Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Like A Victorious Hero

I call aloud; it hears not what I say
I stretch my empty arms; it glides away

There were many ways I expected the field trip to the museum to go. Accidentally killing my pre-algebra teacher—who might not have actually been a pre-algebra teacher—was not one of them.

You… probably want some context.

My name is Percy Jackson. I’m what you could call a troubled kid. Until a couple months ago, I was a student at Yancy Academy, a boarding school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

There were many points in my life where things had gone wrong, but it only really got bad during a field trip Yancy sent my class on in the middle of May. Twenty-eight mental case kids and only two teachers on a bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

Now, while that might sound boring to most people—Yancy trips usually were—I was actually excited for this one. I mean, it would be hard not to be, considering the fact I was raised by both my mom and the two ghosts from the time of ancient Greece that follow me around everywhere.

Yeah. You heard me right. Two ghosts. From the time of ancient Greece. That followed me around everywhere. Trust me, that is not the strangest thing in my life.

Their names were Odysseus (yeah, the Odyssey guy) and Perseus (the one that killed Medusa because he swore on the River Styx without knowing the deal).

Of the two, Perseus is taller—about a head or so more than Odysseus. His hair was a wavy, chestnut brown that ended a bit under his chin. Because of the slight translucent effect they have (cause, y’know, ghosts ), I couldn't really tell what his eye color is, but I was pretty sure they’re a pale green of sorts. He wouldn't tell me. Traitor.

Odysseus was shorter. His hair was a darker shade and was just a little bit longer than Perseus and I’s—probably around his shoulders when he didn't have it tied up. His eyes were, in my opinion, very cool. His left eye was blue while his right was brown. It was kind of hard to see the exact shades but it was still obvious they were different colors. Over his left eye, he had a small scar, one that he got from a trident someone attacked him with. He had another, longer scar across the bridge of his nose that went from one side of his face to the other.

When I was younger, I remembered him being concerned about scaring me with his scars, since they weren’t exactly a pretty sight for a kid. But I never minded them. There were a lot of things I didn’t mind. 

They both had streaks of grey in their hair—like my mom—but I never thought of any of them as old.

They’d been with me for as long as I could remember. When I was younger, up until the age of six or so, I could only hear them. That didn’t matter to me though. I didn’t say anything until I was seven, but I’d already considered them my dads even before I could see them. Maybe that was the effect of… not having my biological dad around. Either way, they’d been with me for most of my life, and they’d helped me in so many ways.

Like they did at the museum, with the reading.

“The Greek hero, Jason,” Odysseus read the plaque blankly. “The son of King Aeson, rightful ruler of Iolcos.”

See, Perseus and I both had a little something called dyslexia. It made it hard for us to read anything that wasn’t Greek (long story, don’t ask), so, of course, we made Odysseus read everything for us.

“He’s your cousin in some interpretations, isn’t he, papa?” I asked him. Then, I thought for a moment. “Would that make him my uncle?”

“Gods, I hope not,” Odysseus muttered. Perseus glared at the statue in distaste.

“Don’t call him your uncle,” he chided. “He’s undeserving of that title.”

I was about to say something in return, probably something to tease my dad with when I was interrupted.

“Percy!” I heard Mr. Brunner, one of the two teachers, yell from across the room. “Could you rejoin us over here?”

With one last, small glance at the statue, I turned around and joined the rest of my classmates around the stele, a grave marker. Mr. Brunner was talking about the carvings on the side, and while he did, my best friend, Grover, walked over to me.

He had curly hair and a small stubble on his chin. I was sure he had been held back a few grades because from what I could tell, having a stubble wasn’t a common sixth-grader thing. He had a limp, a sort of muscular disease, and he was kind of an easy target, though I didn’t like referring to him like that. He had a note and everything excusing him from gym class permanently, but don’t let that fool you. You should’ve seen the way he’d run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

“Who were you talking to?” He whispered to me, leaning in the slightest bit.

I looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Earlier, while you were looking at the Jason statue,” Grover muttered, gesturing behind us. “You were talking to someone, but nobody was there.”

My eyes flicked to Odysseus and I had to resist the urge to laugh. Odysseus’ unimpressed look showed that he knew very well what I found so funny. Grover noticed it and frowned slightly, almost in concern. Why, I had no idea.

“I wasn’t talking to anyone,” I said flippantly. “You know how I am, talking to myself and all.”

Grover glanced at me suspiciously but stopped asking about it. Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’ll have to be a bit more careful next time,” Perseus said. I gave him a nod. It was small, barely noticeable, but he knew I was listening.

I tuned back into what Mr. Brunner—who was the Latin teacher—was saying. It was genuinely very interesting and I wanted to hear more about it, but the kids in my class just kept talking. Especially Nancy Bobofit, one of my least favorite kids in the entire school.

She had red hair, freckles, and some of the meanest eyes I’d ever seen. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she was some monster in disguise. She couldn’t have been though, or else Odysseus would’ve known. It was helpful having someone who was clear-sighted around, someone who could see through the Mist when demigods, like Perseus and I, couldn’t.

Yeah. Demigods. Perseus, son of Zeus, and me. Son of some god I didn’t know. A story for another day. Currently, I was trying to focus on Mr. Brunner’s speech, even if Nancy was making it hard to focus. Every time I told her to shut up though, the other teacher, Mrs. Dodds, would glare at me.

She was our pre-algebra teacher. She’d replaced the previous one after they had a meltdown and ever since we met, she’d decided Nancy was an angel and I was Hades born. One time, I’d offhandedly mentioned how she couldn’t be human and Grover looked at me real serious and said, “You’re absolutely right.”

Odysseus and Perseus eyed her suspiciously for a whole week after that.

At some point, Nancy started laughing with her friend at one of the naked men on the stele and I’d had enough.

“Can you just shut up? ” I snapped, perhaps a bit too loudly. Everyone quieted and turned to me.

“Mr. Jackson,” Mr. Brunner said, “do you have a comment to make?”

I flushed in embarrassment. “No, sir.”

He studied me for a bit before pointing to one of the pictures on the stele. “Very well. Could you tell me what is happening in this picture?”

Thankfully, it was a story I knew like the back of my hand, mostly because of the countless times I forced (asked) Odysseus to read me a bunch of Greek myths when I was little.

“That’s Kronos,” I answered. “It’s him eating his kids, who are the gods.”

“ Are? ” One of the boys questioned quietly.

“Why is he always talking about them like they exist?” A girl muttered to her friend.

I ignored them.

Mr. Brunner looked expectant. “And? Why did he do that?”

“After he cut up his dad with his siblings, the Titans, he received a prophecy that his kids would kill him,” I replied. “He was paranoid and every time he had a kid, he would eat them. Eventually, his wife, Rhea, got tired of it and after their next son was born, she tricked Kronos into eating a rock instead. She raised her son, Zeus, until he was old enough to free his siblings and overthrow Kronos.”

Some of the kids started to snicker because gods forbid someone knows a bit too much about something.

“Oh, please,” Nancy muttered to one of her friends. “Like we’re going to need this in real life. Our job interviews are going to ask us to please explain why Kronos ate his kids. ”

“And why, Mr. Jackson, to paraphrase Miss. Bobofit’s excellent question,” Mr. Brunner interrupted, “do you need to know this?”

“Busted,” Grover remarked.

Nancy’s face was as red as her hair. “Shut up,” she hissed.

Meanwhile, I was thinking about our teacher’s question. Why do we need to know this? I knew why I needed this information, so I didn’t die an early death, but asking why the rest of the class would need it? I had no idea.

“I don’t know, sir,” I said.

“I see,” Brunner looked a little disappointed before continuing. “Anyway, Mr. Jackson, you were correct,” Mr. Brunner said, his previous disappointment replaced with pride. “Zeus disguised himself as a cupbearer and gave Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, causing him to disgorge his other five children. Afterward, they fought their father and cut him into pieces before taking the throne.”

There were multiple cries of disgust from my class.

Brunner grinned. “Now, on that happy note, how does everyone feel about some lunch?”

As we walked out, half the class looked sick. The other half was messing around as always. Grover and I maneuvered our way to the fountain, where we sat to eat our lunches. Before that, however, Mr. Brunner called me over.

There was a sad and tired glint in his eye, one that made him look years older than he actually was. It was a look I knew well. Odysseus had that glint in his own eyes every day. He was—physically, at least—in his late thirties to early forties, but he always looked so much older when I’d glance at him.

“You must learn the answer to my question, Percy,” Mr. Brunner said suddenly, snapping me from my thoughts. The glint was mostly gone, but some of it remained.

“About the Titans?”

“About why we need this in real life.”

Persues tilted his head, brows furrowed. Odysseus was studying Mr. Brunner with a suspicious frown.

“Oh,” I said, intelligently.

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

I blinked at him. Then frowned. What did he mean? There’s no way he could know that everything he taught was real, so what in Olympus’ name was he talking about?

“Sir?”

Mr. Brunner didn’t seem to hear me. He was watching the girl’s stele with a sad look, almost as if he went to her funeral. He turned back to me and told me to go eat my lunch.

I walked back to where Grover was, by the fountain.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, the clouds darker than I’d ever seen. The weather in all of New York had been off since Christmas and it’d been unsettling my dads. Especially Perseus.

“What in Hades is his problem?” He muttered, looking to the sky.

“Does this look like one of Zeus’ tantrum storms?” Odysseus asked him.

“No,” Perseus replied. “Those are, surprisingly, smaller. This is something else. He isn’t being petty, I don’t think. He’s genuinely angry about something.” He grimaced. “Poseidon must be too. There’s been lightning, but storms are more his domain, and this is too intense to be just my father.”

Odysseus looked even more nervous the moment Poseidon was brought up. I don’t think it’s a habit he’s noticed, but whenever he’s brought up, his hand always drifts to the scar above his left eye. The one Poseidon gave him. Don’t… just don’t ask. I didn’t like Poseidon very much either. Mostly because of what he did to Odysseus.

Either way, nobody seemed to notice the storm. That, or they didn’t care much about it. Some of the boys in the class were pelting some poor birds with their crackers—though it quickly came to a stop when one of the pigeons started chasing them. Nancy Bobofit was off pick-pocketing some lady and, of course, Mrs. Dodds didn’t see a thing.

“Detention?” Grover asked me when I sat down, lunch in hand.

“No,” I replied, a bit sullen. The mention of Poseidon had put me in a bad mood. Like it always did. “Not from Brunner. I don’t get what he’s trying to tell me. Why would anyone need this information?” Besides a demigod or clear-sighted mortal?

Grover stared at the pavement for a while, completely silent. When he opened his mouth, I expected him to give me some deep philosophical advice to make me feel better. Instead, he asked, “Can I have your apple?”

I passed it to him. I wasn’t hungry.

Eventually, Nancy seemed to get bored of being a juvenile delinquent and walked over to us, mean eyes narrowed. She threw her half-eaten lunch in Grover’s lap. 

“Oops,” she said, crooked teeth bared in a grin. “My bad.”

I tried to keep calm. The school counselor had told me, countless times, to take deep breaths and count to ten, take control of your temper, but I was so mad and a wave roared in my ears as I stood up.

The next thing I knew, Nancy was lying in the fountain, screaming about how I’d pushed her in. What?

I glanced at my dads, hoping they could give me an answer on what just happened. Perseus looked accepting, for some reason, before he noticed I was watching and frowned. Odysseus was staring at the fountain in surprise, brows knit with mild horror. I didn’t have time to think about it when Ms. Dodds materialized next to us.

She hurried over to Nancy, shooting me a nasty glare as she did so.

Some of the kids started whispering.

“—did you see that—”

“—the water—”

“—almost like it grabbed her—”

What?

Once Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to buy her a new shirt at the museum’s gift shop, she straightened. She looked at me with a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if she’d just won some game. “Now, honey—”

“I know, I know,” I muttered. “Erasing textbooks for a month.”

Wrong thing to say.

“Come with me,” Mrs. Dodds said, eyeing me with annoyance.

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

I stared at him in awe. Perseus frowned. “Isn’t he terrified of her?” He asked Odysseus. He didn’t reply, still stuck on the fountain thing.

Mrs. Dodds glared at him so cruelly, I was surprised Grover didn’t burst into flames or something.

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

“But—”

“You— will —stay—here.”

Grover leaned back, but his eyes were narrowed. The look in his eyes could almost be described as vicious before it flashed back into fear.

“It’s okay, Grover,” I said. “Thanks for trying.”

“Honey,” Mrs. Dodds grit out. “ Now. ”

Nancy smirked at me, smug. I fixed her with my deluxe I’ll-kill-you-later stare I’d learned from Odysseus a couple of years back. I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she was gone. I glanced at the top of the stairs where she stood, arms crossed and waiting. How’d she get there so fast?

I’d been told this was an effect of ADHD, another lovely disability of mine. Specifically, the attention deficit part. The counselor had said it was my brain misinterpreting something. I wasn’t so sure.

I hurried up the stairs and into the museum, briefly glancing at Grover. He was looking nervously between me and Mr. Brunner as if begging him to notice what was happening. But Brunner was too focused on his book.

I followed Mrs. Dodds further into the museum. She finally stopped in the Greek and Roman section. Besides us, the gallery was empty.

“Well?” She demanded.

“Ma’am, I don’t—”

“Your time is up,” she hissed.

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

“ FURY! ” I heard Odysseus yell in a panic.

Suddenly, Mr. Brunner, who’d just been outside reading his book, hurried in, a pen in his hand.

“What-ho, Percy!” He yelled as he threw it to me.

Mrs. Dodds lunged.

I yelled and dodged, her talons barely grazing my ear. Instinctively, I reached for the pen but it wasn’t a pen anymore when it hit my hand. Instead, it was a sharp, bronze sword—Mr. Brunner’s sword. The one he used in class tournament days.

Mrs. Dodds looked at me with murder in her eyes. She lunged again and, purely out of instinct, I slashed the sword. It hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body. With a piercing, horrid scream, she disintegrated into dust.

Then, I was alone.

Mr. Brunner was no longer at the entrance to the gallery. Nobody was there except for my dads and I.

My hands shook. Had I imagined the whole thing?

When the ringing in my ears subsided, I heard my dads’ talking.

“—how did I not see her?” Odysseus was saying, panic lacing his tone. “I should’ve— how did she avoid it? How? I never—”

“Odysseus,” Perseus said worriedly, hands firm on Odysseus’ shoulders. “You need to calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down? A Fury just attacked our son!” He yelled, hysteria beginning to seep into his voice. “A Fury I didn’t ever notice in months. Months!”

“Papa,” I interrupted. They turned to me so quickly, that I was surprised they didn’t break something. Could they break a bone as ghosts? “It’s okay. Look, I’m fine.”

“Fine,” Odysseus repeated, almost manically. “You’re… fine? After getting attacked? ”

“She wasn’t the first monster I’ve ever encountered.”

“No, she wasn’t,” my papa said, “but she was the first I didn’t notice beforehand.”

“Brunner handed you that pen,” Perseus interrupted before Odysseus could go on another half-hysterical tangent. He wrapped an arm around him and pressed him close before glancing at me. “What does the inscription say?”

I glanced at it. “ Ανακλυσμος, ” I told him. “Riptide.”

“Go and find Mr. Brunner,” my dad said gravely before turning his attention back to Odysseus.

I walked out of the room, hands shaking.

I found Mr. Brunner hanging around at the top of the stairs. When he spotted the pen, he looked a little distracted. “Ah, that would be my pen,” he held out his hand and I passed it to him. “Please bring your own writing utensils next time, Mr. Jackson.”

“Mr. Brunner,” I asked. “Where’s Mrs. Dodds?”

He looked at me, confused. “Who?”

“Mrs. Dodds,” I said. “The other chaperone? The pre-algebra teacher?”

He frowned and sat forward, looking concerned. “Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on the trip roster. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds in Yancy. Are you feeling alright?” 

Chapter Text

I was used to the occasional weird experience or encounter with a monster. The thing about those was that no one immediately tried to gaslight me afterward. My classmates acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a peppy woman I’d never seen before today—had been our math teacher since Christmas. For the weeks after that, every single student and teacher in Yancy never brought up Mrs. Dodds.

Occasionally, I’d spring a Mrs. Dodds reference, trying to get them to slip up, but all I’d get were a couple of weird looks and some glares. It felt like the entire school was playing some sort of prank on me. If it wasn’t for my dads, I probably would’ve believed them.

That, and if it wasn’t for Grover’s terrible acting. I’d ask if he knew who Mrs. Dodds was and he’d hesitate, every time, before replying, “No. Who’s she?”

He knew something. I was sure of it. But no matter how hard I tried, he wouldn’t say anything, as if he was hoping I would think I’d just imagined it and back off. Eventually, I did. Not because I believed him, but because there was nothing I could do without revealing what I knew. It was one of the first things Odysseus had ever taught me. 

Don’t reveal your hand too early. Wait until the right time, the perfect opportunity. Make sure you understand the situation first—you can’t afford to be caught off guard. Lying can only get you so far in things like this.

Gods, it was hard not to, though.

The freak weather continued. The following weeks were the most uneasy I’d ever seen Perseus. He kept glancing out the windows, sometimes just… watching the sky. For hours. Odysseus didn’t seem to be any better, but he tried to ignore it for my sake.

It got worse. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in Grover and I’s dorm. A couple days later, we heard about a tornado that touched down just fifty miles of Yancy. One of the main things we learned about in social studies was the amount of planes that had gone down in the Atlantic.

“They’re angry,” Odysseus muttered to me once during class. Perseus was pacing around near the window on the other side of the room, out of hearing range if we were quiet. “Zeus and Poseidon, I mean. And if Zeus is angry, Perseus is too. Be careful around him, alright? He’s under a lot of stress.”

I frowned. “Would he yell at me or something?”

“No,” Odysseus said. “Perseus wouldn’t do that. He inherited his mother’s temper, not his father’s.”

He didn’t elaborate further. I let it be.

As the year continued, the storms and tornadoes did as well. Slowly, I grew more irritable and cranky. My grades slipped down ever further, from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her gang of delinquents. I started snapping at people more and got sent out of the room almost every class. 

I chalked it up to the bad weather. Odysseus used to tell me that when I was a baby, I would always get really upset whenever there was a storm. Perseus would then chime in to say that I nearly drove Odysseus and my mom insane because of my refusal to sleep, to the point Odysseus genuinely began to contemplate the morality of knocking out an infant. To them, it wasn’t anything strange but I felt like there was more to it than just some stray effect of the weather.

Perseus seemed to be getting more and more restless as the storms got worse. He was in a constant bad mood and after weeks of being near us two lovely rays of sunshine, Odysseus was getting a bit fed up too. They never snapped at me though. Occasionally, their banter with each other would get a bit mean-spirited but they would never say anything actually hurtful, thankfully. I didn’t think I would be able to deal with them arguing on top of everything else.

The last straw for Yancy was when the English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests and I snapped at him, calling him an old sot. I didn’t really remember what it meant but it sounded like the right thing to say. My head was aching a lot at that moment and I ended up adding a lovely erre es korakas to it, only to immediately regret it when Perseus started to angrily scold me. None of the teachers knew what it meant but they could tell it was something bad. Later that day, the principal sent my mom a letter, making it official: I would not be returning to Yancy Academy next year.

Fine, I thought bitterly. Fine.

I was dreadfully homesick at this point.

I wanted to be back with my mom in our apartment on the Upper East Side, even if that meant I had to go to public school or deal with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet. There would be some things I would miss about Yancy. The view of the woods outside my window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of the pine trees. I’d miss Grover the most. He’d been a good friend, one of the greatest I’d ever had. I was worried about how he’d fare when I was gone.

I’d miss Latin class too—Mr. Brunner’s crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only class I studied for. The evening before my final, however, I got so frustrated that I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across the room. Odysseus had been doing his best to help me read through it, but the words felt like they were dancing circles around my head and I couldn’t process anything I read. I should’ve been able to remember the differences between Charon and Chiron or Polydictes and Polydeuces but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t commit it to memory. And don’t even get me started on conjugating all those Latin verbs.

I paced around the room, feeling like ants were crawling under my skin. Neither of my dads said anything.

I thought back to what Mr. Brunner had said. His serious expression and thousand-year-old eyes. I will only accept the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath and picked the textbook off the floor. Still, my dads didn’t say anything.

I’d never asked a teacher for help before. A little after first grade, I’d started to notice how hostile teachers would get whenever I asked the wrong question—which was any question I had. But I didn’t think Mr. Brunner was like that. At least, I hoped he wasn’t. If I went to him, I could at least apologize for the failing grade I was sure to get on the test. I didn’t want to leave Nancy Academy with him thinking I hadn’t tried.

I walked down the halls into the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty but Mr. Brunner’s door was ajar, light streaming out onto the walls and floor.

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

I froze. Perseus and Odysseus peered further into the room.

Now, I’m not usually an eavesdropper but I dare you to not listen when you hear your best friend talking to an adult about you.

I inched closer.

“… alone this summer,” Grover was saying, sounding the most anxious I’d ever heard him, which was saying a lot. “I mean, a Kindly One! In the school! Now that we know for sure and they know too—”

Wait, what?

It took everything in me to not gasp out loud. Grover knew about the Furies? Grover and Mr. Brunner?

“They?” Odysseus muttered to Perseus. “Do they mean the gods?”

My dad didn’t reply, a worried frown on his face.

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

“But he might not have time!” Grover argued. He sounded like he was moments away from bursting into tears, stress straining his voice. “The Summer Solstice deadline—”

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

“Sir, he saw her…”

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

… what?

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

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

The mythology book slipped out of my hands, hitting the floor before any of us could catch it. Mr. Brunner went quiet.

My heart hammering, I quietly picked the book up and scurried into one of the empty rooms.

A shadow fell across the floor as something slipped outside of the room. A few seconds later, I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, as a figure appeared at the window into the room I was hiding in. I held my breath until it moved on.

A couple of minutes passed. Then, a sigh. Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. “Nothing,” he murmured. “My nerves haven’t been right since the Winter Solstice.”

“Mine neither,” Grover said. I could hear him stepping out into the hall. “But I could’ve sworn…”

“Never mind that,” Mr. Brunner told him. “Go back to your dorm. You've got a long day of exams.”

Grover groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

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

I waited for a bit before getting up and retreating back to the dorm. On second thought, I could afford to fail the test.

While I walked down the halls, I glanced at my dads. “Did you guys see what that was?”

Perseus shook his head. “We couldn’t see anything. Something obscured it.”

“Someone is messing with the Mist,” Odysseus said. He was still bothered about the incident with Mrs. Dodds. “I don’t know who or why, but someone is using it to obscure things more than usual.”

“How can you be so sure?” Perseus asked.

“I… don’t know. There’s something wrong with this, I can feel it, but I don’t know what it is.”

My dad and I glanced at each other. None of us said anything as I continued walking to my dorm. When I walked in, Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he’d been there all night.

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

I didn’t answer.

He frowned. “You look awful. Are you feeling okay?”

“Just… tired,” I said, walking over to my bed and putting my textbook on the desk. I turned so he couldn’t see my expression and started getting ready for bed.

I didn’t know what to think about what I’d heard downstairs. Grover and Mr. Brunner knew about the Gods? About Greek Mythology not actually being a myth? I felt like I should’ve been freaking out, like I should’ve started demanding answers from Grover.

I didn’t. I brushed my teeth and went to bed. For the first time in years, Odysseus didn’t sing anything.

—

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my head aching with all the Roman names I’d forgotten and misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back in.

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

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

“ What? ” Perseus said incredulously.

I stared at him blankly. His tone was kind, sympathetic, but his words were humiliating. I could hear the kids still taking the test start to giggle and chatter to each other. From the corner of my eye, I could see Nancy Bobofit make mock-kissing motions before quietly laughing with her friends.

“Okay, sir,” I mumbled.

“I mean…” Mr. Brunner moved his wheelchair back and forth, as if nervous. “This isn’t the right place for you,” he said finally. “It was only a matter of time.”

My eyes stung.

“Oh my gods,” Odysseus seethed. “Just shut up .”

I barely noticed anything besides the tumbling emotions in my chest. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the entire class, telling me I couldn’t handle it. Telling me that it was only a matter of time, that I was always destined to be kicked out when he was the only one besides Grover who actually had faith in me the entire year.

“Right,” I said, voice shaky.

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

“Thanks,” I interrupted, moving back towards the door. “Thanks so much, sir, for reminding me.”

“Percy—”

But I was already gone. Odysseus and Perseus immediately worked to make me feel better but I could barely hear them with how loudly my ears were ringing.

—

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

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their parents were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. People with money and influence. Money and influence my mother and I didn’t have.

One of them asked me what I was doing this summer and I told him I was going back to the city.

What I didn’t tell them was that I’d have to get a bunch of summer jobs, and spend my free time worrying about where I’d go to school in the fall.

“Oh,” the guy said. “That’s cool.”

They went back to their conversation, acting as if I didn’t exist.

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

During the entire bus ride, Grover was a fidgety mess. I didn’t have a problem with it, I was the exact same, but this was different. He was glancing around the bus nervously, eyeing each and every passenger as if expecting them to suddenly lunge towards us and attack. Slowly, I began to realize that he would always do this—just with less fear and movement.

Eventually, I’d had enough.

“Looking for Kindly Ones?” I asked.

Grover jumped, face turning pale as he moved to look at me. “Wha— what do you mean?”

“Percy,” Odysseus hissed. He wasn’t annoyed, more wary. I could understand why. This wasn’t the best time to reveal my hand but I was tired and angry and I just wanted to be home already. I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner, ignoring Odysseus’ hand tightening on my shoulder.

Grover’s eye twitched, whether because of irritation or nerves, I didn’t know. “How much did you hear.”

“Oh, not much. What’s the Summer Solstice deadline?”

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

“Grover—”

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

“Grover, you’re a horrible liar.” As proven by Odysseus’ grip loosening as Grover continued, gaping in horror at how terribly he was doing. Perseus looked more and more pained as the conversation continued.

Grover flushed. He reached into his shirt pocket and fished out a random business card. “Just— take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.”

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but Odysseus read it for me.

“Grover Underwood,” he read. “Keeper. Half-Blood Hill, Long Island, New York. 800, 009-0009.”

I glanced back at Grover. “What’s Half—”

“Don’t say it aloud!” Grover yelped, some people glancing over at us in concern due to his volume. He shrunk back, voice significantly quieter the next time he spoke. “That’s my, um… summer address.”

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I’d never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. I was about to say something when Perseus interrupted me.

“He’s not telling the full truth,” he said quietly. “Try and get more information before saying anything else.”

My eyes flicked to him, then back to Grover. “I never knew you had a summer address.”

Grover suddenly looked a lot more nervous. “I… never felt like announcing it.”

“It’s an interesting name,” I continued, making sure my voice and expression were as curious and naive as I could get them. “The hill’s, I mean. Do you know where it came from?”

“I— uh,” Grover stammered. “Um.”

Faintly, I felt a bit of guilt at making him feel so anxious, but it was quickly overrun by my own anxiety. I needed to know what was going on, and I wouldn’t if I couldn’t get him to tell me.

I was about to ask him another question—one that was just a bit more pressuring—when there was a loud grinding noise from under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a rotten smell. The driver cursed loudly—some parents covering the ears of their children—and maneuvered the bus to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes of him rummaging through the engine compartment, the driver announced that we’d all have to get off while he figured out what was wrong with it. Grover and I filed off with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road—nothing too memorable or noticeable unless you broke down. On our side of the road, there was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood-red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I’d ever seen. Seriously. They were about the size of a sweater or two but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of sea-blue yarn.

There wasn’t anything too weird about them—except for the fact that all three of them were staring at me. I looked to Grover and my dads to say something about this only to see that the blood had drained from Grover’s face as he stared at the three old ladies.

“Grover?” I said. “Hey, man—”

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

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

“Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all.”

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. Odysseus’ breath hitched. Perseus suddenly moved closer to me. Grover looked increasingly terrified.

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

“What?” I said. “It’s a thousand degrees in there. We’ll burn to death—”

“ Come on! ” He snapped, which stunned me for a couple of moments. Grover rarely got angry so it was always a surprise when he spoke with even the slightest bit of frustration. He pried open the bus door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

“Percy, get on the bus,” Perseus told me. I didn’t listen. Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me.

“Perseus Jackson,” Odysseus scolded. “Get on the bus now. ”

I wanted to turn around. I wanted to listen to my dads. But for some reason, when I watched the three old ladies, I couldn’t move. I watched as the two on the sides lifted up a single thread of string. The middle lady cut the yarn , and I could hear it echo through the air. I felt horror rise in my throat as I realized who those three ladies were.

Suddenly, from the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered and the engine roared back to life. I glanced back at the bus when everyone began to cheer, then back to the old ladies.

But they were gone—which only confirmed my suspicion.

“Darn right!” Yelled the driver. “Everybody back on board!”

Slowly, I moved back to the bus, not looking away from the place where the ladies should’ve been until I had to climb in. I faintly noticed that I had sat next to Grover.

Once the bus started, I felt feverish—almost as if I’d caught the flu.

I would’ve preferred that. I would’ve chosen so much over seeing the Fates (the Fates ) cut a string right in front of me. A string that represented someone’s life.

I had the sickening feeling that it was my life.

Chapter Text

A couple minutes passed before we said anything. Grover didn’t seem to be doing any better than me, with his face pale and his teeth chattering as if he were freezing.

“Grover?” I asked.

“Yeah?”

“What are you not telling me?”

Grover glanced around the bus nervously. “What did you see at the fruit stand?”

I didn’t say anything, debating on whether or not I should say I knew they were the Fates. Do I reveal my hand or do I keep it hidden for a little longer? Do I tell him what I know, what I’ve gathered, or do I stay silent?

“Three old ladies,” I eventually said. “The ones you saw. The middle one took out some string and cut it.”

He shuddered, closed his eyes and did some sort of hand gesture. It didn’t look familiar to me but I could tell it had something to do with the world of the Olympians.

“Grover?”

“You saw her snip the cord,” he said fearfully. He was switching between wringing his hands nervously and chewing at the nail of his thumb. After a couple seconds of thoroughly freaking me out, he muttered, “This can’t be happening. I can’t let this turn out like last time.”

I frowned. “What last time?”

He didn’t answer. “Always sixth grade. Why do they never make it past sixth grade?”

What the fuck?

“Grover,” I repeated because he was really starting to freak me out. “What are you talking about? What always happens in sixth grade?” Then, a thought came to me. “Did something like this ever happen to you?”

Because if anything ever did, I’m going to destroy the Fates—

Grover seemed to almost scrunch into himself as I kept talking. He looked moments away from crying and I felt a stab of guilt.

I let him be.

We sat silently for another couple minutes. Then, “Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me.”

He still wouldn’t look at me.

“Okay.”

—

Confession time: I ditched him. I know, I know. I said I wouldn’t and I probably should’ve waited. Maybe things would’ve gone better if I did. Or maybe they could’ve gone worse. Who knows?

Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that I left him. He was scaring me. He kept muttering things like, “Sixth grade, it’s always sixth grade,” and, “I can’t let it happen again,” and, “Why didn’t I just try to convince Brunner?”

I probably would’ve stayed if it wasn’t for my dads acting the same way. Perseus and Odysseus, for the entirety of the trip, muttered to each other in Greek. It was loud and while I could still make out bits and pieces, it wasn’t enough to piece together what they were saying.

Gods, I hated when they did that. I never liked being the only one that didn’t know what was happening and while I know my dads would never intentionally make me feel that way, it still hurt a bit.

So, I left. When he got upset, Grover tended to feel ill so I wasn’t surprised when he made a beeline for the restroom after making me promise to wait for him. Instead of waiting, I picked up my suitcase and went outside despite my dads’ arguments.

“Percy, where are you going?” Odysseus asked once he noticed I was heading towards the exit.

“I’m going home,” I muttered.

“You said you’d wait for Grover,” Perseus argued. “Stay here until he’s done.”

“No.”

“Percy—”

“I said no.”

I ignored them after that. Eventually, I was able to catch a taxi going uptown. By that point, Odysseus and Perseus had given up. I felt a bit bad about dismissing them like that but I couldn’t bring myself to care all that much. I was tired. I wanted to see my mom.

A quick word about my mother, before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson and she’s the best person in the world, which once again proves my theory that the best people have the worst luck. Her parents died in a plane crash when she was five (fuck you and everything you stand for, Zeus, you evil goat bastard) and she was raised by her uncle. He didn’t care about her though. 

My mom had wanted to be an author, so she spent her high school year working and studying to raise enough money and get good enough grades to get into a college with a good creative-writing program. Then, senior year, she had to drop out because her uncle got cancer.

After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. The only good break she ever got was meeting my father. I don’t have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn’t like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She didn’t have any pictures. They weren’t married. She said that he was rich, and important, and their relationship was a secret.

I don’t think she knew that he was a god. Whether she did or not, I couldn’t bring myself to care much for him. He left my mom, alone, to raise me. He had to have known that she was struggling and yet he still couldn’t give her anything but maybe a month of happiness. That wouldn’t help her much now, especially after she had to marry Gabe Ugliano, my step-father, just so we could have a place to stay. 

I hated him for that. And even if, for whatever reason, he came back, I wouldn’t care. I had Odysseus and Perseus. I didn’t need some selfish god that left my mom to barge into my life and try to be a father. I didn’t need him.

