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halothenthehorns · 3 months

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Chapter 9: MY COOKIES GET SCORCHED

Percy looked brutally offended at the new chapter title Magnus read. Even if they weren't blue, cookies were as sacred a food to him as ambrosia! This must be the most horrible mother to ever exist to do such a thing!

I don't recommend shadow travel if you're scared of:

a) The dark

b) Cold shivers up your spine

c) Strange noises

d) Going so fast you feel like your face is peeling off

"That sounds like the best rollercoaster in existence," Alex savored every word he'd just heard.

"I've never been jealous of a monster before, but that made it come close," Thalia agreed. Running as fast as an Olympic medalist and never growing tired was exhilarating, but still, the Hunters could only travel so fast and no where near immortal speed.

Percy was shifting around in his seat with a wicked smile like he'd just swallowed a bag of blue jelly beans. Blackjack might have some competition for new best ride. "Hey Nico, can you make a few more dog whistles for her? I don't know how else to call her."

"Uh, yeah, I'd be happy to," Nico grinned in surprise. It was the first time Percy had ever asked him to do something useful. Even if the process wasn't fairly easy to him by this point, he'd have studied all he needed to. Also, there was the sudden painful kind of joy in his heart as he realized, Percy didn't associate him with something bad!

"Start charging a drachma a ride at camp, just for her to run them across the field, you'd be rich in no time," Jason chuckled.

"Can you imagine the wavers they'd have to sign without a safety harness on that thing," Magnus shivered in revulsion.

"That thing would make sure all hands and feet came out the same way they came in," Percy sniffed. He had all his limbs to prove it.

"Does the feeling ever wear off?" Will asked Nico eagerly.

"Not really," Nico grinned. He didn't have anything to compare the feeling to, he'd never sat around and ridden a roller coaster, but he still looked forward to doing it every time. The rush was like nothing else he'd ever felt.

"I'd love a ride sometime," Will's smile went from languid to ecstatic in a flash. "Climbing the lava wall gets dull after the 70th win. Most of the kids won't even play with me anymore." He seemed to have a knack for feeling the grooves in the rocks for the next lift, and he'd been there so long he knew all the lava flows by heart.

"Any time," Nico's heart was racing faster than any shadow traveling had ever caused him. He hoped that never wore off either.

In other words, I thought it was awesome.

Okay, this might be the best day of Nico's life. Percy actually thought a power he could use was cool for once?!

But when Will laughed along with the others for Percy just getting something so fun without any real consequences for all of five seconds, it felt deeper. Percy's wild smile and turning to Annabeth and promising her a ride next already made the pride start to fizzle, but Will still being here felt as good as it had from the start.

So maybe this was just the best week of his life.

One minute I couldn't see anything. I could only feel Mrs. O'Leary's fur and my fingers wrapped around the bronze links of her dog collar.

The next minute the shadows melted into a new scene. We were on a cliff in the woods of Connecticut. At least, it looked like Connecticut from the few times I'd been there:

"Because you're such an expert in Connecticut-ese?" Thalia snorted.

"You've traveled through Massachusetts once and Thalia nearly set it on fire, I don't consider either of you experts on the terrain," Magnus scoffed.

Percy was studying Annabeth for reasons other than describing trees. Just a county line or two from someone he wished she'd never met. If things were normal, if their life was like any other kids, Annabeth could have spent her time down near Harvard and Luke could have stayed far away one state over, a world apart.

Their life wasn't like that though, and there was no point dwelling on it. Because then he never would have met her either.

lots of trees, low stone walls, big houses. Down one side of the cliff, a highway cut through a ravine. Down the other side was someone's backyard. The property was huge—more wilderness than lawn. The house was a two-story white Colonial.

Annabeth gave him a proud smile for recognizing that kind of architectural style. Percy grinned back, but the smile started to flicker as he studied that expression...his headache started creeping back as he tried to remember the last time she'd smiled like that at him outside of this room-

Magnus clearly kept reading before the two could verbalize anything to sappy.

Despite the fact that it was right on the other side of the hill from a highway, it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. I could see a light glowing in the kitchen window. A rusty old swing set stood under an apple tree.

The look on Percy's face ruffled Thalia's feathers. She could see that quiet judgment she recognized from Luke. He was sizing this place up as a mark, trying to figure out how much it was worth, and clearly judging the occupants unworthy.

I couldn't imagine living in a house like this, with an actual yard and everything. I'd lived in a tiny apartment or a school dorm my whole life. If this was Luke's home, I wondered why he'd ever wanted to leave.

Alex tried to repress a look of disdain on Percy. If he had to ask than he'd never get it. The secrets that lived in the walls of houses never reflected the structure it was built for.

Mrs. O'Leary staggered. I remembered what Nico had said about shadow travel draining her, so I slipped off her back. She let out a huge toothy yawn that would've scared a T. rex, then turned in a circle and flopped down so hard the ground shook.

Magnus swallowed a whimper but decided it was best to meet her after she'd shadow traveled then. Maybe seeing her asleep would be a smidge less terrifying.

"She deserves about a t-rex's weight in stakes," Thalia sounded almost Sally-like.

"I'll hunt her down something not endangered if I can," Percy uneasily promised. He was pretty sure Mr. D must have been conjuring up food all this time to keep her fed, because the sudden budget of keeping her stomach full made his brain hurt.

Nico appeared right next to me, as if the shadows had darkened and created him. He stumbled, but I caught his arm.

A rush of worry caught Percy up as he glanced at the guy. How many times had he done this and run into a monster? How vulnerable was Nico running all around the world by himself no matter how tough he acted nowadays? It would still never sit right with Percy he seemed so adamant he didn't need anybody's help when he nearly crash-landed. Had he dangled from Percy's fire escape upon landing and only just managed to pull himself up when Percy came out?

Nico was looking stubbornly ahead like nothing had happened. Percy really hoped this odd friendship with Will would convince him what he'd never been able to, that Camp had changed since Percy's first few disastrous months there. The kids would accept Nico if they'd all give each other a chance. He still wanted to believe that anyways.

"I'm okay," he managed, rubbing his eyes.

Will bit at his lip in worry, wondering more every time why Nico's powers affected him so much more than Percy's or Thalia's ever seemed to. She never even seemed winded from her stunts. Percy only felt the maximum of his exhaustion when he pulled a new stunt and still walked away from blowing up a volcano with just a mild vacation.

Nico had apparently been shadow traveling for months. His body should have adapted to it and built up a resilience. Was it because he was a few years younger than them? It could relate to Nico's eating habits, Percy rarely missed a meal and Thalia obviously fended for herself well from what he could tell.

Nico sighed beside him, and then reached over and prodded him in the cheek. Will smiled and put it away for now. Nico hadn't once tried to avoid eating in days, no need to pester him until it became a recurring problem. Nico still wouldn't promise he'd stay at Camp though, so Will wasn't sure how to at least impress upon him the importance of not trying to sustain on shadows. He bet they didn't taste nearly as good.

"How did you do that?"

"Practice. A few times running into walls. A few accidental trips to China."

Alex couldn't help a cackling laugh at the idea even if he felt bad for it. He'd only been shapeshifting with purpose for a few weeks before he suddenly just couldn't in here. He'd had one to many paws stuck, ears fluffed, and tails that wouldn't vanish to know how that went.

"How many is a few?" Jason asked with instant interest.

Nico started counting on his hand. He seemed to give up when he left the first five digits. "Can't give an exact number anyways," he was probably breaking Jason's poor heart with such an admittance. "It's not like I landed with a GPS." Man were those handy when he figured them out and started stealing them. Sadly they got easily broken upon his several pitiful landings. "When I figure out the writing on the nearest building isn't English I try again without figuring it out most times anyways."

"At least I never accidentally ate salt water when I didn't have to practice," Percy told Nico in sympathy.

Nico nodded without comment. Percy really didn't have to train at anything, he'd been perfect and natural and Fabio-esque from the moment he met that minotaur. It didn't feel fair how anyone could be that awesome. At least he didn't run around with his shirt off.

"I remember the first time I tried to summon lightning," Thalia chuckled. "I missed the tree I'd been aiming for and hit someone's car a dozen feet away, which in turn blew up and knocked me the hell out. I woke up in a hospital and had to split real quick."

Mrs. O'Leary started snoring. If it hadn't been for the roar of traffic behind us, I'm sure she would've woken up the whole neighborhood.

"Are you going to take a nap too?" I asked Nico.

He shook his head. "The first time I shadow traveled, I passed out for a week.

Will tucked Nico a little closer into his side, he couldn't help it. He just imagined him in some field of dead grass without a pillow and blanket, possibly raining or the sun baking him, alone. He'd done something amazing and should have had someone there to high-five him with a huge jug of Gatorade and peanut butter cookies instead of sitting up in nothing but an old black jacket.

Magnus didn't say that casually at any rate, he sounded plenty concerned, but he glanced at Nico who shrugged because that wasn't the first, or most likely the last time it would happen, so he read on; but Will still hated how common this was to him.

Now it just makes me a little drowsy, but I can't do it more than once or twice a night. Mrs. O'Leary won't be going anywhere for a while."

"So we've got some quality time in Connecticut."

"You could visit the Mark Twain Museum," Magnus groaned with envy.

"They could have visited the Gillette Castle," Annabeth grinned.

"Look at you two already bonding over America's fifth most boring state," Alex chuckled.

"Why do you have those ranked?" Percy frowned.

