If Mari went up to the average Joe and said that she actively missed spending time in a summer camp that employed cleaning harpies to eat campers who broke curfew, and had a lava climbing wall installed as a daily activity, she had a feeling said Joe might get a little... judgy. Mortals tended to get a wee bit put off at the whole 'nearly dying' thing. But what the mortals missed (other than the fact that the lava wall was actually pretty fun) was that camp was where her siblings were, where her friends were, and where her life had been since she was ten years old.
It was nice to be back.
It was late afternoon when Mari and Will arrived, and a quick check of the schedule for that day told them that their cabin was assigned to winged horseback riding with the Athena cabin.
They headed over to the forest to intercept their siblings, who were currently in the middle of an all-out aerial battle. Lee spotted them and waved briefly before going back to firing flaming arrows at an older Athena kid, who veered upside down and dodged. Lee sped after him with a cry, and disappeared from view. "So, do you think they're all up there?" Will asked her.
"Nope," a voice drawled from behind, and Mari felt herself being yanked into a side-hug. "You lucky little parasites are going to get your favourite older brother Michael for company while we watch."
Michael looked like he'd been through it. He had bags under his eyes and his left arm was in a sling.
"What happened to you?" Will asked.
"The monsters have started circling camp, the same way they did when Thalia's pine tree was poisoned. Chiron thinks they're here because they can sense something bad about to happen. I think they were told to be here." Michael shook his injured arm. "I got this saving Kayla from a Pit Scorpion colony. Someone planted a whole nest of them at the border to camp, probably one of Luke's associates. Kayla tripped up over 'em whilst she was coming in. I ended up in the infirmary for four days. Thank the gods Chiron had the antidote on hand or I'd be dead for sure. I'm telling you, Pit Scorpion poison to the elbow is not a pleasant sensation - pray that you never experience it."
"Who's Kayla?" Mari asked.
"Our new sister." Michael grinned. "Kayla Knowles. Unlike the rest of you she's actually tolerable. I know, I was shocked too. Kid nearly beat me at the shooting range. Me!"
"Oh, good," Mari drawled. "The Pit scorpions must not have done too much damage - his ego's still kicking."
Michael thwacked her around the head with his good arm.
"How'd you manage to hold any kind of archery contest with your arm in a sling?" Will asked.
"What, you think I'm a one-shot kind of demigod?" Michael snatched a bow off a table with his good arm and somehow managed to notch an arrow, putting the nock between his teeth and using that bite as leverage to pull the bowstring. He tilted his head back, narrowing his eyes towards some far-off point, and opened his mouth, sending the arrow flying upwards. It nailed another Athena camper in the back of the head, and they spun off their pegasus, shouting something as they went. "That's how it's done."
"Hey!" Austin swooped close enough for them to hear. "That's cheating!"
"I'm on your team, Austin!" Michael shot off another arrow. Austin shook his head in exasperation and flew away, joining Lee in his pursuit of the Athena camper.
"So, is Kayla up there?" Will asked. "Can we meet her?"
"No." Michael shook his head. "Kayla has a mild concussion. Apparently she got into a fight with a Cyclops before the Pit Scorpion incident. She's not allowed to fly until she gets that cleared, so she's spending the session in the infirmar- Nope!" Michael grabbed the back of Will's shirt, yanking him into a noogie. "That is not an invitation to sneak off to the infirmary not five minutes into arriving. Kayla's sleeping in the infirmary tonight, anyway. I think Katie and Travis are holding the fort."
"Travis?!" Will looked positively aghast. "Michael, that's even more reason to go, before he manages to burn the place down!"
As it turned out, Travis did not manage to burn the infirmary down (though knowing him it probably wasn't for lack of trying). Will still glared him down over the table at breakfast the next morning. A girl with red hair who Mari assumed was Kayla Knowles was already sitting at table seven, waving at them all. Mari plopped herself down next to her, holding out a hand to shake.
"Mari. I'm your sister."
"Kayla." Kayla smiled. "Did you get here today?"
"Me and our brother Will did, yeah," Mari told her. "How'd you get here? Other than the Pit Scorpions, I mean. Those sounded nasty."
Kayla's story turned out to be the pretty standard demigod experience. Her mortal father was an archery instructor called Darren and had been woefully unprepared to handle a demigod daughter but had done his best. She'd grown up in Canada and been expelled from almost every school she attended. At the tender age of nine, Darren had packed Kayla up and sent her off with a Satyr called Thistle Brambler, a backpack full of non-perishables and a plane ticket to New York to find her own way to camp. She'd run into a couple of monsters, almost died four times, and gotten some very good pretzels on the plane. When she'd finally arrived, she'd been claimed by Apollo within three days.
