Disclaimer: I am not Cassandra Clare or Rick Riordan

I almost sleep through the alarm. The stress and exhaustion of the previous day are so overwhelming that even my growing dread of what this one will bring couldn't keep me awake and if it wasn't for Katia waking me up on time, I probably would have been late for the meeting with Jessica.

As it is, it's already eight thirty when we each finish running our fingers through our hair in a futile effort to make ourselves more presentable - how exactly do demigods go on quests without thinking to bring a single change of clothing? Katia calls a cab while Matt checks us out of the hotel and I make sure we have all our stuff together.

Jess told us to meet her between nine and ten, and hopefully she sticks to her promise. She owes me one for bailing on us last night, even though we haven't been killed yet. When we've all piled into the cab, I give the taxi driver the address of a building close to Taki's, just to be safe in the event he turns out to be a monster, which, although it may seem unlikely under normal circumstances, is not out of the question considering the luck we've been having on this trip. At least we now have backup if he decides to turn on us. That's a comforting thought.

The ride proceeds in silence. Thankfully the driver doesn't ask any questions and we manage not to get into any arguments or heated discussions, which may have made things a bit awkward for him. Not to mention confusing. I guess there isn't anything for us to say at this point: we have no plan, no idea what we're doing, no idea what's going on. Everything rests on this meeting.

Katia pays and thanks the driver when we arrive at our destination. I quickly check the clock on the dashboard before stepping out of the vehicle: 8:53. Perfect. Ideally, we'll have time to settle in before Jessica arrives.

When we're all out of the taxi and standing on the sidewalk, Matt turns to Katia and raises his hand.

"No monsters that time!"

"We did it!" Katia cheers and gives him a high-five, then turns to pat me on the back.

"Where to, Shadowhunter? Lead the way before our luck turns again!"

Laughing for the first time in what feels like forever, I lead them down the street and around a corner until I reach the run-down building. My stomach tightens as I suddenly wonder if any of the other guests will recognize me, since I have been here quite a number of times before. And, if Jessica was telling hte tuth in her texts, I was recently pronounced dead.

Thankfully, no one even looks up when we walk in the door. No shadowhunters, no Jessica. The only other people at Taki's are a werewolf couple and a blue-skinned warlock. I slide into a booth as far away from the others as possible and turn all the menus over to the "human" section before the others notice the disturbing options offered to downworlders.

"Mind telling us what species the other guests are?" Matt asks, sliding in across from me. Katia takes the seat next to him.

"Two werewolves and a warlock. The waitress is fey. It's alright though, they're all harmless," I add when he gives me a nervous look.

"I hope so." He skims the menu, flips it over and goes pale when he sees the choices offered on the other side. "This place creeps me out."

I'm feeling strangely nervous here too, but for a different reason. This place is so familiar, I keep waiting for someone to recognize me and turn me in.

My fear is realized when the waitress saunters over with her notepad. Her weirdly coloured eyes fall on me when she reaches our table and one of her eyebrows shoots up.

"Well, well, well, look who's not dead. Can I help you guys with anything?"

I lean over to her and lower my voice. "If you could keep this a secret for as long as possible, I would really, really appreciate it."

With a mischievous smirk, she passes her fingers over her mouth. "My lips are sealed. I never liked those shadowhunters anyway."

I know how little a fairie's word is worth, but I sit back anyway and order pancakes. The others ask for the same. Dead? Matt mouths at me when she turns her back. I wave my hand as if to say it's no big deal. He rolls his eyes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the door to the restaurant open. I jump up immediately, relieved when I see Jess walk in nonchalantly. She's in gear, as usual, and sweating. She must have just gotten back from her morning run. I sit back down, realizing I'm drawing attention to myself, but wave to get her attention. I'm realizing now just how much I've missed my old life during my absence. It wasn't perfect, but at least I had great friends.

Jessica's eyes scan the room until they land on our table, and she grins when she recognizes me. She quickly makes her way over to us, gives me a quick hug, and then slides into the booth beside me.

"By the angel, I'm glad you're not dead! You have no idea how annoying everyone has been since you disappeared!" Noticing the others for what seems like the first time, She extends her had in Matt's direction.

"I'm Jessica, by the way."

They each nod and shake her hand in turn. "Pleased to meet you."

Jess sits back and looks expectantly at me. I realize that for the first time since I can remember, she is looking to me to start the conversation, to explain things. It's a weird feeling. I clear my throat.

"So have there been any new discoveries on your side of things?" I offer.

