Leo

The interior of the tree was gigantic. Spacious and wide, the room made any cabin look like a broom closet. Henry took no problem in stepping right inside. She found herself in the middle of the room, slowly spinning around to see the room and it's entirety.

Then, she looked up, and a wave of awe washed over her face.

I got curious, sue me.

I took a step into the room and followed her gaze. I found that the space of the room was not the only space there. The whole tree must have been hollowed out. A staircase winding around the wall of the tree led to the top. The room must have been eight or nine stories high.

Henry bit the edge of her lip and eyed the ceiling, eager. I hoped she wouldn't summon her wings and fly up there. Not when she could just take the stairs.

She did a double take to the space opposite the door. The wall was bare, but there were cuts in the wall that made it look like a cabinet. Of course, as the door outside did, this area lacked buttons. Fortunately, there was a circle in the middle line, with a symbol on the inside.

It was another Celtic knot.

"What does that mean?"

Henry's fingers grazed over the button. "I think it means Knowledge or Wisdom. I wonder what it does-" she said as she pressed the wood an inch into the wall. Air burst from the cracks and pushed dust out from hiding. The doors pushed out and slid outward to reveal a hidden compartment in the wall.

As the doors slid back, they broke apart into sections and folded to fit against the wall. Behind them were shelves upon shelves of books. And in the middle of it all was a circular break in the shelves. Through the whole, I saw a spread of fabrics. Possibly ... bed sheets?

Henry was on cloud nine. She danced on tiptoe and had her fists clenched at her sides, though I guessed it wasn't from anger. A permanent smile was plaster to her face.

When she was finally able to pick a book, she drew one with a red leather backing and strange letters on the spine. She brushed the dust off it and flipped through it's pages. What she mumbled along to, I couldn't understand.

I tilted my head to read the markings on the spine, but I couldn't tell what it was for the life of me. It definitely wasn't English or Spanish. And I'd never seen Greek symbols like that.

"Is that Celtic too?" I mused.

She shook her head. "The culture and people are called Celtic. The language is Gaelic. It's from Ireland."

"And ... you can understand it?"

She grinned and peered up from her book. "Perfectly. I knew I could read some signs when I woke up in Ireland, but I had no idea I was fluent."

Hearing that was nice to know at first. Henry's mortal parent was probably Celtic and spoke the language.

What struck me as odd was that she said she'd woken up in Ireland. Percy said that when she first got to camp, she said she woke up somewhere near a boat, got on said boat, and arrived in New York. So ... if she woke up in Ireland, why did she say she didn't know where she woke up?

"You said you didn't know where you woke up," I hinted, hoping she would get what I was saying on her own.

She knitted her brows and held the book tighter in her grasp. "What?"

I repeated myself, "Percy said that you told him and the others that you woke up in a place you didn't know, then got on a boat for New York. But ... you just said you woke up in Ireland, and that you knew it was Ireland. So, what gives?"

Her lips pressed to a thin line. She shut the book in her hands and held it to her chest. "Okay ... I did lie. But, if I said what really happened, they would have thought I was even more of a freak."

"What happened?"

She scratched her head. "I woke up in Ireland, and I had no idea who I was or what I was doing there. I was in some kind of room, and the whole place was shaking. I broke out, and I was terrified. I wandered around for a while before something started chasing me. I didn't know what to do, and I panicked." She reached up for the sleeves of her shirt and held herself, pulling herself to stay as close and compressed as she could. "All I saw was black and shadows, and then ... I fell into them."

She shivered, and her knuckles grew whiter by the second. "I felt like I was falling, drifting in nothing. I thought I'd be stuck in there forever. Then, I got out of it, and I fell onto the stern of a ship headed for New York. I didn't know what to do, or how to get back to Ireland. So I just stayed in New York in the library and away from the population."

I understood being scared as a kid well. I'd been on the run myself a few times, and it never ended well. Yet, being on the run last time is what led me to meeting Piper and Jason. The last time was the time it was worth it.

After hearing the details, I knew exactly what was going on.

"Henry, you shadow-traveled."

"I what now?"

I chuckled to myself. "Shadow-traveling is when you use shadows to move from one place to another. Nico does it all the time! It's a power that children of Hades have."

Henry clearly wasn't as excited as I was. I was only thinking that it was more proof that she was a daughter of the Lord of the Underworld. Maybe that was causing her to be more upset.

I wasn't the best at comforting people, and I didn't know how to talk to someone about their not-so-rad dad. I felt like Percy, Jason, Frank, Hazel, or Nico would have been much better at this. Yet, Henry didn't seem to keen on having a heart to heart with Nico lately, for whatever reason.

"Hades isn't that bad a guy," I told her. "And knowing that you have this power can come in handy! Well, if you can't use the giant wings you have or your insane hiding skills. You've got nothin' to worry about."

"It's not Hades ... exactly," she admitted. She'd been so jubilant a minute ago. It almost hurt to see her so caved in and timid all the sudden. Her fingers were pale as paper from clutching her book so hard. "It's ... Nico."

My eyebrow shot so high in the air that Henry didn't even need to look at me to see it. "I thought things were going well, and that we were gonna be friends. But ... then I spoke to Piper, and she asked me if I liked him. I said yes, but I didn't know she meant like like him."

