Jason was staring out Camp Demigod's conference room window, lost in thought, when a piece of paper landed in front of him.
He looked up from the table at the source of the paper. Reyna, his fellow camp head, was standing over him, looking down expectantly.
"What's this?" Jason asked.
"A job." She tapped the page. "This article ran earlier tonight."
Jason looked back down and scanned over the paper. It was a printout of a web page. A large picture was splashed across the top beneath a bright colored banner, with several paragraphs of text laid out below it.
When he finished reading, he raised his eyebrows up at Reyna. "Tristan McLean's daughter? The actor Tristan McLean?"
"A demigod." She tapped on the picture, showing the girl glowing with what was surely an aura.
"She could be, yeah."
"It's worth checking." Reyna took up the sheet again and scanned the front page. "We should send someone to get her."
Jason nodded. "Alright…let's send Katie, then."
"Can't. She's already away looking into a potential demigod sighting in Illinois."
"Dakota?"
"He was spotted last time he left camp, wants to lay low for a while."
"What about Will?"
"We need someone who knows healing here, we can't send Will while Michael's away."
"Wait, where is Michael?"
"Supply run in Fairfield."
Jason dropped his head into his hands in exasperation. It had been hard on the two of them, running Camp Demigod. It wasn't even just the day-to-day tasks and chores required to keep camp running that seemed to take up all of his time. What was truly starting to wear him down was the mental stress of it all, the pressure of worrying for all the people in camp, all the people who were his responsibility.
He had never spoken about it out loud to Reyna – to anyone, really – but no matter how enthusiastically she threw herself into her work, he could tell it weighed on her, too.
"I could just go myself," Jason said finally.
Reyna looked skeptical. "What about everything around here?"
"It's only a couple of days." Jason didn't want to leave Reyna alone with all the work, but he couldn't lie, the idea of getting out of camp, even for such a short time, was appealing. It had been too long since he'd last left. He looked at her in his best approximation of puppy dog eyes. "You can take care of it, can't you?"
Before she could respond, the door on the other side of the room swung open again, and Percy Jackson walked in.
"Percy," Jason called in surprise; Percy hadn't been to camp in a couple of months, and while his random appearance wasn't unprecedented, it was unusual enough to be an event.
"Good to see you, too," he quipped. He nodded in greeting at Reyna, then went on, "I, uh, brought a demigod." There as a slight stutter in his voice, and if Jason didn't know better, he'd say Percy sounded…nervous?
"Great," Reyna said, though she, too, seemed to have picked up on Percy's nervous energy. "Bring them in, then."
Percy nodded, then left. Reyna and Jason exchanged a look, and Jason knew they were both wondering what was wrong.
Percy came back into the room moments later with a blonde girl in tow. And she was wearing an outfit Jason knew well: the black and gray uniform of a Hunter.
Jason stood up in surprise, and he heard Reyna gasp. "Uh, Percy?" Jason began.
"This is Annabeth," said Percy, completely ignoring them. "Annabeth Chase."
"Percy," Reyna hissed. "What is she doing here?"
"What do you mean?" Percy asked innocently.
Jason sighed, deciding to take the heat for both of them. "Why is there a Hunter at Camp, Percy?"
The girl – Annabeth – winced. She looked supremely uncomfortable, and Jason could understand why. He almost felt sympathetic before quickly remembered what her being there meant.
"It doesn't matter if she's a Hunter," Percy insisted. "She's a demigod."
Jason shot him an incredulous look. "You can't be serious!"
"Just give her a chance," Percy pressed.
"A chance to what?" demanded Jason.
"I can help you," Annabeth interjected, drawing all of their attention. "Give you information. On the Hunters."
The three of them fell into silence. It wasn't at all what Jason would have expected her to offer, and certainly not something Jason would have thought to ask. It was clear enough that she hadn't expressed this before, because Percy looked just as surprised as he felt.
"What kind of information?" Reyna finally asked.
Annabeth stood just a bit taller as she pitched herself. "I have experience. I have a high position. I can get you information on...what are you all doing, anyway? What's your goal here?"
Jason looked over at Reyna. The two of them had worked closely together over the past years – close enough that they could communicate with expressions as well as words. Jason shot her a look asking, Are we trusting this? She returned with a barely perceptible shrug. We might as well hear her out.
It hardly mattered now, since Percy had already invited the Hunter to camp, shown her around, told her everything she needed to know, without so much as asking he or Reyna what they thought about having someone so dangerous in their camp. And as much as Jason wanted to give Percy the third degree over the irresponsibility, there wasn't much he could do about her presence.
