An Undertow of Sand (Percy Jackson and the Cthulhu Mythos)

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction​

Dinner was awkward.

Artemis had clammed up after her confession when Luke came out of the bathroom, curling into a miserable ball of fluff with a huge lion tongue cowlick.

Luke didn’t say anything either.

Back at Camp, I was used to hearing how the son of Hermes was a good looking guy from just about everyone from Aphrodite Cabin (Don’t let Silena get started. You will never hear the end of it). A lot from Apollo Cabin too, some from Hephaestus and anyone with eyes could see Annabeth of Athena was in denial. But right now, his brow was etching wrinkles into his forehead as he frowned, like he was forty eight instead of eighteen. He looked worn out, exhausted and angry and still too pale. The scar on his face was a deep groove as he thought hard about something painful with reddened eyes that were still a little puffy.

Luke didn’t look like the college aged kid with a bright future in front of him right now. He looked like he had just crawled out of a bombed refugee camp and realized the war would never end.

I pretended not to notice.

A tiny plate with a brownie slid across the table Rhea had dragged from the kitchen into our room to bump my arm. I looked up at Rhea. She raised an eyebrow with a silent question and jerked her head towards Luke, who was mechanically shoving the stuffed grape leaves into his mouth. I don’t think he was even tasting the dolmades.

We made an odd picture. Two boys in chitons and bare feet like we were LARPing the Trojan War sitting at Rhea’s rickety, chewed on table with a stack of travel postcards from all over Europe in the center weighed down by a porcelain ballerina. The radio was playing some boring song from the 50s over the smell of steamed grape leaves stuffed with minced lamb and chocolate brownies. Rhea herself was wearing some kind of college hoodie with a flattened red C shape and the letters ST in the middle and jean capris. It reminded me of Corey, because he had a similar hoodie and it reminded of Khione too. The only goddess I knew with a college degree.

I shrugged at my cousin. “My sisters are cunts.”

I was trying to be nonchalant about it, because I didn’t know what else to do. It wasn’t like I could walk outside, Challenge the Fates on Luke’s behalf and then beat them up. I’d get destroyed.

Mom wouldn’t lift a finger if I did something that stupid.

There were a lot of things Mom wouldn’t do anything about.

Sulfur was still burning in the back of my throat. The first day of our Quest, in the backseat of Argus’ van, I said those exact words to Luke and Artemis. ‘The Fates are cunts.’ The moon rabbit had been alarmed, shuffling away from me like she was trying to get out of the blast radius.

Luke had laughed.

A lot can change in just a few days.

“Ah,” Rhea said, frowning. She looked like she wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

I took a bite of my brownie.

“Umph!” Holy shit, it was good. “Wow.”

Rhea perked up. “You like?”

“Yeah.” I took a bigger bite. There were nuts and this gentle honey taste against the chocolate alongside some raisins and the white frosting. “You should definitely give Mom the recipe.”

“Ha!” Rhea barked. “Yeah, I - “ Her face went blank, almost the exact same way Mom’s did when she was surprised. Like the guiding intelligence had just checked out for a second. Luke was staring at me too with his best chipmunk impression, cheeks full of food.

“Sorry,” Rhea huffed. “Say what?”

I swallowed my brownie bite. “You should give my mother the recipe?”

“Yeah,” Rhea sighed, then quietly grumbled. “That’s what I thought you said.” She sighed again, resigned to her own curiosity. “Your mother bakes?”

“It’s a recent thing,” I reassured them both. “It started in honor of Martha Stewart’s prison sentence for tax evasion. I know,” I said to Luke’s constipated expression. “It was Dad’s idea, he talked her into it.”

You heard right. Dad talked Mom into putting on an apron and everything. She’s gotten pretty good at it too. He gets her sense of humor, even when it bothers him. And he always seems to know what to say to get her to do things she wouldn’t otherwise even think of doing. He’s already a lawyer, so he tries not to use his superpowers for evil.

His words, not mine.

If you’re wondering, my father is some kind of idiot savant.

Or just an idiot.

If he had been there in that clearing, I like to think Mom would have never left.

Rhea’s mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes turned purple as she looked at me like this was the first time we’ve met. “Your mother actually raised you?”

It was my turn to eye her.

Kronos said the same thing.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “She still is.”

“Huh.” She looked like her worldview had shifted a few degrees to the south. “With what Name?”

I thought about not answering.

There had to be a reason the Greek pantheon didn’t know about The Mórrígan. I could say something vague and I knew Rhea would still get it. She might even be expecting me to after she realized how far behind on his education Apollo was, but honestly?

I wasn’t interested in keeping Luke in the dark about anything anymore. Between Olympus’ revisionist history and neglect and my own family, he’s had enough of that.

And maybe I didn’t care as much about Mom’s reasons.

I shrugged and picked at the dolmades still on my dinner plate. “Celtic.”

“Celtic?” Rhea repeated incredulously. I watched Luke’s blue eyes widen, and then narrow as he figured it out. “Isn’t that the one with The Hunter - why would she even - never mind,” Rhea said abruptly. She made this strange pained expression that looked a lot like Mom’s Quantum Stupid face. Even with the bug eyes, you could really see the family resemblance.

“Answered my own question,” Rhea groaned down at the kitchen table, hands pressed against her temples. “She’s incapable of not being a shit.”

“The Hunter?” I asked. They must be a pretty big deal if Rhea thought their presence in a pantheon was a deal breaker, but Mom never mentioned anyone like that.

Rhea didn’t answer immediately. Her eyes shifted to a deep sapphire color as she picked up our dinner plates.

“The Hunter?” I pressed.

“Someone who really doesn’t like your mother and strong enough to actually do something about it,” she admitted and I reeled a little. Strong enough to do something about it is pretty damn strong. What kind of Hunter can stand up to Fate? “If she hasn’t told you, then I guess there’s safety in ignorance?”

“I guess,” I muttered. I was used to that. Safety in ignorance. I only knew two of Mom’s Names for my own safety, even if I knew of a third now. Her Egyptian one. The Black Pharaoh. “Did she do something to them? Are they feuding then?”

Mom was of the opinion that only cowards and the weak took their anger out on their enemies’ children instead, but not everyone would agree with her. If a god gave a shit about their family at all, attacking their weaker consort or kids might look like a good idea. And if Mom was speaking from personal experience?

That was.

Not great.

“Fuck if I know,” Rhea said unhelpfully. “Ask her?”

She disappeared back into the kitchen.

I nibbled on my brownie.

“You don’t have two mothers,” Luke said over the radio commercial and I cringed at the odd tone in his voice. “You have one.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. I felt weirdly ashamed. “I have one.”

‘Luke seems okay with you,’ I remembered Castor telling me way back when at Camp Half-Blood, right before he and his brother told me that the ‘summer camp’ for Greek half-bloods was an orphanage. That no one really had both of their parents. ‘But he remembers his Pa walking out.’

Luke’s lips curled into a faint sneer as he shoved his own brownie plate around a little. “So it was all sunshine and roses for you, then.”

“She left once because I wasn’t good enough. For a year.” Well, I’m pathetic. Luke’s Dad never came back and he just learned why and I’m whining about a single year? Why did I even say that?

“But, yeah,” I finished lamely.

Even when she was gone, I still had Apollo that year. Being my big brother 24/7.

But his mortal alias Fred was only at Camp Half-Blood a few times a week for his own children.

Sunshine and roses.

Luke’s pale blue eyes flickered over me. “She’s the one who trained you, then?” When I nodded, he frowned harder. “I knew something was off. Too defensive for self-taught, better at dealing with opponents with more reach and strength than you.”

“Her Celtic Name is a War goddess,” I offered tentatively. “She uses a spear and magic.”

“And too high of a pain tolerance,” he finished. “You broke your arm the first time you broke the Climbing Wall.”

I blinked.

“Uh, yeah?”

“You didn’t notice until later.”

I shrugged. “Heal fast.”

Back home, if I really needed it, I could count on either Mom or Apollo to do something about my boo boos. Preferably before Dad freaked out and called 9-1-1.

Luke made a half-snorting sound that was more like a harsh exhale through his nose. “And did your mother train that into you too?”

I wasn’t going to complain about it. If Mom hadn’t taught me how to not freeze in a fight just because I got hurt, I would be dead at least four times over by now. She never went further than breaking my leg because I was too slow, but that was the last lesson on pain tolerance and she never did it again.

I shook my head, frowning. “Only when she had to.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Only when she had to,” he repeated softly. “You know, a lot of things about you make more sense now, but a lot still doesn’t. If you are being raised by your mother, why is she making you learn how to fight monsters?”

I opened my mouth, but had to close it.

My first instinct was to say that I was a demigod. Killing monsters was what we do, so she made sure I was good at it.

But why?

It wasn’t like Mom needed me to protect her.

‘What need does She Who Stalks Stars have of this dirt?’ Kronos had asked me.

I don’t know.

I punched Grover my first day at Camp. We’re cool now, but at the time, I was angry at being confiscated by Hermes like some kind of Olympus Child Protection Services case. I didn’t need protection, I thought then. I had my mother.

But she did make me fight monsters.

And this one undead Egyptian sorcerer jerkass.

Long story.

It’s how I met Cliff.

Luke poked at his dinner. “Demigods are always hunted by monsters and your mother - ”

“Only Olympic demigods!” I blurted out.

His eyes snapped up to me.

The Curse of Lamia, the nasty piece of work cast by a monster child of Hecate, the Titaness of Magic is what lets nature spirits and monsters sniff Greek half-bloods out from the middle of a crowd. It was Hera’s version of mercy. She washes her hands of Olympic demigods forever. The mortal relatives were off limits. No more divine revenge on the affront to her Domain, but if the half-blood was not strong enough, fast enough, lucky enough…

They’ll die anyway.

Olympic demigods.

Time. The Night. The Pit.

Fate.

They are above Olympus.

The Curse should have meant nothing to me, but I’ve been chased by way too many Hellhounds, Cyclops and demon birds for that to be true. And even if there was something funky going on with the Curse, it should have been trivial for Mom to get rid of it. Through magic of her own or just brute force.

Mom plans ahead, but that doesn’t mean I know what those plans are.

“Only Olympic demigods,” Luke said slowly in a very, very quiet tone of voice. “...only us.”

I sat in my chair stiffly, mangling my napkin. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would help.

“Maybe some of them…care,” Luke drawled finally. “But that doesn’t mean it’s for the right reasons, or that they care like they should. My father - ” His voice broke for a split second. “I had to blackmail him into helping the rest of his children in our Cabin while I was gone - “ He was almost panting as his face flooded with hurt. “I had - I had to - “ He savagely bit into a dolmades and mumbled. “He’s still a piece of shit.”

“Are we talking about my children?” Rhea asked as she came back from the kitchen, balancing a tray of drinks. “Because my bad.”

“Grandchildren,” Luke corrected her sullenly.

“I take it back.” Rhea said immediately and refilled his dinner plate. “Not my fault, innocent until proven guilty.”

“You’re a little guilty,” I said, just to be a little shit.

I really wasn’t looking forward to having to travel the whole United States looking for a fucking god weapon during the Night with one demigod and a rabbit.

Yeah, Rhea was helping, but…

That wrapped donut still stung.

My cousin gave me the stink eye. “My children had no choice in how they were raised, but they should know better in how they treat their children. I made sure they knew.” She passed me the drink, some kind of punch, but I could tell Luke’s had nectar mixed in. “Especially Hera.”

Rhea didn’t sound angry, just disappointed.

“You tried?” Luke sounded surprised.

“I fucking tried!” Zeus’ mother threw up her hands. The drink tray went flying and disappeared before it hit the wall. “Advice, warnings, fostering, throwing problem grandchildren at other people when I couldn’t figure out their shit, everything. Didn’t I?” Rhea turned her head and her voice had a sudden deep hum running underneath it that rattled my bones and made my stomach clench painfully. “Artemis.”

The moon rabbit on the floor flinched, before slowly uncurling from her ball.

“You did,” the rabbit croaked.

“And now Selene’s dead,” Rhea said tersely and Artemis flinched again. That made me wonder if Artemis’ inheritance was a sore spot for the Titan Queen. Rhea didn’t say she couldn’t do anything for Artemis and she’d used Selene against the rabbit before. “Maybe. Probably.”

“Maybe?” I repeated incredulously.

Artemis had the chariot and the new duty as a mirror of our sun, but the previous Titaness of Radiance, Insanity and the Moon Selene’s calcified corpse still hung around in our night sky. Most of her really was a crater-scarred orb of rock and bone dust. The Mist didn’t need to do much, but on a full moon, sometimes I looked up and could see right into her open eye.

I didn’t do that often.

“Nobody knows,” Rhea answered, sounding tired. Luke was looking back and forth between us. As the saying goes, there was a story there. I knew of it, but didn’t really know it.

Apollo didn’t like talking about how they got their chariots. He would always blame the Romans, but we both know that wasn’t true.

“What happened, happened, but even as - “ Rhea made a vague waving motion around her head with a hand. “Gone, she still did right by a Young goddess of the Hunt in the end.” Rhea’s voice was tight and sad, her eyes turning a poisonous yellow color. “Just because I asked her to.”

“...I’m sorry,” Artemis whispered.

Luke choked on his drink as Rhea’s eyebrows flew up into her dark hairline.

“...what?”

“I’m sorry,” Artemis said, louder, but not stronger. The former goddess’ voice was so brittle, like she was about to cry and her small form was trembling. “I - I am sorry. You tried, you warned me about my Domain and I didn’t listen and I don’t - I don’t - “ Big, fat tears welled up in the rabbit’s eyes. “I don’t want to die.”

Artemis sniffled.

“I - I don’t want - I’m so sorry! I tried to be better!” Artemis cried as Rhea looked more and more disappointed. “I was getting better! I don’t want to die! I’m not - I’m not ready. I tried. Why - why doesn’t it matter?”

“Oh,” her grandmother finally breathed out, softly walking over to scoop the rabbit up in her arms. “You poor, naive child…”

“I don’t want to go - “ The rabbit’s paws gripped the hoodie desperately. “Please, I don’t want to go, I tried, I’m not ready! Μάμμη!” She cried out, slipping completely into Ancient Greek. Grandma. “I don’t want to go! I’m not ready for it to end!”

Everything ends, I thought.

Rhea left the room, whispering gently as Artemis openly sobbed into her college hoodie.

I don’t want to go!

Luke let out a shaky snort. “No wonder she usually looks like she’s twelve.”

“I resemble that remark,” I said.

“Mhm.”

“Oy.”

I threw my crumpled napkin at him.

I don’t want to go!

Luke slowly started on his plate of seconds, taking sips of his drink between bites. I guess he had been starving, being unconscious for over a day. He needed the resources. I felt something nudge my arm from the opposite side and when I looked down, Atalanta was at my elbow. The lion’s sorrowful golden eyes looked at me for a long moment.

I don’t know what she was trying to tell me and I don’t know what I wanted her to say either. The moment passed and she slowly herded her stubborn cubs from the room.

I don’t want to go!

I pushed my brownie plate away. I didn’t feel like finishing it.

Luke had finished eating and drained his cup by the time Rhea came back sans bunny.

“Sleeping,” she said shortly with a complicated expression on her face. “How’s your arm doing?” She asked Luke. “Range of motion?”

