Apov

The trip to camp was about as uneventful as it could be fore a demigod. Thea and I made it to New York alright and while we stumbled into a pack of hell hounds at the airport, it wasn't the horde of murderous dogs that was concerning me. Thea had been relatively quiet the on the entire trip, well, quiet for her anyways, and while I couldn't think what she would be upset about if it wasn't her father, that didn't seem to be it. She was lost in thought and didn't seem to get out of her own head until we reached camp just in time for dinner.

"Hannah looks upset." She said frowning as we entered the dining pavilion and I looked over at the Persephone table to see several of Hannah's siblings were looking at her concerned. One of her sisters had put an arm around her shoulders and she seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"Any idea what might be bothering her?" I asked and Thea shook her head.

"No clue." She said frowning. "I'll ask Dennis. He'd probably know. I'll see you after dinner ok?"

"Alright." I said as she stood on her toes and kissed me on the cheek, then walked over to her table where I noticed for once, no one seemed to be talking. They all looked as miserable as Hannah, and as Thea took a seat next to Austin, several of her siblings looked at them as he started speaking to her. His expression was grave.

I searched for Dennis, but he wasn't there and I figured he must have been held up during an activity or was being yelled at by Chiron who was also missing from the pavilion. After we'd returned from our mission last summer, Dennis had taken over Thea's position as trouble maker in chief, and much to Chiron's annoyance, he was extremely good at it.

I noticed Tess stand from her table and sit next to Thea, apparently not caring about the rule forbidding campers from sitting at other cabin's tables. She put her arm around Thea like Hannah's sister had and Thea put her head in her hands. She wasn't crying, though her younger sister Jessica was, and she wasn't the only Hermes camper in tears. Something was very wrong.

Other campers, from all of the cabins, were looking at them. Even the Ares table seemed sympathetic rather than annoyed, which was usually their attitude towards the Hermes children. I was about to follow Tess's example and go to their table when a familiar voice said.

"Hey man."

I looked over to see Kyle had risen from his table and crossed the pavilion to talk to me.

"What's going on?" I asked looking back at the Hermes campers where Thea had gone back to talking to Austin.

"Dennis is missing." He said quietly and I felt shock go through me.

"What?" I asked quickly. "Are you sure?"

He nodded and I swore.

"Yeah." He said darkly. "First their father and now this. The Hermes kids are having a rough week."

"Does anyone know what happened?" I asked.

"No one's really sure." He said shaking his head. "All we know is that late last night after Dennis and Hannah got here, he got a message from his father. He thought it might have been a clue to where he was and brought it to Chiron asking to be sent on a mission to find him, but Chiron refused. Said he hadn't been at camp long enough and that we should wait for you and Thea to get back. The next thing we knew this morning he was gone."

"He went anyways." I said bitterly. It's exactly what Thea would have done.

"That's what most people are assuming." He agreed.

"Has Chiron sent anyone after him?" I asked.

"No one knows where he went and he stole the message his father sent him before he left, probably so that Chiron couldn't have anyone follow him."

"So he figured out what the message meant?"

"Either that or he thought he did. Why else would he leave?"

"Where's Chiron?" I asked looking back at the Hermes table where Thea had stood.

"He's on a call with Olympus. He's asking for them to try and find Dennis while they're looking for his father."

"How much longer do you think he'll be?"

"I've no idea."

"I'm going to go wait to talk to him."

"Don't you think you should go to talk to Thea?" he asked a little awkwardly but she was already walking in our direction. Several people looked at her, but then quickly looked away and I didn't blame them. While her expression was blank, her eyes were darker than usual, and I remembered a few months ago in the arena, when I'd been angry with Chiron and he had warned me that I was not the only powerful demigod at this camp.

"Where do you think she's going?" I asked and he finally spotted her when she drew level to us.

"Thea I-" Kyle started but she cut him off.

"Kyle if you say you're sorry I'm going to stab you." she said flatly. "There's no reason to think that Dennis and my father aren't perfectly alright. Not yet anyways."

"Right." He said and she looked up at me.

"You coming?"

"Yeah let's go."

