THE HELICOPTER LANDED JUST BEYOND THE EASTERN HILLS, OUTSIDE THE CAMP’S BOUNDARY. Cassidy wondered what Rachel had said that managed to convince her father to lend her a helicopter. They knew Mr Dare was a pain in the ass and his relationship with his daughter wasn't great. Apollo looked eager to see his oracle again. He jogged across the camp with Meg in tow. Cassidy followed more slowly, they could still feel small remnants of the poison. They found themselves involuntarily wincing every few steps. Fluffy stuck next to them incase they needed support.

Rachel met them on the hill near the entrance to her cave. Cassidy couldn't help but notice that Millard and Herbert weren't with her. She looked older and exhausted. Cassidy realised that Python reclaiming Delphi must have been taking a toll on her. "Rachel?" Apollo asked. He seemed to notice the change in her demeanour as well. "So it's true" Rachel said, her shoulders slumping as she studied Apollo. Understandable, he was rather disappointeing. Below, the camp was starting to wake, likely due to the noise made by the helicopter. The helicopter in question rose back up over the hills and flew over the camp.

Apollo turned to Meg. "Would you tell the others that Rachel needs some space? Fetch Chiron. He should come up. The rest should wait" he said. Cassidy didn't expect Meg to listen, if anything they expected her to kick Apollo but instead, she glanced nervously at Rachel, turned, and trudged down the hill.

"A friend of yours?" Rachel asked. "Sort of, she's kind of his master now" Cassidy said. "Long story" Apollo added. "Yes, I have a story like that, too" Rachel said. "Shall we talk in your cave?" Lester suggested. Rachel pursed her lips. "You won’t like it. But yes, that’s probably the safest place"

Cassidy hadn't entered the cave since they'd left for Camp Jupiter on the Argo II. Remnants of Rachel's frustration lay strewn across it. The sofas were overturned. The coffee table had a broken leg. The floor was strewn with easels and canvases. Even Rachel’s tripod stool, the throne of prophecy itself, lay on its side on a pile of paint-splattered drop cloths. Rachel's art which once decorated the walls had been blotted out with a sloppy coat of white paint. Nearby, a roller was stuck in an encrusted tray.

"I got frustrated" She waved listlessly at the wreckage. "Your art…" Apollo gaped at the field of white. "There was a lovely portrait of me right there" Cassidy rolled their eyes. Rachel looked ashamed. "I- I thought a blank canvas might help me think" she explained.

The three did their best to clean up. Fluffy just watched. They hauled the sofas back into place to form a sitting area. Rachel left the tripod stool where it lay. A few minutes later, Meg returned. Chiron followed, ducking his head to fit through the entrance. Cassidy, Rachel and Apollo sat at the wobbly coffee table while Fluffy sat at Cassidy's feet. Rachel and Apollo were sharing lukewarm Arizona tea with stale crackers. Cassidy had passed on the tea but they didn't have anything against the crackers. Especially not when the taste was washed down with a little soda.

"Rachel" Chiron sighed with relief. "Where are Millard and Herbert?" He asked. Rachel bowed her head. "They arrived at my house badly wounded. They… they didn’t make it" The centaur trotted over and lowered himself to the ground, folding his legs underneath himself. Cassidy could have sworn they saw new grey hairs in his beard. Meg joined them on the couch. Rachel leaned forward "You first, tell me what’s been going on here" She said.

Cassidy brought her up to speed on the disappearances while Apollo added his input now and again. He explained about the three-legged race and the side trip to Delphi.
Chiron blanched. "I did not know this. You went to Delphi?" Cassidy shrugged "Well it's not like we did it on purpose"

Rachel stared at Apollo in disbelief. "The Delphi. You saw Python and you…" Cassidy got the feeling she wanted to say 'and you didn’t kill him?' "At present, I cannot defeat Python. I am much too weak. And… well, the Catch-88" Apollo explained. "The catch what?" The child of Dionysus asked. Chiron sipped his Arizona tea. "Apollo means that we cannot send a quest without a prophecy, and we cannot get a prophecy without an Oracle" Rachel stared at her overturned tripod stool. "And this man…the Beast.
What do you know about him?" She asked.

