There were too many good-byes.

That night was the first time Elaine actually saw camp burial shrouds used on bodies, and it was not something she wanted to see again.

After all the commotion faded away, Elaine had no choice but to face her brother's death.

No one could bring themselves to decorate a shroud for him by nightfall. Call them selfish, but the entire Apollo cabin felt the effects of losing their head councilor.

Even their father seemed despaired, setting the sun an hour earlier than usual. This would no doubt be confusing to mortals, but she could appreciate the sentiment.

Among the dead, was one of Dionysus's sons had gone down fighting an enemy half-blood. He was wrapped in a deep purple shroud embroidered with grapevines. His name was Castor. Elaine was ashamed that she'd seen him around camp and never even bothered to learn his name. He'd been seventeen years old.

When it came time to say final goodbyes, Elaine found speaking very difficult. With every word she forced out, an invisible force tightened around her throat. "Lee was one of the first people to make me feel included here. He listened, and he cared. He was more than a brother, he was a friend."

She turned to Michael, but he put his hand up, declining his turn to speak. He hadn't spoken a word since witnessing their brother's death in the woods, and Elaine wasn't expecting him to be vocal any time soon.

Castor's twin brother, Pollux, tried to say a few words, but he choked up and just took the torch. He lit the funeral pyre in the middle of the amphitheater, and within seconds the row of shrouds was engulfed in fire, sending smoke and sparks up to the stars.

***

They spent the next day treating the wounded, which was almost everybody. Elaine had never seen Will so exhausted. When she offered to take his shift so he could get some rest, he feverently refused, saying he needed the distraction. Elaine understood, though she was concerned with how long Will had gone without sleeping.

At noon, the Council of Cloven Elders held an emergency meeting in their sacred grove.

The three senior satyrs were there, along with Chiron, who was in wheelchair form. His broken horse leg was still mending, so he would be confined to the chair for a few months, until the leg was strong enough to take his weight.

The grove was filled with satyrs and dryads and naiads up from the water—hundreds of them, anxious to hear what would happen. Juniper, Annabeth, Percy, and Elaine stood by Grover's side.

Elaine allowed herself to be dragged from her bunk to the meeting, though she couldn't recall who'd collected her or the trip to the grove.

Silenus wanted to exile Grover immediately, but Chiron persuaded him to at least hear evidence first, so the friends told everyone what had happened in the crystal cavern, and what Pan had said. Then several eyewitnesses from the battle described the weird sound Grover had made, which drove the Titan's army back underground.

"It was panic," insisted Juniper. "Grover summoned the power of the wild god."

"What's a panic?" Elaine asked.

"Elaine," Chiron explained, "during the first war of the gods and the Titans, Lord Pan let forth a horrible cry that scared away the enemy armies. It is—it was his greatest power—a massive wave of fear that helped the gods win the day. The word panic is named after Pan, you see. And Grover used that power, calling it forth from within himself."

"Preposterous!" Silenus bellowed. "Sacrilege! Perhaps the wild god favored us with a blessing. Or perhaps Grover's music was so awful it scared the enemy away!"

"That wasn't it, sir," Grover said. He sounded a lot calmer than Elaine would have if she'd been insulted like that. "He let his spirit pass into all of us. We must act. Each of us must work to renew the wild, to protect what's left of it. We must spread the word. Pan is dead. There is no one but us."

"After two thousand years of searching, this is what you would have us believe?" Silenus cried. "Never! We must continue the search! Exile the traitor!"

Some of the older satyrs muttered assent.

"A vote!" Silenus demanded. "Who would believe this ridiculous young satyr, anyway?"

"I would," said a familiar voice.

Everyone turned. Striding into the grove was Dionysus. He wore a formal black suit, so Elaine almost didn't recognize him, a deep purple tie and violet dress shirt, his curly dark hair carefully combed. His eyes were bloodshot as usual, and his pudgy face was flushed, but Elaine could recognize that he was suffering from grief more than wine-withdrawal.

The satyrs all stood respectfully and bowed as he approached. Dionysus waved his hand, and a new chair grew out of the ground next to Silenus's—a throne made of grapevines.

Dionysus sat down and crossed his legs. He snapped his fingers and satyr hurried forward with a plate of cheese and crackers and a Diet Coke.

The god of wine looked around at the assembled crowd. "Miss me?"

The satyrs fell over themselves nodding and bowing. "Oh, yes, very much, sire!"

