Percy, Jason, Annabeth and the rest of the crew of the Argo II are the invention of Rick Riordan.

This does not contain spoilers for either House of Hades or Blood of Olympus. As of now, I am still taking concrit on this chapter.

I wrote some of these scenes last year, but reading HoH took a lot of the wind out of my sails, partially by seeing how different the canon versions of the characters were. I think I got Nico okay if I do say so myself, but was I ever way off with a certain other character. (I'm still pretty happy with it personally. It might not be canon but it's internally consistent and should be fun to read.) I have not converted them to canon versions of themselves but rather continued the way they are presented in previous chapters.

I had planned to post this about a month ago, but I found myself working crazy hours. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope we all enjoy Blood of Olympus.

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"For months, he had worried about his obligations to Camp Jupiter, hoping his path would become clear. Now, he realized, he simply had to take what he wanted. He had to control the winds, not the other way around." –Jason, House of Hades

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The battle with Oceanus crashed outside, Greek fire casting shadows against the sea god's sunken face. This was Poseidon as he truly was, worn to nothing by the years. Percy knew now. The gods could be many things at once, the way the ocean was many places at once, and part of Poseidon was always a helpless old man. Kronos had cursed him with a problem that could never be fixed, not even by holding back the tide.

"I wanted you to see him," he was saying to Amphitrite as the Greek fire burned outside the walls of the shattered palace.

"Why?"

Answers were simple when there was so little of you left. "I had to know if I was imagining something." The not knowing was eating him away. If he knew, he could accept it. Not knowing was like a leech sucking at his mind, and this was the worst time to be drawn away.

"You had to know if you were imagining something," she repeated with a dark bitterness. Thousands of years had passed, and she'd never forgiven him, not for the ophiotaurus, not for having other children, not for how much she could have loved him.

There was a sound outside, and the two of them brought down the sea serpent together. Their second son's death had taken most of the sweetness out of their life, but he was Poseidon, and she was his queen. Sometime after the fall of Rome, he'd had a long stretch without affairs, even though it had left him without mortal champions when he'd needed them badly.

"When you met him, what did you see?" asked Poseidon. Because she saw through souls. Better than anyone he knew.

But she couldn't see through mortality. No one could do that except perhaps the ophiotaurus. To Amphitrite, Percy was just a broken promise.

Poseidon closed his eyes, looking wearier than Percy had ever seen him. He had lost something he'd loved so much, squandered it on a power play. When it had come back, it had cost him even more.

Poseidon's face was unreadable when he opened his eyes. He pulled in a breath and let out a defeated whisper:

"Amphion."

A curse had been laid, and a curse had come calling.

And Percy didn't have to even close his eyes to see it any more.

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He'd used to figure that souls going for rebirth didn't want to drink from the Lethe, that their heads had to be forced underwater by sneering furies. But he could see Amphion walking to the river's edge, taking a long last look at who he'd been before cupping his hands to drink deep. Thousands of years later, he'd done it again.

It didn't erase the memories. It didn't rip them out of his head like Hera had when she'd worked him over. She'd wanted him motivated, wanted him to feel the phantom pain from the amputated parts of his life. The Lethe was gentler, like bleaching the ink out of a piece of paper. You had to or the new stuff wouldn't show up right, but the indentations were still there. Turn the page toward the light, and you could see them.

Percy had been turned. Flipped. Crushed into a ball and flattened out again.

Their last hours in Tartarus had been a blur. He'd spent most of them sandbagging his mind against what he'd seen in his dreams. He told himself that he was Percy and nothing else. This was some stupid Tartarus trick, like when they'd tried to convince him that Annabeth was a monster. Like he'd be so full of himself to think he used to be a god or a prince. Pride wasn't his fatal flaw. There probably never had been an Amphion. Even if by some chance this life wasn't his first rodeo, that didn't mean that he'd been either of those two guys. It didn't mean that Poseidon had been lying to him the whole time. It didn't mean his father had let his murderer off with a slap on the wrist or he'd sent him on a suicide mission for the sake of getting one up on Zeus.

Admitting that he doubted himself, even to Annabeth, felt like part of his brain burning away, but it would have been worse not to do it. He'd wanted to sound cool the first time he'd said it, but she just told him to stop being stupid. But then she'd followed it with, "We're doing this together" and that felt better than "I love you too."

He could remember being so tired. Somehow he'd found the strength to tell off Polybotes when he was sure any second he'd crumple up like an empty soda can. He'd tried to fight, rolling under a trident strike, but he wasn't as fast as he'd been three days earlier, and he'd felt the leg of his jeans tear. All the while, the Doors of Death loomed behind them, promising air and freedom and it was all so close. He'd slashed at Polybotes' scaly leg and then his trunk, but the giant dodged. He dodged as if it were easy, and it was if you weren't at the absolute end of your rope.

Soon there had been a snakelike foot pressing down on his back, forcing his eye into the dirt, and a deep voice laughing as it lifted Annabeth in the air so that her weight was pressing down on him too. From the corner of his eye, he could just see the side of Annabeth's face. He'd seen that look on the blue hero, on Beckendorf, on Amphion.

She thought she was going to die. He'd said he loved her, and now she was going to die.

This was more than being backed into a corner. If she died here and Gaea rose, then all of it, defeating Kronos, getting born at all, would have been for nothing. It was a decision and it wasn't, the way water doesn't decide to flow. It's water. It flows.

Courage. Loyalty. Shame. Sorrow. A pulsing, half-human lifetime of it. He knew how to line it up to an edge and cut them both free. It hurt like he was prying up one of his own bones to fight with, but why not? He was almost dead anyway.

Somewhere, something very big was laughing. Like centipedes with hooks for feet, the essence of Tartarus pressed into him, finding purchase at the thousand cracks that he was putting in his soul. Percy wanted to throw up. Anything to get it out of him. He gagged, and he kept trying.

Something bright and pure had rippled at the ends of his fingertips. Polybotes shifted some of his weight off him, like a man who'd stepped barefoot on a pebble.

It wasn't enough. He wasn't enough.

But...

But maybe he had been once.

The barriers in his mind were already worn thin. With a scream that could have filled the entire Underworld, Percy ripped them all down.

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It was peaceful on the deck with the sound of the engine and the waves below, the first bit of sunlight touching his eyelids from the side. He breathed out, trying to clear his mind.

