The Fate of the Olympians ~ A Camp Half-Blood Fan Fiction Series

It was sad realizing that I'd never be able to appreciate the feeling of wind in my face again. Ever since I'd last seen Aether, an ancient Greek God of air with a particular grudge against me and my friends, the wonder that the sky once held had faded. Since that last meeting had involved the death of, well, a very important person, I was actually quite angry at the lifeless wind swirling around me. It also didn't help that the late January air was almost the exact same temperature as the top of Mt. McKinley, where my father, Chronos, the true Greek God of time, had built a temple to himself, a place which happened to be where Aether and I had faced off, even though that was back in September.

The wind, however, didn't seem to deter Jordan, who was steering our flying chariot. Oh, I'll get back to that. Jordan came with me and Heather, one of my other friends who I have a major crush on—and she knows, to join the group of Half-Bloods sent from Camp to rescue the gods Artemis and Apollo. Yeah, I'll get back to all of that as well.

Anyways, Jordan was a son of Hades. For years he'd lived in a small cabin at Camp Half-Blood, the one safe haven for us children of the gods on earth, with two evil older siblings. I mean that literally. Xavier, the eldest, had been working for Chronos, who was the one that kidnapped Apollo and Artemis. And Evelyn, the middle child that had been about 19 or so, was so devoted to Chronos and his leader, Chaos, creator of the universe, that she took on the physical form of Chaos to bring her back. Luckily, though, that meant she would never be returning, and I'd ended up killing Xavier, leaving Jordan to live the free life of a single child. He was kind of quiet, though he never turned down a conversation if I started one. He had a shiny obsidian head of hair that somehow managed to make him look dark and mysterious, even though it didn't even grow long enough to touch his eyebrows. It was clear that he was trying to maintain a perfect balance between the "normal kid" and "son of the lord of the dead" looks, wearing long cargo pants and a dark blue jacket over a white shirt. Still, he had a gloomy aura that didn't match his more or less upbeat personality.

So, getting back to Artemis and Apollo now. About four and a half months ago, my father had used Chaos's power of space and his own power of time to rip Apollo and Artemis from their bonds to the sun and the moon, taking the gods along with him, and placing them in a strange floating prison above his temple in Alaska. Jordan, Heather, and I, as well as a couple other campers, had gone to Mt. McKinley to rescue them, only for them to be completely destroyed by Chronos in a way that we didn't fully understand. Still, they were erased from existence, leaving the two evil ancient, or primordial, gods, Hemera and Nyx, with the duties of driving the sun chariot in the day and raising the moon at night. So far, they'd even attended two olympian council meetings, the first of which on the day Apollo and Artemis were destroyed, when they'd been elected into the group as replacements. The second time had been at the biannual solstice meeting on December 21st. Dionysus, a god who had been sentenced to working at Camp Half-Blood due to . . . well, naughty behavior, told Chiron who passed on the message to us that they had each put forward the idea to replace him, as well as the gods Demeter, Hera, and Aphrodite, in the council, claiming that "They simply have no use. Truly, what could we accomplish with a drunk, a farm girl, an narcissistic housewife, and someone who spends all her time—" well, uh, having naughty behavior.

Ever since, we at Camp Half-Blood have been preparing for a not-so-subtly implied overthrow of the Olympians. We've been sending satyrs and demigod scouts out across the country, as well as canada and mexico, looking for more half-bloods to increase our numbers. In fact, Heather had left after we'd returned from Alaska to go find some new recruits. And it just so happened that Jordan and I were on a trip to Detroit to collect a demigod that one of our satyrs, Ivan, had discovered. Thus, the flying chariot.

Due to the camp's constant need for transportation of demigods to and from Long Island, where Camp Half-Blood was located, the Athena, Hephaestus, Hecate and Hermes cabins had started combining their efforts into the production of flying chariots. The Athena campers, since their mother had invented the chariot, were in charge of production, and the Hephaestus campers were using their aptitude for metalwork to construct the vehicles, modeling them after traditional Greek chariots from the good ol' days almost 3,000 years ago. The Hermes and Hecate campers combined their gifts of navigation and magic to help steer and levitate the chariots, especially since my friend who'd been killed last September was a son of Hecate. These chariots, about a dozen or two now finished, were given scout teams, and had been put to work just a few weeks ago. Each had it's own name, dedicated to a great hero of Greek Mythology, like Heracles or Perseus. Right now Jordan and I were riding in the newest chariot, Bellerophon, which was both our favorite due to the fact that the immortal creature Pegasus, who had been Bellerophon's partner in battle, had given his life to help us on our mission. And sure, since he was technically a monster he would regenerate after some time, but that could be as long as fifty or even seventy-five years. Plus, the pit where all monsters were condemned after being killed, Tartarus, was not exactly the most up-scale prison in the world. After all, I do mean pit literally.

"Hey, Alex," Jordan said, taking me out of the state of thought I'd been in since our departure. "How long has it been?"

"2 hours, 12 minutes, 39 seconds," I responded automatically. Being the son of the Greek god of time, I had an internal "body clock" that I could use as a stopwatch, clock, or even calendar. It had proved itself quite useful from time to time, especially the wake-up alarm that I could set simply by thinking of the time I needed to awaken.

"We must be getting close."

I looked over the side of the horseshoe-shaped chariot, and beneath the carved image of a lyre and a snake coiled around a woman's leg, all I could see was clouds.

"I guess."

"Should we go under for a second to see?"

"Yeah," I said, despite the fact that it meant exposing ourselves to monsters and vengeful primordial gods. Luckily, though, mortals wouldn't be able to see us. A strange force called the Mist would keep them from seeing the truth. Maybe they'd see a falling satellite dish, or even a weird baseball. There was no way to know what they saw.

Yeah, it confuses me too.

"'Kay."

Jordan grabbed onto the silver reins that connected to the long celestial bronze compass needle that stuck out from the open end of the chariot, raising them up high, and dipping the nose down. It was really a clever design by the Hephaestus and Athena kids. The bronze needle always pointed in the direction that the chariot left the ground in, guiding the pilot and passengers along a straight line to their destination. At the end, a small spike came up, from which the reins sprang. Whenever the reins were pulled tightly and raised in the hands of a demigod, the chariot leaned down. When they were pulled down, the chariot soared higher.

After a few short seconds, we dipped underneath the surface of the clouds, and were instantly soaked. The temperature didn't exactly make the experience more pleasant, either.

However, it took only a little while to pop out of the bottom, at which point Jordan let the reins go slack, and they would've fallen down, connected just to the end of the celestial bronze point, but the special, Hecatian Silver link in the middle was stopped protective magical border, acting like a hook stringing the silver reins across to the spike. If anything with magical Greek properties, including half-bloods, tried to go over the side, they'd be caught by the border around the vehicle. Luckily, the border was a foot or so away from the left and right sides of the chariot, giving riders enough room to look down over the sides.

Jordan and I both quickly turned our heads, looking for signs of Detroit beneath us. There was definitely a large city beneath us, but I'd never seen Detroit, and as far as I new, there weren't really any famous landmarks to check for.

"Any idea if that's it?" Jordan asked, confirming my thought that we probably should've looked up Detroit before flying across the country to find it.

"No—" I began, when suddenly, I saw something beneath us that gave me a sense of Deja Vu before I realized I had actually seen it before. There was a large collection of buildings surrounded by trees on the curb of a busy street. The largest building, which was obviously the office building, had a large marquee of an eagle dressed in green clothing holding a sign on the elevated porch that read "Welcome back from Winter Break, Eagles!" Once, while traveling to Mt. McKinley last year, I'd had a weird dream in which I'd seen this exact school in early autumn, when it suddenly went into a blur of movement, where kids walked along the sidewalk in and out of the building hundreds of times, the letters on the marquee were no more than flashes of dark on an illuminated canvas. Leaves had fallen instantly from trees, getting covered with snow, when kids stopped coming, before it started to be melted down, likely by maintenance workers, for the kids that were coming back from Winter Break. I'd only realized that last part now, after reading the sign. The strangest thing was, I looked back down and saw nothing more than a faint image of a building that could have been the school. Could that small view of the rooftop have triggered that vision?

"Jordan," I said, my voice shaking from anxiety and excitement. "This is definitely where we're supposed to be."

I realize that of course, anyone who says something like that is going to be met with a very confused reaction, but all it took was a quick reminder about my hereditary connection to fate for Jordan to give me a confident nod and raise the reins, taking us lower. After all, I did remind him who was the first male to ever host the spirit of the Oracle of Delphi, due to my power to comprehend destiny.

The turbulence we met on the way down couldn't have been Jordan's fault, since I was the one who'd said that we needed to land the chariot. Still, to this day he apologizes.

It wasn't very fun, after all. I still have the scars to prove that.

We had gotten half of the way to the ground when I could finally start to see more of the school below us. Sure enough, the marquee said the same welcome message, which distracted me enough to somehow ignore the silhouette of a woman flying up from the building towering next to us and over the other side of the chariot. In fact, neither Jordan or I discovered her presence until she crashed down on our flying cart, sending it rolling over and over as it fell. Completely unknowing what was happening, we each just held onto the sides of the chariot, not really wanting to test to see if the protective cage we were in had a top. As we fell, I could just barely see the woman above us, barely even recoiling from the impact, over my dizziness and the fact that the chariot was spinning like a wheel now.

Freeze! I roared in my head, after regaining my thoughts. Suddenly, everything was still. It was a skill I'd perfected relatively quickly after learning I was a demigod right after my thirteenth birthday in mid September. I'd even continued practicing it at camp, to the point where it hardly even took a noticeable effort to activate. However, as time (well, as much time as I could feel when real time was frozen) passes, it becomes substantially harder to even slow time.

The chariot was, fortunately, right-side-up when I'd stilled time, thank gods, so I simply stood up in place and grabbed Jordan, and tied the long silver reins in a harness around his chest, arms, and legs, and curled him up into the fetal position. It was possible that he'd freak out once time was restored, realizing that he'd been tied up, but since he'd been my guinea pig when practicing, it was likely that he would understand this was my doing and trust me.

I started the feel the familiar tugging in my gut from the strain of holding back the entire time/space continuum, and decided to work faster. There were two possible ways to go about this—I could get the chariot to break through the windows of the skyscraper to our right, which would cost a lot of money in repairs, or I could try something risky. I focused the remainder of my energy on creating a platform of air molecules slowed to the perfect speed in which they condensed, becoming a solid. Due to the energy I was putting into holding time now, I could barely make it big enough for my entire left foot. I stepped onto the platform, and exhaling loudly and exhaustedly, unfroze time.

Jordan caught on fast and stayed still like I'd hoped he world, and I immediately created another platform of air beneath him and the chariot, causing it to land on the solidified air, leaving Jordan bouncing around inside, before he let himself loose and stood up.

I now had the energy to make a platform big enough to support both of us, so I solidified more of the air around me, making a circle almost ten foot in diameter. I made a row of stairs leading down to Jordan and the chariot, and after barely even pointing to it, Jordan stepped on and ran up, relying on the fact that I had actually made invisible stairs there.

I looked up and saw the woman in a nosedive shooting down at us. I made one last platform of air appear halfway between us, leading to a rewarding Thump when she crashed down on it. Stunned, she stayed still long enough to give me a chance to look at her.

She had long, wild mahogany hair that spread out in an almost complete circular plane around her head. Her dark brown eyes rested just above her very stubby nose, her colorless lips just beneath. A long, white, and boringly rectangular chiton was wrapped around her, secured by a pale, silver thread around her waist. She was tall and thin, with a skin color that was just like an eggshell, far too white to be natural. Overall, she seemed very . . . plain. She didn't have any defining traits, good or bad.

That was before she snapped out of her injured trance, when she raised her head and opened her mouth wide, revealing two razor-sharp, inch long fangs on either side of her jaw.

I should've been scared. I should've been petrified on the spot. Instead, I had a different reaction.

"Really?" I complained, actually judging Greek Mythology a little bit. "Vampires?"

However, that was when I did get terrified. Before Jordan could answer, the vampire woman jumped to her feet and leapt of the platform, jumping inhumanly far, and crashing through the windows of the building to our left.

Well, at least I tried not to cause any damage to it before.

For a second I made the fool's mistake of thinking she'd be contained for even a brief moment or too.

Like I said, fool's mistake.

The woman shot out of the building at an incredible speed, tackling Jordan and I, knocking us both over the side of our platform. I was forced to release the platforms I'd made so far in order to make another to catch us, unfortunately causing the flying chariot to go tumbling down to the ground, where it shattered loudly below us just a few seconds later. Still, I slowed the air beneath us and we landed relatively softly on the invisible floor.

The woman's momentum had propelled her forward even after tumbling into us, causing her to fall down the the ground, which wasn't such a great distance any more. In fact, if we could get just a little closer . . .

"Jordan, you know those cartoons where the guys fall out of the sky and crash through a bunch of tree branches?" I asked, panting from the stress.

"What are you talking—"

He didn't get a chance to finish before I broke our platform, making us fall down, before I made my move. I slowed the air around us not quite to the point of solidifying, but enough to make it start to catch us, as if we were falling through water. After about twenty or so feet, a large bush was within jumping distance. I grabbed Jordan's arm and rolled us both over, causing us to fall another ten feet or so into the thick foliage.

Thankfully, we were alive and now on the ground. Not-so-thankfully, the bush turned out to be a particularly thorn-filled rosebush.

Accumulating about six or seven dozen cuts and scratches, Jordan and I managed to struggle our way out of the bush, and looked around. The vampire women had landed somewhere to the right of us, but her exact landing site was hidden by the small forest encircling her.

"Where's the school?" Jordan asked innocently.

"Where do you think?"

I reached for the small arrowhead I kept on a thin black chain around my neck. On the front there was an iron A, a Greek Alpha, buried in the stone. Pressing on the metal letter, the chain seemingly disappeared and the arrowhead glowed brightly, flashing silver. Within a second, a long, onyx rod grew from the base, until I held a full-size spear in my hands.

Jordan raised his weapon in a much quicker fashion. He simply reached his right hand into the empty air and not-so-simply summoned his blood red pitchfork out of pure darkness.

"Meet you there?"

"Sure," Jordan said, and we both took off towards the trees, splitting up at the first fork.

I was immediately grateful to find that the bushes on the ground were not, in fact, rosebushes as well. However, the long, slender branches of the trees smacked me in the face, arms, and legs anyway. Occasionally, an uprooted twig would catch my shoe and I'd either tumble face-first into the dirt or barely manage to catch myself and keep going.

Okay, so maybe only the first thing happened. Four times.

Light was just starting to appear on the other side of the forest when I made the mistake of turning to my right. Jordan had done nothing more than snap a fallen stick as he ran out ahead of me when the vampire lady jumped on me, latching onto my hands with her sickeningly long, sharp fingernails. I landed on my back, and was about to knock my head against hers when she did something that, for some reason, I didn't see coming.

She leaned over and bit my neck.

Now, I've never been bitten by a leech, but I would imagine it would have been far preferable than this. Perhaps it was just the thought that another human being was drinking my blood that made it all the more horrifying, but it was too much. I tightened my grip on the spear and flicked my wrist, spinning the weapon around in a circle, slicing across her hand, making her jump in the air, yanking her teeth upwards, painfully pulling my neck along with her. After I was in a sitting position and my head moved forward, her fangs ripped out of my flesh, causing me to make a sickened, weak sound like Gna!

The vampire lady shrieked, spitting my own blood down onto my face. She swiped her claws at me, making two more wounds on the left side of my neck. I leapt up off the ground and swung my spear in an arc over my head, leaving a shallow gash down the woman's right arm. She reared back and practically howled, before gazing into my eyes with pure rage.

"Jord—" I started to yell before stepped in on his own. A fireball shot from the end of the trees, bursting on the other side of the vampire lady. She was knocked over, and I ran towards the exit. I turned around to stand behind Jordan, and threw the spear.

The point landed just under the woman's left arm, enraging her all the more. She seemed to float up off the ground, grabbed the spear, and hurled it like an olympic javelin thrower at my chest.

However, a giant wall of dirt raised up out of the soil under our feet. The spearhead cut through the sod, but was slowed enough to stop before it hit me. I locked my arms around the tip of the weapon, and pulled slowly, until I felt the vampire lady grab onto the other end. I was just about to shove the base of it back at her, when she pulled the same move on me.

The spear came sliding through the earth, piercing my stomach just enough for the blood to come through. Jordan turned his focus from the wall of dirt to help me, and the woman knocked it down on top of us both. She grasped the spear and raised it just above his head, when someone spoke out.

"Mommy, look! That lady's got a spear!"

It surprised all three of us enough to forget what was happening and look to the trail on our right. A man was pushing a stroller along that had a baby girl in a bright orange jacket, and a woman, likely the man's husband, was holding the hand of a four or five year old boy. They all stopped moving, and the two adults looked over, as well as the little baby in the stroller, who took enough time to pull out her thumb from her mouth to giggle and say "Lotsa dirt!"

I fully expected the parents to both shake off what their kids had said, since the Mist would protect them, but I almost saw a flicker of . . . recognition?

