FIC: The Final Sacrifice, chpt 12

[shiiki]

Title: The Final Sacrifice (Daughter of Wisdom 5)
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Thalia Grace, Charles Beckendorf/Silena Beauregard, Clarisse La Rue, Michael Yew, OCs, multiple others
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Word Count: WIP, estimated 100K+ (3334 chapters planned)

Summary: The war on Olympus is heating up, and Annabeth Chase is right in the thick of it. Bad enough that she's gearing up for battle while wrestling with the emotional turmoil over two of her dearest friends that is turning her heart inside out. She doesn't need more mysterious glimpses about the Great Prophecy and how it connects to her own history. But in order to understand what lies in her future, Annabeth has to dig into the past. What she finds will shape her choices … and change the course of the final battle. An alternate PoV retelling of The Last Olympian. Part 5 of the Daughter of Wisdom series.

In this chapter
Chapter Title: A Plague Hits Camp
Rating: PG
Characters: Annabeth Chase, Charles Beckendorf, Silena Beauregard, Clarisse La Rue, Will Solace, Michael Yew, Percy Jackson, Kronos, Luke Castellan, Morpheus, Alabaster Torrington, Chiron, OCs, multiple minor character cameos and characters from Greek mythology
Word Count: 4,763

Chapter Summary: Camp Half-Blood gets struck down by a mysterious sickness.

Notes: The plague idea was taken very liberally from the story of Chryseis in the Iliad, a daughter of a priest of Apollo who was taken by the Greeks as a spoil of war for the commander Agamemnon. The Greek army was struck by a plague that would not lift until they returned Chryseis. Subsequently, Agamemnon demanded Achilles's spoil of war, Briseis, as a replacement, leading to Achilles pulling out of the Trojan War in anger. TLO touches on that later half of the legend; I wanted to give voice to the earlier part of it. Hopefully that comes across in the building tension between Clarisse and Apollo cabin. Working it around a related part of the myth is a bonus!

As for the rhyming curse-well, Annabeth did say 'Not again!' in TLO when it happens, suggesting that wasn't the first instance of it. The previous instance of the curse just had to happen off-screen from Percy's perspective!

Back to Fic Content Page



We didn't have enough nectar and ambrosia. Not that it would have done much good if we had more. Nearly every camper was suffering from a mysterious ailment. It was worse than the time our camp borders had failed and campers had been injured left and right trying to fend off monster attacks.

Whole cabins were struck down. Athena and Hermes were miserable cacophonies of coughs and groans. Retching noises issued from the Hephaestus and Demeter cabins. The Aphrodite campers emerged in headscarves and long sleeves that obscured every inch of skin. None of them were willing to reveal the outbreak of rashes that disfigured their faces. From the smell emanating from cabin five, someone had had a puke fest, or-

'Explosive diarrhoea,' Clarisse said grimly. 'It set off a bunch of the land mines, and-you don't really want to hear this, do you?'

I shook my head. I was nauseated enough already.

It took a while to gather everyone in the Apollo cabin, the only place the sickening smell didn't permeate. Even the Big House was wreathed in a nasty, greenish cloud. Will tried to get to the infirmary for emergency stocks after we'd used up all of cabin seven's meds. He got as far as the strawberry fields before he keeled over, shaking too hard to keep walking. Clarisse had to haul him back to cabin seven, which was now more severely crowded than Hermes cabin. It was just as well our numbers were down this summer, because there'd be no way to fit everyone in otherwise. We tucked the sickest campers in two to a bunk, while the rest of us sat on the floor, staring at the golden walls and trying to figure out what to do.

Even Chiron and Mr D hadn't been spared. Beckendorf tried to fetch them, but the doors to their quarters were locked. No one responded to his banging.

'Mr D might be ignoring me,' Beckendorf said. 'Hard to tell, with him.'

'Chiron wouldn't, though.' Of this I was certain. Something had to be drastically wrong for him to disregard a call for help.

