[res nullius]

Mark checked his phone for what seemed to be the umpteenth time , growing more frustrated by the minute. Rainier's gala would begin any minute, officially opening his search window, and Adhara was nowhere to be found.

Biting back a scathing curse in Ancient Greek, Mark stuffed his phone into his jean pocket and leant back against the light-pole. Standing on the corner of 59th and 5th, he looked just like any other young man weaving their way down New York's busiest street on a balmy, late spring evening. Lights illuminated the night, subverting the element of surprise that Mark and Adhara would need on their mission.

Mark sighed, turning his attention to the north, where the spotlights piercing the night indicated Rainier's gala at the Met. He glanced to the south, where the tip of the Empire State Building flickered with its glowing lights. He glanced before him to see two luminous violet eyes pierce the night—

"Would you relax?" Adhara snapped as Mark stumbled off the light-pole in shock.

Mark shot the daughter of Nemesis a look, a hand over his rapidly-beating heart. "Don't do that!"

Adhara merely quirked a defined brow, tired. She was dressed for an investigation, save the stylish heeled boots that would do them no favors in the stealth department. She raised a hand to her hip, where Mark caught glimpse of her NYPD badge clipped to her belt. "Can we go or are you going to continue faking a heart attack?"

Mark took a deep breath, readjusting the collar of his leather jacket. "Let's go," He managed, and the duo headed south on 5th avenue, towards the Empire State Building.

"So, remind me exactly what this mission consists of," Adhara asked as they reached the end of a block and waited for the light to change.

"Scope out Rainier's campaign headquarters and penthouse, and try to find anything incriminating," Mark responded as they started across the street.

Adhara made a face. "Incriminating of Rainier or incriminating of Menoetious?"

A chill spider-walked down Mark's spine at the Titan's name. Names held power in their world, and with a war so close on the horizon, maybe it'd be safer to avoid invoking them.

"Yeah," Mark cleared his throat, his voice gruff. "We need to find something incriminating of Rainier to be Menoetious."

"Easy enough," Adhara glanced at him quickly, before returning her focus to the streets full of pedestrians before them. "What happens if he's not Menoetious? Don't you only have a few days until this grace period is over?"

Of course, there was a possibility Adhara's questions had underlying truth to them, but Mark knew that he couldn't dwell on that. Rainier had to be Menoetious. There was no other option.

"Rainier's too shady not to be Menoetious," Mark confirmed as they crossed another street. "If he isn't, it's a slim possibility."

Adhara seemed to perk up at that. "Well, I know all about possibility."

Mark opened his mouth to fire back a witty retort, but they'd reached Rainier's campaign office. However, they couldn't go in, because despite Dale's intel reports, the building was not empty as she had told him it would be.

Adhara frowned, her violet eyes reflecting the lights from inside the campaign office. "Are we supposed to infiltrate it too?"

"No," Mark raised a hand to his ear, turning on his comms. "Dale, the campaign office isn't empty."

"What?" Dale asked, confused. Mark heard her clacking away on her keyboard, no doubt checking cameras and other feeds. "Okay, that's weird."

"What should we do?" Mark tried not to look conspicuous, strolling absent-mindedly away from the front steps. "Find a way in, or head to his penthouse instead?"

Dale cursed in Spanish, but huffed a breath. "Head to his penthouse for now. Maybe he's got some interns working late as the gala begins. That's so weird, though. Reese and Imogen reported that all his campaign officials are at the Met."

Mark knit his eyebrows together, averting his focus back to the busy campaign hall. "Should we worry?"

Dale hesitated. "No. Go to the penthouse. Don't waste any more time."

"Is that clear, at least?" Mark asked.

"Is that sass I'm detecting, Akagi?"

"Answer the question, Alcander."

Dale grumbled under her breath, but responded with, "Yes, it's clear."

"Thanks, Dale. You the bomb," Mark clicked his comms off, and heaved a deep sigh.

Adhara, who'd leant against the neighboring properties fence, looked up from inspecting her perfectly-shaped nails. "Oh, you're done? What's the move?"

"We've gotta get to Rainier's penthouse," Mark explained, casting a wary gaze at the campaign hall before them. "We'll have better luck there, apparently."

Adhara, never being one to dwell on things for too long, didn't ask questions. She merely shrugged and followed Mark down the street. "Where does Rainier live?"

"SoHo," Mark responded.

Adhara snorted. "There's a surprise." She muttered something under her breath in Nepalese, and Mark knew better than to ask. When Adhara slipped into her different tongues-whether Nepalese or cosmic speak—Mark couldn't keep up to comprehend any of it.

As the streets around them morphed from bustling city centers to muffled neighborhood confines, Mark felt the question he'd been longing to ask Adhara scratch its way up his throat, desperate to fill the void of silence. However, he forced it down. They had one mission to focus on; he didn't need another.

And yet, he couldn't fight the curiosity, the desperation. The last time Mark had seen Adhara, she'd given him life-changing news that Orion, Mark's former captor, had respawned from his injuries four years ago. He'd hardly had any time to dwell on it, not with the barrier breach and Sierra's death and Chase's awakening. But the silence around him seemed to quell the noise of the past few days, giving life to his shadowed worries.

