CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
LIKE MOTHER, LIKE SON

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

KIT CAME TO ONE horrifying conclusion after riding Arion with Leo and Hazel; he much preferred the creaky bronze body of Festus the Dragon. Arion was like mist slipping through his fingertips, a body that wasn't a body, though he moved with the speed of a sports car, muscles working in tandem. Kit had to cling to Hazel's waist for dear life, squashed between her and Leo, the latter of which laughed in glee. Leo loved Arion.

"Must you give me a heart attack, Valdez?" Kit snapped through gritted teeth as, once again, the son of Hephaestus foolishly released Kit's waist to throw his arms in the air. He was like Rose on the Titanic, holding his hands out from his sides and grinning up at the sun, his skin a warm brown beneath the midday light.

"Must you be so obvious, Christopher?" Leo retorted with a sly grin. "If you want me to hold your waist, all you have to do is ask."

Kit pretended not to notice Hazel's uncomfortable shudder.

Hazel pretended not to notice Kit's rosy cheeks.

A compromise, really, of friends in the making.

It was just a shame she kept giving Leo moon-eyes. Now that could be a problem. A problem that friends in the making typically didn't face. But whatever. Kit could ignore it for now.

Ahead of them, an island of white sand was dwarfed by an expanse of rolling grassy dunes and dark blue water. From first glance, it seemed like it was uninhabited, but Kit didn't trust it for a second. It was peaceful, serene... and as dangerous as a knife kept beneath one's pillow... which Kit totally hadn't taken to doing since sleeping on the same ship as Percy Jackson and Jason Grace combined. Sure, they were having a power trip right now, but Kit didn't trust that they one day wouldn't join forces just to get rid of him. Then, they'd go back to squabbling like overgrown toddlers.

But that wasn't the point (hah!) At long last, Arion thundered onto the beach. Leo laughed again; though this time, he kept his hands on Kit's hips as Kit yelped and eyed the sand desperately. He'd take Gaea over Zeus at that moment. Gaea came and went. But Zeus... he was always looking for a reason to barbeque Kit Dempsey with lightning. He was the first one off the horse, leaving Leo to help Hazel dismount, the two fussing over Arion like concerned mothers.

"He needs to eat," Hazel insisted as Arion pawed at the sand. Talk about fussy, Kit thought. "He likes gold, but--"

"Gold?" Leo asked.

Case in point.

"He'll settle for grass, though," Hazel said like Leo hadn't interrupted. She couldn't quite meet Leo's eyes. Instead, she settled for gazing at where Kit waited several feet away, well out of kicking distance in case Poseidon decided to have a go and send Arion his way. "Go on, Arion. Thanks for the ride. I'll call you."

Much to Kit's fleeting relief, Arion was gone quicker than he could blink, leaving behind a steaming trail of smoke that hovered over the lake like fog. Leo blinked in amazement, his voice breathless as he said, "Fast horse and expensive to feed."

"Not really," Hazel shrugged, much to the interest of Kit. Now that Arion was gone, he deemed it safe to return to Kit's side. Leo regarded him with a fond grin that seemed to say what a macho man, Kit. You can fight a giant but a horse? That's where you draw the line? "Gold is easy for me."

Confused, the two boys turned back to Hazel.

"What, do you have a sugar daddy on standby?"

"Please tell me you're not related to King Midas," added Leo as Hazel frowned at Kit, caught between embarrassment and scandalisation. Oh, sweet Hazel. "I don't like that guy."

"There, there," Kit patted Leo's shoulder in comfort.

Hazel sighed, turning away to survey the beach. "Never mind."

Well, then.

At the rate Kit was going, they wouldn't even be acquaintances by the time the day was out, let alone friends. He frowned, shrugging it off as he followed after Leo, who patrolled the beach before kneeling down to cup a handful of sand. "What are you doing?"

Leo let the sand slip through his fingers, standing up and dusting off his palm on Kit's shirt. Kit swatted him away, cursing as Leo chuckled. "Well, that's one problem solved, at least," said Leo.

"How?" Kit snapped, not the least bit enthused.

"This is lime."

"You mean the sand you just ruined my jacket with?"

"It's just a jacket, babe."

"It's vegan leather," mumbled Kit, glaring.

