Changing the Future

Chapter 79

The skull charm on my wrist turned crimson red from overuse. I'd had to pry the small piece of silver from my skin with the tip of a dagger, leaving its shape burned into my flesh.

When Hades had given me this charm to help ground me to the physical world, I knew he'd never intended for me to use my powers at the magnitude that I'd recently used them. Between making those hourglass bracelets, my fight with Apollo, and my healing session with Will, I'd burned through a considerable amount of the charm's power.

Again, I found myself cursing Zeus and the Fates for making me a goddess. While this would've taken significantly longer to accomplish as a demigod, at least I didn't have to worry about turning into smoke.

It looked like I'd have to take Hera's advice sooner rather than later.

Damn.

In any case, my burns responded well to the square of ambrosia I absentmindedly chewed on while helping Cameron organize the new shipment of equipment that had arrived an hour ago. With the incoming threat of Camp Jupiter, Chiron had ordered tons of medical supplies as well as materials for the Hephaestus, Hermes, and Hecate cabins.

Will hadn't woken up despite all the healings I'd given him over the course of the past twelve hours. According to Cameron, I'd pretty much fixed all the physical wounds, even managing to rid Will of many of the scars inflicted by Tartarus. We both knew that Will would awaken when his mind was ready.

That didn't make me any less impatient.

I was tempted to accelerate time on him like I'd done for Paul two years prior but stopped when the still slightly warm to the touch skull charm bounced against my wrist. I needed to conserve my powers of time more than any of the others.

Time was such a finicky domain that it made me want to scream ninety percent of the time. Yeah, I know, the irony wasn't lost on me. Unlike my siblings' powers, there is nothing physical about time. I can't pull time out of the air like I can water, wind, or lightning. I can't yank time from the ground like I can plants or shadows. Time is the fourth dimension and warping it to my whims is exhausting due to the fact that I have to become its conduit to push it back or forward as needed.

Even manipulating a few seconds takes an enormous amount of power. That doesn't take into account split moments of life-or-death actions or the number of people I have to affect. For example, the time spell I did at the Wolf House last December depleted me something awful. Not even shadow-traveling from New York to China ten times there and back could make me as exhausted as that moment did.

Long story short, I needed to keep the time powers on the down low unless absolutely necessary.

After finishing with Cameron, I found Chiron and Malcolm at the Big House. There, we talked strategy until lunch. True to form, I gave my brother a notebook with all the traditional battle formations of the legion and highlighted demigods and legacies that could prove the biggest threat.

Of course, I had Octavian listed as number one.

Maybe it was the result of having my abdomen sliced open so many times, but I found it hard to stomach more than a few bites of the chicken alfredo the nymphs served for lunch. I sat alone at the Poseidon table, pushing around my pasta with my fork until Clarisse, Chris, Grover, and Rachel joined me.

"So, whose neck am I wringing first?" asked Clarisse before taking a forkful of pasta.

"Octavian Bentley," I growled. I relaxed my grip on my fork before the dinner with Hades incident repeated itself. "He's a legacy of Apollo and the world's biggest pain in the ass."

"Sounds about right. Of course, it would be Apollo spawn."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"