Hi, I'm back.

I thought I wouldn't be able to post for a few more days, but I just discovered this thing called free WiFi.

Also, sorry if I make a bunch of book errors in this chapter, getting the timing of things wrong and stuff like that. I wrote this chapter while I was away, and, stupid C.S., I forgot to bring BOTL. A lot of this stuff was just my best guess.

"Well, how bad is it?"

The Demeter girl watched me warily as I rested my fingertips on her arm. She was lucky—she had nearly had a tendon severed, and I was sure I couldn't have dealt with that, especially at midnight when I was operating purely on autopilot.

I couldn't wait until I was old enough to drink coffee. I could have chugged a scalding black cup of the stuff and not even blinked. I'd probably have to down five before I started feeling even remotely awake.

Right. Healing.

"It's not so bad," I muttered. I sounded like an alcoholic in the middle of a drinking binge, but I hoped the words were reassuring. "It's just a flesh wound—no damage to the tendon or bone. I can fix it." Whether I would be able to walk after fixing it—now that was the question.

I began quietly humming, the same melody that Michael had first taught me, the same one that I had used to heal his leg. It had become a standby similar to Universal Cattle Medicine—if you have no idea what song to use, or you're just too damn tired, go for Doctor Original.

This wasn't my first visit of the night, which might have been okay, or my second visit, which might have been tolerable. No, it was my third. That might not sound like a lot, but consider the fact that I had just taken out a giant scorpion by melting through its neck, and that I was about ready to pass out after only that. Consider how I felt right about now.

Are you tired yet? I'm tired.

The wound closed beneath my fingertips, torn muscle and ravaged skin knitting itself back together. Had I been less tired, I would have smiled—healing always gave me a bit of satisfaction. My cabin could have started an ASMR channel had our work not been so graphic.

And there was the satisfaction of knowing I was helping someone-it did make me smile, even now, when I was no more conscious of my surroundings than a doorknob.

I removed my hand from the girl's arm (her name was Billie, if I was remembering correctly) and promptly staggered against the tree, trying to make it look like I was casually leaning against it.

Yes, the tree. Had I not been about to pass out, I might have admired the outdoorsy theme of the cabin—the carpet of grass covering the floor, the flowers growing in the windows, the giant oak tree growing straight through the middle. As it was, I could only dimly register that this tree was an excellent thing to collapse against. Seeing as I had spent the last several days collapsing against trees, I considered myself an expert in this field.

Demeter cabin pun not intended.

Before I could collapse from exhaustion, I groped my way over to the door, trying not to wake Billie's sleeping siblings, muttered a "good bye" to the daughter of Demeter, shoved it open, and staggered into the warm night air. No giant monsters waiting to take me out—none that I saw, anyway. I probably wouldn't have noticed if one flew past my face in a garbage truck.

I leaned against the outside of the cabin, practically gasping for air. The night was quite pretty-the sky was perfectly clear, the Milky Way a bright slash spangled with stars. Not that I noticed, dead to the world as I was. I was so out of it that I didn't even hear the footsteps drawing closer, just felt a hand clamp over my shoulder.

Fortunately for the sleeping camp, I couldn't have forced out a scream through my lungs if you gave me money. Instead, I just jerked back, breathing even harder. I struggled to make out a discerning feature of the silhouette. No such luck.

"Relax, it's just me." Lee's voice was concerned. "Uh…are you okay?"

Kind of him to notice that I was slumped against a cabin, hyperventilating and falling asleep at the same time. I guess he was used to people looking like that—I would be, too, if I had to teach archery lessons in the middle of the night.

My brother continued. "Do you…do you want to come back to the cabin? The others finished their rounds, and they should be asleep by the time we get back, and I figure this would be a great time to explain why you're…" He nodded toward my battered body and blood–soaked clothes.

Great. You take out one giant scorpion, come back covered in blood, and suddenly it's time for the Spanish Inquisition.

He caught the way I was listing to one side and hastily added, "But if you want to sleep now and talk tomorrow, that's fine too—"

"No." I shook my head. Much as I wanted to sleep, I had to tell someone about this. Lee was much older and had been at camp for a long time. Maybe he would know about the…whatever it was that I did. Besides, keeping the story to myself made it feel like I was carrying the world's heaviest backpack, weighing me down, straps digging painfully into my shoulders. "I'd rather do it now." My tongue felt like lead. I could only imagine how it would feel after sharing the whole story.

