-Magnus-

"Everything will be fine. Because absolutely nothing has gone off the rails yet." I told myself as I carefully watched the green hummingbird zip into the window.

I sighed and looked around to make sure no one saw me yet. I hadn't completely dried my clothes so it was much colder than I would've liked. Ever since coming back from Niflheim, I was sensitive to cold temperatures. I hated Niflheim.

"Trust me," Alex said when I protested that I should go instead. She winked and zoomed off. Unfortunately, I did trust her.

According to my previous chats with Annabeth, she told me that her Camp place had some crazy chicken ladies, a heavily armed battalion of fighters called Ares Cabin (by this point I was wondering about my zodiac), and woods that had prophetic powers that could drive you bananas. So yeah, this is why I was a wee bit concerned.

I snapped out of my train of thought when I heard footsteps. I just had enough time to use a perthro rune before a group of people passed by to march into the blue house.

Now safely invisible, I saw my buddy Percy, aka Professor of the Dreaded Seamanship Class, walking arm-in-arm with Annabeth, who was my cousin on my mom's side. Her grey eyes were a lively storm of joy.

I looked away and observed the rest of her little gang. There were two boys, my friend Nico was rocking the 'emo aesthetic' look, and his pal Will, who was doing the exact opposite. And...I admit after seeing elves turn into dragons, sailing on a yellow google-self-driving-longship, and cutting off a fire giant's nose, I still was surprised to find out that centaurs existed.

His top half was human alright (or dwarf or elf but thinking about that might make my brain explode), but he was a white palomino from the waist down. I guessed this was the Mr. Kai-rune that Annabeth was talking about on the phone last week.

They went inside the house and I saw the flash of green go behind them.

"Alex," I murmured. Hummingbirds must've had good hearing or something because she saw me and gave me an annoyed I-know-that look. Apparently, even Hearthstone's runes couldn't hide her in her angry hummingbird form. Alex did a great hummingbird.

I sighed and put my head in my arms. Why had I even considered this? And why did looking at what they were doing felt so...right? Maybe Homeless Me felt like being me today. That's probably why I never cared about stealing and eavesdropping. New Me knew that was wrong, but...seriously, old habits can stick like Super Glue.

Hey, you try.

I waited a bit more for something to go wrong. Sure enough, it did.

-Nico-

"What's up?" Will nudged me. I turned around and found the rest of them staring at me.

"What? Did I say something?"

He sighed. "Were you even listening?"

"Ah. No?"

To tell the truth, I was wondering why the words that Chiron said had felt so...right. Two strange demigods in the lake? Interesting. A magic school? Sure, why not!

I looked out the window again. I felt some strange aura around the house, but I couldn't place it. A death aura. Definitely someone I had seen before. No, two of them. There were two things, I mean people, that gave off a deathly vibe.

"Basically," Percy explained. "what Chiron said is that we have to go to England tonight. Zeus-oh, come off it. Lord Zeus then!" he yelled at the darkening clouds outside. He continued as if nothing happened.

"Yeah. So. He's going to send us to this "Burrow" place in the UK. Oh, and told us to do our best not to trip over the chickens."

"That makes sense."

Percy nodded enthusiastically with me.

"Any questions?" Chiron asked politely. I wanted to scream an obvious 'duh,' but then thought that would be unnecessary.

The aura of death was so near I was almost scared by it. But it wasn't like someone was going to die. This one was more gentle, like someone who already died and no longer had to feel pain. "Yes. Is there anyone else here?"

He frowned and snapped his fingers. The air around us rippled and someone yelped and a familiar-looking person with green hair and a loud outfit crashed onto the table.

"Alex!" I drew my sword. "what are you doing here?"

Alex glared at me. "Nice to see you too, di Angelo. Oh, and you too, Seaweed Brain."

"Hold up," Percy said, looking at Alex. "You have some explaining to do, young man, along with why Seaweed Brain is my new name."

"Young lady," she corrected, ignoring the rest of his words.

"Weren't you a boy before?" I questioned.

"But that was before."

Fair point. Will and Annabeth looked at Chiron as if they were legionnaires who had no idea how to use spears and were waiting for instructions. Surprisingly, the centaur smiled thoughtfully at Alex.

"Ah...Alex Fierro. Mimir has told me much about you."

I now fully appreciated his powers at acting calm at people that look like they'd want to rip out his neck muscles.

-Percy-

We had spent the rest of the morning getting ready for this quest. I was surprised that I finished unscathed.

Annabeth and I wandered around until we bumped in the Pegasi Stables. Blackjack was there as usual, and anyone who had animal experience (and people who didn't) could tell that he needed to blow off steam.

'Hey boss, you have some donuts?'

'You know that stuff isn't good for you.'

'Yeah, but do you have them?'

"He's talking about donuts again, isn't he?" Annabeth raised her eyebrow.

I sighed. "Yeah. We should get them before he causes a riot. Wanna come?" I offered out my hand, just like how Piper instructed me in Girls 101.

"Oh, yes, Seaweed Brain."

She ignored my hand and went in front of me. I wrapped my arms around her waist as we took off.

xxx

"Two minutes and thirty-nine seconds late," Zeus thundered.

We'd rushed to the Empire State Building and took five whole minutes to persuade the mortal in the lobby. The elevator was kind of crowded, what with me, Magnus, Alex, Nico, Will, Annabeth, and this guy Hearthstone that Magnus brought along. Then, we had to stop Hearthstone and Alex from admiring Mount Olympus, which nearly resulted in disembowelment. Finally, we went to the Olympian throne room and learned some sign language.

"Does it actually matter?" I snapped. Annabeth had her you-are-going-to-get-us-killed-Seaweed-Brain face and I decided that that was more important than this fricking idiot who counted time to the seconds.

"Tonight at midnight, Harry Potter will leave to the Burrow. Since New York is five hours ahead of London and it's 2:52 in the afternoon here, so yes, it does matter."

"Let's just get over with it."