Hestia's hearth was empty. It left a sprawling hole in the middle of the green that Natalia couldn't seem to draw her eye from. Hestia had never left Camp, even at the peak of the Titanomachy. Having her gone now seemed to drain a bit of life out of the place, only adding to the foreboding feeling spawned by Percy and Kathleens' absence.

In front of the hearth, completely disregarding the goddess' absence, two guys were hacking at each other with swords.

"Real blades?" Piper noted. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"That's sort of the point," Annabeth said. Then she winced, realizing the joke. "Uh, sorry. Bad pun. That's my cabin over there. Number six." She nodded toward the Athena cabin: a plainly elegant building with gray walls and a carved statue of an owl standing golden over the doorway. The door had been left open, as it almost always was (as any Athena kid could tell you, the fresh air helped them think) and Natalia spied the bookshelves lining the walls, the weapons racks strewn about, and the SMART board they'd begged Chiron for a month to get.

"Speaking of blades," she continued, "come here."

She led the way around the side of the cabin, to the big metal gardening shed that Athena used to house all of their surplus weapons. The shed was lined with all sorts of weapons, all of them gleaming like they'd been freshly polished, despite having sat there for gods knew how long.

"Every demigod needs a weapon," Annabeth explained. "Hephaestus makes the best, but we also have a pretty good selection. Athena is all about strategy—matching the right weapon to the right person. Let's see..."

She scanned over Piper like she was a battle plan, before turning toward the racks of weapons and pulling out a massive sword. It hit the ground with a resounding clang! as Piper struggled with the weight.

"No," all three girls chorused at once.

Annabeth rummaged a little farther back, coming out with exactly what Natalia had expected her to. She heaved a sigh.

"A shotgun?" Piper asked.

"Mossberg 500," Annabeth checked the pump action like it was no big deal. "Don't worry. It doesn't hurt humans. It's modified to shoot Celestial bronze, so it'll only kill monsters."

"Um, I think I'll leave the guns to Rylee," Piper said.

Annabeth tilted her head in question, "Rylee has a gun?"

Natalia turned to Piper, "Don't answer that question. You don't want to get her started."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Annabeth asked.

She was still talking to Piper when she answered. "Annie's obsessed with the logistics of, well...bringing a gun to a knife fight, I guess you could say. About the upper hand it could give to whoever's wielding it."

Annabeth shrugged. "Ammunitions innovation has accompanied practically every major battlefield victory in history. Who am I to challenge that status quo?"

Natalia smiled fondly at her.

"But you are right," Annabeth agreed, drawing back to the conversation at hand, "too flashy."

She put the shotgun back and started poking around a row of crossbows. Piper began to look around for herself, coming to an abrupt stop when she spotted something resting in the corner.

"What's that?" She asked. "A knife?"

Annabeth dug it out, blowing dust off the scabbard. Natalia registered, off-handedly, that it seemed to be the only thing in the shed touched by signs of neglect. It looked as though it hadn't seen the light of day in centuries. Which made complete sense, knowing what it was. Natalia swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to slap the thing out of Annabeth's grip.

"I don't know, Piper," she sounded uneasy, even to her own ears. "I don't think you want that one. Swords are usually better."

"Neither of you use swords...Annabeth uses a dagger." Piper pointed to the sheath strapped to the dark-haired girl's belt.

"Yeah, but..." Annabeth shook her head. "If you really want to, you can take a look."

Without context, the knife was nothing much. Its sheath was worn black leather, bound with gold. The handle was simple polished wood, and when Piper unsheathed it, the gleaming bronze blade was revealed—triangular, eighteen inches...it was a pristine parazonium.

"It suits you," Natalia admitted. In any other instance, it would have been a compliment, but as it was...this blade couldn't mean anything good for Piper.

Annabeth nodded her begrudging agreement. "That kind of blade is called a parazonium. It was mostly ceremonial, carried by high-ranking officers in the Greek armies. It said you were a person of power and wealth, but it could still protect you just fine in a fight."

"I like it," Piper said. "Why did you guys not think it was right?"

Annabeth exhaled. "That blade has a long story. Most people would be too afraid to claim it. Its first owner...things didn't turn out all that well for her. Her name was Helen."

It took a second for Piper to understand. "Wait, you mean the Helen? Of Troy, Helen?"