Either way, with or without my biological father, Gabe and I didn’t exactly make my mom’s life easier. With the way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along… well. When I got home is a good example.

—

After the taxi dropped me off, I hurried into our little apartment. I didn’t bother to have Ody or Perse check to see if Gabe was awake—I could already hear his and his buddies’ obnoxious laughter. I had hoped my mom would be home from work, but I quickly changed my mind when I heard all the noise.

I opened the door and stepped in. Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his friends, if you could even call them that. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn across the carpet. Odysseus glanced over the mess with a barely restrained look of disgust. Perseus didn’t bother, muttering irritated curses under his breath.

Gabe didn’t glance up when I entered. He only adjusted the cigar he had in his mouth. “So,” he said. “You’re home.”

I didn’t care much for what he had to say. “Where’s my mom?”

“Working,” he said offhandedly. He looked up, then. “You got any cash?”

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

Gabe had put on more weight, somehow. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift store clothes. He had all but three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something. It didn’t.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. None of us knew why he hadn’t been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending all the money on cigars that made me nauseous and beer that made me sick. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called it our “guy secret”. Meaning, if I told my mom, he’d beat me and her. The only reason I didn’t tell her everything he did to me through the years.

“I don’t have any cash,” I said.

He raised a greasy eyebrow, narrowing his eyes. Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should’ve covered up everything else. Occasionally, I could slip past him with some money, courtesy of Odysseus and his lessons in lying, but most of the time, he noticed.

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

“Surprised he even knows two plus two,” Perseus muttered hatefully.

Eddie, the landlord of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. Just enough that he would say something, not enough that he would do something more. “Come on, Gabe,” he said. “The kid just got here.”

“Am I right? ” Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bags of pretzels.

“Fine,” I said, grabbing a wad of dollars out of my pocket and throwing it on the table. “I hope you lose.”

I walked down the hall, chin held high. Another thing I learned from Odysseus.

Keep your chin up, Little Prince, he’d told me when I was really young, after some kids had pushed me over on the playground. Royalty doesn’t bow to anyone.

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

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

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

Gabe’s smell was almost worse than the nightmares I’d been having about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of the Fates snipping the yarn.

The moment I remembered why I’d rushed home, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover’s look of panic—how he’d made me promise I wouldn’t go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me and I had to sit down before I fell over.

Perseus drifted closer to me with a frown, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Percy?”

I didn’t say anything. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, like it was pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons—

“Percy?” My mom’s voice.

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted. My mom could make me feel better just by walking into the room. Knowing this, Odysseus and Perseus moved back a bit. They were still relatively close but they made sure there was some room for. They didn’t need to because they were, y’know, ghosts, but they did it more out of respect for my mom than out of necessity.

My mom walked into the room and sat next to me on the bed. She pulled me into a hug with a wide smile. “Oh, Percy, I can’t believe it. You’ve grown so much since Christmas!”

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

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

Maybe I was a bit old for it, but I soaked up all of her attention. I was so happy to finally see her after so long, I didn’t pay much attention to anything else.

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

I grit my teeth. I heard Perseus mutter a couple crude words, ones that would make Odysseus, who was staring in the direction of the yelling in disapproving silence, scold me for days if I dared repeat them for any reason. I couldn’t tell which of them was scarier in moments like this but I wished they could actually do something about it.

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

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

Until the trip to the museum came up.

“What?” My mom asked. Her eyes were concerned and it took everything in me to not tell her what happened. “Did something scare you?”

“No, Mom.”

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds being a Fury and the Fates cutting that string but I didn’t want her to send me to a mental hospital instead of a boarding school.

She frowned. She knew I wasn’t telling her something, but she didn’t push me. She never did unless she was sure it was something that was hurting me.

“I have a surprise for you,” she said after a brief moment of silence. “We’re going to the beach.”

My eyes lit up. “Montauk?”

“Three nights—same cabin.”

I heard Odysseus shift a bit to my left. I didn't pay much attention to it. “When?”

My mom smiled. “As soon as I get changed.”

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

Gabe suddenly appeared in the doorway. Speak of the devil and he shall appear. “Bean dip, Sally? Didn’t you hear me?”

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

“I was on my way, honey,” she said, a false sweetness carefully weaved into her tone. I never would’ve caught it if it wasn’t Odysseus and Perseus teaching me how to catch onto the small details in someone’s voice. “We were just talking about the trip.”

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

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

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

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

“Yes, honey,” my mom said, tone still sickly sweet.

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

“We’ll be very careful.”

Gabe considered it for a couple of moments. “Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip… and maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game.”

Maybe if I kick you in the soft spot, I thought, I’m sure the gods would appreciate a particularly large offering.

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

“Just once, Percy,” Odysseus said suddenly, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Try and make it as sincere as possible.”

Gods, I hated Gabe.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, trying my best to make myself sound as apologetic and regretful as I could. “I’m really sorry I interrupted your poker game.”

Please go back to it now. Please let us leave.

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement. Well, sucks for him. I made sure to make it as genuine as I could and—judging by Odysseus’ hum of approval—I succeeded.

“Yeah, whatever,” he decided, walking back to his game.

My parents all sighed in relief.

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

For a moment, I saw a flicker of anxiety in her eyes. Similar to the one I saw in my dads and Grover’s eyes.

But then her smile returned, and I forced myself to shove it to the back of my mind. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

—

An hour later, we were ready to leave.

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

“Fucker,” he muttered and Odysseus kicked him, sending me a sharp glare as a reminder to never repeat anything Perseus said.

I was quickly distracted by Gabe speaking up as I loaded the last bag. “Not a scratch on this car, brain boy,” he warned. “Not one little scratch.”

Like I’d be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn’t matter to Gabe. He’d always find a way to blame something on me, even if it was entirely unrelated.

Watching him walk back toward the apartment door, I got so mad I did something I can’t quite explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I’d seen Grover make on the bus, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it knocked him over and sent him flying up the staircase. 

Odysseus, Perseus and I stared for a couple of moments. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

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

—

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

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my father. I might not care for him, but I cared for my mother and if she wanted to go to Montuak, we’d go to Montuak. 

Even then, I wouldn’t have minded. I didn’t like the ocean. I didn’t like my father—there was something different about Montuak. I was still wary of the ocean, I still didn’t like going in it, but I felt a lot better about it there than any other beach.

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

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine, Ody and Perse occasionally adjusting something when my mother wasn’t looking. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

I guess I should explain the blue food.

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

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop. Odysseus was always enamored with her stories and would tell me things to ask her, since he couldn’t do so himself.

After a bit, I decided to bite the bullet and ask her about something I always did when we were there—my father. Talking about him always made her sad, but when we were in Montuak, it seemed to lessen into a fond sort of reminiscence instead of the usual sorrow—like how my fear of the water lessened. I wanted my mother to be happy—as much as she could be with Gabe and I—and if that meant that I had to hear about a guy I hated, I was fine with it.

(Odysseus always looked nervous when my father was brought up. Perseus just seemed annoyed.)

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

I brushed off the annoyance I felt at being compared to him. Still, I couldn’t suppress some of my thoughts.

Kind? The guy, the god, who left you all alone with a baby? Kind?

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

I wish he would come see us, I thought, so I could force him to apologize to you and give you everything you deserve.

Faintly, I wondered what there was to be proud of, if I did care for his opinion. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

“Did he ever visit?” I found myself asking, for whatever reason. Of course he didn’t visit. What was I talking about?

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

I thought back to what I remembered every time I thought of my father. A warm glow. A smile. He was a god. Perhaps he peered in to see me?

But why would he? Something in the back of my mind said. Gods never cared for their children. Perseus is a prime example. His father couldn’t bother to help him, or his mother, despite his prayers and pleas. Athena and Hermes came in his stead, since the great God-King Zeus couldn’t bring himself to descend from Olympus to help his oh so beloved son, his own flesh and blood.

“Are you going to send me away again?” I asked. I didn’t want to dwell on these thoughts anymore. “To another boarding school?”

My mom’s expression turned solemn. She pulled her marshmallow away from the fire.

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

“Because you don’t want me around?”

I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

Immediately, my mother rushed to take my hand, tears welling in her eyes. Odysseus and Perseus moved closer towards us from where they were lingering near the shores.

“Oh, Percy, no,” my mother said. “I— I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away.”

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

“Because I’m not normal,” I said.

“It is no fault of yours,” Perseus muttered, almost instinctively.

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

I felt dread sink in my stomach. “Safe from what?”

She averted her eyes, staring at the sand under our feet. I started to think back on other weird events in my life. In third grade, a cyclops disguised as a man had stalked me around the playground, only leaving when the teachers threatened to call the police. Perseus and I never would’ve caught it if it wasn’t for Odysseus being clear-sighted.

Before that—even earlier—in preschool, a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. I don’t remember much beyond my dads freaking out and my mom screaming when she came to pick me and found me playing with the limp body of the snake I’d managed to strangle to death.

One of the first things that ever tipped us off, Perseus had told me years ago. It didn’t take long for us to realize you were a demigod after that.

In every single school, something had happened. Something that made my mother feel unsafe and made us move.

A creeping thought seeped in. What if she knows about the gods?

No. No, she couldn’t know. Could she?

It seemed my dads were starting to have the same suspicion.

“Tell her,” Odysseus said.

I knew I should’ve listened to him. I knew I should’ve told my mom about the Fates, and Mrs. Dodds, and Grover but I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn’t want that. It was one of the only places where she didn’t look as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, the only place where I didn’t fear the water, where I didn’t feel as if something was so deeply wrong because of it.

“I’ve tried to keep you as close to me as I could,” my mother said tearfully. “They told me that was a mistake.”

“Who does she mean by they?” Perseus muttered to Odysseus. My papa shook his head.

My mother continued, “But there’s only one other option. Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just… I just can’t stand to do it.”

I stared at her, unsure of what she was saying. “My father wanted me to go to a special school?”

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

My head was spinning. Why would my father—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see my birth—talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

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

Odysseus’ hands tightened on my shoulders. Perseus began tapping on his arm restlessly. “What is she saying?”

I couldn’t focus on the rest of what they said. “For good? But if it’s only a summer camp…”

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

—

That night I had a vivid dream. Surprisingly, it was not another one of my dads’ memories, as they so often are. It was storming in the beach of Montauk and two beautiful animals, a black horse and golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the shore.

The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder. It was familiar. I didn’t know how or why but I knew the voice. Not because I heard it from somewhere. It was something I, deep down, recognized even though I had no idea who it was.

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

I woke with a start. Ody and Perse were standing next to me, Odysseus with his hand stretched out as if he was about to shake me awake. Outside, it was storming. The kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. Lightning flashed outside, making false daylight.

“Oh my gods,” my papa muttered in horror. Perseus stared with wide eyes, instinctively reaching for Odysseus’ hand.

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

Just how angry were Zeus and Poseidon to bring such a horrible storm to Long Island so early? What had happened?

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow. An angry, tortured sound that echoed through the sky. I felt panic writhe in my chest and rise into my throat. Odysseus reached towards me, a hand on my shoulder keeping me close as he stared out the window nervously. 

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

My mother sprang from her bed and threw open the door, still in her nightgown.

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

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

“ Oh my gods, ” Odysseus muttered again.

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

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

" O Zeu kai alloi theoi! " My best friend yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek. I was too shocked to wonder why Grover was there with us in Montuak in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn’t have his pants on—and where his legs should’ve been… where his legs should…

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

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

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

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

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

Grover was a satyr.

Chapter Text

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

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and wondered how I never noticed. It was so clear now. Why he was so nervous about Mrs. Dodds, why he was so nervous about the Fates… he knew about it all. He knew Greek , by the gods.

But that didn’t explain how he knew my mom.

“Grover.” He glanced in my general direction, eyes flicking between the rearview mirror and me. “How do you know my mom?”

“I don’t know her, exactly,” he said, flitting back to the mirror. “We’ve never met in person. But she knew I was watching you.”

“Watching me?”

“Keeping tabs on you,” he said. “Making sure you were okay. But I wasn’t faking being your friend,” he added quickly. “I am your friend.”

“You’re a satyr,” I said, intelligently. Judging by his surprised expression, it likely would’ve been better if I feigned confusion. Hurriedly, I added, “Like, from Mr. Brunner’s myths, right?”

“Yeah,” Grover said, looking the slightest bit disgruntled. “Were those ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?”

My eyes narrowed before I realized that it would look too knowing. “So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!”

“Of course there was.”

Feign obliviousness, feign obliviousness, feign obliviousness—

I frowned. “Then why did you—”

“The less you knew, the fewer monsters you’d attract,” Grover said. Yeah, that’d been my guess after eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner. “We put Mist over the humans’ eyes. We hoped you’d think the Kindly One was a hallucination, but it was no good. You started to realize who you are.”

Yeah, I’m already far past that point. I probably should’ve told him I knew everything already, but it didn’t seem like the right time to drop that I had two ghosts from the time of ancient Greece following me around.

Before I could think up another oblivious reply, the weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

“Percy,” my mom said. “There’s too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety.”

“Safety?” I asked. “From what? Who’s after me?”

Who’s so dangerous that we have to run away like this?

“Oh, nobody much,” Grover said. “Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions.”

“WHAT?” Perseus yelled, breaking the silence he and Odysseus had been in. They’d been quietly listening into what Grover was saying and looked as if they were having a crisis.

“Grover!” My mother scolded.

“Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?”

My mom pulled a hard left. We swerved onto a narrow road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

“Where are we going?” I asked. What place could possibly be safe enough for a demigod?

“The summer camp I told you about.” My mother’s voice was strained, as if she was trying to sound less scared than she actually was—for my sake. “The place your father wanted to send you.”

“The place you didn’t want me to go.”

“Please, Percy,” my mother begged. “This is hard enough. Try to understand. You’re in danger.”

“Because the Fates cut some string,” I said before I could stop myself. Grover’s brows furrowed and the car swerved the slightest bit until my mother straightened it.

“How do you know that?” Grover demanded.

Shit. My brain stalled. I was still tired, too much was happening at once, and now I’d just revealed a card I wasn’t meant to. I tried to come up with a lie but failed. It felt like my mind was going in circles.

Odysseus placed a hand on my shoulder. He seemed to have noticed my struggle. “Tell them what I tell you, alright?”

I nodded, just the slightest bit, and he continued talking.

“You’re a satyr,” I said, repeating what Odysseus told me, “from Greek Mythology. You were freaking out after we saw those women near the fruit stand—the ones that were knitting.” I could tell where this was going. The lies were coming easily now. Odysseus stopped talking and moved back a bit, giving me some more space. “They cut the yarn—like how the Fates usually do in the myths, right?”

Grover stared at me for a bit longer. “Yeah, yeah, that… makes sense.”

My mother’s grip on the steering wheel was still tight, her knuckles white. Grover had calmed down a bit, but my mom hadn’t. She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she’d swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

“What was that?” I asked.

“We’re almost there,” my mother said, ignoring my question. “Another mile. Please. Please. Please.”

I didn’t know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she’d shifted from her mortal disguise into a Fury, the moment when she’d tried to kill me. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She’d tried to kill me .

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner… and the sword he’d thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about it, the hair rose on the back of my neck. Perseus recoiled suddenly, opening his mouth to say something—

There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom! , and the car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. Carefully, I pushed myself off the back of the driver’s seat and said, “Ow.”

“Percy!” My parents shouted in almost perfect unison.

“I’m okay…”

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn’t dead. The car hadn’t really exploded. We’d swerved into a ditch. Our driver’s-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning. That was the only explanation. And I was right, judging by Perseus’ anxious and angry muttering. He glanced at the sky every couple seconds, frantic. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump.

“Grover!”

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook him, panicked. He didn’t respond.

“C’mon, c’mon,” I muttered. “Please, please, please—”

Then he groaned “Food,” and I knew there was hope.

“Percy,” my mother said. “We have to…” Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road.

Oh gods.

“Is that—” Perseus stopped talking midway through. His eyes were wide with fear.

“Shit,” Odysseus muttered. “Fuck, fuck. ”

The Minotaur.

“Percy,” my mother said, deathly serious. “Get out of the car. Now.”

She threw herself against the driver’s-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine; fear, shock, and desperation making my hands shake. It was no use. I looked up at the hole in the roof. It might’ve been an exit, but the edges were sizzling. We’d get burned pretty bad if we tried that way.

“Climb out the passenger’s side!” My mother told me. “Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?”

“What?”

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

“That’s the property line,” my mom said. “Get over that hill and you’ll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don’t look back. Yell for help. Don’t stop until you reach the door.”

I glanced where she was pointing—then back. “Mom, you’re coming too.”

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

“No!” I shouted. “You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover.”

“Food!” Grover groaned, a little louder.

The Minotaur kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I could see more and more features that only made me want to run even more. Gods, it was a horrible case of the pictures not living up to the real thing.

“He doesn’t want us,” my mother told me. “He wants you. Besides, I can’t cross the property line.”

“What kind of fucking camp prevents people from crossing the fucking property line?” Perseus said harshly.

I looked at my mother, pleading. “But…”

“We don’t have time, Percy. Go,” her voice quieted. “ Please. ”

I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the satyr, at the Minotaur that only crept closer and closer to us, slowly and deliberately.

I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. “We’re going together. Come on, Mom.”

“I told you—”

“Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car while my dads helped me get out. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn’t have carried him very far if my mom hadn’t come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover’s arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the Minotaur. He was nine feet tall, easy, his arms and legs looking like something from the cover of some random gym magazine. His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his head, which had a snout as long as my arm, nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you couldn’t get from an electrical sharpener.

He was definitely far more intimidating than any of the pictures a textbook could supply.

“That’s—” I blinked the rain out of my eyes. “That’s actually—”

“Pasiphae's son,” my mother said. “I wish I’d known how badly they want to kill you.”

“He’s actually the—”

“Don’t, Percy,” Odysseus warned. Right. Right. Names have power. Fuck, I forgot about that.

The pine tree was still too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The Minotaur hunched over the car, looking in the windows. Or, not looking, exactly. More like sniffing, nuzzling. I wasn’t sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

“Food?” Grover groaned.

“Shh,” I told him. “Mom, what’s he doing?”

“His sight and hearing are terrible,” she said. “He goes by smell. We need to hurry before he finds where we are.”

As if on cue, the Minotaur bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe’s Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

Not a scratch, Gabe had said.

Oops.

“Percy,” my mom said. “When he sees us, he’ll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way—directly sideways. He can’t change directions well once he’s charging. Do you understand?”

I looked at her. “How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me.”

“Keeping me near you? What—”

Another bellow of rage, and the Minotaur started tromping uphill.

“He’s found you,” Perseus said. “Run!”

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn’t getting any lighter.

The Minotaur closed in. Another few seconds and he’d be on top of us.

My mother must’ve been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. “Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I told you!”

I didn’t want to split up—I really didn’t—but I had a feeling she was right. It was our only chance. At the very least, if I died, he’d likely leave my mom and Grover alone.

I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked of rotten meat and stale blood.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn’t work. I could never outrun this thing. I waited until the last moment before jumping to the side, scraping my hands on the sticks and stones scattered on the grass. They weren’t healed by the rain, exactly, but the pain dulled.

The Minotaur stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time—toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We’d reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side, I could see a valley, just as my mother said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We’d never make it.

The Minotaur grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

“Run, Percy!” she told me. “I can’t go farther. Run!”

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she’d told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air. I heard Odysseus yell curses in Greek—some really visceral ones that made even my dad pale.

“MOM!”

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: “GO!”

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother’s neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply… gone.

“NO!”

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I’d gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.

The Minotaur bore down on Grover, who lay helpless on the grass. The monster hunched over, sniffing my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn’t allow that.

“Percy,” Perseus said quietly, in the tone he only used when things were very, very wrong. “What are you doing.”

I stripped off my red rain jacket.

“HEY!” I screamed, waving the jacket and ignoring my dads’ yells. I ran to one side of the monster. “HEY, STUPID! GROUND BEEF!”

The monster turned towards me almost instantly, shaking his fists in rage.

I had an idea—a stupid one, yes, but an idea nonetheless. The adrenaline was clouding my mind, erasing any bit of sensible strategy Odysseus taught me. Then again, it was Odysseus, perhaps it wasn’t actually all that sensible.

I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the Minotaur, thinking I’d jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn’t happen like that.

The Minotaur charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn’t jump sideways, so I leaped straight up kicking off from the creature’s head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck. Faintly, I could hear a clock ticking, slow and loud, but that might’ve just been my imagination.

How did I do that? I didn’t have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster’s head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The Minotaur staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat and blood festered.

The monster shook himself and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing only had one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Grover groaned in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I’d bite my own tongue off.

“Food!” Grover groaned, yet again. I could hear my dads trying to tell me something, but I could only hear Grover, the storm, the Minotaur, and that clock.

Wait, what clock—

Before I could think on that, the Minotaur pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then— snap!

The Minotaur screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry and I still couldn’t hear anything except for that fucking clock —but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled part, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his rib cage.

The monster roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The Minotaur was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I’d just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but Odysseus gently grabbed my arms, helping me up as best he could.

“Grover needs help,” he said quietly. “Get him and yourself to safety—then rest.”

I stumbled over to Grover and I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying—calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover. I wasn’t going to let him go. As I walked, my dads muttered some things, an attempt for comfort, but there wasn’t much they could do and even in my weary mind, I could tell it was bothering them.

I still heard the clock ticking.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess’. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, “He’s the one. He must be.”

“Silence, Annabeth,” the man said. “He’s still conscious. Bring him inside.”

The clock stopped ticking and I passed out.

Chapter Text

I don’t remember much about what I dreamed. What I did remember was even more confusing.

I remembered a storm—a big one, larger than the one I’d just seen. It looked weird, though, seeming to block the way to someplace. Almost like someone was manipulating it.

I heard yells. Echoes of screams. So many screams. I saw glimpses of a trident, a fancy one—power radiated off of it. Every time I saw it, it flickered. Sometimes, blood covered the tip of it. Sometimes, it was drenched in gold.

There was talking. A lot of it. The voices were distorted, but I could make out some of it:

“After everything you’ve done,” a wet cough, something splattering onto the rock, “how will you sleep at night?”

A voice, a familiar one that I just couldn’t recognize no matter how hard I tried. “Next to my wife.”

Between each dream, I must’ve woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, “What will happen at the Summer Solstice?”

I managed to croak, “What?”

She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. “What’s going on? What was stolen? We’ve only got a few weeks!”

I opened my mouth to reply when I felt someone run a hand through my hair. It felt faint and cold, but warm at the same time.

“Go back to sleep, Little Prince,” a different voice said, “you can answer her questions later.”

Someone knocked on the door, and the girl stood up to talk to someone. I would’ve tried to listen but the hand was still in my hair and I fell back asleep.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.

A blond guy, who looked vaguely like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes—at least a dozen of them—on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

There were two other people in the room. One of them was sitting next to me on the bed, a hand on my arm while the other paced around. He was talking but I couldn’t hear anything. Occasionally, the guy next to me would respond with a couple of words—maybe a sentence or two—before going quiet again.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs and a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

“Are you finally awake?” A familiar voice said. I looked to my right. 

Perseus. He was standing next to the chair, looking down at me.

“Where…?” I muttered.

“Camp Half-Blood,” my dad said. “At least, that’s what I think it’s called.”

“Half-Blood? Like the name of the hill on the card Grover gave me?”

“It would seem so.”

I glanced around a bit more. On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.

“Quite fancy looking, wouldn’t you say?” My dad said.

I reached for it. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it. Perseus supported the glass though and I was able to drink a bit of it.

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn’t that at all. It was chocolate chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom’s homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn’t go away, but I felt as if my mom had brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.

That’s when I remembered. In entirety—not just the bits and pieces I subconsciously drudged up. My mother was gone. Dead. Suddenly, I felt sick and I put the cup back down, perhaps a bit too harshly judging by Perseus’ concerned expression.

“My mom,” I was able to croak. “Is she actually—”

“No,” he said firmly, tilting my face to look up at him. “She’s alive, somewhere. I don’t know where she is or where she might’ve gone, but she’s alive. I know it.”

I studied his face, looking for a lie. Nothing. There was still some part of me that grieved my mother, but I believed him. My dads might not be the most truthful, but they’d never lie about something like this, no matter how painful it would’ve been for all of us.

“Alright.” I leaned back in the chair, glancing back over our surroundings.

There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight. She might not be dead, but my mother was still gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

Perseus muttered something before straightening and wandering over to the entrance to the house. He yelled, “By the gods, Odysseus, stop looking around that blasted house!”

After a couple of moments, Odysseus walked through the door, looking the slightest bit disgruntled. “Oh, quiet down, you,” he said. “I’m trying to understand the layout of the place.”

“Percy’s awake,” my dad replied. “You can refrain from trying to memorize each and every inch for a couple of moments for our son, can’t you?”

Any annoyance and restlessness in Odysseus’ expression immediately dispersed when he glanced at me. I waved and he hurried over.

“Oh, thank the gods,” he muttered, gently grabbing my face and studying my eyes. “You’re not in any pain, are you? Does your head hurt? Are you dizzy? You hit your head rather hard on that rock. How’s your arm? Did you strain anything—?”

“Papa,” I interrupted. “I’m fine .”

He didn’t look like he believed me until Perseus gestured toward the empty glass on the table.

“He drank the Nectar they left,” he affirmed. “He should be fine.”

Nectar? Nectar? How did— y’know what, never mind. Future me could deal with this. Not me.

“Good,” Odysseus said, letting go of my face.

I smiled, then frowned when I realized what Perseus said. “Who’s ‘they’?”

They glanced at me, then at each other.

“Perseus told you that we’re in Camp Half-Blood, right?” Odysseus asked. I nodded. “After you passed out, the girl and that man—you remember them, don’t you? You woke up occasionally.”

I thought for a bit. Right. The bearded guy who looked familiar and the blonde-haired girl. “I think I do, yeah.”

“Well, the man was Brunner,”—what—“and the girl’s name is Annabeth. They brought you into the house along with a couple of others—healers, I’d presume, but they weren’t much older than you and we didn’t catch any names—they handled your injuries.”

I didn’t know what to say to anything of that because what the fuck?

“Maybe you should’ve waited on that,” Perseus muttered dully.

“ Brunner’s here? ” I asked, incredulous. Then I paused. This… actually wasn’t all too surprising. I already knew that he knew about the Olympians, so why was I so shocked?

“He is,” Odysseus said. “Grover is as well. Before you ask, he’s alright. In fact, I think he’s doing a lot better than you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Perseus rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by a loud, “Percy!”

We turned and saw Grover running— trotting —towards us. He was dressed in a bright orange shirt with the words Camp Half-Blood stitched on. There was a shoe box in his arms. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

“Oh, thank the gods that you’re awake,” he said once he was on the porch, breathing heavily. “I was worried you wouldn’t wake up!”

“How long was I asleep?”

“Two days,” my best friend said.

WHAT?

“Shoot,” Perseus muttered to Odysseus. “I knew we forgot to mention something.”

If Grover wasn’t right there, I would’ve had some very colorful words to say to them, ones that would surely lead to Odysseus hitting me over the head with a sharp glare.

I turned my attention back to Grover, although I was still a little miffed.

“Where are we?” I already knew because of my dads, but my best friend didn’t know that.

Grover glanced around a bit before answering. “Here? We’re at Camp Half-Blood. The place your father wanted to send you, like your mom—” His eyes widened suddenly and he stopped talking. “I— sorry, I forgot—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted, debating on whether I should tell him or pretend I was just grieving.

“Personally, I think telling him would be more beneficial,” my papa recommended.

Alright then.

I was about to tell him when Grover suddenly shoved the shoe box into my hands, likely having been stressed out by my silence. Oops.

“It’s in there,” he said when I raised a brow. “The Minotaur’s horn, I mean.”

For a couple of moments, I just stared at it. Eventually—with another glance at Grover—I opened the box.

He was right. Laid inside the box was the Minotaur’s horn, the tip of it stained with blood and dust, the base of it jagged from where it’d been torn off.

“Where did you find the strength to break it off?” Perseus muttered, more to himself than me.

I was about to say something when Grover cut me off again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, despairingly. “I’m a failure. I’m— I’m the worst satyr in the world.”

Odysseus hummed in mild distress, his subconscious tapping on the chair halting. He looked like he wanted to reach out to Grover and comfort him but since he was, y’know, a ghost, he couldn’t exactly do that. 

Grover sniffled again. The poor kid looked like he expected to be hit, which only worsened Odysseus’ anxiety.

I said, “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was. I was supposed to protect you and I couldn’t even keep track of you!”

“And that was my fault,” I argued, reaching for his hand and squeezing. “I chose to leave. I chose to run away without telling you. You wouldn’t have failed if I just listened to you.”

“You only did that because I was freaking you out,” Grover said. “If I had just—”

“Grover.” I interrupted, using the tone Perseus always used when he was being serious. He quieted almost immediately. “It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault. Or, at least, it wasn’t all your fault. Maybe you messed up a bit, but I still take most of the blame.”

He opened his mouth as if he was about to argue but I cut him off again, “And what do you mean by ‘protect me’? Did my mother put you up to it?”

“No. But that’s my job. I’m a keeper. I… I’m meant to…”

“A keeper?” I repeated. “Like on the card you gave me? The one with Half-Blood Hill?”

Grover stuttered a bit. “I— yes, like on the card I gave you.”

I glanced back at our surroundings. “Grover,” I said. “Where are we right now?”

“Camp Half-Blood,” he said. “I told you—”

“No. What is this place? Why did my father want to send me here?”

Grover glanced at the sky, wringing his hands nervously when thunder rumbled. “Come on,” he said eventually. “Chiron and Mr. D wanted to see you.”

“Who— y’know what, never mind,” I grumbled, straightening up and letting go of Grover’s hand. “Help me up, please.”

—

The porch wrapped around the farmhouse. My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath. We must've been on the north shore of Long Island because, on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. 

The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture: an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses—no, pegasi— down a wooded trail.

“By my father’s name,” Perseus muttered as we walked by.

Down at the end of the porch, a man and a centaur (a CENTAUR? ) sat across from each other at a card table.

The man facing me looked to be somewhere in his late twenties to early thirties, kind of like Odysseus but taller and a bit younger. He had darker skin, narrowed purple eyes with hints of some bright magenta, and long, curly hair so black it was almost purple. He wore a purple chiton embroidered with gold and with a long piece of tiger skin thrown over it. If I squinted, I could see near black horns tipped with gold, half-hidden by his hair. There was a laurel crown wrapped around his head, with purple jewels of sorts decorating it.

I couldn’t see the centaur’s face, but his horse half was pure white, silver markings dragging up the hooves up to the middle of his legs.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me, gesturing towards the man. "He's the camp director. Be polite. And you already know Chiron…”

He pointed at the centaur whose back was to me. I didn’t remember meeting a centaur, so I had no idea what he was talking about. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.

My Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple-choice answers B.

“Ah,” Perseus muttered. “Another thing we forgot to mention.”

Forgot to— they’d forgotten to tell me my Latin teacher was a centaur? Oh my gods, I was going to kill them.

“Ah, good, Percy,” Mr. Brun— Chiron said. “Now we have four for pinochle.”

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bored eyes and let out a tired sigh. “Oh, I suppose I must say it.” He forced a smile, one that showed all his teeth. “Welcome to Camp Half-Blood.” The smile fell and he went back to his cards.

“Uh,” I stammered. “Thanks.”

Something was unsettling about the way he stared at me, almost as if he could see something I couldn’t. That, and if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult had been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

I glanced at Chiron. “So,” I said. “You work here, uh, Chiron?”

“Yes,” he replied simply. I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.

“Okay,” I muttered, turning to the camp director. “Mr. D… does that stand for something?”

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me with mild annoyance. “Young man, names are powerful things. You don’t just go around using them for no reason.”

“What—”

“Mr. D,” Chiron said, disapproving. Mr. D sighed, turning to face Chiron.

“What?” He said. “What is it?”

Chiron stepped closer to whisper something to the director. He whispered back. They looked a bit like how Ody and Perse did when they were arguing but they didn’t want me to hear. Grover shuffled from where he was standing beside me.

“Percy,” Odysseus murmured to me while Chiron and Mr. D talked. “He’s a god.”

I glanced at him. “Who?” Then, “Mr. D?”

A nod. “There’s something… divine about him. I don’t know how to describe it.”

Something divine about him. Hm. He wore a lot of purple. His name was Mr. D, the D presumably being short for something. The more I watched them, the gems in the laurels looked more like grapes. I stared for a couple of moments longer, shifting a bit. 

“You’re Dionysus,” I realized, interrupting Dionysus and Chiron’s conversation. “God of Wine. One of the Olympians.”

Dionysus looked mildly impressed. I knew that they called him Mr. D, but it felt disrespectful to say that. “Well,” he said, settling back in his chair. “You’re smarter than I thought, Perry.”

“It’s Percy—”

“I must say,” Chiron interrupted, stepping between me and Dionysus. Something in his eyes told me to just ignore it and move on. Alright then. “I’m surprised. You seem rather… calm about this.”

