Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

London, in the early breath of spring, had a rhythm all its own  a heartbeat that pulsed through the cobblestone streets and echoed against the towering facades of townhouses gilded with ivy and pride. The city had not yet warmed, not truly, but the promise of warmth hovered in the air, like an old friend returning after a long voyage.

Around the Queen’s land, where the carriages moved in perfectly rehearsed chaos and the ladies of the ton fluttered in silk and lace, the streets were alive with the anticipation of the upcoming season. Ribbons swayed from shop windows in pale blue and gold, and flower girls carried baskets brimming with blooms not quite in season but forced to blossom, all for the sake of appearance.

In a kingdom where tradition wove through the streets like ivy over stone, spring came with ribbons in every window and lace at every cuff. 

It was the season of presentation—when girls adorned in gauze and high hopes fluttered along the avenues like butterflies too delicate for flight. The streets of London had awakened early that morning, dressed in blush and lavender, and pulsed with the expectant hearts of those about to be seen for the first time.

Annabeth Chase walked quietly among them, a soft figure in charcoal grey, her steps steady where others danced with anticipation. The hems of silk gowns skimmed cobblestones beside her. Fans snapped open like little wings. Mothers whispered reminders through clenched smiles, fixing posture, correcting expressions, gently folding ambition behind manners. And daughters—so many daughters—clutched parasols and promises, each one hoping this would be the year she’d find a name to tether her to the world.

She did not look down upon them. She had no disdain for the sparkle in their eyes, the careful curls or the rush of desire for romance, fortune, companionship. But Annabeth did not partake in it, either. She could admire the shimmer of taffeta without longing to wear it. She could appreciate the choreography of courtship and still not wish to be one of the  dancers. There was a chasm between them, invisible but certain—wider than a river, and she had never minded standing on its far bank.

A carriage passed, horses clattering and laughter echoing from within the cabin. Bells rang in the distance. The city stirred like a dream on the edge of waking.

Annabeth adjusted the strap of her satchel—leather-bound, worn smooth by years of books and folded sketches—and turned down a quieter street. Her pace never faltered, though the voices around her faded. She was headed, as always, to the quiet sanctuary of knowledge: a library tucked between cafés and the scent of fresh bread, where the windows were always a little fogged and the tables always sun-warmed. Her thoughts bloomed not with dances and rings, but with columns and staircases, with domes that defied gravity and arches that caught the sky like a secret.

Love, she thought distantly, was for others. For those who had been raised to chase it. For those whose brilliance was measured in beauty and charm, not in ink-stained fingers and sleepless nights spent dreaming of vaulted ceilings.

And yet.

Even the finest foundations could tremble beneath an unexpected touch.

The Chase residence sat at the edge of the city like a scholar at the edge of a ballroom—imposing, aloof, and unbothered by ceremony. Its gardens were meticulously trimmed, not for leisure, but to reflect precision. Even the ivy climbed with discipline, never sprawling where it wasn’t allowed.

Annabeth entered without ceremony. No maid greeted her, no laughter spilled from the parlors. The house was quiet, as it always was, and cool despite the spring sun, as though intellect had chased warmth away from its halls long ago.

She did not go to her room. Not yet.

Her steps turned instinctively to the study. Her mother’s study.

The door stood open, as it always did when Athena Chase permitted herself to be disturbed—which was rarely. The room was a cathedral of books, floor to ceiling, all spines aligned, the scent of paper and dust thick in the air like incense. Tall windows stretched upward, but the curtains were drawn against distraction. The hearth was unlit, the armchair stiff-backed, the desk drowning in neatly stacked correspondence and annotated journals.

Athena herself sat at the center of it all like the bust of a Roman empress—still, sharp, and undeniably powerful. Her hair, streaked with silver, was bound tightly. Her pen moved quickly over parchment, and only after the scratching ceased did she lift her eyes.

“You are late,” she said. Not cruelly, not coldly—simply a fact to be acknowledged. Like weather.

“I stayed longer at the archives,” Annabeth replied, stepping lightly into the room.

Athena hummed. Her gaze returned to the page. 

“Did you find the Palladian drawings?”

“Yes. And more. There is a French translation of Vitruvius I had not yet seen.”

Athena hummed.

“Then the detour was acceptable.”

Annabeth drifted further in. The study had never felt like a place for her, and yet it was the room that most resembled her soul. Orderly, cerebral, quiet. Except that where her mother had built fortresses of logic, Annabeth had always left room for wonder.

“I walked past Grosvenor Street,” she said, carefully.

“Did you.” Athena’s voice held neither curiosity nor disapproval. It was a blank ledger, waiting to be filled.

“The season has begun.”

A pause. Athena set down her pen.

“I do not suppose you were foolish enough to feel regret?”

Annabeth’s throat tightened, though she had no intention of giving that feeling shape.

“No, Mother.”

“Good.” Athena folded her hands atop the desk. “We did not prepare your mind for marriage. We did not sacrifice time and effort and brilliance so you might throw it all away in the pursuit of a name or a nursery.”

“I know,” Annabeth said. And she did. Every syllable of that belief had been stitched into the lining of her childhood.

There was silence then—one heavy with purpose. Athena regarded her daughter with a sharpness that could cut through marble.

“I assume,” she said, “you noticed the crowding this year. The foolish little flocks in tulle and lace, fluttering like birds too eager to be caged.”

“I did.”

Athena leaned back, her fingers steepled. 

“They say it is because he has returned.”

Annabeth blinked. 

“I beg your pardon, Mother,” she tilted her head. “Who are you referring to?”

“ Mr. Jackson, ” Athena said, with such disdain in the pause that followed the name that it might have belonged to a criminal or a clown. “The heir to Lord Jackson’s fortune and favor. He is expected to make an appearance at one of the coming balls, no doubt to appease the ton and indulge in their rather desperate hopes.”

Annabeth said nothing, quite unfazed by the news. It was quite a random topic for her mother to be so bothered by, and she could not quite comprehend the reason for such — the Jacksons were the most influential family in the ton, that much was true, but they were not known to have any impending ill towards any other family.

“I have no doubt his return has prompted a sudden interest in embroidery and batting eyelashes among the young women who would not have cared for either last month,” Athena continued.

Her tone was smooth as silk and sharper than broken glass. She made no move to smirk, nor to roll her eyes; such gestures would be too emotional, too human. But the contempt was there, gleaming behind every syllable.

“I did not know he had been away,” Annabeth chose to say to continue the conversation her mother was interested in.

“Because you do not waste time on gossip.” Athena’s approval was cool and concise. “A boy of middling education, bred for war and wealth. Sent away to ‘see the world,’ as his father called it, though I doubt he saw much of anything that could not be bought.”

A pause. Her mother scowl was very much still present, and she could not know whether or not to be slightly scared of it.

“I suppose they will crown him the darling of the season, now that he has returned. An air-headed catch with pockets deeper than the Channel and half the wit,” her voice dropped, eyes glinting. “They will call it charm. It is always charming when the man is rich enough.”

Annabeth watched her mother. There was something deeper in that scorn—something nearly personal.

“Do you know him?” she asked quietly.

“I have no need to know the son when I have long known the father,” Mrs. Chase said nothing more, but her pen resumed its journey across the paper, swift and certain.

Annabeth hesitated. 

“What is it about them that you dislike?”

Athena did not answer at once. Her pen scratched on.

“They are admired,” she said finally. “For the wrong reasons. For legacy, for lineage. For possessing rather than achieving. That family has always been more spectacle than substance. It offends me.”

It was the closest thing to confession her mother had ever uttered, she believed.

Annabeth nodded, though she wasn’t sure she agreed. Or rather, she was not sure she had not once read about Lord Jackson’s patronage of scholars, or his efforts to restore ancient ruins abroad, or the vast library rumored to stretch through the estate in wings. But she said nothing.

The Chase family did not openly quarrel with power. They simply chose not to need it.

Her mother’s voice came again, quieter, but still cool. 

“Stay away from them, Annabeth. The Jackson name burns hot and bright. And such fires consume. Especially bright minds.”

Annabeth did not reply. She looked instead to the shelves, to the world of ideas and lines and foundations. 

She wondered, distantly, if fire might not also illuminate.

The reading room smelled of dust and lavender, old paper and cracked leather. It was the quietest wing of the Chase household, though never the coldest — for in its stillness lived the warmth of two minds who had always found one another. The chairs were deep and overstuffed, the hearth was always lit, and the tall windows let in an honest light, softened by sheer curtains that breathed with the wind.

Thalia Grace sat perched sideways in one of the chairs, boots unlaced and dangling off the armrest like she had declared war on posture and won. Her dark curls were pulled back with no precision, and a forgotten book rested open on her lap, though she had not turned a page in several minutes.

“You know they are all calling it the season of the century, ” she said, tone laced with disdain and theatricality. “Every dressmaker from here to York has been commissioned within an inch of her sanity. Apparently, there is talk of silks imported from the East. ” Thalia waved her hand as if to shoo away the very notion. “Because clearly, lace from London cannot possibly ensnare a man.”

Annabeth had first met Thalia Grace on a sunless day, all wind and wild clouds, when she was but eight and already too serious for her age. Her governess had fallen ill, her parents were abroad at some academic conference or political affair — Annabeth never quite remembered which — and she had been sent to the small estate on the edge of the city to stay with a cousin. It was there, wandering the back garden with a book nearly too heavy for her arms, that she saw a girl climb a tree barefoot, like a storm given skin and laughter.

Thalia had been bold from the very first moment. With twigs in her dark curls and grass stains on her hem, she had peered down at Annabeth and declared, “ That book looks awful. Come climb .”

It had been the beginning of everything.

Their families were not quite friends, nor foes — the Graces had long been considered odd, their wealth old but modest, their connections uncertain, and their matriarch a widow who spoke too freely about love lost and men undeserving. Athena Chase found them exhausting, and Frederick barely acknowledged their existence. 

But Annabeth… Annabeth had never known anyone like Thalia.

As they grew, they carved out a world all their own. Summers were spent arguing over poetry and revolutions, winters curled up near the fire with maps spread between them, dreaming of cities they would never see. They learned to braid one another’s hair with hands still clumsy from childhood, and later learned how to sharpen their wit like blades. 

If Thalia railed against the world, Annabeth was the one who carefully rewrote its blueprints.

They were sisters by choice, comrades in thought, co-conspirators in the art of defiance. While the rest of society pressed them to soften, to smile, to shrink — they pressed back. Together.

Thalia spoke of marriage with disdain — not because she did not understand love, but because she had seen what it could do when wielded like a weapon. Her mother, once a radiant figure in society, had withered under the weight of an unrequited love, a ghost of a man who had promised nothing and still took everything. 

Thalia had been forged in the ruins of that sorrow, and she would not be felled by the same.

Annabeth, quieter in her revolt, never mocked the institution, but she did not dream of it either. Not in the way others did. Her days were filled with books, drafts, studies, and sketches — her thoughts shaped in arches and columns, not veils and vows. 

Still, when Thalia raged, Annabeth listened. And when Annabeth feared — truly feared — Thalia stood beside her like a shield.

There were few constants in Annabeth’s life. The library’s quiet, the certainty of ink on her hands, and Thalia’s presence — sharp as thunder, steady as stone.

They had grown up together, not in the traditional sense, but in the way two girls learn the weight of womanhood before they’ve finished becoming one. Their friendship had always existed in the spaces that others found frivolous — hushed corners of reading rooms, stolen hours in greenhouses, laughter muffled beneath shared blankets and dreams. While other girls spoke of ruffles and ribbons, Thalia and Annabeth debated ideas, tore through books like soldiers through enemy lines, and built a world between them where their voices mattered.

Thalia was fire where Annabeth was glass — equally strong, but with different edges. She did not ask to be heard, she demanded it, and Annabeth had always admired that. Not many dared to look the world in the eye and call it cruel. Thalia did. Often. She had once told Annabeth that love was a dangerous game, and that no woman ought to place her mind in a man’s hands. She said it bitterly — not with the detachment of theory, but with the heat of memory.

Annabeth never asked about it. She never needed to.

They understood one another without translation. When Annabeth grew too quiet, Thalia filled the silence with certainty. And when Thalia grew too loud, Annabeth offered her a place to rest.

In all the madness of the world — the parties, the expectations, the polished masks of society — their friendship had remained untouched. Honest. Raw. A rare, precious thing not sculpted to please the ton, but forged in the private furnace of trust.

Annabeth, curled into her own chair with a sketchbook open across her knees, smiled.

“Silks may catch husbands. I only need my pencils to catch shadows,” she said, only because she knew it would lift her friend’s spirits to have some agreement on the matter.

Thalia grinned at that, but her expression quickly shifted, as it always did when the topic returned to society’s favorite game.

“I do wish they would stop acting like marriage is a race and we are all horses,” she leaned forward. “Or worse, cows to be bartered for land and last names.”

Annabeth snorted at her friend.

“You sound more impassioned than usual,” Annabeth said softly, though not without fondness. “Did something happen?”

Thalia’s smile was crooked and bitter. 

“Lady Epsom suggested I might be cured if I met a charming enough suitor.”

Annabeth’s breath caught. 

“ Oh , Thalia.”

“I know,” she leaned her head back against the wing of the chair. “I told her I would sooner marry a stack of bricks. Bricks, at least, stay silent.”

A pause. Then a quiet chuckle between them — one born not of delight, but survival. The way girls often laugh when anger burns too hot to hold alone.

“I am sorry,” Annabeth said.

“Oh, there is no need to be,” Thalia turned toward her. “I know I shall never wear a white dress or dance in a golden hall or be admired for my beauty. I know I shall never be picked. But I would rather that — a thousand times over — than be owned.”

Annabeth nodded. 

“I do not want to be owned either.”

“You do not have to want it,” Thalia said, more gently. “But I do worry they shall find a way to chain you, all the same.”

Another pause.

“It is different with you,” Thalia went on, “because you could play the game if you wished. You are quiet. Graceful. The way they like. You have a softness that lets you pass. But that makes it all the more dangerous.”

Annabeth’s heart tensed at that — not because it was untrue, but because Thalia saw through her in ways even Athena never could.

“I won’t play it,” she said. “I do not intend to. I never did.”

Thalia watched her closely, then nodded. 

“Good,” she sighed. “I passed three carriages on the way here. All painted up, full of girls fluttering fans and mothers pretending not to panic. If one more person calls this season particularly promising , I might take up piracy.”

Annabeth smiled softly, her thumb stroking the book’s worn spine. 

“You would not last a week on a ship.”

“Oh, I would,” Thalia returned, eyes gleaming. “I would be captain by the end of it.”

“Then what would become of me?”

“You would be the cartographer, naturally. Or the voice of reason. Though neither is particularly useful when stealing treasure.”

They exchanged a grin — not wide, but familiar. The kind built over years.

Thalia flopped into the chair across from her, graceless and content. 

“Have you heard?” she asked.

Annabeth hummed.

“What about?”

“ Mr. Jackson. ” Thalia made the name sound like an insult. “Returned from the sea or the grave or wherever men disappear to when they have had too much freedom and too little supervision.”

Annabeth smiled despite herself. 

“Yes, I have heard. Mother mentioned it this morning.”

“Of course she did,” Thalia muttered. “Every mother in the kingdom is likely planning her daughters’ entire lives around the man's proximity. They say he is unusually handsome. And well-read. And mysterious. ”

She rolled her eyes so hard it might have given her a headache.

“Sounds dangerous,” Annabeth offered.

“Oh, entirely,” Thalia said. “No one knows him, not truly. I have never seen him at a single gathering. Rumor has it he lives like a ghost in his family’s estate, only emerging to climb cliffs or visit old ruins. Or perhaps just to inspire bad poetry and worse choices.”

Annabeth looked down at her sketchbook.

“Well, at least he climbs,” she said quietly. “And knows how to write.”

Thalia snorted. 

“You are impossible.”

“And you are dramatic.”

“Would you have it any other way?”

Annabeth smiled. 

“Never.”

The fire crackled. Beyond the windows, the sun began to dip lower, turning the study walls golden. And within the warmth of the room, among books and wit and a shared refusal to yield, the world outside could be whatever it pleased.

They, in here, would remain their own. The world could waltz and whirl outside, throwing names and gowns and heirlooms into the air like confetti, but here — in the four walls lined with stories and spines and sunlight — Thalia and Annabeth were simply themselves.

Thalia stood, stretching her arms above her head with a satisfied groan, then turned to one of the shelves. 

“You still have that dreadful essay to finish?”

“I am halfway through,” Annabeth replied, though her voice lacked commitment. “And it is not dreadful. Just—dense.”

“You should have let me write it for you.”

Annabeth gave her a look. 

“Then I would have had to rewrite it entirely to remove the commentary on imperialism in stairwell structures.”

Thalia smirked, tugging a volume off the shelf. 

“Only some stairwells. Do not be dramatic.”

Annabeth leaned back, allowing the sun to warm her cheek. 

“You would make a wonderful politician. Or pirate. I have not decided.”

“Neither have I,” Thalia replied. She crossed back and dropped into the armchair across from her friend, turning the pages of her book without urgency. “But I do know one thing.”

“And what is that?”

“If that Jackson boy truly has returned, he best stay out of my way.”

Annabeth arched a brow. 

“Planning a duel?”

“No,” Thalia said, mock serious. “Just hoping he does not begin reciting poetry or proclaiming himself a misunderstood soul in the middle of a ballroom. That type of man  always does.”

Annabeth laughed, a soft, real thing that made Thalia glance up and smile despite herself.

They fell into another easy silence, broken only by the rustling of pages and the distant call of a bird outside. The kind of silence only old friends can share — the kind that doesn’t press for words, but welcomes them all the same.

“You seem oddly interested in this Mr. Jackson, Thalia,” Annabeth decided to accuse playfully. “Are you sure it is loathing that coats your talking?”

Her friend, as she had expected, gasped in horror.

“How dare you?” she spoke, her voice loud and high-pitched. “Take that back!”

