Chapter 42 Though Camp decides if he lives or dies

Jason's POV

Annabeth was a thorough interrogator, so for the next hour I mostly took notes on all the answers he gave her. Despite how serious the circumstances were, I couldn't help but find the whole situation, well, strange. I was sitting next to the man who had fundamentally shaped and changed so much of my friends lives, and mine without me knowing anything about him until last week. It was because of this man that I became a Praetor in the first place, and if that hadn't happened then maybe Juno wouldn't have chosen me as part of her exchange program to bring the two camps together. Also I didn't understand why Annabeth had made Sarah swear an oath on the Sticks when Piper could have just used her charm speak, instead of jumping through the extra hoop. Over the last year I had come to really respect Annabeth and her choices. She had good instincts but lately she has been more than a little off. I'm worried that whatever it is isn't impeding her judgment…

across the room the door opened revealing Leo and Coner who were covered in dust. Leo twerld, a wrench like it was a magic wand announcing,

"Alright mission accomplished and ready to report for more duty, that is as long as we don't have to wage war on any more dust bunnies."

Some were on my left Kate Gardner said,

"Umm how exactly do you wage war on dust bunnies?"

"Well you see my young Padawan, the dust bunnies always know if your sinuses are weak to their attacks. Just like pollen which means you have to retaliate by sneezing unless you're awesome enough to be me because dust bunnies have one fatal weakness, which is of course Leo. Observe."

He adopted a strange stance with his feet far apart and knees bent then swung his arms around in a circle, as if doing yoga nearly avoiding hitting Corner in the face with his wrench he inhaled deeply then let out an overly exaggerated,

"AAACWE!"

Then burst into flames. When the flames dissipated he waged his wrench at Kate,

"And that is how you wage war on dust bunnies."

Most of the counselor's laughed at Leo as Corner pushed past him in the doorway.

"Just don't open the hall closet."

I caught Annabeth's attention and glanced at the clock over the window to her left, she followed my gase and nodded. Only two hours left. She stood grabbing everyone's attention as she did.

"We don't have much time left and there is a lot we need to discuss so take a quick break while I make sure Luke will be comfortable in his new room. Jason, Piper."

We stood there was no way after everything we had heard last week anyone would be alone with him.

"And Sarah, the next part of the meeting is strictly for Head Counselors."

She was about to protest but I spoke first,

"Annabeth is right, we have to come to a decision on how to deal with the threat that is at our borders. Thanks to you we have good information to base our decisions on, you've done your part but now it's time to step back and let the Camp leaders decide what to do next."

"But…"

Piper put a hand on her shoulder and Annabeth shot her a warning look as Luke tensed in his chair though he didn't make any moves.

"Sarah, your boyfriend is in good hands."

She shook her head,

"I know you guys used to be enemies, how do I know that you won't make any discussions based on old animosity?"

Probably without realizing it Annabeth's hand tightened on the knife in her belt I had noticed that the only outward sign of stress she had shown throughout the whole meeting was that her hand never left the hilt of her knife. Luke had noticed as well. His eyes were trained on Annabeth, his whole body tense, reddy to spring at the first sign of danger towards Sarah. Despite all of that Annabeth's tone was calm and reasonable as she replied.

"Frankly you don't. However you must also recall that despite that, I had his name carved into the floor at the dining pavilion with the rest of the fallen heroes. Also and more importantly he claimed sanctuary and there are ancient rules that go along with that."

"Still I don't…"

"Sarah."

We all looked to where Luke still sat palms, pressed into the table. He held Sarah's gase as he continued.

"I'm not in any immediate danger, besides there's no point in you sitting in the meeting."

"Luke."

"Trust me, the counselor that can yell the loudest usually wins. Besides as Annabeth said I claimed sanctuary and my life is now in their hands. We just have to hope they do the heroic thing they always do."

Sarah nodded but she didn't seem happy about it. Annabeth turned and casually plucked her war helm off the back of her chair and tucked it under her arm.

"Ok Luke let's get you settled into your new room."

At the invitation he stood groaning softly, Annabeth shot him one of her special cut it out looks, which she normally reserved for Percy and Leo. To which Luke just smirked and muttered something in Greek I didn't quite catch. Annabeth shot back in the same tongue something that sounded like,

"That's your own fault."

Then strode for the door leaving the four of us to follow behind her. Annabeth led us up to the third floor stopping at one of the doors, she opened it revealing a room with an attached bathroom that had been completely cleared of any and all furniture except for a mattress on the floor. Luke stepped into the room glancing around and he looked back at us.

"Not exactly what I'd call welcoming."

As he spoke the corner of his mouth twitched upward into a kind of smirk which distorted the long scar on the right side of his face. Making him look almost good-natured much like the younger version of himself, smiling next to my sister in the picture hanging in my cabin. But this older version of Luke wasn't different just because of the scar, there was something in his eyes that reminded me of Octavian. In contrast, Annabeth scowled her eyes just as fierce as they were on the day I met her when she stormed across the sky bridge. Her tone was sharp as she clipped every word.

"You know exactly why that is."

His smile brightened

"You mean you still don't trust me even after what I did for you on Olympus?"

