chapter XIII

🌷 According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He had accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake.

"This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted Percy Jackson and three other adolescents in New York and brought them across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror!"

Poor little Percy Jackson wasn't an international criminal after all. He'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from his captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus - "Why didn't I remember him before?"

The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police.

Finally, brave Percy Jackson had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his three friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed them the whole story. They just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard), and played victimized kids for the cameras.

"All I want," Percy said, choking back tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew... somehow... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."

The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for four tickets on the next plane to New York.

Daphne was too tired to laugh, but imagined the face of his stepfather after receiving all sorts of calls about appliances and felt her lips twitching. Only Percy Jackson would do that.

Percy knew there was no choice but to fly. Daphne hoped Zeus would cut them some slack, considering the circumstances and how close she was with his daughter. She'd literally given her life for her, so surely that had to count for something?

Takeoff was a nightmare. There was a kid kicking Daphne's chair at every chance he got, and Grover was refusing to switch seats. Annabeth argued with a flight attendant over her spilling some alcohol on her shirt. Every spot of turbulence was scarier than a Greek monster and Percy didn't unclench his hands from the armrests until they touched down safely at La Guardia.

The local press was waiting for them outside security, but they managed to evade them thanks to Annabeth, who lured them away in her invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!" then rejoined the rest of them at baggage claim.

They split up at the taxi stand. Percy turned to them with a deep breath and started, "Look, guys, I - I appreciate the help, really. But-"

"We're not going, Percy." Annabeth interrupted him. "We've been through all this, and now -"

"And now I have to do this alone." Percy said firmly, and for once, Daphne thought that he was actually comfortable with his decision. "You need to get back to Half-Blood Hill and tell Chiron about the quest."

He didn't say in case I don't make it back, but it was still there. Grover and Annabeth looked hesitant, but still agreed.

"We'll see you guys when we come back." Daphne promised them with a smile.

Percy turned to Daphne with confusion etched into his face. "Uh, you're going with them too."

"Nope." she said simply.

Percy blinked like he didn't expect her to disagree. "But-"

"I have questions, Percy." Daphne played with the plait in her hair which had almost become undone, fiddling with the blue ribbon. "People I need to ask about what happened to me. Besides, you never split up like that in a quest. Who's gonna be there to save you from a thunder strike, Bubble Brain?"

He looked like he wanted to fight it but couldn't find the words. He must've known that this way made the most sense.

Daphne was given the chance to finally find her home and chose not to leave him alone. It was comforting.

They hugged Annabeth and Grover goodbye, promising to find each other soon. Daphne told Annabeth to save a space for her at camp, and to tell them about her so it wouldn't be as awkward when she rocked up like, "Hey! It's me! Except you don't know me because I died! You guys have a spare room?"

After waving them away, Percy and Daphne hopped in a taxi and headed into Manhattan. They didn't speak much in the car, both of their nerves fried. In Daphne's case, her heart felt lodged in her throat.

She defied death and went back to ask why it didn't want her. Clingy, much?

Thirty minutes later, they left the taxi and paid the cabby with the remaining money they had stuffed in Ares' backpack. They walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building, trying not to look too out of place. From the looks people were giving them, they must have looked like homeless kids with their tattered clothes and my scraped-up faces. Percy hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours.

He went up to the guard at the front desk and said, "Six hundredth floor."

"Please," Daphne added. She clutched her aching wrist with her free hand, trying to stop it from shaking. It was really bruising now.

He was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. The guard must've been stuck on a good chapter, because took a while to look up. "No such floor, kiddo."

"I need an audience with Zeus."

He gave them a vacant smile. "Sorry?"

"You heard me."

Daphne was about to decide this guy was just a regular mortal and that they'd better run for it before he called the straitjacket patrol when he said, "No appointment, no audience, kiddos. Lord Zeus doesn't see anyone unannounced."

"Oh, I think he'll make an exception." he slipped off the backpack and unzipped the top.

The guard looked inside at the metal cylinder, not getting what it was for a few seconds. Then his face went pale. "That isn't..."

"Yes, it is," Daphne promised. "We can show you up close, if you'd like? We can take it out-"

"No! No!" He scrambled out of his seat, fumbled around his desk for a key card, then handed it to Percy. "Insert this in the security slot. Make sure nobody else is in the elevator with you."

They did as he told them. Percy and Daphne slipped into the elevator, and Daphne started coughing ferociously to get people to avoid them. It must've worked because as soon as the elevator doors closed they were alone, and Percy slipped the key into the slot. The card disappeared and a new button appeared on the console, a red one that said 600.

