I own nothing.

Sorry for the long wait... If anyone actually cares.

Our first indicator that something was amiss should have been the person who greeted us, she was far too happy.

The inside of the store was what anyone would expect a tourist shop to look like, a postcard rack in the front a bunch of shelves full of useless knick knacks, including stuffed pandas and mules, snow globes, and more, after finally maneuvering to the back of the store we found what we were looking for, fresh clothes.

"Hello welcome to Horses N More is there anything I can help you with." Came a voice from behind us. She was wearing a tie dye shirt with all of the colors swirling around made my head hurt so I tried to avoid looking at it.

"Oh my, you definitely came to the right place." she said her blue eyes opened in shock at seeing our appearance.

"Sorry about your carpet." Elissa said sheepishly.

"Oh it's fine," the lady said sighing and running a hand through her long blond hair "you're not as bad as most of the tourists that come here, just let me know if you need anything the changing rooms are just through that door." She said turning around going back to her counter.

I went first; trying not to look too much like a tourist I grabbed a pair of khakis and a green shirt that said "I love Troy." The changing room wasn't anything spectacular; however the artwork was very different from your average art you would find in a changing room. I recognized a couple, like a copy of the Birth of Venus and other classical art.

I finished inside and let Elissa in. I dug in my pants and came out with the money to pay for the clothes.

"Be careful," Gisco said to me looking at one of the gift shops postcards, "her name tag says Cassandra."

I nervously looked over at the blond store worker, she did look like the women in the myth but how could she still be alive? I decided not to think about it and just went up to pay her. I gave her two twenties and was surprised when she handed one back.

"I can't let the three of you walk around with almost destroyed clothes just the one twenty for all three, oh and be sure to tell everyone about our discounts." She said winking at me.

I turned around and started head over back to Gisco who had managed to find an ice cream cooler.

"I would purchase this whole lot if we didn't need to save up our money." He said still staring into the cooler.

"Gisco, you can go now." Elissa said making her way over to us, she had selected jeans and a windbreaker, both with the all iconic I Heart NY.

"Tourist." I mumbled.

"Relax we are all going to look like tourists." She said "Ooh, ice cream."

"I was hoping to actually get something from a restaurant, you know, actual food." I said.

But my voice was carried over to deaf ears, she started to rummage through the cooler pulling out Popsicles, Dreamsicles and more before she finally settled on a Ben and jerry's container of strawberry.

"Jeez," Gisco said returning from the changing room. "If you're going to buy Ben and jerry's at least get something unique."

"I'm a purist." She said.

"Well if you're a purist why didn't you at least get something vanilla"?

"I like strawberry."

"We should probably get going now, get some lunch and head on our way." Gisco said. "Thank you for everything he said to the cashier.

"Any time." She replied.

After exiting the store I looked around where we were. "That's strange," Elissa said looking straight out "when did it start to snow."

Sure enough the temperature had dropped and the rain that should be falling in the autumn had been replaced with snow. It wasn't a huge storm of any kind but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.

"Let's find us some food." Gisco said to no one in particular.

It took us less than ten minutes to find someplace to eat. I would have preferred a sit down restaurant with food that the cooks cook in the back kitchen, but what I got was a shish kebab stand. The food was wonderful, roasted meat, Gisco and I ordered lamb meat while Elissa ordered chicken.

"It's been a while since I've had lamb." Said Gisco grabbing his stick and the receipt.

"Our last meal before the quest," I said remembering that night.

"October seventh"?

I turned around and saw Gisco staring at the receipt.

"October seventh." Elissa asked her mouth full of chicken.

"We've spent eight days here"? Gisco asked staring at the slip of paper before he crumpled up and shoved it into his pocket.

"We should have known, a shop named after a famous Trojan and a wooden horse." I said.

"We should hurry though, the canal stops in the winter, I don't want to be stuck in the canal." Gisco said.

When we made it back to where the boat was parked we had another dilemma to deal with.

"How are we going to get back on it"? Asked Elissa.

"Were we smart enough to buy rope at the store"? Gisco asked.

We all shook our heads, I was about to use the last of our money to go back into a store and buy rope but Gisco convinced me that that would take longer than I would think. After a couple more minutes I found a coil of rope lying around a tree. When I picked it up I noticed a Maltese cross carved into the tree.

I shook my head, thinking it was too much of a coincidence, I gave the rope to Gisco and he ended up tying the rope to one of his arrows, and lashed the other end around the tree.

"Let's hope this works." he said nothing the arrow on his bow.

He fired his arrow and it embedded itself into the front of the boat. All three of us pulled the boat closer to the shore he stopped halfway saying he didn't want to risk having the boat scrape against anything.

