#or is that incentive not to comment for those Axel fangirls?

[jflashandclash]

Traitors of Olympus IV: THE LAST CHAPTER!!!

           Their lunch went over the amount of time Pax had allotted, but there was no way he would cut it early. The appreciation on Merry’s face and the relief on Kally’s were worth every second of catch up he had to play, even as he bantered into the phone.

           “Are you suggesting this meeting is more important than my own affairs?” Pax let the iciness slip into Santiago’s voice. The other end of the line went into panicked silence. Everyone thought Santiago had disappeared for good, but he couldn’t yet. Not when there were so many unresolved legal issues to attend to and so many people Pax could mess with.

           Other than his phone argument, the van had been marked with uncomfortable silence. Alabaster spent the time doing his jaw stretches and exercises. Pax wanted to make a comment about a few other ways to work out Alabaster’s jaw, but—after one very awkward bathhouse incident where Pax forgot who he was—Pax had promised to check the mirror before he tried hitting on anyone. Or give tackle hugs. That had ended well with Axel.

           Axel couldn’t stand to look at him when he did this. He didn’t even like hearing Pax talk. Some disturbed part of Pax enjoyed it, like Muahahha! This is how if feels! But, Pax knew that was about as fair as betting against Prometheus or Tyche.[1]

On the note of feeling vindicated about triggering Axel’s trauma and why, Pax admitted, it was unfair, Pax had chosen to hang the Triple A Chimera masks in their throne room. That way, he would cringe every time he caught saw the Leonis Caput helm and had to rub the stump where his hand used to be. Call it the espresso shot of incentive for whenever he wavered on their cause or thought about painting weasels instead of going to one of Santiago’s business meetings.

           Axel didn’t choose to see Santiago again the way Pax chose to see the helm. Axel had voiced his opinion on the matter very thoroughly and with a lot of violent gum chewing. If Pax kept this up, and they found a way to attach an electrical plant to Axel’s mouth, Pax suspected they could power the entirety of Camp Othrys (Remastered) with his vehemence.

           As their white van pulled alongside the other pharmaceutical vans, Pax ended the phone call. He grinned at the others, shuffling to his feet. No matter how often he turned into Santiago, he never got used to the limp.

           “Good news everyone!” he said.

           Curiosity sparkled in Alabaster’s green eyes. He sat up on the opposite bench. “Did you get a dead body?”

           “I got a dead body!”

           Axel didn’t say a word or react as he exited the driver’s side. He didn’t wait for them either, going ahead through the back entrance’s hidden doors.

           Pax tried not to let Axel’s anger dampen his spirits. Instead, he focused on this opportunity: Axel had left Alabaster to his mercy.

Pax rose to his feet, almost stumbling on the bad leg.

           Alabaster hopped out of the van. He sighed and extended a hand to help him.

           Pax fished around his suit jacket—it became easier wearing the same clothes his dad did when he was morphing this often—and nipped a bite of his golden apple. He didn’t need to anymore. He had morphed into Santiago as soon as they dropped off the girls, but he enjoyed the sensation. Before Alabaster could withdraw, Pax morphed again.

           That way, when he staggered down and leaned against Alabaster for support, Pax looked like a voluptuous, hot chick whose curves barely fit in the now-tight business suit.

           Alabaster had a hard time looking at him. “Ajax,” he growled, though in threat or complaint, Pax wouldn’t know until Alabaster set him on fire.

           Pax grinned up at him. “The corpse is super fresh, only an hour dead. It’s the right height, weight, race, and age. How much time will you need to give him a proper, evil gimp leg and some Iago fangs?”

           That had been a fun experience. When Alabaster set to work making a mold of Santiago’s mouth from Pax’s morphed one, Pax had a hard time not trying to eat the bubble-flavored molding. Eventually, Alabaster switched the flavor to something much less delicious.

           Pax tightened his—her? Unlike Lapis, who demanded a certain pronoun, he never really cared what pronoun he used, even when his family jewels turned into… that didn’t seem fair that girl’s parts weren’t also called family jewels. They were as precious. Maybe family pearls? He’d have to consult Urbandictionary later. Regardless, her for now. Pax tightened her hand around Alabaster’s tie. The bracelet that Alabaster had made for Pax glinted along her wrist in the sunlight.

