Chapter Text
Jason dreamed of a redwood forest, hands smaller than he was used to, and a mouth smeared with blood.
Demigod memories were always sharper than mortal ones. What mortals would forget, half-bloods would remember as clear as day. This also meant that Jason was, crudely, strapped down and forced to witness an unstolen fragment of his childhood in unsettling clarity. No thanks to Clovis, he guessed.
Jason inhaled, tensed up. Right now, he was tiny and frail. He felt the breath rattle nervously through his ribcage—if he fell behind, it meant death. Jason could barely see past the hulking shadows circling him, their fluffy pelts rippling in the night breeze. Kill; he needed to kill. The rabbit…
Jason looked down. The wild rabbit on the ground twitched, one of its hind legs kicking. He had no control over his movements. The only thing he felt was fear—overwhelming, panic-driven fear. His head remained bowed in submission. Above him, a shadow enlarged, and Jason could feel the warm puffs of a massive, russet-red she-wolf breathing down his neck.
In dark, growled Latin: Eat.
A gruesome image flashed in Jason’s head: choking the rabbit, then feasting. The command came not as a word, but as an impulse—an internal pressure to obey, like the urge to crawl when the ground was patted.
Jason’s lips parted in a halted protest. He wondered if the she-wolf could be pleaded with. He had thrown up yesterday, back when he took his first gulp of raw meat out of another pack member’s mouth. The wolves had snapped their fangs at him for that, and Jason, barely even knowing how to walk properly without falling on his face, almost lost his nose. But he knew the gray wolves wouldn’t dare hurt him.
Nobody could lay their jaws on him. Not when the red one was here. She ruled the pack, and she was the only one allowed to judge if Jason was worthy of survival.
Gingerly, Jason’s feeble little hands dug into the canid bite mark left by the she-wolf. The rabbit twitched again. She had brought him this prey, but why? Was it a test to see how far he was willing to go for survival?
Jason’s stomach lurched in agony. He gagged, then swallowed the oncoming retch, because throwing up in front of the she-wolf would surely get his face clawed off.
Without a choice, Jason’s hands went to the throat of the rabbit. He shoved down, strangling it, squeezing as hard as he physically could. It took ages. When the last traces of life finally left the poor creature’s eyes—whether it was from blood loss or asphyxiation, it didn’t matter—Jason steeled himself, ducking down and unhinging his jaw.
‘Gross’ was the only word he could supply. It was nothing but gross. He could barely chew through the thick hide, so he had to use his fingers to rip out the belly of the rabbit and snack on its rubbery organs. He was so, so hungry, tired of living on foraged nuts and roots, and this was his only food.
Thickly, he swallowed. He was crying fully by the time the meat dropped into his stomach. His lips, tongue, and teeth were wet, permeated, and stained with the alkaline tang of wild game. Jason tasted salt, then realized those were hot tears and snot dribbling into his mouth.
By sheer, determined willpower, hunger won out. He didn’t vomit.
The she-wolf above Jason rumbled. It was deep and guttural. In Latin, she vocalized into his mind: Good. Soon, you will become one of the pack. This will not kill you, son of Jupiter. Your kind has been through worse. Endure it.
Jason—the current Jason—vaguely prickled to lucidity from annoyance. This version of him barely felt older than two. He couldn’t even string a coherent sentence together. But tiny Jason understood the she-wolf. He didn’t grasp the semantic meaning of her words, but the flickering telepathic image of him brushing pelts with the pack was enough. At that time, he was desperate for bonds, trying to understand their animalistic way of communicating—the gray ones didn’t speak in Image Projection or Latin.
“T–Tah,” tiny Jason blubbered, still shaking with tears. “Tah-tah. No eat.” I’m not hungry anymore.
Why he said that and not ‘mama’, current-Jason had no clue.
The she-wolf’s ears twitched. Some pack members around her snorted.
