The Daughter of Darkness - Rejects

by Nic-n'-Nyx

Bree and her sisters are fine with being rejected by Olympus. They're alive, and they're settling into their new home well. They're even learning from another demigod outcast. But nobody has time to learn where true loyalties lie before it no longer matters - Olympus is silenced, demons run free, and if the four want to survive, they must learn to work together... or die trying.

38. Flawed

DISCLAIMER: Rick Riordan still owns PJatO and HoO. (No, cat, you can't own them by owning him. That became illegal a long time ago.)

oOo

Before Hunter and Brook left, I pulled them aside for one last pep talk.

"Slaughter anything that comes at you, alright? And remember what happened so you can tell a good story later."

Brook gave me her wide smile and mock salute. It was a bittersweet thing to see – I knew she wasn't the child she looked, and I knew she wasn't the warrior she thought she was.

Hunter, also in a good mood, had bellowed, "FOR SPARTA!"

That, I'll admit, I laughed at. We were still in a good mood from earlier. Dare I say my own act of idiocy caused it. So high-strung with everything else, a small spurt of good news like that had set our spirits soaring. And we needed a good flight to perk us up.

I just hoped we weren't flying into open air above any archers.

And with that (and one last playful poke at Nico's time as a flower), they left.

"I don't like this," I said as soon as they were gone. "They shouldn't be spending any more time out there than necessary."

"It's not the smartest move," Nico murmured, staring at the door carefully. "But Hunter decided it was better to risk it and scout the place out first, and I'm not stupid. I'm going to trust her judgment. This is one of her talents, and not one of mine."

I glanced sideways at him. "Oh, no? So should I feel lucky or unlucky that you asked me to come with you into the tunnels?"

"Neither. Luck doesn't exist," he said simply. Then, as a side note, "Shut up, Phil."

"You're so mean to him," I said, glancing nervously at the empty bone. "Maybe he wouldn't be so annoying if you listened now and then?"

Or maybe you'd realize he's not really talking to you at all?

Nico shrugged. "We actually get along quite well. I don't know why, but we only argue this much when you guys are around."

I stared after him as he made his way to the basement door, pondering for a moment just what that meant.

Eh. I didn't need more to think about. I shrugged it off and followed, making sure to grab Phil's skull as I went. Couldn't hurt to take him – it – with us. Nico glanced at me with unreadable when he saw the skull craddled in my hands.

"For, um, luck," I explained.

That crooked smile appeared again, just for a moment, before he turned and started down the stairs. "Whatever keeps the nightmares away, I guess."

It was a figure of speech, so I forced myself not to elaborate much on that. Together, we made our way through the basement and to the training cavern - also known as the Stronghold - to where the tunnel waited.

On the way there, I noticed his limp. I opened my mouth to ask if he was alright before realizing why; he'd removed the brace. Which was a good thing rather than bad. So I kept my mouth shut as we crossed the cave.

Nico knelt at the doors and said, "Stay close."

"I will," I said. Phil grinned his approval at me.

The chain rattled as he shoved it aside, and the doors creaked, revealing the long corridor still behind them after all these hours. Nico let out a breath I was sure I wasn't meant to hear. "Alright," he said. "I'll go first. Don't try to use magic down here, alright? These things are guarded against it in case of an attack. Even Underworld magic tends to jump around and do odd things. Even the glyphs probably won't be good for much more than light."

I knelt next to him and stared down the tunnel. It reminded me of an animal's burrow; long and dark and narrow. Square, but narrow. Dark walls glistened with the green torchlight and marched on, unmarked aside from their flawed and bumpy texture, into a blackness darker than the night.

Which wasn't a hard thing to be, in a big city like this, I reflected. I rather liked this tunnel. The walls were solid and their closeness was, actually, almost cozy-looking.

And then I realized the tunnel was pointed down.

"Um... how long is this thing?" I asked.

"Miles and miles. It's hard to give a certain number. I mean, there's magic deminsions to take into account, so it could be two miles of tunnel but in actuality like fifteen in distance. And then there's the fact that it could open in the top of Erebos, in Asphodel, or be one of those trap ones that just drops you from the roof of the cavern so that you'll die when-"

"I got it," I cut him off grimly. The image wasn't helping.