Hazel, who was watching them interact with a strange melancholic glint in her eye, asked, "The whole beach is lime, Leo?"

Leo eagerly nodded and burst into his explanation. "Yeah, see? The granules are perfectly round, so it's not really sand. It's calcium carbonate."

"Sounds..."

"Amazing," said Leo.

"Boring," teased Kit.

Leo huffed and pretended not to hear him as he pulled a ziploc bag out of one pocket and began to stuff handfuls of lime inside. Kit and Hazel watched, frowning as he suddenly froze. Leo's face had paled, losing that golden tone which Kit had admired on the trip over. His hands began to shake. He dropped the ziploc bag, starting when Hazel said his name in a question and Kit shook his shoulder, even jabbing his leg with the toe of his boot for good measure.

"Yeah?"

"You good, dude?"

Leo didn't even have the strength to chastise Kit for calling him dude. Something had to be really wrong, not that Leo would admit it. "I'm fine."

Kit sighed and let him do his thing -- that was, until Leo rounded on him with pursed lips. "What?"

"Are you going to help me?"

Kit scoffed. "And get sand on my pants, too? Not to mention pelican itch? No thanks."

"Kit."

"... Oh, fine."

As Kit kneeled next to him, jean-clad knees buried in the sand, Hazel was inspired to help them. She accepted a second ziploc bag from Leo, listening with vague bemusement to the two of them.

"If you like, I can get Buford to fly down to the next city we pass and steal you some new pants."

"I'll pass."

"I'll even get you leather ones -- vegan, of course -- to match your jacket."

"Shut up, Valdez."

"You'll fit right in with all the hottest boy bands. One Direction? Backstreet Boys? What about Kit Dempsey, huh?"

Leo snorted as Kit shot him a filthy look.

For a while, they worked in comfortable silence. As midday crept into early afternoon, the wind faded until only humid air remained. Kit grimaced and reluctantly shrugged off his leather jacket, tying it around his waist as Leo eyed the ridges of his exposed biceps. Kit couldn't hide his grin as the other boy quickly turned away, coughing like there was no air left for his lungs to inhale.

"You alright?" Hazel asked.

Leo huffed out what sounded like a vaguely agreeable noise, shooting Hazel a thumbs-up gesture for good measure. "We should've brought a pail and shovels," she said, sitting back on the heels of her feet. At some point, she'd tied her curly hair back in a bun, though a few dark strands stuck to the sweaty skin of her neck.

Leo's eyes brightened at the thought. "We could've made a sand castle."

"Or buried you under the sand," Kit smirked.

"Buried him under the lime, you mean," Hazel chuckled, though the sound was quick to fade as she watched him -- Leo -- her expression wistful but immediately guilty as she caught Kit's gaze. "You... you are so much like--"

"Sammy?"

She fell backward in shock, putting as much space between her and Leo as possible. "You know?"

"I have no idea who Sammy is," Leo said. "But Frank asked me if I was sure that wasn't my name."

"And... it isn't?"

"No! Jeez."

Hazel tried not to show her disappointment, grimacing when Kit raised an eyebrow at her, having seen right through her. If he was to guess, Sammy was someone from Hazel's past -- as in, her past in the 1940s. According to Percy, who had told Leo who in turn had told Kit, Hazel was a ghost girl brought back to life by Nico. She had died in the 40s, existing as a spirit in the Fields of Asphodel before Nico recognised her as a daughter of Death.

And now, she was back, and she was looking at Leo like Kit presumed he looked at him. Full of an equal amount of longing and fear.

"You... you don't have a twin brother, or is your family from New Orleans?"

"Nah, Houston," Leo said. "Why? Is Sammy a guy you used to know?"

Hazel hesitated, then shook her head. Buried whatever she was thinking beneath the sand and let it go. "It's nothing. You just look like him."

And that was that. Soon, they had more than enough lime to last them. Leo eagerly stuffed it in his tool belt before standing and scanning the island. Kit did the same, stretching his taut leg muscles and wincing when one of his thighs spasmed with a cramp. He shook the feeling away as Leo began to spew information at them.

"So Festus said there was Celestial Bronze close by, but I'm not sure where--"

"It's that way," Hazel pointed up the beach knowingly. "About five hundred yards."

