It was about two in the afternoon on the second day of our Quest.

Fuck.

How sure was I that Argus didn’t drive us out of Camp Half-Blood years ago?

It felt like it had been years.

Maybe a decade or two.

I was a strange kind of numb. I should be feeling a lot of things and I think I was, but there were too many feelings and too much to feel and I had just stopped processing everything. My emotions were waiting for the next shoe to drop.

I felt like, and probably looked like, a drowned rat clinging to the mane of the lion carrying Luke. Everything dripped. Water was still making tracks down my face (but at least it’s not blood). My shoes squelched. I was cold. It was overcast, wherever we were, with only occasional god rays of sunlight peeking through. The gravel road we walked on felt abandoned. Grass and weeds were closing in from the sides and there were puddles of water leftover from rain. I stepped over a pothole and pulled a little on the lion’s mane to keep my balance.

It chuffed, glancing at me.

“Sorry,” I told Sam’s six hundred pound second cousin, relaxing my grip. “My bad.”

“You’re fine,” Rhea said as she flicked the lion’s ear. “Widdle just bein’ a drama queen.”

I gave the lion a look.

It was literally as tall as I was.

“Widdle?”

There were many things you could name your pet lion and then there was that.

Her lips twisted unhappily as she raised her sunglasses to settle in her braided dark hair. She might have given her pet a look too, but it was hard to tell exactly where she was looking with those fly eyes of hers.

“He won’t answer to anything else.”

The lion arrogantly lifted its nose into the air and walked a little faster.

I get it.

Cat.

We fell into silence again. I fidgeted.

“Where are we?”

“Long Beach,” she answered. “Mississippi.”

I stumbled a bit as my spine liquified. We were almost literally on the other side of the North American continent from Quebec City.

Safe.

At least for a bit.

I sniffled a little. I don’t know why. We had some leeway. If we were lucky, we’d ditched the nightmare for good. I don’t think we would get lucky, but there was no sign of it and we just had to keep moving as soon as Luke was back on his feet and get the Master Bolt and go home. Easy. We had our break and I was an experienced demigod adventurer. This wasn’t worth crying over.

I shivered. I sniffled again.

Rhea bowed her head.

She said nothing.

“How long - “ my voice embarrassingly cracked. I stared down at my shoes. “Are we almost…?”

“We’re here,” was the soft reply.

I looked up.

“Um.” I winced, but said it anyway. “Nice place?”

Rhea squinted, like she had to check if anything changed, before she directed a wry smile my way.

“It’s a mess,” she said bluntly.

Yeah, I lied.

It was a mess.

We had finally reached the home of the former Queen of the Gods. And it was a small light blue bungalow home that had vomited out its insides onto the front lawn. It was half spring cleaning in the wrong month and half garage sale. There was an antique grandfather clock that looked like Big Ben right beside a Volkswagen safari van decorated with swirling black frond designs on burnt orange like a Greek Mystery Machine. There were random pieces of furniture (coffee table, nightstand, dresser, lamp, lamp, la - what is that? Weird lamp) sitting on the grass among the jungle of cardboard boxes that weren’t all taped shut and giant cat toys. A lot of them.

Along with the giant cats.

An entire pride of lions lounged around in what little free space remained, or made free space like only a cat would, sleeping on unfolded boxes, crushing folded boxes under their butts, and reclining on the ratty sofa in the driveway. There were some cubs playing with a weathered soccer ball underneath the U-Haul wagon. It was a mess, but it looked like a comfortable kind of mess.

I guess that wasn’t saying much.

Cats could make a paper bag on the floor look comfy.

“You’re...moving?” I guessed. I stepped through what was definitely a barrier or some kind around her property. I could feel it taste me, raising the hairs on my arms.

“You got it,” Rhea said easily. “I just closed on a nice place in upstate New York with this Indian café right down the street?” She let out a happy little sigh, absentmindedly bopping a curious lion on the nose as her granddaughter bled all over her blue and yellow shirt. “Their butter chicken? Amazing.” The second step leading up to her front door creaked a little. “Mind the pottery.”

Uh.

Right.

“Can’t you just - uh.” I waved a hand around my head as I stepped around the large Grecian vase in the middle of the foyer. The inside of the bungalow looked completely normal, like it belonged to a normal pottery enthusiast with a few exotic pets that were probably illegal and was moving out like a normal person. Half of the living room was cramped and crowded with boxes and a moved sofa while the rest of the room was blank and empty. There were glass cases with old school Minoan bowls and vases right alongside boxes filled with faded 1960s magazines proudly standing against the Vietnam War. There were photo albums stuffed almost to bursting. Stamp and coin collections were carefully packed away underneath a few paint splattered easels.

Why was she even bothering?

“Can’t you just zap this all over there, or something?”

“And deprive myself of that ‘finally moved in’ feel?” She asked incredulously as we both made way for the lion carrying Luke’s limp body (Luke was okay, he was okay, we’re fine - ) to pad past us into a side room. “That’s, like, an entire seven month process, man. You wouldn’t believe how bummed out I would be if I skipped it.”

The Queen of the Titans just used the word ‘bummed.’

“Bummed out.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that not in use anymore? You know, it would be a total mood killer, a downer, a complete drag - “

“ - where’d you learn to talk like that?” I interrupted her.

“Woodstock.”

That makes sense.

Wait.

“Why were you - “ On second thought - “Never mind.”

“It’s the little things,” Rhea explained patiently as we stepped into what looked like the kitchen. It was homey, dirty dishes still in the sink and everything. “Effort. Meaning. Time. It’s all relative. Reality is a frame of mind.”

Sometimes Mom did things like this. Like driving instead of teleporting me around. Putting just enough effort into burning our penthouse down so Dad would try to help cook or listen to me talk about my day. It helped keep her here. With us. Grounded.

“Trying to keep yourself from drifting?” I ventured.

“Trying to keep the Dream alive.”

