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When Ethan comes to, the streets are deserted, and Alabaster Torrington is saying, “Dude, I think you might have actually died for a second back there.”
He’s trying to joke, but his pinched expression tells Ethan otherwise. He takes a steadying breath. His head might be heavy, and his chest might be painfully tight, but for his part, he doesn’t really feel like someone who’s just maybe—probably—died and come back, courtesy of Alabaster’s magic. As he stares up at the weeping red sky, all he feels is a thick, pervasive numbness.
But Alabaster is shaking plaster from his hair, half of his face caked with what looks like dirt, or ash, or monster dust. Ethan doesn’t remember him looking this haggard before they stormed Manhattan.
He swallows hard, presses a curious thumb to Alabaster’s thin sideburns—only to find, yes, that’s been matted down with blood, too—and says, “What happened?”
Alabaster arches an eyebrow as he rummages through the pockets of his slashed jeans. Only Ethan’s past two years of fighting alongside Alabaster let him perceive the glint of humor in his eyes. “Weren’t you just up there?” he asks, gesturing up, and up, and up, past the shadows of the Empire State. “Shouldn’t you know better than I do?”
Oh yes, he was. Ethan struggles to recall now—steaming thrones, Kronos, the sliver of bronze ricocheting—
He sits up suddenly, hand flying to his stomach. Alabaster’s arm snaps out just as fast, firm fingers circling Ethan’s wrist.
“Don’t,” he warns.
Ethan smiles wryly. “That bad?”
“No,” says Alabaster. He finds what he was looking for—half a square of ambrosia. “But it’s healing. I mean, I healed it. Almost. Here, take the last piece.”
“You need it more than I do,” Ethan argues. “You look awful. Have you even slept?”
“No, but I’m not the one who literally fell from six hundred floors up. Just take the damn ambrosia.”
Ethan can’t think of a counterpoint, so he takes the ambrosia. He’s surprised to find that, even throughout everything, it still tastes vaguely like the rice porridge his father used to make when he fell sick with a cold. That home isn’t his to claim anymore, but he still lets its warmth run through him, leans back against the cold brick wall of what appears to be an abandoned bakery, forces his scattered thoughts to rearrange.
They’re in an alleyway, tucked away from the rest of the quiet, Mist-shrouded city; Ethan recognizes the neighboring street names from his hours poring over maps. Alabaster must have undone Ethan’s armor somehow, because his breastplate is lying by his elbow, forgotten. All of the protective runes Alabaster etched into the bronze with such painstaking care are gone now, shattered under the strain of battle.
Alabaster studies him for a long moment. Gauging him. It’s not an unusual behavior, coming from him, but Ethan still fidgets uncomfortably under his scrutiny. Then Alabaster seems to come a decision, and he asks, “How did you fall?”
And Ethan draws a breath. From the way Alabaster’s mouth is already forming the beginnings of a frown, he wonders if he already knows. They’ve had this argument countless times before: of whether or not to defect. To desert. A second betrayal to undo the first. It was always hard, but even harder without Luke to invariably back up Alabaster’s stance, leaving Ethan to swallow his protests and his pride.
He always wondered whether they’d still be friends afterwards. He wonders if they’ll still be friends now.
“Kronos,” he says.
Alabaster doesn’t miss a beat. “You actually did it.” Then his expression morphs into a glare. “You could have died.”
Ethan huffs a laugh, though it sounds humorless even to his own ears. “Yeah, well, apparently I did—”
But Alabaster holds up a hand, jabbing an accusing finger vaguely aimed at the bridge of Ethan’s nose. “What did you think would happen? That you’d somehow kill a Titan? That the Olympians would suddenly forget that you served at Kronos’ right hand side and welcome you back at Camp Half-Blood as—as what? A hero?”
“You didn’t see him,” Ethan protests. “Do you think completely destroying Olympus would have brought us honor? Even if we’d won, nothing would’ve been left. Nothing—”
“I didn’t mean that,” Alabaster snaps. “Okay? I thought—I thought you wouldn’t come back.” His voice wavers ever so slightly; Ethan pauses, angry retorts dying in his throat. “You didn’t die exactly; you were definitely on your way, but the portal dragged you back before you could. But you were supposed to be breathing when you came back—I mean, physically—from the portal I opened, but you weren’t, and all the incantations I wrote into your clothes were gone. I was fucking terrified. And I knew that whatever you were up against, it must’ve been strong.” He smiles faintly. “Kinda hoped it was son-of-Poseidon strength, though. Not Titan-lord-of-time strength.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t regret it,” Ethan says firmly. “I would’ve done the same again. If I had to.”
Would you really? a snide voice in the back of his mind sneers.
Yes, Ethan thinks back before it can say anything more, and the voice falls silent, chastised. It doesn’t return.