"Well, I did not miss this place!" Dionysus snapped. "I bear bad news, my friends. Evil news. The minor gods are changing sides. Morpheus has gone over to the enemy. Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more."

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Strike that," Dionysus said. "Even Zeus doesn't know. Now, I want to hear Grover's story. Again, from the top."

"But, my lord," Silenus protested. "It's just nonsense!"

Dionysus's eyes flared with purple fire. "I have just learned that my son Castor is dead, Silenus. I am not in a good mood. You would do well to humor me."

Silenus gulped, and waved at Grover to start again.

When Grover was done, Mr. D nodded. "It sounds like just the sort of thing Pan would do. Grover is right. The search is tiresome. You must start thinking for yourselves." He turned to a satyr. "Bring me some peeled grapes, right away!"

"Yes, sire!" The satyr scampered off.

"We must exile the traitor!" Silenus insisted.

"I say no," Dionysus countered. "That is my vote."

"I vote no as well," Chiron put in.

Silenus set his jaw stubbornly. "All in favor of the exile?"

He and the two other old satyrs raised their hands.

"Three to two," Silenus said.

"Ah, yes," Dionysus said. "But unfortunately for you, a god's vote counts twice. And as I voted against, we are tied."

Silenus stood, indignant. "This is an outrage! The council cannot stand at an impasse."

"Then let it be dissolved!" Mr. D said. "I don't care."

Silenus bowed stiffly, along with his two friends, and they left the grove. About twenty satyrs went with them. The rest stood around murmuring uncomfortably.

"Don't worry," Grover told them. "We don't need the council to tell us what to do. We can figure it out ourselves."

He told them again the words of Pan—how they must save the wild a little at a time. He started dividing the satyrs into groups—which ones would go to the national parks, which ones would search out the last wild places, which ones would defend the parks in the big cities.

"Well," Annabeth said, "Grover seems to be growing up."

***

A week after the battle in the clearing, which was now being dubbed the Battle of the Labyrinth, Elaine found that she could only put off going to meals so many times before Percy and Annabeth would come to retrieve her from her bunk.

Between the two of them, they got her to master's archery, history, language, and the infirmary, which was now down a medic and in need of a replacement.

She went begrudgingly and complained the entire time, but secretly, she appreciated her friends for not allowing her to get lost in her emotions. She was still sad, but now she could walk past Lee's bed without the image of his lifeless body laying on the ground invading her mind.

It felt good to have a semi-regular dinner at camp. Will and Austin sat on either side of her with Michael at the head of the table (he wasn't happy about the new head counselor opening, but even he came around to the idea). The sunset over Long Island Sound was beautiful.

Things weren't back to normal by a long shot, but when she went up to the brazier and scraped part of her meal into the flames as an offering to Apollo, she felt like she really did have a lot to be grateful for. She survived her summer. The camp was safe. Kronos had suffered a setback, at least for a while.

The only thing that bothered her was Nico, hanging in the shadows at the edge of the pavilion. He'd been offered a place at the Hermes table, and even at the head table with Chiron, but he had refused.

After dinner, the campers headed toward the amphitheater, where Elaine's siblings promised a sing-along to pick up their spirits. Elaine went along with it for her brothers's sakes, but her heart wasn't in it. After a couple of songs, she slipped away into the edge of the tree line.

She paced back and forth, trying to clear her thoughts, but soon caught sight of Nico heading into the woods. As she began to follow him, Percy came from the same direction Nico came from, seemingly having the same idea to check on the son of Hades.

He stopped when he saw her. "Shouldn't you be in there?"

"Shouldn't you?" She asked.

As they passed under the shadows of the trees, Elaine realized how dark it was getting. She'd never been scared in the forest before, though she knew there were plenty of monsters. Still, she thought about last week's battle, and wondered if she'd ever be able to walk in those woods again without remembering the horror of so much fighting.

She couldn't see Nico, but after a few minutes of walking she saw a glow up ahead. At first she thought Nico had lit a torch. As they got closer, she realized the glow was a ghost. The shimmering form of Bianca di Angelo stood in the clearing, smiling at her brother. She said something to him and touched his face—or tried to. Then her image faded.

Nico turned and saw Elaine and Percy, but he didn't look mad.

"Saying good-bye," he said hoarsely.

"We missed you at dinner," Percy said. "You could've sat with me."

"No."

