XV: Motherly

We walked to his house quickly and quietly. Connor led the way, obviously, and I was next to him. Behind us, Nikaea and Gasper walked together and Nico closed the excursion. He pulled out a keychain from one of his pockets when we'd stopped at the door of his building.

"Quiet in the stairway, and shoes off inside." he warned, as he held the door open for me.

Alastor stalked over my head as a golden dragonfly, buzzing casually and momentarily whispering random words into my mind.

Connor lived on the third floor. That made six flights of stairs. The halls had a greenish wallpaper that started to peel off at the edges. We climbed steep steps made out of wood that seemed to be closer to falling apart each second. Behind me and Connor, Gasper gossiped something with his arm around the archer's shoulder, but they were only whispers, so neither of us stopped him. 

It led me to wonder what his relationship with her was. I'd seen the way he'd acted when the monster lunged at the huntress. The spell had been shouted gutturally, and even I could feel will in the words I didn't understand. The years in which I'd been associated with the sorcerer, I hadn't seen him casting anything with that look in his eyes. 

My hunch was that he loved her, but I wasn't sure on whether or not they were lovers. She was controlled, her tone didn't change when she spoke to him, and I failed to see any spark in her eyes when she looked at him. 

I would ask Nico to explain later.

Connor stopped on the third floor, and led us to his door. There, he pulled out another key and carefully twisted it in the keyhole. His mom was sitting by the kitchen counter, and her face lit up in a loving smile when she saw us.

"Connor! Oh, you must be Erica!" she greeted, but as Gasper and Nikaea, notably older than us and covered in scars walked in, her smile slowly faded. "Are those your friends… from camp?"

Her tone was worried, as if she was scared of the implications that the inevitable and predictable answer would bring. She glanced at me with a slight frown, and I tried to avert her eyes in guilt.

"Oh, those are…" Connor shrugged happily, pointing at the two. His brows met on his forehead, in effort as he thought. "I forgot your names."

I took my shoes off by the entrance mat as he'd instructed, while Nico went in the house slowly and cautiously. I glared at him as I shook my head.

"Gasper and Nicole, Mrs. Stoll." I chuckled as I bowed my head, before the two could say anything. "Gasper is an old family friend of mine, and Nicole is his… cousin."

Mrs. Stoll nodded unconvincingly, but didn't question us further. Instead, she tried to smile as truthfully as she could and stood up. 

"Well, you kids look hungry." she proclaimed, clapping her hands together but eyeing Gasper doubtfully as she said 'kids'. "I wasn't expecting so many people, but it's alright. Why don't you guys go to the living room as I prepare something to eat for you? Perfect."

With that said, she basically led us to the living room, like a border collie with her herd of sheep. Then, she hauled Connor with a smile into the kitchen, and shut the door.

"Well. Nice house." Gasper sighed, making himself too much at home on the couch. "Why'd you say me and Nikaea were cousins?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, you literal ghost, were you intending on fucking her in my friend's house?" I scowled. "Sit the fuck up. This isn't your house."

"No need to get aggressive, Ricky." he scoffed, laying still and putting his hands behind his head.

I drew Vendetta, leaning its tip to his throat coldly.

"Call me that again and I'll send you back to Tartarus with a note carved onto your back." I growled, dragging the tip just enough to scratch open the slashes he'd been killed with before. 

The memory of watching Alabaster swinging down the blade and splattering mortal blood flashed in my eyes, and I'm almost sure Keller saw it too. 

I remembered standing by as the red freckled all over the place, even onto the skins of the closest bystanders. At that time, my finger, stained with a spot of red blood had met my own tongue, curious of how differently it'd taste. It was slightly more bitter.

A thick string of dead blood drooled from his neck, and he gulped uncomfortably. He didn't say anything, and so I put away the sword, as I threw a napkin at him.

"Don't let your blood on anything in his house." I warned, as he sat up and I turned to look at Nico. "Explain."

I heard Nikaea stalking behind me to sit next to Gasper, but I paid them no mind and didn't look away from the son of Hades.

