ONE          NOTHING BUT SHADOWS

"Still, there is this terrible desire to be loved. Still, there is this horror at being left behind."
— Michael Cunningham, The Hours

THIS IS A LOVE STORY.

♥

"IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME," James says into the cellphone wedged between his ear and his shoulder. It isn't the most comfortable of positions, perched atop the roof of the crumbling ruins of an abandoned church with his bow drawn. His neck had developed an uncomfortable crick in it during the past half hour and his legs were long past numb from the crouch he'd settled into while keeping watch. Not to mention the late December chill that had seeped beneath his skin, finding its way down to his bones and making him long for the warmth of a cup of hot coffee between his hands. He hadn't imagined that things could get more uncomfortable, but that'd been before his phone had started ringing and he'd stupidly chosen to pick it up without checking the caller ID first. "As in, I am no longer interested in you."

A truly impressive display of colorful language fills his ears. James tunes it out as best he can as he scans the perimeter below, watching for the signal that would mean it was finally time for him to spring into action. He'd been itching for a fight all day and, when he hadn't found one fast enough, he'd ended up picking one with the first poor, unfortunate soul who'd crossed his path. In this case, it had been his not-quite-boyfriend, Beau Sinclair.

It wasn't that Beau had been a bad not-quite-boyfriend. In fact, he'd been rather the opposite of that—which was the problem. It was better, James believed, that they cut their losses sooner rather than later before things reached the point of no return.

In the center of the church's overgrown courtyard, a shadow appears. James's eyes narrow in on the spot, focusing intently on the rapidly expanding patch of shade as it begins to take form. The slim silhouette of a girl with dark hair and pale skin steps out from the darkness, blinking into existence in the harsh, gray daylight. Her heterochromatic eyes—one with an iris the color of molten gold, the other with a sclera as black as night—meet his and she nods; the signal he'd been anticipating, finally, after all this time. James grins in acknowledgment and holds up a finger in response. Best he finish this now than drag it out any longer than necessary.

On the other end of the line, Beau's steady stream of cursing has yet to relent. He really does have quite a way with words, James thinks. Even in anger, there's a certain rhythm to Beau's swearing that reminds him of music or poetry. He briefly wonders if all of Apollo's children are so lyrical when scorned, but decides that it isn't a question worth finding the answer to. No point in flying unnecessarily close to the sun and all that.

"What's—that?" James says into the phone, mimicking sounds of static and interference. "I think—that we're—breaking up."

He can hear the sneer in Beau's voice. "You bet your sorry ass we are," he replies before ending the call with an abrupt click.

James listens to the sound of the disconnect tone as it blares loudly into his ear, staring blankly up at the clouds before shaking his head to forcibly clear it. It's for the better, he reminds himself, tucking his phone away. You know it is. Then, without any further hesitation, he slings his bow over his shoulder and hurls himself off the roof.

There's a certain kind of thrill that accompanies falling from great heights. Something about the momentary feeling of utter weightlessness before gravity kicks in and that swooping sensation fills your stomach and drowns everything else out as the ground rushes up to meet you. James has been chasing after that feeling for a long time. He just hasn't figured out how to make it last.

His feet strike the earth with a muted thud before he rolls and springs back onto his feet. Áine is waiting for him in the courtyard and he jogs over to meet her, bouncing on his heels with barely-contained energy. Her expression is neutral, but James can see her disapproval in her posture—the straight line of her spine, the cross of her arms over her chest. James knows that his parabatai hates it when he takes unnecessary risks, but she herself has very little room to lecture him on that subject, so she rarely voices her opinion on it. She doesn't need to speak for him to hear her, though. James has always been able to hear her, even in her silences.

"It's still inside," Áine says quietly, relaying what she'd found during her scouting of the church ruins. Her mouth hardens into a line of thinly-veiled disdain. "One of the corpse eaters. The boy was dead long before we got here. There's nothing left of him but bones now."