He windmilled his arm for her, wincing when he tried to lift his arm over his shoulder. After the nectar, the ugly scar had healed a bit so it was more of an angry dark pink ropy scar instead of a blood red line of scabbing and ripped skin.

Rhea made a clicking sound as she knelt by him. The writing on the walls lit up as that smokeless fire flickered at the ends of her fingers. My stomach felt like someone had dropped a rock into it. I held my breath on reflex, but I wasn’t going to throw up. Hopefully, that meant I was getting over my god flu.

“ - and when you meet him again,” Rhea was telling Luke quietly as she reopened a part of his shoulder wound. “You can report that my debt has been paid. One intervention, as agreed.”

“I can still - “

“I am not my father, taking advantage of desperation.” She cut off his whispered protest. “A vow like that isn’t until the end of your life.”

I wondered what they were talking about. I almost asked, but my Nana went through a lot of effort making sure I had a basic sometimes-working filter on my ADHD mouth.

Unlike my mother.

If it wasn’t any of my business, then it wasn’t any of my business. I was guessing it had something to do with how he was able to get Rhea to help. I was family, but Luke had to get her attention. I was still curious, but watching him look away from her, clenching his fists, I didn't want to push him.

“Ah ha,” Rhea exclaimed and pulled something from his shoulder. At first, I thought that maybe she extracted a bone fragment that was giving him trouble, but what she pulled out was long, thin, black as midnight. Pinched between her fingers, it looked like it was breathing. I think it even wriggled.

“What is that?” Luke looked spooked. I didn’t blame him. It looked nasty and it had been in his shoulder.

“Hm?” Rhea said absently as she stood up, inspecting the black splinter. “Hair off the dog that bit you, pretty sure,” she said, looking a bit disgusted. “Desecrated as they are, the Hunters still remember how to hunt.”

Ice ran down my spine.

“It’s Night,” I said immediately and alarm flashed over Luke’s face. “It - she can’t just use the darkness to get here, can she?”

Because if Mom throwing a tantrum at Night meant that our safety net actually meant nothing…

I was going to be furious.

Rhea’s lips pursed.

“Only those of my sister have that ability, so I’m gonna say no.” She waved a hand and our clothes, clean and folded, fell onto the table in front of us. “But you should leave, sooner rather than later. I will keep this here, but I don’t expect it to fool her for long.”

“Thank you,” Luke said sincerely, reaching out for his red vest and jeans. “For everything, Lady Rhea.”

“Yeah, well.” The Titan Queen shrugged “It’s the least I can do. And - “ She gave us a sad, resigned smile. “I would appreciate it, if you can give my granddaughter an hour to…recover.”

“We can do that,” I said quickly, ahead of Luke.

I thought he was going to refuse. I think he wanted to, but pressed his lips together before letting out an exasperated sigh, “Yeah, sure. We can sleep after the sun comes up, or something.”

Oh, I thought.

Rhea raised an eyebrow at me and jerked her head towards Luke as a silent question.

Shit.

“Right…” I began slowly. Luke had absolutely no idea. “About that.”

I floundered.

I had an hour to cram all the relevant information I learned over twelve years into Luke’s head before we walked out that door and got ourselves killed.

My cousin snorted and abandoned me, leaving the room with a mocking wiggle of her fingers as Luke looked at me expectantly.

“About what? The sun?”

“I - okay.” Don’t panic. First rule. Don’t panic. I dragged a hand down my face. Where do I even begin? “My mother and my - “ Sister-in-law, cousin, aunt? Aunt. Aunty Nyx.

…would Tartarus let me call him Uncle?

Focus.

Important shit first:

It’s not my fault.

“My mother and Aunt Night are mad at each other so Night’s more active. Paying attention. That’s making her realm bleed through so the sun - “ I rushed through the rest. “The sun isn’t going to rise until she…stops that?”

Luke stared at me blankly. Then he glanced behind me towards the window. “So when you say Night…”

“The protogenoi.” The Primordial Night. “It means - it means a lot more monsters and I’m not talking about Night’s Hellhound pups.” I licked my lips. Fuck, Mom. You couldn’t just let it go? I’m fine.

Why couldn’t you let it go?

“Ancient monsters. From the Pit and beyond slipping through the cracks. It’s affecting the mortals too.” I pointed at his wrist where the lion charm dangled. “Rhea gave you that so you could talk - remember when Mom Claimed me and the sound kind of died?”

He nodded jerkily.

“Yeah, but for everyone. And we’re going to have to be real careful with sleeping, because Hypnos is grounded so if you wander too far, something will eat you and if you ever feel yourself falling down while sleeping - “

“I better wake up,” Luke said shakily. His blue eyes were starting to widen with fear. “I know. The Pit - “ He swallowed thickly. “I know.”

“Okay.” I tried to swallow my heart back down. “Okay.” Most people just jerk awake by instinct. If Luke knows without being told that falling down in your sleep meant you reached the Pit… “How good are you at Dreaming?”

“I can control it.” Some emotion flashed over his face. Then he slowly continued. “Travel a bit. Change shape. Evade the Dream spirits.”

Hermes Oneiropompus, Conductor of Dreams. Luke was up to five Names inherited from his father, but at least now I knew why. Hermes wanted Luke.

He just wasn’t allowed to keep him.

“So if I say ‘stay close to me’ while you’re Dreaming, you can?”

“I can,” he said quietly.

“Good.” I found myself rubbing the back of my neck.

Some of the things I learned, like Wards and Signs, weren’t something I needed to use just to get rid of some man-eating sheep. Most monsters were far too stupid and weak to do more than hit you really hard with something. Or bite you. A rare few, like sirens or Artemis’ former Hunter, could do more, but the average monster wasn’t something you needed to Ward your soul from.

You just needed to worry about them killing you.

Big difference.

And Signs?

Signs only worked on those that weren’t native to this reality.

In Dungeons and Dragons terms, they were variations of the Dismissal spell on Outsiders. Force one extraplanar creature right the fuck back home with a Will saving throw.

Or at least make it wish it was back home.

I was going to need them now. I found myself wondering what Mom foresaw me needing them for, but if I started going down that rabbit hole (did Mom know she wouldn’t know what Night did and anticipated losing her temper by being surprised? How?) I don’t think I’d come up for air anytime soon.

Here’s to hoping Mom didn’t pass me with a D- on those like she did my Sensitivity.

Because that would suck.

A lot.

“What kind of monsters can we expect?”

“I… can’t answer that,” I admitted painfully. “We can come across anything from the Pit and with the Stirring going on - “

“What?” Luke asked sharply.

I blinked.

Holy shit, they weren’t even taught about that?

But fighting monsters is what demigods do.
.
“The Stirring. Great Stirring, whatever.” I flapped my hand. “The Pit kind of…turns over in his sleep or something every ten or so thousand years. Monsters that haven’t even been seen in eight or twelve thousand years start reforming and can find ways out to the surface.”

Luke had an unreadable look on his face as he stared at me.

“...and that’s happening now?”

“It’ll reach a peak in…” I tried to remember my mother’s timeline for my Uncle Pit. Shit. I can’t. Soon. “Maybe five years? Some monsters start reforming early. I don’t know how early, but just - be prepared for it?” Luke’s face was pinched and he was clutching his clothes to him with white knuckles. “And not all monsters come from the Pit either,” I finished quietly. “There are other pantheons, remember?”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. He remembered.

Greek monsters hunted Olympic demigods thanks to the Curse. That didn’t mean the demigods of other pantheons were safe from the horrors of their own mythology. Or that we were safe from them.

“I can’t tell you what to expect.”

For a long while, we just stared at each other.

“Ok-ay.” Luke’s voice cracked. His blank mask crumbled as he bent over the table, a death grip on his red vest and yellow fanny pack, until he was just an overwhelmed demigod realizing how far in over his head he really was. “I - just - just give me a few minutes. Please.”

I jumped up from the table like my seat was on fire.

“Sure, I’ll just be - uh, over there.”

I escaped to the other side of the room. Turning on the TV or playing my Gameboy did not appeal to me right now. My throat was still burning. My stomach didn’t feel great. It felt like it was trying to open, but it had been stitched shut. I found myself looking out the window instead. Maybe I was hoping that Night had proved herself more responsible than my mother in the past half hour and I wouldn’t have a bunch of bullshit ahead of me.

Wishful thinking.

The night sky was still a void. The lights from the house only extended just enough to show impossibly dark shadows of Rhea’s crap still in her front yard and driveway.

Fuck.

I had a bunch of bullshit ahead of me.

When we returned to Olympus Master Bolt, I was absolutely going to make Zeus bleed for it.

When.

Think positive.

I let the curtains fall back into place -

Wait.

I opened the curtain again. I thought I saw movement. I expected some kind of monster to be probing the edges of Rhea’s barrier wards. I half-expected to see Aura’s ugly, pissed off mug out there, because that was my luck.

Instead, a small black bird fluttered into the square of light spilling weakly from the window.

A raven.

Its black beak clacked noiselessly and I watched a third eye open up on its forehead.

“Mom?” I whispered.

It stretched its wings triumphantly and bobbed its head. Then it hopped out of sight.

I scrambled back from the window.

Mom.

I ran out of the room in a mad dash for the front door. I passed Rhea who had something in her hands and maybe she tried to say something, but I wasn’t paying attention. I yanked the door open and maybe it had been locked because I heard something break before my bare feet hit the concrete front step.

“Lil cuz, what’s - “ Rhea gasped as the black haired woman stepped into the light. The Titan Queen immediately threw herself to the ground. Hands outstretched as if begging for mercy, face down.

“Great One,” she breathed.

Mom looked the same way she always did. Pale with freckles across the bridge of her nose, long dark feathered hair that went down to her back. The Morrigan was just in a white blouse and slim jeans with dress shoes. A silver pendant hung from her neck.

But something was still wrong.

It was her eyes, I realized after a second of staring. Where I once saw a fractal gaze of violent death, there was nothing. As if her eye sockets were empty. There were stars in them.

The Names of an Elder God were avatars. They were always there.

“Mom?” I ventured, taking a step forward.

She recoiled.

“...who interfered this time,” she said distantly, an unreadable expression on her face.

I was suddenly terrified for my half-brother, Erebus.

“Mom - Mom don’t be mad, he helped - “

“He.” She looked at me like she was seeing right through me. “He?” She hissed. “You will tell me who - “

I risked talking over her. “He helped, I would have died if he didn’t - “

“I take my eyes off you for a second - “

“It’s been two days!” I yelled at her and Mom stopped mid tirade. “It’s been - Rhea,” I turned to my cousin and a sick feeling coiled in my stomach when she flinched away from me. “How long has it - “ Why was she still on the ground? “You can stand up,” I said quickly. “Please stand up.”

It reminded me of that first night at Camp Half-Blood, with all the Campers and Dionysus, god of Olympus being made to bow.

Mom was looking at me like she didn’t know who I was.

My throat was tight.

“Rhea’s my cousin,” I pointed out weakly. “My first cousin. She can stand.”

My words hung in the air between us like a dead cat. I watched my mother’s brow wrinkle slightly as the stars in her eyes flared, and then dulled. A few winked out.

Mom tilted her head towards the Matriarch of Swarms.

“You can stand,” she told her softly. At first Rhea’s hands pulled back. She froze, or maybe she was waiting for a reaction and when nothing happened, she sat up. I didn’t like the bewildered, fearful look she was giving me.

“I have a very…” Mom’s lips turned up in a strange smile. “...compassionate son.”

“You must have broken a few laws of nature birthing him.” Rhea quipped. She immediately flinched, looking like she was a second from throwing herself back onto the ground.

The Mórrígan smiled wider. “You have… no idea.”

“Um,” I said.

“Of course,” Mom nodded at me like I said something profound. “I will inform your father of your change in status. He’ll be overjoyed.”

Rhea flushed red and then went white as all the blood drained from her face.

I’m guessing that’s a bad thing.

“Wait, Mom - “

“Do you still want it?” It was her turn to talk over me. Her voice was like silk as she took a step closer. I fought the urge to go right back into the house and she wasn’t even looking at me. “You have distinguished yourself in that mess a while back, haven’t you? You have helped my son and that deserves…something, doesn’t it? You already have my patronage. Your father’s. And you know your place.”

“Mom!” My sharp tone cut through the strange tension. My mother blinked slowly and then stepped back.

“If I may?” Rhea wasted no time in asking.

“Go.”

I was left alone on the front step.

My heart was jack hammering. I was a strange kind of numb. I was feeling a lot of things, but they only registered as flashes of emotion breaking out of this high strung fight or flight adrenaline rush and I hadn’t chosen one yet. I didn’t want to run. This was my mother.

“It’s been two days.”

And I’ve had enough of her shit.

I chose fight.

“You nearly threw me into the Beyond when you got mad and abandoned me for two days. I prayed to you and you didn’t answer. For two days.”

Mom’s face fell.

“I…I didn’t - “

“Mean to, I know.” I said. “But you still did it.” An ugly suspicion rose in my mind. “I bet you didn’t even check on Dad either.”

Her head jerked in a strange way, like she forgot her body had a spine for a second. The thumb on her right hand started twisting her wedding ring. “He’s…he should be - “

“It’s okay. He was home. I’m sure Apollo picked up the slack.”

She eyed me warily.

“You are…angry with me.”

“Fucking furious,” I bit out. “You know about Luke, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Mom said easily. She didn’t need to ask what I was talking about and that just made me angrier. “It would be impossible not to.” Mom almost smiled. “Sloppy work. Your sisters cut some corners. Overreached.”

‘I suppose it had to happen eventually,’ Rhea had said when she heard the Great Prophecy. ‘An overreach.’

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You say that,” Mom said slowly. “As if you expected me to care about dust.”

It was different with Mom. The expectation for gods like Artemis or Apollo to be human just wasn’t there. Most of the time, she followed Dad’s moral compass. But sometimes, I got the feeling that she was like a sentient black hole aping right from wrong.

She knows I noticed.

“You sisters’ machinations only concern me when they involve you.”

I was almost too angry to be confused. “But - I drew a Prophecy. Hermes, God of Thieves card.” Mom didn’t say anything. She just watched me and I felt my confidence wither a little. “You gave me a Quest.”

A very small frown formed on her face.

“You needed a thief. Their plans for the demigod of Hermes are irrelevant,” she said softly and I felt my stomach drop. “You could have argued for his father. He has immortal children that could have taken his place. Prophecies mean what you think they mean.” Her star-filled gaze pierced right through me. “It would have made no difference to me.”

“I gave him my boon,” I said like I was swinging a sword at her head. “By the way.”

Her eyes narrowed immediately. “When?”

I only got a few words into the explanation of ‘after getting off Nemesis’ crazy train and the monster attack’ before Mom let out a frustrated half-scream, stalking first in one direction and then back in angry pacing.

“That is - that is fine,” she gritted out with clenched teeth. “I should have expected it after you changed things when you turned seven. It’s fine. That’s…minor, really. I can adjust. We have time! I can - “

“Mom,” I stopped her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She opened her mouth, but I held up a hand and stepped off the concrete front step.

“You’ve got - I know you’ve got some kind of plan,” I continued. “Some kind of roadmap or goal and I have no idea what it is. You need me to do something, but I’m left in the dark and you just - you flipped your shit over the Night - “

The stars in her eyes flared. “She interfered - “

“Why does that matter - “

“She ruined everything!” Mom spun on her heel, flinging her hands out like she was going to wring Night’s neck all over again. “She altered the very composition of your soul, curbed your appetite! And I needed - “

Sudden silence.