Natalia and Annabeth both nodded.

Piper looked down at the dagger, her gaze filled with unease. "And it's just sitting in your toolshed?"

"We're surrounded by Ancient Greek weapons," Annabeth told her. "This isn't a museum. Weapons like that—they're meant to be used. They're our heritage as demigods. That was a wedding gift from Menelaus, Helen's husband. She named the dagger Katoptris."

"Meaning?"

"Mirror," Natalia breathed. "Looking glass. Probably because that's all Helen was ever able to use it as. I'd be surprised if it's ever seen battle."

Piper continued to gaze at the blade, turning this information over in her head. She paled suddenly, shaking so hard she dropped the dagger.

"Piper?" When the girl didn't respond, Annabeth shouted to the kids playing basketball, knowing inevitably one of them was from Apollo. "Medic! I need some help over here!"

"No it's—it's okay," Piper croaked.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I just..." She bent down to pick up the discarded blade, still trembling violently. "I just got overwhelmed. So much has happened today. But...I'd like to keep the dagger. If that's okay?"

Annabeth hesitated. She waved away the Apollo campers. "Okay, as long as you're sure. You went really pale, there. I thought you were having a seizure or something."

"I'm fine," Piper promised. She gave them a strained smile. "Is there...um, is there a phone at Camp? Something I can use to call my dad?"

"We aren't allowed phones," Natalia told her. "Most demigods, if they use a cell phone, it's like putting a big neon sign over your head, telling monsters where you are. But...I've got one." Her moms insisted on being able to communicate with her anytime. She slipped it out of her pocket. "Kind of against the rules, but if you can keep a secret..."

Piper took it gratefully, stepping out of the shed to make the call. When Natalia deemed her out of earshot, she turned to Annabeth. "It can't be a good thing, the way she was drawn to that dagger. Are we really just gonna let her have it?"

Annabeth sighed, shoulders slumping like she was trying to fold in on herself. "I don't think we really have a choice. Weapons like that, when they call to someone...it means something connects them to the previous owner. Like Cordy keeps saying—the Fates are binding. Like calls to like, and all that."

Natalia huffed a laugh. "Since when do we give a shit about the Fates?" She sidled closer, pushing Annabeth's shoulder back into her own so she was forced to stand taller. When she was finally looking her in the eye, she reached down and intertwined their fingers.

"Since there was something we wanted from them." Natalia's smile faded. She let her face fall onto Annabeth's shoulder, leaving a chaste kiss just above her collar. Neither of them said anything more until Piper returned, looking rather downtrodden.

"No luck?" Annabeth asked.

Piper didn't answer, handing Natalia her phone without a word.

Natalia glanced down at the phone display and hesitated. That name... "Your last name is Mclean—? Sorry, it's none of my business. It just sounds...familiar." She shared a look with Annabeth, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

"Common name."

Annabeth nodded. "Yeah, I guess. What does your dad do?"

"He's got a degree in the arts," Piper quickly explained. Really looking at her face, Natalia could have sworn she'd seen it somewhere. "He's a Cherokee artist."

"Oh." It was pretty obvious Annabeth didn't believe her, and neither did Natalia. "You feeling okay? What to keep going?"

"Absolutely," Piper strapped her new dagger to her belt. "I want to see everything."

"How did he die?" Leo was half-jogging so as not to fall behind. "Beckendorf, I mean..."

They were making their way across the green toward the misshapen forges. Until Leo had opened his mouth, Cordy had been contemplating the legitimacy of cabin nine's curse. She'd seen many curses up close, whether they affect groups of people like Hephaestus' claimed, or a single person, like the one Kathleen Thomas had once been afflicted by. And it wasn't that she didn't entirely believe that cabin nine had been cursed, simply that she couldn't imagine anyone who would have done it.

Magic was unique to the caster; everyone left their own signature, a token entirely their own, almost like DNA. Cordy couldn't find one in any way connected to cabin nine.

"Explosion," she told Leo, not stopping in her path. "Beckendorf and Percy blew up a cruise ship full of monsters...Beckendorf didn't make it out."

At the time, Cordy had been in the Underworld, waiting for Percy to come to his senses and take the Mark of Achilles. The memory had reassured her greatly in the last few days; Percy was practically invincible, surely that meant he had to be okay.