James swears loudly. Even though Áine had warned him before they left camp of what would likely be waiting for them at the end of their journey, part of him had wanted to believe that she could be wrong. It was a foolish thing to doubt a child of Hades when it came to matters pertaining to death—then again, James Fahey is a great many things, but he has never been particularly wise. In the end, Áine had been right and they'd arrived too late to do anything but maybe avenge the poor kid by slaying the monster that killed him and giving him the proper burial rites.

"Do you think we can kill it?" He asks.

Áine reaches into the pouch at her belt and retrieves a familiar looking coin—a golden drachma gifted to her by her older sisters. She flips the coin with practiced ease and waits for it to fall.

It lands on heads.

Something bright and dangerous glints in Áine's eyes. "Yes."

"Then let's do it," he says with a wicked grin.

♥

James has never been overly fond of churches.

He knows his dislike of churches can never compare to Áine's. Áine, who'd grown up an orphan in a convent and suffered cruelty at the hands of the nuns who should have loved her; Áine, who'd been terrorized by monsters and blamed for their attacks by the saintly sisters who swore she was the spawn of a demon; Áine, who'd been alone in the world until the Cross girls who'd eventually become her adoptive sisters found her and brought her home with them.

James's family hadn't been particularly religious in the traditional sense. When he'd still lived at home with them, they'd only ever attended church for the occasional wedding or funeral. His father possessed a certain appreciation for the history that could be found inside of old churches and the stories that they held in their cathedrals, but that was the extent of his faith. His sister had been fond of stained-glass windows; of their kaleidoscope colors and the way they caught the light at sunrise and sunset. On more than one occasion, James had found her sitting alone in a pew, still as a statue from dawn till dusk, watching the shadows shift and change with the sun's position in the sky; a dreamy expression on her open face. Nowadays, he can hardly stand the sight of a stained-glass window without feeling the urge to break something.

The little stone church Áine brought them to was certainly no great architectural beauty. Even before it'd been so clearly abandoned and left to ruination, there appeared to be nothing magnificent about its structure, as far as James could see. But then, it was hard to see past the decay and corruption that accompanied all greater monsters wherever they made their lairs. Trails of viscous slime and other unsavory fluids coated the floors and walls of the sanctuary. A foul stench wafted through the already stale church air. It was the scent of death and decay; of something old and powerful and monstrous.

If he hadn't spent years training himself to withstand such unpleasantness, James might have been sick. Instead, he grimaces and forces himself to breathe through it while scaling the rafters. He and Áine had agreed to split up: Áine on the ground where she'd be able to advance on the demon undetected in her shadows; James up above to provide her with cover while keeping close enough to drop into the fight should she have need of him down below.

He settles into a crouch on one of the ceiling joists and draws his bow, silently stringing one of the celestial bronze-tipped arrows from his quiver. From this position, he has an excellent view of the monster holed up at the front of the church, curled up amongst the bones of the dead half-blood it had murdered. The creature is truly a horror to behold—a writhing mass of graying fleshy organs that pulse pus and blood, with a single watery, yellow eye at the center of it. James's lip curls in disgust at the sight. Trógos demons were a particularly appalling brand of monster, known best for their nasty habit of feasting on corpses. As far as size goes, James has seen bigger, but he knows better than to underestimate a creature based on size alone—and, if he ever needed a reminder, all he had to do was look to his parabatai in her ferocious five-foot-zero glory.

A flicker of shadows just behind the demon catches James's attention. The Trógos demon, lulled into a state of satiated sleepiness after its recent feeding, does not stir. James watches with bated breath as Áine steps out of the shadows. Metal glints between her fingertips as she draws her poisonous daggers, preparing to strike.

"I do hope you enjoyed that meal," Áine says, her voice velvety soft and deadly calm. "Since it will be your last in this lifetime."

The demon springs into action in a storm of frenetic movement, turning on Áine with a gaping maw of razor sharp teeth. Áine spins out of its reach with an agile twirl and lashes out with her knives. A hissing noise escapes the Trógos as her blades slice into its skin. The wounds immediately begin to blister from the poison on the blades and the demon lets out a howl of pain. James, choosing to add insult to injury, lines up a shot and fires an arrow directly into the creature's open foaming mouth. It roars in displeasure as its weeping yellow eye turns upwards, glowering with hatred when it spots James in the rafters. James grins manically and offers a rude hand gesture in response before retrieving another arrow from his quiver.

