Not everything was smooth sailing as the year continued to roll by.
There had been one day where she caught sight of Ethan watching them from a distance. Drew had seen or rather, she had sensed him too. She snatched the pendant that he gifted her for her birthday from the year before, threw it onto the ground, and dug her heel into it as she walked away. He had hurriedly to step in front of her though he backed off when her crossbow appeared in her hands.
Lea watched the proceedings a bit bemused as she looked between the two soulmates.
"What you want, Ethan Nakamura," Drew said, but Lea didn't miss the way she forced herself to say Ethan's name. She regrets all the times she made of their relationship and all the seeds of jealousy she felt for the easy comradery the two of them had because if this is love, this brokenness and despair she sees so clearly on Drew's face, she doesn't want it.
Drew had been drifting around like a ghost, and before Lea even knew it, something with her cracked painfully. It was as if the world turned upside down but Lea understood with a certain clarity that this? These marks on their skin that bound their souls to other people were not blessings. no, these were curses.
"You're not going to shoot me, Aeri." He murmured, looking at her pleadingly. "Please. Just he—achhh." Drew shot a quarrel right into his arm before walking away with her head held high. Lea knew that it was a mask though. And Lea ached every moment she heard Drew cry silently at night, curled into a ball on her bed. The blankness in her face as a child of love slowly became loveless and it was terrifying. She wished she knew what to say, but all she could offer was her companionship. All she could do was lie beside her, watching as life passed them by until the earth covered them and they were gone from this world.
Lea picked the necklace up, rubbing her thumb across it. "Personal loss should not be mine, restore this necklace and make it fine." It shimmered green before righting itself and she threw at Ethan with a dark smile curling her lips. "You can really have this back to be honest. She has enough diamonds."
And then she flounced off to follow behind her best friend.
She said nothing when later on that night after checking in on Annabeth and Percy searching for the last of their blessings ("I have a spreadsheet," Annabeth had said typing away on Daedalus' laptop. "It has spreadsheets."); she walked in to see Drew completing a cord cutting mantra using careful instructions from Lea's notebook. "I release you with a full heart with love for the place you once held in my life. May you be happy in the life you have chosen. I now take back all the energy that has been taken from me or that I have given away and I return the energy that I still hold from you. May I be free from the ties that bind us. may all cords be cut, transmuted and dissolved. May all energy return to its original send with power, peace, and forgiveness. I ask that this complete and sealed now. So it is."
Lea didn't want to tell her that Lady Eurybiê's notes stated that it doesn't work on soulmates; otherwise, Lea would have done it for herself, but at the same time, Drew's mother was one of the goddess that held domain over them so who knows what she would allow.
She sat down with her Mother and Percy to the explain the truth of them to Paul once he gathered the nerve to propose to their Mother. He needed to know what he was getting himself into though he hadn't really believe them until Percy turned the sinks and showers on with just his mind and Lea summoned the transmission out of his car using her mageia. It still didn't stop the man and soon, Drew, Silena, and Eliza (who was still dutifully ignoring Annabeth and Percy's kicked puppy looks) were planning out a beautiful winter wedding for the two and somehow Lea was in charge of the snow when the wedding was happening in winter in New York City.
Truthfully, Lea was just happy to see the life back in Drew's eyes as she set on the task.
And each passing day, confidence reappeared in her steps. She remembered she was a "bad lil smoochie from the X".
"NeNe," Drew groaned as they walked to the cafeteria one day. "I'm so hungry I could eat you right now."
"Don't threaten me with a good time," Lea replied back easily, not paying any mind to the sudden squeak from one Drew's new worshippers. She had their classmates eating out the palm of her hand, following at the nip of her heels and all desperate for her attention. Whenever Lea asked about one of the people that would disappear from her new legions of followers to linger on the sidelines watching her as she broke their heart, she would snort prettily and wave her hand about. "I stopped talking to them, you know. It never gave settling."
Lea knew that it was just her way to try to get over Ethan even if it wasn't working.
