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ONE.
Jason Grace is two years old when they take him to the Wolf House. He’s scared and clings to his mother’s arm even as she tries to drop him in front of Lupa. Beryl Grace has never been a particularly good parent, and she is still trying to let Jason go with dignity. It’s unpleasant, though, because children are rather uniformly unpleasant, and her nose wrinkles as she tries to make him let her go.
“Honey, I’ll be right back,” promises Beryl. Her eyes are shining and her long hair lies limp and close to her head. She finally extracts herself from Jason’s grip and takes a meaningful step backwards. “Don’t you worry. I’m just leaving you here for a little bit. Lupa won’t hurt you.”
“Talya too?” Jason asks. He can’t properly say his sister’s name yet, but he wants her back. His mother has always been a little too high strung, and the look in her eyes is making Jason actively recoil. He’s a little frightened now. He wants someone comforting, like Thalia. She’ll protect him. (He already knows his mother won’t.)
“Yes, Thalia will be there too,” says Beryl, but she’s already distracted. She leans back to look at the sky and shouts. “Are you happy now? You can have him! Leave me alone!”
Thunder rumbles, and he feels like it should be calling to him. It doesn’t. He starts crying and rolls in on himself, and his mother looks down on him with something like disgust. Lupa nudges him toward her with a paw as the rain starts.
His mother screams in pure frustration and runs away from her infant son. He doesn’t know it at the time, but it is the last he will ever hear of Beryl Grace. Later, Jason wonders whether the mania form of his mother was really so different from the weal woman. At the time, he is a child, so he wails for his mother until he falls asleep from exertion.
“There, there, child,” said Lupa, not really disdainfully. She has never had to watch such a small child before, and almost resents Jupiter and Juno for putting her up to the challenge. But they are Olympians, and she trains heroes, so she just resigns herself to her fate and puts the little boy on her back.
He will survive the Wolf House. He is a son of Jupiter, and he is destined for great things. It is this that makes the wolf goddess so nervous. She does not want to become attached to such a small child and watch him fail. Around them, the rain pours down and her paws slip and slide in the mud.
Jason rolls over and clutches Lupa’s fur with the determination of a toddler. He yawns, exhausted, utterly unaware that exhaustion is an indisputable part of his future. He is a child and they are already setting him up for the emperor’s throne.
(His mother never comes back for him. Jason keeps his promises. That’s all there is to say about that.)
TWO.
“Again,” challenges Lupa, and Jason tries to wipe the sweat off his forehead with a bare palm. He falls forward and braces himself against his thighs. His breath heaves in his chest and his gladius slips out of his hand. Lupa catches him in the side with a stick, enough to wake him up but not enough to hurt. He groans anyway, just because the muscles are so sore.
“Again,” Lupa insists, and Jason straightens himself back up. He smacks the dummy in front of him five times: shoulders, upper thighs, and neck. Then he watches the object explode into a thousand shimmering pieces and fall around him like glass.
“Isn’t that enough for the day?” he grumbles. “I’ve fought real monsters before, what’s the point of doing this?” He knows the answer to the question, and he could probably explain why muscle memory is so useful in battle. Secretly, he wants to get back to the educational tapes waiting beside his bunk. Lupa maintains good soldiers know more than their enemies, and that includes math and science and English. Jason wonders how angry she’d be if he told her that was the only part of the training that interested him.
Naturally, Lupa doesn’t bother to answer his question.
“You’re going to Camp Jupiter soon,” she says. “Are you ready?”
It’s not really a question, more of a command. So little of Jason’s life has been determined by choice. Growing up at the Wolf House is a bit like growing up in a military barrack. He sleeps and eats as is necessary for training. He meets other people as necessary for integrating into society. It is as though his entire life has been mapped out for him. Sometimes Jason thinks he is more soldier than a boy, and it almost scares him.
Lupa smacks his gladius with her stick, and Jason performs the counterstrike easily. He is nearly ten years old and he already has a weapon that feels like a part of him. He takes a few steps back and raises the gladius to defend himself from further attack.
“Of course I’m ready,” Jason answers dutifully. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
The wolf goddess sniffs. “You’ll do great things at Camp Jupiter,” she tells him. “I have done some remarkable training.”
Jason rolls his eyes, but he can’t help smiling. “It was only because you had such great material to work with.” He points at himself, and Lupa laughs.
“Don’t get smart on me now,” she huffs, but they both know she is only joking. She moves forward to strike at Jason again, and he blocks easily. Lupa comes at him with lightning speed, sending a variety of difficult maneuvers his way. It’s the first time he’s been able to block every single one.
“You can keep the tapes,” she says. “The science ones. You seem to like them a lot, and I’m phasing out that part of Roman training anyway.”
