Annabeth's hands settled along the edges of the washbasin as she stared at the mirror blankly, ignoring the rush of the open tap echoing in her ears.

She looked good, all things considered.

Unwise.

Some twelve hours of sleep tended to do that for people.

Her clothes were also a clean set, and the ambrosia, nectar, and whatever it was that Luna - the new source of insanity in her life that Percy at his best couldn't cap for all that he gave it his best shot all the time - had fed them in those potion vials of her had patched them right up.

Unwise.

Physically, they were all doing... good.

Relatively speaking

Unwise.

Mentally, though...

Unwise.

She grimaced.

There had been no dreams when she slept, demigod or ordinary nightmares alike—small mercies there—but Annabeth still managed to wake up with the memory of her first encounter with her mother in a long while at the forefront of her mind.

Bieng called unwise by the goddess of wisdom - was that some kind of divine equivalent of bieng disowned?

It sounded like a morbid joke, but if Annabeth were to laugh at it, it would probably come out sounding more than a little hysterical.

The worst part was that she could see where Athena had been coming from.

From a purely objective point of view, she shouldn't shouldn't have gone on this quest, and it was unwise - no, stupid, to think otherwise.

Ordinary prophecies were bad enough.

Prophecies that put you into the Olympians' crosshairs while the other side of the war was still your enemies graduated from likely deadly to classical Greek hero levels of suicidal absurdity.

Committing to one like this was the height of foolishness, especially when considering that there had been plenty of technical wiggle room.

Campers and hunters combined prevail.

Campers and hunters, but not Annabeth.

Not specifically her.

She didn't have to come.

But it hadn't felt that way in the heat of the moment, and it still didn't feel that way now.

Especially not now.

She sighed and ground her palms into her eyes, trying to steady herself.

Objective wisdom was one thing. Context was another.

They should go hand in hand, but clearly the moirai hated her, because nothing had ever been that easy for Annabeth.

Objective wisdom didn't account for her friends.

It didn't account for Percy and Thalia and their general bullheadedness, and it didn't account for Annabeth's absolute refusal to just let them leap headfirst into a brewing disaster of ridiculous proportions with only strangers for backup - and two of them were untrained demigods who'd only been brought over to their side of the world for less than two days!

So.

She smiled humorlessly.

In for a penny, and all that.

Anteus, forcing Percy headfirst into the mud and pushing-

No.

With a quiet hiss, Annabeth stalled that image back into a box and shoved it far, far down where it would never see the light of day for as long as she could keep it down.

Deciding that she'd spent enough time staring into the mirror like a basket case, she quickly finished brushing her teeth and washed her face again for good measure, before toweling off and stepping out of the bathroom.

Naturally, she didn't take ten steps out of the hallway before Percy rounded the corner and froze.

"Oh...morning."

Anteus-

Annabeth's brow twitched even as she smiled back.

No, nope, nada and no thank you.

"Morning."

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder.

"We're all waiting for breakfast if you're hungry."

She shrugged.

"I could eat."

"Good."

"Great."

"Yeah."

"..."

"..."

There was a pause where Annabeth couldn't help just... looking at him.

Percy seemed fine.

No injuries, standing upright, and no bags under his eyes. He was upright and ready the way he always was.

But...

"Annabeth?"

She started and resisted the urge to flush in embarrassment when she realized that she'd drifted into staring a little too long. For his part, Percy wasn't quite meeting her eyes either.

"I'll just..." He gestured, and she wordlessly stepped out of his way as he walked past with a muttered thanks and headed off in the direction of the room he'd picked out. "Thanks."

Well.

She firmly resisted the urge to stare after him in concern as she made her way to the dining room.

That thoroughly sucked.

...

"Keep your grubby fingers off my bacon, Jackson."

"Bite me, pine-cone face."

"I will stab you!"

"Nico, wipe your mouth."

"I know, quit it already!"

Breakfast was a mess, but in a good way.

Nico had apparently taken Luna's permission to get as much food as he wanted the other night as blanket permission that extended over to the next day, because he'd gone wild before anyone realized they should probably have cut him off.

