Hpov

I dropped out of the mortal world and into hell.

Monsters around me howled as ash and dirt whipped into the air with cold and bitter winds. I ran, confused as spirits whirled around me, shrieking and wailing as they snatched at my clothes.

Jets of acidic smoke billowed up from rough stone stacks and pits of fire and lava surrounded me in the cracked landscape.

I continued to run, tasting dust, feeling it settle in my lungs with each ragged breath. I felt this world draining me, pulling me into the blackened ground, sapping my life force as my body became heavier and heavier.

My foot hit a rock and I stumbled, terror seizing my body as I flung out my hands, knowing it wouldn't save me from the lava in the crevice I was hurtling towards.

Something grabbed me, pulling me back, jerking me out of the hands of the fates right as I'd thought they'd taken hold.

I clung to the figure realizing it was tall and a little familiar. I looked up in relief, expecting to see Ashton or Charlie, thanking the gods I wasn't alone only to stumble back in horror.

"James?" I asked, startled to see the look of genuine relief in his blue eyes as he looked me over.

"Thank gods you're alright."

What on Olympus was going on?

He looked much as I remembered him only… something was off. He looked paler, dark circles under his eyes, his body thinner, as if he'd been feeling the effects of this place I had, only for a much longer time. I looked at him confused, wondering why though he looked the same, something about the shape of his face was different. Was he… older?

"You have to be careful down here Harper," he said sounding half exasperated, half amused. "I told you that."

"What-"

"You know you really make it hard sometimes to keep you alive." I stared as he took a dagger from his belt and held it for me to take, hilt first, while reaching for the broad sword that was strapped to his back. "Since yours is currently melting." He continued, offering weapon.

I glanced back at the pit of lava, only to see a vaguely crossed shape of red hot metal sinking under the bright surface.

Not knowing what else to do, I took the dagger feeling a strange sort of familiarity at the gesture and the smile he shot me as I did. As if this was something we had done a thousand times before, and would continue to do again.

"You're going to end up getting me killed one day, you know that?" He said amused watching as I put the dagger into a sheath on my hip. "The way you hurtle out of the doors, sometimes I feel you're going to shoot right off a cliff."

"Why does that matter to you?" I asked resentfully.

"Why does it matter to me?" he asked as if I were insane. "Do you know what Athena would do to me if I let something happen to her darling favorite daughter on my watch, assuming her brother or her boyfriend didn't get a hold of me first."

He pretended to shudder, smirking as if he thought I would appreciate the joke.

"James, what the- I have no idea what you're talking about." I stuttered in confusion. Athena's favorite? I was pretty sure my mother hated me right now, and boyfriend? "What the hell is going on? Where are we?"

At this he raised an eyebrow.

"We're in Tartarus remember? You sent us here?" he asked, as if he wasn't sure if I was kidding or not. "We've been planning little excursion for almost a year..."

His sentence trailed off as if he wasn't sure if I was trying to be funny or not. Like I was supposed to have known what he was talking about.

"I-" I started in uncertainly, looking down at my hands to see that they were different than I remembered. On my arms were new scars…

Just then, he swore and I looked up only to see in the distance on a large stone alter, wisps of smoke seemed to be gathering, shaping themselves into large, grotesques forms.

"Get your head out of the clouds mate," James said his gaze fixing on the figures as he brought his sword to the ready. "We've got a book to steal, and I don't think those guys are going to like it."

I woke with a start, pushing myself up wildly only to hear the rustling of pages and feel something heavy slide on to my hand.

I down in confusion, breathing quickly only to see a massive book and several sheets of paper, all scattered around me across an unfamiliar comforter.

"What the-" I started uncertainly, glancing at my hands for the dagger and my arms for the injuries that I'd seemed to have sustained over time, only to see that, like I'd remembered in the dream, for a demigod, I look remarkably unscathed.

I glanced around the room and as I took in the posters and the photos, I remembered where I was. What must have happened.