"... How do you--?"

"Precious metals," Hazel replied, which suddenly explained Arion's preference for gold. "It's a Pluto thing."

"Well," said Kit. "At least I know who to call if I lose my sword."

Hazel managed a small smile. She was quieter now, arms crossed over her chest as if to defend herself from Leo's vibrant smile. "That's a handy talent," he said as he stepped aside. "Well, lead the way, Miss Metal Detector. Come on, Christopher, keep up."

They walked until afternoon bled into night. As the sun dipped behind the dunes, colour leaked from the sky; soft blue faded into blood red and burnt orange dusted by peony pink. Kit swore they walked from one side of the island to the other before they found anything.

"My feet are going to fall off," he grumbled as Leo dragged him along by his hand. "I vote we head back to the ship and make this a tomorrow problem."

"Maybe Kit's right," Leo murmured despite Hazel's protests. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

But Hazel was insistent. "We're close. Come on."

Kit's lungs burned as they climbed over yet another dune. Unlike when he ran with Thalia and her Hunters, the ache of a loss of routine was prominent this time. When they got back to camp, the construction of the Argo II -- and, eventually, Leo -- captured the entirety of Kit's attention. He trained once a day for an hour with Jason -- who was reluctant at first but seemed to enjoy fighting someone who could bite back -- then left it at that. The morning runs, the hours of preparation were dead in the water, and Kit had no desire to pick them back up again.

Once more, he paid the price, huffing and puffing like the wolf who blew the little pig's house down.

"I'm sure I've got an asthma puffer in here somewhere," Leo mumbled, only somewhat kidding as he gave his tool belt an experimental shake.

Kit narrowed his eyes. "I'm good."

"You sure?" Leo raised an eyebrow. "You don't look good."

"Don't make me push you down this dune, Valdez."

At the top, the woman waited for them. Kit thought she was a trick of the light at first, but her crimson leather jacket was stark against the soft white of the lime. She sat on a boulder; this mess of dark, curly hair and smudged eyeliner. She was hunched over a hessian sack of oysters, chucking the broken shells down beside the wheels of her black-and-chrome motorcycle. For a heartstopping moment, Kit feared Ares had somehow come to him as a female.

Then Kit got closer and he saw her face.

Wrong parent.

Reality warped and peeled away to reveal the harsh lines of his mother's face. Deceiving blue eyes glittered in the gaping holes of her skull. When she smiled, her skin twisted like someone had glued it on. Her hair became a flaxen blonde dotted with grey, so unlike the eternally young age his mother died at. But it was her. Kit would know her anywhere.

As their footsteps slowed to a stop in front of her, the oysters she was shucking became fortune cookies. Kit frowned at the sight, his stomach lurching at the soft hum of his mother's voice as she cracked the fortune cookies open and read the fortunes. Whatever she read seemed to make her unhappy. She tossed the one she was holding over her shoulder and moved on to the next.

"What are you doing?" Leo frowned at her. He didn't recognise the woman, not that Kit expected him to. The only bit of his mother that Kit had left was her heart. He was her opposite in everything else.

She turned to look at Leo curiously and his breath hitched. Kit frowned, wondering if he did somehow recognise her when Leo blurted, "Aunt Rosa?"

Through the haze of confusion, it dawned on him. This wasn't his mother. Monsters may have been returning, but his mother was no monster. She was dead in the grave they buried her in and would forever stay that way. It hurt like an old wound, scabbed over but present at the back of his mind. But it made sense.

This was a God.

"Is that what you see?" she asked, frustratingly in his mother's voice despite Kit seeing the truth. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to rip his eardrums out for a moment of silence. "Interesting. And you, Hazel, dear?"

"How did you--" Hazel's face was pale in the evening light. Her hands shook as she tucked them into the pockets of her dungarees. "You look like Mrs Leer, my third grade teacher. I hated you."

This seemed to delight the woman who was not Kit's mother. "Excellent! You resented her, eh? She judged you unfairly?"

Hazel hesitated, but only for a second. The fury in her voice was unfamiliar. Kit may have only known her for a handful of days, but it sounded foreign, misplaced. It went against everything he'd been piecing together about Hazel Levesque. "You -- she taped my hands to the desk for misbehaving. She called my mother a witch! She blamed me for everything I didn't do and--" Hazel froze. Some of the vehemence in her face faltered. "No. She has to be dead. Who are you?"

