the room, Andy hears a loud reet , and her gaze narrows on a cage. Guinea Pigs are crammed in there, too many of them for it to be sanitary or humane, all of them scratching the cage with a desperate ferocity and a fervor to escape. 

And there it is again, that smell of salt and sea, wafting through her nostrils and activating the power in her blood. The enchantment fades with a feeling of ice, melting and dripping, cold and unsettling, down her spine, leaving prickly gooseflesh in its wake. 

And she is aware again, the dichotomy of it making her feel like she’s on fire, like everything is too much, the world moving too-fast and too-bright around her. And if she didn’t feel so alive, she’d collapse in upon herself. 

“Who are you?” Andy asks, a tremor in her voice. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Annabeth move in closer, the two of them ready to cling to each other. “Where is my brother?”

C.C. smiles. She holds up a hand, and blue flame dances playfully upon the tips of her fingers. “I am a sorceress, my dear,” she says. “I am a woman, who carves her own path, who seeks nothing from man except independence. I am Circe.”

“Daughter of Helios and Perses,” Annabeth says, and her voice trembles as her fingers interlock with Andy’s own. “Goddess of Witchcraft.”

“That’s right, my dear,” Circe says. “And you have the look of a daughter of Athena.”

“I am one,” Annabeth mutters. 

“I get along well with your mother,” Circe murmurs. “The Wisdome Goddess loves the library here. And I love the way her daughters often learn much here, and the knowledge she brings me.”

Circe’s hawkish gaze moves, fixates on Andy. She feels smaller, almost, with all of Circe’s attention honed in on her, crushing her. “But the Wisdom goddess is not the only one who brings me knowledge of you, Andromeda Jackson. A beautiful, forbidden child, a seaborn girl. The gods even whisper that your father cares for you, my dear,” she murmurs, low and dangerous. “They say you are his only girl-child, the most coveted of his mortal children. They say he loved your mother and dragged you from a poisonous grave.”

The breath catches in Andy’s throat. Andy is no stranger to it; whispers and rumors that the Sea God was partial to her. She is no stranger to hearing everyone declare that Poseidon did care , because she was his only daughter and he loved her mother, and so he must . 

But dragged you from a poisonous grave , that one is new. 

“What?” She whispers, voice raw and world spinning. “Percy took me to Chiron–that’s how–”

Circe laughs. “Your brother pleaded with your father to come down, to freeze the venom in your veins, girl-child. The pit scorpion venom would’ve taken you before the Centaur could’ve ever gotten to you.”

“He did not tell me,” Andy says. “My brother would’ve–”

“Men lie,” Circe says, golden eyes flashing. “My own brother once told me he would follow me to the ends of the earth. And you see me now–in the company of my sisters, and only my sisters. Men lie, my dear, as easy as they breathe and eat and sleep. It is their nature, a means to an end.”

“Not Percy,” Andy shakes her head. Why would Percy not tell her that. Why let her speak of her father as if he’d never cared at all, if he had well and truly saved her life? Why let her spit venom that wasn’t even true?

“She’s telling the truth,” Annabeth whispers, by her side. Andy turns slowly, and meets grey eyes steeped in shame. “Chiron said it should’ve killed you long before he got to you. I just thought it was your blood, that you were just stronger than the rest of us, but…”

“Let me ask him,” Andy demands. “Bring him to me.”

Circe looks at her; pity lining her golden gaze. “My dear, I cannot.”

“Cannot what? I don’t care about his makeover, he’s perfectly fine as is. Bring him to me.” 

“Percy Jackson is a man,” Circe declares. “He is not fit for your company, Andromeda. Annabeth.”

“ What have you done with him ?” Andy grounds out. 

“In the myths, you turned them into pigs,” Annabeth says, suddenly, as if the realization had hit her like a train. “Did–”

“And do you know why, my dear girls?” Circe asks, and her smile had begun to take on a sharpened edge. 

“You liked the power–”

Circe laughs, high-pitched and miserable. “You know a man’s explanation,” she says. Despite it all, she’s gentle with it. “You know what Odyseusses and his crew wrote; that I turned them simply because they were men–”

“And you did–”

“Only because I had already learned what men are,” Circe explains, painstakingly. As if she were speaking to dimwitted children, not half-blooded girls. “I lived centuries in isolation, but I had visitors. Often, they were just nymphs, spritely girls, punished by their fathers. Them, I did not mind. But the men…They would come, and I was lonely, and ever-so-hospitiable. The first time…” she trails off, voice-breaking, and despite what she had clearly done to Andy’s brother, she can’t help but feel bad for her. “The first time, I froze. Until they were gone. And then I made myself a promise, that I would never be so helpless again.”

“They were guilty,” Annabeth says. “But Percy would never–” 

“All men will,” Circe says. “I used to give them all chances. And every time, I would be hospitable and kind, and every time they would come up with that gleam in their eyes and hands who sought to take what I did not wish to give. They believed themselves deserving, entitled, because they were men, and so I must have been subservient to them too. You are young. You still have faith. But I will not give men chances they do not deserve.” 

“What do you want from us,” Andy asks, and her voice trembles but she understands . She understands the way blood turned to ice in a woman’s veins, the way she would freeze solid and hope to do no more damage. She understands disgust rolling throughout her, understands distaste for men–because few of them had ever served Andy well. And those that had been kind were far outweighed by those who had purposely harmed; Gabe, Tantalus, Ares, and those who had negligently hurt; Poseidon, Zeus, every man whose eyes had trailed after a barely pubescent girl, leaving her feeling like the world was collapsing, encroaching. She understands that beauty is the most terrible of curses in any man’s world. 

(And she knows that Circe has Percy, but there is a poisonous enchantment in the air, and words that make terrible, terrible sense making rounds in her mind, and for a moment she wants to hope. Wants to barter, even, send Percy on and stay)

“ Andy,” Annabeth hisses. “She’s taken Percy–” 

“I want the two of you to join me,” Circe interrupts, speaking simple, convincing words. “Athena’s girl-children are often wise. They are knowledgable and quick to learn. They often take to magic with ease even other half-bloods know little of.” 

“And me?” Andy asks. “And my brother?” 

“You are your father’s only daughter. You have his blood and his power, but you are still only a girl,” Circe says. “Fond as he is of you, it would behove you to remember the Sea God’s truest nature. Your father doomed Medusa. He raped his own sister. He defended his son for the rape of Ares’ daughter. He will watch with glee as your brother becomes a hero in every sense of the ancient times. He will say that he loves you, but there is no space in this world for pretty girls like you, and he will not defend you from becoming another God’s victim, not if it would be to his detriment. Perhaps Poseidon cares, but it will never be enough to save you,” Circe says. “There is a path your brother can follow. There is a way made easy for men and gods . But we, the women , the goddesses, we must carve our own path.”

Annabeth’s fingers clench around Andy’s own, but it is not Annabeth that the witch-goddess is trying so desperately to convince. The ball was in Andy’s court now; a real chance for power, for separation from her father, for the ability to do something more than freeze, for protection without being at the beck and call of a bloodthirsty Titan King…all she had to do was sacrifice her brother. 

“My father was powerful,” the goddess confesses. “He was bright and shining and golden; the strongest of the remaining Titans. The only one to retain his full power, though that has long since been diverted,” she sounds happy about it, proud almost. “He cared for me in his own way, but he did not keep me from exile. And he never once even raised a pinky in my defense. If it meant more power for him, he would have sold me to some lowborn pig of a man in a heartbeat. So you see, Andromeda Jackson, I am just like you.”

She surely looks hesitant. Of course she does–the chance to spite Poseidon, to stand up for herself in the way she’d always yearned to. Circe presses forward. 

“I will unlock your true self, the potential locked in your blood,” Circe promises. “I will teach you to wrap men about your finger and swallow them whole. I will stand back as you make legions of them tremble with desire and quake with fear. Tell me, my dear, have you been hurt by them yet? Do you freeze in the presence of a man with the same power, or do you wait with bated breath. Rape, such an ugly word, but do you know how these gods will not accept your no, how they will think of you as a pretty decoration even as you beg and plead and call yourself someone’s daughter, someone’s sister–”

“Enough,” Annabeth commands. 

“You can have more than that,” Circe says, and Andy…

Andy does want more than that. She imagines Gabe Ugliano, recalls every bloody daydream she’d ever had about the man. She’d favored knives, plunging one into his chest and continuing until his screams had quieted and she felt better, felt avenged. Imagines Tantalus, remembers how he’d closed in on her, the wicked gleam in her eye. She recalls her mom, sitting her on the edge of her bed at age eleven, right in the bloom of puberty. Gabe’s friends had been over. Charlie had been around before, but this time he’d taken a quick look at her, had hugged her tight and long. Growing so fast, he’d said, his eyes lingering on her still-swelling breasts, Already such a pretty little thing. You’ll be real jailbait in a couple years. It had been one of the few times her mother had ever argued with Gabe Ugliano and won. Afterwards, Sally Jackson had taken her aside, explained that men were dangerous, that they did not see her the same anymore and that they never would. That she was pretty and vulnerable and different and that she had to be more aware than everyone else. They’d had a follow up discussion, when she was newly thirteen, and her mother had told her twelve myths for twelve Olympians of everytime a pretty, unaware girl had been taken advantage if by the gods and the creatures around her. She’d been on edge for days, even with Hermes, who she trusted with a ferocity that couldn’t possibly be overstated, something both instinctual and earned. 

All her life, she had wanted more than that. The idea of it was thrilling, intoxicating, clouding her head and short-circuiting rationality that she’d never really developed anyways. She wants so badly to never worry about a man and his perception of her again that she can taste it, smooth and cool and sweet in the back of her throat. She wants this. 

So she stands there, wavering, hungry for the life she’d always wanted, hovering on the edge of her peripherals, torn to the side of her brother. 

Percy had never hurt anyone who hadn’t deserved it. Andy had already felt the loss of one brother, and she could not stand it, still felt it’s impact fresh and raw, could feel the blood loss of it all. Who was she–who was Circe –to serve as judge, jury, and exectutioner for a crime her brother had never commited, likely would never commit. 

And what would that make Andy, if she could sacrifice her brother–all his unlived life, all his potential–for anything? Would she, then, be as bad as a man?

“What about my brother,” she whispers. 

Annabeth’s fingers curl around her, and wordlessly she knows Annabeth will stand with her. 

“What about my brother?” she asks, louder now. 

“Do not turn against me for the sake of a boy,” Circe warns. 

“I have not turned,” Andy says. “But my brother is innocent, not yet a man, and he is good . I will not let you play judge, jury, and executioner for a child you do not know and will not speak to.”

Circe stares at her, eyes the blazing gold of twin suns. Andy wonders if she’d gotten them from her father. Bright and shining and golden, she had called him, and Andy thinks that the features she’d inherited from her father had haunted her for eons. Wonders if Circe had prayed for her father to defend her, avenge her like he’d evidently done for Andy once. She had spoken of her brother once, had said he’d broken promises. Did Circe pity Andy for believing in the goodness of her twin, for the inevitability of a betrayal? “I will give you your brother,” Circe says, slow and dangerous. “But I cannot have you here–you are not ready to be here–not if you cling to men in the way you do.” 

“He is my brother,” Andy says. “He is good .”

And the witch-goddesses’ eyes turn pitying. “When you learn the truth, when he betrays you, sail back here. Ask for me. You have potential.”

—-

True to her word, Circe does release her brother. Gives them a ship, too, something from a pirate who’d had the misfortune of coming across the island centuries ago. It’s easy to control it, to merge it and the sea and her willpower all at once, and easier still to leave. 

“Not a word,” Percy threatens, cracking the tension, a rock dropped upon a thin shell of ice. 

It’s easier to laugh about it than to discuss it. And so they leave everything that had been discussed: Poseidon and Percy and Tantalus and men , and they laugh because Percy had been turned into a guinea pig and was ravenously craving carrots. 

Annabeth flicks her hard atop the head when she laughs so hard she snorts. “Be nice,” she scolds, even with her voice trembling with amusement. “The two of you, be nice to each other.”

Percy takes the first watch, restless and bored as he is. And Andy–run ragged as she is, dark circles under her eyes, feeling as though she hadn’t slept in weeks–takes the first resting shift.

Her head rests against a dark surface, hard, but not immovable. One elbow juts across cool glass, insulated only by her sweater. Her legs are balled up, knees brushing her chin. Her right hand is warm–encased, really, she notes–and something brushes across her knuckles as if to soothe her. “Are you awake?” 

She blinks awake, a difficult thing when sleep seems to press in on her and drown her in it’s waves. Hermes appears in her hazy vision: one hand on the wheel, another warm in hers, eyes not on the road but on hers. They’re deliciously intense, and Andy’s too sleep dazed to try and process it. Too dazed to do anything but look back at him, wholy caught, a fly in a spider’s web. 

He looks–he looks at her as if she is the center of his universe. Oh , she realizes, all at once. He loves me . 

Hermes smiles at her, a blinding thing. “There you are,” he murmurs, and his voice claws his way down her throat and takes a stranglehold on her heart. His thumb rubs gently over her knuckles, yet again, and her stomach warms. “There’s my girl.” 

She hums, content. Lifts her head from the plastic of the car’s side panel and winces when her neck protests the change of positions. “I’m up.”

Hermes just chuckles, the sound deep and rich. She wants to collect it, to catch it all and consume it in whatever way possible. She loves him too. “Good,” he says. “We’ve got a long day ahead.”

Chapter Text

In the beginning of his eternity, Hermes had thought it foolish to take a mortal lover, for how could a girl compare to a god? 

But mortals could worship. Mortals looked at him with adoration and devotion; they believed in him and feared him, and he could solve problems and collapse civilizations with a snap of his fingers. And so–as they all did–he began to take mortals into his bed. 

He did not linger upon them for long–reverence was an easy conquest, when one was an Olympian, a son of Zeus. As empires rose and fall, as Olympus transferred from country to country, that remained a constant. Hermes’ attention was brief and fleeting; pretty girls and lovely boys clamoring for a taste of divinity, hoping for a child they could claim to be part god . 

For most of history, the children merely reveled in their divine blood. They demanded nothing from Hermes except his name, and Hermes was happy to provide it. 

Things had began to shift with Constantine, and the rise of Christianity, for with the rise of Christianity came a lack of respect for his children, and instead of demigods they were called bastards and heretics. His children wanted not only his name, then, but his protection, his valor. Hermes rarely granted such a thing–often forgot his mortal children as soon as they came about. It was easier that way. 

Hermes knew he loved his mother. He knew he loved some of his siblings, and he was never sure exactly what he felt about his father, his aunts and uncles. Family was complicated—messy, jumbled, tangled in a way that was only compounded by the weight of millennia and all that could occur in an eternity. 

Lovers were not. 

Even with the most divine and powerful of godly lovers, he’d only ever felt lust and heady obsession. Peitho, divine and splendid, had been called his wife simply because Hermes had wanted her, consistently, for a couple centuries. With Athena–the goddess he’d coveted for eons–all he’d really enjoyed was the challenge of it all, the idea of siring a child on the maiden goddess. To tempt her, as if her vows were little more than a game. 

And mortals lovers, fleeting as they were, meant nothing to him now and they never had . The children they bore could be interesting, from time to time, and Hermes liked to see his blood in heroes, like to watch as they fought for glory in his name and burned their tokens on an altar in hopes of a favor he rarely gave. They were entertainment. They were instruments. They were loopholes in the ancient laws. They were not family; they were pieces of the complicated, jumbled tapestry that Hermes had come from. 

He wasn’t the only Olympian with such an attitude. They’d witnessed Demeter’s rage. They’d watched as Poseidon and Ares had warred over their half-bloods. To love a mortal child was to invite heartbreak, because even in conception they were bound to death, and even Apollo—who so often sought some type of masochistic pain from the deaths of his mortal lovers—would not love a mortal child. 

Things had been different with May Castellan from the very beginning, and naturally things had then been different for their son, too. Because how could he love the mother so deeply, so intensely, and then stand to disregard their child? Hermes had been fucked the moment Luke’s tiny fingers had curled about one of his own in a tiny hospital room and he’d smiled and promised to try. No, he’d probably been fucked before even that–since his fingers had clawed desperately into May Castellan’s waist in a hot tub, twenty-one years ago.

( “I love you,” he had told her, raw and vulnerable and earnest in a way that seemed to gouge lines in a false heart. “I think I could marry you.” )

And everything they all feared about the pain had been real; white-hot, leaving gnarled scars in it’s wake. May had been torn from him–and he was an Olympian, incapable of protecting the only mortal he’d ever cared for. Was that not an embarrassment? 

Luke, too, slowly faded from him. Had been fading from the day he was born. Hermes could see the path he would walk, crystal clear, branded into his mind. But he could not help but love his son, too, couldn’t help but love May Castellan’s son.

He had not wanted that raw, bloody heartbreak to repeat itself. Hadn’t wanted to care for a mortal child again, and yet here he was, directing Camp Half-Blood alongside Dionysus like it would bring Luke back to his side and pay some sort of toll for what had happened to May. And like seeing him like this would charm her, bitter Andromeda, like she would see him trying with his children and stretch up on her toes, press a burning, approving kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I knew you could be a good father,” she would say, green eyes glittering with satisfaction, “A benevolent god.” He wants it; her approval, her affections, so badly it burns. Covets it as he covets her, longs for it as he longs for her.

Zeus only laughs as he proposes the title change. Says that it a worthless endeavor, that Poseidon would be well-prepared to try and take his head for it, that he invites war with his foolish obsession with the Jackson girl, that a half blood girl-child should not mean so much, soulmate or not. 

Hera, by his side, solemn and graceful, demands he allow it. Says that she would have her domain respected in this small manner, even if Zeus refused to honor it himself. “ You have defiled my domain, putting a sacred bond to a vote, declaring that he will not keep her, yet,” the Queen of the Gods declares, “ but I am still Queen, and I still am goddess of marriage, and I must demand that you allow him to favor and protect her.” The Sky God relents, allows it with a wave of his hand and a pleading glance at his wife. She will forgive him eventually, Hermes knows. She always does. 

None of the campers speak as Dionysus directs a toast to Hermes. “To my brother, the Olympian Hermes,” he says, standing with a goblet probably filled with Diet Coke. “He is fool enough to willingly sentence himself to this camp. Any words for your charges, Hermes?”

Hermes waves his brother off, tells the children they’re more than welcome to return to their meals. He feels out of place amongst them–even though his Olympian brother was beside him and his own children were scattered amongst them–lost, almost. As a gesture of goodwill, Hermes claims his three unclaimed children. It won’t change much, by way of housing, but it might make them fit in a little more. Hermes still feels lost, here, in a place he often made a point of avoiding. 

The Poseidon table is noticeably absent, and Hermes can feel her absence like a hole in his chest. It aches to part with her for so long, something itching in his chest, a longing so intense he swears there is a physical pull. Perhaps, he muses, she is the sun and he is the earth and he is pulled, rotating, into her orbit. He misses her, to put it simply. 

He imagines what it might be like if she were here, if she sat at the Poseidon table and smiled sweetly at him. He would not feel lost, he knows–there would be no possibility of it, not if Andy lingered, merely an arm’s reach away. He imagines her proud grin as he claimed his remaining children, imagines her taking his hand and chattering excitedly about the progress they were making. Imagines her sitting next to him, hand warm in his, and as he claims his children in this daydream she stretches up and presses a burning kiss to his cheek. 

He’s like a lovesick child, he notes, and he cannot even find it within himself to be ashamed. Doesn’t know quite what the point of such shame would even be . 

His brother’s voice, a hushed thing, breaks into his daydreams. “Staring at the Poseidon table won’t spawn his daughter, much as I’m sure you hope it will.”

“I know that,” Hermes tells him, though he doesn’t drag his eyes away from it, trying his best to immerse himself in that same fantasy. When he stares long enough, he could swear he can see her, dark hair rippling down the length of her back, green eyes glistening in the dimming light. “I know.”

“You’re mad for that girl,” Dionysus mutters, like the very concept disgusts him, as if he had not taken a mortal spouse and raised her from the grips of Hades when she’d faded. “How in Kaos did you keep her a secret?”

Hermes does not know. Now that it has become something of an open secret–nymphs and dryads whispering of Lord Hermes’ mortal wife, the half-blood Andromeda. Lord Poseidon’s only daughter, Lord Hermes’ soulmate –and he has been granted freedom to think of her, to see to her, he is not sure how he ever managed to restrain himself in such a manner. All he sees is her, ghosting behind his eyelids, haunting his dreams. All he wants is her. And he regrets it, the taste of it bitter on his tongue–not taking her for himself when he had the chance. Maybe there would have been war, perhaps there could be no avoidance of such a thing, but Hermes had learned long ago that it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. 

Dionysus takes him on a tour of Camp Half-Blood afterwards. The woods, the lava wall, the dying tree that contains their half-sister’s spirit. The cabins, his own expanded at the end of the row, across from Dionysus’ own. He imagines Luke, sleeping from the rafters, uncomfortable in the only place meant to house him, and his stomach churns. He passes the Poseidon Cabin, lingers in front of the doorway, and is reminded that Poseidon would be able to feel it when his brother’s hand clasps his shoulder, heavy, breaking him out of his trance. 

“You have become a cunt-struck embarrassment,” Dionysus mumbles. “As bad as Apollo–perhaps worse.”

Dionysus is right, in the end. Hermes is miserable here. He doesn’t really have a place, amongst the children that mistrust him and in the absence of the only one who’d really appreciate his presence. He doesn’t leave, anyways, and he doesn’t know if it’s because he wants Andy Jackson to know he tried or if he cannot bear to remain stagnant, his mother’s words ghosting in his ear. You have grown into your father’s crown, Hermes , Maia had said, shooting to kill. 

They play pinochle on the porch–Hermes much prefers poker, but Dionysus will not allow him such an upper hand. “Do you see, Hermes,” Dionysus questions, “the pointlessness of you being here?”

“It’s day two,” Hermes deadpans. A satyr trembles off to the side as he opens his hand for a Diet Coke of his own. They are terrified, here, so close to Dionysus. So close to him, the Olympians who could end their lives with a flick of a finger. Hermes might feel bad, if he had the capacity to think of anything besides Andy Jackson and Luke Castellan nowadays. “I have time.”

Dionysus’s eyes glitter with the particular sparkle of a man starved for amusement. “For what, exactly?”

“To adjust,” Hermes says, simply. 

Dionysus just hums. He looks at his cards and sighs, exasperated. “You are an incorrigible cheat.”

“I do not cheat–”

“You’re the god of lies, obviously–”

“Father,” Someone interrupts. Timid, despite their nerve in interrupting two Olympians in a debate. Hermes cannot see them, but Dionysus raises his eyebrows in a way that indicates that the boy behind them is not one of his, and Hermes can feel it. The boy smells like him, feels like him, an extension of his own power. He turns, faces the child. 

He’s got dark, curly hair, and youthful, elvish look to him, and Hermes’ own eyes–electric blue and vibrant–sit in his sockets. He’s a gangly child, tall and thin, somewhat reedish, and quite pale. Like most of the gods and their children, he’s a rather handsome kid. Or perhaps that was Hermes’ own vanity reflected back at him. He wouldn’t know. 

“Do you know who I am?” The boy asks, his eyes crinkling with something akin to hope. 

Hermes sweeps his eye over the child, notes the pale, freckled skin and the dark curls. He remembers that hazy period of time between when he left May and when Luke ran away, the multitude of men and women he’d had, trying somehow to fill the void left. He remembers a woman he’d liked better than the rest of them, Carmen, he’d thought. He’d been disappointed when she got pregnant. He’d returned not long after the birth of the the first son; remembers a babe in the crib and putting another inside her. 

“Travis,” he says, decisively. “Carmen’s son. You have a younger brother, Connor.”

Travis breathes a deep sigh. Like he’s relieved that Hermes recognizes them. Hermes would be more insulted if he hadn’t, on several occasions, forgotten his childrens names. 

(It was easier, he knew, to forget. He was not good with grief, and he could not afford to tear the earth apart every time he lost a mortal child. Perhaps Poseidon could, few and far between as his children tended to be)

“Yes,” The boy breathes. “I told Connor you’d know us! Thank you, father!” He spins on his heel and runs away. No proper exit, no deferent bow. 

Had Luke ever been like that? Happy, enthused by Hermes’ mere acknowledgement of him? He doubted it. The fates had told him once, that to make it hurt was the only way to learn. Harsh as it had been, Hermes was here, wasn’t he? Playing right into their hands. 

Apollo visits, later, as the sun reaches it’s midday peak. Hermes knows he is overdue for a confrontation with his favored brother, but his stomach twists with something akin to dread anyways. The Sun God does not smile at him, just gives him a once-over with those harsh, golden eyes of his, and motions for Hermes to join him. 

Hermes does not wish to let rumors about Andromeda spread rampant throughout Camp Half-Blood, not when it might endanger her quest, not when Luke’s spies undoubtedly infected the half-bloods’ ranks. He joins his brother, the two of them lingering on the very beach he’d last held Andromeda on. 

(He misses her, he notes, as he walks along the last place he’d talked to her. He always does. He ought to look into her quest. He is not allowed to take her from it, but there is no harm in clearing her path)

“You did not tell me of the girl,” Apollo muses, like the sentence is personally offensive. The sun sparkles off his hair, making a glittering halo in the mid-afternoon sun; artificial, Hermes knows, the sunlight drawn to it’s god. “Am I so untrustworthy?”

“I did not tell anyone,” Hermes says. “Less of trust, more of…” he trails off. He thinks of the way Ares’ grip around her arm had left purple bruises. He remembers how he’d wiped them clear, unwilling to see another’s marks painted across her, remembers how the cloying possessiveness from their first interaction had only grown stronger; a twisted, sickening obsession. Apollo was his favorite brother, but Andromeda was just a girl–and his wife, at that. “I would not have drawn more attention to her. Not for anything.”

Apollo hums, his eyes sharpening, cat-like and fierce. “She drew enough attention as a mere Child of a Broken Vow,” he allows. “And I have only seen her from a distance, but I have heard the rumors. She is pretty enough to face Poseidon’s wrath for, they say. I’d imagine you agree.”

( I heard from my Uncle that Andromeda Jackson is pretty enough to drown for) 

“Yes,” Hermes confirms, simply. What wouldn’t he do, now, for Andromeda Jackson? 

“I have written odes to her,” Apollo continues, and Hermes knows this all-too-well, had been present at the creation of a few. Something possessive sneaks in anyways, clawing at his lungs. “But I have not yet dared introduce myself. Mayhaps I was stalled by the idea of Poseidon’s wrath.” He sounds…expectant. And he is Hermes’ favorite brother and they have shared many a time but Hermes will not share Andromeda. Something dark, jealous, drips into his stomach and poisons his words. 

“You will stay away from her.” He demands, and he remembers all of his brother’s tragic lovers. Imagines Andromeda as Tortured Daphne, as Sweet Hyacinth, as Mad Kassandra. He cannot stand the thought. He cannot stomach the thought of her in some other god’s embrace, favored brother or not. “You need not worry about Poseidon. I will take your head myself.”

“Calm down, brother. I did vote in your favor,” Apollo murmurs. He looks predatory, Hermes notes, his white teeth flashing as he spoke, golden eyes flashing. He says it like he’d done Hermes a favor, like he owed him something, now. 

I will bind you as Hepheastus did to Hera, He wants to threaten, divine wrath and holy impudence warming his veins, sickly sweet possessiveness cloying the air he breathed, I will cast you to the pit as Zeus did to Kronos. Do you know what I will do to you, brother, should you lay a finger on her? “That vote was a farce,” Hermes says, instead. Calm and even, God of trickery and lies. “The Fates have decreed that the girl is mine own. Poseidon merely stalls until she turns sixteen. He is lucky I did not take her earlier.” 

He is right, he thinks, because he’d known the knowledge of who she was to him would only compound the eyes on him. Would only turn her from an already exotic girl to the coveted future wife of an Olympian. It would make her a commodity–the idea of having her, before Hermes himself could. He needs to find her, he thinks, before a god does.

She is strong, he knows. The gods are stronger.

Zeus said he could not marry her. And so he would return to his original purpose. He would do what he had done before, what he’d bargained with himself to do. He would protect her; trail silently behind her, a lurking guard. 

Apollo stares at him. There is jealousy there, and disappointment too. Neither stings like the hint of pity. “You are a fool for that.”

Hermes’ mouth is dry. “I regret it,” he admits. And then; a warning and a threat, compounded. “I will watch over her, as I always have.”

“Your own son nearly killed her, under your watch.”

“A mistake I will not repeat.”

Thinly veiled anger crosses his brother’s face, and Hermes just knows that he must keep an eye on her. Knows Apollo is not the only one who’d feel invited to her. Knows she cannot defend herself from them all. 

He should have taken her, the moment she’d appeared before him. He had pitied the girl, had been almost horrified by the youthful appearance she’d shown. It had been a mistake, he knows now. She’d be better off stowed away in his own palace, well defended and well-kept. He’d fight a thousand wars, he thinks, if only to come home to her languid in his bed, pretty and peaceful. 

“Good luck with that,” Apollo says, curt and unapologetic. And then he is gone, amidst a searing ray of light that might’ve killed a lesser being. 

Hermes adjusts, to being in Camp Half-Blood. He teaches archery and sword-fighting, reads and corrects mythos, oversees organizes a successful border patrol. He is not allowed to defend the borders himself, but he is allowed to give blessings to whichever demigods happened to be guarding the border. His children slowly cease their suspicious glances of him. He and Dionysus spend afternoons playing pinochle, and slowly, his elder children grow comfortable enough to approach him from time to time. One of them asks for a favor, once; a pair of winged shoes. It’ll make my pranks easier to execute, he’d said. Hermes had acquiesed at once. 

It even grows easier to look across and see nothing but an empty Poseidon table, given that he’s portioned out a specific piece of his own consciousness to keep watch over Andy. He guides Clarisse La Rue’s ship into the bay where she fought a Hydra. He considers smiting the half-blood for the close call Andy had with a cannonball, but thinks that might upset Andy more than it would set an example. He shields her from Scylla and Charbydis. 

Andy takes her half-brother’s supposed death hard . Hermes can nearly feel it himself, can certainly see it in the way she and Percy cling to each other, as if they’d let go and lose each other too. It hurts, he discovers, to watch helplessly, for all intents and purposes, as she blames herself for something leagues out of her control, to see red-rimmed eyes and watch her mourn a brother who still lives. 

“If they retrieve the Fleece,” He says, offhandedly, sipping contendedly on a Diet Coke, “and use it to heal Thalia’s tree, she’ll emerge, yes?”

Dionysus studies him, deep purple eyes flashing images of Andy Jackson right back at him. He sets down his empty can, and vines lift it off, carrying it to a trashcan. “You know the answer to that.”

“How old do you think she’d be?” He says. He tries to sound casual. It comes off deeper, darker, and Dionysus just smirks in response. 

“You don’t want to kill the boy.”

Hermes sneers back, “I care little for the boy,” he declares, and it is the truth. He cares little for Percy Jackson. 

“She believes her half-brother dead, yes?” 

Hermes stares at him. There is no question of how he knows–because everyone is always watching those twins, because they are more interesting than ever, because quests always draw in eyes. He does not like the reminder anyways, doesn’t like the idea of eyes on her, his Andromeda and covetous, cruel gods who would beget a war and watch as Hermes and Poseidon tore into each other with ease. 

Andromeda Jackson is pretty enough to drown for.

He cannot stand it, being forbidden like this. She is his own–what right did Zeus have to impose restrictions on what he could do?

“She does.”

“And it hurts you, hm?” Dionysus questions, and he can see Andy–red-rimmed eyes and shuddering shoulders. Can feel the sight of it tug deep at his heartstrings, the urge to pull her into his arms and reassure her. Tyson is not dead, he nearly speaks out loud, and if he were, it would not be your fault. You only ever do your best. “To watch her that sort of pain. And you do not wish to inflict it yourself.”

It’s entertainment, Hermes knows, for Dionysus. To watch as Hermes scrambled and adjusted and agonized over a half-blooded girl. Entertainment for all of them, truly, or at least for his brothers, crude and starved for originality as they often were. If it were Apollo or Ares, Hermes thought he might have reacted in the same manner. He’s sure he had reacted similarly, when the way Dionysus revolved around Ariadne was brand new. When having a fated was a much newer concept, and the idea of taking a mortal bride foreign territory. “I do not,” he admits. “As you would not. For the Lady Ariadne.”

Dionysus, predictably, softens at the mention of his wife. He hums, a more lighthearted thing, extends a hand and snatches a Diet Coke out of thin air. “I imagine Thalia Grace will be a little older than the two of them,” he says. “Her aging has slowed considerably, but she was originally five years older than the twins. I imagine she will not be younger than fourteen. I doubt she will be older than fifteen. The perfect age, really.”

To die for Olympus. To prevent Andy from being maimed in the coming war. To prevent her from having to watch as Percy died for Olympus. A Greek Tragedy, he thought, to be revitalized only to be sacrificied, a lamb to the slaughter. 

“Yes,” Hermes agrees. “The perfect age.”

He watches as Andy and her companions land upon Circe’s island with bated breath; for she will not harm the girls, not outright, but he knows all the same she will enchant them, try and make them forget Percy Jackson, and he knows that in a thousand years, Andy would remember her twin brother fresh as she had in the womb. 

And he is right; Circe wraps her divine power about Andy and Annabeth, bewitching them, murmuring sweet promises in their ears she could hardly keep. He does not like it—the way Andy feels, wrapped in the power of another god. And he is right again; Andy does not forget her brother. Circe surprises him when she lets them go—Hermes takes it into account, when he decides her fate—with only a pleading word for Andromeda. But all the same, the witch-goddess had finalized her fate already, when her enchantments had wrapped about Hermes’ wife. 

(Hermes and Circe had a long and tangled past. They were friends and lovers and confidantes; once he had coveted a child of her blood, if only to watch what dynasty unfolded from the merging of her blood and his own)

It is a combination of divine wrath, that same sickening obsession, and familiar fondness that takes him to Circe’s Island. She had been exiled to Aeaea long ago, back when her powers had first been revealed to the council. If she had been another Titan’s daughter, the isle would’ve been barren, empty, and Circe would have truly been brought low. But her divine father was Helios, and then he had been the strongest of the remaining Titans, then, and so even the lowest of his children, the exiled witch-goddess, had been granted grand and lavish furnishings. Hermes had thought Aeaea beautiful even back then, when he’d considered Circe nothing but some new, exotic, plaything. A new type of power, the first of her kind, so unpredictable it threatened Zeus, so unpredictable she was made some gruesome example of. 

(Of course Hermes had thought her interesting. And Circe had been willing, intrigued by an Olympian, starved for company in those early days. Had come upon him a maiden, sweet and pliable, a fast learner and an interesting companion. A bragging point, even, as he spoke with Helios and laughed crudely of his daughter’s innate talent and the power wasted upon that island)

Aeaea was beautiful, if nothing else. White-columns and white marble, mirrored walls and gold accents, a tantalizing view of the aquamarine sea, sloping hills with grass a deep, heady green, dotted with flora and the various herbs Circe used to enhance her power. Witchcraft, Hermes knew, was an art, something created and worked over, and Circe was it’s originator and it’s finest practitioner. 

It had been something Hermes had been wary of, in that first century, but his fear had faded with the eons. Circe was still just as powerful, but she was known to him now. Besides, her godly father, Helios, was long gone now, his rage lost to time. 

Circe faces away from him as he manifests, and he keeps himself hidden, veiled, but she has been his friend, an on and off lover for centuries, and she knows his presence well, just as he does for her. He can see it as she notes him; notices as her spine tenses ever-so-slightly, the remains of an instinct she could never completely do away with. 

Her hair is simply braided down her back, long and loose, dark curls escaping it in fine strands. He thinks it artful, purposeful, and knowing Circe it was. Her dress is silken, plain, white, flowing from her limbs in a way that made her look like a phantom, a ghosting power. The hour is late, he knows, and Circe enjoys her human rituals; scheduled sleeping and eating and breathing and all those tedious mortal routines. 

“Lady Circe,” He greets. He does not need to–she knows he is here–but he does, nonetheless. It’s kinder, he thinks, the respect he perhaps owes her. 

She turns, a slow and methodical movement. Circe is as beautiful as ever, he notes, with her sharp, cutting features that made her appear regal and haughty, Princess of the Sun Palace as she once was. Her skin is a sun-kissed olive, the freckles that dot her cheekbones light and plentiful. Her eyes shine gold, darker than Apollo’s, and the precise shade he remembered of the forgotten sun deity. They’re framed by long, dark lashes, and they pull at him as they always had. She stares at him, and she does not fear him as most do, but there is a trace of uncertainty, of trepidation and unease. Hermes is a flitting god, and he had not made regular visits to Circe since the ancient days. His visits have become few and far between, her captivating lull diminishing with each new lover he took, and nearly gone in the wake of May Castellan and Andy Jackson. 

“My Lord Olympian,” she greets, her voice still sharp and grating, like the bird she was named for. “A truly rare honor.”

He visits more often now when he wants something. They had last slept together millenia ago, and he had visited for the last time perhaps two centuries ago–the more formal title is to be expected. Hermes still thinks it amusing—Circe’s nature was not to be coy and deferential, much as she enjoyed playing at it. 

“It has been centuries,” he murmurs. 

Circe’s eyes trail up his form, purposeful, and something that would have seared through him once, and has little effect on him now; water rolling off a duck’s back. “Yes,” She says. “A regretful thing. You are as handsome as ever–most beautiful of your brothers.”

