Ezra found him on the beach that night.
Percy had known he would. He'd seen it on Ezra's face at the meeting, when Clarisse read out the prophecy and nobody said the words son of Poseidon. He'd seen it again at dinner, when Ezra pushed his food around his plate and didn't eat any of it. And again at the campfire, when the Apollo cabin sang a song about the Argonauts and Ezra got up halfway through and walked away into the dark.
So Percy went down to the beach after the fire burned low, and sat in the sand where the two of them had trained every afternoon last summer. And waited.
It didn't take long.
Ezra came down the dunes with his hands in his pockets and Riptide's pen-shape clipped to his collar. Annabeth was walking beside him. Tyson was walking behind them both, huge and quiet, holding a flashlight that wasn't turned on.
They sat down in a row next to Percy in the cold sand. Nobody said anything for a while. The waves came in, silver in the moonlight, and went out again.
"It's the Sea of Monsters," Ezra said finally.
"Yeah."
"It's literally the sea. Of monsters." Ezra's voice was tight. "The one place on earth where a son of Poseidon would actually be useful. Where the water is the whole point. And I'm not going."
"No," said Percy. "You're not."
"Why?" Ezra turned and looked at him. His sea-green eyes were bright in the dark. "I'm not complaining. Okay, I'm complaining a little. But I want to know. Is it because I'm not good enough? Because I saw you on that hill yesterday, Percy, and I know I'm not there yet, but I pulled water out of the ground, I blew up a bronze bull, I'm not the same kid I was last summer—"
"I know you're not," Percy said.
"Then why?"
Percy looked out at the water.
He thought about it for a long time. About how much to say. About what Ezra needed to hear, and what was true, and whether those were the same thing.
"Because if all of us go," he said slowly, "nobody's here."
Ezra blinked.
"The tree is dying," Percy said. "Nine days, maybe less. Every day it gets weaker, the boundary gets weaker. And there's an army out there. Kronos's army. You saw the road behind the cyclopes yesterday. Hellhounds. Dracaenae. Things with too many heads. That was the vanguard, Ezra. Not the army. Just the scouts." He looked at Ezra. "They're going to come back. Probably while I'm gone. Maybe more than once. And when they do, somebody has to be standing on that hill."
Ezra didn't say anything.
"Clarisse is coming with me," Percy said. "She's the best fighter in camp, after me. Castor is coming, because the prophecy says the vine-born. And I'm taking most of my shadows. Asterion, Rime, the cyclopes, the bulls." He paused. "That leaves this camp with four dead heroes who might vanish the second the tree dies, a god who mostly drinks Diet Coke, and a bunch of kids who were losing to two bulls yesterday morning."
He met Ezra's eyes.
"And you," he said. "The kid who blew up one of those bulls with a geyser."
The waves came in. Went out.
"I need you here," Percy said quietly. "Not because you're not good enough. Because you're the only one who is. Who I trust to hold this place while I'm gone."
Ezra stared at him.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked down at his hands in the sand.
"That's not fair," he said, finally. His voice was rough. "You can't just say stuff like that."
"It's true, though."
"I know it's true. That's why it's not fair."
Percy laughed a little. So did Annabeth. Even Ezra, after a second, let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
"What about me?" said Annabeth.
She was sitting on Ezra's other side, with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Her blond hair was blowing in the wind off the water, and her gray eyes were serious.
"I'm not a son of Poseidon," she said. "I can't pull water out of the ground. You don't need me to hold the hill. Clarisse can fight, but she can't plan. Castor can grow grapes. And you..." She hesitated. "You're strong. Everyone knows you're strong. But you go in, every time, by yourself, and you just take it. All of it. You don't let anyone help you." Her voice was very quiet. "You need someone to think for you. When you're too tired to think for yourself. Like in Vegas. Like after the tower."
Percy looked at her.
In his first life, Annabeth had been on this quest. She'd been on every quest. She'd been there in the Sea of Monsters, tied to the mast of a ship so she could hear the Sirens sing. They'd sung her deepest wish. A new Olympus, rebuilt, where gods and demigods lived in peace.
She'd cried, afterward. She'd told him that her fatal flaw was hubris. The belief that she could do better than the gods. That she could fix the world, if they'd only let her.
And in this world, Percy thought, she's going to.
"You're right," he said. "I do need somebody to think for me."
Annabeth's eyes widened slightly. She hadn't expected him to agree.