"You're just afraid to ask where New York is," he smirked.

Percy didn't answer because he didn't feel like murdering Alex right now if he was right and it wasn't number fifty.

I gazed at the white Colonial house. "What now?"

"We ring the doorbell," Nico said.

"What do you usually do at random people's houses Percy?" Thalia demanded, anything to keep the reading paused for an extra breath or two. "TP it? Egg it? I hope you don't play ding-dong-ditch."

"I save that for special occasions, like Halloween at school," Percy rolled his eyes.

If I were Luke's mom, I would not have opened my door at night for two strange kids.

"Liar," Will accused. "You've got your moms sweep um' up and keep um' down pat." Half the kids at camp looked up to Percy in one way or another for his welcoming vibe alone. Anybody could go up and talk to him and he usually answered with a smile. Sometimes even to Clarisse.

"My mom never let me get the door when she's home so this is invalid," Percy said with a strange expression on his face Will didn't understand until Magnus kept reading.

But I wasn't anything like Luke's mom.

I knew that even before we reached the front door. The sidewalk was lined with those little stuffed beanbag animals you see in gift shops. There were miniature lions, pigs, dragons, hydras, even a teeny Minotaur in a little Minotaur diaper. Judging from their sad shape, the beanbag creatures had been sitting out here a long time—since the snow melted last spring at least. One of the hydras had a tree sapling sprouting between its necks.

Okay, so that wasn't exactly normal, but Magnus was now imagining a situation similar to Annabeth's. Maybe Luke had a dozen siblings in his mortal home too and had felt neglected by a to busy mom?

The front porch was infested with wind chimes. Shiny bits of glass and metal clinked in the breeze. Brass ribbons tinkled like water and made me realize I needed to use the bathroom. I didn't know how Ms. Castellan could stand all the noise.

Alex had a ready, 'you live in the noisiest city in the world,' snip on his tongue, but he knew it wasn't the same. This was, excessive. Everything about what he'd heard so far was.

The front door was painted turquoise. The name CASTELLAN was written in English, and below in Greek: Διοικητής φρουρίου.

"Fascinating," Jason drew the word out in confusion though. It sounded like she was trying to be a very involved parent. Monsters were sensitive to noise and those windchimes could be a sensory deterrent? The toys were to help him learn the names of the beasts? He couldn't put his finger on what the problem was...but then he remembered Beryl Grace hadn't seemed the most stable parent from the little he'd gleaned of Thalia's interactions with her in the Underworld and he may not have the best marker for that even if he could remember.

Nico looked at me. "Ready?"

He'd barely tapped the door when it swung open.

"Luke!" the old lady cried happily.

She looked like someone who enjoyed sticking her fingers in electrical sockets. Her white hair stuck out in tufts all over her head. Her pink housedress was covered in scorch marks and smears of ash. When she smiled, her face looked unnaturally stretched, and the high-voltage light in her eyes made me wonder if she was blind.

"Oh, my dear boy!" She hugged Nico.

Which had really not helped the whole, growing more intolerant of being touched thing, he'd been developing. Something about her solid flesh and how she'd sprung at him. He'd been unprepared and unable to escape her grasp. He'd been growing a dislike of people initiating contact for so long that it still flabbergasted his own mind how soothing it felt to be under Will's arm.

I was trying to figure out why she thought Nico was Luke (they looked absolutely nothing alike), when she smiled at me and said, "Luke!"

She forgot all about Nico and gave me a hug. She smelled like burned cookies. She was as thin as a scarecrow, but that didn't stop her from almost crushing me.

Every new word Magnus said made the room feel more stifling. It was like running into someone on the street who felt the need to tell you their life story, the uncomfortableness of it just ramped up to maximum.

I would have run away from this too, Percy instantly knew. He wanted to back off the porch, possibly abandoning Nico and his own dog so he could get away faster. He'd never had first hand experience with people like this, no matter how many kids had called him crazy in his youth for the things he'd seen. She clearly didn't live in the same reality he did.

After the initial shock though, Annabeth watched Magnus read the rest a little to calmly. Something in her finally snapped in understanding. She slipped her hand into Percy's, but yet another guilty weight settled deep inside her as she realized why.

After her time on the streets, it wouldn't be uncommon to find someone exactly like this in the nearest alleyway.

"Come in!" she insisted. "I have your lunch ready!"

She ushered us inside. The living room was even weirder than the front lawn. Mirrors and candles filled every available space. I couldn't look anywhere without seeing my own reflection. Above the mantel, a little bronze Hermes flew around the second hand of a ticking clock. I tried to imagine the god of messengers ever falling in love with this old woman, but the idea was too bizarre.

Thalia kept the idea to herself she probably hadn't started this way when she caught a gods attention. Luke had given her a few vague details over time when she'd ranted about her mother too. It had brought them closer together those first weeks. Seeing it in person had nearly brought tears to her eyes. Her mother probably would have gone down a similar hill if Thalia had stuck around.

Then I noticed the framed picture on the mantel, and I froze. It was exactly like Rachel's sketch— Luke around nine years old, with blond hair and a big smile and two missing teeth. The lack of a scar on his face made him look like a different person—carefree and happy. How could Rachel have known about that picture?

Percy felt about ready to crawl out of his skin with stress. Remembering this place, something about Rachel and this woman, they were connected!

Annabeth squeezed his hand, hesitated only a moment and then tucked herself into his side. The way he'd wished she'd been there more times than he could ever count. His hand stayed tight between her as they rested on her knee. She bumped his shoulder and pressed their legs together, her hair falling across his neck and her ear resting against his. She was as close as their two beanbags would allow.

He momentarily considered flipping those other guys off their couches so those few loose beans wouldn't be in the way, but Magnus kept reading and it felt rude the longer he had to think on the thought while her breath distracted him tickling his cheek. His eyes darted over, and her eyes were wide open, but sad as they rested on the book. She needed this as much as he did.

Her eyes burned with tears she couldn't shed. She had a bad feeling if Rachel were her, her more crabby side would have come out right now. Had she seen the whole house? Had she seen this woman and more of Luke's life than Annabeth had in her moments there? It didn't surprise her the picture was what she would have focused on to draw, but it was far to close a reminder that Rachel easily could have stepped into her shoes and helped Percy understand this place better than she could have.

"This way, my dear!" Ms. Castellan steered me toward the back of the house. "Oh, I told them you would come back. I knew it!"

She sat us down at the kitchen table. Stacked on the counter were hundreds—I mean hundreds—of Tupperware boxes with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches inside. The ones on the bottom were green and fuzzy, like they'd been there for a long time. The smell reminded me of my sixth grade locker—and that's not a good thing.

On top of the oven was a stack of cookie sheets. Each one had a dozen burned cookies on it. In the sink was a mountain of empty plastic Kool-Aid pitchers. A beanbag Medusa sat by the faucet like she was guarding the mess.

Alex's eyes kept darting around the room. From the book to the door to every crack and again. He'd loathed being locked up in here from the start, but the lull of good food and time away from feeling as if Loki was watching his every step waiting for something had dulled it all pretty well until now.

This feeling made him want to run until he collapsed from exhaustion. This was when he'd go to the nearest junkyard and rip apart the biggest thing he could find with his bare hands until the blood made his fingers to slick to continue. It was a confined feeling he'd rather do anything than sit with.

The gods had done this. They'd left her like this and hadn't cared about the child also stumbling around.

Magnus glanced up from the book, caught his eye. The stormy gray color reminded him of his favorite days, where it threatened to rain all day but didn't, like the universe couldn't go through with its threat to make his day extra miserable. Just a break to not have to scramble for cover, that's all he needed sometimes.

His breaths started coming in and out slightly easier as Magnus turned to keep reading.

Ms. Castellan started humming as she got out peanut butter and jelly and started making a new sandwich. Something was burning in the oven. I got the feeling more cookies were on the way.

Percy swallowed a strong sense of disgust trying to overwhelm him. He hadn't gotten many moments like this with his mom at a young age, to much Gabe interfering, but to be feeling the few he did tainted and flipped on its head made him once again consider if this was some divine punishment from Hades in the afterlife. Showing him the hint of a life he could have had if things had gone worse for his mother.

Above the sink, taped all around the window, were dozens of little pictures cut from magazines and newspaper ads—pictures of Hermes from the FTD Flowers logo and Quickie Cleaners, pictures of the caduceus from medical ads.

My heart sank. I wanted to get out of that room, but Ms. Castellan kept smiling at me as she made the sandwich, like she was making sure I didn't bolt.

Nico coughed. "Urn, Ms. Castellan?"

"Mm?"

"We need to ask you about your son."

"Oh, yes! They told me he would never come back. But I knew better." She patted my cheek affectionately, giving me peanut butter racing stripes.

Annabeth just so happened to be resting against that cheek, so close her eyelashes were fluttering there. He could still smell that burnt cookie on the back of his tongue as his hand pulled hers to his knee instead so he could wrap his other hand around hers. He hated the part of himself still taken away that didn't know everything this place meant to her, but he got the idea. Of to many times her stepmom had left her out of this routine.

"When did you last see him?" Nico asked.

Her eyes lost focus.

"He was so young when he left," she said wistfully. "Third grade. That's too young to run away! He said he'd be back for lunch. And I waited. He likes peanut butter sandwiches and cookies and Kool-Aid. He'll be back for lunch very soon. . . ." Then she looked at me and smiled. "Why, Luke, there you are! You look so handsome. You have your father's eyes."

