I woke up like I was drowning.

Gasping for breath, flailing around, the whole nine yards. I felt trapped. I was suffocating. It lasted forever. It was over in a moment. Then I opened my eyes to Rhea’s living room. There was a half-grown lion cub sitting on the couch next to me. He had a TV remote between his front paws, a plate of potato chips on the cushion next to him and an unimpressed look on his face. He was just starting to look fluffy around the neck, so I was confident it was a boy.

“Look.” I told him. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

The feline couch potato snorted as I scrubbed my face with a hand. I think I drooled in my sleep again. Yuck.

I still felt like a polished turd.

My skull was a throbbing radiator of heat, but at least it felt like it was firmly attached to my neck this time. Thinking was easier. My nose was still stuffy and my face still hurt. Everything hurt, like there was ice water in my bones. I was shivering. This spasm was pulling at the back of my right arm nonstop, making me feel like something was hitting my funny bone over and over. My stomach was quiet though. I wasn’t going to call it a win. It felt hollow.

Empty.

The lion crunched on a few potato chips. Disney was on the TV, playing one of the new cartoons, American Dragon: Jake Long. There wasn’t any sound coming from the speakers, but there were subtitles. I gave up trying to read fast enough for the scrolling after a couple of seconds.

If I wanted torture, punching myself in the balls would be simpler.

“Danny Phantom is better.” I adjusted my glasses.

The lion gave me the side eye as he shuffled his remote closer to his chest, like he was protecting it.

I held up my hands in surrender.

“Can I have a chip?” That got me another suspicious look, but eventually, he nosed the plate over. “Thanks.”

He meowed back.

It was clearly a cat’s meow, just with a decade of chain smoking at least four packs a day thrown on top.

There was a new glass of water with a lemon slice waiting for me on the small table by my reclining chair. My hands trembled as I picked it up so I moved slowly. My muscles still pulled and burned. I took a few sips and settled in to watch the inferior cartoon with the small-big cat anyway, because I’m a sucker for kids balancing supernatural forces and homework.

Relatable.

I couldn’t hear a single thing any of the characters were saying, but it wasn’t a bad watch. Middle school half dragon with a normal dad and dragon mom beating up bad guys and pulling tricks on a skateboard. I could see why my lion buddy was a fan of the new show. I had a lot of fun bitching about everything I didn’t understand over his offended yowling. He was either trying to explain what was going on or he was telling me to fuck off, but I was sick and Rhea said this was my room, so there. The commercial break revealed the TV had this fancy time table program showing what was next up on what channel. Teen Titans on Cartoon Network. We should watch that. I was just starting to get into explaining how it tied into DC’s Justice League with my fellow junk food eater and cartoon watcher when Rhea busted into the room.

“Think fast!”

I didn’t.

The thrown twinkie hit me right in the nose, then fell into my lap with a miserable sounding splat.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked.

Rhea blurted out, “What the fuck was that?”

I raised my eyebrows. Then I raised my hands out from under my blanket. They were still trembling. The overall awful had gone down, but now it was like I wasn’t in complete control of my body with muscle spasms and twitches going every which way. Which meant the infamous demigod reflexes of mine?

They went fishing.

Check back later.

The Titan Queen’s expression went blank for a moment. Then she sighed. Her head made a dull thunking sound as she slumped against the door frame.

“Domain sick, right,” she remembered. “This is today, not…yesterday?” She didn’t sound too sure. I’m not sure it was even her Trees of Random Foresight this time. The sun was still a no show.

I wasn’t too worried about Apollo, but her orphanage and her duty was all Saulė, the Young goddess of the Baltic sun had.

“Yesterday,” I confirmed.

“Or two days from now!” she said brightly (so maybe it was the trees). “I got it, I’m here, I saved you, the boy annnnnd…” Her eyes found the window and the darkness outside. I could see her good mood evaporate. “That. Yes.”

I didn’t feel like reminding her about Artemis.

“Who is…” Her brow furrowed. “Night and…?”

“Fate,” we both said at the same time.

Rhea made a buzzing sound in her throat. “Should have known.”

A second twinkie bounced off my cheek.

The lion barked.

“Laugh it up, buddy,” I said.

I picked up my second twinkie as Rhea pulled a finger food platter out of thin air with olives, cheese, crackers, vegetables with some dip and cold meat cuts.

“Should have known?” I asked as she widened my small table, and I caught the flickering of the suppressors on the walls. “Are they feuding, or something?”

