The harpy was really freaking Leo out.

It wasn't as if she was malicious – Ella seemed extremely shy, and she'd been watching the ship's crew with fascination since they'd landed. She was like a skinny winged shadow, hiding behind a mast or thumbing through an Athena kid's logbook as they worked.

Leo didn't mind the attention, exactly. It was only that Ella had also taken a liking to Piper, when Hazel was busy; so she'd followed them all the way to the gate, chattering about nothing and quoting things Leo hadn't even heard of. Then she'd stare at Leo warily with her big frightened eyes, until he had to look away and start talking loudly about something else.

It was unnerving, to say the least.

"So."

Piper looked over when he broke the silence, but Ella ignored him, still flipping through a book she'd pulled from the ship's tiny library.

"So we've been waiting almost half an hour," he said. "I could've slept in. Where the heck is this girl?"

The Chief Lector had promised that Zia Rashid would get there at eight, bright and early; early enough that Leo had regretted his decision to get up and meet her when he'd had to crawl out of bed. (He was still hoping that she'd be hot enough to circumvent (Not sure if this is the right word to use here, maybe offset instead?) this bad fortune.)

"Maybe she ran into a monster," Piper suggested, sounding pretty indifferent for someone who'd volunteered to meet the girl. "Lots of things could have held her up. Just deal with it, Leo. Soon we're going to have one less problem on our hands, I hope."

He raised his eyebrows. "I don't really call 'imminent war' one less problem, chica," he answered.

"Don't call me chica, repair boy." Piper frowned, folding her arms across her chest. "Honestly? This isn't much of a stretch, after what we were already dealing with. It doesn't matter whether Gaea or their Apophis guy, or even the gods themselves, destroy the world. All we are is dead, in the end."

"Optimistic this morning, aren't we?"

Piper didn't answer, looking back out at the stretch of grass in front of them. A bus had stopped – the third that morning, Leo had been counting – and a few tired, early morning commuters stepped off and headed towards the fast-food joints. Standard enough behaviour for a bunch of sleepy Americans.

What finally caught his attention was one of the bus' passengers. She was much younger than all the others, too young to be busing around at eight in the morning. She had dark, straight hair, and smooth brown skin, and she gave him and Piper a knowing look.

Ella looked up, and her eyes widened before she curled her knees up close to her chest. "More magicians," she muttered nervously.

"Well," he said after a moment. "Carter can pick them, can't he." He wasn't being the least bit sarcastic (which, frankly, didn't say a lot when it came to Leo Valdez and girls, because he was hard-pressed to find looks he couldn't appreciate). She really was beautiful. Fierce, too.

Piper sighed, but Leo knew she had no time to worry about his antics. That was fine by him.

She straightened up, putting on a serious mask instead of the tired expression she'd been wearing Leo fidgeted, pulling his hands up to rest behind his head.

Zia stopped about six feet in front of them, her hands on her hips and her gaze becoming critical. Leo decided that now was probably not the time for pick-up lines.

"You're the escort, then?" she asked, her voice soft and impassive. Her dark eyes were boring into Leo making him feel like she could kick his butt into next Tuesday if she decided to try it.

Piper nodded, stepping forward. "It's the only way you'd find the camp. I'm Piper – this is my friend Leo. The harpy is Ella."

Ella made a small, frightened sound. Leo waved. Zia ignored both of them.

"My name is Zia," she said, as if Leo and Piper didn't already know. Maybe she hadn't gotten the full memo from that Amos guy? "We should get all this over with as quickly as possible. I've been very worried about Sadie and Carter." Leo tried to ignore just how nice her accent was, because even he could admit that this was probably the wrong time to start hitting on her.

"Well, they're here," Piper said shortly, giving Leo a pointed "don't start anything" look before turning back to Zia. "I think we've caused each other enough trouble, don't you?"

The corners of Zia's mouth twitched. "As if there was not enough trouble already. We should go and-"

She was cut off by loud rumbling, and Leo tensed up, feeling the ground under his feet shudder as he had the remembered that, no, nothing was going to go as planned.

Ella jumped up with a small shriek, the pages of her book turning in the sudden breeze as she grabbed at Piper's shoulder. Zia turned sharply, her eyes narrowing.

