Disclaimer: I am not, and will never be, Rick Riordan. Sadly, this means I don't own Percy Jackson, or the Kane Chronicles.

Warnings: Swearing, self-edited.

"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood."

-Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan

Sadie Kane was going to murder her cousin.

As she stormed through the hallway to the Great Room, the Twenty-First Nome's weekly meeting was called to order—something instituted by Carter on the grounds of things like "responsibility" and "accountability" and "I'm pharaoh, Sadie, I have an example to set."

Carter wasn't wrong, exactly, to institute the meetings. But someone had to keep him honest, in her mind, and she was best for the job.

Or Percy, when he didn't decide to disappear.

Jaz Anderson and Walt Stone flanked her on either side as she walked towards the Great Room, wisely not speaking to Sadie as she fumed. Choosing to multi-task as she walked, she composed Percy's epitaph in her head.

Perseus Jackson-Kane, she thought, considering the ridiculous boy switched between surnames whenever he felt like it, dead at the age of fifteen years and five months. Friend, family, bad magician, and idiot murdered by his own cousin for missing a meeting he swore he was going to lead so that said cousin could have some bloody alone time with her boyfriends.

She was totally going to work in the sewage stories in somewhere today. He deserved it.

Carter and Zia were in the First Nome with Amos, presiding over the trials for a faction of magicians who had refused to surrender after Apophis's defeat, so she and Percy had been captains of the ship for the past week. Surprisingly, the mansion hadn't burned down or exploded yet with them in charge, outside one day where Felix had accidentally turned the entire second floor into a skating rink.

"Has anyone seen Percy?" Sadie asked as she strode into the full room, which quieted quite satisfyingly as she entered. "He was due to cover the agenda today."

Everyone looked at each other, confused murmuring spreading like wildfire among the group of magicians, initiates, and animals. Sadie's righteous rage —something she'd rather been delighting in —simmered down a little at the lack of any immediate answer.

Finally, Cleo timidly raised her hand. "I saw him this morning when I had breakfast. He seemed distracted."

"Really?" Sadie asked, her eyebrows raised. Cleo was up with the sun each morning like clockwork; Percy liked to sleep in, waking up with the night owl set. "Did something happen?"

"He mentioned strange dreams," Cleo said with a frown. "Nothing detailed. He said he was going for a run to clear his head."

Well, that's bloody clear and helpful.

Beside her, Jaz's brow furrowed at the vague explanation. But Sadie knew it wasn't entirely unusual.

Percy liked to run out to a boardwalk when he was having problems, usually concerning his nightmares; he claimed the air out by the river made him think more clearly.

Personally, Sadie thought he just liked not having to constantly be the glorious supreme leader for a few hours—which, despite his many protests, he was; everyone in Brooklyn House loved him, mortal or not, and he took to looking after them all like a duck to water—and wanted some time to himself. And she normally didn't begrudge him, except.

Except he had promised to be there, and not running off to only Isis knew where.

Swallowing her annoyance, she thanked Cleo and got to the agenda for the week, resigning herself to an afternoon full of dull leadership minutiae. It was the usual for the middle of the month, thankfully; with the Demon Days well behind them, no major magical issues or inauspicious days were at hand, and outside a reminder on quiet hours with the high school and college students approaching midterms, it was fairly mundane stuff.

Unfortunately.

While she was moderating a disagreement involving someone's attempt to recreate Little Shop of Horrors that had resulted in their neighbor's room being invaded by carnivorous plants, Sadie's mind couldn't help but wonder what on earth Percy was thinking when he'd left that morning.

She knew he had some of the worst nightmares any of them had ever seen, bordering on night terrors at times, but he'd always left a note before leaving for a run.

With all the enemies they still had out there it was just basic sense, and for all he had a love of thumbing his nose at authority—not Sadie had any room to talk—Percy was one of the better people with keeping everyone's locations at least somewhat accountable. Whatever he'd dreamed of must have shaken him badly, and Sadie couldn't help but feel bad for him at least a little. PTSD nightmares were the worst.

But it was still no excuse, Sadie thought sourly as people started to yell over the supersized Venus flytraps around her. She'd been busy the past couple days covering classes, and had been looking forward to playing hooky with Walt and Anubis for a bit. Percy had promised he'd be able to handle it.

Whenever he came back, she was going to strangle him.

He didn't come back.

Rather than arriving fashionably late during the meeting with an excuse Sadie had been planning on accepting after giving him the appropriate amount of shit, Percy didn't come back home. Instead, she droned on about class schedules and basketball court availability for what felt like forever, her eyes flicking back to a stubbornly empty doorway every five minutes.

As the meeting began to wind down nearly two hours later, Sadie began to wonder if she should be properly worried about him.