I felt like there was supposed to be a cartoon record scratch right now, but I wasn’t laughing.

“Needed?”

A shudder ran up and down Mom’s back.

“Yes,” she whispered. Her shoulders shook. “...walk with me.” She started walking.

I followed, uneasy.

Needed.

She led us down the overgrown gravel road leading from Rhea’s house down to the cold Mississippi beach. Without the sun, there was a cold wind blowing, making me break out in goosebumps. It didn’t feel like it was the middle of June. I could only see by the soft light coming off my mother’s silver pendant. Before everything, it wouldn’t have mattered that it was Night and we were in a strange place and I was (weirdly) sick, because I knew Mom would keep me safe.

My chest hurt, like something deep inside was breaking apart.

We stopped at the shore.

“Mom?” I asked as she picked up a pebble and flung it out onto the cold, dark waves.

“When you were born,” she began. “You exceeded my wildest hopes. You could never disappoint me, not even in failure.”

It wasn’t as comforting as the first time I heard her say that. I frowned, wondering where she was going with this. “Because I took after granddad.”

“I could not be more pleased with you,” she whispered, still looking out at the water. “Adrasteia was my first child. She was made for a purpose and without me she will cease to exist.”

“She’s - “ I started, surprised.

“Yes.”

I swallowed, hard. Mom kept my eldest sibling alive like a cat keeps a tick alive. I heard from Erebus and Aether. The Fates tried to have me killed, twice. My eldest sibling had always been a mystery. She Named Athena, but that was it. In the divine world, I don’t think she even counted as a separate sentient being. More like a semi-independent Name. It was where the term ‘star-spawn’ came from.

Not a person.

I’m not a spawn.

But Adrasteia is.

“She inherited all the wrong things, or perhaps, it was not possible for her to inherit the right things. She failed me.” Mom threw another stone. “I tried again. True children, split into three to limit their strength.” She sighed, shoulders slumping. “And it turns out, I needn’t have bothered with that.”

“Mom - “

She shushed me.

“I turned to Time, so that wouldn’t happen again, and it didn’t. Erebus was a disappointment in other ways, an even split between the two of us in inheritance. Useless,” she snarled. “A sweet child. Also an utter waste - but Aether.” Her voice picked up as she found another rock and rolled it around in her hands. “Aether took after your grandfather too. Brilliantly. Strong and free.”

Her face twisted.

“And impatient.” She glanced at me, uncomfortable. “Put me off birthing any more children for a very long time.”

I was so amazed by Mom actually bothering to filter that I had to ask.

“What did he do?”

“Ate his way out.”

“Oh.”

I regret asking.

“Yes…” Her eyes turned away. “And then there is you, my perfect little boy.”

I clenched my jaw.

I wasn’t stupid.

She didn’t mean ‘perfect’ as a form of endearment this time.

Maybe she never did.

She had my siblings for a reason. She wanted them to be a certain way. She still cared for them. I was there when we were picking out manga for Aether or watercolor sets for Erebus and honestly, who gave a shit about the Triplets. The reason she had them wasn’t everything.

But she had me for a reason.

“Why did you have me?” I asked quietly.

Mom let out a long, weary sounding sigh. The waves rolled in soundlessly and drained back out.

“What am I, Perseus?” she asked, just as quietly.

“Fate.”

“Hm.” It was almost a soft snort. “A half-blood child of the eldest gods,” she quoted. “And Prophecies always come true.”

I felt like my heart had a wooden splinter shoved right through it.

“You had to have me?”

“Oh, Percy,” she said quickly, kneeling down in front of me and gripping me around the shoulders. “I chose you. You would have always been mine, but I. Chose. I did not have to raise you, I wanted to. I chose Dorian for you.”

A piece of my stomach unclenched. I could have been like the orphans at Camp Half-Blood, but she decided against it. She wanted Dorian Stele to be my father.

I was still reeling.

I always thought I was born because Mom wanted a family with Dad. Maybe she still did, she just didn't have a choice about wanting it. It felt like I'd been told I was a rape baby. Mom always said I was more important to her, but I didn't know what to think.

“You - you don’t love him?”

I still don’t know how Dorian Stele met Ananke.

A weak smile curled her lips. “He makes it easier to be who I need to be for you.” She glanced at her right hand and the platinum wedding ring with a celtic knot holding the pink diamond. “So very, very easy…Too easy.” She slumped further. “But how can I?” She whispered, heartbroken. “I have witnessed trillions of mortal lives end, Percy. Humanity has degraded to the point that not even their souls last forever.”

“Can you just fix it?” I tried. “For him, at least?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never done it before. If I tried and got it wrong, his soul might still not be able to take it, but he won’t be able to die.”

She made a face.

“Best case scenario: he goes irrevocably mad eventually.”

Swallowing hurt. Breathing hurt.

Dad loved Mom. She couldn’t quite bring herself to truly love him back.

Because she would lose him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You were under the impression that I am all powerful and could never be wrong.” She dragged her eyes back up to mine and raised that hand to the side of my face. “I wish that were true.”

She took my sunglasses off and I met my mother’s star filled gaze with my own.

She didn’t have a ghost.

She had chains.

Shackles made out of molten stardust, moonlight and the bent, warped edges of reality dug into her painfully, weighing her down.

Prophecies always come true.

“You don’t have free will,” I whispered, horrified.

“I chose you,” Mom said hotly, offended, but her gaze slid away, ashamed.

My head spun.

Mom couldn’t free herself.

Aether took after our grandfather. Strong and free.

Adrasteia. Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos. Erebus. They were all here on Earth, but Aether was out traveling the stars.

I took after our grandfather.

And she always told me I chose my own destiny.

“You need me to free - “

She rushed to cover my mouth with her hand. “Don’t say it.”

“Who did this to you?” I mumbled into her palm. I tried to think. Nyx said they had enemies. “Was it - was it The Hunter?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She sighed, and rested her forehead on my left shoulder. “I planned for you to grow as strong as you could as fast as possible. Demigods are flexible, to a point. Your other inherited talents are nothing compared to what you inherited from Father. If you were forced to rely on your hunger to overcome greater and greater challenges then, perhaps…”

She trailed off.

“I had it all planned out,” she said bitterly. “But I’ve made a real mess of things, haven’t I? I failed you.”

All this time. I thought I was a failure because I wasn't able to figure out my abilities, but the reason why she was never disappointed in me was because I wasn't supposed to figure them out. She directed Apollo to us for a reason. All the training was because she planned on putting me through the dangerous life of a normal demigod, not because it was truly necessary. All of the tests were to prepare me for a role.

But at the same time...

She knew I would be found by Olympus and made sure we had our Third Fridays just so I could have a happy last day and be able to be there for Dad. Apollo trained me, but he also learned how to be a better person. He still wasn't stellar, but he was visiting his kids. Had been for years. He was more responsible with his Prophecy Domain, reconciling with some of his Oracles. His twin sister had even noticed. My being at Camp let all the half-bloods know that they were being lied to, and even some of the younger Young Gods were learning. My upbringing meant I could not only change Camp, but that I wanted to.

If Mom was a control freak, manipulating everything, I couldn't just blame her for all the bad things in my life. She chose me.

“I wish you told me sooner,” I admitted, still a little hurt.

“I do too,” she huffed. “I am proud of you. Always will be, no matter what you choose to do.”

"If I just want to fix Camp?"

"Then you will just fix Camp. We can figure out how to manipulate your Great Prophecy to make sure you're safe," she reassured me. "What's another thousand years?"

I bit my lip.

Mom didn’t have a ghost.

She had chains.

If Mom didn’t have free will, how much of anything was truly her fault?

“What do I need to do?”

“You can choose your own destiny,” Mom said quietly. “But Prophecies. Always. Come true.”

The contradiction jumped out at me instantly.

My blood froze.

“No.”

I could feel her shake her head against my collarbone.

“No. I can’t fight you - Mom. I can’t.”

“You can’t,” she agreed, pulling me into a full hug. “But you might survive. I want you to survive.”

I hugged her back like she was going to disappear.

Part of me felt like she already had.

The mother I thought I had, wasn’t real. The mother I actually had was even more flawed than I could have ever imagined.

She had chains.

A thousand thoughts were crashing together in my head. It was weird. The existential dread that you’d think I’d be living with since Apollo told me I might die when I turned sixteen never turned up. But the thought of going against my mother felt like I had just put on a pair of cement shoes at the edge of the harbor.

When she pulled back, her eyes fell down to my gut. “I should remove what Night did to you,” she said thoughtfully. “Someone has already altered it.” A small, but proud smile brightened her face. “But you are doing so well. You’ve already outgrown my ability to predict you.”

She couldn’t see the gossamer thread of stardust light up as she spoke, strangling her. Was it forcing her to think a certain way, right now? I wanted to reach for it.

To rip it off her even if I had to use my fucking teeth.

“You can do this,” Mom said very quietly. “You will never disappoint me. But say the word, and I will take you home.”

It’s everything and everyone else that would go to shit.

I shook my head.

If there was some way to save Luke. To take Zeus to the cleaners and make things better for the Camp. To free my mother.

I had to try.

I chose my own destiny.

Mom smiled, a triumphant light in her starry eyes.

“I do love you, Percy.” My heart felt like it would burst. It was the first time she has ever said it out loud in my entire life. And Mom can’t lie. “I will…apologize to Night.” She smiled ruefully. “I will hate every millisecond, but I will. With any luck, it will help.”

“And you won’t leave me again?”

“I will not abandon you,” Mom said gently. “If you need help, I will hear you. I promise. And in the end, when all is said and done, we will be just like Father and I. Everything I have will be yours. We’ll travel the cosmos together.” She planted a kiss in my hair and placed my glasses back on my nose. “Absolutely inseparable. We will witness it all until the end of time itself.”

Then she smiled with that curl at the corner of her mouth and her voice picked up that Irish lilt that told me she was quoting something or something. "And with strange eons even death may die."

I felt settled in a way I haven’t since I met Kronos, but wary too. I hadn't forgotten that the Egyptians were not her biggest fans and there had to be a reason. I knew what this was all for and I wanted to believe her. My mother loved me. She can't lie.

But I've learned enough these past few days to know that didn't mean she always told the truth either.

"Where's that from?"

"An amusing man I met once. Selene's legacy is one that keeps on giving. It’s in the blood, you see." She let out a thoughtful hum. "I believe he wrote a few books."

And in a flutter of black feathers, she was gone. A raven clawed for the sky as it soared over the dark ocean, cackling.

---

“Flashlights.”

“Check.”

I clipped the small flashlight to one of the belt hooks on my jeans for easy grabbing and chucked the other one into the front pocket of my backpack.

“Batteries.”

“Tons.”

Luke was staring at the Duracell D battery packs in his hands like they were going to explode. He volunteered to be in charge of Rhea’s swivel electronic torchlight, so it was too late to complain now.

“Brownies.”

“Delicious.”

Artemis was quietly munching on one in her red sweater with the hood pulled up. Her ears were sticking out of the holes and a lion charm dangled off her cat collar.

“Clean underwear.”

“Freshly laundered.”

Rhea snorted at me as I smirked cheekily at her. “You are a little shit, cuz.”

“Percy,” I said.

I had never introduced myself, because I was a brat who thought labels mattered. My eldest sibling was a spawn. Rhea was my first cousin.

“Percy Stele.”

Her smile was soft enough to make me feel bad for waiting so long. “I’d introduce myself properly, but eh - “

“Mortal.”

“Right. Head might explode.” We grinned at each other. “Compass?”

“Know how it works.” I held up the analog watch with the clock face and compass encased in titanium on a tough cord on a carabiner. It looked like something you’d expect a sailor to have. And without a sunrise or set, it would definitely help if we couldn’t hitchhike.

“That’s it then,” she said softly. She glanced down at the rabbit and drifted over Luke before meeting my eyes again. She looked like she wanted to say something, but thought better of it at the last second, leaving her to lamely wish us, “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

We were off. It felt a lot different from our first few steps out of Camp Half-Blood and it wasn’t just because the sky was pitch black.

“Nine days,” Luke said, turning on his flashlight. Artemis was stuffed in his vest, hiding from the world.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Guess we better hope Khione was right - “

A cold wind blew past us.

Luke and I stopped walking.

“You don’t think - ?” He stopped and we could both hear what sounded a lot like horses milling around. “No way.”

I ran ahead of him.

There at the end of the overgrown gravel road, two huge white horses nibbled on the grass poking up through the pebbles and sand with golden saddles on their back with ice blue reigns. I could see white and blue envelopes tied with blue ribbon to each of their manes.

“Thracians,” I breathed. I used my considerable talent at pacifying bitchy horse-pigeons at Camp to approach one without getting mulekicked and untied the letter.

Mine was a simple message written in Greek:

‘Anywhere a cold wind can go, so can I.’ - Khione

Luke’s must have been longer, because he was still reading when I looked up. He lifted his head suddenly and then pulled out his Dad’s lighter. I watched him burn the letter.

“What was that?”

“An apology,” he said shortly. He let the ashes drop as he upended the envelope and shook a silver ring out into his hand.

“Woah.” It wasn’t all silver, but alternating bands of silver and what looked like carved ice. I could feel Khione’s signature cold energy drifting off it. “That’s some apology.”

Young gods were notoriously stingy with divine gifts, because even though it was a tiny amount, it was still a permanent investment. Once it was gone, it was gone.

“Should I wear it?” Luke asked me.

“It doesn’t feel cursed,” I said.

“It’s not,” he agreed. “I’d be able to tell.”

Jesus.

What Name was that one from?

“Well, we kind of need all the help we could get?”

His expression shuttered.

“Yeah.” He fit it on his middle finger and his eyes immediately tried to pop out of his head.

“What - what does it do?”

“Wind currents. Air flow.” Luke said, sounding awed. He was looking around slowly like he was wearing night vision goggles. “I can see the wind.”

I usually don’t pray to other gods.

Khione Thrêikion.

But she deserved this one.

Thanks.

A chilly breeze ruffled my hair.

“You know this means I’m right,” I said as I put my foot in the stirrup. Damn, this boy is huge. He’s got to be over six feet tall from the ground to his shoulders. My balls were not going to thank me for this later.

“What?” Luke’s head swiveled towards me, bewildered.

“This is why I don’t hold murder attempts against people.”

Luke paused in mounting his own horse. “No.”

“If I held a little attempted murder against everybody - “

“That still doesn’t make it normal!”

“I’m just saying!”

Thracian horses straight from Boreas’ stables were capable of going 0 to 75mph in about three seconds.

Next stop: Compton, California.

And after we found the Master Bolt, I was going to break a Prophecy.

Here’s to hoping that's not going to bite me in the ass.

‘A half-blood child of the eldest gods, shall reach sixteen against all odds
And see the world in endless sleep, the hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze’
- The Oracle of Delphi. The Great Prophecy to Olympus, Sept 13th 1945​

 

Hermes​

Hermes let the image of his son racing away on the back of a purebred Thracian fade from his mind’s eye as he stepped into the circle. It was a crumbling mosaic too badly damaged to tell what it had been anymore. He cleared his throat.

Aphrodite dropped the magazine and threw up her hands as soon as she saw him.

