Chapter Text
Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me andmurmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was stillpretty much dripping wet.
She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), thearts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and theclimbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders,sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.
"Because that's safe," Ron laughed.
Artemis turned to look at him. "What is in the Forbidden Forest Ron? Do you know every being in there? Hogwarts is even less safe, at least we can count on the camp to keep out monsters - when Luke doesn't get involved that is."
"So who was that other girl?" I asked Annabeth as we made our way back to the canoeing lake.
Annabeth stopped, and I turned to look at her. "Come with me," she ordered, and I followed her down towards the edge of the woods.
"What did Clarisse call her - Thena? Why is everyone scared of her?" I asked.
Annabeth slowed down, leading me down a stone path. "That was Nymphadora Black. She's a Black Legacy," she told me, like I was expected to know what that meant.Annabeth sighed aggressively when I didn't respond, muttering something under her breath.
The hall turned to look at Nymphadora, who smiled softly and waved her fingers.
"You're a demigod?" Fred gaped.
Nymphadora nodded. "Daughter of Athena."
"Okay, so you know about the Greeks, obviously. But there are other kinds of magic. She's a witch, and she comes from a very long line of halfbloods. When the very first member of the House of Black became a demigod, the family saw how powerful it made them. So now, every Heir and Heiress of the house has to have a demigod firstborn," Annabeth summarized as we reached the edge of the path.
The wizards looked shocked with the news. "Hey - the Black legacies cannot be worse than Octavian," Reyna scoffed.
The trees broke away, and she gestured to the bottom of the hill, where four demigods were fighting. I recognized Nymphadora immediately by her purple hair. The others were younger, around my age. The closest had messy blonde hair, and was fighting with Nymphadora. The seemed to be equally matched in skill. On his other side, another boy was fighting. His mere presence scared me. It wasn't his behavior, the boy seemed cheeky and was enjoying toying with his fighting partner, teasing her as he tossed his shoulder length dark hair at her. There was something about him, I just felt afraid. His partner was shorter than him, and more aggressive. Her body seemed to glow with an aura of power. She had dark brown hair that was braided tightly and wrapped in a bun. All four of them seemed extremely strong.
Annabeth watched my reactions closely. "It's a common reaction, being scared of him. The boy with dark hair, that's Ajax Black. His dad is Deimos, the god of terror. Right now, it's just a reflex to be scared of him, but when he gets more control, undoubtably he'll be one of the strongest. Imagine being able to inflict terror on your opponents. Bravery is half the battle."
"Wow."
The hall seemed shocked by the revelation of Ajax's parenthood. Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at the power the boy displayed.
"The blonde one, that's his cousin Draco Black. Son of Apollo. Their mums are sisters. Deadliest with a bow, like his father, and remarkable at healing, both magically and medically."
"Draco Black?" Harry frowned.
Draco scoffed. "Like I'd use my poor excuse for a fake father's name at camp. I am a Black Legacy, not a Malfoy," he answered.
"Nymphadora's my half sister. Her father Regulus died when she was young, she lives with Regulus's cousin Andromeda, Ajax's mum. She's a metamorphosis, she can change her appearance at will. She despises the name Nymphadora, so everyone calls her Thena, because of her middle name. Nymphadora Thena Black. The only reason I have been calling her that is for your sake."
"Call me Nymphadora and I will kill you," Thena threatened.
"Lastly, the dark haired girl is Artemis Black, daughter of Circe. She lives with Draco's family, after a big drama with her dad ending up in prison when she was a baby. Her dad is Regulus's older brother. She's powerful with and without their powers."
Dumbledore's eyes sparkled. The four were powerful, and Draco held no regard for his Death Eater father. Dumbledore needed to take advantage of their power.
"The Blacks are a Legacy, and they are expected to be the most powerful demigods. From the moment they can stand, they are taught to run. When they can carry things, they are taught to fight. As soon as they display a sign of magic, they are taught how to wield it. They are raised to be the best of us, and Ajax, Artemis and Draco spend six months here learning combat, and six months in Britain learning magic. Thena goes to her magic boarding school, so she only spends Summer and holidays here.
"Seems like a lot of pressure," I noted, watching the four fight. Their movements were fluid and strong, and they seemed to know how to fight exceptionally well.
Annabeth whistled loudly, and the four turned immediately. "Come on," she told me, and I followed her down the stone steps to where the Blacks were waiting.
My terror didn't vanish as I neared Ajax, but his crooked smile relieved the fear a bit. His gray eyes looked me up and down as he dragged a hand through his hair.
Ajax grinned at how much Percy feared him.
