Hey guys, here's the next part. Sorry that it took a while but I had exams and then my internet went down for a week, but it's here now. It's a bit of a filler but I hope that you still enjoy it.

After my phone call with Chiron, sleep was one of the last things on my mind. I couldn’t get the image of the kindly ones out of my mind. I had had the misfortune of meeting them once in the underworld when I was visiting Hades. They weren’t pretty creatures, and they delighted in bringing pain. They were very useful to Hades in that respect, they didn’t care what he asked them to do, they didn’t ask questions, they just did as they were told.

If Hades was sending them after Percy, that meant he seriously thought the kid could be involved with the problem of the missing master bolt. But why? Percy doesn’t even know what he is! Let alone what the master bolt is. It doesn’t make any sense.

I was pacing up and down in Chiron’s study, trying to make sense of it all, but struggling. How did Hades even find out about Percy? What even made him think Percy was involved? Why did he send the furies after him? Mrs Dodds had been hiding as a school teacher for a long time, just watching him. Surely, she would have realised the boy’s ignorance during that time. Why did she wait so long to attack?

None of this makes any sense!

A quick glance at the clock told me that we were well into the small hours of the morning now. But I wasn’t tired. I couldn’t sleep now. I needed answers. And there was only one place that I was going to get them from. I need to speak with Hades.

And that’s how I found myself in the underworld at 4 in the morning in front of a very tired and slightly grumpy Hades. One thing you should probably know about Hades is that he loves his sleep, and doesn’t like to be disturbed. So you can imagine that he was a tad grouchy when I rocked up demanding answers.

Finding him had been a slight challenge, as for all the times that I’ve been to the underworld I’ve never seen Hades’ bedroom and so I had no clue where it was. This meant that when I teleported into the throne room of the underworld I was completely alone. For some reason, I don’t know why, I just imagined that he would be sitting in his throne wide awake. I guess that it was strange for me to think of anyone else asleep when my own mind was so awake and spinning at a hundred miles an hour. But he wasn’t there, and I had no clue how to find him.

Instead of going to look for someone who could point me in the right direction (which, in hind sight, might have been the better idea) I decided to just shout for him and hope that he heard and came to my call.

“HADES!” I shouted as loudly as I could, causing the sound to echo off of the walls. “I need to speak to you!” I cried out again when nothing happened.

I was just about to shout again, when I got a reaction. The ground began to shake and Hades’ booming voice thundered around the room.

“How DARE you wake me! How dare you summon me like a DOG! Who do you think you are?” His voice roared.

“Your favourite daughter.” I said with a smile on my face. I wasn’t scared at all by his intimidation techniques, I’d seen them all before. Heck, he taught them to me. As soon as the words had left my lips the ground stopped trembling and Hades appeared at the other end of the throne room.

“Oh it’s you, Izzy.” He said much more calmly. “Well, what in Styx’s name do you want? It’s four in the morning for Olympus’ sake!” He carried on, now only slightly grouchy, rather than murderously angry like he’d been before.

“I just wanted to know why you decided to try and kill one of my demigods? Surely you didn’t expect for me to never find out about it!” I demanded angrily with my hands on my hips. Hades knew that I cared for all demigods, they’re my responsibility, and I was pissed that he thought I’d let him murder one.

Hades clearly heard the anger in my voice as he now looked at me sheepishly, like a little boy who was caught doing something he knew that he shouldn’t by someone he knew wasn’t going to punish him. But, oh boy, was he wrong if he thought I was going to let this slide. I may never have met this Percy yet, but I was still his goddess and it is my duty to protect him. Even if it is from my father.

“You weren’t meant to find out about that.” He muttered, whilst shuffling his feet.

“Of course I was going to find out about it, Chiron is posted at the kid’s school, watching him. I think he might just notice if a Kindly One tries to kill him!” I said harshly.

“Well, if it makes any difference, she didn’t succeed. She turned up in the underworld a few hours ago, looking rather worse for wear, ranting about Anaklusmos.” Hades said with a weak smile, as though this was meant to make me feel better about the fact that he had put a hit out on one of MY kids.

“Oh well that’s fine then! Everything is good now!” I said sarcastically, whilst clapping my hands in fake joy. “It doesn’t matter that you tried to assassinate a twelve year old boy or that you caused major problems for Chiron (who, by the way, has had to do some serious memory work to make sure that nobody even remembers “Mrs Dodds” ever existed), the fact that Percy, a boy with no hero training, killed the fury makes everything alright!”

