DISCLAIMER: Guess who's the one (in our opinion) tanking the HoO series?

Rick Riordan. Really, after PJatO, we feel truly and utterly bewildered….

REVIEW RESPONSES:

Goddess-of-Battle – Nyx: Having been to New York City a few times myself, I can tell you that no, I never saw the stereotyped crazy person walking around with a cart and muttering under their breath. But I did hear some pretty awkward out-of-context snippets. Nor do I like cities very much; like Nico, I find the order unnatural and eerie, and the buildings too tall, the people walking around purposefully but with blank looks that seem the opposite. As far as the weather… Well… *creepy smile* Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

Lara of Hecate – Nyx: Hey, we killed Ethan, we're hysterical fans of Gone, Hunger Games, and Stephen King, and do enjoy action movies/books quite a lot. We are not afraid to do it nor squeamish about the means.

Emoxkitten – Nyx: Hope you feel better.

Koryandrs – Nyx: Thanks.

oOo

"They're not dead."

Hunter sighed heavily, quit pacing, and held her hand out sharply. "I know, Bree. I know. You've said it twenty-three times already."

I scowled at her defiant fingers. "And you still don't believe it. They're not dead."

"The hell I believe you! Shut up and let me think!"

"You think I'd make that mistake, after the fight with Orpheus?"

"Guys," Brook said softly. "Screaming isn't going to help."

A groan escaped Hunter as she plopped down onto my bed. "right. Right. Let's calm down."

Calm. We were calm. Too calm. At least, that's how it felt inside. Calm as the sea, settled as the thick soup that'd finally come to rest with the wreckage of the ship. Sincerely, horridly calm. It was heavy and dark and had a startlingly sobering effect to my world. Things were utterly real to me now; every problem, every feeling, every fear. I felt that for the first time in a while, I could reach out to Brook, to my bed, to the wall and the nightstand and the glass and the writhing snowstorm outside and find them actually, truly there.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back so that it thunked on the headboard – it was hard, there, real, even made a banging sound against the wall – and took a deep breath.

Calm. Calm. I'm calm. Next matter of business:

What happened?

I glanced nervously at the empty air to my right for help. What had happened? Someone had known Shay wasn't with us. Someone had seen her sitting between two clueless souls and oblivious parents, known that those people weren't of help, and taken advantage.

My thoughts stopped there.

"They're not just taking the powerful," Brook whispered. "Not just Percy or Jason. They're picking us all off one by one."

"That doesn't make sense," Hunter muttered, gazing out the window. "Plucking Percy and Jason straight from their camps is not picking one by one. That took stealth, skill, and a whole lot of risk."

"It's called prioritizing," Brook argued. "Get the leaders out of the way, then…" She made to slice her head off with a hand.

"That doesn't make sense, either. If you want us all, then you start by taking the isolated and scattered rejects first, then slowly get bolder, and by the time we all know we must stick together it's too late. Raising suspicion wasn't in the enemy interest."

"Pack hunt," Moon snarled, "from discard-edge only when pack hunt little and few." Brook nodded in approval.

I sighed. "Guys, I think Hunter's right. Shay and the twins must've been wanted specifically, but just for a different reason than Percy or Jason."

Brook considered. "A different, unique reason? Yeah, that'd work…"

Hunter seethed and spat on the floor. "But why?"

Nobody, not even the space to my right, had an answer for that.

"We know The Patron wanted Shay for something," Brook mumbled. "Whatever it was for, the whole thing was pre-meditated."

That was our only hint. We grasped at it desperately like a pendulum clings to its cord as it swings back and forth, back and forth, over an abyss. But we knew it wasn't enough. That very cord would be our undoing – Gaea was as sly and manipulative and cunning as Kronos had been, and after the stunt with the stars, we all knew better than to think we'd understand or foresee her plans. All we ever knew was that those plans were amazingly intricate.

Silence hung for seconds. Minutes.

Hours.

"We should tell Annabeth," Hunter sighed. "And Nico, as soon as the sun goes down."