"Uh…okay." He wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Honestly, don't know how you're even awake right now."

"Am I?" I muttered, slumping against him. "I really don't feel like it."

He gave me a concerned look. "Are you sure you can walk back?"

The honest answer to this question was no, but the cabin wasn't far, and I really didn't want to be carried back like a little kid.

Okay, maybe I kind of wanted it, but Lee was also tired. Even though he was more experienced, healing still took a lot out of him, and besides, it was the middle of the night. I'd live.

I pushed myself off Lee and began the long, exhausting process of dragging myself back to the cabin. I had to keep my eyes trained on the ground, squinting in the near pitch–blackness, lest I trip over a rock or root and fall on my face. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get back up.

At least Lee was kind enough not to grill me on the walk/drag back. Multitasking was, alas, outside my skill range for the time being. He kept shooting me worried glances—I was, after all, scraped and bleeding, my clothes filthy and shredded. Rolling around on the rocky ground while a scorpion creature slashed and stabbed at you tended to result in that.

It took a few minutes to reach our cabin. It would have taken about ten seconds (for a person who was stopping to admire the view) under normal circumstances, but I was being overtaken by everything from snails to dead crabgrass.

Lee kept pace with me, an arm around my shoulders, my battered skin slowly pulling itself back together, the bruises fading. One thing he wasn't a good enough healer to take care of was my right side. A creeping numbness had spread across it where the pincer had smacked into me. I hadn't looked at it, but I was sure that if I did, I would see more colors than a pride month celebration under a triple rainbow. Now, feeling was slowly returning, a throbbing ache that would have left me limping and cursing when I leaned too far to one side for weeks.

Thank gods for Michael.

Our cabin was, for once, silent. Everyone had been far too exhausted by the work to stay awake talking. The cabin itself glittered dully in the moonlight. I realized that in the dark, it didn't look much different than the silver cabin of Artemis.

Lee pushed the door open as quietly as he could, gently pulling me up the steps and inside. We sat down on his bed—I doubted I would have the energy to climb the ladder to mine.

It felt as though my throat had been turned to solid stone, and forcing words out was more difficult than climbing Mount Everest. Not that I'd ever climbed it, personally, but I figured it was only slightly easier than speaking.

"So…" I whispered. "What do you want to know?"

Lee squeezed my shoulder. "Everything. If it's not too hard."

I took a deep breath—or tried too, at least, A for effort—and began.

"I got paired with one of the Hephaestus boys—well, you know that, you were there. But neither of us really knew how to fight, so we didn't even bother bringing weapons. Yep, on our way into a dark forest at night to fight monsters we didn't even know anything about, and we didn't even consider, I don't know, a knife or something. Not that that mattered, it turned out."

Lee tilted his head curiously and looked as though he was about to ask a question, but I shook my head. Later, please don't ask. "We were both freaked out because we heard one of the monsters, we had no idea what it was so we just hid behind a tree. I seem to do that a lot." My voice was shaking, and speaking was becoming even harder, but I kept going. "Jake saw what it was before I did, he mouthed the word scorpion. And I seriously thought he said morphine. Then I saw it too. And it saw me. I shouldn't have looked."

I hung my head, curly blond hair hiding my eyes. "We ran—straight at it, like a pair of psychos. I know, I'm disappointed in us too, but the thing was huge. It could have chased us down easily."

My breath rattled in my throat, but I didn't stop. When I spoke again, my voice was so quiet I could barely hear it. "It went for Jake, with its barb. He dodged, and then it smacked me in the side with its pincer. That was why it was so bruised. It knocked me down—well, obviously it did. Then it—well, it kept trying to go for me on the ground, with its pincers and its barb and pretty much every other dangerous appendage. I couldn't get up, and I had to roll around all over the place. The ground was covered with rocks. That's where I got most of—" I gestured to my body—"This.