Lupa, said the she-wolf, tone neutral. The Mother Wolf. That is what the Romans call me. You will follow.
Jason waited, but he didn’t get a demonstration in pronunciation. Lupa’s jaw was locked in a hard, down-turned snarl. Wolves couldn’t make the same sounds humans did.
“Hhh… Hu-pa.”
A pitiful attempt. Jason locked eyes with the she-wolf for the first time. Lupa’s expression didn’t change, but her tail swished slowly, and Jason’s face was still intact. He was safe. He had passed the trial.
Lupa’s body movements communicated something to a subordinate, and current-Jason registered it easily: watch the pup, make sure he eats. Back then, all Jason remembered was being force-fed entrails and regurgitated rabbit meat, mixed with wolf bile and slobber. If not, it was death by starvation.
As the forest warped, taking on a less-dreamy quality, Jason’s lucidity floated back. He sarcastically wondered if Hera stealing the bulk of his memories was a good thing after all. The taste of raw rabbit organs was one he’d have gladly forgotten.
Jason fought to remember more of his old life, but everything was in sharp, painful fractals: a nondescript face with a young, feminine voice that taught him his first English words, later snuffed out during his time with the wolves. His gut told him that it wasn’t his mother.
Faintly, Jason could also recall the muscle memory of repeating a weird sentence at least a thousand times, one that was tongue-twisty and specific: the wolf’s salmon fell on the altar. Then Jason paused, because that wasn’t a hard thing to say at all.
Come to think of it… Where had he gone after Lupa’s pack? Jason had to have been in contact with human civilization to speak fluent English. But at that thought, some pessimistic part of him scoffed: barely fluent. You’ll never sound like a native.
Having seen the un-stolen memory, the alienation made terrible sense. Latin had been his language of thought, Wolf his instinctive tongue, and English… just a distant third. Other demigods treated Latin as a formal mother tongue, but Lupa had raised it to be his first vocabulary—the grammar of his mind was molded and cast in Latin.
‘Wolf’ was arguably worse: a physical language of postures and gestures his body conveyed before his brain caught up. All the subtle head movements; sniffing the air for scent changes—it was a language he’d been speaking to no one.
That left the glaring, hollow question: how did he learn English at all? And why did the beginning of every thought still bubble up in Latin, only to be hastily aborted, then translated into cobbled-together English?
The dreamscape finally settled, and Jason found himself standing before crumbling ruins. Gray wolves milled about, brushing their pelts against his legs and agitating the ground fog. Jason knelt. One of them pressed their cheek against his own and gently mouthed at him, not hard enough to leave any damage. Jason instinctively greeted the wolf back—he recognized her from the old memory. Looks like she did, too.
Jason was nudged by the others toward the ruins, urging him to go deeper. The ground squelched as he walked in uncomfortable, wet noises. He passed stone spires that towered like totem poles, once structural beams of a large mansion with massive log walls and a gabled roof, but all that remained now was its skeleton.
Jason ducked under the remains of a doorway and emerged into a courtyard: before him was a reflecting pool, now filled with shallow rainwater that reflected the moonlight, its rectangular edges blurred by mist. A dirt path led all the way around where the house’s uneven walls rose on either side. More gray wolves paced the perimeter, some of them lying on piles of rust-red volcanic stone, avoiding the large canid figure standing under an archway at the end of the pool.
The she-wolf’s pelt was the same color as the rocks. Her glowing eyes flickered like candles in the dark as the mist parted, and Jason’s head ducked down before he was even conscious of the decision.
Lupa regarded him neutrally.
“I know this place,” Jason said.
Lupa padded a few steps closer to Jason, saying: Of course. Her Latin came crisper, more authoritative than he remembered—all of her vowels were darkened, and many of her consonants were elided or replaced. Malcolm had been right. You were raised here as a pup. Now you must find your way back. A new quest, a new start.
“Can you guide me?”
