Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Returning to camp after a quest is always a strange experience.

The night at the hotel had been good for them. Lee had been the one driving the car that collected them from Wolf House. After having Leo order the waiting Festus back to camp, Lee had taken them straight to San Francisco, steadfastly refusing to turn around when Piper and Leo started panicking that they’d left Jason there and what if he made the wrong choice?

They only stopped arguing with him when Lee spoke over the top of them to tell them it was Percy, Nico and Clarisse who were speaking to Jason, not a god.

Piper spent the rest of the drive firmly reminding herself that they have the best chance of getting through to Jason. If even they can’t get through to him, wiping his memory is the kinder option, as much as she loathes it.

When Lee changed the subject and asked if she wanted to see her father, she’d refused. Lee’d been far too understanding and only told her that Dad was doing okay, he believes he’d taken something that caused a bad reaction. Someone - she’s assuming Apollo - is making sure Dad’s ‘bender’ doesn’t hit the media.

The only other decision Piper needs to make is about Dad’s assistant. Lee’s face was incredibly pained as he told her Medea had contacted Apollo directly and offered to ensure that Jane was replaced with a trustworthy assistant who would keep Dad out of whatever was coming. Apollo was the one who gave Medea the drakons, and she’s under his protection, not Helios’s, which solves one mystery. No chance she killed her kids if she’s still under Apollo’s protection.

Piper’s beginning to think the only sorceresses who manage to retain their immortality are the ones under the patronage of gods.

According to Lee, Medea is so happy with Piper saving her drakons and killing Khione, she feels it’s the least she could do. Lee asked Piper rather pleadingly that she try not to befriend any more sorceresses. Leo loudly agreed with this. Lee’s eyes were a bit too perceptive when he added that if she could not encourage the monsters she meets to get involved in the mortal world, he’d really appreciate it.

Piper couldn’t help her smirk. “She having fun with the MLM’s?”

“She told Dad she intends to be crowned the Queen of the Girlbosses. Dad looked ready to cry.”

Excellent. Piper was tempted to arrange a field trip for her siblings to Medea’s department store. If Percy can get away with visiting Medusa for all those years, the Aphrodite kids deserve their own mascot, right?

Then again, she should probably double-check that Medea isn’t going to kill them first?

When Piper asked Lee if she should agree to Medea’s offer, he’d told her that only Piper can make that decision. He says that no matter what, Medea won’t use it against her. The worst she’d do is recall the new assistant and leave Dad in the lurch.

“Wait, why wouldn’t she use it against me?”

“Uh, that is a long story that you don’t need to know. Let’s leave it at Dad and her having a history, and my being somewhat involuntarily involved in it? I can say definitively that as long as I’m alive, she won’t use the assistant against you. Now that she has nothing to blackmail the sorceress with, you’ll also be protected from retaliation whenever the snow nymph reforms.”

Well, that’s clear as mud. It’s definitely something Piper wasn’t going to ask about, so she told Lee she was fine with the new assistant. Any protection Dad can get will help.

She’s totally going to plan a Cabin Ten field trip to Medea’s store too.

Once they got to the hotel, Lee had fussed over them and sent them to clean up. Mum delivered their packs as promised, plus some sleepover supplies. The moment Piper returned, clean and finally in comfortable clothes, Lee had watched her too closely until she ate the ambrosia he gave her, and she didn’t argue when he handed her a laptop and sent her to a bedroom to talk to Silena.

The video call made her feel a little more settled. She could’ve used Iris Messaging, except she hates feeling like someone’s listening in. Percy flat-out refuses to use it because of that.

Piper cried all over the laptop while Silena promised she’d be home in the morning, and Drew stuck her head in the frame to say she’ll even lighten up on her rule about zebras on the couch, just this once.

The tears were incredibly cathartic. When she calmed down, she told them how worried she was about Jason, that she hadn’t realised he’d all but been forced not to feel emotions and how much it had screwed him over.

Especially when he’s clearly an incredible fighter when he wants to be. Untrained, and too reckless. Yet, while he doesn’t have Percy’s off-the-cuff creativity, he has the ability to fight with his powers and his spear. It means he has a lot of potential. If only he’d realise that.

They’d agreed and promised they’d sort things out. If Jason chooses to stay with them, they won’t keep anything back. They’ll treat him like they did Thalia before she joined the Hunt and give him a chance to learn how they do things.

Silena spoke thoughtfully about a cultural exchange and the campers learning about Rome. Piper’s unsure whether Jason knows all that much about Rome. New Rome sounds decidedly un-Roman the more he talks about it.

She’d felt so much better after that call, and she thanked Lee when she returned the laptop. She’d attempted to apologise for not trying harder to let him know about everything. He’d waved her off. Said it was the best option they had, and while he’s good at some things, he’s less great at letting campers find their way without him hovering.

He’d given her a small smile then and told her how proud he was of her. That Piper’s already a hero, and he knows she’s going to do amazing things at camp. He truly believes she can handle this. Lee assured that he’ll always be only a phone call away if she needs anything.

She’d not known what to say to that. Like, sure, Piper is aware she has decisions to make, and they need to be made soon. Lacy, Mitchell and Valentina need stability, and a Cabin Head getting herself involved in quests and the return of the gigantes, not to mention the Roman thing, is not going to end well for them.

Plus, Piper’s eighteen next summer, and they already have a Cabin Counsellor. Lacy will probably be Cabin Head. Piper hasn’t decided where she’s going.

Lee had laughed at her befuddled face and told her she didn’t need to do anything tonight. He encouraged her to get some sleep, and she’d nodded dumbly, thoughts racing.

Then Jason had walked through the door, Percy, Nico and Clarisse following behind, and Piper had burst into tears all over again.

Leo’d heard the commotion and come barrelling out, shirt sticking to him because he hadn’t bothered drying off from his super long shower. Or he’d been distracted and only gotten in the shower ten minutes ago. With Leo, anything is possible.

He’d thrown himself at Jason and hugged him, loudly declaring how glad he was that they got to keep him! They’re going to have so much fun, and just you wait, Jason will see that Greeks aren’t that scary after all!

Leo yelling all of that while clinging to Jason like a koala is a bit scary, if you ask Piper.

Before the quest, all of them had been careful to keep a clear distance from Jason at all times. It’d been obvious he was terrified, and he was armed. Piper’s thinking that rule will be forgotten as soon as they return. While they give Percy his space for obvious reasons, the rest of the year-rounders really don’t believe in the concept of personal space. That should be interesting.

Once he’d detached Leo from Jason, Lee spent a few minutes talking to Leo, and an even shorter time speaking softly but seriously to Jason, before he gathered up his chicks and left the questers to it.

Jason had glanced around, the baffled expression back on his face. He was exhausted and lost, beaten down to a fine paste and ground some more.

Piper could give him one piece of stability back. She handed him his phone, fully charged, and he turned it on, visibly cringing as it vibrated non-stop with the number of messages coming through.

“Crazy ex or something?”

Jason scrolled through the phone and answered absently.

“No, Octavian. I think he knew Lee was coming? He’s scared and begging me to come home. I know I can’t. If I go back, I’ll step in, and I’m kind of desperately hoping this’ll be good for him? Gods, if I’ve made the wrong choice…”

Jason glared at his phone, lips pursed and face completely torn.

Then, the eye of the beholder flickered and showed the same image Piper had seen during the fight with Porphyrion. Aragorn, crowned and standing tall. The true King of Gondor on his rightful throne.

Huh. No wonder she kept seeing him as Aragorn. Those consuls of his have definitely been making use of having a son of Jupiter under their thumbs.

Piper’s thinking that’s all over now. If the eye of the beholder is right, Jason’s decided the Roman camp belongs to him, not them.

Though she really should check.

“You okay with whatever Lee said to you?”

Jason’s attention snapped back to the present, eyes focusing. He was really out of it, huh?

“Oh, yeah, that was fine. He promised that no matter what happens, he’ll make sure Octavian is looked after. Was just thinking how weird it is that he’s the one I’m most worried about in all this. I don’t even like the guy!”

Both Piper and Leo collapsed into laughter. Leo had grabbed Jason’s arm and dragged him over to a couch, shoving him down on it and then throwing himself onto the couch beside him, making the whole thing shake.

“Dude, he’s a seer, yeah? Not even a demigod? Not sure if it’s ‘cause of tradition or if it’s hardwired into demigods. Either way, we’re all protective of our seers. Only reason they let Prof near you is because he has powers.”

Piper cheerfully added, “Yup. Poor Rachel hasn’t been allowed near camp since you arrived. It’s driving her nuts.”

“Rachel?”

“She’s the Oracle of Delphi!”

“Oh.”

Piper had happily spent the evening bullying Jason into cleaning up, and eating proper food. He’d been so out of it he hadn’t even baulked when she shoved both boys into the bedroom and followed them in, getting things set up for a sleepover.

Jason didn’t even protest when she pinched his phone again, though this time she only left it out of easy reach on a dresser.

She finds it kind of completely hilarious the way campers remember gender when a bed is involved, and never when they’re camping out and all crammed together for warmth. Social norms are so gods damn weird.

When a quest has involved a lot of risking of lives and death-defying stunts, the questers do better if they aren’t immediately returned to camp and sent their separate ways. Less jarring. Given that Jason’s been through the absolute ringer, she’s thinking it doubly applies to him.

He’d blinked stupidly at her when she returned wearing flannel pyjamas, then shrugged to himself and fallen face first into the bed, asleep in seconds.

That would be why Lee started encouraging questers to take an extra night before returning to their cabins. Sleep comes easier when you know your questmates are right beside you and still alive. Facing down death multiple times a day has an impact.

The next morning, they pack up and walk the mile down to the water. As curious as Piper is to know what the mortals see when they look at the three hippocampi, she’s much more interested in going home.

Jason spends a lot of time gawking at the hippocampi. She can see that he’s enthralled and incredibly tempted, yet he’s still hesitating. Finally, he turns to Piper. “I was under the impression these belong to the Sea King? And that he doesn’t like my father?”

Leo cackles. “Yeah, but we just saved the Unseen Queen? If he didn’t approve of you using the hippocampi, he wouldn’t have sent them. This is the fastest way back, I really don’t want to deal with airports, man.”

Yep. All of them use planes when they have to, except for Percy, Nico and Bianca because Zeus is a petty bitch. Unfortunately, the Mist has a nasty habit of making their weapons look like more ‘acceptable’ forms of weaponry. Back when the war was only barely over, Piper had to do some very quick charmspeak when the Mist turned Salos, still in hairpin form, into a grenade.

The Mist might hide divine things, it doesn’t make them any less lethal looking, though. Unfortunately. Trying to get home with their weaponry is a headache and a half. Hippocampi are definitely a better option.

Jason’s face breaks into his feral smile. “This may be the best day of my life! Which one do I get to ride?”

