The thing about the ocean—and Percy had forgotten this, the way you forget the precise shade of your mother's eyes or the exact melody of a song you loved when you were young—was that it *remembered*.
Not in the way people remember, with photographs and nostalgia and the gradual erosion of truth into something more palatable. The ocean remembered the way stone remembers pressure, the way bones remember breaking, the way your body remembers how to breathe even when you've stopped wanting to.
The water closed over his head, and Percy gasped.
Which was unnecessary, given that he could breathe underwater with roughly the same ease that other people breathed air, but his body had apparently forgotten the procedure and needed a moment to consult the manual.
"You're hyperventilating," Mera observed, circling him with the lazy curiosity of a cat who'd discovered something interesting but wasn't quite sure if it was prey or furniture. "Under water. Which shouldn't be possible. Are you doing that on purpose or is that just your body having opinions?"
"My body has *many* opinions," Percy managed, between breaths that were definitely not panicked, thank you very much. "Most of them involve lying down for several years."
"Mm. Specific."
"I've had time to plan."
The water pressed closer, warmer, almost anxious. If water could be anxious. Which it couldn't. Except it could, apparently, because Percy could *feel* it—concern radiating through the currents like ripples from a thrown stone, the ocean itself asking questions he didn't have words to answer.
*Where have you been?*
*Why did you leave?*
*Are you hurt?*
*Are you home?*
"The ocean's fussing over you," Mera said, tilting her head. "I can feel it. Like—like a parent who hasn't seen their child in years. It's actually quite sweet. Also deeply weird."
"I've been gone a long time."
"A century, you said."
"Give or take. Time's negotiable when you're in hell."
"Mm." Mera swam closer, close enough that Percy could see the fine details of her face—the scatter of freckles across her nose, the way her eyes were less green than he'd thought and more the color of sea glass held up to sunlight. "You're glowing, by the way."
"I'm what now?"
"Glowing. The crystal in your chest is doing something that looks like a rave in a fish tank, and your eyes have gone all—" She gestured vaguely at his face. "—all luminescent. Very dramatic. Very 'I've returned from the depths with terrible knowledge.' Ten out of ten for aesthetic."
Percy looked down. The crystal—that impossible thing made of water that should kill him, water that *had* killed countless others, water from rivers that gods feared—was indeed pulsing with light. Bright blue-green, like the ocean at dawn, like hope, like things he'd stopped believing in.
"Huh," he said.
"'Huh'?" Mera's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. "You're having what appears to be a spiritual reunion with your father's domain and your contribution to the moment is '*huh*'?"
"I've learned not to get excited about mysterious glowing. Usually means something's about to explode."
"That's profoundly depressing."
"That's experience."
A school of fish scattered around them—small silver things with the survival instincts of prey animals who'd suddenly realized they were swimming near an apex predator. Something larger, something with too many teeth and not enough sense, took one look at Percy and executed a U-turn so sharp it probably violated several laws of physics.
"Still terrorizing the local wildlife," Mera noted.
"I don't *mean* to."
"I know. That's what makes it so sad." She grinned, sudden and bright. "You're like a puppy who doesn't realize it's actually a wolf. Very tragic. Very Byronic."
"I don't know what that means."
"It means you brood well. It's almost a talent."
"I've had a lot of practice."
"Clearly."
They swam deeper, and Percy felt the pressure increase—not painfully, never painfully, his father's blood saw to that—but *there*. Present. Real. The ocean held him the way gravity holds planets, the way memory holds moments, the way grief holds everything else.
"Tell me something," Mera said after a while, her voice gone softer. "When you were in Tartarus. For all that time. Did you think about this? About the ocean?"
Percy was quiet for a long moment, watching the sea floor unspool beneath them like a carpet made of geology and time.
"I tried not to," he admitted. "Thinking about things I'd lost—that was dangerous. That was how you broke. So I focused on surviving. On moving forward. On becoming strong enough that nothing could hurt me."
"Did it work?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"That's not an answer."
"No," Percy agreed. "It's not."
The ocean pressed closer, and Percy could swear it was listening. Which was absurd. The ocean couldn't listen. It was water and salt and things with too many legs. It wasn't sentient.
Except in every way that mattered, it was.
"The ocean's saying something," Mera said quietly. "I can feel it. Words I don't quite understand. It's speaking to you."
"What's it saying?"
"I don't know. I'm a hydrokinetic, not a translator. But it feels—" She paused, considering. "—it feels like an apology."
Percy's throat went tight. "It doesn't need to apologize."
"Doesn't it? You're Poseidon's son. The ocean is his domain. You were trapped in Tartarus for a century and it couldn't help you. Couldn't reach you. If I were the ocean, I think I'd feel pretty guilty about that."
"The ocean doesn't do guilt."
"Everything does guilt if it has a conscience. Even water."