Jason had no memory, barely a grasp on the role he was meant to play, and he could only hope that Lupa was kind enough to provide answers. The she-wolf didn’t move, but after a rumbling noise, something in her scent changed, signaling: follow me.
Jason raised his head. Lupa guided him past the pool, where Jason caught a glimpse of his reflection. His eyes were brighter than he remembered. He looked unfamiliar within his own body.
They went past the archway, deeper into the ruins of the house. Jason had to step over great, earthy tendrils that leeched into the ground like deep veins. The tendrils coalesced into thick roots as they approached their destination. In the broadest part of the courtyard, Jason saw a pulsing bulb wrapped by the roots, spiraling from the ground like massive tunneling machines that burrowed through the surface. The root tips were curled into the spherical, shifting biomass. Connected to the bulb was another cluster of tendrils that formed a birdcage. Within it was a hunched figure, her form distorted by the dream, but Jason knew who that was.
“Hera,” he said.
Lupa made a sound of agreement. Other wolves had followed them, snarling in displeasure and hostility.
The enemy has chosen to awaken her most powerful son, the giant king, said Lupa. Our sacred place where demigods are claimed—the place of death or life; the burned house; the house of wolves—has been desecrated. You must end this abomination and stop her.
“Her?” Jason repeated. “You mean Hera?”
Lupa’s teeth flashed. Use your senses, pup. I care nothing for Juno, but if she falls, our enemy wakes. You know this place. You can find it again. Cleanse this filth and restore the honor of your pack.
The dark spire pulsed again, and the bulb lurched and distended, faintly glowing with a foul-smelling, vile energy that made Jason turn away. If that bulb ever opened, it would release something he did not want to meet.
“I understand,” Jason said, despite doing anything but understanding. “But who am I? Who was I? At least tell me that.”
Wolves like Lupa didn’t have much sense of humor, but the body language and scent Lupa gave off felt like an amused laugh, like she was watching a yipping pup play-fight for the first time.
You are our saving grace, as always. Lupa curled her lip as if she had just made a clever joke. Jupiter may have given you lifeblood, and Juno a use for it—but it was the Mother Wolf who gave you fangs. Do not fail, pup. You have no authority to.
Jason woke up to Cabin One’s localized alarm clock: an ear-splitting crash of thunder.
He needed to have a word with the cabin’s designer. The domed ceiling above him was beautiful—a blue and white mosaic of an ever-changing cloudy sky—but that was it. Except for the cot that the other campers brought him, Cabin One had nothing that made living here comfortable: no sofas, no dressers, no tables or nightstands. As far as Jason could tell, there wasn’t even a bathroom.
The marble walls were carved with alcoves, each holding a bronze brazier or an eagle statuette on a pedestal. And, most frightening of all, was the room’s centerpiece: a twenty-foot-tall, fully-colored statue of Zeus in classic Greek robes, shield readied and lightning bolt raised.
Yeah, Cabin One. Jason had been told it was a great honor, but the only main attraction was getting to sleep with a life-sized figurine of his dad. Zeus even came with a complimentary judgmental look that would loom over you all night. Ten out of ten.
With his blanket pooled around his legs, Jason studied the statue with the dubious, bewildered look of a newborn toddler seeing his father for the first time.
He tried to find some resemblance: black hair? Nope. Beard? Jason touched his chin—there was a light stubble there, but barely enough to be considered anything. The grumbly expression? Maybe. But Jason’s frowny face wasn’t genetic. It came from the annoyance of having his whole life stolen by Hera, who also ‘owned’ him. It was Hera who gave him the right to breathe. Otherwise, it was death by her rage.
How generous.
Why’d you have to cheat on the goddess of marriage, Dad? Jason thought as he glared at the statue. Zeus did not reply, but from the cot in this angle, he did look like a really buff, really angry hippie.
