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Chapter Text

THEN:

Cleopatra couldn't focus. The goddess was pressing, pushing, burning her up from the inside out. She hadn't meant to. All the great pharaohs of Egypt had called themselves gods, how was she to know one of them would take it as an invitation?

Foolish girl , the goddess scolded. Egypt has fallen to Rome now, because of you.

Shutupshutupshutup , Cleopatra thought. She was a child of Aphrodite, the eldest Olympian, and there had to be a way out of this.

Homer once wrote of one of her half-brothers being taken away from the battlefield right before he died, saved by their immortal mother until he healed.

But her mother hadn't shown up yet, and Octavian knew he had her trapped, and the goddess—

Your mother can't save you. You invited me here, and now you are more Egyptian than Greek.

But she hadn't invited her, or at least hadn't invited just her. Cleopatra had called herself Isis-Aphrodite, but her mother was not currently making her skin itch and her stomach burn and—

The Greek gods don't use hosts , the goddess sneered.

And Greek queens can't host gods , Cleopatra thought. But you took me anyway. This is your fault.

At least she could go out with dignity—not paraded through the streets of Rome like a trophy.

Could you really leave your children? , the goddess pressed.

Yes , she thought. She felt the goddess's judgement, but did her best to push through it.

"It's time," she said, and her most loyal servants set to work. Iras dressed her in her finest clothing, and Charmion handed her the crook and flail. If she had to tolerate this Egyptian curse, then she would die as a pharaoh.

Cleopatra lifted the lid of a basket that had been brought to her earlier. Nestled in a pile of figs was a cobra, a gift from the new Chief Lector, enchanted to kill quickly and on command. A symbol of his hatred and his mercy. It hissed.

She stuck her hand into the basket, and at last the goddess was silenced.

"Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake." Pistol, Henry IV

NOW:

Where the Temple of Saturn had once been now stood a dozen smaller shrines, all built to Jason's specifications. When Reyna first arrived at Camp Jupiter, the temple was already in the process of being dismantled, despite the protests of many in the legion. After all, Saturn was said to have ruled the people of Italy in a golden age after being defeated by the gods and escaping punishment. One of the objectors even handcuffed himself to the structure, and was removed by force.

Eventually, half a dozen of them joined Saturn's army. But that was two wars ago—ancient history.

Not for the first time, Reyna found herself at the shrine of Kymopoleia, the first of Jason's shrines. It was a simple altar of grey stone, with a statue of the goddess affixed to the top. At her feet were seven strawberry tarts, offerings that were likely made as much to her as to the memory of Jason. Reyna wondered if the goddess was happy to receive the extra attention, or resented that her shrine had been co-opted into a shrine to a boy she had barely known.

"Praetor!" a girl cried out behind her. "I'm glad I found you. We need to talk." Elissa Goldman was the camp's new augur—a legacy of Iustitia, goddess of justice, gifted with prophecy by Apollo after the latter returned his immortal form. At least she was a real member of the legion, and not a veteran who only returned to fill the ranks until Lupa could replace those lost in the Triumvirate's invasion.

"What about it?" Reyna asked, turning to face the girl.

"I read the auguries, and well—what's that?" Elissa pointed past Reyna, to Kymopoleia's shrine. A snake was winding itself around the grey stone, but it was like no snake Reyna had ever seen before—three feet long, with glistening black scales, and brilliantly gold eyes. Reyna felt as though the serpent was staring right through her as it devoured the offerings left for the sea goddess, one by one, until all seven tarts were gone. Then it turned around and descended into the earth.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Elissa said, softly, "I might be new to this whole augury thing, but I'm pretty sure that was a bad omen."

"Probably," Reyna agreed, still a little confused. "But, uh, you were saying something."

"Right! Um, I read the entrails of a stuffed giraffe this morning and I got a very clear message. 'Beware the Ides of July.'"

Reyna did some math in her head. "That's in eight days. " Why did these things never come with enough warning? Though this was more than they got to fight Polybetes or the Triumverate.

"That's why I came to see you right away! I thought you needed to hear it."

"I did. Thank you."

"So, uh, what are you going to do about it?"

Reyna forced a small smile to put the younger girl at ease. "I don't know yet. I'll have to confer with Frank first."

"Oh. That makes sense. I'll, um, go now? Consult my books on how to interpret that snake?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea. Thank you for your help."

"Thank you?" Elissa half-sprinted down the hill skittishly. Reyna smiled a real smile at that. It was nice that there was still some innocence in the legion.

Reyna sighed and looked at the shrine. "What am I going to do?" At least she didn't have to deal with this alone.

Frank Zhang had grown on her, over time. She'd been worried, at first, that promoting a boy who caused ten accidents in his first six weeks of service was a disastrous idea. But since his return, Frank had been more graceful, as though learning to shapeshift had finally taught him to be comfortable with his default body. And he had proven himself to have a fine strategic mind several times over in the past two years.

Still, Reyna wished he was less Greek. She had lost a lot of favor by leaving the legion to fetch the Athena Parthenos, and she longed for a partner that wasn't descended from a Greek prince, or who hadn't spent more time on the Argo II than in Camp Jupiter before his promotion. Good praetors covered for each others weaknesses, political and otherwise. She and Frank were unpopular with the exact same people.

Reyna missed Jason, the boy with twelve bars on his arm and the most impressive parentage in all of New Rome. Even his most radical ideas—like renaming the Legion—couldn't tarnish public opinion of him. At his side, Reyna had felt unassailable.

But Jason Grace was dead, and longing for him did no one any favors.

With a sigh, she headed towards Frank's office. Whatever was going to happen on the Ides of July, they would deal with it together.

Walt was tired. Around the table, Amos fended off the Third and Fifth Nomes, eager to place their own followers of Horus onto the throne. After all, the pharaoh of Egypt should be able to host the pharaoh of the gods, and Carter was dead.

Maybe they were right, and the Twenty-First Nome was just afraid of losing power. Walt wasn't a politician or an ethicist, and neither was Anubis, back when they were distinct entities. But Walt was the Per Ankh's best link to the gods, ever since Apophis was slain and the other gods slipped deeper into the Duat, and he had to be there.

He wondered if he should tell them that chaos was returning to the world, and the gods would likely follow. But they were dealing with enough chaos now, after Carter's death.

Walt missed him, dearly. He remembered listening to the first tape ten times over, working up his courage to go to New York and meet his heroes; remembers Anubis meeting Carter for the first time, overshadowed in his mind by Sadie but impressive nonetheless.

"Enough," Zia said. "We have argued this for five hours. The House of Life survived without a pharaoh for millenia, it can handle another night."

"And the night after that?" countered the Third Nome's representative, an old woman with tattoos under each eye. "You have delayed a month already!"

Zia snapped. "The gods chose Carter, and I don't feel like settling for—"

"Enough," Amos interrupted. "Lack of sleep makes it easy to say things we don't mean to say. And Zia, Carter was chosen by the House of Life as much as by the gods."

With much grumbling, the representatives dispersed.

"More will come," Amos warned Zia. "You might not want a new pharaoh, but without one, there might be war."

Zia's eyes blazed with fire, but she said nothing.

"We need rest," Walt said. "We'll work out a compromise in the morning."

"If only," Amos started, but did not finish. They all knew what he was going to say—that a pharaoh should be succeeded by their nearest relative. But Sadie had too many issues with authority to become one, or so she had said the last time Walt saw her.

Twelve days, three hours, and six minutes ago. Walt blamed his divine half for the counter in his mind.

"I will… retire," Zia conceded. "But this isn't over."

"Of course not," Amos replied. "I value your judgement, even when we disagree. Especially then."

Walt walked with Zia back towards their rooms. They started in silence, but eventually Walt felt the urge to ask, "How is she?"

Zia sighed. "Better. But still very bad. You should talk to her."

"She asked me not to."

"You're her boyfriend," Zia countered.

"Not anymore."

"Maybe she wants to be fought for."

"Or maybe she doesn't want to see me."

Silence again, for the ten steps it took to reach Zia's room. The girl turned to face him, one hand on the door. "If someone goes after her, the way someone went after Carter… could you live not having seen her for so long?"

No , a part of Walt said, evenly split across his halves. "I can't be selfish with her," the rest of him said.

Zia nodded sadly, then entered her room, leaving Walt to stare at the scarab emblazoned on her door, holding the sun.

THEN, AND NOW:

Luke wasn't afraid of death. Eternal punishment was worth killing Kronos—one unselfish act, after so many selfish ones. It wouldn't be enough, no matter how he had comforted Annabeth.

He opened his eyes. There was no waiting room, no ferry, only a field filled with people and the bright summer sun. Camp Half-Blood?

"Luke?" came a confused voice. Percy , Luke realized. "What the hell is this?"

Luke wondered the same damn thing.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Maybe Carter should not have followed hushed whispers into an alley when he was supposed to be meeting his sister for lunch.

At least the alley was clean! Since moving to New York, Carter had found that the dim and narrow alleys of the movies did not actually exist. Unfortunately, the two creatures in front of him did, with their canine bodies, cloven hooves, and strange face-plates that whispered nonsense as they sized him up.

Carter focused on summoning his falcon-headed avatar. Instead of making it large, he kept it the same size as his own body, like magical armor, in order to stay maneuverable in the small space. He took a defensive stance, and waited for the creatures to pounce. Moments later, one did. He sidestepped and swatted at the creature's spotted hide with his khopesh, but didn't pierce the skin. " Sticks and stones ," whispered the creature as it picked itself up, and Carter cursed himself for getting trapped between them.

He turned around, but too slow—the other creature sprung from behind him and bit his neck. His combat avatar should have kept him from being too badly hurt, but something was wrong, and there was a squelch , and then he collapsed, his combat avatar flickering as he lost the energy to power it.

" Sa-mir ," someone yelled. A Divine Word. Pain . Someone had come after him. Sadie?

But he was the one in pain. His neck was bleeding, so much blood, too much blood— someone was holding him now, and he hoped it was Sadie, but he didn't because she didn't deserve to have to see this, and—

Was that a horse?

"Nothing we can call our own but death." Richard, Richard II.

NOW:

Luke was not okay, even before Annabeth ran up from behind Percy and stared at him, shocked. Annabeth . He had seen her only moments ago, but she looked older now, and he wondered how long it had been for her.

And then a spear was at his throat.

He fought his instinct to attack and turned around slowly, coming face to face with Clarisse. She was older too, and it was almost as odd. He remembered meeting her for the first time, when she was only eleven. And unlike Annabeth, he hadn't seen her since he left camp.

"How are you alive?" Clarisse snarled.

"I don't know." Luke's battle senses activated and he saw more familiar faces in the crowd—Chris and Connor, Medelia from the army, and was that Roxie too? And Annabeth was there. He was very aware of that.

"I don't believe you. This is a trap!" Was Clarisse always so angry? Or had his war done this to her?

"He's not lying," came a voice from behind him. He risked Clarisse's spear to turn around, and saw an East Asian girl in a white tank top, with the angriest eyes he'd ever known.

"Kara," he said.

"Explain to me why I shouldn't kill you right now."

"I—," he started. Because what you were trying to do was evil, and you needed to be stopped. But that would make her want to kill him more. "I was dying a minute ago, I haven't had time to prep an explanation."

"Try."

"It had to be done," he said firmly. Firmness was definitely the wrong way to play this, but he wanted to stop playing people for once. Let her be mad, if it meant she had to face the truth.

They were interrupted, which was good because Luke had just died and he couldn't deal with this, but bad because he wasn't ready for the next thing either.

"Luke?" Annabeth asked. She looked like she might cry, or maybe punch him.

"Annabeth," he replied, and then: "How long?"

"Three years," she said softly. "Almost. It's July."

"Okay." His head spun. "Can I—can I sit down somewhere?"

"I am not leaving you unguarded," Clarisse interjected.

"Then guard me. I just—I need a moment. To be alone in my head." He hadn't been alone in his head for so long. Not since Ethan Nakamura forsook the gods, and Kronos rose for good.

"Okay," Annabeth said. "We can do that. Clarisse, can you take him to the Big House?"

Clarisse looked unhappy, but she escorted him inside, accompanied by two burly campers that he didn't recognize, but assumed were her half-siblings. One had a tattoo of a rainbow on his bicep, which was odd but he couldn't really process right now.

Belatedly he realized he was wearing a camp shirt and his old necklace, with the six beads. Who had brought him here? What did they want from him?

Luke sat down in a chair and let himself freak out. He didn't have much experience with panic attacks, but he'd seen other people have them, especially when he had still lived at camp. The army kids were a lot more guarded. Luke tried and mostly failed to keep his breathing even.

He didn't know how much time passed like that. Eventually he lifted his head up from where it had settled, supported by his hands.

Someone knocked on the archway to the sitting room. "Are you good enough to talk?"

Roxie Corazon, the Titan Army's chief recruiter and mediator, daughter of Demeter. Kara had once told him that half of everything she said was a lie. But the same could be said of Kara.

"Sure."

"I just wanted to let you know… what Kara said, it isn't what we all feel." She tugged at her golden hair, but he focused on her brown eyes. It's harder to lie with the eyes.

"You're not mad?" Luke asked.

"When Kronos possessed you, could you see everything he did, right?" There was hope in her eyes.

"Yeah. Not all of the time, but most of it." And so much more than seeing. But Luke wouldn't share that.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"You knew more than we did. If you decided Kronos wasn't under control… I trust you."

Clarisse scoffed."You thought Kronos was under control? Not very smart of you."

"He was good at pretending," Luke found himself defending the indefensible. "He knew how to appear dumber than he was."

Clarisse rolled her eyes, but didn't respond. Maybe she knew he'd spend the next few days explaining everything to everybody. Or maybe she'd remembered that her best friend had fallen for it, too.

Roxie eyed Clarisse like she wasn't sure whether to pick a fight. Apparently she decided not to. "That's not all I came to say. In an hour, the counselors are meeting to discuss… well, you can guess. You're invited, if you're up to it."

"Thank you, Roxie."

She smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. "It's good to see you again, Luke." Then she left the room, and left him alone with his guards again.

"You going to the meeting?" the boy with the rainbow tattoo asked.

"Probably," Luke replied. Then, as an afterthought, "What's your name?"

"Why do you care?"

"It just seemed polite."

The boy eyed him wearily. "Butch," he said, like it was a concession.

Luke nodded. "Your mom like Westerns?"

That earned him an angry look. "My dad's the mortal."

"Oh. Sorry." Not an Ares kid, then. His eyes were brown, not grey, so not Athena. Luke imagined he'd have reacted more to Roxie if he was her half-sibling. If he was Aphrodite's son, he'd probably be prettier. A minor goddess, then—and then Luke suddenly realized what the rainbow tattoo meant. "You're Kara's half-brother, aren't you?"

"And we forgive him for it," the third guard interjected quickly, trying to diffuse the conversation. Butch shot her a dirty look.

"Kara has her faults. But you're evil in a way she isn't."

Luke doubted that, remembering her cold eyes the first time she'd threatened to kill him. "Let's agree to disagree on that." Not the most tactful response, but he wanted to stop manipulating people, didn't he?

"Kara doesn't need you to fight her fights," the third guard interrupted again. She glanced at Luke. "I'm Suzie, by the way."

"Thanks," Luke said. Butch looked like he still wanted to fight, but Clarisse sent him a charged look, and he settled for scowling.

"If you're going to the meeting, we should probably catch you up on everything," Suzie said.

"That would be nice," Luke replied.

So Suzie told him everything, with occasional commentary from Clarisse. Percy's deal with the gods explained how Kara and Roxie had survived, and Luke imagined there would be more familiar faces in the next few days. He listened closely to her description of the Giant War, and tried not to look too surprised at the idea of Romans and Greeks collaborating.

When she started describing the Triumvirate, Butch interrupted, "Of course, you'd know all about them."

Luke had met with their lackeys only a few times—it was one of the few things Kronos had insisted his monsters deal with. And by the time Kronos fused with him, the mysterious Romans had very little contact with the main army. He settled on his reply, "Not as much as you think."

"You didn't ask questions?" Clarisse sounded puzzled under her base aggressiveness.

"There were much more ominous things going on." He should've asked questions, but Kronos got mad when he asked too many.

