"So. Um." Mari clenched her fist around her pinkie finger and frowned.

"Speak," Adela told Mari, looking up from where she was crouching over the beginnings of a fire. True to her word, Adela was good at finding shelter. They were sitting in a small clearing, dry enough to start a fire but damp enough so that the fire wouldn't become a forest fire. Because that would be bad. Problem was, despite the many, many broken branches to use as kindling, half the ones Adela picked up were very... well, they were very dead. Mari had offered to help search for better branches, but Adela had practically hissed at her to rest. So the whole 'fire' thing was a slow process.

"Okay." Mari took a deep breath. "So, I think I'm going to go back into the labyrinth."

Snap!

The wilted branch Adela had been glaring at broke in two, the pieces cracking as they hit the ground. Adela paid them no mind. "Are you insane?!" she snarled.

Possibly. "No."

"They why the Hades would you willingly go back there?!"

"Because..." Mari sighed. She had to keep speaking now. "Because I can't leave Clarisse alone in there. Plus, I have to finish what I was sent there to do." Mari's stomach sank as she looked at Adela, whose fists were clenched.

"You would be okay with ... going ... without me?" Adela's voice was way too flat as she asked.

What? Why would Adela care? Quite frankly, Mari would have thought she would be relieved. Mari swallowed. "I mean, I wasn't going to force you to come." She shrugged at Adela, "And I know you don't like me all that much anyway. You just wanted to get out of the labyrinth, right? Now you're out."

Adela scuffed her foot in the dirt. "You really mean it?"

"Why wouldn't I mean it?" Mari asked. She glanced at Adela again, expecting her to be glaring. Or rolling her eyes, or something. But she wasn't. Mari's stomach lurched. Adela was hunched over, as if she'd been punched in the gut.

"No, no..." Adela murmured.

"Did you break your jaw again?!" Mari panicked, rushing over.

"No!" Adela snarled at her, backing away. She tripped, tumbling to the floor and falling so close to the fire that Mari acted before she thought, throwing her full body weight on top of Adela and wrapping her arms around the girl, rolling her away from the flames.

Holy fucking shit. She was on top of Adela. Mari's face heated up as she felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. Adela's breath smelled like maple syrup, and Mari wasn't quite sure why that made her heart race.

Adela shrieked.

Like a bloody banshee. The sound tore through the woods, shattering the previous silence. The trees around them rustled, presumably as birds scattered to get away from the noise. It reminded Mari of a real-life horror movie. Adela's breathing increased. She kicked at Mari, kneeing her stomach.

"OW- hey!" It was all Mari could do to keep a hold of Adela, for fear of her rolling back towards the fire because of whatever this kind of reaction was. "Adela, what are you- AH!" Adela jutted her chin into Mari's head. Pain ricocheted into Mari's brain.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Adela's voice was hoarse from screaming, so the sound was like nails on a chalkboard. It was at that moment that Mari realised that Adela wasn't just shrieking, she was sobbing. Mari flinched. Adela took that as an opportunity to kick Mari away, letting out another primal shriek of rage as she did so.

Mari groaned as she rolled to the floor, clutching her aching side. Adela was a strong kicker, that was for sure.

"I'm- I'm sorry," Mari fumbled. "I didn't-"

"You could have died!" Adela scrambled backwards, panting. Hey eyes were bloodshot and Mari wasn't sure if that made her look devastated, scared or crazy, but none of those were good.

"I was trying to stop you from dy-"

"You're trying to kidnap me!" Adela leapt up from the ground, scattering twigs and leaves into the air.

Mari lifted her hands to her face to shield herself.

Adela continued to scream at her. "Don't lie about it!" She scooped up some leaves and threw them at Mari.

Adela's aim was terrible, but Mari's hands still instinctively rose to cover her eyes. "What?!" Mari spit the words out along with a fragment of a leaf. "Kidnap you?!" Where the fuck did that come from? Unless Adela suddenly transformed into a ball of godly twine with the power to allow fool proof navigation of the labyrinth, Mari very much did not want to kidnap her. Mari voiced these thoughts. "Why the fuck would I want to kidnap you? What did I do to make you think I want to kidnap you?!" Mari stared at Adela through her hands, wide-eyed.