"Not much" Apollo explained what he had seen in my dream, and what he, Meg and Cassidy had overheard in the Labyrinth. "The Beast apparently has a reputation for snatching up young demigods in New York. Meg says…" He faltered when he saw Meg's expression. Looking between the two Cassidy guessed that she'd told him something sensitive about her past and he'd said too much. They took a sip of their Coca Cola.

"Um, she’s had some experience with the Beast" Apollo said instead. Chiron raised his brows. "Can you tell us anything that might help, dear?" He asked. Meg sank into the sofa’s cushions. "I've crossed paths with him. He's- he's scary. The memory is blurry" She said. "Blurry" Chiron repeated. Meg became very interested in the cracker crumbs on her dress. "Yes, blurry" Cassidy said, their voice came out sharper than they'd meant it to.

Rachel gave Lester a quizzical look. He shook his head.
The oracle seemed to get the message. "That’s all right, Meg" she said. "I have some information that may help" She fished her phone from her coat pocket. "Don’t touch this. You guys have probably figured it out, but phones are going even more haywire than usual around demigods. I’m not technically one of you, and even I can’t place calls. I was able to take a couple of pictures, though" She turned the screen toward us. "Chiron, you recognize this place?" The nighttime shot showed the upper floors of a glass residential tower. It looked to be somewhere in downtown Manhattan.

"That is the building you described last summer, where you parleyed with the Romans" Chiron said. Rachel nodded "Yeah, something didn’t feel right about that place. I got to thinking… how did the Romans take over such prime Manhattan real estate on such short notice? Who owns it? I tried to contact Reyna, to see if she could tell me anything, but-"

"Communications problems?" Chiron guessed. "Exactly. I even sent physical mail to Camp Jupiter’s drop box in Berkeley. No response. So I asked my dad’s real estate lawyers to do some digging" Rachel said. Meg peeked over the top of her glasses. "Your dad has lawyers? And a helicopter?" She asked "Several helicopters" The oracle sighed. "He's annoying. Anyway, that building is owned by a shell corporation, which is owned by another shell corporation, blah, blah, blah. The mother company is something called Triumvirate Holdings"

"Triumvirate… What does that mean?" Cassidy asked. Meg made a sour face. "A triumvirate is a ruling council of three" Apollo explained. "At least, that’s what it meant in ancient Rome"

"Which is interesting" Rachel said, "Because of this next shot" She tapped her screen. The new photo zoomed in on the building’s penthouse terrace, where three shadowy figures stood talking together. Men in business suits, illuminated only by the light from inside the apartment. Their faces were hidden. "These are the owners of Triumvirate Holdings" Rachel said. "Just getting this one picture wasn’t easy" She blew a strand of hair out of her face. "I’ve spent the last two months investigating them, and I don’t even know their names. I don’t know where they live or where they came from. But I can tell you they own so much property and have so much money, they make my dad’s company look like a kid’s lemonade stand"

"The Beast said that his organization was everywhere, he mentioned he had colleagues" Cassidy recalled. "Adult demigods? I can’t imagine they would be Greek, but perhaps Roman? If they helped Octavian with his war-" Chiron began "Oh, they helped" Rachel said. "I found a paper trail. Not much, but you remember those siege weapons Octavian built to destroy Camp HalfBlood?"
"The onager sale" Cassidy nodded, making a face.