“No use in lying, Lady Circe,” Hermes says. “You never thought me beautiful enough to merge our bloodlines. And you have eyed Apollo a thousand times.”

“I never debased myself enough to stoop to your brother’s level,” Circe says, a saccharine thing that Apollo would take her head for. Hermes would avenge his brother if he was not upset with him in his own right, and if there was not already an example to be made of the witch-goddess. “And I have no use for children.”

Hermes thinks of Telegonus, Circe’s child of Odyssesus. By all technicalities, their bloodlines had merged. But the child was half-mortal, and by all accounts, unimpressive, barely a footnote in history. Circe had loved him, though, and had mourned him. Was still mourning him, even, had borne no children since. “You have before.” He says. 

Circe’s lip curls, a break in the perfect facade. “I would not have you speak of him.”

“We all have aspirations,” Hermes says. He lets the bite of his words flow through him, lets them play out on Circe’s face. 

Circe lifts her chin, a defiant thing. “And yours, my Lord Olympian?” She folds her hands in front of her, strong and defiant, blood of Helios, the first witch-goddess and the strongest of them.

The reminder of Andromeda sears his veins, just as any mention of the girl tended to do. Warms him, an all-consuming thing. He loves her, even now, even young and mortal as she is now. And there must be an example set, even if Circe has been his companion for centuries. Even if he was still fond of her–for she was once a fascinating girl too.

“The girl,” Hermes says. He can taste ash in his mouth. He can see the report on HepheastusTV, can envision the way nymphs and river gods and children of Olympians and Underworld spirits would speak in flitting whispers. Imagines the way curiosity would abate when they looked at seared marble and a dying goddess. It might save Andy’s life, he knows, to make an example. To burn Aeaea to the ground and declare it done in the name of Andromeda Jackson. They would all know, then, what would become of them should they dare touch Hermes’ bride. They would know of the flames that would consume them. And they would tread lighter for it. “You have seen her, yes.”

He can sense a girl–looking around the corner, watching and listening, curious of an Olympian and ready for her mistresses’ commands. Good, he thinks, let them see. Let them all see. 

“I know many girls,” Circe says. She knows the answer Hermes wants, but she spreads her arms anyways, in display of her island, her safeguard for girls in her own image. 

“This one is special,” Hermes says. He sounds unbearably fond, even to his own ears. Perhaps not the safest look, but sometimes he finds he can barely help it. And it will not matter soon, anyways. “Raven hair, green eyes. B–”

“Blood of the sea,” Circe interrupts. She sneers–surely she must think it something tragic, or perhaps just something familiar, a fascinating girl-child chased by an age-old god–but she clarifies anyway. “Poseidon’s only daughter.” 

She seeks to remind him, he is sure, that the girl is Poseidon’s, that the Sea God was possessive, that he would not take kindly to Hermes’ hands on his daughter. It does little but provoke his wrath, reminding him of the way Poseidon sought to keep him from his own soulmate. 

“The very one.”

“You should stray from her,” Circe says. “I know she is a great beauty and a fascinating phenomenon, Lord Olympian, but there is such untapped potential within her. The Rhea Incarnate. The daughter of the Stormbringer, the Earthshaker, the God of the Seas. I would not doubt she could be equal to Hecate herself and–”

“She is my fated,” Hermes says, and he feels it all bearing down upon him–the indignity of it all, the indecency of it all. He is an Olympian. He is a son of Zeus. He has a right to his own soulmate, to Andromeda Jackson. Has a right to covet her, to keep her, to have her as his bride and in his bed. That he had not done so already was a courtesy, to his too-young soulmate and to none other, but that did not diminish his own right to do so. He would not be told any longer–especially not by some minor goddess, a daughter of a forgotten Titan–what to do with half his own soul. “ My soulmate,” he continues. “My wife . I will not have you give me orders regarding her.”

“I did not know, Lord Olympian,” Circe says, and her eyes are wide with a hint of shock she had not been quite able to suppress. “I meant no offense.”  

“Aphrodite commands me enough, with her,” Hermes muses. “My mother nags incessantly, as she always has. My father, as you must know, must always have his word. And do not get me started on Poseidon. But that is not why I am here, Circe.”

“I will not be threatened here upon Aeaea, Lord Olympian,” Circe warns, her fear long gone—or at least long masked. She had never cowered before Olympians; Hermes had admired it about her. She had defied Athena herself for her son, once, and she would defy any Olympian again (She had told him, once, that she would never cower and bluster, never be brought low like the River Gods she had known in her youth, like the nymphs and dryads who had scraped their knees to bend to golden Helios). “I did not know the girl was your own–I would have returned her, if I had. You can pluck the truth of it from my own mind.”

And she is right–Hermes merely needs to press gently into her mind to find the truth of it. It does not matter. He knew the fate of Aeaea before he’d stepped foot on it today. She is courageous—the strongest of the witch-goddesses, and yet at the end of the day she had stood against Athena with the help of aged spells and months of constant preparation. This would be a battle of brute strength, and in that, Hermes was an Olympian, a son of Zeus. He would win. 

“Oh, I do not threaten you, Lady Circe,” Hermes says. He opens his palm, feel the hard plastic in it. Circe’s eyes widen minutely, and she stares, eyeing the innocuous red gummies. He sees her eyes dart to the side, at the golden-wired cage upon a white marble pedestal. “But your magic has made you many an enemy. I imagine I am not the only one. What will you do, Lady, when I render them immune?”  

She shoots a curse at him so fast that if he were not the god of athletes, it would have taken him. But he is, and so he sidesteps, feels it wizz past him at lightspeed. She realizes that it does not hit him, and Hermes can admire that, at the very least, she does not flinch before him. 

He is the divine messenger and the god of atheletes, fastest of the gods, and he makes his way to the guneia pigs, opens the lid, and pours the multivitamins in faster than the blink of the human eye. Another curse shoots by him, and he feels it hit his arm. A burning, searing pain shoots through him, ricocheting through his very essence. He shouts, and his fingers blacken, decaying, before his divinity begins to burn Circe’s magic away. 

Circe stands in front of him, glaring. “Those men are scum of the earth. You have sentenced girls other than me to a fate worse than death,” she hisses. “Girls not unlike your bride.” 

“If they were like my bride,” Hermes says, tilting his head as if to truly consider it. “Then they would be powerful enough to fight this, without dirty tricks and schemes. And they would not need to—because I would come to their defense.” He extends his hand, lets flame consume the tips of his finger. There is little need for him to control his form like this, and it is not entirely feasible either, not when it concerns Andromeda Jackson. The flames leap: from his fingers, to the floors, to the walls. Behind him, he hears a man’s voice, a war cry against Circe and her maidens. 

The witch-goddess does not run. She does not cower. 

Her followers do flee–Hermes can sense them. They will run and few will escape and the ones who do will have a story to tell about Hermes. About the way he’d burnt Aeaea to the ground and condemned his former lover to a fate worse than death, all for a girl he called his wife. Minor gods would think twice, he thought, now that they knew drowning to be the least of their fears. 

Flame catches the edge of Circe’s dress, and the goddess stands stiff. She cannot leave Aeaea, Hermes knows, and there is little point in resisting. Her fate will consume her anyways. A man behind him shouts. “There she is! The witch!” 

Stubbornly, Circe stays. “You doom that girl,” she tells him. “I am the kindest of the gods. I would have protected her.”

Hermes, unwilling to hear Circe, leaves in a pillar of divine power. Aeaea burns.

Chapter Text

A ndy sleeps through the Sirens.

Annabeth thinks it weird that she hadn’t woken at all. Andy thinks it’s weird too, but bone-deep exhaustion had wormed its way into most facets of her life, and she doesn’t think anything less than an earthquake would’ve roused her. She doesn’t remember her dreams–she never does, not anymore–and she had learned not to think too hard about them. Thinking too hard led to headaches and more of that same woozy exhaustion–and Andy has enough of that now, the dark circles under her eyes almost a permanent feature. 

She steadfastly ignores the dreams and the way her body aches, the way her joints seem stiff and her bones seem to creak as they approach Polyphemus’ island. She faces down the Cyclops with her brother and Annabeth at her side, and she brings down the cave on top of them.

(When she gets back to camp, Clarisse will tell her siblings about it and rumors will grow and spread. A minor earthquake will be distorted into an earthquake that ripped an island in half and brought a tsunami in it’s wake. And still nobody will dare ask her about it. Everyone will stare at her, see that she is hale and healthy despite such a large outburst of power and they will assume it had been purposeful, that Andy could just summon up such a miracle again, that she could make such an effortless display of power with little but the snap of her fingers. Children of gods tended to make myths out of such small things, she would think to herself. Nobody will dare approach her except her friends and brothers. If the campers had been apprehensive of her before, they will truly fear her now)

Andy’s only half-lucid and thinking mostly of Tyson when she talks to Clarisse. At first, it’s more because she doesn’t want to hear anything negative about her younger brother when Percy returned with him than any deeper motivation. Clarisse looks intimidating–hovering over her, lurking behind as her brother left her–and usually Andy did her best to sympathize with her because of some dying empathy she’d long since held for her, but after the conversation they’d had aboard Ares’ ship, Andy wasn’t particularly keen on letting her speak harshly about Tyson. 

Especially not when Andy was just now getting him back and was so relieved her heart was seemingly thrice it’s natural size in her chest. “If you say anything about my brothers, I’ll kill you,” She says, and she really does think she means it. Can feel the remnants of something that had cracked inside her chest when Annabeth had slammed against the cave walls. 

Clarisse just smirks, amused, and that same anger only seems to rise within her. “Yeah, sure, Princess,” she says. “You can’t even stand.”

“I can summon Earthquakes.” Bluff . Andy isn’t quite sure she’ll be able to so much as stand for hours, even with her arm submerged in her father’s power. She doesn’t even quite know how she managed the first one. And she sounds unsure, even to her own ears. 

“And it wiped you clean out,” Clarisse says, lightning quick in a manner Andy had almost found amusing in the past. She takes a seat next to Andy, and it strikes her that Ares’ prodigal daughter seems almost lonely–that there was no way she wasn’t lonely, not if her best idea of company was to bask in the company of a girl she hated. “You won’t be full strength for weeks.” 

She huffs, but the way Clarisse had sat next to her like she hungered for Andy’s company had struck some nearly forgotten cord within her. And something familiar–something that had always managed to sympathize with the elder girl, stirs in her chest. She can’t help but extend an olive branch. “You did good,” Andy admits, and she isn’t even lying. Clarisse had done plenty well–and all by herself, which was especially impressive. “With the quest thing.” 

“The oracle told me I would fail on my own,” Clarisse blurts–her words cutting through the silence with ferocious desperation like it was something that had been crushing down on her chest, something that kept her from breathing. “It was right.” 

“I’m sure it was,” Andy responds, a quick thing on autopilot because what else was she to tell Clarisse? That she was surprised the Oracle had been right–it was not as if it was wrong, ever .

“It also said I’d fly home alone.” 

“Smart idea,” Andy agrees with a shrug. Who was she to fight with fate? “We should get the Fleece to camp sooner rather than later. Fastest way is to fly,” she thinks of Tantalus, as he had been. She’s so angry what feels like all the time–and all of it seemed to turn inwards when it came to Tantalus. Because she had let him scare her, had frozen up like she was just a powerless little girl again. Because she’d stood stock still and let his hands wander over her.  She would not go back to that camp and be powerless in his presence again. The thought made her sick. She’d rather live on the streets and be hunted down like a rat than go back and be subject to Tantalus and his perverse appetites and strange power trips. “And I won’t go back there, anyways, not with Tantalus still there.” Her eyes close with the admission–the weakness of it all, the avoidance. But she cannot bear the idea of the alternative; cannot breathe at the very notion of it. 

“He kinda sucks,” Clarisse admits. “I prefer Chiron.” 

Andy opens her eyes at the words that leave Tantalus’ favorite’s mouth. Takes into consideration that she had left the camp alone with him–that there was precedence, left imprinted on her own skin. That there was still motive to hate the children of the gods, even if she had left. “Yeah,” she says, and she’s not sure what to feel, not sure of anything except something akin to guilt and the solidarity that bonds them both now. The monster of a man they’d both fallen victim to. “Yeah, he sucks.” 

Andy very carefully doesn’t burst into tears when she sees Tyson again. She cringes with vile embarrassment when she thinks of the way she’d sobbed and hiccuped in Hermes’ arms, still turns red and lingers on being gathered up in his lap (still dreams, even, about how utterly content she’d been, cradled in his arms, had thought on some subconscious level that she was safe, that none could ever hurt her there). She does not want a repeat. But Tyson hugs her and tries so obviously to restrain his excitement enough to not harm her, not to crush her ribs and lungs within his tight grip, and it’s such a sweet thing, to have her brother back and despite her resolve her eyes are still unmistakably misty when she pulls back. 

They all chatter–weary but lighthearted. Nobody makes vocal note of it when Percy slips out of the room, but she and Grover trade meaningful looks. They both know where he is going–to hover at Annabeth’s bedside and wallow in self-pitying guilt, hold her hand within his own and yet still cling to the same old farce–that there was nothing there but friendship. 

“I think Clarisse needs to fly home with the Fleece when we make it to shore,” Andy muses, later, as the four of them share a meal, “Clarisse, tell them the Prophecy.”

“ To fail without friends/and fly home alone ,” Clarisse quotes, automatically, almost on instinct. Andy imagines that particular line had been haunting when she’d been imprisoned in that cave, facing the reality of her failure and choking on impending doom. 

“It’ll be faster like that,” Andy says. “Besides, I’ve been expelled. I’m not going back just to get kicked out again.” 

“I’ll kick Tantalus’ teeth in myself if he tries anything,” Clarisse says, violent in an animalistic manner that Andy finds strangely reassuring. “You’re coming back. He had no right to expel you. And if you don’t, I’ll issue myself a quest and drag you back myself.” 

And Andy…despite her own want for self-preservation, she cannot fathom the idea of leaving another to face Tantalus, not when the idea of Clarisse at her side brought her such comfort. “Fine. But I want to watch when you kick his teeth in, La Rue.”

Clarisse grins, her teeth sharp and white, and Andy can imagine her tearing into Tantalus with pristine incisors, ripping him apart. “Deal, Princess.”

Annabeth eventually joins them, Percy in tow, and it feels like there has been a weight lifted off her chest. Hearing and seeing are two different things, after all, and Annabeth looks good as new, as if her time with the Golden Fleece had not only healed her Cyclops-inflicted injuries but also any lingering ailments from the quest. She had been so limp and broken the last time Andy had seen her that her new appearance is nearly disconcerting; glowing with health, her hair shiny and luminous, skin warm and soft, eyes bright and intelligent as ever. She almost appears to be more in-focus, the bright colors of her nearly blinding: the spun-gold color of her hair, storm-cloud grey of her eyes, and the cherry red of her lips. Revitalized seems too small a word. Reborn, maybe, would capture it. 

Percy trails behind her; brow creased with displeasure, hunched over with the weight of the Golden Fleece. He dumps it in her lap, wordlessly, and she suppresses a grunt at the weight of it. The effects of it wash over her nearly immediately; pent-up exhaustion and what feels like a week-long migraine peeling away within moments.

She must look better, too, because everyone lets out simultaneous sighs of relief–Andy’s almost retrospectively concerned for herself because of it. Even Clarisse–who Andy knew barely tolerated her, even now–seems like she’s got a weight off her shoulders.

They wash up on the shores of Miami. Grover seems to find that in itself almost funny, but offers little explanation. “Catch a flight,” Annabeth instructs Clarisse. She’s taken charge again, after Percy had taken it upon himself to catch her up on the events of the past few days and Clarisse has let her know about her prophecy and the startling amount of time they’d been away from camp. She understands the urgency of it all–evident in the manner with which she speaks. “Get the Fleece to camp.”

Clarisse nods, solemn, accepting of her duty. “I got it,” she says, and then she is gone, disappearing seamlessly into the Miami crowds.

“I guess we’re getting back on the ship,” Percy sighs. He cracks his knuckles in a habitual method, and Annabeth’s face scrunches at the noise. Something rights itself in Andy’s chest at the look she gives him–things are steadily moving back towards normal. 

“Don’t do that,” Annabeth commands. 

“Get on the ship?” he asks, too-brightly to not know what she intended to say. 

“Yeah,” Luke Castellan responds. “Don’t get on the ship.”

Andy watches in something faintly resembling shock as Oreius grabs Grover and Annabeth by the necks. She feels overly large fingers brush the back of her neck–then hears a snap and a roar, and then she’s being shoved away from the offender and behind Tyson. 

Her hands fly to her hairpin on an instinct she’d drilled into herself over the past year. The distinctive shink of Kosmisa is almost a comforting lullaby–something that whispers seductively in her ear that she will be defended, that she can fight. 

Luke’s lips curl at the sight of it, a displeased sneer. He had never fought her, she realized. Not even when she’d been in training with him last summer. He’d always honed in on her brother, shoveled her off on some weaker member of his cabin. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever seen her sword–or thought of her as someone with a capacity to defend themselves, and she’d half-sure it’s because he’d always imagined her fate was simply death. That he’d heard that it was Percy who had killed the Minotaur and decided, then and there, that he was the forbidden child he preferred. “Put that away, Andromeda, and tell your half-brother to calm down,” Luke commands. “Or I’ll have Oreius bash Grover and Annabeth’s heads in.”

She hesitates for half a second, but Oreius raises his fist, and Grover and Annabeth dangle in the air, held in place by their throats. Grover makes a choked gasping noise, and Andy’s stomach churns. She drops her sword, and Oreius drops her friends and she knows, then, how this will go. 

Agreius reaches for her arm and she lets him grab it. He’s rough with her, clasp too tight and uncaring of whatever pain he might cause her. Andy winces, trying to keep from yelling out from the pain of it.

“What do you want, Luke?” Percy growls. Luke’s sword points at the tip of his throat, Andy notes, terror like a noose around her neck, but her twin still speaks like the threat is a mere farce, like Luke would hesitate before he drew his blade across his throat and left him to choke in a sea of scarlet. 

Luke grins–an unsettling thing that crumples the scar on his face. He surveys them, and Andy’s stomach turns when she recognizes the satisfaction that rolls across his face. We’ve played right into his hands, she thinks, even if she is not sure exactly what it is the hands will do with them. “I intend on showing you the good old fashioned hospitality of the Princess Andromeda , of course.”

They’re thrown on a deck in front of a swimming pool with sparkling fountains that sprayed into the air. Dozens of monsters; Dracenae, Cyclops, Laistrygonians, and even a few demigods all circle around them, all of them hissing and laughing with delight, reveling in their downfall. Ready to kill and eat , Andy thinks, unsure of exactly how she’d get out of this, of how she possibly could survive and how her friends and brother would survive, either. 

“So…where’s the Fleece?” Luke muses. He prods Grover’s jean-covered legs, as if the Fleece was hiding just below the surface. Grover yelps in response, shrinking away, and something churns in Andy’s stomach, righteous anger she’d thought was fading.

“We don’t have it,” Percy says. He’s smug–Andy wants to slap it out of him. It wouldn’t do anything for him here to have a one-up on Luke Castellan, not when Agrieus still held her by the arm and Oreius had his hands wrapped around Grover and Annabeth’s necks. “So you’ve fucked yourself over on that front.”

“Be realistic, Percy,” Luke scoffs. “You hand over the Fleece, or I’ll complete what I started last summer.” He makes some aborted motion with his hand, and Andy’s yanked backwards with a singular violent motion. She goes stock still when she registers the sharp touch of cold metal, kissing the line of her throat. Argrieus chuckles, presses it deep enough that she’s forced to crane her neck back and restrict the way she breathes. A trickle of something makes it’s way down her throat and she can’t feel if it’s sweat or blood; feels her lungs seize in her chest, responsively, heartbeat rushing and pounding in her ears. 

“We don’t have it,” she manages, speaking around the metal point of the spear, incapable of  thinking about anything other the sound of her own heartbeat, pounding steadily in her ears and her own desperation to get the spear away from her throat. “We gave it to Clarisse. She’s gone now, and you’re too late.”

Luke turns bright red. His lip quivers, like toddler who hadn’t gotten his way. “Argrius! Bring me my steed!”

The steel tip of the spear is removed from her throat and Andy feels like her lungs have been unclogged. 

“But–” 

“ Now!” Luke demands. Apparently, the threat of the son of Hermes is greater than the threat posed by Andy alone, and Agrius bows his head and sprints away. Luke paces, red, muttering curses and gripping his sword. 

It’s weird to see him like this. Mad. Unhinged. As if his life had splintered and fallen to pieces. Andy wonders how much he’d banked on them having the Fleece. Wonders what this would cost his movement, and wonders if it would measure up to the lives he might take in return. 

The last time Andy had nearly died at the hands of Luke Castellan, she had felt disconnected–her body and mind on opposite sides of an uncrossable chasm. It had meant a lack of fear, an almost numbing sensation. She isn’t sure what was different now, but that disconnect is long gone, and Andy doesn’t quite know if she prefers the fear to the numbness. At least, without the fear, her heart did not seize in her chest so painfully. 

“You’ve been toying with us,” Percy says, suddenly. “You wanted us to bring you the Fleece and save you the trouble of getting it.”

Luke stares at him like he’s grown two heads. “Are you dense? Obviously.”

Something gold and gleaming slings through the air. “Traitor!” Percy cries. “You tricked us all. Even DIONYSUS at CAMP HALF-BLOOD!” He uncaps Riptide, everyone’s eyes glued to him. 

Andy shoots her brother a glare, but doesn’t dare speak. He’s acting erratic, impulsive, wild, and she knows Luke Castellan is not fond of wild cards. Next to Grover, Annabeth hisses something under her breath–undoubtedly a hushed direction for Percy to stop talking. She can still feel her heart in her teeth and the cold kiss of metal against her throat, and she doesn’t understand why Percy doesn’t seem to mind. 

Luke sneers, looking at Percy like he’s a child. “Enough with the heroics, Percy. I can still kill your bitch sister, and I can still make you watch.”

Percy’s face goes stormy at his words, and her heart drops when he bites out. “You poisoned Thalia’s tree.”

“You already know that.” 

“You betrayed the gods? Not Chiron?” Percy questions, and it is only then that Andy looks up–behind Luke Castellan, and away from the confrontation of it all.

She’s caught, then, frozen in shock at the image behind them. A rainbow message glitters in the air. Dionysus is in focus, sitting at the head table. Hermes is at his side, and all of the sudden she cannot breathe, too busy, taking him in all that her brain is capable of. 

He’s shocked, Andy notes, and so clearly horrified. And above it all, he is beautiful. He is divinity incarnate. There’s a pang in her chest–something cavernous that roars and demands that she go to him, climb through the Iris-Message and throw herself into his arms. 

His fingers had clawed into her back and waist, the last time she’d seen him. She wants…she wants such touch again, wants his fingertips to gouge red lines in her flesh, mark her as something like him, something equal to him, someone he could not bear to lose. 

She wants him to want her just as greatly as she wanted him. 

Her eyes lock with his, and it’s like she can’t move, can’t breathe, like she’s drowning in the depths of him. She takes it all gladly. 

“Don’t be dense, Percy,” Andy hears, startling her enough that she tears her eyes away from Hermes. “Chiron’s been loyal for thousands of year–he’s too much of a fool and a coward to ever side with Kronos. He’ll die for the new age, like the rest.” Luke raises his sword. “Like you. Like your sister.”

Andy would be angrier if she had the strength to be, she thinks. She had been so angry all the time, this time last year. Indignant and straight-spined, a haughty girl who could stand toe-to-toe with her father. But Hermes–and the horror on his face, looking at his son–takes the wind right out of her sails. How can she fight Luke Castellan in front of him? How could she hurt him further? Instead, it is Percy who takes up the mantle, who wears their father’s infamous temper. Percy, who takes her place.  

“You need us. You said so.” 

“No,” Luke says. He sneers at them all, like they are merely dirt under his shoe. “I don’t need any of you. I will have my master.”

Andy–who cannot, for the life of her, tear her eyes away from Hermes–stares at the Iris Message and thinks that she know, now, the definition of Greek Tragedy, as Hermes stares at Luke and looks as if he’s lost a limb and Andy stares back at him and just knows that she will be unable to fight against Luke Castellan while he watched on. 

“And it all comes back to him,” Percy says. “You poisoned Thalia’s tree so we’d look for the Fleece. All so you can heal him, help him destroy the gods, tear your father from his throne.”

Hermes’ face twists as if he cannot bear to hear it. As if the words were paramount to a knife, embedded in his heart, twisting in the muscle and tearing it to shreds. 

“You know this already. What game are you playing, Percy Jackson?”

“Just setting a few things right. Check behind you.”

Andy can tell the moment Luke and Hermes’ eyes meet because Hermes speaks as if he is compelled, like the words are inscribed on his heart and ripped from his chest. “Luke...my son.”

Luke’s face scrunches, and all of the sudden he is bright red and fuming. “ How dare you .” he all but hisses, the words unrecognizable, like the appearance of his father had turned him into nothing more than the most primitive, base aspects of himself. Andy, somehow, manages to sympathize, and she wonders vaguely if she will ever cease to do so. “ How dare you call me that.”

The god stares at Luke, and he is called the trickster, the god of lies, but there is something brutal and honest about the devastation in his eyes. “Because you are,” She decides that it’s heartbreaking, how soft he says it. “Come back home, Luke. I will welcome you with open arms. I will forgive you.”

“Forgive me ?” Luke asks, so quiet it’s deadly, so quiet Andy’s not entirely sure she’d heard him right. “What have I done that must be forgiven. What have I done that you have not done three times worse. What have I done, you hypocritical bastard , to you?”

“Well,” Dionysus says, almost bored. “This is certainly entertaining.”

Luke bellows with something savage. He turns and stares at Percy like he wants to boil his blood and turn his bones to ash. “You want a family matter, Perseus Jackson?” he snarls. “I’ll give you a family matter.” Then he moves, slashing his sword through the fountain, dissolving the image of his father.

Oreius points his spear at her throat again, at the very same place where her neck still stung from Areius’ earlier treatment. She can barely feel it–too busy staring, limp and dazed, at the place where Hermes’ image had been. 

“Get away from her,” Percy growls. “ Luke .”

“Oh,” Luke says, brandishing his sword. “No, don’t worry Perseus. Oreius won’t get such a high honor. And your sister will get not get such a blissful death. I will kill Andy Jackson myself. And I’ll feed you her fucking heart .” 

He makes some half-gesture with his hand, and Andy’s shoved forward, stumbling and crashing to her knees. She hears Percy cry out, gives him a quick glance and realizes–with abject horror and building terror–that they’d, in essence, swapped places.

Luke grins at her–so wide that it’s nearly inhuman–and reaches an arm out. Someone tosses a shield through the air and he catches it without even a barest of glances in it’s direction. Andy realizes–with mounting horror–exactly what Luke intended to do. “Are you scared of death, Andy Jackson?” Luke asks. 

She can feel the effects of her fear; can feel her heart beating, quick as lightning, can hear blood rushing in her ears. She has trained with Hermes for the past summer–but swordfights weren’t her strength, and even surrounded by the sea something blocked her from her father’s power, here, stripping her of the divinity that would’ve given her an insurmountable edge. It leaves her with an uncomfortable truth: Luke Castellan was the best swordsman in three centuries and she barely scrapes by.

She’s going to die, she notes, but there’s none of the numbness of last summer and the scorpion. Instead, she can taste her heartbeat in her teeth and feel adrenaline heat her veins. It’s worse, she decides, to feel it, and to know she all the same she could not prevent it. 

She rises off her knees, and she’s half-sure it would be easier to draw her own blade across her wrists. Perhaps then she would know a kinder death. 

“Luke, stop this,” Grover pleads.

Luke just sneers at him, disgusted. “You were alright with Thalia dying. What’s so different about her?”

“Enough, Luke,” Percy shouts, fruitlessly flailing in Oreius’ arms. He reminds her of herself, she notes, with something paramount to hysteria, when Percy had faced Ares last year. “This is between me and you.”

“You’re the one who made it a family matter, Perseus,” Luke says. “Draw your sword, Andromeda.” 

She needs to put on a brave front, or she’ll never get through his. Or Percy will panic more, and Tyson will, too, and then Luke will kill them, too, before Annabeth can scheme up some plot to get the four of them off the ship. “I won’t be killed by you,” she announces, drawing her sword. She sounds stronger than she is, but she can’t control the way her hands tremble. 

“Luke,” Annabeth says, angrier than Andy’s ever heard her.

Luke looks past Andy, at his adopted sister, and that same anger lingers within him, too, stony and callous. Andy cannot imagine trying to fight against it. “Annabeth,” he says. They stare at each other, as if they’re trying to find something worth keeping in the depths of one another’s eyes. 

Annabeth looks away first, turning her head and scoffing in disbelief. “You’re a monster.” She says, and she’s not angry anymore, just heartbroken. 

“You’ll watch, too.” Luke says. “Maybe it’ll make you come to your senses.”

“Maybe you’ll come to yours when I take your head,” Andy interjects, trying to be smooth and suave, a hero like those in the myths, and her voice only trembles a little.

Luke just smiles at her–and it’s not like he’d smiled at her last summer, all sorrow and pity before he’d poisoned her, and it’s not even wrathful like he’d been every time since. Instead, it’s something earnest. He believes–he knows –that he speaks the truth when he announces, “Be realistic, Andromeda. You’ve never been anything more than mediocre.” And then he raises his sword and lunges. 

Percy–who had always been and likely always would be better with a sword–reacts faster than she does. “Look out!” he screams, and Andy manages to slide to the side just enough that Luke’s sword only scrapes her ribcage, tearing through skin and veins, instead of plunging through her chest and puncturing a lung. 

It burns anyways, and she cannot help but cry out. But it also shocks her back to reality, and her gaze seems to narrow, eyes locked on his sword. She parries his next strike and levies a sharp, downward swing that he knocks aside with his shield. Adrenaline surges through her veins, and she swears time slows down around the two of them, like they were wrapped in a bubble where the delicate balance between life and death had shattered the rules of nature itself. 

Luke laughs, a maniacal thing that comes from deep in his chest. “You haven’t improved,” he taunts. “Percy–did you teach her nothing?”

“Leave her alone,” Percy says, but it isn’t even a command anymore. It’s a plea, raw and frantic. She wonders if she’d sounded like that, in the year previous, helpless on the sideline as Percy took on the God of War. “Luke, please .”

“No,” Luke growls, as he levels her with a harsh strike that plays off his strength. She can’t counter these, she realizes, as she spins to the side. He can levy strikes that are powerful enough to split bone, and he can talk as he did it, as if it was a casual affair, and not like Andy was already out of breath and bleeding and in agony. “No, you wanted a fucking family affair, Percy Jackson. You’ll have one.”

“I’m ok, Percy,” Andy says. She isn’t. She’s going to die, she notes, because Luke Castellan was a prodigy and she was mediocre and he would take her life as a means to gloat over her brother. “It’s ok.”

They fall into a rhythm of sorts. Andy’s lighter on her feet than Luke. She’s smaller, faster, her blade moving in a bejeweled blur. Her blows are easier to land, but they are light, glancing things; cuts to his arms or cheek. It will take several strikes before she’s able to maim Luke enough to claim any sort of victory. 

Luke’s stronger than she is. His strikes are hard and direct, and Andy can dodge and deflect them. But it will only take one blow before she has to stand down. 

She’s not going to win, she knows. Not against Luke Castellan, not with a sword. Not when he was so much better than she was. The only advantage she has over him is her father’s blood–and she won’t make it past his men to run to the sea, not without condemning her friends and brothers to death, and nobody will make the mistake of throwing water on her.

The only way she’s going to have a chance is by superpowering herself, and she cannot feel her father’s domain–something tied into Kronos and whatever godly forces were on his side. Andy reaches out anyways–desperate for something, anything, to save herself with. The sea is cut off to her, impassive to the pull of her divinity, but something else tugs in her gut anyways. 

The swimming pool . A faint, barely there connection. But if she could get to it she could reinforce it, utilize it. She could live. 

( “Impressive. Lulling me into a false sense of security, then turning the tables on me. I like it; very trickster.” )

She doesn’t need to pretend to be weaker than he is–she is . But she can utilize that weakness, let him think he’s backing her into a corner and pray that his overconfidence and her own lack of prowess would lull him into a false sense of security. 

Andy lets their swords clash again–feels her arms begin to buckle, trying to match the strength of a full grown man, and lets her feet slide backwards. Towards the pool. Luke grins at this, like a shark smelling blood. His movements grow heavy–slower, stronger strikes, and wide steps like he knows this is the end, like he’s reveling in it. 

Her heart beats, terror and hope in equal measure, and she lets the terror twist on her face as she takes small, backwards steps, mimicking the tail end of a fight. Andy does not need to feign exhaustion–it is there, sapping her strength and creasing her brow. But as they approach the pool she can feel it–the connection to her father’s domain, growing and increasing in strength even as her arms shook from exhaustion. 

She smiles with relief as her reaches the edge of the pool and divine power surges through her veins. Luke looks confused for all of three seconds before Andy raises her free hand and a vortex of water (of power ) rises at her command and his eyes widen in a mirror of the same type of fear he’d elicited from her. She lets a feral grin overtake her, and flicks her hand. The full force of an Olympic-sized swimming pool crashes into Luke and his men, scattering them across the deck like toy soldiers. She wills it to leave her friends in place and it does, fulfilling her wishes, bound to her command. 

(When Andy had shaken the Earth, it had been done out of desperation and sorrow. This, though, this is godly power, and she is born again, a deity, lording above them all)

Luke scrambles to his feet, looking for his sword. Andy advances, grinning wide, sword swinging from her hands. She doesn’t need it–she can feel the water all around her, and it makes her stronger than a hundred swordsmen. Makes her a goddess, divinity in the flesh in a way men hungered for and warred over. 

“You can kill me,” Luke says, and there’s a vicious sort of satisfaction she takes from it. He had intended on killing her. It had not been something provoked—at least not something she’d provoked from him. He had intended on carving out her heart and feeding it to her brother, a sick revenge for a petty crime. She finds she enjoys it, the feeling of serving him what he’d served her. The feeling of revenge. It is heady, intoxicating, something she could drink down forever. “But you’ll never make it off this boat alive.” 

Andy raises her hand, power tugging at, tugging through , the core of her. The swimming pool’s water again begins to rise to her command. She could drown him, she realizes, could force her power through his throat and nose and ears, until all he could do was choke on it and know it was her that enveloped him as he died. “Wanna bet?” 

And then the centaurs arrive. 

Andy doesn't remember much but flashes of the ride home. The landscape changes with violent intensity, fluctuating from the sands of Miami to the hills and dense woods of the Appalachian to the skyscrapers of New York within mere hours. She almost wonders if they were faster than a plane would be—if they’d come home and wait for Clarisse’s arrival with the rest of them. 

Centaurs can bend time and distance–Andy had learned that much from Chiron–but its unsettling to be bent with it. They stop only once–just for a little over an hour–if only because Andy’s slumped over on Chiron’s back, faint from bloodloss and divine exhaustion. The centaur makes quick work of treating her wound, and they’re back on the move again.

They don’t end up beating Clarisse back to camp, but the daughter of Ares clearly hadn’t been there long. In fact, they make it back in time to watch as Clarisse hung the Golden Fleece on the tree. She finds himself strangely proud of her, clapping and hollering alongside the rest of camp as the valley began to change shades; from dead and yellow to thrush and green within minutes. 

And she feels him from a mile away; can sense him the moment she steps foot in camp, an itch just below the surface of her skin. Hermes is there; watching the tree, watching her. And so she stays, watching Thalia’s tree, even as the other campers begin to slink away, filing back to their duties and activities. 

Her brother and her friends do not do her the courtesy of leaving. Percy had forgiven her for the crime of keeping Hermes a secret, but his mistrust still hangs heavy in the air, poisoning what would’ve been a much happier reunion. But perhaps the restraint is good for her—needed, even. She thinks back to the hesitant nature of their friendship in the beginning, and knows she is far from it now, wonders if the way she wanted to throw herself in his arms would be shameful to a younger Andy. “Hermes,” she finds herself saying, waving a vague hand in the satyr’s direction. “This is Grover.” 

Hermes gives Grover a once-over, studying him with pursed lips. All of the sudden, Andy remembers that Grover had been the one to accompany Luke to camp. She wonders if Hermes would direct any blame for Luke’s betrayal on some mistake the satyr had made along the path. Perhaps; Hermes was rarely logical when it concerned his traitor son. “The satyr,” He says, too intense to be truly neutral. “One of the searchers. You have cleared a major obstacle for your brethren, in killing that Cyclops; they ought to celebrate you.”

“It was Andy that killed him, my Lord,” Grover says. His voice trembles; the same way it did with Dionysus. A strange concept, Andy finds, that the two could ever evoke similar reactions. She wonders if Grover was thinking about Luke Castellan, too, wondering if he’d imagine the ways Hermes could make him suffer for his mistakes. Perhaps the fear was warranted. “She brought a cave down on his head.”

Hermes turns his observing stare on her, instead. It is perhaps warmer than what it had been with Grover, if only minutely. “The Earthshaker’s daughter, indeed,” he muses, smiling with something akin to pride. “You don’t look as exhausted as I’d thought you’d might.”

“The Golden Fleece is healing.”

The corners of his eyes crinkle as he grins. “So it is,” Hermes says, gesturing to Thalia’s tree. “I’ve been filing in for Chiron, in the wake of all this…chaos. Though I suppose, now that the Fleece has set everything right, the old horse will want his job back now.”

