Chapter Text
Annabeth watched Poseidon vouch for Percy and felt herself relax. She shot Percy himself a sidelong look. He looked tense—good. He understood what was at stake, then. Annabeth could feel her heart pounding a tattoo against her chest.
Her mother was arguing to kill Percy.
All she could do was try to turn her gobsmacked gaze into a glare. Athena barely paused to look at her, too busy studying all the Olympians in the wake of Poseidon’s bold declaration. Her lips thinned, but Annabeth’s curled into a smile. Most of them looked mollified, even impressed. Even Zeus looked more thoughtful than paranoid.
It had worked. Poseidon had put his neck out, and it had worked. Of course it would. Vouching on his honour like that meant a great deal to a god. Whatever Percy did now, Poseidon was tied to it. It reflected on him. If Olympus was destroyed… that was on him too.
She let out a sigh of relief. To execute Percy would be a deadly insult to Poseidon.
One that Athena was apparently willing to make.
“You also swore, once, that a boy like this would never exist, uncle.”
Poseidon stared at her, as shocked as Annabeth was by the rebuttal. Was she… was she really…? “You question me?”
Athena was too brave and proud to take the out, or even to try and soften her words. She didn’t hesitate. “I do. The sea is changeable, as are you. The boy’s existence proves it. If he is the same, the last thing we want is a changeable prophecy child who has not yet turned sixteen.”
“Our father also broke the oath, Athena,” Artemis cut in. Annabeth’s admiration for her only increased. “If you are to question Poseidon’s honour, you must also question his.”
“And I would, were Thalia still a threat. But you have saved her from ever turning sixteen. It is unfortunate that the boy has no such recourse.”
No such—
Annabeth couldn’t breathe.
No such recourse.
How could she say this? Didn’t she know anything about Percy? Hadn’t she noticed anything on their quests? She was supposed to be wise—
Athena interrupted her own grave moment to shoot Annabeth a warning glance. Apparently her outrage was starting to show on her face. Or maybe the gods really could read minds.
“Enough,” Zeus said. Annabeth stifled a whimper. Athena had timed it so that she had the last word. It was her speech that echoed in people’s minds, not Poseidon’s. “Poseidon has vouched for the boy and the beast, on his honour. All in favour of letting them both live?”
Annabeth counted the votes slowly. A hand fisted around her heart and refused to let go. Five votes.
“All opposed?” Zeus continued. Seven raised their hands. Zeus, Athena, Mr D, Hermes, then also Hera, Demeter, and Ares. Annabeth found herself staring at Mr D, feeling almost betrayed—and feeling stupid that she felt that at all. She knew he was a jerk. He had been so long as she’d known him.
But bullying campers was a far cry from killing them.
Poseidon looked to be in just as much shock. “You doubt my word?” he demanded.
Annabeth glanced at Percy. He’d gone pale, his gaze fixed ahead, watching what was happening with a curiously detached expression. Her fingers twitched to reach for him, but a strange paralysis gripped her. She felt like she was dreaming.
It wouldn’t have been the first time she dreamt of Percy’s death. For so long, he’d been the only candidate for the prophecy. Then there had been Thalia—and now Thalia wasn’t a candidate anymore. Annabeth had known that a vote like this would be coming, but she’d meant what she’d said to Percy all those months ago, just the two of them in the lifeboat on the Sea of Monsters. She’d thought the gods were watching to see what kind of hero he was. To see if they could trust him with the fate of Olympus.
She’d thought it was obvious that they could.
Zeus snapped something at Poseidon. Ozone crackled through the air; he was standing now, looming over him in his twenty-foot form like a child about to crush an ant, and his vicious gaze was fixed on Percy. Poseidon lunged forward.
Annabeth did too. She reached out, but as the lightning flashed, she felt something pull her back, away from Percy. As light as a breeze but as immovable as concrete, it slid her half a metre away from him. The distance was enough that when the bolt connected with its target, she wasn’t hit by any stray electricity, only the static buzz it left behind on the air.