Jordan had told me that rarely, a mortal would have the ability to see through the Mist. However, it wasn't a hereditary thing. Both of the kids had seen what was happening, and if the parents could see it too, could they possibly be fellow demigods? Would they be able to help us?

Suddenly, both of the adults' eyes glazed over and they shook their heads.

"No, Michael. That's not a spear. That's called a rake."

"No, that's not a rake," the boy said. "It's a spear."

"Spear!" the baby girl agreed.

"Are you boys alright?" the man asked us.

For a second, I had a small glimmer of hope. Even if those people were just seeing a friendly woman with a rake and two boys that had fallen over, if we said we were in danger, they would help us.

"No, no, we're fine," the vampire woman said, and Jordan and I were still basically frozen on the spot, covered in soil. She then reached out her hand and somehow fit it through my unwilling fist, pulling me up and dusting me off. "Thanks for your concern, though."

The man nodded, and the four of them walked away, leaving Jordan and I with a few more seconds of safety from an unwitnessed death.

I took the opportunity. I jumped into the air, throwing the vampire lady off balance and we both tumbled onto our backs. I picked up the spear and slashed it down at her, but she grabbed the rod and flipped it out of my hand. She advanced on me, but Jordan moved in and hit her back with the pitchfork. The sharp edges of the three cones on the spokes tore three small, bloody holes on the woman's side. However, while most of her blood was red, just a single drop of something that was as white as liquid paper fell from her wound. When the white blood hit the ground, it turned brown instantly, and the vampire lady collapsed.

"What did you do?" I asked Jordan, panicked. "Was that some weird son-of-death-god magic?"

"No," Jordan said, his voice shaking. "I didn't do anything to her."

She groaned, and after a tiny moment, I remembered. This person is trying to kill us!

Suddenly, I didn't care about what had happened to her. I watched as her skin slowly wrinkled, but ignored what seemed to be her slow death, and raised my spear.

With a quick motion of the wrist, the vampire lady exploded into ochre dust that smelled of sulfur, and I realized why I'd been slightly hesitant to kill her.

Somehow, I knew. She was becoming mortal. I know that legends say that vampires turned others into vampires by spread their own false blood, and I was truly terrified that it would happen to me. So, if they lost the false blood that made them vampires in the first place . . .

She'd been turning back into her old, human self. Even though she would've been killed anyway, since she was now aging and had been born over two thousand years ago, I'd killed a near mortal.

"Who was she?" I asked Jordan.

"Lamia," he responded. "A woman that got turned into a vampire. That's all I know."

"Ah, useful." I turned around, and approached the trail. The family was long gone, now, but I could see another couple coming down the path from the other direction. Up ahead, however, I could see just the corner of a cartoon eagle holding up a sign. The time was just past 2:30, meaning there was just about an hour left in the demigod's school day. There was no time to delay. If we only managed to return to Camp Half-Blood (how could we even do that now without the chariot?) at dismissal, there would be hundreds of other teenagers watching, and that was definitely not a good thing.

"Come on," I called, waving my hand at Jordan, telling him to follow me. He returned his pitchfork to its shadowy storage place. I touched the Alpha on my spearhead, and it returned to a small triangular stone with a metal A. The chain dropped down from nowhere, and I put it around my neck, trying to avoid rubbing against my bite wounds.

"Are you sure this is it? I mean, Ivan didn't really say where—"

"This is it, Jordan." I was more sure than ever. Every once in a while since I'd learned I was a demigod, I would suddenly come across something that for whatever reason my mind knew was important, that it would play a huge role in my life, and I would just stand there gazing at it. And right now, I couldn't take my eyes off of this sign. "This is going to change everything."

And with that, I stepped onto the trail and started towards the school.

Once we'd gotten onto the front porch of the school, we realized we had a small problem. Neither Jordan or I had a cell phone, since the satellite signals were basically an open call for monsters in the area, meaning there was no way to actually tell Ivan that we were here. We didn't know what room he'd be in, and whether that room would even be against the wall of the school or not. For a moment Jordan suggested looking through the windows of the classrooms on the outer rim, but we agreed that the likelihood of any kids seeing either of us, two battle-worn teenagers, was too high. So, we resolved to use the most reliable option there was: Lie.

We quickly tried to fix each other's hair and cover our injuries until we looked slightly more presentable, and pressed the buzzer for the door. When the office worker inevitably asked "Who is it?" I stepped up.

"Allen and Jonathan Glade," I said, trying to add just the tiniest bit of an English accent to my voice. Back at Camp, Chiron had told me that Ivan had originally lived in England before moving to New York to live at Camp Half-Blood. "We're Ivan's brothers."

"Just a second . . ." I froze. "We don't have any record of other Glade children."

"We're homeschooled," I said quickly, before she could say anything else. "You can ask him."

"Alright, you two come on in, and we'll get Ivan down here."

"Thank you, sir."

The buzzer rang and I pulled on the door handle. It swung open and I stepped into the small atrium at the entrance. Another glass wall stood parallel to where I was standing, with two doors serving as gateways to the rest of the school. Jordan closed the door behind me, and we both walked toward the square opening on the side that seemed to serve as a drive-through-like window into the school office. Behind the counter on the other side was a middle-aged man in a bright orange jumpsuit, an outfit I wouldn't have expected a receptionist to wear. His head was bald, adding to the brightness of his general appearance. When he looked up at us, I saw thick smile lines on either side of his nose, which made him seem much friendlier than his dark brown eyes would have led me to believe.

"We've sent someone to bring Ivan down," he said, and seemed to analyze us. I realized that my dirty blonde hair and Jordan's pitch black hair didn't help our story about being brothers, especially since we'd likely have to be twins, based on our age.

Luckily, he nodded it off and started typing on his computer. I didn't know how long it would take for Ivan to come, so I decided to stand, awkwardly twiddling my thumbs while Jordan tapped his foot.

One uncomfortable minute later, Ivan came up to the glass doors and walked through, accompanied by a girl wearing an official-looking Office Administrator badge. His eyes widened when he saw us, but he hid it for the most part. The girl nodded at us, and ran back through the glass doors.

"Hey guys, what's up?" he asked, which fortunately did not prove that we weren't really his siblings. Unfortunately, it seemed that any kind of English accent he'd had was gone now, and I decided not to use fake one anymore.

"Do you know these two?" the man behind the counter asked, clicking on his mouse five or ten times as he spoke.

"Yeah," Ivan answered, and somehow knew to say "They're my brothers."

The man looked satisfied, and turned to Jordan and I. "How can I help you two?"

"We needed to bring Ivan something," Jordan said, pulling out a small ziploc bag of golden drachmas, special Greek coins used by the gods and Half-Bloods.

"I was supposed to bring them for World History," Ivan continued. "As a prop for my report on Ancient Greece."

The man nodded, and I realized that he wasn't really paying much attention anymore.

"Okay, well . . ." I didn't know how we could get Ivan and the demigod out now. Sure, the man wasn't really paying attention, but it still wouldn't be easy to just go collect another child and have us all sneak out.

Then I saw the man in the cloak. He was walking slowly down a hall toward us in a way that wouldn't have seemed suspicious if he hadn't been covered in black fabric from head to toe. However, the strangest thing was that he didn't seem dark. In fact, it seemed like his black clothing was barely hiding a shimmering light source buried beneath. Instantly I was sure he was a Greek figure, good or bad, and I raised my hand toward my neck.

Jordan and Ivan noticed immediately.

"What is it?" Jordan whispered, and I turned my head in the direction of the man, who was now only a dozen or two yards away. He gasped quietly, and Ivan turned around to look at him, and he gasped louder.

"Professor Aster!" he said, catching the attention of the man in the office window.

"Are you boys still here?" he questioned. Then, proving that he was not in fact paying full attention, he said "Get to class, all of you."

Jordan looked to me, and I nodded rapidly. We all stepped toward the glass doors, passing onto the other side, where Professor Aster was standing. I still couldn't see much of his face, but it seemed to be speckled with what seemed to be orange-gold glitter.

"Ivan," he said, and it was all I could do not to chuckle. His entire outfit had led me to believe that this deep-voiced man meant business, when in reality it sounded like he had inhaled quite a few helium balloons just a minute ago. "Good to see you again."

"And you, sir," Ivan said, his voice actually sounding relieved, and even joyful.

"You two," his voice, despite its squeaky tone, was very serious. "I've never met either of you. Are you new students?"

"N—No, uh, sir," Jordan said, and it was clear he was trying not to laugh as well. "We're Ivan's brothers. We came to help him with a . . . project."

"Ah, I see." Professor Aster raised his bulky, chocolate-brown hands to his head and pulled back the dark hood hiding his face. Beneath, I could see that the orange-gold spots were bright freckles on his otherwise shadowy skin. His eyes were unnaturally white, with disturbingly dark, black eyes. If he had eyebrows or hair, I couldn't see them, as the canvas of his face was so shadowy. "Perhaps you'd like to stop by later," he said to Ivan. "To catch up, once you're done with this project."

"Of course," Ivan agreed, and Professor Aster turned and left without another word, his black cloak fluttering behind him.

"Who was that?" Jordan asked after the man was a good distance away.

"Professor Aster," Ivan answered, his voice back to normal. "He was me and Helen's science teacher last year. That was how I found her."

"Wait, so the half-blood's name is Helen?" I questioned, realizing that we still didn't really know anything about this demigod.

"Yeah, Helen Just. And on the subject of the mission, how did you guys even know what school to come to? I forgot to say in the message to Camp—"

"Alex knew," Jordan said. "He doesn't really know how, but he knew. Fate demigod thing."

"Ah. Well then. So, Professor Aster. Last semester, there was an . . . incident. During fifth period one day, a couple of kids passed out in his class, and the nurses said that they'd inhaled too much helium. Then they discovered that the helium was coming from Professor Aster's breath, and he was fired because of his helium addiction, which he was feeding with the helium supplies in the chemistry lab."

"Then why is he back?" I asked.

"I have no idea."

"So when he said 'catch up'," Jordan began, "what exactly did he mean?"

"Well, being a satyr, I was always his helper whenever we did environmental experiments, so I kind of became his personal assistant."

"Okay." I said, wanting to get back on subject. "That's weird, sure, but let's talk about Helen."

"Right," Ivan continued. "We're in sixth period right now, so she should be in the Gym."

"Where's that?" Jordan asked.

"It's on the other side of the school. Come on, I'll show you."

We didn't pass any other teachers or students in the hall along the way, luckily, until we reached the Gym. Inside, there were at least two dozen kids playing a game of soccer, and one was even dressed up like an official referee. The coach, a well-built woman, was sitting on the bleachers right next to the door we were behind, holding a clipboard and a whistle. Every once in a while, she'd write something down and scratch her scalp, always managing to get a dot of blue ink on her forehead.

Ivan pushed open the doors relatively loudly, yet the coach didn't show any sign that she'd heard us. We even got within just two or three feet of her before she looked up. It was clear she was confused by me and Jordan's unfamiliar faces, but she seemed to know Ivan, which satisfied her.

"How can I help you?" she asked, her voice actually fitting her appearance, unlike Professor Aster.

"Could we have Helen Just?" Ivan asked innocently. "Um . . . Professor Aster wanted to see her."

"Professor Aster?" The coach seemed as bewildered as Jordan and I had been the first time we'd heard about the man. "What are you talking about?"

"He's come back for a visit today," Ivan answered. "He wanted to catch up with all four of us."

The coach looked confused, and pretty reluctant, but she sighed. "Get him to sign a note and bring it to me. Then you can take her."

Ivan nodded, and telling me and Jordan to stay where we were, he went to find Professor Aster. Once again unsure how long it would take, we both remained standing.

Luckily, it didn't take very long this time. Ivan returned in just a minute or two with a pink sticky note, and handed it to the coach. She nodded and blew her whistle, making all the kids pause their game.

"Helen," she called, and the girl dressed as the referee turned away from the other students she'd started talking to, looking at us. She seemed confused for a second, until she spotted Ivan, and smiled.

"Coming," she said sweetly, and waved to her friends as she ran over. Her grin widened as she came closer, and when she reached us, she hugged Ivan and shook both me and Jordan's hand.

"Is it time?" she asked, and I realized that Ivan had told her what was happening. How much she knew, I wasn't sure, but she clearly understood that whatever it was, it was exciting.

"Yeah, it's time," I said. "I'm Alex."

"And I'm Jordan."

"Nice to meet you both."

"Come on," Ivan said, and gestured for us to follow. "Let's get going."

"Bye Coach Kemp," she called to the woman as she ran ahead of us into the hallway.

"Thank you," Jordan said to the coach, and we followed Helen out the door.

"Oh my gods," Helen said once we'd met her in the hallway, showing that she did, in fact, know about the gods. "I can't believe it's finally time to go to Camp!"

"Wait a second," Jordan interrupted. "Ivan, how much does she know?"

"She knows pretty much everything," he answered.

"You told her everything? Do you know how dangerous that is?"

"Yeah, but—" he began, but Helen cut him off.

"Ivan said I was a minor demigod. Not even a child of an Olympian. My aura wasn't strong enough."

"You do know a lot," I said.

"Yeah. So, are we going? How are we getting there? Should I call my aunt and uncle first to let them know? Or do they already know?"

"Wait a second, Helen," Ivan stopped her. "We need to go see Professor Aster first."

Now Helen really came to a halt. "Professor Aster?"

"Yeah, he's here for a day," Ivan answered. "And I told Coach Kemp we'd be going to see him to get you out."

"Okay, I guess," she said, still confused, and seemed to realize that she was still in her referee outfit. "Oh, I need to change first. You guys wait here."

Her excitement seemed to have come back, and she skipped down the hallway before turning into the locker room.

"She's rather energetic," Jordan noted.

"Not normally. She's just excited to be going to Camp. You can imagine how awesome it is to start training to be a hero."

"Eh," I said, remembering how I'd felt when I'd learned about my parentage. "Being a demigod's not really fun sometimes."

"Well don't tell her that. Better for her to be looking forward to what's coming."

"True," I agreed.

Helen came back out wearing cargo pants and a Rainbow Dash T-Shirt, as well carrying a green duffel bag.

"Ivan told me to pack my supplies," she explained. "Now let's go talk to Professor Aster."

* * *
Professor Aster, who had seemingly taken up temporary residence in his old classroom, greeted us at the door, welcoming us inside. The walls were covered in star charts with a few laying in front of windows, the light pouring through the small dots in the black plastic, littering the floor with spots. Many of the constellations on the charts I recognized, like Leo, Cancer, and Sagittarius, while a couple were literally alien to me. The few spots of barren wall, mostly at the front of the classroom, were kept mostly in darkness. The entire area seemed like a rectangular planetarium, and I almost didn't want the lights to be turned on.

Once Helen did flick the switch though, all five of us sat down, Professor Aster sitting in the teacher's chair, and us four kids sitting in the front row of desks.

"How've you been?" Ivan asked politely, but was met with a cold stare from Aster, who had now taken off his black cloak and exposed his dark gray buttoned shirt and suit pants. It couldn't have been comfortable at all, but I was still pretty sure the dark colors were there simply to balance out whatever he was hiding.

When he spoke, his voice, though high-pitched and squeaky, was intimidating.

"Formalities. Why do we have them?" he questioned angrily, and rose from his desk. "I was fired for nothing more than having helium in my breath. Has anyone ever punished you for breathing, Mr. Glade? I've been fine personally. But not all of us. Oh no."

"All of us?" I asked, and immediately wished I hadn't.

"I don't answer questions, Alexander." That was bad. For as long as I could remember, the only people who actually called me Alexander were the gods, and I doubted any of them that liked me would be speaking so angrily. "Ivan's was a matter of manners. As for other questions, I won't answer. I'll simply say what I need to, and if it's not enough for you, I'm so terribly sorry."

I grabbed my necklace and ripped it off my neck, pressing the Alpha and summoning my spear. I stood up, and pointed the head at Aster. I could hear Helen gasping, but I didn't turn around.

"Go on."

"There's no need for that, Alexander."

"Who are you?"

"That's a question."

"Fine. Tell me who you are."

"Interesting approach, but—" Aster stood up straight, and waved his hand, drawing something like a Japanese throwing star from thin air. "I'm afraid commands are far worse than questions."

He stepped toward me, and Jordan jumped up from one of the desks, along with Ivan. Helen stayed glued to her seat, watching in horrified awe.

"Professor Aster!" Ivan yelled angrily, and pulled three seeds from his pocket, each a different shade of purple. "What are you doing?"

Aster's eyes flashed gold, and I saw a flicker of light coming through the holes in his buttoned shirt. I realized that I had, in fact, been correct. All his dark clothing was merely to mask something beneath. Something supernaturally bright.

"Questions!" he roared, and his squeaky voice didn't make him sound any less terrifying this time. He raised his throwing star, which shimmered in the sunlight coming through the star charts, and was about to throw it when Jordan headbutted him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. Ivan ran to Helen and took her hand, pulling her out of the desk and leading her to the door.

"Get Helen to the front of the school!" I ordered him, an escape plan barely formed in my head. Ivan nodded, and he and Helen disappeared down the hallway as the door slammed behind them.