She helped Percy as best as she could in trying to find his soulmate and had to deal his pining for a person he hadn't even met. "I need him biblically." Her brother would say. "I need him in a way that's concerning to feminism." Lea would snort and push him off of her bed, "You need jesus and I don't even believe in him."
Though of course, all that made her think about trying to date someone and she brought it up to Hermes at one point, wondering if he would be mature and not cause them harm.
The conversation went a bit...
"I need a breathing machine," he said, clutching at his chest and staring at her with wide eyes. Lea raised a brow. "No... I wouldn't..." It sounded like it physically pained him to just that. "But, uh, don't kiss them."
Lea scrunched her nose. She hadn't even had her first kiss. She wasn't going to waste it on some idiot. "Sure," she shrugged. "But you can't kiss anyone else either." Though, she supposed that was a bit hard for him considering his wife who was still using Lea's face like she was at some ongoing costume party.
Hermes shrugged. "The only person that I would want to kiss does not want to kiss me."
"Someone with some self-respect? I want to meet them."
"Look in the mirror."
Lea blinked before snorting softly, hiding away her blush as she quickly changed the subject. "You know, centaurs have six limbs and are therefore insects."
The god had hurried to leave under the pretense of delivering letters.
Of course, the relationship with Hermes also brought some more unsavory people into her life though it was made worse considering the war. Though, she supposed that Trent could be blamed also.
It happened one day while Drew and Lea were getting ready to meet up with Alabaster to look for Halloween costumes. (The girl had already given up on trying to convince them to not animate any decorations. Lea resolved to find the biggest nutcracker for Christmas and all the little baby cupids for Valentine's day.)
"Excuse me, are you Leaneira?" came a voice from behind them. Lea turned with a raised brow. The person that spoke was a bit taller than her, a brunette with blue eyes and freckles. They looked to be a few years older than her, but it was hard to tell with the aliens... if they were one of them.
"Who's asking?"
"I am." they replied instantly and Lea huffed as Drew raised a brow.
"I'm not blind," Lea said dryly. "I can see you in front me. Who are you?"
"My name is Allison." Never heard of her. "Do you know a boy name Arkas?"
Lea and Drew exchanged quick looks before turning back to her. "I know a couple of Arkas's." Literally. Hermes, Arkas, the tortoise, and every kid of Hermes at camp could use the name as an epithet.
"Arkas from Arcadia. He's from Greece."
Lea raised a brow, looking her up and down. Was this someone he had a relationship with? "I know him like a pastor knows his word," she smirked. He had previously mentioned that he stopped his more promiscuous relationships following the retrieval of their marks. "Why? Is he okay?"
"He's fine," she snapped, but Lea could sense the unease and uncertainty in her words. "What's going on between you and him?"
"Please stay out of my business before I have you crying all the way to Christmas." Lea scoffed, turning away. Drew snickered, looking the girl up and down. "Look at you," the daughter of doves said. "Walking over smelling like regrets and bad decisions and have the audacity to confront someone? You're not Barbara and she's not Shirley."
"I wasn't talking to you." Allison sneered at Drew.
Her best friend kept her smile as she looked at her. "You should really keep it cute or put it on mute, but looking at you, well..."
Allison huffed, turning back to Lea. "It's all over the Heights."
"You're from the Heights?" Lea was a bit more interested in the conversation. "I've never seen you before."
"Carla does my hair whenever I'm in New York or Jersey."
Carla did Lea's hair also though Daniela was quite protective over it, knowing how uncomfortable Lea was with it, but not having the heart to cut it off. Allison straightened her posture as if the few added inches were supposed to intimidate either of them. "And it's precisely how I know that you're dating him. I saw him at Usnavi's store. I don't know why he's going by Hermes, but stay away from him."
