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ADELA
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"Zestasiá," Adela whispered.
It was meant to be an enchantment to warm things up. That's what Chiron had told Adela the Greek meant, anyway. To her, it sounded like she was calling forth the great and mighty power of lemon zest.
Adela was practicing on a shallow bowl of milk. When she'd first tried this, it had bubbled but the temperature hadn't changed. The next time, the milk had gone ice cold. But Chiron said that three was a powerful number, right? It appeared all over the old stories. Three separate forms of Hekate, three parts of the underworld, three fates. Maybe the third time would be lucky. Adela peered down at the milk.
Oh, great. It had congealed.
"This is useless!" Adela snapped. "I've been trying for two hours."
"Patience, child," Chiron advised. "Many of most powerful sorcerers I have ever trained spent days perfecting their enchantments."
"And did any of them have trouble heating up a simple bowl of milk?"
Gladys yowled on Adela's lap, fluffy head peeking out from a blanket. Disgusting as it was, the growth tonic Chiron had given Adela the recipe for was working. Slowly. Before, the tiny little thing was barely big enough to fit in Adela's left hand. Adela needed both hands to hold Gladys now, but the kitten was still tiny. Chiron guessed that in about six months, the thing would be around two weeks old.
"Lo siento, lo siento!" Adela whispered. "I was just trying to heat your food up."
"Would you like me to boil the milk?" Chiron asked.
Adela nodded. She felt like a failure.
Chiron took the milk away, and Adela hung her head, letting it fall into the table. What kind of sorceress couldn't even get a simple heating enchantment right? Her free hand gently stroked Gladys's soft fur, but that didn't make Adela feel any better either. Only one person had ever really made her feel better.
≪•✧•≫
"Cariño," her father soothed. "Adela, you need to let go. I have a meeting. We have all the time in the world to play after that, I promise. But I have to go now. I'm already late."
"¡No!" Adela whined. "¡Sin reunión!"
"I can't cancel so last minute. It doesn't work that way, Mijita. It's only an hour. I'll be back before you have time to miss me."
Her father tried to get up from the couch, but Adela wound her arms around his shoulders and locked her hands together like a manacle, clinging on for dear life with all of her four-year-old might.
"¡Uy, Adela!"
Her father gasped at the sudden weight, and grabbed her so she wouldn't fall to the ground.
"You're so strong! Bueno, claro que sí..." Her father sighed. "Alright, you can come with me if you promise to be very quiet. Can you do that?"
"Sí, papa." Adela nodded into her father's suit jacket.
"Alright then." Her father adjusted her so that she wasn't clinging to him anymore, grinning and tickling her shoulders as he did so. "¡Vamos!"
Her father's shoes clicked against the hardwood floors as he walked from the private part of their penthouse into his office. There was a tall man in a grey pressed suit waiting for them.
"Alejandro!" He gave Adela's father a tight smile. "I was wondering where you - who is this?"
"My apologies, Mr. Corpate. This is Adela."
Her father gave her a reassuring squeeze. "My daughter. She's very quiet, I promise you. You won't even know she's here."
The man's smile thinned. "Of course. Let's begin."
Adela's father sat down at his desk and Adela curled up in his lap as the man, Mr C-something, began to talk. It was a lot of very big words - 'contractual consideration', 'invitation to treat', things like that. Adela didn't know what any of it meant but she didn't think 'invitation to treat' was talking about candy. This was normal. Adela didn't understand what her father talked about with his business partners even when they were speaking Spanish. This, and her father's gentle rocking made it very easy for her to fall asleep.
Adela woke up later, curled in her father's lap. He'd put his suit jacket over her as a blanket.
It would have been easier for him to take her back to her room so she wouldn't interrupt his meeting, but he'd let her stay.
"Sleep well?"
Her father stopped typing on his laptop and smiled at her. "I was just about to wake you up for dinner. We're having gazpacho. How does that sound?"
"¡Asombroso!" Adela cheered.
"Great."