“Feuding?” Rhea asked. She looked amused at first, but then her face changed. “Not how mortals would understand,” she allowed as she set the plate down and refilled our potato chips. She brushed the curious cub’s nose away from my lunch and he lost interest when the commercial break ended. Back to the adventures of the American Dragon.

I felt pulled in three directions. The TV, Rhea and the plate with a rose vine pattern around the edges with bees. I couldn’t help noticing, so at least my ADHD was still working.

Yay.

“But no, your mother’s just a little shit.”

I choked on my potato chip.

Rhea burst out laughing. A full on witch’s cackle as I tried not to die. She threw herself onto the couch beside me and hugged the grumbling lion cub to her side. “Oh, she’s got you fooled! I told you she deserved shits for kids!”

“Because she has a terrible sense of humor!” I came to my mother’s defense. “Not for picking fights!”

“Amazing!” Rhea sounded thrilled. “How’d she manage to keep in the groove for so long?”

My mouth worked.

“In the groove?”

“You know, keep her cool.” She gave the lion cub a noogie. “Stay calm?”

“Mom doesn’t get angry?” I said, then reconsidered. “It takes a lot?”

“A lot,” Rhea repeated incredulously. To add insult to injury, the cub was giving me a bewildered look too. “When things don’t go as expected, your mother has the emotional maturity of a larva.”

I had a hard time wrapping my head around that. Maybe I was just too mortal to understand. What was the definition of ‘uncommon’ to someone who had a lifespan in the millions of years?

Mom was Fate, right? Things being unexpected meant something was wrong. 

Didn’t it?

I knew Mom wasn’t perfect, but I spent most of my life thinking she was. “But - “

“Literal baby,” Rhea continued mercilessly. “For better or worse.” She waved a hand as she leaned back against the couch and took the lion with her. He adjusted, laying half on her lap with his eyes still glued to the screen. “I will forever be grateful, her patronage is an honor, yadda yadda, but you should have seen her when Night decided she wanted your brother!” Rhea gossiped. “Flipped her fucking wig - sure, Night’s a slut even by our standards - “

“That’s my sister-in-law you’re talking about,” I said.

“She’s my sister too,” she countered dryly.

My brain tilted on an axis.

We haven’t been talking about our mythological family trees.

I was, but I don’t think Rhea is.

I have a lot of cousins and making the distinction between who is a cousin because they’re the kid of someone who is actually related to me and who’s a descendant of a Name everyone thinks is related to me is messy, because they are usually still related somehow. Some are human shaped and some aren’t, doesn’t matter.

The Greek pantheon isn’t a family tree, it's a Celtic knot. I don’t have a spreadsheet about who is my great nephew twice removed (thanks Annabeth) in my head like some people.

(Annabeth)

The Pit isn’t Rhea’s father, the god beneath it is her father. Her actual father. She wasn't just calling him that.

And he’s the father of the god behind Night.

Rhea probably doesn’t think of herself as Rhea, Greek Titaness of Legacy, Comfort and Motherhood. Goddess of the Mountain, the Great Mother, the Queen of the Gods.

It’s just a Name, one of many.

Rhea wasn’t calling me cousin how I used the word. She meant blood relation, at the highest level. When she said ‘your mother,’ she didn’t mean The Morrigan. She didn’t mean Ananke. The god beneath the Pit and the god within Fate were real siblings.

We’re first cousins.

For real.

…why did Mom tell me she was a star-spawn?

“Night’s calmed down some since your brother,” Rhea admitted grudgingly.

My brain snapped back into place.

Holy shit, over two hundred kids with him, hundreds of hellhounds, another forty seven immortal spirits and a demigod is ‘calmed down?’

“The way your mother reacted, you’d think she’d insulted grandfather.”

“She’s just protective.” To be completely honest, Dad would probably react the same way. “And picky. High standards.”

“Petty,” Rhea corrected me. “Control freak.”

“No,” My mouth said automatically. Then I thought about it.

Describe the concept of Fate in two words.

“Well, yeah, okay.”

Rhea sighed as she figured it out. “What’d you do?”

Why was everyone always assuming it was my fault?

“Nothing,” I bit out. “Night thought I was interesting and she helped and Mom flipped out.”

“Night thought you were…” Rhea trailed off and threw herself back, clapping a hand over her face. “No. No. I’m not doing this again, I am staying asleep, I don’t care!”

Again?

“You care a little,” I needled her.

“I don’t care.” She glared at me through her fingers. “Eat.” She ordered. “That first,” She pointed at my twinkies. “If you don’t throw it up, you should be good.”

I wanted to ask about what she meant by ‘again,’ but I knew a subject change when I heard one.

