AT FIRST, OPHELIA SAW LUKE in Alex's tense muscles and furious face as he couldn't stand still on the Kennedy Center Terrace. But as he looked in her eyes when she called his name, she changed her mind. He didn't look like Luke.

Those blue eyes were filled with tears. He masked fear with wrath quite well, but something had set him off and he couldn't hide it. His frantic pacing didn't come from pent up rage. It came from a desperate attempt not to panic.

"Alex," she repeated.

"What?" He said.

Careful, Ophelia. You do not want to see his anger.

She ignored Eris. Reaching out, she took Alex's hand. It felt so warm compared to the chill that always seemed to run through her veins. At first he didn't reciprocate. But he calmed down ever so slightly. Instead of massaging over and over the celestial bronze caduceus on his wrist, his left hand went to rest on his abdomen. Ophelia glanced back up at his face.

He glared at the night sky. When he started speaking, he kept his voice low, seething. But he couldn't keep it there. "Another child of Hermes? Two of the minor gods? This is what happens when you abandon your children! Fuck you!"

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

The quest will end right here, Ophelia. He will damn your brothers and sisters.

"Alex!" Ophelia grabbed his hand tighter, ordering the shadows to obscure them. She didn't know if gods could see through her Underworld magic, but she had to try. "Alex, listen to me. Listen to me."

Surrounded by a blanket of darkness, she could feel just how ragged his breathing was. She grabbed both his hands. Vindication on his wrist provided them a little light and in it, Ophelia looked at his crystalline eyes. Blue behind unshed tears, she tried to figure out what to say.

"Hey, listen to me, Alex. Alex." She took another deep breath when he finally looked back at her. "I have no love for the gods. None. But that cannot matter. Saving the other children is all that matters."

He doesn't get it.

Alex nodded erratically, his grip on her hands tightening even further. For a moment, she couldn't feel anything but the force of a child of the god of athletes squeezing her fingers.

They stood enveloped in silent, cloud like shadows. Finally, Ophelia breathed the question she'd had on her mind since this started. "Alex, what happened?"

"What?" he said.

"What happened? Luke lost a fight with a dragon. Chris wasn't claimed." She took a deep breath, placing her left hand over his shirt where she knew his scar lay. "What happened?" she whispered.

He flinched as she touched the scar. Six, seven inches long across his stomach and abdomen, healed not by ambrosia or nectar but human stitching and medicine, she always wondered but never asked. It was time to ask.

"No," Alex said, trying to get away. But she refused. She grabbed him again, allowing her nails to grip him into place. "O, please."

He didn't sound like Luke now. He sounded scared. Like a child. She still didn't let go. He had to talk about it, or the quest would end before it even really started. Eris was right about that.

"O," he said again. He couldn't stop his tears now. "Don't."

"Tell me, Alex." She took another deep breath of the shadows. They darkened. "Please."

Silence fell between them. He closed his eyes. She watched as the slight golden glow of Vindication splashed a warm light on his face, almost like dying sunlight. All around them she wrapped shadow after shadow after shadow.

"You know I grew up in Colorado," he said, barely able to form words. Still he didn't open his eyes. "My mom, she's an endurance cyclist. Loved all sorts of sports."

Loved. Past tense. Ophelia loosened the grip on his arms a bit. She'd always assumed he had no family, but never asked. Most came to Kronos without family.

"We went out camping in the national park on a weekend in April, because we liked doing crazy things," he added, smirking. "She did, at least. I was cold, and wet, and tired and wanted to go home."

He trailed off, eyes closed again. She could feel his hand shaking. "What happened to her?"

"Uh." He tried to form words. "We, uh, were on our way back down the mountain. Using road bikes. On a flat bit, we started hearing these loud footsteps." Alex sounded more like the child she'd first met years ago with every passing moment. "A cyclops came out of nowhere just as a car passed us. He used the car to get to me. I ended up with fifty stitches after shrapnel from the car door hit me."

The scar. He fell silent.

His mother?

She didn't want to ask. But she did anyway. "And your mom?"

He stopped shaking. Ophelia watched as he seemed to distance himself. His blue eyes looked at a moment in time years ago. "The car hit her first. Then she hit me. I tried to stop the blood. But it wouldn't stop. It stained the snow and, and my hands. It wouldn't go back in."