His parabatai takes advantage of the temporary distraction, wasting no time as she retrieves the largest of her knives and sheaths it in the monster's flesh. It lunges at Áine in response, lashing out with undulating appendages that unfurl from its body. She dodges them with ease, maintaining the grace of dancer as she severs them at the root. One of the limbs manages to catch her around the ankle and she stumbles. James immediately lets his next arrow fly, pinning the appendage to the ground and rendering it useless. Áine shoots him a fleeting, grateful look as its grip slackens and she frees herself from its grasp before resuming her deadly dance.

James nocks a third arrow and holds it steady, tracking the movements of the fight down below. His eyes flit from Áine to the Trógos demon as he waits for an opening that will allow him to strike without risking his parabatai's safety. Without a single word or gesture shared between them, Áine feints to the left of the creature before diving to the right. As if she'd heard his thoughts, she leaves one side of the demon exposed, presenting James with the opening he'd been looking for. He looses the arrow and watches as it strikes the demon in the iris of its singular disgusting eyeball—a truly perfect bullseye, if James ever saw one.

A giddy, breathless laugh escapes him. The adrenaline and ichor pumping through his veins make for a heady combination that leaves him feeling a little dizzy. But before he can get too caught up in the euphoria of fighting, the Trógos demon lets out an ear-splitting shriek of pain that brings him back to earth. The church's remaining windows shatter and shards of glass explode through the air, slicing into exposed skin before clattering to the ground.

James curses and covers his eyes with an arm to protect them from the shower of glass. When he drops his arm, he sees the demon, now wounded and blind, attempting a retreat. The creature darts around Áine and makes a dash for the church's open doors. Áine lunges after it in close pursuit and James, drawing on the strength of his godly blood, leaps from beam to beam across the rafters, racing towards the exit at inhuman speed before dropping onto the ground to cut off the demon's escape. He swaps his bow for two slim celestial bronze throwing knives and blocks the doors. Outraged by this turn of events, the Trógos demon lets out a furious wail, releasing strings of phlegm and spittle from its bleeding mouth. James recoils in disgust, but holds his ground as Áine advances on the demon from behind—an eerie, ethereal figure cloaked in shadows.

"Many half-bloods died to sate your hunger," she murmurs to it softly; her calm, dispassionate tone at odds with the cold fury burning behind her eyes. "How strange it must be for one who has dealt so much death to finally face it."

In a flash of silver blades and shadows, Áine slices into the demon and dispatches it back to Tartarus. It bursts apart at the seams as it vanishes, dousing the sanctuary and its occupants in an explosion of foul-smelling, stinging ichor as one final, spiteful last act.

James lets out a steady stream of expletives while wiping furiously at his slime-covered face with equally filthy hands. "Disgusting!" He complains, trying to comb his fingers through his ruined curls. "It'll take forever for me to get this revolting goo out of my hair."

His parabatai watches him with a look of faint amusement on her face, seeming far less bothered by their current sticky situation than him. "You could always shave your head," Áine suggests, her tone deceptively innocent. "I hear buzzcuts are all the rage these days."

He gapes at her in mock-outrage. "And rob the world of all this?" James asks, gesturing to his head of ordinarily tumbling dark curls, currently matted down by monster guts. "It'd be criminal."

"I do believe the world would manage to recover," she says mildly.

"But would I ever recover?" He counters, leaning back against one of the empty pews. "I think my mother might strike me dead if I were to waste such a gift."

(His mother wouldn't. Not really. She'd just snap her fingers and he'd have a head full of curls all over again, regardless of whether he wanted them or not because Mother knows best.)

Áine's lips twitch as she fights back a smile and James feels momentarily pleased. Few people knew how to make his parabatai smile. Even fewer could make her laugh. It was one of the rare genuine joys of his life that he was capable of doing both.