Nico had sat down tiredly on the edge of an armchair with its back to the windows. He sighed before he started speaking. I sat on the couch, on the opposite side of Gasper and Nikaea.

"So today… After you came back, I left to see my father and update him on our status. I told him to spare two souls to me, for until we got Neoptolemus. I went to the Fields of Punishment. The Fields of Asphodel are filled with the mediocre, and the heroes of the Elysium are all too stuck up for a measly task like this one."

"Yes, that's understandable, but fucking Gasper Keller?" I scolded, glaring at him with a scowl. "Your only viable excuse is that you didn't know who he was, and that's just half valid."

He argued that Gasper was the best mortal sorcerer he had ever seen or heard of, and was also the best sorcerer, mortal or not, that he would be able to control. His fluency in Ancient Greek didn't help my desire to murder him, since he'd be able to perform funerary rites if Nico couldn't.

Apparently, Nikaea was a dryad. Nico explained that dryads are good at detecting the earth's weakest movements, and since our expedition would be focused underground, it'd come in handy. When I asked about her and Gasper, he mentioned that they were punished under the same hill, but I knew that he was omitting something he wouldn't say under the pair's gaze.

The bullhound had followed them from the Underworld, and they'd tried to lose it, but apparently some unknown circumstance had stopped this dimwit's brain from remembering that monsters followed the smell of demigods.

I wanted to reprimand him for not taking care of the monster, but I knew it was too much to ask of him. After he shadow-traveled, he was always exhausted, on the edge of blacking out, specially when he went from Hades to the mortal world. I couldn't blame him for it, so I only nodded along to his words.

"Erica, my dad said this was graver than he thought. A prophecy was issued, but apparently we can't hear it. It's too late to back out now, though." he muttered, in a half-whisper. "And Connor…"

Dryly, I nodded again. Rachel had already told me that. To not trust one of the people he brought. That was definitely Gasper, and Connor. We were to take him with us, if we wanted to succeed and for the world to not end. 

"I know. We'll speak in private in a minute. Tell me details then." I breathed in, and stood up. 

I looked at Gasper and Nikaea, who sat next to each other, talking discreetly as her hands gently wiped away the blood from his neck, flowing from the wound that still hadn't healed. 

Normally, a godly blade wouldn't have even cut a mortal, but he was a blessed mortal, and my blade had a silver alloy. That made him much more vulnerable than most demigods. Obviously, a godly blade was tenfold as potent than any mortal material, which made wounds like this extra hard to heal on blessed mortals like himself. Although I'd only scratched his skin, the blood hadn't ceased still. 

"Keller." I called, the syllables dropping on the wooden floor like dry pebbles. Both of them looked at me, and I saw a flinch of fear in Gasper's eyes. Every mortal feared death, specially one that had just taken a breath from the pain that being dead brought him. 

"Yeah." he replied, as he waved off Nikaea. She scooted off to the side, her fingertips stained with Gasper's wine red. "What do you want?"

I almost smirked to the discomfort in his voice. Before he'd died, he was at least feared if not respected. He held a certain type of authority, but now all that he'd fought for had crumbled down to Tartarus, and he was no one. No one would avert their eyes when they met his now, even spare a whisper to mumble of him. 

Whereas before he fought and strived for power and pride, now he troubled himself and begged, under the orders of a thirteen year old, just for the possibility of suffering less.

That alleviated slightly my resentment to his presence. I opened up my jacket, taking out the flask of nectar I kept on me. Having more than a sip would lightly make him enter spontaneous combustion, so I only spilled some drops on my finger.

"Here. Nectar." I said, standing in front of him and letting my hand hover above his mouth. He opened, and the liquid gold fell onto his tongue. 

He winced, gulping down the honey. Even such a minor portion would make his throat burn with a pain he couldn't comprehend, but it would heal him.  The scratch on his neck closed up, leaving only some droplets of blood that I wiped away with my sleeve.

"Thanks." he exhaled, frowning at the strangeness of the words. "Damn. First time I told you that, huh?"

"Well, you are dead, if that's any consolation." I shrugged, putting it away. "Gives some meaning to 'over my dead body', at some extent."

