𝑨𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑺 • 𝑃𝐸𝑅𝐶𝑌 𝐽𝐴𝐶𝐾𝑆𝑂𝑁 ²

ONE

CHAPTER ONE
—dumb brothers

🗡🗡🗡

  —LET it be known, Judith absolutely loathed boring meetings. She literally traded out a fun-filled summer of playing video games and eating junk food in the comfort of her own home with dreadful camp meetings. If she had known that this would be how she spent the summer before her sophomore year of high school, she wouldn't have decided to come. She'd really rather gouge her eyes out with a pencil than listen to Clarisse repeat things she'd already heard over and over with increasing conviction. Judith cared for Clarisse, but she could only take so much prattling from her.

  And frankly, the fact that Luke was trying to use the Labyrinth to his advantage when trying to invade the camp was a bit far-fetched. From what Judith's gathered, the maze was impossible to navigate. — But Ariadne's string! Annabeth insisted repeatedly, as if that would convince Judith that she should be convinced or scared.

One upside might be that Quintus, one of the new camp instructors while Dionysus was away, would pick up a random game of Rock Paper Scissors with her whenever the conversation got extremely dull. Judith never wanted Mr. D to come back, this new guy actually knew what fun was ( and he was positively lethal with a sword which was a total plus in her book ).

The short meeting around the small ping pong table finally concluded as Judith pointed at the clock, saying, "We're going to miss Grover's hearing at this rate."

Annabeth and Clarisse sighed, knowing they'd gotten no where in the span of an hour. Clarisse clenched her fists and was the first to stalk out the door and into the forest. Judith followed behind and walked beside Annabeth.

"She's changed so much," Judith said off-handedly, but the truth was, she kind of missed the old Clarisse. She was stressed out all the time and never stopped thinking about the Labyrinth that she'd been in last winter on her secret mission.

Annabeth tilted her head back and forth. "I've noticed. I think she's still rattled by the things she saw, and you know —"

"— Chris, I know," Judith finished. Clarisse didn't speak about him often, but when she did, she had an entirely different expression and a glazed sheen in her eyes.

Soon, the two approached the clearing where satyrs and nymphs were gathered anxiously. There was a small audience of campers, but it was mainly the few from the Demeter cabin as they wanted to hear more about Pan.

Clarisse was standing by a sniffling Juniper, which was a surprise to Judith, but of course, she had to remember this was a new Clarisse, one who had grown a sensitive bone in such a short time. Annabeth wove her arm around the dryad easily to console her obvious dismay.

"It's going terribly!" Juniper whispered as they stared at the Council of Cloven Elders.

"The elders are dumb if they don't believe Grover," Judith muttered, careful to keep her volume below the discussion going on in the middle of the circle, though she could care less if one of them heard. From what she'd heard from Grover, they were an awful bunch.

"He'll be fine, Juniper," Annabeth said with a more comforting approach than Judith took.

"Master Underwood!" the council member to Grover's right intervened, gaining everyone's attention. "Do you seriously expect us to believe this?"