"The last thing we need is another Titanic." Gisco said leaping onto the boat.

We finally all managed to get back on the boat Gisco turned the motor back on, and the automatic ship started up again. The short journey to the canal was uneventful. A short while later that day, around three, we came to the first lock. At first I wasn't sure what to do the doors weren't opening, until an angry looking Naiad surfaced next to our boat.

"More demigods huh, do you have a permit"? She asked crossing her arms glaring at us.

We were all at a loss for words; we had hoped that we could have just went straight to Chicago from New York. Obviously that wasn't going to happen now unless we could come up with fourth more bucks.

"I don't suppose any of you are hiding any cash." I asked the other two.

"If you don't have a permit this is as far as I can let you go, I don't sea why you would even want to go further, it's all manmade and filthy. I don't know what I did to deserve this. Spend my days wasting away, and serving all demigods that want to travel through here…"

She kept on yapping on and on about being trapped, I almost decided to give up and somehow turn around and travel the rest of the way on foot but then out of nowhere appeared the man from the Tophet.

"Here, let this craft through." The man said handing the Naiad some papers. The Naiad then swam off and the docks opened letting us through.

"When, and how did you get here"?Gisco and I asked.

"You know him"? Elissa looked at us surprised, her hand on the hilt of her hunting knife.

"Oh, let's all be friendly," the man said looking sadly at Elissa "don't go for your sword, I gave your friend and brother their quest. I also saved all three of you from dying by Litanu or the Leviathan's hands, so to speak."

"You saved us? How"? Asked Gisco.

"That's not important, what is important is you arriving in Chicago soon. I don't usually go around helping people with their every need but I was in the area and I too have business in Chicago."

"What type of business"? I asked.

"That's also not important, I also left you with a bag of supplies, it should hold you over until you reach your destination."

"You make it sound like you're not coming with us."

"I'm not," he said turning away from us, "I need to stop by Syracuse; I have an old friend I need to talk with. I'll be off you boat by tomorrow morning."

The man went below decks with Gisco following shortly saying they were retiring for the night which left me alone with Elissa.

"Do you think our parents are safe?"

The question hit me hard. I had completely forgotten about everyone who was left behind in Cuba. I was about to respond with almost no hope in my answer but I stopped myself thinking about why the mercenaries revolted in the first place.

"I don't know, the only blood that they would be after would probably just be the officers in charge of them and the members of the senate. Our parents being of working class posed no threat to them, and even if they had gone after more than them they wouldn't have had massacred everyone, they know fighting but that's it. If they plan to survive in the long run they would need to keep the workers.

Elissa turned around, I thought I should leave her alone for a while to process all of it, but she then called back to me.

"Thanks bro." She quickly returned back to staring at the passing scenery as we made our way through the Erie Canal.

I then returned down below with Gisco and the stranger and was out in seconds.

I have to say, even with all of the ways my creative sister tries tries to wake me, have it be taking my tent down before I was awake, seeing how loud she could play the violin before I started to strangle her and overall just being a pain, nothing was able to compare with Gisco's idea of throwing a breakfast bar at me.

"Ow, what was that for"? I asked angrily.

His response was priceless.

"I wanted to figure out how many times I would have to through this cereal at you for you to wake up."

I sat up on my cot rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I responded annoyed "you got your answer"?

"Oh yes it was much more than your sister thought, she bet that it would only take seven, I knew that was far too little for your sleep."

"Of course Elissa was in on it." I mumbled to myself. "Where is she anyway"? I asked grabbing one of the bars that was littering my space.

"There are only two places on this boat if she isn't on one I wonder where she could be." Responded Gisco. Our guest has already left us," Gisco said heading back up to the top deck somewhere near Syracuse, he said that we would find help in Lake Huron,"

Quickly I followed him up to the top. I was greeted by more scenery of trees and some rocks, I'm sorry for you biological types but I couldn't tell you the names of the clouds that were flying overhead much less some rocks and sticks.

(Huh)

Gisco tells me to inform you that they were cumulus, whatever the heck that means.

The journey continued to be long and boring a couple times I saw unhappy looking Naiads scowling at our boat as if it was a giant hawk that had just snatched away a poor defenses bunny.

"Ignore them," came Elissa's voice from behind me "they don't like canals that much, to unnatural."

I couldn't blame them, fresh water spirits living in a "filthy human made" canal, as the first Naiad had put it, didn't seem that far off.

Farther along yet we ran into a Ceasg. "Half women half salmon," Gisco wondered aloud. "I wonder what they taste like."

"That is sickening." I responded.