“Whatever did I say to offend you so?” Annabeth asked, her voice laced with jest. “I have merely stated that, out of every lady that could possibly speak of him, you seem one of the most—”

Thalia was quick to approach Annabeth and cover her friend’s mouth with her hand, brows furrowed and clear offense on her face. Annabeth bit her tongue, smiling.

“Do not continue speaking,” she said, menacing, and Annabeth could not help but laugh.

Loud, clear, and just a bit muffled until Thalia plopped herself beside Annabeth, huffing angrily.

Annabeth looked toward her friend, her dearest constant in a world determined to shift under her feet.

“I am glad you are here,” she said softly.

Thalia did not look up, but her voice was sincere. 

“I always will be.”

The morning was brittle with frost, though the sky had begun to clear, painting pale gold streaks across the glass panes of the breakfast room. Annabeth sat alone at the table, a book open beside her plate, though she had read the same line thrice without processing a single word. The quiet in the house was not peaceful — it was the kind that followed a storm, or worse, warned of one yet to come.

Her father entered the room with the sound of polished boots against marble, not hasty but not leisurely either. Frederick Chase was a man of angles and silences, whose presence often felt like the settling of cold dust. He nodded once in her direction, which was all the affection he ever offered, and poured himself a cup of tea.

“You are up early,” Annabeth remarked, a practiced courtesy.

“Business,” he replied, as if that explained everything. And perhaps to him, it did.

They sat in strained quiet for a few moments more. The only sounds were the clink of silver against porcelain, the shifting of paper as he unfolded the day’s correspondence.

Then, without looking up, he said, 

“There are rumors the Jackson boy has returned.”

Annabeth blinked, brows lifting.

Again, the same subject. How wonderful.

“Yes. I have heard.”

Frederick sipped his tea. 

“They say he is unmarried.”

Annabeth turned a page in her book, slowly. She did not like, in the slightest, wherever that conversation would go.

“So are a thousand others,” she opted to say, her tone still uninterested and collected.

“Not with his name,” her father said.

There it was. 

No preamble. No softness.

“Why is everyone so interested in this man?” she asked, her voice as level as she could keep it. “No one even knows him.”

Her father scoffed.

“That is precisely why they are interested,” he said, finally meeting her eyes. “Mystery sells. And in this world, so do names.”

A long pause stretched between them. Annabeth swallowed her response. She knew better than to argue with a man who had long stopped seeing her as anything but a ledger entry in a very well-kept book.

“I have no intention of marrying for status,” she said calmly. “Or marrying at all. You know that.”

Frederick set down his cup with a quiet clink. 

“Intentions change. Especially when the right offer appears.”

She narrowed her gaze. 

“And if it does not?”

He shrugged. 

“Then you become an expense. A curious, educated, unmarried woman with no house of her own and no husband to carry your name.”

Annabeth’s stomach curled, but she did not let it show. 

“I would hardly call that the end of the world.”

He did not smile. 

“No. But it would be the end of your usefulness.”

That stung — not because it was new, but because it had always been there, lingering beneath his words, his glances, the polite but distant way he acknowledged her existence.

He stood, adjusting the cuffs of his coat, already halfway toward the door.

“If the Jackson boy proposes — in the one-in-a-million chance — you will accept it,” he said, tone final. “For the name, the family, and your own safety.”

He paused in the doorway.

“Whatever else you believe to matter,” he added, “does not.”

Then he left, as he always did, with no farewell.

Annabeth stared at the untouched toast on her plate and let the silence reclaim the room. The only warmth was from the sun, finally reaching the edge of the table — and even that felt borrowed.

Chapter Text

The smell of salt was the first thing he noticed every morning, sharp, constant, brimming with memory, because he forced himself too. His nose had gotten used to it after so long, and he needed to remind himself that it wasn’t as usual as his mind, heart and remembrance made it seem.

It clung to everything around him. The worn ropes, the sails, the soaked wood beneath his boots, and the collar of his shirt. It lived in his hair, in the creases of his knuckles, in the heavy folds of the sea-weathered coat that had traveled across oceans with him. Percy breathed it in deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. The scent had always grounded him, even before he knew why.

The harbor was beginning to take shape beyond the rising fog, its outlines softened by the morning mist. Dock posts jutting like blackened fingers from the water, gulls crying overhead, and the glimmer of town roofs just beyond.

Home.

He felt it before he saw it — the strange tug of familiarity, of returning.

“Land,” Grover muttered beside him, as if it were both a relief and a threat. Percy huffed out a breath of agreement.

The ship moved slowly through the gray swell, sails slack as the wind grew hesitant. The journey, as ever, was done before he was ready to let go of it. Percy ran a hand over the rails, rough and splintered under his palm. The wood, sun-warmed and storm-tossed, had been his world for months. He could name each creak in the hull like a familiar voice, every knot and nick like a friend. This — the sea, the vessel, the voyage — made sense. This had rhythm.

He would miss it.

Percy Jackson had spent years sailing past the horizon and finding peace in its uncertainty. He had lost count of the number of voyages he had taken — not because they blurred together, but because each was complete on its own. A life in miniature. The crew shifted from time to time, changing faces, new voices — but Grover was always there. His steady companion, grumbling and loyal, with sharp kindness in his eyes and a sharper sense of truth.

He always knew that, if the ocean was not to end his life, that he would come back to those same shores that raised him, because there was more to his heart than only the wideness of the waters.

He had missed his mother. That was truth. A truth with weight and warmth and ache. Sally Jackson was a compass in the shape of a woman — her letters carried more comfort than any star chart when he stayed still long enough to receive them, and he kept them folded carefully in his satchel. He hadn’t told her he was returning. Not because he doubted her joy, but because he couldn’t bring himself to speak it aloud — couldn’t quite believe it himself until the ship was homeward-bound.

And because he did want to surprise her, after all. It was stronger than his sense of responsibility with her heart and shock — because, of course, he knew she would be thrilled about it.

The sails had turned, and so had he.

But he had not missed the land from where he had parted so long before. Nor the stares and whispers of drawing rooms and ballrooms, or the strange fascination the ton held with his existence. Percy Jackson — son of Lord Jackson, heir to a great estate, wealthy and well-connected and endlessly talked about. And yet no one ever really knew what he looked like. They speculated, they imagined, they filled the mystery with stories.

He preferred it that way. Being unnamed, unseen, because it gave him freedom.

He pulled his coat closer against the cold sea breeze. The docks were closer now. Soon the anchor would drop, the ropes would strain, and the gangplank would be lowered. He could already see a small gathering at the pier — merchants, dockhands, perhaps a messenger.

Home, he thought again. And for the first time in weeks, a quiet nervousness curled in his chest.

Not fear. Not dread. Something smaller. Stranger.

Something he had not named yet.

Grover nudged his shoulder. 

“You look like a ghost, staring like that at nothing, my friend.”

“I feel like one,” Percy said. But he smiled anyway.

Because ghosts did not get to come home.

The sails were already being tied down by the time Percy made his way to the edge of the deck, the ropes creaking and snapping as the ship was guided with practiced ease into its moorings. The wood groaned beneath them — not tired, but settled, as if even the vessel itself exhaled at the sight of shore.

A dozen men hurried about, shouting instructions, tightening knots, tossing heavy bundles of cloth and crates. Seagulls cried overhead, eager scavengers, and the slap of waves against the hull was rhythmic, familiar, and—today—somehow mournful. Percy took it all in with quiet eyes, letting the moment settle over him like the mist still clinging to the sea.

Grover appeared at his side, already bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Land,” he said again, with considerably more feeling than earlier — reverent and giddy. “Gods, I missed not tripping over rolling barrels every time I try to get a piece of bread.”

Percy smiled faintly. 

“You will miss it in two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Grover scoffed. “That is quite generous, Percy. I will miss it by supper, when the ground starts standing too still.”

They both laughed, but Grover glanced at him sideways, eyes narrowing slightly. 

“Are you quite well, my friend?”

“I am just fine,” Percy said automatically, then added, “It is only… strange. Coming back. That is all.”

Grover did not push. He never did. But he lingered beside him, close enough that Percy could feel his presence like an anchor.

The gangplank dropped with a dull thud, the clatter of wood meeting wood echoing across the ship. One by one, the crew filed off — some greeted by cheers from waiting family, others fading into the shuffle of carts and carriages and dockhands barking orders. Percy watched them go, lingering back as long as he could.

The world smelled different here — not just salt, though it clung like a second skin — but smoke, and people, and spices in crates, and oil from the lanterns lining the wharf. Sea and city met here, colliding in a cloud of breath and footsteps and noise. It felt both overwhelming and distant. Percy wasn’t used to standing still in a place full of motion.

Grover tugged his elbow gently. 

“Come on, Jackson. Do not make me walk off alone. That would be tragic.”

Percy blinked. Then, finally, he stepped forward.

Down the gangplank, boots steady against the worn boards. His coat billowed slightly in the wind, and his satchel knocked lightly against his hip. Grover was at his side, humming something under his breath and already scanning the crowd for signs of the familiar.

Percy scanned, too, though he didn’t quite know what he was looking for.

The people were busy — none spared him a second glance. Dockhands yelled over crates, a woman pulled along a child with arms full of flowers, and a sailor reunited with his lover in a spin of skirts and laughter. Percy stepped around it all like a ghost, untouched, unnoticed, his name meaningless among strangers.

But still the sea clung to him. It was in his lungs, in his coat, in the press of water that still rang in his ears. It hadn't let go. It never did.

“Let us go home, uh?” Grover said beside him.

Home.

Percy turned his face toward the direction of the estate — far from the noise and fog — and took the first true step into land.

The harbor stretched behind them, slowly fading into the distant hum of waves and shouting men. Percy shifted the weight of his satchel across his shoulder and pressed his hands deeper into his coat pockets, settling into the uneven rhythm of cobbled streets.

They didn’t speak for a while. There was something solemn in the act of walking, feet rediscovering steady ground after months of swaying. It took effort, still — the way Percy’s body leaned ever so slightly, as though compensating for waves that no longer rocked him. He was half convinced the sea still whispered beneath the soles of his boots.

Grover kicked a loose stone ahead, watching it bounce off the corner of a step. 

“We shall have to learn how to walk like proper people again.”

Percy huffed a laugh. 

“Do define proper .”

“People who do not veer left every fifth step,” Grover muttered, reaching to steady himself with mock dignity. “I feel like a drunkard. A sober one, which might be worse.”

They passed a cluster of people carrying baskets of fruit and cloth — servants, most likely, shopping for wealthier households. A boy ran between them with a kite tucked under one arm. A pair of young women in pastel blue gloves turned to look at someone behind them, giggling and whispering behind fans.

Grover stepped closer, lowering his voice. 

“This part of the ton is getting crowded.”

Percy glanced up — and realized he was right. The streets thickened around them like a pulse: wide carriages rumbling forward, footmen opening doors, women and men of every sort bustling in and out of bakeries and seamstress shops. The perfume was heavier here, the laughter louder. Even the buildings stood straighter, aware they were being watched.

They had returned just before the season.

Gods help me.

He had not thought to check. Had not planned his return around it — had not planned his return at all, really — but of course it made sense. The timing, the weather, the bright-eyed energy that soaked into every storefront and cobblestone.

He was back, and the world would soon know it.

Unless…

He prayed — not in any formal way, just a quiet ache in his chest — that the gossip had not yet reached the drawing rooms. That no messenger boy had run his name through silk-curtained parlors, or mentioned the Jackson heir’s return to some fluttering circle of debutantes.

The idea of being seen — really seen , not as a stranger on a ship or a shadow in a library — felt like water closing over his head.

He did not speak it aloud, because he never had the need to. Grover knew him too well.

“Do you think the vultures will take long to find out?” Grover asked after a moment, not unkindly.

“I do not know,” Percy murmured, eyes flicking toward a nearby newspaper stand. “If they do, I hope they mistake me for someone else.”

“You would not be that lucky,” Grover said with a half-smile. “You have your father’s shoulders.”

Percy rolled his eyes. 

“I should have slouched more as a child.”

“You did,” Grover countered. “It did not help.”

They fell quiet again, weaving through the crowd. No one paid them mind. To the passersby, Percy was just another man with sea-wind in his hair and salt on his coat — a traveler, a nobody. Not a name to be whispered. Not a Lord’s son. Not a scandal waiting to happen.

Percy clung to that invisibility with quiet gratitude.

He didn’t want to think about expectations. About what came next. About balls and alliances and the weight of a name he never asked to carry.

He just wanted to see his mother again.

And walk beside his oldest friend, one foot in front of the other, like a man relearning how to live on land.

The road that led to the Jackson estate stretched long and curved, bordered by tall oaks and trimmed hedges that only the most meticulous of caretakers could maintain. It was a quiet path, tucked far enough from town that one could almost believe they’d wandered into some enchanted countryside. Percy knew it by heart — every twist, every stretch of cobbled stone that bore the wear of generations — and yet it felt new beneath his boots after so long at sea.

They had been walking for nearly an hour. The harbor was far behind them, and with it, the salt-heavy noise of the docks. The air here was cooler, touched with the scent of pine and fresh-cut grass, and birdsong filled the spaces between their easy steps.

Ahead, the trees began to thin, and the gravel beneath their feet turned lighter. And then came the gardens — not wild, not ostentatious, but carefully tended with an eye for charm and comfort. Tall roses grew near the low stone walls, and thin paths curved through blooming lilacs and thick-bloomed hydrangeas. Percy slowed without realizing, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“We have reached the edge of home,” he said quietly, more to himself than to Grover.

Grover, however, had already noticed. His stride had shifted, lighter, brisker. And when his eyes caught sight of a narrow trail veering off from the main path — a trail nearly hidden between two tall hedges — he stopped completely.

“I shall leave you here,” Grover said, a grin blooming across his face.

Percy raised an eyebrow. “You will?”

“That path leads to the garden house,” Grover explained, already turning slightly toward it. “She’ll be there, likely. She always is at this time of day.”

Percy’s expression softened. 

“You have truly missed her, aye?”

“Terribly,” Grover admitted. “And you— you ought to see your mother first, Percy. She has waited longer than I have, and you know I would rather not interrupt your reunion,” he clapped a firm hand to Percy’s shoulder. “You shall find her in the house, or it shall find you.”

Percy gave a low chuckle and clasped Grover’s arm in parting.

Percy laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“Go on, then. Give Juniper my fondest regards.”

“You can deliver them yourself later,” Grover called, already bounding toward the green edge of the property. “We shall all have dinner together!”

Percy watched him for a moment, fondness warming his chest at his best friend’s glee and joy to be back, before he turned to the gravel path. The main house stood just beyond the trimmed topiary, its familiar shape rising with a quiet grace against the blue of the sky. He exhaled — long, steady — and pressed forward, the earth beneath his boots finally feeling like home.

The house loomed just ahead, tall and elegant with ivy clinging to its stone face like delicate lace. The windows glinted in the sun — the same golden panels he had memorized in boyhood. Every step up the gravel drive made his heart beat faster in anticipation to meet again his mother’s benevolent gaze.

By the time he reached the steps, two maids had stepped out from within, and their eyes widened at the sight of him. Claire and Marie, older women who had watched him grow up all the way up to those stairs, recognized him at once, and their gasps were followed by wide smiles and brief curtsies.

Percy pressed a finger to his lips, smiling softly. 

“Not a word,” he said, with mock severity. “Not yet.”

They both curtsied in haste once more, eyes alight with delight and surprise.

“I beg your pardon, Claire,” Percy said gently, inclining his head to the elder one. “Might I ask where my mother is?”

“In the west salon, sir,” she answered at once, beaming. “She has spent much of the morning there — painting, I believe.”

“Of course,” he murmured, a smile playing on his face at the familiar scenario. “Thank you.”

They moved so he could pass through the doors, and it was both a relief and a weight to learn, again, that the house had hardly changed since he had set sail, months and months before.

The same ivy curled stubbornly over the stone arch above the door, the same tall windows looked out across the lawns with the solemn patience of old eyes. Within, the corridors still bore the scent of lavender and polish, the dark wood still gleamed beneath soft daylight, and the walls remained lined with paintings of ships and skies and Jacksons long departed.

It was strange, Percy thought, how something could remain so precisely the same while he himself had changed in so many ways. And yet, it felt good — so very good — to be back. His steps echoed in a familiar rhythm over the stone floor, and the air seemed to know him, to welcome him back as if he had never spent a single day far. Even the silence was warmer here.

He passed the front drawing room, the sitting room, the stairwell — every space carried a memory. Somewhere in the kitchens, he imagined the staff already whispering, relaying to one another that the prodigal son had returned. He pressed onward, heart beating louder with every step toward the western corridor.

The west salon’s door stood half-open, letting in a slant of warm sunlight that kissed the checkered floor. He paused for a moment outside it, the same way he had paused so many times as a boy, gathering courage to admit to some mischief or mistake, knowing his mother would look at him with kindness even if he would be grounded for a while. There was something boyish in that feeling still — but also reverence, and longing, and deep, bone-deep affection.

Then, gently, he pushed the door wider.

The scene was as familiar as the sea itself.

Sally Jackson stood with her back to him, brush in hand, before a canvas twice the size of her slender frame. The scene was half-completed — a sweeping seascape, wild and soft in equal measure, the sky kissed with purple and the waves still forming under her touch. Her hair was pinned in a low, practical bun, a few graying curls escaping. Her dress bore faint flecks of blue and white where she had unconsciously wiped the edge of her brush, and her brow furrowed in gentle concentration.

Percy’s heart caught in his throat, so easy it was to be there again.

There had never been a day at sea he did not think of her. In the worst storms, when the sky cracked open like a wound and the ship reeled like a drunkard, it was her voice that steadied him, and the thought of not being another loss that brought him back to land. In the stillness of dawn when the world was all water and light, it was her face that filled his mind. Sally Jackson had always been his anchor to land, to home, to the things that made him a person rather than a shadow on a map. She was the soft memory in his sternum, the steady beat beneath each rib.

She had let him go — again and again — with a brave face and tearless smile, knowing how the sea called to him and how deeply he needed to follow. And though it hurt her, she never once asked him to stay.

It was her he missed most, even if he knew it was more than him that her heart called for whenever she was close to the ocean.