The hippocampi ride is quick, even if it’s also super wet, and the hippocampi leave them on the beach at camp a little after midday. The time zone thing means they effectively lose three hours during the hour-long hippocampi ride. It’s still the quickest way across the continent that doesn’t involve direct godly teleportation.

Jason spends the hour whooping loudly, while Leo sulks about Festus. The dragon left last night, and flying non-stop, he still won’t reach camp until tomorrow night. Leo definitely thinks the dragon should’ve been included in the fast transport options.

Especially when Jason’s eagle is standing on the beach waiting to greet them.

Yep, definitely a god.

They split up for their respective cabins, all drenched in saltwater and in desperate need of a shower, the eagle following barely a foot behind Jason. As amazing as the hippocampi are, Piper really wishes she could keep her clothes dry the way Percy and Georgie do.

Silena insists that Piper not worry about camp things today. That anything to do with running camp and demigods other than their siblings can wait until tomorrow. Today is about Piper returning home safe and sound from a quest.

There’s one thing she wants to get sorted today, though.

Once she’s clean and dry and before her younger siblings know she’s back, Piper pulls Drew aside for an uncomfortable conversation. Though Drew has definitely anticipated it. She’s always carried more than her share of the Cabin Head duties, and is weirdly accepting of Piper wanting to transition out of the role before she turns eighteen.

Piper gives her a dubious look, and Drew scoffs. “A big quest happening out of the blue? The Roman being dropped off by Sky Queen? Something’s coming, and you’re a warrior through and through. You know as well as I do that if you stay as Cabin Head, we won’t be able to keep the younger sibs out of it. We barely kept them out of the war.”

Piper feels like she’s been stabbed. The thing is, Drew’s not wrong. It was fine at first, Silena rode herd on them and made sure they stayed home. Then she got caught by Luke and ‘turned’ into a spy, and it was up to Drew and Piper to keep the younger kids away from camp while not letting on about what had happened to Silena.

“Lacy’s young, but she’ll learn. We’ve had Cabin Heads as young as twelve before, she’s fifteen in a few months. We can manage fine, you’ve got bigger things to handle. You gonna move to Cabin Three or Pallas House?”

“Percy says it’ll be a while yet before they’re back, so I haven’t really decided?”

“Fair enough, so you want to deal with the Cabin Head stuff now?”

“Yeah, I know Cabin Head is normally transferred without much fuss, but you know what the kids are like. Isn’t there some old rule about duels?”

Drew had cackled with glee and promised to organise things for Piper.

So now, Piper is sitting in the dining pavilion at the end of dinner, and Lacy is cheerfully holding a blunt training knife to her throat and challenging her to a duel for Cabin Head.

Mitchell and Valentina egg Lacy on, and the entire camp follows them out to the main arena.

Everyone knows this is for show more than anything else.

Piper, Jon, Drew and Silena tend to overshadow their siblings, and they’re fully aware of this. Silena is effectively Camp Mum. While she’s a daughter of Aphrodite, she’s also completely neutral when it comes to disputes. Drew is the older sister who puts her siblings first, no matter what. She fought in the war for all demigods, yet when push comes to shove, Drew’s focus is her siblings, and only her siblings.

Jonathon is adopted, which makes no difference to them. He fought in the war, and he can build terrifyingly lethal machines when he sets his mind to it. Like his siblings, his focus is relationships and providing safe spaces for his people. Jon oversees Nightshade Cabin. Even he has a bigger-than-life reputation these days, though he’s also an amazing big brother.

Piper is, well, Piper. An unusual daughter of Aphrodite who’s walking her own path.

It’s important their siblings don’t feel like they’ve been forgotten, like they aren’t as important as their older siblings.

The duel gives Lacy a chance to start her own story and feel like she’s earned Cabin Head. Which she has. She’s got some growing to do, but she’s got the basics. By the time summer rolls around and the camp’s overflowing with demigods, she’ll have found her feet. This duel is where it begins, where she starts to carve out her own space, separate from her overwhelming older siblings.

Piper grabs a couple of blunt daggers for herself and happily lets Lacy thoroughly trounce her in their ‘duel’.

Lacy’s improved heaps since she came back to camp after the war. She darts in and sweeps low, and Piper dodges her at first, then Lacy gets even more unpredictable and by the time Piper’s on her back on the ground, Lacy straddling her with her blunt dagger once again at Piper’s throat, she can truthfully tell Lacy it was an excellent match and an honourable win. Lacy’s the official new Cabin Head for Cabin Ten.

Lacy beams down at her, her braces flashing. “Thanks Piper! This is going to be awesome!”

Yes, it really is.

The campers slowly disperse, and Piper and her siblings head back to their cabin, Jon falling in with them. They set up in the favourite upstairs common area for a sleepover and gossip session, and Piper tries to ignore Drew and Jon watching her.

“Piper.” Drew’s voice is so full of disappointment.

“I promise. I’m going to talk things over. There are a lot of conversations I need to have. Not tonight, though. Tonight, I want a night with my siblings where things are normal and my world consists of only this room. Please, can I have that? Just for tonight?”

Drew agrees and leaves her alone, though Jon keeps watching her. Piper tells him they can talk tomorrow, and she knows she needs to speak with Damien. She needs to apologise for avoiding him, though she’ll stick with the child-friendly version.

Once the tension eases off, Drew wants to know if Piper had noticed that, “The Roman cuckoo’s gone all noble!”

Piper can’t help her giggles as she describes seeing Jason as the King of Gondor, and Drew announces with much aplomb that maybe she’ll ease up on him. For now.

The sleepover is exactly what she needs. The reminder that she has a family, and she’s welcome here. It eases the ache she feels over Dad. Over learning he’d known she was different, and he’d kept her at arm’s length because of it.

Percy and Lee always say that demigods stand between worlds and belong to none, that they belong to no-one but each other. Piper hates how right they are.

The next day is the quest party, and Jason has his usual bewildered look. Though, he’s definitely pleased too. Piper’s rather smug herself when she sees he’s wearing his glasses voluntarily.

Thalia drags him from activity to activity, refusing to let him out of her sight. Piper’s amused to see her prediction was correct, Thalia’s treating her baby brother like a climbing gym, and the rest of the campers are no better. They really don’t do well with acting all restrained and civilised and shit.

Piper’s day is less fun. The moment the activities kick off and the campers are busy, she can feel Mr D watching her.

She ignores him as long as she can. Sadly, Piper eventually can’t help flicking a glance towards him.

Mr D crooks his finger at her. “Peyton, with me.”

Piper winces and follows him into the Big House, taking a seat at the table as the god throws himself into a chair like he’s the teenager here.

He rolls his eyes at her definitely dubious expression. “I do not care about your little tantrums. Talk or don’t, no skin off my back. Hero insists I keep you informed of the doings at camp while he is away, and your latest strays are causing issues.”

The two demigods who had been in Midas’s throne room. The girl had seemed fine, if a little shell-shocked. The boy had been almost babbling about a monster hunting him, and how his mother was guiding him.

“Huh, I was half expecting I was going to be summoned to Olympus to explain Melina.”

They’d given the daughter of Demeter as many chances as they could. Nothing they did could get her to understand that you can’t simply say sorry and be forgiven if you accidentally on purpose kill someone. Piper thinks the girl has more than one screw loose.

Unfortunately, they learned the hard way that the gods are very possessive over the kids with exceptionally unique abilities, and Melina’s whole fruits that can kill or heal thing is way up there on the uniqueness scale.

She’ll never be able to use the ability again now, not unless Mr D and Artemis decide they’re feeling nice. It was a Hunter that Melina targeted after all. She’s been enrolled at one of the more secure boarding schools they use for campers, and Lee’s next youngest brother, Michael Yew, is keeping an eye on her.

Lee had made the arrangements before he left for Atlantis. Like Piper, he’d believed it was only a matter of time before Melina crossed a line and they’d have to bind her powers.

Mr D is scathing. “She has not yet noticed her daughter’s powers have been bound. With Persephone’s disappearance and recovery, it will be decades before she looks in on her children again. No, it is the two you found during the quest that are the problem.”

Piper had seen the girl in the dining pavilion yesterday, sitting at Table Eleven. She hadn’t seen the boy.

Back at Midas’s house, the eye of the beholder had shown her John Nash, that guy who was totally brilliant but saw things that weren’t there. She hadn’t had time to sort it out, so she sent them to camp under the amnesty agreement and sent Will a text that there was something wrong with the boy.

What was the kid’s name again? Alastair? No, that’s not right.

Alabaster? Yes. Alabaster Torrington. He’d had the uncomfortable look of someone aged beyond their years. He could easily pass for fifteen or sixteen. Though, she’d had this feeling he was younger. And there was something obviously wrong with him.

She’d been on a quest and didn’t have time to spare, not after they’d lost a day to Medea’s side quest already. So, she’d risked using charmspeak on him to keep him calm during the hippocampi ride and sent a desperate prayer to Apollo and Mr D to keep an eye on the kid.

Piper asks, “The boy?”

The god confirms her suspicion. “His mind is breaking. His mother channeled a significant portion of her power through him in order to raise so many monsters so quickly during the battle in Manhattan. It’s how he knew about the escapees. It appears that she used the last of her power to send him from the city before we arrived. She has done him no favours in doing so. He is sedated and confined to the infirmary for the moment. It is only a temporary solution.”

Well, that answers how they found Midas and were trying to use the guy as a gathering point for what was left of Kronos’s army.

“His mother?”

“Hecate.”

Oh. Okay. That explains a few things. No chance she was doing anything for him, Lee and Percy both say Hecate and Morpheus are down for the count. By the time they regain enough power to interact with the world, centuries will have passed. As far as Piper’s concerned, they’re effectively dead.

No wonder he’d looked like John Nash, poor kid’s seeing things that aren’t there.

“The girl the same?” What was her name? It was something that had given Piper a total WTF moment, so she noped out hard and did what she had to.

Oh!

Maia, daughter of Hermes. Maia is the name of Hermes’s mother, one of the Pleiades. What is up with that guy? Piper should be grateful her name isn’t Lucy, shouldn’t she?

“Terrence and Caleb are looking after her. She will do well given time, but the dynamic between her and the boy is unfortunate. She believed everything he said. He told her the entire army was killed, a claim that was supported by his inability to locate any of their forces.”

Piper cringes. The gods had ‘repatriated’ the enemy army to the mortal world, and Lee and Nathan had handled most of the decisions that needed to be made, though Percy was definitely much more involved than Lee wanted him to be.

From what Piper had heard, Percy had identified the people who were problematic, and those were placed on what was effectively probation. The ones who Percy said weren’t a risk to the camp had been given funds and basic supplies and sent back into the mortal world.

Had any of them wanted it, they were willing to engage with the adult demigods. None were interested. Piper’s thinking that being held as a prisoner of war underwater in Atlantis, or being transformed into a guinea pig for who knows how long, had been traumatising enough, and most of them probably want to pretend the past year was a fever dream.

