Being Percy Jackson's best friend wasn't a paid position, but if it had been, Annabeth would absolutely have deserved a raise.
"Percy, sit down . Pacing isn't going to make him get here any faster, you're just going to wind yourself up more."
Percy paused in his pacing to hop up on his tiptoes and look out over the top of the crowd. He tapped his fists together lightly in a fast-paced rhythm. "Right," he said. "Right, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm just so nervous for you to meet him because I really like him a lot and I really really want you to like him too and—"
Annabeth stood and laid a hand on Percy's arm. "I'm sure I'm going to love him, Percy. He's gotta be something really special."
Percy's anxious face momentarily softened. "Yeah," he said. "He is."
"Are you up to sitting down?"
"I—" Percy laughed and shook his head. "I don't think I could stand being that still right now."
Annabeth nodded and slowly sank back into her seat. Percy leaned backwards against the table, eyes still scanning the bustle of people passing in front of them, his fingers tapping together with light pap pap pap noises. Annabeth closed her eyes and let herself focus in on the sound of the pads of his fingers hitting each other.
"You ordered three waters?" A voice cut into Annabeth's focus.
She opened her eyes and smiled at the waitress. "Yes, thank you," she said.
The waitress lifted the three glasses from the tray and set them down. "Don't you kids want to come inside? It's real cold out here," she said with a slight frown.
"We're still waiting on someone," Percy replied, not looking back at the waitress.
"Well, if you want to come inside once they're here, you just come on in. January's not the month for outdoor dining." She laughed, and Annabeth obliged her with a friendly chuckle of her own.
"Thank you," she said, tugging her coat closer around her.
As the waitress was walking away, Percy's tapping fingers suddenly halted. He pushed himself off of the table so he was standing up straight, and Annabeth could see a smile splitting his face.
He raised a hand and waved enthusiastically. "Carter!"
Annabeth spotted a boy about their age jogging along the sidewalk towards the restaurant, wrapped up in a thick coat and grinning broadly.
He raised a hand in return greeting. "Percy!"
He came to a stop in front of them and Percy flung his arms around him.
"Missed you," Percy said.
"Sap," Carter replied easily, pulling away but leaving his hand clutched in Percy's. "Sorry I'm late, I was helping Sadie with her homework and lost track of time."
Annabeth stood from the table and stuck out a hand. "You're not that late," she said. "I'm Annabeth."
Carter's eyes lit with recognition and he shook her hand quickly, his grip just as firm as hers. "Carter. Percy's told me so much about you."
"Good things, I hope," Annabeth said.
"I think he's too scared of you to say anything else."
Annabeth laughed. "As he should be. Percy's told me a lot about you too. I feel like I ought to be giving you some kind of hurt-him-and-I'll-stab-you talk."
Carter raised his hands in surrender. "Believe me, I have no interest in hurting Percy. But if I did, you'd be well within your rights to stab me for it."
Annabeth nodded. "Fantastic. So we understand each other." "Perfectly."
They all settled into their seats around the table, Percy excitedly telling Carter about the 93% he'd received on his last history essay and Carter beaming with pride.
"So, Carter," Annabeth said. "You're a senior too, right? What are you planning on doing for college?"
Carter rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm taking two gap years so I can stick around Brooklyn and let my little sister, she's a sophomore right now, finish out school before she has to take over the...family mansion. It's a ton of responsibility and I want her to graduate before she takes it on."
Annabeth nodded approvingly. "That's kind of you," she said.
Carter shrugged. "She's not super interested in college, so I'm fine with waiting the extra years if it means I won't have to balance my freshman year with mansion-handling responsibilities. She does half the work anyway, it's just gonna be more work for her once I actually head off to school."
"Where are you planning on going?"
"Ah," Carter's cheeks darkened just slightly. "I'm looking at schools in California, mostly."
Percy tilted his head towards Carter, grinning like an idiot. "So you can be closer to me?" he asked.
Carter shoved him gently, but he was smiling. "Because my dad was from Cali and I want to go back. But yeah, you're a perk."
Percy raised his eyebrows across the table at Annabeth. "Hear that, Wise Girl? I'm a perk." Annabeth pressed her lips together to hide her smile and took a sip of her water instead of replying. Carter turned to Annabeth. "Percy says you're a big architecture fan."
She felt her face light up. "Yeah, I'm going to be studying it in college."
"She's a genius," Percy said. "You should see some of the stuff she's designed."