Her father smiled. "How about we practice your English a little afterwards?"
Adela scowled. Her father laughed, and poked her cheek. "Mhm, I suppose I should've anticipated that. Only for an hour, nena. How does that sound?"
"Not I am here," Adela said. "No English."
"I can see you, Adela." Her father looked very unimpressed. "You almost had it, though. It's 'I am not here', remember?"
"I am not here." Adela covered her father's eyes to reinforce her statement. "No English."
"Uh huh. How about we eat, then we can talk about it later?" Laughing, her father lifted her up and carried her out of his office and into the private part of his penthouse. Adela giggled, her hands still covering his face.
≪•✧•≫
Adela pulled her hands from her face with a shaky breath. The fingertips of her gloves were wet with tears. It was no use crying now.
"Here."
Chiron set the milk down in front of her. It was steaming, a little bit. Adela couldn't do that. Heh - a stove was more useful than her. Seemed fitting. She never did anything right, anyway. Chiron laid a hand on her shoulder and gave her a sad smile.
"That shouldn't be too hot for your cat. Do you want anything else, Adela?"
She wanted her papa.
But she couldn't have that. "No," Adela told him. "I'm fine."
Chiron seemed to believe the lie. He wheeled himself to the other side of the desk, put on some gods-awful music from his record player and cracked open a book. Adela stroked her pointer finger over Gladys's furry little head as the kitten sipped her milk.
It was no use thinking of those memories. She couldn't ever be that child again. She couldn't ever see her father again. Maybe that was for the better. He'd loved her so much then, but that was long before she was a murderer. Who could love her now? Not her father. Certainly not Marion. It was better this way. If she was alone, she had no one. If she had no one, then she killed no one. It was better. It was. It had to be.
Then why did she hate it so much?
➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶
MARION
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"I cannot believe you actually told everyone at school that you were older than me," Mari said.
The first day at Havenplant Middle School hadn't been so bad. Well, technically it had been the second day, since Mari had skipped the first to go hang out with cows. Mari's actual first day in the school had been pretty decent. The school was a really nice building, with huge glass windows that let in the sunlight and a view of the gardens outside, where they all got to eat lunch on the grass. That bit kind of reminded Mari of Camp Half-Blood. She had all the same classes as Will, so he'd shown her where to go. The teachers hadn't even known her long enough to be annoyed yet, which was always a plus.
A few of the other kids had been intrigued by her British accent, and Mari had a not-so-fun time explaining that she actually wasn't sure what the Boston Tea Party was (she was pretty sure it was a café, right?). It had all been going great, up to the moment a girl with pigtails and braces came up to Mari and stuck her hand out to shake.
"Hey, Mari, right?" she'd asked. "Will Solace's little sister?"
Betrayal. Absolute betrayal.
"The people needed to hear the truth," Will told her, clearly trying to avoid laughing.
Another good thing about Havenplant was that it was pretty close to Naomi's house. A twenty minute walk away. That was especially convenient given the fact that they'd had art last period and Mari had managed to get distracted and completely miss the bus. Will had waited and Iris-Messaged Naomi in the bathroom while Mari frantically packed her stuff away, and then they'd headed off home. She had decided it was the perfect time to confront Will about his treachery.
"I am older than you!" Mari argued. "I was literally born five years before you were! You're a lot better at maths than I am. I know you can count."
"Firstly, it's math. Not maths."
Will counted off his points on his fingers as he talked.
"Secondly, you could go up to any mortal doctor in the state and ask them to guess your age, and they might think you were eleven but they definitely wouldn't say seventeen."
"Twelve!" Mari protested. "They would think I was twelve."
"Well, like you said, they'd think you were twelve. Which is not seventeen."
"Okay-" Mari spluttered. Will grinned.
Mari continued speaking as they turned the corner, Naomi's house coming into view. "Well, even if I agreed to your logic, which, by the way, I don't, it wouldn't even matter. My birthday could be any day of the year. Even if I'm physically the same age as you, I could've been born before you. You don't know."
