6
Nico took Anubis's advice to heart and proceeded carefully. Or at least as carefully as he could. When he spoke to Percy later that night he made no mention of Jason Grace. And he left him out of his official report to Chiron the next night, when he shadow traveled back to Camp Half-Blood to report what he'd found out so far. He let them know the rumors about the Blue Ward, and how none of the lights in the school were strong enough to make a rainbow and get an Iris Message through, but didn't let them know that they weren't the only ones looking into the school and trying to figure out what was driving half bloods crazy.
The night after that, he went to Brooklyn House. Nothing of particular interest had happened at the Heart of Liberty Prison (which was what Nico thought the school really should be called) or else he would have gone back to camp to report it, or at least to Percy. But Nico hadn't noticed anything new that was strange, and hadn't gotten himself moved to the Blue Ward yet. He knew he had to try to make that happen soon, but not too soon, or else whoever was running the prison might realize he was there to spy on them and bring them down.
So he went to check in with Sadie and Carter, bracing himself for Sadie's wrath as he shadow traveled onto the balcony. With all the wards on the place, that was the easiest thing to do. He could have brought himself directly into the mansion, and had done it before, but it took more energy to do that than it was worth.
The other residents of Brooklyn House greeted Nico warmly when they saw him as he made his way through the mansion, and Nico paused to exchange a few words with each of them. Felix, Alyssa, and Walt he talked with a bit longer. Felix chattered happily and trailed after Nico, asking all kinds of questions. Did he know how mad Sadie was at him? Was that demigod really just mad about the Mythomagic booster packs' release date? How was Percy? Had Percy killed anything lately? Was Nico finished with whatever he was doing? How long would it take him to finish?
Jaz took pity on Nico when he saw him trying to get away from the younger boy, and enlisted Felix in helping her with something magic and complicated that Nico couldn't even begin to understand even when Anubis tried to explain it to him.
He ran into Walt in the hallway and the two exchanged a few tense words. Nico was actually left out of that conversation though. It was Anubis who needed to talk to Walt about several plans they were making for the future. Plans that involved Walt's rapidly approaching demise. If Walt was annoyed to find that Anubis had let Nico in on the secret, he didn't show it, but then he probably knew that Anubis and Nico had few secrets that the other couldn't discover if they pried hard enough.
Alyssa was the last one he ran into before he found the Kanes. He found her carrying a huge block of clay wrapped in plastic and immediately moved to help her.
"Let me get that for you," he said as soon as he saw her and what she was doing. He quickly relieved her of her burden and was rewarded with a warm smile.
"Thanks," Alyssa told him. "That was heavy."
"I – uh – yeah," stuttered Nico, not sure what the best way to respond to that was. If he agreed, he might look like a wuss, but if he claimed that it wasn't heavy, it might sound like he was demeaning her. "Uh, I mean, where are we taking this?"
"One of the rooms downstairs," said Alyssa. "I commandeered it for Path of Geb studies."
"Oh?"
"But since almost no one else has any interest in those, it's pretty much my personal pottery workshop for now," said Alyssa as she fell in step beside him.
"Oh. That's cool. That you have your own workshop I mean, not that no one else likes your path. Because Geb is cool," said Nico, stumbling over his own words again. "Earth powers are cool."
"You have some yourself, if I remember right," said Alyssa.
"Huh?"
"When we had to defend Brooklyn House a couple months back," Alyssa reminded him. "You used your power over stone to turn that sphinx statue into dust, so we could turn that water magician into mud."
"Oh, yeah," said Nico. "I remember now. You helped too. That was fun."
"Good times," agreed Alyssa.
He helped her get the clay down to her work-room and set it down on a wooden table that had been covered with a tarp, almost tripping over another tarp on the floor as he went.
"Sorry," apologized Alyssa, grabbing onto his arm even though he'd found his balance, then kneeling down to smooth the tarp flat. "I keep everything covered to make the least amount of mess possible, but since it's just me in here I don't pay as much attention as I could to things that could trip people up. Sorry."
"It's fine," said Nico. He looked around the workshop. Alyssa had a potter's wheel, a kiln to fire her clay, and a bunch of shelves half of which were protected by multiple sheets of plastic. The other half seemed to be for displaying final products. A bunch of shabti and other trinkets and tools for magic lined those shelves, along with clay pots, vases, and storage jars.
"So . . . I've been meaning to ask," said Alyssa. "Do you have other earth powers too?"