“I…” Shoot, what to say? “I had suspicions. After the Minotaur, Grover—” I glanced at his horse half, “—you… is a god really so shocking at this point?” After a bit, I quickly added, “I mean, I’ll probably freak out a bit more later but right now, it’s just kind of… unsurprising…?”

Chiron looked suspicious, a deep frown set on his face. My dads had collectively winced the longer I continued. Yeah, that wasn’t my greatest attempt. How I wished this would’ve happened when I wasn’t fresh out of a two-day sleep. My mind still felt sluggish and tired and I swayed the slightest bit on my feet. Then again, I felt a bit too tired to care at this point. As long as I didn’t fuck it up too bad, I could amend things later, when I was in a better state of mind and more capable of lying convincingly.

“Either way,” Chiron began slowly, still eyeing me with a doubting look. “It has been a long time since I made a house call to a potential camper. I’d hate to think I’ve wasted my time.”

“House call?”

“My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout—” was this a cult? “—but Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to… ah, take a leave of absence.”

Now that I thought of it, I faintly remembered another Latin teacher teaching my first week at Yancy. Then, without any explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

“Mr. Charles,” Odysseus reminded me.

Perseus frowned. “How do you even remember that?”

“You came to Yancy,” I repeated, ignoring my dads’ chatting, “just to teach me?”

Chiron nodded. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, and let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were for Camp Half-Blood, but you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that’s always the first test.”

“Grover,” Dionysus said impatiently, “are you playing or not?”

My best friend jolted up suddenly, no longer absently staring at the ground and kicking at the dirt. He muttered “Yes, sir,” and hurried over to the table, sitting down at one of the seats.

Dionysus looked at me, his eyes briefly glancing to my left. Odysseus flinched.

With a mutter, he looked back at the cards, beginning to deal them out. Grover jumped every time a card was placed in his pile.

“Do you know how to play pinochle?” Dionysus asked.

I did, actually. There wasn’t much to do in Gabe’s house when my mother wasn’t home; reading, story-telling and card games were the most entertainment we had for at least four years. Pinochle wasn’t my favorite to play, but it was alright.

“I do, sir,” I told him.

He gestured at the chair sitting across from him, expression appraising. “Then hurry up and sit down, will you?”

I sat down. He added some cards to my pile and went back to dealing them out as usual. Odysseus and Perseus both shifted a bit, as if uncomfortable. I couldn’t ask them what was wrong though, too many people were around.

“Percy,” Chiron said a little after I sat down. “How much did your mother happen to tell you about your father?”

“She said…” I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea, as if searching for someone that could’ve cared less, and frowned. (Do I tell them I know he was a god? Probably not.) It was a bit difficult, but I was able to keep the resentment out of my tone. “She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father ,” perhaps I said that a bit too venomously, judging by the questioning look Dionysus gave me, “wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn’t leave. She wanted to keep me close to her.”

Dionysus sighed. “Typical,” he said, something that should’ve sounded insulting but felt more understanding, if anything. “That’s how they usually get killed.” He glanced at me. “Are you bidding or not?”

I bid, quickly, and turned back to Chiron, who sighed. “There’s so much to tell. I’m afraid our orientation film won’t be sufficient.”

“Orientation film?” Perseus and I said in perfect unison. Odysseus laughed at the looks we pointed at each other.

“No,” Chiron muttered, deciding something I wasn’t privy to. “Well, Percy. You know your friend, Grover, is a satyr. You know—” he pointed to the horn in the shoe box, “—that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that the great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive,” he gestured towards Dionysus, “as proven by his presence.”

Feign obliviousness or say something, feign obliviousness or say something—

“Wait a bit,” Perseus advised, a sharp look in his eyes. “Just until we can figure out what this place is and why you’re here. To reveal your hand right now would be unwise.”

Obliviousness, then.

I stared at them quietly, looking back and forth between everyone at the table. I shifted my expression into one of very mild hysteria, just enough to plant the idea that I was slowly processing everything that was happening. Realistically, I still was, I just wasn’t nearly as surprised about the idea of Greek gods existing as I was playing myself up to be.

“Mr. D,” Grover said timidly, interrupting the silence that had fallen over the table. “If you’re not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?”

Dionysus glanced up. “Eh? Oh, all right.” He passed Grover the can I hadn’t even noticed he had. “Go ahead, boy.”

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

“Is—” Odysseus looked like he was at a loss for words. “Is that… healthy?”

“So,” I said to Chiron. “They’re real. Like, actually real.” I glanced towards Dionysus nervously. “And he’s actually…”

Dionysus grinned, with all his teeth like before. However, this time it looked more threatening than bored. “We are,” he said. “Is your mind finally catching up now?”

I pushed away from the table a bit and put my head in my hands, trying for all the world to look as if I was fully processing everything up to this point and was having a mental crisis. I probably shouldn’t have acted so nonchalant about Dionysus but I could play up delayed shock relatively well—enough so that Chiron and Grover would believe me, at least.

“They’re stories,” I objected, darting my head up. “They’re— myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They’re what people believed before there was science.”

Dionysus’ eyes flared in irritation. Oops. Maybe that was the wrong route to go. “Science!” He scoffed. “And tell me, Perseus Jackson—” alright then, “—what will people think of your ‘science’ two thousand years from now? Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo, that’s what. Oh, you mortals have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they’ve come so far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me.”

Damn. That was definitely on me. I would need to rethink some parts of my strategy before I got smited.

“Percy,” Chiron said. “You may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment? Never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all of time?”

It sounded horrible. Still, I said, “You mean, whether people believe in you or not.”

“Exactly,” Chiron agreed. “If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?”

“What the fuck?” Perseus said, annoyed. For some reason, Dionysus snorted, but I didn’t think too much about it. “What does he think he’s saying?”

“Calm yourself, Perseus,” Odysseus sounded tired. “Let our son focus.”

They fell silent after that, which made it easier to think. Okay, so, I needed to keep up the act, but I couldn’t afford to offend Dionysus in the process. I picked at my nails, the only thing I let slip out of the whole ‘shocked about the gods’ act.

“I wouldn’t like it,” I said eventually.

“Good,” Dionysus murmured. “Because I sure don’t.”

Alright, not exactly the greatest response but he seemed to be calming—just a bit.

Grover said, “P-please, my lord. He’s just lost his mother. He’s just discovered gods exist. He’s in shock.”

A scoff. “A lucky thing, too. Bad enough I’m confined to this camp, working with little boys who barely believe!” He grumbled and complained while he played a card, but there was something about it that seemed fake.

My thought process halted when Dionysus waved a hand and, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass, a goblet appeared on the table. Any extremely minor doubts I had that he was a god immediately dispersed. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

Chiron sighed tiredly. “Mr. D,” he warned. “Your restrictions.”

Dionysus looked at the wine. “Dear me,” he looked at the sky and yelled, “Old habits! Sorry!”

More thunder. My dad looked up at the sky with a scowl as remembered the storm. “What is his problem?”

Dionysus waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron glanced at me, noticing the confusion I’d accidentally let slip through. Damn it, I really needed to get my act together before I fucked up. “Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits. That's why he isn’t able to have wine.”

Odysseus put his head in his hands.

“A wood nymph,” I repeated, weaving some hesitance into my tone.

“Yes,” Dionysus confirmed. “The first time, father prohibited me from wine. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn’t stay away—the second time he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for children like you. And, of course, no wine.” He scoffed, taking a sip of his Diet Coke. “The only good thing about this arrangement is that I’m able to see my children nearly every day.”

Now that was a surprise.

“Children,” I repeated. Then, “And… your father is…”

“ Di immortales, Chiron,” Dionysus reprimanded. “I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course. You were able to figure out I was a god, yet you aren’t able to remember my father? Embarrassing.”

I ducked my head, staring at the table. Really, I was only shocked about him having children. Then again, it was Dionysus. It would be more surprising if he didn’t have any kids.

My thoughts were interrupted by Dionysus letting out a noise of victory. “I believe I win.”

“Not quite, Mr. D,” Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, “The game goes to me.”

I thought Dionysus was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed as if this was a normal occurrence.

“One day,” he swore. “One day.”

While Dionysus gathered up the cards, I glimpsed at Chiron. “If the gods are real,” I said, “then surely Mount Olympus is, right? That, and the palace?”

“Well now, there’s Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there’s the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It’s still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do.”

“They can do that?” Odysseus whispered to himself. He seemed to be deep in thought about something, though I didn’t know what.

“You mean the gods are here? Like… in America?”

“Certainly. The gods move with the heart of the west.”

“The what?” My dads and I said at the same time.

“Come now, Percy,” Chiron chided. “What you call ‘Western civilization’, do you think it’s just an abstract concept? No, it’s a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn’t possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps;  Jove for Zeus, Minerva for Athena, and so on, but the same forces, the same gods.”

“And then they died,” I said, intelligently, because I had no idea what else to say. Dionysus, still looking over his cards at the other side of the table, laughed.

Chiron looked at me incredulously. “Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every time they’ve ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in the United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren’t very fond of Rome, either—America is now the heart of the flame—” I felt a tinge of pity for the flame, “—it is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here.”

We. We are here. Something about that felt both belonging and unsettling. I was torn on what to think of this. I still didn’t know what Camp Half-Blood was exactly.

“Who are you, Chiron?” Not a genuine question, I knew the answer to it. Unlike the next one. “Who… who am I?”

“Who are you?” Chiron mused. “Well, that’s the question we all want answered, isn’t it? But for now, I’ll show you around. There will be new friends to meet and plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s’mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate.”

He moved, looking as if he was about to lead me somewhere when Dionysus interrupted.

“Before you go, boy,” he said, tone suddenly stern and serious, “I need to talk to you.” He side-eyed Chiron and Grover, gesturing towards the door to the farmhouse. “ Privately .”

Chiron, Grover and I shared a glance. When I looked at him, Chiron gestured towards Dionysus. With a bit of nervousness, I followed Dionysus into the building; the god shutting the door behind us. My dads flitted around, unsettled.

Once the door was closed and Dionysus had made sure that no one was in the room, I asked, “What do you need?” Odysseus nudged my shoulder lightly. I quickly added, “My Lord.”

Dionysus turned around, his eyes narrowed. “Explain to me why you have two long-dead Greek heroes following you around. Now.”

What?

“You—” I stammered. “You can—”

“See them?” A scoff. “Of course I can.” He glanced to my left, directly at Odysseus. “You. Odysseus, correct? I heard what you said earlier. You knew I was a god before any of those two did. Are you clear-sighted?”

Odysseus looked caught off guard. “I— yes, I believe so, my Lord.”

Dionysus hummed. “Figures. Mortals such as you always notice things faster than others.” He frowned. “Now, why in my father’s name are you two hanging around with this boy?” He glanced at Perseus. “Our dear uncle has spent decades trying to find you and your little friend. Father nearly had an aneurysm when he received word that nobody could find you after you died.”

My dad shifted uncomfortably, likely because he didn’t want to be reminded of his and Zeus’ relation. Odysseus frowned in concern before turning back to Dionysus. “What do you mean by ‘decades trying to find us’?”

Dionysus sighed in exhaustion. “Neither of you appeared in Elysium like you were meant to. Hades was left running around the whole of the Underworld trying to find you and your families were positively losing their minds.” To Odysseus, he said, “Yours even more so.” To Perseus, “Andromeda and your kids had, what, a century or so to calm down? It didn’t really matter, they went right back to freaking out when Odysseus’ wife and son turned up with the same problem. Caused quite the commotion.”

He hummed a bit in thought. “Athena nearly took Hades’ head off when father told her the news.”

Odysseus flinched. “Athena?  She…?”

“Hermes as well. He caused quite the fuss back when Perseus disappeared, only got worse when it happened to you.”

Suddenly, both my dads were even more stressed than before. Odysseus looked only moments away from tears and Perseus had his head in his hands.

“So, Odysseus and Perseus,” I began, taking Dionysus’ attention away from them, “were meant to be in Elysium?”

“Of course they were!” Dionysus said as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “To many, Perseus was one of the greatest Greek heroes to live and to this day is still one of father’s favorites.” Perse’s anxiety only seemed to worsen at that, like he was terrified of being referred to as one of Zeus’ favorites. Gods, that was a concerning thought. “Odysseus, I admit I was a bit more surprised about, but having the favor of the Queen of the Gods herself certainly takes you far.”

“WHAT?”

Dionysus ignored Odysseus. “So yes, both of them were meant to join their families in Elysium—and then they just didn’t show up!” His eyes narrowed, more than anyone’s eyes should, and they seemed to almost glow. “So imagine my surprise when, after centuries of fruitless searching from multiple of the most powerful gods and goddesses, they turn up next to some random demigod child that, for whatever reason, pretended to not know that the gods existed.”

I felt myself pale a bit. “You… knew?”

Mentally, I kicked myself. Of course, he did! He was able to see and hear Ody and Perse, of course he heard them tell me to pretend like I didn’t know anything. What was I thinking?

“You’re a good actor, boy, I’ll give you that,” Dionysus said. “You take after Odysseus quite well in that manner—don’t give me that look, it’s obvious how close you three are—but even if I couldn’t hear your little ghost friends, I would’ve known. You attempted to feign hysteria, no matter how mild, in front of the God of Madness. It was beyond easy to tell that you were faking it.”

“Oh, I forgot about that…” I muttered.

“No, really?”

A bit flustered, I changed the subject. “Why didn’t you say anything in front of Chiron?”

“Would take all the fun out of it, wouldn’t it?” At the look I gave him, he sighed. “Chiron is very stressed these days. I don’t feel that telling him one of his students is being followed by the ghosts of two long-thought-to-be-lost heroes is going to help with that. You’ve already caused him plenty of distress.”

That was… surprisingly thoughtful.

“You said that he’s stressed,” I said. “Does that have something to do with the storm?”

Dionysus studied me for a couple of moments, dead silent.

“Go back outside, Perry. Send Grover in,” he said. “Chiron’s waiting. He’ll show you where you’ll be staying.”

“But—”

“ Go. ”

Quietly and reluctantly, I turned towards the door and left, shutting it behind me. Out the front, Chiron and Grover were waiting.

My best friend ran up to me once he saw me walk out. “Are you okay? He wasn’t angry, was he?”

“He just had some things he needed to ask me. He wants to talk to you, by the way,” I told him. My dads were being strangely quiet. It was unnerving.

Grover paled before sighing and wringing his hands. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll see you later…?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “See you later.”

Anxiously, Grover walked into the farmhouse. After that, it was only Chiron and I. Still, my dads didn’t say anything.

“You said you were going to show me around?”

“Yes,” Chiron replied, still staring at the closed doors of the farmhouse before looking back at me. He looked distracted. “A tour of Camp Half-Blood. Right. Come with me. I’ll show you to Cabin Eleven.”

Chapter Text

Once I’d gotten over the fact that my Latin teacher was a centaur and the legendary mentor who trained heroes such as Hercules himself, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I’m sorry, but I did not trust Chiron’s back end the way I trusted his front.

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers stopped when we walked back, nudging each other. I felt my skin crawl as they stared at us. One of them pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, “That’s him .”

Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts. I wasn’t normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. All of the stares did. Gods, I hated it when people stared at me.

“Take a look at the farmhouse,” Perseus said when I started to shift around a bit too much. I gladly accepted the distraction. “It’s larger than I thought it was.”

“You would’ve known it better if you actually looked around,” Odysseus muttered. 

My dad groaned. “Will you stop bringing that up already?”

“Ha. Never.”

They kept chattering and I was thankful for it. They’d been rather quiet after that talk with Dionysus, so I was happy to see that they’d mostly shaken off the distress by now. It was likely that they were shoving it aside until I was asleep (as they always did, they were not nearly as sneaky or quiet as they thought they were) but even then, Odysseus and Perseus looked well enough.

While they talked and Chiron muttered something to himself, I looked at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I’d realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weathervane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

“What’s up there?” I asked Chiron. My dads quieted.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. “Just the attic.”

Who were they keeping in the attic.

“Somebody lives there?”

“No,” he said with finality. “Not a single living thing.”

Not a single living thing. Something undead, then. It had to be. Chiron was acting too suspiciously for it to actually be nothing. He was telling the truth, yes, but not all of it.

“Come along, Percy,” Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now forced. “Lots to see.”

—

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking through bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. “It pays our expenses,” he explained. “And the strawberries take almost no effort.”

He said Dionysus had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Dionysus was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like people fleeing from a building on fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music. He was a satyr, after all.

“Grover won’t get in too much trouble, will he?” I asked Chiron. “I mean... he was a good protector. Really. I was the one who messed up.”

Chiron sighed. He took off his jacket and draped it over his back like a saddle. “Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than reasonable.”

Perseus laughed coldly. “Would you look at that,” he mused, eyes narrowed in irritation. “He’s so encouraging . Isn’t he, Odysseus?”

Odysseus scoffed.

I had the creeping feeling that Chiron was very much not in my dads’ good graces right now.

“To reach his goal,” Chiron continued. “He must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper, and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill.”

“But he did that!” I argued. “He did more than that!”

“I might agree with you—” Might? MIGHT? “—but it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I’m afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there’s the unfortunate... ah... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The Council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover’s part.”

I wanted to argue so much . Not just against Chiron, but against this Council of Cloven Elders or whatever it was. Maybe even Dionyus if I was sure he wouldn’t smite me on the spot. It was my fault that this all happened. If I hadn’t left Grover behind at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.

“He’ll get a second chance, won’t he?”

Chiron winced. “I’m afraid that was Grover’s second chance, Percy.”

...what?

“The Council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He’s still so small for his age...”

“How old is he?”

“Oh, twenty-eight.”

“What in Zeus’ name...” my papa said helpfully. Perseus put his head in his hands.

I stared at Chiron, unsure of what to say. “And... he’s in sixth grade?”

“Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy,” that was what I was guessing (and hoping), “Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years.”

Oh, my gods.

“That’s horrible.”

“Quite,” Chiron agreed. “At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career...”

Odysseus and Perseus looked more and more pained as he continued.

“I am going to find a way,” Perseus began, “to take over this camp. Entirely.”

“Support,” Odysseus repeated to himself. “Children need encouragement and support... this is not encouragement and support.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, ignoring my dads’ continuous lamenting and likely raging paternal instincts. “What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?”

Chiron looked away quickly.

Do not ignore me, do not ignore me, do not ignore me —

“Let’s move along, shall we?”

GODS DAMN IT ALL.

—

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there in decades.

Chiron said, “The woods are stocked if you care to try your luck, but go armed.”

“Stocked with what?” I asked because that was an extremely ominous thing to suddenly say about some woods.

“You’ll see. Capture the Flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?”

“My own—?”

“Of course he doesn’t, you fool,” Perseus muttered. They really didn’t like Chiron, then.

“No,” Chiron said. “I don’t suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I’ll visit the armory later.”

I had more questions, but I must’ve really been getting on Chiron’s last nerve since he stopped answering. The tour continued. We saw the archery range (Odysseus seemed excited to finally be able to show me how to use a bow and arrow, instead of just telling me how), the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn’t seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

“Sword and spear fights?” I asked.

“Cabin challenges and all that,” he explained. “Not lethal. Usually.” My dads stared at him. “Oh, yes, and there’s the mess hall.”

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

“What do you do when it rains?” I asked.

Chiron looked at me as if I’d asked a stupid question. “We still have to eat, don’t we?”

I dropped the subject. I was sure they had some sort of magic to control the weather or something judging by how much control they had over everything else, I just wished they would actually tell me and not just look at me like I was some sort of idiot for not immediately knowing how everything worked.

“We could try and use that arena,” Perseus was saying when I tuned back in. Chiron was leading me somewhere else. If he told me where, I wouldn’t know. “I saw a weapon rack or two. It’d be good to get you some proper training with actual swords.”

“Later, we can try,” Odysseus agreed. “Perhaps at night?”

“Unless something else comes up, that’d be the best time.”

After a bit, Chiron finally showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them—one for each of the Olympians, I was guessing—nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I’d ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Cabin Nine was decorated with weapons, inventions, and little trinkets; it looked almost like a fortress. Cabin Four had tomato vines on the walls and the roof had patterns that looked like the roof had been weaved from a loom. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at—it wasn’t, but it sure felt like it. All of them had tapestries and carvings, but I wasn’t able to get close enough to see the details. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops.

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin One was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve.

“Definitely my father’s,” Perseus muttered hatefully.

Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them, carved eagles and whatever else covered the cabin along with some fancy tapestries. Cabin Two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks; similar tapestries hung around it that depicted countless events I didn’t particularly care to recall at the time.

“Zeus and Hera?” I guessed.

“Correct,” Chiron said.

“Their cabins look empty.” Hera’s being empty was unsurprising. Now, Zeus on the other hand.

“Several of the cabins are,” Chiron explained. “No one ever stays in one or two.”

Perseus rose a brow.

I was about to ask how Zeus’ cabin, of all the gods, was empty when one of them caught my eye.

Cabin Three. It wasn’t high and mighty like Cabin One, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of sharp, gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and corals as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. There were accents of cyan and gold, a sea green trident carving over the doorway. Like the other cabins, it had a bunch of carvings and tapestries that were tailored to fit the cabin’s godly patron.

Poseidon’s cabin.

Odysseus and Perseus stared at the cabin warily.

“Oh,” Perseus said. “Right. Him.”

“Do you think that one’s empty?” Odysseus muttered to him.

“I’d believe so.”

I took a step towards the cabin and they stopped talking.

“Percy,” my dad warned. But I didn’t listen. I couldn’t explain it. There was... something about the cabin that drew me towards it. “Percy, don’t .”

Despite his protests, I peeked inside the open doorway.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that!” Chiron said. Too late.

Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. It felt so... sad. I felt sick as I looked in, so I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Come along, Percy.”

I followed him away from the cabin. Perseus and Odysseus didn’t say anything.

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number Five was built with stone that was so dark, it looked almost black. Blood-red tapestries adorned it, showing tales of war, grief, and bloodshed. Some were victorious. Others were not. The columns in the front had golden accents, and some trinkets—bits of armor, swords, spears, jewelry—beside them, like the offerings won in battle and gifted to the gods as compensation. Decorating the columns and walls were golden carvings of vultures, wolves, and boars. Ares’ cabin.

Inside, I could see a bunch of tough-looking kids sharpening weapons and sparring, despite the little space they had. The strongest-looking one was a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Her hair was long, curly, and messy; a dark brown. She zeroed in on me and I resisted the urge to flinch. Something was calculating about her gaze, as if she already knew hundreds of ways she could brutally kill me right then and there. Faintly, I prayed that they weren’t currently looking for a living sacrifice for their dad.

I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron’s hooves. “We haven’t seen any other centaurs,” I observed.

“No,” Chiron said sadly. “My kinsmen are wild and barbaric folk, I’m afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events, but you won’t see any here.”

I thought about that for a bit before asking another question. “Are you immortal?”

“Yes,” he replied. “You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish... and I gave up much.” He grew quieter at that before straightening and continuing his sentence. “But I’m still here, so I can only assume I’m still needed.”

I contemplated being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn’t have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.

“Does it ever get boring?”

“No, no,” he said. “Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring.”

My dads were still clearly unhappy with Chiron, but the intensity of their anger seemed to dim as he continued. Odysseus looked almost understanding.

“Depressing?”

Chiron looked away from me, seeming to turn hard of hearing again. “Oh, look,” he said. “Annabeth is waiting for us.”

—

The blonde girl that I remembered taking care of me was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, Cabin Eleven. When we reached her, she looked at me critically. I was nervous she’d go back to questioning me, but she kept silent.

I tried to see what she was reading. I was surprised to see that it was Greek. Like, written entirely in Greek. It seemed to be a book about architecture, or something similar. Carving, maybe? No, probably architecture.

“Annabeth,” Chiron said, “I have a masters' archery class to teach at noon. Would you take Percy from here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cabin Eleven,” Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. “Make yourself at home.”

Out of all the cabins, Eleven looked the most like a regular summer camp cabin. The threshold was worn down, just a bit, but it was sturdy. Some of the paint was scuffed, but it looked cared for, loved, and lived in. Maybe it should’ve seemed rundown, but it felt homely. Welcoming. If I looked closely, I could see images of roosters, tortoises, a couple of goats, maybe. Over the doorway was a golden carving of a caduceus. This was—

“Hermes’ cabin,” Perseus whispered. Odysseus didn’t say anything, looking over the carvings with a wistful sort of reverence. I glanced away. I had a feeling my dads didn’t want me to be looking at them lest they start to cry.

Inside the cabin, it was packed with people, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

“He’s the god of travelers,” Odysseus muttered, “But his affairs were rare, he shouldn’t have so many children...“

Chiron didn’t come in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him, they all stood and bowed respectfully.

“Well, then,” Chiron said. “Good luck, Percy. I’ll see you at dinner.”

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren’t bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I’d gone through it at enough schools.

“Well?” Annabeth prompted. “Go on.”

So naturally, I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything. Perseus glared at them anyway.

Annabeth announced, “Percy Jackson, meet Cabin Eleven.”

“Regular or undetermined?” Somebody asked.

I didn’t know what to say, but Annabeth said, “Undetermined.”

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. “Now, now, campers. That’s what we’re here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there.”

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

Perseus frowned. “That’s too horrid a scar for someone so young...“

He sounded sad when he said it, but also like he wanted to find whoever was responsible and kill them.

“This is Luke,” Annabeth said. She sounded happier, more assured. She was looking at Luke in a similar way that I looked at my dads. Ah. So he was like family to her. A brother, maybe. “He’s your counselor for now.”

“For now?” I asked.

“You’re undetermined,” Luke explained patiently. “They don’t know what cabin to put you in, so you’re here. Cabin Eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers, after all.”

“Ah,” Odysseus said. “That... makes sense.”

“There’s still so many ,” Perseus said in shock. “We— half-bloods weren’t so common back then...“

I looked at the tiny section of the floor they’d given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur’s horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

I looked around at the campers’ faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

“That’s enough,” Luke chided sternly. A lot of the kids turned to him. His tone was light, but there was a clear warning in his words. “That’s not how we greet a new guest. Let him rest without any worry for his things. Whenever one of you arrived, we made sure to make you feel as safe as we could, because gods know you all needed it. Yet you’re not willing to show that same compassion towards Percy? What does that say about us all?”

All of the kids who were staring at me turned away, ashamed and apologetic.

“How long will I be here?” I asked.

“Good question,” Luke said. “Until you’re determined.”

“How long will that take?”

Some of the kids looked like they were about to laugh, but fell silent when Luke shot them a disapproving look.

“Come on,” Annabeth told me when Luke moved to scold the campers again. “I’ll show you to the volleyball court.”

“I’ve already seen it.”

“Come on.”

She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear Luke’s scolding as we walked off.

—

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, “Jackson, you have to do better than that.”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath. “I can’t believe I thought you were the one.”

“What’s your problem?” I was getting angry now. “All I know is I kill that stupid Minotaur—”

“Don’t talk like that!” Annabeth told me. “You know how many kids at this camp wish they’d had your chance?”

“To get killed?”

“To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?”

“They should get a chance to be children,” Odysseus said. “To live as happy a life as they can. They’re still so young .”

I glared at her and I was about to say something quite insulting in Greek before I paused. Right. Oblivious act. Fucking fantastic . “Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories...“

“Yes.” 

“Then there’s only one.”

“Yes.”

“And he died, like, thousands of years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the Labyrinth. So...“

“Monsters don’t die, Percy,” gods, I wished they did, “They can be killed, but they don’t die.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said. “That clears it up.”

“They don’t have souls, like you and I. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you’re lucky. But they’re primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they reform.”

I thought about Mrs. Dodds for the first time in a while. “You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—”

“The Fur...“ Thunder. “I mean, your math teacher. That’s right. She’s still out there. You just made her very, very mad.”

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

“How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?”

“You talk in your sleep.” Damn.

“Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?” I sounded like I was whining, even to myself, but right then I didn’t care. “Why do I have to stay in Cabin Eleven? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty cabins and bunks right over there!”

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. “You don’t just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or... your parent.”

“My mom is Sally Jackson,” I said. “She works at the candy store in Grand General Station. At least, she used to.”

“I’m sorry about your mom, Percy. But that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about your other parent. Your dad.”

“My dad’s dead.” To me, at least. “I never knew him.”

Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she’d had this conversation before with other kids. “Your father’s not dead, Percy.”

“How can you say that? You know him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why?” I stared at her for a moment before shifting my expression into one of shock. “Am... am I...?”

“You’re a half-blood, Percy,” Annabeth said. “Your dad’s one of the gods.”

“No,” I said. “No, that’s— that’s not— no!”

“Percy, you need to—”

She was interrupted by a loud voice. “And what do we have here?”

I looked over. The girl from the Ares cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, just as big and intimidating as her.

“Clarisse,” Annabeth sighed. “Why don’t you go polish your spear or something?”

“Sure, Little Princess,” Clarisse said. “So I can run you through with it Friday night.”

“ Erre es korakas! ” Annabeth said. Go for the crows. Oh, my gods. I glanced at my dads. Perseus had a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Odysseus stared at Annabeth blankly. “You don’t stand a chance.”

“We’ll pulverize you,” Clarisse said, but her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she wasn’t sure she could follow through on that threat, but I could tell that she fully intended to try her damn best. “Who’s this little runt?”

“Percy Jackson,” Annabeth said, “meet Clarisse, daught—”

“Daughter of Ares,” I finished subconsciously. Both of them frowned at me. Oops. “The War God.”

Both Perseus and Odysseus looked tired at the mere mention of Ares. I had no idea why, but I would have to ask later.

“Smarter than he looks,” Clarisse drawled. “Doesn’t change much, though.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Clarisse—” Annabeth tried.

“Stay out of it, Princess.”

Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it. Odysseus frowned.

Before I could do anything, though, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching, all the techniques that Ody and Pers had taught me, but this Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls’ bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should’ve been able to afford classier bathrooms.

Clarisse’s friends were all laughing, loud enough that I could barely hear what my dads were saying. I tried to find the strength I’d used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn’t there.

“Like he’s ‘Big Three’ material,” Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. “Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing since he’s so stupid-looking.”

Her friends cackled. Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. The box that held the Minotaur horn was tucked under her arm. She probably picked it up when I dropped it.

Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, y’know. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won’t.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse’s grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto the floor. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of water blasted them back. The showers acted up, and together all the fixtures sprayed the Ares girls right out of the bathroom.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn’t been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn’t been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

I looked at my dads. They were also staring at me, but they looked horrified. I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn’t have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Annabeth said, “How did you...“

“I don’t know.”

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse’s hair was flattened across her face. Her jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred, rising with a grace I didn’t expect from her. “You are dead , boy.”

I was going to say something, but my dad placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Percy,” he hissed. “Do not. ”

I didn’t do it.

Clarisse helped her friends up and stalked back to Cabin Five, her friends following hastily. The other campers made way, watching them all with wide eyes.

Annabeth stared at me. I couldn’t tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.

“What?” I demanded. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” she said, “that I want you on my team for Capture the Flag.”

Chapter Text

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn’t get to the top fast enough.

My dads were clearly still irritated after everything, but once they saw it, they were pissed.

“What is THIS ? ” Perseus yelled. “And they're wondering why their half-bloods don't live for very long? Are they deranged, stupid, or ignorant?”

Odysseus was actually shaking with anger. “They put children on this death trap? CHILDREN? One slip-up is all it takes for them to fall and DIE! ”

“You are never going on this,” Perseus hissed to me, his grip tight on my shoulder. “You hear me? Never .”

Personally, they did not need to tell me. I did not want to get on that thing. I’m sorry, but I valued my life and limbs a bit too much to risk it.

After that disaster, we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

“I’ve got training to do,” Annabeth said flatly. “Dinner’s at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall.”

“Annabeth, I’m sorry about the toilets.”

“Whatever.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I’d made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn’t understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

“You need to talk to the Oracle,” Annabeth said.

“Who?”

“Not who. What. The Oracle. I’ll ask Chiron.”

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.

I wasn’t expecting anybody to be looking at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore intricate dresses, decorated with shells, and jewels, and bits and pieces of gold and metalwork. Their hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a lost friend. I did a double-take when I noticed the scales that covered their skin.

“Naiads,” Odysseus said quietly.

I didn’t know what else to do. I waved back.

Annabeth glanced at them before looking at me warningly. “Don’t indulge them. Naiads are terrible flirts.”

I frowned a bit. I knew she was just talking about the ones in the camp (probably) but my Aunt Penelope was half naiad and after years of hearing all about her from Odysseus, I couldn’t help but feel a bit offended on her behalf.

“Naiads,” I repeated regardless. Gods, this was overwhelming. “That’s it. I want to go home now.”

Annabeth frowned. “Don’t you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us.”

“ Only safe place ,” Perseus repeated with a scoff. “This place is horrible for children. They deserve better.”

Odysseus nodded to everything he said, clearly in agreement.

I glanced at her. “You mean us half-bloods, us...“ I looked down, “Demigods.”

Annabeth nodded, the slightest bit sympathetic. “Your father isn’t dead, Percy. He’s one of the Olympians.”

“That’s... crazy.”

“Is it?” She questioned. “What’s the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they’ve changed their habits in the last few millennia?”

“If the kids here are all demigods,” I said, “then who’s your dad?”

Her hands tightened on the pier railing. I got the feeling I’d just trespassed on a sensitive subject.