Eggs and bacon, sausages, bread and pastries, fruit, yogurt, cold cuts, cheese, butter and jams, and about five different types of juice and three pots of coffee, all of it spread out across the table.

The look on the poor server who'd had to bring it all up and lay it on the table would have had half of them in stitches if they weren't falling on the food like a pack of wolves for the second time in as many days.

For her part, Luna looked unbothered by the potential bill she was wracking up as she dug in herself, though given that her money came from literal divine backing, that might just not be a concern at all.

Which was...

Yeah.

Annabeth had a lot of questions bubbling up and a lot of feelings she was cramming down like the buttered toast on her plate.

Enthusiastically, because that way lay madness.

Eventually, though, all good things come to an end. They finished their food, and cleared their plates off the table, and by the time they sat back down, the atmosphere had already gone tense with quiet anticipation.

And everbody knew what it was about.

"So..." Thalia murmured, eyeing Luna pointedly. She wasn't the only one either. "Who wants to go first?"

Luna tilted her head to the side, clearly taking the hint.

"I'm happy to go first, but on my part, there isn't all that much to say."

...or maybe not.

Annabeth stare was incredulous, but again, she wasn't the only one.

"Excuse me?

"Not in regards to this quest, at least," Luna explained. "Yes, my father is the primordial of death. Yes, he has a vested interest in my life for that very same reason, and that's why he came to help."

Thalia muttered something under her breath that wasn't directed at Luna but was also probably not good for anyone to hear.

Apollo, who was close enough to listen in, winced sharply.

"You've all also met my grandfather-"

An almost collective shudder ran through them, and across the table, Zoë hands clenched against the hardwood surface.

Annabeth didn't blame the sullenly quiet huntress. Just the memory of that crushing weight and cold almost had her teeth chattering despite herself.

She'd never forget it for as long as she lived.

"Yes, him. We also have a relationship of a sort, which is why I called on his help in the Labyrinth. I would apologize for the force of his..." She hesitated, choosing the right word "...presence, but I doubt there are any words that could do the experience justice, and given that the alternative was all of us bieng spirited away by the Titan of Foresight while we were at our worst..."

She finished with a helpless shrug.

For a moment, they all let that sink in.

The crazy thing was that it didn't sound insane when she put it like that, even though it totally was.

And that was... that was something.

Annabeth just wasn't sure what.

"And none of them are going to be dropping in again, right?"

Luna nodded at Thalia easily.

"My grandfather's influence is not something I can simply throw around on demand, or even safely at that. It was very much a measure of last resort." She answered, and it was the gravest Annabeth had ever heard her sound. "And my father is... otherwise occupied, I think."

"What?"

Luna shrugged again.

"I prayed to him earlier, but I didn't receive a strong response. It happens. Death is a very busy business."

Annabeth didn't miss the careful way that was worded.

I didn't receive a strong response.

That didn't mean she didn't receive a response at all.

As if sensing her realization, Luna's eyes flickered to her - silver on grey - before she glanced away when someone else spoke up.

"You..." Zoë tone wasn't hostile, but it wasn't unwary. Nobody could blame her for that either. "You should not exist."

Nico and Bianca bristled.

"Hey-!"

"It was not meant as an insult, boy." Though the way she said boy honestly might have been. "The primordial of death has never sired a child, immortal or otherwise. It is antithetical to his very being. And yet... you exist, and are undeniably his."

The lieutenant of Artemis slowly shook her head.

"I will not question it or your intentions." She glanced at Nico and Bianca for a split second before dismissing them. "But you make me doubt things I thought were not to be challenged. A dangerous mystery I do not understand."

"That's alright." Luna's answering smile was carefree, but it gave nothing away. "Dangerous is relative, and a little mystery is good for the soul."

Another silence.

"Any other questions?"

"Sure," Percy had apparently decided to change tracks, because he pointed across the table... at Apollo. "Any of you want to bring the rest of us up to speed on what's going on there?"

That was a good question.

The god's -except he wasn't, was he?- expression shuttered.