“Was that not Tantalus’ job, my Lord?” Annabeth asks. “Where did he go?”

Andy hadn’t even thought about why Hermes was here–and the implications for it all. Hadn’t cared, really, just knew she was glad to see him. That she’d missed him, in some pathetically debilitating way. 

But if he was filling in for Chiron…

Hermes grins, something sharp, deadly lingering behind his teeth. He looks at her when he says, “Retired.”

It’s bloodthirsty , Andy thinks, the way he says it.

( “If it had been anyone else,” Hermes says, hesitantly. “Even amongst my own children…I think I would’ve hunted them down, stopped the threat before it could grow too large. Kaos, I would’ve done it for you .” )

( His hands are like stone around her, clawing, bruising. Avenging, even. “And what has he done to you?” Hermes asks, and his voice is like steel–sharp and cutting. It should scare her, she notes, but it doesn’t. He will not hurt her. “ Andomeda . Look at me.” His hand tugs gently at the base of her hair and she’s forced to tilt backwards, to meet his eyes. It’s overwhelming, the way he looks at her. Like he wants to consume her; to claw into her and keep her. Andy isn’t really sure she minds)

Had he killed for her?

The idea of it should turn her stomach. Should remind her of the inhumanity of gods and the feral nature of the Olympians. Instead, there’s something along the lines of sick satisfaction that rolls heavily through her stomach. Tantalus had deserved whatever gruesome death Hermes had dealt him. There’s something in her that almost warms at the news of it, too. Delight of some kind, at the notion that Hermes had done it for her . That he’d not been repulsed by the way she’d cried and clung helplessly to him, and instead compelled to remove the cause of it all.

It’s enthralling to imagine this golden, glorious god, avenging her, killing for her. 

“Good,” Percy says. Andy startles at the intensity of the way he says it. There’s something like approval, there, too–surprising, she decides, given Percy’s dislike of Hermes. Perhaps the feeling of a common enemy had united them. She hoped so. Wanted, somehow, for the two of them to get along, to coexist.

“I must go,” the god says, almost longingly. “My father calls for my return, now that Chiron is reinstated. But I would thank you all–for trying, with my son. You did your best–I cannot claim the same.”

“No issue, Hermes,” Andy says, so soft she wonders if he’d even heard it. 

Hermes just stares at her, throat bobbing. “Close your eyes,” He commands, voice raw, like he is choking back some alternative response. He disappears in a flash of light, and Andy is left to stand alone.

Chapter Text

“G ive her a message, will you?” 

Poseidon is the most civil he had been in ages–certainly more civil than Hermes would’ve assumed he’d be for at least a century. He wants something, Hermes notes, a blue envelope held up between two fingers. 

He banned Hermes from taking his bride, and then he demanded Hermes do his bidding, follow his command. The indignity of it holds him in place, if only to stare in disbelief. 

“Hermes,” Poseidon says again. His lip curls at the end of it; barely restrained disgust tainting his request. After five millenia, the earthshaker had still not learned subtlety. “I ask you to do your duty. Not a favor.”

“You might ask Iris,” Hermes manages, contorting his lips into a thin line of rage. He makes no attempt to hide it–has no reason to. Poseidon knows exactly how he feels. Poseidon had caused it. “You did not ban her from her own soulmate.”

“She will take the message easier, if it comes from you. I have heard she enjoys your company,” Poseidon says. He stares off, unseeing, into the distance. “My daughter is not fond of me.” 

“And yet you still meddle in her affairs like you hold claim to her.”

“I meddle in her affairs because regardless of your protests, Hermes, that girl is still a child. That girl is still my thirteen-year-old daughter . ” 

“You did little to protect your thirteen-year-old daughter from Gabe Ugliano, from Tantalus, from the monsters that haunt her footsteps and the gods who dare interfere in her life,” Hermes says, vicious, with bared teeth. “But I do. I paid millions for the statue of Gabe Ugliano so Sally Jackson could support her daughter with that check. I ripped the eyes from Tantalus’ head and watched as he burned alive. I guided her footsteps in the Lotus Casino. I ripped the heart from Procrustes. I bribed Charon. I helped your Cyclops son secure another year with my bride, all because she asked me. I trained her, with sword and with divinity. I led Clarisse La Rue to her aid. I burned down Circe’s—a goddess with whom I enjoyed a relationship with—island, just to send a message to those who thought it prudent to go after your daughter.” 

“And when your son—twice now—tried to kill my daughter, you did nothing .” 

And then, there, they are at an impasse. Frozen in their hatred and mistrust, revolving around a girl who had no knowledge of the concept. Because Hermes had protected her when Poseidon could not, because he always would be able to in ways Poseidon could not. And because Poseidon had protected her, would continue to protect her, against the one person Hermes had trouble raising a hand against. 

Poseidon holds up the envelope. “Give her the message.” 

Hermes snatches it, lightning fast. “I assume this is your permission to see her, Father-in-law?” 

The sea god’s lips curl, and he disappears in a flash of light. Hermes takes it upon himself to interpret it as a yes. 

He does not give it to her the first time he sees her, when she is surrounded by her friends. It had been so long since he’d laid eyes on her–when he’d seen her on that ship he’d been scared it would be the last time he’d see her. And then the letter had seemed so…personal, he supposes. Something he would not have her read, surrounded by friends and family, somewhere she could not react as she wished to. 

Hermes finds her in the stables, instead. She gets along well with the Pegasi–as daughter of Poseidon, she was bound to–and there was a new, all black steed that had taken up residence in Camp Half-Blood. Andy had evidently taken interest in the Pegasus, given that Hermes had never before seen her work to actually groom one. 

She’s as lovely as ever in the dimming sunlight, Hermes notes, because if there is one thing that will always draw his eyes, it’s the way golden light gleams off her dark curls, even loosely braided as they are and settles, a glossy sheen over bronze skin. Andy speaks softly, running a brush over the Pegasus’ black coat. “You really don’t owe me anything, Blackjack. Nor Percy.”

The horse whinnies–if Hermes concentrates, he can make out the meaning in it, but he doesn’t care too, not with Andy there, not starstruck as he is–and Andy laughs, a soft sound. “I’ve never seen a Pegasus eat donuts. I’ll find a way to get you some, just for the image.”

“And I suppose I’d be the method of transport?”

Andy swivels. Her eyes glitter–amusement, perhaps, and something deeper, something softer. “Hey, you,” she says, the corners of her eyes crinkling with amusement. “How’d you know I was about to call on you?”

“I keep track of my finest protege’s movements,” Hermes remarks. He sounds casual–he doesn’t feel that way, doesn’t feel like there is a way to feel nonchalant across from Andy, who smiles at him with this soft look, fond and doting. Two steps to the right of lovingly . “And I always tend to grant her requests.”

Andy sniffs, upturning her chin. “As you should,” She says, light-hearted and teasing. It’s such a stark contrast to what he had been made to witness earlier–Andy, trembling in the grip of one of his own son’s grunts–that he wants…that his feet feel like they’re being dragged towards her, if only so he could take her in his arms, feel that she was alive: warm and solid and wholly there . 

“How are you?” he asks, instead of taking her face into his palms and memorizing the planes of it with his thumbs. 

Andy’s smile doesn’t fade, but it no longer stretches up the whole of her face. It no longer reaches her eyes. “I’m alright,” she says, hesitantly. Not-quite sure of it. 

She’d told him that plenty of times before. The last time, he’d had to kill someone over it. Alright didn’t mean good, not with Andy. 

“I’ll be alright, anyways,” she amends. “It’s nice to be back–nice that everything is back to normal, at least.”

He almost feels guilty, because soon enough Thalia Grace would reemerge, and then things wouldn’t be normal at all. “Normal,” he echoes. 

Andy’s face tinges with something just a shade away from concerned, smiling dropping ever-so-slightly. “Are you?” she asks. “Ok, I mean.”

Always so concerned, his Andromeda. “I’m ok,” he says. “Really. I’m good.” 

“You seemed…” Andy trails off, her eyebrows pinched ever-so-slightly. “You seemed concerned.” 

She’s talking about the Iris Message. The ship–where he’d been confronted with the true reality of what his son had twisted himself into. Luke Castellan truly, deeply wanted him dead, now, and Hermes had been forced to confront that. And to watch on as his son tried to kill his…his Andy. He gives her a smile that goes for comforting. He’s sure it ends up as something else, sure it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I suppose I was,” he murmurs, sorrowful even to his own ears. Luke Castellan was not yet dead, Hermes knew. But there could be no saving him. He knew that now. “It is hard to know, I think, that he is gone for good. I thought—I thought maybe I could talk to him, and maybe that would fix things. But I can’t. And I know that now.”

“Oh,” Andy murmurs, so soft he’s half-sure she’d had no intention of him hearing it. Her eyes fall to the floor, as if she were studying the hay. 

Hermes hums, a soft thing. Like a call and response, a soothing sound. Except he does not know who intends to soothe who. 

Andy looks up, wide-eyed and so lovely in the fast approaching moonlight. “And me?” She questions. She sounds young. Vulnerable. Small. “Was there concern for me?” 

He hadn’t been aware there had ever been any question about that. There had never been a day since he’d met her that had passed without concern for her–and certainly that had spiked, when Luke had announced his intentions of killing her.  “Of course there was.” He says, simply. Reassuringly. “I’m always…I’m always concerned for you.” An understatement, he supposed. Perhaps the most he could say. Perhaps, also, the truest thing he could say, bare bones though it was. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,” Andy says. 

“I know,” Hermes says. “I’m sorry you felt you had to.”

“He’s your son,” Andy responds, with deadly emphasis on your, like it’s the only thing that matters to her. “I don’t mind.” She turns back to the pegasus, braid slung over her shoulder and brush in hand, and gets back to work. 

He comes to stand next to her; so close he can feel the heat radiating off her. She tenses, ever-so-slightly when he lays a hand on his shoulder. “I did not come just to deliver donuts, much as your pegasus might have appreciated them.”

It gets a huff of amusement from her, but little else. “Then what, Hermes?”

“I wanted–I needed to check on you.” He puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and extends his opposite arm, blue envelope between his fingers. The smell of salt and storm; of rain and lightning, washes through the room, and there is no doubt whose message he delivers. “And I am still the Messenger God.”

Andy takes it like she’s scared to, hesitantly, fingers trembling. “My father saved me last summer,” she whispers. 

He wasn’t sure how, exactly, she’d discovered this. But there is little point in lying to her. She wasn’t uncertain. “Yes,” he breathes. “Percy called. Your father came.” You’d be dead without him, he nearly says, but he cannot bear to admit it and she knows, anyways. 

“Is this from him?” she questions, hefting the envelope. “For Percy and I? Or–”

“Just you,” Hermes says. “I imagine you should open it privately.”

“I will,”  Andy promises, her eyes trained on the envelope like it will open itself and plunge a dagger into her heart.

He presses a swift kiss to her temple, lips burning at the contact. “You did well, sweet Andromeda,” he whispers, letting the words lance through his chest. 

“I know what I did,” she responds, but she doesn’t sound proud like he’d imagined. He leaves in a gust of wind, giving her privacy to read her father’s words. 

It does not take Aphrodite long to find him. The love goddess gets what she wants. Or perhaps Hermes had simply gotten what he wanted–he was in her temple, after all. “Thalia Grace will return by morning,” she says, by way of greeting. 

Hermes does not think there is a way to avoid the eeriness of it all–of Andy, stretched across Aphrodite’s face. Her voice, aged and pitched low and seductive. 

“I know,” he says. 

“You are not as excited as I had assumed you would be,” She murmurs. “The distress is uncanny.”

“What would you have me be, my Lady?”

“You are worried it will throw her off.”

“It’s for the best, in the end,” Hermes says. Thalia Grace had never been an oddity, not in the same way Andy Jackson had been. But all the same–the gods had watched her with bated breath, and she’d been at Luke’s side. He’d not really liked her. She had never been fond of the gods, either. She’d made it well known. Perhaps he shouldn’t blame her for Luke’s mislike of him, but he thought it might have amped up, intensified when the two of them got together, talking of misery and unfairness. And then she’d died–and sometimes he thought that even if Thalia wasn’t fond of her father, that Luke might have been better off if she’d survived. 

Luke would know, too, he reckoned. He would know what the Fleece would mean. Kronos certainly would, after all, and Hermes’ pride and joy was Kronos’ number one minion, now. 

And he had wanted–still wanted–so desperately to remove Andy from the frontline ( A single choice shall end their days ) that he’d plotted for this too. But he couldn’t help but feel like this war was amping up, and Thalia Grace would be a match that lit a flame. And so in the final hours before she returned, here he was, in Aphrodite’s temple with lingering doubts. 

“You are worried she’ll be some sort of war-torn casualty, anyways.”

“I have no safeguards left,” Hermes remarks. “If that girl protests—if she gives a hint that she was tricked or twisted—Poseidon will have me cast to Tartarus. And then there is no point to it anyways. I will lose her nonetheless.” 

And was that not the very point he hoped to avoid. At least if the girl died, some twisted and wrongful death, he was the spirit guide. He could have a bride in death, if not in life. Perhaps he could extort Asclepius. Perhaps his father—for once—would pity him. Perhaps Hades would retract his claws like he had for Ariadne.

But there was little he could do to save her from a twisted fate. Artemis could not make her a huntress. Aphrodite could not bewitch her to love him as equally as he loved her. Poseidon, even, was forbidden from interfering in his daughter’s life (though the Sea God was not averse to bending those rules), and sat smugly atop his throne, pretending like his ill-fated interference had saved her. 

“Worse,” he murmurs. “I will lose her before I have her.” 

Aphrodite comes into his view—there might have been twelve inches between them—and the difference between she and Andy are sparse, plentiful; a vast chasm to cross. Her cheeks are slimmer with age, her hair longer, her eyes a little blue—something of May Castellan he still held onto—and yet all the same she is Andy in the flesh. Hermes cannot tell if it is painful to look at her—if he wants to throw her to the pit to avoid it or if he wants to keep her next to him, always, because if he listened to her voice and didn’t look too hard she was Andy . 

The Love Goddess was the cruelest of them, he thought. Always had been, but Hermes had not known it before May Castellan. And now, Andromeda. 

“You look at me like I am the moon; lovely and gentle, something to gape at with a slack jaw and wide eyes. And I am only a cheap copy of her,” Aphrodite says. “You love her, don’t you?” 

“Was it ever meant to go differently?” He asks, miserably. “I was doomed the moment I laid eyes on that girl.” 

“Perhaps,” Aphrodite says, and her eyes glitter with dark amusement. “Maybe that is simply love, my Lord.” 

“In your twisted head, I’m sure.” 

“Watch yourself, Hermes,” Aphrodite whispers. She smells like salt and storm, and she crowds him with the face of Andy Jackson. Cows him, with her voice. “I have done nothing but support you.”

“I know,” Hermes mutters. His eyes drop, trace Andy’s— Aphrodite’s— lips. “What do you want, ‘dite?” 

“You look at her like she’s the very center of your being. Like she’s your anchor to the mortal plane,” Aphrodite murmurs. “It’s romantic. I like to see it, stretched across your face, even second-hand, even just as a clone of her. And I am the Love Goddess. I enjoy stories.”

“I love her,” Hermes whispers. And he means it, even if the admittance sears the very air in his lungs. He means it. He loves Andromeda Jackson, and he thinks he would do damn near anything for her. “I cannot have her yet.” 

Aphrodite’s lips curl, “I know, my Lord,” she whispers, like it’s some half-secret instead of her very domain, her very existence. “You are startlingly obvious. Especially for a trickster.”

“You have her face,” Hermes says—more casually than he feels. He wants to tear the clone’s face off. He wants to slash a line through it, distort the image. He wants to press his lips to it and pretend it’s the girl he cannot have. “It’s torturous.” 

“You could shut your eyes,” she suggests. Her eyelashes flutter like she knows the answer he’ll give her—undoubtedly, she does. Love is the very essence of Aphrodite Ouranía. “So you don’t have to view such a torturous visage.” 

“And tear myself from her gaze, diluted as it is?” 

Aphrodite inclines her head. “You could never leave her be,” she states, gently. “Hooking yourself on my image will not help you.”

“She will not be happy with me come morning, I fear,” Hermes admits. “I spoke not a word of warning for Thalia Grace.”

“And you wish me to reassure you, then?” Aphrodite asks, gently. “Want me to tell you that she will love you too, wearing her face and speaking with her voice? Want me to kiss you, so you can sin so ardently, lust for such a girl, all without soiling her? Want me to whisper that I love you, so you can close your eyes and dream that it is her?”

“And you?” Hermes asks. “What is it that you want? There is to be no wedding.” 

“Not yet,” Aphrodite murmurs. “I enjoy my stories, Hermes. You know this. And perhaps you cannot see it, entrenched as you are in misery and self-pity, but this is the most interesting story that’s played out in millennia. So many twists and turns.” 

“Then why did you vote for me?” 

Aphrodite shrugs her slender shoulders. “I like the way you look at her,” she murmurs. She cups his cheek, a gentle touch, burning with the sin of it all. “The Ares of this century does not look at me quite the same.” 

“How does he look at you, then?” he asks, breathless because she is inches from him and she looks like Andy and if he closes his eyes he can imagine it’s her—all compacted into someone he can have, can claw into and lust over, guiltless. “How does the War God look?” 

“War does not happen for love, anymore,” Aphrodite murmurs. “We are not as we are. I have missed the look of it. You and Andromeda will make a good story.” 

She drops his cheek, turns in a flurry to leave. “I am on your side, Hermes,” she calls, “I am on the side of Love, always.” 

Hermes watches her go, longing for her mirror image. 

————

If there is one benefit to being Poseidon’s delivery boy, it’s that he had—in essence—been given permission to visit his daughter. And of course, that extends to his cabin. Or at least Hermes interprets it that way. Poseidon likely wouldn’t think so. 

He enters anyway. Percy sleeps on one side of the cabin, separated by a half-drawn curtain from his sister, a gendered division of privacy. Most cabins weren’t lucky enough for that, but there were few children of Poseidon. Hermes draws the curtain completely with a wave of his hand. He is asleep—he can feel the soundness of it—but it is always better safe than sorry. Especially when it came to Percy Jackson. 

He considers it for half a second—waking her up, telling her what was coming. Warning her and letting her make the decision for herself. But Andromeda Jackson is beautiful in sleep; serene, peaceful. Hermes imagines she does not get much peace these days, but here her face is smooth and relaxed. No wonder Selene had not minded a slumbering husband. If he was half as beautiful as Andromeda was, Hermes, too, would’ve been content for eternity. 

“You are beautiful, my Love. The fairest of all,” he murmurs. A brush of his fingertips to her forehead will settle her, keep her asleep for hours, and he likes the feeling of her skin, soft and smooth and supple under his hands. “I’d wake you,” he whispers. “Because I do love the sound of your voice. But you are at peace, and I imagine you get little of that, yes? 

He sits at the foot of her bed. He can feel the knob of her ankle, bone protruding under his hand. He can feel the rush of blood, just under the skin, the throb of her beating heart. A little pressure, he thinks, and he could snap it wholly in half. How can he leave her, fragile and alone, like this? 

“Things will get harder,” He whispers to her, tracing his thumb over her ankle. “Things will grow more confusing. And I can do little to prevent it. I am sorry for that,” he murmurs. He wonders if his voice will snake it’s way into her dreams, if she’d hear him and know him and want to wake, struggle to return to him. “You are not fond of the sacrifice of heroes. I know that well enough. But I am saving Percy Jackson’s life. I am saving your life–and I would push a thousand heroes onto a blade before I let you meet death, my Love.”

She does not respond. He sits expectantly all the same, with his hand around her ankle, gazing at her face in the hazy moonlight. 

“I am always with you, sweet Andromeda,” he whispers, and he lets the night air take his words and conceal them. He sits with her–vigilantly guarding, as always–until Percy Jackson stirs in the morning and Grover Underwood comes running. 

Thalia Grace comes back to life, and Camp Half-Blood is launched into disarray 

“Your machinations, I’m sure,” Dionysus sighs, staring at him with those deadened purple eyes. Hermes can see himself in them, his hands drenched in blood. “The Camp is abound in chaos, now, and Father will expect me to put out the flames. And to take responsibility for his daughter, I am sure.” 

“You knew my intentions,” Hermes says, and it’s true. Dionysus had known. Hermes had told him. Dionysus had not protested, had not removed the Fleece from the tree before the half-blood could spring from it’s trunk. “I imagine Andy Jackson will take to Thalia Grace. If Father wants the half-blood monitored…” 

Dionysus huffs. “You lurk over that gods-be-damned girl at every opportunity,” he says, like it’s some sort of travesty. “There is no stopping you, I suppose. Be my guest—you have enough experience in this Camp.” 

———

Andy stares at Thalia Grace like the half-blood will be her undoing and her saving grace all at once. Hermes can feel her body heat, her back nearly pressed to his front—can feel the urge to reach forward and touch her anyways, mold himself to her form. 

“And so the Great Prophecy is hers, now,” Hermes says. He almost pities his half-sister. She looks small, in that hospital bed. He had heard much of her, from Luke, from his children, myths and legends from Andy’s mouth, too. Thalia Grace had seemed more a story than a girl, certainly not someone real, someone quantifiable by how much space they took up on an infirmary bed. “Good.” 

“I wouldn’t say so,” Andy murmurs, and she sounds sad and exhausted and entirely empathetic. Tender-hearted girl, he thinks, somewhat fondly. “Not for her.” 

“For me, then,” Hermes responds. “I would not have had you bear such a weight.” 

“And you would give it to her?” Andy asks. “Your sister?” 

“I have many sisters,” Hermes whispers. “Thalia Grace means next to nothing to me. But there is only one of you, sweet Andromeda.” 

“She’s a person, just as I am,” Andy mutters. “She doesn’t deserve it any more than I do.” 

He presses his lips to her ear, if only to whisper. “But she is not you . And she is not Percy. Better her than either of you, right?” 

She tenses, but otherwise ignores him. “What did you know of her?” Andy asks, hushed and gentle. 

“She was…” Hermes thinks back to the one time he’d ever seen Thalia Grace in person. To what he’d heard of her, from their father, from the other gods. She had been an intriguing hero, even then. “Loud. Obnoxious. A very angry twelve year old.” 

“Sounds familiar,” Andy says, with a huff of amusement. 

“It was a different type of anger than yours, my Andromeda. Thalia never cared who she offended or how she offended. Just wanted to offend. She was a rebel. A fighter. It was like she was born to hold a weapon. She was brave, too, took on a legion of monsters so that her friends would live. I was always grateful to her for that.”

“I’d imagine.”

“My father loved her, in some weird way that nobody really understands. Like the way he loves Artemis and Athena. He couldn’t bear to truly lose her–even if he got a bunch of shit from the rest of us,” Hermes quiets, like it would hurt to tell her, like the words would poison the air and twist minds. “My son–my son loved her. He would’ve done anything for that girl, I think”

“He poisoned her,” Andy says, and she sounds empty; hollow. Almost discouraged, as if the idea of what Luke had done to Thalia was heartbreaking. He wonders if it’s sympathy for Annabeth Chase that bleeds through–probably, he imagines. Annabeth was asleep now, sent to bed by Chiron, reeling in shock. “How is that love?”

“He thought it would bring her back,” Hermes mutters–it’s the truth. Luke had certainly had a plan, a plot, and a wealth of knowledge in the form of his master. And Luke was his son. Hermes knew he might have done the same. “He was right. She’s alive now.”

“Will she join him?” Andy asks. She’s scared, he can tell, made smaller by her all-encompassing fear of his own son. She’s terrified of Luke Castellan in the way only someone terrorized by him could be. That fire of her; that straight backed pride he’d been so scared of in the previous year, seemed fleeting at the mention of Luke Castellan and the powerhouse of a girl who might join him. 

“She will take what Luke did to her as a betrayal, I imagine,” Hermes says. “And she will look to Annabeth, at your side. And she was angry—from time to time—with our father, but she will not rebel. Not for a man who poisoned her for his own gain and left the little girl they cared for to fend for herself.” 

Andy hums. “And I suppose you’re here to?” 

“Evaluate the situation?” Hermes asks, quietly. “Yes. Thalia Grace must be monitored, now, much in the same manner you and your brother are. She is the Hero of the Great Prophecy, now, and her choices will make or break Olympus.” 

Andy turns to face him. Her shoulders seem lighter now, unburdened by the overarching weight of the Great Prophecy. She stares up at him; evaluating with her father’s eyes. He can see something in the depths of them; affection and calculation in equal measure. “I can help you,” she says, finally, a quiet whisper. “I can make friends with Thalia Grace.”

Chapter Text

M y only daughter, 

I still remember the first day I came across your mother. She was a mortal, yes, but she was blinding in the way of a god. And I thought her brighter, still, when I got to know her. In the face of horror and atrocity and hardship many mortals will never dream of, Sally Jackson remained gentle and strong and kind. I loved her desperately, as easy as breathing, and I had no choice to do anything else. She intoxicated me. When I learned of you and your brother’s conceptions, I did not want to leave her. Damn my brother, I often thought, and damn the Ancient laws. I offered to take her under the Sea, make her Queen of my domain. I did not have anything more than the barest concepts of a plan, but I loved her and I was powerful and I imagined I could force my will upon my domain.

She said no–intelligent as she is, she saw the flaws in my half-formed plan as clear as daylight. And so I left. 

When I first learned that I had a daughter, I was well and truly terrified. I pitited you–a halfblooded girl-child, born to a noose about your throat. I had never had a mortal daughter before, in the entirety of my existence, but I had seen what became of my brothers’ and sister’s daughters, of the atrocities I permitted against my nieces’ and nephews’ daughters; sometimes at the hands of mine own sons. I was not sure you would make it to twelve, and I thought often that it may be your kindest fate. 

But as I held you in my arms, I thought then that I may love you already, product of your mother as you are. A dangerous thought, for a god, but one I could never avoid all the same. 

When I first laid eyes on you again–a girl, now, twelve and fiery, all straight-backed pride and the all-consuming wrath of our lineage–I could see myself reflected in your eyes. I could see your mother, too, in your affections for your brother. And I loved you all the more for it. When your twin called for me–urgent and panicked–as you faded in his arms, I cared little for the rules. I cared only for your survival. I cared only for my daughter. 

I understand you may not know it, my only girl, but it is true. I do love you, as much as I have ever loved a demigod child. You have your mother’s magnetism. 

You are thirteen now, Andromeda, and you fast approach fourteen. You grow lovelier and more powerful by the day, and I know you are coveted for it. Come to my Kingdom. Come to my Kingdom, and let me shield you from cruel interests. Come, and let me train you against the coming war. There is a place for you here at my side, a home for you. 

I have no other daughters, Andromeda. I wish to do right by you.

Poseidon

Andy sobs when she reads the letter–tries to contain it but cannot, in the end, help the gutteral noises that burst from her chest and the tears that burn in her eyes and leak down her face. Poseidon loves her. Poseidon cares for her–wants to protect her, to break rules and incite a war to do so. It is everything she had ever wanted from her father. Everything she’d dreamed of, everything she had resented not having for so long. 

She had thought her heart was closed to him–had imagined herself immune to her father’s love and the supposed lack thereof. His letter–his declaration of care affection–proves her wrong, leaves her broken and bleeding. 

And yet he extends no invitation to her brother, so she can never accept it. How could she do such a thing to Percy, leave him onland, leave him second-place to their father? To her twin brother, all desires are second place.

But it is still heartbreaking to realize how close she had been to her father’s affection–her father’s protection–and yet still be a thousand years away, because of course she could never do such a thing to Percy. 

Annabeth finds her in the stables, her head on her knees, unable to see through the stream of tears and clutching blue papers that smelled of salt and storm. She says little, just sits next to her and rubs circles into the small of her back, lets Andy lean on her shoulder and sob until her nose is red and her eyes are dry and sore. 

“He wants me to come to him,” Andy says, and her throat is sore and her voice is rough, gravelly, like she’d swallowed a bucketful of rocks. 

Annabeth doesn’t need to ask who. The letter smells of Salt and Storm, of clean rain and power that could shake the earth and topple mountains, and Andy’s eyes are red in the way only her father could make them. “But you can’t, can you?”

“I won’t leave Percy,” Andy whispers, like the very idea is blasphemous; unthinkable and unforgivable. And it is, truly, because he is a part of her as much as her own spine is, and she does not think it possible to ever leave him behind. “I could never forgive myself for going where he’s always wanted to go, and leaving him behind.”

“You’re a good sister,” Annabeth murmurs, gently. 

“I wanted to, though,” Andy whispers, guiltily. “I wanted–I wanted to forget about my brother. I wanted my father.” And doesn’t that make me monstrous? She nearly asks. It lingers anyways, permeating the air around them. 

“But you won’t,” Annabeth says, slow and reassuring. Her fingers comb through Andy’s hair, a steady and grounding pressure. “It’ll be alright, Ands. I promise.”

Andy isn’t sure about that at all, because sometimes it feels like the world is crashing down around her. But it certainly feels more manageable with her head cradled in the crook of her best friend’s shoulder. 

She burns her father’s letter in the central hearth. She tries to be indignant about it—about the way in which he would have her leave her brother behind—but her heart is softened. 

( I could see your mother , he had said, and how did he know what exactly she needed to hear from him?) 

Annabeth sits next to her, hand warm and steady in her own. 

“I cannot,” Andy whispers to the flame, watching as it changes shades; red to yellow to green. Poseidon listens, she knows. “I cannot leave Percy.” 

The three of them say goodbye to Tyson, and Andy pretends the red rimmed eyes are a product of that alone. Annabeth must say something to Percy, above her line of vision, because he doesn’t raise a single concern. 

She lays under the shade of a familiar pine tree. Its needles are healthy and green again, and they filter out harsh sunlight, leaving only specks of filtered light to shine through. The valley is hale and healthy, too, bright and green and resplendent in the summer air. 

“You are beautiful, my Love,” Hermes tells her. He is lovely in the speckled sunlight. Broad and tan, smooth and supple. She wants to sink her teeth in the muscle of his shoulder and leave a mark for everyone to see. He makes her think of the common saying: built like a Greek God; something she had never understood before him, but he is beautiful, so beautiful it was nearly tragic, so beautiful sometimes she felt as if it could blind her, as if mortals were not worthy to see it. She had never been one for song or poetry, but she could write something of him. “The fairest of all.” 

He sits himself down next to her, and she shivers when his hand reaches out, grasps her ankle. It feels possessive, she decides. Hot, branding, a claim laid bare. The warm air has left her sleepy and pliant, half-way between slumber and consciousness, and so she finds she does not mind it. 

“I’d wake you,” he whispers. Her brow furrows, because she is awake, can’t he see? But she doesn’t interrupt, because the soft lull of his voice is gentle and comforting, a warm breeze on a summer day. “Because I do love the sound of your voice. But you are at peace, and I imagine you get little of that, yes?” 

I am always at peace with you, she wants to say, but again the sunlight leaves her limp and unmoving, and entirely at peace, and moving her mouth seems an insurmountable obstacle.

“Things will get harder,” he whispers, and he does not meet her eye, just traces a thumb over the bone in her ankle, as if to soothe. It does; quieting her protests, pulling her further into whatever state of complacent half-sleep she had been in before. “Things will grow more confusing. And I can do little to prevent it. I am sorry for that.” Don’t be, she nearly says, my life was complicated before you. It was bound to be. “You are not fond of the sacrifice of heroes. I know that well enough. But I am saving Percy Jackson’s life. I am saving your life—and I would push a thousand heroes onto a blade before I let you meet death, my Love.” 

Perhaps she’d be more averse to the idea if she could process it; but in this fugue state she only hears that he means to protect her, and something in her stomach keens at the promise of his violence and his protection. 

He is beautiful, she notes once again, studying his face in the half-light. All hard lines and soft skin, pretty eyes and long lashes. She wants to curl her fingers in chestnut curls, trace the planes of his face with her thumbs. 

“I am always with you, sweet Andromeda.” 

“I am always with you, Hermes,” Andy finally manages to respond. And then, in a gust of wind, he is gone. Andy scrambles to her elbows, drawn from her figure state, feeling alone and empty without him next to her, hand tight around her ankle. 

“Hermes?” She calls, her hands pressing up to sit, looking around for the missing god. She wants him back. “Hermes, come back!” 

“Who is Hermes?” 

There is a weight on her lap. She looks down, sees a girl with half-opened eyes, blinking groggily up at her. The girl is pretty, Andy notes. Pale and freckled, her features distinctly mediterranean: a strong jaw, a straight nose, full lips and full brows. Her lashes are ebony against the palor of her skin, and her eyes are strangely familiar; a striking, cobalt blue. Her hair is jet-black and choppy. Andy knows her, can taste her name on the tip of her tongue. “A friend,” Andy tells the girl. She lets her hands trace over the girl’s face, as if committing her features to memory. Her skin is hot, too hot, almost feverish. She cannot go to Hermes, not with this girl obviously unwell. She thinks it would be unfair. “You’re sick.” 

“I know,” the girl says, her eyes fluttering. “I will recover.” 

“Let me take you to the Big House,” Andy murmurs gently. “Chiron will help you.” 

“I will recover just fine, Andromeda Jackson,” the girl says. “I have waited a long while for you.” 

Andy recoils, withdrawing her hands from the girl’s face as if she’d been burned. “Who are you?” she asks, brow furrowing. “How—“ 

“My name is Thalia Grace,” The girl says, and her eyes open, looking straight into Andy’s own as if she knows her, as if the two of them are meant to meet. “Daughter of Zeus.” 

Andy wakes up with a shuddering gasp. Something important is on the tip of her tongue. She knew something. She had to—she had to go somewhere, find someone. 

“Andy?” Percy questions, eyes narrowing on her from across the room. 

“Percy! Andy!” The door to their cabin bursts open, and Grover comes in, out of breath and wildly disheveled. “You have to come quick,” he pants, his hands on his knees. “Annabeth—she’s—I'll have to let you see for yourself. But you have to—you have to come quick.” 

Annabeth is a trigger word for her brother, and Andy’s not completely sure he’d even paused to put shoes on before rushing right out the door. Andy does manage to put on shoes, and then she’s right on his tail. 

She’d had an early morning border patrol shift—the whole routine not completely done away with until they could find a suitable guard for the tree—and Andy understands the concern wholeheartedly. Who knew what Luke and Kronos were capable of, what lengths they’d go to in order to get the golden fleece. 

Her ability to sympathize with Luke was fast fading, and the notion that he could harm Annabeth was quickly becoming real—a line Andy had previously imagined he wouldn’t cross. 

She slows when she sees the crowd—a half-circle, perhaps ten feet from Thalia’s tree. The Golden Fleece, she notes, hangs in its lowest bough, gleaming brightly in the early sunlight. 

“There’s Percy and Andy,” Travis Stoll announces. He sounds dazed. The campers move for them, create a path like they’re some kind of gods themselves. Annabeth couldn’t be dead, Andy thinks, because there are heroes and medics who line her path, and they wouldn’t let…they wouldn’t just let her best friend bleed out. Wouldn’t allow that. Couldn’t allow that. Andy thinks she’d gut them all herself if they had. 

Chiron spots them–Andy can tell the very moment the Centaur does, because he gallops straight for them.​​ Annabeth cannot be dead, she reminds herself, because she was like a daughter to Chiron and there was no way he’d let her just die . Her heartbeat thuds in her chest, anyways. “Children,” he says, as if in warning. 

“What’s going on, Chiron?” Percy says, in a warning tone Andy imagines could be deadly. He has not unsheathed riptide, but he holds the pen in his hand all the same, ready for the same fight Andy imagines she’d prepared for. 

“The Titan Lord,” Chiron says, gravely. “He has tricked us. Given himself another chance to control the Great Prophecy.”

“What do you mean?” Percy asks. 

And Andy…something cavernous fills the pit of her stomach, a sinking dread, a knowing feeling. As if she’d seen this play out, watched this in some dream she couldn’t quite remember.

“The Fleece did it’s work too well,” Chiron continues. “Come and see.” 

He turns, lets them see the whole base of the tree. It’s healthy, Andy notes, dimly. Entirely healthy. The only thing out of place was a girl in full-greek armor, kneeling next to an unconscious girl. She feels Percy at her side begin to move, can almost hear blood roaring in his ears, and she grabs his wrist. “The girl on the ground,” she murmurs. “ She isn’t Annabeth.”

As if on cue, the girl in the Greek Armor stands, turns to them. It’s Annabeth, tears streaming down her face. “It’s—she—“ Annabeth chokes on her words like she can’t quite conceptualize what needs to be said. “She just appeared .” 

The girl at the base of the tree groans softly. It’s pained, Andy notes, and there’s something familiar about it, drawing her in; a fish on a hook. She goes to the girl, brushing past her friends as if she were possessed, and cradles her head in her lap. She’s pretty, Andy notes, about fourteen or fifteen, skin is pale and freckled, her features distinctly mediterranean: a strong jaw, a straight nose, full lips and full brows. Her lashes are ebony against the palor of her skin, and her hair is jet-black and choppy in an almost artful way. There is divinity there, she notes, crackling just under the surface, a hum that’s barely there. Andy traces her face with her thumbs, feeling the dips and turns in the bone, the sheen of sweat that covered her forehead. She’s feverish, almost alarmingly so. 

“She needs medical attention!” Andy yells. “Chiron!” 

The centaur, along with every other camper, stands dumbly. In shock, as if this girl was some monster instead of a half-blood who needed help. 

