Arrival of the Ghost King [PJO x HP]

XIII: A Bunch of Tiles Freak Out Emily

Emily felt herself drop onto something hard that felt smooth under her fingers.

"I'll tell the Head Auror personally," Emily heard one of the Aurors say. "Your services are no longer needed. Return to your offices."

She heard three simultaneous cracks as the Aurors appareted away, and she got to her knees, slightly trembling at the sight before her.

Emily was in a large room about the size of the Great Hall, though not as tall. Every inch in the room was covered in dark blue tiles, and there were no windows or doors or furniture. Despite there being no light source, Emily could see each tile perfectly in its awful glory.

She had heard of this room before. There were rumors, rumors of a terrible room, known as the Staying Room, where Aurors would drop off the prey that they had caught. Some said it was worse than Azkaban, because at least in Azkaban you were still connected to the real world. In the Staying Room, time became indifferent. You could spend an eternity in there, because a year in the real world was a thousand in the Staying Room.

Emily curled into a ball. She couldn't stay an eternity here. She was a do-er person, and always had to be preoccupied with something to be happy. The thought of the world moving on and not even given a slightest thought of all her achievements was maddening.

And what of her fiancé? She had barely given him any thought since the chaos of Nico arriving. She was so frantically looking for any news of Nico just this morning, she had skipped over his letters, which were no doubt worried since she hadn't written to him in so long. Would he, sensing that something was wrong, come and save her?

Of course not, the voice of her older sister penetrated her mind. You can't trust love.

Emily's older sister, Bella, was the former counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, and hated her job profusely. Bella loved all her siblings and spoiled them rotten, but she was cold and bitter. They always had to be careful when she was in one of her "moods", walking on their tiptoes, being careful. At first, Bella's moods were rare: one might have happened during the anniversary of her father's death, and that would be it for the year. But then they increased, and one day, her siblings, tired and exhausted, booted Bella out from the cabin.

In her anger, Bella went to Nemesis for revenge. Bella told Nemesis that she wanted her siblings to feel the same exclusion as they had placed on her, and Nemesis agreed, but at a price: Bella would have to serve her for all eternity. Bella signed the contract without skipping a beat.

And as Bella became Nemesis' immortal enforcer, the curse began to take hold of the Aphrodite cabin. People stopped coming to them for advice. Couples broke up. Soon enough, the Aphrodite cabin was ridiculed and berated by the rest of Camp Half-Blood. They weren't allowed on the field trips to Olympus, facing the risk of embarrassment from their godly aunts and uncles. On every night of the anniversary Bella signed the contract, a note appeared in Bella's writing.

On the first year, it read, "To break your curse, you need to pass a test. Will you accept your sibling, even if her secrets are forbidden ones?"

On the second anniversary, another note appeared, reading, "Will you keep her secret a secret, if you find the truth?"

A year later: "Will you come to her aid, when she most needs it?"

And on the fourth year: "It will come, your test. Be ready." Those words were the same for the next five anniversaries.

On the tenth anniversary, the most recent note read, "The time of your test is approaching."

Since that day, tensions rose in the Aphrodite cabin, stressing about the soon-coming test. Luckily, Emily was away in the UK most of the time, and did not have to worry too much with the almost prophecy-like predictions in the notes, or interrogating her siblings to find what the "forbidden secret" was.