[ira furor brevis est]

Reese clenched his fist as his nerves flared with pain, staring straight through the viewing window into the infirmary's room. His hand was still bound in bandages, thanks to the Curses, but two days later and he had yet to overcome the last of his burdens. The pain strengthened and he grit his teeth, but just as it always did, the sensation faded. Reese sighed, shaking out his hand.

In all his years as a demigod, he'd never endured something as draining in every sense of the word as facing the Curses. He knew what they could do, but seeing them, fighting them, was something else altogether. The searing pain, the flashes of various curses ripping through his mind, reminding him of every villain he'd faced and the torture he'd put them through... Reese shivered. He'd been the lucky one; his Achilles curse helped take away the curses as swiftly as they'd been placed on him, so he healed quickly.

His friends on the other hand hadn't been so lucky. Kaden had been knocked out for a few hours after getting back, but recovered with only a few scratches on him. Dale didn't have many exterior injuries, but there'd been a haunted look in her eyes for the past few days. And Mark had been shrouded in darkness, covered in injuries, but some treatment from the Apollo campers—and Flynn, now that he and Amelie had returned from their honeymoon—fixed him up. But Tessa...

Reese returned his focus to the viewing window, where past the glass, was a room full of people. Two Apollo kids were darting around, measuring out medicine and making tonics and salves and such; Marcellus, the son of Somnus who had Portaled over from Camp Jupiter, was using his mental powers to run a scan on the patient. And lying on the cot, unconscious for the third day in a row, was Tessa Brennan.

Tessa was clad in bandages and a hospital dress, since she'd had so many injuries all over her body that keeping her in her street clothes was out of the question. Her chocolate hair was matted and fanned out across her pillow. If Reese hadn't known any better, from the pallor of her skin to the slow heartbeat on the monitor, he would have thought the daughter of Poseidon was dying.

The sound of the door to Tessa's room opened, and Reese looked over in time to see Marcellus walking out, talking to one of the Apollo kids who was scribbling down on a clipboard. Marcellus glanced over at Reese, taking in what must have been a stressed out expression, and waved the Apollo camper away. "Reese," Marcellus nodded, walking over.

"How is she?" Reese asked, arms folded across his chest.

Marcellus looked over his shoulder through the viewing window, where the remaining medic was unraveling Tessa's old blood-stained bandages with new ones. It was like her wounds kept reopening just when they thought she was getting better. "I'm not sure."

Reese made a face. "What do you mean by that?"

Marcellus sighed, dragging a hand through his dark hair. "I've done a lot of work when it comes to the mind. It's normally pretty simple to find out what's wrong when you know what the problem is but whatever those Curses did to her, it's messed up a lot of her mind."

Reese's gut constricted, and he looked back through the window in concern. Tessa had been one of his best friends since they were kids. He'd never once seen her stay down when she got knocked down. She'd be okay, she always was. Right?

"What did you see?" Reese's voice was gruff as he spoke, his eyes on Tessa but his mind somewhere else.

"The Curse comes in waves," Marcellus described. "When I first enter her head, it's like being dragged under the ocean when a tidal wave hits. It's disorienting, with a lot of flashes of color and memories and thoughts. But then it starts to slow down, and I can catch glimpses of the things she's thinking about. I saw some sort of prison cell, lots of destruction, stuff like that. Then it's like she realizes I'm in her head and another wave of madness hits me. I have no choice but to get out of her head."

Reese scratched as his stubbly chin. "Will she be okay?"

Marcellus hesitated, and that was answer enough for Reese. Before the frightened son of Apollo could fire out some sort of hopeless remark, Marcellus chimed, "I'll go check with Bacch—I mean, Mr. D. He's the god of madness, after all. Maybe he knows something."

Something deflated in Reese as Marcellus marched off. If they were getting help from Mr. D, something was terribly wrong. Sure, he was a god, but Dionysus hardly ever engaged in the campers' affairs.

