Lee's restraint was slipping and nothing terrified him more.

His powers didn't cause catastrophic damage like Percy or Thalia, who controlled the elements of their fathers. They didn't warp reality and make a thought come to life like Lou Ellen, who wielded magic with unknown limits. They didn't have practical uses like those of Travis and Connor, who could see the inner workings of locks and wiring and who knows what else.

Lee didn't lie to them. He just… didn't reveal everything about himself. Eris knew how to abuse the truth and so did Lee. They were both… manipulative in that regard. All he had to do was give them just enough information for them to form conclusions that weren't true.

He could remove diseases and poisons from people at the price of severely exhausting himself. They knew that already. They saw him do it. Lee told Travis he couldn't control it, and that was technically the truth.

That was easier to explain.

But the reality was that Lee was toxic.

A blight.

He didn't just inherit the plagues and venom of Apollo. They flowed through his veins, within his blood. Inert but volatile. A constant risk for everyone around him.

He was a risk because he couldn't control it.

Lee's anger wasn't like Michael, who almost seemed to be looking for a reason to fight. He wasn't prone to bouts of seething rage like Percy was. He didn't have the insecure need to prove himself like Clarisse did.

No, it was much worse.

His built up over time. It was a rage that bottled itself up inside of him till it burst. His was an infection, a viral wrath that slowly wormed its way throughout his entire body and would wrest control away from him. His body would become an incubator.

The hotter he burned, the more likely it would light the fuse.

And once he lost control…

Lee wouldn't be able to stop it.

He would erupt.

Disease traveled faster, wider, and more efficiently than any living creature was capable of. It killed without thought, without hesitation, and without mercy. Poison snuck its way into the body, breaking down cells and shutting off organs one by one. It could stop blood from clotting, attack the nervous system, and cause indescribable pain. They were the instruments of death.

And they lived inside of him, festering, barely restrained, and always threatening to escape his prison of flesh. That was all he could do. Keep it trapped inside of him. Unlike the others, who could command their powers, Lee couldn't control his.

Lee couldn't afford to lose that ironclad grip over his emotions.

Yet that was exactly what was happening.

He's the only one left standing with a dagger in his hand that he could barely even fight with properly. Why would he? He never needed to use it before. But the moment his bow was destroyed, he became useless to everyone. He couldn't protect a damn thing. Not the other members of his quest. And certainly not himself, the faint throb in his skull reminded him of it.

Lee couldn't see out of his right eye anymore; his sight had shifted the moment the spear made its surgical incision.

His heart thudded as panic threatened to take over.

Adrenaline dulled the pain, but his anxiety only grew.

Surrounded by the unconscious bodies of his friends, Lee felt the all-consuming bubbling of his infected blood. His ruined eye spilled vitreous fluid down his face like tears. Why did it have to be him that people depended on? Someone else should have been here instead.

Michael would have been better. He was always the better shot, not as good as Kayla, but still better than Lee. As quick to anger as he was, Michael was not a liability. Michael was a competent fighter at both long and close range. Unlike Lee who was pitiful without a bow, Michael would have been useful to the group while Achilles was tearing them apart, he could have held his own.

Will would have been better. He was the best healer at Camp by a mile, could make up the difference between life and death. Because when nectar and ambrosia wasn't enough, Will was. His little brother inherited Apollo's natural medical talents and shone like a star in the night. Unlike Lee who brought pestilence, Will brought succor, the hope necessary to see the rising of another dawn.

Anyone would have been better than Lee, the only one of Apollo's golden children to be tarnished. Because in almost every scenario but inflicting pain on others, someone else could have done his job a thousand times better. The person they needed now wasn't Lee.

And the Fates knew it, they made sure that he was all too aware of the fact.

Just like at Westover, just like in the Labyrinth, Lee's ears rang with the haunting shearing of bronze scissors. It echoed up his bones and vibrated his skull.

They don't snip the thread but they're prodding at him.

At any moment, they could end the lives of his friends, and he wouldn't be able to stop it.

Despite his inadequacies, Lee took a deep breath. Begging his blood to stop its rampage, stowing his blade away. His friends needed someone else, but all they had right now was Lee. He had to keep it together. He fidgets clumsily with his backpack, taking out the canisters of nectar that Hermes had gifted them with and starts making calculations of who to prioritize. He can't afford to waste time, to lose control, to get distracted—

The Fates laugh.

That is what sets Lee off.

It echoes throughout his soul and makes its presence known.

The mad cackles of the Moirai bounced off the edges of his mind, drowning out the hollow scrapping of the shears of Fate. And it made him burn inside. All sense of restraint was forgotten as the toxins brewed in his blood, a poisonous stew of hate.

"Shut up," Lee hissed. He feels an uncomfortable heat build inside of him as his wounds begin to smoke. The cuts across his right eye and stomach cauterize, burn themselves shut as his blood becomes caustic, acidic, and deadly.

The scent of his charred flesh lingers in the air, a foul, putrid feast fit for scavengers and pests.

"Fletcher?"

His eye darts wildly in the direction of the speaker.

Thalia Grace, still conscious and moving about. She eyes him with caution, "I didn't say anything."

"Not you," Lee felt the heat start dying down. "It's just—"

The Fates do it again.

They howl with glee. Jeering at him. At Connor, pinned to the floor by the spear of Achilles. At Travis, still and unmoving. At Lou Ellen, bleeding from her head. His friends were dying, and they had the audacity to snicker.

"Stop laughing," he forgets himself. "Stop fucking laughing!"

The flow of blood in his vein becomes viscous. It thickens, almost clogging his bloodstream as the heat intensifies. He's on the brink of a meltdown and they're all in the blast radius.

"Fletcher!" Thalia narrowed her eyes. "Nobody is laughing at you." Her hands go up, as if she were placating a rabid animal.

Lee felt like a disease riddled beast.

She can't hear them, he realizes. Thalia Grace has the attention of Eris, but not her sisters.

He wasn't sure which was worse.