Mr D adds, “There is a third who has been moved as well. Claudio, son of Hypnos. Hero placed him in a boarding school. I had Horsebutt move him to a new one. The boy was in contact with him and telling him similar tall tales.”

Piper shuffles through names in her mind, trying to remember which under-eighteen was a son of Hypnos. Clover? Clovis? Yes, that was it. Clovis Stanthorpe. A couple of months older than her and in his final year of school. Luke had found him at one of those creepy scare-them-straight juvenile detention centres masquerading as schools. He’d been dragged into the war fairly late and been told to assemble in Philadelphia.

Clovis was one of the demigods who ran when the campers had ‘attacked’ the assembly point. He’d been promptly caught by Nathan and his people and shipped off to the sea gods. He’d only missed a couple of months of school, so he could easily return to the mortal world and was oddly happy to. It was a little disconcerting how easily convinced he had been by whomever he had spoken to last.

Clovis had never been to camp.

All told, there’d been one hundred and ninety-seven hostages between the sea gods and Circe’s guinea pigs. An uncomfortably high number were entirely unknown to the camp, children of minor gods, or of Hecate, who were over-eighteen and had been recruited by word of mouth. No-one had been happy to realise the lists of demigods known to the camp were only half of the living demigods. It is what it is.

Mercifully, only fourteen were under the age of eighteen.

It adds a new dimension to there being so few demigods at the Roman camp. Jason speaks about it as if it’s something precious and sacrosanct when a new demigod arrives. All of them are sent there by their godly parents in some fashion or another.

Which makes zero sense. For all that the gods have abandoned the Romans, they’re putting a weird amount of effort into ensuring there are Roman demigods in the legion.

Jason may be unhappy with how involved the Greek gods are with their children, but only a handful of gods bother to directly send their kids to camp.

Most demigods have to find their own way here. Apollo’s children always come to camp, the sun god pushes the boundaries of non-interference to an insane degree. Percy says Poseidon and Zeus’s kids mostly make it to camp. Their powers are too showy to stay hidden for long, even if their fathers don’t get involved.

Hermes and Athena’s kids have to find their own way. The mortal parents of Ares’s kids are always given the contact details for the camp, but the god never follows up.

Yet Jason is certain every demigod at the Roman camp is sent there by their godly parent?

Mr D even has a kid there. No chance he’ll tell Piper why he did that. Not even Jason has an explanation for Dakota’s existence.

Piper asks, “Any of what he’s saying true?”

Mr D’s answer is deeply mocking. “He believes Lamia is a daughter of Hecate. And that the Sky Queen killed her children and cursed her to be a monster. He insists that in retaliation for this, Lamia cursed demigods to be forever hunted by monsters. He claims she is actively hunting him even now.”

There’s a weird fire in his eyes as he says this.

She looks at him blankly. “I have no clue if that means it’s true or not?”

“You’ve spent enough time with Father’s boy. Tell me, does the Sky Queen strike you as someone who would outright kill a woman’s children when it was the parent who offended her?”

Piper tilts her head. “No, I can see her taking the kids. She took Jason after all, but she wouldn’t kill them.”

“Precisely. There are two who use the name. Lamia is one of the monster children of the Sea King. She has no connection to Hecate. Her daughter is Herophile, one of the few remaining immortal seers. She is also the mother of a sibyl by my brother Apollo. The brat can tell you about them if you wish to know more.”

Of all the things Piper needs to talk to Percy about, the lineage of random seers she’s never going to have contact with really doesn’t rate all that high.

“The other Lamia had a child by Father, and the Sky Queen took the child when it became clear the mother would kill them. She died shortly after, more monster than human. She briefly returned to the surface during the war in the form of the mormolykeia. The brat sent her packing.”

Okay. That was a super random batch of information.

“What does this have to do with Alabaster?”

Mr D gives her an even look, that strange fire still in his eyes. “Nothing. I am simply providing proof that his claims are unfounded nonsense, and Lamia is not his sister.”

Cool. Mr D is screwing with Piper. Because her brain wasn’t broken enough?

“Can you fix him?”

Mr D’s domains are closely linked to mental health and madness, if anyone can help, it’s him.

The god shakes his head, grimacing. “I can do much. However, he was used as a conduit for a god’s power. His only focus is taking revenge on the demigods who fought for Olympus. He also believes his mother has allied with us, and that this is why she is silent.”

Piper bites her lip, unsure of what he’s getting at. “So he’s not well, and he can’t be helped. There a reason you’re telling me?”

“Hero has not been informed. My brother asked that this information be kept from him, he cannot afford to have his attention diverted from the task at hand. Yet, a decision must be made. The boy is thirteen years old, and he cannot stay here.”

Yeah, Piper knew he wasn’t sixteen. Why is Mr D asking her about this?

Oh. Wait. One of the weirder things Lee had negotiated for with the gods. Decisions about demigods’ care are never to be made solely by the gods. Too often, a lack of a mortal parent is treated like carte blanche by the gods, and it screws the demigod in question over entirely.

Piper is seventeen, and she lived through the same war that injured Alabaster. Sometimes, she’s okay with being treated like an adult.

Mr D raises a sarcastic eyebrow. “You will be discussing your decision with the healer, you are not being given free rein quite yet.”

Piper scoffs. “Like I wouldn’t talk it over with him and Silena. This kid hasn’t got anyone then? Not even anyone from the army?”

“No-one who is real. He speaks extensively about people who do not exist. Though he possessed an imperial gold sword, which is a concern.”

“Not enchanted gold?”

“No, nor has he any knowledge of the Roman legion. I would recommend placing him out of reach of whatever is to come.”

Piper squints at him. “That mean you know what’s coming?”

“I have an inkling.”

“And you aren’t going to tell me?”

“Now where would the fun be in that?”

Piper huffs and stands. “Well, if that’s all, I need to go and talk to some people.”

Apollo already has something set up for Castellan’s mother. She was driven insane by Hades’s curse or something like that?

It’s not entirely the same thing. It’s still a place to start, and Will and Silena will know who to talk to. Clare’s the oldest Hecate kid they have at camp, so Alabaster hasn’t even got any adult siblings who can make the decision for him.

That’s okay, he’s still one of their people. They’ll make sure he’s looked after.

The god waves her off, and Piper makes it to the door before his soft voice brings her to a halt.

“I will be sitting at the campfire each night this week. When you are ready, you will come and sit with me.”

She swallows hard and nods once before walking outside.

He isn’t wrong. It’s time she made her peace with what happened with Ethan. There’s work to do, and she can’t afford anything slowing her down.

During the day-long quest party, everyone gathers for lunch in the dining pavilion. Piper quietly tells Drew she’s decided to become Cabin Counsellor for Cabin Three. She’s not ready to switch to Pallas House and move away from the chaos of the cabins. This way, she’ll be next door to Silena.

Drew grins evilly and announces loudly so that everyone can hear that Piper is as bad a traitor as Silena, abandoning their mother’s cabin for another god’s. Piper takes the heckling cheerfully and returns Triton’s dignified nod of approval with an evil smile of her own. She deeply enjoys the quickly hidden concern that flashes across his face.

Yeah, she’s not making it that easy for him.

After lunch, she heads back to Cabin Ten to make a start on sorting her belongings out and working out what was originally hers and what she’s stolen from siblings over the years.

She isn’t really feeling up to the quest party. The questers never do. Lee set up the quest party tradition specifically to take the heat off the returning questers. They’ll have a bonfire on the beach tonight and tell their story. Until then, they can disappear in the chaos and not face endless questions on repeat.

Piper finds time for a quick phone call with Percy, and he assures her that he and Nico have already seen to the funeral rites for Min-Ji, the twenty-two-year-old daughter of Athena who Khione had killed. She apologises for asking about it, and he waves her off, telling her that this is the least he and Nico could do. Percy knows they’ll never be able to save them all. He still wants to do what he can.

It leaves Piper feeling even more guilty. She wanders around the camp, avoiding everyone, with too many thoughts crowding her mind.

She’s on the beach half-heartedly collecting shells when Clarisse sends her a text telling her not to stress over it, because she knows Piper’s twisting herself in knots, Percy does this because it helps him deal, it’s not a burden to him.

Piper sits on the sand and replies, asking how things are going at cult camp, and Clarisse’s answer says it all. ‘Lee gave me his quiver, so he wouldn’t give in to temptation.’

Yeah, Lee might be the voice of reason most of the time, but he’s still a demigod. The Rules of Retaliation exist because Lee is acutely familiar with how badly demigods handle expectations of civilised behaviour. As much as he might not consider himself a warrior, he still destroys as many training dummies as they do. When he’s at camp, he spars with Beck and Nathan daily, and he’s lethal with his bow.

Piper hesitantly texts back, asking if Clarisse is free to talk, and her phone starts ringing in her hand.

“I don’t do emotional shit, Angry Girl.”

Clarisse keeps saying that, and then she goes and does it anyway.

“Yeah, I know. I spoke to Mum during the quest. She said I should’ve talked to you before all this. About, well-” She breaks off, still unable to say his name.

Clarisse’s blunt voice says what she can’t. “Ethan.”

“Yeah. Mum said he knew he was wrong.”

Clarisse confirms it with a sharp, “He knew.”

“You’re sure?”

Clarisse’s voice is gruff. “I was there, Angry Girl. Prissy told him straight up that the gods can’t be treated like people. He told him that everything he was fighting for, we’d already achieved. Ethan had wanted respect, to not be shoved in Eleven and made to sleep on the floor.”

Piper wrinkles her nose, completely mystified. “They don’t sleep on the floor? Like, before the last renovation, they were tight on space, but not that badly?”

“They used to be like that ten years ago, way before your time. Lee was fixing it. That was the same year Priss arrived and took Lee a few extra months to get it sorted. Got fixed like a month after Ethan left.”

“He believed Percy?”

“Yeah, he did. Could see it on his face.”

Clarisse hesitates and adds much more quietly, “Priss also told Ethan he was going to die. Not outright, you know what he’s like, he still made himself pretty damn clear.”

Mum was right. Ethan decided how he was going to die.

Piper breathes her words. “It wasn’t my fault.”

Clarisse’s voice turns sharp and furious. “It was never your fucking fault, princess. It was war! You fought in single combat, and you won. Don’t you fucking dare keep blaming yourself for someone else’s choices!”

“Percy knew how Ethan was going to die?”

Another sharp clipped response. “Piper. There’s a reason you avoid prophecy bullshit. Don’t ask that question.”

Piper’s mind is already running ahead of her, realising that Percy probably knows how everyone will die. Oracles host prophet’s spirits. When Percy dies, he won’t go to Elysium. He’ll keep watching the futures he’s seen play out in real life.

Oh.

Okay, Piper understands the shrouds thing. Poor Percy.

“What should I do about Damien?”

Clarisse is scathing, and a little bit offended. “Why are you asking me? You’re the camp leader? I don’t know what to do with a nine-year-old!”

