Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Yo, got a question for you.”

Leo looks up from where he’s elbows deep in the cranium of a Colchis bull. He’s never been able to truly fix them. He wants them to be as vicious as they were the day they attacked the camp. But after spending three days building, repairing and reprogramming automatons while trying to convince himself only monsters were dying in the war, he’s sure he knows what to do now.

Especially with the new shed Hephaestus gifted Cabin Nine, containing everything they could ever need for building pretty much anything. Soph’s spent so much time here she’s slept on her desk twice in the past week. Malcolm’s already asked Leo to come get him if she does it again, but Leo thinks hyper-focusing on building shit is definitely the best way to handle everything that happened.

Cabin Nine was renovated last week, the same as all the others, and like, it’s great to have a permanent bedroom year round, but Leo’s also super not okay with being on his own right now.

Soph seems to be the same way. Harley’s already harassed his foster parents into bringing him back to camp, and Beck has moved into the new Cabin Counsellor bedroom. Lee says Nyssa and Jake have asked to switch to full time, but being in his own room that isn’t the boy’s dorm with a divider- Yeah, it’s kind of freaking Leo out. He’s thinking Soph’s having the same issue.

The first thing Leo had done after they came back from the funerals was spend hours in the forge making the weapon he’d been sketching out in his mind whenever he had even a second to think between fighting and sleeping. It’s not like he didn’t have weapons already, plus the whole being able to reach insane levels of fire with a thought thing. It should have been enough.

It didn’t feel like it. So he’d gone and made himself the pollaxe thing he’d dreamed up. Pollhammer? He’s pretty sure the original design had a fancy French name meaning ‘falcon’s beak’. He’s still trying to work out how to make it transform into something a bit more portable.

Leo’d just wanted to sleep, and he’d hoped the new weapon would make that easier. Except he hadn’t thought beyond forging the thing. Clarisse had found him standing in the arena, holding his new toy and staring blankly at a training dummy, realising he didn’t know how to use the thing.

If he never admits he broke down crying on the scariest Ares kid in camp, he can pretend it never happened. She was weirdly okay with it too. She’d waited him out and then walked him through the basics of using momentum to destroy pretty much anything with the pollaxe.

Once the training dummy was in ruins, she’d hesitated, giving him a sharp, thoughtful look. Then she showed him the grips he’d need to use the metal shaft to block pretty much any sort of strike, explaining it can double as a shield.

Which had made him wonder about whether he could build a shield that could take a full force blow, unlike the one Tyson made for Prof that can’t hold against the big monsters, but is still great for normal sparring. He’d wandered off mid-lesson without even saying thank you.

He figured she must not have minded, because the next day, there were a whole pile of different knife sheaths and some terrifying knives that, despite how they looked, he was absolutely certain were not celestial bronze, left on his main workbench.

Lee had found out and pulled Leo aside and warned him the knives were made of the same compound as Piper’s sword. Lee didn’t need to say more. No-one will be forgetting what Piper’s sword is capable of. Not after that last fight with the guy in Kronos’s armour.

It should have horrified him, but Leo was so gods damn relieved to know he’d never have to go anywhere without a weapon again. He’d seen what Piper’s sword did to celestial bronze armour, his new pollaxe would break in a spar against that sword. Having knives of his own that can do that is a good thing.

“Flicker.”

Huh? Oh, Prof. He asked a question, didn’t he?

Prof gives him an amused smile and quirks an eyebrow. His sea-green eyes sparkle with suppressed laughter. He must be avoiding Cabin Ten, because he looks a complete mess, hair sticking up in every direction and that must be the oldest and rattiest tee-shirt and jeans he owns. Leo frowns when he sees Percy’s bare feet. How many times has he been told he has to wear shoes inside the forge or workshop? Just because the shed’s new doesn’t mean the rules have changed!

“Dude.”

Oh, Leo’s so dumb sometimes. ADHD is very mean. His hands haven’t stopped moving as he thinks, but who knows how long Percy’s been standing there waiting for an answer.

Leo finally answers him, “Prof, nothing good comes from you asking questions.”

Percy winces, looking genuinely regretful. Leo’s surprised to see him alone. Seems like he’s had a permanent bodyguard in the form of a god or Lee since they got back. Not that he blames them. Having a prophecy hanging over your head that you’re going to die is so much nope.

Leo’s still trying to forget everyone who did die.

He, Jon and Soph are dealing with whatever the hell went down with Athena and Demeter by pretending it never happened. If they don’t acknowledge it, it’s not a thing. Denial is a healthy coping mechanism, don’t you know?

“It shouldn’t be a bad question?”

Leo groans, pulling his arms back out of the metal cow skull, but leaving the hatch open. He’s definitely not done.

“What is it?”

“Do you want to be left to work on your current projects, or would something new be better? I know everyone’s still kind of… not great, and this isn’t prophecy stuff, I just thought you might like a distraction?”

That gets Leo’s attention.

“What sort of new project?”

“A life-size robot dragon that breathes fire?”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. Like, I’ve seen it because I’ve dreamed of it, but we had to bury the thing because it would’ve distracted you and Grumpy from- Well. You know.”

Leo waves him off. He gets it. He also doesn’t want to think about it.

“So it’s here?”

Percy nods. “Yeah, you’ll need Grumpy, at least to start with, but I can show you where it’s buried. I would suggest keeping it far away from people who aren’t fireproof, pretty sure it needs some repairs. But I figure you’d rather work all that out yourself, not have me give you answers.”

Yeah, Leo doesn’t mind Percy giving him hints, but he likes learning things for himself. Much more fun that way, sometimes future visions ruin the fun of discovery.

“Why do I need Beck? I’m better with automatons than he is.”

Leo realises what he said and slaps a hand over his mouth. When the hell did he completely lose his brain to mouth filter? Gods, if Beck heard him!

Percy grins. “‘Bout time you found your confidence. You’re better with automatons than him, but this dragon was originally programmed to answer to Grumpy. He needs to give you authority, or whatever it is in computer speak.”

Oh. Okay. Yeah. That’s fine. If Leo needs to be given administrative access, then it makes sense Beck would have to do that. He’s been here a lot longer than Leo.

Leo shuts the maintenance hatch on the bull and checks it is safe to be left shut down. Cool.

“Okay. Let’s go get me a dragon. Is it really broken? I’m hoping it’s really broken.”

Percy rolls his eyes dramatically, like Leo said the worst thing ever. “It needs repairs. It also has some extra pieces that aren’t with it, and I’ll leave you to work that bit out for yourself. If you find them, you may want to involve Shrew. I’d guess she’d like a new project as much as you.”

Leo is practically stepping on Percy’s heels as they leave the workshop. “I still can’t believe Soph lets you call her Shrew.”

“If anyone asks, I call her Shrewd.”

“Yeah, no. I’m not that stupid.”

“She knows, she doesn’t mind.”

“She’d kill me and feed me to Peleus if I called her that.”

“Yeah, but I’m a prophet. You’re the sucker who’s her best friend.”

“Fair.”

________________________

Nico leans in the doorway and eyes Percy sceptically. “How much of this is actual prophet stuff?”

Percy gives him a sour look and flops back dramatically on his bed, staring up at Artemis’s starry sky.

“Tell you what, Shadow. You don’t call me out on my coping methods, and I won’t mention how much time you’re spending at Cabin Ten with Sax.”

Nico stomps over and shoves him hard, snarling down at him, “I don’t know how to braid hair like Hazel’s! Don’t be a dick!”

Percy tilts his head and gives him a flat look.

Oh.

Okay. So Nico might be acting a little strange. But Percy does War Drum’s hair, and he thought it would help Hazel feel kinda welcomed? Like family? Nico’s not sure how to explain it. He might’ve gone a little overboard on learning all the different ways to braid her hair, since it was so different from War Drum’s. Austin hadn’t seemed to mind being used for practice.

Well, he hadn’t minded until Piper and Drew started their perfume monster repellant experiments. Nico can’t tell if they got it working on monsters, but it certainly repels everyone else. Coping methods all round, apparently.

Nico shoves at his brother some more until he shifts over, and he slumps down on the bed beside him, so he can look up at the sea monsters and stars that cover the ceiling of Percy’s bedroom in Cabin Three.

He sullenly mutters, “Fine. I still need to know if this is some sort of fated path, though.”

Percy flinches beside him. “It would have been. But it’s not anymore. The future’s ours to change as we see fit.”

“And somehow that translates to me pretending the Romans aren’t decorating those temple things with skulls that still have souls attached?”

Percy huffs a soft laugh. “Exactly how many times have you visited their camp since Uncle told you about them?”

Nico glares at the ceiling and keeps his face expressionless. “Once or twice.”

He’s been there eight times in the past two weeks.

Mostly, he tells people he’s visiting the Underworld. Which he does, he always makes sure to stop in and talk to Bobby. The mind-wiped titan is a lot happier working as Father’s ‘butler’. Even if Father isn’t so happy with it. But Percy told him it was important, and the gods have learned to listen when Percy says that.

Nico’s pretty sure Percy wants to visit himself, but the gods aren’t so big on him visiting the Underworld so soon after everything went down.

Which means Nico has an extra valid reason for his trips.

If Nico shadow travels to the Underworld and then back to the surface world in California, it’s a much easier trip than shadow travelling the full distance across the surface. All that time spying on Mount Othrys had really improved his shadow travel abilities.

He wouldn’t have been able to shadow travel a titan even those few miles if he hadn’t been regularly bouncing from one end of the continent to another.

Percy speaks gently. “She’ll be safe there, Shadow. I know it’s less than great, but I’m watching her, Uncle’s watching her, and she can call you if she needs anything.”

“She should be coming here.”

“Shadow, she’s Roman. You and I are the only ones who even know that the Romans exist. War Drum and Eclipse don’t even know about them. You only know because Uncle told you.”

Lee is completely baffled by Percy’s changing his name. Percy’s refusing to explain himself, and Nico is living for the drama.

It’d be more fun if it weren’t happening at the same time everything with Hazel was going on.

“I still don’t get why no-one else knows.”

“I don’t either. It’s always been hard to see them. I’m assuming it’s a pantheon thing, but then ‘Pollo completely flipped when I said those girls on the sorceress’s island were Roman. The things I’ve seen… There was some sort of unending war between the camps. I don’t know how it started, or what ended it. But demigods are a bridge between gods and mortals. Fighting each other- It doesn’t end well.”

“If you can’t see them, Hazel’s going to get hurt.”

Percy turns his head and pokes him hard in the shoulder. “War’s over, Shadow. She’ll be safe. And I can watch her. When I saw ‘Pollo last week, I asked if there was a way to see them easier, and he did- something. I’m not clear what. But I’ll be able to watch Hazel.”

“Father won’t explain why I have to say I’m a Dyspeptic Logos.”

Percy chokes with laughter, eyes watering as he tries to get his breathing back.

“You did that deliberately, you little shit!”

Nico grins at him sunnily. “Greek makes more sense than Latin.”

“Of course it does; we’re fucking Greek. But you need to be Roman when you’re there. They can’t know we exist.”

Nico scowls, all amusement gone. “I promised Crackle.”

Percy gives him a scathing look and returns to watching the ceiling. “I’m arranging that. But he won’t be informed until he’s here. The Romans will be encouraged to believe she’s Roman too. At least for now.”

“So, why am I Dyspeptic?”

“Because you’re an absolutely grouchy little shit before you get your caffeine?”

Nico pokes a sharp finger into Percy’s ribs as he twists away.

“Fine, fine. You are the Legatus pro Dis Pater because Romans really, really love official titles. It just means Ambassador of Dis Pater. Of Uncle’s Roman aspects, Dis Pater has the highest status. Hazel’s actually a daughter of Pluto. Same as Dancer’s a daughter of Hades as Aidoneus. But they’re all the same being.”

Aidoneus, the Unseen One. Specifically calling on his nature as a solitary and distant god. Nico really wishes he’d known that when he was younger; it would’ve explained so much about Bi’s love for independence.

Nico had already sort of known that demigods tended to be born to certain aspects. Though it was more common to inherit a mix of aspects.

Some aspects were considered gods in their own right, even if in reality, they were all the same being. Other aspects were more fluid. With those, a demigod kid could inherit a mix from their godly parent. He’s not sure how much control the god has over that. He really doesn’t feel like having a ‘how are babies made’ conversation with the King of the Underworld.

Nico’s confused. “You using names because it’s Father?”

Percy gives him an uncomfortable-looking grimace. “Try saying Neptune with intention.”

Nico eyes him with suspicion, but he doesn’t think this is a prank?

“Neptune, thank you for letting me use this cabin.”

What the hell? There’s no answer. No shift of essence. The gods don’t listen as closely to Nico as they do Percy, but they hear him when he speaks with intention. Especially Uncle Poseidon. Neptune’s an aspect of Poseidon, isn’t he?

Nico tries again, and there’s still no response.

Percy shrugs a shoulder, giving him an awkward half-smile. “I have no idea why, but the gods don’t seem to hear their Roman names. The only time Uncle would have heard his name is when I said who Dancer is a daughter of, and he doesn’t actively listen when I’m talking to you. Says he’d rather not know what chaos we’re planning.”

That is so fucking weird. Definitely needs some more investigation.

But also.

“You’ve never told me what aspect I was born to?”

“Because you already know.”

“I was kinda hoping I was wrong?”

“It doesn’t really matter. You aren’t like me. I doubt it was even intentional. Fates had nothing to do with it.”

“So I was right?”

“Yeah, Shadow.”

That is- Less than comfortable. Nico and Percy are constantly being described as the most powerful demigods of their generation, and even in the bits of history they have, their powers aren’t exactly normal.

The reason for Percy’s powers being what they are is very much ‘Fates did a thing’, but Nico was born decades before Percy, War Drum and Lee. Yet like Percy, Nico inherited a lot more abilities than is normal. But most of it comes under a single aspect. Hades Moiragetes. Overseer of fates, specifically the destiny of mortals. The one who ensures a person follows their fated path.

The Lieutenant would have claimed it was proof that Father was evil. That Nico was evil for being born to an aspect like that, because all mortals’ paths end in death.

He changes the subject.

“So, I need to show up, tell them I’m a Dyspeptic Logos, pretend to be Roman, somehow, and just leave Hazel there?”

Percy sighs heavily. “Legatus pro Dis Pater. I so wish I could tell War Drum and have her bully you into saying it a thousand times. Yes, you need to be Roman. Yes, you need to ignore the forsaken souls. For now. And yes, you need to leave Hazel there. Once we’ve dealt with Crackle’s little brother, and Hazel’s had some time to adjust to the surface world, we can bring her here if she’s unhappy at that camp.”

“You know they talk about Greeks the same way the Lieutenant talked about Father?”

Luke Castellan seemed certain that Father was Satan. That Nico must hate him and want to overthrow him solely because of how evil he was. Because the God of the Dead couldn’t have compassion. The God of the Dead would never see life as something precious and sacred.

Father also insisted on adding a charm to Nico’s stygian adamant necklace that would allow him to be instantly recalled to the Underworld. Given Nico lived through an entire end-of-the-world battle and Father didn’t feel the need to give him a virtual child leash, Nico is suspicious of these ‘Romans’.

Almost all of them are straight-up mortal. He counted, like, seven demigods in their little toy army thing? There’s not even a trace of the divine in the essence of most of the people there. A few show signs of carrying blessings from gods, probably a bloodline thing, but it may as well be a mortal boarding school or something.

Except for the lack of anything even remotely like classes about mortal things. Nico doubts they’d ever be able to get themselves accredited as a state approved private school. Not that Lee managed that without Apollo doing something.

Nico avoids morning lessons like the plague, but he listens when Lee rants about how much importance mortals place on that shit. And why Chiron’s complete lack of understanding of mortal things had actively harmed hundreds of demigods. Nico definitely wasn’t meant to have heard that last part. Lee puts a lot of effort into trying to balance out War Drum’s hatred of the horse.

The Romans also all super hate Greeks. Which he is so confused by. Other than Percy, no-one here really cares about Romans, or even thinks of them, like, at all? Why is there a weird cult completely dedicated to hating Greeks?

And what does that make Nico? His mother was Italian. Which is where Rome was. So. Um. Yeah. He doesn’t get it?

Percy looks equally lost. “Yeah. I am kind of very unclear on why? Nothing I’ve seen has suggested we did anything worse than they did. But it was war. So, who knows?”

“If I scare them, they’ll take it out on Hazel.”

Percy shifts over so he can press his shoulder against Nico’s.

“If you don’t want to show your powers, there are ways to scare them that don’t involve the death equals evil stupidity. Romans have a thing about, like, political power? As the diplomatic ambassador of the King of the Underworld, you have a fuckton of political power. You outrank even the consuls.”

“Who’s consoling who?”

“Stop being a shit. I know Uncle’s explained this to you.”

Nico wrinkles his nose and sulks.

“You don’t need to use your powers to scare them. You pretty much just need to exist and believe you hold more authority than they do. Shadow, you stared down the King of the Gods two weeks ago. Be that person.”

“Had you and War Drum.”

Another nudge from Percy. “Shadow, these are mortals. They aren’t even demigods. Barely a drop of ichor in them. They only have as much power as you give them. Talk it over with your sister. She might be fine with people thinking she’s as powerful as you. It may keep her safer.”

Nico pauses, thinking about it.

Actually.

He quietly confesses, “I was kinda worried they’d find out what she can do and decide she’s a walking bank account.”

Nico can’t summon precious metals and gems from the earth. He can sense metal and identify it, but Hazel has some crazy kinetic abilities when it comes to the ‘riches under the earth’. She’s terrified of it, even after Nico promised her that Father removed the curse. He’s figuring she’s going to need some time to adjust before he suggests training her powers.

The only real crossover in their abilities is that Hazel can see essence too. Not at his level, she thought he was a god the first time they met. She can’t sense souls otherwise, and he’s betting she only sees the essence of demigods. Which he should probably explain to her, now he’s thinking about it. Otherwise, she’ll be so freaked by the Romans’ playacting weirdness.

On the plus side, Hazel won’t feel how completely bizarre the ‘lares’ are. The Romans appear to genuinely believe their weird purple spirit people are the souls of long dead Romans. The two teenage leaders seem a bit more sceptical, but they are nowhere near as suspicious as they should be. Nico’s planning to tell Hazel to stay very far away from them. If she can’t sense them, she won’t ask awkward questions that he doesn’t have the answers to.

Percy speaks softly, “Then, if they think she can make them feel the terror of death and sense souls, it may not be a bad thing?”

“You think Blackjack would be willing to live on the West Coast while Hazel’s there?”

Blackjack had been ‘gifted’ to Nico a few months after Bi joined the Hunt. Gifted as in the black pegasus had spent years throwing tantrums about only being ridden by the Second Prince of Atlantis and trying to fight Percy’s zebra, Spot.

Percy had finally lost patience with Blackjack and told him to get over himself, and Blackjack had responded by deciding Nico was now his personal human. Something about being the only solid black pegasus here and Nico being a ‘Prince of the Underworld’. The horse is the only one who has ever used that title for him.

Nico is so glad he can’t talk to horses, the secondhand commentary from Percy is nuts enough.

Percy snorts, sounding deeply amused. “Uncle’s got plans already on that for your sister, but if you want to come and go on a black pegasus, it’d sell the bit. So long as he has his usual supply of inappropriately sugary foods, he’ll be happy to do whatever.”

Nico still isn’t sold.

Percy clicks his tongue, annoyed. “It’s also not forever. ‘Pollo won’t let me stay in the camp until Crackle’s little brother has proved he can be trusted. So, we’ll go to Atlantis for a bit and then go and pretend to be Romans.”

His tone turns fond and amused. “I get to be a son of Apollo and everything. ‘Pollo’s way too smug and Dad’s sulking. You can come with us for all that, they already know you have a connection to me. The younger girl we met in the Sea of Monsters is a praetor.”

Nico snarks, “Pride? Didn’t we just deal with intense hubris? Now they use it as a name?”

“Yeah, I’m not dealing with this. Go find War Drum for a spar. If you keep snarking about the Latin, soon as he gets back, I’ll tell Chiron you’ve decided you want to learn it.”

Nico carefully watches him out of the corner of his eye. That was very savage for Percy. They’ve all been joking about the ways the gods are watching him, but Nico knows there’s more to it. Percy’s not upset by Apollo and Mr D keeping an eye on him. Nico’s pretty sure Percy really missed it when the battles got too intense.

The issue is that Percy hadn’t expected to live past the final confrontation with Zeus. He seems to have thought that, even if he survived, he’d be, like, banished from camp and blamed for everything. Add in that he was already too reckless with his own life, and it’s not a great combo.

Lee had pulled Nico aside and had a serious talk about telling someone, even if it’s only Father, if Percy does or says anything that worries him. And that under no circumstances is he to agree to leave camp with Percy without informing people first. Nico can come and go like normal, but if Percy tries to go with him, Nico needs to make sure Lee or a god is informed.

It’d been obvious Lee was dancing around something and attempting to shield Nico from it because he’s so young or some shit like that.

So he’d gone straight to Father and asked him.

Father doesn’t always answer Nico, but he definitely tells Nico far more than he’s meant to. Father’d bluntly said that there was some concern Percy might be suicidal, but he’d seen nothing in his essence to suggest that. He said it was more survivor’s guilt, and actual guilt, along with the strangeness of coming into Underworld powers when he’s already a child of the sea.

Still, Percy’s not normally so cutting, not with people he considers his. Gods are always fair game.

Nico sits up to get a better look at his brother’s face. “You okay?”

Percy wrinkles his nose and gives him an awkward smile. “Not really? I’ll be fine. I just… When I changed that prophecy, it was the right thing to do. I know it was the right thing to do. But there’s a seer at the Roman camp. He’s the only one who remembers it, and everyone’s treating him like Cassandra.”

Great. More guilt. He knows exactly why this one is an issue.

Nico purses his lips. There are things he knows because he put the pieces together, but he also knows they should never be spoken aloud.

But.

There are reasons Lee explodes when people mention Cassandra. Cassandra, and her entire story, has been banned at camp since Lee was, like, fourteen. When he shot Beck at near point blank range for making a fairly inoffensive joke about her. The normal explanation people give is that Lee has Apollo’s overprotective and possessive stuff and Cassandra was a daughter of Apollo.

But Percy and Lee never bother hiding their cryptic conversations from Nico. He’s figuring Lee has some extra applicable experiences that explain why he finds the story of a child of Apollo driven insane by visions that no-one ever believed so distressing.

If a seer is actively being treated like Cassandra was- That will trigger a lot of things.

“Are you sure about introducing this person to Lee?”

Percy lets out a short, humourless laugh. “No. But he’ll know what to do. It’s what he’s good at. Besides, Eclipse would kill me if I didn’t tell him. This guy’s a descendant of ‘Pollo.”

No way. He can’t mean-?

“Wait, are you talking about the augur guy, the Dumb Fire?”

He keeps his expression carefully neutral when Percy doesn’t notice the butchered Latin.

“I guess? I don’t really know much about them.”

Nico had barely managed to shadow-travel away without being caught the one and only time he spied on the largest of the temples at the Roman camp. He’d made it back to the Underworld and collapsed on the ground, laughing his ass off. Father had found him, still cackling helplessly in the dirt.

When he explained, Father was completely delighted. He’d insisted Nico not tell Percy that half his prophecies from the last few years were engraved on the floor of a Temple of Jupiter. Nico is going to make sure he’s there when Percy sees that. It’s going to be so awesome.

Nico deserves nice things. Percy would do the same if their positions were reversed.

If the Duumviri dude is also a descendant of Apollo and being treated like Cassandra, Lee is going to get involved and it’s going to get even funnier.

Percy’s eyeing him extra suspiciously.

Nico shakes his head. “Never mind. But I really don’t think you should be freaking about this. You’re a prophet. The Fates are dicks. We know this.”

Percy is incredibly unimpressed. “Please don’t say that near Apollo. He might be okay with us saying that gods are gods, not people, but he will not be okay with your new addition.”

“Father says they don’t care.”

“The Fates don’t. The gods do.”

“That’s because immortality makes you stupid.” He drops it when Percy gives him another look, “Fine, any other advice?”

“The longsword’s fine, because it’s not Greek. But get Flicker or War Drum to check over any other weapons you take. Tell them you need to know if they’re associated with Ancient Greece. Definitely keep the shield and bident hidden.”

What?

“My sword’s not Greek?”

“The Romans only use the weapons of Ancient Rome. They’ll assume we do the same, but with Ancient Greece. And like, the bronze is really obvious. Anaklusmos is an Ancient Greek design too.”

Which makes sense. Since Anaklusmos was made in Ancient Greece and all. But also.

“Father made my sword?”

Percy pauses. “Uh, just to be very clear, he definitely intended it as a joke. Please don’t take it the wrong way.”

Nico squints his eyes. “What did he do?”

“The proper name for your sword is a ‘bastard sword’. It’s from, like, medieval England?”

Nico climbs to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe Father and I need to have a very serious discussion.”

Percy laughs, shaking his head, “Use the bident, it’ll hurt more.”

________________________

“I’m not lying to Apollo.”

Percy beams at Piper, looking far too pleased with himself.

“Who said you had to? I’m hiding from Eclipse, not ‘Pollo.”

Eclipse is a definite improvement on ‘Hot Air’. Piper’s still not sold on it. Percy’s acting strangely. Then again, they all are. It’s been like six weeks, which is not long enough to get past the ‘lived through a war’ thing.

Clarisse doesn’t even warn Chiron anymore.

If he so much as looks at her funny, she draws her trident and goes for the kill. He’s only been back for a couple of weeks. His broken legs are still healing, so he’s permanently using the wheelchair. Which hasn’t stopped Clarisse. Poor guy must be looking forward to a break from being hunted. Piper’s never seen him so careful with his words before this.

Wait. Is Piper feeling sympathy towards Chiron? Yeah. The world’s definitely ending.

She turns back to Percy. “You are so lucky that Mum likes you.”

Piper can’t work out how Percy even got into her bedroom, but there he is, sitting at her desk, drawing in one of his endless sketchbooks, as if he has every right to be in her room in Cabin Ten. The rules may have changed on how cabin assignments and classes are handled, but Percy’s probably the only person Mum would allow to break into the room of one of her children. Usually, breaking into a minor’s bedroom inside a god’s cabin is begging for a smiting.

Especially when the god is Aphrodite. The only question would be whether she does it herself or asks a favour from Ares.

“Why are you hiding from Lee?”

“Because I should’ve left for Atlantis already, but I wanted to talk to you first?”

“Please tell me this isn’t some insane quest thing. I know there’s some sort of mysterious visitor coming, but this is ridiculous.”

The only reason she even knows they have a visitor coming is because Apollo insisted his prophet and oracle not be in the camp while they’re here. No other details were given.

Logistically, it means someone needs to look after his pet zebra. Even if Spot is Percy’s in name only. She’s both camp mascot and official giver of hugs after nightmares. A combination of being raised for a life in magic shows, a blessing of Dionysus and living next-door to a powerful son of Poseidon has turned a wild animal into the best therapy pet ever.

Which is extra helpful, since everyone’s been needing some comfort since they found out Percy was leaving because of this random visitor. The god’s paranoia is to the point they’ve all been instructed to not mention Percy or Rachel by name.

It’s got them all a bit on edge. Percy had held off as long as possible in explaining the Great Prophecy, and they hadn’t had time to process things before the fighting started. Then they processed what that prophecy meant, and they’ve all basically closed ranks around him. Apollo claiming he doesn’t want the visitor to even know Percy’s name super doesn’t help.

Rachel’s a lot simpler. People don’t really know her beyond ‘random friend Percy dragged home last summer’. Most of the campers probably thought she was an unclaimed demigod. Rachel becoming an oracle is super new. She’s at school anyway, and Kayla, her new priestess, is staying at camp, and she’ll make sure Rachel’s safe.

Lee and Clarisse are ‘escorting’ Percy to Atlantis and being official priests or whatever.

Which means Piper gets to run the camp.

The power’s totally not going to her head. Not at all.

Percy smirks at her. “I know what you’re thinking. Sea Foam will totally tattle to Eclipse if you go overboard.”

Silena would. But only to a point. There’s a whole lotta grey area Piper is fully intending to exploit. It’s only been in the past eighteen months or so that they’ve had so many adults in the camp, but Piper prefers to pretend they aren’t there. She likes running the camp, and she’s looking forward to doing it without Lee hovering over her shoulder.

Plus, Silena is inclined to give her siblings whatever they want right now. She’d been scooped up by Luke only a few months after the battle at the Labyrinth entrance in camp, and after that she was ‘spying’ for Kronos. They bound her with this creepy bracelet thing. Which meant they had to keep Silena completely isolated from the camp. Like, she went into it willingly, but it was the shittiest possible time to lose access to their big sister.

They got her back the same day the war in the city started, and they’ve been clinging to her ever since. The war wrecked her leg, and everyone is a little too aware that they could’ve lost her entirely after a year of silence. Which makes Silena feel guilty. Which means she’s currently willing to let her siblings get away with murder.

“So what? Still fun to be had. Seriously, you just here to wish me goodbye, or is this another creepy warning?”

Percy tilts his head from side to side, looking thoughtful. “Right now, it’s just a question. Depending on how you answer will decide things.”

Wonderful. Extra cryptic.

“Just spit it out, Surfer Boy.”

“Same question I asked Flicker, you want to be left alone to deal with shit, or would you like a distraction?”

“Is this like how Clarisse claims you asked her, a full three years in advance, whether she wanted to join the shit show with you, and then you dragged her through a war?”

Percy flinches slightly. Oops. Piper’s definitely returning to her old habits of biting comments that hit where it hurts. She- Yeah. She needs to have some heart-to-hearts with Silena, hurting her friends is not something she wants to do.

Piper softens her tone, “Sorry, bad joke, and my filter’s still not working right. She doesn’t regret it. You know that. She’s your soul sister.”

“Yeah, I know. I just- Fuck, I wish it never happened.”

Piper’s pretty sure they all wish they hadn’t had to live through a war. But it wasn’t Percy’s fault, that whole thing had been set into motion long before any of them were born. They may have been born to fight the gods’ wars, but Percy’s the only one who wasn’t given a choice about whether he was getting involved.

Everyone else was given endless chances to walk away. Even during the war, any of them could have said they’d hit their limit, and Lee would’ve sent them up to Olympus to wait out the fighting. No-one would’ve held it against them. Percy’s the only one who couldn’t walk away.

Piper is insistent. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”

Percy turns back to his sketchbook, pencil moving smoothly. He speaks quietly to the desk. “I brought you here three years early. If not for me, you would be arriving here this December. Would have missed the war entirely.”

Piper moves to sit on her bed where she can see his face. “And I don’t regret it. Can you just imagine what I would’ve been like if I’d had three extra years with the out-of-control charmspeak?”

Percy turns slightly to look at her, and there’s too much amusement in Percy’s eyes.

“Wait, what did I do in that timeline?”

He gives her a look. “It’s not a timeline, it’s a path that will never happen.”

So what if Piper likes watching movies? Not her fault he never gets her references.

“Whatever, semantics. What did I do?”

“Uh. More like, what didn’t you do?”

“Explain. Now.”

He wrinkles his nose. “You kinda kept trying to get your dad’s attention? And you started stealing bigger and bigger shit. Even a BMW. You ended up given a choice of, like, one of those uber creepy reform schools or actual prison?”

Piper gapes at him. “Yeah, you know what? I’m good with the war. I like that path. What the absolute fuck?”

“You’re spending too much time with War Drum.”

They all spend too much time with each other. Mimicking speech habits is practically their favourite game these days.

Torturing Lee is a close second. They’ll all miss Lee doing the morning lessons. He’s the only one who lasts longer than an hour when they get going. Everyone else who tries to teach their class gives up way too soon. Makes the win feel meaningless. Maybe no Percy and Nico will up the difficulty level?

“Well, you are stealing her away and all. And you know, safety in numbers. That dragon thing is terrifying.”

If not for Leo insisting it’s an automaton, she’d have already gone hunting for it. She’s not as experienced with a bow and arrow as Clarisse or the Apollo kids, but she’d have tried her best. She’s seen the thing flame grill Leo more than once. What is it with demigods and lethal pets?

This isn’t even a living organism. It’s a robot. With a broken brain that randomly attacks Leo and Beck. How is that a good thing?

“Meh, Flicker’ll iron out the kinks soon enough.”

She gives him a flat look. “If not for you and Georgie being here, the woods would have burned to the ground because of that thing.”

Water powers are very useful. Especially when the woods are being set alight by aforementioned flame breathing robot dragon.

“Yeah, but he’s having fun! And he’s got new mysteries to solve. It’s all good.”

The problem with Percy is that he can keep the banter going indefinitely, and he won’t leave Piper alone until she gives him an answer.

How the hell does Clarisse survive sharing Cabin Three with Percy and Nico?

Then again, if she’d stayed in Cabin Five, she’d be living with Sherman and the assorted siblings that come and go constantly.

Clarisse has never really liked being Cabin Head. And now, in summer anyway, she’d be stuck with the two newbies from Kronos’s army as well as her usual roll call of siblings. One newbie is a son of Ares, which is whatever, but the other is a son of Eris. The goddess of strife and discord. Why the hell she even has children, no-one can explain.

Piper does not blame Clarisse for getting the hell out of there at her first opportunity. Besides, it’s not like Clarisse even likes Ares. Hephaestus kids have more fondness for Ares than Clarisse does.

Sherman is pretty happy too. Ever since Clarisse was named a Priestess of Apollo, Apollo’s been treating the entire Ares cabin to the same dawn music concert he gives to Percy and his own kids. Sherman’s ecstatic to sleep past dawn without earplugs.

“I’m not answering your question until you tell me if I’m committing to some multi-year-long path.”

“No fated paths. Just choices. If you aren’t up for new things, I won’t do the thing, and nothing’ll happen. If you’d like something new, I’ll do a thing, and it’ll still be your choice to go along with it. No commitments or anything. Though if you decide not to later, I’d appreciate you passing things on to whoever does decide to do it.”

He’s right, she’s spent far too long around him. Piper understood that mess.

She’s also spent too long around Clarisse. That’s like her catchphrase when Percy gets going and Clarisse has to translate. Maybe some distance will do them all good?

Or maybe not. Even Piper isn’t all that okay with their splitting up.

After the endless battles and the three-day war, everyone’s pretty twitchy about being separated. Lee had not been wrong with his concerns about how the fighting would hit different for the underage campers.

Especially with how they were all really damn certain Percy was fated to die in the battle.

He’d given a jumbled explanation that basically amounted to there’d been a high chance Zeus would kill him, or maybe Athena or Hermes. Which did not help. Since they’d just fought a battle for the gods.

Percy’s repeatedly told them he’s going to Atlantis, which is the one place where he should be guaranteed to be safe. But Piper is suspicious of how much emphasis he puts on his being in Atlantis. There was no need to emphasise it so intensely.

Most of the auxiliaries have already returned to their normal lives. A handful stayed on long term at the camp, but whether it’s for their own sake or to support the younger ones, Piper isn’t sure.

Piper, Jonathon, Sophie, Leo, Castor and Pollux are likely going to be even clingier with the others away. A distraction wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Percy’s still waiting for an answer. She hesitates, focusing her eyes on him and waiting for her vision to shift. He’s still Joy from Inside Out, when she was trapped in the memory dump. Piper’s already told Lee. He just says that Percy needs time to grieve, and he’s okay, they aren’t going to leave him to deal with things by himself.

Percy goes all huffy. “I am fine, Angry Girl. Eye of the beholder doesn’t replace actual sight. Like Dad and ‘Pollo have? I’ve got enough people watching me. I’m not running away.”

She makes an apologetic face, and he waves it off, seemingly unbothered by her snooping.

Makes sense, his entire thing is snooping.

“Fine. Give me whatever it is.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. We can spar with Triton supervising or something if I decide you’re the worst person ever.”

Percy smirks at her, and she shrugs back. She knows she’s not built for prophecy and future bullshit, but she is super happy to have Triton lurking around the camp. He’s officially here to ‘support Georghaliae in her transition’. Meaning to help out as Georgie learns to be a baby god, which is a thing, because Piper’s life is so incredibly strange some days.

Anyway, Triton being around means she finally gets to train with him, and she is loving it.

Piper’s still very happy to be a daughter of Aphrodite Areia, but Triton’s offered to act as her patron, and she is definitely considering it. He said she could live in Cabin Ten, which is good because she’s Cabin Head still. Much better than Ares’s weird attempts to offer Piper his patronage.

With Drew being the Cabin Counsellor for Ten, once Piper ages out, if she wants to stay on, she’ll need to move out of Ten, but that works for her. Lee’s told her she can move to Pallas House or the Big House. Or if she wants to stay in a cabin, Poseidon likely wouldn’t mind her becoming Cabin Counsellor for Three.

It makes her feel like she has somewhere she belongs. Before the fights really heated up, Lee had offered yet again to see about getting in touch with someone about her grandfather’s culture. Dad’s dad was Cherokee, not that he talks about it, like, at all.

Spending time around Percy and his obsessive correction of Greek myths had really made her wonder about the stories Dad used to tell her. The ones he claimed were Cherokee traditions. It took about three seconds on Google to realise, yeah, no. That two wolves story that Dad loves so much is both Christian and modern. It’s pop culture. Which is fine, Piper loves pop culture. But it’s not actual culture?

She’s heard three different versions from Dad about his memories of his grandmother with eagle feathers braided into her hair. Also definitely not a real thing.

Dad also seems to think his grandmother lived on a Cherokee reservation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Except that’s where the Cherokee Nation head office is. It’s not a reservation. If not for Mum telling her that Grandpa Tom definitely was Cherokee, Piper would think Dad made the whole thing up. Like, she could probably pass for having Mexican heritage or something. Not that she or Leo look anything alike. So maybe not?

She’d reluctantly agreed to read some material if Lee got it for her. Then she’d read that traditional Cherokee society is matrilineal, inherited through the female line, and realised she’s a full two generations distant from any Cherokee women, her great grandmother is the closest she has.

Lee had given her such a disappointed parent vibe when he tried to tell her that just because the traditional society was like that, it didn’t mean it wasn’t her culture and that’s not how it works now. That Piper is both wholly Greek and wholly Cherokee. She’d shrugged him off and ignored it ever since. If ignoring it was good enough for Tristan McLean, it’s good enough for her. She’s not enrolled with a Cherokee tribe. She doesn’t even know which Cherokee tribe her grandfather was from.

Piper is Greek. She has a home here. She’s welcome here. Piper is her mother’s daughter, and that’s enough. At least for now.

Even if she hadn’t already decided she wants to stay on when she turns eighteen next year, having Triton onsite would have had her scrambling for an official role. People can stay in the camp as an adult, but only if they fill a proper job. Lee’s unofficial camp director title is a very vague role, but everyone who matters considers it a proper job. Since he’s planning on stepping back now that Percy’s older and needs to be, like, a real prophet, Piper was all for learning how to take over one day.

This place is home. She can’t imagine life away from here. Especially not the sort of life where she ended up in some sort of gods damned reform school. Like, what the hell? At camp, people know she has powerful charmspeak, and she works to control it. The idea of mind controlling random mortals is so not fun.

Piper’s not the only one staying. Cabin Ten is one of the busier cabins already, even with school in session. The moment Lee lifted the restrictions, Lacy, Mitchell and Valentina got themselves to camp and announced they were now year rounders.

Mitchell and Valentina hadn’t even bothered informing their foster carers of their decision. They’d legit run away the moment Lee gave the all clear. That had been such an awkward phone call. Lacy’s dad at least gave permission and drove her to camp.

She looks at Percy, who is patiently waiting out her inner musings. “This won’t affect the kids, will it?”

Percy wrinkles his nose. “Not really? Not with Bright Eyes here and Sea Foam in Cabin Two.”

True. With Piper intending to take over from Lee, she’s never been fully engaged as Cabin Head, Drew mostly passed the title over because she was ageing out. Then the war happened, and Drew decided to stay long term.

“Fine, give it to me.”

‘It’ is a bag of books?

“Dude, all that build up for fucking homework?”

“Some things are easier if you’ve done the reading? I won’t be around to tell campfire stories. This is easier. Just give ‘em to the visitor if you decide you’re not up for it, yeah?”

“Okay. Any other sage wisdom, oh wise and wonderful man behind the curtain?”

Percy looks thoughtful, and a bit too full of mischief. This should be interesting.

“In no particular order, Shadow’s unlikely to be around after I leave, tell Dancer he’s fine and with me.”

Piper’s going to be seeing Bianca? Uh, when? The Hunt’s been away since the war, recovering in their own way. Piper hadn’t expected them to be back anytime soon. She’s really not sure the camp is up for even a friendly game of Capture the Flag right now.

They’d lost seven hunters during the war. Piper’d figured the deaths hit Thalia doubly hard, and the last thing she’d want is to see camp returning to normal with so many kids who were older than her brother ever got to be.

Especially after they found out about the little Zeus kids. Piper had half thought Thalia would never come to camp again after the first of the new baby Zeus kids start attending. She kind of suspects half the reason Thalia was so happy to join the Hunt was that it was all girls. Less things to trigger memories of what she lost.

“Polearms are great, but your sword is better.”

Okay, now he’s trying to piss off Triton. Piper loves her new sword, Salos, but Triton has repeatedly told her she only has it because they needed her to look like Percy during the battle, and she would be a lot safer using her own spear.

Xiphos swords don’t have near the reach of a spear. Clarisse gleefully told her that Nico attempting to fight a Nemean lion with a longsword ‘broke the gods’ and all their trainers doubled down on polearms after that.

“Don’t forget you have a family here. This is your home, don’t let anyone make you doubt that.”

Yeah, she still can’t deal with prophecy bullshit. This is breaking her brain.

“And never forget you’re my Angry Girl. Let no-one intimidate you. If they don’t back the fuck off when you ask nicely, use charmspeak.”

Piper doesn’t use her charmspeak on people. Not since she understood what charmspeak was and what she was doing every time she used it.

Even setting aside the bit where she’s mind controlling people and traumatising them in the process, her charmspeak isn’t indefinite. People eventually realise what she did, and in a world of gods and demigods, they are guaranteed to respond violently.

Charmspeak is for monsters, and only in specific circumstances. Like where the monsters’ patron god is aware and allows it, or if Piper needs the monster to stand still long enough for her to kill it.

Percy watches her think it over. “I’m serious. If someone gets in your face and doesn’t back off the first time you ask, you make them back off.”

“You are so gods damn weird, Surfer Boy.”

“Just wait ’til you meet this visitor. Feel free to give him a tongue lashing or twelve. He’s got a good heart, but you gotta dig deep to find it.”

“The guy Apollo hates?”

Percy shakes his head, looking worried all of a sudden. “S’not the guest that’s worrying ‘Pollo, it’s the people he represents. Actually. I don’t know what instructions you’ve been given, but new guy is going to cause some less than fun drama. I’d suggest giving him the full new camper tour and intro to Greek life if you can. Be good for him.”

A sudden bellow from outside stops the conversation. “Percy! If you aren’t out here in the next thirty seconds, I’m calling your dad as well as mine!”

“Think Lee gave up searching for you.”

Percy pulls a face and climbs to his feet. “Yay. I so love every person I meet bowing to me. Being the second prince is just the bestest thing ever. This’ll be so much fun. Not. See you around, Angry Girl.”

“Have fun, Your Highness.”

Percy gives her the finger as he leaves super slowly, looking like a small child dragging his feet as he wanders out of her room, even as Lee starts loudly counting down.

Piper sticks her head out of the second-story window to call down, “He’s on his way! He’s just being a toddler about it!”

Lee looks entirely resigned already. Clarisse is beside him, laughing her ass off.

Lee calls up to her. “If he left anything with you, can you check if his circlet’s there?”

No fucking way.

She checks the bag, and- Yep. She’s going to kill him.

Piper bolts down the stairs after Percy, who has miraculously started moving faster.

She makes it outside right as Clarisse tackles him to the ground, and Piper joins in on the dogpile, cramming the crown on his head.

He gives up and flops onto the ground, the circlet dangling at an angle over his face.

“I almost got away with it!”

“And what happens when Triton finds out it was misplaced? You just told me all about how I was, like, a fucking klepto in that alternate timeline of yours!”

Percy beams beatifically up at her. “It was gonna be so awesome!”

“You are an absolute turd.”

“I know!”

________________________

Dakota leans into the Principia, knocking a hand carelessly on the doorframe. “Yo, the kid’s back.”

Jason scrubs a hand down his face. “He got past our sentries again?”

Nico is still popping in and out of New Rome and Camp Jupiter without explaining how he’s getting in and out. It’s driving Reyna insane.

“Got a good excuse this time, he turned up on a pegasus.”

“He has a pegasus?”

Yet another accidental status symbol that Jason will need to explain to the City Senate. Reyna has a pegasus, but her sister is the Queen of the Amazons and treats Reyna like a princess. Easy enough to let the consuls assume Reyna really has that sort of status.

Nico is much more difficult to give valid reasons for. Why would the Legatus pro Dis Pater own a pegasus? Horses have no connection to the Underworld. Unless you count Consus, and the consuls really don’t appreciate Jason mentioning Consus.

Dakota walks across to perch on the edge of the desk and throws his hands up in answer. “Apparently? Fucking huge solid black beast, makes Nightmare and Scipio look like ponies. No tack, not even a strap to hold on to.”

Wonderful. Not only a pegasus, but one he can ride bareback. Nico seems entirely unaware of the way he’s freaking out the consuls, but every time he leaves, it becomes Jason’s problem.

Jason should not feel so intimidated by Nico. He’s refusing to tell them how old he is. So far he’s told them he’s ninety-three, eighteen and three years old.

He looks like he’s fourteen. Maybe. His eyes are older. Jason’s still not completely certain the kid isn’t a god. There’s plenty of stories of gods pretending to be mortals. So, he could be? He’s half a head shorter than Jason, but Nico has the sort of presence the consuls can only wish they had.

Even the lares turn all deferential whenever they’re within a hundred feet of Nico. Reyna doesn’t even need her dogs to deal with Fronto, the lar who is obsessed with advising her on being a proper leader, since he claims to have taught Marcus Aurelius. Not that Jason believes any of the lares are who they say they are, but he’s never seen one be respectful to any legionnaire. The way they treat Nico- It’s like Nico is Mors himself.

He won’t give a straight answer about who he is. It’s really not helped by how the one thing he readily admits is that he’s Italian. Reyna straight out asked him what century it was when he lived in Italy, and the kid smirked and said, “Not this one.”

Which gives weight to their theories that he might really be a god. It’s 2025. He’s a kid, not an adult. He’s from Italy, but didn’t live there in this century?

Dakota pokes him. Oh.

“You’re going to explode if you keep thinking so hard.”

“It’s not like I’ve gotten a single straight answer out of him. It’s like he enjoys being confusing.”

Dakota gives him a long, slow blink. “Pretty sure that’s exactly what it is?”

“Great. Do you know why he’s here?”

“Think he’s just visiting his sister. He said something about being an on-call hairdresser?”

Jason winces. “The consuls want us to insist Hazel follow the same rules as everyone else, and only see her ‘family’ when on furlough.”

Dakota gives him a sceptical look. “And probationes aren’t allowed to go on furlough. You realise they’re trying to isolate her already?”

For all Dakota adores causing issues, he’s become incredibly protective in the six weeks since he became junior centurion of the Fifth Cohort. It’s good to see. But Jason really wishes this weren’t the cause of it.

“Dis Pater was insistent she be allowed to use her powers.”

“You know Bacchus would have been just as bad, except my powers aren’t noticeable?”

“Can we not, please?”

Dakota softens a little, still leaning on his desk. “You want me to ask him again?”

Nico’s refusing to tell them anything more about Jason’s sister. Only that she’s alive, he’ll be reunited with her soon, and Jason will be away for a while. Jason’s found it hard to think about anything else ever since.

Because if ‘the pictures are exactly what he thinks’, that makes no sense. Those photos were of a girl who couldn’t have been older than thirteen. Thalia’s twenty-two now.

“No, there’s no point. How are things going with Hazel other than the power stuff?”

Dakota shrugs. “She’s a bit… off. There’s a lot she’s not sharing. You’ve seen her in training. She’s fairly new to weapons, but not completely unfamiliar. She knew a lot about mythomagic already, but she’s lost on pop culture otherwise. She may have been raised away from the mortal world, but there’s no way to confirm it, and she and Nico shut down completely whenever I try to ask.”

“Fitting in otherwise?”

“Sort of? I’m not sure if it’s the demigod thing or something else. She keeps her distance from most others. But so do we. She still prefers Reyna and Leila, and they’re the only other female demigods in the legion. But even with that, Hazel’s still more comfortable around you and me than she is with most of the probationes.”

“Guess I’m telling the consuls that Dis Pater said he’d remove his daughter if Nico isn’t allowed to visit her, then.”

“You don’t even try to hide the lying anymore, do you?”

The consuls currently can’t do anything. Jason killed a titan, and they gave him a full Roman Triumph for it. He’s got a good six months before they can backpedal on their support of him and still save face.

Besides, everyone now knows he has power over the winds. That’s a whole different type of power to what he’s been holding over the consuls so far.

“I’ll deal with it after I see Thalia. I really just cannot find it in me to care right now.”

“You realise if you disappear without warning, Octavian will use it as an excuse to push for praetor?”

Yes, he will. Jason’s already made arrangements for that.

“I’m aware. Look, do me a favour whenever I leave?”

“Depends on what it is?”

“Keep him away from Hazel? I don’t know what’s going on there, but he’s been watching her ever since he read the auguries for her.”

Dakota gives him a sharp look, and Jason shakes his head. “Not that. Octavian would still rather pretend his father’s obsession with his marriage prospects wasn’t a thing. The Lawrences would be the problem, but Bryce is gone. So.”

And the Pearces don’t share the Coelispexes and Lawrences’ obsession with increasing the divine blood in their descendants. They prefer to ensure that Mars is always the god they claim, regardless of how long ago it was. Not even Reyna, a demigod daughter of Bellona, Mars’s consort, is of interest.

Jason’s very glad there haven’t been any confirmed children of Mars since the Byzantine Empire, at the latest. Dealing with Consul Coelispex and Prefect Lawrence is bad enough.

“What exactly do you think he’ll do?”

Until now, Reyna and Jason have kept Octavian’s episode to themselves. But Jason isn’t loving the idea of going away and having Reyna the only one who knows there’s something wrong.

“Hazel is a bit too nice for this place. Octavian had a bit of… an upset? I’m really not sure how to describe it. It was right after the battle. He claimed a prophecy had changed. Reyna thinks he was hallucinating from stress. He’s been stand-offish ever since. Octavian is feeling powerless, and Hazel… Well-” He shrugs at Dakota.

“She represents a lot of power?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’ll see what I can do. How’s your little weather hunt going?”

Jason grimaces. “Same as always. Whole bunch of strange reports that sound like wind spirits, nothing like the lightning storms I used to track. They all started after Mount Tam.”

“Have fun with that. You helping with war games tonight?”

“Guess I should if the kid’s here.”

Dakota frowns. “You realise it’s a really bad look for the new praetor to be avoiding the legion?”

“I have a lot on my plate, Dakota. Not just Thalia. At some point, Nico is going to notice the temples. The fact he hasn’t yet is a fucking miracle.”

Some sort of unreadable expression crosses Dakota’s face before he can hide his reaction.

Jason eyes him. “What do you know?”

“Hazel’s definitely seen the temples. I’m pretty sure Nico already knows.”

“Then why isn’t he doing anything?”

“You know, you could always just ask me?”

Jason jerks out of his seat, hand reaching for Conservatori.

Nico leans in the doorway, raising a cynical eyebrow.

Dressed as he always is, like he actually is goth or is playing a joke on everyone that he hasn’t felt like sharing. Unrelenting black jeans, black shirt and black jacket, with a silver coffin necklace. A black longsword on his hip. Not a spatha, but a Medieval English sword. Glossy dark hair and olive skin. Sharp features and a permanently chaotic glint in his dark eyes.

Nico is 5’6” and all wiry muscle under the layers of clothing. The one time Consul Coelispex tried his whole ‘my dear boy’ paternal condescension thing, Nico had grabbed the hand the consul placed on his shoulder and sent him sprawling in the dirt. Keeping a straight face during all that was one of the hardest things Jason’s ever had to do.

Nico takes in his defensive stance, looking very entertained. “You planning on attacking me or something? You won’t like the result.”

Jason steps back, standing stiffly at attention. He doesn’t know why he bothers, nothing freaks the kid out. It makes him feel a lot more sympathy to Octavian. It’s not fun being on this side of standoffs.

“Then you know about the temples?”

Nico looks incredibly amused. “Yes, I know.”

“You haven’t done anything about it?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m waiting on someone who can explain who they were and why they are here. As much as I dislike leaving them there, I was asked to wait. So I am waiting.”

“The prophet.”

The boy gives him a tight smile and no answer.

“By the way, I keep meaning to ask, what’s with the eagles?”

Jason tilts his head, confused.

“They’re the eagles of Jupiter? Juno sent them to the legion just after I came here. They stay as long as I’m a member of the legion.”

Nico looks delighted. “And here, all she sent me was coffee.”

What? It’s like he does this deliberately. Why would he have met Juno? He’s a son of Dis Pater? Or that’s what he claims, anyway.

“Do you actually ride them?”

“Yes?”

Nico speaks seriously, like he’s imparting great wisdom. “When you see your sister, you have to tell her all about flying on the eagles.”

There is too much mischief in his eyes. Jason has a faint memory of Thalia telling him not to go so high. But why would this kid know about that?

Before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “You make no sense.”

That gets a loud cackle. “Fucking finally! I thought you were never going to crack.”

“You’ve been doing this deliberately?”

“Yes? You’re gonna, like, lose your mind if you don’t learn how to just roll with things. This place is- Yeah. I don’t know what it is.”

Jason really doesn’t know what to say to that. Shouldn’t Nico be familiar with all of this?

Jason’s really thinking Nico is from those three hundred years they don’t seem to have any record of. He might be a demigod, but he could still be immortal?

“Anyway, I’m kidnapping Hazel for a few hours. I’ll bring her back before lights out or whatever you call it.”

Dakota snickers and Jason works on not showing his frustration. The consuls are definitely going to lecture him again.

“Can I tell the consuls that she was summoned by Dis Pater?”

Nico rolls his eyes with a huffy exhalation, and Jason carefully doesn’t react. Anyone else in the legion and he’d be required to sanction them for their disrespect. But Nico is not part of the legion.

That may be a good thing.

“The hell is with you lot and rules? Yeah, fine. Go bananas, Father won’t care.”

Nico pauses. “To clarify, Father won’t care about you using him to explain my spending time with Hazel. He will care very deeply if you use him as an excuse for things without his knowledge.”

The air abruptly turns cold and dark.

Jason swallows hard. “Yeah, that’s not something I’d ever try.”

He’s not sure what he thinks about Dis Pater knowing about the temples. The moment Nico leaves on his definitely giant black pegasus, Hazel sitting behind him and looking completely gleeful, Jason goes to find Reyna.

He finds her on her way back from the city, with her two metal automaton dogs, Argentum and Aurum, accompanying her like always.

The three of them are standing in the road watching the pegasus fly off. Jason can’t quite believe Nico and Hazel were riding it with no tack, nothing to hold on to. Even Dominus wears a leather collar for Jason to grip so he doesn’t go sliding off, and Jason can fly on the wind, so falling off isn’t the end of the world.

Shouldn’t children of Dis Pater be very uncomfortable on a flying horse? Jason feels awful just going into the basement level of a building, like there’s a glass wall between him and his powers. Being in the sky, on a horse, completely separates them from their father’s domain.

Reyna scowls, still staring after the two kids. “At least we saw him leave this time? He going to give Hazel back?”

“Nico said it was only for a few hours, and he told Dakota he was an ‘on-call hairdresser’?”

Realisation in Reyna’s voice, “Ah. Hazel mentioned she needed to redo her braids. I’d been trying to work out what to do about that.”

Jason cringes. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think our Ambassador of Dis Pater would have been okay with our normal solution.”

If hair doesn’t meet ‘military regulations’, or requires more attention than a quick comb, the consuls expect it to be cut short. Like, there needs to be rules about that sort of thing, if only from a practicality standpoint. Their helmets are metal and not adjustable. But the consuls definitely take it too far.

Reyna’s pointed out more than once that Jason really doesn’t help matters, when he looks like an all-American white boy soldier and meets their expectations without having to do anything.

Reyna looks exhausted as she turns back to the road, Jason matching pace with her.

“Kid told me something else too.”

“Oh?”

“He says he knows about the temples. That he’s been asked to wait for someone to tell him who they are and why they’re there.”

“Percy?”

“Yeah, I think so. He didn’t say it outright, though.”

“Nico did say Percy would see me soon. That’s really not what I was hoping for.”

Jason switches subjects. “You get anything on the archives?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. Consuls insist they don’t exist.”

They’ve gotten nowhere with it. They know there are archives they’ve never seen, Octavian confirmed it, but none of them know where they are. Jason wants to suggest that Reyna ask the prophet, but it’s also something they really shouldn’t be bothering a prophet with.

Except.

“If the prophet is going to look at the skulls, there may be more of them in those hidden archives.”

Reyna shuts her eyes for a second, her pace slowing. “No, Jason. He is not Octavian. He is not a consul. We are not manipulating him like that. This is our problem, not his.”

“We’re missing three hundred years of our history. That feels like it’s an everyone problem?”

“No. Jason. Drop it. I mean it.”

Jason scowls but doesn’t push further. He is so sick of waiting.

Chapter Text

Jason’s waiting ends on the sixth of October.

He’s awake well before dawn. Jason and Reyna have duties on Temple Hill today, and it’s best they’re handled without the consuls noticing.

Jason’s been summoned by the consuls every day since Nico showed up on his black pegasus. The constant questions about the black sword and what it’s made of were bad enough. Especially after they asked Hazel to show them her knife and her response was, “No.” That’s all. Just, “No.”

Reyna gleefully told him that ‘No is a complete sentence’, and she’s not wrong. But he really wishes it didn’t immediately become his problem.

The consuls are growing increasingly unhappy with Jason. It’s been a little over three weeks since Hazel arrived, and he can’t give them the answers they want.

No matter what angle they use, he’s not going to magically produce an explanation for where the pegasus came from. Nor is he going to suggest to Nico that his pegasus is not welcome in the valley. He’s fairly sure Nico would double down if anyone so much as hinted at that.

Same as how Nico is free to carry weapons. He’s not a member of the legion. Nor will he ever be. No matter what the consuls think. Given how casually he orders the lares around, Jason doesn’t want to know what would happen if Nico genuinely felt threatened.

Jason had also had to tell the consuls that no, Hazel doesn’t have any information on the pegasus and no, they aren’t going to interrogate a thirteen-year-old girl.

After that last request, he’d sent Reyna the next time they summoned him. Whatever blistering response she gave, it made them back off of Hazel, which is the most he can hope for. They still see Nico as fair game, though. When they aren’t face to face with him, anyway. These conversations end much more quickly if Nico’s in the room.

Jason really doesn’t feel like being summoned for an explanation of what he and Reyna are doing on Temple Hill today.

Which is something he no longer needs to worry about.

Jason walks out of his little house on the Via Principalis to find a goddess waiting for him.

He blinks rapidly, unsure what to say.

The stern goddess, wrapped in a goatskin cloak, gives him a highly unimpressed look.

“I shall interpret your silence as shock and awe at unexpectedly meeting your patron. I will not make such allowances a second time. You have five minutes to collect what you need for an extended stay elsewhere. Please return promptly.”

She gestures towards the door he’d just stepped out of, and Jason numbly turns and walks back into his house. What the hell? Just. What.

He’s had a bag packed ever since Nico told him he’d be going somewhere to meet Thalia. He grabs it now, shoving in his phone and Amazon Flame, the demigod version of their Kindle, and any other extras he can think of.

He’s back outside within four minutes, and he’s remembered how to be appropriately respect.

“Your majesty, I’m ready.”

Her eyes scan him from head to toe, missing nothing. He feels like an insignificant insect. “A mild improvement. Very well, take my hand.”

“Jason?”

He glances over at Reyna, only now leaving the house next to his. “Going on a trip, don’t wait up.”

She gives him a tight look. “Be safe, and good luck.”

He nods and takes the goddess’s outstretched hand.

A blinding white flare of light and the world spins around him.

Reality settles again, and they are in an entirely different place.

They’re standing right inside the entrance of a cave, and right outside is the ocean, almost spilling into the cave. An island is visible in the distance.

The cave is dark and damp, it smells like earth and ocean. The ground is full of tide pools, with bright creatures clearly visible. Jason’s betting the whole cave is underwater most of the time.

He’s extremely certain he’s no longer in California. He steps back from the goddess, keeping his posture respectful.

She looks so much like he imagined, but also not. The brown goatskin cape hangs down her back, a length of rough leather that seems almost jarring against the light flowing fabric of her white stola and palla, each edged in glittering gold.

More gold shimmers through her dark hair, as if every strand has been dipped in gold dust. It’s been done in an elaborate style of tight curls and braids all twisted up in a large bun at the back of her head.

Large dark brown eyes devoid of warmth scrutinise him from a pale face. Pink cheeks, red lips, all of it reflecting her status as a powerful goddess of women. The wide golden diadem on her head confirms it. Juno, Queen of the Heavens.

A wife, a queen and a warrior. She’s well muscled, and even if she were mortal, Jason doubts Reyna would win a fight against this woman. She is someone worthy of respect in whatever incarnation she chooses.

Not that he needs his eyes to know that. She feels like pure power. As familiar as the necklace with Juno’s claiming pendant that he’s worn since he was eight, even if he can never remember he’s wearing it. But it’s definitely the same power.

The Draco Hesperidum was a faint echo of the woman who stands before him.

His patron.

“Queen Juno, would you mind telling me where we are?”

The goddess looks around, disinterested.

“It has had many names over the centuries. I believe it is currently called Devil’s Oven or perhaps Anemone Cave? The mortals claim it is an entrance to the Underworld.”

It’s certainly steeped in power, but it doesn’t feel like a doorway. More like a meeting point, maybe? The dark of the earth meets the chaos of the tide. The air is heavy with the feel of the ocean, and a trace of pure darkness.

Juno is eyeing him speculatively. “Perhaps you can determine what this place is to the gods?”

Jason hesitates, he’s really not sure how to handle his first conversation with Juno. She’s definitely testing him, but he’s unsure why.

“It feels like the boundary between domains. Between the ocean and the Underworld.”

“And very specifically, not your father’s domain.”

“No.” Jason gets the impression that Jupiter knows nothing about any of this. Which seems more than a little wrong. But he’s had only a single moment of awareness of Jupiter’s attention, on the day he became a full member of the legion, so it’s also kind of expected?

“Do you understand that my claim on you trumps even your father’s?”

Jason catches himself before he the shock shows on his face. This is not a goddess who would respond well to casual shows of emotion. But, no. He did not know this.

“Uh, your majesty, does that mean he gave me away?”

She considers him; her face still far too stern and regal, but there’s something in her eyes, it looks almost like sorrow or regret. But that can’t be possible. She’s a goddess. A member of the Capitoline Triad. A warrior.

“It was your mother who gave you to me. She believed that sacrificing a child would placate my anger. In a bid to curry my favour, she named you Jason, for some unfathomable reason.”

Jason pauses again, trying to take that in. He’d never really thought about his name after the one time he looked up the meaning of his and Thalia’s names, but he’d definitely never connected it to the Greek hero Jason.

‘Thalia’ is a Greek or Hebrew name, depending on who you ask. ‘Jason’ is the same. It means ‘healer’ in Greek, the root word meaning ‘cure’, or ‘the Lord is my salvation’ in Hebrew. He’d figured Beryl must’ve been pop culture Christian or maybe simply liked the names.

He doesn’t know the Greek myths well, but there is one thing he remembers. “Didn’t Hera hate that Jason? After he abandoned Medea?”

“You already know far more than your mother ever did about me.”

“The mortal news is certain Beryl killed her children.”

Juno flattens her lips. “Had I not removed you, both your sister and yourself would have died within a year. It was foreseen.”

Jason blurts, “Not by the prophet, unless he’s an immortal kid.” Jason cringes when he realises what he said. How can he be so stupid whenever he’s confronted with a god?

“No. Not the prophet. His father.”

Apollo. Okay, that makes more sense.

Wait. Hang on.

“If Thalia’s a demigod, this wasn’t just because you were pissed at your husband?”

Her eyes flash. “Take care with your words. You may be my champion, but my protection extends only so far as you behave like one. The original Jason learned that lesson the hard way.”

She softens slightly while Jason tries to look anywhere but at her, “It was the right choice for you as well, child. You could not have stayed with your sister. In siring you and your sister, my husband did something so incredibly block-headed that I still daydream of castrating him for it.”

Castrating Jupiter is absolutely not a topic Jason wants to discuss with the goddess. Far too many myths start with that sort of thing. Especially with conversations between a god’s wife and his youngest son about it.

He carefully asks, “You said my mother gave me to you? But also that you removed me?”

“Some things are rather too complicated to explain. Suffice to say, there were political reasons. Your mother made her decision of her own free will. I accepted because it ensured your survival. Had certain situations gone differently, you were to serve as leverage against my husband.”

“So naming me your champion?”

Her answer is acerbic in the extreme. “Was to protect you. You belong to me, regardless. I do not make a habit of naming two-year-old mortals my champions.”

Okay, that’s- Yeah, that’s actually completely understandable. Two-year-olds should not be champions.

“I’m afraid I’m a little unclear on why we’re here? I know the prophet said I would be reunited with my sister?”

“And you will be. This is merely a convenient meeting point before the next stage of your journey. But I wished to clarify some things with you before you continue.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

Queen Juno stands there in this dark cave with the ocean outside and the sky dim and overcast in the early morning light, watching him thoughtfully. Nothing feels quite real.

“In your mother sacrificing you to me, you were placed in my service and given a destiny. You were raised by the wolf god and taught the old ways, before she gave you over to the legion. I had been unsure if this day would come, and now that it has, I remain uncertain on this course.”

She gives him a more amused smile, “Had I not spoken with the prophet, this conversation would be going very differently. But he insisted you be given the chance to reach the right conclusions of your own free will.”

“A destiny, your majesty?”

“Yes. Not the sort the prophet deals with. Not unchanging paths and certain ends already woven into the Tapestry of Fate. Your destiny remains yours to claim or deny as you see fit. There will be consequences for whichever choice you make. The choice need not be made now, but you must be informed of the consequences.”

Jason’s eyes widen. He thought he was being taken to meet Thalia? This really isn’t making any sense.

“Do you know what today is?”

He answers promptly. “Dies Ater. The black day.”

The whole reason Jason had been awake so early was so he and Reyna could see to the necessary rituals on Temple Hill without the consuls noticing.

No sacrifices or offerings were to be given, no worship was to be public. But rites still needed to be said. Travel is banned on Dies Ater, which- Yeah, Jason’s going to assume it’s fine since Juno was the one doing the travelling.

“And what happened on Dies Ater?”

“The Battle of Arausio, 120,000 Roman men were lost in a matter of hours. Fourteen legions, dead to the last man. Only Caepio returned to Rome.”

Eight initial legions, further reinforced with six sent from Rome at the last minute. All of them gone. It was this defeat that led to the military reforms that defined the military power of Rome.

Historians like to claim they ‘only’ lost 80,000 soldiers, because the other 40,000 were slaves, servants and camp followers. Reyna and Jason consider them to be legionnaires, regardless of whether they held the rank of a soldier or not.

