II

In Luke's enraged exit, he didn't notice Axel on the other side of the hallway.

He did almost run into Mercedes and Pax. For a moment, his eyes widened with fury. Then, they relaxed. "Hey! Jack's boy. And… Sadie?"

"Mercedes," she supplied.

"Like the car?" Most of Luke's fury faded to confusion.

"Like in Call of the Wild," she said blankly.

"Huh," Luke said. "You haven't been questioned by Flynn yet." The last part was a cross between a statement and a question.

The dark circles under Luke's eyes made Pax wonder if Luke had slept since the donut shop blew up. Pax had heard rumors of nightmares. That could make anyone cranky.

"Shall I tell her that I take priority over her sleep?" Mercedes asked. "I'm quite flattered. She seems important to the camp."

Luke released a shuddered breath, exhaling the last bit of his anger. "She and Jack have a strict morning schedule to get their voices as powerful as possible for the day. I'm sorry. It's been a long morning. I'm just very impressed by your involvement in capturing Julian." Luke set a hand on her shoulder.

Mercedes stiffened.

Axel paled at the mention of his first kill. Fortunately, the medals didn't make any noise when he touched them.

Mercedes artfully kept her eyes off Axel and firmly on Luke's hand. Pax got the feeling she didn't appreciate being touched. Pax would bet that she was running through several ways to break Luke's hand.

She cleared her throat. Her mouth opened, as though to speak, but no sound came out.

Then Luke walked past. He gave them one last charming smile as he waved a hand. "I'll see the two of you later during sword practice. We'll have to see how skilled you are with a blade."

He was gone, having never seen Axel on the other side of the door. He also didn't seem to realize they had been eavesdropping. Or that the hand he'd put on Mercedes shoulder was discolored from whomever he hit.

For a breath, Mercedes clutched her shoulder like Luke's touch had been poisonous.

Pax took her hand. Belated, he wondered if she hated being touched in general. "You okay?" he asked.

Mercedes stared at him in a way that said few had dared to touch her hand. She glanced down at the contact. "I appear to have attracted a parasite."

"At least it's a cute one," Pax tried to comfort, wondering if he should let go. Her fingers shook.

Mercedes watched Luke disappear at a bend in the hall. Hollowly, she said, "Earlier this week, I thought there were only Romans in the world and demigods didn't have a choice: either death by monsters outside or forced servitude in the walls of New Rome. Now, I find out my half-brother on the Greek side is trying to form an army to stop a force as unstoppable as New Rome's and he is clearly unprepared. Seeing the Greeks exist, feeling them, gives me the creeps." She sighed. "There is so much work to do. And it starts with getting rid of this parasite."

Pax almost didn't catch the last part. She snatched her hand back to shove him into the room.

Axel, who had been listening warily, scrambled to catch up to them.

Pax almost flopped onto his face when he saw the interior of the room.

This room did not belong on a cruise ship. It belonged on a Frankenstein movie set.

There were rows of shelves on one side of the room, containing—Pax blinked in surprise—spice bottles and vials. Others had scrolls and ancient-looking tomes. On several neatly spaced tables, there was laboratory equipment set up for some kind of experiment. In the center was a full fire pit, with a massive, humming suction duct above it. Pax had no idea how it was catching all the smoke—it should have been spilling all over the place. But, Pax didn't care. What he cared about was the archaic, cast-iron pot above the fire, bubbling with a strange liquid.

Just behind the fire stood the looming statue of three women—or a woman with three heads?—holding lit torches, swords, and other ominous items.

Other tables had skeletons or jars for dissection.

A black cat napped peacefully on the ribs of a massive skeleton. It lazily opened one eye to see the three of them approach.

They passed two metal rods with sparks flying between them. Tesla coils?

By the science equipment stood three other people. One was the chubby, sun-burned boy who had ruined their camouflage. "Come onnnnnnn, Al!"

"Don't call me that," another boy said.

The other occupants in the room were clearly siblings. One was a girl, maybe Pax's age, with curly black hair tied into a ponytail. She was short, maybe only five feet tall. Her skin had a healthy Mediterranean glow to it. Her face was tinted pink, like she'd been crying, and she rubbed furiously at her eyes.