"Um, not really," said Nico. "Most of my powers deal with . . . you know, death. But since my father's Lord of the Underworld as well as Lord of the Dead, I have some geomancy powers. Mainly ones that deal with stones and rocks. My father's told me tales of some of my siblings whose powers dealt with the other end of his power spectrum. He's also a god of wealth and all that lies under the earth, so gems, precious metals and the like. So I guess they were like Magneto, only just with precious metals and stones. But I don't have those powers."
"Oh." Alyssa looked slightly disappointed and Nico felt panic that he couldn't explain rising in his chest.
"If there was some treasure you wanted I could try to get it for you," he said quickly. "They might not be particularly in my power sphere, but I'm good at finding things. And getting past alarms and stuff. I could shadow travel straight into the Smithsonian and snatch the Hope Diamond for you if that's what you wanted."
"No, no, nothing like that," said Alyssa quickly. "I just thought if you had more earth powers, that would be something else we had in common. Give us something to talk about . . . and you could come down here and, you know, throw pots with me sometime . . ."
"Oh." Nico suddenly felt very stupid. What had he been thinking, offering to go steal diamonds for her? He didn't want to imagine what she must be thinking of him at the moment. Then it dawned on him that she had kinda, sorta invited him to hang out with her sometime and his face flushed. "Oh. Well, uh . . . I've been pretty busy lately and will probably be for awhile -"
"No, no, I understand," said Alyssa, looking away, her face red. Gods, that couldn't be good. Was she that furious with him? "I knew you were busy, I -"
"No, no, what I meant was when things settle down a little, that would be fun," said Nico quickly. "What you said earlier. Throwing pots or whatever else you do with clay. I could try it. I'd like to try it."
That brought a smile to Alyssa's face, and Nico felt like he'd accomplished something good, but before either of them could speak again, they were interrupted by someone coughing at the door.
Not just someone.
Sadie.
And she didn't look happy.
In fact, she looked pissed.
Nico contemplated shadow traveling away, but decided against it. Best to face the music now. Otherwise, Sadie would be twice as mad next time.
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" asked Sadie, acid in her tone.
"No," Alyssa and Nico said at the same time.
"Really? Because, you know, I would have thought, given what we talked about before you last departed Nico, that you'd come see me first as soon as you got back again, especially after deciding to do what you're doing now," said Sadie. "But I find you here. In . . . whatever this room is. Talking about stealing the Hope Diamond and making pottery. So I figure, this must be really important, right?"
"I – uh -"
"Sorry, Sadie," said Alyssa quickly. "Nico was on his way to see you, but I kind of stole him away. He was helping me move that big block of clay." She pointed.
"I see," said Sadie. "You're finished now, Nico?"
"Um, yeah."
"Good. Then let's talk."
Alyssa was backing away uncertainly. "I guess I'll . . . let you two talk." She made a hasty exit, but cast a look back at Nico. Once she was gone, Sadie kicked the door shut behind her.
"So," said Sadie, glaring at Nico.
"Ummm . . . sorry?" asked Nico.
Sadie's eyes narrowed even more. "What exactly are you apologizing to me about, Nico?"
Nico took a deep breath. "Doing exactly what you were afraid I would have to do. Going on an undercover assignment for Camp. But I had to, Sadie. Someone's making demigods go crazy, and they're doing it deliberately. Camp Half-Blood's tried to place other agents in the school I'm at now, but they haven't managed to get a single one admitted."
"Can't they use that Mist thing?" demanded Sadie.
"It doesn't work," Nico told her. "Not on the people at that school who decide if kids get in or not. They need me there, Sadie."
"We need you here."
Nico shook his head. "You don't. We've been over this already, Sadie. I'm the worst magician in Brooklyn House."
"Not when you let Anubis cast the spells," Sadie reminded him.
"But the more we do that, the better chance there is someone will figure out that I'm hosting Anubis," said Nico. "Besides, I don't like giving up control so much -"
"I'm sorry to ask you to go through a little discomfort to help us," snapped Sadie.
Nico bristled. "That's not fair! Besides, I don't see you letting Isis shack up with you to help out the cause!"
"That's completely different! If I invite her in, she's going to be here to stay!"
"And Anubis is already here to stay for the foreseeable future!"
"So what's the problem?" asked Sadie.