Also true. And Piper is realising that Damien is not Ethan’s brother. They may share a goddess as a parent, but they were born in different places and to different mortals. Damien knows she avoids him. He doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t need to know either.

He’s one of her campers, her brother’s newest charge and a demigod kid who needs a home and safety.

Piper can give that to him.

“Thanks, Clarisse.”

Piper hears a muffled voice and the phone being moved, and then Clarisse comes back.

“Priss wants me to tell you to stop thinking that your dad’s gonna be disappointed in you.”

More crashing sounds and then Percy yells into the phone. “No! I said she could screw with her dad by pretending to be in a relationship with Kazoo!”

A snarling noise and Clarisse is back. “Yeah, Priss thinks it’d be funny if the children of Tristan McLean and Naomi Solace fake dated. I ain’t touching that.”

Piper dissolves into helpless giggles. Yeah, that could be incredibly hilarious. Maybe in a few years when Piper’s not underage they might screw with the tabloids. The children of two megastars dating! The world is ending!

“Yeah, maybe. But also, I’d really rather not have Dad and Will’s mum in the same room? Will and I do not need a shared sibling.”

Clarisse snorts, sounding entertained. “Yeah, maybe not. You good? ‘Cause I’m already dealing with my idiot little brothers and Lee taking turns falling apart, ain’t got room for you too.”

The implication being that Clarisse will make room if needed. She really is an incredibly strange war kid.

“Yeah, I’m good. Stay safe out there, yeah? I’m moving into Cabin Three, and it’s gonna suck if my new cabinmates die before they get back.”

“You got it, Angry Girl. Don’t kill Wolf Boy.”

“No promises!”

After hanging up, Piper takes a deep breath, gazing out at the ocean, and then she taps on another name in her contacts.

It rings out.

She hesitates a little longer before clicking on the next option.

It’s answered immediately.

“Piper! How are you?”

“Hey, Mellie. I’m okay. How’s dad doing?”

Piper’s spoken to Mellie on the phone only once before. She has a good feeling about the breeze nymph. Lee had confirmed that Mellie has no charmspeak abilities, and that she’s exactly what she appears to be; a nymph who prefers life in the mortal world and can be trusted to keep Dad safe and far away from any evidence of the divine world.

She’s also happily married to another female nymph and is uninterested in being one of Dad’s conquests. Piper really doesn’t need a demigod half-sibling born to a breeze nymph any more than she needs Naomi Solace as a stepparent, her life is chaotic enough.

The aura’s voice turns sympathetic. “He’s doing well, he’s running lines right now. Would you like me to get him for you?”

“No, it’s fine. Let him know I rang, though?”

“Of course, Piper. Any time you want to talk to him, feel free to call me and I’ll get him on the phone with you right away.”

“Thanks, Mellie.”

She hangs up and sits and watches her phone for a minute. She’s not even sure what she’s waiting for. Things turned out far better than she could have hoped. Dad’s missing twelve days of his memories. He’s otherwise fine.

She knows things she never wanted to know about him. He’s still Dad. Piper is so incredibly glad she has a life where she’s not so isolated and lost that she starts stealing to get some attention from Dad.

And he is a good father. Compared to how things go for many demigods, having a father who loves her but knows his limits is a million times better. Especially when she has a family here at camp.

“You okay?”

She twists to see Jason watching her, surprisingly free of his Thalia and Bianca shadows.

“If you tied your sister up, I’m not saving you when she fries your ass.”

A sly smile spreads across his face. “I’m sure I can be more inventive than simply tying her up.”

Piper gives him a dubious look, and he snorts. “She was trying to electrify a water gun. It exploded in her face, and Will insisted she get checked out. I snuck off while they were distracted.”

Yep, sounds like Thalia. No wonder Lee avoids Zeus kids.

Jason’s watching her with too-sharp sky-blue eyes. “Seriously, you okay?”

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Always takes a bit to settle back into life here.”

He nods, mouth twisting.

“You got something to say?”

He makes an amused, almost cheeky, face and drops to sit on the beach beside her.

“You know, I was going to give you one of Dominus’s feathers? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so disappointed in me. He took it back off me and everything.”

Piper snickers. “Yeah, I still haven’t really worked out the heritage thing. Still, your giant eagle parent is right. Bad move.”

She’d read the books on Cherokee history and culture that Lee got for her. She still hasn’t decided what she’s going to do about it all. Piper still read them. The stuff about the significance of eagles had been really fascinating. They’re important at camp for entirely unrelated reasons, yet a lot was really similar. She’d really liked that there was a crossover between the traditions.

Even if Jason offered, Piper doubts she’d willingly ride Dominus. It feels wrong, like she’d be denying both sides of her family. She’d do it in a pinch if she had to. Piper’s thinking that sort of thing is best left to the Zeus kids.

It was a nice thought, though. Silena’s had a few standoffs with the Hermes kids about Dom’s feathers. The saving grace has been that Dom hasn’t dropped any. If they want a feather from the eagle of Zeus, they’re going to have to pluck one from the source.

None of the Hermes kids are that stupid. They are many things, stupid isn’t one of them.

“Yeah. He got that bit across really clearly. I usually give them as offerings to the Sky King and Queen when he gives me one. Don’t think he’ll be sharing any for a while after this.”

“It’s the thought that counts?”

Jason almost giggles. The hell?

“Maybe. Might be I just have permanent foot-in-mouth disease. Anyway, the reason I’m hiding from my sister is that Leo said something about me being a Roman Lee, and it got me thinking.”

“I’m not calling you Point Effects.”

Jason outright cackles, and Piper starts wondering if he’s been drugged. This is oddly relaxed for their Roman Wolf Boy. There’s no alcohol on camp premises, none accessible to campers anyway. Mr D would totally notice.

Is this Jason when he’s not terrified?

Huh.

“Yeah, no. I was thinking about it, and I realised that if I had a counterpart in the Greek camp, it’d be you, not Lee. His role is a bit more extensive than anything I do.”

That’s true. They’re used to Lee running the camp. That doesn’t mean it’s the only thing he does, though. He’s always done a lot more behind the scenes, they just don’t see him do it. Piper wants to take over camp leadership. She has no interest in getting involved in godly politics and backroom dealings. All of that is still Lee’s problem, not hers.

“Sounds fair. There a reason this matters?”

“I’m used to being a leader and not actually leading. I’m planning to change that. I was hoping you could help me?”

Piper beams at him. “Now that is something I can definitely do.”

Jason smiles back with his ferocious wolf grin, teeth bared and promising savagery.

Much better.

Quest parties are nothing like any Roman event Jason had been to. Returning from a quest back home involved giving reports to the consuls and both senates, maybe a big dinner in the dining hall with the legion if something truly impressive had been achieved.

He’d been given a Roman Triumph for the Mount Tam thing, but mostly, quests were handled like military missions. Returning home wasn’t a cause for celebration.

It is in the Greek camp.

Silena told him that before her time at the camp, when kids were sent on a quest, the campers sewed burial shrouds for them. If the questers returned, they burned the shroud and held a bonfire.

If the questers didn’t return, the camp burned the shroud and held a bonfire.

Jason’d had no clue what to say to that.

When he’d carefully asked how long ago this happened, she told him the tradition ended in 2013. Lee was the one to put an end to it when he was sixteen.

It was such a grim concept. This idea that the Greeks so wholly believed a quest was a death sentence that they sewed burial shrouds for each quester.

And it had ended so recently.

It puts their obsession with death rituals in a new perspective. Giving funeral rites to the enemy is a little more palatable when you know they used to regularly make arrangements for the funerals of their living, healthy kids.

Which definitely explains why they have such strict rules about the age of questers.

And their obsession with funding college.

These people expect to die before they’re ever old enough for college. Of course, they’re doing everything possible to promise the kids a future. A quest party is definitely better than burning his own burial shroud.

In New Rome, they believe that as long as a demigod stays in the valley, they’ll be fine. It’s only those who leave who die. It’s heavily implied that their deaths are caused by being alone in a hostile world and that this would never have happened if they had remained with the legion.

The Prophet of Apollo and his siblings have ensured Jason won’t forget how truly ridiculous a claim that is. Especially since there are no older Roman demigods. If staying near the legion kept them alive, Octavian’s mother would still be around.

The consuls’ propaganda meant that Jason and Reyna had been entirely blindsided by the idea that demigods died early.

Here, it’s all they know. They don’t try to hide this information or to make it more palatable. They want the campers to survive, and they do whatever is necessary to make that happen.

Piper had told him they’d been ‘walking on eggshells’ since he arrived, and for all Jason had felt like his world was ending, he’s realising in hindsight how careful they’d been with him.

Even simple things like training were not what he thought. Before the quest, offers to spar or train were couched in careful terms, and no-one argued when Jason declined.

Leo had laughingly told him that now he’s made his choice, he won’t be allowed to refuse training sessions. Like the rest of them, he’ll be hunted down if he skips out, and Chiron is relentless.

Jason had his doubts, yet sure enough, the moment he returned he’d been handed a schedule that someone had carefully copied out in fluent Latin. He’s now scheduled for daily training sessions with Chiron, with a note that should he show adequate improvement, he’ll have weekly sessions with Georgie and Triton.

He’ll also be learning to fight on pegasus back, and Thalia has booked him in for powers training using Tempest. Piper’s already told her about Jason channelling the storm spirit’s lightning. She’s become rather fond of how portable Tempest is. Jason’s not so sure about keeping a storm spirit in a satchel. He hasn’t really worked out how to effectively communicate with Tempest, so it’ll do for now.

He was a little amused by the concept of a centaur teaching him to fight like an Eques. He’d long given up his dreams of the cavalry, because Romans fight on foot. The Greeks have turned all his beliefs upside down, and now he’s genuinely looking forward to learning to fight on horseback.

Even if he’s still weirded out by the centaur aspect.

Silena also told him not to listen to the older kids when they complained about Chiron. He’d had an ‘error of judgement’ ten years back and Percy and Clarisse still hold it against him. In general though, he’s a good trainer and ensured that by the end of summer every single camper could protect themselves. Leo had cheerfully added that ‘even if Prof hates him, he’s the one who trained me, so he can’t be all bad!’

Jason knows exactly how hard it is to force teenagers through training, and for all he’d been so proud of how far the legion had come since he and Reyna started training them, it’s nothing on what Chiron achieves with the Greek demigods. He can respect that.

Jason would have preferred if the conversation about training schedules and burial shrouds was as uncomfortable as it got. Except the day they got back, Silena pulled him aside for a discussion that left him blushing to the roots of his hair.

He’s assuming Piper told her about Midas.

Jason had repeatedly assured Silena that he was fine, and it hadn’t affected him. He’s not sure if she believed him. She made him promise never to try that again and to leave weaponised seduction and honey traps to the children of Aphrodite.

He’d not thought about what he was doing in quite that way before. Which is when he realised how entirely out of his depth he’d been. Jason was more than willing to make that promise when Silena put it in those terms.