When I turned back to the fight, Jordan was clutching his forehead and Aster was still down on the ground. His throwing star had skid across the floor, leaving him unarmed, though I wasn't sure what kind of power he was keeping under his dark clothes.

"Helios?" I questioned loudly, and Aster roared.

"Helios? I am no simple sun god!"

He leapt up off the ground, bumping into Jordan and causing him to tumble over onto one of the front desks. I was about to throw my spear when Professor Aster exploded—literally. A wave of light shot from his body, blinding me temporarily. I couldn't see anything for the first few seconds, and I realized that I was practically staring at the sun. If I didn't look away, my eyes would completely burn.

I turned around, and my vision started to return. I didn't dare to look back at Aster to see what had happened exactly, but I could hear him screaming furiously. I saw one of the star charts catch flame, and wondered how the fire alarm hadn't gone off already, as I was quite sure Aster was now a flaming spirit behind me.

"How have you survived without them?" Aster asked, his voice now flickering just like a campfire, and I felt the heat of his breath fall on me, singing my the back of my neck. "Those two were the only ones to realize my role in all this."

Once Aster was done, and my neck was officially sunburnt, I remembered the realization he was talking about. Heather and him had been told me about the god who was likely bringing messages to Chronos and Chaos—the god who was able to spy on everything we were doing through the stars.

"Astraeus!" I shouted, and almost instantly, the severity of Aster's blaze lessened. The star chart fire burned itself out, and I could hear Jordan breathing over the cackle of the flames.

Astraeus laughed. "I'm surprised you didn't expect to meet face to face sooner or later."

I was surprised I hadn't realized who he was earlier. After all, it made perfect sense. His helium breath—all stars use hydrogen to make helium. The light he'd been hiding—how else could he keep everyone he met from losing their vision as soon as they looked at him? Even the Mist couldn't keep mortals from seeing blinding light.

"You've been a spy for my father and Chaos this whole time, like they said, haven't you?"

"Alexander," Astraeus said, and I finally turned back around to see that he had somehow gained a golden breastplate and chain mail legs and sleeves, which let out soft white light from his torso. Apparently he'd left Jordan alone, but I tried to hide my relief from him, so as not to draw attention to that fact. "That is a question."

"You have. And you can't tell me any answers or else Chronos and Chaos will deal with you—" and, just to make it a question, "Right?"

Astraeus simply stared at me, the light coming from the holes in his armor waving around hypnotically, something that must have come in handy when he was interrogating demigods.

"Right?"

"Yes. Fine. But it's no matter. I've gained all the information I need."

"Information?" I said, completely confused. "We haven't said anything."

"Oh, you have," Astraeus said, and his light began shining blood red. "And you're going to give us much more."

He lunged at me, but there was a quick swinging sound behind me and before I could turn around, something flew into Astraeus's mouth and he tumbled to the ground.

I twisted my head around and saw Ivan standing there like an action hero, two of the purple seeds in his left hand. I looked back at Astraeus and saw foam gushing from his nearly closed lips. I remembered something I'd learned about World War II, how the nazis had kept deadly cyanide pills on them at all times that would cause them to foam at the mouth when eaten. My stomach dropped.

"Did you . . . were those . . ." I stuttered, but Ivan waved me off.

"Hypno Seeds. They look deadly, but they just knock the person out for a few hours. That foam's just the chemicals reacting with his spit."

"Pleasant." I stepped over Astraeus's unconscious body and over to Jordan, who was breathing heavily.

"You okay man?" I asked, helping him sit up slowly.

"Yeah . . . just . . ." he coughed for a little while. "Just a little . . . winded."

"Alright." I faced Ivan once again. "Where's Helen?"

"She's waiting on the front porch of the school. I told her to stay there, and with everything that just happened, I don't think she's going to want to move anyway."

I nodded, and Ivan started towards the door.

"What're we going to do about Aster?" Jordan asked me.

"Astraeus," I correct. "And as far as I can see, there's nothing we can do. He'll be out for a few hours, which is as long as any trap we could've made for him would last. I think it's best if we just get going."

"Okay." He slid of the desk and, leaning on me for support, stepped over Astraeus. Together we stumbled down the halls, lead by Ivan, who came back once we realized we needed help, and ended up passing by the same middle-aged man in the office, who simply said "Have a nice day," as we walked out with our injuries. Helen was still sitting on one of the green benches on the porch, and after a moment, she snapped out of her stress-induced trance and we helped her up.

"Thanks," she said, but wasn't very talkative after that. I remembered my first experience with a greek bad guy—the Headless Horseman or an "Acephali" as Heather had called it had ridden into my school the day after my thirteenth birthday. I could easily understand Helen's reaction.

"So . . . now what?" Jordan asked, and we had to explain to Ivan that our flying chariot had been destroyed in an attempt to save ourselves from Lamia.

"Well, I have an idea," I said, and grabbing Helen's small green duffel bag, pointed at the forest Jordan and I had landed in. Once again, I had an unexplainable sense that the forest was where we all needed to go. Just as the oracle's spirit had told me that this school was the place to be, it was telling me that the answer to our current problem was in those trees.

Without elaborating on what I'd said, I started walking towards the forest, with Jordan, Ivan, and Helen trailing behind. None of us spoke, but I could tell that Jordan knew exactly why I was leading us back.

Once we reached the opening in the trees where we'd come out before, I could see exactly what the oracle's spirit had been drawing me to.

In the middle of a clearing just twenty or so paces ahead of us, there was an auburn-haired girl in a long, green dress that seemed to be made of a patchwork of leaves. From the instant I saw her, I could see that she had been watching us, eagerly waiting for us to appear. After all, for the past two months, the forest at Camp had been our meeting place.

"Laurel!" I cried, and ran towards her, wrapping my arms around her tightly. After dealing with a vampire and an aggressive god of stars, I was more than happy to see someone who not only reminded me of the safe haven that was Camp Half-Blood, but might actually be able to help us get back there.

"Alex!" she said, and embraced me as well, her hair smelling sweet, like fresh honey.

I'd met Laurel on the quest to Mt. McKinley last year, when she'd made a very strange introduction while I was getting changed in a Virginia grove. After she helped us out a little bit later on the quest, we'd become friends, and since my return near the end of October, she'd become one of my closer friends, due to the fact that Heather went to search for more demigods, and Jordan, being in the Hades Cabin at Camp, had a different schedule from me. So, whenever I was doing some outdoor activity, Laurel would join me. The only problem was that Laurel was a Dryad, a tree nymph, meaning that she could only be about fifty yards away from her host tree, a Mountain Laurel. She had the ability to move her tree through the soil using a powerful magical technique called Chlorokinesis, or the ability to manipulate plants with her mind.

Actually, there were too problems. Laurel, like all Mountain Laurels, was poisonous. Sure, I think it goes without saying that I would never eat Laurel, but if I spend too much time near her tree, the pollen from the flowers could get into my system and potentially kill me. Which is why, for the most part, she tried to keep her tree away from people.

"How did you find us?" I asked as the three others arrived.

"Hey Laurel," Jordan said.

"Jordan!" she said excitedly, and gave him a hug too. She was pretty much the only nature spirit I knew who didn't get creeped out by the children of Hades.

"New friends!" She ran over and hugged Ivan and Helen at the same time, accidentally restricting their throats with her arms.

When she finally stepped back, she turned back towards me.

"The Hephaestus campers said that the chariot you guys had sent out a distress signal. They were going to send another chariot, but I volunteered to come get you guys instead!"

Ivan opened his mouth to say something, but Laurel suddenly ran past him, dashing towards a rather blandly colored little bird, which flew away just before impact.

"Shoot," Laurel said, snapping her fingers. "I haven't gotten to hug a bird in months! Stupid winter . . ."

"Hug a bird?" Ivan questioned.

"Laurel," I said, and she hopped over to me with great strides, holding her arms out like Superman

"Yes, Alex?" she said, softly nudging me with both fists when she stopped.

"You said you came to get us? How exactly?"

"Oh, Alex," she chuckled, grabbing a leaf from her dress and putting it behind her right ear like half of a laurel wreath. Heh, laurel wreath. "You know I can move my tree! How else would that have gotten here?" She pointed away from the path, and I saw the tall, skinny, flowering tree that had seemed to be following me since my arrival at Camp Half-Blood.

"I know, but how exactly—" Laurel put her finger up against my lips, darting her eyes at Ivan.

"Let him figure it out," she whispered, winking.

Ivan did seem to be thinking. "Phytokinesis!"

"Chlorokinesis," Laurel corrected, and Ivan shrugged.

"Still, how does that help us get—" Jordan started, but Laurel put her other finger up to his mouth.

"Come on, Ivan," she said, sounding overly encouraging. "You're a nature spirit too!"

He straightened up. "You can do that?"

Laurel seemed to understand completely. "Of course! You could to, if you mastered the technique."

"Technique?" I asked through Laurel's index finger. She nodded vigorously, and I could tell she was getting very excited.

"Transpetalporting!" she exclaimed, and lost me completely. "I came up with that name myself!"

"Ah," I said, back on track. "Continue."

"So, basically, I move all you guys like plants!"

"How?" Ivan asked, clearly intrigued just as much as the rest of us. Even Helen seemed to be paying attention now.

"Well, it's really simple, actually," she said, and I was very sure it wouldn't be. "I make four giant flowers that you can all fit in, and once you're each crammed inside, I shoot you all through the soil to Camp Half-Blood. With some powerful Chlorokinesis . . ." she looked at Ivan. "It should just take about a second for the plants to transport."

Well, at least I was right.

"Laurel, I don't think that's very safe—" Ivan started, when a leaf flew off of Laurel's dress, landing flat on his mouth like an eyepatch for the lips.

"It is. I practiced with over a dozen types of flowers."

"But those are plants," I said, and she looked at me in her kiddingly angry way.

"Alex," she huffed, and I shrugged. Instantly, she retracted her hands from me and Jordan's faces, and the leaf fell off of Ivan's face, fluttering to the ground. She jumped gleefully, clapping quickly, and grabbed my sides.

"You'll go first?"

I'd learned a long time ago that Laurel, despite her overly hyper personality, never did anything that could put her friends in danger. She'd even admitted once or twice that she didn't think what she wanted to do would be safe enough.

"If you really think it'll be fine, then I'm all for it."

"Yay!" she said, clapping once more, and her face turned serious instantaneously. "Please keep your arms and legs inside the flower at all times."

Bright magenta flower petals suddenly appeared in the ground below me. I could feel something like a personal earthquake, and my gut was already telling me this may not have been the best idea.

"Riders with weaker stomachs may experience some nausea." Gee, really?

The petals started to expand, enclosing me in a light purple ball. I looked out at the others and saw Jordan watching expressionless, Ivan in awe, Laurel saluting me like an army general, but Helen had the most interesting reaction. I'd seen her face when she saw Aster go berserk. That had been pure fear. But this was more. It wasn't her fearing for someone she'd met about a half hour ago. She seemed to be personally terrified that I might get hurt.

Without thinking, I nodded slightly and smiled at her. For the second before the petals obscured my vision completely, I could see her subtly exhale nervously, just barely relieved by my reassurance.

As the background noise of the wind and cars faded out, I heard Laurel's last, muffled words.

"Enjoy the ride."

Then the flower moved, and I tumbled to the ground, feeling like I was not only falling, but more as if I was being pulled down into a bottomless pit by a bungee cord.

But all I could think about was Helen.

Once I arrived at Camp Half-Blood, it took me a little while to recover from my dizziness, at which point I realized for the first time just how tough the flower petals were. After a few minutes of struggling and sweating inside the giant plant, I drew my spear and began frantically jabbing the pink membrane of my pod. Upon getting out, I saw two other pods next to mine, with another one quickly sprouting up from the ground. I ripped the petals on what turned out to be Ivan's flower, and was about to do the same for the other when it burst into flames. Just a second later, Jordan emerged from the charred, withered remains of the pod. Within a minute, the next flower had fully appeared, and Jordan and I helped cut Helen out. A ways away in the forest, I could see Laurel's tree growing, and soon she had materialized next to all of us.

"Interesting," Jordan said, not wanting to elaborate.

"Right?" Laurel responded excitedly, and giggled. "Transpetalporting!"

"Why not transplanting?" Ivan suggested, and I couldn't help but chuckle. Unfortunately, Laurel wasn't so enthusiastic about the new name. She smiled softly, but I could smell just a bit more Mountain Laurel poison around her.

Before she could say anything, however, Helen gasped.

"This . . . this is Camp Half-Blood?"

I turned toward her and saw that she was staring down at the big house, a sky blue building on the opposite side that served as the head "office" of the camp. It was also my current place of residence, as none of the 20 cabins arranged in a Greek Omega were dedicated to the children of Chronos. After I'd starting living at Camp Half-Blood, Chiron had turned the attic into a veritable bachelor pad. On one side of the room, hundreds of Greek spoils of war were stacked on shelves, in trophy cases, and littering the floor. On the other side, I had a twin bed and two bean bag chairs, a bookshelf filled with four or five dozen books that I'd mostly never read, and a plasma screen television on the wall with a Wii and PlayStation 3 installed. The campers originally complained about Chiron showing favoritism toward me, which was funny, since I'm pretty sure Chiron's not a big fan of mine. After all, I had broken the #1 rule at camp on my third day, fleeing the camp without permission. However, I insisted that anyone could come to the attic whenever they pleased, as I didn't keep anything valuable in there, and I really only used the room for sleep.

The only reason I spent time in there during the day was when I was adjusting the master clock that had been installed next to my bed. Since I had an innate ability to tell the exact time, I was in charge of making sure no pranksters adjusted the clocks so as to get out of doing chores, or to move dinner ahead an hour. However, once or twice I'd actually been the one giving a false time, giving everyone an extra half hour or so to sleep or to shorten the wait for Capture the Flag on Fridays. Otherwise, I was out training for battle or talking with Jordan.

"Yeah, this is it," I said, understanding her amazement. "It's really crazy, I know, but you'll get used—"

"I've been here before."

Now I was the one in amazement. In my peripheral, I could see that all my friends were dumbfounded as well.

"You've . . . what?" Ivan questioned, being the one who knew Helen best. "You mean in a dream?"

"No," she said, her eyes still glazed in awe. "I know that building. I lived there before."

Now I was even more confused. Absolutely no one except me, the previous oracles, Chiron, and Mr. D had ever lived in the Big House.

"Are you sure?" I asked, snapping out of my daze.

"Positive."

For a few more moments, we all just stood there, deep in thought and confusion, staring at Helen. Finally, Jordan spoke up.

"Well, we may as well go and find out if that's true. Come on, guys, let's go talk to Chiron."

* * *
Laurel stayed in the woods, tired from transpetalporting us all from Detroit. Just before we left I was about to ask her why she'd been acting strangely around Ivan and Helen, but all that was left of her was a quickly diminishing cloud of pollen. As we walked across the camp, passing by the mess hall, the arena, and the cabins, I noticed that Helen didn't seem to recognize anything other than the Big House. As far as I knew, all of the other buildings had been here for decades, if not since the founding of the camp. So how could Helen not remember them?

When we arrived on the front porch of the building, Helen put her hand on the azure walls and softly grazed her fingers over the wood longingly. Inside, I could here someone approaching the door, and tapped Helen on the shoulder. She came back to reality and straightened up, watching as Chiron emerged from the Big House, fortunately in his wheelchair-ridden form. His wiry hair was combed back over his ears, and his scruffy little beard had recently grown wider across his face, but didn't seem to ever grow longer. He was wearing a frayed tweed jacket, and was holding a cup of coffee in his left hand. He looked exactly like a regular middle-aged college professor, but in reality he was a six-foot tall centaur—a magical creature that was human from the waist up and horse from the waist down.

"Mr. Brunner!" Helen shouted. Mr. Brunner?

"Helen?" he responded, and my mouth actually dropped like a cartoon. "How wonderful to see you!"

"Uh, Chiron?" Jordan said, just as shocked as me. "You know Helen?"

"Of course I do," he said, and put his coffee mug down on the windowsill. "She used to summer here all the time with her father."

"She did?" I asked. "When?"

"When Helen was younger, Alexander—" Oh, he knew I hated being called Alexander. "She and her family would come spend the summer here. In fact, she was the first child to ever actually be born in the camp."

"I was born here?" Even Helen was surprised now.

"Yes, and you lived here for the first few years of your life too. Your father, a son of Hephaestus, wanted to make sure you were safe as an infant whenever he had to work, so he brought you here, where he'd grown up. However, after his death when you were three, when your aunt and uncle in Detroit adopted you, you stopped coming."

"Wow," Helen said. "I can't believe it."

"Me either," I said.

"Still, however," Chiron said, and turned to Ivan. "How much does she know?"

"Pretty much everything," Ivan answered, shrugging. "Except that the 'Chiron' that I told you about is Mr. Brun, or Broon, or—"

"Brunner," Helen corrected.

"Ah yes," Chiron said. "Mr. Brunner is a pseudonym I use whenever I introduce myself to someone who doesn't know the truth about the Greek Myths." He turned to Helen. "Your father didn't want you to learn about this part of his life until you were ready. In fact, he never even let you see the arena, amphitheater, or even the cabins, worried you'd discover the truth."