"Sounds like you did really good," Will told Kayla.
"Did you miss the part where I nearly got decapitated by a hungry Cyclops?" Kayla asked.
"Oh, yeah, that sounds like it sucked, but making it to camp alive is just the first test," Mari told her.
"Yeah, and welcome to your next one," Austin added. "Surviving the rest of your life, inside of camp and out."
"Speaking of," Lee said. "Mari, how was living with Will and his Mom?"
"It was good," Mari smiled. "Really, really good."
"You going back?" Michael asked, around a bite of strawberry.
"Yeah, I am," Mari said. Will beamed at her.
"Wait, I'm so confused." Kayla frowned. "Where did you live before you lived with Will?"
"Here." Mari spread out her arms, gesturing to the rest of camp. Drew noticed and waved. Clarisse noticed and gave her the middle finger. "I was a year-round camper. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. I was the only one here most of the time, so I got to set my own schedule and nobody made me go to bed at eleven."
"So, do you guys get along then? If you live together?" Kayla asked.
"Sure," Michael snorted. "If you call destroying half the infirmary in a fit of rage the first time she met him 'getting along'."
"Oi!" Mari threw a chunk of bread at Michael. "I had a very good reason! And I apologised."
"You mean Apollo-gised," Austin muttered. Mari high-fived him.
"To be fair, she did have a pretty good reason," Will added.
"What was the reason?" asked Kayla.
The table went quiet. None of them needed to say it aloud, but they were all (bar Kayla) thinking it. Mason. Mason was the reason. She'd destroyed Will's infirmary because he'd told her about Mason abandoning camp to join Luke's, and by extension Kronos's, army. Kayla may not have known Mason, and neither did Austin, but even Will had known him for a few months before he left. Mari didn't often think about how the rest of her siblings had felt about Mason's... abandonment, but maybe she should have. After all, they'd lived with him for years.
Chiron saved anybody from having to give Kayla a very uncomfortable explanation about why table seven had descended into a spontaneous bout of silence, by standing up and starting morning announcements. Apparently Michael hadn't been joking. Monsters really were circling the borders. Now that the summer session had officially started and there were enough campers, Chiron was establishing a patrol schedule to handle monster attacks. The interesting (by interesting, Mari meant infuriating) thing was that the cabin counsellors had been able to have a say in when they and their siblings went on patrol.
As Chiron read out the list, Mari and the rest of her siblings' heads slowly swivelled to face Lee, who was suddenly doing a very good job of avoiding their gazes. Mari wasn't sure what her face looked like, but she could see the others. Will looked absolutely outraged. Sean's face contained the gleeful indifference of somebody who wasn't affected by any of this whatsoever, since he was too young to go on watch anyway. Kayla and Austin weren't actually looking, because they were busy holding Michael back - Michael, who looked about four seconds away from leaping over the table and throttling Lee. He was practically foaming at the mouth.
Michael seethed at Lee. "Tell me why you signed us up for every single night watch in the next week!"
"I wanted to get it all out of the way?" Lee squeaked.
None of them listened to the next few announcements, since they were all too busy trying to stop Michael from committing spontaneous fratricide. All Mari heard was that there was some new sword guy, called Quince or something. Apparently he was covering for Mr. D, who was off threatening his 'old pals' about where exactly their loyalties lay. Other than that, no spectacular news. Chiron warned them all (Travis and Connor Stoll) away from trying to turn the Naiads' hair yellow by putting hair dye in Zephyros creek. The Naiads were threatening to drown the campers if it happened again, but that was all. Then announcements were over, and the whole camp rose to scrape the best parts of breakfast into the fire, and Mari and her siblings were free to attempt to make their way to the archery range.
But Michael couldn't let it go.
"Well maybe if you'd actually discussed it with me instead of signing us all up! I thought you were supposed to be teaching me how to be cabin counsellor when you go off to college in two years!"
"When was I meant to do that?" Lee retorted. "Whilst you were unconscious from charging headfirst into a hoard of Pit Scorpions?"
"Would you rather I'd left Kayla to die? Even if we didn't know she was our sister then!"
"Of course not! But that's not what I'm talking abou-"
"Kayla is glad that you didn't leave Kayla to die," Kayla said.
"Thank you, Kayla."
"Shut up, Kayla."