After that, she’d moved into a practiced speech about sexuality, gender preferences and the importance of everything being safe, sane and consensual.

She’d also taken time to explain the age of consent; both in the mortal world and what the Greek demigods consider it to be.

Essentially, the Greeks set the age of consent at twenty-one when a god or immortal is involved, eighteen when all parties are demigods or mortals.

Regardless of age, anything involving a god is to happen elsewhere, and the demigod in question needs to understand that even with contraception, a child is all but guaranteed, no matter what gender or form is used by the god. If a god or immortal engages in such activities on camp property, they will be banned from the premises for five hundred years.

If under-eighteens engage in physical relationships, it must only be with people within twelve months of their own biological age, and under no circumstances is it to occur under the age of fifteen. Over-eighteens are only to engage with other over-eighteens. Will and Silena will confidentially provide any contraceptives requested to anyone without judgement or questions.

She made it clear that regardless of what rules his camp follows, Jason is expected to follow their camp’s rules while he’s at the Greek camp.

Jason had stared at her, wide-eyed and transfixed with horror until she finished her mortifying lecture and sent him to the training grounds.

He’d destroyed several straw dummies waiting for his flaming face to finally cool down, and then he could admit to himself that she wasn’t wrong with her comments about how she ‘wasn’t sure what they do in your camp, and better to hear this twice than not at all’.

The legion’s rules boil down to: under no circumstances is a legionnaire to have a physical relationship with another legionnaire or New Roman citizen. Reyna polices it, she’s been doing that since she arrived, long before she was made praetor. Jason wouldn’t have known where to begin with all that.

A couple of years ago, Reyna had downloaded a book on his e-reader and told him to read it. Which he had. And then spent the next two weeks avoiding her at all costs while Dakota laughed his ass off.

That was the extent of his education on that sort of thing. Everyone else had parents who presumably gave them those talks before sending them to the legion. People weren’t meant to grow up in the legion. Jason still had. Not like it would even occur to Lupa to give him that particular talk.

He kept his distance from Silena for the rest of the next day, and the one time she caught his eye she’d grinned and mouthed ‘sorry’ while not looking remotely apologetic.

At least he has plenty of things to keep him thoroughly distracted?

The quest party day is spent in chaos, with games, too much food and too much caffeine, and everyone hyperactive and explosive. Thalia and Bianca insist on kidnapping him, and Jason finally agrees to learn the bow, pretending not to see the aching relief in Thalia’s eyes when he says that.

He really has been freaking her out, hasn’t he? He’s not sure whether he can make things better. Jason is still Jason. He can unbend enough to let his big sister hug him, though. It won’t kill him.

Bianca is nothing like Nico, which is an odd realisation. They’re full siblings who were raised together until Bianca joined the Hunt a couple of years ago. Bianca actually looks younger than Nico now, yet still older than Hazel. Bianca and Thalia are virtually joined at the hip and laughingly say they’re the sane big sisters who know better than to be dragged into the chaos.

Which Jason might believe, except the entire day is nothing but chaos.

They drag him from place to place, and Thalia’s clearly decided she no longer wants to respect his personal space. She climbs on his back more than once, clinging to him like a monkey and pointing him to where she wants to go. She’s entirely comfortable with being shorter and smaller than her little brother, Jason’s got the distinct feeling she’s revelling in being able to boss him around.

It takes a lot of pleading to get Thalia and Bianca to give him twenty minutes of peace so he can deal with the one thing he really has left for too long.

Octavian.

As tempting as it is to leave Octavian to work things out for himself, Jason’s far too familiar with the way Octavian spirals when he feels backed into a corner. He jumps straight from reasonable solutions to insane Machiavellian dictator style ideas with no room for common sense in between. Leaving him without a way to contact Jason will end poorly for all involved.

The older boy answers his phone immediately, and Jason can hear Michael Kahale in the background, ordering the First Cohort to continue the drill.

“Where the hell have you been, Superman?!”

“I was on a quest, things got dicey, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, what was it this time? Another Trojan Sea Monster?”

Jason thinks through the long list of monsters.

“Three cyclopes.”

Octavian’s answer is almost contrite. “Oh. You won, right? Still have your limbs attached?”

“Yes, Octavian, I won. All arms and legs accounted for.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know. When the gods are done with me.”

Without any additional context, Octavian says conversationally, “He’s trying to kidnap me, you know.”

Jason pulls the phone away from his ear and peers at it, wondering if he can fake an emergency and escape the rest of this conversation.

“Who is trying to kidnap you?”

Octavian rants extensively about ‘the kidnapper’ and Thalia’s already on her way back before he finally admits he’s talking about the Archiereus tou Apollonos.

Octavian all but screeches down the phone, “And he wants me to call him by his first name!”

Of course, Octavian thinks that’s an even bigger transgression than kidnapping him.

Jason’s running out of time, and Octavian’s not calming down.

Dirty tactics it is.

“Octavian, what would your Proavus want you to do?”

Dead silence.

Jason has extremely complicated feelings about the old augur. He hadn’t known him for long. Even as a kid, there’d been something a little odd about him. The older he gets, the more he realises how manipulative the old man was. He was arranging Jason and Octavian’s lives for some ulterior purpose, not that Jason ever learned what that was.

Octavian had loved him. He’s the closest thing Octavian had to a caring parent. And Quintus Coelispex loved two things above all else, Apollo and his own great-grandson. He called Octavian ‘Lius.

Octavian knows as well as Jason does that the old augur would be shoving him out the door and ordering him to get himself adopted by Lee Fletcher, Chief Priest of Apollo.

It was the sort of thing that would have made the old man believe everything had been worth it. More than once, he’d talked about how much he wished he could remove Octavian from his father’s influence. He’d definitely told Octavian the same thing.

After several long minutes of no response, Octavian says, “Fine. But you’re coming to get me when it all goes to shit. Wonder Woman thinks I’m a pervert and a lunatic, she’ll be glad to see the back of me.”

Percy had told Jason that Octavian hadn’t been hallucinating. Something Percy had done had changed the prophecy. Octavian remembers it because he has the sight. Everyone else forgot. Jason can’t apologise to him. Octavian can’t know that Jason’s ‘quest’ has any connection with the arrival of Apollo’s prophet and priests.

“You’ll be fine. I’ll talk to Reyna again. Might help if you tell me what you were really talking to Hazel about?”

Jason knows Octavian wasn’t doing what Reyna still halfway believes him capable of.

The Greeks’ outright acceptance of gender and sexuality has led to Jason forming some new suspicions about Octavian. It’s not his place to say anything, so he won’t. Still, the one thing that truly would make him believe Octavian was losing it was if he genuinely did approach Reyna or Hazel in that way.

Another long silence, and then Octavian announces he has places to be and hangs up the phone.

Wonderful. Yeah, Jason’s leaving that mess to Nico. Hazel’s his sister, and it’s Nico’s guardian who wants to ‘kidnap’ Octavian. His problem. Jason’s done enough.

Thalia steals his phone then, and tells him he can have it back in the morning. She swings up onto his shoulders and orders him to take her to the dining pavilion.

Jason debates for all of two seconds before calling the winds to him and ever so slightly hovering off the ground as Thalia launches herself bodily off his shoulders, cursing the whole way.

He innocently asks his older sister, “Did you forget I can fly?”

He takes off running as she swears noisily and lunges for him.

After lunch, a group of the younger kids besiege him and drag Jason across the commons to meet a redheaded girl who is laughing loudly, green eyes sparkling.

She’s oddly familiar, and it takes a moment for it to click. Octavian had waved a picture around of a girl who looked identical to this one, somewhere in Delphi. In Greece. He’d insisted the man with her was Apollo.

Jason owes Octavian multiple apologies for not believing him. He also definitely needs to find a moment to talk to Piper about what she’d said during the quest. That Greek demigods visited the Ancient Lands regularly. Maybe not today, though.

This girl feels strange. She’s wreathed in power. Power that isn’t hers. She’s mortal, maybe a legacy? Definitely not a demigod. Yet she’s surrounded with power that feels like a clear sunny day.

Ah.

He runs through what he knows of the traditions. None apply. He’s been dragged in front of her by little kids, and no purification rites or sacrifices have been given or even asked for.

Jason hesitates and then tries for a smile. “I’m sorry, but I’m unsure of the proper way to greet the Oracle of Delphi?”

She smiles brightly. “How about we start with: Hi, I’m Rachel! I prefer to be called by my name and not all the titles, they tend to get in the way. What’s your name?”

Jason returns the smile awkwardly. “I’m Jason. It’s good to meet you. I have a friend who has spent his life searching for the Sibylline Books. I hope that one day I can tell him that the Oracle of Delphi still lives.”

Her eyes are full of too much understanding. “Piper mentioned a seer, I’m guessing he feels like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders?”

“Familiar feeling?”

She smirks and says, “Not really. Percy’s the living prophet, I’m merely the host for an ancient spirit. It’s a bit weird sometimes, but I’ve never felt like I was on my own.”

“Think that’s the way it works here.”

Rachel is thoughtful. “It is now. I don’t think it always was that way. I talked to Percy. Even his knowing is blocked. Yet, when I think of the past, I feel like something happened, something that changed the people here. Even if they don’t remember it, they still cluster together, they’re still afraid. I just wish I knew what.”

She looks a little rueful. “I haven’t even found anything about your Triumvirate Holdings. I’ll need to keep looking. The poor Latin is problematic, Percy thinks there might be young Greek demigods involved? Neither of us can clearly see anything. So it’s mortal legwork and digging through financial records for now, I’m afraid.”

They’d already started investigating? Somehow that’s even more shocking than how casually they admit they think their own people are involved.

Of course, they aren’t a legion here. They have the auxiliary, but it’s voluntary. It’s become patently obvious that plenty of the Greek demigods go their own way, and there are no hard feelings over it.

Nothing like New Rome.

Jason wishes he knew how they’d ended up separated to begin with. They could have done so much good for each other if they’d been allies.

“You really don’t know what could have divided the Greeks and Romans?”

The sense of a sunny day turns overpowering. Sunshine bakes into rocks and a snake slithers.

Rachel’s eyes glaze, and green smoke pours out of her mouth and envelops her. Jason hears Will and Austin shout for Kayla. He’s transfixed as the Oracle of Delphi speaks a prophecy.

In the green mist, a golden eagle standard frozen in ice is clearly visible.

Then new images flicker past so quickly Jason can’t fully catch them. A huge jar. Temple Hill. A bronze knife. A small statue. Medea’s drakons pulling a chariot. The Big House. Octavian, furious and terrified. A blonde girl with swirling golden eyes. A US Navy Patrol Boat. Triton, pointing a trident at a man in Roman armour.

The images speed up, now too fast to catch. A soft hissing voice speaks.

“The legion’s best shall answer the call.
To storm or fire, your world must fall.
Victory’s bought with Roman pride.
And kings give way to changing tide.”