"Probably like chicken," Elissa booted in.

"You're both crazy." I decided.

A while later, after a nutritious lunch of more breakfast bars, Elissa headed back down sleep.

"So, the Sophet, what do you think"? Gisco asked me still leaning over the edge.

"I don't know, if the assassin was roman even if he was rogue he would have let the others know about us, I'm starting to think he might have been Greek."

"I guess," he muttered, "that makes sense, especially considering who it was."

"What was that"? I asked not sure of what he meant.

"Nothing," he quickly stood up, pushing himself away from the railing. "I think your sister had it right, there's nothing to do now but wait." Gisco said making his way downstairs.

I stayed up above for a few more minutes and watched the opening and closing of another lock. I thought back to Gisco's question. I had never actually thought to hard about it, everyone had been told that it was a roman demigod, but there were always those who believed in something else.

I had originally thought Gisco was to grounded to look into any crazy conspiracy theories, but now, I wasn't so sure.

These happy thought said along with the hum of the magical engine was enough to overcome my mind and I slipped into unconsciousness.

The dream I had then was more along the lines off a flashback, not one of those that you've read Hazel having. This was less remembering the past as it was analyzing the day.

It was March third, and I was in the arena fencing with a practice dummy. I had just been tasked with finding a job by my father but I couldn't find any place that was hiring, it could have been that, or it could have been the fact that I spent all of my time either in the arena fencing, the blacksmith shop or my room sleeping or reading.

I swung my practice sword at the dummy resulting in a satisfying "crunch" as I pulled my sword out of the dummy's side.

"Impressive as always." Came a deep voice from behind me.

I turned around astonished to see senator Dufort leaning against the door wearing a black suit and tie.

"How long have you been standing here"? I asked.

"Long enough." Was his answer. I was headed to the senate and I noticed that the arena was in use, I must say curiosity got the best of me and took a little detour to see who. Anyway," he said checking his watch, "Sophet Johnson hates it when we don't start on time so I must bid you adieu."

With that he left me standing with a straw leaking practice dummy, who was smiling way too much for his job description.

I could only put off my responsibility for so long I decided and I set out to find work.

Sort of.

The first place I went to was the local market to buy lunch.

However there I did ask if there were any job openings. The guy who sold me my sandwich just chuckled and replied "not for you."

I took that as a no and moved on.

I stopped at the fish market but soon left due to the overwhelming smell of fish guts. After visiting the tanner and I headed back to the trainee barracks. when I returned to the main road though I was met by the entire mounted sacred band regiment. I quickly stood aside to let them pass. I was tempted to ask what was going on but the soldiers expressions made me think twice about it.

When the last of them had past me, heading up towards the Tophet, I continued on my way. However when I entered the military section of the city two guards demanded that I show identification.

This wasn't new to me you usually are supposed to show you're a decorative shekel, your identification in the military, generals would receive golden ones officer's silver and enlisted men had bronze they would also show your status on them, mine had a single dagger on it to represent my trainee status, but only the old disciplined generals and the young who had dreams of grander would actually ask to see yours.

This was no problem for me, I dug my bronze shekel out of my jeans pocket and showed the guards nod walked through but I knew the guards, they were both seven years my senior and had no desire to climb any higher on the latter.

As I made my way to my room I noticed everything was eerily quiet, and all of the people I saw looked unnerved and had their hands near their waist as if they were reaching for weapons that weren't there. As trainees we weren't allowed to carry around weapons outside of the sword arena or the training field.

When I finally arrived at the barracks two guards were standing at the entrance and checking people's identification again. I dug my trainee shekel out of my pocket and showed them and then asked,

"Why is the security notched up now"?

The guard on the left answered, "The Sophet has been killed." I was about to ask what happens but he then gestured for the next person in line and I walked inside feeling even more confused than when I had arrived.

I was woken the next morning by my ever so present sister.

"Get up," she said throwing a breakfast bar at my face.

"You had some left over from yesterday"? I asked annoyed of the rough treatment my face had been receiving the past day.

"You just mist the last of the canal," Gisco said emerging from below the deck, "we're in the Great Lakes from here on out."

"This little boat sure goes faster than I expected," I said unwrapping the breakfast bar my sister had thrown at me.

"That's probably because it was given to us by a god." Responded Gisco.

"Next time one of you wakes me up try to have a reason." I said heading below deck.

"All right, but with Gisco hear he's probably going to wake you up to inform you of time every hour." Elisa called after me.

"Don't you dare." I turned halfway down the stairs.

"Every half hour, got it." Gisco said smirking.

I raised my hand up and opened my mouth to respond but quickly decided to not bother with it.