Miles and miles. I didn't like the way he'd ruled out yards, feet, or inches. The tunnel had to be at a thirty degree angle from straight-out plummeting, too.

So it was miles and miles down, basically.

Somehow, this had not occurred to me before.

"Bree. Hel-lo."

"Nt," I grunted, blinking at the hand waving before my face. "Sorry. What?"

"Unless you'd like to go first, I kind of need your sword. My glyphs don't glow until I activate them. Oh, and you might want to turn of the red burning one."

"Right. Right," I said, drawing my killer eraser from my pocket. I wiped my thumb over the glowing red engravings - the one that'd burn him if he touched it - and handed it to him. He clenched it in his fingers experimentally before nodding, satisfied by its multicolor light, and starting off down the tunnel.

"So, um, if the door's shut, we go back up backwards?" I guessed as I followed him, hobbling on one hand with Phil in the other, hugged close to me.

Before he could answer, the doors behind us slammed shut so loudly it echoed down the tunnel. There were seconds of eerie silence before the noise came back to us from below.

I closed my eyes and clenched my hands, clinging desperately to the floor. I would not slip. I would not slip.

"Maybe. I don't know," Nico said, nothing but a dark shape contoured by a dull rainbow color. "We'll just have to wait and see."

"Fun," I sighed, and on we went.

Not far into the trip, I found it was easier to zip up my jacket and wriggle (as much room as I could in the square yard of space I had) so that it hung on me crooked. That way, a good portion of the neckhole was actually exposing my shoulder. I managed to stuff the gleaming skull into it and zipped it tighter so that he and I resembled a strange two-headed undead creature. The grim image made my lips twitch as I went on. I had to tighten it again and add in the hood and the little tightning strings, so that naught but his gaping eyes showed through my jacket, but found that it worked. I was now free to crawl with both hands.

And resembled a strange two-headed undead ninja creature.

I looked around nervously at the walls and my hands for something new to fidgit with before realizing I couldn't see them. It was pitch black.

"Bree? Where'd you go?" Nico called from ahead. Way ahead down there, the light shone. I couldn't quite make out his shape through it; I'd fallen too far behind.

"I'm up here," I said. "Sorry. Had to get Phil situated. Hold on; I'm coming..."

The thing is with lights, though, is that they kill your night vision. That's why it's so easy to sneak up on those crowded around a warm fire on a cold, dark night; the light before them is what their eyes will focus on, and everything else appears dead black, even if that's not what it really is. The pupils would be too narrow to see into the shadows correctly. So light's only good in dark areas for looking at what's directly in front of you. That's why I was supposed to keep up with Nico; all we needed to see was the ground right before us, to reveal the bumps and dips and any random, Underworld-blocking wall we came across.

But now the light was too far ahead for me to see the ground before me. Slowly, digging my nails into the walls, I started down.

The light was so far away down there... What a long way down...

The hand holding my weight beneath me slipped.

I screamed and threw it to the side, pushing as hard as I could. Every instinct screamed for me to turn and go back up. To get to solid, even ground. Away from the empty air that might as well have been filled with gunfire. I hadn't fallen an inch over that slip, but it set my heart racing. I knew it was only a matter of time. It wouldn't be long before I fell for real.

Because if you stand on the cliff for so long, if you stand on Olympus, chances are that your time will run out eventually.

"Bree?!" Nico called, hearing my cry. "What happened?"

"I'm fine," I rasped, staring down at the light. I could just make out his shape now, if I squinted. "I just... slipped..."

"Easy does it," he called, which sounded odd to me. Nico, giving encouragement?

By the time I finally caught up, I had managed to disguise my shaking. "I'm fine," I said. "Let's just keep going."

He couldn't exactly turn to look at me, but he lifed one arm and let his head hang low so that he could catch a glimpse behind him. "Do you need to go slower?"

"No," came my immediate reply. I wasn't going to admit it to either of us. I wasn't scared. I wasn't slow. Besides, the faster we went, the sooner we'd reach the bottom, where there would be no room to fall...