“Please tell me you’re here to - “

“No,” Hermes said with a handsome smile.

“Ugh.” The goddess dropped back into the seat she had only just begun to rise from, rolling her eyes. “Then you’re useless.” She willed her magazine back into her hands, flipped to the exact same page she’d left on. “Go away.”

“Wish I could,” he said honestly.

Looking at her hurt.

She had May’s wavy blonde hair, and it was even threatening to frizz in the damp air just like it should. The upturned nose, prominent cheekbones and small ears were hers, although he thought the natural slant to the pouting mouth belonged to someone else. It was familiar, that and the pointed chin, but he couldn’t remember right now. He didn’t want to, really. The eyes were all May, though. They even echoed like hers. The ones in her skull and on her spine reflecting back through the ones in her face, making them shine. Eyes and eyes and eyes…

All she had wanted was to do something good with her Sight.

For a goddess of Love, Aphrodite was always the last person anyone who’d loved and lost wanted to see.

He looked away.

“Anything worth mentioning?” He asked, before his phone rang. “Hang on.”

‘I have Demeter on line three,’ Martha said.

“Not now,” Hermes replied. “Tell her to leave a message.”

‘The last time you put her off, all of our packages for delivery sprouted thorns.’

“I’m not doing delivery, right now,” he snipped back. “Door keeping. And singular. Tell her she’s on the list.”

His pocket vibrated again.

‘Can I tell Frigg to fu - ‘

“No!” He cut George off. Holy Zeus, no. That woman scared him. “Redirect her to Iris, please.”

Sometimes, he hated his job.

Iris didn’t get it. She hadn’t been demoted, it was a lateral move. And no, being able to go to new and exciting locales with the full backing of Olympus was not a bonus. Because no one was thrilled to see someone from Olympus anymore and this was the new and exciting locale.

A large, dark underground cavern.

Well, he supposed dark wasn’t new. It was hard finding someplace that wasn’t dark right now, but this was more than just the absence of light. It was more of a feeling, then anything. The large red doors were not barred or otherwise secured aside from an ornate and complicated looking Assyrian lock that made his fingers twitch.

He found himself frowning. At first, he thought it was just because he’d seen hundreds of dark caverns, Styx, he’d been born in one, but… the detailing on the columns and the type of brazier in the corner…the doors.

Was this even Greek? It looked…he was reminded of Alexander’s former empire and he didn’t like it.

“I have no idea where I am,” he realized. How had that happened?

“You wouldn’t,” Aphrodite said dully, turning the page, bored of his presence already. “This isn’t a place. There were a few cracks,” she said and waved off his alarm with a flip of her long blonde hair. “That’s hardly worth bothering about, really, although give it another moment to realize you’re here - “

There was a pulse. It was little more than an uncomfortable feeling like his heart had just skipped a beat or turned over in his chest.

‘Hermes?’ May’s voice called, sounding slightly muffled on the edges, like she was speaking through a keyhole. His eyes snapped to the red doors. ‘Is that - are you out there?’

What - he reeled. He hid her. They didn’t find her - they didn’t know - The sudden terror had him casting his mind back to the white Colonial house in an ordinary, American suburb -

May’s voice sobbed. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Hermes. I wanted it to work - babe, I wanted it to work so bad…’

He didn’t tell her that story so she could apply!

He took an unsteady step towards the doors. Why was she willing to risk it all to try to become the Oracle of Delphi? Luke had been so young - they had time…

‘I’m so sorry! Where’s Luke?’ May wailed. ‘He ran! Oh, my baby boy. I’m sorry - I don’t want to be trapped in here - Hermes please!’

Trapped?

It was enough to snap him out of it.

May hasn’t been herself for over a decade. Not sane. Barely human. And no one would have bothered to lock her away in a dungeon deep like this. They would just put her down.

First was the relief. It wasn’t May.

Then came the rage.

“Hup bup bup,” a well manicured hand pressed against his chest, stopping him in his tracks completely. “And you, don’t make me come in there.”

For a moment, he was confused. He wasn’t weak. He was whole. All of his Names in one place, the weight of them heavy enough to send ripples throughout a three dimensional reality as he forced it to move around him. He pressed a little and found not a single ounce of give. He slowly turned his eyes to the obstacle.

“No,” Aphrodite said. Her eyes were a steel blue now, the color of a reflection off freshly tempered metal. The ripples hit her form and broke. What was he seeing?

“That’s exactly what it wants and if you break anything - “ Her voice rose in that tell tale whine that had him already cringing. “I’m going to have to fix it and you know how much I hate responsibility!”

Hermes sputtered.

“Honestly.” She rolled her eyes and shoved him back with little more than a flexing of the fingers she had on his chest. “Blast first and ask questions never, just what did I see in you?”

Hermes’ mouth opened, then closed, strangely hurt that he lost out in a comparison to Ares, of all people. He tried, “I’m very handsome.”

“True.” Aphrodite admitted as she idly inspected her nails.

He felt like he should have whiplash.

“Come on,” she needled him. “Did you really think I’m wasting the best hours of my life in this dump for fun?” She flapped a hand as he tried to wrap his brain around a crisis of this magnitude being anyone’s best hours of their life. “Because trust, I am not.”

He almost needled her back that Athena was the goddess of Wisdom for a reason… He almost needled her back. His anger finished draining as Hermes paused.

He wasn't weak. Even his father would have spent a bit more effort holding him back.

“What?” Aphrodite demanded. Her brows were furrowed in her signature annoyed pouting and her eyes remained wide and guileless.

He eyed the goddess warily.

“Oh, that?” Aphrodite turned to indicate the doors. “It was nothing you did, honestly, I’d be more concerned if you didn’t have a reaction to it.”

He swallowed thickly. “It sounded like - “

“Someone you love.” Aphrodite swooned, spinning in a little, giddy circle with the back of her hand against her forehead and everything. “No wonder they have to hide this here, can you imagine if just anyone can hear it? The most powerful force in the cosmos is love…and no one ever believes me!”

“And you’re safe because you don’t love anyone?”

Aphrodite gasped in outrage, whirling on him. “How dare you! I love everyone equally!”

“Athena.”

“I’d love her head on a stick!”

And something in his gut was still whispering:

Liar, liar, liar.

Aphrodite was old.

His father had cast the tie breaking vote to give her full rights and privileges as a god of the Greek pantheon, but that was well before his time. She was a terrific lay, fun mother and was very good at defusing people. Being non-threatening.

He’d noticed when the Fates came for their daughter, Tyche, the goddess of Fortune.

He still doesn’t know what they said to her, but Tyche always managed to talk a whole lot without saying anything about it. Aphrodite raised their daughter and now Tyche was a goddess that knew just what she needed to say to convince everyone that Fortune wasn’t dangerous. She had to have gotten it from her mother, because no one let him get away with anything anymore.

Tyche was just under a few Fated restrictions so she wouldn’t interfere, is all.

He might have bought it, if he wasn’t himself. Thief covered the grifters, the conmen, the cheats and embezzlers. The intersection with Commerce drew in the insider traders, the price gougers and the anti-trust. Someone who always wins, wasn’t lucky.

They were rigging the game.

Four days ago, he learned he had never known how to swear an Oath on the River Styx.

He should be asking a lot more questions.

“What’s in there?” He asked instead.

Aphrodite pulled on a lock of wavy blonde hair, shifting her weight from one foot to another, cocking a hip. “You know leucrota, yes?”

Hermes swallowed what tasted like pure bile.

They were monsters with the bodies of red-furred lions with the hooves of a horse and heads that looked like a cross between a horse and wolf, glowing red eyes and instead of teeth, their jaws were fitted with two solid plates of bone that clacked together. They were good mimics of voices, luring in the unaware.

It was something like a secondhand memory. That thing your mind does when you see your care keys and you aren’t reminded of the last time you lost them, but of the time you got so drunk you had to take a taxi home, maybe you hit on the fat cabbie and then spent the rest of the night locked in the bathroom crying.

Not that he had any personal experience with that.

The point is, his mind jumped to the one time leucrota were hellbent on killing his son, Luke. He had been so much younger, running through the halls of an old mansion belonging to a cursed son of Apollo with the daughter of Zeus when he ran into an older blond man the boy instantly recognized as a god.

‘He’s your son, isn’t he? How could you - what kind of father are you? He doesn’t deserve this! He just wanted to save someone!’

He couldn’t look Apollo in the face without feeling the urge to punch him for a year after.

“I know leucrota,” Hermes said darkly.

Why was he allowed?

What made him so special he could overturn his son’s cursed fate decades later without getting ruined?

“Well, that,” Aphrodite jerked a thumb back at the large red doors. “Is their progenitor.”

He looked over her shoulder. “Does it have a Name?”

“Yes.”

He understood.

Aphrodite was old.

If he broke the doors, she would fix them. She took it for granted that she would not only know how, but could. That it was expected of her to. While contributing to the protection of all the Camps and Olympus and guarding this Door as a singular being.

And she did hate responsibility.

All of that just didn’t count.

“Crocotta are from north Africa,” he probed lightly. “India.”

She rolled her eyes again before giving him a flat, unamused stare. He could hear the ‘bitch, please.’

“The complex is secure, everything works, honestly if you’re not here to relieve me -” Aphrodite absently adjusted the way her jean jacket fit over the pink blouse that had sparkling silver Beautiful, baby written on it. Her face brightened. “Actually a quickie would - “

“No,” Hermes said with another handsome smile. Not when she looked like that. It would just flay his heart wide open. “I’ll just - “

The coral, pearl and seastone walls of Atlantis blinked into existence around him.

“ - go,” he burbled underwater.

He was answered with attempted murder.

“Woah! Woah!” He danced out of the way of gleaming bone spear tips. To their credit, it only took the merman guards a second to realize that he wasn’t an intruder, just an idiot.

He should have known they’d be jumpy. Everyone was.

Well, maybe not Aphrodite.

“Sorry, sorry,” He showed off his Iphone. Its commercial release was in two years, but since when did that matter to him? “Official business,” he said, swirling the phone and its snake antennae around his head.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ George, the left snake head, complained.

‘Not on me!’ Martha, the right, snapped at him.

Hermes ignored them both and tried out a winning smile.

The guards glanced at each other. The right fish man had an entire conversation with his eyes, gills and right shoulder, but Hermes could tell the left shark man understood maybe a quarter of it. They both shrugged at him, decked out in sea green scaled battle armor. Then left held up a small signpost made out of small sea coral and anemone.

‘Lord Hermes,’ it said in the pink words of blooming anemone. He almost laughed, but then he remembered.

Oh right.

Not everyone could talk.

Left’s sign flipped around. ‘If you seek our Lord, he is overseeing defenses.’ Makes sense. They had their own Camp too, didn’t they. The sign flipped back and there was new writing. ‘We can summon an escort.’

“I was hoping I could talk to Queen Amphitrite, actually,” Hermes tried and watched them both frown. But they were fish. Mermen, whatever. They didn’t have lips, so it was more like their bared teeth showed even more pearly white sharp. “Just a short report and then I’ll be out of her hair, promise!”

The guards shared another glance, but they stepped back to the opposite side of the double sided palace doors. They couldn’t be anymore different from the doors to the Olympian Assembly or even the Doors of Death. Those had Grecian mosaics, heroic scenes and legends etched into them of their history. These were crafted to look like the interlocking tentacles or limbs of some massive sea creature reluctantly prying open from the bottom, still staying stubbornly closed at the top. The hallway past the doors kept the image going, being circular and lined with pale curving columns like ribs as if visitors were walking right into its gullet. He hoped he was just imagining the contractions rippling through the slick, blood red walls.

The Elder Cyclops and Olympus. Erebus and Uncle Dead’s House in the Underworld. It made him wonder, and not the first time, who built the halls of Atlantis.

He was let into the throne room with little fanfare and he felt it the moment the Queen of Atlantis noticed him. May liked calling it his Thief Sense. That feeling you get when your foot nudges a trip wire, when you spot a camera looking your way, when a guard dog stops and sniffs the air.

Poseidon’s wife wore a stunningly beautiful woman with black hair tied back under a silk net of pearls on a clamshell throne and this time the circlet on her brow was made up of white starfish. A long teal fishtail flowed out from under her green and gold dress, fins idly moving with the current. She was dark skinned with regal cheekbones, straight nose and full mouth. The talk on Olympus was that she was a kind and gentle goddess.

They had the benefit of distance.

The eldest granddaughter of Pontus was kind enough, he supposed. Maybe if her sea monster kids weren’t a dime a dozen compared to the four proper gods, he’d feel better about it.

One word: Charybdis.

As for gentle?

People couldn’t tell the difference between genuine gentleness and ever present caution.

“Hermes,” Amphitrite said. He would never like the meticulous way she said Names. Made his soul itch. “And what does Olympus want from me?”

He sketched out his best diplomatic bow. “Queen Amphitrite.”

Technically, he wasn’t supposed to. He was the Messenger of the Gods of Olympus. On the clock, he carried the full authority of his father, Zeus Olympios. It was a fact that Atlantis was under Olympic rule.

His father’s Master Bolt was still missing and Hermes knew better than anyone stealing it wouldn’t have been hard. Piss easy actually, for anyone who isn't a god. While he didn’t think Atlantis needed to steal it, he wondered if that fact was close to overstaying its welcome.

He hoped not.

Uncle Sea was powerful, but his Queen was dangerous.

He wasn’t even talking about her grandparents.

Either set.

“Just…asking if anything has changed down here,” he offered as nonchalantly as he could. Looking into her eyes was uncomfortable, even for him. “Anything to worry about?”

The corner of Amphitrite’s supple lips pulled up.

“Athena remembers,” she said thoughtfully. Hermes bit his lip so he didn’t blurt out that it was a request from Zeus.

But.

Yeah, it was Athena’s idea. His dad deserves some credit for recognizing a good idea when he heard one, right? If one primordial was mucking things up, better make sure other massive headaches weren’t getting any funny ideas.

“I had wondered.”

Hermes patiently waited out the pause.

“The stars are not right. However, three of grandfather’s lowest circuit are unaccounted for.”

Yikes, Hermes thought. Weren’t they all supposed to be dead in that sunken city of theirs? Or was it sleeping?

Or both?

“We are tracking them and do not require assistance at this time,” Amphitrite offered. “She will know what that means.”

“Thank you,” he bowed again.

“Do not thank me,” Uncle Sea’s wife said mildly with a small wave of a hand. “The sea takes care of its own. I would have you remind her of this.” Amphitrite paused. “And perhaps suggest that her preoccupation with forewarning has reached a limit.”

Hermes frowned. “Forewarned is forearmed?”

He didn’t mean for it to come out like a question.

The Queen of Atlantis studied him, making him shift in place. “Ah,” she said softly and he felt his stomach sink. “You are under the impression that if one such as grandfather arose, or if the Night found our existence offensive, Olympus would be able to defend itself.”

He waited for her to finish, but she didn’t say anything.

“Oh,” Hermes said quietly.

Maybe Hecate had the right idea. He kind of felt like praying right now.

Maybe not to the Serpent.

He could still remember the titanic weight of the Serpent’s attention before Apollo’s altar; cold, caustic and utterly uncaring. And maybe not Buddhism either. Iris tried to explain it to him once, but it just made his head hurt. The Hindus terrified him, so that was a no.

Hecate’s White God?