It had always been there. He just hadn't fully understood what it was, blazing inside him every time he'd cracked his way through fate, when he'd fought titans, when he'd saved goddesses, even during the storm he'd raised to cover their escape in Charleston.

Trying to find it again, get a solid grip on it, was like groping in the dark.

He'd imagined it as a tightness behind his sternum, but that wasn't it. It had nothing to do with his mortal body, like a headache from thinking too hard. When he felt it, when it was doing something, it wasn't located in time or space. In those moments, there hadn't been any past or future or place; he'd been a lightning bolt that struck through all layers of destiny at once.

"Hey bro, you done napping?"

Jason opened one eye to see Leo folding his oil-stained sleeves. "I know you're not as ADD as I am, man, but I have never seen you sit still that long unless something clobbered you on the head first." Leo leaned forward, eying Jason's short hair. "I don't see any new bumps. Just your usual ones."

Jason rolled his shoulders, wishing again he'd let Piper teach him yoga. "How's Percy?"

"And I'm fine too. Bumped up efficiency in the SONAR scope so we oughtta' be able to go back to aqua-mode any time. Thanks for asking."

"What would we do without you, Leo?"

"Get bored and die. And it's Supreme Admiral Leo to you."

"I thought you were Commodore Valdez the Unstoppably Awesome."

"I gave myself a promotion. You slept through the ceremony. There was cake."

Jason nodded sagely, matching Leo's mock-seriousness.

"They're over there," Leo said, nodding his head toward the wheel. "Hey..." he trailed off.

"Yeah?"

Leo settled his fingers on the rail. "This ...curse thing," he started. "You know if Hephaestus got one?"

Jason shook his head. "No. No he didn't. The timing's weird in the ancient stories, but I'm pretty you're your dad wasn't even around when Kronos was defeated." He hadn't been in the dream either.

Leo nodded tightly. "Good. That's good."

Jason frowned. "Why'd you ask? I mean I get not wanting your dad to have a curse, but I didn't think you and he were that close."

"We're not," Leo shrugged. "But since I heard about it, I can't stop thinking what Kronos would do to him. I mean, none of them are father of the year, but my dad's got his qualities, you know?" His face got a little gray. "One minute I'm thinking he'd be cursed to have all his inventions turn on him, you know, like Bufort last year but worse, and then it's all his fingers getting stuck in lava, and the next minute I think it's him getting turned into a lemur—one of those really creepy monkey things—and then I think it's—"

"Okay, I get it, Leo."

"So Poseidon, though," Leo said. "What's his thing? With Zeus it was losing his throne and probably his, uh—" Leo waved his hand.

"Yeah, uh huh," Jason nodded.

"Well Zeus really likes both those things."

"And Hephaestus likes inventions and fingers and ...not being a lemur?"

"Yeah, pretty much. So Poseidon he likes water, right? And something about horses and earthquakes."

Jason frowned, "Leo, why are you so worried about this? Kronos's curse didn't have much to do with Gaea or the giants, and it was a long time ago."

"But you had that dream about it now," Leo said. "And I was thinking," his fingers dabbled in one of the pouches of his tool belt, pulling free some nails and a socket wrench. "Maybe it's like Festus here. Why build a whole plan from scratch? Why not recycle one that's already there?"

"You think Gaea's using Kronos's curse against the gods?"

Leo nodded. "Why not? She's mad at them. She was mad at Kronos. Mama Dirt Face is the type to throw them into a pit together and make them fight." His fingers stopped spinning. "I want to know what I'm flying my ship into, Jason." Leo nodded toward the far bow where two figures were silhouetted against the light. "And I think he can tell us."

Jason leaned back. "No," he said, " I don't think he can."

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To someone else, it might have looked like Percy's first day on board the Argo II. He and Annabeth were standing side by side, and he had his arm around her. Only now it wasn't the easy affection of two teenagers reunited after a long, Juno-mandated separation. Percy held on to her lightly, as if he was afraid she'd disappear. Jason watched the side of Percy's face as he turned. Behind the Tartarus shadows still moving under his skin, there was something completely unguarded in the way he watched her, as if he knew she was important but didn't know what she was.

Annabeth had responded accordingly: "I know what you look like when you're asleep and when you just have your eyes closed," she was saying. He looked away for a second, like a young kid who'd hoped he wouldn't get caught breaking the rules. "You don't drool as much. The dreams are bad; I get it, but you have to sleep and you have to eat, Percy."

He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something but closed it again. The previous evening, after Jason and Nico had hauled him up from the beach, Percy had stared at a plate of blue pizza for five minutes straight, like it was a stream he wasn't sure he could cross. As far as Jason knew, Percy hadn't eaten since Rome, and he looked like he was feeling it.

"Bagels or ambrosia, I don't care," Annabeth said, twisting so she could hold his face with both hands, even though she had to be able to feel the evil under his skin. Her voice dropped to a whisper and Jason realized that he probably shouldn't be listening to this. "I told you what I'd do if you ever left me, but I take it back. We didn't fight our way out of Tartarus for you to waste away now."

She'd figured it out, then.

Jason cleared his throat. "I don't think he's trying to starve himself, Annabeth," said Jason. She looked toward him as he got closer, but Percy didn't. Like a caterpillar through the last layer of pupa, Jason could see a thread of gray-black fiber reach up across Percy's cheek toward his eye. He blinked but didn't otherwise react. Jason addressed him anyway, "You're not just working through your emotions, are you?"

Annabeth looked at Percy and then back at Jason. She wasn't surprised. Bagels or ambrosia.

"Could you give us a minute?" Jason asked Annabeth.

Annabeth looked at Jason as if she were sizing him up. She'd done it a lot during his months at camp. She was remembering that he was Roman and not to be trusted, but it looked like busting two people out of Tartarus could score a guy some points. "Sure," she said. "I guess I could see if Leo needs any help." Percy looked down at his hand and, as if entering individual access codes, undid his fingers one by one.

"As hard as it was," Annabeth began, "I have a hard time believing that we really did escape." Jason opened his mouth to object. He'd seen new recruits discredit their successes before. Then he remembered to whom he was speaking. "Gaea wanted him to tap into his power, Jason," Annabeth said simply. "Tartarus practically wrote him an instruction manual. Then it funneled us straight to two giants so he'd have to use it." She touched Percy's upper arm and walked toward the aft. He watched her go as if Jason weren't even there. For a second there was something childlike in the way his eyes followed her. A second later, he seemed older, like a full-grown man looking out from a teenager's face.