Quintus Servilius Caepio returned to Rome, only to be tried first for the theft of an astoundingly enormous quantity of seized gold that never made it back to the city. He was acquitted of the theft, and then tried for the loss of the Roman men, and promptly banished from Rome.

Jason and Reyna have too many opinions about that battle. It was because of the Battle of Arausio that the concept of rallying to a legion’s eagle was developed. Before that battle, most legions didn’t even carry the gold eagle standards, and their symbolic importance was introduced after.

Twelfth Legion lost its eagle, and it doesn’t have the professionalism of the powerful legions of Rome. It looks a lot more like the legions that were lost at Arausio. Who needs prophecy when you have history?

“Yes. It was a slaughter. The legions were backed up against a river with nowhere to run. Who killed them?”

Jason frowns at her use of the word slaughter. It’s Octavian’s favourite word.

Still, he knows the answer to her question.

“Barbarians, the Cimbri tribe.”

“Who were from?”

This feels like being back at New Rome School being drilled on history.

“The battle was in Gaul, but they were a Germanic tribe, I think?”

The location of the battle is somewhere in modern-day France now. He tries not to think about why he knows the modern location. It’s not a battle they learned about in New Rome, it was Reyna who introduced him to history books that gave a less biased view of Rome and didn’t only focus on how they were bestest people ever who could do no wrong.

“Good.”

The Queen of Heaven gives him another narrow eyed intense look. “You will indeed be meeting your sister shortly, but the location of your meeting has been chosen for other reasons. You are to be my peace offering. In saving you and your sister’s lives, you owe me a debt. You belong to me, first and foremost. Above even your legion’s claims on you. You are to be a bridge to overcome millennia of hatred.”

He has no idea how to respond to any of that.

“You mentioned consequences, your majesty?”

“Yes, you will be prevented from communicating any information about the place you are going to. Your devices will still work, you may speak with your friends in the legion, but they will not hear or read any information that is not for their knowledge.”

She pauses, waiting until he nods his understanding before continuing. “You will be free to leave at any time. The one you call Dominus will likely come and go as he pleases, but he will also collect you at any time if you call for him. Doing so comes at a price.”

“What price?”

“Should you choose to return to the legion without achieving a true understanding of the situation, your memories will be modified the moment you leave. You will remember meeting your sister and that she is alive, but your knowledge of where you have been and the people you have met will be completely erased.”

“You can do that?”

Her answer is cutting. “Of course. I could erase your entire memory, should I wish. I am a god, child. Do not forget that.”

“If I’m such a risk, why bother at all?”

“Your sister has powerful friends. She also recently provided a great service to the Dii Consentes. In performing that service, she became aware of your continued survival. A promise was given that she would be reunited with you.”

Given that it was Juno’s Draco Hesperidium that Jason used to kill the titan, he can entirely understand why she’s not mentioning his achievements, but it’s making him incredibly curious about where Thalia’s been.

“She’s happy, right? She’s okay?”

Juno snorts sourly. “I never knew a handmaiden could be so irritating. The ones you are meeting will answer all your questions, I’m sure.”

She gives him another sharp look. “Repeat back to me what I have told you.”

He dutifully answers. “I will meet my sister shortly. She will be with people that I need to gain an understanding of. If I leave before I have achieved this, I will forget both the people and the place, but I’ll remember Thalia.”

“I suppose that will have to do. Remain here until they arrive. Do not venture from the cave, the tide will rise shortly.”

She doesn’t give him a chance to reply, but vanishes from the cave as if she were never there.

So far, Jason’s been so constantly caught by surprise that there hasn’t been time for his emotions to catch up. But it’s all starting to boil up now as he realises he still doesn’t know where he is or who he’s meeting, and he can’t explain any of this to Reyna.

He pulls out the phone anyway, navigating to a map.

He’s in Maine. Why the hell is he in Maine?

He hears a strange sound outside, like massive wings beating the air. It sort of sounds like Scipio when he flies?

He cautiously walks to the edge of the cave entrance and watches as a flying chariot charges towards him.

Like, the palomino pegasus is flying, and the chariot is also flying?

Jason really isn’t up for dealing with more gods right now.

The chariot slows down and comes to a stop right outside the cave, not so much landing as almost hovering on the surface of the water.

The two people standing in the chariot grin at him, and he feels even more lost.

A girl he thinks might be near his age, probably a bit older, and a woman, late twenties, maybe early thirties. Both look far too curious, their eyes sharp.

The girl is dressed like a mortal fitness instructor. Tight leggings and a long sleeve shirt. She’s fully covered, but everything is tightly fitted, and she’s showing a lot of muscle. Definitely not one of those mortals who dress like that for fun.

Her dark eyes glitter with interest, and her dark brown hair is pulled back into the sort of tight, sleek ponytail Reyna prefers. A hair clip that radiates power has been carelessly stabbed through the ponytail.

She has the same sort of deeply tanned skin as Reyna, but that’s where the similarities end. Reyna would never wear such an eye smarting combination of hot pink and silver. Somehow, the black additions are more of an accent colour than a break for his eyes.

The woman beside her also wears exercise clothes, but hers hang loose and are much plainer, in simple blues and greens that don’t make his eyes ache. All of her looks softer, with less defined muscle.

Her black hair is in a simple plait that hangs to her waist, and she has warm brown eyes that are much less piercing than the girl’s. Much paler skin too, with a lot more makeup. It gives her the airbrushed look of a model from a magazine.

Of more interest is the power Jason can feel from them. If he keeps being introduced to powerful people, he definitely needs to think of a new ranking system. The girl is significantly more powerful than the woman, more powerful than Reyna even. But not at Nico’s level. The woman is more powerful than Dakota, maybe a little less than Reyna.

Yeah, this is as useless as describing them as storms or wind gusts. Jason decides he’s going to say they’re powerful and leave it at that.

It’s the girl who speaks first, “Hi! Are you the package we were sent to collect?”

“Uh, maybe? She didn’t tell me who was coming, just that someone was?”

The woman snorts, and the girl smiles widely. “Extra mysterious, wonderful. Must be a Sixth Sense special. You know the gods exist and all that, right?”

“Yes?”

“Great! Hop in! I have no idea how long the chariot can hover. Didn’t even know it could hover, actually.”

The woman speaks gently, “Piper, please don’t scare the newbie.”

“Yeah, whatever. Trial by fire is more fun.”

The woman shakes her head at the girl in mock disappointment before turning back to Jason, “I’m Silena, this is Piper. We were told we needed to pick up someone who would be visiting our camp for the next little while. I’m afraid we weren’t told much else.”

“Um, I’m Jason? I’m meant to be meeting Thalia Grace?”

They both freeze, going tense and hands flinching towards hips. They aren’t wearing visible weapons, but that move is instinctive. All humour is gone, and now he’s facing sharp-eyed warriors.

Piper’s voice is icy, “Is there a reason you know Thalia’s full name?”

Jason blinks, still standing in the cave’s entrance, looking up at them both in the chariot.

“Thalia’s my sister.”

They stare at him blankly.

This might be the first time Jason’s told someone who he is and they don’t start talking about the missing Grace children. Granted, it was thirteen years ago now, but the conspiracy theorists obsess over it. The younger woman might not know about it, but the older one looks to be in her late twenties?

The two women exchange speaking glances, and a chiming phone breaks their focus.

The younger one yanks a smartphone from her pocket, in a bronze-coloured case, and rolls her eyes dramatically.

“He says to stop stalling; he’s who we’re here to collect. And that if we don’t get a move on, the chariot actually will sink.”

She turns back to Jason. “C’mon. Get in. Now.”

Since they clearly know Thalia, he figures they’re who he’s here to meet?

He scrambles onto the chariot, and he’s barely got a grip on the waist-high wall before the older one calls to the palomino pegasus, and the chariot launches into the sky.

________________________

Piper eyes the new kid extra doubtfully out of the corner of her eye, and Silena lightly nudges her with an elbow.

She frowns and carefully blanks the skeptical expression from her face.

But seriously? You have to be bloody kidding?

Blonde kid stands stiffly, like he doesn’t know the definition of the word ‘relax’, and he’s all casually announcing he’s Thalia’s little brother?

Her very murdered, very dead, little brother?

Piper hadn’t put her Thalia and Thalia Grace together that year she was living at the camp. She looked nothing like the cute little nine-year-old blonde pageant girl who disappeared, and it wasn’t like they’d run in the same circles. Tristan McLean was A list even then. Beryl Grace really, really wasn’t.

The goth kid who sparked with lightning and obsessively insulted Percy really didn’t make her think ‘missing child of TV starlet’. Though. Actually. Now that she’s thinking about it, that definitely fits.

The disappearance of the Grace kids had freaked her dad out, even though she later learned everyone assumed their own mother was the culprit.

Piper had been four when they vanished, and she hadn’t entirely understood what had happened, but she’d spent two years with an armed bodyguard following her around, right beside the nanny, and when dad started taking overseas jobs, she got dumped in a fancy boarding school with high security.

She’d been bouncing from school to school with their stupid, stuck up rich kids right up until Lee did something - he’s never explained what - and had her diverted to Camp Half-Blood for summer camp.

She’d attacked Percy, done a whole lotta other stupid things, and then, instead of incinerating her ass as he totally should have, Apollo lojacked her and bound her charmspeak, giving her the time she needed to get her shit sorted.

Lee’s been lying to her dad ever since about exactly where she is. But he definitely didn’t make all that fancy promotional material on the fly. It makes it seem like the camp is an extra exclusive Long Island boarding school with intense security, far fancier even than the one Rachel’s stuck at.

Piper’s not trapped here, but sometime around the twelve month mark she stopped waiting for Dad to call and say he had some free time and she should come home and spend the summer with him.

She still sees him now and then, whenever he has a thing in New York she goes and stays at whatever hotel he’s using, but the last three times, Lee’s had to come and get her within the first two days because Dad got too busy to hang out.

She used to blame the Grace kids for screwing over her life. Since they were the reason Dad gave for the boarding schools, that he ‘was keeping her safe’. After three years at camp, she’s guessing there was more to it than that.

Piper’s learned that most of the demigod kids of male mortals have things way shittier than the ones with mortal parents who did the pregnancy part of making a demigod.

Everyone else gets no warning that a baby’s being dumped on them. For the Athena kids, their parents rarely even met Athena. She basically saw a smart person doing impressive things and went, ‘Hey! I know just what you need! Lemme ruin your life real quick.’

Percy better be right that her head’s been fixed after that whole curse situation. Because that’s so incredibly cruel.

Lee had explained that Dad had probably been Misted, because she grew up being told Dad wasn’t sure who her mother is, but that the DNA tests proved she was his. Mum’s never explained why she chose Dad, and Piper’s never going to ask. She so does not want to know.

There’s too much chance the answer is, ‘because he was so adorable in that one movie.’ Aphrodite is incredibly eclectic in who she decides to gift a child to. Silena told her she asked Mum once about her own dad, and the answer was, ‘his chocolates were just to die for, how could I not reward him?’

Percy’s got them all pretty trained with how gods are never going to make sense to them, because they aren’t people and there’s nothing but heartbreak waiting for them if they expect them to act human. For the few kids who still held out hope the gods would be different, seeing the result of Annabeth and Luke wanting gods to act like mortals has cured them of it.

Most of the Aphrodite kids don’t ask why Mum had them.

The Hephaestus kids have things a little easier, because it’s virtually always a mortal’s invention that got the god’s attention. Same with the Apollo kids. They have a parent who was really good at archery or wrote amazing poetry. Maybe they’re a famous musician.

Lee’s different, though. According to him, his mortal parent fell firmly under Apollo’s Protector of Youth domain. It was his mortal dad who taught Lee why it’s so important to give kids safe spaces and people who genuinely care about them.

Most mortals the gods choose aren’t like that.

Thalia once told Piper that she figures, ‘Beryl just stood still for the appropriate length of time.’ She never talks about Jason. It was only after she became Artemis’s lieutenant that she’d told Piper she knew what it was like to grow up in ‘that world’ and explained who she was.

It’s been kept quiet at camp. Clarisse, Percy, Lee and Nico probably knew, but they’re like steel traps when it comes to other people’s secrets.

Piper hadn’t known how she felt about it. But she didn’t really have time to think it through. The Hunt was at camp because Artemis was busy, and they were facing down a battle. A year later, there was a full on war. It really didn’t matter.

What she knows is that she’s the one Thalia went to when she had nightmares about her baby brother dying alone in some gods forsaken backwoods. Because they may not have known each other as kids, but Piper understands the world Thalia grew up in.

Piper’s the one Thalia told about how she’d run away the same day her mother came home without him, and spent months stalking the woods looking for him, but there was nothing.

When people finally realised Beryl Grace’s children were missing, Thalia started moving from place to place, never staying anywhere for long. It’s how she met Luke and Annabeth.

Thalia told Piper that the first thing she did when she was given the Hunt was ask permission from Artemis to search Sonoma woods for Jason’s grave. Artemis had granted it, but even with the Hunt, she couldn’t find where her brother’s body was buried.

Piper’s really been missing Thalia since the war ended and the Hunt left camp. They lost some of their people, and Artemis has been away for over a year. They need time to get their own shit sorted, but she misses having Thalia around.

She’d been kind of happy when Percy implied that the Hunt would be back soon, even if it meant dealing with Capture the Flag games no-one’s ready for.

But now this asshole soldier kid is standing in the chariot, claiming that he’s Thalia’s brother?

What the hell?

Silena nudges her silently again, and Piper resists the temptation to give as dramatic an eye roll as Nico is so fond of.

She knows nothing about their visitor. Except everyone has super carefully stated he’s not a new camper. He’s a ‘guest’. Percy’s not allowed to be in the camp while he’s here, but it’s also Percy who texted her with the details of where to collect him from.

Trust the gods to dump him off in the one place where he risks drowning if Piper and Silena don’t get there quickly enough.

The chariot belongs to Hermes Cabin, but Ladon - her pegasus Ladon, not the dragon - is the best at flying it. She’s glad she borrowed it now, rather than flying out on pegasi and riding double on the return.

Especially with the way the wind is picking up. She can feel her hair getting blown everywhere and calls out to Ladon to speed up, he makes an annoyed snorting sound, but the chariot goes from much-too-fast to definitely-too-fast and the wind calms down.

She really needs to make some time for Travis and Connor so they can properly test their new toy. It’s starting to feel more like hippocampi travel than pegasi travel. That weird blurring movement that means you’re travelling much faster than you think.

Which is good, because she’s feeling incredibly exposed like this.

Percy’s message had also said to carry minimal weapons, and only ones that were completely hidden, so they, ‘don’t appear as even more of a threat than you naturally are’.

She yanks her phone out of her back pocket to glare it at some more, right as it vibrates with a message.

‘He really is who he says he is.’

She stiffens, and baby soldier asks politely, “Something wrong?”

She eyes him, he doesn’t look like Thalia. Though Thalia’s hair is technically the same shade of blonde. She dyes it black. Thalia’s eyes are dark grey, and this guy’s eyes are, like, intensely blue. She knows Percy doesn’t lie, but she still doesn’t believe it. Not unless Thalia confirms it.

“No, just a friend being a total dick.”

Another message slides onto her screen. ‘Don’t tell him, but it’ll be a few days before Crackle gets there. He needs time to adjust.’

Then; ‘Yes, I know I’m a mind reading asshole. But you try doing meet and greets with half the merpeople of Atlantis. See how long you last.’

She snorts, and Silena sighs, “What did he do this time?”

“Pretty sure the Second Prince of Atlantis is hiding from his own retinue.”

She glances at the new kid and deeply enjoys the confusion on his face. She doesn’t explain anything. Piper has become excessively fond of Percy’s whole trial by fire thing. She tones it down for the younger new kids, but the blonde kid is old enough to deal with it.

He’s dressed mostly normally, assuming purple is his favourite colour or something. She’s so glad Mr D sticks with purple shoes and doesn’t go for the over the top purple thing. Not that Piper would ever tell him that. He’d start wearing purple ballgowns or something, just out of sheer perversity. Do the whole Grandmere Renaldo thing, from the books, not the movies. She was kick ass in the movies.

Kid’s wearing blue jeans, a black daypack style backpack, a purple tee-shirt, with a purple windbreaker over the top, and- combat boots? Huh. He also has a gold knife on his hip, which is a little different.

There are gold weapons in the armoury, but they all gravitate to the celestial bronze or Atlantean metals. The gold weapons are intensely old and don’t feel quite right compared to the newer stuff.

There’s an old superstition about the gold weapons too. Lee thinks it’s complete nonsense, but the auxiliaries all insisted that only children of Apollo can carry gold weapons, anyone else carrying them will be cursed.

Clarisse spent like a month straight parading her golden bow in front of Nathan before he reluctantly decided to change his claims to ‘children of Apollo and priests of Apollo are exempt’, but he still insists that anyone else using the ancient gold weapons will be cursed.

New kid is wearing no other visible weapons, there’s only the knife on his hip and it makes her kind of twitchy. The last person she knew who carried nothing but a knife ended up going full world-ending level evil.

She narrows her eyes and scans him again and carefully controls her expression when his image flickers in her vision. Huh. Okay. Unexpected.

Sometime during the endless battles and then the three-day war, her eye of the beholder thing had settled.

Drew and Silena had told her it would happen eventually, that she’d start seeing people as they actually look in reality all the time and only flickers of their true selves, but there had been a time where she felt like she was living in a camp full of movie characters and fashion models. Then she’d look in the mirror and see all her own imperfections and none of the good, and it hadn’t been much fun for her.

At the time, the only person who looked ‘normal’ to Piper was Annabeth Chase. The only one in a sea of perfect beauty.

It was a hard lesson to learn. The eye of the beholder pretty much always shows kids as breathtakingly beautiful. Because they’re kids, and no-one is born wrong or bad, not in Piper’s experience.

Thirteen-year-old Annabeth looked like she was at the end of a multi-week long survivalist camp. Piper’s never seen anything like that since, and she’s hoping she never does. Thirteen-year-olds shouldn’t look like anything but perfectly beautiful to the eye of the beholder, they’re thirteen with their entire life ahead of them. Piper rationalises it by telling herself it was the result of Athena’s curse and tries not to think about it.

Back then, despite being Japanese, Drew virtually always looked like Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods. Which was incredibly confusing. Piper had made a complete ass of herself, but Drew, being a real life Elle Woods, forgave her once she got her head on straight and apologised.

New kid is different, though. New kid is Aragorn as a homeless Strider. Like from the start of the Fellowship movie?

That is really not what she’d have figured he’d be. She kind of would have thought she’d see him as, like, an Air Force Colonel or something? Military to the bone? Like how she sees Nathan as himself but wearing dress blues.

She really hadn’t expected new kid to be a king running away from responsibility. That’s like the complete opposite of that?

He stares back at her, sky-blue eyes super unimpressed. “Can I help you?”

“Nope, just having a few epiphanies.”

Silena’s voice is reproachful, “Piper.”

She shrugs at her, unapologetic, and Jason glances between them, looking thoroughly confused.

Piper snorts and explains, “Silena’s my much older sister. I’m also her boss.”

Silena gives Jason a smile. “She’s not wrong.”

Piper gives her a sarcastic look, and Silena smiles innocently back. Percy is not good for anyone, they all end up as chaotic as him.

Silena’s a Cabin Counsellor for Cabin Two, she’s got the new Iris kid there, but most of her focus is on giving two of the kids from Kronos’s army some much needed one-on-one care and compassion.

They still aren’t certain how Luke and Annabeth even knew about Ash, the eleven-year-old son of Angelos. Allysa, a twelve-year-old daughter of Morpheus, made a little more sense, since Morpheus was one of the gods on Kronos’s side.

They’d both been recruited at the last minute and were on the boats the river gods sunk. Thankfully, the kids never saw any real fighting, but they weren’t willing to risk any other demigods feeling abandoned.

Silena’s taken them under her wing, and they’re living in Hera’s Cabin. Which is still a super weird thing to say. Ash is technically Hera’s grandson, but of the three kings, both Angelos and Morpheus are most closely connected with Hades.

Hera said her cabin was open to all, but Piper’s still impressed she’s committed to it.

Ash and Allysa aren’t the only kids from the army. There’d been fourteen under eighteens with the assorted demigods the gods had been holding as prisoners of war.

Six of them will turn eighteen within six months, so they never even came to the camp. Lee and Piper met them in the city and made arrangements from there for them to be settled in the mortal world with funding and support systems.

Including warded homes and basic weaponry.

All six had received extensive training from Castellan and were offended at the suggestion they might like some additional protection.

With the funding they gave them, all six can go to college pretty much anywhere in the country if they want to, or they can have a gap year to sort themselves out.

Lee had zero compunctions about calling in favours to magic the kids through the admission systems. So long as they leave their kids alone and stay away from Camp Half-Blood, they’re willing to give them what they need for a fresh start. Percy seemed fine with it, so she’s assuming it won’t bite them in the butt. She hopes.

The four sixteen-year-olds were placed in foster homes with trusted demigods where they could have a chance at making better choices, but wouldn’t put the camp’s younger kids at risk. They’ll spend the next two summers at camp, like any other demigod, but they’ll be closely monitored.

Which left four others. Ash and Allysa are settled with Silena. Thirteen-year-old Clare, daughter of Hecate, is living in Cabin Four with Katie Gardner.

Which is a bit of a strange combination, but Katie was one of their demigod teachers in an approved boarding school, and she’s not ready to go back to that life. Not after losing her little sister Miranda in the war. Piper figures that she and Clare are good for each other.

The fourth kid is the one Piper tries intensely hard not to think about. Nine-year-old Damien White is a son of Nemesis. He looks and acts nothing like his half brother, but Piper cannot look at Damien without remembering his brother’s last fight.

Damien’s living in Nightshade with Jon, which makes things kind of awkward, since Mum adopted Jon and he normally spends most of his time with Cabin Ten during the year. Damien’s super uncomfortable around adult men and only slightly more okay with women, but he glued himself to Jon. Jon said he was willing to do whatever he could to help him.

Piper misses spending time with her brother, though.

“Can this thing go faster?”

She turns to look at the new kid, who is now looking kind of worried. “Why?”

“There are venti, storm spirits, following us. Not sure why, but they’ve been showing up all over the country for the past six weeks.”

Wonderful. This is why she’d rather not leave camp. Piper clicks her tongue and calls out to Ladon. His wings beat harder, feet galloping on the air as he pulls hard on the chariot and their speed reaches terrifying levels.

They’d been three hundred miles from camp, and it’d taken ninety minutes to fly to Acadia National Park, they’ve not even been in the air for thirty minutes and already Long Island is rapidly approaching.

“They’re gaining on us.”

“We’re almost there, this’ll be a rough landing. I’d suggest hanging on.”

Ladon seems to agree with her, he’s pelting towards camp for all he’s worth, and Piper spares a moment to be extra grateful the gods expanded the barrier for Percy and Nico’s pirate ship.

They plunge through the barrier while they’re still over the ocean, and Ladon immediately slows down, beating his wings to create a backdraft, so the chariot doesn’t crash out entirely. The whole Hermes cabin would hunt her down if she wrecked their flying chariot the first time she borrowed it.

It’s still a far rougher landing than usual, and Piper does not appreciate the mocking yells from Travis and Connor about never trusting her with their things again.

________________________

The chariot sweeps through some sort of invisible barrier that prickles across Jason’s skin, and the pegasus frantically tries to slow down as they go careening into a- Wait. What is this place?

They’d whipped past a wooden ship that Jason could have sworn was an honest to gods pirate ship, over a golden beach and straight into an unexpectedly lush green valley.

Dense woods surround most of it, though the hill ahead and off to the right is mostly bare, with one lone pine tree at its peak, though the tree glitters strangely. A big, spreading lake lies off to the left, and little clusters of buildings are scattered all over the valley. Everywhere he looks there are odd pillar shaped piles of grey rocks, but he hasn’t got time to work out what they are.

The chariot jerks and shudders, and its intense speed drops off, finally landing near the lake.

Jason tries to get his bearings as the girl, Piper, starts yelling back and forth with two older teens. Something about how they won’t trust her with their things again and how she won’t trust them with- A ladle? Oh. Ladon. Who is the pegasus. Okay.

The guys she’d been yelling at come over to unbuckle the pegasus from his harness, and for someone who claims not to trust them, Piper seems fine with letting them look after him.

Silena steps off the chariot and tells Jason she’ll see him around, before turning to Piper and saying she needs to ‘check on her kids.’

Piper asks her to see if she can, ‘make them stop being total stickybeaks’, and Silena nods and stalks off towards a building. It’s only then that Jason realises there are two groups of kids staring at him through the windows of a couple of the nearby buildings.

There are a few adults trying to make them go back inside: a black guy with long braided hair like Hazel’s, a taller guy with glasses and blonde hair, and a woman with short red-gold hair and wide shoulders. They all look to be in their twenties, a bit younger than Silena, maybe?

Silena joins them and starts calling out to the kids, who reluctantly turn away from the windows.

Piper looks fondly exasperated and tells him, “No-one likes mortal homeschool, but if we have to suffer through it, so do they. It’s so much better now we can split ‘em up by age, but it’s still torture for everyone.”

Jason hesitates and then asks, “Uh, what is this place?”

“Camp Half-Blood? The name’s the result of a translation screw up. It’s a sanctuary for demigods. We’re a summer camp, but some of us live here year round.”

Half-blood? Like the word Octavian kept mentioning? He’s stopped insisting there was a prophecy about ‘seven half-bloods’, but it’s the only time Jason’s ever really heard that word in relation to demigods. Jason’s distracted before he can ask for more information.

Another overly fashionable girl walks up to them. Older than Piper, but not by much. Japanese, maybe? Her hair is a bright shade of blonde, but he doubts it’s naturally that colour. It looks dyed, or bleached, or whatever word you use for that. Reyna would know.

She has a hot pink hairband holding her hair back off her face. Her makeup is as perfect as Silena’s, the dark eyeliner further accentuating her sharp assessing eyes. Tight dark blue jeans under a bright pink glittery top. These girls really like pink, don’t they?

Right before he can decide she’s not a threat, Jason catches sight of the distinctive outlines under her sleeves and pants. Concealed knives. He only knows to look for them because he and Reyna are still trying to get a clear idea of how many hidden knives Nico carries.

They’re both a little concerned Nico will use them on consuls if they keep provoking him. Best to do a proper risk assessment.

Jason glances at her shoes and does a double take. Combat boots. Bright pink, but they’re definitely combat boots, complete with additional knife sheaths. Military grade of a much higher quality than anything the legion supplies.

Not that Jason had known you could get military grade combat boots in hot pink. Not until right now, anyway.

The older girl gives Jason a head to toe scan that makes him feel like a squished bug on a windshield before turning to Piper. “Mr D said to bring him straight to the Big House. That he’s a guest, not a camper.”

Piper scowls. “Does Dickhead know who he is?

“Seemed to, but you know what he’s like, care to share?”

“After. I want confirmation first.”

“Katie gave up on lessons for your lot, so they’ll be lurking in the shadows. They’ll help with the tour or whatever, you know what cabin?”

Piper purses her lips, looking angry. “Not Ten. I’m not saying more until Dickhead confirms.”

Jason tries to make his voice on the excessive side of polite. “Uh, Dickhead?”

“Mr D. Officially the Camp Director or whatever. Only on paper, though. Lee runs camp when he’s here, and I run it when he isn’t.”

“And Lee is?”

Piper’s answer is sharp. “Lee.”

Okay. That wasn’t helpful. At all.

The new girl, who still hasn’t introduced herself, adds, “Oh, bee tee dub, Dickhead says he knows about the bird and don’t freak. Not a monster.”

She looks back at Jason. “Hope you’re worth the trouble, hon. You ain’t much to look at.”

This is- He does not know what this is. He still vividly remembers the starving, wolfish eyes of the consuls and Litterator Lawrence when Jason first arrived at Camp Jupiter.

Less than four weeks ago, New Rome paraded him around like an emperor of old.

Now he’s got two girls looking at him like he’s chewing gum they scraped off the bottom of their designer shoes.

Piper scoffs and tells her, “Look again.”

The girl-with-no-name, cocks her head at Piper and then turns back to Jason, her eyes boring into him as she gives him another sweeping top to bottom scan. Her head jerks back slightly.

She tells Piper, “Okay. Not what I expected.”

“That’s what I thought!”

“Are either of you going to explain?”

They shake their heads and speak in unison. “Nope!”

Cool. Good to know they’re all on the same page. He doesn’t even have the words to explain how off kilter he feels right now.

Girl-without-a-name gives a wave and reminds Piper, ‘don’t kill the bird’, before she leaves. Piper gives him another narrow eyed look before announcing they may as well get it over with.

“Don’t suppose you’re ready to tell me what this place is, why I’m here and how long you’re expecting me to stay?”

“Thought you were meant to be meeting Thalia?”

He scowls, feeling more and more off balance. “That’s what she told me. But I haven’t seen anyone who even remotely looks like Thalia here.”

She snorts and stalks off, calling over her shoulder. “Yeah, including you.”

Jason trails after her. She’s stalking towards the large four storey building up ahead of them, the one that looks like an older English style house painted sky blue.

Next to it, the large, ancient looking building seems out of place. Big white Corinthian columns rise over a porch, and the building itself is all white marble and gold accents. It reminds him far too much of Apollo’s little temple on Temple Hill.

Piper ignores it, heading for the blue building that sits closest to the hill with the pine tree.

The pine tree that is glittering.

Jason stumbles to a stop, staring bug-eyed. All thoughts of Apollo and temples forgotten.

There’s a dragon wrapped around the pine tree. A golden dragon. Not like the Draco Hesperidium, this one’s a lot smaller with only one head, but it’s still a real life dragon. Something else glitters further up in the branches of the tree, and Jason really doesn’t want to know what it is.

“For fuck’s sake! How old are you? It’s like I need a leash or something!”

The girl stalks towards him and grabs his wrist, turning and towing him along behind her until he shakes the shock off and digs his heels in. This is incredibly familiar territory. No-one drags him around, not Octavian and not mean girls dressed in too much hot pink.

“No, you’re going to explain what the fuck this place is first.”

She throws her hands in the air. “It’s camp! A sanctuary for demigods! A summer camp for most of them, a home for others. Mr D wants to see you. I’m hoping he has some fucking answers!”

Jason frowns, mouth opening to snarl at her, but he’s interrupted by a familiar peeping chirp.

He whirls, searching. There!

Dom glides down from- Actually, how did Jason not see him before? Eight foot tall eagles can’t exactly hide from view? Wait. Was he standing with the dragon? Why was Dominus with a dragon?

Piper’s cursing and spinning and she yanks something from her hair that transforms into a sword in her hand.

Jason plants himself between her and Dom. “Stop! He’s a friend!”

Piper’s voice is tight, and she sounds like she can’t breathe. “How certain are you? Nothing should be able to get through the barrier, but that’s-”

A voice calls from the direction of the blue building. “I thought Drusilla was meant to warn you? Stand down, Pippi Longstocking.”

Piper flinches a bit and shuts her eyes, breathing slowly and carefully. She looks completely terrified. Like, her face is almost grey, and she’s visibly shaking.

Jason steps towards her, about to ask if she’s okay, and the voice turns sharp. “Step back, Junior. Give her space.”

Jason looks over, wanting to know who the fuck this is now, and it’s-

He blinks his eyes rapidly, squeezes them shut and rubs them and then looks again, as a strange shifting mirage image of a person standing on the porch shimmers and swirls.

It’s Bacchus? He thinks?

He sort of looks like the god he met with Dakota last year; a young man with curly black hair, deep blue eyes and too-red lips. Round pink cheeks. The powerful build of a Roman god.

Then the image shifts slightly, and he’s a much slimmer young man, with the same curly black hair, but he now has swirling purple eyes. And a much more androgynous figure. He’s draped in vines that twine up his arms and twist into a crown on his head.

Both versions are wearing the same leopard print Hawaiian shirt, tight blue jeans and purple running shoes.

Is this Bacchus? He’s definitely a god.

Piper calls up to him, “How sure are you the bird’s safe?”

The god scoffs, “Very safe. He won’t harm a child, and won’t attack at all unless you attack first. Worst he’ll do is take the boy and run for it.”

Standing beside Jason, Dom makes some of his little soft yipping noises, the ones he uses when Jason’s upset. They sound kind of alarmingly like a distressed puppy. Jason frowns at the eagle, but Dom is watching Piper. He looks sort of sad?

Piper’s still clutching her sword for all she’s worth; she eyes Dom a few seconds longer. She nods, taking a few steps back before her sword transforms into a hair clip that she shoves back into her ponytail.

She looks at Jason and Dom. “Sorry. Still kinda on edge from some stuff. Should’ve listened to what Drew said.”

The god rolls his eyes theatrically. “You? Listen? And pigs might fly!”

Piper snarls at him. “Pigs did fly, Dipshit.”

Jason holds very, very still, waiting for the inevitable smiting.

Nothing happens.

The god snorts loudly. “Are you coming or what? I don’t have all day!”

Piper stalks towards him. “You have nothing but time, Dickweed. Your hundred years aren’t up yet.”

He calls over his shoulder as he goes back inside. “Your insults need work, Paige.”

“You gonna call me Phoebe next? Can’t go for a matched set, then you’d actually get my name right.”

“Hurry up, Prue.”

Jason stares, completely dumbstruck, while Dom shoves at his back until he stumbles forward. It takes a few more shoves before he remembers how to walk.

A shout from the house. “Move it, Julian!”

He flinches, anger churning in his gut, but jogs up the stairs, reminding himself the god had called Piper everything but her name. Maybe this god can’t remember names?

Because gods don’t- Yeah, he’s got nothing.

Jason pulls off the windbreaker that’s making him overheat as he walks through the door, stepping into a remarkably normal looking sitting room.

The god is already seated at the table with another man. Piper’s swung a chair around so she can straddle it backwards, and the god is dealing playing cards out. There are glasses of lemonade in front of the three of them, and a fourth glass is waiting at an empty seat.

The god gestures, and Jason takes his backpack off, sitting gingerly on the seat, keeping his backpack between his feet, one hand gripped on a strap.

Jason’s hallucinating or something, isn’t he? He’s still asleep in his Praetorium and Reyna’s about to bang down the door because he’s slept past dawn for the first time ever.

The god looks over at him, purple eyes deeply amused. “Despite what you think, you are not at the point of a psychotic break. Though, a bit of madness would do wonders for you.”

Piper jumps in with, “So, he actually is that Jason?”

The god tilts his head to give her a sharp look. “Yes. He is Jason Grace.”

Jason gives up on understanding anything and looks at the other man.

Who is not a god?

He’s completely freaked, though. Jason can’t even work out if this is horror or fear or something else entirely.

He’s sitting in a wheelchair, pulled up to the round table. Jason can’t even make a guess at his age. Over thirty, and under sixty? Short black hair, tanned skin and features that look vaguely Mediterranean. Bushy black eyebrows and sharp brown eyes that are currently blown wide as his face takes on an increasingly sickly sheen, still goggling at Jason.

“Um, sir? Are you okay?”

The man jerks back and chokes out, “You should be dead.”

In the echoing silence, Jason grits out, “Can someone please explain what the FUCK is going on?”

The god gives him a filthy look. “Are you really that slow? Show Horseface your arm. Let’s get this over with.”

Jason tries to get his anger under control, now is the time to explode. He needs to understand the situation. He’d like to pretend he doesn’t understand what’s being asked of him and show them his unmarked left arm, if only to get some control back, but he carefully holds out his right arm, showing his legion mark.

The man in the wheelchair stops breathing, eyes bugging out. Piper eyes him uncertainly and edges her chair away from him.

Piper turns back to Jason and fixates on the tattoo. “That looks burned. Like with fire, not just tattooed. How old are you? I thought you were fifteen?”

Jason tries to keep his face expressionless. “It was burned. When I was eight. I’m fifteen now.”

That shuts down any further comments from her. He shouldn’t feel so savage about it, but he does.

The man in the wheelchair tries to speak several times, never getting any words out, before he stops and pinches the bridge of his nose and breathes deeply a few times.

He turns to Jason and opens his mouth to speak and-

The god drawls, “Horsebutt, do you really want to break that oath? Think very carefully now, Lady Styx is a harsh mistress.”

The man shuts his eyes, too many emotions crossing his face at once. “Why is he here? It’s a violation of that oath. Who brought him here?”

“You’re the only one that was bound in that way. The rest of us could be trusted to know what was safe to share. We aren’t going off half-cocked like you do so very consistently.”

The man asks tightly, “Will you explain it, then?”

“Thought we’d let Jennings do that.”

Piper’s apparently decided to ignore Jason’s comments about branding, and she’s back scrutinising the tattoo, looking puzzled. “Is that like code or something?”

Jason looks down at his arm. A stylised eagle, the letters ‘SPQR’ and eight stripes for eight years with the legion. Piper definitely doesn’t recognise it.

“It’s the symbol of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. The last legion of Rome.”

“Like, Ancient Rome? I don’t think Italy has legions? Wait, I thought you were a demigod?”

Jason has a very sinking feeling.

He’d been trying to ignore it this whole time. Piper had said multiple times that this place was a sanctuary for demigods. If even a quarter of the people he’s seen so far are demigods, they have far more here than New Rome and Camp Jupiter do.

Piper’s bronze transforming sword. Bronze. Not gold. Exactly like the ones wielded by the dracaenae on Mount Tam.

That casual mention of a Prince of Atlantis, implying sea gods are known and welcome. Or are at least seen positively, if that was a nickname rather than a title.

The blank look on her face when she saw his tattoo.

He speaks evenly. “Yes, I’m the son of Jupiter. Champion of Juno. Praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata.”

The man the god calls Horseface - Horsebutt? - grows more and more upset as he speaks, and then he freezes, looking baffled.

“Pardon me, but I was unaware legions had a praetor?”

Jason answers as politely as he can. “I didn’t choose the names of the ranks, sir.”

Piper’s also confused. “Uh, Roman names of Sky King and Sky Queen? That’s different?”

The god snorts, “Our children are born to different aspects. You of all people should know that, Padme.”

“I’ve never heard of a child of a Roman aspect, so sue me!”

Well, that’s pretty much confirmation.

He has to ask, though.

“You’re Greek, aren’t you?”

She blinks at him, startled. “Yes? What else would we be?”

This is a nightmare. Jason needs to wake up now.

He asks tightly, “Could someone please explain what’s going on?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Bacchus asks.

Except. He’s not Bacchus, is he?

“Why do you look like Bacchus?”

“Gods are a touch more than your little minds can handle, so you see what you expect to see. I am Bacchus. But it is not the only name I’m known by.”

Piper adds cheerfully. “Personally, I like Douchecanoe best, but most people call him Mr D.”

Every name Piper has used for him starts with D.

This isn’t happening.

“You’re Lord Dionysus.”

“Ah, very Roman of you. Perfectly respectful to my face. No telling what’s said behind my back, though.” The god winks at him.

Piper’s been insulting him this entire time. Jason can so picture Octavian’s face if he told him the Greeks gleefully insult their gods to their faces.

And aren’t incinerated for it.

He turns to the other man. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not sure who you are.”

“No, you wouldn’t know me. My name is Chiron.”

Jason freezes. You have to be kidding. The son of Kronos?

The god - Dionysus - chortles. “Not that Chiron. Though your level of panic is appreciated. That Chiron died millennia ago when the moronic loser stabbed him with a poisoned arrow. It was all rather too dramatic, even for my tastes.”

This is like being seven years old and seeing New Rome for the first time. He shouldn’t ask, he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself.

“…The moronic loser, sir?”

“The idiot who claimed he did twelve labours. We don’t speak his name. In your parlance, his memory has been sentenced to oblivion.”

The greatest hero to have ever lived is to be erased from history and living memory. What?

Can he please wake up now?

Chiron adds softly, “It was the young prophet who asked for it. He had some very compelling reasons.”

Jason snaps his head to focus on him. “The prophet? You know where he is, sir?”

It feels like the temperature in the room drops below freezing. The three other occupants all sit stiff and glaring at him, fire in their eyes. Piper’s got the hair clip back in her hands, and Dionysus’s eyes are burning with purple fire.

His voice carries the threat of madness and death. “Why?”

Jason’s definitely stepped on a landmine, and he doesn’t know how to defuse it.

“He helped a friend of mine, sir. Saved her from something terrible. She’s been desperate to see him, to thank him. I promised I’d help.”

Dionysus watches him with intense eyes. “You speak of your fellow praetor.”

Jason nods, feeling a bit like the air is being stolen from the room.

The god smirks and leans back. The heaviness lifting. “Do not concern yourself with the prophet. He does as he wishes, and the rest of us dance to his tune.”

The room is still too tense and quiet, and Jason is desperately thinking of Dom outside. He is so ready to leave. But he hasn’t seen Thalia.

He speaks firmly. “Can I please see my sister now?”

Chiron gives him a sharp look. “We will contact her, and she will be here shortly. In the meantime, I believe it would be wise if-”

The god smoothly interjects, “If we give him the full show and tell that we give every new camper. Don’t you agree, Poppy?”

“Madame Pomfrey? Seriously, Doorknob? At least put some effort in!”

Without drawing breath, Piper turns back to Jason. “He’s not wrong, though. How about we get you set up with the orientation film?”

Dionysus adds, “Tell him Hero’s rules too. Not the brat’s, the other set. Oh, and when you do the tour, give it to the bird too.”

He seems to think he’s won something, smiling smugly when Piper stops and gapes at him.

Jason cannot fathom the rules of whatever game Piper and Dionysus are playing.

Maybe they aren’t Greek? They’re just lunatics?

The god takes the cards left abandoned in front of all four of them and starts shuffling and dealing for a game between him and Chiron.

Piper makes a sharp aggravated sound and turns back to Jason. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Jason is glad of any excuse to abandon the bizarre conversations. He grabs his backpack and hurries after her, hoping he never has to go through that again.

Chapter Text

Piper leans against the wall and watches Jason go all gormless over the dorky orientation film.

Jeez, was she that bad when she arrived?

Wait. She was worse, wasn’t she? That whole charmspeaking everyone and attacking Percy thing. Never mind. This is now officially a judgement free zone!

Still. No question who his dad is with the number of idiotic faces he’s making. Zeus has always been the dumbest of the gods. She doesn’t care what Percy says, he’s been an unmitigated moron from start to finish.

It’s looking like his son is the same.

The film isn’t really that shocking. It’s a super basic introduction to the world of demigods and gods. An explanation of how the camp trains kids to survive because monsters will hunt them down relentlessly, and an overview of the whole Olympus in New York thing. Piper is careful to not react to the scenes of New York and a very young Lee talking enthusiastically about Olympus.

None of them can bring themselves to go into the city. Lee said he wouldn’t push right now, but they need to work towards leaving camp more often, even if all of them plan to live here after they age out.

Being attacked by storm spirits on a simple fetch trip isn’t helping.

Damn, she completely forgot to tell Chiron about that. Here’s hoping that Thalia will know more when she arrives. New monsters are never good.

Chiron probably won’t want to talk about them. He was, like, intensely freaked. He’d seemed to be doing better since he returned? Hades and Apollo had done something for his immortality curse thing.

It’d been a trip to find out that Chiron was cursed. She’s not sure Chiron was even aware that he’d been cursed by Zeus of all people.

The curse didn’t even have anything to do with Chiron. Zeus was pissed at Apollo.

The first Chiron, the super dead son of Kronos, trained Apollo’s baby medicine god, Asclepius. Apollo himself taught the first Chiron. OG Chiron got shot by the moronic loser with a poisoned arrow. Piper has no clue how it connects, but it resulted in the original Chiron sacrificing his life, or essence, something like that, so that Zeus would free Prometheus.

Since OG Chiron trained Achilles and was shot by Heracles, that must mean Prometheus was freed a little over three thousand years ago. Wonder what he got up to between being set loose and the recent war?

Piper really doesn’t get why anyone would want to free Prometheus. He’s back where he belongs now, having his liver eaten by a vulture in Tartarus for all eternity. Justice is served.

Anyway. OG Chiron, super dead. Couple thousand years ago, a centaur is born and his doting mother names him Chiron after the Trainer of Heroes. Oh. Ew. Baby centaurs. Nope. Piper does not need to think about where baby centaurs come from. Ever. No, thank you.

Piper checks on Jason, but he’s still gawping at the hokey orientation film like a total brainless moron.

Cool. Guess he’s got some resemblance to the moronic loser. They’re brothers after all?

No. Stop now, Piper. Be a bitch to people who deserve it. Until he explains why he let Thalia believe he was dead, she can’t judge him too harshly.

According to Percy, Horsebutt Chiron had shown a lot of aptitude for training heroes. He’d made a name for himself. He even had a whole succession of demigods who did great things. Piper’s never been given any names, so she can’t confirm this herself.

But centaurs aren’t usually immortal. They live, like, a couple hundred years, max? Except Horsebutt Chiron impressed Zeus, and it led to the immortality thing. Which the centaur readily admits.

The bit she’s thinking he didn’t know about was that Zeus was super pissed at Apollo for Asclepius, the baby medicine god, being resurrected after Zeus murdered him. Percy says the Fates resurrected the guy, but Zeus thinks Persephone and Apollo did it.

Because, you know, he’s an absolute moron.

So, Asclepius got imprisoned far away from the mortals, and Apollo spent a year as a mortal in service to some random king. Persephone was bound to the surface world for six months of every year, forcefully separated from her beloved husband, and, to really rub salt in the wound, Zeus made Horsebutt Chiron immortal.

He did it super badly too. Made Chiron loathe Hades, since Hades was the only god who could release Chiron from his binding and give him rest in Elysium.

Piper gets the impression there was also an implied threat in it. Since Chiron is extra loyal to Zeus and bound to the camp, and all of Apollo’s kids come here.

Chiron had been doing better. He’d finally stopped bitching about Percy needing ‘proper training’, and didn’t even suggest teaching Clarisse. Though that might be because Clarisse kept trying to skewer him on the end of her trident?

But he’d looked Nico in the eye! It’s the little things, you know?

Then Chiron saw Jason and looked so panicked.

Piper can admit it. Chiron was afraid.

She eyeballs Jason. Sure, he’s got the whole perfect soldier thing going, but they deal with powerful demigods on the daily. Why’s this kid so scary?

Piper doesn’t know much about Ancient Rome. She knows Chiron was born after the fall of Ancient Greece, and she’s pretty sure Rome conquered Greece.

…Maybe? History’s really not her thing.

She hasn’t looked closely at the books Percy left her, but she thinks one of them was a history of the rise and fall of Rome. She’d thought it was so totally bizarre when she saw it. Guess she knows why he gave it to her now?

The film moves onto the extra section that was added since Piper first came to camp, with Lee and Silena explaining the living situation options for new campers. They’ve been in place for ages, but Lee’s been pushing harder and harder to not have kids at camp year round. The war’s over now, so they can ease up again.

Jason seems a little too stunned over what’s pretty basic information. Like, she gets it might be new information, but his reaction is kinda over the top for that?

Piper squints at the film. It’s definitely the same one she’s sat in on practically weekly for years. Every time a new demigod arrives, either Piper or their new Cabin Head sits with them while they do the full show and tell. The little kids find Lee a bit too intimidating these days.

Kids with decent mortal parents are encouraged to live at home. They’re only required to visit camp during the summer, but their cabins are always open to them. Lee would very much prefer that kids come to the camp where they are safe, rather than going to babysitters or extended family members if their parents need to go away or are deployed.

With the mortal world having so many issues, Piper knows the camp is financially supporting more than one mortal family. Usually because the mortal parent reached out and asked if the kid could live at camp since they were about to start living out of their car. Lee never hesitates, just immediately asks what they would need to give their kid a safe home, along with any mortal siblings.

If a kid has a good mortal parent, Lee does whatever he can to keep them at home.

Around three quarters of their summer campers have decent homes to go to. They’re the kids they see the least of. It gets hard to remember that good parents exist when the others have such shit luck.

The ones without a safe home and a loving mortal parent are encouraged to stay at camp until they’re ready to decide what they want to do. Most choose Lee’s version of foster care, which sets them up with adult demigods that Lee knows and trusts.

Piper’s pretty sure Mr D and Apollo keep an eye on them too. Lee’s never explained who’s responsible, but there’s warding placed on their houses and schools, things guaranteed to keep the monsters out of specific locations. It doesn’t entirely guarantee that there won’t be any monster attacks, but it majorly reduces the risk.

The kids who are totally burned on the concept of trustworthy adults go to boarding schools with an embedded demigod or satyr.

It’s still kinda hit and miss. As much as it drives Lee nuts when kids run away from their schools or foster homes, all of them know if they bail they’ll be welcomed at camp, no matter how dramatic their escape was.

They’ve only had four incidents of extreme property destruction from fire or other catastrophes since Piper started helping Lee out. And two of those were monster attacks, so they totally don’t count. All the kids made it safely back to camp, and no mortals died, so it’s all good as far as she’s concerned.

The video gives a whole blurb about how camp can fund college, internships and other qualifications, and they’ll do everything they can to set campers up for adult life in the mortal world.

It doesn’t explain where the funding comes from, but it’s mostly because of Percy being here.

Some of it is because he’s a sea kid. They get some intensely ambiguous forms of support from the goddess Rhode, who no-one seems to have ever met. Piper’s under the impression Rhode is pretending to be a mortal and living somewhere in Greece? Maybe still on the Island of Rhodes? Rodos? Either way, she’s been sending money to Lee and the camp since Percy arrived.

Apollo and Mum both provide a ton of funding for various vague reasons. Apollo wants his prophet to have the best of everything. Mum is grateful for Percy’s ‘prophecies’ that amount to him telling her if it’ll rain on the weekend.

She uses him as a valid excuse for being at the camp and stops to talk to her kids while she’s here, like they’re an afterthought and not her whole reason for visiting.

Zeus may be very, very dumb. Percy claims he knows and is turning a blind eye, Piper’ll believe it when she sees it. Seems more like he’s permanently misplaced his one remaining brain cell.

With the recent change to the patronage system, they have even more funding coming in from multiple places now. Paying for Ivy League college educations all round doesn’t even make a dent.

Even if they had no funding, Piper’s betting Lee would’ve found a way to make it happen.

Lee’s told Piper he felt like he was going to jinx everything, adding that section about life after camp to the orientation video.

Nathan, a son of Ares, is the oldest demigod anyone knows, and he’s thirty-two. Most of Nathan’s generation is long dead. Most of Lee’s generation is dead too, the ones who were year rounders with him are still around, but that’s about it. Very few auxiliaries are older than Lee.

Other than Luke, there’s no evidence that anyone from Kronos’s army was older than twenty-five. But Lee and Nathan both say that for most campers, monster attacks drop-off by the time their powers settle, and all but stop after they reach twenty.

If they reach twenty.

In theory, the demigods that have next to no power aren’t affected by the monster attacks. They don’t really see them much at the camp.

There’s a number of sea kids who turned up out of the blue to join the auxiliary and disappeared the moment the war ended. Piper’s still unclear if they aren’t affected by monsters because their parents were little known sea gods with no power, or if they live in Atlantis under Poseidon’s protection.

There are also far too many kids who never make it to camp in the first place. They die in a monster attack before the satyrs or Percy ever find them. Lee says it’s best not to think about it, what matters is that they keep trying. Piper suspects Lee does dwell on it, but not where anyone else can witness it.

What isn’t mentioned in the video is that a much smaller number of campers stay at camp full time. Lee heavily discouraged that one, since he’s known for years that war was coming. The only ones who stayed were the ones who wanted to join the war, or who had powers that made living in the mortal world near impossible.

Given the small flood of younger campers since Lee lifted restrictions at the end of August, it’s more than only those who have to stay who want to be here.

The film winds down, and Jason is staring at the black screen, mouth open, his eyes huge. They’re also kinda vacant. Oops. Too much already?

“You okay, dude?” He snaps out of it as he focuses on Piper.

All of him is super intense. “How many people go to this camp? If they don’t all live here?”

Piper gives him a sceptical look. “Why do you want to know?”

Jason makes a wordless, frustrated noise and scrubs at his hair.

“Gah! Look. Let’s swap information? Would that help?”

“Depends what’s on offer?”

“The Roman legion has around two hundred kids on average. They mostly arrive when they’re twelve and serve for five years. They don’t leave, they’re there year round, summer and winter.”

“So it’s a military school?”

“Minus the school part. We don’t teach mortal lessons.”

Piper’s eyebrows rise to her hairline. She might hate homeschool, but she understands why it’s important.

She offers, “We take in demigods at any age. Most are around twelve or thirteen when their powers start acting up, but we’ve had everything from newborns on up. We have just over a hundred and twenty under-eighteens registered as campers at the moment. No Sky King campers right now, though. There’s another list of kids that we’re keeping an eye on who are too young for camp.”

Jason switches focus to gaze at his hands, that are lying all still and statue-like in his lap.

Even his voice is robotic. “Demigods. They’re all demigods?”

“What else would they be?”

Jason’s eyes stay fixed on his hands as his voice goes tight with emotion. “There are eight demigods in the legion. Three more adults that I know of, though one was never part of the legion. The rest are legacies.”

“The fuck is a legacy?”

“Someone descended from a demigod.”

Now it’s Piper’s turn to gawp at him. Why would that be important?

“So, a mortal?”

He looks up, startled. “Wait, you don’t have legacies?”

“No? Occasionally someone might have divine heritage, but they don’t have powers and the monsters don’t notice ‘em, so they don’t need to be here. Why would you choose this life if you had another option? Can these legacy people even see through the Mist?”

Plenty of demigods struggle with it, but with enough training, they can all see through the Mist that hides monsters.

Like with Bianca, who managed to get kidnapped by a manticore, who she saw as one of her teachers. After that, she was absolutely determined it was never happening again. Thalia says Bianca is one of the best at seeing through Mist illusions now.

Most mortals can’t see through the Mist no matter how much training you give them.

Rachel had tried to explain the clearsighted thing to Piper, but that’s definitely separate from being descended from any random demigod. Something to do with two specific titans?

Jason flinches a little at her question. “A lot can’t, some can, though.”

Then he goes still as a statue again, is he even breathing? “Wait, you mentioned powers?”

“Yes? That thing that demigods have? That makes them very much not like the other mortals?”

“You have powers? You’re a demigod, right?”

“Yes, I’m a demigod. I don’t feel like sharing personal details right now. Why do you care?”

Piper has the distinct feeling that telling him about charmspeak is not the way to introduce him to their world. Since, for a presumably powerful fifteen-year-old demigod, he knows like, nothing. Better to start with the Athena and Hephaestus kids. Making stuff really well is always a lot less confronting as a power.

“If you have demigods with powers, that means you have Dii Consentes demigods here?”

“I don’t do Latin, dude.”

He’s genuinely startled. “Children of the twelve major gods? Like I’m a son of Jupiter?”

Piper gives him a sharp look. Why is he acting like this is the most unbelievable thing he’s heard yet? How many other things are going to make him flip out?

“Yeah. I’m out. You make no sense. Let’s go do the tour, ask questions after. ‘Kay?”

He hesitates. “Lord Bacchus mentioned something about ‘Hero’s rules’?”

She squeezes her eyes shut and debates walking out. No, Mr D was being serious. This isn’t him screwing with her. She hopes.

“Okay. You’re going to sit there and not say anything. I will explain. Then we will go and do the tour.”

He nods mutely.

“First. Stop. Naming. The. Gods. They hear you whenever you say their names. Monsters do too. Unless you’re certain you want them to hear you, use nicknames. He is Mr D. Your dad is Sky King. His wife is Sky Queen or Queen of Heaven.”

He looks like a stunned fish. It’s making her think of James, Percy’s weird demigod-cursed-to-be-a-goldfish pet. Percy took the goldfish with him to Atlantis and sent Piper pictures of James in Triton’s quarters. Which probably explains why Triton is at camp so often.

Jason is still gawking. Piper would really prefer to deal with James.

“Okay. Fine. What’s wrong now?”

“We’re taught to name them, because it makes sure they are remembered. Gods fade if they’re forgotten.”

“Since when? Seriously, our lives would be so much fucking easier if the gods disappeared if we forgot them. I’d be all up in that shit so fast.”

Zeus would definitely be her first target.

She barrels on before he says something else stupid. “Anyway. The Rules of Retaliation.”

Like everyone here, she can recite them by heart. The first time Piper heard them was after she’d stuck her foot in it big time and Lee was trying to stop the entire camp straight up lynching her.

“No demigod is expected to not retaliate when provoked, but every camper must obey the rules. No maiming, no killing, no injuries that will exhaust our medics or require nectar and ambrosia, nothing that will cause permanent or long-term mental or physical trauma. If you believe the offence warrants more, you are to bring it to your Cabin Head and not act independently. If you are unable or unwilling to retaliate, you can go to myself, Georgie or Will, who will retaliate on your behalf.”

She hesitates before including the most recent addition. “If you intend to take revenge against one of the long-term campers who remained here this summer, speak with your Cabin Head or Cabin Counsellor first, as you may unintentionally cause mental or physical trauma, possibly to yourself as well.”

Also known as some of them have not yet been convinced to return to the standard camp rules of keeping the dangerous weaponry locked away when inside the barrier, and they’re all on kind of a hair trigger.

Piper should have swung by Cabin Ten and put Salos in the weapons locker, but she’s really not ready to put it down with the way the new kid keeps blindsiding her. And Drew’s wearing all her knives today. Must’ve had a bad night.

If the new kid keeps staying stupid shit, she may need to suggest Drew lock her weapons up. Because Drew will definitely switch from bitchy asides to real-life stabbing.

With the auxiliaries still around, and the new Cabin Counsellor positions, Lee changed the rules so they only apply to the under-eighteens. Which means Drew can carry knives if she wants, but she normally doesn’t.

This would be the reason why.

“If you carry any live-edged weapons, they are to be kept in the weapons safe in your cabin and only carried outside the barrier. All under-eighteens are expected to abide by this rule, or your weaponry will be confiscated and only returned when you leave the barrier.”

Jason gives her a sceptical look. “Your sword looked pretty lethal.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah, I should’ve given it to Drew or Silena when we got back. We’ll stop off at Ten so I can lock it away.”

“Those rules about retaliation, they’re real? You aren’t having me on?”

“Yes? Demigods might be half mortal, but we’re half god too. It’s in our blood to respond full force when someone offends us. If we tried to stop campers reacting entirely, they’d explode in much more dangerous ways. Most problems are resolved through sparring or pranks.”

Jason’s similarity to a kicked puppy is increasing by the second. She doubts he’s even aware of the way he keeps shaking his head. Like it’s one idea too many. Why is this freaking him so much?

She relents and offers, “When I first arrived, I said something completely homophobic. Didn’t even mean it, I was ranting and trying to piss people off. I spent like a year ‘cursed’ with rainbow hair. Another time, a dipshit war kid hadn’t taken no for an answer from one of our littlies. Lee hunted him through the woods for, like, three hours. Didn’t hurt him, but every arrow hit barely two inches from him.”

Mick had totally deserved it. He’d told an eight-year-old all about how monsters were waiting right outside the barrier and would eat her whole unless she gave him the candy she’d brought for summer camp.

Bridie thought the whole thing was the best fun ever when Lee took her ‘hunting’. She and Mick are good friends now. Mick even admires Clarisse, despite her threatening him with dismemberment if he ever made a little kid cry again. Demigods are always their own extra special brand of weird.

Jason hesitantly asks, “Lee is like your praetor?”

“I don’t know what that is, but if you’re one, then, no. Lee’s the adult in charge. He’s twenty-eight. I get to fill in, and it’s fun pretending I’m boss of the world, but I’ve got adults backing me up.”

There’s only so many times you can play audience to Lee telling Percy that he is a child and Lee is an adult and Percy doesn’t need to do everything by himself before it sticks with you. It’s Lee’s philosophy for everyone at camp. He can’t protect them from everything, but he’ll damn well try. And in the meantime, it’s completely fine to be a kid and let someone else deal with the scary shit.

Even during a war.

Hang on. If Jason is a praetor…

“Wait, who runs your legion thing?”

This time, he meets her eyes and seems completely confident in his answer. “Me and Reyna. She’s my age. There are the two consuls in New Rome, but they have nothing to do with actually training or leading the legion.”

Was Apollo trying to stop Jason from meeting Percy, or was he trying to keep Lee away from Jason?

Because this guy’s every word would set Lee off. Piper’s really hoping Lee doesn’t feel the need to check in anytime soon. She’s definitely not going to be the one telling him about Jason’s batshit legion thing.

“Yeah. Forget I asked. Let’s go do the tour, and the less you say, the happier I’m gonna be.”

She ignores the way he looks like she suggested it was time for his public execution.

If Piper thinks about what he’s telling her, she will fall apart. They fought a war to protect their people. She does not want to know even one more thing about this kid’s past.

She all but collapses in relief when she sees who is waiting for them outside the Big House.

Reinforcements! Yes! Sophie and Jonathon laugh at her relief, and she leans into the dramatics.

She quickly introduces them to Jason and attempts to explain that he’s Roman. They take it better than she did. Makes sense, that’s their whole thing after all; knowledge and wisdom, or whatever Athena calls it now.

Sophie tells Piper, “Chiron says put him in Two.”

That works, he’s Hera’s champion. Apparently. Plus, no-one lives in One at the moment. There hasn’t been any need, though they may need to see if anyone wants to live there when summer comes. Thalia will stay in Eight. She’s assuming Percy’s already contacted her, based on that text.

Jason’s interrogating Sophie and Jonathon about being siblings.

This should be good.

Like, they look really similar. All the Athena kids do. Malcolm stayed on as Cabin Counsellor for Six and general camp tutor, and even he looks like an older Jon.

All of them have bright yellow-blonde curly hair, intense grey eyes and skin that tans super easily. Sophie has Athena’s sharp features, whereas Jonathon leans more towards the square chinned superhero type look. Piper’s kind of assuming he takes after his mortal parent. She’s pretty sure Athena actually met Jon’s parent. Not that it made his situation any better.

Sophie and Jonathon might be obviously siblings, but they take very different approaches in how they present themselves.

Sophie’s gotten kinda girly since the war, wearing lots of little flippy skirts and bohemian style tops, which- Yeah. Self-expression is great and all, but Piper’s really hoping it’s not because Sophie’s trying to make it clear she’s not Annabeth. She doesn’t need to wear dresses to prove that. They know she isn’t.

Now that the adoption is public knowledge, Jonathon has decided his new look is ‘metrosexual Clark Kent’, his words, complete with extra tight skinny jeans and a boy-next-door flannel button down. He even found himself a pair of the famous black-rimmed glasses. His makeup skills are totally improving. No clumpy mascara or smudged eyeliner today.

Sophie politely tells Jason, “We’re biologically half-siblings, on our mother’s side.”

Jonathon adds, “But I don’t recognise her. I like my real mum.”

Jason asks carefully, “Your mother had children by two different gods?”

Sophie’s face is completely genuine. “Pretty sure she has no children by any gods. Part of the whole virgin thing.”

The thing is, all Athena kids are absolute dickheads with explaining who their mother is. Piper doesn’t blame them. No-one’s surprised about Aphrodite having kids, but Athena really shouldn’t have any biological children.

When the Fates curse a god, they really, really curse them.

Piper takes pity on Jason. “Their mother is the wisdom goddess. We call her Grey Eyes. She used to create children and gift them to mortals she was fond of. Pretty sure Soph and Jon are the last ones, though. It was a whole thing, and I don’t feel like explaining it.”

She cuts him off with a sharp, “No names!” When he tries to ask if she means Minerva.

Jon tells him, “But I was adopted by Mum, Aphrodite. Most campers call her Beauty. The love goddess?”

“A goddess… adopted you?”

That seems to be the guy’s limit. Jason shakes his head, looking kinda broken. And way too much like an abused puppy. All big eyes and devastated face. Piper decides to pretend she didn’t see that.

Jason’s voice is all soft and pleading. “I know you want me to take a tour, but can I please have a break? I- I need to think.”

Sophie gives him a sympathetic look. “C’mon, I’m going out to the shed. Leo won’t mind if you hang out there, and no-one’ll bother you.”

Jason asks in a tiny voice, “Can Dom come?”

“Dom?”

He points towards the pine tree where the giant monster bird thing is standing next to Peleus. What did he call it? The eagle of Jupiter?

Wait, is the eagle Aquila? That’s part of the myths, right? Thalia has definitely bitched about ‘Zeus and his stupid eagle’.

Sophie tilts her head, looking completely unbothered. “If the robots fit, he’ll fit. Sure. Let’s bring the giant eagle too.”

Piper gladly leaves Jason with Sophie and dodges Jonathon’s invitation to hang out in Nightshade. Her brother gives her a painfully understanding smile and a soft, ‘maybe next time’.

She still can’t face Damien. Piper doesn’t even know why that fight is the one that stuck with her, but she can’t handle reminders of it.

She has her own thinking to do, anyway.

________________________

The latest new girl - Sophie? - leads Jason past buildings, more of those strange rock piles that he really doesn’t want to look too closely at, and what he thinks are practice arenas, straight to a huge metal shed that takes up most of a field.

Jason doesn’t even need to call out; he hears the soft thud of Dominus landing behind him as soon as they get close to the shed.

Sophie gives him an understanding smile. “Stay out of the areas marked off with yellow-tape, but you’re good otherwise.”

Jason nods jerkily and heads for the nearest corner, Dom following close behind. It’s some sort of machinery shed. There are empty sections marked off with the yellow tape, some with hoist type mechanical things. Maybe it’s a mechanic’s workshop?

Sophie’s already moved over to a much cleaner section full of big drafting desks. Another person is at the far end, talking to themselves in a staccato rapid fire and completely focused on whatever they’re working on.

Jason hesitates for only a second before he climbs to sit on top of the empty table in the corner, so he can lean against Dom’s side and not feel like a toddler.

The eagle nudges him with his head, looking at him worriedly.

“I… I wasn’t expecting this. I just wanted to see my sister.”

Dom nods, fluffing and flattening his feathers.

“You knew, didn’t you? That the Greeks were still around?”

Dom nods again.

“Octavian was certain they’d kill us if they knew about us.” Jason freezes. “Dom. I told them about the legion.”

Dom shakes his head gently, then nudges Jason again.

“Could you please just talk?”

Dom slowly shakes his head. Jason’s certain the eagle has other ways to communicate. He’s too smart. Far beyond even the other eagles at Camp Jupiter. Maybe not Lauta, but she’s pretty stand-offish. Jason’s fairly sure Lauta is Dominus’s mate. So that might explain why she’s different from the other eight giant eagles.

He’s avoiding the subject, isn’t he?

Okay, let’s think this through.

If the Greeks were going to kill him, Dom would have already kidnapped him. The eagle’s always been a bit too willing to scruff Jason like a kitten and bodily haul him away from anything he considers dangerous.

Jason remains firmly in denial about the whole being parented by an eagle thing. Same as he likes to pretend he wasn’t raised by a giant wolf goddess.

Oh.

If anyone from the legion was going to handle today’s revelations, it’d be the one who has a different scale of weird than the others, wouldn’t it?

If this is breaking Jason, Reyna would have already given into the bloodlust and stormed out. Especially when she realised how much funding this place has.

Octavian wouldn’t make it past the realisation they were Greek before hightailing it out of here and mustering the legion to attack.

Dakota might handle things better, but the moment the legion found out he’d met Greeks, he’d be run out of New Rome. Bacchus isn’t liked or trusted in New Rome, and people see Dakota the same way because of it.

Jason gets respect solely for who his father is, and because Juno is his patron.

“I met Juno today, Dom. Juno.”

He knows Piper is incredibly upset by his saying the gods’ names. And he will try to stick to her rules. But not when he’s talking to Dom. He’s always said Juno’s name.