He stared at me a moment more, nothing more than a dark and blurred shape with glinting eyes, before continuing down the shaft. I made sure to follow closely this time.

The cold, uneven surface beneath my hands was slightly reassuring. It provided little life-saving handholds. I didn't want to think about coming back up, backwards or forewards, and for now it would suffice.

And at least with Nico so close, if I slipped, we'd be too bulky a load to go far before getting stuck in this infernal tunnel. I told myself that over and over.

But you can tell yourself the same thing of a monster's gullet, that you're too big to fit down it. That you're safe from a demon you've been warned of. That the alien in that internet video you were told not to watch wasn't real and wouldn't stalk your bedroom at night. That the nightmares were nothing more. That the demons of your subconscious mind couldn't really be stalking past in the shadows.

Thing is, my nightmares were real. They always were.

The empty space itself radiated hostility. Suddenly the solid rock beneath didn't seem so trustworthy. I knew all too well that it was a traitor; in a moment, it could become what I dread. The cause of bruises and blood and breaks and a red-tinted splatter. The cold was rather freezing now, far too relentless to be pleasant. Like the whipping of wind as it went past.

"Leave her be, Phil," Nico said dryly out of nowhere.

I hardly heard. My mind was occupied with things I hadn't known it'd held onto.

At the time, I hadn't really seen Ethan fall. He was just there and then not, and as soon as he was gone from my fingers, so was everything else. I thought I'd closed my eyes. I thought maybe Kronos had killed me, or was about to.

But no. I kept my eyes open. I know because now, at the worst of times, the memory came to me.

Screams. They echoed through the tunnel from every direction, as if it'd been this very shaft. I couldn't think of another time I'd heard his voice so twisted, distorted, and broken. Ethan didn't scream.

Except he did then.

There were green eyes and his hair whipping in the wind. He kept his head turned up like... Like I don't know. Disbelief? Horror? Longing to be back up there? Shock that I'd dropped him? Betrayal?

Green eyes. They closed for the last time. He brushed the side of the chasm of the mountain just once before dropping into open air, nothing but a faraway ragdoll in the winds.

Then Kronos had distracted me. By the time I looked back, he'd vanished.

Anything that could turn his laugh into such twisted screams and those dark jade eyes to naught but the long lashes that covered them and that swift, able body into whatever Nico had found later that day, I couldn't face. It was still so impossible to imagine Ethan gone.

And the demon that'd done it...

...It came after me now. It tasted bitter and strong on the back of my tongue, trickling down my throat. It turned the shadows into that empty, venom-tasting air that was so deadly. It was what turned the rock against me.

Anything that could turn that boy to silence, the boy who'd set a rebellion on fire and taken torch to the skies over the Battle of Manhattan, could turn water to blood and the sky to a suffocating blanket and ice to the burnign fires of Tartarus and shadows into piercing, blinding lights. Light that didn't kill demons.

And it knew its place well.

As did I. Helpless as the prey I knew I was, too scared to be left alone again, I stayed close to Nico and constantly glanced behind me, just to be sure I wasn't about to be pushed. To remind myself that I'd already conquered greater heights. I'd stare at the ground beneath me so I'd know if it started to give way. I'd stare at my glowing eraser to make sure it was there, and I could call it to me should I need it.

Forget what I said about never admitting. I knew better. I let myself know; I was scared. Scared to the bone.

From somewhere ahead, forever pulling me downwards, Ethan's killer whispered, You should be.

oOo

I held a certain amount of respect for those who face their fears. And a certain amount of the opposite for those who don't.

Hence my current argument with Phil.

"Dude, you're being mean. You should try to comfort her."

I ignored him. Bree had already told me what she wished; she had no intention to slow down or admit to me that there was a problem. Oh, I knew there was one; I could see it in every tense movement and hear it in every startled yelp, every gasp of breath through her lips. But she had chosen to wage war against it and put her fears back in their place. Somewhere they wouldn't control her.

I'm sorry, but I saw no reason to stop that war.

Let her win her honor. Let her win her mind back. I had no doubt that she could, after all. There need be no noise from me. Just peace standing by, and after that war was won, silent pride.