"Yeah, but you're shorter than me."
Will shrugged, as if that somehow cleared up the whole thing.
"Michael is shorter than you!"
"Yeah, but he's also Michael."
"Okay, fair point."
They turned up the pebble path leading along the front lawn.
"But I have literally been alive longer than you have. I'm speaking from experience here."
"Are you sure you're speaking at all?" Will asked, giving her a fake pat on the head with one hand and opening the front door with the other. "Cos' I can't hear anything from this far up."
"And you're sure the low air pressure up there isn't making you see things?" Mari asked. "Because- huh."
"That's weird," Will said.
Usually, when Mari and Will got back, Naomi was either in the basement recording studio singing something new, baking hummingbird cake in the kitchen, or flipping through places around the country to visit. But she always left a note on the shoe rack saying where she was, and there wasn't a note. But before either Mari or Will could start to panic, a noise came from further in the house. Laughter. Two different laughs, actually.
Naomi had a visitor? Mari really hoped it wasn't Apollo. But she didn't think Naomi would sound this happy if it was Apollo.
"Hello?" Will called. "Mom?"
"We're in the kitchen!"
Mari exchanged looked with her brother, before they both headed towards the kitchen.
Mari gasped at the sight of the person sitting at the kitchen island, reading through a folder of papers.
The visitor wasn't Apollo. It was someone much better.
"Sammy!"
Mari's older sibling was sat at the kitchen counter with Naomi, grinning as they went through two huge white paper bags.
They looked different.
Gone was the orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and green sweatpants. Instead, Sammy was wearing a pressed lilac suit and dark jeans. They'd grown out their hair and plaited it down their back. If Mari hadn't known better, she would've thought for a second that Sammy was a mortal. But then Sammy stood up from the chair, and a celestial bronze chain at their belt clinked in the light. The chain had three charms, each on a miniature bronze wrecking ball. Mari happened to know that if Sammy was in a pinch, they could yank at that chain and it would turn into a very deadly flail, with three spiked balls at the end. Perfect for swinging in a monster's face. No mortal would know their way around a weapon like that. Not the way a demigod did - not the way Sammy did.
Mari felt a choked noise break from the back of her throat, and she lunged for Sammy, catching them in a hug. She almost knocked over one of the kitchen island stools in her wake, but she couldn't help herself. It had been so long since she'd seen Sammy. Too long. Not since before Circe's island.
"Heya, squirt!" Sammy pulled Mari into a hug, and it didn't seem like they intended to let go. That was fine. Mari didn't want to let go, either. "And Will!" Sammy held out their other arm with a grin. "Gods, I haven't seen you in ages. You've grown!"
Will had only known Sammy for a couple of months before they left Camp Half-Blood, but he seemed very happy to see them nonetheless. "Not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you doing here?"
"Naomi didn't tell you guys?" Sammy asked.
"I figured y'all deserved a nice surprise." Naomi shrugged.
"Yeah, that and I wasn't even sure the plane was going to take off at LAX with all the storms." Sammy grimaced.
"What storms?" Will asked.
"Um... the storms that have been raging around the whole country since Mt St Helens erupted? It's getting harder and harder to fly between states. There have been, like, seventeen close calls where planes nearly went down in the past week."
Sammy looked confused, like Mari and Will were missing something obvious. "Wait, you mean you guys seriously didn't know?"
Actually, they didn't.
That was the thing about being a demigod. Technology was a huge no-no. It was usually okay before the age of around ten, as long as you didn't know about the gods. In fact, Mari had used to own a small, scratched IPod and headphones with cords that were already too tangled to salvage when she got them. She'd loved that thing. It had cost her six months' worth of chores for her older foster sister, and it had been her go-to for whenever she wanted to listen to Taylor Swift. She'd had to leave it behind in England, but that was probably for the best. She didn't want to die of a monster attack, and she definitely didn't want to die of a monster attack before she got to the bridge of Last Kiss.