***

A bit after that, Connor had hopped into the room announcing that his sweet mother made dinner for us. Apparently, Mrs. Stoll hadn't eaten yet either, so she sat at the head of the kitchen table, and started a somewhat shallow conversation. All of us acknowledged and still avoided the elephant in the room.

It was only after we'd all finished and I'd stayed to help her with the dishes that we spoke of what we really should talk about. She'd accepted my help with a sweet smile, and although Connor offered, she sent him off to speak to the rest.

"So… He spoke of a quest to me." she started, once the others had gone down the corridor. "You and him, to where?"

I shook my head bitterly, as I took in the resent in her voice. She put on an apron, and I handed her the dishes.

"Mrs. Stoll, I don't want to take him. It's a dangerous quest that even I know very little about." I admitted, hoping that she'd dissuade him. "I don't want to get Connor hurt, or…"

I cut myself off with a gulp, as the tap started running with cold water. I put the cutlery into the water, but she turned the water off as soon as I approached the sink. Her arms were crossed, and she looked at me as if I was her child and had done something to be scolded.

"Erica…" she sighed, before smiling and reaching to tuck away a strand of my hair. "I can't talk that ecstatic porcupine out of anything. He's set his mind on this. I'd rather him to not miss out school, obviously, but… Well. I just want to know what he's getting into."

"I don't know much either, Mrs. Stoll." I replied, guiltily looking at the floor. "We're supposed to go find Patroclus' corpse from millenia ago."

"Oh, is that why Nico is with you?"

I nodded. She chuckled again, and put a hand on my shoulder. I looked at her face, her frail peach skin that joined in light wrinkles in some spots. Her eyes were gentle… motherly, maybe. Her hand was set steadily but still softly, as if she understood the weight I carried and tried to let me know that.

Her eyes were gentler than Connor's, in a way. They were similar in strange ways: both Connor and Mrs. Stoll's eyes seemed to be piercing, look straight through your soul, his mother's blue seemed softer, and it brought a light sweet afterglow.

The gentle gaze that met my eyes made me feel strange. It was … warm, I think. It melted my heart a bit, filling a hole that I never knew existed. It was like she'd been around since forever, like she'd been there handing me tissues through every breakup, like she knew my favorite cake and baked it for me whenever I was upset, like she had given me life advice on my first period, like she'd cheered for me when I won that primary school race. 

My own mother had looked at me maybe once in my life, and I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it. Before Mrs. Stoll even spoke, I found the frames of my eyes watering and blurring. How did this woman manage to make me feel more loved in three minutes than my mother in seventeen years?

I blinked away the tears, hoping she hadn't seen them.

"I don't blame you for coming to see my son, sweetheart." she explained, her tone calming like warm water. "It's not your fault. Connor told me you were with Luke in the war. And none of that, nothing, was caused by you. Honey, you didn't choose being a demigod."

"Thank you, Mrs. Stoll." 

"I just wish Connor could be… as safe as possible with you all." she nodded, pulling a chair from the dinner table and gesturing at me to sit. 

She took out another chair for herself and sat down in front of me. 

"I'll go call Nico." I mumbled, barely managing to not stutter.

When we went back into the kitchen, Mrs. Stoll had put all the dishes into the machine, and greeted us with the comforting smile that almost seemed to touch my heart. Nico smiled back, and took a seat, before starting to speak.

"Thank you for having us in your home, Mrs. Stoll. We appreciate it a lot." he stated, politely as I sat next to him. "I figure we won't be gone for more than two weeks with Connor."

"So we're taking him?" I asked, still reluctant about his presence in this endeavor. "I thought we were going to talk about it."

Mrs. Stoll butted in, shaking her head, and crossing her arms.

"I want him to go. You said it was dangerous…" she looked at me, to which I nodded. "Which is why he won't be able to rest if he's not there. He cares about you a lot, and if anything happens he'll blame himself. I don't want him to regret everything."

"Then it's discussed." Nico concluded, shrugging at me. "I know you're hesitant about this, but, Erica… Hades said that there's something in that crypt that only Connor can kill."