They were halfway there when Mari felt a tap on her shoulder. She tensed, turning around only to be met with the determined eyes of one Annabeth Chase. "We need to talk. About last winter. Chiron gave you two hours off training. We're meeting Clarisse at my cabin."
"Hello, Annabeth. How was your year?" Mari asked. "Mine was great. Thank you so much for asking."
"My year was good." Annabeth started pulling her away. "Now come on, I meant it when I said two hours only. I have to meet Percy after that and I don't want to be late. We have a lot to talk about and we're wasting time."
"Woah, woah, woah," Lee interrupted. "I don't know what exactly this is about but I'm still counsellor of cabin seven. Mari, you have training and we're on watch tonight." Lee turned towards Michael, whose face had gone bright red in rage. "Yes, Michael, I know you think that this is an abuse of power-"
"It's technically up to you," Annabeth whispered. "I can catch you up on things later. You can stay if you like... with them."
Mari looked at Michael, who was currently attempting to remove his arm from his sling so that he could 'show Lee exactly what it feels like to have a pounding head in the morning' with the plaster. Will was attempting to redo the sling, with varied results. Then Mari looked at Lee. He was kneading the skin of his forehead as if he already had the headache Michael had been promising. The rest of them were watching on, some in horror and some in amusement.
"Uh, guys?" Mari said. "I'm just... going to go... with Annabeth. Yeah. Bye!"
Annabeth was dragging her away with a smug expression before Mari had even finished speaking.
"Coward!" Will yelled as she went.
It was strange going to the opposite row of cabins as Annabeth led Mari over to cabin six. She supposed she had a right to be there, descendant of Athena and all, but she'd never really felt the need. At most, she'd dug through the armoury, which was practically an extension of the cabin itself, a few times when she needed a spare helmet for Capture the Flag, but everybody did that. Annabeth's cabin was made of grey stone and had an owl carved over the door. There was no welcome mat like cabin seven, just a loom on the porch.
Annabeth let her in with a proud smile, and to be honest, Mari could see exactly why. "It's beautiful," she whispered.
It smelled like old library paper, but without the dusty undertone that always made Mari want to sneeze. The middle of the cabin was full of desks, littered with old scrolls. The bunk beds were all pushed up against one wall, but the rest of the cabin was the real star of the show. The other wall seemed to be the cabin's own personal library, equipped with a switch on the side. Annabeth flicked it, and the bookcase nearest the door whirred to life, the shelves descending into the ground like an escalator as new ones took their place. It was the kind of system that Mari reckoned could hold thousands upon thousands of books if one so desired. And knowing the kids who slept here, Mari was willing to bet that this desire had been fulfilled multiple times over.
"It is," Annabeth agreed. "You know, you're welcome to browse the library any time you want. I'd ask first, if I were you, but nobody here would mind."
"Do you have books on art?" Mari asked.
"Mari," Annabeth deadpanned. "We have books on everything."
"Alright, if you two runts are done bonding over papercuts or whatever, I'd appreciate it if we could get on with this," Clarisse grunted from the corner of the room. She walked over, patting Mari on the head twice before turning back to Annabeth. "I have a cabin of siblings to wrangle. I don't need you to waste my time."
"I told you to wait outside." Annabeth glared at Clarisse. "If you broke anything-"
"Oh no." Clarisse flicked a pencil off one of the tables. "The horror. I've damaged your 'sacred learning equipment' beyond repair. Whatever will I do now?"
"Let's just get on with this." Annabeth brushed past Clarisse and sat at the head of one of the tables. Mari sat on one side, Clarisse on the other. "This is everything I know about the labyrinth from my own studies, combined with what you two have given me."
Annabeth presented them with a shiny silver notebook, full of notes in Ancient Greek. There were grey bookmarks poking from between a few pages, and some loose sheets were sticking out. The book seemed to be detailing the hasty list Mari had scribbled down and sent via the Hermes Express three-and-a-half months prior. Only, Annabeth had rewritten her list, maybe because parts of it were illegible. Then again, it could also be because she'd titled it, 'How to survive the evil maze thing, for all those without a name that rhymes with Puke'.
"We know about the Yale, about Atalanta's gym, and about Erysichthon and the room where you and... Adela?" At Mari's nod, Annabeth continued, "...saw Ariadne's string and were able to retrieve a small fragment of it." Annabeth flipped the page to where another note was pinned to the paper, in Clarisse's handwriting. "From Clarisse, we know about the labyrinth having storage rooms connected to each Monster donuts store, and about the hellhound day-care centre."