"My father." The blonde didn't spit it out, but the word still emerged from his lips like poison. "Took exception to my interfering in a quest he deemed forbidden. He stripped me of my godhood. I'm currently as mortal as you are. Perhaps even less."

And there was the confirmation.

For a long second, Percy just stared, before slowly turning to stare at Annbeth.

"He can do that? That's a thing?"

Nico and Bianca also looked to Luna for confirmation, who gave a single, muted nod.

"He does do that." Apollo's smile was bitter and brittle. "Twice already, and this makes three."

Annabeth knew the stories to each of those.

One for a failed rebellion, and the other as punishment for killing a cyclops who forged the master bolt in revenge for a murdered son.

Considering that Apollo's interference had been on behalf of his twin, this third go around was already shaping up to be just as cruel and ugly.

"That feels like cheating," Nico muttered, and Apollo actually belted out a laugh.

It wasn't a happy one.

"That's the King of the Gods for you." He said, and his tone was entirely caustic. "The Olympian Council isn't the democracy some of us like to pretend it is. My father holds near-absolute power that he wields against us on a whim, and the wrong ends of his thunderbolts do not discriminate when he's roused to anger."

"...That blows. Your dad sucks."

Apollo's hands spasmed at Nico's words before he abruptly seemed to remember that he was talking to an eleven-year-old, and he turned to look elsewhere without another word.

Thalia raised her glass of orange juice and tipped it Nico's way in salute.

"Amen to that."

Nico frowned.

"What about the other guy? The one who came with you guys?"

"Daedalus?" Luna shook her head. "We found him and he... wasn't a problem. He got sucked into our confrontation with the Titan because he was with us, that's all. He's irrelevant for now."

Right.

"I almost forgot about that," Annabeth whispered.

Thalia turned to her.

"You say something?"

"...Nothing."

Meeting her hero -in some things at least- the inventor of ancient times, the greatest genius of his era... and this cursed quest makes it a footnote.

Irrelevant.

It would track.

That said...

Witness firsthand the wisest kinslayer's pain.

Daedalus had killed his nephew out of jealousy.

"That's another line of the prophecy fulfilled."

They seemed to think about that, some of them jerking up as they realized what it was she was talking about before she got a round of tentative nods.

"Good."

That was the point where Bianca cleared her throat.

"We went through some stuff too." She said, shrinking a little as all the attention was focused on her. "...I found out who our dad is."

Nico lit up like a firecracker.

"Really!?"

"Yeah." She took a deep breath. "When we fell, I... ended up alone."

Luna's easy smile died.

"It took a while. A long while-" She sounded abruptly furious. "I don't even know how long it was in that stupid maze. I found Moo-"

Annabeth blinked.

"Moo?"

Bianca flushed "The... sea-cow? The Titan called it the Ophiotaurus."

That name didn't mean anything to her, but Zoë, Apollo and Luna all went ram-rod straight in new alarm.

"What?"

"Is that bad?"

"It is-" Zoë was staring at her with wide eyes. "In the first Titan War, the Ophiotaurus was prophesized to possess the power to bring down all of Olympus. Whosoever killed it and threw its entrails into a fire would be able to do just that."

Bianca paled. "Oh."

"It was a terrifying close call, back then." Apollo looked just as pale. "The Titans managed to gut it, but my father sent an eagle to spirit away its remains before they could be sacrificed. It hasn't reformed in thousands of years since, or so I was told. Where is it now?"

No one answered.

Then slowly, Percy raised a hand.

"It's in the bathtub."

...

Apollo turned to him so slowly and mechanically you could almost hear hinges creaking in his neck,

"What?

"...It's in the bathtub." Percy rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "The one in the other bathroom. It's filled with water, and it looked like it was having fun, so I just left it there."

"The Bane of Olympus, the beast whose potential all gods fear... is in the moirai-damned bathtub?"

"...It wasn't me that let it in there?"

Nico ducked his head and began fiddling with a mythomagic figurine, trying to look innocent.

On his other side, Luna just laughed.

"Oh, this is interesting."

Zoë head snapped to her.

"This is not a game!"