"Maybe you should lie down," she took a careful step forward. "How about you look at that eye of yours? I'll check up on the others, okay?" She talks to him as if he was a child throwing a tantrum.

Shame unclogs his veins and thins the vile blood that had been threatening to overflow.

Their laughter fades to a minor pain in the back of his mind.

"No," he whispers. "We need to check up on them." He tosses her one of the spare canisters from his backpack. He doesn't hear it clatter to floor and just assumes that she caught it. He's already formulated a plan.

Connor. Lou Ellen. Travis.

That was the priority of who to help first.

Lee based it off their heartbeats. He couldn't heal, but he had a slight ability to analyze injuries that lay beneath the surface and hear the beating of their hearts from a distance if he concentrated.

Travis' was steady, stable. Lee didn't focus too much on the older Stoll's injuries, probably just a concussion and a serious headache later. Nothing too a bit of nectar wouldn't fix.

Lou Ellen's was slow and only getting weaker. Her injuries… didn't make sense. There were internal burns as if her blood was flammable. A lot of it was gone, evaporated and he couldn't make heads or tails of it. But despite the medical anomaly, she was holding on, whether out of willpower or something else entirely, she had much more time than Lee would have expected.

It was Connor who was in the most danger. His heartbeat was barely noticeable to Lee, almost too faint to pick up. The spear of Achilles stuck out of him like a grave marker. The wicked weapon that stole the vision from Lee's right and was now about to steal Connor's life.

His eye flies over the goddesses.

Eris, for a lack of a better term, was fucking with Mnemosyne. The goddess of discord was stealthily taking stamped books and moving them back on top of the pile of unsorted literature. She swung her legs against the desk, distracted the Titaness of memory with her loud humming, and touched the various objects on her desk. She played with a stapler like a gun, pelting Mnemosyne in the head with harmless bits of metal. She stole the pens from out of a container and scribbled drawings onto the various documents strewn about. She drank from Mnemosyne's coffee cup and then spilled the rest of it onto the floor. Eris was looking for trouble and acting like an utter nuisance in order to find it.

Poking and prodding, like a child that didn't understand the concept of boundaries.

But Eris was no child.

Children grew out of their antics.

They learned to empathize with others.

This was just the goddess' nature.

A creature of chaos and conflict.

Yet the Titaness just kept gritting her teeth, burning with a silent rage, but never once responding. Refusing to give Eris the reaction that she wanted. This was a matter of pride.

Maybe, just maybe, Mnemosyne wasn't so different from the Olympians.

Lee could work with that, he needed to make do with what he had.

Eris can do whatever she wants with the Titaness.

He needed to get moving.

Deep breaths. Stay focused.

"What about you?" Thalia asked. She turned the canister of nectar in her hands gingerly.

"I'll help Connor," Lee struggles with the cap on the flask. His single eye strained, missing the accuracy that its partner used to provide.

"That's not what I meant," she grabs his shoulder and grips it tight.

Lee feels a spark of annoyance.

"Your eye looks like shit. And I'm not sure your head is doing any better. You're hearing things, Fletcher."

"No, I'm not," he hissed. He didn't have time to explain it to her.

"Calm down."

"I am calm!" He most definitely was not. No, Lee was barely holding it together.

"It's glowing," Thalia holds him firmly in place. "It's usually blue, right? What's going on?"

What? Lee turns to face her.

Reflected in her electric blue eyes is a faint, sickly green glow emanating from his left eye. His pale blue iris has been completely eclipsed by a venomous swamp of toxicity.

The color sends a wave of nausea through his body.

"Let go," Lee whispers. This didn't matter right now; They were wasting time. "I'll worry about it later—"

She spins him around, forcing Lee to look at her.

"Do you fucking hear yourself, Fletcher?" Thalia growls. "What is wrong with your head? Is there a hole in your brain too? Did you lose what little brain cells were left after Achille drove a spear through your eye?"

"Fuck off!" Lee screams.

The sound bounces and echoes throughout the library.

The goddesses turn to observe the disturbance.

Mnemosyne just looks disappointed and goes back to her work.

His blood rages at the sight of her. The audacity of this bitch. She had the nerve to judge him. After she took the bow of Heracles and used it to attack them. After her paper doll tore his eye in half. After she almost killed them for no reason. There were so many twisted thoughts going through his head.

I believed what you said. How could he forget how inconsistent gods and goddesses were? What they meant one moment could easily change within seconds.

Eris is… displeased, her golden irises looking through him once more.

What are you hoping to find? Lee thinks briefly. She called him Stardust. The nickname made him feel all sorts of emotions. None of them were good.

But he brushes off their stares, focusing instead on the initial target of his anger.

"Why are you so insistent on pissing me off!" He shoves her away, targeting her shoulder as he does so. Lee knows for a fact that the bone there is fractured, he noticed it the last time he analyzed her injuries.

He regretted it immediately. Why the fuck did he just do that to her? Thalia winces and the urge to vomit almost overwhelms him, but his head is a miasma of treacherous, vindictive impulses.

It drowns his guilt with venom.

"We'll I'm so sorry that someone's looking out for your lousy ass!" Thalia scowls. Little shards of red find their way into her eyes like crimson stars on a deep blue night. He doesn't pay them any mind, lost to an irrational bitterness.

Toxic anger chills his heart and pollutes it.

"I don't need you to baby me, Thalia!" The blood roars in his ears.

"You can't even take care of yourself!"

They're centimeters apart, and much to his growing frustration, Thalia was just ever so slightly taller than him.

"Get out of my face and go help Lou, now." The green glow intensifies, coloring her pale skin with a sickly pallor.

"I saved your damn life, Fletcher." Electricity danced in her eyes, a tango of scarlet sparks amongst a sapphire storm. "You don't get to boss me around."

"Move," he puts every bit of venom coursing through him into the word.

"Make me, Fletcher."

Fletcher, he burns inside. She never had the decency to address anyone with their name. "What is your fucking problem, Grace?"

