Will, apparently, was a lot more stubborn than Nico would have given him credit for as he persisted, "Hey Nico, you haven't eaten since we've been down here." He hadn't even taken a cookie when Magnus brought them in! He did his level best to sound casual, and unlike Tethys, his clinical tone was pure warmth of concern. "Sure we shouldn't take another break? Hell, we must have been at this most of the day, I sort of want some sleep myself-"

"I said I'm fine Will," Nico said sharply. "We all need to get out of here already."

He expected the son of Apollo to look away and let it go. Instead he was frowning right back and watching him with a very intense expression.

Thalia was sort of worried if she didn't keep reading Nico was going to cut the guys head off, and they were all so busy watching the exchange nobody noticed Alex's guilty look at the bag as Thalia read the chapter title. "That is going to be Percy's idea," she accused.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Percy gave her a pout, "who doesn't love sleeping on those? Maybe we get a free nap that isn't in a venus flytrap and a time-redo."

"Um, sane people who don't want to get seasick in their sleep," she scoffed before starting.

Will acquitted, for now. He'd let this book finish, they did need to get out of this Titan's palace and Percy back to camp, but he'd take the book away before it was done so that he could talk to Nico and make sure he knew he wasn't fooling anyone. His healing touch worked best skin to skin, but you didn't need the gift of Apollo to sense the darkness coming off of him. He would tell Nico once and for all he did belong at camp and make him promise to get his butt there from where ever he was to give it a real shot, one whole summer, and a checkup at minimum that wasn't administered from Tethys.

"That sentence would never get a chance to end badly if you read it like that," Alex laughed at how proud Thalia sounded for such a start.

"And yet I don't disagree," Percy was still smiling along despite the sarcasm.

"Zeus's socks, that whole thing was actually useful if this works," Thalia said mildly.

Nobody agreed with her, even she wasn't so convinced her status would leave her immune to try and risk such a reward for that price.

Jason let out a throaty whistle, the magic of that casino really was beyond comprehension.

'Guy was trying to outstrip Apollo's bus,' Thalia grimaced to herself at the thought of being in that car, but she was still trying to read robustly, the only one trying to put on a cheery attitude as the last chapter had still seemed to upset all of them for one reason or another.

"Wait, what! You didn't mention that!" More than one person shouted at Percy.

He tapped his temple a few times, really trying to concentrate, but ultimately shrugged and said, "sorry guys, if I did in that dream, it must have been distorted by the time I woke up. It just sounded flat, general, male or female, I got nothing."

"Damn Crooked One is right, being able to mess with that," Alex sighed.

"Thalia sounded off too," he tried to explain. "She sounded, younger, different, it might just be the dream or because of time, I don't know," he spread his hands in apology.

"It's okay Percy, nobody blames you," Thalia assured.

Jason smiled absently, Pluto didn't seem so out of character at least.

Something about this obviously wasn't right. Magnus wished his cousin would trust her instincts more, because this question definitely needed a new angle of approach.

"As oppose to the non-evil thoughts of regular goats?" Jason asked.

"Look into the square eyeballs of those things and tell me they have mercy," Percy had seen one on a school trip to a petting zoo, and he wasn't taking it back.

"Compliments?" Will muttered, but hey, whatever worked for him.

"More dangerous than facing down the god of death?" Magnus confirmed.

Nobody answered him, because it existed all around them. If a Titan could hide them away from gods, than clearly even Zeus wasn't the top of the power chain.

Percy was starting to sweat, he had his head in his hands and was shaking it slowly side to side as he longed to hear the obvious out loud, but his friends weren't obliging. Will was fidgeting with guilt, Nico would have loved nothing more than to be the person to explain to Percy for once, but Thalia was stubbornly going on and determined to read this as cheerily as possible if she had to threaten a laugh out of her friend on every page.

"You know what I've yet heard," Jason pointed out, "a strategy on how to get it back from him! Ask nicely?"

The sarcasm slipped out of Alex without restraint, "I'm sure if they just confront him, the lord of the underworld will offer it back with an apology."

"Annabeth kept mentioning Persephone might help us," Percy shrugged, speaking to his lap. Not that this idea had ever gone past praying for guidance, it being summer. "In case you hadn't noticed, we were kind of making it up as we went."