Adela stared at her own hands in horror, shaking them along with her head. "No, no... no." .

Between her sobs, Adela's eyes sharpened with a sense of determination. Apparently she'd decided that explaining was for rational people, because instead of answering the question, she chose to kick another pile of leaves into Mari's face.

A particularly sharp twig just missed Mari's eye. She'd had enough. "Will you bloody stop that?!"

Adela did not, in fact, stop. She did something much worse. She spat at Mari. And this time, it did hit her in the eye. Mari was unsure if the tears this produced were of rage, or sadness, or physical pain. Probably all of them, and other emotions she didn't have time to catalogue.

She'd been nice, she'd healed Adela, multiple fucking times, hadn't she earned enough goodwill to at least cash in on a conversation? She took a deep breath. "Please. Can you stop now?"

But Adela only screamed, and even at that volume her voice managed to crack. Then the scream became a broken hiccup, and a fresh torrent of tears spilled from her eyes.

Mari faltered. "Look, I just want to talk."

"You don't want to talk!" Adela sobbed. "You want to kidnap me and bring me to him, on that stupid boat!"

"What?!" Mari said for what must have been the millionth time. "You are impossible! I don't want to kidnap you! And quite frankly, if I did, I would be doing a shockingly terrible job at it."

Adela sniffed. "What do you mean?"

"No offence Adela," Mari began, but paused. "Scrap that. Full offence, you threw twigs at my fucking eyes, but you wouldn't exactly be hard to kidnap. You've been unconscious in front of me, like, how many times? In the span of a few hours. If I was trying to kidnap you I could have struck some kind of deal with Erysichthon and dragged you out of there, cage and all."

Adela opened her mouth to say something. Then closed it again. Finally, she spoke. "I'm sorry for throwing a twig at your eye."

"Why the fuck would you think I was trying to kidnap you?"

Adela looked away, silent. Mari sighed, lightly rising from Adela's ankles before sinking into a crouch next to her. Adela shuffled away. She looked almost like a wounded animal, and something about the image made Mari's heart twinge.

"Adela," Mari repeated, this time trying to make her voice a little softer. "Why would you think I'm trying to kidnap you?"

Adela didn't respond for a very long time. The temperature dropped from 17 degrees to 16.5. Mari frowned. She always just knew the temperature at camp, but she figured everyone did. The climate at camp was controlled by Mr. D after all, so it wasn't that much of a leap. But she was pretty sure most other demigods couldn't just know the temperature outside of camp. Maybe it was a daughter of Apollo thing...

"What are you trying to do to me? If not kidnap me?" Adela asked her.

Mari was shocked out of her thoughts. "Oh. Uh... nothing, I guess?"

"Really?" Adela sounded sceptical.

"Is it seriously that surprising?" Mari asked.

Adela nodded. It made Mari fume.

Adela hadn't even answered her original question. Well, technically she had, but answering a question with another question didn't bloody count! Mari sighed to try and calm herself down. "I genuinely just ran into you. For fuck's sake, the weird not-a-raccoon led me to you, and that raccoon obviously hates me and likes you. Why would it lead me to you if I wanted to kidnap you?"

"I don't know!" Adela exclaimed.

Mari felt like banging her own head against the ground, but she didn't. There were sharp twigs there. "What can I do to convince you that I genuinely don't want to kidnap you?"

Adela snorted. "Short of a literal oath on the Styx, there's not a lo-"

"I swear on the river Styx that I am not and won't try to kidnap you, and that I only found you in the first place because of the raccoon-thing," Mari interrupted.

In the back of her mind, she could hear a voice very harshly chiding her for being so careless about an oath on the Styx. And the voice sounded just like Chiron. Mari cringed. Okay, maybe she was a bit rash. It was probably a bad idea to just go around making Oaths on the Styx willy nilly, but hey! She wasn't evaporated, or exploded or disintegrated. She counted that as a win. Kind of.

"Are you happy now?" she asked Adela.

Adela, as it turned out, was malfunctioning. Probably. She wasn't a robot but Mari couldn't think of another way to describe it. She was staring at Mari like she was some kind of weird space alien thing and her eyes were watering.

"You don't seem happy," Mari observed.