Suzie nodded, and continued with her tale. The losses at the invasion of Camp Jupiter made him the most guilty—he had weakened them, and Gaea had weakened them more, emboldened by the Titans' loss.

By the time she finished, it was time to go to the meeting. Luke had no idea what would happen, and he doubted it would be good.

But he had no choice, so he followed Butch and Clarisse into the war room.

Sadie barged into Walt's bedroom. "So when, exactly , did you intend to tell us that the gods want us to start a war?" This was not how Walt had pictured talking to her for the first time in almost two weeks.

She looked better than the last time he'd seen her. She'd changed the color of her hair from purple to green and pulled it into twin braids, and she had a ring he had made her on her right hand.

"I was hoping that Horus would see sense," Walt defended himself.

" Bullshit. You just wanted to avoid having a tough conversation."

"Sadie—"

"And were you ever going to tell me that my brother's soul is missing?"

Walt suddenly felt very cold. He couldn't meet her eyes. "Who told you?" he managed to ask.

"Is that really important?"

"No," Walt admitted.

"My dad told me. He can talk to me in my dreams again, because apparently chaos is rising and you didn't tell me. "

"I wasn't sure how—I mean, after Carter—"

"You could have told Zia! Or Amos! Or Jaz!"

"I'm sorry," Walt said softly.

"That's not good enough ," Sadie hissed.

"I know."

"You know . Well that fixes everything!"

"I'll answer anything you ask me."

Sadie took a deep breath. "Why do the gods want to start a war?"

"Something is… wrong in the Sea of Chaos. We don't know what, but we know it's not Egyptian. And only the Greeks or Roman gods are powerful enough to reach that far into the Duat."

"So what's the plan?" Sadie looked marginally less furious.

"I don't think there is a plan. Attacking the demigods isn't going to fix anything, and we don't even know which of their gods is the problem."

"Is it… my dad said they might have taken Carter. To their afterlife."

"I don't know. Taking someone to the wrong afterlife is hard. They would have had to be waiting for him to die."

Sadie rubbed her forehead. "That's what my dad said."

Tentatively, Walt put his hand on her shoulder. Sadie put her hand over his and squeezed.

"Set got in contact with Amos," she said. "Isis is arranging something special for the Greeks, and then we'll attack the Romans."

"Amos is going along with this?"

"Amos agrees . He says the Greeks and Romans destroyed Egypt once, and we shouldn't be surprised they're trying again."

"And there's nothing we can do to stop him?"

She shook her head. "I could… I could take the throne. A pharaoh outranks the Chief Lector. But…"

"No one's asking you to do that," Walt reassured.

Sadie snorted. " Everyone's asking me to do that. Even Jaz brought it up."

" I'm not," Walt said.

Sadie nodded. "No, you're not." She let go of his hand and hugged him. "I love you, zombie boy."

"I love you too," Walt whispered into her ear.

"We're still fighting," Sadie said. "You can't—you can't just not tell anyone about stuff like that. But I need a hug."

"You're right," Walt replied, holding her tighter. "I'll do better."

"I'm always right," she said, and Walt knew she was smiling.

They stayed like that for a while, before Sadie finally pulled away. "I need to talk to Amos," she said. "Try to talk sense into him. Can you..."

"Do the same for the gods?" Walt finished. "I'll try."

Sadie nodded, then left.

Walt knew what he had to do, and luckily it meant getting some much needed sleep. He lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.

Carefully, most of the divine part of him peeled away, leaving just enough of himself behind to keep their body alive. Walt instantly fell asleep, unable to sustain consciousness with so little of Anubis's power.

And then Anubis went to find his aunt.

He found her in her garden. One of her ancient hosts had found growing things peaceful, and ever since she kept a small plot in the Duat, near the palace of the gods, long after the rest of that host's personality faded. 

"Hello, nephew," she said, not bothering to turn around. She was planting a silver flower he hadn't seen before.

"Hello, aunt. What's that?"

"It's called moonlace. A Greek plant—if I have to deal with Greek things in the Duat, some of them might be beautiful."

Anubis nodded, although he didn't agree. "How are you?"

She scoffed. "Do we really need the small talk? I know what you're here to ask."

"Your son's war is premature. You have to talk sense into him," Anubis began.

"I don't have to do anything." Stupid. He should be more aware of her pride.

"I didn't mean it that way. But the Greco-Romans have done nothing to defend themselves from us—doesn't that suggest that they don't think of us as enemies?"

"Or it could mean that their unrelenting series of wars has made them vulnerable."

" Or their wars prove that there are more factions in their pantheons than the Olympians and their servants."

"Are you really defending two armies because of your girlfriend once fought with two of them? Need I remind you I was trapped in a Greek queen, while you sat in the Hall of Judgement?" Isis fumed.

"I know," Anubis replied, and searched for a rebuttal. But he was not a silver-tongued god. "It's not about Sadie. It's about fighting children."

"We sent much younger children to fight for us. Your godling is hardly an adult."

"He needs me. And we only sent children when the adults wouldn't listen."

"Rationalizations. We will spare as many of the enemy's children as possible."

Anubis sighed. Isis was as stubborn as Horus—his only hope had been that she wasn't yet set on this, but obviously she was. "I can't change you mind, can I, dear aunt?"

"No."

"Goodbye, then. And I hope you will keep an open mind about this."

"Goodbye, nephew," she said curtly.

Anubis went back to Walt. Fusing back with his host comforted him, a little. But war was coming, and it would not be kind. 

Chapter Text

THEN:

Valhalla was massive. The lobby alone was larger than the Hall of Ages, which showed all of human history on its walls, and it was wide as well as long. Carter let himself go into autopilot, trying to reveal as little about himself as possible to the Viking who was leading him to his room. His guide, Hunding, told him lots of things, like that he was now in the service of the god Odin, or that he was dead.

That should probably bother him more.

"This is floor nineteen-and-a-half," Hunding said as the elevator doors chimed open.

"And-a-half?" Carter asked.

"Yeah. For, um—actually, I'll let your Valkyrie explain that. Floor nineteen are your honorary hallmates though."

Carter didn't know why he needed honorary hallmates until he realized there was only one other door in the hall, belonging to some guy named Jason Grace.

His room was comforting, at least—the walls were lined with bookshelves, a mix of books from all sorts of mythologies, and a massive collection of papyrus scrolls. They were replicas, of course, since the originals would be noticed missing, but they made him feel at home. No shabtis , though—he'd have to make one later.

His wardrobe was varied, which he liked. The more professional clothing his dad had always bought him hung alongside the hoodies and jeans Sadie loved. Linen magician's clothes were folded on the top shelf, and there was even the ceremonial jewelry of a pharaoh, though no crook and flail.

Someone had brought him a pair of combat boots, which unnerved him. How much did these people know about him?

He changed from his dress shirt and khakis (chosen to annoy Sadie) into a hoodie and jeans—what people would expect a teenager to wear, so he wouldn't stand out.

The rest of the cross-shaped room was eerily reminiscent of Brooklyn House, though there was no limestone headrest on his bed. In the past few years, he'd become so accustomed to them it was almost harder to sleep on pillows.

For the first time, he let himself feel cheated. He was supposed to be reunited with his parents when he died—a consolation prize for having to lose them so young. And Sadie, though hopefully not for a while. Togetherness, for as long as Julius Kane remained an important part of Osiris.

There was a knock on the door. He opened it. There was a garishly green-and-pink teenager there.

"Hey! It's dinnertime. I've been sent to escort you."

"Who are you?"

They smiled mischievously. "Alex. She/her pronouns until I tell you otherwise." Carter adjusted his thoughts.

She said a lot of things as the two of them sped through the hotel's corridors, but Carter focused on trying to map their route and looking for other places where the Egyptian had mixed with the Norse. He failed on both counts. Besides, there was a voice in his head telling him he couldn't trust anyone here.

"Usually we all walk together, but the others are going to be a little late today. You'll have to meet them later."

"Can I ask why?"

"They died pretty brutally in the battle today, so it's taking longer for them to come back." Not a very reassuring answer.

"Are there any other Egyptians here?"

"You're the first!" she said cheerfully. Somehow, that was even less reassuring.

When he heard the music in the elevator, he groaned internally. "How can this be heaven if there's terrible elevator music?"

"It's not really heaven. It's just closer to it than all the other afterlifes."

The doors opened, and Carter had to admit that this was very impressive, and much larger than the Hall of Ages. And not even in an ostentatious, hateable way—every inch of the place was needed to fit the hundreds of warriors. They had to fight their way through the crowd to reach their table, in the front of the room.

Carter and Alex sat down next to each other, and she answered his questions about the tree, the other freshly-dead at the table, and the goat raining milk as a few people tried and failed to catch it. Shortly after, they were joined by another girl, with a green head scarf pulled down so that it rested on her shoulders.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm Samirah, your Valkyrie. Properly I should be the one showing you around. Has Alex been a good substitute?"

"How could you ever doubt your dearest sister?" asked Alex, standing up to let Samirah take her seat.

"She's been pretty helpful," Carter answered.

"Still," the Samirah said, "I'm sure you were expecting a royal welcome."

"Honestly?" Carter responded, "I wasn't expecting this at all."

"Fair enough."

"Wait, royal welcome? Who is this guy?" Alex interjected, now sitting on the table.

"Uh," Carter said. He'd hoped they didn't know too much about him, but obviously not. "I'm the pharaoh of Egypt."

Alex squinted. "I'm pretty sure Egypt has a president."

Samirah interrupted. "Why don't we save this for later? So Carter only has to explain it once."

"Thanks," Carter said. "The guy who showed me my room said you'd explain why I'm on a half floor?"

Samirah paused, like it was a complicated question. "Valhalla has five hundred and forty floors, separated by the age of the dead. But recently… we added a floor for guests from other mythologies."

"Like Jason Grace?"

She looked surprised. "How did you—"

Alex rolled her eyes. "He read Jason's door, duh."

"Oh. That makes sense. Anyway, Valhalla having five hundred and forty floors is prophesied in lots of places, so Odin cheated a little with your floor."

"That makes sense," Carter said, still confused. "But why—"

He was interrupted by the thanes, who started banging their cups. The rest of the room joined in, and Alex turned into a hummingbird and flitted off to wherever she was actually supposed to be.

"Warriors!" said the hotel manager Carter had met earlier, Helgi. "Tonight, we are joined by three new fallen! Let the presentation of the dead commence!"

"You're going last," Samirah whispered. "So that you don't overshadow the others."

A nervous looking girl stood up, and huge holographic screens appeared around the room. Everyone watched her death, valiantly hitting a home intruder with a lamp while her family escaped. Then she was asked about her parentage, and a woman in a green hood was called upon to read her fate.

"How does that work?" Carter asked Samirah quietly.

"She's a vala —a Norse seer."

"And the stones?"

"They're runestones. Runes are like… the genetic code of the universe. Each letter represents a powerful concept." She paused, like she wasn't sure if she should say the next part. "Mortals need runestones to use their power, but some gods, like Odin, can change reality by just speaking the name of a rune."

That sounded a lot like Divine Words. Carter wondered if he would be just as bad with runes, if he was even able to study them.

While they spoke, the vala threw the runes on the floor. Some landed facedown, others faceup. "Kenna, daughter of Gladys, rejoice! In thirty years time, you will find a powerful weapon, and when Ragnorok comes, you will die holding it!" The girl didn't look happy about any of that, which made her the first sane person Carter had seen since arriving.

After her came a burly guy who died after fighting off a rabid dog with a baseball bat. The thanes debated whether he truly counted, since he had passed from the virus a few days after, but his Valkyrie argued he'd been fighting rabies with the IV in his arm. They were partially convinced, and sentenced the dead guy to ten years waiting on other eiherjar, while the Valkyrie got a slap on the wrist in honor of her previous good judgement. Samirah assured him that this was a light punishment.

And then it was Carter's turn.

"Einherjar!" Helgi shouted. "Today we have a special arrival. Rise, Carter Kane, pharaoh of Egypt!"

Carter stood, suddenly wishing he had chosen the ceremonial jewelry instead of the hoodie. From the looks the other dead people were giving him, they weren't exactly impressed.

Then the video started playing. Carter watched himself standing around, waiting for Sadie, and hearing those strange whispers. Past-Carter pulled his sword from the Duat—earning some impressed whispers from the crowd—and went to investigate. The fight played out again, and again Carter cursed himself as he got trapped between the two monsters. Then, after he got bit, Carter saw something he hadn't seen before—Sadie coming to his rescue, incapacitating the creatures with a Divine Word. After her trailed Walt, who turned the two beasts to grey ash with a single touch.

And then the video ended. The warriors cheered for him, which was surprising, considering that he'd gotten taken out by two monsters he should've killed easily.

"There will be no deliberation!" Helgi announced. "Odin himself approved Carter Kane to join our ranks." Carter looked at the empty throne. It stayed empty. And apparently, being Odin-approved meant he didn't get his fortune told, because the next thing Helgi said was: "So concludes our feast!"

"Come on," Samirah said. "It's time to meet your hallmate."

Carter wondered if Jason would be a friend or an enemy.

"The heart of brothers govern in our loves and sway our great designs!" Marc Antony, Antony and Cleopatra

NOW:

"I met Percy Jackson a couple times," Carter said, not even lifting his head from his book. "Annabeth Chase too." Jason blinked, not sure what to do with this information. Why hadn't the other boy said something a month ago, when Jason first told him about the Greeks and Romans? Or a week ago, when he'd ended up describing their entire adventure on the Argo II?

There was nothing special about today, either. Sometimes they spent an afternoon reading together in one of their rooms. They were sitting on Jason's windowsill couch today, facing each other with their legs on the cushions, which was a little closer than their usual positions. Carter was reading a Greek mythology book—was that why?

"Uh," Carter said. "Are you going to say something?"

"Sorry," Jason said, even though he had nothing to apologize for. "Why are you telling me this now ?"

"Because I'm basically a prisoner here, and I wasn't sure who to trust."

"Thanks?" It had been pretty clear that Carter wasn't telling them everything, but Jason still didn't understand what had changed. He hadn't really trusted floor nineteen until Magnus broke Odin's rules to tell him how the Triumvirate was defeated.

"I was waiting to see if you felt as trapped as I do," Carter explained, "but you're pretty stoic. So this is me deciding to trust you anyway."

"Oh," Jason said, still pretty bewildered. Then he noticed the implicit question. "I mean, we're definitely hostages, but this isn't the worst afterlife to be in. We can't leave, but our friends can."

Carter nodded. "Maybe that's the difference between us. I had somewhere else to be."

"Where?" Jason didn't know much about the Egyptian afterlife, but he didn't remember anything especially alluring.

Carter looked at him seriously, apparently still not sure what to trust him with. "A few years ago, my dad became the host for the god of death, but he had to die to do it. I was supposed to live with him and my mom's ghost."

Jason nodded. "If that was waiting for me in Elysium, I'd feel trapped too." He thought for a moment. "You need to tell me how you met Percy and Annabeth though. And you should tell Magnus you know his cousin."

"I'm not sure about the second one, but I can definitely do the first," Carter said. And then he launched into the story. Every couple minutes, Jason asked for more information about magic—the books he'd read covered the gods, but said nothing about magicians. It was absolutely nothing like how Hazel had described her powers, more like Hearthstone's runes, but with the alien element of connecting to the gods. Jason imagined trying to feel the same emotions as his father, or Juno, or even Terminus, who he knew better than any other god. He couldn't.

And on top of that was Sadie. He'd never heard Carter say more than two sentences about his sister, and now he understood why. She was the most important person in his life, his biggest weakness, so of course he wouldn't tell anyone he didn't trust about it.

And they had grown up apart, which reminded Jason of Thalia, but before he could think too much about that Carter shifted so their legs touched, and Jason's mind blanked for a moment. But that in turn was interrupted as Carter described the battle on Governor's Island.

"This was a pretty big deal," Jason said.

"Yeah. Setne was the most dangerous magician I've ever met, and I've met a lot."

"I'm going to yell at Percy and Annabeth for not telling me about this."

"If you ever get the chance." Which he might not. Jason did hate that he might never see his friends again, but if Pluto had gotten his soul, it wouldn't be any better.

