Inside the safe house, Thalia walked in circles around me, examining my every feature while Mia and Ava stood at a distance.

"I don't know Ava," Thalia said as she walked around me.

"Don't know... what exactly?" I asked.

"I mean, I know it's unusual but it's the only explanation right?" Ava asked.

"I mean, the only demigods I've met with aerokinetic abilities are children of Zeus," Mia commented.

"But aerokinesis is a very advanced maneuver for children of Zeus to learn. It took Jason a long time to get a handle on it," Thalia responded.

"Jason?" I asked.

"My brother," Thalia said calmly. She then turned back to Ava and Mia, "Typically, our powers first manifest with lightning abilities." Thalia then held up my fingertips. "His fingers aren't singed and don't smell like they ever had been. That's not really how children of Zeus manifest their powers,"

"So Zeus... isn't my dad...?" I asked.

"Well," Thalia continued to muse. "It's possible. I mean, you are the first demigod to appear since the Codex, so maybe that affected how your abilities manifested. But I mean, technically you shouldn't even exist,"

"Wait... what?" I said slowly. Barely anything Ava or now Thalia had told has made a lick of sense to this point, but this revelation hit differently. "I'm not supposed to exist?"

As it turns out, I liked existing.

"I mean, Thalia was a forbidden child too and she turned out fine," Ava commented.

Thalia shot her a look of so not helping and Ava shrugged.

"Let's have a seat," Thalia said.

She beckoned for the Hunters to give her, Mia and Ava the room and then gestured for Charlie and I to sit down.

"As you learned, Will, you, I and Ava are all demigods." Thalia started to say.

"So am I," Mia chimed in. She glanced at a plant on the window sill and instantly little blades of grass sprang up around it. "Daughter of Demeter,"

Thalia nodded at her and continued, "Years ago, demigod abilities would usually manifest around puberty. Unfortunately, that's also when monsters would start to hunt us and we'd have to find our way to the demigod sanctuary, Camp Half-Blood to stay safe." Thalia said.

Now that didn't seem right to me. Especially now that I had seen up close how dangerous these monsters were.

"... but if our parents are these Gods, can't they just like, teleport us there or something? They wouldn't leave us to just fend for ourselves?" I asked her.

Ava laughed. "The Gods teleporting us to safety? That's rich," she continued.

"I mean, it makes sense to me," Charlie says.

Thalia offered a weak smile. "The Gods don't work like that. The more danger you face, the stronger of a hero you become. Isn't that why you chose to use your powers to fight crime?"

"I mean, that was different. That was before I was attacked by a scorpion lion - ,"

"Manticore," Ava corrected me.

"Yeah, manticore, whatever. My point is, if there was no danger, we wouldn't have to be heroes," I continued.

Thalia chuckled, "If only it was that simple,"

I still didn't get why it couldn't be that simple, but since Thalia wasn't a God, I doubted she would know.

"So can I not go to this Camp Half-Blood because I'm 'forbidden'?" I asked

"Not quite," Mia said. "You can't go to Camp Half-Blood because it doesn't exist anymore,"

Now I was really dumbfounded.

"It doesn't exist?" I asked, "I thought it was some kind of demigod sanctuary?"

"Well," Thalia responded, "It used to be, until Zeus outlawed demigods,"

Charlie and I glanced at each other.

"Uhhhh, I don't get it," I said

"The Codex Thalia mentioned earlier is the Codex of Fissus," Mia said.

"Indeed," Ava said while nodding solemnly. "Around ten years ago, the Mist began to fail. No one knew why and Zeus demanded Hecate fix it, but she said couldn't. She never explained why it was deteriorating and never came up with a solution to fix it,"

"Earlier, you said Charlie could see through the Mist... is that the same thing you're talking about?" I questioned.

"Right," Mia interjects. "The Mist shields the mortal world from the mythical. It keeps humans from seeing monsters but also helps keep monsters away from humans. Monsters crave the smell of demigods and hunt them relentlessly. The Mist worked from both ends, and kept the monsters from mistaking humans for demigods."

"So that's why the manticore attacked me," I realized.

"Yeah see, you're starting to get it," Thalia said encouragingly.

"And if I didn't save you, he would have eaten you and found you quite delicious," Ava replied.

Mia shot her a look of why.

"But what does the Mist have to do with the Codex you keep bringing up?" Charlie questioned.