"A monster?" Leo said, aware that he was close to yelling. "Now?"

Zia swore quietly, in a language Leo didn't know. "I may have been followed – but not by a monster." Her brow was creased with thought. "It was rogues who did it, and they are probably looking for trouble still ..."

"Trouble," Ella said shakily. "A game where players compete to send their four coloured pieces all the way around the square game board."

Zia and Leo both looked at her. Piper raised her eyebrows.

"She can't help it – and there are people coming this way."

Leo knew this would be bad as soon as he saw their long, flowing robes. Nothing good came from people in mysterious, billowy Death Eater clothes.

Zia had turned around, standing in front of Leo to face the two figures. He saw her head shake, and one of them called something to her that he couldn't quite hear.

"You know these two?" he asked, his stomach twisting into a nervous knot. If there was some divine force, some agnostos theos that worked beyond Olympus, it really hated them at this moment.

"Unfortunately," she replied, giving him a quick, worried glance. "They're the ones we think murdered your people. Old enemies of ours."

Fantastic. Without really thinking about it, Leo put his hand on his tool belt. Why couldn't he ever meet hot girls without a violent confrontation? It was just unfair.

"Hello, Zia Rashid!" one of them called, about twenty feet away from them.

It was a woman's voice, and she strode ahead of her companion. Leo saw her icy smile, and the woman's cold eyes and mussed black hair reminded him eerily of Tia Callida.

"You and your friends are usually better at covering your tracks."

Leo saw Piper grit her teeth, and Ella squeezed closer to them. He had to give these guys something: this had to be a new record in the number of minutes it took for the baddies to catch up.

"We're not usually so distracted by actions as disgusting as yours!" Zia shot back. "I'm sure you know what you've caused, Sarah Jacobi."

The woman clasped her hands together. "They got in the way," she said simply. "There were no hard feelings."

"There's a reason you were shipped to the last Nome – and your friend to the 300th."

It didn't take long for Leo to figure out that she was bluffing; just from her stance and the quality in her voice, Zia was probably outmatched. The knot in his stomach tightened.

"Um, excuse me," he said after a moment. "Are we gonna be able to get out of this?" Zia and Piper both turned to look at him, and so did their unexpected arrivals. How reassuring. "Y'know, you're the magician, so you'd be the expert on other ones. Can we get out of here?"

Zia sighed, but before she could speak one of the pair started laughing – the man this time, a guy in blue robes whose eyes didn't smile with his face. It was soft, which made him even more unnerving, and Leo heard Ella whimper.

"Menshikov is dead," he said, "but you don't have an army behind you this time, do you?"

"Neither do you. In fact, you're outnumbered four to two."

Leo hardly thought Ella would be good in a fight, and from the look on Piper's face, she was figuring the same thing. But he tried to stand up straight with his chest puffed out, like he wasn't already a little terrified of what was coming next.

Sarah Jacobi snickered. "Kwai's right – especially since I hear you don't have gods on your side right now. How's that for a change, demigods?"

Leo glanced back at Piper – she'd been caught off-guard, just like him, so it made sense that she hadn't tried anything yet. Now she was only glaring, mouth curled in anger. Neither had he, because he suspected if he started rummaging in his tool belt that the two magicians would attack.

There was a sudden, sharp crack and a staff appeared to each of the two. They were long and embellished with hieroglyphs, the kinds of objects Leo hadn't thought could work magic in the real world.

He'd never had a harder time thinking up hilarious quips to relax the situation – normally he had some sort of commentary going on to relax him in bad times, and it helped. Not today.

Zia seemed to be less shocked than Leo – she snapped her fingers the next second, and a wand fell into her hand too.

To put it bluntly, things were really about to get upset. And Leo had to admit that not even his winning personality and wonderful sense of humour would get them out of this one.

"That was quick," the woman magician mused. "A fight already? I've beaten little demigods like you before, but you already knew that."

"Granted," Kwai said softly, "we're not planning on killing you yet. We have better things to do."

Leo realized Piper was brandishing her dagger – because they knew how well Helen of Troy had done in her spat, right? Not that she had a choice right now. He snapped his fingers and hot sparks flew.

