The Greatest Card Trick in the World

"Leaving so soon?" Kayla asked as I stood up from the table. It was lunch time and I'd just finished eating my lunch.

"I need to sharpen my weapons," I explained. "And take some pain meds." I muttered before head away from my table and discarding my dishes in the dirty dishes pile. My chronic pain was acting up today. The last few days it'd been okay, with spikes here and there, but something I could ignore if I focused on training and teaching. Today it was like it had shifted to a higher frequency and wouldn't come down, making it harder to ignore.

As soon as I got back to the Apollo cabin, I took some pain meds and then quickly grabbed my sharpening stone from my chest. I went back outside to sit on the steps of the porch. I wanted to be outside and enjoy the fresh air. I also liked to be aware of what was going on around camp. It made me feel less anxious.

I'd stolen this stone from a hardware store when I'd gone on one of Mr. D's missions and had extra time before having to report back to camp. After having that fallout with the Hephaestus cabin, I figured I wouldn't be able to enter the forge or ask any of them to sharpen my weapons. Thankfully I'd done this plenty of times before, so it was almost routine, like riding a bike. It was easy to pick back up.

I finished my dagger fast enough, giving it a quick wipe-down with an old rag. I sheathed it and set it beside me, and began to work on my sword. My cabin mates returned a little while after, heading inside, probably to relax a little before their next activity. A few minutes later, I heard someone approach, their footsteps soft in the grass. I glanced up briefly to see who it was and was surprised to see Leo. Even so, I didn't think he was coming to talk to me, so I went back to sharpening my sword.

He stopped at the edge of the steps. I looked up briefly, wondering why he'd stopped.

"Uh…hi," he said after a moment of silence. I ignored him, thinking maybe one of my siblings had come out and I'd been so busy ignoring him I hadn't noticed them come out.

"Look, I'm used to pretty girls ignoring me, but you're taking the cake," he commented after another moment.

My hand, holding the stone, froze and my head snapped up. I blinked, confused. I looked at Leo for a moment before looking to see if there was anyone else around us that he could possibly be talking to. Then I looked back at him, still confused, before slowly turning to look over my shoulder to make sure there wasn't anyone behind me. Finally, I turned back to Leo and pointed at myself, just for good measure.

Leo laughed. "…uh, yeah. You're the only one here. I mean, I assume." He lifted his hands and shrugged. "Do Apollo kids have ESP or something?"

"No, actually, you're looking for the Hades cabin, just down the way," I said, pointing down the line of cabins to my right.

Leo grinned and nodded. "All right, you've even got a sense of humor."

I snorted and shook my head. "You're way too young for me, kid." I started sharpening my sword again.

"You know you could just…go to the forge to get that sharpened. Much quicker," Leo commented.

I paused in my sharpening for a second, glancing up at him. Had his cabin not told him? Had he not heard the rumors? Or asked? I mean, that would explain why he'd come over that night with Harley. Then again, if he'd come over, I had no doubt his cabin would've tried to stop him. So he had to know at least something about me. At the very least that his cabin hated me.

I went back to sharpening, keeping my eyes fixed on my sword.

"Surely you have more important business building that ship of yours," I said a little crisply, ignoring his comment.

"I found a small break in my schedule," Leo answered, shifting his feet. "And don't call me Shirley."

I looked up, startled. "I didn't—" I started before realizing he was making a joke. I raised an eyebrow before going back to my sword.

"…just trying to break the ice," Leo mumbled awkwardly.

"I think you'll come to find rather quickly why most people around here think I should stick to ice," I told him sourly, running the stone over my sword perhaps a bit too aggressively. I paused and took a deep breath before continuing with less vigor.

"Well, hey, you're in luck," Leo exclaimed, causing me to look back up at him. He was grinning again. "Because I can wield fire." He snapped his fingers and his first finger lit up with a small flame. "And if I recall correctly, fire can melt ice."

I blinked, stunned. Was he really trying to befriend me? I was so used to his cabin glaring at me, spitting venom whenever I tried to interact with them, and this was such a shift in what I characterized his siblings as, I was reeling. Maybe it hadn't been fair to just lump him in their hatred of me, but how else was I supposed to protect myself from hurt if he had listened to his siblings? It made sense, though, his actions, if he hadn't been here for the war. Hearing about it and being there were two different things.