"Well like we said, ten years ago, the Mist began to fail." Thalia continued, "So monsters were now getting humans and demigods confused. If a human had any demigod scent on them, they were now in grave danger. And then one day, the sea monster Scylla devoured the Magnifica, a cruise ship full of mortal people in the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from its usual habitat."

"Oh my god," Charlie suddenly said, "One of my mom's clients and her husband were on that ship. She always said it sank from mechanical failure,"

"Well, there's some accuracy to that. But Scylla was definitely the cause of any mechanical failure. Artemis brought me and a few other Hunters to investigate ourselves and found that there wasn't even a demigod on that ship. Someone was borrowing their friends' clothes, who happened to be a demigod. Hundreds of innocent people died, just because of that," Ava responded.

The room fell silent for a haunting amount of time.

"That's so..." I started but trailed off.

"Tragic. It's tragic and horrifying and Zeus realized he needed to take responsibility." Thalia replied. "So he and Hephaestus created the Codex of Fissus, a device designed to keep demigods mortal. Zeus know the Gods wouldn't stop having children with mortals, so Hephaestus created a device that would render demigods mortal, to cut down on monsters,"

"But like... how?" I asked.

Mia chimed in, "Well, the Olympians are essentially beings of vast dynamic energy. When they have children, that energy passes down to their child. But because it's confined to a mortal body, that energy is finite and eventually will dissipate from every demigod. That's why demigods still die even though Olympians don't. So the Codex siphons off that energy and redistributes it into nature, which effectively cuts off demigods from their heritage and abilities,"

"Huh," I responded while trying to mentally put those pieces together.

"So then, I shouldn't have any powers at all then?" I mused aloud.

"That is the million drachma question," Ava continued.

Charlie and I looked at her confused.

"Drachmas? You know - ," She started. "Actually, never mind. Basically, you shouldn't have powers at all. Every god, including Zeus, was told to join the Codex or they were forbidden from having children with mortals. And every demigod at the time had a few options, live a normal life free of gods and monsters, or if they were female, they could join the Hunters and retain their abilities,"

Mia spoke up again, "That's why I became a Hunter, to maintain my connection with nature,"

"I still can't believe Annabeth didn't join us," Thalia mused out loud.

Who's Annabeth? I thought.

"She wanted to settle down with Percy, that was never going to happen," Mia responded.

Thalia rolled her eyes, "For a daughter of Athena, don't really see how wisdom played a role in that decision," she muttered.

Charlie then got a confused look on his face.

"Wait, you said this sea monster attack happened ten years ago, but you said you yourself investigated it, Thalia... wouldn't you have been like 7 or 8?" He asked.

Mia laughed out loud and looked at Ava.

"You really didn't tell him yet?"

Ava shrugged.

"It never came up," she replied.

"Told us... what?" Charlie asked.

"Hunters of Artemis are immortal," Thalia replied. "We don't age. I joined when I was about 15 but that was almost 20 years ago."

"I joined just before I turned 18, which was about ten years ago," Mia added.

"And I joined when I was... what 16?" Ava said while looking at Mia and Thalia.

"Sounds about right," Thalia acknowledged.

"Oh so that was like 10, 20 years ago too?" Charlie asked.

"More like... what a couple millennia now?" Ava mused.

The room fell silent again.

"You're... you're over two thousand years old?!?!" Charlie exclaimed.

"Sounds about right. My demigod abilities manifested about when Jesus was crucified, because that's about when Zeus decided Olympians would no longer meddle directly in mortal matters."

I could tell this was hard for Charlie to digest, so I attempted to change the subject.

"Why'd Zeus decide that?" I asked.

"Something about Jesus being the Son of God, but since the Romans killed him, Zeus didn't want to potentially war with a God more powerful than him," Ava replied calmly.

"Hence why he had Hecate create the Mist back then," Mia added on.

"Huh," I replied, trying to act nonchalant. "Makes total sense. And I'm guessing this Annabeth girl didn't want to join because she didn't want to see this Percy guy, who must have been her boyfriend, get old while she didn't?"

"I mean kind of," Thalia replied. "But Artemis is also a virgin goddess, so to join her Hunters, you must swear off romantic entanglements."

"But her twin brother Apollo doesn't quite grasp this and he's constantly asking out our sisters," Mia continued.

I looked over at Charlie and could literally see the color draining from his face.

"Oh um, that's, uh, really, um, totally..." He stammered.

"Totally worth it, I couldn't agree more," Ava continued.

Once again, I decided to change the subject.