Would he have to apologize for all his bellyaching over the past two millennia first?

Because he did a lot of it.

“Thank you. I won’t darken your doorstep - “ The last thing he saw of Atlantis was Amphitrite’s blazing eyes as she tilted her head in dismissal.

Hello, Delphi, Greece.

“ - any longer,” Hermes whispered. He breathed in the air of the Old World from the top seats of Apollo’s Theater. Time had worn them down to crumbling bricks baked pale gray by the sun, but at least it was mostly intact. It was recognizable. He dreaded the day when it would no longer be. The mortals had just gotten around to reclaiming Hephaestus’ temple for study sometime before that silly war they had in Europe and the Oracle of Delphi no longer called Greece home.

Well, he guessed it called nowhere home now, because it was in the stomach of a demigod.

Good riddance.

“Alright,” he said loudly as he approached the wheat blonde woman sitting on one of the Theater seats, making a daisy chain in the dark. “I’m here, sorry for making you wait, Aunt Demeter.” The second eldest Kronide started a little, before she put the flowers down and crossed her arms, pinning him with a stern look. Hermes held up his hands in surrender.

‘Told you,’ Martha snarked.

“I’m here now. You wanted to speak with me?”

“Yes.” Demeter nodded sharply. “If I had the choice, I would absolutely do it again. Give up on Kore? Over my dead body.”

Hermes blinked.

“What?”

He was missing something.

“This is Delphi,” Demeter said.

“I…know that.”

“The Navel of the Earth.”

“Know that too.”

The Earth Mother was imprisoned here.

Demeter’s face made a pained expression. “It’s cracked.”

“I - “ Hermes stopped. “Oh dear.”

His aunt wrung her hands. “I thought I fixed it after Kore finally left that no-good brute for just five minutes - “

“Demeter.”

His aunt huffed. “I might have understated the damage I did to the prison,” she said quickly. “Just a little! Turns out, it was more of a symbiotic relationship than I thought - really, it wasn’t like it was even my fault - “

“You just said you would do it again,” Hermes pointed out.

“Yes, well,” Demeter began, looking a bit hunted. “Mother helped put things back to rights and that should have been the end of it.”

Rhea?

“Maybe we should have known after that bit of trouble in Alaska a little while ago. Hera’s hiding something - don’t tell me she isn’t, but Alaska? You just know the daughter-stealing ruffian was just asking for it - “

“Can’t grandmother help us fix it now?” He didn’t need this. None of them needed this. “The Questers came across her recently.” Before everything went to shit. “I think she wants the Earth Mother back just as much as we do.”

Which was not at all.

Demeter frowned and instead of talking about anything to do with the protogenoi that hated them getting free, asked, “What Quest?”

“The one for father’s Master Bolt.”

“Oh, that old thing?”

Hermes boggled.

“I thought Artemis found it?” Demeter looked at him expectantly with mismatched eyes as if he had just forgotten her second favorite had taken care of the problem already. “No?” She frowned harder before flapping both hands at him. “Don’t look at me like that - you know I don’t pay attention to these kinds of things. It’s summer!”

“The Bolt was stolen at the Winter Solstice.” Even as it came out of his mouth, he knew it wouldn’t help. Winter Solstice was the only time of the year Hades was invited to Olympus and when it came to the Lord of the Underworld, his aunt had two modes: Bitch and Nag.

Her round face predictably darkened.

“Rhea fix Earth Mother’s prison!” He said quickly.

“Without turning around and killing us all, maybe,” Demeter said absently and Hermes reeled. “Well, maybe Geb - oh no, wait, the Egyptians are still useless, aren’t they? What is Ra doing - “

“Demeter,” Hermes croaked.

The Earth Mother’s Warden blinked at him. “Do you remember the Byzantine?”

“No,” he said, bewildered.

No one on Olympus remembered the Byzantine, not even Demeter, because humanity just up and threw them away long before Rome collapsed. They didn’t Fade, but he supposed they might have slept. Dreamed.

Hermes paused.

Aphrodite remembered.

“Your grandmother is putting herself through that so that she doesn’t cleanse the world of mortals.”

Hermes’ world tilted. “What? Why?”

“So she doesn’t cleanse the world of mortals,” Demeter repeated slowly at him, as if he was the one who didn’t understand plain Greek. “They really are much alike,” she said in this very reasonable tone. “Like Mother, like daughter as I always say. All you have to do is listen to them talk for a bit - “

“The Earth Mother is talking to you?”

“I am Her Warden,” Demeter said. “Even the mortals figured out that solitary confinement was cruel.”

Hermes stared.

“And throwing the pieces of your father into the Pit was just a little unfortunate?”

“For the record,” Demeter said loudly, offended. “Hestia and I argued against that, but we all knew he was awful, no chance of changing his mind. Self-defense.”

Hermes continued staring.

“Oh, She won’t change,” his aunt finally admitted. “But it’s symbiotic. She is learning from me.”

“That’s - that’s bad.”

“It is.”

A flower bloomed within her empty right eye socket, the long thin blood red petals unfolding like shapes within a kaleidoscope.

And it bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.

“Thank you for telling me, Aunt Demeter,” Hermes said stiffly.

Demeter beamed at him.

“Of course, dear.” She motioned for him to step closer so she could put her finished daisy chain crown on his head. “And I’ll make sure you have plenty of those wheaties that you like so much,” she promised as he smiled weakly. “Be careful running around in the dark, now.”

He nodded. “You know me, Aunty. I’m always - “

Cold wind slapped him in the face. “- careful.”

The god of the North Wind lowered his newspaper just enough to squint at him from over the pages. He was wearing a snow suit as usual with icicles clinging to his pale beard and eyebrows. Hermes glanced around and saw that he was…not where he was expecting. His inner GPS was telling him he was in Quebec, Canada and it certainly looked like it. He could still see The Edge from the icy penthouse’s windows as a shimmering aurora borealis barrier separating their world from the land beyond the gods.

He didn’t mean ‘beyond’ as in they couldn’t go there. He meant ‘beyond’ as in they shouldn’t.

It was a land where even gods were prey.

“How is the barrier holding up?” Hermes asked, looking up over the reflective Art Deco ice desk.

Boreas’ eyes narrowed into slits.

Ugh.

Dealing with the Four Winds always felt like trying to teach a demigod common sense.

“Athena’s checking?” He tried instead.

“Intact,” Boreas grunted.

“I’m only asking because if you haven’t noti - wait, what?” Hermes’ mind spun.

He just saved himself an hour.

Holy Zeus.

“I - thank you.”

A grunt.

Hermes hesitated, but then he decided to just go for it. A god only lives once. “And I would like to thank your daughter for her help on my son’s Quest.”

Boreas’ eyes flashed back up to him as the god reared up, rising from his seat with his purple wings flaring behind him like an enraged stallion. “Khione hardly needs your gratitude, son of Zeus.”

Hermes deflated.

May was a good person. And through her, he had come to realize that he…

He wasn’t.

He was glad Luke took after his mother.

“I know.” He said quietly. He tossed one of his business cards onto the god’s desk. “She has it anyway. If she needs anything…” He finished hopefully.

Boreas’ gaze cut through him, but eventually, the god sat back down. Hermes counted it as a win that he didn’t just blow the card away.

“Get out.”

He went.

A few more visitations, both Greek and not, and he found himself revisiting the Old World. Or rather, the outskirts of it. He already had his hands up in surrender when the one he wanted to visit noticed him, which was damn quick.

Heracles wasn’t called the greatest hero in Greek history for nothing.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“I’m flattered,” Hermes said.

His elder half-brother rolled his eyes as he leaned on his club, looking down on him.

Because he was very tall.

Hermes was actually kind of jealous. If he tried to make himself look that tall without going full god form, he’d look ridiculous.

“What do you want?” Heracles raised a skeptical eyebrow.

He had their father’s black hair and was rocking the stubble look Apollo could never pull off. His eyes were an electric blue, also like their father’s, but up close, Hermes could see that they echoed. Like May’s.

“I can’t leave my post, so if you’re expecting me to do some stupid errand for you - “

“No, I - “ Hermes was beginning to regret visiting. “Nothing like that. I just - “

He looked out over the island. The Pillars of Hercules loomed in the distance, jutting out over the sea like swollen fingers.

“What was Athena like as King?”

Heracles’ eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

“Humor me,” Hermes begged. “I don’t - I don’t know anything. Apparently.”

Heracles scratched at the small scar on his stubbled chin, then sighed. “Exactly the same as she is now,” he said and Hermes frowned. “You know that thing she does where she expects you to follow her train of thought, but she’s crap at talking to people she thinks aren’t complete imbeciles, so you don’t get the memo and she looks at you like you’re stupid anyway?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Hate that,” Heracles said. “My King or not.”

The god of Heroism swung his club, knocking some white sand off his bare feet.

“I understand, you know,” he said. “You’ve learned that you had it wrong this entire time and now you’re lost.”

I’m not, Hermes thought, but he couldn’t quite make the words come out of his mouth.

“You are,” Heracles said. “And you’re looking around, hoping that this crushed feeling you have is because the world changed recently without having the damn decency to tell you about it. But it hasn’t changed at all.”

There was a painful lump in Hermes’ throat.

“You did,” Heracles finished.

“What do I do?” Hermes asked.

“I rebelled.” Hermes cringed and his brother sighed. “Styx, I don’t know. What do you want?”

Hermes didn’t even have to think about it.

“I want my son Luke to have a future.”

“A demigod?” Heracles asked knowingly. “Good luck with that, the laws haven’t been changed - “

“He’s not - “ Hermes scuffed at the sand with a foot. “I’ve been looking for loopholes and it - it brought me to you,” he confessed.

Heracles straightened.

“My way wasn’t exactly…ideal,” he said slowly.

“Not that.”

His brother went still.

“His mother - May was clear-sighted. Badly.” Hermes said quickly. "I know what that means."

“Aren’t those records sealed?”

“Thief.”

“How badly?” Heracles finally asked flatly.

“She could See - “ He made a vague gesture in the air with his hands. “Diagonal. The Could Be.” The way Apollo had explained it to him, the Could Be could be changed. If you told someone else, if you made a different decision, if you ignored it. It was Fool’s Gold to the real thing, but that didn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t come true. It just wasn’t inevitable.

A False Prophecy.

All she wanted was to be able to do some good with her Sight.

That was all.

“And I invested a lot in him. My son.” Hermes hesitated. “I gave him everything.”

Finally saying it out loud felt like lancing a boil. He wasn’t ashamed, he realized. Every single one of his Names was Luke’s father and he wasn’t ashamed of giving a mortal so much.

My son.

“He can - he can do something I can’t. And I tried.”

He demonstrated, wrapping the mantle of Thief around him and reaching for that one spot in the center, that one tiny, tiny place that felt like what he felt in Luke. Thieves stole things, but the concept was far too tied to stealing the material. Things of perceived value. Things you could pickpocket, grab, swindle and cheat out of someone else.

What he felt in Luke felt far more pure. Something that felt like Steal, but reaching for it felt like his heart would burst.

He let it go, huffing and puffing.

Exhausted.

“I see,” Heracles said softly. Hermes looked up, but his face could have been carved from the stone of his Pillars. “An emergent daimones if you could argue it, perhaps,” he mused and Hermes’ heart leapt. Daimones, like their Nymphai counterparts, could live on Olympus. “But it’s more likely he’d be destroyed.”

“No!” Hermes shouted.

The god of Heroism raised an eyebrow. “Children with the clear-sighted used to be outlawed for a reason,” he said mildly.

“But - “

“Like I said, my way isn’t ideal.”

The last time he felt this small, he realized he had never known how to swear an Oath on the Styx.

“Thank you for your time,” Hermes managed to choke out.

“Hm.” Heracles roughly nudged his right shoulder in an awkward, comforting gesture. “Sorry.”

“...I am too.”

Returning to Olympus was no relief. The golden streets were washed out pale gold without sunlight and the great palaces looked like condemned buildings against the void of the Night sky. Various immortals of all kinds wandered the streets, because life goes on.

Until it ends.

He reported to Athena and it was just as Heracles said. He could see it now, the way she asked for clarification and the way she looked to the side when she was thinking, like there were puzzle pieces tumbling around in her skull.

He looked the former King of the Gods of Olympus in the face and felt…

“Troubling.” Her brow furrowed. “My preoccupation with forewarning,” she scoffed. “The Earth Mother we can do something about, at least.” Her eyes went through every color of the rainbow as she glanced up at the Night sky. “One last thing,” Athena said in her sharp, cold way. “Your conversation with Heracles.”

“You heard?” He nearly screamed, mortified.

Athena actually paused. He could see her make the effort to step back and lower her head as her expression softened. “Around Herakles, I always listen to my Name. Even if I cannot respond.”

Like she was his divine parent.

Hermes’ mouth opened, and then he closed it.

“This surprises you.”

“Yes,” he admitted. He supposed if there was any child her pride would gladly call her own if she could, it would be the greatest hero in Greek history. “Yes, it does.”

“A habit from his, let’s call it accident-prone ways and the Giant War,” she explained, a quicksilver smile flashing over her face. “Boy could get into trouble standing still. I saw no reason to stop.”

He wondered how Heracles felt about still being called ‘boy.’

“I merely wished to reassure you that I will say nothing about it, and if you wished to have it argued - “ Her iridescent eyes searched his face. “It would be best to approach Demeter of Sacred Law.”

Hermes nodded sharply.

Athena owed Luke.

Well, in for the penny, in for the pound. “What was grandfather like?”

Gods only live once.

He should coin the phrase.

GOLO?

No, if he wanted to make it a thing, it’s got to be more inclusive.

“Pragmatic. Efficient.” Athena said immediately. If she was caught off guard by his sudden interest in the Titan Lord, she didn’t show it. “Do not forget, the Golden still live within the fields of Elysium and they welcomed his return. However,” she said thoughtfully. “It was also true that he is still an enemy of Olympus, no matter his role. He was bitter. Resentful. Scornful. Furious.”

She paused.

“Grieving.”

Hermes finished his rounds, all of the Doors under his jurisdiction pressing like hot brands at the back of his mind. Where was Thanatos when you needed him? The Lake of Lerna. The Doors of Death. Acheron. The Grove of Arcadia. He stopped at the last for a moment.

It was deep in the heart of the Amazon. The smoke of a nearby slash-and-burn tickled his nose.

His heart ached.

These trees used to be Pan’s pride and joy, but now they were covered in cancerous-looking growths and clumps of bleeding fungi. Places where the gnarled, dark ash colored bark fell away revealed silvery lines like spiderwebs or veins on the wood, crawling with mutated insects and worms. In a jungle like this, there wouldn’t be much flora anyway. He both hates and loves that he knows that.

The sickly sweet smell wafting from the rotting ground tells him enough, though.

He thought about it for a second. One of the ward stones wasn't far. All it would take was a crack and a gap in the Mist so mortal greed would find the grove…No, it wasn’t worth it, he thought then, running a hand through the curls of his black hair. It wasn’t worth it.

And it wasn’t their fault.

The mortal need to destroy their environment was a poison they leached from the Black Goat first, not the other way around.

He threw a stone.

Startled, bloodshot eyes opened all over the dark trees as twisted roots ripped themselves up from the ground, flailing.

The dryads were restless.