Reese cast an eye at the small end table inside Tessa's room, and saw two cards, a deflating balloon that read 'Get Well.', and a wilted flower. Here was Tessa, practically on the verge of mental destruction for all they knew, and no one cared. Suddenly, Reese was seventeen again, finding out that Tessa had come back from her mini-coma after fighting Matthew, and seeing all of Camp Half-Blood rejoice. She'd been a champion, the hero of the quest. Now it was like no one cared for her at all.

The son of Apollo stormed down the infirmary hall, unsure of exactly what to do. He'd just made it outside when he saw a blur out of the corner of his eye, turned, and saw Kaden walking up to him. The son of Venus' forearm was wrapped in bandages, and save the tormented look in his emerald eyes, he looked as good as he always did.

"There you are," Kaden said, coming to a stop. "I've been looking for you."

"What's up?" Reese asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

"I was just talking with Chiron, and he wants you and I to go check out Tessa's apartment. He thinks that there might be some sort of evidence left over from Matthew's break-in that could help the investigation." Kaden explained, dragging a hand through his chestnut hair.

Reese nodded, grateful for the opportunity to distract himself. "Let's go then."

Kaden frowned, his eyes drifting over to the infirmary a few paces away. His expression seemed to wilt in that moment, and Reese instantly knew why: Tessa.

"Is she okay?" Kaden spoke, his voice hardly a whisper on the wind. "I haven't been able to see her. They wouldn't let me in for so long, and when they finally said I could—"

"Kaden," Reese interrupted, snaring his best friend's attention. Kaden's emerald eyes were filled with fear, with concern for the girl he loved. "They're doing the best they can."

Kaden was silent for a while, his eyes locked on the infirmary. Finally, the son of Venus cleared his throat. "Right, I'm sure they are." His voice was shaky. "Let's get going. Maybe if we get lucky, we'll find a fight."

Reese fell into step with Kaden at his side, headed towards the trail that led out of camp. He suddenly felt very ashamed of himself in that moment, another burden on his soul. He'd made a foolish decision before that quest all those years ago, one that would ensure his safety. And yet now, when so many people he loved were visiting death's doorstep, for all of his invulnerability and strength, he'd never felt more helpless.

~~

In her three-year absence, Tessa had had one unspoken rule for her friends to follow: never come to her apartment. They could text and call and Skype her all they wanted, but she forbade them to come see her in person. A psychologist would probably link that rule of hers to her decision to cut herself off from the world of mythology, but to Reese, it just felt like Tessa was ashamed. It felt like she didn't want them to see the mess she feared becoming.

The trip up to the Upper East Side of Manhattan was a silent one, brewing with energy like a storm about to break. Reese and Kaden wanted to find something, particularly a fight with Matthew, Vinny, Aether, or the Masks, and make them pay for what they'd done. But as New York City blurred past, Reese was still and silent.

Eventually, they'd made it up to Tessa's apartment, and it is easy to tell which one was hers.

"Whoa," Reese said under his breath as they turned the corner in the hall and saw Tessa's door—or lack of one—meet their gaze. The door had been destroyed, kicked in, and shrapnel was scattered across the hardwood floor.

"And the mortals have no idea," Kaden breathed, stepping closer. Surely, the Mist had applied to Tessa's ravaged apartment as well as other aspects of the mythological world. The magical veil prevented mortals from seeing monsters and gods and spirits, and apparently, this qualified as something that needed to be covered up.

Reese, bow and arrow in hand, took the lead. Carefully, he stepped through the wreckage of Tessa's front door, stepping into her apartment. The main foyer was covered in bits of her front door and broken glass. Reese spotted a fallen picture frame near the leg of the end table, and leant down to pick it up. His heart twisted upon seeing a photograph of him, Kaden, Dale, Mark, and Tessa from one of Camp Half-Blood's bonfires. Now, it sat shattered on the ground.