Pride, yes. The same pride all allied soldiers feel in one another.

"She's not winning that war," Phil hissed.

"Leave her be, Phil," I warned. She would win it. Eventually. It was her business. I would allow him to meddle in mine, but not in hers.

But as we went on I began to feel his concern. It sounded like she was dying back there. Rasped breaths and hands shuffling way too loudly. The jerk of too-tense muscles. Phil cursed as she accidentally crashed that shoulder into the wall.

Pity is an emotion of notion to me. It is useless to the one it's felt for, but it occurs. It's real use is to the one who pities; it tells them that they are still human.

Well, half-human.

Should a god not feel pity, we'd call him a Titan. Should a demigod lack it entirely, we'd name her a demon.

Pity did not come easily to me. I did not feel bad for those with struggles. We all had them, we all fight our battles. End of story. But now and then, after seeing that struggle for so long, I could feel it leak into me. I felt the traces of the emotion labeled with that, ah, petious name; pity.

I ignored it and let Bree soldier on.

"Quit acting like you don't have a heart," Phil muttered. "Do you realize how cold you look to outsiders?"

"I don't really care," I informed him. Besides, it was her battle.

"And where exactly does it say that she must fight it alone?"

I sighed heavily. Fighting my battles alone had been rough, but it'd ended just fine. What doesn't break you makes you. And what does break you... Well, that makes you, too.

Before we could discuss it further, Bree burst in with a breathless question. "Nico, can I tell you something?"

"Shoot," I said, figuring that it'd help her. And she'd been the one to ask; I had been pulled in, not interfered.

"I'm scared of heights."

I chuckled. "I could tell."

I had no further comment.

On we went. Her admittion seemed to do her no good; still there was startled gasps and quiet grunts and the occasional slip of hand that comes with sweaty palms. I tuned her out and listened to the tunnel, waiting for some signal. The whisper of a shadow guard. For the end to appear. Gods, if it really was open...

"Nico, I know you're ignoring her and all, and that you think it's her problem, but would it kill you to give just a little reinforcement?"

And tell her what? I thought. That Ethan was alive? That some magical flying pony would catch her if she fell?

"Do you like watching her suffer?" Phil spat, angry now.

"No," I sighed. I'd seen her hesitate the other night on the roof of the abandoned apartment. I'd heard the strain in her voice the day I'd climbed her house and snuck in a window. And suffering and I were well familiar with one another, but... No, no, I hadn't ever liked the sounds of war. At least not when they were as obvious as they were now.

"Then at least supply her with weapons," Phil said, continuing our little analogy. "That's part of a mentor's job."

I sighed heavily. Weapons, I could do. And quite well.

"Give me the skull," I said, stopping. She grunted and came to a rock-solid halt behind me.

Slowly, I heard her shuffle, then felt her tap my heel gently. I crouched down so I could extend my arm back there and grab the little white annoyance before getting back to my hands and knees.

Phil smiled up at me, silent now that he'd gotten his way.

"It's because of Ethan, isn't it?" I asked. In the gloom, I caught a sideways glimpse of Bree's miserable nod. "...Try not to think about it."

"I'm trying."

I thought for a moment. "Um... We could talk, I guess. If it distracts you."

Uncertainty flickered in her eyes. She didn't know what to think.

Emptathy filled me to my fingertips now. I knew how that felt. "Name a topic," I said, and began shuffling forward once more.

"Any topic?"

"Any topic," I reassured. I trusted her to pick a reasonable one.

There was a moment of silence as she thought. "...Okay. Tell me a story."

"What story?"

"One from your past. The Manticore. Or Phil. Or the Labyrinth. Anything but... but Gaea. Or Kronos. Anything but war business."

I let out a long breath. "...From my past?"

"Yes."

"Um... Okay. How about... How about the time I flew?"

"...Flew?"

"Yes."

"On wings?"

"On wings."

"...Okay," she said. "The time you flew on wings. That sounds interesting."

My lips twitched at the bittersweet memory. 'Interesting' was such an understatement. "Alright. I've told you that our kind usually don't train with one another, yes? In the old times, we would train with the dead, and have monthly week-long gatherings when we worked together and shared news and showed off our battlescars, right?"