"The problem is that I'm still me, and I want to stay that way," said Nico angrily. "This is my body. I don't like being a prisoner in it. Well, a passenger. Anubis won't take control and not give it back, but I still want to be the one in control as much as possible. But even if that wasn't the case, there's still the whole thing about how people are going to figure out what I am. And when that happens, there's going to be a war. And that war's probably going to lead to the end of the world And I think we've got enough on our plates without having to try to avert that apocalypse as well as the current one, don't you?"
"We can use you here for things other than magic," said Sadie. "You're out best melee fighter."
"Bast is your best melee fighter," said Nico.
"But you give her a run for her money and don't have the limitations she does," said Sadie. "And we need you for things other than combat too. Like your brain."
"What?" Nico was taken back by that comment.
"You're smart," Sadie told him. "You're good at figuring stuff out."
Nico shook his head. "Sadie . . . I'm not sure how you've failed to notice this, but I'm an idiot."
"No, you're not," said Sadie vehemently.
"Yeah, I am," said Nico. "And it's OK, you don't have to pretend otherwise. I know I'm stupid -"
"You're not stupid!" snapped Sadie.
"Sorry, but yeah, I am," said Nico.
"You're not."
"It's not exactly a secret, or something I can hide," said Nico. "Remember how we fooled my father, back when this whole mess started? The plan only worked because he knows how stupid I am -"
"You're not stupid," insisted Sadie. "If you were stupid could you have figured that plan out in the first place?"
Nico shrugged. "I got lucky."
"And could you have figured out who the murderer was when Carter and I accidentally paid a visit to your camp?" asked Sadie.
"Someone else would have figured it out pretty soon -"
"But you were the first one to figure it out," said Sadie. "A hundred demigods, a centaur, and two magicians, but the first one to figure it out was you."
"Well, death's kind of my area of expertise, so I had an advantage."
"And that thing with the scroll that you solved just the other day?" continued Sadie.
"Dumb luck."
"No, it wasn't," said Sadie. "Nico, you have a gift. You can figure things out that leave everyone else stumped. And you can figure out ways to get out of impossible situations. Like how to fool Hades and avert a war, or how to make Percy nearly invincible so he could fight on equal ground with Kronos's host. You figured out the pattern to Apophis's attacks. Without you, we'd still be lost. Now, because of you, we're on the right track to figuring out where he'll strike next. We need you, Nico."
"When you need me, I'll be there," said Nico. "But right now Camp Half-Blood needs me."
"Nico -"
"I didn't come back here to argue about this again," said Nico. "I came to check in with you guys, let you know what was going on, and make sure you had no immediate need for me. So . . . have you figured out where Apophis is attacking next?"
"No," said Sadie reluctantly.
"Then you don't have an immediate need for me," said Nico, "So I'll be staying at the school for now."
"That sounds fair enough," said Carter from the doorway. He gave Sadie an annoyed look. "You could have gotten me before you two started talking. I had to hear Nico was back from the others, then had to check every room until I found you two."
"Sorry," said Sadie, but she didn't look contrite.
"So, what's going on at this school, Nico?"
Nico explained to them the situation at the school, letting them know everything he'd learned, including the rumors about the Blue Ward that weren't in any way verified. He noticed Sadie's expression grow troubled when he got to the part about the rumors of peoples' eyes being changed to blue after they went to the Blue Ward.
"That girl Maya had blue eyes, if I remember right," said Carter.
"I think she did too," said Nico. "But I think she's a daughter of Hermes, so that's natural for her."
"But her eyes weren't that overly-bright disturbing blue color that Pierre's eyes were," said Sadie.
"Piers," corrected Nico. "But yeah, you're right."
"Are eyes that color natural for children of . . . whoever?" asked Carter.
"Piers was a son of Kratos," said Nico, "but he's the first one I've ever met."
"Do you know how long Maya was at that school, as opposed to how long Kratos was?" asked Sadie.
"No," said Nico, "but I can try to find out."
"I don't think you should," said Sadie. "I think that place is too dangerous, Nico."
"I can't just walk away. Not when I know they're hurting people and I can stop it."
"You could get killed trying to stop it," said Sadie darkly. "Or worse."
"You mean get driven crazy myself? Not likely." Nico smirked. "If I miss a check in, Percy will be beating down their door, sword in hand. Of course, it'll never get to that, because if I get in trouble, Anubis will come get you guys. Not that I plan to get in trouble."