They exchanged a look and Percy pressed it. They waited, waited, and waited.

The elevator was playing some mind-numbing tune that seemed to annoy Percy.

She blinked at him. "Uh, Perce? You okay?"

"I hate this song." he muttered. He was becoming restless, tapping his fingers along the railing, jutting his legs out. She remembered Grover telling her that he had ADHD when they were on the Amtrak train and he couldn't stop moving around.

Finally, ding. The doors slid open before Percy could explode. They stepped out and Daphne almost had a heart attack.

They were standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below them was Manhattan from the height of an airplane. In front of her, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. Her hazel eyes followed the stairway to its end, where her brain just could not accept what it saw.

Look again, she snapped at herself.

We're looking! her eyes insisted. It's really there.

From the top of the clouds rose the decapitated peak of a mountain, its summit covered with snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces-a city of mansions, all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires. Roads wound crazily up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed against the snow. Precariously perched gardens bloomed with olive trees and rosebushes. Daphne could make out an open-air market filled with colorful tents, a stone amphitheater built on one side of the mountain, a hippodrome and a coliseum on the other. It was an Ancient Greek city, except it wasn't in ruins. It was new, and clean, and colorful, the way Athens must've looked twenty-five hundred years ago.

"This is..." Percy started.

"Beautiful," she finished, taking the sight in with awe. She couldn't close her mouth as she gaped at it, her voice coming out in a sort of wonder struck whisper. "Absolutely beautiful."

Their trip through Olympus was a daze. They passed some giggling wood nymphs who threw olives at Percy from their garden, making Daphne grin. Hawkers in the market offered to sell them ambrosia-on-a-stick, and a new shield, and a genuine glitter-weave replica of the Golden Fleece, as seen on Hephaestus-TV. The nine muses were tuning their instruments for a concert in the park while a small crowd gathered - satyrs and naiads and a bunch of good-looking teenagers who might've been minor gods and goddesses. Percy had to pull her away from joining the crowd. Nobody seemed worried about an impending civil war. In fact, everybody seemed in a festive mood. Several of them turned to watch as they passed and whispered to themselves.

Daphne felt right at home among the beauty of the land. She glanced to her right and saw Percy's eyes flickering around nervously.

"You know what Annabeth would say if she could see this?" she asked him, trying to ease his nerves.

He shook his head.

"She'd tell us all the different ways she would've designed the buildings." Daphne smiled, pointing at a litter bin. "and that she would've made the circumference of that smaller for 'optimum rubbish collecting', or something."

Percy grinned at her. "Grover would start rummaging for tin cans."

They laughed, picturing their friends making everything seem like it was going to be okay. They climbed the main road, toward the big palace at the peak. It was a reverse copy of the palace in the Underworld. There, everything had been black and bronze. Here, everything glittered white and silver.

Daphne realised Hades must've built his palace to resemble this one, his first home. He wasn't welcomed in Olympus except on the winter solstice, so he'd built his own Olympus underground. Despite her bad experience with him, she couldn't help but feel a wave of sympathy. To be banished from a place so beautiful seemed really unfair. It would make anybody bitter.

Steps led up to a central courtyard. Past that, the throne loom. Percy faltered at the steps, but Daphne gave him an encouraging nod. Taking a deep breath, he started to walk again.

Room really wasn't the right word to describe where the thrones resided. The place made Grand Central Station look like a broom closet. Massive columns rose to a domed ceiling, which was gilded with moving constellations. Twelve thrones, built for beings the size of Hades, were arranged in an inverted U. An enormous fire crackled in the central hearth pit. The thrones were empty except for two at the end: the head throne on the right, and the one to its immediate left.

Daphne didn't have to be told who the two gods were that were sitting there, waiting for Percy to approach. He came toward them, legs trembling as Daphne decided to keep a couple steps behind him and let him have the floor.

The gods were in giant human form, as Hades had been, but Daphne could barely look at them without feeling a tingle as if her body was starting to burn.

Zeus, the Lord of the Gods, wore a dark blue pinstriped suit. He sat on a simple throne of solid platinum. He had a well-trimmed beard, marbled gray and black like a storm cloud. His face was proud and handsome and grim, his eyes rainy gray. As Daphne got nearer to him, the air crackled and smelled of ozone.