“I believe it lacks blue,” he said, suddenly, his voice loud enough to echo in the room.

It did not, not truly — the entire painting was shades of blue, as if the sea had poured herself into it. But it was their favorite color. It always had been.

The brush halted in her hand, and Sally froze. The brush clattered gently against the easel as she turned.

For a heartbeat, she did not move — as if her eyes refused to believe what they saw. And then the breath caught in her chest, and tears welled without shame.

“Percy!” she gasped. “Oh, my boy!”

She came to him swiftly, all grace forgotten. Percy crossed the room in three strides and caught her in his arms. Sally was smaller than him — had always been — but he folded himself down as much as he could, wrapping her close and tight, burying his face in her shoulder.

“Hello, Mama,” he murmured, voice thick. “Oh, how I have missed you.”

She held him like he might vanish again. Like he was something precious recovered from a storm.

“My darling boy,” she whispered, pulling back just enough to touch his face, her hands trembling. “Is it truly you?”

“It is,” Percy assured her with a soft laugh, cradling her hand against his cheek. “Flesh and blood and altogether less ship-shaped than I was a week ago.”

“But you did not send word!” she said, brows pinched, her voice wobbling between joy and scolding. “Not a single letter! Do you know what that does to a mother’s heart?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he admitted, sheepishly. “I… I did not want to be expected. I feared the ton would hear before you did, and I could not bear the thought. I have had my fill of gossip.”

She narrowed her eyes playfully at him, though they were still shining. 

“And so you sail halfway across the world and come straight to your mother’s painting room?”

“Well,” Percy shrugged with that boyish smile of his, “I missed home. And I missed you. And if I had to hear another sailor talk about the wind’s temperament, I might have thrown myself overboard.”

Sally let out a sound that was half sob, half laughter, and pulled him into another hug, her head against his chest. 

“You came back,” she breathed. “You came back,” and it felt like a prayer that Percy knew all too well. It ached his chest that Sally had so much fear in hers, and a brush of guilt stroked his soul.

“I always do,” he murmured, brushing a kiss to the top of her head, trying to bleed that truth into her ears. “You know that.”

They stayed like that for a moment, the quiet hum of the house wrapping around them like an old friend. Then Sally leaned back, squinting up at him critically, as only a mother could.

“And when did you last eat?”

Percy blinked. 

“What?”

“When,” she repeated slowly, “did you last eat a proper meal? One not served in a bowl of questionable stew, or hardtack that could crack teeth?”

“Er—this morning, I think,” he said, then amended, “Or last night? I’m not entirely sure. Time is strange on the water.”

“Of course it is,” she muttered, already stepping away. “Come. I am having something made. And do you not dare disappear before you’ve had two full plates, Perseus Jackson.”

He grinned, following her steps as she swept toward the hall like a woman on a mission. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And after,” she added, glancing at him with a glint in her eye, “you shall tell me everything. Where you have been, what you have seen, and whether you finally learned how to trim your own hair.”

Percy laughed, wide and warm.

“I think you shall find that I am a terribly dull storyteller still, Mama.”

“Nonsense,” Sally said. “You are a Jackson. And Jackson men were born to speak of storms and dragons and starlight, darling.”

He smiled, heart impossibly full, and stepped into the next room with her — the only place in the world that had ever felt like the exact center of peace.

Sally swept into the corridor like a breeze that had waited too long to stir — purposeful, warm, and alive with motherly intent. Percy followed, shoulders loosening with every step he took behind her. The house smelled faintly of citrus and lavender, of dust in corners and old wood waxed to a glow. The floors creaked in familiar ways. The portraits were exactly where they'd always been. It had hardly changed at all.

She led him toward a smaller drawing room that opened into a sun-warmed conservatory, her hand already tugging a cord to summon a servant. 

“The cook was preparing luncheon,” she explained, “but I have asked for something more filling to be brought up. Something with warmth and proper taste, not salted biscuit and brine.”

“It sounds divine, Mama,” Percy said, smiling still, not entirely sure he could taste anything through the knot in his throat. He had not realized how deeply he had missed the smell of hearth and bread, of sunlight on clean linens and his mother humming half-tunes beneath her breath.

As they passed beneath a high archway lined with ivy trailing through glass, Sally slowed just enough to glance over her shoulder.

“And Grover?” she asked. “He is with you, is he not?”

“He is,” Percy said, unable to help the quiet fondness in his voice. “He walked most of the way back with me, but got a bit eager the moment we passed the boundary of the estate. I suspect he has already found Juniper.”

“Oh, she shall be glad,” Sally said, smiling again. “Poor thing has hardly smiled since his last letter. Did he not come in with you?”

Percy shook his head. 

“He said he wanted us to have a moment, and that I ought to see you first. He is thoughtful like that.”

“He always has been,” she agreed, pausing at the threshold of the drawing room to reach out and straighten the collar of Percy’s coat, a gesture so instinctive it made his heart ache. “And you, my dear boy, are far too thin.”

He laughed. 

“Sea travel, Mama. It is hardly indulgent.”

“Well, land is,” she said firmly, guiding him to a chair near the fire as a maid entered with a tray laden with soup, bread still steaming from the oven, and roasted meats spiced and fragrant. “And this house especially so, now that you are in it again.”

Percy sat, the fire crackling nearby, and breathed in deep.

Home.

At last.

Chapter Text

He did not know what to do with being back to land.

The steadiness beneath his feet felt alien after months on the rolling deck of a ship, after nights where the stars themselves were his ceiling and the waves his lullaby. Even the gardens of the Jackson estate, so meticulously kept and ordered, seemed almost oppressive in their calm. There were paths to walk, statues to admire, flowers to smell—but none of it carried the salt tang of the ocean or the endless horizon that called him every morning.

Percy wandered aimlessly through the estate’s grounds, fingers brushing against the neatly trimmed hedges and the iron railings of the balconies. He could hear the faint rustle of distant servants, the quiet shuffle of feet across polished stone, but no one came close enough to disturb him. He wanted to speak to someone, to release the tension in his chest, but words felt pointless here. Land had no language for a sailor’s restlessness.

Even in the house, the salons, the familiar scent of Sally’s perfume still clinging to the air, Percy could not sit still. He traced the edges of the portraits, the gilded frames, his eyes catching every detail he remembered from childhood visits and glimpses over the years. Each memory was a gentle anchor, but the urge to move, to find the horizon again, tugged at him like a current.

He knew he had been lucky. Lucky to be home. Lucky to have Sally’s arms around him, her soft voice calming the echoes of storms and solitude. Yet that same luck made him nervous—restless in a way he could not explain. The ocean was freedom, yes, but home was tethered with expectations and whispers he could not yet see. He pressed a hand to the rail of the veranda, feeling the cool stone beneath his fingers, and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

It was his third day back on land, and the walls of the Jackson estate were beginning to feel less like a shelter and more like a lid over his head. He’d slept the first day away without shame, the kind of deep, dreamless sleep only exhaustion and safety could buy. The second had been spent entirely in Sally’s company, both of them reluctant to part for even a moment, speaking little but finding comfort in simply existing side by side.

Now, with no one expecting him anywhere in particular, Percy found himself pacing the long corridors, his hands restless in his pockets. He realized, with a sudden spark of mischief, that most of the staff didn’t even know he was home yet. Gossip had never been quick to travel in the Jackson estate—partly because Sally valued her privacy, partly because the servants were too discreet to chatter freely.

The thought drew a boyish grin to his face. He could almost see himself at thirteen again, slipping through these same hallways with bare feet, ducking behind doorframes to avoid being caught after dark.

Without entirely deciding to, his feet took him toward the kitchens. The scent reached him first—warm bread, spiced fruit, and the faint, mouthwatering sweetness of something just pulled from the oven.

He eased the door open without a sound, stepping into the wide, bright space where copper pans gleamed on hooks and the great central table was crowded with bowls and baskets. Mrs. Bramwell, the cook, stood with her back to him, instructing one of the scullery maids in a brisk, no-nonsense tone.

On the table closest to him sat a tray of golden pastries, their glossy tops catching the morning light. He didn’t even hesitate—just plucked one up, still warm, and bit into it.

It was perfect. Buttery, flaky, with a filling so rich he had to close his eyes for a moment.

“Absolutely criminal,” Percy said around a mouthful, “how good this is.”

The nearest maid let out a startled gasp, nearly dropping the bowl she was carrying. Mrs. Bramwell turned sharply, brandishing a wooden spoon like a weapon.

“And just who do you think you are, sneakin’ in here and stealing—”

She stopped mid-word. The spoon wavered. Her eyes went wide.

“Perseus?” she asked.

Percy swallowed his bite and leaned against the table with all the ease of a man who hadn’t just scared half the kitchen staff out of their wits. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Bramwell.”

For one stunned second she simply stared, and then the spoon clattered to the floor and she was striding across the tiles to grab him in a hug that was nearly bone-crushing.

“You great, impossible boy,” she said into his shoulder. “Off vanishing to the ends of the earth without a word—Lord above, I thought—” she pulled back enough to look at him, her face still a storm between anger and relief. “When did you come back? Is your mother aware? And when, exactly, was the last time you ate something that was not hardtack or whatever it is they fed you on those ships?”

Percy chuckled softly, leaning one hip against the flour-dusted table as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

“I have been resting. My mother knows—trust me, she has barely let me out of her sight since. And I have even eaten meals from this very kitchen, believe it or not. Lunch, two days ago. The one my mother asked for.”

Her eyes narrowed, suspicion blooming like heat in the air. 

“That was roasted pheasant with wine sauce.”

He grinned, slow and crooked. 

“Exactly. The very best thing I have tasted in months.”

The cook’s mouth twitched, as if she were fighting the urge to smile, but she shook her head instead, muttering under her breath about reckless boys and the trouble they bring. Behind her, a scullery maid still stood frozen, a half-peeled apple in her hand, staring at Percy like he might vanish again if she blinked too hard.

“Well,” the cook said, turning back to her work with a decisive clatter of pans, “if you are back, you had better eat something proper now. And not stolen this time.”

Percy only laughed, reaching for another pastry anyway. He took a bite of the pastry, earning a pointed glare from the cook, and brushed the crumbs off his sleeve.

“As much as I would love to stay here and be force-fed,” he said, eyes glinting with mischief, “I cannot eat just now. I have got the rest of the staff to—” he paused, lips twitching— “scare. Oops. I mean greet. Properly. It is a matter of duty, you see.”

The cook huffed, turning back to her chopping board. 

“Go on, then. And do not trip over your own boots trying to make an entrance.”

He started for the door, then turned back, leaning on the frame. 

“Tell me—where is old Thomas these days? Still in the stables?”

Her knife paused mid-slice, and for a heartbeat, her face softened. 

“Aye. Still grumbling at the horses like they are naughty schoolboys. You shall find him at the far stall—always keeps his favorite mare there.”

Percy’s smile deepened, tinged with a warmth that hadn’t been there a moment ago. 

“Good. I shall pay him a visit.”

And with that, he stepped back into the corridor, the faint sound of laughter and clinking dishes following him as he made his way toward the familiar scent of hay and leather.

The path to the stables was exactly as he remembered—worn stone underfoot, a few uneven spots where his younger self had once tripped in a hurry. The air grew cooler the closer he came, tinged with the sharp, earthy smell of hay and the richer undertone of leather that always seemed to settle into his clothes after a visit here.

The heavy wooden doors stood half open, letting in strips of late afternoon light. Dust motes drifted lazily in the beams, dancing above the neatly swept aisle. Somewhere in the back, a mare snorted softly, the sound mingling with the low, steady hum of a man’s voice—half a tune, half a grumble.

“Still talking to them like they’re people, I see,” Percy called, his voice carrying down the row.

The figure bent over in the last stall straightened slowly, a broad back framed against the dim light. Thomas turned, a little slower than Percy remembered, but the same sharp eyes flickered under bushy brows.

For a moment, the man simply stared, and Percy could almost see the years rearranging themselves in his gaze. Then Thomas’s weathered face split into a grin.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Thought I heard a voice I knew. And here you are, looking taller but no wiser.”

Percy laughed, crossing the distance in a few easy strides. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Thomas clapped a hand on his shoulder, solid and familiar. “When’d you get back? Your mother know you’re skulking around my stables before you even come say hello proper?”

“Few days ago. And yes, she knows. I’ve been… easing back into things. Today just felt like a good day to visit old friends.” He glanced past Thomas at the sleek chestnut mare watching them with mild curiosity. “And old teachers.”

Thomas snorted, clearly remembering the boy who couldn’t hold a reins steady to save his life. 

“Well, you’ve still got two legs, so I must’ve done something right.”

Percy grinned. 

“You did more than that. Now tell me—does she still try to bite strangers upon first meeting, or is that just me?”

“Only you, of course, Perseus,” he said. “And ya’ stubbornness. But it is not the first time you see her, kid.”

“Oh, well. It might as well be, uh?” he asked. “It has been a while. She was a third of her size when I last saw her, Thomas,” Percy spoke.

Percy rested an arm along the top of the stall door, watching as Thomas secured the latch.

“In Morocco,” he began, “I was convinced—absolutely convinced—that I could manage a Berber stallion with nothing more than charm and stubbornness.”

Thomas’s mouth curved in a knowing smirk. 

“And how did that end, Master Percy?”

“Flat on my back, in the sand,” Percy admitted, the corner of his mouth twitching. “The horse looked at me as though I had personally offended centuries of breeding. I had the distinct impression he was laughing.”

A low chuckle rumbled in Thomas’s chest as he shook his head. 

“Aye, that sounds about right. Your father once told me that a man who thinks himself cleverer than a horse will find himself eating dirt before sundown.”

Percy’s brows lifted. 

“Did he?”

“He did,” Thomas said simply, his voice gentler now, the words settling between them like dust in the still air. “You are very much your father’s son.”

There was nothing in the remark but affection, yet something in it lingered—an echo Percy felt rather than understood. He let it rest there, unprodded, turning instead to stroke the mare’s velvety muzzle.

“She remembers me,” he murmured.

“Of course she does,” Thomas replied. “Horses remember those who ride with more heart than sense.”

Percy huffed a quiet laugh, brushing the mare’s neck. Thomas leaned on the stall door beside him, his eyes narrowing slightly in thought.

“Tell me, Master Percy… are you here to stay this time?”

Percy did not look up immediately. He adjusted the strap on the saddle as though it required the utmost precision before answering. 

“I have no plans to leave so soon,” he said at last. “But settling down…” His mouth tilted faintly. “That is quite another matter.”

Thomas made a small noise that was neither agreement nor disapproval. 

“You have a name to uphold. An important one, also,” he reminded, voice mild but carrying weight. “And it is the Season. Young ladies and their mamas will be watching for you.”

Percy’s lips curved in something that was not quite a smile. 

“I am well aware. But we both know my mother would never force me into the social whirl, and I have no present wish to throw myself into it.”

Thomas studied him a moment longer, then gave a small shrug. 

“It is not my place to press you. But the world is not so patient as your mother, lad.”

“I know,” Percy said simply, stroking the mare once more before stepping back. “But I believe I shall test my luck yet once more, Thomas.”

The man snorted.

“Aye, your father’s son,” he laughed. Thomas’s gaze softened, though his tone stayed measured. “Well then,” he said, pushing away from the stall door, “shall we walk her to the paddock?”

They stepped into the crisp morning air together, boots pressing into the gravel path. The conversation drifted—small remarks about the weather, the upcoming foal, and the state of the north field—until another set of footsteps crunched over the drive.

“Ah, I thought I might find you here,” came a familiar voice.

Percy turned to see Grover striding toward them, a satchel slung over his shoulder. Thomas’s face lit with genuine warmth. 

“Mr. Underwood! A pleasure as always.”

“And you, sir,” Grover replied with a polite bow of the head. “I guessed our young master here would be roaming the grounds, restless as a wind before a storm. Which brings me to my proposition—Percy, walk with me to the University library? I am in need of certain reference volumes, and it is far across town. The west side,” he added pointedly. “It will do you good to stretch your legs.”

Thomas chuckled under his breath. 

“A fine idea. Put him to work, Mr. Underwood. Nothing better to tire a restless spirit than a long walk and the scent of books.”

“I am perfectly capable of tiring myself,” Percy said dryly, though his mouth twitched in amusement.

“Yes,” Grover said with a faint grin, “but this way you’ll tire yourself productively.”

Percy fell into step beside Grover, the sound of their boots crunching against the gravel blending with the distant clip-clop of other riders and the soft rustle of the estate’s gardens. Thomas lingered for a moment, watching them depart, before tipping his hat with a measured nod and returning to his duties.

The path beyond the estate gates led them onto a wider thoroughfare, cobbled and lined with lanterns and the occasional carriage rattling over the stones. Percy’s gaze lingered on the orderly houses, the carved railings and ornate windowpanes, each familiar yet slightly foreign after months at sea. Even the smell of the streets—less bracing than the salt wind, but heavy with the mingling of bakery fires and the town’s animals—reminded him of home in a way that tugged at his chest.

“You seem quieter than I expected,” Grover remarked, falling into step beside him. “The sea did not tire you so much, I gather?”

Percy smiled faintly, eyes on the horizon of rooftops ahead. “Restlessness does not leave so easily,” he said. “The ocean leaves its mark, and land… land is far too still by comparison. Even here, I feel the sway of something I cannot reach.”

“Curious,” Grover replied, his own pace measured and calm. “You’ve always been more at home on the waves than any path of stone. But perhaps a walk, long as it is, will settle some of that unease.”

Percy considered this in silence, watching the throng of townspeople passing in both directions. The streets were busier than he had expected. Carriages rattled past, pedestrians brushed elbows, and vendors called out their wares in clipped, polite tones. Yet he moved easily among them, invisible in plain sight—no one knew him, no one recognized the famous “Mister Jackson,” and that was a relief almost more sweet than the smell of the sea.

“How long do you suppose it will take to reach the University?” he asked finally, breaking his quiet contemplation.

Grover checked his watch, then glanced at the map of the town he kept memorized in his mind. “Half an hour at this pace, if we do not linger. I trust you will not mind a leisurely stroll?”