"I'd hold on the last one," Brook warned. "If he misses the sunset, he'll be stuck on Othrys and can't leave for another day. If he's there and you call, we'll blow it. Wait until he calls for Bree first."

The thought sent another too-real spike of dread up my throat. Mount Othrys possessed and my brother trapped.

Hunter sighed and stood, striding into the bathroom. The hot water from the tub made a roaring noise through the open doors. Several times, we heard her struggling with the blinds, before cursing them and grabbing a flashlight from beneath the cabinet.

Brook sighed. "I wonder what the humans will think of that mess."

"Phoenix," came my immediate answer. "Ever seen one of those?"

"You're not talking about the giant flaming bird that is reborn of ashes, are you?"

"Yes, I am. It was a Hellenistic creature. The Christians stole it from the Greeks and adopted it as one of their major, like, symbol things." I paused. "That'd be pretty great right now. Shay and them rising from that mess of ashes."

"But the phoenix is a fire-bird. Shay's water."

We fell silent again.

Hunter came back a moment later. "Annabeth was busy retrieving demigods from the Grand Canyon. So I told Chiron."

"What'd the horse-man say?" I asked curiously. Chiron, we'd only met once, and it had been when Kronos smashed him through a wall.

She shrugged. "He was concerned. Nice, for an old guy who has reason to hate us."

"Did he have any idea what to make of it, though?" Brook inquired.

"No."

"Nico might know something," I said, more of just trying to enforce the idea that he'd be free and able to explain it soon.

Hunter gave me a look, the gold in her eyes so sure and still so crushingly real. "I'm sure he does."

The way she said it made me squirm.

Brook glanced at the window. "It's after four, guys. And it's the dead of winter. The sun'll be setting real soon. If you want optimal dream-time, Bree, you ought to go to bed now."

I muttered about how I owed insomnia nothing, especially not the hours I spent entertaining it, but nodded. "Fine. Y'all leave, then. I'll try and fall asleep."

Though I was much too calm for that.

Brook nodded and left the room, ushering the oddly-silent Moon behind her. Hunter watched them go with heavy golden eyes.

I glanced between her and the open door. "…If you wanted to explain your prophecy theory at some point… I'm ready to hear it now."

She jumped, as if she'd been somewhere else, and blinked at me. "What… Oh. You should…" She trailed off and glanced at the wall. "You should talk to Nico first. Get him to explain what you can. I'll fill you in once we have whatever knowledge he's willing to share."

"You make it sound like he knows everything."

"Perhaps he does."

The calm began to melt slowly, cowed in the rising heat of anger. "Hunter, he's not-"

"Not one of us, right. So be careful how much trust you put in him. Of the last two people we decided to trust like that, one was a murderer, and the other… The other was Ethan." She stood abruptly and, with that, slammed the door as she left.

oOo

So five minutes later, Brook came in to correct herself.

"In a little bit, it'll be sunset here – it'll be three more hours before it sets on Mount Tam. Sorry."

I scowled. It wasn't like her to be wrong – something was bothering her, and when I asked, she'd merely said it was nothing.

Liar.

Determined to hold onto my air of placidity, I grabbed a mug of hot chocolate and retreated to my room. Off went the lights, out went Sylvester, and on came nature's soundtrack. Outside, the wind howled and whistled. Now and then my window would bang angrily against its frame. First the dying sun and then the streetlights highlighted the snow that swirled past in wriggling mobs. Dang, it sure was coming down heavy tonight.

Like we didn't have enough.

The hot chocolate stayed warm in my hands. Granny hadn't seen me take it up here; for once, luck seemed in my favor, and not once did she come to confiscate it. Its rich and sweet flavor was rather enjoyable. Perhaps the temperature and the thickness of the warm milk made it that way; usually, I couldn't stand chocolate sweets. Fruit candies, sure. Chocolate? No.

The marshmallows might've had something to do with it, too.

Night settled down on the city quickly. Doors stayed shut and people stayed in as the snow came bearing down on us to clog the streets and jam our doors once more. Lights were on in many places. The stars were snuffed out by our smog and photon ambience. And quiet, wonderful quiet, brushed houses and floated down streets and flew gently overhead like the feathers of angels themselves.