Daphne's heart felt like it was being clenched as she looked in his eyes. Thalia, she remembered, singing the name like a mantra in her mind.

The god sitting next to him was his brother, without a doubt, but he was dressed very differently. He wore leather sandals, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a Tommy Bahama shirt with coconuts and parrots all over it. His skin was deeply tanned, his hands scarred like an old-time fisherman's. His hair was black, just like Percy's. His face had that same brooding look that had always gotten Percy branded a rebel. But his eyes, deep and sea green, were surrounded by sun-crinkles that told her he smiled a lot, too.

His throne was a deep-sea fisherman's chair. It was the simple swiveling kind, with a black leather seat and a built-in holster for a fishing pole. Instead of a pole, the holster held a bronze trident, flickering with green light around the tips.

Three guesses who that is, Daphne thought.

The gods weren't moving or speaking, but there was tension in the air, as if they'd just finished an argument.

Percy approached the fisherman's throne and knelt at his feet. "Father." he dared not look up. His heart was racing. He could feel the energy emanating from the two gods. If he said the wrong thing, he had no doubt they could blast me into dust.

To his left, Zeus spoke. "Should you not address the master of this house first, boy?"

Percy kept his head down, and waited. Daphne knelt too, but not to either of them in particular as she made sure to remain a few paces behind.

"Peace, brother," Poseidon finally said. His voice stirred his oldest memories: that warm glow Percy
remembered as a baby, the sensation of this god's hand on his forehead, "The boy defers to his father. This is only right."

"You still claim him then?" Zeus asked, menacingly. "You claim this child whom you sired against our sacred oath?"

Daphne broke her kneel. She stood up, glaring at Zeus with a sour look on her face. Like he was one to talk.

"I have admitted my wrongdoing," Poseidon said. "Now I would hear him speak."

Wrongdoing.

A lump welled up in Percy's throat. Was that all he was? A wrongdoing? The result of a god's mistake?

"I have spared him once already," Zeus grumbled. "Daring to fly through my domain ... pah! I should have blasted him out of the sky for his impudence."

"And risk destroying your own master bolt?" Poseidon asked calmly. "Let us hear him out, brother."

Zeus grumbled some more. "I shall listen," he decided. "Then I shall make up my mind whether or not to cast this boy and his companion down from Olympus."

Oh, so you are going to acknowledge that I'm here then? Daphne was in dangerous territory to be annoyed, but she couldn't help it. She crossed her arms and slanted on her leg, resigning herself to watch the situation instead of being involved.

"Perseus," Poseidon said. "Look at me."

He did, and Percy wasn't sure what he saw in his face. There was no clear sign of love or approval. Nothing to encourage him. It was like looking at the ocean: some days, you could tell what mood it was in. Most days, though, it was unreadable, mysterious.

Percy got the feeling Poseidon really didn't know what to think of him. He didn't know whether he was happy to have him as a son or not. In a strange way, he was glad that Poseidon was so distant. If he'd tried to apologize, or told him he loved him, or even smiled, it would've felt fake. Like a human dad, making some lame excuse for not being around. Percy could live with that. After all, he wasn't sure about him yet, either.

"Address Lord Zeus, boy," Poseidon told him. "Tell him your story."

So Percy told Zeus everything, just as it had happened. He recounted the writhing vines around Daphne's statue (in the cab up there, she told him it was okay to mention) and sent looks at her as though asking for encouragement. She nodded at him and he continued. The gods didn't seem to react. Finally, Percy took out the metal cylinder which began sparking in the Sky God's presence, and laid it at his feet.

There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of the hearth fire. Daphne caught her breath like she was waiting for another trick to be revealed.

Zeus opened his palm. The lightning bolt flew into it. As he closed his fist, the metallic points flared with electricity, until he was holding what looked more like the classic thunderbolt, a twenty- foot javelin of arcing, hissing energy that made the hairs on her scalp rise.

"I sense the boy tells the truth," Zeus muttered. "But that Ares would do such a thing... it is most unlike him."

"He is proud and impulsive," Poseidon said. "It runs in the family."

"Lord?" Percy asked carefully.

They both said, "Yes?"

"Ares didn't act alone. Someone else-something else- came up with the idea."

Percy described his dreams, and the feeling he'd had on the beach, that momentary breath of evil that had seemed to stop the world, and made Ares back off from killing him.

"In the dreams," Percy started, "the voice told me to bring the bolt to the Underworld. Ares hinted that he'd been having dreams, too. I think he was being used, just as I was, to start a war."