'I must have fallen asleep.' I thought feeling my heart rate slow, as half remembered images presented themselves to my mind from the dream.

Tartarus, James. How different he's seemed from any version of him I'd thought I'd met. I'd recognized the sort of grin he'd given me in the dream. While I'd never seen it from him before, it was one I saw Ashton and Charlie giving each other all the time, when they were up to their usual trouble. It wasn't the sort of expression you shot someone that you didn't care about, or saw as a means to an end. That was an expression you wore when communicating to a friend. A best friend.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked rubbing my head as I tried to process the memory, wondering how something so unlikely had been so vivid. Had seemed so real.

I'd been confused in the dream, but now… it almost felt as if it had happened. As if I was looking into an alternate reality. Like some part of me believed it had been real and I had briefly lived in world where my mother was proud of me. One in which James and I were… friends.

'But that was impossible.' I thought glumly hugging my knees to my chest and continuing to look around the room. James and I couldn't be friends after what he'd done. Nothing could have excused it, right?

Then again…

I looked at Ashton grinning a little, seeing his long limbs awkwardly sprawled as he leaned back, asleep in the computer chair next to his desk.

Maybe things weren't always as impossible as they sometimes seemed.

I looked at him for a second, beams of early morning light washing out the color in his hair making it appear far paler than its usual golden color.

I knew he'd be up soon. It was almost dawn. All the Apollo children were early risers and despite the lack of sleep we both had been running on lately, it was like he said. They were meant to be up during the day.

I couldn't help but think at how differently it felt to look at Ashton than it had felt to look at James in the dream. I'd always known exactly how I felt about Ashton, even if I'd never admit it to anyone but the most distant parts of myself in the back of my mind. At some points, I'd almost resented the feeling. Why, even though I'd never been able to stand Charlie's basketball friends for more than a few minutes, I couldn't stop looking up from my page at the cute blonde boy on the court. And when he'd actually talked to me… asked me out, I was unreasonably excited about it. Way more than I should have been. And then when I was furious with him about how much he'd teased me with Charlie and how that stupid nickname had gotten started, I would have still given him a chance. If he'd wanted to ask for one…

I'd hated how much Ashton got under my skin, how he'd managed to take up a permanent space in my thoughts and without even seeming to try to do so.

It hadn't been like that with James. In fact, I hadn't been sure what it was like. Just that even if it didn't feel like being around Ashton, and I knew it never would, I still liked being around him. He'd been easy to talk to. And though I wasn't sure I was all that into him, he had been at least interesting to be around. He'd seemed to understand me at least, and if I'd known how much he'd known about the library, I would have seen him as a kindred spirit. Talking to him had been fun, there hadn't been a lot of pressure or uncertainty like there had been with Ashton, and it wasn't like with Charlie with years of irritation and boredom and fights backed by the feeling of knowing that no matter what, your sibling would always be there, even if you wanted to strangle them sometimes.

Maybe, in a different world, like the one in the dream James and I could have been friends. Where the library hadn't been worn down over the centuries, trapping mortals like Lucy and whatever poor creature managed to stumble through it's doors. And maybe, unlike how things had been with Ashton, there wouldn't have been some hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that always had the smallest, most honest parts of myself, asking 'what if.'

As if he'd known I was thinking about him, Ashton's face twitched slightly before his eyes opened and he looked at me.

I was almost embarrassed to be caught staring at him, but something about his expression had me wondering what he was thinking about.

"What?" I asked raising an eyebrow and he shook his head, running his hands through his hair his body clearly stiff from sleeping in a chair all night, before he looked a little helplessly at me, his eyes tired but his expression not entirely unhappy.

"It should not be possible to look that adorable at," he paused to glance his watch. "six in the morning," he continued with grin. "Surrounded by books and all your nerdy notes."

"Is that what was on your mind?" I asked laughing and the smile grew.

"Makes the years of physical therapy I'll need after sleeping in that chair worth it." he said with a sigh still looking at me as he leaned back.