The door behind me opened up and my siblings came spilling out.

"Hey, come on, it's time for our activity," Reed said, as he passed by me, followed by the rest of my siblings. They passed by Leo without a second glance, as if this was completely normal. Reed's comment broke me from the strange world I'd entered.

"Oh, shit," I exclaimed, standing up and quickly sheathing my sword, looking around for my dagger. "Nick is going to give me grief if I'm late," I muttered, snatching up my dagger and running back into the cabin to throw my stone back into my chest. I almost took more pain meds because the ones I'd taken a bit ago didn't seem to be working but managed to stop myself. They probably just hadn't kicked in yet. Still, the prickles were starting to become a bit overwhelming, so I threw the bottle of pills into my bag before exiting again, closing the door behind me.

"Sorry, I have to go teach a class," I told Leo as I came down the steps of the porch, about to run off to catch up to my siblings.

"Hey, that's cool. Come by Bunker 9 if you've ever have some time," Leo said quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulder, like he was embarrassed.

"Uh, yeah…okay, sure. I'll…see you later." With that I ran off not wanting to waste any more time. I didn't know that I'd be visiting Bunker 9 any time soon. I was really just stunned that Leo was talking to me at all. And there was no way he hadn't heard something. Yet, despite that, he still approached me.

My siblings had told me that Leo's appearance had seemingly removed the curse of the Hephaestus cabin. Maybe he'd also help mend my relationship with them.

Nick was waiting in the arena when I finally arrived, ahead of my siblings. I'd sprinted ahead so I would be able to set everything up (which I knew I would regret, but I was too prideful to let the pin-pricks get in the way of not being late to my own class). Thankfully, none of my other students had arrived yet, either.

Nick stood as I entered, panting, and I noticed him shove a deck of cards into his pants pocket.

"Are you going to be all right for the activity?" he asked as he came up to me. "You sound a bit more out of breath than you should be."

I straightened, still catching my breath, and glared at him, but made sure that he knew I was joking, too. Kind of. My glare may have been a bit strong because I was in pain, but I quickly asked, "Oh, so we have another comedian today, do we?" as I went over to where we stored some of our assortment of swords. I quickly picked out Nick's, keeping the point aimed at the ground, and went back over to him. "Well, joke's on you, pretty boy," I said shoving the hilt to his chest and leaning in. "Because you're going to be my sparring partner today."

Nick's face went pale, his eyes wide, and he swallowed hard. I slowly released the hilt as he reached up to take it, and went back over to the small armory to get the rest of the swords set up just as my siblings came in, followed by the rest of my class.

I started those who weren't my siblings with dummies, and my siblings with each other. It was kind of like Will in the elementary archery class in that they were better than the rest of the class, but weren't good enough to move up a level. I also really needed to just sit down and breathe.

When sparring started, I was almost glad I hadn't finished sharpening my sword. I was very careful when sparring, but accidents did happen. Especially when you were working with sharp objects and in pain. (Though, I'd have to go and finish sharpening it immediately after class or it was going to get on my nerves.)

Nick was a fast learner when it came to maneuvers and footwork, but he kept letting his guard down. I got him in the ribs and stomach with the flat of my blade more times than I could count. By the time I called break he was sweating and his exercise-induced asthma was acting up.

He let out a grateful sigh when I stopped the class, and fell to his knees, using his sword to keep him upright.

I sheathed my weapon, letting out my own small sigh of relief, and went up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"You okay? You're breathing sounds a bit ragged." I asked in a joking tone.

Nick lifted his head slightly to glare at me over the rims of his glasses, but his bottom lip pushed out ever so slightly. I had to stifle a laugh. He was pouting!

"Seriously though, if you're not feeling up to the rest of the class, just say so and I'll let you go. I don't want you to make yourself sick." I gave his shoulder a squeeze before going over to the water jug to grab some water and take some pain meds. When I turned back around, Nick had laid down, eyes closed, his chest still heaving.

My siblings approached me, their own cups of water in their hands.

"You holding up okay?" Will asked quietly over the rim of his cup.

"I'm fine," I muttered in the same low voice, bringing my own cup to my lips.

"Could've fooled me," Will threw back. I narrowed my eyes and lowered my cup, glaring at him.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

Will's eyes flickered over to Nick, who was sprawled out on the ground, before going back to me.