In her lap, the girl groans, her eyes fluttering open. “Who—Where.” 

Andy lowers a hand to trace gently through her hair. “You’re at Camp Half-Blood,” she says, soothingly. “We’re getting you help, don’t worry.” 

“Strangest dream,” the girl mutters, almost deliriously. 

“Shhhh,” Andy murmurs. “You’re alright now.” 

“Dying,” she says, assuredly. “I was dying.” 

“What’s your name?” Andy asks, trying to soothe. But that same familiarity is back, and she can finally lay a finger on it. She knows those eyes. 

“My name is Thalia,” The girl says. Andy has seen that shade of blue once before, in the Olympian throne room, kneeling before the King of the Gods. “Daughter of Zeus.” 

————— 

Andy can feel Hermes’ presence at her back like he is merely an extension of herself. Warm and divine, an overarching thing that feels all-consuming. She does not break her gaze. Thalia Grace is…well, Andy does not know quite what to think of Thalia Grace; limp in her infirmary bed like she hadn’t been nothing but a legend of heroic sacrifice two days previous. 

“And so the Great Prophecy is hers, now,” Hermes says, his breath warm on the back of her neck. There is no trace of pity, nothing to suggest it’s the travesty that Annabeth had told them of. “Good.” 

“I wouldn’t say so,” Andy murmurs back, so quiet it is almost just a thought and an exhale, but she knows Hermes hears her. “Not for her.” 

Andy didn’t know the extent of the Great Prophecy, but even not knowing, the burden had felt suffocating, like there was some legacy, some dynasty that rested entirely upon her. She had thought it might choke her if she pondered it for too long. 

“For me, then,” Hermes responds. “I would not have had you bear such a weight.” 

“And you would give it to her?” Andy questions. She knows the answer, knows Hermes’ family is plentiful and jumbled, that Thalia Grace was meant to fade already. Knew what the gods thought of demigods. “Your sister?” 

“I have many sisters,” Hermes whispers. “Thalia Grace means next to nothing to me. But there is only one of you, sweet Andromeda.” 

“She’s a person, just as I am,” Andy responds, almost sourly. “She doesn’t deserve it any more than I do.” 

His lips press to her ear, his body a cloak of warmth at her back. “But she is not you ,” he whispers. “And she is not Percy. Better her than either of you, right?” 

The mention of Percy quiets her. She doesn’t quite want to speak it aloud—that she agrees, that she’d slit this girl’s throat herself, damn the consequences, if it protected her brother. She does not like the feeling. It makes her feel like one of those gods, selfish and uncaring. 

“What did you know of her?” she asks, instead. 

Hermes doesn’t comment on the subject change. “She was…Loud. Obnoxious. A very angry twelve year old.” 

A very angry twelve year old. It is something recognizable, and she snorts in amusement. “Sounds familiar.” 

“It was a different type of anger than yours, my Andromeda. Thalia never cared who she offended or how she offended. Just wanted to offend. She was a rebel. A fighter. It was like she was born to hold a weapon. She was brave, too, took on a legion of monsters so that her friends would live. I was always grateful to her for that.”

Andy knows he would be; she’d saved Luke’s life, after all. “I’d imagine.”

Hermes hesitates, his breath faltering in her ear, then continues, “My father loved her, in some weird way that nobody really understands. Like the way he loves Artemis and Athena. He couldn’t bear to truly lose her–even if he got a bunch of shit from the rest of us,” Hermes quiets, like it would hurt to tell her, like the words would poison the air and twist minds. “My son–my son loved her. He would’ve done anything for that girl, I think”

“He poisoned her,” Andy says. It’s almost discouraging, she thinks, how far Luke had fallen. Another thing she cannot quite sympathize with him for. Another wedge. She does not think she could ever do such a thing to someone she’d once loved. “How is that love?”

“He thought it would bring her back,” Hermes mutters–and something else to fear quickly spins to the forefront of all her thoughts. What if she joins him? Luke is a terror enough without a daughter of Zeus at his right hand. “He was right. She’s alive now.”

“Will she join him?” Andy asks, almost ashamed of the fear in her own voice. She had thought she would die, fighting Luke. She cannot imagine fighting him with some lighting-wielding warrior at his side. 

“She will take what Luke did to her as a betrayal, I imagine,” Hermes says, quick to reassure. And Andy wants so badly to let him, but she cannot rely on him to protect her—especially not against the son he so treasured. “And she will look to Annabeth, at your side. And she was angry—from time to time—with our father, but she will not rebel. Not for a man who poisoned her for his own gain and left the little girl they cared for to fend for herself.” 

Andy hums. “And I suppose you’re here to?” 

“Evaluate the situation?” Hermes asks, quietly. “Yes. Thalia Grace must be monitored, now, much in the same manner you and your brother are. She is the Hero of the Great Prophecy, now, and her choices will make or break Olympus.” 

Andy could help him; could watch over Thalia Grace. That same tug in her gut that had initially pulled her towards the daughter of Zeus was still there; a nearly protective kind of interest. She turns to Hermes, studies his face, unsure of what he wanted from her, from Thalia Grace. “I can help you,” she says, finally, a quiet whisper. “I can make friends with Thalia Grace.” 

The daughter of Zeus sleeps for three more days before she finally wakes up. She, Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Hermes, and Chiron often ghost in and out of her room, keeping tabs, observing, like they’d learn something about her mindset just from staring as she slept. 

When Thalia finally does wake, it’s Grover that catches her up to speed. She and Percy never knew Thalia, and they don’t know enough about Luke Castellan to break the news to her softly. It’s supposed to be Annabeth, but she chokes up at the last minute, unable to recount it all, wounds laid fresh and bare in the reemergence of a girl who’d been her sister, once. 

Andy cannot blame her for it. Does not imagine she can bear to. 

Thalia finds Andy, later, when she can bear her own weight again. She traipses into the Poseidon Cabin like she owned the place, like their fathers had not nearly warred the summer previously. She’s startlingly healthy looking, for a girl back from the dead; her eyes bright, her skin nearly glowing. Andy supposed that was merely the power of the Fleece, to heal and restore. 

“I woke up to you,” Thalia accuses. “And I dreamt of you.”

“Did you?” 

“Did you dream of me?” The older girl demands, and Andy cannot help but think that Hermes was exactly right about her. Loud . Obnoxious. Strangely, Andy doesn’t truly mind it. There’s something distantly familiar about Thalia Grace, a sort of rugged charm to the daughter of Zeus. 

“I don’t dream,” Andy tells her, kindly as she can manage. “Or at least, I don’t remember my dreams.” 

“Bullshit. You’re a demigod,” Her eyes narrow. “Aren’t you?” 

Andy waves her hand to the cabin around them. “Poseidon’s only daughter,” she informs, perhaps with more pride than she would’ve said a month ago. 

Thalia’s mouth drops—Andy braces herself for some question about are you really his first . “Then how’d you escape the dreams?” 

The brash question reminds Andy of Percy, she notes, her lips curving up into a half-smile. “Got lucky, I guess.” 

The older girl smiles in response, fiddling with silver rings on her fingers. “I’m deeply jealous.” 

“Don’t worry,” Andy says. “I always feel left out. Everyone else is like, born with the gift of prophecy—“ 

“Cursed with nightmares—” 

“And I’m not. I’ve got first-class FOMO.” 

“Of nightmares.” 

“ Yeah ,” Andy sighs. “Eh. Perhaps I should count my blessings.” 

Thalia nods. “I’d recommend it.” 

Andy stretches, stands from her bedside. “Well, it’s nice to actually meet you, Thalia, instead of just hovering at your bedside. I’m Andy Jackson, by the way.” 

Thalia stares at her, considering, and Andy feels something like nervousness claw up her spine. “Nice to meet you. I guess you know who I am.” 

“You’ll be hard-pressed to find a camper who doesn’t,” Andy informs her. “Their attention will finally leave Perce and I. Good luck.”

Thalia groans. “Thanks for that. I swear—people’s faces were pressed against the windows when I walked by.”

“Yeah,” Andy says, remembering when her father had first claimed her. “When my father first claimed my brother and I, we couldn’t walk anywhere without the younger campers following us and the older campers running away just to watch us from a distance.” 

“ Please tell me it goes away.” 

“It fades when someone new comes around. But you’re a legend around here,” Andy says. She thought the campers might think of Thalia as more myth than girl. Even she wasn’t entirely immune to it—it was nearly surreal to stand next to the girl who’d died six years ago, who’d been whispered of ever since. “You’ll get used to it.” 

Thalia grimaces, “Thanks.” 

“Don’t worry,” Andy says. “Annabeth and Grover will be here to help you adjust. Percy and I will, too, if you want.” 

The older girl cracks a half-smile. “Yeah,” she says, almost softly. “Sounds great.” 

It’s easier than Andy had imagined, to make friends with Thalia Grace. She’s sure a lot of that is due to her close friendships with Grover and Annabeth—the only people Thalia had known from before — but it doesn’t feel like she’s just some add on to her other friends, either. The daughter of Zeus just kind of gets her, in a way Annabeth couldn’t, in a way Percy couldn’t. They’re so similar it’s nearly uncanny. Both of them are daughters of the Big Three, both of them are Annabeth’s best friends, both of them have contentious family relationships. 

“Tell me of her,” Hermes says, his long frame gleaming in the sunlight; golden blood illuminated from the inside out. He stares at her with an intensity that makes her shiver, despite the heat. “My half-sister. Thalia Grace. I heard you partnered with her for capture the flag.”

“My cabin obliterated yours, Hermes,” She responds, her feet dangling in the canoe lake, the cool water replenishing in the bright July heat. Of course it had–Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, and Hepheastus had done numbers against the remaining cabins, even if she, Thalia, and Percy only amounted to a very small number of people. They’d wiped the floor with every other cabin–between the brains of Athena and Hepheastus, the size of Apollo, and the brute strength of Zeus and Poseidon, everyone had gone into it knowing who would win. And Thalia had enjoyed it–she fought like a demon, on the same level as Percy or Luke, almost otherworldly with the grace with she wielded her spear.

Hermes rolls his eyes, “I know ,” he laments. “Truly, it’s been a horror. My father has been gloating throughout Olympus.”

“Is Zeus happy?” Andy asks. She says his name, and the sky does not rumble angrily in response; the first time she’d ever not angered the King of the Gods with her mere existence. She supposes it is difficult to protest her father’s actions when Zeus’ own forbidden child roamed the camp again. 

“Careful, Andromeda,” Hermes warns, though it’s light. “Names–”

“Have power. I haven’t forgotten,” She says, belligerent. “But how angry can he be with me–it was my quest that revived his daughter.”

“My father is still finicky,” Hermes says, looking up at the sky apprehensively, like he was waiting for the lightning strike. You will taste this bolt, Zeus had warned, once, and she had believed him, had not yet forgotten the electric thrill of fear that had ridden up her spine. “Tread lightly.”

“Is he happy?” Andy corrects, unwilling to argue when she knew he was right. “With Thalia back?”

“He loves her,” Hermes murmurs, considering. “So he is happy she is returned. My stepmother, however…things have grown more complicated than they previously were, as they tend to do when my father strays.”

Andy cannot imagine being Hera. Being the wife of a God, an Olympian, a King of them; to be Queen and to be sidelined simultaneously, villainized for reacting and yet unable to punish her husband, the perpetrator of everything wrong in their marriage. And to be goddess of marriage, unable to defy the sanctity of her own, unable to betray her very nature, chained to a husband who betrayed her with every breath. Marriage was supposed to be a sacred thing, and yet Zeus defiled it all the same. Hera’s life seemed to be a miserable one. 

“I’d be pissed if I were her,” She mutters. “Defiling her name and her domain, and the sanctity of their vows; elated that the child he has with another woman is running amuck. Godly marriage seems like such a farce.”

Hermes stares at hers, something inscrutable in his eyes. “Some of them,” he admits, breathily, turning his head to stare down at his legs. “And how is Thalia? I’ve heard you’ve made good on your promise to befriend her. Please tell me she won’t betray the gods.”

“You gods have done little to earn Thalia’s loyalty,” She declares, stretching a hand out and letting the lake water crawl up her arm, turning to a ball in her hand, to spin and fiddle with instead of staring Hermes in the eyes as she declared the failings of Olympus. “She makes that pretty clear.”

“As do you,” Hermes murmurs. He reaches for her hand and she lets him take it, enveloping her own, smothering it. It’s a display of support; of friendship, she knows, and yet she wants to curl closer, against his side, drink in his scent and the comfort she knew it would evoke. “And here you remain.”

“And here I remain,” Andy echoes. Something twists in her gut; that same complicated feeling that always returned when they spoke of gods. Because she cannot forgive everything that demigods–that she, her friends, her brother–have suffered at the hands of Olympians and their callousness, their greed. She cannot ever, truly, forgive her father. But Hermes–who was the ruin of many, she knew, and she ignored–was her closest companion, had become a camp leader just to try and repair what had long been broke. Poseidon had saved her life, had offered to save her again. Zeus loved his daughter. She did not know them all–the gods–but she understood that the half-bloods and their parents would always be complicated. That Olympians were divine and monstrous and parents and siblings and lovers and benevolent, when the mood struck. And she would not forsake Olympus for slights against herself, not when she had stared the alternative in the face, had nearly died to it twice-over. “Here I stay.”

“And Thalia?” Hermes prods, gently tracing circles with his thumb. The lake around them is peaceful, not a single ripple on it’s surface. She prefers it to the sea, from time to time, still bound to her will but never attuned to her emotions, never something else she must reign in. She lets her ball of water return to the lake, watches as the ripples spread outward. 

“Luke abandoned Annabeth,” she says, simply. “Thalia will never forgive that.”

“Is this a guess, or…”

“Thalia said they promised to protect her. Thalia says she’ll never forgive him,” Andy confirms. 

“Are you sure ?” Hermes asks, and it isn’t as if he sounds mistrustful of her, but instead paranoid. Andy can understand; who wouldn’t be, after Luke Castellan? 

But Andy knows Thalia. Feels rampantly similar to her; a parallel line, a mirror reflection. And Andy knows herself well enough to know Thalia would not betray the gods–to know she would never forgive Luke’s betrayal enough to even consider it. “I know Thalia,” She says. “I know she would not betray us.” 

Something flickers in Hermes’ eyes, an indistinguishable emotion he cannot quite suppress. His thumb stills on her hand, but his grip tightens all the same–on the verge of something almost painful. She almost likes it–imagines that if he gripped her like this forever, none could come close to tearing them apart. “I trust you,” he admits, almost like it burns him to say so. 

“Then you should trust Thalia, too,” Andy says. 

“Alright, sweet Andromeda,” Hermes relents. A familiar heat rises to her face, a tugging in her chest. She wants to curl up inside his ribcage, suck the air from his lungs, cradle the beat of his heart in her hands, eat only the muscle that composed him and drink only the golden blood in his veins, and even then she imagines she will not be close enough, imagines that it still will not be enough.

The feeling has become too familiar, she knows. Andy’s become complacent in her desire to revel in his companionship. She removes her hand from his, stands, and brushes dust off her shorts. “I should return to camp,” she says. I never wish to part from your side, she thinks.

“Someone will notice I’m gone. I have enough attention.”

With her luck, the camp is already ablaze with rumors of her consorting with an Olympian, and the campers will finally look somewhere other than Thalia. She imagines Thalia would enjoy that, at least, and imagines also that Percy would huff, indignant, and tell her once again that Hermes was bad news, as he often did these days. 

“Go,” Hermes urges. He stares, unseeing, to the lake. Andy wonders what he is considering, but she thinks if she remains to ask him she will not ever leave him. She wonders if he would allow her that. “I will see you soon.”

She hums in response and turns, heading back to her cabin. 

“Chiron’s sending me to boarding school,” Thalia tells her, later. She notches arrows in the archery range–she’s a decent shot, and enjoys practicing. Andy, who cannot hit the target from five feet back, sprawls languidly in the grass beside her. If another came by, she might pretend to practice. Thalia requires no such performance. “I don’t have relatives to stay with, after all.”

Something in Andy’s heart pinches at the idea of it–of not seeing Thalia Grace until the next year. “You could always stay with me. Go back to camp on the weekends.”

“Funny,” Thalia says. “Annabeth’s coming with me, y’know. I was going to ask you to do the same.”

Andy lets the response slip from her lips, feeling easier than any decision she’s made in years. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I’ll come with.” 

Thalia pivots just to grin at her. “Excellent,” she says. “You can be my roommate.”

Chapter Text

T halia grows close with them all, over the summer, she and those people who’d circled her bedside; Annabeth, Percy, Andy, and Grover. 

Boarding school is something Annabeth convinces them to do; enamored with the idea of the mortal world and with a noticeable lack of responsible guardians. 

And it’s those two things; the closeness they have and the uninteresting nature of school that kick starts whatever relationship they have. 

Spin the bottle at an all-girls school is only really done out of sheer boredom and a festering curiosity—both of the way kisses feel and the way girls do—and Thalia has boredom and curiosity in spades, these days. 

She’s also got some sort of anti-authority complex, according to Annabeth, at least, and finds a thrill in the way they aren’t allowed to be gathered in Becca Smith and Jesse Chamberlain’s room after curfew; especially not to play spin the bottle. 

Annabeth dips out, shuddering at the idea of kissing Thalia or Andy, and Thalia understands that because she doesn’t want to kiss Annabeth, either. But Andy follows, every bit as bored as Thalia. She thinks of kissing her, Andy, and she finds the image doesn’t totally repulse her, not like the image of kissing Annabeth had done.

In fact, it kind of draws her in, locking her in place a few seats away from Andy, even as she spots Erika Brane, one of Thalia’s many new arch nemeses. 

Spin the bottle is not as exciting as Thalia hoped, at first, especially when she has to kiss Erika twice. But the pace picks up when she kisses the particularly pretty Becca Smith. 

It lands on Andy soon after, though, and Thalia would look back on it later and know that it was that precise moment—with Andy’s nervous little smile, her permissive nod, the way her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, the way she pushed ebony curls away from her face—that began her years long heartbreak. 

It hadn’t felt like it at the moment—soft lips on her own, prodding and curious and overwhelming gentle. It’s not Thalia’s first kiss—even if that night had been the first time she’d ever been kissed, thanks to the game Andy still wouldn’t have been it—nor is it the best. But it’s Andy, and for that Thalia will always say it was different. Their kiss ends quickly enough during the game and soon Caty, the girl to Thalia’s right, spins the bottle, and they’re off again. 

Kissing Andy during that game is a one-off thing, and Thalia returns to endless rounds of kissing Becca and Erika and Caty and April and Alana and Tifanee and Stephanie—none of whom kissed the way Andy had. And every time she locks lips with another girl, she can feel sea green eyes on her—not boring into her, but studying her in some way. 

That night, as they lay in bed, she speaks, clearing the air now that they’re safe in their room. “I’m sorry if that was, like, awkward or anything.” She says. 

She hears the bed creak as Andy rolls to face her, brushing coils of hair out of her face and adjusting the neckline of her sleep shirt. “Was it awkward? For you?” It’s tentative, gentle, as if she expects Thalia to say something opposite to what she’s feeling. 

“…no,” Thalia says, just as carefully. “No. It wasn’t. But I was just saying that we’re friends. And friends don’t usually…” she doesn’t say it, but it permeates the air around them anyways. 

Andy stares at her, unblinkingly. She’s so pretty in the dim moonlight that Thalia thinks it’s almost inhumane, alien. “We can be a little different.” 

Thalia wants to think it’s an invitation to lean in and kiss Andy’s soft lips again. She finds it appealing. “Yeah,” she says, “I guess we can be.” 

They don’t kiss again that night, and in the morning when they meet Annabeth in the dining hall they act like nothing’s happened. But that night, Andy leans in to help Thalia conjugate a Spanish verb—Thalia finds learning a language this late in her development pointless and irritating, but a part of that is her hatred for school and authority in general—and her hair brushes over Thalia shoulder, and Thalia’s hand reaches out to brush it back. She gets caught somewhere within Andy’s steady gaze; those sea green eyes just as paralyzing as they had been since she’d first awoken. She leans in as if sucked into her gravity but Andy’s the one who connects them. 

They kiss like a couple of hormone-filled teenagers indulging in their first make out—because that’s what they are. Sloppily and nervously, with open mouths and searching tongues, sitting next to each other with Thalia’s hands intertwining themselves with Andy’s own. It’s nothing to press into her memory forever—or at least it wouldn’t be if it hadn’t been Andy kissing her. 

They pull back, after a solid thirty seconds, and Andy’s face wrinkles a bit the way it always does when she thinks especially hard. Thalia’s not sure she likes being considered the same way Andy considers a math problem, but then she smiles and says, “I think we could work with this.” 

Thalia laughs, “You’re so odd.” 

But she doesn’t mind. She never minds, not with Andy Jackson. 

They pull back and keep acting like nothing happened at all—and perhaps nothing does. There’s no noticeable shift in their friendship, they just experiment behind closed doors with kisses that go from exploratory to demanding and from intriguing to pleasurable, stirring a spark of something in Thalia’s stomach. 

Perhaps nothing truly does, but Thalia’s well aware of some sort of conversation Andy and Annabeth had at the beginning of the year, when she and Andy had been paired together in a room. Perhaps nothing changes outside of closed doors out of respect for Annabeth. 

Perhaps everything shifts, because behind closed doors Thalia and Andy have started to fall asleep together, too, pressed together, intertwined on top of Thalia’s twin sized mattress. She sleeps better with Andy, finding a sense of safety and recouping the physical affection she’d missed in her seven years of being a tree. 

They almost get caught once, the Dean bursting in late at night. She shrieks, “Thalia! Andy! What the hell are you two doing?” 

If she wasn’t always shrieking, Thalia would’ve been concerned about what other girls would say in the morning. 

Thalia’s panicked anyways, though, concerned that they’ll reassign their room, and she knows whatever this is only happens behind the solid door of their room. 

She didn’t need to if she’s being honest. She has the Mist, but she doesn’t even need that. She has Andy. 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Drew,” Andy says, and Thalia’s honestly scared of how perfectly her lip wobbles. “It’s just—it’s just that I missed my mom, and Thalia was comforting me. I guess we must have fallen asleep.” She sounds perfectly innocent, eyes wide and doe like, fluttering lashes attesting to her innocence. Thalia thought there might be a couple of tears welling in her eyes. 

Homesickness is an epidemic in boarding schools, and Andy plays the part well. 

The Dean sighs. “Get back in your own bed, Ms. Jackson.” 

Andy does so, gingerly moving back to her own bed. She stays there for the next week, even though the Dean stops coming around about two days later, before slipping back into Thalia’s bed. 

Thalia’s glad for that. She sleeps better when she’s pressed up against Andy, so entangled that she couldn’t tell where she ended and Andy began. Thalia’s restless without her. 

Bored and curious teenagers move past just sloppy kissing. Thalia starts trailing kisses down Andy’s neck, always hovering at the hem of her nightshirts. One night, warm fingers press against Thalia’s bare stomach. 

Andy pulls away, panting, pupils dilated, one hand gripping Thalia's face. The sight of it just makes that tingle in her stomach more blatant, more insistent that something happen. “Can I?” Andy asks, breathless. 

Thalia nods, embarrassed by the way her voice shakes, but she’s uncomfortably warm with a desire she can’t quite quantify “Please.” 

There’s that warmth again, creeping more intensely as their lips lock again and Andy’s hand trails up her shirt and into her bra, cupping her breast, turning the sparkling warmth into a roaring flame. 

She pants, pulling back, the sensation of it all overwhelming—no one had ever touched her so reverently, romantically or platonically or in that place in between where she and Andy sat—only for Andy’s free hand to tangle in her hair and her mouth to move down her throat. She catches her breath when Andy’s knees dig into the side of her hips and loses it all again when her thighs clamp Thalia’s together, providing delicious friction to the spot in between her legs, letting out a breathy gasp. 

She wondered if this could bring her what she so desperately needed; Andy’s thighs clamped around her own, her hand massaging a breast, and her mouth trailing fiery kisses down her throat. “Andy,” Thalia mumbles, unsure what to say but unable to stay silent. “Gods…you…” 

Andy withdraws, and Thalia’s struck at how pretty she looks with spit swollen lips and messy hair; a golden goddess looking down at her from above. Thalia moves up to kiss her again, hands sliding to her hips, guiding her to move atop her. Both of them are young and inexperienced and unable to truly imagine what the next step looks like, and all they’re able to bring themselves to do is grind against each other. And yet despite having to take a cold shower when she finally pulls back for the final time—eliciting a whine from Andy that will haunt Thalia for eternity—she’d never felt more satisfied. 

And when they’ve both returned from their showers (Thalia will forever be envious that Andy can just magically dry her hair) and when Andy’s crawled into Thalia’s bed and Thalia has thrown an arm around her middle and begun to admire her: shimmering in the pale moonlight, when she says it. “Andy?” 

“Hmmm?” 

“I think you’re my best friend.” She says. It’s true: Percy and Grover are her friends, Annabeth is her sister…Andy is no sister. And even when she was with Luke she’d never felt so in sync, so fond of him. Holding her fills her heart to the brim with an emotion foreign; some love that falls somewhere between platonic and romantic; something almost symbiotic. 

Andy’s silent for a moment. “Yeah,” she says. She sounds content—Thalia likes her happiness, thinks it looks good on her, knows it’s what she deserves to feel. “You’re one of mine, too.” 

It’s not uncommon for the three of them: Annabeth, Thalia, and Andy, to sneak out on occasion. They’re teenage demigoddesses who can utilize the mist. The three of them tend to sneak out every Thursday night—they’ve made a habit of it, to sneak into the city. Thalia likes it, the hustle and bustle and anonymity of the city; the way she wasn’t Thalia, the troublemaker, or Thalia, daughter of Zeus, there but instead just another faceless and nameless teenage girl. 

But Annabeth’s sick and has told them in no uncertain terms to, “Leave me alone, please.” 

“We’ll have to make do with just the two of us, then,” Andy says, smirking. She is good at smirking, Thalia thinks, good at perching herself atop Thalia and smiling down as if she was some sort of deity, something to be worshiped. She phrases her agreement by running her hands up Andy’s sides, pressing kisses to her neck, to the bottom of her chin. You’re so beautiful, she whispers in the dead of night, when the light strikes her in that enchanting way. Andy smirks in response, arrogant and holy. I know . 

“That’s alright,” Thalia says. “I’ll enjoy not being dragged to a thousand museums and crusty old monuments.” 

She doesn’t let herself think too hard about what it meant to be out there, the two of them, outside of their dorm room where the kissing happened, without the shield of normalcy of Annabeth and the effort it took to act like Andy didn’t make her veins sing with electricity and desire.

Would it be like it had been? Thalia didn’t know. Did she want it to be? She didn’t know that either. 

A snap of Thalia’s fingers and a trick of the mist has them approved to go off campus, and then they’re out of the gates of the school. If Annabeth had been in tow they’d have called a taxi—her guilty father sent her a hefty allowance—but Thalia goes off of camp allowances and Andy’s mother isn’t driven by guilt.

“We don’t need a taxi,” Andy says. It’s late October—definitely sweater weather, especially in New York, and Andy’s almost adorable with her flushed cheeks and her size-too-big cardigan. She’s so put off by it that she almost misses Andy’s words entirely. 

“This place is on the outskirts of the city,” Thalia says. “How do you suggest we get anywhere halfway fun?”

“I’ll call for a ride,” Andy says simply. 

“Andy, we don’t have phones.” 

“That’s alright,” she says nonchalantly. She sticks her right hand in the pocket of her cardigan. “My left hand is freezing. ” 

Thalia rolls her eyes, but sticks her hand into Andy’s–noticeably quite warm –hand. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You sound just like Annabeth right now,” Andy says. “I thought she was staying behind today.”

“All the sarcasm, and yet no ride,” Thalia says. “What’s your great plan, oh-great-and-powerful daughter of Poseidon?”

Andy shoots her a smug little grin, like she knows something Thalia doesn’t, and Thalia could swear the breath gets knocked out of her lungs. Her heart pangs with a deep ache she doesn’t truly understand “Just you wait,” she murmurs.

Thalia enjoys challenging gods, but this one is so heavenly she wants nothing more to obey, to drop to her knees, damn the cold bite of the ground, the gravel digging into her knees. Why should she care of that when an angel spoke before her?

Apparently, the high-and-mighty daughter of Poseidon’s grand plan is to summon her pegasi, Blackjack. Thalia’s terrified of heights, always has been, but she can’t say no to Andy, and she feels deceptively safe, clinging onto the curve of the other girl’s waist. 

“I won’t let you fall,” Andy says, under her breath, looking up at her through long lashes. “I’d never let you fall.”

Thalia doesn’t ask how she’d known. She’d long since accepted that Andy was odd. Instead, she digs her chin into the sinewy muscle of the smaller girl’s shoulder, lets ebony curls tickle her nostrils, and whispers that she better not . 

She can almost feel Andy’s returning smile. And she certainly can feel the calming, featherlight circles the younger girl traces into Thalia’s thigh. When they do land, the flight almost seems over too soon. 

Andy slips down first, a graceful spring, landing lightly on her toes. She spins around and holds her hand out with a bright grin. “M’Lady,” she says. 

Thalia rolls her eyes and takes her hand, and she’s scared of even this height but it’s easy to ignore when her hand is warm and she’s not looking at the ground, but instead at Andy Jackson and those fucking green eyes. She slips down, easy. “You’re ridiculous, y’know,” Thalia informs her, as Andy winds their hands back together. 

“You love it,” Andy counters, smiling widely and pulling up their clasped hands to press a kiss to the back of Thalia’s. She stares at her with those damned eyes while she does; so knowing that it’s infuriating and intoxicating all at once. Thalia’s heart thrums in response, quick and light, full and heavy. She feels like a live wire, thrumming with electricity at the places where Andy presses her lips to. 

She catches the words on her tongue before they can twist out: I do. I love you, and swallows them instead, turning her head abruptly before she was lured further into the green of Andy’s eyes. She’s more right than she realizes, Thalia thinks, because in these few short months Andy Jackson has become everything to her. Has consumed her; fully, truly. She does love her, had slipped into it, easy as breathing, without meaning to, and now it is here and she swallows down declarations of it because this dynamic between them now was a golden bubble and she could not survive it if it were to pop. 

“What are we doing today, Ands?” She asks, careful not to say something she couldn’t quite take back. 

Thalia glances back at her friend just in time for Andy to grin, eyes sparkling. “I thought I’d finally take you home,” the younger girl declares. “It’s about time, I think.”

I’d finally take you home, Andy says, and Thalia…Thalia wants that. Wants to visit Andy’s home, to see what she was when she wasn’t a demigod warrior or a troubled student. Wants to see the woman who’d borne the beautiful girl next to her. Wants to imagine herself, fitting in Andy Jackson’s home, in Andy Jackson’s heart. Maybe she just wants to be in Andy Jackson, to crawl inside her ribcage and make a home for herself, hold her beating heart between her teeth. She’d be gentle, she imagines. She wouldn’t leave a single dent.

“That sounds, uh,” Thalia clears her throat, words and emotions lodged in it. “Sounds cool. Been a while since I’ve seen Percy. I should humble the little fuck.”

Andy laughs, the sounds golden and chiming in the winter air. “It’s been so long since he’s seen any of us, his head has probably grown three sizes,” she agrees. “You’re the only one who can match him in a spar, please challenge him to one.”

“I will,” Thalia promises, squeezing Andy’s hand, because she can’t deny the younger girl anything. She’d offer up her own lungs, carve them out of her chest and hand them to her on a silver platter, do it all with a bright smile. 

The Jackson’s apartment is nice–exactly what Thalia had expected, if she was honest. We used to not have much, money-wise, Andy had explained, in this dead-pan tone Thalia had begun to associate with Andy trying to explain anything painful–or more likely, trying to skip over anything painful, but then my Mom used Medusa’s head to freeze my dick of a stepfather, and she sold his statue for like, a fuck-ton of money. She goes to college now, and writes books. It’s pretty cool. It wasn’t some pretentious penthouse or a brownstone handed down throughout generations, but it was definitely a more upscale establishment; three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom, a rather spacious kitchen with an island that separated it from the living room, and a decent view of the other apartments around them. The design was sleek and modern; and the Jackson’s had chosen blue as their theme color. The furniture was blue, the rugs were blue, and there was even a blue accent wall that held up the living room TV. 

Ms. Jackson’s eyes have the same joyful gleam as her daughter’s as she spots them from her space. “Andy,” she says, lovingly, “You’re finally home.” 

Mother and daughter embrace, tightly, Sally Jackson’s hands stroking over her daughter’s hair, her face, her hands, as if Andy would fade away the moment she took her hands off. “Hi Mama,” the girl says, vaguely emotional, sadness and joy braided together into some new, bittersweet emotion. “Oh, this is Thalia,” Andy introduces, waving a hand vaguely in Thalia’s direction. “Thalia, this is my Mom.”

Sally Jackson’s eyes gleam with something like recognition as she surveys Thalia. “Thalia Grace,” she says, warmly. “I’ve heard your name before–my son’s mentioned you a few times.” Thalia gets the feeling Sally had known of her long before her son had returned for the school year. She recognized her, in some strange way. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Jackson,” Thalia says, suddenly almost self-conscious. It isn’t as if Andy’s mom was super dressed up, but she was beautiful, enchanting, in a straightforward way and Thalia just wasn’t pretty in that way. She feels out of place, with her choppy hair and beaten jacket, next to the ethereal women around her; almost uncomfortable, skin stretching and crawling. 

“You seem just as lovely as my daughter has described,” Sally Jackson declares, delighted. “Call me Sally, my dear, it’s more natural.”

“Alright,” Thalia says, knowing she probably won’t. It isn’t that Ms. Jackson isn’t warm, or inventing, but instead that Thalia feels out of place in their home. Cool and harsh to their warm and golden. 

“Where’s Percy?” Andy interrupts, boisterously. She looks younger here, Thalia notes, in her mother’s kitchen. She’s almost envious. Her own mother had died not long after Thalia had run away, but even before, she had never felt young in Beryl Grace’s presence. She’d felt more adult than she ever had, taking care of her mother from the moment she was cognizant enough to realize she had to. And then taking care of Jason. Strangely, she’d felt younger when it had been her, Luke, and Annabeth on the run. Maybe that had been because she’d been just a little younger than Luke—and so therefore he’d taken a type of responsibility for them both. Thalia isn’t sure. But she knows she’s jealous of Andy Jackson and her perfect family, especially as Percy comes around the corner. 

“Ands,” Percy greets, brightly, stretching as if he’d just awoken from a long nap. “You brought Thalia. Where’s Annabeth?” 

The twins high-five, and Andy shrugs. “Sick. Nasty stomach bug.”

“Oh, the poor girl,” Sally Jackson murmurs. “Can we send her home some things with you, Ands? Soup, maybe? Crackers and gatorade? Medicine?” 

“She’s nearly at the end of it, Mom,” Andy assures. “Maybe some crackers and gatorade, but don’t go through all the trouble of soup.” 

Sally Jackson’s eyebrows crinkle. “If you say so,” she says, still worried. “But you let me know if she gets any worse. I’ll be up there in an instant. Oh, and tell her we all hope she gets better soon.” 

“I will,” Andy says, sliding into a barstool at the island. “Thanks Mom.” 

“No problem, dear,” Sally says. “Now, what’s brought my favorite daughter home on a thursday evening—not any sort of emergency, I hope?” 

Andy has, what Thalia would deem, the complete and total opposite of a poker face when it comes to her mother. She looks preemptively guilty, and Percy barks out a laugh. 

“You snuck out, didn’t you?” Percy asks, snickering in the background. 

Thalia hadn’t known it was at all possible, but Andy looks even more guilty. 

“ Andy! ” Sally Jackson scolds. “I don’t want a call about you being missing! And I don’t want you getting poor Thalia into trouble, either.” 

“Mama, you won’t get a call,” Andy protests. “We did a thing . Besides, Thalia and I get into equal amounts of trouble—so I’m not the bad influence.” 

“A thing ?” Sally Jackson’s eyebrows raise. “I don’t want a call from the police, either, Andy.” 

“It was, uh, a trick of the mist, Ms. Jackson,” Thalia intercedes. “Harmless, but they think we’re allowed out.” 

Sally Jackson exhales–exasperated, Thalia thinks, but not disappointed. “Alright, then, my little trouble-maker,” She says, reaching out a hand to ruffle her daughter’s hair. “What would you two like for dinner? And Thalia— please call me Sally.” 

“Alright, Sally,” Thalia says. It still tastes awkward in her mouth, but she finds herself more comfortable, watching Sally gently scold Andy, like she could fit in here, blend perfectly into the background. 

“Spaghetti,” Andy says, decisive. “And cookies. Please .” 

Sally laughs like her daughter; gentle, warm, divine. “Boarding school can’t get rid of that sweet tooth, can it?” 

Andy smiles sheepishly. “No,” she admits. “I’m stuck with it.” 

“It’s ok, Andy,” Percy says, rubbing his stomach. “It must be genetic.”

“I’d say so,” Thalia interjects, slipping back into the playful teasing of the previous summer with surprising ease, given the change of scenery. “You two are going to like…overload your systems someday.” 

“I’m half-god,” Percy says, with faux arrogance. “I can’t be overloaded.” 

“Your ego is certainly overloaded,” Thalia shoots back, lightning fast. 

“As if yours isn’t twice the size of mine.” 

“Gods, the two of you are so overdue for a duel,” Andy declares, snickering in the corner. “Maybe before dinner?” 

