CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

Camp went late that summer. It lasted two more weeks, right up to the start of a new school year, and Sylvie had to admit they were the best two weeks of her life.

Of course, Percy would kill her if she said anything different (turned out Percy was completely obsessed with her and wanted her near him at all times, and Sylvie was trying to be very casual about this), but there was a lot of other great stuff going on too. Grover had taken over the satyr seekers and was sending them out across the world to find unclaimed half-bloods. So far, the gods had kept their promise. New demigods were popping up all over the place—not just in America, but in a lot of other countries as well.

"We can hardly keep up," Grover admitted one afternoon as they were taking a break at the canoe lake. "We're going to need a bigger travel budget, and I could use a hundred more satyrs."

"Yeah, but the satyrs you have are working super hard," Sylvie said. "I think they're scared of you."

Grover blushed. "That's silly. I'm not scary."

"You're a lord of the Wild, dude. The chosen one of Pan. A member of the Council of—"

"Stop it!" Grover protested. "You're as bad as Juniper. I think she wants me to run for president next."

He chewed on a tin can as they stared across the pond at the line of new cabins under construction. The U-shape would soon be a complete rectangle, and the demigods had really taken to the new task with gusto.

Nico had some undead builders working on the Hades cabin. Even though he was still the only kid in it, it was going to look pretty cool: solid obsidian walls with a skull over the door and torches that burned with green fire twenty-four hours a day. Next to that were the cabins of Iris, Nemesis, Hecate, and several others Sylvie didn't recognize. They kept adding new ones to the blueprints every day. It was going so well, Annabeth and Chiron were talking about adding an entirely new wing of cabins just so they could have enough room.

The Hermes cabin was a lot less crowded now, because most of the unclaimed kids had received signs from their godly parents. It happened almost every night, and every night more demigods straggled over the property line with the satyr guides, usually with some nasty monsters pursuing them, but almost all of them made it through.

"It's gonna be a lot different next summer," Sylvie said. "Chiron's expecting we'll have twice as many campers."

"Yeah," Grover agreed, "but it'll be the same old place."

He sighed contentedly.

Sylvie watched as Tyson led a group of Cyclops builders. Percy was trying to help carry the non-fragile stuff, following behind them.

Non-fragile, Sylvie clarified, because he couldn't be trusted to hold anything else—Percy caught Sylvie's eyes watching him, and got so giddy that when he tried to wave at her, he tripped all the way down to the dirt and dropped everything in his hands.

That's why only the Cyclopes were hoisting huge stones in place for the Hecate cabin. It was a delicate job. Each stone was engraved with magical writing, and if they dropped one, it would either explode or turn everyone within half a mile into a tree. Sylvie figured nobody but Grover would like that.

"I'll be traveling a lot," Grover warned, "between protecting nature and finding half-bloods. I may not see you as much."

"Won't change anything," Sylvie said. "Nothing can stop us from being the nature freaks."

He grinned. "Where it all began."

"Back when I was taller than you," Sylvie teased.

"And back when you were hopelessly devoted to Percy," Grover shot right back.

Sylvie kicked some water at him. "Hey!"

"It's alright," he said. "'Cause now he's the one devoted to you."

She rolled her eyes, but did nothing to restrain the giddy smile on her lips. Sylvie couldn't argue something that was true.

Unfortunately, though, it wasn't all as splendid as it seemed.

The Demeter cabin took a hard loss with Florian Whitlock. He was the heart and soul of their cabin. Now, they had to cope with the fact that all of his belongings were here, but Florian never would be again.

Sylvie didn't get him back to camp, where he had actually wanted to die.

They didn't know what to do with Florian's things, except for one. His beloved guitar was now hung up on the wall, displayed for everyone to see and remember him. It was chipped and a little rough around the edges from the amount of times Florian used it, but that's what made it even more special to his Demeter siblings. On the body of the guitar, there was a smiley face drawn on in Sharpie.