The strange thing was, most demigods had their immortal parent's eyes, from what Percy could tell. It was an odd connection he'd never thought about until he was sitting in that kitchen staring at this woman.

She turned toward the pictures of Hermes above the sink. "Now, there's a good man. Yes, indeed. He comes to visit me, you know."

Nico wasn't so sure how much of that was her delusion talking and how much was true. A guilty feeling turned on in the back of his mind that, of all those he had revisited, she had never seemed to make the list. Something about that place spooked him more than the Underworld did most people. Between the farm where his sister passed on, the cave where he'd seen the first hint of his mother, and even Camp, that house made him hesitate deep within to go back while he'd checked all others off an internal mental list to retrace his own steps and understand something of his past.

Luke was dead now. If Hermes was going to find a way to fix this, he'd have gotten off his immortal dead ass and done it already. Maybe Nico could take her to, to a place that knew how to make mortals like this more comfortable in their last span of life.

The clock kept ticking in the other room. I wiped the peanut butter off my face and looked at Nico pleadingly, like Can we get out of here now?

Magnus was more used to this than the general teenagers laughing around him he'd been getting to live in these past few days. The slightly off-kilter ramblings, the way they spoke with such confidence things that just weren't right. The old man who circled the block three times before crawling into his hoarder's house because he felt someone watching him. The bag lady who carefully monitored every item in her shopping cart in case someone wanted to steal a precious trinket she'd dug out of the trash. The teenager stumbling around the parking lot in molding clothes and a hospital gown mumbling about the government.

So the way he read as if this were any other day in Percy's life, almost easier to take in than his monster escapades, deeply disturbed everyone but Percy, Will, and Jason.

Then the three of them seemed to realize it as they glanced around the room, and the connection of why wasn't a great feeling that already amplified an existing one plenty right now.

"Ma'am," Nico said. "What, uh . . . what happened to your eyes?"

Her gaze seemed fractured—like she was trying to focus on him through a kaleidoscope. "Why, Luke, you know the story. It was right before you were born, wasn't it? I'd always been special, able to see through the . . . whatever-they-call-it."

"The Mist?" I said.

"Yes, dear." She nodded encouragingly. "And they offered me an important job. That's how special I was!"

I glanced at Nico, but he looked as confused as I was.

"Always great to know we share something as simple as that," Percy said with an awkward smile.

Nobody had spoken in the room since Ms. Castallen had opened the door. Percy doing so now sent a jolt of reality through the room like a fresh sea breeze they needed.

"Yeah Percy," Nico smiled back less awkwardly than he'd ever believed in his life he could. "Because our dads on the godly side aren't nearly as interesting as, you know, confusion. The thing every mammal and a least a few birds have felt."

"Exactly, universal feeling is so much better," Percy nodded.

"What sort of job?" I asked. "What happened?"

Percy's throat was starting to tighten up like the air in the room was getting thinner. He'd spoken up because despite Annabeth not even being a whole breath away his head was really starting to hurt and he needed the distraction again, the one thing that had constantly gotten him through these books without fail. Rachel's red hair kept flickering in and out of his mind like his brain was on fire.

Alex saw that, he really wanted to spark his firey imagination to life and snap out a list of things that could have jokingly gone wrong.

But the results were right in front of them.

So instead he said, "we need to get you enrolled in some tax-prep classes now dudette. Do you even have a concept of how to flip a burger?"

Percy chuckled, a feeling that washed over Annabeth and helped her shoulders relax. He of course had to return, "I bet I could do one of those sign spinner jobs on the corner for Sweet on America."

Even if it wasn't funny, the levity the two always brought really did feel like the weathered spine of the book that had been getting them all through this.

Ms. Castellan frowned. Her knife hovered over the sandwich bread. "Dear me, it didn't work out, did it? Your father warned me not to try. He said it was too dangerous. But I had to. It was my destiny! And now . . . I still can't get the images out of my head. They make everything seem so fuzzy. Would you like some cookies?"

She pulled a tray out of the oven and dumped a dozen lumps of chocolate chip charcoal on the table.

This is what happened when mortals were brought into their world, Annabeth had realized as she sat at that table drinking watered-down Kool-Aid. Either they turned out like her step-mom or Luke's mom. She'd accepted Rachel, with resistance, but now her eyes flickered to Magnus with worry. She grasped Percy's fingers tight.

Sally seemed to be fairing okay though. Magnus had been in here for how long and wasn't hurling abuse at her for being trapped in here all this time in her place.

"Luke was so kind," Ms. Castellan murmured. "He left to protect me, you know. He said if he went away, the monsters wouldn't threaten me. But I told him the monsters are no threat! They sit outside on the sidewalk all day, and they never come in." She picked up the little stuffed Medusa from the windowsill. "Do they, Mrs. Medusa? No, no threat at all." She beamed at me. "I'm so glad you came home. I knew you weren't ashamed of me!"

I shifted in my seat. I imagined being Luke sitting at this table, eight or nine years old, and just beginning to realize that my mother wasn't all there.

Will still remembered the first time he'd realized his life wasn't normal too, and it had been much less brutal than this. Sitting in the back of a bar, sipping on chocolate milk and doodling with broken crayons, a woman had come up to him in concern and asked what he was doing there. He pointed to his mom on stage and said waiting for her.

The look on her face would linger in his mind's eye for months. More than his mom's confusion upon insisting he'd seen a flock of metal birds, more than the snake he'd found in a toilet. It was the kind of feeling that made him look twice at his mom too and wonder where he belonged.

What Luke had done with this feeling as he'd grown was horribly understandable all of a sudden. Why had Apollo allowed him to grow up in the back of a van without telling his mother it might not be what was best for him? What had Hermes been thinking leaving Luke at this place instead of getting him to Camp himself?

The answer, as usual, was one he'd lived with for so long it was his normal, his burnt cookies. That's just how the gods were.

"Ms. Castellan," I said.

"Mom," she corrected.

"Um, yeah. Have you seen Luke since he left home?"

"Well, of course!"

I didn't know if she was imagining that or not. For all I knew, every time the mailman came to the door he was Luke. But Nico sat forward expectantly.

This is why they'd come there, and Nico still felt a little rush of happiness at how well they'd worked together on this. Percy hadn't even known the plan about the blessing and he still somehow got her back on track while Nico had been distracted for a moment.

Like in the Underworld too. They could make a great team if Nico would stop ruining things by being an idiot.

"When?" he asked. "When did Luke visit you last?"

"Well, it was . . . Oh goodness . . ." A shadow passed across her face. "The last time, he looked so different. A scar. A terrible scar, and his voice so full of pain . . ."

"His eyes," I said. "Were they gold?"

"Gold?" She blinked. "No. How silly. Luke has blue eyes. Beautiful blue eyes!"

So Luke really had been here, and this had happened before last summer—before he'd turned into Kronos.

Thalia felt like her hatred was burning anew for him going through with this. For realizing all over again the lengths he'd gone to, the thought he'd put into betraying her and everyone he'd claimed to care about. He'd come back here again to do as Kronos wished rather than the promise he'd made about never coming back.

Luke was no coward though. If she still had to give him one begrudging feeling, it was that fact. Because she wouldn't ever go back even if her mom was alive. Not for anything.

"Ms. Castellan?" Nico put his hand on the old woman's arm. "This is very important. Did he ask you for anything?"

She frowned as if trying to remember. "My—my blessing. Isn't that sweet?" She looked at us uncertainly. "He was going to a river, and he said he needed my blessing. I gave it to him. Of course I did."

Nico looked at me triumphantly.

What on earth a blessing had to do with defeating Kronos Magnus couldn't begin to guess. Were they supposed to somehow take her blessing back? Why did it even count from a woman who clearly didn't even have the mental faculties to hold a conversation? Greek loopholes somehow managed to be more depressing than mortal's laws.

"Thank you, ma'am. That's all the information we—"

Ms. Castellan gasped. She doubled over, and her cookie tray clattered to the floor. Nico and I jumped to our feet.

"Ms. Castellan?" I said.

"AHHHH," She straightened. I scrambled away and almost fell over the kitchen table, because her eyes—her eyes were glowing green.

Percy gasped, a memory ripped straight out of his mind like a god had reached in and jerked it to the forefront. He'd know that shade of green anywhere. It was the same shade as the Oracle's horrifying breath wrapping around him.

"It's okay Percy," Annabeth breathed. It didn't take a child of Athena to guess what his mind was hurting itself to make a leap to. She wished she could take this pain away from him, but baring that the least she could do was offer him a rope to hang onto as the pain in his eyes settled to look longingly at her to understand.

"My child," she rasped in a much deeper voice. "Must protect him! Hermes, help! Not my child! Not his fate—no!"

She grabbed Nico by the shoulders and began to shake him as if to make him understand. "Not his fate!"

Will made a pained, rattling noise in the back of his throat, his hands fidgeting in frustration to pull Nico back and get between whatever this was. That didn't sound like a prophecy, but everything about what just happened screamed at his instincts something of this had gone terribly wrong and he needed to help.

Nico made a strangled scream and pushed her away. He gripped the hilt of his sword. "Percy, we need to get out—"

He'd find bruises on his arm later from how hard she'd grabbed him, Nico frowned. She'd put a kind of fear in him he hadn't known since being in the Labyrinth, the next turn surely his last as something lunged out of the shadows. He'd be rubbing at his arms if Will wasn't doing that for him.