"Jake distracted it. Threw a crescent wrench at its head. It was confused long enough for me to get up, and I…I…" I took a deep breath, fighting back tears. "I jumped on its back. Now, let me say this in my defense—I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I had to do something. So I got on it, wrapped my arms around its neck…and—and it—"

Lee hadn't said anything, but now he opened his mouth—possibly to chastise me for jumping on a monster's back with no weapon and no idea what I was doing, possibly to ask how the Hades I was alive—but I plowed on before he could say anything. "I melted straight through the dang thing's neck. I have no idea how. I didn't do it on purpose. I definitely couldn't do it again if you asked me. But I did." I hung my head even farther. "Then we had to search for Percy and Annabeth, and I was so tired I could hardly breathe, but I had to go work. I only healed three people, and everyone else took care of the rest, and I'd noticed our siblings looking at me—I mean, of course they were, I was covered in blood. But I didn't have time to explain anything, because, well, work. None of my patients asked either, but I could tell they wanted to. And healing them when I was already more tired than I'd ever been in my life…" My voice broke.

"But I-I hated it, Lee. I hated the way killing the monster felt, it was just-I don't know, wrong." I drew in a shuddering breath and wiped my eyes, angry at myself for showing weakness when I was supposed to be strong. "I never want to do that again. I know it was a fucking monster, and that killing them is our goddamn job, but I hated it. I said that. You already know." Before I could force any more words out, I buried my face in my hands and broke down in sobs.

Lee wrapped his arms around me and held me tight against his chest. "So that's how you survived the attack," he murmured. "I've heard of people—children of Apollo, I mean—doing things like that, but I'd never expected you to be able to…and you didn't pass out after that. Or after that and healing three people. That's amazing, Will."

I buried my face in my brother's chest, shaking with sobs, tears and snot soaking into Lee's shirt. I didn't feel amazing. I didn't feel like a powerful demigod, or a resilient demigod, or even a useful demigod. I felt like a scared and exhausted little kid.

Lee rested his chin on top of my head and said nothing. Some part of me wanted to ask about the mysterious thing that had happened to Percy and Annabeth, but much as I wanted to know what it was, the rest of me just wanted to stay here, wrapped in Lee's arms, allowing myself to be protected.

A quiet, reserved part in the back of my mind knew that it would be a long time before I could feel like that again. I shoved it aside.

I wasn't sure how long we stayed that way, but eventually, exhausted beyond words, I finally fell asleep.

"You killed me, you know."

I whipped around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. I was stranded somewhere in the dark—and I mean dark. Midnight in the bottom of a mine shaft couldn't possibly have been darker.

I need to stop saying dark.

I wasn't sure exactly where I was, but the ground had a squishy feeling. Grass, I thought, but it squelched under my shoes. I didn't want to touch it to make sure, but it felt horribly familiar.

No. Not here. Not again.

"You killed me, and I mean, why stop there?"

The voice that cut through the blackness wasn't weak or broken. It was calm and rational, almost conversational, as if I was having a chat with a friend in the grocery store.

I clutched my head. "Shut up," I whispered, my voice hollow. "You're not real."

"Not real?" The voice was now tinged with amusement. "Not real? I'm hurt, really." The voice was even closer now.

I covered my ears, but it was no use. The sound echoed around my skull, trapped inside like an animal in a cage. Closing my eyes was no use. I still saw the same thing.

"You say I'm not real now, maybe I can get that. I'll choose not to be too offended."

"Not too offended," I muttered. "I'm fucking honored."

"You should be, healer." The thing spat the word out as if it was the world's worst insult. "You did this. My blood. Your hands. Your fault." A strange, gurgling laugh.

"Yeah, you guys keep telling me that," I said with a sigh. "You can't come up with anything original?" I tried to keep the tremble out of my voice, but it was like trying to hold down a greased otter. Stupid subconscious.

"You know what you did," the thing said. "You can lie to yourself all you want, but you can't lie to me. I know. I know." The voice was changing, becoming broken, fractured.

I clenched my hands into fists, trying to keep them from trembling. Not that the thing could see, in the dark. Unless it could. "Look, I've been working all night. I really don't know how I can talk even in the—wherever this is. But could you please come back, I don't know, tomorrow night, or the night after that?" Or never. Never would work. "I don't know what you want from me, but whatever it is, no. Just no."

The definition of insanity is not, in case you were wondering, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. It's trying to convince your subconscious to shut up and come back later.

But I didn't care. Shit, by that point, if my nightmare creatures had shown me a schedule of their free time and told me that they were free for a few minutes on Tuesday, I would have said yes, thank you very much, I'll take that. Take that and be grateful.