Alabaster waves a frustrated hand. “Fine, feel free to suck up to the Olympians to your heart’s content. But I did save your life. Again.” Then he seems to catch himself, and the grim lines around his face smooth back into neutrality. He nudges Ethan’s shoulder with his own, their bones thudding together just hard enough that Ethan catches an edge in the otherwise playful gesture. “A thank you would be in order, I think.”
Ethan manages a smile. “Thank you for saving my life,” he says graciously, and he’s not expecting Alabaster to offer a hesitant smile in return, but he does.
Alabaster is rather difficult sometimes, but he’s still strikingly familiar. Maybe they argue, and maybe it does get nasty on occasion, but he’s still the same guy Ethan and Luke snuck out of the Labyrinth with for the sole purpose of raiding a nearby 7-Eleven, the same guy who taught him to play gin rummy with his improvised Mistform deck while on watch in Auntie Em’s Emporium—the same guy who saved him from the explosion on the Princess Andromeda, and treated his wounds from the collapse of the Williamsburg Bridge.
He’s glad to find that Alabaster, out of everyone, is still here.
But Alabaster still sits with his shoulders set, a counter-testament to the defeated slope of Ethan’s slouch. Every so often he looks past Ethan, as if scanning their surroundings. Like they’re still at war.
They aren’t, though. Ethan isn’t sure how he knows, exactly, that it’s over. Maybe it’s the silence of the streets. Maybe it’s the sense of relief slowly overtaking his insides, like he’s just finished something important, something he’s been dreading.
“What now?” he asks the sky. It’s tinged with weak wisps of amber now, a prelude to sunrise. “Where do we go?”
“Not camp,” Alabaster says automatically. “I’ll go anywhere, but not the fucking camp.”
“Pity.” Ethan runs a hand down his face, then jerks back when he realizes his fingerless gloves are soaked through with blood. He doesn’t think it’s his. “I was just going to suggest that.”
“If you think they’ll let us back in knowing our histories, our status—”
“They’re the only safe haven we have on this side of the country,” Ethan counters. He hesitates, then ventures, “I was friends with Silena. At the very least, she might understand.”
“Beauregard? The spy?” Ethan’s heart twists first at the words, then second at the sight of Alabaster’s pitying look. “Ethan, she didn’t survive the drakon.”
He doesn’t say the rest, but Ethan hears it anyway: the drakon that you released.
There’ll be time to mourn later, to reminiscence in the way she’d taken his hand when he was younger and shown him around camp, to think back on her laughter, to regret ever sending her that fucking scythe charm on Luke’s orders, to berate himself over and over and over again, to sink to his knees in grief. Now that he’s done fighting gods, he figures he has all the time in the world.
“What about your family?” Ethan tries. “Children of Hecate are easy to spot. Glowing eerily green is pretty telling. You know lots of them are unclaimed. They’re probably confused. Scared—just like we were. We could help them,” he adds quietly.
For a moment, Alabaster is silent, and Ethan holds his breath, wondering if he’s finally made a misstep.
Then he mutters, “Yeah, well. They’re dead.”
Ethan’s almost afraid to ask, but he’s already done very brave things in the past couple of hours. He’s guessing one more won’t make much of a difference. “What—what do you mean?”
Alabaster turns away. “We lost, Ethan. Luke’s gone—for real this time. I saw the other side carry his shroud.” His face crumbles with disgust. “A messenger came—Hades’ kid, I think—and he called a truce. Said the war was over. Of course I didn’t listen. I didn’t know—I didn’t know the gods themselves would have retaliated. My unit—they didn’t even hesitate.” He drags a hand down his face. “I’m the only one left.”
Alabaster leads—led—the only demigod unit in army. Hundreds of them. Mostly other children of Hecate. Ethan sucks in his lower lip, torn between shame at his own tactlessness and grief for Alabaster. All he can say is, “Oh.”
I’m sorry, he means to add, but it’s still not enough. Of course it isn’t. What can Ethan do, really, besides hesitate, lay a tentative arm around Alabaster’s shoulders, feel him deflate against his side? It won’t bring back Alabaster’s siblings; it won’t undo his charging into battle. It won’t unrelease the drakon or unraise Kronos, either.
It will, though, give two downtrodden demigods a rare moment of warmth.
Then Alabaster draws away from Ethan, slowly, almost reluctantly. When he unclenches his hands, the last of the lingering Mist dissolves, and the ensuing flood of sound sends Ethan’s head ringing. Voices wafting down the street. Laughter. High heels clicking on pavement. The buzzing of a cell phone.
“I was thinking,” Alabaster says quietly, “of revenge.”
He’s still looking at his hands, assessing them with the same intensity that he trained on Ethan earlier. The question is clear, scrawled across his knitted brows and thinned lips: What can I hurt with these hands?
Who can I hurt?
“Best case scenario, I’m going to be exiled,” he goes on. “The gods made a deal with my mother that they know she can’t refuse.” His mouth twists into a sneer. “As if I needed their permission to go back. If I ever do, it’ll be to make them feel—feel this.” He taps a hand to his Kevlar, right on top of his heart, where the cracked rune for protection still glows a faint, sickly green.