Suddenly Ms. Castellan collapsed. I lurched forward and caught her before she could hit the edge of the table.

Jason was confident that wouldn't be the first time it had happened to her though. The image sat hazily in his mind of her just being left there alone until she awoke and continued the entire cycle like nothing had happened, perhaps a little matted blood in her hair going unnoticed.

I managed to get her into a chair.

"Ms. C?" I asked.

She muttered something incomprehensible and shook her head. "Goodness. I . . . I dropped the cookies. How silly of me."

She blinked, and her eyes were back to normal—or at least, what they had been before. The green glow was gone.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Percy, your Sally is showing," Will repeated with a weak smile. Many other kids would have run out of there like Percy had literally wanted to do, but the moment she was in danger he lunged in to help her.

"Yeah, she's a bad influence like that," Percy whispered, his heart in pieces at imagining this happening to his mom because of having him. Obviously this didn't happen to all half-blood's mortal parents, but it came as a dull shock to him all of a sudden he might not have the worst luck in the universe.

"Well, of course, dear. I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

I glanced at Nico, who mouthed the word Leave.

Nico had been around what many would call the scariest, most horrifying, creepiest, and petrifying monsters, gods, and ghosts for a chat without batting an eye. This woman had scared the piss out of him. Her aura was something he'd never felt before and wished never to again. It wasn't so much as weaving in and out of death, it was jolting off her like sparks wishing to pull others in. He'd never gotten that feeling from any other mortal, not even Rachel who had a unique sense to her own soul for now hosting the Oracle. Something had gone wrong in this woman.

"Ms. C, you were telling us something," I said. "Something about your son."

"Was I?" she said dreamily. "Yes, his blue eyes. We were talking about his blue eyes. Such a handsome boy!"

"We have to go," Nico said urgently. "We'll tell Luke . . . uh, we'll tell him you said hello."

"But you can't leave!" Ms. Castellan got shakily to her feet, and I backed away. I felt silly being scared of a frail old woman, but the way her voice had changed, the way she'd grabbed Nico . . .

She'd done that to Luke, they all easily understood. She wasn't in her right mind, and she'd likely done this on the last day Luke was there, causing a child to run out the door and never look back. Luke had been more afraid of his own mother and what had been done to her than anything waiting to pounce on him outside those walls.

"Hermes will be here soon," she promised. "He'll want to see his boy!"

"Maybe next time," I said. "Thank you for—" I looked down at the burned cookies scattered on the floor. "Thanks for everything."

She tried to stop us, to offer us Kool-Aid, but I had to get out of that house. On the front porch, she grabbed my wrist and I almost jumped out of my skin.

She'd been scary strong, like if Chiron had jerked his arm back. His shoulder had jolted. Her skin had been wrinkled and burning hot from to many cookie trays grabbed right out of the broken oven. Up close she'd smelled as bad as the rest of the house, he hadn't been so afraid since he stood on half-blood hill for the first time in the rain thinking his mom was gone.

"Luke, at least be safe. Promise me you'll be safe."

"I will . . . Mom."

Percy would have said anything to get out of there, but something in him made that feel right. He couldn't hug her, he couldn't promise this woman it would all be okay, but this was the reassurance he could give her.

That made her smile. She released my wrist, and as she closed the front door I could hear her talking to the candles: "You hear that? He will be safe. I told you he would be!"

As the door shut, Nico and I ran. The little beanbag animals on the sidewalk seemed to grin at us as we passed.

Even running for their life, Nico had a really tough time running behind Percy. It was aggravating how much faster he was, and yet had made him kick his legs up faster to see Percy checking over his shoulder to make sure he was keeping up...the view hadn't been bad either...

Back at the cliff, Mrs. O'Leary had found a friend.

The uncomfortable silence tried to linger in the room, deep in their chests as they all looked to each other, someone clearly expecting the other to break the silence and say it was okay to start their usual bullshit again.

That person, was of course, Alex. "Is Thalia back?" His grin was as light as ever as if nothing had happened. "What did you bring this time, robot chinchilla? Robot Huntress?"

Annabeth looked at him blankly, even pretty sure she got the joke that Thalia had once followed Artimes's sacred golden deer made Alex's mind seem illogical and concerning.

"Not me," Thalia shrugged, and Magnus was perturbed he seemed the only one waiting around for a moment to deny the claim of a robot Huntress before he got to many strange looks for not just continuing. Peer pressure won that time.

A cozy campfire crackled in a ring of stones. A girl about eight years old was sitting cross-legged next to Mrs. O'Leary, scratching the hellhound's ears.

"Well she can't be that evil if Mrs. O'Leary isn't eating her," Will grinned.

Nico smiled at Hestia's timing. They'd really needed that sense of homey comfort after such a place, and what Percy was about to go ask his mother would put a strain on such a thing. The Goddess of the Hearth made it feel easily attainable again.

The girl had mousy brown hair and a simple brown dress. She wore a scarf over her head so she looked like a pioneer kid—like the ghost of Little House on the Prairie or something. She poked the fire with a stick, and it seemed to glow more richly red than a normal fire.

"Hello," she said.

My first thought was: monster.

"Well nobody was questioning that!" Magnus groaned. No innocent mortal little kid would stumble upon that hellhound and get that kind of internal process from Percy.

"Calypso wasn't a monster," Alex scratched absently at his chin, "or it could be more of Nico's plan and he summoned another nice ghost mom for whatever this stuff is."

"She was described as nine," Jason said in horror at that assumption.

Alex shrugged and wasn't taking it back.

When you're a demigod and you find a sweet little girl alone in the woods—that's typically a good time to draw your sword and attack.

"This poor guy can't even go bird watching with Grover someday without being worried the next blue tit is going to turn into something and try to kill him," Magnus looked so sad for him too. "He'd see a family of hikers coming up and pull out his pen."

"I'd wait for them to attack me first," Percy shrugged, "and as long as they're mortals it wouldn't even hurt them."

"I don't need you traumatizing more kids by trying to whack them with an intangible sword Percy," Magnus sighed. "You'll get banned from every national park."

"Grover will sneak me in the back," Percy shrugged again, though Magnus couldn't help but notice the guy had never once denied an imminent attack at any point so this really was just asking for trouble leaving his stinking house.

Plus, the encounter with Ms. Castellan had rattled me pretty bad.

Thalia sort of wanted to mock Percy, an easy and old fall back for still calling her Ms. like a proper lad rather than dwelling on that place for even a moment, but then she realized nobody had ever told Percy her name was May. He could have called her that crazy old lady or Luke's mom though, so it was still a nice moment to laugh at him she let pass. She was getting soft in her old age.

But Nico bowed to the little girl. "Hello again, Lady."

"Is that her name, or are we being proper?" Alex chuckled, having been watching over Magnus's shoulder and seeing that capitalized.

"Being proper," Nico said with a respectful, kind smile. Here was an interaction he had no fear in showing, it actually didn't relate to him in any bad way. That was so rare for him.

She studied me with eyes as red as the firelight. I decided it was safest to bow.

Annabeth chuckled and flashed Nico a grateful smile. Now out of that house, she eased back away from him, still conscious of how much he didn't remember about how close they'd grown over the past few months. He did relax, and she hoped that awkward smile was for any other reason than his relief she'd moved away. When she tried to pull her hand back to give him some space, he clutched back with a question in his eyes, and she smiled and relaxed back into her seat, the two just casually keeping their fingers linked now.

Nico was still watching long after she'd looked back away. He knew that smile had been a thanks for keeping him out of trouble. He wanted to promise any time, he was happy to do it, but he knew he'd probably sound like a desperate puppy trying to keep Percy's attention. He didn't need it anymore. The more he told himself that, the more it felt like a comfortable reminder rather than a pathetic insistence.

"Sit, Percy Jackson," she said. "Would you like some dinner?"

After staring at moldy peanut butter sandwiches and burned cookies, I didn't have much of an appetite, but the girl waved her hand and a picnic appeared at the edge of the fire. There were plates of roast beef, baked potatoes, buttered carrots, fresh bread, and a whole bunch of other foods I hadn't had in a long time. My stomach started to rumble. It was the kind of home-cooked meal people are supposed to have but never do. The girl made a five-foot-long dog biscuit appear for Mrs. O'Leary, who happily began tearing it to shreds.

She was a god, Jason deduced, but he still sat wearily in his seat waiting for the shoe to drop. Was this Hera in an alternate form, there to tell Percy again he should be thankful for something else she'd caused?

She hadn't even acknowledged Nico, which put some favor into his idea.

I sat next to Nico. We picked up our food, and I was about to dig in when I thought better of it.

I scraped part of my meal into the flames, the way we do at camp. "For the gods," I said.

Percy hadn't been mentioned doing that at camp lately. Whether it had just been glossed over or he'd been particularly resentful recently with Beckendorf not leading in cabin 9 or he'd just been really invested in that toast, it felt strange to hear him doing so now when they'd just run from an enormous example of the gods blatant mistreatment of mortals, leaving her alone to suffer whatever that was when Dionysus should have easily popped in and fixed her of her madness too.

Magnus couldn't make himself sound to resentful of Percy though, because these weren't his gods. He'd come into this atheist and he sat here now the same way, never quite getting used to seeing them as anything other than over-powerful other beings who sucked at their job. Whatever had nudged Percy into doing it this time had no bearing on him.

The little girl smiled. "Thank you. As tender of the flame, I get a share of every sacrifice, you know."