I looked at him, prompting him to explain further.

"Looks like someone is taking their anger out on the new kid," Cressida commented. I turned toward her.

"That's not fair—" I tried.

"Did he piss you off, then?" Lyra asked, looking at Nick with pity.

"Guys—" I tried again.

"It's probably both," Austin snorted.

"Knowing Victoria," Kayla added, nodding.

The rest of my siblings murmured in agreement and I fumed quietly. They were so infuriating sometimes.

I quickly downed the rest of my water before calling the class back to order. Being the merciful teacher I am, I let Nick take a longer break by using one of my siblings to demonstrate a new move to the class and then sparring with them to demonstrate it in real-time. Afterward, I worked on it with Nick until the end of class. I was honestly surprised at how determined he looked to learn the new maneuver, but was glad, too. Whatever had been plaguing him yesterday—what with this constant nervousness being around me—had seemed to either gone away completely or at least died down.

Once I dismissed the class, Nick stayed back and practiced the move with his sword as the rest of the students put away their swords. I threw the strap of my bag over my shoulder, glancing at the exiting kids. My siblings were lingering in the entryway, but I waved them off. Once I was sure they were gone, I went up to Nick who was putting his sword away.

"Hey, I was—" I broke off when he jumped and spun around, nearly falling into the small armory. His face flushed and he gulped. So much for getting over his nervousness. Maybe he'd been so focused on learning the new trick he'd forgotten.

I gave him a strange look before continuing slowly, "I was wondering what you were doing with a deck of cards," I told him. "Do you just…like to play card games or something?"

Nick relaxed, an easy smile spreading across his lips. "Oh, actually, I like magic."

I laughed, looking at him to make sure he wasn't joking. "Really? You like magic? Of all things?"

Nick frowned, his bottom lip jutting out slightly again. "What's so funny?"

I shook my head, chuckling. "Nothing, it's just…isn't that kind of ironic? You being a child of Hecate and all."

As the thought occurred to him, his face cleared and he smiled again. "Oh, yeah…I guess that is kind of funny." He looked away, embarrassed. What for, I wasn't really sure.

"So…can you show me a trick then? With your deck of cards?"

Nick thought about this for a moment before he finally looked back at me. "Yeah, sure. I need a flat surface, though, so let's go over to one of the bleachers." I nodded and we walked over to the lowest bleacher, with Nick behind me. He had his deck of cards out when we stopped.

"This is called 'The Greatest Card Trick in the World,'" he said, fanning the cards out in a near perfect circle in his left hand. "Pick a card."

"The 'greatest,' huh?" I asked raising an eyebrow as I reached out and took a card. Nick simply smiled.

"All right, look at it—don't show me," he said. I'd picked the five of diamonds. "Okay, got it?" I nodded. "Hold onto it. I'm going to strip cards from the top of the deck, and you're going to tell me when to stop." He held the cards between his thumb and middle finger of his right hand, and started taking chunks of cards from the top with his left, dropping them into the palm of his left.

After a few moments I told him to stop.

"All right, now I want you to put your card on top," he said holding out the cards in his left hand. I set my card on top of the rest resting in his palm, careful not to show the face. He set the remaining cards from his right hand into his palm as well, effectively covering my card. "Okay, now watch." Nick held the deck out and snapped his fingers. "You'll notice that one card in this deck reveals itself to us," he said as he spread the cards out in a line on the bleachers. I didn't see anything different about the cards, but as Nick poked through, spreading them further a blue-colored back appeared among the red-colored backs. I tried to hide my astonishment, but I was a sucker for magic.

Nick glanced up at me and smiled before splitting the deck where the blue card was, stacking the cards he'd just split underneath the rest of the cards, leaving the blue on top. He held the deck in his left hand.

"You remember your card?" he asked. I looked up at him and nodded. "And was your card…" He lifted up the blue card with his right hand and spun it between his thumb and middle finger in a sort of sleight of hand movement. "The five of diamonds?"

I nodded, a smile breaking across my face. "How did you—?" I started but he put the card back onto the pile and held up a finger.