"We throw them off and go," Piper said under her breath. Leo had his doubts about whether or not they could really throw them off; not that Ella would be much help, clinging to Piper's shoulder with her long harpy's claws and whimpering softly.

"So, uh, Zia - how do magicians feel about fire?"

He didn't like doing this, of course. Piper wouldn't have to ask why. He'd rather build and trick, it was much more fun and much less likely to kill you. But it would have to do. Jason would be pissed if they came home dead – or worse.

Zia turned for a split second, and Leo, to his surprise, saw something almost like relief on her face.

"Exactly what I need," she said to him - and there wasn't even a hint of sarcasm. "And Piper?"

"Got your back." She had drawn her dagger, and was looking close to bloodthirsty.

He heard a staff pound the ground impatiently. "I'm being awfully nice," Sarah called, "giving you a chance. Children like you don't really deserve it, especially not Greek bastards."

Piper's teeth clenched. "Bring it on, then!" she shouted. "You took them by surprise, but not us." She was holding her dagger in front of her, but Leo was surprised that she hadn't tried to charmspeak.

But maybe she was charming them without even knowing, and it was prompting them to attack. Leo didn't quite know how it worked, but he wouldn't have been surprised if their fantastic luck got them that.

At the very least, she'd spoken up. Hopefully she'd been thinking hard while she'd been so quiet.

They didn't have time to find out.

The man, Kwai, shouted something, and right away something like a high-pressure hose shot forward and threw all three of them into the tunnel. So much for fire, and so much for gaining the upper hand; water roared in Leo's ears and mouth and nose, and he choked and sputtered as they crashed against the concrete.

Leo staggered up first, and he could hear quiet laughter from their opponents. This felt like a cartoon, so surprising and unreal compared to their usual fights. That made sense, he thought hazily. Magicians themselves were unreal and made no sense.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Piper, struggling to move. He saw that Zia had jumped up too. Somewhere Ella was wailing, but definitely not fighting. That hydro cannon must have missed her.

Zia stood up, a little shaky herself, but she straightened up quickly, brandishing her wand at their attackers. Leo finally got his bearings and reached into his toolbelt, managing to pull out his club hammer at just the right moment. Sarah had to jump back from his swing, enough time for him for fall back and look at Zia.

He realized Piper still hadn't gotten up. But both magicians launched themselves forward again, and because he couldn't reach Piper, he did the most off-putting thing he could think of – set himself on fire.

That was a much more familiar roar in his ears, and he ran forward with his hammer, shouting something that was probably incomprehensible and vaguely aware that Zia was behind him too. He hoped that she was working her magic, that maybe together they could pull this off.

Suddenly his fire felt much stronger. And he realized it wasn't all him.

With Zia's help, he pushed back Kwai and Sarah, but within a few seconds his fire began to sputter away and he stopped, breathing hard. They had strong shields up, or something elsethat would get in the way of winning, and he had to get to Piper. She hadn't joined the fray, that wasn't normal, and oh gods, if she was really hurt Jason would fry him.

"Cover me!" he called, aware that the ten minutes they'd known each other was probably not enough for Zia to do that just for him … but doing this anyway, because it was imperative that he check on Piper.

He only had enough time to shove Ella away from her, and glance at her slight form on the ground, before Zia's shield failed and she was thrown back again.

Leo felt his arm grabbed roughly, and he realized that Kwai was much stronger than his sickly figure made him appear. Of course he was. They were actually going to die.

"Don't worry yet," Kwai murmured, Leo pulling back from his voice as far as he could. "I can't kill you today, or I'll get nothing useful out of you."

"You mother-"

Something smashed, and he heard Zia yell.

Multiple kidnappings in 36 hours, Leo mused. A new record for the demigod orders.

The next spell blacked him out.

"God damn it!"

In spite of himself Carter took a step back – had those been lightning bolts crackling when Jason's fists hit the table?

Jason was actually shaking, and if Carter looked down at his own hands he saw that he was too – so he couldn't blame Jason for his rage. When he thought of Zia at this moment, wherever she was, Carter's blood boiled and he had to clench his teeth to keep himself calm.

They were all gathered around a table, in the otherwise empty mess hall. Percy was standing closest to Carter, looking bewildered and lost in thought all at once. Across from him, Sadie had her hands clasped tightly together. She was staring intently at the table, eyes narrowed.

