𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐄 - j. grace, ocxoc ¹ ✓

v. you snooze, you lose !

V.      JASON GRACE   !
⋆ ★
you snooze, you lose

Kaen put Piper on the couch while Annabeth rushed down the hall to get a med kit. Piper was still breathing, but she wouldn't wake up. She seemed to be in some kind of coma.

"We've got to heal her," Jason insisted. "There's a way, right?"

Seeing her so pale, barely breathing, Jason felt a surge of protectiveness. Maybe he didn't really know her. Maybe she wasn't his girlfriend. But they'd survived the Grand Canyon together. They'd come all this way. He'd left her side for a little while, and this had happened.

Chiron put his hand on her forehead and grimaced. "Her mind is in a fragile state. Rachel, what happened?"

"I wish I knew," the redhead said — who had previously introduced herself as Rachel. "As soon as I got to camp, I had a premonition about Hera's cabin. I went inside. Annabeth, Delilah, and Piper came in while I was there. We talked, and then—I just blanked out. Annabeth said I spoke in a different voice."

"A prophecy?" Chiron asked.

"No. The spirit of Delphi comes from within. I know how that feels. This was like long distance, a power trying to speak through me."

Annabeth ran in with a leather pouch. She knelt next to Piper. "Chiron, what happened back there—I've never seen anything like it. I've heard Rachel's prophecy voice. This was different. She sounded like an older woman. She grabbed Piper's shoulders and told her—"

"To free her from a prison?" Jason guessed.

Delilah stared at him. She quickly folded over her arms over her chest and Jason had the feeling her hands were shaking from nerves. "But how can you know that?"

Chiron made a three-fingered gesture over his heart, like a ward against evil. "Jason, tell them. Kaori, grab the medicine bag."

Kaori trickled drops from a medicine vial into Piper's mouth while Jason explained what had happened when the room froze—the dark misty woman who had claimed to be Jason's patron. He watched Kaori handle herbs with such carefulness, almost as if they would explode if she messed them up. She mumbled something in Japanese and Kaen responded quickly before Jason could continue. When he was done, no one spoke, which made him more anxious.

"So does this happen often?" he asked. "Supernatural phone calls from convicts demanding you bust them out of jail?"

"Your patron," Annabeth said. "Not your godly parent?"

"No; she said patron. She also said my dad had given her my life."

Annabeth frowned. "I've never heard anything like that before."

"Wait a minute," Kaen raised his finger as a thought came to him. "You said the storm spirit on the skywalk— that you claimed to be working for some mistress who was giving him orders, right? Could it be this woman you saw? What if she's just messing with you?"

"I don't think so," Jason said. "If she were my enemy, why would she be asking for my help? She's imprisoned. She's worried about some enemy getting more powerful. Something about a king rising from the earth on the solstice—"

Annabeth turned to Chiron. "Not Kronos. Please tell me it's not that."

The centaur looked miserable. He held Piper's wrist, checking her pulse. At last he said, "It is not Kronos. That threat has ended. But . . ."

"But what?" Annabeth asked.

Kaori closed the medicine bag and stood up. She said something to Kaen which he translated. "She's okay but she needs rest. It's best we leave."