The thing laughed—it was a horrible sound, brittle and broken, full of hurt and anger and bitter amusement. "Come back later? I'm here. I'm always here." The air was slowly becoming hot, suffocating. "You think you didn't do anything? Fine. See how long that lasts."

Dread curled into a ball in my stomach. "And what exactly do you mean by that?"

The thing began to laugh again. The laugh seemed to change tones and pitches, going from the wild cackle of a deranged serial killer to the deep–throated chuckle of an old fisherman to the scared, nervous giggle of a child who knows they are in trouble and is too terrified not to laugh. It seemed to change places, to my left one second, to my right the next, so far I could hardly hear it, so close the thing seemed to be laughing right in my ear, a faint whisper below the ground, ringing and vibrating around the inside of my skull.

I lost it.

I curled in a ball on the blood–soaked ground, trapped in a blanked it suffocating air, my hands clenched over my ears so hard it felt like I was trying to crush my skull. "Please…" I whimpered. "Please…get…out…"

The laughter never stopped ringing, but the voice began to speak again. "Oh, you want me out, do you? You want me out?" It somehow gave a second laugh, a wild, shrill one, teetering on the edge of insanity. "You want me out?" It repeated. "Well, I think we have something in common!"

"What…what…what do you…" My voice trailed off. I realized my hand was wrapped around something. It seemed impossible—I hadn't been holding anything a second ago, I hadn't picked something up, and nothing had appeared on my hand, but here it was, as real and undeniable as the fear I had felt hiding from the birds, dodging the scorpion, trying to reason with a nightmare.

I was holding a wooden handle, wrapped in leather. I couldn't see what was on the other end, but I had seen enough weapons to know what the handle of a knife looked—and felt—like. Probably a good-sized dagger, judging by the weight. Something you could do a lot of damage with.

Although I guess I already had.

"Do it," the thing hissed. "End it now, do it now, before you have to see, before you have to know what I know, to see what I saw."

I looked around. The field was invisible in the dark, but I had seen it enough times in my dreams to have it memorized. "I have seen—I do know—"

"YOU KNOW NOTHING!" the voice shrieked, terrified and bitter and angry all at once. "You think you have seen, but you do not know, could not…" The thing broke into a hacking cough. It was all too easy to imagine the blood pouring down the chin, thick and dark and viscous…

"DO IT!" the thing screamed again, voice thick and bubbling with blood. "DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! DO—"

My eyes snapped open.

Golden sunlight was streaming into my eyes, pouring over the cabin and forcing me to squint. The blankets were twisted around my legs, my breath coming in short, rapid bursts. I registered dimly that I was in my own bed—Lee must have carried me up here after I'd fallen asleep.

I closed my eyes again, trying to even out my breathing. I wasn't the best interpreter of nightmares—especially psychotic demigod nightmares—but unless I'd been downing vials of morphine like shots, that thing had been telling me to…

No. There was no way. I would never.

Would you, though? A voice at the back of my head whispered, the same voice which had told me I wouldn't be protected again.

"Glad to see you're alive."

I whirled around, twisting the blankets even further. My shaggy curls hung in my eyes. For a second I thought they were soaked with blood, and I had a brief but intense moment of panic. The next, I realized they were only soaked with sweat. I tried to shake them out of my eyes, but accomplished nothing more than getting hair in my eyes and nearly yelping in pain. Fuck.

"Relax, I was just checking on you." Phoenix was leaning against the next bed over. "We were wondering when you'd be up." She smiled, but I caught a hint of worry in her eyes. "Sorry if I woke you up. Lee told us to let you sleep—actually, he very firmly ordered us. I was just seeing if you were okay."

"You did wake me up," I muttered, rubbing at my eyes. "But thank Apollo you did—gods only know what I would've done if you'd left me in there."

"What?"

"Never mind." I sighed and threw off the blankets. I might have told Harper about my nightmare, once, a long time ago, but that was no more. No time like the present to move the fuck on from the past.

"What time is it?" My voice was hoarse and croaky-although, given everything, I though it was pretty impressive that I could talk at all.

"Almost eleven."

I grimaced. Almost eleven might seem pretty normal to you, but Apollo kids were usually up at the crack of dawn. I'd seen some of my siblings, on multiple occasions, rise before the sun, just so they could see the full sunrise. "Michael's gonna kill me."