Nemesis sneered. "Oh, Leo knows. How do you feel about Aunt Rosa, Mijo?"

She took a step towards Leo and relished in the emotions that passed across his face. Leo shuddered, backing up into Kit. Just as quickly, he steeled himself again and glared. "You're Nemesis," he spat. "You're the Goddess of revenge."

"You see?" Nemesis beamed at Hazel. "He recognises me."

Kit thought that would be it. She'd tell them why she was there and then move on. But then she turned to him, and suddenly the hazy sunset seemed like a murder scene. A massacre where the clouds were fallen bodies and the sun was a fire swallowing them whole.

Only blood remained.

"Don't think I've forgotten about you, Kit," Nemesis eyed him for a long moment. She tucked a blonde strand of hair behind her ear and tracked the way his throat bobbed. "Who do you see, boy? Or do you want me to guess from the heart you wear on your sleeve?"

"I see my dad," he said, a safe choice.

Safe but wrong, foolishly so.

Nemesis shook her head. "Parents. They are the root of our suffering, are they not?" When Kit didn't feed into it, she continued mercilessly. "If not your father then... your mother? Oh, look at you. You can't even hide it. Sons and their mothers. You know it's cruel to resent the dead, don't you?"

"What do you want, Nemesis?" Kit snarled, running his fingers over the blade of his sword. It steadied him, rooted him in place. He didn't resent his mother. He didn't. Nemesis was just trying to hurt him. Gods were gluttons for agony, especially ones like Nemesis.

Momentarily satiated by Kit's response, Nemesis cracked open yet another fortune cookie and sighed. She chucked it at her feet and stomped on it with her leather boots. "You will have great fortune when you least expect it. That's exactly the sort of nonsense I hate. Someone opens a cookie and suddenly they have a prophecy that they'll be rich! I blame that tramp, Tyche. Always dispensing good luck to people who don't deserve it..."

"How kind of you, Nemesis," Kit deadpanned.

Leo, who'd only just managed to tear his concerned eyes away from Kit's face, stared at the mound of broken cookies with a strange glint in his eye. "Uh... you know those aren't real prophecies, right?" Kit couldn't decide if he was struggling not to make a joke or truly trying to inform Nemesis. Either way, he shook his head at him. "They're just stuffed in the cookies at some factory--"

"Don't try to excuse it," snapped Nemesis, scandalised. Leo raised his hands in a surrendering gesture, turning to Kit as if to say can you believe this chick? Nemesis continued her somewhat deranged rambling, most of it going through one ear and out the other if Kit was being truthful. He'd never cared much about Nemesis; not before and especially not now. "It's just like Tyche to get people's hopes up. No. I must counter her."

"What are you going to do?" Kit scoffed. "Kill someone?"

Nemesis beamed. "What a brilliant idea, Kit! You will die painfully when you most expect it. There! That's much better."

"That's horrible," Hazel gasped, shooting Kit a horrified glance. In response, he just shrugged, eyeing the fortune cookie slip when Nemesis offered it to him. He backed away despite her best attempts to force it into his hands. Not today, bitches. "You'd let someone read that in their fortune cookie and it would become true?"

Nemesis sighed, scrunching up the paper in her fist. "My dear Hazel, haven't you ever wished horrible things on Mrs Leer for the way she treated you?"

"... That doesn't mean I'd want them to come true."

Nemesis cackled at the thought. "Tyche would be Fortuna for you, I suppose, being Roman. Like the others, she's in a horrible way right now. But me? I'm not affected." She seemed proud of this, sticking her nose in the air like she was looking down on Tyche herself. "I am called Nemesis in both Greek and Roman. I do not change, because revenge is universal."

But wasn't anger universal? Wasn't wear and love? Death and peace? Everything the Gods stood for, in some ways, was universal. It made no sense to Kit that some Gods kept one name and others were torn in two.

"What are you talking about?" Leo asked. He was just as confused, if not more. Like Kit, he hadn't paid much attention to anything when they got back to camp. Between making out with Kit and overseeing the Argo II, he hardly had time to sit down with Annabeth and go over the history of the Gods. "What are you doing here?"