A laugh escaped Percy before he could stop it—sharp and surprised and rusty as hell, but a laugh nonetheless. "You're strange."
"Says the man wearing armor made of dead monsters and carrying rivers that shouldn't exist inside a crystal embedded in his chest."
"Fair point."
"I'm full of fair points. It's exhausting being this reasonable."
They swam in silence after that, but it was a comfortable silence. The kind of silence that happens between people who've decided they like each other despite all evidence suggesting they shouldn't.
Percy found himself watching Mera as she swam—the easy grace of it, the way she moved through water like it was air, or possibly like it was nothing at all. She left trails of bioluminescence in her wake, little galaxies of light that faded slowly, reluctantly, as if they didn't want to let her go.
"You're staring," Mera said, not looking at him.
"I'm observing."
"That's what people say when they're staring but want to sound intellectual about it."
"I'm intellectually staring, then."
"Better." She glanced at him, smirking. "See something interesting?"
"You make the water glow. That's—that's actually really cool."
"It's a party trick."
"It's beautiful."
Mera's smirk softened into something else. Something that looked almost shy, which seemed impossible for someone who'd dragged a stranger into the ocean based purely on divine vibes and academic curiosity.
"You're supposed to be all traumatized and brooding," she said. "Compliments don't fit the aesthetic."
"I contain multitudes. Some of them are even pleasant."
"I'm beginning to suspect that."
The ocean current shifted, pulling them slightly off course, and Mera adjusted without thinking—one hand moving in a gesture that was half dance, half command, and the water *obeyed*. Just like that. As if it had been waiting for permission.
"Okay, that's definitely cool," Percy said. "The whole—" He mimicked her hand gesture, probably badly. "—water-bending thing."
"Hydrokinesis."
"Right. That. How does it work?"
"How does breathing work?"
"I mean, there's a whole biological process involving lungs and oxygen and—"
"It's like that but for water." Mera demonstrated, pulling moisture from the surrounding ocean and shaping it into a sphere between her hands. "I can feel it. Every molecule. Every current. It's all connected. All *aware*, in a way. Not sentient, exactly, but—present. And if I ask nicely, it does what I want."
"And if you don't ask nicely?"
"Then I tell it very firmly and it does what I want anyway." She released the sphere and it collapsed back into the ocean like it had never been separate at all. "I've been training since I was a child. The Masters of Xebel are very serious about hydrokinetic development. Very 'if you're going to have power you must use it responsibly.'" She affected a deep, pompous voice. "'The ocean is not a toy, young Mera. The ocean is a *responsibility*.'"
Percy grinned. "Let me guess—you immediately started using it for fun?"
"I made a water-slide inside the palace. Right through the throne room."
"That's amazing."
"Master Thetis did not think so. I was grounded for three months."
"Worth it?"
"Absolutely worth it."
They shared a grin, and Percy felt something in his chest loosen—not the crystal, though that pulsed warmly—but something else. Something that had been clenched tight for so long he'd forgotten it could open.
"Tell me about Atlantis," he said, because if he thought too hard about feelings he'd probably combust. "The real version. Not the tourist brochure."
"There's a tourist brochure?"
"I don't know. Is there?"
"There absolutely should be. I'm going to propose it at the next council meeting." Mera's eyes gleamed with mischief. "Picture it: 'Atlantis—We Have Excellent Water Pressure and Only Moderate Political Intrigue.'"
"Catchy."
"I thought so." She sobered slightly. "But actually—Atlantis is complicated. It's old, Percy. Older than you can imagine. Older than most surface civilizations. The architecture alone would make archaeologists weep with joy if they could see it."
"Describe it."
So she did.
Mera painted pictures with words the way other people painted with brushes—great spires of coral and stone rising from the ocean floor, vast plazas where water itself became art, libraries carved from single pieces of crystallized mineral, gardens where bioluminescent flora bloomed in colors that didn't have names in any surface language.
"It sounds beautiful," Percy said.
"It is. It's also lonely."
"How can a city be lonely?"
"When everyone in it is living in the past." Mera's expression turned distant. "We're so busy being proud of what we *were* that we forget to think about what we could *be*. We're very good at preservation. Very bad at growth."
"And Queen Atlanna?"
"Is the loneliest person there."
Percy waited. One thing Tartarus had taught him—along with creative murder techniques and how to survive on negative calories—was patience.
Mera continued: "She's been ruling for longer than anyone can remember. Centuries, probably. Maybe more. She's brilliant and fierce and genuinely cares about her people. But she's also—" Mera paused, choosing words carefully. "—she's also someone who's lost things. Important things. And loss makes you careful. Makes you build walls."
"Walls keep things out."
"And keep things in."
Percy understood that better than he wanted to.
"There are rumors," Mera said quietly. "Old ones. Whispered ones. That Queen Atlanna fell in love with a surface dweller."