For a moment, the only sound was Ella's harsh sobs. Hazel had her arms around her, in a fairly futile attempt to keep her calm now that the story had been choked out. A small team had been sent out, too – but they'd already come back, confirming that there were signs of a struggle and no demigods in sight.

Carter hated this place. And he hated them for not getting Zia here safely, like they'd promised.

This was unreasonable, to be sure. But he no longer cared.

"So," Sadie said finally.

They all looked up, but she didn't seem concerned by the attention. "I'm not much for making plans, but ..."

"We have to find them." Jason's voice had become deadly soft, and he dropped back into his chair. "Now. Immediately. We have to."

Carter had never agreed more with anyone. "Those people are criminals," he said, clenching his hands into fists. "I can't let anything happen to Zia- or your demigods. Yeah. We can't let anything happen to them." His sister raised her eyebrow. Carter scowled.

"Excuse me," Annabeth said loudly. She didn't flinch when Jason turned his eyes onto her. "You're right," she added quickly. "We have to do something. But there's also stopping this new conflict between our gods, finding Serapis ..."

"Who said we'd be finding Serapis?" demanded Reyna.

Annabeth turned to her, folding her arms. "Who said we weren't?"

"He might not even exist! There are lots of false gods, throughout history!"

"Ladies!" Carter said loudly. This, for the record, was not helping his perception of these people.

They all looked at him, but he couldn't take it as well as Sadie did – not when he was so riled up. He cleared his throat nervously.

"Whatever you guys choose to do, I'm going to find Zia, but that doesn't mean you should argue about it. I don't care what you do, to be perfectly honest. But you should probably know what I'm doing." The consequences of such actions hadn't quite occurred to Carter yet, though he was calmer than Jason. He was still plenty angry.

Sadie frowned. "This is going to ruin us, too. Any ideas on how to stop Apophis while the gods are killing each other, Carter?"

He clenched his teeth, and said nothing for a moment. The logical part of him said that for once, Sadie was being the most reasonable, that they had to end this so they could destroy Apophis. But the thought of letting down Zia again made him sick to his stomach.

Carter leveled his voice, thinking carefully before he spoke. "The people who did this," he said. "They're the same ones who killed the demigods, right?"

Reyna nodded, her eyes still narrowed. "It's very likely, yes. Is that your excuse to go after them?"

"Of course," he replied, since Percy and Annabeth were in the room, and he'd figured out by now the different impact this had had on the respective groups of Greeks and Romans. "Of course that's an excuse. But those people are rebels in the House of Life to begin with – it was pretty bad as it was even before the murder. Or the kidnapping, for that matter."

He risked a glance in Jason's direction. He was looking at Carter with interest, but he seemed to have relaxed a little. Or so Carter hoped. He was doing his best to calm down, as difficult as it was.

Reyna folded her arms. "Go on."

Carter exhaled. "They're trying to overthrow our uncle as Chief Lector, because they don't like our … mode of operation. We practice magic differently. So this is likely tied into all that, especially taking Zia. She's very close to the Chief Lector."

"So you think stopping these people could help us stop the war, then?" Percy asked, still looking slightly skeptical. Of course that's what Carter meant, so Percy must have disagreeing on principle.

"Getting back Leo and Piper would be a big help there," Annabeth noted. "And Zia must be a good magician, or their leader wouldn't keep her so close."

"She is," Sadie said, folding her hands in her lap. "Carter could tell you all about her. For hours."

"Not the time, little sister."

She smiled. "I've been so quiet this morning, I simply had to let it out."

"Okay," Percy said quickly. "So obviously it's a good idea to go save the others. It's just a given, I help my friends. But we also need to be united if we have any hope of doing this while the gods are distracted."

Carter knew that. Hadn't he already said he knew that? But these were dangerous people, and it had also been established that they couldn't exactly go adventuring with Zia in so much danger …

"We could kill two birds with one stone, sort of. From what we got out of Ella, it's almost certain that the two magicians who did this were Sarah Jacobi and Kwai. Very well-known criminals in our circle."

"But they'd love it if the gods went to war," Sadie said slowly. "So they wouldn't exactly get in the way if they all start fighting, right?"