His expression was odd, as if he wanted nothing more in the world than to keep looking at me, but something about his gaze was far away.

"What?" I asked again not sure if I should be amused or embarrassed by this.

"Nothing." He said shaking his head.

"That is not nothing." I said pointing at his face and his smile grew as he reached a hand out, pulling me on to the chair with him as I accepted his hand.

"Did you know my mother was the one to break it off with my father?"

"Your mom dumped Apollo?" I asked impressed despite the part of me wondering why it was on his mind and he laughed.

"Yeah. She told me last night."

"Jeez," I said only half kidding with my mock astonishment. "She really is a bad ass."

Who did that? What mortal got the chance to be with not just a god, but an Olympian at that, and decided that it wasn't enough?

'Or one of his sons…' I thought as he put an arm around me and I looked up at him.

His gaze met mine, the sun was truly rising now and as always, the beams caught in his hair causing it to shine an even ever brighter gold.

I felt my heart skip a beat.

Jasmine had to be insane…

"No kidding." He said sounding entertained brining me back to the conversation. "She also gave me quite the talking to about you."

"Really?" I asked, trying to sound only mildly interested at this, but feeling my heatsink all the same.

So, her expression yesterday hadn't been nothing after all…

"I rather got the impression that she thought you were going to break my heart."

I laughed at this. I couldn't help it.

"Me?" I asked incredulously. "Break your heart?"

"You don't think that's possible?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not the one with a fan club at camp." I said still laughing as I stood up then sat back on the bed. "Or the one who number one on the 'hot guy list' in the girls locker room at school."

I continued giving him a significant look and he looked alarmed.

"Wait what?" he asked momentarily distracted. "There's a list?"

"Yeah." I said shuddering a little. "You and Charlie are both on it. It's honestly a little disturbing. But that's besides, the point." I said shaking my head. "Half the cheer squad at school would be throwing punches in their pompoms to get a chance to go out with you. Why on earth, between the two of us, does your mom think that I'm the heart breaker?"

"I dunno." He said leaning his chin on his hand as he considered me. "Maybe it's because I really like you Bambi."

"What? And you haven't liked girls before?" I asked with a grin pulling my hair up into a pony tail.

I had to imagine if his mother had known about his daughter of Aphrodite girlfriend, she couldn't be all that worried about someone like me.

"Not like this." He said quietly.

I felt a flash of alarm go through me at this and I looked at him, a little startled at the honesty of the statement. He was still looking at me with that same expression, like he was looking at something he couldn't quite make himself believe was real, but couldn't help but stare anyways. Suddenly, his gaze felt heavier than before.

Ashton had dated plenty since I'd known him and he and Jasmine had been… whatever they had been, for almost two years. I didn't think either of us really knew what we were at the moment. And yet he seemed so sure.

He was looking at me the way I saw Charlie looking at Annie sometimes, like she was all he could see but that, at least, made sense. She was a daughter of Aphrodite, pretty much anyone who dated them ended up head over heels. But Ashton had never been like that around Jasmine, and I wasn't some beauty queen.

'But maybe that's why.' A small voice said in the back of my head as I looked at him, my chest feeling oddly tight, finding it a little hard to breathe. 'Maybe beauty queen isn't want he wants.'

I felt myself smile a little at this, but quickly turned it into a smirk as I said.

"You know, I'm a little surprised Wells." I said playfully and I saw one of his eyebrows dart up. "I didn't realize nerd was your thing."

At this, he laughed.

"Really?" he asked and I was surprised to see he was smirking right back. "I let you and Charlie drag me to the renaissance fair two hours away every year, and you don't think nerd is my thing?" he asked amused. "Not to mention every new exhibit in the chemical sciences museum, and that physics lecture they offered at the community college."

"Ok, you've made your point." I said when he looked as if he was going to continue, and his expression was gratified.

"I like nerds." He said grinning. "If anyone's a surprise here, it's you."

