15

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Heretic.

The voices around me whispered. Shrouds, cloaked beings of smoke rose from the dark ground. It was cold and heavily unfeeling, it felt dead. The remnants of mortals drifted in and out of view, their pained faces appearing and disappearing. Their voices were full of anguish.

Heretic, they hissed. Heretic.

I stood before a huge black marble pavilion, dark and glossy, with three blurry ghost-like figures sitting at a table at the top. Behind them, there were three lands, all incredibly separate in their existence.

Welcome to the Judgement Pavilion, little one, the ghosts whispered. Your life shall be weighed by the three Judges of the Underworld. The lands beyond are the Fields of Punishment, the Fields of Asphodel, and Elysium.

Even without knowing what was going on, even a clueless person like me could probably distinguish which land was which. If I focused attention to each sphere, I could hear the the screams and moaning from burning red fields, the unemotional lulling dullness of endless yellow grass fields, and the happy, cheery laughter of blue and green paradise. They were all so starkly different, contrasting in every aspect: suffering, unfeeling, celebration.

But this wasn't the place I had expected to go after dying.

"I thought I'd be judged by God, instead," I said aloud. "Like Heaven or Hell, not here."

"Silence, little soul. Your judgement awaits," a ghost at the table rasped. It was the one sitting at the left. I briefly saw a face of a cruel king, he had unforgiving, dark eyes and a hard mouth.

"She is clearly a heretic, refusing to accept judgement from the Judges of the Underworld, and did not worship the true gods of the world while she lived."

"Therefore," it continued. "I declare for you, the Fields of Punishment."

The middle ghost was slightly more sympathetic, though not completely in favor. "You are being to harsh, as usual, King Minos. The Fields of Asphodel is a fairer decision. She has not done anything horribly wrong in her regrettably short lifetime. Besides, Christianity is a common religion of the mortal world, she is not the only one who followed her own god."

The middle ghost looked like one of those white Greek marble statues of old male philosophers in a museum. Curly beard and a receding hairline, a heavy brow and deeply etched watchful eyes.

"You will be punished yourself for stating such blasphemy, Aristotle," King Minos snarled. "Lord Hades will not allow a heretic to live a peaceful afterlife."

"He has, and he will," the rightmost ghost spoke up. "You are ignoring the fact that she died saving her brothers from the most unfortunate accident, among other many good works she had performed in her lifetime. Charity, acts of service, kindness, and sacrifice, among many other things. She belongs in Elysium."

"No!" King Minos shouted. The grey ghost banged a fist on the black marble table. "You may be the most naive judge to ever sit at this table, Nun Teresa, however I refuse to allow another heretical soul to enter Elysium, out of all things. They do not deserve eternal peace!"

I tilted my head when King Minos called the third ghost 'Nun Teresa'. Could he possibly be referring to the famous Mother Teresa?

I decided to ask the third ghost. "Pardon my interruption, but are you Mother Teresa?"

A vague form of a face that I recognized as an old wrinkled grandmother momentarily shifted into view.

"I am, young one."

"What is a Roman Catholic nun doing at the Judgement Pavilion of Greek mythology?" I was genuinely curious.

Heretic, the voices around me wailed.

King Minos sounded enraged. "SHE DARES TO CALL US MYTHS?"

"Do not worry, your faith was not unfounded," Mother Teresa told me, ignoring the fuming ghost. "God is very much real."

That didn't answer my question. "Then why-"

"I DEMAND TO SENTENCE THIS SOUL TO THE FIELDS OF PUNISHMENT, I WILL NOT STAND TO-"

Aristotle shook his head, "King Minos, be reasonable. How will you find yourself worthy of enacting judgement when you lack the ability to deliver law?"

Talking for the first time, I commented, "The law is reason, free from passion."

The middle ghost considerably brightened. "So my teachings are still being continued in the mortal world, child?"

I shrugged. "Yes, but that quote was from a famous movie which was why I remember it."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," King Minos darkly muttered.

"As for you, people of the mortal world don't like your story when you forced Daedalus to build a labyrinth," I told him. "They think you're a bad king."

