"I can explain," Jason's hands shot up in defense, still smoking slightly.

     "Jason Griffith," Percy stalked closer to the two of us, her fists curled by her sides.

     I stood up onto my shaking knees, and Queen Persephone walked past me. There was more fire in her eyes then had ever been in Jason's hands. She held a finger to his chest, pushing him backwards a few steps. Lafayette at his feet clicked menacingly.

     "You hid your identity from me! From your queen!" She snapped.

     "I hid it from everyone!" He growled back with just as much force, "and look around you, Persephone, here, on this island, you are no one's queen."

     "You're a demon." Her hand rested on the hilt of her silver dagger, the only weapon she'd been allowed.

     "I am an outcast." Jason cried, with more emotion than I had ever heard spilled out of him like a dam smashed to pieces.

     Perched on the corners of Jason's eyes, like twin falcons, were the shining evidence of tears. He was vulnerable. He was stripped to the raw with no other protection then his shaking voice. I was horrible, violently reminded that he was just a child. Everyone on this island was a child, all of them crushed under Percy's hands.

     "You don't understand," he wiped his eyes. "When the boat came I knew they were going to kill me. I was alone, I was only fifteen. I wasn't scooped up and offered a stable job and safety like you do with green-handed Daímonas. I was thrown to the streets and came within a brink of my life every single day. I couldn't trust anyone. Don't tell me I should have told you when my own parents wanted me dead because of this."

     Percy and Jason stood there, he was breathing heavily. His chest rose up and down like he was the constellation Eurus commanding the unlucky winds. Percy was breathing just as hard, her face twice as stiff. She was a confined storm cloud and her lightning finally touched the ground. Percy couldn't summon fire, but she could speak its language.

     I walked slowly between the two malevolent forces and pushed them apart, "calm down guys."

     "Surely, you're angry too, Craig, has he not betrayed us?" Percy scoffed.

     I didn't like the way she said us, "I don't think you should be angry at him. The fact that he kept it a secret is justified."

     The air between them crackled with energy, I could taste it on the tip of my tongue and feel it in the marrow of my jaw. I pushed them farther apart. Percy's face was crinkled like an old animal skin and it aged her. The bags under her eyes were painfully visible along with every hair that was out of pace. Jason was just scared; his skin was pale and clammy and I could see his hands shaking slightly.

     Percy let out a grunt and backed off. I let out a breath, then dropped down to my knees to where Bundi was lying, limp. I checked their pulse, it was there. I turned over their arm to check the wound and to my horror discovered the skin around the stiches was purple. Oh Kosmos. I picked them up and their shoulders and glanced up at Jason.

     "They need help," I begged.

     He jumped to my side immediately and helped me carry them. We struggled to get back to the main camp, back to the hospital tent, my head my spinning with fatigue but I knew I couldn't stop. I had a job to do now. We laid Bundi down on the table once more, there was a kid in there with his wrist on a splint who cleared out when he saw Bundi. I threw the flaps of the tent open

     I ran into Percy, who had been waiting outside.

     "We need to find Nole," Peri reminded me as she started tailing me.

     "How are you not mad at him?" Percy demanded, "don't you like him?"

     I let out a frustrated groan, "it's not that obvious."

     "He's probably hurt people, probably children," she pointed out.

     "He would never." I could feel the blades in my voice.

     "He's committed treason."

     I spotted Nole talking to another teenager in the shade of a tree. I ran up to him, ignoring Percy's incessant, immature squabbling. Nole stopped talking as I approached, I'm sure he could read the panicked look on my face.

     "It's Bundi," I told him.

     Nole immediately dropped his conversation and ran past me toward the hospital tent. Percy grabbed my wrist and I was forced to make eye contact with her cold blue irises. She stared me down and for one of the first times in my life I felt her power emanating off her like an icy halo of judgement.

     "You're making a mistake, getting so close to them," she growled.

    "I think you forget that I'm one of them too," my voice trembled and I pulled my wrist out of her grip and followed Nole into the distance.