Thalia looks like she wants to gouge out his remaining eye the moment her last name leaves his lips, "You're never going to call me that again."

"Go to hell."

"I don't think I like you very much right now, Fletcher."

"You'll like me a lot less if you get my friends killed!" Lee snarls. "Connor has a spear sticking out of him! Lou is bleeding from her fucking head! Travis isn't moving! And you're picking a fight with me! So, for once, just listen to someone other than yourself!"

Thalia emits more and more electricity with every word he says. She clenches her fists, and it becomes glaringly apparent that she stopped listening to him a long time ago.

Her fist cracks him across the face, landing a sharp blow to his blind spot.

Cartilage crunches as his head whips to the side.

Blood flows from his nose like molasses. It's dark and heavy, a cancerous malady.

It pushes him over the edge.

Thalia says something, her eyes flaring dangerously.

But all Lee can hear is the buzzing in his ears. The bubbling inside his veins. The ignition of everything he's tried and failed to hold back. He feels the slow release, the crack in the dam that destabilizes the foundation of his restraint.

"Run," Lee pleads, the anger dissipates as his heart sinks, but it's already too late. "Get away from me!"

He starts to erupt.

Night's daughter zips across the room, flying between him and Thalia.

The wings of strife unfurl, a strong gust separates the two demigods.

Eris curls her hand around his belt, and he is hauled off his feet.

Lee is flung into the air, sailing all the way back into the base of the stairwell. The crash flattens his lungs. The air that escapes is a mist of black and sparkling gold dust.

It smells sickeningly sweet, reminiscent of a field of flowers in spring.

Shock flashes across Thalia's face as every breath Lee takes becomes a cloud of pestilence. The fog crawls into the room, lapping at the books on the shelves and rotting the leather covers and weathered pages. The wooden frames darken, crack, and crumble as disease takes its toll on them. Everything it touches reduces, spoiling as they turned into a mire of fermenting liquid.

Thalia finally does what he tells her: she runs.

Eris darts through the air in the exact order that Lee would've begged her to. She descends from her flight like a guillotine, snapping the spear of Achilles under her boot and landing on the same foot as she spills five drops of nectar into Connor's mouth. The galaxies in her feathers wrap around the two of them like a shroud, unfurling less than a second later, revealing only the goddess as she outpaces the marching miasma that Lee has unleashed. Her wings eclipse Lou Ellen, ferrying her away to parts unknown and returning to do the same with Travis.

They're out of sight and that is enough for him.

Mnemosyne hollers at him, red faced and furious. She screams expletives and curses, her composure lost as she points at him. Her words are indecipherable as his ears continue to ring. Her hands gesture at parts of her ruined collection. Priceless pieces of knowledge, gone in an instant.

But she disappears as his cloud of torment grows thicker and eclipses his already damaged vision.

Stop, Lee clutches his head in his hands and tries to reel it back in.

The plague refuses to be controlled.

He is small again.

A child crying next to a corpse.

Clear tears fall alongside black droplets of blood, both staining his face.

"Not again," he curls into a ball.

Through the fog, a silhouette traipses towards him.

The large wings framing her back give Eris away as she approaches.

She breathes in the mist freely and without worry, reveling in it as if it were perfume.

"Lee," her usual smooth contralto is gone. The goddess' voice is tired and stern, and hauntingly familiar.

His heart stops beating.

"Why are you crying?"

"Please," he whimpers. "Don't…"

A white doctor's coat falls in front of him as she kneels, grey medical scrubs drape her thin body.

He wants to look away, but calloused hands, covered by nitrile gloves guide his head to face her.-

"What's wrong, Stardust?" Pale blue eyes knit themselves full of worry, her face is framed by pale blond locks that are starting to grey at the roots.

The unfathomable pit of sadness returns as soon as he hears the nickname used in her voice.

"How did you know?" Lee whispers, each word lets loose a spew of poison.

She doesn't drop the act even as she answers his question.

"You can't hide anything from me." It should sound sinister, but it doesn't. It's just the reserved and sad resignation of an exhausted woman.

"Who told you?"

She runs her hands through his hair, and Lee feels safe, scared, and sick all at once.

"You did, Stardust. Your telltale heart is quite the gossip."

The organ echoes in his chest, thumping against its confines like a prisoner in their cell.

The mist darkens even more, obscuring everything but Eris' masquerade.

"I'm worried about you, Lee."

It becomes hard to breathe, even though the polluted air flows freely in and out of him as if it were pure oxygen. He's hyperventilating, unable to calm down.

"I just want the best for you."

The last time he saw her eyes was when they melted in her sockets.

"You deserve to be happy."

The last time he saw her smile was when her lips turned to dust and revealed the grinning skull beneath.

"So, please, try to love yourself."

The last time he was held like this was when he stole her life away.

Eris' disguise corrodes off her, a pile of meat and viscera, disintegrating and oozing in chunks of atrophic spoilage.

He can't help but reach out a trembling hand as the mask returns to nothing.

The red-eyed goddess does not smile or mock Lee in his moment of weakness.

Instead, she looks furious. A subtle anger, where the face loses all expression instead of scrunching up. But that maddening rage is swimming beneath scarlet and it's unmistakable.

"You're broken," Eris glowers, her eyes gleam in the black mist.

"C-can't stop it," Lee claws at his throat. The venom spills from his mouth, spreading and continuing to wreak havoc. It slips from his nostrils in puffs of toxicity. His tears evaporate as his body temperature spikes and contributes to the growing epidemic.

"Don't worry," she raises a boot over his head. "I'll fix you."

Lee's skull cracks open as Eris brings it down.

"Sleep well, Stardust."


"I'm glad I met you Percy," Bianca smiles at Percy and he lets slip a sigh of relief.

He eyes the numerous cuts running up her arm.

What happened to you? Percy still doesn't understand. He only saw the tail end of it.

And he didn't like it one bit.

He looks up, expecting Mnemosyne to be there, but she isn't. He doesn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. His hand itches to draw Riptide and free the immortal's head from her body.