Sadie still looked troubled. "I've got a feeling that things are about to get serious soon, Nico," she said. "And I've got a feeling that you're in more danger from that place than you think."
Her tone worried Nico more than her words, because he could tell that she was genuinely dreading something. What he couldn't tell, is if that dread was brought on by a premonition or just by nerves. He hoped it was the later. Sadie was an amazing girl, spunky and brave and completely gorgeous . . . even though Nico didn't know if it was him who thought of her like that or Anubis . . . but she was still just a teenage girl. All kids, and adults too, sometimes worried about things they didn't need to. Nico really hoped this was one of those times.
"We're all in danger," Nico reminded the Kanes. "We live dangerous lives. And it sucks, but it's not going to change anytime soon. All we can really do is be as careful as we can, and try to eliminate as many dangers as we can, which is what I'm doing. And when you need me to help eliminate the biggest danger . . . well, the biggest current danger that is, I'll be there to help you."
Sadie looked at him stubbornly. "We could still use your help preparing."
"As soon as I finish this assignment," promised Nico. "I'll devote all my time to helping you figure out a way to kill the worm."
Sadie and Carter filled in Nico on their search for what would be Apophis's next target, as well as what was going on with the House of Life freaks (who were their allies now, and weren't supposed to be referred to as freaks anymore, or so Amos said), what their spies were reporting about the rebels, and what preparations Brooklyn House had been making. Nico listened carefully and filed the details away in his mind. He was conscious of Anubis listening in on their conversation, but the death god had no words to contribute to the briefing. He did however, Nico noticed, keep turning his head toward Sadie, even when Carter was the one talking, and Nico noticed his eyes falling . . . well, below Sadie's face. As soon as he realized this, he telepathed his annoyance to Anubis, and jerked his gaze away from Sadie completely, hoping that he wasn't blushing, and that neither of the Kanes had noticed.
Someday soon, Nico was going to have to figure out what his feelings really were about Sadie, and how much they were being effected by Anubis's feelings. But for now, he had bigger things to worry about.
Once they were finished filling Nico in, Nico brought up the other reason why he'd made the trip to Brooklyn House that night. He pulled out a piece of notebook paper, rolled up like a scroll and held it so that Sadie and Carter could see it.
"I have one more thing I need to tell you both about before I go," said Nico. "Well, kind of tell you about . . . in a way. Okay, not really tell you about, but -"
"Spit it out, Death Boy," said Sadie.
"Sadie," said Carter to shush her.
"What? None of us are getting any younger here."
Nico decided to continue before an argument could break out. "First, I just want to say that even though I'm being vague with you about this, it's not because I don't trust you. If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't be leaving this with you. I'm just being vague because trying to explain the whole thing to you could take an hour or more, and none of us has that kind of time right now."
"Alright," said Carter. "We understand."
"Okay, good," said Nico. "I'm going to be leaving this with you. It's . . . well, I recently found out something important . . . well, something that might be very important to one of my kind-of friends."
"Who?" demanded Sadie.
"It doesn't matter," said Carter.
"I want to know," argued Sadie. "Is it a girl?"
Nico sighed. "Yes. It's a girl."
"You want me to hang onto your love letter for her, is that it?"
"No!" snapped Nico. "I – it – look, it just – "
"Well what is it then?"
"He doesn't need to tell us," said Carter, looking at Sadie annoyed. "He's entrusting us with something. Do you know how bad you look questioning him so much about it?"
Nico heaved another sigh. "Okay, I guess I'm going to have to explain a little bit, because I get the feeling this will take longer if I don't. The person is Thalia. The leader of the Hunters of Artemis. Remember them? The manhating archer who pinned me to a tree? Well, I found out something that might be very important to her, but it's a . . . sensitive issue. And it's nothing scandalous that could get her in trouble or anything, but it is a private, family related matter, so I'm not going to tell you what it is right now. Not when I haven't even told her yet, because that would feel wrong."
"Alright," said Carter. "And you need us to hang onto that scroll . . . and deliver it to her if something happens to you?"
"Not quite," said Nico. "If something happens to me, I want you to get Percy and read to him what's written on this. I wrote it in hieroglyphics, because it's . . . well, I don't want the wrong demigod getting ahold of it. So just, if something happens to me, make sure Percy knows what this scroll says. He can decide how to proceed from there."
"Alright," said Carter again, and accepted the scroll.
"But nothing better happen to you," said Sadie.