"I recognize you now," I said. "The first time I came to camp, you were sitting by the fire, in the middle of the commons area."

"You did not stop to talk," the girl recalled sadly. "Alas, most never do.

"There were a lot of kids running around," Annabeth rubbed his shoulder as they slumped in clear and obvious guilt. "You'd just been through a ton."

He gave her a questioning brow, and she shrugged. "Yeah, I did, but I was a blabber mouth of a kid, Luke had to pull me away and throw me over his shoulder more than once because I wouldn't stop following everyone around talking to my heart's content. It, really wasn't encouraged to much before that," she brushed her hair back nervously while Thalia sighed in regret how often they'd had to shush her from asking questions when they sensed a monster nearby. "Hestia enjoyed talking to me so of course I did in turn, but it's not the same circumstances Percy, don't compare us."

He still was anyways. She'd spent her first days there with the loss of Thalia still heavy on her mind and been social, happy at her new home. He'd just been a jerk to most people who treated him like a new celebrity.

Nico talked to me. He was the first in many years. Everyone rushes about. No time for visiting family."

"Vesta," Jason murmured in understanding. A feeling came back to him. Not a true memory, but the sensation of one at least, like he'd gotten from Hylla's name. Sitting by the fireplace, the warmth that came with saying her name in prayer. He smiled, a strange sense of homesick overtaking him considering he had nothing tangible to relate it to.

He sighed and formally addressed Thalia. "Does the name Hylla mean anything to you?"

"No," Thalia promised at once, looking right around at him. "I swear Jason, I really have no clue, Nico seems to know more about you than I did."

He nodded in disappointment and looked back away. That didn't make her lie of omission feel better, but his anger was fading and tempering back out into miserable acceptance he was just going to be stuck like this until he got something back piece by piece like Percy was getting.

"Hey," Nico sighed, "all I knew about was another Camp, and I'd only seen it from a distance. I'd never met Jason specifically, it was just a hunch."

"Nice for all of us to finally be on the same page," Will said into the following awkward silence as Annabeth's eyes went quickly around the room again. The links each of them held fitting into a puzzle she wasn't thrilled to solve for once, it was going to show an image of disaster she wasn't sure how to help Percy with this time.

"You're Hestia," I said. "Goddess of the Hearth."

She nodded.

Okay . . . so she looked eight years old. I didn't ask. I'd learned that gods could look any way they pleased.

"I wonder if Artemis is out there fighting that storm Titan guy as a kiddo," Alex chuckled.

"I don't see why she'd age herself for it," Thalia shrugged.

"My lady," Nico asked, "why aren't you with the other Olympians, fighting Typhon?"

"I'm not much for fighting." Her red eyes flickered. I realized they weren't just reflecting the flames. They were filled with flames—but not like Ares's eyes. Hestia's eyes were warm and cozy.

Like brown eyes, Will thought warmly as he glanced over at Nico's, the most relaxed look he'd seen on his face in a long time, his focus actually tuned into the book with a light of eagerness he so rarely saw. They were the warmest teak color that reminded him of long afternoons sunbathing on the dock.

"Besides," she said, "someone has to keep the home fires burning while the other gods are away."

She could have shared the responsibility of the unclaimed kids at Camp, Annabeth thought to herself. She was still in the process of watching over the workings and remodelings of all the cabins. The idea striking her now felt to little to late, but even still she was greatly annoyed at herself she'd never thought of it before. Not that it would have made a difference, it never would have been allowed, but the idea felt right there.

Goddess of the Hearth and home. If a kid had been unclaimed so long at Camp with no other place to go, it would have been their right to go into this Goddesse's cabin and unpack their bags with the intention of never leaving.

Zeus would never have allowed it though, not back then. It wouldn't have been 'proper' to have her cabin about.

"So you're guarding Mount Olympus?" I asked.

"'Guard' may be too strong a word. But if you ever need a warm place to sit and a home-cooked meal, you are welcome to visit. Now eat."

"She's like the goddess of abuelas," Alex's tone held a lilt of his Hispanic heritage love usually only shown in the way he spoke rapid-fire and his brown skin.

"How everybody's grandparents should be," but Percy's tone was more wistful than agreeing. He wouldn't know.

My plate was empty before I knew it. Nico scarfed his down just as fast.

"That was great," I said. "Thank you, Hestia."

She nodded. "Did you have a good visit with May Castellan?"

Good wasn't the word any of them would have used. Informative, creepy, and depressing were all much better variables.

For a moment I'd almost forgotten the old lady with her bright eyes and her maniacal smile, the way she'd suddenly seemed possessed.

"Home can be as powerful as the godly food," Annabeth nodded. Every time she was back with her dad and his family she'd called Chiron, it had been a nearly daily experience there at first. It wasn't being back at Camp, but it was the feeling he gave her that helped convince her she could get through another night in just his smile.

"What's wrong with her, exactly?" I asked.

"She was born with a gift," Hestia said. "She could see through the Mist."

"Like my mother," I said. And I was also thinking, like Rachel. "But the glowing eyes thing—"

"Some bear the curse of sight better than others," the goddess said sadly. "For a while, May Castellan had many talents.

Many talents, like drawing the past and future? Jason noted. Perhaps not that specific, or Rachel used that outlet because she enjoyed such a skill and May Castellan had used her own like Sally may have to get through what they saw, but it did track with what they'd put together in that seeing through the Mist didn't seem like just a one-thing kind of 'gift.' It intertwined to heavily with their world, like a demigod inheriting a part of their godly parent and mortal parent, their ability to dream of what they shouldn't and more.

She attracted the attention of Hermes himself. They had a beautiful baby boy.

The parallels to Percy here were starting to give Magnus anxiety. Thankfully Sally seemed to have avoided this fate, but it still gave his stomach a sickening roll as he once again dared to wonder who his immortal parent could be, who had sent wolves after him for whatever he hadn't done but his father did? It seemed a miracle nothing had ever happened to Percy's mom.

For a brief time, she was happy. And then she went too far."

I remembered what Ms. Castellan had said: They offered me an important job . . . It didn't work out. I wondered what kind of job left you like that.

Possibilities that Alex really couldn't come up with without being an entire shitbag of a person mocking this, which he strived not to be.

"One minute she was all happy," I said. "And then she was freaking out about her son's fate, like she knew he'd turned into Kronos. What happened to . . . to divide her like that?"

The goddess's face darkened. "That is a story I do not like to tell.

It didn't sit right with Annabeth she called it a story. Like an ancient part of Greek history some called a myth. This wasn't just a happy tale that they were going to close and get tucked into bed when it was over. Luke had felt like his life was a cruel joke from the moment he understood the world, and there was no dashing prince to step in and save him like she'd gotten, if only for a brief moment in her own.

But May Castellan saw too much. If you are to understand your enemy Luke, you must understand his family."

The mortal side, or the godly side, Jason frowned. Because Percy knew all to much about the gods at this rate, possibly more than any half-blood before him, certainly more than Luke even with how well versed and even liked Percy was. And Vesta had just denied him the rest of the story of what had happened to Luke's mother. He'd never deny a craving of more knowledge in him, but he couldn't imagine what else she expected Percy to know here.

I thought about the sad little pictures of Hermes taped above May Castellan's sink. I wondered if Ms. Castellan had been so crazy when Luke was little. That green-eyed fit could've seriously scared a nine year-old kid. And if Hermes never visited, if he'd left Luke alone with his mom all those years . . .

It seemed a new, twisted kind of cruel, Magnus shivered. He couldn't imagine how a child even could be raised like that. What little he knew of baby rearing seriously implied constant attention, diaper changes, feeding. How on earth could she even manage that while going into fits over his future without dropping baby Luke on his head once a day?

The idea felt like something out of a Stephen King novel. Something other than a human trying to rear a baby.

He remembered Mr. D apparently had kids while being trapped at camp. His mind flashed up bizarre images of Hermes appearing out of the blue for just a second, his consciousness probably elsewhere flirting with some other woman as he sat the howling child down safely before dashing back off again to deliver some random package. Trying to conjure someone doing all three things at once hurt his head, but for those gods it should have been child's play he supposed.

"No wonder Luke ran away," I said. "I mean, it wasn't right to leave his mom like that,

Thalia shook her head at that. Just by Percy saying that proved he still didn't really understand how bad it had been for Luke. She wondered how much he silently judged her even if he understood why she abandoned her mother too.

but still—he was just a kid. Hermes shouldn't have abandoned them."

Hestia scratched behind Mrs. O'Leary's ears. The hellhound wagged her tail and accidentally knocked over a tree.

Alex chuckled with delight. "She really is a perfect creature of the Underworld in that way, there's no life without death."

"I don't think the tree would agree," Percy muttered before Annabeth elbowed him.

"It's easy to judge others," Hestia warned. "But will you follow Luke's path? Seek the same powers?"

Nico set down his plate. "We have no choice, my lady. It's the only way Percy stands a chance."

Annabeth didn't like the fact that Percy hadn't been the one to answer that. If he had even the slightest doubts or hesitation about what he'd gone through, it would make this coming battle even worse to hear as he mentally resented his newfound, quantifiable abilities.

"Mmm." Hestia opened her hand and the fire roared. Flames shot thirty feet into the air. Heat slapped me in the face. Then the fire died back down to normal.

"Show off," Alex huffed, his hand flopped onto his palm on the armrest. He'd probably kill to be able to do something so murderous and cool.