"Right," she agreed. In my hands, Phil's grin grew wider. As a way to humor myself, I placed the little glowing eraser inside and let it shine out through his eye sockets. It worked quite well.

"So," I went on as Phil and Intuneric lit the way, "that's what I did. In the Labyrinth. I lived in there for six months before it was destroyed. It let me travel across the country in minutes. Of course, I never knew where I'd end up, but I came to appreciate that fact. New graveyards meant new ghosts. And of course there was the summoning ceremony that'd work long-distance. I trained with demigods past. Amelia Earhart, George Washington, Billy Mays, Harriet Tubman, Alcapone. Achilles stopped by to yell at me once. Oh, and Harry Houdini. He's a nice guy - you should meet him sometime. Anyway, there was one mentor in particular who I was fond of. And he was fond of me. He'd follow me around everywhere the sun didn't. In the tunnels, under the stars, in the shadows. Often times, he stood guard while I slept. And he was great at navigating the Labyrinth."

"Who?" Bree asked, a natural question. She cursed as her hand slipped again.

The ghost's name felt like ice on my tongue. His face was clear in my mind now, an image I knew'd haunt me for days to come. She had asked the question like he was a hero, like he was someone to honor.

"...His name was Minos. King Minos, the King of Crete."

She fell silent, listening.

The words brought back memories to me. All the days and nights, the changing of the moon as time wore on and the whispers of the tunnels behind me. The threat of demons. The king's soothing voice. "Minos..."

Minos what? I knew I couldn't lie to Bree. I'd proven that when I'd told her of Gaea.

But there was no way I'd tell her the whole truth. It was too complicated to explain. And painful beyond compare.

"Minos promised me something wonderful one day. I was a young demigod with more power than I knew what to do with and so many ghosts, so much information I was cramming. And Minos had never wronged me before. So I followed him and did what he asked. He said he'd lead me to happiness one day. I... And I wanted it. So badly."

I paused, remembering the passion that'd burned like wildfire. Painful. Powerful. "I listened to what he said. He taught me a ritual that'd give me what he promised. But before we could cast it, Percy's quest in the Labyrinth went wrong. Minos told me that it had. And it did. We dropped what we were working on and ran to help. As we ran, he said that the ritual would help Percy and Annabeth and the others. He made sure I had it memorized. He... He put me where he wanted me, I guess."

From Bree, there was silence. Phil was enjoying his new rainbow vision and wasn't listening, anyway.

"...Before I knew it, he'd run me straight into a trap. He'd struck a deal with one of Kronos's demons. I was the price he would pay. He met with an empousa and a few others - a small attack force - and together they put me in chains. He told them that they could only have me once I'd completeed the ritual.

"I remember asking him, 'What ritual? What are you talking about?' They just yanked on my chains and dragged me through that stupid maze. I could hear more monsters behind me. I... I was scared. Terrified. Any demigod has it written in stone inside him; monsters are bad. Demons are bad. It's what keeps us alive. And I was young enough to still be scared of the mythical one under my bed, let alone real ones. It wasn't until then that I realized I'd not been betrayed but raised like a cow for the slaughter. He'd had this deal in mind all along. Minos was one of the very demons I feared."

Behind me, Bree swallowed thickly.

"It was... a humbling experience," I muttered.

"I can imagine," she whispered.

"Anyway, they dragged me to the heart of the maze, to Daedalus's workship. Daedalus, Minos's prisoner and the creator of the Labyrinth way back in Ancient Greece, had cheated death. He lived on in an automaton. In a machine. And machines can break down, but they don't... They don't ever die. That's one of the reasons I don't like them. He had been undercover at Camp and aided Luke in his quest to get the string that'd lead the Titan army through the maze and to Camp, which led to the Battle of the Labyrinth. But Minos didn't care for the aid he'd given Kronos.

"Minos wanted what Daedalus had. Life. There, before Percy and Annabeth and their friend Rachel and the man who'd run from Thanatos for thousands of years, Minos told me what his plans were. He'd taught me... The wrong ritual. It wasn't the one he'd promised. It was the ceremony for raising the dead."