"I'm not planning on it," said Nico. "But then, no one ever plans on bad things happening to them. And this is really important, so I wanted to make sure that if something happened to me, this information would still get to Thalia."
"Then why not have us find her and give it directly to her?"
"There's an answer, but it's really complicated, plus you'd have a hard time finding Thalia to begin with," said Nico. "Whereas you have Percy's home phone number, so he's much easier for you to get ahold of."
Sadie still looked like she felt like being difficult. "And what if something happens to all three -"
"All three of us?" asked Nico. "Then the world's probably going to end, so I figure that news won't matter."
Jason had mixed feelings about using Nico as an undercover agent.
On the one hand, it wasn't like Nico had infiltrated that school specifically for him. But on the other, Jason knew that whatever was going on in that school was as dangerous to demigods as any monster and Nico didn't even have real backup. Not the kind that a soldier of the legion would have had . . . but having backup on hand hadn't done any good to the two demigods Jason had managed to place in the school.
It was a bad situation no matter how he looked at it, and it was made worse by the fact that there would be no more help coming from camp, thanks to Octavian interpreting his auguries as he saw fit. In a way, Nico was almost like a godsend. He couldn't place another camper in the school undercover . . . but did that make it right to let some random boy with no formal military training risk his life in their stead?
Nico had certainly seemed like he believed he was up for any task. Jason recognized shades of himself in the younger boy; the cockiness that was often brought on by having awesome, dangerous powers, the cool confidence that he could do what needed to be done, and the solemn determination to do the right thing. Jason found himself murmuring prayers to his father to safeguard his new friend.
He kept watch over the school as best that he could, not that it really amounted to much. All he could really do was keep track of who came and who went. It was boring work, for the most part, and he wished he had a partner there with him to keep him company, and take the surveillance in turns, but officially, Jason wasn't supposed to be there at all. It wasn't the first time he'd gone against Octavian's stupid auguries, and unless he died sometime in the near future, it wouldn't be the last either, he knew. He knew that as praetor, he should be frowning on any sort of exploitation of the system, but as praetor he also knew how to exploit the system best. Kind of like King Leonidas from 300. Actually, exactly like Leonidas from 300. And that comparison was made all the better by the fact that the dude was Greek, and Octavian had an irrational hatred of all things Greek.
Jason, on the other hand, held no such prejudices. Yes, he knew what they'd done to the Trojans a long, long, long, long, long time ago, but he didn't see why that should have anything to do with the current country Greece, or any demigods who believed they were Greek in the present day. He'd read a lot of history. Military history and general world history. He saw how screwed up things got when people and countries held grudges over things long past. It snowballed and just got worse, and worse. If there were Greek demigods still out there (and Jason had his own reasons for believing that there were) as long as they weren't hurting anything, Jason didn't see any reason to seek them out and try to kill them all, like Octavian seemed to want to. So Jason had taken great pleasure over the years in annoying the carnival fortuneteller wannabe by arguing against Octavian's fanatical views with cool, hard logic . . . and by taking a little too much pleasure whenever any sort of Greek action movie came out, dragging his friends into San Francisco to see it multiple times, and learning the lines and quoting them in front of Octavian. Octavian had gotten so sick of him and Bobby reenacting Tristan McLean's death scene from King of Sparta during war games, he'd actually lost it and tried to seriously strangle Jason once. That had been funny.
It had occurred to Jason that Nico might not be exactly who or what he claimed to be. Not that Jason was really suspicious of him, or thought he was lying when he said he was a son of Pluto. Because, for one thing, lying about being a child of Pluto seemed like a good way to earn yourself a spot in Tartarus. For another, Nico radiated a cold, morose aura that reminded Jason of a crypt or a graveyard. No, Nico was definitely a child of the Underworld. Jason didn't even suspect him of being Greek. That would have just been reaching. But he remembered the girl who Nico had been with the last time they ran into each other. Zia, Nico had called her. He'd thought her powers were extremely weird when they met. Sorcery wasn't unheard of to the Romans at all, but Zia's style and flare had seemed, well, off. Then, weeks later, the veterans who instructed them in book learning had begun teaching them about something new that they'd only added to their curriculum that year. The House of Life had been added to their list of potential enemies, and Jason had immediately remembered the girl who took to the air on the back of a giant vulture, and could summon pillars of flames and turn her staff into a snake. A few glances toward his friends who'd been on that excursion let him know they remembered too.