"But not on this quest," Percy said. "Here." He nodded back toward the camp, toward the lights of the cabins in the dark. "This camp is about to get hit, Annabeth. Maybe hard. And Odysseus is the smartest man who ever lived, and he knows how to defend a city. He did it for ten years at Troy." He looked at her. "He's going to need someone who knows this camp. Every path. Every building. Every weak spot. Someone who's lived here since she was seven, and can think like him."
Annabeth stared at him.
"You want me to plan the defense," she said slowly. "With Odysseus."
"I want you to learn everything he knows," Percy said. "About walls. About defenses. About how to hold a city when the whole world is trying to take it." He paused. "Because in about a year, you're going to be designing one. And it's going to need all of that."
Annabeth didn't say anything for a long time.
Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face. Small and fierce and determined. The smile of a girl who'd just been handed the most interesting problem in the world.
"Odysseus," she said, almost to herself. "The actual Odysseus. The Trojan Horse guy." She laughed, softly, a little breathlessly. "Okay. Okay, Percy. Fine. But if you come back with so much as a scratch, I'm telling Dionysus to make you a dolphin."
"Everyone keeps saying that," Percy complained.
[FAITH: Annabeth Chase's faith in the Host has deepened. +80 Faith.]
Ezra had been quiet through all of that. Staring out at the water.
Now he said, very quietly, "Grover."
Percy turned to look at him.
"He's in a cave," Ezra said. "In a wedding dress. With a Cyclops who wants to eat him. And he's my friend too, Percy. He was there in the Arch. He was there in the Underworld. He was there in the swamp, when you came down out of the sky." His voice cracked. "And I can't go get him."
Percy didn't say anything.
"I keep thinking about it," Ezra said. "What if something goes wrong? What if you're too late? What if he's—" He couldn't finish. He looked down at the sand, his jaw working.
And then Tyson spoke.
He'd been sitting behind them the whole time, silent, his huge knees pulled up to his chin and his unlit flashlight in his lap. Now he reached out one enormous hand, very gently, and put it on Ezra's shoulder.
"Percy will bring goat-friend home," Tyson said.
Ezra looked up at him.
"Percy always brings people home," said Tyson simply. His one big brown eye was very serious in the moonlight. "He brought me cows. Good cows now. He brought Annabeth and you and goat-friend home from the dead place. He will bring goat-friend home again." He nodded firmly. "Percy promised."
"I haven't promised yet," Percy said quietly.
Ezra looked at him.
And Percy looked back. At the son of Poseidon. The boy the Fates had dropped into his world to break it, a year ago. Arrogant and scared and angry. Who was sitting next to him in the sand now with tears in his eyes, worrying about a satyr.
"I'm going to bring Grover back," Percy said. "I promise. Alive. Whole. Probably still in the wedding dress, honestly, because he'll be too traumatized to take it off."
Ezra laughed. It was wet, and shaky, and real.
"And I'm going to bring the Fleece back," Percy said. "And Castor. And Clarisse. Every one of us. I promise." He held Ezra's eyes. "And while I'm doing that, you're going to stay here, and hold this hill, and get stronger. Every day. Like you did all year. You're going to train with Theseus."
Ezra blinked. "Theseus?"
"He's a son of Poseidon," Percy said. "Did you not know that? Your half-brother. The greatest son of Poseidon who ever lived, probably. He killed the Minotaur. He was king of Athens." He shrugged. "And he's here, for nine days, with nothing to do but run laps. Go ask him."
Ezra was staring at him. His mouth was hanging open a little.
"Theseus," he said faintly. "My brother."
"Your brother," Percy agreed. "Your other brother." He tilted his head at Tyson. "You've got two now. That's pretty good."
Tyson beamed so wide his whole face lit up.
Ezra looked at Tyson. And at Percy. And out at the sea, glittering silver under the moon.
Then he let out a long breath.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. I trust you."
He held out his hand.
Percy took it.
"When you get back," Ezra said, gripping his hand hard, "I'm going to be stronger. Way stronger. I'm going to learn everything Theseus knows. And I'm going to be standing on that hill with this camp in one piece, waiting for you." His eyes were fierce. "And then I'm going to kick your butt in the arena. For real this time. In front of everybody."
"Looking forward to it," said Percy.
[FAITH: Ezra Coleman's faith in the Host has deepened. +120 Faith.]
[QUEST UNLOCKED (Ezra Coleman): HOLD THE HILL.]
[Note: For the first time, the System has issued a quest to someone other than the Host.]
Percy blinked at that last line.
Great Sage? What does that mean?
[Great Sage does not know.]
[Great Sage notes that Ezra Coleman's thread is now woven closely enough to the Host's that the Loom has begun to treat them as... adjacent.]
[Great Sage will investigate.]
The Iris message came at midnight.