Jason looked at Percy, but he didn't add anything. For Annabeth and Nico, the pit was peeling away like dead skin after a sunburn, but the marks behind Percy's skin seemed livid, like they'd dug themselves in and consolidated their hold on him. Tartarus had poisoned their best fighter, turned his powers back on him. But ...wouldn't it have been simpler just to kill him? If this was about taking Percy out of the picture, then why not just let him rot in Tartarus? No, the escape had to have been real.

"Nico thinks you were a god for eight minutes, but you weren't. You're stuck in between," Jason said without preamble.

Percy held his gaze with something like a challenge. Jason had seen Juno and Bacchus close up. They both had a fire behind their eyes, like a star in constant fusion. There was something like that in Percy now, like a reactor that would any second reach critical mass.

And of course it would be him. He was a child of the big three, a leader of armies. He'd faced a titan in personal combat—more than once—and he'd been named in a major prophecy. If anyone had what it took, it would be Percy. Or someone like him.

Jason stepped toward him and lowered his voice. "None of the gods showed up to help us in the House of Hades. We would have failed if it weren't for you, and I can only imagine what it cost you. Now we're headed to old Mount Olympus. We are going to face Porphyrion and he has many other giants left. Do you understand what that means?"

He looked down at the shining water, hundreds of feet below them, but he nodded.

"I am not asking you to do it again," Jason said. "You've already given more than anyone could ask of you." The scene at the beach had proved that. Jason breathed in, heart pounding. "I just need you to tell me how you did it."

Percy blinked as if Jason had grown another head. "Are you out of your mind?" but the voice hadn't come from Percy. Jason turned and saw Piper, pink T-shirt glowing in the faint light.

"Piper, you came into this conversation halfway through. What I was really saying is—"

"You're talking about trying to turn yourself into a god, on purpose."

"No, I'm—" Jason paused. "Okay, yes. If I have to."

Piper's mouth hung open, as if she didn't know which part of that to yell at him for first. He couldn't blame her. There were lots of good places. For one thing, it went a little beyond "If I have to." Growing up with Lupa, holding his own against Krios, surviving Juno's true form. Now he was facing the same enemies that Hercules and Bacchus had defeated before achieving godhood. His whole life pointed toward this.

His dream made sense now. Percy would never have become a god after Manhattan, not because he wasn't worthy, but because if Poseidon or Zeus had ordered him to do it, he'd have suspected a trick. He'd have been like water, always wanting to be free, and the gods were more powerful than mortals but they were definitely less free. Jason was another matter. The words "I am your father and you will do as I say" carried weight with him.

He'd lived among the Greeks and learned how to live as close to the gods as they did, but he was also Roman. He didn't expect someone else to hand him his destiny, not even if he'd just saved the world. Jupiter had led him here. The rest was up to him.

"Did you forget about Hercules?" Piper asked. "All he could do was complain about being immortal."

"Hercules isn't really someone I'd consider reliable for information," Jason said gently. "Look, the world needs saving. Maybe one of the gods will show up and help us win this, but until then, we need a backup plan."

Piper looked out over the bow, multicolored eyes stricken. "You'd leave me? And Leo? All of us?"

"No," Jason said, stepping forward. She moved back. "No, Piper, I wouldn't leave."

Percy's eyes had been turning left and right between two of them like a person watching a tennis match. He said something, almost under his breath.

"Piper, my Greek is a little shaky. What did he—"

"He said, 'You'd have to,'" she told him. "Percy, no offense, but you look terrible—"

Percy raised a hand as if to say None taken.

"—and Jason, I don't know how you could even consider doing that to yourself."

"Percy was in Tartarus when he unlocked his potential," Jason said. He'd thought it over thoroughly. That had to be it. "That's what's causing these problems, Piper, not the fact that he did it at all."

Annabeth said that Enceladus had said that Tartarus had sweetened their blood. That was it. Either Percy had been fattened like a prize calf so that Gaea could wake or his escape really had been unintended. Tartarus had only been trying to torment him, dangling power and promise in front of his nose so that his despair would be more complete. But the giants had underestimated their prisoners, and Percy had escaped, if not more powerful, then with access to more power.

"The gods are getting weaker, Pipes," he explained. "We have to accept the possibility that we might be on our own. We need to be strong for them this time."

From the corner of his eye, Jason barely noticed Percy wave his arm.

"Jason, I know things are weird, but maybe we need to have a little faith. Our parents... " she spread her hands. "The gods will come through when we need them."

Jason looked down, "Piper, the way you've been talking these past few days... I think we both know you don't believe that."

Piper didn't answer at first.

"It was Tartarus. It could all be a lie," she said.

Jason shook his head. "It doesn't feel like a lie. And it's only a backup plan," he said quietly. "If Bacchus or Mercury or anyone shows up, great. Good. If not, someone has to be ready to—"

Percy grabbed a fistful of Jason's sleeve, jerking hard. Jason was brought up short. Percy's grip was stronger than he'd been expecting, still strong enough to hold a sword.

With a sharp, exaggerated movement, Percy shook his head.

"No," he said. And the darkness under his skin quivered while he said it.

"Listen to him, Jason," said Piper.

Jason met his eyes. This didn't add up. The puzzle was coming together perfectly, but this didn't fit. If they'd been two legionnaires at Camp Jupiter, he have guessed that Percy didn't want Jason to succeed where he'd failed—or perhaps didn't want Jason to suffer where he'd suffered—but what he'd seen of Percy Jackson didn't line up with either of those things. Jason knew down in his bones that if he'd been the one, Percy would have cheered him on, and they'd have sailed off to bust some giant heads as the ultimate hero-and-god tag team.

There was an answer and it was out of reach, and Leo had been right about Percy knowing what it was. Percy couldn't stop and explain without being eaten alive. The Parthenos statue hadn't worked on him the way it had on—

Jason blinked as some of the clouds in his mind rolled away. "Cape Sounon," he murmured.

"Huh?" asked Piper.

"We're changing course."

"Can we spare the time?"

Jason looked over his shoulder. "Percy's our most powerful player," he said, and the words weren't as heavy as he'd expected. "I don't think we can not spare it."