"Yeah. Anyway, after Percy got his new sword…" Carter went on to finish his story.

"Wow."

"Pretty much. There were a couple other times they called us up, but most ended up being pretty minor."

Jason nodded, then asked, "Was there anything strange about you coming to Valhalla?"

"Besides the obvious?"

Jason took a deep breath, and prepared to tell Carter something only a few other people knew. "I died in February, but didn't arrive here until June. And I still don't know why, or remember anything in between."

Carter looked surprised. "That's incredibly strange."

"Sam told me that she was offered my soul and footage of my death by some goddess she didn't recognize." Months after she could've, but that was just her nature. Odin had done so much for her, and she hated spilling his secrets. "And since Odin told her to grab any prominent demigods, she'd wanted to get me when I first died, but thought Thanatos had gotten me first."

"I don't have anything as big as that, but… the monsters that killed me were Greek. Leucrotta."

"You're sure?"

"Nothing else with a faceplate like theirs."

"So," Jason sighed, "someone is definitely manipulating things."

"Or multiple someones." Carter looked tired.

"This is a tomorrow problem," Jason decided.

"Really?"

"We're not getting any less dead. And it's not like anything new is happening out there."

The war room wasn't exactly hostile—for the most part everyone tried their best to avoid being caught staring at Luke. Some cabins seemed to be doubled up—Annabeth and Malcolm Pace were both here, along as Clarisse and Sherman Yang. Butch took a seat, which surprised him—Kara giving up power wasn't like her at all.

Mr. D wasn't here, which was a relief. Luke was responsible for the death of fifty percent of his demigod children, and he had a feeling he would pay for that eventually. Pollux wasn't there either, and Luke hoped he had just aged out.

"I'd like to welcome back some of our retired counselors," Chiron began. "Clarisse, Annabeth, and Percy all received dreams telling them to be here today, and I think it's now obvious why. Sherman and Malcolm will of course still be the ones voting for their cabins, but I thought they should be here to see this." He smiled tiredly at Annabeth and Clarisse. "Before we start, I'd like to request that everyone newer to the camp introduce themselves the first time they speak." Luke was glad Chiron wanted him to be able to follow his own trial, at least.

"Lou Ellen, daughter of Hecate," a girl said, clearly eager to say her piece. "He's inherently dangerous—people follow him into reckless things." Hecate had claimed that she sent all her demigod children to fight for Kronos, but apparently she'd lied.

"So we imprison him because we don't trust our own campers? They've been with us for years now." This came from Connor, surprisingly. Luke noticed Travis's absence, and hoped that it was for benign reasons.

"He's tricky," Clarisse argued. "More loyal people have been swayed by him."

"Isn't that their right?" asked a boy that Luke had thought was asleep. "Free will and all that. If they want to follow him, let them." Then, dreamily: "I'm Clovis, by the way." He didn't say his godly parent, but Luke assumed it was Morpheus or Hypnos. Hopefully the latter.

"Nobody has the right to be a traitor," an Asian girl half-snarled. "I'm Drew. Silena's sister." Luke flinched.

"At the very least," Annabeth said, "imprisoning him will make anyone with doubts want to hear what he has to say more. "

"A good point," Chiron agreed. "If we act like we have something to hide, it will tempt people to look for it." Luke didn't like being called an it , but there was compassion in the look Chiron shot him.

"Forget who he can lead," Sherman interjected. "He can do plenty of damage all by himself."

"Agreed," said another boy. "Damian White, Nemesis. How do we know he won't start killing us in our sleep?" He didn't look much like Ethan, but he had the same anger.

Luke could do something about that, at least. "I swear on the River Styx that I will not harm any campers here."

"Thank you," said Percy, who had been uncharacteristically silent. "I don't think he needs a twenty-four hour guard after that."

"I'm inclined to agree," Chiron said, "although I will of course leave the decision up to all of you."

"This is ridiculous ," Sherman shouted. "He's our enemy!"

"Cabin Eleven will take responsibility for him," Connor said firmly, surprising everybody. "Let him be just another camper until we figure this out."

"Why?" Luke found himself asking. Not that he wasn't grateful, but…

"Because you're our brother," Connor replied, sadly. "And I don't think you'll screw us over twice."

"I won't."

"Connor," Clarisse said, "If you trust him, you're even dumber than I thought you were."

"Didn't see you complaining when we forgave Chris," Connor shot back.

"That's not even close to the same thing—" Clarisse started.

"Let's vote," Malcolm interrupted. "Everyone in favor of letting Luke return to Cabin Eleven for now?" He raised his hand, though Luke wondered if he'd do the same if Annabeth wasn't there.

Percy raised his hand, proving that even Tartarus couldn't take away his faith in humanity. The Demeter counselor, who looked slightly familiar, did the same. Two identical girls with dark hair played a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, and the winner raised her hand. A boy wearing a Brazilian flag raised his hand, joined shortly by a girl with olive skin, which earned her a dirty look from the son of Nemesis. Clovis raised his hand, though his eyes remained closed.

And Connor raised his hand, of course. Luke still couldn't believe that.

Malcom counted. "Eight for, six against. That's a majority."

"This is bullshit ," Drew spat. "You're all really okay with this?"

"Sit down, Drew," snapped Annabeth.

"I hate agreeing with Drew, but she's right," Lou Ellen said. "You're going to regret this."

"Do you regret taking your siblings back?" Connor asked her pointedly.

Lou Ellen looked like she had an answer on the tip of her tongue, but it stayed there, and Luke felt confused. The whole table fell silent, except for Clovis's soft snoring.

Before anyone could move on, the door burst open, revealing a girl with blue hair and heavy makeup. "There's—the sky, it's glowing—and Julia and Alice were at the border and they said—"

"Slow down, Billie," said the Demeter counselor.

The girl took a breath. "There's a glowing symbol in the sky. And the camp's borders have sealed—no one can get out."

Chapter Text

THEN:

"Go ahead," the boy snarled. "Take my life. Destroy our home. It's what you do."

Reyna faltered. She should kill him quickly, go help Jason fight Krios, but the boy looked so sad. There were old scars on his neck, a bite wound. If Lupa had decided she was weak, would she be in his place?

And then the boy lunged for his sword, and the moment was over. Later, after the legion raised her and Jason on their shields, when they burnt the dead, she gave him a coin for passage across the Styx.

Then they brought out the dynamite, and began the destruction of the Titans' stronghold.

"There are no creatures that walk the earth, not even those animals that we have labelled cowards, which will not show courage when required to defend themselves." M. Colbert, The Vicomte de Bragelonne

NOW:

Reyna wore her armor to breakfast.

Ultimately, she and Frank had decided to tell the entire Legion about the augur's warning to beware the Ides of July. Everyone had orders to keep their weapons close and wear as much armor as they could stand wearing for a full day. Frank had none—carrying it around would only make him tired, and he was rarely in his own form while fighting anyways; Hazel and the rest of the centurions wore full sets, in order to set a good example.

At breakfast, the Legion sat in their couches as usual, but an uneasiness hung in the air. Privately, Reyna had told the centurions to sit with the members of their cohorts who most needed reassurance. She was sitting with the augur, Elissa, and Gwen, who had retired from the Legion but returned to service after the Triumvirate depleted their ranks. Her metal dogs, Aurum and Argentum, patrolled the tables.

They were making awkward small talk when disaster struck.

Reyna should have seen the twin snakes coming. They were large, four inches thick and so very long, but she was watching the horizon so much she didn't notice them until one brushed her ankle. Before she could act, one looked at her for a moment, and she was paralyzed. It turned away and headed to Elissa.

She stood, but the snakes climbed her legs, and wrapped around her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. One curled around her neck, crushing her throat. It was a testament to Elissa's strength that she stayed on her feet the entire time.

Elissa's body hit the ground, and then everything went to hell. Reyna's paralysis wore off and she jumped to her feet. She screamed something, maybe not even words.

Dozens of warriors appeared from thin air, dressed in white linen clothing and almost no armor. The two snakes turned towards Reyna, but they were slow, and Aurum and Argentum were fast, and the twin dogs killed them quickly before launching themselves towards one of the warriors. One of the strangers pointed a curved wand at Reyna and she barely had time to dodge the jet of fire he summoned, rolling and drawing her sword as she stood back up.

Another man held up a wooden staff and said something, causing the staff to warp like it was about to spring to life. Reyna sliced it in half before it even left his hand, and he stumbled back, shocked. She buried her sword in his chest and focused on the fire-shooter, who had shifted his attention to Gwen, who was barely managing to dodge his attacks. Reyna stabbed him, too, and Gwen nodded at her before turning and finding someone else to fight.

A winged snake swooped at her from above, and Reyna barely had time to process it before a dragon— Frank— swooped down and caught it in his claw. More of the snakes flocked towards him, but then another warrior swung her sword at Reyna, and she couldn't focus on him anymore.

Her opponent was a good swordswoman, and her curved blade threatened to hook Reyna's gladius out of her hands, but ultimately Reyna was better. She slipped under the other woman's guard and impaled her between the ribs.

She looked up. Frank was winning his battle against the snakes, it seemed. Then she looked down, and realized with surprise they were all winning their battles. Half the invaders were on the ground, dead or incapacitated, and the others were faltering. She watched as one of them tried to summon some sort of glowing armor only for it to fail against the sword of a young legionnaire. Another tried to cast a spell only to set fire to himself instead.

"RETREAT!" one of them shouted, turning invisible again.

"STOP THEM!" ordered Reyna.

She watched as the Legion trapped most of them, leaving them with ten prisoners. Frank landed at her side and turned back into a human.

"Wow," he said, clearly as impressed with the Twelfth Legion as she was. Then he looked over to where Elissa's body sat limply on the floor, and regained his focus. "You escort the prisoners to lockup, I'll take care of things here?"

"You read my mind," Reyna replied.

"Calling this a disaster is an insult to disasters!" Zia fumed, and Sadie found herself agreeing. Of the sixty magicians they had sent across the river, only three had returned.

"Clearly, we underestimated the legion—," Amos started.

"Do you think?"

"—but we still outnumber them considerably. We just have to find a way to get more than a few dozen magicians across their enchanted river."

"Or we can punch our way through the wolves that guard the hills," Cynthia—the head of the 59th Nome—suggested. Her bleached-white hair was braided into a crown, and a silver moon amulet hung around her neck. Her freckled skin was as light as Sadie's, but her features kept her from being white-passing. The Las Vegas nome had been the first to declare their support for the gods' war, though whether out of piety or something more nefarious Sadie didn't know.

Ugh. 'Something more nefarious.' She was starting to sound like Carter, may he rest in peace.

She almost managed to move on from that thought without feeling sad. Almost.

"It's not enough just to get past their defenses." said Imogen, the leader of the Third Nome, an old woman with dark skin and tattoos under each eye. "The survivors said their ability to use magic was weaker on Roman ground. That even the Duat was thinner there."

"What if we just stay here?" Sadie asked. Everyone looked surprised to hear her talk, which she supposed was fair. She'd been a little out of it since Carter died. "I mean, if we keep them from leaving, eventually they'll get bored and attack us here, where we're at full strength."

"She's right," Zia agreed. "We have the resources to maintain a siege, especially if we can get the 40th Nome to support us." The Bay Area nome had refused to fight, but hopefully they'd be willing to feed the assembled army.

"The Romans are cunning," Cynthia argued. "We shouldn't give them time to come up with a way to defeat us."

"It would be more foolish to let them kill us off a few dozen at a time," Zia countered.

"We wait," Amos said, authoritatively. "And we should also research how they supply themselves. If we can starve them, this will be over quickly."

Imogen nodded. "I agree."

Cynthia rolled her eyes, but assented. "I'll send someone to talk to the 40th Nome."

"Thank you, Cynthia," Amos said.

"We should lift our cloaking spell, now that we've lost the element of surprise. Let them see our numbers," Zia said.

"An excellent idea. I'll send out the order immediately. Is that all?" Amos looked at the other members of the war council, and was satisfied with their silence. "Then let's get to it."

Sadie surveyed the camp as she walked back to her tent. Only the First, Third, and 59th Nome had pledged their entire forces to this war, but magicians from all over the world had decided individually to join the army. All in all, there were about three hundred people gathered on the hillside, underneath the black cloud of a cloaking spell.

Most of Brooklyn House had stayed in New York, including Walt and Jaz—the gods had done something to trap the Greeks in their camp, but if something went wrong… Sadie hated the thought of having to fight Annabeth or Percy, but hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

Sadie's tent was white with a rainbow trim, marking her as a priestess of Isis. Just as she entered, the clouds flickered and disappeared, revealing a clear morning—the cloaking spell was gone. The Romans could see them.

Inside the tent was a sleeping bag, a limestone headrest, and a mess of clothes spilling out of her suitcase. Sadie's new cat, Cupcake, was curled up in a corner. Her magician’s tools were stored in the Duat. She sat on the sleeping bag and wished for something comfier. If they were going to be here for a while, maybe she could get some real furniture, like a beanbag chair.

The siege might be Sadie's idea, but she didn't want it. She didn't want the entire war. And the worst part was she could stop it—take the throne, and make everyone stand down. But after that… she loved her freedom too much. She would be a bad leader.

Sadie fiddled with her earrings nervously. They'd been a birthday gift from Amos, each containing the hieroglyphic name of one of her distinguished ancestors—Narmer and Ramses II—encircled by a cartouche . Wearing them was supposed to make her feel authoritative, the rightful heir to two great pharaohs, but today they made her feel rotten. She was older now than Carter had been when he became pharaoh, but she still didn't feel ready to inherit his throne. She wasn't sure she'd ever be ready, but if she wanted it, her window of opportunity was closing.

She sighed and looked at Cupcake. The black cat did not respond. Part of Sadie had hoped the gods coming back meant Bast would be back to guide her, but it wasn't happening. And she couldn't reach out to Isis, who wanted this war as much as Horus did.

She would have to fix this herself.

Chapter Text

THEN:

"Oceanus should fight his own battles, for once!" Hyperion fumed. Kronos and Luke were equally annoyed with him, and the king of the Titans forced himself not to feel the boy's emotion too strongly.

Around the table were his brothers, Hyperion and Krios, in all of their idiocy; one of Oceanus's many daughters, acting as an emissary; the dracaenae queen and her retinue; and the two demigods whose presence he found most tolerable—Sergeant Ethan Nakamura and Major Kara Liao.

Not that Kronos understood the purpose of giving the cannon fodder ranks, but Atlas's system had proven too popular to get rid of. And if he thought of the children by rank, instead of name, the boy and his memories usually kept to themselves.

"If I may, Uncle," the Oceanid said softly, "the ichthyocentaurs have turned their mer-heroes into an army just as formidable as the Legion."

Kronos tapped his first two fingers softly against the table, requesting input from the major.

She shifted her right hand so that only her middle and ring finger touched the table. Lie . She and the boy had shown uncharacteristic intelligence when they had come up with the code, in order to make full use of her innate lie detector. And all this took only a moment.

"Reinforcements are desperately needed," the Oceanid concluded, and Major Liao shifted her hand so that the index and middle finger touched the table instead. The sea nymph was telling the truth about needed reinforcements, but lying about why.

"I'll send you something. More telkhines, perhaps," Kronos said. He would have to embed a spy among the monsters he sent over, to figure out what was really going on with Oceanus.

"Thank you, Uncle, for your consideration." She smiled sweetly, and he saw Hyperion roll his eyes, obviously unconvinced by her performed deference.

"You are all dismissed," Kronos growled, and the others left—the major and the sergeant went last, looking back to see if he would tell them to stay. Any other day he might have, to hear the latest intelligence from the major's spies and monitor the morale of his troops, but today he did not have the patience for it.

Today was Luke Castellan's birthday, and the boy was restless.

He let himself be Luke. for a moment. Luke who hated his mother for throwing her sanity away, hated his father for letting her, hated the birthdays he celebrated alone when she inevitably forgot the date. But then the boy remembered birthdays with Annabeth and Thalia and Kronos forced himself to become Kronos again before fondness could invade his mind. Kronos who knew better than to trust his mother, Kronos who killed his father, Kronos who never had a birthday and never needed one. Kronos who once ruled the world and would rule it again.