"It gets better." He grinned. I narrowed my eyes, but my smile remained. He removed the blue card again, setting it face down on the bleacher. "Why don't we just leave the five right there? Now I'm going to take cards from the top of the deck again and I want you to say stop at any point." I waited a few moments before telling him to stop. He brought the two piles together momentarily, picking up the card from the top of the pile in his left hand with his right. "Okay, so let's take this card, the"—he held out the deck in his right and showed me—"Queen of hearts." Nick put the two piles back together and straightened them out. "Watch what happens when I snap my fingers." Like last time, he snapped his fingers before spreading them out in a line on the bleachers. "A card should reveal itself…" He trailed off, poking through the deck, but this time a blue card didn't appear.

Nick looked up at me frowning, his eyebrows furrowing. I waited, wondering if he'd just messed up his trick. "It doesn't look like it's here…and the only card that's changed is…" He pointed to the blue card that he'd set aside earlier, face down.

There was no way.

Nick picked it up and revealed the Queen of hearts. I quickly snatched the card from him, examining it closely. There was no way! Yet…it was a regular old card.

I narrowed my eyes at Nick, who was smiling, and lowered the card in my hand. "How do I know you didn't use real magic to do that?"

Nick raised his right hand. "I swear on the Styx that I don't use Hecate's endowed magic when I perform any magic trick for you or anyone else." Thunder rumbled in the distance. I frowned. You couldn't beat a swear on the Styx.

I handed the card back to him. "All right, that was pretty cool. Looks like you've been doing this for a long time."

Nick shrugged, putting the cards back into his pocket. "Since I was six," he mumbled, blushing.

"Wow, you started young. Why aren't you some famous magician already?" I grabbed the strap of my bag and started to head out. Nick followed suit.

He sighed. "My parents, well my dad and step-mom, they want me to be a doctor. I don't want that, so we compromised. They think I'm going into forensic science. But I practice magic in any free time I can find and hopefully, if I prove that I can make money from that, they won't hound me anymore. I'm still taking classes, of course, but I love magic. I always have."

"I'm sorry about that," I mumbled, not really sure what else to say. I was jealous, honestly, that he even had parents. Even if his situation sounded kind of shitty.

Nick shrugged. "It works for right now, the setup I've got going. I am going to prove to my parents that magic is a legitimate career, though."

I smiled. "I'm sure you will." We stopped in the green. "I have to get to my other class. But I'll see you around."

"Yeah, uh…thanks for letting me show you that magic trick." There he went again, blushing. I swear, any more of it and he was going to pass out because of the rush of blood to and from his face.

I gave him a lazy salute before running over to my cabin to get ready for my advanced archery class. My body was definitely going to be angry by the end of the day.

I was supposed to meet with Lou Ellen the same day Nick had shown me that magic trick, but because my pain had been bad, I'd taken my free time to sleep. After being forced to attend dinner, I'd gone back to our cabin and slept more. Thankfully, though, it was at a manageable level today and Lou had found some free time, too.

We were at the archery range. Will and Cecil, a son of Hermes and one of Will's closer friends, had tagged along. Will was there for moral and medical support and Cecil said he was there for moral support too, but I had a feeling he was lying. I didn't know him very well, he hung out with Will more, so I'm pretty sure he was really there to see me fail.

"Can I see your rune?" Lou asked. I held up my arm and she moved her hands to grab my wrist. I jerked back reflexively and she froze. "Uh…do you mind?" she asked, moving her hands forward slightly.

I swallowed hard and shook my head. "No. Sorry, jerk reaction." Lou nodded before slowly moving her hands forward and taking my wrist lightly with her left hand, the right hovering over my wrist. She muttered something before moving her right hand in a circular motion, almost like she was doing a magic trick (fake magic). My rune lit up bright white like I'd seen in my dream and when I'd gotten angry at Drew.

Lou looked at it with an intense expression, like it was talking to her. After a few moments of this, the glow faded and Lou released my wrist. I immediately brought it up to my face to examine it closely and rubbed my thumb over the mark. I hadn't felt anything while she'd done it, but wondered what exactly she'd done.

"Well?" I asked, my eyes going over to her while I lowered my arms. She had a contemplative look.

"Well," she echoed, letting out a breath. I waited, my worry growing the longer she thought. "Obviously you haven't broken the contract. From what I understand, it looks like you've tuned it to your emotions. Tell me about what happened with the Aphrodite cabin?"

