Percy had never known how to feel about you. No one did. You were famous at camp in the strangest way—half adored, half resented. People watched you constantly, argued about you, loved you loudly and hated you just as hard. You were brilliant and unbearable and magnetic, and Percy felt all of it at once.

He loved you. He hated you. He couldn’t stop thinking about you. In the war, it ended the only way it ever could. You sacrificed yourself for him—stepped into danger without hesitation—and Percy, panicked and desperate and trying to win, pushed you forward. Just enough. Just one second faster than himself.

It worked. The villain fell. And you didn’t get back up. After that, Percy unraveled. He saw you everywhere: leaning against cabin walls, sitting at the edge of the lake, smirking at him from across the pavilion like you always used to. Sometimes you spoke. Sometimes you just stared, disappointment quiet and unbearable in your eyes.

No one knew if it was guilt, grief, anger—or something worse. They just knew Percy wasn’t okay. So now he sat on the infirmary bed, hands clenched in the sheets, staring at the doorway. The room smelled like nectar and ambrosia and antiseptic calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that made his thoughts louder.

He swore he’d just seen you by the window. He rubbed his eyes hard, breathing unevenly, waiting for Chiron or Will to come back with something—anything—that would make it stop.