"Remind me to never go on a quest with you," Jason rolled his eyes.

"Aren't we technically on one now?" Will grinned.

"Oh gods no, don't even joke about that," Alex scoffed. "This was far from voluntary!"

"We didn't even get our own prophecy," Nico agreed blandly.

Will sighed in relief Nico was still just talking at all while Thalia finally got back to ignoring them properly.

Magnus had no clue what he was talking about there, he missed school and spent most of his time in the library when he could just to pretend he still had some normal kind of schedule.

Jason swallowed such a feeling of homesickness it should have been palpable. The sense of wrongness for all of this had never truly left him, even after all this time, and now more than ever as he tried to inhale and catch just a tiny wisp of a memory. Nothing, as blank as ever.

Hearth smiled at such a small comparison, when he'd had the same thought traveling the world tree. Yggdrasil left no doubts it was all connected.

"You're really still questioning this, after all you've done so far?" Magnus chuckled.

"Hard to let go of your past," Percy whispered, head still in his hands. He missed his mom like a physical ache, he wished Annabeth were here now to call him a seaweed brain and promise him he hadn't been the cause of the end of the world. He enjoyed Thalia's company, all of theirs, but it wasn't the same.

"I'm sure it wouldn't make his head any more dense," Thalia smiled like Annabeth was here, she could perfectly imagine that aggrieved look on her face anyways.

"I will find a way to make acid rain chase you," Percy promised, finally looking up with a casual smile. He asked her to pause and went to fetch a coke. He came back with a glass full of blue soda and took several sips before waving her on for whatever was next. (How the beverage was staying in the glass and not being mixed with the ocean was not a question any of them were going to ask anymore than why the food was perfectly cooked and didn't taste like salt before.)

Will watched Nico watch him critically now, actively trying now to figure out what that expression on the son of Hades's face was. Not quite longing, not quite hatred, just something like he was demanding a question Percy was unintentionally ignoring as he sorted his own past out.

The son of Poseidon was a roll with the punches kind of guy, he could laugh and shrug anything off so long as he was the one in danger. Nico most definitely needed to get something off his chest about him though. Will now at least had the start of a suspicion Nico was trying to pretend otherwise and it wasn't working so well for him.

"Wow," Alex said in appreciation. She'd turned into ocean life plenty of times and swam around in Massachusetts Bay, but that was nothing comparable to the notion Percy was connected to the whole sea like this.

"I'd say cool, but also, gah," Jason pointed out.

"I'm just sticking with cool," Percy grinned.

"Thank you, I now never want to visit there," Jason frowned all the more at falling such a height with no clue when you'd impact.

Alex opened her mouth but Thalia was still reading.

She nodded and closed her mouth back while Percy rolled his eyes.

"We're not actually sure where Oceanus's palace is," Thalia said, "but we think it's somewhere in the Mariana Trench. Of course you could just be under the same protection as us, but I think the answer is just yes," she finished with a shrug, not divulging she was so confident of this because he'd been in Poseidon's palace as well, and as far as she knew, his father had done nothing to increase his gift to safely be down there.

The nereid was back, and Percy leaned over Thalia's shoulder eagerly to find out how much she'd share with no catfish and garbage to interrupt the message this time.

She pushed his face back away and threatened, "you try peaking ahead mister and I'll give you a nose piercing, I'll even let you pick the arrow."

He huffed and greatly considered taking the book back just to prove his point, but he also wouldn't put it past Thalia to manage to shoot him before he found out anyways.

"You seriously make being the son of Poseidon sound like the coolest thing ever," Magnus sighed.

"I don't think we can trade dude," Percy chuckled.

Jason bit back the snide comment nobody would ever ask to be the son of Neptune, just the idea made him smirk, and yet he'd only heard of Percy in combat and knew him to be a formidable foe without the extra of seeing such creatures. It was the utmost disconcerting.

"Always a safe place to start!" Jason looked relieved he'd finally showed a normal response, and it wasn't even to a god!

Alex was rubbing her temples at this boy. "I swear if we weren't reading your thoughts I'd be questioning if you had them."

"Not everybody can have the magic of Cosmo and Wanda," he snipped right back.

"And you accused me of making bad references," she raised a brow at him.

"You do have sudden-memory-itis quite often," Magnus sided with her.

