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Percy skimmed the rubric for his biology project and put little check marks next to each box that he had ticked. He still needed to format his citations, but the guide book for that was in the drawer of his desk back at the dorm, so he’d get to it later.
Pleased, he set the rubric down and smiled at Annabeth’s scowling face.
“It’s not fair,” she grumbled, a Greek-Latin dictionary spread out in front of her on the library table. They were six weeks into their first semester, and Percy had picked up Latin by the end of the first week. It beat reading in English, that was for sure. “Are you sure you’re not at least a little bit Neptune’s?”
“Not as far as Dad knows,” Percy replied easily, bumping their shoulders together.
His girlfriend sighed, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. “Why are you fluent in Latin? You don’t even like reading in Greek.” Which was true. He was conversant in Ancient Greek, but he wasn’t going to start reading Ancient Greek translations for fun the way Annabeth and Nico did. “None of the Romans picked up Greek quickly, and none of us Greeks picked up Latin easily. Why are you different?” She narrowed her gray eyes like he was a puzzle to solve.
“Story of my life,” he muttered, but Percy had known her too long to be put-off by that look. He leaned over and pecked her lips, which made her give him a half-hearted scowl. “Maybe it’s to compensate for how shitty my luck is and having to live through two great prophecies and two great wars in high school? Plus the fact that I had to get those stupid recommendation letters.”
“No,” Annabeth said seriously. “That wouldn’t make any sense. Hmm… you said your mother met Hecate as a child. I wonder if Sally is a legacy.” She tilted her head, considering.
Percy paused where he had been shoving his textbooks into his backpack. “What? No. Mom’s a clear-sighted mortal. You think she’s a secret Roman legacy?” He shook his head. “No way.”
“No way, what?” Gwen asked, setting her cat-patterned backpack down at their table.
Percy flashed her a smile. Gwen was a senior at NRU now, but she looked out for Percy and Annabeth the way she had looked after the legionnaires during her time as Centurion of the Fifth. She had helped them get their feet under them when school started, and Percy was eternally grateful.
“Annabeth thinks I might secretly be a Roman legacy. She’s just being a sore loser about the fact that I’m better at Latin.” Here, he stuck his tongue out, teasing.
Gwen didn’t laugh at the idea, in fact, she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Percy. He stopped laughing.
“Have you tried talking to your mother in Latin?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Next time you call her, try it. See what happens.”
“You can’t really think I’m part Roman. I’m as Greek as they get! You remember how the lares reacted when I first got to the Twelfth Legion. Graecus this and Graecus that.”
Gwen snorted. “True, you do look rather Greek. Wild, like the sea. But, you picked up Latin faster than Frank did, and he’s a son of Mars.”
Percy scowled and crossed his arms. The idea of being a legacy made him uneasy. If he was, then that meant Estelle was, too. And that was not okay. Estelle was supposed to be mortal. Safe. Free of godly bullshit.
If they really were legacies, would it be better to know?
“Percy?”
He blinked up at the concerned faces of Annabeth and Gwen.
“You okay?”
There was no way his mother knew, if she was a legacy. She would have told Percy. What if asking her about it put her and Estelle in danger? He voiced his worries, and the girls nodded.
“It’s true that some less powerful demigods and legacies can go their whole lives without knowing,” Gwen allowed.
“And the less they know, the less likely they are to attract monsters,” Annabeth agreed. She sighed. “If only there was a way to check, like a divine genealogy course.”
Gwen snapped her fingers and stood. “That’s it!”
They looked up at her, and she gave a sheepish grin. “My girlfriend works at the University archive upstairs. There, they store the Liber Sanguinis Divini.”
“The book of divine blood?” Percy and Annabeth asked. It was simple enough Latin. Annabeth still rolled her eyes at him fondly and then added, “Isn’t it super restricted?”
“That depends on who you know and why you want to use it. Come on! Mina will help.”
Percy and Annabeth shrugged, putting away their books and highlighters and following after Gwen.
While Percy was a frequent visitor of the campus library for its study tables and cafe, he had never ventured upstairs to the archive yet.
Gwen directed them to a room with glass walls and the most filing cabinets Percy had ever seen in one place. Further back was a huge bronze and gold vault, the kind he associated with banks.
Poking her head into the archive, Gwen called out, “Mina?”
“Back by the Breton records,” called a distracted voice.