Jason gestured to the table in the center of the room. "Should we sit?"
Jason sat down in the seat he'd been in before, and Reyna took the chair next to him. Percy and Annabeth followed suit, sitting across them at the table.
"Before we start," Reyna said, "who's her parent?"
"Not sure," Percy said. "Her aura was gray. That's, um…"
"Minerva," Jason supplied, then added to Annabeth, "or Athena, if you prefer – it's the same goddess."
"Athena, I think," said Annabeth, testing the name. "The wisdom goddess?" Annabeth considered the information for a moment. "So, aura color corresponds to godly parent."
Reyna tapped her fingers on the table. "Hunters don't know everything about demigods, then."
"They're trying to figure it out," Annabeth said. "Auras are strange because no one seems to know much about them."
"They used to be hidden by the Mist." Jason could still recall that time, before the Hunters and before the Mist had disappeared. He had been young when he discovered the world of gods and monsters, but not too young to learn and remember. "Monsters could see through the Mist, they could use them to find us. But now…well, dealing with just one threat is easier than dealing with two. That's the main way you track demigods, isn't it?"
"Partially." Annabeth continued to explain, "We usually track using other metrics and markers. Auras are just one of the only ways we have to confirm, especially if a demigod doesn't have obvious special abilities."
It was an interesting bit of information, and potentially useful. The camp generally tried to find demigods who had already been identified. If Hunters were tracking them down with some kind of markers (Jason could imagine which ones), then perhaps they could do the same, reach them before the Hunters did.
Maybe something useful could come out of having an ex-Hunter in camp; Jason resolved to ask her more about it later. For now, they should continue on to the Annabeth's question.
"You asked what we're doing. It's pretty straightforward. We rescue demigods. Help them. Keep them safe."
Annabeth nodded. "Percy told me about that."
"Well, Camp isn't the only place," Percy interjected. "There are others, where demigods and other magical creatures go. Help each other."
"Where are the gods in all this?" Annabeth wondered.
"The gods are…" Jason hesitated, "gone. Ten years ago, the same time the Mist disappeared, the gods vanished. Hiding, kidnapped, or dead…no one knows."
Annabeth considered this. "Did they disappear because of the mortals and Hunters? Or from whatever broke the Mist? When was this?"
"We don't know," Jason reiterated. "It was chaos for us during that time for us. People weren't exactly keeping records. I was barely old enough to remember, and a lot of the demigods who were…well, they aren't around anymore."
"There isn't much we've been able to do about that," Percy explained. "Which is why we've mostly been focused on finding demigods."
"Here's the thing." Jason had been considering this for a while now, but with everyone in camp so set in their current routine – track down new demigods, bring them in, train them, protect them – people seemed to have forgotten about the bigger picture. It was past time they brought it back into play. "Rescuing demigods is all well and good, but we can't just rescue one demigod at a time forever. It was never the endgame."
"Taking down the Hunters is," Reyna chimed in, nodding along.
"Exactly." His gaze flickered unintentionally over to Annabeth. He quickly schooled his features into a neutral expression, wiping any trace of suspicion from his face. "And since we don't have the power to do that right now, we need to focus where we can."
"Wait a minute," Percy cut in. "You want to stop our work rescuing demigods?"
"Not stop it, just shift our focus," Reyna said, and Jason felt immense relief that she was on his side.
"Exactly," Jason pressed. "We've got limited resources, and we need to put some of them into our long-term goals."
Percy sat back in his chair, frowning, clearly unsatisfied, but thankfully didn't protest as Jason continued.
"We can't take on the Hunters," he reiterated, "but there's a lot we can do. We can focus on figuring out how all this happened. What happened to the Mist, and what happened to the gods."
"We tried that for years." Percy's protests were back. "Everyone we know did. And we never got anywhere."
"Well, let's try harder," Jason said.
Reyna looked thoughtful. "We could send out a quest. Send some people over to –"
"Hang on," Jason cut her off. He could already feel his excitement building at the prospect. A quest. But they still had to be careful. He glanced pointedly over at Annabeth again, not bothering to hide it this time but still trying to conceal the overt suspicion. "If we're going to discuss quests, maybe this should be a closed meeting?"
"Agreed," Reyna said, and after a raised eyebrow in Percy's direction, he nodded as well.
Annabeth looked slightly stunned at being so unceremoniously dismissed, but she pushed her chair back and stood. "Well, I guess I'll, uh…"
"I'll meet you outside in a few minutes," Percy said, then quirked a small smile. "Show you your room." Jason didn't like how cozy Percy already seemed to be with the Hunter, but let it pass without comment.
