Summer session begins with a hearing (Hanora pov)
The forge was hot. Which of course was nothing new but the whole place had increased in temperature as the summer weather took hold and weapon production went into overtime. So, I had to pull out my special heat resistant but still breathable long-sleeved t-shirt so I could protect my mostly healed burns on my arms. Heat like the forge agitated them like you would not believe, but I refused to let that deter me from my task.
I absentmindedly blew a chunk of my hair from my face, it sparkled silver in my peripheral. It was the most obvious piece of my hair to be affected by holding the sky last winter, even if it was for only like two minutes, but Char (But most call him Beckendorf, a son of Hephestus) said that there were strands of silver that sparkled all throughout my hair now. Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite, had giggled and said that I was now always party ready with my own built-in sparkle. While Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares, had said I looked like a fairy princess wanna be. So, like the calm and rational almost adult I was, I smacked her in the back of the head.
I was polishing my newest creation, a celestial bronze monster killing adaptation of a modern pistol. The Beretta 70, a magazine-fed, single-action semi-automatic pistol to be exact. Why that specific pistol? Well, I am a simple girl with simple needs, and one of them being my desire to have as many Italian things in my possession as possible, and well Beretta was an Italian manufacturer. As the only foreign kid at camp, I took it upon myself to introduce these idiots to proper European engineering, with a little advice from Hephestus himself.
Since the party on Olympus a few months back I had been extremely lucky to get semi-regular correspondence from the god of the forge himself via Tiny, the messenger dragon automaton I had built for him. The little guy had come with some very helpful schematics for new traps, weapons, and a few helpful hints on how to fix up B2 (the ring I had made for Annabeth a few summers ago that could summon a celestial bronze automaton fighter, modeled after yours truly.) B2 was now back where it belonged, on Annabeth’s finger ready for her next adventure.
The rest of the Hephestus cabin had been a little reluctant with the designs at first, but as soon as Char had read through them and promised to help the rest of them came running. Speaking of, said son of Hephestus was currently leaning over my work bench with his arms crossed and a very disapproving look on his face. He looked like a mom ready to give me the ‘I’m not made, I am just disappointed’ speech. Not that I had any personal experience with that, but I had seen movies. So that was close enough, right?
“You cannot keep skipping sword practice you know, I don’t care that you have a lot of real-world experience. War is coming and you need to be in peak form, you cannot just hide out here all day every day.”
I huffed but made no moves aside from continuing my check of the Beretta 70.
“Hanora, can you please just acknowledge that you heard me.”
I sighed, “Fine. You have been heard. Can I get back to work now?”
He threw his hands up in exasperation,” You are impossible.”
“Now you are starting to sound like Chiron.”
“What is it about training that you are so against? You used to love being in the arena. Is it the new trainer? Quintus isn’t so bad aside from being a little mysterious in his own right, but you should enjoy that more. I know you love a good mystery to puzzle out.”
I shrugged and slid open the empty clip to inspect the inner mechanism.
“Is it Mrs. O’Leary?”
I couldn’t suppress the involuntary flinch at the mention of her.
Charles' voice softened along with his posture as he sat down next to me. “I know she is a hellhound and all, but she is actually really nice.”
I huffed and reattached the clip.
“She even seems to like you a lot, always wanting to come play and jump on y-”
“Well maybe I don’t like her.” I cut in quickly, dropping the gun on the table. My shoulders dropped,” You know how I feel about hellhounds. I just-” I let out a frustrated breath as I turned to him, “I have more important things to worry about.”
We both fell into silence as I cleaned up my station and added the newly finished pistol to the gun rack we had installed by the entrance of the forge. I threw my apron onto the hook labeled with my initials just as Char neatly placed his own in place next to mine.
“You know what is a good way to deal with your fear of hellhounds?”
I bristled, “I'm not afraid of an overgrown dog, Char.”
“Okay so your dislike of hellhounds,” He used air quotes around ‘dislike’.
I had half a mind to smack him, but I was much more interested in getting back to my cabin to wash the soot out of my hair. I had enough gray sparkled through my long strawberry blonde hair; I did not need anymore. “Oh, do enlighten me with your wisdom oh Beckendorf, the great and powerful.”