“My dad is a professor at West Point,” she said. “I haven’t seen him since I was very young. He teaches American history.”

Her dad was mortal. So — “Who’s your mom?”

“Cabin Six.”

“Meaning?”

Annabeth straightened. “Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Battle Strategy.”

I didn’t say anything. Mostly because Odysseus was screaming in my ear.

“ CHILDREN? ” He yelled, Perseus’ attempts to get him to quiet down going unnoticed. “SHE HAS CHILDREN NOW?”

It took everything within me to not visibly wince. Odysseus was not a very quiet person. Heck, Perseus looked pretty caught off-guard too, both from Odysseus and Annabeth.

“Isn’t she a maiden goddess?”

Annabeth’s eyes narrowed. “You know how she was born, right?”

I thought for a moment. “Yeah, from Zeus’ head.”

“Children of Athena are like that. We’re born from the ingenuity of our mortal parents and the divine thoughts of our mother.”

“Parents? As in, moms and dads?”

“Wisdom doesn’t discriminate, Percy,” Annabeth said tiredly, like she’d had this conversation multiple times. Yikes. “Athena favors women and their wisdom just as much as she favors men. That’s what they say happened with Odysseus, after all.”

Wait, what was that?

Perseus turned to Odysseus, who raised his hands. “I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

I resisted the urge to turn to him as well. “What do you mean ‘that’s what they say happened with Odysseus’? Like, the Nobody guy? That Odysseus?”

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Of course I mean him. What other Odysseus is there? Mortals never knew about it, but we do. One of Odysseus’ parents was favored by Athena and so she gave them a child. That’s why one of his eyes was rumored to be blue. He inherited it from our mother’s side of the family.”

I blinked. “So... you’re siblings?”

“Half-siblings,” she corrected.

“Right. Half-siblings.” I blinked again. “My bad.”

We were quiet for a bit. Eventually, I found the courage to ask, “And my dad?”

“Undetermined,” Annabeth said. “Like I told you before, nobody knows.”

“Except my mother. She knows — knew.”

“Maybe not, Percy. Gods don’t always reveal their identities.”

“My dad might’ve. He loved her.” He’d better have loved her. She should’ve been the best of all his lovers. He should regret leaving her alone. He had to.

Annabeth gave me a cautious, yet sympathetic look. She didn’t want to burst my bubble. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’ll send a sign. That’s the only way to know for sure; your father has to send a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens.”

Sometimes? What did she — wait. Oh gods.

“Those kids,” I realized. “In Cabin Eleven. They’re — ”

“Undetermined.” Annabeth finished solemnly. “Unclaimed.”

“ Why? ”

Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. “The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don’t always... well, sometimes they don’t care about us, Percy. They ignore us.”

I thought about some of the kids I’d seen. Not just in the Hermes cabin, but who’d I seen wandering around camp. Teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I’d known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn’t have time to deal with them.

But the gods, they were, well, gods . They should behave better.

My dads were quiet, I noticed. They’d been talking, significantly quieter than before, but stopped once Annabeth said what she’d said about the gods.

“That’s horrible,” Perseus muttered. “So many children just — left unclaimed?”

Odysseus just seemed to shut down at that moment. He put his head in his hands and didn’t move.

“So I’m stuck here,” I said, desperate to move on. Gods, those poor kids. “That’s it? For the rest of my life?”

“It depends,” Annabeth said. “Some campers only stay for the summer. If you inherited more mortal blood than divine, you’re probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for the majority of us, it’s too dangerous to leave. We’re year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they’ll ignore us until we’re old enough to cause trouble — about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you’d know them. Some don’t even realize they’re demigods. But very few are like that.”

“So monsters can’t get in here?”

Annabeth shook her head. “Not unless they’re intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside.”

“Why would anyone want to summon a monster?”

“Practical fights. Practical jokes.”

“ Practical jokes? ”

“The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm.”

“So, you’re a year-rounder?”

Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her t-shirt, she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke’s except Annabeth’s also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.

“I’ve been here since I was seven,” she said. “Every August, on the last day of the summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I’ve been here longer than most of the counselors, and they’re all in college.”

“Why did you come so young?”

She twisted the ring on her necklace. “None of your business.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. It was rude of me to ask.”

She looked at me for a bit, but she didn’t seem all too angry. Just a bit sad, maybe. Still, I felt really bad. I decided to change the subject.

“So... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?”

“It would be suicide, but you could with Mr. D’s or Chiron’s permission. But they wouldn’t give permission until the end of the summer unless...”

“Unless?”

“You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time...”

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn’t gone well.

“Back in the sick room,” I said, “when you were feeding me that stuff—”

“Ambrosia.”

“Yeah. You asked me something about the Summer Solstice.”

Annabeth’s shoulders tensed. “So you do know something?”

“Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the Summer Solstice. He said something like we didn’t have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?”

She clenched her fists. “I wish I knew. Chiron, the satyrs, the nymphs, they know — they all know, but they won’t tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal.”

I stared at her in shock. I heard one of my dads gasp. “You’ve been to Olympus?”

“Some of us year-rounders — like Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others — we took a field trip during the Winter Solstice. That’s when the gods have their big annual council.”

“But... how did you get there?”

“The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor.” She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. “You are a New Yorker, right?”

“Oh, right, my bad.” As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but this had something to do with the gods, so I don’t know why I expected something normal.

“Right after we visited,” Annabeth continued, “the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times, I’ve overheard satyrs and nymphs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn’t returned by the Summer Solstice, there’s going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping... I mean — Athena can get along with just about anybody, even Ares on occasion, although she’s got that rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something.”

I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions. My dads were still eerily silent and it was unsettling me.

“I’ve got to get a quest,” Annabeth muttered to herself. “I’m not too young. If they would just tell me the problem...”

I could smell barbeque smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must’ve heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she’d catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

On the way to Cabin Eleven, I glanced at my dads. I don’t know what I expected to see, but I didn’t expect to see the simmering anger in their eyes I’d only seen the first time Gabe hit me; the first time a kid pushed me over and my hands and knees bled the whole day. They were scary when they were yelling, but it was even worse when they were just — just quiet . Odysseus and Perseus were angry with Camp Half-Blood and Chiron, I could tell, but there was something different about their rage towards the gods. Something sad about it. Perseus noticed me looking, though, and glanced away. Odysseus shifted his expression into something more neutral.

I didn’t say anything. I knew they wouldn’t tell me what was bothering them so much. They were open with me, yes, but when it involved the gods, they might as well have never told me a thing in my life.

Back at Cabin Eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features; sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles that reminded me of Odysseus, which I suppose wasn’t much of a surprise considering Hermes was Odysseus’ great-grandfather. They were the kinds of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my Minotaur horn. Odysseus and Persues settled beside me, still eerily silent.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes-Odysseus family resemblance, too. It was marred by the scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

“Found you a sleeping bag,” he said. “And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store.”

I couldn’t tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

I said, “Thanks.”

“No prob.” Luke sat next to me and pushed his back against the wall. “Tough first day?”

“Just... tiring. I didn’t even believe in the gods before coming here...”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn’t get any easier.”

The bitterness in his voice caught me off guard. Same with my dads. Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything. And, to be honest, he reminded me the slightest bit of my dads. He had the same warm smile that Odysseus did, the same ability to command a room that Perseus had. It felt weird seeing him so... cynical.

“So your dad is Hermes?” I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. “Yeah. Hermes.”

“The messenger of the gods.”

“That’s him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That’s why you’re here, enjoying Cabin Eleven’s hospitality. Hermes isn’t picky about who he sponsors.”

“Have you ever met your dad?” I asked.

“Once.”

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he’d tell me. Apparently, he didn’t. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they’re good people. After all, we’re family, right? No matter how extended, we take care of each other.”

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that. Luke had welcomed me into the cabin, he’d told off kids who were laughing at me or planning to steal my things. He’d even stolen some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. “Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being ‘Big Three’ material. Then Annabeth, twice, said I might be ‘the one.’ She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?”

Luke folded his knife. “I hate prophecies.”

“What do you mean?”

His face twitched around his scar. “Let’s just say I messed things up for everyone else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn’t allowed any more quests. Annabeth’s been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much, he finally told her he already knew her fate. He’d had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn’t tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn’t destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until somebody special came to camp.”

“Somebody special?”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Luke said. “Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she’s been waiting for. Now, come on, it’s dinnertime.”

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I’d never heard one before.

Luke yelled, “Eleven, fall in!”

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and Cabin Eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down. Artemis’ cabin, I was guessing.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the lake and nymphs emerged from their trees. In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads. Perseus and Odyssus frowned as they looked over all the kids.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but Cabin Eleven’s was overcrowded. I had to squeeze onto the edge of a bench and I was still almost falling off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Dionysus, a few satyrs, and a couple of boys — one blond, one brunette — who looked just like Dionysus. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares’ table. She’d apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. “To the gods!”

Everybody else raised their glasses. “To the gods!”

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and barbecue. My glass was empty, but Luke said, “Speak to it. Whatever you want — nonalchoholic, of course.”

I said, “Cherry coke.”

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid. My dads looked impressed, but they didn’t say anything. They seemed to still be reeling from before, so I let them be.

Then, I had an idea. “ Blue cherry coke.”

The soda turned a violet shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect. I drank a toast to my mother. She wasn’t dead, Perseus had told me that so it had to have been true. But still, I wanted to respect her. If I hadn’t acted so stupidly, maybe she would’ve been fine.

“Here you go, Percy,” Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded up my plate and saw everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.

“Offerings to the gods,” Odysseus offered quietly.

Luke noticed me lagging and gently pulled me with him. “Come on.”

When we got closer, I saw everyone taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire; the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest roll.

Luke said, “Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell.”

Okay, I could understand the offering part, but the smell? “You’re kidding,” I said.

A mistake on my part — a small one, but still a mistake. Luke gave me a look, warning me to not take this lightly. I didn’t question it. The gods were already pretty strange, maybe the smell of burning food was like roses to them.

“It smells different when it’s an offering,” Perseus said. “If you dedicate it to a god, some of their favor mixes in with it. You know they’re not happy if it just smells like burning food.”

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of red grapes. “Hermes.”

I was next.

I wished I knew what god’s name to say. I glanced at my dads for a moment. Odysseus gave me a nod, as if saying do what feels right.

I turned to the fire, threw in some brisket and olives, and said, “Athena and Hermes.”

Then I turned back to the Hermes table, ignoring some of the surprised glances I got — even the ones from Luke and my dads.

As I walked back, I caught a whiff of the smoke. Surprisingly, I didn’t gag. It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled like hot chocolate and freshly baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn’t have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats, Chiron pounded his hoof for our attention.

Dionysus stood with a small sigh. “Yes, I suppose I must say hello. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next Capture the Flag is Friday. Cabin Five currently holds the laurels.”

A bunch of cheering rose from the Ares table.

“Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Perry Johnson.”

Odysseus frowned, Perseus raised a brow and Chiron murmured something.

“Er, Percy Jackson,” Dionysus corrected. “That’s right. Hooray, and all that. Now, go on. Eat before the food grows cold.”

He sat back down and everyone started to eat, chattering and laughing happily. I tried to enjoy my food, but I could practically feel Dionysus staring at me. Well, not exactly staring , but he was glancing back at me every two seconds; like some stressed parent who was worried that in the small amount of time they looked away from their kid, they’d eat all the leaves off a tree branch. I did that once when I was a child. Perseus nearly killed me. Never again.

After a bit, I grew tired of it. It was really starting to stress me out and my dads seemed to have noticed.

“Do you want to look at the other cabins?” Odysseus asked me. “I think I spotted some carvings on Lady Artemis’ cabin a bit ago.”

That sounded infinitely better than staying here. I waited until the Hermes campers were distracted before quickly slipping away. I hadn’t been participating all that much, so my presence (or lack thereof) wouldn’t be missed.

I didn’t feel like someone was staring at me anymore, so I was sure nobody had noticed me leaving.

My dads and I wandered around the camp for a bit, looking at every little detail of each cabin.

“These tapestries are so detailed,” Odysseus marveled. We were at Cabin Six; Athena’s cabin. It was pure white with grey columns; golden tapestries depicting moments of victory from Athena’s warriors adorned it, like with Ares’ cabin. Carvings of owls and snakes decorated the columns and walls; a golden olive tree was carved above the entryway.

I glanced over the tapestries before spotting one in particular. “Hey, papa, dad, look!”

My dads looked at the tapestry I was pointing at. It was divided into three parts: the one to the left depicting a man holding the head of Medusa, the one to the right showing a man holding a gold-stained spear, and the one in the middle depicting a man with an owl on his shoulder.

“It’s you guys!” I said, pointing to the left and middle sections. “I don’t know who this other guy is, though.”

Odysseus squinted at it before his eyes widened in realization. “It’s Diomedes. You remember what I told you, don’t you, Percy?”

“He’s the one that wounded Ares and Aphrodite,” I recalled. Odysseus had told me a bit about the other kings that he’d gone to war with, but Diomedes was the one he talked about the most. “And the guy who tried to fight Apollo three separate times.”

“Is that all you remember—”

“He also got shot in the foot by an arrow and cursed out Paris for being an archer.”

Odysseus stared at me for a bit. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“... okay.”

Perseus glanced between us for a couple of moments. “Should we check out Apollo’s cabin?”

We went to check out Apollo’s cabin.

Now that the sun wasn’t reflecting on it, we could actually see the carvings and details on his cabin. Above the doorway was a bow and arrow. Like all the others, some tapestries displayed his domains, some of his past lovers, a bunch of his symbols, etc.

“What do you think about it?” Odysseus asked me after a couple of moments.

“I think I liked Athena and Hermes’ more.”

“Any reason why?”

“They didn’t almost blind me, for one.”

He paused. “A good thing,” he eventually settled with.

I was about to reply, maybe recommend checking out the Aphrodite and Hephesteus cabins when I heard someone say, “Percy?”

Oh, my gods.

I turned around, eyes wide.

“Percy,” Chiron repeated. “Who are you talking to?”

Fuck.

Chapter Text

“My father’s name, Chiron, I thought you knew,” Dionysus muttered.

Chiron sounded angry. “You mean to say that you did?”

“Well, of course I did, I—”

While they argued, I picked at my nails. I was sitting in one of the chairs in Dionysus’ office. I didn’t feel brave enough to look any of them in the eye, so I just stared at the floor.

Odysseus and Perseus weren’t angry or anything, though they definitely looked unhappy. Then again, Perseus was a bit more annoyed with Odysseus than he was Dionysus and Chiron.

“In my defense,” my papa said when Perseus sent him another look, “I did not know that he would be able to see me just because I said it would be easier.”

Yeah. That was fun. That was real fun. At the very least, it saved us a lot of explanation.

“How is it my fault that you couldn’t see them until now?” Dionysus complained. “If I had known that all they had to do was wish to be seen by you, I would’ve told them to do it in the first place!”

I frowned. That’s not what he said before. I was about to point this out when a grape vine suddenly sprouted from the floor and hit me on the arm — hard . Okay, message received then, jeez...

“That’s not what I’m saying, Lord Dionysus!” Chiron argued. “You knew about them, but you never told me!”

“Again, I thought you knew!”

“This is really making me wish I had a drink,” Perseus muttered.

A gauntlet of wine suddenly appeared in front of him. When he did not move to pick it up, it clattered to the floor pathetically.

All eyes turned to Dionysus.

“What?” He asked. “You said you wanted a drink.”

Chiron pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Lord Dionysus, please take this seriously . You figured out that Percy, a demigod child, is being followed by two of the most legendary heroes in all of Greece. Ones that disappeared after their deaths and caused a mass panic in both Olympus and the Underworld.”

“Yes, and?”

“And you never saw it fit to tell me?”

The fire in the room blazed, suddenly, the flames a bright purple instead of red and orange.

“I will tell you one more time, and one more time only,” Dionysus scowled. “I. Thought. You. Knew.”

Surprisingly, Chiron didn’t look all too impressed with Dionysus’ light show. “By the gods, Percy,” I glanced up, “how long have they been following you?”

“Since I was about a year old, I think.”

Chiron frowned. “And you two. How are you bound to him? Why?”

“While I would love to tell you, we have no idea either,” Perseus said. “But now that you can see us, I have some things to say about how you run this camp.”

“Dad, please don’t—”

“First of all, what is that lava wall doing out there? That thing is a death trap and it shouldn’t be around children!”

“It is necessary to train the campers should they come across a similar situation.”

“What safety measures do you have installed, then?” Odysseus cut in. “If it’s so important, what safety measures do you have in case of malfunction or injury? In fact, if there’s a flaw, who fixes it? You? Lord Dionysus? Or is it the children of Hephaestus?”

Chiron didn’t have an answer.

Odysseus tsked in disapproval. “That’s what I thought.”

“Look,” Chiron sighed. “When this camp was founded, I had never been informed that the children would be, well, children. And I’ve only ever trained adults in the past—at least, heroes that were considered adults in their time.”

“You’ve had years to adapt,” Perseus frowned. “Years to change the camp accordingly.”

Chiron looked about ready to reply when Dionysus intervened. “Now, apologies for interrupting as I’m sure this is a topic you two are very passionate about, but currently, there are other matters to attend to. That, and you’re getting into some awfully risky territory there, Perseus. Our own father was the one who decided the vast majority of things in this camp, after all.” His eyes flashed in warning. “And we wouldn’t want to upset him, now would we? After all, if I can see you, surely he can too.”

Perseus paled at that, gritting out a strained “fine,” and staring at the floor. Odysseus frowned, but relented, staying quiet.

Dionysus also looked a bit concerned but he brushed it off. “Now, back to the matter at hand, do you have any problems with their presence, Chiron?”

Chiron seemed to debate it for a bit before sighing. “Not any that I can think of.”

“Good,” he said. “And do you see any problems with them, Perry? Now that Chiron knows? If so, we can see to possibly removing them—”

I sat up. “What? No!”

He blinked at me for a couple of moments. “Never mind, then.” Dionysus muttered, taking a sip of his soda. “I’ll just... hm. I’ll talk to Fathee—”

“ Please do not tell Father,” Perseus interrupted. “Then Uncle would find out and I really don’t think he’d be happy with Odysseus’ presence.”

I was slightly confused on why Perseus seemed extremely reluctant to use any names until I remembered the chance that the gods could actually hear my dads. It’d never been a concern before, but now that we were in a camp dedicated to and protected by the gods, I wasn’t so sure. Saying a god’s name in the middle of New York was very different from saying a god’s name in their own temple, after all. We were lucky if the gods didn’t already know about us.

Dionysus was quiet for a bit before speaking, voice surprisingly gentle. “Very well. Rest assured, Perseus, that he will not know. I have no idea on how much I can conceal from Father, but I will hide you and Odysseus for as long as I can.”

“You can control what the gods see?” I asked.

“In this camp, yes,” he said. “As long as I’m bound to it, I can conceal whatever I wish.” He thought for a moment. “Still, I’d recommend using godly names as little as possible, if you could.”

“We’ll make sure to do that,” Odysseus said.

“Good,” Dionysus said. “Now, Chiron, let the boy go to bed. It’s rather late. Couldn’t you have waited until morning?”

Chiron looked like he was about to argue before sighing once again and pointing to the door. “Go to bed, Percy. We’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

I was very much not looking forward to that—

“There will be no need,” Dionysus reassured. “Any questions you have, you may ask me.”

“... very well,” Chiron eventually settled with.

Maybe they said more, but I left the moment I was dismissed. I had spent at least twenty minutes listening to Dionysus and Chiron argue, I really didn’t want to stick around for any longer.

“Well,” Odysseus said plainly while I walked to Cabin Eleven. “That could’ve gone worse.”

Perseus groaned.

—

After that, surprisingly nothing changed. Occasionally, Chiron would send me a concerned look, but he didn’t pay any attention to Perseus and Odysseus — almost to the point it was mildly insulting. The next few days, I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don’t count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, a centaur, and, on occasion, a god.

I’d never known that much about wine-making but now I could practically call myself an expert.

Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth. Reading the Greek wasn’t all that difficult, but I made sure to look like I was struggling so she wouldn’t get suspicious.

The rest of the day, I’d rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at. There was a surprising amount of things I hadn’t not already tried or learned about from my dads.

I was decent at archery. Not enough for that to be a sign that I’m a child of Apollo, but Lee Fletcher, the counselor for Apollo’s cabin, reassured me that some kids inherited his other domains instead. Archery was just the most common. They had me try some basic first aid, and I did pretty good. With Gabe in our house, I’d long since learned how to use medical supplies. Even with the little trick I had where water could heal me, it didn’t do too much to broken bones. Poetry, I was decent at — a bit worse than I was at archery, though. By that point, Lee Fletcher had been frowning, deep in thought. In the end, it was written down as a “maybe”.

The nymphs that instructed some of the more physical activities had me try some foot racing. Could’ve been better, but they told me not to worry about it. They’d had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. They directed me to wrestling instead. Odysseus spent the entire time watching through his fingers, occasionally shoving his face into Perseus’ shoulder when it got real bad. Perseus frowned the entire time, wincing whenever I got shoved to the floor. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.

I was good at canoeing! Though, that wasn’t the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my godly parent was, but they weren’t having an easy time of it. There were quite a few things I did horribly in, and everything I excelled in was too broad a category. I could hear them sometimes. Everytime one of them recommended a god, like Apollo or Hermes, someone else would shoot it down. They got to the point that they’d run out of male gods and were debating whether or not my mother actually dated a woman instead. Or Aphrodite.

Once, and only once, did someone recommend Poseidon. It was swiftly pushed aside with a recommendation of Apollo — almost too quickly — but my hands were still shaking for a long while afterwards.

(It was because of the canoeing. Just because of that. I had been about to tell them about the water healing me. In the end, I didn’t.)

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with Cabin Eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and pray to Athena and Hermes. A lot of the time, I found myself asking them to make sure my mom was safe. I tried not to think of her too much, but I kept wondering. What if Perseus lied? What if she was dead? If she was, surely there was some way to bring her back...

I started to understand Luke’s bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. My dads were upset about it. I’d originally thought they were mad with Luke, but Perseus made sure to clarify that they were upset with Hermes .

“He loved his children,” he’d said. “He was the closest to his kin. He wouldn’t just — ignore them like this.”

Odysseus didn’t say anything about it when I asked, but I could tell he was worried for not just the Hermes cabin, but for all the campers.

—

Thursday afternoon, three days after I’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. At least, my first lesson that wasn’t taught by my dads. Everybody from Cabin Eleven had gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I did alright. I was used to using random sticks we found in the park, not an actual sword. Even then, it was unbalanced and felt odd in my hand. I couldn’t find any sword that was better though. They were either too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to help, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.

“Good luck,” one of the campers told me. “Luke’s the best swordsman in the last three hundred years.”

“Impressive,” my dad muttered.

“Maybe he’ll go easy on me,” I said.

The camper snorted, before rejoining one of their friends on the sidelines.

Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. “Keep your guard up, Percy,” he’d say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. “No, not that far up!” Whap! “Lunge!” Whap! “Now, back!” Whap!

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like a good idea, so I did the same.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn’t feel so awkward. I could feel some of the bruises healing. Maybe I should’ve done this earlier.

“Okay, everybody circle up!” Luke ordered. “If Percy doesn’t mind, I want to give you a little demo.”

The Hermes kids gathered around. Some of them were suppressing smiles. I figured they’d been in my shoes before and couldn’t wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy’s blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

“This is difficult,” he stressed. “I’ve had it used against me multiple times. No laughing at Percy, I’m serious about this. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique.”

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

“Now in real time,” he said, after I’d retrieved my weapon. “We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?”

I nodded, and Luke came after me. I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming and I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.

The sword began to grow heavy in my hand. The balance wasn’t right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before the effects of the water wore off and Luke took me down, so I figured, what the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

My blade hit the base of Luke’s and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang.

Luke’s sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.

The other campers were silent. My dads flitted around nervously. I... might’ve revealed too much at that moment.

I lowered my sword. “Um, sorry.”

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

“Sorry?” His scarred face broke into a grin. “By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!”

I didn’t really want to. The short burst of energy from the water had left me, and I didn’t want to give my whole oblivious act away. But Luke insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, “Beginner’s luck?”

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised me with an entirely new interest. “Maybe,” he said. “But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword...”

—

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. I hadn’t wanted to go on it, but a couple of the instructors pressured me to try and so I did, ignoring my dads’ frantic protests. Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes on it. If my dads’ weren’t already dead, they would’ve likely died from stress.

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Dionysus.

His face paled.

“Fine,” he said. “Just great.”

“So your career’s still on track?”

He glanced at me nervously. “Chiron t-told you I want a searcher’s license?”

“Well... no.” I had no idea what a searcher’s license was, but it didn’t seem like the right time to ask. “He just said you had big plans, you know... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper’s assignment. So did you get it?”

Grover looked down at the naiads. “Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn’t failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he’d consider the job complete.”

My spirit’s lifted. “Well, that’s not so bad, right?”

“Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?”

“Of course I’d want you along!”

Grover stared glumly into the water. “Basket-weaving... must be nice to have a useful skill.”

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

“Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis,” he said. Yeah, I guessed it did. “She vowed to be a maiden forever. So, of course, no kids. The cabin’s honorary. If she didn’t have one, she’d be mad.”

“The other three, then. Are those the Big Three?” I knew they weren’t. But, alas, obliviousness.

Grover tensed. I was getting close to a touchy subject. “No. One of them, number two, is Hera’s,” he said. “That’s another honorary thing. She’s the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn’t go around having affairs with mortals. That’s her husband’s job—”

“It sure is,” my dad muttered bitterly.

“—when we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what.”

“One got the sky,” I said. “One got the sea, and the other got the Underworld.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But... one of them doesn’t have a cabin here.”

Grover looked at me a bit weird when I avoided saying their names, but he didn’t say anything about it. “No. Hades doesn’t have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here...” Grover shuddered. “Well, it wouldn’t be pleasant. Let’s leave it at that.”

“But the other two — they both had a bunch of kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?”

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. “About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn’t sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, y’know, had a couple of their children fighting in it. They caused a lot of destruction, on both sides. The side that Zeus and Posedon’s sons were on won, and so they made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx.”

Thunder again. Perseus swore at it.

I said, “That’s the most serious oath you can make.”

Grover nodded.

“And the brothers kept their word — no kids?”

Grover’s face darkened. “Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this Tv starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo — he just couldn’t help himself.” I resisted the urge to gag. “When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia... well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he’s immortal, but he brought a terrible fate upon his daughter.”

Suddenly, my dads were paying complete attention; Perseus, especially.

“But that isn’t fair!” I argued. “It wasn’t her fault.”

Grover hesitated. “Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn’t too happy about Zeus breaking the oath that he enforced. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she’d befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill.”

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I’d fought the Minotaur. “All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a hoard of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn’t want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That’s why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill.”

I stared at the pine in the distance.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty, too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn’t seem like much.

Beside me, my dads were quiet. I couldn’t even imagine what Perseus was thinking. Had Hades not sent his monsters, or had Thalia been able to survive, she would’ve been here. In this camp. Happy and safe. He could’ve met his half-sister — a sister who was a demigod like him, not a goddess like Athena or Artemis.

I wondered, while thinking about all this, if I had acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

“Grover,” I said, “have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini.”

“And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?”

“No. Never. Orpheus came close... Percy, you’re not seriously thinking—”

“No,” I lied, ignoring my dads’ stares. “I was just wondering. So... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?”

Grover studied me warily. I hadn’t convinced him that I’d really dropped the Underworld idea. “Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them since they could cause really huge problems.”

“And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special.”

Grover looked as if I’d just led him into a trap. “I didn’t... oh, listen, don’t think like that. If you were — you know — you’d never ever be allowed a quest, and I’d never get my license. You’re probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don’t worry, okay?”

I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.

—

That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for Capture the Flag.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her siblings ran in with another banner of identical size; but this one was a dark crimson, a golden boar and a spear embroidered on it. I had to admit, the banners were made of good quality fabric and the embroidery was clearly done by a skilled hand.

I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, “Those are the flags?”

“Yeah.”

“Ares and Athena always lead the teams?”

“Not always,” he said. “But often.”

“So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do — dye the flag?”

He grinned. “You’ll see. First, we have to get one.”

“Whose side are we on?”

He gave me a sly grin, as if he knew something I didn’t. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight — but it still looked so much like Odysseus’ smile that I couldn’t bring myself to feel intimidated. “We’ve made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help.”

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded — shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities — in order to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I’d seen, Dionysus’ kids were good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter’s kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff. Some of them were relatively peaceful, but quite a few of them inherited their mother’s temper. 

Aphrodite’s sons and daughters, I wasn’t too concerned about. Not very many of them were fighters, and they seemed uninterested in the game. But they definitely knew how to mess with people’s heads and emotions so we’d just have to hope they didn’t get into the competitive spirit.

For Hephaestus’ kids, there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares’ cabin: a dozen of the biggest, strongest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.

“Heroes!” He announced. “You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banners must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but not bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed.”

I waited for him to say more about the rules. He didn’t.

“There’s no way that’s it,” Perseus muttered. “There has to be more.”

“I will serve as referee and battlefield medic.” He finished. “Arm yourselves!”

My dads stared at him.

“You have got to be kidding me...”

Personally, I wasn’t feeling all too confident either. Now that I was thinking about it, maybe my mother was right to not bring me here.

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal. My dads gaped.

I stared at the table for a couple moments. “We’re really supposed to use these?”

Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. “Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in Cabin Five. Here — Chiron thought these would fit. You’ll be on border patrol.”

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena’s side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.

Annabeth yelled, “Blue team, forward!”

The campers cheered and shook their swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. I followed hesitantly.

I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. “Hey.”

She kept marching.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked. “Anything you need me to do?”

“Just watch Clarisse’s spear,” she said. “You don’t want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don’t worry. We’ll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?”

“Border patrol.”

“Good. That’s easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan.”

She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

“Okay,” I mumbled. “Glad you wanted me on your team.”

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Annabeth stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of them scattered into the trees.

Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball. I meandered over to the river and put my hand under the surface. As I kept my sword hand under the water, I pondered for a bit.

There was no way anybody would actually attack me, right? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?

Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

I didn’t think much of it, taking my hand out of the water and hefting my now far more comfortable sword. It was still unbalanced, but it wasn’t as bad as before.

Odysseus looked like he was about to say something when we heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine; a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.

“Do you see anything?” I muttered.

“No,” Perseus said with a scowl.

Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.

“Get him!” Clarisse screamed.

Her eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings only had the standard-issue bronze swords — not that it made me feel any better.

“What are they doing— ” Perseus hissed.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.

I managed to sidestep the first kid’s swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Minotaur. They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on the end and my sword arm went numb. The air burned.

Electricity. The spear she had — it was electric. I fell back.

Another Ares camper slammed me in the chest with the end of his sword’s handle and I hit the dirt. The river. The effects from the river had worn off quickly, but if I could get back to it...

Clarisse laughed. “Grab his hair. Let’s show him what happens when someone messes with Ares.”

One of the kids took out a knife. I was confused on why they traded the sword for a knife until I noticed just how much sharper it was.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” This was the first time I’d ever heard my dads direct actual anger towards other campers.

I rushed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.

“Oh, wow ,” Clarisse drawled. “I’m scared of this guy. Really scared.”

“The flag’s that way,” I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn’t come out that way. To be honest, I kind of just wanted to sit down and cry. A lot of stuff had happened in the past week. I didn’t want to deal with this at all.

“Yeah,” one of her siblings said. “But see, we don’t care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid.”

“You do that without my help,” I told them. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to say, judging by Odysseus’ look of agony.

Two of them came at me. My mind snapped back into shape, and I backed towards the river, raising my shield. Good thing I did, since Clarisse attacked with her spear the moment she noticed me backing up. I wasn’t able to block her second attack, though, and it struck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn’t been wearing an armored breastplate, I would’ve been impaled. The sibling that had the knife slashed it across my arm. It slid through my skin easily, leaving a good-sized cut.

Blood rushed down my arm, dripping into the dirt and staining it a dark red. Seeing my own blood made me dizzy — warm and cold at the same time.

“No maiming,” I managed to say.

“Oops,” the guy said with a grin. “Guess I lost my dessert privileges.”

Odysseus screamed aggressively in Greek. Perseus was dead silent with rage.

Before I could move, the guy with the knife pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed, but I felt a rush of energy shot through my body. Perfect.

Clarisse and her cabin mates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them, the gash on my arm healing. They didn’t notice that. When they were close enough, I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy’s head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.

Camper number two and camper number three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy’s hair plume. Both of them backed up quickly. Camper number four didn’t look all that anxious to attack, but CLarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

She screamed. “You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!”

Clarisse probably would’ve said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with the end of my sword handle and sent her stumbling backwards out of the creek.

Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team’s banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes kids covering his retreat, and a few children of Apollo behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.

“A trick!” She shouted. “It was a trick!”

They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a caduceus, the symbol of Cabin Eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over. We’d won.

I was about to wander over when Annabeth’s voice, right next to me in the creek, said, “Not bad, hero.”

I looked, but she wasn’t there.

“Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?” She asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she’d just taken it off her head.

I felt myself getting angry. “You set me up,” I hissed. “You put me here because you knew Clarisse would go after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out.”

Annabeth shrugged. “I told you. Athena always has a plan.”