The boy receded, and Kronos was all there was.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby

NOW:

The sky above Camp Half-blood burned with four curling letters in a language Luke didn't recognize.

"Come on," said Suzie. Luke had been unceremoniously shuffled out of the meeting room and into her care so that the cabin heads could talk privately. He tried not to stumble—it was embarrassing how hard it was to walk after spending a year without control of his legs. Talking, at least, was coming back more quickly. He would need his voice.

When he got to Cabin Eleven, the only person there was Chris Rodriguez, sitting on what was obviously his bunk, given the photo of Clarisse taped to the wall. Suzie didn't follow him in.

Luke had never seen the Hermes cabin so empty. There were no sleeping bags on the floor, and two of the bunks were even sheetless, unused. Suzie had told him earlier about the changes to camp, but it was different to see them with his own eyes.

He thought about the people who would love this—Alilia, a daughter of Athena, Benji, one of his half-brothers, and Isaac, whose parent he couldn't remember, among others. Luke had fought to make the gods suffer as he had suffered, but they had just wanted to build a place to belong.

"Hey," Luke said. It was inadequate, but what else could he say? Sorry I sent you to die? But Chris had known going into the Labyrinth was likely a one-way trip.

"Welcome home," Chris said.

"It's good to be back," Luke replied, the words springing to his lips instinctively. And it was true, even though camp had changed so much. He wanted to learn what it had become, to make it his home again.

But that wasn't entirely up to him. He noticed that there was no one else in the cabin—his siblings had left to avoid him. Could Luke stay, if it made everyone else uncomfortable?

"What have you been told? About everything," Chris inquired cautiously.

"Suzie told me about everything that happened since I was… gone."

"Ares-Suzie or Aphrodite-Suzie?"

"I don't know," answered Luke, thinking about how he'd gotten Butch's parent wrong earlier. "Burly Suzie."

"That's Ares-Suzie. She's nice, but…" Chris trailed off and fiddled with his hands. "She wasn't here for the war, or the aftermath. A lot of people died, and a lot of them blame you."

"I know," Luke said. "I attacked camp to get back at the gods, even though the people here were good to me. I might not be able to make it up to them."

Chris shook his head. "Not th—I mean, us. I don't want to downplay it, but camp lost so few people compared to the army."

How? Luke thought. Last he checked, the army outnumbered camp, and the demigods were sent out after the monsters. "How many?" he asked.

"Between Manhattan and Orthys, we lost a hundred in three days."

"And people blame me?" Luke did some math in his head. He'd never kept good track of how many demigods there were, but they'd lost about forty over time, add a hundred, subtract from the total, that left a little more than a hundred left.

"I think most people have moved on enough they don't need to blame anyone," Chris said.

"Not Kara." Luke grimaced. He shouldn't, given that Chris and Kara had always been friends, but she didn't deserve his civility. "She made it clear she wanted me dead when I arrived."

"Yeah," Chris sighed. "If there's anything that Kronos taught us, it was anger."

"Kara was angry long before Kronos."

Chris pulled back a little, like he was offended on her behalf. "I heard that you two started feuding after I left, but she was not that angry when we left camp."

"Yes, she was," Luke insisted.

"You should get some rest," Chris cut off the conversation. "I'll come get you for dinner."

Luke sat on his new bed, in the now-empty cabin. The shock was finally starting to wear off, and he began to think about the future. Someone had brought him back, and he needed to find out who and why. And he needed to keep himself from getting murdered—there were lots of people who preferred him dead. At least he would be sleeping in Cabin Eleven, and not the Big House—if someone killed him in his sleep, they couldn't get away with it.

Luke sighed and rubbed his forehead. When had this become his life?

Then the door opened. Quickly, he went through his internal list of half-siblings, trying to come up with a response for whoever entered—but it wasn't any of them. It was worse.

It was Annabeth.

She was older. It was strange—he had been twenty when he died, and now she must be nineteen or twenty, depending on what day of July it was. His age. She sat down on the bunk across from him, but didn't say anything. Maybe she didn't know what to say. Neither did he.

"How's Thalia?" he asked, then winced. That made it sound like Thalia was his first thought, but Thalia had given up on him in a way Annabeth never had, so he'd given up on her.

"She lost her brother recently, but she's tough, and she loves being a Hunter." Annabeth looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact.

Suzie had told him about Jason, when she described the Seven, but it was still strange to think Thalia had hidden such a huge part of her past from him. "That's understandable," he managed to say.

"I can't tell her you're back. Whatever sealed us in camp cut of Iris-Messaging too. We still have our antenna, but the outside network is unreachable." Annabeth sounded more confident talking about logistics, lifting her head a little, though Luke had no idea what she meant about the antenna.

"I know where I stand with her," he said. "Talking to her isn't urgent."

"But you don't know where you stand with me."

Luke thought carefully about what to say. "I think… I deserve your anger, but you deserve to let go of it. While I was gone, you could do that without letting me off the hook. This must be harder."

Annabeth chuckled grimly. "Yes, it is. All I know is I don't want to be angry again."

He had nothing to say to that.

"This is going to take time," Annabeth said, after a long silence. "Just…"

"What?"

"Don't get yourself killed again before we figure this out."

"I can do that," Luke promised.

Anubis desperately wanted Walt here, with him. But it would be inappropriate to bring his host into the Duat for a meeting of the gods.

Horus sat on his throne, crook and flail resting on his lap. Isis and Set flanked him, and Ra stood at the front of the crowd, alongside Bast and Sekhmet, who twice a minute flickered to Hathor. Anubis leaned against a pillar in the back of the crowd, surrounded by minor gods.

"As you know," Horus began a clearly rehearsed speech, "we are at war." Anubis tuned him out and watched the audience. Most of them seemed to agree with their king. Anubis tried to keep track of all the gods nodding their heads or making sympathetic noises—Babi, Serqet, Sorbek, Shu, Neith—but it soon proved impossible. Somehow, Horus's war was popular.

At least not everybody was enthralled. Ra stood serenely, but his pet cats glared disapprovingly on his behalf. Nekhebet, the vulture goddess, ran her tongue over her lips like she expected to feast on Horus's flesh soon. Tarawet, the hippo goddess, shuffled her feet and stared at the ground. At her side, Bes scowled.

Eventually the speech ended, Horus and Isis slid through the Duat to who-knows-where, and most of the rest followed their example. Anubis waited and watched, curious who would leave last. Ptah was talking to Hemsut, a goddess bearing a shield emblazoned with crossed arrows, and the shuttle of a loom hanging from her hip. The two of them were thinkers, and Anubis wondered what they were thinking.

Bast also remained, and she made her way over to him. Fortuitous, since he had something to say to her.

"Sadie has a new cat," he said before she could speak.

She blinked, confused. "What?"

"Her name is Cupcake, and she's a menace. A perfect host for you."

"I'm the only one who gets to decide that." She licked her hand.

"Sadie wants you."

"She's not a kitten, anymore. She needs to grow."

"She lost her brother . She needs support."

Bast looked angry. "That's not what I want to talk about."

"Then what?" Curt, but cats and dogs did not get along. That was ingrained in both of them.

"You have power over the Per Ankh's decisions," she purred.

"A little."

"Keep them strong."

He wanted to object, tell her she should do it herself, but Bast slid into the Duat before he could. He wasn't alone for long. Hemsut walked over to him, her shield arm resting at her side.

She was a fate goddess, and rarely spoke to others. Her having two conversations in one day was almost unheard of—but as a death god, he didn't mingle much either, and they'd talked more than a few times over the millenia.

"Anubis," she said, sing-songy, "it's been a while since we talked."

It had been a while since he left Walt or the Hall of Judgement. "Too long," he replied.

She pursed her lips. "Do you find something… strange about all this?"

Everything was strange about this. "Like what?"

"If the Duat is being corrupted, why is Horus not sending anyone to investigate it? It seems an important lack of judgement."

"It is… odd."

"Perhaps you could investigate?" She smiled weakly.

"Why me?"

"My sight is… clouded on this. But I feel a magician and a god should deal with this together. And I have no permanent mortal host."

Anubis was inclined to distrust this offer, but Hemsut had never deceived him before, however shallow their interactions were. "Walt and I are needed to help the House of Life." He couldn't just abandon his friends, abandon Sadie.

"You'll help them more by finding the source of the problem."

Maybe, but he and Walt needed to decide this together. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I ask."

"Is just you asking?" She'd been talking to Ptah, after all, and no one else would know more about needed magicians.

"No," she admitted. "There's a handful of us. We'll give you everything we know, of course."

"I need to go," he said, "but I'll tell you my decision soon, either way."

"One more thing." She looked him in the eyes, like she wasn't sure whether to say it. "The spell over the Greek camp—there's something not right with it. Can you—"

"Of course." It was a good excuse to visit the Twenty-First Nome while he was in New York.

She nodded. "Farwell, Anubis."

"Goodbye, Hemsut."

And then they both left.

Chapter Text

"Here," Artemis said. "Look."

Thalia saw a man, maybe twenty-five, exit a brick building through a door she could not see before. The House of Life had only three magicians in Detroit, so Artemis had brought only four hunters, and sent the others to scout the other nomes. Camp Jupiter would only survive if the army besieging them could not get reinforcements.

"Ready your bows," Artemis commanded. The man fumbled with his keys and headed towards his beat up truck. "On my mark."

And then: "Fire." Three arrows hit his chest, and the fourth lodged itself in his temple. He was dead before he hit the ground. Thalia had killed once before, at the Battle of Manhattan, and it had felt just as awful then.

But innocence was the victim of war, and the price of immortality.

Hemsut fiddled with the shuttle attached to her belt. Their's was a strange assembly: the Greek Horae, the hours of the day, represented by Midnight and Noon; Anna Perenna, the goddess of the Roman calendar; Odr, Freya's wandering husband; and her: the goddess who gave each man their ka, the essence of their life.

Bound together by a mystery none of them could solve alone.

"We have been watching from the skies," Noon announced. "Time is slowed in Camp Half-bood. We cannot reach inside it, even now, free of our distraction."

Anna Perenna scoffed. "Holding the boy's soul was a bit more than a distraction. Hemsut did the hard part, bringing him back to life."

"Three years is a long time," Hemsut countered softly. "And I am used to giving life."

" You only kept your boy for three months," Midnight spat. "And the whole year is your domain. We could only hold him for an hour each."

"Onto other matters," Odr said. "I've been whispering to the Valkyrie, but getting her to break Odin's rules is beyond me. If we want the pontifex and pharaoh back in play, I need help."

"We want them," Anna Perenna said firmly. "But I'm not sure what we can do in Valhalla."

"She lives in Midgard. What about your ally," Odr gestured to Hemsut, "the one who can speak things into reality?"

"He might be able to help. I'll ask."

Noon interjected. "What about the siege? Can't we do anything there?"

Anna Perenna shook her head. "Half the prominent magicians have spoken against it. There's nothing left to do but get Anubis and his boy to prove the Twelfth Legion isn't behind it."

"Or Camp Half-blood," Midnight added.

"I'll speak to Ptah," Hemsut repeated. "And Anna, do what you can for New Rome. We'll meet again next week."

They said their farewells and dispersed.

Zia watched the Vegas illusionist. She was assisting in Cynthia's idea—they were quite a pair, the follower of the sun god and the follower of the moon god. Where Zia spat the sun's fire directly, Cynthia bent the moon's light to mislead her enemies.

But today, neither of them would be playing to their specialties.

Cynthia held a jar, sides ringed with binding magic, brought to them from the First Nome. A relic from when the House of Life was devoted to trapping gods instead of channeling them.

Zia read from the scroll in her hands. She called forth the twin lions of Aker, Duaj and Sefer , yesterday and tomorrow. She bound them to her service and demanded they be the enemies of Rome. Cynthia lifted the lid of the jar, and two feline forms emerged, each crowned with a sun disk.

And then she left Zia to finish binding the lions, and focused on the river. As the moon is king to all the waters of the world, she demanded the river should acknowledge her as queen. After all, she had the blood of pharaohs and the soul of Khonsu.

The Little Tiber loved New Rome, but it couldn't fight her logic completely. The lions crossed the river as soon as Zia finished her spell, and then Cynthia's knees buckled, and Zia had to catch her.

"Good job," the illusionist said.

"You too," Zia replied.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Luke inspected the vial of poison. It was the kind doctors used, with a membrane on the top that could be pierced by a needle, and filled with a dark purple liquid. He shook it, and it clouded up, filling with black mist.

"This is my magnum opus," Spike said. The son of Prometheus was wearing a red sports jacket over a black dress shirt, and his dreadlocks were pulled into a ponytail.

"They'll be able to tell?" Luke asked. This was the most important part. If Camp Half-blood didn't notice the tree was poisoned, Thalia would die.

"That's the brilliant part! I messed around with the venom to change the symptoms, so that it'll look worse than it is."

"So it won't kill her, it'll just look like it?"

Spike shook his head. "Nah. I mean, I could try to do that, but it would take longer—"

"It's fine," Luke interrupted. They didn't have time—Thalia was aging more slowly in the tree, and she needed to turn sixteen before Percy Jackson did. "But what do you mean 'it'll look worse than it is?'"

"They'll think they have about half as much time to fix it than they actually do. Keeps them from waiting too long and not getting the Fleece in time."

Luke nodded, though he wasn't so sure. Chiron was an expert healer who would probably see through it, and though Kara said she could get her spies to frame him, they couldn't rely on that. No matter how much she loved her spies, or they loved her, she was only thirteen, and hardly a master of espionage.

But there wasn't any other way to get Thalia back. "Alright," he told Spike. "Get that vial to Kara, and she'll get it into camp."

"I do begin to have bloody thoughts." Stephano, The Tempest

NOW:

Luke was left alone until dinner. Two of his sisters he'd never met before—Alice Miyazawa and Julia Feingold, who both looked about fourteen—escorted him to the dining hall. On the way there, they talked about capture the flag.

"They haven't canceled it?" he asked.

"Nope," Julia said, popping the p . "First time one of the minor cabins is leading a team, and they all threatened to riot."

"Cabin Fourteen," Alice added. "The Iris kids. We're on their team."

Which meant that Kara had a golden opportunity to get him alone and kill him, if her threats were genuine.

Julia seemed to read his mind. "Butch will keep you from getting murdered in the woods. No way he lets his victory be tarnished."

"That's not as reassuring as you think it is."

Both of his sisters shrugged. "We're here," Alice said.

The Hermes table was the least crowded he had ever seen it. Chris and Connor were there, of course, and he recognized Cecil and Brandi from when he was still the counselor. There were six or seven kids he hadn't met, and at the corner of the table...

… sat Benji and Annette. Not that he was particularly close with either of them—he'd only talked to most of the army once or twice—but he had kept track of his half-siblings. If they agreed with Kara… he wasn't going to apologize for doing the right thing, even if he did it too late.

An awkward silence met him as he sat down, and everyone stopped eating to look at him.

"So," Connor said. "Welcome back?"

"Thanks," Luke replied. More silence.

"We were just talking about Capture the Flag," Alice offered, filling the void.

"Is Luke even playing?" Benji asked, skeptical.

"Yes," said Julia, just as Luke said, "No."

Julia sighed. "I told you, it's safe."

"It'll remind people what it's like to fight against him," Benji warned.

Annette spoke up. "We started playing Capture the Flag the week after we arrived at camp, and it taught people to think of us as being on their side. If Luke wants to heal things…" She smiled weakly.

Luke was not convinced.

"It's a terrible idea," Connor said.

"Thank you?" Luke replied.

Connor backtracked. "I just meant that you swore an oath on the Styx not to harm any campers, which is great, but makes this a bit tricky."

"So I'm not playing." A perfect excuse.

"No way," Julia interjected. "You have to . At least to make up for the fact nobody trusts our cabin anymore."

"How will getting murdered help with that?" Benji asked.

Alice chimed in. "He can run away and warn us of things. Come on, have our backs." She put on her most charming face.

Connor melted. "I suppose. And with Ares and Athena on the same side, it's not like we're winning anyway."

"Don't count the us out," Benji countered. "The Hecate kids are crazy powerful, and Butch managed to rile the Aphrodite cabin up. Fifteen petty demigods who want to prove themselves, one of which can charmspeak."