He snorted, “I’m serious Hanora. Maybe spending time with Mrs. O’Leary could help you?”
“I am also serious, Charizard. And right now, I am very serious about getting as much gray out of my hair as possible before the Meeting of the Cloven Elders.” I waved him off and headed for the ring of cabins.
Camp’s summer session was in full swing, since most of the campers arrived the previous Friday so the whole place was buzzing with life. The forges were still creating billows of smoke despite their two head crafters having left for the day. The satyrs were playing their pipes in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow with woodland magic. Campers were having flying horseback lessons, swooping over the woods on their pegasi. Silena, being the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin and one of our best riders, led the new campers through basic flying drills. She swooped down and gave me a happy wave, and a little shyer one to Char who had a blush of his own dusting his cheeks. I elbowed him with a raised eyebrow after she passed but he only punched me in the arm in response. We had a pretty good laugh about it.
The Athena and Demeter teams were having a chariot race around the track, and over at the canoe lake some kids in a Greek trireme were fighting a large orange sea serpent. A typical day at camp.
I waved at Will Solace, son of Apollo, who was chatting with his older brother Lee Fletcher in front of their cabin. Since returning from the quest I had stowed away on over winter session Will and I had hung out quite a bit. Now was that because I kept winding up in the infirmary due to running myself ragged? Maybe, but I would never admit that to anyone else. It’ll be our little secret, well you, me and Will. If Charles knew or gods forbid if it got out to Annabeth and Percy. I would never be allowed to do anything by myself. But at least I had gained a new friendship out of it since his smile brightened as he waved back at me. With a blinding smile and a mop of golden hair, it was not hard to figure out who his godly parent was, never mind his amazing healing abilities.
We finally stood in front of cabin eleven, Hermes, god of travelers and messenger of the gods, as well as a whole lot of other things. He’s a multitasker. He wasn’t my godly parent, my dad was very human last I checked, but all demigods who were not claimed or did not have a cabin for their parent stayed here. Apparently, Hermes didn’t mind. And as an undetermined kid I get the joy of staying in his cabin as well, which is not the best gig, but it could be worse. At least I was not stuck in the Aphrodite cabin, too many mirrors and beauty products for my liking if I am being honest.
“Alright, I am going to go get cleaned up and then head out to the hearing. See you at dinner?” I asked as I walked up the front stairs leaving Char on the grass.
“Yeah, I’ll wave at you from table nine,” He smiled.” Be careful out there.”
I waved him off, “Me? When am I not careful?”
He raised a knowing eyebrow at me, “Yeah sure.” He quickly hopped up the stairs and ruffled my hair, much to my displeasure. “See you later, then.”
Then he practically skipped aloof the steps as he jumped back down heading to his own cabin. When I was almost in the door, I heard him yell one last thing over his shoulder.
“Bye! Love ya!”
And when I tell you that my blood ran cold, I mean that I had pure ice in my veins. This was not a new thing for him, he had decided to have the audacity a few weeks prior to start throwing around the L-word. Despite how I warned him that every person who has ever said that to me was dead, or Luke. Both of which were not exactly a good fate to aspire to. But he was insistent that exposure therapy was the best option. So now he was not only trying to get me over my crippling fear of being ‘loved’ as he so annoyingly put it, now he wanted to force me to hang out with a damn hellhound. Sure, yeah let's just trample over my trauma. That will definitely make me not see hellhounds surrounded by fire and crumbling cities in my nightmares or make me not see the faces of my very dead family every time I close my eyes. Yep, this will definitely work out.
I shook my head to attempt to rid myself of the negativity and headed inside to take the hottest shower I could possibly handle, burns be damned. Maybe if I burned off my skin, the ache I got every time he said it would go away too.
Rinsing out all of the oil smudges and ash had taken longer than anticipated, so I had to practically sprint at full speed most of the way to get to the hearing. Nymphs peeked out of the trees to watch me pass. Large shapes rustled in the shadows—monsters that were stocked in here as a challenge to the campers.
I had lived at camp for so long that I knew the whole place like the back of my hand. Though I could use my newly refined control over the threads that connected me to the people I care about as a guide, I knew Grover would be there already so his forest green angel hair pasta noodle looking thread would lead me right to him. But to do that I would need to pop off my glasses, making everything around me a tripping hazard. So, I opted to rely on my own knowledge of the area instead.