Percy shook his head, allowing a faint laugh to escape. “I could scarcely ask for a more agreeable companion, Mr. Underwood. Though I am certain even a half-hour will feel like an eternity when one is in need of… distraction.”

Grover’s eyes flicked toward him knowingly. “Ah. The distraction of familiarity, perhaps? Of old streets and faces?”

Percy nodded, adjusting the collar of his coat against the morning chill. “Indeed. I have been cooped on a ship for months. The ocean is liberating, but it does not provide conversation nor the simple amusement of seeing where your footsteps may take you on land.”

Their conversation waned then, not from lack of words but from the comfort of silent companionship. Percy’s gaze roamed the town as it passed: children darting between legs, the sway of shop curtains in the breeze, a dog barking at a passing carriage. It all felt grounded and deliberate, as if the world were moving in a rhythm to remind him that he was indeed back.

“And the University library,” Percy said, nodding toward a distant cluster of stone buildings with spired roofs, “it is a curious destination for such a brisk day.”

Grover’s grin was faint but earnest. “Indeed, but I have need of certain texts, and it will serve you to recall how to navigate streets with purpose once more. Besides,” he added, “books are excellent company, though they lack… the saltiness of adventure.”

Percy’s lips twitched in amusement. “You have a way with understatement, Mr. Underwood.”

They continued, moving through the town, leaving behind the wide avenues of the estate for narrower, cobblestoned lanes. Percy felt the familiar ache of anticipation in his chest, an echo of the sea’s call that had lingered even as he slept for days on end. He realized he had missed this—the rhythm of walking, the murmur of town life, the invisible tether to the world of the shore. And yet, even amidst this comfort, a quiet restlessness remained: a need to do, to see, to rediscover.

Grover, ever perceptive, caught the shift. “You are thinking of other journeys,” he said softly. “The sea still calls, even if your feet are on land.”

Percy gave a faint nod, a shadow of a smile. “It does. But for now… for now, I am content to walk here, with the sun over rooftops, and a friend beside me. The sea can wait a little while.”

The library loomed closer, its high windows gleaming in the sun. Percy’s chest lifted slightly at the sight, a reminder that knowledge and quiet curiosity could be an adventure of their own. Grover nudged him lightly toward the entrance. 

“Come, then. Let us see what the University can offer to occupy the mind while we let the legs rest a touch.”

The library was a familiar sanctuary. Shelves rose like silent sentinels, dust motes drifting through the shafts of afternoon sunlight, and the smell of parchment and ink filled the air. Grover immediately began scanning the shelves, reaching for volumes on botany and herbology, muttering to himself about illustrations and references, while Percy drifted a few steps behind, absorbing the atmosphere.

He leaned against a wooden column, watching the light filter through the tall windows, the shadows moving across the rows of books like slow, deliberate waves. There was something comforting in this, something steady and quiet that reminded him of home, even if it could never quite mimic the sea. And still, he could feel the tug—the urge to wander, to move, to feel the wind on his face again.

Grover finally called out softly.

“Hey, Percy, come look at this one! They have a new edition on marine biology!” his best friend announced. “It sounds like something you might like!”

Percy smiled faintly, shaking his head. 

“I think I shall see some other things first,” he said, letting his gaze wander to the light-filled rows. “You go ahead.”

As Grover drifted further down the aisle, Percy allowed himself to close his eyes briefly, inhaling the quiet, the dust, the scent of old paper, and imagining the endless blue beyond the horizon. It was peaceful. For now.

Percy wandered quietly along the aisles, the soles of his boots whispering against the polished wooden floors. The library was vast, yet unassuming, its high windows allowing beams of late afternoon light to strike the rows of books with a golden hue. He moved without purpose, though perhaps that was the very purpose he sought—a chance to settle his restless mind upon something steady, tangible.

Eventually, he reached one of the tables at the center of the room, carved of dark oak and polished smooth with years of use. He seated himself, resting his elbows lightly upon the surface, and allowed his gaze to wander. The quiet murmurs of Grover’s explorations drifted faintly from a distant aisle.

As Percy idly swung one foot beneath the table, it struck an object slightly protruding from beneath. Curious, he bent to retrieve it and found a book, its cover of sturdy leather, the title embossed in gilt: Elements of Greek Architecture. 

His brow arched. He had travelled to Greece on more than one occasion, and the thought of its marble temples and enduring ruins stirred his memory.

With a gentle reverence, he opened the book. The pages were crisp and filled with drawings, sketches of columns, porticos, and pediments, alongside meticulous notes. He turned page after page, absorbed entirely, until he reached the third cover. His eyes caught a name, inscribed delicately, with a careful hand: Annabeth Chase.

Percy paused, holding the book with careful attention, a slight frown forming upon his face. He did not know the bearer of the name, yet something about the elegance of the lettering and the precision of the notes called to him, intriguing him as much as the architecture itself.

“Annabeth Chase,” he murmured under his breath, his voice low and measured.

Percy had scarcely returned the book to its place upon the table when Grover appeared at the aisle, several volumes clasped firmly in his arms. His eyes brightened upon seeing Percy.

“Pray, have you discovered something of interest, Percy?” Grover inquired politely, though his eagerness was evident in the quickening cadence of his speech.

Percy held the book before him, careful not to jostle it. 

“Indeed, I have found that some industrious hand has left a volume behind—Elements of Greek Architecture. It belongs to one Annabeth Chase, it appears.”

Grover raised his brow. 

“Chase? I cannot say that the name is familiar to me. Perhaps the frontlady, who oversees this establishment, may know the family?”

Percy nodded, still gazing at the book with some curiosity. 

“I think it prudent that I leave it at the front desk, so that the rightful owner may retrieve it.”

Grover, setting his own books upon a nearby table, tilted his head thoughtfully. 

“Or, Percy, you might simply carry it to her yourself. ’Twould give you some occupation and quiet the restlessness that seems to plague you.”

Percy considered this, a faint smile curling about his lips. 

“Oh. That is… A most excellent suggestion, indeed,” he agreed. “It would definitely give me some time to wander around the town.”

“And stop carving your steps to your mother’s floor, yes,” Grover said. “Go ahead. I might stay a bit longer here than I planned.”

“Did you find something interesting?” Percy asked. His friend hummed in agreement.

“Indeed. Herbs and plants that I want to know more about,” Grover told him. “I shall tell you about them when you have a free afternoon.”

Percy smiled.

“I shall look forward to it,” he told his friend, genuine.

With that, he rose from the table, tucking the book carefully under one arm, and together he and Grover made their way toward the front of the library, the soft echo of their footsteps blending with the distant rustle of pages and the faint scent of ink and parchment.

Chapter Text

     The day was warmer than most, the air heavy with that particular golden stillness that often came just before rain.

Annabeth had tried, for hours it seemed, to lose herself in the delicate lines of an unfinished sketch. The paper before her bore the faint arches of a doorway, columns lifting toward a roof she had not yet decided upon. She had sharpened her pencil twice too many times, and yet her hand no longer obeyed her mind. The lines blurred together, the angles slipping into one another until she pushed the sketchbook closed with a sigh. Her eyes ached as if she had stared at the sun too long, and a faint restlessness crept beneath her skin.

She leaned back against the settee and glanced at the quiet corners of the parlor. The house was too still. Her mother and father had gone early to the university, where both were expected to lecture, leaving her with little more than the company of servants who moved soundlessly through the halls. Annabeth had long ago learned how to live in silence — but sometimes it pressed too tightly.

Her gaze fell on the flute resting atop the mantelpiece, a gift from her father years ago when she first showed interest in music. She lifted it gingerly, the cool silver balancing against her fingertips. Annabeth was no prodigy, but she could manage a few sweet melodies when patience allowed. She set it against her lips, and the first note drifted thinly, stretching into the room before dissolving into the heat. A second followed, brighter this time, and then another. She played without thought, almost absentmindedly, filling the empty house with a tune that was not quite practiced but sincere all the same.

It lasted only a short while. Her fingers slipped, the air too heavy to carry the sound, and she lowered the instrument with a small, self-deprecating smile. Music had never been her passion; it was simply something she knew, like the stitches of embroidery. Her gaze flicked to the embroidery hoop resting on the side table, half-finished patterns of flowers peeking out in faint threads of blue and cream. She picked it up only to set it down again almost at once, flexing her fingertips with a faint grimace. Sewing came naturally to her, but she disliked the needle’s pricks and the ache it left in her hands.

With both pencil and flute abandoned, and the needle left untouched, Annabeth rose and moved toward the tall window. She pushed it open, welcoming what little breeze crept in. The sky outside was a strange hue — golden light veiled in the faintest tint of gray, the promise of rain hidden in the heavy clouds. She leaned on the sill, letting her gaze drift over the gardens below, so carefully kept by the hands of others. Not a leaf out of place, not a flower permitted to grow wild. It was beautiful, yes — but Annabeth found herself longing for something untamed, for the wildness of ivy clinging to ruins or waves cutting against rock.

The minutes passed like hours. A carriage rolled by on the far road, its wheels clattering faintly, then faded into silence once more. Annabeth pressed her forehead against the frame of the window, closing her eyes for a moment. If her parents had been home, there might have been conversation, or debate, or a story half-spun over the dinner table. Instead, the day stretched long before her, quiet as the still air pressing against her skin.

She thought, not for the first time, of how strange it was to live in such waiting. Waiting for her parents’ return, waiting for the rain, waiting for… what, exactly? She did not know.

Her hands itched to work again, to sketch or to stitch, to fill the emptiness with something tangible. And yet her mind resisted, weary from hours of lines and shadows. She let out a sigh, low and quiet, the sound barely rising above the hush of the house.

Somewhere, a clock ticked.

The day was hers, yet it felt borrowed, suspended in that peculiar golden hour where nothing seemed to move.

Annabeth sighed, giving up on the uncoordinated pattern she was stitching for the sake of not being so completely bored out of her mind. She set the hoop aside with more force than necessary, letting the threads fall slack against the fabric. Her fingertips were sore, pricked once too often, and she rubbed them absently as if to soothe her own impatience. The room around her, so carefully arranged, suddenly felt stifling. The still air pressed at her shoulders, thick with the scent of warmed wood and faint perfume that had long since faded into the upholstery.

She crossed the parlor with measured steps, then stopped halfway as though reconsidering. Should she take up the flute again? Or return to the sketch left abandoned on her desk? The thought of both left her weary, and so she pushed onward, past the tall mirror that caught her reflection. For a moment she lingered, gaze drawn unwillingly to the figure there — hair loosely pinned, her dress a pale shade better suited for cooler weather. She tilted her head, studying herself as if she were no more than another architectural sketch, something to measure and adjust. A frown tugged at her lips.

It was not vanity. It was restlessness, plain and simple.

Her feet carried her through the hall, slippers brushing lightly against the polished floor. The silence of the estate pressed in from every side, broken only by the distant murmur of servants moving somewhere below stairs. They would not disturb her unless called for; they never did. The emptiness stretched all the wider because of it.

By the time she reached the door to the veranda, her decision was already made. She needed air. Needed space. Needed the sky above her and the faint smell of earth and leaf, rather than this endless hush of books and thread and half-drawn columns.

The latch clicked softly under her hand, and she stepped out into the afternoon.

The shift was immediate — the air was still heavy with heat, but it carried the faintest stir of breeze, and with it came the scents of the garden: roses and lilacs and something sharper beneath, freshly cut grass and turned soil. Annabeth breathed it in deeply, her shoulders easing as though she had been holding them too tightly without realizing it.

The garden was quiet, and that, for Annabeth, was bliss. With her sketchbook resting on her lap and a half-filled teacup cooling on the bench beside her, she had all but forgotten time. Her parents were gone — some engagement or another she had not cared to memorize — and Thalia had been swallowed whole by an errand across town.

Annabeth was alone, surrounded by old rose hedges and lazy bees, and she had not the faintest intention of moving.

Until the sound of footsteps disturbed the gravel path.

She lifted her head slowly, frowning as she spotted a man striding confidently toward the house, as if he had every right to be there. He was not familiar — and she would have remembered those broad shoulders and long legs if they were — but then again, Annabeth did not particularly look at people, especially not men. And never long enough to commit them to memory.

Still, her curiosity was stronger than her hesitation.

“May I help you?” she called.

The man turned quickly, his gaze searching until it landed on her seated form. His eyes — insanely blue, she thought without meaning to — widened just a little.

“Oh, well— yes! Yes, I—” he babbled, the words tripping over themselves like unruly schoolboys. He cleared his throat and straightened his posture. “Pardon, my lady. Yes, I could use some help. I am looking for one miss Annabeth?” he inquired. “Chase?”

She narrowed her gaze, now more confused than concerned.

“And she would be I, sir,” she answered.

His eyes widened even more, if that was possible.

“Oh! That’s— delightful, in fact,” he said, and then a smile spread across his face like sunshine breaking through clouds. It was almost childlike. A little mischievous.

She blinked.

“I seem to have found this,” he went on, reaching into the satchel crossed over his torso. He pulled out a thick, worn book, cradling it with gentle care. “In the University’s library. Do I speak to the correct Miss Chase?” he asked.

“Oh, God,” she breathed, standing now without quite realizing she had. “Yes, yes. You do.”

She stepped closer, eyes darting to the familiar green leather binding, the gold ink worn at the edges.

“How come you found me so easily?” she asked, carefully taking the book from his hands.

“Your last name is written on the third cover,” he said, almost sheepishly. “And the librarian knew your father’s estate. I figured… it would be a kindness to return it.”

She looked up, startled — not by his words, but by the warmth in them. The way he was watching her, not with pride or flirtation, but genuine interest, as though she were a curious riddle.

“Well,” she said, softer now. “It is a kindness.”

Their eyes held for a breath longer than proper. The air thickened, the garden somehow quieter for it.

Then, remembering herself, she inclined her head politely.

“Thank you, Mr...?” Annabeth began, her voice trailing off as she did not know whatever it was that she should call him.

He hesitated — just a flicker of something in his eyes, a decision made in silence — and smiled again, this time smaller. Quieter.

“Just returning what is yours, Miss Chase,” he said simply.

And then, with a courteous bow, he turned and walked away, leaving her standing with the book clutched to her chest… and a strange warmth settling low in her ribs.

She remained standing long after he had disappeared down the gravel path, her fingers still curled around the weight of the returned book. The air had changed — or perhaps it was only her perception of it. A moment ago, it had felt still and expectant. 

Now, it buzzed with the aftertaste of something unexpected, like lightning far off in a blue sky.

Annabeth slowly sank back onto the bench, though the act of sitting felt oddly foreign now. She traced the edge of the book’s cover absently, her mind stubbornly replaying the encounter.

He had not introduced himself. Not properly. And not out of rudeness, no — she had met many rude men in her time, and he had not behaved like any of them. He had been… nervous. Earnest. There was something boyish in the way he had smiled, as though the corners of his mouth had not quite learned how to keep secrets.

His presence had been striking, for some reason.

 Not because of his appearance — although he had been rather striking in that sense, too — but because he had looked at her like she was a real person. Not a name on a page, or a girl behind a title. He had not bowed and called her Miss Chase with smug delight, nor had he bumbled around her with practiced charm. He had simply spoken, as though they were equals, as though he had wanted to return the book, and not for any social gain.

And the way he had said, just returning what is yours, with that peculiar softness — it echoed in her now, a line caught between pages.

Annabeth ran her fingertips over the book’s familiar cover. She did not know whether she was smiling or frowning.

She had spent so long carving out space for herself within quiet things — studies, structures, solitude — that she had nearly forgotten what it felt like when something unexpected slipped through the cracks. She did not like surprises. They unsettled her. 

This man — whoever he was — had unsettled her.

And yet, she could not bring herself to be annoyed.

She sighed and leaned back against the bench, letting the weight of her body melt into the carved wood. The bees had resumed their murmuring, and the roses waved lazily in the breeze, oblivious to the way something within her had tilted. Not a grand change — not yet — but a shift nonetheless. A seed planted.

She would return to her studies later. There was a sketch half-finished, an elevation drawn in pencil waiting for ink. But for now, her thoughts were occupied by blue eyes and untold names.

He had not meant to stay in her mind, she was sure of that.

But he had.

And that, Annabeth thought, was precisely what worried her.

Chapter Text

It was two weeks later when Annabeth saw him again.

The day had unraveled slowly — a soft drizzle had kept her from the garden, and her sketching had been interrupted by the arrival of a rather dull letter from her father, requesting her to fetch a parcel delivered mistakenly to the University instead of his club. She might have sent a servant, but the walls of the house had begun to feel too tight.

Besides, she was curious. Perhaps it was the memory of the blue-eyed stranger that still lingered somewhere at the edges of her mind, a thread she had not yet decided to pull.

It made no sense, truly, that he stayed in her thoughts in such a relentless way. Annabeth had seen beautiful people before — striking faces at lectures, polished gentlemen at gatherings, portraits of long-dead lords in the corridors of estates finer than hers — and yet not a soul among them had stirred her curiosity quite like that man. There was not a clear explanation, not one she could justify even to herself. Yes, he was handsome — she could even argue he was the most handsome man she had ever seen, though she would never dare say it aloud — and yes, there had been a kindness in his manner, a gentleness that softened the edges of his confidence. But that did not make sense of it.

Still, he lingered — like a half-forgotten melody, or a word left unspoken.

Outside, the drizzle thickened into a fine, silvery rain. It fell steadily against the carriage windows as she rode through town, softening the outlines of streets and shopfronts, turning the world to watercolor. The horse’s hooves struck rhythmically against the cobblestones, and the faint clatter echoed in her chest like a heartbeat. She watched the people hurrying beneath umbrellas, the faint hum of the city muffled beneath the weather.

Her thoughts drifted again to the stranger — to that single, fleeting exchange in her mother’s garden. He had moved as though he belonged anywhere he wished, the cut of his coat marking him as a man of means, and yet his manner had been wholly without arrogance. His voice, calm and measured, had betrayed neither impatience nor pride. She wondered if he ever spoke so softly with everyone, or if he had been humoring her — a professor’s daughter with nothing better to do than draw and wander among roses.