"Why did you do that?!" Adela croaked. "I told you I wasn't going to the labyrinth with you. Why would you make an oath on the Styx for someone who you won't ever see again? It gets you nothing!"

Mari sighed. Adela was crying again, so obviously she'd done something wrong. "What did I do? Fuck! Uh, don't cry! Uh..." Mari reached out a hand, but froze. What would she do, pat Adela's head and offer her a nonexistent cookie? Adela wasn't Sean. She'd probably sooner bite the hand than bite the cookie.

"You... stupid, I don't- why the fuck did it have to be his si..." Adela cupped her chin in her hands and took a harsh breath in.

Mari tentatively reached to pry Adela's hands from her face, but Adela scooted back, shaking her head.

"I SAID NO! DON'T TOUCH THEM!"

"I'm sorry." The apology bubble out of Mari's mouth before she could stop it. Adela shook her head even harder. "Don't apologise. It's my fault."

"What is?" Mari asked.

"Doesn't matter. Not to you," Adela said.

Mari frowned. That wasn't right. "I don't know what you're talking about-"

"Good." Adela paused, then muttered, "Sorry."

Mari hadn't seen Adela's eyes so close up before. She knew they were pretty, but not this pretty. The only thing that could make them prettier was if they were a little less bloodshot.

"Do you love your brother?" Adela asked Mari.

"What?" Mari frowned at the direction of questioning.

"Your brother," Adela repeated. "Do you love him?"

"I love all my brothers. Which one are you asking about?" Mari asked her. An uneasy feeling entered her stomach, which she shoved aside.

"Your oldest." Mason. "You know Mason?" Mari asked.

Adela's eyes hardened at the name. "Do you love him?" she asked.

"Yes. How do you know him?" Mari asked.

Adela curled her hand into her knee. Mari felt the odd impulse to thread her fingers through it. She ignored the impulse, partly because it was a stupid one and partly because Adela had asked her not to touch her hands.

"Mason tried to kidnap me. Multiple times. He wants me to join Luke Castellan's army."

Oh. Oh shit. Oh, shit! "Fuck!" Mari felt her head drop to her hands. "Adela, I... I am so sorry. He- he doesn't know what he's doing. I will talk some bloody sense into him when I see him. I promise!" Mari wanted to kicked her brother in the shins. No wonder Adela didn't fucking like her! If she were Adela, she wouldn't like her, either.

"Don't apologise for him," Adela snapped. "He knew exactly what he was doing."

"No, he didn't." Mari shook her head. "He couldn't. Look, Adela, I don't know what Mason told you, but he's not... he's being lied to. Luke is telling him something and I don't know what. But I'm going to tell him the truth and get him to apologise for everything he did to you."

Adela glared at a tree with the same intensity she'd looked at Mari with an hour before. "There are some things," she spat, "that a simple 'I'm sorry' won't fix."

Mari nodded. "I know. But Mason wouldn't hurt anyone. I promise, whatever he said or did, he can't have meant it."

Adela stared at her. She looked horrified by something. "You're wrong. You're so wrong."

"No," Mari shook her head. "I'm not."

Adela shook her head. "He... how well do you really know him? You probably haven't even seen him in a year and a half."

"Five actually," Mari corrected.

"Five?!" Adela choked on the question. "So you don't know him at all."

"No, I do know him!" She did. She did, she did... she did, somehow. It made no sense out loud but it made perfect sense to her. She knew her brother, and it didn't matter if nobody believed her because she knew she was right. She knew Mason, and Mason wouldn't hurt people. He was her older brother. That had to mean something. Mari's head snapped up. "Wait!"

"What?"

"Shit, shit, I'm so stupid. Give me the bracelet we found!" She held her hand out to Adela.

"Take it out of my bag," Adela said. "I'm not handing it to you."

Mari vaguely registered how strange that was, but she was too caught up to pay much attention. "My brother! Adela, my brother!"

Adela frowned. "Yes, I'm aware of who we're talking about."

"Not that one! I, uh, I have another brother, called Will, did I mention him?"

"Yes. The medic. You said he's better than you," Adela deadpanned.

"What? Oh, yeah, don't tell him I said that, it's true but I'll deny it. But he mentioned this park before!" Mari dug through Adela's backpack, tugging the bracelet out and grinning in triumph. "Yeah! Zilker Park! He, uh... he took some kind of school field trip here, sounded boring, and got in a fight with a hellhound. This is great!"