"You are accusing Hades, after all?" Zeus snapped.

"No," Percy spoke nervously. "I mean, Lord Zeus, I've been in the presence of Hades. This feeling on the beach was different. It was the same thing I felt when I got close to that pit. That was the entrance to Tartarus, wasn't it? Something powerful and evil is stirring down there... something even older than the gods."

Poseidon and Zeus looked at each other. They had a quick, intense discussion in Ancient Greek. Percy only caught one word. Father.

But Daphne caught it all. Her eyes widened as she stepped forward into line with Percy, breathing quickened.

"Can you understand-?" he started to whisper.

Daphne shook her head reverently. Not here.

Percy snapped his mouth shut. Her eyes looked almost haunted.

Poseidon made some kind of suggestion, but Zeus cut him off. Poseidon tried to argue. Zeus held up his hand angrily.

"We will speak of this no more," Zeus insisted. "I must go personally to purify this thunderbolt in the waters of Lemnos, to remove the human taint from its metal."

Ouch. From Daphne's experience, humans were a lot better than gods anyway.

He rose and looked at Percy. His expression softened just a fraction of a degree. "You have done me a service, boy. Few heroes could have accomplished as much."

"I had help, sir," he said nervously. "Grover Underwood and Annabeth Chase and-"

"And me." Daphne blurted out. The eyes of the Gods snapped to her, like they hadn't expected her to speak. She wanted to shrink under their powerful looks, but couldn't find herself falling. She straightened herself up and looked at them defiantly. "Daphne Everlark, your ... er, Lordship. I was friends with your daughter."

He didn't reply. "Thalia," Daphne added, frowning at him when he didn't respond, only continuing to stare at her calculatingly. "You know, pine tree. Electric eyes."

Zeus' eyes locked onto hers, and everything froze. Not figuratively, but literally. Percy was rooted in his spot, eyes unblinking as he watched her with wonder. But they were glazed over too. She saw herself in the reflection of his porcelain eyes. She was looking up at Zeus as though she'd never turned - like somehow, she had been paused. Stuck in his gaze, staring away.

Daphne whipped her head back around to look at Zeus. He stared at her imposingly,

The message was clear. Ask your question now. This is a gift.

"Did I die?" she whispered, her voice sounding so entirely different to the one she usually carried. A new language, melodically sliding off her tongue like it was natural. "Please, I don't know why I'm still here. Why I'm alive. I should've died, I-"

"Yes you should've." Zeus said coldly, his eyes haunting and sparking electric. "But you didn't."

"What do you mean?" she begged him. "My soul-"

"Your soul never left your body, and so the Fields of Asphodel could never claim you."

Daphnes head spun. She had no time to ask why she understood the language he spoke, how he paused Percy in his spot with Poseidon watching them with unconcealed curiosity.

It didn't make any sense. She was struck by Medusa. She was a fallen hero, nothing more. Daphne was supposed to be dead.

"Why?" was all she could manage.

Something akin to anger flashed in his eyes, and something Thalia had once told her rung in the back of her mind. The gods hate when they're wrong. They like to think they know everything, and when they don't - well, wars are started.

War. She didn't like the sound of causing something like that.

Zeus didn't reply, but he didn't need to. Daphne understood.

Her life was a mystery not even the gods knew. Surely it would've meant that she was free from their grasp? That she could live, that this was a blessing of the Fates?

No.

The way Zeus glared at her, the calculating way Poseidon was sizing her up as though she was soon to be a threat. Daphne knew only one thing about her survival, and it was that it was not meant to happen. In some ways, she supposed she was more of an illegal child than Percy or Thalia. They would be watching her. There was no freedom from the consequences of her life. She had defied death. That was something none of the Gods could forgive.

Aphrodite's voice rang in her head for one final time. "Try to enjoy it while you still can, won't you?"

Zeus' head snapped away from Daphne and locked onto Percy. He started breathing again, regaining mobility. He frowned like he knew they had shared a moment but couldn't remember it.

"To show you my thanks, I shall spare your lives. I do not trust you, Perseus Jackson. I do not like what your arrival means for the future of Olympus. But for the sake of peace in the family, I shall let you live."

"Um... thank you, sir." his eyes flickered to Daphnes, but she refused to meet them. She bowed her head from the vision of him and the two gods.

"Do not presume to fly again." Zeus commanded him."Do not let me find you here when I return. Otherwise you shall taste this bolt. And it shall be your last sensation."