I quickly recounted the events of that afternoon, leaving out certain details of course, and then, just for good measure, told her about my dream. I hoped she wouldn't freak out that Gaea had visited me. (She didn't.)

"I should've seen this coming and taught you better," Lou muttered, rubbing her forehead. "Magic is finicky and since it's already tuned into your emotions, it's going to take a lot of work on your part to take back your control of it."

"I thought you said it would give me a small amount of magic to help with telekinesis and Mist," I said.

"Yes, well…it's complicated," Lou replied. "You're a demigod so you have the potential to learn certain types of magic. Being a child of Hecate means we have a natural affinity for Mist-work, but we can do magic that other demigods can't without help, like your rune, like casting spells and charms. We could probably learn sorcery quicker than most demigods if we wanted to. Any demigod can learn how to use the Mist. And any demigod can practice sorcery. But the magic that Hecate uses, aside from the Mist, is special to us. Does that makes sense?"

I looked at her blankly, trying to work through all she'd just told me.

"The point is, just because you have a rune with a contract, doesn't mean you can't do more magic than the rune allows," she said. "It's more like…an amplifier. At least, when it comes to manipulating the Mist. The contract is for safety reasons."

"Safety reasons?" I asked.

"My mother would get in loads of trouble with Zeus if he found out she'd been handing out runes to any demigod that asked."

"Okay, so let me get this straight," I said. "The rune allows me some magic that's specific to Hecate. Does that mean if I get emotional only the Mist will respond?"

"Kind of…" Lou gave me an apologetic look. "Like I said, it's complicated. Both the magic that you can wield and the Mist react when you get emotional, but the rune doesn't distinguish between the two. That's where you come in, you have to be able to manipulate each one separately. Even though you don't have a lot of magic capabilities, it sounds like in combination with the Mist it could be dangerous for those around you."

I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, my head starting to pound and my chronic pain acting up because I was getting stressed. Taking a deep breath I opened my eyes again and looked at Lou.

"Okay, so where do we start?"

Because it seemed that my rune reacted only when I was emotionally aroused, she had me think about anything that made me extremely angry. This wasn't hardship, with Drew's confrontation still in the front of my mind, it was easy to combine that with my anger at anyone who used charmspeak and get myself worked up.

As I did, the area around the archery range started swirling with Mist. There wasn't as much as when I'd originally been angry, but Lou said it was enough. My rune started to glow again. It seemed though, Lou was using her own magic to keep the Mist contained around the archery range.

She then instructed me to try and distinguish the two types of magic—the one that allowed me some telekinetic abilities and the one that controlled the Mist—without losing my anger. Which was considerably hard. It went against everything I knew, because to be able to concentrate on such a distinction you needed to focus, but emotions clouded thoughts and judgement.

Trying to get a feel for the two different types of magic would take the whole session. By the end I was mentally and physically exhausted. My chronic pain was so bad, I had to lean on Will as we went back to the Apollo cabin.

A couple of weeks passed and I continued to work with Lou on controlling the Mist and training my rune to not respond to my emotions, but still use my emotions to give me the strength to use magic. Needless to say I was frustrated and angry a lot of the time because I was having trouble making that distinction. Not only that, but my pain really didn't like the stress I was putting on my body.

I'd also picked up dagger training with Annabeth, now that she was back. I didn't want to get rusty, and she was the best with a dagger at camp. However, the more time passed, the more I realized that the bond we'd formed when Percy first disappeared was slowly diminishing. Not to say that we weren't friends, but as the days passed, I noticed her hanging out with Piper more often. She rarely came to me about dealing with Percy's disappearance either, instead she ventured into Manhattan to visit Percy's mom.

I'll be honest, I was a little hurt, but I should've seen it coming from a mile away. I was upset, but not surprised. I was glad, though, that she didn't seem to hate me anymore. We could still laugh and talk about normal girl things, about training, battle plans, sometimes how she was handling Percy's absence, but it wasn't often. We didn't routinely hang out like I saw her do with Piper.

I was just glad I was able to help her through a rough time and make a difference. Even if it was only for a little. Speaking of making a difference, though, I'd managed to get through to another young demigod.