“Oh right, you’re - “ I had the word on the tip of my tongue and as soon as I went to say it, it disappeared. I quickly threw out another one. “Hibernating?”

She accepted that, nodding. “Repetition helps.”

That took me right back to my childhood, in that weird word association way your brain sometimes does. Or maybe just my brain. Back to the audiobook Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and the smell of freshly cut strawberries.

There was a certain safety in repetition.

I don’t think that’s what Rhea meant though.

“Like boring yourself to bed?”

That got me one of those softly amused looks, like I was this little yapping Pomeranian puppy she was sizing up for a sweater and booties. I watched her set Artemis on the counter and for a moment, I thought she was going to break out the cutting board and knives to put the rabbit out of her misery.

I felt bad for thinking that. Then I felt mad for feeling bad about it. Then I felt guilty for feeling mad about feeling bad.

It was -

It was a thing.

“Go on,” Zeus’ mother said as her hands lit up with that smokeless, writhing fire again as she prodded the bunny’s broken leg. “Have a seat.”

The kitchen table was a round, wooden piece covered in doilies with mismatched chairs, like she had just gradually added to the collection from garage sales. I picked a wooden chair with an overstuffed green cushion that looked like it had been chewed on a little. One of the legs was short, making me wobble.

Everything about this was awkward.

Rhea married into the Greek pantheon, but Mom...never explained what that meant beyond the obvious. Did she outrank me? Was it the other way around? Was it one of those things where we didn’t want to piss each other off because I had Mom in my corner and she had the Pit?

Except he was asleep, while Mom wasn’t so…

I don’t know.

This was like the first time I met Hypnos, but worse. It was like going to one of those parties with Grandpa and getting introduced to his friends’ kids who were all way older than me. I was supposed to play nice, but I was in sixth grade and they were already halfway through their college majors, had already graduated or were working on their Masters.

And I had to make friends anyway.

I was just a demigod at the end of the day. I was important to Mom, but I was mortal. Was I being dumb if I assumed Rhea thought I was any different from Luke, her great grandson?

I was probably being stupid.

Mom never told me anything personal about the other Elder Gods. Did she even like the god beneath the Pit? Was she friends with the god behind the Night? What were the rules with their Greek Names? There was this traditional greeting thing, and yeah I blew it, but Rhea spoke English first so it wasn’t my fault? And it kind of made my throat hurt and my head feel weird, but it just wasn’t the same in American and I…

I was a little worried about Kronos.

I don’t think he was on Mom’s side anymore.

That probably didn’t mean anything, right? It would be like assuming Luke would jump to defend Zeus just because Hermes did. Maybe the Titan Lord was just like me. He didn’t have the whole picture and what he did see was through a human lens and he misunderstood.

But Rhea...

Rhea was loyal.

Not all of the star spawn rebelled.

I was just being weird about nothing.

I breathed out, trying to calm my racing thoughts.

I was being paranoid.

The Matriarch of the Swarm had stepped in to save us (Luke was fine - he’s okay), but her granddaughter was a piece of work and her son was mad at me. Her (ex?) husband didn't like my mother and the rest of her children in charge of Olympus were compulsive liars, but she saved us.

I didn’t know what to say.

So I just kept my mouth shut as Rhea quietly worked on putting the rabbit back together.

I don’t do well with silence.

In a desperate attempt to keep my ADHD from making me deliberately rock my chair - because that shit got annoying quickly and if I did it I would only be annoying myself - I started leafing through the doilies on the table. They were all ridiculously elaborate, floral designs made to mimic actual flowers. You could tell that this was a hibiscus and this one was a lotus just by the pattern. I found myself picking at a loose thread in a lace dandelion when my back twinged. Something shifted in my bones. It felt like I pulled a long splinter out from underneath my ribs. I grunted, hunching over and accidentally pulled on the thread too hard. The corner of the dandelion visibly unraveled in my hands.

Fuck.

“That ought to do it.” Apollo’s grandmother hummed. I grabbed the nearest magazine and pretended to have been reading it (lingerie catalog, why ) and casually slid the sloppy dandelion underneath it as she turned around. “How about you? Hurt anywhere?”

I shrugged. My back and side were already itching. Scabbed over already. My stomach felt a bit better, but it still throbbed grumpily.

“I heal quickly,” I mumbled.

I was fine.

Again.

“Naturally.” Rhea knelt beside my chair and laid her head on folded arms. She had multicolored bangles and bracelets with all kinds of feel good messages on them, from the lavender ‘Peace is a Journey’ to the silver ‘Wake up. Kick Ass. Sleep. Repeat.’

“Would you say no to some nectar?” She asked softly.

I swallowed and mutely shook my head.

Then I stared as a Dora the Explorer sippy cup was placed in front of me.

“I - I’m - I’m twelve?” I had to say it. “Not two.”

“There’s a difference?” Rhea sounded genuinely confused, turning back to me from the pantry.

“Uh, yes.” I said blandly. “A big one.”

She crossed her arms. “Really?”

“A humongous differ - look, how do you not know this?”

“It’s...been a while,” she retorted dryly. “So you’re twelve. Big whoop. I should’ve given you a bottle. Adrasteia was still nursing at your age.”

That brought me up short.

“Oh,” I said dumbly.

I tried to imagine the Inescapable in a high chair with a fucking sippy cup and I just can’t. I couldn’t even do it with Aether or Erebus.

The Fates in diapers??

Rhea was around for the birth of Mom’s firstborn.

Rhea was older than the current sun.

You ever have that moment when you look at someone and realize they grew up before vinyl and just go ‘shit, you’re literally old as hell?’ I have that moment a few times a year with Apollo and Mom and I am straight useless for about ten seconds each time.

No idea how Dad keeps his head wrapped around it.

With a click of her fingers, the sippy cup was replaced with a Stayin’ Alive Bee Gees mug. After a moment of consideration, Rhea got her own mug with a rainbow ‘Imagine’ emblazoned on the side.