Her smile vanishes just as quickly as it had appeared as she turns her attention onto their surroundings. James sees her staring at the front of the sanctuary and watches as she walks up the aisle to where the Trógos demon had made its nest. He follows, stopping short as Áine kneels down next to the bones of the boy who'd been eaten by the demon and retrieves a single golden coin from a pouch fastened to her hip, placing it atop his remains—an obol for the ferryman, Charon—so the boy would be able to pay the fare and cross the Underworld's rivers to reach the afterlife. Her face is solemn as she bows her head, but her eyes are dry when she looks up at him.

"We'll have to tell Chiron what we found here," she says, rising from the ground. "He'll want to know—"

The low, resonating sound of a bell tolling rings through the air, cutting her off before she can finish that thought. James turns his face away, averting his gaze just as a flash of green light fills the church and a hovering figure appears above their heads. He wears the face of a man, but his glowing golden eyes betray his godly nature. His hair is silver-white—the color of starlight—shorn short with a few stray strands falling into his face. A curved scythe peeks over his shoulder, strapped onto his back between the dark, feathered wings sprouting from his spine.

"Thanatos," Áine says, sounding resigned.

The god of Death inclines his head in silent acknowledgment as he sinks to the ground beside them. James can still remember a time in his life when such a thing would have been shocking to him—to have Chthonic gods appearing out of thin air, seemingly on a whim—but such miracles no longer phased him after years spent as the sworn warrior partner of the lord of the Underworld's favorite daughter. Somewhere along the way, these sorts of encounters had become his new normal.

Thanatos draws his scythe from his back. With careful precision, he sweeps the blade through the air above where the dead boy lay, severing some unseen tether of the soul and freeing a luminous purple butterfly to rise from the remains. The butterfly gracefully glides upwards and perches itself on one of Thanatos's shoulders. James watches the beating of its wings, staring intently at the soul of the boy who had died. He wonders what his soul will look like when he dies; wonders what hers looked like, the day she—

He blinks hard and looks away, swallowing past the sudden burning ache in the back of his throat. When he turns his gaze towards Áine, he finds her already watching him, her face soft with wordless compassion that James can barely stand to see. For someone who had spent years doing his best to make himself unreadable, James sometimes felt as if his parabatai could read him like an open book, uncovering all the pages he'd gone through so much trouble to conceal in a single glance.

Thankfully, her gaze does not linger for long before she dedicates her attention to Thanatos. "He did not have a gentle death," Áine points out, inclining her head towards the fluttering psyche on the god's shoulder.

Thanatos nods in agreement. "This was a special request."

"He sent you, didn't he?" She asks glumly.

"Lord Hades requests your presence," he confirms in his slow, emotionless cadence.

Áine stubbornly sets her jaw. "Tell him I'm busy. This quest—"

"—is a diversion," Thanatos finishes. James hears a note of something else creeping into the god's ordinarily indifferent tone; a faint inflection of disapproval that hadn't been there previously.

James's eyes narrow. He takes a closer look at Áine and notices the unmistakably guilty expression on his parabatai's face. What, he wonders, have you gotten us into this time?

"It's important," she insists. "The monster attacks have gotten more and more frequent ever since Kronos first stirred. It's my duty—"

"Do you not have a duty to your family as well?" Thanatos asks. "To your father? Your siblings?"

"My sister is safe at camp," Áine replies, averting her gaze.

James thinks of Devyn Cross—Áine's only remaining living adopted sister. Remembers how she'd grabbed him by the wrist with a grip tight enough to bruise before he and Áine had left for this mission. She's running, Devyn had warned him. James had ignored her, as he always ignored her. There was no great love lost between himself and the daughter of Ares. Now he wonders if perhaps he should have listened to her. Should have noticed how desperate Áine had been when she'd gone to Chiron and begged him for this task; how quiet she'd been during their travels—more quiet than her usual taciturn self. How had he missed it?

Because you were thinking only of yourself and nothing else, an annoying voice says inside his head. As per usual.

"You know that is not who I speak of."

"She is the only sister I know," she insists.