"Hey now," Annabeth said, glancing at Percy. Carter was mortal, and all of Annabeth's actual architecture work had been done on the cabins at camp or on Olympus itself. He wouldn't be able to see any of it. "There's not anything for him to see"
Percy shrugged. "He could see the cabins at least, and if anyone's dumb and brave enough to sneak a mortal onto Olympus, it's me."
Carter shook his head and smiled apologetically. "No offence, Annabeth, I'm sure it looks fantastic. But I'd actually like to avoid setting foot on Olympus at all costs. I'm sort of personally invested in keeping my head from being blasted off of my shoulders."
Cold shock washed over her as the sudden realization set in. Carter knew about...about all of it. Annabeth turned to stare at Percy incredulously. "You told him?" she asked.
Percy raised his hands. "He's clearsighted! I couldn't just not explain!"
Annabeth shook her head and sank backwards in her seat. "Gods, Percy, you could havetold me he
knew! At least I would've known I didn't have to watch my mouth!"
Carter looked at Percy admonishingly. "You didn't tell her that you told me?"
"I told you I'd tell her that I told you when we told her what you told me!" Percy said. "Don't tell me that I should have told her when we said we'd tell her together!"
"We said we'd tell her about what I told you, not the fact that you told me! You should have told her that you told me so that when we told her about what I told you, she'd already know that you told me everything!"
"Say 'told' one more time," Annabeth muttered.
Both boys turned to look at her, expressions sheepish. "Sorry, Annabeth," Carter said. "I thought you knew that I knew."
A smile twitched at Percy's lips. "I knew that you knew, but I also knew that she didn't know that you knew what she and I knew—"
"Oh my gods," Carter said, laughing now. "Shut up."
Annabeth rubbed at her forehead tiredly. "I guess Percy had to find someone to match his weird wavelength eventually." She smiled at Carter.
After a moment, Carter smiled back, but there was something uncertain behind it. He glanced at Percy, and then looked back at her, as if steeling himself. "Actually, Annabeth, Percy thinks it would be a good idea to—I mean, we—we have something we need to tell you."
Annabeth sat up a little straighter in her chair, looking between Percy and Carter. Neither of them seemed particularly enthusiastic to meet her gaze. "Go on," she said at last.
"So, this is a little...complicated," Percy said slowly. "And you're gonna be mad we didn't tell you sooner, but I swear I've only known for like three weeks myself, and we were always planning on telling you. And you're maybe gonna want to punch me or something for getting myself wrapped up in more things that don't concern me—"
Annabeth closed her eyes and tilted her head upwards. "Percy Jackson I swear to gods, if you don't just tell me..."
Carter took a sip of water and then carefully and deliberately made eye contact with Annabeth. "So, basically, my family—"
A roar of wind, so forceful it felt like an airborne brick wall, slammed into Annabeth from behind, sending her, their table, and both of her companions flying. She was suspended in midair for only a moment, her panicked eyes locking with Percy's, before all three of them went tumbling onto the sidewalk, skidding backwards and coming to rest mere inches from the road.
Before Annabeth could gather her thoughts, she was on her feet, one arm up to brace against the wind, her other hand instinctually reaching to her hip for a sword that wasn't there. Percy had uncapped his own sword and was staring around wildly for the source of the gale. One thing was clear: that wind had not been natural, and they were all in danger.
"Yours or mine?" Percy asked, which didn't make any sense.
Carter, however, seemed to understand perfectly. "Mine, I'd bet on it. That was air elementalist magic."
"Shit," Percy said. "Okay. Let me know how I can help."
Carter nodded. "Stay back until I can figure out what's going on."
Then, to Annabeth's horror, he sprinted forward, towards the source of the still-roaring wind. "Carter!" she yelled. She turned to Percy. "What are you doing? He's going to get hurt!" "That's what we were going to tell you," Percy said, gripping Riptide tightly. "He's—"
A shout of fury rose from the crowd and then Annabeth spotted two figures grappling violently, slamming into the ground and then rising into the air again as if carried by the wind. Mortals seemed to give the brawl a wide berth, though nobody stopped to pay it any mind.
Carter had somehow gotten his hands on a long, hooked sword, and was engaged in blade-on-blade combat against an adult man with thick dark hair and linen pajamas. The man was spitting curses in Carter's face, though Carter remained grimly silent as he crossed swords with the man again and again, dancing out of the way of his aerial attacks.