I took her hand as we left the pavilion and made our way to the Big House.

"So. What are you going to do to Dennis when he's found?" I asked looking down at her.

"Tentative ideas include a catapult and a very cold landing in the lake."

Her eyes were narrowed slightly, but the mischievous glitter that I was using to seeing in them had gone out and I knew she was not as ok as she was pretending to be. How could she be? Last night she'd found out her father was missing, and now her favorite little brother had been added to the list.

"Of course we have to find him first." she continued stiffly.

"We will." I assured her. "He's thirteen-"

"Fourteen," she corrected automatically. "His birthday's in September."

"Fourteen," I amended then continued. "How far could he have gotten? Someone's bound to notice he's on his own."

"Adam, when I was fourteen I left camp and hitch hiked to Texas and back because I was bored. Our father is the god of travelers." She said seriously. "You think we don't know how to get places?"

She sighed.

"I made it half way across the country without direction and on a whim. Dennis is motivated. I'm sure he's already out of the state by now if that's where he's headed."

"I don't remember you going to Texas." I said frowning.

"I got back a week before you started coming to camp." She said. "I would have gone farther but," she shrugged. "It wasn't much of a challenge, I got bored. Austin nearly strangled me when I got back."

"You going to strangle Dennis?"

"I'm considering it." she said darkly as we stepped on to pouch of the Big House.

"Sounds like he's just like you."

At this she smiled slightly.

"Yeah I guess."

"So you don't need to be worried about him."

She didn't answer this and looked a little conflicted, as if she knew what I was saying made sense, but couldn't quite bring herself to believe it.

I held the door open for her, then followed her inside and we made our way to Chiron's office.

"Come in." he said wearily after I'd knocked on the door and we entered.

The office was in a state of chaos that I'd never seen it before. Books and papers were stacked everywhere as well as maps and magical items such as a compass and a bronze GPS that he'd no doubt been using trying to locate both Dennis and his father.

"I thought I'd be seeing you two soon." He said giving Thea and I shrewd look. "I take it you haven't heard from your brother either?"

"No." she said dropping into a desk chair and looking around at the maps. Xs and question marks dotted it along with dotted lines that I knew were possible paths Dennis could have taken to likely destinations.

"And you have no idea where he could have gone?"

"To our father." She said quietly. "But it sounds like no one but him has any idea where that might be."

"That about sums up the situation." He said with another sigh.

"What do you know?" I asked as Thea continued to scan the maps, obviously hoping for something to jump out at her.

"Not much that your father hasn't told you when he visited you last night." He said looking at me. "Thea's father was delivering a weapon for Hephaestus three days ago when he vanished and all communication with him was lost. Well, until last night. He managed to get a message to Dennis which it seems Dennis took with him when he left."

"How do you know he left?" I asked. I wasn't entirely convinced that he hadn't been taken. After all the things I'd seen, I'd believe anything of the gods.

"Because he packed before he left." Chiron continued. "His back pack as well as his wallet and some of his clothes are gone. Ambrosia is missing from the infirmary and he took his weapon."

"He's getting ready for mission." I said darkly while Thea stood and looked at a map on the wall. She seemed to have noticed something.

"Chiron." She said inspecting it closer. "Are you right or left handed?"

"Right." He said frowning and she'd seemed to hear what she expected. "Why?"

She didn't answer at first, only continued to inspect the map her eyes narrowed.

"Thea." I said and she blinked and looked at us.

"Because who ever wrote that." She said gesturing to a small string of Greek letters that were written on the map, the ink slightly smudged. "Is left handed. You can tell by the way their hand dragged over the letters as they wrote." She moved her left hand over the letters, pretending to write them in example. "I take it you didn't write this then?" she finished looking at Chiron whose eyes had gone wide.

"No." he said and I realized as I stared that the letters spelled her name. "But how did you-"

"I sit with Dennis when he writes his letters home." She said not looking away from the map. "He's left handed. His letters are always smudged like that."

"He's heading to Washington?" I asked confused looking at the location on the map where her name had been written.

"It makes sense." Thea said. "If he's looking for our father and he disappeared after meeting with Tess's dad."