“Twelve years…” She mused out loud. She chopped her index finger through the air, as if counting on an invisible white board. “Your birthday ain’t August 18th, is it?”

I blinked as I sipped the chouchen taste-a-like. “No, November.” Right day though. “Why?”

She shrugged one shoulder.

“The Grove screamed on that day,” she said airily, leaning back against her counter like trees just do that sometimes. Scream. “Scared me half to fucking death - I thought it had been gone forever but then - “ She stopped herself with an odd little smile playing around her mouth as she absently petted her conked out granddaughter. “Your mother has always gotten a real kick out of doing what no one expects her to.”

That sounded like Mom alright.

“She ripped you off,” I mumbled into my mug. I winced as soon as it came out of my mouth. I probably should be more respectful. She might be touchy about that.

“Oh, hun.” Rhea said softly, looking a bit pained. “I let those trees burn for a reason.”

I almost choked. “Bwhat? But that’s - “

“They put me through the age of telemarketing fifteen hundred years in advance.”

“ - completely understandable.”

There is no way Mom didn’t do that on purpose.

Come on. Taking talking prophetic tree seeds in return for fighting the Earth Mother and then tens of thousands of years later you find out it was all for a fucking telemarketing gag? That was Mom’s sense of humor in a nutshell.

She’s still not funny.

“So Mom didn’t just rip you off,” I concluded as Rhea lifted her mug to her lips. “She also gave you the middle finger.”

I could have kicked myself. Didn’t I just say I needed to be respectful -

Rhea spat out her drink and laughed.

She laughed like Mom did. It didn’t matter that it was a wheezing cackle like a pig with asthma, she was completely unashamed of it. She laughed like she had been waiting to laugh for centuries.

“You are so much like your sister!” She wheezed. “Oh, so much.” Her voice turned wistful. “So much…”

“Yeah?” I asked softly, smiling.

“Totally,” Rhea said with a toothy grin that showed a few too many teeth. “Absolutely righteous, in every possible way. Your mother deserves little shits for kids.”

I mean.

That’s fair.

“Your brothers are so boring,” Rhea continued as that lingering awkwardness in the air faded away. I guess we had both been waiting for some kind of clue that the other didn’t have a stick up our ass. “Aether had some promise, but Erebus…” She shook her head as she cleaned up with a napkin. “Took too much after his father, that one.” By 'his father' she means Chronus. Time. Mom’s ex. “And don’t get me started on - on - oh what is her name.” She clicked her fingers a few times. “What is - the anal retentive one. The eldest of the triplets.”

Rhea straight forgot the names of the Fates.

“Clotho,” I offered.

“That’s the one!” At first she was happy to finally have the name, but then...she had the name. The look her face shifted to afterwards was the most exhausted, put upon look I have ever seen in my life. It was like she had stared into the Abyss, wondering if it could get any worse and then the Abyss said ‘Hold my beer.’

It had all the energy of Mom’s Quantum Stupid face. Just with foreseeing obnoxious as fuck instead of dumb as fuck.

“...that’s the one,” Rhea sing-songed softly as she tossed the napkin. “That’s the one.”

“They are kind of…” I began, but then I realized the mother of the elder Olympians would probably know a lot more than me about my sisters’...everything. “Yeah.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed with the unsaid. She cast a thoughtful look at the rabbit on the counter and then conjured up a small wicker basket with a blanket inside. She picked Artemis up and the former goddess of the Hunt was a complete ragdoll, totally out of it and actually snoring with her mouth open.

“If you chew on this, I will tell your father to ground you,” Rhea whispered as she gently placed the rabbit inside. “So what Domains do you have?” She asked me as she tucked her granddaughter in. “You feel...similar to your eldest sibling. Something from the Eimarmene Name?”

What?

“You’re Young, right?” You could hear the capital Y. “Have to be, spawns take longer to grow - “

“I’m a demigod,” I said sharply.

I’m not a spawn.

“I - I’m mortal,” I said softer. “My father is human.”

“Your fath - “ Rhea blinked, like she had lost track of the conversation for a second. “Different Name, right,” she waved off. “Mortal father.” Her compound eyes changed color from green to a rainbow of blues and purples. “Unreal. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“...could you explain?” I asked, uneasy. Hadn’t Kronos said something similar? He didn’t, right?

He didn’t.

“Wellll,” Rhea drawled. “I imagine it was still a Tab A in Slot B kind of - “

“Oh my god, not that explanation!” I yelped. She was definitely related to Apollo. “I don’t need that explanation!”

“And she raised a prude!” Rhea practically squealed. “How did that happen? Are you sure you’re Greek?”

“I’m twelve!”

“Mortal, duh,” she remembered. “Shit. Sorry.” She ran fingers through the ends of her dark hair, transforming the flowers into golden bands engraved with flower designs instead. “A mortal child. With those eyes?” She hummed, looking up at the ceiling and then she shook her head. “That should have been lethal.”

“My Dad’s fine,” I grumped.

“Not him, humanity isn’t that far gone,” she dismissed and then paused. “I think. Maybe. No, I meant you.”

That hung in the air like a dead skunk in a garbage bag.

You.

I swallowed hard.

My sisters. The Fates.

They tried to get Mom to abort me once.

“Well it wasn’t,” I said weakly. “Mom would never let that happen.”

“...I suppose,” Rhea allowed. She tilted her head in this diagonal, sudden inhuman movement as her eyes shimmered a deep maroon color. “There’s a Prophecy about you…” she murmured softly. “I almost missed it.”

“Uh,” I said, surprised. “Yeah? I mean, technically two, but - “

She grabbed a chair at her table, a worn dark wood piece with bleached cushions and flipped it around to sit on it backwards.

“Tell me,” she almost barked before softening her voice to a near whisper. “Please.”

I fiddled with my mug.

It’s not a big deal.

It’s not like it was some kind of secret. I’m sure everyone on Olympus knows already. And Prophecies mean whatever we think they mean.

So she didn’t just ask me to recite my eulogy.