"Scandalous."
"Extremely. Surface dwellers and Atlanteans don't mix. Different worlds, different lives. It never works."
"But she tried anyway?"
"The rumor says she did more than try. The rumor says she had a *child*."
Percy's attention sharpened. "A hybrid? Half-Atlantean, half-human?"
"If the rumors are true. Which they might not be. Royal gossip is about as reliable as surface weather predictions."
"But if they are true—"
"Then somewhere out there is a son of Atlantis who probably doesn't know his mother is a queen. Who probably doesn't even know Atlantis exists. Who's trying to figure out who he is with exactly half the information he needs."
Percy thought about this. About children caught between worlds. About legacies that didn't fit. About trying to be two things at once and wondering if you were actually nothing at all.
"That would be hard," he said softly.
"Yes. It would."
"What happened? To the father, I mean. The surface dweller."
"No one knows. The story ends before the ending. Either he died, or he left, or Atlanna sent him away. But however it ended, it ended *badly*. Because Queen Atlanna has been alone ever since. Powerful and respected and completely, utterly alone."
The ocean swirled around them, thoughtful.
"Does she regret it?" Percy asked. "Having loved him? Having a child?"
"I don't know. She doesn't exactly hold heart-to-hearts with junior hydrokinetics from Xebel." Mera's smile was sad. "But I think—I think if she could do it again, she'd still make the same choices. Because the alternative would be never having loved at all. And that's worse, isn't it? Never loving at all?"
Percy thought about Annabeth. About gray eyes and blonde curls and a smile that could light up the darkest places. About loving someone so much it felt like your soul was too small to contain it. About losing them and wondering if the love had been worth the loss.
"Yes," he said finally. "That's worse."
They swam in silence.
---
The outpost materialized from the darkness like a memory trying to become real—all columns and arches and the sort of architectural ambition that said "we built this because we *could*, not because we *should*."
"Welcome to Nowhere Important," Mera announced, swimming through the entrance with a flourish. "Population: us. Amenities: walls. Entertainment: whatever conversations we can stand having before one of us snaps."
"Charming."
"I thought so."
The interior was sparse in the way of places that had been abandoned so long even the ghosts had gotten bored and left. Empty chambers echoed with absence. Stone furniture sat patiently, waiting for people who would never return. Dust—or possibly the underwater equivalent, Percy wasn't sure—drifted through the water in lazy spirals.
It felt, oddly, like peace.
"You can take your helmet off," Mera said, turning to face him. Her red hair drifted around her like flame made liquid. "It's safe here. Relatively. Mostly. Safe enough for faces, anyway."
Percy hesitated.
The helmet had been safety. Distance. A way of being present without being *vulnerable*. Without it, he'd be exposed. Seen. Real in ways he'd stopped being comfortable with approximately ninety years ago.
"I look different," he warned. "Than I used to. Than I should."
"Percy." Mera's voice was gentle. "You're covered in armor made from nightmares. You have a glowing crystal in your chest. Your cape is made of *shadow*. I think I can handle whatever your face is doing."
"That's fair."
"Also, I'm curious. Sue me."
"For what?"
"Excessive curiosity. It's a problem."
Despite himself, Percy smiled. Then, slowly, carefully, like removing a piece of his soul, he unclasped the helmet and pulled it away.
The water touched his face directly, and Percy had to close his eyes against the sensation. It felt like being *known*. Recognized. Remembered by something that loved him despite everything he'd become.
When he opened them, Mera was staring.
"Oh," she said.
"Oh?"
"Oh, you're—" She stopped. Started again. "Percy, you're *young*."
"I'm over a hundred."
"You look twenty-three. Maximum. You look like you should be arguing about philosophy in overpriced cafés, not—not carrying the weight of primordial warfare in your bone marrow."
"I'm very mature for my age."
"You're very *damaged* for any age." Mera swam closer, studying him with the intensity of someone solving a particularly interesting equation. "Your eyes are glowing. Did you know that?"
"I suspected."
"Not like—not a lot. Just—" She gestured. "—like someone put stars in your eyes and forgot to turn them off. It's very distracting."
"Sorry?"
"Don't apologize. Own it. You've got good bone structure and supernatural lighting. That's practically cheating."
Percy blinked. "Are you—are you *flirting* with me right now?"
"I'm making empirical observations about facial symmetry."
"That's flirting."
"Is it?" Mera's smile was wicked. "Huh. Well. Then I suppose I am."
"Should you be?"
"Probably not. You're traumatized and potentially dangerous and we've known each other for approximately an hour."
"So that's a no?"
"That's a 'we'll see.'" She grinned. "I'm scientifically curious about where this goes."
"That's the worst reason to flirt with someone."
"But not the least effective."
They looked at each other, and something passed between them—not attraction exactly, not yet, but the *potential* for attraction. The kind of moment where both people realize, simultaneously, that this could become something interesting if they let it.
