Chapter Summary: The pieces start coming together.
XxxX
The bedrolls have been cleared away and Nico and Will sit across from Reyna and Rachel on the ornamental rug, a plate of sandwiches and several bottles of water at the center. He munches on half of a pb&j, attempting to ignore the tension in the air thick enough to cut with a sword.
Reyna sits cross-legged with Rachel in front of her, Rachel's head resting on Reyna's shoulder, her legs extended. Nico senses Rachel's discomfort at not being able to talk to Reyna about what they'd overheard, but doesn't bring it up; it's not his place. Will passes them a couple of water bottles and pushes the plate closer so Reyna can reach. His left forearm is wrapped in gauze, and though he's mostly using his right arm, Nico catches the bloody patch Will seems to be trying to hide.
Finally, Nico can't take it. He's got to break the silence before his head explodes. "What did you do to your arm?"
Will had just taken a bite of sandwich and seems to chew longer than necessary before he swallows to answer. "I'll tell you about it in private."
The way his eyes plead reminds Nico of Apollo, and of all the things he'd like to discuss in private himself. He nods. It still doesn't help dispel the awkward atmosphere.
"Rachel," Reyna says. "Is it alright if I show them the scrolls?"
"Yeah!" Rachel says, a little overenthusiastic. She blushes. Nico can't say he blames her for wanting to latch onto a safe topic of conversation. "That's a great idea."
"What's this about scrolls?" Will asks. He stands up. "Want me to get them?"
Reyna smiles. She points at the table behind them. "They're just on the end. Before she fell ill, Rachel and Ella were recompiling the Sybilline books. They had started by copying the remaining verses from Jupiter's temple floor when..."
"When Reyna came in to check on our progress and I'd apparently made some doodles in the borders without noticing," Rachel finishes for her.
Will returns with several scrolls and dumps them in front of Reyna.
"Knock knock." Lou Ellen's voice comes from the doorway.
"Can we come in?" Hazel adds.
"Sure," Reyna says, and they shift over to make room. "We have sandwiches; help yourselves."
Frank lumbers in behind the girls, but doesn't sit. He leans against the table behind Hazel and Lou Ellen, as if standing guard, and accepts a sandwich when Hazel passes it to him. Reyna holds out a scroll to Hazel and she unrolls it.
"What are we looking at?" Lou Ellen asks.
Reyna points at the picture drawn in the lower right corner of the paper. "The picture there. What does it look like?"
"Looks like caves," Hazel says, passing the scroll to Will. He brings it closer so Nico can get a better look.
Nico starts. He's just seen those caves in his dream. The muscles in Will's forearm tense as he holds the scroll, and Nico can tell he recognizes them too. But before he can say anything …
"This one is a tree and its roots," Hazel says. Will sets down the first scroll and they wait for the girls to hand it over.
"It's upside down," Lou Ellen observes, then cocks her head. "Or sideways. It's a laurel."
"Apollo's sacred tree," Will murmurs, loud enough they all catch it. He accepts the next scroll from Lou Ellen, and Nico leans over to look at the drawing. It's a very simple illustration drawn with a ballpoint pen, but the shape of the leaves and trunk are recognizable as a laurel tree.
"And this one," Hazel says, unrolling a third. "That's the rod of Asclepius, the god of healers."
Will tenses again when they hand him the scroll, and instead of holding it for Nico, he passes it to him.
Nico looks at the the drawing. A serpent coiled around a long walking stick. He turns to Will, who has gone silent. "Hey," he bumps Will's side with his elbow. "Asclepius is another son of Apollo. Do you know what kind of snake this is?"
Will exhales slowly through his nose. He looks frustrated and trying not to be. "It's a python." His voice is quiet.
Lou Ellen starts. "That's what's poisoning the Oracle, right? Didn't you say you thought it was Python, Will?"
"Yeah, but it's not the Python. What's the next picture of?"
Nico can't help notice Will's not-so-subtle sidestep in the conversation.
"It's a girl's face, her profile. Like she's coming up out of the water," Hazel says and passes the scroll to Nico, as Will is leaning back on his hands. "Okay, Solace, spill. What aren't you telling us? It's plain as day that you're all wound up."
Nico senses anger rising up in Will. His mind works overtime, and before he knows it, he's answering for him. "It's Face Rock. Will grew up on that beach. That's where those caves are from too."
The rest of the room falls silent. It's unnerving. He plunges on ahead when he doesn't feel any resistance from Will, and Will seems to not be in a hurry to speak for himself.
