"For whatever it's worth, he was talking out of his arse."

Pretending not to hear the person speaking in his ear, he just sat outside Chiron's office and pretended not to hear the shouting going on inside, eyes closed as he focused on the smell of Caleb's shampoo to focus himself.

"I mean, he wasn't wrong that you showed up and demanded to be treated like one of us," the ghost admitted hesitantly, "But it was less that you demanded and more that you expected it. You didn't throw any tantrums and cry about equal treatment, you just stood up for yourself. And you don't humiliate us by acting like a pansy, most of us don't even care that you are one, but we don't care if you act like a son of Aphrodite or anything."

"I don't act like a pansy!" Harvey spat, turning a glare on Griffin who just raised his hands defensively.

"That's lovely, who are you again?" a man asked from the doorway, pulling both of their attention to the god standing there as he scratched his arse and slurped down a Pepsi. "And who are you talking to?" Dionysus added curiously, squinting at him for a moment before spotting Griffin in the chair beside him, "Oh. Which one are you again?"

"Griffin, sir."

"Good to see you, Gary," Dionysus greeted, before pulling a face and chucking his half-full can over his shoulder. "I'm lying, I don't care about any of you. Shouldn't you be… gone?" he asked with a flap of his hands.

Griffin's silence was very telling, as was his 'subtle' glance in Harvey's direction before he turned his attention to picking at his nails.

The god in the doorway grunting, losing interest in them already, Dionysus just strolled off through the door to Chiron's office with a yawn, leaving them both alone in the waiting room again.

"Well… that was awkward," Griffin mumbled.

"Do you ever shut up? You never talked this much when you were alive," Harvey snapped, running a hand through his hair as he leapt to his feet and started pacing.

Griffin was quiet again, this time keeping his eyes locked on the floor. "Maybe because when I was alive everybody could see me," he said softly, almost too quietly for Harvey to hear, "Maybe because I was alive, and now I'm not."

Shit.

"Griffin, I'm-"

"Yeah, sorry, I get it," the demi-ghost interrupted, "You're not dealing with it well either, neither of us are. I deserve to be reacting worse than you though, don't forget that, I'm the one whose actually dead here," he reminded with an accusing point of his finger. "And it's not like I wanted to be stuck here haunting you."

Pausing mid-step, Harvey turned to frown at Griffin thoughtfully. "Why are you haunting me?"

"She told me to," came the immediate response, Griffin slapping his hand over his mouth and looking incredibly guilty. "I'm not allowed to tell you. She just told me I had to keep an eye on you after the last guy got exorcised."

The last guy got exorcised? Wait, Jay was gone?

Frown deepening as he tried to remember the last time he'd spoken to the original ghost haunting him, Harvey felt something flicker in his chest at the answer. "Wednesday. I haven't seen Jay since Wednesday, I didn't even notice he was gone, I thought he was just giving me space after I told him to fuck off."

"Jay?" Griffin questioned, leaning forward, "I know that name."

"Jay Morris. He's one of your half-brothers, from like, twenty years ago. He was the guy my mother ordered to babysit me, the one who brought me here," Harvey admitted guiltily. How could he have forgotten about Jay? Sure, he'd been busy trying to catch up and keep up, but that was no excuse. One moment he'd been there laughing about Harvey's inability to shoot a bow properly, and then the next he'd been gone for three days.

"Oh yeah!" his uncle exclaimed with a grin, "I remember now, Clarisse was going on about you having his sword! It's kind of a famous sword, really, Ares himself picks who inherits it after the previous wielder dies. That's why it keeps returning to you, because Dad connected it straight to your soul."

"I remember Clarisse saying…" trailing off slowly as he remembered her exact words, Harvey stared open mouthed at the wall opposite before glancing over at a confused-looking Griffin.

"Dude? What?"

Taking a slow deep breath, Harvey tried to stop himself from screaming and only barely managed it, instead letting out a low growl and shouting "Jay Matthew Morris, you get your deceased arse here right now!" The yelling in the room beyond stopped, but all Harvey did was raise his hand to stop Griffin from talking, instead turning to face the centre of the room and crossing his arms expectantly. "JAY!" he ordered, hoping the ghost – or his mother – was listening wherever he was "Show yourself! NOW!"