Sylvie had done that when she was twelve. One day, Uncle Emerson had sent Sylvie bad news on her father. She had been crying alone in the cabin, until Florian came in and found her. Florian wasn't usually the one that handled Sylvie's panic—He just antagonized her instead. But, this time, it was just the two of them, so he had to. Florian offered to let Sylvie draw on his guitar in permanent marker, to distract her and let her express her sadness with art instead of tears. In the end, Sylvie had been too scared (go figure) to really doodle on Florian's instrument. Two dots and a curve was good enough for her.

One sloppy smiley face on an acoustic guitar that was otherwise perfect, that served as a reminder that once upon a time, Sylvie had lived in the same universe as her brother.

That was in the past, though. Now all Sylvie had was the lasting afterimage of her sibling's death, forever frozen in the bones of her memory. Until that, too, would one day fade.

That evening was the last night of camp—the bead ceremony. The Hephaestus cabin had designed the bead this year. It showed the Empire State Building, and etched in tiny Greek letters, spiraling around the image, were the names of all the heroes who had died defending Olympus. There were too many names—Florian, Silena, Michael—but Sylvie was proud to wear the bead. She put it on her camp necklace, making it so that she had six beads now. Sylvie felt like an old-timer. She thought about the first campfire she'd ever attended, back when she was eleven, and how she'd felt so at home. That at least hadn't changed.

"Never forget this summer!" Chiron told them. He had healed remarkably well, but he still trotted in front of the fire with a slight limp. "We have discovered bravery and friendship and courage this summer. We have upheld the honor of the camp."

He smiled at Sylvie and Percy, and everybody cheered. As Sylvie looked at the fire, she saw a little girl in a brown dress tending the flames. She winked at Sylvie with red glowing eyes. No one else seemed to notice her, but Sylvie realized maybe she preferred it that way.

"And now," Chiron said, "early to bed! Remember, you must vacate your cabins by noon tomorrow unless you've made arrangements to stay the year with us. The cleaning harpies will eat any stragglers, and I'd hate to end the summer on a sour note!"

The next morning, Sylvie, Percy, and Annabeth stood at the top of Half-Blood Hill. They watched the buses and vans pull away, taking most of the campers back to the real world. A few old-timers would be staying behind, and a few of the newcomers, but Sylvie was heading back to the farm in Albany, Louisiana to spend time with her happy and healthy dad.

"Goodbye," Rachel said to them as she shouldered her bag. She looked pretty nervous, but she was keeping a promise to her father and attending some snobby boarding school in New Hampshire. It would be next summer before they got their Oracle back.

"You'll do great." Sylvie hugged her.

Rachel bit her lip. "I hope you're right. I'm a little worried. What if somebody asks what's on the next math test and I start spouting a prophecy in the middle of geometry class? The Pythagorean theorem shall be problem two.... Gods, that would be embarrassing."

Sylvie laughed with Annabeth, and it made Rachel smile.

"Well," Rachel nodded at Sylvie and Percy, "you two be good to each other."

Annabeth teased the couple with Rachel for a couple more minutes before Rachel wished them all well and ran down the hill to catch her ride.

Sylvie was jealous of Percy and Annabeth: they both would be staying in New York. Annabeth had gotten permission from her parents to attend a boarding school in the city so she could be close to Olympus and oversee the rebuilding efforts. Percy (obviously) already lived there. Sylvie would be 1,329 miles away from them both.

The only positive(ish) thing was that Sylvie would be riding with Percy, as he and Sally offered to bring Sylvie to the airport this year. It made Sylvie sad that Florian's dad would never do it for her again. She couldn't blame him, but still, the loss of that routine stung a little.

"It'll be alright," Percy laced his fingers through hers. "We've still got, like, two hours left together. And I'll Iris-message you so much you'll be sick of me."

"He's probably telling the truth," Annabeth told Sylvie. "I'd find a way to block him, if that's even possible."

Sylvie barked out a laugh, while Percy yelped in offense.