"SEND HER TO THE FIELDS OF PUNISHMENT," the unreasonable ghost howled furiously. I could imagine if ghosts had teeth, King Minos would be gnashing his violently. His unhealthy reputation in the living realm must be a sensitive topic for him.

"No," Aristotle and Mother Teresa rejected.

"Elysium," the nun calmly demanded.

"ABSOLUTELY NOT," King Minos refused.

"We must reach an agreement in order to send this soul on her way," Aristotle played the mediator.

There was a moment of clarity when I remembered that this was only a dream.

I was currently in a dream. I had almost forgotten because I was so deep into my past, further than I thought I could reach. I didn't know that I could even go into my previous life's death. I was watching the sentencing of my first life. I would finally figure out the reason why I kept my first life's memories.

I fully expected the dream to continue, to show me all my answers, but this world wouldn't give anything so easily.

King Minos had a scheming gleam in his eye. "I have a proposal."

"If it is what I suspect it to be, I shall refuse," Mother Teresa eyed him suspiciously.

Their voices grew warbled and fuzzy, like static. I could see their mouths moving, but I couldn't hear anything. The ghosts exchanged more words heatedly. I would have traded anything in the world to know what they were saying. They appeared to have finally come to an agreement, but judging by how none of them appeared satisfied, it was clear they weren't completely happy with the decision. King Minos had a grimace while Aristotle's face was hard like marble, Mother Teresa actually seemed outraged. Sound buzzed around me, but cleared just for a second that I could the last words.

"It is the only way," the Greek philosopher solemnly said while looking straight at me. It sounded like he was talking to me.

What is, I tried to ask them, but my voice wouldn't come out. What is the only way?

What's going on, what did you decide. What could be so bad that all of you don't look happy?

The static increased, filling my head until I couldn't think.

But I was so close to the answer, just a little bit more, I just needed to listen a little bit more.

Please.

The static grew louder. It buzzed. White sound pierced my ears and drowned my voice. It got harder to breathe, it felt like I was drowning in a fog. My own body was dissipating, turning into a ghost just like the ones in the Underworld. I stared in horror when my hands started losing shape, the fingertips disappearing into grey smoke.

Hypnos' warning echoed inside the dream, Beware, dwell too long in the depths of your mind, into the past, and you will not wake from slumber.

I was staying in the past for too long, inside my own head.

I needed to get out of here.

Wake-

I turned over in my bunk bed and ripped the covers off, gasping for air. My hands fervently patted down my body. Arms, check. Legs and toes. Fingers and hands intact. Ran my fingers through my hair. Dragged my hands over my face, breath shaky, feeling the bumps of a nose, mouth, and eyes.

"You're alive," I whispered to myself.

I pressed two fingers against my jugular, feeling the blood pressure beating. It was thrumming, slowly, but surely.

I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm still here, I told myself.

My mind was racing.

I checked the cabin, almost everyone was in deep sleep, except for one or two who I could sense were having a hard time falling asleep. It was one female camper and I could tell the other was Nico on the boy's side of the cabin. I swallowed down my panic, trying to be as calm as possible and forcing my shaking hands to still as I lied down on my back in my bunk, staring at the wooden ceiling.

This was the closest clue I had ever gotten in the past three weeks.

King Minos, Aristotle, and Mother Teresa had been the Underworld Judges at the time of my death. Minos, predictably, was the most cruel out of the three, Mother Teresa as the most kind, and Aristotle as in between. It sounded fitting.

I needed to speak with one of them, preferably Aristotle or Mother Teresa, to find out what they were saying; King Minos didn't seem like he'd be a pleasant ghost to talk to at any time of the day. Talking to a ghost meant that I would have to try and look for Aristotle or Mother Teresa in my dreams, though this option was unlikely. Talking to dead people only happened when the dream came to the demigod, not the other way around. Although being the daughter of a sleep god gave me closer access to death than any other demigod, I had no domain over the dead, so I would never be able to summon ghosts even in my dreams.

Therefore, in order to raise the dead, I needed a Plan B instead. Checking the time, there was an hour left before daybreak when the group would leave for their quest. They were going to leave at the first sign of sunrise.