“After dinner would give me too much of an advantage,” Thalia agrees, side-eyeing Percy. “He’d have to roll away from any attack.”

Sally Jackson makes an aborted choking sound. 

“Mom!” Percy protests, betrayal painted all over his face. Andy reaches out to sympathetically pat his shoulder. 

“I always knew you were the least favorite,” she declares. “Mom would never laugh at me.” 

“I love you both equally, ” Sally says, trying to sound stern but failing to squash the smile in her voice. “My favorite son and my favorite daughter.” 

“You don’t have any other kids,” Andy complains. 

“Exactly,” Sally says, nodding like it was a matter of utmost importance and not a squabble between the twins. “Now, I’m going to get started on dinner. If you three want, you can go duel. But do it outside . My favorite children tend to do a lot of breaking of my favorite china.” 

So they do—Percy and Andy lead her to a local park, the three of them falling into an overly familiar round of playful teasing and bickering. Andy bows out immediately. “The two of you would wipe the floor with me and you know it,” she says, wrinkling her nose. She’s right, Thalia knows. Andy isn’t half-bad with her sword. In fact, she’s above average. But she and Percy are in a different class—the sort of class Andy’s in with that divine power of hers. 

“How will you ever get any better if you don’t practice?” Percy says. He’s teasing—these rounds are nothing but play. 

Andy smiles with her teeth anyways. Beautiful, Thalia thinks, especially so in the dimming sunlight. “If you’d like to introduce a bottle of water to the fight, sure.” 

Percy openly balks. “No,” he says. “I’m good.” 

“Get to it, then.” Andy directs, nodding in Thalia’s direction. 

Percy wins the first round, only barely. Manages, somehow, to push his sword into that range of motion where Thalia’s spear is at a significant disadvantage, and then does this strange twisting motion with the flat of his sword and her spear twists out of her hand. 

“Two out of three?” Thalia offers, panting. Percy grins. 

She wins the second round by the skin of her teeth, having learned this time to keep Percy from getting in close. With her spear in optimal proximinity, she manages to somehow get it pointed at his throat and have him drop his sword. 

The third one is the most intense—which is brutal, Thalia notes, because they’d both already been out of breath. Percy wins, a hard-won thing that truly could’ve gone either way. They’re both panting and covered in a thin sheen of sweat by the end of it, even in the chilly air.

Percy gloats, and Andy rolls her eyes in secret on the way back, like can you believe the ego of this fellow, and Thalia nods like she wouldn’t have responded the same way if the fight had gone the other way. 

Percy Jackson, Thalia notes, is probably the greatest swordsman of his age. Except maybe Luke—a thought that pangs in her chest. She did her best not to think about Luke most of the time. Harder to conceptualize the depth of someone’s betrayal if you didn’t think about it, she supposed. 

They trail behind Percy on the way back, and despite their unspoken rule, Andy twines her pinky finger with Thalia’s own. Despite the biting chill that quickly breaks through whatever sweat she’d earned, she feels warm the whole way back. 

They have dinner–and Sally manages to turn spaghetti into one of the most delicious meals she’d ever had in her life–and they play a board game all together until they sky turns black and Andy starts muffling yawns and leaning into her mother’s side. “You should get back,” Sally says, gently stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’ll pack you two up some things to take to Annabeth.”

They leave with a bag full of crackers and gatorade and a container of soup–despite Andy’s protests that it was too much . And then Andy whistles for Blackjack again, and they hop back on the pegasus and make their way back to school. 

“Sorry if that wasn’t as fun as some of our exploring is,” Andy says, gentle in the moonlight. She sounds truly apologetic; as if the night hadn’t been one of the best Thalia had ever had. As of her chest had not panged with painful desire to fit in with their family, to make herself into a home. She could’ve stayed there forever. 

“No, don’t apologize,” Thalia murmurs, into the heat of her neck. “I had…I had a lot of fun. Your mom is so cool.”

And she was . Sally Jackson is quite possibly one of the coolest people Thalia had ever met. She’s jealous of her, actually, trying very hard not to compare and contrast how different their childhoods must have been. How different their mothers were–how Beryl Grace would’ve rather died than show Thalia half of the affection Sally Jackson had for her daughter. 

Sally Jackson would’ve never given Jason up, she knows, would’ve found a way to challenge the gods themselves before she allowed such a thing. And she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to put herself in such a situation where that might’ve been a possibility, either. 

“She is,” Andy agrees. “She’s the coolest person I know.”

Andy is more human that night, curled into Thalia’s side. No less beautiful; because no revelation could rob her of that. But less untouchable. Thalia throws an arm over Andy’s waist, lets her fingers dance along the smaller girl’s ribcage, reverent, feeling the inhale and exhale as she took each steady breath. 

“Did I ever tell you I had a brother once?” Thalia asks, the words pouring from her, unstoppable, gentle despite the intensity of the feelings behind them. I had a brother . She isn’t quite sure if she says it because she’s just tired and therefore loose-lipped, if being here with Andy every night make her more trusting, or if seeing Andy with her own brother, her own mother, had cracked something irreplaceable inside her chest. Something she couldn’t get back.

“No,” Andy says, and Thalia can tell from the pitch of her voice that she’s taken off guard, and yet trying so hard not to react in any off-putting manner. “No,” she says again, and this time it is calm and gentle and soothing, as Andy always tries to remain. “I didn’t know that.”

Thalia nods into the crook of Andy’s neck. “Yeah,” she murmurs, gentle. “Can I tell you about him?”

“You can tell me anything, Thals,” Andy swears, tilting her head back to look at her with those intense eyes–green as the sea, glittering in the near-darkness. One of her hands finds one of Thalia’s on her waist, and her fingers trace gentle circles on her hand. “Of course you can tell me anything.”

“His name was…uh…Jason,” Thalia says. “He was born when I was seven, almost eight, I think. A son of Zeus,” She feels Andy go ramrod straight against her, but she doesn’t interject, and so Thalia continues. “My mother–well, she was an actress. Safe to say she enjoyed attention. And attention from the King of the Gods, that was…that was everything to her. After me, he left. Like all the gods do. But, when I was around six, he came back. And everything was…” 

Thalia doesn’t know how to phrase it. Not good, because it didn’t solve the way Beryl Grace needed someone to take care of her, or how she’d never loved Thalia, never cared for Thalia, just enjoyed the attention from Zeus and the trophy that came of it–a prize, a daughter born of herself and the King of the Gods. But better, because Beryl was kinder when Zeus was around to temper her fury, and Zeus took care of Beryl so Thalia didn’t have to, wasn’t forced to. And he was kind to her–so Thalia’s life was orderly, during that short year. 

“Everything was orderly,” Thalia says, and her voice feels thick in her throat, thinking of that year and the time when she’d had a brother. “He helped my mother. It was kinda weird to have a father figure, but he kinda just fit in. And he was kind to me, even if he was just there for my mother. He never told me he loved me, but I always liked to imagine he might have. But he left, of course, the moment Jason was born. My mother…well, she went kinda crazy. To have that type of attention, from the King of the Gods, and to lose it not once but twice? I think she tried just about every drug under the sun. But I was ok, because I wasn’t just taking care of her. I got Jason. I love–I loved Jason. I swear, I would’ve killed for that kid. He’d be a just a little younger than you now, which is, like, a weird concept. But I loved him.”

And she had loved him; hot and bright, would’ve done anything for that kid, would’ve fought the gods, would’ve slain Hera herself if she had the chance. That perfect baby, babbling in her ears, the little toddler whose first words were Sissy and Thals (to Beryl’s vehement disapproval), who’d tried to eat a stapler, for the gods’ sake. Gods, Thalia still loved him, even now. One of the few bright spots in her miserably short life. 

“He tried to eat everything, which was weird,” Thalia says, and she sounds raspy, like she’s been crying. She notices, dimly, that her cheeks are wet. “Once, I caught him trying to get into dog food. And then, later that week, he gave himself a scar trying to eat a stapler. He liked cartoons, but he was scared to death of Dora, for some reason. I’m pretty sure his favorite color was red. And I swear, getting him to eat a vegetable was excruciatingly difficult–I mean, the kid wanted dog food but carrots crossed the line. He was a pain, but gods, Ands, I fucking loved that kid.”

“I bet so,” Andy murmurs, gentle into the night. She presses a gentle kiss to Thalia’s hand, then lets it settle back upon her stomach. “I’m certain he loved you too.”

“He would’ve grown up so special, Ands,” Thalia says, and that grief she thought had left her system is still there, white-hot and persistent. There is no getting rid of him, she realizes, no way to ignore him. Jason Grace would always leave a hole too large to fill. “You would’ve loved him. Beth would’ve loved him. I think he would’ve changed the world.”

“Oh, Thals, ” Andy twists in her arms, moves to where Thalia’s still clinging to her, but her head is resting on Andy’s chest, the younger girl’s hand stroking through Thalia’s short hair and rubbing her back gently. Her eyes are very wet, Thalia notes with a start. She’s more of a mess than she’d imagined quite possible. “If you raised him, I know I would’ve loved him,” Andy murmurs, gentle, like she thinks Thalia’s some delicate flower who’d shatter at the slightest attention. “I know it.”

Thalia lets out some pathetic whimpery, hiccupy cry she can’t quite catch, and Andy hushes her, fingers gentle in the base of her hair. “M’sorry,” she manages. “Ands, I didn’t–”

“Shhh, it’s all right,” Andy murmurs, warmly. Her fingers are cool at the base of Thalia’s skull, prodding and massaging. “I’ve got you, Thalia, don’t worry.”

And she does have her; holds her, shuddering and trembling, until they cease, and even then clings to her like she’d shatter if Andy let go. And Thalia imagines a world in which this was their normal. She and Andy, together. They could make themselves a family–warm and inviting, just like the Jacksons had been–could raise children away from the chaos of the Greek world. And Thalia knew she’d be happy forever if she got to live with Andy at her side, if she got to crawl into bed with the slender girl and wrap around her. 

“You’re my best friend,” she admits, sleep weighing heavy on her bones. “I could make a life with you.”

Andy’s fingers freeze–momentarily–tangled in her hair, but they resume their comforting motions not long after. Andy’s lips press gently against her forehead, and that’s enough of a response for Thalia to let sleep consume her, crest against her and drag her off to the bowels of rest.

Chapter Text

O n the eve of Andy Jackson’s fourteenth birthday, Hermes makes his first visit to her brand-new boarding school. It’s only been a week, and he’s gone longer without her, but lately even a few days apart feels close to an eternity and he swears there is an itch under his skin, something only Andy could scratch. 

It’s easy to sneak around when you’ve got the gift of invisibility and the ability to teleport. 

Hermes is grateful for that, at least. He considers taking her to Olympus–he imagines it would be more impressive there–but people pay him such careful attention there, and they’d notice Andy Jackson, because of course they would; she was only half-god, and yet she shone brighter than any star, any divinity. Instead, they settle upon some shitty diner, the 24/7 kind with questionable patrons and greesy cheeseburgers. 

“I’ve missed you,” Andy says, when they’ve finally given their orders. She looks radiant, even in the dingy light, almost glowing from the inside. Her hair, gleaming softly, is braided into two twin braids–according to her, to keep it out of her face–and without her hair to envelop her face, he can clearly see the definition of her cheekbones and jawline. Perhaps the pajamas she wears look a little out of place, but if anyone looks at them it is less because of what she wears and more of how inordinately beautiful she is–an unearthly type of thing. And Hermes cares little for what she’s wearing anyways. He cares a lot more for how she’s looking at him, wide-eyed and affectionate, like he’s hung the stars, like she would like nothing more than to curl up beside him forever. 

“It has not been long,” he says, teasingly, despite how he felt every day apart from her to be a century. “You just can’t seem to get enough of me.”

Andy pouts, and Hermes wonders if he looks as adoring as he feels. “Are you saying you haven’t missed me?”

“Of course I missed you,” he relents. “I always do, yes?”

“I would hope so,” Andy grumbles. 

“I did,” Hermes laughs, “It’s nearly your birthday. 11:58.”

Andy’s fingers; thin and graceful, dance across the wooden table. “Two minutes,” she acknowledges. “I’ll be fourteen.”

“A big birthday, in Athens,” He muses. “You’d certainly be married, or approaching it rather quickly. And you would be considered a woman, at this point.”

Andy grimaces. “I can’t imagine being married ,” she says, like it’s some ridiculous concept and not something she’d nearly been dragged into a multitude of times. “Can you imagine it? Me, someone’s wife.”

Yes, he nearly says, nearly lets the words crawl, unbidden, from his throat. My wife. “No,” he says, instead, simply. “But you’re just turning fourteen, anyways.”

“Yeah,” Andy says, wrinkling her nose. “Weird.”

“Are you excited?” He questions, raising a brow. Fourteen sounded older than thirteen, he supposes, if only by a fraction. And it is infinitesimantly closer to sixteen–an age he dreads and longs for in equal measure. 

“I’ll probably go home in the morning,” Andy shrugs. “Haven’t ever spent a birthday apart from Percy, obviously. And I do miss my mom–plus, she said she’d make blue cake.”

“And of course, you could never resist a blue cake,” Hermes allows, light and teasing. “With that indomitable sweet tooth of yours.”

“Hey!” She protests, smiling widely. “It’s not that bad.”

“You ordered a milkshake,” he deadpans, “A large. With extra whipped cream, extra chocolate syrup, extra sprinkles, extra oreo crumbles, and two extra cherries. That’s the definition of a bad sweet tooth–especially because you had the gall to say all that in front of a waitress, who undoubtedly thought you were insane.”

“It’s about to be my birthday,” she argues. 

“I know,” he says, holding out his hand and letting a small white bag appear, dangling from his fingers and stuffed with tissue paper. “I’ve got your present right here.”

Andy grins, so wide he imagines it nearly splits her lovely face in two. “Really?” 

“For you,” he confirms, sliding the bag her way and watching with anticipation as she removed tissue paper and pulled out the small red box, then opened the lid of it. 

Her eyes soften as she looks at the contents of the box: twin bronze bands, each with a deep emerald gemstone set in the center of it. “It matches my hairpin,” she murmurs, gently pulling said hairpin from her hair—lining the items up in her palm as if to display it to them. 

“In more ways than one,” He confesses, plucking a ring from her palm. He twists the gemstone around, and watches as Andy’s eyes gleam when a celestial bronze dagger unsheaths itself. A simple thing; the only truly discernible feature was her name; Andromeda , etched on the hilt in Ancient Greek lettering. He tests the dagger in his palm—lighter, perhaps, than what it would be for him, but it would be comfortable for Andy. “Twist the hilt,” he instructs, handing her the dagger. “And it will return to your finger.” 

She does so, and then the band sits upon her pointer finger, innocuously gleaming in the dingy light. “They cannot be taken from you,” he says. “Only willingly given.” 

Andy’s eyes are misty when she looks at him again. “Thank you, Hermes,” she murmurs. “Truly.” 

He could kiss her, he imagines, could cup her cheek gingerly and lean in, pressing his lips softly against hers. She would let him. She would part her lips and let him in, let him taste salt and storm on her tongue. Her fingers would tangle in his hair, claw at his arms, brush gently against his cheek. He would grip her tightly at the waist, holding her against him, hoping to keep her there forever. Maybe then, he imagines, she would not be so averse to marriage. 

“Here you are,” the waitress interrupts, crumbling under the load of Andy’s order. “A cheeseburger, fries, and large chocolate milkshake with everything extra under the sun.” 

“Thank you,” Andy says, breaking her eyes away from his. 

“You sure you don’t want anything, hun?” The waitress questions, smiling at him kindly. “The chicken sandwich is my personal favorite.” 

He smiles, as polite as he can muster. “I’m alright,” he says. “You may go.” 

The moment is probably gone, he thinks fondly, watching as Andy took a massive bite of her grease soaked cheeseburger. Maybe he’d kiss her on her next birthday. 

“Can’t believe you didn’t want anything,” Andy says. “You’re making me look weird.” 

“I promise, your milkshake would make you look like an oddity in any situation,” Hermes mutters. 

“Don’t say that,” Andy grins, startlingly wide. “You’re making me self-conscious.” 

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he says dryly. He checks his watch again. 12:00. “Happy Birthday, Andromeda.”

With her birthday and new school comes a sharp transition. He doesn’t make a habit of visiting at night anymore. Andy shares a single room with Thalia Grace, and it’s easier to find her on the weekends, when she goes home to her mother, or during the afternoon, because she’s got a decently relaxed schedule and Hermes can snap his fingers and get her excused from class.

So he gets from her birthday in August until mid November before he finds occasion to enter her dorm again. And he thinks very hard about the majority of his life choices over the past year when he does, because Andy isn’t in her own bed. She’s curled up in Thalia Grace’s bed, the older girl’s arm slung around her waist, their legs intertwined under the covers, hands clasped. 

His first instinct is to grab Andy and pull her out of Thalia’s arms. He could take the older girl’s hands, for daring to touch his wife. Maybe her eyes—for getting to look at her in such a vulnerable state. Maybe he’d just flay her alive; like Apollo had done to Marsayas the Satyr. The image is satisfying, he notes, peeling the flesh from her, exposing muscle and vein and blood, white bone poking through. Marsayas had screamed, he knew. Thalia Grace would scream too. 

Andy would watch, he knew. She’d probably scream and cry and beg—because underneath all her father’s blood she was a softhearted girl, her mother’s daughter. But she had to know, she had to learn. She wasn’t Thalia’s, she wasn’t anyone’s but Hermes’ . And she would understand, he imagined, would forgive him once he explained the depths of Thalia’s crimes. And in turn, he would forgive her; a benevolent, gracious husband. 

And then she stirs. Her eyes open, slowly, and then widen, as if in shock. She hadn’t expected him to be here, to catch her like this. Vulnerable, sleepy, wrapped in another’s arms. She slips out of Thalia’s grip with sickening agility, like it has become something practiced, a routine she’s performed a hundred times. And Hermes can picture it—her learning how to maneuver out, for a midnight drink or a quick trip to the bathroom, without waking the girl who warmed her bed. It makes him queasy; makes his vision red and blurred. 

He should’ve married her the moment he first laid eyes on her, damn her youth, damn her father, damn it all. 

“Hermes,” Andy whispers, quiet to not wake Thalia Grace. “What are you doing here?” 

“I came to see you,” he manages, but there’s something lodged in his throat. 

Andy’s brows crinkle in concern. She steps towards him, hands out like she means to grab him or gentle a wild animal, and he must look positively feral, eyes wild and searching. “What’s wrong?” She questions, like she didn’t haunt his every step and crawl into bed with Thalia Grace at the end of the day. “ Hermes ?” 

“What are you…What are you doing with Thalia Grace ?” 

Andy cocks her head. “Distraction kinda night, hmm?” She steps forward and takes his hand, lacing thin fingers with his own. “Let’s go,” she whispers, conspiratorially, like they’re partners and she wasn’t just curled up next to Thalia Grace. 

There is punishment to give, he nearly protests, his nature warring with his desire to please her, but Andy smiles complacently up at him, sweet and gentle, and he cannot help but obey. 

He takes her to the same burger place he’d taken her on her birthday—lit up with the same bright, artificial lights. Andy chuckles, “You have a thing for burgers now or something?” 

“No,” he says, still far too stony. “But you do.” 

She smiles, and tries to unclasp his hand. Instinctively, he only clasps his fingers tighter, too tightly—she winces, and he softens the grip minutely. “Ok,” she says, softly, studying his face like she was searching for cracks in a stony veneer. She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth and Hermes fights the urge to ask her if Thalia Grace had ever made the same move. “Come on, then. Maybe you could use a burger.” 

He lets her lead him into the diner, request a table for two, but doesn’t quite manage to let go of her hand until she slides into the booth across from him—which draws a few strange looks from the waiter that Hermes knows is from a combination of their attire differences and age differences. 

“Ok,” she says, reaching across the table as the waiter leaves to fetch their drinks. He lets her take one of his hands in two of hers, thumb a gentle circle across his skin. It’s soothing, he notes. Exactly the effect she had likely intended. “What type of burger are you planning on getting. I, personally, would go with the bacon cheeseburger, but if you’re into anything weird like blue cheese—“ 

“I’ll do whatever you’re having,” he interrupts, shooting her a tense smile. “I thought you’d enjoy blue cheese, though. You seem to enjoy just about everything blue.” 

“It’s mold , Hermes,” Andy says, like that explains her distaste. She’s smiling at him, but it doesn’t quite reach the corners of her eyes, worry seeping into the creases of them. “That’s not really blue.” 

And Hermes—Hermes wants. 

Wants to let her lull him into complacency with hushed conversation and soft touches. Wants to be gentle with her, to be kind to her, a warm and benevolent god, the way he’d been urged to be for her so many times before. Wants to forgive this transgression with ease, note that she’d grow out of it with time, that Thalia Grace would die when she turned sixteen, that Andromeda didn’t know she was his wife, because he’d wanted to shelter her, because he still wanted to shelter her. 

She was the face of Rhea. She was the first mortal daughter of Poseidon. She was the very essence of sweet, sinful, forbidden fruit. She was Helen of Troy. She was Psyche. She was Aphrodite, Persephone, Hera, Rhea. Of course Thalia wanted her—everyone wanted her. Of course Andy, driven by boredom and loneliness and the need to be known, the need for someone to understand the indomitable weight on her slender shoulders, would have made easy prey to such want. 

But he still...he still.

Wants to peel the flesh from Thalia’s skin. Wants to let his fingers dig into soft flesh until he’d made a mark that would never fade. Wants to hear Thalia scream, wants to watch Andy cry at the sight, wants to make her lick the blood off his fingers before he forgives her, pressed her close, kissed her forehead and dug into supple flesh with blood stained hands. Wants to make a claim and drive it home. Hermes is an ancient and wrathful being, he is divine and driven, he is a god. And Andromeda Jackson is his, his to covet, his to keep, his to mark, his to marry. His. 

“Hermes,” Andy calls, brow furrowed, snapping him out of his daydream with sweet, gentle notes. He remembers when he had first met her—when he had known she was special on voice alone—when the sound of her had awoken something deep in his chest, when it had become his center of gravity. It’s pull had not diminished, not faded. She looks up at him with those eyes—eyes of the Titan Queen. Helen of Troy had a face that had launched a thousand ships, he muses, and Andromeda? Was her face to be the face that launched a war amongst the gods? “You there?” 

He loves her, he notes. And he wonders; did any other Olympian know what it was; to love a girl—to love anyone—with such desperate, dizzying, ferociousness? To love a doomed mortal in such a manner that they’d do near anything for them, debase themselves in such a manner that would forgive such a transgression. 

“I’m here,” he murmurs, soft and slow, gentle, like he had been told time and time again to be; young, naive as she is. 

_____

He finds Aphrodite together with Ares–some sort of date, in the land of their origins. He imagines they’d find some shrine to Hepheastus to fuck in front of, desecrating Aphrodite’s vows and earning the revenge Aphrodite had sworn on her husband time and time again. 

His half-brother thinks him obnoxious and bothersome, he knows, whining about a girl he only has two years to wait for, when the God of War will only ever get half of Aphrodite–and she will always have a husband, clinging to her coattails, diverting her attention. At least Hermes would get to take Andromeda to wife; Ares and Aphrodite were two halves of a whole, and yet there would always be some form of obstacle between them. It was tragic in a way that had sharpened, in these past couple decades, when love had become less of an abstract concept, a hazy ideal, and had sharpened into something clear, picturable. 

He makes it clear, too, irritation rolling across sharp features, when Aphrodite dismisses him, waving a delicate hand. Hermes wonders, idly, what Aphrodite appears to be, for the God of War. Because Hermes had always seen girls he was attracted to, girls he was in love with; or at least fancied himself in love with. But Ares loved none but Aphrodite, found her most attractive of all–did he stare upon the Love Goddess’ true form? Mayhaps Hermes would ask someday. 

Ares brushes by him on his way out, wraps a scarred hand about his forearm, jagged nails digging harshly into the skin, as if to draw golden ichor to the surface; “ Cunt-struck embarrassment ,” he mutters, harsh, under his breath. Ironic , Hermes thinks, but doesn’t voice it. “Don’t take too long.”

“Don’t take him too seriously,” Aphrodite says, amusement toying with her gentle smirk. “Ares is impatient and obstinate. Many of you are.”

And Hermes would usually challenge that, argue with that, posture over that, but today he wants something different, so when Aphrodite turns, begins to walk along streets that belonged to Sparta long ago, he only falls into step next to her. 

“What is it today, Hermes?” She questions. Across the street, a man walks directly into a pole, too busy staring at her to even notice the obstacle in front of him. “Do you need reconciliation or support or atonement?”

“What makes you think I did not solely miss your company, Lady Aphrodite?” He murmurs, low in his throat. 

“You have thought solely of that girl since you have laid eyes on her,” Aphrodite muses. “I do not believe you could visit for anything else; attuned to her as you are.” 

“Thalia Grace,” Hermes says the name as if it burns, as if the vowels scrape along his tongue, drawing blood, leaving bruises in it’s wake. 

Aphrodite hums, knowingly, tossing glossy black curls over her shoulder. Hermes meets with her privately, most days, and understands why as he hears the tell-tale screech of a car flipping and answering sirens, feels telltale mortal thoughts press in all around them, directing dizzying lust and admiration Aphrodite’s way. At least Ares was not here–the two of them were twin flames, parallel lines, and there would certainly be some crime of passion, some lover’s war, ignited by midday if he were. “I was wondering when you’d realize that.”

“You knew ?” Hermes questions, unable to mask the savagery with which he says it. 

“I am the Goddess of Love, Hermes,” Aphrodite says, shooting him an incredulous look. “Of course I knew.”

“Andromeda is in love with her?”

Aphrodite smiles at him, warm and kind, and Hermes wants it to be Andy so badly, when she says, “No. Thalia Grace loves her–for how could she resist the Siren’s call of the Rhea Incarnate when Olympians themselves are so often felled by it? But Andromeda–she is fond of the daughter of Zeus. She is not in love with her–I doubt she could love one who is not you.”

I doubt she could love one who is not you.

“Then why?” Hermes asks, voice raspy, scratching alongside her throat. “Why did I find them curled up together, intertwined in the manner of lovers.”

And Aphrodite looks to him as if he has lost half his brain. “Your love for that girl–and obsessive, paranoid jealousy–has driven the wiles from your head, Trickster. She loves you; you plague her dreams, haunt her footsteps like a wraith, like a guardian angel. But you do not tell her whomst she is to you, and so she toys with gory tales of godly lovers and denial and rationalization, and seeks to occlude you from her thoughts by pressing close to another. Tell her. It will solve your problems.”

“I…” 

And Hermes realizes, with a start, that his reasons for not simply telling Andy had evolved; past generosity, past guilt over having such a young soulmate. The same reason why a year ago, he would’ve pulled her from Thalia’s grasp and pulled the other girl’s heart out of her chest, made Andy eat it, dragged the girl along to the altar, Aphrodite in tow, and yet this year he had allowed Andy to grasp his hand, take him away, lull him into complacency. 

He loved her. He wanted to protect her; didn’t want to scare her. He wanted her to have a life, to be happy. He loved her. 

And Hermes had known it; known he’d loved her, known what she meant to him, but he did not think he’d quite grasped what that would mean–a certain selflessness, a respect for her autonomy he’d never quite had before. She is a girl–not just his –and he can show patience, for her. He would wait, because he could wait an eternity, until she found her way to him, because she would , at the end of the day. All their roads, every single path led to one another. 

Aphrodite stares at him, with the face of the only girl he would ever love; truly, wholly, selflessly. “But you cannot,” she says, knowingly. “Because you’re in love with her; and that would never solve her problems, only increase them tenfold. Because you know how the Great Prophecy crushes her already, and you won’t add anymore pressure from fate, especially since nothing could come of it, yet.”

“Yes,” He admits, lets the truth of it linger, heavy. “I love her.”

“Then what will you do, Hermes?” Aphrodite asks, arching a perfectly manicured brow. And smiling, like she already knew what his response would be, because of course she did—because she was the goddess of love, and she had known the contents of his heart long before he’d even begun to conceptualize them. 

She truly was the most deadly of Olympians, Hermes mused. 

“Wait for her, I suppose,” he says, and if he squints, it is Andy who smiles approvingly. That is enough, for him. That will always be enough for him. “As long as it takes.”

—————

Hermes’ newfound morality takes him to May Castellan. 

Sometimes, when he looks at her, and thinks about the life she could have lived if Hermes had merely left her alone–the life he, for all intents and purposes, had stolen from her–he knows she is his greatest sin. 

He had loved her, and he had let his world destroy her, and he had abandoned her and the son he’d given her, and now there would be war for it. 

The guilt is all-consuming, sometimes, feels like a maw that has come to consume him, swallow him whole, and leave him there, undigested, in its belly.

The last time he had seen her, she’d been lucid. Weak, yes, but lucid all the same. She isn’t, today, and Hermes isn’t sure if that is a relief or a curse, and he doesn’t want to dig deeper and find out. 

The house smells like burnt peanut butter— had smelled like burnt peanut butter since Luke had run away, twelve years ago now. And there is a shrine to him on the counter; plushies and memorabilia, a ceramic piece that Luke—in a fit of rage—had swept off the counter, painstakingly glued back together. Hermes wonders if there were still shards of it stuck in May’s fingers. 

She’s baking again. The cleaner must have come pretty recently, because the sandwiches are piled but none of them have begun to mold. 

Hermes had once toyed with the idea of sending her to a mortal facility that could ensure she got the proper care. He had stricken the thought away–had thought it cruel, to strip her of her final comforts.

“Hermes!” She says, turning with a bright smile, as if Hermes had not ruined her, had not doomed her only child. “My Love, I have missed you.” 

He imagines she would be kind to him even if she were lucid—knows she had been kind to him, lucid—and that is what perhaps hurts the most. 

“It has been a while,” he admits, sheepish. He had not seen her in months, and it felt as if it had been years. Had not seen her since she was lucid and he had discovered that his pain was purposeful. His age-old rage had dimmed now, and he just wanted…just wanted to lay upon the couch with her, lay his head in her lap. Wanted to rest. God or not, Hermes is old, and sometimes he can feel the eons taking their toll on him. 

“You’re busy,” May dismisses in an instant, still smiling adoringly. “You’re a god—an Olympian. ” 

“That can’t be an excuse,” he says, quietly. “I’ll come around more often—if you’ll allow it.” He owes her that much; owes Luke that much; owes even Andromeda that much. He is duty-bound to taking care of her, and the span of a mortal life meant little to him, anyways. 

“Of course I’ll allow it, ” May says, incredulous, like she could believe Hermes would ever not be allowed to come around. “Come as often as you wish.” 

“I’m sorry, May,” he says, when she turns back to her cookies and her sandwiches and the sticky red mess of kool aid on the counter. “I never meant for this.” 

“Never meant for what?” May questions, spreading peanut butter on a new batch of bread. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Hermes, you know that; and our son. Have you seen him?” 

Hermes thinks of Luke, thinks of his son looking at him with sheer, abject hatred. How dare you call me that, Luke had said, and Hermes thought the words may as well be inscribed in his essence.

“I have,” he says, gently, clearing the mess on the countertop with a simple flick. “Don’t worry for him,” he says, trying to sound reassuring and knowing she should be doing anything but. “He’s strong. Healthy. Good-looking, like his mother.” 

“Like his father, you mean,” May says, almost flirtatiously, trailing a hand down his chest in a mockery of the way she would’ve done, twenty years ago. Hermes’ stomach twists, and he catches her wrist, claws at it. Things are so different than how they had been. “You really are eternal, Hermes. I don’t think I quite understood it, when I was young and beautiful too–the youth have a way of thinking they’re eternal, too.”

“They do,” Hermes says, thinking bitterly of May’s optimism, her knowledge that it would all turn out ok. Of Luke–leading an army of monsters, sure the master he was serving made him invincible. Of Andy, and the way she’d grown so strong over a mere year and a half. He loosens his clawing grip on her hand, trades it for a gentle slotting of their fingers together. “I really am sorry, May.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” May assures him, turning back to her sandwiches. Hermes releases her hand and takes a seat, figuring he may as well keep her company. Even the insane surely grew lonely. 

You don’t have anything to apologize for, she says, but he knows that isn’t true–knows that he will spend the rest of her life apologizing for what he’d broken and abandoned, for what he couldn’t fix. 

He spends the evening with May Castellan, vowing to himself that he would visit more often, ensure her company did not consist solely of hired cleaners and shoppers and nurses. She confesses to him–after she makes him choke down a sandwich and a cookie–that the time she spends waiting for Luke to come home was often boring, lonely, that she enjoys the break in the silence. Despite it all, she is still so hopelessly optimistic, and Hermes cannot bear to break away, or to tell her that she was baking cookies for a son who would never come home. 

He is truly, wholly, deeply in love with Andromeda Jackson. It doesn’t remove the sting, doesn’t make him wish for her to be whole and sane any less. Doesn’t make the fact that he still misses May, misses the companion she was to him, go away. If anything, it just makes him more guilty. 

He does not visit Andy for a week. 

It is not that he is intent on punishing her with his absence, or that he thinks it may be awkward, or that he imagines that she doesn’t want to see him; it is that he thinks if he sees her before he has a chance to truly calm himself, he may put his fist through Thalia Grace’s chest.

He finds her during some passing period, pacing the courtyard of her school. She wearing her school uniform; green plaid skirt, white shirt, black blazer, white socks, and black Mary-Janes. Her hair is half-tied up with a white ribbon, the rest of it spilling freely like a waterfall down her back, blending into the blazer and starkly standing out against the bright white of her buttoned shirt.

She looks just as beautiful as ever, he notes, but her features had lost most of what remained of their childlike roundness, sharp and cutting; symmetrical to a mathematical extreme. She really would be the next Helen of Troy , he muses, the Face who Launched a Thousand Ships.

“Are you not cold?” He asks her, falling into step right next to her, staring at the place where green plaid gave way to bronze skin. It’s twenty-degrees outside, and her thighs are bare; Hermes knows it must be uncomfortable. 

Andy crosses her arms across her chest. Her hands have gone red and white from the cold. “I’m a half-blood,” she says, sullenly. “The only daughter of Poseidon; a Child of a Broken Vow. The cold is not an issue.” 

“What’s wrong, oh great and mighty only daughter of Poseidon?” Hermes questions. “Why is a Child of a Broken Vow pacing around in twenty-degree weather and making grand statements of her own importance?”

“Got into a fight,” Andy grumbles, nails gouging into her own skin. Hermes fights the urge to pry her hands away, massage the tension from them, press a kiss against the irritated skin. 

He doesn’t like the idea of Andy getting into a fight; the idea of some mortal feeling like they had the right to out greasy hands on her. “With who?” He asks, and he can hear something ferocious scraping across his tongue.

Andy gives him a look out of the corner of her eye. “Not physical,” she amends. “An argument. With Thals.”

“Oh?” he asks, barely managing to filter the satisfaction out of his tone. He may have pardoned Thalia Grace—may have decided to allow Andy to do as she pleased, to follow a natural path that would inevitably lead to him—it didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly alright with that path being expedited. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Andy grounds out, looking somewhere between wounded and pathetic. Some in his heart warms and melts at the look of her. 

“I won’t make you,” Hermes promises. He lays an arm, gentle, around her shoulders. “Let me get you out of the cold, though. You’ll catch something.” 

Andy looks up at him, eyes glistening, and Hermes wants nothing more than to tuck her under his chin. “Ok,” she says softly. “Get me out of the cold.” 

He thinks about taking her up to Olympus; knows coffee shops he could take her to that she’d enjoy. He still doesn’t feel comfortable dragging her up upon Olympus—somebody would approach them, some dastardly rumor would spread—and so he settles for a modern, New York coffee shop. 

He orders a tea for himself and a hot chocolate for Andy, while she curls up in a nearby armchair, plush and leather, and trembles with aftershocks of the cold, and when he returns, holding the receipt, he tosses his own coat over her bare legs like a makeshift blanket. He settles into the armchair across from hers and watches as Andy stares down at his coat and shivers. 

“Sorry,” she murmurs, twisting her fingers in her lap. “Rough few days. I didn’t mean to–to take it out on you.”

“It’s alright,” he assures. “You didn’t offend me.”

“Still,” she says. “I’m sorry.” 

“I’ve done worse with less apology,” Hermes soothes. “It’s really all right, sweet girl.”

Andy seems to accept that, tilting her head back to lean against the chair, eyes closing. They fall into comfortable silence, and at some point some employee calls his name. He leaves Andy to grab their drinks, and by the time he comes back, her eyes are open again, surveying him like he’s some sort of map, like she’s trying to find her way to something. 

He hands her hot chocolate. “Thanks,” she says, wrapping her fingers around it. Andy purses her lips, and Hermes braces himself for whatever question she’d ask. 

“What happened to Tantalus?” She questions, her eyes glittering with curiosity, and something just below the surface, something he can’t quite parse. “Truly.”

Hermes takes a long sip of his tea, lets the hot liquid burn a trail down his throat, and thinks of muffled screams and the squish and plop of bloodstained eyes. Thinks a pair of lips knitting themselves together; of flames emerging from every pore in the fucker’s body, punishing and consuming him. Hermes had guided his spirit to the Underworld, before the trial, had seen him re-sentenced, harsher than ever before. 

He would burn for eternity, now, unable to so much as scream. 

There is something critical in her eyes; knowledgeable and almost enlightened. Something darker, too, he decides. Like she knows the answer–like she craves the answer, delights in the imagery of violence done to that man, like she likes the idea of Hermes carrying out that vengeance in her name.