Thunder shook the palace. With a blinding flash of lightning, Zeus was gone, leaving one chilling sentence in Daphne's mind.

Do not defy the Gods. We are watching.

Like she needed the clarification.

"Your uncle," Poseidon sighed, "has always had a flair for dramatic exits. I think he would've done well as the god of theater."

An uncomfortable silence. Daphne was shaking and she felt sparks of electricity dancing up her arms.

"I'll just..." she pointed behind them towards the entrance of the throne room. "Leave you two to chat. I'll be waiting outside for you, Percy."

She gave him a meaningful look before she turned, feeling two pairs of sea green eyes on her hair as she walked away, trying not to shiver or stumble on her steps.

Daphne sat on the marble outside. She wanted to take the time to collect her racing thoughts, but she felt almost numb. She could do nothing but stare into the distance, fiddling with the blue ribbon which had finally come undone from her hair.

What could've been five minutes or three hours later, Percy came stumbling out of the throne room. Instead of continuing to walk down the steps, he fell beside Daphne. She noticed that he was still wearing her coat from his battle with Ares.

They sat quietly beside each other, soaking in the peace.

After a couple of quiet minutes, Percy's eyes found Daphnes wrist. The pain had numbed from stinging up her arm to being a dull and continuous throb, but it still ached to Tartarus.

"Your wrist," he said softly, frowning when he finally noticed. He reached forward and grabbed her arm, but too gently to hurt. It was like he was inspecting it to see what had happened. "When did this happen?"

"Oh," Daphne blinked with surprise like she'd forgotten. "I, uh, think it was back when Grover and me were being pulled into that weird pit thing. Tried to grab onto a piece of rock."

(If Annabeth were here, she would've corrected her: "Grover and I, Daphne.")

Percy's eyebrows creased. Before he could speak, Daphne interrupted him. "Don't tell Grover," she pleaded. "I don't want him to feel worse about everything that happened."

"Why didn't you say something?" he mumbled uselessly. It was his quest and he'd let one of his companions get hurt.

"It's okay," Daphne shrugged him off and pulled her arm back into herself, closing herself off from him. "I've had worse before. I didn't want to stress you guys out about the quest or anything. And Grover has enough guilt to drown us all, already."

He didn't reach for her again. Instead, Percy looked over the horizon of Olympus. The clouds were full but soft, tracing over the delicate rays of the sun which basked the place in pretty sunlight. The smell of fresh ambrosia was thick, dripping like smooth honey along the golden edges. To Percy, it carried the scent of his mom's blue cookies. Daphne didn't really know what hers smelled like. She wasn't sure what her favourite food was, really.

"So... how'd it go?" she asked softly.

"My dad said he wished I was never born." Percy admitted. "and he told me that obedience doesn't come naturally to me."

Well, he's right, Daphne thought. Percy hadn't followed any of the traditional rules since she'd met him. She must've whispered it aloud, because there was a hint of a smile on his lips.

"And...my mom's alive." he added. "She's at home. Hades freed her."

Daphnes eyes widened as she turned to him. "But - that's great news!" she announced. "Percy, we have to go and see her."

"But - don't you want to go to camp?" he asked her cluelessly.

Daphne looked at him for a second before shaking her head. "Your head is full of bubbles, Percy. I've waited years to get to camp, what does more time mean when you can see your mom again?"

So much. Time meant so much to her now that she knew her days were numbered, that the Gods were watching her and could any day decide to strike her down. But if she had to spend the rest of her life seeing others smile, it would've been time well spent.

And it worked. Percy grinned.

"Are you sure?" he asked her, but Daphne was already pulling him to his feet with her good hand.

"Come on, " she smiled as they walked down the steps. "let's not let her wait any longer. Her son's a fugitive, she's probably worried."

As they walked back through the city of the gods, conversations stopped. The muses paused their concert. People and satyrs and naiads all turned toward they, their faces filled with respect and gratitude, and as they passed, they knelt, as if Percy were some kind of hero.

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆
🌷🪷🌊

ʚɞ Daphne understands ANCIENT Greek?? Hmmmmm...interesting 🤔

ALSO!!!!!! happy end of the show to all who are watching :)<3 I have many opinions on the pjo TV series (many of which are not good) but I still feel a weird sense of happiness despite my aversion.

I wore my CHB shirt and tried to bake some blue cookies for the occasion.
Keyword: tried. (For some reason I can't place photos in my chapter?? But I'll show you guys when I can :D)

Readers please choose between the numbers One and Two. It may be very important.