Percy broke the moment by laughing. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm *delightful*," Mera corrected. "And you're deflecting."
"I'm deflecting very effectively, thank you."
"Mm." She settled onto a stone ledge, crossing her legs in a way that defied buoyancy and possibly physics. "Alright then. Let's talk strategy. How do we approach Queen Atlanna without triggering a diplomatic incident or, you know, violence?"
"Is violence likely?"
"Depends on how she perceives you. Son of Poseidon could mean honored guest. Or it could mean threat to her authority. Really depends on her mood."
"What kind of mood is she usually in?"
"Queenly."
"That's not helpful."
"None of this is helpful. We're improvising wildly and hoping the ocean doesn't eat us." Mera paused. "Actually, the ocean seems to like you. So we've got that going for us."
Percy glanced around at the water, which did seem unusually attentive. "Does the ocean usually have opinions about people?"
"Not really. But you're special. Son of Poseidon, survivor of Tartarus, killer of primordial deities. You're basically ocean royalty."
"I don't feel like royalty."
"Royalty never does. That's how you know it's real."
Percy laughed again—twice in ten minutes, which might be a record—and felt something in his chest warm. Not the crystal. Something else. Something that felt dangerously close to hope.
"Tell me about Xebel," he said, because if they kept talking about Queens and diplomacy he'd start worrying, and worry led to anxiety, and anxiety led to the shadows getting ideas.
So Mera told him.
About underwater cities and hydrokinetic training. About Masters who took themselves too seriously and students who didn't take them seriously enough. About growing up able to command water but not always able to command respect. About being talented but restless, brilliant but bored, powerful but uncertain what to *do* with that power.
"You sound like me," Percy said. "When I was younger. Before—everything."
"What were you like? Before Tartarus?"
Percy tried to remember. It felt like reaching back through centuries, through layers of darkness and death, trying to find a version of himself that hadn't been tempered in literal hell.
"Impulsive," he said finally. "Loyal. Kind of an idiot sometimes. I jumped into things without thinking. Led with my heart instead of my head. Drove everyone crazy but they loved me anyway. Or—" He paused. "—or they tolerated me effectively."
"They loved you," Mera said firmly. "Nobody tolerates someone for years. That's love with better PR."
"Maybe."
"Definitely." She leaned forward. "Percy, you're still that person. Under the armor and the trauma and the self-loathing. You're still the person who jumps in without thinking. You jumped through dimensional doors to escape Tartarus. You came with me—a complete stranger—into the ocean because I asked nicely. You're still impulsive and loyal and leading with your heart."
"My heart's kind of damaged."
"Everyone's heart is damaged. That's what hearts *do*. They break and heal and break again. But they keep beating."
Percy touched his chest, felt the crystal pulse in rhythm with his actual heart. "This one beats twice."
"Then you've got twice the capacity for recovering." Mera smiled. "I'm choosing to see that as auspicious."
"You're choosing to see most things as auspicious."
"It's a coping mechanism. I find relentless optimism annoys pessimists, which brings me joy."
"You're absolutely ridiculous."
"You've mentioned. I'm choosing to take it as a compliment."
They sat in comfortable silence after that, suspended in water, surrounded by ancient stone, two people from different worlds trying to figure out what happened next.
"We should rest," Mera said eventually. "Before we attempt diplomacy. You look exhausted."
"I am exhausted. I've been exhausted for a century."
"Then rest. I'll keep watch. Make sure nothing decides to investigate the divine disturbance that is you."
"You don't have to—"
"Percy." Her voice was gentle. "Let someone help. Just this once. Let someone keep watch while you rest. The ocean's not going anywhere. Atlantis will still be there in a few hours. Just—rest."
Percy wanted to argue. Wanted to say he was fine, he didn't need help, he'd survived a century alone and he could survive this too.
But he was tired.
So gods-damned tired.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay."
Mera's smile was soft, genuine, kind in ways Percy had forgotten kindness could be.
"Good," she said. "Now close your eyes. Let the ocean hold you. Let yourself stop running for five minutes."
"And if I have nightmares?"
"Then I'll wake you up. And we'll deal with them together."
Percy closed his eyes.
The ocean pressed close, warm and safe and real.
And for the first time in a century, Percy Jackson slept without screaming.
*(Stories about water are always stories about coming home. Stories about home are always stories about learning to rest. And stories about rest are always, in the end, stories about being brave enough to trust someone else to keep watch while you dream.)*
*(This is one of those stories.)*
—
The thing about dreams—and Percy had developed extremely strong opinions about dreams during his extended stay in Tartarus—was that they were the one place you couldn't lie to yourself.
You could lie to the world. Could wear armor made of nightmares and pretend it was strength. Could kill monsters by the dozen and pretend it was necessity. Could survive a century in hell and pretend it hadn't fundamentally broken something essential in your soul.