Annabeth's eyes flashed with anger.

"These days my full trust is very hard to earn."

Luke raised his hands in mock surrender as Annabeth addressed Sarah.

"I want a word with you as soon as I get the chance but in the meantime would you rather stay here with Luke or get armor and reporte to your second?"

"I'll stay here… I, well."

She looked at Luke.

"We need to talk."

He made eye contact but didn't betray any emotion to her statement as he gestured for her to take a seat on the mattress. After Sarah entered the room, Annabeth closed the door behind her, then motioned us to follow her back down the stairs. Piper glanced at me then asked what I was thinking.

"Shouldn't we leave a guard or something?"

"Not much need as long as someone is at least in the Big House."

I frowned,

"Why not that seems rather risky, not to mention sloppy."

"About four years ago a group of campers worked together to curse the room as a prank on the stand-in activities director Tantalis. As the story goes the curse worked better than planned, ever since that room can only be opened from the outside. You can't even make the window open."

Piper's multi colored eyes widened,

"Wow what kind of curse did they use to pull that off?"

"Don't know Percy and I were on a quest in the Sea of Monsters at the time and with everything that was going on it didn't seem important enough to ask about."

Piper nodded, but another thought had occurred to me so I asked,

"What about Sarah? I don't think it's a good idea to leave her alone with him if that dore can't be opened from the inside."

Annabeth's shoulders tensed when she replied after a couple of steps her voice cared an undertone of biternes.

"He won't hurt her."

I glanced at Piper,

"How do you know?"

"Because I know him. Sarah isn't in any danger…trust me."

Frowning I glanced at Piper only to receive a look that clearly said to drop it. I didn't like it, but I didn't say anything either. Piper rewarded me by reaching over and lacing her fingers through mine. On the second floor landing Annabeth glanced over her shoulder, her eyes flickered over mine and Piper's faces, her expression was unreadable but all the hair on the back of my neck stood up. All my senses screamed danger with that one look from Annabeth, her gray eyes were as dark and dangerous as storm clouds breaking over the open ocean. With her eyebrows drawn close together as she looked from me to Piper and back, with her jaw set in a sharp line. When she continued down the stairs I couldn't help but feel relevad, I had met a lot of scary demy gods, but in that moment Annabeth took first place. It finally hit me what had been off about her for the last few weeks, why she emanated so much danger. All her stress about the prophecy, the emotions tied with a death quest combined with trying to keep the camp from dissolving into panic had been broiling together like towe massive wethor frunts clashing. Culminating in a barely controlled storm, especially now with Luke turning up and yet another threat at the border. I can't help but wonder how much longer she can hold back that storm and what would happen if that storm finally broke. If she did lose control of her emotions I don't think I could blame her. After all I couldn't imagine what it must be like, she had ten beads for ten long years of hard training. Half of which had been spent on more and more dangerous quests, each one with herer stakes higher than the last. For half a decade she had risct everything in the name of Olympus, she had been deceived and kidnapped by the man upstairs. She had literally borne the sky on her shoulders, suffered and pursiverid through so much. To now have the wait of the world dropped on her shoulders. Defeat Tartous or die trying. Go back to Tartous or every thing you did would be in vain. And while you're at it defend your home from an old enemy and deal with the dead guy that cozied most of that suffering in the first place. If I were in her place would I have the strength to control myself the way she was? Would Annabeth have the strength to stay level headed and make that kind of sacrifice? Or would this be the thing that would finally break her? At the bottom of the stairs she turned to us.

"Jason, Piper before we go back to the meeting I should explain why I let Sarah come under oath instead of opting on your charm speak."

"Yeah I was wondering about that."

"First off Piper you are the most powerful charm speaker I've ever met, I have no doubt in my mind you could have gotten every answer we needed from Luke."

"Then why not just let me? it would have been simpler?"

"It's because of that reason. Luke is very familiar with charm speak he knows just how dangerous someone with that power can be, even if they aren't very strong. So it's best to keep your charm speak a secret for as long as possible."

Piper nodded slowly but the stradige didn't quite make sense to me.

"Annabeth, why wouldn't we want him on edge? Wouldn't he be less likely to try something if he knew?"

"Jason, I think in most cases you would be correct. However, with Luke, he's too careful. He would never just walk into an unknown situation, he came running in with no weapon asking for sanctuary, he chose us over his own people. If I had to guess, Luke has already been inside the camp once already without our knowledge and decided that we are the easiest means of survival. If we made him feel threatened in any way he would not have come. Think about it, if he had scouted the camp then all he would have really seen is a hundred new faces with only one or two beads, not exactly the most threatening thing to the guy once known as the best swordsman of the century."

I frowned,

"Ok but that still doesn't explain why you wasn't to keep it a secret now that we have him in custody."

Annbeth stared at the selling as if looking for guidance from the rafters.

"If Luke feels like he's in any danger, we'll lose him. He will find some other way to survive. If he's going to try something I'd rather him try it without him knowing how strong we are. Now come on, we need to get this meeting going."