"Do you think we should start looking for Percy?" Jaz worriedly asked Sadie, practically pouncing upon her as everyone left for class.

Since the Battle of Brooklyn House, when she and Percy had spent nearly two days under siege until Carter and Sadie were able to bring back Ra from the Duat, Jaz and Percy had been good friends, leaning on each other whenever the rest of them had been dragged off by questing.

After a brief moment of thought, Sadie shook her head, giving the blonde healer a reassuring smile. "Much as I rag on him, Percy's not an idiot. If he were actually in trouble, half of Brooklyn would be on fire by now. He'll be back by dinner with everyone else, probably."

Then dinner went by with so much as a sighting of familiar scruffy black hair, and a sliver of ice began to work its way into Sadie's heart.

It was one of about three unspoken rules that were never broken at Brooklyn House (Rules unsurprisingly propagated by Bast during her tenure as the Official Chaperone): Sleep was sacred outside the apocalypse, never bring up the Paintball Incident, and someone better know where you are for dinner.

The unlucky souls on kitchen duty that night had just went to clean the dishes when Sadie, after five minutes of staring angrily at the table cloth, her cold soup untouched, snapped.

"That's it. Either he's dead, or is going to be when I'm through with him," she growled to Walt as he watched her with raised eyebrows and mild concern, either over Sadie's mental state or Percy's location. Possibly both; he was good at multi-tasking like that.

Sadie stalked out, her glower sending the younger initiates scattering from her path.

In her room, she made a beeline for the innocent-looking scrying bowl on the balcony, the oil in it shimmering in the dying light of the sunset. Walt had given her the automatic scrying bowl for Christmas, replacing the one that had been blown up months earlier on accident.

"Show me Perseus Kane now," she demanded without pause. Not the now bit ever did any good, but it did make her feel better.

Scrying places she'd never been were difficult, but people who meant a lot to her were easy to find. As she stared at the bronze bowl, the oil briefly swirled of its own accord, and Sadie saw a brief image of the Long Island Sound, and the familiar skyline of Manhattan.

She frowned. What would Percy be doing in—

It then burst into flames.

"Gah!" Sadie hurled herself back from the bowl with an embarrassing scream, falling flat on her back. The lethal black flames died down quickly, but the damage was done. Sadie watched with shocked fascination as the metal twisted and melted onto the floor, her nostrils burning from the smell of burned olive oil.

That was bad. That was really, really bad.

Scrying bowls only did that when trying to see a magically concealed place, she remembered immediately from Walt's work. That, or seeing something in the presence of a god or goddess, or their host.

Somehow, Sadie had a feeling that it wasn't one of the gods or magicians who didn't want to kill them responsible for it. Because they were Kanes, and the universe hated them.

"You do realize that those aren't the easiest things to make, right?" Walt said, making Sadie jump. He looked torn between worry and amusement as he stood at the doorway. She blinked dazedly, and for a moment saw Anubis's brown eyes, soft with concern. "You and your brother seem to go through them like candy."

He helped her up from the ground and Sadie let her hands linger on his shoulders a bit longer than necessary, enjoying the solid presence of him. Or them. A few months into this relationship, and she still had to completely work out the kinks in the pronouns.

"It's not our fault people keep bloody disappearing or getting kidnapped," she murmured, her mind already dividing itself into two planes: one, to figure what the hell was in Manhattan to cause that reaction. Second, to swoop in and put their heads on pikes in front of Brooklyn House if her ridiculous cousin with a terrible penchant for dad jokes had so much as a paper cut.

Sadie had long since made peace with the fact that she had anger issues when people touched her family. Not to mention, she was possibly just a little bit bloodthirsty.

"What do you need me to do?" Walt asked, his mind already going in the same direction as Sadie's without a word from shook herself.

Right. Percy. Missing in action. Magically concealed place or god's winter home in Manhattan. Maybe both.

Gods, she had a bad feeling about this.

Walt, thank goodness, was possibly being more useful than Sadie at the moment. "Do we need to go on lockdown? Is it a danger to Brooklyn House? Do you need me to call up the First Nome?"

She really loved them sometimes. Not that she wasn't always at least a little bit arse over teakettle for either one of them, infuriating as they could be. But they always had their moments that reminded her why.

Such as helping lead an impromptu search-and-rescue for her wayward family.

"I'm calling Carter," Sadie said briskly. As she spoke, she stepped back from him to get her magician kit, wand, and staff out before beginning to braid her hair back. "So I'd be very grateful if you could land me a direct line to First Nome, yes. Then we'll need to wake up Jaz, if she's asleep, whichever of the adults are around—I think Camila's back from Portugal, she's responsible—to keep an eye on things here."

"Consider it done. Short list for the team?"

