𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

chapter ninety-eight. ☄︎. *. ⋆

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YOU KNOW HOW WHEN A KID GETS A NEW TOY, they carry it around with them everywhere, never ever let it out of their sight, and show it off to anybody that will listen?

That was kinda me with Apollo's bow. Everyone on Olympus had heard of my receiving it, whether it be by me or someone else. But it was probably by me.

Percy and I were on our way out of the throne room when he grabbed my arm and held me from continuing on. I looked up, confused, when I realized what he was looking at: Hermes, standing in a side courtyard of the palace, staring at an Iris-message in the mist of the fountain.

Percy turned to me. "I'll meet you at the elevator."

My gaze trailed slowly away from Hermes and onto Percy. I paused, staring up at him. At the boy who'd just turned down immortality for me. If that didn't mean he liked me, I wasn't sure what did. My stomach twisted and my lips pursed. Before I could stop myself, I said, "Are you my boyfriend, Percy?"

He was clearly taken aback by the question—he arched a dark eyebrow, a faint smirk dancing across his features for a fleeting second. "I don't know. Do you want me to be your boyfriend?"

I raised my eyebrows, only barely keeping the smile from my face. "Maybe a little bit. But I need to know if you want this as much as I do."

Percy's brow furrowed, and for the first time, he broke into an amused grin, beaming down at me. He took a long pause before replying, like we had all the time in the world. Which I guess, in a way, we did.

"Gods, Sunshine," he said, laughing, "you are way too smart to not know how I feel about you. But if you want me to put it into words, I guess I can try my best: I'm absolutely crazy about you. And when I say I love you, I mean it. No doubt about it. I've loved you ever since the first time I met you. And I think you've loved me this whole time, too—because, duh, how could you not? I think the most unbelievable part of all this is that Grover and Annabeth realized it before either of us did."

A laugh bubbled past my lips, and I shook my head, in disbelief of his determination. "Actually, I think the whole camp knew before we did."

"So?" Percy said, raising his eyebrows at me. "What do you say? Do I sound worthy enough of loving you? Because if you say no after all of th—"

I pulled him by the straps of his armor into a kiss, and his hands slid around my waist, holding me like he never wanted to let go again. I sure didn't want to.

When our lips parted, he grinned at me like I was the most perfect thing he'd ever seen. "Now that that's established, I'm going to go talk to Hermes."

I nodded, slipping a quick peck to his lips. "Meet you at the elevator."

When I got to the haphazardly-fixed bridge to the elevator, I wasn't the only person who was waiting by the doors. Nico stood to the side. His sword tip rested in the dirt, and his forehead leaned against the hilt, like he was taking a nap against the deadly weapon. I raised my eyebrows.

"Nico," I called.

He startled awake, and before I knew it, his sword was at my neck. I glanced down at it, then back up to him.

"Again?" I asked, unimpressed. He'd once stuck his sword beneath my chin in the Labyrinth, back when he hated me. Now we're on better terms, of course, so I wasn't as scared of his Stygian Iron sword as I had been the year before.

He lowered his weapon, sheathing it back into its place at his side. "Sorry, Theo. There's been a lot of Shadow Travelling recently, and now that things have calmed down, it's starting to catch up with me."

"We all need to get some rest after this." I shrugged. "Were you waiting for me?"

     "Sorta." Nico stood up, and I realized the sleep was entirely gone from his features. He was back to his strictly business persona. Which, admittedly, looked too formal on his young face, but I was beginning to get used to it. "I wanted to talk about... well, everything."

     "That would be a pretty long conversation, no?"

     He almost cracked a smile. I saw it in his little eyes. "That's not what I mean, Theo. You know what I'm here for."

     I lost my humor. My throat went dry. "Don't tell me it's about who I think."

     Nico nodded. "We need to talk about what happened with Ethan. I know you don't want to," he said quickly, holding up a hand to cut me off from the rambling I'd intended to do, "but you need to understand what happened."

"I do know what happened," I argued. "Ethan cursed me. Then he broke the curse. The end; that's it."

"That's not it. You're not getting the full picture, Theo."

"What is the full picture?" I asked accusingly. I was aware of how immature I'd begun to sound, but honestly, I couldn't care less. I never wanted to think about what Ethan had done to me again. "Listen, Nico, I don't want to talk about this. I'm sorry. I want to leave it in the past. I have siblings to grieve."

Nico's expression softened in the slightest. He knew what it was like to put a sister in the ground.

"Fine." His tone was quiet, but scary. "We won't talk about it. But you should know, if anything, that Ethan's soul shattered when he cut the tie between you. It's gone."

I froze, a chill running up my spine. "So Ethan... he's gone forever? No Underworld? No judgement? Nothing?"

"Ethan Nakamura was erased from existence the moment he chose to kill himself." Nico's voice was tight. "I felt it. I felt him make the decision. There's nothing we can do now but we can honor him as one of our own."

     "Because he was," I said firmly. "Almost half of Kronos's battalion was half-bloods. And if they aren't dead, maybe they'll have the sense to come back to camp. Ethan would have come back. Luke would have come back. But they can't. So the only thing we can do is thank them for their sacrifices."

Nico gave a curt nod. He was never one to argue, especially with me, and I wasn't even sure what the point he was trying to make was. He met my eyes, then looked away really quickly. His chin jerked to a point somewhere behind me.

"Percy's coming back," he said. "I'll see you around, Theo."

"Come back to camp, Nico," I urged, before he could slip away like he always did. "You're always welcome."

He gave me a shrug. "We'll see."

I glanced over my shoulder to see Percy approaching, and when I looked back again, Nico was already gone. Percy paused at my side, his brow furrowing when I looked at him.

"You okay?" he asked, eyes searching my face.

I took a moment, just to think about the question. Was I? I shouldn't have been, right? After all that had happened, I should have been signing up for eternal therapy at that point. But with Percy at my side, for some reason, I couldn't think of many reasons why I wouldn't be okay.

I managed a smile, staring up at him. "I've been worse."

He pressed a quick little kiss to my lips. "Good," he said. "Because I just spoke to Annabeth. About Rachel.

I raised my eyebrows. "Odd pair. What's Red done this time?"

"It's more where she's gone," he corrected. "Annabeth tried to talk some sense into her—tell her she'd die if she tried—but she insisted. She took Pepper and—"

"She took my pegasus?"

Percy nodded, wincing. "She's heading back to Half-Blood Hill. I think she's going to try and... um, become the Oracle?"