My dads scowled. Odysseus was muttering to himself angrily.

“A plan to get me pulverized.” I said.

“I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but...” she shrugged. “You didn’t need help.”

Then she noticed my wounded arm. “How did you do that?”

“One of them pulled a knife on me—”

Her eyes widened. “Wh— how is it healed already?”

Oh, shit . I glanced at my arm. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch. I watched it turn into a small scar and disappear.

“I—” obliviousness, obliviousness— “I don’t get it.”

Annabeth was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse’s broken spear, and said, “Get out of the water, Percy.”

“What—”

“Just do it.”

Fuck. Fuck. I knew what she was trying to do.

“I think I’m fine, actually—”

“Percy, please .”

I got out of the creek, reluctantly, and immediately felt tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.

“Oh, Styx,” she cursed. “This is not good. I didn’t want... I assumed it would be Zeus...”

Before I could ask what she meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

The campers’ cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, “ Stand ready! My bow! ”

Annabeth drew her sword.

There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

It was looking straight at me.

Nobody moved except for Annabeth, who yelled, “Percy, run!”

She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her — an enormous shadow with teeth — and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other.

The monster fell dead at my feet.

By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn’t want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest was warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would’ve turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

“ Di immortales! ” Annabeth said. “That’s a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don’t... they’re not supposed to...”

“Someone summoned it,” Chiron said. “Someone inside the camp.”

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

One of Clarisse’s siblings yelled, “It’s all Percy’s fault! Percy—”

“Shut it,” Clarisse hissed, something different in her eyes. Even though she surely hated me, she knew when it wasn’t the time. She spoke almost softly to her brother. “He couldn’t have summoned it. It never would’ve attacked him.”

We watched the body of the hellhound melt into the shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

“You’re wounded,” Annabeth told me. “Quick, Percy, get in the water.”

( “Get in the water.” )

I wanted to, but—

“I’m okay,” I said. The word choice. It was something so small—

( “Or I’ll raise the tide so high, all of Ithaca will die.” )

—and yet. And yet .

“No, you’re not,” she said. “Chiron, watch this.”

“I don’t—”

With a serious look, Chiron walked over and started gently nudging me to the water. “Percy,” he said quietly. “Do it.”

I stepped back into the creek. The whole camp gathered around me.

( “I’ll make tidal waves so profound, both your wife and your son will drown!” )

Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the gouges on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.

“Look, I — I don’t know why,” I said. My head felt fuzzy, I was tired, and I could only think of it , the memories that I dreamt of so often— “I’m sorry...”

But they weren’t watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.

“No,” Odysseus breathed. Perseus was quiet.

“Percy,” Annabeth said, pointing. “Um...”

By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming — a three-tipped spear: a trident.

No. No, no, nonononono—

“Your father,” Annabeth murmured. “This is really not good.”

( “Don’t mistake my threats for bluff, you have lived more than enough!” )

“It is determined,” Chiron announced.

All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin.

“My father?” I breathed, horrified. “Wait—”

Please, please, no —

“Poseidon,” said Chiron. “Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses.”

I glanced to the left. Perseus stared at the symbol with a grim acceptance, and Odysseus looked utterly terrified .

( “I’ll take your son and gouge his eyes, that is unless you choose to die!” )

“Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.”

No.

Chapter Text

I wish I could say I was surprised when I was claimed as a son of Poseidon. I wish I could say I was happy about it. I wish I could say I didn’t know.

I was not surprised. I was not happy. And I did know, in the end.

For years, I had suspected it. When I was little, very little, I’d connected the dots. I was so sure, so happy  until I had my first dream of Odysseus’ memories of Poseidon. I would think about it for hours — surely not? Surely the Fates wouldn’t be so cruel?

Please, I remember praying. Please don’t let it be true. Don’t let Poseidon be my father.

I spent years saying to myself, the water’s healing isn’t very potent, I must be the child of a minor water deity — I heard that horse say something, I must be hearing things — it rained a bit when I got upset, a coincidence, it has to be .

I forced myself into thinking it wasn’t true, that I was just being — foolish. Stupid. Desperate for a father that I didn’t need.

And then... that. That symbol. That trident — oh, that fucking trident.

Why? What had I done to deserve this? Why was he my father? Him?

Was this retribution? Had I done something in a previous life and this was my punishment? Why?

I was angry. Very angry. Angry at the Fates, at the camp, at the gods, at Poseidon, at my dads—

No. Not my dads. They hadn’t done anything wrong. Neither did my mom. I wasn’t angry at them.

Only him.

—

The next morning, Chiron moved me to Cabin Three.

I begged him to let me stay in Cabin Eleven. He said no. I pleaded with Luke to convince Chiron to let me stay.

“There’s nothing I can do,” he said, pained and regretful. “I’m sorry.”

In the end, Chiron had to drag me into the cabin. No matter how much I held onto the tree branch I’d gotten a hold of, I couldn’t compete with Chiron, and within moments, I was sitting on one of the beds in the cabin while my dads screamed at Chiron.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Chiron?” Perseus grit out. Odysseus was quiet. He hadn’t said anything since the claiming.

“This is how it’s meant to go,” Chiron said. His mouth was set into a thin line. He didn’t look too happy to be doing this. “The rules of this camp have been made clear countless times. Any claimed children must be placed in their respective cabins.”

“Surely you can make an exception?”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?”

“These rules were set in place by your father , Perseus,” Chiron said gravely. “He does not like to be disobeyed.”

Perseus scowled. “Luke offered to stay for the night to help Percy settle in.” He said. He was right. Luke had offered that earlier. I wished that had been allowed. Any familiar face would be welcomed if I had to be in Poseidon’s cabin. “What about that? If not him, what about some of the Hermes children he befriended? Like the Stolls?”

Chiron just stared tiredly. “I’m afraid not. Both ways, the rules would be broken.” When Perseus moved to argue again, Chiron raised a hand. “This is non-debatable, Perseus. Percy must remain in this cabin—”

“Grover isn’t a demigod,” Perseus cut in. “What about him?”

Chiron hesitated. “No. I’m afraid not.” He sounded unsure about it, though. “It... has been allowed in the past. Occasionally. But I’m afraid that we only ever appealed to Zeus for such a thing when he was in a good mood. He’s been more... snappish, with everything going on.” He turned to me. “I’m sorry, Percy. If he weren’t so angry, I would request for this. But I’m afraid that with his temper, it might only bring his ire upon you. Just... try and deal with it. I wish I could do more, but for matters such as this, my hands are tied.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Percy,” Chiron said. “Please.”

I glanced back down at the floor. “Fine.”

I heard a sigh. “I truly am sorry about this, Percy.”

And then he left, likely unable to deal with my dad’s burning stare.

“I hate this place,” Perseus muttered once Chiron was gone. Odysseus was still eerily silent.

I didn’t say anything either. I went back to picking at my nails, desperately trying to ignore all the sea-related decor in the cabin. I really didn’t want to be here, but I’d given up on trying to avoid it. Chiron made it clear when he dragged me in that I didn’t have a choice.

Eventually, it was quiet. Perseus had been saying — something, and trailed off once he noticed Odysseus and I weren’t listening. I could tell my dads were barely hanging on by a thread — Odysseus, more so.

There was a question I had.

Should I ask?

Yes. No. Maybe.

“Percy,” Perseus said quietly, nudging my hand. Oh. I’d accidentally pierced my skin. It wasn’t bleeding too bad, but I’d been scratching at it subconsciously. Oops. “Are you okay?”

No. Yes.

Maybe.

No.

My mind was fuzzy, like before when — with the river. No, the creek. Was it the same thing? Where was I, again?

( “Get in the water.” )

Nope. Not — not thinking about that, nope. Not now.

“Percy?”

Why did he have to be my dad? Why him?

“Percy.”

Please, please, please let this change nothing between us—

“Per—” I cut him off.

“Do you hate me?”

Silence.

It would be fine if they did. I already hated myself.

After a couple of moments, I glanced up at my dads. The silence was disconcerting.

Odysseus stared at me for a couple of moments before realization flashed in his eyes. “No,” he breathed. “No, Percy, we would never—”

“Why would you think that?” Perseus asked quietly. He looked worried.

“Well— I mean—” I stuttered, trying to figure out how to word it. My dads waited patiently. “You don’t like Poseidon. And... he’s— he’s my father — I guess, so—”

“Percy,” my dad interrupted. I shut up, digging my nails into my arm. He kneeled in front of me, cupping my face so I would look at him. “That doesn’t matter. We don’t care about that.”

“... you don’t?”

“Of course not. Do you dislike me because of my father?”

I would never. “No.”

He titled his head. “Then why should we dislike you because of yours?”

“W-well, I’m not saying you should— ”

“See?” He said. “We don’t hate you, Percy. You are our son, and no matter what you are or what you do, we’ll always love you.”

“Even if I’m a son of the Sea God?”

My dad nodded. “Even if you’re a son of the Sea God.”

I glanced away from him and towards Odysseus. He was at the other side of the cabin, facing away. I couldn’t really tell from how dark it was, but it looked like he was shaking.

“Is he okay?”

Perseus looked where I was pointing and frowned. “Odysseus is... having a hard time, right now. I’ll talk to him about it tonight, and we’ll try and discuss it more another day. For now, get some sleep.”

I glanced at Odysseus again. “Are you sure you still love me...?”

Perseus moved his hands to my shoulders. “Perseus Jackson,” he said firmly, “no matter what you do, what you are, or what you think, we will always love you. You will always be Odysseus and I’s son. He may be acting a bit distant right now, but he loves you.” He stood up, kissed my forehead, and said, “Now, please sleep . That Capture the Flag game was a disaster .”

He walked off. I watched him approach Odysseus before turning away and lying down.

I expected it would take longer to fall asleep, but I was so tired, I was knocked out the moment my head hit the pillow.

—

I woke up at some point. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark out. I was about to fall back asleep when I heard some voices.

“—don’t know what to do anymore,” Odysseus.

“And that’s fine,” Perseus. “You don’t need to. We’ll figure it out.”

“His father’s Poseidon— ”

Perseus sounded nervous. “Let’s try and use his name a little less, hm?”

“—what if he rejects Percy?”

What?

“What? Odysseus, what do you mean by that?”

“He hates me,” Odysseus said. He sounded moments away from breaking down. “You know why! I did— I did that to him!” I knew that Odysseus blinded one of Poseidon’s sons (one of my half-brothers, I guess), but I had a feeling that wasn’t what he was talking about. “What if he finds out about us? About me? What if he doesn’t want anything to do with Percy? Oh gods, what if he tries to hurt Percy because of it?”

Perseus was stammering, like he was trying to find something that’d prove Poseidon wouldn’t do that, but he didn’t seem to be able to think of anything. “I — well, we don’t know that’ll happen, right?”

“We don’t know if it won’t! I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself if I ruin Percy’s chances of finally having his father around—”

“ Odysseus .” Perseus interrupted firmly. “I understand your concerns. Though I may hate him too, I would also like for Percy to be able to have his godly father around—” it sounded like Odysseus was about to say something, “— but if the Sea God’s petty enough to cut him off just because of an unresolved 3,000-year-old grudge he has with you, that just proves that Percy’s better off without him .”

“But—”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that you want Percy to spend years of his life yearning for the love of a father who never cared for him because of some shitty grudge he can’t let go of.”

Odysseus had no answer.

“That’s what I thought,” Perseus muttered, then he sighed. “Odysseus, I know you’re stressed about this and that no amount of reason is going to completely settle your worries, but no matter what happens, it’s not your fault . If the Sea God really does end up rejecting Percy, he still has us in the end to help him. And if it is because of his hatred for you, then that’s his loss since he can’t bring himself to look past his anger and care for the greatest son one could wish for.”

Oh shit, he knew I was awake, didn’t he.

“Why did you—?” Odysseus paused for a moment. “Never mind,” he said eventually. “What do we do then?”

“Whatever we can.”

They went quiet after that. I heard some shifting, but not much more. After a couple more minutes, I began to fall asleep again. There wasn’t anything to focus on, so I was remembering how tired I was. I kind of wanted to stay up though... 

A hand suddenly carded through my hair. One of my dads.

“Go back to sleep, Little Hero,” Perseus said quietly. Quiet enough that even I could barely hear it. “We’ll talk later.”

With that, I went back to sleep.

—

We never did end up having that conversation. The next couple of days were just too miserable.

Just when I’d started to feel accepted, to feel like I had a home in Cabin Eleven and I might be a normal kid — as close as I could be, anyway — I’d been separated out as if I had some rare disease.

Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me, even if it meant invading a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin Eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I’d done to the Ares folk in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and he wasn’t afraid to bruise me up in the process.

“You’re going to need all the training you can get,” he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches, much to my dads’ dismay. “Now, let’s try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions.”

Annabeth still helped me with Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I’d just poked her between the eyes.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: “Quest... Poseidon? ... dirty rotten... got to make a plan...”

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I’d rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

I knew somebody at camp resented me because one night, while I was once again hesitating to go into Cabin Three, I found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News , opened to the Metro page. Odysseus read through the article for me, though it took him a while due to how angry he got about it.

BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

Sally Jackson and her son, Perseus “Percy” Jackson, are still missing after their mysterious disappearance. The family’s badly burned ‘78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual during the time of the accident.

Mrs. Jackson’s husband, Gabe Ugilano, claims that his stepson, Perseus Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.

Police would not say whether Percy Jackson is a suspect in his mother’s disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Perseus Jackson. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.

The phone number was circled in black marker.

“Insolent children,” Odysseus muttered in irritation. I didn’t say anything. I just wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of the empty cabin. I didn’t have the energy to deal with this.

That night, I had my worst dream yet. I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread further apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. No, not men. Gods.

They were taller, so, so much taller than I ever could be. Both of them had long hair; one was a pale blond, the other a pitch black — though I could’ve sworn I could see streaks of a bright, glowing sea green. They wore ancient Greek clothing, with bits of gold jewelry. I barely caught sight of their faces, but when I did I felt a creeping sort of familiarity. I wanted to scream when I realized who they were.

Zeus and Poseidon.

They grappled with each other; wrestled, kicked, and head-butted, Poseidon even bit Zeus once, showing off his unnatural, shark-like teeth, golden ichor staining their skin. Every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I felt an overwhelming urge to stop them; specifically to stop Zeus .

Help him, a voice seethed in my mind, help your father.

No.

HELP HIM!

NO.

I had to stop them. I didn’t know why — I didn’t want to—

Every time I tried to run forward, or backward, the wind blew me back until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear Zeus yell, “Give it back! Give it back!” like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, and spraying me with salt. I spat it out, ignoring the flashes of ships being leveled by the waves, of men screaming, crying for their captain to help—

I yelled, “ STOP IT! STOP FIGHTING! ”

STOP TORMENTING ME WITH THESE MEMORIES—!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

“Come down, Little Hero,” the voice crooned. Mocking. Cruel. Enraging . I had the sudden urge to rip something to shreds . “Come down!”

The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.

I woke up, sure I was falling.

My dads startled. I looked around, gasping. I was still in Cabin Three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. Another, worse, storm was brewing. I hadn’t dreamed that.

“Percy,” Perseus began, unsure. “Are you—”

We were interrupted by the sound of clopping hooves, a hand knocking on the threshold of the cabin.

Someone was here.

“C-come in,” I stammered.

Grover trotted inside, looking worried. “Mr. D wants to see you.”

“Why?”

“I... um,” he pondered for a bit. “It might be better if I let him tell you.”

Nervously, I got dressed and followed, ignoring my dads’ looks of concern.

For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Dionysus was ready to deliver their verdict.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming our direction. I wasn’t all too worried. In the week I’d been there, storm clouds had raged around the camp — yet it never rained.

But this storm... this one was huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo’s cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus’ twins were wandering the strawberry fields, making all the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, as if nothing was happening, but there was a tense atmosphere that had settled over the camp after the claiming. People eyed the storm nervously, Perseus included.

Grover and I walked up to the porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the table he’d been at when I’d first met him, Chiron standing across from him. They were playing against invisible opponents — two sets of cards hovering in the air.

“Well, well,” Dionysus said without looking up. “The little celebrity.”

I waited.

Dionysus let out a harsh, tired sigh, glancing up. “Come closer,” he said. “There are some matters we must discuss regarding Barnacle-Beard.”

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

“Blah, blah, blah,” Dionysus said.

Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.

“If Father had his way,” Dionysus said, “he’d have you struck down — right here, right now. We’d sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. Thankfully, I was able to convince him otherwise. Got two of my brothers to do the same. That’s the only reason you’re still standing right now.”

“Thank you,” I said, my mind still reeling from the idea that the gods had argued on whether or not they wanted to kill me for simply existing.

“But,” Dionysus continued with a stern look, “there is a high chance of Father changing his mind, should you anger him more than you already have. I would recommend giving him an offering or two, but with his temper these days, it might just be better to make yourself as scarce as possible. Understood?”

I shifted. “Understood.”

Dionysus hummed. “Good. Now, I’ll be heading to Olympus for an emergency meeting soon. The third one this week. It might be best for you to get out of this camp for a bit, just so your presence isn’t as obvious to Father as it would be outside of it. Chiron will make sure.”

Soon. Not now. Soon.

“Will you be staying for a bit longer or...?”

“There is a matter I must discuss with you later,” he said, rising from his seat. “But Chiron must speak to you first. He will explain everything that’s been happening recently. Once you are finished, head into the Big House and call for me.”

He left before any of us could say anything. I tried not to feel intimidated by the grim look on his face.

Once he was gone, Chiron smiled at me, but it looked tired and strained. “Sit, Percy, please. And Grover.” His eyes trailed over Odysseus and Perseus, but he didn’t say anything.

We sat down.

Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn’t gotten to use. A shame.

“Tell me, Percy,” he said. “What did you make of the hellhound?”

Chiron probably wanted me to say something confident, assured.

“It scared me,” I said instead, because I excelled in disappointing every adult within a five-mile radius. “If you hadn’t shot it, I’d be dead.”

“You’ll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you’re done.”

I felt dread settle in my stomach. “Done with... what?”

“Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?”

My what?

“No,” Perseus breathed in horror. “You’re not serious.”

Chiron didn’t say anything — Grover was still here, after all — but he did look apologetic.

I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.

“You haven’t told me what it is yet,” I said nervously, eyeing Perseus’ expression. Odysseus’ face was still blank, but there was a hint of disapproval as he watched Chiron judgementally. Perseus, however, looked like he was going through all five stages of grief — minus acceptance.

Chiron grimaced. “Well, that’s the hard part, the details.”

Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

“The two of them,” I said. I didn’t dare risk saying their names. “They’re fighting over something valuable... something that was stolen, aren’t they?”

Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.

Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. “How did you know that?”

Shit.

I struggled to think of something to say — a lie, maybe — but Odysseus said, “Not right now.”

Alright then. Fine.

“The weather since Christmas,” I began, “it’s been acting weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. I talked to Annabeth, and she’d overheard something about a theft. And... I’ve been having these dreams.”

“I knew it,” Grover said.

“Hush,” Chiron ordered.

“But it is his quest!” Grover’s eyes were bright with excitement. “It must be!”

“Only the Oracle can determine,” Chiron stroked his beard. “Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and the God-King are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt.”

What the fuck—

“He’s lost his lightning bolt? ” Perseus yelled, the loudest he’d been in days.

There — there was no way Zeus had lost his lightning bolt. That was his fucking symbol of power and he just — just LOST IT?

“The God-King’s master bolt,” Chiron said with a grimace, “the very symbol of his power, the one that all other lightning bolts are patterned after, was stolen.”

Silence.

“Oh, that’s so much worse ,” Odysseus breathed, near silent.

“Stolen?” I repeated. “By who?”

“By whom ,” Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. “By you .”

My mouth fell open.

“At least—” Chiron raised a hand, both to stop me from questioning him and to stop Perseus from ripping him apart for answers, “—that’s what he thinks. During the Winter Solstice, at the last council of the gods, your father and he had an argument. The usual nonsense: ‘Mother Rhea always loved you best,’ ‘air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,’, et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his nose. He immediately blamed your father.” It was getting really hard to resist the urge to tell him to stop calling Poseidon my father. “Now, a god cannot usurp another god’s symbol of power directly — that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But he believes your father convinced a human hero to take it.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Patience and listen, child,” Chiron said. “The God-King has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives the Sea God some influence over the makers of his brother’s lightning. He believes your father has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple the God-King from his throne. The only thing he wasn’t sure about was which hero your father used to steal the bolt. Now, your father has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could have easily snuck into Olympus. The God-King believes he has found his thief.”

“But I’ve never been to Olympus!” This was really starting to freak me out, so I said something I maybe shouldn’t have said. “Z — the God-King’s crazy!”

“ Percy ,” Odysseus hissed.

Chiron and Grover glanced at the sky. The clouds didn’t seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.

“Er, Percy...?” Grover said. “We don’t use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky.”

“Perhaps paranoid,” Chiron suggested. “Then again, the Sea God has tried to unseat the God-King before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam...” He looked at me as if he was actually expecting me to remember question thirty-eight.

How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god’s weapon? I mean, I could steal decently well because of Odysseus’ lessons, but not to that extent. Chiron was still waiting for an answer.

“It was the golden net, right?” I guessed. “The Sea God, the God-Queen, and a few other gods... they trapped the God-King and wouldn’t let him out until he promised to be a better ruler.”

Grover was looking increasingly confused about Chiron and I’s constant refusal to use the gods’ names. I couldn’t bring myself to explain, since that would mean telling him about Odysseus and Perseus.

“Correct,” Chiron said. “And the God-King has never trusted your father since. Of course, your father never denied stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you’ve come along — the proverbial last straw.”

“But — but I didn’t do anything!” I argued. “I’m just a kid!”

“Percy,” Grover cut in, “if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... wouldn’t that put a twist in your toga?”

“But I didn’t do anything. The Sea God, he didn’t really have this master bolt stolen, did he?”

Chiron sighed. “Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not the Sea God’s style. But he is too proud to try and convince the God-King of that. The God-King has demanded that your father return the bolt by the Summer Solstice. That’s June twenty-first, ten days from now. The Sea God wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that one of their sisters would make the two see sense, but your arrival has inflamed the God-King’s temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to the God-King before the Summer Solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Percy?”

“... bad?” I guessed. Perseus stared at me.

“Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between the God-King and the Sea God. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big, it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight.”

Odysseus scowled at the mention of the Trojan War.

“Bad,” I repeated.

“And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel the God-King’s wrath.”

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.

“So I have to find this stupid bolt,” I said, “and return it to the God-King.”

“What better peace offering than to have the son of the Sea God return the God-King’s property?”

“If the Sea God doesn’t have it, where is the thing?”

“I believe I know,” Chiron’s expression was grim. “Part of a prophecy I had years ago... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle.”

“Why can’t you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?”

“Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge.”

“Where are you sending him?” Perseus hissed. He was ignored.

“Do you agree, Percy?” Chiron said.

I glanced at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.

Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted dead.

“All right,” I said. “It’s better than being turned into a dolphin.”

“Then it’s time you consulted the Oracle,” Chiron said. “Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you’re still sane, we will talk more.”

I turned and left before my dads could get the chance to scream at Chiron. Again.

—

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trapdoor.

I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.

“Percy,” Perseus said. “Are you sure about this?”

“I have to,” I said. “I can’t let people get hurt just because the God-King’s mad at me.”

Neither of my dads said anything. I held my breath and climbed.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying things like LAND OF THE AMAZONS and... oh.

I paused, staring at the sticker that said ITHACA .

“Keep going,” Odysseus muttered after a couple moments of silence. I didn’t argue, turning around and continuing.

One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things — severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, and other various parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake’s head but with horns and a full set of shark’s teeth. The plaque read HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but the body of a woman shriveled to a husk. She wore an old sundress, one that likely used to be pure white. There were countless golden bits of jewelry covering her body, a head covering of sorts over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she’d been dead a long, long time.

“By the gods,” Odysseus breathed, hand over his mouth. Perseus looked horrified.

Looking at her sent chills down my spine. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the corpse’s mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around in my mind, blocking out everything my dads said: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.

I wanted to leave, desperately, but I forced myself to take a deep breath.

“What is my destiny?” I asked it once I’d gotten the courage.

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly, four men were sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.

My fists clenched, though I knew it was an illusion.

Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.

His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.

The guy on the left threw in two poker chips and said: You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.

Finally, Eddie, our building super, delivered his worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

The figures dissolved. At first, I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering into the mouth of the corpse, I cried, “Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?”

The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the corpse’s mouth. She reclined back against the wall, her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn’t been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.

I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cobwebs, too, and I wouldn’t learn anything else.

My audience with the Oracle was over.

—

“Well?” Chiron asked me.

I slumped into the chair at the pinochle table. My dads were silent. “She said I would retrieve what was stolen.”

Grover sat up. “That’s great!”

“What did the Oracle say exactly? ” Chiron pressed. “This is important.”

“She... she said I would go west to face the god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned.”

“I knew it,” Grover said.

Chiron didn’t look satisfied. “Anything else?”

I didn’t want to tell him.

What friend would betray me? I didn’t have that many. Only Grover and my dads, technically. And the idea of any of them betraying me was unthinkable.

And that last line — I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, oh, by the way, you’ll fail.

How could I confess that?

“No,” I said. “That’s about it.”

Chiron looked suspicious, but he didn’t say anything. “Very well, Percy. But know this: the Oracle’s words often have double meanings. Don’t dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass.”

“I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.

“Okay,” I said, anxious to change topics. “So where do I go? Who’s this god in the west?”

“Ah, think, Percy,” Chiron said. “If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?”

“Somebody else who wants to take over?” I guessed.

“Yes. Somebody who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken.”

I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from the ground. “The Lord of the Dead.”

Hades .

Chiron nodded. “The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility.”

Grover paused. “Whoa, wait. Wh-what?”

“A Fury came after Percy,” Chiron reminded him. “She watched until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: the Lord of the Dead.”

“Yes, but — but Hades hates a lot of heroes,” Grover protested. “Especially if he’s found out Percy is a son of Poseidon...”

“A hellhound got into the forest,” Chiron continued. “Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and they had to be summoned by someone within the camp. The Underworld God must have a spy here. He must suspect the Sea God will try to use Percy to clear his name. He would likely want to kill him before he can take on the quest.”

“Great,” I muttered. “That’s two major gods who want to kill me.”

“But a quest to...” Grover swallowed. “I mean, couldn’t the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine’s very nice this time of year.”

“The Lord of the Dead sent a minion to steal the master bolt,” Chiron insisted. “He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that his brothers would fight. I don’t pretend to understand the god’s motives perfectly, or why he chose now to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth.”

A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn’t fear. It was anticipation, the desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me for a theft I hadn’t committed.

I was ready to take him on.

Besides, Perseus had said that he knew my mother was somewhere, if she was in the Underworld... 

Whoa, boy, a small part of my mind that was still sane said. You’re a kid, a half-blood. Hades is a god.

Grover was trembling. He’d started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.

The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.

“Look, if we know it's him,” I told Chiron, “why can't we just tell the other gods? They could go down to the Underworld and get it back themselves.”

“Suspecting and knowing are not the same,” Chiron said. “Besides, even if the other gods suspect the Lord of the Dead — and I imagine the Sea God does — they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, and challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?”

“You're saying I'm being used.”

“I'm saying it's no accident your father has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you.”

He needs you. He needs you .

How. Fucking. Dare. He. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now, suddenly, he needed me? Now, suddenly, I was expected to just — just accept it?

I wanted to scream, to yell and complain and cry, but I kept silent.

You’re doing this for the sake of everyone you love, I reminded myself. For the kids whom the gods don’t care about, for the mortals who live their lives in ignorance and don’t deserve to have it all destroyed at the whims of some angry deities.

Pull yourself together.

I looked at Chiron. “You've known I was his son all along, haven't you?”

“I had my suspicions. As I said... I've spoken to the Oracle, too.”

I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “I’m supposed to go to the UNderworld and confront the Lord of the Dead.”

“Check,” Chiron said.

“Find one of the most powerful weapons in the universe.”

“Check.”

“And get it back to Olympus by the Summer Solstice, in ten days.”

“That’s about right.”

I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

“Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?” he asked weakly.

“You don’t have to go,” I told him. “I can’t ask that of you.”

"Oh..." He shifted his hooves. "No. It’s just that satyrs and underground places... well..." 

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his t-shirt. “You saved my life , Percy. If... if you’re serious about wanting me along, I won’t let you down.”

I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me. I could tell my dads felt the same from how Perseus let out a sigh of relief. They seemed to have accepted that they couldn’t convince me to reject this quest.

“All the way, G-man.” I turned to Chiron. “So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west.”

“The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America.”

“Where?”

Chiron looked surprised. “I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles.”

I was about to say something about how that wasn’t obvious before pausing. Yeah, no, that sounded about right.

Chiron said, “Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help.”

“Gee,” I said, feigning surprise. “Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?”

The air shimmered behind Chiron.

Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.

“I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Percy,” she said. “Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up.”

“If you do say so yourself,” I said. “I suppose you have a plan?”

“Do you want my help or not?”

The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.

“A trio,” I said. “That’ll work.”

“Excellent,” Chiron said. “This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own.”

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

“There is little time to waste,” Chiron said. “We’ll go pack.” He gave me a look. “Go speak with Mr. D in the Big House. You’ve kept him waiting long enough.”

—

Once I was sure nobody else was in the Big House with me, I called for Lord Dionysus.

He appeared immediately. I expected him to look impatient, annoyed, or mischievous. He didn’t. His face was still grim.

“Lord Dionysus,” Odysseus greeted for me when I took too long. His tone was empty, all his usual enthusiasm or charisma gone. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Dionysus frowned.

“I wish I had better news, truly, I do,” he said regretfully. I felt fear spike. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Perseus’ eyes widened in horror suddenly, as if he just realized something terrifying. “Does he...?”

Dionysus gave a grim nod. “He does,” he said. “He knows.”

Oh, gods. “What are you talking about?” I asked tentatively. “Who knows what?”

“Father,” Dionysus said gravely. “He knows about Perseus.”

Chapter Text

It didn’t take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Minotaur horn in Cabin Three, leaving me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found.

I folded and shoved my clothes into the backpack — perhaps a bit too aggressively — while trying to ignore every thought that came up.

And it was so fucking hard because Zeus knew about Perseus. He knew that my dad was here, bound to me, and, according to Dionysus, he wanted me dead for it.

“What do you mean he wants Percy dead?” I remembered Perseus asking when Dionysus told us. Odysseus and I had been too stunned to say anything.

“He’s got this ridiculous idea in his head that killing Perry is the only way to get you in the Underworld, where you’re meant to be,” Dionysus had thrown his arms in the air in exasperation. “I was able to convince him otherwise, thankfully before he was able to consult another god, but you, Perry, must work to be as respectful as possible because Father’s gathering quite a few reasons on how your death might benefit him.”

Be respectful. Yeah, sure, I could do that. If I ignored a couple of... circumstances , I was already doing pretty good at being respectful of the gods. Maybe I should give him some offerings too... or would that just remind him of my presence?

Gods, this was so much more stressful than I thought it would be. And I hadn’t even started the damn quest yet!

“Percy?” My dad interrupted. “Are you listening?”

I glanced at him, then back to the bag that I had been unconsciously strangling for the past couple of minutes. Half of the clothes barely made it into the bag due to the sheer force I had been using. Why did I even bother anymore?

“Oh, uh,” I glanced back at him. “No. Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” Perseus said patiently. He was acting calm, but I could tell he was still pretty shaken from what Dionysus told us. Perseus eyed my backpack. “Are you done?”

“Uh, also no.”

“Then finish up. Chiron wants you three out of the camp by midday or so, remember?”

Really, that just made me want to take even longer, but I knew my dads wouldn’t stand for that. Especially now that we knew Zeus would take whatever reason he could to smite me. Damn, this was going to get annoying quick.

After a couple of minutes of actually putting effort into packing my bag, I was out of the cabin and heading towards the Big House. While I walked there, Perseus reiterated what he’d been talking about earlier. Or, he tried to, at least. I was a bit too stressed to be paying much attention.

“You have ten days,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Ten days to get to LA and find an entrance into the Underworld.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you must convince the Lord of the Dead to give up the master bolt.”

“Yup.”

“And then you have to get it back to Olympus.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Before the Summer Solstice.”

“I am running out of ways to say yes.”

He tilted his head. “Do you think you’re ready?”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’ll do fine, Percy,” Odysseus said quietly. He was starting to talk more, which was good. “No hero was ever ready for their journey.”

“I know that,” I said, “but it still doesn’t feel right. What if I mess it up?”

“You’ll have us with you. If something goes wrong, I’m sure we’ll be able to think of something together.” He paused for a moment, considering. “Speaking of which, do you want to tell Grover and Annabeth about us?”

I thought about that for a couple of moments. “Maybe. I want to wait though. See how they act first,” I continued when Perseus sent me a questioning look. “Now that Grover’s revealed all of — this, I don’t know how much was him, and how much was just an act. I want to take a bit more time to see how he is before deciding on whether or not I want to say anything. And, well, Annabeth’s a bit more obvious.”

“It’ll certainly be entertaining if you ever do tell her,” Perseus remarked lightly. “With the whole Athena cabin thinking what they think, after all.”