“A half-blood child of the eldest gods,” I said slowly. “Shall reach sixteen against all odds. And see the world in endless sleep. The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap.” A shiver went down my spine, like a goose had just tap danced on my grave. “A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze.”

It wasn’t the same without Apollo stumbling through it, going on tangents to try to explain how it wasn’t that bad compared to some of the other Prophecies he witnessed.

After all, at best, there would be only one death.

The Oracle of Delphi gave this one out sometime in 1945 after WWII which was just about sixty years ago. That was a pretty quick turn around, really. Some Prophecies have been waiting to kick in for millennia by now.

That didn’t make me feel any better.

Rhea silently tipped her head back, gazing at the ceiling with her lips pursed.

I stared into my cup.

“Prophecies mean what we think they mean,” I said stubbornly.

“They do.” The patron of the Grove of Dodona murmured and something in my chest loosened. She agreed with me. Mom doesn’t lie. “They can be interpreted differently. They can be...manipulated, to a certain extent. Forced down a path.” Her gaze lowered, settling on me heavily. “A half-blood of the eldest gods…” The right corner of her lips pulled. Almost a smile. “Well. I suppose it had to happen eventually.”

I frowned. “What had to happen?”

“An overreach,” she said simply. Did she mean the Fates? “And the second Prophecy?”

“Um.” The request caught me off guard a little. I leaned down, reaching out with my left hand for my backpack. It was dry and everything in it would be dry too. Mom knew her shit. I found my tin of cards and started laying them out on the table. I hesitated on number thirteen, but Rhea was a big girl. She could handle it.

“It’s our Quest,” I said as she gently picked up The Right Hand of Kronos card. She looked a bit sad, but that was it. I guess a few ten thousand years was enough time to get over one dumb motherfucker.

“Your son lost his sparkler and one of your grandkids swiped it somehow to frame your other son to start a war - “ and I’m sure she wants to hear her family is being a bunch of idiots again. I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “We’re, uh, we gotta find it.”

“I see,” she said softly as she put the card back down. “I had wondered.”

I found myself staring at the card. The Right Hand of Kronos. It was a little skewed compared to the others and it felt right, somehow. Like this one card wasn’t really like the others.

“I met him,” my mouth said. “In the Dreamlands.” I bit my lip. “A few days ago.”

Had it really only been a few days?

Rhea hummed. “I can imagine what he told you.”

I squirmed in my seat and wobbled on and off the short leg of my chair. I blurted out, “Were they really slaves?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“But they were freed,” I said like a drowning man clings to a brick. Mom had slaves and they fought for her, but she wasn’t like that anymore. “Right? They won their freedom. No more masters.”

“Yes,” Rhea said again softly, but she was giving me this sad, pitying look I didn’t like. “No more masters.”

I went quiet again. The easy atmosphere had died. I fiddled with my mug.

“Would you like some more?”

I nodded. 

“Yes, please.” As she got up, I threw in, “Thank you, again, for saving us, I mean.” 

I just wanted to not think about it. Mom was not perfect, but she never pretended to be. I don’t - I don’t want to be sitting here thinking about the answers to questions I never asked. It wasn't even about those answers. Mom doesn't lie. I didn't want to think about what it said about me that I never asked. 

“We were - there was one of - I think it was one of Artemis’ former Hunters chasing us, but she was some kind of monster - “

“Ah.” Rhea turned back to me with raised eyebrows. “Which one was it?”

Which -

I stood up so fast, my chair screeched across the linoleum floor.

My blood was boiling.

Which one.

“I - I need - “ I couldn’t breathe. I could barely see. “I need to - “ I barely heard myself over the roar of the black feeling in my stomach. “I gotta go.”

And I left.

I walked right out.

And as soon as I was through the barrier I broke into a run.

I found myself right back at the shore, throwing rocks into the violently crashing waves. I threw them harder, listening to them whistle as I threw them and hearing the sharp crack as the stones hit the water. Every part of me burned.

I was angry. I was hurt.

I felt smothered. The waves sounded weird. Warped. The rocks felt fragile and wrong in my hands, like there was something else I should have been holding. I felt like I was pressing up against an invisible curtain and if I stopped to really feel it would - I would -

I kept searching for rocks to throw, not even really seeing them. I barely registered the water climbing higher, getting my feet wet all over again. I just -

If I stopped -

It wasn’t about Artemis.

The next rock I grabbed crumbled in the palm of my hand. Chunks of silt and debris dripped through my fingers.

I don’t know what happened next.

There was a scream.

I snapped back into focus as soon as I felt him behind me. I didn’t care what kind of excuses he had. He was the Greek god of the sun. It was two in the afternoon. He saw everything. He saw one of his sister's monsters try to kill us! My throat ached and my stomach was cramping as I turned around - he said nothing! - and launched myself at him with a roar.

Á̴̹̣͈̤̖̤͐̅P̴͖̥̱͍̯̆̿͆̋̀͂Ò̷̡̨̘̳͓L̴̙͚̑L̷͚̯̃̀̏Ō̶͇̝̻̙͑̾̎͝

The Greek sun god let out a pained grunt as I buried a fist in his gut. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. I swung again, catching him right in the jaw as he straightened. He caught my hand on the third punch, yanking me close into a suffocating hug. I snarled and spit, kicking at him until he picked me up, so I headbutted him. He hissed and threw us back onto the ground, trapping me against the wet sand.

The hole in my stomach roared open as I thrashed, trying to break his grip. The sun flared in response, white and blinding and burning -

The next wave came in hard, washing over us.

We both sputtered and coughed.

My stomach painfully shut tight. I ached down to my bones. I felt sick and cold and tired. The fire in my blood guttered out.

I beat against Apollo’s chest weakly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Yeah.

Me too.

“What else don’t I know,” I whispered back. Apollo was the one who taught me what the gods of Olympus are like as people. Not as footnotes in Mom’s history book.

And now I didn’t know if I could trust anything he had said.