Adela gave her a perplexed look.

"Oh, not the hellhound part. That probably sucked. But it means I know where we are!" Mari explained.

"Where?" Adela asked.

Mari grinned, waving the bracelet like a banner. "Austin, Texas!" Then something hit her.

"What? Is something wrong?" Adela asked.

She looked up from the bracelet. "No. Everything's great. Adela, I think I know someone who can help with the whole Drachma thing."

"Why does your brother even have a phone?" Adela asked her. "He's a demigod. That's the first thing they teach at camp."

"Spoken like someone who's actually been to camp," Mari quipped.

"Not that it's any of your business, Marion, but I have been to camp," Adela grumbled.

Mari whipped around. "Seriously? Then why do you act like you hate it?"

Adela sighed. "Let's see... Sleeping on the floor with a sack that barely passed as a sleeping bag if the inspector is drunker than Mr. D, strike one. Missing my Dad, strike two. Cleaning harpies that tear you to shreds if you break curfew, strike three. Do I need to continue?"

"We have ambrosia for that..." Mari trailed off. It sounded like a weak argument, even to her.

Adela made a face. "Pass."

"If you ever change your mind..."

"IM you? With what drachmas?" Adela asked.

"I'll get you some!"

"Get yourself some first," Adela said.

"I will. I have a plan." The plan was, call Will and he could bring the drachmas he'd saved from camp. Preferably now-ish, but honestly Mari understood if he wanted to sleep in instead. She wasn't sure how late it was, but she was sure that the answer was somewhere along the lines of late enough to also be early. "We need to call Will, and somehow get round the small detail that neither of us have phones."

Adela shifted uncomfortably. "About that..."

Mari froze. "You're joking."

"Yeah, I'm really not. You're getting it out yourself, though. It has, like, four minutes." Adela turned around for Mari to unzip her backpack.

"I just need two," Mari said, yanking the phone out. It was a glittery topaz colour, with rhinestones encrusted on the sides. Mari held it up with a questioning brow. It wasn't that it wasn't... pretty. It just didn't match Adela's general vibe.

"I was four. My Dad wanted me to be able to contact him if I got lost! ¡Dios Míos!" She threw her hands up in the air, huffing. It was cute. No. No, it wasn't cute. Mari didn't think that.

"You do know your brother's number, right?" Adela asked.

"Of course. He practically made me memorise it during the summer, it's-"

"Marion." Adela raised an eyebrow, "I sincerely do not care what your brother's phone number is. Just call it. I'll keep a lookout for any monsters it might attract."

Mari froze. "Shit. Shit, Adela, I can't call him!"

"What?" Adela frowned. "Why not?"

Marion gaped at Adela. "Because you're right. If I do, as soon as he answers the phone he'll immediately draw the attention of any monster in a gods-know-how-many-miles radius. And he'll be completely unprepared! I mean, fuck," Mari fretted, "It's probably midnight, he won't have his weapons on him, he'll be a sitting bloody duck!"

Adela paused. "You've... never actually used a phone outside of camp, have you?"

Mari shook her head. "No, I have! Well, I used to have an iPod, but I had to leave that back in Trowbridge."

"Trowbridge?" Adela asked.

"Where I used to live, in England. It's near Bristol- this isn't the point, Adela! What are we going to do about my brother?"

"Depends which one," Adela muttered.

"Adela!"

"Fine! Look, you don't need to worry. Monsters aren't attracted to the receiver of calls. They're attracted to the sender. Your brother will be fine," Adela assured her.

Mari sighed in relief. "Okay. Okay. Wait," Mari frowned. "I thought you hadn't touched this since you were four. How do you know?"

"I said I got it when I was four, not that I haven't used it." Adela lowered her voice to almost a whisper. "I did. Once. I uh... I tried to call my Dad."

"Oh." Mari looked away. "How'd that go? If you don't mind saying."

"I do mind saying!" Adela snapped.

Oh. Mari swallowed and tried not to let the disappointment show on her face.

"Wait." Adela held out a hand. It was shaking. She gazed at it with a strange look in her eyes, then brought it back to her side. "I'm... sorry," she mumbled.