She did this to you, Percy shakes, anger rolling off him in waves. She made you hurt yourself.

He hated very few people in this world.

Gabe. Monster. Piece of shit that hurt his mom.

Luke. Monster. Fucking bastard that pretended to be his friend.

Ares. Technically not a monster. He just pissed Percy off.

But now, Percy knew he hated the Titaness of memory just as much if not more than all of them.

She had made it personal, and he wanted nothing more than to hurt her in return.

He wants to throw up as the sound of Lee's screams echoed in his head. The blood curdling cry of someone who just lost an eye and was unfortunate enough to be conscious when it happened. Someone needed to give her a taste of her own medicine.

He wants to bash her skull against the floor when the images of Connor being impaled run through his mind. The younger brother had flailed about, struggling to remove the weapon that was pining him to the floor. He shivers thinking about how the blood pooled beneath his friend.

He wants to cut her to ribbons because of what she did to Bianca. Percy doesn't understand why the goddess looked at her like she was the scum of the earth. He doesn't care why because there was no excuse for it. Nothing would ever justify the cuts on Bianca's arm. No explanation would ever make him forgive the Titaness.

Where are you? he seethes.

He'll fight his way past her if he has too.

He looks at Bianca's tear-stained face.

He thinks of his injured friends.

You're not going to hurt anyone else. He makes a promise against the Titaness. I'm never going to let you do this ever again.

They were leaving, even if he has to find a way to kill her to make it happen.

Percy hears the hum of electricity and then a thud, like someone being punched.

It sets off his fight-or-flight response.

He picks fight.

A beat passes and, then almost immediately after, Lee shouts, "Run! Get away from me!"

Percy lets go of Bianca's hands and reaches for his pen. The son of Poseidon vaults over the desk just in time to see Lee go flying across the room. His eyes dart around the room and tries to get caught up on what the fuck just happened.

Eris flies overhead, already starting to circle around.

Thalia gives off little sparks of electricity, her fist clenched tightly.

Mnemosyne tilts her head, putting her glasses on.

What did you do, monster? Percy narrows his eyes.

Bianca lets out a little gasp as she sees the state of their friends.

Travis, Connor, and Lou Ellen are all unconscious and soaked in their own blood.

Percy grips Riptide tighter as he glares at the back of Mnemosyne's head.

You did this. He wants so badly to run her through. Riptide is heavy with anticipation. But he doesn't get to act on those impulses.

Lee explodes.

The sound is eerily similar to the tear gas grenades that the Stolls used beneath Westover. Something hisses as it escapes from the son of Apollo.

A black mist seeps from his body and creeps forward at an alarming rate.

Percy's skin crawls as anything the dark particles touch begins to rot and decay. Books. Shelves. Loose pieces of paper. They all begin to liquefy as the organic matter making them up gives way.

Thalia recoils as it gets closer to her, she turns and sprints towards them.

Eris is a dark blur, whisking away the unconscious demigods as her wings wrap around them.

And Mnemosyne, the goddess howls.

"Wretch! Cur!" Her composure has disappeared. She hurls untold numbers of archaic insults, swears, and expressions of discontent. "Thousands of records, gone! You've destroyed entire records of history!"

Thalia reaches them just as Mnemosyne throws her coffee cup to the floor, shattering the ceramic container.

"What happened?" Percy asks her, the dark cloud chases after her, dark plumes flood the room as if it was a liquid, crashing up against the wall, and flowing rapidly towards them.

"Fletcher—"

The daughter of Zeus doesn't get to finish when darkness descends on them. Eris' cosmic wings encircle Percy, Bianca, and Thalia as the black mist rapidly closes in on their position.

The goddess' red eyes glow as shadows surrounded them.

Percy smells faint traces of something sweet as the ground opens up beneath him.

The three of them fall into a void without light.

The last thing he sees before it closes up is the mist covering the spot where they were just standing, like a cloud passing over the sun.

He reaches out his hand and finds someone else.

The hand is smaller than his and their palm is sticky.

Blood, Percy realizes. He calls out, "Bianca?"

But there is no sound that leaves his mouth.

He just squeezes her hand.

She returns the gesture.

That's one, he tries to find Thalia.

His other hand lands on something and he's immediately met with a jolt and a punch to his gut.

Yup, he groans silently. That's Thalia.

Percy falls.

And plummets.

He just continues to sink into the darkness.

There is no… experience here.

Smell.

Sound.

Sight.

Even taste and touch are muted.

The saliva in his mouth seems to vanish.

It's like he doesn't have a tongue.

Percy forgets the way Bianca's hand feels. He knows he's holding hers, but it doesn't connect with his brain the way it's supposed to, it isn't picking up anything.

He taps Thalia again, hoping she'll react.

There is only a dull semblance of pressure as he lands on something.

All he feels is a hint of a familiar sensation.

He closes his eyes but there is no difference, he can't tell if he actually did it or not.

He feels panic begin to set in, but not even his heart seems to work here, and the emotion quickly leaves him.

He tries to picture his favorite color and he's met with nothing.

Percy thinks of his mother, and he can't make out the way her eyes looked when she smiled. He can't recall what she looks like. He doesn't know what color her hair is. What shade her eyes are. Her name starts slipping from his mind.

He thinks he feels sad.

He thinks he's crying.

He thinks he's feeling something at the loss.

But he can't feel anything to prove it.

Then, all at once, Percy feels everything.

The light is blinding, making his head dizzy.

His ears hurt as the beating of his heart crashed loudly against them.

He's overwhelmed by the smell of clean linen.

He tastes air so pure and fresh that it makes him feel ill.

His skin burns to the touch, overly sensitive as he falls on top of a bed, making the mattress bounce.

A gaping, featureless chasm closes above him.

"Percy?" Bianca whispers.

He turns his head, squishing the pillow he'd been resting on.

His friend is on a different bed, her bloody arm staining the white sheets red.

"Where are we?"