"Yeah, but that one is Drew ," Connor said. "She's not strategic."

"Either way, it's going to be historic," Alice argued. "And we can't let Luke skip out on history."

"I'm not getting out of this, am I?" Luke considered.

"Nope!" said Julia, cheerfully. The conversation shifted to other things that Luke struggled to follow along with.

Chris hadn't said anything at all yet. Luke wondered if he should apologize for upsetting whatever balance his brother had struck between his past and his present, but got distracted quickly by another table.

Kara sat across from her brother, and next to a small blonde girl who must be her sister. She was smiling and joking. Luke hadn't seen her do that in a long time. It made him uneasy in a way he couldn't explain.

Roxie sat on the edge of the Demeter cabin's table, not talking to anyone else. There were only four kids at the Hecate table, and Luke recognized everyone except Lou Ellen from the army. Medelia, JC, and… someone else whose name he didn't remember, or had never learned. But the face was familiar. Alabaster wasn't there, which surprised him. Luke had thought he'd follow Kara anywhere.

There were a lot of tables that only had one or two people sitting at them. Percy, of course, but also the representatives for the minor gods' cabins he'd met earlier. Clovis dozed alone, the Nike twins faced off across the table, and a few others who hadn't spoken up during the meeting.

Luke looked down. He'd almost finished his plate, and so had most of the others, so he stood up and made his offering to the gods. He didn't know who to talk to. Not his dad—he didn't forgive Hermes for anything. Not cruel Zeus. He settled on something generic.

Thank you, everyone who decided not to smite me on sight. Thank you Dionysus for letting me into camp. Thank you, Hestia, for giving me a chance at home.

"Knock, knock," Sadie said. One of the disadvantages of tents: you couldn't just knock on them. Zia's was gold, with a scarab emblazoned on the flaps.

"Come in," Zia replied.

Sadie entered. The interior of the tent was lit by a glowing orb that felt more like the sun than the sun did, in the gloomy Bay Area. "How are you doing?" Sadie asked.

Zia pursed her lips. "I should be asking you that."

Sadie scoffed. "All anyone talks to me about is how I'm doing. I want to hear about you."

"I'm… alright. But unsure."

"Yeah," Sadie agreed. "I get that."

"People died in our first raid. How can we let people die for a war we don't believe is right?"

"I don't know. That's part of why I suggesting the siege—"

"—so that we would have time to stop things. But people are still dying. We sent Cynthia's lions across the river yesterday, and the Third Nome is building warrior shabti . We need to act faster."

"How? Without the gods support?" As Sadie said it, she realized that was the crux of the issue. She had never seen eye to eye with Isis, but they had worked together to face everything she had ever dealt with. Even when she could no longer hear the goddess's voice, she channeled power by aligning with her. But Isis would deny help for anything that stopped her war.

"We have some gods." Zia lowered her voice. "We have Ra."

"We do?"

Zia nodded. "He has… suggested that giving the throne to Horus was a mistake. That bad leadership will kill the gods."

In the back of her mind, Sadie began to plot a solution to her other problem. But that should wait. "Is that really enough? If he won't say it to Horus's face?"

"No," Zia admitted. Her voice returned to normal volume. "We must do something ourselves, without gods. We cannot let more people die for this."

A new voice came from outside the tent. "I might have a way to help with that," Walt said, stepping inside. "Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But I needed to talk to you. Both of you."

"About what?" Sadie asked. They were still fighting, officially, and she wasn't sure how to deal with him right then.

"I'm going to investigate the disturbance in the Duat that's causing all this."

Zia looked as shocked as Sadie felt. "Even gods don't go to into the Sea of Chaos," the fire elementalist managed to say.

"Are you a bloody idiot?" Sadie added.

"I'm not going in ," Walt insisted. "Just… near."

"Because that's much better," Sadie snapped.

"Someone has to do it." Walt looked at Zia as if he expected her to back him up.

She didn't. "It doesn't have to be you."

"The two of you are needed here, and it will take a magician to investigate this."

"You are a daft boy who needs to come to his senses," Sadie inelegantly replied.

"I went to the Greek camp," he said. What did that have to do with anything? "The spell trapping them there—something was wrong with it."

"What?" Zia prodded.

"It wasn't hieroglyphs. It was demotic." The writing system that bridged Egyptian and Greek, Sadie remembered. Invented by the Ptolemies, engraved on the Rosetta Stone.

"Any language can be used to cast spells," Sadie said. "And using a Greek script to trap Greeks might work better." She'd fought Setne with a Greek spell, after all.

"But it isn't like the gods to do this," Zia thought out loud. "They said this is about the Greeks corrupting us. A Greek spell is more of that."

"Exactly," Walt agreed.

"You're siding with him now?" Sadie fumed.

Zia shook her head. "He shouldn't go alone."

Walt met her eyes. "You're a leader, Zia." He looked at Sadie. "Both of you are leaders. The Per Ankh needs leaders who don't want this."

Zia sighed. "You make too much sense."

Sadie peered into the Duat, looking at both of Walt's faces and seeing only determination. But Anubis's eyes were softer. They always were. "Don't do this," she told him. "I won't lose you."

Walt look pained, on both faces, but backed away from her. "I need to go," he said. "I hope you can forgive me." And then, to Zia: "Take care of her."

"I will."

And then Walt left, before Sadie could say anything else to him.

She turned on Zia. "How dare you! Like I need more taking care of than you."

"I've been taking care of you."

Sadie gritted her teeth. "You don't need to."

"Carter would have wanted it." Zia's stood defiantly, having played the ultimate trump card. "You were the most important person in the world to him."

Before this moment, that was what Sadie loved the most about Zia, and appreciated in Walt. Neither of them asked the Kane siblings to put them first or treated it like a competition with only so much attention to go around. But now it infuriated her.

"Whatever," she snapped, then turned around and marched out of the tent.

The encampment was busy—furniture was being brought in, semi-permanent structures were being built. In the middle of the Third Nome's tents, they were building a massive brick kiln, to make more durable shabti.

Sadie headed over—maybe because fighting with Zia had made her think of the shabti the old Chief Lector, Iskandar, had made to impersonate the fire magician while he hid her away. It had fooled everyone, including Carter and Sadie, but more importantly it had wielded magic as skillfully as Zia could. In the kiln, the Third Nome was trying to replicate the feat, in order to create soldiers to kill the Romans without any Egyptian losses.

Luckily, there were very few people who could make shabti as skillfully as Iskandar, and it would take time.

Sadie found Imogen, the Third Nome's leader, sitting outside the kiln working clay in her hands. She was making some sort of head, and the brown shape reminded Sadie of the chocolate bust of Vladimir Putin she had once watched the god of chaos eat. (Long story.) But as she drew closer, she realized it was the head of a younger man, maybe even a boy.

"Good afternoon, Miss Kane," the old woman said, smiling but not looking up.

"Hullo," replied Sadie. "Getting started already? The kiln's pretty far from done."

Imogen tilted her head, looking at the bust from another angle. "This is a… personal project." Then she set her project down, made a fist with her right hand, and hit her left palm with it. There was a popping noise and part of the boy's skull caved in slightly. "Air bubbles," she explained.

Sadie nodded, though most of her shabti were small and made of wax. Alyssa, Brooklyn House's resident earth elementalist and potter, had once pulverized her oven by trying to bake a vase with an air bubble in it. "What kind of personal project?" she asked the older woman.

Imogen waved a hand dismissively. "Something I saw in a dream. Nothing important."

Sadie doubted that. "Why aren't you helping with the kiln? There must be a lot work to be done."

"Shouldn't you be glad?"

"Why would I be glad?"

"You want to stall the confrontation, don't you?"

Sadie fought to keep her irritation from showing. Sure, she hadn't been actively hiding her views, but she hadn't been marching around and shouting them either. By her standards, that was discreet! "You don't," Sadie countered. "So why not help?"

Imogen nodded thoughtfully. "I'm not in any hurry," she said, speaking slowly as if to emphasize her point. "Truth be told, I hope this ends with a surrender, not a bloodbath."

"Then why not argue for that?"

"Peace feels unlikely. And there's something I want even more."

"What's that?"

"My daughter follows the path of Horus." Of course. Sadie had known the Third Nome wanted to make one of their own pharaoh, but hadn't realized it was Imogen's daughter. That's what it always came down to. If Sadie didn't replace Carter, who would?

"Have a nice day," Sadie told the other woman.

"I will try, Miss Kane."

Sadie left, still stewing.

The campfire felt achingly like home. It hadn't really started yet, but the fire glowed green and felt so warm, and for a moment Luke could pretend that nothing had changed, that he hadn't thrown away his life, that he was wanted here.

His cabin mates left him alone, splitting off to join their friends. He couldn't really blame them. Even Chris had the decency to look a little guilty when he went to join Kara and her half-siblings.

"I'd like to talk to you," said someone behind him. He turned, saw an all-to-familiar son of Prometheus, and suddenly it didn't feel like home after all.

Spike looked a lot like he had when Luke had last seen him. The dreads he'd had when he'd first been recruited were gone, replaced by a fade with flames decorating the sides. He was wearing a mauve coat over a black dress shirt, but with jeans instead of his normal slacks.

"I didn't see anyone from your cabin at the meeting," Luke said.

Spike laughed. "It's just me. And we're banned from being counselors." So that was why Kara had let her brother represent the Iris cabin—she didn't have a choice.

Luke didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

"I'm not glad you're back," Spike said. "But I'm not upset, either. In case you were wondering."

"I was."

"Kara wants you dead."

"I figured that out."

"But she doesn't want to kill you."

Luke tried to hide his skepticism. "How do you know that?"

Spike shrugged. "We're friends. She'd like it if someone else killed you, but she's not going to throw away the peace she built in order to make it happen."

"If you're her friend, why are you telling me this?"

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Aren't we also friends?"

No , Luke thought but did not say. "I guess. Any other tips?"

"Your real problem is campers. If someone from the army kills you, they'll lose everything they have here. But if a camper does it, they might have popular support. Or popular indifference."

"Since when are you a politician?" Luke had never heard Spike talk about popular opinion before. He'd never heard Spike talk about anything other than his experiments, which ranged from eerie to horrifying.

Spike shrugged. "I picked up a few new skills. Anything else you want to know?"

Luke thought about his day so far, all the people from the part of his life he wanted to leave behind. "Who should I worry about? I've heard from Roxie and you, and I know where Kara stands, but who actually has other people who agree?"

Spike thought for a moment. "No one hates you as much as Kara, but a lot of people owe her. You'll make enemies if you do anything to her. Roxie still has a way of pulling other people's strings, and she's determined to forgive you."

"And you?"

"Nobody likes me, and nobody cares about my opinions. But I'm curious what you'll do if I give you the tools to get through this."

That wasn't entirely reassuring, but this conversation tied with Suzie's rundown of the last three years for usefulness. "Thank you."

Spike gazed at Luke thoughtfully. "You're welcome."

That was the end of that. The campfire started soon after, and Luke sat with his siblings, mouthing along to every song but not brave enough to actually sing. He wiped away tears that thankfully nobody seemed to notice.

This wasn't home. But it was the closest he'd had in a long time.

Chapter Text

THEN:

The chains chafed Cleopatra Selene's wrists. Her mother had killed herself to avoid this—marched through the streets of Rome so that Octavian could show off how he'd bested his rivals and taken Egypt. The triumph was surely Rome's most barbaric tradition, and there was some steep competition.

Once this was over, she knew, Octavian would pretend to be sorry. On the trip across the Mediterranean, he'd promised to provide her with a place in his household and a proper Roman education, perhaps even arrange a marriage for her. Never mind that she'd had the finest tutors in all of Alexandria. Never mind that she'd had a home, before he drove both her parents to suicide and executed her half-brother for the crime of being Caesar's true heir. Never mind that he probably planned to kill her other brothers, lest they try to claim Egypt's throne for themselves.

Not her, though. How could any Roman understand that Ptolemy women were as royal as the men? How could this man, despite his distant claims of divine ancestry, understand what it meant to be the granddaughter of a goddess?

She would make him pay. She would make them all pay. But for now all she could do was keep marching, and pretend to be entirely Antony's daughter.

"The best revenge is to not be like your enemy" Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

NOW:

"I'm sorry it took so long for me to be ready," said Tibernia Julia Aurelia, the veteran augur who had been called in to replace Elissa. Aurelia was Octavian's aunt, twenty-eight years old, and had served the Legion for nine years before passing the position on to her nephew. The family resemblance was strong—she had his blonde hair, stiff posture, and scheming eyes.

Frank tried not to let that bias him.

Both praetors had come to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus to greet the new augur. At Reyna's side, Frank scratched his arm awkwardly, aware of how many more lines were on Aurelia's tattoo than his.

"I'm glad you can come at all," Reyna said diplomatically. Over the last week, each of the retired augurs had demurred, made excuses why they couldn't return to service. Aurelia had finally stepped up, but Frank knew that Reyna didn't like how long it had taken her. "The camp needs an augur to deal with the siege."

"Indeed."

"Have the gods showed you anything?" Reyna asked. There were certainly enough gutted stuffed animals on the altar.

"No glimpses into the future, but lots about the present.. They name our foes—the House of Life, followers of the Egyptian gods."

" Egyptian ?" Frank sputtered. "There are Egyptian gods now?"

Aurelia's eyes narrowed. "Apparently."

"And hundreds of them are camped across the river," muttered Reyna.

"They're led by a man called the Chief Lector," Aurelia continued, "but until a month and a half ago, they had an pharaoh with absolute power. The succession crisis is all that keeps more from coming."

"We can't let them name another pharaoh, then," Reyna mused.

"If we killed the lecturer dude, would that make more leave?" Frank asked. He felt uneasy. Sure, he'd killed a few Germani when the Triumvirate had invaded, but he would never feel comfortable killing enemies that didn't reform later.

"I will ask the gods," Aurelia answered.

"Do that," Reyna said. "I will assemble the senate this afternoon to discuss our options. You are invited." A praetor's invitation was a veiled command, of course.

"I'll be there," the older woman responded. "Are we getting reinforcements any time soon?"

Reyna shook her head. "Our enemies have managed to cut off Iris messaging."

"At the senate meeting, we're going to send a quest to contact them in person," Frank added.

Aurelia nodded thoughtfully, and Reyna wondered what was going on in her head. "Well then," the augur said, "I'll go murder some more stuffed animals now."

"See you this afternoon," Frank said, and both women repeated his pleasantry.

Frank and Reyna walked back to their offices. Through unspoken agreement, they swerved in order to go by Kympoleia's shrine.

"I should go," Frank said, glumly.

"What?" Reyna sounded genuinely perplexed. "I need you."

"I've gone on a lot of quests. I should go on this one." He'd been thinking about this for the past week, and was surprised that she wasn't ahead of him. She usually was.

"Lots of people have gone on quests. Only you have lead this camp through a different invasion."

"But we need Camp Half-blood—"

"Frank," Reyna interrupted. "Do you really think the Egyptians attacked us and left the Greeks alone? They probably won't be able to help us."

Frank blinked. "Then why send the quest at all?"

"There are other places we can get reinforcements."

"No offense," Frank said skeptically, "but the Amazons haven't recovered from Orion's attack, and we don't have any other armies on call."

"No," Reyna agreed, "but if we can contact the Waystation, we might have another dragon."

"Another?" Frank asked, and then figured it out. "You mean me?"

"Yes, Frank. I mean you." She met his eyes. He knew what she was thinking.They might have had a rocky start, but it had been almost two years, and he should know by now she considered him a valued partner. He just doubted he deserved it.

"But if not me, who do we send?"

"Hazel, for a start," Reyna said. "She can pick her companions."

"That makes sense," Frank replied reluctantly. Hazel could definitely handle it, but… a selfish part of him didn't want to deal with this crisis without her. But he couldn't tell Reyna that.

"Good," said his co-praetor.  They had reached Kympoleia's shrine, and they both looked at it for a moment. Frank had no idea what Reyna was thinking, but he stared at the offerings and wondered if anyone would miss him so much if he was gone. Probably not. He was too Greek, too green, too strange.

"Come on," Reyna tugged on Frank's arm. "Let's go home."