"Alex, look at me."

"He wasn't there. My dad. Where was he?"

"Alex."

"He wasn't there for her!"

"Alex!"

He met her gaze. Ophelia released a long, slow breath she'd been holding. Flashes of memory of the Fields of Punishment filled her mind. So much death.

She hugged him. He melted into her body and she revelled in the warmth there. Tears filled the corners of her eyes as she tried to give him what he needed.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"I killed her."

Ophelia pulled back, alarmed. She took his face in her hands. "No. Don't say that. It is not your fault. You have to let her go."

In the shadows and bronze golden light, his face darkened just a touch. She tried not to cry. She would kill for him, but they had a job to do, and he had to hold it together.

“You have to let her go. She’s dead, Alex." Ophelia held him tighter again, not letting him leave. "You didn't kill her. And it's not fair. But you can’t save her, not from death."

"Ophelia."

"Please! I need you," she said. Ophelia felt her tears welling again. "Please. We have a quest. If you keep threatening the gods, we'll fail it."

She remembered the fires. So many screams, so much death. She could see Samuel reaching for her. The choking, acrid smoke. The sulfur stench. The cold winds that wrapped themselves around her body and chilled her to the bone. The voices of the dead.

She saw Leah's smiling face. Her pearly white teeth wide as she perfected her first spell. The way she'd lay with the hellhounds for naps. The way shadows would dance alongside her.

They couldn't let the Fields of Punishment strangle her.

"She's gone, Alex. But we have a hundred kids waiting for us. You can save them. And that’s what matters."

Alex watched her. He seemed to have calmed down, focusing on every word that left her mouth. So she told him about parts of her dream. She told him about the Fields of Punishment.

She took a deep breath, still trembling. "No one can go there. That has to be all that matters.”

Nothing else matters.

"Nothing else matters."

A few moments of silence in the shadows followed. Alex looked away as she dropped his wrists. He focused on Vindication. Ophelia took a moment to get her own breathing under control in the light of the celestial bronze.

"What was her name?" She said.

Alex didn't look at her. He continued to run his thumb over the concealed weapon. "Manon. Welsh for Queen. She said Grandpa was dramatic like that." He trailed off. "But she was just Mom."

Manon Griffith. Ophelia tried to imagine what she would look like. Golden blonde hair, probably covered in dirt and grime like her son far too often. Athletic. Welcoming. At least she lived on in Alex.

She glanced at Vindication. With a frown, she turned back to him. "What happened to the cyclops?"

"What?" He frowned too. "Oh. I don't really remember. I think I threw my knife at it."

"Was it celestial bronze?"

Alex paused. He glanced down at Vindication as well. "I don't remember."

Maybe Hermes hadn't completely abandoned his lover and son. Maybe Ophelia could use that. To keep his head on straight. To keep their quest alive.

Your brothers and sisters are relying on you.

"You don't have to love Hermes. The gods don't deserve that," she added. When Alex met her gaze, she took his wrist with Vindication and held it up between them. "But maybe he did do something. When you want to yell at the Olympians again, remember that."

He seemed to deflate at her words. But he didn't say no. He didn't refuse. Progress. That was progress. The hundred children had to be all that mattered. Not pride, not anger, no matter how righteous.

"I love you," Alex said.

Ophelia smiled. She leaned in and kissed him, allowing the warmth of his body to wash over hers. "We're going to save them, Alex."

"I know." He sighed. "I wish you didn't have those nightmares. Has Eris been terrorizing you too?"

No.

"No," she said. Ophelia kept her smile level and tried not to show her fear at his question. "No, she's been quiet. Too ashamed after their dramatic loss, maybe."

Alex looked at her a bit closer. But then he nodded. He smirked. "Good. She doesn't deserve you."

Ophelia let herself relax, the shadows still swirling around them finally dissipating to reveal an utterly starless, moonless night on the Kennedy Center Terrace. Air pressure thick as water surrounded them. Ophelia glanced up at the cloudy sky.

Lightning split the sky in the distance. Late summer rain in DC could be natural. But she doubted it.

The gods didn't matter. Only the hundred children relying on their quest mattered. She allowed Alex to take her hand. Hopefully he would remember that. He had to remember that.