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There was one way to tell they were going in the right direction: The monster attacks picked up again.

Annabeth's left arm didn't feel right without her knife strapped in its scabbard, but Coach had thoughtfully stocked the hold with spare weapons. She'd faced Kronos's army with a perfectly serviceable sword at her hip, and her strength was coming back, like the itching of a healed bone right before the cast was ready to come off.

Good thing, too.

"Get down!" called Frank. Annabeth ducked on reflex as Frank sent two arrows whistling over her head. The winged creature shrieked like a mountain lion and reared back, giving Annabeth the opening she needed to turn it to dust with a clean strike to the chest.

"They're called gryphons," she yelled over her shoulder. They hated horses—too bad Arion and Blackjack didn't like stables—and loved gold.

"I know; we met a whole pack of them in Alaska!" he answered.

And they flew in packs.

"Percy!" she called out. He didn't answer out loud, of course, but she knew exactly where he was. She'd heard the clicking of Riptide transforming before the first feathered beast had climbed onto the hull. He was backed up against the forecastle with Jason, holding off three at once.

He wasn't as strong as he should have been. He wasn't as fast as he should have been. He looked exactly like a sixteen year-old boy who'd been through hell on starvation rations.

Behind her, Frank and Piper were fending off another two gryphons that had started to claw at Festus's jeweled eyes. Annabeth hesitated then turned to help Percy and Jason.

Percy's moves weren't as fast or as smooth as they had been before Rome, but his aim was good. The gryphon was snarling on the deck with one wing broken. Riptide slashed again and the other wing went limp, and the gryphon screamed, thrashing against the deck like a poisoned cockroach. Instead of pressing forward, Percy stepped out of the way, as if he were waiting for something.

That was opening enough for another gryphon with fur as dark as pitch to leap and pin him claws-to-shoulders to the deck. Annabeth saw his hand white-knuckled against the sword hilt and ran toward him, but Percy recovered and put Riptide to its throat with one uneven slash. The beast lurched back just in time, knocking Riptide out of Percy's hand. The world seemed to go into slow motion. The razor jaws loomed and Annabeth could feel the heavy echoing of all the heavy space beneath the ocean as a ripple of blue light started to form along Percy's wrist.

The black gryphon dropped into dust with a length of stygian iron between its ribs. Nico slouched forward and the blade stuck in the deck, propping him up like a cane. Annabeth took three steps further and put her own blade through the first' gryphon's spine.

Nico looked from Percy to where the gryphon had been. He didn't offer Percy a hand up, and Percy didn't reach for one, putting his two unsteady arms underneath himself and getting to his feet on his own.

"Percy, we're not there any more," said Annabeth. "You can make a kill shot."

He shot her a look as if to say, I know. But then he looked confused.

"Tapping godhood in an ordinary fight," Nico said in a quiet voice.

Nico had seemed pretty disturbed by Percy's transformation at first, but not now. Now he looked like he thought it was interesting. Actually, he looked like he was hiding what he thought, which was pretty much standard-issue for him.

Nico looked to Annabeth and back, "Look," he said, nodding his chin toward Percy. The shadows that had dug their way under his skin were moving like beetles in a shaken cage.

"Frustration," Nico added. "They thought they were going to get fed."

Jason walked slowly toward them. He'd become the leader while they were gone and Annabeth wasn't sure she could argue with that. Jason didn't do things the way she would have done them, but they still got done.

"We can't take you into battle like this," Jason said to Percy. Percy held Jason's gaze. "You might get better, but not in the time we have."

Annabeth tried to imagine the words behind Percy's snarky, irritated gaze. Battle tried to take me, pal; right into its big, gryphonny beak.

"Percy, you have to admit that we need a solution."

"Long term?" Nico asked. "I could take you back to the Underworld, to the River Lethe. That would solve the problem." He said the words steadily, as if he'd spent a long time working them out.

Annabeth felt a chill down her spine, "You mean erase all his memories?" Percy was giving Nico a look with similar sentiment.

Nico looked at her and then away. "It worked out for me."

She made herself breathe evenly. "He could still make new memories," Nico added. "He'd still be Percy."

Five years. Six quests. A hundred capture the flags. Two great prophecies. There were no guarantees that he'd still be the man he'd become or that he'd fall in love with her again. But it beat the hell out of watching him die.

"If we don't have other options," Annabeth said, looking Percy straight in his shadowed eyes, "then we do what Piper did for her dad. He chooses for himself."

"One ex-amnesiac speaking for another, I'm going to jump in and guess he's not going to go for that," added Jason.

Percy pointed straight at Jason's nose, shaking his head as he spoke three words.

Jason grimaced. "Uh...?"

"He said, 'What he said.' Greek this time," Annabeth translated. Percy had put his hands down. He probably hadn't realized that he'd lapsed out of English again. At least it hadn't been that weird clicking language.

"Hey guys!" came a shout from the wheel. Leo turned around, the stray gryphon feathers sticking out of his hair somewhat spoiling the effect, "I think we're here!"

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Cape Sounon, south of Athens, was a hundred miles out of their way, and time was short. But Piper was able to convince the locals that they were archaeology students and they didn't need a permit, not really.

Annabeth hopped down the rope ladder first and held out a hand for Percy. He took it but didn't put much of his weight on her. I'm still here. I'm still strong enough. But his fingers felt thin. They made their way up the rock hill toward the jagged row of ruined columns.

There was power in a temple of Poseidon, the same kind as in her mother's statue. They crossed the threshold and it felt clean and pure, but wild and wide-open in a way that Athena never did. Athena would punish stray mortals in a perfectly woven trap with swords and needles and victory. Poseidon had a depth that required no subtlety.

Percy walked for a few steps, and Annabeth calculated that he was standing where the altar would have been. Athena hated Rome and had a rivalry with her uncle and his children and she'd disliked Percy from the get-go. Of course she wouldn't purify him. But this place had had years of worship as a temple to the sea god, and more years of admiration as a work of art. Percy crouched down and put a hand on the cracked stone, right where the sacrifice would have fallen when the temple was first consecrated.

Annabeth put her hand on Percy's shoulder.

"We've put down over the hill," Annabeth had said. "We've still got a day or two to spare. Take as much time as you need."

Percy had smiled.

"I'll give you a minute alone," said Annabeth.