"Yeah, Rachel Dare found me earlier today. She mentioned that there was something for him to slow down to save the world or whatever." I mentioned, under Mrs. Stoll's curious gaze. "I don't think we can really stop him from going at this point anyway."

Mrs. Stoll had chuckled, joking about how Connor had always wanted to save the world and shenanigans. Saying shenanigans in a situation like this was crazy. I saw how she'd mothered Connor Stoll. 

Traits of her personality and looks were sprinkled on her son, and even the comfort I felt around them was similar. 

"Now, who are the older kids that came with you?" she inquired, raising her brows at me. "Your presentation of them was sloppy, to say the least. Cousins?"

"Gasper Keller is a mortal blessed by Hecate, he was one of Kronos' favorites during the war." I confessed, frowning at myself. 

She gulped dryly, before nodding disapprovingly. Obviously, she wasn't happy about the presence of a guy who'd likely actively tried to murder her son more than once, but who was? Besides, if even I didn't get a say in that, how would she?

"Rachel mentioned that we weren't supposed to trust one of people you brought. He's definitely the one. We should keep our guards up."

Nico said nothing, but I saw that he agreed silently. Instead of answering, he simply kept on talking about Nikaea:

"My father sent me to get Nikaea, the nymph. Hades said that she'd known Patroclus when she was alive. It's said that he's why she was kicked out from the Hunters of Artemis. If you want me to be honest, I only brought Gasper because of her. She insisted." 

That was a bit of a surprise to me. Of course, I'd guessed that they had some type of relationship, but I wouldn't have thought that Gasper was here as an extra. I wondered if he knew what Gasper had wanted to do with his sister the day we had found her.

"But they're strong enough to fend for themselves and you, right?" she said, and both of us nodded. "And you two… are strong enough to fend off of them?"

We looked at each other, considering her words and Rachel's. Our exchange of thoughts was silent, but we were synced when we turned back to Mrs. Stoll and unanimously said a single word: "Yes."

She nodded pleasingly, like she trusted us a bit more knowing that. As Nico spoke later,  my eyes kept darting to Connor's mother, cautious on her reactions. They proved to be mostly surprised, admired, or worried.

"Wait, so Nikaea was alive during the Trojan War?" I tried, raising my brows in surprise. He nodded. "And she had an affair with Patroclus?"

"Rumored. If not him, some other greek soldier, but, either way, she knew him. She'll be able to know if he's nearby." 

"Ah, fair enough." I muttered, although still slightly stunned with the fact that she seemed no older than twenty. "But… if she loved Patroclus, would she want him to be with Achilles?"

Nico's face turned into a grim wince, as if he'd been avoiding that thought. He twisted the silver ring on his finger, eyes looking down at the floor. He did that too much, honestly.

"I'm hoping so, Erica. If not…" his tone darkened, and he moved away his fringe to meet his heavy charcoal eyes with mine. "we'll kill her before we enter the crypt. She'll have to die again somehow anyway."

Those words, his eyes, turned the key to a flood in my mind. There was a ringing in my ears, swooshing past my eyes. 

"The boy… you said they were together? If she turns on you, would he also?" meddled Mrs. Stoll, a faint voice in the silent sea that drowned my mind.

"It's most likely for him to betray us, Erica." Nico pointed out, and somehow his voice sounded different to me. "You act like you hate him, but he was your friend. If things go south, could you..?" 

The world quietened around me, and for a single it was only the three of us in that room, and my conscience holding me down by my shoulders, sinking its sharp claws into my flesh. I stared at Nico blankly, my breaths confused and my eyes wide. A single word resonated in my skull: traitor.

Nico would… we would…?

I heard a light buzz by my ear, but I knew I hadn't imagined this one. An extravagantly gracious fly landed on my shoulder, whispering something into my ear that tightened my heart, raising a chill that had come straight from Tartarus through my spine and turning my stomach. 

The vision that accompanied his whispers taunted me daringly. It left me breathless, my brain throbbing and my heart still. 

Ah. So that's how it would be.