She sighs. "Nothing, just a whole lot of killing. There are so many of them, Alyssa. We go out every day and work our butts off, but it feels like for every monster we kill, two more appear the next day. We're dropping like flies."

"Sounds a lot like what's happening on our side, too," Matt says.

"Do you guys really think you can do this?" She asks, straightening again, "Get rid of them, I mean? because if you do, I've given it a bit of thought and I'm with you-"

The waitress arrives with our food, eyebrows shooting up when she takes in our new guest. Thankfully, she doesn't say anything - just sets our pancakes down in front of us and disappears with a mischievous smirk, not even bothering to take Jess' order, though I'm sure she's already eaten.

When the girl is safely out of earshot, Jess starts talking again, but I interrupt her.

"You haven't told anyone yet?"

She shakes her head. "No, but I think I might need to eventually. We need so much help, and I'm ready to trust you guys if you can fight alongside us, as you say you can."

I ponder over that ridiculous possibility for a second. "You don't really think shadowhunters would be willing to work with demigods, do you?" Frankly, I'm shocked Jessica has been so open-minded, as she generally shares the opinion of the other nephilim when it comes to people who don't fit her idea what a shadowhunter should be: they are other and therefore not to be trusted or cooperated with.

"We have to. You know what happened during the Mortal War - the first time. There's no way we can refuse to cooperate with yet another powerful group of people. And this time, it looks like we're both fighting for the same cause anyway. The Clave can't refuse to work with you."

Matt shifts uncomfortably in his chair. "I don't know much about your history, but we demigods have learned some pretty similar lessons in recent years, and I'm still not convinced the half-bloods would be too open to that kind of arrangement. And forget about getting the gods on your side."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay?" I interject, "we don't even know what we're fighting, let alone how to defeat it."

Jess bites the inside of her cheek, thinking. "Well, do you guys know anything?" She asks skeptically, "the Clave's been trying to figure it out for awhile now, but none of their theories have gained any traction.

Katia decides to speak up for the first time. "We know that the monsters and… demons seemed to have teamed up under someone - a master, as they called him. Besides that, we're lost. It's not enough to go by."

Jess nods. "That's pretty consistent with what we've found. We didn't realize the part about the monsters, of course, but there were plenty of demons we couldn't defeat. Most of them have gone on about a leader too. 'The Creator,' mostly."

Katia's eyebrows shoot up. "Creator?"

"Yeah. At first we thought it might be about Raziel, or one of the angels, since they seemed to imply it was someone tied to our race, but nothing really matched up. It's probably some sort of demon king."

Katia and Matt share a worried look.

"Do you guys know anything?" I ask, "Any creator of demigods, or something?"

"No…" Matt says slowly, "I mean, Prometheus invented humans, but he's always sided with them. And he's kind of chained to a mountain right now."

"Anything else?"

No one answers.

"So we just fight the army of monsters and hope we survive, then? I don't really like our odds."

Matt shakes his head. "We'll kill ourselves off. It's like what Jessica said earlier - you kill one, two more take its place. You don't kill the Hydra by chopping off all its heads."

"So we need to find the heart, then? The leader? How are we supposed to do that?" I look around the table, but nobody has an answer.

"We could just keep fighting and try to gather information," Jess offers, "I'm sure eventually, one of the demons will let something slip. Or we could interrogate the downworlders. They seem pretty divided on the whole issue."

"Chiron might know something," Katia adds, "Or the gods."

"What about the downworlders?" I ask, "How many of them are on our side?"

"Most of them, except for a few rogues. For the most part, the werewolves and warlocks are working with us, the vampires are neutral and no one knows what the fey are up to."

"But they might know something?"

"Hopefully. I'm assuming they know more than we do, at least."

I think for a second. "So let's say we wait, as you suggest," I say, "What happens after that?"

"Do you still have your phone?"

I shake my head. "They don't work around demigods." I'm suddenly reminded of how much I still haven't told her about myself. What would she think of me if she knew I was a demigod?

She purses her lips. "Do you have any other means of communication, then?"

"IMing" Katia interjects. I stare at her blankly, so she continues. "Iris Messages. You find a rainbow, toss a drachmae into it, say a few words for the goddess Iris, and then you come face-to-face with the person you want to talk to."

Jessica give me an incredulous look, as if to say how weird are these people? I resist the urge to laugh. I've actually gotten pretty used to the weirdness recently, so this invention doesn't surprise me as much as it probably should.

She shakes her head. "Fine. You do that, and I'll figure something out if it's an emergency. Just please don't message me when I'm in the shower."