Dominus rests his head against his cheek, and Jason shoves down on the unexpected prickling in his eyes. Jason never cries. Not in years. He’s not going to start now.

Romans don’t show weakness. Not to each other and definitely not in front of people they can’t trust.

Ignore it. Focus on Juno. What did she tell him?

She started with that weird thing about the cave being the boundary between the ocean and the Underworld. Neptune and Dis Pater, he’s assuming. Or Poseidon and Hades?

Then, she talked about Beryl and Thalia. About why Jason was given to her.

Jason and Thalia shouldn’t have been born. If they’d stayed with Beryl, they would have been killed. But they’d also needed to be separated.

Oh.

“Dom, is Thalia Greek?”

Dom nods against his head.

“Juno said I had a destiny, but I could choose whether or not I accepted it.”

Another brush of feathers against his cheek as the eagle agrees, still pressed against Jason and letting him take comfort in his warmth.

He used to do this when he was little; sneak out of Camp Jupiter and climb up the Eagle Trees until he could cuddle in against Dom. It reminded him of being with Lupa and her pack. Right now, it feels like Dom is the only thing keeping him tethered to the real world.

Juno had talked about the Battle of Arausio. She’d called it a slaughter and questioned Jason about who had been involved. She’d been happy when he said he thought the Cimbri were a Germanic tribe.

The Battle of Arausio isn’t one they studied in the legion or at New Rome School. It’s something Reyna insisted he learn. Because one hundred and twenty thousand Roman legionnaires died when two leaders refused to speak to each other.

Both leaders were Roman. But one was the local proconsul, and the other was a consul from Rome. They had the same goals, and they came from the same place, but they refused to acknowledge the other.

“Dom, Juno talked about the Battle of Arausio, then she called me a peace offering. She said I needed to understand the people I was going to meet. Because I was, ‘a bridge to overcome millennia of hatred’.”

Dominus gives one of his little breathy coos. Reyna describes the giant eagle sounds as the ‘most pathetic puppies she’s ever heard’. She’s not really wrong.

Jason looks around, scanning the room, but Sophie is still at the far end and the other guy is maybe singing? He’s not sure, he could just be talking really fast, and he’s doing something that sizzles and throws up sparks.

Jason murmurs to Dom, “Octavian said a single Greek demigod could kill hundreds in a day. He was terrified of them. Dom, there’s over a hundred demigods based here, and I’m pretty sure they all have powers.”

Dom pulls back so one giant eye is glaring directly at Jason, very sceptically. How on earth does Dominus convey emotion so well? He’s an eagle! It’s so frustrating that Dom can so obviously communicate, and yet he won’t speak.

Okay, Jason’s spoken to several of the people here now, and other than being confused about his being Roman, none of them seemed all that violent. Piper pulled a sword on Dom, but she’d looked terrified. Worse than Octavian’s ever looked. She didn’t do anything either. Only clung to her sword until Bacchus, no, Dionysus, told her to stand down.

She’d mocked Dionysus to his face. He’d mocked her right back. They’d both acted as if antagonising each other was entirely normal.

The only one who seemed truly upset was Chiron.

Chiron.

“Dom, I met someone called Chiron. There’s a Chiron in Greek myth…?”

Dom firmly shakes his head. Good. One thing he doesn’t need to panic over. He’s been avoiding even thinking about how the Greek Kronos and the Roman Saturn could possibly be the same titan, he’d like to go on not thinking about that.

Bit difficult if that guy was the son of Kronos, though.

Jason leans into the eagle again, speaking whisper quiet. “Dom, I don’t feel safe here. It feels wrong, dangerous. I shouldn’t be here.”

Dominus tucks his head over Jason’s, his wing wrapping around him, pulling him into the eagle’s version of a hug.

The eagle might not talk to him, and he might do bizarre things like bringing Jason random weapons the eagles scavenged from gods only know where, but he’s never let him down.

Jason still doesn’t know why Dominus even stuck around. He’d been sent by Juno, along with the other eagles, on Jason’s eighth birthday. He’d brought a letter with him, saying that Dominus was only there temporarily, until two eagles were chosen to stay with the legion.

Instead, all ten eagles stayed. That was seven years ago now.

They sit quietly for a while, Jason doesn’t know how long. He’s snapped from his little bubble of calm by shouting.

“Soph, you could’ve fucking mentioned the giant bird! I thought it was another statue the twins snuck in! But then it moved!”

Sophie answers much more quietly. “I tried. You were doing the hyperfocus thing. Besides, Jason needed a break. The eagle’s with him. His name is Dom, I think?”

“The fuck is Jason?”

Jason sighs and uncurls. Dominus is very fluffy when he wants to be; he doubts anyone could see him.

He scoots to the edge of the table and drops to the floor. “I’m Jason.”

He finally gets a good look at the guy.

Dark curly hair, brown skin, and a bright smile stretching across his face. Around Jason’s age. He’s got a leather apron on over his clothes, but there are definite scorch marks on his sleeves.

This guy has incredibly intense dark brown near-black eyes that are fully focused on Jason. A little too focused.

“New kid! Older new kid, too! Excellent! New blood is awesome! Which god are you?”

The boy drops what he’s doing to barrel towards him, and Jason can’t help throwing his hands up to block him.

Sophie sighs exaggeratedly behind the boy. “Leo. Take it down a few thousand notches. Give him some room.”

The boy, Leo, comes to a screeching halt, ducking his head and rubbing at the back of his neck.

“Sorry, dude. I get excited and kind of forget to rein it in. Still. Great to meet you! I’m Leo, son of Hephaestus and the best damn automaton mechanic you’ll ever meet!”

Sophie scoffs. “You claiming you finally fixed the dragon then?”

“I’ll get it, just you wait!”

Jason interjects, “Uh, do you mean that dragon I saw on the hill?”

“Nah, that’s Peleus. He’s like, a real biological dragon. Soph’s talking about the automaton. Festus needs some work still.”

“Festus?”

“Yeah, like, short for Hephaestus?”

“You know Festus means happy in Latin. But like in the Happy Holidays kinda sense?”

Bad Latin, but still Latin.

Happy the dragon. The world has stopped making sense, and Jason’s thinking that situation is unlikely to change in the near future.

Leo’s face goes through a whole range of contortions.

He’s still facing Jason, Sophie behind him, when he says, “Soph. Remind me to kill that dickhead the next time I see him. I don’t care how many gods it pisses off.”

That would explain the bad Latin then.

Jason waits out the rapid mocking exchange that he doubts will be explained. These people don’t seem to do explanations.

Sophie brightly tells Leo, “Sure. You think it counts as regicide if we aren’t Atlantean?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Just want to know the right word so I can tell your hero story accurately.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks. Not my type.”

“What, too short and brown?”

“Too smart. I like ‘em dumber. Also, with different parts.”

Leo snorts. “Fair. Long as you’ve got your priorities straight. Anyway, Jason. Who do you belong to?”

Jason cringes and explains, yet again, that he’s a son of Jupiter and the champion of Juno. And that he’s Roman. Sophie tells Leo, “Same as Piper’s Areia and you’re Pyrotes.”

“Oh! I gotcha. The aspect weirdness. That mean you do the lightning thing too?”

“The lightning thing?”

Sophie cuts Leo off before he can answer. “Jason’s Thalia’s little brother, Leo.”

Leo jerks backwards, tucking his hands behind him.

His whole tone turns extremely deferential. “I definitely need to know if you can do the lightning thing, then. But please know I am asking very politely and super don’t want to be fried.”

“Thalia can wield lightning?”

“Wait, you don’t know?”

“I was pretty sure she was dead until a few weeks ago. That she died when I was two.”

Leo scrunches his nose. “Well, she was kinda dead for a while?”

Wait. What the hell?

“Leo, maybe leave that story to someone else? It’s probably best if it comes from Thalia herself.”

Jason wants to shake answers out of them.

He doesn’t.

He quietly says, “They said I’d see her. It’s why I came.”

Sophie moves to stand beside Leo, giving him a reassuring look. “And you will. She’s not been around the last couple of months, but before that she was in and out a lot. Someone will have let her know you’re here, and she’ll come as soon as she can.”

“She’s okay, then?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s just a bit terrifying with the lightning strikes. She likes freaking Leo out.”

Leo’s voice is sour. “Everyone likes freaking Leo out.”

“Not our fault you’re such a wuss. C’mon, we should head to lunch, now you’ve rejoined the real world.”

She looks over at Jason. “You up for lunch with everyone? I can bring you a plate if you’d rather stay here?”

Jason very much would prefer that, but it’s better if he gets this over with.

Every person he’s met has been completely overwhelming. Like Dakota at his most chaotic, except this seems to be their normal. Leo hasn’t stopped moving for even a moment, all of him twitching and moving about, hands beating out a drum solo only he can hear, rocking back and forth on his heels, eyes flicking around.

Leo looks the way Jason feels most of the time. That constant need to move, to let his feet bounce and his hands dance. He’d already been learning to contain it before he arrived at Camp Jupiter, and the legion made sure he got it under control.

Actually. Sophie is less obvious with it, but she’s got the same constant movement, that stylus has been spinning non-stop through her fingers. Piper was the same, fidgeting constantly.

By the time he’s sitting in an open-air pavilion, surrounded by chattering kids who are more interested in food than checking out the newbie, Jason is certain this is an alternate universe. Dom’s already flown off to wherever he disappears to, so Jason doesn’t even have the eagle to keep him grounded.

All thirty something people here are doing the same hyperactive non-stop movement. Even the adults. Multiple fights break out with kids wrestling each other off of benches, and no-one reacts.

At all.

If even only the last ten minutes of chaotic wrestling had happened in the mess hall of Camp Jupiter, Jason and Reyna would have been hauled in front of the City Senate to explain themselves. They’d be expected to justify why they should remain as praetors when they’d lost control of the legion.

Here, it’s apparently normal.

Sophie leaves him with Silena, who is the Cabin Counsellor of Cabin Two, and the three younger kids sitting with her are introduced as Ash, Allysa and Bruce, ‘but everyone calls me Butch’.

All four are demigods. Silena’s a daughter of Aphrodite, Ash is a son of Angelos, Allysa is a daughter of Morpheus and Butch is a son of Iris. Butch is the only that makes sense for a demigod living in Juno’s Cabin. Since Arcus is Juno’s messenger.

They make a point of telling him that the minor gods have less kids than Olympians, so it’s fine if he isn’t familiar with their godly parents. Jason doesn’t know how to respond.

Silena smoothly interrupts to remind the kids to give offerings.

The three younger kids pick up their plates and walk to the brazier that sits centrally between the fourteen tables in the dining pavilion, and Jason watches, confused, as each kid pushes a portion of food into the flames, shutting their eyes with intense focus showing on their faces.

Silena murmurs, “We give a portion of our food as an offering to the gods. Some do it at every meal, others at a specific meal, but we pretty much all make offerings every day.”

Jason’s chest goes tight at such a casual explanation.

The consuls all but ban sacrifices and offerings and claim, ‘it’s too Greek’.

Do they know about this? Did they know this place was here and just never told anyone?

It’s also still Dies Ater, even if it feels like decades since Jason left his Praetorium this morning. No sacrifices or offerings are to be given on Dies Ater. But there’s no reason anyone here would even know what it is, or care. He doesn’t think he has it in him to explain.

Silena watches him and speaks kindly, “You don’t need to do anything. I know this place can be pretty overwhelming; most new campers struggle to adjust at first.”

Jason thinks about twelve-year-olds bursting into tears as they try to make sense of their armour for the daily evening muster. Of kids overwhelmed by the rigid schedules of the legion. Children who are expected to do eight-hour-long shifts as sentries from practically the day they arrive. Kids who desperately want to see their parents and don’t understand why their requests for furlough are denied over and over.

It’s one of the first things Jason and Reyna were intending to fix, now that they were both praetors, but then Hazel arrived and the consuls doubled down on that rule.

Jason and Reyna have gotten good at ignoring all the little ways legionnaires are ‘derelict in their duties’, from playing mythomagic during sentry duty to using mock naval battles as an excuse to turn the coliseum into a swimming pool.

Even if the Little Tiber feels weird to them, they’ve never stopped the legionnaires swimming in it on hot days. So long as the consuls aren’t demanding explanations, they push the boundaries of appropriate conduct as far as they can.

It’s not even that he’d ever been all that okay with the child soldier thing, but it was only when he led them into battle that it really hit him what they were doing.

Before that, it could be explained as helping them learn teamwork and discipline. Besides, it’s all Jason’s ever known. Reyna’s not much better. Dakota’s the one who keeps telling them that it isn’t normal.

Jason tells Silena, “I think I’m overwhelmed for an entirely different reason.”

“I’m here if you need to talk about it.”

He shakes his head, “I don’t know if I can. I just- This place is so different.”

“Well, try to eat some lunch. Piper has training soon, so we’ll have someone else escort you until she’s free again.”

The kids return and chatter among themselves, completely ignoring Jason and Silena.

A blonde guy walking past catches sight of Jason and stops. Blue eyes, light golden-blond wavy hair, freckles and paler skin than most people here. More like Jason’s, the sort that never really tans.

“Hey, you’re Jason, right?”

Jason nods, really not wanting to deal with someone else turning his world on its head.

He may yet decide that Octavian is right about how all Greeks are evil, because they are definitely breaking Jason’s mind.

“Good to meet you! I’m Will. Someone gave me a heads-up that you might need a proper med check. I’m the camp medic, you feel like stopping by the infirmary after lunch?”

Jason eyes him. He’s got that ambiguous older kid look to him. This guy could be an adult in his twenties, but he could also be a teenager who only looks older.

Jason’s used to Pranjal Gupta, son of Vediovis, claiming he’s the ‘Head Healer’ despite having no abilities or training. The legion relies on the little cottage hospital overseen by a legacy of Valetudo, who has proper training as a nurse. Jason relies entirely on Dominus bringing him nectar and ambrosia, he never goes near the cottage hospital.

“You sure you’re old enough to be a medic?”

Will laughs softly, looking amused. “If I were a normal mortal, probably not, but I do have the relevant academic qualifications. I’m also a son of Apollo with a natural healing ability.”

It’s like there’s a record-scratch in his brain as it stutters over ‘son of Apollo’, but Jason shoves it aside. The rules are different here. Hopefully, he never has to tell Octavian about any of this.

Silena grins at Jason. “Will really is the camp medic. It’s all above board, promise. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Jason frowns. “Who told you I needed a med check?”

Silena goes tense, but Will gives her a little head shake before turning back to Jason.

“It’s a bit weird. In Mr D’s words, ‘the featherbrain insisted’?”

Dominus.

Jason might need to be a little less suspicious. Of course Dominus would have a way to communicate with Dionysus, but won’t talk to Jason. And of course he’d want Jason to see a medic. He’s kind of always assumed Dom’s obsession with supplying Jason with nectar and ambrosia was the eagle’s version of fussing about his health.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll come see you after lunch.”

“Good man!” With a casual wave, Will moves off, towards the head table that sits facing the thirteen tables arranged in a fanned semi-circle around the brazier. The head table seems to be mostly for adults. The power Jason can feel from that direction is overwhelming, it presses on him.

Jason pretends he can’t see the fauns moving around that table. Or the one that seems to be treated as an equal by the others sitting there. The fauns act nothing like the ones at Camp Jupiter and New Rome. These fauns seem much more serious, and the one sitting next to Dionysus has his own crown of vines and is speaking earnestly to the god.

Yeah, Jason didn’t see that. That’s more than he can take. Same as he’s pretending Chiron hasn’t abandoned his wheelchair and is a grey horse below the waist. Nope. Not a centaur. Jason saw nothing.

Besides Dionysus and Chiron, three others are sitting there. Two red-headed women, one with curly waist-length hair hanging loose like a cape, the other with her hair nearly as short as Jason’s. He thinks the short-haired one is the same lady who’d been teaching the kids when he arrived.

The last man sitting there looks to be in his thirties. His posture and focus are so familiar, Jason could cry. This is the first military person he’s seen at the camp. He’s wearing camo, and his brown hair is in the same high and tight haircut as Jason’s. This man is sitting stiffly, posture perfect.

He’s also watching Jason with narrowed, wary eyes. Like he thinks Jason is a threat.

Oops.

Jason switches his attention to the other tables. He still hasn’t made sense of how things are organised here. He gets the impression there are rules about where people sit, but he can’t see any pattern to it. Jason’s at Table Two, and the tables on either side of him are empty.

After the empty table on his right, three tables have only two or three people each. Sophie sits at a table with a man who looks a lot like her. Followed by an empty table and a table with only one person. Next is the table where Leo sits with four others. Beside them, Piper is sitting in a similar group, and another group of five on the table after that. The last two tables have a group of three older teens at one, and Jonathon is sitting with a young kid at the last one.

The older girl with Piper is the same one he’d met earlier. The one with the glittery pink top and the hidden knives. She’s talking to Piper, but she keeps glancing over at him, and she has this look on her face, like he’s the most disgusting thing she’s ever seen.

Maybe she really doesn’t like purple?

Everyone is dressed differently to each other, though there seems to be a preference for tee-shirts and jeans, or tight workout clothes. A few girls are wearing skirts or dresses, but even those are the sort that make large movements easy. For all that, all of them are dressed in their own clothes. There are no uniforms, no cohesive clothing.

Jonathon is dressed in a way that would give the consuls conniptions for idiotic reasons, and he’s not the only one. The kids Piper is sitting with all seem to share her preference for that eye smarting shade of hot pink, but one’s wearing a dress, the boy with her is possibly wearing a skirt, or some sort of overly full shorts and the third is dressed in layers of black lace with a pink jacket over the back of her chair.

He can’t see any weapons. He’d clocked the pollaxe in the shed, but he’s not sure if Leo was actively working on it or if it’s his personal weapon. Besides, Piper’s sword had transformed from a hair clip, the same as Conservatori transforms from a coin.

He still has the knife on his belt, the one that converts to a parma shield. Jason has ended up naming it Defensor to stop Reyna constantly laughing at his trying to find a way to describe it. Jason’s not big on handing it over. It took years to get Conservatori back after he gave it to the praetors when he first arrived.

He looks over at Piper again. She never did tell him who her parent was.

Wait. He turns back to Silena. “Piper said you were her sister?”

Silena nods. “Yeah, Aphrodite’s our mother. Drew’s too. I’ve got six siblings at camp right now.”

“Piper said everyone has powers, but I didn’t think Ve- Uh, the love goddess had kids who inherited power?”

Silena tilts her head, looking confused. “All demigods are born with power. Except for Grey Eyes, but her kids were the result of a curse. Normally, every demigod inherits power from their parents. The strength can differ a lot, but we all have abilities. It’s why camp is so important.”

Yep. No more questions. He’s not going to like the answers. Minerva was cursed? What? By who? Jason didn’t think it was possible to curse a Dii Consentes.

He definitely doesn’t want to know what sort of powers children of Venus have. He can imagine everything from stopping someone’s heart with a thought to purifying pollution in town water supplies.

Someone with power inherited from Venus is a completely terrifying idea. It would be like a child of Ceres having power. Food supplies are essential for basic survival, people who have power over the food supply of an army win the war before it begins.

Silena gently coaxes Jason into letting go of the backpack he’s still carrying around with him, promising it’ll be safe in Cabin Two while he goes and sees Will. She doesn’t ask for the pugio, and no-one knows about Conservatori. He’s not giving them up until someone forces the issue.

By the time Will’s done with him, Jason’s certain every additional thing these people tell him is steadily destroying his soul.

Turns out, Jason’s eyes are fucked. Not from the Draco Hesperidium either. Will said he’s probably always needed glasses. But a face full of acid fog didn’t help.

He hadn’t told Will much about the fight, but Will seemed to be really uncomfortable with even the little bit Jason said. Not that he named the monster responsible, or who it was fighting. Until he knows how these people feel about Crius, he’s not admitting he kind of manipulated Juno’s dragon into killing a titan.

Will fixated on how Jason said he’d gotten a face full of acid fog and eaten a square of ambrosia to fix it.

He asked multiple different versions of ‘who checked you out after?’ The answer never changed. No-one. Well. Dom. Sort of. But no medical people. They don’t really do that in the legion? Serious injuries are sent to the cottage hospital, but any minor issues are up to the legionnaires to report in. Jason doesn’t need coddling.

Will had produced glasses from some sort of magic box that he nonchalantly said Apollo had given the camp, ‘being Protector of Youth and everything’, and Jason tried to not go to pieces as he put them on and the world came into focus.

Will told him they only had basic frames, but ‘Cabin Nine will upgrade them however you want, they’re really good with all that’, and Jason worked on remembering how to breathe.

The glasses are giving everything an extra surreal quality because nothing looks quite right. If he doesn’t focus, it feels a little like the ground is moving beneath him. Will had warned him it’d take a bit to adjust to them. Jason’s tempted to ditch them entirely. How’s he going to fight his way out of here when his eyes are being so weird?

Not like they’ll work with a helmet either, so they definitely won’t be going with him when he returns to the legion.

They give him something to think about other than Will’s casual use of genuine healing powers.

Leo was waiting for him when he walked out of the infirmary in the Big House, trying to deal with how disorientating the glasses were.

“Hey, Piper’s got a thing. She asked if I could take you over to the arena? The fights are always fun to watch, and she’ll do the tour stuff after.”

Jason nods tiredly and follows him. “Any chance we can skip the tour? This place is a lot. I’m not sure I want to know more.”

Leo laughs, as if Jason’s joking. Jason is still trying not to look at all the sculptures that are plopped down all over the place. If he convinces himself they’re really boulders, maybe he can hold on to some of his sanity.

“Everyone feels like that. I was thirteen when I got here, and it was, like, constant intense whiplash. I went from making plans for sleeping rough to being told I had a home here that no-one would ever take from me. Then Piper went, like, full psycho on her second day, and I got to see up close that no-one gets thrown out. Broke my brain, man.”

Leo catches himself, looking horrified. “Okay. That was a total overshare. Sorry. I kinda do that. A lot.”

Jason shakes his head. “It’s fine. So Piper’s always been intense?”

Leo snickers. “Nah, man. She’s totally mellowed out. We arrived the same day, and she kinda constantly rage-quit every conversation? Hilarious in hindsight, but freaked me at the time. Shit was scary.”

This was mellow?

When they got to the arena, Leo insisted on sitting mid-way up the tiered seating so they could get the best view. He doesn’t explain what they will be watching.

Which is an exhibition match. Jason thinks? It looks like most of the kids from the dining pavilion are here, and they’re all talking excitedly. They seem to be betting on how long Piper will last?

Jason looks at Leo. “They aren’t betting on the winner?”

Leo snorts, “Everyone knows who’ll win. The question is how long can Piper hold, and if she can beat any of the existing records.”

That tells him nothing. Are these people trying to be cryptic, or is it simply their natural state of being?

Three people are inside the arena. One person stands right inside the fence, their back to the stands. All Jason can really tell is they have black hair, hanging in a neat braid. They stand stiffly in a soldier’s stance, and they’re holding a silver spear, the butt resting on the ground. Jason thinks it’s a man, but given how heavily muscled most of the people here are, he’s not committing until they turn around.

Piper’s in the centre of the arena, holding the same bronze sword Jason had seen before. Definitely not a training sword. No shield either.

Standing with her is the red-head with the waist-length hair, though it’s been pulled back in a long plait now. She has green eyes and pale skin and makes him think of Ariel from the Little Mermaid for some reason. She’s calling up to the kids in the stand, heckling them back, telling them that whoever gets their bet wrong will be doing extra sessions with her.

Jason asks Leo, “Sessions?”

Leo nods. “Yeah, Georgie’s one of our trainers. She’s kinda new at it. She was still a camper when I arrived, but she’s way better than Chiron already.”

“How many trainers do you have?”

Leo frowns, silently counting on his fingers, then pausing and starting over.

Finally he says, “Kinda depends how you define a trainer? If you go by adults who are here solely as trainers, we’ve got four? Chiron, Georgie, Nathan and Kayla. Lee teaches advanced archery and marksmanship when he’s here. Austin’s started assisting Nathan with training. There are a few kids who are still underage who give classes, and others who come and go too.”

Jason needs to stop asking questions, he won’t like the answers. He tries to push away the déjà vu feeling of being seven and seeing the legion for the first time. Back then, the answers were upsetting for entirely different reasons.

The fight starts with no visible signal given.

Jason doesn’t have the words to describe it. He thought seeing Reyna give into bloodlust and fight full-out was terrifying. But this- This is beyond anything he’s ever seen.

Georgie has a silver spear, and Piper her bronze coloured sword. Leo says something about Piper wanting to learn to block without a shield and that she’s been practicing fighting different weapons with only a shortsword.

For someone who is ‘new’ at training, Georgie is an absolute whirlwind, her grip on the spear constantly changing as she switches between blocks and strikes, wielding the spear two handed across her body to take sword strikes on the shaft and carrying the momentum through into sweeping movements, trying to knock Piper’s feet out from under her.

Piper moves with less grace, but more ferocity, a snarl on her face as she spins and ducks and dances around Georgie, pressing every advantage. Occasionally, the sword or spear slips under a guard, and the person at the fence comes in with their own spear, moving lightning fast and deflecting the blade before it makes contact. Each time, they step back immediately, seemingly indifferent to how dangerous this fight is.

Piper’s a daughter of Aphrodite. Sure, Venus is a war god, but Jason can’t fathom Michael Kahale ever fighting like this. Is this how all of them fight?

Gods. No wonder Octavian is so afraid of the Greeks.

He murmurs, “How do they know when the fight’s over?”

“When Piper hits the ground or drops her sword.”

The ferocity increases as Georgie switches to offence and Piper falls back, defending herself and using the momentum of her blocks to slide into her own sharp strikes.

Until her sword slides against the spear shaft in exactly the wrong way, Georgie makes a sharp movement and the sword goes flying into the dust.

Loud crows of delight break out across the audience, with someone yelling about how Piper beat her record by a full forty-two seconds and Jason is completely dumbfounded.

Those were live blades, and they weren’t even trying to be careful. If a single strike had made contact, it would’ve been lethal.

“Leo. Isn’t that dangerous? Those weapons; one slip and they’d kill each other.”

Leo collapses into loud laughter, wiping at his eyes. Jason watches him, still baffled.

“Piper really didn’t explain shit, did she? She might be a demigod, but Georgie and Tri are gods. They’re perfectly safe training like that. We don’t fight like that against each other.”

Jason had been ignoring the feeling of power ever since he arrived. It was one thing to notice Silena and Piper felt like pure power, but they’d been the only people around. The moment they arrived at camp, all he could feel was power. He’d assumed it was from Dionysus, or from the number of demigods.

But here are two more gods. Gods who are directly training demigods.

“Are those nicknames? I’m not familiar with them.”

The black-haired man, because it is a man, has now moved to speak with Piper and Georgie, and Jason gets a good look at him. An extra clear look with his new glasses.

Which is when he notices the silver diadem.

He’s seen this god twice before.

All he knows is that he’s a sea god, and he watched Jason fail to fight the Trojan Sea Monster. He later showed up during a fight with a strix. He’d stood aside and only watched, both times.

Jason’s always suspected the god was the reason the Trojan Sea Monster didn’t outright eat him. That fight had been kind of entirely embarrassing. He still doesn’t know how he won.

He really doesn’t feel like meeting this god again. Jason is incredibly glad he hasn’t once looked over at him.

Leo grins at him, white teeth flashing in a wide smile. “Prince Triton, oldest son of the Sea King. We call him Sea Prince, but he’s one of the gods who doesn’t mind if we name him. His whole domain is, like, caring for adopted kids? Most of us call him Tri.”

Triton, son of Neptune and Salacia. Messenger of the sea. A Roman sea god who is all but ignored by New Rome.

This is fine. Everything is fine.

“And Georgie?”

“Uh, she’s a bit more complicated to explain. The short version is she was born a demigod daughter of Galene, and she was adopted by Triton. Last summer there was a lot of things going on, but during it, she ascended, so she’s, like, a baby god now? Officially, she’s Georghaliae, Goddess of Strategic Warfare, Hero Training and Daughterhood.”

Not only are the gods present and visible, they are still making new gods.

They are actively involved with the Greek demigods. They train them.

This is what the legion was meant to be, wasn’t it?

Jason shoves the thought down as soon as it pops into his head. The idea of Mars stalking through a legion war game is so ridiculous it’s impossible to imagine.

Jason and Reyna could never find where the hatred for the Greeks started. Queen Hylla of the Amazons, Reyna’s older sister, says that right before the Romans defeated them, the Greeks cursed them and that’s why so few Roman demigods are born now.

Octavian claims there are no demigods because the Greeks slaughtered them. That the legion moved to Glasgow in 1815 to hide from the Greeks. Jason’s always known there’s a strange gap in the historical records. There’s virtually no information between 1490, when the Byzantine Empire fell, and the legion presumably left Italy, to 1815 when they arrived in Glasgow.

There was only one time where Jason extracted more from Octavian. The older boy told him they’d been in France before Glasgow, but that’s all he’s gotten out of him.

Jason had deliberately provoked Octavian over his episode just after the battle, wanting to see if Octavian would give him more information. Octavian had been boiling with fury and blurted out that the legion was based in Avignon before he shut down on Jason completely.

But that definitely can’t be right. It’s the least likely place the legion could ever have chosen.

Jason’s thinking Octavian doesn’t actually know anything. It was Octavian’s great-grandfather who told him these stories, and he died when Octavian was nine and Jason was eight.

Piper comes bouncing over, an exhilarated grin on her face, nothing like the tense angry girl he’d been dealing with ever since he said Thalia was his sister.

“Hey! Ready for the tour? We gotta get your eagle friend, and then we can do the whole show and tell!”

Sure, why not.

Jason trails behind the incredibly bubbly girl, thinking vaguely of the time the former augur of New Rome told him he needed to learn to bend without breaking. That he had a difficult future of being caught between worlds and belonging to none.

Yeah, he’s decided. Octavian’s Proavus can rot in Tartarus. Fuck prophecy.

________________________

They may have broken the new kid.

She’d hoped Silena might calm him down some, but he’d looked so totally lost.

It really hadn’t helped when Piper realised Chiron’s abandoned his wheelchair. His broken legs from the war definitely aren’t healed enough for that, but he’s laser focused on Jason. He even had his quiver on his back and his longbow strung. Chiron’s treating Jason like he’s a threat.

Piper can’t see how; Jason looks like he’s about to shatter to pieces.

She’d had to keep distracting Drew at lunch. Piper’s not sure if Drew had a super shit night, or if she’s gone all protective mother hen, but Drew seems to think Jason is a clear threat and should not be allowed in the camp.

Piper was so incredibly done by that point.

She’d asked Leo to wait for Jason outside the infirmary and grabbed her phone and headed to the beach.

Percy picks up on the first ring, the strange whooshing sound proving he’s still in Atlantis. Magical phones are awesome, but really not something of interest right now.

“Surfer Boy, what the fuck is going on?”

Her voice was nowhere near as strong as she wanted.

Percy’s answer is super gentle. “Sorry, Angry Girl. I know this is shit. I don’t know if this’ll work, but something had to be done.”

“Does Lee know about this fucking cult compound he’s from?”

There’s a definite thread of anger in Percy’s voice. “Not yet, but he will. When the time is right.”

“This more prophecy bullshit? Why is this still happening?”

“I’m really sorry, Angry Girl. It had to happen now. It’s not like the Great Prophecy. There aren’t fated paths, just options. But it’s going to depend on how he handles seeing camp.”

“He said there were eight demigods in the legion. Which I assume means underage. Three more adult demigods. Percy, what are we doing?”

Soft laughter from Percy. “Guess he’s still refusing to believe Shadow’s a demigod. That should be nine underage, three adults.”

Piper jerks to her feet, all her focus on the phone. “Please tell me they haven’t fucking branded Nico.”

“No, it’s fine. They won’t be either. We gave him an official Roman title and sent him as a representative of his dad.”

Piper seethes, unable to choke words out.

“Take some deep breaths, Angry Girl. It’s okay. I’m on it. It’ll get fixed either way. I’m just waiting to see which way he goes. If he decides we’re potential allies, things’ll be easier. If he decides we aren’t, it’ll probably be straight up kidnapping.”

Piper slows her breathing, trying to calm down and remind herself this is not the end of the world. It’s fixable.

“Okay, so what do I need to do?”

“Don’t kill him. Or the eagle.” She winces, how the hell does he always know when she’s done something stupid?

“He keeps asking questions.”

“Yeah. He’s the sort who needs to know facts. Don’t expect him to be like Crackle; he’s head, she’s heart. Very different. ‘Pollo’s insisting he not know much about me or Red, but there’s no harm in answering his questions otherwise. Fine to tell him about the Second Prince of Atlantis. Maybe don’t talk about the war with him though.”

“Why shouldn’t I- Wait. The thrones. You said we didn’t need to deal with them.”

It’d been one of the more chaotic arguments straight after everything ended. She’d wanted to go back and make absolutely sure the titans were dealt with, but Percy had insisted it was fine and had been handled, he wouldn’t even let the auxiliaries go and check. He’d never explained.

“Yeah. They did the thrones. He didn’t have all the battles we did, he has no frame of reference. Give him time to adjust before anyone tries to explain it.”

“Why’s he so scared?”

She doesn’t do emotions like her siblings do, but she knows what terror looks like, and Jason’s been getting steadily more frightened the more he’s told. She’d peeked in at him in the workshop and felt her heart drop when she saw him curled up under the eagle’s wing looking so much younger than fifteen.

“It’s why Queen of Heaven wanted to wipe his memories before sending him to us. He’s grown up being told Greeks will kill him if given the chance.”

She chokes. “What, why?”

“I don’t know. I keep looking, but I can’t see whatever happened between the Greeks and the Romans. Just that it was terrible and the gods pretty much turned their backs on the Romans. It’s not like we kept historical records. ’Til recently, we were just trying to stay alive.”

“Sky Queen really wanted to mind-wipe him?”

“She had this idea that if he didn’t know who he was but believed he had pre-existing close relationships with us, he’d be more accepting. Like he’ll handle it better if he has no preconceived notions. But, well-”

She fills in for him. “Gods are gods, not people, and all that’ll do is completely destroy him.”

“Yep.”

“What should I do?”

“What you have been. Answer his questions, show him around camp. Prove he’s safe there. If I tell you about his weapons, are you willing to let him keep pretending he’s unarmed?”

“Tell me.”

“He has a little gold coin, it transforms into either a sword or a spear depending on how he wields it. The dagger turns into a big round shield, but more like our shields rather than the huge ones the Romans were famous more.”

She is never admitting how relieved she is to find out that the dagger isn’t really a knife. The way he wears what seems to be his only weapon so confidently. All she can see is Annabeth and her bronze dagger. A dagger that turns into a shield is so much easier to take.

“What powers does he have?” She hadn’t asked directly, because then she’d have to explain hers, and no-one handles that conversation well. ‘Hi, I’m Piper and I can mind-control anyone and everything with just my voice,’ goes down like a lead balloon.

“Wind control is all he’s aware of. He has some ability to sense if a person is powerful, but it’s untrained. He can fly on the wind, though. So that’s pretty cool.”

She hears voices in the background, and Percy tells her he needs to go. Some sort of meet and greet with yet more of his people. She’s never seen anyone so reluctant to wear a crown and be told how amazing they are.

“You will tell Lee, right?”

“Yeah, Angry Girl. Eclipse’ll know by Solstice at the latest.”

There’s a lot of resignation when he says Solstice. Great. More bullshit coming.

She says goodbye and heads back to her cabin to retrieve Salos. She’s got her latest challenge with Georgie in half an hour, and it’s definitely time to deal with emotions the demigod way. Very violently.

After the fight, she’s feeling loose and happy, and she figures she’s now in the right frame of mind to give Jason a better look at camp.

From the look on his face, leaving him with Leo may not have been the best of ideas. But there’s really no easy way to introduce someone to camp.

The Romans definitely do things differently. As they headed off to find the giant eagle, she’d casually mentioned that afternoons were mostly used for physical activities because everyone’s ready to explode after three hours of lessons.

Once they collect the giant eagle and she starts leading them towards the various training grounds, Jason asks some polite questions, and it becomes super clear that he’s been taught ADHD is to be controlled.

No way was all the guff about discipline and control his own words. He also seems entirely unaware of the magic of caffeine for the times when sitting still is needed. Like any time you need to sit in a car for more than twenty minutes.

She is definitely giving Silena a heads up on that one. New kid cannot go a day longer without discovering caffeine.

Piper had really hoped Percy was going to tell her she’d gotten the wrong end of the stick and things weren’t as bad as she thought.

Now, Piper’s thinking the situation is worse.

She probably needs to stop feeling so suspicious of how calm and soldier-ish he is.

Piper tells Jason that most demigods have pretty bad experiences in the mortal world because of the ADHD and their inborn powers. Their powers tend to come online when they’re twelve or so, and most campers have long histories of being kicked out of schools.

Oops. Piper pulls herself up short when she remembers Jason said he’s been in the divine world for, like, his entire life. There’s a good chance he hasn’t been to a mortal school.

Piper tries to redirect the conversation by showing off Lee’s favourite archery range, and the guy’s whole face twitches before switching to an even more severe poker face. Why would an archery range freak him out? Like, compared to the more bizarre shit at camp, an archery range should be easy to handle?

She tries again and points out the main arenas and the woods. Once he’s looking less like one of Medusa’s statues, she switches to explaining Lee’s basic philosophy of working with demigod natures, not against them, and the guy does this weird stone-cracking face thing where he kinda looks like he’s trying not to cry.

Awesome. Now she feels like she personally kicked the puppy.

She pushes on through the explanation of dyslexia, keeping her eyes very firmly directed away from Jason. Weirdly enough, the dyslexia thing doesn’t bother him near as much. He enthusiastically tells her about how he has something called a Flame from Amazon. It’s like a Kindle, but for demigods.

Amazon sells demigod specific products? Since when? She asks some questions of her own, and for a brief moment in time, Jason’s far more relaxed than she’s ever seen.

Piper’s not sure why she feels blindsided by the idea of Roman Amazons who are distinct from the Greek ones. Clearly, everything was kept separate.

Mr D said Chiron was bound by an oath, and mentioned Lady Styx, so it’s the serious sort of oath, but there must be a lot of magic involved in all this.

Piper’s really hoping it’s being controlled and isn’t set to, like, autopilot. If she wakes up in the morning with no memory of today, she is so going to shank a god or ten. Percy too, Clarisse’ll understand if Piper kills Percy over this. It’s totally an acceptable form of retaliation.

The more places she points out to Jason, the more stressed he looks. Even over straightforward stuff like the location of the armoury and the rules about how under-eighteens can’t access it unsupervised.

The eagle - Dom? Dominus? - makes little, almost squeaky, noises at Jason, and he seems to understand them, telling the eagle he’s fine, it’s just a lot. That this isn’t what he expected.

Piper speaks quietly, “If it helps, they weren’t lying about seeing your sister. It’s not a bait and switch. She’ll get here as soon as she can.”

“She lives in the mortal world?”

“No, she’s the Lieutenant of the Hunt. Uh, I guess it’s like being the head handmaiden to the Huntress. The moon goddess?”

“Diana.”

“Yeah, we call her Huntress.”

Great. She broke him again. Why would that break him? Oh.

“Thalia genuinely thought you were dead.”

He doesn’t seem to believe her. There’s something else she can tell him, but she doesn’t know if Thalia would want him to know.

Screw it, he needs to know his sister didn’t forget him.

Piper stops and turns to face Jason. “We made a chocolate cake for you last first of July. Thalia screwed it up, and it tasted kind of terrible, but she said it was your fifteenth birthday, and you deserved a cake.”

Completely trashed the kitchen in the Big House when they failed at baking a cake, too. The battles were reaching non-stop levels, but they’d made time for that. Time for Thalia to remember who she lost, and why she fights. Lee’s always encouraged that sort of thing.

“You and Thalia?”

Piper snorts, “Yeah, I used to believe the Grace children ruined my life. When she finally told me who she was, I ripped into her over it. Then she told me you really were dead, and I felt totally terrible.”

“Why would we ruin your life?”

The eagle is peering at her, looking fascinated. Artemis turns people into deer, not eagles, but Piper’s pretty sure the eight foot tall golden eagle is not remotely normal. Not even for a mythical animal.

Piper decides to ignore it and turns back to Jason. “My dad’s Tristan McLean.”

Jason’s eyes light up. “Like King of Sparta?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. That was him. Anyway, I was four when you disappeared, and Dad freaked. I had a bodyguard at first, then spent all my time bouncing between boarding schools until I came here.”

While he’s processing that, she points out the various buildings and gets the tour moving again. The eagle walking behind them. She keeps watching it out of the corner of her eye. Piper has no idea why she thought eagles hop, maybe because they look plain weird walking?

Most of the tour is rote, with a few changes because of the renovations since the war. She points out the Apollonian temple, the classrooms, Pallas House where the trainers live, the various buildings for specific activities like arts and crafts and the beach with its attached jetty.

She explains the barrier and that it prevents mortals and monsters from entering, and tries not to side-eye the eagle. It should be considered a monster, the same as centaurs and the like are. Maybe Mr D let it in?

Yeah, she’s not going to think about that.

She points out the lake and answers his questions about whether it’s safe to swim in. He seems kinda startled when she tells him it is, and that the naiads act as twenty-four/seven lifeguards. Then he looks like he’s going to cry when she talks about the kayaks and triremes, and how the pirate ship is off-limits, but everything else is fair game.

Is he upset about not getting a closer look at the pirate ship? Or about their having boats? Why would that be upsetting? Thalia’s afraid of heights, so maybe Jason’s afraid of drowning?

As they walk, it’s super obvious Jason is trying not to look at the statues. But the hydra is a bit hard to ignore.

He and the bird gawk at it, heads tilted at an identical angle.

“Uh, do you have a really good sculptor or something?”

“You could say that? Aunty Em used to send them to the camp.”

Piper feels sad even thinking about it. Percy’s weirdness is definitely contagious. Why on earth is she sad that Medusa is dead?

Jason’s voice is carefully even. “Aunty Em? Is that a nickname?”

“Yeah, it is. You can name her, she’s dead. No-one’s listening.”

“Medusa.”

“Yep.”

“Why was she sending the camp statues?”

“She kind of befriended one of the campers? It snowballed from there.”

“Did she die recently? We were getting reports about her earlier.”

“Yeah, in August. She attack your people?”

Jason shakes his head, looking confused. “No, she asked them if they served the titan lord, and when they said no, sold them coffee and said she had more important things to deal with than Romans.”

Medusa knew about Roman demigods? Um. What?

“She makes a mean coffee. Good burgers too.”

Jason’s voice turns kinda dazed. “Medusa made you burgers. I’m dreaming, right?”

“Sorry. No. That’s a thing she used to do. You kind of get used to the weird after a while? Not like you haven’t got weird things going on, like, you’ve seen the giant eagle standing next to you, right?”

Jason looks interested. “No eagles here?”

Next to him, the eagle shakes his head and nudges Jason. Why does an eagle look so parental? He’s giving her intense Lee vibes right now.

If Lee were eagle shaped.

She kind of wishes Percy were here, if only because he would never let Lee live it down. If Jason and his eagle stick around, Piper definitely needs to snap some pics for Surfer Boy.

“Nope, no eagles. We’ve got lots of pegasi, a zebra, a living dragon, a robot dragon, robot bulls, a cursed goldfish, and a baby megalodon, though?”

She adds thoughtfully, “Also, the occasional hellhound and leopard. We had a sphinx for a few months, but Lee put his foot down, and she was sent back to Olympus. Your patron has some interesting ideas about appropriate gifts.”

“No unicorns?”

She tilts her head, “No? Aren’t they like savage and impossible to tame?”

“You just told me you had a pet sphinx.”

Yeah. That’s- Yeah. Very fair.

She ends the tour at the cabins and enjoys watching him try to process the extra chaotic collection of buildings. They’ve always been kind of over the top and individualised, but it’s gotten worse since the renovations. How Apollo found a single square centimetre that wasn’t gilded already, she can’t fathom, but there’s definitely more gold on Cabin Seven.

Spot wanders over from her little lean-to shelter beside Cabin Three, and Jason looks at the zebra with something like dread.

“Something wrong?”

“Is the zebra’s name ‘Spot’ by any chance?”

“Yes, actually? How’d you know that?”

“Met a leopard called Stripe.”

The hell, Mr D? Jason doesn’t tell her anything else. He stares at the zebra looking kind of very numb. Probably time to finish up and give him a break.

Piper brushes over explanations of which cabin belongs to which god, because she really doesn’t feel like explaining that Demeter’s left the Olympian Council. Jason definitely knows his myths, and he seems super not okay every time he finds out the gods are still active in the world.

She takes him to Silena at the blindingly white Cabin Two with its peacock decorations. It’s set up for twenty-plus kids, so he can probably have a whole dorm to himself if he doesn’t feel like sharing with Butch and Ash.

He loses his stoic calm expression when Silena hands him his backpack. Almost snatching it back with anxiety written across his face. Did he think they weren’t giving it back?

Piper keeps her face blank as he rifles through it, and she sees nothing but flashes of purple fabric and blue denim. She’d already been thinking the purple was a uniform. How often do you see a windbreaker and a tee-shirt in identical shades of bright purple?

Unfortunately, she doubts Jason will let go of the weird cult uniform in the near future. Camp has orange shirts that they give out to every new camper, but no-one wears them. It’s like a souvenir. In the mortal world, they’re sometimes worn as a way of signalling you’re from camp, but otherwise, they’re the same as the necklaces. A symbol of belonging and acceptance, but not a uniform.

If Jason’s so anxious over his backpack, no way will he take it well if they offer to get him normal clothes.

Silena’s clearly thought ahead and directs him to the empty Cabin Head bedroom. Good idea. He looks like he needs some privacy for the inevitable breakdown.

Piper pulls Silena aside and whispers that Percy said to let him keep his weapons; don’t insist he put them in the safe. Silena agrees and says he looks like he needs some comfort items.

“Pretty sure the giant eagle doubles as a teddy bear.”

Silena shrugs, “If it works, it works. Perce explain why he’s so afraid?”

Yeah, if Piper can feel it, it must be overwhelming for Silena. Her main abilities are around emotions and relationships. Though Piper’s getting the impression that Jason isn’t aware of how frightened he is. The denial is strong in that one.

“Pretty sure he’s been told that Greek demigods want to kill Romans. Surfer Boy doesn’t know why.”

Silena looks as baffled as Piper feels. “That’s a new one. At least it’s an easy fear to handle? We show him we’re safe and give him time.”

Piper grimaces. “Think he’s going to need a hell of a lot more time than any of us has.”

Silena smiles. “We’ll get him there. You’ll see.”

Chapter Text

Waking up in Hera’s Cabin, in a camp for Greek demigods, is almost disappointing.

Jason had kind of really been hoping that this was all an incredibly vivid nightmare. Maybe the acid spray of the Draco Hesperidium had affected him, and he’s hallucinated everything since the battle?

But no such luck.

He’s in a bedroom with its own ensuite that Silena said is intended for the Cabin Head. Since it’s not needed right now, she thought he’d like his own space. It’s a decently sized room with empty bookshelves filling one wall, a big desk, a wheelie chair, a nightstand and an oversized twin bed.

Nico, the Legatus pro Dis Pater, has to sleep in a bunk-bed in the barracks when he stays overnight.

The consuls claim it’s because they find his presence disturbing and, given his age, he should’ve already been a member of the legion.

Which is probably partially true, the finding his presence disturbing bit, anyway. Nico feels dangerous, and whenever Nico’s forced to spend time with the consuls, it seems only a matter of time before Jason gets this feeling like he’s about to die.

The consuls definitely feel it too.

It’s why they keep trying to force Jason to exert some sort of control over Nico. As if he could ever manage that. Even if he wanted to, Nico’s working to a whole different set of rules than he is.

It’s somewhat understandable that they want Nico far away from New Rome. But Nico’s still Roman, still one of them. If he were Greek, he’d be killed on sight.

Why don’t the Greeks hate Jason?

They seem confused that Romans still exist, but not bothered by it.

His phone dings, and he reaches over to grab it, his hand knocking against his new glasses. He hesitates and then shrugs to himself and puts them on, blinking as the world comes into focus.

Maybe he’ll wear them for reading? He can probably keep them hidden from the legion. Maybe.

Not like he could explain that to anyone here. ‘Romans don’t show weakness’ probably isn’t the statement New Rome thinks it is.

Probably?

Definitely. Jason’s in denial. He’s aware of this.

He’d watched Piper get soundly trounced in a match, and the audience celebrated with her for it. Because she’d lasted forty-two seconds longer than last time.

These kids all openly acknowledge ADHD and dyslexia. He’d heard Allysa proudly telling Silena she’d stayed in the classroom for the full three hours. Silena praised her for it.

Actually, Jason’s getting the distinct impression his lack of fidgeting is freaking people out.

Compared to all that, the fact they’re so intense about archery and horsemanship is barely a blip on the radar. Even the ships, plural, that the camp has ‘just for fun,’ according to Piper, seem less and less important.

Jason looks blankly at the screen of his phone, which switched itself off while he was navel gazing.

He turns it back on to read Reyna’s message. Did she not go to bed? It’s barely dawn here, which means it’s not even 4am there?

‘Send me a smoke signal or something. You alive?’

Oh. Oops.

Juno said something about messages, didn’t she? Something about how his friends in the legion won’t read or hear any information that’s not for them.

He replies with, ‘I’m alive. Been a bit overwhelmed. Dom’s with me. Haven’t seen Thalia yet, but should be soon. She thought I was dead too.’

He hesitates and then sends a second message, wanting to see what happens.

‘By the way, this is a camp of Greek demigods.’

He hits send and watches as the message erases itself from existence. Figures.

He’s really hoping Thalia shows up soon. Silena explained the Hunters of Artemis to him, and he’s still not sure if she was joking or not. She says his sister Thalia is an immortal handmaiden to Diana?

Silena’s explanation was different from what Jason knew.

Diana doesn’t have human handmaidens. She’s a virgin goddess of the wild, and her attendants are immortals and woodland spirits. They don’t make any sort of pledge of maidenhood either. One of her attendants is Egeria, who was once married to King Numa, the second king of Rome. Octavian’s mother had been a demigod daughter of Egeria.

The only human attendant Diana has is the Rex Nemorensis. He serves alongside Egeria. Jason might be all for Roman priests being recognised, but maybe not that one?

Well into the time of the Roman Empire, the cult was known for its habit of sacrificing the previous priest to Diana when a new priest took up the mantle. As in human sacrifice.

Jason kept his thoughts to himself when Silena told him that Thalia apparently leads a whole company of immortal girls who hunt monsters with a goddess. Silena had repeatedly told him that they don’t really hate boys, and he mustn’t take any of Thalia’s jokes about boys too seriously.

Which isn’t at all worrying.

Because. Also. If there are no boys. What happened to the Rex Nemorensis?

Reyna’s reply is immediate. ‘Glad you’ve got someone with you, even if it’s the eagle. Pls stay safe. Dakota hates you btw.’

Jason snorts, very amused.

He’d not told Dakota about his plans. He’d figured Dakota would wriggle out of it if he gave him any warning that Jason named him a propraetor to stand in for him if he was away. Reyna will have told the Senate that Juno came to give Jason a quest, he needed to leave immediately, and they had emergency protocols in place for this exact situation.

Since he’s Juno’s champion after all, and gods have summoned him away for a quest before.

‘Tell him it’s his fault for spending so much time with us.’

‘He’s already declared he’ll be adding an extra spoon of sugar to his Kool-Aid for every week you’re away.’

Dakota always knows how to hit where it hurts, doesn’t he?

It’s practically a ritual now. Dakota acting like he’s drunk on sugar, and Jason trying to stop him. He knows why Dakota does it. Dakota’s never been happy with Jason’s preference for pretending he doesn’t remember anything from his past. Might be a childish way of forcing the issue, but Dakota uses what he has.

Jason will have to face up to those memories now, won’t he?

Especially when the people here clearly know the story. Or Piper does, anyway.

He really hasn’t got a grip on how all the politics works in this place.

Finding out about all the children of the Dii Consentes has been a complete shock. Someone mentioned there were children of Dionysus here. So, even Dakota has siblings. Siblings who can’t be more than a few years older. They look like him, they could be full siblings for all he knows, and Jason can’t tell him.

He feels less guilt about being unable to tell Octavian there are children of Apollo at the camp. More than one, even. The orientation film he’d been shown had a man in it who said he was a son of Apollo.

Lee, who runs the entire camp, is a son of Apollo.

He even looks like a sun god. Jason is never telling Octavian.

He texts Reyna, ‘You hear from your prophet yet?’

It’s only been a day, but Nico had brought them both messages from the prophet. Jason was to meet Thalia, and Reyna would be seeing the prophet.

The prophet who is also a son of Apollo. The Roman Apollo?

Or is it the same Apollo, regardless?

Wait. Is Octavian Greek?

This was so much simpler when Jason could believe the Greek gods were gone and only the Roman versions were still around.

’No. Hoping he shows up soon. Octavian is planning something.’

Octavian’s always planning something.

‘What else is new? Get some more sleep. You’ve got a legion to wrangle.’

‘Yeah, whatever. Stay safe.’

Safe? In a camp full of Greeks, all more powerful than he is. Sure.

Dom thinks Jason is safe here.

But Jason still feels wrong, like he’s in constant danger standing in this place.

He’s not sure why, though.

Then again, he knows the legion has a three hundred year long hole in its history. Legionnaires met Medusa, and she made sneering comments about the Romans, yet no-one found it odd.

How many times have Romans come across Greek demigods and forgotten?

What about the satyrs? Silena said that’s what the fauns were, satyrs. When he’d looked at them again, they’d looked that little bit different. That second time Jason looked, he’d known they weren’t fauns. The ones back home are fauns.

He’d met what he thought were fauns before Lupa brought him to Camp Jupiter. They were always following his scent. Lupa would tell them that Jason was under her protection, and they’d apologise and leave.

He’d always found it so incredibly strange that the fauns in New Rome acted like homeless vagrants, and the fauns he met with Lupa acted like they were fulfilling a sacred duty.

Now when he remembers those fauns, he knows they were satyrs. Like fog is lifting from his mind.

The Mist.

It can change memories. Make you forget things.

Even more recently, New York went dark for three days. While it was dark, Reyna was texting back and forth with Hylla as the Amazons tried to access the city. But after they toppled the thrones, it was like nothing had ever happened.

The news reported an unsubstantiated terrorist threat, and Hylla didn’t remember that the city had ever been out of reach. Jason and Reyna were the only ones who still remembered.

That orientation film said Olympus was in New York.

The more Jason thinks about the Greeks existing, the more he feels his own memories shifting slightly.

There’d been that trip to Aeolus’s palace when he was twelve. He’d gone there with Gwen and Dakota to get a weapon to kill the Trojan Sea Monster.

When they met Aeolus, he’d been in the middle of a TV studio, screens everywhere.

Wait.

Jason shifts through his memories again, focusing and recalling each screen one by one.

One had advertised the first chariot races in over a century. He could’ve sworn the screen had changed before it had said more, but now he can clearly remember it announcing they were to be held at Camp Half-Blood in Long Island.

The next screen showed a boy shooting fire from his hands, while a man cut heads off a hydra.

Beck was using a two-handed sword to behead a hydra. That was definitely Beck, the Cabin Counsellor of Leo’s cabin. And the boy-

Leo. The boy shooting fire was Leo.

Leo can shoot fire from his hands. This is a thing he can do.

Jason hadn’t recognised the language at the time, but in his memories he knows Aeolus was speaking Greek. The god had later made a comment about how Aeneas’s line had been nothing but trouble. Aeneas’s line. Roman demigods.

So, definitely Mist.

A little worrying, since Jason’s always seen through the Mist. Lupa said it was because he was raised away from the mortal world. His automatic instinct is toward the divine, not the mortal.

Really, really strong Mist.

Jason had been intending to hide out in his borrowed bedroom for as long as he could, but that’s pretty much the point where he decides he needs to check whether the Mist was still doing things.

The Greeks didn’t seem to know about the Romans. If they’ve forgotten him, best to know now.

He uses the ensuite and changes into a clean purple tee-shirt and blue jeans, hesitating before he adds the purple windbreaker.

The purple is making him feel super visible, but it’s what he’s used to. Gwen had bought him a bunch of normal tee-shirts and it didn’t occur to him to pack a single one.

He’d brought his armour, ambrosia, nectar and various devices Reyna’s shoved at him over the years. Extra pugiones too.

All from Dominus’s stash. The consuls would not react well if he took weapons from the armoury. Not when imperial gold weapons are in such demand. The bulk of the legion’s weapons were lost on Michael Varus’s quest to Alaska back in the 80s.

He leaves the pugiones in his backpack, keeping Defensor and Conservatori. No-one’s even asked him if he’s carrying weapons, or suggested he hand them over. He’s thinking he’ll give them to Dom whenever it comes up. He’s not willing to lose Conservatori for years again.

Silena greets him cheerfully when he edges out of his bedroom. She’s wearing loose exercise clothes again, her hair hanging to her waist in a dark curtain.

“Jason! I hope you slept well, I know this can all be a lot.”

Jason grimaces. “Having my entire world turned on its head wasn’t really what I was expecting. I’ll deal, though.”

Silena doesn’t seem to like that answer. He’s not sure how it’s wrong, but it definitely is. He keeps his eyes focused on her, mostly so he doesn’t have to look at the statue that looms over the hallway. It’s like the little dead-end has been turned into a miniature temple. Or maybe the statue used to be in an real temple?

A white marble Hera sits on a golden throne, with a fire burning at her feet in a brazier. Someone’s draped a peacock-feather-printed shawl around the marble statue’s shoulders, and a piece of white fabric drapes over her head like a veil. Peacock feathers have been tucked in wherever they fit, and the whole thing looks like a chaotic mess.

It’s also a thousand times more respectful than Juno’s sterile altar in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Temple Hill back home. These people aren’t going through the motions out of some old expectation. They are making offerings because they care about the goddess. Because they are genuinely grateful for her patronage.

Silena says, “Well, breakfast is in an hour. Piper mentioned you might feel a bit better if you had an additional weapon, so I thought we’d stop by the main armoury?”

Jason tilts his head. “I thought there was a rule about carrying edged weapons in camp?”

“There is. But there are exceptions.”

She doesn’t explain further, and Jason doesn’t ask. Because he’s betting everything he owns that he falls under an exception relating to him feeling like everyone here is about to kill him.

He follows her out the door, only now realising she has a distinct limp and is using a walking stick made of bronze. He really was out of it yesterday, wasn’t he?

The armoury really doesn’t help.

Its shelves are full of every bladed weapon he could imagine, most in bronze, but his eyes catch on gold too.

Here and there, the bronze and gold are broken by silver and black. More like an Amazon warehouse than a legion’s armoury.

Although. He’s not seen black weaponry before. Other than Hazel’s knife and Nico’s sword. He still hasn’t seen Hazel’s knife clearly. Only the black hilt. It might be imperial gold otherwise. Nico’s longsword is definitely made of a black metal from hilt to tip.

Same as all the black knives and swords here. There’s even a couple of black spears in the racks of polearms.

What the consuls would do for a single weapon made of that metal that they could examine themselves. Yeah, stealing from the Greeks is probably not the best idea Jason’s ever had.

He peers at a silver knife and realises that these aren’t polished steel like he first thought. It’s a silver base metal, but it has an odd shimmering quality to it, in a blue-green shade. The knife is definitely made of a divine metal of some sort. Maybe they colour their metals based on use? Like colour coding?

Jason can’t see any clear categorisation, it’s all endless weapons kind of chaotically laid out on shelves. All in so many different colours, instead of the legion’s gold and steel. Even the messily stacked shields have flashes of silver and gold in between the bronze.

Even if the legion retrieves all the weapons it lost in Alaska on that doomed quest, it wouldn’t equal even half of what’s sitting in the ‘main armoury’.

That name implies they have additional armouries.

Jason tries to keep his face calm, but Silena’s looking at him all softly again, encouraging him to ask anything he wants.

“Why do you have so many weapons? Are you preparing for a war?”

Silena tilts her head, eyes focused on him. “We were, yes. There was a war. We won. It’s over now. Most of our people handed their weapons in and returned to their normal lives.”

Wait. If these weapons belong to people who aren’t here, wouldn’t that mean-

“Piper said you had over a hundred and twenty campers.”

“Yes, but those are children. A small handful of the older ones fought with us. But the rest of our fighters were adults.”

Silena says it so matter of factly. As if the idea of children fighting is so ridiculous it’s not worth mentioning. Of course they have adults who fought in a war, of course the children didn’t make up their forces. Like it’s a given.

Even worse, she speaks as if it’s expected behaviour for adults to return to fight for the camp. In the legion, when someone leaves, they never come back.

Jason can’t work out if Piper was deliberately playing word games or not. Maybe she only cares about the kids. The number of weapons here, and what Silena’s saying, implies at least a couple hundred more demigods. Including the campers, that’s over three hundred demigods, all capable fighters.

Three hundred to the legion’s eight. Plus Reyna’s sister.

Sarah Warden and Flora Melora might be demigods, and both previous praetors too, but they claim they’ve fulfilled their service to the legion and aren’t required to fight.

It wouldn’t even need to be a slaughter. Not like Octavian’s claiming. That many demigods and there is nothing the legion can do to hold against them.

Especially when they’re clearly provisioned for war.

Jason moves further into the armoury, his eyes zeroing in on something familiar.

A gold parazonium.

“Why is this here?”

A roman knife. He can’t even convince himself it only looks like a Roman design. The knife has an eagle-headed pommel. The large triangular blade somewhere between a pugio and gladius. A symbol of status but still lethally sharp.

It was used as a badge of rank in Roman legions. Reyna’s mentioned before that the Ancient Romans took the design from the Greeks, who used it as a utility knife. But the Romans made it mean something. The parazonium was carried by military officers. And demigods. Outside of the praetors and consuls, no legacy is permitted to carry one.

Like the legion’s eagle, an officer would use their parazonium as a rallying point. It’s the main symbol of Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and military strength.

Like the praetor’s purple cloaks, it’s a status symbol. The sort a Roman would fight to the death to keep. Same as how losing an eagle was the ultimate dishonour for a legion, the enemy seizing an officer’s parazonium was the highest form of humiliation.

It shouldn’t be here. Not in an armoury of Greek demigods.

Jason thinks of the skulls on Temple Hill and shuts that train of thought down. He’s not seen a single bone here. A parazonium as a war trophy is far less offensive than the literal head of your enemy.

Even if it feels like he’s had his legs cut out from under him. No-one seemed to know anything about the Romans, Jason had been half-convinced these people knew nothing of those fights.

But there’s a Roman parazonium in their armoury.

Silena comes to stand with him, looking at the dagger.

She picks it up, saying something about how she thinks this one has an engraving.

He watches her turn the knife in her hands, the light catching on the letters.

There’s the proof.

At the base of the blade.

XII.

Twelfth Legion.

Above is an engraved lyre.

The symbol of Apollo.

There is only one son of Apollo in the Twelfth Legion’s records.

Before that, demigod children of Apollo were born to emperors. They didn’t serve in the legion.

Only one child of Apollo has been born since Rome fell.

Octavian’s ancestor.

Jason holds himself still, the blood roaring in his ears, deafening him, and he stares at the knife that should not be here.

He feels himself sway, eyes fixed on the knife lying on the shelf in front of him.

It should not be here.

Why is it here?

He’s not safe.

“Jason, can you hear me? Jason, you need to breathe.”

He blinks, realising his chest is aching and dark spots are growing in his vision. That wasn’t Silena talking. There’s someone crouched near the door, making themselves small.

Will.

His voice is as gentle as a warm breeze. “Jason, I need you to take a breath. Can you do that for me?”

Jason nods shakily and tries to draw air in. It’s like breathing through a straw. All he can see is the knife.

He’s not safe.

Will coaches him through a few more deep breaths until he feels less like he’s about to collapse.

Jason murmurs, “There’s only been a single son of Apollo in the legion. He disappeared, why do you have this?”

He’s not safe.

“You okay if I come over?”

He nods jerkily.

Will stands slowly and moves over to him, walking softly, like Jason’s a terrified deer.

Terrified. Yes. That’s what he is.

Will stands beside him and picks up the parazonium that Jason can’t bring himself to touch.

“XII. Twelve for the Twelfth Legion?”

Jason struggles to remember how to breathe. “That’s what we’re called. The Twelfth Legion Fulminata. That symbol, the lyre, it’s used only for descendants of Apollo.”

“Why are you certain this knife belonged to a son of Apollo?”

“It’s a parazonium. Symbol of rank. Only for officers and demigods. Octavian’s dad has the one his family uses. But he told me once that the original was lost. The one the demigod had. He’s the only one in the line who disappeared.”

Octavian can recite his family history in his sleep. It’s never far from his thoughts when he’s in the Temple of Apollo.

Over the years, Jason’s found him there countless times, and he’s sat and listened to him rant about his family. Octavian never tells him everything. He never explains what’s so shameful about his ancestors. What he’s trying to redeem the family from.

“You know when he disappeared?”

Will is thoughtful. He knows more than he’s telling.

Jason’s numb. He doesn’t know where Silena went, or why Will is here at all. He doesn’t even remember Silena putting the knife down and leaving.

The Greeks actually did kill the Romans, didn’t they?

“Before 1815. But not much before that, I don’t think. His son arrived in 1820. Took a new name. That’s where the family’s records start.”

Gwen loves telling the story of how the Coelispexes named themselves after an epithet of Apollo. Jason doesn’t know what their original surname was.

“You know a lot about this family.”

“Octavian’s the augur. His dad’s a consul. They’re powerful.”

“He a friend?”

“Friend, enemy. Depends on the day.”

Will is still turning the blade in his hands, like he’s entirely unaware of what he’s holding. He looks far too comfortable with it. Jason can feel his fear fading and his anger boiling hotter the longer Will holds the knife like it’s merely a tool and not proof of murder.

“You said the demigod who carried this disappeared?”

Jason hits a limit he didn’t know he had and yells in Will’s face.

“He was fucking murdered by the Greeks! That’s a fucking war trophy! Why the fuck is it here?!”

Will shakes his head, sympathy in his eyes. He doesn’t even rock back on his heels as Jason yells, and it makes him feel even more out of control. Why is no-one acting like they should?

If he can’t intimidate them, if they aren’t scared of him, how can he trust that they won’t kill him too?

He’s not safe.

Will holds the knife up. “If this belonged to the person you’re talking about, he definitely wasn’t murdered by us.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because he came here. We’ve had this in our cabin since 1808, probably earlier. My brother Austin used it last. It must’ve gotten jumbled in with the common weapons, but we’ve had it a long time.”

Well, that takes the wind out of his sails.

“You know who that belonged to?”

Will watches him closely and speaks with caution.

“Yes? Though it may not be the same person. We keep track of siblings as best we can, and Lee was extra intense about making sure the few records we have were preserved. We’ve always kept a careful record of the ones with the sight. Demigods don’t normally leave their weapons behind when they age out, so this has always been a bit of an oddity.”

The rage drains from Jason, and now he’s so lost. “He gave it up willingly?”

“I take it that this isn’t something a Roman would normally surrender?”

Jason shakes his head silently.

Romans don’t surrender. They kill themselves or get themselves killed. They don’t hand over something like a parazonium and live to tell of it.

“You didn’t kill him?”

Will meets his eyes and speaks gently. “Not that I know of. His name was Victor Arquette. The records lose track of him after he left, which is pretty normal. It’s only in the last ten years or so that we’ve kept in touch after a demigod ages out. Didn’t know he was Roman though. But no burial shroud was made for him.”