Ashes burst out from where Percy had been, dark and shimmering. It felt like an insult that they didn’t even hang on the air, showing his silhouette; even the rough shape of him had been completely destroyed. Annabeth blinked: one moment, the world was bright and Percy was in it; the next, everything was blanketed in ash.
It was in her hair. When she sucked in a breath, she could taste it on her tongue. She could taste Percy on her tongue. His body dirtied her hands. Oh, gods. Oh gods—
Thump. On Percy’s other side, Grover hit the floor.
Annabeth didn’t understand why at first. Grover was prone to fainting. She pressed her hand to her mouth; she wanted to run to him, but her legs were shaking too badly for her to trust them. Perhaps she’d cried out. Perhaps she’d shouted something. She didn’t know. The lightning blast had deafened her—or maybe that was her own panic.
There was another flash. Annabeth flinched back. The air grew hot and heavy, like the humidity had suddenly soared. Steam ebbed toward the painted ceilings. Distantly, she realised that the bubble the Ophiotaurus—Bessie—had been in was gone.
Another insult. Another tragedy. Through the haze of Percy’s ashes, she could see Grover’s body. Grover, who had brought Bessie here, using all the courage he had. Who cared so much about wild creatures like him. Grover… Grover would need help.
That was what Percy would do. He’d push down what he was feeling and comfort Grover. She needed to check he was alright. He’d be devastated. They’d both lost— they’d both lost—
Her face crumpled. She let out a sob.
“Now,” Zeus said. “Let us attend the festivities. With Artemis returned to us, we have much to celebrate.”
“Celebrate?” Poseidon growled. Annabeth could see him out of the corner of her eye, almost incandescent as he started toward Zeus, but whatever he said next, she couldn’t comprehend.
Thalia was behind her. Her arm went around her shoulders, and she tried to turn Annabeth’s head into her chest for a hug, but Annabeth pulled away. She couldn’t stop staring at that cloud of ash, drifting lazily down like snow. She didn’t want to look away. Once she looked away, Percy was gone.
It didn’t matter. As she stared, it settled on the ground. Annabeth realised that Thalia had already tracked footprints through some of it in order to reach her.
“Annabeth?” Thalia asked. Annabeth dimly registered that her voice was shaky with her own grief. She’d have expected anger, she mused. She didn’t realise Thalia and Percy were close enough for grief, but she had seen them hug. “Annabeth, come on. Let’s sit down.”
“Percy,” Annabeth said. “Percy—”
“I know.”
“Grover. We need to help…”
Suddenly, Mr D was behind them. He was carrying a gaudy goblet filled to the brim with Diet Coke, ivy wreathed around his neck, but still he wore the body of a washed up, middle-aged grump. When he snapped his fingers, Grover’s body disappeared.
“Don’t fuss yourselves over Gregor,” he said. “He knew what he was getting into. Empathy links are always a bad idea, but an empathy link with someone as reckless as that? One fated to die, no less? Even I didn’t realise he was that stupid.” He sighed loudly. “Well, not much lost. Both of them were due to die soon anyway. Searchers drop like flies. And demigods… well. Peter was no different to the rest of you.”
Annabeth screamed. She tried to fling herself at Mr D, to fix her fingers around the mottled skin of his throat, but Thalia caught her before anyone else got smote today. She wrestled her back under control.
“Not now, Annabeth,” she tried to soothe, but the razored edge to her voice didn’t make for much of a caress. Disgust dripped like blood from her syllables. “He’s not worth it.”
Mr D’s eyes flashed purple. “Oh?”
“Percy was different,” Annabeth snarled. “He would’ve saved Olympus. You’re all idiots! He would’ve survived to sixteen and saved Olympus and now— now—”
Mr D watched her break down with cool, impassive eyes. Just like he always had.