How much did he hide from me?

“Hey, English again,” he said and I growled. He sighed. “Thousands and thousands of years worth,” he said softly. “Even if I tried to tell you everything, I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple of centuries, at least. Your mother’s probably forgotten more time than any of us have been alive. Combined.”

I felt so incredibly small.

“How many times did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t - I didn’t lie, I just - “ He sighed again. “I didn’t think it - they would ever come up." His sister's monsters. "I focused on - I thought - I thought if you knew enough to make your own decision before you hit sixteen…”

“The Prophecy?” I snarled.

“All my stuff is on Olympus!” He defended himself. “Artemis is my twin. If the first time you met me, you knew in a few years I would either save or put your father in danger, wouldn’t you do the same thing?”

I bit my tongue until I could taste blood and dropped my forehead onto his collar bone.

I guess I would.

“I didn’t lie.”

“Just didn’t tell me.”

“We’re on a deadline!” He grunted. “If I started telling you stupid stories about all the other gods, we’d be here for decades.”

That was probably true.

It was my turn to grunt. “You could have said Olympus is fucked up.”

“It’s...not all bad,” he tried half-heartedly. “We’re not all bad. Dad’s second time is doing a lot better. He kept a lot of Athena’s rules - “

“Like not murdering nymphs for saying something you don’t like?”

Apollo flinched hard enough that I knew there was a lot more there than just his sister.

“...yeah,” he said softly. He hugged me tighter, trapping my head under his chin. “Artemis...she’s changed. She’s not - “ I could hear him swallow. “She’s not like that anymore. I promise. She’s changed,” he insisted. “She’ll prove it.”

“She’s a fucking rabbit.” I said.

Because she tried to kill me, a demigod, for saying something she didn't like.

He sighed heavily.

“Have you changed?” I asked him quietly. 

I was thinking about all the times he said something a little off. About hurting people. Things that worried Dad and made him sit the sun god down and kept them in the living room late at night with mugs of hot chocolate. I wondered if it was because Apollo had been born a god of Olympus and just didn’t know any better. Or maybe he knew enough to try to hide it, but it still leaked, because what he thought was okay was just that bad. It was different with Mom. 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. Like she didn't really know why Dad thought something was cruel or unfair, or maybe, it was more she didn't know why it mattered that it was unfair or cruel, but she knew it upset him.

She thinks I don’t notice.

I do.

Apollo squeezed me once. “...I like to think so.”

“Have you been telling Dad, at least?”

“No,” he said shortly. He pulled away from me. “He’s just a mortal. Why - would I?” I heard that catch in his voice. That was the only thing that kept me from losing my shit. I raised my hand and patted around to make sure I knew where everything on his face was. “Finger out of the nostril please.”

Then I hit him. Hard.

“Gah!”

“I swear to god, Apollo…”

“I don’t want to,” he said like he was four years old. “You can’t make me.”

I waited.

“I like your Dad,” he admitted softly. “I don’t want - Why ruin a good thing?” He rationalized. “He’s only got - what? Five or six more decades?”

“Don’t fucking remind me,” I grumbled.

“Sorry.” He shifted, hugging me close again. “He already gives me enough shit on my bard. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Like it won’t hurt me?”

He didn’t answer.

“He won’t hate you,” I whispered.

I didn’t.

Maybe it really was that bad, but at some point over the years, gods like Apollo had learned to feel ashamed about it. Or maybe I was just being selfish and I wasn’t ready to let my brother go.

“Maybe,” he whispered back.

The water came in again, drenching us both. It didn’t seem to drain back out again properly, leaving us ass deep in a lukewarm puddle. I craned my neck to look around and saw walls of sand. We were in some kind of crater or hole I definitely didn’t remember being here. The sand under us was a bleached wet slurry like mud made of ash.

It must have happened when Apollo teleported in.

“I’m sorry,” Apollo said again. “You’re not just - I don’t think you’re just the Prophecy brat or whatever,” he admitted and I reluctantly relaxed. “You were a small little shit and now you’re a bigger little shit - “ I snorted. “But you didn’t deserve finding out like this.”

No one did.

“What are their names?”

Apollo didn’t speak immediately. “...you met Aura. The other is Kallisto.”

I breathed out harshly.

“Kallisto is supposed to be a bear.”

“Mist,” he said simply.

Like how Luke saw a Minotaur at first. How many other transformations written in myth, lost to history, were really the twisted nightmares of divine cruelty?

My heart was lodged somewhere in my left big toe.

We just escaped one.

I shivered, swallowing the hard lump forming in my throat.

But there was another. Nemesis might not even stick to just the former Hunters of Artemis. She had access to all of her mother's monsters.

My stupid older brother shifted, sitting up carefully and had apparently decided to carry me like he hadn’t since I was five. I wasn’t going to complain. I’m pretty sure if I tried to stand on my own two feet right now, I was going to just fall over.

“I’m going to get you out of this puddle,” he mumbled. I noticed then that he was actually in a classic white Greek chiton with radiant yellow markings and winged sandals with Celestial Bronze bracelets around his biceps, like he had bolted down right from the heart of Olympus. “Before you catch a cold.”

“I don’t get sick,” I reminded him.

“Yeaaaaah,” he drawled as he stood. “Another thing weird about you.”

Dad always said it was because even viruses knew better than to piss off my mother.

“I’m just that awesome.”

“You learned from the best,” Apollo said unironically as he hopped out of the hole.

“You mean the Greek god of regret.”

He made a confused noise in his throat. “No…? We don’t have - who - you mean Aiskhyne? ”

I sleepily smiled. “Apollogies.”

He stopped walking.

I was able to count to four seconds before he dropped me.

My Bardson is an ass.

I led the way back along the cold beach. In hindsight, coming out here as a young demigod without Damocles was pretty stupid. I could have gotten jumped by anything out here. A vacant, out of the way beach right by the water? Just a demigod burger serving himself up for a hungry hydra.

Hold the ketchup.