That was why they didn't have TV at Camp Half-Blood, and the only reason Naomi had one was because she needed to watch news stories about her music career live sometimes. She didn't let Mari or Will anywhere near the remote, but she did keep them informed on the weather. Or, at least, she'd told them she was keeping them informed on the weather.
"...Mom?" Will asked.
"I-" Naomi looked away, hands trembling. "I didn't wanna worry you."
"It's him, isn't it?" Will asked Sammy. "Typhon."
Without a word, Sammy nodded.
Mari shuddered. It had been a week and a half since Percy had told her that Typhon was out there. The first thing Mari had done was Iris-Message Chiron for confirmation of the grim news. Then she spilled the beans to Will and Naomi, Will because he was her brother and was just as affected as she was,Naomi because it felt wrong not to. It had been a grim conversation. But Mari hadn't realised it was this bad. If Typhon was trying to pull down planes of innocent mortals to snack on...
"Come on, let's talk about something else." Sammy waved Mari and Will over to the kitchen counter with a grin. "I brought presents!"
They gestured towards the table, where the two bags that they'd been going through with Naomi were sat innocently on the hardwood.
"For you." They handed the one with purple tissue paper sticking out to Will.
"And for you!" They handed the one with green tissue paper to Mari. "I hope you guys like these, because they cost me an arm and a leg."
Mari wondered what was in the bags. Some kind of weapon? That made sense. Percy turned sixteen in a year, and then the great prophecy, whatever it was, would come to fruition. But Mari couldn't think of any weapon that she couldn't get from the Camp Armoury behind the Athena cabin.
Will opened his first, neatly unfolding the tissue paper and pulling out a huge black box with a very familiar-looking spaceship on the front. He gasped as he set it on the table.
"Is that a lego Millennium Falcon?"
Mari had been pretty sure Will owned every piece of Star Wars merchandise to ever be released. He had two whole shelves of the stuff in his room, but apparently Sammy had managed to find something Will didn't have. That was a feat within itself.
"Be careful with that, Sweetheart," Naomi told Will. "Some of those pieces are real small, you don't wanna lose them."
"You could use superglue," Mari suggested.
"Blasphemy," Will told her. "You're going to help me build this, right?"
"Of course I am." Mari smiled.
"Before you make all your plans, you might want to look through the rest of the bag," Sammy said. "I didn't just get you legos."
"There's more?"
Will rifled through the bag, and ended up pulling out a Darth Vader figurine. He squealed and called it a Kenner 1998 or something. Mari happened to know that Will already had a Darth Vader figurine, but this one must have been special. She wasn't sure why, but it clearly made her brother happy. Finally, Will unearthed a stack of what looked like Star Trek comics with the label first-edition stamped over the packaging. Mari really thought he was about to cry at that one.
"Well?" Sammy asked when Will was done. "Aren't you going to open yours?"
"Oh, right." Mari smiled at her older sibling and opened the bag. Then she gasped.
"No way, no way, no way!"
All care forgotten, Mari damn near ripped the bag in half as she pulled the rest of the Taylor Swift vinyls out. And it was all of them. Every single one. Flipping through, Mari even noticed a copy of Beautiful Eyes. Was she dreaming? If she was, it was definitely the best dream she'd ever had. Not that the bar was very high.
"Oh my gods," she breathed. "How - how did you get these?"
"Those, I didn't have to pay a cent for." Sammy grinned. "I own a record store, remember? The new stuff and the record player in your room, though? Those I did pay for."
"The what?" Mari gaped.
"Sammy already called ahead to check it was safe with Chiron." Naomi wrapped an arm around Mari's shoulders and squeezed her into a hug. "Don't you worry about that, honey. It's old tech, doesn't use the internet. Monsters can't pick up a signal."
"Will, pinch me," Mari whispered.
"I'm not pinching you," Will whispered back. "But I agree. This is probably the best gift I've ever gotten."
"Mhm, I guess I'll be takin' that stethoscope I got for your eighth birthday back then, won't I?" Naomi smiled, ruffling Will's shaggy hair with her free hand. "If it's not your favourite gift anymore, an'all."