They walked down the Via Praetoria, splitting off as Reyna headed to her office and Frank went down by the stables. Hazel was there, as Frank had known she would be. Arion was, which surprised him. The horse came and went on his own schedule.

"Hazel!" Frank greeted her.

Hazel turned to face him and smiled. Even as tired and stressed as they all were, her smile was radiant. "Frank! How did your meeting go?"

"Alright," he answered. "I see you have company."

Hazel stroked Arion. "He just showed up today. I don't know why, though. It's not like he can do much right now."

"I think I might know." Frank told her about Reyna's suggestion that she lead the quest to get reinforcements.

"Oh," Hazel said.

"Oh?" Frank echoed.

"I just…" Hazel trailed off. "I don't want to leave you behind."

Frank sighed. "I don't want to let you go," he admitted. "But you and Arion can travel faster than anyone else."

Hazel frowned, but nodded. "That makes sense."

"We're going to ask the Senate to approve it tonight. When they do…"

Hazel understood. "I can leave tomorrow morning."

So soon. But there wasn't time to waste.

Hazel reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll be fine," she reassured him.

"I know," Frank lied.

It was strange, to dream again. Kronos had never slept in Luke's body, so it had been over a year since he had dreamed of anything.

Luke was sitting at a coffee shop, a hot latte in front of him. Across the table was a woman in white linen clothes and heavy eyeliner. A shield rested against the side of the table.

"Hello, Luke." The woman smiled, and somehow Luke knew she was a goddess.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm the one who brought you back." Luke didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. The goddess, for her part, kept going. "You're the only one who knows everything the Crooked One did that last year. You're the only one with the knowledge to fix what he broke."

Luke had no clue what she was talking about. "Kronos is dead," he said.

"I hope so," she replied. "But I believe he did something that's causing a lot of problems."

"The mark in the sky." Luke felt numb, but maybe that was just because he was dreaming.

"Among other things," the goddess agreed.

"Like what?"

"I don't know." She looked sad. "I thought you might remember something."

He remembered lots of things. Screaming at the dracanae queen, arguing with his brothers, playing mind games with the demigods at his command, convincing Silena he was still Luke. Conversations with the eerie Koios and deceptively cheerful Phoebe, in a language he'd only half-understood through his link with Kronos. Meetings with businessmen and minor gods the rest of the army knew nothing about.

And other, older memories. The mysterious sarcophagus of unknown origins and unknown power. Whatever Kronos had said in his private conversations with Kara, after which she always looked like she had some new secret in her pocket.

"I remember too many things," Luke told the goddess.

She nodded. "While you sort through those, I have another task for you. If Kronos is planning to come back, you need to keep his old allies from joining him."

"How?"

"Make peace with the major," she implored. "Make peace with all of them. You led them into war, once. You can lead them out of war this time."

"They won't follow."

"I believe they will, if you're honest with them. You know Kronos was a monster in a way no one else does."

"They don't want peace."

The goddess smiled weakly. "Are you sure of that?"

"Kara doesn't want peace," Luke amended, remembering Roxie and Chris and Spike.

She didn't respond, and sipped her coffee. Luke did the same, but it didn't make him feel better. Coffee made him think of Kara, going through nine cups a day as she went mad.

The vision began to slip away. The coffee shop morphed into the onyx walls of Mount Orthys, and he was alone in the room except for the sarcophagus.

It was just a memory, he told himself. This place had crumbled years ago, and the ornate box must have been seized or destroyed. It didn't help.

Pathetic boy , a familiar voice said, like nails scraping stone. It seemed to come from his own throat, though his mouth wasn't moving. Prostrating yourself for scraps of forgiveness.

That wasn't true. It wasn't . Luke was sorry, and pretending otherwise was wrong. But his mouth was glued together.

You hated them. Luke didn't. You despised their complacency. And now you crave it.

That was not true. But something kept him from defending himself.

I know you thoughts, boy. Better than anyone else. I know your fatal flaw. Luke closed his eyes. You are a pathetic, wrathful thing. You might have turned your rage towards your soldiers, but you haven't changed at all.

Not true, not true, not true. The army deserved it.

You couldn't have hosted me if you weren't like me, inside.

True. Luke had been like Kronos. He found his words. "But I changed. Having you in my head gave me perspective. And I threw you out of my mind."

Did you? I seem to be right here.

Luke snapped awake, sweating. It was barely dawn.

Across the room, Chris stared at him.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Frigg put her hand on her husband's shoulder. "Are you sure?"

Odin sighed. "Vili and Ve both agree with me, and they never agree on anything. And yet you have doubts?"

"Vili and Ve don't sit on your throne. You filter what they know about the world."

"It's what I don't see that bothers me," the king countered. It bothered Frigg too. They could see the whole world for the twenty-four hours of the day, but someone was sneaking extra hours in, where she and her husband saw nothing.

"But the ones you bring here will not tell you anything," she said softly "They will continue to serve the gods they served in life."

Odin kissed her forehead. "You are wise, beloved. But you don't understand the brotherhood between my warriors. Friendship will bend their loyalties."

Or will friendship bend the loyalties of your warriors? Frigg wondered. But she did not speak.

"Friends ask you questions, enemies question you." Criss Jami, Healogy.

NOW:

Sam hated Valhalla's elevator music. There were dozens of musicians in the hotel, and any one of them could fix the problem, but she wasn't exactly in a position to fix that. She'd chosen to be Odin's agent, not head Valkyrie.

And as soon as the elevator reached floor seventeen-and-a-half, she would have failed that.

The worst part was Odin's rules made sense . Jason and Carter hadn't chosen to spend their afterlives here the way they'd chosen their homes in life. They had no reason to choose Valhalla's safety over their old friends and families. And while Jason considered floor seventeen to be his friends, Carter didn't trust anyone Norse.

But the war meant more Greco-Romans and Egyptians would be here soon. Sam needed to tell them, even if Odin forbade it.

And the Norse were involved now. Gna, Frigg's personal messenger, had disappeared. Even Odin couldn't find her from his throne, though he'd tried to hide it from the Valkyries. Sam had asked him to send a quest, but he'd denied her.

Samirah hated breaking Odin's rules. He'd made a place for her, even though her father was as untrustworthy as they come, even though Loki's other children had a history of deceiving him. She hoped he would forgive her, once she saved the goddess.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. She stepped into the hallway, and knocked on Carter's door.

Jason answered.

"We need to talk," Sam announced. "Can I come it?"

"Sure," Jason replied, furrowing his brow and moving aside. "What's wrong?"

Carter rose from his couch to face her.

"About a week ago, the Chief Lector of the House of Life lead an attack on Camp Jupiter."

Both boys stared at her in horror. "Are you sure?" Carter asked.

"Very."

"Was it in response to my death?"

"Not directly." Sam launched into her prepared explanation. "The Egyptian pantheon ordered the attack themselves, in response to something several realities deep, I think. I don't entirely understand it. The initial attack went poorly, so they're camped outside New Rome's borders in a stalemate."

"We need to help them," Jason declared.

"I thought you'd say that," Sam said. "Your friends are tied up fighting the war. We're going to investigate why it's happening in the first place."

Carter looked at her skeptically. "I can't take us far into the Duat without an equinox."

"Really?" Jason asked. "You went some other times, didn't you?"

"Any river can be used to get onto the River of Night, but if the problem is anywhere else in the Duat..."

"It doesn't matter," Sam interrupted. "We can get information in other ways. I have a plan."

"Why us?" Carter said distrustfully. "Why not Magnus, or Alex?"

Samirah took a deep breath. "I want to give you a chance to defend your homes."

Carter didn't look like he believed her. Sam wasn't sure she believed herself. But Magnus or Alex would insist on giving them this chance, so she didn't have much choice.

"Figure out what you want to take," Sam told them. "I've arranged for a distraction so we can sneak out next week."

"Next week?" Carter asked impatiently.

"It was the best I can do. Are you in?"

"I'm in," replied Jason.

"Yeah," said Carter.

"Are you okay?" Chris whispered.

Luke might have lied if he was less tired, but this early in the morning, he shook his head. "Bad dreams," he admitted quietly. "Why are you up?"

"Morning run," his brother explained. Luke belatedly noticed that Chris was dressed in running gear, one shoe on, the other off.

Luke hadn't realized that was still a thing. "Headed out or coming back?"

"Headed out." Chris paused. "Want to come with?"

"Not everyone will want me there." Kara certainly wouldn't. And there might be campers there, who hated him for the opposite reasons. "And I need to take a shower." And maybe wash his sheets. There was a lot of sweat.

"Fair enough," Chris said, lacing up his other shoe.

The shower was great, but the sheets were still damp when he got out. Quietly, he stripped the bed and headed to the washing machines behind the camp store.

As he walked, he thought about his dreams. His vision of Kronos had to be fake—the Titan king was dead. Luke had felt him die. But then, Luke was supposed to be dead too. The woman in his dreams claimed to have brought him back—but was she lying? Was she merely taking advantage of his return to… to what? Make amends to Kara? Restore the army?

And if she wasn't lying… Luke needed to get ahold of himself. He'd survived three years surrounded by untrustworthy, power-hungry allies. He could survive being back at camp.

As he slipped through the back entrance to the camp store, he found someone already there.

"Hey," said Percy, awkwardly.

"Hey," replied Luke, more awkwardly.

They stood for a few moments, before Percy noticed the bundle in Luke's arms and shuffled awkwardly to the side so that the older boy could use the washer. Not that Luke was much older than Percy anymore.

As he put his sheets into the machine, he noticed that one of the dryers was running. "What happened?" he asked.

"Burst pipe," Percy said. "I, uh, had an argument with Clarisse."

"I guess some things don't change."

Percy smiled weakly. "Six years ago, I wouldn't have washed her clothes as an apology."

"That's… nice of you." And very different from the rivalry Luke had left behind.

"I guess."

More silence.

"Were we friends?" Percy asked.

"What?" It was way too early for this.

"When we were at camp together, you helped me a lot. Was any of it real?"

Luke had thought so much about what he would say to Annabeth and Thalia, he hadn't prepared for this conversation at all. "I cared about all the unclaimed kids, even if they got claimed later."

"So like… not friends, but kind of friends?"

"More like… in a world filled with horrible authority figures, I wanted to do better." Even if Luke wasn't very good at it.

"How long were you planning to kill me?"

"I tried to find another way," Luke sidestepped. "But I needed to make Thalia important to Kronos."

"So he would save her."

Luke nodded. "I'm sorry. For everything."

Percy nodded. The dryer pinged. "I should go." He gathered Clarisse's clothes out of the dryer, and Luke scooted out of the way.

The washer finished soon after, and Luke moved his sheets to the dryer. The next hour passed with no interruptions, and by the time he left the store, the sun was high in the sky.

He passed by the Athena Parthenos, whose stone gaze was cold and judgemental. If statues could have emotions, this one hated him. He couldn't blame her. The smaller figure of Nike in her hand felt like a threat—the Olympians had held victory the last time, and would hold her again if he fought them.

Luckily, he wasn't quite that stupid anymore.

By the time he got back to the cabin, some of the others were up. Alice was drawing something on Julia's face with a marker, but stopped to give him a little wave. Capture the flag today , she mouthed, as if Luke could forget. He forced a smile and waved back.

Chapter Text

Lupa growled. Beneath her, the enemies of Rome looked… secure. Confident that they were safe. A dozen of them were working on their cursed oven, but many others were relaxing , strolling around or having picnics in the warm afternoon sun.

This could not stand. This would not stand.

Behind Lupa, her pack echoed her growl, and prepared to pounce.

"Not so fast, puppy," said a woman's voice.

Lupa turned around. The newcomer was a woman in a black jumpsuit, holding two long, serrated knives. She smelled like cats and desert sands.

"Bast," Lupa sneered.

The woman smiled wickedly, and then attacked.

"Leo!" Hazel half-shouted, too relieved to pay attention to her volume.

On the other end of the Iris-message, the boy in question scooted out from underneath some sort of machine. "Hazel?"

"It's so good to see you!" And to know that the Egyptians had only cut off Iris-messaging inside Camp Jupiter.

"Of course it is." Leo did his best attempt at a suave smile, which Hazel almost laughed at. "Any reason in particular?"

"Camp is under siege," she explained. The smile fell from his face immediately.

"What can I do?"

"Get to Camp Jupiter as fast as you can."

"Is Camp Half-blood safe?"

"I'm not sure." Her Iris-message to the other camp had failed to go through. "But I can get there on Arion faster than you can get there on Festus."

"Alright," Leo said. "Who else have you called?"

"Just you so far. I was going to call Piper next."

"Do that, and tell her I'll pick her up soon."

Hazel nodded, and the call cut out.

Mr. D took and angry swig of Diet Coke and shouted, "AND ANOTHER THING—"

Chiron did his best to maintain his composure as his boss launched into another tirade against Hades. When there was a suitable pause, the centaur interjected, "We don't know that he's involved."

The god snorted. "My uncle keeps a close eye on his kingdom. Make no mistake, he's a part of this."

Chiron had mentored dozens of heroes who entered and exited the Underworld without its master knowing, but now didn't seem like the time to mention that. "Perhaps you are right."

"PERHAPS?" Another angry chug, and then Dionysus threw the can over his shoulder and summoned another one. "This is personal! They're all mad I didn't have to deal with my brother while he was that Lester brat, so they handed me this!"

Chiron nodded, although he doubted any of it was true. 

"I can tell you don't believe me." Mr. D looked right at the centaur, sending chills down Chiron's spine. "But only the Olympians have the power to pull off these time shenanigans."

"What sort of time—"

Mr. D waved his hand dismissively. "Let the children figure it out themselves. It's character building ."

Chiron didn't like the sound of that.

Chapter Text

THEN:

"My aunt warned me about this," Octavian muttered.

Reyna was surprised. She knew his aunt had been an augur, along with many of his other relatives, but he'd never mentioned any of them before. "About what?"

His lip curled. "The limitations of augury."

Reyna said nothing.

He continued, " She memorized every omen there was, but that's not enough. We need the Sibylline books."

Reyna got the impression she was expected to know what those were, but she'd only been at camp two months, and gotten her tattoo yesterday.

Octavian picked up on that. "Books of prophecy by one of the greatest oracles. Almost as good as having an oracle of our own. But they were lost long ago."

"And you think you can find them?"

He sneered again. "Anthony won't let me lead a quest, so we won't ever know, will we?"

"The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements." Lady Macbeth, Macbeth.

NOW:

"We need to talk about food," Aurelia said firmly.

The two of them were alone in Reyna's office in the Principia. Reyna liked her office. Tapestries depicting the end of the Giant War hung from the walls, a gift from Annabeth and her cabinmates. The desk had been custom-made for Isobel and Anthony, the praetors before Reyna and Jason. On it sat a bowl of jelly beans, Reyna's secret weakness. Behind her stood the banners and medals of the legion, and on either side of the desk Aurum and Argentum guarded her.

She did not like having a woman she didn't trust here, making demands.

"We have enough food to last another two months," Reyna deflected.

"That's not enough."

"Centurion Levesque is getting us reinforcements. We will break this siege soon."

"I don't think so. Before her… untimely death, Elissa recorded an omen. I think we are in for a long siege."

Reyna's brow furrowed, though she tried to hide her concern. "Is this a conversation that should be had with both of us?" She gestured towards Frank's empty chair. 

Aurelia's lip curled. "I chose to talk to you alone for a reason."

Reyna instantly decided she was going to share this whole conversation with Frank as soon as the augur left. "Go on."

"She said she saw a snake devour seven strawberry tarts."

"I was there," Reyna confirmed. "It reminded me of the tomb of Anchises, in the Aeneid."

Aurelia nodded. "Superficially, yes. That's what Elissa was researching. But I believe the answer lies in the Iliad—the snake the Greeks saw on the way to Troy."

Reyna racked her brain. "I don't remember that one."

"They saw a snake devour nine sparrows, for each year they would have to wait before Troy would fall."

"You can't possibly be suggesting we'll be here for eight years."

"I'm afraid so. Maybe, if we're lucky, the smaller snake means only eight months. Or if we're very lucky, eight weeks. But we need to plan for the worst-case scenario."