Gwen nodded them inside with her head and then led the way to a purple-haired woman in black overalls and a striped shirt. When Mina stood, she was taller than Percy with a pair of chunky, black boots that Nico would have coveted. A little trans flag pin stood out amidst a few comic book and literary pins on her overalls.
“Oh, new friends, hello!” Mina blinked at them behind her rounded glasses and stuck out a warm, brown hand that Percy and Annabeth each shook. “I’m Mina Etienne, Legacy of Venus.”
“Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena.”
“Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon.”
Mina snickered. “We all know who you are, former praetor. It is a pleasure to meet you. One day, I hope I can add your story to our archives.”
Percy rubbed his neck, flustered. “Uh… I guess I hadn’t thought about my story as part of history.”
Mina rolled her eyes playfully and elbowed her girlfriend. “The two-time hero of Olympus didn’t think his story was worth preserving.”
“Percy is a sweet thing,” Gwen agreed, a hint of good-natured teasing in her smile. “Humble, too.”
“Unless he’s gloating about being better at Latin,” Annabeth agreed.
“Ah, right!” Gwen turned to Mina. “Can we look Percy up in The Book? His aptitude for Latin language has us wondering if he might have some Roman blood in him after all.
Mina’s brown eyes took on an intrigued gleam. “I think that can be arranged. Follow me, ah—but don’t touch anything or I’ll get in trouble with the Dean.”
Percy held his hands up innocently. “No-touching. Got it.”
The archivist flashed him a grin before leading them towards the vault.
After typing a complex series of codes, entering her fingerprint and scanning her Legion tattoo, the vault door finally creaked open for Mina.
Annabeth breathed out a quiet, “Whoa,” as thousands of documents stacked upon metal shelves came into view.
Her hands twitched, eyes twinkling with a lust for knowledge, so Percy grabbed one hand and squeezed.
She blushed and stared at the floor. “Right, thanks.” Then she looked at Mina. “This place is incredible!”
“The most complete documents of Olympian antiquity outside of Olympus itself,” Mina boasted. “Graduate students have limited access for research,” she offered.
“Noted.”
Percy could see the gears turning as Annabeth decided to pursue a graduate degree at NRU in real time. She’d probably be halfway through her Master’s by the time he finished his pre-requisites for a Bachelor’s—as soon as she got halfway decent at Latin, of course.
“This is an impressive vault,” Annabeth praised. “Made by Hep-ah-Vulcan?” she asked.
“One of his daughters along with the engineer core,” answered Mina. “It’s designed to be completely fireproof. Even the tiniest hint of smoke, and the vault will shut and suck all the air out of the chamber.”
“Smart,” Annabeth praised, as Percy started quietly freaking out and wanting to get out of the death vacuum vault. He did not want to die surrounded by books. Nico would never let him forget it.
“Ah, here we go!” Mina pulled on a pair of white, cloth gloves and carefully picked up a glowing, leather-bound tome that was hardly thicker than a graphic novel.
She picked it up as if it weighed a hundred pounds and then staggered over to a table.
The wood creaked under the book’s apparent weight, and Percy squinted, wondering if the Mist was hiding the book’s true form or if it was simply enchanted.
Mina turned back to him, the golden light of the book catching on the lenses of her glasses. “When I open the book, speak your name, and your lineage will appear.”
Percy gulped and nodded. He had faced danger, battle, and even death countless times. And yet, he felt oddly trepidatious at the moment, his heart pounding. Could he really be a Roman legacy? Could his mom and sister really be part of this world, too?
Annabeth squeezed his shoulder, grounding him.
Mina opened the book, and he said, “Perseus Jackson.”
Wind swept through the room, bringing the scent of sea and the sound of children laughing. Percy’s eyes closed, and he saw flashes of the prophetic dreams that had guided him on each quest.
When he opened his eyes, he knew that he would find more than one godly name written in his family tree.
Mina’s friendly face had taken on a serious edge, though her eyes were still warm. “Come.”
Percy kept his hands behind his back and read the Latin easily.
He saw his name, descending from Poseidon and Sally Jackson. Under his mother’s name, he saw Estelle’s, and his heart caught in his throat.
He swallowed it back down and read further, finding his grandmother’s name, and above her… “Carmenta,” he read. “My great-grandmother.”
Gwen let out a low whistle. “That certainly explains why you’re freakishly good at Latin.”