"Mom, that's not what I meant!" Will laughed, batting at Naomi's hand. "I just wanted to know how Sammy even knew we liked all this stuff!"
Mari expected Sammy to laugh, or smile or even point out that it was obvious. After all, Will had literally tried to force choke a harpy the first time he got caught working in the infirmary past curfew (Mari hadn't been at camp for that, but it was one of Michael's favourite pieces of ammunition when he wanted to prove a point, so she still knew about it).
Instead, Sammy looked away and quickly stuffed their hands into their pockets. Too quickly. Mari still managed to catch a glimpse of her older sibling's skin. The veins in Sammy's arm were lit up, like faulty wires running under their flesh. Mari remembered something Sammy had told her a very long time ago, back when they had been teaching her how light powers worked.
"You can control them, most of the time." Sammy flexed their wrist, and the veins in their palm lit up. The rest of their body stayed the same. "But not always. One thing I've always struggled with is emotion. Positive, negative, whatever. Emotion can make you lose control."
"Sammy," Mari asked. "What's wrong?"
"Will is right. I didn't know you guys liked all this stuff," Sammy said. "But Lee did."
Mari's hands shook. The Fearless vinyl clattered back onto the table with the others.
"What did you say?"
Will's voice came out small, even from right next to her.
"I didn't know you guys liked half this stuff." Sammy looked away.
"I knew our older siblings better. Amber, Mason, Viti, Michael and Lee. Not you guys. But Amber refuses to acknowledge the Olympians now that she's out of Camp. Mason is trying to destroy them all and he'll take out anybody who gets in his way so I can't talk to him. Viti is off with the hunters of Artemis. Michael and Lee ar- were - the only ones left. They were also the only ones who knew you guys well enough to help me with this. Lee was the cabin counsellor, so I asked him. The plan was to travel around the country and deliver them together, right before Lee started at college in the fall. I don't quite remember where he was going to go. But, obviously that didn't quite work out... I think he would want me to do this, if I could ask him."
Mari stared back at the vinyls. They somehow seemed even more precious now that she knew they were Lee's last gift to her.
"Julliard," Mari whispered. "Lee was going to go to Julliard this autumn."
"He wanted to study psychology," Will added. "Give the camp some kind of therapy centre. Make things better."
Sammy was quiet for a moment.
"I think he was really proud of you guys," they said. "So proud. He talked about you all the time. He- Will, I'm pretty sure he thought you're going to grow up to be the greatest doctor to ever live. And Mari, he said you paint like a modern day Da Vinci."
Mari gulped. She still had that drawing of them all, in the clearing by Zeus's Fist. Lee had said it was amazing. She'd waved him off at the time; she didn't remember quite what she'd said. Had Lee really thought she was that good?
"You talked to Lee?" Will asked.
"I talk to everyone," Sammy said. "All the older ones. Amber, although Amber doesn't really talk to anyone but me and Lizzie Brookes. Viti, when I can. And Michael. I, uh... I stopped talking to Mason when he left camp. You guys get it."
Mari dug her fingernails into her palms. Sammy's earlier words came back to her in a flash. "Mason is trying to destroy them all and he'll take out anybody who gets in his way so I can't talk to him."
Present tense. So Sammy didn't know. Of course they wouldn't know, how could they?
"Do you miss him?" Mari asked. "Mason, I mean."
"...Yes." Sammy said. "He's my baby brother. Of course I miss him."
"Me too," Mari whispered.
Sammy looked away, and Mari thought for a second that they were going to sneeze, but instead they wiped at their eyes with the sleeve of their blazer. Mari's heart sank. She hadn't even thought about how important Mason might be to Sammy... but it made sense. They had been Mason's cabin counsellor. They had nearly a decade with him, where Mari only had a single, horrible year.
She made a decision then, and so she slid off the barstool with shaking hands.
"Honey-" Naomi began, but Mari shook her head. "I'm fine! I'll be right back. I, uh, I need to grab something."