Annabeth gripped Percy's arm. "Percy, what in Hades is going on?" she demanded. Percy looked pained. "We were going to tell you, I swear, we were just about to to—"
" Percy —"
"Carter should really be the one to explain, I don't—Carter, check your six!"
At Percy's sudden panicked yell, Carter spun and managed to duck just in time to avoid the man's sword, which was being carried on a current of wind and had been directly on target to slam into the back of Carter's head.
He reared his fist back, shouted something that sounded like "Khe-fa!" and then a glowing fist- shaped aura surrounded his hand. It was like those Hulk gloves Annabeth's little brothers loved to play-fight with, but much bigger, and much more magical. Carter slammed his glowing golden fist into the man's gut, and he was sent flying into one of the remaining outdoor tables.
Percy let out a whoop. "Kick his ass, babe!" he yelled.
The man sent another burst of violent wind at Carter, but Carter brandished a hand and yelled,
"N'dah!"
Something bright and golden shone in the palm of Carter's outstretched hand and a bright blue circle on the floor flared into existence. The wind was powerful enough to rip a brick out of the patio they had been dining on, but Carter's hair didn't even ruffle under its force, like the circle was keeping the wind out entirely. Then Carter charged forward with his sword again and he and the dark-haired man were once again locked in combat.
"Percy?" Carter yelled over the roar of wind that was rising around the grappling pair. "Can you take him for a sec? I need to grab something!"
"On it!" Percy called back cheerfully, swinging his sword once as if to remind himself of the motion. Then he charged forward, leaving Annabeth feeling, for once in her life, completely and utterly out of her depth.
Carter stumbled towards her, out of the fray, and bent double, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. "I'm so sorry about this," he said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "This asshole's been giving us trouble for months."
Annabeth swallowed, looked back to where Percy was frantically countering the man's overzealous and slightly crazed attacks, looked at Carter's hand gripping the hilt of his sword like it belonged in his grip, and forcibly pushed down the thousands of questions that were screaming in her mind.
"How can I help?" she asked.
Carter grinned and stuck his hand out to the side. The air around his palm seemed to ripple and blur for a moment, and then he was clutching a massive black shoulderbag. "Here." He tossed it to Annabeth, and she caught it.
"How did you do that?" she asked, because she couldn't tamp down on her curiosity completely. "I'll explain everything after we handle this guy, but—"
Percy came flying backwards as if he were shot out of a canon and he crumpled to the ground against the railing of the patio.
"Percy!" Annabeth and Carter yelled in unison. Annabeth slung Carter's bag over her shoulder and the two of them bolted towards Percy, who was barely stirring.
"Ouch," Percy said, blinking blearily. The back of his head was bleeding where it had slammed into the patio.
"Shit," Carter said. "Shit, I'm so sorry Percy, you're gonna be okay, you're okay—okay, so just—" He turned to Annabeth and said, very quickly and quietly, "I've got a linen rope somewhere in that bag. I'll need it if I want to end this fight without killing Edvard." Annabeth's stomach turned at how easily Carter was able to talk about killing the man. "There are also some bottles. There's one that's got a label that says Carter's Stupid Juice or something like that. It's a healing potion. Give some to Percy, it won't burn him up like nectar, so you can give him the whole thing if you want to."
"I—"
"Please, Annabeth, I know we just met, but please trust me."
Annabeth looked at the bag, at Percy, at the still-approaching man, and then at Carter. "Okay," she said finally. "Okay. But you owe me a long conversation."
"Carter Kane!" the man called. Annabeth turned. He was slowly walking towards them, his sword out at his side and a large staff gripped in his other hand His voice was low, gruff, and heavy with some accent Annabeth couldn't immediately place. "Will you face me yourself, or will you continue to hide behind those you are corrupting?"
Carter got to his feet and stared the man down. "I've corrupted no one, Edvard. And you are the only one between us who wants this fight."
"The House suffers under your rule!" Edvard yelled. He slashed the staff through the air and Carter brought his hands up to block his face from the overwhelming wind.
He glanced back at Annabeth. "I'll draw him away, you get that rope and potion."
Right. Annabeth had a job she was supposed to be doing. She set her jaw and nodded, and Carter bolted away, once again gathering that golden shell of light around his fist.
She shifted her kneeling position so she could be closer to Percy and began to rummage through the bag, her hand eventually landing on a small thin sack that clinked when she touched it. She drew it out and began to shuffle through the bottles inside. There!
