To 8Ball3- I saw a joke once- Irish scientists have recently discovered birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live!

As a god, Apollo liked to hover invisibly over the red-tiled rooftops or walk the streets in mortal form, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of their imperial heyday. New Rome was not the same as Ancient Rome, there were definitely many improvements- no slavery, better personal hygiene, no Subaru. It was a living city of new and old mixing freely. Walking through the Forum, he could hear conversations in dozens of languages, Latin among them. A band of musicians were holding a jam session with lyres, guitars and a washboard. Lares drifted here and there, becoming more visible in the afternoon shadows. Children played in the fountains while adults sat nearby under trellises shaded with vines.

As they neared the Senate House, he started to see vestiges of the recent battle. Cracks in the dome glittered with silver adhesive. The walls of some buildings had been hastily replastered. As it had been with the camp, the city streets seemed less crowded and every so often, there would be a noise- a dog barking, a blacksmith's hammer on metal, a child laughing a little too loudly- that would make people flinch.

This was a traumatised city, desperately trying to get back to whatever semblance of normal that remained.

"How many?" Apollo asked quietly. Frank glanced around, checking anyone else was out of earshot. They were walking up one of New Rome's many winding cobblestone streets.

"Hard to say. We were at two-fifty, that is our maximum strength with the auxilia forces included. Now, it's… we've been decimated." A chill poured through Apollo's insides. Decimation, the ancient punishment for bad legions. Every tenth soldier was killed, regardless of innocence or guilt.

"I'm so sorry, Frank, I should have…" He trailed off. How was he supposed to finish that sentence? What should he have done? He was no longer a god. He couldn't just snap his fingers and make the zombies explode from a thousand miles away.

Frank pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, eyes ahead. "It was hardest on the civilians. A lot of retired legionnaires from New Rome came to help, but… that bit of the prophecy you said earlier, bodies fill the Tiber beyond count? That didn't mean there were many bodies after the battle. It meant we couldn't count our dead. They disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"Some were dragged away. We tried to get them all, but…" He turned up his palms. "A few were swallowed by the ground. Even Hazel couldn't explain it. Most went underwater during the fight in the Little Tiber. The naiads tried to search and recover them for us. No luck." He did not voice the truth, but Apollo could see it in his eyes. Their dead had not simply disappeared. They would be back- as enemies.

Frank cleared his throat, eyes misty. "The ones… the ones that did make it… Lou got them back. She… she could heal the scratches. She could get them without having to grab them." Apollo was afraid to ask, but Frank answered the question before it was even aired. "Reyna knows more about it than we do, but everyone's got the idea now. Lou can control blood. And she did, be it ours or… or the monsters. She could make them explode, she… she pulled their blood right out of them and used it to kill their own. And with us, she… she used it to pull people towards her or to safety, like it was puppet strings and she could just… yank." He mimicked the motion suddenly, making Apollo flinch. "I…" He shook his head. "She's been here for years, on and off. Technically still probatio, but gods above… the more I learned about her, the more people spoke… she's probably one of the most powerful demigods to come through camp and…" He glanced at Apollo, hesitating. "Reyna won't tell us the whole story, but we know the gods want Lou dead. Is it because of what she can do?"

"Yes." Apollo nodded solemnly. "We drew a vote on it. I… I voted to kill her." He bowed his head as Frank stared at him- confused, shocked, defensive. "I will tell you this so you understand, but please… keep it to yourself."

"O-OK. I will." Apollo took a deep breath, looking to the sky cautiously.

"Years ago, we learned of her fate. Or… fates. There were, are, three paths for her. Or at least, three bad ones. In each one, she kills the gods."

"I'm sorry, she does what now?"

"Her whole life has been staged. By us. To keep her on our side. But other powers were at play. To get her to turn on us." He picked at his lip, shaking his head. "We should have killed her. Neptune would not allow it. Our children… I know we are not as involved in our children's lives as most parents are, but… we do treasure them, in our own ways. As Neptune's daughter, she was simultaneously under his protection and his responsibility."

"How would she-?"

"I don't know. Or, at least, I didn't. But you said she… she can control blood." Frank nodded, questions piling up behind his eyes. "We were warned she would bow to a power beyond her control. I think… I think that's it. The blood. No-one is safe from their own blood."

"But… but it's Lou. She's… she's one of us, she's always been one of us."

"Exactly. She's one of you. Not one of the gods. And from what I've heard… she's as far from us, from the gods, as any demigod has ever been."

"What can we do?" Frank asked, a lilt of desperation in his tone. Apollo shrugged. "If not for her, we would have lost so much more. You're not telling me the gods are up there debating her death, are they?"

"It seems likely." Apollo sighed. Frank frowned.

"I don't think she's much of a threat right now. She's… whatever she did, in the battle, saving Jason, it's… it's kind of knocked her for six."

"She used a great deal of her powers. She will need to rest." Apollo nodded. "But she is always a threat."

"Not to us." Frank countered. "She's our friend." Apollo said nothing to that. These Romans were quite loyal to each other, even if Louisa wasn't so readily accepted at the beginning or by the gods. Regardless, she was one of them and now more than ever, the legion looked out for their own.

"I am… sorry for everything that has happened here. Camp Jupiter has suffered a great loss. I fear only more is to come." Frank blinked. The conversation had changed, pushing back his questions for another time or for never. He didn't know.

"I- I try not to dwell on it." He eventually managed, pushing a hand over his cropped hair. "I'm supposed to lead, stay confident, you know? But… like today, with Terminus. He's usually got an assistant, a little girl named Julia. She's about seven, adorable kid."

"She wasn't there today."

"No. She's with a foster family. Her parents both died in the fight." He pointed, aiming at something across the city. "Lou's 'quarantined' in their house, her powers are still a bit loopy. Reyna and the Vulcan kids set it up, said it was the safest option. They've got cameras and audio and everything; there's always someone monitoring her and volunteers to go in if things get out of hand again." Frank looked back, not having realised his charge had stopped, leaning with one hand on the nearest wall. He was pale, paler than before, eyes stricken with grief and anger. "Hey," Frank called kindly, touching his arm, "one foot in front of the other. That's the only way to do it." Apollo stared at him, blinking away tears. He had come here to support the Romans. Instead, this Roman was supporting him.

They made their way past cafes and storefronts. Apollo tried to ignore the closed ones, tried to focus on something, anything, positive. The vines were in bud. The fountains still had running water. The buildings in this neighbourhood were all intact.

"At least… at least the city didn't burn." Apollo said quietly, a tinge of relief in his tone.

"What do you mean?" Frank frowned.

"That other line of the prophecy. The words that memory wrought are set to fire. That refers to Ella and Tyson's work on the Sibylline Books, doesn't it? The Books must be safe, since you prevented the city from burning."

"Oh." Frank gave a funny little sound between a cough and a laugh. "Yeah, about that…" He stopped in front of a quaint-looking bookshop. For a moment, he stood examining the façade. Apollo could tell their conversation about Louisa still played on his mind, niggling at the corners of his thoughts to pry its way back in. He looked at the shop too, took in the green awning with the simple word Libri painted on. Racks of used hardbacks were set out on the sidewalk for browsing. In the window, a large orange cat sunned itself on a pile of dictionaries. "Prophecy lines don't always mean what you think they do." Frank said, pulling Apollo's attention to him. He knocked on the door, a sequence of three sharp taps, two slow ones and then two fast ones.

Almost instantly, the door flung open, nearly yanked off its hinges. Standing there and beaming at them was a bare-chested Tyson.

"Come in!" He said. "I am getting a tattoo! Don't tell my sister!"