14

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After the craze the Oracle had wrought upon us in the form of a prophecy, a council of cabin leaders was called by Dionysus that same evening of Capture the Flag to discuss the next course of action. Though I wasn't a leader of any cabin, unclaimed on top of that, Chiron managed to allow me to join the exclusive Ping-Pong table in the rec room. As a thousands year old centaur, he knew that I had dreams to offer to the council as part of the counseling process of trying to work through the prophecy. I could also tell that he was deeply agitated and disturbed by the Oracle so he was attempting to gather any chances of advisement; apparently she had never left her attic in the Big House.

While we waited for everyone to gather, the campers at the table began some small talk, much to Zoë's annoyance.

Connor expertly twirled a Ping-Pong paddle between his fingers as though it were a hunting knife.

He wondered aloud, "Would you stab a friend for a thousand dollars?"

"Um." Across the table, Malcom sounded so unsure, split between the stupidity of the question and the moral implications.

At my side, Travis slapped a hand onto my shoulder. "If you let me stab you, I'll split the money with you," he said in an extremely serious voice.

"I'll just stab you back so we could take another thousand bucks," I replied in an equally grave tone.

Zoë, who had been a bundle of nerves ever since the game (I believed she didn't take the loss very well), snapped at us, "I shall puncture thee thrice without any reward if the nonsensical chatter does not cease."

"Please do-"

Travis covered my mouth before the words could fully leave my mouth.

The Hunter glared pointedly at Silena who had giggled at the exchange, then at me with noticeably more heat. She was perhaps miffed at how I had tackled her when she had tried to steal our flag hours ago. For a Hunter who had served Artemis since the dawn of Greek civilization, you would think that she had an infinite string of patience to sacrifice, but Zoë's shoulders were as tense as a taut wire. It kind of bummed me out that she only had eyes for the goddess of the moon since she didn't react to any of my side comments; everyone else did, even Beckendorf had cracked a tiny grin when he saw how easily I could rile up Zoë.

Zoë pointed at me. "Why is she here? She is not a cabin leader, she is also unclaimed."

My hand clutched the fabric above my heart and I faked a hurt expression. The Silena, Beckendorf, and the Stoll brothers sniggered at my antics, but the Hunter wasn't as amused.

Chiron came to my defense. "Jade, though unclaimed, has some dreams perhaps related to the prophecy that she'd like to share with us."

The lieutenant narrowed her eyes me, most likely assuming that I was purposely withholding information from her when she had asked for dreams of Artemis earlier today. Before Zoë could say something, Thalia walked in followed by the rest of cabin leaders representing Athena, Ares, and Grover who was representing the woodlands into the room.

Dionysus and Chiron (in a wheelchair) sat at one end of the table while Zoë and Bianca di Angelo took the other end together. I thought it strange that Zoë was bringing Bianca into all of the heavy duties, she must have sensed that the new Hunter was a special demigod.

Well, her intuition wasn't wrong.

Along the left side, Silena, Beckendorf, Travis, Conner, and I sat in metal foldable chairs. Thalia, Percy, Grover the satyr, Malcom, and an Ares guy sat opposite of us. Clarisse was not present at camp, so their cabin had sent a representative instead. I had forgotten his name, was it Sheldon? Wallaby? Sydney?

Once everyone had settled into their seats, Zoë showed her optimistic attitude. "This is pointless."

Grover, upon seeing the snack pile on the middle of the pile, began scooping up as many as he could and ripped into the packaging.

"If someone could repeat the Oracle's words?" Chiron requested in hopes for a more productive start of a council meeting.

Zoë recited the prophecy impatiently. "Five shall go west to the goddess in chains, One shall be lost in the land without rain, The bane of Olympus shows the trail, Campers and Hunters combined prevail…"

She faltered at the next line, and I had an inkling of a reason as to why.

"The Titan's curse one must withstand, And one shall perish by a parent's hand," Silena finished for her, surprising a few people at the table. I also often forgot how book-ish and sharp Silena was since she tended to talk more about fashion and makeup.