I ran through a tunnel of old willow trees, past a little waterfall, and into a
glade blanketed with wildflowers. A bunch of satyrs were sitting in a circle in the grass. Grover stood in the middle, facing three really old, really fat satyrs who sat on topiary thrones shaped out of rose bushes. The Council of Cloven Elders was in session.
Grover must have just arrived because he seemed to be in the beginning stages of his story. He twisted the bottom of his T-shirt, shifting nervously on his
goat hooves. He hadn’t changed much since last winter, maybe because satyrs age half as fast as humans. His acne had flared up. His horns had gotten a little bigger, so they just stuck out over his curly hair.
Standing off to one side of the circle were three girls. The girl in the middle was sniffling and clearly distraught by Grover’s hearing. She was petite with wispy hair the color of amber and a pretty, elfish face. She wore a green chiton and laced sandals, and she was dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Though she was not doing it well since green tears were still rolling down her face. I knew she was Juniper; Grover's dryad girlfriend and she was not doing well at all.
On Juniper’s left was Clarisse, her stringy brown hair was tied back with a camouflage bandanna. If possible, she looked even buffer, like she’d been working out. Which unfortunately I knew she had been, recent events have not been very kind to her. I mean with the whole Chris Rodriguez thing; she’s been kind of a mess. Just don’t tell her I said that. She seemed to resonate with Juniper’s plight since she stood almost protectively next to her.
On Juniper’s other side stood Annabeth Chase, and my breath nearly caught in my throat. She was wearing jeans and an orange camp T-shirt and her clay bead necklace. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her streak of gray hair was pulled through like a racing strip mixed in with her blonde on the side of her head. Her gray eyes sparkled with concern. It was nothing particularly special, except for it being her in front of me. And well I guess I was a little biased since I always thought she was exceptionally pretty. She had her arm around Juniper attempting to console her.
I strode across to them and settled on Annabeth’s other side.
“Not good so far I’m guessing.” I stated.
“Things could be better,” Clarisse grunted as she nodded at my presence.
Annabeth squeezed my hand with her free one and sent me a soft smile, and I had to remind myself to keep breathing. A glint from her left hand caught my eye, the ring I gave her sat snugly on her index finger. In between the two celestial bronze bands was a mint green strand that moved almost like solid liquid in between them. I had infused the band with a fragment of my own thread, it worked a lot better than the drop of blood I had used before. So now a part of me was always around to protect her, if she needed it. That thought would normally cause an involuntary smile to spread across my face, but there was something in her eyes that made me concerned. I wondered about what happened with her movie date with Percy. Speaking of Percy, not long after I arrived Chiron came galloping in with a slightly dazed son of Poseidon on his back. He plopped Percy down next to me, and oh boy he got taller. Like almost taller than me taller. Great now I was sandwiched between both of them, the fates were truly cruel for no reason.
Clarisse greeted him with a grunted ‘punk’, and I bumped his shoulder in acknowledgment as I tried to keep my eyes focused on the council hearing. Looking to either side of me could have been disastrous for my cursed Celtic paleness.
Juniper started dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief again. “It’s going terribly,” she sniffled.
“No, no,” Annabeth patted her shoulders. “He’ll be fine, Juniper.”
Percy looked at us confused so Annabeth tried to mouth the words ‘Grover’s girlfriend’. Which seemed to confuse him even more, but whatever he was going to ask got cut off by a very loud old goat.
“Master Underwood!” the council member on the right, Silenus, shouted, cutting off whatever Grover was trying to say. “Do you seriously expect us to believe this?”
“B-but Silenus,” Grover stammered. “It’s the truth!”
Silenus, turned to his colleagues and muttered something. Chiron cantered up to the
front and stood next to them. I remembered he was an honorary member of the council, but I’d never thought about it much. The elders didn’t look very impressive. They reminded me of the goats in a petting zoo—huge bellies, sleepy expressions, and glazed eyes that couldn’t see past the next handful of goat chow. But these old goats held a whole lot of power, it was annoying to say the least.