She pulled out a small vial of golden-brown liquid that glittered when it caught the light. The label read: Carter's Stupid Juice: Juice for when Carter is being stupid. In parenthesis on the other side, in different handwriting, were the words Healing Potion.
Well, that was good enough for Annabeth. She tilted the bottle into Percy's open mouth and let a few drops spill across his lips. She had to forcibly remind herself that this wasn't nectar, and she carefully lifted the bottle higher, enough to pour a slow trickle of it down Percy's throat.
His throat seemed to flash gold as he forced himself to swallow, and then he was slowly pushing himself into a seated position, rubbing the back of his head.
"Ouch," he said again.
Annabeth laughed breathily and pressed the half-full bottle into his hand. "Go ahead and take some more if you want to."
Percy's eyes lit up. "Oh, is this the stupid juice?"
Annabeth didn't answer him and instead turned back to Carter's bag. She continued to rummage through it, her hands landing on all manner of strange things as she searched: A lump of wax, a half-formed clay man, sheets of what might have been paper or possibly fabric, a wallet, several travel-sized bags of Doritos, Fritos, and Cheetos, and an ivory boomerang. Finally, her hand closed on a length of linen rope and she pulled it out triumphantly.
She would have thrown it to Carter, but with the wind roaring so fiercely, Annabeth figured she was more likely to lose it to the sky than to actually get it to him.
Instead, she carefully watched the fight, looking for an opening to run in and get the rope to Carter.
Their blades were flashing and clanging against each other, the fight between the two hooked swords unlike any other fighting style she had ever borne witness to. It seemed almost controlled, completely strategic. The curve of the weapons was nothing but strategy, and without even realizing it, Annabeth found herself wondering how she might employ a hooked blade in a battle. Because as she watched, Carter managed to disarm the man with nothing but a twist of his wrist and the blade being caught in the right place.
That was her opening. She kicked off from the ground and sprinted forward, hand brandishing the rope towards Carter.
He spotted her approach and hooked his blade around the sword that remained on the ground and sent it skittering away. The man was able to bring it hurtling back into his outstretched fist with only a gust of wind, but by the time it was back in his grip, Annabeth had managed to pass the rope to Carter.
"Buy me some time!" Carter yelled as the wind began to pick up.
He shoved his sword into Annabeth's hands, and she accepted it without question. It was heavier than her knife, but lighter than her sword, and the balance was strange and distinctly non-Greek. She shifted her grip on it until it felt secure in her hands, and then brought it swinging around to block an attack from Edvard.
"Why do you fight for a traitor, girl?" he spat.
Annabeth pulled her head back, scrunching her face in disgust at the saliva that had sprayed from
his lips. "What do you mean?" she asked, because, curse her, she couldn't not ask.
"That boy," Edvard sneered, as though boy were the lowest insult he could utter, "has been tearing the House down at the foundation." He brought his sword swinging back around and almost caught her leg, but Annabeth managed to move her sword in a way she never would have thought to, and followed the curve of the blade downward in time to block his sword. Now with the blades hooked together, Annabeth brought the man's sword arching upwards and grabbed his wrist with her other hand, locking them against each other, to struggle against the others' grip.
She wasn't trained with this sword, and Edvard clearly was. She could only hold him off for so long, but that was okay. It was okay, she didn't have to be perfect at everything on her first try, she didn't have to be perfect on her first try. She steadied her breath and doubled down on her struggle with Edvard. All she had to do was buy Carter time, she reminded herself fiercely. She didn't have to execute some grand strategy, nor did she have to defeat this man. She just had to buy Carter some time.
Edvard brought their interlocked forearms down sharply in an attempt to break the struggle, and Annabeth cried out in pain at the way he twisted her arm. She gripped his wrist harder, and glared
at him.
"That hurt, you dick!" She brought her knee up and slammed it directly into his stomach.
She broke her grip on him as he stumbled backwards, but at least he was bent over himself in pain, giving her enough time to back up.
"Stand down!" Carter ordered, and Annabeth lowered the sword, glancing back towards him. He had the rope stretched between his hands, somehow longer than it had been when she pulled it from the bag, and glowing with golden light.
Carter looked at her, his coat flapping in the wind. "I'm not good at this," he said with a shaky laugh. "Divine words aren't my thing. Just...stand back and get ready to duck for cover if I fuck this up."
"Awesome," Annabeth said weakly.