It was his decision not to tell the satyrs about his son, Pan, not even when they made that ridiculous Cloven Council thing a while back with their searcher’s licenses. Dionysus didn’t care and it wasn’t Hermes’ fault they were so stubborn about it. And it wasn’t like he knew where the Lord of the Wilds was now, so it wasn’t as if their search was futile.

Just meaningless.

Why couldn’t he save anyone he loved?

He smelled smoke.

Hermes stepped away.

He had work to do.

 

An Undertow of Sand
A PJO Fanfiction
​

“On your left!”

I was swinging my sword before Luke even finished shouting. The hairs on the back of my neck had already been screaming the warning. Damocles fine tuned my aim, but I already had a vague hunch of where the danger was, even though I couldn’t hear it coming. I was getting really good at listening to my sixth sense. I didn’t have to see what the monster even was this time.

Spidey Sense?

Super cool.

What’s not cool is all these monsters out to kill us. I was getting a sinking feeling in my stomach that it was only a matter of time before we ran into something we couldn’t handle.

There was the impact vibration of my sword hitting something, a sound like a sigh, and then Luke’s flashlight catching the gleam of dissipating ruby dust as he swiveled it around in a vote of no confidence to make sure I didn’t just die on him.

Red essence. What was that, Native American?

Aztec?

Both?

We got ambushed an hour out from Rhea’s place by some Greek poison harpies of pestilence and violent deaths, the Keres. I tried to talk them out of it because we were first cousins once removed (Nyx. Just. Nyx) but spirits being rational was an oxymoron. We didn’t even try to fight. We just ran. Their venom can’t be cured by anything less than divine intervention.

Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to have to crawl back to Rhea a few hours after leaving and just be like,

‘Never mind. We’re the worst heroes in the history of ever. Please help.’

And it didn’t stop there.

We were hounded by these flying shrunken head things (Voodoo?) as we passed Baton Rouge, some Draugr (Norse undead) were picketing one of the highways, Lethifolds (black cloak thing) from Harry Potter are real and to top it off, we got chased by a pack of Hellhounds (this is stupid) that wouldn’t take ‘bad dog’ for an answer all the way across the Louisianan border.

I expected it, so just getting attacked wasn’t the problem. It was what was doing the attacking half the time that was the problem.

Nemesis said I’d be getting attacked by less of her mother’s kids!

Obviously, my niece lied to me.

My next postcard over the holidays to Erebus about that little spoiled brat of his was going to be spicy.

“Good?” Luke yelled.

“Good!” I called back and then we both went silent again as the hooves of our Thracian horses pounded the ground like the fall of icy hail on a roof. We weren’t ignoring each other or anything. It’s just that carrying on a conversation on galloping horseback was way harder than you’d think.

The plan we hatched with Rhea was to find the highway and follow the interstate all the way to the West Coast. It wasn’t the most elaborate plan in the world, but it would get the job done. It would let us stick close enough to cities so we wouldn’t have to hunt for food and keep our nights sleeping outside down to the bare minimum.

Because we really didn’t want to sleep outside.

And we wouldn’t get lost.

America is huge. I’m pretty sure I could fit at least fifty Greeces in the 48 states. No wonder the Migration when the Greeks and Norse moved over from Europe ended up a huge mess with everything everywhere. If we tried to cut corners off the main road into the forests and swamps of the southern United States, we could end up wandering into anything from a Greek god’s junkyard to an Aztec god’s favorite basketball court.

Both of those were bad news.

And doing that during the Night was called being dumb.

And suicidal.

But mostly dumb.

I knew how to ward against the various species of soul eaters, but without four walls, a roof and humanity around, anything at all might decide to just kill us instead.

I heard there were alligators down here!

Talk about spooky.

It was a good thing these Thracians were magic horses who could tell where they were going, because we sure couldn’t. The scenery was just a blur of dark silhouettes on a dark background made out of dark darkness.

Imagine if walking outside was like locking yourself in a closet. There was a sliver of light coming through the bottom of the door, but it only lit up its immediate surroundings like it was also afraid of the dark.

That’s how it was for Luke.

All we had was the light of our flashlights and at the speed we were going, hitting a tree branch would probably break my neck.

I could still see a little. Godly eyes, remember? I’m only half-god so there’s some physical structure, but my irises are just an aurora borealis with stars within. It would be kind of annoying talking to Apollo with the sun shining out of his eyes and then being half-blind for a few minutes every time, right? I couldn’t even imagine having to adjust to putting on my sunglasses beyond ‘I see dead people and now I don’t.’

I still felt blind.

I was relying on my peripheral vision and that was more movement sensing than actual sight because I had to stare at my flashlight before looking around so the Night would stop changing things on me.

You ever enter a room and you can immediately tell that something is not where it should be, even if you’re not sure what moved?

The Night was messing with my eyes. Hiding things from me. Blurring the shapes and shadows I could faintly see in the distance into a solid wall of black like it was trying to swallow it into the same void as the sky above. Looking into my flashlight felt like peeling scales off my eyes. Uncomfortable. Itchy. A headache was starting to pound right in the middle of my forehead.

I kept doing it.

The very thought of not seeing what was really there spooked me a little. The thought that Night’s passive presence was capable of doing that to me scared me even more.

I have godly eyes.

That was the problem with conceptual bullshit.

It’s bullshit.

“Merging!” Luke called back and I leaned forward in my saddle as the empty road we were on led into a wide eight lane highway. This was eastern Texas. We just got here and I can already tell the state was like most states in America: a patchwork of ‘modern civilization’ and ‘bumfuck nowhere at all.’

No in between.

The road was mostly empty, which made sense. There was a bit of an emergency going on right now. That didn’t mean there was no one, which also made sense because good luck getting people to stop their lives unless the emergency was the type that would stop their lives for them. By killing them.

And maybe not even then.

Mortals were weird sometimes.

We pulled up beside an eighteen wheeler with a giant advertisement for fresh vegetables on the side. The driver was a bored looking thirty something with a red baseball cap and a lit cigarette. I expected music or the radio, but then I remembered that his tires burning rubber on the highway was silent for a reason. No wonder he looks half-asleep. He checked his side-mirror.

I waved at him.

He nodded politely and his eyes turned back to the road. Then I saw his eyes snap back in a double take, choking on cigarette smoke as his truck swerved away from us and his eyes bugged. He stared disbelievingly as Luke pulled up even and then pulled ahead. I was next and I waved at him again.

“Don’t bait the mortals!” Luke had eyes on the back of his head.

“Make me!”

Our new trucker friend mouthed something as we sped past him. He wasn’t clear-sighted. I don’t think so anyway. He could see us. You would think the Mist would serve up something normal, so we didn’t blow any mortal minds.

We’re on horses.

Horses are normal.

Even if we’re going at least 85MPH on pure white sparkle ponies with golden saddles trailing bright, flashing snowflakes and icy blue bridles. All they were missing were the flashing neon rainbow colors LED lights braided into their manes. It didn’t matter that they were technically Khione’s nieces and nephews a couple times removed. (Don’t ask. Gods are gonna god.)

Still horses.

There’s a reason why Chiron doesn’t just walk around without his Tardis wheelchair in the middle of New York and satyrs like Grover tend to wear baggy pants over their goat legs and hide their horns.

The Mist isn’t going to hide that shit. It has better things to do.

Like hosting Mt. Olympus above the Empire State building in New York City, protecting the mortals from monsters or making sure they can’t see the Doors they really shouldn’t open.

You can only stretch the top layer of reality so much before it starts to tear. Where do you think modern day ghost stories, monster and UFO sightings come from? It’s not all from the clear-sighted, I can tell you that. The Mist is what separates the ‘normal’ world from the mythological, but it’s not a hard barrier you could bounce off of. It just hides what is truly there and it’s not perfect. The Mist will only do so much, because this is the reality we both live in, whether you’re aware of it or not.

I’m not saying every dude in a wheelchair is a centaur and most likely that baggy shirt isn’t hiding anything but a beer gut. But the next time you see something off or hear a sound you shouldn’t be hearing, before you convince yourself it was nothing but your imagination, maybe what’s actually happening is that you’ve got one foot on the other side. Way back when, the Mist didn’t have to hide anything from humanity. We saw it all.

Some things, the Mist still won’t hide.

Can’t hide.

Our trucker buddy will just have to get over it. Regale some friends over a few beers. Tell his grandkids about the time some white horses carrying a couple of kids and a rabbit outran his truck on the highway to Houston, TX.

The truck’s headlights lit up a good portion of the road ahead of us for a while. He must have been using a high beam, but eventually we lost him when he turned off onto an exit. The darkness closed in, barely held at bay by just the thin beams of our flashlights again.

We rode on.

I was right.

My balls were already not thanking me.

Viciously.

I awkwardly tried to adjust in the saddle and my horse made a snorting sound, turning his head to eye me.

“Sorry, Seabiscuit.” I told him. That’s not his name, but until he is able to tell me otherwise, he’s Seabiscuit. “Not really a long distance rider.”

He snorted again.

As if the universe, or maybe just Mom, wanted to remind me that safer on the road did not mean safe, the hairs on the back of my neck shivered just as the terrain evened out and we hit a flat plain. We were still alone on the road. I held my reins hard enough to make my hands ache as I looked around as best I could through the rolling motions of a horse at full gallop.

Aside from a signpost advertising a nearby rest stop, there was nothing but farmland dotted with trees for miles around.

Almost nothing.

A shadow in the distance the size of a big house stood up on four legs.

“You can’t tire, right?” I whispered to my horse as I side-eyed whatever that thing was. It looked like a hunchbacked wolf with stiff bristles like a steel brush for fur and I really didn’t like what it would mean if I could see details, but it was a mile away and still looked that big.

We’re mortal.

Some monsters Mom warned me about would even consider gods prey.

My horse huffed and turned his head just enough to let me know that he saw it too.

“Right.” I nodded to myself and made one last adjustment as the hairs on the back of my neck slowly began to stand. “Time to earn your paycheck.”

He made a half-braying coughing noise that was probably him asking ‘what paycheck’ and a few extras.

“Language,” I said. I didn’t have to speak horse to know there was some cursing in there. “Don’t worry, I’ll talk with your manager.”

The wolf turned.

There was a long moment where I was hoping it didn’t hear us, but my luck is not that good, so maybe it heard us or saw us but was just going to let us go and then I thought, well maybe it doesn’t even have eyes, that’s a thing -

Burning orange orbs like hot coals lit up as the bristles of its ‘fur’ grew about 10 feet until it was a mass of vaguely wolf shaped tendrils looking right at us.

It has eyes.

“Uh, Luke - !”

The wolf howled.

It was a mournful echoing sound that seemed to bounce off non-existent hills. I expected to hear a bunch of answering calls from the hunting party because that was our luck so far, but there was nothing but that lonely note.

I didn’t relax.

It if wanted to come after us, assuming it would have to physically walk would get me killed.

Luke slowed his horse so that he was only a bit ahead of me. In the light of his electronic torch, his pupils had a strange reddish glow to them as he looked back. It was like reality had just taken a picture of him with the flash on and the bloody coloring of the back of his eyeballs were reflecting back. I thought that was unique to photos, but I guess not?

Artemis had her head poking out of his vest with her ears flattened back completely and silver eyes gleaming.

“What was that?” Luke hissed quietly.

“Trouble?” I offered.

I have no idea what Squiggle Wolf was.

That was already getting old.

I know, I know.

I’m twelve. Can’t know everything about everybody.

Still annoying.

“Right,” Luke said, rolling his eyes. “Rest stop isn’t far.” Our horses were quick on the uptake, or maybe they didn’t like the wolf anymore than we did, because they immediately started to slow down a little as they veered to the right so that they could take the next exit. “If we can just - “

A bolt of warning shot down my spine.

And then something tried to rip my soul right out of my body.

Imagine you’re an onion and something was tearing you away, layer by layer as your soul wells up from the center like blood from a wound. It felt just like it did when Mom brought my sliver of divinity to the surface. I knew the feeling.

Like an immune system that already had a vaccine, my soul fought back.

Divinity was soul-deep.

My stomach ruptured.

(Don’t freeze. If you freeze, you die and it sounded like Mom)

All of the air in my lungs rushed out with the scream I tried to bite back - the Sign, make the Sign! (Don’t freeze. Don’t freeze) the sick heat in my chest came with it, coating my tongue with the taste of iron as I desperately tried not to fall off the horse -

Damocles was in my hand as Luke cried out, the horses bellowed and Artemis screamed and my sword was singing a wordless song I knew as I slashed it through the air.

Luke stole something from me -

it’s fine, he can have it

The Night lit up, blinding, with the shifting green-gold burning eye in its twisted star. I wasn’t prepared to feel everything that I was just rebel against it. Searing tears started running down my face as my eyes burned and I knew they weren’t made of water. The grip on my soul let go.

The symbol winked out with nothing else happening.

Oh, a native, I thought dimly.

Well, fuck.

The pavement of the highway was tearing itself up behind us as the wolf approached like the tremors of an unfelt and unheard earthquake. I held onto the reins with everything I had as a cold, sick feeling wind raked at my back like it was made out of knives -

A cold wind.

“Khione!” I yelled out, feeling my throat tear as my stomach tried to eject my guts onto the road.

I didn’t even see what hit me.

My left leg snapped a split second before the ribs of my horse caved in as we went flying. I knew how to fall. And my experience with angry horse-pigeons at Camp told me that this was going to hurt bad.

Khione’s nephew tried to protect me.

Twisting around so his hundreds of pounds didn’t fall on me, but it didn’t quite make it. The only reason I didn’t just die on impact was because we didn’t hit the tarmac, but collided with a deep pile of snow.

she answered

I don't know if the wet snap I heard was my ride’s foreleg or its neck. I hoped it was just a leg even as my entire body screamed with my own problems. We hit snow, rattling my skeleton as we plowed right through it but, eventually it ran out and became tarmac.

The only thing worse than a rug burn was a pavement burn.

I was spared from the worst of it, but we were still going pretty fast. My shirt silently ripped as I hit the gravelly pavement. A fire raced over my skin and I’m pretty sure I just left a shiny wet streak of skin and blood.

I had just stopped rolling when a massive black claw slammed into the ground an inch from my nose.

I looked up.

And up.

And up.

Looming far above the streetlamp I’d found myself under was the Squiggle Wolf, peering down at me with two burning orange eyes that had three pupils in each one like it actually had six eyes that had just merged.

It exhaled and the stink of rotten meat slapped me in the face.

“Yeah?” I demanded. It had happened too fast for me to feel anything but anger. This was it? After everything? “What the fuck do you want?”

The light in its eyes flared and hooked needles of a savage, bloodthirsty glee prickled my brain.

“Please do not antagonize the Amarok,” Khione’s cold, dry voice came from somewhere behind me, sounding exasperated and I think my heart skipped a beat. A second later I told myself she just sent her voice and I was being ridiculous. “It was only playing.”

It was only -

That just made me angrier.

I nearly died to a literal ‘dog chases the car down the highway’ moment?

“So you’re not an enemy,” I told the giant wolf slowly. “You’re just an asshole.”

Khione sighed as the wolf growled softly at me. “What did I just say?”

I tried to breathe (because I could breathe, I’m alive) and felt everything light up in agony.

I glared up. “It tried to rip my soul out.”

“Yes, well,” she allowed. “It does that. A little tug to see who is worthy of being prey.”