She ran past and dashed up the stairs to her room. The bare white walls stared back at her. She still hadn't done anything with them. Naomi had said she could do whatever she wanted, but Mari couldn't bring herself to do anything... permanent.
That didn't matter right now. She had another objective in mind, and there were people still waiting for her downstairs.
Mari pulled open the doors of her wooden wardrobe and dug behind the blankets piled at the bottom. It had been waiting here, just like Naomi had said it would be, but Mari had stuffed it under those blankets first thing and tried not to think about it. She'd buried it just like she never got to bury Mason. The thought had made her sick at the time, but maybe this could be... a little better. Mari found what she was looking for, plucked it up and rushed back downstairs.
Naomi Solace met her halfway there.
"Honey, are you okay? Sammy don't know, I shoulda said something to them but I didn't wanna break your trust. Listen, you don't have to go back. I can say you weren't feeling too good or somethi-"
"I'm okay!"
Mari held up both hands and gave Naomi a shaky smile. She hadn't thought about how running out like that would look, but she really had just wanted to get something.
"I think. I didn't run out because of anything Sammy said. Well, not anything bad from what they said, anyway. I just... had an idea."
Naomi caught sight of what Mari was holding and her eyes widened. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Mari nodded.
"What was that about?" Will asked. He was still sitting at the kitchen counter island, fiddling with the ace bandage he always kept in his pocket for when he was anxious. "Are you alright?"
"I think so." Mari sat back down and held the necklace out to Sammy. "I have a gift for you, too."
Sammy stared at the glittering ruby as it caught the last rays of the late afternoon sun. The M and F crossed over each other in the light, making both the letters look more like a bad drawing of a laundry basket than any initials.
It was the same necklace Mason had... clasped around her neck while she was unconscious, when he'd kidnapped her into the labyrinth. He'd probably get mad at her for giving it away so easily if he was still here. Say she was an idiot, or in denial or something. But Mason wasn't here to tell her what to do anymore. He was dead. Which meant that Sammy couldn't ever get their little brother back. Maybe a present from his killer would suffice.
"It belonged to Mason. I think he'd want you to have it," Mari lied.
"But..." Sammy's hand stopped halfway there, a conflicted expression on their face. "If he gave it to you... don't you want it?"
"He didn't give it to me," Mari said. "Not really."
She realised the problem she'd had with that necklace when she'd first realised what it was, back on that picnic with Naomi and Will. It was beautiful, but Mari wasn't particularly fond of rubies. She preferred softer colours, like pinks and yellows. That sounded superficial, but it wasn't the kind of necklace she'd ever like. Not her style, probably not even her birthstone (not that she knew what her birthstone actually was). It was probably the perfect necklace for a four year old who wouldn't even know how to take it off. The perfect necklace for Frankie Ray the little dead girl. And that was exactly who Mason had given it to.
Not Mari. Never Mari.
"You should have it," Mari told Sammy. "Seriously."
Sammy took the necklace and held it up to the light. "It's pretty," they said. "I definitely have a couple of shirts that would go with the colour. What do the letters stand for?"
"They stand for motherfucker," Mari lied.
"Mari." Naomi crossed her arms.
"Oh my gods." Will facepalmed.
Sammy looked like they were trying very hard not to laugh.
"Uh..." Mari fished through the pockets of her skirt and pulled out two dollar bills, leftover lunch money. She handed them to Naomi. "Here. Swear tax."
"Swear tax..." Naomi pinched the bridge of her nose. "Honey, when I came up with that rule, it was meant to stop you from swearin', not help you pay for it. This really ain't what I had in mind."
Sammy clasped the necklace around their neck. Mari could've sworn that their eyes welled up a little bit as they pulled out a compact mirror and checked their reflection. Red was definitely their colour. And the ruby looked much better than blood.
"I think I remember this now," Sammy said. "Mason used to whisper to it at night. He never said why, but he cried a lot. He was only nine, so I always assumed it was some kind of imaginary friend."