And if I hadn't been watching for it, I wouldn't have seen the small smile that emerged on Beckendorf's face when the daughter of Aphrodite spoke. I hadn't known Charlie's cute crush had started so early.

Recovering from her falter, Zoë said in a demanding tone, "The Hunters must leave immediately. Our goddess needs us, we must find her and free her."

"You're going to have to take campers too," Thalia interjected. "Campers and Hunters combined prevail, as you said earlier."

"No!" Zoë protested. "The Hunters do not need thy help."

"Your," Thalia stressed. "Nobody said thy in, like, three hundred years, Zoë. Get with the times."

I leaned back in my chair, metal creaking, until my feet pushing against the edge of the Ping-Pong table and my balance tilted precariously on the back two legs of the chair.

Pulling my hat further down to cover my face, I debated on whether I should fall asleep and ignore the whole meeting. Everything was going just as the books had dictated, I wasn't supposed to be sitting here, I did not -should not- say anything. Chiron was just hoping that I had some dreams that would conveniently lead clues to possibly answer some questions. And though I did have dreams that could be of help, wouldn't I be basically telling the future?

Wouldn't I be interfering with the Plot? Besides, even if I chose to intervene, there were repercussions, from Apollo himself or the Three Fates, if someone were to abuse their knowledge of the future and try to change what was set in stone. It didn't matter if I knew the future from prophetic dreams or my second life; if I spoke of something and it changed the prophecy, I would be punished.

Which was why I could not -should not- say anything to Bianca or Zoë about their futures.

"Jade?"

I snapped back to attention, leaning forward so four legs of the chair gingerly returned to the ground.

"Hm?"

Everyone looked expectantly at me, except for Dionysus.

Chiron filled me in on what I had blanked out on. "We were pondering upon the line, The bane of Olympus shows the trail. Would you have an idea of what creature it could be referring to? A dream of some sort?"

It goes 'moo', I thought absentmindedly.

"Huh," I said aloud, scratching my face. "Not a clue."

Some of the people sitting at the table gave off disappointed reactions, but Dionysus cast a conspiratorial glance at me behind his dark shades before going back to feigning boredom. Chiron caught the look, aware that the wine god didn't buy my response, so the centaur wasn't entirely convinced by my answer either. However, the activities director didn't press the subject and went on with the discussion, where Zoë picked up the mystery of the bane of Olympus.

And in the end, it was decided that the two campers and three Hunters would attempt the quest, but there were some faces that obviously weren't too pleased with the decision.

For one, Percy couldn't join the group. And when he insisted on joining the quest, I didn't make a single motion to indicate I was in support of him. Thalia kept casting apologetic glances in Percy's direction since Zoë would allow her to join but not the son of Poseidon. To be honest, Zoë probably wasn't happy with letting Thalia join, being the daughter of Zeus; Thalia was probably a stark reminder of Heracles, not a good memory for the Hunter lieutenant.

But then again, Zoë wouldn't have wanted to travel with a boy, much less one who owned Heracle's old sword which had been gifted by Zoë herself.

My mouth twisted downwards. Poor Zoë.

When the council disbanded and as demigods filed out, Chiron stopped me before I could leave the room. "Jade, let's talk."

Dionysus was behind the director and I wouldn't lie that the wine god's presence made me feel a little wary. Chiron waited until everyone was out of the Big House before speaking.

"Child, did you by chance have something you wished to say, but could not in front of everyone else?"

I eyed Dionysus. "Maybe."

Dionysus snorted. "If you're afraid that I'll punish you for intervening with the prophecy, don't worry. I don't exactly care for that sort of thing."

"But you're one of the twelve Olympian gods," I pointed out. "You're bound to keeping prophecies."

"Formalities," the wine god brushed off.

"Jade," Chiron gently prompted. "Did you have a dream?"

"About Heracles," I grudgingly confided. "He was at the Garden of Hesperides, looking for the golden apples."

Dionysus and Chiron's raised eyebrows told me that they completely understood why I withheld my dream at the ping pong table. Knowing Zoë's history with the garden at the bottom of Mount Othrys, where Atlas bore the weight of the sky, it wouldn't have been a very good idea to share my dream with the members of the quest. It gave too many answers and would cause even more questions to arise.