“Bring that up again, Perseus, and you’ll be meeting your second death.”

He must’ve been feeling a lot better now if he was choosing to threaten Perseus with death.

They talked a bit more while I walked the rest of the way to the Big House. I probably should’ve been walking faster, but I didn’t exactly want to do this especially since I was actually thinking of what I was about to do, so I couldn’t bring myself to walk all that fast.

Only when I was halfway there did I realize that we still never had that talk. But we didn’t have the time to worry about that, so I ignored it again. 

Later, I told myself, when we don’t have to worry about the fate of the world.

Once I was there, Chiron guided Annabeth, Grover, and me over to the camp store. They loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout Cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions. He gave Annabeth and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies if we were seriously hurt. It was the food of the gods, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.

“Ambrosia saved my life, once,” Perseus said when I’d been given the bag. “It’s a good thing to have on hand.”

“Was this during your journey to slay Medusa?”

“No,” he said. “After that.”

“Ah, so the assassination attempt. The one that almost succeeded, right?”

“Yes, that one.”

Wait, what?

I glanced at them, but they gave me no answer.

Rude.

Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom.

“Maybe they’re not entirely hopeless,” Odysseus had muttered bitterly.

She carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as a human. He wore a green rasta-style cap because when it rained, his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tip of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 12 and Hilary Duff’s “So Yesterday,” both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

We waved goodbye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, and then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus. I tried not to think of how her fate turned out.

Chiron was waiting for us. Next to him stood the surfer guy I’d seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp’s head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur’s uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face, and neck.

“This is Argus,” Chiron told me. “He will drive you into the city and, er, well, keep an eye on things.”

“Sounds like something you’d say,” Perseus remarked to Odysseus. Odysseus glared at him. Chiron eyed them warily.

I heard footsteps behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.

“Hey!” He panted. “Glad I caught you.”

Annabeth brightened, the way she always did when Luke was around.

“Just wanted to say good luck,” Luke told me. “And I thought... um, maybe you could use these.”

He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal.

Luke said, “ Maia! ”

White bird’s wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

Perseus looked surprised.

“Awesome!” Grover said.

Luke smiled. “Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from my dad. Of course, I don’t use them much these days...” His expression turned sad.

I didn’t know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say goodbye. I’d been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was, giving me a magic gift...

“Hey, man,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Listen, Percy...” Luke looked uncomfortable. “A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just... kill some monsters for me, okay?”

We shook hands. Luke patted Grover’s head between his horns, then gave a goodbye hug to Annabeth.

She looked sad, so I asked, “Are you okay?”

She frowned at me. “It’s none of your business, Percy.”

Annabeth stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys. I watched them go before moving to pick up the flying shoes.

Once I was holding them, I had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. “I won’t be able to use these, will I?”

He shook his head. “Luke meant well, Percy, but taking to the air... that would not be wise for you.”

Especially considering that Zeus already wanted me dead for a lot of reasons.

I nodded, a bit disappointed, but then I got an idea. “Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?”

His eyes lit up. “Me?”

Pretty soon we’d laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world’s first flying goat boy was ready for launch.

“ Maia! ” He shouted.

He got off the ground okay but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

“Practice!” Chiron called after him. “You just need practice!”

Grover screamed and went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van. 

Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. “I should have trained you better, Percy,” he said. “If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason — they all got more training.”

“Well, you didn’t put all that much effort,” Odysseus said bitterly.

Chiron frowned at him but didn’t say anything.

“That’s fine,” I said, looking between him and my dads. “It doesn’t really matter...”

“What am I thinking?” Chiron cried suddenly. “I can’t let you get away without this.”

He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost forty cents.

“Gee,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Percy, that’s—” Chiron began to speak before he paused, seeming to be rethinking what he was about to say. “—a gift from Lord Dionysus. One that he retrieved from the oceans for the hero of the prophecy. I’ve kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one.”

“That’s the pen,” Perseus muttered, “from the museum.”

“Indeed it is,” Chiron confirmed.

I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.

“The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not get into,” Chiron told me. “Its name is Anaklusmos.”

“ Riptide, ” I translated.

“Use it only for emergencies,” Chiron said, “and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn’t harm them in any case.”

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. “What do you mean it wouldn’t harm mortals? How could it not?”

“The sword is celestial bronze; forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It’s deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don’t kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill—” Odysseus looked mildly offended, “—and I should warn you: as a demigod—”

“I can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons,” I finished.

He smiled. “That’s right. Now, recap the pen.”

I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in my pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school.

“You can’t,” Chiron said.

“Can’t what?”

“Lose the pen,” he said. “It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it.”

I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear into the grass.

“It may take a few moments,” Chiron told me. “Now check your pocket.”

Sure enough, the pen was there.

“Okay, that’s extremely cool,” I admitted.

I put Riptide back in my pocket. I’d need to thank Dionysus later. Maybe leave him a sacrifice later when I get the chance?

While I was thinking about how I might be able to prepare something to sacrifice, a thought came to me.

“Chiron...” I said quietly. “About the gods... what was the time before them like?”

My dads and Chiron looked at me in concern.

“Why are you asking?” Perseus asked.

“Just wondering.”

“Well, there were four ages before them, actually,” Chiron said. “The time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age.”

“So, what was it like? Before the gods?”

Chiron pursed his lips. “Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was more propaganda. The Titan-King cared nothing for your kind, except as appetizers or a source of free entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then, Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually, the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born.”

“But the gods can’t die, right? I mean, as long as the Western civilization is alive, they’re alive. So... even if I failed, nothing so bad could happen that it would mess everything up, right?”

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. “No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. They still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment; reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny.”

“Our destiny... assuming we know what that is.”

“Relax,” Chiron told me. “Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history.”

“CHIRON!” My dads yelled.

“Relax,” I repeated blankly. “I’m very relaxed.”

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, Chiron was standing tall, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer camp send-off by your typical centaur.

—

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald’s, every kid in the back of his parents’ car, every billboard and shopping mall.

“So far, so good,” I told Annabeth. “Ten miles and not a single monster.”

She gave me an irritated look. “It’s bad luck to talk that way.”

“Remind me again — why do you hate me so much?”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

She folded her cap of invisibility. “Look... we’re just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “How many reasons do you want? Once, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her.”

“They must really like olives,” I said intelligently. Really, I was happy that they chose Athena instead of Poseidon.

“Another reason was the matter of Odysseus. Poseidon let his grudge blind him and continuously stopped Odysseus from getting home over the span of multiple years. Our mom didn’t like that. That’s one of the main reasons they hate each other.”

I glanced at my papa, then back to her. “Well,” I said. “That... makes sense.”

Annabeth side-eyed me before shaking her head and scoffing.

“I’m sorry?”

No reply. But she didn’t look as upset as I expected.

In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn’t say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhatten, it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us off at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe’s apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

I ripped down before Annabeth and Grover could notice.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, and then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.

I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. “You want to know why she married him, Percy?”

I stared at him. “Were you reading my mind or something?”

“Just your emotions,” he shrugged. “Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and stepdad, right?”

I nodded, wondering what else Grover might’ve forgotten to tell me. My dads listened curiously.

“Your mom married Gabe for you,” Grover told me. “You call him ‘smelly,” but you’ve got no idea. The guy has this aura... yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven’t been near him for a week.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Where’s the nearest shower?”

“You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy — if that makes you feel any better.”

It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it. I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone.

I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and Annabeth were with me, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn’t told them about my dads. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn’t care about retrieving Zeus’ lightning bolt, saving the world, or helping my father out of trouble. He’d only claimed me to get a job done. Even if I didn’t take what he did to my papa into consideration, he was still a shitty father to me and a shit lover to my mom.

All I cared about was my mom. There was a chance Hades had taken her unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back.

You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, the Oracle whispered in my mind. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

Shut up, I told it.

—

The rain kept coming down.

We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover’s apples. Annabeth was unbelievable. She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. I wasn’t too bad myself.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared — core, stem, and all.

Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Annabeth and I were too busy cracking up.

My dads spent the time talking with each other. They couldn’t really talk to me since I couldn’t reply, so they mostly discussed whatever topic came to mind.

Finally, the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy — enchiladas.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said tensely. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

But I could tell it wasn’t nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.

I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our backpacks. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh.

As the last passengers got on, Annabeth clamped her hand onto my knee. “Percy.”

My dads immediately glanced up.

“Shit.” Odysseus hissed.

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart skipped a beat.

It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I scrunched down in my seat.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise, they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds — same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. “She didn’t stay dead long,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering.

“They don’t often,” Annabeth said. “Unless you’re lucky, which you’re obviously not.”

“All three of them,” Grover whimpered. “ Di immortales! ”

“This is going so much worse than I thought it would,” Perseus muttered.

“It’s okay,” Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard. “The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We’ll just slip out the windows.”

“They don’t open,” Grover said mournfully.

“A back exit?” She suggested.

There wasn’t one. Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

“They won’t attack us with witnesses around,” I said. “Will they?”

“Mortals don’t have good eyes,” Annabeth told me. “Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist.”

“Unless they’re clear-sighted...” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. The mortals, they’ll see three old ladies killing us, won’t they?”

She thought about it. “Hard to say. But we can’t count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof of the bus...?”

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she’d rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: “I need to use the restroom.”

“So do I,” said the second sister.

“So do I,” said the third sister.

They all started coming down the aisle.

“I’ve got it,” Annabeth said. “Percy, take my hat.”

“What?”

“You’re the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away.”

“But you guys—”

“There’s an outside chance they might not notice us,” Annabeth said. “You’re a son of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering.”

“I can’t just leave you.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Grover said. “Go!”

“But—”

“Percy,” Odysseus interrupted. “This is the only thing that can be done. If it goes well, you three should be able to avoid confronting them.”

My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on.

When I looked down, my body wasn’t there anymore.

I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.

Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding.

Apparently, she didn’t see anything. She and her sisters kept going.

I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same — I guess those couldn’t get any uglier — but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat’s wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies surrounded Grover and Annabeth, lashing their whips, hissing: “Where is it? Where?”

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw something, all right.

“He’s not here!” Annabeth yelled. “He’s gone!”

The Furies raised their whips.

Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous, that I should’ve been named ADHD poster child of the year.

The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.

“Hey!” The driver yelled. “Hey — whoa!”

“PERCY!” Odysseus yelled. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING—?”

I ignored him, wrestling with the bus driver for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.

We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can’t believe there’s so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver’s seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans.

I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn’t leave my friends. I took off the invisible cap. “HEY!”

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my F- math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather.

Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

“Perseus Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. “You have offended the gods. You shall die.”

“I liked you better as a math teacher,” I told her. Faintly, I heard Perseus mutter something about me inheriting too much from Odysseus.

Mrs. Dodds growled.

Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening.

I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide’s blade before. She obviously didn’t like seeing it again.

“Submit now,” she hissed. “And you will not suffer eternal torment.”

“Nice try,” I told her.

“Percy, look out!” Annabeth cried.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on either side lunged at me.

My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I struck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler’s hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.

“Ow!” He yelled. “Ow! Hot! Hot!”

The Fury I’d hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a pinata.

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed, and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds’ legs tied up in her own whip. Finally, they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn’t have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

“Zeus will destroy you!” She promised. “Hades will have your soul!”

“ Braccas meas vescimini! ” I yelled.

I wasn’t sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant “Eat my pants!”

Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

“Get out!” Annabeth yelled at me. “Now!” I didn’t need any encouragement.

We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, “We’re going to die!” A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword.

“Our bags!” Grover realized. “We left our—”

BOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.

“Run!” Annabeth said. “She’s calling for reinforcement! We have to get out of here!”

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

Chapter Text

In a way, it’s nice to know that there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you’re walking away from a bus that’s just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it’s raining on top of everyone else, most people might think that’s just really bad luck; when you’re a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

So there we were, Annabeth, Grover, and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. “Three Kindly Ones. All three at once.”

I glanced at my dads. Clearly, they had some things they wanted to say, but they seemed to be waiting for us to finish our conversation before saying anything. I was thankful for that. I was in shock myself, and trying to keep up with two conversations at once felt like too much.

The explosion of the bus windows still rang in my ears, but Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: “Come on! The farther away we get, the better.”

“All our money was back there,” I reminded her. “Our food, our clothes. Everything.”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t decided to jump into the fight—“

“What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?”

“You didn’t need to protect me, Percy. I would’ve been fine.”

“Sliced like sandwich bread,” Grover put in, “but fine.”

“Shut up, Grover,” said Annabeth.

Grover brayed mournfully. “Tin cans... a perfectly good bag of tin cans.”

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to me. “Look, I…” her voice faltered. “I appreciate you coming back for us, okay? That was really brave.”

“We’re a team, right?”

She was silent for a few more steps. “It’s just that if you died... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world.”

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost complete darkness. I couldn’t see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her hair.

“You haven’t left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?” I asked her.

“No... only short field trips. My dad—”

“The history professor.”

“Yeah. It didn’t work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home.” She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her. “At camp, you train and train. And that’s cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That’s where you learn whether you’re any good or not.”

If I didn’t know any better, I could’ve sworn I heard doubt in her voice.

“You’re pretty good with that knife,” I said.

“You think so?”

“Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me.”

I couldn’t really see, but I thought she might’ve smiled.

“You know,” she said, “maybe I should tell you. Something funny back on the bus…”

Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured. My dads would probably be really unhappy with the comparison I’d made.

“Hey, my reed pipes still work!” Grover cried. “If I could just remember a ‘find path’ song, we could get out of these woods!”

He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.

Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree.

“Are you alright?” Odysseus and Annabeth asked in perfect unison.

I glanced between them — or, well, as best as I could when I could only really see Odysseus. “I’m fine.”

Add to the list of superpowers I did not have: infrared vision.

After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything unhealthy since I’d arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.

We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.

It wasn’t a fast-food restaurant like I’d hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of sanctuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there’s anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it’s red cursive neon English.

To me, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.

“Aunty Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium,” Odysseus said. Perseus frowned, looking more reluctant the longer he stared at it.

“Something’s wrong here,” he muttered.

“What does that say?” Annabeth asked. Grover translated it for her and she gave him a nod of thanks. She loved reading so much, that I’d forgotten she was dyslexic, too.

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.

I crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.

“Hey,” Grover warned.

“The lights are on inside,” Annabeth said. “Maybe it’s open.”

“Snack bar,” I said wistfully.

“Snack bar,” she agreed.

“Are you two crazy?” Grover said. “This place is weird.”

We ignored him. I didn’t even notice how restless Perseus was getting.

The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

“Bla-ha-ha!” He bleated. “Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand.”

We stopped at the warehouse door.

“Don’t knock, “ Grover pleaded. “I smell monsters.

“Your nose is clogged up from the Furies,” Annabeth told him. “All I smell is burgers. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Meat!” He said scornfully. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans,” I reminded him.

“Those are vegetables. Come on. Let’s leave.”

“Grover, come on,” Annabeth said.

“Percy,” Odysseus spoke up suddenly. “Turn around and leave. Now.”

I was about to argue but he cut me off.

“Something about this is very, very wrong. Perseus doesn’t stress about nothing.”

Only then did I notice how Perseus seemed to be barely listening, eyeing each statue with such intensity, that I expected them to crumble under the weight of his stare.

Before I could say anything — to Grover and my dads — the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman — at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, “Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?”

“They’re... um…” Annabeth started to say.

“We’re orphans,” I lied.

Just under her veil, I could see her frown. “Orphans?” She said it as if it was one of the worst things she’d ever heard. “Oh, you poor dears.”

It should’ve sounded pitying, but the way she said it was more sympathetic, as if she was genuinely sorry for it.

“We were traveling with a group of people who were taking care of us in our parents’ place,” I tried to sound as choked up as I could, which wasn’t all too hard surprisingly, “but we got lost. We haven’t eaten in a couple of days. Do you have any food you can spare?”

“Of course!” The woman exclaimed, gesturing inside the restaurant. “Come in, I’ll get you all some food! My name is Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area.”

We thanked her and went inside. Perseus looked closer and closer to a panic attack the further we went.

Annabeth muttered to me, mildly amused. “Nice lie.”

“Thanks.”

The warehouse was filled with more statues — people in different poses, wearing different outfits, and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you’d have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues because they were all life-sized. But mostly, I was thinking about food. And also the sudden headache I could feel coming on. It was probably going to be a bad one. Damn it.

Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady’s shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you’ve never smelled Aunty Em’s burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist’s chair — it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover’s nervous whimpers or the way the statues’ eyes seemed to follow me, or the way Perseus was moments away from a breakdown.

All I cared about was finding the dining area and ignoring the headache that was steadily developing. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.

“Please, sit down,” Aunty Em said.

“Awesome,” I said.

“Um,” Grover said reluctantly, “we don’t have any money, ma’am.”

Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, “No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat. You have suffered enough already.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Annabeth said.

Aunty Em turned to Annabeth with a kind smile, but stiffened. She stared for a couple of moments but relaxed and looked away just as quickly, so I figured it must’ve been my imagination.

“It’s quite alright,” she said, now staring at me. “You have such beautiful grey eyes, child. And your friend, what vibrant colors. Sea green, I presume?”

“Yes,” I said. A small part of my mind noticed how her demeanor had changed the moment she noticed our eyes, like she’d realized something. But I pushed it aside.

Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking before we could say anything else.

“Percy—” Perseus cut himself off suddenly, glancing in Aunty Em’s direction. He stared at her as if expecting her to look at him, which was impossible so I didn't know why he bothered.

Before we knew it, she was bringing out plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.

I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.

Annabeth slurped her shake.

Grover picked at the fries and eyed the tray’s waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.

“What’s that hissing noise?” He asked.

I listened, but didn’t hear anything. Annabeth shook her head.

Gods, my head was starting to hurt a lot.

“Hissing?” Aunty Em asked. “Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer. You have keen ears, child.”

“I take vitamins. For my ears.”

“That’s admirable,” she said. “But please, relax.”

Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn’t taken off her headdress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn’t see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the food, and a little tired, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.

“So, you sell gnomes,” I said, trying to sound interested.

“Oh, yes,” Aunty Em said. “And animals. And people, on the rare occasion. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know.”

“A lot of business on this road?”

“Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now.  I must cherish every customer I get.”

I felt a familiar anxiety rise in my chest, like someone was watching me. I turned, but it was just the statues of a couple of kids. A couple of boys around the age of… sixteen? Maybe. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with their faces. It looked as if they were startled, or even terrified. My head started to hurt even more.

“Percy, please leave ,” Odysseus said.

That same small part of my mind from before kept trying to connect the pieces, but the rest of my mind wasn’t cooperating. Despite all that, I did have one conclusion: something was wrong.

“Ah,” Aunty Em said sadly. “You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred, they do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face.”

“You make these statues yourself?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. I had two sisters to help me in the business, you know. But they have long passed on. I have been alone for years, I only have my statues now. That is why I make them. They are my only company.”

Annabeth had stopped eating.

“Two sisters,” I repeated blankly.

“It’s a terrible story,” Aunty Em said. “Not one for children, really. You see, children, long ago, when I was young, I served this woman — she was generous in many ways and I cared about her. I thought she felt the same for a long time. But, one day, I met a man. He was charming, and we fell in love. But… the woman and the man, they hated each other. And when the woman realized that I was dating him, she grew angry. She believed I had betrayed her, forsaken her. If I had known just how deep their resentment went, I never would’ve done it.” She started to sound a bit choked up, but she took a deep breath and continued. “She was so, so angry with me. I thought — I thought she’d cared about me, enough that she wouldn’t hurt me, but she did. And the man… he told me that he loved me, that he would do anything for me, but when I asked for help, he ignored it. He did not love me, in the end. Neither of them did. My sisters, they shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but they eventually passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price.”

Now that I’d started to connect the pieces, I felt awareness seep back in. A part of my mind was sad for her. Who would want to hurt someone so nice? It said. And — yes, she didn’t deserve that, but she — she was—

The statues, the woman and man she had mentioned, the hissing, Perseus’ anxiety, this was—

“Medusa,” Annabeth whispered in horror. She stood from her chair, backing away.

Aunty Em.

Aunty “M”.

How could I have been so stupid?

Medusa smiled, though it looked a bit sad. “I didn’t want to have to do this, children.”

She reached for her veil.

“RUN!” Grover bleated, darting up. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, “Maia!” to kick-start his flying sneakers.

I could hear Annabeth moving, I could hear my dads telling me to run, but I couldn’t move. I stared at Medusa’s hands — claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance she had put me in. 

“Stay with me, child,” she said soothingly. “All you have to do is look up.”

Odysseus yelled, “Percy, come on! GO!”

I fought the urge to look up, instead glancing at one side and seeing one of the glass spheres people put in gardens — a gazing ball. I could see Medusa’s dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writing like serpents.

Think, I told myself, how did Dad kill Medusa?

But I couldn’t think. Medusa had been asleep when Perseus had killed her. She wasn’t anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.

And that’s exactly what she tried to do. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her body move and lunge towards me. Instinctively, I stood and dove to the left, barely avoiding her claws, though I felt one cut through my cheek.

“Behind you!” Odysseus warned.

I forced myself to stand and run, narrowly avoiding her attempt to grab me.

“The Grey-Eyed One did this to me, child!” Medusa yelled. “Her and the Sea God! The girl’s mother, the accursed Athena — she turned me into this because of him!”

Annabeth’s voice shouted somewhere in the garden, “Run, Percy!”

“Silence!” Medusa snarled. “This is why I must destroy you! Her mother, your father, they cursed me! They used me! What better price for that than taking their precious children away from them?”

“No,” I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.

“Do you really want to help the gods?” Medusa asked. “Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, boy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, like so many before you. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain than a victorious hero for the gods!”

“Don’t listen to her,” Perseus hissed.

“Percy!” Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, “DUCK!”

I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o’clock with his winged shoes fluttering. Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.

“Duck!” He yelled again. “I’ll get her!”

That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he’d miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.

Thwack!

At first, I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.

“You miserable satyr!” She snarled. “I’ll add you to my collection!”

“That was for my Uncle Ferdinand!” Grover yelled back.

I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.

Medusa yelled again, her snake-hair hissing and spitting.

Right next to me, Annabeth’s voice said, “Percy!”

I jumped so high, my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. “Jeez! Don’t do that!”

Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. “We need to cut her head off.”

“I didn’t know that, thanks,” I grit out. She glared at me.

“We need a plan,” she muttered. “You’ve got the better weapon, but she won’t let either of us get close easily. She hates both our parents, so that wouldn’t work.”

“Then a distraction,” I said.  “Which one of us does she hate most?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted before turning and catching sight of a polished shield. She grabbed it, rubbed off some dust, and passed it to me. “Only look at her through this, if you look at her in the eyes—”

“—I’ll turn to stone,” I finished.

She smiled grimly. “Yeah.”

“So, you distract her, I’ll kill her?”

Before she could answer, Grover yelled from above, “Hey, guys! I think she’s unconscious!”

Medusa roared.

“Maybe not,” Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

“We need to hurry,” Annabeth told me. “Grover’s got a great nose, but he’ll eventually crash.”

I took out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.

“She’s behind you,” Odysseus said. “To your left.” He fixed me with a stern look. “Be very careful. We’re not losing a son today.”

I nodded, and turned around, keeping my eyes locked on the shield. I could rely on my dads, I knew that, but it reassured me to know where she was as well.

Grover was coming in for another turn, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and threw him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a pained noise.

I made the mistake of looking at him — just to make sure he was okay — and Medusa took that opportunity to lunge.

“PERCY, MOVE!” Perseus yelled. I did, quickly looking down and running, when I realized she was no longer going after me.

Just as I was about to look at the shield to see what was happening, Medusa screamed. “YOU! I KNEW I SAW SOMETHING!”

I took a look at the shield and — oh gods.

Somehow, someway, Medusa was looking at Perseus. Not directly, but she was way too close for it to be a coincidence.

Medusa yelled in rage, seeming to completely forget about me, even though I was only a couple of yards away. “I should’ve known,” she hissed. “Here to kill me again, Perseus?”

Perseus’ mouth was set in a thin line. “You actually can hear me…” he muttered in disbelief.

Medusa growled. “Where are you hiding, you coward!?”

“Just let them go, Medusa!” He yelled. “They’re only children!”

“Only children? Only children?” She hissed. “He’s the son of that traitorous bastard! She’s the daughter of Athena!”

“You have been wronged by the gods, I understand that, but it has been thousands of years. Aren’t you tired of holding a grudge?”

“And how would you know how it feels, son of Zeus?” She practically snarled at him. In the reflection of the shield, I could see her eyes narrowed in rage. “It’s the only thing that’s kept me alive, and you want me to just forget it? Forget how they hurt me? No, not now. Especially now that I know they’re involved with you!”

And then she lunged for me again. I dodged, squeezing my eyes shut in case I accidentally caught sight of her.

“On your left!” Odysseus yelled. Medusa didn’t seem to be able to see or hear him, so how could she see Perseus?

I moved out of the way moments before she could get me.

“It was you or my mother!” Perseus argued. “I’m sorry for what I did to you, but I couldn’t afford to lose her too!”

Medusa didn’t reply, instead growling and moving to attack me again.

“Right!” Odysseus instructed.

I moved out of the way, and as she was passing by, I took the opportunity to slash at her with Riptide.

She shrieked as the blade hit her arm, but she moved to strike again. And again. And again. Each and every time, I would graze her skin, but miss her neck; until Annabeth suddenly appeared from behind Medusa and stabbed her dagger into her back. She screamed in pain, turning to face Annabeth, which was a mistake. The moment she turned away from me, I tried again and sliced her head right off. I heard a sickening schlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern — the sound of a monster disintegrating. Strangely, I felt the headache slowly retreat.

Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all of my willpower to not look. I could feel warm ooze (blood?) soaking into my sock, little dying snakeheads tugging at my shoelaces.

“Oh, yuck,” Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. “Mega-yuck.”

Annabeth came up next to me, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa’s black veil. She said, “Don’t move.”

Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster’s head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping sickening green blood.

“Are you okay?” She asked me, voice trembling.

“Yeah,” I decided eventually, though I felt like throwing up.

Grover groaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta hat hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.

“The Red Baron,” I said. “Good job, man.”

He managed a bashful grin. “That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part; that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun.”

He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the warehouse.

We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa’s head. We plopped it on the table where we’d eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.

With everything silent, I was able to hear my dads talking.

“—you okay?” Odysseus muttered.

“I’m fine,” Perseus said. “Just… shocked, I suppose. I didn’t think she’d actually be able to hear me.”

“I have the faintest feeling there’s more to it than that.”

“It doesn’t matter right now. We can discuss it later.”

“Alright then,” Odysseus relented. “Later.” He glanced at me. “How are you feeling?”

I made a so-so motion when I knew Grover and Annabeth weren’t looking.

“Good enough.”

Before he could say anything else, Annabeth said, “Why did she think Perseus was there?”

“What?” Grover said.

“Medusa,” Annabeth said. “She was having a conversation with someone she thought was Perseus.”

How was Medusa able to hear Perseus? And, if she was telling the truth before, how was she able to (somewhat) see him?

“Maybe she was hearing things,” I lied. “Her sisters passed, right? She’s all alone. Maybe she started hallucinating.”

Annabeth looked unconvinced, but she seemed to accept my explanation. “Maybe.”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” Grover cut in. “We have other things to worry about. Such as what we’re doing with her head.”

I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

Only then did I realize something: I was angry. Like, really angry. Not just with my dad or Athena,  but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we’d never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the Summer Solstice.

What had Medusa said?

You would be better off as a statue. Less pain than a victorious hero for the gods!

I got up. “I’ll be back.”

“Percy,” Annabeth called after me. “What are you—”

I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa’s office. I could hear my dads asking me what I was doing, but I didn’t say anything back. In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins.

“What?” Odysseus muttered once he caught sight of them.

I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.

I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa’s head, and filled out a delivery slip:

The Gods of Olympus

Mount Olympus

600th Floor

Empire State Building

New York, NY

With best wishes,

PERCY JACKSON

“Percy, no!” Odysseus objected. “Do you want Zeus to smite you?”

Grover and Annabeth seemed equally unhappy.

“They’re not going to like that,” Grover warned. “They’ll think you’re impertinent.”

It wasn’t the best move, I knew that, but I felt too angry to let it slide. I poured some golden drachmas into the pouch.

“Perseus Jackson, don’t you dare—!”

As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop!

“I am impertinent,” I said to Grover, ignoring Odysseus. Perseus didn’t say anything. Instead, he watched silently, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. I expected him to be objecting like Odysseus, but he seemed to be thinking over something instead. Either way, he didn’t look all too happy.

I looked at Annabeth, daring her to criticize.

She didn’t. She seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. “Come on,” she muttered. “We need a new plan.”

Chapter Text

We were pretty miserable that night.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers. Odysseus eyed each bit of trash judgmentally.

We’d taken some food and blankets from Medusa’s place, but we didn’t dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn’t want to attract anything else.

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch.

Annabeth curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as her head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

“Go ahead and sleep,” I told him. “I’ll wake you if there’s trouble.”

He nodded, but still didn’t close his eyes. “It makes me sad, Percy.”

“What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?” It sure made me sad.

“No. This makes me sad.” He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. “And the sky. You can’t even see the stars. They’ve polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr.”

I glanced back at the mess that was made of the clearing. Somehow, it’d completely slipped my mind on how Grover would feel about all of… this.

“Humans are clogging up the world so fast,” Grover said solemnly. “At the rate things are going, I’ll never find Pan.”

My dads, who were waiting for Grover to fall asleep before saying anything, glanced up. “Pan?” I said. “You mean the Lord of the Wild?”

“Of course. What do you think I want a searcher’s license for?”

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might have once been in these woods. Suddenly, I was nostalgic for something I’d never known.

“Tell me about the search,” I said.

Grover glanced at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making fun of him.

“The God of the Wild disappeared two thousand years ago,” he told me. “A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore: tell them that the great god Pan has died! When humans heard the news, they believed it. They’ve been pillaging Pan’s kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his slumber.”

“And you want to be a searcher.”

“It’s my life’s dream,” he said. “My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand… the statue you saw back there—”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry about that.”

Grover shook his head. “Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I’ll succeed. I’ll be the first searcher to return alive.”

I sat up. “Hang on — the first?”

Faintly, I heard Odysseus mutter something like, “Can none of these adults do anything right?” but I was a bit too focused on the whole ‘first to return alive’ thing to pay much attention.

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. “No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They’re never seen alive again.”

“Not once in two thousand years?”

“No.”

“And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?”

“None.”

“But you still want to go,” I said, amazed. “I mean, you really think you’ll be the one to find Pan?”

“I have to believe that, Percy. Each searcher does. It’s the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened.”

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?

“How are we going to get into the Underworld?” I asked him. “I mean, what chance do we have against a god?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But back at Medusa’s, when you were searching her office—”

“Let me guess, she has a plan?” I seemed to have made my tone sound a bit too hostile by accident, as Grover frowned.

“Don’t be so hard on her, Percy. She’s had a tough life, but she’s a good person. After all, she forgave me…” His voice faltered.

I wasn’t annoyed or angry with Annabeth — really, I was just irritated with things in general. Grover seemed to be thinking that I was upset with her though. I would’ve corrected him on it, but—

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Forgave you for what?”

Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Your first keeper job was five years. Annabeth’s been at camp for five years. She wasn’t… I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—”

“I can’t talk about it,” Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he’d start crying if I pressed him. “But as I was saying, back at Medusa’s, Annabeth and I agreed there’s something strange going on with this quest. Something isn’t what it seems.”

“Well, duh. I’m getting blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades took.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Grover said. “The Fur— the Kindly Ones were holding back. Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy; why did she take so long to try and kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren’t as aggressive as they could’ve been.”

“They seemed plenty aggressive to me.”

Grover shook his head. “They were screeching at us: where is it? Where?”

“Asking about me,” I said, ignoring the sinking feeling in my chest.

“Maybe… but Annabeth and I, we both got the feeling they weren’t asking about a person. They said where is it?   They seemed to be asking about an object.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. But if we’ve misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt…” He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn’t have any.

I thought about what Medusa had said. Better than a victorious hero for the gods. I was being used. What waited ahead of me was worse than petrification. “I haven’t been straight with you,” I told Grover. “I don’t really care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could see if my mother was there.”

I heard Perseus shift a bit when I said that, but not much more.

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. “I know that, Percy. But is that the only reason?”

“Well,” I shifted uncomfortably. “I… the God-King — Zeus — he wants me dead. Like, really wants me dead. Lord Dionysus said that he almost killed me already.”

“Your father did break the oath.”

“I— yeah,” I settled on. I was tired, more so than I thought I was if I was about to tell Grover about my dads. Ending the conversation as fast as possible was probably the best course of action.

Grover’s eyes narrowed. He tilted his head curiously. “Is there another reason?”

“No,” I said immediately, ignoring the look my dad gave me. “No other reason.”

“... fine,” Grover eventually said, laying against the tree. “Whatever you say, Percy. Are you sure you don’t want me to take first watch?”

“I’ll be fine, Grover. Just go to sleep. We can talk more in the morning.”

He stared at me for a little while longer — as if he was trying to intimidate me into spilling everything — but he quickly realized it was useless to try and gave up.