But dreams? Dreams didn't care about your pretense. Dreams were honest in the way only subconscious terror could be honest.
Which is why, when Percy dreamed, he usually dreamed of *her*.
---
The beach materialized like memory made solid—white sand, blue water, sky so clear it hurt to look at. Camp Half-Blood's beach, specifically, though dream-logic had made it both more and less real than the actual place. The sand was too white. The water too blue. Everything had the hyperreal quality of things remembered so hard they'd been polished into something that never quite existed.
Annabeth sat on the sand, her back to him, blonde curls caught by a wind that smelled like strawberries and sea salt and summer.
Percy's breath caught.
"You're not real," he said.
"No," Annabeth agreed, not turning around. "I'm not. But you needed to see me anyway."
"I see you all the time. Every time I close my eyes."
"No. You see your *guilt*. Your *grief*. The version of me that lives in your worst memories. That's not the same as seeing *me*."
Percy stood frozen, unable to move forward, unable to retreat. The armor felt heavier here. The shadows around him writhed uncomfortably, as if they knew they didn't belong in this place of sunlight and memory.
"I don't know how to do this," he said quietly.
"Do what?"
"Talk to you. Even dream-you. I don't—I don't know what to say."
"Start with hello. That usually works."
"Hello."
"See? Progress." Annabeth turned then, and Percy's heart cracked clean in half.
She looked exactly as he remembered. Gray eyes sharp and analytical, calculating distances and angles even in death. A smudge of dirt on her cheek that she'd never quite managed to wipe away. The camp necklace with too many beads, each one a year survived, a summer endured, a prophecy fulfilled.
The armor—his armor, given to her in that last, desperate moment—was still strapped across her chest, cracked and broken, stained with ichor that had long since dried to rust.
"You're staring," she said, with the ghost of her old smile.
"You're dead."
"Yes. That does tend to limit my social calendar."
"Annabeth—"
"Percy." She stood, brushing sand from her jeans in a gesture so familiar it hurt. "We need to talk."
"I don't want to talk. Talking means accepting this is happening. Accepting that you're—that you're—"
"Dead? We covered that. Try to keep up, Seaweed Brain."
The nickname hit him like a physical blow. How long had it been since someone called him that? Since someone said his name with affection instead of fear?
"Don't call me that."
"Why not? It's accurate. You've always had kelp for brains."
"I'm not—" Percy's fists clenched. "I'm not that person anymore."
"Aren't you?" Annabeth walked closer, and Percy noticed she left no footprints in the sand. "You jumped through broken dimensional doors because staying in Tartarus meant giving up. That's pretty Seaweed Brain behavior."
"That was survival."
"That was *hope*. Don't mistake the two." She stopped just out of arm's reach. Close enough to see the color of her eyes. Not close enough to touch. "Percy, how long are you going to punish yourself?"
"I'm not—"
"You're wearing your guilt like armor. Literally. You've turned your grief into weapons. You've made yourself into something terrifying because you think that's what you deserve for failing to save me."
"I *did* fail to save you."
"Yes." Annabeth's voice was steady. "You did. And I died. And that's terrible. But Percy, I'm *still dead*. Whether you torture yourself for a century or a millennium, I'm still going to be dead. Your suffering doesn't bring me back. It just means we both lost something."
"I should have been faster. Should have seen the trap. Should have—"
"Should have been omniscient? Had perfect battle precognition? Been immune to surprise attacks from primordial deities?" Annabeth crossed her arms. "Percy, you're not a god. You're a demigod. You're allowed to be fallible."
"Not when it costs you your *life*."
"Even then." She sighed. "Especially then. Percy, I knew the risks. We both did. Every quest, every prophecy, every time we walked out of camp—we knew we might not come back. I made my choice. I protected you. And I'd do it again."
"Don't say that."
"Why not? It's true. You're the son of Poseidon. The child of prophecy. The person who's saved the world more times than anyone can count. My life for yours? That's not a bad trade."
"It's a *terrible* trade!"
"Says you."
"Says *logic*! Says anyone with functioning brain cells! You were brilliant, Annabeth. You were going to be an architect. You were going to build monuments that would last millennia. You were going to *matter*."
"And what were you going to do?"
Percy stopped.
"I—I don't know."
"Exactly." Annabeth's smile was sad. "You were going to be a hero, Percy. You *are* a hero. Battered and traumatized and covered in monster parts, but still a hero. Still someone who saves people. Still someone the ocean recognizes as its own."
"I'm a monster now."
"You're a person who survived something impossible. Those aren't the same thing."
"The little girl who saw me—she called me a monster. She *screamed*."
