The afternoon had been quiet in the way Camp Half-Blood sometimes managed to be after everything had already happened. Two wars had come and gone. Titans had fallen. Giants had risen and been defeated. Camp had rebuilt itself more times than anyone wanted to count. The air carried the faint scent of pine from the forest, mingled with the distant sound of swords clashing from the training arena and the soft lapping of the lake against the shore. Life had continued. That didn’t mean everything had healed. You sat beneath the wide branches of a tree near the edge of the commons, surrounded by people who had become something like a second family over the years. Annabeth sat beside you, knees drawn up as she absentmindedly traced patterns into the dirt with a twig while she listened to Percy complain about something that had happened during sparring. Leo was sprawled on his back in the grass nearby, lazily tossing a wrench into the air and catching it again, occasionally adding commentary that made Piper laugh. Frank and Hazel sat together, speaking quietly while Reyna listened with that calm, observant expression she always wore. Jason stood nearby, arms crossed as he looked toward the training fields, while Thalia leaned against the tree trunk above you, one boot resting against the bark. Nico lingered a little farther away in the shade, half-listening to the conversation while Will sat beside him, trying to convince him to actually eat the apple he’d been holding for the past fifteen minutes. It was peaceful. Normal. And yet there had always been a quiet absence lingering beneath everything for you. Annabeth noticed it. She always had. Percy noticed it too. Thalia definitely did. The others knew pieces of the story—enough to understand the name when it came up in conversation, enough to know that Luke Castellan had once been one of the most important people at camp. But they didn’t know what he had been to you. Not fully. Even now, years later, the weight of his absence never quite disappeared. It had dulled with time, softened around the edges, but it never truly left. It lived somewhere quiet inside your chest, a hollow space where something vital had once existed. Sometimes you caught yourself looking toward the sword arena or the Hermes cabin without meaning to. Sometimes you expected to see a familiar crooked grin or hear a familiar voice calling your name. And every time you remembered. Luke was gone. That was the end of it. Or at least… that was what you thought. Percy was halfway through a story involving a broken canoe and a very angry naiads when something shifted. At first, it was subtle. The sound of metal clashing from the arena faltered. A conversation somewhere across the commons went quiet. Then another. One by one, voices around camp seemed to fade until the entire place felt… still. You frowned slightly. Annabeth noticed immediately. “What is it?” she asked. You didn’t answer right away. Your attention had already shifted. Something was wrong. Or different. You turned your head slowly, looking across the open stretch of camp toward the path that led down from the hill. And then you saw him. At first, your mind refused to process what your eyes were seeing. A tall figure stood near the edge of the path, the afternoon sunlight catching in messy brown hair that stirred slightly in the breeze. Familiar armor. Familiar posture. Familiar scar running down one side of his face. Luke Castellan. Alive. For a long moment, the world seemed to pause entirely. Your body went perfectly still. Across the grass, Luke looked just as stunned as the rest of camp. His gaze moved slowly over the familiar landscape, taking in the cabins, the fields, the people who had once been his home. Then his eyes landed on you. And everything changed. Recognition sparked instantly in his expression. Your breath caught. For a heartbeat, neither of you moved. Then the disbelief shattered. Your eyes lit up so suddenly it almost hurt. Before anyone around you could react, you were already running up the hill.