Annabeth walked down the cracked stone steps. She'd built Poseidon a shrine in Olympus, nothing so grandly placed as this, but new and dynamic and full of the sea god's best aspects. If they failed against Gaea, it would all be gone, without even ruins left as proof of ancient greatness. She looked back over her shoulder as she headed toward Piper and the others, and the walls almost seemed to glow against the sky.

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"We've put down over the hill," Annabeth had said. "We're a day or two ahead of schedule. Take as much time as you need."

Percy had smiled—at least what felt like his old smile on his face. Since when had a day or two been close to enough? They were going to need every second of slack. He had to stop holding everyone back.

He looked around. He wasn't an architect, but he could tell why the ancients had built their temple here. This place was awesome.

...or it would have been if it didn't seem to just make the squiggling chunks of pure evil inside him start clawing away again. They did not like it here. Good.

Percy watched Annabeth disappear behind a column, keeping watch or something. He fought the urge to get up and put his arms around her. They weren't going to defeat the giants if he couldn't unglue himself. Touch had grounded them in Tartarus, but she was getting better faster than he was, and he was pretty sure the Velcro Boyfriend deal would get old. There was a reason they called it "being clingy."

Tartarus had lied to his eyes and ears and mind when he'd been wide awake. That meant the rest of it could have been a lie too.

Percy touched one knee to the floor, placing a palm flat against the weathered stones. This exact spot felt right. Not clean but extra powerful; it felt the way the sacrifices back at camp smelled, like lots of things that shouldn't have mixed together but did.

So he was here to do what? Meditate like a guy in a martial arts movie? Annabeth had slept next to her mother's statue. Was he supposed to curl up and go for some shuteye? He hadn't been able to sleep for days, not really. (Also, this might have been a temple, but whoever told the birds where to poop clearly didn't know that.)

Well it wasn't as if he didn't know how to pray. It was still funny to think of it like that, though.

If the blue blade was his courage, then what were these cracks inside him? Doubt? Well he'd had a buttload of that to deal with ever since his vision of his dad's conversation with Athena the night of Thalia's ascension.

But the biggest part was...

"I need to know," Percy said, and it didn't matter if it was in English, Greek or the language of the ocean. Poseidon spoke all three. "Whatever the truth is, I can find a way to deal, but I need to know."

There was no sound but the spray of the sea down the cliff.

"Do you really think I'm someone else?" he asked. And there was that feeling again, the echoing space of a prayer unheard. Poseidon was in no condition to answer. "Is that why you've helped me over the years?"

He breathed out. This wasn't working. But his other option was to walk out of here back to Annabeth and tell her he couldn't help her and Nico with the giants. Maybe he could guard the ship or free up Coach to do some actual fighting.

Well the harpies could go eat that. It wasn't fatal-level pride to say he was Percy goddamned Jackson and a prophecy didn't land on him when just anyone would do. He was going to figure this out at least enough to duct tape himself together like Leo's backup workbench and beat this thing, even if he fell into pieces right after. He wasn't going to let any of the down, especially not...

Percy closed his eyes. He'd gotten one flake of it right: no matter who he was. He wasn't sure if Amphion and the other guy were real, but they were both completely on board with this whole Annabeth thing.

Percy wasn't good with the emotional stuff—okay, maybe he wasn't good with talking about the emotional stuff. He was fantastic about making plans. He knew Annabeth had wanted him to say he loved her back, but that was what people said when they thought they were going to die. When the Mad Man had led her off to find Arachne, he hadn't wanted to leave her with any doubt. She was going to win. He was going to see her again. She was Annabeth and she'd beat anything Athena could throw at her. He'd already told her about the future, what he had planned. And saying that was "I love you" but without "goodbye."

Percy shifted his weight, not sure what to say next, "You had the blue guy figured out, you know," he said into the air. "Someone asked him once why he didn't go back and live with other sea mortals." The blue hero had been returning a rescued child to a grateful, motherly woman of his own kind. She'd asked if he didn't want to settle down one day. "He said he had quests instead of children." He'd trained with smart girls and he'd quested with heroic women, but something had never been exactly right.

If Amphion had lived, would he have noticed Annabeth? Yeah, Percy figured. You couldn't not notice Annabeth. He'd have seen her on the shore of a place like this while she was building something made out of light held up by steel and concrete. And she'd have told him he drooled. Annabeth was way too smart to risk having a demigod kid, even on purpose. Would he have given up or become one of the gods in those creepy stories, the ones who couldn't leave a woman alone? Would Annabeth have even talked to a full-grown god who'd never risked his life or split a bag of Oreos with her?

"I think I get some of what you're dealing with," Percy added, "the one about wondering what someone's going to become." He licked his lips. "I think maybe that's why I didn't want to take Zeus's offer. I wanted to know what I was going to become, and I knew I wasn't there yet." And with Tartarus pulling him sideways, would he ever get there? That destiny might be lost to him.

"Did you have a son named Amphion? Did Triton fight the Tripled Death with a sea-mortal?" There was another question, one he didn't want to say out loud.

What am I going to cost you this time? It could be from screwing up this quest, but Percy felt in his gut that that wasn't it. Kronos would have gone for the twisted knife, something specific, something personal. If Percy kept going, would he cost Poseidon his throne? His kingdom? Percy swallowed. In the early days, the only thing Poseidon had loved...

Your freedom.

Polybotes's obsession with chains might not be limited to demigods. Worse, what if whatever set off the curse was something he'd already done, like to get himself and Annabeth out of Tartarus?

"Annabeth'd tell me I can't fight fate, that I should just help with the quest from where I am and not where I was," he cracked a smile, "just face it with courage and not worry about things that I can't control. It's a good plan."

"Mostly, I want to hear you say that that's all right."

The breeze passed by, and the cry of the gulls seemed heavy.

"It's okay," said Percy. "I know you can't answer."

The salt air rippled across the flagstones.

"I can answer," came a voice like the blackness beneath the waves.

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.

.

Piper turned her head at the crunch of gravel.

"The guards think they deserve a long lunch break," she said chipperly.

"Thank you, Piper," said Annabeth.

"Percy's part of the team, Annabeth," said Jason. "He has been since before we picked him up in New Rome."

"I've been trying to figure this out," said Piper. "Jason's dreams, Percy's problem. Annabeth, can I ask you what you saw in Tartarus?" Piper raised. "Did you see your mother?"

