I rifle through my notes. "I think you add the first number to the reciprocal."

Marcus shakes his head. "Not even close. Will, you're going to fail this test. You need to tell the teachers you're dyslexic!"

"No," I say firmly. "I'm going to pass ninth grade without any crutches. Tell me the formulas again."

He sighs, and I see the sympathy in his eyes. "Asking for help isn't a crutch-"

"It is when I don't need it!" I can't explain. But after spending years at camp, fighting Kronos and Gaea and the monster of the week, after always being shunted to the back lines, I'm tired of letting other people do things for me. I'm the counselor for Cabin Seven and the son of Apollo. I've survived the Battle of the Labrinth, the Battle of Manhatten, and sabotaged the onagers just last summer. I can learn geometry.

"Let's just try again," I say with a smile.

We go through the formulas, reciting them over and over until I have equal signs imprinted on my brain. But the problem isn't remembering them, it's choosing the right one. I understand math fine, though I have a tendency to zone out and fidget during key lessons. When it gets on the page, however, I stumble. All the words float off the page, do loops and twists in midair, and come back down as some kind of weird anagram. I've gotten used to it-I was born with dyslexia. Most demigods are, and when I found out it marked me as a hero, I softened. But I'm still stuck as the only fifteen-year-old in school who can't read.

Marcus doesn't really know me yet-most kids don't. I haven't been to school for several years, after a Cyclops attacked my music concert back in elementary school. (Believe me, the screams sounded much better than the actual music.) It's only been a few weeks at this school. My mom wanted to send me to a school for kids "like me", but I insisted on public school. So far, it's been uneventful. I guess no monsters are on the lookout for a useless son of Apollo when they could all be honing in on kids like Percy Jackson and Nico di Angelo.

Nico-I really miss him.

And as I think of Nico, I hear a voice behind me.

"Will!"

Marcus drops his notebook on his foot. I whirl around and see him-stumbling from the shadow travel, leaning against a bookcase in the previously deserted school library.

I leap up and run over. "Are you okay?"

He nods rapidly, bending over like he's just ran a race. "Yeah, I'm good."

"How long did you travel?" I ask.

"It was not about the quality, but the quantity." Nico straightens, dusting off his jacket and wiping his forehead. "I had to shadow-travel three times today. Not fun."

Alarm shoots through me. "You should sit down. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Calm down, Will." Nico smirks in that annoying way he always does. "I'm not eleven anymore. I can shadow-travel without passing out on the floor."

"I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you need to be careful." I reach out to steady him. "I've told you so many times, you need to stop overtaxing your powers. After all your adventures with the Athena Parthenos, it'll take ages before you're at full capacity again."

"Yeah, yeah, Doctor Solace." Nico bats my hand away and strides over to our two-person table, sitting in my chair with no apologies. "Who's this?" he asks, waving a hand at Marcus, who seems to have frozen in place at the sudden appearance of a leather jacket-wearing son of Hades.

"Marcus. He's tutoring me."

Marcus recovers and holds out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

Nico nods without taking Marcus's hand. I look between them. "Marcus, this is Nico. He's my-" What do I say? My boyfriend? My sidekick? My annoyance?

"My friend from camp."

Something flashes in Nico's eyes-disappointment? But it's gone in a second, replaced by panic. "What am I doing?" he says, standing up and heading for the door. "We don't have time for this!"

"Hold on," I say. "I'm getting the feeling you didn't come 'cause you wanted to see me."

He gives me the you're-such-a-dork-Will look, but it doesn't come off as it usually does. In a few seconds, it slides off his face and I see the panic again. "Will-"

My heart drops about five feet. I should be used to bad news. In fact, I've given people bad news more times than I'd like. Demigods don't last that long-as a medic, I've had to come to terms with that. But Nico's face, full of fear and guilt and hysteria, it takes me back to the Battle of Manhatten, when the bridge collapsed and another Apollo kid came running up to me. Will, you're the counselor now.

"Nico," I say slowly, "what happened?"

I meet his eyes, framed by his black hair, the one's I've never been able to read. Today, though, I wish I couldn't. Today I wish he'd insult me again just to make it normal.

"It's my sister. Hazel." Nico's voice softens on her name, and he swallows. "She's missing."