"Not all powers are spectacular." Hestia looked at me. "Sometimes the hardest power to master is the power of yielding. Do you believe me?"

"Uh-huh," I said. Anything to keep her from messing with her flame powers again.

"That was not the takeaway there Percy," Thalia snorted.

"I like my eyebrows!" Was all Percy seemed to hear.

The goddess smiled. "You are a good hero, Percy Jackson. Not too proud. I like that.

"Percy's personality is actually what made a god like him this time?" Will smirked. "Oh, now we know it's doomsday ahead." He talked to Hestia quite frequently, and it was nice to hear her being given a role in Percy's life. One the gods should be proud to have on display.

But you have much to learn. When Dionysus was made a god, I gave up my throne for him. It was the only way to avoid a civil war among the gods."

"Who made him that kind of a special god and nearly started a civil war?" Magnus asked blankly at that short-sighted gift.

"Mr. D was born a god," Annabeth happily explained, it was such a rare thing to do to a member of her family, and Magnus watched her. His face guarded, clearly experience in here made him already aware this wasn't going to be great fun, but he didn't ignore her and continue playing with his real sibling or ignore her and go about cleaning the house or ignore her and work on his project, so it felt like a success she even had his unhappy attention. "It was Zeus, of course, he accidentally incinerated his mortal mother while she was still pregnant with him and so he took the still undeveloped fetus that is Dionysus and sowed him into his hip-"

"Ew," Magnus really wished these guys would spare details like that.

"Fair," Percy promised. He'd heard this and it was still bizarre to think of someone pregnant in the thigh, of just one leg. He wondered if anyone ever asked to rub Zeus's baby bump?

"And the process," Annabeth continued a touch louder, her excitement to continue obvious, "caused him to become a full immortal being. When he ascended it basically went as well as expected as Hestia briefly summarized."

"Sounds about right," Magnus shrugged, it made as much sense as anything else these Olympians ever did. He missed stories with logical characters personally. He gave his cousin a smile though just to finally see her smile back in person. She looked so at home sitting next to Percy despite her still haggard appearance, how could he do anything else?

"It unbalanced the Council," I remembered. "Suddenly there were seven guys and five girls."

Hestia shrugged. "It was the best solution, not a perfect one.

Will smiled delightfully at that as he stored such a nugget of wisdom away. Nico expected to see that sewn onto a pillow in his cabin or something soon.

Now I tend the fire. I fade slowly into the background. No one will ever write epic poems about the deeds of Hestia. Most demigods don't even stop to talk to me. But that is no matter. I keep the peace. I yield when necessary. Can you do this?"

No, was Percy's automatic thought as his breath caught in his throat. Hestia seemed like an awesome goddess, but more like Calypso than the pang in his heart had a care to remember. She just seemed so happy and at peace with her lot in life, and despite that fire trick, he didn't see himself really being eye to eye with that kind of attitude. She was definitely one of the best goddesses he'd ever met, he might never skip a sacrifice again just knowing she got a portion of it for what she represented in his life, but her path wasn't one he was confident he'd ever walk. Kronos wouldn't just throw his sword aside if Percy did first.

And gods was lingering on this idea giving him a stomach ache. He was really regretting that taco-hell sauce he'd dumped on his breakfast right now.

"I don't know what you mean."

She studied me. "Perhaps not yet. But soon. Will you continue your quest?"

"Is that why you're here—to warn me against going?"

Hestia shook her head. "I am here because when all else fails, when all the other mighty gods have gone off to war, I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the last Olympian. You must remember me when you face your final decision."

Percy decided he did not like the sound of that. He studied the deep red book with the bright orange five on the spine with an unpleasant fizzing over his mind that caused him to roughly run his hand through his hair. The last Olympian standing shouldn't be someone who so reminded him of his mom.

I didn't like the way she said final.

"Is there a good way to say final?" Thalia nodded. "The final anything usually sucks."

"Final day of school," Alex offered, "whether Jason agrees or not."

He flipped him off while also offering, "the final time you're afraid of doing something." He had no specific memory to connect to the idea, of course, but he felt good saying it out loud all the same. Like a promise he'd get something back for it soon.

I looked at Nico, then back at Hestia's warm glowing eyes. "I have to continue, my lady. I have to stop Luke . . . I mean Kronos."

"Thanks," Annabeth told him quietly. "I hate feeling like I'm the only one who still needs to hear they're not the same."

"Yeah, no problem," Percy promised, glancing quickly away from her eyes. He never felt like it was real heaping praise to be thanked by her regarding anything over Luke.

Hestia nodded. "Very well. I cannot be of much assistance, beyond what I have already told you. But since you sacrificed to me, I can return you to your own hearth. I will see you again, Percy, on Olympus."

Her tone was ominous, as though our next meeting would not be happy.

"I never assume you meeting a god is going to be 'happy," Magnus said. Percy's luck just wasn't good enough for that. "The most I ever hope you come away with anymore is, not enemies."

"At least I'm living up to someone's expectations," Percy chuckled.

The goddess waved her hand, and everything faded.

Suddenly I was home. Nico and I were sitting on the couch in my mom's apartment on the Upper East Side. That was the good news. The bad news was that the rest of the living room was occupied by Mrs. O'Leary.

Alex couldn't help a sorrowful chuckle. "That poor baby! I don't think she's going to be able to just turn into a cloud of fur down the fire escape to get out of this."

"I doubt it," Percy agreed with a half-hearted smile. He always knew she wouldn't fit in his apartment, but it was still sad to see in person it wouldn't work out full-time.

I heard a muffled yell from the bedroom. Paul's voice said, "Who put this wall of fur in the doorway?"

"April Fools joke?" Will chuckled. "Percy did promise he'd clean up his room and it went horribly wrong."

"I'm more concerned by how unconcerned Paul sounded," Percy grinned. "He just seemed like some kid had given him a box of plastic apples. Like, thanks man, but what the hell do I do with this?"

"Percy?" my mom called out. "Are you here? Are you all right?"

Percy smiling like that was something none of them saw enough. How he could laugh and know everything would actually stay okay, and it seemed silly his mom was worried for once.

"I'm here!" I shouted back.

"WOOF!" Mrs. O'Leary tried to turn in a circle to find my mom, knocking all the pictures off the walls. She's only met my mom once before (long story), but she loves her.

Magnus didn't even pretend like he wasn't going to stop and hear this story as he looked as wildly around at Percy as everybody else, only Annabeth didn't look surprised.

Percy relaxed back in his seat, kicking his feet out and crossing his ankles without a care in the world. "Rachel had been asking me about how that dog appeared to get us out of the arena, so I explained some of the details she didn't get and about how she was at camp now. Rachel was so upset she couldn't see her again that I IM'd Beckendorf-" Percy's voice was still so emotional saying his name so casually. This had still been months before the Andromeda exploded, but it never felt like he'd gotten enough time. "-to bring her to the city, we were going to meet up at the zoo. I hoped the Mist would blend her in as a statue out front or something.

So he flies in on Guido with Mrs. O'Leary right behind him, but he can't stick around because he's got some project that might explode the whole camp if he's not there to watch it and he runs off and, well," he trailed off with an embarrassed smile.

"You didn't exactly think that one through," Annabeth helpfully added.

"I did not think that one through," he sighed, "Mrs. O'Leary took no interest in Rachel and she started running around the place like crazy to sniff everything. So we're chasing her, I'm still half trying to explain what the heck a stygian ice whistle even is and why I don't have one, and she," he paused and sighed, truly sorry for what had happened, "she tried to jump headfirst into the elephant exhibit. She got to excited, I guess, because she didn't go over them, she tried to go through them. Her head went in and didn't come out of some bars.

So, she's crying, Rachel's promising her lawyers will sort out any damage this rogue delivery truck has apparently caused to zoo employees, and I'm standing there feeling like the worst person in the entire world."

"Time to call mom," Annabeth nodded without surprise.

"I panicked, it was the only thing I could think to do," Percy agreed, "I didn't know how to get her out without hurting her and I didn't think Beckendorf would answer a second IM, or have time to make a rainbow to call anyone anyways!"

He'd wanted Annabeth so bad in that moment, but she'd still been on the other side of the country not exactly speaking to him if it wasn't a war update. He was grateful Rachel must have brought it up at some point though he couldn't remember, since none of this was news to her now. It felt great, the perfect kind of normal to have her telling this story with him even when she hadn't been there. They might as well have been sitting around a fire at camp with the audience talking about their latest quest.

"Rachel has my mom's number and calls her to come down. She gets there and puts her hands on my shoulder and just tells me, Percy, cut her loose."

He still face palmed like he had then, though thankfully not one of them had suggested that obvious answer as they all watched in various levels of concern even knowing everybody had made it out of this okay.

"I jump over and use Riptide to cut through the bars like nothing while my mom starts scratching the spot above her tail, she could only reach because she'd come down there in her heels," he added sheepishly, only finding out later she'd been late to a meeting with a publisher for his non-emergency like the hectic child he always was. "Mrs. O'Leary knocked over a few concrete pillars and trees, I think her tail got hurt more than anything," he finished affectionately.

"She gets out and spins around, and even though I'm the one who got her out, I think she realized who it was to thank, cause she starts giving my mom a whole bath and nuzzling her. It's probably a miracle she let my mom out of her sight again. My mom talked the zoo people into letting us take home like twenty pounds of raw meat and tack it to our bill and we took her back to our place. Mom went upstairs and cooked it up real quick and threw it out the window for her while Rachel and I checked her all over to make sure there was nothing really wrong with her from what we googled." He finished in relief.