After some hard thinking, I sat up and crawled to the edge of my bunk cautiously. Demigod campers were cute when they were sleeping, their faces were free of wrinkles and stress when they slept, leaving smooth, worry-free expressions. After digging through my travel bag, I climbed down from my bunk with a old black fanny pack in hand.

A light-sleeping girl stirred at the sound, asking aloud in a sleepy voice, "Who's awake?"

Without looking over to see who it was, I forced her to sleep. "Sleep."

The command reverberated throughout the cabin and to my relief, I sensed that Nico also was subdued by the sleep order. The entire cabin was now completely knocked out and entering snoozeland.

Snooping around Cabin Eleven, I picked out some necessary items from my own cabin mates and put it in the fanny pack. There were a handful of drachma coins, a small pack of wet tissue wipes, a mini plastic water bottle, three granola bars, and gum. I made mental notes of apologies to each camper from whom I stole from in order to gather the stuff. Everything fit snugly into the unfashionable bag, I had to hold back a snort from imagining Percy running around fighting monsters with a fanny pack attached to his hip. I put a mini ziplock bag of ambrosia, my own stash, and a store bought prepaid card of one hundred dollars as the last two items. I always carried those two things on myself whenever I walked out of Camp Half-Blood or my home; I'd pay the Stoll brothers to supply me ambrosia or nectar from the infirmary while my mom would always give me prepaid cards in events of emergency. Examining the fanny pack with an approving look, I thought it was a pretty decent 'go bag' for a demigod.

Money of both Greek and mortal, a little water, some snacks, cleanliness, and nothing on an injured demigod some ambrosia can't fix, I thought, admiring the fanny pack. I almost wished I could keep it for myself.

I went back to my bunk, carrying the fanny pack with me. Knowing my sleep command was still in effect, I snapped my fingers to break the spell so that the campers' sleep wouldn't be weighed down by my own power. Almost immediately, I could hear Nico tossing and turning in his sleeping bag, going back to his inability to sleep.

I just had to wait until Nico woke up on his own.

It was dark outside, the sun wouldn't start rising until about thirty minutes later. Cabin Eleven's bunkers were all snoozing, except for two people. Me, and another kid.

I watched from my top bunk with slitted eyes. The newest unclaimed camper, Nico di Angelo, was wide awake. I had noticed that during his entire stay in Camp Half-Blood, he didn't have a good time sleeping at night which quickly resulted in some faint signs of eye bags; it was something I could empathize with though it was sad to see a little boy with eye bags from lack of sleep. Nico rose from his sleeping bag on the floor and pulled on his sneakers, creeping as quietly as he could across the floor scattered with sleeping demigods. He winced when the door creaked a little, but managed to exit the cabin without waking anyone.

I waited a minute or two before following him outside, and I made sure that I brought the black fanny pack with me, hooking it around my waist.

It wasn't pitch black outside, so I managed to easily track down the little kid at a distance. Carefully avoiding dried leaves and twigs on the dirt ground, I stepped up hidden from view by a tree, watching Nico scurrying behind a column to watch the Hunters who were standing at the camp pavilion. I was straining my ears to overhear the girls when something clamped on my shoulder.

I grabbed at the hand, but nearly screamed when I saw nothing in my grip, just solid air.

"Wh-"

"It's me, it's me," Percy's frantically whispered in my ear.

I stiffened, but covered my mouth, relaxing when I understood that he had Annabeth's invisible Yankee baseball cap. We didn't speak any further, not questioning why the other was out in the middle of the night because there was something a bit more important happening in front of us. Together, we watched Nico spying on the two Hunters about ten feet in front of us. Though Zoë and Bianca whispered to each other in hushed tones, their voices carried far in the still night and easily reached our ears. When they talked about Phoebe's poisoning, I could feel Percy's gaze on me, suspecting that I knew why the Stoll brothers had poisoned the girl with centaur blood.

"You should tell Thalia the rest of your dream," Bianca cautiously said. "Especially after what that one creepy camper said to you, about your dreams being right."

"No, now that my suspicions have been further confirmed, it would do no help," Zoë muttered.

"But it could help her-"

"I have thy word not to talk about that," Zoë sounded like she would be in deep pain if she had to talk about her past.