Percy had been about to go to bed. He was standing on the porch of Cabin One, looking up at the stars, when the air in front of him shimmered and turned into a rainbow. Three faces appeared in it, crowded together, all talking at once.
"Percy!"
"Is it true? Rachel said you're going to the Sea of—"
"Shut up, Matt, let him—"
"Guys," Percy said, grinning. "Guys. One at a time."
They were on the roof of Rachel's house, in the dark, in pajamas, wrapped in blankets. Rachel's hair was a wild red tangle and there was paint on her face. Nancy had her spiral notebook open on her knees. Matt was holding his phone up as a flashlight.
"Rachel dreamed it," Nancy said. "The quest. The whole thing. A ship, and a big one-eyed guy, and sheep."
"And you," Rachel said. Her green eyes were very serious. "And something else."
She held something up to the rainbow. A canvas. Small, maybe a foot square, still wet. She must have painted it in the last hour.
Percy leaned closer to see it.
It was a guinea pig.
A small, fat, orange-and-white guinea pig. Sitting in a little wooden cage, on a sunny island, with flowers and palm trees and a big white mansion in the background. It had big, startled, sea-green eyes.
And it had Percy's hair.
The messy, dark, static-charged hair. Standing up in all directions. Unmistakably, impossibly his.
Nancy burst out laughing. Matt had his face in his blanket, shaking. Rachel was trying very hard not to smile, and failing.
"I don't know what it means," she said. "I just woke up and had to paint it. It was really, really important that I paint it." Her lips twitched. "I'm sorry. It's a very handsome guinea pig."
Percy didn't laugh.
He was staring at the painting. At the island. At the big white mansion in the background, with its white marble terraces and its spa and its pretty girls in silk dresses.
He'd been on that island once, in his first life.
C.C.'s Spa and Resort.
Circe.
And one shall return on the wings of a storm, who carries the gold home, but not his own form.
"Percy?" Rachel's smile was fading. "Percy, what's wrong? You've gone white."
"Nothing," said Percy. "Nothing. It's just... thank you, Rach. Seriously. That's really useful."
"Useful?" said Matt, from inside his blanket. "Dude, it's a guinea pig."
"Yeah," said Percy. "I know. That's the useful part."
[Great Sage notes: The Host has received a prophetic warning in the form of a rodent.]
[Great Sage has filed it under "Concerning."]
Good call, Percy thought.
They talked for another half hour. Nancy read him the latest numbers from Plum Island. Beckendorf's crew had the old bunkers cleared out and the forge already lit, and Katie had planted the first orchard. Matt had found a loophole in the conservation easement that would let them build the harbor a whole year early. Rachel had painted the new Big House on the bluff, and Annabeth had looked at it over an Iris message and said it was exactly what she'd drawn.
And then, at the end, Nancy put down her notebook.
"Come home," she said. "Okay? Just come home."
"I will," said Percy. "I promise."
"You promise a lot of stuff," said Nancy.
"I keep it, too."
Nancy looked at him for a long moment, through the rainbow.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "You do."
They left at dawn.
Not from the camp beach. From the deeper water around the point, where the Sound opened up toward the sea. Because the Argo had come back in the night.
Beckendorf had sailed it himself, from Plum Island, with two of his cabinmates, through the dark. He'd heard about the quest from Annabeth, over an Iris message, at nine o'clock last night. By ten he'd been on the water.
"You need a ship," he said simply, when Percy came down to the beach at dawn and found the old trireme rocking at anchor in the shallows, with its new name gleaming on its prow. "You can't sail to the Sea of Monsters in a canoe."
"Beckendorf," Percy said. "You didn't have to—"
"Yeah, I did." The big son of Hephaestus looked at him with his calm dark eyes. "You gave us the forge, man. You gave us the island. My whole cabin has a home now. A real one. Underground, with no trees to set on fire." He put a big scarred hand on the side of the ship. "Least I can do is give you a boat."
He'd modified it. Of course he had. The hull was lined with celestial bronze plates now, all down the waterline. There was a ballista mounted on the prow. The oars were all still there, all fifty of them. But there were brackets on each one, iron cuffs that would lock them into place, so they could be rowed by anyone. Or anything.
"For your big shadow guys," Beckendorf explained, looking a little embarrassed. "The cyclopes. I figured they could row. If they don't get tired, you could go a long way pretty fast."
Percy looked at the ship. At the bronze plates and the ballista and the fifty oars waiting for shadow hands.
Then he hugged Beckendorf. Hard. The son of Hephaestus froze, startled, then laughed and hugged him back.
"Bring it back in one piece," Beckendorf said. "Silena painted the figurehead."