"Wait," Hermione glanced up. "You inspire fear and you were sorted into a house filled with brave and courageous kids? Isn't that a bit . . . hypocritical?"
Ajax shrugged. "I'm not a hat."
Hermione blinked. "That's not - what?"
"Just keep reading," Artemis waved her hand.
Artemis stood next to him drinking out of a large gray bottle, barely acknowledging I had joined. She turned to whisper something to Draco, who was right next to her, and the boy raised a perfect eyebrow. The two seemed joint at the hip. Draco had light blonde hair that lay almost as messy as Ajax's obnoxious unruly curls, and the same striking grey eyes as Artemis, Annabeth and Thena.
"Your hair looks strange," Pansy commented.
Draco twirled a finger through his messy strands.
Like the last time we met, Thena was twirling a dagger between her fingers as she watched me. It felt like I was under a microscope.All four of them were astoundingly beautiful, probably from all the Godly inbreeding.
The Blacks choked. "Percy!"
"So this is the boy who slayed the Minotaur," Ajax smirked as Annabeth and I approached. He circled me, looking me up and down. "No grey eyes. Chiron visit. Dark hair. Water. Green eyes, minotaur," he murmured.
"What's he doing?" Ginny frowned.
"Trying to figure out his parent," Luna explained.
Annabeth was watching Ajax unbothered, as if it was a regular occurrence. Thena eyed me. "He's trying to figure out who your parent is," she explained.
That made me feel better. Artemis and Draco seemed to have their own ideas, occasionally whispering to each other.
"I am sorry about your mother," Artemis spoke for the first time. I clenched my eyes shut, trying not to think about the way she dissolved. "It is painful to lose those closest to you."She sounded although she was speaking from personal experience.
Harry smiled at Artemis, who reciprocated the gesture.
"I - thank you," I breathed, opening my eyes to look at the pity from the four cousins.
"This is Percy Jackson, currently of the Hermes cabin," Annabeth introduced.
Ajax grinned. "You'll be with Arty and I then. Minor gods for parents means we stay in there too," he explained.
"Thank the gods Percy changed that," Artemis sighed. "Hecate's cabin is much nicer."
"We should leave you to your training," Annabeth said, dragging me back up towards the stairs.
"See you at dinner," Ajax waved, before turning back towards Draco and whispering something to him.
Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins."I've got training to do," Annabeth said. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin tothe mess hall."
"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."
"Whatever."
"It wasn't my fault."
The demigods scoffed, including Percy, at the young boy. "Poseidon just decided to take a break from waring with thunder undies to smack a bunch of Ares kids in the face with water?" Percy joked.
She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of thebathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one withthe plumbing.
"'I wonder who my dad is,'" Leo mocked.
"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.
"Who?"
"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."
I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beatwhen I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below.They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around theirshoulders as minnows darted in and out.They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.
"Well considering your dad."
I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.
"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."
"So they are teenage girls?" Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Or teenage boys."
"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."
Nico scoffed. "Is that what did it for you? Not the death of Sally, not the-teacher-is-a-centaur, not the gods, not Clarisse, but the existence of naiads?"
Percy lifted his chin. "Just because you were excited when you were ten/ eighty," he huffed.
Hermione frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Lotus Casino. You'll find out in eight or so chapters," Annabeth waved a hand.
Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it,Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth forkids like us."
"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"
"ADHD, dyslexia, PTSD, so yeah, technically," Artemis shrugged.
"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."
"Half-human and half-what?"
"Didn't we go over this like twenty seconds ago?" Draco rolled his grey eyes.
"I think you know."
I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimesfelt when my mom talked about my dad.
"God," I said.
"Half god."Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."
"That's ... crazy."
"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in lovewith humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last fewmillennia?"
"We are all creatures of habit."
"But those are justâ" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in twothousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-godsâ"
"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."
"For the sake of this, can't we just refer to wizard half bloods as halfbloods, and you guys as demigods? It'd make it less confusing," Zacharias Smith sighed.
"Then who's your dad?"
Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitivesubject."My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. Heteaches American history."
"He's human."
"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist isthat?"
"You guys know that gods can procreate from same-gender relationships, right?" Nico frowned.
The demigods blinked. "What? Where did you hear that?" Reyna asked.
"Persephone," Nico shrugged.
"Who's your mom, then?"
"Cabin six."
"Meaning?"
Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle. Thena is our Cabin Counselor."
Thena smirked.
"Girl named after Athena being Counselor of Athena's cabin? Makes sense," a first year Gryffindor nodded.