Of course. Jason and Reyna studied the death rituals of the Ancient Greeks. If they still give offerings, they’d still do everything else too. Even if they’d thought him Roman, they’d have made a shroud and recorded his death.

Besides, isn’t Chiron immortal? Jason’s not sure how old the centaur is, but the way people talk, it has to be a good few centuries.

He would’ve met this son of Apollo. Jason’s not sure he dares ask the centaur, the guy seems to really hate him, but he might have answers?

Will gives him a long look, something unreadable in his eyes, when Jason doesn’t respond and keeps staring at the parazonium.

Will keeps hold of the knife, and Jason does not like it.

“You still want to pick a weapon out? Or would you rather go back to your cabin? Pretty sure I saw your eagle up with Peleus if you want to see him?”

“Where’d Silena go?”

Will answers with an odd professional evenness in his voice. “She wasn’t sure if you were having a panic attack or a flashback, and you’re armed. I can dodge faster than she can.”

His eyes widen as he realises what Will isn’t saying. They were worried that he might lash out, and they clearly have a system in place to deal with that sort of thing.

Which makes sense, this is a camp for kids who all seem to come from terrible families. That orientation film with the million and one options for kids whose parents suck kind of drove that one home.

Jason’s not sure why that would be the case, it’s certainly not the situation back home. Well. Reyna’s dad kind of sounded less than ideal.

Still.

Will’s implication that they see Jason like those kids is so incredibly uncomfortable.

Jason’s never felt so young and out of control before. Will had told him he turns twenty next month. Jason’s used to standing up to the consuls, and he never thinks about his age. But it’s like it’s all he can think about here.

Jason’s praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. Son of Jupiter, champion of Juno. He toppled the black throne of Kronos. He killed the titan Crius. Defeated the Trojan Sea Monster.

He crushes the little whisper of a thought that says he didn’t do those last two things.

Romans don’t show weakness.

“You seem very accepting of me falling apart.”

“Pretty much everyone who makes it to camp has shitty memories of something. Whether magical monsters or the human sort. The world’s not built for us.”

“Everyone who makes it to camp? Do demigods not make it here?”

Will tilts his head, looking confused. “Monsters track our scent. We search constantly, but we don’t always find the kids before the monsters get hold of them. Don’t the demigods in your legion attract monsters?”

“The ones with extra powers do. There’s only four of us. And Nico.”

Will flinches ever so slightly at that last part, but he answers blandly, “Huh. I didn’t know demigods could be born without powers. Unless they’re Grey Eyes’s kids.”

Jason narrows his eyes. “You know Nico.”

Will gives him an intensely innocent face back. “So, that’s a no on choosing an extra weapon?”

Jason ignores him, still scanning the rows of weapons, his eyes catching on every piece of gold. He’s not sure if he wants to know if there are any other Roman weapons here.

Will sighs, sounding sad for some reason. “Let’s give you the Clarisse special. Lee can kill me for it later.”

Will doesn’t explain who Clarisse is, but it looks like the ‘Clarisse special’ is a large number of knives, along with sheaths intended to be worn under clothing.

Jason’s seen this setup before.

“You definitely know Nico.”

Will sighs heavily again. “He’s Clarisse’s little brother. Adopted, not that it matters to them.”

After Sophie and Jonathon, Jason’s completely lost on what adoption means according to the Greeks.

“She’s a daughter of Dis Pater?”

“Uh, who’s that?”

A camp full of demigods who are completely lost on Dis Pater’s name. Nothing feels real right now.

Jason goes to answer when he remembers. Nicknames. Piper insisted on nicknames for Greek gods.

“The King of the Underworld?”

Will barks a loud laugh before getting control of himself.

“No, she isn’t. Technically, she’s a daughter of the War God. But she’s been adopted by Triton. Also by Lee. Coparents, not partners.”

Wait. Will doesn’t know who Dis Pater is, but he knows Nico.

Fuck.

Jason speaks tonelessly. “Nico’s Greek.”

Will’s answer is very gentle. “Yeah, bud. He is.”

Jason ignores everything but the confirmation. Will treating him like a fifteen-year-old is not something he wants to think about. There are too many weapons within reach, and if he thinks about it, he will definitely stab him.

Then again, if there weren’t weapons in reach, Jason would probably bite him. So.

Reyna still won’t let him live down that one spar where he actually had bitten her on the arm. Being raised by wolves did interesting things to his instincts.

Jason asks, “Hazel too?”

Will shakes his head. “I don’t know that name.”

Jason tells him Hazel is Nico’s sister, and Will shakes his head again.

“Nico kind of comes and goes as he pleases, so long as Lee and his dad have an idea of where he is, he’s given a lot more leeway than any other camper. He has a sister called Bianca, she joined the Hunt when Thalia did, but those are the only living Greek demigod children of the King of the Underworld.”

Will gestures for them to leave, and Jason follows him out and waits for him to lock the armoury.

“Why’s Nico different? Me and Reyna thought he was a god.”

Will quirks his lips, looking amused. “The gods offered him ascension a couple months ago. He refused. He’s not a god. But he is one of the two most powerful demigods in centuries. He’s also been through more shit than most. We try to work with our natures, not against them. Nico doesn’t do well when he feels confined.”

Jason’s mind struggles to process what he’s heard. He’s still stuck on that first sentence.

“How often do they make gods? Why would anyone turn down ascension?”

He follows Will to the dining pavilion, not bothering to watch where he’s going. It’s like 8am and his mind is already glitching. He definitely should have stayed in the cabin.

“They don’t normally make gods. Not since the time of the old heroes. There were extenuating circumstances. And Nico would tell you himself that immortality makes you stupid, and he likes his brain the way it is, thank you very much.”

Nico’s told Jason something similar before.

They reach the dining pavilion, and Will stops beside one of the older campers, the guy with braids like Hazel’s.

Wait.

No. Jason is not going to think about that.

Will hands him the knife and says, “Found something you lost. Just wait ’til Lee finds out it ended up in the camp armoury.”

The guy’s dark eyes light up, “I thought it was gone for good! Thanks!”

This must be Austin then?

Will described him as a brother. Given Will’s pale skin, light blonde hair and ice-blue eyes, and Austin being the exact opposite of that, Jason’s going to assume they’re siblings on the godly side. Especially since he claimed a knife that belonged to a son of Apollo.

Okay. So that’s three sons of Apollo. No. Four. The Lee who isn’t here, Will, Austin and the prophet.

Will then tells Jason he’ll ask his sister if she knows more about the original owner of the parazonium, gesturing towards the red-headed woman with the short hair he’d seen yesterday.

Five children of Apollo.

At least.

So far, all the ones he’s seen are adults. Which implies there are also children who only come for summer camp.

Yeah. He’s never telling Octavian about this. If Jason keeps telling himself that, the guilt won’t eat him alive. He hopes.

Jason sits with Silena and eats breakfast, dropping portions of his meal into the brazier for Juno and Jupiter, then adding an offering to Hera since he can’t make heads or tails of how any of that works.

Especially when there are gods in the pavilion with them. Dionysus sits at the head table with Chiron and the satyr with the vine crown. Prince Triton and Georgie are there also, though only Georgie is eating.

People move around the dining pavilion, but they’re all a bit quieter and less chaotic than he’s seen so far. Piper is sorting through mail and sending the kids who sit at her table to hand things off to people.

It’s interesting to see the different reactions. Some kids seem ecstatic, others set letters and parcels aside with disinterest. A couple stalk to the brazier and dump theirs in without opening them.

Piper hesitates over one letter before she stands and takes it to Prince Triton, showing it to him and murmuring something. Jason flinches back at the anger that passes over the god’s face, before he takes the letter from her and it shimmers in his hand, vanishing completely.

Beside him, Silena winces. “I forgot it was the seventh today.”

“What’s the date have to do with it?”

“A lot of mortals don’t handle having a demigod child well. Clarisse is Triton’s daughter in every way that counts, but her mother likes to really twist the knife, and she sends her a letter every October. Pays extra so it’s delivered today and everything.”

“Should you be sharing personal information?”

“It’s a habit for this. If she’s here when it arrives, things get pretty explosive. She agreed it was easier to explain to new campers why she’s losing it, rather than having them think she randomly gets like that. Clarisse can be pretty scary when she gets going. She would never hurt a camper, but it’s best to explain what’s going on.”

“If Triton’s her dad and he’s here, where’s she?”

“She’s in Atlantis with her adopted brothers and Lee. She doesn’t live with Tri.”

“How many brothers does she have?”

Silena laughs at him. “Just the two. But they are both very intense. I have no idea how Clarisse copes.”

Piper wanders over and catches the last part. “Stabbing. Clarisse copes by stabbing things.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty accurate.”

Piper turns to him. “Anyway, Jason. You good to join us for lessons? Since you’re a guest, you can go and chill with your eagle if you need some space?”

The way everyone keeps suggesting Jason take a break is beginning to infuriate him. He’s not a child. He’s the praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. They may coddle demigods here, but that’s not him.

“I’m fine with lessons. Be interesting to see how things are done here.”

Piper looks at him sceptically but only says she’ll come and get him after breakfast.

________________________

Will keeps pulling people aside to tell them the new guy knows Nico, somehow, and they can answer questions about Nico, but they still can’t tell him that Percy is the Prophet of Apollo.

Which is totally not awkward. Nope. Not at all.

When Will told Leo that, Leo said this was going to end so badly, and Will shrugged and said his dad insisted.

Piper also told Leo they need to not mention the war. Which is fine. Leo prefers complete denial. He’d lost an older brother, one of the auxiliaries who he didn’t know well.

Cooper was twenty-one, his last summer as a camper was the year before Leo arrived. They still don’t know how he died, or why he’d crossed that bridge. He doubts they’ll ever know. No way is Leo asking Percy for an explanation.

So. No discussing the war. Check.

Most of it’s fine. Though Leo knows he’s definitely going to forget and call Percy, Prof. Maybe he can spin it and say it’s short for Professor or Professional or something?

It’s really not helping the not talking about Percy thing when Percy texts him in the middle of the night with a picture of a giant canyon in the sea floor. The only explanation he gave was, ‘Earthquake lessons have not been fun since I learned I was related to Uncle’.

He better bloody mean Hades and not Zeus. Leo can handle a lot from Percy. He is not okay with Percy working out how to call down lightning like Thalia does. Nuh uh. Nope. Not doing that. Lightning plus water equals so much bad. Metric shit tonnes of bad.

Will’s running morning lessons today. Leo really didn’t think he’d miss Lee teaching them, but he totally does.

Doesn’t help that the room feels empty without Prof and Nico sniping at each other. No Clarisse exploding and storming off because they’re driving her insane.

Leo really doesn’t get why Jason is such a problem. Kid looks terrified of them all.

Like, he’s totally hiding it. He’s good at doing the stern soldier thing, but Leo’s not an idiot. Kid’s scared as shit.

The purple is also a definite choice? Leo doesn’t know what it is, but it’s something. He really can’t buy that the guy’s favourite colour is purple.

He wants to get a closer look at that gold knife he has too. There’s something about it. It makes his inner Hephaestus kid perk up. Bet it does something cool.

“Will, I wanted to finish the new circuits for Festus. Do we gotta do this crap?”

Will gives him his best version of Lee’s unimpressed face. “If I had to do this crap, you have to do this crap. Besides, not like the maths is hard for you.”

“Not hard, no. Really fucking tedious, so much yes.”

Jason sits like a creepy statue and watches them argue with Will and do whatever they can to derail lessons. Everyone standing up and switching seats constantly, seeing if they can frustrate Will enough that he gives up.

Percy really wasn’t a good role model. Nico copied him, and now they all do it. Mortal school never gets better, and all of them are pretty certain they either don’t need homeschool or won’t be doing the college thing.

Castor and Pollux outright can’t. Before last summer, they’d been talking about how they might be able to risk the mortal world. Then there was the war, and they used their powers full-out, and both are now insisting they’re staying at camp. Preferably close to Mr D, who can fix anyone they break.

Leo doesn’t blame them. His whole fire thing still makes him anxious, and it’s nothing on the madness stuff the twins can do.

Leo’s powers are said to be rare and super dangerous, clear signs that something terrible is coming.

Maybe if Leo had been the only person with scary, rare powers, he’d be more freaked. But everyone has scary powers around here, and they were definitely signs that something terrible was coming. But it came, they fought it, and it’s over.

Now, the hardest thing he has to face is morning lessons he doesn’t want to do.

Piper’s got her charmspeak under control, and she wants to be Lee 2.0. Lee’s told her she’ll need to do some courses on, like, youth counselling or whatever, but that’s totally different to having to study mortal English classes.

Soph and Jon do the ADHD and dyslexia thing, but they love learning. They’d rather do it on their own terms, though. They’ll likely login to the online classes Lee enrolled them in later today and do their work in ten seconds flat. They find the mortal lessons kind of entirely beneath them.

Which is also fine. Leo finds the mortal lessons beneath him too.

Jason still isn’t moving. Is he even breathing?

It’s driving Leo nuts.

Yeah, he can’t take it anymore. He leans over and pokes his cheek with a pencil.

Jason jerks away. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Checking you were alive. You never move dude, it’s fucking weird.”

Will speaks gently from behind him. “Leo, I don’t think Jason wants to talk about that.”

Wait, what did he say this time? Shit.

“Sorry, man. Didn’t mean it to come out like that.”

Jason shakes his head. “It’s fine. I was taught that the hyperactivity needed to be controlled. I’m used to channelling it.”

“Wow, that sounds super miserable.”

Jason looks stunned. Wait. Leo groans and slaps a hand to his face. “Yeah. I should shut up, otherwise I’ll be apologising every two seconds.”

“You don’t need to. It’s kind of refreshing for someone to not be worrying about what they say.”

“So long as you don’t plan on stabbing me.”

“That happen often?”

“I’m always shocked when we make it another year without Clarisse or Nico stabbing someone. Piper too.”

Castor adds, “I dunno. Tri says Clarisse stabbed him more than once, and he doesn’t think it was an accident. She might’ve just been stabbing gods.”

Jason is looking at them like he thinks they’re pranking him. Which they kind of are. All of it’s true, but this totally falls into the trial by fire category.

Leo nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, that tracks. Those three have way too many debates about what the best thing to stab is.”

Will goes all pleadingly, “Guys, maybe ease up a bit? Jason’s not used to you lot.”

Will looks like he’s praying for patience. Perfect. Leo checks the clock, they’ve been here for twenty minutes. New record time? He makes eye contact with Jon and raises his eyebrows.

Jon grins wickedly. “I would have thought stabbing was a normal topic of conversation for any Roman? That whole thing with Julius Caesar?”

Jason cracks a tiny smile. The usual shock and fear are replaced with a glitter of amusement.

“He’s not wrong, Will. Stabbing emperors is practically a national sport.”

Will gives him a sharp look and then glowers around the room as they all give him their best innocent faces.

“Yeah. Fine. You win. If I don’t hear it, I don’t have to explain it to Lee. Off you go. Keep Jason with you. Leave the younger kids alone; don’t disrupt their classes.”

“Yes!” Leo’s on his feet and heading for the door before Will finishes speaking. He snatches Jason’s wrist as he goes past and tows him along. New record! Ha! He’s so lording it over Percy. He yanks his phone out of his pocket and texts Percy one-handed while he drags Jason with the other hand.

Soph tags along with them, the others peeling off to enjoy their free time away from supervision. There’s a reason they’re isolated in their very own classroom. With the war and everything, they aren’t really kids anymore, but they also aren’t adults. All of them love seeing how far they can push their boundaries.

Leo heads straight for the woods, and Jason lets himself be dragged a fair way before he reclaims his arm.

“Where are we going exactly?”

“Festus racked off yesterday. Need to find him, then I gotta shut him down and pull the glitchy circuit.”

Soph adds brightly, “And I’m coming to watch and laugh.”

Leo shakes his head at her and keeps heading deeper into the trees. It’s still kinda jarring to have gotten so close with Soph. Guess that’s what existential world-ending threats do?

She used to be such a bitch. One of the Athena summer campers who was so certain they were right and you were wrong. The year rounders always kept their distance from the summer campers, but every summer it felt like Leo was constantly tripping over her.

She was so sure she could design and build everything better than him, and even claimed Athena was the god of architecture. The constant pride and hubris were total hell to be around.

Then Annabeth went nuts, and just kept getting nuttier even after she left camp. It still took the battle at the entrance to the Labyrinth and a few months of thinking for Soph to realise her life was going nowhere good. Lee’d barred her from participating in that battle, and she’d still tried to force her way in.

Leo had joined the fight and spent the whole time wishing he was being kept safe in his cabin. He couldn’t understand why someone with no powers was so determined to join the battle. Leo is considered a powerhouse, but he has nothing on Prof, Nico, Clarisse and Piper. He spent most of the battle playing firefighter for the local nature spirits.

Then, there was the whole thing with the laptop and the batshit inventor, and Leo’d been so incredibly glad when summer ended and Soph left for her boarding school.

But then Soph had shown up in December last year and all but begged to join the fight.

Things had been kinda strained at first, but then Jon brought over Daedalus’s laptop and Sophie had politely asked if she could help. The moment they started looking through designs and discovered they spoke each other’s language, it was like insta-best friends.

Though, normal best friends usually don’t bond over the most efficient way to destroy a cruise ship carrying a titan army’s worth of monsters.

It worked, though?

Leo still blushes and gets tongue-tied around even Piper, but Soph’s just Soph. Her being a girl never comes into the equation. She can keep up with Leo, and they play off each other for new ideas.

“Where would you precious little cupcakes be off to?”

Leo snickers at the look of horror on Jason’s face. Gleeson Hedge is always a unique experience. He’s usually with Grover, moving around the country checking on nature spirits and reporting back to Mr D.

Leo’s pretty sure Hedge has assigned himself as Grover’s bodyguard or something, now that the satyr’s an acknowledged Lord of the Wild. Grover’s been back for a few days, spending most of his time with Mr D, and Coach Hedge has been using his free time to harass campers.

He’s the buffest satyr Leo has yet to meet and carries around a club even inside the barrier. He’s like the warrior version of Grover. The five foot tall warrior version. Leo is used to being the shortest in any room full of Greek demigods, but he’s got, like, six inches on Hedge. It’s awesome.

Hedge gives Jason the ol’ hairy eyeball and then turns on Leo. “If you’ve touched a single one of my possessions, then so help me, Valdez-”

“S’all good, Coach. No pranks. Not for you, anyway. Already broke Will, and he dismissed the class. You seen Festus around?”

“Pah! That dumb robot. Why waste your time on that thing? Burning down the woods and all.”

“Hey, he just needs some TLC! He’s gonna come good!”

Hedge has already switched his attention to Jason. “Who are you? I don’t recognise you.”

Leo groans loudly, and he can hear Soph giggling behind them. “Coach, he’s the visitor we were warned about?”

“Oh. The special package? He doesn’t look special.”

Jason is baffled. “Uh. Sorry? Not sure how to answer that.”

Coach Hedge narrows his eyes and starts circling Jason, peering at him from every angle. Leo considers intervening for 0.2 seconds and then decides to enjoy the show.

The satyr takes deep breaths through his nose, and Jason leans back, looking extra uncomfortable.

“How do you have such control of the Mist? Sometimes you smell like demigod and sometimes you don’t smell like anything. It’s not right.”

Leo cringes, okay. Maybe he should have intervened. “Jason’s Roman, Coach. Think that messes things up. He’s, like, a son of the Roman version of Sky King? We didn’t even know there was another camp. It’s somewhere out west. ”

Jason hasn’t given them exact details. Which Leo kind of gets, and also doesn’t. Like, they let him into Camp Half-Blood, even with all his bizarre claims, a bit of quid pro quo is a good thing? That’s Latin, right?

See Leo coming in clutch with the knowledge!

The satyr looks even more interested. “You the one that hung out with the wolf god? After the Golden Fleece mess, Grover wondered if that was another satyr trap. But no-one smelled a demigod out there again. Least not a demigod as strong as that kid.”

Leo’s officially intrigued. The what now?

Jason looks extra sheepish. “Yeah. I was the one with Lupa. Sorry about that. Pretty sure she always just sent you on your way? Don’t think she ate anyone?”

“How come she didn’t eat you, cupcake? What else would she be doing with a kid? She’s a wolf!”

Wait. What? Wolf god and actually being a wolf are two separate things.

It’s not helped by how Jason gets even more awkward and says, “Lupa kind of raised me? I was given to her when I was two, and she took me to the legion when I was seven.”

“Wait. Hold up. You joined a legion, like an army of soldiers, when you were seven?”

“Yes?”

Leo’s brain tries to process that and sends back noises like a prehistoric dial-up modem trying to connect.

“Please tell me this was like military school and all you did was march in circles to learn discipline or something.”

“Uh. No. I mostly worked as a messenger until I was ten, I was full time with the legion after that. But even before, I trained with weapons.”

Thank the gods and all that’s holy that Lee isn’t at camp. Dibs not being the one who has to tell him.

Maybe Leo misunderstood?

“Like, fake weapons, right?”

“No. Live weapons. A gladius, a hasta and a pilum, mostly.”

Leo tilts his head, wondering if he wants to ask more. Soph translates, “Roman short sword, Roman spear, Roman throwing javelin. The ones that look like arrowheads on long thin spikes?”

“Oh! Those things are so cool, man. They destroy, like, everything. Shame you can’t load ‘em into, like, a catapult and shoot like a thousand rapid fire. Oh. Huh. Maybe…”

Soph pokes him hard in the small of his back until Leo remembers he was in the middle of a conversation. He’ll have to go back to his awesome pilum pitcher designs later.

Coach Hedge has already lost interest in Jason’s extra weird past.

“You the one who saw storm spirits yesterday?”

Jason looks taken aback. “Yeah, they were chasing the chariot. Disappeared once we passed through the barrier. They’ve been showing up all over the country.”

Coach nods aggressively. “Yep. They keep popping up and then disappearing. Looked like a search pattern to me. But no-one believes me. You’re the first one they’ve chased.”

“You’re tracking them?”

“They’re storm spirits, of course I’m tracking them. They’re a threat. I’ll deal with them too. Give ‘em a right butt whooping.”

Leo rolls his eyes hard. “Ignore him, Jason. Coach talks a big game. G-man told me the storm spirits need a sky child to kill ‘em. Coach is a nature spirit.”

Hedge snarls. “I could be a sky brat if I wanted to be.”

Leo gives him an unimpressed look. “You’re a satyr.”

“You wanna taste my club? I’ll feed it to you whole!”

“Uh huh. Sure. You really haven’t seen Festus?”

“Nope. Would’ve brained it if I saw it.”

“Yeah, Coach, sure you would.”

Leo waves the angry satyr off and heads deeper into the woods. He’d left a big pot of engine oil laced with tabasco sauce near Zeus’s Fist, Festus should show up when he smells it.

Jason gives him a worried look when Leo hauls the pot out and sets it on the ground. Placing his hands on either side to heat it up and help stir the smell into the air. Soph’s perched herself up on a rock, and looks super entertained.

“Uh, why is there a pot of oil?”

“Festus loves this stuff! Especially with Tabasco.”

Kid looks like he can’t work out if Leo is taking the piss. Exactly the way Leo likes it. Keep ‘em off balance.

When Festus finally shows up, Leo joins Soph in laughing ’til he cries while Jason stumbles back and falls on his butt.

They told him it was a dragon!

Festus is gorgeous, even if his brain is kinda whacked still.

Sixty feet of celestial bronze dragon, with beautiful interlocking scales that move so smoothly you can’t hear him approach. Festus gives Jason a dragon smile as he wanders past on his way to his treat, and Jason scrambles backwards across the leaves, wide-eyed.

Oh. Oops. He kinda looks really scared.

Leo tries to see how Festus would look to Jason. Oh. Yeah. Definite oops. Multiple lines of razor-sharp drill-bit teeth in an oversized mouth, steam blowing from his nostrils and even a couple of feet away you can feel the heat from his core. That’s not even taking into account the glowing red eyes. Uber oops.

Leo goes to help Jason stand up, stepping back and kicking at the ground uncomfortably once Jason’s on his feet.

“Sorry, man. I should’ve explained. Didn’t mean to freak you.”

Jason’s voice is kind of shaky, but the rest of him looks confident. Huh. Cool trick.

“Nah. It’s fine, Leo. You did say it was a dragon. How long have you had, uh, him?”

Leo scrutinises the dragon still slurping at the pot. “Technically, he’s way old. Like hundreds of years old. But with the war done, a friend thought I could do with a new project. So we resurrected him a while back. Got some major glitches still. Took a bit to get him up and running again. Think he’s missing pieces, though. And there’s something wrong with his brain.”

He used to spark from all his joints. Leo had given in and let Beck help him with the bigger pieces, so he could get a better idea of what they’re working with. It would’ve taken forever to clean every joint by himself.

They’d still been looking at months of work between the two of them, except Tyson, the baby forge cyclops slash honorary summer camper, had stopped in to see Georgie and then spent a day cleaning the majority of the joints by himself. Leo couldn’t hope to match Tyson’s speed. He’s not jealous. Nope.

If he keeps pretending Percy didn’t send the cyclops, Percy will also act like he had nothing to do with it. Not a hint. Only a happy coincidence.

Festus gives up on finding any more drops of oil and turns to examine Jason, making enquiring creaking noises. Leo and Soph exchange amused glances when Jason answers like the automaton is really speaking.

Well, if he can talk to the giant eagle monster thing, guess he’s good at body language?

Jason’s like a different person now they’re in the woods and away from all the people. It’s unexpected. Leo would’ve thought Jason was like the intense version of a people person. But he totally relaxes now he’s only got an audience of a robot dragon and seems to have forgotten Leo and Soph are there.

Leo steps back and watches Festus move, trying to see if any new glitches have shown up.

The fact that the dragon keeps leaving is a problem. Beck doesn’t know what command code they need to give either. Festus shows up whenever Leo goes looking for him, but he’ll probably need to stick a tracker on the dragon so he can work out where the hell he’s going.

He’s really hoping Festus isn’t leaving the barrier. If he’s been spending his time in the mortal world and Lee finds out, he’ll definitely make Leo deactivate him.

One thing the Colchis bulls had been extra helpful with is that they were built on the same principles as Festus. Which makes sense, Hephaestus built both the bulls and the dragon.

Leo has never managed to fix the Colchis bulls. Which is worrying. He was okay with them being broken, he didn’t break them after all, Clarisse did that. Totally her fault. But if he can’t fix them, doesn’t that mean he can’t fix Festus?

With Jason’s help, and Festus’s permission, Leo gets the dragon shut down and opens the hatch on the back of his head to pull the corroded central processing unit.

He has no hope of duplicating it, it’s even more complex the bulls’, but maybe if he cleans it well enough and adds the new circuitry, it’ll bypass the glitchy sections?

Leo has a lot of work to do.

________________________

Jason hovers outside the main armoury, and he’s there for barely ten minutes before Will shows up.

Guess that proves it. He’s been here four days now, and he’d already gotten the feeling people are keeping a close eye on him. They’re much subtler about it than anyone in the legion is.

Mostly. The repeated offers to take him shopping for clothes ‘in his own style’ are a bit too obvious. He likes the legion clothes. He’s keeping them. Stop asking.

Chiron either hides from him or watches him from a distance, a longbow always nearby. The older military guy does the same thing. Jason’s been told he’s a son of Ares called Nathan.

Of course, there are multiple children of Mars here. If anything, Mars has the most children of any of the gods. Maybe not Mercury, but it must be close. Everyone acts as if it’s completely normal to have a lot of ‘war kids’ around. Expected even.

Reyna claimed that the cursed pirate on Circe’s Island, Edward Teach, was a son of Mars. Jason had never really believed it. It’s not like it could be proven, and there are no records of him in the legion.

But here, not only are there living children of Mars, but Edward Teach is well known to the camp. The pirate ship docked on the beach is the same pirate ship Reyna sailed out of the Sea of Monsters. The original Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard’s ship.

Jason wishes he could tell Consul Pearce about how much of an idiot he’s making of himself, constantly claiming a long ago ancestry to Mars. Unfortunately, he’s never going to tell anyone at New Rome about the people here. He can’t think of any possible way that could end well.

Will asks, “You wanting to see the armoury?”

Jason cringes. “Yeah. Sorry. I just- I need to check.”

Will gives him a sympathetic look and unlocks the shed for him.

One more thing that’s odd about this place. Not everyone has access to weapons. Unless they’ve proven themselves capable and trustworthy of handling live blades, they can only use them under supervision.

Which makes complete sense. But it’s different from the legion, where everyone over the age of twelve is handed a pilum and gladius.

That’s how everything goes here.

Even with basic things like chores, the kids have responsibilities, but it’s more for things like basic animal husbandry, still supervised by the adults, keeping their spaces tidy and cleaning up any messes they make. All the higher level organisation and management is handled by adults. No legionnaires are being used for unpaid city maintenance work in this camp.

The only time he’s seen that sort of thing back home, where kids aren’t expected to be as responsible as adults, was with that whole thing with Conservatori when he first arrived.

The legion had insisted that Jason prove his ability with a sword before they gave Conservatori back, but he’s the only one they’ve ever done that to in the time he’s been with the legion. He’s figuring it was an excuse to take Conservatori. If the sword had transformed for Consul Coelispex, he’d never have seen it again.

The consul had repeatedly tried to wield it.

It would have been another status symbol for him. Jason hasn’t seen the parazonium since Will gave it to Austin, but he knows there’s very little the consul wouldn’t give to own that knife. If he knew it was here, he’d be sending a full cohort after it. Possibly the entire legion.

At least the Alaskan quest wasn’t over something quite that stupid? But the parazonium represents too many things to New Rome. Other than the two the consuls carry, they don’t use or own them anymore. Not even Jason and Reyna, who have every right to carry one. There are none available. They’d have to buy them, and the legion has no funds left.

Unlike this place, which can afford college educations at any college in the world, including Harvard, for every single camper. Jason’s still not over that being so casually revealed in the orientation film.

He gets the impression that some of the adults here don’t fully grasp how much funding they have. They simply know they can pay for good futures for their kids.

The whole thing leaves such a bad taste in Jason’s mouth. Which gets even worse because they don’t need the money. They already have a ridiculous amount of weaponry sitting here, ready and waiting. All of it in different divine metals. Not a single piece of mortal steel is present in the blades or the armour. Even the arrowheads are all bronze.

They’re supplied not only with standard weapons but all the ones the legions don’t have as well. Too many bows to count, and the requisite supplies of arrows for all of them.

They’re even sorted for a full complement of cavalry. The pegasi stables were another shock to his system. They’re full to bursting with not only stallions, but mares and foals too.

Piper had said something vague about how no-one’s entirely sure how many pegasi there are, because the wild ones come and go as they please and only some of the pegasi ‘work’ for the camp. Pregnant mares have their foals at the camp because it’s safer, but most leave once the foal is old enough.

Because of course, they have campers who can communicate with the pegasi. Jason decided he was never telling them the Amazons buy and sell pegasi. He gets the impression that this place doesn’t see them as property so much as willing companions to demigod life.

As much as he tries not to think about it, Jason can’t stop the armoury itching at him. There were so many weapons here. And so much of it was gold. These people claim they didn’t know the Romans existed. They definitely didn’t know about the Roman Amazons and their warehouses.

So why are there so many Roman weapons here? Is Octavian right?

Will asks, “What are we looking for?”

“The gold ones.”

“Why them?”

Jason answers tightly, too focused on moving through the shelves. “Gold is Roman.”

Will sounds doubtful. “All gold is Roman?”

“It’s called imperial gold. It was consecrated in a secret process by Roman emperors who kept the old ways. We can’t make it anymore.”

“The old ways?”

“Not Christian.”

Will speaks with a careful, even tone. “Ah. Are you sure that’s where it started? We don’t have much, but I’m pretty sure most of this is older than Rome.”

Jason frowns, turning to look at him. “Wait, what do you know?”

“My dad likes giving his kids bows. Sometimes new ones, sometimes old ones. Lee has a bow that was last used during the Trojan War, and it was old even then, so that’s over five hundred years before Rome was founded. It’s made of the same gold metal as pretty much every gold blade here.”

Well. That seems unlikely.

Everything about Lee seems increasingly unlikely. Maybe he’s a mass hallucination?

Jason doesn’t answer Will, turning back to the shelves and reaching for the first piece of gold he sees.

It’s a Greek design. The leaf-shaped blade of their distinctive short sword.

Definitely no Roman engravings. Reyna told him the Amazons sell imperial gold in all sorts of designs. She has an eighteenth century cutlass. It doesn’t mean anything.

Will adds conversationally, “Did you know the parazonium was originally a Greek design? We didn’t use it as a status symbol, but Beck says the Romans adopted the design from Ancient Greeks. The Greeks used it the same way the Romans used those lethal knives, like the one you carry.”

“It’s a pugio.”

Jason pulls out more pieces of gold, but they’re all clearly early Greek designs. They feel old.

Will moves to stand next to him, running his hands over them.

“Most of these are from Troy, I think. Some might be earlier. Not named blades or used by known heroes, but they eventually found their way back to us all the same. They’re listed in the inventory as ‘enchanted gold’.”

Jason speaks firmly. “Romans invented imperial gold.”

Will gives him an unconvinced look and doesn’t respond.

Jason finds a spatha on a rack of swords, but there are no engravings. It could easily have belonged to the same person the parazonium did. If they have the parazonium, they’d have his sword and pilum at the very least. Probably two pila, legionnaires used to be supplied with two each. Maybe a hasta too.

Will casually asks, “You have any bronze weapons in your legion armoury?”

Jason flattens his mouth and moves to the next shelf.

None in the armoury, no. The day after Jason’s Triumph, Consul Pearce had produced two bronze Greek swords from the same place the skulls came from. According to him, anyway.

They were different from what the dracaenae wielded, much more customised and engraved to boot, definitely not from that battle.

Greek engravings, not that they told Jason and Reyna much. One was Tharros, bravery. The other was Aristeia, the moment of excellence, but the sort specifically related to a warrior dominating a battlefield. They’d agreed not to tell anyone what the names meant. The swords alone would be taken as proof of Greek violence.

Jason and Reyna still haven’t found where these mysterious hidden archives are. New Rome is a tiny village, it shouldn’t be possible for them to be so well concealed. Jason suggested to Reyna again that she tell the prophet about this, if he ever shows up. She didn’t reply.

Will speaks softly, “I’ll take that as a yes. They mean something else to you, don’t they?”

Jason keeps moving through the shelves, picking up each gold blade he sees, and returning it to its place as soon as he identifies the Greek design.

“You said that he was murdered by the Greeks, and you called the parazonium a war trophy. Like us having possession of it was proof we murdered him.”

Jason stays silent.

Will says softly, “Please tell me Nico’s seen whatever it is. That he knows about this.”

“He does. Said he was waiting for someone. Sounded like it was the prophet.”

“Well, that explains a few things.”

Jason sharply turns towards Will. Reyna had met Nico with the prophet, and then when Nico came to the legion he had implied he knew the prophet well, made some joke about the prophet deciding to keep him.

“You know the prophet?”

Will meets his eyes and speaks with precision. “I am a son of Apollo.”

Jason is about to demand what that has to do with anything and then pulls himself up short. The prophet would be Will’s brother. He would definitely know of him.

“Everyone gets very unhappy when I ask about him.”

“You’ve only been here a few days. We don’t know why our people have been kept separate from yours, but it’s clear something was done to keep us apart.”

Will hesitates, giving him a long look. “You’re also clearly afraid of us. You saw a Roman weapon and immediately concluded we killed him and kept his possessions as some sort of trophy.”

Jason tilts his head. There was an odd emphasis on that last part.

“I don’t get it? What are you implying about his possessions?”

Will meets his eyes, and there is some hidden ache in them. As if he doesn’t want Jason to know he’s hurting.

“Our traditions have not changed in millennia. The Trojan War ensured we wouldn’t forget them again. When a warrior dies, we burn them with their weapons and armour. Proof to the gods that they fought courageously and honourably. That they died with glory. The only time we keep a weapon is if the owner asked us to keep it, prior to their death. Ally, non-combatant or enemy, if they died with honour, we do all we can to help them reach Elysium.”

Fuck.

Will is speaking gently, but it hits Jason like a gut punch.

It’s the Romans who scavenge a battlefield for the enemy’s weapons and armour. The Romans who leave the dead lying where they fell, stripped of their possessions. The mortal Greeks might have done the same, but everything they found in their own archives said that the Greeks’ intense focus on death rites began with the demigods.

There are no lares or household spirits in the Greek camp. No bones. No taint or pollution of death.

Everything Jason’s seen since he got here is proof that these Greek demigods still keep to their old traditions. They give offerings as easily as breathing. They live in temples turned into homes, and they treat the gods as active participants in their everyday lives. So present that even the casual use of a god’s name will draw their attention.

In the past four days, he’s heard every swear word he can think of, and some entirely new ones, including multiple pluralised versions of Christian profanity, but not a single use of a god’s or hero’s name as an exclamation. They don’t even speak Hercules’s name aloud.

Will watches him steadily, and Jason doesn’t know what to say.

So he shakes his head hard, and goes back to stalking down the aisles of the armoury, reaching for flashes of gold at random.

Jason’s tried asking a few people about the single temple that isn’t a cabin. The one that sits next to the Big House. He’d been told it was the Apollonian and then little Valentina had looked horrified and raced off, mid-conversation. Most of the younger kids have avoided him since.

He asks Will, “The prophet lives here, doesn’t he?”

“Why would you think that?”

“The hulking great Apollonian Temple? Just maybe?”

Will chokes, spending a long minute coughing and spluttering before getting himself under control.

“Uh. No. That’s not his temple.”

“Your dad gets two temples? He’s that popular here?”

Will purses his lips, giving him an intense look.

“No-one is going to give you answers on this. Dad is very possessive. But I’ll tell you this much. It’s not the prophet’s temple. It belongs to the Oracle of Delphi. She’s away at the moment, but my sister Kayla is her priestess.”

It hits Jason like a truck. What Will is saying. What it means.

Jason tries to keep himself standing at attention, but he makes the mistake of glancing at Will and making eye contact. Has he ever had someone look at him with so much genuine sympathy and compassion?

He blurts, “I can’t- I can’t do this.”

He barrels out of the armoury past Will, heading straight for the hill with the pine tree. Dominus seems to always be there, watching over the entire camp.

He’s only a quarter of the way there when familiar talons grab his shoulders and he’s airborne, Dom flying over the woods and carrying him to an empty clearing.

Nice of the eagle to make sure Jason has privacy for his breakdown.

Jason slumps to the ground, leaning against a rock and not even trying to put himself at eye-level with Dom. They sit quietly for a long time while Jason tries to remember to breathe and keep control of himself.

When he finally feels like he can speak without crying, he talks to Dom.

“Turns out, the Oracle of Delphi is alive. And here. She even has a priestess.”

According to New Rome, and the rest of the world, she disappeared in 363CE after giving a final prophecy to Emperor Julian, saying the Delphic temple had fallen and the prophetic spring was silent.

Oh.

Dom coos breathily to him until he looks up. The eagle looks so sad.

“Dom, she didn’t disappear, did she? We just forgot where she was?”

Dom nods gently.

That last prophecy. It reads like it’s saying the Oracle has lost her connection to Apollo. But when Jason thinks through the words, he realises it has a secondary meaning.

‘Tell the emperor that the Daidalic hall has fallen.
No longer does Phoebus have his chamber, nor mantic laurel,
nor prophetic spring; and the speaking water has been silenced.’

She was saying that the Oracle was leaving Delphi. Daidalic hall. The old-fashioned hall. The old hall has fallen, and she’s going somewhere new.

It was an announcement for an emperor who knew of the existence of Camp Jupiter, and probably Camp Half-Blood as well, that she was moving to a place where Apollo still has his laurel crown and domain of prophecy. Where he’s still honoured.

She probably spoke additional prophecies, but they wouldn’t be in the Roman records.

“We forgot the Greeks, and they forgot the Romans.”

Dom nods again.

“Why?”

Dom watches him, not answering.

“Chiron knows. Bacchus too. They both walk away every time I try to talk to them.”

Dom gently runs a beak over his head.

Head pats from an eagle. Great.

“It’s been four days. I still haven’t seen Thalia.”

Dom gives him a smug look, flicking his wings and looking oh so pleased with himself.

“What have you done?”

The eagle tilts his head until it’s parallel to the ground, flattening his feathers, giving Jason the body language version of, “Can you hear that?”

Jason focuses his hearing. Horns. A hunting party worth of horns is blowing, and it echoes throughout the camp.

Piper told him the Hunters always sound their horns when they come to camp.

“Thalia’s here?”

Dom nods, bouncing on his feet.

That’s the first good news Jason’s had in ages.

He stands up and intends to say something impressive like, “Let’s go see my sister,” but Dom’s already got hold of him, talons gripping his shoulders, and he takes flight, heading for the Big House.

Not quite how Jason wanted to introduce himself, but he’ll take it.

Somehow, he hadn’t expected Thalia to still look thirteen. Even though every picture from the conspiracy blogs showed a thirteen-year-old girl. Most of them claimed it was a picture of Jason, who was hidden in plain sight as a girl.

She strides down the hill, girls dressed in matching grey and silver pouring into the camp behind her, enthusiastically calling out to campers and looking like they’re here to get the party started. The wolves that seem to be everywhere are acting like extra wiggly Labrador retrievers and really adding to the chaos.

But Jason has more important things to focus on.

Thalia.

Short black hair which must be dyed, it’s nothing like her natural white-blonde curls. The storm grey eyes that are achingly familiar. Sparking tiny flashes of memory that he can never quite grab hold of.

The crown is new. A delicate silver diadem type thing that’s set on her hair and makes her look like some sort of odd princess in grey camo.

She stumbles to a stop as Dom drops Jason on the ground and lands himself.

“Okay. They warned me about the eagle. But. Yeah. Okay. That’s a thing. Cool.”

She shakes it off and switches her focus to Jason.

She says, “Jace,” like it’s the most precious word she knows.

He smiles awkwardly. “Hi, Thalia. You’re, uh, younger than I expected.”

She winces. “Yeah. That’s a long story. I’m so sorry I didn’t come for you sooner. They said you were dead. I swear, I thought you were dead.”

Jason shrugs a shoulder, feeling very young and uncertain.

“I always figured if you were alive you’d have come for me. Don’t even know why I was so sure. But I knew you would’ve come and got me if you could.”

She’s crying and not even trying to hide it. “I promised you that. When you were a baby. That it was always going to be me and you against the world.”

A voice drawls nearby, “All very touching, and I, for one, am living for the drama. But perhaps you might disperse your people so things are a little less crowded?”

Bacchus. Yeah. Everyone’s watching, aren’t they?

Thalia doesn’t take her eyes off Jason. “Still a Dickforbrains, good to know. Bi, Cabin Eight. Set up tents in the back fallow field, yeah?”

Another girl, she looks the same age as Thalia does; dark hair with an odd white streak, olive skin and sharp features, looking too much like Nico in the full-sibling rather than half-sibling way, acknowledges Thalia and starts organising the girls who are all gawking at them.

“C’mon Jace, let’s go find somewhere quieter. We bringing the eagle?”

Dom nods enthusiastically. Jason eyes him. “Apparently? Dom kind of does what he wants. He’s a person, not a pet.”

Thalia scoffs, sounding deeply entertained. “The way I heard it, he’s a parent.”

Dom nods again, bouncing on his feet and flapping his wings in his excitement.

Jason mouths, ‘I hate you,’ to the eagle and looks helplessly at his sister.

His living, breathing sister. Who is standing in front of him. Who is right here. She seems to be struggling with the same thing.

“Oh, this is painful to watch. For the love of the gods! One of you needs to hug the other already!”

Jason and Thalia turn to look at the Big House. Bacchus is sitting on the porch swing with a Diet Pepsi and a bowl of popcorn in his lap, watching them like they’re an enthralling new TV series.

He smiles gleefully at them. “Don’t mind me. Pretend I’m not here. Please continue.”

Thalia narrows her eyes. “You have a phone. Why do you have a phone?”

“Someone may have requested video evidence.”

“Does Lee know?”

His tone turns petulant. “Why must you involve Hero in everything I do? You are definitely my least favourite sister.”

Thalia rolls her eyes. “You can’t even name half of our siblings. Fuck off with that already.”

Jason watches the exchange wide-eyed. Every time he thinks he has a grasp on Bacchus’s personality, he switches into a whole new person. It would never occur to Jason that Bacchus is technically his half-brother. But Bacchus acknowledges Thalia as a sister? They bicker like siblings?

He pretends he doesn’t hear Bacchus call this mythical Lee ‘Hero’. He’s heard it a few times now, and it confuses him every time. Bacchus seems to deliberately bungle everyone’s names, even Piper’s. But Lee is always ‘Hero’.

Jason is less and less confident that Lee is a person. They talk about him in the same way the legionnaires talk about Hercules.

Bacchus speaks with a little less obnoxiousness. “I’d suggest Cabin One. Father insisted it be large enough for appropriately majestic statues. The featherbrain will fit fine.”

Thalia makes a sour face but agrees.

Jason trails after her as she strides to the cabins. She’s definitely extremely familiar with camp. She walks like Reyna does. A natural warrior who instinctively takes the lead.

Normally, Jason matches Reyna. They fit together as leaders. He’s never felt this out of his depth around Reyna.

These past four days, he’s felt like a useless child who knows nothing. It’s really not helping the explosive anger.

He’s definitely going to blame the Greeks for everything. Easier.

Jason hasn’t been inside Cabin One yet.

Zeus’s cabin.

Jason still doesn’t understand the aspect thing, even though every Greek seems to understand it innately. He’s heard it explained as: like Piper with Areia, Leo with Pyrotes, Castor with Maenoles, Pollux with Auxites, Jon with Ergane and Sophie with Poliatis.

It would be more useful if he knew Greek epithets. Everyone here seems to automatically know them. They get noticeably uncomfortable when he tries to ask how they learned all of this.

But it doesn’t matter.

Because Thalia is here.

The inside of Cabin One is identical to Cabin Two. The only change is the statue of Zeus instead of Hera, and the complete lack of personal touches. It all looks sterile and brand new. No-one lives here, even in the summer. Jason’s not clear on why it’s been left empty.

Thalia leads him into a common room space and looks around.

“This is a definite improvement. Last time I was in here, it was a temple. No electricity, definitely no furniture. Just a massive ugly statue of Sperm Donor.”

Jason stands in the doorway, too shocked to know what to say.

“Sperm Donor?”

She hitches a careless shoulder. “Don’t worry, he only listens if you use his name. Pretty much everyone insults him constantly.”

“He’s the King of the Gods.”

“Only because no-one wants his throne. He nearly lost it not that long ago. He’ll be eating humble pie for ages yet.”

Jason whispers his words. “How do you know this? How does everyone know all of this?”

Thalia grimaces, focusing on him.

“Sorry, Jace. This is a lot. I tend to deal with emotion by deflecting. Not what you need right now.”

He offers, “I prefer using outright denial, myself.”

Thalia quietly says, “I still can’t believe you’re really here. Can I hug you?”

Jason takes a step back, running straight into Dom. He hadn’t even realised the eagle was standing directly behind him in the hallway.

She looks so sad now. “It’s okay, Jace. No hugs. Maybe we could sit down?”

She very deliberately takes a seat, and Jason gives her a sour look. Silena and Will keep using the same sort of body language with him. Like he’s so fragile he’ll break if they move too fast.

If not for the part where his sister is right here and alive, he would’ve already gone back to New Rome where things make sense. Where no-one makes him feel small and too young and incapable.

Jason gives in to the inevitable and sits on the couch across from her. Dominus stands in the doorway, looking fascinated. Also, blocking Jason’s escape route. Probably deliberately.

“People keep telling me that some things are best coming from you, but they never explain anything. And now you’re here, I- I don’t know what to say.”

Thalia gives him an equally helpless look. “Yeah. There is so much I want to tell you. Good things. There are also things I’ve been asked to explain to you which are… less than great.”

Jason knows where this is going. “Everyone dodges my questions about whatever war they fought. But it’s obvious it was recent.”

Thalia frowns at him, looking unhappy. “Yeah. They were worried you would leave before I got here if they explained.”

Jason has such a sinking feeling.

“When we toppled the thrones. New York had been dark for three days. Me and Reyna are the only ones who even remember Manhattan going silent.”

Thalia looks oddly relieved. “So you know there was more going on? We weren’t sure if the Mist would have hidden it from you.”

“I saw the gods fighting the monster that came out of Mount St Helens. But they were the Roman gods.”

“No, Jace. They were the Greek gods. They look Roman to you, but their Roman aspects are just that, an aspect.”

“The orientation video. It said Olympus was in New York. Did the gods close off the city while they fought?”

Thalia shakes her head, meeting his eyes steadily. “No. That was Kronos.”

Jason freezes. No. Please. No.

Thalia gives him an uncomfortable looking grimace. “We held the city. The Hunt, the auxiliary and some of the more powerful underage kids. Had a skeleton army at some points, like, actual skeletons, from Uncle. Centaurs were there for a bit. It was fucking awful. Three days of non-stop fighting.”

Three days to the legion’s thirty minutes. Their battle, the one they gave Jason a Roman Triumph for, lasted less than thirty minutes. Three hundred dracaenae and Crius, the Titan of Constellations.

“This is the war that everyone skirts around.”

Thalia nods. “The three days were the worst of it. But there was a battle fourteen months earlier that really started the fighting. It was fourteen months of constant little fights. It was relentless. I went to Mount Othrys, uh, Mount Tamalpais, twice during everything.”

She’d been that close? Oh.

“There were photos of you. A couple of years ago, in San Francisco, near the Embarcadero. Me and Reyna flew out on the eagles to look. But there was nothing but gold dust.”

Thalia looks so sad. “Yeah. That was the day we lost Zoe, the last Lieutenant of the Hunt. Lady Artemis placed her in the sky with her soul-sister Phoebe as a new constellation. We call them the Hunters.”

Because of course, Thalia can casually explain the mysterious constellation the legion has been arguing about since it showed up nearly two years ago.

“The past year, there were constant reports of monsters from Mount Tam.”

She nods again. “Kronos used it as a staging ground for his army. I went back with some friends, Piper was one of them. We learned some things we never wanted to know. Destroyed the palace, but he rebuilt it pretty quickly.”

“How many were in his army?”

She shakes her head, giving him a fierce look. “Don’t do that to yourself, Jace. Don’t. We fought different fights. Don’t compare things. I am so fucking glad you weren’t in New York for all that.”

He can’t stop himself from blurting, “I’m older than you.”

She laughs. “Physically, sure. And well, we’re probably the same age chronologically? But I’ve got the whole immortal blessing of Artemis thing. Makes my brain work a bit differently. Needed it to lead the Hunt.”

Jason gapes at her. “How can you be the same age chronologically? You’re seven years older than me.”

Thalia looks incredibly conflicted, and Dom coos from the doorway, looking worried. Thalia eyes the eagle.

“Look. Just to check. You are aware that he’s not actually an eagle, right?”

Jason smiles sheepishly. “Kinda figured something was up when I was eight. But he never explains. He won’t communicate in anything but body language.”

He gives Dominus a filthy look as he says that, and the eagle gazes innocently back.

Thalia squints at the eagle. “Does Sperm Donor know where you are?”

Dominus fucking shakes his head, looking decidedly smug. Jason stares, mouth open.

“It’s been seven years, Dom!”

The eagle flicks a wing in a shrug, still looking pleased.

Thalia laughs, highly entertained. “Well. I am very grateful Jace had someone looking out for him.” Dom gives her a little half bow thing, like he’s saying, ‘you’re very welcome’.

“I haven’t forgotten the chronological age bit.”

“I know, Jace. But I’d rather not dump it all on you at once. You have a very different view of the world than we do.”

“I’ve grown up being told the Greeks slaughtered us. No-one seems to know if we won and they cursed us, or if they won and we ran and hid ourselves. But we’re banned from even ritualised worship because it’s too Greek.”

Thalia bites her lip, looking like she’s barely staying in her seat. Jason knows she’s desperate to hug him and prove he’s real, but he just can’t.

Romans don’t show weakness.

“Yeah. They told me about that. I’m not sure what to say.”

Jason frowns. She keeps talking like someone’s been reporting back to her. Silena or Will?

“Who is ‘they’?”

She hesitates, eyes uncertain.

“So there’s more that’s being kept from me.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry, Jace. I’ll tell you all I can, but I can’t control the gods.”

He looks over at the eagle. “Do you know what they’re hiding?”

Dom nods. Jason asks in a too small voice, “They gonna hurt me?”

The eagle shakes his head fiercely. Stalking over and nudging at Jason’s shoulder until Jason shifts over from the middle of the couch.

No, he’s not going to, is he?

He is.

Dom climbs onto the couch, folding his legs under himself and looking incredibly stupid with his tail sticking out the side. But he gets himself sorted well enough to tuck Jason under his wing.

Jason ducks his face down, cheeks flaming, and he knows Dom is giving Thalia a deeply smug look over his head.

Thalia is in near hysterics, she’s laughing so hard. Jason hears the distinctive noise of a phone taking a photo and digs his way out of fluffy feathers to glare at her.

She takes another picture.

“Hey! I haven’t seen my baby brother in twelve years, I’m just making up for lost time!”

Chapter Text

The next few days follow the same routine.

Jason attends morning lessons with the older kids and refuses to join in the training and sparring in the afternoons. After he accidentally blurts out that Romans don’t use bows, he spends much time rejecting every offer to teach him archery. Both the Apollo kids and the Hunters take offence at Jason not being trained on the bow.

Somehow, the fact Reyna actually does use a bow doesn’t make him feel any different about learning himself. He avoids thinking about how irrational he’s becoming.

Thalia hovers around Jason, he tries to talk to her, and sometimes they make progress, mostly they don’t. Every time, the conversation falls apart, and Jason all but runs away. Dom comes and finds him, and Jason hides from Thalia for hours.

When she’s not trying to talk to him, she’s lurking nearby, watching him. It’s almost funny, because right outside of Thalia’s eyeline, there’ll be a couple of Hunters, watching her in the exact same way. They are all doing so well at acting with dignity and maturity.

Thalia had let slip she’s known he was alive since December, and Jason didn’t know where to go from there. He understands they were in the middle of a war, and she tells him outright that she wasn’t told where he was, only that he was alive.

Then, she tells him the only reason she knew that much was because she was in the Underworld and kept getting distracted from the mission by looking for him.

Jason remembers Leo saying she died, and he draws conclusions.

Wrong conclusions.

It leads to her finally explaining how she’s missing seven years of her life.

Because she was a tree.

The same tree the little golden dragon is wrapped around, up on the hill near the Big House.

The Golden Fleece cured her, maybe? She gets super vague when she talks about that. Jason’s not much better, because that’s the genuine Golden Fleece? Like, right there?

He can never manage a coherent conversation when he’s reminded that things like the Golden Fleece are sitting out in the open in the Greek camp.

It’s like pulling teeth, but Thalia eventually tells him that Neptune and Dis Pater cursed her. Because they both had younger children that Jupiter would execute if he knew of their existence.

Nico is one of them. Bianca another. The three sons of Saturn and Ops had sworn an oath to not have children, and Thalia and Jason’s father - fathers? - broke that oath twice.

When Jason pointed out Dis Pater has three children, shouldn’t he be the worst offender for breaking the oath? Thalia got all awkward again.

Nico wasn’t lying. He was born in Italy. But not in this century. He’d been kept in stasis for a lot longer than Thalia. Thalia doesn’t know Hazel’s story, only that she was also born before the oath.

Hazel definitely hasn’t told anyone at the legion this. Jason knows he won’t be allowed to tell Reyna either.

From the sounds of it, Jason and this mysterious ‘Second Prince of Atlantis’ are the only ones who haven’t spent time in stasis.

It took far too long for him to realise that this other kid is called the Second Prince because Triton, as in the god, is the Crown Prince.

Then Thalia explained that this other kid was crowned in the throne room of Olympus and he really is an official Atlantean Prince. And it’s not anything like how the sons of Jupiter are called Princes of Rome. Sons of Jupiter are given that title by mortals. This son of Neptune was given the title by the gods.

Oh, and by the way, this Atlantean Prince, along with his two adopted siblings, are heralded as the Saviours of Olympus. All three of them were offered ascension. All three turned it down. It’s clear that Thalia thinks is an entirely understandable sequence of events.

Talking about gods and demigods is still easier than talking about Beryl.

It comes to a head on the morning of some sort of planned camp wide game. Piper said it was a camp tradition for a Hunt v Campers Capture the Flag game whenever the Hunt is here and ‘it’s time they got back into the rhythm of normal life’. The younger kids are enthusiastic, but everyone Leo’s age and up is incredibly wary. Even the Hunters.

Leo’s extra furious because Piper’s forcing him to shut Festus down for the duration of the game. Piper says she doesn’t entirely trust that the dragon won’t randomly attack people during a war game.

Thalia finds Jason first thing in the morning and bluntly tells him he’s not using mortal homeschool to avoid her. They need to have this out. Dom is nowhere to be seen, but Jason knows he’ll show up whenever Jason makes a run for it.

For a Roman, Jason’s spending a lot of time running away. It’s really not a good look.

This time, they head into the woods. Thalia leads them straight past a clearing with a huge pile of rocks in the centre, claiming it has bad vibes, and brings him to a small clearing with three empty dirt patches that amuse her for some reason.

Hoping to distract her, Jason asks about it, but all she tells him is that the satyrs were being idiots and the fallout had been fun to watch.

He is so sick of people speaking in code.

When he’d first realised this place was Greek, he’d had the thought that at least they wouldn’t be so weird about the sea gods.

Only for them to be even weirder.

There are two ‘minor’ sea gods at the camp. Jason is now absolutely certain that Triton has been watching him since the Trojan Sea Monster quest when he was twelve, maybe earlier, but the god goes out of his way to avoid him. Like Chiron, Triton walks off the moment he sees Jason.

Which would be strange enough, but he’s also seen Triton standing with Dom, and they looked like they were having a conversation. Which is somewhat confusing? Dom is Roman, even if he’s a minor god of some sort, why would he be having in-depth conversations with the Greek Sea Prince?

One more strange thing he doesn’t have answers for. The Greeks’ treatment of the sea gods really doesn’t make sense in general.

Neptune even has his own cabin. But everyone talks around the kids who aren’t here. Always being so careful with the details.

Jason now knows that there are three campers in Atlantis who are the mysterious Lee’s adopted children.

One is Clarisse, who copes by stabbing people, possibly also gods.

One is Nico, who sounds more and more terrifying every time someone talks about him. If Jason hadn’t met him, he’d be completely petrified. He’s thinking Nico majorly downplays things when he’s at the legion. And still manages to unsettle everyone he meets.

The third adopted sibling is this ‘Second Prince’. Jason still hasn’t caught a name for him.

He tells Thalia, “I don’t see the point in discussing this.”

Thalia watches him, a silver knife spinning through her fingers. He’s caught her watching him more and more. Leo repeatedly points out how disconcerting Jason’s stillness is. Everyone watches Jason and looks increasingly worried. He hates it.

He doesn’t get why it’s a problem. He worked hard to learn to be still. Jason is proud of what a good Roman soldier he is. Jason was born Roman, and he’ll die Roman. True Roman. Not what New Rome is.

He’s already stopped wearing the glasses from Will. He can’t take them with him when he goes home, no point getting used to them.

Which means Will is now also watching him. And if one more Venus kid suggests taking Jason on a shopping trip for different clothes, he may snap. The legion wears purple. Jason wears purple.

Purple clothes and gold weapons and armour. He is Roman. Romans are controlled. Disciplined. Not the pure chaos of this place.

He’s tried to talk to Reyna, but she’s busy with the legion. Dakota is busy holding Octavian at bay. They both tell him to take his time, that this is important for him.

They don’t even know about Juno’s destiny thing.

Dakota’s especially distracted. A new demigod’s arrived at the legion.

He’s fifteen and doesn’t know who his parent is and had no evidence of being a demigod. He’d have been turned away entirely, except both Hazel and Nico confirmed he was a demigod.

Frank also had nowhere else to go. His mother died recently in a car accident, and his grandmother wasn’t in a position to care for him. They’d placed him in the Fifth Cohort, with Reyna and Nico using a lot of their political capital to make it happen.

Reyna said he’d brought a letter with him that his family had told him to give her in private.

It wasn’t a recommendation but an apology for the ‘actions of Shen Lun’. That poor kid the still Glasgow-based legion decided to blame the San Francisco earthquake on. Simply because he’d been living there at the time.

It means the new kid claims to be both a legacy and a demigod.

Which is impossible.

Either he’s not descended from Shen Lun, or he’s not a demigod. They’ll need to wait and see which it is.

Reyna’s fairly sure she’s convinced Frank not to talk about it, it helps that Frank doesn’t know Shen Lun is a legacy of Neptune or what he’s been blamed for, but if Octavian catches wind, it’s going to go so badly.

One of the things they knew - had known - for certain was that demigods were never born to legacies. They didn’t know why numbers were dropping, but they knew the gods only sought out mortals not connected to the divine world. Then Frank shows up.

Jason had been so tempted to try to tell Reyna about the Greeks again. To tell her to send Frank here, where he’d have people and a home.

Not five years of service in a legion where he won’t be able to leave before he turns twenty. Where Octavian and his father are going to dog his every step the moment they learn of his possible dual heritage. Then Jason had realised what he was thinking and shut that thought down hard. Jason’s Roman. Not Greek. Frank belongs with his people. With the Romans.

“Jace. We need to talk about this.”

Thalia’s plainly given up on waiting him out.

“Why? You weren’t there, Thalia. It’s over. Done.”

“Because if you’re left to draw your own conclusions, it won’t end well. I know what happens when people blame the gods for not acting like people. I won’t let you go down that path.”

Those two friends of hers who raised Kronos from Tartarus and tried to destroy the world. Great. Good to know what she thinks of him.

Jason scoffs. “What path? Greek gods are different from Roman gods.”

She speaks firmly. “No. They aren’t.”

Jason doesn’t even know why he’s clinging to this. He’s seen Bacchus flicker between the Roman Bacchus and the Greek Dionysus. He fought a Greek titan.

The Greek gods are still alive.

Which is the problem. Why is there so much evidence of the Greek gods and so few signs of the Roman gods?

If they are the same beings, they should be equally present in both forms. But the Roman gods are absent, and the Greek gods constantly lurk around the edges of this Greek demigod camp.

So they must be separate entities.

“Look. That’s not what we need to talk about. I need to talk to you about Queen Hera.”

“I thought you weren’t meant to use names.”

“Queen Hera is welcome to listen to this conversation if she wants to. I’m not intending to say anything offensive or misleading.”

“Her name’s Juno.”

Thalia’s voice has a thread of impatience. “Fine. Juno. We need to talk about Juno.”

She gives him a careful look, definitely gauging if he’s going to find a reason to leave.

“We also need to talk about Beryl.”

Jason blurts, “You know they make TV episodes about us?”

Thalia nods. “Yes. Piper showed me.”

The knife moves hypnotically over her knuckles.

It’s easier to look at.

If he watches the knife, he doesn’t have to see her thirteen-year-old face that makes her look so much younger than him. If he doesn’t look up, he doesn’t need to see the silver circlet she always wears, or the way all of her glows silver. If he doesn’t look, he can pretend she’s his twenty-two-year-old sister and the world still makes sense.

He tells her, “So. I already know.”

“Jace, how much do you remember?”

“I’m not talking about this.”

Thalia purses her lips, giving him a long, unreadable look. “Okay. I’ll start. I remember constantly putting myself between my drunk mother and my two-year-old baby brother. I remember promising you I’d keep you safe. I remember being nine and completely terrified.”

Jason looks away, keeping himself sitting stiff and still.

Her voice turns quiet. “I remember putting you in my bed every night. Tucking you between myself and the wall, so if she woke up, I’d take the brunt of it. I remember desperately hoping you were still asleep and hadn’t seen her hit me and then turning around and you were right there staring at me with those big blue eyes.”

Jason doesn’t want to talk about this.

“Juno said my father did something ‘incredibly block-headed’ in having me.”

Thalia winces. “Yeah. There were a lot of reasons that was bad. I don’t understand the history, but Lady Artemis said it’s never happened before, a Greek and a Roman child born to the same mortal.”

“And our being Greek and Roman meant we’d die?”

Thalia looks confused. “What? No. If that had been the only issue, it could’ve been managed. You’d have been raised Greek, probably. The gods occasionally adopt each other’s children, and the twin archers take their duties towards kids seriously. That wasn’t why we would’ve died.”

“Then what was?”

“The seven years between us. One oath-breaking kid was a problem, but two with just the wrong age gap was- yeah. Very bad. You were too young to go on the run. I wasn’t willing to leave you. And I was six years older than the prophecy child. They were always going to put me in stasis or kill me. But you were younger than him.”

“You seem weirdly okay with being killed.”

Thalia exhales softly. “Jace, you need to let go of this idea that the gods are good. They aren’t people, aren’t human. They aren’t good or bad, they just are. It’s like being angry at the moon for shining. There were much bigger things at stake.”

“Not to me.”

She gives him a sad smile. “Yeah. I’m getting that impression.”

Thalia looks back down at the knife as it spins through her fingers. Talking quietly to the ground, giving him some privacy for his own emotions.

“Anyway. I only learned this a week ago, but Uncle stepped in. If he hadn’t, we would’ve died. Beryl would have killed us. I probably would’ve run away already, but I couldn’t leave you behind. You were my reason for waking up in the morning.”

She pauses and gives him a soft smile. Jason looks away.

“I had to keep you safe. Beryl was furious that she’d lost Sperm Donor’s attention. Doing wilder and wilder things to try to force him to come back. The fact that she lived as long as she did is a miracle. Uncle says he thinks she was hoping we’d turn up and she could use us to get to Sky King.”

“Juno said both that Beryl gave me to her, and also that she removed me. I’m not sure which is right.”

Thalia shrugs. “It was both. Uncle, the Sea King, pretended to be Sperm Donor and suggested to Beryl that she give you as an offering to placate Queen Hera’s anger. That the monsters that had started showing up as I came into my powers were being sent by her. He also asked Queen Hera to protect you.”

Jason says insistently, “Juno.”

She dutifully repeats, “He asked Juno to protect you.”

“What happened to you?”

Thalia hesitates. “If you saw the episodes, you know Beryl used to parade me in front of the media?” Jason gives a single nod.

“She’d sent me with a handler for some sort of TV show casting. Completely blind-sided me, and I left you alone with her. We were temporarily living in San Francisco, but the family home was in Charleston.”

She looks at him helplessly. “I really don’t remember much of that day. I came home to find her even drunker than usual, crowing to herself about how she’d fixed everything with Queen Hera. She said Sky King would be there any minute.”

Jason doesn’t want to talk about this.

“The Charleston house. It’s in your name.”

Thalia looks surprised. “Yeah. I thought we’d hidden that completely. Lee did something. He was at camp when the, uh, tree thing happened. A few years later, he called in some favours. I’m not sure why.”

“Reyna made me go and see it. Her sister is the Queen of the Amazons.”

“Yes, of the Roman Amazons. That was an interesting discovery, to say the least.”

Jason flinches a bit. That implies Greek Amazons, and he just can’t.

Thalia focuses on her knife again, her body language careful.

“So I got home, and you weren’t there. Mum claimed that she’d given you to Queen Hera. The only information I got out of her was that Sky King had told her to sacrifice you to Queen Hera and she’d left you near Wolf House in Sonoma County.”

Jason hunches into himself. That’s exactly where he was. Why didn’t she come for him?