Just then, I remember something Chiron had said before. "You said that Helen's father was a son of Hephaestus."

"Yes."

"So is Helen not actually a child of a god, but is just descended from one?"

"No," he said. "Helen is both the daughter of a son of Hephaestus and Nemesis."

"Nemesis?" she asked, suddenly worried. "My mother is Nemesis?"

"Yes," Chiron responded, realizing that he'd just bluntly stated what was probably the most life-changing thing in her life, other than the fact that she was the child of any Greek God.

"The g-goddess of revenge?"

"Yes. Although, I think she might prefer the title 'goddess of justice'."

Helen looked down at her body, probably understanding for the first time what it meant to be a demigod.

However, I was still having trouble with what Chiron had said.

"So a demigod had a child with another god?" I said, slightly disturbed. "Is that strange?"

"Well, it's not very common," Chiron answered, "but it's not unheard of. After all, gods don't have DNA, so it's not much of a big deal. In fact, I believe your friend Heather has a similar family tree, although hers is much more complicated."

I was about to ask about Heather when Mr. D stepped out onto the porch, scratching his potbelly through a ragged purple shirt that said Camp Jumper or something. His greasy black hair was curled back like Elvis, but much less neatly. Wrinkly bags hung under his bloodshot eyes, and his nose was bright red. He was wearing an oversized leopard-skin bathrobe and magenta slippers. As he walked, he seemed to be struggling to stay balanced. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he had broken the anti-alcohol restriction Zeus had given him for bad behavior. He plopped down in the lawn chair on the other side of Chiron, almost instantly falling asleep. Before he could start snoring, though, he snapped back to consciousness and groaned.

"What's with Mr. D?" I asked Chiron, and the others around me, even Helen, gasped. Everyone else was a lot more scared of Mr. D than I was. Sure, being an immortal god, he could turn me into an earthworm or something more degrading if I angered him, but since I was a son of Chronos, that pretty much made me untouchable.

"Mr. D seems to have come down with the Flu," Chiron answered, bitterness in his voice. Clearly, he'd been stuck with the responsibility of taking care of Dionysus while he was sick. In fact, now that I'd thought about it, I hadn't seen either of them outside the Big House much as of late.

"Yeah, moron," Mr. D said, and I wasn't sure if he was insulting me, or if he'd gotten my last name, Monroe, wrong again. Maybe it was a mix of both. "So you can tell all your little friends to be nice to me. I won't baby them like you."

So now his fear of my father was him being "protective" of me. Sure.

"Well," Chiron said, reviving the previous conversation. "If Helen has already been briefed about the camp, there's really no need for her to see the orientation film. Jordan, Alex, if you two could show Helen to the Nemesis Cabin, I need to have a quick word with Ivan."

Jordan nodded, not wanting to annoy Mr. D with his present, and gestured for Helen to follow him. I turned around, grabbed Helen's green duffel, and walked away, catching up to them a few seconds later.

"So, Mr. D. He's Dionysus, right?" Helen asked.

"Yeah," Jordan answered. "Just don't call him that. Names . . . er, names have power."

"Okay, I guess," she responded, sounding confused.

"You really don't have to be afraid of him, Helen," I told her, trying to keep Jordan from convincing her of his "awesome power".

"Alex—" Jordan started, but I interrupted.

"Even if you do get on his bad side, he's here as a punishment, forced to keep watch over us for 50 years. He's not going to upset Zeus any more than he has already by lashing out at demigods."

"I don't know, the gods aren't always—"

"Jordan!" I yelled, cutting him off once again. "Stop trying to scare her! Just because Dionysus is a jerk, it doesn't mean he can act on it!"

After that, both of them were quiet. We each jumped over the narrow creek between the Big House and the cabins, and slowly made our way through the tall, emerald green grass (thanks to the camp's anti-seasonal protective dome) until we were standing in the middle of the Omega-shaped array of cabins. To the left were all the cabins dedicated to the male gods, and to the right were the ones for the goddesses, except for Dionysus's, which was put at the end of one leg since his chair on the Olympian Council had once belonged to Hestia. Right across from Dionysus's cabin, Twelve, was Hermes's, Eleven. Any demigod who didn't know their godly parent stayed in the Hermes cabin, since he was the god of travelers and hospitality, until they were "claimed". A demigod could be claimed in dozens of ways, but by far the most common occurred when a strange symbol that represented their godly parent appeared above a half-blood's head. For children of Zeus, a lightning bolt would appear. For children of Aphrodite, it would be a dove. Last September, a strange reflection of Greek Fire had led me to believe I was a child of Hades, which is how I'd met Jordan. However, we'd learned that Helen's mother had been Nemesis, so we all trudged on towards Cabin Sixteen. When we arrived, I gasped, and Jordan and Helen looked at me.

"What?" Helen asked. "You're having a bigger reaction to this place than I am."

"I . . . I know, it's just . . ." I trailed off. I looked at the cabin, with it's flowing black, misty walls that fell to the ground, and stared at the broken wheel insignia above the gaping doorway. "When I first came here, I . . . I knew this cabin was important. I'd thought I was a child of Nemesis, since I was just strangely drawn to it. One of my friends even told me that he'd thought so too."

They both looked at the cabin once again, realizing the strangeness of what I'd said, and so did I. Saying that the cabin was important to me? It was like I was saying that Helen's destiny and mine were entwined like Harry Potter and Voldemort.

"Nevermind," I said, trying to repair some of the damage I'd done. "I'm a child of the fate god. I knew that eventually, I'd meet someone from the Nemesis cabin. After all, you are the first half-blood I've ever brought to camp."

Helen nodded, and Jordan just played with his fingers, so I decided it was as good a time as any to introduce Helen to her new home. I stepped up to the, well, hole that served as an entrance to the cabin, and walked in.

Based on the exterior, I really wasn't expecting to find the inside of the cabin so . . . normal. It just looked like a place where a couple of teenagers actually lived. The two bunk-beds were on either side of the room, only one bed of which had been tidied. On the floor in the middle, there seemed to be an unfinished game of cards waiting to be played, as well as a small pile of board games like Sorry and Monopoly. None of the other campers were in the cabin, even though there were no scheduled activities for the day.

"So, this is it," I said to Helen, who was just stepping inside as well.

"It's . . . cozy," she decided, which wasn't the type of description you'd usually give for a building seemingly made out of shadows, but it was, in fact, quite cozy on the inside.

Jordan stepped in and took in the atmosphere of the place. However, before he could talk, another person, a girl around sixteen or seventeen, came inside too. Her hair was a shiny black color, like onyx, which blended in with the walls nicely, as well as making her blue eyes stand out more. She had a deep tan and was wearing a leather jacket that was just a bit too gray too mix with the background.

"Uh, hello," she said, watching us. "You're Alex, right? The oracle."

"Yeah," I answered. "Sorry about just entering like this."

"It's okay, I guess," she said, though she looked to be very suspicious of us. "Why exactly are you here?"

Helen stepped forward. "I'm actually a daughter of Nemesis too," she said. "My name's Helen, and I'm your sister, I guess."

The girl's eyes widened, looking less menacing now. "Oh, okay." She reached her hand out, and Helen grabbed it. "My name's Jenny."

"Helen."

"Nice to meet you Helen." She let go of Helen's hand and turned around, looking outside the door, which seemed to be letting in too much light for it to be so dankly lit. There was likely some kind of shadowy magic around the cabin. "The others are supposed to be coming back soon, so you'll be able to meet them before dark."

"Okay," Helen said, surprisingly calm despite having just learned she had more than one or two new siblings to meet.

"Now are you sure you're a child of Nemesis?" Jenny asked. "I mean, you're the only one I know that doesn't have black hair, let alone blonde."

Helen shrugged, which was apparently good enough for Jenny. "Chiron told me, and I figured he was enough of an authority figure for me to trust."

Now Jenny's expression hardened a little. "I don't mean to be blunt, but you really shouldn't talk about trusting authority figures so much. Children of Nemesis are a little less . . . uh, goody-two-shoes than you."

Helen was surprised, and so was I. It seemed that children of Nemesis were also a bit bipolar.

"Anyway," Jenny said, acting cheery again. "You can take the fourth bed, beneath Seymour. You can probably guess which one that is."

Helen nodded, not too shocked anymore, and I wondered if she herself was a little like Jenny too, and if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.

"I'm gonna go try and find to others to let them know there's a new camper. Otherwise they might find you here and . . . jump to conclusions. Lots of Hermes campers have been going around stealing stuff lately."

She leaned down, and whispered so that no one outside the cabin could hear. "We think they're trying to build some kind of treasure mound in the woods, where they're selling stuff to local businessmen."

We all nodded, and Jenny left. Outside, the sun was getting close to setting, and my body clock told me that it was 4:39. Dinner started at 5, so Helen would probably meet with all her siblings then.

"Up for a little tour of the camp before dinner?" I asked Helen.

"Sure," she replied, but Jordan shook his head. "You guys can go, but I have to get back to my cabin. You know how Megan gets whenever she's left alone for a while."

I did, so I told him to go make sure everything was still in one piece. Megan was a very, very hyper seven-year-old girl who'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood around Christmas. Whenever Jordan was out of the cabin for most of the day, she'd run around the inside, occasionally smashing into the beds and causing Jordan's things to fall to the ground. Once, she'd been experimenting with her demigod abilities and had set the entire cabin on fire. Luckily, the cabin, which was made of obsidian, had been undamaged, but the beds were scorched and had to be replaced, along with about half a dozen of Jordan's books.

Once Jordan had gone, Helen and I stepped out, and started towards Thalia's Pine. In the distance, I could see Jordan running into the Hades cabin, which I didn't take as a good sign, but for whatever reason, I didn't want to leave, and I just smiled and shook my head.

"What is it?" Helen asked.

"Nothing," I said, still smiling, and kept walking with her.

I showed Helen the rest of the cabins, Thalia's pine tree, the canoe lake, the amphitheater, the rock wall (which was currently spraying lava all over the area), and the fireworks beach before finally taking her to the Mess Hall for Dinner. We arrived just in time, slipping into our seats just before the nymphs came out with the food. I sat at the head table next to Chiron and Dionysus, though fortunately I sat on the opposite end as the wine god. Chiron gave me a little bit of a stink eye for my near tardiness, which was kind of bothersome. Usually, the other campers would agree that Chiron was like a really cool uncle who was very chill and just went along with whatever happened, as long as no one got hurt. However, since I'd fled from the camp without permission last year, breaking the camp's #1 rule, he'd tagged me as a rebel, which anyone who knew me well would laugh at. I was definitely no rebel—in fact, the only reason I'd left the camp was because Heather and Jordan were willing to go. If they hadn't brought it up, I probably wouldn't have even considered leaving. But the thought of losing absolutely all my close friends on one quest? That pushed me too far.

No, in reality, I'm pretty much the least rebellious person I know. All my friends talk about how they get into arguments with their parents, but I never had any issues with my stepdad. For whatever reason, the teenage brat inside me never really awakened, and since I knew perfectly well that he'd adopted me from my real mother after her death, and continued to care for me after his own wife's death, I never wanted to cause him any more trouble. After I came to Camp Half-Blood the first time, and after the incident on Mt. McKinley, I went home to Dallas for a while, where we both decided it would be best for me to live at camp, so I could live out my duties as Oracle.

Once everyone had been given a silver platter and a goblet, Chiron stood to say a few words.

"Before we begin, I would like to remind those of you who know, and notify any of you don't, that two new campers arrived today. Helen and Dylan, if you would both stand please."

Helen stood up at the Nemesis table, while a tall, slender, blonde boy around age 11 rose at the other end of the hall, at the Hermes table. He waved shyly at the rest of the campers, and Helen copied him.

"As you can see, Helen has already been placed in the Nemesis cabin, while Dylan remains unclaimed, and so will be staying at the Hermes cabin. Please treat each of them with the same respect you give to every other camper. Thank you."

He sat down, and quickly snatched the largest piece of steak from the platter in front of him and bit into it like a savage. One thing most people didn't know was that Chiron, when he was hungry, became more beast than man. It was practically the only time I'd see past the mild-mannered camp director and realize that he was, in fact, a Greek Monster.

Placing a chicken breast on my plate, I looked over at Jordan, who was currently trying to keep Megan from using the entire array of food platters as her own plate. As I watched, she kicked over her silver goblet, which spilled an orange liquid onto the table and the floor. Jordan rolled his eyes and simply gave up at this point, grabbing a cob of corn before Megan dragged everything to her side.

Helen seemed to be getting along fine with her new cabin-mates, though one wasn't talking very much at all. The most surprising thing was, despite all their tough, rugged exteriors, they seemed to be talking about the Rainbow Dash on Helen's shirt. I guess, much like their cabin, they have two very contrasting side of their personality.

I grabbed my silverware and dug into my chicken, quietly eating while Chiron went to town next to me. Unfortunately, since I did sit at the head table, there really wasn't anyone to talk to except for the horseman who always kept his eye on me.

I picked up my own goblet and whispered into it.

"G-Force," I said, as I always did. G-Force was a mango drink that was (strangely) bright green. My mother, my real one, had brought it to me from New Zealand once, and ever since, it'd been my favorite drink of all time.

The cup instantly filled with the green drink, as it did with any drink that it was told. I smiled and took a sip, trying to pass the burp that came afterwards as a cough.

Once dinner was over, I walked over to Jordan, where I handed him a piece of steak I'd placed in a little ziploc bag. He ate it quickly, while Megan went running off to the volleyball court. Helen joined us, saying goodbye to Jenny and the two other Nemesis children.

"Thanks man," Jordan said, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

"Sure." We all started walking towards the North woods, to finish Helen's tour of the camp, while me and Jordan filled her in on all the stories about the different places we saw.

Once we reached the woods, though, I looked back and saw that Megan had left the volleyball court.

"You sure she's not gonna go run around the cabin?" I asked Jordan, and he shrugged.

"She doesn't usually like to go inside after dinner. And if she does, well . . . meh."

I chuckled. "All right."

Just as I started turning back around to lead Helen to Zeus's Fist, a pile of boulders that looked a little like the god punching his way out of the ground at the right angle, Laurel crashed into me from thin air.

"Oh my gods, Laurel!" I yelled, picking myself up off of the hard soil, dusting off some of the dirt and leaves from my hair. "What was that?"

"Sorry," she said, reaching her hand out to me. "Mix-up."

"Mix-up?" I asked, but she ignored me.

"Hey Jordan!" she said, and hi-fived him. She examined Helen for a second before awkwardly saying, "Heeeeey . . ."

"Helen," she offered, and Laurel nodded.

"Right," she said, tapping her index finger on the side of her head. "Helen of Detroit."

Me and Jordan simultaneously looked at each other, not saying anything, but it was clear we were both laughing in our heads.

"Yep," Helen said, "And you're Laurel, right?"

"Yes indeedio!" she answered, and ran further into the woods just a little bit. "Like that Mountain Laurel over there!" she shouted, pointing at her tree off in the distance.

"Got it," Helen said, and only then noticed that Jordan and I were laughing at her name. "Yes, Helen of Detroit. I know what you're thinking, and thank you for comparing me to the face that launched a thousand ships."

It wasn't like that was an insult.

"So," Laurel said casually, sliding into place between me and Helen. "You guys showing Helen around?"

"Yeah, we're—" Jordan started, but Helen stopped him.

"Have you taken her to see Thalia's Pine?"

"Yeah, I took her there before din—"

"The amphitheater?"

"Yeah, we went there right after—"

"The rock wall?"

"Yes, we—"

"The canoe lake?"

"Laurel—"

"Fireworks beach?"

"Laurel!"

"Zeus's Fist?"

"Laurel! We've already gone to all those places . . . I mean, not Zeus's Fist, we were going there now, but—"

"Ooh Zeus's Fist! Come on, I'll lead you guys!"

"No, Laurel!" I yelled, but she'd already run ahead.

"That was . . . interesting," Helen said, watching Laurel as she ran through the trees.

"I swear she's not usually that . . . that . . ."

"Hyper," Jordan suggested, and I nodded. "She really isn't Helen. I don't know what's gotten into her."

"I think I do," Helen said, but shook her head as soon as she did.

"Why?" I asked.

"Nevermind," she said quickly. "We should probably go meet here at the . . . fist."

She started walking before we could respond, so Jordan and I both followed, still confused.

* * *
When we got to Zeus's Fist, we found Laurel sitting atop the pile, swinging her legs and twiddling her thumbs. When she saw us, she hopped down, landing gently on a pile of leaves that blew together too quickly for it to have been natural.

"Took you guys long enough," she said, and grabbed Helen's arm, yanking her around to the other side of the mound. Jordan and I ran after her, catching her from falling from the sudden pull.

"If you squat right about . . . here," Laurel said, positioning Helen, "the rocks will start to look like—"

"Zeus's fist," she finished, and Laurel looked satisfied, though still a little anxious.

"Laurel," Jordan asked her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, you're acting a little . . . edgy," I added, but she waved it off.