In this light, Annabeth could see the dark circles under her eyes. Planning the attack on the House of Hades might not have been slogging through Tartarus, but it hadn't been easy on anyone. Annabeth could see something was bothering her. It was just like Piper not to want to lay it on anyone else who was already suffering. Annabeth smiled, trying to look strong. She was shaking Tartarus and if this worked then Percy might shake Tartarus. She could be there for Piper again.

"I saw lots of things," said Annabeth. "That doesn't mean any of them were real. It didn't go after me the way it went after Percy."

"Gaea's trying to get to all of us," Jason said, "like she tried to get to Leo when he was a kid." He shook his head. "Maybe she just had more to work with with Percy." He shook his head. "It doesn't feel like a lie, not any of it."

The shadows from the temple fell across Jason's face, and for a second, just a second, he looked like Thalia the day Luke had told her to call the ophiotaurus.

"Jason," Annabeth said carefully. "You might have heard Hazel or Nico say that most children of Hades have the same fatal flaw."

Jason looked up, his blue eyes seeming very dark, like he'd already come to a conclusion that he didn't like and was only waiting for someone else to say it out loud.

"For children of Zeus, it's usually—"

"Hey!" Piper interrupted, pointing back up the hill. "Who's that talking to Percy?"

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.

Percy turned, looking behind him.

On the stones stood a woman with flowing black hair and claws for a crown, staring at him as if he were a rabbit that had eaten her prize carrots, and she'd shown up with a wire trap and poison.

His own voice split into three in his head:

Amphitrite.

My queen.

Mother.

She looked him up and down, and Percy knew she could see the Tartarus in him where it bubbled at the edges of his mortal skin. Percy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Stepmothers were bad luck for demigods. Amphitrite looked like she was in a blast-something-to-sea-foam mood.

The blue guy had memorized every fiber of the etiquette of the undersea court until it became second nature. Amphion had been born already knowing it. Percy groped until he put his hands on his own past: Hestia. Artemis. He'd called both of them...

"My lady," he said. Now Amphitrite couldn't zap him for rudeness. He hoped.

"You needed an answer," she said tersely. "And the answer is that only my son Triton and I are permitted to speak that name, and then only out of my lord Poseidon's hearing."

Percy looked at Amphitrite for a long time. After all the dreams and visions of the past, it was hard to believe they were actually in the same time and place. What did a guy say? When would he ever have another chance to say it?

This wasn't his mother. This wasn't the woman who'd made bean dip for Gabe Uguliano, who'd shown up to every parents' meeting, who'd believed in him day in and day out until he'd believed in himself. This was only the goddess who'd surrendered part of her essence so that it would grow into a new and being whom she'd loved more than sunlight through the waves.

Eventually, Percy went for common ground.

"How is he?" Percy asked.

Amphitrite glared at him with darkly flashing eyes, as if asking about his father was some awful thing.

"Not himself," she said.

"But we made it out," Percy answered before he could stop himself. Jason had said Poseidon hadn't taken his disappearance well.

Amphitrite looked down the hill at the crashing waves, which Percy tried to pretend wouldn't pull back when he got near.

Wouldn't pull back...

"He doesn't know, does he?" Percy asked. "I never touched the water after we escaped. Is that what he needs?" Was that what this was about? This had never been about Percy or some stupid curse. It had been about keeping the sea god out of the game. Maybe Poseidon was the one who was supposed to come to old Mount Olympus to face Porphyrion.

"Do not presume to talk about what my lord needs."

"I'm only trying to help," Percy blurted before he could stop himself.

Amphitrite looked at him like a mangy guinea pig that had dragged a rotten head of lettuce into the house. Then she stared at him, really looked, and dreams and memories had been no substitute for being beneath those eyes. They were like rock-flaked needles going straight through him. He suddenly pulled in a deep breath. The fragments of Tartarus inside him stopped moving, pinned in place like a bug to a museum card. They didn't like being in his dad's temple and they did not like getting thoughtstabbed by a goddess.

"You're changing," she said, slightly softer. "If not for the parasites you carry, I could almost read your soul."

"There was a reason why Zeus had Hercules burned. You're on a terrible path, child." Child? Whatever. "If you succeed in casting off mortality in this state, you would be a weak, warped god, as twisted as you are now."

Not like if you'd taken the offer on Mount Olympus, Percy read. This wasn't a second bite at godhood. It was a trap.

"And if I don't?" he asked. "If I succeed at casting on? Uh, not casting off?" That had sounded cooler in his head.

She looked at him in something like amazement. "By rights it should have destroyed you already." She took a step closer, and Percy blinked hard as the spike-needle feeling got stronger. "Demigods don't live through this," she said, voice like a wisp of seaweed drifting lazily in the current, with snakes hiding in the shadows beneath, "not even strong demigods." She straightened. "How did you know my son's name?" she demanded.

The truth. "A vision when I was in Tartarus," he said, and though something was telling him to keep his big mouth shut, he had to know. He had to know. "He was real, then?" Percy asked. "All that about him being the ophiotaurus's first protector, and when Hyperion—"

"Hyperion?" Amphitrite's voice was black as a nightmare, the air around her tightening like volcanic rock.

The name hung in the air. Percy felt his heart pound.

"You didn't know who—"

"No."

More than five thousand years.

"If what I saw is true, then yes, it was Hyperion," Percy said. "It was Tartarus. It could all be a lie."

It only took half a second for him to realize he'd said the wrong thing. Her face might have flushed, right in the middle, like when his second grade teacher did when she got truly, shriekingly angry. Only Mrs. Philson didn't have eyes that crackled like volcanic ash and a will that could turn his body to driftwood and scatter his soul like sand.

Percy suddenly put the last pieces together. In all his old memories of Amphitrite, he'd either been someone else or not there at all. He wasn't her family's loyal sea-hero this time, and he certainly wasn't her son. Percy had been talking to her like a normal person, asking her questions that someone she'd known a long time would be allowed to ask. But as far as she knew, Percy was only one of a long, long line of her husband's other children. She had no particular reason to think that Poseidon would miss him.

He'd been sitting here pissing her off for five minutes straight. Any second now, he would say the wrong thing, and she would blast him into coral dust. That was it. She'd kill him, and even if it didn't drive Poseidon completely nuclear, he would still blame her and never tell her why.