“I killed him,” He whispers. “Is that what you wanted to hear, sweet Andromeda? I tore his eyes from his skull and I burned him alive.”

There’s something godly about the way she considers him, dark and deep; wrathful and somewhat monstrous. Andy is her father’s daughter, the true child of the Earthshaker, the Stormbringer, the heir of unending and unyeilding rage.

“Yes,” she admits, and there is nothing hesitant to it. Only sick, indecent satisfaction. And Hermes realizes, then, that Andromeda is half his own soul; of course there is a goddess, a monster who lurks just below the surface, ready to be lured and tricked and dragged out of her. “I wanted to know he was punished.”

“Did you think I could ever leave him unpunished?” Hermes muses, gently. 

“I did not know quite what to think,” She murmurs, low and deadly. She takes a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim with those calculating eyes of hers. “I did not know you would defend me–I thought, perhaps, you might have called upon Poseidon to do so.”

“I will always defend you,” He admits. Assures, even, like it is something he must promise. Perhaps it is. Even if he must let her take her own path, Hermes would always protect her. “I swear it.”

Chapter Text

A pollo first hears of the Jackson twins when they are already twelve; when his father’s Master Bolt has been stolen, and Poseidon has played his last card in a desperate manuever Apollo would scorn if…

If not for the girl . 

In five thousand years, Apollo’s existence has become a mundane one. From time to time he would ponder the Titans who had come before he and Artemis, and every once in a while he would grow so bored in this tireless existence that he could almost understand why Helios and Selene allowed themselves to fade. 

The Fates had grown so wearisome–dredging up the same hero, the same story, time and time again. There was so rarely something new, something interesting, and even more rarely something constant, something vigilant by his side, something unchanging. Landscapes crumbled and shifted, empires rose and fall, all according to the same, mundane pattern, and yet Apollo remained steadfast, stagnant, the same. As did the rest of the gods; for that was the nature of an unwavering, unchanging immortal being. 

And so Apollo knows how this story will end before it even begins; the boy would be strong and clever, his father’s power dancing at his fingertips. He would return the bolt or die trying and Zeus and Poseidon would tear each other apart and then it would all resume as if nothing had ever happened. 

And if Percy Jackson had been born alone, the newest of his father’s heroes, an oddity but not one of a kind, Apollo would have remained somewhat disinterested (At least, he supposed, until the boy grew older and admirers undoubtedly flocked to him. Apollo had always enjoyed the sweet taste of tragedy on his tongue). 

But he is not born alone–and despite that in six thousand years, Poseidon’s mortal lovers had only ever born sons, there is a daughter born alongside him.

Andromeda Jackson, his muses whisper to him, beautiful girl, we hear. Her father in miniature, as lovely as the seven seas. 

She peaks his interest immediately in a way that would be shameful if he had not been so painfully bored as of late. Andromeda Jackson is one of a kind; a pretty, exotic little thing, a story that for once, Apollo didn’t know the ending to. Nobody knew what she would grow up to be. Nobody knew what it would be like to have Poseidon’s demigoddess walking around. 

She only grows more interesting when the twins send in Medusa’s head. 

Zeus unpacks it himself–sneering at Poseidon all the while. Apollo knows his father hopes that they have sent in his Bolt, and he knows that whatever was in that box didn’t feel like Zeus’ power at all. And then he opens the box, and lifts Medusa’s head from it by it’s snakelike hair, dripping green blood. 

His father slams down the box with an expression like thunder, heating the throne room with the intensity of his rage. “Best wishes,” Zeus sneers, low and dangerous, his gaze trained on the throne to his right. “The arrogance of those two. They have certainly inherited your impudence, brother.”

Poseidon only smirks, smug and somewhat proud. Medusa’s head is an accomplishment, something few heroes had ever achieved, and his children had taken her down at the tender ages of twelve. It’s intriguing, intoxicating in the way only mysteries ever could be. Apollo’s already hooked. 

“Look for the humor in it, father,” Hermes snickers, his favorite brother unable to keep his own amusement under wraps. He never had been, trickster that he was, but that was perhaps what Apollo liked best about him. 

Their father’s hands crackle with electricity–a warning. A serious one. 

“Or don’t,” Hermes concedes, still grinning brightly, never knowing quite when to quit. “On the bright side, they do send their best wishes.”

Zeus snarls, extending his hands and blasting lightning directly at Hermes, who rolls off his throne to dodge. He is silent at he takes his seat again, even he able to tell he’d pushed Zeus too far. 

“Don’t jest,” Athena reprimands, haughty as she usually is. “That was disrespect aimed not just at Zeus, but at all of us. What say you, Poseidon, of your children and their impertinence.”

“I do not blame them,” The sea god declares, grasping his trident as if to wave that he still had his weapon of power in Zeus’ face. “For what they have come by naturally. They are true children of the Sea God.”

Of course , Apollo thinks, almost fondly, Poseidon would think it natural; chaos-bringer as he is .

He walks out at Hermes’ side, speaking freely of his intrigue as he often did–he and his favorite brother rarely held their tongues, and often shared the same tastes. “That type of impertinence is rare,” he says, and it is true . Demigods were so meek these days, so boring, all different shades of the same color. But sending the gods Medusa’s head? Now that was interesting. “And inviting.”

“Poseidon would drown you,” Hermes says, but Apollo knows his brother well enough to be certain his brother is just as curious as Apollo himself is. “You know that.”

All the same, Hermes is right. Poseidon is notoriously protective of his children. Apollo does not want to witness how much worse he would become with a daughter instead of a son. “You’re probably right. Perhaps I can wait to catch a glimpse of them naturally ,” He admits, with a tired sigh. “I imagine it will happen eventually–if there is war, especially.” 

“Yes,” Hermes says, still endlessly amused, with a companionable hand upon Apollo’s shoulder. “Let us not force it.” 

He does not force it. Doesn’t come down and force some sort of interaction, doesn’t dream up some errand he needs to be run. He follows his favorite brother’s advice and keeps himself safe from Poseidon’s seemingly unending wrath. 

He hears whispers, upon Olympus, the moment the twins have left their halls. A circle of young godlings—insignificant beings, truly, Apollo thinks—sit and gossip, and Apollo only cares because they’re talking about her ; The Face of Rhea, they call her, one young one says, with a delighted candor. 

The most beautiful half-blood I have ever seen, another declares, if she were not Poseidon’s daughter…

And yet, says a third, that is part of the intrigue. She’s one of a kind, I hear. 

“Does she truly have the face of Rhea?” He asks Ares—who Apollo figured needed as many allies as he could get, in the face of his deception. In the face of being defeated by a half-blood. 

The War God sneers at Apollo, before Aphrodite glares at him. Do not make this worse for you, she seems to say, and Ares bends to her as he always did, “Yes,” he confirms. “But the girl is certainly not a warrior.” 

Not a warrior meant boring to Ares, which Apollo knew was only his nature. However, it only made Apollo more curious. The girl was Poseidon’s only daughter. There was no way she was powerless. There was not way she was uninteresting, especially if she was the face of Rhea—who had been no warrior, and yet had birthed a new dynasty. 

“Stay away from that girl, Apollo,” Aphrodite warns, her brows pinched in displeasure. “She is not one of your tragedies, and Poseidon will have your head if you try to make it so.” 

He swore that all of his brethren assumed he’d try and charm the little seaborn girl. Perhaps Apollo did have a reputation, but still—he was in no hurry to get himself impaled by the Earthshaker, and the girl was only twelve besides. 

“I swear, you all seem to think that I was planning on going after that girl—“ 

“You’ve written odes to the Jackson twins,” Aphrodite sighs, knowingly. “Kaos, Apollo, you act as if you have no history of getting into things you know you shouldn’t.” 

“I thought you were on the side of love,” he mutters, only half-offended. Aphrodite is right; she most often is. 

“I’m warning you of Poseidon, nothing else,” She tells him, smiling slyly– knowing what it did to him. Even after thousands of years, her smirk was still’s Hyacinths, her eyes still the same pale violet of the long-dead Prince. There is a reason why Apollo listens to her–a reason why many Olympians listened to her, beholden to the ghosts of their past lovers. 

He leaves with a bitter taste in his mouth, but takes comfort in his favorite brother, as they trail from the throne room side by side. “No war, I suppose,” he sighs–and he is grateful, yes, because divine wars were terribly brutal, and Apollo quite likes things the way they are; enjoys being the son of the King, an Olympian, and doesn’t like the knowledge that choosing the wrong side would’ve seen him turned to a mortal– again –or stuck in an Atlantian prison cell or sentenced to the pit. Still, if there had been divine war, at some point he would have seen those impertinent children Zeus spent all his spare time complaining of, that all those gods whispered about like they were the second coming of Hercules. “Perhaps it is a good thing. I never quite liked divine wars. But I did want to meet them–Poseidon’s forbidden children.”

“I as well,” Hermes admits, clearly disappointed in the same way Apollo is. It almost makes him jealous–he wants these twins–but he and Hermes had shared before and could share again. 

“Whatever,” Apollo assures, sighing with relief as they step into the sunlight; his domain wrapping about him as it always did. “The Great Prophecy still stands. We’ll see them soon enough. Come, the muses and I must write odes to the Jackson twins, and we all perform better with an audience.”

“You know I’d much rather join in,” Hermes says, voice pitched low, pupils enlarged; dilated. He cared little for odes, Apollo recognizes, but instead for the pressing distraction of plush lips wrapped about his cock. 

Apollo just grins at him. The muses were far from unwilling–and Apollo had always liked to watch. “Arrangements can be made, I suppose.”

Percy and Andy Jackson do not fade from intrigue. Sure, they leave Camp Half-Blood, trade dueling practice for places at their mother’s side, and despite how, if they had been anyone else’s children, attention might have fallen away from them, the whispers only seem to grow more plentiful.

I heard the girl is powerful enough to deter monsters already–at just thirteen, A naiad giggles, her blue skin glinting in the sunlight. Her sisters all gasp at the idea of it; a half-blood with that type of strength. And that is why Poseidon’s forbidden children can stay with their mother–the monsters are too scared to strike. 

Ridiculous, says the River God who resided in that particular stream, throwing a hand around the naiad’s slim waist, I have heard–from Lord Ares himself –the girl is no warrior. 

Ah, Lord Ares, one of the other naiads giggles, as the River God presses soft kisses to her sister’s shoulder. The very same Olympian bested by a half-blood. He only wants to discredit her, I am sure of it. She is Poseidon’s daughter, and so she must have strength. 

A daughter, all the same, the River God retorts. Come here, you. I’d have you both. 

The sister laughs again and comes forth, the sound honeyed and smooth, and yet all the same Apollo can hear her vehement protests about Andromeda Jackson and the scope of her power. She is the face of Queen Rhea, I’ve heard. Even you cannot deny that power. 

Then perhaps I ought to bed her, instead the River God laughs, and our children will topple Zeus himself from his throne. 

The sister quiets herself, then, and the River God has them both, and whatever debate they’d been having melts into the familiar sounds of laughter and moans, the clapping sounds of skin on skin, and the breathy whimpers pushed from a little naiad’s lungs. Apollo thinks, briefly, of stepping forward, stripping out of his chiton, and taking a naiad of his own against the rocky embankments. But, though he imagined it pleasurable, there was little interesting about any of the minor dieties–they were beautiful, but little else. The River God’s words stick with him anyways, turning about in his mind.

Then perhaps I ought to bed her, and our children will topple Zeus himself from his throne. Rhea’s children had toppled Kronos. Would Andromeda’s topple Zeus? Was she like her grandmother, a Kingmaker, a mother of usurpers, the mother of a new dynasty? If Apollo yoked children from her, would they be sunny godlings, or a dynasty-turning clutch of stormbringers?

He supposes, after a period of thought, that the question can wait to be answered until after the girl turned sixteen–where the Great Prophecy waited upon she and her brother. When the gallows lifted their hold on her, Apollo would pose the question again. Until then, he’d leave it be. 

Though Apollo manages to leave Perseus and Andromeda to their own devices, the trickster god finds himself incapable of the same manner of restraint. He keeps it a secret for longer than Apollo would have imagined possible, but eventually he slips up. Word spreads quickly–and it’s over for Hermes the moment it hits Poseidon first. From the discovery comes so much gossip and so much outrage that Zeus is forced to call a Council Meeting. 

The girl is called Hermes’ fated, his very soulmate, his bride, and yet every god seemed to recognize he was on trial. Apollo certainly knew it; the weight of eleven Olympian’s stares upon his favorite brother, as if he’d done something wrong. 

Apollo thinks to his previous lovers; thinks of having one intertwined with his own essence, a wife, a husband, a spouse and soulmate, and imagines that if it was him, linked to Andromeda Jackson, he would not have Hermes’ patience. 

And yet Poseidon is the most possessive of them; fond of his children in a way uncharacteristic of gods. Andromeda Jackson was his first and only mortal daughter; it stood to reason that he would be enraged. And that settled the matter; despite how her soul was intertwined with Hermes, irreplaceable to him, despite the way that she would be his wife, either way, for now she was breakable, right now she was off-limits. The Council essentially declares her freed from Hermes.

Apollo loves his brother; he is eternally curious, and he will forever chafe against what was supposed to be unattainable. The more he thinks upon it, the more strange he finds the concept of Hermes taking a wife, and stranger still the idea of that same wife being half-mortal, the first and only daughter of Poseidon, a Child of a Broken Vow. It took the girl from interesting in her own right; the focal point of conversation and speculation, to a true curiosity, someone who would become a myth over eons, a girl who would never fade from memory.

When Dionysus had taken a mortal bride, Apollo knew he’d let her grow old with her companions, let her fade from the mortal realm and then retrieve her soul from the underworld to stand forever at his side, a barely-immortal, everlasting wife. Andromeda, he knew, would likely be too powerful for that. Apollo hears she summons an earthquake to kill a Cyclops–overkill, he knows, and yet intriguing –and is sure she could never remain mortal, that she would more likely ascend from mortality to godhood. He wonders if, like Dionysus, she would just slide into godhood one night, simply cross some threshold and become a goddess. A worthy story; something he could write sonnets and ballads of for eternity; a subject of eternal debate, eternal conversation. He wonders, absently, if she would flower into the most powerful of Poseidon’s children, yoke divinity from mortality the way only Zeus’ children had ever managed, the way only Olympians had ever accomplished.

He finds her a breath of fresh air already, a bright, shining hero turned wife and goddess, and Apollo has never even laid eyes upon the girl. It is only natural that he decides he must glimpse his brother’s half-mortal bride for himself. 

“You did not tell me of the girl,” He muses, and he imagines that he, too, might very well have done the same thing, sequested away the little half-blood. He asks the question anyways, “Am I so untrustworthy?”

Hermes swallows, uncomfortable to even hear mention of her after so long having her as just his. Apollo supposes they all must adjust. “I did not tell anyone. Less of trust, more of…” he trails off, and Apollo can imagine where his thoughts leave. There was a reason, he supposes, that the gods left myths and legends and warnings behind, in the wake of every mortal lover. And Andromeda…riding that thin line between god and mortal, everything and nothing at all, a singularity even amongst Forbidden Children, drew enough attention on her own. “I would not have drawn more attention to her. Not for anything.”

Apollo merely hums in response. “She drew enough attention as a mere Child of a Broken Vow. And I have only seen her from a distance, but I have heard the rumors. She is pretty enough to face Poseidon’s wrath for. I’d imagine you agree.”

“Yes,” His brother confirms, simple and easy. Pretty enough to face Poseidon’s wrath for. What else was she, Apollo wondered? Pretty and powerful and what other intrigue laying just below the surface of her skin. He wants to know–curious by nature, spurred on by the offense he’d taken to the notion that he was not allowed. 

“I have written odes to her,” he murmurs, as if scared to voice it aloud to Hermes. Perhaps he should be–he is her husband, after all, and yet Apollo planned on speaking his curiosity aloud. Then again, he voted in Hermes’ favor, and he supposes the god owes him for that, at the least. “But I have not yet dared introduce myself. Mayhaps I was stalled by the idea of Poseidon’s wrath.” 

Hermes–despite eons of experience hiding his true intentions and wrapping gods and mortals alike about his finger–lets his face flash, momentarily, to rage that Apollo had not seen of him for eons. “You will stay away from her,” he demands, hot and wrathful. “You need not worry about Poseidon. I will take your head myself.”

“Calm down, brother. I did vote in your favor,” Apollo admits, the taste of consolation bitter. He deserves, he thinks, to at least see this curiosity of a girl. 

Hermes’ eyes crackle with that same electricity of their father. “That vote was a farce,” he declares, through gritted teeth and false calm. “The Fates have decreed that the girl is mine own. Poseidon merely stalls until she turns sixteen. He is lucky I did not take her earlier.” 

“You are a fool for that,” he says, and he hopes it burns like denial did. 

Apollo’s almost surprised to see a flash of something softer in his gaze. “I regret it,” his brother admits, and then shifts to something warning nearly as fast as he’d become threatening. “I will watch over her, as I always have.”

“Your own son nearly killed her, under your watch,” Apollo says, and he wants to say: You do not do a well job. How will you keep me, brother? Does she tell you everything? Can she sense the divine if they do not will it? 

“A mistake I will not repeat,” Hermes says, a shadow crossing his brow. 

“Good luck with that,” Apollo announces, and then he has had enough of the conversation, enough of being denied like he was not an Olympian himself, and he leaves, gone in a flash of divinity that would kill any mortal who dared look. 

He is upset enough to hope that to be the case. You will stay away from her , Hermes had decreed, as if he was their father, lording power and position over the rest of them. Andy Jackson was still only a half-blood. Apollo wanted to know what she was before she became something more. 

For all his promises, all his vengeant statements, Hermes does a lackluster job shielding his bride. Apollo supposes no one being can constantly be on guard, constantly watch another–even an Olympian. His brother can linger about her for weeks, long enough for his aura to settle, thick and heavy, a warning to other divine beings, wrapped about frail shoulders, but he cannot glue himself to her side, and he can only split himself into so many pieces. He is a busy god, after all, despite all the yearning and longing he seemed to have time for.

Apollo thinks to himself– I will only glimpse the girl –not wanting to give her reason to run to Hermes, isn’t sure he can stomach the idea of his brother knowing of this particular betrayal. He does not visit Camp Half-Blood; feels to need to glance upon a half-false version of a girl forced to be a leader. Instead, his very first glimpse of the Jackson girl happens in her mother’s kitchen–when she’s left alone, humming softly and mixing ingredients together in a large glass bowl. 

Apollo lingers silently in the corner of the room–still and quiet as if she could discern his presence–and maybe, with enough practice, she could. Even without truly looking at her, he could feel power roll off her in gentle waves, lapping like the tide unto sand. Andromeda Jackson smelled of salt and storm; undeniably a daughter of Poseidon. Her hair falls down her back in long sheaths of glossy black curls, tied back into a single ponytail, full to the bursting. The elastic surely must be close to popping, he muses, and yet it did not betray her as she hummed softly and poured flour into a sifter. 

When she turns, Apollo sucks in a sharp breath as if he’d been stabbed. He had heard, of course, the rumors about her being the Rhea Incarnate. He had assumed there was truth in it; that the girl had the eyes of Poseidon and his mother, perhaps the raven curls and the small nose. He had assumed that there was some sort of exaggeration involved, too, that the girl’s features were just slightly off –perhaps that her jaw was not quite as sharp, that her lips were paler or her brows less arched. But as he stares at her, trying to discern her face from their grandmother’s, he finds there are no differences at all. 

And gods, Apollo thinks, she’s heartbreaking. Over the eons, it had become easier to forget that Rhea had been the First Great Beauty. Easier to forget why Kronos–ruthless and powerhungry–had chosen her for his Queen, his eternal companion. Andy Jackson must have been the most beautiful woman on the face of the planet, and Apollo thinks she could rival the goddess Aphrodite if she so intended.  Enchantress, he wants to protest, gobsmacked and shaken, Siren. Witch. Goddess. 

It is not unusual for a divine child to be devastating in their looks. But even by contrast with the loveliest of them, Apollo thought she may very well be the fairest of all. He wants...he wants…

She brushes past him, hunting for some ingredient. She smells of salt and storm, powerful and prickling, and he has to catch himself to keep from mindlessly walking after her, especially as he hears her hum; a gentle thing low in her throat, warm and inviting. He wants her to hum like that to him; soothing and loving, while her fingers brushed through his hair and her thumbs rubbed gentle circles upon his forehead. 

He watches, instead, with bated breath; here to observe, he thinks. Andromeda walks in an enchanting manner, a slow swaying to her movements that gave the illusion of some sort of dance. It reminds Apollo of the graceful sway of naiads and nereids, born to the gentle grace of lapping waves. She is seaborn, he supposes, just as they are. Just as Aphrodite herself was.

If he revealed himself he does not know what he would do. If he told the girl he was sent by Hermes or Poseidon, it was likely she’d tell Hermes or Poseidon, and then there would be an even closer eye on her. Perhaps Hermes would glue himself to her side, or perhaps Poseidon would sit half the time, in silent guardianship. 

He only watches, instead, as the girl hums softly and churns ingredients. Her hands are stained blue by the time she shapes her dough into small balls and centers them upon the tray. The room smells of salt and storm and the heavenly scent of warm chocolate-chip cookies rising in the oven by the time her mother and twin brother get home. 

Sally Jackson, mother to Poseidon’s twins, is just the type of lovely and warm that Apollo knew had knocked his uncle entirely off course–had captured his attention and reeled him in and broken his vow all within one glance. She was a small, soft woman with brunette curls and eyes as blue as the Aegean Sea, her features soft and feminine. She bore little resemblance to her daughter; but they moved with the same grace, were imbued with the same infernal warmth. 

In essence, she was exactly Poseidon’s type. The once in a lifetime type of woman; sweet and warm and inviting. The type of woman who he could fall into bed with and get hooked on, the type he’d linger on for centuries, the type who’d never really blame him for leaving. It’s no wonder, Apollo thinks, that she’d produced such a magnetic daughter. Fully mortal as she had been, she’d drawn in the Sea God himself. 

If Andromeda Jackson was the spitting image of Rhea, then Perseus Jackson was the incarnate of his father. It is not so uncanny; the boy is so clearly younger than Poseidon would ever choose to look, and he did not sport the beard and smile lines of his father. He looks like Poseidon and yet there is enough separation that Apollo thinks him, too, a lovely thing. The type of boy who could knock a god off course, the type of divine child to be just a little more enchanting than the rest, with a scent of salt and storm that rolled, thick and heavy, off his skin. 

How, Apollo wonders, had Sally Jackson ever managed to keep these two a secret? He imagines he could feel their auras from a mile away. 

The three of them move through the kitchen seamlessly, like a well-oiled machine in motion, all soft smiles and joking laughter, and Apollo just…just sits there and drinks it in, watches as Andromeda Jackson bats her brother’s hand away from fresh cookies and laughs, a rich, hearty sound that Apollo imagines he could drink in. 

“You’ll burn yourself, idiot,” she chides, but it is only-half serious, and there is still glee in her tone. “Third degree burns, all because you’re big and greedy.”

Percy pats him stomach appeasingly. “Don’t worry,” he tells his stomach. “She won’t keep me away for long.”

Andy laughs again, bright and clear, floating through the air. “You’re ridiculous,” she says, smile clear in her voice. 

“Don’t call your brother stupid, sweetheart,” Sally Jackson calls from where she has begun to chop up vegetables for some sort of stir-fry. “And, Perseus, you can wait until after dinner to down half-a-dozen cookies.”

“Sorry Mama,” Andy calls. Next to her, Percy only frowns, displeased by the notion of having to wait. 

“They’ll get cold,” he protests, like it’s some great sin. 

“Your sister can keep them warm in the oven,” Sally suggests. “Have dinner first, Perce.”

“Fine, fine,” Percy grumbles, and Andy bumps his shoulder lightly in response. 

It is no wonder, Apollo muses, as the Jacksons set their small table for dinner, that Hermes would go to war for his wife. That Hermes would defy Poseidon for her. That he would seek to deny Apollo the very sight of her. She is lovely and enchanting, alluring in a rare manner always sought after. He almost wishes he could stay forever, bask eternally in the Jackson girl’s presence. 

Instead, he lingers until the girl retires for bed, and then he leaves, ghosting away from the warm presences of the Jacksons, and wonders what he could possibly do next.

Chapter Text

B oarding school was more difficult than Andy would’ve thought. She shares a room with Thalia, which means there isn’t much privacy, and so she has to do a fair bit of sneaking around if she wants to see Hermes. She doesn’t see her mom except for on the weekends, and Andy has gone longer without seeing her, but the school year was supposed to be her time with Sally Jackson, and evenings spent staring across the room at Thalia Grace cut into her time with her mother. It’s the first time she’s ever really been separated from her brother; which, despite how he bugged her, was a lot more difficult than she’d thought. Percy was her twin; her other half, an extension of herself, and it was strange to reach out and not have him there, next to him. 

She Iris-Messages Tyson pretty often. She misses her little brother, even if she’d only known him for a year, and she likes to see the progress he’d made–the friends he had now, the various gadgets he’d welded. He’s so excited about everything; imbibing everyone in his vicinity with that same childlike glee. Andy loves him. 

She wonders, sometimes, what her place would have been in her Father’s kingdom. If he had some place, some camp, some trainer to send her to, or if she would have truly taken a spot at Poseidon’s side. He’d once offered to build her mother a palace under the sea; make her the Queen of the Seas. Andy wonders what he would have made her, if she’d allowed it. 

One Tuesday night as they walk through a lush green park, summer heat bleeding into fall chill, she asks Hermes about it.

Recently, it had begun to grow uncomfortable to be around him; to look at him, divine and golden, to know that she could never truly have him, never truly keep him. She is too young for him, and even if she were to wait, Andy knows it would break her heart to watch as he left her. 

Besides, in some ways, he is her best friend. She doesn’t think she could ever recover from losing him, just so she could press her lips to his until he inevitably grew bored of her, like the gods did with all the lovesick girls chasing in their footsteps. She doesn’t think she could ever recover from becoming just another discarded girl. 

Still, she cannot quash the primal want entirely, and so she resigns herself to staring at the ground and breathing deeply and choking down admissions of desire, of a growing, unfamiliar flame that licked–white hot–through the center of her. 

“What do you think I’d be doing right now,” Andy questions, fiddling rhythmically with the rings on her pointer fingers instead, “if I’d taken my dad up on going to Atlantis?”

Hermes stops in his tracks, and at this point Andy has grown so embarrassingly attuned to his every movement that she, too, pauses. She forgets about her resolution–to stop staring at him, stop touching him, casually like she had a right to it–and meets his eyes. He looks shocked, confused, with a hint of something deeper underneath it. “ What ?”

“My father asked me to come to Atlantis,” She admits, sheepish. She had assumed–based on the fact that Hermes had delivered the letter, that he’d known the contents. Plus, Hermes was a god; they seemed to know everything and everyone. “I said no, obviously. I thought you knew.”

Hermes stares at her, as if she were a particularly complex formula he needed to memorize. “No,” he says, simply. “I didn’t…I didn’t know that.” 

“Oh,” she says, and she doesn’t have anything else to say, really. Like with vast a majority of their conversations, she’s deluded herself into imagining some emotional charge heavy in the air, something weighing her down, pinning her in place in front of him.

“Uh, There is some sort of Camp down there–for merfolk,” Hermes says, eventually, and it is only when he starts walking again that Andy finds the strength to tear her gaze from his and keep walking. “Your half-brother went there. It’s kind of like Camp Half-Blood, from what I can tell. What exactly did your father say?”

And Andy had burned the letter, but she didn’t think she would ever fully erase the contents of it from her mind. Sometimes, when her thoughts slowed and she was left to her own devices, she thought of the letter again, read it over and over again in her mind, contrasted it with everything negative she’d ever thought of her father, and tried to decide whether or not she should feel guilty. “ Come to my Kingdom ,” she quotes, dutifully. “ Let me shield you. Let me train you. I have a place for you. I have a home for you .”

“He wanted you at his side, then,” Hermes says, casually, like it is not the type of dream-come-true that her seven-year-old self would’ve burst into tears over. Like if she’d known that, at twelve, she would’ve said more to her father when she had the chance. She could’ve hugged him. She could’ve felt his arms around her and known what it was–if only for a moment–to have a father who loved her. “I’m not sure what as : a mentee, an advisor, an heir–but he wanted you with him.” 

She doesn’t know what to think about her father anymore. But she’s half-sure it would be easier if she could just hate him like she used to; before her emotions had grown clouded and convoluted, before she’d known he’d saved her life and before he’d offered her a place at his side. 

He wanted you with him. 

She wonders what it would be like, to take a place at her father’s side. To be loved by the Sea God, to have his ear, to know that she had his protection. To be introduced at his daughter. “Oh,” she says, again. She sounds smaller than she is, younger, like she is nothing more than a seven-year-old girl dreaming of what it might be like to have a dad. Dreaming of what it would be to not have to tiptoe around the man of the house. “Alright, then.”

“Why did you turn it down?” Hermes questions, like it was an easy question to ask, and not something that had torn her into pieces for weeks–something that still weighed heavy on her heart.

“...I’ve never really gotten along with my father,” She acknowledges, “And he didn’t…he didn’t offer Percy a place, with me. I couldn’t have ever left Percy. I think it might have broken his heart, if I’d left after that.”

She must sound horribly cut-up about it, because Hermes interlocks his fingers with her own–and despite the bone-deep want that seems determined to gnaw on what remained of her sanity, it’s still a comfort to her–and says, gently, “Good of you, to consider him.”

“The bare minimum,” she argues, because Percy would’ve done the same for her. Undoubtedly, he would have done it without all the twisted emotions and resentment that still burned heavy in her own chest. He was just so good. Andy envied him sometimes–even without the resemblance, Percy was so clearly their mother’s son. 

Even if Poseidon did care, in some way, she often thought it would be easier if she’d come from Sally Jackson alone. If she was nothing but her mother’s daughter, without any of the darkness that came, imbedded in her father’s blood. 

“If it helps,” he says, eventually, in a near-whisper that catches and reverberates in the shell of her ear. “I’m glad you didn’t go. I’d have missed you.”

He had to stop, she notes, had to stop saying things like that, things that made her feel like he truly cared for her; cherished her, even, that made her feel like she was important, that she mattered. It made her heart swell and her cheeks darken, and she could not bear it sometimes. It hurt. 

She squeezes his hand in return, “Yeah,” she admits, voice raw with unsung emotion–emotion that she’d never get to express, not if she wanted to keep him at all, “I’d have missed you too.”

Andy has long grown used to pain; she is a half-blood. They are born to endure it. The heartsickness that seems to ensnare her, though, reaching through her chest and tightly gripping her heart, was not something she thinks she’d ever adjust to.

He is her friend. He is a god. Andy wants him anyways. She can’t look at him anymore in the same way a human could not stare at the sun–for fear of being burned. 

She must be rather obvious about it too, because her mom seems to know something is wrong, when she comes home for the weekend and gazes out the window like she’s lost, melancholy and upset draped around her shoulders like a lazy cat, her nights disturbed and sleepless, haunted by dreams she couldn’t quite remember.  

He is a god, she thinks, when she is watching TV, her head in her mother’s lap. 

He is a god, she thinks, when she is eating dinner, batting a piece of paper towel Percy tossed at her out of the way. 

He is a god, she thinks, when she is loading the dishwasher. 

And Sally Jackson had always seen right through her, because when she drives her back to school Monday morning, she locks the doors and asks, “So, what’s wrong?”

“Hmm?” Andy questions, distracted, knees curled to her chest, fingers playing idly with the holes in her jeans. “Oh, nothing. Just tired.”

“Sweet girl,” Her mom says, gently, “I am your mother. I will always know when something is wrong.”

Andy lowers her chin to her knees, “It’s not important,” she whispers. Outside the window, a light drizzle begins to fall, spraying onto the windshield. She watches as the drops of water run down the window as if they were racing each other. She could make them reverse, she thought to herself, or decide the race herself. If she really felt like it, she could probably clear away the storm in it’s entirety. “Really, Mama, it isn’t.”

One of her mother’s hands reaches, absentmindedly, towards her own. Andy lets her take a hand, drag it over the console and hold it. “I know that look,” She says, squeezing Andy’s hand gently. “Thinking about a certain someone, huh?”

Unbidden, her cheeks heat. She begins to protest, “Mama–”

“That isn’t anything to be ashamed of,” Her mother interrupts. Andy can see a sloping smile on her lips from the corner of her eye. She’s pleased–probably thinks this is just some normal crush, that Andy’s settling into her mortal school, that she’s got any sort of life outside the Greek World. 

“I’m not ashamed, Mama, just…it wouldn’t work.”

Her mother tsks, giving her hand another gentle squeeze. “And what makes you think that?”

He is a god. He is a god. He is a god. 

What would Sally Jackson, the mother of Children of a Broken Vow, tell Andy if she admitted that she burned for an Olympian. That she snuck away from class and wasted hours of her nights to talk to a god. Her mother had warned her of the gods. Her mother would be terrified. She’d be upset. She’d purse her lips and her eyes would grow watery and she’d say that Andy needed to be safe, that nothing like that could ever end well. 

Andy knew enough of that already. She knew–and so she didn’t, and sometimes it felt like it would tear her apart. 

He is a god. He is a god. He is a god. 

“I’m a half-blood,” She says, instead. It wasn’t a lie, but her mother would take it a different way, she knew, would think she yearned for some mortal. 

“You should do what makes you happy, sweet girl,” Her mother assures. “You can’t live in your father’s world forever, you know.” 

And wasn’t that the issue? That she was half-god and half-mortal, straddling the boundary-line between the two, never quite belonging to either side. That she’d never be anyone’s equal, not really, or at least not the equal of the one she was so desperate for.

“He asked me to,” she admits. She’s not sure what her mother would think about Poseidon and his letter and his symmons, but she also can’t stop the words from flowing from her. Can’t stop herself from putting her worries and concerns on her mother, ready to sort it out with Sally Jackson’s hand in her own. Tears burn the corners of her eyes and she wipes them away with her free hand. 

“Your father…asked you to live in his world?” Her mother asks, hesitantly, and rightfully a little alarmed. 

“He asked me to come to his Kingdom,” Andy murmurs. “Said there was “a place here” for me at his side.”

Her mother’s hand tightens–as if on instinct–around her own, as if to crush the bone and blood below. “You didn’t go,” she says, relieved, and Andy can understand it. She doesn’t want to live in a world without her mother, either. 

“I have a life here that does’t revolve around him,” She admits. “And…he didn’t extend the invitation to Percy. I never could have done that to him.”

Sally Jackson sighs, her grip on Andy’s hand loosening minutely. “Your brother–does he know?”

“No,” Andy says. “I burned the letter. Annabeth is the only one that knows. I didn’t know how to tell Percy that, especially when nothing would come of it anyways.”

“Alright,” Her mother acknowledges. “Selfishly, I’m glad you didn’t go. I miss you enough with Camp and this school. I don’t know how I’d handle you with your father.”

“I miss you too, Mama,” She whispers, gently squeezing her mother’s hand. “...he talked about you, in his letter. He said you were gentle and strong and kind and he had no choice but to fall in love with you.”

It is her mother’s turn, now, to blush, let red undertones creep their way up her neck. “He was always a sweet-talker, your father,” She admits, trying desperately not to seem pleased. “The gods often are, I hear. You must be wary of that, sweet girl.”

And there is again, a reminder of exactly what rolled through her mind all the time, now. That she had to be wary. That if she wasn’t careful, she’d end up just another discarded girl. Maybe in twenty years, she’d sit with her own half-blood daughter next to her, dealing out pointless reminders to be wary . The thought is enough to make her cringe. “I know, Mama.”

“I’m serious, Andy,” She says, and Andy knows she is, because her voice has hardened and despite the fact that they were in traffic, her mom’s eyes were solely on her own. “Promise me you’ll be wary of the gods.”

“I promise, Mama,” she says, and she means it. Her mother’s eyes study her for a few more seconds before they finally flicker back to the road. 

“You are a demigoddess, my sweet girl. You’re the loveliest girl I’ve ever seen–and I’m not just saying that as your mother. You are so unbelievably beautiful, it almost hurts to look at you. If any god…If any god gets to close. If they hurt you,” She says, carefully, and she cannot even meet Andy’s eyes. “You must ask your father for help. He loves you–he won’t stand for it. I promise he will protect you, better than I ever could. Promise me this, Andy.” 

“I promise, Mama,” she repeats. Somewhere in her subconscious, she is guilty already of breaking it. She ignores it–pride and naivete push it aside, block it from surfacing. 

He is a god. He is a god. He is a god. 

Sally Jackson sighs in relief, her hand slackening in Andy’s own. “I love you, my sweet girl.”

“I love you too, Mama.”

It doesn’t grow any easier to ignore her feelings. Foolishly, they remain with her, lodged in her chest; unshakeable and unmoveable. But any piece of her that could have been persuaded to act on them is shoved down, locked away tight. And when Thalia Grace presses her lips against hers on once late night, Andy welcomes the warmth of it all, the gentle tingling in her heart. 

“Was it awkward, for you?” Andy asks her later, in the privacy of her room. She doesn’t want Thalia to say it was–she’d liked it, the dampening of that longing. And she liked the softer, budding feelings underneath. She doesn’t want Thalia to say it wasn’t, either. A part of her thinks it is betrayal to Hermes, ridiculous as that was. Maybe she’s just confused. Maybe she should kiss Thalia again and see if it cleared her head. Or maybe she should just refrain from kissing anyone, ever, and see if it fixed her. 