She smiled faintly at the thought, tracing the shape of a raindrop as it slid down the windowpane. It was silly, she told herself, to even remember him. And yet she could still recall the way the afternoon light had caught on the gold of his hair, the faint roughness of his voice when he had said, “Do I speak to the correct Miss Chase?”

When the carriage reached the University, she stepped out with her usual composure, adjusting the hood of her cloak against the drizzle. The city’s western quarter was quieter here, the streets broader and lined with trees shedding their late-spring leaves. Students hurried between buildings, their voices low and scholarly, the hum of intellect clinging to the air like dust.

She paused at the entrance, watching for a moment as the stone archway framed the familiar sight: tall columns streaked with rainwater, ivy creeping up the sides of the courtyard, a few late blooms in the flowerbeds that ringed the walkways. This was her father’s world, and her mother’s too — all logic and architecture, ink-stained fingers and carefully drawn lines.

It comforted her, even on days like this. Especially on days like this.

Inside, the warmth of the hall wrapped around her immediately, mingling with the smell of damp coats and the faint tang of chalk dust. The marble floor glistened faintly where rainwater had been tracked in, and every step echoed faintly against the vaulted ceiling. Annabeth lowered her hood, smoothing her hair and allowing herself a small sigh.

The university hall smelled faintly of stone and ink. She loved it still, in spite of its dust and dim corners. She moved down the corridor with practiced ease, nodding politely to a professor who did not return the courtesy.

She turned the corner, and there he was.

Again.

Annabeth was not someone who would easily be intrigued by someone else’s presence, especially someone she did not know, but it was fairly simple to recognize the man who gave her the book back.

Bent forward slightly, his hand gently balancing a stack of books on the wooden counter, he was in the middle of a conversation with the old librarian, a kind-eyed woman with spectacles so thick they made her eyes twice their usual size. His voice was low and warm — that same effortless tone she remembered from the garden.

She did not intend to interrupt, but her footsteps on the stone floor gave her away.

He turned around, and there it was again — that brief flash of recognition in his face, followed by a smile that bloomed like sun breaking through mist. A beautiful grin, she was not ashamed to admit, that did ornate to his glimmering eyes and soft freckles.

“Miss Chase,” he said, a little surprised but not at all displeased. “What a delight.”

“Good afternoon,” she greeted back.

“Good afternoon,” he said back. “How are you today, miss Chase?”

He adjusted his stance, the corners of his mouth tugging upward in a way that was both knowing and faintly apologetic, as though he realized she had been holding that unspoken question since their first encounter.

“I’m well enough,” she answered at last, still watching him with a careful sort of curiosity. “And yourself?”

“Well enough,” he echoed, with a glint in his eye that suggested he found their mirrored politeness amusing.

Her gaze flickered briefly to the books between them before returning to his face.

“Mister…?” she prompted, the words light but deliberate. That missing detail from their earlier meeting had been… an odd omission.

His lips parted, perhaps to finally give her the name, but before he could speak, the librarian leaned forward with the stack.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Jackson,” she said warmly. “Do send my greetings to your mother. We miss Lady Jackson quite a lot around here.”

Annabeth stilled, then, suddenly upon hearing the name he was called as.

Mr. Jackson.

She blinked once, twice, as the sound of it settled — Mr. Jackson.

It was absurd, really, that she had not realized sooner. Now that she looked, it seemed written into every detail of him. The fine cut of his coat, tailored but unpretentious, dark blue with brass buttons that caught the lamplight; the white of his collar crisp and high; the faint trace of salt still woven into his sun-warmed hair, as though the sea itself refused to let him go. Even the way he stood, half-turned toward the librarian, carried a composure that was neither arrogance nor ease but something balanced between — the posture of a man who had long learned to navigate both the deck of a ship and the drawing rooms of high society.

He inclined his head to the librarian, accepting her thanks with a polite half-smile that reached his eyes, though it did not quite erase the restlessness in him. Something about him felt too alive for the quiet of the library — as if he might move again any moment, like a tide that could not linger long on one shore.

Annabeth’s fingers tightened around the folded letter in her hand. Mr. Jackson. The name had lived in whispers for years — the elusive heir of the Jackson estate, gone abroad for what people romantically called “adventure” and more truthfully called “escape.” He was said to have sailed nearly every sea worth naming, to have seen Constantinople and the coasts of Greece, to have learned languages and storms alike. And now he was home, if the gossip held true. Home and apparently standing before her, very much real and very much smiling.

She realized too late that she had been staring.

Mr. Jackson — for now she could give the name shape in her thoughts — turned his attention back to her, that same faint amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth as though he had noticed her recognition and chose, mercifully, not to comment.

Her  face did not change. Not even her brows twitched.

Annabeth gave him the same polite, curious look she had a moment earlier, the one she reserved for all unexpected twists in conversation, and spoke smoothly.

“I see my identity has been delivered,” he said lightly, the teasing warmth of his tone softened by politeness.

“I suppose it has,” she replied, her voice steadier than she felt. “It seems you are quite well-known, Mr. Jackson.”

“Ah,” he said, with a tilt of his head, “known, perhaps. Well known, I am not so sure.”

There was a subtle melancholy beneath the jest — barely there, but she caught it. Something about the way he looked down for a moment before meeting her gaze again, as if the familiarity others had with his name did not always belong to him.

“I see.”

He blinked, just once, then studied her with an almost imperceptible shift in his gaze. Something softened. Unclenched. As though he had braced for something far more dramatic and was instead handed quiet civility.

“I thought it best not to say,” he offered, a little hesitant. “Not at first.”

“Well,” she said mildly, tucking her parcel beneath one arm, “it was only a name you kept. I have known far ruder omissions.”

A laugh broke from his chest before he could stop it. It was genuine, warm — and laced with something that might have been relief.

“I quite like the way you think, Miss Chase.”

She tilted her head, amused. 

“That is very kind of you to say, Mr. Jackson.”

He smiled, soft and open, and Annabeth catalogued that much, too — he had a beautiful smile, indeed; just as kind as the tone of his voice.

“I trust the book has found its way safely home?” he asked, changing the subject suddenly.

She appreciated it, for her thoughts stopped spinning in a direction she very much would not like to go.

“It has,” she said. “And I am in your debt for returning it.”

He shook his head, still smiling faintly.

“I am certain you would have found it again without my interference.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed. “But I appreciate your kindness nonetheless.”

There was a pause then — one of those fragile moments when silence was not awkward but alive. Between them stretched the air of something newly formed and not yet named. He did not press further, did not ask whether she had spoken of him or whether she intended to. Something about her stillness told him she would not.

And she would not.

Not to her mother, who would have lifted her brows in that calculating, knowing way she did when she smelled the faintest trace of sentiment.

Not to Thalia, who would tease her mercilessly and make something trivial sound like a scandal.

Not even to the letters in her drawer, where thoughts she did not dare speak found their quiet home.

A man with the name of a legend had handed her back a book once, and smiled like he had not yet learned to guard his heart. That, she thought, was worth remembering.

Just not out loud.

She tucked the parcel under her arm. 

“Thank you again,” she said. “For returning my book.”

“Anytime.”

He bowed his head softly, and they parted just like that.

When she returned home that evening, she did not go to the library first — not as she usually would. Instead, she stepped into the garden, where the last light of day lingered on the roses. The air was soft and smelled faintly of rain. The bench near the stone wall still bore the marks of her last sketches — faint traces of charcoal smudged against her sleeve.

She sat there a long time, parcel tucked under her arm, the memory of his voice circling her thoughts like a tide returning to shore.

A man with the name of a legend had handed her back a book once, and smiled as though he had not yet learned to guard his heart. That, she thought, was worth remembering.

Just not out loud.

When she finally returned indoors, she untied the parcel and placed the book carefully back in its rightful place on the shelf. Her fingers lingered on the spine, tracing the gilded letters as if expecting the warmth of his touch to remain there.

Then, as if compelled by something beyond thought, she sat by her desk and opened her sketchbook. For a long moment, she stared at the blank page, her charcoal poised above it.

She meant to draw — as always — an archway. Or perhaps the shadow of a vaulted ceiling. Something familiar, safe, mathematical.

But her hand disobeyed her.

When the first lines formed, they did not resemble the geometry of stone. They were the soft curve of a smile. The faint tilt of a jaw. The unruly line of hair that refused order.

She frowned, though her chest ached with something she would not name.

And when she finally shaded the eyes — blue, like a storm, alive and unguarded — she shut the book quickly, as if she’d been caught.

The rain began then, tapping softly against the windowpane.

Annabeth closed her eyes, exhaled slowly, and told herself that this, too, would pass.

But in the quiet, her heart disagreed.

Chapter Text

Percy learned to sail the same way he had learned to speak both languages he was raised speaking — gradually and through constant exposure.

His father had taught him about storms early on.

Never turn your back on them, Lord Jackson had said once, when Percy was still too young to tell fear apart from awe. A storm, no matter how violent, deserves your respect. Keep your eyes on it. Know its nature before you let it near.

And so he had. He had learned to read the wind before it shifted, to taste the change in the air before it struck, to know the difference between a passing squall and the sort that might swallow a ship whole, to steady his feet in the storm and to walk the wind. He had sailed through dangers and waters and storms, and he had gotten out of each victorious, with one more story to tell.

Still, Percy did not know how to catalogue the storm brewing inside his chest ever since he had gotten back.

It was not the sea’s kind of storm — not wild, not immediate, not something he could ride out with skill and instinct. This one was quieter, heavier, made of looks and expectations and the way people’s voices changed when they said his name.

Mr. Jackson.

He was used to hearing his last name shouted by sailors, sharp with urgency and salt in the air, not whispered by strangers in candlelit parlors or murmured behind fans in drawing rooms, unknowing of his presence or none of them knew his face. There, in that world of land and lineage, it sounded less like a name and more like a weight he had to drag over his shoulders.

He walked through the streets of town that morning with the same gait he had used on deck, steady and balanced, but the ground felt foreign beneath him. The cobblestones did not shift, the air did not taste of salt, the wind was not sharp and yet he felt unsteady all the same. He had been gone too long, and though the town had not changed much, he had.

He could see it in the way people looked at him — curiosity, a touch of calculation to the foreign face they did not know. The son of Lord Jackson, returned at last, was a faceless rumor — he had been away too long for most to recognize him, and he hid too much, when present, for anyone to know him.

 There were stories, of course; there always had been. That he had gone too far north, like a reckless son of a lord would. That he had refused to settle to spite his waiting mother. That he had sworn off the ton altogether, or that he had quarreled with his mother and decided to join his father wherever it was. That he had been shipwrecked, cursed, lost.

And now he was back — older, broader of shoulder, darker of hair from years beneath the sun and marks of smile on his face — and suddenly the world that had once known him as a restless boy was ready to greet him as something else entirely.

Eligible.

The word tasted strange in his mouth.

He knew what was expected, the dinners, appearances, polite smiles, an easy charm that could be mistaken for interest. He had not forgotten the rhythm of that dance, because he was raised in it, but it was the thought behind it that unsettled his soul. People now saw him as someone to be considered, to be matched, to be speculated about.

He could almost hear the whispers already, and the mere thought of them made him roll his eyes. Lady So-and-so has a daughter of good fortune. Lord This-and-that’s niece has a fondness for the sea.

He exhaled through his nose, fighting an exasperated smile. His mother would never force him into anything — he knew that well. Lady Jackson was a woman of grace and rare gentleness; she would never command his heart, though she would, perhaps, hope for it to find peace.

He could picture her now, in the sitting room, sunlight falling across her hands as she read. She would look up when he entered, eyes bright, smile knowing. You look like him, she would say, as she always did when the sea still lingered in his hair. And she would be glad he had come home — not because of duty, not because of expectation, but because he was her son, and she loved him with the quiet certainty of the tide.

Still, even love did not remove the truth. Reputation was a fragile thing, and though his mother would never demand that he marry, he knew the world around them might begin to whisper otherwise. The Jackson name had always been tied to ships, to salt, to the Queen’s favor — and to scandal, once or twice, when his father had been younger and less careful.

A son could not afford the same luxury.

Percy knew that better than anyone.

There had always been a certain poetry in the way the sea forgave him — it demanded everything from him and yet, somehow, left him freer each time. Out there, beyond the shoreline, he was no one’s heir, no one’s expectation, no one’s responsibility. He was only himself — salt-stung, sun-worn, alive. The horizon belonged to no man, and the sea took no titles. It called him boy, captain, fool, and beloved all in one breath.

But here, on land, the air felt heavier. His name followed him everywhere like a shadow he could not shake. People bowed their heads a fraction lower, their smiles tightened into something rehearsed, and he could feel the weight of what they thought he was — the Jackson heir, the sailor returned, the man who might, perhaps, one day become his father.

That thought alone was enough to make him restless.

He loved his father, in the complicated way sons love men they both admire and can never quite forgive. Lord Jackson was made of tides and tempests, with a voice that could command both sailors and storms, and Percy loved him deeply — wherever it was that his father had gone that did not allow him to come back still. And though his mother had brought warmth and gentleness into the house, it was his father’s presence that filled it — even after his disappearance that so many sentenced as death. The portraits hung in the hallways, the sea charts rolled in drawers, the smell of pipe smoke still seemed to linger in the wood of his old study.

And Percy — foolish, loyal Percy — had spent years chasing the same waters that took the man from them, as if understanding the sea might help him understand what kind of legacy he had been left to carry.

Now, walking through the narrow, damp streets of the town, he felt every inch of that inheritance pressing against him. The people nodded at him with that strange mixture of reverence and familiarity reserved for those whose lives are public before they are private. The Jackson name meant something. It always had.

Ships. Trade. Politics. Power.

His mother carried it with grace — she had turned influence into art, her presence soft but commanding, her words so measured they could make even stubborn men reconsider. She was a perfect balance to the Lord’s temper and storming actions,  But Percy? He had never learned that skill. His charm was unstudied, his words too plain. He preferred honesty over poise, salt over sugar, and though the ton tolerated those rumors of someone untrained being the son of the most powerful man around — even admired it from afar —, he knew it made him a curiosity.

He was neither the perfect son of nobility nor the reckless sailor anymore. He was something between — caught in that uneasy space where land met sea, where expectation met self and where he did not know where to step for the ground not to give in.

The house loomed on the edge of the cliffs, its pale stone catching the afternoon light. He had spent his boyhood running through its halls, hiding under its staircases, and standing at the very edge of the terrace to watch ships disappear beyond the horizon. It was strange, returning now as a man, with the same view spread before him but the world behind it feeling infinitely smaller.

Home, they called it. Yet it did not feel entirely like home anymore.

He stopped at the top of the steps before going inside. The sea wind swept up from below, catching his hair, brushing cool against his face. For a moment, he closed his eyes and let it wash over him, breathing in salt, grass, the faint sweetness of the gardens that had never truly suited him.

Percy was back on land, among people, under expectation, and part of him wondered whether he would ever belong here again.

Perhaps that was what frightened him most. Not the gossip that would come, not the invitations, not the subtle glances across dinner tables that measured worth in lineage and wealth, no; what truly unsettled him was the thought that the sea had taken something from him he could never reclaim.

It had taught him how to live without walls, without ceilings, without the weight of being watched. It had made him fluent in solitude, comfortable in the language of silence and storm, and now, he was expected to trade that for ballroom conversations, measured laughter, and a reputation that preceded him into every room.

He wondered if he still remembered how to play the part.

Inside the estate, the staff greeted him with polite warmth as it always was. Their voices were layered with familiarity, their smiles too careful. They had known him as a child, had watched him grow into the tall, quiet man he had become. Still, they addressed him differently now. Sir. Mr. Jackson. Words that never weighed that much over his shoulders.

He murmured something in return, polite and soft, moving through the corridor toward the study that was his ever since he learned how to read (with much cost). It was still just as he remembered, with the heavy desk similar to his father’s, the globe by the window (that his mother loved), the worn maps unfurled like memories of voyages long ended (a collection the three of them made sure to keep growing as the years passed). 

His hand brushed across the edge of one, tracing the lines his father had drawn — routes marked in precise, practiced ink.

He could almost hear the man’s voice again, telling him of ports and politics, of the Queen’s Navy and the tides of power that ruled England as surely as the moon ruled the sea.

He let his hand fall away.

There was no escaping it — not the family name, not the history carved into every inch of the house, not the expectations that trailed him like a shadow. But still, a part of him — that stubborn, saltwater part — refused to surrender to it completely.

He had returned, yes. He would attend the dinners, accept the invitations, be courteous and careful and proper. He would smile when the time came, and dance if he must.

But his heart, he thought, could never be tamed to land entirely.

It would always beat with the rhythm of the waves, always long for something wild and infinite beyond the edge of what people called sensible.

The door to the study opened with a quiet creak, soft enough that Percy might have missed it had he not already known the rhythm of that sound — how it always preceded her gentle voice.

He didn’t turn around right away. He was standing near the window, one hand resting on the sill, staring out at the horizon where the sea met the pale gray of the sky. The clouds were low, gathering into something that looked suspiciously like rain.

“You have been pacing,” his mother said, her tone mild, as though she were commenting on the weather.

Percy’s lips quirked faintly. 

“Have I?”

“Since you came in, yes. I counted.”

He huffed a quiet laugh and finally turned. Sally Jackson stood in the doorway with her usual grace — a softness that never dulled her presence. Her dark hair was pinned neatly, though a few curls had escaped, and her dress, simple and elegant, bore faint traces of sea breeze from the garden. She carried no severity in her stance, no judgment in her eyes, only the kind of calm understanding that came from years of watching her son think himself into corners.

“I did not mean to,” he said, as if it were an apology.

His mother’s eyes softened.

“I know,” she replied, stepping into the room. The faint scent of lavender followed her, familiar and comforting. “You never do. That is what worries me, dear.”

Percy smiled faintly and turned back toward the window. 

“You should not worry, Mama. I am perfectly fine.”

“Hmm,” she said, which, from Sally Jackson, was as good as calling his bluff. She crossed to the desk and trailed her hand over one of the maps unfurled there, eyes flicking over the familiar blue markings of coastlines. “You were always a terrible liar, Percy.”