A realization slowly dawns on him as James begins to fit the puzzle pieces together—the mission to retrieve two demigods from some military academy that Áine had pleaded with Chiron not to send her on; her insistence that there was another pressing matter that she and James absolutely needed to attend to at that very same time; Devyn's warning—she's running. He'd never stopped to think about what Áine had been running from. Or in this case, who.

He shoots his parabatai an accusatory look. "Áine," he says slowly. "Tell me he's not saying what I think he's saying."

Áine won't meet his eyes. "Jamie..."

"Tell me," he repeats, more insistent this time but with none of the forced persuasiveness he knows his words could hold if he only wished for them to.

"I didn't want to meet them," she whispers, her words barely audible above the faint ringing in his ears. "If they died... you of all people should understand, Jamie. After everything that's happened... I won't go through that again. Would you?"

In his mind's eye, James sees a flash of strawberry blonde curls and sky blue eyes; the first rays of sunrise after the darkness of night; two girls walking with their fingers entwined; a bloody hand cradled between his smaller palms. "Don't," he warns, wincing at the crack in his voice. "Don't pretend like this is the same."

Áine lifts her head and finally meets his gaze. "I'm not pretending," she says calmly. Gone is the guilt from before, as if she'd hidden it somewhere far away that he can't see. "You are, though. Those kids... what good is it for them to know me?" She straightens up, standing as tall as she can. "No, there's never any good... This is it. It's just how I feel, Jamie."

"How you feel?" He challenges. "Or how Devyn tells you your coin tosses should make you feel?"

She looks away again. "Is there any difference?"

"No," James agrees bitterly, suddenly bone-weary at the prospect of rehashing this old, tired argument of theirs right now. "There never is with you."

He hates fighting with Áine. It was rare that they ever fought thanks to his parabatai's mild temperament and abundantly patient nature, but when they did, it left James feeling unmoored until their reconciliation. For that reason, their arguments never lasted very long, smoothed away by a single gesture; a fist pressed to the chest, rubbed in a circle over the heart—the sign for I'm sorry.

Thanatos clears his throat. "Should I tell Lord Hades that you intend to refuse his request?"

"No," Áine says sullenly. "He'll just send someone else and I'm not in the mood for a visit from Alecto."

"Gods, please, no," James agrees. A visit from any of the three Furies was enough to ruin anyone's day, but Alecto was particularly unpleasant even when in relatively good spirits.

"And will it just be you...?" Thanatos asks her.

Áine shoots James a pleading look, but there was no need for it. He never would have refused to go with her, no matter that they'd argued only moments before. He would go with her anywhere, always, regardless. That is what it meant to be parabatai, after all. To bind your soul to another's, going where your partner goes; fighting at your partner's side; letting nothing but death ever separate you from them.

He heaves a dramatic sigh. "As if I wasn't having a bad enough hair day already," he complains. "The humidity is awful down there. It does dreadful things to my curls. And the lighting. The lighting! It makes my complexion look ghastly."

Áine smiles and touches her hand to her heart, making a circle with her fist, before telling Thanatos, "Both of us."

"If any of your father's infernal children try to trick me into eating something down there again, I'll be very upset," James continues. "Furious, even."

Áine reaches for his hand and James takes hers in his, holding tightly to the closest thing he has to a heart. Thanatos unfurls his wings, curling them around the two demigods and the trio vanishes from the church with the toll of a bell and a flash of brilliant green light, leaving behind nothing but shadows.

♥

Contrary to popular belief, Hell is cold.

James jams his hands into his pockets as he stares out the window of Áine's bedroom in Hades's palace. His parabatai's audience with her father had not included a plus one invitation, so he'd been banished to her bedroom to await her return—the only place, she claimed, that he would stay out of trouble. A basin of warm water and a spare change of clothes were already waiting for him in Áine's room when he arrived, allowing James to clean the worst of the grime off of his skin. After tidying up a bit and bandaging his scrapes and scratches, he'd amused himself briefly by poking around Áine's things; pestering her spindly-looking, sharp-toothed potted plants, making faces at the bugs she kept caged in thoughtfully designed enclosures, attempting to play a few notes of a song on a delicately crafted lyre, browsing the volumes in her bookshelf for anything to read. He'd finally selected one of the books at random and settled down at her velvet-cushioned window seat, but quickly discarded the book after repeatedly attempting to read the first passage and losing his place as the letters appeared to float off the page.