"Reese," Kaden called, and Reese set the photograph on the end table, turning around. Kaden was standing near Tessa's sofa, a laptop in his arms.

"Now is not the time to be snooping through Tessa's search history," Reese hissed, pacing over to Kaden.

The son of Venus shot him a look. "I'm not," He rebuffed. "But this is the last thing she was looking at." Kaden turned the laptop so Reese could read.

Displayed on the screen were various tabs open, all correlating to mental illness. One was on panic disorder, with a question about whether or not it could lead to other illness; another was about insomnia and frequent nightmares; and another about post-traumatic stress disorder.

"She was doing her research," Kaden sighed. "She knew that she had these disorders."

"Then why would she be looking up symptoms?" Reese knit his eyebrows together. He scanned the living room, and on one of the end tables, spotted a violet journal with a ribbon sticking out of the end. He walked over to it, flipping it open.

In the dream, I'm trapped in Crystal Cavern as it's collapsing. I'm waiting with the others for Mark to come back, when suddenly, I'm in Mark's place and they're all waiting for me. A large boulder falls, cutting me off from Kaden, Reese, Dale, and Mark, and when I turn around, I see them all again. I see Deimos, I see Orion, I see the General, and there's another man that I don't recognize, but he's grinning and his teeth are caked in blood. My friends are there too, and my enemies are torturing them, killing them, and there's nothing I can do. Please make it stop. Please.

With a chill, Reese shut the journal. "Kaden, when you visited Tessa, did she say anything about nightmares?"

Kaden set down the laptop, turning to face him. "Not that I remember. Why?"

Reese tossed him the journal, and Kaden caught it, a worried glint in his eyes. His emerald eyes scanned the bookmarked page, and flipped through the prior ones. Countless entries of nightmares and strange dreams that Tessa had had on and off for weeks.

Kaden exhaled, sitting down on the edge of the couch. "She said she was fine." His voice was low. "She was lying."

Reese looked around Tessa's living room, his eyes dancing over every picture she had of her life before. Despite the paintings and happy pictures and decorations, Tessa had given herself a prison.

"We could have helped her," Kaden's voice was shaky as he scanned the journal again. "We could have disobeyed that rule of hers and come to save her."

"She would never have forgiven us," Reese warned.

"And?" Kaden demanded, tossing the journal aside. "She was driving herself crazy with all this, Reese. She knew something was wrong, but none of us were there to help her. And we broke up, thinking it would help."

Reese opened his mouth to speak but the sound of a thump in the other room made the conversation run cold. Both boys looked at one another in suspicion, but when there was another thud, they drew their weapons and stalked towards Tessa's bedroom.

They pressed themselves to the wall just outside the door...then barreled in. Reese, his bowstring back to his cheek, searched the room as quickly as he could, ready to see an invader. Kaden's sword glinted in the afternoon light filtering in through the window. And yet, there was nothing, no one in Tessa's bedroom.

But still. Something didn't feel right. Reese arched an eyebrow in skepticism, looking around. That's when he saw something on the opposite wall, something that didn't belong on Tessa's light blue walls.

"Kaden," Reese tapped his best friend on the shoulder, his eyes glued to the wall.

Kaden furrowed his eyebrows together, but followed Reese's gaze. He sucked in a breath. "Holy Hera..."

Scrawled on the wall, as if it had been scorched onto the wallpaper, was the smoky face of a Mask. Its featureless face unnerved Reese, but what was written above and below the burns was somehow even more disturbing.

LIGHT PENETRATES THE DARKNESS.

WE ARE ALWAYS WATCHING.

At Reese's side, Kaden drew his fist up to his chest in a three-fingered gesture, pushing out from his chest. A ward against evil. Reese, chewing on his lip, edged closer to the wall in question.

"How long do you think that's been there?" Kaden asked.

Reese narrowed his eyes, peering at the image on the wall. He reached a hand up to confirm his suspicions, and when his fingers came away with the smudgy black of the wall, a chill ran down his spine.