There was another pause, long and drawn out, before the door to Chiron's office swung open as the centaur himself peered out into the room. "Mr Blair, if you wouldn't mind-"

The room darkened suddenly, cutting Chiron off as if a million clouds had just moved in front of the sun and the shadows themselves came alive and multiplied. Rising up from the floor came hundreds of little black orbs of light, reluctantly swirling around each other and merging into one, forming a confused and beat-up looking Jay. The ghost flinched away from something and then blinked, looking around the room in confusion before his eyes landed on Harvey.

"I… Harvey?"

"Mr Blair," Chiron barked sharply, stamping a hoof loudly.

"Chiron," Harvey shot back, not moving his eyes from Jay who was staring straight back. "You look like shit," he told the ghost, "Dad."

"I've had hell hounds gnawing on my insides for the past three days," Jay deadpanned, "I feel like shi- shit," he exhaled, shoulders slumping as a defeated noise escaped his lips. "She told you, then?"

He stared at his father for a moment, taking in the combined fear and relief on the man's face – the face that was so much like Harvey's own. He'd noticed the resemblance before, but he hadn't thought to look past the ghost's explanation of 'I'm your uncle'. "Actually, you did," he corrected when he realised the man was waiting for the answer, "My middle name, it's 'Jay'. And Clarisse told me when I first met her, that Ilingos was your sword, that it went missing when you died, while you said I inherited my father's sword. Why didn't you just tell me."

"Because of your mother. Her orders were very specific. I couldn't tell you, I couldn't let other people tell you, you had to figure it out all on your own," his father admitted before jerking his chin at Chiron. "He knew. But he was the only person here who knew I'd had a kid in the first place, so the moment you showed up with my sword and me, he knew who you were."

"I respected his request to keep you in the dark," Chiron defended quickly, passing the buck back to Jay when Harvey glanced to him.

"Which is why you exorcised me."

The room darkened again, Harvey's fingers twitching for Jay's sword as he turned to face the blank-faced centaur.

"I am sworn to protect the demigods here with my life," Chiron said simply, straightening his shoulders and raising his chin. "I couldn't prove his claims, I couldn't ensure he couldn't be used against the Camp," he explained, his voice turning steeling calm as he stared Harvey down. "I care about each and every young man or woman to step foot in this Camp, I could not risk letting him stay."

"Risk?" Harvey demanded, straightening up as well.

"Ghosts can be controlled by anyone with even a modicum of talent in the art of necromancy," Dionysus' voice called from Chiron's office, followed by the hissing sound of a can being opened. "So he wasn't going to leave it up to someone as weak in the art as you. Grow up, Chiron has millennia's worth more experience than you. Children," the god added 'quietly' in disgust.

"Hecate," Lou Ellen declared suddenly, looking over Chiron's back at him with a smug look on her face. "Your mother is Hecate. Magic? Telekinesis? Necromancy? It's obvious. Stop shaking your head, we've figured it out so you're allowed to admit it."

"When you figure it out, I'll admit it," Jay scowled, glaring at Lou Ellen darkly as he moved over to stand by Harvey and Griffin.

"You're right, it must be that other Goddess of Magic and Necromancy, the one from Ohio," the sorceress drawled, rolling her eyes at them.

"The two are not mutually exclusive, Ms Blackstone," Chiron chided, "To be a necromancer, you must have magic. But to have magic you don't have to be a child of Hecate. And you said yourself, as magically powerful as Mr Blair is, he is no sorcerer," the centaur reminded with slowly growing furrows around his eyes, "And yet, here he is summoning the spirit of a freshly exorcised demigod through the Camp's protections against such an act."

"Not a sorcerer?" Clarisse cut in, pushing her way past Chiron and Lou Ellen, only to shiver as she entered the waiting room. "You told me he was," she accused the daughter of Hecate, "That's why you were willing to train him yourself."

"I said he had the potential," the sorceress defended.

Oh gods, why did he have to be here through all this? Harvey wanted nothing more than to go hide in his cabin. Except not his cabin, because that was the cabin he shared with Victor, who he'd murdered. Did this place have a psychologist? Because he felt like he needed one. As much as he disliked the dickhead that was his uncle, Victor had been his uncle.