She was quiet for a moment. "Like... like the one you used to talk to Houdini?"

"No. For bringing them back."

She fell silent again. The nervous shuffling had stopped.

"The deal he made with Kronos's minion was that she would kill Daedalus. Together, they would force me into casting the spell that'd use the energy of a fugitive soul's death and bring Minos back to life. And as a reward, the demon could have me for Kronos's armies. She didn't know my full worth yet - that I was a child of the Big Three - but he had full intention of telling her once he was alive again and out of her reach. So at his command, the demons charged Daedalus.

"Percy and Annabeth fought, too. They were in the crossfire and looked like a nice snack, so they had no choice but to fight the demons that were killing the man who'd betrayed them. Mrs. O'Leary, who belonged to Daedalus before he gave her to Percy, also helped out. And Daedalus wasn't helpless. The workshop exploded into utter discord. You can't just cram all those monsters and demigods into such a small space.

"Minos decided to help out, too. Being one of the Judges, he had some power over the dead, and definitely over the souls of his fallen soldiers. He called to them. 'Come to me! I am the Ghost King!'"

"But that's what Shane called you," Bree protested.

"Hold on, I'm getting there," I muttered, rubbing my wrists absently. "In the midst of all the fighting, I'd been forgotten. The chains hurt, but remember, I'd trained with Houdini. I wrestled with them for a good minute before I finally got them off. I was almost too late.

"Almost. But I stood and managed to reverse the soldiers' accent. Minos resisted. We were locked in a battle for dominance. For a moment, I was scared I wouldn't win. He was ages old and had authority behind him and me... Me, just a kid who was lost and misled and still scared out of his mind by monsters. But somewhere I found resolve. Maybe I'd just been let down one too many times and wouldn't stand for it again. I don't know. But out of nowhere, he was so... insignificant. His spell was easy to squish. Like he was a bug. And I wasn't scared anymore."

Bree was silent. The tension in the air now had nothing to do with fear.

I shifted nervously under her intense gaze. "I sent him and his followers back to the Underworld. Meanwhile, Daedalus managed to escape, and Percy, Annabeth, and Rachel had killed off the monsters. As well as set the workshop on fire. We had to get out, and fast. I don't know whose idea it was. But Rachel had out of nowhere grabbed an invention off the walls and was strapping it to my back and my arms. I was tired from fighting Minos and didn't really notice what it was until she was done.

"It was a pair of wings. Silver feathers interlaced like the real deal, attacked to leather straps that had wax seals and were bound to my back and arms. The feathers of a bird but the attachments of a bat. I turned around, and everyone had them on, and they were all jumping out the window without second thought. With the place filled with smoke, I had no other choice. I followed.

"It took me a minute to get a hold of the wings, and Percy even longer. But the workshop was on a small tower on the side of the mountain, and we had room to experiment. Eventually, I felt the wind gather beneath me, and...

"...I flew."

Silence.

"...Is that the end of it?" she asked eventually.

I shrugged. "Well, we landed, I guess. But that's it. Why?"

"...Seems like a lot to go through for such a short flight."

"That it does," I murmured, reflecting on how true that was. Beneath me, Phil was making a light clacking noise each time the hand that held him lowered to the floor.

"Thanks for sharing," Bree told me quietly. "It was a nice story."

I hesitated, not sure at all what she meant by that. Much less how to respond. A nice story?

I had felt that passion once. I'd felt the fear and the betrayal and the resolve hard and cold and merciless as Stygian iron. I had lived it. I'd felt the cuffs cut into my wrists and the exhausting pull of magic and the exhileration of being free... Of not being scared, for just a moment... Of turly flying...

"...It's a story," I managed, and kept going.

She didn't hesitate with the next question. "Could you tell me another?"

What, was she actually enjoying this? "...Alright. Pick one."

"Well, my next choice was the 'Ghost King' story, but that was already answered... Hm... I know! The Manticore!"

"Um, pick a different one."

"Oh? Okay. Um... You said you'd been to Camp once. Before you knew you were a Son of Hades. Tell me something from that."