"Of course I'm fine, I just . . ." she paused, thinking hard. I guess she couldn't think of a way to finish the thought, so she changed the subject. "Hey, have you guys decided your teams for Mist Tag tomorrow?"

"Mist Tag?" Helen asked, and stood up, stretching her legs.

"It's a game we play every other Monday night," I told her. "We basically all go into the arena, and the Zeus kids fill the area with this magical substance called the Mist, which is—"

"I know what the Mist is. Ivan explained it," she said.

"Okay. Anyway, they fill the arena with the Mist, and we all have a giant battle."

Helen looked a little surprised, and Jordan told her the minor detail I'd forgotten.

"All the weapons we use are plastic," he said, and she sighed in relief.

"Okay, because I was gonna say—"

"Although they did used to use real weapons," Laurel corrected, and Helen gulped. "Up until about ten years ago. A bunch of kids who'd once been part of the Titan's army started viciously attacking the other campers, and killed one or two, I think."

"But again, they don't use real weapons anymore," I emphasized. "Just plastic. The only danger is getting a bit of a bruise, but even then, we have armor. Real armor. Metal."

"Okay," Helen said, but her voice was trembling.

"No, the teams haven't been finalized," Jordan answered Laurel. "Although the Hades cabin did agree that you could join us again, Alex," he told me.

"The Hades cabin consists of you and Megan. It's not like there was really an intense discussion about it," I said. "But thanks."

"Any time."

"What about the Nemesis cabin," Helen asked. "Can we be with you guys?"

"Well, you'll have to ask the rest of your cabin," I said. "But the Chronos 'cabin' says yes."

"Hades too."

She smiled. "Thanks, although, I have to warn you, I've never used a weapon in my life."

"Neither has Megan," Jordan reassured her. "Whenever we play, she just runs around and trips everybody."

"So glad to have your guys' cabins," I joked, and everyone but Laurel laughed.

"What about us Dryads?" she asked. "Whose team are we on?"

"The Dryads don't play," I said to her.

"Just because we've never played before doesn't mean we won't play this time!"

"Well, I mean, you can talk to Chiron about it, but—" Before I could finish, she ran past me, knocking me over into Helen, who managed to catch me without falling over herself.

"Thanks," I said, and Jordan picked a leaf out of my hair that must have come from Laurel's dress.

"Shall we finish the tour?" he asked, and Helen nodded.

"Right this way then," he said, and led us both away from Zeus's Fist.

* * *
After we showed Helen the rest of the highlights of the camp, we ran back to the Big House and the cabins, as it was just a minute before the Harpies, big chicken-like ladies, would go around, looking for demigods out past curfew to snack on. We agreed to meet up at breakfast as soon as we could, and separated near the central hearth of the camp. Once I reached the Big House, I crept through the old, rickety building, carefully stepping on the floorboards that I'd learned from experience were safe to walk on at night, when I didn't want anyone to know how late I was getting in.

I managed to sneak up the stairs to the second floor and third floor before I made my mistake. I heard a loud sneezing sound coming from my right which made me jump, creating a loud thumping sound when I hit the floor. I could see that Dionysus had been the one sneezing in the other room, and Chiron was sitting by his side, holding soup for him to drink. He looked up at me, rolled his eyes, and gestured for me to just go upstairs. I released the tension in my shoulders and simply walked up the next flight of stairs to the attic, where I shut the door behind me and let out the air I'd been holding since the bottom floor. I then walked over to my bed and looked over at the large analog clock on the wall. It was running just about one microsecond fast, though that would only result in being one second ahead in about 2,700 years, so I figured it was close enough. I wasn't tired, so I considered playing a round of Mariokart Wii before bed, but I decided instead to look at some of the old spoils of war that were stashed up here from past generations. I would do this quite often at night when I couldn't sleep, and I'd almost always find something interesting to examine.

Once, I'd found an old, bashed-in shield that had originally belonged to a daughter of Aphrodite named Sierra, who had gone with me and my friends on our quest last year, only to reveal herself as a spy for my father and Chaos. I'd trapped her above Mt. McKinley using a special type of magic specific to, as well as to the children of, Hecate. Her betrayal had led to the death of almost everyone in our party, all five of whom who died being the five originally chosen to go on the quest. My friend had told me that the previous Oracle, a 30-year-old name Rachel Dare, had somehow lost her perfect connection with prophecies, and had started giving quests to the wrong people, which had both times led to the death of all the recipients. Now that I was the Oracle, I had never failed to given a prophecy to the right person. True, I'd only given one, but that could've meant that I'd always failed, had it been wrong.

The prophecy I'd given, which I'd said just after becoming the Oracle, had been nicknamed "The Prophecy of the Master". It said:

The Master of All shall rise once more,
And the gods shall fade forevermore.
Destruction will spread, Chaos will thrive,
And only the enemies shall survive.
But alas, one hero may ruin it all,
If the closest to him is the first to fall.
The hero shall join to avenge his friend,
But the world shall die if the hero meets his end.​

Not very uplifting, but I've been told it sounds about as cheerful as any other prophecy.

As I browsed through the old pieces of weaponry, I found a small chest beneath one table, in which there were about a hundred or so gold coins. Inside, there was a note so old and weak that I almost dropped it, worried that it would crumble in my hadn. It read:


Now I'm no expert with famous demigods, but I knew this guy. Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard the Pirate, was pretty much as infamous as you could be. But I'd had no idea he was a son of Ares, not to mention the fact that he'd once lived at Camp Half-Blood! How old was this camp?

I carefully put the note down inside, closed the lid, and was about to gently put the box back down, when I noticed a much, much newer note stuck to the back. I pulled the bright pink sticky note from the wrinkled leather and began reading it. Unfortunately, this wasn't written in Greek, so it took me a while to decipher it.

"Teach . . . returned . . . to . . . the . . . Sea . . . of . . . Monsters . . . to . . . find . . . Chrysaor. But . . . he'd . . . returned . . . to . . . the . . . Mare Nostrum . . . Teach . . . disappeared . . . only . . . to . . . be . . . found . . . trapped . . . by . . . Circe, . . . and . . . was . . . rescued . . . by . . . Annabeth . . . Chase . . . and . . . Percy . . . Jackson."

I'd heard that kid's name too. I wasn't sure about the other one named Annabeth, but there was no doubt that Percy was a legend around Camp Half-Blood. From what I'd heard, he'd killed the Minotaur twice, faced the Cyclops Polyphemus, taken on Atlas, and almost single-handedly defeated Kronos when he'd returned from Tartarus. That was a lot, even for a demigod.

I put the note back on the box, and retired to my bed. I sat there for a while, thinking about Percy. This kid was probably . . . what, 30 right now? I couldn't imagine growing up as a normal adult after accomplishing all that.

Then again, I couldn't even imagine accomplishing all that. I was the first male Oracle ever, and I seriously doubted much of anyone would remember me when I stopped coming and began a normal life in the outside world.

Soon enough, the cold January air overtook me, and I relented, covering myself with three layers of blankets. Almost immediately, I fell asleep, wondering if I would ever be able to become as great a hero as Percy Jackson.

* * *
The next morning at breakfast, the three of us met outside the Mess Hall, knowing that once we sat down we'd be separated by our parentage. Helen told us her schedule and discovered that her and I would both be picking strawberries from 3 to 4 in the afternoon, and we could talk then, as well as during free time after lunch with Jordan. We parted ways at the door, joining the rest of our table, though two of the Nemesis children hadn't come yet. The nymphs served a breakfast of waffles and eggs, with an omelet bar set up next to the kitchen. I scarfed down my food, only now realizing how hungry I'd been thanks to the trip to Detroit yesterday. Just before 9, when the campers would be sent off to our first activity of the day, I saw Laurel out of the corner of my eye, running quickly to the woods. Before I could think about it too long, though, Chiron dismissed us, and I headed out of the Mess Hall, trudging through the grassy fields to the arena for Javelin throwing.

The Hermes campers greeted me at the arena, apparently still fine with me tagging along with their schedule. Since there was only one Chronos demigod at camp, it didn't really make enough sense for me to get my own schedule made, so I just followed the Hermes campers from place to place, since their classes were set up purposefully to accept new demigods almost daily.

After a few quick rounds of static and moving target practice, we moved on to the more advanced levels of Javelin throwing—throwing precisely enough to hit enemies between pieces of armor, and hard enough to injure them even where they wore protective gear. A large demigod analog made of hay was positioned at the other end of the field, being pulled left and right by a complex array of machines created by the Hephaestus campers. After a few minutes of narrow misses and overshooting, one Hermes camper named Henry, who'd always been naturally talented with javelins, managed to sink half the rod in one of the eye holes in the helmet. I did the same with the other eye almost immediately after, using my own weapon, but you don't see me bragging.

After Javelin Throwing we all went to the amphitheater for Monster Fighting, and I saw Helen walking out the other side, her clothes singed in at least a dozen places. I realized that perhaps Monster Fighting wasn't a great first activity for her, but at least it was over now.

When we all entered the marble stadium, a group of older campers were just managing to get a sapphire blue dragon to go back through one of the vomitoria, while it blasted each of them with snow white fire. Apparently the fire only burned like the lava on the rock walls—torching clothing but not harming the skin.

Soon enough, the dragon had been returned to the storage area beneath the amphitheater, where it would either be released into the woods or kept for a later class. To be honest, I was a little disappointed, since I'd never gotten the chance to fight a dragon at camp before. I imagine it would be more fun to do with about two dozen or so of my friends with me than facing off with one all by myself on a television show for the gods like I had last year.

After our lesson about the variety of sea creatures found around Camp Half-Blood, we took a little field trip to the canoe lake, where our instructor, a satyr named Vernon, insisted that we spend the rest of our time "experiencing the life of a Naiad" by swimming in the water. At first I wasn't sure if he had forgotten to make a lesson plan for the day or if he was just feeling lazy, but just 4 minutes later I could see that he had fallen asleep on the shore. When class ended, we had to wake him up so that he could get back to the amphitheater for the next class.

After Monster Fighting I had a painfully boring hour of polishing trophies back at the amphitheater, which led up to Lunch. Jordan, Helen, and I said a quick hello outside the Mess Hall before going to our seats, when Helen told us about how, since it was her first day, Vernon had let her lead the class in a battle against the blue dragon we'd seen. Apparently she was somewhat talented with a sword, and had managed to cut off the spiked ball at the end of it's tail, keeping one of the spikes as a souvenir, which she'd put in her cabin on the way to lunch.

An hour of free time came next, so the three of us all went down to the fireworks beach, where Ivan eventually found us and joined in the conversation. Helen told us a few jokes in Ancient Greek, having decided to use her class time from this morning to ask her teacher translations for sentences that, when out of context, were completely normal.

Once the hour had passed, we went our different ways again, Ivan following Helen to Archery. I went to Pegasus Riding, which was definitely not my strong suit, and suffered just under sixty near-horse-trampling, almost-falling-from-the-sky, distressed-neighing-filled minutes at the stables. I was extremely relieved once it was all over, and gladly went to the strawberry fields to meet Helen.

Helen and Ivan were already in the middle of the fields by the time I arrived, and they showed me the freak strawberry they'd found—a bright pink one that looked like another point was trying to jut out of the side. We all started talking before Jenny came over and told Helen and I that the Nemesis cabin was officially teamed up with the Chronos and Hades campers for Mist Tag. Since each team has to have at least four cabins, and since ours was still relatively small in size, I asked the Hermes campers, who agreed to join us, making us a pretty decent-sized group.

Finally, after strawberry picking, it was time for Cabin Clean-Up. We did this every Monday and Wednesday, as well as Friday, though that day no one really did clean. It's because on Tuesdays and Thursdays during breakfast and lunch, the nymphs and satyrs of the camp would go around inspecting all the cabins, and they would rate them out of five, one being the untidiest. Any cabin who received a one would be forced to give up the activities they had on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same time as Cabin Clean-Up the day before, and instead spend the time cleaning up their cabins with adult (ahem, Dionysus's) supervision. They would also rank the cabins by neatness, and the best cabin (usually Aphrodite's) would be given an extra hour of free time before lunch the next day, while the worst cabin would spend the free time they have with the same punishment as the ones. And since these usually overlapped, no one wanted to be the worst cabin, and have to suffer Dionysus for two extra hours.

I said goodbye to Helen and Ivan, and ran back to the Big House, where I spent the first five minutes or so cleaning, putting anything that didn't have a proper place in the other, cluttered, not-technically-part-of-my-room, side of the attic. The rest of the time, I played Super Smash Bros. Brawl, not stopping until I'd beaten Crazy Hand for the third time in a row.

Dinner was excellent, and the atmosphere of the entire Mess Hall was just as great. Everyone was excited for Mist Tag, and anyone who hadn't formed their teams yet was finishing the truces now. Unfortunately, it looked like the Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Ares, and Tyche cabins were forming an alliance, which made them positively deadly. I mean really, two of the big three gods, both war gods, and a luck god all combined? It should've been outlawed!

Chiron picked up on the fact that all of us were getting antsy, so he allowed us to sit with the other campers in our team, a privilege not usually awarded except under rare circumstances. We all took the opportunity, and instantly got up, moving to meet with our teammates. I found the Nemesis and Hermes campers had already congregated at the Hades table, so I ran over, taking the seat next to Jordan and, surprisingly, Laurel.

"Laurel?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah," she said innocently. "What's up?"

"Wait, are you playing with us?"

"Yeah," she answered excitedly. "Chiron said I could, and the Nemesis and Hades cabins voted me in."

"Not that we voted against it," said Evan, the head counselor of the Hermes cabin when Heather's not here. "We were just a little trying to get all of us to get over here without losing anyone to take part."

"Well, great!" I said, hi-fiving Laurel. She smiled back at me, and for the last five minutes of dinner, we began discussing our war tactics. When my body clock told me it was 6, Chiron roared over the collective murmurs of the room, telling us it was time to go.

Like an angry mob, the entire camp dashed to the arena, ready to begin the battle.

* * *
Once we all arrived at the battlefield, we divided into four groups. Zeus's group stayed at the entrance closest to the Mess Hall, with the other two groups besides us, led by Apollo and Nike, running around the circumference on the opposite side. At the first entrance we came to, we found a stash of about three dozen different types of plastic weaponry, all the way from balls that released almost deadly smells, to an array of battle axes, with points that looked like they might hurt even without being made of metal.

There were just enough suits of Celestial Bronze armor for each of us, which was a relief to Helen. Jordan and I helped fit her into a breastplate and helmet, and gave her the only pair of chainmail sleeves and leggings. Since she'd said that a sword wasn't too difficult for her to handle, she chose a broadsword with a hilt fashioned to look like a rampaging mustang's head, from which a long unicorn horn had sprouted.

Unfortunately, none of the rest of us were able to use our own weapons, so we selected whatever seemed the most similar. I chose the same set of half a dozen javelins as I had before, just as the Hermes camper, Henry, did also. Jordan selected a trident which, while very much like his own pitchfork, always seemed off to him, like Poseidon, the god who held the trident as his own weapon, was rejecting him as a user.

Once we were all situated, Chiron walked out into the center of the arena, roughly 90 feet away. He cupped his hands around his mouth, and spoke louder than if he'd had a megaphone.

"Heroes!" he cried. "I trust you all know the rules. If you are decided to be fatally wounded, you are to return to your home base until another entire team has been defeated. If your entire team is defeated, you are to remain at your home base. That base is where you stand now. Taking live prisoners is permitted, but they may not be bound or gagged. I will serve as a referee and battlefield medic, as always. Now, if the Zeus campers would kindly step forward . . ."

The two children of Zeus, Grayson and Suzanne, ran forward to where Chiron was standing, and, now well-practiced, stood back-to-back, waving their arms, and snapping their fingers. In just a few seconds, a cloud of Mist formed over their heads, swirling and growing rapidly. In less than a minute of Helen oohing and aahing, a gigantic ceiling of the Mist covered the entire arena, and with a quick flurry of hand motions from the Zeus campers, it descended, blocking out anything more than five feet away.

"Remember, do not trust your eyes. The Mist will keep you from seeing the truth. You must listen to your other senses and instincts in order to succeed. Now, prepare for battle at my say so!"

There was galloping, and I knew that Chiron had gone straight to the team with the Apollo cabin. He wasn't showing favoritism, and if anything he was showing the opposite. As battlefield medic, he had to help whoever was in need. And when one team is up against another with the dirty-playing Hermes campers, another with two war gods, and another with a goddess of victory, you know who's out of luck.

"What did Chiron mean when you are 'decided to be fatally wounded'?" Helen asked me, adrenaline now clearly putting her on edge.

Before I could answer, Jenny tapped her whip on Helen's left shoe, one of the few places on her that wasn't guarded. Jenny's whip flashed Green, and Helen's jaw dropped.

"The Hephaestus cabin made these," Jenny explained. "They're not deadly, usually, but they're magic. If you 'fatally wound' someone, their weapon flashes with your team's color. Then they're dead, temporarily, until another team is entirely destroyed. Hit people on their weak spots, and don't trust your eyes."

