SOPHIE
"How-How do you have that?"
"My mom gave it to me before-" he chokes. "Before she died," he whispers.
My head is whirling. How did his mom have a cache? The only way is if she was an elf. Not only and elf, but a Councillor. I transmit all that to Fitz.
Fitz sits down next to Percy. "What was your mom's name?"
Percy is rolling the cache in his hand. He smiles softly. "Her name was Sally Jackson, and she was a queen among women."
Fitz looks confused. "Percy, what color were her eyes?"
Percy stares at him. "Why does that matter?"
"Were they blue?"
"No, they were hot pink." Fitz looks skeptical. "Fine, they were blue."
"I'm going to talk to my dad."
"What does your dad have to do with my mother?"
"We need to know why your mom had a cache."
"Fine. But I'm coming with you."
"Done."
Percy stands up and extends a hand to Fitz. He takes it and gets hauled up by Percy. "I need a picture so I don't have to light leap."
Fitz transmits a picture, and Percy transforms into mist. I shake my head and light leap to Everglen.
Percy is standing there, slack jawed. When he hears our footsteps on the grass, he whirls around, his pen already out of his pocket. He relaxes when he sees that it's just us. He rounds on Fitz and Biana. "Are you guys royalty or something? Sophie's house was a mansion, but this is a fricking palace!"
I choke back a laugh. This is exactly how I reacted when I saw Everglen. "No, Percy. Elves all live in really fancy houses. They have all the money that they want or need."
Percy narrows his eyes. "Sophie, you lived in the human world, right?"
I nod.
"Then how come you haven't used all that excess money to help them? My girlf- Someone I know, his name is Magnus, was homeless and had to hunt in trash cans for food!" He chuckles. "Now they're undead warriors in the Norse afterlife." What? I don't think I heard that right.
"Sorry, did you say they're in a Norse afterlife?"
Percy pales. "No. No, I did not say that. Forget it."
Yes. Forget it. Wait, what am I forgetting? Never mind.
"I guess that I should have thought about the humans in poverty back at home."
Biana cocks her head. "What's poverty?"
Percy shakes his head in amazement. "It's like you guys live in a utopia or something! But we're getting off topic. I want to know about my mom."
We walk into the house, and find Alden in his study. He turns around, and when he sees us he looks surprised. "Children? What are you doing here?"
Percy steps out. "Can you tell us if you know anything about Sally Jackson?"
"How-how do you know that name?" Alden breathes.
"She was my mother."
ALDEN
"She was my mother."
I can't breathe. Sally Jackson? One of the Councillors and the best friends I ever had? The mother of this… person?
"Who are you?"
"My name is Percy Jackson." Sophie nudges him. He sighs and rolls his eyes. "Perseus Jackson, technically. But don't call me that. Only people who hate me call me that. My mother?" he asks pointedly.
"She was the Councillor that Oralie replaced. It was a huge scandal around two hundred years ago when she disappeared."
"TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO?"
Percy is panting, his eyes wide. He falls back in the chair, and Linh and Keefe begin to explain to him elves long lifetimes. Why is he so surprised? He is an elf, isn't he? If he isn't…
"Fitz, Biana, come here please." They come. "Is he a human? Did you bring a human into the Lost Cities?"
They shake their heads. "He doesn't seem human. He has a bunch of abilities, and some powers that don't fit into categories."
"Well, there will be no reason to worry."
Percy leaps out of the chair. "No reason to worry? I just learned my mom was an elf. A fricking elf! Who was apparently 230 years old!" His voice trails off. "Two hundred and thirty years old."
He puts his head in his hands. "Why would she lie about this? She knows I'm no stranger to weird things."
I walk up to him and pat his shoulder. He makes no motion to acknowledge me, except to say, "Did you know her?"
I sigh. "I knew her quite well. We were very good friends, and when she disappeared, I was devastated."
"Do you think she went to the human world? The-what did you call them?- Forbidden Cities?"
"I think the answer to that is probably in that cache."
"The marble thing?"
"Yes."
"Greaaaaaat. So how do you open that?"
I shake my head. "Each one is slightly different. They all have their own keywords that will open them when said."
Percy narrows his eyes, thinking. "What about my name? Would that work?"
"Possibly."
He takes the cache out of his pocket and clears his throat. "Percy Jackson." Nothing happens. "Perseus Jackson." Nothing again. He groans. "Perseus Achilles Jackson."
Keefe stifles a laugh. "Perseus Achilles Jackson? Are you serious?"
"Shut up."
Keefe roars with laughter. "No! That's just too good." He stops abruptly.
Percy is glaring at him, almost daring him to say more. "If you have nothing else to say, I'm pretty sure something happened when I said that. See that blue crystal there? It started glowing."
I look. The crystal's light is getting brighter. It's glow overwhelms the cache and floods into the room. There is a blast of blinding light, and we are sucked into a memory.
PERCY
I blink quickly, ridding my eyes of the light. I am in a room with twelve chairs, and I immediately think, 'Olympus.' Then I realize that the people here aren't the gods. They all have blue eyes. They're either some sort of Nazi conspiracy, which isn't likely because some of them have dark hair, or they are elves.
I look around the room, and I see that my new friends are in separate corners of the room, just like me. Then I realize that eleven of the elves in the middle of the room are all surrounding someone in the middle. My mom.
I almost sob when I see her. She looks exactly like I remember. Her curly brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. But she doesn't look happy. No, she looks mad. It takes everything I have not to try and get her out of this situation.
One of the elves, a man with brown hair, gray-blue eyes, and-are his ears pointy?-, is talking sharply to my mom. "Sally, you must do it, for the sake of all the elves."
My mom hisses back, "I will not break the laws just for an experiment, Bronte! If I am going to have a child, I will do it for love, not because it's been forced upon me. I will not have a child as a test subject!"
Another elf sighs. "Then we will have to… take action."
Mom scowls. "I don't care. Do your worst."
A tall woman with wavy black hair says, "Sally, you know that we can banish you to the Lost Cities."
Mom pales. "You wouldn't."
"We would, for the good of all elves."
My mother steels herself. "Fine. I refuse to condemn a child to life as an experiment."
The one called Bronte shakes his head sadly. "Then you leave us no choice. I am sorry, Sally."
The eleven elves that aren't my mom form a semicircle around her. They all snap their fingers, and my mom stiffens. Then she starts to scream.
