“On your left!”

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

Spidey Sense?

Super cool.

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

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

Red essence. What was that, Native American?

Aztec?

Both?

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

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

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

And it didn’t stop there.

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

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

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

Obviously, my niece lied to me.

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

“Good?” Luke yelled.

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

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

Because we really didn’t want to sleep outside.

And we wouldn’t get lost. 

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

Both of those were bad news. 

And doing that during the Night was called being dumb.

And suicidal.

But mostly dumb.

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

I heard there were alligators down here! 

Talk about spooky.

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

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

That’s how it was for Luke. 

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

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

I still felt blind .  

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

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

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

I kept doing it.

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

I have godly eyes. 

That was the problem with conceptual bullshit.

It’s bullshit.

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

No in between.

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

And maybe not even then.

Mortals were weird sometimes.

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

I waved at him.

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

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

“Make me!”

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

We’re on horses.

Horses are normal.

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

Still horses.

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

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

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

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

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

Some things, the Mist still won’t hide.

Can’t hide.

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

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

We rode on.

I was right.

My balls were already not thanking me.

Viciously.

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

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

He snorted again.

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

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

Almost nothing.

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

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

We’re mortal. 

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

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

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

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

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

The wolf turned. 

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

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

It has eyes.

“Uh, Luke - !”

The wolf howled.

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

I didn’t relax. 

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

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

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

“What was that?” Luke hissed quietly.

“Trouble?” I offered. 

I have no idea what Squiggle Wolf was. 

That was already getting old.

I know, I know.

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

Still annoying.

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

A bolt of warning shot down my spine.

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

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

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

Divinity was soul-deep.

My stomach ruptured.

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

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

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

Luke stole something from me - 

it’s fine, he can have it

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

The symbol winked out with nothing else happening.

Oh, a native, I thought dimly.

Well, fuck.

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

A cold wind.

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

I didn’t even see what hit me.

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

Khione’s nephew tried to protect me.

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

she answered

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

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

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

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

I looked up.

And up.

And up.

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

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

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

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

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

It was only -

That just made me angrier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Luke?” I asked immediately.

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

Are we ignoring the giant tentacle murder dog?

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

“Immortal.”

“Oh.”

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

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

We’re ignoring the giant tentacle murder dog.

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

And absurd.

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

My mind went blank for a second.

She didn’t just send her voice.

She came to help.

“But Artemis…”

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

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

Khione actually smiled briefly. “I know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gods have souls too.

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

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

I fucking hate tests.

I snarled at it. “Still an asshole.”

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

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

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

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

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

She was only pretending to be.

“It’s playing,” Khione repeated slowly. “But the game is not over, is it? This one is not going anywhere,” she said in a low tone as her attention returned to the monster. Her voice was resonating in my skull as something soft and very cold, replacing the needle hooks with a restless fascination. I caught myself leaning forward towards her when my ribs ground together. I wanted to stand up, even though I knew my leg was broken. 

“The hunt was over too soon. The fun is over. You need something else to chase. Something that smells familiar, like ice and snow and blood, don’t you?”

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

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

She gave the monster a small, indulgent smile.

“Catch me.”

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

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

Four and a half hours.

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

The Night didn’t fuck around.

I had to be saved again.

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

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

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

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

Barely. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luke blew out a breath.

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

When had -

What -

From me?

I stared.

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

“It’s fine,” I said automatically.

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

What the hell did he steal?

‘Essence of Elder God?’

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

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

Luke shot a dark look at her. 

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

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

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

Khione ignored her.

Luke didn’t.

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

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

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

Her ears flattened against her head immediately.

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

Khione caught my eye and rolled hers at me.

They were distracting.

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

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

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

Khione mercilessly twisted my broken leg back into place.

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

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

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

I can rest.

Okay.

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

“Seabiscuit wants a raise,” I said.

The cold hand on my face pulled back.

“What?” Khione said.

“The horse,” I explained.

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

“He earned it.”

I passed out. 