Most of the time.

I tore into the plastic. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me I’ll spoil my appetite?”

“Do I look like your mother?” Apollo’s grandmother scoffed. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

I was really starting to wish Mom had let Rhea be my babysitter. My parents never understood the nutritional value of junk food. High fructose corn syrup, chemicals with long names and pure sugar, what’s not to love?

Rhea bounced up and the leftover pieces of her furniture slid around the room, shoving everything against the wall beneath the TV and freeing up more space around the couch. She leaned over to check on my fever with the back of her hand and my new friend made a grumpy sound.

“Sorry,” Rhea said automatically, moving out of his line of sight to the TV. Then she paused and gave the cub a wry look as a red teenage dragon with a green mohawk karate chopped the air triumphantly on the screen.

The lion’s shoulders stiffened under her eyes.

She clucked her tongue. “Aren’t you grounded?”

He mewed, but it definitely sounded like a whine.

I laughed at him.

I think he was hiding in here.

Rhea sighed.

“I’m not your mother either,” she told the lion. “Keep the boys company and I won’t say a word.”

I swallowed my bite of twinkie. “Boys?”

My cousin did something to the main door into the room, making the writing on the walls light up with blood red light. There was a small twinge in my stomach as the door frame warped and expanded sideways like it was opening up for a sandwich. And then a bed scuttled through into the room on beetle legs with the bulbous eyes of a spider sticking out like tumors from the bottom with antennae waving from the posts. The small clicks of carapace covered joints bending almost distracted me from Luke’s still form under the white sheets. It made him look washed out.

Half ghost.

I sat up straight in my chair. “Is he - “

“He survived the night,” Rhea shrugged and my chest tightened as I considered that maybe she meant the capital N Night instead. Luke had no way of knowing what was going on. Hypnos gave Hermes a part time job at one point. If Luke was used to Dreaming, I was hoping he inherited that Name too.

Maybe it helped.

“That’s good.” I breathed. “That’s he’s okay. Please tell me your furniture isn’t bugs.”

My cousin blinked.

“...no.”

She had to think about it!

Suddenly, I was not okay with my recliner.

I slept in this thing!

“Panty waist.” If she had pupils, I’m sure I would have seen her eyes roll. “That one I got in a garage sale. You’re safe.”

Thank God.

I relaxed back into the chair.

I eyed the couch.

The bed clicked its way to the other side of it, positioning itself to mirror my recliner as the eyes on the bottom jiggled, searching the floor. I counted twelve bug legs and eight bug eyes, five antennae and hundreds of these tendril things hanging off the side where the mattress should have been. They were tasting the air, curling in whenever they caught some dust.

“But why is it a bug?”

Rhea looked offended. “It’s cute!”

“It’s gross!”

Rhea jerked a thumb at herself with wide, innocent eyes and opened her mouth.

“No,” I said. “Don’t even.” I pointed. “That still looks like half a normal bed. No.”

Look.

I’m not shallow.

But I gotta draw the line somewhere.

With a title like Matriarch of Swarms, it should surprise no one that Rhea’s base form was a giant bug. She was a pretty bug, don’t get me wrong. Gem-like eyes, a shining bronze carapace and very nice wings. Everything was perfectly symmetrical. Looking at her felt like that first time you saw a butterfly land on a blooming flower.

At the time, none of the Elder Gods had human avatars. Rhea was the first. She didn’t have to, she chose to.

I said Kronos was a dumb motherfucker and I meant it.

Dad would agree with me.

Aether’s girlfriend Hemera crashed my birthday picnic last year. Mom gave her directions. And made sure Hemera didn’t accidentally vaporize us. Pulsars, you know how it is. Anyway, Dad  had some very nice compliments for her. Very smooth. I thought her eyes were great too. She had Erebus’ dagger for me and Aether’s stardust ball for Dad to try.

Actual stardust.

They found a tasty nebula with an aborted star and decided to share the treat with the mortal step-father. Because that’s what happens when your frame of reference for modern day mortals is Dragon Ball Z.

Explaining would take too long.

Let’s just say Aether’s a bit confused, but he’s trying.

When we got back to the car, he begged me to give him a year’s warning if I ever wanted to date anyone with more than three eyes or non-human appendages. He was joking.

Mom said he wasn’t.

But he was joking.

Rhea turned to the lion cub. “He’s ridiculous.”

The cub huffed at her.

“Don’t you start.”

Luke’s bed settled. The insectoid features sunk back into wood grain, complete with a bed spring that was only a little rusted and a faded blue mattress.

