P R E V I O U S L Y

"It's time for you to meet an old friend of mine, don't you think? My sweet little Ariadne."

➶︎ PERSEUS JACKSON GETS A TOUR
OF CAMP HALF BLOOD !

Perspective: Percy Jackson

"WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN IT RAINS?" I asked.

Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were thirteen of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on the first side and six on the other. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door, they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dot-ted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. Two girls about nine years old and fourteen was tending the flames, one poking the coals with a stick while the other was trying to do some weird gesture towards the fire.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.

"Correct," Chiron said.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Thirteen cabins. Wait? Thirteen? Aren't there only twelve Olympians? And why would some be empty?

Chiron caught my face, and chuckled at my confusion, "Do you see that cabin? The one with the number thirteen?"

I did. Cabin thirteen looked the most old fashioned out of all of the others, though it was still outstanding nonetheless, it seemed as though it was also the smallest out of all the other cabins. It looked like one of those Roman temples, with white marble pillars that stood tall and supported the roof—which was in the shape of an obtuse triangle. In between the middle pillars was a great golden door, and beside each side of the door was a smaller version of a fire pit, roaring with fire that seemed as if it would never end.

"That," he started, "Is Hestia's cabin. She isn't one of the twelve Olympians, but when she had Ariadne, she asked for one."

"Ariadne? And isn't Hestia a virgin goddess?"

"Hestia was a virgin goddess. Ariadne is the girl you saw in the camp fire, she usually tends the fire for us," Stated Chiron.

I wanted to ask who the other girl was besides Ariadne, but I just decided not to.

"SO YOUR DAD IS HERMES?" I asked.

Luke pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, mer-chants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors. Hestia isn't too, sometimes Ariadne takes in a few if we're too full and needed a short night visit."

Ariadne was probably a big shot here, though Annabeth said that Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hestia children aren't that much of a threat. I also figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had any-thing to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day. I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying toget out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp."

"Somebody special?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

AS I SAT WITH IN THE HERMES TABLE, I could feel myself get squashed by the lack of space left. I looked around the table, and stopped at the Hestia table. The girl—Ariadne—I noticed, wore something different from the other campers. She was wearing a pair of joggers, and rather than the eyesore of an orange shirt, she was wearing a blue hoodie with the words 'APOLLO THE GOD OF THE SUN AND A BUNCH OF OTHER THINGS', and a golden laurel wreath sat on top of her braided hair to top it off.

She was beckoning me over, yet I just remained confused as to why she did.

Luke must've seen my confusion and Ariadne's hand gestures, cause he chuckled silently.

"That's Ariadne. Usually, we're not allowed to sit with other campers that aren't our own members, but sometimes Ariadne would invite people over for dinner."

A snort was heard from the table—Connor Stoll, I learned, "Unless if you're Lee Fletcher."

It seemed to be some sort of running joke along the campers, as the whole table let out a roar of laughter, making several onlookers look at us curiously.

Once the laughter died, Luke nudged me, before nodding towards Ariadne, signaling me to go to her.

And so I did.

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Ariadne and Lee already becoming a running
joke is cute asf