"Harvey."

His father's ghost stood in front of him, Harvey watching as the man smiled gently, the same sad smile he'd looked upon Ilingos with when he first saw it.

"Don't you dare feel guilty," Jay ordered gently, hands coming up to rest on his shoulders. "He attacked you, he tried to kill you, he wanted you dead. And not only you, but he helped let those automatons into the camp, Griffin and many others are dead because of him. I was in the Underworld," he continued as Harvey opened his mouth, "I had a front row seat of all the lost confused demigods appearing in our midst, I saw at least twelve I recognised. He and his, they want you all dead."

"I threw that fireball at his back," Harvey interrupted.

"And you know that knife Leo gave you? The Ares Cabin tradition one?" Jay clarified, unimpressed eyebrow raised. "He left that in Clarisse's back before he set out to find you. If you managed to escape, everyone would know you'd had the knife before it ended up in Clarisse's back, and you'd be exiled. He didn't play fair either."

Glancing over at Clarisse, who looked completely healthy and unstabbed, his eyes jumped back to Jay as the ghost shifted. "Call Caleb," the man ordered, "Put yourself on mute and just listen to him talk, text him as you do it. Just… listen to him, he can help you through this better than anyone here."

He frowned at the ghost, trying to wrap his head around his father's messed up logic. "I spent all week harassing him for outing me."

"And he tried to kill you for even existing," Jay argued, "Your point?"

"You were harassing him?" Clarisse questioned suddenly, reminding Harvey that their conversation wasn't exactly private. "The pranks, the coffee, the tripping. That was you," she realised, pointing at him as if that would make things clearer. "We thought it was the Stoll brothers, he'd kissed one of their sisters without permission, and they're petty enough to prank him like that."

"I was just going to stab him a couple of times, but Leo said I have a 'Clarisse face' so I figured why not go for something more subtle."

The sound of wood splintering snapped their attention to Chiron, the centaur guiltily pulling a hoof out from the broken floorboard. "Can we please get back to the issues at hand?" he demanded – gently as ever. "If speaking with your partner does not help, Mr Blair, my office is always open if you wish to talk," Chiron informed him with a kind nod, before turning back to the group as a whole. "But there are more pressing concerns we must attend to than Mr Blair's parentage. Chiefly among them, is that this is the second time in as many weeks that that barrier has been breached by monsters with help from the inside, naturally we must take care to prevent this from becoming a witch hunt for more of Castellan's conspirators."

Wait, was he being included in this conversation now?

"My lot could use our gifts to determine the truth," Fletcher offered as he too joined them in the waiting room. "Or we would, if Clarisse was the only Cabin Head to suffer an assassination attempt. I can't trust any of the results, they could be covering for each other for all we'd know."

No seriously, why were they having this discussion in front of him? They'd been having it behind closed doors five minutes ago, why was he suddenly trusted enough to be included?

"Well having them here isn't helping camp security," Lou Ellen reminded, gesturing at Jay and Griffin who blinked in confusion. "Look at Harvey, if he's a strong enough necromancer to summon them, then anyone could."

"The authority of a goddess outweighs that of any necromancer," Jay dismissed, sticking his tongue out at her when she scowled.

"Uh…" one of the Cabin Heads – Gardener or something – began hesitantly, "Am I the only one who can see him? Aren't ghosts supposed to be invisible."

Jay's expression was best described as a mixture of 'deer in the headlights' and 'Who? Me?' as he looked around at the demigods all staring at him in surprise. "If everybody wants a look, I should start charging admission."

"Ms Blackstone, I thought you were on a strict schedule in regard to Mr Blair's magical education?" Chiron queried.

"I was."

And now everybody was staring at Harvey instead, leaving him wondering if his face looked the same as Jay's. "I just yelled at him until he showed up," he confessed, "I didn't cast a spell."

"He's telling the truth," Fletcher offered hesitantly, "Both times. And we all heard him yell."

"So, definitely not the son of the Goddess of Magic and Necromancy, then," Lou Ellen muttered under her breath, pretending not to notice the annoyed looks being sent her way.