“Happy?” Rhea said dryly.

“Not really.”

Not being able to see what I knew was there actually made it worse.

“City boy,” Rhea huffed, a little exasperated. She turned her head towards the TV and quiet, but understandable sounds began to drift out of the speakers. The cub purred, leaning in. “Try not to wake him, but if he does, make sure he stays put. He needs to get that excess divine energy out of his system.”

I frowned and speared a piece of cheese and lamb on a toothpick. “Apollo’s?”

“Mine.”

“What’s wrong with yours?” I winced as soon as I finished asking. Asking people ‘what’s wrong with you.’ Even I knew that wasn’t a good idea.

“Nothing.” She raised an eyebrow at me and I winced again. This time what hit me in the face hard enough to sting was a Hostess chocolate cake. She cheated, but I deserved it.

I picked up the sugary snack. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

Rhea waved it off.

“Nothing,” she repeated. She tilted her head slightly. “Our power, our being can overwhelm, even when we’re trying to help. And he’s only human.” Her voice took on a classic Greek lilt as her eyes shined orange. “Exposure tends to change the exposed.”

“So he’s okay, you’re just being careful?”

“Can’t hurt,” she shrugged. “He’s healing well, though. You’ll be back to it in a few days, trust me.”

That’s another thing about ADHD. Deadlines just aren’t real until I’m staring one in the face. It made it easy to forget the clock was still ticking while I was watching TV and having fun. Khione used it to her advantage and that weakness was never going to go away. Even if we were ready to tackle the Quest tomorrow, that left a little over nine days to track down where Ares’ stashed the Master Bolt. While Night was still leaking into our reality. Hellhounds were bad enough. I don’t want to know what else found its way through.

I fiddled with my lunch plate. “Just to…make sure.” I swallowed. “You can’t help our Quest, right?”

Her eyes were back to the sea green gem like shade as her lips twitched. “I’m not helping already?”

That’s fair.

I’m an ungrateful fuck.

I raised my hands.

A wrapped donut beaned me in the forehead anyway.

“It’s best if I don’t,” Rhea clicked her tongue. “It’s been a while…” Apollo’s reaction told me it had been a long while. “And just swooping in to help Poseidon of all people.” She tilted her head back. “Even indirectly.”

“Is that bad?” I asked slowly.

Rhea blinked slowly.

“He inherited my eyes,” she said softly.

I didn’t understand.

That mattered?

“It shouldn’t.” She read the question on my face. She tried to smile, but her lips turned down as she looked away. “It still fucking does. I made…mistakes with my youngest children. Out of ignorance. I fucked up a lot, if I’m going to be honest. Not all of them have been forgiven.” Her nose wrinkled. “In hindsight, giving Zeus to your mother through Adrasteia to raise was also a bad idea.”

I was going to protest.

But, honestly?

‘Pull Out Your Soul If You Get Too Close’ Adrasteia, the Inescapable was Zeus’ babysitter?

Yikes.

She done goofed.

“No,” Rhea concluded firmly. “Afterwards, though? I’ll consider doing - “ She blew out a harsh breath and ran her hands through her long, dark hair, turning it wheat blonde. “Something. I’ll think about it.”

“It’ll help,” I said quietly.

“Will it?”

I don’t know.

“My youngest children are a bunch of idiots,” Rhea said matter of factly. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

I cracked a grin. “Got it.”

“Yell if you need anything,” she said, turning to go after one last check of Luke, me and rubbing the lion’s short, stubby ears. “Including Stallone.”

I looked over at my fellow couch potato. His shoulders tensed again. I shrugged. “As in the actor?"

He meowed.

Better name than ‘Widdle.’

“Rocky?”

Another meow. It sounded proud.

He should be.

He had good taste.

“Will Luke be able to talk?” I asked.

Rhea blinked, glancing at Luke.

“Good question. You -” She cut herself off and tossed something at me and this time I caught it. It was a simple necklace. A wooden lion pendant on a leather string. “Give him that.”

I nodded, turning the lifelike small big cat over in my hands.

“This will blow over,” Rhea said. “It has to blow over. It will blow over, Night will forget about this and pop out another sprog and your mother will get over herself.” She shrugged. “Either that, or the world’s ending.”

There was a lot in between those two options that I didn’t want to think about.

“You’re not worried,” I observed. I tossed the necklace onto the far side of the sofa, close enough for Luke to reach out and grab it from his bed. “Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

“Why must I do anything?” Rhea buzzed, an odd little smile on her face. “With eyes like that, I thought you’d be familiar with your mother’s favorite saying. Everything ends.”