“Thank you,” says Jason, almost surprised. He likes science tapes best. He thinks the natural world could do quite well for itself without the help of gods.
(Lupa has to acquire new recordings. Jason is not good at telling when people are lying to him.)
THREE.
Jason sits with Nathan on the roof of the Fifth Cohort. The day has relaxed around them, hours of day bleeding into a largely uncontrolled night. They brought soda back to the barracks from the mess hall, which wasn’t forbidden as long as you could get up the next morning. Still, Jason takes tiny sips of his, as if worried he’ll be caught for doing something wrong.
“You know,” says Nathan, “I still don’t understand why you chose the Fifth Cohort. You’re a son of Jupiter. You could have your pick of the lot.”
After Jason left the Wolf House, he’d learned that people didn’t always mean what they say. Usually, they weren’t willing to explain the difference to him. He’s decided to just answer everything at face value and apologize if he gets it wrong. (He gets it wrong a lot, but the rule hasn’t changed.)
“The other cohorts have nothing to work on,” he says matter-of-factly. “If I’m a powerful demigod and I go into a powerful cohort, there’s nothing left for me to do. I can help the Fifth Cohort. If all five cohorts are strong, the whole camp will be. So you see, it’s not even about me.”
Nathan stares at him for a long moment, and Jason debates whether he should apologize before hearing the response. He toys with the label on his soda bottle and looks at the vibrant splashes of red as the sun sets on the horizon. He’s only been at camp for a few months now, and it already feels like more time has passed than the eight years he spent at the Wolf House.
(He spent eight years at the Wolf House because his mother never came back. So Jason Grace keeps his promises.)
“You know what, Grace?” Nathan says. “You’re alright.”
“I’m going to go ahead and assume that’s a good thing,” says Jason doubtfully, and Nathan laughs. Even though the other boy is only a few years older than him, it already feels like there is a lifetime of experience between them. Nathan grew up bouncing between schools and getting called out as a troublemaker. He has friends, though, which is something Jason has never worried about before.
He doesn’t have many friends in the Fifth Cohort, but he is willing to be patient.
“It is a good thing,” says Nathan. “Don’t worry about it.”
Nathan is a son of Venus and has a very comforting sense about him. Jason smiles and drinks more of his soda, which is cherry-flavoured and probably would have given Lupa a heart attack if she knew he was drinking it. Thinking about Lupa makes him sad, and he clenches the bottle in his hand. He’s listened to every tape he got to take a few times over now, and could probably recite some of them.
There are science books, but they have told him that he’s dyslexic by virtue of being a demigod. His brain is hardwired for Latin, and unfortunately not many modern science books are translated. He supposes with a little more effort he could struggle through English, but the words float off the page.
“Does the camp have a library?” he asks Nathan on impulse. “One with recordings?”
“I think so,” says Nathan, following the change in subject without batting an eye. “Um, not many campers like reading, so it’s usually pretty abandoned. But the ones that do compile resources, especially stuff in Ancient Latin. I’ll show you where it is if you want.”
“Forget about it,” says Jason, blood turning to ice in his veins. He’s already spent enough time at the Wolf House, he’s a son of Jupiter, he…. He doesn’t need another reason for people to look at him funny. He’ll just listen to the tapes again.
(He really does want to go to the library.)
FOUR.
Jason’s first quest is assigned when he’s thirteen and the whole camp is gearing up for a war with the Titans. The adults are trying to keep as much as they can from the children, but he knows that the whole battle hinges on a Great Prophecy, one that involves him. It’s his duty to New Rome.
He’s already done so much in very little time. He has helped train people in the Fifth Cohort, he’s led them to glory in War Games, and he’s proven he’s a competent and adequate soldier. He has even made friends, and building a sense of community has to be good for the legion. Jason states all of this matter-of-factly as he winds the piece of paper with the new prophecy around his fingers. It’s important information to explain why they should let him go.
He has also listened to the science tapes Lupa left him with seven hundred eighty-four times, but he doesn’t think that this would be helpful to point out in front of the praetors.
“Fine,” says Elian, throwing her hands into the air. “Okay, you win. Go slay the Trojan sea monster and try not to die doing it. Fine.” She thunks her forehead into her desk, possibly bemoaning her job. “Kids.”
“I promise I won’t let you down,” says Jason. He’s probably grinning like a maniac, but he’s so pumped to go on his first quest he can’t bring himself to care. “Um, who am I bringing with me?”
“You have to bring a senior camper,” says Arthur, the other praetor. He is a little bit older than Elian and much quieter, so it is probably important that he is speaking. “Maybe your friend Nathan from the Fifth Cohort?”
That’s another thing about Arthur: he’s very observant. Jason nods, already thinking about how Nathan’s various skills could be put to use on an important quest.