The other was a boy. He was awkwardly tall, maybe close to six feet. Freckles spackled his pale features, ones that hadn't caught up to the maturity of his height. He must have been older, at least fourteen?, but Pax couldn't decide how much older. He leaned over a Bunsen burner, using a match to light the bottom. There was a bruise forming under one eye, a product of Luke's temper.

He and his sister wore burned and stained lab jackets.

Pax's breath caught at the most startling feature: their eyes were emerald green. For Pax, this made them unfairly hot and obviously witches.

The plump, shorter boy tapped his fingertips together like an evil henchman. From the way his eyes seemed to glitter with ideas, Pax knew he was more an evil mastermind. "But, Al—"

"Alabaster," the green-eyed boy corrected again. With routine ease, he set a beaker of clear liquid above the Bunsen burner and sprinkled something into it. The liquid twisted dark and ominous.

"Think about it like a lovely tit for tat. You know my pranks drive Luke nuts," the blond boy said.

The younger sister nodded her head feverously. Her eyes blazed with rage. "Matthias is right. We can get back at him!"

Alabaster scowled, sniffing the contents of his beaker. He pinched something out of a vial on the table and dusted it into the boiling container. His eyes focused on the experiment intensely like he feared acknowledging their words or what had happened. Pax wondered if the boy had ever been hit before. Pax wondered what that would be like—to remember the first time you'd ever been hit.

Alabaster's shoulders slumped. "If anything is used from this laboratory, he'll know where you got it. I will seek revenge upon Luke on my own time, in my own way. Put the ingredients away, Hanson."

Matthias Hanson stopped tapping his fingers together. A deep sigh bellowed from him as he slunk a step towards an ingredients shelf. With another prolonged sigh, he set a vial into an empty slot. "Chris bet ten drachma that no one could get it from you."

When Alabaster refused to acknowledge his pouting, Matthias took a back step towards the exit, where Mercedes, Axel, and Pax had stalled.

The green-eyed girl folded her arms and glanced up to the ceiling. Any hint of previous tears vanished as a smirk lit up her face. "But… we can't be held accountable if someone were to steal things from the laboratory."

Alabaster didn't look at her, though his lip did twitch. "True. But, you don't have the talent for theft or silence, Hanson. Idiotic, loud distractions? Yes. Not theft. Now, unless you want to try something—"

"I don't like being a guinea pig, Potter!" Matthias said, putting his hands up defensively. He backed the rest of the way out the door. He snapped his fingers and made finger guns at Mercedes, Axel, and Pax as he moonwalked past them. A loud thump sounded when he stumbled into the door.

Mercedes glanced at a watch on her wrist and shoved the Pax brothers further forward.

The green-eyed girl focused on them, her eyes going wide. She tugged on Alabaster's sleeve.

If Pax had to guess, that blush had something to do with seeing Axel's bed head. His ruggedness often had that effect on women and the right kind of boys.

"What are these?" Alabaster asked, not looking up. As he poured some of the beaker's continents into a vial, he asked his sister, "Lelly, is your Mustela vial ready for trial?"

She snatched something from a drawer and shoved it at him, still smiling shyly at the three of them.

Alabaster set his beaker down, so he could take her vial. Its continent was green and fizzed slightly.

Mercedes snorted and gestured towards the Pax brothers. Axel opened his mouth to answer Alabaster's question. Mercedes beat him, her response locking the Pax brother's and Witch Boy's futures together.

"New guinea pigs, apparently," she said.

"Ah, what fortuitous timing," Alabaster said. He straightened and walked up to them. He extended a vial to either Pax brother; Axel, the ominous dark brew; Pax, the fuzzy green one. Reflexively, they took them. "Here, drink this."

"Ajax," Axel said, sounding more annoyed than worried.

Pax would show Axel not to worry about him doing something awesome. He popped the cork topper off his vial. When a witch tells you to drink a mysterious brew—

"Don't!" Axel shouted this time. His free hand reached for Pax's face, but he was too slow.

Pax tossed the contents into his mouth, excited for some magical goodness.

Thank you for reading! This short is quite a bit lighter than the other ones, and I hope you're still enjoying! See what Pax turns into next week in Magical Daycare Part III.