She said the last part a little aggressively, like if Helen once believed the things she saw, Jenny would bring a world of hurt. Fortunately, Helen shook it off, smiling. I showed her how each of the different colors had about five cabins per team, with us all on the green team, Zeus's team on red, Nike's team with yellow and Apollo's team with blue.

"Cool," she said. "So do we have a plan, or—"

"Begin!" Chiron roared, and everyone in our team split up, disappearing into the Mist, including Jordan and Laurel.

"No," I told her, and grabbed her hand. "Just stick with me and hit anyone who tries to attack you."

"Okay," she said, and began running with me towards the center of the arena. As we moved, faint flashes of color appeared, and a few shadows of demigods chasing after us.

"Where are we going?" Helen asked, barely audible over the yelling all around us. She seemed pretty calm despite the intensity of our surroundings.

"It's always smart to go to the opposite side of the area," I told her. "If you get hit, you can distract other fighters on your way back, and they'll waste time getting you—"

A boy lunged at me out of the Mist, knocking me down. I tried to raise my arm to hit him with one of my javelins, but he'd pinned it down. He hit my unguarded legs with his club, and they flashed yellow.

He began to swing his club again, but Helen knocked him off of me with her sword. He dropped his club, and Helen ran over to him, jabbing the point of the sword through his unprotected side, and the club flashed red.

Red? I thought, but shook off the thought. Don't trust your eyes, dummy!

"Aw man," the boy said, and ran towards the Apollo team's base.

"His weapon flash red," Helen said, and gave me her hand, pulling me up off the ground. "I thought we were green."

"Don't believe what you see," I told her. "In fact, shut your eyes."

"What?" she yelled. "In the middle of this?"

"I'll watch your back," I reassured her. "I just need someone to tell me who the attacker is, based on the sounds."

"I don't know people by their sounds, Alex! I've been here two days!"

"You're a demigod!" I cried. "It's literally in your blood! Listen to your instincts."

Reluctantly, she shut her eyes, and I raised all my javelins. Two more demigods ran over at the same time, and Helen yelled out.

"Red!"

The taller one, who seemed to be a girl, struck me with the butt of her sword, and it flashed red.

"They're not red!" I yelled, and hit the girl with one of my javelins, and her sword flashed green, confusingly.

"They are!" Helen yelled. "They're from Poseidon!"

The shorter of the two, a boy, bashed into me with his shield, and it also flashed red, confusing me even further. "Or . . . maybe they are."

I tripped the boy over and grabbed Helen by the arm. "Follow me!" I said.

"Okay!"

We began running, and I threw one of my javelins at the boy. He too flashed green, and I was convinced—something weird was happening. The Mist wasn't preventing me from seeing anything.

"Green!" Helen yelled, before I even saw anyone coming. "Wait, they're green."

I turned around and, sure enough, I saw Megan running frantically by. Another person came, who Helen also confirmed to be green. However, they still came up to us.

"It's Alex and Helen," I told the person. "I'm on the green team too."

But the person didn't stop. They charged at Helen, and I could just see the person's—a boy's—face as he charged up to her. It was one of the boys from the Nemesis cabin.

"Seymour?" Helen asked, but he didn't stop running. "What are you—"

He tackled her, slamming the edge of his plastic knife against her neck, making it flash green and, somehow, didn't make Helen's sword flash green as well. As far as I knew, friendly fire hadn't been disabled, even if it was severely frowned upon. It meant Seymour wasn't 'fatally wounding' Helen. He was taking her as a prisoner.

"Hey, man, what are you doing?" I yelled, and the guy got up and hit me on my waist with the knife, making my javelins flash green.

"Go away, Alex," he said, his voice solid as a rock. "Chiron said we could take prisoners."

"Not from your own team!"

Seymour grabbed Helen by the arm, and I ran over to her, but someone knocked me down. Someone I knew.

"Jenny, what's going on?" I screamed, but she just grabbed Helen's other arm and ran. I got up and followed, but I couldn't see them. For a few seconds I could hear muffled screaming, but it faded quickly.

"Chiron also said no gagging!" I roared, but no one responded. I ran frantically after Helen, but nothing happened. Only now did the other campers seem to realize that the Mist was hardly confusing them at all, and the longer the game went on, the less of an effect it had. They started laughing at how easy it was, while I was still running, trying to find Helen.

Then I heard Jordan.

"Alex!" he cried. "Get over here, qui—"

He got cut off, but I went to where the sound had come from. I faintly saw Jordan being dragged by Jenny, her hand over his mouth, when he disappeared. I ran after him, but I suddenly started bumping into a bunch of demigods who had practically given up on the game, since the Mist was, for whatever reason, not working correctly. I kept asking them for help, and telling them that my friends had been taken by the Nemesis campers, but they just tried to convince me to forget about the game. I actually was about to give up hope on finding Helen and Jordan in all the Mist, when Laurel appeared next to me.

"Alex, can you believe it?" she asked excitedly. "I got twelve demigods. Twelve!"

"Laurel!" I yelled, and she looked at me blankly. "I need your help. Do you know where Jordan and Helen are?"

"Yeah," she said, looking a little hurt by my bluntness. "They're with the Nemesis campers near the north entrance."

"Transpetalport me there!" I said, and she looked a little less hurt.

"Got it!" she could tell I needed to hurry, so she made a thin, papery flower appear around me as fast as she could, and shot me over to the north entrance, where I grabbed my necklace, took it off, pressed the Alpha, and used my spear to slash my way out of the flower. A Nemesis girl who wasn't Jenny stood right in front of me, and I tackled her.

The other Nemesis child, Seymour, picked me up with incredible strength, and rolled me away. I jumped up, and right before I smacked Seymour with the butt of my spear, Laurel appeared and knocked him over.

I looked around, watching for any sign of movement, and saw a fireball appear. I ran to it, and found Jordan, who was, along with Helen, pinned down by Jenny, with his mouth covered by her hand. I swung my spear at her, hitting her hard on the arm, and she jumped up. Jordan kicked her away, and helped Helen up. Jordan summoned his real pitchfork, the plastic one probably back near the center of the arena, and Laurel helped Helen get out of harm's way. Seymour ran behind Jenny, who pulled her plastic whips up, and I realized that even when whips were made of plastic, they would still be just as dangerous. The Hephaestus campers kind of dropped the ball there.

Seymour raised his plastic knife, and Jordan quickly hit it out of his hand.

"Why do you two have to be so annoying?" Jenny yelled.

"Us?" I asked, furious. "What the Styx are you doing?"

"We are fulfilling a tradition older than you, Monroe!" she roared. "We're children of Nemesis. We bring people up and strike them down. Since the first time a demigod child of Nemesis came to Camp Half-Blood, all newcomers to the cabin are given a grace period, in which we allow them to enjoy their new home. Then, we take the good fortune they've received and turn it against them at the first chance we get."

"That's sick!" Jordan said.

"It's balance, Ghosty! Every one of us has had it done. It's a little thing called hazing."

"There's a difference between hazing and attacking your family!" I screamed, using all my willpower not to attack my extended family now.

"Not when you're a child of the revenge goddess. No, the only difference is how much of a change in luck you get. I just wish Helen had gotten more time to enjoy camp before facing her destiny. You're a child of Nemesis too, remember. This is part of who you are!"

"Shut up, Jenny!" yelled another voice, one I didn't know. The girl I'd tackled before, who I could now see was the quiet one from the Nemesis table, stepped forward. "You never even had it happen to you! You were the only Nemesis camper when you got here!"

"Charlotte!" Jenny looked absolutely infuriated, as if Charlotte was the person she most loathed in the world. Then, suddenly, she was calm.

"Fine, you're probably right," she said, her voice smooth. "Helen, I'm sorry we went to this extreme. I just want to make sure our mother can be satisfied with you being in her cabin."

She actually sounded sincere, and I believed more than ever that she was truly insane. However, the worst thing was Helen's response.

"It's okay."

It's okay? After all that, you can just forgive and forget?

"Helen," I said, disbelieving, "are you sure?"

"Yeah," she answered, sounding calm now too. Jordan and Laurel's mouths dropped as well as mine, as we all wondered how people could possibly be so incredibly angry one second, and completely relaxed the next. I, for one, was still considering assaulting Jenny and Seymour. "Look, I know this is weird. I don't know why I'm okay with this, I just, kind of . . . am."

For a second, I thought I saw a very faint, strange, maroon glow appear around Helen, like a blessing from her mother. Maybe this all did make Helen more Nemesis-like, but if it did, I wasn't sure I was going to like it.

"Attagirl," Jenny said, and playfully punched Helen on the shoulder. Before much of anything else could happen, really, the Mist began to dissipate, and I could see the other campers, all bunched together in the middle.

"Come on," Seymour said, apparently cool as a cucumber now too. "Let's get over there."

All four of the Nemesis kids, including Helen, headed for the center, but only she seemed to notice our reluctance.

"Guys, let's go," she said, but we were all just still. She came up to us, sighed, and said, "I really can't explain it either. But everything's fine. Please, trust me."

She reached her hand out to me, and I took it. Jordan seemed to relax a little, but Laurel just tensed up more.

"Laurel," I said. "Are you okay?"

Before she answered, she looked at me, her eyes both angry and slightly watery, and disappeared into a puff of green pollen, which faded as quickly as the Mist had.

"Alex, come on," Jordan said, and Helen squeezed my hand. Together, with two-thirds of use still in shock from what had just happened, we went to join Chiron and the other campers.

After everyone had congregated around Chiron, he cleared his throat, and silence fell over the campers, who'd been mumbling about the strange circumstances of Mist Tag just a second before. I looked up to him and saw that his eyes were locked on me as well, as if he were studying me, something he did quite often. He reared his head up and spoke loudly.

"It seems that our Mist has . . . malfunctioned," he announced, seemingly at a lack of a better word. "The Zeus campers have assured me that they don't understand what's happening either—"

"I bet those Zeus kids did this to make their team win!" shouted one of the Nike campers.

"That's a lie!" yelled Suzanne. She opened her mouth to say more, but Chiron raised his hand, and she closed her jaw.

"I do not think the Zeus campers would try something so worrying over something as minor as a game of Mist Tag. I'm going to ask all of you to be patient while we try to discover the reason for all of this. In the mean time, I'm afraid that we'll be unable to hold another game. Now, I'd like you all to return to your cabins. Lights out will be pushed back half an hour to compensate."

There were mixed grunts and hurrays from the other demigods, though all of them did what Chiron asked and started towards the various exits. By now, the mist had completely vanished, and the darkness of the sky above had reached the ground, cloaking everything in a thin layer of shadow. Chiron was heading towards the south exit, and I followed him. Helen and Laurel started walking with me, but Jordan held them back. I turned around and nodded to him.

"I need to talk to Chiron by myself," I said, and Jordan mouthed one word to me: Chaos?

I nodded again. "We'll talk in the morning," I assured them, and they walked away together, each splitting up once they'd gotten outside the arena. I turned back around and ran up to Chiron.

"Not now, Alex," Chiron said without looking down at me. "I need to meet with Mr. D."

"Chiron, you know I deserve to be a part of that conversation," I said bluntly, and he sighed.

"Just because you were on that quest last year doesn't mean you know as much as we do. Besides, it's possible this is an entirely different issue—"

"It's not," I remarked. "This is Chaos's doing."

Chiron halted immediately and looked down at me. "Do not ever say that name again. Names have power, Alexander. I would think you of all people would respect that by now."

"I do Chiron," I responded, trying to hide my intimidation. "But that doesn't mean they should be feared more than the people they name, and I'm not afraid of Chaos."

Chiron whinnied and pointed his index finger against my chest.

"It doesn't matter if you fear her. I won't let you bring her here. Not to my camp!"

"Then let me speak to Dionysus as well."

Chiron froze for a moment, breathing deeply.

"No." He turned away, and I was about to give up on convincing him when I remembered something.

"The Mist isn't just failing here," I said, and Chiron stopped once again, hopefully listening. "When Jordan and I were bringing Helen to camp, a family saw us fighting Lamia. They saw through the Mist, even if briefly. They could see what was happening for just a second before their eyes tricked them. One of the children was even talking about seeing my spear!"

Chiron breathed deeply more now, taking a longer time before he responded.

"Fine," he said finally. "If you swear by the River Styx never to call the Primordial Gods by their names inside my camp again."

"I swear," I said quickly, though reluctantly. "I'll never say Chaos, Chronos, Aether—"

"That's enough!" Chiron yelled, but settled down. "Now come along. Mr. D is not one to be patient."

* * *
Dionysus did however seem to be a serious patient in Chiron's makeshift hospital room in the Big House. I'd heard campers complaining earlier about how he'd been given such a huge, decked out recovery room unlike the rest of them, attending the single hospital tent on the other edge of Camp, and it seemed everything they'd said was true. Opposite of his deluxe, massaging queen bed was a large plasma screen television that took up about three quarters of the wall. A shelf to the side of the TV held about a dozen different gaming consoles, of which three were currently indicating that they were on. Suddenly the round of Mariokart Dionysus was playing paused, and the image changed to an abandoned city, where the god of wine proceeded to go around shooting what appeared to be crosses between zombies and centaurs, and image Chiron clearly disapproved of.

Dionysus himself sat propped up by about ten fluffy pillows at the head of the bed, and had his swollen red eyes focused entirely on the game, probably not even having seen Chiron and me entering. His face was pale except for his nose, which was shiny with snot, and bright vermilion. From his mouth extended an incredibly long cord, which seemed to be comprised of several bendy straws taped together that eventually found their way to a diet coke can on the bedside table. He tightened his lips and sucked in, pulling out almost half the can of soda through the long device. It took nearly ten seconds for the whole sip to make its way to his mouth.

Overall, it wasn't really a treat for the eyes.

"Mr. D—" Chiron began before being immediately interrupted.

"Chiron, great," Dionysus said, talking with the half of his mouth not holding the straw, and not taking his eyes off the game, even though he paused to resume a battle with some Heartless in Kingdom Hearts. "Can you get me a refill?"

"Mr. D," Chiron continued, trying to keep his cool. "There's something you should know."

Dionysus didn't respond, continuing to button mash the X on the playstation controller.

"Mr. D?" The centaur asked, drumming his fingers on his horse hide. Still no answer.

For a few more seconds Dionysus kept playing his game, before finally pausing and putting down the controller. He took a sip from his can, and sat for another second. Then he picked up the controller again and resumed.

"Dionysus!" I yelled, stomping my foot.

"Alex!" Chiron shouted in reply, putting his hand forcefully on my shoulder. "Do not address Mr. D like—"

"Keep your horseshoes on, ponyboy," Dionysus said, waving Chiron off and taking the straw out of his mouth. "This one's a lost cause. If he wants to make an enemy out of me then so be it. I haven't added anyone to my list in a while."

"Your list?" I asked mockingly. "You can't even drink your own creation for the next fifty years!"

"Thirty-seven years, mind you!" Dionysus roared, which would have been much more intimidating if a long bead of mucus hadn't been dripping from his nostril. He wiped it off of one of the pillows and Chiron cringed. "And that just means I can get you after you've gotten too old to fight back. Or if you're dead, which you likely will be with a mouth like that, I could always come to pay you a visit."

"Whatever," I said, honestly not frightened. "Time is kind of my specialty, remember. I'm pretty growing older's gonna benefit me."

"Oh yeah?" Dionysus asked, when Chiron reared up and whinnied startlingly.

"Quiet, both of you!" Chiron yelled, which was probably the first time I'd ever seen him stand up to Dionysus. "We have far more pressing matters to attend to."

Before Dionysus could get very far into his high-pitched mimic of the centaur, Chiron raised his hand.

"The Mist has failed, Dionysus."

"Understood," the wine god replied, and turned back towards his game.

"No," Chiron stated, and took the controller from Dionysus. "This is no laughing matter. Without the Mist, you know there is no way to regulate the mortals."

"Uh, yeah there is," Dionysus said. "We did it before with the Greeks. Just get Zeus to use a little lightning bolt action—"

"Mr. D!" Chiron was definitely fed up now. It was nice to have him be annoyed with someone other than me for once. "We've already lost Apollo, Artemis, and Iris, we can't stand to lose Hecate as well!"

Something snapped in my brain. Of course I knew that Apollo and Artemis had been . . . eliminated, but I didn't know anything about Iris or even worse, Hecate.

"Wait, what happened to those gods?

Chiron ignored me and continued talking with Dionysus.

"Look, Chiron, I'm not saying it's not serious, it's just . . . not pause-my-video-game-session-serious."

"Mr. D, with all due respect, it's far more important than bashing in a bunch of shadowy monsters with a giant key!"

"Fine!" Dionysus roared, and switched back to Mariokart, though he even seemed reluctant to press the play button.

"Ugh!" Chiron groaned, and clenched both of his fists.

"Chiron," I said, and he turned on me viciously.

"What?" He demanded, and I took a step back. I still never got why the other campers tried to convince me he was so cool and easy-going.

"What happened to Iris and Hecate?" I asked, trying to remain confident.

Chiron sighed and brushed off his coat.

"Iris disappeared last September," Chiron told me. "Around the same time that you and your friends left for your quest. That's why no one's been able to Iris message since then. And yes, we believe it has to do with her."