'Can immortals even get sick?' Katie Gardner wondered.

'Depends what's causing the sickness,' Will said. He was sitting on his bunk with his hands pressed to his forehead.

'Oh, I don't know, maybe the god of plagues?' Clarisse glared at Michael. 'Seems a little coincidental that cabin seven's the only safe spot.'

'Hey!' Michael jumped to his feet, like he was ready to rush Clarisse. Even after taking ambrosia, his arms were shaking. His nose twitched uncontrollably, like someone had put a permanent sprig of pollen under it. 'I'm not the one who's mysteriously immune. You thought about that?'

Everyone's head swivelled to Clarisse and Beckendorf, who were, of course, the only two still standing. The previously unharmed Apollo cabin members had fallen prey to the plague once they went out to help other sick campers.

Beckendorf crossed his arms defensively. 'I don't know why we're okay, I swear!'

'Don't blame Charlie or Clarisse,' Silena said. 'They've been helping out all morning.'

'What if it was that creepy kid?' said Connor Stoll. 'I saw him yesterday when we got back from the campfire. He was hanging around near the woods, then he just disappeared. Looked pretty suspicious to me.'

It took me a moment to realise he must be talking about Nico di Angelo. Could Nico have done something? He did have powers none of us understood. But he'd also been talking to Hestia. If I knew anything about the goddess, it was that she protected the heart of camp. She wouldn't appear to Nico if he bore us any ill intentions.

Before I could counter Connor's accusation, Will jumped to Nico's defence. 'You don't know he had anything to do with this. Loads of stuff happened yesterday. I mean, the quest team brought back three new campers. Those two girls seemed pretty cagey just before the campfire.'

'That's because they swapped out Drew's makeup for pegasi dung,' Silena muttered. 'We thought at first that's why she broke out in hives, except-'

'Pegasi dung's not poisonous,' Travis finished. 'It just stinks. Anyway, all the new kids are sick, too.' He jerked his head towards the far side of the cabin, where Julia, Alice, and Clovis were in fact among the sickest of the lot. 'If they did something, you'd think they'd leave themselves out of it.'

'That's another thing I don't get,' Katie said. She sounded like she was struggling through a bad head cold. 'Why does everyone have different symptoms? I mean, if we're all suffering from the same plague, shouldn't we be, you know, the same?'

Will pressed his fingers against his temples. 'Poisoning,' he said after some thought. 'It shows up different for everyone. And there are antidotes to poison, so maybe ...' He looked at Beckendorf and shrugged helplessly.

'I haven't done anything differently,' Clarisse said, 'and I feel fine.'

'Maybe it's delayed action,' Michael muttered. 'When you least expect it-wham.' He seemed to half hope this would be the case. For Clarisse, anyway.

'Wait.' The answer pushed into my foggy brain, so obvious I couldn't believe I'd taken so long to make the connection. 'During our quest, Beckendorf and Clarisse both took the panacea! When we got attacked in Philadelphia.'

'It cured Beckendorf's poisoned wound!' Silena recalled. 'Maybe it's still in effect.'

I nodded. And then the real solution fell into place. 'And we brought back the panacea recipe.'

'And I started brewing it last night!' Will added.

A palpable wave of relief flooded through the cabin. 'So we can fix this,' Michael said.

Will raised his hand sheepishly. 'One little problem. It's in the infirmary.'

The implication took a while to sink in. When it did, we all stared at him, aghast. The panacea was in the Big House, which no one could get near without practically passing out. Well, except Beckendorf and Clarisse.

And then something worse occurred to me. 'Michael,' I said, 'you remember what Panacea said, about distilling the herb of invulnerability?'

Michael fell back onto his bunk. 'It's poisonous if not neutralised by gold.'

'Which explains why we're safe in here,' I said. 'The cabin walls are gold. It probably filtered out the poison.'

Will paled. 'So you mean maybe I ...'