"Would you rather I panic and flail?" Luna raised a brow. "The Ophiotaurus is here now, there's no changing that. Besides, it's almost certain that the prophecy is at play here. Or have you forgotten?

The Bane of Olympus shall lead the trail.

It dawned on Zoë the second it did on Annabeth, and the lieutenant almost slumped over.

Apollo wasn't better.

"Then-"

"Who cares!" Nico snapped, already out of patience, interrupting them both and poking Bianca incessantly. "Tell us what happened next and how you met our dad!"

"A problem for later." Luna agreed.

Neither of the two looked happy about it, but Bianca began talking over them anyway.

"Stop it, Nico, I didn't meet him!" She mussed up his hair in retaliation and he squeaked. "I was walking along before I ended up meeting that Titan from before. He was with another woman - a goddess."

She looked at Luna.

"No names, right?"

"Best not risk it. Not now of all times."

"She said she was the goddess of magic? And she talked a lot about choices?"

Luna's eyes widened.

"I suspect I know who it was."

Annabeth thought she did too.

Magic. Choices.

Hecate.

She looked at Bianca.

"Why would she help you?"

For a moment, the younger girl's expression clouded with something... and then it passed.

"I don't know?" Bianca said, talking quickly. "Maybe because the other titan was annoying her? He was there too, but she snapped her fingers and made him disappear. Then she gave me a knife and some stuff, but only after she told me that our dad was..."

She cut herself off with a grimace, and Annabeth saw the problem.

Giving it away without saying the name was going to be trouble.

But Percy spoke up.

"My uncle." He said, and the table shifted in disbelief. He even met Thalia's gaze for good measure. "Our uncle."

Annabeth choked.

Thalia stared for a second before her jaw unhinged.

"You don't mean-"

"Yep." He nodded for good measure. "That uncle. The one who lives way downstairs and likes to sic deranged bat-monsters on anyone who annoys him."

Hades.

The daughter of Zeus was gobsmacked.

Apollo and Zoë, though, looked like they'd swallowed a lemon apiece.

"How could you possibly-?"

"I had a dream." He cut them off roughly. Annabeth eyes narrowed. "And one hell of a sucky family reunion."

Quickly, he explained how Hades had butted in to tell him to look out for Bianca and Nico - because apparently they still hadn't met their quota on gods making surprise appearances on this quest just yet.

Bianca looked like she wasn't quite sure how to take that, but Nico was ecstatic.

"Cool! So our dad is-!"

"No names!" Just about everybody hissed.

He pouted.

Luna leaned over to him and extended her hand.

"Give me your mythomagic deck."

"Why- oh!"

He brightened and immediately dug it out of his pocket. Luna took it with obvious bemusement and started shuffling through it before she paused, pulled out one card in particular with gold accents and handed it back over.

"That's him."

On the bright side, he didn't yell out again.

He devolved into some gibberish so fast that Annabeth was only getting one in every five words.

Apollo was speaking just as quietly, and just as quickly, though he was doing it in a dialect of Greek she struggled to follow along with, and frankly?

From the look on his face?

She wasn't quite sure she wanted to.

Zoë wasn't saying a word at all. She'd hit her limit.

Probably.

Luna hummed and leaned back.

"What happened next, Bia?"

The newly revealed daughter of Hades looked uncomfortable.

"You know. The goddess told Hecuba to come with me-"

Percy raised a brow.

"The dog that looks like she hates my guts and wants to drop dead?"

Bianca perked up. "Yeah, she's like that with me too!"

"...huh."

The name was vaguely familiar too, but Annabeth put that aside.

"Then we walked through a door, and found... Zoé." Bianca trailed off as the huntress's jaw tightened with enough force to crush marbles. You could almost hear her teeth grinding together "... She was trapped and in trouble with a really nasty monster, so I had Hecuba lure it away while I freed her, and then when the monster got back I blew it up with Greek Fire."

This time, everybody bar Luna and Zoë reeled back.

The latter said nothing and the former simply steered her coffee daintily.

"You did say."

Thalia wasn't nearly as calm.

"How are you not dead?"

Bianca smiled weakly.

"I was lucky?"

"Greek fire is what happens when napalm and evil have a baby and let it loose on the world."