The smile dropped off her face as Lea scoffed. "I don't give a fuck what you heard or you seen me with. Until I, Leaneira Jackson say that I am cuffed, taken, off the market or however you want to call it. I am single. A free motherfucking agent. And well, if you feel some type of way and this ruffles ya feathers, squat down and quack like a duck, chuck." She shrugged. "I don't give a fuck."
"Okay, Dr. Seuss," Drew laughed as they pushed passed Allison.
They had more important things to be doing.
Halloween saw them dressed in a plethora of outfits which Medea and Magnus and Eliza decided to join them. Lea was going as Lady Loki though she had previously decided on the Evil Enchantress from CHARMED. Paige's past life. She had shrugged when asked about it. She had the headpiece and clothing for it and green was her color. (Percy claimed that they didn't have colors, but he and their Mother had a whole thing about blue so clearly, they did have colors.) But she decided on Loki considering that she had his mythical sword thingy, her soulmate was the Divine Trickster of the Greek stories to match him as the Norse Trickster, he was her favorite character from the norse myths and her second favorite of the Marvel comics, and because they were both powerful as hell.
She had wanted to match with her brother; however, Percy went as Tempest which she had been quick to point out as hypocritical to her own costume but one thing that the twins agreed on was: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". In fact, they all mainly dressed in costumes that required the least amount of effort but considering that most of them were also mages. Drew was going as the Pink Power Ranger, utilizing her personal bow because "we can never go anywhere nice and not have to fight a monster". Which only happened six out of ten times. Annabeth had decided to go as Brunhild from the comics, unraveling her locks which had been surprisingly long before plating them. Beckendorf had commissioned her some personal armor for the occasion using the help of Annabeth and Ángela, another of Aphrodite's children who preferred to make her own clothes. Medea went as the bride of Chucky while Magnus followed the rest of them by going as a comic book character. He decided to go as Static using his own surprising mageia to recreate electromagnetic powers through crystals. Alabaster went as the Sorcerer Supreme, Stephen Strange, using the Mist to mimic the Cloak's movement without wind.
Eliza decided to take a page out of Lea's book and dressed up as her own Mother except unlike Lea, who was going as Lady Loki of the comics; Eliza was firmly Aphrodite of the myths.
(And she swore that Annabeth and Percy were drooling when they saw her.)
When Lea had seen Drew's costume, she had only been able to say: "You know its crazy how the power rangers used to really skip school so they can jump people. I aspire to be like that." Words that she had wanted to take back immediately when they had been contact by Hermes who needed the three of them to go on a short quest to find "Book of the Damned" like that wasn't foreboding at all.
Apparently, it was filled with dark magic and not anything that just meant dealing with shadows and night time. No, the spells within dealt with summoning the most evilest monsters directly from Tartara; some so old that even the gods had forgotten about them. It had power to bring biblical demons to life. It was written by an old pope centuries ago during the formative years of the British Empire who had been cursed with madness by Dionysos after the man had tried to rape the alien's son. Dionysos had ordered his maenads to keep the pope in a terrifying state of life and death, hovering over the line for his actions. In turn, the pope cried desperate pleads for forgiveness that Dionysos refused to listen to instead the alien asked his the Twin Archers to send their arrows to the pope's land allowing the Black Death plague tp repeatedly returned to haunt the man until he ran to hide within the wild. Even then he had been spared no reprieve. The pope driven by his madness crafted the Book based on what he saw, which was somewhat distorted images of the aliens "true forms". Distorted because Dionysos refused to allow him to die after what he had done. The pope used his own skin for pages and his own blood for ink. It was like a horcrux from Harry Potter as his own soul and madness was trapped within it.
Lea felt sick, but she and her friends went on the quest while the various soulmates went trick or treating. Even Bomon made an appearance apparently being shared in custody by Medea and Magnus though Lea had been on the quest also.
Of course as they were searching for the damn thing which ended up Indiana of all places, they needed a distraction from the hoards of monsters and brainwashed mortals that were lingering around the building.