And just like that, I found myself caught in the teenage girl drama I thought I'd avoided in my school with Piper and Jason. Dancing around feelings and actions and using words to mean things they didn't really. Gods, why couldn't more people be like machines. You tell it exactly what to do and it does it. No skirting around it, no miscommunications, nothing.

"Then, Piper told Nico that I liked him that way, and Nico came up to me to talk about it. He was super uncomfortable and awkward, and I didn't get what he was saying at first. Now, he thinks I want to go out with him," she finished. Her grip on the book relaxed, and she slid it back onto the shelf into place.

I held my chin and tried to think. "Isn't Nico dating Will though?"

"That's what I said!" She cursed under her breath and put her palms to her forehead. "And no, it turns out that I'm his half-sister and he still might think I have a crush on him. So no, I don't want to be in this situation right now, and yeah, being his relative is weird now and probably will be forever."

"Yeah," I agreed. "And I bet sharing a cabin with him is gonna be even worse."

Rather than stay controlled in her fingers, her paleness spread to the rest of her body. It went all up her arms and settled in her face. Her cheeks reflected an almost green shade, and I glanced around for a bucket just in case.

Thankfully, Henry didn't need a bucket, because that seemed to be the only thing this tree didn't have inside it. I took the time to scan the other books on the shelf, to see if there were all Garlic, or Gaesic, or what ever she called it.

I caught a few that were written in English two shelves under the one Henry took a book from. I saw nothing other than English and the other language on the shelves.

Moving to the other side of the hole in the bookcase, I noticed that some of the book titles were in Greek. This made sense, since this was a camp for Greek demigods. I figured the owner of this sweet pad was a camper who was Greek and Irish.

That was, until I saw the other rows of book shelves. The ratio of shelves of Gaelic books to English books on the other side was 1:1. On this side, I caught another language. It was Latin. I'd seen Jason using it enough to recognize it.

I guess the former owner must have been multilingual. That was the only explanation for all these books. Or, the owner could have just enjoyed collecting books even if they couldn't read them.

Yeah, it sounded dumb when I thought it too.

Turning back to Henry, I saw she'd calmed down a bit and the color was back in her cheeks. She too started peering into the finer details of the room. I didn't know if she'd noticed the four different language the books were in. I didn't feel like voicing it either as to not sound ridiculous or stupid.

Henry focused on a stack of rolled up papers tucked in a corner. She got her hands on one and unrolled it. Once she took a moment to see it's contents, her eyes went wide.

Curious, I asked, "What is it?"

She beckoned me toward her with two fingers. I moved to her, and she showed me what she was so impressed with. It was clearly a set of blueprints, and it held the design for a set of mechanical wings. By the labeled dimensions, I bet they were the same size as Henry's.

The blueprints reminded me of the Greek story about Icarus and Daedalus. But the handwriting on the prints was similar to the writing on the blueprints on that mystery desk in Bunker 9.

"I bet whoever lived here was a Hephaestus camper," I added. "There are blueprints just like this on a desk in Bunker 9, where me and a bunch of Hephaestus kids go. The bunker was made around the World War periods, and was abandoned afterward. Whoever made this place must have lived here then."

She didn't disagree with my theory, which was nice. "Were Hephaestus campers the only ones who worked in Bunker 9?"

I knew the layout of Bunker 9 perfectly. I knew how every piece of machinery worked in there, and what went where and why. I knew how to keep the bunker in check.

I didn't know who worked in there, or like Henry said, if they were all my half-siblings.

"I- I don't know. I guess there could have been other campers in there."

She rolled up the blueprints. "Then this place could have been made by another camper. Maybe one that was like me." When I didn't catch her meaning, she explained, "They could have displayed talents and skills that associate with gods other than their godly parent. I mean, you guys thought I was relate to almost every Olympian on the list here."

"You heard that?"

Finally, she managed to grin again. "Yeah, every word. Annabeth thought I was her half-sibling for sure. The Stolls made bets I was theirs, Will thought my laugh made me one of Apollo's, Hazel thought I was from Aphrodite at one point, and you thought I was your half-sister."

I made a mental note to watch for Henry the next time I spoke about her. Or at least speak more softly when I did, if I ever had to again. She must have had hearing like a bird to pick up what I was saying, because I'd said it during dinner last night. One of the rowdiest and loudest times of the day at camp.

Henry put the blueprint back with the others and took one last look around the room. Her eyes fell on a chest on the other side of the bookcase. She sauntered over to the chest and opened it with ease. No locks, no glowing Celtic knots, nothing. Just a dark wooden chest with symbols and figures on it (some of the symbols did look like other Celtic knots).

She opened the chest, and tilted her head at what was inside. She stuck her hand in and pulled out what was inside. I was blinded by its reflection before I could see what it was.

When Henry twisted the thing out of the light, I saw it was a sword made of the same material Nico's was. It was black, and gave off the same vibe as a graveyard. It was approximately three feet long, and 6 inches of that was the hilt. The blade was decorated in a long, waving design that was on everything else in the room.

Suddenly, I felt extremely unsure about the former resident of this place.