"So what I got out of all that is, you should just stay far away from zoo's," Thalia nodded without surprise.

"My takeaway is, Percy literally can't go on a quest without a girl saving his ass," Alex snickered.

"Both life lessons I willingly accept," Percy chuckled.

It took a few minutes, but we finally got things worked out. After destroying most of the furniture in the living room and probably making our neighbors really mad,

"It's going to take a godly vacuum to get all of that dog hair out of there," Will grinned. "I hope neither of them have allergies."

"I, um, think they just had to buy some new furniture and left the windows open," Percy abashedly reminded.

we got my parents out of the bedroom and into the kitchen,

There had been a really awkward moment where Mrs. O'Leary had to open her mouth and keep it that way for them to step, a very, very large step, through her teeth and over the tongue to get to the other side. There hadn't been fear per say she'd close her mouth and hurt them, but the drool and smell hadn't made it the most pleasant scene.

where we sat around the kitchen table. Mrs. O'Leary still took up the entire living room, but she'd settled her head in the kitchen doorway so she could see us, which made her happy.

"That really is a great thing about dogs," Annabeth agreed with such a longing smile. "They're just happy to be around you." Her doberman, Frostine, had always lit up every time she walked in the door, while she was lucky if her dad looked up from his book some days.

My mom tossed her a ten-pound family-size tube of ground beef, which disappeared down her gullet.

"Does your mom have a magic fridge?" Nico couldn't help but ask now like he'd wondered then. "How does she always have on hand whatever somebody might want."

"Could be," Percy chuckled, "Posideon owes her a million magic gifts anyways."

Paul poured lemonade for the rest of us while I explained about our visit to Connecticut.

"So it's true." Paul stared at me like he'd never seen me before. He was wearing his white bathrobe, now covered in hellhound fur, and his salt-and-pepper hair was sticking up in every direction. "All the talk about monsters, and being a demigod . . . it's really true."

Percy felt his throat tighten for a whole new reason as he'd looked Paul in the eye. Never in his wildest imagination would he have expected to be taken at word, to be believed without some kind of proof. It had never happened in his life except with his mom. Paul hadn't sat around and argued the point though, he'd taken it far better than he or his mom had ever thought by simply agreeing he'd always thought there was something different about Percy, in a good way.

I nodded. Last fall I'd explained to Paul who I was. My mom had backed me up. But until this moment, I don't think he really believed us.

He hadn't called Percy a liar though. He hadn't walked out or started calling them crazy. Whether he really thought they'd been pulling his leg all this time, it mattered to Percy more than he ever thought it would to feel accepted by another adult other than his mom.

"What did he see though?" Magnus asked with interest. "Did he see a giant poodle?"

"I don't think he saw the hellhound exactly as she was," Nico agreed, "but he certainly saw something destroying his apartment, dog-shaped, that was all big loving puppy eyes. Even confronted with this right in his face, I don't think he saw through the mist, he might have run if he didn't have us there to tell him whatever he was seeing was okay to be around."

"Sorry about Mrs. O'Leary," I said, "destroying the living room and all."

Paul laughed like he was delighted. "Are you kidding? This is awesome!

"I love this man," Alex decided. "Anybody who can be so chill about that chaos is just the best." Magnus tried his best not to look jealous as he did an internal search of how much of a wimp Alex probably saw him. The numbers weren't looking good.

"He really did fit right in, it's kind of eerie," Percy nodded as he glanced at Annabeth. He'd never really believed in that whole soulmate thing songs went on about until recently.

I mean, when I saw the hoofprints on the Prius, I thought maybe. But this!"

"Unless the universe seriously strung out some kind of wild horse, or cop horse, or whatever appearing on that beach," Nico offered. "There were mildly less crazy options to consider than pegasi there."

"The dents didn't come out, that's what I still feel bad about," Percy huffed.

He patted Mrs. O'Leary's snout. The living room shook—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM—which either meant a SWAT team was breaking down the door or Mrs. O'Leary was wagging her tail.

"With your luck it would be both at once," Jason reminded.

"Gaurd dogs don't make them hesitate?" Percy asked mock innocently. "Not even mine?"

"Just go peacefully Percy, it'll make things easier," Jason rolled his eyes.

I couldn't help but smile. Paul was a pretty cool guy, even if he was my English teacher as well as my stepdad.

"That's like two marks against a normal person and he's still out here winning top three coolest mortals," Will nodded in surprise.

"Percy's family's just special that way," Annabeth said with a touch of awe in her voice they were so open to taking anybody into that fold.

"Thanks for not freaking out," I said.

"Oh, I'm freaking out," he promised, his eyes wide. "I just think it's awesome!"

Everybody laughed this time boisterously. It really was so charming to have someone so outside their world be so exuberant for it, making them feel less like freaks than many adults in their lives did.

"Yeah, well," I said, "you may not be so excited when you hear what's happening."

Percy raised his hand at all the smiles slipping away. "Percy, the killjoy for this chapter."

"Nah," Annabeth promised, "just you actually showing off staying on topic for once. I'm surprised Nico didn't have to take away your lemonade."

"I was distracted by Paul," he admitted. He'd spent so little time around people in general. Even being the second time he'd come here, it still shook loose a part of his reality this was how people were capable of living. It was the closest he'd ever experienced anything like it before this room.

I told Paul and my mom about Typhon, and the gods, and the battle that was sure to come. Then I told them Nico's plan.

My mom laced her fingers around her lemonade glass. She was wearing her old blue flannel bathrobe, and her hair was tied back. Recently she'd started writing a novel, like she'd wanted to do for years, and I could tell she'd been working on it late into the night, because the circles under her eyes were darker than usual.

Alex lived for that feeling. The single-minded focus where you couldn't put your work down, watching the progress slowly unfold with your hands, the hunger of getting that detail exactly right, the addictive quality of seeing it shape and mold into what you meant for it to be, or even the surprise as something new came into focus.

It had kept him from doing a lot of, bad, things recently so long as he had the next project to work on before he got dumped in here.

Behind her at the kitchen window, silvery moon lace glowed in the flower box. I'd brought the magical plant back from Calypso's island last summer, and it bloomed like crazy under my mother's care.

The scent always calmed me down, but it also made me sad because it reminded me of lost friends.

Calypso was a special kind of nightmare that still haunted him. Not as much as when he'd first gotten home, but at least once a month he'd still wake up from a cold sweat where he'd just spend all night watching her move about her island. It wouldn't sound like a particularly horrifying nightmare to anyone else, he'd never told anyone about them. Still humming, still staring serenely into the night, still as beautiful as ever in her enclosure. It was like watching an animal at the zoo. She might seem at peace, but it didn't stop something in him wishing to break the lock and demand she have the life she deserved.

My mom took a deep breath, like she was thinking how to tell me no.

"Percy, it's dangerous," she said. "Even for you."

Even for you, echoed in Percy's head. He'd always tried to leave out the worst parts of his life when telling her what he got up to, but she knew. Her eyes saw much more than just through the Mist. He worried some nights when he heard her restlessly moving around the apartment and checking on him in his bed what a terrible child he must be. Her wondering if he was still alive under those covers, not being attacked by some monster instead of sneaking out to do Posideon knew what like some other teenagers his age.

"Mom, I know. I could die. Nico explained that. But if we don't try—"

"We'll all die," Nico said. He hadn't touched his lemonade.

The guilt had been eating him alive. He couldn't even look Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Blowfis in the eyes. He hadn't gone into this intending to betray Percy. But he'd known he wasn't doing the right thing when he hadn't told Percy everything they were going down there to do.

If he didn't have Will's arm so tight around him he'd probably be hiding behind the couch by now. Pan hadn't been the worst of it, this was, and he really didn't believe the lie keeping him in place now that Percy wasn't going to try and strangle him again out of memory-madness when it all came up. He didn't know what he was more afraid of. Will stepping in to stop that or doing nothing.

"Ms. Jackson, we don't stand a chance against an invasion. And there will be an invasion."

"An invasion of New York?" Paul said. "Is that even possible? How could we not see the . . . the monsters?"

He said the word like he still couldn't believe this was real.

It probably helped he didn't seem to realize he'd actually met a monster. Mrs. O'Leary certainly didn't count and he didn't even seem to see Kelli. Magnus was pretty sure he was the only one who even vaguely would know how Paul was feeling, and he had never been as thrilled about all this, but that was probably because he'd spent so much time toeing the line of hate for whatever was out there he'd never been able to put a name on those glowing eyes.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I don't see how Kronos could just march into Manhattan, but the Mist is strong. Typhon is trampling across the country right now, and mortals think he's a storm system."

"Ms. Jackson," Nico said, "Percy needs your blessing. The process has to start that way. I wasn't sure until we met Luke's mom, but now I'm positive. This has only been done successfully twice before. Both times, the mother had to give her blessing. She had to be willing to let her son take the risk."

Nico could never do it himself, though he'd deeply wished he could. He would have taken on this burden for Percy without hesitation. He'd grown confident of his powers and wondered if having more would finally put him on the same level as Percy.

"You want me to bless this?" She shook her head. "It's crazy. Percy, please—"

"Mom, I can't do it without you."

The world was saved because of a mortal, Thalia shook her head. She wished she could carve that somewhere up on Olympus even if her dad would blast her for it.