But none of them had ever said a word about it. They were all on the same page, and Jason was glad. Zia had done them no harm. In fact, she and her brother (or at least they'd thought Nico was her brother at the time) had helped them. Fought side by side with them. She'd done nothing to mark herself as an enemy, and so they would not act as though she might be one. Lawrence might have felt differently if he'd been able to remember that outing, but Nico had given him a concussion and he didn't seem to have any memory of that trip at all, which was just as well.
For awhile, Jason had assumed that Nico had probably been from the House of Life too. He'd only changed his mind about that when they met up again, after Nico caught him sneaking around outside the school. He hadn't paid much attention the first time they met, but now that he thought to, he could clearly sense Nico was a demigod. A strong demigod. So Jason wasn't quite sure why he'd been hanging around a girl from the House of Life. He guessed that it was possible that Nico could be part of the House of Life too. He didn't know of any rule that said gods couldn't have kids with magicians from the House of Life. It would make a weird kind of sense. But it was also possible that Nico and Zia might be part of some other organization altogether, or just be two loners who'd teamed up and stayed on the move together. Jason knew that there were demigods like that out there, and if there were demigods like that, why not Egyptian magicians like that too?
Honestly, he didn't really know what Nico di Angelo's story was, and he had no intentions of prying. He hoped that he'd be able to convince the younger boy to come back to camp with him, but if he couldn't, he wasn't going to force the kid. He got the feeling that would end badly for him.
It took him a long time to decide what to say in his report to Reyna. Not that it was going to be an official report or anything of the sort. It was more of an update to let her know how things were going on his unsanctioned mission which lacked the augury seal of approval.
Dear Reyna, (was how he started his letter)
My vacation's going well. Even though I've only been here a few days, it's already turned out to be eventful. You remember that kid we ran into awhile back? The dark haired boy who had the really fiery sister? Well I met him again when I got here and I learned something interesting about him. We're actually distantly related. And by distantly, I mean we're parallel cousins. On our mortal side, obviously (and there Reyna would know he was blatantly lying.) He's from the deep south, so he does things a bit differently, but all in all, he's a nice guy. (Hopefully Reyna would interpret that correctly, and realize 'deep south' was code for 'the Underworld,' and not Atlantis, or Mississippi or something) He lives in town so I'll be seeing a lot of him while I'm here. He actually just started a new school, and he's been telling me all about it, or at least all he's learned about it since he started going there. It was quite a coincidence running into him again, but I'm glad I did. He's a good kid. He's older than I first thought he was, so he's not as annoying as I was worried he'd be. (In other words, "Don't kill me, Reyna, he's 13, not 8!") Actually, he's really helpful. It's a shame we don't live closer together (Interpret this as: "I'm bringing him back if I can, and Fifth Cohort's got dibs on him!") but I'm going to enjoy spending time with him while I'm here. We'll be hanging out again tomorrow.
I'll write again when I can. (Namely, when he had something else to say) Until then, take care of camp for me. Don't let the other cohorts be too mean to the Fifth while I'm gone.
Sincerely,
Jason Grace
Son of Jupiter
Praetor of the Legion
Please mentally insert all the rest of my titles here because they take too long to write.
That last line would make Reyna scowl and shake her head at Jason's disregard for formalities, but Jason knew there would be a slight curl to her lips as she tried to stop herself from smiling at his antics. He wished that he could be there to see it, because Reyna was so cute when she was trying not to smile . . . but if he was there, he'd never have needed to write the letter to begin with.
He sealed the envelope, scrawled a barely legible return address onto it, and took more time writing the destination's address. He found a stamp for it, then set the completed letter aside, to be mailed in the morning, then got his binoculars and used them to peer out the apartment window, in the direction of the school.
He hadn't expected to see anything, and his expectations weren't let down . . . which was kind of a disappointment in and of itself, because this self-decided mission was extremely boring for the most part. He looked forward to tomorrow, when he was scheduled to meet with Nico again.
AN: Sorry for taking awhile to finish this chapter. School starting again made things hectic, then I had some problems writing Jason and keeping him in character. Or how I see his character when he has all his memories intact, anyway. And I thought it would be funny to make him a fan of Greek war movies, and to have him be a fan of Piper's father's movies. In the books it's been a few years since King of Sparta was released, so it was a younger, less mature Jason who had theatrical aspirations, and who goaded Octavian into trying to strangle him. He had even more fun when 300 came out.