Clarisse pointed a threatening finger at him. 'You screwed it up?'

'Hey!' Michael pushed himself back to his feet. 'Don't start blaming Will.'

'I followed all the instructions!' Will dragged his hands through his hair, making it stand up on end. 'I added the gold just like it said. But maybe ... I don't know, maybe my skills just weren't good enough.'

'You're the best healer we've got,' I assured him. 'This isn't your fault. Maybe she just missed something in the instructions, like the sequence, or-'

'Or maybe she was so annoyed with your crap rhymes that she gave you a dud recipe,' Clarisse muttered, still glaring at Michael.

'You know what? I'm sick of you, La Rue. I've had enough. Curse you! Curse you and your whole bullying cabin!' Michael lifted both hands to the sky-or roof, at any rate. A blinding light filled the cabin, accompanied by a musical humming in our ears.

'Was that supposed to do something?' Clarisse sneered when it faded away.

Michael's face contorted in confusion. Then he swayed on the spot and collapsed back into his bunk.

'He overexerted,' groaned Will. 'Magic takes a lot of energy to begin with. And he's not fully recovered yet. It must have wiped out his strength.'

'So the idiot messed up his cursin'. Teach him to mess with Ares cabin.' Ellis Wakefield's eyes widened. He clapped a hand over his mouth.

'A rhyming curse,' Will said wearily. He shook his head at Clarisse. 'You just had to goad him!'

'What do you mean, a rhyming curse?' Clarisse said. 'I'm not speaking in rhyme.'

'Well, that's great, but I'm speaking in rhyme. Is it gonna be like this for the rest of time?' Sherman Yang demanded.

'I guess Clarisse is still protected by the panacea,' Will mused. 'But he cursed all of Ares cabin.'

Clarisse looked disgusted. 'You mean my whole cabin's gonna be spouting poetry? Styx! How long is this going to last?'

Will shrugged. 'A week, maybe two? We're not that powerful, but who knows what got into him.'

'Guys,' Beckendorf interrupted, 'can we get back to the real problem? We need medicine. Can we fix the panacea?'

'It's in the Big House,' Katie pointed out. 'Will couldn't even get near it.'

Beckendorf raised his hand. 'I can go fetch it.'

It was a good thought, but I spotted the obvious flaw. 'If you bring the undiluted poison into the cabin, won't that knock us all out?'

Silence fell as everyone contemplated this catch-22.

'Well, we can't just hide out in here forever,' Silena said at last. 'And I don't want to wear a balaclava for the rest of my life.'

I turned the problem over. 'What if Beckendorf gets the ingredients? Then we can make a new batch, take it, and go fix the original once we're all immune.'

The others agreed that this was a good idea, so we sent Beckendorf off to the Big House. He returned fifteen minutes later with the bear-skin package and amphora of gold flakes. As soon as we tipped out the amphora, the problem was apparent.

'Correct me if I'm wrong,' Silena said, staring at the glitter shower that fell out, 'but that's not gold.'

I touched my finger to the glittering pile. The flakes sparkled in the light of the cabin walls, so bright that they were easy to mistake for the actual stuff. But upon close examination, they were only rounded plastic particles, the kind used in body glitter. I wouldn't have noticed the difference so quickly, but trust a daughter of Aphrodite to know her cosmetics.

Without this, they should fail.

My blood ran cold, and I was sure it had nothing to do with my poisoning symptoms.

'Silena,' I said slowly, 'you said you were attacked coming out of Philadelphia.'

'Yeah, by some weird bird.'

'A screech owl?'

She blinked. 'How did you know?'

The frost in my veins settled into a block of ice in my stomach. 'What happened exactly?'

Silena twisted a lock of hair around her finger. 'Well, it didn't go after us precisely. It was like, more interested in our bags. It snatched my backpack and flew off before we really realised what was happening. We chased, but Michael only had one arrow left and he was worried he'd miss if he tried to shoot it down. It was zigzagging around so fast. But I had some aerosol body glitter in my purse, so I told Michael to sort of shoot-spray it.'