"He was going to make you guardian of the ophiotaurus," and there was a little too much snap on that you. "He thought that you might make that little monster into something useful, that Zeus would tolerate it if its keeper were someone who owed his godhood to the skyfather."

His eyes flicked to his right arm, the arm that had held his power when he'd pulled it into a blade. He could call the ocean. Then she could see him without any mortality in the way for a full two seconds before the creepy-crawlies under his veins put an end to him.

Amphitrite's rage built, and the better of an idea it seemed. Nico was on board the Argo II ready to be the seventh of the prophecy, and he could finally get an answer. Poseidon would finally have an answer... He was going to die anyway. He breathed out, reaching for—

"Percy!" quick footsteps. Someone was sprinting across the temple, two other figures behind her. She stopped short when she saw Percy wasn't alone.

"Annabeth, this is the goddess Amphitrite," he said, wishing to the thrones that he'd actually read Emptily Post at some point. Yes my dear companion and fellow questificator. Do come and meet my not-mom who had just been about to kill me for talking about her dead not-me. Than you ever so much for distracting her from smiting me.

No time lost. No meaning lost. Annabeth put her hand on his shoulder, as if ready to lend him her power at any time. Amphitrite looked her up and down. And that gave Percy long enough to find something else to say. If he was going to get blasted, at least he'd have cred:

"I killed Hyperion, if it helps," Percy said to Amphitrite, "my friend Grover and me. In Manhattan."

"He'll come back," she said bitterly. "Anything not killed by that beast can come back." She turned away, seeming to rethink something. She turned and the spiky feeling vanished and Percy gasped under the sudden weight.

Percy lurched halfway to his feet. She was leaving? Already?

"My lady, I'd like to ask you something," he blurted. Because he had a death wish. "Would you tell him something from me?"

"I've already told him that you survived," she said. "I've been telling him since the two of you first fell. I don't think he believes me."

Percy nodded. Amphitrite still loved Poseidon in her way, and, in his way, he knew it. She'd have lied to him to make him well.

"Maybe he'll believe you if you say that I don't think Triton meant to kill that mortal all those years ago. With the Tripled Death. Tell him I thought it was an accident. Triton tried to teach him a lesson, and it went wrong."

Amphitrite tilted her head toward them slightly but gave no other sign that she'd agreed. Percy just hoped.

"That was close," whispered Annabeth.

"Yeah," said Percy.

"Did it ...help?" she asked.

Amphitrite had cleared up the part about whether Amphion existed. The Tartarus visions even matched a lot of the details, but Percy still had no clue about the important stuff. He looked down at his left arm, streaks of gray still veining it like tapeworm tiger stripes. Bad with talking about it or not, he loved her in his way. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe a little."

She didn't believe him. He could tell. But it still counted.

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Jason hurried up the hill behind Piper, who already had Katoptris unsheathed and gleaming in the light. She'd held him back while Annabeth ran ahead, even though something important was clearly going on.

He hadn't fought her too hard. He was starting to figure something out, something Thalia had known. He wasn't sure if it was the same thing Annabeth had been going to say, because he'd only heard part of it.

And then he'd put it together.

And then he'd asked Piper to check Katoptris.

"Percy! Annabeth!" Piper called out, feet tapping surely against the white flagstones. Jason breathed something electric in the air. Had a god been here? They could deal with that later.

"What is it?" Percy's voice was gravelly but audible. This place had done some good, at least.

"It didn't feel like a lie because it wasn't," Jason gasped, catching his breath, "but it was never the whole story."

The power in this temple was strong enough and focused enough to help Piper find the right part of the past.

"Look," she breathed.

If anyone understood the danger of seeing only part of the story, it was Piper. If anyone needed to see the rest, it was Percy. The visions had been getting clearer, ever since they'd come to the ancient lands. If the power of this place could make itself felt, they might have their answer.

Piper looked up and gave Jason a quick smile.

"Gaea didn't show you everything, Percy," she said.

And in Katoptris, she showed him the rest, the shards that had been held back to poison him.

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.

.

At first, the flashes were brief.

Jason saw a shining room with twelve thrones. Four smaller creatures, three mortals and a faun, stood waiting. There was some sort of floating bubble in the middle, and a creature with a long eel's tail undulating inside. The air was tense, as if some important decision had been made, or was about to be made.

"The boy will not betray us," Poseidon said with complete confidence. "I vouch for this on my honor."

The image shifted and they saw Poseidon again, grayed and haggard, talking to a cyclops in a flannel shirt—Tyson.

"Stay here in the forges."

"But Daddy, I can help," he said. "I learned to fight at camp with Percy!"

"You're too young," Poseidon said quickly. "I've made that mistake be— You're too young."

The image blurred and cleared again, settling for good this time.

These were the Olympians in full battle gear. Typhon's neck sinew was still stuck to the spines of Poseidon's trident. Athena flexed her hands as if remembering the talons of a giant owl. Aphrodite looked like the winsome heroine of an action movie, blond waves flowing out a helmet one moment, perfectly cropped hair and form-fitting laser armor the next. Hermes kept looking toward the throne room then back at the other gods, as if he wanted to tell them to hurry up.

Zeus was standing at the center of the road, a cloak draped over his terrible shield. Maybe it was Katoptris, but Jason could see the edges of what was happening in his mind. Those uncompromising eyes missed nothing. Olympus was damaged and scorched and half-detached from its moorings. And still there.

Poseidon broke the silence.

"There can only be one reward for this, and all of you know it."

Apollo shared a glance with Artemis. Hephaestus looked up but said nothing.

"It worked out well enough with the last savior of Olympus."

Dionysus blinked against the bandage that Apollo was fitting against his brow. "Did he actually admit that? You are all my witnesses."

Someone gave a quiet laugh, more knowing than mocking. "That's not the only reason, is it?"

Poseidon rounded on her, "You always think you have it figured out, don't you Athena?"

"You think he's your son," she answered.

Poseidon raised an eyebrow, and Jason could see where Percy got his sass. "Sally's a truthful woman. I know he's my son."

"Don't dodge the issue," she said.

In the background, they could see Ares raise his head eagerly, putting a hand on Hephaestus's arm to draw his attention. Let's watch them get into it, he seemed to be saying.

"You think he's Amphion. You think the Fates let him be reborn close to you so you could escape your curse." Her lip twisted, and there was pain in her eyes. "When have they ever shown such kindness, even to us?"