“...no,” Thalia says, carefully. “No. It wasn’t. But I was just saying that we’re friends. And friends don’t usually…” Andy takes it as an invitation, of sorts, to kiss Thalia again. Something almost like excitement bubbles up in the core of her, in response. 

“We can be a little different,” She says. 

Thalia blinks, running a hand through mussed hair. Despite her confusion, Andy wants to run her hands through it too–it looks silken, soft, beautiful. “Yeah,” Thalia says, “I guess we can be.” 

It’s easy to fall into something, with her. Thalia is bright and sparkling and everything she does is effortless, cool in a way Andy wished she could be. It is warm and comfortable to have her; like coming home after a long day and sliding into a warm bed. They shift together, intertwined like they cannot bear to part. Andy abandons her twin bed to curl close with Thalia on her own. 

Thalia looks at Andy like she’s something precious, something holy. Someone she could worship by day and lay with at night, and Andy likes it; likes feeling as if she were the center of something, as if she mattered to someone who mattered, too. 

And another thing–it’s easy with Thalia, because they’re equals. She isn’t a lesser half-blood, she isn’t a god, and she’s certainly no mortal. Thalia Grace is the daughter of Zeus. Andy Jackson is the daughter of Poseidon. They are both demigoddesses, they are both Children of a Broken Vow, they are both contenders for the Great Prophecy, they are both whispered about as if they were a piece of the mythos. They are equals; one and the same. 

Annabeth knows nearly immediately; pulls Andy into her room to discuss it. She isn’t happy about it–Andy gets it; two of the people you’re closest with bonding on such a soul-deep level. 

“It won’t change anything, Beth,” Andy promises, anyways, and to be fair it hasn’t. She loves Annabeth. She loves Thalia, too, something that hovered between romantic and platonic. “It’s still the three of us. You’re my best friend. Thalia’s your sister.”

“I know,” Annabeth says. “It’s just…weird.”

They keep all their casual touches and gentle kisses behind closed doors; neither of them want to make Annabeth uncomfortable. She’s struggling enough. 

Thalia asks about her, sometimes, and all Andy can do is whisper about how strong she was, how ferocious, how effortless she was as a leader, how she was one of the most lethal kids at camp, pride soaking her tone as she spoke of Annabeth Chase and the legend she’d already forged herself into. “I feel like I missed so much of her,” Thalia admits, her head resting under Andy’s chin. Andy strokes her hand through the silky locks, envious of how easily her fingers moved through her hair. “But that was the point, I think. Self-sacrifice and all.”

Andy hums, complacent. How does one respond to that? Thalia’s situation is not a common one. “I won’t say I get it,” she murmurs, eventually. “Unique situation, and all–”

“I’ll say.”

“Hush, you,” Andy scolds, teasing and gentle. It’s warm, in this bed, comfortable in a way she’d dreamed of when Gabe Ugliano was still alive. Andy could stay here for a long while. Could almost forget about the desire than ran rampant through her veins, almost forget about the god that resided, permanently imprinted within her. “I’m trying to tell you not to dwell on lost time. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“I lost six years of her life–”

“And you saved her life, ” Andy interrupts. “She grew up strong and capable, and she did it because you let her. And you’re here now. That’s what matters.”

Thalia just buries her head deeper in Andy’s chest, like she wanted to hide from reality, hide from the world. “I can’t believe Luke left her,” she admits, quietly, like it would silence the sting, lessen the impact. “That’s what I’ll never forgive him for. I knew he didn’t like his father. I never thought…I never thought that dislike for his father would ever trump taking care of Annabeth . ”

“I know,” Andy says, and the scar on her hand seems to burn. “I’m sorry, Thals.”

Thalia pulls the scarred hand to her mouth and kisses at the line. “Don’t apologize, Ands,” she says, miserably, “Please. He nearly killed you–more than once.”

“He’s hurt,” she says. “He’ll bring war for it, and that doesn’t excuse what he’s doing, but I understand him all the same. I’ve forgiven that.”

Not forgotten, because the poison that raced through her veins and her brother’s pleading screams and the effects of it that had lingered for weeks were burned into her, but forgiven. The two of them fade into the comfortable, companionable silence that characterizes the majority of their relationship. 

Andy sleeps in Thalia’s bed. She has dreams she doesn’t quite remember, and wakes up hot and flushed. 

He is a God. He is a God. He is a God. 

She cannot have him, and so she sleeps in the same bed as Thalia Grace and kisses her, and buries that illogical, illegitimate want. She goes to class with Annabeth, makes casual friends she’d never had before. She speaks with Hermes on sunlit afternoons and she does not look him in the eye and she fiddles with the rings he’d given her. She goes home on the weekends and lays with her head in her mother’s lap, bickering with her brother. Sally Jackson says she looks happier. Andy agrees, lighthearted as a hero could ever be. 

And everything goes as well as it could be until Hermes comes to visit at night; something he’d made a habit of, in the year previous, and something that had abated once she’d begun to share a room with another. He is clearly startled by the sight of Andy and Thalia, intertwined in the older girl’s bed, and she is quick to slip from Thalia’s arms and stand, like a child caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar. 

She’s strangely embarrassed to have been found there; made uncomfortable by his obvious shock, understandable though it was. 

“Hermes,” she whispers, because she does not know how to explain this to Thalia if she wakes–Thalia, who has not one clue about her closest friend, the fucking Olynpian. “What are you doing here?” 

If she could bring herself to look at him in the eyes, she would know there was an unrestrainable anger burning there. But Andy cannot; because it is akin to staring directly at the sun, because she cares for him, because she burns for him and because she is embarrassed of the state in which he’d found her. 

“I came to see you,” he says, thickly. She has heard this tone before; when he’d spoken of his son, of his former lover. Sorrow, harsh and unbidden.

She cannot help but step towards him, hands twitching with the urge to comfort him. “What’s wrong?” she asks, concerned, “ Hermes? ”

“What are you…What are you doing with Thalia Grace ?” 

And she has heard this tone before; knows him well enough to know he must need a distraction, that there was some ancient sadness dwelling within him, that he wanted her to help him forget. 

He is a god. He is a god. He is a god. 

She cannot deny him. 

“Distraction kinda night, hmm?” She asks, stepping forward and taking his hand, feeling as the warmth of it enveloped her own. “Let’s go.”

She knows the place he takes her–they’d been there before for her birthday–a dingy little diner that served burgers exactly as Andy liked them and made absolutely monstrous shakes to wash it down with. She laughs, “You have a thing for burgers now or something?” 

“No,” he says, still so obviously unhappy. She wants to cradle his head in her lap, stroke her fingers through his hair, whisper that it would be ok. Fix whatever was wrong. Fix anything that had ever gone wrong for him; be whatever he needed. “But you do.” 

She smiles, tries to let go of his hand. His hand tightens around hers—too tight, crushing—and she resigns herself to holding his. It is not a burden, she thinks, only that she’d think it to death. “Ok,” she says, as soft as she can manage. He looks distressed; sorrowful, and there is a powerful tugging in her gut to make it better. All her effort, everything she’d done to quash her feelings, all that budding softness in the pit of her for Thalia, and she is still the same heartsick girl at the barest touch of him. It’s pathetic. “Come on, then. Maybe you could use a burger.” 

Worry clouds her mind as she leads them into the diner, Hermes following her gentle guidance with nothing but almost dissociative silence. At twelve, she would have thought such worry for a god to be ludicrous. Now it is only logical. 

Help him forget, she thinks, almost desperately. 

“Ok,” she says, taking his hand in both of hers from across the table, trying to make the touch gentle and soothing. She could speak about burgers—likely the furthest thing from his mind, but maybe it would pull him out of whatever this slump was.  “What type of burger are you planning on getting? I, personally, would go with the bacon cheeseburger, but if you’re into anything weird like blue cheese—“ 

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he interrupts, with a false smile. “I thought you’d enjoy blue cheese, though. You seem to enjoy just about everything blue.” 

“It’s mold, Hermes,” She responds, hoping she sounds playful, hoping her smile seemed real. “That’s not really blue.” 

He just stares off at something unknown behind her, unfocused. Again, nearly dissociative. She had never seen him like this before, and it terrifies her for some reason that aligned with the burning want in the core of her. 

“Hermes,” She calls, gently, and waits for his eyes to refocus. to center on her. They are heavy, she notes, back sagging with the weight of them.  “You there?” 

“I’m here,” he murmurs, with a smile that finally reaches his eyes. 

She stays with him, in that booth, until dawn begins to break through the glass, until he is laughing again, smiling flickering up into the corners of his eyes, until gentle licks of desire had become a roaring flame she had no hopes of extinguishing. 

She repeats that same mantra to herself like it would save her, like it would restrain the need, like it could keep her hands from him, casual, like they were meant to be there, like it would stop her mind from spinning, beating memories and daydreams to death. 

He is a god. He is a god. He is a god. 

She takes his hand in hers and he takes her back to the dorm room; where Thalia still sleeps, peaceful. And she cannot restrain herself from wrapping her arms around him, listening to the hollow thudding of his heart, and whispering that she hoped he was alright. 

His arms wrap around her in a way just shy of desperate. “I’m alright,” he assures. “Thank you, for keeping me company. I know I interrupted your sleep.” 

“I’ll live,” she says, dryly. “Anytime, Hermes. I mean it.” 

“I know. Thank you, sweet girl.” And then he is gone, as suddenly as he had came. Andy wonders if there was any way to get used to the way he seemed to flicker in and out of existence. Probably not, she supposes. She could stop the rain and bend the tide, but she’d never be a god.

When Andy turns, Thalia is awake; sitting straight up and staring at Andy with an expression the younger girl could only describe as anger. “Andy.” She says, carefully, with a tone as cold as ice. “What the hell?” 

“I can explain—“ 

“Was that Hermes ? The fucking Olympian? Were you hugging him?” Thalia asks, alight with something. “Why were you hugging Luke’s dad? ”

“He’s my friend, Thalia—“ 

“ He is a god ,” she hisses. “Are you kidding me? Your friend ? Don’t be stupid. I saw the way he was looking at you, Andy, and it wasn’t friendly”

Andy feels heat creeping up her neck, knows she’s certainly flushed pink. Knows that despite the derison in Thalia’s tone, she’d think about what she’d said in a way the older girl certainly hadn’t intended: I saw the way he was looking at you . “A friend, ” she grounds out. This argument is beginning to feel eerily similar to another, and she knows its probably for good reason and she knows she’ll ignore it. “Don’t be jealous, Thalia. I’m allowed friends. My life doesn’t revolve around you.”

“You didn’t look like friends,” Thalia says, and there’s an expression of hurt that flits across her face. “You know the stories as well as I do. You know to be careful–”

“I am being careful!” It was all she ever did –be careful, be cautious, ignore the piece of him lodged within her, ignore the way she burned for him. She was careful, because that’s all she ever could be, and sometimes she thought it would drive her crazy.

“Oh, yes, because sneaking off in the middle of the night with an Olympian is the definition of careful,” Thalia retorts, eyes flashing, crackling with electricity. “He wants to fuck you, Andy. He wants to fuck you and then brag to all the other gods that he fucked the only daughter of Poseidon before anyone else.”

“We’ve been friends since I was twelve, Thalia, and all he’s ever done is help me. Help my friends,” she argues. “I trust him more than just about anyone. He’s a friend. ”

Thalia sucks in a breath, and then says, slower. “You’re being groomed , Andy.”

“He just wants to be my friend,” She argues, but it’s weak and it sounds almost pleading and entirely pathetic. Andy can feel something hot and stinging in the corners of her eyes, and the worst part is that she can’t really even put a finger on why. “Not everyone is evil. Can’t you imagine that someone might want to be my friend?”

The older girl looks at her with a mix of pity and something close to mourning; like she was picking out what type of flowers might look the best on Andy’s coffin. “Oh, Ands,” she says, sympathetically enough that Andy’s embarrassed of it; of herself; of this whole situation. 

“ Fuck you, Thalia Grace,” She snarls, tears pricking in her eyes, something wet rolling down her cheek, and spins on her heel to hide in the bathroom. 

She doesn’t come out until she hears Thalia leave for class. Her reflection is red and splotchy in the mirror and she misses the entirety of her first period trying to clean herself up. Her second period, thankfully, includes neither Annabeth nor Thalia, and Andy’s nearly calmed herself down completely by the time she sees Annabeth in her third period, and feels completely fine–numb, even–when she lays eyes on Thalia in fourth period. It’s stilted and awkward, but she isn’t crying and her voice doesn’t shake and so she’s alright. 

Andy goes home for the weekend, and she tries very hard to not think about Thalia’s words. She wants Hermes to show up so badly that it aches, pounding in her heart. He’d make her forget, she knows. He was always good about that, making her pain disappear with a wave of his hands. He doesn’t. Andy tries not to feel like she needs him to. 

She misses Thalia, too, a slowly forming and entirely unavoidable ache in her stomach. Thinks of how the older girl had looked under her mother’s careful gaze. About the gentle flex and pull of her muscles as she sparred with Percy. Thinks of how she’d imagined she could be happy forever, in that moment. 

Andy’s forgiven her by the time she arrives at school Monday morning. Thalia just didn’t understand that Hermes was different, to her. That he wasn’t cruel, or sadistic like his brethren. Andy knew the cruelty of gods. Her vision was clouded by myths and rumors. In a year and a half, Hermes had only ever been her friend. If anything, Andy’s rampant want was the predatory aspect of their relationship. It is still awkward in class. She doesn’t know how to speak, in front of all their peers. In front of Annabeth; who she’d promised this wouldn’t affect. 

They settle into separate beds that night; for the first time since they’d been caught by the dean and Andy had been too wary to slide into Thalia’s bed for a week straight. She has more space, she notes, but she feels cold, empty, lonely. Uncomfortable and unhappy, and she misses the press of legs around hers, the gentle pressure of lips against hers. Not everything has to burn to hurt. 

They both toss and turn for half-an-hour until Thalia breaks the silence, sounding harrowed and upset. Something like guilt churns in Andy’s stomach at the sound of it. “Will you come here?” Thalia asks, nearly pleading, “Please.”

And her–her Thalia looks so pretty with the moonlight shining off her hair, eyes nearly glowing in the dark, that Andy can’t help but slip out of her bed and silently, into Thalia’s own. 

They tangle together like they’d never parted at all, and Andy is content with no explanations, no justifications, no apologies from either of them. Content with just being held. Thalia speaks anyway, whispers so quietly that if Andy were not so close to her they might fuse into one, she may not have heard it. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “Whatever–whatever is happening there isn’t your fault.”

“...He really is just my friend, Thals,” Andy whispers back. 

Thalia nods into Andy’s back. “Alright,” she whispers, clearly unsatisfied. “You know I’ll always be here for you, though, right?”

If there was ever one thing she’d been certain about with Thalia, that was it. “I know. And I hope you know I’ll be there for you too. Always.”

Neither of them say the other is right. But Thalia doesn’t push her point further, and so Andy leaves it be. Thalia only brings it up one more time, a couple of days later. 

“Have you talked to your mom about it?” She questions.

“No,” Andy responds, short and more curt than she would usually be, with Thalia. “She’s more skittish about the gods than even you are.”

Thalia looks at her like she was trying to gaze through Andy’s soul. “Don’t you think that’s for a good reason?” She questions, softly. 

“Thalia,” Andy says, as calmly as she can manage. “I’m really tired of hearing about this.”

“Andy–”

But Andy has already walked out, and by the time she gets back in–after an outing with Hermes–Thalia has dropped it entirely. “I won’t bring it up again,” Thalia vows. “Not unless you want me to.”

“Thanks, Thals,” She whispers, relief coloring her tone, burrowing her head into Thalia’s collarbone. 

November fades to December, Thanksgiving Break turns to packing for Christmas Break faster than she could’ve imagined, and Thalia is spending Christmas with the Chases. Thalia makes Andy promise not to forget her, deadly serious and entirely teasing all at once. 

Chiron asks them to go on a quick retrieval mission, right at the beginning of Christmas break. Andy really only agrees because Grover is the Satyr they’re working with, her mom offers to drive them there, and Percy is coming with them. It’s dangerous, sure, but nearly everything is dangerous when it involves half-bloods, and Andy figures she can handle the occasional risk. 

She’s packing up a small bag to take with her when Hermes appears behind her. Andy can feel his presence before she sees it–has grown accustomed to what it felt like, to have him hovering around her, the taste of electricity in the air. Like biting down on a live wire, her body goes rigid, taut. “I heard you’re going on a retrieval,” Hermes says, amused. 

“My mother offered to drive,” she says, moving to grab her water–which could double as both a weapon and a source of hydration. “I couldn’t get out of it. Besides, Grover’s the one who found them.”

“ Them?” Hermes asks, raising an eyebrow. Something in her chest softens, turns to mush. 

“Two half-bloods. Powerful, too. The older one’s just turned thirteen, and the younger one is eleven.” 

“Best to get her out before Grandpa takes it upon himself,” He muses. “Or before they get themselves killed. Either way, not good.”

Andy remembers the confused, very belligerent twelve year old she’d been. When she’d first found out about the gods. When she’d first discovered who her father was. She feels silly, all the sudden, for being so hesitant about helping a couple of kids. It wasn’t like Ares was asking her for a favor, and here she was, saying she couldn’t get out of it. 

“Someone has to make sure they’re safe,” she says, simply. “Besides, Grover says they’d be staying at their school over Winter Break. I don’t like the idea of them being alone on Christmas.” 

Hermes snorts, and she resists the urge to glare at him. “Surely you aren’t Christian,” he chuckles, like the concept was absurd. 

It is, a little. Andy’s father is a Greek God. He was a Greek God, and she’s more immersed in the mythos than was probably healthy. “My mom celebrates the holiday. I do too. But why couldn’t I be?” She asks, more to see what he’d say than actually curiosity. “Would you smite me for my sacrilege?” 

Hermes just snorts. “No,” he says. “Then I’d have no reason to get you a gift. And wouldn’t that be horrible?” 

“How sweet,” she says dryly, despite how her heart flutters in her chest at the idea of it, despite how she thumbs at the bands of her birthday gifts. “Succumbing to Christiantiy, just for me.”

“Eh,” Hermes says, a familiar gleam to his eyes. “I’m just gift-giving. Besides, all religions have an element of truth to them. I don’t care enough to be offended by it.”

Andy had never really thought about the ways in which gods viewed mythology. “Fascinating,” she allows, turning her attention to her backpack and the three squares of ambrosia she was currently tucking away. “If I had more time, I’d make you explain the nuances of that. But since I don’t…” 

“Get lost?” Hermes guesses, dryly, with offense she knew well enough to know was mock. “You’re so cruel to me.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she mutters, waving her hands in the air in a shooing motion. From outside the door, she hears her mother calling her name. “I’ve got to go, Hermes. I’ll see you after?” 

“Dismissing a god. How presumptuous,” He responds, grinning like the cat who got the canary. “You used to be scared of me, y’know.” 

She had used to be frightened of him. She’d nearly forgotten. It seemed such a faraway emotion, something she had fallen entirely out of touch with, something that had shifted to the unrelenting softness right in the core of her. “And then I got to know you.” And love you, she nearly says, biting the words down and letting them sear her tongue with the effort it took to keep silent. 

Oh, she thinks. I love him. 

“That you did,” he allows. “Good luck, Andy.” 

She can’t even bring herself to respond, too busy half-dazed by the realization. Later, she’d know that if she’d opened her mouth: I love you would’ve slipped out.

Chapter Text

W hen Luke Castellan turns nine years old, he has the worst birthday of his life–which was saying a lot, in his humble opinion. His mom pleads with him, eyes green and voice raspy, not to die like she’s seen. And Luke can deal with that . He’s known three things since he was cognizant enough to be aware of his surrounding. 

1. His mother is certifiably batshit insane, but if she was right about anything
2. He was the son of a greek god–Hermes, and 
3. He definitely wasn’t going to make it to thirty.

For a nine year old, he’s remarkably well-adjusted to these facts. But the classmates who come over for a birthday party Luke had schemed up and dreamed of for weeks…well, safe to say they weren’t. 

His mom has an episode. Her eyes turn poison green and she hisses that Luke is going to die, that his fate is predestined, and then she starts begging: calling out to Hermes, pleading that he come and save their son. She grabs his shoulders and shakes him—in front of an array of eight and nine year olds—hissing, Hermes, you must save him. Oh, a torturous fate awaits him; save my son, Hermes, please save our son. Her nails prick into his skin, and he would notice later that they’d drawn blood, left gashes in fragile, childish flesh. 

The other kids have to call their parents to pick them up—and Luke’s ninth birthday party is over before it can truly start. 

He packs a bag that night. Had been thinking about doing it for months. Later he would be certain that it would have happened anyways; he would have found a reason to run, something would’ve pushed him over the edge, and he would’ve been forced to leave. 

By the time Luke turns ten, whatever hope of aid from his father is long gone. He had prayed a few times, hoping Hermes—a powerful Olympian—would bother to help him, to grant him some sort of protection from monsters and humans alike. The Olympian never responds. Luke grows accustomed to living on the streets, gets better at using a sword, which he’s sure looks ridiculous in the hands of a ten year old, and becomes used to a life on his own. He sneaks into libraries and shops and restaurants at night—and the locks just fall off under his hand. His father is the god of thieves; there was power that came with that.

When Luke is eleven, he joins up with Thalia. In his two years on the run, he’s grown very used to weeding out the godly world from the human world, and he can tell the first time he lays eyes on her that she’s godly.

Thalia tells him that she is the daughter of Zeus, and Luke can believe it; finds it obvious in the way she fights, in the crackle of static electricity that lingers, permanently, in her fist. He thinks about the way locks fell open under his hand, the stories he reads sometimes, under the cover of darkness, and the way her father is called the King of the Gods. Luke does not know how important she is, not really, but he knows she is strong. Knows that even if she’s younger, she will soon be stronger than him. 

They fall into place neatly, easily. Luke calls her his best friend, once, and she laughs and says she’s his only friend, and that’s that. 

Things have already begun to pick up by the time they find Annabeth. 

Luke is fourteen, and he doesn’t know it then, but even alone he would’ve begun to attract a deadly amount of attention. He’s a lot stronger than most of his half-siblings would’ve been, and it can be attributed to growing up knowing his heritage, fighting for his life. He is just fourteen now, but he feels older sometimes. 

Thalia is twelve, and neither of them know it, but that is the age for demigods of her caliber. She has begun to attract a plethora of very much unwanted attention, and she’s grown more powerful in turn, yes, but sometimes there are hordes after them. 

But together, Luke and Thalia are an entirely lethal duo. They’ve learned how to fight together, how to run together, how to live together. Luke cannot imagine a world in which he doesn’t stand next to Thalia Grace. 

Everything changes when they meet Annabeth. She’s an entirely ferocious seven-year-old, who’d been making it on her own for a couple weeks now; much younger than Thalia or Luke had been. Luke gives her a dagger and promises to protect her, promises that they’re family now, and means it with every fiber of his being. 

He takes to Annabeth immediately. Thalia is more hesitant—they have to be more careful, traveling with a seven year old, and she has to be nurturing, caring in a way she’d never had to with Luke. But Annabeth has a way of growing on people, and by the time she stabs and kills a fully grown Laistrygonian, Thalia loves her just as fiercely as Luke does. 

And Luke is sure that their little family could go on that way forever. That someday, they’d just grow so powerful that the monsters wouldn’t even bother with them anymore. That they’d find some way to have a home of their own, off the streets. He isn’t sure, exactly, how he plans to make this happen, but he’s going to. 

And then Thalia gets injured—a colony of some sort of snake people attacks them, and she needs to be treated. Luke had promised himself never to return to his mother’s home. He thinks that his little family are the only people he could ever break that promise for. 

It’s embarrassing, to drag his makeshift family into May Castellan’s house and see it all; Luke’s favorite lunch from third grade, the shrine to Hermes on the counter, his frazzled mother, more gone than she ever had been before. 

She begs him to stay, hisses that he is doomed, pleads with him to find his father. 

His father, who had done this to his mother and left. His father, who Luke had begged for help time and time again, who had never bothered to send so much as a sign. And Luke knows to be gentle with his mother, but he sees red and then he is swiping the shrine off the counter and screaming that his father is a monster he wants nothing to do with. 

The first time he sees Hermes— truly sees him, not glimpses of him around the corner, not dim flashes of infant memory, not a vague feeling of power just around the corner—is on that very same day. An insult in itself, Luke thinks, because how is it that the first time a son truly lays eyes on his father—despite pleas and prayers—is at the age of fourteen. 

And Luke knows power well by this time; had seen it in the faces of monsters and witches and the occasional stray nymph. Has seen it flow from Thalia’s fingertips, the power of Zeus crawling in her palm, deep and dormant in her veins. It does not prepare him for his first encounter with a God, the power that curled around his shoulders like a sleeping cat, that sang a siren’s call in Luke’s own blood, that commanded him to sink to his knees when the god opened his mouth. 

Another insult, Luke thinks, because this god could heal and destroy civilizations with a snap of his fingers, and yet for all of it he had left May Castellan a prisoner in her own mind, had abandoned his son to the streets, had ignored prayers and pleas he could grant with a mere thought. 

Safe to say, Luke and Hermes don’t get along. In fact, his father seems more interested in—and alarmed by—the demigods traveling with him. Specifically Thalia Grace. 

The next week, Grover Underwood—a Satyr—appears. Grover declares that they’re in grave danger, that they’re attracting a horde of monsters that would eventually catch up with them. Especially traveling with a Daughter of Zeus. Luke had got that particular hint when Thalia had nearly got her leg torn off, but the Satyr says it all the same with this frenzied worry that freaks out even Thalia, the stoniest of them. He offers them a solution. “A Safe Haven,” he calls it, “For Half-Bloods like you all. Monsters won’t follow you there—we just have to make it there.” 

If it was Luke alone, he doesn’t think he would’ve followed. He is fourteen, and already he wants absolutely nothing to do with Hermes. But he has a responsibility to Thalia, to Annabeth, and they’re looking to him expectantly because he is the oldest and they will follow him wherever he goes. So he says yes—hesitantly, but still. 

Grover is a first time seeker; it is not good luck that brings him—out of the army of satyrs Luke would later discover had been sent to hunt for Thalia—to them first. They get caught up where they definitely aren’t safe several times on the way to camp. The longest detour they take is in a Cyclops den, and it’s Annabeth who has to stab the Cyclops in the foot and create a diversion. 

Luke tells Grover it’s ok. And it is, really, because they’d gotten out. But by that time Hades knows there is a demigod daughter of Zeus alive, and he’s sent a horde of monsters after them. Luke doesn’t know it yet, but that mistake would let them catch up to them. 

Thalia takes her last stand upon Half-Blood Hill, and Luke would never fully recover from it. She tells him to go, alight with electric frenzy, and…

In another life, without Annabeth, that is how Luke dies. Fighting by Thalia’s side, dying with his best friend. 

He picks Annabeth up, grabs Grover by the wrist, and runs. 

And as Thalia dies, her father, the great and powerful Zeus, King of the Gods, takes pity on her. He turns her dying form into a pine tree. Luke watches—as Annabeth sobs into his chest—as the tree grows, splitting the sky with unnatural speed. 

People will declare it some sort of honor, that Zeus had cared for her enough that he kept her from truly dying, that he created a memorial for her corpse. 

(Privately, Luke will think: it would’ve been better if Zeus had just let her die . A tree—something to provoke anger every single time he laid eyes on it—was an insult, not an honor) 

Chiron personally gives them a tour of Camp, but his mood is obviously dampened. Luke will not truly understand it until later, the depths of the hopes that had ridden with Thalia Grace. 

Annabeth is claimed that night: Athena, Cabin Six. Luke thinks that it makes sense. She screams and cries when the counselor tries to take her away from Luke. Luke is inclined to claw the older boy’s eyes out, almost feral in his desire to keep Annabeth close. He doesn’t know how he manages to refrain, doesn’t know if he’ll ever tell Annabeth about the monumental effort it takes to help calm her down, to let her go to her siblings. 

Luke knows who his father is. He’s formally claimed on the third day of camp; a caduceus spinning above his head, awash in golden light. It changes almost nothing about his lodgings—he is still crammed into the Hermes Cabin, where children crammed into beds and slept on the floor and hung hammocks from the rafters. He’s upgraded from a spot on the floor to a bed—which are reserved for the children of Hermes and the very long-term unclaimed. The cabin’s capacity is probably around thirty campers; there must have been fifty campers crammed in there, nearly double what they could take. The kicker? Not even half are claimed children of Hermes. 

(He visits the Athena Cabin, once, on a tour with Annabeth. It’s meant to hold the same amount of campers, but there are only ten beds claimed. There are two grey-eyed children in the Hermes Cabin; both of them quick thinkers, witty children that remind him of Annabeth) 

The Counselor of the Hermes Cabin, at the time, is a twenty-year-old girl named Ariana. She had been coming to camp since she was eleven years old. Ariana splits her time between Camp Half-Blood and her university, but Luke hears whispers that she’s not planning on coming back next summer. 

Luke is by no means the next oldest in the Cabin—he isn’t even the next oldest of the claimed children of Hermes. That honor goes to a bulky, ferocious boy named Marco. But Luke is gifted with his sword, and Luke had survived on the streets for five years. Half-Bloods respected seniority, but not as much as they respected strength and glory. By the time the next summer rolls around, Luke is Counselor of the Hermes Cabin. 

He isn’t young by Counselor standards, but he’s young for a Counselor of the Hermes Cabin, given that there’s so many of them. 

And Luke is not any happier with his father than he had been on the streets, but he is happy with his siblings, with Annabeth being cared for the way she needed to be, with the friends he makes and the difference he can make, as a mentor to younger children. 

There are many things about Camp Half-Blood that need to be changed, and one day Luke wants to change them. Wants to petition, to plead, to make change himself if need be. 

(Luke is still a naive boy, then. The Gods will not listen until he makes them. They will not understand empathy until he carves it into them, until he makes them bleed ) 

When Luke is seventeen, he is sent on a quest by Hermes. 

( Your father himself has ordained this quest, my boy. I’m afraid there is no other option ) 

The other campers believe in glory; in fighting to appease one’s godly parent. Luke is supposed to be honored by this quest—entrusted to him by his Olympian Father. His siblings are jealous, his friends are jealous, it is all anyone whispers of. A quest, a quest, a quest. 

Luke does not care. He does not want to go search for glory in what others have already accomplished. Hermes had no need for a golden apple; he only wanted glory and pride and something to brag about to his brothers. And if a half-blood died for it? It mattered nothing to a God, for they all died in the end. 

Annabeth begs to come with him. She is eleven and enraptured with her mother in the same way most of them are. She seeks glory, but Luke loves her; he cannot bear the idea of losing her so she can please Athena. 

He steals her invisibility cap so she can’t sneak along, and tells himself that he had to return it, so he had to survive this. 

He takes two of his closest friends: Ethan, another son of Hermes, just a year younger than him. Agnes, a daughter of Apollo. She is currently probably the prettiest girl in Camp, and Luke kinda has a thing for her.

Ethan dies three days into the quest. A cyclops catches up to them, and Luke watches—helpless and horrified—as he crushes Ethan’s head between his hands. He and Agnes barely escape with their lives. 

Agnes dies saving Luke from the dragon, dies screaming in pain and begging Luke to run. 

He gets the golden apple. He stares at it, looks at his new, twisted face, and it is not worth the price he paid for it. Two lives, all so Hermes can have something to brag over. If Thalia’s tree had been an insult, the apple is a slap in the face, because at least Thalia had died for something. 

The dreams begin to creep their way into his consciousness a week later. 

Poor, tortured hero, Kronos will say, infiltrating his subconscious with divine ease. If you want change—if you want to make the gods pay you will have to carve the lesson into them. 

Betrayal, he would snort, betrayal is what your father left of your mother. Betrayal is what Zeus let become of his daughter. This would be justice. 

He thinks of Annabeth when he makes his choice. He would build a better world for her. 

Luke steals the Helm of Hades and the Master Bolt. He is meant to deliver it to his Master, but the storms begin to crackle across the sky before he’s even made it to New Jersey. Zeus dispatches his most talented children; Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Ares, Dionysus, and his own father, Hermes. Six Olympians hunting ruthlessly for a weapon of mass destruction. Of course Luke is caught. If it had been anybody but Ares, the movement would have died then and there. 

But Kronos whispers to him. Kronos doesn’t abandon him. Kronos guides his movements and his words, and Luke has the tongue of the trickster. 

But wouldn’t it be entertaining? He asks. To watch as the Big Three tear each other apart. It will be the bloodiest war in eons. 

And then Ares’ eyes gleam and Luke knows he has won. 

Kronos is still unhappy. He will have to wait months until someone comes along to finish the war; but the plot is underway. The skies grow stormy and the seas grow rough, and there are whispers of a fight between Zeus and Poseidon. 

The Titan Lord promises him a hero. Luke gets two for the price of one. 

Annabeth is sure she will get her quest the moment the Jackson twins step into camp. Luke doesn’t like the idea of letting her go, the idea of her dying like Ethan and Agnes had. 

But she’s right about the quest. Luke has only glimpsed Poseidon once, but once you knew who’d fathered them, the truth of it became inescapable. 

He protests to Chiron when Annabeth is allowed to go with them. Chiron hears none of it. Annabeth is twelve, he argues. Annabeth is a Counselor, and she is one of the camp’s best warriors, Chiron responds. She will keep the twins safe. 

Luke doesn’t care much about the Jackson twins. After all, how could one get attached to a sacrificial lamb? 

But against all odds, they survive. Against all odds, Percy Jackson isn’t dragged to Tartarus with the Bolt on his back. Against all odds, Poseidon and Zeus do not go to war. 

Kronos seethes in Luke’s dreams. He has a hundred backup plans, of course he does. He is the Time Lord, the Crooked One, the Titan King; backup plans are embedded in his essence. But he has been delayed, yet again, and after eons in the Pit, his patience is beginning to wear thin. 

The boy is strong, he whispers to Luke. The girl is a liability; always cowering behind him. He will never join us if he believes he must protect the weakling girl. Kill her. 

So Luke does. He kills her—and Percy Jackson still does not join them. He does not like it; the look in her eye—complacent, like she had long ago accepted death, like she knew there was no way to fight it—keeps him awake at night, turns his stomach when he eats. 

There is no such thing as innocence in this world, Kronos tells him. But what, really, had Andy Jackson done to deserve death, at twelve? She’d been scared of monsters. She hadn’t been godlike with a sword a week after picking it up. She had a temper, something that probably reminded his Master of her father. 

She’s the same age as Annabeth. Annabeth, who Luke would slit his own throat for. Annabeth, who Luke would endure a thousand nightmares for. Annabeth, who Luke would build a new world for. She’s his sister’s best friend, and Luke kills her. 

He’s relieved when Kronos tells him, twisted with rage, that she’d survived. It was my son, he hisses, I know it. He and those damned half-bloods he’s so fond of. 

And Luke knows a botched assasination is bad for the cause. Knows they’ve turned Percy Jackson from them permanently. Now there are two children of Poseidon who will always side with the gods. He’s secretly a little relieved that the little wide-eyed girl had survived. 

We must have another, Kronos says. Those damned twins are lost to us, now. We will have another.

Luke dreams only of Thalia Grace in the weeks before he is meant to poison her tree. This will give him everything he wants: Kronos revived, Thalia alive again, Thalia with him again. The idea of poisoning what remains of her still weighs heavily in her stomach. What if the tree wasn’t saved in time? What if Luke really, truly lost her? What would Annabeth think? 

He thinks a lot about Annabeth and Thalia. In the new world he will build, they would have never been separated. Family, forever, he had once promised. He would make it true. 

In the end. he convinces himself that this kills three birds with one stone; Kronos will rise, Thalia will come to his side, and once Annabeth saw that Thalia was alive, that she’d yielded to the same logic Luke had, she’d join them. Their little family would lead the new age of glory. He’s dreaming of it when he poisons Thalia’s tree. 

(Luke has a nightmare that night; Thalia’s tree isn’t saved in time. Camp Half-Bloods borders fall, and innocent half-bloods, victims of their parent’s propaganda, are swarmed by monsters. Like Thalia, they cannot stand against them all. At the center is Annabeth, her own dagger embedded in his side. She looks at him with those stormy eyes, and smiles. Family, Luke. You promised ) 

According to his people still within the camp, the poison works nearly immediately. Zeus is enraged, Chiron cannot fix the damage, and Dionysus points the finger at the Centaur. He’s replaced with Tantalus—which, interesting choice, but Dionysus hated his job. Silena Beauregard Iris-Messages him when the Annabeth and the Jackson Twins make it to the camp. 

It is only a matter of time before they are sent out, with the Camp’s hopes on their shoulders, Kronos whispers, The new age is upon us, Luke Castellan. 

He can only hope. 

Silena Iris-Messages him again when Tantalus assigns the quest to Clarisse La Rue of all people. “The camp is in uproar, of course,” she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “The Jacksons have seniority, and obviously they’re a lot stronger. But they brought a Cyclopes to camp and Tantalus hates them, so Clarisse got the quest.”

“Do you think they’ll stay back?” Luke asks, knuckles white against the hilt of his sword. Clarisse couldn’t be entrusted with the fate of Thalia’s tree or the new age. He needed the Jackson twins and all their divine power on this quest. 

Silena giggles, “I doubt it. They seemed upset. I heard their Searcher friend is missing, too.” 