It wasn't so bad, Oswego winter nights.

Normally, I'd have been observing this spectacle with my sisters and grandparents. We'd all huddle in the living room, cramped on the floor, with a board came or a movie. And every single one of us would have a cup of hot chocolate like this one here. In fact, that was probably what they were doing as I sat alone in my room.

But I took pleasure in being alone, and for the most part, they would respect that. They knew that I needed space now and then.

Especially now. When Brook was lying and Hunter seething. And my brother being an idiot. My unnaturally strong fear for him was coming on again as the darkness settled over the house.

But of course. When Brook lies, the impossible happens. So all this, all those weird things, made sense to me.

Eventually, my eyelids began to droop.

I finished off the hot chocolate and set it aside. The mug was still warm in my palms. Reluctantly, I let it go, and curled up beneath the covers.

I fell asleep to my worry – Brook, Nico, poor Shay – and the sounds of the storm outside.

oOo

I fell again.

It was so short. I had hardly a moment to feel weightless before something took over. Fire erupted from somewhere – blazing, righteous fire – and ripped my bleak surroundings to shreds. Gravity found balance once more as my feet were placed on solid rock.

Familiar solid rock…

"Sis!"

I looked up. Before me, down a narrow path guarded on one side by cliff face and the other by bushes, was Nico.

His appearance was alarming. The shadows beneath his eyes were too solid to be that now; they were like black rocks tied to his face. And if his jacket was to be trusted, then what meager moments of sleep he had managed were spent in a ditch. Black mobs of hair were not merely unkempt now but knotted in mats and sticking up wildly. Shadows from the mob of shrubbery cast tattered, sinister streaks across him. The ADHD part of me wanted to paint on a Jeff the Killer smile to complete the look. The rest of me was ready to strangle ADHD.

I watched as he lifted a tentative hand, eyes locked on mine, and then let it drop. Those eyes closed and he let out a long breath. "Are you guys okay?"

The answer made me flinch. It reminded me just how right my pessimistic views were, and that he was out here alone, just like Shay had been…

A dark veil covered his opening eyes. He didn't speak.

Eventually I just shrugged, because that seemed to convey the whole clueless what the hell part of it.

He shook his head and said, "Well. I wasn't sure I was reaching you until now, but I've been asking for an IM. Give me one when you wake up, 'kay? You'll have to explain it then. The connection between a conscious and sleeping person isn't strong enough for me to hear anything you try to say."

Then, as if he could read the question on my face, he added, "No, this isn't the same way you reached me last year during the Titan War. Or how I contacted you in early August. You'd find my mind while I was sleeping. Or, once, you caused me to black out. Wasn't all that nice."

Well. Like I'd known any better. If he was hoping I'd apologize, then he was in for a shock, (though Nico knew me better by then). At the very, very most, I managed to restrain my finger and just show him my tongue instead.

He rolled his eyes. "Anyway. Take a look behind you."

The way he said it sent ice up my spine. I turned slowly, eyes on the floor, until I was ready to look up.

My first thought was of ice cream.

Crumbled pieces of marble cascaded down the mountain peak like sprinkles on a scoop of grey, dirt-flavored sundae. The proud pillars had been twisted, tortured, and tormented before being cast to the floor to expire and rot. The spilled insides – as gruesome as it'd have been if they were human – of the stone was dull and grainy. The lustrous shine to its slick and veined black surface had been diminished like the eyes of a corpse. Among the pillars and shattered walls were other odd things – I saw some armor, a broken weapon or two. To the right, the swirling black clouds seemed to touch the peak. Must've been Atlas's courtyard. Red light from the low sun made half of it red like blood and the rest dark in shadow, like the strips that the trees had cast on Nico.

The courtyard my sisters and I had arrived in.

As if that wasn't enough, my eye also happened to spot several broken tables on a cliff closer to the left. Lots of broken tables, all pressed up against each other, as if someone had tried to create one large banquet area when they'd been interrupted by an avalanche.