The green smoke recedes, and Rachel staggers forward. Kayla catches her, sitting her down on the ground and checking her over as Rachel’s eyelids flutter and the glazed look fades from her eyes.

Rachel’s forehead creases, eyes distant from another cause entirely. “That’s only the second proper prophecy I’ve given. The other one was stupid, someone lost their shoes, and it somehow triggered a prophecy. This one though. This one was important.”

Kayla is looking confused too. “It’s about the Romans? That’s not normal.”

Jason’s feeling as lost as she is. “I already know that prophecy. It’s called the Prophecy of Victory, it’s engraved on the floor of the Temple of- The temple of my father.”

Kayla gives him a sharp look. “An English name, not a Latin one? Do you know where it came from?”

“It’s engraved in English. It’s one of the few complete prophecies that survived in our records from Ancient Rome. Most of the prophecies that are engraved are only a line or two. They’re said to all come from the Sibylline Books.”

Rachel is startled. “Wait, it’s engraved in English?”

“Yes?”

“You just said it came from Ancient Roman records?”

Oh.

English wasn’t a language before Constantine. All their prophecies come from before Rome fell.

Wait. Why would so many of the prophecies on the floor of the Temple of Jupiter be written in English?

Kayla gives Jason an uncomfortable explanation.

The Sibylline Books were written by an oracle who hosted a spirit of a previous Prophet of Apollo. This spirit’s best talent was in reciting prophecies that were spoken by others, either in the future or the past. The prophecy she recorded was the English prophecy. Rachel is the one who first gave it.

Jason hesitantly tells her about Michael Varus’s quest, that he’d gone to Alaska with eighty people to ensure the prophecy was fulfilled, and all eighty had died there.

Kayla had been blunt, though there’d been a touch of gentleness in her tone as she told him that the prophecy had never been meant for that quest.

The prophecy was meant to happen at the time it was spoken.

“So what does that mean?”

Kayla watches him closely. Her eyes are a darker blue than her siblings, her hair a deeper shade of red. Jason can still see the resemblance. He can even see Octavian’s own intensity in her eyes. “It means that now is when the prophecy is to be fulfilled. It was spoken when its time came, it just found its way into your records earlier. The prophecy was always intended for you.”

Rachel agrees. “There’s more. You made the right choice. Now, you must follow it through. You are starting down your path. Yet you have a long journey ahead. The true enemy is shrouded from view, and some victories are not worth the cost.”

With that alarming statement, she smiles sunnily and walks off, Kayla trailing behind.

Okay then. Does Rachel count as Greek when she’s a mortal? Or is the insanity contagious?

Some victories are not worth the cost? Is that about the Greek and Roman war again? Or something else?

Thalia snickers behind him. Jason is becoming extremely familiar with that sound. He still can’t quite believe his month with the Greeks was them treating him with caution, except that they’ve dialled up the crazy a few thousand notches since they returned from the quest.

“Let’s worry about a new Great Prophecy later, right now, Georgie’s got the water guns out, and I want to see if I can electrocute a stream of water.”

Make that a million notches. What the hell, Thalia?

That night, the camp gathers around a bonfire on the beach. Dom stands behind the assembled kids, and even Triton and Mr D are there.

For an eagle that doesn’t speak, Dom has made himself exceptionally clear that he believes Jason made the right decision. The eagle reeks of pride, and he is definitely extremely smug. Piper says he’s acting exactly like a proud parent on awards day at school. Jason didn’t even try to argue with her. He gives up, Dom is his person. It’s fine.

Thalia and Bianca cheerfully announce that they’re going to be ‘the victims’ tonight, and Piper softly explains to Jason that they act out their fights as part of the storytelling.

Tonight is when hero stories are told. This is how new myths begin.

New myths.

The Greeks may have lost their history, they may have so little knowledge passed down, yet they have not forgotten who they are.

At home, the idea of new myths would be considered sacrilege. Something worthy of punishment.

The consuls relentlessly compare Jason to Hercules, and he shudders to think of their reaction if he ever claimed to have myths spoken about him.

Here, it’s obvious the story of the Angry Girl Who Chose A New Path is well underway and constantly being added to.

Silena had told him that the reason for the duel between Piper and Lacy yesterday was so that Lacy could begin her own story.

It was time she stepped out of the shadow of her older siblings and lived a different hero story. Jason had been confused about how gentle Piper had been in that fight. Silena’s comments helped him understand it.

Piper is a warrior. Her siblings are not. Even if Lacy knows the duel was performative, it’s a way of symbolically telling her that she is not following in Piper’s footsteps. Rather, she is claiming the right to tell her own story. She’s not a warrior, yet she won her new position fair and square.

The Greeks handle status and symbolism differently from the Romans. Their culture is still as suffused with it as Jason’s is.

Mr D calls the three questers up and crowns them with laurel wreaths, declaring their titles as he goes.

Jason is introduced as ‘Julian Green’, the Prince of Rome and the Mostly Tolerable Half-Brother.

Thalia twitches at that one. She waves him off silently when Jason looks over at her.

He assumed the others would be similar half-mocking titles, except then Piper is announced as ‘Peggy Martin’, the Drakon Slayer, the Dragon Tamer, and the Heir Apparent. The campers cheer and recite the titles along with Mr D. These are familiar epithets to them.

How careful had people been around Jason, that he’d never known so many of the older campers had epithets? Leo is declared ‘Louis Vaughn’, the True Daedalus, the Fire-Heart and the Forger.

Then the stories are told. Piper speaks like a professional orator, telling of their travels and all the fights with such clear respect, both for Leo and for Jason.

He may have felt like a lost little kid, yet she describes him as a hero. Jason’s really not sure if she’s exaggerating or if that’s how she truly sees him. He can see Dom in his peripheral vision, bobbing up and down and flapping his wings with excitement as Jason and Leo move as Piper directs, acting out fights against Thalia and Bianca, exactly as Thalia said they would.

Thalia gleefully plays Khione, and she’s a little too good at it. The campers are all but collapsing with laughter, and Jason realises this is a whole new side of his sister he hasn’t seen before. She’s made her peace with Beryl being their mother, and happily leans into her inherited acting abilities.

It’s yet one more thing to adjust to.

For Jason, Beryl and the ‘missing Grace children’ have been held over his head since he arrived at the legion. The consuls use it as a reason for why they deny Jason furloughs, and why he can’t leave the valley.

For Thalia, Beryl was a constant reminder of the brother she believed she’d failed. Yesterday, she’d told Jason she’d never bothered hiding from mortal cameras. She’d known she was occasionally photographed and outright didn’t care. Thalia sheepishly told him that she saw it as a penance for what ‘she had done’.

Despite Jason travelling through multiple mortal cities during the quest. No photos were taken of him. He no longer looks like the missing Grace boy. Thalia intends to hide herself with the Mist, now that ‘she has her baby brother back’. She told Jason that even if someone recognises him, nothing will happen. She’ll make sure of it. Jason should feel free to travel as much as he wants.

As far as the mortals are concerned, the mystery of the lost Grace children will go unsolved.

For the demigods, the story of Jason Grace and his big sister Thalia is only getting started.

It feels like he’s living inside a myth, as the story of their quest is told and re-enacted. Austin and Kayla sit near the back, adding emphasis to their story with a guitar and lyre, turning the fights into their own epics.

They move through the battles until they reach Enceladus, and Piper gives Jason a sly smile.

He blinks with shock when Piper announces to the gathered campers that Jason is the Twice Gigas Slayer. He killed two gigantes in a single day!

Jason attempts to explain that it was a group effort, Dom, Piper and Leo had all helped with Enceladus, and Piper, Leo and Persephone with Porphyrion.

Everyone laughs loudly, and Mr D groans theatrically. “Still an idiot, I see. Tell me, which demigod was the last to attack each gigas prior to a god’s arrival?”

“Uh, me?”

Piper dissolves into giggles as Mr D blows a raspberry and says scathingly, “I give up. This one entirely lacks even a single braincell. Father’s progeny continues to disappoint.” Then he turns and walks off, leaving them to their bonfire.

Even Dom is giving Jason a withering look.

Leo jumps up to tell the story of fighting the gegenees, with a lot of mocking from the campers about keeping incendiary devices in his pants, and Piper tugs on Jason’s arm.

He turns to look at her, raising an eyebrow. “Jason, I know things are different at home. You can’t tell me the Romans didn’t celebrate their heroes, though. You’re a hero by any standard, don’t let the mortals take that from you.”

He squints at her, trying to work out what she’s saying. At home, the consuls never shut up about his achievements. About how he killed the Trojan Sea Monster and single-handedly slew the titan Crius. He hates it, hates the way they parade him around and make it sound like they’re the ones who made it all possible.

Oh. Hang on.

“I really was a puppet, wasn’t I?”

Piper shakes her head so hard her dark plait slaps against her neck.

“No. You might’ve ended up like that. You aren’t one yet, and you never will be. It’s going to take time for you to learn how to claim what’s yours. Sky kid stubbornness can be a good thing, as long as you use it the right way.”

She turns back to the audience, and Jason has the disconcerting thought that he would very much like to be Piper when he grows up.

He really hopes he gets the chance to introduce her to Reyna someday.

The bonfire lasts well into the night, and Jason finds himself having fun. The quest story ends, and other campers tell stories about old familiar myths, along with new myths Jason’s never heard before. They sing songs that are a strange mix of modern camping songs and Ancient Greek epics.

It’s odd to feel such a sense of belonging here. He’s used to feeling different and alone. Jason’s a leader, and no-one else is like him.

He’d meant it when he’d told Piper he thought she was the closest counterpart he has in the Greek camp. Having met Lee and felt the power emanating from the man, along with his ongoing slow realisations about how much Lee does, Jason knows he is nothing like the son of Apollo.

That sort of life is far too big for the likes of him. Piper’s a better match for sure. Back home, Reyna and Dakota are the closest he has, yet even they’re different from Jason.

The Greeks are different too. They’re all different from each other, no-one’s powers are the same. They find belonging in their difference.

It’s a hard lesson to accept.

When the bonfire ends and people start trailing back to the cabins, Jason stays on the beach. Silena tells him to take his time and gathers up the other Cabin Two kids and leaves him to it.

Dom moves up to the bluff, settling in to keep an eye on Jason, yet giving him enough distance that he can pretend he’s alone.

It’s both incredibly familiar and completely alien to sit on a beach and look out at the waves and wonder what he’s going to do now.

The stars are different here. They shouldn’t be. Yet, somehow, he’s acutely aware that he’s on the East Coast, when he’s always made his home on the West Coast. The stars are ever so slightly different, the tiniest bit off, constantly reminding him that this is not his home.

“I believe the prophet has proved me wrong.”

Jason jolts and lunges to his feet, dropping his head in an awkward bow to the goddess who definitely wasn’t there a minute ago. He risks a quick glance to the side. Dom is nowhere to be seen.

He turns back to the goddess, wide-eyed and frantic.

“I swear I haven’t told the legion about them. I’ve done as you asked, I’ll swear on anything you want.”

