Chapter 29

Percy's Point of View

The train journey was hilarious to say the least. Leo was definitely a son of Hephaestus. He took great pleasure in tinkering with the scrap bits of metal he had on him, creating little windup toys, helicopters that would actually fly a small way, alarms, small figures… anything really. He cracked jokes all the while.

We did have some rather serious conversations as well. Such as why we were in such a rush to get back to New York, or why Leo wasn't with his parents…

"So you're telling me, that we fell from the Gateway Arch, into the river below and you had a lightning bolt in your bag. Dude, haven't you ever learned physics? Electricity and water are a massive no-no!" Leo exclaimed, looking positively horrified.

I laughed at him, asking innocently; "What's physics?"

Leo groaned and banged his head against the window, sending Annabeth and Luna a pleading look. "They're going to kill themselves, aren't they?"

"Anyway," Harry carried on. "We're trying to return the bolt to my Uncle, because otherwise he's threatened to kill both our family and us if we don't by midnight tonight."

"So yeah. We have a bit of a deadline." Grover nodded.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Death threats. Love them!"

We sat in silence for a few moments, then Leo spoke up again. "Harry, Percy, why were you hissing when you were fighting the giant Chihuahua? Like, is that some weird ritual or something?"

'Hades!' I cursed. 'He noticed us.'

Harry rolled his eyes as I pouted. 'Yes, it appears he did. But does that matter here? They don't have the same prejudices about it being the mark of an evil wizard, do they?'

'I guess…'

"We… we weren't hissing." We admitted, scratching the back of our neck. "We were talking to its snakey tail. See, our heritage from our mortal side of our family isn't exactly normal either. Our parents are magical. So… yeah. We inherited a rare gift of Parseltongue – snake speak."

Leo, who had heard weirder things today, didn't even raise an eyebrow. Annabeth and Luna did, however. They hit us on the shoulder. Hard.

"Ow! What the Hades, guys?"

"You have this other amazing gift and you then fail to mention it to us? Thanks a lot, mate!" Annabeth pouted at us. We winced.

"Well… We explained to you two the strange prejudices in the Wizarding World, right? With blood-purity and Light and Dark Magic? Well Parseltongue is considered Dark Magic, so we don't exactly go around advertising the fact we're a Parselmouth." I explained. "Habits are hard to break, I guess."

Grover, noticing how uncomfortable we looked, abruptly changed the subject. "So Leo… What are you doing all along? No offence, but you smell like you haven't bathed in quite a while."

Now it was Leo's turn to wince. "Um… Well. My mom died in a fire when I was eight. My Aunt Rosa prevented my other family from taking me in so I was put in foster care. This is my third time that I've run away."

I pulled the upset boy in for a hug. I'd say he must be about ten or eleven, younger than us, anyway. To have run away that many time already though… We hugged him tighter.

'We're going to make him a new home.' I swore to Harry. 'At Camp Half-Blood. That way he'll have somewhere to run away to not from if he gets put in care again.'

Harry nodded in agreement.

We lightened the subject after that. Grover told Leo about Camp. Harry and I listened in. We'd only been there for a night before we'd been sent on this quest, so we were more than happy to listen to the inner workings of Camp Half-Blood.

We were all really fidgety by the time the train finally reached New York, about six hours after we'd set off. After being confined in the train for so long we spent about ten minutes running around outside to stretch our limbs.

We'd set off from St Louis at about ten o'clock in the morning, so it was still only four. We had plenty of time to get to Olympus – should the Fates be willing.

I turned to Grover and Annabeth and Luna. "You guys should head back to Camp. Take Leo – we're already established he's in need of a shower." We winked at the blushing Latino, then carried on. "We'll get to Olympus. Hopefully I'll be back in time for curfew."

We grinned, but didn't hold our breath. Some instinct told us that no matter how this panned out, Zeus was not going to be happy with us. Hopefully our 'father' Poseidon would be willing to help us out. Merlin only knows he hasn't done anything else.