He gets up from the bed that broke his fall and looks around, "No idea."

"Fucking blond bastard," Thalia groans to his left, another formerly pristine mattress has cushioned her collision. "Kicking his ass later."

His eyes settled onto the rest of the room.

It had big windows that spanned the entire length of the wall. A sprawling city could be seen below. The walls had this pretentious and gaudy wallpaper that screamed that the owner was a douche. An extremely rich douche, not someone Percy would ever hang out with. The carpet looked illegal, some exotic animal pelt, and considering how large the room was, they might have gone extinct because of this place. There's a small hallway that splits off from the main room and leads to a door that's latched shut. But that's not what he focuses on.

It's the centerpiece that was the most concerning.

Travis, Connor, and Lou Ellen were around a large circular dining table.

Well, they weren't really sitting because they were still unconscious.

And also, they were tied to their seats with jumper cables.

"What the hell?" Percy mumbled.

He slid off the bed and cautiously drew Riptide, taking quiet steps towards his friends. He then stopped taking quiet steps because the carpet muffled any noise his sneakers could possibly make. Gods, that was fucking embarrassing.

"Are they okay?" Bianca swallowed nervously.

Percy placed two fingers against Connor's neck. The pulse is faint but it's there. There's a hole through his t-shirt where the spear had torn into, but there's just pale scar tissue beneath. "Connor is."

He repeats it with Travis while Thalia checks in on Lou Ellen.

Again, the pulse is hard to find but they're alive.

The only one who wasn't there was Lee.

"What was that?" Percy asks. "That… mist." He doesn't know what to call it.

"Shouldn't you know?" Thalia quirks an eyebrow. "You've been traveling with him for months and you didn't know he's a fucking timebomb?"

"Months?" Bianca frowns, she struggles with undoing the cables that hold Lou Ellen in place. "What are you talking about?"

"Yeah, you turned the sun back on in December, it's February now. Gods! Does everyone in your group have brain damage?"

Percy scowls, "Hey! I'm not sure what's wrong with you, but there's no way we've been gone for that long!"

"I'm the only one who makes any sense here, Jackson! You've been doing fuck all for months! I saw Apollo at the solstice, where in Hades were you?"

"Then why are we still doing this, huh?" Percy shouts. She's the one taking nonsense. "Why are we still cleaning up Apollo's mess if you already turned sixteen? Shouldn't you have saved the world by now?"

"I never turned sixteen!"

"Great, now who's the one making sense?"

Bianca darts her eyes between Percy and Thalia, witnessing in detail exactly how the cousins interacted on a daily basis.

"Six fucking dumbasses and you couldn't send one person to Olympus?"

"We're still on the quest you—"

The lock on the door jiggles as someone undoes it from the other side. Percy freezes, he leans against the wall, readying his blade.

The doorknob creaks as it is turned.

He can't hear their footsteps on the carpet, but he can make out the approaching shadow.

Percy contemplates swinging first, but he's not sure if he's willing to risk it.

His eyes glace to Thalia, knife ready to be thrown, she nods at him.

Bianca's hand goes to her bowstring, her right arm shakes, either from nervousness or the self-inflicted wounds.

He shakes his head at her, and she seems to get the motion and just relaxes her fingers on the cord instead.

The shadow stops, its form shifting as it seems to leave something against the wall.

They whisper something indiscernible.

Percy holds his breath.

The shadow darts forward and something inside of him screams at him to run.

He swings and they duck under his sword, faster than a human could move.

Percy sees a flash of red before they strike.

A pale hand wraps around his throat and lifts him off the ground.

Eris dangles him in front of her, squeezing tight, "Nice try, Bubbles."

The goddess tosses him to the ground, which doesn't actually hurt because of how soft it was.

"Bubbles?" Thalia looks at him in confusion.

He just groans, "I know why Lou Ellen calls me that, but why are you doing it?"

That was a question he should not have asked.

"I want to pop you."

"What?" Percy blinks. That was possibly the most disturbing thing he had ever heard, and it wasn't even that graphic. It just felt wrong the way she said it.

"I want to shove a knife into your head and pop your skull open," the goddess elaborates. "There's just something about you that's so… enticing."

"Oh, great, you're never meeting Kym."

"Kymopoleia," Eris leans against the wall, picking at her nails absentmindedly. "Goddess of storms. Recently divorced. Apollo's been trying to court her for months now. She's quite upset at you, Bubbles."

Percy takes in the information and focuses on the most important part.

"How do you—wait, Apollo's going out with her?"

"Nah, Sunshine keeps getting rejected."

"That's like… not cool," Percy frowned. That actually made him super uncomfortable. He wasn't sure if he felt protective over her but hearing that someone was actively trying to date her made him feel… weird.

Thalia whispered to Bianca, "Percy has a sister?"

"It's… complicated."

"Wait," the son of Poseidon said. "What did I do?"

"You ditched her," the goddess of discord smiled sadly. Percy almost believed that it was genuine. "She was so excited to spend time with her dear little brother and then you simply disappeared. Poor Kym, and after she thought she finally found someone who cared about her. You're cruel, you know that?"

He felt something crawl into his heart and squirm.

A lump formed in his throat. He looked at Bianca, the gears turned in her head as well. He glanced at Thalia.

"You were telling the truth?"

"Yeah, dumbass," she crossed her arms. "Months, Percy."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"I thought you actually had your shit together."

He turned to the goddess.

"What?"

"Why didn't Hermes tell us?"

"He's clinically depressed," Eris said flatly. "The guy's been eating nothing but yogurt cups and having fake counseling sessions with your mom's boyfriend. Sometimes he stays the night in your bedroom. Hades, he basically lives there on the weekends. Oh, and your mom should really hide the spare key somewhere else but under the doormat."

"I—what?" Percy feels a shiver run up his spine. "Why do you know about her?"

"I work for the god of thieves," she pulls a manila folder out of thin air and looks through the contents. "He's got information on everyone. Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon and Sally Jackson. Obsessed with the color blue."

