Book 2: Oaths and Victories.

Chapter 15: Ticking clock.

Y'all the Valdangelo discord is actually so great, you get to hear me ramble about the thousand au's that live in my head rent free. You also get to see stuff like "Small Blessings" and "i segrenti che conservamo" in their development stage.

Μηδεν

The flight back is tense.

Everyone's exhausted from their time in Europe, everyone's dreading their return back to camp, dreading what they'll find.

Leo pushes regardless, steady and constant behind the helm. He doesn't leave it, eyes darkening, body swaying, he can't afford to.

The others bustle about, keeping busy, trying not to snap.

The flight back is long.

Sun setting and rising around them.

But it's also quiet.

And maybe that's worse.

There's nothing to stope them, yes, but there' also nothing to distract them.

Nothing to force them to slow and recover.

The Argo II marches ever forward, never changing course.

Time running against it, rushing, impossible to catch.

But they press on regardless.

A battle awaits them.

Ρέινα

If you're reading this, it means that I've finally found the way to track you down and give you the notebooks, gods know I was too late for the first two.

You have to understand, my visions don't really work as such, I'm not seeing actual images, just ideas in my head that take more than one run to make sense of. That's what the notebooks were for, actually, so I could make sense of what I was dreaming.

That's the other thing you should know, it took forever for me to figure out they weren't just fucked up dreams I was having, a byproduct of my endlessly shitty life. And when I saw you, real and breathing, talking about the things I'd written, it was like waking up.

The world's changed a lot since then, and I like to think I've changed too, somewhat.

I'm not, I never was good at this sort of thing, I probably never will be. But it's easy with you.

It really, really is.

The last th-

It continues as a stretched-out line, as though Leo had been snatched while writing it, yet, despite that, the rest of the notebook is filled. Newspaper cuttings, mentions of freak weather changes seen in tv screens at electronic shops, anything and everything Leo had thought to be relevant.

There are more drawings, sketches of different inventions that might have been useful and how they would work, projects that never saw the light of day. And some that did, pieces she'd seen half-finished in the engine room when she'd wandered in during a sleepless night.

And there are meetings between Leo and various beings that got trapped in Delta's walls, about how he discovers the pattern. Maps detailing numerous areas on the labyrinth, which hallways to avoid, and which are not yet explored.

Somehow, perhaps on purpose, every unexplored turn leads to an area Nico's familiar with, almost like matching halves. And that combination leads them surely, quickly, and mostly safely, to the entrance that leads to Camp Half-Blood.

She knows there's a second notebook, but Nico keeps it to himself, safe within his new bag, he wonders what exactly could be in there that he'd be so reluctant to show her when he'd been willing to share this one.

But as they surface to a forest taken by Roman soldiers advancing on Camp Half-Blood, she realizes that question will have to wait. First, there's a certain augur she needs to punch in the face.