“I think there’s another line in the prophecy that determines your third,” says Elian, glancing at the replica on her desk. “Bellona’s daughter to scorch the earth. I didn’t think we had any daughters of Bellona at camp.”
“There’s a girl named Reyna in the Fifth Cohort,” says Jason, remembering the people at yesterday’s orientation. He thinks orientation to Camp Jupiter is very important and started running official introductions after learning most kids coming to camp were older than him. (For some reason, he doesn’t get along well with anyone thirteen or under.) Reyna was the sole person in the crowd who had been close to his age.
“And what’s important about her?” Elian prompts.
“Oh!” says Jason. “Well, she’s a daughter of Bellona. I saw her practicing with a spear this morning, she’s pretty handy with it.” He decides not to mention her age to the already reluctant praetors.
“I guess that settles it,” says Arthur. “Take her.”
“Yes sir,” says Jason, and has to resist the urge to dance on the spot. He’s going to get to do a quest with his best friend and a new girl that seems smart. He’s finally going to live up to his destiny as a son of Jupiter. It’s going to be amazing.
(Maybe if he does well enough his father will talk to him.)
FIVE.
When he gets back from the quest he is fourteen years old and incredibly exhausted. It’s only taken a matter of months, but he feels years and years older. The cohort calls him a hero. The adults of New Rome tell him that he’s very brave to have killed the Trojan sea monster at such a young age. Jason thinks they like him enough that he can go to the library now and no one will bother with him.
It’s an old building a little ways off from the camp, and the columns on the building have begun to crack with age. Still, he’s excited. During their quest, he managed to slip away from Reyna and Nathan and purchase a few CDs with camp money. He chalks it up to an essential expense.
The problem is he does not have a CD player to play them, but he’s hoping that the library will.
He opens the door into a disorganized mess of a place, with tall wide shelves that feature only several books each. There are tapes there too, stacked intermittently in a dangerous fashion and labeled in tiny handwriting he can’t read from the door. In the center of the space, there is a wide, circular table, and a pair of campers huddled over the papers spread over it.
The girl looks up first. She has dark, curly hair that falls around her face like a curtain. Her equally dark eyes peer at him behind thick glasses. “If you got lost, Naples Staples is down the block. I hear they’ve expanded into selling things that aren’t staples.”
“Um?” says Jason. “I was trying to find the library.”
“Welcome,” says the boy. He scribbles something on a piece of paper and finally looks Jason in the eye. He’s skinny and blond, with pale blue eyes that have weird energy behind them. “My name is Octavian, Third Cohort. This is the New Rome library.” He nudges the girl next to him.
“Where are my manners?” she says. “Uh, Tessa Achara, Third Cohort. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Jason Grace, Fifth Cohort,” he responds automatically and is surprised when neither Octavian nor Tessa shows any signs of disgust. “I’m looking to donate some science tapes.”
“Do we accept donations?” Octavian asks.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Tessa asks agreeably, and motions for Jason to set the tapes down on the table. “As you can probably tell, the upkeep involved in this place is negligible. Thanks for bringing something in, honestly. I’m hoping to make this a proper library soon, and it can’t be a proper library without content.”
“Of course not,” says Jason, taken aback. “Uh, do you guys need any help with that? Also, do you have a CD player?”
“Yes to the first question and no to the second,” says Octavian. “We have many CDs, but nothing to play them with. Tessa was suggesting she brings hers from home because we can’t think of any way to fundraise.” He stops and blushes. “Sorry for complaining so much. We’ve just been working on this for a while.”
“Maybe we could petition the praetors for funding as a necessary camp resource,” suggests Jason. “You can do that for weapons, but the language in the original rules is vague enough that you could apply it to the library too.”
“That would be amazing,” says Tessa, running her fingers through her hair. It seems more like an excited tic than embarrassment, and Jason can’t help smiling. “Wait, we?”
“Yeah,” he says. He’s become more confident on his quest, more certain he won’t be ostracized. Tessa and Octavian seem like good people, and Jason really wants a library. “I want to help.”
“You’re hired!” says Octavian. “It’s not really a job, I’ve just always wanted to say that.”
Tessa grins. “Pull up a chair and help us make a to-do list. What sorts of books are you most interested in? And actually, on that topic, do you know who would be interested in using a library here? Is this too many questions? I feel like this is too many questions.”
“We don’t actually have a third chair,” Octavian points out, and Jason laughs unexpectedly. The joke isn’t even particularly funny, but he’s relieved that he gets to be a part of something. It’s easier to rehabilitate a library than restore a cohort’s honour, or so he’s finding. He leans over the table and starts reading the to-do list, pleased to find the Latin grammar is perfect. Tessa hands him a pencil, and he scrawls a list of science subjects.
Jason Grace is fourteen years old when he finally feels like he fits somewhere.