"I was really lucky.

Percy frowned "Where did you even get your hands on the stuff?"

"The goddess gave them some jars to me."

"...Right."

He shot him another look, and Annabeth understood.

Gods never just give you stuff.

There's always an expectation of repayment of some kind, and it was almost always skewed in the god's favor.

Even if they were your parents.

Maybe especially then.

...Except if you were Thanatos, apparently, which was still one of those things bouncing around in Annabeth's head and making her feel things she didn't particularly want to feel at the moment.

"There are flames of a worse sort," Luna murmured, which meant nothing to Annabeth, but Thalia stiffened at the quiet words like they did to her.

Apollo's eyes narrowed, though he seemed just as confused as the rest of them.

"Thank you."

They all stilled as Zoë spoke again.

Bianca looked like a deer in headlights.

"What?"

"Thank you. I was not in a state to say it before..." The huntress inclined her head, and she looked uncomfortable to be bringing it up, but the emotion "I owe you my life, Bianca Di Angelo. I won't forget that debt."

"It's... you're welcome?" Bianca smiled uncertainly. "I just did it. It's not that big a big deal."

"It is," Zoë said sternly, but not unkindly "You faced and defeated the Jailor Beast of Tartarus. That is a feat demigods live their lives by the dozen without ever matching. Do not make light of it."

Luna stopped steering her coffee, and the room abruptly got very quiet.

Bianca di Angelo fought the what now?"

"Excuse me?"

"'A problem for later'" Zoë threw her earlier words back at her, lips twitching up and sounding downright smug about it.

Luna looked like she wanted to argue before the words died in her throat and she sighed.

"Touché"

Bianca giggled. Nico laughed.

Even Thalia smirked.

Annabeth was still stuck on the horrible implications of the whole "Jailor Beast Of Tartarus' thing - because there was only one monster that could be from she knew, and how even?! - but good for them.

"So what about you?" Bianca asked, nudging Nico with her elbow. "What happened to you guys down there?"

And instantly, the air went heavy.

Nico stopped laughing and went dead still.

Percy stiffened.

And Annabeth.

She closed her eyes and began to count to ten patiently.

"Guys?" Thalia asked slowly, warily. "Something you want to share with the class?"

"...Not really," Nico whispered.

"It was a little messy, that's all." Percy's confident smile didn't reach his eyes. "Lots of monsters, lots of fights. Nearly got eaten by a hellhound or six."

"Or six?"

"I lost count."

...

"Okay."

Thalia could have called bullshit.

She probably wanted to, even, but Annabeth had the feeling she'd picked up on enough to know to back off.

What happened in the Labyrinth should stay in the Labyrinth.

For now, at least.

"So now what?"

"The winter solstice is tomorrow night," Luna announced, and the remainder of the pressing deadline did wonders for everyone's nerves. In the exact wrong way. "We have until then to free Artemis, if we aim to have her take her place amongst the Olympians for the annual session."

"We must." Zoë insisted. "The importance of her support against the forces of the Titans was already crucial under ordinary circumstances. Now it is even more so. Having a divine voice who favors us amongst the council given all that has occurred... That will be invaluable"

'All that has occurred' bieng a good chunk of said council, including Zeus himself, gunning for their heads for disobeying a direct order.

Annabeth bit her lip as she thought.

Yeah, having a goddess in their corner sounded good right about now.

...Then again, Apollo had shown up to help, and he'd been crushed under the King of Olympus's heel all the same.

"We're saving my sister." Was all the former god had to say when they turned to him.

"Sure, but how?" Percy asked skeptically. "Do we even know where she is?"

Zoë and Apollo exchanged a look.

"We do."

Percy's brow rose. "We do?"

"Do you not remember what I told you the day before?"

"What you told-" Percy paused. "The stronghold of the Titans. It's here."

"Yes."

"I... Okay." Percy leaned back, eyes distant. "Okay then. So what now?"

"We still have a day left," Luna advised again, drawing attention to the way she'd leaned over to ruffle a suddenly apprehensive Nico's hair again. "One more day of rest before we take off."

