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Octavia liked to think she knew Tyson quite well. As well as anyone in New Rome could boast, at least. She’d certainly seen more of his skin than she was strictly comfortable with, seeing as he and Ella were staying in her backroom and had transformed it into a tattoo parlour. And knowing Tyson well meant that she had heard a lot about Percy Jackson.
It was hard not to hear a lot about Percy Jackson in New Rome. The boy had stormed across the Little Tiber one day carrying a goddess, then… well. The story of that quest to Alaska had been thoroughly told and retold by the Fifth Cohort, who were a bit overexcited at finally having glory to boast of again. And then of course he’d been praetor for a handful of days before his Greek friends had started a war.
She wasn’t clear on what had happened since then. Either way, Gaia was defeated, the Greeks had returned with white flags, and the longest Senate meeting of the century had finally concluded in the ratification of a tentative peace treaty that involved exchange programmes and letting bygones be bygones and promises of military aid in the future. Jackson had apparently spoken extensively at that meeting, well enough that some grumblers theorised he might be a legacy of a god beyond his ties to Neptune. Because since when had any seaspawn been eloquent? He’d never commented on the rumours, if he’d heard them. According to Tyson, he’d just disappeared back to the East Coast to focus on graduating high school.
High school. Good grief. Octavia was a good Roman—a granddaughter of Venus herself—but despite being raised with all these stories of young heroes and having served in the legion herself, their youth seemed increasingly jarring to her. She had nephews in the legion older than Jackson.
It didn’t help that the stories Tyson told about his brother were very different to the ones the rest of New Rome heard about him.
“He doesn’t like bullies,” he’d commented once while making them all peanut butter sandwiches for the lunchtime shift in the bookshop. Ella was in the backroom, pacing and muttering to herself as she tried to remember the next few lines, so they were leaving her be. “There were some mean boys in our class. Whenever they tried to be mean to me, Percy would be mean back.”
“He started fights?” Octavia asked idly. Okay, that did sound more like a child of the demonised Neptune.
Tyson looked uncomfortable. “He tried not to. Mostly he told me how cool I was and that I shouldn’t listen to them. Even at camp he stuck with me. All his friends ignored me and then they ignored him too. I could tell he was upset, but he told me they’d come around. And they did! But for ages, he was the only one nice to me.”
Octavia had finally got her head around the fact that Neptune had sent his Cyclops child to middle school for a year. Stranger things had happened. Still, she thought it was an unusual brand of torture to put even on someone who was technically a baby monster, however sweet they were. And if New Rome’s initial hostility to the presence of a Cyclops and a harpy in their local bookshop, even ones working on restoring the Sibylline Books, was any indication, the Greeks couldn’t have been kind to him either.
“We used to make matching craft projects,” Tyson continued. “And he tried to work in the forge with me even if he’s bad at it. Eventually, he let Beckendorf take over. Then I went to work in Atlantis with Daddy, and I didn’t see him as often, but he still sent me messages and when I got back nothing had changed! We got to go on another deadly quest!”
Octavia winced. She had been wondering how far into the story Jackson’s usual exploits would finally make an appearance.
Tyson fiddled with the crusts of his sandwich rather than say anything for a while. Finally, his big brown eye filled with tears, he blurted out: “I miss my brother.”
Yes. Octavia was getting that impression. And if Tyson’s recollections were right, she would wager that his brother missed him too.
She didn’t expect him to show up in New Rome in the way that he did. Tyson had said he would come. He’d said he’d prayed to Neptune for it. But Octavia knew a lot of younger siblings who thought their older siblings hung the moon; she hadn’t taken him seriously.
A bronze dragon appeared in the sky. The sight of it when it came sent Octavia’s old heart racing—she recognised that dragon, remembered the flying ship it had once been part of—but it didn’t fire on them this time. It just landed in the Field of Mars, deposited a tired, sweaty demigod who somehow had smoke curling from his ears, and waited there as he ran off to talk to… someone. Tyson told her later what that had been about, at the same time he’d told her that she was being summoned to the Senate and that he was going to Neptune’s temple to pray for help.
A prophecy. A god turned mortal. An imminent attack on New Rome.
Octavia was part of the auxiliary legion, so she was called in to help defend the city, even though her gladius had been gathering dust for years. She did her duty and reported to her centurions, listening to the plan, shoring up their defences. New moon. An attack at the new moon. With what? By whom? They didn’t know. But they had to be ready.
They prepared for everything they could, but no one could’ve prepared for the undead.
It was a bloodbath. The enemies poured out of the Berkeley Hills to the northwest of Camp Jupiter. New Rome hadn’t seen real combat in decades; even in the Giant War, most of the fighting had been individual groups sent to track down the Greek ship and the full-time legionnaires who went to Long Island and fought there, both against and then with the Greeks. When Octavia had been a legionnaire, the most they’d dealt with were the monsters who were too young or arrogant to remember that New Rome was unwarded—not unguarded.
Now?