From his place at the window, he has a perfect view of the glowing outline of Elysium and its Blessed Isles, the brightest place the Underworld has to offer without any sunlight of its own. Every time James blinks, the Elysian lights seem to change color—pale blue-greens and soft purple-pinks and warm golden-yellows; a paradise of kaleidoscope colors. It's the sort of place, he thinks, that a girl who loved to watch sunrises might have been happy.

He'd asked about her only once in all the times he's come here. The very first time Áine had brought him down below, James had been unable to stop the question from leaving his lips. Is she—? He'd choked on the words, unable to finish the rest of the question after his throat closed up and panic seized him. But Áine had known what he'd been asking, anyways. She always knew. She was offered Elysium, she'd said in her gentle way of speaking, her eyes full of sadness. But chose rebirth instead. She isn't here.

It'd been both a relief and a terror to hear those words. He'd been glad to know that she was not here, mindlessly wandering Asphodel's fields for the rest of eternity; never to see the sun and sky she loved so dearly ever again. The more cowardly part of him had also been relieved that he would not have to face her yet. To look upon her as a shade and know that it was his fault she was in this place. His fault she was dead. James wouldn't have been able to bear that. And yet, the knowledge that somewhere out in the world, her soul walked the earth again was an entirely different sort of torment. If their paths ever crossed again, she would not know him—not after the River Lethe cleansed the memories of her past life away. It left an ache in him. One that sometimes woke him from dreams in a cold sweat, shaking and gasping for breath while clutching desperately at his chest, as if he had been trying to tear out his beating heart in his sleep.

His first few weeks at camp, he'd woken his cabin with screaming nightmares. Bad dreams weren't uncommon for demigods, but James had still hated the attention it earned him—and, even worse, the pity. He'd started to avoid sleeping in his cabin, sneaking out at night to roam the camp and sweet-talking anyone he encountered to keep them from reporting him to Chiron or Mr. D for being out past curfew. Even the cleaning harpies that prowled the grounds weren't immune to his winsome smiles—James had learned over the years that he could get a lot from people with just a smile—or the charm he'd inherited from his mother.

Eventually, he reached the age where he was able to sign up for late night patrols and no longer had to bend the rules to stay out of his cabin at night. By then, he'd gotten his dreams mostly under control, so it didn't matter as much, but James still didn't like to be in his cabin if he could avoid it. It wasn't that he wanted to be alone, but solitude had become a necessity for him—a rule he could not break without disastrous consequences. Áine was the only exception, but James didn't like to think about why that was the case.

The door to Áine's room creaks open and James finds his parabatai standing in the entryway. Just the sight of her loosens some of the tightness in his chest. He isn't sure how long it had been since she'd left—time worked differently in the Underworld than it did above-ground—but James is unbearably glad to have her back.

He leaps to his feet with a flourish and drops into a low bow. "The princess returns!"

Áine rolls her eyes at him, letting the door slam shut behind her before trudging over to her bed and collapsing onto it.

"Oof," he observes, crossing the room and flopping down next to her. "I take it things didn't go well with father dearest?"

"We're staying the night," she grumbles. "Then he's dropping us off on Olympus at the solstice tomorrow."

James grimaces, realizing that the words Olympus and solstice mean that he will undoubtedly be seeing his mother. He hadn't thought the solstice would be coming so soon, but time—like many other things—worked differently in the Underworld than it did on the surface. "Lucky us."

"My stepmother wanted to rope us into a formal family dinner, but I ordered takeout for us," Áine offers as a small consolation prize. "Real, non-Underworld takeout."

He perks up. "Chinese?"

"The very best Los Angeles has to offer."

James clasps his hands together and brings them to his heart. "You're a saint, Áine Cross."

"It comes with the name," she quips.

James is privately skeptical about that. He's met her sister, after all. Devyn Cross is definitely not the saintly type.