I really do laugh this time, but quickly stifle it when one of the werewolves looks over in my direction. "Fine," I whisper, "we'll find an appropriate time of day and make sure nobody's around. We can end the message quickly if we see other people, right? So they won't see us?"

Katia nods.

"Great, so we've worked that out," I say, relieved, "I guess we just keep fighting until we figure things out?" I suddenly realize that I've been the one making most of the plans today. It's an odd reversal of roles.

"Wait a second," Katia interjects, "I'm glad we've got the big idea figured out and all, but didn't we come here to decide what to do, like, today? We still don't know where we're going after this or where we're going to spend the night or even what we're looking for."

We all turn to Jess, since she's the one we've been counting on to come up with an idea. She sighs.

"You guys are sure you want to go through with this… quest, or whatever you call it? I mean, I could probably find somewhere for you to stay but it would take a whole lot of explaining and there's no guarantee it'd work. It would probably be easier for you just to go back."

Katia does not look impressed with this idea, and I can imagine why: I'm sure demigod culture is similar to shadowhunter culture in that they don't think very highly of quitters. Nevertheless, Matt reluctantly sides with Jess.

"I hate to admit it, but you're probably right. We've found a lot of information," he glares pointedly at me, "and at this point our number one priority should be to talk to Chiron and then go back out to fight more monsters. We're not doing anyone any favours by running around risking our lives."

Katia grunts in defiance but doesn't protest. I guess she'd much rather be in the thick of things than running back to camp with nothing to show for her efforts. Well, besides a ton of information that we'll have to find a way to relay to Chiron.

I open my mouth to suggest that we get going immediately, but I hesitate. Suddenly, I don't want to leave my best friend behind. I know I'll have to go back to Camp Half-Blood and frankly I'd probably rather go there, but I've missed Jessica and who knows when I'll see her again?

"The others," I ask without warning, "are they okay? I forgot to ask."

She seems caught off guard by my question, and looks down at the table, but offers a pained smile. "Everyone's fine," she says, "A little banged up, of course. But you're the one who's dead."

"That's good," is my short response.

She looks up now to talk to me. "We miss you a lot, you know. You mean a lot more to us than you realize."

It's my turn to stare at the table, my face heating up already.

"I'm serious," she continues, "everyone's really upset. I think most of us feel like you weren't happy to be at the institute and we didn't do enough to change that. And I know you're kind of busy and you probably want to go back to that camp, but if you do want to come back… you'll always be welcome."

I still don't look up, and my face doesn't cool off. "Thanks," I say, because I can't come up with anything else, "I… that means a lot to me, but you're right that I can't come back yet. I guess I'll see after all this is sorted out, but for the time being… I've found a home with the demigods and I'm going to stay there."

"Can I at least tell them you're alive, though?" Jessica pleads.

I think about that for a second. I don't want the others to know what I'm up to, and I certainly don't want them to hunt me down, but… how much damage can it do for them to know that I'm alive and well? Would they get mad at me? Or would it have the opposite effect, convincing them that I didn't abandon them and am working for the greater good?

"I guess you can." I tell her, "Make sure they know I've met people and that I'm trying to figure this whole thing out, but don't go into much more detail. As long as they don't get mad at you, I don't see what harm it can do."

"You don't want me to mention this whole thing? Help them warm up to the idea?"

I put my head in my hands. "I don't know! Why are you even asking me this stuff? Just use your own judgement, you know better anyway."

Silently, she puts her arm around my shoulders in a half-hug. "Hey, for what it's worth, I think you're doing a pretty good job of all this."

I don't answer.

"Seriously, I didn't think you had this in you, but it sounds like you've been pretty amazing. I'm rooting for you, Alyssa."

I smile halfheartedly at her, then look nervously aound the restaurant, checking once again that we haven't been overheard. I push my now empty plate away from me and start to stand up.

"I guess we should get going, then. It was really nice to see you, Jess, but we have things to get to. See you soon, I guess."

She gives me a huge hug. "Take care of yourself, kay?" she pulls away and stands up as well. "And I'm really sorry about those texts, by the way…" She looks at the floor, "I don't know what I was thinking, I was mad and stressed out and worried and… that was really mean. I'm so sorry."

It takes me a second to realize that she's talking about all those horrible texts she sent me so long ago, the day I ran off. I remember how bad I felt about them at the time, but it seems so petty now. I tell her as much and it seems to reassure her a little bit, though she doesn't stop apologizing until my small group has left Taki's and headed down the street to call another cab.