"Actually, no he's not," Phoenix corrected. "He's well aware of…well…whatever happened. Lee told him, I think. Point is, he knows you need rest."

"Lee told him?" I asked.

"Yeah, so that Michael wouldn't mind you missing a few hours of work. All he told the rest of us is that you had a real close call with the scorpion, but managed to kill it."

"You could say that," I mumbled. "I'll tell you more later, promise. For now, I promised I'd talk to someone."

My sister nodded. "Don't fall asleep standing up."

"No promises." I yawned, reflecting (not for the first time) on the fact that the just–woken–up person has to wait several minutes before they can tell if they're any more rested than they were when they went to sleep.

I dragged myself over to the ladder (which hurt), down the ladder (which hurt), and across the cabin (I think you can guess what it did). Clearly, I would have to find a better healer to take care of my side. The pain had exploded overnight, forcing me to remain ramrod straight lest I lean too far to the right.

Phoenix watched me with concern. "Uh, can I look?"

"I guess I can only put it off for so long," I sighed. "All right, let's do this." I had been avoiding looking at my side, scared of what I would see, but, as they say, the jig is up.

I winced as I pulled my shirt up. Phoenix bit back a gasp. "Oh, jeez, Will…"

My side had blossomed into an unbelievable range of colors, from delicate orange to emerald green to midnight black. I'd always thought that being pinched by the pincers was the worst thing that could happen to you. I stand corrected.

"Yeah, I'd definitely take that to Michael," she said with a grimace. "Preferably before you go to talk to whoever it is you're talking to."

I bit back a yelp of pain as I dropped my shirt back down. "I will, I will. But I promised…"

She sighed. "Fine. But you will go get that fixed." She tousled my hair, which I always pretended to hate.

"I said I will!" I ducked away from her hand, opened the door, and crept down the steps like an old man, wincing with every movement. "See you later!"

"Later. Try not to pass out from the pain."

I thought (as I moved at the speed of a snail, cringing every time I took a step) that if I passed out, it would probably be caused by lingering exhaustion. I had firmly decided that I had not, in fact, been asleep long enough to feel rested. Ideally, I would have several more hours of rest. Possibly several days. But I promised I would talk to Jake, and I wasn't about to go back on a promise to a friend. (I had decided to stick with the label friend, although I acknowledged it might be a little soon.)

At least the day was bright—obnoxiously bright, some might say, but I loved it. The sunlight certainly helped the pain. I could only imagine how much worse it would be if I had to do this on a cloudy—or, gods forbid, rainy—day.

I was halfway across camp before I realized that I actually had no idea where Jake would be. Racking my memory, I recalled that he was Hephaestus's boy—one who had carried a crescent wrench in his pocket. Key word had. I hoped he wasn't mad, he lost his good wrench because of me.

Taking all that into consideration and using my amazing detective skills, I deduced that Jake was most likely in the forges. I hadn't actually been in there before—just looked in from the outside. I recalled fiery kilns, welding tools, and blazing hot swords. Not really my scene, but dying people probably weren't Jake's scene either. All the power to blacksmiths, I guess.

It took me two tries to figure out where the forges were. Almost ended up trapped in the armory (and I knew from experience that one could get lost in the labyrinth of helmets and breastplates), but that's beside the point.

The air around the metalworking building was heavy with clanking and shouting. I admire people who can spend all their time in there, forging metal and working the bellows and all that. I could never do it.

To my surprise (and relief), nobody looked at me strangely. True, I was walking extremely slowly and wincing every second, but they were all occupied with their welding and forging and you know the rest.

The air was thick with flying sparks, and I found myself wincing every time one landed near me. I know now that fires need oxygen to start, but remember, I hadn't been to school since I was ten, and I had completely forgotten the fire triangle.

I found Jake in the far corner, attaching what looked like wheel spokes and car door handles (I decided not to ask). His face was covered with a heavy metal welding visor, which seemed kind of a moot point, given that he was welding with his bare hands. They, as well as his visor and clothes, were covered with machine shop grime.

He glanced up at the sound of my approach and turned off his welding torch. The shower of sparks promptly vanished. He pushed up his visor, shaking sweat–soaked curls out of his face, and grinned at me. His face was just as grease–stained as the rest of him, his eyes shining mischievously out of the grime. "Hey. You're not dead."