At first, Nemesis didn't seem to hear him. She tore through fortune cookies like her fingers had a mind of their own. "Lucky numbers.... Well, that's ridiculous... and that's not even a proper fortune!"

She crushed the cookie and scattered the pieces around her feet. With one big scream at the sky, she went quiet and turned back to Leo. He stared at her with wide eyes. "To answer your question, Leo Valdez, the Gods are in terrible shape. It always happens when a civil war is brewing between you Romans and Greeks. The Olympians are torn between their two natures, called on by both sides. They become quite schizophrenic, I'm afraid. Splitting headaches. Disorientation."

"But we're not at war," Leo protested. Nemesis' head swivelled back and forth like she was enraptured by a tennis match.

Kit sighed. "Leo, did you forget the whole blowing up New Rome thing? I certainly didn't. I've got the bruises to prove it..."

Leo rounded on him with a rare frown of annoyance. "But I didn't do it on purpose."

"We know," Hazel said, her voice not unkind but... insistent. "But the Romans don't realise that. And they'll be pursuing us in retaliation."

Just the thought made Nemesis laugh in pure glee. She clapped her hands and danced on the spot, draining the defiance right out of Leo's face. He turned to Kit apologetically then, but Kit just shrugged, watching his not-mother smile, her face flushed with life. Gold ichor or human blood, he couldn't stomach seeing her like this.

"Leo, you should listen to your friends. War is coming. Gaea has seen to it, and with your help."

"Hey--"

Smiling slyly at Kit's clenched jaw, Nemesis continued as if he hadn't interrupted. "Can you guess whom the Gods blame for their predicament?"

Leo sighed dismally. "Me."

Nemesis snorted. Even Kit's lips twitched the slightest bit. "Well, don't you have a high opinion of yourself. You're just a pawn on the chessboard, Leo Valdez. I was referring to the player who set this ridiculous quest in motion, bringing the Greeks and Romans together. The Gods blame Hera -- or Juno, if you prefer!" She directed the last bit at Hazel, who'd so far remained quiet, lips pursed in disapproval. "The queen of the heavens has fled Olympus to escape the wrath of her family. Don't expect any more help from your patron!"

"Of course she did," Kit sighed, casting a rueful glance at the sky above like Hera was still up there sneering down at them. "Leo was right when he compared you to fertiliser."

"Don't bring me into this," Leo hissed; all the while, Hazel hung her head in her hands and Nemesis laughed in the background. Leo sighed and turned back to the Goddess when a gaggle of peacocks didn't immediately run up the dunes and peck Kit's eyes out. "Nemesis, why are you here?"

The age-old question.

"Why, to offer my help!"

Kit let out a snort. "Sorry," he managed to say through laughs when Nemesis frowned. "Wait... you're serious?"

"Your help," Leo echoed with the same amount of scepticism.

"Of course," said Nemesis. "I enjoy tearing down the proud and powerful, and there are none who deserve tearing down like Gaea and her giants. Still, I must warn you that I will not suffer undeserved success. Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme. True success requires sacrifice."

"Then thanks but no thanks," Kit retorted. He was fully prepared to turn back the way they'd come, reaching for Leo's hand as the boy let out a sigh. "Come on, guys. What a waste of time."

"You're lucky I don't kill you where you stand, Kit Dempsey," Nemesis snarled, blue eyes darkening to a looming shadow.

Hazel chuckled uneasily. Slowly, she moved in front of Kit. She was too short to block him from view, but the pain in her eyes made Nemesis stop. She sniffed at the air like a bloodhound, finding solace in suffering of any kind. "Sacrifice?" Hazel's voice was incredulous. "I lost my mother. I died and came back. Now my brother is missing. Isn't that enough sacrifice for you?"

Her question hung in the air as Nemesis remained silent, thoughtful.

"Right now," said Leo, hands balled into fists. He pulled back from Kit, eyeing up Nemesis like he was debating his odds in hand-to-hand combat. "All I want is some Celestial Bronze."

"Oh, that's easy," Nemesis replied, returning to her boulder beside the fortune cookie shells. "It's just over the rise. You'll find it with the sweethearts."

Kit frowned. Sweethearts? "What crack are you on?"