"Because you look scary. Not because you *are* scary." Annabeth moved closer. "Percy, you're still you. Under the armor, under the trauma, under a century of survival—you're still the person who jumped into the Styx to protect his friends. Who gave up immortality because you valued loyalty over power. Who made the gods swear on the Styx to claim their children because you couldn't stand the idea of other kids going through what you did."
"That person died in Tartarus."
"No. That person survived Tartarus. There's a difference."
Percy felt something hot behind his eyes. Felt the crystal in his chest pulse faster, harder, like a heart trying to remember how to break.
"I miss you," he whispered. "Every day. Every hour. I miss you so much it feels like drowning."
"I know. But Percy—" Annabeth reached out, and even though she was incorporeal, even though she was dream and memory and nothing substantial, Percy swore he could feel her hand on his cheek. "—you have to let me go."
"I can't."
"You can. You have to. Because holding onto me like this—it's not love, Percy. It's *paralysis*. It's making me into an anchor instead of a memory."
"You were everything."
"I was *something*. I was important. I mattered to you. But Percy, I wasn't your whole world. And I shouldn't be. Not anymore."
"I don't know how to do this. How to move on. How to be someone who lost you and still keeps existing."
"The same way you do everything else. Stupidly, bravely, with way too much heart and not enough planning." Annabeth's smile was gentle. "You take one step. Then another. Then another. You let yourself feel things other than grief. You let yourself meet new people—like that hydrokinetic who's currently watching you sleep and worrying."
"Mera."
"Mera," Annabeth agreed. "Who's clever and curious and clearly interested in the terrifying demigod she dragged into the ocean. Who might be exactly what you need right now."
"I'm not ready for—"
"You're never going to be ready. Ready is a lie we tell ourselves to justify staying stuck." Annabeth's form began to fade, turning translucent, turning into memory. "But Percy? I need you to hear this. I need you to really, truly hear it."
"What?"
"I love you. I loved you when I was alive. I love you now, in whatever way dead people can love. And *because* I love you, I need you to live. Really live. Not just survive. Not just exist. But *live*. Make friends. Laugh at stupid jokes. Eat too much pizza. Fall in love again if you want to. Build a life that matters. Because Percy—" Her voice was almost gone now, fading like mist. "—the best way to honor my memory isn't to suffer. It's to do all the living I can't do anymore."
"Annabeth—"
"Go," she said. "Go be the person I knew you could be. The one who saves people not because he has to, but because he chooses to. The one who proves that surviving hell doesn't mean becoming it."
"I don't know if I can."
"Yes, you do. You've always known. You're just scared."
"I'm terrified."
"Good." Annabeth's smile was the last thing to fade. "That means you're alive enough to care. Now *go*. Let me rest. Let yourself rest. And Percy?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For everything. For loving me. For remembering me. For carrying me with you even when it hurt."
"Annabeth, I—"
But she was gone.
The beach dissolved.
And Percy woke with tears streaming down his face, the ocean pressing close like a concerned parent, and Mera watching him with eyes that held entirely too much understanding.
"Bad dream?" she asked softly.
"Good dream, actually." Percy's voice was rough. "Which somehow makes it worse."
Mera didn't ask for details. Didn't press. Just moved closer and sat beside him, her presence solid and real and alive in ways that dreams could never be.
"The ocean's been restless," she said after a moment. "While you slept. Something's happening. Something big."
"Define big."
"Your arrival didn't just announce itself locally. It announced itself *everywhere*. Every magic user, every divine being, every creature sensitive to power—they all felt it." She looked at him. "You've made quite the entrance, Percy Jackson."
"I didn't mean to."
"The best entrances never are."
Percy sat up fully, the armor clinking softly, shadows pooling around his feet like anxious pets.
"How bad is it?"
"Unknown. But I'm guessing we're about to find out." Mera stood, offering him a hand. "Ready to meet a queen?"
Percy took her hand—warm and real and alive—and let her pull him up.
"No," he said honestly. "But let's do it anyway."
"That's the spirit. Terrible planning, maximum confidence. You're going to fit right in with Atlantean politics."
"That's not reassuring."
"It wasn't meant to be."
They left the outpost together, swimming toward Atlantis, toward answers, toward whatever came next.
Behind them, in the darkness of the ocean floor, the water whispered Annabeth's final message:
*Live. For both of us. Live.*
---
## Meanwhile: Themyscira
The island materialized from mist at dawn, the way it always did—less a place appearing and more reality remembering it had forgotten to include something important.
Diana stood on the cliffs overlooking the training grounds, watching the warriors practice, and tried to understand the sensation crawling up her spine like an electric current made of divine attention.
Something had *changed*.
Not small-change. Not the gradual shift of seasons or the slow erosion of stone. This was *significant*-change. The kind that made reality hiccup. The kind that made the Lasso of Truth pulse against her hip with agitation.
"Princess."
Diana turned to find Phillipus approaching, her expression grave in the way that meant someone was about to have a very bad day and Phillipus wasn't certain who yet.