Mom did have a favorite saying. Everything comes to an end.

Eventually.

I forgot. Rhea was my cousin, but humans weren’t really people to her.

They were defective.

She can’t be as worried about my father as I was, because a fully realized Matriarch of Swarms in the flesh?

She’d kill him herself.

It was hard to concentrate on the cartoons after that. I ate what I could stomach and sipped my lemon water. Stallone let me scratch his chin during the commercials. Luke slept on. I was able to get out of my chair and stretch my legs a little. Stallone escorted me to the bathroom because I think he was afraid I was going to fall down and break my neck. I came back and went to the window and opened the curtains up wide, so that I could look out into the void dominating the night sky.

No sun, no moon.

Gods fade, I reminded myself. Things rotted and broke down. People got sick and they got old. They got hurt. Nothing is forever.

I wrapped Rhea’s pendant around Luke’s wrist. As soon as it settled, he hissed and shifted around a little in his bed. I froze and kept my eyes on him, but it was a false alarm. I went back to my chair. Stallone made a deep, growling ‘mmrp’ sound. It sounded like a question.

“We’re good,” I said.

I took off my glasses. Without them, the house was an overgrown pile of rubble. Stallone was a big Lion King with his ribs exposed from the wound that killed him. Luke’s ghost gasped as he stared at me, pleading, mouth moving with words no one could hear as something pulled the dark claw back through his chest.

Even stars die.

It wasn’t comforting.

Mom? I threw out in her general direction. For a moment I thought…

No.

There was nothing.

---

Luke woke up like I did.

Gasping, panting like he had run a thousand miles at a sprint with his arms flailing like he was trying to ward something away. It scared me half to death. I actually dropped my Gameboy Advance and it bounced painfully off my knee then hit the floor with a thud.

Luke flinched at the sound. I think he tried to sit up, but pulled on his wound. He flinched again harder, almost convulsing, before he fell back into his bed.

“Luke?” I tried.

For too long, there was just his harsh breathing breaking into the soft murmurs of the television.

“Perce…?” He whispered. I don’t know if he dropped the EE sound on purpose, or if all he could manage was the initial puff of air.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

His lips moved soundlessly and my chest hurt.

“I’m alive,” he gasped. “That’s good.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah,” he breathed.

Then he passed right back out.

The second time Luke woke up didn’t really count. I don’t think he was lucid.

I hoped he wasn’t.

He was sitting up in his bed, one arm crossed over his chest to painfully clutch at the vivid blood red scar on his neck. He was very pale, almost see through and his blond hair was plastered over his scalp with sweat. Rhea had put him in a chiton too, this one a dark green with gold lions prancing on the collar.

“What were you thinking, Thalia?”

He's been calling me that this entire time.

I don’t look like a girl.

I don’t think I do.

Alecto called me pretty but she was being mean.

I think.

Sam was never hearing about this.

“You blew off a god that wanted to help you?”

“Are you blaming me for not leaving you to die?” I threw my second twinkie at his head. He didn’t catch it either. “I would have had to leave Art - " Don't confuse him. More. "Annabeth behind too and you know I couldn’t do that!”

Luke made a frustrated sound, shaking his head back and forth. I don’t know if I was imagining things, but his eyes didn’t seem as blue as before. A paler, cloudy blue instead of sapphire.

“Fine,” he grumbled. He inspected the twinkie. “Are we safe here?”

“This is Rhea’s place,” I told him. “She saved us.”

His face went slack.

“Luke?”

He was silent. He laid back down and let out a shaky, watery sigh.

“She answered?” He said in a very small voice that cracked. The twinkie was crushed to a pulp in his fist. I regretted giving it to him. “She saved us?”

“She did,” I said quietly.

His expression crumpled.

“The Queen of the Titans answers,” Luke said, hiking his bed sheet up over his head as he turned away. “And my father won’t.”

“When did you ask her to help?” I asked. Now that I thought about it, didn’t Rhea say she’d hear me because I was family, but Luke had to get her attention? I could still remember the rattling exhale in my ear before Luke said, ‘Now would be good.’

She must have been prepared to answer him.

“Luke?”

He didn’t answer.

Asleep again.

The third time Luke woke up, Stallone was kind of sitting on Artemis.

“Atalanta, please!” The bunny struggled from under the cub’s front paws. Turns out, Atalanta, the former Arcadian princess, was Stallone’s mom. She wised up to where he was spending his grounding. In hindsight, I should have expected it because the Disney channel wasn’t exactly standard practice in a zoo.