Jason got up and stretched. His whole body was stiff from a bad night's sleep and from summoning a heavenly bolt of lightning. That little trick hadn’t been as easy as it looked. He gathered his new change of clothes from the floor—jeans, better sneakers, and a brand new Camp Half-Blood shirt. A fresh outfit was good, but Jason felt reluctant as he peeled off the tattered purple T-shirt he had on. The purple was safe; it smelled like the clinging scents of whatever ‘home’ he once had. Wearing bright orange felt like a safety hazard.
He thought about his dream—the forest, the ruins, and Lupa’s words. Both Lupa and Hera-slash-Juno had given him direct orders not to fail. And frankly, after seeing what was at stake, missing the deadline was his biggest fear.
“You’re welcome to help out,” Jason told Hippie Zeus.
The statue remained lifeless.
“Thanks, Pops,” Jason muttered.
He changed clothes and checked his reflection in Zeus’ shield. The bronze made his reflection look warped and watery, so combing his hair into something tidy was a challenge. Stepping back, he sighed at the stubborn cowlick sticking up like a pointy lightning bolt. Compared to Piper after her stylish makeover, he looked ragged.
Once Piper’s quest role was confirmed, the campers had swarmed her, fawning over her new beauty and parentage. Jason had felt a familiar pang. It was the same awestruck reverence he got for calling down lightning—a shiny new coat of paint that instantly separated him from everyone else. It wasn’t ‘Jason’ or ‘Piper’ anymore; just what they could offer as demigods.
When the crowd finally thinned, he asked Piper if she was okay. Jason mentally thanked Drew for sniffing haughtily and leading most of the Aphrodite cabin away.
“My whole outfit was stolen. Mugged by my own mom,” Piper had grumbled, rubbing her arms with the shawl. Then she managed a slight smile for Jason. “I’ll go to bed early. Night, Wolfy.”
He waved goodbye, recognizing the exhausted look on her face. People feared and respected the silhouette that constantly shadowed Jason like a curse—the outline of his father, larger than anything he could measure up to. The Lord of the Sky’s presence followed wherever he went, as if actively declaring to everyone in the vicinity: Respect this kid or eat voltage!
Thank the gods for Leo and Piper. With them, he didn’t have to perform. Jason was fine with anyone else—necessity before comfort—but with those two, he didn’t have to lie with a confidence he didn't possess.
Back then at the campfire, it didn't feel like him speaking; he was scared witless at the thought of saving Hera, of failing. But a teleprompter script had scrolled seamlessly in his mind. And when the scripts shut off—like after he stopped talking, after he’d ripped into Dylan—the lucidity would hit like a tranquilizer. He’d go still, staring at his own hands, wondering if they were still his.
Jason quietly slipped on the new shoes. He was ready to leave the sorry excuse of a cabin. Then he noticed something his tired brain had missed the night before. A brazier had been moved out of one of the alcoves to create a sleeping niche, with a bedroll, a backpack, and some pictures taped to the wall.
Jason approached the bedroll, kneeling slightly to investigate the pictures. It was dusty and unused. Some of the Polaroid photos, once taped to the wall, had lost their stickiness and lay face down on the floor.
He picked one up.
On it was Annabeth with her arms crossed—younger, maybe eight, but easily recognizable with her gray eyes and distracted look. Next to her stood an older guy with sandy hair—fourteen or fifteen—who pointed down a dark alleyway as if daring the photographer to tag along.
Another Polaroid had the same two people: Annabeth and the blond stranger. This one had them around a makeshift campfire, laughing hysterically.
Finally, Jason picked up the remaining photo. It was a strip of four pictures you’d take in a do-it-yourself photobooth: Annabeth and the sandy-haired guy were present, but so was another girl. She looked around the same age as the stranger, her black hair choppy and sharply cut with unprofessional scissors. She wore a black leather jacket studded with spikes; likely thrifted alongside the saturated accessories she wore.
“That’s Thalia,” came a voice behind Jason.
He turned around, almost dropping the photo in shock. Annabeth was leaning against the doorway, nudging her chin at the strip in Jason’s hand.