Now the screams of soldiers rang in her ears. Octavia could only focus on the figure in front of her—a skeleton without a head, a rotting pile of flesh, grinning and glowing from within—as it hacked and slashed, its hands reaching for her. She wasn’t the only one struggling. Bodies littered the ground, too many of them glinting in Roman armour. Finally, she struck down the zombie thing in front of her and turned, only to be faced with something worse: a whole, humanoid creature, moving faster and more precisely than the zombies, with blue-purple iridescent skin, a naked, skeletal chest, and black, clawed hands.
She shrieked and tried to back away, locking shields with the soldiers beside her, but the creature just followed. It lunged, raking its claws along the side of her helmet, barely missing her skin. Others dived at the people around her. Before she knew it, the line was broken. The creatures poured in.
No amount of hacking, stabbing, or slashing seemed to affect it. It howled, “FOOD!” and left Octavia’s ears ringing. It was a good thing she’d been so obsessive about keeping her armour in good shape over the years. That was the only reason she hadn’t been rent to shreds by now.
“Retreat!” Praetor Zhang ordered, his voice ringing over the clamour of battle. Lightning arced—the standard had just eviscerated a few more enemies. But there were hundreds more incoming.
They retreated. There was no choice. The Little Tiber was maybe a hundred feet behind them when the ground grew boggy underfoot. It slowed Octavia’s movements, the mud clinging to her boots, and she cursed. But the creatures and the zombies did a lot more than curse.
The creature ahead of her lunged for her neck—that slot of soft skin exposed between her helmet and her breastplate. She couldn’t get her shield up in time to block, and she thought: this is it. It’s going to tear my throat out and eat me.
Then it reared back.
When she glanced down, water was running over the mud. Not into it—over it, in a fine sheen maybe half an inch thick. However it had got there, it had strong currents, rippling this way and that, spreading like wildfire.
The creatures howled and backed away from it. As soon as one of them dipped a toe in the water, no matter how thin, they scrambled away as fast as possible. The water marched toward them, forcing them back, back…
“Retreat to the river!” Praetor Zhang roared. Octavia didn’t argue. She backed away until the banks were nearly crumbling under the back of her heels. Only then did she look behind her.
The Little Tiber was churning. Vast volumes of water were flowing upward, over its western banks and flooding over the battlefield in a slow, controlled spread. In the middle of the river, drenched and bobbing at the centre of a whirlpool, was Percy Jackson.
Octavia recognised him from his brief stint as praetor and also from Tyson’s stories. Even if she hadn’t, he’d have been hard to mistake for someone else. Not many people could control water. His hands were thrust out, pushing the water in its lively, dancing motions toward the zombies and watching them scramble back. He’d twisted his face into a rictus of effort. Other figures, flashes of white, blue and green, shimmered along the length of the Tiber. The naiads were helping.
Running water, Octavia thought. The undead don’t like running water.
“Archers!” Praetor Zhang called.
The Roman army didn’t have many archers, but they had enough, and some were lined up on the opposite bank of the Tiber. Praetor Zhang himself stood among them, his longbow in hand, his sword sheathed.
“Fire!”
The archers loosed their arrows. They sailed into the enemy ranks, striking true. After a dozen volleys, those not felled by the arrows turned and ran.
Once Praetor Zhang gave him the signal, Jackson and the naiads brought the waters back within the bounds of the river. The water’s pull brought the Roman corpses with it, until they sank into the waters, their armour weighing them down. Octavia felt sick at the sight of it.
But she was alive. Most of them were still alive.
She met Jackson properly the next day, once she’d been checked over for injuries, dismissed from active duty, and was able to sleep for several hours in her bedroom behind the bookshop. Ella had gone right back to tattooing Tyson, chattering about urgent needs. Or something? She was a sweet harpy, but Octavia found it difficult to follow what she was saying, sometimes. At least she could trust them to look after the bookshop, in the unlikely event that any citizens would want to stock up on reading material in this trying time.
When she stumbled back into the shop, they were talking. Tyson and a voice she took a moment to recognise.
“—tattoos aren’t what I would’ve expected, but if it works.”
“It helps Ella!” Tyson declared in response. “I’m gonna get a fish pony tattoo as well.”
The new voice snorted, teasing. “You sure Dad’s okay with you getting a tattoo, big guy? You’re still the baby of the family.”
“You have a tattoo.”
Octavia walks in on Jackson staring at his SPQR trident tattoo, slightly mystified. “I… never thought of it that way. Huh, now you mention it, I’m surprised Mom didn’t freak out more. I guess Paul has tattoos, so…”
“Do you want a fish pony tattoo?” Tyson asked. “To go with your trident.”
Jackson smiled. “So we can match? That’d be great.” He glanced up and nodded politely to Octavia. “Hi there. Sorry if we woke you. I’m just catching up.”
Octavia paused, not sure what to say. Jackson did look a lot younger up close. “No need,” she got out at last. “Tyson did tell me you were coming. Before the battle, that was.”
