Indigo Eyes

Chapter 68

Hades.

It was Hades. He'd both broken the oath and not.

Nico hand Bianca had been his children but they were born before the oath was made, hidden away in the Lotus Casino and brought back out in time for the prophecy. And Nico had disappeared after Percy told him about his sister.

They'd scoured the woods for hours but there was no sign of Nico anywhere.

Percy refused to let them tell anyone what they'd learned about Nico. The last thing they needed was the gods fighting one another again, but this wasn't exactly something they could hide forever. But Percy just said he needed two years - he just needed two years until he was sixteen. He chose the prophecy. He wanted it to be about him and not Nico. He couldn't let Nico go through anything else and he still felt guilty for Bianca. And he also vowed to keep Luke busy, personally, so that he was too distracted to find Nico or get a hold of him.

It was things like that that made Cressida proud to call Percy Jackson her friend. Actually, she was surprised that she found herself wanting to kiss him again for that because it was both brave and stupid. But that was a feeling she buried very deep down inside her.

Grover had left soon after they reported Nico going missing to Chiron because he was playing music in the parlour and drinking coffee by the bucketload before Pan spoke to him in his mind.

I await you.

It was all the Lord of the Wild said but Grover had left instantly.

Annabeth had also decided to go back to San Francisco with her father, promising to keep an eye on Mount Tam. Percy was also leaving soon for Manhattan and another year of school. Annabeth had left the day after Grover so she could get back to the west coast and back to school. Percy decided to stay a few extra days, needing some time in his second home after everything. And it was the middle of the night when someone knocked on his cabin door.

"Wine Vine? What the hell are you doing here?" Percy asked as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his hair messy as he stood in a tank top and a pair of basketball shorts.

"Shh," she said before she reached for his hand. "Follow me."

"Whoa!" he exclaimed as she pulled him out of his cabin and towards hers. "Uh, are you trying to get me killed? If your brothers, your father or the cleaning harpies find me, I'm dead meat."

"Oh, shut up and relax," she whispered back as she led him to the side of her cabin rather than the front.

"What are we doing?"

"Gods above, for a guy who has been on three quests at the age of fourteen, your sense of adventure is abysmal," was all she said in return before Percy let out a small yelp as a grapevine that decorated the cabin reached out and wrapped around his torso and began lifting him and Cressida up onto the roof.

"Yeah, well those quests are usually never by choice and I kinda like living," Percy replied as they sat on a little ledge on the domed roof that was covered in grapevines, partially hiding them from where they now sat on what looked like a very large dog bed but it was surprisingly comfortable.

"You're no fun," she replied as she leaned back on the roof and looked up at the sky.

"Can you tell me what we're doing up here now?" Percy asked and she simply pointed up at the sky.

"We're savouring whatever moments we can before Kronos throws everything he has at us in a battle where we probably die," she answered before he leaned back on the roof next to her and stared up at Zoë's constellation.