Oh, the troubles of attempting to interpret a prophecy.

"I...see," Chiron murmured with deep creases in his brow. "If this had been shared with the rest, it would have most likely caused more panic than providing relief."

"The lieutenant knows what she's walking into," Dionysus informed us in a matter-of-fact tone. "Otherwise, she wouldn't be leading the quest."

I tried to not make surprise too evident on my face. Those were the most serious, god-like words I had ever heard Dionysus say.

"Thank you, Jade," Chiron said gratefully, albeit he looked tired now knowing the piece of information. When it came to prophecies, the centaur always looked so tired and a hundred times more ancient.

I nodded. "If that's all, I'll leave now."

I was almost out the door when Dionysus spoke up, as if he had an afterthought.

"I would keep the details about the bane of Olympus to yourself, by the way," he nearly drawled. He wasn't talking in a loud volume, but his voice somehow reached my ears across the room. I slowly turned only to have a glimpse of the purple fires flickering behind his dark shades.

I gulped. "Yes."

It was a good thing I kept my mouth shut, I thought as I went to the Cabin Eleven. I needed to take a nap or else I was going to crash sometime later in the day.

I could have headed straight to my bunk and snoozeland if I hadn't walked into the Stoll brothers.

"What're you guys doing?"

Connor and Travis Stoll froze where they stood outside the cabin door, the former holding a camp store bought t-shirt and the latter holding a spray bottle. I narrowed my eyes on the spray bottle label.

"Is that centaur blood? In a spray bottle?"

Travis gulped. "Maybe."

"What for?"

Connor shuffled his feet. "Nothing, just a regular prank, you know," he muttered.

I folded my arms. "Right, because usually your pranks involve physically incapacitating someone to the point of medical attention."

They winced at the blatant sarcasm. Centaur blood wasn't something to mess with. Its potency was enough to drive Heracles insane with a small dose. The spray bottle the Stoll brothers somehow obtained was most likely watered down to at least a tenth of its poison, but it was still enough to blister the skin painfully and inflame the internal organs. I watched them squirm on the spot for another second before Connor cracked.

"Okay, fine, we're trying to prank Phoebe, the Hunter who whacked us both really hard on the head during capture the flag," he admitted, but with some heat in his voice. "She was admiring this Artemis shirt earlier this week and we kinda coated the insides with the centaur stuff. We were going to give it to her before she leaves as a 'good luck on the quest' gift just to get back at her."

A brief flashback of the game reminded me of the beatings the Stoll brothers took from one burly Hunter. I hadn't exactly seen them getting hit because they had been in my peripheral when I was focused on tackling Zoë.

Priorities.

I took the spray canister from Travis's hand and examined the label. "Yes, by poisoning. That's a whole different level of pranking."

"Well it seemed like a good idea at first," Travis tried defending themselves.

"It is, just harsh, and over the top. She's supposed to be going on the quest."

Connor made a sound of frustration. "Okay, we get it, it's a bad prank, we won't give it to her."

"No, you won't," I agreed with him. "I'll give it to her."

"Wha-"

Connor and Travis didn't have time to react when I swiped the shirt out of their grip and stomped out of the Hermes cabin. Percy was supposed to join the quest and I wanted to see Zoë, it was killing two birds with one stone. I headed straight towards the silver cabin shining with moonlight, knowing that the Stoll brothers were in enough shock that they hadn't followed me.

After a sharp rap to the door, Zoë's stern face appeared behind the entrance.

"What is it," she demanded.

The way Zoë spoke was so much like a princess, like royalty. Which, technically, she had been a form of royalty before joining the Hunters. Her voice expected and commanded obedience. Some people would have considered the haughty tone overbearing and annoying, but I thought it was kind of hot.

"Stop staring," Zoë said, again in the same commanding tone. I smiled at her.

"Sorry," I said. Her raised eyebrow told me she didn't buy my apology. I cleared my throat and held out the big silver t-shirt that said Artemis the Moon Goddess, Fall Hunting Tour 2002 in large letters on the front. The back was covered with a long list of national parks, landmarks, and other historical monuments.