Bianca and Zoë didn't linger long, it was clear that the older lieutenant was in a rush and disturbed by her own dreams. The Hunters sprinted away in our direction. I scrambled, pressing myself against the tree trunk opposite from their view, hoping that they hadn't seen me. I swore I heard Zoë pausing near the tree, but I let out a breath of relief when I saw her and Bianca leave the pavilion.

Though I couldn't see Percy, I knew he was itching to go after them, so I said aloud in a low voice. "First, we stop Nico."

Percy was quick to agree and he called out the unclaimed kid. "Nico, wait."

The little Italian boy froze in his tracks, turning around with guilty eyes. "Percy?"

And then Nico saw me, not knowing Percy was invisible. "You're not Percy."

I rolled my eyes. "Percy, will you take off the invisibility hat?"

Nico mouthed the word 'invisible' with awe. The son of the sea god appeared out of nowhere, standing next to me with a blue cap in his hand.

"So cool," he breathed.

"You were going to follow them." Percy said like it wasn't a question.

"So what if I am?" Nico fired back defiantly. "I can't?"

"You can," I said.

The little boy was taken aback at my response.

Percy looked at me in shock. "What are you saying, of course he can't, you-"

I folded my arms. "I'm saying that technically, you can try. But you'll probably get caught or die."

"Jade!" Percy tried to scold me for the harsh words, but Nico understood.

"I-I know, probably," Nico's voice cracked. "But you can go, right?"

He looked at Percy with a look of adoration and hope. "You have that invisible hat, they won't see you! And you can keep an eye on my sister! You can, can't you? Please?"

"Nico, I-" Percy glanced at me, as if asking for a second opinion.

I lifted an eyebrow. "Why is it that everytime I talk to you, you're trying to go on someone else's quest? Do you have a habit of jumping quests? Because that's a bad habit."

"Hey, wait, I'm only thinking about Annabeth-"

Nico nearly sparkled. "So you're planning to go anyway, aren't you?"

"Yeah," the sea demigod admitted. "I have to find Annabeth and help, even if they don't want me to."

Percy did a double take at me, silently daring me to oppose his decision. I shook my head.

"It's not like I expected anything else," I told him. Percy at least had the decency to look sheepish, hanging his head to our feet instead of looking at me. I unclipped the fanny pack from my waist and held it out to him.

"Which is exactly why I prepared this for you. It's got the basic essentials for a quest, since you clearly aren't prepared," I said, casting a judging eye down Percy's form and noting how he had nothing with him.

The son of the sea god stared at the bag in his hand.

"A fanny pack? Seriously?" He asked in disbelief.

My tone was dry. "I went through the trouble of getting something useful for you, but yes, let's discuss the potentials of making a fashion statement."

Percy cracked a small smile. "Thanks a lot," he said. They were simple words of gratitude, but I could tell he was truly sincere. He clipped on the pack. I clamped my lips together to stop myself from giggling.

Nico piped up, "Promise to keep my sister safe?"

I immediately cut the boy off, "No promises."

"I'll try, Nico, I'll try," Percy amended. "Tell Chiron-"

"We'll make something up," Nico smiled crookedly. It was the same smile that every ADHD/ADD demigod cracked whenever they were up to no good.

Percy left, turning invisible the moment he started running away from us, towards Half-Blood Hill in order to follow the quest group. The sun was rising fast and hitting our faces with golden light.

I broke the silence between us. "So, who's we?"

"Huh?"

"You said 'we'll make something up', didn't you?"

The kid scuffed the ground with his feet.

"Us?" Nico sounded nervous in front of me.

To be honest, I hadn't made the best impression of myself ever since he first came to camp. The entire time, I had been irritable, snappish, and in a bad mood and not focused on welcoming him into camp. His nervousness was to be expected.

"Can he catch up to them?" Nico asked in an unsure voice.

"He'll probably hitch a ride on a pegasus," I guessed.

Nico sounded confused, "But the pegasus stables are the other direction."

"There's a black pegasus that he's friends with that doesn't belong to camp," I explained.

The small camper opened his mouth and looked up at me with a starstruck expression. "Percy has his own pegasus?"

Sure enough, within five minutes, we saw a black animal form with wings swooping down to the top of Half-Blood Hill. In a heartbeat, the black pegasus returned to the air, but it had a rider on its back. Nico gaped.