"They might get in our way," he replied. "Actually, wouldn't it make sense that they'd directly attack a magician we're close to? And then since two demigods happened to be near her as well, they've given us a reason to retaliate."

Reyna looked up sharply. "You want them to lure us in? It sounds like a good trap to me."

Carter looked up sharply. "What? No!" He paused, trying to better contain his thoughts. "I guess it looks that way from the outside. I think we should go after them at the same time as finding Serapis, since that seems to be our best shot at stopping this."

"I just told you we can't split up." Reyna's eyes were narrowed, and flashed at Carter. He shook his head.

"I know. It's a bad idea to. But Sarah and Kwai will hurt your friends-" at this, Jason's fists clenched again, "-and then they'll try to keep us from stopping our worlds from collapsing in on each other. They really, really hate our family. Splitting up will, well, kill both birds with one stone. Well -if it works," he added.

There was a long silence after that. Frank, who was standing at the table's other end, curled and uncurled his fingers and stared at the table intently. Carter heard Ella whimper.

Jason finally straightened up. He gave Carter a long look, which Carter returned without trouble, one eyebrow raised.

"I'd love to run out of here right now, and help Piper and Leo. It's my fault, because I sent them." He looked around at all of them, almost daring them to argue. Percy looked close, but Jason spoke up again before he could reply.

"But … Carter made a good point, now that he's calming down."

Carter, personally, had thought he'd already been fairly calm. But he wasn't exactly looking at all of this objectively, was he?

"If we do this right and we're very, very lucky, we can run two quests. We'll stay in touch, and meet up again when we've got them back. And then when it's time to find Serapis we get back together and wake him up."

Carter looked around at them all. "Well?"

Percy was the first to reply. "Quests are always just a few people anyway. I've never been on one with more than four – and at our camp they usually only pick three." He added this, Carter assumed, for his and Sadie's benefit. "Is that how you guys do it?" he asked.

He nodded. "We don't call them quests, but yeah, you usually only send a few people to do a job."

Sadie leaned her chair back, kicking her combat boots up onto the table's edge. "So the question is who goes on what quest then, yes?"

"The augur decides when quests occur," Reyna said firmly. "We need to ask the gods, and that's if-"

"If what?" Sadie shot back. "Who cares what that jerk decides for us? Do you really think the bloody gods are listening right now?"

Reyna scowled. "The augur and the gods decided whether or not you and your brother lived."

"No, they didn't," Sadie snapped. "Your rotten dogs proved we weren't liars. We've already established that this is in our hands now."

Good old Sadie. She wasn't afraid to say what she wanted, and sometimes it could just go their way.

"You guys!" Grover said suddenly.

They all turned to look; Carter had almost forgotten he was within ten feet of a goat-man, Grover had been so quiet. He realized that he must have been thinking, while the rest of them were arguing. Not that he still didn't look terrified.

"Quests don't always have to be authorized," he said finally. "Nobody exactly told Theseus to kill the Minotaur, did they? The gods don't care – do you think Hermes was here for any reason but obligation? Percy went on a quest when he wasn't supposed to, and it worked out." Grover coughed nervously. "Well. Almost worked out."

"Why almost?" Sadie asked suspiciously. Percy shook his head. Carter didn't have time to wonder what it was that had happened.

"My point is," Grover continued, "that satyrs don't sit around and wait for the gods to tell us when we can look after our wild places, or when we looked for Pan … you know what I mean. So I don't really want to sit around and watch you guys deliberate. It was bad enough when it was just Greeks and Romans."

They were all quiet for a second, a very palpable silence making Carter wonder if Grover had just made a very bad move. Nobody reacted at first. Grover began to shrink back to his place.

Carter finally stood up. "Magicians do what we have to do, when we have to," he announced, giving his sister a pointed look. She didn't stick her tongue out, or roll her eyes, to her credit. "And what we have to do is find Zia and the demigods."

There it was, without threats or arguing. It was what it had to be.

"But we also have to find Serapis," Annabeth interjected. "Or at least something to end this."

"I know," Carter said dryly. "You've said so severaltimes now. But who said we all have to go on the same quest, anyway? Why didn't we just think of splitting up?"