“Perhaps,” he conceded. His head tilted. Something seemed to strike him, and he frowned, shifting uncomfortably. Then he relaxed his posture and he was once again the god of excess, of indulgences, of revelry. He tilted his head back to watch them down the length of his stubby nose. “There is, of course, the chance that Peter Johnson was singular among demigods as someone truly selfless, brave, and noble, who could be trusted with such a burden. Having met the boy—”
“You know that,” Thalia hissed. “I saw you. He pleaded for your help, and you helped. You wouldn’t have done that if you thought he was some jerk.”
“—that was not a chance I could take,” Mr D continued. It was like she hadn’t spoken at all. He watched them both for a few seconds more. Annabeth couldn’t help herself: she broke down crying. She was bent over double, only Thalia’s arm around her waist keeping her upright.
“Someone should tell his mother,” he said, surprising them both. “And I’m sure the two of you can visit Gregor’s living corpse at camp. It would be good for him. If he’s still alive now, he’ll likely wake up eventually. It will only take a few years.”
Then Mr D walked away to join the party. His smart dress shoes tracked Percy’s remains over Olympus’s shining floors.
Annabeth looked up. Most of the Olympians were gone now. Poseidon had probably stormed off somewhere to finish his argument with Zeus. The others had gracefully retreated.
All except one.
“Artemis went with Apollo to heal herself some more,” Thalia murmured. “She spoke in my mind before she left.”
“You should go to her,” Annabeth said, surprised by how steady her voice was. “You’re her lieutenant now.”
“I’m not leaving you.” From the way Thalia’s gaze lingered on the last Olympian in the room, it wasn’t just for physical support.
Athena descended from her throne, graciously shrinking back to human size—albeit a human size half a head taller than either Annabeth or Thalia. She approached them carefully, her hands folded in front of her like a bird folds its wings when not in flight.
“Annabeth,” she said. “My child. I am sorry.”
Annabeth stared at her. “Why? Why would you—”
“It was necessary,” Athena interrupted. “I know you cared for him. I have been concerned about your friendship for some time now. However, I regret that this is how it ends.”
“It hasn’t ended!” she burst out. “He’s still my friend!”
“Thank you for staying with her,” Athena said to Thalia. Thalia just bared her teeth at Athena, but Athena didn’t respond to the hostility. “Return to camp. Chiron will look after you in your grief. He understands…” She pursed her lips. “He can help you understand the difficult decisions one makes during war. He has trained all of the great heroes.”
“I hate you,” Annabeth said quietly.
Athena didn’t demean herself enough to look pained. But she did wince, a little performatively, like it was an action she’d learnt to better garner sympathy in a debate. “I am sure. You love very deeply, Annabeth, but you must remember to use your considerable mind as well. That boy’s love would have destroyed everything.”
Annabeth just watched her. Her breathing quickened with the rage that suddenly coursed through her. For a moment, she wished she were even more one of her mother’s creatures. She wished she were an owl, with wings and sharp eyes and even sharper claws. At least then, she could rake open the human face Athena wore to reveal the cold gold that flowed beneath her borrowed skin.
Thalia pulled her away before she could lunge. Her breathing had gotten so ragged that Annabeth didn’t notice she was heaving in breaths until Thalia made her match hers. Then she realised her throat was sore. Her chest ached. The lining of her mouth was still dry. It tasted burnt.
Together, they walked out of the throne room. The party whirled around them, but they pushed through, back toward the elevator. They passed where they’d stashed their bags before heading into the throne room. Annabeth hadn’t had anything with her on Mount Othrys, so there were just two.
Thalia picked up hers. Annabeth hesitated, then picked up Percy’s backpack. It was blue, of course. There was a little pin of a hippocampus that Tyson had made him stuck to the front of it. That made her want to cry. She pressed her face to the bag, wondering if it would smell like him, but it just smelled like night air and horsehair from the pegasus flight from San Francisco.