So at best, it would leave normal people alone, but anyone who could defend themselves against ‘a little tug’ were up shit creek without a paddle. At worst, normal people would just hear a wolf howl and then drop dead.

I knew I had a bunch of bullshit ahead of me on this Quest.

“Luke?” I asked immediately.

“Unharmed,” Khione said neutrally. “And I would love to know how he did it.”

Are we ignoring the giant tentacle murder dog?

“Horse?” I felt his ribs cave in. I was expecting bad news.

“Immortal.”

“Oh.”

Didn’t even make the top twenty of weird Greek shit.

“I don’t know if you have the worst or the best luck in the world,” Khione mused. “Definitely the most absurd.”

We’re ignoring the giant tentacle murder dog.

“Giant tentacle murder dog,” I pointed out. Who still wasn’t killing me. It was just watching. I didn’t try to sit up in case it was like a cat and was just waiting for me to twitch. “Looking like the worst.”

And absurd.

“Is it?” Khione’s voice said and then I heard the crunch of someone walking closer. The footsteps rounded my head and the goddess of Ice and Snow walked into my line of sight wearing hiking boots and a light blue poncho rimmed in white. Her eyes were locked on the monster and she looked like she wanted to smile. “Because this is a perfect alibi.”

My mind went blank for a second.

She didn’t just send her voice.

She came to help.

“But Artemis…”

“Is still alive, unfortunately,” Khione said coldly. She still looked like Snow White, but one that came from a college campus instead of a fairy tale. More naturally colored with braids in her black hair and diamond earrings. “You denied me.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said dumbly. “About that…” I gulped. “I’d apologize, but I’d be lying.”

Khione actually smiled briefly. “I know.”

The monster loomed over us, a hulking shadow haunting just outside of the weak light cast by a comically small looking flickering street light. It had slowly started looking less and less like a wolf at some point and looked more like something my mind automatically tried to reject and cling to simultaneously. My brain kept saying ‘wolf’ but my eyes were seeing something that looked like the physical manifestation of a black noise with burning orange eyes.

The concept of a predator bound up in something that wriggled and vibrated every which way, tasting the air and encircling the ground around us, digging into the tarmac to uproot chunks that just had an inky blackness underneath instead of dirt.

Khione stepped between me and the monster with her hands up, like she was trying to approach a hissy cat. A cold, numbing sensation swept over me, taking away the fire burning my right arm and back and letting my broken leg not scream quite as loud. I couldn’t help the sigh of relief.

“You are very far from home,” Khione said softly. She didn’t flinch when it snapped at her, even though the force of it actually displaced enough air for me to feel it. She stepped even closer to it, gently chiding,“Don’t be like that.”

“Uh, Khione?” I said as she came close enough to pet the thing.

Monsters that messed with souls were kind of a Code Red the world over.

Gods have souls too.

“The Amarok is an Inuit legend from the Arctic Circle,” Khione said almost absently. “The lone wolf that stalks the night, testing all that brave the darkness.” She almost cooed at the thing. “And this was a test, wasn’t it?”

The light in the wolf’s burning eyes lit up as the needle hooks in my brain of a primal curiosity-amusement-anticipation dug in.

I fucking hate tests.

I snarled at it. “Still an asshole.”

The goddess gave me an exasperated look. “Do you want it to kill you?”

“Can it?” I challenged. “Isn’t it afraid of the light?”

“Of course not,” Khione said immediately, almost offended. “I told you. It’s playing.”

I looked at the ‘wolf’ again and some of my anger turned to unease.

This wasn’t a monster living under the watchful eye of Olympus or some other pantheon. It followed no one’s orders, not even those of my sisters, the Fates. Maybe it didn’t even care about the Mist. It had no rules, but the ones it chose. Like how the Morrigan bled the silver of Eiocha just like Apollo bled the gold of Phanes, but Mom was not a Celtic Young God.

She was only pretending to be.

“It’s playing,” Khione repeated slowly. “But the game is not over, is it? This one is not going anywhere,” she said in a low tone as her attention returned to the monster. “The hunt was over too soon. The fun is over. You need something else to chase. Something that smells familiar, like ice and snow and blood, don’t you?”

Something changed in Khione. For a moment, I saw double, but the second copy was more movement and light than anything physical. I almost thought I imagined it. A chilly breeze picked up and then the monster’s eyes snapped around.

“Yes, that’s it. Go on,” Khione purred.

Her voice was resonating in my skull as something soft and very cold, replacing the needle hooks with a restless fascination. I caught myself leaning forward towards her when my ribs ground together. I wanted to stand up, even though I knew my leg was broken.

Khione gave the monster a small, indulgent smile.

“Catch me.”

The wolf howled happily and then it just dissolved. An invisible force tore up the pavement right back out into the darkness, leaving big chunks jutting upwards over nothingness reminding me of the broken ice and dark waters of the St. Lawrence river in Quebec City.

I let my head fall back onto the tarmac and stared up at the Night sky. My left leg is super broken, my shoulder is not great and neither is my right arm. If my ribs aren’t broken, they are at least fractured and I could smell the blood where I met the ground. If I was lucky, the friction burn only looked like tenderized meat.

Four and a half hours.

That was how long it took for my next near death experience.

The Night didn’t fuck around.

I had to be saved again.

Mom, I prayed. Are you sure I can do this?

I expected silence with the subtle signs I thought she’d been using to answer me since the Quest started. Instead, I felt her. Gentle and reassuring with a wry twist at the end. Like she was saying what she believed wasn’t important.

I choose my own destiny. Say the word and I can come home.

I breathed in ashy smelling air and finally looked around now that the wolf wasn’t in the way. It looked like we had made it to the rest stop Luke mentioned.

Barely.

I was right on the edge where the road blended into the parking lot decked out in rows of lit street lights with two dark eighteen wheeler trucks and a few cars parked outside the building. There were a few curious faces peering out the windows, probably reacting to hearing a wolf howling nearby, but no one ventured outside.

“It’s gone,” Khione said at the shadow of a puke yellow dingy SUV parked a few spaces away.

Two sparkle ponies, one a lot more beat up than the other, a demigod and a rabbit faded back into view like someone pulled off a blanket.

“Uh,” I stared. “Luke. You’ve got a bit of - “ I raised my hand to demonstrate on my own face, trying to sit up, but Khione caught it and pushed me back down.

“Just tell me you’re not injured enough and I’ll oblige you,” she said shortly. “All I did was numb the pain,” but her eyes were on Luke too. “That certainly isn’t yours.”

“No,” Luke’s voice said thinly. There was a whistle to his voice like he had some kind of a lisp or a serpent’s tongue. “It isn’t.”

My first thought on seeing him was, oh, it’s Two-Face from Batman, Harvey Dent. With his blond hair and blue eye, he could pull it off. It’s just that the other face of Luke’s villainous lawyer from DC was Venom, the alien symbiote from Marvel.

I searched for something to say that wasn’t pointing out how the right side of his face was weirding me out a bit. “How’d you do that?”

The left corner of his mouth quirked while the right sneered with serrated teeth. “Sneaking.”

He turned on his heel and faded away, before fading back. He made a limp wave with his free hand as a half-hearted ‘ta-da.’ He led the horses over, Artemis still clutched to his chest and the human side of his face looked uncomfortable.

Khione clucked her tongue. “Don’t play the coward now, son of Hermes.”

Luke blew out a breath.

“Sorry,” He said almost sheepishly as his third eye on his forehead closed up like it had never been there and the black reptilian scales with bioluminescent vestigial eyes dripped down the right side of his face like black ink leaving normal human skin behind. It pooled in the open hand he held out to me as he crouched down. “I panicked. I didn’t know what was happening and it hurt and I just grabbed it from you.”

When had -

What -

From me?

I stared.

“You can see more than I can,” Luke weakly defended himself. “And that monster from before didn’t seem to hurt you as much, so I thought - if I had a little of that - “ he cut himself off. “I tried to be quick because I didn’t want to distract you - “

“It’s fine,” I said automatically.

It was more than knowledge, or skills. Luke didn’t even have to know what exactly he was swiping to take it for himself.

What the hell did he steal?

‘Essence of Elder God?’

Khione’s swirling eyes sharpened a little as she idly inspected the dark smoky ball dotted with burning green eyes in his hand that looked a lot like my Dream form.

“Is there a limit to what you can steal?” Khione asked slowly.

Luke shot a dark look at her.

“Is there a limit to what my father can steal?” He asked back mockingly.

“Yes,” she said seriously, taking him aback. She raised a finger to her lips in the universal ‘be quiet’ gesture as her eyes pointedly looked down at his outstretched hand and then back up.

Luke’s brows furrowed as he dropped the ball on me. My stomach lurched a little, like it was trying to roll over, but nothing else happened. Luke set Artemis down on the gravelly ground. The bunny immediately belly flopped next to me, looking like it had crawled through World War I trenches. Patches of fur were missing from her hindquarters with oozing sores.

Khione ignored her.

Luke didn’t.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He said, exasperated, as he dug into his fashion disaster yellow fanny pack for ambrosia squares.

“It does not matter,” Artemis said quietly, sullen. She squeaked when Luke gently cuffed her upside the head.

“You could have at least said it was blood because you were chafing on the ride,” he grumped. “I thought you peed on me.”

Her ears flattened against her head immediately.

“Maybe I should have - “ and they began to bicker like children in the cramped backseat of a car on the way to Disneyworld.

Khione caught my eye and rolled hers at me.

They were distracting.

I don’t think they were even snowflakes anymore. Ice shards made fractal dizzying patterns that endlessly looped back to crumble into themselves, like there was a tiny blackhole in the middle.

She noticed me looking and smiled. “You can see that.”

I could feel my face heat up from being caught staring. “Yeah, I - argh!“

Khione mercilessly twisted my broken leg back into place.

I rolled around a little, trying to blink stars out of my eyes, but the adrenaline was long gone and the fresh wave of pain was overwhelming. The cool hand against the side of my face didn’t help with trying to stay awake and neither did the ambrosia square someone stuffed in my mouth mid-curse.

It tasted like Nana’s baklava dessert. Warm, and full of honey.

“Rest,” Khione said. “You’re safe for now. You can rest.”

I can rest.

Okay.

My brain had already checked out when my mouth remembered something.

“Seabiscuit wants a raise,” I said.

The cold hand on my face pulled back.

“What?” Khione said.

“The horse,” I explained.

Luke snorted. I think the horse did too (or maybe Luke didn’t do anything and it was just the horse) but I was kind of out of it.

“He earned it.”

I passed out.

Unconsciousness is not Sleep. Your soul usually isn’t suicidal. The Dreaming part of it up and ditching your body every time you get knocked out by something and are probably still in danger or hurt would be dumb. That’s why you try to wake up from being unconscious as soon as you can and if you are too hurt to, then you sleep so you could heal.

It’s not perfect, but when is anything?

Or anyone.

I didn’t Dream.

When I woke up, it took me two seconds to realize that we were inside the miniature tourist trap and food court that was the rest stop. This one was boasting something called a Sonic Drive restaurant where I was stuffed in a booth and through the glass windows I could see the souvenir shop on the other side of the wide foyer. On the table across from me, Artemis was munching on blades of hay in a bowl. One of the workers behind the food counter kept looking over at our table with an absolutely sappy look on his face.

Guess he was a bunny person.

“Ugh.” I rubbed my face. “How long was I out?”

Artemis ears flicked back and forth. She muttered and that’s when I realized her lion charm was missing.

“What happened to - “ I narrowed my eyes. Artemis was left alone with Luke and Khione. “Did you bite someone?”

The rabbit looked offended.

“You bit someone.”

She looked away, sulking.

I sighed. “What’s wrong with you.”

It wasn’t a question, because I didn’t want to know.

I stretched a little, testing to see how much I had healed. The answer was most of it. There was a cast made of ice on my leg and my shirt no longer had a hole the size of Montana in it, so Khione must have cleaned me up a bit. My skin there was still a bit tender, so I must have been scraped pretty bad if I could still feel it when I couldn’t feel my wrenched shoulder anymore.

I’ve always healed fast and having a full ambrosia square definitely helped. The food of gods was good for that if you had enough divinity to not just burst into flame.

It -

Wait.

“You can eat ambrosia,” I said to Artemis who looked back at me with silver eyes. Her little sweater was folded up in a tiny square next to her, probably so her injuries could be looked at. Sure enough, she was still bald in some places, but the bleeding sores were gone already. Her burst eardrums were healed that way too, back when we first met Aura, Corey and his dog Bradley.

That seemed like forever ago.

Artemis nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“It’s just - “ I tried to get my thoughts in order. “I thought Mom took everything, made you a normal rabbit.”

Normal rabbits don’t have silver eyes either, I thought then.

There was something I’m missing.

If Mom just wanted to hand Artemis a length of rope to hang herself with, she could have done that at any time. If it had to be now, assigning the Quest to Zoe Nightshade or Sipriotes of the goddess’ senior Hunters would have still compelled Apollo’s twin to come to Camp Half-Blood.

But Artemis is on a Quest.

When mortals were allowed to break divine rules.

Her ears dropped a little. Maybe she was thinking, but bunny faces don’t do many expressions that aren’t ‘mad’ and ‘mad cute.’

Was I reading too much into this?

The rules were enforced by my sisters, the Fates. Mom had nothing to do with it. But…

Mom is not perfect. And not all-powerful.

Artemis is still Rhea’s granddaughter and maybe that can’t be taken away as easily as the blood of Phanes could be. A few months ago, the thought that Mom can’t do something would have been close to blasphemy. Since I first got taken by Hermes and shoved into Camp Half-Blood, I’ve learned otherwise.

Mom can’t lie, not won’t.

Am I reading too much into this?

Movement in the corner of my eye had my head snapping in that direction. The guy I saw behind the counter jumped and held out the tray he was holding like it was an offering.

Guess I was still jumpy.

“Yer sis ordered for ya ‘ready,” he said with a hopeful smile and Texan twang. I stared at him for a moment.

How was he talking?

That’s when I noticed the simple silvery charm bracelet he had on with a small snowflake charm.

Words were wind.

He was the wiry, bearded type that looked like he lived on a diet of coffee, biscottos and spite with fluffy brown hair under his beanie and brown eyes that were a little bloodshot.

I took the tray.

“Thanks, man.”

“Nuthin’ of it!” He said brightly and it looked like it broke something in him. “Let me know if you need in’thang, extra napkins, some sauce packets, cutlery?” He asked like he was a restaurant waiter.

“Uh.” I looked down at my food. The wrapper proudly proclaimed I got a SuperSONIC Bacon Cheeseburger with Chili. Fries and a Coke. “I’m good?”

“Change your mind, caw may.” He gave me a stern kind of look. “Noelle didn’t want you walkin’ around on that leg, you’ve fixin’ to go to Houston, you got a ways, aite?”

Noelle?

I get it.

Like the Christmas song.

Way better than Fred as far as mortal aliases go. Morrigan isn’t even on the list, because clearly Mom didn’t give a shit about hiding anything at all.

“Alright,” I said.

“The rabbit hers or yers?” The guy looked like he wanted to pet the bunny for a second, but Artemis’ narrow eyed look stopped him.

“Luke’s,” I smirked as Artemis glared at me. “Couldn’t leave her all by herself home alone. Who knows what could happen to her?”

She might decide to murder Fate’s demigod.