He huffed some air, pretending offence.

“I have improved,” he offered lightly, though his voice lacked its usual spark.

She glanced up at him then, one brow arched in fond disbelief. 

“Oh, have you? Because you sound just like you did when you were eight, insisting you had not stolen more pie when you had jam on your chin.”

He laughed softly — really laughed this time — and shook his head. 

“That is hardly a fair comparison, Mama.”

She winked an eye at him.

“It might be,” she admitted, smiling. “But the expression is the same. That faraway look. The storm behind your eyes.”

Percy sighed. 

“You always say that.”

“Because it is always true,” she studied him quietly for a moment. “And because it always means something.”

He leaned his shoulder against the window frame, the faintest shadow of restlessness still etched into his posture. 

“It is nothing, Mother. Truly. I am just— adjusting. To everything.”

Sally gave a small, knowing hum, as though she had expected that answer all along. She moved to the small settee near the fireplace and sat, arranging her skirts with quiet elegance. 

“Adjusting,” she repeated softly. “Aye, that makes sense. The land must feel quite narrow after so much sea.”

He smiled at that — not denying it, but not confirming it either.

“I have spent years worrying that you would never return,” she went on gently. “And now that you have, I find myself worrying for a different reason. You stand still as if the ground itself is strange to you.”

Percy’s gaze lowered, his voice quieter now. 

“It feels strange to be still. To be… seen again. To be known again,” he said. “To be spoken of and about, but never to because I was never here long to be met. Let alone for a soul to know me.”

“Known,” she echoed, tasting the word. “Is that what troubles you?”

He hesitated, a flicker of thought crossing his expression before he shook his head. Percy breathed in deeply, and exhaled at once.

“No. I just— I keep thinking I should feel more at ease. This is home.”

Sally regarded him for a long moment, her eyes soft but searching. 

“It was home,” she said. “You have changed, Percy. The world has not,” she continued. “It is not surprising that it might feel uncomfortable to fit in it.”

That silenced him.

She let the quiet linger for a second, blue eyes studying her son’s face.

“Your father used to pace in this same room when something weighed on him. His own study would become a cage, and so he would come to yours. Much like you, he thought I did not notice.”

Percy glanced up, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly.

“You always noticed.”

“I did,” she said, her smile wistful now. “And I learned something watching him. The sea gives men a strange kind of courage, but it takes something, too. It takes their ease with stillness. Their comfort with quiet. Their patience with pretending,” she listed, and her gaze softened.  “It seems it has taken a bit of yours as well.”

Percy looked away, jaw tightening slightly. 

“Perhaps.”

“Or perhaps,” she said, her tone lighter, “you are just a man who has seen too much sky to remember how to breathe under ceilings.”

He chuckled softly. 

“You always know how to make things sound less grim,” he said. “Even regal.”

“That is a mother’s duty,” she said simply. “And a writer’s, too, my darling.”

There was another pause. The kind that sat between them easily, without tension. Sally rose from the settee and crossed to him, her hand brushing his sleeve in a gesture both grounding and wordless.

“Whatever it is that clouds your mind, Percy,” she said quietly, “know that it will pass. The world will wait for you to decide what you want of it. Do not let the ton’s curiosity rush you.”

He blinked at her, startled by her accuracy. 

“The ton?”

“Oh, do not look so surprised,” she said, smiling faintly. “I have already had three letters this morning. It seems half the county has rediscovered an interest in my son, even if they do not know his face.”

He groaned softly, closing his eyes.

“Of course they have.”

“You needn’t engage with any of it yet, or even at all,” she said gently. “Not the invitations, not the expectations. Let them chatter. You have been gone a long time, but they will find something else to talk about soon enough.”

Percy nodded, though the faint crease in his brow did not ease. 

“You sound so very certain of that, Mama.”

“I am,” she replied. “Because you are your father’s son, but you are also mine. And I know how to wait out a storm.”

Something in him eased at that, and for the first time since his return, he smiled without the heaviness behind it.

Sally brushed her fingers against his cheek briefly, as she might have when he was a boy. 

“Get some rest, my darling. And try not to think too hard.”

“I shall try,” he promised.

“Mm.” She gave him a knowing look. “You never do.”

When she left, the study felt quieter — but not empty. The rain had started to fall outside, gentle at first, tapping against the windowpanes like an old rhythm he knew by heart.

Percy stood there for a long while, listening.

His mother was right, as she often was — he had seen too much sky to breathe easily under ceilings. But perhaps, he thought, if he stayed still long enough, the ground would learn the rhythm of his heart again.

And maybe he would, too.

Chapter Text

Rain had fallen overnight, a soft sort of misty drizzle that left the cobblestones slick and the windowpanes fogged at their corners. The air still held the bite of the storm’s passing — not quite cold, but crisp with the scent of damp earth and parchment ink.

The library was quieter than usual for the hour. Morning classes had emptied the halls, and the echo of students rushing between corridors had dwindled into a hush. A hush Annabeth adored. She sat nestled in the far corner of the long oak table beneath the arched window, where the light was kinder and less yellow than the rest of the room. Her books were neatly stacked — only three, a rare restraint — and her notebook lay open, her pencil paused between thoughts.

She had meant to work on a new drawing: a symmetrical design for an inner courtyard she’d been imagining since last week. But her eyes had drifted from the geometry to the page of the novel she had brought on a whim, and her pencil now rested forgotten beside her.

She liked the quiet of the university when it emptied itself out like this. The weight of voices, of expectations, lifted. No one asked her about the Season. No one asked her if she had plans for the ball. No one asked her if she had heard the whispers about the return of Mr. Jackson, as if the man were not flesh and bone but myth and magic.

Her thoughts, strangely, had wandered to him now and then — not in any girlish, giggling way, but in simple curiosity. She had not expected to think of him after their last meeting, and yet… she had. In the same way one wonders if a favorite book left behind at a library was picked up by someone kind.

The same way someone wonders if rumors are quite what they seem.

It was curious, it truly was, how it changed a rumor to place a face to it. She had never wondered about how Mr. Jackson, the son of Lord Jackson, would look like — she had seen Lord Jackson when she was but a child, and held no memories of the man’s face whatsoever. 

But rumors had faces, too; or perhaps they wore them — borrowed, distorted ones — shifting with each passing conversation until no one could tell what was truth and what was convenient fiction.

Annabeth had always disliked that part of society.

She heard more than most. People tended to assume that a quiet girl did not listen, or that a studious one did not care. Both assumptions were wrong. She listened without intending to. She cared without wanting to. This was the curse of living among people who delighted in speaking of others instead of themselves.

And the rumors about him — about Mr. Jackson — were some of the most persistent of the last few years.

Some said he was ill-tempered, molded into stiffness by his father’s stern hand. Others whispered he was reckless, wild, better suited to roaming foreign coasts than the drawing rooms of England. Some said he refused invitations with such vehemence that hostesses had stopped trying altogether. Others claimed he was brilliant — in languages, in mathematics, in diplomacy, depending on who had spun the tale. A few insisted he was cursed, touched by the sea in a way that made him… different.

And yet, none of that aligned with the man she had met.

The man who had returned her book with gentle hands and a smile that appeared as if he was pleasantly surprised the world still offered them freely. The man who spoke to the librarian with genuine warmth, who greeted Annabeth by name, and who had looked at her with no expectation, no calculation, no pretense.

She had expected arrogance, or aloofness. Or the polished charm of someone raised for salons and soirées.

But that blue-eyed man had seemed oddly human.

Almost painfully so.

Annabeth turned the page of her book though she hadn’t finished the paragraph. Her mind drifted again, drawn not to him specifically, but to the broader truth of society and the precarious dance of reputation.

The ton devoured stories, especially the ones without solid ground. The higher one’s title, the more ravenous the whispers became. Even a mild eccentricity could balloon into scandal. A missed event became proof of misanthropy. A preference for solitude became fodder for speculations about madness. A long absence — especially one involving the sea — opened the door to a thousand invented tales.

Annabeth had seen it all play out before.

Young women shaped into tragedies or triumphs based on a single perceived misstep. Young men raised onto pedestals or dragged through mud depending on which version of their name served the moment’s entertainment.

And Mr. Jackson, well… he had been gone. For years. Out of sight, out of reach. And absence was the perfect soil for rumor.

Annabeth rested her chin lightly against her knuckles.

She would not pretend she was immune to curiosity. She was not. But she liked truth, or at least the quiet solidity of things she could understand. Rumors were mist — shifting, deceptive, impossible to hold. What she had seen of him, however brief, contradicted much of the mythology built around him.

Even the way he stood had felt different from the stories. Rumors gave him a heavy air — brooding, intimidating, the son of a powerful lord destined for gravitas. But the man she saw had carried himself like someone half-relieved, half-awkward to be back among walls instead of waves.

She sighed softly, turning another page she would not remember. Her tea had gone cold, her pencil sat untouched, and the courtyard she had meant to design sat half-forgotten in her mind.

It wasn’t him that distracted her, precisely. It was the reminder of how people could be reduced to caricatures by the world around them; how easily truth was bent and how quickly stories became prisons.

Annabeth Chase had no patience for prisons — visible or invisible.

A gentle footfall from the far side of the room made her raise her head. A few students entered, laughing softly, their soft chatter crackling the quiet. She blinked herself back into her own thoughts, setting aside the book she had not truly read.

The world outside those walls would continue spinning its stories, because it always did. And she would return her attention to her work, to her pencil, to her archways and to her quiet, steady world made of lines and logic.

Rumors, she decided, were best kept at a distance.

Especially the ones with blue eyes.

It seemed, though, that the world might not agree with her conclusions.

"I beg your pardon,” she heard a voice above her head. When she lifted her eyes from the page she was not quite reading and turned her head towards it, the familiarity made sense — Mr. Jackson stood there, tall and oddly sheepish, as he curved his body softly to look at her face. “Miss Chase,” he bowed his head.

“Mr. Jackson,” she bowed her head softly, as well, as she called him by his name in low voice. His name could not even have echoed in the air around them, careful as she said it, and the man seemed to notice that particular fact rather quickly.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling small, and Annabeth knew it was because of not drawing attention to it. “I appreciate your discretion.”

Annabeth nodded.

“I have no intentions of spilling someone else’s secrets, sir,” she told him, softly mocking — something that surprised her far too much. She schooled her expression, and straightened her shoulders needlessly. “May I be of help?”

His eyes were still thankful as he looked at her.

“Perhaps,” he smiled kindly. “Would it be a bother if I shared the table at which you sit?” he asked, then. “I fear every student has decided to study at the same hour as I, and I am, therefore, left without any seat.”

“Oh,” she babbled.

“And, while I am not a familiar person for you, Miss Chase, you are the one person whose name I know, here,” Mr. Jackson confessed. “But if it would bother you, I shall leave you to your readings.”

It took her only a few more seconds than usual to set her thoughts into motion, a gesture of hand following her words.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” she said. “I have not taken enough books to cover the entire table, this once.”

Mr. Jackson arched his eyebrows.

“Is that a habit of yours?” he asked, pulling the chair so he could join her at the table.

“Quite,” she confessed. “I do spend most of my time at the library.”

The man chuckled.

“Somehow, it does not surprise me quite as much as I believed it would, hearing that,” he said, and Annabeth arched an eyebrow. “I try not to make assumptions about people, most of the time.”

“And yet you made some about me?” Annabeth challenged, not exactly as offended as she would have meant to sound. It did not really bother her, really, that he had made any assumptions — it was hardly something she could control, and Mr. Jackson clearly did not mean anything bad by what he had said.

“I could not help it, Miss Chase, sadly. I did meet you because of a well-loved book you left behind; it was stronger than me to make up some beliefs about you.”

Annabeth imagined that the assumption, as truthful as it was, would offend her, somehow. A random stranger making up any ideas about her typically would, and half of her did not understand why, on God’s green Earth, it had not. Perhaps it had been the kindness of his voice, or the sweetness of his eyes, or just how correct he was — perhaps it was all of it or none of those, and, sincerely, she decided not to dwell much on any of the possibilities.

They fell into a silence that was not heavy, but tentative — the sort that arises between two people who do not yet know if conversation will bloom or wither. The rustle of pages sounded louder in the pause, the scratch of graphite on paper louder still.

Annabeth peeked sideways at him — not openly, not obviously, but enough to catch the way his brow furrowed as he read, how he pressed his thumb to the corner of a page without turning it, like he was still deciding whether to continue or linger on the line.

She had assumed he would study navigation, or politics, or perhaps military history. Men of his station were often more performance than pursuit — but there was something quietly attentive in the way he read. Not for show. For joy.

And then she noticed the script. Not English.

Not any language most students around them might read for pleasure.

Her brows furrowed, and before she could stop herself — before she could tell herself it was none of her business, and he might take offense, and it was far too soon to ask anything personal — the question left her lips.

“Is that… Are those books in Greek?” she asked.

Mr. Jackson interrupted his reading, snapping his head in her direction with confused, a bit widened eyes.

 “Oh, yes,” he said, smiling a tad shyly. Annabeth blinked in surprise. “I was alphabetized in Greek. I learned English as a second language, and I find it more comfortable to not study in English if I can possibly avoid it.”

If that was not something surprising, Annabeth doubted anything else would be. Out of every single prejudice she could have come up with about Mr. Jackson, the fact that he was a foreigner did not ever cross her mind.

“Are you Greek?”

The man shook his head.

“My father is,” he replied. “He moved from Patras shortly before I was born.”

Not a foreigner, then. Still, her surprise remained.

“Oh,” she said. “So is my mother. Greek, I mean. She moved here from Athens short years before I was born.”

The man smiled sweetly.

“Have you ever been to Athens?” he asked. Annabeth shook her head softly. “It is a lovely place. A bit more than whatever one can read in books — but I cannot believe it to be the most beautiful place in Greece.”

And perhaps it was a long-shot to believe that he had somehow noticed how the topic of her mother was not one of the happiest ones she could talk about, but Mr. Jackson was indeed quite quick and incredibly smooth when taking their conversation somewhere else.

“And wherever would it be?” she decided to engage in a new topic.

"The isles,” Mr. Jackson replied easily. “Oh, they are wonderful. Circled by the ocean, and yet the view never once gets repetitive; the beauty is breathtaking every single time,” he breathed, a sweet smile on his face and a glimmer in his eyes.

Annabeth could not help herself to be drawn in by the sheer admiration in his voice as he spoke. There was a childish awe in his face that she had long forgotten could exist in adulthood, and something about it made her want to listen to him a little more.

"You seem quite sure, Mr. Jackson, of what you say,” she pointed out.

“It does not happen often, but I am,” he said, his tone lighthearted. “Whoever claims the isles are not the most beautiful part of Greece is vehemently wrong.”

 His eyes sparkled then — not with pride, but with memory. A kind of distant fondness. Annabeth watched him for a heartbeat longer than was polite, wondering what he might have seen there that had embedded itself so deeply into his conviction. Salt-sprayed cliffs, maybe. Old ruins, white against blinding sun. Or perhaps it was not the place but the feeling it had offered him — something quiet, something free.

"Well, I shall only have to take your word for it,” Annabeth said. “I am yet to be capable of drawing conclusions myself.”

“That is a shame,” he replied, lowering his eyes back to his book for a moment. “But I hope, Miss Chase, that it shall not remain so for long.”

Annabeth did not answer right away. She was unsure whether it was the softness of his voice or the sincerity tucked between his words that caught her off guard. It did not feel like the usual talk of travel — boastful or theatrical. 

It felt like an invitation not made aloud.

She lowered her own gaze then, to the open sketchbook before her. The drawing on the page was half-finished — a set of ionic columns she had begun adapting into a pavilion, reimagined for a country estate. She turned the page before he could see too much of it.

“May I ask,” he began after a moment, voice careful, “what you study, Miss Chase?”

“Architecture,” she said, lifting her chin slightly. “I study the way things are built, and how they remain.”

He smiled at that. 

“A noble pursuit.”

“It is practical,” she replied.

“And beautiful,” he added gently.

Annabeth blinked. Her lips parted, but no response came to mind. She was not used to her subject being called beautiful. Important, yes. Unusual, often. Ambitious, depending on who said it. 

But beautiful? 

That was new.

“I suppose that depends on how one sees it,” she said, her voice quieter than before.

“Well,” he said, resting one elbow lightly on the table, “I imagine it takes great vision to see beauty in bones and brick before they become what they were meant to be.”

She stared at him for a second, her heartbeat oddly loud in her ears. Then she reached for her pencil, hiding her reaction in the motion, and replied, 

“You speak like someone who has read a fair number of poets, Mr. Jackson.”

“I was cursed with a romantic education,” he smiled. “My tutor was a sentimental old man. He believed Homer should be memorized, not merely read.”

Annabeth allowed herself a small, involuntary smile. 

“A romantic, then.”

“Only in theory,” he said, too quickly. “In practice, I am terribly sensible.”

That made her laugh — a brief, quiet sound that surprised even her.

She had not meant to. The corners of her lips curved before her thoughts could catch up, and for a fraction of a second, she forgot the tightness of her collar or the way her fingers always ached after writing too long.

Mr. Jackson did not speak, but he looked at her — not boldly, not the way young men so often did, with assumption or calculation — but simply and plainly, as if he were glad to have said something that made her forget herself, even if just for that heartbeat.

The silence that followed did not stretch awkwardly, but softly, like a well-worn shawl passed between hands. They read, then, or pretended to. She tried to sketch again, pencil tapping faintly against the parchment. He traced lines in his book, the sound of a turning page gentle and unhurried.

The light from the tall windows shifted gradually, climbing higher on the walls and changing the color of the dust that floated lazily between them. Still, they sat — not speaking for stretches, only exchanging the occasional glance or quiet remark. He asked, at one point, about the tool she used for shading; she asked which poet he liked most in Greek. Both answers were simple and unadorned, but the space between them began to narrow, as though the hours themselves were stitching something invisible in the air.

Eventually, her eyes flicked to the large clock mounted above the archway, and she straightened almost reluctantly.