“The girl. She’s my friend. She’s the other child of Zeus who used to live here—but not for long. Sorry, I should’ve knocked.”
“It’s alright,” Jason said. “I don’t think of this place as home, anyway.”
Annabeth was dressed for travel: a winter coat over her camp clothes, her knife at her belt, her gun in its holster, and a backpack slung over her shoulder.
Jason said, “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about coming with us?”
“No.” Annabeth shook her head apologetically. “I’m off to look for Percy. The physical Montauk Beach might have some clues. Besides, you have a solid team.”
Jason’s disappointed face spoke a little too loudly in the empty room.
“Hey, don’t worry. You’ll do fine,” Annabeth reassured. “Something tells me this isn’t your first quest.”
The tattooed lines on Jason’s arm started to itch. Not your first quest. “I know, but I don’t want to personally lead Leo and Piper off a cliff. Even if I can’t remember being their friends, I at least owe them that.”
At his words, Annabeth’s expression softened with a hint of pity. “Jason… You feel responsible because you think you were their friend. But it’s the effect of the Mist. Their memories were manipulated and managed by the veil that separates mortals from the divine.”
“The Mist? That, that’s—” His heart sank a little. “So we weren’t friends? None of it was real?”
“Your current bond is real. And it doesn’t change your duty, or the fact that you’ll keep them safe. You’ll succeed. I know you will.”
Annabeth had meant well, but all Jason felt was another weighty expectation stacked onto his shoulders. Now he felt like an even bigger fraud, lying to Piper and Leo about his brand-new life beginning on a school bus from Nevada.
But Jason didn’t say any of that aloud. He looked at the pictures of Annabeth instead, wondering how long it had been since she’d smiled so brightly. Her search for Percy made him a little jealous. Chiron had said that Jason was a ‘swap’—it had to mean he was missing somewhere, just like Percy was. Did his people miss him? Or did they move on?
“You know something I don’t,” Jason accused. “Don’t you?”
Annabeth gripped the hilt of her dagger. She looked for a chair to sit on, but the Zeus cabin’s hospitality expanded from the cot to the floor. “Honestly, Jason? You’re an anomaly to all of us at camp. My best guess, you’re a loner. It happens sometimes—camp never found you, but you survived by constantly moving around. You learned how to kill monsters and got claimed in your dreams. You beat the odds.”
“The first thing Chiron said to me was, ‘You should be dead.’”
“Most demigods don’t make it on their own. Especially a child of Zeus—what did you say your Balance was? Did you ever mention it?”
“I didn’t,” Jason said. “And I don’t know what it could be. But I have a growing hunch.”
“Right, well. Keep working on that. As I was saying, you would’ve been eleven? Twelve?” Annabeth’s brows scrunched. “Somewhere around that age when you started smelling good to monsters. It’s also when your powers—and by default, your Balance—fully manifest. The chance of a demigod like you surviving until now without Camp Half-Blood is astronomically small.”
“But you were a loner once,” Jason countered, holding up the four-picture strip. “With these two. Who were almost my age.”
“That’s different,” Annabeth mumbled, “but I guess you’re right. Thalia ran away when she was young. She survived on her own for years. It’s not impossible-impossible.”
“One in a million is still one,” Jason said as he lifted his tattooed arm. “And this? Any clues?”
Annabeth was clearly bothered by the design. She came closer and pressed a finger to the eagle, as if expecting it to come to life. “That’s a symbol of Zeus. Understandable for a tattoo. And these twelve lines”—she swept a finger down the black bars—“it could be the years you survived on your own. How old are you?”
“Maybe sixteen, seventeen,” Jason shrugged.
