▃▃▃ ᴅᴏɴᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ʜᴇʀ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴏꜰ ɪɴɴᴏᴄᴇɴᴄᴇ ꜰᴏᴏʟ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱʜᴇ ɪꜱ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ʙᴀᴅ-ᴊ ɪʀᴏɴ ᴡᴏʀᴅ
▃▃ ʙᴏᴏᴋ 1 ▃▃ In which the only daughter of Persephone sneaks on a quest to see the world for the first time since she's been at camp. The daughter of wisdom...
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𖥔 ݁ ˖ ⭑ ‧₊˚ ⋅ જ⁀➴๋࣭ ⭑๋࣭ ⭑
I tried talking to Annabeth, but it felt like trying to hold a conversation with a thundercloud. She wouldn't meet my eyes. Her expression was stormy, tight around the mouth, like I'd just punched her grandmother and said, 'What? She started it.'
All I got out of her was that her spring break in San Francisco had been monster-infested, she'd come back to camp twice since Christmas but wouldn't say why (which kind of ticked me off, because she hadn't even told me she was in New York), and that she'd learned nothing new about Nico di Angelo.
"Any word on Luke?" I asked.
She shook her head. Her jaw clenched like I'd struck a nerve. Annabeth had always admired Luke. Even after everything, she couldn't seem to let that go. When we fought him on Mount Tamalpais last winter, he somehow survived a fifty-foot drop off a cliff. Since then, he'd been sailing around on his demon cruise ship, while Kronos re-formed piece by piece in a golden sarcophagus.
In demigod terms? Major problem.
"Mount Tam's crawling with monsters," Annabeth muttered. "I didn't go near it. But... I don't think Luke's there. I think I'd know."
That didn't make me feel any better. "What about Grover?"
"He's at camp. We'll see him today."
"Any luck finding Pan?"
Annabeth ran her fingers along her camp necklace, her lips pressed tight. "You'll see."
She didn't explain.
We hit a long patch of silence. Brooklyn melted into countryside. I stared at the number Rachel Elizabeth Dare had scribbled on my hand and wondered if she'd seen what I'd seen back at Goode. The empousa. The fire. The warning about camp burning. My friends imprisoned.
And then, because it had been gnawing at me the whole ride, I said, "They still haven't found her?"
Annabeth's breath hitched. She looked out the window so fast, I almost didn't see it—the way her eyes glassed over.
"Elara," I said. "She could still be out there."
"She's not," Annabeth whispered.
I didn't know what to say. No one had found her—not a trace, not a rumor. It had been months since she vanished after the funeral. Some said she'd been captured. Some said she ran. Some swore she was dead.
But no one knew for sure.
"She's our best friend," Annabeth said quietly. "And I wasn't there."