“I had my reasons for doing it.” Hades mumbled under his breath, but I heard him.

“And what were they, may I ask? You wouldn’t by any chance be referring to the missing master bolt, could you? Because that is a ridiculous idea! Percy doesn’t even know about the existence of gods yet. He has no clue what he is, how could he possibly know anything about the master bolt, let alone steal it!” I cried out exasperated.

 “I’m not the only one who thinks that that kid knows more than he’s letting on.” Hades grumbled quietly.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, confused.

“Nothing. It means nothing. Now I think that this conversation is over. I’ve been very cooperative considering what time it is, and I suggest that we both go back to bed.” Hades said quickly but with a tone of finality, which told me I wasn’t going to be getting anything more from him tonight.

I grudgingly went back to my cabin, but whilst I was lying in bed a whole string of new questions flitted through my mind. Hades was very quick to end that conversation, what was he hiding? What didn’t he want me to know? Why the sudden end to the conversation? I was so confused. I felt like instead of getting answers I had just created more problems and questions for myself.

The next morning, I went about my usual chores as normal but my mind wasn’t on what I was doing, it was running over my conversations with both Chiron and Hades from last night. I wasn’t sure what was going on but I knew that whatever it was it was big, and this Percy Jackson was at the heart of heart of it.

During the day I found myself hovering around Chiron’s cabin straining my ears to hear if the phone was ringing. I was anxious for news, I wanted to know what was going on with Percy and Chiron and why Hades acted the way he did. Basically, I wanted information and it was most probably going to come from Chiron, now I only had to wait for him to call.

The day went past really slowly and I know that I was starting to annoy Dionysus as whenever he spoke to me he had to repeat himself at least twice before what he said really sank in.

“What is up with you today?” Alex asked as we watched the Apollo kids racing each other across the lake. “You seem very . . . distracted.”

“Oh do I?” I mumbled, not really sure what to tell him.

“Yeah you do.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” I said quietly looking down into my lap. I knew that as a minor god Alex had heard about the missing master bolt but he didn’t know about Percy and what with Hades attempting to kill him, the fewer people who knew about Percy the better.

“Liar. What’s wrong?” Alex said with a small smirk on his face.

“I just told you I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong.” I persisted, still unable to look at him directly.

“Yeah, but that was a lie.” He said quietly, causing my head to snap up towards him. How did he know that? I was a brilliant liar. No one could tell when I lied. He lifted his hand and softly cupped the side of my face, whilst smiling at me. “You can’t lie to me, Izzy. I know you too well.” My heart melted a little at that, no one had ever paid so much attention to me. “So Izzy, shall we try this again? What is it that’s troubling you? Let me help you.” He said whilst closing the gap between us and leaning his forehead against mine. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to figure out where to start. “Is . . . is this about what we said yesterday?” Alex asked, suddenly looking very nervous and afraid of what I was going to say. What? He thought that I was regretting saying that I loved him?

“No. No, it’s not about that. I love you. I’m sure about that.” I reassured him. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” I asked, my stomach dropping at the possibility.

“No, I’m in no doubt about that. I love you too. It’s just today you’ve been distant and lost in thought and I was worried.” Alex admitted.

“You don’t have to be worried about that. I don’t see my feelings for you changing for a while.” I smiled.

“Good. So what is it that’s been worrying you?” Alex asked again, looking into my eyes with such intensity and interest that I was startled. He genuinely cared about what was troubling me. So I told him, I told him everything that had happened, everything Chiron had said and everything Hades had said. Once I started speaking I found it hard to stop, and before I knew it I was ranting.

“So what do you think?” I asked once I had finished.

“I think that this kid is going to be trouble. He’s already in trouble and he doesn’t even know about us yet.” Alex chuckled whilst shaking his head.

“That’s not helpful.” I said and lightly punched his chest. “You’re meant to tell me what I should do.”

“Sorry, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell you the magic way to fix this because I don’t know it.” Alex said wrapping his arms around me.

“I don’t think that there’s a magic solution out there, but I really hope that there is, because I can’t see this ending well otherwise.” I muttered quietly whilst trying to hide in Alex’s chest.