“How were you getting tattoos at five?” Annabeth muttered, dropping his arm. “Whatever. I won’t question the logistics. It’s the ‘SPQR’ that weirds me out—it stands for ‘Senatus Populusque Romanus’, the Senate and People of Rome. Unless you had a really harsh Latin teacher, or an older demigod obsessed with Rome took you under their wing…”
Jason was sure none of those were correct reasons. Then he remembered a crucial detail: Lupa had called herself the ‘Mother of Rome’. Roman wolves raised him. But Annabeth had been pretty straightforward—Camp Half-Blood was the only safe place in the world for demigods, and the only known demigods were Greek. What else made sense?
“I had a weird dream last night,” Jason ended up admitting, hoping for insight. “Maybe it’d explain something.”
“Demigods and weird dreams go hand-in-hand. What was it about? Hera?”
Jason told her about the wolves, the abandoned ruins, and the earth spires. He left out the rabbit-eating part. Partly because it seemed personal, but also because he didn’t want to show weaknesses in front of her.
The more Annabeth took in, the more agitated she got, until she was physically pacing the marble floor.
“And you don’t remember where the house is?” she asked.
Jason shook his head. “I’m sure I’ve been there before, but nothing’s coming up.”
“Redwoods,” Annabeth mused. “Could be Northern California. And the she-wolf… I’m drawing a blank. I’ve studied goddesses, spirits, and monsters my whole life, but I’ve never heard of Lupa.”
“She called herself the Mother Wolf,” Jason said. “She told me the Romans called her that.”
The uncomfortableness in Annabeth’s expression increased. “Anything else?”
“Lupa also mentioned that the enemy was a ‘her’. Now that I think about it, there’s a chance it’s connected to the ‘mistress’ Dylan is serving.”
“And it’s also connected to the thing rising out of the earth. The ‘king’.” Annabeth’s expression darkened. “You need to stop it.”
You have no authority to fail.
The reminder came back, unbidden. Jason swallowed nervously. “You know who that ‘king’ is. Or at least, you’ve got a hypothesis. I saw your face at the campfire last night. You wanted to tell Chiron something, but you didn’t say it out loud.”
“Jason,” Annabeth began hesitantly, “here’s the thing. The more you know about prophecies, the more you try to change them, and the more you end up losing. Chiron believes you should find your own path. Take your time to iron things out. If he’d told me everything he knew before my first quest with Percy… In all honesty, I wouldn’t have been able to go through with it. For yours, it’s even more important.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Not if you succeed. At least, I hope not.”
Hera, Chiron, Lupa—and now even Annabeth—all their words were steel blocks on his back, like the weight of the world itself. Jason’s thumb absentmindedly traced the picture in his hands. He didn’t speak for a while, but then Annabeth cut through the silence.
“Follow the monsters,” she said. “If you don’t know where to go, that’s where I’d start.”
Jason’s head whipped up. “You mean, find Dylan?”
It was a good plan. Jason’s mind mapped it out in clear, simple steps: track the storm spirits, find the person controlling them, and demand the location of Hera’s prison.
“But where do I find storm winds?” Jason thought aloud. “Not exactly plentiful around camp.”
“Personally, I’d ask a wind god,” Annabeth helpfully provided. “Aeolus is the master of all the winds, but he’s a little unpredictable. You’d need to find one of the four seasonal wind gods that work for Aeolus to give you a location. The nearest one—who also has the most dealings with heroes—is Boreas, the North Wind.”
“So if I looked him up on Google Maps—”
“Oh, he’s not hard to find,” Annabeth promised. “He’s in the oldest northern settlement, about as far north as you can go in North America.”
“Maine?” Jason guessed.
“Farther.”
Jason tried his best to envision a map. What was farther north than Maine? The oldest northern settlement…
“Canada,” he decided. “Quebec.”
Annabeth smiled. “I hope you speak French.”
A spark of excitement fluttered through Jason. Quebec—he had a goal now. Find the North Wind, track down the storm spirits, find out who they worked for, and where that ruined house was. Free his patron goddess. All in four days without room for failure. Cake.
“Thanks, Annabeth.” Jason studied the photo booth pictures one final time. “One last thing—you said it was dangerous being a child of Zeus. What happened to Thalia?”