"Oh, for Zeus' sake!" Dionysus exclaimed, pushing past everyone and slapping his palm down over Harvey's head, too fast for him to pull away before the Big House shattered. Everyone bar Dionysus vanished as the building crumbled every which way, some parts turning to ruin and some parts floating up into the dark sky. Around them the Camp burned, trees withered and dead with flaming fissures burning their way through the ground as screaming, oddly muted, filled the air.

"The Underworld," Dionysus' voice whispered, before everything was whole again, Harvey hitting the ground as his legs gave way. "He is chthonic," the god announced to the room, wiping his palm on his pants with a grimace, "Hence the necromancy. Now, can we return to keeping my father from smiting me? I'm not going to lose the Camp when it is under my protection, or he'll never let up," he muttered with a dark look up at the ceiling, completely ignoring the mess he'd left Harvey in. "It was one nymph," he added, shaking his head as he returned to Chiron's office, "Just the one."

"Chthonic?" Harvey rasped out, catching his breath as Jay rubbed his back soothingly. "Like… Cthulhu?"

Chiron's sigh was resigned, like he'd heard that question a million times. "Chthonic refers to the Underworld. It's a term reserved for deities and spirits that dwell within Hades' realm. Thanatos, Hecate, and even Hades himself."

"Hecate huh?" Lou Ellen asked innocently.

"By the Styx! If you try steal my nephew again, I swear you'll be meeting Hecate in person!" Clarisse snarled, Lou Ellen's back hitting the wall as Harvey's aunt slammed her into it, fist raised threateningly.

"Clarisse," his aunt froze as Harvey accepted Jay's hand up, swaying slightly as a headache made itself known, "How many female 'chthonic' necromancy deities are there?"

Clarisse shoved herself away from Lou Ellen with a growl, "Until I see that blasted 'Wheel of Hecate' floating above his head, I don't want to hear one word from you, you got it?" she demanded of the sorceress, jabbing her finger into Lou Ellen's chest warningly. "I said 'Got it?'."

"Until I see that blasted 'Wheel of Hecate' floating above your head," Lou Ellen mocked, "Harvey, you're welcome to use Hecate Cabin as a place to study, we have more suitable books than the library. Even got one or two spell books you might be interested in. You may not be a sorcerer, but you can help yourself."

Reaching out telekinetically, Harvey separated his aunt and maybe-sister gently, not stopping until the fuming Clarisse was on the other side of the room. He'd thank Lou Ellen later, when Clarisse wasn't a hair's breadth from starting a fight. Considering Clarisse had lead the charge to destroy two of the five giant automatons that had invaded that morning, he didn't want to see whether Lou Ellen's magic or Clarisse's electric spear was faster. He was actually fond of both of them, and Griffin was one loss too many.

Speaking of Griffin, the ghost was edging over towards him with a thoughtful look, reaching out to poke him in the side despite seeing he had Harvey's full attention. "Order me to reveal myself," Griffin said slowly, still poking.

"I don't want you to reveal yourself, there are children present," Harvey denied, earning a confused look from Clarisse beside him.

"No, I mean, like you did your Pa. 'Show yourself', you said, and now everyone can see him," Griffin explained carefully, "I want to be seen too."

"I – uh, show yourself?" he tried dumbly. Now Griffin, Lou Ellen, and Clarisse were looking at him like he was crazy, the others having returned to the office to discuss the real reason they were there. "I don't know what I did, I just yelled at him and he appeared," Harvey defended.

"You need to focus," Jay suggested softly, "Necromancy is a brand of magic, and magic is about focus and willpower. Focus, and will him to be visible, call him like you did me."

"What? No! Necromancy is illegal!" Lou Ellen exclaimed, stomping her foot and stalking forward. "There are rules, laws of magic and laws of Olympus. And both state that practicing necromancy is against the rules! I'll teach you any spell you want to know, Harvey, but if you want to break the laws of our world then you're on your own."

Clarisse stepped in, nudging Harvey back as she got in Lou Ellen's face with a sneer. "Isn't your mother the goddess of necromancy? What? You don't want anyone else stealing your thunder?"