“ Grover? ” 

“Yeah, oh— “ Something dawns in her pale blue eyes, “He was your searcher, too, right?” 

Luke swallows something almost like fear in his throat. “Yeah. But—yeah, they’re loyal. And predictable. They’ll leave to find him and the Fleece.” 

He’s right, he realizes, two days later, when he finds Annabeth, the Jackson twins, and the Cyclops half-brother Silena had mentioned, aboard his ship. 

There is something to be said for guilt and the way it can twist one’s mind. Andy Jackson stands before him, still so young, tracing the scar he’d left on her. Percy Jackson’s betrayal is still so apparent, something he clearly can’t quite comprehend, the memories of his sister’s brush with death still so vivid within him. He is lost to the Titans, Luke knows, would never let go of watching his sister fade in front of him the same way Luke would never forget taking Annabeth and leaving Thalia. And Annabeth…somehow Luke had managed to trick himself into believing that he could reason with her, that she wasn’t brainwashed by the Olympians and her mother’s favoritism, that if he could just talk to her it would all be alright again. It isn’t, and the news of what he’d done to Thalia’s tree only alienates her further. 

Luke never enjoyed hearing anything about his father, and if there was one topic that could push him to red-hot wrath at light speed, it was his mother and his father’s supposed regret. A part of him, though, enjoys getting to see something other than the little girl he’d nearly killed in Andy Jackson, getting to blame her for something. The anger burns bright and hot and distracts him from his guilt. 

Andy Jackson’s face replays in his dreams over the course of the week. I know that face, Kronos hisses. My son has sired the Rhea Incarnate. The Titan Lord does not elaborate. Luke is not sure he wants him to. 

The Princess Andromeda lingers near the shores of Miami, updates coming through from Oceanus and other monsters along the way. Luke hears news of Tyson’s death, Circe’s island being left scorched and in ruins, pirates running amuck, and finally, Polyphemus’ death. 

The girl summoned an Earthquake, Kronos says, with a rare intonation—Joy, perhaps—that makes Luke’s blood run cold. Perhaps it is good she survived. Let her live, boy. 

And Thalia Grace? He asks. 

Her, too, his Master declares, but there is disinterest within it that had not been there previously. It is always best to have a backup plan. 

Luke had thought that Thalia was the plan. But he has long since learned not to question Kronos. 

He loses his temper aboard the Princess Andromeda. Luke can admit that much. He does not know what else could have been expected of him. They give the Golden Fleece to Clarisse La Rue of all people; the most untrustworthy, the most temperamental, the daughter of the god who had betrayed Zeus and Poseidon both . It effectively pushes Luke’s plan back years, to yet another fucking backup. His Master would have him punished for it, Luke knows. He always does. 

And then, to be greeted with the sight of his father of all people? For Perseus Jackson to drag Hermes into their quarrel, like he had any idea what Hermes had done to him. 

Something tenses inside his chest until it snaps, and then he is paying Perseus Jackson back in full, dragging his twin sister into a fight, making it the family matter that Percy was evidently so desperate for. Luke wants to slice her head from her shoulders, wants to carve the heart from her chest and make Perseus Jackson fucking eat it. 

She is no longer the meek, cowering thing she’d been the year previous, barely able to hold up her sword. An innocent, he had supposed, in a world of gods and monsters. A sacrificial lamb. But though she is better than she had been, Luke is the best half-blood swordsman in the last three hundred years, and she is only just barely good. 

His anger does not wane in the face of her fear. Truly, it only increases, only becomes more potent. She could not act so innocent, not when she’d spoken of his mother, not when her brother had brought in his mother. 

What Andromeda Jackson lacks in sword prowess, she has gained double in raw power. He tells her she won’t leave the ship alive and and she holds a hand up, gathering the force of an Olympic sized swimming pool in her palm, and she grins.

And maybe they would have found out. Maybe Andromeda Jackson would have drowned them all in one fell swoop—then Chiron comes in, and the Centaurs follow behind them, and by the time they’re done coughing up water and pulling arrows from their fallen, Luke knows the group is halfway across the US. 

His Master is unhappy, to say the least. More waiting. And he’d demanded Luke leave Andy Jackson live. 

Luke reminds himself, cold and sweaty after a nightmare, that Thalia would soon return. That it would all be worthwhile, when he was carving a new world, his girls at his side. 

They must free the Titan General Atlas–deranged as he was, he was hellbent on revenge and loyal only to Kronos–from under the weight of the sky. They must find a Child of a Broken Vow, and they must turn them to the side of freedom, to the new age, to Kronos.

Luke takes the sky–because none other is willing, because they’re wise enough to know death is a kinder fate than the weight of the heavens themselves; and it is as the mythos describe, supremely overwhelming, despite all his straight-backed pride, it crushes him to his hands and knees within minutes, folded over and unable to even collect the mental clarity needed to scream.

“I pray you find another to replace you soon,” Atlas leers, the Mad Titan clearly delighted at the sight, unable to stomach a half-blood’s authority. Luke would be indignant about it if he could focus on something other than the feeling of his muscles melting to something liquid, something hot and gooey, the feeling of his heartbeat–quick-paced like a rabbit, and the enormous effort it took to force his collapsing lungs to expand and compress, expand and compress. “That pressure will drain the life from you in days, boy.”

He only manages a gurgling groan, still unused to the pressure. 

If Luke was half-insane before he freed Atlas, he is utterly gone when he is finally approached, a half-day later, by two demigods; Annabeth Chase– sister, he thinks brokenly, sister, sister, sister –and another, not Thalia, not who he had planned for, not who he was so desperate to see, to convince. 

He sucks in a rattling breath, and whatever guilt he’d been clinging to drains, slowly, as the demigoddess in front of him frowns, confused and conflicted. “Hello, Andy Jackson,” he manages. “Come to free me at last?”

Chapter Text

H ermes knows something is terribly, drastically wrong the moment Apollo summons an emergency council meeting on the morning after Andy Jackson had taken off on a retrieval mission. 

The rest of the Olympians are tense, too. It is usually Zeus who calls these meetings, and for good reason. Most of them found such gatherings–and the fights and petty squabbles they brought–boring, tedious, and offputting; so it is strange when Apollo calls a meeting. Hermes barely remembers the last time Apollo had summoned the Council. Perhaps when Hermes had stolen his Lyre, eons past. Maybe when Eros had sent an arrow in Daphne’s heart. Perhaps when his son, Ascelpius, had been slaughtered. Either way, it had been a rarity eons ago, when Apollo’s temper ran as hot as the sun, and was even rarer now, as they’d settled into their modernity. 

Another sign that something had gone very wrong? Artemis was missing. The Council fills with only eleven Olympians, missing that signature hum of universe bending power that collected when all twelve sat their thrones. 

Apollo stands in the center of the room, wearing leather sandals, a short white chiton, and a golden ringlet. A quiver is slung over his shoulders, and an ancient bow; solid gold and carved with his titles is clenched tightly in his hands. There’s a stunning lack of modernity to him, a cutting harshness–no hint of familiar blue in his eyes of molten gold.

He appears as he was in Ancient Days; ready to spread a plague across a continent, ready to carve his child from it’s mother’s belly, ready to fell the ancient Python with a single strike. 

The rest of the gods all chatter needlessly and somewhat nervously. Demeter speaks with Poseidon in hushed tones: the two of them had deemed themselves in some sort of partnership ever since Hermes had publicly declared Andromeda Jackson his bride-to-be. Hepheastus and Ares argue: Ares declares Hepheatus would be happier if he removed the stick from his ass, divorced Aphrodite, and married Athena. Athena says she is a virgin goddess for a reason, given that they’re all brutes. Hepheastus says he’d never give Ares that satisfaction, and Ares says he’d have to content himself with being a cuck for eternity. Dionysus argues that his sentence should be reduced in the face of the coming war. Zeus vehemently disagrees. Hermes sits on his throne and stares at Apollo, and Apollo stares at the floor, tension underlying every well-defined muscle in his body. 

Eventually the others manage to take their seats, and settle down into relative silence. Aphrodite and Hepheastus still manage to bicker quietly, given that their respective thrones are across fro each other’s, though they cease when Zeus clears his throat and calls the meeting to order. “My son,” He announces. “Lord Apollo. You have called us all to congregate. I would hear what for.”

Apollo stares at Hermes with his eyes like molten gold, and there is something akin to pity in the depths of them. Strange, Hermes notes, with increasing dread, given that Apollo was callous by nature. “Earlier today, my sister, the Lady Artemis, called me down from my duties as the Sun God to aid her Huntresses–”

“Where is Lady Artemis?” Ares questions, spreading his hands outwards as if to draw more attention to the vacant throne. “We all do our duties and show up to these tedious meeting, and she does not show for a Council called by her own twin?”

“I am getting to that, Ares, if you would let me finish,” Apollo mutters. Across the broad expanse of him; tanned skin and sinewy musculature, small patches of flame erupt, betraying anger and a lack of control. “I came down to speak with my sister, and she informed me that she had come across six demigods and a satyr, being attacked by a manticore.”

“I hope you did not call a council meeting for this, Lord Apollo,” Hera says, sounding bored. She is the only amongst the Olympians who still routinely dresses as if she has stepped straight from Ancient Times; looking every inch the Queen she touted herself as in her long blue dress, with gold bracelets and rings and necklaces adorning her, winding black curls falling down her back, a thin band of gold perched atop her head. “Not with the Solstice already quickly approaching.” 

“The demigods included Thalia Grace, Annabeth Chase, and Percy and Andy Jackson, alongside the Satyr, Grover Underwood,” Apollo says. “Notable heroes, and so my sister found it unusual. Especially considering that when I arrived, both Annabeth Chase and Andy Jackson were not amongst them,” if Hermes had a heart, and not merely the illusion of one, he imagines it would have stuttered to a stop within his chest. He is not the only one of them for which this is true. Poseidon has shamelessly straightens in his throne, his eyes narrowed, staring directly at Hermes like he had been at fault for this. Athena’s remains serene as always but her fingers have begun to curl around the armrests of her throne, almost nervously. Annabeth Chase, Hermes knew, was the pride of Athena’s offspring, her mother’s favorite child, his own bride’s constant companion. Not amongst them, Apollo had said, gravely, as if it were some great tragedy. “My sister informed me that, when the Manticore tried to take out the half-bloods that the group was sent to retrieve, the missing demigoddesses intercepted him. They did so near the edge of a cliff, and when the Manticore rolled to escape them, both he and the girls were dragged over the edge.”

The Council erupts into conversation. Poseidon argues loudly with Zeus, Athena trades insults with Ares, the rest of them converse as if missing demigods were not unusual in the slightest. But this is not a typical missing demigod. This is Andromeda Jackson. This is Hermes’ wife, and she is…

She cannot be dead, he thinks, desperate and in shock. He would have felt it somehow. There would be some tugging on his soul, some divine knowledge brought to him by the fates themselves. She couldn’t be gone . Not his Andy; beautiful, strong, graceful Andy. He could not have lost her before he ever had her. 

“ Order! ” Zeus bellows, shaking the entirety of the chamber with the force of his, pulling Hermes from his panicked thoughts with all the force of a sledgehammer upon a sheet of ice. “We will have order in this Council room!”

Poseidon stands from his throne, knuckles white around his trident. “My daughter is not dead,” he says, desperately, and there is enough grief there to fill an ocean, pouring out of him like a tidal wave, vast and all-encompassing. “Tell me my daughter is not dead, Apollo. You must tell me it now –”

“She is not dead,” Aphrodite interjects. She stares at Hermes from across the room. “I can still see the string that connects her to Hermes. It beats with the pulse of life. Andromeda Jackson still draws breath.”

Poseidon shifts from grief to wrath in seconds, across the room in half a millisecond, and then Hermes is held aloft, the Sea God’s hand around his neck, his trident speared through his gut. It hurts, to be impaled like this, golden ichor pooling and soaking the floor. There are several protesting cries around the room, but Hermes can only truly hear Poseidon and his accusation, ears ringing and essence trapped. “ You took my daughter ,” He hisses. “ The pit is too good for you. You will pay as long as I mourn, Nephew. I will make it so.”

Hermes barely has the werewithal to prod Poseidon with his own, electrically charged staff, but it weakens the god’s grip enough so that when Apollo–his favorite brother still defending him, even against the Earthshaker–slams into Poseidon, the god is forced to release the trident and stumble back. “I did not take her, Poseidon, I swear it on the Styx,” Thunder rumbles, sealing his vow as he pulls the trident out of his gut, feeling it slice cleaning through him. More ichor pours out when it’s fully withdrawn, and Hermes tosses the weapon on the floor, the clattering of it ringing throughout the Great Hall. “If I find out any of you took her, I will make you wish you could die a mortal death. That, too, I will swear on the Styx.”

“I would remind this Council to have order ,” Zeus announces, lightning crackling in his hands in a ill-fated attempt to regain the attention and respect of the Council. 

“Someone has taken my wife from me ,” Hermes accuses, feeling somewhat like a cobra, spitting venom. “We are Olympians! And yet the only reassurance I have is that she is not dead .” He has no composure anymore, he’s sure; frenzied and angry, dripping ichor like to bleed as a god was casual, yelling and accusing other Olympians of a grave crime. He is not sure who else to blame. Andromeda Jackson is the most beautiful half-blood to ever grace the earth, and she is Hermes’ and someone has taken her, and he wants recompense. He wants blood and screams and pleas for mercy. “Hear me now, brethren: If she is not returned to me by the Solstice, I will make the Trojan war look like a pillow fight. ”

He cannot imagine an atrocity he would not commit for Andromeda Jackson, a world in which he does not revolve–wholly and completely–around her. He is in love with her, desperate and ferocious, and he thinks he may need her to breath, to exist, as if he would combust, unable to hold his form together, without her present. 

“Brother, you cannot tell me the truth of it is not obvious. Your son –”

“Artemis tracked the Manticore who took both Hermes’ wife and Athena’s daughter,” Apollo interrupts. Hermes puts a hand over the gaping wounds in his stomach, pulls them away still dripping ichor. They would need Apollo’s interference if he wished them to heal quickly, but he cannot focus on the pain of it all, not when Andromeda had been stolen from him, not when her fate was uncertain. “She tracked it to Mount Othyrs. I have not heard from her since. She is clouded from me–as are the demigoddesses.”

The room bursts into chatter; for good reason. Hermes knows it is a horrid fate, to be taken by a god. He also knows it would be better than whatever the Titans would make her suffer. He almost wishes it is truly just an Olympian, trying to throw the rest of them off the scent, because Hermes could bargain with an Olympian. The threat of war might scare an Olympian. They were the ones in power, the ones with something to lose. 

But the Titans? They had been held in chains for thousands of years. They had nothing to lose. What could Hermes say to them? I will make your punishment worse– as if their sentences were already not the blackest of Zeus’ imagination . He could certainly not threaten war, for war was what they intended . 

She has been taken by a divine being out for revenge, wearing the face of the betrayer, the daughter of a usurper. Andromeda Jackson would know long, extended, suffocating agony, and Hermes–who had spent years dreaming up plots and plans to stop such a thing, following in her every footstep, who had only just let his guard down–is helpless against it. Once again, even despite all the power he flouted, he cannot prevent suffering and death.

My poor, sweet girl , he thinks, something overwhelming welling and roaring inside the cavern of his chest, expanding with every breath. A thousand images flicker across the backs of his eyelids; clear as if he had watched it occur himself. Andy, with her heart torn from her chest, ribcage split open like a bony blossom. Andy, her skin turned to ash, her lips sealed shut, her eyes a trophy in a Titan’s pocket. Andy, left to the mercy of flame and powerless against villains who sought only brutal revenge. 

“I will journey to Othyrs myself,” Hermes vows. “I will storm it, myself, and I will end any Titan who dares rise and any monster or half-blood who dares stand against me. I will find my wife and free her, and I will burn that gods-damned mountain until it is nothing but ash.”

“Whatever being resides upon Othyrs now clearly has enough power to bind Lady Artemis,” Athena declares. The owl on her shoulder hoots, low and loud, in agreement, and she absentmindedly pets it with her free hand. The only sign of her worry was the slight air of distraction–Athena was direct and focused, nothing less–and even that was tame, especially in comparison to Poseidon and Hermes. Hermes supposed her daughter was significantly less important than Poseidon’s. “Much as I care for my own daughter, we cannot risk handing over another Olympian to this–”
“Yes, but surely we can hand over Hermes’ wife, ” Hera grumbles. “The sanctity of their union has been challenged before. I should not like to see it utterly defiled .”

“I do not call for it to be defiled, Lady Hera,” Athena says. “I merely say that another Olympian taken out of the playing field may very well mean the end of our reign.”

The air in the throne room stiffen. Athena and her buzzwords, Hermes thinks, bitterly. End of our reign. Zeus would bind him to Olympus himself. “And my wife ?” He grounds out, his fingers clenched around his staff. “Am I to leave her to the machinations of the Titans. Must I remind you all of what brutality they favor? Of whose face Andromeda wears? Of the betrayer they all blame? The Usurper she sprung from?” 

“And my sister, too, who is one of us,” Apollo announces, and there is light that shines on him, like a star upon a stage, the sun itself bending to his subconscious wants, drawing the room’s attention to hi. “She is clouded from me. Surely we cannot allow an Olympian and the wife of an Olympian both to be left to the mercy of our enemies. Surely this Council cannot permit that.”

“I will not risk another of us,” Zeus declares, slamming his bolt into the ground to accentuate his point. Sparks flew off the bolt, electricity skating out from the impact point on the floor, dancing through the hall. Outside, thunder rumbles, sealing the power of his words. “Hermes, she is your bride, I know, but still only a half-blood. She is not worth the risk you would take.”

Hermes wants…Hermes wants to wedge his staff through his father’s sternum, pierce his heart and make him bleed . He understands, suddenly, the fratricidal curse called down on every generation of rulers. Understands why Fathers were so ruthlessly killed by their own sons. Zeus, who despite the Fate’s decrees, cared nothing for the happiness and existence of his own wife, and yet he dared speak as if he knew how Hermes felt about Andromeda. 

Not worth the risk you would take. 

Hermes would rip apart Olympus, stone by stone, for that girl. He would drain the divinity from his veins, would present her his heart on a gold platter. He would fight whatever useless Titan had taken her. He would slaughter Luke Castellen for her. Zeus knew nothing of love, and the beast it turned one into.

“Brother,” Poseidon snarls, and there is a small shudder that runs about the throne room. This is no longer the gentler, softened-by-modernity Poseidon, Hermes notes. This is the Poseidon who sent a bull to fuck Pasiphae. This is the Poseidon who hunted Odysseus with a vengeance and an unquenchable thirst for blood for ten years. This is the Poseidon who fought so ruthlessly in the first Titan War, who usurped Oceanus and Kronos both. This Poseidon does not avoid bloodspill; he is desperate for it. “If you wish your reign to continue, you will retract that.”

Zeus’ eye twitches at the blasé threat, but wisely, he does not engage with Poseidon and his ancient wrath. “I do not suggest we leave any of them. My daughter and my daughter-in-law have both been taken, alongside a prominent half-blood of my line. I only demand we refrain from sacrificing another Olympian to an unknown threat,” he takes a deep breath. “We will ordain a quest, send only the most capable of Half-bloods–”

“And Huntresses,” Apollo interjects, eyes still burning like liquid fire. “Lady Artemis would want Huntresses in the mix, as well.”

“And Huntresses,” Zeus agrees. “We will send them to retrieve the three missing. Besides, they will be more free to act. The Ancient Laws do not bind them as they do us.”

“This is blasphemy!” Hermes argues, the cattle prong on his spear lighting up with an electric charge. “She is my wife. Am I to let her be brutalized? Am I to sit by as Titans take their revenge of her own flesh? Even if you desecrate your own marriage to Lady Hera, father, you do not sit idle when she is threatened.”

Hermes has spent every moment since he had awoken fearing the moment someone tried to take Andromeda from him. He has stood in her footsteps and plotted in her shadow, and he has succeeded at keeping her safe or at least at bringing revenge. And now he must have restraint against their age old enemies? Now he must stand by and imagine a thousand things they could do to her? Rely on a pack of demigods and Huntresses?

“Perseus Jackson is distraught over the whole affair,” Dionysus says. “Ordain it to be his quest, father. And Hermes, you shall know that the Camp’s strongest hero and your brother-by-law will undertake the responsibility for Andromeda Jackson. He has not failed so far, and he will not be felled when it is his sister, the Chase girl, and Lady Artemis at sake.”

“Brother–”

“ Enough! ” The throne room shakes under the pressure of Zeus’ frustrations, his words sealed in thunder. He stares at Poseidon as if to dare the Sea God to challenge his words with his bolt still crackling in his hands. “I have had enough of this! Perseus Jackson will be ordained a quest. You will all uphold the normal laws of a quest. If Artemis and Andromeda are not returned to Olympus by the Solstice, we may discuss an alternative. Dismissed. ”

_____________

Poseidon and Hermes used to get along well, in a world in which Hermes was not fate-bound to his only mortal daughter. Sure, Poseidon could get a little too vengeance-centered and sure, Hermes found away to spin everything into a trick or a jest, but Hermes found the Sea God less intolerable than his own father, and he had always found some camaraderie with his Uncle. 

That long-lasting camaraderie had been shattered the moment Hermes had laid eyes on Andromeda–or perhaps it had been shattered the moment Poseidon had laid eyes on Sally Jackson. Or maybe they had been bound on a path of discontent for eons, since the time of Kaos, and now all the card were simply in motion. Hermes did not know, and at the moment, he did not truly care, either. 

Still, as they step out of the Great Halls of Olympus, Poseidon speaks to him, hushed and urgent, as if they had a common mission. Hermes supposes they did, that they’d been forced into one, now. “We must find a way to safeguard this quest,” The sea god mutters, shooting a dark glare at Ares. “Someone must keep Zeus distracted.”

“I told you, ” Hermes says, and there is anger resonating in every word . Pure, unadulterated wrath, the kind that brought gods to their death, the kind of thing that brought an end to dynasties, the same wrath that had cleaved a thousand feet off Mount Othyrs. “I told you that you would regret letting her roam wild. I told you she’d lie cold in a grave because of your own selfishness, and I was right, wasn’t I? Whatever atrocity you thought I’d commit upon her will be nothing compared to what the Titans might do to the face of Rhea and the daughter of a Usurper.”

Poseidon has his daughter’s eyes. Or perhaps she has his eyes. All the same, they are a grating reminder of what he’d lost, and Hermes would like to gouge them out. He would’ve married her, he could’ve married her, and she would be safe upon Olympus. Now, Hermes does not know if she would ever return to him. Does not know if he would ever get to marry her. 

He had never even told her who she was to him. He had never told her that he loved her. And for what? To avoid scaring her? To let her make her own decisions?

“I know,” Poseidon murmurs, and there is something ghost-like wavering in his eyes. He seems aged, out of that council room, admitting defeat in the way he never would have in Ancient Times. “I know. My daughter may be lost to me. But she is a fighter, like her mother, and I cannot bring myself to give up on her yet.”

And Hermes…

Hermes had almost wanted Poseidon to argue back. He had wanted someone to fight, someone to scream at, to blame for all of this. But instead he only finds that like this, he cannot blame Poseidon and his heavy grief, the way he felt he had already lost his child, his girl, his baby. And they would probably do well to work together–if only until Andromeda was returned. 

He feels a bit as if the air has been taken out of him; like a popped tire or balloon, and his shoulders slump in recompense. 

“You might ask Hera for help distracting Zeus,” He murmurs. “She is the goddess of marriage. She respects the sacred bond between Andromeda and I, and she was enraged at her husband’s casual desecration. Apollo as well–his sister was taken, too. Do not trust Athena–the Titans may have her daughter, but she is more concerned with her self-righteousness.”

“And this quest,” Poseidon says–pointedly. “Someone must ensure that it is given . As soon as possible. Chiron is notoriously slow to award them, and Dionysus is purposefully careless.”

“I’ll head to camp,” Hermes muses. “The campers know me, after all, better than they know you. And my appearance is more easily explained than your own.” More defense would come for Hermes’ lovestricken actions than for Poseidon’s fatherly ones. Fathers, after all, are forbidden to interfere. Husbands are expected to.

He appears to Camp Half-Blood in a pillar of flame; biblical in nature, scorching the concrete and drawing every eye to him. The campers must’ve been taking their morning meal, because they were scattered at their respective godly parent’s table. At table eleven, he could spot most of his children, all of them alarmed and almost frightened. 

“Dad?” Connor asks, his eyebrows pinched together. 

Hermes only manages to nod in acknowledgment, scanning the faces of the campers—table eight was full, for once—until he found the particular camper he was looking for. Perseus Jackson was a mess. His hair was sticking in every which way as if he’d been electrocuted, and his eyes were plagued with deep purple circles. He wore pajama pants and a ragged top; clothes that Hermes imagine were castoffs, extras that he kept there in case he needed something to crash in. 

This whole ordeal must have been pretty unexpected for Percy, too. Much as Hermes wishes it was him rotting in a cell on Mount Othyrs instead of his sister, he can’t help but sympathize with the boy. He’d lost his sister and his girlfriend (or not–they were complicated, Andy had told him, with all the flourish of a teenage gossip) in one fell swoop. Plus, one look at the boy would tell someone that he agreed; that he’d take his sister’s place in a heartbeat. Like with Poseidon, Hermes’ rage cannot stand in the face of such grief. 

“Perseus Jackson!” He booms, his voice echoing through the hills of Camp Half-Blood. “The gods have ordained a quest. You are its recipient.” 

The boy looks utterly relieved as he stands, hurriedly walking to the Head Table, where Hermes stood, leaving his picked-at breakfast on the table. He looks worse up close; his bottom lip raw and chapped from worrying it between his teeth, his nails jagged from nervous biting, hands fidgeting anxiously, bound with barely-restrained energy.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be glad to see you, ” Percy mutters, low and unheard by any others, as he approaches, and Hermes thinks that if it were any other day, he might have struck the boy down for the insult. He would not have left him free and unpunished as he is now. But as it stands, that defiance in his eyes tugs painfully at whatever remained of Hermes’ conscience and the long-standing memories of he and Andy’s first meeting. Besides, none would be more desperate than Percy Jackson to find Andy. 

“First time for everything, Perseus,” Hermes says, turning to his drunkard brother, who swirled about a can of Diet Coke, careless of the camp and it’s charges. Perhaps, Hermes muses, his sentence should be reduced. Perhaps it would be safer for the surrounding mortals. “I’m taking him with me. A quest was ordained.”

“Don’t I know it?” Dionysus asks, lazily. “Everyone is up in arms–”

“For good reason. Lady Artemis, even, has been taken. Such a kidnapping is sacrilegious to the Olympians, It means the Titans are well ans truly rising.”

“ Kaos, ” Dionysus mutters. “I have had enough of this. Take the boy, then, Hermes, and do not bother me again.”

“Lord Olympian,” Chiron says, pleadingly. “Dionysus only means–”  

“I have heard nothing but blather about the Jackson girl for two years,” Dionysus interrupts. “I have no need for this debate. Go, boy. Follow Lord Hermes.”

Hermes does not bother arguing and neither does Percy. Dionysus is obtuse and irritating and clearly still aggravated about being forced to attend that Council meeting with the Solstice so close. He supposes there was a better time to take offense–when his wife’s life was not hanging in the balance.

“The Oracle will tell you of your quest,” Hermes tells him, walking in-step next to the boy on their march towards the Big House. “I am…” Sorry? Upset? Deeply invested in the outcome of this quest? “I hope you succeed.”

Percy looks at him with those damned eyes: sea-green and oh-so-familiar, “Why?” He asks, raspy at full volume–almost like he’d been screaming into his pillow or sobbing until his throat was raw. “Why do you care what happens to her?”

It feels, Hermes notes, a bit like a trick question. Should he acknowledge that he cared for her and have the boy panic? Should he say that he is only a messenger and let Andy get the idea that he didn’t care for her at all. “Your sister is…special. Powerful. If the Titans can turn her, it spells out–”

“Certain doom for Olympus,” Percy says, and he does not look at Hermes as he opens the door to the Big House. “I know. She could be the child of the Prophecy. She’s like a godly Nuke.”

And Hermes had never really considered what it would be like to fight a war against Andromeda Jackson. Even when they had first met–when she was nothing but a little girl with the wrath of a god and an age old discontent on her shoulders–he had always just assumed she would be pulled to his side. Hermes is aware enough to know that whatever torment she was undergoing now may truly warp her mind and her loyalties. He finds he doesn’t like the images the realization conjures: a bejeweled sword in her hands and an army at her back; the sea rising to her command, the tide high enough to swallow Olympus; the knife he gave her, twisted into the muscle of his heart. “Yes,” he admits, slowly, carefully, pausing to consider the implication of every word. “Andromeda is very dangerous. It’s imperative she is…returned to Olympus.”

Percy looks at him; haunted, like there was a ghost dogging his every step, exhaled in every  breath. Hermes recognizes the fear in him; has seen an identical expression, reflected on a more feminine face. “And what if I don’t get there in time?” He questions, a hint of panic shining through. 

Hermes swallows around a lump in his throat. “Andromeda is as perservering as she is threatening,” He says, carefully, like the wrong intonation would throw the whole sentence off. He pats Percy’s shoulder, twice, an awkward affair he will do his best to discard. “We must remind ourselves of that. And if she doesn’t return as she was, well…I will be there.”

The twins, Hermes notes, are irritatingly familiar. Percy studies him the same way Andy might have, with those godsdamned eyes that he had seen from everyone but the girl he’d wanted to see them in. “To do what?” He asks, low and careful. A threat, Hermes thinks. Well-intentioned, even if it was irritating. “I won’t let anyone hurt her. Not even the gods.”

Hermes thinks, sometimes, that even if Andy Jackson stood across him and declared she’d be the ruin of Olympus, he still would not have the heart to strike her down. “I would never hurt her,” he says. “I can promise you that . Now, go, get your prophecy.”

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Gods do not dream unless they will themselves to. Apollo, despite his status as Lord of Prophecy, had not received any useful knowledge from his dreams, and perhaps that in itself should have deterred him. But Hermes feels powerless, like he’s grasping at straws for the slightest chance of being useful, and he cannot bear it any longer, watching as others played cards and made decisions. He cannot bear the sick feeling, deep in his gut, nor the heartsickness that made his chest ache, deep and painful. He thinks if he sits uselessly any longer, he’d charge headfirst into war. 

He has a connection to Andy Jackson; their very essences were intermingled, tangled together in a complicated knot he could work at for centuries and still not loosen. 

Surely, he reasons with himself, he could bring himself to dream of her. 

He sprawls, languid, naked except for a thin sheet. There is no chill in the air, only the heat of mid-summer, balcony doors thrown open as if to welcome it in. He is relaxed; sated in a familiar manner. Only one act brought this peace to him, he knew.

His partner in this act was a gentle pressure on his chest–their leg slung over the expanse of of his hips, one breast pushed into his chest, their arm curled atop him, head nestled into his shoulders. Their warm breath hits his skin in rhythmic exhales, leaving a trail of foggy heat that clings to his skin. 

Something prickles against his chin, and he rouses himself enough to raise his head and dust the irritant away. It is only then that he notes what the irritant is; a head full of long, thick raven curls, luminous against an expanse of bronze skin. 

There is familiarity in the way with which his hands move atop her shoulders, shaking lightly, “Sweetheart,” he murmurs, low and gentle as if to keep from startling her. “We have plans today, I believe.”

She groans, low in her throat, and something deep in his stomach stirs in response. He knows that sound, likes it. “Silene can wait,” she huffs, “I am tired.”

“Too tired for your daughter, my love?” he questions, feels the laughter bubbling in his chest. There is scarcely anything other than peace here, a serene sort of happiness he thinks he’d find some way to die for, immortal though he was. 

“Mmmm,” her elbows digs, harsh, into his chest, and yet he does not flinch. That is her intention, and Hermes knows she intends to subdue him back into sleeping, but they had promised Silene, and he was a good father, if nothing else. When he does not relent, she props herself on his chest. “We have no children, Hermes. Remember? I died a child myself.”

And she is not as Hermes knows her; as formidable as she was beautiful, the pride of Poseidon, the most lovely girl in the world. The Child of the Prophecy, maybe, but clearly powerful. Clearly older, too, growing into a woman day by day. No–this girl Hermes had only ever seen in pictures and memories; small and frail, with wide, innocent eyes, a rounder face, bones that jutted from her frame and a youth that draped about her like a heavy cloak. 

Gods do not get sick, but there is nausea boiling in his stomach, and he startles, pushing himself away from her—his child bride, he realizes, horrified. 

(“I think I was nine, here,” Andy had told him, once, pointing to a picture of the same girl, “nearly ten.”)

“My love?” she asks, and her voice is higher, more pitched with youth he had never even witnessed within her. “What’s wrong.”

“Andy,” he says, desperate, sick to even his own ears. 

“Dear husband,” she purrs, and it sounds wrong, from such a pitched voice. He recoils from it; she is still so young, still nothing more than a child. She is no one’s wife. 

“No–” he protests, pushing her back as gently as he can manage, desperately scrambling. “No, you are a child. No–”

“I am as you wished me,” she says, tilting her head in confusion. “Your bride. Born for you. I died for you, too, I think. Remember?”

“No,” he protests, finally rolling off the bed–he debates taking the sheet with him, but he does not know if he can bear looking at her, at his child bride. “No, you aren’t dead. You’re not like this, either, I know it, Ands, please, please say you know it too—I can save you, tell me how to save you.”

She surveys him; and if there was anything that was the same between the child and the woman, it was that knowing sadness, clear as day in her eyes. “They have put me under the sky,” she whispers, and it sounds pained in a way Hermes aches to right. “When they release me, they will tear me apart and piece me back together for fun. I will plead for death,”

He drops to his knees besides her bed and gathers her infantile hands in his own. “I’d never let that happen to you. I will wage war–”

“You rush to war with the same speed of marriage,” Andy whispers. “And it will doom me. My brother must save me, do you understand? He is the only one who will be allowed close. You must wait. You must stay away.”

“I can save you,” he pleads, “Andy, please, let me save you. I will do anything for you–you must know that, surely–”

“I will die a child,” she murmurs. “If you come forth, the Titan General will drive a sword through my heart, and I will die like this; grasping at a future I will never reach. My brother must save me, Hermes. Please, let him save me.”

Chapter Text

T halia regrets fighting with Andy. She is not sure how to properly support the younger girl, but she does know that yelling and spiting accusations had done nothing for her. There was a coldness lingering between them now, an uncrossable chasm, something that lingered in the pit of her stomach and turned within it. Thalia wants nothing more than to have the easy press of the other girl’s lips to hers again, the weightless curl of the other girl in her arms, their legs entwined together. 

She’s hoping–somewhat desperately–as they all climb in the car, that their trip helps to ease the tensions between them. She’d decided to spend Christmas with the Chase family, leaving as soon as this little quest was over, and she doesn’t know how she’d ever survive the time apart with something black and rotten festering in her chest. 

Percy takes the front seat, up next to his mother, and despite Andy’s feigned grumbling, she takes the middle seat. “Sorry, sweetheart,” Sally Jackson says. “I think you managed to inherit my height.” 

“Yeah, squeeze in buster,” Percy says, reaching back to effortlessly flick his twin squarely on the forehead. 

“ Buster is diabolical,” Andy grumbles, huffing in hidden amusement. There’s a gentle light to her, Thalia thinks, something that almost illuminates her from within. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Look who’s talking,” Percy says, defensively swatting his sister’s hands away as she reaches to get him back. “ Diabolical. I know you pulled out the thesaurus for that one.”

“Die,” Andy says in response, finally landing a successful flick on the top of her brother’s head. 

“ Percy. Andy, ” Sally warns, placing a warning hand on her son’s shoulder–a barrier of sorts between her squabbling children. “We have company with us–you’re acting like heathens.”

“Don’t worry, Ms. Jackson,” Annabeth pipes up, from her seat behind Percy, grey eyes glittering in quiet amusement. “Thals and I are very used to it.”

Percy pivots in his seat to glare at Annabeth playfully. Traitor, he mouths. Annabeth flicks him in the forehead and Andy laughs outloud, the sound dizzying; intoxicating. Sometimes Thalia likes to imagines that she could drink in that sound forever; indulge only in it, find nourishment from it, feed off it until her stomach was full and round and finally sated. 

“Call me Sally, dear,” she pleads, “ Please. These kids make me feel old enough already.”

Thalia’s thigh presses against Andy’s in the car, the younger girl’s face bright pink with embarrassment as her mother nervously told stories about her twins in their youth. Percy and Andy both are groaning and covering their ears by the time they reach Westover Hall, and Thalia and Annabeth are both hunched over in stitches. She feels like her stomach may burst from the intensity of her laughter. There’s a deeper part of her, too, who is jealous, who wishes she had a mother like Sally and a brother like Percy. She knows it’s illogical, knows Andy’s life has its own hiccups, know that there had been a stepfather, once, who’d haunted their home, but Andy has escaped all that; grown past it, disavowed the bad and kept only the good. 

“Your mom is so cool,” She tells Percy, as they walk into school, trailing the snowy footsteps of Andy and Annabeth; dogs on leads. “I hope you know that.”

The son of Poseidon blushes, his cheeks still bright pink, and stuffs his glove-covered hands in his pockets. “She’s the best,” he acknowledges, the sincerity of it all nearly catching her off-guard. From time to time, Thalia finds herself almost struck by Percy Jackson and just how good he was; kind and gentle and willing.