"Tas!" Carter yelled, throwing his hands forward and sending the glowing golden rope snaking outward. It shot towards Edvard like an arrow and began to wind itself around his body.
"No!" Edvard cried. He tried to slash at the ropes, but the golden light seemed to act as some kind of barrier. "You impudent traitorous—"
"Hah-ri," Carter said tiredly. The man's cries were suddenly cut off, though his mouth still moved and he still writhed violently.
The rope had essentially immobilized him, wrapping him up completely, so tightly that he toppled to the side and collapsed on the ground, stiff as a board.
The wind slowly died, but the man still wriggled and fought and spat silent curses at Carter.
"Annabeth, can you just like...knock him out?" Carter said. "I was training this morning so I was already depleted, and if I use any more magic I'm probably gonna burn up my life force."
"Sure," Annabeth said. She stepped over one of the overturned patio chairs and knelt beside Edvard. He screamed something at her, but he was still completely silent thanks to whatever Carter had done.
She brought the hilt of Carter's sword down on Edvard's head, maybe a little harder than she necessarily had to, but he was still alive, so it was fine.
Carter came to join her in looking down at him. "What an asshole," he said.
"Asshole of the year," Percy agreed. Annabeth and Carter turned to look at him, and he was standing a little back from them, a hand resting on the back of his head. "Ouch," he said again, smiling slightly. He was carrying the bottle of Stupid Juice and had Carter's bag slung over his shoulder. "I'm okay I think, my compliments to the chef." He tossed the vial to Carter, who caught it deftly.
Carter turned to Annabeth. "You hurt?" he asked.
Annabeth took stock of herself. "Maybe sprained my wrist? It's not broken."
Carter silently passed her the bottle, which was still about a quarter of the way full. She took a tentative sip, knowing how revolting the Hecate kids' healing potions usually were. To her
surprise, it tasted fine, and she quickly knocked back a swig. She flexed her wrist experimentally. It wasn't quite as potent or as comforting as nectar, but the not-burning-to-a-crisp was a plus. She'd just go easy on the wrist for a day or so, if she could.
"Why is it called Stupid Juice?"
"I'm kinda...injury-prone?" Carter said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Our healer, Jaz, started making healing potions for me because, according to her, I have 'no sense of self-preservation,' or something. She got fed up with me and how quickly I go through them so now it's Stupid Juice. Sadie wanted to call it Dumbass Juice, but I vetoed that."
Percy handed Carter his bag, and Annabeth threw him the near-empty bottle, which Carter tucked away. Then he held out his hand expectantly.
Annabeth started. She hadn't even realized she was still holding Carter's sword. She passed it back to him, and he held it out to the side. The air around his hand wavered, and then the sword vanished. He did the same thing with the bag.
"So that was fucked up, right?" Annabeth blurted. Carter and Percy both laughed.
"Yeah," Carter said. "Sorry. Magicians go rogue and they decide they have to take it out on someone, and that someone is usually me. I mean, there's a reason that it's usually me, but it does get annoying." He glanced down at Edvard. "I gotta take this guy to my uncle. We've been looking for him for months. I'm sorry, we're going to have to get lunch some other time—"
"What?" Annabeth said. "No, I want to know what the Hades is going on with you. Are you a demigod, or what? Who is this guy, and why would he target you?"
Carter stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, like he was hailing a taxi. Then he turned to her. "Look, Annabeth, there's a lot to explain, and with guys like this—" He kicked Edvard gently. "You gotta handle them right away or there's trouble. So—"
"FREEEEAAAK!"
Annabeth and Percy both bolted sideways, shifting into defensive positions as they stared up at the
massive descending monster.
Carter waved them down quickly. "It's fine! This guy's my ride." The thing settled onto the cracked pavement and tilted its head to the side. "Hey, Freak. How's it going?"
"Freeaak!" the monster replied. Annabeth placed a hand on her pounding heart to steady herself. The thing—a gryphon, if she had to guess, though it didn't look anything like the gryphons she'd seen—had a reed boat tied behind him like a sleigh.
"Oh!" Percy said, capping his sword and putting it back in his pocket. "This is Freak? I've fought gryphons, I thought he'd look like them."
"I guess we've just got different kinds of monsters. He's a griffin, like with two 'f's, not a gryphon with a 'ph'. Anyway, yeah, this is Freak," Carter said proudly, patting the monster on the neck. "Name matches both his cry and his personality."
Freak the griffin turned to look at Annabeth and then blinked, one eye at a time. She swallowed and averted her gaze.