Travis raised an eyebrow. 'Body glitter? You just randomly have body glitter on you?'

Silena put her hands on her hips. 'My make-up is always in my purse. You have a problem with that?'

Will elbowed Travis in the ribs.

'Go on,' I said. 'How did you get the panacea back?'

'Well, you know how body glitter gets into everything?'

We looked at her blankly.

'Okay, trust me, it's crazy hard to clean out. Anyway, Michael exploded the bottle over the owl. Its feathers got all glittered up and it had to stop in a tree to pick the bits out of its wings. That's when we caught up and snatched our stuff back. It didn't even put up a fight. I guess it realised it was outnumbered.'

'And the bag was intact-the panacea, the amphora ...?'

'Obviously it got shaken around, but everything was still inside.' Silena frowned. 'You don't think a bit of jostling could hurt it?'

I shook my head and pointed to the pile of glitter that had poured out of the amphora. 'You had golden body glitter, didn't you?'

The blood drained from Silena's face. 'I-I didn't think ...'

'That owl was a servant of Kronos.' I told them about my dream. Silena's face got paler by the second when I revealed how Torrington had presented Kronos with an identical amphora.

'Then I pretty much gave him the glitter to swap out. And I never even noticed.' Silena buried her face in her hands. 'I thought I-I thought I could ... It's all my fault!'

Beckendorf put an arm around her. 'No,' he said firmly. 'You did what any hero would have done. It wasn't your fault Kronos's owl tricked you.'

'What are we going to do, though?' Will asked. 'Now that we can't brew the panacea or neutralise the poison?'

'There's got to be a way,' I said. I paced the length of the cabin, trying to remember Panacea's exact instructions. The trick is gold, she'd said. Unfortunately gold was in short supply around here.

'Anyone got drachmas to spare?' Connor asked.

'That won't work. Panacea said money and medicine can't mix. We need pure, untainted gold.'

'What about this cabin?' Beckendorf waved his arms around. 'If we could melt down the walls ...'

All the Apollo kids looked at him in alarm.

'You want to melt our walls?' Austin Lake cried.

'You realise they're the only thing keeping the poison out?' Will pointed out.

Beckendorf shrugged. 'Unless you have a handy stash of gold lying around somewhere?'

'There's the Golden Fleece-that's gold, right?' Travis suggested.

'And risk being swamped by monsters?' Katie argued. 'They're still on the prowl outside, you know.'

'No need.' Clarisse put her right hand reluctantly on her belt. She was the only one in full battle armour, as though she'd geared up to fight the plague. Or maybe she just slept in it. I'd never been entirely certain if she did. From her sword sheath, she drew out the golden spoil of war she'd claimed during our battle in Richmond.

'You couldn't have shown that to us sooner?' Kayla Knowles grumbled. 'Like, before people got it in their heads our walls are dispensable?'

Clarisse pointed the tip of her blade threateningly at Kayla. The five campers nearest to her backed away, falling over each other in the process. 'I'm already giving up my spoil of war to fix your cabin's mess. Don't make me regret this.'

'How is it our cabin's fault?' Kayla protested.

One of the Ares campers opened her mouth to argue, then I guess she remembered the rhyming curse because she shut it again, looking mutinous.

'Stop it!' Beckendorf bellowed. Everyone fell silent. 'We've got Clarisse's gold sword. Can we, like, melt it down and fix the problem now?'

I took the blade from Clarisse before she could decide not to share after all. 'You'll have to take it to the forge,' I told Beckendorf. 'As for neutralising the poison ...'

Beckendorf took the blade. 'Do I just pour in the melted gold?'

'I don't know. I'd do it the same way Panacea did, to be safe. Which means me or Michael should go with you.' I glanced at Michael. He'd have been the ideal candidate, seeing as he at least had some healing magic. But he was still KO-ed on his bunk. I squared my shoulders. 'I'll go.'