Sadie paused at the question. "Let's keep it at least somewhat discreet. Trouble's not a sure thing yet, and we don't need an army of penguins waddling down Madison Avenue or too many people attracting something nasty. Five or less, and Carter'll probably want to come, worrywart he is—"

"And you're not?"

"—Alyssa's diplomatic, and good counterpoint for Julian. She managed to register on the Richter scale yesterday with her earth magic, and Julian's stabilized his avatar a lot more since the battle with Apophis," Sadie continued, ignoring them. "Sean's in Ireland, and everyone else is too young, or haven't come back from their holiday vacation yet."

"No waiting for adults?" Walt questioned. Sadie could see a smirk tugging on Anubis's lips in the Duat.

"You know the answer to that," she replied, exasperated.

As she walked by, he wrapped an arm around her, kissing her quickly but fiercely. Walt pulled away a moment later, leaving Sadie slightly dazed. As he walked off, he said over his shoulder, "As you wish, General."

Rather horrifyingly, Sadie liked the sound of that.

"You saw Manhattan? Sadie, are you sure?" Carter asked, paling at the mention of the city borough. He looked exhausted, and was still dressed in Egyptian robes from doing. . .whatever it was pharaohs did during trials. Sadie imagined it was all very dull.

"That's not good. It's dangerous for magicians to cross to the west bank. Plus, there's. . .rumors," he said, lowering his voice and looking over his shoulder at the initiates scrying away behind him, "About why there are no magicians in Manhattan."

"Strangely, brother dear, vague warnings aren't making me feel better," Sadie snapped, probably a bit unfairly. They all probably could've used a good nap or five, instead of this ad hoc mission. "Sundown's in thirty minutes, he's still not back, and no one can manage to track him. Does Amos have any ideas? He's made a few comments about staying out of there before, right?"

Carter nodded slowly, his eyebrows so furrowed together in thought they were beginning to resemble one long furry caterpillar. "Yeah, once or twice when he was possessed by Set years ago. Don't really remember why, and anyway, he wasn't himself at the time."

Sadie stared at him for a moment, rather dumbfounded. Normally, she was the one behind on the leaps in logic.

Thankfully, Carter picked up on it, running his hands down his face with frustration after a moment. "Yeah. Right. I'll see if he's still awake. Thoth's beak, I need to sleep. Zia and I were woken at three, and it's almost midnight here."

Sadie winced in sympathy. "No ta. You don't have to come back over here, you know. He's probably fine; just fell down the well or something and needs us to throw him a rope. If it were something major, we'd all know by now. Rogue magicians are more or less done, yeah? And no one's heard about Setne since he disappeared with the Book of Thoth."

As she talked, Jaz and Julian entered the room, falling silent when they saw who Sadie was talking with. Julian began to awkwardly shuffle out of the room, but Sadie waved him back in. If they were going to look before night fell, she was going to have to wrap up her conversation with Carter soon.

"I feel like I should, though." Carter bit his lip, looking the unsure teenager he usually hid surprisingly well these days. "I mean, if he's actually in trouble, I'd never forgive myself."

And now we've crossed the line from reasonable into melodrama. Forgetting the Paintball Incident, and the laundry list of people out there who would doubtless love nothing more than a chance to take a potshot at one of the Kanes, they didn't know what was up yet. Percy was a functioning magician most of the time, and probably the best out of any of them at hand-to-hand.

Sadie told her brother as much, ignoring the little voice in her head mentioning that despite a mind-boggling knack for surviving things that should have killed him, taking Percy—still someone most of the senior initiates could wipe the floor with in a no-holds-barred fight—was also frankly the fastest way to grab them by the throat.

"Carter, now you're just being a drama queen, and that's my job. Get some sleep, and I'll send a message in the morning. If things are actually, Isis help me, bad, you can come over here with Zia, Amos, and the rest of the cavalry. But sleep, you look terrible."

"If you say so," Carter finally agreed reluctantly, probably more out of fatigue than anything else. "Stay safe, Sadie."

"I do say so. Let Zia keep you out of trouble."

After he made a face at her—despite the fact that Sadie was completely right, and he knew it—the oil rippled and turned dark. Sadie shifted her attention to a twitchy pair of magicians, both of them looking ready to burst with something.

"Are we ready to go, then?" she asked as she went over to her bed to stuff her wand and collapsed staff in her bag. Much to her annoyance, she had yet to quite master the trick Carter had down pat of storing and retrieving stuff from the Duat on command. "Will it just be us three, or. . .?"

"Alyssa's coming," Julian promised. "Mentioned something about finding her supplies after Shelby broke into them to fix her crayons."

Sadie snickered a little. She loved their kindergartners. "Fantastic. Any idea where we'll be going, then?"

