Nothing is mine.

Time for Percy to briefly revisit high school, bound to go well for him, that...

Snared in the Coils

The man beside the metal detector frowned. 'Who the hell are you?'

'A student,' Percy replied. 'This is a school, so I'm not really sure what else you're expecting.'

'Brats,' the man muttered. 'If you're a student then you know how this all works, so show me your student ID and then go wherever it is you're meant to be going.'

Percy reached for the sea, drawing its thick fog in with the slow wash of the tide. 'You've already seen my student ID.'

The man blinked. 'Right. I have. Sorry, kid. Off you go.'

Percy drifted through the corridors and grinned to himself. 'These are not the demi-gods you are looking for.'

Miss Spencer… He glanced at the names on the classroom doors as the younger kids bustled past him, bounding around his elbows, working his way along each floor. She's got to be here somewhere, Psylia can't be more than about thirteen. He frowned. Wait, I'm only fifteen, she's not even much younger than I am.

'Oi!' A tall dark-haired guy in a leather jacket shouted down the stairs. 'You new? This is the little kids part of the school, you need to go back to the entrance and go right instead of left.'

'First day here. I need to find Miss Spencer's classroom.'

He pointed down at the floor below them. 'On your left there.'

'Thanks.' Percy made his way down the stairs against the tide of stomach-high kids. 'Why can't you all use one side of the staircase, this is just silly.'

A bright-lettered sign hung on the second door on the left.

Miss Spencer. He wrapped the Mist around himself like a blanket and peeked in through the door.

Psylia sat on the desk at the front, chatting with a small blonde boy and waving her hands around.

'No I don't like snakes,' the boy said. 'They're all cold and scaly and dead-eyed and creepy.'

Snakes. Percy frowned, clawing through Gabe's stories. Is there a monster that's scared of snakes? He studied the small boy's thin arms and legs, hunting for some clue upon his jeans and baggy hoodie. Seems like a normal kid, but the Mist can be tricky.

'But maybe…' Percy closed his eyes and pictured the thick grey fog above the waves, sweeping it back to bare the sharp rocks and swirling white foam.

He opened his eyes.

'I had a horrible dream about a giant snake.' The boy shuddered. 'It swallowed me whole.'

No, he still looks the same.

Psylia swung her feet off the desk. 'I have dreams like that, Nicholas. Of drowning. But it can't come true now, the sea is too far away.'

'There aren't any snakes big enough to eat me,' Nicholas said. 'But it's okay. I had a nice dream last night. I was in here and the room was full of glitter and I wasn't afraid anymore.'

'Gold glitter?' Psylia's head snapped up.

'Yeah,' he whispered, 'and I was really happy for the time in ages.'

'I have to go.' Her blue eyes flicked up and caught Percy's. 'Oh…'

Percy opened the door. 'Hi, Psylia.'

Psylia's body shifted, her legs lengthening and twisting into a thick scaled tail as she grew taller and taller.

A Gorgon? She's not Medusa, I already met her.

Nicholas shot Percy a suspicious look. 'Who are you?'

He can't see she's changed. She can change her actual form and use the Mist.

'We'll worry about that in just a moment,' Percy said, pulling Anaklusmos from his pocket.

Psylia swept long dark hair over her shoulders and blinked; her blue eyes flashed a deep smooth brown, little patches of dark scales spreading across her fair skin and the red hoodie tore and slipped from her shoulders.

'Er…' Percy stared into her brown eyes. 'Do you want to find another top before we do this? I'm not sure it's fair if you're just in a bra.'

Psylia glanced down at the lacy black bra peeking through the torn red hoodie. 'You can see through the Mist.'

'I can. And, just for the sake of full disclosure, there is probably a daughter of Demeter who's getting really angry for no reason right now.' Percy mustered a grin through the sharp little waves of guilt. 'Clarisse is probably being assaulted with some kind of large vegetable — or fruit.'

'I'm going to leave her mourning her lover, Percy Jackson.'

'Glossing over the lover part, because I'm not going out with her and mom made me promise not to do anything like that with girls until I was at least eighteen, how do you know my name?'

'I dreamt you were coming.' She flexed long, curved talons. 'Like I said. I hoped I had deceived you.'

'You did. I thought this kid was the monster. I'm really not great at finding or tracking monsters, but they usually try to eat me, so it all works out eventually.'

As long as it's just me, right, Zoë?

'Wait, you know this guy?' Nicholas asked.

'In another life, I had sons just like him—' a vast dark fury burnt in her brown eyes '—but Hera slaughtered them just because I loved the beauty of the Heavens as she did.'

'Wait…' Percy pointed Anaklusmos's nib at her. 'You're not a Gorgon?'

'I am Lamia. Queen of Psyllia.'