"Me?" I asked wondering who in their right minds could look at Ashton, get to know him even a little, and be surprised that pretty much any girl would be interested in him.

"Yeah," he said, still grinning. "I thought you hated Charlie's basketball friends. Swore you would never date any of them."

"That's different." I said shaking my head and his expression changed, he looked curious now.

"How?"

"You're my friend too you know." I pointed out. "Besides. I met you before Charlie did."

"For like an hour." He said with an incredulous laugh.

"And look how much of a difference that made." I said brightly. "Imagine if we'd known each other a whole day. We might be as bad as Charlie and Annie."

"You think?" he asked sounding amused and I shook my head.

"No." I said grinning. Charlie and his girlfriend were shameless when it came to their relationship. He'd actually bought her one of those giant person sized teddy bears as a gift this past Valentines Day. "I don't think I'd ever let myself be that ridiculous."

"Well," he said pretending to think. "I guess I'll cancel the giant heart shaped cookie I ordered."

I looked at him in horror.

"What?" he asked. "Harper, it was just a jo-"

"Never cancel cookies." I said seriously and he laughed.

"You're right of course," he said putting his hands up in an appeasing manner. The sun was fully risen now and he began to look more awake as light filtered into the room. "Must be that Athenian wisdom breaking through." He continued his tone affectionate. "Speaking of which, have you figured out where we're going oh wise one?"

"I have a few places in mind." I admitted grabbing several of the papers and sliding off the bed. "I wanted to run some ideas by you, but before we do anything we should figure out breakfast. I'm starving."

Apov

"Eat Bambi," I said putting a stack of waffles on the table between us and I watched, slightly amused, as Harper blinked and looked up from her papers, apparently startled to see the food in front of her.

Despite saying 'we' when talking about breakfast, it quickly became clear to me when Harper had gotten lost in her train of thought on her way down the stairs, and that she wasn't going to surface anytime soon. So as she sifted through her notes muttering to herself about ancient era timelines, I'd raided the pantry.

"How long have I-" she started, clearly unaware of how long she'd been distracted but I cut her off.

"About twenty minutes." I said and she glanced over her shoulder back to the kitchen to see the mixing bowl on the counter and the waffle iron cooling on the stove. "But don't worry about it." I continued seeing her expression and knowing she was about to apologize. "Where are we headed?"

"I've got a couple of ideas." She admitted grabbing a waffle from the pile and dropping it onto her plate. "Do you have-"

"Look to your left." I said and she paused, looking down to see the syrup and cinnamon butter I knew she would want.

"Thanks." She said brightly reaching for butter dish.

"Harper, focus."

"Right sorry." She said shaking her head. "Sorry, I had a really weird dream last night."

"What about?" I asked raising an eyebrow but she shook her head, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

"Nothing really. It was about James."

I felt something sharp go through me, a stab of anger and I frowned.

"Think it was a warning?" I asked.

It was rare, but sometimes, when things were really a messed up demigods were given visions of the future, especially when they slept. Though, they usually weren't all that helpful.

"No." she said with a shrug. "I don't see how it could be. In the dream I think we were friends which I don't see how that could happen." Her tone was resolute but a part of me thought I heard a note of disappointment in her tone.

Maybe she had liked James more than I had realized...

"Besides." She said breaking me from this unpleasant thought. "I thought prophecy was your department."

Her tone was playful, but I knew Harper well enough to tell that something in her smirk was forced, and I wondered if there was more to the dream than she was telling me.

"If I were one of my siblings it might be, but you know me Harps." I said cutting into my own waffle and taking a bite. "I can't predict so much as the weather."

"I know it's rather unfortunate, isn't it?" she asked and I grinned.

"Just a little."

"Well, it doesn't matter." She said dispassionately. "Prophecies never turn out the way you expect them to go anyways. They're pretty much useless if you ask me, with the exception of telling you something is going to happen, even if they don't do a good job of telling you what it is. Or how it will turn out."

At this a surge of guilt went through me, but I tamped it down.