Silenus tugged his yellow polo shirt over his belly and adjusted himself on his rosebush throne. “Master Underwood, for six months—six months— we have been hearing these scandalous claims that you heard the wild god Pan speak.”
“But I did!”
“Impudence!” said the elder on the left, I think his name was Mar-something.
“Now, Maron,” Chiron said. “Patience.”
Oh, Maron, yeah, a real strong name. Said no one ever.
“Patience, indeed!” Maron said. “I’ve had it up to my horns with this nonsense. As if the wild god would speak to…to him.”
Juniper looked like she wanted to charge the old satyr and beat him up, but Annabeth and Clarisse held her back. “Wrong fight, girlie,” Clarisse muttered. “Wait.”
Clarisse was normally the first one to jump up and fight, but she has matured a lot in the past couple of months. She now knows how to pick her battles rather than to take everyone on. And if you had not seen Clarisse and Annabeth working on their annoyingly secret project together, then you would be as surprised as poor Percy that these two were working together and not at each other's throats. He really looked like those big sea green eyes were going to pop right out of his skull in shock.
“For six months,” Silenus continued, “we have indulged you, Master Underwood. We let you travel. We allowed you to keep your searcher’s license. We waited for you to bring proof of your preposterous claim. And what have you found in six months of travel?”
“I just need more time,” Grover pleaded.
“Nothing!” the elder in the middle chimed in, I did not even bother to try and remember his name. “You have found nothing.”
“But Leneus —”
Silenus raised his hand. Chiron leaned in and said something to the satyrs. The satyrs didn’t look happy. They muttered and argued among themselves, but Chiron said something else, and Silenus sighed. He nodded reluctantly.
“Master Underwood,” Silenus announced, “we will give you one more chance.”
Grover brightened. “Thank you!”
“One more week.”
“What? But sir! That’s impossible!”
“One more week, Master Underwood. And then, if you cannot prove your claims, it will be time for you to pursue another career. Something to suit your dramatic talents. Puppet theater, perhaps. Or tap dancing.”
“But sir, I—I can’t lose my searcher’s license. My whole life—”
“This meeting of the council is adjourned,” Silenus said. “And now let us enjoy our noonday meal!”
The old satyr clapped his hands, and a bunch of nymphs melted out of the trees with platters of vegetables, fruits, tin cans, and other goat delicacies. The circle of satyrs broke and charged the food. Grover walked dejectedly toward us. His faded blue T-shirt had a picture of a satyr on it. It read GOT HOOVES?
“Hi, Percy,” he said, so depressed he didn’t even offer to shake his hand. “That went well, huh?”
“Those old goats!” Juniper said. “Oh, Grover, they don’t know how hard you’ve tried!”
“There is another option,” Clarisse said darkly.
“No. No.” Juniper shook her head. “Grover, I won’t let you.”
His face was ashen. “I—I’ll have to think about it. But we don’t even know where to look.”
“What are you talking about?” Percy asked.
Poor guy always seemed to be in the dark.
In the distance, a conch horn sounded.
Annabeth pursed her lips. “I’ll fill you in later, Percy. We’d better get back to our cabins. Inspection is starting.”
***
Every afternoon, one of the senior counselors came around with a papyrus scroll checklist. Best cabin got the first shower hour, which meant hot water guaranteed. Not that it mattered for the Hermes cabin since I had jerry rigged our own personal showers with our own water heater, just don’t tell anyone else that. Luke and I had set it all up together my first summer at camp, just a devious ten-year-old that did not want the whole of camp seeing her heavily scarred arms in the communal shower areas. Yeah, no thanks. But the worst cabin got kitchen patrol after dinner, not fun.
I had already been through my area in the cabin and cleaned up our shared spaces as much as possible. I was not the head counselor since I was not a child of Hermes, but Travis and Connor had given me honorary head consular status as the undetermined kids spokesperson. They said it was something about having more experience than both of them combined, but it was probably because they were too lazy to take charge of any actual chores.