"Or maybe it was because of my abilities, not my name?" Thena raised an eyebrow.
Okay, I thought. Why not?"And my dad?"
"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."
"Except my mother. She knew."
"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."
"My dad would have. He loved her."
Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right.Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a signclaiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."
"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"
Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don'talways . . . Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."
"Sometimes? Artemis, Poseidon and Hades are the only gods who give a sh*t. Artemis created a girl gang to deal with her own issues, the others just throw their dramas and rivalries on us," Ajax hmphed.
I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen anddepressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at YancyAcademy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them.But gods should behave better.
"Yeah gods."
"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"
"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite orDemeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get bywith a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year."
Piper's jaw dropped, and she turned to narrow her eyes at Annabeth. "Really? You think daughters of Aphrodite are weak? May I remind you who brought a dead metal dragon back to life with just a few sentences about how Festus is our friend?"
Annabeth winced. "Sorry Pipes, I -"
"Jump on the table and do a backflip."
Annabeth obeyed. "Pipes -"
"That's enough Pipes, do we have to do this now?" Draco put a hand on Piper's, and she looked back at Hermione.
"But for some ofus, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. Theysense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to causetroubleâabout ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or theyget killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I toldyou the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few arelike that."
Leo and Piper high-fived.
"So monsters can't get in here?"
Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or speciallysummoned by somebody on the inside."
"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"
"Grudges against parents," Percy grumbled
"Practice fights. Practical jokes."
"Practical jokes?"
"Fred and George would totally let in a monster for sh*ts and giggles," Ron nodded.
"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortalslook into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."
"So . . . you're a year-rounder?"
Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five claybeads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it,like a college ring.
"Pretty."
"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, youget a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're allin college. Except the Blacks, they've been here since they were five."
"That's a long time."
"Why did you come so young?"
She twisted the ring on her necklace."None of your business."
Thalia was silent, but gave her friend a squeeze.
"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So . . . I could just walk out of here rightnow if I wanted to?"
"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't givepermission until the end of the summer session unless . . ."
"That is a very mild version of Percy suicide."
"Unless?"
"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time . . ."Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.
"Thanks a lot Luke."
"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuffâ"
"Ambrosia."
"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."
Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"
"He's Percy, he doesn't know anything, but throws himself in headfirst anyway," Frank reminded.
"Well . . . no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grovermentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of thedeadline. What did that mean?"
She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me.Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed sonormal."
"You've been to Olympus?"
"Some of us year-roundersâLuke and Clarisse and the Blacks and I and a few othersâwe took a field trip duringwinter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."
"So you get to watch your parents bicker? Entertaining."
"But . . . how did you get there?"
"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, specialelevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "Youare a New Yorker, right?"
"Well I didn't watch the video, which is stupid," Percy sighed.
"But she would've assumed you had," Artemis reminded him.
"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building,but I decided not to point that out.
"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had startedfighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is thatsomething important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble.When you came, I was hoping . . . I meanâ Athena can get along with just about anybody, except forAres. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought wecould work together. I thought you might know something."
"The boy who clearly knows nothing about anything, and wasn't allowed to watch the orientation video?"
I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloadedto ask any more questions.
"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tellme the problem . . ."
"Because a twelve year old will be able to help so much."
I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard mystomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger acrossthe rail as if drawing a battle plan.
"I was just tracing my fingers," Annabeth rolled her eyes.
Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the firsttime, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows,mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully,nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with myminotaur horn.
The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by thatscar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact."Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."
I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.
"He's Luke, doubt it," Artemis scoffed.
"Thanks," I accepted them.
"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"
"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."
"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get anyeasier."
Percy scoffed. "Understatement of the millennia."
The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. Helooked like he could handle just about anything.
"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.
He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me,but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."
"He probably was gonna gut you," Draco said.
"The wing-footed messenger guy."
"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads.That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who hesponsors."
"Thieves! It was right there," Percy shook his head.
"You didn't know," Hazel reminded him softly. "None of you did."
The witches and wizards exchanged looks. What did this boy do?
I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind."You ever meet your dad?" I asked.
"Once."
I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if thestory had anything to do with how he got his scar.
Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they'remostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."
The demi gods scoffed. "Yeah, totally," Clarisse rolled her eyes.
He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like himâeven if he was a counselorâshould've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Lukehad welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thinganybody had done for me all day.
Thena scoffed. "So I didn't save you from getting your ass handed to you again by Clarisse?" she raised an eyebrow.
I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon.
"Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth . . . twice, shesaid I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"
Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."
Leo tilted his head. "How many prophecies have you been a part of Percy?" he asked curiously.