I was in the middle of my elementary swordsmanship class when everyone slowly stopped what they were doing, like a domino effect. One of the kids stopped suddenly, his eyes widening, lowering his sword and the rest followed. My cabin mates were whispering to each other, but everyone was looking in the same direction. I turned in that direction and noticed a dark figure standing in one of the entrances to the arena.

A smile broke across my face and I went up to greet Nico.

"Hey, it's good to see you," I said, making sure not to invade his personal bubble, which, I'd noticed, was a lot bigger than others'.

Nico gave me a small, nervous smile. "Am I…interrupting something?" he asked in a low voice.

I looked back at my class who were waiting, whispering to each other before I turned to face Nico again. "Not at all. In fact, I was just about to call a break anyway." I started to turn away, and gestured toward the arena with my head. "Come on." I didn't look to see if he was following me, but I heard the echo of his hesitant footsteps. "Class, I'd like to introduce you to Nico di Angelo, son of Hades."

I stepped aside and allowed Nico to step forward a bit more. The murmurs among the younger campers rose in excitement.

"I told you!" one whispered to their friend.

"It is him!" another whispered.

"Would you mind answering some of their questions?" I asked, looking over at Nico, who was so nervous he looked sick.

"Um…no, I-I guess not—" Nico managed before one of kids shot her hand up but didn't wait for me to call on her.

"Is your sword really all black?" she asked.

Nico looked down at the sword at his side before unsheathing it slightly to show them. "Uh, yeah—"

"Why does it look like that?" a boy asked.

"Um, I forged it from stygian iron—"

"Is it true it sucks the essence of monsters instead of dusting them?"

"Yes, it does—"

"I really like your shirt!"

"Oh, thanks—"

And so it went, they continued to ask him question after question, with a comment interspersed here and there, barely giving Nico time to answer or respond. Nick and Ivan hung back, chatting with my siblings. I stayed by Nico's side, to give him some comfort in front of a group of such eager kids. And to make sure they didn't invade his personal space. I'll admit it was a little amusing seeing Nico look so shocked at such positive attention. (And then sad, because I realized he only looked confused because he didn't get that often or at all.)

After I don't know how many minutes, they started crowding and asking questions all at the same time. I held up my hands.

"All right, all right," I said over their voices, getting them to quiet down. "The break's over. It's time to get back to work."

"Will you spar with him?" one of them asked. The rest of the kids agreed enthusiastically.

"Um…what?" I asked. I really shouldn't have been surprised, and yet, here I was, stunned at the request.

"I want to see you spar with Nico!"

There were choruses of agreement again and I looked warily over at Nico. The situation was akin to when they'd wanted to see me spar with Percy, and I was afraid they might peg me as boring again, honestly, if I didn't agree.

"Would you mind?" I asked, still looking at Nico.

"Um…well it'd be good practice, I guess," Nico muttered, reaching up to rub the back of his head. "I…I haven't sparred with a living person in a…long time." He lowered his arm and shrugged, looking as uncomfortable as I felt.

"Who do you spar with usually?" Ivan called from where he was standing with my siblings.

Nico hunched his shoulders and frowned, looking away. "The dead."

There was a long pause and I waited, hoping that hadn't put anyone off.

"Whoa, really?" Ivan asked, coming closer to our group. "That's really cool! So do you, like, summon skeleton warriors or something? Or…can ghosts fight? Do they even have substance?"

Nico's shoulders relaxed and he blinked, looking over at Ivan, surprised at his reaction. I had to stifle a smile.

"Um, yeah, skeletons," Nico answered. "Even if ghosts did have substance, my sword would suck up their soul, so I wouldn't spar with them."

"Could you—" Ivan started excitedly, but Nick came up to stand beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Wait, you're distracting from the question: Will you spar with Victoria, Nico?" Nick asked, shooting me a glance, smirking.

I narrowed my eyes at him, but his gaze had gone back to the boy beside me.

"If-if that's what you guys want—" Nico started.

"It is." Nick assured, nodding. I gritted my teeth, shooting daggers at him. He ignored me.

"And if it's okay with Victoria," Nico said, looking at me. I quickly dropped my glare and looked over at the son of Hades.

"Why not?" I sighed.

Even though I'd managed to avoid causing my chronic pain to flare up suddenly, I was afraid this might do it. When I fought, I didn't usually think about what I was doing when in the heat of battle. I mean, aside from avoiding the moves that I knew for certain would cause me pain, I had to focus on the battle. And there were so many moves in swordsmanship.