Oooh, that. These memories were just as strong. I laughed at them, shaking my head. "Stories from Camp? They're all about Connor and Travis."

"Connor and Travis?"

"Two brothers, Sons of Hermes. They were the only ones aside from me in their cabin over the winter. Pair of theives and jokesters. Can't take anything seriously. They watched over me while I was there. All those stories" - all the stories from then I was willing to tell, for there were more than just happy ones - "are about the things they tricked me into."

"Like what?" she asked, a smile in her voice.

"They got me to play poker once. And another time, they snuck ice cream into my shorts. And once, they convinced me to steal from the camp store. And then there was the time we planted sparklers in the Hephaestus cabin..."

I stopped, for she was laughing now.

"Tell me about the sparklers," she gasped through her hysterics. "Hunter could use the material."

Giving Hunter ideas? The thought was so rediculously dangerous that it brought a smile to my face. "Okay. Sparklers it is. So one night, I asked them how forges were used, and they said, 'We were just headed that way! Why don't you come along? We'll help each other, how about that?' And I..."

And I talked.

She had some very interesting insights. One in particular about not just putting sparklers inside their inventions and all over the floors but up on the roof, too, to add raining fire to the chaos. Praise for their escape route.

Next I told her about the time we'd stolen one of Chiron's records just to discover the music was horrible, anyway. And then about how they'd cheated me time and time again at poker. Then how I'd taught them Mythomagic, and still lost to their card tricks. About how I found out and beat them sorry in a real match.

To my surprise, I was enjoying it. I didn't often visit my past. But these were the happier memories. One of the few I had. And in reality, they were interlaced with something so much darker, but I didn't have to say that painful part out loud. We just talked about the Stoll brothers. About the good things.

I'd always be plagued by the unspoken darker things, about the inner demons and horrible suspicions and the reason I was alone with them at Camp, but it was nice to see that she wasn't, at least.

We stopped once and flopped roles - she told me the story of one of the pranks Hunter had pulled on her father, the classic tape-in-the-doorway trick. Trying to imagine anyone getting the best of the Titan in that way was enough to make me chuckle. Neither of us mentioned what we knew her punishment for it had been.

Afterwards, I was in the middle of detailing the Stoll's escapade in the strawberry gardens, the one when they'd sprayed enough weedkiller on the fertilizer to destroy the entire Lair of the Lotus Eaters. I stopped to look under my arm at her again. A smile was not her default expression, but I saw one playing on her lips as I spoke.

Then, rather suddenly, the ground vanished from beneath me. No rock appeared beneath Phil and my fingers to hold my weight. I yelped and scrambled backwards, desperate to find solid ground again, but I'd gone too far. I felt my weight drop and the momentum pulled me forward, away from Bree. I yelled a warning and, in a last, desperate effort, reached out with my hands to catch something.

But there was nothing to grab; they flailed through dark, empty air, the light vanished, and I tumbled into blackness.

oOo

Nyx: Okay so this is a wicked long chapter but I am SO happy with it.

Nic: That cliffhanger kinda came out of nowhere...

Nyx: Yes well it'll make sense in the next chapter. Oh, wait... Today is Monday. Next update is Thursday. So the readers have to wait an extra day for more.

Nic: Ah, I see. You're cruel.

Nyx: Yes, yes I am. It makes me feel like a professional.

Nic: Careful. Mad readers might not review.

Nyx: Ah... I'm hoping that they will. Reviews are very much appreciated. Oh, and pls don't be mad. My computer won't be back until Thursday, either. *grumble* you should know that I have no control over this. Believe me, I'd love to have it back. But don't worry. The moment I do, the cover'll be coming along much faster than it has been. It is more complicated than Rebels's cover was. Oh, and yes... I mentioned a reptile... On certain parts of it, yeah, I did it scale by scale. See, there is a lot of effort that goes into this.

Nic: Fun fact: animation is also very tedious. In Finding Nemo, the thirty-second scene where Nigel the pelican flies into the window took three months to animate. And that was just Nigel, not the fish or other parts.

Nyx: Anyway we should go. I know this one is nowhere near as good as Rebels, but hang with me. It's about to take off. Thanks for reading, guys. See ya Thursday.