"I am not."

"You are," Thalia said.

Bianca whistles and looks away.

"I'm not!"

"Only eats blue food," Eris continued.

"That's normal," Percy stresses.

"Likely due to childhood trauma from an abusive stepfather."

He feels sick when she mentions that monster, he can feel their stares.

"I don't have trauma!" He feels defensive suddenly.

"Subject seeks comfort in the color, using it as a coping mechanism. Wardrobe consists of varying shades of blue. Consistently requests blue cherry coke."

"I just like the color, okay?"

"Accomplice to murder at just twelve years old," Eris looks up from the folder. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?" Her crimson eyes look into his soul and turn gold. Her expression even, neutral, and giving away nothing.

"I never helped kill a person," Percy grits his teeth. But he has taken lives. Much too recently. And he still can't bear the sight of his sword for too long.

"You don't take after your father much," the goddess said.

"That's the first time I'm hearing it." That was the only thing he ever heard people talk about. He looked just like Poseidon, that's what everyone said. Hades, Medusa wanted to keep him specifically because of how he looked.

"Your personality is much closer to your mother."

He eyed her carefully.

"Devoted enough to kill for their loved ones," Eris said. "You take after her much more than Poseidon. Like mother, like son. A pair of murderers."

"Don't talk about my mom like that," Percy growls. "She never did anything wrong."

"What are you doing?" Bianca narrows her eyes to the goddess. She struggles to keep her voice steady as she shakes in Eris' presence. Talking to the goddess was like walking on eggshells. "Why did you bring us here? What happened when… when I was gone?"

"Oh, who are you?" Eris extended a hand. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Eris, goddess of discord."

Thalia pulled up a chair at the dinner table and watched quietly. Her fingers folded in her lap as she looked down at them.

She's terrified, Percy realized. Thalia is afraid. And that scared Percy.

Bianca looks at the goddess' offer and doesn't make a move to accept the handshake.

"Bianca," she said tersely.

Eris nodded her head, "So you're keeping the name, huh?"

"What?"

It feels like a thousand insects are crawling under Percy's skin.

"As for your question, I was sick of that prissy little bitch ignoring me and I'm sure that you didn't want to have another 'conversation' with her, did you?"

Bianca looked away.

"Who knows if your name would still be Bianca?" she smiles. "Want to know what's on your predecessor's file?" Another manila folder appears in her hand.

"Stop," Percy clenches his fist.

"Don't be like that, I'm sure you weren't Mnemo's biggest fan either," Eris' eyes gleamed as she produced a rectangular controller with a big red button on it. "She shouldn't have left me unsupervised, though. I rigged the place to blow. But then Stardust blew up, and that was a problem."

The goddess pressed the button and then tossed the controller over her shoulder.

"What was that?" Thalia whispered, looking up from her lap.

"Payback."

"No, I meant what did he do?"

"Ask him," Eris let the folders slip from her hand and they shimmered out of existence before even reaching the ground. She turned back down the hallway and came back a moment later with an unconscious Lee over her shoulder. "I should warn you, though. Stardust isn't mentally well."

"I'm sure you aren't either," Percy blurted out. That wasn't supposed to be expressed verbally. But the goddess has riled him up, slandered his mother in front of him. Called her a murderer.

He feels tense as Bianca and Thalia stare wide-eyed at him.

Oh, shit.

"Something's definitely wrong with me," the goddess agreed, she smiles sweetly but her eyes are hungry. "But I assure you, we're the same, Bubbles. We're all a bunch of murderers and killers here."

Percy tenses as the goddess walks past him and sets Lee down in one of the open chairs.

Eris wraps her arm around the son of Apollo and rests her head on his shoulder. Her eyes glimmered as she tilted his bleeding head so she could whisper into his ear.

"Wake up."

Lee makes a pathetic whimper as his left eye slowly blinks itself open. It moves lazily, unfocused as their leader finds his bearings.

"What happened to him?" Bianca speaks in a hush, tugging at Percy's sleeve. Her gaze is leveled at the jagged cut across the older boy's right eye. Somehow, he keeps it shut despite the blood oozing from it.

"It's rude to talk about someone when they're in front of you," Eris tuts. She runs her nails through Lee's hair and the older boy goes still, a dead expression on his face. "Just ask him. Don't you trust him?"

Thalia takes a quick glance at the goddess before looking away.

"Stop messing with us," Percy said, his voice shaking. "I don't know what you're playing at but quit it!"

"Oh, Bubbles—"

"Stop calling me that!"

Lee lets out a soft gasp as Eris tightens her embrace, "Help me out, Stardust, stop me if I lie."

"Leave him—"

"Stop it, Percy" Thalia warns. She swallows nervously. "You're only making it worse."

"Thalia—"

"Your mother lives on the sixth floor in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Manhattan," Eris said. "She used to work at a candy shop to make ends meet. Recently, she's started taking college classes. She gave up her education for you and finally has a chance to pursue her own happiness. Sally was very lucky to earn such a large sum of money from her… artistic endeavors."

Something constricts around his heart.

"How did it feel when she murdered your stepfather?" Eris' changing eyes settled into gold once more.

"She didn't murder anyone!" Percy glared at the goddess.

"Which of us is lying, Stardust?" she whispers into Lee's ear.

"Stop," his voice is hollow, almost robotic. It shakes slightly, as if he were doing everything to keep calm. Blood stains his face, some drips from his hair. The son of Apollo looked like a living corpse.

"Oh, dear, I thought you didn't like liars?"

A grim line forms on his face and he looks down.

"If you won't sing then I'll turn your family into a choir," Eris forcibly tilts his head to look at her. "I only need to keep you alive. Just six Fate-touched fools."

Lee's lip quivers.

Percy feels dread built up in the pits of his stomach.

"Why are you doing this?" Again, his voice was restrained and dull.

"Oh, Stardust, I'm just trying to help."

Lee meets Percy's gaze and dips his head down.

"Percy doesn't believe it was murder."