As the two fell back into bickering, Griffin poked him in the side again, looking so hopeful that Harvey was raising his hand before he knew it. Clapping his uncle on the shoulder, concentrating on the weird tangibility without pressure he could feel when touching the ghost, Harvey closed his eyes and found himself hitting his first roadblock.

What the fuck kind of science was necromancy?

Focusing on the spot in his chest where he imagined his magic being, Harvey willed it through his hand into Griffin and skipped the most important part of using magic. Keeping the sight of Griffin's hope locked in mind and trying to push things into happening, he ignored the burn forming in his throat and tried again. He normally did things without realising he could, so why wouldn't this be the same? From summoning Ilingos, to creating that fist of earth against Jess, he wouldn't know if he couldn't until he gave it a go.

"Show yourself," he ordered, as firmly as he could manage.

Opening his eyes, he watched as black lights seemed to explode from his palm to encircle Griffin, being sucked into his form before he brightened sharply like someone had been holding a dark film over his body and removed it. Then the room itself lightened, like the shadows from before had been there without him knowing, Griffin inspecting his hands and arms with a confused look. And again, Harvey felt nothing, no pull on his chest or his already low energy levels to signify that he'd used magic.

"Grif?"

Being bumped to the side as Clarisse latched onto Griffin and pulled him into a hug, both of them making an odd face as they touched, Harvey looked to Jay as the man smirked and winked at him.

"Your eyes are black," the ghost whispered, "So much for being 'weak in the art', eh?"

"I'M A GENIUS!" Dionysus' voice cried from Chiron's office, the god bursting into the room with an insane grin. "Gather everyone in the amphitheatre!" he ordered, "I know how to secure the barrier!"

"Well, you heard Mr D," Chiron said with a sigh, voice loud enough to be heard by those still in the waiting room, "Spread the word. Not you," he corrected as he stepped into the doorway and looked at Harvey pointedly. "I want you sitting and waiting for me when I return. There's a computer in my office, you can use the 'H-Talk' program to contact your partner, it's encrypted so you can speak freely. We need to have a discussion that cannot be put off any longer."

Blinking at the centaur in confusion, horrifying thoughts running through his head as he struggled to think of what he'd done (aside from murdering his uncle) to earn a one-on-one conversation, Harvey jolted as Jay's hand landed on his back and pushed him forward a little.

"You're really going to waste time when you could be talking to Caleb?" his father whispered.

Not even almost breaking his ankle in the hole Chiron had stamped through the floor was enough to stop Harvey from running into the office, the centaur chuckling behind him before ordering everyone else out.

"Griffin. Out," Harvey snapped when his second ghost-uncle followed him into the room.

"But your mother said I had to follow you everywhere," Griffin argued, even as he backed out of the room obediently.

"Come on, little bro," Jay instructed, throwing his arm over Griffin's shoulders and leading him away. "Let me tell you the rules to haunting my son."

Shivering slightly as the 'S' word fell from Jay's lips, Harvey dragged a seat behind the desk and tapped on the computer's keyboard to wake it up, searching the desktop until he found the aptly named 'Hermes Talk and Play' icon. Entering Caleb's number from memory, he barely paused to look at the time before clicking the dial option, figuring lunch wasn't as important to Caleb as he was.

"Uh, hello?"

Biting back his automatic response, he braced himself before grinning wildly as the words 'Video Chat Available' flashed in the corner, clicking it and waiting eagerly for Caleb's confused face to appear on-screen.

"Hey Babe."

"If I'd known you were so connected to your Caleb, I'd have arranged for you two to talk earlier," Chiron's voice said gently as Harvey was shaken awake, blinking dumbly at the centaur before his eyes drifted to the screen in confusion.

"I… uh?"

"You fell asleep listening to him talk," Chiron explained, reaching out to smooth out Harvey's hair with a faint smile. "Apparently you haven't been sleeping as well as you'd led others to believe," he chided, "He also implied the same applied to him."

Obediently standing and returning the chair to its original position when Chiron nudged at him, Harvey sank into the seat with a yawn and glanced over to where Clarisse was waiting in the doorway with an expression of fused pride and embarrassment. "It's been hard, but I thought I had it under control," he confessed, the centaur humming in understanding.