"It's okay."

"Have you ever met your father?" Adela asked.

Mari's heart clenched. "I'm uh... going to call my brother now."

She frowned as she tapped her brother's number into the little keys. They were just so... tiny. It was the type of keyboard where there were three letters squished at the bottom of each number, so she had to squint. It was horrible. The phone made little beeping noises as she typed, which Mari imagined a four-year old girl would very much like. She tried not to smile at the thought, Adela would probably break the phone in two.

The phone rang, and Mari held it to her ear. "C'mon, c'mon..." It went to voicemail. "Shit!"

"Marion, we should go, just because he didn't pick up it doesn't mean monsters won't," Adela warned.

"No! No, I have to try again." Mari pressed the sequence of buttons once more, scowling.

"Yeah, well, it's not just your funeral if something finds us, Marion." Adela glanced around like she expected a monster to pop out from behind a tree. Her swords were shining in the light of Artemis's chariot, which made her look like she was holding molten gold in her hands. "It's mine too."

"I'll be quick," Mari promised.

She wasn't quick. She ended up calling Will's number six times. As she was punching it in a seventh, Adela threw her hands up in the air. "Are you sure it's even the right number? For all we know, there are ten monsters heading to kill us and you've been spending time we should be running away calling the local pizza hut."

"Yes, I'm sure! I remember my own brother's phone number, Adela!" Marion pressed call and held the phone to her ear, frowning. She could remember it, right? She'd been so sure it ended in a two, but had it been a three? Or a one? "Okay, maybe I-"

"Hello?" Will's voice sounded drowsy, annoyed and staticky through the phone, but that was definitely her brother. "Hello? Listen, if someone thinks prank calling me seven times at... gods, at three am, is funny, then-"

"Will, thank fuck!" Mari grinned.

"Marion? Mari, are you okay?" Any hint of drowsiness left Will's voice from the other side of the line.

"How'd you know it was me?" Mari asked.

"Mari, I know exactly one British person, that's you. And the First thing you said was a swear word. Are you okay?" Will asked.

"Uh... Not exactly." Mari admitted. "We need your help."

"What? We? Chiron told me you lost Clarisse, she IM'd him a week ago."

"Clarisse is okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. But I've been freaking out, Mari! And seriously, what do you mean by 'we'? Who are you with?"

"W-well-"

Adela was shaking her head at Mari, with a hard expression on her face. Mari cursed demigod hearing. The phone wasn't even on speaker, and quite frankly it was so old that Mari wasn't sure it had a speakerphone.

"Uh, my stomach, me and my stomach need your help. I'm like, super hungry."

Adela glared at Mari, who shrugged helplessly in response. She was only good under pressure if that pressure was a life or death situation! There was a pause on the line, then her brother sighed.

"Mari," he began, "You didn't call me at three in the morning so that I could bring you a vegan cheeseburger."

"I know, I know!" Mari nodded. "Uh, that's not why. W- I didn't realise where I-I was, or I would have called you earlier." She stuttered. Adela facepalmed.

"What? Where are you?"

"In Texas."

"What?!"

Mari heard a banging sound on the other line, then a yelp.

"You okay, Will?" She asked.

"Yeah. Sorry, I just sat up and banged my head. Where are you in Texas?" he asked.

"Uh... do you know a Zilker Park? Because I think I might be there. Only I have no idea where 'there' is, and this place is like, really big and I lost my drachmas so I can't IM Chiron and-"

"Hang tight. I'll wake my Mom up, we'll come and get you. Listen, Zilker is only, like, a mile big. If you walk along Lady Bird Lake, you can't miss it, you should find a road. Along that road is a parking lot. We'll pick you up there. And I'll bring you a sandwich is that's what you want."

"Drachmas. I need drachmas," Mari said.

"What?"

"I lost mine, and I need to IM Clarisse. And Chiron. You still have all the ones you saved from camp, right?"

"Yeah, I do. Listen, I'm going to go. I can be there in half an hour. Will you be okay till then?" Will asked.

Mari was silent.

"Mari?"

She glanced at Adela, who was glaring at a spot on the ground.

"Marion, are you going to be okay till my Mom and I get there?" Will asked again.

"Uh..."