I walked a bit more leisurely toward the commons area, where the twelve cabins—one for each Olympian god—made a U around the central green. I had to hold back my chuckle as Percy raced past me to attempt to clean up his space. He was probably doomed to a terrible score. The Demeter kids were sweeping out theirs and making fresh flowers grow in their window boxes. Just by snapping their fingers they could make honeysuckle vines bloom over their doorway and daisies cover their roof, which was totally unfair. I don’t think they ever got last place in inspection. The guys in the Hermes cabin were scrambling around in a panic, only to realize that I had already cleaned up earlier in the day. Though they still accused one another of stealing their stuff.
I stepped into the threshold of the cabin and pulled two of the younger Hermes kids apart.
“Everyone prepare yourselves, Silena will be here any second, so please do not ruin all of the cleaning I did.” I yelled, causing the whole cabin to stand at attention.
Travis and Connor fell in on either side of me with manic grins.
“I knew you would be a great counselor, Han-Han.” Travis mused.
“The best,” Connor nodded in agreement.
“Oh, quit your suck up routine and straighten yourselves up, you bumbling, babbling, band of baboons.”
The whole cabin only took a second to giggle at the alliteration before running to their designated places.
That day’s inspection was going to be done by Aphrodite’s own head counselor, Silena Beauregard, the neat freak herself, and for any normal person the absolute worst inspector to deal with. She liked things to be pretty, and by things, I mean everything. Even one blanket slightly misaligned could get you docked points. Luckily, I planned ahead and kept all of our messiest problem children out of the cabin to keep it in tip top shape.
I felt someone come up behind me in the doorway, so I turned to face her. Silena Beauregard was standing in the doorway with her inspection scroll. She stepped into the cabin, did a quick twirl, then raised her eyebrows at me. “Well, I had my doubts. But you whipped them right into shape. I’ll remember that.”
She winked at me and left the room.
As soon as she left the room the whole cabin erupted into a thousand variations of wolf whistles. I rolled my eyes; she was so not my type.
***
I went back down to the forge to start my next batch of firearms when I caught sight of a very familiar hulking form.
“Tyson!” I yelled as I ran to him jumping up to wrap my arms around his neck.
He laughed and twirled me around before gently placing me back on the ground.
Tyson was grinning like crazy, his single calf-brown eye full of excitement. His teeth were as yellow and crooked as ever, and his hair was a rat’s nest. He wore ragged XXXL jeans and a tattered flannel shirt under his flowered apron, but he was still a sight for sore eyes. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, since he’d gone under the sea to work at the Cyclopes’ forges. And I was so happy to see his one-eyed face.
Percy cleared his throat from a couple of feet away. If I did not know any better, I would have thought that he looked a little jealous, but then again maybe I didn't know better after all.
Tyson happily skipped into the forge with Percy and I trailing behind him where we met a pleasantly surprised Char, who had the audacity to wink at me when I walked in next to Percy. The sly motherfucker. Luckily everyone was distracted by Tyson and his enthusiasm for his craft.
Tyson showed us how he’d learned to craft magic weapons. He fashioned a flaming double-bladed war axe so fast that even Charles was impressed.
While he worked, Tyson told us about his year under the sea. His eye lit up when he described the Cyclopes’ forges and the palace of Poseidon, but he also told us how tense things were. The old gods of the sea, who’d ruled during Titan times, were starting to make war on their father. The Titaness Tethys had even been spotted stirring up fights in freshwater lakes and rivers all over the world. When Tyson had left, battles had been raging all over the Atlantic. Hearing that made Percy extremely anxious, he was about ready to go jump into the sea right then to go help, but Tyson assured him that their father wanted them both at camp.
“Lots of bad people above the sea, too,” Tyson said. “We can make them go boom.”
After the forges, the three of us spent some time at the canoe lake with Annabeth. She was really glad to see Tyson, but she was distracted. She kept looking over at the forest, like she was thinking about Grover’s problem with the council. I couldn’t blame her. Grover was nowhere to be seen, and my own concern was growing the longer we were unable to see him. Finding the lost god Pan had been his lifelong goal. His father and his uncle had both disappeared following the same dream. Last winter, Grover had heard a voice in his head: I await you—a voice he was sure belonged to Pan—but apparently his search had led nowhere. If the council took away his searcher’s license now, it would crush him.
“What’s this ‘other way’?” Percy asked Annabeth. “The thing Clarisse mentioned?”