"Is that even safe, though?" Annabeth couldn't help herself. "We've already spent more time than we'd usually have, and we're still here. There are eight of us, not counting the Ophiotaurus and Hecuba. There's no way we'll make it to tomorrow without attracting monsters."

Frankly, the fact that they hadn't had one knock down the door already was nothing short of a miracle.

Or maybe not.

Their credit with gods wasn't all that presently.

She saw the flash of stunned panic that passed through Thalia and Percy as they picked up on that.

But Luna shook her head.

"It's not a problem. My wards are covering us."

For a second, those words didn't quite register.

"I-" Annabeth actually stopped to consider that. The things she'd seen her do already... "Your magic can hide all of us from monsters?"

Because that was ridiculous.

Utterly ridiculous.

"No. My magic can hide most of you from monsters. Zoë has the blessing of Artemis which hides her scent from common monsters, the Ophiotarus and Hecuba are magical creatures that are steeped in power that is likely keeping them safe, and it is debatable that Apollo has a scent at all given that he is a mortal. I, on the other hand, have never been afflicted by that particular curse to begin with."

... Nevermind. It got worse.

"Curse?" Annabeth asked quietly, but the implications of the word already had her dreading the answer. "What curse?"

Luna blinked.

And stared.

And then she sighed, sounding rather sad, and raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"You know, with everything that's happened, I had honestly forgotten that wasn't common knowledge.

Annabeth's stomach fell.

Already anticipating whatever world-altering insanity Luna was about to spew.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

For the first time in all the time Annabeth had known her, Luna seemed to have trouble finding words to use. She glanced toward Zoë and Apollo, one of them grim-faced and the other having trouble looking anyone's way once again.

"Have you never wondered why monsters come after you so regularly, so consistently?"

"Because we're demigods, and-"

Annabeth didn't finish.

'Because we're demigods and that's just how it is' didn't seem like the solid answer it had been just a few minutes ago.

Luna must have seen it dawn on her, because her smile was sad.

"Not quite. It's a curse. Created, not natural, and one that my father refused to let take hold in me. That doesn't protect me completely, of course. If I walk right past the domain of hostile monsters, they'll still be able to pick me out of a crowd. Even the most muted demigod legacy still has a little presence to them, and I'm far more than that." She explained in the silence that followed. "But by and large there are few common monsters that can pick up on my presence from great distances like they do with the rest of you."

"Somebody did this to us?" Thalia sounded indignant. "On purpose?"

"The King Of The gods-"

Thalia laughed. "Of-fucking-course!"

"He had a lover, thousands of years ago," Luna said, ignoring the outburst and Thalia's rage. The same feeling that was churning in Annabeth's stomach like a storm. "Lamia, the queen of Libya. The king favored her for a time, but he eventually turned away from her, as he was wont to do. Then the Queen of The gods turned her gaze to them."

Hera.

Who was famous for despising Zeus's mistresses and illegitimate children.

And just like that, Annabeth knew where this was going.

Nowhere good.

"In her rage, the Queen killed both of Lamia's children and twisted her into a vicious monster."

And there it was.

Nico winced and curled into Bianca's side.

"But the story didn't end there. Lamia had her revenge, of a sort, for she was the daughter of the goddess of magic, and she used her abilities to cast a lasting spell that granted any monster the power to sense the taint of half-bloods the world over. One that persists to this day."

"But why?" Percy stared in disbelief. "What did we ever do to her?"

"Nothing." Luna shook her head gently. "Some say she went mad with grief and wanted everyone who dallied with the gods to feel the pain she did when she lost her children. Others say that her goal was to villify the Queen. She wanted the gods to see their children getting slaughtered, all the gods, and know that it was because of what she did to her. She thought it would rouse them against her, and pave the way for her downfall. Only, it didn't."

"Why?"

"Because they don't care," Thalia said, and it was a bitter, bitter statement of fact. "They never have."

Annabeth didn't argue the point.

She couldn't have if she tried.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," LLuna said, but she sounded sad as she did. "The King of The Gods-

"She tried to press the issue."

All of them turned to Apollo, who didn't raise his head from the table.