"Marion, please. You're scaring me now!" There was a shuffling sound on the other line. Mari assumed Will was going to wake up his Mum.

"Uh, so, you know how I called you, like, five times before you actually picked up?" Mari asked.

Will didn't sound very happy at the reminder. "Seven, actually. You woke me up from a really good dream about pretzels. What about it?"

"Well, I kind of maybe have no clue how many monsters may or may not be heading in my general direction right now. Which is definitely not good," Mari admitted.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other line. "Mari!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"Where did you even get a phone?" Will asked. She heard a door opening and fast-paced footsteps as Will talked.

Adela's eyes went wide and she frantically shook her head. Mari winced. "I um, I stole it."

"You stole a phone?!"

"Just a little bit!" she lied.

"Thirty seconds left, I've been counting," Adela whispered.

"What was that?" Will asked.

"What was what?"

Will sighed. "Mari, you need to get off the line, you can't talk to me and watch out for monsters at the same time and I have to wake up my Mom. We'll be there soon. Get to the parking lot I told you about."

"The lake, right?" Mari asked.

"Yes. Marion."

"What?" She asked.

"Be careful. I'll see you soon." The line went dead.

Mari swallowed, then held out the phone to Adela.

"No. Drop it on the floor," Adela said. "I'll pick it up."

Mari scowled. She thought maybe after she made a vow on the bloody Styx, Adela might be less reluctant to touch her. Clearly she'd been wrong. But she really wasn't that dirty. She was an Apollo camper, for crying out loud! Her cabin probably made up ninety percent of the medical treatment at camp. She knew how to keep things bloody clean. Well, she figured it out after Lee taught her to.

"C'mon. You only have thirty minutes to get to that parking lot, right? I'll walk you there, let's g-"

"It'ssssss a lovely night to die, issssn't it, Marion Carter?!"

That voice. Shit, she knew that voice. That annoying, insufferably hissy voice.

"Sandy." Marion sighed. Of course it would be Sandy.

"Marion, how do you know her?" Adela asked.

Mari quirked an eyebrow. "Really? She's a monster and I'm a demigod, how do you think I know her?"

Mari turned back to Sandy. "Seriously though, why the fuck is it always you?"

Sandy sneered. "I am very patient when my prey ssssslipsss away, little demigod. And I do not sssstop until I devour it."

Wait, did that mean Sandy had been stalking her?

Sandy hissed, forked tongue slipping out for a second, and Mari shuddered. The one silver lining of the labyrinth had been that the snakes couldn't find her, so she was actually able to sleep unfearfully (blissfully was going way too far). That made seeing anything even remotely snake-y after so long so much worse.

Mari's chest started tingling, and she had a split-second to tense before something was whizzing past her head, severing a few of her baby hairs in the process.

It was a knife. Flying at Sandy's face.

Mari chanced a quick glance back behind her, at Adela, who had one empty throwing hand raised.

"I have another," Adela snarled. "Leave us alone."

Mari gulped, turning back to Sandy. The knife had missed its target by a pretty significant margin. Maybe Adela had been aiming for Sandy's shoulder and not her neck, but a wound was a wound.

"Ssssstay back, I'm not here for you!" Sandy shrieked at Adela. Then, she charged at Mari. Apparently, she wasn't good at directing her rage in healthy ways.

"Ah!" Mari yelped and darted under her snake-legs, wincing as something wet got in her hair. Did dracaenae legs have venom? Mari had never asked, and she really hoped the answer was no. She shot up out of the way, pressing Drys into sword form as she went and shaking her hair to try and get the venom out. It made her feel like a gross wet dog.

"Piss off!" Mari yelled at Sandy. The snake woman snarled back, and Mari drew her sword in front of her.

Something inside Mari blazed. This was the third bloody time Sandy attacked her, and her specifically, which was honestly kind of stalkerish but that wasn't what had her so riled up. Sandy, simply put, had the worst timing. The first time, she'd ruined a peaceful walk. Then she attacked her in a freaking airport, and now she was trying to kill her to stop her from seeing her brother. Screw tasting her own medicine. Sandy deserved a full-course meal of death, and this time Mari was going to give it to her, not Oak or Clarisse.

"Watch out!" Adela cried.