She picked up a stone and skipped it across the lake. “Something Clarisse scouted out. I helped her a little this spring. But it would be dangerous. Especially for Grover.”
“It sounds like his literal nightmare,” I muttered fiddling with my gold bracelet on my left wrist.
“Goat boy scares me,” Tyson murmured.
Percy stared at him in complete confusion, and I could not blame him. Tyson had faced down fire-breathing bulls and sea monsters and cannibal giants. “Why would you be scared of Grover?” He asked.
“Hooves and horns,” Tyson muttered nervously. “And goat fur makes my nose itchy.”
And that pretty much ended our Grover conversation.
***
Before dinner, Percy and Tyson dragged me down to the sword arena against my will. Quintus was glad to have company. Percy tried to get him to explain what was in the wooden crates, they read: TRIPLE G RANCH FRAGILE THIS END UP
Along the bottom, in smaller letters: OPEN WITH CARE. TRIPLE G RANCH IS NOT
RESPONSIBLE FOR PROPERTY DAMAGE, MAIMING, OR EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL DEATHS.
Which yeah, I get why Percy would want to know what in the underworld was in those boxes. But Quintus was adamant in keeping it a secret, instead he taught Percy a few Sword moves While Tyson and I sat off on the side to watch.
And This guy was good. He fought the way some people play chess—like he was putting all the moves together and you couldn’t see the pattern until he made the last stroke and won with a sword at your throat. He definitely fought like a child of Athena.
“Good try,” he told Percy. “But your guard is too low.”
He lunged and Percy blocked.
“Have you always been a swordsman?” Percy asked.
Quintus parried his overhead cut. “I’ve been many things.”
He jabbed and then Percy sidestepped. His shoulder strap slipped down, and I saw that mark on his neck, a large purple blotch. But it wasn’t a random mark. It had a definite shape—a bird with folded wings, like a quail or something. It was familiar but I could not place why.
“What’s that on your neck?” Percy asked, which was probably a rude question, actually it was definitely rude. Percy’s ADHD was almost impossible to control, he tended to just blurt things out without thinking. It got him into trouble, a lot.
Quintus lost his rhythm, clearly dazed by the question. Percy hit his sword hilt and knocked the blade out of his hand. He rubbed his fingers. Then he shifted his armor to hide the mark. It wasn’t a tattoo, I realized. It was an old burn…like he’d been branded.
My own arms started to ache in sympathy
“A reminder.” He picked up his sword and forced a smile. “Now, shall we go again?”
I adjusted my sleeves and turned back to Watch Tyson play with the hellhound, I mean, ugg, Mrs. O’Leary. He liked calling her “little doggie.” They had a great time wrestling for the bronze shield and playing Get the Greek. I spent most of my time doodling new gun designs and running some mathematical probabilities for them in my notebook, while trying my damndest to not draw the dog’s attention. I was more of a cat person. By sunset, Quintus hadn’t even broken a sweat, which seemed kind of strange; but Tyson and Percy were hot and sticky, so I sent them both to the showers before they got ready for dinner.
I sent Quintus a small wave, which he annoyingly returned with more gusto as I left for my own cabin. I could hear the dog whining behind me, so I quickened my pace.
Then dinner came, and all the campers lined up by the cabin and marched into the dining pavilion. Most of them ignored the sealed fissure in the marble floor at the entrance—a ten-foot-long jagged scar that hadn’t been there last summer.
Seeing it all patched up did nothing to patch up the hole that was left by the person who left it there. I missed Nico terribly, everyone else had practically given up on him. But I couldn’t help but hold out hope. His thread was elusive, but I could still see it in one piece, always just barely out of reach. He did not want to be found, at least not yet.
I zoned out through most of dinner only coming to once or twice to wave back at Char or nod at Will. I was not really in the mood for conversation, so I stuck to doodling in my book and trying to actually eat something of substance.
Every once in a while, I would notice a new doodle in the corner of the page. When I’d look up one if not both of the Stolls would do a really poor job of trying to look innocent. The two of them might have been some seriously unserious jokesters, but they were actually really nice when they wanted to be. So, I pretended not to notice as different colored stick figure animals danced across the page.
It might actually be one of my favorite spreads.