“You cannot still be holding Meleager against me - “ A growl. “Fine! I apologize! Again. Get your son off me!”

In my defense, Sam’s an ordinary tabby cat and he potty trained me.

I was two years old.

Mom had gotten into the habit of just vanishing my diapers when I needed to be changed and back then Dad was nonexistent.

Don’t.

And don’t tell me cats can’t teleport either. I won’t believe you.

I noticed Luke was awake when he made a confused noise. He was blinking owlishly with pale blue eyes as he slowly sat up. He was looking around the room with the flickering orange lettering on the walls, ratty sofa with two small cubs fighting over an equally ratty soccer ball on it and the big screen TV with one of the first episodes of Star Trek: Voyager playing like it was the first time he’d ever been inside of a house.

“Ignore Artemis,” I said and ignored the indignant squawk of a rabbit who didn’t like being groomed with a lion tongue. “She promised to behave.”

Artemis shut up.

Luke looked even more confused. His eyes drifted over the lions and the rabbit before coming back to me. One of his hands drifted over his new scar. His voice was hoarse when he asked, “What happened?”

“You threw us out of a building,” I deadpanned.

Luke blinked and then the corner of his mouth pulled into a self-satisfied smirk. “It worked, didn’t it?”

I ignored that. “Rhea saved our asses.”

He clearly didn’t remember our last conversation. I was prepared for his emotions to take a hit again, but he just looked relieved. Maybe a little vindicated. He was a lot harder to read. I realized it was almost impossible to tell how deeply Luke felt until it all came out at once. He looked down at his chest and traced the ugly scar until it disappeared under his clothes.

“Hey, look, I match,” Luke said darkly, briefly touching the scar on his face running down from his eye. “It’s almost like Ladon didn’t miss.”

Wait.

What?

“Ladon?” I said, horrified. “When did you face that?”

Ladon, more commonly known to the Ancient Greeks as ‘What The Actual Fuck’ was this dragon - snake - lizard thing with literally one hundred heads, fifty tails, six legs tipped with obsidian claws, solid bronze scales, the deadliest venom on the planet, bad breath and the worst taste in goddesses.

Rhea says he got that from his father, Typhon and is convinced her nephew is only guarding that tree because he has a crush on Hera.

God knows why.

“Why’d you fight that?” If you stopped to count how many things would kill you, you’d be pretty much dead.

Luke smiled this razor thin smile that felt like it should cut someone. “I’m not surprised no one told you the details. It’s rather embarrassing.” He glanced at Artemis and the lions. I don’t think he was talking about himself. “It was my Quest from Hermes, to steal a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides and return it to Olympus.”

That was his Quest? The one he failed? The one that killed the previous Counselors of Ares and Athena?

Stealing from Hera?

“Weren’t you sixteen?”

“I’ve been at Camp year-round for two years at that point. I had nothing but training and before that, I was surviving with Thalia until…you know,” he reminded me, but that was not the point.

“He thought you could steal an apple at sixteen?” I was vaguely aware I was starting to hyperventilate. Everything was jumbled in my head. My thoughts were firing at a hundred miles per hour. That didn’t make any sense. Everything I have ever learned about Hermes from Apollo, from meeting him when he ticketed my Mom and at Camp and how he left Luke, the strongest demigod at Camp Half-Blood in decades, if not centuries…

None of it made sense!

“Herakles was twenty seven!” I nearly shouted. “He needed help!”

“Exactly!” Luke said viciously. “After all the training I’d done, that was the best he could think up. A repeat. My heart wasn’t in it.” Then his face darkened. “Or maybe he was just trying to kill me.”

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I got up and in quick strides, I was at Luke’s bed side. I reached out and grabbed his face.

“Percy - “

“Luke.” I said, very seriously as he flailed. “Luuuuke.” 

“What?” He demanded, muffled as I pulled his cheeks.

“What happens…” I pinched his cheeks harder when he protested. “No. What happens if you eat the fucking golden apple!”

Hera would say her golden apple tree had been a wedding gift.

Technically.

And that it was from Zeus.

That was also a technicality, because Odin knew arguing wouldn’t do anyone any good and Iðunn, the Vanir of Eternity still had the rest of her garden. The apples were capable of giving a regular mortal a lifespan measured in centuries. Maybe even millennia.

It could do more given to someone who already had divinity in their blood.

Luke froze.

“That’s not - “ He brushed my hands off. “I was supposed to take it back to Olympus,” He snarled. “To come crawling on my knees for recognition and begging Hera not to smite me!”

Artemis made a sound.