Tears came to my eyes. At the sight of the cafeteria, the memories truly broke loose; the demons and their meals (always my first thought upon the place's mention), Ethan's curt conversations, days spent plotting, the dark-haired boy, Celeste and Brianna, plates of stroganoff, gossips on quest results, Herald's honeyed tongue, heaps of pancakes, Kronos's inspiring speeches, that one time Hunter glued him to his chair-

"It didn't look like this when you stayed, did it?"

I shook my head. Nearby, marking the caved-in entrance to the destroyed labyrinth, a single black wall burst from the decay and raised its defiant self into the sky at about the height of a semi truck. The Black Wall.

Determined to be sarcastic, I pointed to it and gave him a look. His turn to apologize.

"Hey, I only brought down that section there. The rest looks different, right?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Well. Obviously, the only one here is Atlas. Not sure if you can hear him, but he's cussing us both right now. He knows you're here. Aside from that, this place is deserted. Which leaves me with two options."

I turned back to him fully, back to the shady trees and the red mess of light that lit up every stray hair on his head and the black marks beneath his eyes. He held up a hand for clarification.

"One, I search San Francisco. It's just down the mountain. I know there's still a lead here. Marble doesn't get up and fly across a country, and it's not a coincidence that one piece landed by Olympus. Even if no one's here now, someone was, and they had a reason for it and for being in New York. I need to find out what that reason is. So I'll just trek down this path, find myself a graveyard in the city, ask around, do some typical investigation work. Someone's bound to know something."

He sent a weary glance at the trees, and the red light that painted the edges of the leaves. "It's getting late. I have to cross the garden soon. Think we can maintain a connection while we walk?"

I shrugged and started down the path.

He followed and overtook me, weaving around large stones or potentially dangerous dips and slopes. I took one look at the drop off beyond the bushes and decided it was best to step in the exact places he did.

As we walked, he went on. "My second option is to shadow travel to Oswego and help y'all out with whatever problem's surfaced there. I've been meaning to travel east for a few days, anyway. And if I'm needed… I mean, not like Annabeth doesn't need me here, but…"

I cast a nervous glance at the thinning bushes. The cliff edge was very visible now. I clung to the rock face and followed Nico closely as he spoke.

"Like… I… I can prioritize," he managed. "S'not like I haven't done that before."

The bitter tone felt like a thorn in my palm. I glanced at him, worried all over again, knowing something was wrong. It was in his eyes and his footsteps and that mess of hair. No, Nico wasn't exactly Hunter, but he refused to cut it and understood that that meant he had to keep it from getting too tangled…

He stopped and glanced at me. "How badly to you guys need help?"

He didn't ask if he'd be of any use. Just if we needed someone.

I shook my head. There was nothing he could do for Shay, no more than Hunter or lying Brook or me or even Teddy and Ozzy. And by the looks of things, he needed our help just as much.

As if my mood wasn't crappy enough.

"Don't lie to me," he spat. "If you can't handle it on your own, tell me, because I'm not going to stand by while something goes wrong ag-"

He cut himself off sharply and glanced to the side.

But the word was there. Again.

He never meant to cause me guilt, I knew. But it was hard not to feel it. I knew who I resembled; I knew what I did to him; and I didn't know the half of the memories I brought back. I had no right to feel guilty and he had no right to play that card, even subconsciously, but we did it nonetheless.

He insisted, actually, that it wasn't me. What I did manage to resurface he didn't mind. It's not like he was going to forget Bianca, anyway. Even if he'd quit barking up that lofty, desolate tree years ago.

But yet again, it seemed to me that this was what happened despite what he said.

Perhaps I'm just selfish and conceited. I guess that thought could have occurred for anyone. But I knew him too well to miss the pain in his voice, and I was still one-fourth human, and it was impossible not to regret that.

I offered my best apologetic smile. He saw it and scowled. "I'm serious. Don't lie."

At least the pain had vanished. I pointed sharply down the path.

"Are you sure?" he asked, slowly beginning to walk again. There was a corner approaching quickly nonetheless. The way it hid the edge made me nervous.

