Blood of Olympus

V-- Hazel

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V—Hazel

Hazel was worried.

And terrified, and exhausted, and about a million and one other feelings that rushed through her head and jolted through her body, but she couldn’t find the right words to voice.

But, mostly, Hazel was worried.

About a lot of things, actually—and she knew that she had right to be.

What with Gaea out for their blood (literally), and the fate of the world in their hands--

(Oh, come on! They were just teenagers! They shouldn’t have to be worrying about things like vengeful monsters and wars between bitter gods and possibly even bitterer Titans! To mortals, all of these things were myths, and nothing more—those lucky people. . . The next—mythological, of course--World War could be happening right under their noses, and they probably wouldn’t even notice.)

But to Hazel and her friends, and to all the other demigods in the world (who were, again, just mere myths to mortals), it was 110% real.

Basically, all too real. . .

And to top it off, her brother, the only family she had, was avoiding her—she just knew it.

Nico had gone with Reyna and Coach Hedge because he had volunteered to shadow-travel them, and of course, the Athena Parthenos back to Camp Half-Blood—sure—but he had also gone because he had wanted to get away from them, from the Argo II, from Hazel.

Hazel had noticed that since Jason and Nico had gone to get Diocletian’s scepter in Croatia, that something had been off. With both of them, actually, but mostly Nico.

Her brother had been even quieter than usual, and that was really saying something, because after they had freed Nico from the twin doofuses—oh, sorry, GIANTS—a voluntary word coming out of Nico’s mouth was like finding a drop of water in the driest of deserts.

In other words, Nico talking without being asked something—very rare.

He had also refused to look Hazel in the eye anymore, always seeming to be intensely concentrated in some new patch of dirt on his shoes, or that tiniest glint of light in his sword blade that only he seemed to notice.

Hazel had no idea if the others had noticed, but she definitely had. They were siblings after all, even if it wasn’t quite by blood.

When she had asked Jason what had happened, he had shifted his weight uncomfortably between his two feet, and ran a hand over the stripe of bald on his head.

 ‘Um, you should probably talk to Nico about it,’ he had told her, tentatively—as if Nico was a ticking timebomb.

 Which, he had been acting, like, recently—the smallest of things setting him off and forcing him to take refuge from high above in the Argo II’s watchmast.