“I must go,” Annabeth said, closing her sketchbook with care. “I am to meet a friend before returning home.”

Mr. Jackson looked up and tilted his head, noting the time. 

“Of course,” he said, and stood. “May I walk you, Miss Chase?”

A gentleman, he proved himself again to be.

She hesitated — not because she feared him, but because she did not trust how things might appear. Her parents were still gone, but Thalia was not, and she imagined the look on her friend’s face far too clearly. That, and she did not know what her own face might betray if they walked too far in silence.

“I appreciate the offer,” she said, voice composed. “But I shall be just fine.”

He nodded, but something in his expression softened further, perceptive and strangely kind. 

“Then… may I at least walk you as far as the steps outside? The sun has started to glare, and I suspect we both ought to pretend we have read more than we truly have.”

She almost smiled again. 

Almost.

“That would be acceptable,” Annabeth replied, adjusting her gloves.

They left the table together, neither in a rush, and she noticed how he carried his books — carefully, not as weights but as objects of affection. They passed through the columns and high ceilings of the library’s exit in thoughtful quiet, until the outside world greeted them in full: the city in its dull gold tones, horses trotting in the distance, and the chatter of carriages in conversation with the cobblestones.

At the base of the steps, she paused. He did, too.

“Thank you for your company, Mr. Jackson,” she said.

He looked at her for a moment longer than was entirely proper. She would not hold it against him.

“Thank you for letting me share your space,” he said. “I was not entirely certain you would.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“You seemed quite confident.”

“I was not,” he admitted, a flicker of mischief in his eyes. “But I thought, perhaps, a woman who reads about Greek Architecture as a way to spend spare time might be more forgiving of strange company.”

She turned, her steps slow but certain as she moved toward the street. And though she never looked back, she was entirely aware he remained where he stood until she had disappeared from view.

Chapter Text

One could hear fantastic things if one’s presence was so entirely unknown.

Percy had that much figured out ever since he was a lad—small and clumsy and far too restless, too curious, too eager to slip through doors and eavesdrop on the world as it spun without him.

One could hear fantastic things about oneself if one’s presence was entirely unknown. By face, at least.

Percy was, admittedly, far more delighted by that truth than a man of his age and education ought to be.

It had started beside Grover, of course. It always did, those delightful things in life.

Grover’s pipe had finally given up on him after years of travel, humidity, sea air, and the unfortunate incident involving a startled goat, a cliffside, and Percy’s very poorly timed sneeze. So the moment Percy’s boots touched steady ground again, Grover announced—with the dramatic solemnity of one heading to war—that he required a new one. Immediately.

And so they went to town for the first time since Percy’s return, legs still wobbly and terribly sore when the ground wasn’t rocking under their feet.

It felt strange to walk the cobblestone streets again, too smooth beneath his feet, too predictable. There wasn’t sway, no creak of timber, no salt biting against his cheeks. The air was crisp and dry, smelling of bread and newspapers and the faint, metallic tang of horse tack. The sun fell differently here—slanted, polite, filtered through awnings instead of clouds racing overhead.

But the strangest part of all, and the best of everything, was that no one recognized him. Not a single person, and what a delight it was to put that assumption to test.

Mr. Jackson, the ghost-son of Lord Jackson, the prodigal heir, the sea-tamed wanderer, had become nothing more than murmurs and wild speculation. A name, not a face. A rumor, not a man.

He passed people who spoke of him as if he were a myth carved in marble. Or a calamity waiting to happen.

It was delightful.

“Did you hear?” a woman near the bakery whispered as he and Grover passed. “They say he returned horribly changed.”

“Horribly?” her friend echoed, eyes wide.

“Horribly! He lost a leg. Some say both. And an eye—maybe two. They only ever see him after dark, you know.”

Percy, two legs and two perfectly functioning eyes intact, bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

A few steps later, outside the apothecary, two young men were talking in tones that were meant to sound worldly and knowing.

“He’s a menace, I’ve heard,” one said, straightening importantly. “A regular Don Juan. Broke hearts across three continents. Left a trail of weeping maidens from Spain to the Indies.”

Grover snorted so loudly Percy elbowed him.

“If they saw how you freeze up when someone compliments your handwriting,” Grover muttered under his breath, “they would die of shock.”

Percy elbowed him again for good measure.

The rumors only grew more absurd as the morning wore on.

At the market square, an elderly man claimed Percy Jackson had been cursed by a sea witch. At the tailor shop, a girl insisted he was hideous beyond description, forced to wear a mask. At the bookshop, someone theorized he had fathered three secret children.

“What on earth would I have done with three secret children?” Percy whispered to Grover as they passed.

His best friend shrugged. 

“Started a tiny navy?”

Percy cracked, laughing outright then, unable to suppress it.

But no one paid him any mind, no one turned their head or gave him a second glance. He was a tall young man with sea-weathered boots and travel-worn clothes (his mother did hint at him that he had cleaner, newer clothes in his wardrobe), nothing more. He was not the heir of a powerful estate, not the returning son of a household wrapped in privacy and mystery. Not the boy who had left quietly and the man who had come back even quieter.

The anonymity was astonishingly freeing.

He could watch people without being watched in return. He could breathe without the weight of expectation pressing against his ribs. He could hear the world speculate about him with the easy irreverence one applied to a character in a novel — exaggerated, ridiculous, strangely entertaining.

Every time he ventured into town, he heard new additions.

Once, someone claimed he had died at sea and the returning figure was a ghost. Another time, a group of ladies whispered that he was already betrothed, in a secret engagement, to a countess in Italy.

Grover nearly walked into a lamppost hearing that one, shivering at the odd resemblance to reality (when there was an Italian countess that did try to hunt Percy down to wed him. Terrible times). Percy only smiled, quietly, almost fondly at the lives people believed he had found across the sea. 

There was a strange joy in knowing he existed somewhere between truth and fiction in people’s minds, untouchable, unknowable, twisted into whichever shape best fit their imaginations. He’d grown up resenting that. The pressure of fame without face, expectation without experience, but now, older, wearier, steadier, he found it amusing.

If the world insisted on inventing a Mr. Jackson, then he was more than pleased to let them. The real one, the one walking the streets with Grover and stopping to admire pipe carvings and haggle over tea blends, belonged to no one else’s imagination, and it Percy didn’t really mind haunting the ton a little bit longer.

As they reached the little shop Grover had been aiming for, Percy paused at the window, watching his own reflection in the glass — blue-eyed, tousle-haired, very much alive and entirely legged.

A ghost to the ton, a rumor to society, and yet, for the first time in a long while, he felt somewhat real.

He pushed the door open, the bell chiming above them.

“Let’s find you a pipe that won’t explode or turn to ash as soon as you blow,” he told Grover.

Grover lit up with enthusiasm.

And Percy found himself lighting up too.

Not because of the pipe (Grover inspected each one with the gravity of a man choosing a lifelong companion), but because the whole morning had taken on a sort of gleeful absurdity. A private game. A secret joke between himself and the world.

It became a habit faster than he’d ever admit aloud.

Within days, Percy realized that walking through town was no longer a simple errand or a necessary outing — it was entertainment. Pure, unadulterated amusement. His own private theatre, and the actors were the entirety of the ton, performing, unknowingly, for him. Luckily, he heard more and more with every visit.

Once, at the milliner’s shop, a girl swore Mr. Jackson had returned from his travels with a rare tropical disease that made him violently allergic to sunlight. Percy leaned over a rack of hats and murmured, just loud enough to be overheard.

“Terrible business, that. I knew someone who knew him, and see… Poor fellow must live like a vampire if he does not wish his skin to turn to ash.”

The girl gasped. 

“You knew someone who knew him?”

Percy just shrugged dramatically and wandered off before she could demand details.

Grover spent the rest of the afternoon — he would vehemently berate Percy for engaging the rumors, and ultimately choose to visit the town with Percy nonetheless — choking back laughter like a man about to burst.

Another time, at the grocer’s, two old women debated whether Mr. Jackson was monstrously tall or shockingly short. Percy was very much confused as to why that had become a topic worth conversationing about, but decided that it was not his place to figure out why anything had any relevance to people’s wonderings.

“That Jackson boy,” the first woman said, shaking her onion at the other, “I heard he grew to near seven feet tall from all those years at sea.”

“Nonsense,” the second replied, slapping a cabbage onto the counter. “I heard he never grew past five! All that saltwater stunted him, rusted his joints like metal.”

Percy, innocently reaching for a sack of tea, added his own input.

“I hear he is both.”

The women blinked at him, snapping their heads towards the unfamiliar, rather ordinary figure.

Percy nodded gravely. 

“Terribly unpredictable height. It depends on the weather.”

He walked away before they could recover.

It was becoming a problem — an amusing one, sure, but he knew he should not encourage it. He knew these stories, however ridiculous, would eventually weave themselves into something that reached all the way to his mother’s tea table or, worse, the drawing rooms of families who took gossip as a blood sport. He could imagine it already, Lady Jackson, serene and patient, listening over porcelain cups as someone whispered, “Your son—the tall one, or the short one, with bones of rust? Where is his grave?”

Percy would pay good money to witness her expression, even if he would have to run for his life once Sally realized what, exactly, was going around the town about her son, but even that possibility did not deter him.

If gossip made people so devoted to socializing, so eager to gather and laugh and exaggerate, then he might as well join in, quietly and from the shadows, just in the spaces between truth and nonsense.

It was the first time in his life that society felt like something he could play with, rather than something playing with him.

And perhaps he should have been worried — about reputation, about propriety, about dignity. He was a Jackson, after all. There were expectations bound to his name, stitched so thoroughly into the family legacy that he sometimes wondered whether he even had a say in the matter, but anonymity was a sweet thing. A rare thing. And he wasn’t ready to give it up quite yet.

So he slipped through the ton like a ghost, occasionally nudging the living into crafting even more outrageous legends about Mr. Jackson, the man no one had seen but everyone knew.

And every time he returned home, cheeks aching faintly from suppressed laughter, Grover muttering “you’re going to regret this, one day” under his breath, Percy only smiled.

Because maybe he would. It was a possibility, yes, that maybe rumors would circle back and bite him in the back, sink their teeth into his carefully guarded privacy. But, for now, it was fun. And Percy Jackson had not, in his life, had enough fun to turn this kind away.

Not yet.

By the time the carriage rumbled up another long drive toward the Jackson estate, Percy’s grin had not faded. It tugged at his mouth like a stubborn tide, rising each time he replayed the day’s most outrageous rumors.

Seven feet tall. Five feet tall. Sunlight allergy (it got him curious to learn if that much was even possible in a scientific way). He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, trying, and failing, to stifle a laugh. Grover, beside him, only shook his head.

“You laugh now,” Grover muttered, “but the day someone asks your mother if her son bursts into flames at dawn, I shall not defend you.”

Percy’s grin widened.

“I look forward to it.”

Grover groaned like a man in pain.

They parted ways at the entrance, Grover heading toward the kitchens to grab something to eat before dinner, Percy taking the familiar path toward the grand foyer, where a thin line of afternoon sun lay across the floor like a golden ribbon.

He was halfway up the stairs, still biting back a stray chuckle, when a voice floated up from behind him.

“I hear,” Lady Jackson said, “that the Jackson boy steals away to sea because he cannot bear the look of himself in the mirror. There are too many eyes staring back at his reflection.”

Percy froze.

Slowly, theatrically, he turned around.

His mother stood at the foot of the stairs, gloved hands clasped neatly in front of her, posture regal, expression serene — except for her eyes. Her eyes sparkled with wicked amusement.

“I also heard,” she continued conversationally, “that he has fathered three illegitimate children in three separate countries.”

Percy’s jaw dropped. 

“Three? Only three? I’m offended.”

Her brows lifted. 

“There were additional claims, but truly, Percy, even gossip requires limits.”

He pressed one hand to his chest. 

“Mama, I am appalled. Utterly scandalized. To think we share the same roof as such a menace.”

Sally began walking up the steps, graceful and unhurried, like she was approaching the punchline of a story.

“Oh, that is not even the worst of it,” she said. “I heard today that he is, in fact, a ghost.”

Percy gasped. Loudly. Grover would have applauded the performance.

“A ghost?” he echoed, wide-eyed. “He died? The poor fellow. I pray, Mother — truly I pray — that I never meet him. Or pass through him. Or he passes through me. Imagine having such a creature in possession of your limbs?”

Sally reached him now, standing one step below, her lips fighting a smile.

“I would imagine that difficult,” she said lightly. “Since you walk through this house often.”

He tilted his head, lowered his voice to a whisper. 

“Do I? Or do I float, Mama? Have you ever checked?”

She flicked his ear.

“Ow!”

“That is for tormenting the ton,” she announced. “They were buzzing like hornets today, and I suspect that it has been happening for quite a while. Half the market is convinced you returned last year. The other half insists you have not set foot on English soil in over a decade.”

Percy placed a dramatic hand on the banister.

“Then I am both here and not. Alive and dead. Tall and short. Do you not see, Mama? I am but a miracle of nature!” he continued, theatrically and louder than necessary, if only for the performative strength of his words.

“Mm,” Sally hummed, adjusting a pin in her hair with exaggerated poise, as if she, too, walking in the scene of the play her son had started. “Or a menace of rumor.”

“Mother,” he said gravely, “I assure you, if I ever meet this Mr. Jackson, I will tell him personally to stop causing such distress.”

She gave him a look — the kind lined with fond exasperation and the kind of love that softened all things.

“Well,” she said, turning toward the landing, “if you do happen to cross paths with him, tell him his mother is waiting to introduce him properly. Before the gossip kills him a second time. Or third. I am not quite sure how many times people have decided my son to be dead.”

Percy’s laugh echoed up the stairwell, bright and wholehearted — the kind he only ever let loose within these walls, where the world’s expectations could not quite reach him. He caught up to Sally as she reached the landing, falling into step beside her with the long, easy stride of a man who had spent years matching the roll of a ship.

“Speaking of which, darling,” she said lightly, not looking at him, which was always a sign she was preparing to ask something important, “would you want to?”

Percy blinked.

“I am sorry, Mama. You have lost me a tad. Would I want to… what, exactly?”

She stopped walking, turning to him with that serene, patient expression mothers had perfected since time immemorial.

“To be introduced,” she clarified. “Properly. To the ton, to society. To the Season.”

Percy stared at her — not alarmed, but blank with genuine confusion, like she had just asked whether he wished to become a tailor or take up juggling professionally.

“The Season?” he repeated slowly.

“Yes, dear,” Sally said, folding her hands in front of her. “It begins in a handful of weeks, as you have noticed yourself a few days prior. And before invitations arrive and rumors multiply further, I must know how you wish to proceed.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it when nothing came out of his throat. For a few more seconds, he simply considered what his mother was saying.

“…Proceed with what, exactly?”

A spark of amusement lit her eyes. 

“Oh, Percy. You do know what a Season is.”

“Yes, yes, of course I know,” he said immediately, and defensively. “Dances, and dinners, and gowns and… nonsense.”

“And introductions,” she added gently. “Particularly yours. You may be a rumor in their minds, but you are still the heir of one of the oldest lineages in our region. They will expect to meet you.”

Percy rubbed the back of his neck.

“My presence is still only rumors, is it not?” he tried. “Some say I’m abroad. Some say I’m ill. Some say I’m—dead, apparently,” he gestured vaguely. “Surely we can let them stay confused for a while longer.”

Sally smiled — soft, knowing, maddeningly wise.

“We could,” she said. “But the confusion will grow teeth once the Season begins. And though I would never force you to endure any of it — not the balls, not the introductions, and certainly not marriage — I must know what you want. So I can shield you properly.”

He blinked, struck by a quiet warmth in her voice he hadn’t expected.

“You would shield me?”

“Silly boy.” She reached up and smoothed a curl at his temple. “I have been shielding you your entire life.”

Percy swallowed — guilt, affection, something else entirely stirring in his chest.

He looked away briefly.

“It is expected, is it not?” he murmured. “That I take part in… all of this. That I show myself. That I—” he hesitated. “Behave like a proper heir.”

Sally’s expression softened in an instant.

“The only thing I expect of you,” she said, “is the truth. To me. To yourself. And preferably to Grover, if only so he stops losing sleep wondering what storm brews inside your head.”

Percy snorted. 

“Grover loses sleep because he insists on sleeping next to five dogs at once.”

“Even so,” she said with a tilt of her head, “he worries.”

He sighed, long and uneven.

“I do not know what I want, Mama,” he admitted quietly. “Only that the thought of being paraded before strangers makes my skin itch.”

“That,” she said, touching his arm, “is already an answer.”

He met her gaze, surprised. 

“It is?”

“Of course,” she said simply. “You do not wish to be thrown to the wolves. So you won’t be.”

He let out a breath.

“But,” she added, “you are curious.”

He made a face.

“Curious is not agreeing.”

“No,” Sally agreed, her smile returning, gentle and sly. “But it is not running away either.”

Percy opened his mouth to argue — then closed it, because she was right. Because she usually was.

He scrubbed a hand across his face.

“Fine. I am… curious. A little. Perhaps.”

“A great deal,” she corrected, patting his hand.

“Mama,” he complained, much like a child.

“What?” she asked innocently. “You have spent the past week strolling unnoticed through town while listening to increasingly ridiculous rumors about yourself. That seems like the behavior of a very curious man.”

He groaned into his hands. 

“Please, do not tell Grover.”

“Oh, I will,” she promised cheerfully. “He deserves to laugh at you.”

Percy dropped his hands, but he was smiling now — small and sincere.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“For what, darling?”

“For… this.” He gestured vaguely around them. “For not forcing me. For letting me be complicated.”

Sally reached up and cupped his cheek.

“You are not complicated,” she said. “You are simply mine.”

He leaned into her touch before he could catch himself.

“Come,” she said, withdrawing with a graceful turn toward the hall. “Let us at least discuss what openness might look like. A small appearance, perhaps. A single event. Something tolerable.”

Percy followed her, groaning dramatically.

“Mama, please— not the dancing.”

She laughed.

“Oh, Percy. You survived sea monsters. You can survive a waltz.”