"Whether she did it because she wanted revenge on the Queen, or because she wanted everyone to suffer as she did, or even because she thought she could use the curse to force my father into returning her children to her doesn't matter." He sounded so distant as he spoke. "The Queen got to him first. She made her case before him, showed him how his upstart mortal lover was using her power to back the gods themselves, and him especially, into a corner. She turned it from an attack against her into a slight against Olympus - against him."

The look on Percy's face said it all.

"And he decided to be a raging dickhead about it, didn't he?"

"Utterly and completely." Apollo agreed without a hint of humor. "'Let her see what her efforts are worth', he said. He commanded us not to meddle with the curse, on pain of punishment. For us… and our demigods."

Thalia's fist rattled the table.

"Fucker."

"I tried," Apollo whispered hollowly "Most of the gods fell in line. Some even agreed with him - they saw it as a way to toughen the mortals up, but I tried. I used blessings and trickery to save one of my children, to prevent the curse from leading him to death without removing it entirely and alerting my father."

He swallowed

"But he still found out."

Annabeth felt sick.

She wasn't the only one.

"He found out. I saved one of my children, but I disobeyed him." By this point, Apollo sounded utterly dead, eyes glazed, without a hint of inflection. "So when he was done with me, my father killed a dozen. "

A horrifying beat of silence passed.

"And he made me watch it happen - every last one."

Nobody dared breathe.

"Just to make sure the lesson stuck."

...

"After that, I learned not to push."

...

The quiet didn't break. None of them had anything left to say.

...

It was a few hours later when things changed, again.

The suite had fallen silent. Bianca and Nico had huddled with Luna somewhere, and Thalia and Percy were on the balcony having some kind of a conversation.

Zoë and Apollo sat side by side and did nothing at all, really.

It was then that, as Annabeth turned a corner on her way to pick up a water bottle, feeling antsy and trapped with indecisiveness as the time trickled on by, she saw it.

A looming, ghostly figure wreathed in black smoke, some eight feet tall and just standing there in the hallway like it had nowhere else to be. It was featureless, faceless, and so still that she almost froze at the sight of it, the light bending around it and twisting in a way that made her eyes hurt.

Intruder.

Then her instincts came rushing back in, her eyes widened and her hand shot out for her dagger even as she opened her mouth to yell for the others-

"Don't."

And a hand clamped don't on her shoulders.

Luna stepped around her, still idly patting her as she took in the strange thing standing in front of her.

"Luna-"

"It's alright. I thought I felt something strange."

Annabeth felt her own words die abruptly as the shadowy figure promptly dropped down and knelt on one knee in front of the other girl without a hint of hesitation.

"It's a daimon," Luna answered one of her questions, finally, as she took another half-step forward. "One of my father's servants. If it's here, it's because he sent it to me."

"Why?"

Looking at the thing still hurt, docile or no.

It really, really did.

Like the world itself knew it didn't belong here.

Luna hummed.

"For that, I imagine."

Annabeth blinked

In the space between Luna and the daimon, there was a chest.

Small, unassuming.

But Luna was still startled at the sight of it.

"Is this-" She didn't pause as she leaned down to place a hand against it, an odd look on her face. "It is. Father's sent something new? But why-?"

Annabeth wasn't listening.

It took a few seconds, but she realized she was holding something in her hand.

Something that hadn't been there before.

But she still knew what it was.

Luna noticed it as well.

"Is that yours?"

"It is."

But it shouldn't be here.

"I left it at Camp, in my cabin, after capture the flag. I didn't have time to go back and pick it up. Why would your father-?"

"If it was there, then he wouldn't have bothered. He'd have no reason to." Luna said, interrupting her pointedly. "The daimon may have delivered it, but Father wouldn't have bothered collecting it. Not unless someone else made the request. Which means..."

She didn't finish the thought, but she would have wasted her breath anyway.

Annabeth still wasn't listening.

Instead, almost shakily, she raised her invisibility cap - a gift from her mother - and felt her understanding of the world tip and tilt all over again.

...

Me, to you guys:

View: /P7XcTck

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