Thalia keeps talking. “I called the police. I couldn’t get any of them to listen to me. Eventually, I hitchhiked my way to Wolf House. I searched for weeks, Jace. I camped inside Wolf House, but I never saw Lupa.”

“That’s where I was. That’s where Lupa’s based.”

She looks up, pain in her eyes. “I know. I think it was because of whatever separates the Greek and Roman camps. I couldn’t see you, and you couldn’t see me.”

She watches him for a moment, head tilted, eyes concerned. Jason stays silent. Then she seems to slump into herself, and she looks down at the knife again.

“Eventually, I had to give up. You weren’t there, and I’d turned ten by the time I left. I was on my own, so I left you a note, trying to accept you were gone. I never prayed to Sky King. As far as I was concerned, he’d murdered you. I pretty much lived on the streets for nearly two years. Eventually, I met up with a couple of kids who- yeah. That situation could have gone so badly.”

Jason frowns, confused. “What do you mean?”

Thalia squints at him, looking worried. “I want to be very clear on this. Nothing happened to me. I know you’ve grown up in a world where girls aren’t exactly safe. But nothing happened to me, you hear me?”

Thalia looks younger than him.

Hazel’s age at best. Barely older than Piper’s sister, Valentina.

She looks like a young girl who needs to be protected. But she’s talking like New Rome is unusual for the way it treats girls.

Reyna is a terrifying fighter, but Hylla sent her the automaton dogs the moment she became praetor. Of anything in the Amazons’ treasury, they probably have the highest value of all. She still sent them to safeguard her sister.

Thalia speaks as if girls are so much safer with the Greeks. Jason thinks about seeing Piper fight. Drew’s concealed knives. Sophie. Little Valentina.

Never mind. Jason’s not thinking about that ever again. Octavian is right that the Greeks are terrifying.

He asks, “But something could have happened?”

“The two kids I met up with. We ran into the little girl right before the tree thing. She’s the one who hosted Kronos. But the guy… I was with him for close to a year. He was six years older than me.”

Thalia looks the same age as Hazel. A child to be protected. Jason knows she isn’t, but she looks like it. She was even younger when she met up with this person. Eleven or so? Horrifyingly young.

Jason speaks tonelessly, “What did he do?”

“He didn’t touch me. I’ll swear on whatever you need, Jace. But he had an ability we call silvertongue. It’s a really insidious form of mind control. He liked having a powerful demigod around, and my powers were pretty flashy. He used me like a bodyguard, and it made life on the streets easier when there were two of us.”

There is too much rage in Jason’s voice, but he doesn’t care enough to contain it. “Where is he now?”

“Very, very dead.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes. I saw his body. He’s dead.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I got a lot of good hits in first. Don’t worry.”

She watches him, if anything, she looks even more upset that Jason’s still sitting quiet and still. His posture is rigid, and he can feel the rage in his blood, but he’s not like Reyna. He can contain his anger.

He doesn’t understand why the people here spar when they get angry. Reyna does everything she can to distance herself from people when the bloodlust overwhelms her. He can’t imagine fighting while feeling so angry. That’s how you get killed. Or how you kill a friend.

“So we met up with this little girl, and she immediately went all hero worship on the guy. Match made in hell. Before you ask, by the time they were doing the destroy the world thing, she was the dominant personality, not him. Plus, we bound his silvertongue.”

A black throne engraved with silver owls.

A smaller green throne with a caduceus and Ancient Greek engravings that translated to ‘Beloved Champion’.

He’s been told the girl who hosted Kronos was a daughter of Minerva, the boy was a son of Mercury.

Jason doesn’t know their names.

No-one ever speaks their names. The Greeks take destroying a person’s memory to a whole new level, even more than the Romans. Sophie says the Greeks call it Kataskaphe. They refuse to so much as speak the name of the one to be forgotten.

He thinks about what Thalia said. That they’d bound his abilities.

“You can do that?”

“Gods can be very useful beings.”

Of course. Why did he bother asking?

“Anyway, by the time we made it closer to camp, we were kind of being herded? I didn’t know it back then. Our uncles had watched me long enough to decide that I was more valuable alive, and they did something to ensure I’d be placed in stasis the moment I crossed the barrier.”

“What made them decide that?”

“How much I hated Sky King for killing you.”

Wonderful, they’re back at the start of this circular conversation.

“I heard you out. We done?”

She shakes her head, then ducks her head down, trying to make eye contact with him.

“You’re upset people are keeping things from you.”

Jason gives her a sarcastic look. “Wouldn’t you be?”

She snickers. “Before I got my head out of my ass? Yes. But my getting my shit sorted involved seeing two people killed in front of me, and a brief delirium where I genuinely considered overthrowing the gods and ruling the world. It was a real shit quest. I don’t want that for you.”

“And telling me how terrible Beryl was will help that?”

“You need to see the world as it really is. Not how you want it to be. Prove to the gods you can be trusted, and they’ll lift the restriction.”

Because in bizarro land, the gods pay close attention to demigods. To the point they’d notice how Jason felt about them.

“Shouldn’t I be afraid of the Greeks? Why are they being so careful around me?”

“I honestly don’t know. All I got out of Lady Artemis was that this is a journey we need to travel ourselves. The gods have a bit too much experience with how badly things can go when they give too much information to people. We value what we work for.”

That is decidedly Roman of them. Jason doesn’t tell Thalia what he’s thinking.

Thalia focuses on him, looking intense. Throughout this entire conversation, she’s not once stopped the movement of the knife as it rolls over and around her fingers, moving in complex patterns and never drawing blood.

“Are you ready to tell me what you remember about me and Beryl?”

Jason looks away. “Why are you so certain I remember something?”

“Because you can’t hold eye contact with me.”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

He stands and walks quickly away from the clearing, already whistling for Dom. The eagle dives between the trees to scoop him up, carrying him deeper into the woods.

He stays with Dom well past lunch. Leaning against the eagle and wrestling memories back into their box.

They aren’t real.

They aren’t even anything that bad.

A flash of purple bruises and crying storm grey eyes. The sound of a slap. Thalia promising in a choked voice that Mum’s asleep, he’s safe. Soft sobs in a dark room, his sister lying beside him, shaking as she tries to muffle her tears. Her calling for him not to go so high, even as she scrambles to hide them both on a balcony.

He doesn’t even know if they were hiding from a monster or Beryl.

It’s nothing. Probably not even real. It doesn’t matter. Dakota kept pushing him to talk about this. Reyna dragged him to Charleston. But they wanted him to accept that Thalia was dead. That Beryl killed her. They wanted Jason to stop chasing Thalia’s ghost.

Thalia’s alive. She’s right here.

And he keeps hiding from her.

Some Roman he is. Romans never back down. Except when faced with the thirteen-year-old version of his big sister. Apparently.

Whatever understanding Juno wanted him to gain, he’s not seeing it.

“Dom, maybe it’s time we went home?”

The eagle gives him a sceptical look and fiercely shakes his head.

“Juno said you’d take me home if I asked.”

Dom shakes his head again.

Great.

Jason’s phone chimes, and he pulls it out to see a text from Piper, reminding him he’s welcome to join training this afternoon, before Capture the Flag.

When she’s not trying to coax Jason into learning the bow, so she can share her love of archery with him, Thalia’s trying to get him to spar with her, but Jason’s only ever sparred full out with Reyna.

Now is not the time for more new things. He doesn’t know how these people fight when against an opponent they aren’t familiar with. Seeing them fight each other tells him nothing. They move like it’s a choreographed dance, not a fight.

He’s seen Piper fight Georgie, Nathan, Triton and Thalia, and they never fight like Jason and Reyna do.

They don’t fight savagely, fury roaring in their veins. They’re fierce and terrifying and incredibly skilled, but they never go for the kill. These people never lose situational awareness or forget that they’re fighting a friend. They never get so overwhelmed by their anger that they drop their weapons and fight hand-to-hand.

These people aren’t like Reyna. Jason can’t risk it.

He glances at Dom, who looks content to let Jason lean against him while he sorts through his thoughts. Dom is very determined that Jason gets involved in all this. Even in the Capture the Flag game.

He doubts they fight like gladiators when against a new opponent. Jason constantly hears Octavian’s desperate voice, telling him about the Greek savages that slaughtered the Roman demigods. About how they’d had to run and hide to keep the legion safe.

For all the issues Jason has with Octavian, he knows the older boy only wants to protect the legion. Octavian never forgets that the legion solely consists of children.

Octavian had made a promise to his great-grandfather when he was eight years old.

He’d promised to protect the legion, to ‘stand between the children and certain death’.

Jason can understand why Octavian is guaranteed to attack the Greeks the moment he learns of their existence. Octavian wouldn’t need to see anything else. They are Greek, and they are an obvious threat that needs to be removed.

And what Jason has seen- Well, it would make Octavian even more certain of his course. Some threats are too great to risk giving them a chance.

Jason’s dreading the Capture the Flag game. He cannot see it ending well. He’s barely keeping himself together, and he can’t handle anything more.

Jason’s been away for eight days now.

There’s a new demigod in the legion. Octavian’s done something, no-one’s sure what, but it upset Hazel, and Nico threatened the consuls over it. Again.

At the rate they’re going, Nico will remove Hazel from the legion before she even completes her probatio year.

Jason wants to go home. He wants to go back to where the world makes sense.

He looks at Dom. Dominus looks steadily back. Jason doesn’t need to speak to know that the eagle will not be changing his mind about leaving.

Juno said he has a destiny. That he is a peace offering to bridge millennia of hatred. He doesn’t even know why they hate each other. Or why it needs to be fixed.

If they’ve gone this long ignoring the others existence, why change it now?

How’s Jason meant to gain an understanding when no-one knows anything?

If he goes home, it’s game over with Thalia. He’ll live his life knowing she’s alive somewhere, and he’ll never see her again.

People don’t make sense here.

Back home, some of the families in New Rome, like the Weirs and the Hales and the Fieldings, they kept an eye on him. But not like this.

Jason even calls Mrs Weir ‘Gwen’s Mum’. She was always kind to him, always made time for him.

Then she sent him back to the legion and his bunk-bed.

Gwen and Robby were his first friends in New Rome. Children of legacies who grew up in the hidden valley. Who grew up as Romans, not modern mortals. Until Dakota and Reyna joined the legion, Gwen and Robby were his best friends.

Jason hates that he doesn’t see Gwen and Robby in the same way that they see him.

Gwen wants him to leave the legion, to live in the mortal world and to have a normal life. The Weirs offered to support him. Gwen always talks about how she sees Jason as her little brother.

Jason tried to tell them that it wouldn’t be safe for him to live in the mortal world before he turns eighteen. If he was recognised as one of the missing Grace children, things would go bad for him.

It’s just an excuse. He doesn’t know how to tell Gwen he doesn’t see her as a sister.

Jason didn’t tell Gwen where he was going. Only Dakota and Reyna know. Nico too, probably, but none of them told him.

Gwen, this girl who considers herself his sister, doesn’t know Jason was told Thalia was alive. That he was going to meet her.

He has so few things that are his. He clings to every little piece that he can claim as his own.

If not for Octavian’s great-grandfather telling him about the hidden auguraculum on top of Jupiter’s temple, Jason would have nothing. No space that was solely his. No hidey-hole for Dom to leave all his little scavenged treasures in. Jason’s never told Reyna and Dakota where he hides his things. Only Jason and the eagles know.

Jason doesn’t fully trust anyone. Not Gwen and Robby, not even Dakota and Reyna.

How many people in this Greek camp have made time for Jason? How many people have been patient, never pushing him to explain. They never give chase when he runs away, they always give him his space.

Jason is not an idiot, he knows they’re all itching to tell him that his legion of child soldiers is appalling. That they think it’s wrong. Cruel even.

The mantra in this place seems to be that demigods have to suffer enough already, they deserve to be kids as much as possible, whenever it’s an option. There are no legacies here. They believe mortal children should never participate in this life. But the demigods have no choice, so they do what they can for them.

They extend that philosophy to every camper here. He’s seen Malcolm, Will and Austin offer hugs to Jon, Leo, Castor and Pollux, as well as to the younger kids, and they all accept with no signs of shame. Like it’s normal.

Other kids gravitate towards Silena, Beck, Travis, Drew and Katie. But all the year rounders have an adult they go to whenever they need someone to talk to.

There’s also an ongoing joke about how they’re Greek and homophobes are incredibly weird, which Jason is carefully not thinking about.

It’s got something to do with rainbow hair, which probably relates to Piper’s comment about being cursed for saying something homophobic when she first arrived.

Jason hadn’t realised she was being literal. He’s never had an issue with any of that, but the consuls certainly do. Reyna describes them as the ‘batshit end of hetero’.

The Greek demigods accept everyone. To an insane degree.

There are four kids here who were members of Kronos’s army. They fought against the Greeks less than two months ago. They’re given one-on-one attention and are being encouraged to make a home here.

The Romans decorate the Temple of Mars Ultor with Greek skulls and call it proof of their victory.

It’s not all smooth sailing with those four.

Which, bizarrely, makes Jason feel better about it. If everyone enthusiastically welcomed them without hesitation, he’d be wondering if they had any sanity left.

Truly insane people are unpredictable. People acting even mildly like he expects them to, makes him feel a little less out of his depth.

Of the four, Ash, the son of Angelos, is the most easily welcomed. Jason had never even heard of Angelos before coming here. She’s a Greek god of purification. An underworld god, but also a child of Zeus and Hera. Which he’s assuming is why Ash is in Two and not Four.

Cabin Four is assigned to Dis Pater for reasons he doesn’t understand. Dis Pater isn’t one of the Dii Consentes. When Jason went on the tour and saw thirteen cabins, he’d assumed it was one for each member of the Dii Consentes, and a thirteenth for Dis Pater.

Except the thirteenth is called ‘Nightshade’ and there’s no cabin for Ceres. Nightshade is named for an, uh, person - he thinks? - who died a couple of years ago. Jason’s really not clear on if she was a demigod, immortal or god. People pray to her like Romans pray to dead emperors.

Jason doesn’t spend a lot of time with Ash, but he lives in the same cabin. Ash had told Jason that he hadn’t so much signed on to help a titan overthrow Olympus as he’d been kidnapped and dragged into a war. An adult demigod had shown up one day and didn’t give him a chance to refuse.

That was when Jason learned not everyone at the Greek camp is here because they don’t have a safe mortal parent.

Ash’s father is a real and active part of his life. He’s living at the camp while they make sure no-one else from the enemy faction knows about him or attempts to reform their organisation. Once Ash feels ready to leave the safety of the barrier, he’ll be going home to his dad.

Strangely, it’s the nine-year-old who causes the most problems.

Jason thinks. He’s not really clear on what the problem is with Damien.

He’s living in Nightshade with Jon, and Jon likes him. But Piper vanishes whenever she sees Damien.

He’s the son of Nemesis. Rivalitas? Or would that be Invidia? Jason tries not to think about the Greek versus Roman thing. Many Roman historians still called her Nemesis. So he’ll stick with that.

He doesn’t know why Piper’s so scared of the kid. He’s the youngest in the camp, though Jason’s been told they have a handful of even younger kids who come for summer camp.

It bothers him that he can’t understand how the politics works here.

Even sitting in a clearing with Dom, the head eagle of Jupiter, Jason doesn’t feel safe. Because he doesn’t understand how anything works. How can he be safe when he doesn’t understand the situation?

He’s used to an extremely clear hierarchy. Demigods have different levels of political capital and status based on their parentage. Legacies have less status than demigods, but if their family lives in New Rome, they have more connections.

As the son of Consul Coelispex, born of a bloodline that’s been in New Rome for eight generations and starts with Apollo, Octavian and his father held the most status of anyone until Jason came along.

Here, Apollo kids are treated no differently than anyone else. Even the son of Neptune that people avoid talking about isn’t treated with much deference. Despite his being a recognised prince who was crowned before the Council of Olympus.

Jason’s been told the pirate ship belongs to him, yet it didn’t stop Leo producing some sort of biodegradable paint and the entire camp spending an afternoon graffitiing the outer hull, mostly with insults about sea kids.

Leo had gleefully taken pictures and said he was ‘sending them straight to Prof!’ A nickname that has something to do with his being a prankster?

In New Rome, the sort of status the son of Neptune has would mean he was treated with the utmost respect at all times. Joking of any sort would happen only behind closed doors and only by his closest friends.

Here, it’s expected. Welcomed, even. The adults certainly encourage such disrespectful behaviour. Will had added his own insults to the ship, and Austin had painted a three foot high slogan of ‘He’s still Tiny!’ along the hull. Jason didn’t dare ask for an explanation on that one.

It’s the same when they mention Nico. They talk about him like he’s a bratty little brother that they can’t help but be fond of. Not the terrifying son of Dis Pater who carries an aura of fear and death wherever he goes.

Thalia has no more status than Piper, even though she’s a daughter of Jupiter and Diana’s lieutenant.

It doesn’t make any sense. It makes him even more uncomfortable with the way Piper keeps asking careful questions about the demigods in the legion.

The first time it happened, Jason had gone straight to Dom. The eagle listened patiently, but was entirely unbothered by the Greeks asking questions about the Roman demigods.

It’s clear that Nico hasn’t shared any information with the camp. Will was uncomfortably accepting of Nico being at the legion, and people appear fine with Jason knowing him.

But Nico mustn’t be sharing information with them, given the questions Piper’s asking.

Again, Jason’s not stupid. If he told her about Hazel, Leila, Larry, Michael and Dakota, she’d be arranging a quest immediately. Half the camp would volunteer to help her retrieve them. Everyone here would consider them their siblings. They’d happily welcome Reyna and Pranjal too, probably. Even Frank, regardless of who his parent is.

They’d probably even have some magical way of working out Frank’s parentage, no need to wait for him to serve a year and receive his legion mark like the Romans would. Not that Jason and Reyna think the legion mark is all that accurate. Too many legacies carry tattoos that should be impossible.

The Greeks wouldn’t need any of that. They’d happily hand Frank a bow and tell him to have at it in tonight’s war game, and no-one would suggest that using a ranged weapon was weak or cowardly.

Dominus nudges him. Jason squints at the eagle. “You’re going to make me participate, aren’t you?”

The eagle nods.

“And when this goes badly, you’re going to feel completely terrible.”

Naturally, Dom shakes his head.

________________________

Jason refuses to speak to the eagle for a full week after the Capture the Flag game.

Piper had explained the rules of the game. She’d even asked him about his powers, and he’d given up on keeping secrets and told her about his control of the wind. Piper had nodded and said he had no restrictions for the game.

Even before he watched the complete chaos that is the Greek version of a war game, he hadn’t liked the implications of that.

He’d been handed a blunt bronze spear and a big bronze shield, very similar to his own parma that he still hasn’t told them about.

Remembering Reyna’s first days in the legion, Jason had held back and watched when Thalia suggested it, and he was deeply glad of it.

Before the game, the only powers he knew about for certain were Will’s healing powers and that Leo could shoot fire from his hands.

He now knows that Leo can turn into a human-shaped ball of flames and only sets things on fire that he wants to burn.

Georgie can manifest and manipulate water and, despite being on the same team, appears to love drenching Leo. Not that it put the fire out.

Jason hadn’t thought Georgie would participate, she’s a god, isn’t she? But Piper waved him off when he asked and said the Hunters don’t consider it a fair fight if they hold anyone back from participating.

More than one child of Mercury has powers related to stealing or lock picking.

The Hunters evidently turned this into a game within a game, challenging the younger Mercury kids to retrieve items from the Hunters’ pockets during the match.

Encouraging them to steal. Shouldn’t the Hunters be uncomfortable around children of Mercury? Given the son of Mercury who caused all those issues?

At home, every descendant of Mercury would be viewed with suspicion after something like that. They still don’t trust Dakota solely because he’s a son of Bacchus, and his powers are much less terrifying than his half-siblings’ in the Greek camp.

Pollux can make vines explode out of thin air and control their movement. He used them to capture a Hunter and even snatch the flag from her hand. Castor did something, Jason’s unclear what, but an entire group of Hunters were left standing completely frozen until Sophie and Jonathon were clear of them.

Then Castor lifted whatever that was, and the Hunters returned to normal.

One of them, an older girl, the one who occasionally drops into shakespearian style speech, had spoken to Castor after.

Castor and Pollux had been tense and looked panicked when she approached, and Jason had wondered if he needed to interfere, but the girl had said something to them, her posture gentle and unthreatening, and the twins had completely relaxed.

Jason really doesn’t understand these people.

Everyone is incredibly casual about power use. Jason felt like he shouldn’t be witnessing any of it. Powers were to be hidden, kept private. Trained in secret and never talked about. Demigods were only safe when no-one knew what they could do. When no-one could take advantage of them or use their powers for their own means.

Here, everyone knows, and the use of their powers is encouraged at every turn.

It’s not even only the people who’ve built trust that casually used their abilities. Thalia said their war ended the same day Jason went to Mount Tam, and it’d taken a few weeks to sort things out with the prisoners of war. Which means the four kids from Kronos’s army can’t have been here longer than six or seven weeks.

Probably less.

Yet not even the Hunters were bothered by a daughter of Trivia using magic on them. Even though they fought against her less than two months ago. After the game, one even made a point of praising her for her use of ‘non-lethal incapacitation techniques’.

Lacy, one of Piper’s younger siblings, hypnotised a Hunter, and Jason felt like his mind was stuttering when the Hunter’s awareness returned and the first thing she said was, “You are improving, dovelet! I’m so very proud of you!”

The game had paused when something had happened. Jason’s not clear on what, or even whether he’s being kept in the dark because he’s Roman, or if it’s personal information that he has no right to.

Melina is a daughter of Ceres - Demeter, whatever - around his age. She’d done something? An apple was involved? The Cabin Counsellor for Four, Katie, had marched her out of the woods, face dark with fury.

Later, Jason was told Melina’s powers had been bound, and she’s been sent to a boarding school. Thalia made sure to emphasise that she hadn’t been banished, only bound.

Which also implied uncomfortable things. Not that the legion was any better. It’s only been a few months since Bryce Lawrence was banished.

Jason hadn’t even known binding powers was a thing. Like, Thalia said they’d bound that guy’s silvertongue, but she’d made it sound like the gods had done that? The consuls don’t know how to bind powers. Jason is so incredibly grateful for that. The idea of giving them even more control over the demigods in the legion is terrifying.

Wait.

When did he start thinking of Consul Coelispex and Consul Pearce as people to be feared? And not a necessary evil?

Jason’s never thinking about that again. Denial is a much better option.

It’s not only the power use of the Greeks that’s frightening. The way these people fight is breathtaking, and not in a good way. He’s seen them spar and train and thought it looked like a choreographed dance.

Seeing them fight their version of a friendly war game is like two tidal waves meeting head on.

There’d been a few comments about the Hunters seeing it as a matter of pride that no-one is injured during the game. Jason had found it an odd thing to say, but so much is odd about these people.

Then he’d watched the silver arrows rain down, catching in clothes and armour, or ricocheting off shields, but never touching skin, and realised it truly is something to be proud of.

That sort of pinpoint accuracy is completely insane. The Romans say archery is uncivilised, cowardly. Jason would like to see the consuls manage that sort of deadly accuracy. Who needs infantry when you have bowmen like that?

Even when fighting hand to hand, the Hunters take care to deflect weapons so no-one, not campers or Hunters, receives so much as a scratch.

While also fighting more viciously than Jason’s ever seen.

The younger campers who lack training or skill are free to fight as wildly as they want, and the Hunters ensure no-one comes to harm. All while fighting ferociously themselves.

Preventing injury doesn’t slow them down at all.

These people just keep getting more terrifying.

He’d been told partway through the game that ‘the Hunt always wins’ and no-one was even remotely bothered by this. There were no conversations about redeeming honour or improving their abilities, they all accepted it as a given and ‘part of the fun’.

Jason is even more confused having seen the game play out. So much potential on either side, yet the Hunt always wins?

He’s still not sure if the Hunters are all demigods. The handmaidens on Circe’s island weren’t. Though with the Mist the way it is, Reyna may never have noticed Greek demigods there.

The game ended with Piper and Thalia fighting one-one-one in some sort of no-holds-barred match that only they seem to know the rules of.

Everyone stood back and watched, like it were completely normal for them to fight like that. Back home, the sort of fake outs and false retreats and ambushes Piper favours would have her branded as a dishonourable fighter. Especially when she somehow yanked away pieces of Thalia’s armour and tossed them out of reach.

It got even worse when Piper threw sand in Thalia’s face. Had she been in the legion, she would’ve been facing severe disciplinary penalties for her behaviour in this fight. Here, Thalia retaliated by shocking her with blue lightning.

Jason had, so far, ignored the comments people made about lightning every time they found out Jason was Thalia’s brother.

It got a lot harder to ignore when he’d been barely ten feet away while Thalia made the entire woods boom from the lightning she called down, the air itself feeling electric.

Isn’t electrocution lethal?

Like, the Romans would discipline Piper for her behaviour, but electrocution feels like a few thousand steps too far?

Will was there, refereeing, but he was completely fine with Thalia repeatedly shocking Piper.

Then again, for all the lightning being thrown around, Piper wasn’t exactly acting like she was being electrocuted. It didn’t even look like it hurt.

It looked more like static shocks? The worst effect it had is that Piper’s hair puffed up out of her braid and rose up around her head in a big cloud. Pretty much everyone’s hair was doing the same thing.

But the lightning wasn’t slowing Piper’s attacks down at all.

How was Thalia doing that?

How do you remove the electrocution danger of pure lightning?

Everyone else treated it as normal. With a few campers heckling Jason’s sister for ‘ruining their hair!’ and her mocking them for being ‘such soft little wimps!’

Piper had replied brightly with something about how Thalia can kill the drakon next time, see if she cares, and it was all oddly friendly given the very lethal lightning Thalia was wielding so casually.

Jason had gone to bed that night shaken and confused. Too many thoughts swirling through his mind.

He dreamed of the past, a memory from his childhood. He’s dreamed it every night since.

Which is why he’s giving up on the silent treatment after a full week of pretending the eagle doesn’t exist.

Jason always slept fine at the legion. Well. Maybe not fine. But he didn’t have nightmares. He already disturbed his bunkmates enough with the radio and the getting up hours before dawn to run or spar every day. Jason hasn’t lived in his new Praetorium long enough to get used to his privacy.

Peleus makes sleepy grumbles as Jason sneaks up the hill to sit next to the giant eagle, who’s looking hilariously undignified crouched on the ground in a sleeping pose, all his feathers fluffed up to keep his feet warm.

This camp’s magical protection is significantly better than anything they have back home. Magic keeps the Roman valley hidden, but it doesn’t keep people out or control the weather.

Here, the temperature stays comfortable inside the barrier, even as it drops to freezing outside. The pine tree Peleus guards marks the edge of the barrier, where it’s always colder than the rest of the camp.

Dom watches him, head tilted in curiosity, and Jason makes a deeply exasperated sound.

“I’m sorry, I hate that I don’t understand how things work and that no-one’s telling me anything. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

The eagle nods regally and snuggles down, stretching a wing out to pull him close and tucking Jason against his side.

Jason spits feathers out and adds sullenly, “It would be better if you spoke to me. Or even just stopped treating me like a baby bird. You were never like this back home!”

Dominus lets out a breathy, huffy sound that sounds incredibly cranky, like Jason’s being deliberately obtuse.

Which he is.

If the consuls saw Dominus treating Jason like this, it wouldn’t go well for him. There’d be some lengthy conversations about weakness and the dignity befitting his station. Probably some comments about it being unnatural to befriend an animal.

They already lecture him every time someone catches Jason patting the coliseum horses. Like just being near horses will somehow make him as dishonourable as Neptune. Not that he knows why they hate Neptune so much.

Jason’s spent a lot of time with the pegasi and the zebra since he got here. Will and Silena encourage it.

Jason suspects they’re just glad he finds physical comfort in something.

Since she arrived nearly two weeks ago, Thalia has asked to hug him at least once a day. He always refuses.

Will always just happens to be nearby after tense conversations, and he shows up anytime Jason is struggling with something.

Jason gets the impression Will’s been assigned as Jason’s designated adult, and oh, is that not a comfortable thought. The only time Will doesn’t show up is when Jason is heading to Dom. Everyone constantly suggests they go visit Dominus, or bring Dominus along with them. Even Leo.

Jason’s not sure if it’s a result of the culture here, or if it’s some sort of innate part of them, but the unending touchy-feely stuff is heavily embedded in the Greek demigod camp.

Even those Rules of Retaliation are based around the idea that kids need that sort of emotional outlet. That it’s an inviolable part of their nature, as children of Greek gods.

But Jason is Roman. Not Greek. Romans are disciplined and nothing like Greek savages who fight chaotically and without control.

Dominus is the only one he can tell about his dreams. Because Dominus won’t tell anyone else. Jason can trust Dominus in a way he can’t trust any person. The closest he’s ever gotten is with Reyna and Dakota, and he still doesn’t share much.

He knows how unhappy Reyna was with him after that trip to the Charleston house.

Jason must’ve been there right before Thalia found out he was alive. If they’d gone even a couple of weeks later, she’d have been watching out for him.

“Dom, I used to have this picture in my head of Thalia with blue lightning in her eyes.”

Dom coos quietly to him. Like he really is the giant eagle’s chick. Jason can admit, if only to himself, that he’s going to miss this when they go home. Even if it feels completely ridiculous, it’s also kind of nice?

He tells Dom, “I dreamed of her. Just now. A monster attacked, she was giving me a piggyback ride, and the lightning exploded out of her. Blue lightning all over me and her, and the monster disappeared. Think she killed it, but didn’t realise it then.”

Dom tucks him in closer against his body, his wing draped over Jason’s shoulders, and his cheeks grow warm. He ignores it. No-one can see him. Octavian and his father aren’t here. Not that Octavian would say anything. Not when Jason’s seen Octavian fall apart so many times.

It’s Consul Coelispex who would be the problem. He’s had so many uncomfortable thoughts about that. About why Roman demigods hide their powers. But it’s not the time or place for that sort of thinking.

“She put me down to check I was okay, and when she crouched in front of me, I saw her eyes were full of blue lightning. I thought she was a monster too. I ran away. Started climbing. I always went up when I got scared.”

He still does. But with Dominus, going up means thousands of feet in the air. Not a two-year-old scrambling up a trellis.

He loses himself in the memory, murmuring to Dom as he sees Thalia in his mind’s eye.

He can hear nine-year-old Thalia’s voice still, begging him not to go so high.

Then another monster attacked, and she was scrambling up with him, dragging him onto a balcony and wrapping herself around him. Placing her back to the monster, giving Jason all the protection she could.

He can still hear her voice murmuring over his head, naming gods and begging for someone to help her. Begging them to let Jason live.

Oh.

Jason thinks back over the dream, the way it felt like an ocean storm. That wasn’t a nightmare, was it?

“Dom. Can a sea god send me a vision?”

Dom tilts his head to look at him, meeting his eye and giving a nod.

“Because I’m very sure I shouldn’t remember any of that so clearly. I never have before.”

He watches the memory play out, and Dom hugs him tightly against him as Jason tells him about that night.

Thalia had screamed at Zeus, begging for help as the monster roared beneath them. Their father never answered.

Thalia had sobbed and clutched him tighter and started her prayers over.

Jason had clung to his sister as she desperately prayed to Poseidon.

Telling him she knew he’d saved a son of Zeus before. That Perseus was kept safe from the ocean storms.

Zeus might be Sky King, but he has no power over the ocean. Perseus was a baby, he shouldn’t have lived. Poseidon must have done that. Must have saved him.

Jason can hear nine-year-old Thalia begging Poseidon to save Jason. Kill her, but save her little brother. Please.

The crashing sounds as the monsters climbed the trellis. Thalia curled over him, tightly hugging him against her, as she gasped for breath.

He remembers watching over her shoulder as the monsters came closer.

The glitter of scales, a touch of feathers.

He still can’t remember what the monsters were. He probably never even saw them clearly.

What he remembers is the rumble of a storm, the beating of rain, and the golden flash as the monsters dissolved before they reached the balcony.

The shudder of his sister’s sobs, and her constant chant even as she tries to catch her breath. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

The dream ended with this feeling of spoken words, even though he heard nothing.

A voice that rumbles like an earthquake. “She asked me to save you. Offered herself as a sacrifice. A bargain was struck, and a path was set. Her debt was paid by her seven years in stasis. Blame the gods if you must, but she gave her life in exchange for yours. ”

________________________

“Hi Crackle.”

“I called Lee. Not you.”

“It’s not the right time for that.”

“Why are you hiding this from him? Everyone else knows there’s something really fucking wrong with that place.”

“Because he won’t hold himself back. He’ll go all raging sun god kid, and that’s not what we need. Not yet.”

A wordless snarl.

“Why the fuck not? My baby brother is a fucking robot, Percy. You never fucking told me what they were doing to him.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

“Uh huh. Sure. You know he doesn’t consider himself a kid? He won’t spar with us. Won’t engage. Just listens and watches and disappears as soon as I try to talk things out. Says he’s not a child, and he doesn’t need to be handled.”

“I know, Crackle.”

“He’s fifteen, Percy. Fucking fifteen. He’s not like us, his powers are normal, there shouldn’t be a reason for him to be anything but a normal kid. I can’t decide if he’s too fucking sheltered to function, or if he’s never had a chance to act his age.”

“When he’s not terrified out of his wits, he’s a rational human being who will be fine given some time to adjust.”

“He’s had time. He doesn’t trust us.”

“Yeah, I know. I asked Dad to do something. It might help. I’m not sure. It’s a lot for him to take in.”

“Piper’s done the best of anyone at getting information out of him about the other kids. There are eight, plus Jase. They should be in Ten, Eleven, Twelve and the new Four, as well as the old Four. Plus two non Olympians and an unclaimed. These are our siblings, Percy. It’s the Lieutenant all over again.”

A sob catches in a throat. Slow breathing.

“I know, Crackle. I know what it looks like. But it isn’t. The unclaimed belongs to Five. He’s- yeah. I think the Fates did a thing, just in case War Drum couldn’t see it through. I’m not sure how else that kid exists, otherwise.”

“Please. I need to talk to Lee.”

“I can’t, Crackle. Not yet. But it’s not for much longer. Same thing I told Angry Girl. Eclipse will know by Solstice at the latest. That hasn’t changed.”

“You’re going to fix this, right?”

“Yeah. Been planning it even before the war. Soon as I know which way your brother is going to go, I’ll tell Eclipse. If I do it too soon and he makes a different choice, all this will end with your brother dead. If I wait it out, they all live.”

“Define ‘they’?”

“The demigods in the legion. Not our people. Our people’s future is their own, no fated paths.”

“Percy, I don’t think I can fix Jace.”

“No. No more than I could fix you. He’s got his own path to walk. The more you push, the more he’ll push back. Same as you. You lashed out, but he plants his feet and refuses to move.”

“Nico’s with the legion?”

“Yes. He doesn’t want his sister at risk. Shadow’s mostly staying out of sight, but he’s watching.”

“You said Sky Queen didn’t make Jace forget because you asked her not to.”

“Yes?”

“If he runs, I want you to make him forget me too.”

“You sure? It’s not like what happened with Shadow and Dancer. When a god takes memories, they’re gone for good. We can’t undo that.”

“If he chooses them, you make him forget me, Percy. He can’t keep being torn between worlds like this. If he chooses them, make him forget. Give him a chance to be happy. Please.”

“Okay, Crackle. It’ll be okay.”

________________________

Jason’s not sure why he thought this place could have a normal routine. He’s been here for nearly four weeks. He’s had exactly three weeks with Thalia, and he still doesn’t know what to think about any of it.

Thalia keeps trying to talk to him about Beryl, and he never knows what to say. She hovers around him, which doesn’t get any less weird because she looks so much younger than him.

He doesn’t know how to come to grips with her being his older sister and yet not looking like it. Jason also doesn’t know how to handle her constant fussing. He’s not used to people trying to look after him, and it makes him so incredibly uncomfortable.

Nathan and Chiron both watch him.

Chiron vanishes if Jason turns towards him. Nathan is always standing in the distance, with a scowl on his face and calculation in his eyes. Jason’s pretty sure Nathan is behind the repeated requests for spars from all the older campers.

It’s not that he can’t fight, he definitely can, but he doesn’t understand the people here.

He’s never fought for fun, even when he sparred with Reyna. Jason spars to channel the anger, but it isn’t fun, it’s a duty, something he has to do.

He’s good at it, even. It doesn’t stop him from feeling certain it would go so badly if he let loose and fought someone here. He still feels like he’s in constant danger. The weird, ominous feeling he gets around Nico is nothing to being a Roman inside a camp of Greek demigods.

That thing with Melina, the daughter of Ceres, worries him too. He’d tried asking polite questions, but he didn’t really get much information. The people here have a profoundly different view of the Greek Demeter than the Romans have of Ceres.

It doesn’t even appear to be related to the myths. They describe Demeter as narrowly focused, she cares about her own children, but no-one else’s. She’s a powerful goddess of grain and agriculture, but not of people. There’s a lot of concern that she’ll retaliate for their binding Melina’s powers, even though anyone who touched Melina’s apple would have died.

All of them say Demeter only cares about her own children, and only to a point. She doesn’t care what happens to the rest of the camp.

There are also a lot of snarky comments about how few sons Demeter has. She doesn’t only have daughters, but ostensibly, it’s something like ten daughters for every son. Jason decided it was best for his sanity not to think about that.

Ceres gifted agriculture to humans, and she was an example of motherhood and nourishment. The great mother of the earth. Jason had tried asking about that, and Jonathon had given him a strange look and made a comment about Roman myths being influenced by the Christianisation of the western world. Jason hadn’t known what to say in response to that.

Piper had majorly backed off with all her questions a week ago.

Though Jason doesn’t think it’s anything he did. She’s been looking kinda haunted, and definitely not sleeping. Piper’s woken him a few times by her knocking on the cabin for Silena at like two in the morning. Each time, Jason firmly reminded himself that these are not his people, it’s not his concern, and tried to go back to sleep.

He hears from Reyna or Dakota most days, and things are tense in the legion, but fairly okay. Nico is there more often than not right now, and he has a sixth sense for any time Octavian tries to approach Hazel. While Octavian might throw his weight around with Hazel, he’s definitely afraid of Nico.

They still aren’t entirely sure what Octavian wants from Hazel. Reyna had cornered Octavian and held him at knifepoint, making it clear what would happen if he shared his father’s creepy views on finding a demigod wife for Octavian.

It’s really not how Jason would have handled the situation, but Octavian is a lot more willing to listen to Jason than he ever is to Reyna.

Reyna probably wouldn’t have taken that route either, but neither of them are confident in Octavian’s mental stability right now. Clear statements of cause and effect are needed.

From her texts, Reyna’s satisfied that this isn’t why Octavian keeps approaching Hazel. Which means he’s probably trying to build up political capital, likely planning an attempt to claim Jason’s praetor position. He was definitely unhappy that Jason had everything in place for Dakota to fill in while he was away.

The new demigod is still unclaimed and caused a stir because he keeps arguing about the archery. It’s not helped that he’s got definite skill with a bow. Reyna says he’s better at it than she is.

Octavian shut him down hard when Frank asked if he might be a son of Apollo. Dakota had gleefully sent Jason a blow by blow account of the confrontation. The usual ranting about how Octavian’s unnamed ancestor is the only time the sun god blessed a mere mortal, and Apollo otherwise fathered emperors and monarchs.

Jason’s met several demigod children of Apollo now. All appear to have ordinary mortal parents. No emperors, kings or queens to be seen. Will got kind of vague when Jason asked him, but Kayla’s father is an archery instructor.

Jason had hesitantly asked Will about this Victor Arquette, since Octavian won’t even name him.

Jason doesn’t know why he was surprised to be told that Victor was a master bowman, and his golden bow, personally gifted by Apollo, is still in Cabin Seven.

Will even showed it to Jason.

A symmetrical Scythian bow. The sort the Ancient Greeks were known for, rather than the asymmetrical Hunnic bow the Romans used. Both are recurve bows, but the Roman form had a shorter lower arm and a longer upper arm. The Greek bows had arms of the same size.

It also had Greek engravings. ‘Phronesis’. Will said it means prudence, good judgement, like making the best decision in a situation. Which is an unusual name for a bow? Definitely not Roman, anyway.

Kayla, the priestess of the Oracle of Delphi, keeps her distance, but she watches him almost as intensely as Nathan does. She’s also furious with Will, so he clearly wasn’t meant to tell Jason about the oracle.

Which is a shame, because Jason desperately wants to tell Octavian that the Oracle exists. Either to piss Octavian off or to try to make him feel better that he’s not the only person with the sight. It depends on the day.

Someone gave Octavian his phone number, and when Jason finds out who did that, there will be many, many long conversations. Possibly some assigned sewer duty.

It started as random complaints. Multiple text messages about things going missing, and Octavian is certain Nico is stealing from him. He also insists Nico stole things from the consuls.

Jason had called Reyna, incredibly confused, and she said there was no evidence. They were all little things that disappeared on days Nico wasn’t there.

The most expensive item was Consul Pearce’s laptop, but it’s mostly small stuff. A gold fountain pen, the right shoe from five separate pairs of dress shoes. Two togas disappeared and turned up as horse blankets worn by the coliseum horses.

Octavian claims his stash of stuffed toys was rearranged and some were possibly taken, but since he doesn’t bother keeping track of what he has, there’s not much they can do.

Besides, if a legionnaire stole one as a comfort item, Jason really doesn’t care. It’s not like a legionnaire would openly own something like that. They’re stuffed toys that Octavian guts, he can buy more.

None of it makes sense, and they’re assuming someone is pranking the consuls. Reyna had hesitantly mentioned that Octavian still isn’t all that stable since his meltdown in August, but Jason doesn’t buy Octavian stealing from his own father.

For the past four days, Octavian’s been repeatedly texting and calling him, demanding he come back to the legion. When Jason asked why, all Octavian would tell him was that something was coming.

After the tenth phone call, when Jason lost patience and outright demanded Octavian spit it out or he’ll have Reyna confiscate Octavian’s phone, the older boy admitted that something was coming, he didn’t know what, but Jason wasn’t in his visions. He’s certain they need Jason, since he’s their best fighter.

Octavian was clearly frightened, but there’s nothing Jason can do.

Even if Jason was ready to leave Thalia, Dom is still very clear that he will not be flying Jason back to the legion. Whatever he’s supposed to be achieving here, he hasn’t managed it yet.

He’d spent more than a few late nights, sitting with Dominus and talking in circles about what Juno wanted from him.

Juno had talked about the cave marking a boundary between domains. Then she’d asked him about Dies Ater, about who the enemy had been. Juno told Jason he was to be a bridge to overcome millennia of hatred. That he was a peace offering.

She told him he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone back home about this camp or the Greek demigods. He could leave at any time, but he would forget everything but meeting Thalia if he left before he had a ‘true understanding of the situation’.

But what counted as a true understanding? Dom seems to think Jason hasn’t managed it, since he’s refusing to take him home.

Jason had thought of Reyna and the hours spent in the library of New Rome University going over original records and figured that might help. He doesn’t know much Classical Greek, but maybe someone here could translate?

Jason had gone to Sophie, thinking Minerva’s cabin was the most likely to have records. Sophie was startled by his request, and when he explained that he wanted to compare their records to New Rome, had gently told him they didn’t have any records like that.

Before he could blurt out something supremely stupid, she’d switched into interrogation mode, wanting to know how they managed to maintain records with the demigod death rate.

And Jason realised something that he’d known, but never really thought through.

At home, it’s the legacies who maintain the records of New Rome and the legion. The demigods who finish their service and leave New Rome rarely survive more than a few years before they’re killed by monsters.

Jason had been aware there was intense pressure for demigods to stay in the valley. The last praetor, Flora, a daughter of Pomona, had been intending to leave and then changed her mind at the last minute.

As part of their review of legion records, Jason and Reyna had found the list of deaths of demigods, kept meticulously by the consuls.

When they confronted Flora, she said they’d given it to her right after she announced her plans to leave, and then she’d started making phone calls. The list was accurate, there were no known Roman demigods living in the mortal world.

Sarah Warden had been pressured to stay as well, but she’d chosen to stay in New Rome without ever needing to be shown the list.

She’s the twenty-two-year-old daughter of Concordia and the praetor from when Jason first arrived. She’s ‘dating’ her former fellow praetor, Basil Shields, a legacy of Mercury, but Jason’s under the impression it’s all performative, solely to keep the consuls off her back. Sarah’s not interested in marriage and children, regardless of who her mother was.

Reyna always got very vague when talking about other demigods on Circe’s island. Jason’s assumption is that they were Greek. Especially since Hylla seems to have forgotten they exist.

Hylla is the only other adult Roman demigod they know. She’s twenty-one and the Queen of the Amazons. It doesn’t really count as living in the mortal world. Reyna called her sister to ask about demigods in the Amazons, and Hylla said there weren’t any currently. The Amazons were all legacies and various immortals and nature spirits.

Which explains why they were so eager to recruit Hylla and haven’t said anything about Hylla sending Reyna gifts from the Amazon treasuries. It’s a whole other type of courting. Kind of worrying, but Reyna knows her own mind, Jason doubts the Amazons can convince her to do something she doesn’t want to do.

The important thing is that the Amazon records show the same early deaths of demigods, and they claim it’s because of a Greek curse.

Except the Greeks are experiencing the same thing?

The Romans only have a handful of demigods at any given time, so even with the list of deaths, there were only twelve lost outside of New Rome in the past twenty-five years.

A similar number appears to have died inside New Rome, all before the age of thirty, but getting details on that has been all but impossible. Jason still doesn’t even know the name of Octavian’s mother.

The issue of demigod deaths was one of the first things he asked about after Silena revealed the existence of so many adult demigod warriors.

After she explained, he didn’t have the heart to tell that Roman records show demigods dying even when they stay safe in New Rome. Silena was certain the death rate was caused by the monster attacks, nothing more.

She’d told Jason the danger dropped off if a demigod could live to twenty or so, and until then they call in favours and set up safe spaces in the mortal world. Everyone learns to fight just so they can survive.

They still lose people, but not at the level they used to, though her information appears to come only from the last fifty years. She tells him she doesn’t know if it was different before the Second World War. She’s just glad it’s improving.

Silena proudly tells Jason that Nathan is currently the oldest living demigod.

Nathan is thirty-two.

Octavian’s Proavus was eighty-three when he died.

The types of records Jason asked Sophie about are the sorts of records kept by people wanting to pass their stories onto their children and grandchildren. Records that are kept because a person has time on their hands.

Time is the one thing demigods don’t have.

He’d explained to Sophie that it was the legacies who kept the records in New Rome, and she told him that Greek demigods rarely have children, and even when they do, it’s incredibly unlikely they’ll still be alive for their kids’ childhood.

Which again, matches New Rome. Octavian’s mother died when he was born. Jason still isn’t clear on why she died, whether it was childbirth or something else, but she was only eighteen. Consul Coelispex was six years older. Jason doesn’t know anyone who grew up with a demigod parent.

But the legacies were different.

He’d wondered about how Cabin Seven could have records of a demigod from 1803, and Sophie asked if they had the sight. When Jason confirmed Victor Arquette did, she explained that seers tend to look through the past for other seers, it’s how they learn their history. The records of previous seers are really all they have that gives them any additional details.

Jason deeply regretted then asking if they had any other records.

Each cabin keeps a list of deaths and burial shrouds sewn.

They often don’t even have a name, just the person’s heritage and what killed them. Camp Half-Blood has no detailed records.

Chiron was born after Ancient Greece fell, and that’s a whole separate issue that probably explains why he hates Jason so much. It means the campers here rely on mortal history books for most of their information about Ancient Greece. Mortal history books and seers.

Jason tried to imagine relying on Octavian and history books written by people whose introduction to Ancient Rome was through the fascist movements of Italy, and it felt like his insides shrivelled up.

The mortal history books are full of terrible information. Like the ‘Roman salute’ that never existed in Rome. A statue of Augustus lost its golden spear, and someone decided the gesture looked like a salute.

Romans salute by touching fingers to their forehead. Same as modern militaries all around the world still do. If the Greeks at Camp Half-Blood faced the same situation, they’d have no records to confirm anything.

Jason mentioned the lack of records to Leo later the same day, and Leo told him it made sense. He still doesn’t know why Festus was built. Festus used to be called the old guardian, and he was active during some long forgotten war, but that’s all he knows.

So there’s that.

Jason had worried about Festus afterwards.

He couldn’t entirely forget Octavian’s desperate refrain about how the ‘Greeks slaughtered us’.

Not when Chiron and Nathan watch him so closely. Plus, Festus looks capable of slaughter. But if he was built to kill Romans, he has no interest in Jason. And Octavian’s stories were specifically about demigods, he never mentioned a dragon. So Festus might have been for fighting monsters?

Jason had talked it over with Dominus. The eagle seemed to approve of what Jason was saying, but it’s clearly not what he’s here to learn.

The conversation with Sophie made her a little more willing to talk about things. So, Jason had tentatively asked about Piper and why she doesn’t talk about her abilities.

He’s been attending ‘morning classes’ with the oldest group of teens since he arrived, and they always follow the same routine of them all driving their teacher for the day to distraction until they’re dismissed early. Sophie, Leo and Jonathon usually head off for their own projects, though Jason eventually realised Sophie and Jonathon still completed the set lessons.

Castor and Pollux work on the strawberry farm and camp gardens, but Jason’s been avoiding them. They don’t know about Dakota, and Dakota doesn’t know about them, and it’s so incredibly awkward when Bacchus is right there.

That’s not taking into account their powers. Dakota can sense a person’s emotions, and he’s really good at theatre. He definitely can’t grow plants from nothing or control minds.

But Jason can’t make lightning, he ‘only’ has wind. He hasn’t seen the children of Ares fight like Reyna, but they may not be fighting full out.

Besides, there’s also Piper, who he is struggling to understand.

Piper heads straight for the training arena and meets one of the many trainers for an absolutely savage fight. Every single day.

At first, Jason had thought she fought like Reyna, but the more he watched, the more he realised it wasn’t the same. Reyna talks about the bloodlust sometimes. About how it feels like every cell in her body is screaming for blood. That it won’t be sated until she’s drenched in someone else’s blood.

Reyna’s never actually done anything like that. She broke Hylla’s arm when she was eight, but otherwise, she’s always run away and isolated herself the moment the bloodlust spikes. It doesn’t change how acutely she feels it. How the rage burns in her, and she loses the ability to speak.

Piper fights with anger, but not with bloodlust. For all the emotion she channels when she fights, she never loses control. It’s not the need to kill that drives her. She fights like she has to, like she’s running so hard from something that she’s now running towards something else.

When Jason asked Sophie about it, she’d hesitated and said she would explain it to him, but only if he let her explain everything. If he got upset and ran before she was done, she’d ‘call in the big guns’ to keep him away from Piper.

He’s still not clear on who or what the big guns are, but he’d agreed and mentally prepared for a roller coaster.

It was nowhere near as bad as he’d expected. But he can see why they were worried. Charmspeak is objectively terrifying. The fact that it’s ‘not as bad as silvertongue’ doesn’t really help matters.

With charmspeak, the minute they stop actively controlling you, you remember something weird had happened. It’s easy to realise you’ve had it used on you. Silvertongue is much more subtle. Unless someone points it out, you never realise your thoughts aren’t your own.

Jason had spoken to Thalia after, and she’d explained that the magical and mythical Lee was the one who told her about it, and Bacchus was the one to check her over and remove its influence. She said there is no chance that it’s still affecting her, and nothing happened to her while she was under the guy’s control.

Jason is really trying to believe her.

Sophie told him that Piper has one of the most powerful gifts for charmspeak anyone has ever seen. It works on pretty much everything, at least temporarily.

Sophie made a strange aside about how she knows of one example where Piper’s charmspeak worked long term, but she suspects a god had taken advantage of an opportunity to help without breaking the rules of interfering in a quest. She hadn’t given any additional information, though.

Sophie made a point of explaining in explicit detail the situations where Piper uses charmspeak. Inside the barrier, she uses it if someone’s dumb enough to dare her to try it.

Which, while horrifying if it happened in New Rome, is just how the Greeks work. Don’t dish it if you can’t take it. Sophie said Piper only does it if they outright tell her to.

The only other time she uses it inside the camp is if someone is an immediate and active threat to themselves and others.

Sophie was extra intense about making sure he understood she only used it for containment until one of the camp leaders could assist. Sophie appeared entirely oblivious that this implies there are times when the Greeks are so out of control they need to be restrained.

It made Jason think of Reyna again.

Then he remembered Bryce Lawrence and the number of times he’d caused issues and they’d been unable to stop him. His centurion, Rick Elliot, died earlier this year because of Bryce Lawrence’s actions. Jason’s really not sure which camp is doing things the right way.

Outside the barrier, Piper uses charmspeak on any monster she intends to kill immediately. Occasionally, she’ll use it to encourage someone to not look too closely at a group of demigods. Sophie says Piper has less qualms about using it on mortals in life or death situations, but mostly, she prefers not to use it.

Sophie then brightly told him Piper uses the more normal gifts of persuasion that Venus kids are born with and looked completely delighted by Jason’s horrified face.

She’d let him suffer for three days before Jason asked Leo, and Leo had completely cracked up, taking ages to get control of his giggling, before telling Jason that Sophie meant Piper could use makeup and clothing to look older. She’d faked her way into a police station and had them release an underage demigod into her care without once using charmspeak or the Mist.

Leo is the one least likely to prank Jason. Though he’s not sure if that’s normal, or if Leo is too focused on Festus to waste brain power on teasing the new kid.

Jason had tried to help him with the solid cliff face that Leo swears is a secret passage, but he’d had his doubts about it. Leo is certain Festus is missing pieces. He claims that Festus has connection points that suggest the automaton once had wings, but he’s found no sign of what happened to them.

He’d dragged Jason through an abandoned myrmekes nest, using a metal detector to check for any hidden compartments.

Which was a complete trip.

Sure, there was a myrmekes card in the Greek mythomagic decks, but they certainly aren’t Roman. Jason likes to pretend all the stone statues are only particularly realistic sculptures and that the Greek camp doesn’t possess proof of the existence of pretty much every monster in the mythomagic deck.

But giant dog sized golden ants that spray acid are a definite thing. They also adore shiny things and collect them in their nests.

They hadn’t found any wings or central processing units, only a whole pile more of the gold weapons that the Greeks call ‘enchanted gold’. Since they were all Greek designs and had no Roman markings, Jason figured it had nothing to do with the legion.

Part of him still thinks there are more imperial gold weapons and they’ve been hidden from view while he’s here. How can they only have the knife and the spatha? Unless it’s like Will says, and any weapons were burned when the bodies were. So any proof of Roman deaths were destroyed right along with them.

Jason isn’t sure it’s possible to burn imperial gold. Celestial bronze, sure. He’s seen Leo do all sorts of things to bronze metal without issues. But he’s also seen imperial gold arrowheads explode against Crius’s armour solely from being pushed beyond the metal’s limit. Placing them in a funeral pyre would be less than ideal.

Mostly, Jason’s days are spent watching and listening and trying to understand. Even if he still doesn’t know what he’s meant to be understanding.

Jason can’t help the jealousy that burns in his gut at the casual use of funding and equipment.

Three new demigods have been brought to the camp in the few weeks he’s been here.

Back home, new legionnaires arrive alone, having completed a seventy-mile ‘test’ where they walk from Wolf House to the hidden valley with no outside support. Here, new demigods arrive in camp-owned cars, driven by adult demigods or satyrs. Escorted and protected every step of the way.

All three demigods were already known to the camp as well. They’d simply had their first experience of powers or a monster sighting and been brought in for a full orientation.

Even knowing that so many Greek demigods die, the death rate is the same for Roman demigods, but they have less of them.

Which really increases his jealousy. Because demigods are normal here, a new demigod coming to camp is a weekly event.

There are no senate debates about whether or not support should be offered to an unknown person. Whether they can spare the funding or manpower to give protection to someone they don’t know. It’s given automatically.

Not only by the camp, but by the gods themselves.

The intense light-shows as a god claims their child are treated as completely normal. Each time it happened, people would glance over, younger kids would celebrate with the newcomer, but everyone else would go back to whatever they were doing.

A daughter of Mars, a child of Philotes - Amicitia? - and a son of Aegle. The son of Aegle caused a stir for some reason, a lot of people making jokes about a cursed fish having a brother?

The amount of in-jokes this place has is ridiculous. It makes Jason feel even more like an outsider.

All three were claimed by their godly parent the day they arrived.

No tattoos or brands. Not even protection charms. Nothing more or less than a light-show and a symbol announcing the god’s claim.

When Jason asked around, he was told that this was normal. Piper had a pink dove. Leo had a fiery hammer.

Jonathon wasn’t claimed by Minerva, but Venus announced her adoption of him in front of the Olympian Council?

Jason’s still unsure if he believes that one.

Then there’s all the things the gods supply the camp with.

Shouldn’t the demigods in the legion be receiving the same support as the demigods in this camp do?

How much of their weaponry comes directly from the gods? Festus was built by Hephaestus and gifted to Leo. Even if the automaton is malfunctioning, it was built by a god for his children. Triton and Georgie train the year rounders to fight, and help them learn any number of weapons.

The weaponry isn’t even restricted to any specific time period. Drew produced a bronze katana during one training session, and Triton summoned one for himself and gave her a lesson in samurai swordplay.

In hindsight, Nico’s Medieval English longsword should have been a red flag. Clearly, the Greeks use whatever weaponry they’re drawn to. Not like the Romans, who are very committed to the weapons of Ancient Rome.

And that’s not even considering the Greek Fire.

Which was baffling in itself.

Greek Fire was invented by the Romans during the time of the Christian Byzantine Empire. They have the recipe for it in the archives of New Rome, but it was definitely stolen from the Christians. Jason had asked Leo about it, but Leo said he had no idea when or how they got the recipe. They only use it ‘for fun’ these days because in actual war, they have things with ‘better bang for your buck’.

Because of course they do. Leo has access to endless amounts of solid blocks of the bronze they call celestial bronze. It comes from the gods, but they have so much of it that it gets used in anything and everything by Leo and his siblings.

If imperial gold could be consecrated by emperors, shouldn’t that mean the gods could supply it to the Twelfth Legion too? The legion would have no need of the weapons lost in Alaska. The gods could provide raw material, and New Rome’s forges could produce new weapons.

But they don’t.

Even if New Rome offended the gods, why would the gods not help the demigods? Jason can understand their not being present with the legacies, but what about the demigods?

They are their children!

The gods are clearly capable of supporting their kids, if this camp is anything to go by. So why not the demigods back home?

Whatever he’s meant to learn, Jason still hasn’t learned it.

Chapter Text

The little bit of routine Jason’s eked out for himself is completely destroyed when the chaos of lunch in the dining pavilion is brought to a standstill by the crushing weight of dark silence that smashes over the camp.

In front of the head table, facing the thirteen campers’ tables, two figures take shape, pulling darkness and shadows into themselves until they take recognisable human form.

Shadows shift across the smaller one who stands a step behind the main figure, making it impossible to see them clearly.

Jason barely spares the smaller figure a glance. His focus is on the one who feels like the night sky has fallen to the ground.

Unrelenting darkness and icy stillness.

It wears battle armour of such a deep black that it pulls the light into it. The embedded black opals are the only break from the unrelenting darkness. A deep purple cloak sweeps over the figure’s shoulders.

On its head is a crown that shifts form, impossible, horrifying creatures moving and twisting and changing. Every face is formed of gleaming platinum and precious gems. A single glance and Jason feels like his heart is stopping, his lungs stilling.

He pulls his eyes away.

The being is holding an extremely distinctive weapon. A black spear with two prongs, tipped in gold. The bident.

Dis Pater.

Literally, Father of Riches.

Everyone is frozen in place, staring at the god, not speaking.

Jason tries to breathe from where he’s sitting at Table Two with Thalia, Silena, Butch, Ash and Allysa. The Hunt left two days ago. Otherwise, Bianca would be here. She’s a daughter of Dis Pater. She would know what to do.

But she’s not here.

Jason had been trying to distance himself from Thalia and her worried eyes. So he’s at the very end of their table, the closest one to the head table. There’s nothing between Jason and the terrifying darkness that seeps from this god.

He doesn’t know how you show deference to Dis Pater. He isn’t a god who ever shows himself to mere mortals.

Jason looks over at his sister, waiting for a cue to kneel. Or something. Anything.

She doesn’t kneel.

She frowns, looking uneasy, but her concern is directed towards the god.

Jason watches as Thalia puts her sandwich down and stands from the table. She strides fearlessly up to the god, stopping right in front of him. She looks so small in front of the towering figure of the God of Death.

Jason waits for her to show deference. Prostration? Maybe?

Thalia stands there, tilting her head to look up at the god, clearly making eye contact.

Jason can’t bear to look at the god’s face, he keeps his eyes down, watching them out of his peripheral vision. How can Thalia stand it? The way the shadow glints and swirls around him, the terrifying death that pulses from him. And she’s standing there making eye contact?

“Uncle, has something happened? Are you okay?”

Jason had really thought her habit of referring to Neptune and Dis Pater as ‘Uncle’ was only a nickname. Like the Sky King and Sky Queen thing. He really hadn’t thought it would extend to the point of asking the King of the Underworld if he was okay.

Power floods from the god, but still no-one moves.

The god’s voice is unexpectedly soft. He sounds devastated.

“He has taken her.”

“Who? Uncle?”

“My queen has been taken. It must have been your father.”

Proserpina? Dis Pater kidnapped her and then married her, but they’re said to be a love match. Piper’s talked about it. With the way he’s speaking, it certainly sounds like he loves her. Why would anyone take her?

Thalia flinches. She glances back at Jason, eyes full of apology.

Then she squares her shoulders, her stance steadying as she faces Dis Pater again.

“Are you taking me or him? He’s not used to this, Uncle.”

Wait. What is she saying?

“My niece has asked that you stay with me. Your brother is to be sent on a quest. He must return before Mundus Patet.”

Thalia jolts when he says ‘quest’, but her eyes stay locked on the god’s.

“To prove his innocence?”

“Yes. She was called to the surface world. I went searching when she did not return. The essence of the wind was all that remained.”

Thalia has power over lightning and storms. Jason has winds. But he hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t left camp. Jason sits frozen, he doesn’t understand.

Behind Dis Pater, Bacchus speaks softly.

“We will send him, Uncle. What of the prophecy for the quest?”

Dis Pater gestures silently to the shadowy figure behind him. Jason twists so he can look closer, but he can’t make anything out. It’s a person, but they’re surrounded in thick twisting shadows. The shadows don’t entirely hide the gleam of sunshine.

The figure turns its head towards Jason before it speaks. He doesn’t miss the way the people around him stiffen when they hear the first words.

The voice starts out light and young, but it deepens with each sentence. Dropping into the voice of an adult, with a strange ebbing quality behind it, it rushes and rumbles in a rhythmic surge, and sounds so familiar, but Jason can’t quite identify it.

“Child of Thunder, beware the devil’s peak.
The rage of the abyss you must seek.
The forge and the dove at your side,
Tamed winds lead to Rich King’s bride.
To mend what’s broken, truth must be spoken.
A choice will be made, a price to be paid.”

So that’s Reyna’s prophet. Okay. If Jason hadn’t seen Apollo issue a prophecy before today, he’d be having a spectacular meltdown. Because that was incredibly unsettling.

Especially that second last line. Jason knows that line already. Which is rather concerning.

Thalia holds eye contact with Dis Pater, not even glancing at the other figure.

“May I say goodbye?”

A single nod. “Quickly. I must be gone before your father discovers I have left my realm.”

Thalia hurries over to the table as Jason fully turns towards her, balancing on the end of the bench.

Thalia crouches in front of Jason like he really is a child. She’s younger than him, shorter than him. Can she please act like it?

She takes his hands, and he watches her, completely paralysed with shock.

“Jace. Listen to me. You’ll be okay. This is just how the gods work. I’ll be fine with Uncle, I’m not in any danger. There are rules for quests. The gods can’t interfere directly, but there are ways around it. Pray to Queen Hera, Juno. If everything goes completely to shit, pray to Apollo and tell him everything. I mean everything, Jace. Or contact Nico. He’s at the legion. Even when they think he’s not. If Reyna goes outside and screams his name, he’ll pop up. He’ll be able to get in touch with me, and he’s not bound like the gods are.”

Jason stares numbly at her. All he can hear is static.

Why would Apollo be involved?

And Jason and Reyna have been repeatedly assuring the consuls that Nico isn’t spying on them. How does Thalia know where Nico is?

She squeezes his hands. “Jace. Do you understand me?”

He moves his too heavy tongue, and the words drop clumsily from his lips, not sounding like his voice. “I understand.”

“Okay. I’ll be back, I promise. I’ll see you soon. You’ve got this. I love you.”

Jason speaks blankly. Repeating words he hasn’t said since he was small. “Love you too, Thals.”

She stands and hugs him tight. Not asking for permission or giving him a chance to run.

The first time she’s hugged him since he found her, and this is how it happens? Jason hugs back for the smallest moment, trying to believe he’ll see her again. That this isn’t goodbye.

People don’t return from the Underworld.

Then, Thalia is stepping back and taking her place beside the god. Shadows pulse for a moment, and the two dark figures and Thalia are gone.

Silena makes a distressed sound beside him. “Well. That happened. At least the prophecy limited the quest members this time. No need for another all out war just to decide who’s going.”

“This is normal?”

Silena blinks at him. “Oh.” She pauses, looking lost. “This may be something for Will to explain. I’d assumed when you said you’d been on quests- Oh.”

Jason shakes his head vacantly. “Quests are issued by the Senate. Dom once brought a letter from a god, kind of think it was Triton in hindsight, asking for assistance with a sea monster. When Apollo showed up and told us about the battle, it was the first time a god had been in New Rome in centuries.”

She looks at him with too much sympathy. “And you’ve just been dumped in the deep end. I’m sorry. Sky King and Unseen King have history. Sky King once sent a twelve-year-old after his stolen Master Bolt.”

This is the problem with this place, for every question they answer, there are ten more questions Jason doesn’t even know he needs to ask. All these things that are so normal they never think about them are brand new concepts to Jason.

In the legion, he understood how it worked, even if it wasn’t true to the old ways, he understood the rules. He knew how to handle them, how to work behind the scenes to achieve his goals. Jason knew where he stood with the Romans.

He doesn’t understand this place. He’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for them to turn on him during the night.

Now he’s being sent out on a quest. It’s not like he’d ever refuse it. When a god asks you to do something, you do it. Especially when they kidnap your sister into the bargain.

Piper comes over, looking stressed. “Come on, Jason. We’ll meet in the Big House. Just the people over sixteen from Nine and Ten, since it needs a forge and a dove. Unless that means something else to you?”

Of course, they don’t send under-sixteens on quests if they don’t have to. Of course, even that’s different here. How on earth do they expect them to survive outside camp when they coddle them every step of the way?

In the legion, most sixteen-year-olds are in their final year of service and already pulling back from training. One of many reasons Frank’s situation is so awkward is because he’s years older than his peers.

At home, it’s the legionnaires aged thirteen to fifteen and who have completed their probatio year who take on quests, achieving as much as they can during their five years of service.

Jason shakes his head silently in answer to Piper and looks around.

Leo is having a fierce argument with two of the kids from his cabin. Jason’s met Jake and Nyssa, who are both sixteen, but they’re not as closely bonded with the main group of older kids. They don’t even join them for classes, preferring to stay with the much calmer group of kids aged fourteen to sixteen.