Clarisse shuddered.
Huh. Mari hadn't told Annabeth about the Sphinx because she'd made a vow on the river Styx not to talk about outsmarting it, but she didn't remember if Clarisse had made the same vow or not. Eh, Annabeth was a genius. She'd probably be fine. Mari hadn't mentioned Adela, either. Well, she'd mentioned her existence but not her curse. That wasn't her secret to tell. Mari was pretty sure that Chiron was keeping quiet about it, too.
"We also have what we know from Chris," Clarisse added.
"Wait, he's been talking?" Mari asked.
"Kind of," Clarisse told her. "He can get out full sentences, sometimes. It would be easier if Mr. D were here, but he hasn't been at camp since winter. What Chris has been able to tell us is that Luke is sending others into the Labyrinth. He hasn't been able to say why, but it's a pretty safe bet that it's to try and invade camp from the inside. The only thing that would confirm it is if we found an entrance inside of camp, but that's where we're stumped. Are you sure Ariadne can't lend us that tiny piece of string you found for her?"
"Positive," Mari answered. "She said she was going to use it as her symbol of power from now on. You know, like my father's sun chariot. I can't imagine him ever giving that up without a dire, dire reason, so she probably won't either."
"You mean camp being at risk of annihilation isn't dire enough for her?" Clarisse grunted.
"Ariadne doesn't have any demigod children," Mari said. Annabeth sighed, and scribbled the bad news down.
They talked for a little while longer, about a few other things. Apparently Grover also wanted to go into the labyrinth, to search for Pan. Well, 'want' seemed to be a strong word if Annabeth's account was anything to go by: poor guy was terrified, and Mari didn't blame him, seeing as talking about it alone made her feel halfway there herself. Eventually, though, Annabeth had to go pick up Percy, to see a movie.
"Wait, hold up." Mari stopped Annabeth halfway through what she'd been saying about money for a taxi, a grin spreading across her face. "You're going to the movies with him? Alone?"
"Yes?" Annabeth frowned. "I thought I told you that already?"
"So, it's like... a da-" A hand clamped over Mari's mouth before she could finish her question.
"Go on, owl head," Clarisse told Annabeth. "Have fun with prissy. Ignore the smartass over here, I'm pretty sure she's overloaded with too many facts for her poor little brain."
Mari stomped on Clarisse's foot.
Annabeth narrowed her eyes between the two of them, before sighing. "Fine. Both of you, get out of my cabin. Mari, the offer from earlier still stands but I'm fairly sure Lee Fletcher will have my head if you don't get back to training."
Annabeth waited until Mari and Clarisse were both safely out of the cabin (probably so that Clarisse wouldn't have the chance to smash the bookcases or something) before leaving, with a wave towards Mari and a strange look towards Clarisse. Once she was gone, Mari turned on Clarisse, glaring.
"What was that about?"
"You're an idiot, that's what that was about," Clarisse told her.
"Huh?!"
"Look." Clarisse gave Mari the same kind of look adults gave when talking to a very small child. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it. A few of us older kids have a bet going round, as to when those two are finally going to, and I can't believed I'm about to quote Annabeth here, 'wise up' and admit they both like each other. Charlie Beckendorf thinks it'll happen this summer. Silena thinks it'll be next summer. I went with Silena because it's always the safest bet to agree with an Aphrodite kid when it comes to this kind of thing. You were about to ruin it for me, and I wasn't going to let you do that."
Mari paused for a second, then broke out into a squeal. "Wait! They really like each other? I was just guessing back there, but oh my gods, they like each other! They like each other!"
"Hold your pegasi, smartass. They haven't done a thing about it yet."
"Oh, please." Mari waved Clarisse off. "That just means they don't know they like each other yet."
Clarisse sighed. "I guess this is what comes from spending too much time around Tanaka."
"Hey, I'm not the one who made a bet about it," Mari pointed out.
Clarisse gave her a murderous glare. "Goodbye."
Whatever had gone down during Annabeth and Percy's not-a-date, it didn't seem like it had been good.
Annabeth had said that Percy was meant to be arriving the next day, but he was right behind her when she arrived at camp, so clearly plans had changed. Mari heard from Drew that Annabeth ditched Percy after, like, two minutes to go hang out with Clarisse. To most of camp, that was weird by all accounts, since everybody knew that Annabeth would probably rather eat her yankees cap than willingly spend time with Clarisse, but Mari understood. It was something to do with planning the potential expedition into the labyrinth. They didn't invite her. Little rude, but she could live with it. She had border patrol with her siblings, anyway.