"Lea," Drew had whispered as they peaked over a railing. "Put on your harlot clothes." The ones she had gotten when she was in Hyperborea and the like. "We need to make a sacrifice for the greater good."
Lea scowled at her, hissing under her breath. "You just want Hermes to come and kill everyone if those pervs say the wrong thing."
"I second this plan," Alabaster said. "These are authentic chanel robes and monster dust is hard to get rid of." Lea stuck her tongue out at him.
And they had ended in a fight either way when their location had been found by one of the demigods on patrol. They had immediately called out an alarm the moment they saw them, drawing weapons to attack that the trio had only just barely dodged.
The person had smiled meanly at them with the most horrible rainbow dye job that Lea had seen. It was choppy and the colors were mixing and she was sure that Drew had thrown up. "Well, well, well, what do we have here? Intruders."
Lea had faked a yawn as she looked at them. "Are you going to monologue? I'm not a fan of monologues." Beside her, Alabaster gave a broad burst of mageia that wiped out half the monsters around them. "Or are you all going to turn a blind eye to us and let us get what we came for because I'm telling you now, I am not in the mood to fight. You should have really ignored us the way we ignored you."
"You were spying on us."
"We were not!" Lea protested. "We were forming a hypothesis. Well, they were. I was ignoring you. And honestly, I try really hard to ignore people because I'll mace the air vents and won't nobody breathe around here."
"You're not even taking this serious. We outnumber you one to fifty."
Lea snorted. Please. This barely counted as a warm up for Alabaster and Drew (and how did Lea end up with them as friends? She was sure that she had been scammed. Then she remembered Ethan and what he did and decided to stop questioning it).
Lea turned to look at her friends. "You know, I never understood why me being nonchalant aggravates people. Like why are you mad that I don't care?"
The idiot had screeched and lunged at the trio only to bounce off a pretty green shield of mageia.
Lea smiled meanly.
"You shouldn't have done that," Alabaster murmured, shaking his head. "Poor thing. You didn't even know you were putting on your last outfit today."
Drew sneered. "And its such a tacky outfit to die in also. Fiesta orange was so last season."
The two of them attacked in tandem while Lea ventured inside to look for the stupid and disgusting book. Explosions rocked the building alongside the sudden appearance of ducks?. Lea stopped and watched as Alabaster waved his hand and turned someone trying to sneak up on Drew into a pig. Not the strangest thing Lea had seen before.
She continued onwards until she came across some measly looking man that stared at her as if she was the second coming of Christ. "You can't have it," he said quickly, eyes crazed. "It tells me of a new world. Things you could only dream of."
One part of Lea was mad that she got trapped with the crazy man while her friends were having fun, but the larger part felt pity for him. It was clear the book was ensnaring him.
"I don't want it," she said firmly. "I'm here for you."
"Why?"
"My name is Leaneira," she told him. "And you are?"
"I am Genesis and I know you Leaneíras Jackson."
"Okay bible," she laughed, shaking her head. The building shook once more from an explosion and dust rained down from the ceiling. "Does your book tell you about the... about the gods?"
"Demons!" he hissed. "Fallen angels. The rebel angels that were imprisoned in heavenly places, parallel dimensions, within the atmosphere of the earth. These angels have since been called demons."
"You learned that in sunday school," Lea snorted, turning her attention onto the book. "My name is Leaneíras, daughter of Poseidon, sister of Perseus, the blessing of Hermes. I am the Twice-Blessed child." She held her hand out in concentration and the book shook in his hands causing him to tighten his hold and hiss.
"WHORE!"
"What did you just call me?"
But Genesis ignored her, flipping open the pages to the book and began to chanting in enochian.
"Aht aht," Lea huffed, throwing her mageia out at him. "Lavender, Mimosa, Holy Thistle, cleanse this evil from our midst." The man cried out, shaking and moving about like it was an exorcism. "Scatter its cells throughout time, let this Genesis no more exist."