Jason tried to get to know them, but they told him they were more interested in working on their own projects and ‘not whatever nonsense that lot are dragging the camp into now’.

It wasn’t hostile, only very blunt. The older group of kids Jason spends his time with have a reputation for quests and fighting that many campers want nothing to do with. Both Jake and Nyssa have said they’re only at camp for access to better materials and equipment. Neither of them fought in the war.

Jason doesn’t understand it. Even if they had all those adult fighters, why would the Greeks have allowed any fighters to sit out of the war? Why would they risk losing because of a lack of manpower when they had it available?

Nyssa walks off first, and Jake shakes his head at Leo before following her. Leaving Leo standing there looking completely miserable as Beck walks over to him.

In the Big House, Jason’s led to a large recreation room, with old couches taking up all the walls and a ping-pong table off to the side.

Leo’s there with Beck. Drew joins Silena and Piper as the only other Aphrodite kid here who is over sixteen. Will comes in next, and then Bacchus steps in with Chiron in his magic wheelchair-shaped dimensional space pocket thing.

Bacchus lazily drops into an armchair across from Piper and her siblings, the red-wine coloured leather chair clearly left empty for the god. Chiron takes up a position beside him.

Jason carefully takes a seat on an unoccupied sofa, keeping his back stiff and his posture erect. This is nothing like a Senate meeting, but he’ll treat it like one until he’s told otherwise.

Beck leans casually against the wall, a painful contrast to Leo who is practically vibrating in place, hands clenched on the sofa, looking like he’s about to explode from anxiety.

Jason frowns at him. “I get that Nyssa and Jake refused, but you don’t need to go. You shouldn’t be forced to do this.”

Leo gives him a genuine-looking smile, even if it is a little strained.

“If I don’t go, Harley will insist on joining you. He’s been at camp as long as I have, but he’s twelve. Nyssa and Jake said no because the Unseen King is kind of relentless when he’s pissed. If the quest fails, it won’t go well for anyone. I ain’t doing that to Harley. I’m with you, man.”

Leo spends a lot of time redirecting Harley. The kid has zero self-preservation, and Jason could definitely see him insisting on joining the quest. Leo is the better choice, as much as Jason hates how reluctant he looks. Not even Dakota was as unhappy about a potential quest as Leo currently is.

Will is sitting next to Leo on the couch directly across from Jason. Watching him too closely, just like always. He speaks loudly enough for everyone to hear, but his focus is Jason.

“Before we discuss the quest, Jason, I need to know how much you understood of what the Unseen King told Thalia.”

Jason looks over at Piper, where she’s sitting with Drew and Silena, but she looks completely fine with Will usurping her role as Camp Leader. He imagines Octavian treating Reyna that way and has to suppress a shudder. That would definitely end in a blood-bath.

Jason tells Will, “Proserpina has been kidnapped. I need to find her within seven days. The prophecy should help guide me.”

Will’s murmur of, “Unseen Queen,” is lost in Leo’s response.

Leo blurts, “Seven days? What? Where was I when he said that?”

Bacchus snarks, “We’ve had a Roman here for nearly a month. Have you learned nothing in that time? Where is your fated genius, Lex Luthor?”

Jason tenses, ready for a fight. Leo rolls his eyes. “Like I got time for Latin. Prof tricked me into naming my new automaton Happy the dragon. You’re expecting me to actually learn from that?”

The little Latin they know is bad Latin. What else did the god expect? Jason needs to get a grip on himself, now is not the time for him to behave like a child.

Jason interjects before the bickering gets worse. “The next Mundus Patet is in a week. He said I needed to return by Mundus Patet. November eighth.”

Bacchus gives him a curious look. “Tell me, how many other people in your legion, or even that ‘city’ of yours, would know that off the top of their head?”

Jason winces. “One. We have a daughter of Dis Pater in the legion.”

“You also have a daughter of Ceres.”

How does he know that?

“She still thinks the Feast of Fortuna is on the twenty-fourth of June.”

“Ah.”

The Feast of Fors Fortuna is on the twenty-fourth of June. The Feast of Fortuna is on the fifth of April. Leila really doesn’t care about the original Roman practices.

Even the consuls have tried to claim that today, November first, is the ‘correct’ day for the Lemuria festival. The three days in May that the spirits of the dead are appeased.

But November first is the Christian festival called All Saints’ day. Same principles, but there are no Roman feasts on the first of November. Reyna had mentioned in a text a few days ago that the consuls were pushing for Lemuria to be celebrated today. Without Jason there, it probably will be.

Will asks, “Jason, what is Mundus Patet?”

“It’s the day the doorway to the Underworld is opened in Rome. When the dead can travel between the Underworld and the surface world.”

Leo bursts out, “The fuck would they do that for?”

Jason grins at him. He can’t help but like the way Leo never hides any part of himself.

“On each of the three days, they place the first harvest of that season in the pit. A gift for Proserpina from Ceres.”

He remembers meeting Juno in a cave on the edge of the ocean and adds, “It was an acknowledgement of the space between realms. A gift is sent ahead of Proserpina’s return to the Underworld, and in the fall and winter Ceres guards the entrances to the Underworld, watching for her daughter’s return to the surface. It’s meant to symbolise that familial connections transcend marriage bonds.”

Bacchus makes a sour noise. “Demeter never lets go of Persephone being ‘taken’ from her. Millennia later, and she still won’t shut up about it. Got all the Romans dancing to her tune and everything.”

Leo cautiously asks, “Uh, and do the dead actually, like, walk on the surface on those days?”

Bacchus shakes his head, still looking like he smells something rotten, and not the wine sort of rotten.

“Mundus Patet. The pit is open. While it does allow gods to move between realms, they are the days that Uncle Hades permits Demeter to visit her daughter in the Underworld. She calls the Underworld the pit or the pigsty depending on her mood, but she considers Persephone her world. She’s the reason Mundus came to mean ‘world’. I’d wager Uncle wants Persephone home before Demeter finds out she’s missing.”

Jason frowns. That doesn’t make sense. “But the other Mundus Patet days are in August and October. Proserpina should still be on the surface in August.”

The harvest is sent ahead of her return. Ceres has no need to visit the Underworld in the summer.

He’s not sure why what he said was wrong, but everyone is looking at him like he’s started speaking Latin.

Bacchus growls, sounding like a big cat stalking prey. “Did not one of you idiots explain to him about Demeter leaving the Council?”

Well, guess that answers the question of why Ceres doesn’t have a cabin. But also. What?

Piper winces and defends herself. “I didn’t know how. He was already scared! I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“And now we’re sending him on a quest, and he gets to learn on the fly about the time you brats turned the Council on its head. And that Persephone and Asclepius were released from their bindings. You also need to explain Hestia. You’re going to break him, Peregrin Took.”

Should Jason be taking notes? He’s also a bit concerned that the God of Madness thinks he’s going to break?

Before he can ask any questions, Will cuts them all off by asking, “Jason, do you understand where Thalia went?”

“She’s being held as a hostage by Dis Pater until Proserpina is returned.”

Bacchus snarls at him. “If you cannot remember basic respect, you have failed this quest already.”

What?

Jason cringes as he thinks over what he said. “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t thinking clearly. My sister is being held hostage by the Unseen King until his Queen is returned.”

Bacchus gives him a scathing look. “Very Roman of you. Do you know I hear every time you think my name? And you have yet to use the name I prefer?”

Fuck.

Mr D. Mr D. Mr D. Jason needs to fucking remember his name is Mr D.

The god’s purple eyes glitter with amusement, he definitely knows what Jason is thinking. This isn’t awkward. Not at all.

Will gets them back on track again. “Jason. Do you understand that Thalia knows the Unseen King and that she’s completely safe with him? Her patron, the Huntress, has approved the arrangements.”

“I know Thalia calls him Uncle, but I also know the Underworld is a place people don’t return from?”

Everyone finds this terribly funny for some unknown reason.

Chiron speaks softly, “Perhaps in myth. But even your sister has visited several times since the war ended. Nico visits his father almost daily.”

Why is everyone now looking at Chiron like he has two heads?

Jason tilts his head towards Silena, silently raising his eyebrows, but she quietly confirms that what Chiron said is correct. So he’ll ignore the strangeness, then.

It explains why Thalia said to get in touch with Nico if they needed to contact her. Is there anyone Nico doesn’t know? Maybe he’s really a messenger god?

“Look, I get it. I need to go and find Pro- the Unseen Queen, can we please get started on that?”

Jason doesn’t know why he’s so impatient. The senate meeting before a quest lasts for hours. This small group of people is nothing like that.

The god glares at Jason, his eyes balls of swirling purple fire. “Very well. The featherbrain won’t be going with you, by the way. He can’t interfere.”

Everyone in the room goes tense, focusing on the god.

Drew asks, “Wait, are you saying-” The god cuts her off. “You know exactly what I’m saying, Draco. Drop it.”

Jason ignores them. These people turn everything into a theatrical performance. He can almost hear Octavian sneering about how very Greek they are.

The conversation moves on, but none of it is new. Not really. Jason mostly listens while everyone else talks about the prophecy.

Piper and Drew ask who would kidnap Proserpina, and don’t look happy when Chiron points out Dis Pater kidnapped her once before.

When Piper demands if he thinks the Unseen King kidnapped his own wife, Chiron grimaces and quietly says that he meant the Sky King. Everyone is weirdly surprised again, but the conversation moves on quickly.

The ‘rage of the abyss’ is quickly waved off. They point out that most monsters return to the surface world from Tartarus, and too many of them are known for their anger. Most of them will have a bone to pick with Dis Pater.

They’re all confused by the ‘devil’s peak’. Since devils are Christian. There are daemons, but it’s not remotely the same. They end up concluding it probably means a literal place, but they’ll need to wait for the prophecy to unfold.

They talk about the venti that have been showing up around the country.

Chiron hesitantly suggests that Proserpina might have been taken for a reason, that the final chapter approaches, but Ba- Mr D, cuts him off. Which turns into an argument between Piper and the god about keeping secrets and not sharing relevant information.

It doesn’t really matter to Jason. He needs to find Proserpina so Dis Pater releases Thalia. The prophecy says that tamed winds will lead him to her. So, he needs to catch himself a ventus.

Jason lets them fight it out while he runs through lists in his head, everything he’ll need for a quest. Questers are only given $30 each per day they’re expected to be away, and that’s only for the big quests. They supply everything else themselves. Unless they’re Octavian.

“If I can’t take Dom, I need money for transport. Or I can call Reyna. I didn’t bring much with me.”

Will speaks cautiously, “Jason, we’ll supply you with everything you need. Lee always keeps things ready for quests, and he overhauled it before he left. If there’s anything specific you want, we can add it in. You don’t need to be self-sufficient.”

Jason blinks, bringing his mind back to reality. Wait. What?

“You give provisions to questers?”

Everyone is carefully not looking at Chiron for a reason that he doesn’t care about right now.

Silena speaks gently. “Yes. I don’t know how you do things in the legion, but I get the impression it’s very different. You’ll have the funding for whatever you need, and fully equipped packs that can cover most emergency situations.”

Oh. The rules he’d been working through are all from the legion.

Piper adds, “You’ll need to give up the purple though. If Medusa knew Romans existed, others will too. You need to look like one of us.”

Jason scowls, and she meets his eyes steadily, not backing down. Unfortunately, she’s right. The purple is distinctive, and extremely obvious.

“Fine.”

She nods decisively. Then her mood changes, something dark on her face. She pulls her phone out and checks it and then says to no-one in particular, “I need to make a phone call.”

“No.” Ba- Mr D’s voice is sharp and definitive.

Piper glares at the god, and Jason’s disconcerted to see her eyes turning glossy. She really didn’t strike him as the sort to cry in public. If not for how insistent everyone is about it, he’d really doubt she was a daughter of Venus.

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because you will undo everyone’s work if you insist on speaking to Hero.”

She shoots to her feet, posture tight, defensive. The god meets her eyes steadily.

Piper demands, “What do you know?”

“The brat warned me there were complications. That you would find them difficult. Should your quest be successful, arrangements will be made to set things to rights.”

Piper’s voice turns sharp. “When did he warn you?”

“Thirty minutes ago.”

It’s like her strings are cut, and Piper slumps back into her seat. Silena wraps an arm around her as Piper mumbles an apology to the god, but he waves her off, saying emotional expression is good for everyone. In a tone that suggests it’s good because he finds it entertaining.

Piper stares at the god, debating something. Finally, she softly says, “You know I would never, right?”

He scoffs. “The brat will walk away before you do.”

That’s the second time Ba- Mr D mentioned ‘the brat’. It’s clearly a title. Someone working behind the scenes who already knows about the quest. Oh.

“You’re talking about the prophet.”

The god raises an eyebrow. “Given you just met him, I see no need to hide it.”

The other person with Dis Pater. Unseen King. The one being hidden.

“He was hiding him from me? Why?”

“Because, despite what you think, it is the demigods in this camp who are risking everything for you. Not the other way around. But that is a journey for you to walk.”

Will speaks quietly, “To mend what’s broken, truth must be spoken.”

Jason shrugs, confused. “What truth? The only ones who seem to know are Chiron and Bac-”

Piper darts over, and her hand claps over his mouth. “Yeah. Okay. You’re going to get turned into a dolphin before we even leave.” She turns back to the room. “Can we get this meeting finished before this idiot accidentally insults anyone else?”

She doesn’t remove her hand.

Piper incessantly insults Bacchus, but it’s Jason who is the problem? Is she screwing with him?

Will nods firmly. “Okay. Can we do a weapons check now? Because the moment he finds out about this quest, Lee will call and interrogate me, and I’d like to not lie to him.”

Piper nods and sits next to Jason. She gives him a sharp look when she takes her hand away from his face, and Jason bites his tongue. Public reprimands are for specific situations, and this is not one of them.

Chiron speaks up before Jason can ask what the hell Will is talking about.

“We have not confirmed the members of the quest.”

Jason looks blankly at him. Oh. He’d assumed things, hadn’t he? Gods, he misses Reyna and Dakota so much right now. They always went with him on quests, he never needed to ask.

“Well, the prophecy was given to me, and with Thalia in the Underworld, I’m assuming I’m the only Child of Thunder around?”

The god is suddenly snickering loudly. “Oh, dear. My sister’s lieutenant didn’t mention the rugrats?”

Piper looks like she’s begging the god to shut up with her eyes. “He doesn’t need to know. The oldest is only two, they aren’t going on quests for at least another decade.”

“I have siblings?”

Ba- Mr D rolls his eyes. “You really think Father is refraining? Truly?”

Father. Jason keeps forgetting he’s related to this god. Not that the god has ever addressed him as a brother.

Piper speaks loudly. “ANYWAY. Jason is going on the quest. ‘The forge and the dove at your side’. Someone from Nine and Ten. Leo and Beck are your only options for Nine. Or me and Drew for Ten.” Piper glares at Drew. “And I say I’m going.” Drew looks furious, but she stays quiet.

Leo says softly. “I’m the better choice. We can use Festus, got his wings working finally.”

Beck nods beside him. He’s been standing against the wall watching all this play out like he’s seen it a thousand times before. “I don’t do quests. Leo’s your best option.”

Piper’s less than happy. “Festus? Not the pegasi?”

Will shakes his head. “Not the time to risk bringing the Sea King into this disagreement. And you know he’ll get dragged into it if anything happens to the camp pegasi. Same reason you can’t use the hippocampi. If Leo’s got the dragon flying, it’s your best option, otherwise, you’ll need to use mortal travel. The three of you can take a plane, but you’re risking monster attacks, plus the Mist isn’t so great with hiding weapons.”

Piper still looks mutinous, but she doesn’t argue.

Will claps his hands then, turning to Leo. “So. Weapons check.”

Jason can’t even work out why he’s startled that the camp looks over the weapons of questers before they leave. They just had an argument about transport, where multiple options were thrown around, none of which are available to the legion.

Pegasi, hippocampi, mortal planes and a flying automaton dragon. All supplied by the camp. No credit cards from Dakota’s mother, Dominus and his eagles or taking the cheapest possible public transport.

Without Dominus, Jason would have taken buses and trains for his quests. His weapons are easy to hide, but for everyone else, they have to decide between larger weapons and shields, or going unnoticed by the mortals.

Well. Most of them do.

Octavian’s quests involved first class everything. But they were paid for by his father’s ‘business associates’, the same Triumvirate Holdings that supplied an entire cruise ship to Kronos for his attack on Olympus.

Jason’s fairly sure he’s the only one who knows where the titan king’s funding came from. He has no intention of sharing. The one thing he has learned since he came here is that the Greeks respond full force to any attack against them.

If he fails to achieve what Juno wants, she’ll mind-wipe Jason, but she made no such promise about the Greeks. Which is certainly one way to motivate him to see this through.

Leo produces something small that expands out into his pollaxe thing. What did he call it? A falcon’s beak? Something like that. He’s been talking about wanting to work out how to shrink it down. As far as Jason was aware, Leo didn’t even know where to start.

Next, Leo has a whole pile of knives that Jason had never noticed. Does he normally wear those? Piper and Beck look completely unconcerned. Leo says his armour is good to go, and Beck clarifies with him that it’s the armour from the cyclopes forges and not the standard bronze. Something about melting points?

The knives all gleam bronze, though Leo cheekily tells Will that they came from Clarisse and he’s already had ‘Tri’s extra special safety talk from the worry-wart’.

Will checks them over, tells Leo to sign out a sword and a shield from the armoury, and then looks expectantly at Piper.

She reluctantly pulls a hairpin from her ponytail, and it morphs into her bronze sword. The one that’s called Salos. Greek for the surging sea. Jason had made an idiot of himself asking if it meant Salvation, thinking that was a cool name for a sword, before she reminded him she was Greek, not Roman. Salus is Latin for salvation.

It’s like he can’t get anything right. Even the little stuff, he keeps getting it wrong. He’d been debating on calling Reyna and asking her to help him get a flight back to California before all this happened. Jason wants to go home, and he doesn’t care if Dom won’t help.

But never mind.

He needs to help Thalia. Besides, Jason would never have done it. Not when the Greeks would still know everything about the legion. He needs to stay long enough to be sure they aren’t a threat.

He watches as Will checks over Piper’s sword and her uncomfortably high number of knives. A lot more than Leo had. A mix of metals this time.

One stands out in a dark steely colour he hasn’t seen before. Leo makes a face at it, and Piper gives him a smug grin.

A fair number of the knives are of that silvery blue metal that Jason knows not to touch. The one time he picked up a sword made of it, Triton had materialised from nowhere and taken it off him. He said something about how he had ‘made a deal with the High Priest’ and vanished before Jason could do more than gape at him.

There’s a bronze spear that telescopes out from a lipstick tube. She also has pepper spray? What? Will’s only comment is that Piper needs to add a shield and she should take her new armour. Piper purses her lips, but agrees, looking uncomfortable.

Silena tells her, “It’s not the same armour. Tri said it was all new.”

“Yeah, I know. I need to get over it.”

Clearly, explanations aren’t happening anytime soon.

Leo eyes the pile, looking confused. He looks over at Piper, “Something happen? You don’t normally carry all this inside the barrier.”

Piper waves him off, “Not the time for it. Later.”

Will turns to Jason and gestures silently. Jason sighs heavily. He stands and takes Conservatori from his pocket. While he can do the show-off thing and flip it in the air, he goes for the less impressive option of willing it into its hasta form.

Will nods, not taking it from him. “Show me the sword form?”

What? How does he know that? Not the time. Conservatori shifts into a gladius and Will scans it carefully before nodding. “And your shield?”

So, clearly, none of Jason’s secrets were actually secret. Awesome.

Jason silently takes Defensor from his belt and presses his thumb against the little engraving on the hilt. The gold shield spirals up in his hand, and Will looks at it critically, but doesn’t take it from him.

“And you’ve got your gold armour?” Jason nods. “I gave you knives, but you’re not wearing them?”

He shakes his head. He’s acting like a child, but he just can’t seem to stop himself.

The bronze makes him uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to use it.

The god makes an exasperated sound. “Take enchanted gold if you must. I am losing all faith in the brat’s plan. How you and your sister could possibly be related, I do not know.”

Jason’s cheeks heat as everyone else gleefully adds to the humiliating commentary.

Will cannot hide his smile. “I don’t know. I’m seeing a lot of similarities to Thalia’s first year here.”

Leo adds, “Just less electrocution. Something for which I am very grateful for.”

Jason looks around, and none of them are even remotely apologetic. Okay. Yes. He’s acting like a total dickhead. He ducks his head and slumps his shoulders, kicking at the ground.

Jason wants to go home.

Will watches him for a moment and looks increasingly unhappy. He mutters to himself about he has no idea how Lee does it, he must be the magic feral child whisperer or something. Jason decides it’s best if he pretends he never heard that. Because. What?

Will stands and says they can leave first thing in the morning. He’ll let them work out for themselves which direction they’re starting off in, and he’ll drop off the hiking packs before lights out so they can pack any last-minute supplies.

Leo’s up and out the door pretty much before Will has finished speaking, saying something about double-checking Festus is good to go. Piper’s on his heels, calling back that she’ll drop clothes off at Jason’s cabin.

Jason goes to leave, but only takes a single step towards the door before the god says, “A moment, Jekyll.”

Jason focuses on remembering how to be respectful to the god. To Mr D.

Chiron sits beside Mr D, looking worried. Jason hates the way Chiron looks at him, there’s too much calculation there, like Jason is the enemy in this equation.

He turns back to the god, standing at attention. “Yes, sir?”

The god tilts his head, purple eyes considering. “Not that long ago, a child had the audacity to send me a dying cat. Do you remember that?”

Bryce Lawrence had set a cat on fire. It was too badly hurt to be healed, but the Senate had insisted on keeping the cat alive as ‘evidence’. Jason stole it and had Dominus take it to Bacchus. That was over three years ago, back when Jason still believed the gods might care about the legion.

He stands stiffly and speaks calmly, eyes fixed on the wall behind the god. “Yes, sir. You healed it.”

The god raises an eyebrow. “What happened to the child who broke the rules, because he knew the rules were wrong?”

Jason keeps his eyes forward, focused beyond the god. “He grew up, sir.”

The god’s voice turns mocking. “Are you telling me the consuls succeeded in bringing you to harness? Mere mortals broke the spirit of a son of Jupiter? A Prince of Rome has succumbed to the whims of powerless men?”

Jason breathes slowly, keeping his shoulders squared, trying to get himself under control.

“I don’t know what you want from me, sir. I am Roman. I was born Roman, and I will die Roman.”

“Yes. But ask yourself this, is New Rome Roman? Is the Twelfth Legion Fulminata Roman?”

Jason nods decisively, still keeping his eyes fixed ahead, not looking at the god. “Of course, sir.”

“So they have broken you, after all. Ah well, I told them this experiment would fail.”

Jason risks a glance at the god. His eyes burn with fire, and there’s a challenge on the god’s face. Jason keeps his tone neutral. “I don’t understand what you mean, sir. I need to prepare for this quest. We can discuss it when I return.”

The god snorts dourly, face turning resigned. “If you return, child. If you return.”

Jason does an about-face and stalks out, he hasn’t got time for cryptic conversations. He needs Dominus. Especially if he can’t come on the quest.

________________________

Leo walks into the woods to the hidden bunker, and tries to think of anything but the fact that he volunteered for a quest.

But what else was he supposed to do? Nyssa and Jake said no, and neither of them are warriors.

Leo’s not a warrior either. Not really. It hadn’t stopped him from joining his friends in a war. Because this place is his home. He has a home and siblings and people who care about him. And it’s all because of the gods. No matter what Luke and Annabeth claimed, the demigods would have been the first to die if Olympus fell. And no chance they were leaving Prof alive.

Leo fought for his friends. But Leo’s not a warrior.

He would’ve begged off even this quest, but it needed a forge and a dove. Which means Piper.

Silena outright can’t go, not with her leg so trashed. She’s already using it too much. Will and Beck are working on a brace of some sort for her. Leo may have snooped, curious about the new project.

It was a given that Piper would go on the quest. She’s led a quest before, and no matter how desperate Drew is to stop the whole Ethan situation happening again, Piper is a born warrior.

Jason only knows Piper has charmspeak because Soph told him.

It’s clear Piper hasn’t told Jason jack about what happened. Not that she has charmspeak, and not about how she’s still not okay with how Ethan died.

Leo is more okay with Jason than anyone else is, but he’s not cool with sending Piper out there without backup. She needs someone with her who knows what happened. Who knows what she can do. He can’t fight like she can, but he can think in ways she can’t. He can build anything and, in a pinch, he can burn anything down.

Fire still scares him.

It shouldn’t. He uses it like an extension of himself, and everyone here encourages it. Even Hephaestus. There’s no forge in the shed he built for Leo and Soph, only a fireproof space Leo can use as a forge, so long as he provides the fire.

It was during the three days of fighting that Soph noticed the pattern to his tapping. Trust an Athena kid to recognise Morse code after reading about it all of one time. Scared the shit out of Leo the first time she tapped, “I’m here,” in response to his unconscious tapping, apparently asking if she was okay.

He hadn’t realised he’d started doing it again. It had been his and Mum’s secret language. A way of talking that no-one else knew about it. He stopped when Mum died. When he thought he’d killed her in a fire. Eight years old and he woke up in an inferno. Mum already dead. Leo would have died too, except he was fireproof. He spent years certain he’d killed her.

Not unexpected that the war brought back less than stellar memories.

After Mum died he got to bounce through endless foster homes for the next four years. Until he ran away and a satyr showed up at the bus station while he was trying to scrabble enough money together for a fare out of the city. He didn’t care where. Anywhere that wasn’t his last foster home worked for Leo.

Technically, after Prof sent a satyr to scoop him up, Leo was ‘homeless’ for six months. That’s what the mortal records claim, anyway. Then, Lee forged a few records and did a bit of less than ethical hacking, and Charles Beckendorf now has official legal custody of one Leo Valdez, according to the mortals. They’re even listed as half-brothers on their dad’s side.

Harley was given the same treatment, and the mortals have some very tidy records about the two siblings living under the guardianship of their much older half-brother.

Nyssa and Jake have legal records placing them under the guardianship of one of their older sisters, though Jake used to attend boarding school and only Nyssa did the demigod foster care thing.

Now that they’re year round, the mortals believe both of them earned scholarships at an extra fancy boarding school. Lee’d put a lot more effort into their records, because it’s assumed they’ll be returning to the mortal world whenever the novelty of twenty-four-seven forge access wears off.

Leo prefers to stay in camp with its nice magical border, but no-one’s going to scoop him up and dump him back in foster care if he leaves. Lee’s offered too many times to count to find Leo a demigod to live with if he wants to do the normal mortal school thing.

Although so much Mist would have been needed because it took absolutely forever to learn how to stop randomly bursting into flame.

Even if nothing catches fire, people eventually notice the random sparks. They usually assume he’s got a lighter and is a budding arsonist. It went down super well with his foster carers.

When the kid whose mother died in a fire won’t stop playing with lighters, it leads to some super shit conclusions.

Mist is incredibly stupid sometimes.

Leo kind of regrets learning to control his fire now. If only because it took so much longer to work out how to unlock the hidden storage cache deep in the woods. Prof had hinted there was more to Festus. Once Leo stuck a tracker on him, the dragon had spent two weeks repeatedly leading Leo back to the same empty cliff face.

But it was only after another week of metaphorically and occasionally physically beating his head against the wall that he lost his temper and went all Human Torch. The doors sprang open. Because. Of course.

Unlike Harley, Leo had enough self-preservation to immediately go back to the main camp area and let Beck know he’d found out where Festus was going and would be doing some investigating. Beck had refused to let him leave until he was ‘properly armed’, though Leo had immediately ditched the armour when he was out of sight of the paranoid adults. He had Festus, he was fine.

But hey, when the quest thing happened, he was already armed and good to go.

He’s barely had a day to explore. He’d only shown up for lunch today because he’d skipped out of morning classes entirely, and there are rules about underage campers showing their faces once per day at minimum so the various adults can feel confident no-one is missing.

It’s all Nico’s fault. That rule didn’t exist before the kid kept racking off. Prof refused to tell anyone whenever Nico pulled a vanishing act, so now they all suffer.

There’d been such cool things in the bunker too.

Leo’d left the doors open, and Festus creaks a hello as he slips inside. He’s got his shiny new-old wings attached, and they look absolutely brilliant, if you ask Leo.

He leaves the automaton on his pad for now, walking a circuit of the room in case there’s anything that might help with the quest.

The place is completely huge. A massive cavern that goes on and on forever.

Electric lights snapped on when he walked in, some sort of hidden motion sensors that are only triggered by Leo’s movement and not Festus’s, and only lighting the things Leo needs to see, as if they’re reading his mind. They’re way beyond anything he could build.

Most of the bunker is taken up with work benches and other machinery. A whole big chunk is dedicated to Festus, but further in are walls and walls of supplies, and unidentifiable machines and weapons, all half-finished. People in the middle of provisioning for a war, maybe?

Actually. Leo stops and scans one of the barrier designs. He knows what provisioning for a war looks like. He lived it. Weapons, medical supplies, food and water, transportation, espionage.

There are some super old maps that look like they’re tracking movements, but not the sort you’d need for transportation when deploying warriors or evacuating civilians.

It looks more like they were preparing for a siege, maybe? Jason’s still super cagey about his weird-ass army, but the one thing that’s painfully obvious is that they have genuine military training. The way Jason talks- it’s kind of terrifying. Like war is normal for him, like he trains for it even without any active threat.

At camp, they’d only been trying not to die, none of them would choose this shit. Definitely not to the point where they learned to lock shields and fight like Roman legionnaires.

Not that fighting in that style would work for them.

How does Jason manage it? Leo’d looked up some videos of legion fighting and it’s all about coordination and shit, not individual strength. Does Jason never fight full-out, or what?

Leo squints at the maps, wishing he knew what they were about. All he’s sure of is that the maps aren’t of the US. But he’s not entirely sure what country it is.

Somewhere in Europe? Maybe? The place names are definitely not the sort he’s learned in mortal lessons. He’s super sure he’s never heard of a ‘Columna Constantini’. The map next to it is of an entirely different country, with a star marking something that has a handwritten label of ‘Belone’ in a place the map calls ‘Palatium’.

Leo moves on before he has to start wondering why this bunker was built, or why it was abandoned. Chiron definitely knows more than he’s letting on.

Which is interesting. Chiron tends towards sharing information he isn’t meant to share, rather than withholding it. But he’s been acting kind of bizarre ever since he came back from his time with the party ponies. It’s like he’s cosplaying a responsible adult, and it’s creeping Leo out.

In the next section, there’s all these designs for the most amazing flying ship, and a tonne of supplies, as if someone had started to build it and then they’d totally abandoned everything.

But, like, a flying ship? The things Leo could do with a flying ship-

His phone dings. What’s the betting it’s bloody Prof being a mind reader?

“Yo.”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Yep, Prof.

“It’s like you’re a prophet or something.” Leo stares at the diagrams and then glances over at the half-finished shell.

“No. Flicker. Just. No.”

Leo whines, “It’s a ship that flies, Percy! It flies!”

“So does your dragon. Focus on that. You get distracted, and the only use you’ll have for the dragon is a masthead for a ship that’ll crash the first time you take it out.”

Lee is suspicious. “You’ve seen this?”

“No. But I know you. You can’t actually build a ship overnight. You’re good, but you’re not that good.”

Everyone knows Leo constantly gets distracted by shiny new things. There are problems with people knowing him too well.

“Says you. So why are you calling me, anyway?”

“Because my friend who hates leaving camp is being sent on a quest, and I wanted to check in?”

Oh. Oops.

Leo’s voice is full of contrition. “Sorry, Prof.”

“Nah, you’re good. Also, can I give you a hint?”

Leo makes a face at the drawing. He hates hints.

“For the quest, right?”

Percy’s voice turns fond. “Yes, you idiot. I know you prefer working it all out yourself.”

Uh huh. Prof totally didn’t send a cyclops to help speed things up with cleaning Festus right after they dug him up.

“Fine. What is it?”

“There should be a pouch type thing near the dragon’s platform. Dark brown.”

“The tool belt?”

“Might be a tool belt? I don’t fucking know. Brown leather. Goes on your waist. Holds shit.”

How long has Percy spent watching Leo in the forge? How does he not know this? Then again, he once, entirely unironically, called a screw, “the twisty thing that joins stuff together.” So.

Prof and making things is not a match made in heaven.

Leo walks over and picks up the pouch. Like everything, it’s old, but it hasn’t dried out and gone all gross. It looks like it was oiled yesterday.

“Okay. I found it. What now?”

“Stick your hand in it and ask for the key to the safe.”

And here Leo thought Prof was being helpful.

“You have to be fucking kidding me. This is a prank, right?”

Percy snickers. “No. Not a prank. I left you to it, like you asked, but you’re gonna lose your new friend if I don’t give you a nudge. I did check, but couldn’t find a path where you found it by yourself. Your dad hid it too well.”

“Wait. You know where to get a new CPU?”

“Yup. Will you summon the key now?”

Leo grumbles into the phone as he shoves a hand into the tool belt. “Nothing’s happening.”

It feels like a completely empty tool belt. Should he be checking all the pockets?

“You’ve got to ask it, you dingus.”

Leo feels like a complete lunatic, but he says, extra grudgingly, to the tool belt, “I need the key to the safe.”

He jumps like five feet in the air when he feels something pressed into his hand. The hell?

He pulls out a thin piece of bronze metal. Like a toothpick, but with a little round coin shaped bit on the end, a flame engraved on it.

“So, it’s a magic tool belt?”

Percy’s voice is way too innocent. “Thought that was implied?”

“Fuck you.”

“No, thanks, not my type.”

Leo rolls his eyes at the very familiar joke and says, “Now what?”

“Ask your pet dragon to move his ass off the platform.”

“Dude.”

Percy’s voice turns sharp. “Flicker. I’ve been stuck in Atlantis for a month, trying to stop Eclipse interfering with the camp. I am at my gods damn limit. Make your dragon move his ass.”

Leo winces. “Festus, can you shift over?”

The dragon slides off the platform, and then moves so he can watch over Leo’s shoulder, making interested purring noises in his throat.

“Heat the key in your hand, hot as it can go. Like, supernova level. Then shove it in the hole in the centre of the platform.”

Leo steps onto the platform and crouches down, running his hands over the seemingly solid metal. It takes way too long to find the tiny, near invisible hole.

“Won’t the key melt if I go full fire? Everything melts.”

“It won’t. It’ll only unlock the safe if heated by a fire-hearted child of your dad, or by your dad himself. Safety feature.”

Great. Hephaestus is famous for not thinking through the danger of things he gifts to his kids. How dangerous does something have to be for him to put a safety feature on it?

Leo tightens his fist around the thin piece of metal, willing the fire to grow white hot and then slide into blue. “And what else is in the safe?”

“Dragon parts. I think it’s just in case he got wrecked? The only path I followed that had you opening it, you kinda lost your shit because you found it too late to repair him.”

“Doubt I’d ever have checked his platform. Doesn’t seem possible to have anything in it, there’s open space underneath.”

“Magic.”

Isn’t that always the answer? The fact Leo had found something in the bunker that would make his pollaxe thing shrink into a set of brass knuckles was amazing. He so wants to properly investigate that machine, but not right now. He now has a portable polearm, and that’s what’s important.

The fire in his hand turns blue, sliding to near invisible violet, and he’s super impressed the key is still unmelted.

“When it turns white, it’s good to go.”

He watches with a lot of fascination as the bronze pales and turns a bright, gleaming white. Mega cool.

He pokes the little toothpick end of the key into the tiny hole, and loud clicking sounds vibrate from the platform until the whole thing drops down, and now stairs spiral into the darkness beneath him.

“This isn’t a safe, it’s a whole fucking basement.”

“Yeah, whatever. The dragon brain thing you need will be straight in front of you when you reach the bottom. Middle draw. Make sure you lock it tight after. Bunker too. Best other people don’t go exploring while you’re away. I gotta talk to Angry Girl, you good?”

“Yep. Thanks Prof.”

“No worries. Stay safe, yeah?”

“Course.”

Leo’s barely listening as he sees the shelving at the bottom of the stairs, marching out of sight like a full sized warehouse.

Festus creaks above him, reminding Leo he’s on a time limit.

Right. Dragon brain. The rest can wait until they get back.

________________________

Piper heads straight for her room, yanking out the bag of clothes she and Drew had bought weeks ago, and stalking back out the door and straight to Two. Silena meets her there, wincing sympathetically at the look on Piper’s face.

“He’s not back, I figure he’s gone to see the eagle.”

“Yeah. I don’t care, give these to him?”

“You mind if I check them first?”

Piper shrugs as she turns away, storming back to Ten. Granted, she and Drew had debated on pranking him properly, but right now, all she wants is for him to look a little less like Randy from Monsters Inc.

Maybe Silena can even convince him to wear his glasses again. Just because he’s managed without them doesn’t mean they won’t help.

And the purple clothes and the glasses thing… Yeah, it makes her think of the evil squinting lizard. You know, the one whose whole thing was kidnapping children?

The tee-shirts still aren’t exactly nice, but they’re a hell of a lot kinder than what Drew was planning. She thinks Jason is evil incarnate for the child soldier thing, and Silena’s all that is stopping her from going full mean girl on him.

Along with a lot of reminders that, at fifteen, Jason is still a kid. Drew is not a kid, she needs to take the high road. Piper is very glad that this is not her problem to deal with.

Drew on a quest with Jason would end so badly.

Piper waves Mitchell, Lacy and Valentina off, saying that it’s only a little quest, she’ll be fine, promise, and leaves Drew to distract them while she stalks back upstairs.

She slams her door shut and slumps on her bed, scowling at the phone in her hands. One of the ones Nico stole when he was spying on Annabeth, from the inventor guy with too many damn names.

Nico wanted Leo to have the best one, which was this super cool device that can transform from a phone to, like, a huge tablet, but the one he’d given Piper was still awesome. Leo did something to it so it could connect to mortal phones. Not that she uses that feature much.

Well. Not before this week.

She hits the call button and holds the phone up to her ear and listens as it rings and rings and rings. It’s Dad’s private line. He doesn’t answer most of the time, but she still keeps hoping.

She gives up and calls Jane.

“Piper, what have I said about interrupting my workday?”

“Dad pays you to answer his phone. I think you can spare me a few minutes.”

“I’ll tell him you called. Is that all?”

“And how exactly will you be telling him? Smoke signals?”

“I’ll tell him when he returns.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“You know what he’s like, Piper. He’s met a woman and he’ll be back when he’s done.”

Piper cringes, but keeps her voice clear and calm.

“Why haven’t you reported him missing?”

Jane’s tone is cutting. “Because I don’t want a media circus. He’ll be back when he’s back.”

Gods, she is so glad that she has the camp. If Jane was her only alternative adult to Dad, Piper definitely would’ve gone off the rails. Percy saying she went full klepto is way too easy to picture.

Piper gives up and ends the call.

She hates that Dad has such a shit reputation, but, like, Jane isn’t wrong. Dad doesn’t know who her mother is because there were too many possible candidates.

There’s also the distinct possibility that Mum wasn’t in a female form when she met Dad. Which would mean he’s never considered her in the list of options.

As far as the tabloids are concerned, Dad’s totally straight. Jane apparently thinks the same. Which is impressive, Dad’s never exactly hidden his very varied interests.

It was partially why Piper had been so entirely stupid when she first came to camp. Because how much worse would the bullying get if the girls at her school knew Dad wasn’t the perfect hetero role-model the media paints him as? That day she’d lost it on Percy, the way Drew and Lee were talking, it had sounded like they knew about Dad, and Piper had gone nuclear without thinking things through.

She’d told Drew and Silena the full story, and they’d been fine with it. Greeks have different views on all that, anyway. But they’d understood why she’d freaked like she had, and it’s been a long time now since Piper’s cared.

She just wishes so many of Dad’s flings didn’t end up in the tabloids.

Dad gets around. Like. A lot. It was bad even back then. The only reason baby Piper was left with him is because Aphrodite can’t really be stonewalled by personal assistants.

Piper spends a lot of brainpower carefully not wondering if she has any mortal half-siblings out there on her dad’s side. Siblings who didn’t have a goddess forcing him to acknowledge their existence.

She still tells new summer campers that Dad’s a Cherokee artist. It’s easier. The summer campers don’t entirely mesh well with the year-rounders.

Every year she has to stop the summer Cabin Ten kids from starting up a new round of their bizarre ‘tradition’ of claiming every Aphrodite kid has to break someone’s heart as a rite of passage.

Piper’s fairly sure the real rite of passage is forcing them to sit through Silena’s most excruciating version of the informed consent talk whenever someone catches her younger siblings at their new ‘game’.

No way is she dealing with all of them knowing she’s the daughter of the Tristan McLean when they’re already so disconnected from everything Mum stands for.

The one time it had accidentally gotten out during a summer camp, Drew had waited until dinner and then announced to all and sundry that Piper was begging for attention and they were all playing into her games. Piper had acted super offended and let Drew loudly ‘publicly humiliate’ her for being such an attention seeking brat.

It worked, too. No-one ever believes the rumours anymore, and she gets left alone during summer camp.

The year rounders all know. It doesn’t bother them. It’s not as unusual as she thought, either. Zeus, Mum and Apollo all have a string of famous conquests. Will once said all casually that his mother was the Naomi Solace, and then moved on, no biggie. She’s only a pop culture music icon. Nothing important.

The gods like interesting people, and they don’t care if they’re famous or not. For demigod children with mega famous mortal parents, living at camp is just plain safer. Which probably explains all those brochures Lee has claiming the camp is an exclusive high security boarding school, now she’s thinking about it.

Plenty of Piper’s memories of her dad are good. One of the last times they’d done the family bonding thing, he’d bought out a whole tent hotel place that offered glamping in Glacier National Park in Montana. They’d spent hours stargazing and making up ridiculous stories about the constellations.

Though not all of them were made up.

Dad couldn’t see the Hunters, but Piper pointed them out anyway and told him the story of Zoe Nightshade and Phoebe, daughter of Apollo, soulmates who served the goddess Artemis.

Dad had praised her for her creativity and told her she could have a future as a screenwriter. He’d talked enthusiastically about encouraging her interest in Greek mythology, and maybe they could go on a holiday to Greece when his latest project is finished.

Lee later said she should go if she gets the chance. With the war over, Lee’s been talking about maybe taking some of the year rounders to the Ancient Lands so they can see ‘where it all began’.

That night under the stars, Piper had talked about the myths, and Dad told her how he was glad they were only stories. That if they were real, he’d always be looking for someone to blame. For things like Grandpa Tom dying, for Mum abandoning Piper without leaving any information, and even for him and Piper not being as close as he’d like.

Maybe there was a time where she would feel completely broken by that. That Dad couldn’t deal with knowing the world she lives in was real. But not everyone can. Not even the demigods. Clare and Allysa, as well as the older demigods she’d interviewed with Lee, all spoke about Luke and Annabeth insisting they could force the gods to act human.

That Luke and Annabeth had promised them a world where gods actually parented their children, where they loved their kids and looked after them. A world where demigods weren’t ‘abandoned’ by the gods.

But the gods aren’t human. They aren’t people. You can blame them for shit going wrong if you really want to, but they have neither the capacity nor the interest in giving humans some sort of utopian world. Humans weren’t made for utopia. Not the sort of utopia they invented, anyway. Utopia means ‘no place’ in Ancient Greek. Literally, a place that doesn’t exist.

Dad thinks that if gods exist, the world should be a good place where nothing bad ever happens. As if the gods are like the weird propaganda the Christian churches peddle. Piper hadn’t known what to say when Dad told her all that.

Then, he’d talked about how proud he was of her. That a few years ago, she’d been going down such a bad path, and now she’s so comfortable in her own skin. That he doesn’t know where it comes from, because even he doesn’t have her confidence.

Piper remembers those last couple of years before camp a little too well. She’d started feeling like anything expensive was the worst thing ever. Whenever she spent time with Dad, she’d feel people’s eyes on her, and it made her skin crawl.

Silena’s the one who helped her understand why it was freaking her out. And why the solution was learning to fight.

Thalia had gone through the same thing, with the media expecting her to be more woman than girl, despite being barely nine years old.

Thalia’s mother had capitalised on having a pretty daughter and planned a future for her as a child star. It hadn’t been like that for Piper, Dad had actively worked to keep the media and the public away from her, but she had still desperately wanted to hide herself behind the ugliest, cheapest clothes she could find.

It’s because of Silena that she’s as comfortable in the designer clothes and expensive hotels that are her life when she’s with Dad as she is when she’s at camp in much cheaper, simpler clothing and surroundings.

Piper desperately wishes she could tell Dad it was because of him she was doing so much better. But it wasn’t because of Dad. She barely ever saw him. Even Surfer Boy confirmed she’d have gone full klepto if not for him diverting her path and sending her to camp.

She’d already been back-talking teachers and trying to get herself kicked out, just so Dad would have to spend time finding her a new school. Gods! This was definitely better.

Piper still wishes he’d been more of a dad.

But not everyone gets to have a Lee, and it’s not like Lee’s kids are biologically his, anyway. Piper would take Dad over Clarisse or Percy’s mortal parents any day.

She also knows Lee is incredibly intense as a parent. More than she could ever tolerate, if she’s honest.

Clarisse, Percy and Nico thrive with Lee fussing over them. Piper, not so much. He’s a great mentor, but she’s good with not being one of his chicks.

One time, she’d made the mistake of telling Lee about Dad’s game of ‘Any Three Questions’. Where Dad will truthfully answer any three questions she asks, and she has to answer his questions. She told Lee all about how Dad says it lets them connect in the shortest possible time.

Piper’s first question was always about Mum, and Dad would give her as many names as he could remember. But none had been Aphrodite. Dad’s first question was always if she was happy.

She’d cheerfully told Lee all about it and only realised when the silence got kind of long that Lee was staring at her, horrified. There was definitely a tear rolling down his cheek.

She’d made Lee cry.

He’d apologised after, saying he’d been blindsided, that he hadn’t realised it’d been that bad. And Piper had been completely bewildered, because it wasn’t bad?

Lee had done a little shrug and said that sometimes it depends on perspective. He was here if she wanted to talk, and he’s sorry he made her uncomfortable. What matters is how she feels about it.

She realised later, like, years later, that Any Three Questions limits what she tells Dad. She only tells him what he wants to hear, and there’s no time or space for her to talk freely. Even if she’d had the words to explain why she was acting out, he didn’t give her the opportunity to tell him.

Not like sleepovers with Silena and Drew, talking about anything and everything. Not like sparring with Clarisse, who seems to intrinsically understand that sometimes Piper needs to hit something until she breaks down sobbing because everything feels too big and too much.

Clarisse hates all forms of emotional expression, but she still understands that people need it.

Especially children of Aphrodite.

Percy is not wrong about how incredibly strange Clarisse is for a child of Ares. Far too many campers carry knives gifted by Clarisse, like she thinks she can solve the world’s problems with enough knives.

To Lee’s complete despair, it also kind of works?

Piper wishes it could fix the nightmares.

The dreams?

What do you call them when she’s fairly sure they’re real and being sent by a- yeah, she’s not clear on that either? Something from the divine world. Monster? God? Not a titan. But that’s still a wide range of options.

They say Dad will die if she doesn’t do what they want. That they are holding him hostage, and she’s to wait for their instructions. If she cooperates, Dad won’t be hurt. Vague comments about how Piper will ‘betray them for us’.

They haven’t said what they want, but of the powerhouse demigods at camp, she’s one of the only ones with any connection to the mortal world. The only one they can reach even inside the barrier. Piper had asked Lee to help her ensure Dad was busy somewhere other than New York when she realised Lee knew exactly when the coming war would happen.

Which probably drew too much attention to the fact that she still cares about Dad.

With Thalia’s brother here, they can’t even blackmail her. Everyone’s been staying close to home since the war. Dad was the only weak link.

Piper is assuming whoever it is wants Percy. Maybe Nico or Clarisse.

But Mr D said Percy had warned him that something had happened. So maybe it’s safe for her to call him?

Yeah. She needs to risk it. Piper needs to know that someone has an inkling of what’s going on.

Percy picks up before the phone rings even once. “Angry Girl.”

“Percy, you knew this would happen, didn’t you?”

Hesitation on the other end. “I knew it might happen. Nothing’s fated anymore, Angry Girl. This was just one possibility.”

She hates how small her voice is. “Am I gonna lose him?”

“Hey, hey, don’t do that, Angry Girl. This isn’t over. If you complete your quest, everyone will be going home.”

“And the dreams?”

“They aren’t from me. There’s more going on. I still can’t see much, whatever was done to keep us apart from the Romans completely fucks up my abilities. ‘Pollo did a thing so I could watch them real-time, but I still can’t see their past, and whatever’s going on, it involves them too.”

“But you see everything!”

“I was the prophecy child, Angry Girl. Born to mend the tear in the Tapestry of Fate. The Fates didn’t have any other purpose for me. They’re staying out of it, so all I have are my natural abilities, no Fates given knowledge.”

She internally winces at the resignation in his voice. Piper had probably been too optimistic thinking a few weeks in Atlantis would help him. He’s spent so much time giving everyone else new projects to keep them busy, but he’s not found one for himself.

“You still keeping this from Lee?”

“Not really. Two more days and I’ll tell him about the legion. Pretty sure we’ll head straight to their camp. Shadow’s already there.”

What? She thought they’d be safe in Atlantis, out of reach of whatever this is. And the way Jason talks about the legion does not fill her with confidence.

“Nothing about that place sounds safe.”

“I’ll be fine, Angry Girl. In the meantime, don’t kill Wolf Boy.”

He hasn’t even met Jason and has nicknamed him already. That tells Piper a few things. Though the choice of nickname is interesting. Percy either thinks Jason won’t accept an aura based nickname or wants to piss him off. That’ll be fun.

“I’ll try not to. He can fight, right? None of us have seen him use that spear, but like, he has the muscles for it?”

Snickering from Percy. “You checking him out, Angry Girl?”

Her retort is sharp. “Don’t be disgusting. Can he fight?”

Percy’s tone turns serious. “Yeah, he can. He’s not been taught to spar like we do. When he fights one on one, he’s all in or not engaged. The only person he spars with is even worse for it than him. He doesn’t spar because he’s worried he won’t pull his punches.”

Oh. Okay. She can work with that. Leo’s done all the training, but he doesn’t fight up close and personal unless he has to. Leo knows to get out of the way so she can do the melee fighting while he finds other solutions. Guarding Leo and Jason at the same time gets tricky. But if Jason can fight too, that’ll work.

“Leo disappeared straight after the meeting. He said his dragon can fly now?”

Leo had bitched for weeks about how the robot had attachments for wings, but Leo couldn’t work out how to make him new ones. If he’s shoved some untested prototypes on the dragon, she’d rather risk pissing Percy and his dad off by taking a camp pegasus.

“Took him longer than I expected, but he finally got into the bunker where the robot’s spare parts are kept. I called him just now and gave him a hint, dragon should have a new brain by morning.”

“I know Jason can fly, but I really don’t feel like being a damsel in distress when the robot breaks mid-air.”

“You won’t be. Least, not because of the dragon’s wings. Might be worth reminding Wolf Boy his dad’s totally useless though.”

Oh, that is so comforting.

Percy audibly hesitates before adding, “You know the worst trait stuff, how Crackle’s got her dad’s greed and ambition shtick? But she chose a different path?”

Piper pulls the phone away to peer at it. Like. Yes. She knows. Thalia talks about it sometimes, but Percy never shares things like that? He’s absolutely determined on not sharing secrets or personal information without explicit permission.

“Yes? Why are you telling me this?”

“Wolf Boy’s not the same. The aspect thing means he got something else.”

Piper had wondered about that. Jason doesn’t have any of that longing for power and control that Thalia talks about. But he’s incredibly hot and cold with his acceptance of things.

Sometimes he speaks like an intelligent human being, and other times he turns into a gormless moron who’s insisting the sky is red. It’s painful to watch.

Oh.

Shit.

She speaks tightly. “The Roman aspect of Sky King is meant to have innate authority. He didn’t earn the throne, it’s his by right.”

Percy answers with, “Yep.” Popping the end of the word.

“Jason doesn’t know?”

Percy scoffs without humour. “Pretty sure the child army thing let it run wild. He’s doing better, but you may need to work around it sometimes. He’s as immovable as his sister when he wants to be. If you challenge him outright, he’ll square up and go all stupid stubborn, no matter how in the wrong he is.”

Piper makes a face Percy can’t see. “Got it.”

Percy instantly switches into banter mode, and she lets him tease her for a few more minutes before hanging up.

Piper can do this. She can. It’s only a quest. Persephone’s been kidnapped by someone. Probably not Zeus, but accusing Zeus gives Hades leeway to send out champions without having to argue it out with the full Olympian Council. Poseidon’s got no horses in this race, so he’ll automatically back Hades.

She really hates how much she’s had to learn about godly politics, but Lee insists it helps with running the camp, if only to know how to distract a god so you can deal with their kids.

Guess with Persephone missing, she can stop looking over her shoulder for Demeter taking revenge for binding Melina’s powers?

Not that Piper did that, that was all Mr D. But Piper was ‘in charge’ when the decision was made. Gods only knows why Melina decided to poison a Hunter to start with. Anyway. Not her problem, it’s been sorted.

Right now, she needs to get ready for the quest and not fall apart over Dad.

It’s second nature these days to collect everything up and pack it away, running through the same mental checklists Lee likes to drill her on. Normally, the packs aren’t for her. The battle means there’d been virtually no little quests for well over a year.

Piper’s quest to Mount Tam was the last official quest in the camp, but demigods are still demigods, even if they’re at war. They’d still been finding tasks for the campers living in foster homes who were getting twitchy being left out of things.

Checking through her pack makes her miss Lee way too intensely. He always intended to step back when the war was over, he’d made a commitment to his kids, and nothing was going to change that.

Will and Kayla had insisted Lee not check-in on the camp, that he should treat this like a trial run for when he fully hands over his responsibilities. Thalia says that Percy’s policing Lee’s phone, so Piper doubts that any of Will’s messages about the quest have actually been read by Lee.

Lee left the camp in a much better position than it used to be, with multiple adults ready and willing to take over his work. But still, it feels different without him here.

Piper even misses the stupid glowy rocks he liked to hand off at the last minute before they left for a quest or a raid, the ones Clarisse named the Light of Earandil. Lee had made an effort to memorise the movie quote solely so he could prank Clarisse and Piper back.

Where’s a Lee to tell Piper, “May it be a light for you in dark places when all other lights go out,” when she needs one?

That night, she sleeps with a hiking pack at the end of her bed, ready to go. For all her worry, she sleeps deeply. But not peacefully.

She dreams of Persephone, a goddess she’s only seen at a distance. Beautiful in an entirely different way from Mum, who feels like the embodiment of love and connection, Persephone is life itself condensed into human form. Her black hair tumbles down her back, full of flowers, and more blossoms scatter to the ground all around her.

She sits inside a cage made out of a spire of black rock, holding her trapped within a huge stalagmite. There are enough gaps to see her clearly, but she has no hope of escaping. If she could have left her prison in the normal form of travel for gods, she already would have.

Persephone meets Piper’s eyes.

The goddess’s eyes swirl in a rainbow of colours, a kaleidoscope of life caught in her irises. Her face is as warm and kind as always, but all of her looks faded, dimmed. It doesn’t hurt to look at her.

It should always hurt to see so much life in one place. Like looking directly at the sun.

The goddess bows her head to her. “Do not grieve for me, Piper McLean. I am not yet lost. You must find me and free me before they rise. This is just the beginning.”

An empty rectangular pit, a little like a pool, is at the base of Persephone’s prison. On the opposite side of the pit, another spire rises out of the ground. This one is actively growing, the tiniest fraction of an inch at a time.

“Where are you?”

“I do not know. A decision was made to turn away from Rome. What the Romans have done since that time- I am unsure. But this place is filled with the essence of their magic.”

“Do you know how you were caught?”

“I felt the cold of death approaching a hero. I came to escort them home. But it was a trick. A cage awaited me instead. I have seen no sign of a hero ready for Elysium.”

Piper looks at the second spire, there’s something inside, but she cannot see what it is.

“Who is that?”

Persephone looks over at the spire, her face sad. “One best forgotten. I will hold here as long as I can. You must free me before the door between realms opens.”

“They’ve taken my dad.”

“I know, my dove. All ills can be healed. I guide heroes to Elysium, but your time is far away yet. Find me, Piper McLean.”

Piper nods as the goddess disappears from her view. She gets the impression Persephone took advantage of whoever has been sending her the dreams.

The rest of the dream is not so great. A tall kind of human-shaped figure glares at her. Like a super crudely carved chunk of red rock come to life. Which might really be what it is?

“This is your second warning.”

He stands beside the flames, pointing to something off to the side. Something that is way too small. If that little lump is Dad, then this monster is… thirty feet tall? Oh. That’s gonna suck so much. She’d make a comment about fighting mountains, but she’s seen a mountain-sized monster before. She really doesn’t want to deal with Typhon.

“And what exactly are you warning me about?”

“You’ll do what you’re told. You’ll lead a quest and do our bidding, and you may yet walk away alive. If you don’t, well, let’s just say it’s been a while since I’ve had a good meal.”

He hauls Dad up, and his head lolls sideways. Still looking like a movie star, even in the trashed clothes. He’s definitely breathing, and there’s no blood, so that’s something. As long as he stays alive, camp can fix most everything else. Piper hopes.

“Don’t suppose you’d mind telling me who you are?”

“Now where would the fun be in that?”

“Okay. So remind me what you’re warning me about?”

The monster snarls at her. She gives him her best unimpressed face. He might’ve been scary a war and a drakon ago? Now it’s simply another monster. Dad’s still breathing. It’s a good sign.

Even if she was willing to put Dad over anyone else, handing Percy over to an enemy is likely to kind of outright end the world. So. Whatever it is this guy wants, he’s not gonna get it from her.

“The warning is that you need to remember what the stakes are!”

“Consider me reminded. Can I go and get some sleep now?”

She counts it as a victory as the dream fades around her.

Chapter Text

Jason glares at the clothes, like they’ll change colour if he stares at them long enough. Silena had dropped them off last night, giving Jason a full hiking pack and a whole bundle of golden knives along with the clothes.

Jason had promptly completely unpacked the bag, genuinely curious to see what Greek demigods supplied their questers with.

He immediately regretted it. Because all he could feel was intense, welling jealousy.

This is their normal?

Not only camping supplies and basic food and water, but a full first aid kid too.

A second smaller kit, marked with a golden cross, contained more ambrosia and nectar than Jason’s ever seen in one place.

He’s been trying to ignore how freely the demigods here use the stuff. Back home, the consuls source it from somewhere not quite legal, and it was very clear they weren’t meant to have it.

Here, Will gets a supply direct from Olympus. It’s the first thing any of them reach for when they’re injured. They use it before Will uses his real-life healing powers.

Will had even casually mentioned that they have a whole trained cadre of mortal doctors and medics who supported the war effort. Will’s currently negotiating with them to have additional medical support for the demigods in foster homes and boarding schools across the country. He talks like the medical needs of demigods is a branch of medicine they specifically train people for.

These people get everything they need or want, don’t they?

Wet weather gear, a winter sleeping bag that folds down impossibly small, emergency supplies like flares and a pouch of big bronze coins, which he’s betting are used for more than funeral rites.

A plastic card at the bottom of the pack has instructions for using something called the “Iris Messaging System”. A debit card is tucked in one pocket, with a PIN code written on a note stuck to the back. Two other pockets have large rolls of cash.

There’s even a list of addresses and phone numbers for people he can contact if he needs help. Jason debates for half a second whether it’s something he can take back to the legion, and then realises the third name on the list is ‘Aunty Em’. Medusa. Never mind. The Greeks are still insane.

It really hadn’t been conducive to a restful sleep. He’s awake far too early, but he knows he has no chance of falling back to sleep. Except getting dressed is proving more challenging than anticipated.

Scowling at the clothes isn’t going to make them turn purple, is it?

Jason reaches out and picks up the tee-shirt, trying not to look at it. He’d never realised how many different things used a lightning bolt in their designs until Silena had handed him the bag of clothes from Piper.

Today, Jason has a superhero tee-shirt from the Flash. Red with a yellow lightning bolt on the chest. Silena had helpfully named some of the other characters on the tee-shirts from Piper and Drew. Black Adam, Quicksilver, Reverse Flash, Electro, Shazam, Thor, Lightning Lad, Captain Marvel… They’d even found one with the cartoon Zeus from the Hercules movie.

He gets the message. Thalia has lightning, Jason doesn’t. Ha ha, very funny.

Jason should’ve given in the first time they suggested new clothes and not allowed them nearly four weeks to build their collection. He’s never going to forget that Greeks take grudges to a whole new level. Piper spending a year with rainbow hair for a single unfortunate comment is making more and more sense.

The jeans are his own, thank the gods for small mercies. Right after he arrived, he’d accepted a pair of combat boots with built in knife sheathes, black rather than Drew’s custom pink, so they’re nicely worn in and feeling a lot more secure than sneakers.

He adds on sheaths and gold knives as he dresses, still a bit uncomfortable to be so heavily armed. They aren’t really going straight into a war zone? He doesn’t think?

Jason remembers the Trojan Sea Monster quest and turning up for that with only Conservatori and a few extra pugio and feels his cheeks heat. He was twelve!

But Jason can’t even say he’d really learned his lesson. If Will hadn’t insisted, he’d only have Defensor and Conservatori. A shield and a spear.

His golden chainmail armour and matching plumed praetor helmet are already at the top of the repacked hiking pack, so it should be easy to grab when he needs it. He doesn’t really want to spend hours wearing armour and riding Festus, but he’ll see what Leo and Piper do.

Dressed and ready for the day, even if it’s still two hours before dawn, Jason cracks his door open, planning to sneak out quietly and not bother anyone. He’d figured he’d sit with Dominus until the camp was awake.

Except Silena and Piper are waiting for him. He glances at the dark window. “Uh, it is like 4:30 in the morning, right?”

He does a double take when he looks back at them. That’s definitely a new look for Piper. ’Til now, she’s been wearing super fitted workout clothes. Always long sleeved and high-necked, but incredibly form fitting.

For the first couple of days, Jason hadn’t really known where to put his eyes. Like, she was covered, but he’s never known any girls who wore clothes like that. The legion clothes hide a person’s body shape.

Even Reyna is pretty androgynous in legion clothes. Whereas Piper is all curves and long legs. Like a supermodel. For the first couple of days Jason had been very careful to keep his eyes on her face, and only her face, when talking to her.

He’s gotten used to it now, everyone here seems to wear whatever they prefer, and given how active she is, he can see why she dresses like that. Plus, Sophie said that Triton is her patron? Both he and Georgie dress in a similar style, though theirs always looks a bit more like they’re wearing wetsuits.

Today, Piper’s wearing beaten up baggy jeans, a faded black tee-shirt, the logo half worn off, and a torn, and badly mended, snowboarding jacket that might’ve been blue five years ago and is now ambiguously greyish. Her dark hair’s up in a sloppy bun, half falling out already. The hair clip she’s shoved in it is definitely her sword in its transformed state.

Instead of looking like a leader in her element, she completely fades into the background.

She’s definitely done it deliberately.

Leo was right about Venus kids being able to look like entirely different people with simple changes. That’s more than a little terrifying.

Jason’s relieved to see she has combat boots on, the same as him. Though she’s replaced the laces in hers with a set in the same shade of deep pink that she and her siblings all prefer.

Piper snickers at his gaping. “Yeah, dawn’s a couple of hours away. But someone dropped something off for you, and I figured you’d be an early riser.”

“More stuff? The hiking pack’s already overkill.”

Silena snorts. “Try telling Lee that. No, this is from the Prophet of Apollo.”

She hands him an envelope, and Jason hesitates on the name.

‘Wolf Boy’ except the F and the B are backwards and the Y is either mirrored or upside down, he’s not really sure. It looks a bit like how Jason used to write when he was younger.

Piper’s still laughing at him. “He’s got, like, the extra intense version of dyslexia. You’ll get used to it.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s, uh, Wolf Boy?”

“Apparently, that’s your nickname. He does it to everyone. I’m Angry Girl, Silena’s Sea Foam.”

Sure. Why not? Jason opens the envelope and pulls out a drawing of a mansion type building. Possibly a palace?

What? Underneath, in the same tangled writing, it says, “Quebec. Boreas.”

Piper adds, “I’m also to remind you that your dad is unlikely to answer prayers, It’s not personal, he ignores Thalia too. But she has a lot of connections to other gods, and most of them will answer you. Though, you might need to use the Greek names?”

Seriously? Jason gives her a sharp look, but she shrugs at him. “I’ve lived here for three years and seen a lot of shit. Seen a lot of gods too. But Sky King? He’s really fucking useless.”

Silena softly tells Piper that Jason might have different experiences.

Before he can stop himself, Jason blurts, “You two are nothing alike.”

And now they’re laughing.

Piper’s still giggling when she says, “Sorry, sorry. It’s just, Silena’s the only sibling I have who inherited even a bit of Mum’s Areia aspect. I’m all Areia, Aphrodite the Warlike. Silena’s got a bit of it, but most of my siblings don’t have the war in them, not like I do.”

Jason eyes Silena. “Apologies if this is rude, but I wouldn’t have thought you-” He cuts himself off, because there’s no way to say what he’s thinking without being rude.

Silena gives him an understanding look. “I have a few of Mum’s aspects. But yeah, I’m the only other sibling right now who’s a natural fighter. It’s how I wrecked my leg. But I don’t have anger as my default, not like Piper here, who used to rage-quit every time she got upset.”

“But I don’t anymore! I’ve matured or some shit.”

Piper is acting a lot less uptight than she has been. Jason’s already feeling lost, and they haven’t even left.

“Anyway, what’s it a drawing of?”

“You know it’s a drawing?”

“Yeah, he always draws his visions. So?”

Jason hands it over, and Piper and Silena peer at it. Silena is snickering now. “The God of the North Wind lives at the Château Frontenac?”

She speaks the name with a perfect French accent. Jason really misses Michael Kahale, he’s not coping with the Greek children of Venus. Michael makes a lot more sense, even if he is Octavian’s yes-man.

“You know the place?”

Piper’s still looking at the drawing, eyes thoughtful. “It’s kind of very famous? Historical building converted into a hotel. At least we know where our first stop is, now? Knowing Leo, he’s been up all night overhauling his new pet, so he should turn up pretty soon. Hopefully, he can sleep on the flight there. He’s a total pain when he gets overtired.”

Jason’s never going to get through this if he keeps stopping and gaping at the insanity of this place.

He needs to remember they fought a war, and if anything, Piper is the one with the experience here. This isn’t searching for legacies who have gone ‘missing’ - meaning they didn’t feel like sending their kids to the legion and the consuls disagreed - this is more like the Trojan Sea Monster quest. You know, the one Jason completely failed?

Not like he did much of anything with Crius either. That was Juno’s dragon. Which was probably acting on Juno’s instructions. Jason was merely convenient bait.

Then again, from the stories he’s heard here, a lot of the time, being a god’s champion is about being conveniently placed for a god to interfere without being noticed.

He can’t decide if Roman gods make more or less sense.

Jason tucks the drawing away in a pocket as someone quietly taps on the cabin door. Silena opens it to a sleepy-looking Will and a remarkably wide-awake Leo who is bouncing on his toes with excitement. Behind him, Festus gleams in the slightly purple light from the central fire of the common area, huge bronze bat-like wings spreading out on either side.