"Phoebe was staring at this in the camp store earlier this week, thought she'd might like it as a gift," I said casually. Zoë gingerly took the shirt, but suspicious of the sudden present.

My smile widened. "And sorry for tackling you earlier during capture the flag. I got excited."

Zoë's eye twitched. "'Tis fine. Is thee finished speaking?"

"Yeah." I motioned to spin around and walk away, but something inside me pause. I turned back and looked at Zoë with consideration. The Hunter's lieutenant seemed vaguely uncomfortable at my obvious ogling.

She's going to die.

A voice from the inside of the cabin called out for the lieutenant.

"Zoë, Phoebe wanted to ask about what we should prepare for the quest," a dark-skinned girl said, walking up behind the taller Hunter. She looked young, a year or two younger than me, and appeared even younger standing next to Zoë. Her voice faltered when she saw me at the other side of the entrance.

I greeted her with a small hand wave. "You're Bianca, right? You and your brother Nico look so much alike!"

Bianca's smile was slightly tense yet friendly at the same time. "You were at the council meeting, Jade, right? How's Nico?"

"He's fine," I replied even though I had barely talked to the kid. "You remember my name?"

You're going to die, too.

Before Bianca could reply, Zoë cut in.

"Bianca, tell Phoebe that I will speak to her soon," the older Hunter said. Bianca nodded, saying goodbye to me, before going back inside the cabin.

"She's cute," I commented.

"She is strong," Zoë returned, emphasizing 'strong', as if to correct me. "Maidens are not meant to live simply as pretty."

"You're pretty, too."

If I thought the comment was going to fluster the lieutenant of Artemis, I was wrong. It had the opposite reaction of what I was expecting.

Instead, Zoë's face tightened and her expression became cold like stone. Her eyes hardened as they bore into me in a threatening stare.

"I suggest thee to walk away before harm comes thy way," she said menacingly.

Dang, I pressed the wrong button. I held up my hands to show submission.

"Oh yeah, I nearly forgot what I was going to tell you," I remembered. "I'm not supposed to tell you, or I shouldn't even be saying this, but your dreams about Artemis are right. This quest involves exactly what you fear, I mean, who you fear."

Alarm reflected off of Zoë's eyes.

"What is thee speaking of," she asked in a shaky voice. "How does thee know of my dreams."

I gave her a sincerely apologetic smile. "You know who I'm talking about. I'm a child of sleep, it's what I do."

"Bianca has told me that you are no ordinary demigod," Zoë said in a hushed tone. "She says thy life is a mistake."

"Wow, hearing that makes me feel so good," I remarked dryly. "Anyway, it seems that you will be busy preparing for the quest. Farewell, Hesperides."

If the daughter of Atlas reacted to my goodbye, I didn't see it.

Looking for Clovis wasn't difficult.

I thought I was a heavy sleeper, I internally remarked. But Clovis beat me in this aspect of being a child of Hypnos.

Mentally surfing the dimensions of dreams, I searched for a demigod signature similar to my own, someone who shared my godly blood. It was like searching for a magnetic, the current of dreams naturally drifted me across planes to where Clovis was deeply dreaming.

His dream was...interesting, I noted as I examined my surroundings. It was a desert with the land flat as far as the eye could see, but the scene that was the most out of the ordinary was the old-fashioned ice cream parlor sitting in the middle of it. I entered the small white and pink striped shop, the door bell jingling merry when it swung, and a bottlenose dolphin behind a cash register chittered as if to say, "Welcome!" It wore a striped hat and apron that matched the color scheme of the interior, all bubbly pink and white.

And I saw my half-brother Clovis for the first time.

He sat at the only table in the shop, digging into the biggest ice cream sundae I had ever seen in my life. Various flavors of ice cream rolls stacked on top of each other, with heaps of cut fruits, crumbles of chocolate chip cookies and double fudge brownies, whip cream, and every other form of sugar that I could imagine. The ice cream bowl was huge, resembling a glass basin more than a regular sundae bowl.