We walked the relatively short distance to the Empire State Building, enjoying the fresh air. Ten minutes later we walked into the lobby. The glamour inside made us feel just a bit self-conscious that we were wearing the same tattered clothes we'd been wearing for the past two days, and still bore the bruises from our fight with the chimera (we didn't have time to be healed properly by the water).

We walked up to the guard at the front desk and politely asked for "The six hundredth floor, please."

The guard was reading a book, a huge one with a stereotypical mortal wizard on the front, and didn't look pleased that he was being interrupted. "No such floor, kiddo. Now why don't you go play somewhere else?"

I ignored the looks we was getting from some of the other people in the lobby and sighed. "We require and audience with Zeus."

"Excuse me?" The man laughed.

We glared. "You heard us."

"No appointment, no audience, kiddo. The King of Kings doesn't have time to see for silly mortals that demands an audience."

We smirked. "Oh, well we'll believe he'll make an exception."

Unzipping our back-pack, we showed him the metal cylinder that lay within. For a few moments the guard looked unimpressed, but then he paled dramatically.

"That isn't…"

We nodded. "Yep."

"So you're Poseidon's kid." The guard narrowed his eyes at us before passing us a plastic key card. "Insert this in the security slot. Oh, and make sure there's nobody else in the elevator with you, yeah?"

We rolled our eyes, but agreed. Following his instructions, as soon as the doors dinged shut Harry slipped the key card into the slot. Almost immediately a new button appeared and the card disappeared. I pressed it and waited, ignoring the terrible muggle music playing.

Finally, the doors slid smoothly open with another ding, and we stepped out.

We gasped at the sight in front of us. We were standing on a stone walkway in the middle of the air, far above Manhattan. In front of us white marble steps climbed up a cloud. And at the end of those stairs…

The decapitated peak of a mountain hung suspended in the clouds, a gleaming marble city clinging to its sides. There were dozens of terraced houses, multi-levelled palaces and hundreds of little temples all connected by roads that wove their way up to the snow-capped peak, where the most impressive building of all stood. A palace of gleaming rock, fit for the gods.

Walking through the Olympus we passed precariously perched gardens of blooming olive trees and rose bushes. And then there were the colourful open air markets and stone amphitheatre, hippodrome, coliseum… It was Greek, there was no doubting it. It felt like when we had first stepped into Diagon Alley, a year ago. It felt like coming home.

As we walked by we saw giggling wood nymphs throwing olives at us from the safety of their gardens. Hawkers in the markets offered us the strangest things. Ambrosia on a stick. A new shield. A replica of the Golden Fleece. We saw the nine muses preparing for a park concert, while a group of good looking teenagers – presumable minor gods – satyrs and nymphs gathered to watch.

There was a festive mood in the air, as if none of them were even the slightest bit worried about the impending civil war hanging over their heads.

The palace at the peak reminded us of Hades' palace in the Underworld. Admittedly everything gleamed white and silver rather than black and bronze, but it was still clear that the underworld god had based his palace this one. We felt a twinge of sorrow for our Uncle. Anyone banished from here should have the right to be bitter.

Steps lead into a central courtyard, and beyond that lay the throne room.

The throne room was massive. It made the Great Hall in Hogwarts look like a broom closet. Columns rose to the domed ceiling, which was guided with moving constellations. Harry grinned, finding more inspiration to add to the paintings in our room at Potter manor.

Twelve thrones, arranged in an inverted U, like the cabins at Camp filled the room. They huge as well. We'd have to be three times my size just to be able to touch the seat, let along get onto it. An enormous fire crackled in the central hearth pit – the Flames of the West.

Only two of the thrones were currently in use – the head throne on the right and the one immediately to its left. We didn't have to be told to know who there were. Sky blue and sea green eyes watched as we approached. It took all our strength to keep our back straight and our chin high like a true pure-blood heir as we approached.