Reyna took a jelly bean from the bowl, but didn't eat it. It was popcorn flavored. "You wanted to talk about food." Most of the legion didn't think much about the food they ate. They were served by wind spirits who read their thoughts, and never considered where the meals came from. But as praetor, she'd learned that the camp bought their food with the same endowment that paid for everything else.

"Yes."

"We won't last eight years."

Aurelia shook her head. "Not unless we find a way to sneak food in."

"Even if we do, we won't last eight years. The Senate will surrender before that." How could they not? Eight years was over a third of Reyna's life so far, and most of the senators were close to her age. Eight years ago, she had still been serving Circe. 

"I hope so," Aurelia said softly. "But us Romans can be stubborn."

"You hope so?"

The augur nodded. "My daughter is two. If this siege lasts eight years… she'll be ten . That's too long."

Reyna hadn't even known Aurelia had a daughter. "We'll plan for eight months," she decided. Even that seemed like an eternity. 

"Rationing can only stretch our food so far."

"I'll explore our options for getting more food." The real problem was the effect rationing would have on the legion's morale, but that was a discussion for her and Frank.

Aurelia got up to leave, but Reyna had one more question: "The omen you mentioned. Do you think it means we'll win, like the Greeks?"

The augur took a deep breath. "Perhaps. The gods sent the omen to the victors last time. But…"

"But?"

"Last time, it meant that a city would fall."

"So New Rome might be doomed."

Aurelia did not answer.

Luke was not ready for capture the flag.

Julia and Alice flanked him as Cabin Eleven went to meet up with the rest of their team, as if the girls expected him to book it at the first opportunity. He was definitely considering it.

The group at the edge of the forest held a lot of familiar faces. Clovis dozed leaning up against a tree. The Demeter cabin were passing packets of seeds to each other, except for Roxie, who was standing by Spike and the Hecate kids. A son of Aphrodite—Mitchell?—was trying to keep the Nike twins from fighting. The rest of his cabin looked bored, mostly staring at hand mirrors.

Kara wasn't there. Neither were her siblings.

"I can't believe Butch is late to his own meeting," Drew grumbled. 

"I can," Miranda said. "He's got a lot to manage."

One of the Hecate children scoffed. Medelia, she of the colorful scrunchies, wearing red-on-black polka dots today. "He's got to manage Kara, you mean."

"Lay off her," Roxie glared at the younger girl. 

Medelia rolled her eyes. "You broke up , you don't have to defend her."

They were interrupted by the sight of Butch and his sisters heading towards them.

"Finally," Drew muttered.

Kara looked older now, though that was mostly due to the new half-sleeves of tattoos she had on each arm. An iridescent snake curled around her right bicep on a bed of coral, and bright flowers bloomed on her left. But a leather cuff covered her left wrist and the small scythe Luke knew was inked into it. She'd grown out her hair, and it brushed her shoulders now.

She gave him her best death stare, and Luke reciprocated. Everyone else politely pretended not to notice.

"Sorry we're late," Butch apologized, "but we had to change our plans a little."

"Well?" Drew, again. "Tell us already."

Everyone circled up to hear what Butch had to say. "Percy is back, which means we have to switch up our defense—instead of Hecate and Demeter setting up traps together, we'll have magical traps near the creek and plants behind those."

The cabins in question nodded.

"Offensive teams, do not cross back over the creek until you have the flag. You'll get caught in the traps."

More nodding.

"Kara and Drew will be guarding the flag."

"Wait, Drew?" someone asked.

"Exactly," the Aphrodite counselor smirked. "Kara will be invisible, and they'll underestimate me."

"Iris-messages are still working inside camp, so Ariana will be keeping an eye on things, and call you if she sees something." Butch gestured towards his other sister, a small, blonde twelve-year old. "Luke will be guarding her."

"What?" Kara exclaimed.

"What?" Luke asked.

"You should be familiar with Ariana's powers from working with Kara during the war," Butch explained. "And while I'm glad you swore an oath not to hurt anybody, it makes you pretty useless everywhere else. It's easy. Just help Ariana relocate if anything comes her way."

"You want to leave him alone with our sister?" Kara fumed.

Butch stayed calm. "Yes."

"Do you think I'm going to join the dark side after one conversation with him?" Ariana chimed in. "Because I'm not. Promise."

Kara looked at both her siblings and apparently decided to pick her battles. "We'll see."

"Alright," Butch said. "Let's head out."

Everyone split off and headed to their assignments. Kara gave him one last glare before heading off with Drew. Most of Cabin Eleven was on one of the offensive teams, and Julia gave Luke an encouraging thumbs up before they all left. 

And Luke headed into the woods alongside the sister of his worst enemy.

Chapter Text

NOW:

How much time had passed? Walt didn't know anymore. An evening in the House of Rest, to confirm that Osiris knew nothing. A morning at Shady Acres, to see if any of the half-faded gods could tell him anything.

Mekhit, a minor goddess of war and lions, mumbled about war against warriors. Iah, a displaced moon god, cried over something stolen. Tawaret had ushered him out after that, with a strained smile.

And then the Land of Demons. Cursing that he had spent so little of his immortality outside the Hall of Judgement. Skirting as many demons as he could, swallowing the others with linen and death.

But how many days had it been? Part of his mind said five, another said thirty. What to trust?

No way to go but forward. To save Sadie, Walt had to find out what was causing this. One foot in front of the other.

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." Andy Bernard

"It's time to leave," Samirah said.

"Let's go," Carter replied. Sam looked surprised at his eagerness, but Jason understood. Valhalla hadn't felt like a prison in the last year… but it hadn't not felt like a prison.

"Where to first?" he asked, already moving towards his room, where he and Carter had stashed their stuff.

"New York." Sam was confident. "Check in on Camp Half-Blood first, and then meet up with my contact."

"Who's covering for us?" Carter grabbed his duffel bag.

"Alex is throwing a temper tantrum, and Halfborn and Mallory are having a violent breakup." Sam smiled a little. "And some Valkyries have my back. We'll slip out through Magnus's atrium."

Jason grabbed his backpack and strode towards the hallway, trusting the others to follow him.

It was about time.

"We need to keep the Legion busy," Frank sighed, staring at the map of the enemy the Third Cohort had made.

"I know," Reyna replied.

"If we don't give them something to do, they'll go crazy waiting for the Egyptians to attack."

"I know."

"Sorry."

"It's fine." Reyna grabbed a jelly bean. "You're stressed. We're both stressed."

Frank felt bad anyway. "Should we start war games again?" 

Reyna bit her lip. Frank knew what she was thinking—if anyone got injured during the games, that would be one less soldier in their arsenal. On the other hand, if the Legion went stir-crazy…

"Yes," she finally said. "Let's begin war games tomorrow."

Luke watched the images, fascinated. The game was nothing like the ones he had played all those years ago—there were so many more people, with so many different powers. He'd never seen a team do so well against the combined Ares and Athena cabins.

Of course, he'd never seen capture the flag from this angle before. A thin metal rod projected iridescent light, which Ariana then used to connect to the Iris-messaging network to surveil the woods. Any other demigod would have to pay a fortune to make twenty different calls, but Ariana was a daughter of Iris.

It was similar to the setup Kara had used during the war. Though her mother had blacked out most locations of interest, then.

Ariana's eyes flicked across the screen, checking that the flag was still safe, that no one trampled Clovis while he napped, that the offensive teams weren't captured. 

We're winning, he realized as he watched Clarisse and Sherman turn away from the flag by a few words from Drew, and quickly get captured by a patrol. 

"Yes!" Ariana cried, and Luke switched his attention to what she was looking at. Julia and Alice had the flag in their hands and were running towards the border. Percy turned the creek against them… but Lou Ellen and Medelia cast some spell that froze the water in place long enough for Luke's sisters to cross over.

"Yes! Dee!" Ariana shouted. On the muted screen, their whole team cheered.

Luke let his eyes slide over to the other images, and noticed an odd flash of red hair. "Is she supposed to be here?"

"What?" Ariana shifted her attention. "She's not like, banned, but it's a little weird. Come on, we need to celebrate with everyone else!" The Iris-messages dissolved and she pocketed the rod.

"Of course." But Luke still felt uneasy.

The climb was hard. Of course the climb is hard , Carter chided himself. It would be easier if he could stash is things in the Duat and turn into a falcon, but the Duat was as shallow here as in Valhalla, and completely disconnected from any gods he knew.

Jason and Samirah had it easier—gusts of wind cushioned Jason's every move, and Sam flew a little when things got rough. Carter was very aware that he was the one slowing them down.

His figures slipped and Jason caught him—not with the winds, but with his muscular arms, Carter's back pressed against his chest.

"Sorry," Carter apologized.

"For what? We've got each other's backs, right?"

"Yeah." That didn't stop Carter from feeling useless.

Above them, a massive squirrel rustled.

"We need to keep going," Samirah said.

So they did.

Luke was pulled into the celebrating crowd by his siblings. It was loud, and crowded, but it had been a long time since he'd been around people so unreservedly happy.

Eventually he escaped and walked over to Annabeth, who was muttering with Clarisse.

"Good game?" he asked.

"Good game," she replied. "Although if I'd planned the defense, you know we would have won, right?"

Luke smiled. "Of course."

The redhead he'd seen on the screen earlier stumbled into the clearing, clearly disoriented, but almost nobody noticed.

Percy did. "Rachel! Are you okay?" The crowd grew quieter.

The girl—Rachel—opened her mouth. But what came out was not her words.

"The Crooked One has one last game—

But new allies are to blame

The Titan's mount holds the key 

To keep its lord from getting free

A shadow, a statue, a discarded queen

And beware she with the blood of Selene"

It was Spike who said what was on all of their minds. "This is not good."

Chapter Text

THEN:

Three days ago, Luke had handed the master bolt to Ares. Two nights ago, he'd had to explain his failure to… he didn't even dare to think the name. He'd barely slept since. But if he didn't pretend everything else was normal, everything would fall apart. And normal for a camp counselor meant doing some counseling.

One of the unclaimed kids, Kara Liao, had asked to speak to him, but she wasn't speaking now. She sat self-consciously slouched on a rock, making the twelve-year old seem even smaller than she was. Dark paint stained her long-sleeved camp shirt.

"You can tell me anything," he told her. "But you don't have to tell me anything, if you don't want to."

"I do," she whispered. "I've just never said it aloud before."

"I'm glad you trust me."

"That's a lie," she said firmly, surprising him. It was the least quiet he'd ever heard her be. "Sorry," she added at her normal volume. "That's part of what I'm telling you."

"You can tell when people are lying?"

"Yeah. Chiron told me… when I got here, he said it was because of my mom. She used to carry water from the River Styx to Olympus whenever the gods made a big oath. Lies just… sound different to me than the truth."

"You know your mom?" He should have tried to piece together Kara's parentage, but instead his mind was on his problem. Ares could still change his mind and turn Luke in, and then Luke would be dead and tortured for eternity.

"She's a minor goddess. I don't want to be… I don't want to stick out more. The only person in the cabin who isn't unclaimed or a child of Hermes."

"That makes sense to me."

Kara smiled weakly. "Truth."

Luke considered his next words carefully—it would be a bad idea to lie here. But he didn't want to deal with this, really. "You're not wrong about being an outcast if everyone knows. But it's good to tell someone , and I can keep a secret." He was keeping lots of secrets.

Kara bit her lip. "And I can come to you again, if I want to?"

"I'll make time for you. That's what being a good counselor is."

" I swear to thee [...] by all the vows that men have ever broke (in number more than women ever spoke)." Hermia, A Midsummer's Night Dream

NOW:

On the third bus, Samirah took inventory of everything she had left. The trip down the World Tree had taken three days—three days longer than it had ever taken her before. She had packed a week's worth of food, but had stupidly assumed they would be able to find water wherever they were. They had almost collapsed of dehydration before making it to Boston.

But they had made it. Once they were in Midgard, Carter could reach into the Duat and grab water he had stashed there, as well as his magic bag. Then they hopped onto a bus to New York. And then another bus. And now this one, which would still only drop them off a short hike away from Camp Half-blood.

Sam still had three days of food, and she'd refilled her water bottle at the bus station. She'd lost her axe while keeping the monstrous squirrel Ratatoskr from eating Jason, and used the expand-o-duck Blitz had made for her to detonate a tree mine. She still had her swan cloak, of course, wrapped around her head. Two hundred and three dollars of mortal money, and thirty pieces of red gold. The magic boat Magnus had received from his father (was that only a year ago?) folded up into a square cloth. The clothes she'd worn on the way down, and changed out of as soon as she could find a private place to do it.

And that was all. Not much to stop a war with.

Jason and Carter sat in front of her, quietly going over the resources of Camp Jupiter and the House of Life. From what it sounded like, the Romans only had a chance if most of the Egyptians stayed out of the war.

The bus stopped, and they all got off. 

Carter sighed. "I guess it's time to hike now?"

"Maybe not," Jason replied. He closed his eyes and stretched out his hand. Sam almost jumped backwards when a stormy began to form under it, slowly taking the form of a horse. Jason smiled warmly. "It's good to see you again, Tempest."

Carter inspected it curiously. "Will all of us fit?"

"You two can ride Jason's horse," Sam assured them. "I can fly myself." The boys mounted the horse, Carter wrapping his arms around Jason's torso as they took off. Sam followed.

In a few minutes, they saw the letters glowing above the camp. As they drew closer, they saw the cloud. It was white and wispy and alone—and frozen in time, perfectly still. A third of the cloud was just… missing. At the edge of an invisible dome, the rest of the cloud had blown away. 

"What is that ?" Jason asked.

"An Egyptian spell. It means capture ." Carter explained.

Jason paled. "The whole camp has been captured?"

"Frozen in time, it looks like," Sam said, descending towards the camp's border. Jason pulled ahead of her, leading them towards a pine tree. In its branches, a golden fleece— the Golden Fleece, even Sam knew that myth—glittered oddly, each sparkle lingering.

"Not frozen," she amended. "Slowed?"

"Slowed a lot ," Carter agreed. "Light's the only thing moving fast enough that we can see it."

Jason was quiet, obviously worried about his friends. Sam stepped in. "Can you help them?"

Carter paused, a strange look passing over his face. "No. This spell was cast by a lot of people, or maybe a god. I don't have the power alone."

"Can't you summon Horus?" Sam asked, a little impatiently.

"You said he was the one ordering the war. If he didn't do this, he ordered it."

Sam had said that. It was second-hand information, carried to her on a scroll attached to rat, but she hadn't told them that. A voice in her head, almost like Odin's, had told her not to. Maybe its mysterious sender had been lying, to get them to this point, where they needed Horus but wouldn't call on him.

She couldn't tell the others now. It would make them doubt her, and they needed to be cohesive.

Jason finally spoke. "You said you knew someone who could help us."

"Yes," Samirah replied. "She lives in the Upper East Side."

"So let's go." With that he pivoted his stormy horse suddenly, and she saw Carter struggle to keep his hold on the other boy. Sam turned more gracefully and followed.

Reyna hated senate meetings—but at least no one else liked them either. Frank was doing the best job of hiding his impatience, but even he shifted in his seat every couple minutes. Aurelia wasn't even bothering to conceal the disgust in her glare. But at least she was quiet, unlike—

"—need to eat!" shouted Ida Hughes, legacy of Luna and centurion of the Second Cohort.

"Exactly," replied Oscar Ignacio-Reyes, a thirty-two year old veteran who had returned to service as centurion of the Fourth Cohort. "If we don't keep rationing, we won't be eating three months from now." 

"Forget rationing," Larry von Brandt, the Second Cohort's other centurion, said. "If we don't kill that lion, there won't be anyone left to feed."

He wasn't wrong. The Egyptians had managed to sneak two enchanted lions into camp, and eight legionnaires had already been picked off. Lavinia Asimov had barely managed to kill one of them, but the other one was still out there. Speaking of which—

"Just let me get a shot at it," Lavinia replied, crossing her arms.

"You got lucky once—" Larry began.

"Enough," Reyna interrupted, standing up. To her surprise, the whole room actually went quiet. "The matter at hand is the Egyptian prisoners, unless you have all forgotten." The ten magicians they'd captured during the initial attack were still sitting in New Rome's tiny jail.