When we walked back into the ping pong room it was in just as much chaos as to be expected on any other day. Apparently a group of old enemies threatening the entire camp and the borders with their once dead leader locked up stairs was not enough to somber the Greeks for long. Travis was distracting a small group by mimicking evory thinking Clares was doing while Corner filled their pockets with easy cheese. Someone, probably Loellan had drawn a magic muststash on sleeping Clovis which kept morphing into different styles, colors and patterns. Like western handil bar but polkadot. Percy was putting out a small fire that Leo had accidentally started while Kate Gardner was slowly turning all the wooden chairs into topiaries. Along with a dozen other odd pass times. Annabeth hesitated in the doorway then squared her shoulders lifted her chin then with perpopus in every step strode into the room. As we took our seats Corner planted the easy cheese can on an innocent bystander then asked.

"Ok now that's settled, what do we do with him?"

Clarice crossed her arms.

"I thought that was obvious, we hand him over."

Will Solace shook his head,

"We can't do that."

Haley shot back,

"Why not?"

"Because.."

He didn't get the chance to finish before she interrupted.

"Let me guess it's unethical or wrong or just not the heroic thing to do?"

The Nikey twins' heads swiveled as if they were watching an intense tennis match as Will retorted.

"Well yes. He came here asking for our help and you both think we should deny that?"

Clarice growled,

"After all he's done?"

"Yes."

Haley scoffed,

"Why? It's probably a trap anyway."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then I don't want to find out if they're bluffing about taking down the border in what an hour."

Piper frowned,

"Is that even possible?"

Clarisse nodded,

"It almost happened before. That was a long few weeks of border potrle."

"But the borders are way stronger than they used to be, right? With the power of the fleece and the statue sherly that would be enough to keep the border safe. Not to mention the hundred foot dragon."

Loellan leaned back in her chair looking as if she was trying to choose her words carefully.

"Piper has a point but I wouldn't rule out that threat."

I met her eyes asking,

"Never rule out a possible threat. But what makes you believe we could be at risk?"

She chewed her upper lip before answering.

"It would take some seriously strong magic but if the power of the fleas wasn't in play. It's possible that the border could be magically weekend, to the point it could fall if hit hard enough."

"Honestly…"

Evory one looked at Kate Gardner.

"With that piece of information I have to agree with Clarease and Haley on this one."

Rachel Dare glanced up from what she was drowning on her jeans.

"Why?"

Kate crossed her arms.

"Because after all he's done I can't condone putting the camp in that much danger."

Manny began motoring in agreement including to my surprise Percy. An argument broke out as more counselors voiced their opinions. Sedaley increasing in volume and intensity before Nico shouted over the noise.

"You're all forgetting about one thing!"

The room went silent as he continued in a normal town.

"He claimed sanctuary, and to deny that when he has not committed a crime or otherwise broken the law of his request, we are obligated to provide protection. And to break something like that isn't wise at all."

Clarease banged her fist on the table.

"HE HAS COMMITTED A CRIME! HE'S COMMITTED WAR CRIMES AND!.."

Nico cut her off,

"Yes but that war is over."

"DOES IT MATTER!"

He looked at Annabeth before speaking,

"I don't know."

Annabeth who had been sitting up straight now leaned forward folding her arms on the table. After a five count she answered.

"In the old days if someone from another city claimed sanctuary from a different one he was still garentade that safety by law. However if it was revealed that a crime had been committed the individual could be put on trial to determine if the misdeed was bad enough to be turned over to his own people. But that was the only way that issue could be resolved."

As the room dissolved back into agreements about the best course of action, I started thinking. As a former Praetor I had to become very familiar with politics, diplomacy and Roman law. I wondered what the Senate would rule considering Luke. It would be a long trial but what would the result be?

Just then someone pounded on the door. The room went silent as it flew open, one of the runners was standing breathless in the doorway. The daughter of Hermes gasped her message.

"The mafia said time is up. And they demand to see the leader of the camp."

All eyes turned on Annabeth, looking to her for what to do next. With Chiron gone trying to get some insight about the Prophecy from some abasker place the entire camp had just looked to Annabeth for the next move. Without missing a beat she stood hands pressed against the table and nodded at the messenger who ran off then looked around the room.

"We are out of time and still need to make a decision, so I say we put it to a vote. All in favor of providing Luke sanctuary."

She raised her hand, about half the room raised there's as well. I counted the vote and nodded at Annabeth to continue.

"All in favor of handing him over."

As hands raised and I counted, I looked at Annabeth.

"It's a tie."

Nico leaned forward.

"It comes down to you Jason. What is your vote?"

I knew I didn't have long to think but It wasn't an easy choice. Normally I think I would have chosen to prevent a possible attack on the camp, but that thought about the Senescent was tugging at the back of my mind.

How would the senescent rule it?"

A trial there was no time for that but if Luke had been put on a fair trial in New Rome I don't think they would be able to convict him. I don't know how he had been judged in death, but among the living, his name had in a way been cleared. Camp Half Blood had put him with their own dead. Sending him off with honor for his sacrifice, they had carved his name with the rest of the fallen heroes.

"I vote to give him sanctuary. I see no good reason not to."