The gods were in giant human form, much like Hades had been. Even looking at them made our body tingle, as if threatening to burn. Zeus, King of Kings, wore a dark blue pin-striped suit, and sat on a solid platinum throne. His beard was well trimmed, and was a strange mix of black and grey – not unlike the storm clouds he favoured so much.

The god beside Zeus was undoubtedly his brother, although he was dressed differently in familiar leather sandals, khaki Bermuda shorts and a Tommy Bahama shirt with parrots and coconuts decorating it. Our eyes moved over his deeply tanned skin and settled on his scarred hands from years of fishing. His hair was black like ours, and his sea-green eyes were surrounded with smile lines.

'Guess we know where my eyes came from now.' I joked as we approached the fisherman's throne that our father sat on and knelt at his feet, as was expected of us.

"Father." We greeted, not daring to look up. The tension in the air crackled, and thunder boomed, announcing Zeus' annoyance.

"Should you not address the master of this house first, boy?" Zeus demanded.

We kept our head down, silently.

"Peace brother." Poseidon spoke after a few moments of observing us. "It is only right that he defers to his father."

"You claim him then? As a child you sired against our sacred oath?" The menace in Zeus' voice was terrifying, but we refused to react.

When Poseidon spoke again, anger rose up in our chest. "I have admitted to my wrongdoing."

Wrongdoing. Was that all we were? A mistake of the gods? A night of betrayal by Lily? We scowled at our feet. A mistake.

"Hear him out brother. He has done well." Poseidon carried on.

Zeus grumbled but agreed.

We looked up at Poseidon's request. His eyes were like the unfathomable sea we both cherished. Mysterious and unreadable, with no clear sign of love or approval.

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

We frowned at being called boy. Had we not yet proved him worthy of being his son? Still, we told our tale, and finally took out the sparklingly metal cylinder, and laid it at our master's feet.

In the silence that followed, only the crackling hearth seemed to support us.

Zeus opened his palm, summoning his master bolt to him. As his fingers tightened into a fist round the weapon the metallic points flared with electricity, until his was holding a five-meter javelin of arcing, hissing electricity that made our hair stand on end.

"I sense the boy speaks true." Zeus grumbled unhappily. "But why would Ares do such a thing? It's most unlike him…"

We were tempted to open our mouth and speak, tell them that we didn't believe our cousin acted alone, tell them about our dreams and the evil that had haunted them, but we didn't. Something warned us that Zeus wouldn't listen anyway, and we were in his bad books already. But… they should know, should they not?

"Perseus?" Poseidon asked. "What's wrong?"

We voiced our concerns about Ares and the evil being in our dreams. Zeus and Poseidon conferred quickly in an ancient tongue – possibly Greek – but they spoke to quickly for us to pick up much. In fact, the only word we really understood was 'father'. It ended up as an argument however, with Zeus ordering Poseidon not to bring up the subject again.

"I must go clean the taint of human from my bolt." Zeus declared standing up. His hard eyes softened a touch as they settled on us. "You have done me a service boy, one that few other heroes could accomplish."

"We had help…" We tried to protest, but Zeus cut us off.

"To show you my thanks, I will spare your life. But don't mistake me – I don't trust you, boy. I especially don't like what your arrival means for Olympus, but for the sake of family peace, I will let you live."

"And our mortal family?" I asked. "Lord, they are of no threat to you or your own. Please, Lord Zeus."

Zeus turned back to us in surprise from the throne room doors. "Dionysus told you that, did he? Very well. They shall be left alone. If just to spare me from Hecate's complaints."

Thunder shook the palace, and with one blinding flash of lightning, our Uncle was gone, leaving us alone with our father.

Poseidon chuckled. "He has a flair for dramatic exits."

"It's Kronos, isn't it?" I asked tentatively. "The evil. He rising again."