Percy frowned. "Huh. Well there was the lightning bolt one, the one in the sea of monsters, the one where we rescued Annabeth, the one in the labyrinth, the great big prophecy about a big three kid, the really sh*t one Ares-as-Mars gave us, the one Ella memorized, the one about Athena's Parthenos, the one when Annabeth and I were in Tartarus. Ten or so in total," he counted.
The demigods blinked. "Hey, Annabeth's been a part of like all of them, not just me," Percy pointed out.
"Holy f*ck."
"What do you mean?"
His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The lasttwo years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed anymore quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finallytold her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the wholething, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until . . . somebodyspecial came to the camp."
"Future boyfriend?"
"Somebody special?"
"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comesthrough here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."
The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, eventhough I'd never heard one before.
"Well maybe, its because Poseidon," Ajax shrugged.
Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"
Almost the whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority,so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabinsat the end, cabin six, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silveras the sun went down.
TheBlack cousins came from their training area, Draco joining other blonde children, Thena disappearing inside Annabeth's cabin before emerging with the rest of Athena's children. Artemis and Ajax joined Luke at the very front of the queue.
"Why weren't you two counselors, if you'd had so much experience?" Blaise asked curiously.
"Because we didn't want to," Artemis answered. "And we couldn't head a cabin we weren't children of."
We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiadsemerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woodsâ and when I say out of thewoods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the sideof a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.
In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphsand naiads.At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazierthe size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple.Four ofthe tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of abench with half my butt hanging off.
Ajax sighed. "That's life in Cabin Eleven."
I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys wholooked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.
Thena and Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes andhoney-blond hair.Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because shewas laughing and belching right alongside her friends.
Clarisse scoffed. "I amnotover being smacked in the head with toilet water Jackson!"
Percy winced. "Clarisse is scarier than Kronos, but Annabeth still has her beat," he said, earning a smack from his girlfriend.
Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent.He raised a glass. "To the gods!"
Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"
Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread,and yes, barbecue!
My glass was empty, but Ajax said, "Speak to it. Whatever you wantânonalcoholic,of course."
I said, "Cherry co*ke."The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry co*ke."
Percy smiled. "Blue food is superior."
The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.I took a cautious sip. Perfect.I drank a toast to my mother.She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's areal place, then someday . . .
"And they told me it was impossible," Percy scoffed.
"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carryingtheir plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert orsomething.
"Come on," Ajax nudged me with a grin. Despite his joyful bubbly personality, I couldn't help shivering in fear.
"I'm told it's a natural reflex," Ajax grinned.
As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire,the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.
Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."
"You're kidding."
"So that's why you burn your food," Hermione murmured.
"It saved our lives once," Annabeth added.
His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."
Artemis tossed all of her meat in. "Circe."
"She's vegetarian," Ajax whispered to me.
Artemis sighed. "Killing animals is wrong."
"And yet you are named after the goddess of the hunt."
"Artemis is the goddess of wild animals, the moon, vegetation, chastity and childbirth as well," Artemis raised her chin.
He spooned half of his fruit in. "Deimos."
I was next.I wished I knew what god's name to say.Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.
"How long did it take?" Frank asked.
Percy shrugged. "A week."
"Ha!" Leo grinned. "I got you beat. When I stepped into Camp Half Blood, I was claimed immediately."
I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies,hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone welltogether, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.
"Well they couldn't starve to death anyway," Hazel shrugged.
When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded hishoof again for our attention.
Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Ouractivities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds thelaurels."A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.
"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you thatwe have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."Chiron murmured something."Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your sillycampfire. Go on."
"Dionysus is the funniest, ay Perry Jonas," Clarisse teased. "And his girlfriend Annbel Casserole."
Annabeth sighed, and Jason chuckled. "Stop laughing Jerome Gondor," Annabeth told him.
"The Dionysus names are as funny as Louis Venezuela lighting himself on fire whenever 'Girl on fire' or 'Light Em Up I'm on fire' plays," Piper laughed.
Leo blushed. "Shut up Penelope McAllister," he told her, and Piper closed her eyes, resigning to his teasing.
Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a singalong. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, Ididn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.
"For like ten minutes - "
"A week."
"Same thing."
Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conchhorn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins.
I didn't realize how exhausted I was until Icollapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn.
I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts:her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to letthe bedbugs bite.
"You can't exactly stop the bed bugs."
When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.
I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.
"You got used to it."
"Okay, next chapter," Hermione sighed.
"I can take over if you'd like," Astoria offered, taking up Hermione's seat. "We capture a flag."