Right at the tree line, where the beach ended and the rough gravel road began was a dark haired woman kneeling in the sand and a napping lion.

“What the - “ Apollo’s eyes went huge.

“Huh,” Rhea said, turning away from the ugliest sand castle I have ever seen. It was detailed. She had clearly put some work into it. But it looked like it could have been one of those fancy gingerbread homes with dizzying wave-like patterns that looped into themselves like that optical illusion with the staircase? But someone took an artistic crowbar to it. “I thought I felt someone come around.”

“Rhea?” Her grandson gasped incredulously. “How - “ He turned to me and gestured at the star-spawn with both hands. “How. Do you know how long we’ve - you’ve been on a Quest for two days.”

“Yeah?”

He whirled back around. “Where have you been!?”

“Around,” she answered easily, drawing a shallow moat around her lopsided sand castle. “I moved south to help Huracan with - “ she blinked slowly. “Did you just ask me something or was I having a flashback?”

“He asked where you were,” I offered. The trees were probably whispering to her.

“South,” She repeated. “There were a few seals breaking so I thought to lend a hand and I think that was this century.”

“It’s 2005,” I said helpfully.

Rhea’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Woodstock was in the sixties.”

Her expression cleared. “Last century, then.”

I think at this point, Rhea was keeping time by the power of Jimi Hendrix.

“But - we - “ Apollo growled, tugging at his blond curls with sandy hands. “Do you know how many disasters we could have avoided if we had known where you were?”

Her lips twitched into a frown. “You give me far too much credit.”

“I’m serious!” The Greek sun god looked like he didn’t know if he wanted to hug the woman or strangle her. “Father has - “

“Made it very clear how much he digs his throne,” Rhea finished for him. “If it was an emergency, you know how to draw my attention.”

“We don’t!” He cried out and his frustration echoed down the cold beach.

Rhea paused. She sat back on her haunches. Her dark hair was still braided with the gold bands decorated with flower designs and she had her round sunglasses on. Her blue and yellow shirt was pristine and so were her red pants even as she was getting sand all over her shins and knees.

“You don’t,” she echoed softly.

“Most of us don’t,” Apollo said painfully. “My mother - all she taught us was how to wake you. We don’t even know all your Names.”

I winced.

That was kind of like teaching your kids how to unlock the nuclear football as a fun activity with none of the safety measures.

“Oh, Leto,” Rhea sighed.

“And then we were on Olympus and no one else seemed to know and the only ones who do are the ones causing the problem!”

Zeus, I’m guessing. By virtue of not being swallowed, he knew his mother the best out of all his siblings. Athena probably knew. Hera I was less sure. She did get fostered with Oceanus and Tethys for a while and they were first generation Titans. They could ask the Sky Father, but False Prophecies are a bitch so I get why absolutely no one would. And then Aphrodite fucked him, and herself, over so then they couldn’t. Apollo didn’t join my lessons until he figured out I was being taught things he didn’t already know.

Demeter could ask, but the Earth Mother would probably just lie. Poseidon was on everyone’s shit list. Aphrodite was barely Greek.

Hecate?

But she’s the Queen of Those Below. The Underworld is basically its own kingdom with the only crossover being Hades once a year at Winter Solstice. Dead men do tell tales, but why tell Olympus who shunned you? Who classified you as minor gods and goddesses? When your realm will remain even if Olympus falls?

There were no neutral or Olympus-friendly Titans left. Between Zeus not taking no for an answer, there was the Titanomachy and the Olympiomachy. If they weren’t in a prison somewhere, they were on house arrest like Boreas and Calypso. Mnemosyne of Remembrance wouldn’t spit on Zeus if he were on fire.

Who was left?

My siblings? Who either hadn’t been paying attention until Mom was or were the Fates?

Mom was ticketed for raising me as a cross-pantheon violation. Luke didn’t know other pantheons even existed.

“Is everyone just...hoarding knowledge?” I asked incredulously. “Or covering it up or losing it or forgetting?”

Rhea looked tired.

“I’m sorry,” she said heavily.

Apollo must have heard something in that apology I didn’t because his shoulders slumped.

“...you’ve given up on us, haven’t you?”

“Never,” she corrected him gently. “And that is exactly the problem.”

She rose to her feet, brushing the loose sand off her right shin with her left foot and then swapping. Her lion yawned as it got to its feet. For a moment, where there should have been orangey-brown big cat eyes, I thought I saw the eyes of a dragonfly.

“What is wrong with us?” Apollo said slowly.

“You are Young,” Rhea said simply. “You are dependent on humanity. It is an uneven symbiotic relationship. You have elevated hundreds of humans to a semblance of power, leeching off you. Parasites.”

“Asclepius is my son, ” Apollo snarled.

Like Zetes and Calais were Boreas’ sons. They had poor man's immortality, just enough gifted divinity to last.

“Apollo. Grandson,” Rhea said softly. “Beautiful boy. I am not sleeping because I am tired. I am the Queen. The Matriarch. I can not and will not be caged beneath anyone. And it has been too long since I could recognize humanity as anything more than defective.”

Apollo and I both winced.

I remembered biology with Mr. Pretty at Trinity. Bugs usually weren’t kind to defects. And the Young Gods needed humanity. If we were all gone, what would happen to them?

Rhea gave us a sad, resigned smile.

“I will teach you what you should know,” the mother of the eldest Olympians said as she turned away from us. “But do not ask me to fix Olympus, because you will not like the solution.”

The rest of the walk back to Rhea’s light blue bungalow was made in silence.

“You can’t help Luke,” I murmured as I stepped around the giant vase in the foyer for the third time today. “Can you?”

Rhea saved his life by virtue of being herself, but getting him back on his feet was still going to take a while. Apollo shot me a small smile and a faint white glow began to leak off the God of Healing. I could feel the warmth of it pulse against my skin.

“He would have to pay for it,” he said airily. “I’m not here on business. Don’t you demigods heal fast anyway?”