Jason shifted uncomfortably. The other demigods appeared apprehensive, though Sadie looked as confused as Carter suddenly felt.

Fortunately for him, Sadie was not one to keep her mouth shut for any longer. Gods bless the little brat.

"I'm going to assume that you either all can't bear to be apart, or don't trust each other any farther than you can throw each other," Sadie said finally. "Whichever is the case, too bad. I was all for deliberating before running off, for once, and I think we've done plenty of that. We have no choice but to split up. Even if I don't want to, and let me tell you, I don't go quietly when I'm not getting my way."

Another long silence rang in Carter's ears. These were starting to get distracting.

Reyna's shoulders slumped a little, but it was when she looked at Percy that Carter knew they had won.

"We can't leave them to die." She looked around at them all. "As praetor, I overrule the authority of the augur." She nearly stumbled over the end of her words. "Just this once."

"I could do that?" Percy asked, looking affronted. Carter guessed that he'd wanted to overrule Octavian quite a bit.

"Just this once. The question is how we begin this quest, seeing as I still find this very … unorthodox." Reyna still didn't look entirely convinced that this was a good idea. Well, maybe it wasn't.

"I'll find a lead on the others," Jason said immediately, his eyes on Carter.

Carter didn't hesitate. "Me too," he replied, giving Sadie a pointed look. She shrugged, a "do want you want," answer. Carter coughed. "You're all welcome to join us."

"We're splitting up," Sadie interjected. "What was the other thing we had to do? Find … Sa-rapist?"

"Serapis," Annabeth said tiredly. "But you tried."

Percy covered his mouth with his fist, in an attempt to hide his laughter.

"Percy," Reyna said suddenly. "I want you to go after Serapis. I'm sure Annabeth will insist, and of course you two just can't be kept apart." Out of the corner of his eye, Carter saw Annabeth glaring daggers in her direction. (He didn't dwell on it – this was not the time for romantic drama.)

Percy frowned. "Oh, well I'm glad you think I could've made my own decisions." Annabeth turned her eyes on him. "But of course I'm going where she goes," he added. "That's a given."

"I figured," Reyna muttered.

"And I'll come with you, buddy!" Grover said enthusiastically, though nobody seemed to be paying attention anymore. A murmur sprung up among those assembled, deliberating on who should go where, and who should stay and wait.

Carter glanced at his sister, who had rested her chin on her fists and was already looking impatient. They might be at this a long time.

"How long do we have?"

Jason looked up from the sword in his lap. He and Carter were still sitting in the mess hall, even after the others had trickled out. Even Sadie had said she'd wait for Carter in their room. Jason had finally hopped onto the table, sitting cross-legged and pretending to appear extremely interested in his weaponry.

Really, he just didn't know what to do with himself. So he hadn't left the room, and neither had his current companion.

"Jason?" Carter asked again. The other boy was sitting on the bench, hunched over the mess table and looking down at his fingers.

He realized that maybe he should answer, much as he'd like to sit and stay quiet.

"Three days, I guess. Four if we're lucky. We have to meet with the others at some point, whether or not we save them."

"Yeah." Their voices were both flat with tiredness. They'd both lost their fire from the meeting earlier.

Jason knew just how lost he must look. Hunched over and staring at the gold sword in his lap with dulled eyes. He couldn't bring himself now to do that much about it.

"Some days I hate being the leader. Vigilante justice is still sounds like a much better alternative."

"I never wanted to be a leader, but I am back home," Carter replied softly. "This is all the more reason to wish I wasn't responsible for anything."

Jason was quiet for a moment. There had been a lot of long silences since the Kane siblings had arrived, hadn't there?

"But we still are responsible for something, right?" Jason replied, lifting his head and turning his eyes on the beams in the ceiling. If they didn't at all feel responsible for what had happened, would they feel so strongly about fixing it? "I let them go, so if it weren't for me they'd- well, you'd be on your way home with your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Carter snapped. "I don't like her like that." The speed of his retort told Jason that Carter was definitely lying.

"Well, Piper's my girlfriend, and Leo's my best friend. So I'd go no matter what." Jason finally picked up his sword, and with a soft crack it returned to its denarii form. He swung his legs out, hopping off the table's edge and turning to back to Carter. "But since I'm the son of Zeus, andthe liaison between camps, and the praetor, the others had to talk me down so I didn't run off and save the day. I guess."