"She's right," said a gravelly voice. "Everyone wants to see patterns in death. There are none. Hades would tell you the same."

"Be careful, Poseidon," said Juno, pushing back her goatskin cloak and rippling into her Greek form. She placed a spotless hand on the sea god's shoulder. "What if you're wrong? What if we take away the boy's mortality and he's nothing but what he seems to be? Not your Amphion."

Poseidon pushed her hand away. "Then he is still my Perseus," he said. "And he saved everything we've spent thousands of years creating. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong about who he was before. He has his own value and his own chance to be even more." His words surged against the walls like sunlight through ice-clear waves. No one spoke.

"One reward," he repeated.

For a second, a smirk seemed to cross Zeus' face, so quickly that Jason would have thought he'd imagined it. "Very well, brother," he said at last. "One reward. Now let us go greet our heroes."

Ares leaned toward Aphrodite. "What is he talking about? Is the punk getting a new axe?"

The golden goddess patted his arm. "I'll explain later, dear."

.

.

.

Percy didn't move for a long time. When he looked at Piper, it was with gratitude, "Thank you," he said. He looked through the columns to the cliff, where they could hear the sounds of waves.

"I think I'm going to try again," he said, looking at Annabeth before getting carefully to his feet. He headed out of the temple, toward the path that led to the water.

"How long should we stay?" Jason asked Annabeth. Beta wolf with his best accent.

She looked back at him. "A while," she answered. "Then for Mount Olympus." She looked at Percy. "I'll be a minute," she added.

Piper watched her go, apprehension at the corner of her mouth.

"Do you think we should—" Jason asked.

"Katoptris never showed me anything like that before," said Piper.

"It always shows you what we need," said Jason. Piper's visions, Percy's doubts, Poseidon's power. Jason had been able to link them all together.

"Not like this," she said.

The Poseidon in the blade hadn't acted as if Percy were a game piece or an entertainment or even a great weapon or work of art. "Deep down, I thought they couldn't love their kids, Jason. I don't any more." She threw her arms around him, her multicolored eyes going bright, "I never have to think that again!"

Jason hugged her back. "By the gods, Piper, you're weird."

"Yeah," she agreed.

They stood together, Piper still in his arms, as they watched Percy walk down the path toward the ocean. Annabeth followed, never too far back. Maybe she didn't want to go far from him just yet either.

Percy knelt down near the breakers.

They'd probably need to stay for a while. It was going to take time for Percy to glue himself back together. Or learn to live in pieces. He'd been loyal, to Annabeth, to Poseidon, and it had broken him.

Jason knew. The fatal flaw of children of the skyfather: Ambition. Overreaching. Not knowing when to turn back. It had been the end of every child of Zeus from Alexander the Great to Douglas MacArthur. Thalia had beaten it. Thalia had refused the prophecy, chosen victory for the team over power for herself.

That's why I'm not the leader, he realized. Annabeth had shown him another way without even knowing she was doing it.

He tightened his arms around Piper, who was still more laughing than crying.

I'm the bridge.

For a second it seemed as if a small beast with a long, rippling tail were playing in the surf, but it was only a trick of the light.

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.

Percy made his way down the cliff and walked until he felt the ground turn to gravel and then sand under his feet. The spray of the sea felt cold on his face. He let it in, trying to draw strength the way he'd done before.

Poseidon had been right, more than once. It was wrong to order someone to deny their nature. If it was really necessary, they'd make the choice themselves.

He walked into the ocean, and the waves reeled back, like they had that day with Jason and Nico. Percy knelt down and held out a hand. He breathed out, feeling the ocean's power inside him like a pulse. Pure and perfect, the best part of him. But maybe it didn't only have to be the idea of a sword. Maybe...

He remembered the feeling of Amphitrite's mind, like needles of volcanic rock. Instead of a sword, he imagined his power like spikes, like a sea urchin's armor, impaling any parasite that twitched out of line.

They stopped moving.

Something changed as he knelt on the sandbar. Cracks sealed. Not all of them, but it didn't have to be all of them. The evil inside him had been pushed a little further away from the center. Maybe he'd be fully rid of it one day. Maybe not.

I'm Poseidon's human son. I'm Sally's half-god son. I live in the upper air. I chose the prophecy twice. I chose humanity once. I'm going to stop the giants.

Like a cautious thing, like Mrs. O'Leary when she thought someone wasn't really offering a treat, one of the breakers crept toward his fingertips, just slightly. Percy held back the scraps of Tartarus inside him. With courage.

The water reared up until it swallowed his whole hand. Then Percy let it fall away.

I'm back, he said clearly, to anyone capable of hearing it.

There were footsteps behind him. He smiled.

"Percy?" she asked.

Gods but he had to look like crud. Percy ran a hand over his head. Annabeth reached into her pocket and pulled out something wrapped in plastic. An ambrosia square. She handed it to him like she wasn't sure what he'd do with it. Percy had been hovering on the ground between godhood and mortality for days. He hadn't wanted to face what would happen if he picked either side of himself and fed it. But Amphitrite had made it clear: Either side was a bad move.

"Thanks," he said, unwrapping it enough to take a bite. Just a little one. "Do we have any pizza? I'm really hungry."

She hugged him so tight that she almost knocked him over.

"Ow!" he protested.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you too," he answered, then went in for a kiss. No matter who I am.

If he used to be something else, then he used to be something else. He wasn't now. Even if he was Amphion, he wasn't Amphion. He could live with not knowing.

There are things that I can do that I couldn't do before. Powers that I'll use if I have to.

He looked at Annabeth and knew in his bones that she thought the same way and would make the same decision. Save the world. Die trying if you have to, but that's never the first choice. If you have to leave friends behind, make sure the world you're leaving them in is safer and better. Thalia had done it.

Percy held up his right hand. Ambrosia and bagels. He didn't know if the balance would hold forever, but it was holding now. Most of the power he'd learned to use was pointed inward, keeping Tartarus scared. Most of it.

A tiny ripple of blue light played across his fingers. A secret weapon. A last resort.

I hope I don't have to.

Annabeth and Percy headed back toward the ship.

Out on the waves, a woman with flowing hair and eyes like basalt clasped one hand tight over her open mouth.

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THE END.

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drf24k

drf24 at columbia dot edu