Even before the apple showed up, I wasn't having the best of days.

The Apollo kids had just gotten themselves a new archery range, which left the basketball court sun-god-free for the first time in recent camp history. That meant I could pick up a game against someone whose inherited athleticism didn't automatically declare them the winners. Which, if you've never even been on a quest and spend your summers growing strawberries, is pretty darn exciting.

Unfortunately, even with the volunteer satyrs augmenting our cabin strength of a whopping two demigods, we didn't have many people. Not enough for a full game, anyway. So we went door to door, asking the other cabins for a challenge. Which is how I ended up knocking on the door of Hecate's cabin, and how the girl of my dreams ended up answering.

Hecate's cabin was one of the first finished after the Second Titan War, on the goddess side. It looked sort of like a cobbled street, the walls made of round, mismatched stones of varying color and luminescence. Rumor had it that the stones had all kinds of magical properties, but I knew better than to go looking to steal one. Hermes cabin had already tried once. Some of them still sprouted leaves from time to time.

To tell you the truth, the cabin is one of the most eye-catching things on campus, especially when the afternoon sun catches some of the more translucent stones in just the right way. But this afternoon, I wasn't even paying attention to the architecture. Leave that kind of stuff to Annabeth Chase. No, I was too busy looking at who had opened the door.

"Hey, Neil," she said, as if my name in her mouth was not the best thing I had ever heard. "What's up?"

She was as beautiful as ever. She leaned against the door frame and cocked her head to one side—her perfect head with its short, bushy mane of bleach-blond hair—and stared at me. I realized, a second too late, that she was waiting for an answer. I had just been standing there like the idiot I was.

Oh, no, I thought. Keep it cool.

I recovered quickly, punching my shoulders back and scratching the back of my head with one hand. It was a move I had perfected in the mirror long ago, one that made me look simultaneously insecure and charming. I tried not to let her eyes distract me too much. Equal parts beautiful and unsettling, they were my favorite part of her appearance, a bright purple color that came with the territory of having a magic goddess as your mom.

"Hey, Olivia," I said, turning on the charm. "The guys and I are putting a game together. Figure your cabin's up for it?"

I gave her a cocky smile and thrust my hands deep in my pockets, taking half a step closer to her. I was hyper-aware of my movements around her. Everything was considered and reconsidered in the context of my unspoken crush. Honestly, I was having a hard time concentrating on the conversation.

Olivia smiled. "What about Apollo? I'm sure they're about due for some butt-kicking."

"Apollo's at the archery range. New targets, and all that." I looked down, past her gauzy skirt and past her sneakers, at the concrete porch of Hecate's cabin. "Besides, they always win. Hecate hasn't played in a while. Why not show off what you got?"

Olivia looked behind her, back into the cabin. Inside, lights stayed on pretty much 24/7. The Hecate kids were always losing sleep over new incantations or ghost-summoning spells they were trying out.

"Sorry," she said, turning back to me, "but the girls and I are working on this thing, it's really important, and it kind of has to be ready before the new moon tonight, so..."

She shrugged. Nothing she could do. It hurt, but I forced a smile. I would have to woo her another day.

"Yeah, no problem. If you get a chance, come see us in action. We'll get someone to play us. You can't beat me and my brother."

"And the satyrs," corrected Olivia. "Aren't they most of your team?"

I shrugged. "Po-tay-toe, Po-ta-toe. Some of them are technically our siblings, anyway. It kind of counts."

Olivia laughed, and her laugh was as fantastic as always. "Yeah, yeah. Pan's cabin is weird, I'll give you that. I'll see you around, Neil."

"Not if I see you first." I grinned, and she shut the door.

For a moment, I just stood there, on the Hecate porch. I tried to memorize the way she looked in that shirt, to file it away for later. Then I remembered that I had a job to do. Besides, it might have looked suspicious if I was just standing in front of another cabin for too long.

I made my way through the other cabins, still looking for a team to play. My younger half-brother, Cormac, did the same, but I got to the Hermes cabin first. To my surprise, it wasn't one of the Stoll brothers who answered my knock, but Brock Grant. Brock was huge for a Hermes kid, with none of the lean build or nimbleness that most of his cabinmates have. If it weren't for his telltale elfish face and perpetual smirk, his stocky body and aggressive personality might have pointed to Ares as a more viable father.

"Huh?" he asked, then caught sight of me. He checked me out, then folded his arms across his chest. "Hey, you're one of Pan's kids, right?"

"Hey, Brock," I said. I didn't let him intimidate me. The wildness in me could be much more scary than the mischief in him. "The name's Neil."

"Neil, right," he said. "I remember. What do you want?"

I gave him the same speech I gave all the other cabins. "The basketball court is open, and we're trying to get another cabin to play us. You interested?"

Brock raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Hermes cabin against you?"

Of course. I should have known this would happen. We'd have better luck at the newer cabins. But I persisted. "What? You scared of losing?"

"Please," Brock sighed.

My fists clenched against my will. "Your dad might be Olympian, Brock, but that's got nothing to do with skills on the court."