“Alabaster.” Ethan shakes his head. “Al, it’s over. You know it’s over.”
“But how can it be, when they’ve taken away my family?” Alabaster demands. “If you expect me to just sit here and accept it—”
“Chasing after them won’t do any good.” He ducks his head. “They’re already gone, Al.”
“I can’t let the gods think they can neglect us without consequence. I owe it to the people I cared about. They fought for this. Now I have to fight for them, too.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Ethan hisses, Antaeus’ arena rising unbidden to his mind. How gracefully Percy Jackson had disarmed him, pinned him under his sword—and that was without his powers. Then he sees Alabaster at the foot of a drakon. Then he sees Alabaster with golden eyes. “You’ll get yourself hurt, and when you do, I won’t be able to do your freaky magic shit and bring you back.” He sighs. “Look, I hate saying this, but we only got this far because we worked with the Titans. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they don’t seem to be around anymore.”
Alabaster’s lips curl. His gaze, when it meets Ethan’s, is level. Unwavering. Still unnervingly calculating, still cold. “This is about your friends. Isn’t it? Luke. Silena. You resent the Titans for their deaths. But this isn’t about the Titans, Ethan. I can’t just forget about the hundreds of demigods who followed—followed me, and—” He shudders. He ends the thought instead with, “I thought you, of all people, would understand.”
It sounds like a challenge. Ethan almost hates Alabaster for it, for knowing him well enough to know exactly how to win him over, even in decisions as vital and urgent as this one. Especially in decisions like this one.
“Okay,” Ethan says.
Alabaster’s eyes narrow, like he can’t quite believe Ethan Nakamura would fall for so obvious a trap, so cheap a trick. “Okay?”
Well, actually, no.
Actually, Alabaster might think chasing after his ghosts will bring him peace of mind, but Ethan knows all that’s going to lead to is one last duel with Percy Jackson at best, and cold-blooded murder at worst. He isn’t particularly interested in either. He’s much more interested in never sparing another thought for the immortals, whether they be Titans or Olympians or nymphs or dragons or whatever the hell the world has left in store. He’s done more than enough for his mother; she can keep his stupid eye, but she can fend for herself from now on. He doesn’t want to fight any more of her wars.
He’s much more interested in slipping into the woods and building a cabin of his own, with his bare hands if necessary. The truth is that he’s tired of celebrating his birthdays either looking over his shoulder or psyching himself up to raise Kronos, and this year, he thinks he deserves to do something age-appropriately reckless. Maybe he’ll buy cheap beer from the minimart with a fake ID and get completely and utterly smashed, just once. For fun. Just to see what it’s like. Alabaster can come along if he wants, but it’s completely up to him, really.
Actually, Ethan’s not sure if Alabaster would want to.
Actually, he’s bemused to find, he wants Alabaster to want to.
Of course it’ll take some convincing, but Ethan figures it’s worth a shot. Not now, though. His theoretical cabin can wait. If he can’t convince Alabaster to keep safe, then Ethan can, at the very least, give him an ally in the meantime.
“Okay,” he says emphatically, “as in, okay, I’ll go wherever you’re going.” Alabaster’s face lights up, which compels Ethan to add, “But I’m going to be really fucking annoying about it. I’ll remind you how stupid you’re being every step of the way, and eventually you’ll get so fed up with me that you’ll just agree to leave it, you know, like a sensible person.”
Alabaster doesn’t rise to the bait. “You’re always annoying,” he offers. Ethan tries for a grin that doesn’t quite come to him. “I’m used to it.”
Instead of answering, Ethan stands and offers a hand to help Alabaster up, which he takes without hesitation. It’s a shame, really, that he only discovers his legs are too weak to support him after he tries to stand; he ends up collapsing heavily against Ethan’s side instead, and his ensuing stumble nearly fells them both. The wound in Ethan’s stomach smarts, and he presses a hand to it instinctively, wincing.
“Told you,” Ethan can’t resist pointing out. “Should’ve taken that ambrosia.”
“Your wound,” Alabaster starts, but Ethan only shakes his head.
If any of the pedestrians trickling onto the newly-lit streets notice two war traitors huddled together, one of them trying and failing to conceal his limp, none of them show it, or rather, none of them know it. But Ethan is all too aware of who they are, and he knows, someday, after they’ve exhausted all other options, hiding will be the only one left.
They were supposed to win. They didn’t. They have to live with that, now.
At the very least, two things are still true: Alabaster is counting on him, and Ethan is counting on Alabaster. At this point, it’s only a matter of who admits it first.
Wordlessly, Ethan takes Alabaster’s arm and slings it amicably around his shoulders, curling one of his own arms around Alabaster’s waist to support his weight.
“I’ve got you,” Ethan promises, and this time he’s going to make it true.