Sapphire III

Day two of the summer session at camp started with an explosion. It was loud and slightly worrying but not really a surprise. Explosions happened at camp all the time. Sapphire would have rolled over and gone back to sleep if the sound hadn't come from the direct opposite direction of the Ares cabin and its land mines.

"Why?" Nico grumbled. "It's too early for this."

Sapphire agreed. She made a sound more suited to a housecat than a (mostly) human girl as she pulled on her shoes and followed Nico out of their cabin. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jay's ears perk up. The large cat jumped off of the couch in front of the fire and landed softly behind them.

'Something sounds strange,' Jay said.

Nico suddenly let out a shout and pushed Sapphire back inside. The chunk of stone that fell from the sky missed his head but hit his shoulder with a grisly thud. Sapphire screamed.

"I'm fine," Nico said through clenched teeth. He held his shoulder still and kicked the door shut behind him. "Let's try the tunnels."

"Have some ambrosia," Sapphire said.

"Better not." Nico grimaced. "I think some bones are out of place."

Sapphire winched. "Okay, tunnels."

There were more faint thuds outside as the rain of rocks continued. Sapphire glared at Nico when he tried to help her open the trapdoor over by the window. He backed up and let her lift the brass ring out of the floorboards, carrying the trapdoor with it. A section of steel ladder slid out of the hole and clicked into place. The extending ladder was a recent addition of Nyssa's that made it easier to climb down into the tunnel system under camp.

Convincing Jay to shrink so he could fit through the trapdoor was only slightly less difficult than convincing Nico to climb down after Sapphire so she could make sure he didn't fall. She was terrible at necromancy but she had a lot more fine control than Nico when it came to umbrakinesis. She used Nico's shadow to make a sling to keep his shoulder still and her own as a bungee cord attaching him to the ladder by his waist that she could expand to catch him if she saw him slip. Luckily, they made it back to solid ground without any accidents.

Someone from the Athena cabin had placed the dates of the tunnels' creation ranging from the American Civil War at the earliest to World War Two at the latest. They were cut into the bedrock and formed a twisting network that connected nearly every part of camp, in some places extending beyond their borders. Cabin Nine had strung lightbulbs in metal cages along the ceiling like they were on a construction site, which was appropriate considering that there were many areas they were still excavating. The lights were bright enough that people without Underworld-assisted night vision could avoid running into walls but they didn't help much with navigating the tunnels that split and turned without any rhyme or reason.

"The omega means cabins, right?" Sapphire asked as she examined the walls for any sign of the direction markings the year-round campers had started using.

"Yeah," Nico said. "Cabin Seven is this way." He turned left at the fork without even checking. Sapphire would be teasing him about that after the current crisis was dealt with.

They were probably somewhere around halfway to the Apollo cabin when they ran into Connor and Ed. They were trying to get to the Big House but neither of them were year-round campers (anymore, in Connor's case) and even Ed's impeccable sense of direction wasn't enough to help them navigate.

"Chiron probably knows what's going on already, right?" Connor asked.

Nico rolled his eyes. "How lost are you?"

"Very," Ed said. "This isn't anywhere near the climbing wall, Connor."

Connor shrugged and didn't look nearly as embarrassed as he should have.

The sons of the god of travelers, everyone.

"Have you seen anyone else down here?" Sapphire asked.

Ed shook his head. "I'm surprised you're here. The sun's barely risen."

"It seemed like the smart thing to do," Nico said.

That meant that Will was worried about him shadow travelling while injured again, didn't it? Sapphire hid a smile. Will was overprotective of everyone at camp but it was so cute when he focused it on Nico.

"I can take you to the Big House after we get Nico to Cabin Seven," Sapphire offered. "Or, you know, to wherever Chiron is by then." She could aim shadow travel by Chiron's specific not mortal soul, probably.

Ed paled at the thought, but he nodded. Connor agreed.

Everyone in the Apollo cabin was awake by the time they got there. Kayla let them in. Will was busy splinting Austin's broken arm.

"Did you try to go outside too?" Sapphire asked.

"Yeah," Austin said. "It was a bad—ow!—choice. I—ow!—have regret. Ow! So much regret."

"You'll live," Kayla said.

Sapphire really hoped that no one had gotten a rock to the head. Brain injuries were a little beyond the capabilities of the infirmary, even with Will's super healing powers.

Will ruffled his brother's hair. "Have some ambrosia." Then he turned to Nico and sighed. "How did you climb the ladder like that?"

"Very carefully," Nico said.

Sapphire dispelled Nico's sling when Will asked her to and then stepped back to let him commence fussing. He muttered about torn muscle and bone shards. Nico didn't fight him.

"The sky's still falling," Connor said, looking out the window. "Any idea where Chiron is, Sapphire?"

"Give me a minute."

Sapphire reached out with her Underworld senses. The souls of humans, demigods and magicians were shaped similarly, though it was easy to tell one from the other. It was the same with the souls of animals. The life forces of gods and monsters, on the other hand, only qualified as souls for the lack of any all-encompassing word to describe them. If mortal souls were 3D, then immortal souls were 4D encroaching on the fifth dimension and ignoring all laws of physics.

Chiron's four-dimensional guiding light was at the very edge of Sapphire's range, around where the portal to Camp Jupiter was located. She turned to Connor and nodded.

"I call sitting this one out," Ed said. "I hate shadow travel."

Considering he'd thrown up when they'd shadow travelled home at the end of last summer, Sapphire was good with that.

"Chiron's kind of out in the open, so watch your head," Sapphire said. "What's your sword arm?"

"Right," Connor said.

Sapphire loosely grabbed his left arm and called the shadows to take them to Chiron. The rushing cold and wailing ghosts were more chaotic than usual. They had been for more than a year now. Sapphire blamed Melinoe.

They ended up a few meters behind Chiron and what looked like everyone from the Hecate cabin. The group was split between stunned silence and talking over each other in tones of disbelief. It wasn't hard to see why.

"What the hell?" Connor breathed.

"Oh," Sapphire said.

The smoking remains of the stone arch that had held the portal linking Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter explained a lot.