In return, I showed him Artemis still sleeping with her mouth open in her wicker basket and made sure he got a few good pictures before his grandmother roped him into helping her pack for her move the boring mortal way. He complained right up until he got his hands on her photo albums.

“Is that...Elvis Presley?” He flipped through the next two pages quickly. “That is! This was in Montgomery!”

“He wasn’t one of yours, right?” Rhea’s voice was muffled from the box her head was buried in.

“Nah, third generation legacy or something - “ He stopped himself and looked around guiltily. “But if anyone asks, yes.”

“Ha!” Rhea barked. “When did you stop formally adopting mortals again?”

“Rome.”

“That’s right.”

He pried the photo out of the old plastic casing and lifted the entire thing out of the reach of a curious lion’s wet nose. “Montgomery, 77’” he read off. “I can’t believe it. We just missed each other.”

Rhea hummed a few bars of some rockabilly song, prompting Apollo to hum with her. “Fate does tend to work in strange ways.”

“Apollo was probably eyeing up a pretty girl and zoned out,” I protested as I wrapped the fine china mug in more newspapers and ignored his indignant squawk. He could complain all he wants. We both knew that’s what happened. “You can’t blame Mom for that.”

That got me another one of those ‘you are a chihuahua in need of rocket ship costume’ looks from her that I didn’t really appreciate.

“Blaming your mother for everything is much like being a theoretical physicist,” Rhea explained wryly. “There are only three options: You can’t prove me wrong. I am not right yet or not even god herself knows what the fuck is going on.”

Apollo snorted.

I wish I knew more about theoretical physics so that I could, in fact, prove her wrong.

I started flagging around the same time Phoebus Apollon in his sun chariot started eyeing up the horizon for a parking space, painting the clouds with light purples and pink colors. We had made a lot of progress. Helping Apollo’s grandmother pack up her shit was definitely not something I saw myself doing on a Quest for Olympus, but I wasn’t complaining.

It was normal.

Even dinner was some good ol’ lasagna and some chocolate chip cookies.

After my third yawn, Apollo started ushering me off to bed in the guest room we just cleared out. It smelled a little stale with moth balls and the ceiling fan creaked, but I was dead on my feet. I made him promise to call Dad for me.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I didn’t meet Hypnos.

Instead, I spun straight into a Dream.

I was in a forest clearing. It was a lopsided rectangular area bordered by trees in various stages of autumn leaf fall. There was a carpet of brown, orange and the rare green leaf on the ground crunching under my feet as ravens watched me from their perch on thin branches. The sky above me was pitch black and empty. There was a sick tree, tall and gnarled looking with large woodlice crawling over the cancerous bulges in the tree trunk.

At the base of the tree, an old woman sat on a rock. She was hunched over and bundled up in rough spun clothes dyed dark blue with wooden beads and black feather decoration. Thin, wispy white hair was stuffed under a coarse cap and she was leaning on a gnarled staff. Her eyes were milky white with cataracts. Her wrinkles didn’t even look like wrinkles. They were so deep, they were more like grooves worn into rock. A playful breeze kicked up, rustling a few leaves off their branches. One bright orange one landed on her lap and as she went to pick it up, she changed.

She shrunk. Her face smoothed out. Her white hair and skin darkened to black and coppery tones. Even the clothes changed, bleaching white as gold decorations shined on his arms and around his neck.

The young prince patted the empty space next to him on the rock.

I took the invitation.

I recognized the subtle smirk on his face.

Mom stopped guiding me in my Dreams years ago. This felt like taking the school bus home every day for most of the school year and then one day you walk out the doors and see your mother there to pick you up without a hint of warning. It could be a good thing and maybe they just wanted to spend some time with you.

But the first thing my mind jumped to was ‘Fuck, who died?’

“You were scared last night,” the young prince said childishly and I winced. “So I watched you today.”

“I’m fine,” I mumbled, looking down at my shoes.

“You are,” he agreed. Out of the corner of my eye, the boy grew up. The young prince became a wizened pharaoh. He set a warm hand on my head and spoke in a deep rumble, “And yet…”

I shrunk in on myself.

One of the ravens cried out and there was a flutter of black wings. The Morrígan sighed and trailed her hand down from my hair to cup my face.

“What is the first rule of my tests?” Mom asked.

I swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t give me a task you didn’t know I could do.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I have broken it.”

I felt my blood freeze.

“You are having a more difficult time than I - “

“I can do it!” I blurted out. I felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself as my heart beat against my rib cage like it was trying to escape. “I can do it, it’s fine, we don’t have to change anything.”

Mom sighed again.

I felt like crying.

“Percy. Perseus.” She gently lifted my chin so I could look her in the eye. I shuddered. Those black diamond eyes weren’t showing me my deaths anymore. They were showing me Luke’s. “This is not your fault. It’s mine. And I am sorry.”

I’m too weak. She overestimated me. She thought I could do it, but now she doesn’t believe I can. I’m not good enough. There was too much riding on this, she had plans upon plans for this and I wasn’t going to make the cut. I thought about the Dream last night with Mom and Dad and how she said I took after my grandfather and would never disappoint her.

It tasted like ash in my mouth now.

Mom made a little exasperated sound, then suddenly gathered me up in her arms so I was sitting on her lap.

“Definitely your father’s son,” she murmured into my hair. “Not listening to a single thing I’m saying.”

“It is my fault. You can’t be wrong,” I croaked. “You’re Fate. You’re never wrong.”

Mom sucked in a sharp breath as her grip on me tightened.

Then slowly, painfully, she whispered. “...I wish that were true.”

“It is.” I pressed against her as much as I dared. “I’ll do better! I’m - I’m figuring out my abilities and can do stuff with it now. We lost one of the monsters, so I can practice while Luke is recovering and it will be fine. I can do it.”

“Percy, your abilities are what I am worried about.”

Hearing that was like being stabbed in the chest.

“You were tired and right now you are running a fever in your sleep, because you overextended yourself.”