Mari looked away. If she could've, she would've covered her ears.
"I don't know why he'd leave it behind..." Sammy said.
"He didn't. He gave it to me this summer. I, uh... I don't... he..." Mari's voice cracked. She didn't want to say it out loud. Not in front of Sammy, and definitely not in front of Will.
"Thanks," Sammy told Mari, their voice wobbling. "You're a good kid."
"No, I'm not," Mari said.
"Yes, y'are-"
"Alright, fine."
Sammy held up two hands, interrupting Naomi with a shaky laugh. "You're not a kid. I get it."
Mari hadn't actually been talking about that part, but she couldn't bring herself to disagree with Sammy again.
Sammy stayed to talk for the rest of the evening. The four of them cleared a space on Will's shelves to display the Lego and figurines, and then they helped Mari set up the record player in her room. But by the time Apollo's chariot was descending from the sky and Artemis was just beginning to rise, Sammy had to go - they had a flight to catch in the morning.
"Are you sure you can't stay?" Will asked.
"Nah," Sammy said. "I'd love to, don't get me wrong, but I've got places to be. The plan is to visit you guys in order of age. I stopped by Michael's first, with a bunch of targets in the back garden for his mortal father to set up. Then you, then Mari over here." Sammy ruffled Mari's hair. "I have to be in Seattle to meet Austin and Latricia in, like, sixteen hours. I have a whole stack of rare sheet jazz for him to try, and I still have to finish packing it up. Then I'm off to Edmonton on Friday, to meet with Kayla and Darren and I still have to pack up the last of Kayla's hair dyes. Do you know how hard it is to get a do-it-yourself wash basin into a paper bag?"
"You said that you were going in descending order of age, right?" Will asked. "Can you repeat the order please?"
"William!" Mari crossed her arms.
"Alright, I'm not getting in the middle of this," Sammy said. "I'm out of here."
Sammy walked down the front pathway and onto the street, then turned to wave goodbye. Mason's old necklace glinted as they moved. Sammy might have been the one with an added weight around their neck, but somehow Mari felt like something heavy had been taken off her chest.
Then Sammy got into their rental car and drove off.
"You two okay?" Naomi asked.
"Yeah." Will sniffed. "Can I start buildin' the Millenium Falcon now?"
"Homework first," Naomi said. "Both'a y'all. What about you, honey? You okay?"
"I..." Mari trailed off. She didn't know the answer to that question. Sammy's rental car was just a little blob in the road now, blurry in the setting sun. Mari wondered, not for the first time, what things would be like if Luke hadn't dropped her on Aeaea.
Would she be in the back of that car, driving off with Sammy?
Would Lee be with them? Would they both be going off to college together? Would Mason be with them? If Mari had been at Camp Half-Blood for longer, could she have stopped him from going down the path that led them both to the edge of the Pit? Could she have helped him?
She tried to imagine what it would be like, sitting in that rental car, with Sammy, Lee and Mason. Laughing around as they drove off to the next state.
Leaving Naomi and Will behind.
Suddenly the image in her head didn't seem so bright.
She stared at Naomi and Will for a second. Then she gave them both a small smile.
"I'll get there."
╱╲❀╱╲❀╱╲
Dafne Keen as Adela García-Sánchez
Hannah Murray as Marion CarterColin Ford as Will Solace
╱╲❀╱╲❀╱╲
◦•≫ MEME TIME :D ≪•◦
(The first meme was made by the wonderful Kaz on Quotev: https://www.quotev.com/kazlovestheowlhouse)
(The other memes were made by me)
Well that was a long wait, wasn't it?
Remember when I said I'd update in three weeks? I had every intention of following through, but I severely miscalculated just how intense university exams would be. On the plus side, I'm completely free now until September! So, hopefully I should be back to a regular two-week schedule until then. Hopefully.
Fun fact! I wrote Adela's POV while waiting for my contract law seminar to begin - 'contractual consideration' and 'invitation to treat' are actual legal terms!