Sitting right at the top of the bag was her invisibility cap. Annabeth picked it up, hesitating. Percy had looked after it well. It was clean and in shape. He must’ve used it on their quest, but he’d fixed the sizing back to fit her head.
“He used that to sneak out,” Thalia said. “He wasn’t supposed to be on the quest. Zoë didn’t want him there because he was a boy, but he refused to just stay behind while you were gone. He followed us on Blackjack. I ran straight into him in the Air and Space Museum while he was invisible.”
Annabeth made a high-pitched noise. Thalia put her arm back around her before she collapsed.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Annabeth threw her invisibility cap to the side. It sailed farther than she’d expected, disappearing somewhere into the crowds of people just beyond their little nook. She didn’t look to see where it landed.
Thalia looked startled, but she didn’t question it. Together, they headed for the elevator.
Where to go next was a surprisingly difficult question.
Athena had told her to go back to camp. That was where Annabeth’s feet made to take her. But outside the Empire State Building, she paused. Olympus hung in the air high above her head, like an anvil ready to drop.
Instead of going to camp, she went to find a bus that would take her west. She considered trying to whistle for the pegasi, but that was Percy’s trick, and it made all the parts of her hurt to think about. Besides, Annabeth didn’t want to have to explain what had happened to Blackjack. She didn’t even want to explain it to Sally.
It made her nearly start shaking all over again. Sally had trusted her. She’d believed that Annabeth would look after her son. And now he was dead.
She let herself think the word. Let it drop in her mind. Dead.
Percy was dead. Grover was comatose. Her two closest friends were gone.
Thalia was supposed to be gone too, off to join the Hunters, but she hadn’t left yet. She kept trailing behind Annabeth, not asking her any questions. When she bought a ticket on the bus heading west, she bought one too.
“Where are we going?” she asked once they’d taken their seats.
Annabeth tried to think of a way to phrase it.
If she went back to camp, she would have to explain what had happened. Athena had been right: Chiron would understand her logic, not Annabeth’s. He had always been there for Annabeth before, but he’d always been on the gods’ side before, too. No matter how fond he’d been of Percy, he wouldn’t condemn this. And then Annabeth would have to go back to Athena’s cabin, sleep under Athena’s watchful gaze, corral and lead her siblings, Athena’s children, as the Head Athena Counsellor…
Annabeth had made her life a temple to Athena. There was no wall she could turn to for shelter that didn’t have her mark on it.
Except, she thought of what she’d seen on Mount Othrys: walls reforming out of nothing, like they’d always been there. Like something was rising that you never could have expected. And what she’d never expected was her dad swooping over them in his biplane to fend off a monster army so they could escape.
They’d hugged awkwardly after that. He’d told her she always had a home with him.
Annabeth wiped her tears away from her eyes. “I want my dad.”
Thalia’s lips thinned. Annabeth couldn’t tell why. Concern? Surprise? She let out a breath. “Alright. Back to San Francisco, then.”
They went. It was a surprisingly peaceful trip, considering they were two teenage demigods, one of them a child of the Big Three. Annabeth tried not to compare it to her trip cross-country with Percy and Grover and failed.
It was suspicious, how peaceful it was.
When they got off the bus, before they took off on the next leg of their trip, they burned a shroud for Percy. Thalia had a drachma; Annabeth had one of Percy’s spare t-shirts from his bag. She’d torn it up on the bus and woven it into something more like a shroud, ignoring the fact she only knew how to weave because it was one of those skills all children of Athena had to learn in arts and crafts. She had never enjoyed it. She enjoyed it even less now.
They held Percy’s funeral around the back of the bus station, borrowing a lighter from one of the men smoking there. When he saw them burning stuff, he tried to object, but Annabeth threatened him with her knife and he backed away.
Thalia didn’t try to get Annabeth to talk about it. She didn’t seem to want to talk about it herself. Again, Annabeth was struck by the fact that Thalia and Percy had apparently become close on that quest. She’d hugged him in front of everyone. And now she was grieving too.