“What do you mean?” Percy couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from the golden ink. He was a legacy. Estelle and his mom were, too. A slight nausea churned his stomach.
“Carmenta is a very Roman goddess,” Gwen said. “She literally created the Latin alphabet, and her son Evander led his people to the banks of the Tiber. Carmenta’s prophecy foresaw that Rome would rise there one day.”
“She’s also the goddess of childbirth, protector of mothers and children,” Mina added. “New Rome hasn’t had any of her descendants around since, oh, maybe the 1890s?”
“So there are no helpful cousins I can talk to,” Percy surmised.
“No,” Mina agreed, sympathetically.
“A prophetic goddess who created written Latin,” Annabeth mused. “No wonder.”
Percy laughed, finally looking away from the book. “Satisfied?”
She grinned back at him and draped her arms around his shoulders. “Very.”
“I guess I have another stop the next time I go to Temple Hill,” Percy said. He wasn’t in the right headspace to process being a Roman legacy, but he would concede that it was true and it made sense.
“Ah, make sure you’re not wearing leather or any other animal skin when you visit your foremother’s temple. She would not be pleased,” Gwen warned.
“Thanks for the heads-up.” Percy said, fingering his Camp necklace. He looked around at the vault. “Now can we get out of here? With my luck, a fire spirit will appear any second and then this vault will kill us all.”
Annabeth made a face but didn’t protest as they headed back to the main archives.
After bidding Gwen and Mina goodbye, Percy and Annabeth went to the cafe and grabbed hot chocolate and cookies. They talked around the discovery, instead discussing their respective projects and courses and what they planned to do for their group project in Siege Weapon Mechanics.
Percy desperately missed his mother’s blue cookies. He’d have to call her tomorrow just to hear her voice. He missed her a lot, especially now, but the sun was going down, and she and Paul were probably asleep given the time difference and the baby.
Eventually, Annabeth left to start on her next essay. Percy stayed in the garden outside the cafe, breathing in the flowers. Fall would start soon, but the air was still cool and dry.
He looked up at the outline of the Huntress, just coming into view as the constellations rose with the sun’s setting.
When he looked down, he was unsurprised to find a dark-haired woman sharing his table. She wore a ruffled, red blouse and a dark skirt, and she sipped tea from a porcelain cup.
She smiled at him, her eyes fond and dark. Had she not looked so distinctly motherly, he would almost say she reminded him of Hestia.
“Lady Carmenta,” he greeted.
“Hello, Perseus. Great-Grandmother would suffice.”
“Very well, Great-Grandmother. Please, call me Percy.”
Her smile softened. “Percy. It has been so long since I have spoken with any of my mortal descendants.”
“Do most of them know about you?”
She shook her head. “I am a minor goddess. If my children and theirs do not know of me, they often go their whole lives without facing the dangers a child of a stronger god would.”
“So you don’t tell them.”
“No,” she said, looking at the cup in her hands sadly. “So long as they are safe, I will not put them in danger.” She looked right at him. “You understand this, do you not?”
Percy thought of his mother and sister, safe in Manhattan, unaware. “I do. But…”
“But?”
“If Estelle is ever in danger from this world, will you claim her?”
Carmenta reached over and patted his cheek. “Yes, child. Should the need arise, I will always be there for my descendants. Including you.” Her face turned into something equal parts fond and forlorn, “I am sorry for the tapestry the Fates have woven you. There was little I could do other than sending dreams.”
His breath hitched. “That was you?”
“Some of them. Some came from your father’s domain. Prophecy belonged to the sea once.”
“Well, thank you, Great-Grandmother. It helped.”
“Good.” She stared at him as if memorizing his face. “Now that you know of me, please visit. My temple is open to you.”
“Of course,” he agreed as she sipped her tea. “Do you have a preferred tribute?”
“I am fond of most fruits, though I would be greatly pleased if you have pictures of my granddaughter and my great-granddaughter.”
“Huh. I never would have guessed a goddess would want family photos.”
Carmenta shrugged elegantly and then stood, her cup empty. “I am not most goddesses, Percy.”
She smoothed down his hair and gave him one last pat on the cheek before vanishing into the night.
Percy drained the last chocolate dregs of his own drink and stood, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.
When he cracked open his textbook later that night, he whispered a quiet prayer of thanks to Carmenta. College was definitely a lot easier when he could read the language.