A knock at her bedroom door comes sometime after, announcing the arrival of their food—delivery courtesy of what appears to be an undead chauffeur-looking fellow. Áine thanks the skeleton by name before depositing the food on a low table surrounded by floor cushions. They divvy up steaming boxes of takeout—Áine claiming the broccoli beef and sweet and sour chicken for herself; James choosing a container of Kung Pao shrimp and a side of pork dumplings. When he reaches for a plastic fork, Áine snatches it away and tosses it across the room.

"Not in my house," she scolds, handing him a pair of chopsticks instead.

James takes them and puts them to use.

They both dig into their food like it's the first meal they've seen in days—which, in a way, it sort of is after living off protein bars and trail mix for the better part of a week. Neither of them leave any leftovers behind, scraping the bottom of their containers for whatever scraps remain before discarding the empty boxes.

Clean, full, and satisfied, James sprawls out on the plush carpet, arms folded behind his head. Áine does the same and they stare up at the domed ceiling with its enchanted twinkling stars, enchanted by Mother Nyx herself, Áine had shared with him once. Somewhere amongst the stars blinks the constellation of Áine's oldest adoptive sister, Aoife Cross. James purposely avoids searching out her cluster of stars; the memory too close to—

He blinks and clears his throat. "So," he says, trying for light and conversational. "Are we going to talk about it?"

Áine lets out a sigh. "There isn't much to say."

"Áine."

"Jamie."

"No keeping secrets from your parabatai," James insists. "It's against the rules."

"What rules?"

"The ones I've just made up."

That earns him a laugh from her which makes him feel pleased. "Those rules sound very serious."

"They are."

She's silent for a long time after that. So long, in fact, that James considers sitting up to check and see if she's fallen asleep right there on the floor. But then, finally, she speaks. "Their names are Nico and Bianca di Angelo. They're my father's children."

His brow furrows. "I thought you were the only one since the pact."

"I am," Áine says, taking a deep breath. "They were born in the 1940s before the pact was ever made. To protect them from Zeus, my father had them checked into the Lotus Hotel and Casino. They were in there for seventy years."

"Holy shit," James mutters, his mind racing at the revelation. "How did they get out?"

"My father," she replies, the first hint of real anger creeping into her voice. "After Percy Jackson was claimed and my father learned that Poseidon too had broken the oath, he decided that seventy years was long enough for his children to live in hiding. He sent Alecto to retrieve them and they were enrolled in a military academy directly after. They've been there ever since."

"Westover Hall," he realizes, remembering the name of a school where a satyr protector had been stationed undercover to scout out any half-bloods. The same school Chiron had sent an extraction team to in order to escort a pair of demigods to camp while James and Áine went off on their own separate mission.

"Exactly," she confirms grimly.

"But why would your father bring them out now?" James asks. "I mean, there's sort of a war going on right now. Seems like it would have been safer for them to stay there until this all... plays out."

She laughs and the sound is so bitter that it surprises him. Between the two of them, he's usually the jaded one. "It's like you said—there's a war going on. If one of us dies, he'll want to be sure he has replacements."

At this, James does sit up, looking over at her sharply. "No one is dying."

Just the thought of Áine dying makes him feel sick. If anything ever happened to her, James is certain it would destroy him. He could not—no, would not—bear an existence where she was not at his side. But there was no denying the fact that most half-bloods lived short lives and that children of the Big Three lived lives that were shorter than most, especially after the gods swore their oath. Breaking an oath sworn on the Styx did not come without a price and it was often the children of the Big Three who paid it.

"Everyone dies eventually, Jamie," Áine says softly. The words hang heavily in the air between them. "Some just go sooner than others."

James's throat tightens. "Not you," he replies. "You'll live to be a hundred and thirty."

Áine's mismatched eyes glisten in the flickering lights of her room and she smiles at him sadly. James thinks that he might hate that smile, just a little bit, if only because he knows it is an expression born out of pity. She does not believe a word he says, having already accepted her fate of an early death; the same fate that awaited all children of the Big Three, destined for either godhood or the grave before they could reach the age of eighteen.