"I don't" Meg said. Rachel smiled patiently. "Sorry, Meg. You seem so at home here, I forgot you were new. Basically, the Roman demigods attacked this camp with giant catapulty things called onagers. It was all a big misunderstanding. Anyway, the weapons were paid for by Triumvirate Holdings" Chiron frowned. "That is not good"

"I found something even more disturbing" Rachel continued. "You remember before that, during the Titan War, Luke Castellan mentioned he had backers in the mortal world? They had enough money to buy a cruise ship, helicopters, weapons. They even hired mortal mercenaries"

"Don’t remember that, either" Meg said. "Neither do I" Fluffy offered. "That's because you hadn't been created yet" Cassidy reminded. Apollo rolled his eyes. "Meg, we can’t stop and explain every major war to you! Luke Castellan was a child of Hermes. He betrayed this camp and allied himself with the Titans. They attacked New York. Big battle. I saved the day. Et cetera" Cassidy bristled. They knew they should take it with a grain of salt but they couldn't help but think of Castor, Silena, Beckendorf, Ethan, and the other demigods who had given their lives only to have a god who'd barely helped to take all the credit. Sensing their irritation, Fluffy law a paw on their lap.

Chiron coughed and continued before Cassidy could snap at Apollo. "At any rate, I do remember Luke claiming that he had lots of supporters. We never found out exactly who they were" he said. "Now we know" Rachel said. "That cruise ship, the Princess Andromeda, was property of Triumvirate Holdings"

"These men…" Lester picked up an empty tube of burnt sienna paint. "I’m afraid they are not modern demigods" Rachel frowned. "You think they’re ancient demigods who came through the Doors of Death like Medea, or Midas? The thing is, Triumvirate Holdings has been around since way before Gaea started to wake. Decades, at least" Cassidy remembered what the beat had said "Centuries" They corrected. "The Beast said that he’d been building his empire for centuries" Apollo agreed.

The cave dropped into a tense silence.
Rachel shook her head. "Then who?-" She began "I don’t know" Apollo admitted. "But the Beast… in my dream, he called me his forefather. He assumed I would recognize him. And if my godly memory was intact, I think I would. His demeanor, his accent, his facial structure... I have met him before, just not in modern times"

"The name Triumvirate…" He tapped his forehead "The last triumvirate I dealt with included Lepidus, Marc Antony, and my son, the original Octavian. A triumvirate is a very Roman concept… like patriotism, skullduggery, and assassination" Chiron stroked his beard. "You think these men are ancient Romans?" He asked. "How is that possible? Hades is quite good at tracking down escaped spirits from the Underworld. He would not allow three men from ancient times to run amok in the modern world for centuries"

"Again, I do not know" Apollo looked like it physically pained him to say those words. Cassidy remembered he was the god of knowledge, it must have been a bad blow to his ego. "But it seems these men have been plotting against us for a very long time. They funded Luke Castellan’s war. They supplied aid to Camp Jupiter when the Romans attacked Camp Half-Blood. And despite those two wars, the Triumvirate is still out there, still plotting. What if this company is the root cause of… well, everything?" Apollo asked.

"That is a very troubling thought. Could three men be so powerful?" Chiron asked, his face and voice grave. Apollo spread his hands. "You've lived long enough to know, my friend. Gods, monsters, Titans… these are always dangerous. But the greatest threat to demigods has always been other demigods. Whoever this Triumvirate is, we must stop them before they take control of the Oracles" Rachel sat up straight. "Excuse me? Oracles plural?"

"Ah… didn't I tell you about them when I was a god?" Apollo asked. "No" Rachel said levelly, glaring at him "You did not tell me about them" Lester squirmed in his seat "Oh… well, my mortal memory has been faulty, you see. I had to read some books in order to-" he was cut off by the Oracle. "Oracles" she repeated. "Plural"

The ex god took a deep breath "In ancient times, there were many Oracles. Of course Delphi was the most famous, but there were four others of comparable power" he explained. Chiron shook his head. "But those were destroyed ages ago' he said. "So I thought" Apollo agreed. "Now I am not so sure. I believe Triumvirate Holdings wants to control all the ancient Oracles. And I believe the most ancient Oracle of all, the Grove of Dodona, is right here at Camp Half Blood"

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[Edited?: Yes]

[Author's note: I want to make a playlist for this book but idk which songs to add so feel free to send recs]
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