"And if you survive this . . . this process?"

"Then I go to war," I said. "Me against Kronos. And only one of us will survive."

Annabeth hurt her hand more than him even feeling it as she crushed his fingers between hers. She would hate every single time Percy said that as if it were another stroll around the strawberry fields. She wanted him to be a cocky little shit who proclaimed he'd kick Kronos's ass out of Luke's head. She wanted him to be as confident as her who proclaimed himself the hero who would of course come out of this alive.

That just wasn't her Percy.

I didn't tell her the whole prophecy—about the soul reaping and the end of my days. She didn't need to know that I was probably doomed. I could only hope I'd stop Kronos and save the rest of the world before I died.

Annabeth kept one of his hands clenched tight in hers, while she reached awkwardly over and smacked him in the back of the head with the other. "Knock it off seaweed brain!" The despair that tried to crawl up her and consume everything every time she heard him say this as if a fact, as if he'd already accepted it, as if she hadn't been having nightmares since that first quest of him dying and leaving her.

He didn't even flinch. He gave her the big sad sorry green baby seal eyes. "I'm trying not to make that a thing?"

She still narrowed her eyes at him to punctuate her point. "Fair enough."

"You're my son," she said miserably. "I can't just . . ."

I could tell I'd have to push her harder if I wanted her to agree,

That notion made sense to exactly none of them. Percy had never pushed back to one single person in his life and it was Sally Jackson because nobody had to explain to the boy his mother was a saint.

but I didn't want to. I remembered poor Ms. Castellan in her kitchen, waiting for her son to come home. And I realized how lucky I was. My mom had always been there for me, always tried to make things normal for me, even with the gods and monsters and stuff. She put up with me going off on adventures, but now I was asking her blessing to do something that would probably get me killed.

I locked eyes with Paul, and some kind of understanding passed between us.

Percy couldn't help but think about his life less than a year ago, when Paul's school had caught on fire and he'd looked at Percy like a criminal, like a delinquent with horror in his eyes for this despicable child he had the misfortune of knowing; to now. This moment. It made Percy's eyes sting in a way he wasn't used to.

"Sally." He put his hand over my mother's hands. "I can't claim to know what you and Percy have been going through all these years. But it sounds to me . . . it sounds like Percy is doing something noble. I wish I had that much courage."

I got a lump in my throat. I didn't get compliments like that too much.

"You should though," Annabeth muttered as if taking this as a personal front. Percy studied her with his own dark circles under his eyes and still noticed her's were ten times worse, imagining what other burdens she was adding to her shoulders. He hoped she wasn't crazy enough to think he needed a hype man. Moments like this would lose their impact a bit if she hired Grover to follow him around camp showering him in compliments.

My mom stared at her lemonade. She looked like she was trying not to cry. I thought about what Hestia had said, about how hard it was to yield, and I figured maybe my mom was finding that out.

Percy had never even considered before giving in was a way to win a fight. But his mom was doing it. That Hestia might be onto something.

"Percy," she said, "I give you my blessing."

Percy tried to draw strength from that. The way she'd met his eyes, the confidence in her voice. She'd once given him her blessing to break every rule and go after Annabeth rather than come home. His mom knew what she was doing. Surely that would be just the same now when it all mattered just as much.

I didn't feel any different. No magic glow lit the kitchen or anything.

"Oh I'm sorry Percy," Thalia gave him a tragic look. "I forgot my part-time job was to follow you around as a backlight to enhance your everyday life!"

"Well you're being reduced to entrances and exits only," Percy sniffed.

Thalia gave him the kind of look that meant he should probably expect a bucket of sludge over the next doorway he came in or out of.

I glanced at Nico.

He looked more anxious than ever, but he nodded. "It's time."

Will glanced over in concern at the way Nico flinched anew and went back to that old, agitated pattern of fidgeting with his ring and then gripping his sword over and over. He hadn't seen that in a while now and to watch it coming back put very obvious alarm bells in his head like he might as well start reciting the fire drill practice. Things in the Underworld had not gone well.

"Percy," my mom said. "One last thing. If you . . . if you survive this fight with Kronos,

If? If! Percy would have rather she yelled at him than that haggard whispered if. He knew that was impossible, but the way he'd hurt her in this one conversation by making her have to use the word if made him feel the lowest he ever had in his life.

Then he got angry. He wanted to ball the rest of this book up in a wad and spit it in Kronos's face. He didn't care where his memories dropped him off or what else had happened. He'd never make his mom say if he survived again!

send me a sign." She rummaged through her purse and handed me her cell phone.

"Mom," I said, "you know demigods and phones—"

"I know," she said. "But just in case. If you're not able to call . . . maybe a sign that I could see from anywhere in Manhattan. To let me know you're okay."

The desperation in her voice had been so obvious to Nico. The way she wouldn't look away from Percy, when last time he'd been there and she'd smiled at him like he actually mattered. He wished he could travel back in time right now to kick the crap out of his own ass for going through with this monstrous plan even if it had all worked out. He would have done it better, done it right somehow...His mother, he'd actually been hoping to see his own mother instead of Percy's. Anything had felt worth that; but the gnawing sensation of knowing if he'd told Percy the whole truth he probably wouldn't have come made that really hard to convince himself.

"Like Theseus," Paul suggested. "He was supposed to raise white sails when he came home to Athens."

"Except he forgot," Nico muttered. "And his father jumped off the palace roof in despair. But other than that, it was a great idea."

"Wasn't that the guy who dropped off Dionyus's wife on an island after she got him the magic string?" Magnus asked. He'd barely been keeping up with all the gods, he still wasn't real sure which demigod myth was which.

"You got it," Percy frowned, he did not like the fact this guy's history kept popping up in his life even when it was his mom and Paul bringing him up. He really hoped he didn't have to jump in the ocean at any point and his father's abilities abandoned him at any rate.

"When did that come up?" Annabeth asked with interest. She had a whole pile of notes on those stories she'd be more than happy to share if Magnus wanted to actually get caught up when they got out of here.

"When Mr. D nearly threw me off a roof," Percy shrugged.

"When he-" Annabeth spluttered before she caught up and realized it must have been when he was sneaking out of camp on Thalia and Zoe's quest. She'd only gotten the highlight real of what all happened in between, and that detail had never come up before.

"What about a flag or a flare?" my mom said. "From Olympus—the Empire State Building."

Percy's mind flashed back to Rachel's drawing, the army surrounding that very building he'd have to fight through while Kronos tried to rip apart the godly world above. He really wished Rachel had drawn a nice picture instead of sunshine and a stupid, drunk smile on his face, skipping through a field with a rainbow. That somehow would have felt like less of a problem to deal with.

"Something blue," I said.

A blue, strobing light lingered in in his eyes for a moment before he blinked and it was gone. His heart squeezed itself stupid in his chest with hope that was a real memory, but he was still pretty sure he was just nuts instead.

We'd had a running joke for years about blue food. It was my favorite color, and my mom went out of her way to humor me. Every year my birthday cake, my Easter basket, my Christmas candy canes always had to be blue.

Jason didn't have to wonder very much why Percy hadn't thought about Gabe since his mom had used him as statuary practice. He'd been the miserable, worst part of Percy's past. Why would he want to associate him with his favorite color, a joke that might have started with the smelly old sot being able to drown in his own garbage, but had evolved into something between Percy and his mother in all the best ways.

"Yes," my mom agreed. "I'll watch for a blue signal. And I'll try to avoid jumping off palace roofs."

"Hopefully not just those specifically," Magnus muttered.

She gave me one last hug.

Percy chuckled at how little that did to encompass the way she'd gathered him into her arms, her hair tickling his nose. He'd become nearly as tall as her recently with her still only having a few inches on him, but he still tucked his head into her shoulder. Still felt like he was curling up in his mother's arms as she brushed her hands threw his hair to make sure one last time her little boy was safe as he held her back just as tight.

The way Magnus read those simple six words managed to convey a good chunk of that feeling though.

I tried not to feel like I was saying good-bye. I shook hands with Paul.

Percy watched Annabeth with a pinched throat. He wanted her to give him a sign, anything to say his mom didn't believe he'd dropped off the face of the earth and had died.

It was the hardest thing she ever did keeping her poker face set. She wouldn't let him hurt himself when she could take him home to see her in person when this was finally done.

Then Nico and I walked to the kitchen doorway and looked at Mrs. O'Leary.

"Sorry, girl," I said. "Shadow travel time again."

She whimpered and crossed her paws over her snout.

Nico watched the usual flurry of 'nawws' and 'poor girl' comments for the sweet hellhound. Alex was over there muttering something about a large enough oven to bake her treats. Jason was needlessly mocking Percy that this made trip two and she'd be done for the day no matter what life or death matter Percy would need.

He tried to convince his shaking hands that they were his friends, at worst they'd just yell at him a whole lot for still being such a little shit only months ago. It was not working.

"Where now?" I asked Nico. "Los Angeles?"

"No need," he said. "There's a closer entrance to the Underworld."

"Can we take a break?" Nico's voice broke perfectly on the last word.

"Uh, sure Nico," Alex said at once rather than reaching for the book. He recognized that look of panic in those dark eyes at once as he nodded and took off out of the room. Again.

#pjo #hoo #Percy Jackson #Jason Grace #Thalia Grace #nico di angelo #will solace #solangelo #big three kids #alex fierro #Magnus Chase #Anabeth Chase #percabeth

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