“Wake me up if you need me,” he said finally before settling against the tree and closing his eyes. My dads and I waited until he was snoring before saying anything.

“Percy,” Odysseus said the moment he could. “Please, tell me, what the fuck you were thinking?”

I winced, both at the sharp tone and at the reminder of my actions. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t really know why I did that. I was just… really angry.”

It was true. I didn’t know why I had done that. I’d been angry before, but there was something different about what had happened then. It’d felt blinding. Like it was the only thing I could think, feel, see.

Perseus’ expression grew strained when I said that, but he said, “Then we’ll need to find ways to help you deal with that. Ways that will preferably not anger the gods — especially my father.”

“We can figure something out,” Odysseus muttered, clearly still upset with me. “But Percy, you must make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. You are on very thin ice, and Zeus has very little reason to spare your life.”

“... I’ll try.”

Odysseus gave me an unconvinced look but relented. “Fine,” he said. “But you do something like that again and you’re grounded, got it?”

I don’t know how he expected to ground me when we were in the middle of the woods, but okay.

Perseus sighed. “Besides all of that, are you sure you’re alright? That cut on your face is still bleeding.”

I raised a hand to my cheek. When I pulled it back, there was some blood on my fingers. Not much, but still. I would need to deal with it before it got infected.

“There’s a stream around here somewhere,” Odysseus said. “I heard it.”

“Then I guess we’d better find it,” I muttered. “What direction is it?”

Odysseus thought for a moment before gesturing towards the left. “Around there. It’s a small one, but it’s good enough.” He glanced at the clearing. “Hopefully the water’s still clean even with all… this.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Perseus assured.

It was not fine.

The stream was, putting it lightly, disgusting. After a couple of minutes of staring at it, I was 95% sure I wasn’t even looking at water.

“Well,” Perseus muttered quietly when Odysseus turned to him with an expectant look. “I guess sometimes you’re right.”

“Sometimes you’re right,” Odysseus mocked.

I watched them argue awkwardly before turning back to the stream, contemplating. Without thinking better of it, I reached my hand out and put it in the water.

“Percy, no, that water’s disgusting—”

The moment my skin touched the surface, all of the gunk and mud moved away within seconds, leaving a circle of clean, crystal clear water around my hand. I took it out. The muck moved back to its place, then moved away again when I put my hand back in.

We stared at it silently for a bit.

Now, I’m going to be honest here; I didn’t expect that to happen. I’ve fallen in my fair share of dirty puddles before and the muck never hurried to avoid me like that before. So it was a bit suspicious that it was doing that now.

“I can do that?” I muttered.

“Well, that solves our problem,” Perseus said. “Heal that cut on your face and get back to the clearing. It isn’t a good idea to leave them alone for too long.”

Wordlessly, I splashed some of the now clean water over the cut. It was a small one, so it didn’t take too long to heal. I was glad that was the only injury I had to worry about. If it wasn’t for my dads, Medusa would’ve been able to do a lot worse to me.

A thought dawned on me as I thought about that.

“Why do you think Medusa was able to see you?” I asked my dad. “Was that why you were acting so weird while she was getting us food?”

“Somewhat,” he said. “I noticed that she tilted her head weirdly whenever I said something, so I had suspicions. Why she was able to hear me, I have no idea.”

“Do monsters count as immortals? If they do, that might’ve been why. Dionysus can see you guys.”

Odysseus shook his head in disagreement. “Chiron wasn’t able to see or hear us until we wanted him to, and even then, she wasn’t able to hear me.”

“We could ask Dionysus about it,” Perseus muttered. Odysseus tilted his head. “Do you think he’d know?”

“Likely not, no. But he has access to sources we don’t. Maybe he could find something about this.”

While they continued to debate the extent of Dionysus’ knowledge, I walked back to the clearing. The stream wasn’t all that far from it but I still worried that we wouldn’t be able to hear Annabeth and Grover if they were attacked.

Once we made it back to the clearing, Perseus said, “We’ll take over for you. Get some sleep.”

I frowned. “But Grover and Annabeth—”

“We’ll wake you an hour before morning to wake one of them up. They’ll be able to get some sleep, and so will you. If there’s anything out there, we’ll let you know.”

At first I wanted to object, but I paused. It was a good idea. We’d be able to sleep, and Perseus and Odysseus would have something to do (then again, they would have to do that anyway so they weren’t gaining much). I thought for a couple of moments before nodding.

“Okay,” I said finally. “You promise to wake me up?”

Perseus nodded. I turned around and laid down, facing one of the paths into the clearing. For a second, I thought I saw something — a figure — but it went away just as quickly as it appeared, and neither of my dads said anything, so I brushed it off as me seeing things.

I expected to be able to fall asleep immediately, but instead I felt restless. I didn’t want to bother my dads though, so I resisted the urge to shift around, shutting my eyes in hopes of being able to force myself to sleep.

A couple of minutes passed, and I was really starting to get irritated. But just when I was about to give up on sleep, I heard Odysseus hum before, quietly, singing.

“I will fall in love with you, over and over again. I don’t care how, where or when, no matter how long it’s been you’re mine.”

Admittedly, it had been a while since Odysseus sang. I’d been worried that he’d stopped because of… him. But he’d never sung this before. He’d never sung anything except for the lullaby he said his mother used to sing to him.

“Don’t tell me you’re not the same person, you’re always my son and I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting.”

For a brief moment, I thought I saw the shadow again, but before I could say anything, Perseus started to sing too.

“Waiting, waiting,”   his voice was a bit uneven — I’d never heard him sing before in my life, this night was just full of surprises — but it blended well with Odysseus’ anyways.

“Waiting, waiting, waiting…”

By the time they finished whatever song Odysseus was singing, I was dead asleep.

—

Faintly, I remembered them waking me up an hour before morning so I could wake up Annabeth, but not much beyond that. Even then, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched.

—

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

The Little Hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too weak, too young, but perhaps you’ll do.

The voice felt ancient — cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

They have misled you, boy, it said. The gods, and the heroes. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

A shimmering image hovered over the void; my mother, frozen at the moment she’d dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: GO!

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn’t work.

Cold laughter echoed from the chasm. 

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

Help me rise, boy. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, NO! WAKE!

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me.

I realized it wasn’t interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself out.

Good, it murmured. Help me escape, Little Prince. Do not force the heroes to watch their son die.

Wake! The dead whispered. WAKE!

—

Someone was shaking me.

My eyes opened, and it was daylight.

“Well,” Annabeth said, “the zombie lives.”

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest. I caught my dads looking at me in concern, but they didn’t say anything. “How long was I asleep?”

“Long enough for me to cook breakfast.” Annabeth tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. “And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend.”

My eyes had trouble focusing. Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

The poodle yipped at me suspiciously.

Grover said, “No, he's not.”

I blinked. “Are you... talking to that thing?”

Odysseus gave me a long-suffering look.

The poodle growled.

“This thing,” Grover warned, “is our ticket west. Be nice to him.”

“You can talk to animals?”

Grover ignored the question. “Percy, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Percy.”

I stared at Annabeth, figuring she'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on me, but she looked deadly serious.

“I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle,” I said. “Forget it.”

“Percy,” Perseus warned right as Annabeth said, “I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle.”

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.

“How does Gladiola know about the reward?” I asked.

“He read the signs,” Grover said. “Duh.”

“Of course,” I said. “Silly me.”

“So we turn in Gladiola,” Annabeth explained in her best strategy voice, “we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple.”

I thought about my dream with the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West.

“Not another bus,” I said warily.

“No,” Annabeth agreed. She pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. “There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the westbound train leaves at noon.”

Chapter Text

We spent two days on the Amtrak train, heading west through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain.

We weren’t attacked once, but I didn’t relax. I felt that we were traveling around in a display case, being watched from above and maybe from below, that something was waiting for the right opportunity.

I tried to keep a low profile because my name and picture were splattered over the front pages of several East Coast newspapers. The Trenton Register-News showed a photo taken by a tourist as I got off the Greyhound bus. I had a wild look in my eyes. My sword was a metallic blur in my hands. It might’ve been a baseball bat or a lacrosse stick.

The picture’s caption read:

Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of his mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where he accosted several elderly female passengers. The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Jackson fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the boy may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. His stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to his capture.

“Don’t worry,” Annabeth told me. “Mortal police could never find us.” But she didn’t sound so sure. My dads hadn’t said anything, though I did catch my papa scowling at the word ‘stepfather’ for a concerning amount of time.

The rest of the day I spent alternating pacing the length of the train or looking out the windows. Perseus was also pacing, but it didn’t seem to be helping him as much as it was me. From what they told me, he and Odysseus could get tired, but it was more of a weariness if anything. Pacing helped tire me out so I could focus more or relieve some stress — Perseus said he did the same — but since they couldn’t get tired, it didn't do anything to help his anxiety. It was entertaining to watch him walk through a wall repeatedly.

At some point, when I was glimpsing out the window, I saw a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready, as they hunted for lunch. The little boy centaur, who was the size of a second-grader on a pony, caught my eye and waved. I looked around the passenger car, but nobody else noticed. The adult riders had their faces buried in laptop computers or magazines.

Another time, toward evening, I saw something huge moving through the woods. I could’ve sworn it was a lion, except that lions don’t live wild in America, and this thing was the size of a Hummer. Its fur glinted gold in the evening light. Then it leaped through the trees and was gone. I’d gestured for my dads to come take a look when Annabeth wasn’t paying attention and we spent a short couple of seconds staring at it before it disappeared.

Odysseus had shook his head, muttering something about how “there was always something,” and “too many monsters outside this train,” which was interesting. I’d only seen that lion-looking thing, which I wasn’t even sure was a monster. I didn’t ask him about it, even though I really wanted to.

—

Our reward money for returning Gladiola the poodle had only been enough to purchase tickets as far as Denver. We couldn’t get berths in the sleeper car, so we dozed in our seats. My neck got stiff. I tried not to drool in my sleep, since Annabeth was sitting right next to me.

Grover kept snoring and bleating and waking me up. Once, he shuffled around and his fake foot fell off. Annabeth and I had to stick it back on before any of the other passengers noticed. While we did that, I caught sight of my dads glancing between me and Annabeth, contemplating. Occasionally, I saw them mutter to each other in Ancient Greek, but they mostly seemed to be relying entirely on eye contact to communicate, which was admittedly a bit creepy.

“So,” Annabeth asked me, once we’d gotten Grover’s sneakers readjusted. “Who wants your help?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were asleep just now, you mumbled, ‘I won’t help you.’ Who were you dreaming about?”

I was reluctant to say anything, especially since my dads were still watching us. It was the second time I’d dreamed about the evil voice from the pit. At first, I wasn’t going to tell her but it bothered me so much, I did.

Annabeth was quiet for a long time. While she thought, I saw Odysseus giving me a stern glare, one that said, you should’ve told us.

I shrugged slightly, eyeing Annabeth nervously. She didn’t seem to notice, still lost in thought, so I mouthed back, It didn’t seem important. And I forgot about it.

Perseus’ eyes narrowed suspiciously, but Annabeth spoke up before he could say anything.

“That doesn’t sound like Hades,” she admitted. “He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs.”

“He offered my mother in trade,” I said. “Who else could do that?”

“I guess… if he meant, ‘help me rise from the Underworld.’ If he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring him the master bolt if he already has it?”

I shook my head, wishing I knew the answer. I thought about what Grover had told me, that the Furies on the bus seemed to have been looking for something.

Where is it? Where?

Maybe Grover sensed my emotions. He snorted in his sleep, muttered something about vegetables, and turned his head.

Annabeth readjusted his cap so it covered his horns. “Percy, you can’t barter with Hades. You know that, right? He’s deceitful, heartless, and greedy. I don’t care if his Kindly Ones weren’t as aggressive this time—”

“This time?” I asked. “You mean you’ve run into them before?”

My dads stared at Annabeth so intensely, that I expected her to flinch even though she couldn’t see them.

Her hand crept up to her necklace. She messed with a glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree, one of her clay end-of-summer tokens. “Let’s just say I’ve got no love for the Lord of the Dead. You can’t be tempted to make a deal for your mom.”

“What would you do if it was your dad?”

“That’s easy,” she said. “I’d leave him to rot.”

I’ll admit, that caught me off guard a bit. But then I thought about how she’d talked of him before, and it didn’t feel all too surprising. I didn’t know what he’d done to her, but it was clear it didn’t make her all too fond of him.

“You…” I frowned, unsure of how to word this. “You really don’t seem to like your dad. What did he do?”

Annabeth’s gray eyes fixed on me. She wore the same expression she’d worn in the woods at camp, the moment she drew her sword against the hellhound. “My dad’s resented me since the day I was born, Percy,” she said. “He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with work—” the amount of horror in my dads’ eyes when she said that would’ve been funny if I wasn’t so shocked, “—she wasn’t happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent.”

“How did Athena give you to him?”

“I appeared on my father’s doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You’d think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like, maybe he’d take some digital photos or something. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to him. When I was five, he got married and totally forgot about Athena. He got a ‘regular’ mortal wife, and had two ‘regular’ mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn’t exist.”

I had no idea what to say to that. Perseus looked as if this was one of the worst things he’d ever been told, and Odysseus seemed to be losing his mind trying to understand Annabeth’s dad’s thought process.

“He just threw her away?” He said incredulously. “Her?”

Perseus just blinked in shock.

I glanced out the train window. The lights of the sleeping town were drifting by as I thought about what I could say to make Annabeth feel better. I had no idea what to do.

“My mom married this guy,” I told her eventually. “He, um, wasn’t the greatest. I know it’s not the same, but I can understand it a bit. The whole ‘bad dad’ thing. It wasn’t as bad as your situation, but… I don’t know if it’ll help you, but it helps me to know I’m not alone,” I finished lamely. How did I ever pass my public speaking in school? Like, ever?

Annabeth kept worrying at her necklace, watching me with an unreadable look. She still didn’t look happy, but there was something in her expression that looked… settled. She was pinching the gold college ring that hung with her beads. It occurred to me that the ring must be her father’s. 

“... that does help a bit,” she said finally, then she stopped and we were back to being silent. Well, fuck.

“I— uh,” what to talk about? “How did you get to camp? Did he bring you or…?”

“I ran away,” she answered plainly, eyes glazing over like she was reliving some unpleasant memories. My dads looked like that a lot, so it was easy to recognize. “He didn’t… his wife, she treated me like a freak. She wouldn’t let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened — y’know, something with monsters — they would look at me resentfully. She used to get angry at me a lot and she’d say something like, ‘how dare you put our family at risk.’ Finally, I took the hint that I wasn’t wanted and I left.”

“How old were you?”

“Same age as when I started camp. Seven.”

“But… you couldn’t have gotten all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself.”

“Not alone, no. Athena watched over me, guided me towards help. I made a couple of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway.”

I wanted to ask what happened, but Annabeth seemed lost in sad memories. So I listened to the sound of Grover snoring and gazed out the train windows as the dark fields of Ohio raced by.

Toward the end of our second day on the train — June 13th, eight days before the Summer Solstice — we passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis.

Annabeth craned her neck to see the Gateway Arch, which looked to me like a huge shopping bag handle stuck in the city.

“I want to do that,” she sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“Build something like that. You ever seen the Partheon, Percy?”

“Only in pictures.”

“Someday, I’m going to see it in person. I’m going to build the greatest monument to the gods, ever. Something that’ll last a thousand years.”

I stared at her, impressed. That was an ambitious dream and I couldn’t help but respect her for it. “You want to be an architect?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, wringing her hands. She looked like she was expecting me to judge her.

“That’s amazing,” I said, and I wasn’t lying when I did. “Like — genuinely. That’s so cool.”

She watched me for a bit, trying to see if I was lying or not. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “It’s… something I’ve wanted for a while.”

“It’s a good dream,” I said. “I’m excited to see what you have planned. Whatever lucky god that gets a temple from you is going to be very happy, I’m sure.”

Annabeth seemed to look at me in a new light, a smile growing on her face. “Thanks, Percy.”

As we rode into the city and the Arch disappeared behind a hotel, Annabeth told me all about different monuments and temples around the world. Their flaws and strengths, the stories behind their creation, the material used, and the changes that were made as the workers progressed in building them. The amount of information she had was, if I’m being honest, very terrifying. Incredible, but also terrifying.

I did my best to keep up with what she was saying — Odysseus had told me a lot about architecture back when he used to tell me about Ithaca (he’d stopped when it started to make him too sad) — but the amount she knew greatly outdid how much I knew. Odysseus was very intrigued and would tell me questions to ask her which only made her happier. It was the most upbeat I’d ever seen her. It was nice, seeing this side of her. Odysseus and Perseus kept sending us approving looks, though, which I didn’t understand. Nor did I understand the amused look in their eyes whenever I found myself smiling from Annabeth’s energy. 

By the time we’d pulled into the Amtrak station downtown, she was beaming. The intercom told us we’d have a three-hour layover before departing for Denver.

Grover stretched. Before he was even fully awake, he said, “Food.”

“Come on, goat boy,” Annabeth said, still smiling. There was a glint in her eyes that vividly reminded me of Odysseus. “Sightseeing.”

“Sightseeing?”

“The Gateway Arch,” she said. “We have the time to see it. Why not take a look?”

Grover and I exchanged looks. She was right. We didn’t have much to do besides sit around and wait, and who were we to tell her no?

Grover saw the expression on my face, sighed, and shrugged. “As long as there’s a snack bar without monsters.”

—

The Arch was about a mile from the train station. Late in the day the lines to get in weren’t that long. We threaded our way through the underground museum, looking at covered wagons and other things from the 1800s. The exhibit wasn’t all that thrilling, but Annabeth kept telling us interesting facts about how the Arch was built, and Grover kept passing me jelly beans, so I was content.

I kept looking around, though, at the other people in line. “Do you smell anything?” I murmured to Grover.

He took his nose out of the jelly bean bag long enough to sniff. “Underground,” he said distastefully. “Underground air always smells like monsters. Probably doesn’t mean anything.”

But something felt wrong to me. I had a feeling we shouldn’t be here.

When Grover was particularly invested in Annabeth’s rambles, I leaned closer to my papa and asked, “Do you see anything?”

“No,” Odysseus said back. “Not anything suspicious yet.”

Yet. Judging from how he glanced around, he could tell something was wrong too.

“Is it another Mrs. Dodds situation?”

“I pray to the gods that it isn’t,” my dad muttered, eyes narrowed. “Keep Riptide on hand.”

I nodded before turning back to my friends, a suspicion dwelling in my mind.

“Guys,” I said. “You know the gods’ symbols of power?”

Annabeth had been in the middle of reading about the construction equipment used to build the Arch, but she looked over. “Yeah?”

“Well, the Lord of the Dead, isn’t his symbol the Helm of Darkness?”

Annabeth paused, a frown growing on her face. “Yeah, that’s his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the Winter Solstice council meeting.”

“He was there?”

She nodded. “It’s the only time he’s allowed to visit Olympus — the darkest day of the year. But his helmet is a lot more powerful than my invisibility hat if what I’ve heard is true…”

“It allows him to become darkness,” Grover confirmed. “He can melt into shadows, or pass through walls. He can’t be touched, or seen, or heard. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?”

“But then…” I frowned, trying to think. “How do we know he’s not here right now, watching us?”

Odysseus had told me that he was able to tell when gods were around in mortal disguises — a sixth sense, of sorts. But, I remembered him saying, it has its limits. And sometimes, I will mistake a monster with divine blood for a god. Be very wary, regardless of what I say.

For all we knew, Hades was watching us, and he was hidden enough that Odysseus couldn’t find him.

Annabeth and Grover exchanged nervous looks.

“We don’t,” Grover said.

It was the answer I expected, but it was still disappointing.

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better,” I said. “Got any blue jelly beans left?”

I’d almost mastered my jumpy nerves when I saw the tiny little elevator car we were going to ride to the top of the Arch, and I knew I was in trouble. I hate confined places. They make me nuts. It was the same for Perseus, who was staring at the elevator like it was the worst thing he’d ever seen. Odysseus was still looking around behind us, trying to see if there were any monsters nearby.

We were shoehorned into the car with a pretty woman in a long, dark blue dress and her dog, a chihuahua with a rhinestone collar. I figured maybe the dog was a seeing-eye chihuahua because none of the guards said a word about it.

However, right after the doors closed, Odysseus suddenly grabbed my shoulder, cursing himself quietly. “Percy, you need to get out of here,” he said hurriedly. “That’s not a chihuahua.”

I glanced around before whispering to him. “What do you mean?”

“Percy, that’s a chimera.”

Only after he said that did I notice the small inconsistencies in both the chihuahua and its owner’s appearances. The woman’s tongue was forked and her pupils were narrow slits. Under her sleeves, I could see glimpses of scales. Her dog — her chimera’s teeth were just a bit too sharp, its eyes too seeing. When it moved, its limbs blurred, as if something was struggling to hide it.

Oh. Oh fuck. I reached for Riptide in my pocket, but Perseus stopped me.

“No,” he said. “This — thing, it’s too small. It won’t be able to take the weight. You’ll end up killing yourselves.”

Eyeing the woman warily, I moved my hand away from Riptide. My dad was right. The elevator was too small and she’d be able to kill us before we could do anything. We’d have to wait until we were up on the Arch.

I tried not to startle when the woman — Echidna — asked, “No parents?”

“They’re below,” Annabeth told her, none the wiser. I couldn’t tell them. Echidna was too close. “Scared of heights.”

“Oh, the poor darlings.”

The chihuahua growled. Echidna said, “Now, now, sonny. Behave.” The dog had beady eyes like its owner, intelligent and vicious.

I said, feigning curiosity, “Sonny. Is that his name?”

“No,” she told me.

She smiled, as if that cleared everything up.

At the top of the Arch, the observation deck reminded me of a tin can with carpeting. Rows of tiny windows looked out over the city on one side and the river on the other. The view was okay, but if there was anything I liked less than a confined space, it was a confined space six hundred feet in the air with the Mother of Monsters two feet away from me. I was ready to go pretty quick.

Annabeth kept talking about structural supports, and how she would’ve made the windows bigger and designed a see-through floor. Before I could say anything about Echdina, the park ranger announced that the observation deck would be closing in a few minutes.

I quickly steered Grover and Annabeth toward the exit, ignoring the confused looks they gave me, and I was about to get on the elevator with them when I realized there were already two other tourists inside. No room for me.

The park ranger said, “Next car, sir.”

“We’ll get out,” Annabeth said. “We’ll wait with you.”

“Tell them to stay,” Perseus said. “If you end up having to fight her, you’ll need someone else with you.”

And, yeah, that was preferable. But I kept eyeing the height of the Arch, the unnatural look in Echidna’s eyes, and the chihuahua-chimera’s sharp teeth. I could only imagine Grover and Annabeth getting hurt, or worse, and so I said, “No, it’s okay. I’ll see you guys soon.”

Grover and Annabeth both looked reluctant, but they let the elevator door slide shut. Their car disappeared down the ramp.

“Shit,” Perseus said, staring at me incredulously.

Now the only people left on the observation deck were me, Echidna, the park ranger, and — oh.

Shit, I thought as I noticed a little boy with his parents. Shit.

I hadn’t noticed them before, too focused on keeping an eye on Echidna. But she didn’t seem to be hostile, not yet, so maybe I could pretend to not be a demigod?

Before I could decide on a plan, beyond just pretending to be some random guy, Echidna’s chihuahua jumped up and down and started yapping at me.

“Now, now, sonny,” the lady said. “Does this look like a good time? We have all these nice people here.”

“Doggie!” Said the little boy. “Look, a doggie!”

His parents pulled him back. His mother looked weirdly pale.

The chihuahua bared his teeth at me, foam dripping from his black lips.

“Well, son,” Echidna sighed fondly, like how Perseus would when he’d cave and tell me things about Mycenae. “If you insist.”

Ice started forming in my stomach. Fuck. Fuck. “Did you just call that chihuahua your son?” I asked, wringing my hands.

“Chimera, dear,” Echidna corrected. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Not a chihuahua. It’s an easy mistake to make.”

She rolled up her dress sleeves, revealing that the skin of her arms was scaly and green. When she smiled, I saw that her teeth were fangs. The pupils of her eyes were sideways slits, like a reptile’s.

The chihuahua barked louder, and with each bark, it grew. First to the size of a Doberman, then to a lion. The bark became a roar.

The little boy screamed. His parents pulled him back toward the exit, straight into the park ranger, who stood, paralyzed, gaping at the monster.

The chimera was now so tall its back rubbed against the roof. It had the head of a lion with a blood-stained mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind. The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized dog tag was now easy to read: CHIMERA — RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS — IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS — EXT. 954.

There was more, a set of numbers that looked a lot like—

“Is that a fucking phone number?” Odysseus yelled.

I realized I hadn’t even uncapped my sword. My hands were numb. I was ten feet away from the chimera’s bloody maw, and I knew that as soon as I moved, the creature would lunge.

Echidna cackled, a faint hissing accompanying her laughter as four large snakes slithered out from under her dress — because of course the correct interpretation of her was the one where she was half snake. I was really starting to hate those things. “Be honored, Percy Jackson. Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna!”

Zeus had sent her? Did he want me to get his fucking bolt or not?

Perseus looked infuriated. “If you die,” he muttered to me, “all of Olympus will burn.”

Reassuring.

“Now, my son,” Echidna yelled, “destroy him! Cleave his head from his shoulders, rip his heart out, spill his blood! Go!”

The chimera charged, its lion teeth gnashing. I managed to leap aside and dodge the bite.

I ended up next to the family and the park ranger, who were all screaming now, trying to pry open the emergency exit doors.

I couldn’t let them get hurt. I uncapped Riptide, ran to the other side of the deck, and yelled, “Hey! Chihuahua!”

The chimera turned faster than I would’ve thought possible.

Before I could swing my sword, it opened its mouth, emitting a stench like the world’s largest barbecue pit, and shot a column of flame straight at me.

I dove through the explosion. The carpet burst into flames; the heat was so intense, it nearly seared off my eyebrows. Where I had been standing a moment before was a ragged hole in the side of the Arch, with melted metal steaming around the edges.

Great, I thought. We just blow-torched a national monument.

Riptide was now a shining bronze blade in my hands, and as the chimera turned, I slashed at its neck.

That was my fatal mistake. The blade sparked harmlessly off the dog collar. I tried to regain my balance, but I was so worried about defending myself against the fiery lion’s mouth, that I completely forgot about the serpent tail until I heard my dad yell, “PERCY!” and its fangs sank into my calf.

My whole leg was on fire. I tried to jab Riptide into the chimera’s mouth, but the serpent tail wrapped around my ankles and pulled me off balance, and my blade flew out of my hand, spinning out of the hole in the Arch and down toward the Mississippi River.

I managed to get to my feet, but I knew I had lost. I was weaponless. I could feel deadly poison racing up to my chest. I remembered Chiron saying that Riptide would always return to me, but there was no pen in my pocket. Maybe it had fallen too far away. Maybe it only returned when it was in pen form. 

I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to live long enough to find out.

The chimera stepped towards me, teeth bared and growling. Another laugh from Echidna. “They don’t make heroes like they used to, eh, son?”

The monster growled. It seemed in no hurry to finish me off now that I was beaten.

I glanced at the park ranger and the family. The little boy was hiding behind his father’s legs. I had to protect these people. I couldn’t just… die. I tried to think, to listen to what my dads were frantically saying, but my whole body was on fire. My head felt dizzy. I had no sword. I was facing a massive, fire-breathing monster and its mother. And I was scared.

There was no place else to go, so I stepped to the edge of the hole. Far, far below, the river glittered.

If I died, would the monsters go away? Would they leave the humans alone?

“Go on, son of Poseidon,” she goaded. “Show your heritage. If you are a true child of the sea, you would not fear it. Jump. Retrieve your sword. Prove your bloodline!”

I glanced back towards the water. If I jumped from this height, I’d be flattened like a pancake. Unless… I was a son of Posei — the sea. Would it protect me?

“CAPTAIN!” Men screamed as they were crushed and drowned, their ships and any hopes of survival destroyed by Poseidon’s hand, by Poseidon’s order—

I really didn’t want to do it. But I couldn’t stop wondering that if I died... would she leave the mortals alone? They didn’t have anything to do with this. There wouldn’t be a point in killing them.

“Percy,” Odysseus said. “Percy, you need to jump.”

I don’t want to.

“Percy, please .”

No. No. I don’t want — I couldn’t—

“You have no faith,” Echidna told me. “You do not trust the gods. I cannot blame you, little coward. Better you die now. The gods are faithless. The poison is in your heart.”

I heard Perseus mutter something, but I couldn’t hear him. Everything was muffled, like I was underwater, but I wasn’t, I couldn’t be, I didn’t want to be in the—

“PERCY!”

I moved to the side, right before the chimera landed, its claws digging into the metal of the platform instead of what likely would’ve been my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

“The water won’t hurt you,” Perseus pleaded. “Please, get in the water .”

( “Get in the water.” )

Poseidon, Poseidon, it’s ALWAYS POSEIDON—

“Die, faithless one,” Echidna hissed.

I watched silently as the chimera turned its sights back on me. Just before it could lunge, I turned towards the ledge and jumped off.

Chapter Text

The water was cold. It wasn’t clean, either. It was full of garbage and junk—entierly polluted. The river was absolutely disgusting, but I couldn’t get myself to focus on that.

The impact with the water hadn’t hurt. I wish I could say that I was right, that I was protected because of my blood—but I had a sinking feeling that something was very, very different about this. I wasn’t connected enough to the sea to do that, not on my own, not without…

I didn’t want to think about it.

The moment I was underwater, I already wanted to leave, but I was tired. Tired of the monsters, tired of the quest, tired of fearing the water—it was exhausting. So instead, I settled on the river floor, squinting to try and see an inch ahead of me with all the slit and disgusting garbage flowing around. A catfish swam out of the cloud of slit, moving past me with ease. I blinked and watched it swim around.

“Percy.” I heard my dad say. Oh. Right. They were there, too. I hadn’t noticed them talking. “Percy, hey, you need to slow down your breathing.”

I realized hazily that my breaths were coming and leaving quicker than they should. I wasn’t hyperventilating, not yet, but I was getting close to it. I didn’t respond to my dad fast enough and he moved closer, lifting his hand to tilt my face towards him.

His expression was left carefully blank, but I could see how stressed he was. “Hey,” he greeted when I looked at him. He was right there, but his voice sounded quieter, muffled. I still didn’t say anything and Perseus frowned, eyes narrowing. He moved to say something but paused and glanced to the side—Odysseus was talking, though I couldn’t hear what about—before nodding. “I think so. I don’t know why—do you think it’s because of that?”

“—disassociating—” Odysseus’ voice was getting louder, but it still sounded muffled. “—water, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Perseus said. “We’ll talk about this later.” He turned back to me, moving his other hand to take mine. “Do you feel like talking right now?” His tone was the calmest it’d been since we’d left Yancy. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

It took me a bit longer to respond than I’d like to admit, but I eventually shook my head. Talking felt a bit too… difficult? Straining? Something like that.

“That’s fine,” Perseus said. He was still quiet, but I could hear him a little better now. “We can wait.”

Neither of us talked for another couple of moments. At some point, Odysseus moved next to us, placing a hand over Perseus’. I heard a riverboat’s paddlewheel churn above us, swirling the slit around. There, not even five feet in front of us, was Riptide, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

Odysseus glanced at it. “Ah. That’s where it went.”

Perseus moved to grab it, but paused, frowning. He slowly pulled his hand back, staring at Riptide. Odysseus gave him a weird look, tilting his head questioningly. He didn’t need to ask. Somehow, Perseus already knew.

“This sword,” my dad said. “There’s something—” he glanced at me, pausing, “—never mind.”

Wordlessly, he nudged the sword towards me. I grabbed it, taking the cap and putting it back on. Once it was back in pen form, I clutched it close to myself, curling up a bit. I felt… safer with it. I was glad it wasn’t lost.

My dads were quiet for a little bit longer before Perseus asked, “Are you okay with telling us what happened back there?”

I shook my head.

“That’s alright,” he said. A beat of silence. “I was thinking about it. You looked afraid when you were near the edge. It probably didn’t help that we were yelling at you. I’m sorry about that.”

“‘S fine,” I mumbled. Perseus moved to say something, but Odysseus cut him off.

“No,” my papa said. “It wasn’t. We should’ve noticed that something was wrong sooner, especially me.” He looked guilty. “I was too busy looking in the crowd for monsters to notice Echidna. I’m sorry, Percy. If I had been paying attention, it wouldn’t have happened.”

I shook my head. “Not your fault.”

Odysseus stared at me for a couple of moments before smiling. He looked unconvinced, but he raised a hand and messed with my hair. I swatted his hand away and he laughed. Perseus’ expression was still blank, but his eyes were light with amusement.

“Are you feeling better now?” He asked me.

“Hm,” I hummed. “A little.”

“Do you want to go find Annabeth and Grover?”

I messed with Riptide’s cap. I didn’t know how to reply to that. Eventually, I was about to say, “Yes,” even though I wasn’t, but I was interrupted. Not by one of my dads, though.

It sounded like my mother’s voice, just as gentle and kind, but it sounded higher. Musical. “Percy, what do you say?”

What the fuck?

I blinked, sitting up and glancing around. I didn’t see anyone. My dads shared a concerned look and they started muttering to each other.