Mari rolled out of the way of a descending snake-leg (sneg?) just in time, landing in a crouch a few feet away from Sandy with her sword raised over her head.

"Sssstop ressssissssting!" Sandy hissed.

"How do you keep finding me?!" Mari snarled.

Sandy's laugh was probably the most horrifying approximation of a human-esque noise that Mari had ever had the displeasure of hearing. It sounded like a... well, for lack of a better word, like a hissy fit.

"I do not give up on my prey, Usurper Sssssspawn." She gave Mari a deadly, full-fanged smile. "I have your ssssscent, and I will be the one to kill you!"

Mari shuddered. Sandy's words at the airport, months ago came back to her.

I never let my victims live! You will be no different!

Holy fucking shit. Was Sandy going to keep coming after her for as long as Mari lived - which wasn't looking like a big number - specifically until she managed to get a lucky hit in? How the fuck was Mari supposed to survive a monster that deliberately targeted her, over and over again?

Sandy bared her fangs, that creepy forked tongue slipping out again and tasting the air. Mari was 99% sure that snakes did that because they didn't have a sense of smell, but that was pretty weird since Sandy had a nose smack-bang in the centre of her face already. She dived towards Mari again, and this time instead of ducking away, Mari drove her sword forward into Sandy's stomach.

Sandy screeched, turning to a pile of flailing scales as she lost control of her snegs from the pain. One of the shiny acid-green limbs flopped to the ground in front of Mari with a loud slap. Mari gagged and removed her sword, backing away as fast as she could before Sandy found her bearings again.

"Don't dessssspair, Marion Carter." Sandy grinned, and there was an unhinged look in her eyes as she flicked her forked tongue. "Your death will make front page headlinessss. I've already started the first draft!" Sandy cackled, waving something in Mari's face.

It was a Newspaper. The Austin American-Statesman was written across the top, in handwriting that was harder to read than cursive. Mari couldn't make out the title between the atrocious print quality and the fact that Sandy was waving it around like a flag. For once, the Dracaena had a smidgeon of self-awareness as she read aloud. "'Marion Carter ssssslain by heroic Dracaena!' Isn't it inspired?" Sandy hissed.

Adela made a derisive noise in the back of her throat. "Very unoriginal, actually."

"Yeah, that's fake news," Mari agreed. "Also, you" - she brandished Drys at Sandy, panting - "really need to find another fucking hobby."

"How dare you insssssult my massssterpiece!" Sandy glared at her. "I'm a creative vissssionary!" The Dracaena opened her jaw like a boa constrictor and screeched into the night.

"You okay?"

Adela's voice sent a shock-wave towards Mari, who jumped. She'd honestly forgotten the other girl was there. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm all good. I think."

"Good. She's distracted." Adela smiled. It was a strange smile. It made her look sad. "So kill her."

Mari sucked a breath in. All her previous conviction seemed to drain into the air in a single moment. She looked at Sandy again. Her mouth was closed, fangs hidden behind her lips, and it made her look painfully human.

Mari swallowed and stepped towards the downed Dracaena. The legs, look at the legs, she reminded herself, trying to remember the fact that this was a literal monster who wanted her dead.

Sandy opened her mouth and hissed again. It stopped Mari in her tracks, because it didn't sound aggressive. It sounded scared.

"You." She was staring at Adela, not Mari. "I've heard of you." She was staring at something in Adela's hands, only Adela had turned her weird gold dagger back into a ring so there was nothing to stare at. "You're the one with the touch of-"

"Kill her now!" Adela's voice was as forceful as Mari had ever heard it. There was no ignoring the intensity of that command, though Mari's heart still lurched at the sound.

Mari swung her sword in an arc and lobbed Sandy's human-looking head off her snakey shoulders. The detached body fell to the floor with a thump, snake-legs clacking, and the head rolled towards Mari's feet. Sandy's expression was still one of fear, probably from whatever she had imagined Adela holding. Ichor leaked from the base of Sandy's neck in an already dissipating stream of gold. Mari blinked. For a second, Sandy's head almost reminded Mari of the broken football that two of the kids in her second foster home used to kick around in the back garden. But that mental image was already disintegrating, just as Sandy's head and body dissolved into fine golden dust.