“I’m the only survivor,” she whispered to herself once, when she thought Annabeth was asleep on her shoulder. “Bianca, Zoë, Percy, Grover… they’re all gone. It’s just me. And Artemis.”
The moonlight flared through the bus windows when Thalia said her name. Even Annabeth could tell that, with her eyes closed.
When they got to San Francisco, after days of stewing in their own misery, fast food bought en route, and the questionable smell of bus toilets, Annabeth felt like an automaton. She realised she didn’t actually know where her dad’s new house was. She had never bothered memorising the address.
Luckily, Thalia did. She led them there. When they knocked on the door at nearly one in the morning, it was Annabeth’s stepmother who answered, sleepy and irritable. She looked at them both in surprise, but she did her best to soften her gaze when she met Annabeth’s eye. “Annabeth! Are you alright?”
Annabeth averted her gaze. Kindness from her dad was one thing. Kindness from this woman was another.
Her stepmother seemed to recognise that. “Frederick!” she called, pursuing her lips. “It’s Annabeth!”
She heard him run.
Then he was in front of her. His hair was mussed from sleep, his pyjamas decorate with cartoon planes, but he took one look at her and frowned. “Annabeth? Oh!” He didn’t hesitate to hug her back when she flung herself at him.
He gave Thalia a quizzical look over her head. “Percy died,” Thalia said shortly.
“Oh,” her dad said. Even her stepmother made a sad sound.
Annabeth clung to him tighter.
It didn’t work.
Of course it didn’t. They’d been fighting for so many years—why would her mortal parents step up now, when she needed them most? The only reason she’d given them so many chances in the first place was because Percy was the biggest optimist in the world and had the best mom in the world. He seemed to think he could fix anything so long as there was love.
And he probably could. But Annabeth couldn’t. Not without him.
Frederick tried. He made all her favourite meals. He bought her a stuffed toy of a dog just like the elderly dog they’d had when she was little; she’d pretended she was too old for it, then found herself unable to part with it for days. When she woke up screaming from a nightmare, Thalia always got there first—they were sharing a room, after all—but her dad wasn’t far behind. Hugging him didn’t make the awful things in the world go away, but at least it soothed the screaming child inside her that had wanted this all those years ago. A belated Christmas passed with more gifts—more thoughtful gifts—than Annabeth had ever had before.
That didn’t mean it was enough.
No one could change their nature. Frederick Chase was as insular and obsessed with toy soldiers as ever. His emotional tact hadn’t improved. He tried to make small talk with Thalia and instantly failed—“Where are those others who came here with you and Percy?” And when Annabeth’s stepmom asked how Percy had died, quietly and tenderly, apparently she hadn’t expected Thalia and Annabeth to break her reverence with the brutal truth that he had been executed.
Matthew and Bobby didn’t help. They got under their feet. They were loud. The mess they left behind made it even more difficult for Annabeth to think than it already was, and Annabeth needed to think. She needed to figure out what to do next. When she shouted at her half-brothers, and her stepmom came to their defence by pointing out that Annabeth could be messy too, she just stormed away. Thalia followed her.
All the issues were human, though. Mortal. The trials and tribulations of messed up families. No monsters came near them.
Her dad tried to point it out. “Maybe it’s not as dangerous here as you thought,” he said hopefully. “You could stay indefinitely.”
“It is dangerous here,” Annabeth said flatly. “Someone’s watching us.”
The colour drained from his face. “Watching us?”
“Us,” she emphasised, gesturing to her and Thalia.
Athena tried to visit. One day, when Annabeth stood in the garden and absorbed the rays of a sun who refused to accept winter’s grip, she appeared before her. Her appearance was mundane, approachable: jeans, a white t-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, old enough to be Annabeth’s mother but not old.
She held out her invisibility cap like a peace offering. Annabeth swatted it away. “What do you want?”