Mark must have exuded some form of a troubled aura, because Adhara stood up like a rod had been taped to her back and turned to him, her raven hair flipping over her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"What? Nothing," Mark blinked. "Nothing's wrong."

"Mark, do you want to know why I'm good at my job?" Adhara insisted, fixing him with an inquisitive violet stare. It felt like she was looking right into his soul.

"Because you're very hardworking and work well with others?" Mark joked.

"No," Adhara deadpanned. "Because I can tell when criminals are lying without hooking them up to a detector. Your aura just plunged. What's on your mind?"

Well, there was not point trying to lie now. Mark cleared his throat, straightening up. "I was just thinking about...what you told me."

Realization etched itself into Adhara's face, and she nodded curtly. "Right."

"Have you found out anything else?" Mark asked, trying not to sound too desperate.

Mark deflated when Adhara shook her head. "No. I'm sorry. But that could be a good thing."

"How so?" Mark tore his gaze from Adhara, sweeping the upkept, wealthy streets of SoHo.

"If I haven't gotten new intel, he's probably not a threat," Adhara offered, but Mark knew by the tone of her voice that the possibility of that being the case was a stretch.

"Unless he's trying to lay low," Mark said. "Then come back to give us hell."

"He might be too weak."

"So, he'll be searching for strength and power and inherently, revenge."

"Mark," Adhara stopped, making him stop and face her as well. "I told you because you deserved to know, more than any."

"Some would make the argument that I should be the one kept in the dark about his possible revival." Mark began, but Adhara shut him down.

"So, what? You can live in the dark and only have him bring you into the light? Again? At least I warned you," She inclined her head, a queen resolute on her decision. "Right now, that's all I'm capable of doing."

Mark wanted so badly to believe what she was saying, that Orion wasn't a threat at the moment. But with everything happening around him, he had to take each threat for what they were at their basest of forms: threats.

Adhara opened her mouth to speak again, but her vision locked on something just behind Mark's head. "We're here."

Mark furrowed his brow, turning around to face a block full of high-rise, luxury apartment buildings. "Adhara, how do you—"

"I just do," Her voice took on a lacy quality, something in between charmspeak and the voice of a god. Mark recognized it though; Adhara's abilities were taking over.

Before Mark could protest, Adhara took off towards the front door of one such building, and Mark was forced to keep up. He darted past wealthy residents with briefcases and sunglasses, fancily-groomed dogs, and a baffled doorman until he caught up with Adhara in the glitzy elevator. The daughter of Nemesis knowingly hit the button for the top floor, then looked at him, her violet eyes somehow even brighter than usual.

"Be ready," Adhara's voice resonated through the elevator in such a way, Mark felt it in his bones. "Something's about to happen."

"Yeah, that'll put my nerves to rest," Mark muttered under his breath as the elevator halted, and the shiny, weighted doors slid open with a melodic chime.

Adhara sauntered out, a soldier on a mission, and Mark kept up at her side. She was like a bloodhound, sensing clues out of thin air, making abrupt turns and stops until they arrived at one white door at what Mark presumed was the last corridor on the floor. The number on the plaque, 1505, coincided with Mark's mission report. Adhara had found Rainier's apartment with only her powers and intuition.

Mark tried not to let that fact frighten him as much as it did.

"Do we have a key?" Adhara pointed to the lock.

"As a matter of fact," Mark fumbled around in his pocket, extricating the replica keycard that Dale had created. "We do."

Adhara stepped aside, and Mark swiped the card in the door, half-expecting it to trigger an alarm. Thankfully, it didn't, and the door unlocked.

However, when Mark and Adhara stepped through it, they weren't met with a lavish, well-furnished penthouse with ceiling-to-floor windows and marble countertops. Dale had been right: the apartment was empty. But she'd failed to mention that save the million-dollar view, the entire penthouse was vacant, without a materialistic trace of the wealthy politician that supposedly called it home.

~~

In short, Rainier's supposed penthouse was haunting. Save the appliances and the view, there was no sign of life in the apartment. No furniture, no pictures, no gadgets or possessions or whatsoever. Dust and dirt covered the floor in a carpet of its own fashion, and a chill hung in the air as if the windows were letting in an arctic breeze in the height of spring.

Mark raised his flashlight, flicking it around the room as he pressed a finger to his ear. "Dale?"

"What's up?" Dale's voice came to life in Mark's ear.

"The apartment is vacant."

"What?" Dale echoed.

"It's vacant. Are you sure you have the right address?"

"One hundred percent positive. What do you mean vacant?"

Mark bit back a grumble, digging out his phone, snapping a picture of the desolate main floor and sending it to Dale. He pressed his finger to his ear, awaiting her response.

"What the hell?" Dale muttered. "That makes no sense."

"Is this evidence enough?" Mark asked, resisting a chill. Something felt off about the whole penthouse, like they'd stepped into a haunted mansion instead of a high-rise.

"You need to find something, anything at all to pinpoint that Rainier is Menoetious," Dale insisted.

"Like what?" Mark asked, dragging a hand through his hair.