"Alright, that's enough fun for the crack of dawn," I said as we squinted against the sun's bright rays. I put a hand on Nico's shoulder, almost like a leash.

"We got stuff to talk about."

Nico visibly gulped.

I soon learned that I would never be able to go back to that dream of being judged at the Judgement Pavilion of the Underworld. No matter how much I strained to get past the barriers of the past and tried to go beyond my second birth, the dream would rebound. Then I'd wake up with a killer headache. After the fifth time I got kicked out of the dream realm, I had to run to the nearby bathroom to throw up. The taste of bile hadn't left my mouth until after breakfast that morning. I tried two more times after eating, but the dreams eluded me, they would push me out as if they were afraid to lose a child of sleep in the dream world.

In the afternoon, I talked to Clovis about it while dreaming.

"The dream won't come to me again," I told him. "I don't think I'll be able to go any further than that."

Clovis' dream was nice. We were lying on top of pastel clouds made out of cotton candy, floating in the deep blue sky. Even though it wasn't real, it felt as comfortable as it looked, and the clouds seemed tasty. Occasionally, swans and winged unicorns would fly by us. I liked barging into Clovis' dreams because they were always this pleasant.

My half-brother turned to face me. "I'm more surprised you were even able to push your dreams to go before your second life. You would have died. Again."

I nodded. I was lucky to even have that happen to me in the first place.

"So what are you going to do now?"

I folded my hands behind my head. "I need to talk to one of the ghost judges, figure out what they were saying before the dream went fuzzy."

"How are you going to do that? We don't control dead stuff."

"There's a new camper," I said carefully. "He's a little kid and unclaimed, but I get the feeling that he might be able to help me."

Clovis appeared mildly interested. "Unless he can control dead stuff, how helpful can he be?"

"I think he can control dead stuff," I said, confirming Clovis' guess.

The other demigod was quiet for a moment, taking in the implications of my answer.

"I don't think this is a safe topic," he murmured. Clovis was scared, almost, definitely nervous though.

Some time ago, I had told him about how the Big Three didn't sire any more children after World War II and that the three gods had sworn an oath to uphold that promise. Though Clovis' natural disposition led him to be a sleepyhead all the time, he was an intuitive demigod. He knew what I was hinting at.

That Hades had a kid.

"You better be careful, whoever this kid is. He'll be a target."

Angry deities and vengeful creatures would be after Nico, once he would discover his parentage.

"I know, I know," I said.

Children of the Big Three were never to be messed with.

The following day after watching Percy leave was a long one. Because of the timing, I wasn't able to talk to Nico right away, and told him that we'd chat later. We first had to come up with a convincing story to tell Chiron; we ended up telling a lie about Percy leaving camp to go home early, that he took off with a black pegasus. Chiron, being a thousand year old centaur, completely saw through the lie, but graciously accepted it without fuss. However, the stern look he gave me behind Nico's back told me that he expected a full explanation later.

Nico kept shooting glances at me throughout the day, wondering when and what I wanted to talk to him about. Feeling his gaze tracking me wherever I went was starting to feel annoying by the end of the day.

The camp schedule was almost done and we were sitting together at the dinner table when I finally talked to him for the first time since the early morning. We were a little early so the rest of the cabin hadn't crowded the picnic table yet. After scraping a portion of our food in the pavilion fire, I started the conversation.

"You don't sleep well, do you," I asked him. It sounded more like a statement.

Nico shook his head. "I don't."

"Then we'll talk in the cabin when everyone else is asleep at night," I said. "We won't be bothered by anyone then."

"But what if someone wakes up because we're talking?"

"They won't, I can make sure of that," I reassured him.

Oh man, Nico was small, I realized. He's still a little kid. His clothes were baggy on him, they were hand-me-down garments, since he had come to camp without properly preparing to stay at camp. Luckily, Camp Half-Blood had a lot of spare clothes, however they looked big on Nico. His dark eyes were round and innocent on his baby face, his skin as dark as a native Italian. Being ten years old, he seemed very untainted and foolishly optimistic and he didn't have the same tough edge that some other demigods had at their young age.