Witch boy had a much harder time rebuffing her when Pax was a girl.

           Alabaster swallowed at their proximity but didn’t withdraw. He looked exhausted, probably from hot-girl-overdrive from seeing Kally earlier. “To trick a mortal, a few hours. If the coroner identifying him ends up being a demigod…” he shrugged.

           Pax had forgotten, for a second, they were talking about altering a body. She nuzzled her face against Alabaster’s shoulder, her longer hair spill out the ponytail and across the two of them. Although the child of Hecate’s spell pouches were all by his belt now, his scent still hinted at the herbs he carried.

Other than that bathing house incident, Pax had been an upstanding gentlelady… gentleman… gentle person? Whatever. Which really meant she hadn’t had time to disrespect anyone’s boundaries, or so Pax kept telling himself. That and she feared she’d breakdown if she let herself get cuddly with Alabaster. She had to be strong. Strong Pax baby that used all that bottled up fear, pain, and anger to scheme. Muahaha.

           But Pax wanted hugs after not touching Kally the whole meal. And Pax had been so well-behaved recently. So much so, that Alabaster hadn’t set him on fire in months. Maybe…

           “So, I see you get hot and bothered by corpse talk. If I keep chatting about it, will you let me give your neck a makeover? Look at Axel. It’s all the rage these days,” Pax said. It had been so long since she properly flirted, she almost forgot to make her eyes super wide when she blinked up at him.

           “Ajax, I appreciate that you’ve kept to your promise for the last two months,” Alabaster said. “Don’t—”

           Someone cleared their throat by the back entrance of the temple.

           Axel must have doubled back from inside to give Lucius the automaton donkey a bucket of oil. He leaned against the door, arms folded, glaring, though Pax couldn’t tell if it was more at her or at Alabaster.

           Pax pouted.

           Alabaster tapped Pax’s bracelet.

           Pax’s Mist hand dissolved. The glove collapsed into nothing, leaving the red scarring of a stumped wrist.

           All his concentration faded. Pax morphed back into a boy, clutching his stump and empty glove against his chest.

           That was meaner than anything Alabaster could have said, but Pax carefully kept his pout. Making Alabaster question his sexuality for a few seconds: a victory that trumped all other loses, including that of a functional limb. Probably.[2]

           “Even if the Belizean coroner is a demigod, he isn’t paid enough money to pay attention to something like that,” Axel said, like his little brother hadn’t been trying to seduce his friend and use a van with sleeping bags the way teenagers were supposed to use a van with sleeping bags.

           Alabaster fixed his tie. The skin under his freckles was bright red despite the way he tried to glare. “If we can properly set up the body in the swamps of Belize, it’ll look more like a suicide than a murder.”

            “See, that. That’s exactly the kind of violence I want. Good ol’ autosacrifice!” Pax kept his smile strong. He refused to puff up his cheeks and pop them while thinking about autosacrifice: the amount of blood that he and Lapis had shed to contact the Vision Serpent recently. This time, he wanted to proceed as carefully as possible and get all the supernatural, visiony approval as possible before things went wrong. No more rash Pax baby.

           He led the others towards the backdoors of the temple. He was pleased to see some new recruit had graffitied kittens around the door entrance. The next hallway wasn’t nearly as cheerful—Matthias had been focusing so much on restructuring the new housing that he’d only managed to put up posters of bands for this area of redecoration.

           “Santiago is making a huge point to say he’s traveling to his home town for something important next week,” Pax said to and winked at Axel. “After that, Mr. Soon-To-Be-Legally-Pax-Patriarch, you and Lapis will never have to look at him again. Except in family photos. We should burn all our family photos.”

           Axel clenched his jaw in his best illustration of I can be hot, mysterious, AND mopey. “I don’t like that you’re doing this.”

           That was a conversation that Pax wanted to hear again about as much as he wanted to watch Alabaster cut off his useless hand again. Sure, in a few ways, he’d asked for both, but that didn’t mean he needed another bonding experience with a hatchet or a grumpy older brother.

           Nausea threatened his stomach as he thought about how much easier it could have been with Kally there. She wouldn’t have let the procedure continue without him being sedated. But, she wouldn’t have let a lot of things happen that Pax knew needed to happen.