"Oh, brilliant, brilliant. You should have gone into the medical field instead of me." I snorted and pushed my hair out of my face. "You are not dead."

"Shut up." He gave me a concerned look. "Still, you look like you've been going through Hades."

I realized I was sweating almost as much as he was. Probably just from the effort of getting here, I told myself. "I have been going through Hades. I need to get Michael to heal my side. Lee's great, but his healing skills can only do so much."

"Your side…" He blinked in confusion, then smacked his forehead. "Ohh, right that's where the—the—" He made a pinching motion with his fingers. Scissors beats paper.

"Pincers, dummy. And I came to tell you that I am not, indeed, a mutant created in a lab."

He grinned crookedly. "Right, the meltyface thing. Glad to hear it. And a little disappointed."

I snorted again. "First of all, we are not calling it the meltyface thing—"

"Yes we are."

"Second, apparently Lee has heard of Apollo's children having that power before, he just never expected me to have it. And he says it's amazing that I didn't pass out after doing that and healing several people." Three was hardly several, but hey, shut up.

"Yes yes, you're very powerful, now shut up about it." Jake's mischievous grin faded, replaced by a slightly nervous expression. "And did you hear about the…" His voice trailed off.

Worry curled into a ball in the bottom of my stomach. "No, I didn't. I'm assuming you're referring to whatever happened to Annabeth and Percy?"

Jake nodded. "It's…well, do you know about the Labyrinth?"

I started to say I didn't, but then I paused. I remembered a story I had once read in a picture book of Greek mythology—a half–man, half–bull creature, wings made of feathers and wax, a maze created by a genius inventor who became its prisoner. A maze that couldn't be escaped.

"Shit," I cursed.

"Shit," Jake agreed.

A piece of metal exploded next to us, showering us both with sparks.

"Gods, Will, I don't know how you even managed to walk over here."

The infirmary was empty except for the two of us. Michael's face was solemn as he took in the rainbow hellscape of my right side. Getting over here had been pretty tricky-I had been gasping the whole way and nearly screamed with pain at one point. But the pain in my side was already fading, the colorful skin returning to its normal shade. "Hey, you think you could erase the skin and keep the colors? They're pretty cool.'

Michael raised his eyebrows. "I hope you're kidding."

"Don't worry, I am." I fixed my gaze on my hand, the knuckles newly scarred and beat-up. It looked as though I had been punching brick walls instead of fighting a scorpion. "So..." I said quietly. "Is it true? About Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson?"

Michael stared at me. "Of course it's true, Will." He fixed his gaze on my side again. "You saw them escape the Labyrinth the first time."

My shoulders slumped slightly. "I know. I just can't believe anyone would survive in there and go back in willingly."

My brother shrugged. "It's their job. Hopefully they'll survive-they probably will. They're strong. Of course, we might never know."

I blinked. This was news to me. "What do you mean?"

"Time works differently in the Labyrinth. A minute in there could be a year out here, or it might still be a minute. It could be a millisecond. We just won't know."

I shivered. The idea that you could be lost underground, not knowing if everyone you knew was dead, was terrifying to me. Actually, being lost underground was terrifying to me, period. Being trapped in the dark under miles of stone, knowing you couldn't reach sunlight even if you wanted to...that, I really couldn't imagine.

Still battling off nerves, I watched as the last of the bruise faded.

It's fine.

You'll be fine.

You're alive.

Days later, Gracie ran up to me, breathing hard. I tensed up, remembering the other times my sibling had run up to me.

But something in my sister's face told me it wasn't anyone in our cabin.

"Will!" She gasped. "Annabeth's back! She's alive!"

My head jerked back with surprise. I hadn't seen or heard her. Nobody had told me.

I could feel myself tightening, bracing for the news. When it came, I was prepared, although it still felt like a hammer blow.

Gracie's face was unreadable. "She's making the burial shroud."

I clenched my eyes shut, willing it all to go away. "The burial shroud?"

She nodded. "I saw her when she first came back. And you're the first one in the cabin I've told."

I fought to keep my voice steady. "Do-do you want me to tell the others?"

"Tell them," Gracie said quietly, "That Percy Jackson is dead."