"General," Diana greeted.
"You felt it."
"Yes."
"The others are gathering. Your mother requests your presence."
Diana nodded and followed, her warrior's instincts on high alert. The sensation intensified as they walked—like standing too close to lightning, like the moment before a storm breaks, like the universe holding its breath.
The council chamber was already full. Queen Hippolyta sat on her throne, regal and worried in equal measure. The other Amazons stood in clusters, murmuring, anxious.
"Diana." Hippolyta's voice cut through the noise. "Tell me what you sense."
Diana closed her eyes, reaching out with senses that were half-trained warrior, half-daughter of Zeus. The divine blood in her veins resonated with something—a frequency, a signature, a presence that felt both familiar and utterly foreign.
"Divine power," she said slowly. "But not from Olympus. Not from any pantheon I recognize. It's—" She struggled for words. "—it's like Poseidon, but wrong. Like someone took the ocean and mixed it with something darker. Something that shouldn't exist."
"Should we be concerned?"
"Unknown. But mother—" Diana opened her eyes. "—whatever this is, it's *powerful*. Strong enough that the gods themselves must have felt it."
"Zeus?" Hippolyta's expression tightened.
"If he's paying attention, yes."
A ripple of unease went through the assembled Amazons. Zeus paying attention was rarely good news.
"What do you recommend?" Hippolyta asked.
Diana considered. Her warrior's instinct said *investigate*. Her divine blood said *be careful*. Her heart—the part of her that had always been too curious, too willing to extend trust—said *help*.
"I recommend we wait," she said carefully. "And watch. If this presence threatens Themyscira, we respond. If it threatens the innocent, we intervene. But we don't act on fear alone."
"Wise," Hippolyta said. "But Diana—prepare yourself. Something is coming. I can feel it. The old magic is stirring. And when old magic stirs, heroes are called."
Diana nodded, hand resting on her lasso.
She didn't know what was coming.
But she'd be ready for it.
---
## Meanwhile: Aeaea (Circe's Island)
The sorceress stood on her balcony, wine glass in hand, and laughed.
"Oh," Circe said, delighted. "*Oh*, this is *perfect*."
Her attendants—various transformed heroes who'd made the mistake of annoying her, currently in the shape of extremely well-groomed pigs—oinked questioningly.
"Don't you feel it?" Circe gestured broadly at the horizon. "The divine disturbance? The presence?"
More confused oinking.
"Of course you don't. You're *pigs*. Pigs don't have mystical sensitivity." She took a sip of wine. "There's a demigod running around somewhere. Not just any demigod—a *son of Poseidon*. And he's absolutely *drenched* in power that smells like Tartarus and death and very poor life choices."
The pigs, sensing this was going somewhere bad for everyone involved, began backing away slowly.
"Oh, don't be dramatic. I'm not going to do anything to *him*." Circe's smile was sharp. "I'm going to *meet* him. Study him. Figure out what makes a demigod who's been to Tartarus tick. This is the most interesting thing to happen in *centuries*."
She turned to her attendants.
"Prepare the guest quarters. Polish the silver. Practice your non-threatening greetings. We're going to have a visitor, and I want to make a good impression."
The pigs looked at each other with expressions that clearly said *we are so very doomed*.
Circe just smiled and raised her glass to the horizon.
"To interesting times," she said. "And the poor bastards who live through them."
---
## Meanwhile
### Giovanni Zatara's Study, Somewhere in New York
The cards exploded across the table in a pattern that made Giovanni's eye twitch.
"That," he said carefully, "should not be possible."
His daughter Zatanna, age thirteen and convinced she knew everything, peered over his shoulder. "What shouldn't be possible?"
"This reading. It's showing power from a source that doesn't *exist*. Or shouldn't exist. Or—" He reshuffled, tried again. Same result. "—or existed and was supposed to stay very firmly in a different dimension."
"Dad, you're not making sense."
"Neither are these cards." Giovanni stared at the spread. The Tower, reversed. The Star, but corrupted. And in the center, a card that wasn't in any deck he owned—dark, oily, showing a figure in impossible armor standing at the threshold of broken doors.
"Who is that?" Zatanna asked.
"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
### The Tower of Fate
Kent Nelson—Doctor Fate, Lord of Order, professional magical problem-solver—stood in his sanctum and felt the universe send him the metaphysical equivalent of a very concerned memo.
The Helmet of Fate gleamed on its pedestal, reflecting golden light that spelled out words in the air:
**ANOMALY DETECTED**
**SOURCE: DIMENSIONAL BREACH**
**NATURE: DIVINE/INFERNAL HYBRID**
**THREAT LEVEL: CALCULATING...**
**THREAT LEVEL: UNDEFINED**
**RECOMMENDATION: INVESTIGATE WITH EXTREME CAUTION**
"Undefined," Kent muttered. "That's never good."