Clovis was busy eating, fully invested into the mother of all ice cream sundaes, and I would have been too, if I had a dream like this.

I stared my half-brother. If I was looking for a family resemblance, it wasn't there. At all.

First off, I was of Korean descent, whereas Clovis was Caucasian. But in other cabins, children of the same godly parent still had several similar physical and non-physical characteristics despite their racial differences. For instance, children of Athena always had light colored eyes, verging grey, and always wanted to have a debate session. Cabin Nine kids were jacked with muscles from spending their days in the forge and had little patience talking to people who knew nothing about mechanics or inventing. Zeus' kids would have blue eyes with sparky personalities, Poseidon's would be sea-green and turbulent emotionalities, Hades' black and tough personas, etc, etc.

I guessed the common trait we shared were our eyes, I mused. We had the same droopy eyes that seemed to be on the verge of dozing, but the physical resemblance ended there. He had a round torso, spindly limbs, reminding me strongly of a newborn calf. His mussed, fluffy sandy hair added to the added to the similarity to the animal.

Kind of adorable, actually.

Clovis was the one who broke the ice. "You're Jade, my half-sister," he said with a stuffed mouth. "I felt you coming closer."

"I am." I pulled up a chair out of thin air, one that matched the retro look of the ice cream parlor. Visualizing objects in dreams was one of the perks of a child of Hypnos.

Clovis didn't stop eating, I didn't stop him. "Hypnos told me you'd look for me, said you would need help."

I couldn't help but frown a little. "You've talked to him?"

"Yep."

"When?"

"Just about a month ago."

My frown might've deepened. Hypnos had spoken to Clovis before me. Some melted ice cream, strawberry, I think, dripped down the side of his mouth. Even though we were only in a dream, I materialized a white dining cloth and rubbed it on his face.

"How often did Hypnos talk to you?" I asked, very curious but trying hard not to show it.

Clovis took the wipe from my hand and cleaned his face. "Not too often, probably around five or six times now."

A pang of jealousy unexpectedly shot through me. I tried to swallow it down, to not pay too much attention to it, but the feeling was so uncomfortable that I couldn't speak for a second. My half-sibling noticed my silence with raised eyebrows.

"He didn't talk to you much, did he?"

I lowered my eyes, shoulders hunched over. "No, only once, directly to me about two weeks ago."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, Hypnos mainly talked to me to tell me about you. He said you were managing fine without him, but that you would need my help later once the Great Prophecy gets closer," Clovis offered as a consolation. I let out a shaky sigh, lifting my hat to run a hand through my hair.

"He's right about me needing help, I feel like I'm over my head with what I'm planning to do," I admitted.

Damn, even just thinking about the ideas that hovered inside my brain made me want to check myself into a mental clinic. Luke, Kronos, the River Lethe and Styx, keeping secrets from Percy and Annabeth and the rest of camp, debating whether or not telling Chiron of what I planned on doing, how my mom would kill me, if I'd get obliterated by immortal beings for possibly interfering with the Great Prophecy, if I was even capable of pulling this off, the logistics behind-

Clovis broke my inner rant. "You should probably voice your thoughts before you mind combusts into flames."

For some reason, I didn't have anything keeping me to trust Clovis. I didn't know him, he didn't know me, we're only related by godly blood and I didn't have to tell him anything. I didn't have to trust Clovis, but Hypnos knew that I needed someone to lean on. From the short introduction that we've had together, I could already tell that Clovis wasn't a bad person. His entire appearance, voice, and personality told me that he didn't have a single bad bone in him. He was just a kid who dreamed a lot, probably more than me. He was the perfect person to vent; he wasn't a part of Camp Half-Blood yet, he was just as understanding about dreams as I was, quite possibly owned a more calm disposition than I did (which was really something), and I felt like I could tell him everything. And when I say everything, I meant -everything-

I told him everything that Hypnos had told me during our first meeting, that I had been a second born soul, a strange anomaly that was not a mistake. I told him what I planned on doing for the sake of Camp Half-Blood and several demigods' lives, what I had already done with Silena and the silver scythe charm bracelet, what Luke had said to me through the silver necklace. The only thing I refrained from telling him was the fact that I had a read a series of youth's Greek fantasy books during the adolescent years in my first life, of which the characters, content, world, and plot was exactly similar to this second life.