Oh.

“That should not have happened, unless you are too - “ she cut herself off.

“Too mortal.”

“No,” Mom sighed. “No, that is not fair. You are exactly as I made you to be.”

So I’m just a failure then.

“Please don’t leave me again,” I begged. “We can figure something out. Maybe you can check and find out what’s wrong and you can fix it!”

“Percy - “ Mom started, but I cut her off.

“Just check!” I sniffled, angry at myself for crying now of all times. “Please. I can take it.”

Mom leaned her head against mine, giving in. “Stubborn boy.”

She raised her hand to hover over my abdomen. I waited for the excruciating feeling of my soul being flayed open so that my divinity could float to the top. Instead I felt like my stomach plunged right into an endless pit.

“What?” Mom said faintly. “What is - Who did this?“ Her voice began to darken and I froze in place. I tried to make myself as small as I could. I have never heard Mom get angry before. Annoyed, yes. Mad? No. “Who touched you?”

“Uh,” I said intelligently.

Shit.

Nyx.

“Who...dared - “ her voice suddenly boomed like thunder, hissed like it came from a giant snake and shattered the Dream from the sheer pressure of Ananke’s presence. I spun out, tumbling ass over teakettle into darkness, feeling my very soul shake as a dark nebula uncoiled behind me. “INTERFERE WITH WHAT ISSSS MINE!”

A current caught me.

It didn’t take me to the Dreamlands.

It took me to the usual demigod haunt, except I knew better than to let it carry me through to the Beyond. The uneducated (Greek) would call it Tartarus, because everything poorly understood and vaguely scary was thought to be part of the Pit. Cliff called it the Duat. Time and space got weird there. You know that movie where they could see what would happen in the future by bending light around the planet so you could see yourself?

I dug in my metaphorical heels and the current obediently dropped me off to the side of the pale Crossroads.

But not before it got in a parting shot.

I saw a three eyed black goat fighting with a giant vicious looking bat and with each clash, there were ripples echoing out over the world. Waking the world. The ground trembled. It broke open with screaming vents of steam. The sea churned, beginning to form a massive whirlpool. The stars in the sky danced and I could see where they would align -

“ - didn’t you tell me?” Luke’s voice drifted past me.

“It was not necessary,” a deeper, darker voice snarled. “You did not sacrifice. You did not lose. You did not suffer! You don’t look at a man and want to both weep over the pale reflection and rip out its throat for the mockery! You do not get to. Lecture. Me!”

“Careful,” a woman’s voice said and I jerked away from the flowing, twisting roads with a gasp. That was close. I patted my face and sighed in relief. Cliff said I would sprout a bird head, but obviously he lied.

Around my feet, yellow daisies bloomed.

The Curse of Delos.

The flowers that only grew on the island corpse of Asteria, the Titaness of Astrology, Oneiromancy and Falling Stars.

I turned, already knowing who I would see.

Asteria’s daughter, Hecate stood behind me, holding twin torches in one hand as a pitch black dog with red eyes prowled around her feet and a polecat rested about her neck. She was wearing a white classic Greek chiton, but unlike Apollo hers had twisting silver runic designs and a white cloak with the hood up. She looked like her son, Alabaster, with long black hair and pale skin but her eyes were shrouded in shadows.

Be polite.

“Your grace.”

The goddess of the Crossroads inclined her head.

“You do not belong here, son of Fate.”

“Yeah, I know,” I mumbled. Mom had always said the Beyond wasn't safe, not for me. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Then I will escort you out,” she offered. I walked over, careful not to crush any of the yellow flowers underneath my feet. I don’t know if she approved. What I could see of her face was like a still pool.

With piranhas in it.

“Thank you,” I tried politely.

“You are overthinking it,” she said out of the blue. I stared blankly.

“I’m - I’m overthinking what?”

“It is not some platitude.” Her pole cat hissed at me. “You have always possessed the ability to choose your destiny.” She raised her free hand, but it wasn’t free. In her hand was a fucking black and silver Mythomagic card. She handed it to me. “Perhaps you should try using it.”

I flipped it over.

Moros, the God of Doom.

“Hey, wait - “

I woke up.

For a moment, I just laid there and stared at the ceiling. I felt like I had gotten no sleep at all but I must have gotten a few hours in. The only window in Rhea’s guest room showed a moonless, starless night. I rolled out of bed, immediately feeling what Mom had been talking about. I was shivering. My toes were cold as hell, but I also felt flushed and very thirsty.

I walked over to my room door and opened it.

It swung open soundlessly.

A bolt of adrenaline ran down my spine, because from the time I spent cleaning this room out today, I remembered this door had an annoyingly squeaky hinge. I strained my ears for the creaking of the ceiling fan, but there was nothing, even though I could see the shadow of it twirl around above the bed. I immediately thought of the nightmare, Aura and its absolute silence.

Still don’t have my sword.

God damn it.

I crept down the hall towards the light coming from the foyer.

Knife, I thought. Erebus’ gift settled into my hands. It was still warm to the touch. My heart thudded in my chest as I took a careful step and peeked around the corner.

“You’re up,” Rhea’s voice was quiet. Hushed like everything else. It was like the world had been muffled.

Like when Mom had Claimed me.

The front door was open. Rhea sat on her front step in a long shirt with one leg bent up just enough to rest her head on it. It was a dark night. I couldn’t see if there were any clouds or if there was anything at all. No moon. No clouds. No stars. Not even the lights of an airplane. You looked up at the sky…

And saw nothing.

“What’s going on?” I couldn’t even hear myself.

Rhea could though.

“The Night’s undivided attention,” she answered. “It is not safe to be out right now.”

I shivered.

The star-spawn turned to look at me and frowned. “You’re feverish?”

I mutely nodded.

She got up and we went to the kitchen for a glass of ice cold water and some more nectar. I went back to bed.

As soon as I fell asleep, Hypnos pulled me close. He didn’t say anything, but he felt scared.

I was scared too.