Nabu's voice echoed in his mind, ancient and worried: *This presence... I know it. And I do not know it. It is of the gods, but not godly. It is of the underworld, but not infernal. It is—*
"Confusing?" Kent suggested.
*—unprecedented,* Nabu finished. *And anything unprecedented is dangerous.*
"Should we act?"
*We should watch. And prepare. If this presence proves hostile, the Lords of Order will need to respond.*
"And if it proves benevolent?"
*Then the Lords of Order will still need to respond. We don't trust benevolence. It's suspicious.*
Kent sighed. Lords of Order were exhausting.
### Felix Faust's Lair
The dark sorcerer stood in his summoning circle, surrounded by grimoires and desperation, and felt the arrival like a punch to his mystical solar plexus.
"Power," he whispered. "*Pure* power. Divine power. Underworld power. Power that—"
He consulted his texts frantically.
"—that should be *impossible*."
Felix Faust was not a good person. He'd made peace with that decades ago. But he was a *smart* person, and smart people recognized opportunity when it manifested in reality-breaking amounts of divine energy.
"If I could harness even a fraction of that power—"
He began planning. Scheming. Drawing diagrams that would horrify ethics boards across multiple dimensions.
This presence, this anomaly, this *demigod*—he'd find them. Study them. And if possible, steal whatever made them tick.
For science.
(And personal power.)
(Mostly personal power.)
### John Constantine's Apartment, London
Constantine lit his forty-seventh cigarette of the day and stared at the ceiling.
"Bollocks," he said eloquently.
The presence had rattled him awake at 3 AM with all the subtlety of a divine sledgehammer. He'd felt it in his bones, his blood, his very considerable collection of magical debts and obligations.
Something had crossed over. Something that shouldn't exist. Something that smelled like death and sea water and the kind of trauma that left marks on reality itself.
"Not my problem," Constantine told himself.
The universe, as usual, ignored him.
"Really. Not my problem. I've got enough problems. I'm drowning in problems. I'm the problem *king*."
His scrying bowl—filled with London's finest tap water and some very questionable ingredients—began glowing.
Constantine looked at it.
The bowl looked back.
"Sod off," Constantine told it.
The bowl showed him an image: A figure in dark armor, standing at the threshold between worlds, surrounded by shadows that moved independently.
"That's nice. Very artistic. Not interested."
The bowl showed him something else: The same figure, but younger. Vulnerable. Human. A boy, really. Just a kid trying to survive.
"Oh, you *absolute bastard*," Constantine muttered at the universe. "You're not playing fair."
The universe, being the universe, had never played fair and wasn't about to start now.
Constantine grabbed his coat.
"Fine. *Fine*. I'll look into it. But this counts against my debt! I'm marking this down! The next apocalypse, I'm taking a vacation!"
The universe didn't respond, but Constantine could swear he felt it laugh.
### Klarion the Witch Boy's Chaos
Klarion sat in his pocket dimension, swinging his legs from a throne made of crystallized mischief, and *giggled*.
"Oh, Teekl," he said to his cat familiar, "did you feel that? Did you feel how the order-obsessed stick-in-the-muds are all *panicking*?"
Teekl meowed affirmatively.
"There's a new player on the board. A chaotic one. A powerful one. Someone who doesn't play by anyone's rules because he's probably forgotten what rules even *are*." Klarion's grin was manic. "I *like* him already."
Teekl meowed again, this time skeptically.
"What? I can like people! I'm very likeable! I'm charm incarnate!"
Teekl's expression suggested this was debatable.
"Fine, fine. I'm going to investigate. Poke around. See if this new demigod wants to cause some properly entertaining chaos." Klarion stood, straightening his suit. "After all, the enemy of order is my potential friend."
Teekl meowed one more time, with the tone of a cat who knew this would end badly but couldn't stop it.
"Your optimism is noted and ignored," Klarion said cheerfully.
And with a flash of chaotic energy, they vanished.
---
The magical community, such as it was, began to move.
Investigators investigating. Sorcerers scheming. Heroes preparing. Villains plotting.
All of them drawn to the same question:
*Who is this presence?*
*What is this power?*
*And why does it feel like the beginning of something that could change everything?*
In the depths of the ocean, swimming toward Atlantis with a hydrokinetic guide and a chest full of impossible water, Percy Jackson remained blissfully unaware that he'd become the most interesting thing to happen to Earth's magical community in centuries.
He was too busy trying not to think about Annabeth.
Trying not to think about how Mera's laugh sounded like hope.
Trying not to think about what came next.
The ocean pressed close, warm and welcoming.
And for just a moment, Percy let himself believe that maybe—just maybe—things might actually be okay.
*(Narrator's note: They would not be okay. But the ocean, bless its salty heart, was an optimist.)*
---
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