"Couldn't really find anything specific, but you mentioned that you were pretty sure you'd seen Long Island Sound, so that was able to help us at least figure out plausible starting points," Jaz explained as she pulled a scroll out of nowhere, unrolling it to reveal a map marked up with red pen and what looked like some of Shelby's crayon sketches. One area in particular was circled multiple times.

"So see here, where it's a bit less urban? It's mostly private property with a few chain restaurants and touristy stuff scattered everywhere. Pretty mundane, but—"

"There's a forest, a big one," Julian cut in enthusiastically. Jaz sighed, and Sadie empathized. Julian was sometimes like a big puppy, full of energy and accidentally steamrolling everything in his path. Good kid, but. . .loud. "I noticed it. Seemed a bit weird, considering everything's mostly developed at least a little around it, and it's prime real estate considering it's right on the coast. So I looked into it, and guess what?"

"You and Alyssa did a few searches in the library," Jaz said pointedly, but not unkindly. Julian mumbled an apology, abashed. "It's owned by some business called Delphi Strawberry Services."

"Strangely specific enough," Sadie commented. It wouldn't have been the first time they found a business acting as a front for something not entirely human. The word Delphi also rang a bell in her memories of sitting through far too many classes in school about Roman mythology.

Jaz nodded, smiling triumphantly. "Alyssa checked the website. There's a bunch of pretty pictures of strawberries and signs on white picket fences, but no actual employees listed, with only a phone number for delivery. No one quite seems to know where the storefront is, either. The general area wouldn't be too far out of Percy's way if he were to switch sides of the river."

"He could've reached it by now if he was running part of it," Sadie said in agreement.

"Also, Google Earth can't seem to pull up the area; keeps loading forever," Julian chimed in nervously. Sadie grinned reassuringly at him, and he brightened a little before adding, "Maybe it's bad Internet, but the restaurant a block down and houses on the other side are easy to get."

"Sounds about dodgy," Sadie said thoughtfully, "There have been a few reports from Long Island too, haven't there?"

"Carter mentioned seeing a flying horse recently, and a few reports of monsters that don't line up with what's on record," Julian supplied, looking through what looked like—were those notes?—some papers before asking, "Also, isn't Delphi something important from the myths? Can't remember."

Sadie's heart sank as he looked expectantly at her, one of his teachers. Egyptian myths were Percy, and any references elsewhere tended to be Carter's wheelhouse. She silently pleaded with Jaz to save her from inadvertent humiliation before she was forced to plead for a miraculous call from her brother.

Jaz obliged, though Sadie could've done without the wink in her direction. "Yes, actually. It's not from Egypt, though. If it's referencing a myth, it would be the Oracle of Delphi, and that's a story from the ancient Greeks."

Sadie snorted. As much as a conspiracy theory with evil magicians their lives had been the past couple years, even she didn't think every single slightly weird business they came across was a front for something that wasn't entirely human.

They lived in New York City, for crying out loud, and they made Londoners look sane. Percy had probably just gotten sidetracked with something.

Now if only Sadie's gut agreed with that.

"I doubt it actually means anything beyond someone wanting a memorable business name," she said, tamping the feeling down, "C'mon, we don't have all night. I have an exam to not fail in a few days."

When Carter stumbled out of the bed on his sixth morning in the First Nome, feeling like a crocodile had chewed him up and spit him out about four times over, he dreaded his loud sister's doubtless colorful message about what mess Percy had stumbled into.

That is, until he found no sign of any message at all.

After checking three times in five minutes.

He paused long enough to hope that donkeys trampled his sister's ghost in Egyptian, before throwing in Percy for good measure. He then downed about three cups of coffee and inhaled enough taameya for three before getting dressed in street clothes and practically sprinting down the hall to Zia's door.

Beyond some ruffled hair, she looked ready for combat in a tunic and leggings, her copper skin glowing in the sunrise as light spilled through the windows behind her. If asked at that moment, and feeling slightly whimsical, Carter would have said she looked like dawn incarnate.

"Is there anything wrong?" Zia asked, sounding a bit raspy from sleep, "Carter?"

Then again, Sadie and Percy liked to say he was a giant sap.

"We have to go back to Brooklyn," Carter said abruptly, reminding himself to not stare at his girlfriend. "I'll go find Uncle Amos, but we need to leave now. Something's wrong with Sadie and Percy."

It was like a switch had flipped on inside Zia: her remaining fatigue evaporated, she straightened up, and a dangerous look entered her eyes as she asked grimly, "Manhattan?"

"Manhattan."

A/N: . . .I'll just leave this right here.

Also, quick timeline alteration that didn't come up in-narrative but always really bugged me: Unlike in canon, Walt's fifteen here instead of seventeen-ish to Sadie's fourteen. Carter and Zia are both sixteen, and Percy's fifteen (To Annabeth's fifteen as well, for those of you keeping track at home).