"Here's a short list of places I think the key or clues to it might be found." She said handing me a list of cities and locations some underlined or starred. Some of them, looked like vestiges of history and civilizations I knew very little of, but some of them were familiar. "If I were to hazard a guess, I would say our first stop should be here."

She tapped a finger in a somewhat central location on the map she'd brought down from my room, and I felt a pang of shock go through me.

"Egypt?" I asked.

"Alexandria," she clarified.

"Why? Because of the library?" I asked confused. "Harper, that place was destroyed centuries ago."

"I know."

"So the place would be in ruins." I continued, still not entirely sure where her confidence in this location was coming from. "Isn't one destroyed ancient library enough?"

"I'm not interested in the library." She said shaking her head. "I'm interested in the catacombs."

"There are catacombs there?" I asked horrified.

As if the living creatures trapped in the Cordrian library hadn't been bad enough… Now we had to go looking for dead people?

"No, not in the man part of the ruins, I'm sure that been searched a million times over by anyone looking for the key. In the Serapeum. It was a temple, but it did hold some of the contents of the library when they ran out of room. That's where the catacombs are."

"But why the catacombs?" I asked gloomily.

I didn't feel much like running around an ancient burial site. Being a son of Apollo, I believed in curses. I'd even help a few of my siblings call them down. This just seemed like an invitation for one.

"Because." She said patiently. "The library of Alexandria was one of the most famous places of learning and information of all time. Several of the scrolls, or replicas of them, that talk about the library and how it can be found are dated from that time period. I can hardly imagine something like that wouldn't attract the attention for those looking for the Cordian Library, even if they couldn't find it, there might have been someone there who knew something that hasn't come down to us today."

"Oh gods." I muttered putting my head in my hands, realizing what she was getting at. "You want to go looking for ghosts, don't you?"

She didn't answer, but she didn't have to and I ran my fingers through my hair before looking back up at her.

"Harper, are you sure about this?"

"Don't you think I'm right?" she asked and I hesitated.

Harper knew a lot more about this sort of thing than I did, but it wasn't smart to go messing with the dead. Not unless you had to.

"You probably are." I agreed. "But Harper, you have to remember ghosts aren't always friendly. They don't always want to help demigods, in fact, they usually don't."

"I know." she admitted a little grudgingly. "But one of the passages, it suggested offering some sort of gift. 'Something unseen to those whose eyes are forever closed.' Or something like that." She added with an off handed gesture, as if she couldn't exactly remember what it had said, but I saw through the act.

She often did that when speaking about something she'd read, realizing as she grew up her almost faultless memory in this aspect could unnerve people sometimes, but it had never bothered me. In fact, it was pretty damn useful more times not, especially in times like these. Or in trivia nights with large cash prizes…

"What would a ghost want?" I asked skeptically.

"I see I've chosen an interesting part of the conversation to interrupt." Said a voice and I looked up to see my mother had stepped into the dining room, an eyebrow raised at all the papers scattered across her table before her gaze landed on the map. "Planning a trip are we?"

She then spotted the waffles and I saw a scowl cross her features.

"Teenagers." She said glaring, no doubt at the mounds of sugar currently loaded on to our plates, before shaking her head and making her way to the fruit bowl. "Do I want to know why you're planning on disturbing the dead?"

"Harper wants to bribe some old geezers who had their heads buried in scrolls." I explained. "She thinks they might have some information we might need."

"And how does she plan to do that?" my mother asked and I was surprised to see she look a little amused.

"That I haven't figured out yet." Harper admitted the wind coming out of her sales a little. "If I'm right, these people. They had access to one of the most extensive collections of information of their time. Intellectuals, inventors, scholars they all studied there. I can't imagine we have anything between us that they'd consider worth their time or effort."

I felt a surge of disappointment go through me as I realized she was right. We only had mission gear between us, and even if we could have gone back to camp, which we couldn't, I didn't think we'd have much there either.