"I mean it," he insists, his voice rising in both speed and volume as he tries to convey his sincerity to her. "And—and if, somehow, you do die before then, I'll come here and I'll find you and I'll bring you back myself. Your father would let me; I wouldn't even have to convince him. And if he won't let me, then I'll—I'll just join you here, permanently. I swear it, Áine. I swear it on the—"

Before he can finish that sentence, Áine is moving; a blur of motion and shadow as she sits up and claps her hand over his mouth, silencing the words and preventing him from swearing the oath.

"No," she says firmly. "If you ever try to swear something like that on the Styx again, I promise I'll haunt you forever."

James licks her hand to try and get her to remove it. She doesn't even flinch. What he wants to say is, At least you'll still be with me.

"If I die young someday," she continues, pretending to humor him with her use of the word if, when he knows there is no doubt about it in her mind, "then I will find you in my next life and the life after that and the life after that. And only once you turn a hundred and thirty years old will you meet me here. Not a moment sooner."

"But how will you know me?" He asks, the words muffled by her hand. "The Lethe—"

"Some things even the Lethe can't erase," she tells him, her face solemn and reassuring. "Now, swear to me you won't do anything stupid if something happens to me."

"I think that's asking quite a lot," James, who was often stupid, points out.

She shoots him an annoyed look. "Swear to me you won't do yourself harm or try to follow me before it's your time. Swear it. Not on the Styx or any other god—swear it on us."

James looks at her, taking in the sight of her kind face and her familiar mismatched eyes. He can't imagine a life for himself without her in it—Áine, who had merged her soul with his on the day they became parabatai; Áine, who had always been the better half of him. What did he care to keep living once she was gone?

"I swear," he says slowly, "on us."

What was one more lie, in a lifetime of deception?

AUTHOR'S NOTES.

🫀 me actually updating something like WE'RE SO BACK 💥

🫀 after months and months and months you guys have finally met JAMES ❗️ he is... my best friend, my pal, my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy. i just love him a lot. there's a certain degree of ambiguity surrounding him in this chapter which is intentional. he's like an onion. there's layers to him and his trauma that will slowly but surely be peeled back across this story so if you're wondering what tf is his deal... keep reading!

🫀 a lot of creative liberties have been taken in this fic regarding expansions or deviations from canon. in this chapter, we introduced an original monster called a Trógos demon (from the greek word trógon which just means eater). more monsters will show up across this story that paloma and i have come up with. they are not from canon. they are just disgusting gremlin creatures inspired by monsters from other series that we have repurposed for this fic. the concept of parabatai is also not from canon. this was taken from the shadowhunter series. the word parabatai itself originates from ancient greek warriors who fought at the side of a charioteer. in this story, it has very little to do with charioteering. parabatai are pairs of warriors who are sworn to fight at each other's side and protect one another. by swearing this oath, they are bonded in a way that is similar to the empathy link seen between percy and grover. they are very in sync in combat, share intense an emotional bond, and are deeply devoted to one another.

🫀 this brings me to ÁINE CROSS ❗️ áine is from paloma's percy fic ASYSTOLE. she is a daughter of hades. she and james are parabatai in this story. they are childhood besties and essentially platonic soulmates. for past trauma reasons, there is a certain level of codependency to their relationship that may not necessarily be healthy—especially on james's part, which will of course be explored further into the story. áine has her own complex past and mystique that you can learn more about in ASYSTOLE. go read it right now if you haven't already! 💥

🫀 much of the underworld mythos in this story is drawn from the video game hades instead of rick's underworld. many of the gods will also follow the portrayal of the gods in hades as well. it's no big secret that i'm not a huge fan of the way the gods are portrayed in pjo. while their portrayal makes sense in a series geared towards kids, this book will feature a portrayal that is a bit more nuanced and complex. this book will also be written towards an older more YA type audience rather than the middle-grade age group.

🫀 sorry about the general lack of annabeth (and percy and everyone else) in this chapter. fear not, they will appear in the next chapter at the SOLSTICE! we will also get to see james with mother dearest which i am looking forward to.

🫀 everyone pour one out for beau 🏹 son of apollo who james quite rudely dumped at the start of this chapter 🫡