[quo fata ferunt]

Sera didn't miss a beat walking out the door and dragging Daphne with her, not even as Jared looked at her like she was a breath of fresh air and he was drowning in the depths of the sea. She swept out of the café with Daphne in tow, taking a sharp inhale of the winter air, and darted down the street.

 "Sera!" Daphne exclaimed. "What the hell was that?"

 A jingle of bells from behind them only made the heavy feeling in Sera's heart an anchor. "Don't ask."

 "Sera! Wait up!" Jared's voice sounded from behind them.

 Daphne tried to slow Sera down, but by the time she succeeded, Jared had caught up to him. He looked breathless even if he'd only run a few yards, but that look in his eyes hadn't faded.

 "How are you here?" Jared breathed. "Why are you leaving so fast?"

 Sera met his gaze with a page out of Eira's playbook. The daughter of Khione was a master of steely glares, and right now, Sera needed one. "The Sera you knew is dead. Forget you saw me. Forget you knew me. It's safer for us all that way."

 "That isn't true," Jared protested, taking a step forward. He reached for Sera, but the Huntress was faster. Sera grabbed his wrist and shoved him against the nearest wall.

 "Listen to me," Sera hissed so Daphne wouldn't hear. "You do not want to get tangled up in the life I live now. It's scary and it's dangerous. You're just a mortal. You'll be killed. So here is what you're going to do: you're going to let me and my friend go do what we need to do, you're going to go about your life, and you're going to grow up and forget you ever knew me. Understand?"

 "You know I can't do that," Jared managed, resolute even as he was being pinned against a wall.

 "And why not?"

 "You think I'm just going to let you go again? Sera, I've thought you were dead for the past year. I can't just leave you now." His voice cracked, and Sera made the mistake of looking into his glassy eyes. Shit.

 Sera took a deep breath...then stepped away from the wall. "What are you even doing in New York?"

 "I'm here as a part of my gap year. I graduated early so I'm building up my photography resume." Jared massaged his wrist from Sera's iron grip.

 Sera huffed a breath, watching as it crystallized in the winter air. She looked to Daphne, who was watching the scene play out before her like a tennis match. "Jared was my friend before I joined the Hunters."

 "I figured," Daphne said drily. "Is he going to tag along?"

 "Tag along where?" Jared asked.

 "Daphne, don't—" Sera started, but the former daughter of Aphrodite was on a roll. "Montana. We're on a mission, and that's where it'll end." Daphne's quiver materialized on her back, and she drew one of the arrows, twirling the silver shaft between her fingers.

 "Woah!" Jared exclaimed. "Why do you have arrows?" 

 Sera met Daphne's gaze, but the blonde girl fixed her friend with a look of fortitude. I got this, she seemed to say. "Because I'm a Huntress, and so is Sera. We're hunting a very dangerous monster, on terms of Olympus, and if we don't stop it by the winter solstice, life as we know it will cease to exist." Daphne said cheerfully. "Sounds terrifying, right? Now, you better step out of our way or your silly little mortal self will see something you won't be able to explain."

 Jared blinked between the girls, trying to piece together all that he had just heard. "Wait, wait, wait...Olympus? Hunters?"

 "Yeah," Sera deadpanned. "Now if you don't mind, we'll be on our way." 

 "Wait!" Jared said. "I can help you."

 At that, Sera and Daphne locked eyes, looking at Jared incredulously. "How?"

 "I'm from Montana," Jared scratched the back of his neck. "I could help you find out where you need to go." 

 "We know where to go," Sera tried.

 "But you don't know how to get there." Jared smiled, the trace of an impish smirk on his lips. "I can show you."

 Sera felt like she was seething, but she took another breath of the chilly air around her. She needed to focus. "Fine. You show us how to get there and then you leave us. It's for your own safety." 

 Jared looked skeptical, but nodded. "So...the first place you wanna go is the airport." 

 "We can't do that." Daphne and Sera said in unison. 

 Jared knit his eyebrows together. "Why not?"

 "We aren't permitted to fly," Sera said flatly, tugging on the end of her braid. "Zeus forbids it."

 Jared's eyes went funny. "Zeus? Like the Greek god?" 

 "Yes," Daphne said breezily. "He controls the air, and no one is allowed to travel through the air but Zeus and the other Olympians."

 "You talk about them as if they're real," Jared scoffed. 

 Sera rolled her eyes, turning on her heel. "I can't do this."

 "Hey, wait, I was kidding!" Jared called. "I'll...this sounds crazy, but my life's been a whole lot of crazy lately. I'll help you get to Montana, and in the meantime, you can explain everything that's been happening."

 "Why, what's been happening?" Daphne asked, but they began to walk.

 "I've been seeing these really weird things. Things that shouldn't exist like...I don't know, men with one eye, dragons, shadows where there's no one there." Jared explained, his voice hollow. "And now that I see you again, Sera, I feel like it's somehow all connected."

 "Why's that?" Sera asked, keeping her eyes on the snowy pavement.

 "Because you were always extraordinary," Jared spoke, slowing the rapid beat of her heart. "Always larger than life. And something tells me that whatever this is...it's just as intricate as you are." 

 Sera took a deep breath, but kept moving. She wouldn't do this again. But why was her heart thumping so loudly? It echoed in her ears, in her bones.

 "Sera," Daphne hedged.

 "What?" Sera asked.

 She looked over and saw that Daphne had drawn her bow, an arrow already strung. "Look."

 Sera followed Daphne's line of sight and instantly, her blood chilled. A trio of smoky figures loomed in a nearby alley, tendrils of stormy matter extending from their frames. The entire sky around them seemed to darken in that moment, like a storm was about to break. The temperature dropped, rain started to fall, and the figures in the alley only seemed to be the epicenter of it all.