           He shook off the feeling, jamming his stump harder into his ribs to force himself to focus. They got to the elevator at the end of the hall. It was already opening with the auto sensor Matthias had installed.

“Yea,” Pax said, “And I don’t like that my brother got attacked by an empousa and won’t tell me about it. You said you were going to find a way to easily change the subject from our updated style. You didn’t say you were going onto Vampire’s Anonymous. Did you at least give as good as you got?”

           Axel sighed. When he rubbed his bruises, his expression turned wistful. They got inside, and Axel pressed his finger into the scanner for a quick blood sample to get to the top floor. “Ajax, I’m pretty sure I’d kill someone if I tried to do this to their neck. And, I would never give you a lead that obvious.”

           Pax grumbled in Mayan. If Axel was leaving territorial marks, he could have looked into whether or not Reyna or Thalia had gotten a sudden propensity for scarves.  Pax couldn’t believe he’d been so busy that he didn’t even have a guess as to which girl was Axel’s new best friend and which was his nibble buddy.

           “When she’s ready for it to become public…” Axel trailed off. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them. “Then you’ll know. I’m not exactly fond of keeping our relationship a secret.” There was a hint of bitterness.

           Pax huffed. “Augh, that’s no help either! Is it secret because of Thalia’s connection to the huntresses or Reyna’s position as praetor? You wouldn’t violate Thalia’s vows, but you also wouldn’t want to jeopardize Reyna’s already shaky claim as praetor. And I don’t know whether or not you thought relieving sexual tension through neck play was a way around Thalia’s vows—”

           “Ajax,” Axel warned. “Girlfriend or friend, I don’t even let Jack speak disrespectfully of someone I care about.”

           “Does Jack know?!” Pax demanded.

           Alabaster cleared his throat. “I think Lapis may have let it slip.”

           Which meant Lapis knew. Dude, Axel sucked at keeping secrets. “Ha! You didn’t mention Bast! Besides, if it was her, she’s not one to get catty with the other girls, but would be prideful about her including Axel in her pride.”

           “Not necessarily,” Alabaster said. “She’s supposed to be in the Duat. She’s been sneaking off to visit us.”

           Axel’s cheeks grew red.

           Pax’s eyes widened. “Oh?”

           “It’s not Bast,” Axel said curtly, eliminating one. “She’s a bit too… maternal and and—um—aggressive for me.”

           Pax shook his head. “Ah, having a hot familial figure that wants to bang you. Now you know how I feel when I go on lunch dates with my half-sister.”

           Before the elevator dinged for the complete stop at the top floor, something phased through the shiny metal. It scurried up Pax’s pant leg, tiny nails tearing into the silky fabric, saving Pax from Axel and Alabaster’s glares.

           Between the “Aye! Aye! Aye!”s, Pax laughed. Baller, his weasel, burrowed into Pax’s sleeve, nesting into his armpit. Once the door opened, two more weasels scurried about their feet. Axel knelt down to pet Hunnie on the nose and accepted when the weasel wrapped around his hand in a battle strike. Alabaster tossed Nietzsche, the albino, something.

           All three took off after whatever the dark object was as it scuttled further into the atrium. Obsidian doors were in the wall across from the elevator doors, one ajar to allow the rodents to enter. Pax wasn’t sure what to do with remodeling the atrium yet. It was imposing, as he felt like it should be, but they also lacked something fun, like bean bags and a dartboard with Jason Grace’s face.[3]

           He really wanted Matthias to design a twenty story slide or fireman’s pole from this room to the bottom of the temple. Matthias said that would kill too many new recruits. Pax argued that it wouldn’t if they made it end in 20 feet of feathers. Alabaster said Pax didn’t understand the science of impact, but that Alabaster would see if he and Lou Ellen could make some kind of Mist buffer to accomplish the task.

           Giggles interrupted Pax’s thoughts.

           Just inside the doorway, he could see three girls duck out of sight. The sunlight in the room had glinted off their crimson skin so they looked like vanishing demons or, as Pax preferred, ethnically-ambiguous cartoon characters.

           “Huh, Euna must be tending to the—” Alabaster started.

           Pax gulped and sprinted for the door. “Cho!”

           Axel immediately caught up along his side as they busted through the doorway. “What?!”