"That's because it wasn't!"

"That's not what the law would say."

"Lee?" Percy blinks.

Eris giggles silently on Lee's shoulder.

"She's never lied, Percy," his dead blue eye sends an apology. "Not since we've met her. Everything she said has been the truth."

"I'm not lying!"

"Your mother used Medusa's head to kill him," Eris said.

Percy's blood chilled in his veins.

Lee looks up at Percy again, emotionless.

"He hurt her," his voice is raw. "That monster abused her. He didn't give a shit when she was kidnapped! He beat her, she was defending herself!"

Percy argued vehemently. Trying to justify his mother's innocence. Because that's what she was: innocent.

He feels Bianca's hand tug at his sleeve. Her eyes are soft and full of pity.

Thalia just nods her head.

"It isn't self-defense anymore when you plan to kill someone," Lee said quietly. "You gave her a weapon and she used it to kill. That's murder."

"What are you doing?" Percy hissed.

"Keeping my brothers and sisters alive."

"And you're doing such a good job, Stardust," Eris whispered into Lee's ear. She turned to Percy, "Don't get me wrong, Bubbles, I'm not judging you."

"Then what the fuck are you implying?" Percy bristled with rage. "My mom didn't do anything wrong. If you want to call it murder, then fine! Put it on me but leave her out of it!"

"Do you know what your greatest weakness is?" the goddess asked suddenly.

The gold returns to crimson.

"My sense of humor?"

"That's a close second."

Percy scowls at the goddess. He's pretty sure another person has found their way onto his hate list.

"You would do anything for the people you love," Eris smiles brightly.

"Not really seeing the weakness here," Percy said.

"You assisted in the murder of your stepfather just because he hit your mother."

"It wasn't one hit!" he fumed. She made it seem like that monster was a saint. Like hurting his mother was something trivial.

"Does that make a difference?" Eris' canines caught the light like a knife as her grin grew sharp. "You would've done it yourself if she didn't."

His heart thrums quickly.

Percy absolutely would have killed Gabe for his mother. The moment she flinched when he raised his hand, Percy knew that he would never let that monster live another day.

"You can't be a leader," the goddess releases Lee and stands up. "You will never put the world above your friends. The moment someone hurts them, you feel the urge to pay it back a thousand times. Loyalty is very dangerous when it's what fuels your decisions."

Percy glares as she approaches him.

"But you're not the only one with weaknesses," the goddess steps to the side so that Percy is looking at Lee, who sits there dejectedly. "Did you know that he's suicidal?"

"What?" His frustration leaves as a chill sink into his heart.

"If Tweedle Dipshit didn't make that oath, Stardust would probably have died in the library," she tilts her head at Travis' unconscious body.

Percy looks at Lee who raises the single blue iris to meet his gaze.

He waits for a denial.

A reaction.

Something.

Lee just looks away.


Bianca can't tear her eyes away from the gash running down Lee's face.

She… caused this.

Mnemosyne had attacked everyone because of her.

The goddess of memory took one look at her and decided that Bianca was a problem.

She didn't know what happened while she was gone, but they had been hurt because of her.

Her arm aches, the cuts sting as she shivers.

Real, Bianca reminds herself. My name is Bianca and I'm real.

She gingerly runs her thumb over a groove on her palm, slicking it with blood.

I have friends who care about me.

She looks over at Lou Ellen, the sweet girl who shouldn't be deathly still.

She looks at Connor and Travis, the brothers who should be smiling and laughing.

She looks at Percy, who makes her heart tremble and swell for some reason.

And she looks at Lee, who is falling apart, piece by piece. The reliable and dependable older brother figure has vanished. He looks like someone that is constantly on the verge of tears.

"Did you know that he's suicidal?" Eris said, her red eyes burn like coal. She says it like an accusation, as if they had been ignoring it.

They would have been if she was telling the truth.

Because Bianca has seen Lee be reckless before.

But she never associated it with anything more than protectiveness.

Just pure selfless heroics.

"What?" Percy mouth gapes like a fish on land.

Her heart sinks when Lee looks away from them.

"Lee," Percy's voice takes an edge as he tries again. "She's lying, right?"

Bianca tries to find her voice.

But then Lee looks up again.

"Do you believe her?" he asked. He doesn't say anything else.

"No," the son of Poseidon said.

The goddess sighs.

"Then you're just being stubborn. I told you: Eris doesn't lie."

Thalia's eyebrows furrow, a stormy look on her face.

"C'mon, Lee," Percy's voice cracks slightly. "Just tell us that she's making it up. You've always been—"

"Been what?" The son of Apollo maintains his slow and careful tone.

"You know…"

"No, I'm not sure I do, Percy."

The silence that follows is damning and it makes it hard for Bianca to breathe. She's all too aware of the way that Lee seems resigned to death. He reeks of it. A sick and sweet scent that reminds her of the taste of honey mixed with rotten flesh.

"Why?" Bianca whispers.

His blue eye moves to her, and she can't help but flinch.

"Do you like looking in the mirror?" Lee asked.

Bianca frowned, "Not anymore."

"Hmm, that's concerning," he said. As if took precedent over him.

"How can you be so calm?"

"What's there to be worried about?"

She can't make heads or tails of it. Because denial would make sense. Anger would make sense. Any form of reaction at all would make sense. But he just keeps talking like a husk.

Eris tilts her head and then stalks over to Lee, taking her spot back on his shoulder.

A tremor runs through Lee when she does it.

"Oh, I see. It's a coping mechanism, like how Bubbles has a fixation on the color blue."

"I don't—"

"Shut up, Jackson," Thalia is deadly serious.

"You're trying to turn your emotions off, aren't you?" Eris chuckles. "Won't work, Stardust. That's why your head is such a mess in the first place."

Lee takes a shaky breath, "I'm not going to lose control again."

Bianca watches as his chest rises and falls, each inhale and exhale are slow and drawn out.

"Never again."

"What was that?" Percy speaks softly.

"A mistake I won't repeat."