"Great." Annabeth's voice was flat. She gave the room at large a nod and then retreated outside.
"So, like I was saying," Reyna resumed once the door had swung shut again. "If we're looking for information, there are two places I can think of that might be useful. For the gods – Mt Olympus. For the Mist – Mt Orthys."
Percy let out a whistle. "Starting off with a bang, aren't we?"
Jason was inclined to agree. "These are big targets. I haven't heard of anyone visiting either one since…" He didn't have to finish; they all knew the date journeys to the pillars of the magical world had stopped.
"But that's why we should go," Reyna said. "There could be important information."
She was right, of course. If there was anywhere in the world that might have the answers they were looking for, it was these places. If anything was wrong with the Mist, the place that produced it must show some signs. And while Jason doubted they would find the gods holed up in Mt Olympus on a decade-long movie marathon, it could at least provide some clue to their disappearance or whereabouts.
"I guess I could stop off at Mt Orthys while I'm in California." Reyna hadn't actually approved the trip to Los Angeles yet, but it certainly didn't seem too big of an ask in the scheme of their other plans. Jason turned toward Percy. "Are you alright to go to New York?" It was Percy's hometown, Jason knew, and he tended to avoid it like the plague.
"New York is fine," Percy said, face neutral, and if he had any qualms about it, Jason couldn't tell.
"Well, that's set, then," Reyna said. "You'll both leave tomorrow morning."
Percy stood from the table, apparently ready to leave the room already.
"Wait." Jason scrambled out of his seat as well. "Are we really not going to talk about Annabeth?"
Percy turned back to the table. "I thought we settled this, Jason. What else is there to talk about? What's done is done –" Percy began, but Jason cut him off.
"It's not done." He looked over at Reyna again, hoping for her support again, but her expression was closed now. You're on your own here, Jason. He plowed ahead anyway. "Annabeth is clearly a loyal Hunter, which means one of two things. Either she's still loyal to the Hunters, in which case we can't trust her. Or she's loyal to us now, in which case she switches loyalty extremely quickly and it would be foolish to trust her."
Percy shook his head. "Or we're right and the Hunters are wrong, and we should trust that she understands that now."
"Just look at what we've built here." Jason gestured toward the window on the far side of the room, where the grounds of camp were illuminated in the wash of moonlight. "If you've put all that in danger…"
"I would never put the people here in danger, Jason." Percy sounded truly irritated, bordering on angry, for the first time in the conversation. "I brought half the demigods here to this camp, and I care about protecting them as much as you do. So will you just trust me for once!"
The last part sounded more like a demand than a question. Jason was slightly taken aback by the tone, but he tried his best to respond calmly. "Fine, Percy. I'll trust you. But that means whatever happens with Annabeth is on you."
Percy nodded once, accepting the conditions. "Guess I need to get ready to leave," he said, starting toward the door again.
"Before you go, Percy," Reyna called, "I want an update on your time away."
Percy retreated, taking his seat back at the table. Jason would hear anything of important from Reyna later – for now, he, too, would have to get ready to leave camp for the first time in months.
He pushed open the conference room door. Annabeth was standing in the lobby outside, leaning against the wall and staring off out the windows across the campground. It felt too awkward to pass without acknowledging her, so Jason paused.
Annabeth looked over at him, and Jason said the first thing he could think of, which was, "I hope you enjoy your time at camp."
It must not have been very convincing, because Annabeth pursed her lips. "Don't worry," she said. "I won't be staying at camp for long."
"You can stay as long as you want." At her skeptical look, Jason felt compelled to continue. "You've been lucky not to be discovered, hiding in plain sight, but once you leave the Hunters…"
"I'm not quitting," she said.
"You want to go back to them?" Immediately his mind was back on her questionable loyalty to the Hunters.
But Annabeth's expression didn't change. "If I'm going to give you information, it's better to have me on the inside."
Jason could hardly argue with that, after they'd accepted the premise of her as some kind of double agent. "Right," he mumbled.
"You don't trust me," Annabeth stated blandly.
At least she was direct. "Should I?"
"No." Jason was surprised by the answer, but Annabeth only shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not trustworthy. I get that."
"Percy trusts you," Jason noted. And I trust him. Or I said I would.
"He does," Annabeth agreed. "So I guess you'll have to as well."
Annabeth turned back toward the window, and Jason understood himself to have been dismissed.