           “I let Hiro loose!” Pax said. He’d meant it as a kind gesture—honestly, his littlest brother needed to get out from time to time, but Hiro and Euna hadn’t been in the same room since—

           They skidded to a stop inside. Everything sounded peacefully quiet. In Pax’s not-peaceful life, he knew that meant everyone had probably killed each other. The sound that shredded the peace was a blade sliding against another blade.

           Comforting.

           More giggles erupted.

           Axel and Pax scanned the room. There had been a lot of adjustments. The massive walnut trees expanded to form a canopy over the front section of the enormous throne room. Light could still come from the square dome at the top of the ceiling, especially with the mirrors they added to optimize the amount of sun, but the atrium was still dimmer than pre-forest times.

           In the center of the room, where Eris’ pithos once sat atop an alter, was Joey’s statue, still smiling with pride. That and the throne were lit magnificently. Pax had made sure of it. Both to honor Joey and to annoy her if she could still sense the brightness.

           The two tables that had once been used for meetings had been removed, leaving the throne in the back as the only piece of real furniture.

           In a maze across the ceiling, Pax had added metal bars, like monkey bars constructed by a maniac, with ladders installed on either side of the wall to reach them.

           That’s where they found the chaos.

           A fourteen-year-old half-Japanese boy dangled from the bars beside a tree that was further from the rest. His legs bobbed uselessly under him as he scrambled to catch one of the crimson nymphs.

           Pax knew there would be sixteen of those monstrosities in total, but he only spotted about a dozen in the branches, playing Keep Away with his littlest brother.

A crimson nymph curled up in a softly sobbing ball away from the others. Near her, Pax caught sight of Euna. She was, Pax assumed, pruning some of that nymph’s branches. Although most of the branches were thicker than her arm, Euna snipped them off with single strikes.

           He knew the last nymph would be by the former fire pit, and was too small to play with the others. Euna had already named that dryad Resilience since it was a sapling stubbornly sprouting from Santiago’s tree stump.  

           The walnut trees had red leaves, like the color of the nymph’s skin, hair, and eyes. Something about not having enough light for typical photosynthesis—bla-bla-bla—chemistry—bla-bla-bla—child of Demeter. All Pax cared about was the fact that Euna had NOT decided to prune Hiro’s functional limbs.

           Axel and Pax sighed in relief. Alabaster strolled in behind them, unconcerned.

           At their hurried entrance, some of the nymphs disappeared back into their trees. Euna set her shears down, then touched the snipped off sections. The bark rippled, healing over the nubs to leave little more than a scar. She knelt down beside the sobbing dryad, gently brushing away her tears with her work gloves. “Your branches were criss-crossed. We had to pick the strongest branch, since they would have been sickly if we kept both,” she said.

           The nymph sniffed and crawled up to lean into Euna’s long, black hair that hung over her shoulder.

           Euna awkwardly patted her back. Then, she gently set the nymph back into her tree.

           Once done, she brushed her gloves on her jeans and walked towards them. The vines and leaves dangling from her hair and limbs seemed to whisper with each step. Pax loved the fact that she hadn’t learned to control the whole “god glow” thing. It meant he wouldn’t trip over her when she found odd areas to nap or that he could use her as a nightlight.

           At Alabaster’s raised eyebrow, Euna shrugged. “It’s not their fault that they’re full grown and have the mental capacity of toddlers.”

           As much as Euna looked disinterested, she had been tending to these trees, and the former-fire-pit-new-garden, religiously. Axel and Pax had been worried about their favorite homicidal Korean until they brought her into this room and the dryads flocked to her like creepy, Satanic ducklings to their mother. When they were a little more developed, he was sure they’d run shrieking, “Mom’s home!”anytime Euna returned from missions.

           The creepy blood-born babies brought Euna peace and purpose beyond murder. Plus, it sort of solved the satanic dryad infestation. Still there, but at least they were more like pets and Hiro’s playmates than unwanted rodents. (Pax heard that most people didn’t want rodents in their houses, which he thought absurd.)

           Euna smiled at Axel as she tossed something at his head from her pocket. “Happy early birthday.”