Nemesis indulged him with a scoff. She popped a cookie in her mouth and swallowed it, fortune be damned. Kit wondered if she'd know the line by taste alone when she said, "You'll see. Perhaps they will teach you a lesson, Hazel Levesque. Most heroes cannot escape their nature, even when given a second chance at life. Oh, and speaking of your brother, Nico? You don't have much time. Let's see." She tapped a finger on her chin as Hazel's eyes filled with dread. "It's June twenty-fifth? Yes, after today, six more days. Then he dies, along with the entire city of Rome."

"How... what--?"

"Well, shit," Kit muttered.

Now on a roll, Nemesis rounded on Leo. "And as for you, child of fire. Your worst hardships are yet to come. You will always be the outsider. You will not find a place among your brethren. Soon, you will face a problem you cannot solve, though I could help you... for a price."

Leo barely had time to speak before she moved on to Kit. The faint smell of smoke filled the air, billowing from Leo's fists just to make Nemesis' next words seem even more dramatic. "Son of Ares, you are fooling yourself. Everyone knows what you have in your heart. That anger, that resentment. It must be so heavy to carry. Everything you touch rots, but Mother Earth waits for you."

Kit wondered what side Nemesis was on, the words Mother Earth echoing over and over, drowning out the rest of her conversation with Leo and Hazel. If Nemesis' warning for Kit alarmed them, they didn't show it, but it alarmed the part of Kit that was growing weary. He tasted something sour on his tongue and realised he'd bitten down hard enough to draw blood. The last of it had drained from the sky and into Kit, red like his parentage, red like the haze in his eyes as he watched Nemesis press an unbroken fortune cookie into Leo's hands.

"If you need an answer, break this. It will solve your problem."

Leo's hand trembled as he held the fortune cookie like a bomb. "What problem?"

"You'll know when the time comes."

"No, thanks," Leo said firmly. But his hand, as though it had a mind of its own, slipped the cookie into his pocket for safe keeping.

Kit wanted to go back to the ship, but they still needed that blasted Celestial Bronze. Time was dwindling faster than any of them liked but Kit's feet, like Leo's hands, were not his. They were rooted in place, waiting for Nemesis' dismissal as she picked her way through the rest of her fortune cookies.

"You will have cause to reconsider your choices soon. Oh, I like that one. No changes needed here." She smiled at Kit, like she couldn't resist. "I suppose you would like this one, wouldn't you?"

He had to bite his tongue again, smothering down the shove it up your ass he was sure reflected on his face.

"You should know, very few Gods will be able to help you on the quest. Most are already incapacitated, and their confusion will only grow worse. One thing might bring unity to Olympus again -- an old wrong finally avenged. Ah, that would be sweet indeed, the scales finally balanced. But it will not happen unless you accept my help."

Kit was beginning to think leaving Olympus to suffer was the easier option. But wasn't that what Gaea wanted? Wasn't that what Nemesis predicted for him?

Kit's nostrils flared in frustration. The Goddess smiled knowingly.

"I suppose you won't tell us what you're talking about," Hazel scowled. "Or why my brother, Nico, has only six days to live. Or why Rome is going to be destroyed."

"Oh, it's all tied together, Hazel Levesque." At last, Nemesis stood, and Kit backed up a step, sand slipping beneath his shoes. He couldn't get away fast enough. "As for my offer, Leo Valdez, give it some thought. You're a good child. A hard worker. We could do business. But I have detained you too long. You should visit the reflecting pool before the light fades. My poor cursed boy gets quite... agitated when the darkness comes."

Kit was relieved when she didn't look his way again. Instead, she climbed onto her motorcycle -- Kit hadn't realised it at first, but there were big pie-shaped pieces missing from each wheel like pac-men heads -- and revved the engine, disappearing in a cloud of black smoke that seemed to suffocate Kit even when she was gone.

He didn't feel the weight of the fortune cookie in his pocket until Hazel reached down for one remaining slip of paper.

"You will see yourself reflected and you will have reason to despair."

Slowly, while Leo was busy grumbling and Hazel was rereading the lines, Kit reached for the cookie in his pocket. He cracked open the shell, letting the pieces fall as he soothed back the paper and read, his heart in his throat.

You will spend your whole life paying for mistakes you'll never truly learn from.