"Mark?" Adhara asked, and Mark whirled around to face the daughter of Nemesis walking towards him, something glittering in her hands. "I found something."

Adhara held the object up, a necklace with an opaque crystal of some kind glittering on the end of the long silver chain. It seemed to glitter even in the low light, like it was made of diamond and could refract any trace of light upon contact.

"What'd you find?" Dale asked.

"A necklace of some kind," Mark tilted his head. "It's crystalline, shiny. Maybe Rainier's got a girlfriend?"

Dale was silent, then suddenly Amelie was on the line. "Mark, send us a picture of the necklace."

Mark did so, and waited anxiously as the girls back at Camp Half-Blood analyzed it. He glanced at Adhara, as if she had a clue, but she merely shrugged.

"Where'd you find this?" Amelie came back on the line, her soft voice laced with urgency.

"Where'd you find it?" Mark relayed to Adhara.

"In a drawer." Adhara nodded over to where she'd found it.

Mark relayed the information, and Amelie drew out a breath. "You guys found an asterokinetic crystal. That thing has power. Like, godly power."

Mark met Adhara's gaze, realization passing through them like wavelengths. Adhara's powers were of cosmic descent as well. If this thing had power, maybe she could attempt to wield it.

Adhara gripped the crystal, examining it further. "Wait a minute...there's blood on this thing."

"What?!" Dale and Amelie's voices shrieked in unison in Mark's ear.

"Adhara, don't touch that—" Mark reached for it, but the sound of the front door slamming open interrupted him.

Standing in the doorway was a man dressed in dark clothing, with a face that seemed to continue shifting. Mark didn't recognize the man—not Orion, thank the gods—but had a feeling that this was the same mystery man that had killed Sierra. Adrenaline began to pump through Mark's veins, and his free hand inched towards the knife sheathed at his waist.

"That," Came the man's odd, yet familiar voice. "Is not yours."

"Who are you?" Mark demanded.

"You know me, half-blood. I see all." The man seemed to speak without moving his lips. His face looked to be obscured in shadows.

"How poetic," Adhara drawled, her voice dripping poison. However confident she sounded, Mark noticed her hand suddenly freeze on its journey to her gun. If this guy knew they were half-bloods, mortal weapons would do them no good.

"Please return that necklace to me," The man asked politely. "It is not yours."

"And unless you have a very keen fashion sense, I don't think it's yours, either," Mark rebuffed, drawing his knife.

"Then you leave me no choice," The man said simply, as if this was a minor inconvenience to his day. Other-worldly voices hissed as he moved, his shrouded eyes glowing a bright green.

At his side, Adhara cried out, gasping for breath. She stumbled towards the counter, clinging to the necklace in her hands for dear life. Her violet eyes began to glow just as brightly as her assailant's. The gem on the necklace shimmered white-hot.

Fury, hot and thick and fast like blood, welled up in Mark's soul. "What are you doing to her?" Mark roared.

The man said nothing, as if he were reveling in his attack in silence.

Mark yelled defiantly, throwing his knife with expert precision. The man dissolved into shadows, disappearing entirely.

Mark cursed in such a way, even the most hardened of sailors would have blushed. He all but flung himself towards Adhara's writhing figure, nearly blinded by the glow of her eyes and the pendant in her hands.

"The sun erupts, in pillars of fire. The earth destroyed, in moments dire. The seas claim the innocent, dragged to the deep. With love left behind, hell to reap. But as heroes divided, no peace shall remain. Accept thy darkness, accept thy name." Adhara began to ramble, her voice stronger and louder as if a hundred voices were speaking through her. She continued to say the same haunting message on repeat, the necklace growing brighter in her hands.

Mark fumbled for it, wrestling it out of Adhara's grip. He pressed a finger to his comms, where Amelie and Dale were demanding answers at all the noise and chaos.

"Amelie, get us out of here!" Mark demanded. "Adhara needs help!"

"What's going on—"

"DO IT!"

A bright, shimmering light like a supernova exploded around Mark and Adhara, and the next thing the son of Iris knew, he was kneeling at Adhara's side in the Library of Athena. Dale and Amelie whirled around from where they were standing at the computers, and Sophia, Nova, and Calum raced over to them. Nova and Calum picked Adhara up and carried her out of the Library.

"Took you long enough," Mark exhaled, breathing raggedly as he looked to Amelie.

The daughter of Hecate glanced from Mark, to Dale, to Adhara and back again. "Mark, I didn't teleport you guys here. I barely even moved."

Silence fell upon the room.

"That...that makes no sense," Mark got to his feet.

"Mark," Sophia stepped forward, nodding to his hands. "What's that?"

Mark glanced down, fear in his heart, and laid eyes upon the necklace, its bright light dimming in power. He looked back up wildly, his hands shaking.

Sophia extricated the necklace from his hands, examining it as she carried it over to Dale and Amelie. Amelie raised her hand before it, power suspending it in midair.

"It summons cosmic energy, that's for sure," Amelie reported. "Primary function would be teleportation."

"Who does the blood belong to?" Dale asked.

Amelie flicked her hand again, and her face fell as she turned to face the group.

"Kiara Fairwolf."