“Oh. Him.” The dude’s face tightened. “Don’t look like a rabbit guy.”

He’s not.

“She’s a rescue and he’s a bleeding heart,” I said drily.

Artemis glared harder.

I booped her nose and she reared back like I was a leper.

Or just had boy cooties.

“She’s a bit of a bitch, though.”

The best part was that it was true. Luke cared about Camp Half-Blood and having Mom’s boon to clean up the shithole that was Olympus and that was keeping Artemis alive.

The food guy eyed the bald patches in her fur, coming to the completely wrong conclusion.

“Ye, some rescues are hef-feral til they learn to trust ya, ‘specially if they were sick or ‘bused. Fear begets fear, gotta teach them to stop being ‘fraid first ‘fore they improve.”

The rabbit shrunk.

“Hey, your name?”

“Ah,” He pulled at his name tag that had curled up, only half of the adhesive sticking to his shirt. It read ‘J.D.’ “It doesn’t stand for in’thang,” he said, sheepishly. “Just Jaydee.”

“Percy,” I said.

“Percy and Noelle,” he mused out loud. “From Louisiana?”

I was saved from having to answer that (what was in Louisiana?) by the other two members of our Quest party triumphantly returning with a bag of vending machine snacks, a clean shirt without rabbit blood, a white cowboy hat and one of those travel brochures that unfolded into a map of the United States roads.

“Percy,” Khione flashed a small smile as she handed the map to Luke, who switched the bag of goodies over to his other hand so he could take it. “Glad to see you awake.”

I raised my Coke in greeting. “How long was I out?”

She took a step back and looked up. I was confused until I realized there was a clock on the wall above me. That just reminded me that I had Rhea’s sailor compass clock and could have just made a guess myself instead of asking.

“Forty minutes, roughly.” She set her white cowboy hat on the table. Luke tossed me my sword pendant and I snatched it out of the air. “I did find something I like, Jaydee,” she addressed the food guy who smiled helplessly at her. “Thank you.”

“Yes’m,” he said in an odd higher pitched voice. “Need in’thang else?”

Luke slid into the booth opposite me, rolling his eyes. He offered Artemis a few roasted peanuts as Khione talked the guy around to leaving us alone.

“You feeling okay - after taking - “ I made a vague gesture around my head with some fries.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Luke said with a small frown. “I gave it back.”

I have no idea.

I know I still have too many teeth, even after Mom got rid of my other sets. My spine sticks out and isn’t shaped right and I have some extra organs and ribs. I have godly eyes and my body tried to make up for that by developing a few extras inside.

The Mist half-heartedly tries to hide what I called ‘cousiny’ traits just like it hides monsters and that told me enough. I’m not a monster. Neither is Clovis or Ethan.

But the children of the Pit and the Night were.

“Never mind then,” I said.

He shrugged, eyeing me and popped some fries into his mouth. I didn’t even notice him taking them and I was looking right at him. He winked back.

Luke was kind of scary.

I pointed at our pet rabbit. “Who’d she bite?”

Luke’s good mood evaporated. He held up fingers I just noticed were bandaged. The story unfolded before me. They were arguing when I passed out. Probably kept arguing. Artemis bit him.

So he stole her voice.

“Can you not,” I tried, speaking to both of them.

“She makes it very hard,” Luke said and Artemis huffed.

I stared at him until he caved, clipping the lion charm back onto the rabbit’s cat collar.

“Thank you,” Artemis said stiffly.

“Mhm.”

“Finally,” Khione sighed as she came back to our table. She took a seat next to me holding a double chocolate cookie. “Could not take a hint.”

“You literally told him you have magic,” Luke pointed out unsympathetically.

“That has absolutely nothing to do with it,” Khione said in a very, very dry tone of voice. “And you know it.”

I have no idea what they are talking about.

“You tell everyone about you?” I asked instead. “And you said we were siblings?”

“Mortals tend to assume attractive people arriving together are related if they share any feature at all,” she explained, fingering a lock of her black hair. “The same way they’ll assume two people in the same room of the same race are related.”

I blinked.

“Is thermodynamics the only thing you have a degree in?”

“No,” Khione flashed a small smile. Before any of us could respond to that, she snatched the map back from Luke and spread it out on the table. “Houston should be your next stop,” she said, pointing it out on the map. “We’ll have to find someone or something willing to escort you the rest of the way through New Mexico and Arizona.”

“You can’t?” Luke asked.

“I shouldn’t,” Khione corrected him gently. “Olympus is currently on lockdown. We are advised to remain singular beings and we cannot rely on traditional borders and habitats during the Night.” She pursed her lips. “The Amarok told me that much.”

“You said it was a perfect alibi,” I remembered.

“I am leading it back north,” Khione said simply. “After the Migration, father and his brothers did not simply bulldoze their way in.”

The way she said that gave me the impression others did. I wondered if it had anything to do with the classifications Hermes gave out when he was ticketing Mom. The Celts didn’t exactly Migrate, like the Greek and Norse did. They were more like the Egyptians with their Nomes all over the place, but less centralized into Sidh sites.

I never really thought about how many toes the Greek and Norse stepped on coming over like they did.

“Alliances were made. It is a non-Olympic matter I am qualified to deal with and dangerous enough that everyone would assume I would be singular to do so. If any had a reason to check where the minor goddess of my father was - ” Khione smiled a small, dangerous looking smile. “I would only be doing my duty.”

That was what I saw earlier, I realized. Khione split off a Name. One for the wolf to chase, so the rest of her could help us here.

Artemis raised her head. “...why are you here then?”

Khione gave her a blank look. Then it turned to something that it was almost pitying. “Has it been so long since you answered a plea for help that you forgot what it looks like?”

“No, I - “ The rabbit’s ears flicked back and forth. “I am still alive.”

“I noticed,” Khione said flatly.

I winced.

“We talked it over,” Luke volunteered, leaning a bit over the table. He and Khione glanced at each other with an unreadable look. “She’s officially giving you help, Percy. And only you.” He put on his father’s crooked smile. “I’ll just have to wing it as best I can, eh?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then I remembered.

Luke is supposed to die. Hermes was punished and Athena was forbidden from helping him on his Quest.

“Are you on some kind of blacklist?” I asked him. “Because that’s bullshit.”

He shrugged a shoulder like it was no big deal, but I was there when he looked at me, hoping I could tell him it wasn’t true.

“Can you blame anyone for not wanting to risk it?” He said darkly and Artemis flinched.

“I am abiding by the rules, to the letter,” Khione said carefully. “I may not be a Messenger, but the wind does not need permission to travel. And the weather - well, it changes all the time.” Her face twisted a little. “If your sisters object to their little brother getting legal aid, they are free to do something about it whenever they want.”

There was a term Dad used to describe what Khione was doing. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was basically following all the rules in just the right way to not get in trouble and still piss people off.

She tapped a slim finger on Houston, TX. “Safety in numbers is necessary if I don’t want to draw attention to myself or you.” She gave me an uncomfortable look. “...you don’t want to meet a wendigo. I don’t want to meet a wendigo.”

I will absolutely take her word for it.

“So get to Houston, get someone to give us a lift or carpool,” I summarized. “Any Greeks there?”

“No,” Artemis and Khione said at the same time.

Well, that’s great.

“Thank you for this,” I told Khione. “I owe you a big one.”

The goddess’ face lit up. The ice shards in her eyes unfolding and crumbling from their center like eleventh dimensional rose petals. The effect was breathtaking, but some small part of my mind was wondering what it meant when a god’s eyes could change.

“I will hold you to that,” Khione warned me lightly, waving her cookie.

Artemis took a tiny step forward on her little paws. “I…also owe you.”

Khione’s smile withered. “I am certainly not doing it for you.”

“But you are aiding Olympus,” Artemis ventured quietly. An ugly look was on the goddess of Ice and Snow’s face for a moment and then she tilted her head back like she was asking someone for patience.

“Is this really the time for your ‘daughter of the First Throne’ nonsense when you don’t even have - “

“Not - not that either,” Artemis interrupted her. The rabbit looked around uncomfortably. “Can - May I talk to you…outside?” Artemis said with her voice getting quieter and quieter. “Or…something…”

“If it isn’t something you can say with witnesses, it isn’t something I will believe,” Khione said archedly with a skeptical raised eyebrow.

Artemis went silent.

Khione scoffed and nibbled at her cookie. Luke stole a few more of my french fries as I worked on my Bacon Chili Cheeseburger and can I just say, it wasn’t bad at all. Strange, but not bad. Luke stole more french fries until I told him to get his own. Apparently, Khione had a debit card too, so I didn’t even need to use mine for his Chili Cheese dog and fries.

I had just finished my nectar-infused Coke when Artemis spoke up again.

“You had a baby girl once.”

Khione went very still.

Luke leaned all the way back into his booth as if he could melt into it and get out of the line of fire. I wanted to do the same thing.

The song in her eyes was back, making the ice shards chaotically collide in a mesmerizing dance.

“Choose your next words very carefully,” Khione said softly.

“I intervened!” Artemis blurted out and then her small form was wracked by a full body wince. “I - tried to intervene. When the Fates…”

There was a sound like a massive frozen over lake had just cracked and the edges of Khione’s form blurred, then sharpened back up. I fought the urge to scoot away from her. A couple of inches wasn’t going to make a difference if she lost control of her divine form right next to me. I couldn’t even run, she had me boxed in unless I dove over the table.

“You…” Khione whispered. “Tried.”

“I wronged you,” Artemis said in a very small voice. “I was just so angry - but I knew it was wrong. I owed you. So I tried.”

“A life for a life,” Khione murmured. Artemis tried to take hers, so I guess the only way to pay that back would be to save one for her. But if the Fates wanted someone to die…

“I thought it would work,” Artemis pleaded. “It should have worked.”

“It didn’t.”

“No,” Artemis moaned. “It did not.”

Khione looked over the rabbit coldly. “You were punished?”

“Yes,” Artemis answered quietly and suddenly, I knew Artemis had been talking about what Mom’s spawn my eldest sister was like from personal experience. “I thought - “ She swallowed loudly. “I do not know what I was thinking. I wanted to tell you, but I - “

The bunny shrunk into a little ball.

“Could not?” She offered pathetically.

“You couldn’t?” Khione said abruptly. “You couldn’t?”

A wave of the goddess’ hand saw the food guy forget about coming over at her raised voice, eyes going dull as he made an about face and marched back into the kitchen as Khione rose from her seat to loom over the rabbit on the table.

I wondered if I should make a break for it.

“My daughter suffered and you let me believe it was my fault!”

Another crack rang out and then the song in her eyes changed. Khione shook her head. Her hand raised to her temple like she had a sudden headache.

“No - no, of course, it makes perfect sense. Why am I - why am I surprised?” She sounded breathless. “Why do I - Olympus has always been full to - to bursting with lessons only suffering can teach.” Khione whirled on me and I jumped. “Percy. I will ward the building so you can sleep here, but if you wish to press on, I can’t - “ She struggled to get the words out. “I - I can’t - “

Another crack of ice.

“Luke, stay alive. Artemis. I will enjoy watching you die.”

Then she was gone.

For a long moment, no one said anything.

Then Luke took a loud, obnoxious sip of his soda.

“So you not only screwed over everyone you know, but some people you screwed over multiple times,” he said. “I’m in awe.”

Artemis sighed.

“Why?” I asked.

I didn’t have to explain what I was asking.

“Pride,” she answered. “Shame? Or maybe I was just afraid to say anything…” she said quietly. “Your sisters are like your mother. There is always just enough ambiguity, just enough give, just enough rope so that we think we can fight it, but it never means what we think it does. And… this time?” She asked herself, almost wonderingly. “I can hardly be punished more.”

She hopped over to the edge of the table and then down into the seat, disappearing from view.

“It was a secret I did not want to die with. That is all.”

No, I thought. That wasn’t the kind of secret I would want to take to my grave either.

I stood up. My leg complained, but I could walk.

“We’ll stay the night,” I said.

Luke eyed me.

“Deadline,” he said gently.

Damn it.

He blew out a breath.

“Yeah, I get it.” He looked down at the rabbit next to him. “I’ve been thinking. If your mother told the Fates to do something, they’d have to do it, right?”

“Yeah.”

She just usually doesn’t care to.

He nodded thoughtfully. “...it’s only about an hour to Houston. Stopping here…”

My hands clenched into fists, but I nodded. “Fifteen minutes?”

“Sure.” He got up and stretched, then started to clean up our trays.

I picked up Khione’s white cowboy hat and limped outside.

In the back of an old pick up truck, I found a goddess.

“I’m afraid I will not be good company,” Khione said quietly.

“You don’t have to be,” I said, hoping I could help even a little by just being here. I climbed into the truck and sat next to her. My leg ached. It wasn’t the most comfortable seat in the world, but I could deal with it. I set the white hat down between us. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she said and I winced.

Yeah. It wasn’t.

“I thought my armor of ice was perfect,” Khione said softly. “Flawless. I told myself they would make a mistake. They would weaken. I can wait.” She shifted around a little and idly picked up her hat. I heard her whisper, “I hate them.”

I looked around the parking lot and tried not to think about a certain Great Prophecy and how one of the choices was to raze.

“And it seems the beloved daughter does not even need a bow and arrow to pierce right through my heart.” Her hand raised to her chest and I knew that under her fingers was her scar. “After all these years - “ she let out a soft gasp I tried to ignore. “They can still hurt me.”

I don’t know if she was talking about the Olympians.

Or my older sisters.

“...it’s not my fault,” Khione said brokenly, as if just realizing it all over again. “None of it was.”

Mom, I prayed. If you won’t, or can’t, do anything about the Fates.

I will.

Her response was carefully, almost painfully, neutral. It was not a yes.

It also wasn’t a no.

If I was going to break a Prophecy, it only made sense that I’d have to go through the Prophecy makers first. Whatever it took. I wondered what that said about Mom, that the idea didn’t bother her.

It didn’t bother me.

All this time, I’ve assumed that I was just like any other Olympic demigod. Just as strong or important. But if I was, nothing about Mom’s plans for me made sense. Mom put me on a Quest, where mortals were allowed to break the rules. By their own decrees, the Fates couldn’t stop me.

I was not an Olympic demigod.

Maybe I should flex some diplomatic immunity. Mom had plans for me. I knew there would be consequences. Things Mom hasn’t told me or won’t tell me, but if she was willing to lend me the weight of her Name, then a lot could change. This might all blow up in my face. My only other choice was to do nothing. To keep the status quo and only do little things that wouldn’t rock the boat too hard, to preserve.

Either way I was beginning to realize was a problem. It was one thing to say it or decide to do it. It was another to actually do it.

How do you break a Prophecy that was multiple choice?

And at the end of it all…

Something cold hit my nose. I looked up.

It was snowing.

Large snowflakes fell from a pitch black sky in the middle of June. The light from the streetlamps reflecting off the snow made it look like there were thousands of tiny, sparkling falling stars drifting lazily down to earth. Beside me, Khione shuddered, a tiny hitched gasp and she curled into herself, but she didn’t cry.

I’m half-human, I thought. Only half-god, but maybe that was the wrong way to think.

I’m half-god.

I can do this.

Snow fell on my face and the tarmac and the truck.

The flakes melted instantly on the warm surfaces into cold droplets of water.

And fell to the ground as icy tears.