***
Sleep was never something that came easily to me. As you know half-bloods don’t dream like mortals' dream. We get messages. Or glimpses of things that are happening to our friends or enemies. Sometimes we even glimpse the past or the future. Honestly, I could do without the visions of the past, those were my least favorite.
But eventually I fell into a fitful sleep.
I saw the dark shore of a river. Wisps of fog drifted across black water. The beach was strewn with jagged volcanic rock. A young boy squatted at the riverbank, tending a campfire. The flames burned an unnatural blue color. Then I saw the boy’s face. It was Nico di Angelo. He was throwing pieces of paper into the fire— Mythomagic trading cards, part of the game he’d been obsessed with last winter. We had spent several nights discussing it at length while having pillows thrown at us from the other kids in the Hermes cabin, but it was worth it to have him smile that brightly.
Nico was only ten, or maybe eleven by now, but he looked older. His hair had grown longer. It was shaggy and almost touched his shoulders. His eyes were dark. His olive skin had turned paler. He wore ripped black jeans and a battered aviator’s jacket that was several sizes too big, unzipped over a black shirt. His face was grimy, his eyes a little wild. He looked like a kid who’d been living on the streets.
Nico tossed another trading card into the blue flames. “Useless,” he muttered. “I can’t believe I ever liked this stuff.”
“A childish game, master,” another voice agreed. It seemed to come from near the fire, but I couldn’t see who was talking.
Nico stared across the river. On the far shore was black beach shrouded in haze. I recognized it: the Underworld. Nico was camping at the edge of the river Styx.
“I’ve failed,” he muttered. “There’s no way to get her back.”
The other voice kept silent.
Nico turned toward it doubtfully. “Is there? Speak.”
Something shimmered. I thought it was just firelight. Then I realized it was the form of a man—a wisp of blue smoke, a shadow. If you looked at him head-on, he wasn’t there. But if you looked out of the corner of your eye, you could make out his shape. A ghost.
“It has never been done,” the ghost said. “But there may be a way.”
“Tell me,” Nico commanded. His eyes shined with a fierce light.
“An exchange,” the ghost said. “A soul for a soul.”
“I’ve offered!”
“Not yours,” the ghost said. “You cannot offer your father a soul he will eventually collect anyway. Nor will he be anxious for the death of his son. I mean a soul that should have died already. Someone who has cheated death.”
Nico’s face darkened. “Not that again. You’re talking about murder.”
“I’m talking about justice,” the ghost said. “Vengeance.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
The ghost laughed dryly. “You will learn differently as you get older.”
Nico stared at the flames. “Why can’t I at least summon her? I want to talk to her. She would…she would help me.”
“I will help you,” the ghost promised. “Have I not saved you many times? Did I not lead you through the maze and teach you to use your powers? Do you want revenge for your sister or not?”
I had the urge to punch this guy, but I was only watching through a dream, and he was a ghost. So punching was not in the cards for me.
Nico turned from the fire so the ghost couldn’t see him, but I could. A tear traced its way down his face.
“Very well. You have a plan?”
“Oh, yes,” the ghost said, sounding quite pleased. “We have many dark roads to travel. We must start—”
The image faded as I was pulled away into the darkness. I felt like I was falling but I could not see anything to even suggest where I had ended up.
But then in the dark as air whooshed past me I could hear chanting. It was old, an ancient language that I could not recognize. It got louder and faster with each passing second; I felt my heart rate increase until.
Splash!
I smashed down into a body of water.
I could not move, All I could do was watch the bubbles of air leave my lips as I sank deeper into the water.
The chanting slowed and was more gargled as it tried to filter through the ripples. I caught the words ‘fire’ and ‘ash’ but they were so distorted I was unsure if that was actually what I heard.
Loyal
A voice whispered in my mind; it was unfamiliar but calming despite my rapid oxygen loss. For a long time, I sank in silence, and then just when I thought that I could not hold my breath any longer, my eyes shot open to reveal the ceiling of the Hermes cabin.
I took a few gasping breaths trying to calm down as I stared out into the darkness.
My dreams had shown me a few important things that night.
One Nico was alive, two he was being led around by some asshole ghost promising vengeance, and three......things were about to get a whole lot worse.