Thalia cleared her throat heavily while Percy turned to her in betrayal. "I'm under attack and you want to read!" If she was trying to impersonate Annabeth she was doing a great job of it!

"I have faith you can withstand the barrage," she chuckled.

Jason was staring down at this tattoo again, but he had a feeling like this wasn't really news to him. Just a sense, and not a reliable one since he'd woken up here and hardly anything matched up with the way he was 'supposed' to feel.

'Ironic, since he doesn't want his own son there,' Nico clenched his hands up, spirits of the drowned made a wailing noise only he heard but they all felt a sudden cold rush. He exhaled slowly and carefully though and it all settled back down to be forgotten again.

He felt Will's eyes on him this time though and studiously ignored the nosy boy.

"What does it say about my life when Ares was the better interaction!" Percy burst out in frustration, he felt like slamming his head against a wall to get rid of this headache. How was it possible river water had cured him of chimera poison but his head was pounding so hard in his own domain!

"I know Percy, I'm so sorry," Thalia sighed, she would find some way to get revenge on whoever had done this to him.

"At least you were handed them and didn't have to hunt those down too," Alex offered.

"I'd still keep the receipt," Jason grumbled.

Magnus had a bad feeling about them though, as he more than anyone vividly remembered what Percy was going to the Underworld to really fetch. There were three pearls, and he intended to come back with four people...

"The one prize Annabeth will not win is most cheerful award," Will chuckled.

"Which is really saying something since recording studios have to be a dime a dozen out there," Percy frowned.

"I get the feeling this won't be the kind mortals can find," Thalia kindly reminded.

"Can I veto out of my own future quests?" Percy groaned for every part of this being as hard as it was possible to be.

"You wouldn't even if you could," Thalia chuckled.

"If I can have one good thing come out of this," Percy found himself saying not to anyone in here, "let it be this guy taking a plunger next!" He did not mean the kind with a toilet. He found himself actually thinking of Poseidon, whatever faith he had in his father after that meeting with the nereid, despite his hopeless brain, seemed to have been brought out. His dad hadn't broken a vow in almost seventy years before meeting Sally, surely he must have some care for what his son and beloved mortal were putting up with now that he was taking even the most minor interest in their life?

For just a moment, the water warmed, like dipping your toe into a hot bath as it washed around him. Percy smiled softly, and then blinked in surprise to see nobody seemed to have experienced the feeling. 'Thanks dad,' he grinned for the soft feeling of a promise.

"At least save that for Gabe's store when you get back," Alex agreed vindictively.

"Only if you grew up there," Jason argued at once, "sounds more like a map to a deathtrap between every alley." Enemy territory, his mind was whispering, he knew he'd never traveled there before and didn't want to now.

"I'll always take the big apple over the city of angels," Percy said, "considering this mess." He didn't even have all of his memories back and he had uneasy feelings about California, especially as he glanced at Thalia and was very convinced this was not a welcome state for more than this quest.

Jason still looked grumpy for some weird reason, why he would take an attack on this state as personal as Percy had gave a bit of a clue where he might be from at least.

It only made Thalia's skin crawl as she again glanced at that oddly specific scar on his lip, and now he was apparently from California!

She glanced at Nico and wondered if she should be worried about a ghost haunting them thanks to her.

"Admitting to your idiocy doesn't make you less idiotic," Alex frowned.

"So much for New York smarts," Magnus agreed.

"Don't make me separate you two," Percy grumbled inaudibly while they grinned at each other.

'Are they going to offer to sell him a water bed?' Hearth smiled.

Magnus rolled his eyes, he knew his friend wasn't that naïve, but he was curious how that was going to play in at this point.

"Ha, it was Annabeth's idea," Percy jubilated as he finally got a shot back at somebody here, even Thalia.

"You started it by stopping, you didn't win anything," Thalia wouldn't give in.

"Running from mortals qualifies as an emergency?" Will confirmed.

"World War Three is on the horizon and you're on a deadline, but sure this is the priority," Thalia agreed.

"Let's see you two at this!" Percy sighed, but he had an annoying feeling they would just fine. He really wished Annabeth was down here to argue with them properly, but she also might spend the entire time on a presentation with slides he thought fondly.