           Axel caught it, flashing a fanged grin. They’d been playing a lot of “surprise” catch to work on her situational awareness. He held up the glass vial with something gold and fleshy inside. Attached to the lid were a pair of familiar sunglasses that seemed to glow with an internal fire. “Is this—”

           “A trophy from our fight last week?” she said. “Yea. Congrats. One down. Eleven to go.”

           Axel looked ecstatic. He hugged the heart-jar close to him with one hand, then held out the other in a fist. “Pound it,” he said.

           She fist bumped him. Her dark eyes searched around in lazy confusion. “Why isn’t Kally with you?”

           “Yea, Ajax, why did we deviate from the plan?” Alabaster asked, shooting him a side-glare.

           Pax had been hoping to avoid this conversation for as long as possible. At least now he had the perfect illustration as to his reasoning. “Because you just gave Axel a heart in a jar as a birthday gift.”

           “I thought it was very considerate and sweet,” Axel objected. He stepped around the group, walking towards the back wall. As he crossed paths with Joey’s statue, he nodded a greeting, then he continued forward, to put the jar in the section they’d designated for trophies.

Pax pondered over installing a modern art piece on the back wall. They already had the Triple A Chimera helms mounted there and Phobetor’s piccolo-hatchet. If they were going to have a menagerie of random godly item and organs, you might as well shape them into a weasel.

“Where’s Lapis?” Pax asked, watching Hiro snatch at a dryad. The girl giggled and hopped to a different branch. He swung down from the monkey bars, onto the tree, not realizing how hard he’d smashed his knees into another branch. They needed to buy him shin guards or a riot shield for his legs.

           “With the new recruits,” Euna said. “How’d the talk with Reyna go about the soldiers defecting from New Rome?”

           Axel snorted. “We’re protecting defectors and her reputation is on the line. How well do you think it went?”

           “So it was the huntress!” Pax said and snapped his fingers.

           Euna gave Pax a confused glance. “Do you mean Thalia? She hasn’t been a huntress for… um…” Her eyebrows furrowed. “The middle of the sweet potato harvest?”

           The fact that time had become difficult for their sprouting godling wasn’t the part of that sentence interested Pax.

           “A month,” Axel supplied, patiently “You and I celebrated her physical sweet sixteen with her, Percy, and Annabeth about a month ago.”

           “Holy Titans,” Pax whined, “So she—”

Before he could start guessing, Euna waved him off, sprinkling him with dirt from her gloves. “It didn’t have to do anything with me or Axel.”

           Axel shook his head. “The prophecy she was trying to prevent is over and she has paid proper homage to her fallen friend. She had some other reasons, but they didn’t have to do with any current romantic intentions.” The way he said it labeled the topic clearly with Off Limits.

           “Hrm, and an argument between you and Reyna could easily end in a nomnom fest. Augh!” Pax ran a hand through his hair, messing up the gel and pulling more out of his ponytail. “How have I become such a terrible information gatherer?”

           “I don’t know. You were gone on one of your ‘business’ meetings,” Axel said.

           The first month had been insane. Pax had to meet with a lot of contacts, both in the pharmaceutical world and mythological one, to prove Santiago wasn’t dead. He and Claymore had spent many a torturous session on how to conduct a business meeting without discussing anything serious, so Claymore could handle emails that involved real dealings. And, there had been the rebranding. Pretending Santiago had found God or whatever they decided to change some of the “business” practices.

           Technically, Pax supposed, Santiago had found some god.

           Pax’s stomach clenched to think of some of the stuff that happened to him when Axel was too “busy” during their time at Camp Othrys. One glance at Axel’s bitter glare, and Pax calmed.

           “Hey,” he protested at Axel and Alabaster’s scowls, “I got this. You promised me. Six months. I know that’s an insanely long time for neither of you to have an aneurism, but I have four more months of unquestioned Pax tyranny and I think I’ve been taking pretty good care of us so far. Reese’s Sticks for everyone!”

           “Yea, but how much of that time have you spent as you?” Axel asked. His ears flattened against his hairline.

           Alabaster nodded. “You haven’t pulled a single prank in a month or worked on any art projects. Matthias has a calendar recording it.”

           Euna made a face. “How does Matthias have time for that?”

           Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them, swearing prank vengeance on Matthias as soon as he had time to conduct a proper prank. He pressed the stump of his hand into his ribs. His eyes drifted to Joey’s statue, to what Hera had done to her, and to the Leonis Caput helm and to what the god of war—former god of war, he corrected gleefully—and the goddess of love had done to Axel. That was why he had to do this.

           That’s also why he couldn’t break down in front of the others. They needed a strong leader, else Alabaster wouldn’t be able to focus on cracking the curse of Joey’s statue, Axel wouldn’t be able to finally relax enough to play bump in the night with the girl he liked or set up the training regiment for their newbies, Euna… Euna would probably do whatever Euna wanted to, but he liked to think she’d have a harder time focusing on her new god-powers and sanity without him putting forward some effort.

           And, he wasn’t ready to admit to them the problems he was still in denial about, like the times he’d gotten stuck as Santiago and called Atë in a panic as he scratched and clawed at his own face. At Santiago’s face? Pax looked too much like the photos to glance in mirrors anymore. That’s when the private lessons started of How to Be a God 101. Atë had taught him how to alter a single feature on his face, so no one would notice the gashes. She had taught him a lot.

He forced himself not to tremble.

           Pax gave them a devilish smile, realizing he must have missed a response from Axel. “If I fail, you’re allowed to pull my ear off. If it works, I’m punishment-free for another six months.” He winked at Alabaster. “Then I can coddle Witch boy without interruption.”

           Alabaster sighed. “Ajax, don’t make me sabotage Camp Othrys to maintain my dignity. I will.”

           “I will be allowed to court him in polite, gentlefolk fashion,” Pax corrected. “Girls can court people too nowadays, Witch Boy.” He winked again.

           “You’re not a girl,” Alabaster said, not looking at him or Axel. Axel made the terrible mistake of thinking Alabaster was the older of the two, so would blame anything that happened on him.

           “I can if I want to be,” Pax said. This was when he was supposed to bump Alabaster’s hip if he was acting normal, but he couldn’t bring himself to, not when he had been Santiago so often. He wished he could pretend, like he had for that second by the van.

           “Kally hits hard now,” Axel observed, saving Alabaster a response. He rubbed his shoulder, the same spot that Kally had given each of them a solid welt.

           Pax refrained from touching his with his stump. He and Alabaster exchanged a glance before Pax glared at Axel. “I know your vetting process for Axel’s List of Requirements for Taste in Sexy Ladies. Don’t get any ideas.”

           Axel laughed, clearly not catching onto Pax’s threatening tone or the way Alabaster had set a hand on his spell pouches. “I’m just saying that she must still be training with Mr. Paine,” Axel said, “She must be bored, or even scared having to deal with monsters on her own. You said you were going to bring her, Ajax, and tell the others about this.” That bitterness returned to his voice. “And I think Lapis is going to kill you if we don’t have Merry start sessions with Hiro.”

           “Look at him. He’s as happy as a condor with a deer carcass,” Pax said, gesturing to where Hiro had latched himself to one of the braches and was biting at the bark. They really needed to get him down before he fell again. Hiro didn’t need the lower half of his body when he was doing the horizontal swing of the monkey bars, but he struggled more with the vertical jumps on the trees.

           Hiro, as they discovered, did not like looking up. It sent him into a fit. So, Pax reasoned, they would just make it so Hiro could move all around the temple without much up to look at. That didn’t work though when one of the more malicious dryads tricked him to the lower branches and he couldn’t boost himself up to climb and couldn’t use his legs to jump down.

           “For now. You know he’ll fall apart when his medication wears off,” Alabaster muttered.

           Pax couldn’t argue. “We do need a healer…” he said softly. “I just don’t know if Kally is ready for… this.” He gestured widely to Santiago’s throne room with its demonic dryads and eerie gloom and doom.

           “Are you trying to make sure someone is comfortable?” Euna asked skeptically.

           “No, I live to discomfort others,” Pax said.

           Alabaster sighed. He reached into Pax’s pocket to withdraw his phone and set it into Pax’s hand. “We need a healer in more ways than one.”        

           Axel’s shoulder slumped. “And maybe someone to keep us in check. If it ever gets to the point that you don’t feel like you can have Kally here, maybe we’ve gone too far.”