If he's okay, then why hasn't he contacted you?... Maybe he just doesn't want to. She winced at the stabbing pain behind her eyes. Sometimes, she wished the voice was something a bit more corporeal—something she could punch, perhaps.

"So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "I mean—before he blew up?"

"I never actually met the guy," Cordy admitted, "but Percy always said it was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake—he became head counselor in the middle of the war. 'Tried his best, but he never wanted to be a leader in the first place. He just likes building stuff. Then, after the war, things in cabin nine started to go wrong. Their chariots blew up, their automatons went haywire, their inventions started to malfunction. It was like they were cursed. Eventually, everybody just started calling it that—the Curse of Cabin Nine."

Leo nodded swiftly, perking up like he'd just taken notice of something important. "Percy? Like the kids who went missing; you know him?"

Cordy's jaw clenched. She was struck once again by how unfair this whole situation was. She'd spent her whole life in service of the gods, hadn't she given enough?

They'll never be done with you. They keep taking until there's nothing left to give. Begrudgingly, she knew the voice had a point; she'd seen it happen to heroes much less deserving than her. "Yeah, I know him. He's my brother."

Technically. They weren't actually related, but that had never mattered to Percy. When he had first offered her a place to stay after Manhattan, Cordy hadn't anticipated getting a new family, but that's what the Jacksons were. Family. But she didn't feel like talking to Leo Valdez—or anybody, for that matter—about that.

"Anyway, after Jake had his accident—"

"—Which had something to do with the problem he mentioned," Leo guessed. Whether he could see she had been uncomfortable with their previous topic or he was just ADHD enough not to care about the sudden change in conversation, Cordy wasn't sure. Either way, she found herself grateful for it.

"...They're working on it," her tone held no enthusiasm. "And here we are."

The forges looked like someone had taken the more structurally sound parts of an old car and sewed them into the Greek Parthenon. White marble columns lined the soot-stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke out over an elaborately gabled roof carved with the figures of gods fighting against monsters. The building sat on the edge of a steam branching off of the creek in the woods, and several water wheels turned a series of bronze gears that powered the building. Machinery grinding, fires roaring, and hammers ringing against anvils all created a rather... unsettling ambiance.

Leo and Cordy stepped through the doorway, and a dozen campers working on various projects all froze...all the noise died down to the roar of the forges and the click-click-click of gears turning.

"Hey," Cordy sent them all an awkward wave. "This is your new brother, Leo...um, what's your last name again?"

"Valdez." Leo was appraising his new siblings, looking thoroughly intimidated.

Cordy honestly couldn't blame him. A lot of gods' children had some sort of uniting feature—Cordy and all her half-siblings all had green eyes, for example—but not Hephaestus'. Every one of them looked different. Face shapes, skin tones, hair colors, heights; no one ever would have picked them out of a crowd as siblings. They did share a common interest though—building things. It showed in their calloused hands and the grease stains on their clothes.

The past year had beaten them all down, giving them a sad sort of seriousness that Cordy usually only associated with the souls in Asphodel. Their shoulders were slumped, and several of them looked like they'd just been in a fight.

Cordy patted Leo on the shoulder. "I'll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it's time?"

"I've got it," Nyssa Barrera stepped forward. She wore camo pants, a tank top to show off her arms, and a red bandana over a mop of dark hair. Aside from the smiley-face bandaid stuck to her chin, she looked like the heroine in one of the action movies Percy had made her watch.

"Cool!" Leo said. "I've always wanted a sister who could beat me up."

Nyssa didn't smile. "Come on, joker boy. I'll show you around."

Annabeth and Natalia were mostly just following Piper at this point.

Sometimes, when a new camper walked past the cabin associated with their godly parent, they claimed to feel a connection to it; that gods' influence coming over them. This wasn't the case for Piper. She stopped to admire some of the nicer-looking cabins, but she didn't say anything about an unbidden connection.

She stopped abruptly in front of cabin eight, which was entirely silver and glowed like moonlight. "Artemis?" She guessed.

"You know Greek mythology," Annabeth sounded impressed.

"I did some reading with my dad, when he was working on a project last year."

"I thought he did Cherokee art," Natalia commented.

"Oh, right. But...he does other stuff too, y'know."