"Well, I've suggested a method of keeping in touch to him I'm sure you'll quite like," Chiron admitted, tapping at his computer for a bit before pushing it to the side and bringing out a file and quill. "And I'll make sure to pencil you in for a regular appointment. Now, I do believe Clarisse wanted to talk to you quickly, so please pretend I am not here."

As Chiron buried himself in reading the file, Clarisse stood over Harvey awkwardly with her arms crossed, rocking back and forth on her heels. Not looking like she had any more idea of what to say than Harvey, who was too busy slouching in his chair feeling like he was basking in the aftermath of a deep-tissue massage. After opening and closing her mouth a couple of times, Clarisse shot Chiron's files a desperate look, the red folder dropping just enough Chiron's eyes were visible over top of it.

"I have been selected…" the centaur prompted, trialling off with an expectant look back Clarisse's way.

"I have been selected to lead the expedition to find the golden fleece," Clarisse blurted hesitantly, "It might be the only thing that can save the Camp and the barrier. I'm leaving in the morning with half of Ares Cabin and we're…" drifting off herself, Clarisse shot a look at Chiron before letting out an annoyed groan, pulling over a chair to slouch down in herself. "Listen by morning I'll be gone, and I'm not taking you with me, alright?" she said bluntly, brushing her ponytail back over her shoulder and squaring her shoulders. "And I know you wanna come, but I need people I can trust here protecting the Camp, and you need more training. It's supposed to be in the Sea of Monsters, which is really dangerous, and you're needed here more."

"Okay," he agreed.

"Okay," Clarisse repeated, blinking at him in confusion before asking "Okay?"

"Sure? I'll stay and guard the Camp," Harvey confirmed, nodding as Clarisse stared. "What?"

Clarisse shook her head quickly as she stood up, kicking her chair away lazily. "Nothing. I'll go pack, I just wanted to make sure who knew they were staying. You and Leo are in charge of the Cabin while I'm gone. We'll have one final Cabin meeting before I go, so be ready to get up early again tomorrow."

Watching as Clarisse turned and almost ran from the room, Harvey and Chiron exchanged a raised eyebrow as she paused in the doorway. "And don't beat yourself up about Victor," she said over her shoulder, keeping her back and head turned away as she shrugged. "It wasn't your fault."

"She's truly an amazing fighter," Chiron said slowly, "But ask her to have an emotional one-on-one with her own flesh and blood and she turns into that."

Shrugging it off, because really, he was the same regarding anyone who wasn't Caleb, Harvey turned back to Chiron as the man put the file down. "The golden fleece?"

The centaur sighed, inclining his head. "The golden fleece. A long shot to cure the barrier, but a long shot I desperately hope will work," he acknowledged, running his hand over his beard. "But, that is not why I called you here, nor is your little show out in my waiting room – but make no mistake, we will be talking about that."

"Is necromancy really that bad?" Harvey asked nervously.

"There is no form of magic that is inherently evil," Chiron denied, "But if there were, necromancy would come very close. Like all forms of magic, the intent is what truly matters. What you did before, summoning a spirit to demand answers of your parentage, was neither an example of good or evil. But what you did for Griffin, giving him tangibility, was done out of compassion and a desire to help him."

"So… good magic?" Harvey finished.

"So… good magic," Chiron confirmed, nodding. "Just the same, granting a spirit tangibility for the purpose of haunting someone would be done out of negative emotions, aligning it as 'dark'. It is never that simple of course, these examples are very basic in nature, but that is how things work. Necromancy as a whole is often used for evil causes, so it is naturally seen as evil, and many spells from within that sphere of magic do disturb the natural balance or harm people. But, if you were to use your apparently innate gift to summon up someone's mortal parent to give them peace of mind, then I would certainly shy away from labelling you as 'evil'."

As much as that explanation helped him, it didn't really help him. He'd bring it up with Caleb, see what his partner thought about it, but as it stood he'd played enough video games to feel a little hesitant over being 'innately gifted' at necromancy.

"But, that is not why I called you here," Chiron called his attention back, straightening out the file in front of him and picking up his quill. "Tell me, how has your first week here been?"