           Pax wanted to say Exhibit A and point to the heart in a jar, but he knew they were talking about his recent fad for dress up. Just one more week though. Then some poor Belizean tourists would find “Santiago Pax” dead in a swamp and his will would divvy up his fortune with his recently acquitted son, Axel Pax, as the executor.[4]

           Would that change anything for Pax though?

           There was still so much to do. Others could do it so much better than Pax, well “Pax” as himself. It had been so much easier not being himself.  

           If Kally were here, he would have to do things a different way. She could read all of them like a book. Stupid authors and their assumptions on people’s—haha—character. She wouldn’t let him do his weekly visits with his half-sister, or sequester himself in his room under the guise of business meetings, or talk to the new recruits as Santiago because Santiago was so much better as a leader than he was.

           Maybe she could help him find a balance between serious, tyrant Pax and that soft child-prankster. What he normally was. If nothing else, her presence would get Alabaster and Axel off his back. Kally would probably be so lost adjusting the first week, she wouldn’t be able to keep track of him and his movements or who he was. If he set Alabaster up as her tour guide, then they’d both be too distracted—

           What was Pax thinking?! He had to be there if Alabaster and Kally would be battling for cutest and most oblivious flirt.

           Axel had thought this through too well.

           Pax sighed heavily. He shoved the phone back into his pocket, squared his shoulders, and tried—as best as he’d learned with one hand—to smooth his hair back into a tighter ponytail.

           Alabaster tapped the bracelet on Pax’s wrist.

           Mist emanated from the silver and gold band and twisted until it formed a hand. Pax still got phantom limb spasms, but at least the Mist hand worked. He smoothed the gel back down. His stray hair, this week he took to calling it One Who Dodges Hair Ties, popped out to curl down his cheek.

           “Can I at least make an official announcement?” Pax pouted.

           Axel stepped out of the path to the throne. After a split second of her staring off into the trees, he dragged Euna out of the way too.

           Pax walked through the room. As he passed Joey’s statue, he gave their marbled friend a quick kiss on the cheek, something he’d done every day they moved her here. Had he found out that she had a crush for him before she died, he’d have teased her relentlessly, and decided to make up for it during her stone age.

           “I bought you a pre-released recording session for EXO,” he said, “I heard Suho’s vocals can crack any girl’s hardened heart.”

           He set the CD at her feet. He still couldn’t believe people bought CDs. That was supposed to be for creatures that walked the earth hundreds of years ago. Later, they would have to pull the old CD player they’d salvaged out of Santiago’s room to give her some easy listening.

           Pax continued forward, forcing himself to look at the Leonis Caput helm on the back wall. It felt right to have a heart in a jar nearby. The sight made him wonder if Alabaster had put Pax’s severed hand in a bottle of formaldehyde and it was now floating somewhere in the Witch Boy’s laboratory. Pax wished he could still move the limb despite being severed. Then he’d make it wave to Alabaster every time he knew Alabaster was in his lab. Questions to ask Atë when next he saw her.

           Finally, Pax leveled with the throne of bones that was sewn together with tendons. He’d thrown a smiling panda car seat over it. Baby steps in remodeling.

           When he sat down—bones were very uncomfortable; Pax didn’t know what his father had been thinking—he saw Alabaster mid-eyebrow raise, Axel trying not to avert his gaze, and Euna staring off at Hiro as he chased a dryad around the canopy.

           He cleared his throat. “I promise to kidnap Kally—”

           “Bring Kally with parental knowledge and consent,” Axel corrected.

           “Hey.” Pax glared at the interruption. “We’re not shooting for gold and diamonds here.”        

           Euna shrugged, proving she was paying attention. “It went well with my dad.”

           All three boys shifted uncomfortably. “You call that ‘well?’” Alabaster asked.

           “Your dad hits really hard for a mortal,” Axel said, though Pax couldn’t tell if it was a compliment or a complaint.

           “He kept up with his military training,” Euna said, “I think he’s supposed to be visiting sometime this week.”

           Alabaster and Pax groaned. Mr. Song had a very strict expectation for his daughters’ livelihood and Camp Othrys II didn’t meet it.

           “Anyway,” Pax said, “I hereby say that Kally shall come here, but under one condition and one condition only.” He pointed a finger at Axel. “You tell me which girl got your neck.”