"You might not." My mother said suddenly, and we both looked at her, Harper seeming just as surprised as I was as she continued. "But I do."

"You do?" I asked in shock, but she didn't respond, only turned out of the room heading towards her office her heels clicking down the hall as I turned back to Harper.

There was the sound of her office door opening, then shutting before her steps grew louder and she was back in the room, something that looked like a journal in her hands.

"You said something, unseen right?" she asked and I wondered just how long my mother had been standing there before we'd noticed her. "Well, I can guarantee you they've never seen this before." She held the book out to Harper who took it with evident surprise, and started thumbing through the pages. "It contains all the designs for the surgical equipment I and some of my colleague have designed. The original drawings and notes for the prototypes. They can't have seen it before." She insisted. "And…" she hesitated and to my amazement, I noticed she was going a bit red. "If they don't like that, well, there's some notes of poetry in there. From Ashton's father." She explained when she saw Harper's eyebrow go up at this. "Ancient scholars can't be too upset about that, can they?"

"From one of the gods?" Harper said, clearly trying not to look amused. "Probably not."

"Mom." I said stunned. "You don't have to-"

"It's just a note book Ash," she said impatiently, waving away my protests.

"But your designs," I almost spluttered. "It's essentially a first edition, and if there's stuff in it from dad."

"Your father wrote me plenty of poetry Ash." She said calmly. "And I've got several of records for equipment and my work. If this will help you I want you to have it."

I didn't know what to say to this.

"Thank you." Harper said jumping in for me when it was clear I was struggling for words. "I'm sure we'll find it invaluable, really."

"Good."

There was a moment as she handed the notebook to Harper where it look as if she was trying to smile at her, but she couldn't quite manage it. I couldn't help but be reminded of what my mother had said last night. About herself and my father, and about Harper and me.

Their gaze met for a moment before she cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Well." She said brusquely, grabbing her bag off the kitchen counter and putting it over her shoulder. "I've got to get to the office. Good luck. Try not to get stranded in the desert."

"Thanks." Harper said with an uncertain expression, clearly at a lost at how to reply to something like that as my mother turned and made her way towards the front door.

She didn't look at me and I found myself watching her walk down the hall.

Harper turned towards me, obviously wondering why my mother seemed so upset but for once, I ignored her.

"Mom, wait up." I said jogging after her.

"Yes?" she started, turning to face me but I cut her off with a hug.

"I'll be back." I assured her, surprised at first by the force with which she returned the embrace, then at the way she was trying to discretely wipe her eyes as we broke apart. "We've got a cruise to go on, right?"

She let out a shaky laugh, then nodded.

"Right." She said. "And I've guess I've got a surgery to reschedule."

She gave me one last uncertain smile before turning and finally making it to the door. I watched her step out into the sunlight before returning to the kitchen, seeing Harper looking at me, her eyebrows raised.

"What was that about?"

I thought back over the conversation I'd had with my mother last night, about the prophecy and her concern about what my relationship with Harper and her brother might mean for my future.

"It's a long story." I said with a sigh, feeling suddenly very tired.

"If you say so." Harper said with a shrug.

She didn't sound completely satisfied with this response, but clearly wasn't going to challenge it.

There was an awkward moment where neither of us seemed to know what to say, and I looked at the journal that was still in her hands.

"So." I said eventually. "You want to talk to ghosts?"

She smiled.

"Well, at least you won't be bored."

"You know, I was never worried about that with you."

She laughed and it almost banished my apprehensions completely over making deals with the dead. Almost.

But even as Harper started to gather her notes, speculating about the type of spirits we might run into in the ruins, I couldn't banish a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach that echoed words from the prophecy and the warnings my mother had given me last night.

'Careful those who love her, of these words take heed, or she might be forever lost, because of one boy's greed.'

'But that wouldn't happen.' I reassured myself.

I wouldn't let it. My mother was worrying too much, and prophecies were infamous for their word play.

'Everything will be fine.' I thought.

It had to be.