"Just now."

Kaden muttered something in Latin, but when Reese turned around to face him, he spotted the same Mask on the wall in the hallway.

Only this time, it was an actual Mask.

Reese drew his arrow, firing it into the hall. The Mask turned and ran, its black cloak fluttering in his wake. Reese and Kaden sprinted from Tessa's bedroom, swerving into the main hall as the Mask darted out of the apartment and down through the rest of the apartment building. Kaden and Reese were right on it though, dashing out of Tessa's apartment and following the Mask.

"Was it there the whole time?" Chills ran down Reese's spine as they turned a corner, watching as the Mask gained distance.

"Let's catch the SOB and ask him then, huh?" Kaden grunted, dashing ahead. Reese muttered a curse, managing to slip his bow over his head as he and Kaden continued their sprint.

Eventually, the Mask slipped past a door and when the boys followed, they watched as the Mask descended staircase after staircase, gaining impossible speed. Both boys swore, then continued on down the stairs. However, by the time they reached the last landing and were spit out into the service entrance of the apartment building, all traces of the Mask were gone.

~~

By the time they'd reached Camp Half-Blood, Kaden had made about two dozen different phone calls. He'd called Kaya, Jett, Eli, Lukas and Sierra, Kassie, the Amazons, Liam, upon more. He barked military orders, beseeched people to come back to camp, and ultimately was the epitome of stress if Reese had ever seen it. But Reese knew that Kaden had every right to be concerned: Tessa was in her most vulnerable state yet, and if the Masks had been watching her, waiting for a perfect moment to strike, now was it.

Reese felt like a raging fire about to explode. Everything had been connected then, but by mystery. Tessa's nightmares, the rise of the Masks, the trip to the asylum. Reese cursed; the Arae were working for Aether, no doubt disabling Reese, Kaden, Dale, and Mark and separating them from Tessa, where one final curse had knocked her out entirely. And yet, Reese still didn't know why. Yes, Tessa was a powerful demigod, but why was Aether so interested in her? What did Vinny and Matthew want with her?

Reese and Kaden parted ways, as Reese headed to the infirmary and Kaden went to go issue a report to Chiron and the war council. However, when Reese reached Tessa's room, he was surprised to find a girl that he didn't recognize with her hands over Tessa's comatose figure. Reese watched her in confusion through the glass, and managed to draw together that given the girl's silvery clothing, she was a Hunter of Artemis.

"Her name's Grace," A voice chimed, and Reese turned to see Marcellus standing beside him. "Mr. D said she had special powers, something about a blessing from Persephone."

"Persephone?" Reese echoed, turning back to the viewing window. He shook his head. "Okay, never mind that, but Kaden and I were just at Tessa's apartment and we think we found something—"

The sound of the door opening cut Reese off, and he turned around, peeved, to find the Huntress looking back at him. Grace had wavy dark hair, pulled into a ponytail. Her skin was bronze and smooth, and Reese knew that even though she looked to be sixteen or seventeen, she'd been alive for much longer than that.

"Reese Hale," Grace's voice was soft, but almost monotone. Her eerie eyes flickered to Marcellus, and she quirked a brow at him. "Leave us."

Just as Marcellus was leaving, the sound of rapid footsteps filled the air. Reese turned to see Kaden, looking like the devil was on his heels, skidding to a stop. "Is Tessa okay? Can I see her? Please, I need to--"

Grace held up a single, tired hand. "I'll tell you both everything." She shut the door to Tessa's room behind her, and waved them over to the nearby waiting alcove. "I'm sure Marcellus told you that I am a Huntress, and I am indeed blessed by Persephone. This blessing allows me to detect life and death, especially when people are walking the thin line between the two. It also allows me to understand the mind in ways that children of Hypnos or Somnus can't."

Reese blinked. "That's great, but what's wrong with Tessa?"