"I think that's where we need to go next. Actually. I was just there."
That made the difference Nico was hoping for. Will seems to forget his own angst and instead shifts in place so he's facing Nico, reaching out and touching Nico's arm.
"When you passed out?"
"Yeah." Nico studies Will's eyes, sees pain in them, but he can't do anything to help it now. He looks back at the group watching him, and tries not to scowl at being the center of attention.
"Apollo visited me. First I saw the memory Will told me about from when Apollo took him away from his mom. She didn't believe Apollo was a god, and even though Will was attacked by a monster, she didn't protect him, didn't see it."
The sympathy rising from the group is tangible. It makes him feel sorry for Will for having all those feelings heaped on him, on top of being forced to relive his worst memory. But strangely, Will seems to respond to it, his tension easing.
"My mom's name is Daphne. She's a psychiatric nurse. We lived on Bandon beach. Apollo told me the only way he could protect me was to make her think I'd been pulled into the ocean by a rip current. Apollo tried to warn her about what life is like for demigods, but she just thought he was a lunatic and threatened to get a restraining order against him."
"What about your sisters?" Nico asks. It makes him curious – Will never mentioned a stepfather.
Will shrugs. "I was nine when Apollo took me. My mom is a bit of a free spirit. She had my sisters and never mentioned who their father or fathers were. They're Cassie, Sam, and Liz. The older two are twins."
Lou Ellen scoots across the rug and sits on Will's other side, hugging him with one arm. "It'll be okay. But if Apollo showed this to Nico, then …"
Will smirks and cocks an eyebrow at Nico. "Ready to meet my mom? We're gonna have to if we want to defeat Python."
Nico swallows past the lump in his throat. He's not sure why it's even there. It's not like he's scared of monsters. But meeting Will's mom – who thinks Will's dead and doesn't believe in the gods – yeah, that's frightening.
Reyna clears her throat. Rachel's fallen asleep on her shoulder and at some point Reyna draped her purple praetor's cape over her. "You're sure this is where you need to go? I thought the Oracle was at Delphi in Greece."
Surprisingly, it's Frank who answers her. "But all the symbols point to Will's mom's place, Reyna. It stands to reason the Oracle would have moved along with western civilization, right? Mount Olympus is in New York now. The laurel tree is what the original Daphne turned into to escape Apollo. And it's uprooted - like it's moved - transplanted." He points the toe of his boot at the last scroll. "What's that one?"
As Hazel unrolls it, a voice calls out. "Friends are in here?"
Frank looks to Reyna, who nods, then he walks to the door and Tyson comes in with Ella hopping behind him.
"Have something to eat, you two," Reyna offers, and Will and Nico scoot even closer to Rachel to make room for them.
Ella flutters to the rug and takes a sandwich. "Peanut butter is Tyson's favorite." She passes it to him and pokes around the plate. "Turkey is good for Ella, but not cheese. Cheese is bad for harpies."
Will leans forward to take Ella's sandwich, plucks the cheese off it and hands it back. He looks up at Tyson and then passes the plate to him with the rest of the sandwiches. "How's it going, Tyson? You hear anything from Percy lately?"
Nico's whole body tenses, and then Will casually drapes an arm over his shoulders and he feels himself relax. Weird.
Tyson finishes his sandwich before answering. "I like building temples. Jason is coming soon to dedicate them. Hannibal is fun to play with." He stops and scratches at his chin, then seems to recall Will's second question. "Percy does not know why algebra exists, but he is happy with his mom and Annabeth. Annabeth will make sure he graduates if it kills him." He shoves another half a sandwich into his mouth.
"That sounds like them," Nico says. It's odd not feeling the old longing spike in his gut at the idea of Percy being off with Annabeth. He likes the way Will's arm seems to fit around him, like he's a human coat.
"Um, guys?" Lou Ellen interrupts. She and Hazel have collected the scrolls and are scrutinizing the pictures. "This last one, I think it's an eclipse."
"Yeah," Nico says. "Apollo told me he was thinking about an eclipse when he wrote that song." He doesn't go into details about how he had interpreted the lyric in question.
Ella burps and ruffles her feathers, sending crumbs everywhere. "Eclipse. Noun. An eclipse in which the sun is obscured by the moon." She shakes more crumbs off her wings as well as a few clusters of red down, then nudges the scroll with the eclipse on it with her taloned foot. "The fall of the sun, the final verse. Inoculate the source, to fate – reverse."