A loud scream rung out through the building, a sound so high in pitch that even though Lea couldn't hear it... she could feel it. It was over as quickly as it started the only thing left behind was an afterimage where the man had sat and the book falling heavily to the ground. It hissed at her and she could sense the madness within when she moved closer. It wanted to overtake her. It wanted her to open cells to monster that she couldn't imagine even in her wildest dreams.
I am cursed with knowledge, it was saying. I can show you the truth of the world.
Lea struck a dagger through it and the book shook as if it were screaming also.
Footsteps sounded behind her and she chanced only a small glance to see Drew and Alabaster appearing with self-satisfied expressions. "You good, Nee?"
Lea nodded, conjuring a pair of gloves to pick up the book. No way was she touching that.
Sadly, it wasn't the last time her day was interrupted to fight people. Not even a few weeks later, she and Medea were hanging out when she met the ghost of christmas past except even more ugly.
"If it isn't little Miss Lea Jackson," came a vaguely familiar voice from behind the two. When she turned around, a girl with curly red hair, orange freckles that looked like they were sprayed on with liquid Cheetos and crooked teeth smiled mockingly at her.
Lea furrowed her brow. "It's Leaneira and do I know you?"
The smile dropped off her face as Medea face palmed beside her. "Lea, that's Nancy Bobofit from Yancy."
"Huh," Lea mused. "You still owe me fifty bucks for beating you up."
Lea may not remember faces, but she remembered money.
"Good ol' Jackson," Nancy scoffed. "Glad to see some things hadn't changed, but I got a better wager."
"I really don't care. Where's my money?"
"How about a rematch? Right here. Right now. You beat me and you can have your fifty dollars. If you don't..." She snapped her fingers and Lea raised a brow at the two girls that were quick to flank her side.
"Katelynn?" Medea gaped. "What are you?"
"Hello, Medea," the girl on the right smiled without humor. There was a warmth in her eyes that disappeared when she looked at Lea. "Leaneira."
"I'm getting real irritated of people knowing who I am and I have never met them a day in my life."
"That's Katelynn Lewis," Medea told her. "She is... was... She was Trent's soulmate."
"Sorrows, sorrows, prayers." Lea said though it didn't make sense on why the girl looked so much like Leaneira. Geez, Halloween was over. "And you are?"
The woman straightened her spine. "I am Alpan. I wondered much about the child that had stolen my most favored lover away from me."
Oh, not this again.
"I don't have times for this," Lea grumbled, turning away. Fifty bucks was not worth whatever this was. "You really gotta catch me when I care."
"What are you scared," Nancy mocked. "Can't wait to go back to Yancy and tell everyone that Leaneira, the Undefeated turned down a fight."
Lea rolled her eyes as she kept walking.
"I know you, Lea," Nancy called. "You're just trying to save face. You've always been a coward."
"There's a difference between knowing somebody and knowing of somebody, and let me tell you, Bobo, you don't know shit. The Lea that you know of is so much nicer than the Lea that I am. So watch your mouth."
"You're a coward either way," the Kathleen girl said. "One that doesn't know how to leave well enough alone."
"Girl I don't even know you, what the fuck?"
"That's a bit surprising considering you tried to take my boyfriend away!"
Lea paused, turning to look at Medea who looked back at her in confusion. "I'm sorry? Who said that I wanted Trent?" Yeah, the boy was handsome and yes, she had a crush on him at one point. But nowhere did Lea ever think that she wanted to be with him, not after Hermes with his stalking and definitely not after her kidnapping.
"Look at me! He wanted you so bad. Even before I found out that we were soulmates, the only thing people heard was how pretty your eyes were shining like emeralds as they glowed under the lights. The way your hair curled gently around your face the few times you let it down. The kind of beauty that ancient wars were fought over. When he found out that were soulmates, he immediately started looking for you in me. He wanted me to dye my hair, get contacts, change my styles. He thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world."
Lea nodded her head absently. "Yeah, I can agree with him on that."
"Lea." Medea hissed.
