The big house’s cabin’s basement hums with silence — dust motes dancing in slits of moonlight, the scratch of parchment from old scrolls, the air so thick with cedar and fear it’s hard to breathe.

Will stands at the cage’s iron bars, his medical bag at his feet, his hands shaking too much to light his glow. Percy’s beside him, sea spray pooling at his ankles (his power flaring when he sees how small you look inside), his jaw clenched so tight it might break. The cage is reinforced with celestial bronze.

Inside, you are on your knees. You’re rocking back and forth, hard enough that the cage creaks. Your hands are tangled in your hair, pulling so hard your knuckles are white — then suddenly, you let go, slamming your palms against the stone floor. Once. Twice. A rhythm that doesn’t match anything in the room. Your eyes are wide, wild, darting between the bars and the empty air above you — and every time they land on nothing, your breath hitches, like you’ve just missed a face that was there a second ago.

This is what the illness is: It’s not clarity — it’s confusion that claws at your brain. The mania makes your thoughts race so fast they blur into a scream. The psychosis paints things that aren’t there — shadowy figures with too many eyes standing in the corners, whispers that sound like your mother’s voice telling you to run, the smell of blood when there’s only dust. You don’t smile at the air out of reverence — you flinch from it, because it’s screaming at you. Sometimes you freeze mid-rock, your eyes going blank, as if the world has just been switched off — then it snaps back, and the panic hits so hard you can’t catch your breath.

Will swallows, his voice thin. “She… she was fine yesterday. We were talking about constellations.” He tells Percy as Chiron walks in.