Juno scoffs, looking entertained. “I did watch your quest, I am aware of how close you came to contravening my orders. I also know that you did not. I am not here to steal your memories.”

Well, that’s a relief.

“I am here to give you a warning, however. You did not disobey my orders, yet you considered it. Your life was given to me. You are mine, and I expect you to obey. Should you ever consider setting yourself against me in the future, I will not be so understanding. I am not a god you want to cross.”

Jason catches himself before he snarls at her. He is not a thing to be owned. Not by the consuls and not by her.

A smile grows on her face. “Ah, there is the spirit I had thought lost! It would do you well, Jason Grace, to remember that you are a son of my husband, and his children are never acquiescent.”

“You want me to be both obedient, and disobedient, at the same time?”

“I want you to have a mind of your own. I expect you to be obedient to me, not to anyone else. You accepted your destiny. If you continue to give in to the will of others, all will fail and Rome will be lost.”

“I thought the gods didn’t care about Rome?”

“We do not. Not in the way you mean. Ancient Rome was an idea we were willing to embrace. It fell far short of our expectations. All that power and new belief turning in on itself and destroying all that it had been.”

Well, that’s a rave review of Ancient Rome if he’s ever heard one. Gods make no sense.

“Okay. Then why keep us around?”

“That is for you to discover. The Great Prophecy has begun. In yourself and the girl lies the potential for Rome to be what we were promised. This will only come to fruition if you follow your heart. It is in your defiance that your new city will be built.”

Piper had explained the Great Prophecy thing to Jason. He’s not so impressed with his first meeting with the Oracle of Delphi leading to a Great Prophecy. He’d known the prophecy already. He hadn’t realised exactly how big a deal it was. Or that it was intended specifically for him.

He’d be happier if it’d been intended for the full legion.

“Even though Percy is planning to demobilise the legion?”

Juno gives him a sharp look. “You are not stupid, and denial is no longer permissible. Your legion will be far stronger for it, you know that.”

Yes, Jason does. It goes against everything he believes. Yet the Greeks are proof that demigods fight at a different level to legacies. To mortals.

It gives an entirely new perspective to all of Octavian’s talk about how a single Greek demigod could kill a hundred legionnaires in a day.

Of course they could.

Piper could do it in two minutes or less. Leo might need five minutes to assemble his latest insane invention, he certainly wouldn’t need a full day.

Even if the legion were the size of a legion of Ancient Rome, with six thousand or more men, the Greek demigods would still win. It’s not even in question.

The legionnaires are mortals. Not demigods. A demigod who can face down a gigas isn’t going to see any mortal as a challenge. The handful of demigods the legion has are taught not to use their powers. Even if their abilities are of use in a fight, they won’t know how to use them.

Though that reminds him.

“Did you know the Keeper of the Winds has ordered the death of all demigods?”

“I am aware. The matter has been dealt with.”

Well, that was simpler than Jason had hoped.

She’s watching him, dark eyes burning with something he can’t identify. It’s not hope, maybe hope-adjacent?

What on earth could matter so much to these people?

“I still want to know what you’re getting out of this.”

“I wish to have my family returned to me. Whole, loved and safe. I am the goddess of marriage, and my domain of family is yet new to me. I wish to protect my family all the same.”

That makes even less sense to Jason. Vesta was Juno’s sister.

“The Romans let Vesta’s fire go out.”

Her face turns dark and angry. Oops.

“They did. They decided they had no need of gods, so we stopped interacting with them. Our children continued to be born, yet we no longer spoke with you.”

“The people here say Hestia is gone.”

“She is.”

“So how can her fire be relit?”

“It cannot.”

This is a truly ridiculous conversation to be having in the dark on a beach in a Greek camp. Is Juno being deliberately infuriating, or is she always like this?

Back home, she’s known as Juno Moneta, Juno the Warner. Oh, that is not a fun thought.

“I don’t understand.”

“You will. When you are ready, you will understand. You are to be a peacemaker between the camps, just as the prophet and his kin will be. This is going to be a dangerous journey for you. If you succeed, it will be one of the greatest things ever achieved by a demigod. You are my champion, and you have embraced your destiny. Your path has begun, and the gods wait to see what will unfold.”

“And if I fail?”

Juno’s stern face is full of emotion. She’s both sorrowful and resigned.

“Then Rome will fall, and what was lost will never be restored. Our Greek children are strong, they have proved themselves again and again. This camp and its gods have already been tested. They will find their way forward, with or without you. They wish to help you and your people, ’tis a valuable gift they are offering.”

Jason speaks softly. “I know.”

He truly understands that now.

Jason’s seeing the Greeks after they’ve gone through hell and come out the other side. He remembers Piper’s face right after Lycaon died. When she still believed she was about to die.

Before Lycaon fully died, she’d been whispering, over and over, about how sorry she was for Jason and Leo. That they didn’t deserve to die like this; they were meant to grow up. She still doesn’t know she’d been speaking aloud. Neither Jason nor Leo will ever tell her. Some things are best kept secret.

It was in that unguarded moment that Jason understood how fundamentally different the Greeks’ experiences were from his.

The sole reason the Greeks are willing to help Jason’s people is because they believe all demigod kids deserve to grow up.

Their thinking is a lot like Octavian’s. Though much less underhanded.

And unlike Octavian, they believe they can help everyone.

It is more than Jason could have ever asked for.

“What of the gigantes? They’re rising.”

“They are. We must work through demigods, as we always have.”

“I don’t suppose you can give any specifics? The gigas king spoke of the Ancient Lands?”

He’d really like to know what’s going on with that. He hasn’t had a chance to talk to Piper about it yet. He’s feeling more confident that she isn’t ignoring him. When things are calmer, she’ll answer his questions.

“They will rise. The rest is up to the two camps. My husband insists we close Olympus. Only the Thief God is obeying his dictates.”

Juno is an incredibly exasperating god. Jason can’t work out why she’s even here.

A small smile spreads across her face as she watches him, the gold in her hair catching the light of the dying fire. She looks stern and unapproachable, ferocious but also very Roman. It’s unsettling.

“Do not think you can understand the gods, Jason Grace. We are not mortal. No matter what the old ways of Rome say, we cannot be bent to your will. I came here to remind you that you belong to me. And to warn you that I will not tolerate disobedience a second time. Remember who you serve.”

His answer is on the wrong side of sulky. He doesn’t care. “You make me sound like your slave.”

“If not for me, that mark on your wrist would be a true slave mark. Service to the Queen of Heaven is far more palatable than enslavement to a mere mortal. Do not forget that.”

Jason glances down at the legion mark. He’s less and less happy to see it the more time he spends away from the legion.

“I won’t.”

“Good. Your destiny awaits, Jason Grace. Our hope for a better future burns bright. Serve me well, and Rome will rise again.”

She disappears in a bright burst of light, leaving Jason blinking the white flash from his eyes in the sudden darkness, Dom’s soft coos assuring him he’s not completely alone.

Well. That happened.

The day after the quest party, Leo and Piper collect up a carefully curated group of campers.

Grover had headed off to see to his duties as a Lord of the Wild while they were away, taking Gleeson Hedge with him, so Leo has one less person to dodge as they walk through the woods.

Festus returned late last night and is already waiting outside the bunker door with a hopeful look on his face. He might be an automaton, but Festus truly loves his pad in the bunker. He shoves his way inside as soon as Leo unlocks the door, leaving everyone else outside peering into the dark bunker.

Jason says something about how he’s not sure if it’s a good or a bad thing that they’re doing this on Mundus Patet, it feels like opening Pandora’s box, and Piper cheerfully tells him, “Oh, we did that in August. Worked out really well, actually.”

Jason’s definitely adjusting to Greek life, at long last. He gives her a fierce look, realises she’s telling the truth and then shakes his head. “You’re all insane.”

Multiple people speak in chorus. “Yup!”

They’ll teach him their Greek ways soon enough. Insanity is contagious after all.

Case in point. For all of Leo’s increasingly crazed ideas about how to get his hands on the Atlantean compound metal, Triton gave him two ingots of it yesterday along with a sketch of a weapon he wants forged for Piper. A glaive. Specifically, a Japanese naginata.

Piper adores fantasy books and has asked Leo more than once about whether one of the polearms described in her books was a real weapon. She is very fond of stories about lady knights. Especially the books about the lady knight who wields a glaive. Leo’s spent enough time around Piper that he knows exactly where the Prince of the Sea got the idea from. He’d raised an eyebrow at Tri, and the god had given him a far too innocent look back.

When Triton added that the blade was to be called Thumos, Leo had rolled his eyes and agreed to forge it. Thumos is a frustratingly complex Ancient Greek word that somehow perfectly encapsulates Piper. It can mean rage or spirit or refer to the fire in a person’s soul. Some translations boil it down to ‘wrath’.

All apply to their Angry Girl.

Not only will Leo have the chance to work with the Atlantean metal, but Tri has also invited Leo to meet with Tyson in Atlantis to learn how to properly fully forge the metal, and he provided enough for two polearms. One for Piper and one for Leo.

Even better, Jason’s agreed to let Leo examine a couple of the imperial gold daggers he has spare. Leo had fessed up about the imperial gold cattle prod they’d stolen, and Jason had taken it in his stride. He has lots of fun projects in the near future.

Leo’s looking forward to the new challenges, First, he needs to show people the hidden safe in the bunker.

Since Prof knows there’s more to the place now, it was easy enough to get Lee’s approval on who would see things first. The Apollo kids are being left out of it to start with. Though Kayla and Will are aware of what they’re doing.

Malcolm, Soph, Jon, Beck, Silena, Rachel, Piper, Jason and Leo are all ready to see what they can learn from the bunker. Chiron’s joining them, because he definitely already knew about it.

The centaur still isn’t sharing much. Even standing in the middle of the sprawling workshop, his face is tight with some weird emotion, and he looks a little too much like he’s going to cry.

Malcolm softly asks if there’s anything Chiron can tell them.

The centaur shakes his head, his eyes staring around the bunker with despair on his face. “I swore an oath on the Styx that I would not speak of this. I’m afraid it’s still in effect. I was ordered to appear before the Olympian Council last week. They made it clear to me that I cannot speak of what happened between the two camps. I am extremely biased, and this is something only the demigods have the right to decide. It is your future, not mine.”

“You knew Leo could open the bunker, why not use it last year during the war?”

“Had the gods not stepped in to provide you with supplies, I hope I would have guided you here, so you could defend yourselves. I do not know. The history of this place- It is a painful one.”

Leo grimaces. Yeah, the whole place is concerning.

“What about the ship? That thing is amazing, why’d they stop building it?”

Chiron still looks uncomfortable as he walks over to the skeleton of the hull, half-finished and abandoned. He touches it reverently.

“The Argo II was to be used to evacuate the camp. Many believed the gods’ loyalties were too torn between the camps to be of assistance to anyone. The demigods of this camp wished to return to where they had once been safe, to our first encampment in the foothills of Mount Olympus.”