I don’t think she meant to, because she flinched as soon as our eyes fell on her.

“Artemis!” I barked. My stomach jumped, like it thought about doing something, but then went back to sleep. Stallone raised a paw and I snatched Artemis out from under him as she yelped. I held her in front of Luke’s face, all four paws dangling with her ears flattened against her head. “Talk.”

Her ears wiggled back and forth as she studied the hard, resentful snarl on Luke’s face. She went limp, inflating like a rabbit balloon before letting it out in a wheezing bunny sigh.

“A successful thief keeps the spoils,” she said softly. It wasn’t official, but that was practically the oldest Law in the book. If you could take it, it’s yours. From the soul of the deceased to the Master Bolt. “Hermes was punished for that Quest.”

Luke froze again. His blue eyes went wide and there was confusion swimming in them.

“What - “ He licked his lips. “What do you mean punished?”

“Do you not understand English?” She snarked and I shook her.

“Luke is your grandmother’s guest, daughter of Zeus,” I growled. I was not in the mood to entertain an asshat. “Behave.”

In the background, Atalanta chuffed in approval as the bunny went limp again.

“The youngest of the Fates exposed him to the Inescapable,” Artemis said dully and I felt my breath leave me in a whoosh. Adrasteia, my eldest sibling. She can pull out your very soul if you get too close, but just being in her presence brought it to the surface. “The Quest could not be rescinded, but it would fail.”

Luke looked up at me.

“What does that mean?”

“My oldest sister,” I began helplessly. Luke had no idea. The youngest of the Fate’s threw Hermes at our elder sister? Atropos, the one who cuts the threads of life, punished Hermes. 

For trying to make Luke immortal. 

There was sulfur burning in the back of my throat.

The Fates were playing one of their games. They have never cared about anything else.

“She’s…” I trailed off.

I shook the rabbit again.

“It is one of the worst punishments on Olympus,” Artemis said automatically. “It is agony, every inch of you tears. A million knives slicing into you, flaying you and you can feel yourself hollow out.” The monotonous tone of her voice drained my anger. I found myself gently putting her down on Luke’s bed. Her silver eyes were unfocused. “You bleed, but you do not know from where. You scream with no voice. You cannot see it, but you can feel your pieces drift away.”

I had the sinking feeling she was speaking from experience.

“Artemis?” I whispered.

Her eyes focused as she looked up at me.

Then she looked away.

“Athena was forbidden from assisting you,” Artemis continued in a disinterested tone of voice.

Luke let out a strangled whisper. “What?”

Artemis’ silver eyes found his blue. “My sister is not one for compassion, but she despises being in debt.”

“Annabeth,” Luke murmured. “Because I - I helped her daughter to Camp?”

“What else have you done of note?” Artemis sneered, but she dropped her head and ears as she hopped away from us to the end of the bed. And said in a much quieter voice, “I certainly did not.”

Annabeth had been seven going on eight when she had been with Luke and Thalia on the streets, trying to make it to safety. Luke, the boy she refused. He had been fourteen. Thalia was twelve and she died.

Artemis was a rabbit. Dereliction of duty.

I didn’t like the picture my brain was putting together.

I felt sick.

“And knowing what I do now, I dodged an arrow!” Artemis chirped and Luke’s fists clenched. “The Fates have their eye on you and it has never done anyone any favors getting in their way.”

“You’re lying,” Luke declared.

“Why would I?” Artemis countered. “What reason have I to keep the secret? I can hardly be punished more.”

“Do you expect me to believe the only reason demigods are just abandoned is because the Fates told you to? Do I look that gullible?”

“Not all demigods,” she said lazily. “Just you.”

Luke’s face flushed red, but then he thought of something. Or maybe he remembered something because then his eyes widened as his face went white. He turned to look at me, pleadingly, so much like his ghost it took my breath away.

He looked lost.

And like he was begging me to tell him it wasn’t true.

I couldn’t do that.

Nothing about Hermes’ treatment of Luke made sense, until you considered the possibility that Hermes had no choice. And there was only one reason why Atropos, cutter of lifelines, would have an interest in keeping a random demigod mortal.

“The Fates - “ I forced out of my mouth. “They are playing some kind of cruel game - I’m sorry, I don’t know why they’re like this - “

Artemis laughed at me.

“Have you forgotten who your mother is, boy?”

I turned on her, blood rushing in my ears, but when I went to take a step, Luke grabbed my arm. Rhea’s lion charm dangled from his wrist.

He read it in my face.

There was only one reason Atropos would want to keep him mortal.