"Hang on!" Magnus raised his hand, paused for a moment with his eyes completely glazed over, before nodding and dropping as he finished processing. "Okay, I'm good, continue."

Alex was laughing remorselessly while Hearth was regretting having asked about dinosaurs right now as odd as that seemed to him too.

"Explain to me again how you mouthed off to Mars but not wana be mobster number five?" Jason asked.

"No, you guys lost your rights during this chapter," Percy scoffed. "You'll get them back when you stop criticizing the twelve year old's."

"Oh, so, never," Alex shrugged without concern.

"And none of them would still contain some people's inflated egos," Thalia smirked, imagining Hera for starters as someone she wished she could drop from the pantheon for such misfortunes.

Nico's mouth ticked, just the smallest hint of a smile as he couldn't deny how cool that kind of sounded.

Will let out a sigh of relief he'd deny he'd been holding as his demeanor finally relaxed even just a bit from the cold aura he'd gone back to giving off from back at the start.

"I'm gunna kill Grover," Jason frowned, this had trap written all over it, and not just because it was the chapter title.

"Nobody kills my satyr but me," Percy defended, but it was half-hearted at best as he wanted to smack him for this too.

Crusty, the named nagged at something in Nico's mind, something to do with beds, he was sure he had a card over that- not that he cared.

Thalia's smile was flickering like a bad reception, that bed sounded awesome and something she'd put into her tent, she might even need it as she tensed up again feeling another fight coming. Annabeth had never mentioned this place at all, which meant nothing too important had happened here...

That snapped everybody to attention, Magnus's hands balled into a fist as he now easily imagined locking this guy in a freezer no matter what he looked like!

Percy's hand was now fisted around his pen, but his fingers were trembling to much to take the cap off. They hadn't seen how fast this guy moved, he'd never get Riptide out in time. He needed Annabeth for this one!

"That's not what that means!" Magnus yelped in surprise.

"This is not time for a vocab lesson!" Thalia snapped back.*

"Procrustes," Nico realized. Ugh, what a useless card, it was only available in the water deck and leveled out the playing field to- he forced his brain to stop, again. Why did such childish thoughts have to keep lingering.

"Mythomagic?" Will confirmed. Nico flushed and didn't answer, but he was sure he recognized that now familiar rise and fall of excitement. "You might have to teach me how to play, sounds like this game could be a lifesaver."

Nico didn't answer, but he was side eying Will again as each wondered of the other what his problem was.

"Not with that attitude!" Alex groaned. "You're surrounded by water in those beds, try drowning him!"

"He might charge me for popping them," Percy said with a straight face, not at all blushing for not even thinking of this.

"I'm suddenly thankful Oceanus hasn't tried that tactic," Magnus muttered.

"Procrustean does not mean pandering Percy," Magnus sighed.

"You can read the dictionary to me later," Percy lied.

"You're lucky she's being strangled or she would have drop kicked you to that bed," Thalia said confidently.

"She still might if I don't rescue her in time," Percy nodded.

"That is a terrible sales pitch!" Jason yelped.

"I agree, let's see if I get through to him," Percy groaned.

"A true noise of terror I'm sure," Will nodded.

"I am almost insulted he fell for that," Magnus frowned.

'Monsters still have the same essence we all do, to be seen,' Hearth smiled.

"What a hypocrite, I was imagining him being six feet perfectly at least," Magnus frowned.

"We don't question the monsters faulty logic of not following their own rules," Percy shrugged.

"You've got to admire he's still trying," Alex said.

"I'm almost tempted to take that deal and still lop his head off," Thalia agreed.

"Puberty," Will said tragically, "girls are always taller than us when we need it least."

"Yes, I'm so sure that was it," Percy laughed in relief.

"You're welcome," Percy smirked like she was here now to roll her eyes at him again.

"It's the little things about this mess that get me," Jason nodded, "you guys have almost literally stumbled into everything helpful."

"Never underestimate the power of the fates," Thalia shrugged.

"We get none of the credit here?" Percy pouted.

"Three percent," Jason mocked.

"I wonder if he gave discounts for mileage," Thalia said while looking around at Nico curiously. He'd offered to take the book from her last time, but she didn't want to force him back to talking if he didn't want to yet.

PJOPJOPJO

*Now is the time for the vocab lesson. Ergo means therefor, but in Greek, it means work.