They all knew who Piper's dad was. His face was practically everywhere, and the Greek mythology comment simply sealed the deal. For whatever reason, she didn't want to talk about it, and neither Annabeth nor Natalia could see any reason to go against her wishes. So they kept their mouths shut.

"Anyway," Annabeth continued, "Artemis is the goddess of the moon—goddess of hunting. But no campers. Artemis was an eternal maiden, so she doesn't have any kids."

"Oh," Piper seemed particularly bummed by the revelation.

"Well, there are the Hunters of Artemis," Natalia amended, trying to lift the girl's spirits. "They visit sometimes. They're not the goddess' children, but they're her handmaidens—a band of immortal teenage girls who adventure together: hunt monsters and stuff."

Piper perked up. "That sounds cool. They get to be immortal?"

"Unless they die in combat, or break their vows. They have to swear off boys; no dating—for eternity."

"Oh," Piper's face scrunched like she was thinking really hard about something. "Never mind."

Annabeth laughed. Natalia couldn't help but stop to marvel at how beautiful she was with her head thrown back that way. It certainly wasn't a productive train of thought, but one she'd always enjoyed indulging in, nonetheless.

They continued on past cabin ten, Aphrodite. It had been decorated to the goddess' taste with lace curtains, cream-colored walls, potted plants on the sill, and a baby pink door. Natalia actually quite liked the look of it, but that didn't mean the perfume smell wafting from the doorway didn't make her gag.

Piper seemed to be on the same page. "Gah, is that where supermodels go to die?"

Annabeth smirked. "Aphrodite's cabin. Goddess of love. Drew is the head counselor."

"Figures," Piper grumbled.

"They're not automatically bad," Natalia defended. "Drew wasn't always such a bitch. And the last head counselor was...she was the best."

"What happened to her?"

Annabeth's face darkened. "We should keep moving."

They didn't stop at the other cabins. They walked past Persephone, situated snugly next to Hades, with its flowering vines creeping down the black stone walls—the plants didn't reach out to Natalia as they used to. Past Demeter, where Katie Gardner looked up from her miniature garden to smile and wave. And past Hecate, with thick, swirling smoke spilling out from under the doorway; Natalia wondered what Lou Ellen Blackstone was cooking up this time. Piper didn't show any sign of interest until they reached the head of the circle of cabins, the new girl thoroughly defeated.

"We started with the twelve Olympian gods," Annabeth told her, gazing out at the crazy amalgam of buildings. "Male gods on the right, female on the left. Then last year, we added a whole bunch of new cabins for the gods that didn't have thrones on Olympus—Hecate, Persephone, Iris—"

"What are the two big ones on the end?" Piper asked.

Annabeth frowned. "Zeus and Hera. King and Queen of the gods."

Piper headed their way, Natalia and Annabeth following reluctantly behind. The cabins were off-beat imitations of one another: white marble walls with solid gold accents. Grand columns and imposing doors. Zeus' were emblazoned with a storm of lightning, Hera's with delicate peacock feathers.

Unlike the other cabins, alight with noise and life, theirs were closed off and empty. Practically mausoleums.

"Are they empty?" Piper asked.

Annabeth nodded. "Zeus went a long time without having any children. Well, mostly. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the eldest brothers among the gods—they're called the Big Three. Their kids are really powerful, really dangerous. For the last seventy years or so, they've tried to avoid having mortal children.

"Tried to?"

"They didn't exactly do all that well...couldn't help themselves," Natalia rolled her eyes. "We've got a friend, Thalia Grace, she's a daughter of Zeus, although she gave up Camp life to be a Hunter of Artemis. Percy's a son of Poseidon. And there's Nico di Angelo, my step-brother, who shows up sometimes—he's the son of Hades. Except for them, there are no demigod children of the Big Three. At least, not that we know of."

"And Hera?" Piper's gaze was pinned to the feathered doors, her expression uneasy.

"Goddess of marriage," Annabeth's tone was carefully controlled. "She doesn't have kids with anyone but Zeus. So yeah, no campers. The cabin's just honorary."

"You two don't like her," Piper noticed.

Annabeth shrugged. "We have a long history. I thought we'd made peace, but when Percy and Kathleen disappeared...I got this weird dream vision from her."

"Telling you to come get us...but you thought they would be there."

"It's probably better I don't talk about it—I've got nothing good to say about Hera right now."