"Why haven't you told any of the campers?" I questioned. "They've been asking about it almost non-stop ever since."

"There are things that you all don't need to hear," Chiron explained. "And that means you can't tell anyone either."

"Fine," I promised. "But what about Hecate?"

"Hecate is the goddess of the Mist. She regulates what the mortals can and can't see."

"I know," I said. "He told me all about that."

Chiron paused. "He? You mean Lucian?"

I nodded, and Chiron went into thought for a second, seemingly remembering that his death hadn't really been that long ago to his best friend.

I can't say that I hadn't said his name since his death, but whenever I though about it, I avoiding saying it. Whenever it slipped out, an awkward silence followed, so it was preferable to keep it from happening. However, if I was ever prompted to say his name, I would. In fact, I will.

Lucian.

"Well, anyway," Chiron said, returning from his thought, and seemingly to have calmed down quite a bit. He didn't even seem to care that Dionysus had returned to his race. "Now that the Mist is malfunctioning, it's not hard to imagine that the Primordial Gods might have taken her as prisoner as well."

"Ah," I said, unable to say anything more.

"Now," Chiron said, and started towards the door. "Mr. D, I'll leave you to think things over," he said, hinting towards Dionysus, who didn't seem to be paying any attention. He opened door and stepped out. "And Alex, I suggest you do the same."

I nodded, and started walking gloomily towards my cabin through the murky darkness of the night.

* * *
One thing I'd realized since I became the camp's Oracle was that I no longer had frequent Half-Blood dreams, visions that appear in my sleep that show me things I need to see or hear, but instead I had occasional "Prophecy Dreams." Basically, I would see small snippets of the future with a few words from the Prophecy of the Master. As you can imagine, anything I saw about it wasn't really a pleasant dream. The worst they'd ever gotten was an image of Camp Half-Blood burning, and a voice I'd imagined was Chaos's reading the third line, "Destruction will spread, Chaos will thrive." A shudder went down my spine every time I thought about it.

Anyway, that night, I had another Prophecy Dream. Not quite as disturbing as some of the others, but still enough for me to wake up in a cold sweat with goosebumps all over my body.

My view was that of some type of bird flying up to Mount Olympus at the top of the Empire State Building, moving swiftly through the shimmering, golden clouds of Mist that encircled the Eternal City. Below, dozens of Grecian Temples stood in perfect condition, with even more nymphs and minor gods running around doing their business. As I watched, a group of satyrs blew into magic reed pipes, causing a nearby oak to shift into the shape of what seemed to be a small mammal, possibly a groundhog in recognition of the upcoming February 2nd. The bird flew further up the rocky slope, shooting past statue upon statue of the gods, through archways and pavilions, over small forests and somehow rivers, until it reached the very peak of the mountain—the grand hall of the gods. Up until this point, I hadn't really felt or heard anything, but suddenly a powerful tingling sensation overcame my body, and a loud whirring buzzed in my ears, until I felt newly discovered feet touch the ground. I sat down in one empty chair of the U—shaped throne collection, and was immediately overcome by a feeling of electricity sparking through my veins, trying to escape at every chance it could, the smell of metal filling my nasal, and I knew who and where I was. I wasn't sure what Zeus was doing at the top of Mount Olympus, sitting on his throne far away from any solstice when the gods would meet, but there was fear in the back of mind.

Suddenly, my vision started to go hazy, and my peripheral started fading to black. The buzzing in my ears stopped and I could no longer feel or smell the electricity within me, and my body disappeared. Just before my view became total shadow, a dark figure appeared out of nowhere in a throne far from Zeus's, and unhooded itself, revealing a scarred face cloaked by obsidian hair filled with twinkling stars.

When my vision was gone, I heard a new, sinister voice saying: "The gods shall fade forevermore."

* * *
At breakfast that morning, I didn't tell anyone about my dream, even Jordan, Laurel, or Helen. Outside of the Mess Hall, I didn't even see any of them until Lunch, but we still weren't allowed to eat together anyway, so me keeping it a secret didn't become an issue until the hour of free time we were allowed afterward. I met up with Jordan, Helen and Ivan (Laurel was busy helping tending to the strawberry fields with the other dryads and the Dionysus campers), who had been helping Helen get a better feel of the camp, outside the big house, and we all headed up to my room to play a Mariokart Tournament, with each of us switching out each race. Once we'd finished (and I'd won, by the way), we went into the woods to hang out at Zeus's fist. At one point, Jordan and I saw a large creature moving swiftly through the woods, and we all scrambled to the top, brandishing our weapons just in case it tried to attack. Unfortunately, Helen was the only defenseless one, and we decided to go to the Armory and ask one of the Hephaestus campers to make her a balanced sword, since she'd decided that was the weapon that felt best to her. After briefly describing the sword she'd used at Mist Tag the night before, the person running the Armory, a boy named Richard, looked at her for about three seconds before writing down about a dozen different notes on a piece of paper before handing it back to Helen.

"Take this to Carly at the Forge," he said in a surprisingly soft voice. "Ask for a shield recommendation too. Trust me, you want one."

We arrived at the Forge around the back of the armory, and were greeted by the Hephaestus cabin counselor, Ashton, who pointed us to a girl wearing a very conflicting outfit of a short, pink skirt with a matching sweater donned with hearts, and a scorched black welder's mask that covered everything from the neck up. When she took off the mask to talk to us, two thick smudgy lines of soot and ash were left on the sides of her face, looking like misshapen sideburns descending from her equally dark hair. She read Richard's note and quickly copied the contents of it onto a metal plate on the wall in the back of the room using a metal glove that glowed neon green when it traced letters of the same color and brightness onto the tablet. The note was then instantly torched in her hand, bursting into flame and smoke before being extinguished half a second later.

"Paper's too flammable," she said in a gruff voice that would probably have better suited Richard. "Plus green's the only color bright enough to show up without looking like the fire."

Carly wrote a few more notes and a couple lines creating a small sketch of the the sword Helen wanted to duplicate, and walked over to a long counter along the wall leading to a door that must have opened up to the heart of the inferno, where the weapons were melted and shaped for each demigod.

"Daughter of Nemesis, right?" she asked, and Helen nodded. Carly pulled out a drawer with three boxes inside, and picked out the middle one. It looked like a treasure chest, but wrapped in leather and much smaller. On the side there was the word Εκδίκηση, which I translated as saying Revenge. While I felt proud of myself for having learned something in my Greek lessons, it just reminded me of the fact that the nice, gentle Helen I'd met a few days ago was the daughter of a goddess who specialized in cutting people down to size.

Carly opened the box, revealing inside nearly four dozen different gemstones, each a slightly different color and shape.

"They're all jasper," she said, inspecting them all just as Helen did. "The sacred gemstone of Nemesis."

I leaned over to get a good look at some of the different pieces. One sharply cut diamond-shaped piece was lime green, and strangely seemed to shimmer more brightly inside the gem. Another was deep crimson and cut in the shape of a heart. Before I could even think about why Carly was showing us these, she told us.

"Pick one, but make sure you like it. It'll be set into the hilt of your sword. It's kind of . . . a way for your mom to help you out."

Before I could even look back down at the gems in the box, Helen already grabbed one and held it out to Carly.

"This one," she said, holding a round, black gem with small blots of red dotted all over the surface of the stone.

"You already chose one?" I said, disbelievingly.

"Yeah, Helen, you might want to think this over," Ivan said. "If the stone you pick's gonna be on your weapon like, forever, you should probably take the time to—"

"No, no, most people are able to decide very quickly which one they want," Carly said confidently. "The right one usually just speaks to them."

"She's right, Alex," Jordan confirmed. "When I chose the obsidian for my pitchfork, it was this little shiny one that I just knew I wanted the second I saw it. Your weapon was a gift from Lucian, right? I guess you never got to pick your gem."

"Just as well," Carly said. "We only have gemstones for the gods."

"I'm with Jordan," Helen said, and I saw in her eyes that she was serious. This gemstone was meant for her. "I don't know what it is, but I know that this is the one I want."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I believe you," I said. "And if you're sure, then I'm with you 100%."

"I am," Helen said, and handed Carly the stone.

"I'll have your sword ready by dinner," she assured us, and put the piece of jasper in a little holder beneath the metal tablet that Carly had written on. "For now, I've got to go ride some pegasi."

She took her welder's mask all the way off, wiped off her face with an already dirty washcloth, somehow coming out cleaner than before, and ran off to the stables. Before the rest of us all parted ways for our next activities, mine being the Greek that I'd now discovered had actually been benefitting me, I pulled Helen aside.

"You've got volleyball tonight, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," she replied. "Should I come get my sword then?"

"Meet me at the courts first, I'm supposed to be playing as well. We can sneak over here after the first game and get it."

"Okay," she said, and started towards the arena. "It's a date."

* * *
Greek lessons that day proved less fruitful than those I'd had before, and I walked out of the little room in the Big House where the classes were held feeling like I'd really just wasted an hour of my life. But who knows? Maybe someday I would need to know . . . whatever I learned. Still, it was in there somewhere.

After Greek came Stable Cleaning, the absolute worst activity in all of Camp Half-Blood. Fortunately, the Hades cabin was with us for the period, so I got to spend the time talking with Jordan and trying to stop Megan from throwing the . . . you know . . . at other campers. However, it seemed her bark was worse than her bite, and when Jordan and I had our backs turned, she dropped the stuff in a bucket and quickly washed her hands with a hose.

The last activity before dinner was Canoeing, which I rather enjoyed. It was a nice, relaxing change from a day filled with Lunch Preparation, Greek, and Stable Cleaning. I spent the hour just gently paddling myself from bank to bank, thinking about my dream, and what it meant. That shadowy figure had to be Nyx, the Primordial goddess who had replaced Artemis on the Olympian Council. But why was she meeting with Zeus? And why were none of the other gods there? I'd never heard of the gods using the grand hall for anything but formal meetings on the solstices.

Before I could think too much more of it, the other campers were already starting to land their canoes and heading for the Mess hall. I followed suit and quickly hurried after them, trying to run the smell of seaweed off of me. I plopped down in my chair next to Chiron at the head table, my pants slightly damp from the water that had splashed into my canoe, and looked up to see that none of the Ares, Nemesis, Athena, or Hades campers had shown up yet. That didn't really sit right.

Suddenly, one of the Athena campers, a girl named Allison, appeared, and came up to me.

"Alex," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of my chair, much to Chiron's silent disapproval. "You need to come see this."

Allison led me to the arena, where I knew Helen had Javelin Throwing, and I could hear shouting going on from almost the very beginning. Chiron followed us to the source of the yelling, and when we entered the arena, my heart stopped. Warren, the toughest, most aggressive demigod at camp and son of Ares, was holding three javelins in one hand, teasingly jabbing them at the person opposite, Helen.

"Helen!" I called out and ran over to her, but Chiron caught my arm and pulled me back.

"Don't try and deny it, new girl!" Warren yelled, bringing on several supportive shouts from the crowd of campers that had gathered around. "You threw that javelin right at my chest!"

"Yeah, sure," Helen replied astonishingly calmly. "After all, it's not like there would be no reason why I would."

"Shut up, Ms. Pac-Man."

Ms. Pac-Man?

"Be quiet, Warren," someone in the crowd said, and I knew why the Hades campers hadn't arrived at dinner. Jordan had come like I had to defend Helen.

"Yeah, you might want to hush before this gets messy."

"You're not gonna do anything while Chiron's here, Jenny. Even you can't be that stupid."

"Maybe you're stupid enough for it to be worth it!"

Before Jenny could draw the whip from her belt, Chiron finally stepped in. He shot an arrow that burst into a giant puff of white smoke in the middle of the mob, separating the Nemesis, Athena, and Hades campers to one side and the Ares campers to the other.

"That is enough!" Chiron roared, trotting into the center of the arena. "How is it that I am finding myself in the exact same position as last night? Can you all just calm yourselves?"

However, something immediately happened that assured the fact that we would not calm ourselves.

A loud bird call echoed over the hills of Camp, filling the air unnaturally with the sound. It reverberated in my mind, rattling every one of my thoughts and giving me a serious migraine within a second. As soon as it came up, though, it disappeared, and my head simply felt weirdly pressurized. Looking around, I saw that the same thing seemed to have happened to everyone else as well, even Chiron.

"Alex," I heard someone calling, but the sound was too shaky for me to tell who it was. "Alex!"

I turned my head to the speaker and saw Helen and Jordan both running to me, while practically everyone else stood around in a daze, like me.

"What's going on?" I asked, my own voice ringing in my ears.

"I have no idea," Jordan yelled, his voice sounding like a whisper to me. Megan had run up to him and grabbed his hand, something that didn't actually seem to bother him.

"What do we do?" Helen asked me, and then it happened. My body went numb, and my vision went black. I could no longer hear anything, even the weird ringing and echoing sounds, except my own voice, but it was muffled beyond my comprehension. This had only happened once before, but I knew exactly what it was—I was giving a prophecy.

When my vision came back, I found myself lying on the ground, Helen kneeled over me, Megan pacing nervously, and Jordan doing something weird with his knee.

"Alex?" Helen cried, panicked. "Alex?"

"It's okay!" I said quickly, sitting up to prove I was feeling fine. "I'm the Oracle remember? I just do that whenever the spirit inside me needs to give a prophecy. I promise, I'm all right."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Alex," Jordan said, and I saw now that he was writing something on his pant leg with a little black sharpie. "Any chance you remember what you said after the thing about the single star?"

"The single star?" I asked, as unsure as he was. I hadn't heard a thing I'd said, let alone anything about a single star.

"Wait, I got it," he said, writing something quickly. "It was 'the villains shall rise.'"

"Pleasant," I responded, standing up. Most of the other campers had congregated at one of the arena's exits, shoving to get out of there. "You wrote the whole thing down?"

"Yeah," he said, capping the sharpie and sticking it in his pocket. "I've been keeping that pen handy ever since you became the Oracle, just in case you started spouting out prophecies at random."

"Smart," I told him. "Thanks."

"Sure."

"So what did I say?"

Jordan grabbed his pants and started trying to decipher what he'd written. It seemed demigods couldn't even read their own terrible handwriting.

"'The daughter of balance returns to her home,'" he began, and Helen gulped. "'To hear the last augury of Greece and Rome: The once safe haven shall burn to the ground, and the Lord of the Sky will return by the crowned. The immortal sight in the mortals' eyes, at the single star, the villains shall rise.'"

Now I gulped.

"That's . . . not good," I offered.

Suddenly, the bird call went out again, but with less of an effect now. Over my head I saw a flash of red and blue streaking across the sky, a few feathers falling to the ground below. Jordan caught first one just fine, but the second one landing on the grass about fifty feet away, and burst into a plume of fire.

"And neither is that!" Helen yelled, and she grabbed my hand. The plume of fire began spreading quickly, engulfing the area in flames.

"Let's get out of here!" I shouted, and all four of us took off running to the exit where everyone else had already gone, trying to outrace the blaze behind us.

As soon as we stepped foot outside the arena, the entire central field had caught fire. Flames were shooting up all over Camp, causing the Mess Hall and the north woods to erupt in fire, while campers frantically scattered around. Chiron was standing in the center of Camp, trying to call everyone to order, but no one was paying attention. Instead, they hurried to meet with their siblings, and began drawing weapons. I summoned my spear, Jordan his pitchfork, and Megan her shield. Overhead, the bird was still dropping feathers like rain, and everyone knew this wasn't some random monster. Monsters weren't even able to enter the camp's magic border unless invited in by a camper or possibly by some . . . greater power.

Camp Half-Blood was under attack by the Primordial gods.

"Why do you run in fear of us?" the cold, metallic voice rang across the campgrounds, overpowering the screaming and battle cries from the campers. "We were summoned, were we not? My son called for us by name?"

I knew I'd have to deal with Chiron later about what Chronos had said, but there were clearly more pressing matters at the moment. I led Jordan, Megan, and Helen across the rolling hills of Camp, my target in sight, yet knowing that getting there would be unbelievably difficult thanks to the pandemonium all around us. I was surprised no one asked where I was running, but once again, there were bigger concerns for the time being.

The feathers seemed to be falling even more densely now, and for a moment, I could see the flash of red and blue in the sky, but now it was clearly in the form of a bird. I even thought I knew what bird, but from what I recalled from Greek Mythology, it couldn't be. Phoenix was a nice bird! Why would it be attacking Camp?

"Alex!" Jordan yelled out, and jumped in front of me to catch a feather that otherwise would have landed on my head, lighting my hair on fire as it flared up. Fortunately, being the God of the Inferno's son, the feather didn't have a reaction. He was still holding the other feather he'd caught in the arena in his other hand, careful not to drop it.

"Watch your heads!" I told everyone commandingly, and they obliged. We continued running through the camp, dodging plumes of fire and trying not to knock down demigods trying to shoot the firebird flying overhead. Soon enough we managed to reach our destination, the Forge, mostly unharmed. Helen had a small burn on her left hand from running too close to a blaze, but she insisted it was nothing major. Inside the forge, there weren't any campers, but the door to the actual blacksmithing room had been left open in everyone's haste to get to safety. We ran inside before realizing that yet another fire was burning inside, and were careful not to get too close.

