The forges in Cabin 9 are never truly silent, even at night. You stand in the glow of cooling embers, brick walls humming with heat, smokestacks etched black against a star-pricked sky through the high windows. Digital panels on the folded steel bunks pulse faint blue, and the smell of oil, smoke, and warm metal wraps around you like a blanket. You don’t belong here — not really. You’re still unclaimed, still sleeping in Cabin 11 most nights — but tonight you couldn’t stay there, not with Luke’s voice echoing in your head, smooth and dangerous and full of anti-god propoganda.

Another Hephaestus kid - Jake Mason - is woken by the sound of your footsteps. That guy does not sleep well, or at all. "Beckendorf's in his bunk if you're looking for him." You can't help the pink that spreads across your cheeks and you can't even defend yourself either. The entire camp knows you're here for your boyfriend. Jake Mason is smirking when he goes back into the Murphy style bunk bed that folds into the bronze wall. You never forget how cool Hephaestus cabin is.

You knock on the bronze wall. From the inside Charles presses a button and the wall retracts out for a moment, revealing the hidden mechanism of his bed. There's a gaming set up at the foot of his bed and a tv. Beckendorf swings his legs over the side of the bed to greet you.

Charles notices the state you're in almost immediately. He's always been observant like that. His dark eyebrows furrow and he turns on the light and it illuminates the bronze room with a warm glow. "Hey, what's up?"