"Percy, help me get this guy into the boat?"
Annabeth watched as Carter and Percy lifted the unconscious Edvard into the reed boat, stuffing him into the back unceremoniously.
"Where are you gonna take him?" Percy asked.
"First Nome," Carter replied. "Amos will handle him." He climbed into the boat carefully and then glanced between Percy and Annabeth contemplatively. He scratched a spot on his cheek, eyes narrowed like he was trying to make up his mind about something. "Do...do you guys wanna come with me? Annabeth, I'll explain everything, I promise."
"Oh, fuck yeah," Percy said, clambering into the boat after Carter. He looked at Annabeth expectantly.
"I don't know..." Annabeth said. This whole day was turning out to be a lot more eventful than she'd hoped, and she wasn't sure she wanted to go anywhere until she knew more about what she was dealing with. "You're...not mortal."
Carter shrugged. "My definition of that word is loose at best anyway." "You're not Greek."
"Nope," Carter said.
"Or Roman."
"Not that either."
"What..." she swallowed. "What pantheon, then?"
Carter didn't reply, but instead opened his hand. Above his palm, a simple golden symbol of an eye hovered. Annabeth knew she'd seen it in a textbook somewhere, or maybe at some jewelry shop. Either way, she knew exactly what it was.
"That's a hieroglyph," she said, feeling like the ground was seconds away from giving out underneath her. She laughed shakily. "An Egyptian hieroglyph." She pressed her hands to her eyes and tilted her head backwards, trying to realign her world view with this new information.
Percy, stupid wonderful idiot Percy, had gotten himself mixed up with another pantheon. And this one wasn't the same gods under different aspects, or just another camp in California. This pantheon was completely separate, with different rules, different magic, different gods, and different demigods. And if Egyptian gods were real, what other pantheons could exist? The world had been so much smaller when it had been only Greco-Roman forces she had to worry about. The addition of the Egyptian gods wasn't just one new mythology for her to worry about—it was the realization that if Egyptian gods could exist, then so could Mayan gods, and Norse gods, and every other mythology under the sun. Suddenly, nothing was outside the realm of possibility. And that was...a little staggering.
Finally, she lowered her head and fixed her gaze back on the boys standing in the boat.
Carter closed his palm and the hieroglyph disappeared. "That was the eye of Horus," he said. "My patron god."
"Your...father?" Annabeth asked carefully.
Carter smiled wryly. "My parents were both Egyptologists, and they're both dead. We didn't lie about me being mortal, Annabeth, I'm not a demigod. I can't imagine having Horus for a father, he's annoying enough as a patron."
Percy sank into one of the seats of the boat and smirked up at Carter. "I mean, your dad is sort of a god," he said.
Carter rolled his eyes. "Can we not talk about my godly, recycled, dead blue dad? Egyptian magic is enough to explain without getting into that shit."
Annabeth shook her head, trying to reconcile all the insane thoughts that were vying for her attention. "So...If you're not a demigod, what are you?"
"A magician. I actually specialize in combat magic, but I was already pretty wiped today, so I couldn't go all-out."
"I'll see the chicken man avatar someday," Percy said wistfully.
"Falcon," Carter corrected automatically, like it was a centuries-old argument. He looked apologetically at Annabeth. "I know we're kinda starting in the middle of the explanation, and I'm sorry about that. I wanted to tell you over lunch, but..." He gestured back at the unconscious Edvard. "If you wanna come with us, I'll go through all the basics on the way, and then you can ask any follow-up questions once we get there?"
Annabeth looked at the boat nervously. "Percy shouldn't be flying," she said, mostly to buy herself time to make a decision.
"We're not gonna be flying," Carter said. "Not in the sky anyway. Freak's going to take us through the Duat."
"The...Duat."
"Yeah, it's uh...like...layers of reality right beneath ours. I used to be really bad at distance bending, but I'm even worse at portals, so I've focused a lot on improving my Duat travel. We'll dip into the first layer and the trip there will be like ten, fifteen minutes at most."
"And it's...safe?"
"No, not really," Carter said, scratching a spot just below his ear. "But with me there, you won't die. Probably."
Annabeth looked at Percy incredulously, and he shrugged.
"I trust Carter," he said. "Should be fun."
Annabeth rubbed her forehead and looked around.
"Look, I don't know, guys. I'm not a fan of running into dangerous things for no real reason."