“The bathroom!” He gasped. His fingers dug into my arm. “I need - I need to - I’m going to - “

I pointed.

He bolted out of his bed.

As the door slammed behind him, I turned on Artemis.

“What is wrong with you!?” I yelled. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Stallone giving me worried looks.

“I merely did as you asked, my lord,” Artemis spat. “It is hardly my fault you did not like the result.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” I hissed back.

“You cannot be so naïve as to not know what your mother did to me.” Her voice hitched. “What this means!”

“So what?” I threw my hands up. “You’re going to die, so you’ve got to be as bitter a cunt as you can imagine on your way out? Is that it?”

“Do not judge me - “

“You’re supposed to be better!” I shouted.

Artemis shut her mouth with a click and her eyes went huge.

“You - you’re supposed - “ My chest hurt. It was hard to breathe. I was angry. At Mom. At myself. At Artemis. At Olympus. I was panicking because I was going to have to keep this rabbit with a death wish alive, but most of all, I was disappointed. “Apollo told me - “

I cut myself off.

Apollo told me a lot of things.

I had been a small little shit when I was younger and not in a good way. I didn’t want mortal friends. I had no one but Apollo and a pet cat until Cliff nearly got me killed. I barely tolerated Dad and he tried. If my grandmother hadn’t split Mom’s lip with her knuckles, I don’t think I would have liked my mortal grandparents either.

For a few years there, I was convinced Nana was an actual goddess and was just keeping it a secret.

I was a dumb kid.

Mom left.

On my seventh birthday, I failed a Test. A simple survival mission. Make it across New York State in time. I would get my birthday present and the whole weekend at the beach. It was supposed to be a graduation to the next stage of my training. The time limit was harsh, but we both knew I could do it.

But I met a street kid.

A demigod.

She didn’t know. Brown haired with a large blue hoodie and tattered jeans and sneakers. A few years older than me and thought she was going crazy, being paranoid about being followed by monsters. She saw me kill the Cyclops and insisted on sticking around for a little bit. Just to the train station. By then, I already knew about Camp Half-Blood.

Would’ve. Could’ve. Should’ve.

I didn’t.

By the time I changed my mind and went back to where I last saw her to see if I could help, she was already gone. The only thing I found was a blood stained large blue hoodie I hoped wasn’t hers.

I still hope it wasn’t.

I was four or five hours late.

Mom looked at me stumbling into the clearing like she didn’t know who I was.

Then she was gone.

Dad got off work and got worried when we didn't come home for dinner and came to find me. I’d been left in the woods and was too devastated to even think about moving. I kept hoping she would come back. I napped in a tree to keep out of reach of Hellhounds when it got too dark to see.

If Mom hadn’t left and if Apollo hadn’t practically moved in, crashing on the couch to help Dad who tried…

If Artemis hadn’t come across a crying eight year old boy and his small shattered galaxy globe while looking for her brother. He hadn’t been there, because he and the boy had an argument just before. That maybe Apollo only stayed because he was scared of punishment, not because he actually cared about anyone.

The boy’s father had bought the globe for him because he knew what his son’s favorite memories of his mother were. After an entire year of single parenting, he was still trying. And in a fit of rage and grief, the boy broke it because it wasn’t like his Dreams. The stars were dull.

‘Boy, why are you crying?’

 It was fake.

‘Sounds like your father cares for you very much. Not every child is so fortunate. Here.’

He regretted breaking it, because he knew it wouldn’t bring his mother back.

‘I will admit to being partial to images of the night sky, but there is still something missing…’

And Artemis thought to enchant the globe after she fixed it, to make it sparkle and spin and glow warmly like it was real, like he held actual pulsing stars in the palms of his hands.

‘Ah. There we go.’

Just to make him feel better.

“I want to believe you’re still the person that would fix a child’s broken toy just because they were crying,” I said painfully. “I want to believe that’s the real you and you’re just - “ I waved an arm. “Just playing along with the worst of Olympus because you don’t want to rock the boat or are just scared of the consequences of your punishment or something and I know I’m being stupid!”

She didn’t remember when I met her again.

“I know I’m being stupid.”

But it meant the universe to me.

“I want to believe you’re just scared,” I whispered.

Artemis said nothing.

Fine.

I’m done.

I went back to my recliner. I picked my Gameboy Advance up off the floor and blew my nose. Very faintly, I could hear Luke in the bathroom. I don’t know if he was crying or throwing up. I had just loaded my save back up when a small auburn furball with a white cotton boll tail and silver eyes whispered,

“Terrified.”