Piper looked down at the door's base. "So who goes in there?"

"No one," Natalia told her. "The cabin's just honorary, like Anna said. No one goes in."

"Someone does," she pointed at the dusty threshold where, sure enough, footprints cut through the filmy surface. She pushed the doors, and they swung open without complaint.

Annabeth stepped back, taking Natalia with her by their joint hands. "Um, Piper, I don't think we should—"

"We're supposed to do dangerous stuff right?" And Piper walked inside.

Natalia shrugged, looking to Annabeth. This felt familiar, like walking into a random building in the middle of the woods in New Jersey all over again. It was refreshing. "She's learning fast."

And she walked in, pulling Annabeth with her. It was cold as a freezer, a circle of grand white columns surrounding a central statue of the goddess, who Natalia was definitely not happy to see, even if she was only made out of marble. At the goddess' feet, a fire burned in a bronze brazier, contrasting the typical lack of occupancy.

Aside from the vivid colors of the statue, the cabin was empty—no beds, no furniture, no bathroom, no windows. Nothing that could actually be used to live. The mausoleum comparison was gaining weight, which, for the goddess of marriage and family, seemed pretty backward. Though having met the goddess, Natalia felt it fitting.

In front of them, Piper stood stalk still. Following her gaze, Natalia realized they weren't alone. Behind the statue, at a little altar in the back, stood a figure enshrouded in a black shawl. Only their hands were visible, palms up. They seemed to be chanting something; a spell or a prayer. Before Natalia could figure out what was so familiar about the situation, Annabeth gasped.

"Rachel?"

The girl turned, dropping her shawl, revealing a mane of curly red hair and a freckled face that deeply contrasted the seriousness of the cabin. As always, Rachel's tattered jeans were covered in marker doodles, paired with a flowy green blouse. Despite the frigid cold, Rachel was barefoot.

"Hey!" She ran toward them, pulling both Natalia and Annabeth into a hug. "I'm so sorry! I came as fast as I could."

The three of them spent the next few minutes chattering about Percy and Kathleen; about the extraction mission that morning and how they'd failed to find any sign of the two. Eventually, Annabeth's gaze caught on Piper—standing to the side, looking incredibly awkward—and she turned to include her in the conversation.

"We're being rude," she said in lieu of apology. "Rachel, this is Piper, one of the half-bloods we rescued today. Piper, this is Rachel Elizabeth Dare, our oracle."

"The friend who lives in a cave," Piper guessed.

Rachel grinned. "That's me."

"So you're an oracle? You can tell the future?"

"More like the future mugs me from time to time," Rachel shrugged like this statement wasn't incredibly disconcerting. "I speak prophecies. The oracle's spirit kinda hijacks me from time to time and speaks important stuff that doesn't make sense to anybody. But yeah, the prophecies tell the future."

"Oh." Piper shifted her weight from foot to foot. "That's cool."

Rachel laughed. "Don't worry, everybody thinks it's a little creepy. Even me. But usually, I'm harmless."

"You're a demigod?"

"Nope. Just a regular old mortal."

"Then what are you...?" Piper gestured all-encompassingly.

Rachel's perpetual smile faded. She glanced at Annabeth and Natalia, then back to Piper. "Just a hunch. Something about this cabin and Percy and Kathleen's disappearing. They're connected somehow. I've learned to follow my hunches, especially in the last month, since the gods went silent."

"Went silent?" Piper asked.

Rachel frowned at the two girls behind her. "Neither of you have told her yet?"

"We were getting to that," Annabeth said. "Piper, for the last month...well, it's normal for the gods to not contact their kids very much, but usually we can count on some messages now and again. Some of us can even visit Olympus. Hell, I spent practically all of last year at the Empire State Building."

"Excuse me?"

"The entrance to Mount Olympus these days."

"Oh," Piper's voice had raised in pitch. "Sure, why not?"

Annabeth was redesigning Olympus after it was damaged in the second Titanomachy," Natalia explained. "She's an amazing architect. You should see the salad bar—"

"Anyway," Annabeth cut across, "starting about a month ago, Olympus fell silent. The entrance closed, and no one could get in. Nobody has any idea why. It's like the gods have sealed themselves off. Even my mom won't answer my prayers; and our camp director, Dionysus, was recalled."