"Gods, it's hot out today. Camp is meant to be cooler at night," Drew said, falling into a graceful slump on the grass. She'd joined them on watch duty until curfew, which was in half an hour. They were all at the top of half-blood hill. Michael was showing Kayla how to feed Peleus without getting burned, and Austin was talking to Lee on a rock. Sean, lucky little shit that he was, was asleep in cabin seven.
"Huh. I guess." Will shrugged.
"Ugh, I always forget that you guys don't get heatstroke," Drew lamented. "So unfair. What is the temperature, anyway?"
"76.46 degrees," Will told her. Mari shot up from where she'd been staring at Zoë Nightshade, hunting in the stars, to stare at her brother instead. Children of Apollo always knew the temperature, thanks to their Dad being the literal sun and all. But Will was either suffering from heatstroke (which wasn't possible) or he was having her on.
"That's not possible," she told him.
"What do you mean?"
"If it was that hot, we'd be boiling to death. Are you broken?"
Mari leaned over Drew to clap twice in her brother's face, to see if he blinked or not.
"Mari, what the Hades are you talking about?" Will asked her.
"It's 24.7 degrees out, Will. How'd you get 76.46? You've been going to school longer than me."
"Mari, if it was 24.7 degrees we'd all have hypothermia!"
"That makes no sense!" Mari threw up her hands in frustration.
Drew burst out laughing, interrupting the brewing argument and gaining the attention of Austin, who looked over from his conversation with Lee. "What's so funny?"
"This one," Drew pointed at Will, "forgot his older sister is British. And that one," Drew pointed at Mari, "forgot that her little brother is American. They've been about three seconds from descending into chaos over the difference in temperature scales!" Drew shook her head, giggling.
"You weren't using Celsius?" Mari asked Will.
"You weren't using Fahrenheit?" Will asked right back. "Also, just so you know, Drew, I'm older than Mari."
"Oh, sure," Mari deadpanned. "You're older than me the same way Michael is older than me."
"I am older than you, Mari!" said Michael, throwing a handful of grass at her head for good measure.
"Eh... that one's up for debate. I say, the only person here older than Mari is me," Lee said.
Drew nodded. "I agree."
Mari held out a hand to each of them, and got two high-fives in return. Will kicked her in the side and Mari got another pile of grass tossed at her head for her troubles. She was going to flip Michael off, but Will grabbed her wrist before she could. It seemed silly, but it made Mari feel a little brighter inside, every time Lee or Drew said something like that. She might look like she was eleven, but she'd been alive for sixteen years and if anybody ever actually asked about her age, then the only honest answer she could give was 'fuck you'. Well, 'screw you' if Naomi Solace was anywhere within hearing distance. It felt... nice, to hear the weirdness about her age acknowledged.
Drew spoke with them for a little while longer, before her older sister, Silena Beauregard, came to collect her. Drew left with a wave and a yawn, and Lee brought over a few pillows and blankets, with Austin and Kayla in tow. "You guys get some rest, okay?" He laid them all out on the floor, forming four 'mini-beds'. "Michael and I will keep watch. We'll wake you if anything happens."
Mari was all too happy to comply, settling down in the closest one. Two thumps hit the ground either side of her, and Mari vaguely opened her eyes to see Austin on one side, Will on the other. "If any of you snore, I'm going to get Michael to give me a pillow to smother you all with," Kayla joked.
"I'll do it," Michael agreed. Kayla laughed, but then Lee told them all to quiet down. Mari closed her eyes, sighing. At least this way, no snakes would bother her. They never disturbed her at camp. And she was tired. Mari's eyes closed and she felt her body relax. The last thing she saw before falling asleep was Artemis's chariot, racing across the sky. Mari liked to think that she was going to stop off on her journey, and give Zoë Nightshade a warm hug.
"Masey?" Frankie's little voice echoed through the small space. Oh, gods, not this again. Mari always hated this - it was another dream, one where she had to be Frankie. There was a sensation of rocking beneath her back.
"What's happing?"
"Happening," Mason corrected her. "Just go back to sleep, okay? We'll be fine. I swear, we'll be fine. Mom said Apollo would protect us, right?"
Frankie moved her head, giving Mari a better look at Mason. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was shaking. He looked like he was experiencing severe blood-loss. His skin had taken on a pale hue and he was leaning against the seat like a limp doll. Mari's eyes (no, Frankie's eyes, no. No. No, no) zeroed in on Mason's stomach. His shirt was ripped and a thick, white bandage was peeking out from under the fabric. The ends were fraying.