Poseidon gripped his Trident tightly, green zaps of energy glowing at the tips. "No! He stirs every now and again in the pit, where Zeus cast him, entering men's nightmares and whispering evil thoughts or wakening restless monsters. But suggesting he could rise from Tartarus is another matter."

"But he intends to, Father." We argued.

Poseidon was quiet for a while, but when he did speak there was a note of finality in his voice. "Lord Zeus has closed the discussion. Do no worry yourself with such things. Your quest is complete. That is all you needed to do."

We growled. "Is that all that we were brought here from England for? To be claimed by you then threatened by Zeus and sent on a quest that could have killed us?"

We apologised immediately after our rant. Throwing accusations wouldn't help here. "Sorry. We will do as you wish Father."

Poseidon gave us a sad look. "I care, you know. About what happens to you. Admittedly I didn't know of your existence until your arrival here, but you are my son. And family is everything."

We narrowed our eyes. "Try telling Lily or James that. Or Kronos."

"Patience, son. Lily is a good mother, if you just let her in. And James is as much your father as I am. You should go now. Your friends are waiting."

Feeling strangely touched by Poseidon's words, we smiled, and nodded. "Thank you. And… bye."

A sad smile crossed our father's lips. "For now. I will see you again, son."

I pulled back into ourself, and our eyes settled on Harry's solid emerald. Poseidon's eyes became unfocused. "I do not regret meeting your mother, Perseus. However… I am sorry you were born to me. I brought you a hero's fate, and a hero's fate is never happy."

We flinched, stung, but Harry kept our head high. "We don't mind."

"Not yet… but one day. One day you might. But it was still an unforgivable mistake on my part."

"We… we'll leave you then." Harry bowed, stiff and awkward. "And we won't bother you again."

We turned and walked away. Poseidon called to us, and we paused. But we didn't look back.

"You did well, Perseus. Don't get me wrong. And whatever else you do, know you are mine. A true son of the Sea God."

We walked back though Olympus in a daze, hardly recognising the satyrs and nymphs and naiads as they knelt in respect to us, as if we were some hero, their faces alight with gratitude.

We were in the same daze and hour later as we reached the top of Half-Blood Hill, and lent against Thalia's tree. Harry put a hand on her trunk and side, looking down at the Camp stretched our below us.

"I think we did well, Thalia. Your father's not a bad god, even if he can be a bit paranoid."

Thalia's branches rustled in the wind, as if in agreement. We smiled. Looks like our adventure for this summer was over.

"Percy! Harry!"

We turned to face the voices and grinned when we saw Annabeth and Luna, and Leo running towards us. A small way behind them Grover waited at the bottom of the hill, grinning at us. Then Leo hit us, tackling us to the ground and sitting on us.

"You did it!" He beamed. Annabeth and Luna stood grinning behind us.

I grinned back. "Yeah. We all did it."

According to Annabeth, we were the first heroes to return back from a quest alive since Luke returned from his quest (she said something about a dragon clawing his face and giving him is scar?) and according to Camp Tradition, we had to wear laurel wreaths to the feast everyone prepared in our honour. Luna laughed as she grabbed our hand, leading us at the front of a procession to the bonfire in the amphitheatre. We got to burn the shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

Given we didn't have any other cabin members, Clarisse had offered to make ours. Using an old bed-sheet, they'd painted some bright yellow smiley faces with massive 'X' for eyes with the word LOSER painted really big in the very centre. Don't you just love childhood rivalries?

In comparison, Luna and Annabeth's was beautiful – grey silk with embroidered owls. I joked with Leo that it was a shame not to bury her in it. Annabeth overheard and punched us in the face. Hard.

It was a brilliant end to a tiring day. The Apollo cabin led a sing-along, and the magical fired burned brighter and bigger as our spirits rose. We toasted marshmallows on sticks and made s'mores. By the time we all started to head off to bed it was nearing midnight. It was all we could do to change into some pyjamas before we collapsed into bed and fell asleep.