Grace's eyes flickered back to Tessa's room. "She looks strikingly similar to her mother..." She mused, suddenly somewhere else.

"Wait, you knew Sera Brennan?" Kaden asked, astonished.

Grace returned her focus to the two boys before her, her lips pursed. "Yes. Now," She cleared her throat. "I have good news and bad news when it comes to Tessa's condition. Which would you like first?"

"Good news," Reese and Kaden chorused.

Grace nodded curtly. "I thought so. Well, the good news is that she's alive. Unconscious, but alive. Judging from the amount of Curses she faced, any typical demigod would be dead. She's quite strong."

"Will she be okay, though?" Kaden beseeched, his eyes large. Reese, gazing at his best friend in sorrow, felt as if he bore the Achilles curse as well; his weakness had always been and would always be Tessa.

Grace pressed her lips together, no doubt finding a delicate way to put what was coming next. "I ran a scan on Tessa's mental state, and I'm afraid that it's...fractured, for lack of a better word. The last curse placed on her was one of madness, though to my knowledge, she's never inflicted madness on anyone. Therefore, it shouldn't have been a curse in the Arae's arsenal for her.

"However, this curse is messing with a lot of her head. It's tapping into a part of her brain that would be controlling her body, helping her heal. That's why some of her wounds continue to bleed. Whoever put this curse on her had a lot of strength behind it, and it's basically keeping Tessa trapped in her head. She's witnessing nightmares, visions, terrible things. The madness is also triggering something else.

"Tessa's under another mental block, one of her own making, I'd presume. She was away for, what, three years? Well, that break, or whatever you want to call it, tampered with the connection that Tessa had to her battle senses, and her powers." Grace explained.

Reese furrowed his eyebrows together. "What do you mean?" His heart was racing in his chest, fearing the worst.

Grace bit her lip. "Tessa's led herself into believing that she's lost her powers. And this weakness is only contributing to the Curse on her, inherently making her weaker. She's holding up, but whoever did this did it with great strategy to basically destroy her. She's wounded physically, and mentally. I'll keep working on her, but I'm afraid that she won't improve."

Kaden was blinking back tears, and Reese's heart sank. "What, s-so she's just trapped inside her head? She's seeing these terrible things and because this madness is making her believe that it's her fault and it's real, she can't wake up?" His voice cracked.

Grace pressed her lips together. "She...Tessa's cases of anxiety and PTSD are indeed working against her, essentially trapping her in her head. She's not insane, but she's toeing the line into some more severe mental illnesses. That is, if she doesn't die altogether."

Kaden buried his face in his hands, and Reese shot the Huntress a look. "You're not helping."

Grace retaliated with another look. "Just telling you the facts. I'm trying as hard as I can, and I'll let you both know if—" She was interrupted as Kaden got to his feet, marching towards Tessa's hospital room. He slipped inside, shutting the door behind him.

"He shouldn't go in there," Grace said, but Reese stopped her.

"Tessa and Kaden...they're bound together by something only a few can sense." Reese explained, watching as Kaden pulled up a chair to Tessa's bedside, gently gripping her dainty hand between his large ones, and pressing a kiss to the back of it.

"Are you aware of anyone that might have cursed Tessa this way?" Grace asked.

Reese filled her in briefly on Aether and the Masks, and her eyes widened slightly, as if putting two pieces of a puzzle together.

"Do you know something?" Reese hedged.

Grace's eyes were locked on Kaden as he lifted his head, watery eyes staring at Tessa with every shred of concern in his body. "No," She spoke softly. "But her mother might."

And with that, the Huntress swept out of the alcove, leaving Reese to his own devices. The son of Apollo looked up, through the viewing window, watching as Kaden spoke to Tessa, silenced by the window, with tears streaming down his face. He lowered his face, down to where his hands covered hers, and Reese tore his gaze away. Because out of all of the hardships, all of the hurting and sorrow, watching that moment, that fragile, delicate moment, was the most painful of them all.