The figurehead was a woman with a lantern, carved in wood and painted in gold and white and sea-blue. She had Annabeth's gray eyes.
[ITEM ACQUIRED: THE ARGO (Reforged). A trireme of the new age. Hull: celestial bronze. Armament: Ballista (1). Oars: 50 (shadow-compatible).]
[FAITH: Charles Beckendorf believes in the Host. +100 Faith.]
The whole camp came down to see them off.
They stood on the beach in the gray dawn light, a hundred of them, in pajamas and sweatshirts, wrapped in blankets. The four heroes stood among them. Theseus with his club, and Ezra standing very close beside him, looking up at him like he'd hung the moon. Perseus, hovering a few feet off the sand, grinning. Achilles, apart from everyone, alone at the water's edge, watching Percy with his sad eyes. And Odysseus, with Annabeth at his elbow. They already had their heads together over a map of the camp, talking fast and low.
Dionysus was there too. In his lawn chair, which someone had carried down to the sand. He was wearing sunglasses and pretending to be asleep. But when Castor came down the beach with his pack on his back, and stopped in front of the lawn chair, the god of wine took his sunglasses off.
He didn't say anything. He just looked at his son for a long moment.
Then he reached into his leopard-print shirt and pulled out a small thing on a leather cord. It was a grape. A single grape, carved out of purple crystal, glowing faintly from inside.
He held it out. Castor took it, and put it around his neck.
"Don't do anything stupid," said Dionysus.
"I won't, Dad."
"You will. You're my son. But try not to."
He put his sunglasses back on, and slumped back in his lawn chair, and appeared to go back to sleep.
Castor's eyes were very bright as he walked away.
Clarisse came down the beach next, in full armor, with her electric spear over her shoulder and a duffel bag in her hand. The Ares cabin followed her in a solid block. When she got to the water's edge, all of them, every single one, banged their spears against their shields at once. The sound rolled out over the water like thunder.
Clarisse didn't look back. But Percy saw her jaw tremble.
And then it was his turn.
He walked down the beach toward the ship. Lupe trotted at his heels. And the camp parted for him, the way it had parted for the heroes, the way the whole world seemed to part for him now. Kids reached out as he passed. Touching his arm, his shoulder, his back. Good luck, Percy. Come back, Percy. Bring the Fleece, Percy. Little Marcus from Cabin Eleven threw his arms around Percy's waist and hung on until Travis Stoll pried him off.
At the water's edge, he stopped.
He turned around.
And looked at all of them. In the gray dawn light, on the beach of the camp that had been his home in two lives. That wouldn't be here much longer. That would be somewhere better, soon.
He didn't know what to say. So he didn't say anything.
He just raised his hand.
And a hundred hands went up on the beach to meet it.
The Argo slid out into the Sound with the sun coming up behind it, gold and pink over the water.
Four shadow cyclopes sat on the rowing benches, two on each side. Boulder and Crag and Flint and Slate, huge and dark and patient, pulling at the oars in perfect rhythm. Under the deck, in the hold, the two shadow bulls stood in the dark like engines. And above the mast, circling high in the morning sky, invisible against the light, Rime the shadow dragon kept watch.
Clarisse stood at the prow, with her spear in her hand and her face set toward the sea. Castor stood at the rail, holding the crystal grape on its cord, looking back at the beach until it was out of sight.
And Percy stood at the stern, at the tiller, with Lupe curled at his feet. He watched Camp Half-Blood get smaller and smaller behind them, until it was just a green smudge on the shore. Until even the dying pine on top of the hill had vanished into the morning haze.
[MAIN QUEST: THE SEA OF MONSTERS — BEGUN.]
[Leader: Clarisse La Rue.]
[Time limit: 8 days, 19 hours.]
[Objectives: The Golden Fleece. Grover Underwood. Castor, son of Dionysus. Return.]
[BLOODLINE THREAD II: THE SEA. The Host's second bloodline stirs.]
[Status: Waiting.]
Percy turned around and looked forward. Past Clarisse at the prow, past the dragon-carved bowsprit and Silena's golden lantern-woman, out to where the Sound opened up into the Atlantic.
The sea was huge and gray-blue and endless, rolling under the rising sun.
And somewhere out there, in the deepest water in the world, something was waiting for him.
He could feel it. The way he'd once felt the sea in his first life. A pull, deep down, at the bottom of his chest. Like a tide. Like a voice he'd known his whole life and forgotten, calling him home.
I'm coming, he thought.
And the sea, very faintly, answered.
I know, it said. I've been waiting.
The Argo sailed east, into the sun.