'Are you sure, Annabeth?' Silena fretted. 'It could be dangerous.'

When were things ever not? 'I'm sure,' I said. 'Melt down that gold and let's neutralise some poison.'

+++

As a precaution, Beckendorf returned from the forge with two gold face masks. We put them on and took the rest of the gold, which he'd shaved into little flakes and tipped into a bronze vial, off to the Big House.

The poison fumes were so thick now, I could see them curling like sickly green creepers up the farmhouse walls. Little tendrils of mist extended towards the cabins.

'We'd better hurry,' I said. 'It looks like it's getting worse by the minute.'

Armed with our vial of gold, we approached the infirmary. Inside the Big House, the poison choked the air. It wafted out of the infirmary in clouds that reminded me of the smoke that issued from the Oracle's mouth along with her prophecies.

Beware, beauty, traps in the land of liberty.

I groaned.

'What?' Beckendorf asked, tensing up in alarm.

'It was in your prophecy. The trap, beauty-'

He cursed. 'It wasn't the Stymphalian birds after all.'

'Yeah.' I took a deep breath, which was a mistake. Even behind my gold mask, inhaling the poison fumes was like shoving a spike up my nose.

'Annabeth!' Beckendorf caught me as I staggered.

'I'm fine,' I said. 'Let's go fix this poison.'

By the time we found the bowl with Will's distillation, my head was spinning badly. I took the vial of gold flakes and tried to recall exactly what I'd seen Panacea do.

A pinch for safety, two flicks to cure. Add a third when it settles, and a last drop to be sure. The rhyme teased its way into my aching head. I added the gold to its beat. On the last drop, the distillation crackled like fourth of July fireworks.

And then it exploded.

Half-brewed panacea splattered into our faces with startling heat. If it hadn't been for our gold masks, Beckendorf and I would have been fatally scalded. As it was, the metal surface burned so bad, I had to rip off the mask.

I swooned, my head close to exploding. The next moment, the world went black.

+++

I was suffocating in a sea of poison mist. It swirled around me in towering clouds, obscuring my surroundings. I was drowning ... drowning ...

Someone grabbed my wrist.

'I got you!' Percy said. He hauled me through the mist, onto solid ground. I lay there, trembling. Sweat beaded on my brow. My skin was damp and feverish.

Percy knelt over me, worry etched into his features. He touched my forehead. 'You're sick. What's going on, Annabeth?'

My voice was hoarse. 'Poison at camp.'

Percy's body tensed. His thumb traced a line down my cheek. 'I'm coming back right now.'

'No,' I said weakly. 'What if you get sick, too?'

'I'm not leaving you alone.' His other hand closed around mine. 'I'm coming.'

His touch evaporated. Fog closed in, drowning out his face. When it dissipated, I found myself back in the dim warehouse where Luke held court, attended by Alabaster Torrington. A third, unknown man knelt at Luke's feet. He wore a cloak so dark, it looked like the very shadows were wrapped around him. His face was hazy and seemed to shift constantly between a million different features.

'It is done,' Shadows said. 'The trial worked perfectly. All is in place for your strike.'

'Excellent.' Kronos's cold voice sounded as much like nails on chalkboard as ever. 'When the time is right, we will attack.'

'Why no now, sir?' Torrington asked. 'If our plans are ready?'

Luke's face curled into a sneer. 'You are a magician, but not a strategist. You have not seen the full implications of the item you brought me.'

Torrington smoothed down his hair nervously. 'Implications?'

'Opportunities, perhaps. If we wait ... if we secure the last piece of the puzzle, we will be able to deploy an unbeatable weapon. The gods will not see it coming.' Kronos rubbed Luke's hands together. 'Send your messenger to Camp Half-Blood, Alabaster. My spy will bring it an item to guarantee our victory.'