I could see Brock trying to think of a retort, but that was when Travis Stoll came to the door. He looked tired. Then again, every counselor looked tired all the time. I guess there was a lot to be done. Even now, a week away from Halloween, they still weren't done rebuilding after the war.

"What is it, Brock?" asked Travis.

"Nothing, Trav," said the boy.

I cut in. "Cormac and I would like to invite you to a friendly game of basketball." My grin came back as I said it. Travis wasn't like Brock or some of the other kids. He seemed to welcome the children of lesser gods at Camp Half-Blood.

Travis looked me over. He put a hand to his chin. "Apollo's at the range?"

"Bingo," I said.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Travis turned back to Brock. "Tell our siblings to get ready."

Excitement bubbled up in my chest, and I started hopping from foot to foot. Most demigods had ADHD, but Cormac and I seemed to get antsy even more easily than the rest of them. Something to do with our dad, the satyrs assured us.

Travis noticed me bouncing and winked down at me. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, Jungle Book. We're gonna wipe the floor with you."

"I'm gonna love watching you try," I retorted, before running to tell Cormac that the game was on.

With the satyrs on our side, I figured that Pan's team had this in the bag. Goat legs can go a long way when you're taking jump shots from half court. But as it turned out, the Hermes kids were up to the challenge. They made up for physical deficiencies by running strategic circles around the rest of us. You might have mistaken them for Athena kids, the way they drew up plans with every huddle and tricked their way into the lead.

In the first half, Connor Stoll faked a pass to his brother, then dribbled right around me. I turned, but too late. Cormac was behind me, but Connor sidestepped him easily, making a shot from ten feet away that sailed into the net.

I shook my head, breathing hard. "You're good, Stoll."

Connor shrugged. "Varsity basketball three years in a row."

"Could have told us that before challenging us to an unfair game." I smiled.

"None of my teammates are varsity," he pointed out. "It's still fair."

I laughed, and then we ran to the other side of the court to continue the game. The smell of sweat and dirt and surrounding grass filled my nostrils. It made me feel alive, and I could feel the wild half of me singing as we played. I always loved sports—they made me feel a part of something primal, something fierce. Something uncontrollable.

I liked feeling that way.

Still, feelings don't get you to the NBA. No matter what Connor told us, we still lost horribly to Hermes' cabin. They had a knack for cheating without actually breaking any rules. Twenty minutes later, I stole the ball from one of the younger kids, only to have it dissolve in my hands. Behind me, Travis produced the real thing from behind his back and made an easy basket.

"Hey, that's not fair!" whined one of the satyrs. "You can't do that!"

"Show me the rule." Travis was spinning the ball on one finger. "I doubt the official handbook has anything against magical decoys."

I was closest to him, but Cormac brushed me aside to get up in his face. "Does the official handbook say anything about punching your opponents, Stoll?"

"Cormac," I warned. "Relax. It's all in the name of good, old-fashioned fun."

Reluctantly, Cormac backed off, retreating to mid-court. He pulled his flute out of his pocket and started cleaning it, a nervous habit he had picked up from me.

I turned back to Travis. "Let's just play the game, okay? No rule bending. No magic. Just basketball."

Travis nodded, but he still had a smirk on his face.

We set up to play again. As I walked back to my starting position, one of the older Hermes kids shoulder-checked me as he came from the opposite direction.

My face burned red-hot. "Hey!" I grunted. "Watch it."

The kid laughed. "Okay. Minor."

Minor. A new slang term for a camper whose immortal parent wasn't an Olympian. It was the newest in a string of insults that had cropped up since they started taking in more kids and building the extra cabins. A lot of the kids didn't like how crowded the camp had become lately, and they blamed it on Percy Jackson's deal that minor gods be welcomed.

Brock had already dished out enough prejudice for one day, and now this other Hermes kid. Weird. It was usually the Ares cabin that picked the most fights with the new campers. But no matter where it came from, I couldn't let it affect me.

I rubbed my shoulder, biting back the dozen scathing remarks that presented themselves. Exchanging insults wasn't going to solve the problem. But still. The kid watched me from across the court. He nudged Brock, who was next to him, and whispered something in his ear. Brock laughed.

I was seething. But I shook my head and waited for the game to start. Not all demigods were like that, I knew. I just had to remind myself of that.

Aaron, the satyr who had complained about the decoy, was up for the jump shot against the tallest Hermes kid, Kate. As we waited for the referee (a volunteer from Demeter) to start the game, I looked behind me, back at Hecate's cabin.

Olivia was watching me from the porch.

I spun back to the game, smiling to myself. She was watching. Whatever important spell she had to finish, she had put it on hold to watch us. To watch me.

My heart soared.

The Demeter girl was counting down. "Three, two—"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

This was a new voice. That fact was strange enough in itself, as I knew the voices of everyone in camp. And it came from the other end of the court, the end bordering the woods. That was even stranger. Most campers were climbing the rock wall or swimming or lounging in their cabins. There really wasn't anything to do in the woods, unless you were a dryad or a satyr or the god Pan was your father.