"How does that make sense?" I asked confused.

"The only volcanoes in the continental U.S. are all located on the west coast." Chiron said as if this explained things and I glanced at Thea who'd spent a much greater part of her life in our parents' world and often had to explain things to me.

"Forges." She said quietly.

"It would explain how Hermes was caught if he was captured." Chiron said glancing at the map as well. "If they knew where he'd be they wouldn't have to keep up with him. They could simply set up a trap then sit back and watch."

I saw Thea's eyes flash but she didn't say anything.

"Good work Thea." He said looking down at her.

"Yeah, well this doesn't help us much." She said glaring at the map.

"What do you mean it doesn't help?" I asked incredulously. "We know where he's going."

"How do you expect to search a whole state?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"We don't have to." I said. "We just have to find the forge in Washington and…"

But my sentence faded when I saw them exchange wary looks.

"What?"

"There's almost a dozen volcanoes in Washington, Adam." Chiron said with a sigh. "And half of them are still active. Even if you went to all of them, you'd probably have to search the entire mountain range before you found Dennis, if he's even still there by the time you found the right one."

"There must have been more to the message," Thea said looking at the map again. "He's stubborn but he's not stupid."

"Sounds like someone I know." Chiron muttered but Thea ignored him.

"He wouldn't leave camp unless he knew where he was going. There's got to be something else. Do you see anything else you didn't write? On any of these?" She gestured to the maps all around the room but Chiron shook his head.

"No."

"Did he say anything before he left?"

"No." Chiron repeated. "He didn't say anything to anyone after he argued with me about being sent on a mission. The next morning he was just gone."

Silence fell in the room as we all continued to study the maps.

"I'm going to go check his room." She said after several minutes in which none of us found anything. "I know him better than anyone here, except maybe Hannah. Maybe he left something that wasn't recognized for what it was."

"Alright." Chiron said with a nod.

"You coming?" she asked me.

"Yeah."

Chiron looked as if he wanted to say something, and I knew he was going to point out that technically we weren't supposed to be in a bunk room alone together, but he refrained.

"C'mon." Thea said gesturing for me to follow her and together we walked out of the office.

"Do you really think he left you something to find?" I asked as we stepped out into the evening air and she put her hands in her pockets. Though it was October, it felt like summer night in the boundaries of the camp and while it was still warm, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I usually did. Not when things had gone so wrong.

"Yeah." She said breaking me from my thoughts. "Otherwise why would he leave me a message in Chiron's office?"

"What I don't get is why he didn't just tell you where he was going."

"He's buying time." She said fixing her eyes on her cabin in the distance where a few of her siblings were waiting on the porch, obviously hoping to hear news from our visit to Chiron's office. "He knows if we find him too quickly we'd just bring him back to camp. My guess is he thinks if we get close enough to figuring out where Dad ended up while we're trying to find him, you and I will stick around to try and find Dad."

Only then did it occur to me that in Thea's mind, she'd already assigned herself to this recovery mission which Chiron was most likely to assign to me.

"Will you?" I asked and she didn't answer at first but I knew what her answer would be.

"If it's a solid lead then yeah, I'm going to follow it." she said eventually. "I guess I can just send Dennis back with you or something."

"Are you insane?"

"What?"

"I'm not going to leave you in Washington." I said incredulously.

"What about Dennis?"

"I guess he'll just have to come with us."

"So you're going to help me babysit my little brother?" she asked and she managed a grin.

"Yeah, I guess so."

She let out a short laugh.

"I didn't realize we'd hit that point in our relationship. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to meet my father first."

"I have met your father." I said remembering the look he'd given me the last time he'd been at camp, when I'd been stupid enough to think I would have been able to make it through Hephaestus's maze without Thea's help. "I'm pretty sure he thought I was an idiot."

"Well maybe by the end of this if we find him, you'll be able to make a better impression." She'd grinned when she said it, but she seemed to have reminded herself that her father was in fact missing and it faded.

"Any tips?" I asked.

"What for meeting my dad?" she asked and I nodded.

"Yeah. Keep an eye on your wallet."