Zoe Nightshade looks up at the stars.

If she could choose a perfect way to die, it would be this. Lying on her back, looking at the stars, next to Artemis, the best friend she has ever had.

And yet when the time comes, she is not ready. She wants one more breath, one more taste, one more touch.

One more.

She is dying, and she is terrified. It shows what a coward she is, she thinks bitterly. She knew she would die on this quest, ever since she first heard the prophecy. She had time to prepare herself, but instead she used it to stubbornly cling to her life. To convince herself that maybe she wasn't the one.

And who would it have been instead? she wonders.

Grover, Percy, Thalia. The searcher, the cursed, and the resurrected. None of them deserved this. Zoe thinks of Bianca, the quiet hunter who turned out to be braver than any of them could have imagined, and wishes that the girl could be her successor, but it was not meant to be. She remembers the determination in Bianca's face, the quake in her voice as she whispered "I'll go." She wonders why she can't be as brave. After all, she, Zoe, has had thousands of years of life. Bianca only ever got thirteen.

Percy, too, inspires bravery. A boy doomed to die, still defiant in the face of Hades. Zoe doesn't know how he manages to stay that way with a practical death sentence over his head, but she tries to borrow some of his courage.

Grover leans over her, trying to force-feed her ambrosia, but she nudges his hands away. Grover, with such a respect for the living, so determined to find Pan. This death was not for him.

And finally, there is Thalia. Out of her fellow questers, this one is the hardest to make peace with. The one who stubbornly refused Zoe's way of life, who threw barbs at every turn and angered those around her. A girl once dead, who lives again.

What is one to make of such a girl?

Zoe knows. Zoe understands Thalia as she never has before, understands that Thalia truly loved Luke Castellan, understands that until this day, Thalia still expected him to switch sides for her. Now she has had to kill him, and she will never be the same.

And Zoe knows a place for girls who will never be the same. She looks at Thalia, trying to communicate what she cannot put into words, and Thalia nods. Zoe feels a kind of peace knowing the hunt will be looked after.

And as she whispers her final words to Artemis, she manages a smile.