Torrington bowed. 'But-you said before your spy was holding out. If they do not deliver ...'

Kronos's face flickered. His eyes wavered, turning from gold to blue, to gold, and finally settling into Luke's irises, wide and worried. When he spoke, his voice was softer, more Luke and less Titan lord.

'Tell them-' He sounded like he was struggling to be heard over a bad telephone line. 'Tell them that it is the only way to draw the battle away from camp. The only way to safeguard their home. Tell them it will save more lives. That-that always worked.'

The change in Luke's demeanour did not escape Torrington. 'Did you just-are you all right, my lord?'

Luke blinked. His face froze in confusion, then his expression melted back into Kronos's haughty one. 'Of course I am! And this plan will ensure our victory. We will wait until the final pieces are in place. But believe me. Percy Jackson will not see his sixteenth year. I will control the prophecy.'

The vehemence in his voice made me shiver. My whole body trembled. The ground was shaking. Cracks erupted along the floor, swallowing my feet. I fell through them ...

... and landed on a battlefield. Two armies charged towards each other, but the fight was centred on a single warrior. He was like a one-man whirlwind, spinning through the opposing forces and spitting out corpses in his wake. When he had whittled his enemies down to to a handful of terrified, fleeing warriors, he sheathed his sword and surveyed his handiwork with a manic gleam in his eyes. A half-crazed laugh erupted from his throat. It sent shivers down my spine. The sound rang of retribution, of Furies, of spirits that should be confined to Tartarus.

His men returned to him, flushed with adrenaline. At the sight of their commander laughing like a madman, their victorious expressions gave way to nervousness. They all backed away, except for one stocky youth.

'Achilles,' said the brave youth, putting a hand on his commander's arm. 'Come back to us.'

For a moment, it seemed like Achilles would turn on his friend. Fire blazed in his eyes. His laughter faded, but his expression remained flushed with bloodlust.

Then he blinked and focused on the man in front of him. His mind seemed to return from somewhere far away. 'Patroclus.'

'I am here,' Patroclus said. 'Remember who you are.'

'Achilles. I am Achilles.'

'Yes.' Patroclus sighed. 'I fear for you. With every battle we fight, I fear what this war will do to you.'

'To me?' Achilles scoffed. He removed his helmet and ran his hands over his body. Although he had spilled the blood of hundreds, his own skin was unmarked, without even a bruise to mar its surface. 'I cannot be harmed, Patroclus. I am invincible-an invincibility my mother sought for me, but won through pain and agony. I survived what no man ever has. I alone returned alive from the River Styx, stripped of all but the barest vestige of my mortal vulnerability ... but stronger for it.'

'I know that,' Patroclus said. 'And I have no doubt the prophecies will ring true-that with you on our side, Troy will fall eventually. But you grow further from us, Achilles. Further from me. I fear you push your invulnerability to the limit. Divinity and mortality were never meant to mix.'

'I will do what is necessary to protect my people.' Achilles's gaze softened as it raked over Patroclus. 'My family.'

Patroclus grasped his hand. 'Do not forget that. If you ever lose sight of what anchors you ... I fear you will pass a point of no return ...'

The scene faded. My eyes fluttered open. Percy's face swam into view, looking almost exactly as he had in my dream, down to the deep crease in the middle of his forehead. I had the fleeting, giddy thought that this was what he would look like when he got older, with worry lines running permanent furrows in his face. It made him look more mature, more handsome.

I shook the thought from my head. 'Percy? What are you doing here?'

He cracked a smile, though the worry lines around his eyes remained. 'I saw you in my dreams.' His eyes widened. 'Er, I mean, I had a dream and you were in it. A demigod dream-you know.' I almost wished he hadn't backtracked. His first sentence had set my heart beating faster. 'You told me camp was sick and everything.'