“She’s more than fine. Your scent drastically reduces when you finish puberty.” Annabeth shrugged. “She’s a free-roamer living off the grid, going around the country and hunting monsters. Sometimes she collaborates with the Hunters of Artemis. We don’t see her at camp very often, but she visits on occasion.”
“How old is she?”
“Hard to say. She was a tree for a while.”
“What?”
Jason’s expression of horror must’ve been pretty good, because Annabeth laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s not something all children of Zeus go through. It’s a long story, but she’s somewhere in her twenties right now.”
“And this guy?” Jason looked down again, showing Annabeth the sandy-haired teen. “Who is he?”
“That’s Luke. He’s dead now,” she said without further comment.
Judging by her tone, Annabeth had an even more complicated history with Luke. Jason didn’t pry. Everyone had skeletons in their closet. His thoughts went back to Thalia, whose face blurred the more he stared at it. Something inside Jason was nagging him unconsciously, tugging his instincts toward this half-sister he apparently had.
Then he remembered Chiron’s strange words, and his even stranger assumption: an older sister, maybe?
Do you remember the names of any relatives you have?
“Annabeth,” Jason carefully said, though he was becoming increasingly breathless, “what’s her last name?”
Uneasily, Annabeth replied, “She didn’t use a last name, really. If she had to, she’d use her mom’s, but they didn’t get along. Thalia ran away when she was very young.”
Jason waited.
“Grace,” Annabeth said. “Thalia Grace.”
The picture fluttered to the floor. Jason’s fingers went numb. Hera had left just enough for him to remember that name, and know that digging up his past was terribly, terribly dangerous.
“Jason?”
You should be dead, Chiron had said. The centaur knew something specific—something about Jason’s family. Lupa’s words in his dream felt like a mockery now. No wonder it had been delivered with laughter. It was a joke. The she-wolf made a joke at his expense.
“Jason, what is it?” Annabeth pressed.
Jason couldn’t keep this to himself. It would kill him, and he had to get Annabeth’s help. If she knew Thalia as well as she said, Annabeth might be able to contact her.
“You have to swear not to tell anyone else. Nobody who doesn’t know,” Jason stated, adding the last bit for clarity.
“Jason—”
“Swear it!” he urged. He took a deep breath. “At least until I figure out what’s going on. Until I remember what all this means.” He rubbed the burned tattoo on his forearm. “You have to keep it a secret, Annabeth. I think Chiron already knows, but you can’t tell anyone else.”
Annabeth’s lips pressed into a thin line, but Jason saw curiosity winning out on her face. “Alright, fine. Until you tell me it’s okay, I won’t share what you say with anyone else who doesn’t know. That’s the condition, right?”
“Yes,” said Jason.
“Then I swear on the River Styx.”
Thunder rumbled, even louder than usual for the cabin. Jason picked up the fallen picture on the floor. His hands were shaking badly, even more than when he’d been forced to eat in front of Lupa. He recalled the faint female voice salvaged from his dreams, the way he had sobbed not for his mother, but for a specific name—
“Thalia is my sister,” Jason said, examining the picture again, still numb with shock. “My blood sister. My last name is Grace.”
When Jason looked up, Annabeth’s face had gone pale. He could see her wrestling with a whirlwind of emotions: disbelief, dismay, anger. She thought he was lying—this time, it was surely an impossible-impossible chance. A part of Jason felt the same way, but the moment those words materialized in the air, he knew they were true.
There wasn’t much time to dwell on it. The doors of the cabin burst open. Half a dozen campers spilled in, shouting over each other all at once until Annabeth calmed them down. The bald guy from the canyon, Butch, finally got a clear word in.
“Hurry!” he shouted, pointing outside where a bunch of campers were running. Jason couldn’t tell if his expression was one of excitement or fear. “It’s Leo! He’s with the dragon. It came back!”