Leo and Beck frown simultaneously, both moving towards the plans of the ship on a nearby workbench. It’s a two hundred foot Greek trireme, only thirty feet wide. Two inner levels and a deck above. Most of the lower level is taken up by the engines.

Beck is perplexed. “Chiron, this ship isn’t large enough to move the camp.”

“Not this camp, no.”

Leo gives the centaur a bug-eyed look and turns his attention back to the ship. If they packed them like sardines, you could get maybe a hundred people on the ship, with ten pegasi in the stables. Or ten animals of another species if they were transporting livestock. There’d be no room to move or really breathe. It was still doable.

You’d have no space for weapons or any belongings. Realistically, if they were moving the armoury as well, and if they left all the livestock behind, the ship could fit fifty people max. And it would need to be a short trip.

Beck asks, “Chiron, when this ship was being built, was it for the year-rounders or the summer campers?”

“All the campers were year-round at that time, and there were no age limits. We housed everyone, children and adults alike.”

Shit.

Malcolm asks, “Something wrong?”

Beck’s voice is gruff and strained. “Ship’d only fit fifty, if they were moving the camp equipment too.”

Chiron’s voice is so soft they can barely hear it. “We were.”

All of them are exchanging wide-eyed looks now. Since the war, Prof’s said more than once that the gods have had a fairly stable number of kids over the years, it’s why everyone’s so pissed at Hermes. He’s got too many kids, and it broke some of their weird-ass rules.

There’s meant to be something like two-hundred-and-fifty living kids across the ten Olympians who have children. It’s been wildly erratic because of Zeus and Poseidon not having children and Hermes having over sixty all by himself.

Around half to three-quarters of that two-hundred-and-fifty are under-eighteen at any given time. And that doesn’t include the children of minor gods.

If the camp housed only the underage demigods like it did now, and every demigod was a year-rounder, it should have over a hundred. Possibly closer to two hundred if they weren’t letting the little kids live with their mortal parents.

Except Chiron said it housed adults as well.

Since the quest, Jason has told him that all the demigods had disappeared from the Roman legion in the early 1800s, it’s where his claims about them being slaughtered come from. He says Percy said that many of them had defected to the Greek camp in 1803. So they should have well over two hundred in the camp.

These plans are from 1814, and they are for fifty people at most.

What the hell happened?

Malcolm hesitantly asks, “Should we finish building the ship?”

Chiron flattens his lips, wiping any expression from his face. “I cannot help with this decision.”

Leo looks longingly at the hull. He desperately wants to build this ship and fly it. It’d be so totally awesome.

Beck examines the plans again, looking thoughtful.

“I think we need to table that. We need to know more before we decide what we’re doing. This ship is great and all. It’s just that even if I call all the Hephaestus kids in, it’d take us a good six months, maybe a full year, to get her operational. That time may be better spent on weapons we can use against the gigantes or to defend the camp.”

Malcolm agrees with Beck, sadly. “The gigantes are rising, we don’t know when that will happen yet. They talked about destroying the gods at their roots and returning to the Ancient Lands. Stands to reason the fight will be in Greece. This might have been the best transport when it was designed, I still think we’d be better off using modern transport or something from the gods. Even the mortals can fly these days.”

Yeah, that’s true. Huh. Maybe Leo could build them their own private plane? That could be cool!

Piper is walking around, poking at things on the benches, less interested in the ship than they are.

“These maps aren’t of Greece? If the ship was intended for Greece, why are the maps for somewhere else?”

Jason’s eyes catch on something, and Leo smirks as he sees the whole world fall away for their Roman as he disappears into nerd-land.

Piper moves to examine the maps more closely, and she’s looking fascinated and a little lost.

Jason speaks first. “During the quest, you mentioned that demigods still visit Greece?”

Chiron jolts slightly, standing stiffly, one hoof unconsciously pawing the concrete floor of the bunker. Even his tail is lashing back and forth. Totally failing to hide his discomfort.

Piper nods, telling Jason most can’t afford it, but whenever a camper has the opportunity to visit Greece, they encourage it. It’s good for them to see where the gods began.

“At home, we’re told that demigods and legacies are banned from the Ancient Lands. That we’ll be killed if we go there.”

Piper hesitantly suggests that the consuls might not like demigods being so far away from the legion. Leo’s watching Chiron.

“Nah, princess. It’s something else. Something Chiron can’t talk about.”

The group turns to look at him, and the centaur’s face flushes. “I believe it would be best if I left you to your explorations.”

Chiron all but gallops out of the bunker. Huh. Since when did he flee from campers?

Soph asks, “You know anything else about all that, Jason?”

He shrugs a shoulder, standing stiff and uncomfortable. “After I was made praetor, we went through the records we had access to. There was one about that rule. It was really unclear. Something was stolen, and because of that, the Ancient Lands are no longer safe for Romans. The way it was worded, we assumed we had stolen it. There was no information on what it was or who we took it from.”

Jon asks curiously, “You know when it was written?”

“In Glasgow, so between 1815 and 1920?”

Helpful.

Jason nods back to the maps. “These are old, and the countries would be different now. This one is of Rome.” He points to the map with the ‘Belone,’ and ‘Palatium,’ labels.

Jason squints at it, looking puzzled. Switching his focus from the map that’s like a zoomed-in section of a city block and the one beside it that shows a larger area. “Except it’s not Rome from 1815. This is more like the early 18th century? When Italy was still under papal rule. The Trevi Fountain’s not here, they started work on it in 1732. And there are a lot of churches and no archeological excavations, they dug up most of Palatine Hill during the 18th and 19th centuries.”

“What about Belone?”

“I’m not sure. We have a goddess with a similar name, she’s a war goddess, she had no temples on Palatine Hill, I’m not certain if that’s a misspelling or something else. The map shows a park at the location of the ruins of the palace where the emperors lived. There’s a mortal bloodline that the war goddess blessed, and it started with an emperor. It could be marking the location of one of them? Reyna’s the last of that line. They’re known as the Blades of Bellona.”

“And the map next to it?” Piper nods at the map on the other side of the zoomed-in one, this one has the ‘Columna Constantini’ highlighted.

“That map is of Constantinople when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. It’s called Istanbul now. It’s in Turkey.”

“As in Emperor Constantine?”

He nods, still squinting at the map. “The Columna Constantini was erected by him after he converted to Christianity. There are some odd rumours about it, used to be constant earthquakes there.”

Soph makes an excited noise, and Leo edges away from her. That sound means nothing good.

Her words tumble over each other. “The palladium! That’s the last known location of the original palladium!”

Now, everyone is grimacing. Except for Jason. He nods, still looking thoughtful. “Yeah, according to the mortal historians, the palladium was placed beneath the column, along with other artefacts.”

Leo squints at him. “Wait, we talking about the same palladium?”

Soph is definitely laughing at him. “That statue wasn’t the palladium, it was a fake out. The real one’s meant to be a lot smaller, you could carry it in one hand. It was in Troy for certain. The stories get vague as to whether it stayed in Troy or if it was carried to Rome.”

Oh, yeah. Jason wouldn’t know about Annabeth’s weird obsession with the palladium that led to them dragging a statue around the battlefield during the war.

Everyone is wincing now. Piper is cringing too. “Well, that explains why Tri is avoiding you, Jason. Let me clear things with him first, and then we can explain why the palladium is a, uh, ‘thing’ here.”

Yeah, they’ve all gotten really comfortable with having Triton around. They’re still careful about telling Pallas’s story.

Before Jason can go all stubborn on them, Leo redirects him to a map on another wall. This map tracked movements around a camp, and it kind of looked like preparations for a siege.

“Jason, any ideas on this one?”

Jason frowns at it, eyes flicking across the names.

Leo had assumed the ‘Groix’ label was courtesy of someone’s extreme dyslexia. Jason taps it. “Island of Groix, it’s off the French coast, in Brittany.” He pronounces ‘gr-WUH’ with a perfect accent. Because, of course. Also, that sounds absolutely nothing like it’s spelled. The hell?

Oh, wait. The reports in the safe had mentioned Brittany.

“Okay. Well. Guess it’s time I showed you the hidden safe thing? There were documents in there that mentioned Brittany.”

Everyone eagerly agrees and watches with interest as Leo summons the key from his magic tool belt and heats it up. The stairs dropping into nothing and turning into a passage into the hidden basement get plenty of oohs and ahhs, and Leo enjoys the showmanship of it all.

The others spread out as soon as they reach the bottom of the stairs, with Beck and Malcolm immediately pacing into the darkness and triggering motion sensors that turn overhead lights on until the full size of the basement is revealed.

They walk back slowly, stopping at each aisle of shelves and checking what’s in them.

When they return, Beck tells them most of the place is empty, probably cleared out during the siege. Only the nearest sections are full, most with supplies. Two aisles hold books and records. The aisle nearest the staircase is dedicated to Festus and everything they could ever need for repairing him or replacing parts. A second aisle even has a full spare set of wings.

Soph doesn’t wait to hear more, she’s off like a shot to the shelves full of records, and Jason’s barely a step behind.

Leo trails after them and snickers at Jason’s deeply disappointed, “It’s all in Greek.”

“Yeah, kinda how that works? It was written by demigods, and we suck at English.”

The others are exploring the shelves now, and it’s obvious the documents aren’t in any sort of order. They look like they’ve been shoved wherever they fit, as if they used to be stored elsewhere and got stashed down here during an evacuation or something.

Or maybe the gods dumped them here when they made the camps forget each other?

Malcolm announces that this won’t be a quick task and they need to organise themselves into shifts and start going through things methodically.

Leo makes a horrified face, and the three Athena kids immediately tell him they only need Leo to unlock the door for them, he can go now.

Jason’s happily talking to Soph about how to sort all the loose paper out, and Leo decides his time would be better spent on the schematics upstairs, Beck follows close behind.

Rachel, Silena and Piper show up a few minutes later saying the Athena kids said they were getting in the way. Sounds like Jason’s now an honorary Athena kid.

“You think Chiron will tell us why the records were hidden?”

Piper shakes her head, frowning at another map. “He’s bound by a Stygian oath. He can’t break that. We know the gods aren’t bound, yet they’re all refusing to explain. They can’t even give us an idea of whether there will be more gigantes in our lifetime.”

“Haloa. War begins on Haloa.”

They all turn to gape at Rachel, whose glazed eyes steadily refocus and return to the present.

Piper asks, “Um, Rachel, was that a prophecy?”

She nods, forehead wrinkling. “That’s when the war starts.”

The camp celebrates Haloa on the twenty-eighth of December. Today is the eighth of November. War is seven weeks away.

Leo hesitantly asks, “Are they coming here?”

“No. Not here. They’ll attack the Romans first.”

A sound behind her. Jason is standing on the stairs, with only his head showing. He definitely heard that.

Jason swallows hard and nods firmly. “Then we have work to do.”