Carter would've run off right with him, at least. Percy, too, if Annabeth hadn't been so close by after so long apart. It didn't mean that Jason didn't still feel utterly alone.

Carter only raised his eyebrows. "Son of Zeus, huh?" he said. "The king of the gods must have big shoes to fill."

Jason smiled wryly. "Son of Jupiter. But you were close. What do magicians have to be living up to, speaking of which?" He guessed that Carter also had a lot on his shoulders – especially if he was the one looking after Sadie, wild girl that she seemed to be.

Carter managed a weak, returning smile. "According to Horus, I'm destined to be pharaoh of the magicians? Something like that. It's a little much to swallow."

"Yeah." Jason's hands fell at his sides, and he felt himself relax. "Taking care of your would seem like enough responsibility without having to be future king or whatever."

He was picturing Carter like Ramses in The Prince of Egypt, which had been unwise, because now Jason felt a sudden sharp urge to laugh. He – just barely – managed to contain it.

There was another short silence. Jason picked at the grain on the table.

"So, uh, how do you find out if you can make magic? Is it an inheritance thing? Do you get a letter of approval?"

Carter blinked. "Well … yeah, actually. An inheritance thing, I mean. Magicians are descended from the Pharaohs of Egypt, so it runs through bloodlines. Both our parents were."

"Who are you descended from?" Now Jason was a little curious, not that he'd ever been much of a history fan. It always came down to family if it came down to gods, didn't it?

"Ramses the Great and Narmer, the first Pharaoh," Carter said, looking sheepish. "Apparently that much kingly blood makes Sadie and I the most powerful magicians born in a long time. Not to brag or anything," he added quickly.

"Ramses, huh? That makes sense for the Prince of Egypt thing, then."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Jason dropped down onto the bench. "My father is the king of the gods, and he's not supposed to be having kids. Too strong. So we're even on power levels."

The other boy raised his eyebrows. "These gods have kids running around all over the place, but your dad's not allowed to have any? Poseidon was pretty important too, and Percy's around."

Jason shrugged, a little uncomfortably. This was a touchy subject. Being the son of Jupiter had always been a pretty touchy subject, actually, even when so many people had genuinely liked him.

"After the Second World War – which was about sons of Jupiter and Neptune fighting sons of Pluto – the gods agreed that children of the three most powerful gods, those brothers, shouldn't be alive. Too dangerous. So they had to stop. I only found out recently that it was because the Greeks were afraid of fulfilling a prophecy with one of us."

Carter looked interested. "So was it fulfilled?"

Jason nodded. "Yeah. Percy Jackson was the one. He and I weren't supposed to be born, but ..." He motioned in front of him. "Here we are. I have a sister, too. She was a tree for awhile, now she's an immortal lieutenant of Artemis. Diana, if you're Roman like me."

Carter now looked less interested and more confused. Jason couldn't blame him. "You're going to have to go into more detail on that one. Another time."

Jason folded his hands together on the tabletop, fidgeting like he always did when things felt awkward.

"Yeah. But we do know a little more about each other, and that does wonders for stuff like this." Jason held out a hand. "I make it a point to get to know my quest partners." Befriend them, if he was lucky. Sometimes people were intimidated by the son of Jupiter.

After a moment, Carter took it. Not that Jason had really expected anything else.

"I do too. Maybe between us – and whoever comes with us – we can channel all this guy-rage into something we can use. Sarah Jacobi had better look out."

Jason grinned, giving Carter's hand a squeeze before letting go. "She doesn't know who she's dealing with now."

Magicians were really just fine. Not normal at all, of course. But how normal were stressed out, temperamental young demigods anyway?

Author's Note: I still love you guys, I swear. I just …had a very difficult time writing this chapter, due to having to graduate high school/survive life/get these characters to cooperate and all that jazz. Well, fear no more, because the plot has arrived! Even if the chapter it arrived in doesn't really feel like my strongest. I guess that's for you guys to judge! Hopefully now that summer's appeared I'll have more time to just sit down and write without distraction. Thank you for sticking with me, despite an atrocious update schedule, guys.