Athena’s nostrils flared, but she kept her face serene. “Chiron is deeply concerned about you.”
“I know.” She and Thalia had spent weeks waving through Iris messages before they could connect, hearing wait, no, please— through the haze before it faded.
Her mother’s grey gaze raked from the unbrushed, unwashed curls atop Annabeth’s head, down her pyjama-clad body to her slippers getting filthy in the dirt of the garden. Her eyes arrested on the dog stuffed toy in her hand. Annabeth felt embarrassment redden her cheeks like rouge.
“There is much to be concerned about,” she observed. Her tone was probably the closest to gentle that a battle strategist could ever manage.
“What do you want?” Annabeth demanded. She knew she was hardly the image of the warrior daughter Athena had tried to create. Some days, even Thalia couldn’t get her out of bed.
“Come back to camp,” Athena said. “There are more people there to watch over you. Especially since Thalia Grace will soon need to return to the Hunt. Artemis is patient with her Huntresses, but no god’s patience is infinite.”
“Watch over me?”
“Your father is a genius, but he is not known for his emotional depth. I cannot fathom where you get yours from. Chiron—”
“I’m sorry too sappy for you.”
Athena’s face went blank. She was very clearly trying to control herself. “This grief will pass. You will understand why it happened one day. You are the pride of my children.” After a pause, she added, “I know what it is to lose a close friend.”
“You killed him!”
“And I am sorry that it was necessary, child,” she said. “But it was necessary. Take what measures you must in your grief, but it would be wiser to do so within the safe borders of camp, where your needs can be met—”
“I need Percy!” she shouted. “I need someone who loves me!” She sucked in a breath. Her eyes were weeping; her nose ran. She wiped it on the back of her hand, sure she looked utterly pitiful. Pathetic. Why Athena was still bothering with her, she didn’t know. This was no child to be proud of.
“I don’t need your wisdom,” she got out. “Not when it does this. I will never understand, Mother. Never. I swear it on the Styx.”
Thunder rumbled in the cloudless sky. Athena sighed. “We have had enough broken oaths, Annabeth.”
“I won’t break it.”
“You will.” She sounded mournful. Then she was gone.
Annabeth’s invisibility cap was left sitting on the grass. Rather than acknowledge it, she turned around and marched back inside, tracking dirt over her stepmom’s carpets.
The other shoe finally dropped when Luke knocked on her door.
He still looked awful. As bad as he had on that mountain. His blond hair was greyer than her dad’s, his skin seemed to be permanently sheened with sweat, and whenever he spoke, it was with a slight catch to his breath, like he was out of shape. Or in pain.
Thalia was the one to answer, as all of Annabeth’s family were either at work or school. She shouted at Luke and pulled Aegis on him, but Luke only cringed back half a step; he didn’t flee altogether. “Get out,” she ordered. “Get out!”
“Is she alright?” he asked. Annabeth heard his voice from where she was in the living room, trying to read a book on San Franciscan architecture her dad had bought her, and stiffened.
“I’ll throw you off the mountain properly this time!”
“Come on, Thalia,” Luke pleaded. “How is she? I heard what happened.”
“If you say I told you so—”
“I wasn’t gonna.”
Annabeth was sure he had his hands up in that mock surrender he always favoured, but she didn’t know. Suddenly, she had to know. Shutting her book quietly, she rose to her feet, using the stealth he had taught her to pad to the living room door and peer around the doorframe to watch them down the corridor.
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s fine. I’ll prove it. I just want to talk to—” Annabeth’s stealth meant nothing in the face of Luke’s gaze. He’d always been able to see her. His eyes landed on her, over Thalia’s shoulder. “Annabeth?”
Thalia started, glancing behind her at Annabeth then back at Luke. She didn’t lower Aegis, but she didn’t move to block Luke’s gaze.
Luke took that as the act of grace that it was. He scanned Annabeth from head to toe, likely taking in the same depressed funk that Athena had observed with such critical eyes, and his brows furrowed in concern. He swallowed.