"What," the daughter of Poseidon whined. "Its not my fault she's a pushover. I can't help that my mom birthed pretty children." She looked back at Karaoke. "And by the way, you need your roots did."
The girl stamped her foot. "All of it was for nothing! He was in love with you! And I can see why..."
"Man, I don't know if you want to fight me or fuck me. It's a no and a go to hell either way."
"I see why Drew was suppose to be the diplomatic one between you two," Medea murmured, placing her head in her hands.
Lea shrugged though privately she agreed. It was why she avoided drama because the mouth that her parents gave he did not have a filter and with the way she tended to talk people, she would never let anyone talk to her like that.
Khromosome screeched lunging at Lea before a cloud of green smoke covered her. When it cleared, a small bunny rabbit was hopping around.
"Hmp," Lea sniffed. "How rude." She turned her gaze onto Nancy. "You still wanna go or are you going to leave me alone, you ol' meep off spongebob looking ass bitch!"
"You're real tough in front of your friends," Nancy sneered though Lea could see the hint of fear in her eyes as she looked between her and the bunny rabbit. That was a bit intriguing. Lea didn't think she had the ability to see through the mist. "Lord Kronos would be happy to get rid of you."
Lea and Medea tensed, fingers flexing as they looked between the three of them. "Nancy..." Lea drawled. "What did you do?"
"Getting some payback," she sneered pulling a very sharp pocket knife, glimmering in a very familiar shade bronze out of her pocket. "You embarrassed me a bit too much and once my dad found out you were rich, he got it in his head that it was my fault that we were always fighting."
"Put the knife down," Medea told her, eyes more focused on the goddess than the mortal.
"Listen to her, Bobo," Lea sneered. "Your little blade wouldn't scare me even if it was a pistol. You could have like 17 guns and I'll never think I'll get shot."
"Lea, stop antagonizing her."
Nancy chuckled even as Alpan waved her hand and Kelsey was once more a human. Too bad. She made a cute bunny rabbit. Mageia immediately pooled around her hands as she spat out a batch of grass.
"Oh, I'm going to enjoy this," the not-bunny rabbit said.
"Oooh, I have a better idea," Lea said. "Let's play truth or dare. Truth, you're about to leave me alone."
"Dare," Alpan said.
Lea snapped her fingers, mageia swirling around her. "Aw, shucks. The floor is lava." The goddess screeched as the road beneath her switched in texture. Lea and Medea both dodged out of the way as Nancy and Kimberly attacked.
"Fuck off," Medea snarled, dodging the wide swings that Nancy made. Lea would have helped, but apparently, Kiara wanted to play dodge ball using the asphalt. "I swear, Nancy, if you cut me with that knife, I'm going to give your family and friends somewhere to go next week."
Lea teleported out of the way of as Kimmy Leigh knocked a balcony off a building. What did she think this was some kind of cartoon? "You know what, Katie Lynn," Lea called out. "It's always kisses to the girls that don't like me, but still watch me." She pressed the palm of her hand and blew out. "Mwah!" An explosion knocked the girl off of her feet. Lea wished she had her notebook so she could write down the effectiveness of the attack. It was something that she had seen one of Drew's siblings do and Lea found that she could recreate it when she used a special potion that she turned into lip-gloss.
Of course, that gave Alpan enough time to climb out of her lava bath, eyes burning just as heatedly in fury. "I'm going to enjoy ripping the skin off of your body and once your dead, I'm going to take him to bed and fuck the socks off of him just as I did before."
Why was everyone under the completely wrong assumption that she was in a relationship with him? And to think it was a sexual relationship was all the worse!
Still...
Lea sniffed disdainfully, smiling just a bit mockingly. "I don't know. I mean when he came to me, he had both socks on, so maybe you should take him and try again. However, I don't like to share." And she teleported just behind her to kick her in the shin before having to dodge a blast of mageia from Kennedy.
"Listen, Kathy Lou Who, I really don't understand why I'm being attacked because your boyfriend had a crush on me."