That was my dream. Did this mean it had actually been him-or his dream self, at any rate-with me? Oh gods. What stupid things had my dream self said? I vaguely remembered telling him not to come lest he get sick, which was really dumb since he'd taken the panacea in Philadelphia like Beckendorf and Clarisse.

I struggled to a sitting position. My head felt like a herd of pegasi had trampled through it, but the horrible, sickly stench of poison was gone. It was more like dealing with the aftermath of a bad cold. 'When did you get here?'

'I came as soon as I woke up from my dream. That was, er, three days ago, I think?'

'I've been out for three days?' It didn't seem possible. My dreams couldn't have lasted that long.

Percy handed me a bowl of what looked like yellow porridge. 'Here. Will said it's supposed to help.' He dipped a spoon in and brought it to my mouth like he meant to feed me, then stopped and gave me the spoon handle-first. He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck.

The thick porridge tasted of butter and déjà-vu. I'd never tried it before, but Will had made the exact same stuff for Percy the night he'd crash-landed on the porch after fighting the Minotaur.

'Ah, our brave hero awakens.' The infirmary door opened and Chiron wheeled in, followed by Will. 'How are you feeling, my dear?'

'I've been better,' I admitted. 'But I'm okay. What happened when I was out? Is the poison gone? Did the panacea work?'

'Yes and no,' Will said. 'Whatever you and Beckendorf did, it cleared the air. Took a while to dissipate, but it was gone by the time Percy arrived. Chiron came to get us. He and Mr D woke up once the air was de-poisoned.'

Chiron tugged on his scraggly beard. 'How very embarrassing,' he said. 'I cannot remember oversleeping like that since ... well, perhaps since the Party Ponies convention of '69.' He shook his head. 'Crazy stuff.'

'You and Beckendorf took a big hit, though,' Will continued. 'We found you passed out in the infirmary.'

'Beckendorf too?' I said in alarm. 'I thought he was protected by the panacea?'

'The panacea confers health and vitality-physiological immunity,' Chiron said. 'It still has limits. I imagine that against a physical explosion, it would do little good. And its protection will wear off over time.'

'But he's okay? Beckendorf, I mean.'

'Yeah, he recovered before you,' Will said. 'He's already back at the forges. You were the one we were worried about. If you didn't wake, I wasn't sure what to do. We don't have any more panacea.'

'Surely we could brew it again, properly this time?'

'We already used up Clarisse's sword. And even if we melted down the Apollo cabin-and I'd prefer we didn't-the herb of invulnerability ... well, we lost that.'

'What?' I nearly choked on my buttery porridge. 'How?'

'It disappeared. We searched everywhere. It went missing while we were cleaning things up. I-I guess I didn't keep a close enough watch on it.' Will ran a tired hand over his face. He'd probably run himself ragged over the last few days doling out healing charms.

'Kronos wanted it,' I realised. I quickly explained my dream. Percy's brow furrowed again, only now he didn't just look worried; his eyes grew cold and angry, almost like the Greek warrior Achilles's.

'But how did Kronos's messenger enter camp?' Will asked. 'Peleus is on guard, and Argus-'

'Argus was knocked out,' Percy said. 'First time I every saw all his eyes closed.'

'And Torrington's messenger is a screech owl. It could've flown past Peleus.'

'The magical barriers should have kept it out,' Will argued.

'Kronos mentioned a spy,' I said miserably. 'If they brought it out to him ...'

Percy and Will fell silent. It wasn't the first time we'd suspected that we might have spies at camp. But I couldn't imagine who it could be.

Chiron sighed. 'We cannot accuse anyone without proof. But perhaps as a precaution, we should keep future strategic discussions among head counsellors only.'

He glanced apologetically at Will, who shrugged. 'At any rate, panacea's a no-go. Maybe we'll get lucky and the Titans will knock themselves out trying to brew it.'

'Yeah, great odds on that,' Percy muttered.

'It's all right,' Will said. 'We've survived all this while without panacea. We'll manage.'

Chapter 13