“I heard what happened,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected from him. “You hated Percy.”
He grimaced. “I was scared of him,” he admitted, with more candour than Annabeth had ever heard him use. It caught her even more off guard. “But you loved him. I’m sorry.” Then, like it was hard for him to admit: “He was a good kid. He didn’t deserve any of that.”
Annabeth stared at Luke. Her vision blurred. Luke started toward her, but Thalia blocked his way again, so Annabeth walked forward instead. When she wrapped her arms around his torso, he hugged her back. Thalia hissed something, but Annabeth ignored her.
She’d known Luke wasn’t evil. He was manipulated. Used. But he wasn’t lost. He could still—he had still—
“Come back,” she begged him, her face in his chest. “Come back to us all.”
His arms tightened around her. “I can’t,” he said. “Especially not after… I can’t come back to gods who would do this.”
“Luke…” Thalia warned. He snapped his mouth shut.
After a few moments, presumably after Thalia’s glare eased, he finished: “But I can stay,” he said. “For now.”
Maybe it was a poor idea. The owls that Annabeth could constantly hear hooting at night seemed to think so. They rapped at the windows and divebombed Luke’s head when he walked up the garden path day in, day out, but he didn’t let that deter him. He came to visit every day. At least he actually managed to comfort her.
Annabeth didn’t notice when he started to proselytise. She just noticed when the seed of hatred in her heart, for her mother and the gods who’d listened to her, grew vines and thorns. Some days, she realised, they choked her lungs and pricked her heart. Her chest hurt. She couldn’t breathe with how much she hated them. The thought of going back to camp was suddenly intolerable not because of Athena’s presence there, but because of Mr D’s, too. All of them.
Usually, Luke said nothing at all. The implications lay in the silences between sobs, and the dry cheeks between tears. He never claimed to like Percy, but he said a lot of nice things about him for someone who’d once hated him. Annabeth had known that he could change.
At some point, her tears had to run dry. February broke, and Annabeth realised it was Sally’s birthday. She knew the date because Percy had written to her the previous year about his plans to celebrate it, full of blue birthday cake and the fanciest perfume he could afford with the pocket money he’d been saving. Carefully, meticulously, she’d memorised the date.
Where was Sally now? Annabeth hadn’t told her about what had happened, and now she regretted it. It had been a cowardly thing to do. Sally had deserved to hear it from someone who’d loved Percy too. Who would have told her? Chiron, who wasn’t there? It wouldn’t have been Poseidon. He showed up for Percy more than most gods showed up for their children, but he still never showed up in person. Not like Athena had.
That thought was what had sparked the rage. Why hadn’t he been there more? Why hadn’t he saved Percy? But she remembered his look of devastation, how he’d leapt forward to try to block the bolt with his own body, and the spark didn’t blaze. Instead, it jumped somewhere else: to the person who’d thrown the bolt in the first place.
She had hated her mother comfortably. Athena was her mother. Hers to love; hers to hate. But Zeus was the God King. Only Thalia, his daughter, had the privilege of having complicated feelings about him. Which meant that this was Annabeth Chase’s first rebellion against the gods she once idolised: she began to hate Zeus.
Thalia did too. Annabeth, who usually prided herself on noticing things few others did, didn’t notice when she began to turn, either. She only saw Luke and Thalia talking together, long into the night. It was nostalgic. She felt like she was seven years old again, with nothing left to lose.
She was seven years old again. She did have nothing left to lose.
She thought about Sally Jackson celebrating her birthday alone.
Of course, she talked to Thalia first. And when Thalia agreed, Annabeth thought there was no way she could be wrong. The world was broken, if something like this could happen with no consequences. Annabeth would fix it. She had to fix it. She owed that much to Percy. To Sally. To Grover, still rotting in his coma at camp.
When Luke next visited, they followed him back to Mount Othrys.