"Does that usually happen?" Adela pointed to something, hidden by the dust. Mari frowned, and kneeled down to fish it out. Pretty as the dust was, it smelled sulphurous and disgusting. But Mari knew from experience that Adela wasn't picking it up no matter what, so she scrunched her nose and retrieved the object without complaining.

It was the newspaper.

"Well, I sure hope she kept backups." Mari muttered. "Huh, think I'll keep this."

"Why the Hades would you keep it?" Adela asked, incredulous.

Mari shrugged. "I remember Chiron saying something about it being smart to keep 'spoils of war' or whatever. Don't remember why."

Adela gave her a look. "Why do you actually want to keep it?"

Mari grinned. "It's kinda funny..."

Adela stared at her, without saying anything for a full minute. Then, she sighed. "I can't stop you, can I?" Mari shook her head, and Adela continued, "Well, come on then. We still need to get you to your brother, and we've wasted enough time." Adela glanced at the newspaper with narrowed eyes. "I still think we should throw that in the lake he told you about."

"No!" Mari grinned, clutching the newspaper to her chest. "I said I'm keeping it so I'm keeping it. Sandy would probably have gotten horrendous reviews, anyway. I'm doing her a favour."

Mari went on. "Now shall we get going? We still need to find this bloody lake." She swallowed. She wasn't sure why what she was about to say was making her feel nervous, but her hands were sweaty and she had to wipe them on her jeans, which was really gross. She sighed. "You can, um, you can still come with me if you want. I'm sure Will wouldn't be upset about me lying on the phone."

Adela looked away. "No, I can't."

"Why not?" Mari asked.

"Would you please just drop it?!"

Mari frowned. She'd taken a vow on the fucking river styx and Adela was still being like... this! She'd thought she'd fixed that... she guessed not.

"Wait." Adela told her. "I'll be here, tomorrow."

Mari snapped her head up. "What?!"

"Tomorrow. I'll still be here tomorrow. In that carpark. Till midday. Just... so you know. After that I'll find a bus somewhere." Adela's voice sounded sad somehow. "Just so you know."

"I-"

"I'll see you around, sometime. Maybe," Adela interrupted. "Now, let's find that lake."

She walked off in a direction, which Mari assumed was correct since, in Adela's own words, she'd been surviving on her own for a while. She probably knew her way around. Probably. It took Mari a few seconds to follow her, her heart wouldn't stop pounding. Why did Adela tell her that? Scrap that, why would Adela stay the night in a national park? She could just as easily wait for Mari to pick up the drachmas, then continue. Or continue on her own. It didn't make sense...

"Are you coming or not?" Adela's voice came from a good few metres away. Mari hadn't realised she'd been standing still that long.

"Yeah!" Mari called back. "Coming."

They made surprisingly good time given the whole Sandy thing. Adela found the lake pretty easily, and it wasn't a very long walk to the car park Will had mentioned. Mari wondered how a mortal would manage. They hadn't followed any trails, so the ground was uneven and at some points covered in mud, not to mention that it was night-time and they couldn't even see. Yeah, a mortal might have collapsed into a pile of sweat and tears. Possibly blood, depending on how many times they tripped over.

When they got to the car park, it was empty save for a blue van which looked like it had been abandoned for days if the cracks in the windows were anything to go by. "Well, we're here. Adela? What's wrong?"

Adela looked up from where she'd stopped, with a small vial of sand in her hand. She'd poured it in a circle around herself.

"What are you doing?" Mari wasn't sure why her question came out like a cry.

"Goodbye, Marion," Adela said. Then, she muttered something unintelligible. And disappeared.

"Adela?!" Mari asked. No response. "Adela!" Where the fuck was she? And how did she go? She hadn't been able to do magic and disappear when Erysichthon captured her. And she had promised to be in the carpark the next day. Had she lied to make sure Mari would meet Will and be safe? "Adela?" Mari screamed. "Please come back!"

A light yellow car pulled up in a parking spot, headlights on. The door opened, and Will ran towards her. "Mari! Are you okay? You scared the Hades out of me!" Will was hugging her tightly.

"I-I'm fine." Mari murmured, staring over her shoulder at the empty spot where Adela had disappeared, and feeling the emptiness had gone into her own heart. "Really fine," she lied.