"Your camp director was the god of...wine?"

"It's a—"

"—Long story," Piper guessed, sounding thoroughly irritated. "Right. Go on."

"That's it, really," Natalia said. "Demigods still get claimed, but nothing else. No messages. No visits. No sign the gods are even listening. Something's definitely happened—something really bad. Then Percy and Kathleen disappeared."

"And Jason and Rylee showed up on our field trip," Piper supplied. "With no memory."

"Who's Jason and Rylee," Rachel asked.

"My—" Piper seemed to have a hard time figuring out what to call them. After all, she'd just been told they'd only met that morning. "My...friends. But Annabeth—you said Hera sent you a dream vision."

"Right," Annabeth said. "The first communication from the gods in a month, and it's Hera, the least helpful goddess, contacting me, her least favorite demigod. She tells me I'll find out what happened to Percy and Kathleen if I go to the Grand Canyon and find the guy with one shoe. Instead, we find you guys, and the guy with one shoe is Jason. It doesn't make any sense."

"Something bad is happening," Rachel agreed, her gaze settling on Piper in such an intense way it was unsettling.

"Guys," Piper said nervously. "I should—I need to tell you—"

Before she could continue, Rachel stiffened. Her eyes began to glow with a greenish light, and she grabbed Piper by the shoulders.

"Free me," she said...but her voice wasn't her own. For a moment, Natalia thought she was giving a prophecy, but it certainly wasn't that voice. She sounded like an older woman speaking down a long, echoey tunnel. "Free me, Piper Mclean, or the earth shall swallow us. It must be by the solstice."

Annabeth and Natalia attempted to separate the two, trying to snap Rachel out of...whatever this was, but her grip was like steel. Smoke issued from Rachel's mouth, enveloping her and Piper in a deep green haze, and she spoke again. "Our enemies stir. The fiery one is only the first. Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. FREE ME!"

Piper's knees buckled, and she fell to the ground, overwhelmed and unconscious. Rachel's eyes cleared, and her arms fell limply to her sides. The smoke dissipated.

"What—what happened?" Rachel stammered.

Natalia couldn't seem to find an answer, but her hand clutched tight to Annabeth, her only lifeline, as always.

Cordy needed to talk to Chiron. She needed to ask the centaur where they didn't have parties searching for Percy and Kathleen, and with a destination in mind, she needed to get the hell out of Camp Half-Blood.

She'd never spent much time at Camp—before. They'd only really invited her when some sort of war was going on. But when she was there, it had always been suffocating, like invisible walls were closing in around her while no one paid any mind.

What does it say that you're an outsider amongst your own people? The pain made her stumble.

She'd started hearing the voice last year, shortly after Nico had had her brought back from the dead. The voice would pop in whenever it saw fit, make a comment that fed on her already crumbling sanity, and leave her to deal with the headache—literally. She didn't recognize it at all. Sometimes, she thought that was the worst part.

It wasn't her only problem, though. Every once in a while, when the voice hit a particular cord in her or she thought too hard about her past, she was drawn back into a memory of before. Most often, she would be forced to remember one of the heroes, often the ones who didn't get a happy ending.

After a lot of thought, she had concluded that the voice and the memories were two different, but interconnected problems.

But Cordy could deal with the pain, even if she could tell that it was slowly getting worse. What mattered right now was telling Chiron about the incident with Hera, and then getting the hell out of dodge.

The steps of the Big House creaked as she passed over them. The door had been hastily flung open and not closed...something was wrong.

She jogged the last few steps into the living room, only to be met with abject chaos. The two amnesiacs—Jason and Rylee, Leo had said—were staring with intense worry at the other newbie, Piper, who herself was being laid out on one of the room's plush couches by Annabeth Chase and Natalia Knight. Piper's eyes were rolled back in her head, and her breathing was shallow. Off to the side, Rachel Elizabeth Dare was muffling her sobs into the back of her hand. Chiron oversaw the whole circus with a grim, resigned expression.

"So I'm guessing I'm not the only one who's experienced some weird things today?" She asked, drawing all eyes in the room.

Chiron waved her in. "Cordelia, you should come in. I'm afraid you will have to be involved in this as well."

Cordy swallowed hard. She didn't like the sound of that. In her head, the voice laughed, whiting out her hearing with pain.