"You sure?" Nico asked.

It was a pride thing again. I didn't want to be seen as a kill-joy. "I'm sure." With that, my siblings came forward and ushered the kids back, giving me and Nico room. We walked a few more paces apart, and unsheathed our respective swords.

I faced him, taking a deep breath and gripping the hilt of my sword. I nodded to tell Nico I was ready whenever he was. After a moment, he nodded as well before coming at me and striking like a cobra.

I can't recall a time I'd seen Nico fight, but he was well-trained. Not as good as Percy, definitely not as good as Luke, but he was small, fast, and strong. When I got close enough, the aura of death and fear exuded from him and I noticed the dark, purplish glow of his sword even more. It did throw me off a bit.

However, it was a fun challenge to adapt to his fighting style and the aura aspect. Ultimately, though, I was better. I saw an opening and disarmed him. He lost his grip and his sword clattered to the arena floor, leaving his unprotected chest open to my sword's point. We were both breathing hard.

My own sword slipped from my hand, suddenly, and my knees unexpectedly buckled. The prickle's heightened to such a deafening degree, I almost thought I'd done something wrong to trigger it. I heard muffled voices, but the static was too loud. I felt my heart beating in my chest frantically as I struggled for breath, as I struggled to dispel the pin-pricks. At first, I thought it wasn't going to die down, but after a few more gasping breaths, it started to quiet.

I could see and hear again. My pain was still pretty bad, but not bad enough I wouldn't be able to function until I could back to my cabin, at least. I'd have to end the class early again, though. And probably skip my next class, unfortunately.

Nico was kneeling right in front of me, my siblings around him.

"Are you okay?" he asked. I'd told him about my chronic pain, so he didn't need to ask what was wrong or what happened.

"I will be," I assured, my breathing still a bit ragged.

Nico nodded, needing only that, to which I was grateful for. He stood, my siblings followed, and, to my surprise, offered his hand. I took his gratefully and carefully got to my feet. Cressida was instantly at my side, supporting me with an arm around my waist while Reed grabbed my sword and handed it back to me. I sheathed it and looked at Nico.

"Sorry for ending on such a sour note," I apologized.

Nico smiled. "No, it's fine. These things happen. I…had fun." He picked up his own sword and sheathed it.

I smiled back. "Good. I'm glad. I have to end the class and get back to my cabin before I completely collapse. So, I'll see you around soon?"

"Yeah." He smiled. "Yeah, you will." With that, he nodded and headed out of the arena.

"By Mr. Nico!" one of the kids called, followed by a chorus of goodbyes. Nico turned at the entrance to wave at them before disappearing.

"Okay, class," I called weakly. "I'm cutting it short. Dismissed." I sighed, and put my arm over Cressida's shoulders, leaning into her even more.

"We'll clean things up," Reed said. "You should get back to the cabin."

"Thanks," I said gratefully before Cressida started to lead me out.

"Wait, Victoria!"

I stopped, holding Cressida up and looked over my shoulder. Nick had started to approach us, but Kayla and Austin stepped into his pathway. They said something to him and his eyes flickered back to me momentarily before he turned away, frowning. I turned forward again and together, Cressida and I headed back to our cabin.

Of course this would only happen when I had an audience, and when I was sparring. Again. My chronic pain had such impeccable timing.

Yay, so didn't have to wait too long! I think, anyway. I've kind of lost track of time. That happens when I don't have a set schedule. Speaking of, I'm on winter break and, since my college has a Jan term, which I don't take, I'll have all of January off, too! Yay! Doesn't guarantee more or faster updates, but at least I won't have to worry about balancing fanfic with school and homework.

Not much else to say other than describing magic tricks is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'm excited to expand on this side of Nick, though, because I, too, love magic. Also, I hope I described the magic part all right. That was also a difficult part for me. Finally, I hope it doesn't seem too OOC for Nico to offer his hand. I know he doesn't like other people touch him, but it was for such a brief moment, and him and Tori have grown pretty close (to be fair, most of it did happen off screen, so to speak). But anyway…

Got a few more balls rolling, got a few more to come. Stay tuned!

Comments are very much appreciated ^_^

As always, I hope you enjoyed!

Thank you for reading,
TheBrightestNight