The guard dragon Peleus curled contentedly around the pine tree underneath the Golden Fleece and began to snore, blowing steam with every breath.

"You've been thinking about Rachel's prophecy?" Percy asked.

Sylvie frowned. "How did you know?"

"Because I know you." Just because he could, Percy pulled Sylvie into him and pressed a kiss atop her head.

She bumped Percy away with her shoulder. "Okay, so I have. Sue the overthinker for overthinking."

"I get it," Annabeth said. "Nine half-bloods shall answer the call. I wonder who they'll be. We're going to have so many new faces next summer."

"Yep," Percy agreed. "And all that stuff about the earth falling in battle."

"And insanity wreaking until a final breath," Sylvie worried.

"And foes at the Doors of Death," Annabeth pursed her lips. "I don't know, but I don't like it. I thought... well, maybe we'd get some peace for a change."

"Wouldn't be Camp Half-Blood if it was peaceful," Percy said.

"I guess you're right... Or maybe the prophecy won't happen for years."

"Could be a problem for another generation of demigods," Percy agreed. "Then we can kick back and enjoy."

Annabeth nodded; however, Sylvie wasn't planning on retiring her role as "anxious pessimist" anytime soon. "That's likely," she mumbled sarcastically.

Still, it was hard to feel too upset on a nice day, with Percy next to her, knowing that she wasn't really saying good-bye. They had lots of time.

In the end, Percy was right about him and Sylvie being alright, despite their long-distance relationship.

(It was unfortunate he was right and now able to tease her about it until the day she died, but Sylvie didn't care much. She was pretty happy about this particular thing he'd been correct on.)

For their Thanksgiving break in November, Percy flew out to Louisiana so he could visit Sylvie on her farm. It had immediately become Sylvie's favorite moment of her entire life—from Percy panicking over hearing cicadas for the first time (he'd screamed in fear about why the trees were screaming), to him getting along with Sylvie's dad better than anyone she'd ever seen, even to when Sylvie had fallen asleep in a hammock lying on Percy's chest and Percy decided to be a little shit by scaring her awake so badly she fell to the dirt ground. Even then, Sylvie had a beaming smile on her face.

The moment she liked the most, however, was Sylvie and Percy sitting by the farm's secluded creek—Sylvie in between Percy's legs and braiding flower crowns for them both. She didn't even care that it was an echo of another Greek tragedy, as Sylvie knew that she and Percy would never be anything close to the sort.

It was there, that it was finally just Percy and Sylvie.

It was there, where the sea met the wildflowers, that all was well.

╰━━━ ◦ ❀ ◦ ❀◦ ━━━╯ 

BAILEY YAPS :(

Shut up shut up shut up shut up don't play with me right now

There's no way this is the last chapter of this book. Ever. I refuse to believe it. I am sobbing and tears are shedding on my keyboard and it's 2:30 in the morning and I don't know what to with myself

GUYS!!!!!

WE'RE DONE SKDFHSDK HOW DO YOU FEEL

Me personally I feel so grateful for all of you I love y'all so much. I got so much support on this story and I never expected that in the slightest. Thank you for following Sylvie's story and loving her as much as I do. She means the world to me and so do you guys. I remember when she was literally just that random weird girl who accidentally strangled that random cute boy with vines. And look at her now. Shut up.

Don't fret though!!!!

Sylvie's story isn't over with. I'm planning on continuing this series in a second book that follows Heroes of Olympus with Sylvie, your fav pjo characters, your fav wildflowers ocs, and maybe even a new oc in the mix as well xx

(Please be aware though that I've recently started college so I'm actually very busy at the moment despite how hard I'm trying to get the second book out)

But, however, this story is now over with. And cause I don't want to cry any more I'm gonna end this here but just know I LOVE Y'ALL SO MUCH YOU LITTLE PEOPLE ON MY SCREEN ARE THE REASON I EVEN KEPT WRITING <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

To make me feel better please drop your personal favorite Persylv moment from this book