He had a rough childhood, I knew. I knew that his mother had died before his eyes, but that a dip into the River Lethe had washed his memory clean of that horrific event. And because he lost that memory, Nico was as cheerful as he was right now, sitting before me.

Ignorance is bliss, I thought bitterly.

I tilted my head. "How old are you?"

"I'm ten," the kid answered. "But I'm gonna be eleven soon!"

I ran a hand over my face to hide the exasperation and horror.

Ten, I internally lamented.

"I'm dealing with a ten year old," I muttered to myself. Ugh, he's so young. He's a friggin' child.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said.

"When is Percy and my sister coming back?"

"I don't know, but they have until the winter solstice to complete the mission."

"What's the winter solstice?"

"The winter solstice is the day when nighttime is the longest and the daytime is the shortest of the entire year, but that's not exactly the point. It's also the day when the Olympian gods meet at Mount Olympus to have their annual winter council. The Hunters want to find the moon goddess in time for the council," I patiently explained.

Nico was able to understand more than I thought he would. "Oh, you mean Artemis?"

"Yeah, but try not to directly say gods' or goddesses' names, okay? Names have power." I felt like I was teaching him.

"Percy said that too," Nico commented happily.

I didn't respond to that, I focused on my dinner instead. Rotisserie chicken, baked beans and potatoes, steamed greens, and freshly baked dinner rolls. Yum. I stabbed the chicken leg with a silver fork.

"How long have you known Percy?"

I kept eating and didn't stop looking at my food. "Almost three years now."

"What kind of powers does he have?"

"He's the son of the sea god. Pretty self-explanatory."

"So he controls water, right?"

"Right." I munched on a baked baby potato. It was really good. Perfectly salted and peppered, soft and fluffy.

"Can he breathe underwater?"

"Yeah."

"Can he talk to fish?"

I took a sip of mango juice. "Probably."

"Does he have gills?"

I choked on my drink and coughed. I pounded my chest, trying to relieve my inflamed lungs.

"No," I wheezed. Nico stuck his concerned face in front of my eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I wiped my mouth with a napkin. The little demigod child waited a second before opening his mouth for another question.

"Does Percy have-"

My hand shot out and covered the overly eager kid's mouth.

"No more questions," I gritted out. "Got it?"

Nico nodded, staring at me with wide eyes. I slowly took my hand off him, I didn't think he would actually listen to me.

"But what about fins?"

I rubbed the temples of my forehead. You need the kid, I reminded myself. Don't hit him.

Later, we were sitting across from each other on the ground in the middle of the night in Cabin Eleven, surrounded by snoring campers. Everyone was in deep sleep because of me.

"You can control sleep?" Nico whispered in a hushed voice, awed.

"Yeah, and you don't need to whisper. They're not going to wake up," I told him without lowering my volume.

Nico nervously folded his hands. "So are we going to talk about the quest?"

"We are," I confirmed. Waiting a second, I decided to go for the direct approach.

"How would you feel if I were to tell you that your sister is going to be in big trouble on the quest?"

Nico immediately paled. "What? No, Percy said he'd keep her safe."

I corrected the little boy. "Percy said he'd try to keep her safe, but Percy can't do everything."

"B-but, Percy's a hero," Nico whimpered. "Bianca can't get in trouble."

I gave him a hard look. "Nico. Quests are actually incredibly dangerous. Usually the camp never allows a quest because demigods would die all the time. This time, the chances of everyone surviving is slim."

Nico's lower lib wobbled, his dark coal eyes began watering.

Good going, Jade, you made him cry, I sarcastically told myself.

I sighed, "Okay, okay, hear me out, though. There's a chance that your sister might survive the quest, but in case if she doesn't, I have an idea that you might want to hear."

Thankfully, the tears subsided. "You mean I can help my sister if she's in trouble?"

Dear God, I am a horrible person, the thought shamed me as I saw hope blooming in Nico's sorrowful, watery eyes. I'm actually baiting a ten year old kid with the potential of his sister dying.

"Yeah, but in return, I'm going to need your help, too."

Nico sniffed and rubbed his nose. "Okay."

I let out a second sigh. I hoped Nico would forgive me in the future.

"First, we have to figure out your demigod powers."

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