"Well, we're leaving with or without you," Percy said, smiling in that easy way he did when he was about to cause trouble. "So either you can come along and make sure I don't do anything stupid, and you can learn about Carter's magic in the process, or you can stay here and spend the rest of the day wondering whether I'm alive or not, overwhelmed with unanswerable questions about the Egyptian pantheon."
There was a time, when they were twelve or thirteen, that Annabeth had the power to make Percy quail with a single pointed glare. Now, when she shot him her most intense glower, he only smiled benignly and patted the seat next to him.
Curse him for being right.
She pulled her coat more tightly around herself, slowly realizing that she was pretty much going to have to go whether she liked it or not. "Where are you flying to, anyway?"
"Alexandria," Carter said, and Annabeth's mind instantly whirred into overdrive at the simple word. "I could...show you around a bit, after I dump Edvard with my uncle. I mean, if you'd be interested in seeing the city, or some of the ruins...it could be fun."
Gods, how much had Percy told Carter about her? Because he was playing her like a damn lyre. "Yes," she blurted, before she could even try to tell herself no. "Yes, are you kidding me, absolutely I want to go to Alexandria."
Percy pumped his fists in victory as Annabeth carefully climbed into the boat and sat down beside him.
"How did you manage to get yourself tangled up with another pantheon, Percy," she complained, running her hands along the sides of the reed boat to test the material.
Percy leaned back in the boat and smiled lazily at her. "Maybe my elementary school teachers were onto something with the whole' trouble magnet' thing."
"What?" Carter said, turning over his shoulder and grinning. "You mean you weren't 'a pleasure to have in class'?"
"Shocking, I know," Percy said.
"I got 'failure to work well with others' pretty often, " Annabeth supplied.
Percy looked at her strangely. "You've barely gone to school since you were seven."
"I was a very angry six-year-old."
Ahead of them, Carter clicked his tongue, and Freak shot off the ground, ten or eleven feet into the air.
Percy gripped the sides of the swaying boat and glanced around nervously. Carter muttered something to Freak and then flicked the reins.
In an instant, the world seemed to bend around them, and then they were flying through darkness.
Annabeth couldn't decide if they were flying high above the ocean, wading through the depths of a swamp, or simply floating in an expanse of nothingness, waiting for the last bits of darkness to rise up and swallow them too. The world around them was shifting in double vision, like watching a 3- D movie without glasses, waves of color and dim light crashing down and submerging their boat in darkness for only a moment before they were once again hurtling through the expanse of space. Were they falling, rising, or shooting forward like an arrow? Annabeth couldn't tell, and even the two boys beside her didn't feel completely real.
Then Carter's voice cut through the haze. "Alexandria, Freak. The one in Egypt, okay? The Alexandria in Egypt."
"FREEEAK!"
"Yeah, okay, thanks buddy."
Carter turned around and rolled his eyes. "He keeps taking me to Alexandria, Virginia. Don't know why." He sat down in the boat facing Annabeth and Percy and gestured vaguely around them. "This is the shortcut," he said. "We're in the first layer of the Duat right now. Don't focus too hard on anything outside of this boat, there's always the off chance you'll look at the wrong thing and go insane or burn your life force up."
Annabeth very determinedly turned her attention to her hands, which she kept firmly folded in her lap.
Percy looked completely at ease. "This is so cool," he said, eyes scanning the shifting world around them. "This is so cool."
"Eyes inside the boat, Perce," Carter said patiently.
"So, do you wanna give Annabeth the rundown?" Percy asked, turning back to face them. "Yes," Annabeth said. "Please give Annabeth the rundown."
It was all a hell of a lot to take in. Too much to take in? No, absolutely not. Annabeth was a daughter of Athena, pursuit of knowledge was her whole thing. She would make room for Egyptian mythology in her head at any cost. She was already thinking about what days she would be free to go to the library for research, and wondered briefly if she could convince Carter to come with her to hang out and act as a fact-checker.
Carter glanced back at Freak for a moment, then sighed. "Okay. I mean, there's a lot to explain, but I guess the best way to tell you everything is to go back to the beginning. This whole thing started when my dad blew up the Rosetta stone."
End Notes
Annabeth: hey can i have. a fucking break. like a normal senior year.
Percy: sure that sounds great! anyway this is my boyfriend he channels the magic of an Egyptian god and also sometimes IS that god depending on how dire the situation is :) he's so cool right :)
Annabeth: are you fucking kidding me