'Oh. Gabe, my stepdad, told me about you. You claimed you would be a greater queen and mother than Hera and that went about as well as directly insulting a goddess ever goes for anyone.'

Lamia's lip curled. 'It was no insult. Hera cast her own child from Olympus. What does your stepdad know of such things anyway?'

'Well, he actually wasn't my stepdad, he tricked me so he could lead by example or something like that.' Percy shrugged and extended Anaklusmos into the gleaming bronze xiphos. 'You must know how Zeus loves his disguises.'

'Zeus. He made me this as much as Hera did. I loved him and he cursed me with visions and called it a gift.' The fury blazed in her deep brown eyes and she tensed, coiled to spring. 'I dream of my dead children every night and when I take my eyes out as Zeus bade me do, I am only tormented by dreams of dying instead.'

A rush of pity swept through Percy. 'Love is the—'

Lamia lunged, slashing at his throat with her long, curved claws. Percy ducked and shoved his shoulder into her stomach, shoving her back through the desks.

'You're strong.' She swept desks and chairs away with her tail. 'But I was a queen.'

Nicholas squeaked and staggered back into the corner, his face pale as milk.

'Stay there,' Percy said. 'I'll handle Lamia.'

She stared down at him, tugging the ripped red hoodie up over her exposed bra. 'You are ten years too young to handle me.'

'Not like that.' Percy sighed. 'I don't think I'm into snake girls, it's just going to get really weird with Medusa and my dad. Can we just pretend I said defeat?'

'We are a long way from the sea,' Lamia purred, scoring deep marks down the wall with her talons. 'I will not drown here. You will taste defeat, Percy Jackson, not I.'

'But I'm here.' Percy reached for the slow rhythm of the tide, letting its gentle wash settle his heart. 'And the sea is always with me.'

Her brown eyes narrowed and she tore forward. Percy swirled through the savage slashes of her claws, leaping her tail and leaning back from the snap of her sharp fangs as he spun around her, raising Anaklusmos.

The tip of Lamia's tail flashed past his face and punched through the wall. Percy ducked its sharp bronze spike as she yanked it back and stepped between her and Nicholas.

'Why do you hurt children?' he asked. 'Isn't that how it all started for you?'

Lamia hissed with rage, tears glistening in her eyes. 'Because it hurts. Every second. Every grain of sand trickling through the glass is agony. And if it must be like this, then it will be this way for them too. I will slaughter their children as they slaughtered mine!'

And earn the suffering you experience. Percy's heart sank, the words went with it, sliding from the tip of his tongue and sinking down under the weight of all the waves. It's too late.

Lamia's tail lanced forward.

He slapped it away with the flat of his blade and flowed through her furious clawed swipes.

Anaklusmos slid through her ribs like a stick into water.

'Oh, it ends again…' Lamia whispered; her coils thrashed and writhed, spilling across the room as she sank to the floor. 'But there is no true end to suffering such as mine…'

Golden dust filled the room, floating down to cover the desks. Percy watched it settle, his heart lost deep beneath the bottomless black waters of all the world.

'Good riddance,' Nicholas spat. 'She lied.'

Percy caught him by the shoulder as he raised his foot to stomp in the gold. 'No.' He hunted for words. 'She was a beautiful woman once. A Queen in Libya. She fell in love. And then she fell. For daring to elevate herself above Hera, she suffered. Had she just loved Zeus, the consequences would've just been her children. But the greater the hubris, the more terrible the consequences...'

'She was a monster.'

'Only in the end,' Percy murmured. 'You and I, we could both be just like her one day if we listen to anger and pain instead of choosing well.'

Nicholas stared at the dust. 'Can she stop being a monster?'

'I don't know. Maybe if she chooses well one day, she can.' Percy bent and lifted a long cape of dark snake-skin from the heaps of golden dust. 'But you only get to make your own choices. We can't force her.'

'What now?' Nicholas blinked twice. 'Oh I'm going to be in so much trouble again. The whole room is wrecked.'

Percy laughed and spun Anaklusmos in his hand, switching it back into a pen. 'There's a place not far from here. A camp. If you get into trouble like this again, that's a safe place to go. Your mom will know where I mean.'

'She will?' Nicholas scowled. 'She just says my dad isn't here anymore.'

'She isn't telling you the whole truth. Ask her again. Tell her about the weird stuff that's happening first and I think she'll change her mind about telling you. And if she doesn't, come to the camp.' Percy grabbed a pen and a scrap of paper from the mess and scribbled the address down. 'Here.'

Nicholas took it and stared into the paper. 'Why can't you tell me? You know things.'

'Because I'd be taking that choice away from your mom. And choices are important. You can't cage someone to keep them from choosing.' Percy tucked Anaklusmos back into his pocket. 'We should probably tidy this place up a bit first though.'

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