"So somehow, my dad must not have joined the Codex, but still had kids anyway," I concluded.

"But that's the issue," Thalia concluded, "Because whether you're Zeus' child or not, either he himself or another God is in direct violation of the Codex,"

"So what do we do?" Charlie asked.

Just then we heard a knock at the door. Thalia shot Mia a quizzical look. Mia then rushed off and before we could see where she was headed, Ava urged Charlie and me to get down and we hit under a bench behind the table.

Thalia walked to the door trepidatiously and slid the peephole open.

"Hello Hunter," a voice said on the other side.

Ava's face immediately went pale.

"What, who is that?" I asked quietly.

"Shhhhh," Ava hissed back.

"Lycaon," Thalia answered with a scowl. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, are you not happy to see me?" The voice that I assumed was Lycaon replied.

Now I couldn't see whoever she was speaking to from my view point, but man was his voice creepy. Imagine the voice of the worst teacher or substitute you ever had. Now imagine them scratching their nails on the chalkboard while they spoke. That's not exactly how it sounded, but it's exactly how it felt. It sent shivers down my spine and terrified my very core. And it was like I could hear him right in front of me, even though I knew he was outside.

"You have no business here," Thalia responded to Lycaon. "Leave now, and we may still show you mercy," I heard her say.

Lycaon chuckled. And again, although he was several meters away and behind a steel door, I could hear and feel his voice like it was right in front of me.

I looked at Ava and mouthed, "who is this guy?"

She held her fingers to her lips intensely.

I guess I was asking too many questions.

"We know the forbidden one is here. My pack hasn't smelled demigod that fresh in ages," Lycaon continued.

"I don't know what you're referring to," I heard Thalia reply. "But if you don't leave now, my Hunters and I will kill every last one of you,"

I was so wrapped up in what Thalia was saying, I didn't even feel my hand being tapped by Charlie. He roughly grabbed my shoulder and directed my gaze over to Ava, who was crawling to what looked like a living room. Charlie and I followed her on all fours trying to remain as quiet as possible, where we saw Mia opening a trapdoor in the floor that must have led underground. She hurriedly beckoned for us to come inside. Before I got in behind, Ava and Charlie, I could hear the last thing Lycaon said.

"That's funny, my wolves said the same thing when they slayed your lookout Hunters. But hey, maybe they didn't get them. But we always get what we're coming for,"

The next he said, I heard like he was directly facing me.

"And we're coming for you,"

Only seconds after the trap door shut did what sounded like breaking glass coming through dozens of windows. Ava hurriedly had us run down the hallway and I could hear battle cries amidst wolf shrieks as we ran through the underground tunnel.

"Keep going this way, Ava said, "We're going to reach the end in a beyond this reach,"

That's when I heard what sounded like a teenage girl yelping as she slammed into the wall.

"No," I said and stopped in my tracks.

"What do you mean, no?" Ava asked.

"No, I'm not leaving and putting more people in danger for me." Tears started welling in my eyes, "These girls shouldn't have to die just because of me!"

I dropped to my knees and Ava knelt down beside me.

"Will, I know how you're feeling. Those girls are my sisters. I've known most of them since before your grandparents were born. But they're risking their lives for something bigger than themselves. This is bigger than you now. And you need to survive for us to get to the bottom of it," she said.

"I don't care," I said, my voice rising in intensity. "I don't care how big it is, I don't care about some obscure destiny when people are DYING just for me."

I stood up. "I'm going back, I'll take my chances with the wolf-man if it means the killing will stop,"

I started to head that way when I felt Ava's hand on my chest.

"Even if giving yourself up meant what you thought it meant, I can't let you do that," Ava said.

"Back off," I said and shoved her arm away.

"Will..." Charlie started to say.

I know he and Ava meant well, and they'd done nothing but help me up to this point. But Lycaon was clear - he wants me. For some reason, I'm forbidden. I can't let other people die if I can prevent it.

Ava grabbed my wrist and pinned me against the wall.

"Will, we have to go now, stop," she said.

There wasn't a lot of air in the underground tunnel, but there was just enough for me to push her off my back and onto the other wall. I started to run towards where we came from when I tripped and landed hard on my ribs, knocking the wind out of me.

"So that's how that feels," I groaned and turned to see Charlie holding the wire that looked like it tripped me.

"Charlie...?" I questioned.

Suddenly Ava appeared over me and all I saw was her arm as everything went black.