"Alex," Helen cried, coughing up smoke as she exhaled. "What are we doing?"

"I think now's a good time for you to get your weapon," I said, worried that there might not have ever been another chance to at all.

"But there are like fifty swords in here," Jordan commented. "How are we supposed to find Helen's?"

Before I could even contemplate the question much, Helen pointed at a sword leaning against the wall to our left.

"It's that one. I can feel the same power in the jasper as before."

I nodded and was about to run over there, when Jordan grabbed my shoulder.

"Might be smarter if I did it," he said, looking at the central fire that was burning quite wildly.

"Probably," I said, smiling, and Jordan ran off to get the sword, tossing his two feathers into the central fire, and getting tickled by the flames in a way that might have melted my skin off.

"Got it," Jordan said, and handed Helen the shining unicorn-styled sword with the dotted black stone for an eye. "Now let's get out of here."

"Wait," I said, and Jordan and Helen both looked at me in shock.

"Wait?" Jordan asked. "What are you talking about."

"Helen needs a shield."

For a second it seemed like Jordan was making a decision, but Helen interrupted.

"That's not important now," she said, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the Forge. "We need to help the others stop whatever's causing all this."

"No, Alex is right," Jordan insisted. "It doesn't have to even be a permanent shield. But you're untrained and defenseless against fire. You need protection."

It looked like Helen was about to protest being called "untrained" and "defenseless", but I grabbed her other hand and she looked at me.

"We're not going to let you get hurt because you're too proud. You're a daughter of Nemesis, you of all people should know that pride leads to downfall. It's kind of your family motto."

She nodded, either at what I was arguing or my logic, but ran back into the Forge and grabbed one of the shields hanging on the wall by the door.

"Let's go," she said, and we charged into battle.

The Apollo campers were stationed at the top of Half-Blood Hill, firing dozens upon dozens of arrows at the bird overhead. They were known for their incredible accuracy, yet somehow none managed to hit their target. In the middle of the valley, the Poseidon campers were running around frantically, trying to douse the raging flames with water from the river and canoe lake. The larger cabins like Hermes and Aphrodite had all their campers trying to keep the feathers from landing on those who were trying to stop the chaos. Everyone else was either fruitlessly throwing spells and weapons at the firebird or trying to get to safety inside the cabins that were undamaged.

"What is wrong, heroes?" rang the deep, cold voice of my father across the camp. I heard Megan start to cry and Jordan trying to comfort her, the panic in his voice strongly restrained. "Are you all upset that your one safe haven is burning to the ground? You must have known this was coming. Your Oracle predicted it, did he not?"

My fist clenched around my spear, and I was tempted to through it into the sky, despite the fact that I knew Chronos was nowhere nearby.

"No matter. I'm sure the rest of the prophecy will be very uplifting. If you have any questions about it, I'm sure my son would be more than willing to field them. Have a nice day!"

A strange wave of force suddenly burst from the center of camp, knocking every demigod in sight to the ground, including Helen, Jordan, Megan, and I. Another wave of feathers fell from the sky, causing camp to erupt in fire once again. A deafening cry from the firebird echoed across the camp once again, disorienting me and causing me to collapse once again. Jordan helped me up, and I looked at him for a moment, my vision swirling and blurring his face.

"You okay, Alex?" he asked, and I nodded dizzily. Before I could process much else, I heard someone shouting from high up.

"It's gone!"

I looked into the sky and, sure enough, the firebird had disappeared. The last of the feathers were still coming down, but it was clear the assault was over. I knew exactly what had happened. Chronos had set the stage for a grand-scale attack on Camp Half-Blood, leading all the campers to go into full battle mode. But when the only threat had been fire, something that could obviously not be stopped by swords and arrows, there were only the two Poseidon campers fighting the real danger.

I walked past Helen, Jordan, and Megan, who was now crying and hugging Jordan tightly, to get a better view of the entire camp, and saw exactly what Chronos wanted. The twenty cabins were scorched, with the Demeter and Dionysus cabins almost completely reduced to cinders. Fittingly, the only one that seemed undamaged was the one belonged to Tyche, goddess of luck. The pegasus stables, which had fortunately been emptied by the Hebe campers, had lost their roof to the blaze. The amphitheater, arena, and mess hall, which had always had glimmering white marble exteriors, were blackened by smoke, and parts of walls had collapsed. The areas of camp that had suffered the most were the strawberry fields, the volleyball courts, the arts and crafts pavilion and, worst of all . . .

"The Big House," I said, and took off running.

"Alex!" Helen called after me, and I heard all of their footsteps behind me, but I didn't care. Every single part of my being was focused on what was before me—the smoking, ashen remains of the once-towering head building of Camp.

The only piece of the structure still intact was the square stone patio that had surrounded the Big House, piles of cinders and glowing embers covering the top, sides, and grass all around. One short plank of wood had fallen to the ground where I was standing, the sky blue paint cracked, peeling, and smothered in soot.

"Let me through," Chiron's shouted, sounding uncharacteristically shaken. "Please, let me through."

The centaur stepped up next to me, cleared his throat softly, and turned away almost immediately from the measly remains of the Big House to address the campers.

"Heroes!" he stated in his once again Chiron-esque calm voice, which carried across the group of demigods herded together, silencing their minor conversations. "I understand this is a very upsetting, traumatic time for you all."

I heard one person, likely and Ares camper, shout out No duh! followed by several snickers, but Chiron seemed to ignore them.

"However, I must ask that all of you, except for the cabin counselors, return either to your cabin or to the Mess Hall. As for the counselors, please meet me in the Arena in five minutes' time. Thank you."

Chiron headed off toward Thalia's Pine Tree, which I was overwhelming glad to see was still standing, no doubt to check to see what had allowed such a devastating monster into our magical boundaries. I wanted to follow and talk, but knowing my current relationship with him and the with all that had just happened, I knew he wouldn't want another one-on-one with me.

"Alex?" Jordan rested his hand on my shoulder, and I realized how cold I was, despite the fact that I'd just been running through, basically, an inferno.

"Hey," I said, not quite up for saying much more, and Jordan seemed to know that. He had put away his pitchfork, so I tapped the Alpha on my spear, but just held the chain in my hand, my arms too heavy to lift.

"Helen," he said, turning toward her. "Can you take Megan to the Mess Hall?"

"Sure thing," she said, and took Megan's hand, awkwardly carrying her sword and shield with her right. Megan seemed a little reluctant to let go of Jordan at first, but finally waddled over to Helen, holding on tight to her arm. "You two go meet with the other counselors at the Arena. We'll be waiting for you guys when you're done."

She started walking away, then paused to turn back.

"And remember everything Chiron says," she told us. "I mean, if you plan on telling me, that is."

"Come on," Jordan said, and patted my back. "Let's go."

* * *
When Jordan and I arrived at the Arena, I wasn't surprised to see all the other counselors eagerly awaiting to talk to Chiron, each of them engaged in discussion about possible ways the firebird had entered Camp. Fortunately, Jordan and I were saved from taking part in such conversations by a voice that made me turn around and tackle the speaker with a hug.

"Hey there, Alex!" Laurel said, fortunately holding out her arms for a hug so that when I dove into one, she was prepared. We almost fell over, but she somehow managed to catch me and keep me upright. Perhaps the fact that she spent much of her day being a tree gave her a slight boost in staying up.

"Thank gods, Laurel!" I cried, tears of relief streaming down my face. A Mountain Laurel + Fire doesn't exactly equal safety. "Your tree's okay?"

"Yeah, it's totally fine," she said, surprisingly upbeat in light of what had happened. Then again, it was Laurel. She could never be surprisingly upbeat. "I used Chlorokinesis to move it right next to the river in case anything . . . happened. All the other dryads who could move their trees did as well, and we all helped the ones that couldn't. Nothing happened to any of us, though some trees around the outer edge of the north woods got burnt."

Her voice turned solemn now, and I remembered how sad she'd gotten in the beginning of the year when the Camp's Christmas tree had died. She had even insisted I say a few words about how beautiful and lively it had been in its prime.

"Chiron!" I heard one camper shout, and I saw the centaur trotting into the arena, followed by four satyrs holding up what appeared to be a bed with some person sinking very far down into the middle sheet.

"Oh gods," I said. "Really?"

The four satyrs laid Dionysus down onto the four corner posters, which seemed to be made of bamboo, next to Chiron in the middle of the arena. The wine god's nose was still bright red and his eyes were still very puffy, but he seemed quite . . . cheerful? It was hard to tell, since there was no frame of reference—as far as I knew, Dionyus hadn't been happy since he'd been sent to Camp Half-Blood by Zeus as punishment for chasing down an off-limits nymph. Yet there was an unmistakably giddy grin on his grubby little face. As I watched, he shut his eyes and started whistling an unbearable toon, twiddling his thumbs as he did.

"Heroes!" Chiron shouted, and the 20 demigods and however many nymphs and satyrs had come circled around him.

"Chiron, what was that thing?"

"Where did that bird come from?"

"How did it get into Camp?"

The cabin counselors had several dozen questions for the centaur, and didn't let up on asking him, despite the fact that he didn't even open his mouth, just standing up straight and waiting.

"Do you think it's gonna come back?"

"Was it Alex's dad?"

I knew the Demeter camper who'd asked that didn't mean that as a stab at me, as she was merely trying to avoid using Chronos's name, but it still bothered me. I hated being associated with my father.

"Hey, everyone," Jenny said commandingly, but calmly. Then, she added, less calmly, "SHUT UP!"

The counselors quieted, except for the Ares camper who still seemed to be angry with her from his fight with Helen earlier, who was whispering insults and threats at her.

"Thank you, Jennifer," Chiron said, though the seriousness in his eyes overpowered his smile. "To answer a few of you, I have no doubt that we were attacked by the Primordial Gods, or that we will not be struck again soon. The goal of the assault was simply to cause much damage to Camp, and that has been accomplished."

"They wanted to make it look like a larger-scale attack to make us prepare for combat," I added, and though I expected Chiron to get annoyed, for once, he seemed to appreciate what I'd said.

"Alex is right. The Primordial Gods expected all of your battle instincts to kick in when threatened. But grabbing your swords and shields wasn't a strong defense against such a beast as Phoenix."

A few campers started murmuring to each other, but I got straight to the point.

"But Chiron," I said, and saw once again that the centaur didn't seem to be upset by me. "Phoenix, in the old stories, didn't attack people. He was a gentle creature, right?"

"Yes." Chiron nodded. "Phoenix was known to be helpful and kind, not vicious or even notoriously dangerous as he was tonight. However, one way or another, he was manipulated into attacking. Perhaps he's even gone slightly senile, as he'd have to be very near death to be dropping as many feathers as he was."

I took in the information, still unsure about the entire situation, when Jenny spoke up again.

"Hey, what was it that guy said about a prophecy, Alex?" she asked, and I wasn't sure if she was just wondering of if she was passive-aggressively accusing me of hiding something like that.

"Oh yeah, that was your dad, wasn't it?" piped the Demeter girl, and I had to clench my fists a little.

"Yeah, that was—" I was about to say Chronos's name, but I remembered what Chiron had said, and since he was being nice now, I wanted to pay him back a little. "That was my father."

I could see Chiron's expression loosen a tiny amount, and it was clear he appreciated me sidestepping the lord of time's name.

"Was there a prophecy, Alex?" he questioned, sounding a lot like Jenny.

"There was," I said, and Chiron shut his eyes, likely from holding back his anger. "But I swear, I only said the prophecy after Phoenix had arrived."

"It's true," Jordan backed me up. "And I wrote it down."

"Well, what did it say?" Chiron asked, no longer upset.

Jordan repeated the prophecy, reading it off of his knee again, and a chill ran down my spine when he said the third line: "The once safe haven shall burn to the ground". Without even realizing it, we'd just experienced a very important, very awful part of the prophecy, seconds after I'd said it.

Chiron considered my prediction for a few seconds while Dionysus started singing the lines of the prophecy to the tune of It's a Small World, bouncing his fingers around as if he were conducting.

"Well," Chiron said finally, looking very stern. "Prophecies, as always, are calls for quests. And based on the remark about "the immortal sight", I'd say this quest will revolve around the situation with the Mist. As for "the Lord of the Sky", well, I have ideas but nothing solid. That's for the quest members to figure out. And on that note, Alex, may I ask to whom you delivered this prophecy?"

I paused for a moment, knowing that I'd said the prophecy as a response to Helen asking me what we should do, but I wasn't sure she'd want to lead a quest so soon into her stay at Camp. I'd left to go on a quest days after arriving, and it really wasn't a fun way to get a crash-course on survival skills. The amount of pressure on someone leading a quest must be extraordinarily more strenuous. For a moment, I considered saying I'd said it to Jordan, but I realized that before he could realize why I was lying he'd say it had been Helen. Besides, it was hard to tell what Helen's reaction to everything would be, having known her only a little while. She may have been upset to hear that I hadn't given her the chance to lead a quest.

Not knowing exactly what to do, I did what I thought was best.

"Helen," I said finally. "I delivered the prophecy to Helen."

Chiron sent one of the nymphs to fetch Helen, and a few moments later she entered the arena, Megan trailing behind her closely and holding the nymph's hand. The centaur and I briefed her on what we'd been talking about, and the moment finally came.

"I accept the quest," she replied to Chiron. "And am I correct in saying I get to have two people accompany me?"

"Yes, you are," Chiron said, "And I'd advise you to choose wisely, as—"

"I'll need Alex and Jordan."

Chiron looked at her for a moment, studying her, and so did I.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You'll be counting on these two to keep you alive."

"I'm sure," she said assuringly. "I don't think I'll be able to do it without them."

"Helen," I said, trying not to draw too much attention, though it was hard when everyone was staring at her. "Are you sure you don't want like Ivan or—"

"I'm positive," she insisted. "I only want you two."

"If they accept, of course," Chiron added.

"We accept," Jordan and I said together, and Helen smiled. Despite my nerves, I couldn't help but smile back.

"There you are, then," Chiron said, straightening up after having bent down to speak to Helen. "I'll ask you three to please stay for a while. As for the rest of you, you're free to go."

Chiron waved out the other campers, as well as the satyrs and nymphs, and clapped his hands together.

"That went well," he said, and kneeled down next to Dionysus, whose carrier satyrs had remained, but were standing off to the side so as not to intrude on our conversation. "Now, I hope the three of you will be ready to leave within a day's time."

"That should be fine," Helen said. "But we'll need money and supplies."

"That too should be fine." Chiron paused to stop Dionysus from picking all the dandelions and blowing away the seeds. "We'll have the Camp Store, or what's left of it, supply you with everything you need. However, before any of that takes place, I must tell you three something. I highly suspect that not only has Hecate been taken, causing the Mist to begin fading, but that Iris was taken by the same people."

"Is that why we can't Iris message?" Jordan asked, and I remembered what Chiron had said before.

"Yeah, Jordan. Iris disappeared last September."

The centaur nodded.

"I believe that much like what happened to Apollo and Artemis last year is going to happen to Hecate and Iris. It seems the Primordial Gods are trying to cut off the Olympians' best means of communication and disguise. Without them, the gods are essentially trapped where they are, unable to enter the mortal world for too long without their true form being exposed, and they cannot speak with the others."

"Wait a minute," Helen interrupted. "What happened to Apollo and Artemis?"

I gulped, not wanting to recount the story even yet. Fortunately, I didn't have to.

"We went on a quest last September," Jordan said. "Apollo and Artemis were kidnapped. We tracked them down to Mt. McKinley but . . . well, they were killed anyway, as much as immortals can be killed."

Helen looked shocked. After all, why wouldn't she have been? The few campers Chiron had decided to tell had been emotionally traumatized for weeks. Even now, it was easy to tell who had heard the news. Luckily, those we'd told seemed to have kept their mouths shut, and most of the campers didn't know. We decided it'd be best for them to know when it became clear we were going to have to go to war. Which now seemed to be near on the horizon.

"So if we can't rescue Hecate and Iris, then . . ."

"We can't be sure, but it would be unwise to rule anything out," Chiron said. "Plus, now that it has become clear that the Primordial Gods have means of hearing us at all times, it isn't safe to risk them hearing what you plan on encountering, or they'll throw everything they can at you, completely unexpected. I suggest you three find them as soon as you can so there isn't much time for them to strategize against you."

At this, Chiron stood up, brushed some of the grass off of his equine legs and called Dionysus's carrier satyrs over.

"You may stay in the arena all night if you wish. Try to plan on leaving either tomorrow morning or the day after. The sooner you can go, the better. I wish you the best of luck."

The satyrs picked Dionysus's bed off of the grass as he was trying to catch a butterfly fluttering over his head.

"Chiron," I called after the centaur, who was now starting toward the exit. "I have one last question."

"Yes, Alex?"

"Why is Mr. D acting so strangely?"

Chiron smiled and looked at the euphoric god of wine, who was weakly flapping his hands to match the butterfly's wings.

"One of the Apollo campers got distracted while tending to him and mixed some of your mortal DayQuil into his nectar. Apparently human medicine has some side effects to it. They should really warn you about that."