"You bespelled him!"
"Girl, go to hell!" Lea snapped. How dare she? "I knew Trent before I even found out about you freaks!" Literally. He was her friend before she found out that she was a demigod. Now, unless she just meant that Lea was super hot, which yeah, yes she was, then she was out of her mind if she thought Lea cast a spell on the boy when she literally thought this kind of shit existed only in fantasy novels.
Kathy said nothing, only giving a louder screeched and throwing a blast of mageia at her so strong that it tore up the ground, revealing the pipes underneath. Lea dodged out of the way, falling into Nancy who was hovering off the ground and spinning in a circle while Medea leaned against a light pole.
"You know what," Lea said as she stood up and kicked Nancy away. "I don't have time for this." She summoned her grimoire to her hands, flipping through the pages quickly. This was a spell she had found in the Book of the Damned and the only one that she had felt marginally safe to use. Her eyes started glowing, matching the shade of mageia that can from her fingernails and pooled around her fists. She pushed the two mortals back in the same spot while mentally calling for Hermes to come and collect his whore. "Through this book weave this spell, create the pain of Heaven and Hell." Nancy and Kristy Lee stiffened, joints locking together at the same time that Lea's mark began to glow under her shirt. "May they suffer until they cry, their tears will run and then they die."
The girls screamed loudly before their bodies dropped like bricks to the ground and Hermes appeared next to her in his weird armour.
"Beloved," Alpan cheered, but he ignored her as he looked Lea over.
"Are you safe, latria mu?" He murmured, brushing a few stray hairs from her face. She shrugged, "I'm fine. Just getting real tired of your exes."
"None of them compare to you, my sweet. You, who holds the kind of beauty that it makes the stars in jealous."
Lea blushed, but still threw a triumph smirk over at Alpan.
Take that, bitch.
WORD COUNT: 5522
WORDS TO KNOW:
1) Smoochie - A smoochy is a bad bitch. A smoochy is a very, very confident person. who also just knows what they want. Leave it at that.
2) The X - The Bronx
THINGS TO KNOW:
1) Enochian is an occult constructed language — said by its originators to have been received from angels — recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Kelley was a scryer who worked with Dee in his magical investigations. The language is integral to the practice of Enochian magic.
2) Percy was originally supposed to stumble upon Nancy Bobofit in TLO but the part was cut because the book was getting too long. The scene would have involved Annabeth, Grover, and Percy finding her and the rest of his class from Yancy asleep in the middle of the New York park. They would move them to a safe spot.
2A) I was already going to bring her back in because it was too good to pass up, like look how far she has came, but then I learned that they were suppose to come at one point and decided that yes, I am definitely doing this.
3) Alpanu sometimes spelt Alpnu or Alpan was an Etruscan goddess of the underworld. She is shown as wearing jewellery, a loose cloak, and sandals. She is otherwise naked, and for this reason is believed to also have been a goddess of sexual activity.
3) As we draw closer to HoO, I'm bringing in more roman and etruscan characters (Estrucan because a lot of Roman culture was based around Greek and Estrucan culture even though there were some differences in how Roma maintained their own.)
COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR:
1) Fun Fact: Piper was originally the forth person in Percy's soulmark, but like... *hides face emoji* I don't like her.
1A) She is most definitely not Jason's soulmate either, so let's get that out the way before it comes up.
2) The idea of bringing the decorations to life plays on Daidalos' plan of making the statues around New York come to life.
2A) And I don't even have to worry about changing the way mortals would perceive it in canon because at the end of TLO when Percy was speaking with Hermês, the god was watching a news segment of the statues choking each other.
3) I would've did Raven from the Titans comics for Lea but like Raven used her magic on Wally and SA'd him and I have never forgiven that so no. Would have did Shego too but that's a little too on the nose.
3A) And for Magnus, I would've went for War Machine but Lea would have wanted to go as Iron Man and they would have looked like couple's costumes and she didn't want the boy to die.