"We could ransom them," Ida suggested. "That's what people usually do with prisoners, right?"

Aurelia scoffed. "In exchange for what? They don't have any prisoners, and we don't know enough about them to ask for anything else."

"We can't keep them forever," Lavinia countered. "We can barely feed our own people."

"Food," Frank suggested. "We could ransom them for food."

"And admit our weakness?" Aurelia looked skeptical.

"Not immediately," Frank amended. "We'll wait as long as we can. At some point the Egyptians will figure out we need food anyways."

"Or we could wait until we find another solution to the food shortage," Reyna thought aloud. "Trick them into thinking we're weaker than we are."

"That still relies on us solving the food problem," Ida grumbled.

"Do you have a better idea?" Frank asked. Silence. "That's all for today, then."

Nobody looked happy, but the senate adjourned.

Chapter Text

THEN:

"It's weird," Dottie said. "We're on the run, stealing to get by, and yet I feel freer than ever."

"Because we're not under the thumb of the gods anymore." Kara echoed Luke's words so well he almost felt like he was the one speaking.

"We're reliant on Kronos," Dottie countered.

"All he's given us is promises," Kara replied. "We've stood on our own, so far. Of course we feel free."

"And supported," Luke added. "Not alone."

Kara touched the scythe charm on her wrist. "Chris is going to pass spying off to that Ares kid in a few days. Then we'll be an army of four."

"An army of five, soon," Luke said. "Hecate is sending one of her children. A boy your age." Dottie and Kara were both thirteen.

"But under the thumb of his mother." Dottie's face was less judgmental than her words. "So not exactly a peer."

"Hecate called him a rebel through and through."

"And if he isn't," Kara smiled widely, "we'll make him one in a few days."

At camp they'd been so different. Dottie had always looked solemn and trapped. Kara had been meek, and now she was unrecognizably outgoing, hopeful despite her skepticism, trusting that she could get what she wanted out of Kronos.

They slept in sleeping bags in the Georgia wilderness, yet were happier than on the floor of Cabin Eleven.

Luke had probably changed too, without noticing it. Chris and Kaydon and the son of Hecate would too, and whoever came after. Luke looked forward to it.

"You might know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have." The Witch, Into The Woods

Sadie's dreams had all been bad since Carter died. So when her ba lifted itself out of her body and dragged her into the Duat, for the first time ever, it was an improvement. 

She landed in a garden she'd never been to before, filled with colorful plants. A very familiar woman was tending to a pointy, asymmetrical, blue and orange flower.

"Isis," Sadie said, coldly.

"Sadie," Isis replied, with as much warmth as Sadie had ever heard from her. "I'm sorry it's taken me so long to talk to you. The disturbance has allowed us to reach a little into your world, but there isn't nearly as much chaos as Apophis brought."

Sadie knew that gods of order could only show up if there was chaos, because of balance and Ma'at and Isfet . But she got the sense Isis was lying. "Where's my brother?" she asked.

Isis shook her head. "I don't know. But that's not what's important—"

"Yeah, I know. You need me to support the war, because I'm your high priestess and I'm supposed to speak for you." Sadie rolled her eyes. "But I'm not going to do that, and you know I'm not going to do that, so why am I here?"

"Because you're my high priestess," Isis said, "and I'm supposed to tell you everything you might need to know."

That was an annoyingly good answer. "Alright then. Tell me."

"You feel as though this conflict came out of nowhere. It didn't. The Romans destroyed Egypt, and a Greek queen let them do it."

"That was two thousand years ago! Which might not be long for you—"

Isis interrupted. "It isn't. And it isn't a long time for their gods, either. We've been back from our banishment for two years, and they have immediately tried to attack us in the Duat."

"You don't have any proof it's them. You don't have any proof it was an attack ."

"There is no one else with both the power and the motive."

"Fine," Sadie conceded. "Maybe the Greek gods did it. But nobody down there asked to be a demigod. We're the bad guys here."

Isis made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "You've always been a stubborn girl, Sadie Kane."

"It's my finest quality."

"It is." The dream began to dissolve. "But it will get you into trouble."

Sadie woke up in her tent. Cupcake wasn't there—her cat had been disappearing a lot lately. She wanted nothing more than to lie in bed all day, but her stomach grumbled and she begrudgingly got up and went outside.

The siege had grown. Five days ago, the Fifth Nome had arrived, deciding that even if they hated Amos and Sadie, they couldn't have any political power if they stayed away. The Greeks had assassinated every magician in Chicago and New Jersey, so other small American nomes had fled west for safety in numbers. And the Fourteenth Nome, who were based in the real Rome, had come to offer their advice.

And so the camp had been transformed.

It was almost a city now, as large as the one they were besieging. There was a massive library, made up of fifteen stitched together tents and the collections of a dozen nomes. There was a cluster of tents and pavilions where religious services were held, for magicians who liked that sort of thing. Someone had set up a Starbucks, somehow, in a green tent. She had heard they were working on a McDonald's.

Some places Sadie avoided as much as she could, like the hill overlooking the now-finished kiln, where the first shabti soldiers were due to be finished soon; or the strategy tent where Amos practically lived now.

And then there was the pavilion she went to most mornings. Someone had found an actual soapbox, and someone else had enchanted it so that whoever stood on it would be heard clearly by everyone in the audience. Some sort of food was always kept on a table behind the seats, so it was a good place to grab breakfast and hear horrible news.

Sadie sat on a folding chair at the back of the crowd. The man on the soapbox now was in his late thirties, pale, dark-haired, and had a Northern accent.

"The gods have abandoned us," he spoke gravely. "They give us distant commands and scraps of power, but leave us to do most of the work. All the Romans need to do to kill us all is invoke their gods.

"The House of Life thrived without gods or pharaohs for almost two thousand years. We fight one common enemy, and suddenly that changes? The Romans have done nothing but defend themselves—"

"What about Chicago? Or Jersey?" someone from the audience yelled.

The man was clearly not prepared for that, but he tried to recover. "Retaliation for our attack—"

"Retaliation against innocents!" a different person interrupted.

The Northern bloke didn't seem to know what to say to that. A woman Sadie recognized—Cynthia, the young head of the 59th Nome—stood up, and he yielded the soapbox to her.

She looked positively regal, even casually dressed in black linen and silver crescent moon earrings. Black roots were beginning to show at the base of her curly, bleached-white hair.

"For years," she began, "we have punished the gods for their role in Egypt's fall. But they are not the only ones at fault! It was Rome who marched its armies across her soil, who drove the Per Ankh into hiding."

"And a Greek queen who let them!" added an audience member, sounding a little too rehearsed.

Cynthia nodded. "Now the Romans have invaded us again, not in the physical world, but in the Duat. Are we going to let history repeat itself? Are we going to let Rome conquer us again?"

Sadie squirmed in her seat as the crowd broke into thunderous applause. But what could Sadie do? Stand in front of these people and ask them to leave the Romans in peace? Ask them to forget that magicians who were doing exactly that were being killed anyway? Ask them to mistrust the gods when she was the one who brought them back?

No one else wanted to speak right after Cynthia either, and the crowd rose from their seats and clustered around her like she was a rockstar.

Sadie stayed where she was.

The creekside was drowned in voices as everyone tried to piece together what the prophecy could mean. People clustered around Rachel, who looked like she was going to collapse or make a break for it, though she did neither. 

The Crooked One has one last game.

Luke knew what that meant. So did the others, apparently. Benji, Annette, and Chris had peeled away from the other children of Hermes. The Hecate kids were having some sort of quiet argument—Lou Ellen and Medelia against the other two. Annabeth's brother Malcolm guarded a girl Luke half-recognized as she had a panic attack.

"Selene faded thousands of years ago! How can she still have legacies?" someone asked.

"There's a centurion at Camp Jupiter who's a legacy of Luna," someone else replied.

"Her name is Ida," added a short girl with cat-eye glasses.

Someone put their hand on Luke's shoulder. He turned and saw Annabeth. "Does any of this sound familiar to you?"

"I don't know." All of the memories he shared with Kronos hurt his brain. A shadow, a statue, a discarded queen. "The queen could be Rhea?"

Miranda Gardiner perked up. "We have Rhea's sacred grove here. If she's the queen from the prophecy, should we try to contact her?"

Her sister with the blue hair shook her head. "You've been trying to talk to her ever since we got stuck. That doesn't help us."

"Was there a legacy of Selene in the Titan Army?" someone asked from behind Luke. He turned around but couldn't see who spoke.

"No," Roxie responded.

" But new allies are to blame ," Kara quoted the prophecy. "It's not one of us."

Luke was overwhelmed by how fast the conversation was moving, by how many people were talking. Annabeth seemed to pick up on that, and squeezed his shoulder.

"Enough," Rachel said. "Luke, I think this prophecy was meant for you, so the two of us are going to talk to Chiron and everyone else is going to give us space." She grabbed his arm and began walking towards the Big House. 

About halfway there, Luke blurted out, "Have we met? You seem familiar."

"I hit you with my hairbrush once," Rachel answered.

The memory nearly overwhelmed him. His first few minutes with Kronos—so powerful, so powerless—and then a piece of blue plastic hitting his eye. The Titan lord's voice in his mind screaming at her insolence. The first time he had felt Kronos's rage from the inside.

"Yeah," he said. "I remember now."

Rachel picked up on his tone of voice. "Not a good memory?"

"I don't have a lot of good memories of that day."

"Because you got your butt kicked in the battle later?"

"Because we almost succeeded."

She furrowed her eyebrows. "You didn't want to win?"

Luke thought carefully about his next words. "This place is my home. The moment Kronos exited the Labyrinth, and I saw the invasion, I knew I wanted him to lose."

"Too bad you were possessed."

"Yeah."

They reached the Big House and entered. Chiron was sitting in his chair and reading a thick, hardcover book. 

"What's wrong?" he asked, picking up their distress immediately.

Rachel gave a brief overview. 

"I see," Chiron sighed.

"There's more," Luke said. "Last night I had a dream. A goddess I didn't recognize told me she was the one who brought me back, and that she did it because I might remember something important from when Kronos was possessing me. Something no one else knows."

Chiron leaned forward. "You shouldn't be able to remember anything."

Luke considered asking why Chiron sounded so sure of that, but decided to brush past it. "The prophecy says we have to go to Orthys." The Titan's mount holds the key to keep its lord from getting free. "Which means we really need to get out of here."

"We?" Chiron asked.

Rachel nodded. "The prophecy was for Luke. It wouldn't have been given to him if he didn't need to do anything about it."

That wasn't true. The last time Luke was given a prophecy by the Oracle of Delphi, he'd gotten two other kids killed on a pointless quest from his dad. He wasn't sure if Rachel was lying or just had higher standards than the mummy that preceded her. It didn't really matter.

"So, what now?" Luke asked. "Just wait for the Hecate kids to break the barrier?"

"And go over your memories," Rachel said. "If that's really all the goddess asked you to do?"

Make peace with the major, the goddess had told him. Make peace with all of them.

"That's all," Luke lied.

Samirah's contact was apparently loaded, based on the fancy apartment building she took them to. The doorman was eight feet tall and clay-skinned but let them pass, so they ended up in an elevator again. Carter thought the music was better than Valhalla. It was a long ride, which gave Samirah some time to explain who they were visiting.

"She used to be a Vanir named Gullveig, but that was burned away in the war with the Aesir. Which she started. Then she became Heiðr, a goddess of magic and prophecy, and rumor has it she's close with other magic gods, from other pantheons."

"Where'd you hear that?" Carter asked.

"From older Valkyries."

Carter had about three seconds to process that before the elevator opened into the penthouse.

"I've been expecting you," the goddess said.

Carter wondered if she dressed like this even when she wasn't expecting company. She wore a golden, winged helmet but otherwise didn't look Norse at all. Her dark hair was curled and in a low bun, a relaxed Roman style. She wore white linen like a magician, and a belt in an Egyptian style, but Hellenic bracelets circled around her biceps. A modern-looking necklace finished the look, a snake with ruby eyes whose neck curled around its tail before plunging downwards.

"Then you know what we need, my lady," Sam replied.

The goddess gestured further into the penthouse, towards some luxurious Roman-style couches. Jason looked skeptically at Carter, and Carter returned the same look, but they sat down anyway.

Heiðr sat down and crossed her legs. "I do. Do you know what you need?"

"I think," Sam said at the same time that Carter said, "No."

The goddess smiled. "Both wise enough. Luckily, I know what you need."

"What?" Jason asked.

"You're on a quest, aren't you?" The goddess smiled. "You need a prophecy."

Carter had done a lot of quest-ish things without a prophecy, but he knew Jason never had. And everything Norse was built around prophecies about Ragnarok.

"You have a prophecy for us?"

Heiðr smiled ominously. "Have you ever heard of the tablets of Harmonia?" The three of them said nothing, which the goddess seemed to take as a no . "They're Greek. I got my hands on them by… well." She winked. "A witch has to have some secrets."

"They have prophecies written on them?" Jason asked.

"Everything that has ever happened is on those tablets, and many things that haven't happened yet. Oh! I have some gifts, first."

"Gifts?" Samirah said suspiciously.

Heiðr smiled. "Apparently some people want to help you, but only where Odin probably won't look." She snapped her fingers and three things appeared before her: a duffel bag, a golden coin, and a sturdy wooden shield. She tossed the bag to Carter. "It's an introductory package to Norse magic."

Carter caught it. "Norse magic?" 

She ignored him and passed the shield to Samirah. "Sammy, it looks like someone wants to remind you to protect yourself."

Samirah's face contorted, and Carter guessed she didn't like being called Sammy.

"And you, praetor," Heiðr smiled. "Someone wants you to remember your roots." She didn't hand over the coin, so Jason leaned forward and picked it up.

He didn't look excited either. 

"We are honored to receive your gifts, my lady," Samirah said.

Heiðr shook her head. "Not my gifts, dear. My gift is over there." She gestured to a doorway covered by a dark velvet curtain." She stood up and walked over to it.

The three of them followed her, clutching their new gifts tightly.

"The tablets don't show you what you want to know," Heiðr warned. "Just what you need to. I recommend you ditch whatever you thought your quest was to follow what you see."

Carter bristled at that. He needed to protect the people he cared about, and he wanted to help Jason do the same. "We're ready," he stated. Samirah and Jason nodded in agreement.

"I warned you," the goddess said. She pulled aside the velvet curtain, and the three of them walked into the room.

Carter was vaguely aware of Jason stopping at the first tablet, and Samirah walking past them both, but he was immediately drawn to the second. It was gold, the color of the age of gods in the Hall of Ages, and it pulled him in the way the images there always did. He had practice resisting, staying an observer.

It might have been the color of the oldest age, but Carter instinctively knew he was looking at something more recent. He recognized the swirling void at the edge of the image as the Sea of Chaos.

"Why are you doing this, Hlin?" a woman cried, chained and crumpled on the ground. Sprawled a few feet away was a horse, bleeding from gashes in its stomach and the stubs where its wings had been ripped off.

Another woman stood above her, dressed in an eighties pantsuit, with a matching perm. "I am not eager to die in Ragnarok, sister."

"How does any of this help?"

The unchained woman rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to tell you my plan so you can try to escape and send a message to our mistress. No, Mister Bond, I expect you to nearly die."

"Only nearly?"

"I can't be bothered to go to the effort of killing a god. Yet. If you cause me any more trouble…"

Carter pulled himself away before he could fall in. He had a name, and something resembling a location. He looked at his companions, and saw that both of them were completely lost. If he saw someone looking like that in the Hall of Ages, he would pull them out.

He started by laying a hand on Jason's shoulder. "We need to go." 

The blond boy stepped back, startled. "Woah. That was..."

Carter nodded. "Can you get Samirah?"

Jason nodded, and did that. The three of them were quiet for a moment, and then Samirah spoke up: "What did you see?"

"The Duat," Carter answered, just as Jason said, "My sister."

A loud crash came from outside the room, interrupting their conversation. 

Carter pulled his sword from the Duat, Samirah summoned her Valkyrie spear, and Jason… where had Jason gotten that sword? But there wasn't time for that. Jason led them back into the lounge…

…where Heiðr lay, dead.