 "Jared," Sera managed as she drew an arrow. "Run."

 The smoky figures started forward like they were made of air, gliding above the blacktop. Sera and Daphne fired, but their arrows flew clean through the storm spirits which kept advancing towards them.

 "They're anemoi thuellai," Sera realized. "Storm spirits." 

 "How do we stop them?" Daphne called over the rising wind. She fired arrow after arrow, but the storm spirits kept advancing.

 Sera racked her brain for a weapon in their arsenal. They had arrows, hunting knives, countless arrowheads, and more. The anemoi thuellai were spirits in their own rite, they couldn't be defeated by two Hunters and a mortal teenage boy. No, right now, they needed a distraction to buy them time to get away.

 "Sera!" Daphne exclaimed. She held a vial of a cloudy, green substance—Greek fire. That would work, but the distance was too great to throw for both Sera and Daphne. 

 "I'll throw it," Jared offered from where he was hunched down nearby.

 "What?" Sera exclaimed as she fired another arrow. "Don't be crazy!"

 "You forget I was the star pitcher of the baseball team, Sera. Hand me the vial." Jared countered. 

 Sera muttered a curse under her breath, but nodded to Daphne. The blonde girl handed the vial of Greek fire to Jared, who stood from where he crouched. 

 "Drop that and you'll blow up," Sera called. 

 "I'll try not to." Jared managed. 

He drew his arm back, taking a step forward, and then lobbed the vial forward. Sera watched as it hit the ground right in front of the storm spirits, erupting into flames. A roar like thunder sounded from the storm spirits, but Sera and her companions didn't stick around to watch. They grabbed their stuff and ran down the streets, before authorities showed up or the storm spirits strengthened.

 "You've got a good arm," Daphne noted. "I'll give you that much." 

 Jared beamed that familiar smile, and as Sera ran, she tore her gaze from his charming face. He was a reminder of a life she could no longer lead; she had to remember that much. She'd thrown her lot in with the Hunters and immortality, mortal ties and flings be damned. But as they continued to run, Sera couldn't fight the feeling in her chest. Light, weightless, a feeling she hadn't felt since the fire. A feeling like hope.

~~ 

 Sera's restlessness only resurfaced when night fell again. The day had been a blur, filled with running and monsters and a dire need of a snack. To Sera's annoyance, they'd taken multiple pit stops for the bathroom and for food, but she stopped complaining after Daphne handed her a packet of Twinkies.

 However, they were now holed up in the train station, waiting for a train that would end up taking them west. Jared had crashed, entirely unused to staying up for long periods of time, and Daphne and Sera sat on what they felt was a watch. They scanned the train station and the families with suitcases, wondering if anyone that passed them by was a monster in disguise.

 "So what's the history between you and the kid?" Daphne nudged Jared's sneaker-clad foot with her own. He only shifted in his sleep, smacking his lips and rolling over on the bench. Sera averted her gaze.

 "He was my best friend before I joined the Hunters." Daphne arched a penciled eyebrow. "Just friends?" 

 "Yes," Sera snapped. "Just friends." 

 Daphne put her hands up in surrender. "Why'd you leave?"

 "Leave what?"

 "Leave your old life." 

 Sera shifted her weight where she sat. She settled her gaze on the clock hanging from the wall, watching the seconds pass by. "I didn't have a choice." She muttered, clearing her throat. "There was a fire. I was the only one that survived. Seeing as I didn't want to end up homeless and hungry, I joined the Hunters."

 "How'd you know about them? You weren't a halfblood or anything," Daphne settled against her backpack. 

 Sera gave her friend an accusatory look. "What is this, Twenty Questions?"

 Daphne gave Sera her signature impish look. "Don't be so defensive. I've known you a year, and you haven't said anything about your life."

 "Ever realize that it's maybe because I didn't want to talk about it?" Sera said airily.

 "You might not have wanted to, but everyone needs to talk about where they came from and who they were. It's how we change as people. It's how we understand one another." Daphne said with a shrug.

 Sera paused. For a daughter of Aphrodite, Daphne was wise enough to be the spawn of Athena.

 "My family had always had a fascination with mythology. My parents were professors at the local university for ancient history, so I grew up with it. They believed that if something was worshipped enough, and believed in enough, it couldn't fade from history. So I called upon Artemis, the goddess of all young maidens, and she...guided me to where I needed to be." Sera found herself explaining, the words bumping into one another.

 "I pretty much became a ghost from that point forward," Sera looked at her lap, fiddling with her fingers. "Artemis manipulated the Mist to make it seem like I had died in the fire with my parents."

 "So for Jared to remember you..." Daphne began, understanding in her voice. 

 "Is a possibility I didn't anticipate." Sera shut her down. "He's always been a dreamer. He has to realize that I'm not coming back. This is my life now."

 "I don't think that's true," Daphne shook her head. "Sera, you've always been a lone wolf within the Hunters. Yes, you're one of us but...you're also something entirely different. You're a myriad of experiences and timelines. I think that whatever this prophecy means, one part of it has already come true." 

 "Which part?" Sera asked.

 "The one about two friends reuniting," Daphne nodded to Jared's sleeping form. "You might have dissolved from his timeline, but the Fates have brought you two together again. For what reason, I don't know, but destiny has a way of making certain things happen."

 Sera found herself averting her gaze, shutting her eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to calm the temper flaring in her nerves. By the time she opened her eyes, Daphne was asleep, leaving Sera alone on a precipice she'd climbed her way into. A gaping ravine of uncertainties stood at her feet, but given the circumstances, Sera was tempted to jump into the gloomy darkness waiting far down below.