Dominus stands in the shadows, watching closely. Jason knows he won’t come closer. He’d been unusually firm last night, whatever reason prevents him coming on the quest, Dom approves of it. Jason’s desperately hoping he’ll see Dom again, but he has such a terrible feeling about all of this.

Piper lets out a hilariously undignified squeal. “Oh em gee, Leo! It’s Smaug! You made a Smaug!”

Jason warily watches her out of his peripheral vision, wondering if madness is contagious.

Silena leans over to whisper in his ear, “She’s obsessed with Lord of the Rings. Especially Smaug. She’ll calm down in a minute.”

Leo looks incredibly smug at Piper’s raptures. “I told you he could fly! These are his original wings. No need to worry about my prototypes. Fixed his brain too!”

Jason tilts his head, looking at the preening automaton. “So the cliff was a bunker, after all?”

“Yup! Needed a hint or two, but worth it to get him up and running in time!”

Piper finally stops fan-girling and grabs an extra hiking pack she’d left outside the cabin, throwing it at Leo. “Figured you’d leave it to the last minute, Sophie checked it for you. Got the cyclops armour and everything.”

“Great! Thanks! Yeah, I was more focused on Festus.”

Leo’s dressed down as well. Faded blue jeans, a dark blue tee-shirt unevenly faded to grey from too many washes, and an equally worn not-quite-black army jacket over the top. Instead of combat boots, he has steel toed work boots.

Jason winces at Leo’s smudged face. “You sure you don’t want to shower before we go?”

“Uh, I actually did shower? Like half an hour ago? I dunno man, I’m just a dirt magnet.”

Huh. Jason had never really thought about it before. Maybe it’s from always working at the forge?

“That mean we’re ready to go?”

Will steps in to tell them he’s got breakfast for them to take, and has them all confirm they have their various weapons. He eyes the dragon and gives Leo a sharp, wordless look.

Leo grins brightly. “All good, man. Tell worry-wart that I checked everything and Festus has proper harnesses and all, we’ll be strapped in safe and sound.”

“And how does it fly?”

“Verbal commands and backup physical steering, but with his brain fixed, he’s good to go.”

“How certain are you that his processor’s fixed?”

Leo makes a disgusted face. “I let Prof give me a hint. Worry-wart can ask him.”

That cryptic sentence clearly means good things for Will; he completely relaxes, clear relief on his face.

“That’s good to hear. Guess you’re as ready as you can be for this.”

Will steps back and gestures for them to climb onto Festus. They strap themselves into the harnesses, and Leo shows them where to place their feet. The little crevices are nearly invisible, but they feel very secure. It’s impressively comfortable once Jason’s situated, even with the hiking pack on his back.

Before Festus launches into the sky, Will’s voice carries clearly over them. “May all the gods watch over you. I call on Hermes, Artemis, Poseidon and Apollo to grant you safe skies, safe seas and safe journeys. May Ares Adamastos and Aphrodite Areia bring you victory in your battles.”

Will glances over at Jason and adds, “May Abeona watch over your leaving, and Adeona bring you safely home to us.”

The Roman goddesses of departures and return journeys. They have no Greek counterparts. Will said that specifically for him. Jason will never understand these people.

Leo salutes Will and clicks his tongue to Festus. The dragon’s wings beat hard, and then they’re airborne, the ground falling away beneath them.

Once they’ve spiralled way up into the sky and Festus has been directed to head for Quebec, Leo scarfs his breakfast burrito and conks out, still sitting upright. Piper looks like she expected it. She sits between them, with Leo at the front and Jason behind her.

Jason can’t resist asking, “Do you normally pray like that before a quest?”

Piper tilts her head, not trying to turn around to see him. She calls behind her, “Depends. Lee and his kids do their own thing, their relationship with the gods is just fucking weird, but for the last few years, they’ve been the ones sent on big quests. For the little quests? Yeah, we always do something.”

Piper pauses suddenly. “Wait, aren’t the Romans like, obsessed with ritual? You sound like this is new for you?”

How’s Jason meant to answer that? Yes, the Ancient Romans loved ritual, but the consuls decided it was too Greek, so they don’t do that anymore?

Octavian nearly had conniptions when they forced him to make offerings before the battle on Mount Tam.

“Uh, I think a lot of Roman traditions have kind of fallen by the wayside, back home?”

“I see.”

How does she fit so much condescension into two words? Jason abruptly feels like an incredibly young kid who knows nothing, and he decides he probably needs to ask less questions.

________________________

Piper is currently sitting on a mini Smaug as the dragon flies to Quebec.

It’s fine. She’s totally cool. Definitely calm and professional. She absolutely didn’t squeal like a three-year-old when she saw the dragon. Nope. Not her.

She can’t help it. Smaug is amazing, he even stays nice and toasty warm so they don’t freeze when they’re like five thousand feet up. Leo had said something about shielding and breathable air, so Festus must have been intended to fly this high, and not have his riders turn into popsicles. Who wouldn’t squeal over a robot Smaug?

Completely freaked Jason out. Still worth it. Because Smaug!

Besides, Will freaked Jason out even worse with that little prayer of his.

They pray to the gods before shit like this, but not normally so formally.

It’s mostly making offerings and silent prayers where no-one can hear how stupid you sound talking to thin air. And that way, only you know if your prayer was answered or not.

Well, Percy always knows, but he knows everything. It doesn’t count. Still, even with the gods now lurking around the camp, every response to a prayer is something to be treasured, hugged tightly to your chest and kept between you and the god. Even if it’s Mr D you’re praying to and he’s sitting ten feet away at the head table.

Piper will need to find a good moment to explain to Jason why Thalia told him to pray to Apollo if things go wrong. She’s thinking Jason won’t have come across the idea that the twin archers take ownership of each other’s people. Apollo’s involved himself because of Thalia, same as Artemis involves herself in things about Percy.

Jason’s reaction to Will’s prayers is making her think that a conversation about godly politics will not go down all that well.

But Mr D said the more formal prayers would do Jason some good. He’d certainly turned a unique shade of milk pale when Will named the Roman gods. Like it was the most shocking thing he’d ever heard.

Then he’d asked her if it was normal.

Weren’t the Romans the ones with all the weird rituals and shit? If you didn’t use the exact tongue twisting Latin and turn five times on the spot with your left pinkie finger stuffed in your ear and your right hand on your left butt-cheek while doing the Hokey Pokey, the gods took offence and cursed your bloodline for all eternity or whatever?

You know, instead of the much saner option of trying to understand what things would cause a god to curse you and then just not doing said things?

The Romans had a word for it too? Why is Piper thinking about orthodontists?

Ortho? Oh! Orthopraxy!

The Romans were total weirdos, but they were obsessed with it. They were also obsessed with history and tradition. So why is the kid rattled?

The hell is going on in that legion of his?

Oh, well. Not her problem. Lee’s heading there tomorrow, he’ll fix it.

Jason’s hesitating behind her. It’s like she can physically feel him trying to work out whether or not to ask her something.

“Oh, for shit’s sake! Spit it out!”

And now she just knows he’s doing that full body flinchy thing. Oh, to be Clarisse and to beat the crap out of boys who don’t know how to handle her, instead of doing the talking about emotions thing. It would make Piper’s life so much simpler.

“Uh, I was kind of wondering about the clothes? And also, your whole mood is different?”

Piper is nonplussed. “Yes? Of course I’m different? We’re on a quest, need to get shit done? No time for faffing about? At home, I’m a junior camp leader. On a quest, I’m a warrior.”

Even Thalia turns into Clarisse 2.0 when they have to focus on an upcoming fight. It’s how they work? From the hesitation behind her, this is not normal in Jason’s world.

She twists around to get a better look at him. “Wait, do you Romans not like, relax when you’re home and safe? You’re, like, on all the time?”

“Well, yeah?”

“Oh, dude. I am so fucking sorry. That must suck so much. You mean you’ve always got a stick up your ass? This isn’t just from being out of your comfort zone?”

Jason says stiffly, “It’s the Roman way.”

Piper turns to face forward, checking Leo’s not got his neck in some weird way that he’ll bitch about when he wakes up.

She calls back to Jason, extra carelessly, “Aren’t the Romans the ones with the wild parties and, like, the intense slaughtering of every animal and person they come across?”

“What? No!”

She keeps her voice ultra casual, “Huh. Wonder who had the gladiators then? I could have sworn they were Roman.”

Resounding silence behind her. Ha! Score one for Piper.

She’s definitely being mean, but Jason is exhausting, and Piper is doing everything she can to not think about how she’s not at camp. This isn’t a quick run up the coast with Silena. Piper doesn’t know when she’ll be home again.

And- Yeah, fine. She’s lashing out. Okay. Time to reel it in.

Piper tries to give Jason a genuine answer to his question.

“As for the clothes. I wear what makes me happy when I’m at camp. Because I’m safe there, and so is everyone else. Some monsters are human, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not white. I’m also a teenage girl. That can be a real bad combo in this country, especially on a quest when I don’t know where we’ll end up.”

Lee and Silena have always been intense about the safe space thing. Piper’s not sure if it’s fuelled by personal experiences, or if it’s just a thing for them, and she has no intention of prying. What she does know is that too many demigods arrive at camp with terrible stories, and Lee does everything he can to ensure everyone is safe inside the barrier from more than monsters.

Which is wonderful, and Piper fully intends to continue it when Lee leaves and the official Reign of Piper begins. But it also makes her super conscious of how much the rest of the world is not like that.

With the way Jason talks about the legion, and thinking about Dad, as well as Thalia, Piper’s even more aware of it than she usually is. She knows how to be invisible when she wants to be, and she’s so incredibly glad that it’s not her go to look anymore.

Piper is extremely aware that the way she dresses at camp gets the wrong sort of attention in the mortal world. No-one looks twice at her at camp, even when she and Georgie and a few others dressed in teeny-tiny shorts and sports bra style crop tops. The only one offended was Quintus, the wannabe trainer they were actively trying to piss off with their clothing choices.

But everyone else had been fine with it. It’s outside the camp that it’s an issue.

When Piper first met Clarisse, eye of the beholder made her look like a teenage Lara Croft. Which had been a total trip.

Especially when she finally got control of it, and realised that in reality Clarisse looks exactly like what she is; a walking tank. Clarisse had a completely shit time when she spent six months at a mortal boarding school with Percy, because the teachers would not leave her alone about not being adequately feminine.

Clarisse is ‘stocky’ in the sense that she’s nearly six feet tall and broad shouldered besides. She fights brutally, without bothering with the more acrobatic style fighting that Percy and Piper prefer. She’s Gabi Garcia in demigod form and the strongest fighter in camp.

Piper might be camp leader, but Clarisse is the one they follow into battle. She’d call her Boudica, except with a Roman in camp, that’s probably not a good idea.

Hilariously, in hindsight anyway, back during the start of the war, Piper had kept seeing Clarisse as Samwise Gamgee. Which was intensely different from her normal female superhero thing. Made more sense when Clarisse was the one who killed Kronos. She must’ve already known she’d be the one to finish the fight when Piper first started seeing her as a hobbit.

Without the eye of the beholder screwing her over, Piper looks in a mirror and sees someone with the same sort of body shape as Marilyn Monroe and the muscles of Gal Gadot when she was doing the Wonder Woman thing.

When Tristan McLean’s your dad and Aphrodite’s your mum, it’s simply how that works.

Every child of Aphrodite inherits Mum’s beauty thing, even though they all take after their mortal parents. They each look like their mortal parent if the beauty was turned up by a factor of ten and every Instagram filter known to man was applied to real life.

Mum may have super eclectic reasons for picking people, but she’s also intensely equal opportunity. It really shows when you get the Aphrodite kids in one place. No matching sets of kids in Cabin Ten, not like Cabin Six’s near identical siblings or even Cabin Seven’s physical similarities.

But every child of Aphrodite is considered jaw-droppingly beautiful by virtually everyone.

Which is both great, and also really not. She’s not sure if Jason is aware of how much information Piper’s prodded and poked him into revealing, but she knows there’s a son of Venus at his camp.

It’s painfully obvious how hyperaware Jason is of girls. Not in a creepy sense, but definitely in a worried they aren’t safe sort of way.

Every time he sees a girl wearing skintight clothes at camp, he starts subtly watching every guy in her vicinity, especially the adults. Which implies some really shit things about his legion, especially when his co-leader person is a daughter of a war god.

Of anyone, a war kid should be the first to retaliate and deal with that sort of thing. If even she isn’t safe, what about everyone else there?

If Michael Kahale, son of Venus, follows the usual pattern for Mum’s kids, that leads to some even more worrying conclusions. Especially if he’s had no training in self defence.

The only reason Piper’s holding back is because Michael’s male, or male-presenting anyway, and everything Jason says makes it sound like they lean heavily on the misogyny. He’s safer solely because of his gender presentation.

Piper’s also confident that Percy would have done something to separate Michael from the group and send him to camp if anything like that was happening. If he and Nico are watching the legion, neither of them would hold back if there was proof of that. Percy has Apollo and Poseidon’s protective thing that Lee’s super encouraged, and Nico follows Percy. If anyone were at risk like that, they wouldn’t have held off.

Piper still wants Michael out of there. She wants all of them out of there. But Jason will definitely flip if he hears them talking like that. As if they want to steal his toys or something. She finds the hive mind thing so totally wrong.

Then again, they brand their child soldiers, so they’ve clearly already lost the plot.

The flight passes in interminable hours of endless uncomfortable thoughts.

Piper keeps an eye on the GPS app on her phone. When they’re drawing near to Quebec, and over some nice empty forests, she leans forward to wake Leo up.

She yells over the constant sound of rushing wind, “We need to land and take a break, and prep for meeting a god!”

Leo grumbles at her, but makes some random clicking noises that the dragon appears to understand.

She’s praying there’s easily accessible caffeine in their bags, because she needs Leo awake and functional for the next part. They’ve been flying for a good six hours, the sun’s high, and it’s close to noon. They made okay-ish time.

Festus lands in a clearing, and she’s seen no sign of people, so they should be able to stretch their legs, stop behind a bush to deal with other pressing needs, and make themselves feel a little more human.

Piper returns from her own trip behind a bush to find Leo chattering on about how his dragon travelled at a steady sixty miles per hour and how impressive that is, since the dragon’s hundreds of years old, and Piper tunes it out.

Same as she ignores Jason’s latest wide-eyed look directed at her. She doesn’t feel like finding out what completely normal thing she did that has confused him now.

She digs through her pack and sends some deeply heartfelt prayers of thanks to Lee. Who cares if he’s only a demigod, he deserves all the nice things! Caffeinated protein bars are purely mortal magic, but magic nonetheless.

She throws a protein bar at Leo, pulling another out for herself, and says, “Leo, you can keep talking, but you need to eat something and put your armour on while you do it.”

Leo nods, and there’s not even a millisecond pause in his info dump about divine metals and automatons as he takes his pack off and starts pulling armour out, the protein bar still in his hand.

She turns to Jason and arches an eyebrow. “You need your hand held too, or you gonna get your kit on?”

Leo breaks off his info dump to dare her to say that to Nico next time she sees him, and she agrees, redirecting him to his armour and turning back to Jason.

Jason is confused. Why is he always confused?

It’s not like she truly thinks Leo is useless. They all snark at each other constantly. It’s only an insult if the other person feels insulted, at least among friends. She wouldn’t do it to random people she doesn’t know well.

Leo hyperfocuses, and he’s fine with people pointing him back to the task at hand. Brilliance has its downsides, and Piper doesn’t risk death redirecting Leo. Not like with Clarisse when she gets hyperfixated on killing something. They all wait for Percy when that happens. Not even Lee dares to get between Clarisse and the target of her ire.

Wait. Oh, for shit’s sake. The ADHD thing. Jason’s been taught to control it at all costs. Piper being fine with Leo’s distraction and working with it is probably freaking him out.

Yeah, screw that. She’s gonna wait ’til Lee’s back to explain this to him.

Piper still needs to deal with him standing there like an idiot and very much not prepping for the first stop on the quest.

“Jason, you putting your armour on?”

“Why?” He’s already squaring up and turning all soldier-ish. Yeah. She can definitely see the resemblance to Thalia. Twelve-year-old fresh from the tree thing Thalia, anyway.

Piper narrowly avoids saying something scathing as she grabs her own pack and pulls out the Atlantean armour.

Arguing with Jason might be a good distraction? The armour still skeeves her out a bit. It’s not the same set she’d worn during the war. That set was returned to Triton the day the war ended. It had been a duplicate of Percy’s, complete with trident engravings. Same as Salos was forged to look like Percy’s celestial bronze sword, even though it’s made of the ocean metal that’s naturally a silvery colour.

Piper had made a good body double for Percy, she could even fight like him. But the last time she wore Atlantean armour was when- Yeah. Bad memories.

The leg armour doesn’t bother her, she rolls the loose jeans up and straps the armour on over the thin leggings she’d worn under the jeans. Keeps her warm while flying and stops the armour rubbing, double duty perfection!

With the jeans rolled down, the armour isn’t noticeable.

She takes her snow jacket off and glares at the chest piece of the armour. Triton had given her this set when she’d agreed to his being her patron. He was annoyingly smug about it too. Since her other option was Ares, she could kind of understand Tri’s glee.

Instead of being plastered with engraved tridents, this silvery-blue set of Atlantean armour has a single combined sigil on the breastplate. Triton’s conch shell over the top of Mum’s scallop shell, with a larger dove outline surrounding both.

Trying to ignore the too familiar feel of the tight fitted Atlantean armour as she straps it on, she looks over at Jason, who is sliding from confused to angry. Great.

“There a reason you’re not putting your armour on?”

“Why do you want me to put it on?”

Leo scoffs from where he’s got most of his own flexible armour on. It looks like leather, but it’s made of whatever the cyclopes use in the Atlantean forges. It holds up as well as metal does under standard weaponry. Plus, it’s completely fireproof with no chance of it melting if Leo wants to go all ‘flame on!’

The one time he’d done that wearing standard bronze armour is not something anyone is likely to forget. He might be fireproof, but they still had to cut him out of the melted breastplate, and it definitely looked like it hurt.

“Jason, my man, we’re going to see a wind god? The one known for having a violent temper? Who knows what else’ll be there. Armour is always the safer option.”

“This is my quest, not Piper’s.”

Piper pauses, then rearranges her face into something appropriately demure. She asks in a polite tone worthy of Silena, “Would you like to tell us to put our armour on? Would that make you feel better?”

She and Leo are already fully dressed in armour, and are both now switching knife sheathes to more accessible positions.

So much for Piper not lashing out. Sigh.

Jason’s still getting pissed, but there’s something more going on.

Piper stops what she’s doing and stands up straight to get a better look at him. She holds a hand up. “Wait. What’s wrong? You’re worried about something.”

He glares at her. “You a mind-reader now?”

“No. But I know what an impending rage-quit looks like. What’s wrong?”

He purses his lips. “In your myths, there was a second battle after the titan war.”

Jason knows Greek myths? He’s been acting like he’s totally allergic to anything Greek.

“Yes? The gigantes war happened after that. Mother Earth got snippy about the gods’ treatment of the titans, or that’s what the myths say, anyway. I get the impression there was more going on.”

“Where did the gigantes go when they were defeated?”

She tilts her head, scrutinising him, but he seems genuine. “Tartarus, I think?”

Technically, she shouldn’t name Tartarus either, but Percy’s always said most primordials don’t listen, and it’s fine to name all but Gaia.

“The prophecy mentioned the rage of the abyss.”

Oh. That is not good. Gigantes rising from Tartarus? Who the hell would do that?

Then again, Luke and Annabeth thought raising Kronos was a fabulous idea, so there are probably other idiots out there who think the same way.

Is it better or worse for them if Persephone has been kidnapped by a gigas instead of another god?

Piper should probably explain her dream of Persephone, shouldn’t she?

She very carefully leaves out Persephone’s mention of Rome, because she cannot see that going anywhere good. It’s also unlikely Jason would know what Roman gods have been up to. He’s too shocked by every example of the Greeks interacting with gods.

Case in point. Jason gets a dead look in his eyes when she talks about recognising Persephone, but he gets like that any time they talk about meeting the gods. Piper’s kind of hoping they can pack him off home before the Winter Solstice. She doesn’t think the kid would survive one of the camp’s field trips to Olympus.

Piper talks about the ‘one best forgotten’ being raised, and how that sounds like it could be one of the gigantes. She doesn’t mention the monster holding Dad hostage. As much as she’s hoping the quest saves Dad, Persephone is the focus.

Gods! It makes her feel like a complete supervillain, but the world can continue without Tristan McLean in it. It can’t continue without Persephone. Even if her domains weren’t essential to the world, Hades kinda is. He and Persephone are a love match, the King of the Underworld would gladly watch the world burn if it took his queen from him.

Leo isn’t wrong about what will happen if the quest fails. Even leaving the destruction of the world aside, Hades will curse the three of them for all eternity for failing his wife. So you know, small stakes.

“So something kidnapped Proserpina-” Piper abruptly loses patience with Jason and sweeps a leg forward and across, dumping him neatly on his butt. She moves with his fall, pressing an armoured knee into his sternum and smiling sweetly down at him.

She speaks conversationally. “Last warning, dipshit. If you keep naming the gods, I will use charmspeak to make you stop talking altogether.”

She backs off quickly, standing up and reaching a hand down to yank him to his feet. He looks a bit shocked. What else is new?

He blinks rapidly for a moment, nods to himself, and says, “So, something kidnapped the Unseen Queen. We don’t know who, but they’re using her to raise a gigas. Maybe more than one. We need to find her before Mundus Patet, when the ‘doorway opens’. The prophecy mentions tamed winds, which I’m assuming means storm spirits. I can control winds, but they don’t have the ability to guide me to anything.”

Leo asks a little reluctantly, “These the same gigantes with the weird-ass prophecy?”

Piper makes a face at him. “Maybe? I don’t remember him ever correcting anything. So they probably need a god and a demigod working together to kill them?”

Jason’s voice turns sharp. “You’re talking about the prophet.”

“Yeah, and you need to get over your hang-up about him. We can’t give you details, but this quest is too important to keep dancing around shit. He likes correcting old myths and talking about how stories get warped. He’s never mentioned any warping of the gigantes’ stories though.”

Oh. Wait. Okay. That’s gonna suck.

“He’s the one who wanted me to tell you your dad is useless. If we’re facing a gigas, your dad is, like, the last god who will help quickly if you pray to him.”

Jason sets his jaw. Bet that hurts his teeth.

“Why is everyone so determined to shit on him?”

“You know, he didn’t even know where Thalia was when she did that last run up the hill to camp? She’d be dead a thousand times over if the Unseen King and the Sea King hadn’t been monitoring her. They may have turned her into a tree, but if they’d left her to your dad, she would’ve died the day she ran away from home.”

Jason’s still glowering at her. “Look. If you can give me a single example of him helping you when you prayed to him, I’ll stop pushing it.”

Jason cringes slightly and turns to his pack, pulling his armour out and dropping the chainmail over his head.

Yeah, she figured.

Makes her feel like total shit, but she hasn’t got time to fight it out with him. Especially when he’s clearly good with his words. Jason’s a master at saying what you want to hear, but never actually agreeing with you. And he says it with such genuine conviction that it’s super easy to go along with it. Charisma or whatever.

Sophie thinks the Roman camp must still have a focus on oration, like the Ancient Romans did. Or it could be a Zeus kid thing?

Piper yanks the oversized snow jacket back on over her armour. With the loose jeans covering her legs and the jacket covering the rest, so long as she skips her helmet, she looks like a grungy, pissed at the world teenage girl. The sort who’ll pepper spray you as soon as look at you. The jacket hangs low enough that the knife sheaths on her thighs are covered but accessible. She leaves the helmet in her pack, same as the boys.

Leo’s got his army jacket back on and looks pretty much the same as he did before he put on armour. It won’t stand up to a second glance, but it’ll stop the Mist from making mortals think they’re Ren Faire actors or something. Percy and Clarisse might get a kick out of wandering through New York City wearing armour and carrying tridents, but it’s really not her speed. Those two are plain strange.

She rolls her eyes at Jason, standing out like a beacon in the blindingly gold chainmail. Do the Romans even know the concept of discreet?

Piper pulls the army overcoat out of her bag and throws it at Jason. She’d figured he wouldn’t have thought of needing something to cover his armour, and she’s betting he’s allergic to the concept of being fashionable, so she’d swiped the dull green thigh-length jacket from Sherman Yang in Five.

Jason holds it up, looking at her questioningly.

Piper tells him, “Clothes matter. People make snap judgements based on how you look, and you can use it to your advantage. You show up in shiny gold armour, and they go on the attack. Show up looking like a hopelessly out of your depth teenager, and they’ll decide to play with their food before killing you.”

“Huh. Okay. I’ll take it.”

Jason puts the coat on without arguing! Miracle of miracles, they might house-break the Roman Wolf Boy yet!

________________________

Flying on Festus is a unique experience.

Jason misses the feel of flying with Dominus as well as his speed. When they’d stopped in that clearing, Leo said he’d timed Festus at sixty miles an hour. Dominus flies at more than a hundred, with a passenger anyway. Jason kinda suspects Dom can fly a lot faster when he wants to. Assuming he really is a god, he probably isn’t all that limited.

Still, Dominus is definitely faster than Festus.

They’d stopped fairly close to Quebec City, so they were in the air for only forty minutes or so for the second flight, but Jason was definitely ready for a longer break from the dragon. For all he’s had hours with his thoughts, sitting single file on a dragon isn’t so conducive to conversation, and he’s still unable to get his head around the change in Piper.

Her little lecture during their rest stop, right before they left, about why Thalia said he should pray to Apollo really didn’t help. He decided it was best to not think about that. But it makes Piper even more of a confusing person.

It feels like having Reyna with him, but the more serious, more focused version of Reyna. There’s none of the underlying fury and tension that Reyna has when she’s in battle mode.

Piper’s calmer, not fighting to contain anything, all of her working in harmony. Even when she’d dropped him for speaking Proserpina’s name, there was no anger. She’d just taken the most efficient route for getting her point across. Jason can respect that.

He knows better than to categorise her as another Reyna. She’s no more Reyna than Leo is Dakota. But no-one fits into neat categories like they do back home. He’s starting to wonder if the people back home ever really fit into categories either.

No-one back home would have suggested hiding armour under loose clothes. They rely on the Mist to conceal them, or stay away from mortals entirely. The Greeks’ whole philosophy seems to be based around working with people’s natures. In comparison, it feels like the Romans prefer to brute-force everything.

Jason’s almost grateful when his overthinking is interrupted by the flying angels.

They’d been dropping lower, heading towards a river and the city beyond it, with the big palace mansion thing rising above everything else, the same one as in the drawing. Big red brick walls, green oxidised copper roofs and completely dominating the scenery.

Then there were the two angels. Well. Probably not angels in the Christian sense. Gods or storm spirits are more likely. Given the power he feels from them, he’s figuring gods? Immortals? Not venti, anyway.

They look to be Jason’s age, and they’re almost identical, with enormous deep purple wings that flash with golden iridescence as they beat the air. Smaller wings sprout from their feet and move in time with the ones on their shoulders.

They both have long, waist length black hair, hanging loose, and incredibly pale eyes. The irises are such a pale blue they almost blend in with the whites of their eyes. Except the irises are kind of glowing. Their skin must naturally be a shade of ‘so white it’s blue’. Either that or they’re both suffering from intense hypothermia and blood loss.

They both wear tight black turtlenecks that leave nothing to the imagination, and equally form fitting designer skinny jeans. The only difference between their outfits is that the one on the left has dark blue jeans, and the one on the right’s jeans are light blue. Black jodhpur boots gleam on their feet, and Jason can’t work out how the feet-wings work when they’re wearing boots. Magic? Maybe?

The two immortals fly straight towards them, pulling themselves to a stop in front of Festus who switches to hovering in the sky, making cranky sounds that make Jason think of Dominus.

Dark blue jeans glares at them from pale eyes. “No clearance. You have no flight plan on file, and this is restricted airspace.”

Leo stiffens, “Since when was the airspace controlled by monsters?”

Both of them zero in on him. “Monsters? You call us monsters?”

“Well. You aren’t gods. Aren’t all immortals technically monsters? Like, no judgement, man, I know tonnes of immortals. Some are super awesome. Some aren’t. Don’t know which you are.”

Of all the times for Leo to do the babbling thing!

Piper adds, “If you wouldn’t mind telling us your names?”

Light blue jeans gives her a sickening smile that has Jason reaching for Conservatori. Piper gestures off to the side in front of him, a very clear ‘stand down’ order.

He keeps his hand in his pocket, clenching around the coin, but not drawing it.

“I am Zetes. This is Calais, my brother. But you can call us whatever you want, gorgeous.”

Calais and Zetes. The Boreads. Strictly Greek, and Jason owes so many thanks to whoever created the mythomagic cards. All the records in New Rome and it’s a mortal card game from an anonymous author that taught the legion the right information.

Piper’s answer is impressively smooth and polite. Reyna would’ve already been snarling.

“That’s a very interesting offer. I’m afraid I’m a bit busy right now, though. You see, I’m on a quest, and you’re blocking our path.”

Zetes gives her an apologetic look, the big sad eyes setting Jason’s teeth on edge.

“I’m afraid we can’t let you pass, no matter how sublime you are. We’re our father’s gatekeepers. We cannot have unauthorised people flying in his airspace on mechanical dragons, you will scare all the stupid little mortals!”

Leo snorts. “Pretty sure they think we’re a helicopter. Maybe a drone. No clue what they see you as, though. But seriously, what are you?”

“You have not heard of the Boreads?”

“Well, yeah. Sure. But they were demigods? And they definitely died?”

Oh, they did not like that. Jason feels like he’s got a laser targeted on him. Does Leo have to be so confrontational?

Calais’s voice drops to a sinister hiss. “And what would you know of our deaths?”

Piper speaks smoothly, sounding completely calm and in control. “We know the Moronic Loser tried to claim he did it deliberately. He said it was your fault the Argonauts abandoned him, so he hunted you down and killed you on Tenos.”

“That idiot never even met us! But he heard of our deaths and decided it was our punishment for not helping him search for the servant boy!”

Leo drawls, “Yeah, he liked claiming all sorts of bullshit. We know. Didn’t help that being killed by the Moronic Loser sounded more impressive than accidentally stumbling across a venomous snake. Still. Why are you alive?”

Zetes is not happy with them, but he’s also not attacking. “Our father serves Lord Aeolus. It was he who granted us immortality. We died on his island after all.”

Jason is baffled. How do they know all this? How would anyone know this? It certainly wasn’t on any mythomagic cards. They didn’t even mention that the Boreads were dead. Which makes sense if they never actually died. Never stayed dead? This is confusing.

Calais interrupts any further conversation. “It doesn’t matter. This is restricted airspace. You can’t be here unless you’re in an emergency situation, so we’ll have to destroy you very painfully.”

Zetes cuts him off, turning back to Piper, “But we’ll gladly welcome the lovely lady if she’d like to go to dinner?”

How is she not reacting? Jason wants to skewer him, the look on his face… No. It makes him think of the consuls and Prefect Lawrence and he never wants to see anyone look at someone like that again.

Piper’s voice is still clear and calm. “While that sounds like such a sweet offer, I’m afraid we are experiencing an emergency. We need to land immediately, our dragon is about to fall from the sky!”

Festus makes a whole new range of strained noises, his smooth hovering turning to twitchy jerks that make him fall alarmingly for a couple of feet before he catches himself on his still stable wings. Leo’s hands haven’t stopped tapping rhythms on the dragon’s metal body the entire time they’ve been hovering, and Jason’s only now realising it had a purpose.

He probably needs to stop underestimating the Greeks. Chaotic doesn’t mean unintelligent.

Zetes isn’t entirely sold, though Calais is nodding and agreeing.

Zetes tells them, “Emergency or not, our sister will be less than pleased if we allow demigods to enter Father’s airspace. She can be rather chilly, you understand?”

Piper shifts slightly, and Jason really wants to believe she’s only stretching a bit and not drawing attention to other assets. Which- Actually, never mind. She has armour on. Under the jacket, it might look like something else, though. Huh.

It gets Zetes’ attention. Piper’s voice turns a little deeper. Jason doesn’t think it’s charmspeak, more like the regular type of persuasion, but it’s still impressive.

“Please, we need your help. You seem like very nice boys, but if we can’t land, we’ll never have a chance to get to know each other. Don’t worry about your sister, I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends!”

Zetes frowns at her, his face conflicted. “Well, you are particularly pretty. Perhaps you’re right. A malfunctioning dragon… That could definitely be an emergency.”

He exchanges a long look with his twin and turns back to them. “It’ll take some convincing, Father is not fond of visitors, especially lately, but I suppose we could make it work.”

Calais nods confidently. “Yes! We’ll need to do much talking, but I’m sure you can make it worth our while. Come! Follow us!”

The twins turn in the air, swooping towards the big palace thing.

Piper tells Leo to follow them and then speaks in a softer voice. “Just so you both know, I will use charmspeak if I have to. I don’t mind them thinking I’m interested, but they won’t be touching me.”

Jason murmurs, “This has happened before?”

She scoffs, “Not normally to me, no. The quests I’ve been on, it was the others that got the attention. But a lot of monsters tend to be utter creeps. If they’re not hitting on you, they’re talking about killing and eating you. Jason, you should watch yourself. Don’t know what sort of monsters you’ve dealt with, but most really don’t give a shit about gender or sexuality.”

“Not Leo?”

Leo snickers and calls back, “I’m a Human Torch, bro, no monster wants to tap that.”

They still have a couple of minutes until they’re close enough to land, Festus flying slowly and jerking around, like he’ll crash any moment. “You’re both very open about this.”

Piper’s voice is flat. “We fought a war against an enemy army of thousands of monsters. They all had plenty to say. You embrace it, or you fall apart.”

The two winged immortals swoop straight for a green roof, not even slowing as a hidden mechanism slides open allowing for them, and Festus, to glide straight into the building.

Jason barely gets a glimpse of the icicles ringing the entrance before they’re plunging into icy cold air.

He’s abruptly grateful for the jacket Piper shoved at him. He can’t blame her for not giving it to him to pack, he’d definitely have deliberately left it behind on the assumption she was making fun of him. All the jokes about toy soldiers are beginning to sting.

Festus lands inside the large entrance hall, and they quickly climb off, subtly looking around the area.

Zetes tells them to follow, and the three cluster together, Festus barely half a step behind as they walk deeper into the palace.

They’re led to a hotel penthouse suite, and a third person is waiting for them. Zetes and Calais immediately introduce their little sister.

Jason doesn’t see why Piper felt the need to warn him. Like her brothers, Khione is far more interested in Piper.

Is it always like this for her when she’s not at camp?

Jason has spent enough time with Silena and her siblings to know all the living daughters of Venus prefer to stay at camp year-round. They have a few brothers who live in foster care arrangements during the year, but all the girls over ten are at camp. Lacy and Valentina talk a lot about how glad they are that the war was over and they could ‘come home’. Mitchell talks the same way.

Khione has her brothers’ too-pale blue eyes, but her hair is pure white to their black. It hangs in intricate braids that loop and twist around each other, with other strands left as loose curls. Even her eyebrows and eyelashes are bright white. They stand out against the blue-ish white of her skin. The deep indigo lips really add to the otherworldliness, but Jason’s fairly sure it’s lipstick.

The dress she’s wearing really doesn’t help. Jason wants to say it’s a wedding dress, but if he gets it wrong, Piper will definitely drop him again.

It’s an intensely white dress in a heavy silk material that’s fitted to her curves and flares out dramatically at her knees. The wide bottom flare of the skirt is made up of many, many frilly layers that rustle around her feet. How can she walk in that?

As she turns her head, Jason catches sight of the long piece of translucent fabric pinned into the centre of the intricate hairstyle.

Oh. She really is wearing a wedding dress, isn’t she? So, she’s the crazy sort of immortal?

Khione makes several attempts to separate Piper from the group, offering her a chance to clean up, a private room for a break from ‘these useless boys’ and then outright asking her to a ‘romantic meal’.

Piper smiles and gives non-answers. She’s not even flirting, simply being overtly polite.

She looks a little uncomfortable with Khione. Is this another person they magically know everything about?

As far as Jason knows, she’s a nymph? Maybe a minor goddess? Her domain is winter snow. Specifically, the snow on the ground. Not the creation of snow in the sky or the movement of snow from a storm. Only the snow after it settles on the ground, and only in the winter months.

Khione’s technically a full sister to Calais and Zetes, but she was born after her mother became a goddess of the cold mountain winds. So she’s not entirely the same as her demigod-turned-immortal brothers.

Jason thinks. Why are gods so confusing? They never make any sense!

Piper introduces Jason as a son of Zeus, and he manages to nod and agree without wincing. There’s a brief debate between the brothers about whether ‘their Jason’ could still be alive, which is resolved when Piper politely reminds them that Jason of the Argonauts was a descendant of the Thief God, not the Sky King.

The brothers agree that Jason smells like wind and thunder, not feathers and giggling. Because Mercury smells like feathers and laughter? What?

Leo is then presented as a son of Hephaestus, but when Leo attempts to introduce Festus, the room turns chilly. Literal ice creeps across the walls, flooding out from Khione.

Zetes draws a sword from somewhere, bronze but coated in frost, ice shards running along its edges.

“No. You must deactivate the dragon. We will not permit heat within Father’s palace.”

Leo waves a casual hand. “S’all good man, Festus can be less toasty. Yo, Festus, switch to cold fusion?”

Isn’t that nuclear power? Please. No.

Festus creaks agreeably, and some long, low clicks rattle through the dragon’s body, the little heat he gave off rapidly fading from the room. Festus tilts his head enquiringly to the three siblings.

Leo grins at them. “Better?”

“Yes. His fire must stay inactive, or he will be destroyed. Father will wish to see the son of the Sky King. You may not attend him.”

Piper purrs all warmly, “Oh, surely he would want to see my friends?”

That still isn’t charmspeak, is it? She’s doing that with her normal voice? If that’s standard for a child of Venus, Jason is becoming increasingly worried about Octavian using Michael as his second in command. Octavian is already too good at persuasive speeches, he doesn’t need a second who’s even better at it.

Khione shakes her head firmly. “Fire and ice do not go well together. Few children of Hephaestus can safely speak with Father. The domains are too different.”

Piper frowns, eyeing Leo. “You’ll be okay?”

“Yeah, me and Festus’ll hang here, we’re good.”

Jason wants to complain about this being his quest, but it’s clear the three immortals are all going to insist on hearing Piper’s opinion regardless of what anyone says. Better to go with it. He hopes.

Calais and Zetes have a fierce argument over who will stay with Leo which ends with Khione casually freezing Calais over and announcing he’ll watch over Leo whenever he defrosts. Leo eyes the ice sculpture of Calais dubiously and moves closer to Festus.

Jason and Piper follow Khione up the staircase, Zetes trailing behind them, and Jason tries to find anywhere to put his eyes other than the goddess’s impressive aspects.

She pauses every few steps so she can turn and pout at Piper, pulling her shoulders further and further back. Jason could swear he hears the gown creaking.

Piper chatters happily about fashion and draws the goddess into a conversation about wedding dress designers, using names like Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta and Galia Lahav as if they’re her close personal friends.

Zetes contributes to the conversation, becoming increasingly frustrated that Piper answers his questions about yet more names Jason’s never heard before, and then immediately turns back to Khione.

It’s the longest walk Jason’s ever gone on, and all they did was climb a flight of stairs and walk down a few hallways.

He really hopes Piper knows what she’s doing, because neither Khione nor Zetes is going to let Jason stand next to Piper.

They’re approaching a set of double doors, heavily engraved with the symbols of the North Wind. At every corner of the engraving is a man with puffed cheeks fiercely blowing air towards a map of the world.

Khione turns on him as they reach the doors. “This is the throne room. Be on your best behaviour, Jason, son of Zeus. My father can be very cold. I will try to encourage him to hear you out, if only because the exquisite Piper has asked it of me. I do hope he spares you. Piper and I shan’t have near as much fun if she is grieving for you.”

“Of course, uh, ma’am. We’re only here to talk to his majesty and seek some advice for our quest. We’ll head off right after.”

Khione acts as if she can’t hear him, turning to give Piper another sultry look. Piper keeps her eyes fixed on the goddess’s face, looking engrossed in the conversation.

The throne room takes cold to an entirely new level. Jason desperately wants to tug some of the warmer winds from the hallway along with them, but somehow, he doesn’t think the God of the North Wind will appreciate someone else controlling the winds.

Aeolus hadn’t minded it, but all this makes him think Aquilon, Boreas, whoever, is much less open-minded.

Especially when he sees the statues.

Oh. This is very not good.

The room is full of life-sized ice sculptures. Most look like warriors from different time periods. Jason sees Greek armour, medieval armour, and modern camouflage too. No Romans, though. Many of them have their weapons up in an attitude of attack. Several warriors turn towards them, weapons raised, the cracking sounds of their frozen movements reverberating through the room.

Piper hesitates, turning to Khione. “Please, milady. Are these people demigods?”

Khione titters, raising an elegant hand to her mouth. “No, of course not. There are far too many rules governing what Father may do with the children of other gods. These are mortals who saw things they should not have. Father finds them amusing.”

Zetes jumps in with, “Do not fear. Father has ordered them not to kill you.”

Khione steps smoothly in front of her brother. “Even if he had, I would of course have countermanded him. One so lovely as you should not be wasted in such a way. Perhaps you would permit me to braid your hair? I know you would look truly dazzling in a veil like mine.”

Piper beams at her and starts talking about how she’d recently taught a friend to do knotless feed-in braids, he’d wanted to learn so he could do his sister’s hair.

Nico and Hazel. Of course. Is there anyone Jason’s met recently who doesn’t know everyone else?

The heavy white mist finally thins out as they approach the other end of the room. A man sits on a throne made of pure clear ice.

Jason instantly decides to dub him Evil Santa Claus. He’s got the big white beard, long white hair and reddened wind-burned round cheeks. His eyes are a twinkling shade of blue, but his face is set with fury.

Huge purple wings, far larger than the twins’, rise up above him and hang down on either side of the throne.

Unlike the twins, this man is wearing a three-piece business suit. It’s obviously tailored, fitting closely to an oddly trim figure, given his round cheeks and wide face. It’s also an unusual shade of shimmering grey, the colour of a clear winter sky, with pinstripes of a sparkling white, like thin lines of frost.

Piper’s entire stance changes the moment she sees the god. For all her caution, she’d been unexpectedly open with Khione, but she looks like she’s barely containing her anger now she’s facing the God of the North Wind.

Yeah. Jason gives up. These people are working from an entirely different rulebook.

Piper stands as stiffly as any Roman and speaks tonelessly. “Your majesty, I am Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite. This is Jason, son of Zeus. The Prophet of Apollo sent us to you for assistance in our quest.”

Boreas responds in what Jason thinks is French. Piper shakes her head firmly. “We are guests in your palace, your majesty. I ask that you extend the sacred laws of xenia to us and speak a language familiar to all.”

Jason is getting extremely good at hiding his emotions.

The Greeks have religious obligations around hospitality to strangers. Based on the principle that any stranger could be a god in disguise, so they shouldn’t offend anyone, just in case. The Romans took those rules, renamed them hospitium, and turned them into an excuse to show off their wealth and status, with extensive guidelines over what to do when.

Virtually no-one in New Rome knows anything about hospitium other than when it can be used as an excuse for more displays of status. No-one in the legion could so casually use the rules of hospitium to demand a god accommodate them.

He’s even more shocked when the god smiles widely at her and laughs, exactly like Santa Claus. “Very well. You win this round. I shall speak English. Does that suit?”

Piper agrees with a tight smile.

The god is still beaming when he says, “I’m afraid I have orders to kill you.”

Jason blurts, “Kill us? Why?”

At the same time, Khione and Zetes protest loudly. Both saying their father is fine to kill Jason, but Piper must be allowed to live.

Boreas ignores his children and tells Jason, “My lord Aeolus has commanded it.”

“Wait. What? I’ve met Lord Aeolus! Why would he want to kill us?”

Boreas looks interested. “He made no mention of a son of Zeus. It has been a long time since he has met with Greek demigods?”

Shit.

Piper steps in before Jason can work out how to dig his way out of that one. Aeolus had met Jason, son of Jupiter; Dakota, son of Bacchus; and Gwen, legacy of Portunus. Three Romans, no Greeks to be seen.

“Your majesty, why would the Master of the Winds wish us dead?”

“You are demigods, Aeolus’s job is to contain the winds, and demigods have always caused him many headaches. They ask him for favours.”

Jason tries not to react to that one. Technically, he didn’t ask for the favour. Either the god he never met, the one who was called Muria, or, more likely, Triton, asked for that favour.

The god continues, “They unleash winds and cause chaos. But the final insult was the battle with Typhon last summer…”

A sheet of ice materialises beside the god, acting like a television screen and showing a fight Jason’s seen before.

Last time, it was incredibly grainy storm chaser footage that happened to catch a few more things of interest, for those who can see through the Mist.

This time, he can clearly see Typhon step into Lake Michigan. He can distinctly see the satyr in the purple chariot, screaming soundlessly and driving the mountain-sized giant back. That’s Grover, isn’t it? Grover in Dionysus’s chariot. Dionysus, not Bacchus.

Another monster rises out of Lake Michigan, and Jason still doesn’t know who it is. A man with a trident steps out from behind him. Poseidon. Not Neptune. Then a chariot follows, Triton and Georgie standing side by side both carrying tridents. Georgie rallying an army of cyclopes.

Jason watches numbly as the silent theatre plays out. As the Greek gods work together to send Typhon tumbling into a whirlpool, Grover still screaming soundlessly.

There is nothing Roman about any of it. They fight like Greeks, independently and with little to no coordination. They conquer like Greeks, savagely, brutally and completely.

Octavian must have been right, the Greeks conquered the Romans, and somehow conquered the Roman gods right along with their people.

Boreas speaks with disinterest. “The storm giant, Typhon, the first time the gods defeated him, millennia ago, he did not die quietly. His death released a host of storm spirits. It was Aeolus’s job to track them all down and imprison them in his fortress. The other gods, they did not help. They did not even apologise for the inconvenience. It took Aeolus centuries to track down all the storm spirits, and naturally this irritated him. Then, last summer, when Typhon was defeated again- Well. It was a given.”

Boreas pulls out a small phone, possibly made of fog, rapidly scrolling through the screen. “He sent out a general order, now, let’s see, what did it say?”

“Ah, yes, here it is. On the fifteenth of September, he sent out new orders stating that the storm spirits were released by the death of Typhon and demigods are to be held responsible.”

Piper snaps her words out. “So, more storm spirits were released. Why is that our fault?”

Jason eyes her. Why is she so angry? She’s been furious with the god since she laid eyes on him.

Boreas gives her a curious look as well. “You seem familiar with the ways of the gods, girl. Why are you surprised that we expect demigods to clean up our messes?”

Piper speaks through gritted teeth. “I’m not surprised. I have other offences to lay at your door.”

The god’s head falls back against the throne with a gusty sigh. “Oh, do not tell me you are going to be as tedious as your siblings.”

Piper explodes, screaming at the god. “KHIONE WAS NOT AT FAULT! THE BABY WASN’T EITHER!”

What. The. Fuck.

Jason stumbles back from her, instinctively putting distance between himself and the avenging fury that Piper has transformed into.

Even Khione is giving her a curious look.

Boreas arches a scathing eyebrow. “Every time I meet a child of Aphrodite these days, I hear the same nonsense. My daughter was told to remain pure. She did not. The matter was dealt with.”

“You threw her newborn baby into the ocean! OFF A FUCKING CLIFF!” Piper glowers at the god, her shoulders heaving.

Jason edges back a little more. What the hell?

Khione is startled too. “You know of this story, dear one?”

Piper glances at her, calming slightly. “Of course I do. Neither you nor your baby deserved that.”

Boreas gives her a sour look. “The child was raised by Benthesikyme.”

Piper’s answer is clipped. “No. The child wasn’t. The baby died. That’s what happens when you throw a newborn from a THREE HUNDRED FOOT CLIFF!”

“Mythology claims a different story.”

Piper scoffs and turns to Khione. She speaks in a much gentler tone. “Was your baby a boy?”

Khione murmurs quietly, “No, she was my daughter. The only child I have ever borne. Eumolpus is not mine, no matter what he claimed. He was born of the sun god.”

Boreas gives his daughter a dark look. “It is to be forgotten.”

Piper sneers at him. “Yes, of course. Let’s forget about you killing a newborn baby because it was inconvenient. A child born of a sky nymph and one of the three brothers would have one day been as powerful as you. Can’t have that now, can we?”

Jason speaks softly, “Um, Piper. Maybe not the time?”

Boreas waves him off. “It matters not. Aeolus cannot take out his anger on the gods. Zeus’s rule is absolute, especially with the three kings now holding power together. So he takes revenge on the demigods who helped them in the war. As I said, he issued orders to us: demigods who come to us for aid are no longer to be tolerated. We are to destroy them on sight.”

Piper gives him a sharp look. “I don’t know what war you were at, but my war ended with the overthrow of the Grain Goddess and the Unseen King installed on her throne. The Prophet of Apollo told Sky King to his face that he had failed in his duty. I’m not sure I would call that helping the gods in the war.”

Did Jason hear that right? The prophet said what now?

Khione speaks quietly. No sultry undertones. “You also agreed to hear them out, Father. Queen Hera personally asked you to assist them in their quest.”

“Yes, yes. She said the son of Zeus would make our lives very interesting. I am not seeing it, however. He makes me think of that food the mortals are so fond of. What is it called? Oh, yes. He is as bland and uninteresting as white bread. And she is as shrill as Queen Hera herself. I have no wish to hear more.”

“Not even to learn his story? How has a son of the Sky King gone so unnoticed for so long, when the other four older children of the three kings are known to all?”

Jason adds, trying to sound both confident and deferential. “We have also been sent on this quest by Di-, by the Unseen King himself. I do not believe he would respond well to our being waylaid on our journey.”

That gets the god’s attention. “The King of Death sends a son of Zeus on a quest? When he hunted his daughter so relentlessly? Very well, then. Tell us your story.”

That is probably not something Jason should be doing. He cannot see that ending well when he can’t even remember to use Greek names.

Piper steps in. “I believe you will find our story more interesting should you see the quest unfold for yourself. We have been told that, ‘Tamed winds lead to Rich King’s bride.’ We believe we are seeking a storm spirit to guide us. Possibly the same ones that have been searching across the continent since the Storm Giant fell.”

The god tilts his head, looking interested. “I know where they are being kept. They were captured recently. The one who controls them, however, it would be madness to oppose them. No-one would dare.”

Piper’s voice is strong. “We must. If the Unseen Queen is lost, the entire world will feel her husband’s wrath. We must retrieve her before she is consumed by the one being raised.”

Boreas is indifferent to the world ending.

“Yes. Many horrible things are waking. Even my children do not tell me all the news they should. The Great Stirring of monsters that began with Kronos, Zeus foolishly believed it would end when the titans were defeated. But just as it was before, so it is now. The final battle is yet to come, and the one who will rise is more terrible than any titan. The storm spirits are only the beginning. There are yet more horrors that will rise from the pit. Olympus has many reasons to fear. It is good my palace is based elsewhere.”

Jason thinks of Aeolus asking him to put in a good word with Jupiter during that quest with Dakota, and he adds, “Perhaps we can return these storm spirits to the Master of Winds? Maybe if we put in a good word for you while we did so?”

He steps forward as he speaks, bringing himself closer to Piper.

It’s a definite mistake.

Zetes sneers at him, the sword materialising in his hand, and Jason instinctively reaches into his pocket, pulling Conservatori still in coin form out. It makes the too big sleeve of his borrowed jacket ride up.

Jason had agreed to give up the purple, but he hadn’t even tried to hide the tattoo. The legion mark can’t be hidden. Legionnaires who finish their service and leave for the mortal world all try to cover the tattoo up. It shines through even the thickest cosmetics. Even through paint. Bandages fall off, sleeves ride up. The legion is for life.

And it’s about to cause so many problems.

Boreas’s voice snaps out, far sharper than it’s been so far. “What is that on your forearm, demigod?”

Jason can see Piper tensing up in his peripheral vision, even as she tries to give Khione another warm look. They may not know why Greek and Roman demigods were separated, but they know the gods were obsessive about it. Seeing a Roman demigod in the company of two obviously Greek demigods is unlikely to end well.

Jason gives in to the inevitable and shows the god his legion mark.

The god’s image shimmers in front of him, shifting ever so slightly. More Aquilon than Boreas. Piper doesn’t notice. He’s probably always Boreas to her.

To Jason, he now wears a senatorial toga. White with a purple border. An ice frosted laurel wreath sits on his hair, a parazonium knife at his belt.

He looks completely enthralled as he examines the mark. Khione and Zetes have placed themselves between Jason and Piper, as if ready to defend her from him. Like Jason is a threat to Piper.

Aquilon asks, “The gods know you travel with their children?”

Jason stiffens slightly. “Yes? The Unseen King himself was present when the prophecy was spoken. Juno sent me to their camp.”

The god’s eyes are full of mirth. “Queen Hera plays a dangerous game. A bold one, but a dangerous one. No wonder the gods have been watching so closely. The fear they must be feeling at the gamble she has made. Oh, this will be delightful entertainment!”

Piper jumps in, “So you’ll let us go?”

“Well, there is certainly no reason for me to kill you. If Queen Hera’s plan fails, which I think it will, you will tear each other apart the moment the whole truth is revealed. We will never have to worry about demigods again. It bothers me not, I have no demigod children left. I made the decision to stop siring them centuries ago. But oh, the blood sport will be delicious. And the suffering the gods will experience because of it- Yes, I believe I will assist you on this quest.”

“That’s great, your majesty! If you could tell us where we should be heading next, we’ll get out of your hair.”

Khione protests, but Boreas speaks over her. “I shall send you on your way. You must seek out the windy city, Chicago. I’ll leave it to you to discover where in Chicago. You shall find your tamed winds there, being held by another party. No need to visit Aeolus, besides, the son of Jupiter already knows how to find my master. What fun would be had in sending him there a second time?”

“This person in Chicago, they’re the ones who captured the Unseen Queen?”

Boreas laughs with a deep, echoing laugh. “No. She is merely a servant of one much greater. Yet she is still more likely to destroy you than assist you. Should you somehow triumph over her, the winds may lead you to the missing queen. ’Tis unlikely though. I believe Chicago shall be where you die.”

Khione pouts. “Oh, but Piper and I were just getting to know each other!”

The god glares at his daughter, and suddenly Jason can see it, a god killing a baby just in case it grew to be more powerful than him.

“I am still king here, am I not?”

Khione ducks her head. “Yes, Father. Of course you are.”

Boreas dismisses them, and Jason and Piper hot-foot it out of the throne room, both shaking with cold. Jason had been able to ignore it during all the constant tension, but now he feels like he can’t remember what warmth is.

They walk straight through the empty hotel suite and back to the entrance hallway. Leo must’ve decided a quick getaway was a good idea.

Calais is no longer frozen, and he’s less than happy about being excluded from the meeting. He shoulder checks Zetes and attempts to speak to Piper, but Khione glares at him and he stops talking mid-sentence.

Festus and Leo have seen their approach. For once, Leo doesn’t speak, only hoists himself up on Festus’s back and reaches down to help Piper up, even as Khione keeps begging her to stay.

Jason desperately wants to say something. Especially as he sees the goddess reach up to give Piper a ‘helpful’ push on her rear, but Piper’s already ahead of him.

The goddess’s hands don’t make contact. Piper turns on her, dark eyes flashing. “Do. Not. Touch. Me. I do not consent.”

There’s a chiming sound ringing through her voice. It drifts over Jason without affecting him, but Khione yanks her hands back as if scalded, wide-eyed and already babbling apologies.

Leo makes eye contact with Jason and jerks his head urgently. Jason strides over and hauls himself up behind Piper.

Piper gently tells Khione, “I know you didn’t mean it, but please remember we mortals have different rules than gods do. We do not like being touched unless we give permission.”

Her voice still chimes softly, but now it’s aimed at Zetes and Calais too.

Leo starts talking rapid fire about needing to leave because Festus is about to freeze, and the dragon’s launching into the sky before Jason even registers what Leo has said. The warmth of the metal dragon is intensely welcome after the cold of the throne room.

Festus flies faster than he ever has before, and Leo keeps urging him forward, Piper frantically checking behind them.

Finally, she relaxes. “Pretty sure we’re clear. Hopefully, they didn’t notice the charmspeak.”

Leo’s voice is all sarcasm, “Yeah, hopefully. Can those three even be killed?”

Piper’s voice is decidedly amused. “I don’t know, but I was a little worried we’d have to pull a Clarisse.”

Jason asks hesitantly, “A Clarisse?”

“Stab as hard as you can and hope like hell you don’t die. It’s how she killed the Nemean Lion.”

“Clarisse killed- Wait. What the fuck?”

That sends both of them into fits of laughter. Jason settles back and figures someone might explain something one day. Maybe.

Chapter Text

Piper had really hoped Jason would be done with the questions. But of course, he wasn’t.

Leo pushed Festus hard until they were back in the States and well on the way to Chicago, before landing in another empty clearing somewhere in Vermont.

It’s nearly nine hundred miles from Quebec City to Chicago, and even with the distance they’ve already covered, Piper is dreading the long night on dragon-back.

Smaug is decidedly less awesome the longer she’s stuck sitting on him.

Plus, they still need to work out where to go in Chicago. It’s one of the largest cities in the country. Like, it’s not New York City size, but they’ll still be searching for ages if it’s not immediately obvious. She knows she should probably ask Percy or Rachel, but she will literally scream if they give her another prophecy.

Piper hates future crap so much.

No-one needs a reminder to strip off their armour, not after sitting tensely on the dragon for so long. That shit is so uncomfortable.

The moment they’ve seen to basic needs and found a spot to sit, stretch out and prepare food, Jason’s questions start.

“Is it always like that?”

Piper frowns at him, wishing she could cut him off. She’s tired, okay? Everyone’s been on eggshells for weeks because of Jason being at camp, and Piper is exhausted already.

But if even Mr D wants Jason to start thinking critically about his legion bullshit, she needs to answer his questions. The fact Mr D even cares is weird enough. Like, sure, he’s invested in Lee and Percy, and ever so mildly in Clarisse, but in general- No, Mr D doesn’t get attached to individual campers.

Regardless of what the campers think about that, Lee says it’s best for everyone’s sakes if gods don’t get attached. They don’t handle it well when a mortal dies, so it’s safer if they keep their distance.

Piper hadn’t loved the way Mr D used to completely shatter her with a handful of words, but she can admit he wasn’t wrong. Without his intervention, she would’ve bailed from camp during Thalia’s quest, before Zoe died.

Piper still gives in to her emotional impulses too easily. Mr D is the first to pull her up on it, and he doesn’t really do nice or gentle. Since Mr D is fine with Piper insulting him in retaliation, she’s no longer bothered by the disinterest and constant mocking. But why’s Jason so important to him?

Piper asks Jason, “Which part are you asking about? The pervy gods, or the random insults?”

He shakes his head, looking baffled. “All of it? But I meant, do people treat you like that normally?”

Piper and Leo exchange resigned looks.

“Jason, how often did you leave your legion? Like, it sounds like it’s pretty similar to camp, hidden inside a valley. But how often did you leave that valley?”

He shrugs a shoulder, still looking confused. “Mostly only for quests? Sometimes I had a furlough.”

Oh, Piper has such a bad feeling about this.

She presses, “How many times a year did you leave?”

“I don’t know, two or three times? Quests weren’t all that common. I needed the Legion Senate’s approval for a furlough, and the consuls aren’t so big on me being inaccessible.”

He needed a fucking senate to approve him leaving their extra special cult compound? Like, even for a day-trip? Wait, since when does a legion even have a senate? Yeah, ignore that, Piper. Focus on the cult insanity.

It explains so much. Not only no contact with the divine world, but no contact with the mortal world either. And only a handful of demigods.

Leo makes a sympathetic face at her, behind Jason’s head. Yeah, thanks so much, Leo. He definitely has no intention of explaining this one.

How does Piper put this gently?

“Okay. So. You’re probably not aware of this, but a lot of demigods inherit the whole gods-brought-to-life thing. Some more than others. Like, your dad and my mum are terrible with it. The sun god too. Their kids are all walking models. It gets attention. A lot of attention.”

Leo snickers at Jason’s bewildered face. “She’s trying to say you were born pretty, man.”

Okay, Piper was trying to put it a little less bluntly, but Leo’s not wrong.

Before she’d gone all punk, Thalia was a pageant mum’s dream child. A perfect blonde princess who looked good in anything.

Jason leans more towards the male superhero thing. Maybe a bit more Captain America than Superman, but he’s got the perfect blonde blue-eyed soldier thing, and there’s no hiding it. He’s so unaware of it he even makes it worse with the high and tight haircut and the way he’s always holding perfect military posture.

Piper’s not a fan, but it’s clearly important to Jason, so she and Thalia haven’t said anything about him leaning into the soldier stuff. They probably should have. If he’s that unaware of his looks, this will not be fun.

She really wishes it were Silena breaking the news to him and not Piper.

“I get the impression that the people in your legion have some very strong opinions about girls? Especially when they’re demigods?”

She pauses to see if Jason’s following. He seems to be?

“I think what you aren’t realising is that a fair chunk of the divine world will look at you the same way. The gods don’t care about gender. They like everyone. Especially people they consider classically beautiful. They’re not always picky about species either, but I ain’t touching that.”

Jason gives her a sharp look and says insistently, “Gods don’t have children with demigods or legacies.”

Piper and Leo gape at him. “Uh, since when?”

Jason speaks with complete assurance. “Demigods are never born to legacies.”

Oh. Um. Yeah, bluntness may be the better approach here? Jason likes clear cut facts. Maybe Piper should give him some? Would that make this easier?

“Maybe in Rome? Not really a thing with the Greeks. Like, your dad is absolutely terrible for that. Especially his own descendants, it’s kinda gross. But the Unseen King and Queen had an, ahem, thing with a son of the Sea King that Nico will not stop bitching about. And the Second Prince of Atlantis is a descendant of the Unseen King. There’s a Cretan king too, who’s a son of your dad, and he had a kid with the Sea King. It was- yeah. Anyway, moving on.”

She really doesn’t want to explain Pasiphae cursing Asterion, the son of Minos and Poseidon, to be the Minotaur. So much no. That story never gets better. Piper can’t believe she’s saying it, but the story about Pasiphae and the cow is easier to stomach. It’s also not relevant to his question. If he really wants to know, Piper will have Silena explain it to him.

Before Jason can ask for details, Piper adds, “There’s also a super famous son of Grey Eyes who was with the Sun God. Like, I’d be here for decades if I tried to list them all, and it never really stopped. Lee has rules about the campers, but I’d bet the gods still get up to the usual shit with the adult demigods. These days, it’s plain rare for demigods to have kids with anyone, mortal or god. But it’s definitely a thing.”

There, nice, clear cut facts for their Roman kid.

Clear cut facts which break Jason. Um. Piper’s lost. He’s super not okay with that last bit. Why was that his limit? Piper’s really starting to think they don’t actually speak the same language or something.

Jason shakes it off and asks, “How did you know about the baby?”

Could Jason be a little bit dumber? A touch less aware? Please?

There’s no way to give him an answer without breaking her promise to Apollo. They’re on a quest for Persephone. Maybe Apollo won’t smite Piper for this?

Leo is definitely less willing to risk it than Piper. She and Leo pull faces at each other, but Piper cracks first.

“Yeah. I give up. I know Apollo asked us not to tell, but this is so fucking dumb. Give me your phone.”

“What?”

She holds a hand out. “They don’t want your little army thing learning this. Doesn’t matter if you do. Sky Queen’ll mind-wipe you if you try to take the info back to them. So hand over your phone, or I’m gonna charmspeak you every time you ask about how we know stuff. Which’ll totally suck, because quest?”

Piper knows she’s being too blunt, but she really thought her days of worrying about Apollo incinerating her were in the past. She’s kind of hoping Jason refuses to give her his phone so she can charmspeak him and not risk being burned to death by the fire of the sun.

Sadly, Jason, with a lot of suspicion, hands his phone over. Piper turns it off and tucks it in her pocket, and silently sends Apollo a pre-emptive apology.

“Yeah, so, anyway. The Second Prince of Atlantis? That’s Percy, the prophet you keep asking about.”

The sun is low in the sky, and it stays that way. No weird flashes of light. Okay. This is fine. The sun god will understand. She hopes.

Jason sits frozen, mouth dropped, eyes bugging out.

Leo prods his cheek. “You still in there, dude?”

“Uh. Bah. Gah. Ugh.”

Piper can’t hold back the giggles, definitely partially fuelled by relief that she hasn’t been smote. She decides she’s going to believe Apollo is fine with her telling him and not think about it again. She’d told Jason because she wanted him to trust them. That needs to be her focus right now.

“Real articulate of you. But seriously, you okay?”

“The Prophet of Apollo is the Second Prince of Atlantis? The Saviour of Olympus?”

Leo beams at him. “Yep. That’s Prof.”

“Prof. Prophet. Gods, I’m an idiot.”

When Jason asked Leo about the nickname, Leo’d told him that it was short for ‘Professional Prankster’, which it really could have been. Everyone had cheerfully agreed that this was definitely where the nickname came from.

Drew and Piper still mostly called him Surfer Boy, so they were fine. They did occasionally call him Six, though. As in Sixth Sense. After everything with the war and the fact they also use Six as a shorthand for Athena and her kids, they’d made a conscious effort to stop using it.

Leo grins cheekily at Jason. “Yup!”

“The Prophet of Apollo is a son of Neptune. Wait, you just told me he’s a descendant of the Unseen King?”

Piper very deliberately doesn’t kick him for naming Neptune. She’ll let him off the hook, just this once.

“Yup.”

“Yeah. I’m done. No more questions. What the fuck?”

Piper can’t help laughing at the faces he’s making. “See, we all go through that, but you get used to him pretty quickly. As for how I knew about the baby? Percy has two major obsessions. Making sure everyone knows how much the Moronic Loser sucks, and bitching about people who mistreated his half-siblings. He has a lot of half siblings, and the snow nymph story hits a nerve for a lot of people.”

“Uh huh.” She really doubts Jason is taking anything else in. But that’s fine. Piper and Leo can get things sorted, and so long as he gets back on the dragon, he can have time to process.

The sun is only just setting now, still mercifully dim and cool, no sun god anger. Yep. Not thinking about that.

Considering how long it took to get to Quebec City, the whole thing with Boreas was done in like thirty minutes.

They have twelve more hours of flying to get to Chicago. Which means they’ll be flying through the night and sleeping sitting up. Awesome.

She and Leo put together a cold meal of rations from their bags, and then Leo produces fresh food from his, apparently, magical tool belt. The sandwiches are definitely an improvement on protein bars. Even the caffeinated variety. She’s not sure Jason noticed what he was eating.

Piper slaps Leo’s hand away before he pokes Jason again. What is it with Leo and poking people in the face? He does it to Percy and Nico too. Though even he’s smart enough to leave Clarisse alone. He’d lose a finger if not his whole hand if he tried it on her. Piper’s surprised Jason tolerates it. He didn’t strike her as the sort of kid to be okay with casual touch.

They pore over a map on Leo’s smartphone extended into a tablet thing. She figures if they set Festus to stop off early, all three of them can get some sleep during the flight and not risk waking up in Chicago with no idea where they are. They agree on a destination and pack up their picnic.

Jason’s still completely shut down. Percy’s not gonna be happy if they broke his new Wolf Boy.

“C’mon, Jason, let’s get you back on the horse.”