"Did…" Percy pauses. "Did that come from inside you?"

"Yes."

"Was it always there?" Bianca's mouth is dry.

"Yes."

"Can you control it?" Thalia asked. She tensed as Lee looked at her.

What happened between them? Bianca wondered.

"No."

"What is it?" Thalia said harshly.

"Diseases," Lee was numb in his admission. "Poisons. My blood. A part of me."

The way he spoke reminded Bianca of her own insecurities. How she always found something negative about herself that intensified the feelings of worthlessness. It wasn't much better seeing someone else do it.

Eris brushed his matted hair out of his face, causing flakes of dried blood to fall.

"Stop trying to hide it, Stardust," she was almost loving with how she whispered to him. "They're trying to understand you, trying to help you. You need to stop hating yourself."

Bianca frowned at the pitch that the goddess spoke with. It was… different.

"Please stop using her voice," Lee was barely audible.

"No."

Lee whimpers again as Eris' features disappear. Long black hair shortens to shoulder length blond. Her gleaming red eyes fade until Lee's shade of blue finds their place. Her wings dip below her back and morph into a doctor's garb. A stethoscope wraps around her neck like a noose.

She looks so much like the son of Apollo that Bianca feels her stomach tumble.

"Tell them why you're so broken."

Percy simmers with rage, trembling as he held himself from attacking the goddess.

Bianca sees the way his eyes seem to boil. He's going to say something.

Thalia is unnervingly quiet, never once taking her eyes off the older boy.

And like a mother coaxing a lie from her son, Eris strokes his cheek, and he breaks apart.

Piece by piece.

Tear by tear.

The façade crumbles and Lee weeps.

The most heart-wrenching noise comes from the son of Apollo, a horrible, agonized sob.

She feels something well up inside of her.

It's the bottomless anguish that comes from loss. It's the realization that something has slipped from your fingertips and has disappeared. The harrowing deprivation of something you love with all your heart or a piece of you being stolen away forever.

Bianca felt the same pain when the person she used to be disappeared for good.

When holes opened up in her head and memories fell through the gaps.

That person was gone, and she felt hollow.

Percy helped her find a new name, but those… lies were a part of her too. And they're gone, taking away who she used to be with them. Now, all that's left is Bianca.

Someone that needs to discover who she really is.

But that pain feels so insignificant compared to the raw grief in front of her.

He howls like a dying dog, his voice cracking and growing hoarse. His right eye opens, revealing a pale, divided iris that weeps tears of blood. Eris holds him in place as his sorrow is laid bare before them.

The cap of Percy's pen falls softly to the floor, his sword in his hands.

Bianca reaches for his sleeve as he takes a furious step forward.

"I killed my mother," Lee whispers.

Percy freezes in place.

"She was sick and I… I thought…" he can barely be heard between the sobs. "I wasn't made to help people. I… I was born wrong."

Thalia finally looks away from Lee.

"I'm the only one of Apollo's children that's like this!"

A searing heat emanates from him.

"She always said I looked like him too. And I can't fucking stand it!"

Lee's blue eye burns green.

"Why am I like this!"

Eris releases him and takes a step back.

"Is this what you wanted?" he rises from his seat, rounding on the goddess. "You wanted me to tell them about how I murdered the only person who ever loved me, right? Are you satisfied, now?"

"Who are you mad at?" Eris speaks with a visage that does not belong to her. "Me? Your father? Or yourself?"

"Stop using her face!"

"Answer my question."

Lee slams his fist into the dinner table.

It splinters and cracks as blood drips from his hand.

He takes a deep breath as the glow fades slightly in his eye.

"I hate that I'm Apollo's son," he snarls at the goddess. "That's how I really feel."

"And what did he do wrong?"

"Nothing," Lee's blood hisses as it splatters to the table. "He didn't kill her. I did! It's always been me, who's the problem! I only make things worse for everyone! I hurt people without meaning to! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!"

Eris drops her disguise, resuming her true appearance.

And despite what Bianca thinks of her, the goddess isn't the slightest bit pleased.

"I'm going to put you back together," her voice is soft and tender. The low and smooth pitch of Eris sends shivers up Bianca's body.

The glare of Lee's eye is blinding.

"Why the fuck do you care?"

"Is it so hard to understand?" the goddess frowned. "I love you."

He recoils at her words.

"I love every mortal," Eris leans in close and wraps her hand around his wrist, yanking him forward. "I love you all so much that it drove me insane. My sisters think it's funny to take things that belong to me! They think they can just break my toys whenever they want!"

Bianca flinches at the depths of the goddess' madness.

"Just like they broke you," Eris smiles wide. "They twisted your head until you stopped thinking correctly."

Lee cowers before her.

"But don't worry, Stardust. I'll glue your pieces back together if I have to. I'm taking you back and they're never going to break you again."

Bianca can't breathe as the air threatens to suffocate her.

Percy struggles to move; Riptide shakes in his grasp.

Thalia alone seems to weather the pressure that Eris gives off, but she just watches cautiously.

Lee falls to the floor as Eris lets go.

The goddess of discord looks across their group.

"I'm going to ruin everything they have planned."


Lee is the hardest character to write because he dies in the only book that he makes an appearance. He has no true connection to the main cast, either heroes or villains. There are only snippets of his personality. But when I started thinking of the story I wanted to write, I wanted to include someone whose flaws were different than others. I settled on poison and disease because it was the least heroic and noble thing that a child of Apollo could possible use. He doesn't have true control over them like other demigods do with their powers. Instead, Lee became someone who puts himself last, but it isn't like Percy's loyalty. It comes from a place of genuine self-loathing and hatred. For demigods, it's easy to kill monsters. It's harder to kill their own demons.

PTSD and trauma are touched upon in the books. But when characters have their whole world break apart around them, when they're forced to kill to survive, when they make a mistake that can't be taken back, those are the hardest battles to win. And people never stop fighting them. They never truly go away.

And nothing is more violating than someone else exposing your secrets.