This Cold Year ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase²

―ii. defeating victory... whatever that means

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE, Naomi and the crew sat down together for breakfast. 

Apparently Piper had woken Festus up with her charmspeak not long ago, so the dragon figurehead could run the ship all by himself now. He could navigate, check the radar, make a delicious blueberry smoothie, and spew white-hot jets of fire at invaders—simultaneously—without even blowing a circuit. 

Plus, they had Buford the Wonder Table—and his Mini-Hedge hologram—as backup. 

Naomi grimaced as Percy dumped an unhealthy amount of syrup on his stack of blue pancakes. 

"You're drowning them!" Annabeth complained. 

"Hey, I'm a Poseidon kid," Percy said. "I can't drown. And neither can my pancakes." 

"I don't think that's how that works," Naomi said. 

He made a face at her and stuffed a forkful of blue pancake in his mouth. It was immediately a bad decision, and he nearly choked. 

Annabeth just sighed and handed him a napkin. "Not to be that person, but we told you so." 

Percy narrowed his eyes as he wiped stray syrup off his chin. Just to be contrary, he grabbed the syrup again, and Annabeth made a half-hearted grab for it. 

Next to Naomi, Frank and Hazel were using their cereal bowls to flatten out a map of Greece. They looked over it, their heads close together. Every once in a while Frank's hand would cover Hazel's, just sweet and natural like an old married couple. It was equal parts nauseating and adorable (okay, maybe it was a bit more adorable).

At the head of the table, Jason sat uncomfortably with his t-shirt rolled up to his ribcage as Piper changed his bandages.

"Hold still," she said. "I know it hurts."

"It's just cold," he said. 

Naomi could hear the pain in his voice. Having been stabbed herself a few times, she knew how he felt. That stupid gladius had pierced him all the way through. The entrance wound on his back was an ugly shade of purple and it steamed—not a good sign. 

Naomi swallowed the unsteady feeling she hadn't been able to shake since Annabeth and Piper brought him back from Ithaca. She shared a brief look with Hazel, but neither said anything.

Naomi couldn't quite explain what feeling Jason was giving her. While her shadow-powers had disappeared, her death-sense was (unfortunately) fully intact. When she looked at Jason, she felt something—but it was unfamiliar and fragmented, like Thanatos hadn't made his mind up yet on whether or not to take him away. Or, maybe, Jason hadn't made his mind up on whether or not he was ready to go. 

All Naomi knew was that Jason felt close to death, in one way or another—and she couldn't stand the idea of losing anyone else. 

We're at war, remember? she scolded herself. Who's to say any of us will make it out alive?

There was that stupid voice in her head, too—because, alongside trauma and nightmares and the empty feeling of once hosting a god who's since faded into nothing, Tartarus had given her pessimism, too. 

And none of those gifts came with receipts.

"What's up, guys?" Leo strolled into the mess hall. "Aw, yes to brownies!"

He grabbed the last one—from a special sea-salt recipe they'd picked up from Aphros the fish centaur at the bottom of the Atlantic. 

The intercom crackled. Buford's Mini-Hedge yelled over the speakers, "PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"