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

It’s not perfect, but when is anything?

Or anyone.

I didn’t Dream.

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

Guess he was a bunny person.

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

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

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

The rabbit looked offended.

“You bit someone.”

She looked away, sulking.

I sighed. “What’s wrong with you.”

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

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

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

It -

Wait.

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

That seemed like forever ago.

Artemis nodded slowly, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

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

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

There was something I’m missing.

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

But Artemis is on a Quest.

When mortals were allowed to break divine rules.

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

Was I reading too much into this?

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

Mom is not perfect. And not all-powerful. 

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

Mom can’t lie, not won’t.

Am I reading too much into this?

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

Guess I was still jumpy.

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

How was he talking?

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

Words were wind.

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

I took the tray. 

“Thanks, man.”

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

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

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

Noelle?

I get it.

Like the Christmas song.

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

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it being so obvious was to better hide other things.

“Alright,” I said.

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

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

She might decide to murder Fate’s demigod.

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

He’s not.

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

Artemis glared harder.

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

Or just had boy cooties.

“She’s a bit of a bitch, though.”

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

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

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

The rabbit shrunk.

“Hey, your name?”

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

“Percy,” I said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have no idea.

I know I still have too many teeth, even after Mom got rid of my other sets. My dentist regularly has conniption fits about my smile but the one time she tried to give me braces? Uh, they kind of shredded themselves to pieces inside my mouth? She didn't say anything after spending two hours picking the remains out, but I knew that was a wash already. My spine sticks out and isn’t shaped right and I have some extra organs and ribs. I have godly eyes and my body tried to make up for that by developing a few extras inside. The Mist half-heartedly tries to hide what I called ‘cousiny’ traits just like it hides monsters and that told me enough. I’m not a monster. Neither is Clovis or Ethan. 

But the children of the Pit and the Night were.

“Never mind then,” I said.

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

Luke was kind of scary.

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

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

So he stole her voice.

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

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

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

“Thank you,” Artemis said stiffly.

“Mhm.”

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

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

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

I have no idea what they are talking about.

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

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

I blinked.

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

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

“You can’t?” Luke asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I noticed,” Khione said flatly.

I winced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will absolutely take her word for it.

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

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

Well, that’s great.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Artemis went silent.

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

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

“You had a baby girl once.”

Khione went very still. 

Luke leaned all the way back into his booth as if he could melt into it and get out of the line of fire. I wanted to do the same thing, but was a little stuck. It's embarrassing but, the song in her eyes was back, making the ice shards chaotically collide in a mesmerizing dance.

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

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

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

“You…” Khione whispered. “ Tried.”

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

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

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

“It didn’t.”

“No,” Artemis moaned. “It did not.”

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

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

The bunny shrunk into a little ball.

“Could not?” She offered pathetically.

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

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

I wondered if I should make a break for it.

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

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

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

Another crack of ice.

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

Then she was gone in cold breeze carrying a flurry of snowflakes.

For a long moment, no one said anything.

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

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

Artemis sighed.

“Why?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’ll stay the night,” I said.

Luke eyed me. 

“Deadline,” he said gently.

Damn it.

He blew out a breath. 

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

“Yeah.”

She just usually doesn’t care to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s not,” she said and I winced.

Yeah. It wasn’t.

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

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

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

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

Or my older sisters.

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

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

I will.

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

It also wasn’t a no.

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

It didn’t bother me.

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

I was not an Olympic demigod.

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

How do you break a Prophecy that was multiple choice?

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

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

I’m half-god.

I can do this.

And at the end of it all…

Something cold hit my nose. I looked up.

It was snowing.

Beside me, Khione shuddered, a tiny hitched gasp and she curled into herself. I scooted a little closer. Large snowflakes fell from a pitch black sky in the middle of June. The light from the streetlamps reflecting off the snow made it look like there were thousands of tiny, sparkling falling stars drifting lazily down to earth. 

She was crying.

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

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

And fell to the ground as icy tears.