I nodded, though, and followed as we turned it.

A gasp nearly escaped me at the sight. Screw hiding the edge – at that curve, the edge was thrown out, so that we faced a grassy plain the size of a football field. The drop was once more adorned with trees. These were beautiful – pink cherry blossoms gleamed in the scarlet light, a few crimson and green apples were beaming, and at their feet flowers were staring in awe at the appearing stars. A black marble path ran through the lush and gleaming silver grass. A white mist – like vaporized blood in the sunset – hung thickly in the air. In fact, I was positive that the garden was much bigger, but we couldn't see any of it for that bleeding mist.

Then, from the garden's depths, came hissing.

It had a sick musical quality to it. My first thought was of Orpheus; he had made wonderful songs come cracking and screaming and tearing through the air, twisted them until the very sounds themselves had sunk into irrevocable lunacy, and still managed to hit the right notes.

But this wasn't insane. It was just angry. And angry I could handle.

Simultaneously, four girls rose from hiding places among the thriving bushes, each wearing what one could easily find any respectable woman from Ancient Greece in. They had smooth skin like caramel and heavy hair black like ink that fell across their shoulders in shining streams. Nails had been painted and glossed the color of raven's feathers to match their eyes. The whole eye – from lid to lid and corner to corner was the color of obsidian in a cave at midnight.

They just stared and hissed their song. They didn't move.

"What," Nico called, "you're not gonna stop me this time?"

One of the girls – who looked about sixteen, as the immortal Hesperides do – raised a hand and pointed at him. "We have no wish to stop thee. How has the thought struck thy mind?" Behind her, the mist had begun to retreat.

He spat on the ground. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it was the cross our garden and thee will die threat you gave me twenty-four hours ago."

The Hesperid glanced at the sunset. "What does he speak of, sisters? I know not."

Her sisters shrugged hopelessly.

A bitter taste leaked onto my tongue.

She smiled at Nico again. "Son of Hades, please do cross. There is not much time left before this gateway closes. If thy wishes to descend the mountain, it must be now."

Nico narrowed his eyes and drew his sword. Slowly, holding it out before him, he took a step onto the marble path. "…I think I will. Try anything funny, and I'll kill every plant in this place."

"We know thy would," a second sister muttered. The mist was backing further and further away from each word. I could see now where the marble path split – it made to wrap around something…

Nico advanced into the garden slowly, weapon raised, eyes glowing cobalt. He stalked on with the grace of a cat even in his haggard state. Tension snapped in the air between him and the sisters.

The mist retreated from him, revealing wood between the two paths…

What laid there in the center of the garden was enough to make even Nico freeze in his tracks and gawk.

The tree had to have been several stories tall. On its branches gleamed delectable-looking apples that shined a brilliant and pure gold. The apples of immortality, supposedly, that Zeus had given to Hera as a wedding gift and then for gods-know what reason plopped it here before Atlas's prison and amid that Titan's children. Yet something emanated from them that reminded more of the Tree of Good and Evil than the tree of immortality…

Well. Almost. I don't think either tree should have been cut down.

Its branches were a limp mess of broken wood and splattered golden fruit, a bloody massacre amid the garden of beauty. A body strewn and dismembered.

I was staring at the tree. Nico was, too, and probably concentrating too hard to keep the dream-connection going. So neither of us really registered anything until it was too late.

And I mean that; the dragon heads lunging at us both was the last thing I saw.

oOo

Nyx: So I got real internet now. Not the slow, limited, overpriced Satellite stuff I'd been using before. It's faster and unlimited and costs less than half as much. So it's a very real possibility that soon, I'll have a DA account. Perhaps a YT in the future.

Nic: Gonna show them your projects?

Nyx: Yes. Yes I am. Speaking of such, the cover… Has half a layout. I'm working on it, guys. But it should be fast to do once it's made. It's designed like that.

Nic: Should we keep blabbing, or do you think we've dragged out this cliff hanger long enough?

Nyx: Hm… Lemme think…

Nic: *eye roll*