Mari felt Frankie crane her neck a little more, looking around. Car. They were in a car. There was somebody in the front seat but it wasn't Frankie's mother; it was a Satyr, a very familiar Satyr. Well, not familiar to Frankie, she'd never seen him before. But Mari had. It was Thistle Brambler, the same Satyr who'd brought Kayla to Camp Half-Blood.
"Where's Mommy?" Frankie asked.
Mason gulped and looked away, shaking. After a few more seconds, he stared at Frankie again, his eyes watering. Mari felt her heart break, just a little bit. He looked so young... younger than Austin, or Kayla. If Mari had to guess, she'd say just barely a year older than Sean, and Sean was six.
"Mom isn't here right now," Mason told her. "Another monster attacked. Mom gave you to Thistle once I'd killed it, but don't worry. We'll see her in a few months. We're going somewhere else now. Somewhere safe."
"Where?" Frankie asked.
"A place called Camp Half-Blood." Thistle interrupted Mason, who had been about to say something. "A training camp for Greek demigods. You'll be okay; we just need to get there before any monsters catch either of your scents."
"What are the chances of that?" Mason asked Thistle.
Thistle shrugged. "Minimal. But I have a seventy-percent success rate for getting half-bloods to camp alive. Twenty percent for getting them alive without fatal injury, but some of those can be healed with ambrosia."
Frankie shuddered. Mari felt a tendril of fear wind around her stomach, and the impulse to curl into herself and clamp her hands over her ears. Mason wrapped an arm around her shoulder and glared at Thistle. "You could be a little more sensitive, you know. Frankie's four years old. You're scaring her."
Thistle snorted. "Kid, if she's going to survive, she's going to have to deal with much harder truths than that."
Mason was quiet for a minute, before sighing, "How long till we get to camp?"
"Should be half an hour now. It's a good thing you lived in Manhattan. Most demigods have to travel between states. Some even have to go internationally. I'm pretty sure we had a boy come from France a couple years back. He was a son of Aphrodite. He's dead now, but he survived the journey here. You're actually in a really good position. You'd have to be really unlucky for a monster to find yo-"
Something crashed into the side of the car, snarling. Frankie shrieked in Mason's arms, curling her hand around his seatbelt. "Wawas tha?"
Thistle swore. "Hey! I just said she's four!" Mason glared at him a again.
"That, kid, was a hellhound." Thistle checked the rear-view mirror and inhaled sharply. "Oh, styx! There's a pack after us! That's at least nine of them! Di immortales, what kind of bad luck am I dealing with here?"
"Hit the gas!" Mason's voice trembled as he glanced out the window. Frankie didn't dare look. She could just hide here, right? That would be fine, she could just hide until all the bad monsters went away. She did that at home. Her mother hid with her while Mason killed them all. That was how it had always worked. She could just do that again, right?
Another hungry howl echoed in her ear. Frankie screamed.
"Mari! Mari, you need to wake up, please!" That was Austin, shaking her shoulder. Mari snapped her eyes open, shooting up with a cry. Her heart was pounding and she felt like she was about to vomit.
"Where is he? Where's Mas-?" She choked the words down.
"Go, go, right now!" Lee screamed, running towards them and hauling Mari up with his free arm. His other was clutching his bow so tightly that his knuckles were white. Mari stumbled into him, nearly falling back down but managed to right herself just in time and let herself be pulled away from the pile of blankets. A whirl of fire shot at the ground where she'd been sleeping, burning the pillows to a crisp. Michael gestured at them with his good arm, from where he was crouched behind a rock.
"Where are Will and Kayla?" Mari threw herself down next to him. "And what just burned up my bed?"
"They went to alert Chiron. We were going to send the four of you but you weren't waking up and you kept thrashing. We couldn't fight that thing and protect you at the same time so Austin stayed behind," Michael told her.
There was a roar in the distance, one which Mari was pretty sure was loud enough to wake up the entire camp, but there was no noise coming from the valley behind them. No cabin door opened, nobody went to get a weapon, nothing. Fire shot towards the rock, and Michael had to pull Lee back so that he wouldn't get a third-degree burn across the face. "Thanks," Lee muttered, running a hand through his hair. He turned towards Mari with a grim expression on his face.
"To answer your question, camp's borders are being attacked." Lee grimaced. "By an Aethiopian Drakon."