Jason doesn’t even twitch at the world’s dorkiest joke. Sigh. Where’s a giant-eagle-turned-teddy-bear when you need one? Piper turns Jason around and straps his backpack on before pointing him towards Festus.

He robotically climbs back onto the dragon, and Piper double checks his harness before climbing up in front of him. Leo’s already good to go, and they’re soon back up in the sky for a tedious ten hours of attempting to sleep while sitting upright on a robotic dragon.

Piper really wishes she could say this is the weirdest thing she’s done this year, but it doesn’t even come close. The fact that she can rank multiple forms of divine transport makes her feel like she might be the one losing her mind.

She dreams of her father and the rock-shaped monster. She really wants to believe he’s not a gigas, but the evidence is kind of stacking up. Who would have let them out of Tartarus though?

A purple bonfire on a mountaintop. Whoever sent the dream is smart enough to stop her from seeing any further than the clearing. No horizon or distant city lights to help her work out where they are.

Crashing rocks that are a being’s voice speak in the dark. “You forget your duty.”

“Uh huh. Remind me, which gigas are you?”

“I am the call to battle. The horn that sounds the call to war.”

Well. That answers that question. Yay.

She looks around, no sign of Dad today.

“Where is he? What did you do with my dad?”

More rumbling crashing sounds. Probably laughter? Maybe?

“His body is safe enough, though I fear the poor man’s mind can’t take much more of my company. For some reason, he finds me disturbing. You must hurry, child, or I fear there will be little left of him to save.”

Mr D better be right that there are solutions to this. Not all mortals can handle knowledge of the gods, and Dad definitely can’t. He might’ve handled knowing Piper’s mother was Aphrodite, maybe. Piper still hadn’t been willing to risk it. She definitely can’t see him being okay with being kidnapped by a gigas.

Time to be a distressed child who’s extra dumb.

She sobs her words. “Let him go. He’s just a mortal! He doesn’t know about any of this!”

The gigas makes a new rock-cracking noise. Was that meant to be sympathy? “But, my dear, we must prove our love for our parents. That’s what I’m doing. Show me you value your father’s life by doing what I ask.”

“That mean you’re going to tell me what you want?”

“You know what I want.”

“Let me guess, like every other gods damn monster we meet, you want the Prophet of Apollo?”

The gigas jolts back a little. “What are you talking about? Why would I want him?”

Okay. That’s new.

“Then I definitely don’t know what you want. Care to share with the class?”

Yeah, her distressed sobbing child thing lasted like twenty seconds. It doesn’t matter. Gods tend to fail at reading the room. Piper bets that gigantes fail even harder.

“Your quest must fail, your friends will be killed, and you will serve us. Your powers are impressive, it will be extremely useful to have one who can charmspeak a being as powerful as the dragon at our side.”

These days, now that she knows that the Romans dealt with the black palace, Piper is ninety-nine percent sure that the effect of her charmspeak faded within hours of her using it on Ladon.

Percy had been extra insistent about her naming Hera when she did that, and she’s kinda thinking the goddess took advantage. Hera adores Percy and Nico, and she, like all the gods, had been virtually bound by Zeus’s stupidity. None of them could act against the titan army.

Piper’s powerful, sure. But she’s not a god. It was the same with Tantalus. She charmspoke Stymphalian birds and had them destroy him, it wasn’t like she shredded him solely with her voice, there were steps involved.

This is why Percy and Clarisse argue about whether they actually did heroic deeds, isn’t it? It never feels all that heroic when you’re the one doing them.

“And the reason you want to kill Leo and Jason?”

“A fire hearted child has access to far too much. He has already found the dragon. He must be destroyed before he discovers the rest. As for the other, he is the only child of the sons of Kronos who is without his father’s protection. His death will serve as the first blood of the new war.”

Yeah, she’s not telling Jason that. He’s already freaking out every time someone suggests his dad is useless. He doesn’t need to know exactly how useless. Even the toddlers are publicly under Zeus’s protection, though that’s super recent. Percy says he’s making a point to Hermes. Because Zeus might be a deadbeat dad, but he’s not as bad as the Thief God, or something?

Which really makes Piper wonder about how Jason fits into everything. And Leo too. His power is impressive, but now it sounds like there might be more to it?

Piper needs to try to pin Leo down. There’s something strange about that bunker he mentioned. He shouldn’t have needed Percy’s help to access something built by his own dad. Percy might be a prophet, but he’s completely hopeless with anything even slightly mechanical.

Piper’s private theory is that the reason Percy can’t be trusted with a bow is because even that has too many moving parts. A locked bunker is definitely not something he could help with, not unless he was telling Leo where to find it.

She asks the gigas, “And the Unseen Queen?”

“She will raise our king, who will lead our army into a glorious war. The gods must be punished for their failures, and there is no better place to start than with her.”

“Why? She hasn’t done anything?”

“Her? No. But one who holds her dear has failed in their duties.”

What? Wait, is he saying this is some sort of bizarre punishment for Demeter? Piper really would have thought losing her throne on the Olympian Council was punishment enough.

Unless Gaia is behind all this and she’s pissed about Demeter’s volcanic winter from when Hades married Persephone? Primordials work on different timescales, so maybe retaliating a few thousand years later is normal?

It doesn’t really matter right now. Persephone and Hades can sort that out once they’ve freed her. It’s all way above their pay grade.

“Uh. Just to be clear. Which king will you be raising?”

If they’re going to deal with gigantes, Piper is going to need to remember to keep her knife hidden. She’s never used it, it’s a lot more like a Greek version of Jason’s whole thing about status symbols than a proper weapon.

It was her spoil of war for being ‘responsible’ for killing Antaeus, even if Clarisse is the one who killed him. Piper’s charmspeak made the kill possible, or so says Clarisse. It’s kind of like a good luck charm? She carried it all through the war, and now she keeps it on her and never uses it.

But Antaeus was definitely a half-sibling to the gigantes, a son of Poseidon and Gaia. And the knife is made of some crude metal that looks pretty similar to what she’s seen rock-dude carrying. Which is going to be a problem. She’ll sort it out later.

Rock guy insists, “The king.”

“You have three kings, my dude. I don’t think all three are being raised at the same time.”

Personally, she’s really hoping for Eurymedon, who is known only for leading his people to their doom. Unfortunately, it’s more likely he’s talking about Porphyrion or Alcyoneus.

Depending on who you ask, Eurymedon started the gigantes’ war by assaulting Hera, or Alcyoneus started it by stealing the sacred cattle of Helios, which belong to Apollo. Totally not confusing. It’s not helped by how the guy who claims Eurymedon assaulted Hera, also says Prometheus was born as a result. So Piper has her doubts about any of it. No way was that wimp Hera’s kid.

“I tire of you. You will do as you are told and bring the quest here.”

The dream fades before she can tell him he still hasn’t told her where ‘here’ is.

________________________

Jason is numb.

He sits on the back of a mechanical dragon while Piper and Leo talk quietly, and he cannot feel his fingers or his toes.

He doesn’t understand any of it. Every rule that he was so sure of, every little piece of knowledge that he had used to guide his decisions, all of it’s wrong.

He doesn’t even know why it’s wrong.

Like, sure, he knew New Rome had forgotten a lot of things that were important to Rome, but he’d never once thought, ‘actually, the Greeks had it right’. Rome had it right. Real Rome. Jason was Roman.

But for Piper to so casually list out people with dual heritages, demigods who were courted by gods… And then to equally casually tell him that the Prophet of Apollo is a son of Neptune?

Like. How does that even work? Aren’t prophets born? How can a prophet be born to anyone but the God of Prophecy?

And while he’s reeling from that, Jason realises that this is the same person who is a descendant of Dis Pater.

According to legion records, not a single demigod has been born to a legacy of Rome in millennia, if it ever happened at all. Jason is still absolutely certain that Frank is not a legacy. No sons of Neptune were known in the time of Rome. There was Sextus Pompeius, but Jason and Reyna had agreed he was probably making it up. The legion records don’t mention him.

Frank might claim to be a legacy, but Shen Lun was the last time a legacy of Neptune was known to the legion. Given that was a hundred years ago, someone made a mistake on the family tree somewhere, or had an affair, or something. Shen Lun might never have been descended from Neptune to start with. Either way, Frank is not a legacy.

Because in Rome, demigods are not born to legacies.

But the Greeks? Oh, it’s a normal Tuesday for them.

Mythical Lee had to put rules in place to stop the gods visiting campers!

A demigod set rules for the gods!

What.

Jason doesn’t know when his numb, non-functioning wakefulness turns to sleep. He’d be grateful, but his dreams are not normal.

It starts with a voice in the darkness, one that sounds like rumbling earthquakes, so far from the sky that he loves. “Do not oppose me, son of Jupiter. Walk away now. Let my son Porphyrion rise and become king, and I will ease your burdens, your life will be long and content.”

Jason’s veins feel like ice when he hears that name. Porphyrion. King of the gigantes. He was right. They’re facing the gigantes, the ones that barely warrant mention in Roman myth. Cicero claimed the idea of a titan war and a gigantes war was complete nonsense.

Jason’s had to accept that the Roman myth of Jupiter’s rise to power through a battle against titans and giants in one whole chaotic onslaught wasn’t true. It doesn’t explain Saturn, at all, but Jason can accept that the Greek Gigantomachy was a real battle that happened separately from the Titanomachy.

Accepting that it happened was easier than accepting that it’s happening again.

The voice rumbles, and Jason feels the air stolen from his chest, the crushing weight of earth and rock falling on him. He cannot breathe.

The air returns with the sound of silent wings. He breathes in the warm, dusty smell of Dominus, he can feel the stiff rustling of the eagle’s feathers under his hands. Beneath him is the eagle, warm and safe, the closest thing Jason has to a home.

Little worried piping chirps sound over him, but he’s too comfortable to move or even open his eyes.

He’s safe here.

Then the world changes, and now he’s standing somewhere achingly familiar.

Wolf House. The mansion was never finished and is now mostly falling down. Stone walls stand roofless, outlining rooms that will never be lived in. Not by mortals anyway.

In the section hidden from the mortal world by Mist, the sun shines into the rooms through the missing ceilings. Near the room where the water always pools, Lupa and her pack are stretched out, waiting for dusk. Most of the wolves are asleep, but Lupa sits in the middle of it all, regarding him, her head tilted.

She gleams silver, even in the bright sunlight. Liquid gold eyes watch him closely. All of her is overwhelmingly huge, overwhelmingly other. She is not of this world, and it shows. But she is achingly familiar to Jason. This was his first home. The first one he remembers.

Jason has grown tall since he saw her last, but her head still rises above his. He must have looked so ridiculous, a seven-year-old little boy, barefoot and half feral, clinging to a wolf goddess and insisting he was the champion of Juno.

Seven-year-old Jason had been entirely oblivious to how dumb he looked. But he knows exactly how he should have felt that day. It’s the same way he’s felt for the past month.

Lupa speaks without her mouth moving, but the words echo in Jason’s head.

“It has been many years, pup.”

Jason knows he’s asleep, and that it’s nighttime, but the sun beats down on them.

Jason frowns at her. “Are you real?”

“Of course I am real. Pup, you have forgotten my teachings.”

Jason shakes his head and speaks insistently. “I’m not a wolf. You sent me to live with my pack. I’m Roman.”

“I am also Roman. I raised Romulus, the founder of Rome. Have you forgotten?”

“No, of course not.”

The wolf is unimpressed. “Are you sure? You live your life by their teachings. To conquer or die.”

“It’s the Roman way.”

Lupa lunges forward, a heavy paw thudding over his shoulders, sending him sprawling.

She snarls at him, white teeth flashing. “It is not Roman. It is the way of human mortals. Which you are not! You are a demigod! What are you doing, pup?”

Jason scrambles to his feet and sullenly says, “You left me.”

“As you said, you are not a wolf. You are a demigod. I did not raise you to be so stupid! You have been given every opportunity to leave that place. To allow yourself weakness. You refuse.”

“Romans are not weak.”

Lupa growls, deep in her chest. “What? Have you so lost your way that you think it is acceptable to be told you will be destroyed if you show weakness? You are a pup! Pups are weak! Pups play! They do not defend the pack! The pack defends them!”

“Why the fuck did you leave me there if you didn’t want me to learn their ways?”

“You had gained control of the wind. It was drawing attention. I left you in the one place where you would be shielded from the view of those who would not understand. I thought you strong enough to bend them to your will, yet you bow to theirs!”

Jason snarls back before getting control of himself and saying in a more even tone, “Why there? Thalia says I could have been raised Greek.”

He’s surprised at how calmly Lupa answers him. “Yes. If you had been younger, if you had not been the next in line should the prophecy child die, you would have been raised in that camp. Had you been older than he, you would have joined your sister in death. While steps were taken to ensure your survival, had the prophecy child died before his sixteenth birthday, you were to die as well. So long as he lived, you were permitted to live also.”

“You never told me any of this.”

The wolf’s answer is excessively dry. “You were seven.”

Yeah, he deserved that one. He wouldn’t have understood the complexity of it. He’s not sure he understands now.

All he knows is that the more off balance he feels, the more he wants to cling to what he knows.

The prophecy said the truth must be spoken. Surely that means the legion needs to be told the truth, that the Greeks are alive? That there are people with resources, access to the gods, and an understanding of the divine world.

People with powers like Jason.

But Jason is Roman, and they are not. So he must be even more Roman, he must cling to what he knows and not let go.

Away from the legion and New Rome, there’s no-one to stop him. No Reyna to remind him that New Rome is not Rome, no Dakota to prod him into admitting he’s being stubborn. Piper’s even taken his phone, his last connection to the legion.

Jason remembers people taking his clothes and sword and shoves the thought away hard. It’s not the same. The Greeks have bent over backwards to give him anything he might want. More than the legion has ever offered him. All they ask is that he not tell the legion about them, the same legion that would attack the moment they learned of the existence of the Greeks.

But Jason still feels alone and isolated. So he clutches tightly to what he knows instead.

“So what now? Why is everyone so determined to turn my life upside down?”

“I want you to open your eyes to what is in front of you.”

“Which is?”

“It is an abomination, what has been done. It must be fixed. You must cleanse our house. Stop this before it’s too late.”

“What? I’m meant to be finding Proserpina?”

The wolf snarls and snaps her teeth at him in a feint. “Persephone, pup. You respected the gods once. I do not know what has happened to you, but none of it is good.”

Jason has no idea why he keeps insisting, but it’s like he can’t help himself. “The gods are Roman.”

Lupa’s growls are echoing off the stone walls of the ruined room. Jason knows he’s gone too far, but he holds himself at attention.

She left him at the legion, he learned his lessons well. Everyone leaves eventually. Jason must hold on to what he has and never let go. Lupa was the first to leave, and she has no right to judge him for this.

For all the growling, Lupa’s voice is firm, but calm. “Pup, when was Ancient Greece founded?”

The question is so unexpected he answers without thinking. “Five thousand years ago, with the birth of the second generation Dii Consentes.”

“Olympians.” She corrects him.

“Why does this matter?”

She ignores the question, her gold eyes glaring at him. “When did my Romulus found Rome?”

He rolls his eyes, no longer caring about appearing disrespectful. “753BCE, on the 21st of April.”

“And when did Constantine destroy the old ways?”

“312.”

“One thousand and sixty-five years from the founding to the fall.”

“Yes?”

“Greece existed for five millennia, and continues to exist to this day. You have seen the camp. There is more than enough proof there for even you. The old ways of the Greek gods continue.”

Jason glares at her, fists clenched in frustration. “Why does this matter?”

“The gods choose the form they take, the aspect they prefer. They may have been willing to support Rome once, but Rome fell in a thousand years, and all that is left of the old ways are two half-witted, deliberately obtuse infants.”

Jason flinches at the insult and opens his mouth to argue, but she’s done something to silence him. Her voice in his head grows louder and louder, her growls overwhelming his physical ears, and still she speaks.

“Vesta’s fire was lit when Rome began, and it went out when Rome fell. The gods returned to the forms that were still respected. Hestia’s fires burned for six thousand years. Your gods are Greek, pup. Show some respect or die along with Rome.”

The dream fades to darkness while Jason is still stunned silent by her latest revelation.

He needs to do some serious thinking.

Why is this happening at the same time as a quest?

He wakes to a long feather being tickled under his nose.

A very long feather. He squints his eyes and tries to focus on the world while the feather brushes under his nose again. It’s still dark, but there are streetlights giving off the bare minimum of flickering yellow light.

“Mmph. Stop that.”

Leo snickers next to him, and the feather drifts across his face again. Jason swats out at it and lurches forward, only now realising he’s still sitting on Festus. No wonder he feels like complete shit.

He peers at Leo. “How do you have one of Dom’s feathers?”

Leo looks at it and then shrugs a shoulder at Jason. “Honestly, don’t know. It was stuck to your shirt when we landed.” He offers it to him, and Jason swipes it off of him.

He starts unstrapping himself from the harness holding him onto Festus and asks, “Where are we?”

“Detroit. Piper wanted to stop off before Chicago, and this way we can get some hot food. I’m sick of protein bars. She’s paid for a motel room so we can clean up too. But, uh, pretty sure the mortals think she’s a hooker. So. There’s that.”

Jason stares at him, nonplussed, and Leo snorts with suppressed laughter.

“Oh, man. Your face! Piper used charmspeak to make ‘em think she was in her twenties. She didn’t want to bother with changing clothes and all that when she can do the Jedi mind trick thing. Apparently, if she pays with real money, they won’t flip out when it wears off.”

Of course. It’s a couple of hours before dawn, but there’s a few people moving about. Jason’s not sure what he thinks about her use of charmspeak. That sort of mild use of it, it’s not really any different from lying, and they definitely would’ve had to lie if she didn’t do it. And if she still paid for it, it’s kind of fine?

Leo gives Festus a few commands, and the dragon makes affirming sounds and takes off again. Jason follows Leo to the motel room.

Piper’s stepping out of the bathroom, and she looks much perkier, even with wet hair.

Jason turns to offer Leo the next shower, but Leo shakes his head and shoves him towards the bathroom, muttering about how Jason’s worse than Nico without caffeine and they need to de-zombify him. Which is not inaccurate. He feels like death warmed over.

Sleeping on top of a dragon is really not fun. Jason really hopes Pros- Persephone - is in Chicago. The idea of flying on Festus for much longer is completely miserable. He misses Dom so much.

He grabs clothes at random, barely noticing the black tee-shirt with a blue lightning symbol on it. By the time he’s dressed and has swapped places with Leo, Piper’s conjured hot food from who knows where. She may be actual magic.

Jason really needs to get his head together. He shouldn’t be relying on Piper like this. It’s his quest, but so far he’s felt like nothing but deadweight. Leo provided transport, and Piper seems to always know the exact right thing to say. Well, except when she started screaming at Aquilon. That was, uh, unique?

Piper gives him an assessing look as he reaches for the coffee. Going home is not going to be fun, the legion doesn’t really do caffeine. It’s a weakness. Or something.

Truthfully, Jason has zero clue why coffee isn’t a thing in the legion. Caffeine is better than nectar. Does Dakota know about caffeine? Wait. No. Introducing Dakota to energy drinks sounds like something that would rapidly become Jason’s worst nightmare. Plus, Dakota’s mother is a nurse or something, so she would definitely hunt him down and murder him for it.

Piper asks much too gently, “You doing better?”

Jason winces, putting down his mug. “Sort of? Every time I think I have a grip on what I know, something happens, and it stops making sense again. Back home, there’s this big three-hundred-year gap in our history, but other things held true for much longer. They were the same before the gap as well as when records started again.”

“Like your legacies not having kids with gods?”

“Yeah, it’s the Roman way?”

Piper hesitates, chewing her lip. “I was thinking about that. Rome was founded by a guy called Romulus, yeah?”

Jason nods, and tries not to think about his dreams from last night.

“And he was a son of the War God?”

“Yes?”

“And also a descendant of Mum?”

Oh.

Aeneas was a son of Venus. That’s where the Roman line of demigods starts. Romulus was descended from Aeneas.

“Okay. So. Everything I knew was wrong.”

She scoffs, humour in her eyes. “I don’t think it’s that bad. You’re intensely all or nothing, you noticed that?”

“I think everyone I’ve ever met has told me how rigid I am.”

“Meh, you’re a Sky King kid, it’s the worst trait stuff. Percy calls it being immovable, same as Unseen King is implacable and Sea King is relentless chaos.”

Jason hesitates and tries to soften his voice. “I don’t think I’m up for more new information. Maybe another time?”

He’s startled when Piper beams at him. “Much better. You’ve already done really well with this stuff. You can always say ‘not right now’. It’s the outright denial that’s the problem.”

Jason eyes Piper. That was a very polished speech. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that she actively leads a camp of children. Jason abruptly feels acutely aware that he’s the youngest here.

Under the rules of the Greek camp, he’s only allowed to be on the quest because it was given to him directly. Outside of a god giving a big quest to a specific person, no under-sixteens are permitted on quests. Leo is nearly eighteen months older than Jason, and Piper is at least two years older. She’s mentioned needing to ‘make some decisions soon’ because she’s eighteen next year.

Jason might be used to being younger than the people he’s ordering around, but he’s always had rank and status over them. The legionnaires never saw him as a child, he was their leader.

Jason was ten when he bullied them into reading De Re Militari, and sure, it didn’t work, but they’d gone along with it. No-one suggested it was ridiculous for a ten-year-old to boss them about.

None of that applies here. Harley is twelve, and Jason has frequently seen Leo firmly remind Harley of this every time he tries to do something a bit too reckless. In the Greek camp, age and experience trump anything else, and Piper and Leo fought a war. Jason fought a single battle.

Leo finished in the shower during their conversation, and now he’s looking worryingly thoughtful. Jason narrows his eyes. He’s learned not to trust Leo when he makes that face.

“Stop looking at me like that, man! It’s a quest, I ain’t gonna prank you during a quest. That’s just asking to be accidentally skewered by friendly fire.”

That is extremely logical. Jason needs to stop overthinking, it’s getting him nowhere.

“But I was thinking, when is this three hundred year gap of yours?”

“The last records are from around 1490, when the legion was still in Italy. Then they start up again in 1815 right after a move to Glasgow.”

Piper chokes on a bite of scrambled eggs and coughs hard.

She looks at Jason, eyes watering. “Glasgow, the Romans were in Glasgow?”

“Yes? Is there a problem?”

“No. Just Glasgow? That’s so random.”

Jason frowns. “The Antonine Wall was a little north of Glasgow. It bordered the northernmost edge of the Roman Empire in the UK. It’s part of our history.”

Piper’s clearly startled. “Oh. Right. You have records of all that. Sorry, I forgot. I was just thinking of Scottish Romans in kilts. But yeah. Sorry?”

Leo ignores both of them, still thinking something over. “I don’t think our records were given the same treatment. Like, no-one knows anything about the Romans, but one of the first things I was told when I arrived was about a demigod who was falsely blamed for the Great Fire of London. That was in 1666. That’s, like, in the middle of that time frame.”

Piper’s equally thoughtful now. “And there’s Edward Teach too. He disappeared in 1718, and we have plenty of records about him. A lot are from the mortal world, but we’ve never forgotten he’s a war kid with a blessing from the Sea King. Not sure I knew there was a demigod involved in the Great Fire though?”

Jason kind of hates that both he and Reyna were right about the pirate. There have been no Roman demigod children of Mars since the Byzantine times. The pirate was a Greek demigod, a son of Ares. Jason really doesn’t want to know how Circe manages to interact with both Greeks and Romans and keep them ignorant of each other. Magic and Mist, presumably.

Leo hesitates and then speaks directly to Piper. “He was a son of my dad. But the one thing we know for sure is that he was in his fifties when that happened. He’d had over four decades of experience with controlling fire.”

Jason is briefly confused by the way Piper latches onto this, before he remembers that older demigods are virtually unknown to the Greeks. Anyone who lived longer and wasn’t cursed or gifted with immortality is an object of fascination for them.

Ever since that was explained, he’d been carefully not sharing the additional factors he was aware of. But trust goes both ways, right?

“Uh. About that. We have records since 1815 that match what you’ve experienced. Demigods who try to live outside New Rome die within a year of leaving. Even the ones in New Rome die far too young.”

Sarah Warden is the oldest living Roman demigod currently. She’s twenty-two. The Greeks are doing better than they are with the older demigods thing, and isn’t that a worrying thought?

Jason probably needs to find a way to ask Octavian how his mother died. It hadn’t felt all that unusual when he first found out. But why would the Weirs and Hales hate the Coelispexes over it if she’d died in childbirth? Like, that’s not something that was anyone’s fault?

There are some odd rumours, but Consul Coelispex still visits the Nymphaeum, Jason really can’t see him doing that if he didn’t love his wife. He also never remarried. He definitely had opportunities to, but Octavian’s still an only child. The one time Sarah Warden tried to come onto Consul Coelispex, she’d been soundly rebuffed, everyone had talked about it for weeks.

“And your records before 1490?”

Jason shifts uncomfortably. “The legion used to be almost entirely demigods, and outside of dying in battle, they lived long, normal lives, same as the legacies.”

A couple of records were written by demigods who lived well into their eighties. Making them very long-lived given the average lifespans of people in the fifteenth century. The life expectancy of people in Italy at that time, presuming they survived their childhood, was mid-sixties at best.

Piper sighs heavily. “Great. More mysteries.”

Jason matches her sigh. “You know, all our legion records aren’t even that helpful? The legionnaires have learned more about monsters from that mythomagic game than anything we have in our libraries. It’s weirdly accurate for something made by mortals.”

Both Leo and Piper flinch a little when he mentions the game.

“Wait. What do you know?”

“Ah. It’s a long story, but the short version is that a god gifted their kids with the original mythomagic cards, and Lee and Percy decided it was something they wanted all campers to have access to. Malcolm from Six helped Lee refine the designs, and one of Lee’s siblings, Jenny - she teaches at a boarding school, you won’t have met her - she did the artwork.”

Jason wishes he had it in him to be surprised. Even the casual mention of yet another child of Apollo is no longer shocking.

Piper furrows her forehead, eyes distant. “He called in a favour from… I’m not sure who, and had them published. We wanted to make it easy for demigods to access, even when they don’t know they’re demigods. We definitely didn’t know the Amazon store was a front for the Roman Amazons, though.”

“Well. That explains why it’s so accurate then. But why’d you make a Roman version?”

The Roman deck had come out at the start of the year. The Amazons never had a real name for the author. The cards are published under the name ‘Umbra et Aequor’, Latin for Shade and Sea, and the royalties go into an anonymous, untraceable account.

Reyna’s been trying to get in touch with the author since the battle on Mount Tam. She wants to see if she can commission a set on Roman military tactics. But if the cards were written by the Greeks, that’s seeming pretty unlikely.

Piper and Leo are looking lost. “We didn’t?”

Jason pulls the deck of cards from his own hiking pack and shows it to them. The artwork looks like it was done by the same person, but he really can’t see why anyone at the Greek camp would put in that much effort.

Most of the Greeks don’t know much about Rome. He doubts Piper knows what the Antonine Wall is, but she’s oddly comfortable with not knowing things. Unlike Jason.

Piper flicks through the cards, looking thoughtful. She pulls out the Neptune and Dis Pater cards, going over them carefully.

“You’ve got a daughter of the Roman Unseen King who arrived pretty recently, right?”

“Yes?”

“No Sea King kids?”

Oh, no. Shade and Sea. Please don’t say it, Piper.

Jason hesitates. “Uh, it’s being kept quiet because the consuls have some very strong, very stupid opinions, but we did recently have someone who claims to be a legacy of his arrive.”

Maybe Frank really is a demigod and a legacy? If what Piper said yesterday is normal for the Greeks, maybe it can be a thing for the Romans too?

“Huh. Still, I’m betting the Unseen King did it. He’s behind the originals, anyway. Makes sense he’d do it for his Roman kid too.”

Piper said it. Wonderful. It explains why Nico always looks so delighted when he sees legionnaires playing the game. Great. This is fine.

She gives him a sympathetic look. “We need to get moving, but how about we take a walk around the city before we get back on Festus? Stretch our legs? Be a two-hour flight to Chicago, and who knows how long to find wherever we need to go.”

Jason agreed gratefully and quickly realised what a mistake he’d made.

Jason really should have remembered the time he visited San Bernardino with Reyna and Dakota and a strix found them within thirty minutes.

He just hadn’t wanted to climb back on the dragon. He can’t even entirely blame this on the monsters. The moment Leo saw the ‘Monocle Motors’ sign with the single red eye as a logo, he’d grinned at Piper and said something about how everyone needed an ‘outlet’.

Neither had felt the need to explain. They’d just dragged Jason on a cyclopes hunt. Without mentioning they were hunting cyclopes.

They’d searched through empty abandoned warehouses and mechanic’s workshops until they heard voices. Piper had gone and peeked in a window and come back reporting three ‘wild cyclopes’. Leo had double-checked with her that they definitely ‘weren’t from Atlantis’. Which is one more thing Jason will need to ask about one day, when he feels less like the world is ending.

Leo says it’s time Jason got a chance to let loose, and that he really wants first blood for his new weapon. Piper cheerfully agrees and says she’ll be backup and use charmspeak if she has to, but the kill is theirs.

When Jason asks about armour, Leo snorts and says it’d be a waste when it’s ‘only’ three cyclopes.

Everyone had told Jason that Leo doesn’t fight. He builds things and has brilliant ideas and can make a killer robot on the fly, but he doesn’t fight.

If this is their definition of ‘doesn’t fight’. Jason would like two hundred Leo-level fighters for his legion. Please.

Three full size cyclopes sit inside the mechanic’s workshop, arguing about whether or not they heard something. Jason had never seen a cyclops before, and he’s struggling a bit with how huge they are. Two are ten feet tall, and the third is a good twelve feet tall, if not taller.

Huge ugly brutes with a single massive eye on their forehead. Crooked yellowing teeth and all liberally covered in dirt. The two shorter ones are wearing leather aprons like Leo and his siblings wear in the forge, but the tallest one is wearing what Jason thinks is a Greek chiton? A Greek looking dress, anyway.

Leo pulls a set of knuckledusters from his pocket, and they extend out into his seven-foot long bronze falcon’s beak pollaxe. A lethal eighteen-inch spear blade protrudes from the top, but at the base of the spear, one side has a sharp curved point, the same shape as a falcon’s beak but significantly larger. Opposite it is a four pronged hammer head.

Leo doesn’t even pause as he stalks forward, the weapon already swinging and gaining momentum. His hair catches fire as he reaches the cyclopes who are only now turning to look for the source of the sound.

The nearest cyclops dies on Leo’s first swing, the momentum sending the spear edge slicing straight through its neck and exploding the ten-foot monster into nothing but gold dust.

Jason has to hurry to catch up, feeling off balance as Conservatori switches to hasta form and he aims for the other ten-foot tall monster.

The moment he swings, the world settles into place around him, everything feeling clear. With each movement of the hasta, even as the cyclops screams at him, he feels better, more stable, more like himself.

When Jason realises that Leo was right, the cyclopes really aren’t a challenge, he pulls himself back a bit, letting it turn into a proper fight, rather than an immediate kill.

Some part of him is screaming about how wrong this is, that this is exactly what Reyna talks about, that Jason’s giving into bloodlust, but it feels so good to hit something and not have to hold back.

Leo has the same idea. He’s using the hammer side of his weapon to repeatedly strike the twelve foot cyclopes, the one wearing a dress, and he’s talking loudly about the laws of motion? Well, glad he’s having fun?

Piper calls behind them, “Times up. Kill ‘em already. We gotta get moving.”

Jason scowls, but he moves the hasta in a wide arc and the cyclops explodes at nearly the same time as Leo’s. He’s still kind of startled by how much better he feels. He’s used to the hidden beach and sparring with Reyna in a far too deadly fight, but killing monsters feels weirdly good?

Leo is gleeful, dancing around in an odd victory dance that has Jason ducking under the pollaxe as it sweeps past where his head had been.

“Dude! I know a machine would’ve been so much more efficient, but sometimes it feels so good to do it the hard way!”

Piper ignores Leo’s crowing and looks Jason over. She gives him an approving smile. “Much better. Should’ve taken you monster hunting weeks ago. Good idea, Leo.”

Leo yells back, “Well, I am the smart one!”

Jason can’t resist asking. “You go monster hunting regularly?”

Piper gives him a wry grin. “Me? No, I’m sane. But Nico doesn’t cope well without outlets, and Percy can get pretty tetchy too. I think it’s something to do with being a kid of the three brothers? Clarisse goes out with them, they hunt whatever they can find, helps with the random emotional explosions.”

Thalia joined Artemis’s Hunt and talks gleefully about the monsters they stalk. That makes a lot more sense if it’s part of their heritage. Maybe.

“I thought Leo didn’t fight?”

“Yes. But it’s ‘doesn’t’, not ‘can’t’. He’d not have joined the war or come on the quest if he couldn’t do melee fighting. He just doesn’t usually enjoy it.”

Leo has finally calmed down and is now walking over to them. He speaks seriously. “I fought in a war, man. Of course, I can fight. Half the reason I came is so I could watch Piper’s back. Drew’s shit scared it’ll happen again.”

Piper winces. “I haven’t told Jason about that.”

Jason shrugs. “You don’t need to tell me. If I need to know, I figure you would’ve explained already.”

Piper smiles widely at him. “Yeah. Monster hunting’s good for you. I need to remember to tell Thalia that. You get your shit sorted, and the Hunt might let you tag along occasionally. They take Percy and Nico sometimes.”

Jason has a constant refrain in his head, alternating between ‘Greeks make no sense’ and ‘Greeks are fucking insane,’ and he gets the feeling that won’t be changing anytime soon.

________________________

Wonder how much longer until they actually break Jason? Poor guy is getting knocked all over the place with every new thing he learns. They really would’ve done better to dump Percy on him, pull the bandaid off super quick. Much better.

Leo’s not in all that great a mood himself.

He’d had the worst dreams last night, and from the look of Piper and Jason, they’d been in the same boat. Most of the time, bad dreams are only bad dreams. After the battle at the labyrinth entrance, Lee and Prof had drilled it into them that gods and titans can and do reach out via dreams, and unless it’s a parent or a patron, it needs to be reported immediately.

They’d also told them how to deal with it in the moment.

Whoever was speaking to him in his dreams definitely wasn’t a god Leo has warm fuzzies about. He’s not sure who it was, but he’d felt like a piece of bronze in a crucible, turning liquid under the intense heat and pressure. It’d been telling him that the camp needs him desperately. He’s as essential as Festus’s ‘control disk’. Without Leo, they’ll come to nothing.

Leo had done as he’d been taught and screamed for Apollo. As Protector of Youth and with a domain connected to prophetic dreams, Apollo can interfere when asked directly.

Leo had figured he was watching the quest. Silena told Leo and Piper that Thalia instructed Jason to pray to the sun god if things went badly. Then Piper had doubled down on that the first time they stopped after leaving camp. Leo can read between the lines.

All Leo had felt was a blast of sunshine, but there’d been no more dreams, and he’d woken up feeling okay-ish. It’s the best he’s going to get.

He’s a bit lost on why whoever that was thought he was important, though. Maybe the fire thing?

But that thing about the control disk was super weird. It had gone on to talk about how Leo was essential, but it all it took was a little corrosion and he’d be ‘as untrustworthy as the control disk in your mechanical pet’. It implied that it thought Festus’s brain was still broken?

Festus’s wings had been hanging in the bunker, nice and easy to locate. The brain had been in a super secret safe that was impossible to identify as a safe unless you knew it was there. Or unless Prof called you and told you about it.

Leo normally has a sense for mechanical things, but after he’d locked the safe he’d stood on the platform and felt for the stair mechanism beneath it and there was nothing. If he didn’t know better, he would swear the bunker was sitting on solid rock.

He really wishes he had time to investigate it. He’s betting Festus can do tonnes of things he doesn’t know about.

Leo had already had to deal with Piper and Jason asking him about his little ‘cold fusion’ thing. He’d taught Festus to shut down his internal combustion when given that command. It only puts him on standby mode, but it sounds super cool! So sue him, it was funny! Gods, wouldn’t it be amazing if cold fusion was a thing?

Leo pretends he can’t hear Piper’s bitching about Festus and where’s a nice hippocampi when you need one? Festus doesn’t deserve that shit! He’s old, bet he must’ve been like total magic when Dad first gave him to the camp.

Leo would like to see a hippocampi live for centuries and be as reliable as the day it was born. Not that he can really take credit. All he’d done was pull a new CPU from the basement vault thing. He’d found it on the shelf with the Ancient Greek label that said ‘Phylax’. ‘Guardian’ in the sense of a sentinel or protector, which is apparently Festus’s original name.

In hindsight, Leo probably should have told the other two a bit more about what he found. But it makes him feel a bit on edge even thinking about it. There were paper records in the vault, he hadn’t had time to do more than glance at them, but the ones on top, clearly the last to be used, had a date of 1814. And the address on them was Camp Half-Blood, but it was listed as being in Brittany, France. Some place with a weird name Leo can’t spell or pronounce.

Even setting aside Jason’s thing, that means that someone who had Hephaestus’s fire-heart stuff had been alive in 1814. But the last known person with that ability died in 1666 in a public lynching because the idiots thought he’d caused the Great Fire of London.

How could they not remember something like that? How could they forget someone with that ability? The cabins don’t have much in the way of records, but they do their utmost to track abilities like that. Even Prof said the last person to have the ability was the guy in the 1600s.

Leo needs to get Soph on it. It has to wait ’til they get back though. Leo had locked everything up like Prof asked. So unless Hephaestus drops by, which is supremely unlikely, it’ll stay locked.

Which is good, because once they’d left for the quest, Leo started thinking about what would happen if Harley had unrestricted and unsupervised access to everything in the bunker, and suddenly he had a whole new source of nightmares.

Nyssa and Jake wouldn’t be much better. Somehow, their not having been part of the war means they have even less reservations about the super dangerous inventions.

He’s less bothered about the idea that the bunker has been moving locations without being noticed. It’s not the only building that teleports with the camp.

A lot of campers see the Big House and get kind of weirded out because it looks a little too much like a plantation house. Chiron had gotten annoyed with having to repeatedly explain and produced seriously old pictures of the Big House on some beachfront location in England. According to him, they only moved to the US after the Second World War, before that, they were somewhere called Margate?

Why is that ringing a bell for Leo?

Something to do with Prof? He pulls his phone out and taps quickly. They have over an hour until they reach Chicago, and this is going to drive him nuts.

Prof answers fast, sending pictures back. Oh! That thing. The weird underground tunnel thing that’s, like, encrusted in shells. Prof and Nico had been debating replicating it at camp and asked Leo if he could build something to make the digging go faster.

Prof said it’d been done by a few of his half-siblings, who’d been both supremely bored and also wanting to see if Hades would react to sea kids ‘encroaching’ on his kingdom. Basically, it was a prank.

But then the mortals found it, and it became a thing. They call it ‘Shell Grotto’ now, it even has its own museum. Huh.

The mortals accidentally found it in 1835. The camp was in France in 1814. Well, guess that narrows things down. Sometime between 1814 and 1835, the camp moved from France to England. Except no-one has any knowledge of camp being in France.

Chiron might know, but he’s not sharing. Which is super weird. Most of the fights between Lee and Chiron have been over Chiron sharing information too freely. Since when did he start withholding things?

Leo calls behind him, “Yo, Jason. Your legion have any connection to France?”

Jason’s voice is ultra careful. “Why are you asking?”

Talking while flying on Festus is really irritating. But Leo wants answers. “Was thinking about what you said. Our camp moved around too. Chiron talks about how it was in Margate, in England, before the Second World War. I think we might have been in France before Margate?”

Jason’s still being cautious. “Yeah. An, uh, acquaintance, once mentioned we were in France before 1815. Um, think it might have been near Avignon?”

Piper’s voice is muffled, like she’s twisting to see Jason. “You sound like you’re confessing to something terrible?”

Jason’s answer is very flat. “Yeah, well. The Battle of Arausio happened nearby. I don’t get why we’d ever set up camp there.”

Leo plugs the name into his phone, and then retypes it several times until he gets a version of the spelling that gives him the right results.

Holy fucking shit balls.

“A hundred and twenty THOUSAND people died!?”

Leo’s voice creeps up several octaves. “In less than a day? What the absolute fuck, man?”

“That would be why I don’t understand our having an encampment there.”

Leo gapes at the screen. “Yeah. No. Sorry, man. I’ll stop asking questions.”

Piper makes an aggravated sound. “Kind of hard to talk on your stupid dragon, anyway, Valdez.”

“Oh, suck it up, princess. Festus is amazing.”

She was calling him Smaug only yesterday, it’s not Festus’s fault he’s not set up for first class flying. Dude was flying before mortals had planes in the sky. And sure, Leo is finding talking awkward too, but it doesn’t mean Beauty Queen is allowed to dump on Festus like that.

Festus flies towards Chicago, the skyscrapers becoming more and more visible, and Leo still doesn’t know what they’re looking for. He’s impressed by the lack of storm damage. Didn’t Typhon end up stalled out for like three days, a little north of here? Guess the gods did a thing?

It’s not helping with working out where to go.

“You guys got any ideas for finding this person with the winds?”

Jason calls, “How about we try the ventus over there?”

“The what now?”

“The storm spirit. The one that looks like a horse?”

Huh. Leo has to squint, but he can kind of see a bit of wind that isn’t really wind. He points it out to Festus, and the dragon locks on. Festus can definitely see the wind-horse thing. It’s darting in and out of the skyscraper forest, not going anywhere in particular. This’ll be fun.

“Why are you calling the wind thing after a Starbucks coffee?”

His phone dings, sitting forgotten in his hand, and he completely misses Jason’s explanation.

‘If you don’t feel like playing tag with the wind, try the underground entrance across the road from Crown Fountain. Look for the mu.’

“So, I think Prof might be really, really bored?”

Piper laughs loudly. “More hints?”

“He says to go to Crown Fountain, that’s where the wind spirits are heading.”

Piper is all for it. “Anything that gets me off this dragon quicker. I’m gonna have a permanently flat arse because of Festus.”

“Like you care.”

“Might wreck my centre of balance!”

Leo gives Festus new directions, and the dragon happily creaks and aims for a green space. Guess that’s the fountain.

Piper makes a pleased sound. “There’s a food hall near here! It’s about to open. I want to sit in a chair at a normal table and eat with a knife and fork!”

“Because that’s what’s important?”

“It is to me!”

Piper keeps the complaints up even after she slides off Festus. Jason attempts to point out they ate at the motel three hours ago, where the utensils were plastic, but they were still utensils, but Piper is super insistent. They should eat when they can because things are bound to get insane soon enough. Which is a fair point.

Leo sends the dragon off with a reminder to return when he whistles and follows the still bitching Piper to the food hall she found. They order food and sit down, and she just keeps talking on and on until Jason excuses himself for the bathroom. And for a break from Piper who is going full annoying mean girl.

The moment Jason is out of sight, she turns on Leo.

“Since when did you know camp was in France?”

Leo flinches and quietly explains about the vault.

Piper’s face grows more and more horrified as he talks. “I was hoping it was his legion being a batshit cult. But it’s real? Something did happen?”

“I guess?”

“Leo, don’t tell Jason what’s in there. Don’t tell anyone. Say you found the dragon’s brain in the bunker, but don’t mention the rest. Wait until we know what’s going on.”

Leo frowns. “I want Soph to see it. Jon too.”

Leo is good with inventions and maths things, but it’s the Athena and Apollo kids who corner the market on knowledge acquisition and application.

Leo can live with keeping the Apollo kids out of it for now, they get way too intense and protective over minor shit, and this situation is definitely not minor shit.

Austin is the coolest head among that lot, and they’d only found out after the war that he’d gotten himself discharged from the US Army for misconduct. It’s officially an honourable discharge because of the circumstances, but it was very much a situation of Austin being forced out for ‘bad behaviour’.

He’d lost his shit over a new cadet or something like that, Leo has no clue what the newest, youngest recruits are called. This kid was being bullied by a superior officer, and Austin found out and promptly punched said superior officer in the face. He says it was worth it because the superior officer ended up being given a dishonourable discharge.

Nathan’s offered to get him into some military program he’s attached to. Assuming Nathan himself ever returns to his normal life. Leo needs to start permanently wearing earplugs or something, Soph and Jon are obsessed with telling him all the camp gossip.

Anyway, no Apollo kids should see the bunker. Not yet. But Leo wants the Athena kids to see it.

Piper nods. “Sophie and Jon are fine. Malcolm too. Maybe Silena and Beck. But leave the hot-heads out.”

“Clarisse’ll kill us if we keep this from her.”

Piper cringes. “I, uh, don’t think we’ll be seeing them for a while?”

Leo narrows his eyes. “What do you know?”

“Percy mentioned he was telling Lee about the legion sometime today.”

Oh. Yeah. They’ll be busy then. Those three practically act as an honour guard with Lee, even if they insist they’re guarding Percy. Clarisse keeps trying to find new ways to force Lee to never leave camp.

The one thing they all know is that demigods don’t live long.

No-one wants to lose Lee, but Lee will beeline for the legion the moment he understands what’s going on there. And he won’t leave it alone until he’s certain the cult situation is sorted.

Piper glances over at the door Jason disappeared through and then turns back to Leo. “Look, I haven’t told anyone, but something happened to my dad.”

Her dad? Isn’t he, like, mega famous?

Leo would’ve thought everyone would know if Tristan McLean was kidnapped, but clearly not.

He grimaces when she describes the monster holding him. That sounds super not fun. He’s not worried about her turning them over. She has charmspeak, she could’ve made them go there anytime. Besides, Leo fought a war with her, if he can’t trust Piper, then who can he trust?

“Been dreaming about him for the past week, but I finally got a name out of him. Well. Sort of.”

“Meaning?”

“He said he’s the horn that sounds the call to war.”

“Okay?”

Piper turns scathing, suddenly channeling Sophie at her worst. “Enceladus? That’s what his name means in Ancient Greek. The sound of the call to battle. He got killed by Grey Eyes, she threw an island on him. I think. One other story said Sky King killed him with the master bolt.”

Piper’s more than a bit freaked, isn’t she? She used a name and everything. Wait, do the gigantes hear their names being spoken?

“How do you know so much about gigantes?”

Piper gives him a smug smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Leo scowls, poking at his food. “Why does all of this shit feel like another Great Prophecy is gonna start?”

“Percy keeps insisting he fixed it and ‘our people’s fates are their own’, which kind of suggests Jason’s people are...” She trails off and gives him a meaningful look.

Yeah. Things go better when you never say some things aloud. Jason mentioned they have a seer of some sort. Leo’ll let Piper try her hand at getting more info out of him. Maybe he’s already under a Great Prophecy?

When Jason walks back to them, Piper smoothly starts a conversation about the prophecy and how she’s really not made for prophetic things. She can never get her head around it. Is it like this for Jason back home?

Leo sits back and watches a master at work. Piper hates it when Nico pulls this trick on her, but it didn’t stop her learning how to do it herself. Jason caves far too quickly and tells them about something called the ‘Prophecy of Victory’. He’s not willing to tell them the exact words, but he says it specifically mentions the Romans on two separate lines.

Jason says it’s definitely not about the Greeks. So that’s a nice change. No Romans in their camp. Except for poor Jason. Jason looks really haunted when he talks about the prophecy, like it’s a curse. Which tends to be the way prophecies work.

Piper redirects him to talking about the prophecy for their quest, and somehow, Jason gets even more depressed as they talk through it.

They still don’t know what the devil’s peak is. The rage of the abyss must be the gigantes. Jason adds he’d had an odd dream, he thinks Porphyrion might be the one being raised.

So they all had batshit dreams last night. Great. This quest better be over fast, or all three of them will fighting gigantes while sleep deprived. Which is all the no.

Piper makes a face but doesn’t disagree with Jason. So, that means they’re hunting two separate gigantes? That’s so wonderful. The forge and the dove are present and accounted for. They’re about to find tamed winds, and hopefully they can harness them or follow them somehow.

The last two lines are baffling, and Jason shrugs helplessly, looking lost, and still kind of upset.

“Is there something else?”

Jason looks even more uncomfortable. “The quest prophecy. I’ve heard part of it before.”

Leo doesn’t know what to say when Jason explains. Can the legion get any weirder? They engrave random pieces of prophecy on the floor of Jupiter’s temple. Jupiter’s, not Apollo’s. Not even complete prophecies, just random lines.

And apparently, one of the lines of Percy’s latest prophecy is engraved on the floor of this temple. Specifically, the one about mending something broken and speaking the truth. Okay. That’d freak Leo out too. He can give Jason that one.

Jason’s doing sad puppy dog eyes, and it’s getting on his nerves. Yeah, Leo’s done with the moping. “We ready to go meet the whoever?”

The underground entrance is easy enough to find. Across the street from the Crown Fountain, a set of stairs leads down from street level, with a sign stating ‘GRANT PARK N GARAGE | 25 N Michigan Ave. Monroe Lobby’.

Leo tells the others to look for the mu and then gives up trying to explain the weird-ass letter to Jason and shows him a picture of the little backwards u with the long tail.

He’s super glad it isn’t a delta. He is so not dealing with the Labyrinth and its batshit inventor again. The crap on that laptop was terrifying, and he had been so relieved when they could hand it over to Lee for safekeeping and pretend some crazy guy hadn’t thought up a thousand different ways to destroy the planet.

They’re barely thirty feet down the tunnel when Piper finds the mu, at chest height on the right wall and glowing gold.

“I’m thinking normal people can’t see that?”

Leo definitely deserved Piper’s extra sarcastic, “Ya think?” She presses a hand to the letter, and a door takes shape; modern, shiny, stainless steel and really standing out in the ugly concrete tunnel.

Jason is less than comfortable with how casually they’re acting, and looks relieved when they step inside the door, shutting it behind them and Piper immediately orders them to get their armour on. He doesn’t even argue about the coat this time. Leo is so incredibly proud, their little boy is growing up!

The impulse to say something supremely stupid grows, but Piper gives Leo a sharp look, and he rolls his eyes at her before double checking his knives are all where they should be.

Including the additional ones from Clarisse in the extra fun metal. One day, he’s going to talk Tyson into bringing him some ingots of it.

Maybe if he tells the Sea Prince he’ll use it to make Piper some new badass weapon? With the way Tri’s been on her ass about polearms, Leo might earn some brownie points if he offers to make her a polearm? Not a spear, but there’s a tonne of other options.

Piper reminds him it’s probably a good time to wear a sword, and Leo wrinkles his nose at her.

He’d kept his sword in his pack so far, he’s really loving the pollaxe. He’s grateful she hasn’t asked about his shield. Leo still hasn’t shared how he shrunk the pollaxe, and he doesn’t feel like explaining what happened to the shield he signed out. Beck’s gonna be so pissed. They might have plenty of surplus right now, but they can’t afford to outright waste celestial bronze.

With all of them appropriately heavily armed, they’re good to head out. Leo feels like some ultra weird cave spelunker with the hiking pack, armour, a magic tool belt under his jacket and the sword on his hip.

Piper is looking way too thoughtful as they trek down endless twisting tunnels. There aren’t any forks or side tunnels. Only this single tunnel that twists and turns all over the place. Leo’s all for an interesting underground lair, but this is ridiculous. Couldn’t the access point have involved less walking?

They reach a new set of gleaming silver doors, looking more like elevator doors this time. Big curly letter Ms on both, and a big sign next to them that he’s fairly sure says:

“Parking, Kennels, Main Entrance: Sewer Level
Furnishings and Cafe M: 1
Women’s Fashion and Magical Appliances: 2
Men’s Wear and Weaponry: 3
Cosmetics, Potions, Poisons & Sundries: 4”

Leo and Piper spend too long deciphering it, and Jason’s straight up squinting. Piper’s looking between the sign and the doors, realisation dawning on her face when she sees Jason’s extra attractive squint.

“Oh, for shit’s sake. That’s it.” She yanks something from her pack and waves it in Jason’s face.

Jason’s glasses. How long has she been carrying those around? Will’s been nagging Jason for weeks about wearing them.

“Fucking put them on. You look like the evil lizard in Monsters, Inc. and I need to unsee the resemblance, please.”

Jason squints some more and reluctantly takes them from her.

“Also. You need to go by a different name. If this is who I think it is, she’s gonna flip her shit if you use your name.”

Leo scowls at her. “I ain’t doing secrets right now, spit it out.”

“Princess of Colchis? I think. Like, not much to go on. But clearly a sorceress, and the letter ‘M’-”

“Piper.”

“Fine. Percy may have given me some books to read before he left.”

Leo grins, completely delighted. “And here you had me half convinced you really were a natural know-it-all! Gonna have to try harder next time!”

Piper, super maturely, sticks her tongue out at Leo.

Jason ignores them both. He’s finally adjusting to Greek life!

Jason asks, “Shouldn’t she be dead? I don’t remember her being immortal.”

Piper looks uncomfortably thoughtful. “There’s three sister sorceresses who are, like, super immortal, but not gods. One of them really loves turning people into guinea pigs.”

If Leo never sees another guinea pig, it will be too damn soon. The petting zoo had been so gods damn creepy. Even the sphinx is better than another guinea pig.

Jason gapes for a minute and then shakes his head. “We can talk about her later. She’s this lady’s aunt, right?”

Would Jason be offended if Leo patted him on the head for the outstanding job he’s doing at not naming people? Yeah, he totally would be. Never mind.

Piper nods. “Yeah, her dad was a full brother to three sorceresses, and her mum was an oceanid. So there’s a good chance she’s immortal too.”

Leo claps his hands. “So. You need to pick a name. If you don’t, Imma call you Bryce.”

Jason jerks back at that. “Please don’t. Jay is fine.”

Leo pulls his best sad face. “You are so very boring. Fine. Jaybird.”

Piper gives them both a sharp look, and Leo is living for Jason’s irate face as he realises she’s pissed at him as well as Leo.

“Are you done? Can we go?”

Leo gives her a sweeping bow. “Yes, your majesty. Let’s go meet a proper princess.”

After giving Jason a mini lecture about holding his sleeve down and exactly what she will do if he accidentally flashes his ‘legion mark’ at the sorceress, Piper finally decides to get on the elevator and press a button.

The elevator doors slide open onto the fourth floor. Cosmetics, Potions, Poisons and Sundries. Also known as Piper Paradise. Assuming the ‘sundries’ are as lethal as the poisons.

Leo smirks as he sees Jason’s eyes slide to Piper and then he deliberately lowers his hand and doesn’t reach for his transforming sword spear gadget. No-one makes a good first impression when they hold you at sword point. This is much better.

It’s definitely a department store. Like, a proper old fashioned sort of department store. No online shopping in sight. Cool ceiling though. Stained glass patterns surround a big golden sun. Helios’s orange sun. Not Apollo’s yellow-gold sun. The fact Leo can tell the difference definitely means he’s spent too much time around Prof.

The colourful light makes everything all nice and pretty. Very magicky. The floors themselves were more balcony than floor, all looking down on the main floor at the bottom of the huge atrium. Lots of extra shiny, gleaming gold on the railings too. Leo gives it a second look. Enchanted gold, not imperial gold.

Enchanted gold has more yellow to it, it shines a bit brighter, feels a bit more stable. Jason’s sword thing has an energy to it that’s a little bit off balance. Like the metal wasn’t formed right.

Jason did not appreciate Leo suggesting imperial gold was the equivalent to those fake designer bags you can buy on street corners in the city. Entertained Leo, though.

He tries not to look too closely at the merchandise. Lady’s a sorceress, she’s definitely going to sell weird shit that kills people and/or turns them into animals. He’d rather not know. Jason clearly doesn’t share that philosophy, and he’s watching a rack of fur coats twitch with sharp eyes.

Leo leaves him to it and moves further into the store to get a look at the setup. When he looks down on the atrium, there’s a big fountain spraying water up in the air and catching the light from the stained glass, making it refract in a million different colours. There’s a big painted compass rose on the floor, with the fountain at the centre. Four objects are placed at the compass points.

Two look to be some sort of birdcage, with little glittering whirlwinds inside. Guess those are the tamed winds they’re looking for? The other two igloo things gleam golden, with their doors standing open. They sit at the north and south points of the compass and have fluffy bedding spilling out of the doors. Possibly real animal furs, but whatever lives in the cages is completely absent.

“Hey, check it out.”

The other two join Leo just as a woman speaks behind them.

“May I assist you?”

Leo turns around and tries not to blink rapidly or do anything else that’ll make him look completely gormless. What is it with the girls on this quest?

The last one was wearing a wedding dress, complete with veil. Today’s has gone full Disney princess.

Tumbling golden blonde curls fall down her back in a heavy curtain. Leo’s neck hurts from looking at it. And a pale blue extra poofy ballgown that looks like Cinderella should be wearing it. As sparkly as Cinderella’s dress too.

Oh, boy. This’ll be fun.

They’ve all learned that you can read a lot into a god or immortal’s intentions based on how they present themselves.

If they turn up in chitons or bedsheet style clothes, you’re totally screwed and should just give up now.

Modern designer clothes are for parents wanting to appear more relatable to their demigod kids. Or to Percy. Hera’s the only exception, since she always dresses like the perfect Ancient Greek wife, but she’s also always terrifying and should be avoided at all costs.

Leo’s own father, Hephaestus, completely changes his physical appearance depending on how recently he’s argued with Hera or Zeus. The uglier he is, the more he’s sulking. Not that Leo’s seen much of him. One visit to camp last year where he directly spoke to Leo, and otherwise Leo’s only seen his father at a distance during trips to Olympus or during the war.

Dressing like a Disney princess is outside the normal rules. But Circe showed up to fight a war in a slinky black low-cut and backless evening dress and six-inch heels. Which they all worked super hard not to notice. Maybe it runs in the family?

New girl’s smiling like Cinderella too. All sweet and young and innocent. Leo does not trust it. At all.

“I’m so happy to see some new customers! How may I help you?”

Why is she looking at Leo? Please don’t look at Leo. Her eyes are mega creepy. It’s like her irises are made of molten gold, and the gold is swirling around her pupils.

Leo edges away and shoots a desperate glance at Piper. There is so much sass in the look she gives back. So sue him. He’s sixteen, he’s allowed to be scared of sorceresses dressed like Disney princesses! It’s weird!

Piper turns back to the super lovely, totally not crazy, lady. “Is this your store? It’s really nice!”

Cinderella gives her a bright smile in return, her eyes flaring with light.

“Yes, it is! I’ve never been a merchant before. I collected things and helped people when they asked, but never considered supplying on a larger scale. I’m looking forward to my new adventure!”

Piper matches her smile, dark eyes lighting up in an incredibly familiar way. Uh oh.

“I always love seeing a woman find her confidence and independence! If you’re new to all of this, you totally should look into the girlboss movement. I bet you could absolutely dominate it!”

No, Piper. Do not tell the evil Cinderella lady about MLMs. Why are you suggesting she turn full evil?

Too late. Piper’s already bubbling away about Scentsy, Healy, Lularoe and Herbalife. Lee is going to kill them.

Oh, wait. Percy’s telling Lee about the Romans today. Never mind. The mice will play when the cat’s away. Huh. Maybe Leo can outright steal some of the Atlantean metal? Triton might talk a big game, but he won’t kill him for real, and if Lee’s not around for the god to appeal to- Yeah, that could be an amazing loophole.

Jason is unaware of the horrors Piper is about to unleash on unsuspecting mortals. He has his usual look of complete bafflement. Poor guy. Leo’s betting he’s like a Lee-level leader in his Roman thing. In his own element, he probably does the same ‘hero of old come to life’ thing that Lee’s so good at. Didn’t the Romans do the god-emperor thing?

But Jason’s never experienced the world outside of the weird Romans, and it’s really, really showing. Cults are such total shit.

Piper finally ‘remembers’ where they are and introduces Leo and ‘Jay’. Cinderella, who still hasn’t named herself, gives Jason a narrow-eyed look and asks about his heritage. Jason tells her he’s a son of the Sky King. When she asks specifically about Hermes, Jason truthfully tells her he has no relation to the Deadbeat outside of their both being sons of the Sky King.

She nods approvingly and turns to Leo with another warm, enquiring look. She’s really got the Cinderella thing down pat.

Before Piper can get out more than his name, she’s smiling widely at him. “Oh, you have fire in your veins! I do so love it when the Smith God’s children carry fire. It makes you smell so like my grandfather.”

She’s talking about how Leo smells. Leo smells like a dead titan? Uh. Where’s the nearest shower?

Piper steps forward as Leo edges back a bit more. “We’re actually here for something specific. A tamed wind spirit? Or it might be wind spirits, plural, I’m not completely sure.”

“Well, I may have something to help you. But perhaps we could tour the store first?”

Piper frowns at Cinderella. “Is there a reason for that? Like I’m all for extensive shopping trips, I could probably even come back with a few siblings, they adore shopping. But we’re on a quest right now, and even if we didn’t have a time limit, the Unseen Queen is important to me.”

Cinderella looks at her with interest. “Why her, specifically?”

“We fought a battle, and it was Persephone Soteria who guided heroes to Elysium, no matter what side they fought on. She’ll come for all of us one day. The final peace for every demigod who fights honourably and dies with glory. Besides, she’s a true love match with her husband. There aren’t many of those among the gods.”

“She took my sons to Elysium.” Leo can’t work out if the sorceress is accusing Persephone of stealing them from her, or if she thinks this is a good thing.

He really wishes he’d paid more attention to the Medea stories. But she’s just so weird, and he’s completely sorceressed out. Having to listen to Prof talk about Pasiphae, Circe and Calypso was bad enough. The fact there were even more scary ladies out there is so much no.

“Let me show you my potions.”

Great. She’s not in a helpful mood.

The three of them trail behind as she takes them to an alchemist’s dream lab. Shelves and shelves of a whole rainbow of liquids, all in interesting shaped containers and far too many fumes in the air. This all looks suitably ominous. If she turns Leo into a guinea pig, he is so telling Lee about the MLM thing. Because it will definitely be all Piper’s fault.

Piper’s the only one of them who has any protection against charmspeak, though Leo doesn’t know if her natural defences will stand up to a sorceress. Leo’s really hoping they won’t have to find out.

Cinderella drifts around the shelves, touching vials here and there and moving on, making little comments about how this one will kill you, that one will make you blind and all of it is terrifying.

She finally pauses at a little vial that looks like it’s full of water. “And this one… This one will restore memory, even memory stolen by the Mist.”

Piper and Jason both stare at that vial for a bit too long.

Leo coughs loudly. “Unless one of you is looking really good for your age, neither of you has a memory to restore. All that shit happened before we were born.”

Piper flinches back a little and turns to look at him, grinning sheepishly. Leo widens his eyes at her and jerks his head towards Jason. She turns to see Jason’s eyes still locked on the vial.

This could be a problem. It’s obvious he doesn’t trust them, and he’s struggling to fit in. If Hera hadn’t threatened him with a mind wipe, he’d definitely have left weeks ago.

There’s no telling if Cinderella’s potion could prevent or override Hera’s mind wipe. It’s too big a risk.

Piper knows this as well as Leo does.

She speaks softly, with no emotion in her voice. She could be talking about the weather.

“If you try to loophole the mind wipe, we will kill you. Your legion would mobilise to kill every single one of us if you so much as hinted at our existence.”

Jason turns to her, betrayal in his eyes. She shakes her head slowly. “I am responsible for over two hundred children. Over two hundred children who deserve normal lives, who deserve to grow up. I will not put them at risk for you.”

They still don’t have a complete list of all living demigods, but with Percy’s help they were able to build a list of most of the demigods under ten who were in good living situations and currently had no need of camp.

Between them and the summer campers, the numbers are well over two hundred. Leo suddenly deeply regrets their ever having written that list.

Knowing where kids are gives them the chance to protect them. But it also means someone knows their location. If the wrong person gets to them first- Yeah, let’s not go there.

Jason turns back to the vial. Please. No. Leo does not want to be part of this.

Like. He will be. If he has to. Leo came on this quest because he protects his people as fiercely as anyone else at camp. At camp, loyalty to each other trumps everything else. They are Leo’s people.

Jason is not. If he wants to put their kids at risk, they’ll deal with it.

Or, well, Leo will deal with it. Because Piper will look at Jason and see Ethan, and no way is she going through that again.

Normally, Leo would be more willing to wait it out, since Hera is, like, notorious for how she treats people who ignore her will. The fact Jason’s even considering this says so many terrible things about the Romans. Have they forgotten that Hera’s the queen of over the top vengeance or something?

So, at any other time, Leo would wait it out. But this is too big of a risk. When he’s not being mind-blowingly dense, Jason’s too smart. If anyone could find their way around Hera’s amnesia thing, it would be Jason.

Leo speaks up, his tone dead serious for once.

“Jay. I like you, man. But we got little kids to protect. Those siblings of yours? The oldest is two. Everything you’ve told us about where you’re from, they aren’t going to stop and ask questions. They’ll hear ‘Greek’ and they won’t hesitate. Five babies, all your siblings. All children of the Sky King, and all incredibly powerful. Can you truthfully tell me the leaders of your people wouldn’t kill them if they knew?”

Jason wrenches his eyes from the vial. “What are you saying?”

Leo meets his eyes and speaks quietly. “I’m saying that if you even try to touch that vial, I’ll be the one killing you. Not Piper.”

Jason is desperate. “They said you slaughtered us.”

“Where’s the proof? And it wasn’t us. That was two hundred years ago, minimum. I’m sixteen. Piper’s seventeen. We’re kids trying to survive.”

Cinderella is watching this like it’s a Wimbledon tennis match, looking enthralled.

Leo holds eye contact with Jason and lets him see the truth in his eyes.

Leo lived through a war. He knows that terrible decisions sometimes have to be made. They welcomed Jason, let him into their safest, most secure sanctuary, they answered his questions, and encouraged him to get to know them.

But they are warriors, and they have a purpose.

This is the line.

If Jason crosses it, they’ll do what they have to. It’ll break them. Leo cannot imagine ever returning to camp if he does this. He’ll still do it. Piper too.

They are Greek after all.

All that talk from Jason about the savage Greeks, who fought like berserkers and slaughtered people, it’s not entirely untrue. They just don’t do it without a very good reason.

If those wars were real, however they started, Leo doubts the Greeks were the instigators. Not the Greeks as a whole. He could see a random demigod pulling a stupid, but the camp would not have supported an individual in a war against the Romans.

For a war to occur between the camps themselves, there had to be a triggering event, and Leo can’t think of anything the Greek camp could or would do. They don’t work like that, they aren’t an army, they’re just misfits gathered together because there’s safety in numbers.

The Romans, on the other hand, if Jason’s an example of their mindset, yeah, Leo can see it.

And once the Greeks were provoked, they wouldn’t have stopped. The camp would have fought as savagely as Jason claims, and only victory or death would have stopped them.

Or amnesia.

Jason breaks eye contact first, stepping away from the shelf. His head drops and his shoulders slump. He speaks to the ground. “Think you’re more Roman than I am.”

Piper’s voice is gentle. “No, we just have a little more experience in making our boundaries clear.”

Cinderella is still fascinated, but also far too thoughtful. No chance she missed that they’re Greek and Roman demigods on a quest together.

“I believe a change of plans is in order, my dear ones.”

Leo turns back to her, instantly suspicious. Medea is entirely Greek, same as Jason and the Argonauts. There’s no Roman equivalent, not like Heracles or Odysseus. She’s from a time long before the Romans were a thing.

“What do you mean?”

“I believe we can help each other. I was told I could not appeal for assistance, because any who assisted me would discover the existence of the Romans and the gods would retaliate swiftly. But if you already know- Well. Perhaps we can strike a bargain?”