"Nico, you can't miss every meal. If you don't want to stay with Hermes, maybe they can make an exception and put you in the Big House. They've got plenty of rooms."

"I'm not staying, Percy."

Elaine stopped short. "What do you mean you're not staying? Do you have another demigod camp to go to that will keep you safe? You need to stay here so you can be trained and protected."

"I train with the dead," he said flatly. "This camp isn't for me. There's a reason they didn't put a cabin to Hades here, Elaine. He's not welcome here, any more than he is on Olympus. I don't belong. I have to go."

Elaine wanted to argue, but part of her knew he was right. She didn't like it, but Nico would have to find his own, different way. She remembered in Pan's cave, how the wild god had addressed each one of them individually ... except Nico.

"When will you go?" Percy asked.

"Right away. I've got tons of questions. Like who was my mother? Who paid for Bianca and me to go to school? Who was that lawyer guy who got us out of the Lotus Hotel? I know nothing about my past. I need to find out."

"Makes sense," Percy admitted. "But I hope we don't have to be enemies."

He lowered his gaze. "I'm sorry I was a brat. I should've listened to you about Bianca."

"By the way ... " Percy dug something out of his pocket. A familiar trinket that made her misty eyed. "Tyson found this while we were cleaning the cabin. Thought you might want it." He held out a lead figurine of Hades—the little Mythomagic statue Nico had abandoned when he fled camp last winter.

Nico hesitated. "I don't play that game anymore. It's for kids."

"It's got four thousand attack power," he coaxed.

"Five thousand," Nico corrected. "But only if your opponent attacks first."

Elaine couldn't help a smile. "Maybe it's okay to still be a kid once in a while."

Nico studied it in his palm for a few seconds, then slipped it into his pocket. "Thanks."

Percy put out his hand. Nico shook reluctantly.

"I've got a lot of things to investigate," he said. "Some of them ... Well, if I learn anything useful, I'll let you know."

Elaine wasn't sure what he meant, but Percy nodded. "Keep in touch, Nico."

She stepped forward. "I know you don't think you belong, but if you ever need anything. Anything, Nico, please reach out."

Before he could respond, she'd wrapped her arms around his skinny frame. It took a moment, but Nico stiffly hugged her back.

"Don't be a stranger." She said and released him.

He turned and trudged off into the woods. The shadows seemed to bend toward him as he walked, like they were reaching out for his attention.

A voice right behind them said, "There goes a very troubled young man."

They turned and found Dionysus standing there, still in his black suit.

"Walk with me," he said.

"Where to?" Percy asked suspiciously.

"Just to the campfire," he said. "I was beginning to feel better, so I thought I would talk with you a bit. You always manage to annoy me."

"Uh, thanks."

They walked through the woods in silence. Elaine noticed that Dionysus was treading on air, his polished black shoes hovering an inch off the ground. She supposed he didn't want to get dirty.

"We have had many betrayals," he said. "Things are not looking good for Olympus. Yet you two and Annabeth saved this camp. I'm not sure I should thank you for that."

"It was a group effort." Elaine said.

He shrugged. "Regardless, I suppose it was mildly competent, what you three did. I thought you should know—it wasn't a total loss."

They reached the amphitheater, and Dionysus pointed toward the campfire. Clarisse was sitting shoulder to shoulder with a big Hispanic kid who was telling her a joke. It was Chris Rodriguez, the half-blood who'd gone insane in the Labyrinth.

Elaine turned to Dionysus. "You cured him?"

"Madness is my specialty. It was quite simple."

"But ... you did something nice. Why?" Percy asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "I am nice! I simply ooze niceness, Perry Johansson. Haven't you noticed?"

"Uh—"

"Perhaps I felt grieved by my son's death. Perhaps I thought this Chris boy deserved a second chance. At any rate, it seems to have improved Clarisse's mood."

"Why are you telling us this?" Percy asked.

The wine god sighed. "Oh, Hades if I know. But remember, brats, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword. As a mortal, I was never a great fighter or athlete or poet. I only made wine. The people in my village laughed at me. They said I would never amount to anything. Look at me now. Sometimes small things can become very large indeed."

He left them alone to think about that. And as she watched Clarisse and Chris holding hands in the darkness, where they thought nobody could see them, for the first time in days Elaine had to smile.

--------

elaine hiding in her cabin , depressed :

nico hugging elaine goodbye :

the satyrs when dionysus shows up and ignores their vote :