I looked up. So did everyone else. A girl was standing at the edge of the court, watching us. She wore a dirty, torn yellow sweatshirt and jeans. Her feet were bare. Her hair was short, but dirt made it stick up in odd places. And she looked about my age.

One of the satyrs sniffed the air. "Demigod. Who are you?"

"I'm the one telling you not to play them," said the girl. "They're the children of Hermes, right? They're just going to cheat again. It's in their nature."

"Hey!" said the Stoll twins in unison.

She turned to them. "It's true. Cheating is the only way you can win. If you didn't, the satyrs on their team would defeat you. You can't best them with pure brainpower, not forever. Sooner or later, they'll gain the upper hand."

The twins fell silent. They were thinking it over.

"She's right, you know," Cormac murmured to me. "It's Hermes. We made a mistake playing them. They'll just cheat again, Neil."

One of the Hermes kids heard him. She pointed our way. "See! If you keep thinking like that, we'll have to cheat just to beat you! Because you already expect us to!"

"And anyway," said another, "there are only two demigods on your team. The rest are satyrs. How can we expect to beat that?"

"Exactly," said the first Hermes girl, nodding. "We're only using our natural gifts. What's wrong with that?"

"Everything!" yelled Cormac.

Soon the satyrs got involved, and the Stoll brothers, and before I knew it the entire court was yelling at each other, each team accusing the other of having an unfair advantage. I was about to start up myself, when I noticed the girl at the edge of the court again. In all the confusion, I had almost forgotten about her. She stood silently by, watching the chaos unfold. She looked...satisfied, almost. But scared, too.

In a flash, I remembered that she had started all of this. She had been the one to point out each team's advantages. Who was she?

"Uh, guys?" I called to my friends, but they didn't hear me. "Guys?"

They just kept talking.

I held my hands up and yelled at the top of my lungs. "SILENCE!"

Immediately, everyone went quiet. It was a trick I had learned on my way to camp. Pan's kids all have an ability to induce Panic. Not at the level he did, but close enough to get the heart racing. I had put a little bit of the Panic into my yelling. Instantly, everyone was paying attention to me.

"This is stupid," I said, this time at a normal level. "Don't you guys see that we have a new camper here?"

I gestured to the girl, who was now behind me as I faced the campers. They all shook themselves and refocused on her, as if awaking from a stupor. It kind of scared me, to be honest with you.

I continued. "This game is over. It's clear we can't get along. Sorry, Hermes cabin. But I need to get this girl up to the Big House. Right now."

The campers nodded or voiced their consent. I turned back to the girl.

"Now," I said, stepping closer to the girl. "What's your name?"

She looked up at me. Her eyes were deep green, and rounder than I thought they should have been.

"River," she said. "My name is River Novak. I'm supposed to find Camp Half-Blood."

I smiled.

"Well," I told her, "you made it. Welcome to camp."

Up in the Big House, Chiron examined River closely.

"She doesn't have any massive injuries that I can tell," he said, as I sat in the corner of the room and tried to look helpful. "Although, River, where are your shoes?"

River shrugged and didn't say anything.

"I see," said Chiron with a smile. "Okay, then, tell me. Where are you from? How old are you? How did you find us?"

River sighed. "Wisconsin. Sixteen. And my mother told me to come here."

"Your mother?" Chiron seemed surprised. "Who is your mother?"

The girl shrugged. "She never gave a name. One day I came home and there was a woman in my house. She told me that she was my mother, that I was the child of a goddess, and that I needed to find a safe place: Camp Half-Blood. Then she disappeared, but first, she gave me this and said I should bring it to you."

It occurred to me that this girl did not have what one might call normal teenage speech patterns.

From a sweatshirt pocket, River produced something gold and round. It had a small stem and a leaf poking out of its top. When Chiron saw it, he stamped his hooves in a way that spoke of trouble.

"An apple?" I asked. "What's so great about an apple?"

Chiron rolled his eyes. "You have some history to catch up on, Neil," he said, taking the thing into his hands. "This is a golden apple. There's only one goddess I know of who has ever used such an object."

He cut a glance to River, who was sitting on one of Mr. D's more plushy chairs and looking bored. There was something of real fear in Chiron's eyes. Panic-level fear.

"Eris," he said in a shaking voice. "River, your mother is Eris. Goddess of discord and strife." He held the apple up to the light. "And if your coming means what I believe it means, then this camp is in grave danger. Again."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, folks. This is just something I needed to get out of my head. I'd love to continue it, but as I'm pretty busy with other stuff (as well as the two stories I'm already writing on here), it might be a while.

I've been toying with this idea of a quest group where there is a notable absence of what you might call "big name" gods, which is just about the only thing we ever see in the canon. Take that, mixed with my fascination with the idea of all these new campers coming in after the Second Titan War, and presto. Neil's story is born.

Don't be afraid to review and tell me what you think, as it might influence my likelihood of updating.