He grimaced. “Sorry I got there so late. I just finished a first round of exams. I have one week to study, then I have to get back to New York for more.”
“Exams. Right. Well, I’m glad you showed up when you did.”
“Daddy sent him,” Tyson said. “I prayed to him for help.”
“How did you know…” Octavia cut herself off before she said that he was listening. It was well-known that gods liked to roam New Rome in disguise, but only in disguise. For them to appear in person was rare—which was why Jackson had caused such a stir—and the idea that they would provide tangible help to a battle instead of subtler, vaguer assistance was odd.
“That Daddy would send Percy?” Tyson guessed incorrectly. “He always does. He’s not allowed to interfere, but Percy is. If I ask for help, he sends Percy.”
“He’s a one-trick horselord.” Percy snorted at his own joke. “I had a dream. He asked if I wanted to use my week off exams to help Tyson. I told him that was a stupid question, and he teleported me to California. Not anywhere near, though,” he grumbled. “I guess Greek gods don’t do well in New Rome, and Neptune’s ambivalent toward me.”
“Huh,” Octavia said, because what else was there to say?
She tried a different tact: “I’ve heard a lot about you from Tyson.”
Jackson smiled fondly. “I’m sorry I haven’t heard much about you—communications have been down, so I haven’t heard from Tyson in months. You’re Octavia, right? Tyson’s been telling me everything he can while you were asleep.” He paused. “Have you eaten anything? I know post-battle it’s easier to sleep than eat, but Tyson showed me the kitchen. I can make something if you want.”
Octavia felt bad accepting that sort of offer, but apparently Tyson had invited him to stay with them, so she let her guest reciprocate however he wanted. And she was hungry. “Thank you.”
Jackson—Percy, he insisted—made some pancakes for them, and even answered her question as to why they were blue. Tyson and Ella had apparently already eaten, so they got on with more tattooing. Octavia was impressed that Percy didn’t mention anything about the smell. His nose kept wrinkling, but he kept his mouth shut.
A few days later, a former god walked in, tailed by Praetor Zhang. Tyson and Ella were tattooing. Percy was cuddling Aristophanes. It was Octavia who answered the door.
“Lester!” Percy greeted, surprised. “Right? Or do you prefer Apollo?”
Octavia mouthed Apollo? while staring at the acne-abused teenager trailing Praetor Zhang. When she’d heard that gods frequented New Rome in disguise, this was not what she’d thought that meant.
The teenager in question blinked at him. “Percy Jackson,” he said, looking around. “General Tyson. Uh—”
They spoke to Ella. Death, death, death, she said. Apparently there was another attack coming. Octavia took a deep breath to keep her hands from trembling.
Lester—she could not call him Apollo, no matter how much Praetor Zhang seemed to defer to him—noticed. “Did you, ah, fight in the battle? You’re a survivor?”
She nodded. “Percy saved my life with that trick with the running water.”
“We were hoping to stop them at the river,” Praetor Zhang said. “But then Percy showed up just in time. The extra hundred feet we got from pushing the river outward saved lives.” Even if we couldn’t count the bodies still lost, went unspoken.
“If there’s another attack, we can do it again,” Percy mused, his arms crossed. “The aqueduct—”
Praetor Zhang winced. “I can’t let you break the aqueduct again. We just fixed it.”
“That was Polybotes, not me. I just used it once it was broken!” Percy’s smirk dropped. “But I was worried about New Rome. You don’t have wards. If you’re more prepared for the next attack, maybe I can hang back and defend the city itself by looping the water from the aqueduct around one building—the Coliseum, maybe. Citizens can evacuate there to stay out of the way during the fighting.”
Lester was flicking his gaze between Percy and Praetor Zhang with wide eyes. “That would take a lot of power for a demigod,” he noted, his voice slightly strained.
“I can do it,” Percy said.
Something in Octavia eased. She’d heard that two of her old friends had nearly been killed in the battle and were still being treated with unicorn horn. Their daughter, Julia, was being watched by neighbours until they recovered. The news had brought home to her just how much danger the citizens of New Rome might be in.
If Percy was right…
Praetor Zhang nodded. “You’re here ‘til the end of the week, right? I’ll clear it with Reyna. Try to do some studying before then, though.” He said it with a smile. “I don’t want your mom yelling at me because you failed high school.”
“I’m in a bookshop,” Percy insisted.
“I can help!” Lester perked up. “I am—was—the god of knowledge! And I wrote questions on the DSTOMP! Percy, if you want help studying—”
“Octavia can help me,” Percy interrupted. “She knows which books would be useful, right?”
Everyone looked at her. Octavia looked back at them all, frozen for a moment. Battles. Wars. Gods. She might live in a mythological world, but this still wasn’t something she was used to. There was a god in her shop! And he was looking offended!
She ignored him.
Instead smiled at the person who’d come to save her city. “Anything for Tyson’s favourite brother.”
By the end of the week, one city saved and two emperors dead, Percy left for New York again, sporting a hippocampus tattoo on his left forearm, just above the trident.