           Axel’s jaw started to clench, but his lips curved into a tired smile. “You know what? Deal. You bring in Kally, I’ll leave hints that any capable spymaster should be able to figure out.”

           “Ah, a challenge,” Pax said. He couldn’t decide if he was thrilled or annoyed. The fact that it was a question between the two emotions made Pax wonder if Alabaster and Axel were right: he needed to relax and smell the puff pastries.

           “Assuming you have the time to take said challenge.” Axel examined his claws on his right hand. His pointer and middle finger barely had new growth from when they ripped off in the Labyrinth. Pax decided not to ask, since it was so inappropriate—

           “Is it easier to court your girl now that those fingers have become more versatile?” Pax asked.

           Alabaster choked on a laugh.

           From somewhere in the trees, Hiro whistled.[5]

           Axel’s face deepened to crimson. Those fingers curled into a fist. “Ajax, you have four months left before I can rip off your ear.”

           “Allegedly,” Alabaster said.

           “I think it was a reasonable question,” Euna said, “Those claws have gotta get in the way.”

           Axel tried to keep his expression neutral as he changed the subject. “How are we going to tell Kally about this?” He gestured to their trophy wall: trophies from the minor gods that they had killed—two tiny gods and now one major. Ta-da! Pax was really proud of them for sticking to their New Year’s Resolution. Some people went to gyms. Some people slew a deity per month.

           “Maybe we should ease her more into this,” Alabaster said.

           Pax had to agree. Glancing from Joey’s statue to the Leonis Caput helm, he felt a smile crawl onto his lips. A malicious glee made him tap the armrest of his bone throne. In an instance that made him realize just how desperately they needed Kally to keep them in check, he leaned forward and asked, “The real question is: One down. Eleven to go. Who are we going after next?”

 ***

All the Author’s Notes!

This concludes the Traitors of Olympus series. For those of you who have made it through all of this madness, I can’t thank you enough for taking this journey with me, and it has been a crazy journey. (Pax is sobbing behind me. I think I saw Axel wipe a tear away too. Nope. Nope, that’s just him showing off his claws…) I hope you were able to enjoy this ending (it is VERY different than its original conception) and I really hope you’ve enjoyed the ride! As always, I’d love to hear any of your thoughts on the series, favorite ships, favorite scenes, favorite characters, or even for you just to say a quick, “Hi!” XD You guys rock and made this possible! (I’m not crying while writing this, I swear)

By September, I’m aiming to have the first short from Tales from Mount Othrys out, the prologue to this series, so you might not be rid of me just yet. Hold onto those pitchforks!

 ***

Thank you so much to Mel, my betatester and close friend, for inspiring me and encouraging me to keep going (and doting on my babies while I traumatize them). I would have crashed and burned forever ago without you. <3

And, lastly, I wanted to write a quick dedication to my Merry: I know you’re never going to read this, but this is how I wish things could have gone for you and your Nikhil. I’m sorry everything didn’t turn out like a storybook ending—you did everything you could with what was given to you. Please, remember that, and remember to take care of yourself. Nikhil, I hope you’ve found your favorite place to jam to comedy R&B in the Elysian Fields, hanging with the other heroes, like you, who are so good at bringing a smile to people’s faces.

***

Footnotes:

[1] Tyche vs. Prometheus. I think Tyche would win, because luck always destroys careful planning.

[2] Yea, I know Pax hit on him as a girl. Pax will still consider that making Alabaster question his sexuality, since Pax believes Alabaster’s sexuality is exclusively dedicated to his laboratory.

[3] Some things never change. Though Jack does think Jason Grace and Axel are now friends much to Pax’s pouty distaste.

[4] In Mel’s betanotes, she read this first as the Pokemon, “Exeggutor” and thought of an Axel version of that. I mean… Axel is both a psychic and nature type….

[5] Melbeta note, “HIRO FUCKING WHISTLED YOU GO YOU SMOL CHEEKY LITTLE PAX GET YOUR KICKS WHERE YOU CAN GET THEM XD XD … OH GOSH THAT PUN WASN’T INTENDED AND WAS MEANER THAN I EVER MEANT I’M SO SORRY!” Jack, “I couldn’t stop laughing at this. I think you understand why I needed to put this in here XD”