“She’s still around?” Odysseus sounded shocked and mildly horrified. “She hasn’t shown up in years!”

“I thought she only resided in the beaches of New York City,” Perseus said back.

I turned to them. “What are you—”

“Percy,” the voice said, sterner. “What do you say?”

I still couldn’t see anyone besides my dads. “What are you talking about?”

“Say thank you. He saved your life.”

Oh no, oh fuck, please do not prove me right—

“Tell your Father thank you, Perseus Jackson.”

Fuck.

My dads went silent, turning on me with such speed, they probably would’ve broken their necks if they could.

“You will grow to be powerful,” the voice continued, “but you have something blocking you from connecting to the sea entirely. If it wasn’t for your Father’s intervention, you would’ve died.” It turned sharp, cold. “Give. Him. Your. Gratitude.”

I really didn’t want to, and I was considering not saying anything, until I remembered that I was still underwater and the fear returned. Shakily, I said, “T-thank you…” I hesitated, “... father.”

The voice hummed in satisfaction, her voice rippling through the water like dolphin sonar. “Good. His wrath is not to be tempted. Not even by his own son.”

I didn’t say anything to that. Instead, I asked, “Where are you? Who are you?”

A couple moments of silence passed. Neither me nor my dads tried to say anything. Then, through the gloom, I saw her—a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just a couple of feet away from us. She had long, billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.

Perseus inhaled sharply and Odysseus grit his teeth. A lump formed in my throat. “Mom?”

“No, child,”  she said. “Only a messenger, though your mother’s fate is not as hopeless as you believe. Go to the beach in Santa Monica.”

“What?”

“It is your Father’s will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Percy, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence.”

“But…” I stammered, trying to figure out what to say. “Who—how did you—”

“I cannot stay, brave one,” the woman said. “This place, it’s too polluted for my presence. You must go to Santa Monica, and you must not trust the gifts.”

“The gifts?” I asked. “What gifts?”

She did not answer, instead reaching out her hand. My dads panicked, jolting from their spots, but she merely waved her hand and I felt a current brush my face like a caress. She smiled, kindly, and it was… strangely familiar.

“I told him you would grow up well,” she said wistfully. “We all did. You are a good child, Percy Jackson.”

Her voice faded.

“Wha—wait! You can’t just—!”

Too late. Her image melted away.

My dads and I were silent, staring at where the woman once was until the catfish flew in front of us.

“What the fuck?” Perseus said. He sounded rattled. That, and severely confused. “How did she—what was—” he blinked and then shook his head. “Never mind.” He glanced at me. “Are you okay?”

“You’ve been asking that a lot,” was all I could say in return.

“Just trying to make sure,” he said, giving me a smile. It was shaky. Something about that woman had deeply terrified him. A look to my left and it was clear that it was the same with Odysseus.

“You guys knew her,” I said. Perseus’ smile tightened. “Who was she? You said something about her living in New York City…”

My dad seemed to be considering something. He glanced up at Odysseus who shook his head. “Later,” Perseus said. “When we have time to… explain some things.”

Really, I should’ve let it go. I should’ve shrugged and moved on. Instead, I argued. “No. You know who she was. How do you know her?”

Perseus’ smile was completely gone now. “Percy, this isn’t the time—”

“Why won’t you just tell me? It can’t be that bad!”

“It’s not—” he sighed harshly. “Odysseus, could you—”

“Percy,” Odysseus began, waiting for me to turn to face him. “It’s… complicated. Now’s not the time. We still need to go find Annabeth and Grover.”

I didn’t understand why they were avoiding the topic so much. “You guys freaked out when she reached towards me. Why are you so scared of her?”

My papa winced. “We’re not scared, Percy, we’re concerned. It…”

“What, did she try to kill me or something?” It was meant to be a sarcastic remark, just—something stupid I asked because I was angry. I didn’t think anything of it until my dads stilled. Any annoyance or indigance I felt suddenly drained, replaced by utter confusion and a bit of worry because why were they reacting like that?

“It was an accident,” Perseus said weakly, which was unlike him. “She—they didn’t understand that you couldn’t…”

He trailed off, wringing his hands. I hadn’t seen my dads so nervous in a while and it unsettled me.

“Fine,” I relented. I didn’t want to continue the conversation anymore. I was already completely stumped by what they’d said, I didn’t need anything more. “Another time.”

I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface before they could reply.

—

I came ashore next to a floating McDonald’s.

A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

A little girl said, “Mama! That boy walked out of the river!”

“That’s nice, dear,” he mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

“But he’s dry!”

Oh, I completely forgot about that.

“That’s nice, dear.”

A news lady was talking for the camera: “Probably not a terrorist attack, we’re told, but it’s still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We’re trying to get to some of the survivors to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch.”

Survivors. I felt a surge of relief. Maybe the park ranger and the family made it out safely. I hoped Annabeth and Grover were okay.

I tried to push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line.

“...an adolescent boy,” another reporter was saying. “Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that’s what we’re hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities…”

I backed away, trying to keep my head down. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter.

Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere. I’d almost lost hope of ever finding Annabeth and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, “Perrr-cy!”

I turned and got tackled by Grover’s bear hug—or goat hug. He said, “We thought you’d gone to Hades the hard way!”

Annabeth stood behind him, trying to look angry, but even she seemed relieved to see me. “We can’t leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?”

“I fell.”

Her eyes widened. “PERCY! Six hundred and thirty feet?”

Behind us, a cop shouted, “Gangway!” The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. I recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who’d been on the observation deck. She was saying, “And the this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing chihuahua—”

“Oh no,” Perseus muttered. “She’s clear-sighted.”

“Okay, ma’am,” the paramedic said. “Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in.”

Somehow, it’d never occured to me how clear-sighted mortals might’ve been treated. It was painful, watching her scream and panic only to be thought as crazy or insane. How many people were hospitalized because of their clear-sight? How many of them lost family or friends? How many of them were mistreated because they saw too much?

Was Odysseus ever treated like that? Was my mom ever treated like that?

Grover and Annabeth were distracted by the commotion. Quickly, I snuck a look at my dads. “Papa,” I said, “did… did people believe you when you told them about things you saw? Or did they…?”

Odysseus hesitated. “That’s… not something you need to worry about, Percy.”

He looked nervous, like before, so I dropped it. Just in time too becuase the woman yelled, “I’m not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared!” Then she saw me. “There he is! That’s the boy!”

I turned quickly and pulled Annabeth and Grover after me. We disappeared into the crowd.

“What’s going on?” Annabeth demanded. “Was she talking about the chihuahua on the elevator?”

I told them the whole story of the chimera, Echidna, my high-dive act, and the woman in the water. I cut out the whole thing about me knowing (they wouldn’t appreciate that), whatever happened with me in the river, and, of course, anything that might’ve referenced my dads.

“Whoa,” Grover said once I finished. “We’ve got to get you to Santa Monica! You can’t ignore a summons from your dad.”

Before Annabeth could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and I almost froze in my tracks when he said, “Percy Jackson. That’s right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by the authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson.”

I heard my dads muttering to each other again as we ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley. I could tell that it was something about the river spirit, but I gave them their privacy.

“First things first,” I told Grover. “We’ve gotta get out of town.”

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.

Chapter Text

The next afternoon, June 14th, seven days before the Winter Solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn’t eaten the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn’t taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious.

“Let’s try to contact Chiron,” Annabeth said. “I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit.”

I glanced at her, frowning. “We can’t use phones, right?” I asked.

“I’m not talking about phones.”

Then what was she talking about? Email? Morse code? Sending a hand-written letter via carrier pigeon?

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn’t sure what Annabeth was looking for. I honestly don’t know what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t for her to guide us to an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. Knowing how we would look to a passerbyer, we didn’t want to risk getting arrested.

My dad eyed the machinery, calculating. He hummed. “Let us hope that Iris allows such… improvised conditions.”

“What do you mean?” I muttered to him while Grover and Annabeth rummaged through their pockets for change. I quickly took two quarters out of my pocket and passed it to Annabeth when she glanced at me, clearly annoyed by our lack of resources.

“The gods are irregular in what they allow and what they don’t,” Perseus answered simply. He… probably didn’t realize that I was asking what Iris had to do with this. “I very rarely required Iris’ services whilst I was alive, so I am unaware of what she would consider disrespectful or not.”

“What in Olympus’ name are you talking about,” Odysseus said blankly.

Perseus frowned at him, tilting his head. He looked confused, which was a surprisingly rare thing for him now that my dads didn’t freak out at the mere sight of a cell phone. “What do you mean?”

I made sure Grover and Annabeth weren’t paying attention before saying, “He’s asking why you’re talking about Iris.”

He blinked, glancing between me and Odysseus before finally settling on my papa. “Do you… not know what Iris messaging is?”

Now Odysseus looked confused. “What?”

“Iris messaging,” my dad said slowly, as if waiting for one of us to pop up and say ‘oh yeah! Iris messaging!’

We didn’t do that.

I would forever remember the stunned expression on my dad’s face when he realized we had no idea what he was talking about.

“I thought you knew,” he breathed.

“Knew what?” Odysseus snapped.

“Iris messaging,” Perseus repeated, growing increasingly desperate for someone to understand what he was saying. “Sending messages through the personification of the rainbow?”

Odysseus stared at him, blinked. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Percy!” Annabeth interrupted whatever my dad was about to say. “What are you doing? Get over here!”

I spared my dads a look before turning around and walking over to where my friends were standing, the car wash’s spray gun in Grover’s hand.

“What exactly are we doing?” I asked.

“Iris messaging,” Grover said. “We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn’t as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping.”

Seriously, what were they talking about?

Grover inserted the quarters into the machine and set the knob to Fine Mist. “Iris messaging,” he repeated.

When no recognition appeared on my face, Annabeth sighed tiredly.

“The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods,” she explained. She sounded like how she usually did when she was educating me on something I didn’t know about (or at least, something I was pretending to not know about), but this time she sounded less annoyed. Or maybe that was just the exhaustion. “If you know how to ask, and she’s not busy, she’ll do the same for half-bloods.”

I eyed my dads. Odysseus still looked confused and Perseus had his arms crossed, seeming to have given up on explaining. “You summon the goddess with a spray gun?”

Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. “Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow.”

Sure enough, late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors.

Annabeth held her palm out to me. “Drachma, please.”

I handed her the one I had leftover from Medusa’s place.

She raised the coin over her head. “O’ Goddess, accept our offering.”

She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.

“Half-Blood Hill,” Annabeth requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy-haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.

Odysseus muttered quietly, “What?”

“Luke!” I called.

He turned, eyes wide. I could swear he was standing three feet in front of me through a screen of mist, except I could only see the part of him that appeared in the rainbow.

“Percy!” His scarred face broke into a grin. “Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine,” Annabeth said. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her relax. She seemed more… assured. She glanced around the porch of the Big House a bit, frowning. “We thought that Chiron—”

“He’s down at the cabins.” Luke’s smile faded. “We’re having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover alright?”

“I’m right here,” Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke’s line of vision. “What kind of issues?”

Just then, a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.

Perseus hissed in irritation, shifting. He eyed the speakers with distaste, his nails digging into his skin from how aggressively he was clenching his hands. Without a word, Odysseus gently guided him to hide his head in the crook of his neck. Odysseus helped him block out the music while scowling at the car.

“Chiron had to—what’s that noise?” Luke yelled.

“I’ll take care of it!” Annabeth yelled back. “Grover, come on!”

“What?” Grover said. “But—”

“Give Percy the nozzle and come on!” she ordered.

Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle of Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Annabeth.

I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Luke.

“Chiron had to break up a fight,” Luke shouted to me over the music. I had to resist the urge to claw at my skin from how loud it was. If it was that bad for me, I could only imagine how much it was bothering Perseus since he had more sensitive hearing than Odysseus and I. “Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus—Poseidon standoff. We’re still not sure how—probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It’s shaping up like the Trojan War all over again—” Odysseus scoffed at that and Luke glanced to the side. I peeked at where he was looking, but I only saw my dads, so I had no idea what he saw, “—Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus.”

It really was shaping up like the Trojan War. In the next stall, I heard Annabeth and some guy arguing with each other, then the music’s volume decreased drastically. However, my dad didn’t move away from Odysseus, still dealing with the after-effects of the music. I did not like that driver very much, and I didn’t even know what the guy looked like.

“So what’s your status?” Luke asked me, diverting my attention back to him. “Chiron will be sorry he missed you.”

I told him pretty much everything, including my dreams. It felt so good to see him, to feel like I was back at camp even for a few minutes, that I didn’t realize how long I had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine, and I realized I only had one more minute before the water shut off.

“I wish I could be there,” Luke told me. “We can’t help much from here, I’m afraid, but listen… it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the Winter Solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him.”

I turned to see what Odysseus thought about what Luke was saying, disguising it as me just looking around for anybody wandering nearby. He was frowning, brows furrowed in thought. He caught me looking at him and said, “We’ll talk later.”

I glanced back at Luke. “But Chiron said the gods can’t take each other’s magic items directly.”

“That’s true,” Luke said, looking troubled. “Still… Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You’d have to be invisible.”

We were both silent until Luke seemed to realize what he’d said.

“Oh, hey,” he protested. “I didn’t mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never… I mean, she’s like a little sister to me.”

I wondered if Annabeth would like that description. She seemed to think of Luke in the same light as he did. In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the car peeled out of the car wash.

“You’d better go see what that was,” Luke said. “Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I’ll feel better if I know they’ve done you some good.”

“Oh, yeah!” I tried not to sound like a guilty liar. “Yeah, they’ve come in handy.”

“Really?” He grinned. “They fit and everything?”

The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.

“Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver,” Luke called, his voice getting fainter. “And tell Grover it’ll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just—”

But the mist was gone, and Luke’s image faded to nothing. I was alone in a wet, empty car wash stall, my dads silent beside me.

Annabeth and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw my face. Annabeth’s smile faded. “What happened, Percy? What did Luke say?”

“Not much,” I lied, my stomach feeling as empty as a Big Three cabin. “Come on, let’s find some dinner.”

A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. All around us, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas.

Finally, the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow skeptically. “Well?”

I said, “We, um, want to order dinner.”

“You kids have money to pay for it?”

Grover’s lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. Annabeth looked ready to pass out from hunger.

I was trying to think up a sob story for the waitress when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.

All conversation in the diner stopped as the driver stepped off and approached the diner. He shoved the doors open and the atmosphere suddenly felt… oppressive. Perseus, who’d finally recovered enough from the music, narrowed his eyes. Odysseus looked more neutral, but he was also tense. Everyone in the restaurant, besides Annabeth, Grover, and I, rose as if they were hypnotized. Slowly, the man raised his hand and they all sat down again, going back to their conversations as if a man in traditional Greek armor and—I did a double take—vulture wings hadn’t just walked into the restaurant.

With dawning horror, I realized who this guy was.

The waitress blinked as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, “You kids have the money to pay for it?”

The God of War said, “It’s on me.” He slid onto our booth, right across from me. One of his wings crowded Annabeth against the window, which he noticed. Without a word, his wings… disappeared? What the—y’know what, I didn’t have the energy to think on that.

He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, “Go on. The children need food. Just look at them,” he gestured towards us, still facing the poor woman. “Skin and bones.” I couldn’t see his eyes under his helmet, but his stare was heavy. “Are you really going to let them starve?”

Slowly, the waitress shook her head, face pale. She backed away, towards the kitchen, never looking away. She seemed scared to turn her back on him, waiting until the door was right there to jerk around and hurry out.

Once she was gone, Ares looked at me. Now that I could see him closer up, I noticed some things about his appearance. His helmet resembled a vulture, the center bit over his nose and in between his eyes looked like a vulture’s skull, and the sides of it looked like wings. On his arms were bronze bracers, similar to his armor, which was cut to show off his arms—and the multitude of scars. There was some fur—possibly wolf’s fur?—pinned over his armor. That, combined with his stature and the fact I couldn’t see his face, made him utterly terrifying.

Ares tilted his head curiously. “So,” he began. “You’re old Seaweed’s kid, hmm?”

I didn’t say anything, staring at him with distrust. What did he want?

Ares was quiet for a bit, tapping his finger on the table before pausing, staring at something to my left.

Oh shit. I forgot about my dads.

The God of War made direct eye contact with Perseus, who stared back, unwavering.

“This,” Ares decided, contemplating, “isn’t going to work.”

Suddenly, he stood, and the world faded away.

Not in the whole ‘I passed out’ way but in the ‘the world actually faded away, where am I’ way.

The tables, the people, my friends, the entire restaurant, faded and I stumbled, no longer supported by my seat, and fell over. I had the worst dizzy spell I’d ever experienced and it took me an embarrassingly long time to recover. When I was finally able to sit up without almost vomiting, I looked around the new area I was in.

“What—?” I was interrupted.

“Well,” Ares said, standing a couple yards away from us. There was a blood-tinted spear in his hand, probably as tall as me. “That was pathetic to watch.” His stare was still unyielding as he mumbled to himself, “Maybe I should’ve given a warning before using Blind Rage.”

Blind Rage?

When the nausea fully settled, I sat up a bit more, looking around the area. The restaurant was gone, replaced with… an arena? No, no, it wasn’t an arena—though it looked close to it. We were in a blank void-like space, the void a dark red. We were in the center of a circle that was closed off by a bunch of large, shattered swords, spears, ruined shields, you name it. The more I stared at the void, the more disoriented I got and suddenly the nausea was back. I glanced away from it and towards Ares. Faintly, I noticed the sound of a clock ticking in the background, slow and quiet—wait.

A clock? I blinked, focusing on the sound that echoed through whatever this place was. It sounded… familiar. But the only other place I’d ever heard it was—

“The Minotaur,” I breathed. My dads glanced at me in concern, Perseus still watching Ares warily. “He—” I looked back up at Ares, “—you were the one who helped me with it, weren’t you?”

Ares was silent, unmoving as he contemplated his answer. I was a bit surprised that he wasn’t questioning me about why my dads were with me, like Dionysus did.

“Yes,” he said eventually. “I was.”

“Percy,” Odysseus said, turning to face me entirely. He was kneeling beside me while Perseus remained standing. I faintly noted that he’d subtly moved in front of us, like a shield or something. “Little Prince, what are you talking about?”

Before I could answer, Ares said, “When he was fighting the Minotaur, I granted him my blessing,” he muttered, “some of it, at least.”

“What for?” Perseus demanded. I was almost surprised by how venomous his tone was.

Ares tilted his head. “Must I give you a reason?”

“What the fuck do you think?” Perseus seethed, slowly moving closer to Ares. “What kind of father would I be if I let gods like you—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Odysseus lunged forward and grabbed Perseus’ arm, dragging him away from Ares and closer to me.

“Shut up, Perseus,” Odysseus hissed in his ear, just as sharply. Slowly, I moved to stand up. “What are you doing, you blasted fool? This is his domain—”

He said something else, but I couldn’t quite catch it over Ares’ laughter. I couldn’t see their expressions very well, but I could tell that—whatever Ares was doing—was really pissing them off.

“Oh, I assure you, King of Ithaca,” Ares said, amusement heavy in his tone. “It takes much more to anger me.”

Perseus moved to say something else, probably another insult, when Odysseus hurriedly put a hand over his mouth, glaring daggers at both him and Ares.

The God of War clearly still found this entertaining, but he looked away from my dads and towards me, instead.

“Well then, boy,” he said, moving in my direction. He stopped when Perseus started to reach for the sword at his hip, even though my dad likely couldn’t do anything anyway. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You’ve caused quite the stir in Olympus.”

I didn’t say anything. Ares’ tone… it was casual, but I could tell there was some underlying tinge to it. Was it irritation? Curiosity? It was best not to say something for now, just until I was able to guess what his motives were.

Ares didn’t seem to take offense to my lack of answer, which I admit might not be the greatest thing to do when speaking with a god. “Mmh,” he hummed. “I’m not surprised. Dionysus did say you could be a quiet one, often.”

“Dionysus?” Odysseus said incredulously.

Ares ignored him. “That’s fine. All you need to do is—”

“What do you want?” I asked him.

He looked mildly surprised but he shook it off quickly. “I heard that you and your friends need to get to LA,” Ares said mildly.

I frowned. “We do. What would you like us to do in return for your help?”

“You catch on fast.” I was briefly taken off-guard by the slight pride I heard in his voice.

“So you do want something in return?” I questioned. “Is it a quest?” He nodded. “Is it dangerous? Could I die?”

Ares laughed at that. “Tell me, boy, what godly quest isn’t dangerous?”

I didn’t say anything because fuck, he was right. There were probably a couple that weren’t particularly dangerous, but the vast majority of them were. Yet again, Ares looked unbothered by my lack of response, moving on quickly.

“You see,” he began, “a bit ago, I had some… difficulties, and my shield was lost.”

“Your shield?” I muttered. “Aren’t you a god? Why can’t you retrieve it yourself?”

I expected a quick response from Ares, maybe something like ‘why do that when I can make you do it instead?’ or something. All I got was silence.

Faintly, I heard the clock quicken. It was unsettling.

“For curiosity’s sake,” he said finally. “You defeated Medusa, you evaded Echidna. I want to see what you can do.”

“You—”

I cut Odysseus off, ignoring his disgruntled expression at being interrupted. “So you want me to find your shield?”

Ares nodded. “Yes. If you reclaim my shield, then I will grant you and your friends a way to your destination.”

I thought about it for a bit. Ares was a god, so his help would be greatly appreciated—especially if he could get us a ride to LA; then again, he was a god. If we failed, he could easily fuck things up if he felt like it. Could we take the chance?

After some quick consideration, I decided that my answer was gods, I hope so.

“Okay,” I said, despite my papa shaking his head. “Where did you lose it?”

“The ocean.”

“What the fuck.”

Why did the Fates hate me?

At some point, Odysseus must’ve lowered his hand as Perseus said, “Why do you need our son’s help? What about the sea spirits? What about Poseidon? Couldn’t the God of the Sea reclaim your shield for you?”

I waited for Ares’s reply, but he didn’t give one. “Once I release you from Blind Rage,” he began and I remembered that I’d forgotten to ask about what Blind Rage was, “you will eat and then set off to find my shield.”

“Where in the ocean did you lose it?” I asked hurriedly. I tried to not think about the fact that this meant I had to go into the sea to get him his shield. “We can’t just search through it all!”

“You will know,” was all he said.

And then the world faded. Again.

Within a couple of disorienting moments, we were back in the restaurant, and Annabeth and Grover continued moving as if nothing had happened. Ares was still standing and he glanced at me, gave a nod, and turned to leave.

Just as he left, the waitress came up to us with three trays of food. I was about to panic—we still didn’t have money and Ares had just left—until I noticed the money lying in the center of the table. Blankly, the waitress told us the cost and I counted the money.

It was the exact amount we needed; not a cent more, not a cent less.

I gave her the money, distributing the food amongst my friends and I wordlessly. Annabeth and Grover were still staring at the restaurant door in shock. My dads were also quiet. They seemed to be reeling from the encounter with Ares as well.

“Percy,” Annabeth said eventually, grey eyes wide with confusion. She reminded me of an owl, which I suppose was a given since, well, y’know. “What—?”

“We have another quest,” was all I said.

I started eating and ignored the countless questions they bombarded me with.

Chapter Text

“What do you mean Ares gave us a quest?”

I found it surprisingly difficult to meet Annabeth’s eyes. “He offered to help if we retrieved his shield,” I repeated yet again. “I… we need all the help we can get to make it to LA.”

Annabeth frowned. “And how do you know we can trust him? Gods can be tricky with their words. You never know what they really want until it’s too late.”

“I know that,” I argued. “But what else could I have done? Said no? What if he got angry about that? Even if he really does have ulterior motives, I didn’t have a choice.”

That seemed to convince her, though she didn’t look all too happy about it.

“Fine,” she grit out, crossing her arms. “Let’s find his shield then.”

Grover glanced at her warily. “Where did he say it was?”

“The ocean,” I said plainly.

He blinked. “What?”

“He said that he’d encountered some trouble,” I explained. I still didn’t know what he could’ve encountered that caused him to lose his shield. Another god, maybe? Or a really powerful monster? Or did he just throw his shield in for the heck of it? To be honest, I wouldn’t put it past him or any other god. “He dropped it into the ocean, and then decided to come to us for help.”

“He came to us and not Lord Poseidon?” Annabeth said skeptically.

I shrugged. I didn’t have any idea why he wouldn’t do that. Ares had said that it was because he wanted to see what I could do, but I could tell there was more to it than that.

“He gave you the location, right?” Grover asked, still munching on the aluminum foil that our food came with. Odysseus still looked mildly unsettled by it, but he didn’t say anything. Perseus didn’t seem to care at this point.

“Sort of? I asked him where it was and he only said ‘you’ll know’.”

“Ominous,” Grover remarked helpfully. “So… how does it work? Do you have a divinely implanted GPS or something?”

“I don’t think that—”

“Wait,” Annabeth interrupted. Grover and I paused. “Ares said he lost it in the ocean, right?”

“Yes? Why?”

Annabeth blinked at me as if this was the strangest thing she’d ever heard. “The ocean?” she repeated.

“… yes?”

She blinked again. “Colorado’s land-locked.”

I stared at her, processing.

“Oh my gods.”

Grover put his head in his hands, muttering curses that I never thought he would’ve said before.

“So…” I said after a long, drawn-out silence. “I guess we should start looking for a beach?”

Annabeth stabbed the remnants of her burger with the diner-supplied knife.

“… beach it is.”

—

“Why the fuck does Denver have so many beaches.”

“It’s not even that many,” Grover muttered to me.

“There’s still too much,” I complained, glaring at the tourist map we could find in the diner.

“It doesn’t matter, Percy,” Annabeth said. Her eyes were narrowed in annoyance. “We just need to figure out which beach the shield’s at. If it even is in Denver.”

“If it’s not, I’m going to figure out how to kill a god,” my dad said helpfully.

“Nobody cares, Perseus,” Odysseus told him blankly, glancing over the map with tired eyes. Perseus turned to him silently, waiting for him to realize what he said. Odysseus finally realized and scowled at him. “Stop looking at me like that, you fuck.”

I blinked at them before turning back to the map. I’d heard my papa swear more in the past week than I had my entire life. I wonder what he was like during his journey home…

I shook that off for now. I could ask him later, right now I needed to focus on figuring out which beach the shield was submerged in.

“What about this one?” Grover asked, pointing at one closer to the middle of the guide.

I contemplated giving it a chance when something in my mind said no.

“No,” I repeated. “Not that one.”

Annabeth and Grover looked at me weirdly but went along with it; Annabeth pointing at a different one.

“This one?”

No.

“No.”

Grover hummed. “What about here?”

No.

“Not there.”

Annabeth moved her hand to the left. “Here?”

No.

“Nope.”

Grover stared at the guide for a couple of moments before deciding on another beach further to the right. “Here?”

I opened my mouth to say ‘no,’ when I heard a very apparent yes.

“That’s the one,” I said immediately.

Quickly, Annabeth turned the map further in her direction, squinting at it. “It’s relatively close. If we start walking now, we should get there in about ten minutes.”

“There’s a bus stop,” I pointed out. In perfect unison, both my dads and my best friends gave me matching looks. I wisely said, “Never mind.”

“Let’s just get going,” Grover said tiredly.

—

Like Annabeth said, we were able to get there within ten minutes, give or take. The closer we got, the more desperate I was to get there. Something was pulling me closer, beckoning me to hurry up.

Perseus’ lip curled in distaste when he noticed but he didn’t say anything. It’d been a while since he’d shown such animosity towards a god (that wasn’t Zeus) so it was a bit surprising to me.

Regardless, we kept walking and eventually reached our destination.

“Nobody’s here,” Grover remarked absently, glancing around. “Can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“We don’t have to worry about casualties this time at least,” Annabeth muttered, a frown tugging down her lips. She surveyed the beach. “Hopefully the shield’s here.”

“It should be,” I said, slowly moving closer to the waves despite the parts of my mind that were screaming at me to turn around and run for the hills.

“It’d better be for Ares’ sake,” Perseus scowled. I didn’t bother to glance at him; I could already tell he was relatively irritated.

As I got closer to the water, I paused, thinking. If I could get Grover and Annabeth to leave, I could ask my dads about the nereid. It wasn’t the best timing but it’d likely be the only chance I’d get for a while.

Now, I just needed to figure out a way to get them to go away…

Before I had the chance to come up with some lie or excuse, Grover said, “Annabeth, how about you and I check out one of the other beaches nearby?”

Annabeth frowned. “Why?”

Grover shrugged, straight-faced. “Just in case,” he said. “What if Ares is trying to trick us and the shield’s actually at a different beach?”

She pursed her lips, thinking.

“No,” she said. “Let’s wait until Percy’s searched.”

Fuck.

“C’mon Annabeth,” Grover continued, “it’s not—”

“What if Percy runs into something down there and he gets hurt?” she argued. “What if something stands out here waiting for him? He wouldn’t have anyone to warn him!”

“I’ll be fine,” I chimed in. I was about to say something else when she shot me a look. I shut up.

“He has Riptide,” Grover said, shifting his left leg in a… certainly unnatural way. “He’ll be fine! He already fought Medusa and Echidna!”

“Still—”

Before she could finish, Grover suddenly cried out in agonizing pain, falling over. Annabeth and I immediately panicked, Annabeth kneeling down beside him.

“Grover?” she asked, worried. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“SHELL!” he yelled. “I STEPPED ON A SHELL!”

Annabeth blinked at him. “What?”

“I stepped on a shell!” Grover lamented, pain lacing his voice. “It stabbed me in the hoof!”

“Oh my gods.”

I glanced at Grover’s left hoof. There were small specks of blood but the wound didn’t look all that bad.

“It’s not—”

Grover shot me a look.

Never mind.

Annabeth, having successfully avoided a heart attack, rolled her eyes. “Grover,” she said blankly, “it’s hardly even bleeding.”

“I’ve been wounded! Felled!” Grover cried, draping his left arm over his forehead. He grabbed my arm, tears in his eyes. “Percy, if I don’t make it—”

“—it’s a shell—” Annabeth argued.

“—tell the camp how brave I was!”

Out of pure shock, I said, “Uh—sure?”

Grover fell back onto the ground, covering his eyes with his arm. “I can see the light,” he muttered eventually. Annabeth scoffed harshly. “I’m going into Elysium! Oh, it’s beautiful!”

“Grover.”

“The grass is so green!”

“Grover.”

“The sky is so bright and blue!”

“GROVER!”

He tore his arm off his face. “What?”

“You’re fine,” she scolded.

“I’m not,” he proclaimed dramatically, covering his eyes again. “I’m dying. I’m bleeding out!”

“You are not—”

“Tell my story!” Grover sobbed.

“Oh my—fine!” Annabeth yelled, moving to help Grover up. “Come on, you drama queen,” she snarked. “Let’s find you some… bandaids or something.”

She glanced at me. “Don’t die. And don’t get into any trouble. If you find a monster, don’t engage it alone and—”

“Yes, I know,” I groaned. “I’m not five.”

She gave me a stern look that looked surprisingly like the look Odysseus gave me whenever I did something stupid, but she didn’t say anything else, slowly, painstakingly, guiding Grover out of the beach—all while he was still lamenting about how he was nearing the end of his time.

“Well,” Odysseus said, blinking. “That’s one way to get them to leave.”

“I didn’t even do anything,” I breathed.

And that was when I realized that I could talk to my dads freely since Annabeth and Grover were gone.

I turned to face them and accidentally interrupted my dad, who was about to say something, although that was quickly forgotten, “I want to talk.”

My dads paused, glancing at me with matching questioning looks.

Odysseus shifted. “What about?”

I didn’t even need to think before saying, “The nereid.”

My dads were silent. They moved to talk with each other quietly but I was so irritated with them always doing that, that I ended up yelling, “Stop that! Why do you keep doing this? Just tell me already!”

“Percy,” Perseus warned. His voice was calm, but there was a lilt of scolding. “Do not use that tone with us, understand?”

I glared at him for a bit and he glared back. After a couple of moments, I sighed, deflating,

“I’m sorry,” I said. It’d been a while since he’d used that tone with me. “I’m just…”

Odysseus sighed. “You’re frustrated,” he said, “because we’re keeping secrets from you. Because we keep excluding you from our conversations.”

“A bit, yeah,” I forced out. It took some effort—I didn’t exactly feel very good about it—but I got it out.

“That’s fine, Percy, you’re allowed to be frustrated. But these conversations we’re having, we’re not purposefully trying to exclude you from them.”

“There’s a time and a place for everything,” Perseus continued for him. “We were merely trying to see if now was the right time to be having this conversation.”

I kicked at a small shell. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Perseus hesitated. “It’s… what happened with the nereid isn’t exactly something that you should be thinking about right now.”

“Does it have something to do with the water?” I asked. Judging from the way Perseus’ frown tightened, that was exactly what it was about. “What even happened? Is she dangerous? Did someone send her to kill me?”

“No,” Perseus hurried to say. “No, that’s not what happened.” He paused for a moment. “At least. I hope not. We suspected that she might’ve been sent by the Sea God but—”

“Perseus,” Odysseus hissed. Perseus shut up.

“Sent by the Sea God?” I said, incredulous. “What do you mean—?”