Clovis wasn't even fazed by it all.

"I see," he said, shoveling butter pecan ice cream into a separate, smaller glass bowl.

"You're taking this all really well," I noticed. "And why're you taking out the butter pecan?"

"Not a big fan of the flavor," he said casually. "Hypnos did warn me that you were going to propose something crazy. And quite frankly, I'm not a part of Camp Half-Blood-"

I opened my mouth to correct him.

"-yet," he added, looking at me. "I'm not close with any of the people you mentioned, so I don't have any emotionally attachments to them and your plan is technically doable."

"It's life-threatening and incredibly risky," I pointed out.

"I said that while assuming that we were going with the smaller chance that you survive it all," Clovis acknowledged. "But despite all the risks involved, yeah, I'll help you."

And just like that, an invisible weight of tension left my body.

"Thank you," I nearly breathed. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Oh, God, someone who was willing to help me. Thank you, Hypnos, it was the best gift that I could have right now.

Clovis gave me a messy smile. "Anything to help my big sister."

His words warmed me. I wasn't as alone as I had been before.

"Are you sure you're okay with this, though?"

I tilted my head. "What do you mean?"

It was impressive that Clovis was able to continue eating ice cream as if he didn't have a care in the world even though we were talking about some heavy topics.

He pointed the metal spoon in my direction. "I thought you originally wanted to stay out of prophecies, that you didn't want to get involved."

At Clovis' words, my face froze because he was right.

An older voice, one more distinctly of my past self than my current self, reverberated inside me, demanding, What happened to not interfering in this world? What happened to staying out of prophecies? What happened to not involving yourself?

What was I doing?

What are you doing?

I-I don't know.

Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish?

To save lives?

Then why are you not trying to prevent Bianca or Zoë's deaths? Do their lives not matter as well?

No, of course they do, I-

Then why did you not do something to prevent their deaths?

Because I don't think it's possible to save them-

That is precisely why you should not have the liberty to pick and choose which lives you want to save. You are not allowed to simply 'save' some lives and not others, you are trying to play god when-

"Jade?"

My head hurt from the back and forth of inner voices. "I-I'm, um, I'm not sure," I said with a thick voice. The back of my throat ached so much it hurt.

Clovis watched me with considering eyes, assessing me. "Hypnos told me that as long as you have no doubts in yourself, you won't be subjected to the Ancient Laws about interfering with prophecies, because-"

"-nothing can change a prophecy," we finished the sentence together. Even someone like yourself, with a past life's memories, Hypnos had told me. I guess I had forgotten about that.

"But is that true? Nothing can change a prophecy?" I almost whispered.

The older voice spoke up again, hissing, No, do not involve yourself.

Clovis resumed scooping ice cream into his mouth. "You're not fighting against the prophecy, are you?"

I shook my head, thinking hard. "No," I said carefully. "I'm not fighting against it."

"Then you should be fine," he concluded logically. "It's a matter of free will and destinies; everyone has destinies and a future, the details in between are what we can control."

I sighed. "You know, when I first learned about the Great Prophecy, I wanted nothing to do it, all because I didn't want to get involved."

"Things change, just like dreams," Clovis commented. "Nothing stays the same, including your own thoughts."

"True," I almost laughed, pressing my hands against my eyes. "I've definitely changed."

That resolve to not get involved had ended the moment I'd joined Camp-Half Blood, entering this demigod world, almost five years ago. Those years had been filled with getting to know Annabeth, Luke, Chiron, integrating myself into Camp Half-Blood, becoming friends with the Stoll brothers, being acquainted with Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace.

Stop, do not think about it, you cannot-

I squashed the inner voice without qualm. I've decided.

I thought that I could get by with doing nothing, but somewhere along the way, that had changed. My old self had been afraid, cowardly even, of this Greek world, monsters, and its prophecies, but I wasn't that same person from five years ago. My old, former life was more a shadow that the current me.

I just didn't want to admit it.

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