He huffed.

“I am not convinced.”

“There is still time for you to learn,” she said, amused,

He sighed, his shoulders sagging — but a smile tugged at his lips despite himself.

Grover found them in the front room, still half-embroiled in their banter — Sally with her arms crossed, Percy trying very hard not to grin, and failing spectacularly.

“There you two are,” Grover said, shrugging off his coat and shaking the cold from his curls. “Juniper sends her love. And also her irritation.”

Sally raised a brow. 

“Her irritation?”

“Oh, yes,” Grover said, dropping into the nearest armchair with the grandiosity of a man who had walked two streets instead of one. “Because apparently a certain rumor has made it all the way to the north of the city. And I mean the far north — past the market. Past the big church with the cracked bell. All the way to her aunt’s house.”

Percy leaned back, hands in his pockets, whistling in a way that absolutely gave him away.

Sally turned slowly — dramatically — toward her son.

“Perseus,” she said, full name and all, “how many rumors have you started?”

He straightened, looking every bit the picture of innocence. 

“Mama, I would never—”

Grover snorted so loudly it could have startled the horses outside.

“You see?” Grover said, pointing at Percy accusingly. “That is the sound of a guilty man. Also, Juniper says one of the stories you made up — one involving a mysterious curse and a tragic duel on a cliff — was retold at least three times before noon. By three different people.”

Percy tried again for innocence. 

“I cannot be blamed for people’s imagination.”

“You fed their imagination,” Grover countered.

“You nurtured it,” Sally said, hands on hips.

“You weaponized it,” Grover added.

Percy lifted a shoulder. 

“Perhaps. A little?”

“A little?” Sally repeated, trying not to laugh. “I should have known it was you. Only my son would think it wise to add fuel to nonsense for his own amusement.”

“It is not my fault they were dull rumors,” Percy said, shrugging. “I improved them. Artistic contributions, truly.”

Grover groaned, but he was smiling. 

“Juno said that the latest version included something about Mr. Jackson’s ghost haunting the docks.”

“That may not have been me,” Percy said quickly.

Grover narrowed his eyes. 

“Percy.”

“…Fine,” Percy relented. “That one was me,also. But it is a good story!”

Sally pressed a hand to her forehead.

“Heaven preserve us,” she sighed. “Is the entire ton speaking nonsense, now? Not a single person ever considers questioning those stories?”

Grover snorted.

“Well, Sally, Percy is an extremely convincing storyteller. I was beside him through both the travels and in the town, these past days, and I almost believed him,” he laughed.

Lady Jackson shook her head sofly in denial, amused.

“Oh, God,” she breathed. “How far will these tales reach?”

Grover looked up, thinking, and moved his shoulders.

“Farther than we can possibly control, to be fair. Juno also made a comment about even the Chases being aware of Mr. Jackson,” he said.

For a reason beyond Percy’s understanding, that sentence seemed heavier than the others spoken before. Grover had not changed his entonation, which made it ever odder — it felt almost like the room itself knew of something Percy did not (or ever Grover himself), and his mother’s smile weakened for only a second.

Percy blinked, confused, and Sally tilted her head to the side.

“The Chase family?” she asked. “Oh. Now, that is definitely prone to be a rumor.”

Grover shrugged.

“It does sound quite a bit like one, but I believe it to be not,” the young man spoke again. “Mrs. Chase seemed to have taken curiosity over some of the rumors involving reckless sea travels and lost children.”

Lady Jackson hummed.

“Oh, now that is surprising. They never take part in any of that sort of thing. Not the Season, not society gossip. Not even in events that are not related to Academia.”

“And certainly not anything involving the Jackson family,” the woman spoke. 

She made a soft noise — agreement, acknowledgement, something like that — but Percy caught the oddness of it. A small shift, a flicker across her features. He had never heard anything, not a whisper, not a hint, of his mother disliking or even disapproving of any other family. Yet her tone had been… different.

And Percy, who was usually terribly unobservant about society, noticed it only because he remembered a different detail.

Miss Chase — sitting in the library that day, composed and sharp as a winter morning, entirely unbothered by him. Entirely uninterested in pretense or theatrics. Someone who looked at him and did not see rumors. Who spoke to him calmly, sensibly, even though half the ton insisted he was either a villain, a ghost, or a one-eyed rake with hidden children.

She had not seemed the type to believe nonsense.

And she certainly hadn’t seemed the type to share a table — even accidentally — with the walking embodiment of scandal, if she had believed the rumors at all.

A thought — quick, unbidden, unreasonable — flickered through him.

She did not seem to have believed them.

But he brushed it off almost instantly. Why should it matter? Why should she matter? They had spoken once. Twice, at most. He had no business remembering how seriously she held her pencil, or how her brow furrowed when she thought, or how her voice wrapped itself neatly around each word.

He shook the thought away.

Grover was still talking.

“Percy, Juniper says the gossip is so bad up north that someone actually claimed Mr. Jackson has a third ear. On his back.”

Percy laughed — loudly, gratefully, letting the sound scatter his thoughts.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sally said, but she was smiling now, fond and hopeless in equal measure. “Percy— oh, my son. My grown, foolish son. Starting ghost stories about himself.”

Percy placed a hand over his heart in mock defense. 

“In my defense, Mama, the ton seems to enjoy my existence far more when I am not there to ruin it.”

Grover snickered into his sleeve.

Sally shook her head, giving up at last, and stepped forward to plant a light kiss on Percy’s cheek. 

“You are impossible.”

“And very much beloved,” Percy said, a troublemaker’s grin on his face.

“Regrettably,” she agreed, though she was smiling when she said it.

Grover stretched his legs, his grin wide. 

“Juniper says that if this continues, by next week, someone will claim you can shapeshift.”

Percy gasped dramatically. 

“And ruin my best kept secret? How dare they.”

Sally groaned, but she was laughing too, and the room — warm with lamplight and hearth glow — felt full in that easy, lived-in way only the three of them could ever manage.

Rumors or not, curses or not, ghosts or not—

Percy thought, distantly, that perhaps he did not mind being a mystery, if it made them laugh like this.

And perhaps, somewhere in the back of his mind, a sharp-eyed woman who read in quiet corners was thinking of him too.

But that, he told himself, was probably just another rumor.

Chapter Text

The sea always had a way of silencing her thoughts. 

Not drowning them — no, not quite — but stretching them out until they unraveled, long and thin, like thread in the hands of some mythic weaver. She had walked alone that morning, far from the promenade, the house, and even Thalia, whose voice had been swallowed by the narrow streets behind them. It was not common for young women to walk so plainly unaccompanied, but her steps were purposeful, her gloves in her pocket, her shoes softened with sand.

There was comfort in the wind here — the sort that pushed back her hair and pulled her shawl about her like a second skin. The kind that did not ask questions or expect her to speak. The tide breathed in and out with the rhythm of the world, uncaring of propriety, of Frederick’s sharp silences or Athena’s fierce demands for brilliance. The sea did not ask her to be anything. It simply was.

Her boots sank just slightly with each step, not enough to hinder her, but enough to anchor her to the moment.

She had been thinking about nothing in particular — about the shells she used to collect as a girl, about how gulls cried like someone mourning a forgotten song — when her thoughts, entirely uninvited, conjured a pair of eyes the exact colour of the deeper waters just ahead.

Mr. Jackson. It seemed to be a name that did not leave her mind easily, those weeks.

It was odd, because their encounters, few and scarce, had never been anything out of ordinary meetings with someone else one does not know at all. But his name lingered in the streets, more and more as the Season approached, and things did not quite connect together as pieces of puzzles should; and Annabeth could not help being intrigued about the man and rumor of his shadow.

She blinked, frowned at herself. 

Foolish. Silly, even. But it was not the look of him that her mind lingered on — not the eyes or the mischievous half-smile or the precise way he had bowed his head. It was the strangeness of it all. How a man so odd and soft-spoken had appeared in her dreary world thrice now, each time leaving her more puzzled than before.

And the rumours — oh, the rumours.

They were never cruel (not yet, she supposed), but vague, shifting things, like smoke. Daft things, she supposed, about the legend of a man. Some said he was a sailor, while others swore he was a soldier. Few promised that he was a man with coin and none of the lineage to justify it, and many claimed that he had fought in a war — no, he had run from it. He was a scholar. A merchant’s son. A boy from nothing with a name too grand for what it ought to mean.

And still, when he spoke, he did not sound as though he cared about any of that. He did not seem to be any of the options the rumours offered, and was that not something curious?

Annabeth had learned, long ago, that stories were more dangerous than the truth could ever be, and that a name could be an anchor or a storm. She also knew — perhaps better than most — that the quietest people often carried the loudest truths.

She was not interested, no. She was not even intrigued in any particular way, but she was curious, and Annabeth Chase had never once met a question she did not wish to answer.

She sighed, long and slow, pausing at the edge of a dune where the wet sand curved into the dry. Her hands folded neatly in front of her. The tide was higher than she expected — a bit wild, white-tipped.

Only then did she notice the hum, soft at first. The sound of people, of a crowd filled with gasps, voices, a stir just ahead. 

Her gaze drifted.

There, by the swell of the shore, a crowd had gathered. A bit frantic, slightly distressed — more captivated than anything, strangely enough. Heads tilted toward a figure she could not yet distinguish, their backs to her and the breeze loud enough to steal away any words.

The commotion on the beach was enough to have her walking towards the crowd. Annabeth was a curious person, as it turned out, and it was more than tempting to see so many people gathered around something — or someone, perhaps, because there was always someone daring the waves around there.

Usually, if she gave in to her curiosity, Annabeth would find a drowning person saved by a very frantic one, or a child that did not follow the safety recommendations and got burned by a jellyfish that had caught their attention. Sometimes, someone who had spent far too long under the sun and was going through a heat stroke, and desperate people who did not, for the life of them, know whatever they were supposed to do.

The gasps should have told her that it would not be the case.

Annabeth did not expect to see Mr. Jackson, of all people, stripped of his coat and with his shirtsleeves folded to his elbows, bending down to fold his pants to his knees, seemingly talking to a shark.

A shark. The man talked to a shark that was stuck in the sand. As if it was a person, someone who could understand every word he quietly muttered with a frown between his eyebrows and a soft, contrasting smile on his lips.  The animal, of course, did not answer or make any sound, struggling weakly given his position far from the ocean.

People around watched curiously, curiosity being the only thing that kept their horrified faces from screaming. They moved half a step back whenever the shark managed to move a muscle, hushed whispers and gasps at anything the extremely odd pair in the center did. Annabeth, though, could not take her eyes away from the man that had caught everyone’s attention.

She was interested, of course; the scene was eccentric, to say the very least. And there were few times in life that she would ever get to see a very odd man talking directly to a shark as if he was trying to explain just what was happening. Of course, it was even more intriguing because of the past interactions she had had with the man himself — a chance encounter because of a forgotten book, a shared table, books in Greek —, and Annabeth could not help herself but to wonder just whatever else he could surprise her with.

The answer to such wondering could not have come faster had she asked it outside of her thoughts.

When the crowd gasped again, it was because Mr. Jackson had crouched and, a second later, embraced the shark so he could get up again.

With the shark in his arms.

Annabeth could not stop her own gasp, at that.

And despite never showing interest in men — or women —, Annabeth could not avert her stare that were attached to the muscles in the man’s arm as he carefully, slowly held the sea creature that could not be lightweight. From where she stood, the animal was long and more than heavy; and still, Mr. Jackson seemed to lift it without a problem whatsoever.

The man walked towards the ocean with care, without a bother in the world about the weight in his arms. The crowd could not take their eyes from the sea creature, while Annabeth found herself incapable of darting her gaze away from the interaction of it with Mr. Jackson, who still talked to the shark as if it could completely understand him and be soothed by whatever words he murmured towards it.

Gasps were still heard all around, and the man was the most unbothered Annabeth had ever seen anyone — it was oddly fantastic, for it was the perfect picture of a madman, and still it was clear just how sure and sane each of his movements seemed to be. The creature in Mr. Jackson’s arms moved, or tried to, once the man stepped into the water, but it was to no avail. Surely it was weakened by its state, and the grip that held it was unwavering.

Once Mr. Jackson was knee-deep in the water, he lowered the shark just enough to change his grip to the creature’s fins, the one on its back and the back, main one — at least, she thought it was. Annabeth had not a clue about anything related to sea creatures. Mr. Jackson bent over the creature for a second, and held it in place as he took a step and a half away from the shark; it moved, after a few seconds, and the man did not move an inch.

Particularly, Annabeth would have been someone to — if ever in a similar situation in which she would cradle a shark in her arms on a random afternoon to save it from the sand and imminent death — somewhat throw the shark into the sea and then run away from the water as quickly as the waves and physics would allow her.

But Mr. Jackson seemed adamant on being sure the shark was breathing, apparently, and holding it in place for longer than Annabeth would have ever dared to. He still talked to the creature, the woman noticed, and an easy smile seemed to grace his lips as he did so — it was oddly charming and eerily inviting, the way his face lit up and he seemed to be so at ease while in the water. Even if there was a literal shark in his arms with which he seemed to be having an honest conversation.

The creature moved, after a while, and slowly at first. Mr. Jackson, with apparent undying patience and strength, held it tighter and a bit firmer as the shark moved more and more, faster and clearly breathing, not anymore on the verge of suffocation. The man’s smile seemed to widen even more at the progress of the creature, and Annabeth felt an odd urge to smile at the sight herself.

It was mesmerizing, for some reason — or rather, very obvious ones — to watch Mr. Jackson’s actions. The man did not even seem to notice the crowd around him and the sea creature, too absorbed in his personal mission of rescuing the shark and taking it to safety, something that was oddly endearing to realize.

He moved with a kind of certainty she rarely associated with men of society — not performative or calculated, as most young gentlemen tended to be when they knew they were being watched. No, this was instinct, plain and sure. He crouched low, murmuring something to the creature as if it might understand him, coaxing the shark gently back into deeper water with steady hands and a strange, effortless grace. The waves kissed his boots and drenched the hems of his trousers, but he did not flinch. He was all patience. All motion.

Annabeth, standing slightly apart from the gathering onlookers, felt her brows furrow — not in disapproval, but in something like distant recognition. She had seen devotion before, certainly. In her mother, toward ideas. In Thalia, toward justice. But this was different. 

Quiet. Wordless. Singular.

No name, no announcement, no audience was expected.

And yet, there was an audience. Dozens of them now, growing by the minute, murmuring and pointing and marveling aloud. When the animal finally twisted free from the shallows and slipped back into the ocean, the cheer that erupted startled even her.

She had to suppress a laugh — not at him, never at him — but at what came next.

She had never seen someone fleeing anywhere as quickly as Mr. Jackson managed to do as soon as the crowd started to come closer — the ladies, mostly, who were also hypnotized by what they had, too, just witnessed happen by the shores. The look on his face was hilarious, and sincerely priceless, the moment he realized people were watching him and, now, wanted to talk and reach out for him, asking questions and wanting his name and wondering ‘how is he so brave?’ with sighs and hopeful gazes.

The only thing that went inherently wrong was that they were on an open beach, and even his quick steps away from the crowd would not take him out of sight. And the curious eyes and breathless ladies and gentlemen did not get the hint that he was not supposed to be followed.

The crowd started moving in the same direction as Mr. Jackson, then. 

For the man’s complete and absolute despair.

He turned, too quickly, eyes wide as though he’d just remembered he was human and not some sea spirit among the rocks — and then he bolted.

Not rudely, not shamefully, though a bit hilariously. He was simply… determined would definitely be a word for it. She was not quite sure which other she could possibly come up with to describe such a scenario.

Annabeth’s hand came to her lips to stifle a chuckle. She watched him vanish behind a dune, boots squelching, hair tousled by salt and sun. 

He did not even glance back.

She shook her head, smiling despite herself.

So that was Mr. Jackson. Again, making an impression so much different than what the rumors claimed, and somehow still being the center of attention — Annabeth had to suspect that it was not his intention in the slightest, though; and that made it all so much more amusing.

She felt empathy, and sincerely pitied his current situation as he disappeared from her sight and the crowd moved after him. His despair was so clear that it reached her own ribcage, and it was a tad of a sorry scene to see.

And, well.

Oh, well. 

Mr. Jackson had helped her and been so kind towards her before. There would be no losses in attempting to retribute the favour.

She inhaled deeply. Then, readied herself for a ridiculous, quite honestly pathetic portrayal of desperation.

“Oh, Lord!” she screamed theatrically. “A shark! A shark!”

She could not have believed that it worked, the silliness of her actions, when people started screaming and running around, far from where the sea met the sand and in an opposite direction to where the man had started to run off towards a couple of seconds before. She did not move with them, of course, and watched until people were not looking towards the water anymore, that part of the beach a lot emptier to make her way in the direction to where Mr. Jackson had vanished just a while before.

The stroll was as calm as it could be when one was in a sort of hurry, and Annabeth did not quite know why it was that she wanted so much to speak to him. She was curious, of course, and impressed at the very least — especially at how the man had run like the Devil would from the Cross as soon as people started to applaud and tried to speak to him.

He had managed to reach fairly far from where the shark had been, under a pier structure that Annabeth believed to be much farther away. It was only a few minutes walking on sand for her to reach it, and she pressed her lips together so laughter would not escape her as she caught sight of an edge of his coat behind one of the pillars.

“An impressive doing, Mr. Jackson,” she said, her head tilted and a smile on her face as she stared at the pier pillar where he was hiding behind. “That shark could not have been lightweight.”

The man turned his head towards her in impressive speed, she did notice, with widened eyes and a flash of terror coursing through his face. Annabeth did not move, offering him the chance to adjust his eyes and notice whoever it was that talked to him.

She knew when he recognized her, his eyes softening within a second.

“Oh, thank God, it is you,” Percy sighed, a hand that gripped the wooden beam being placed over his chest. “I nearly had a cardiac problem.”

Annabeth pressed her lips together once again to keep herself from chuckling. It was an oddly endearing sight, and the relief with which he had realized it was her to speak to him tasted sweet on her tongue.

“Whyever are you hiding, sir?” she asked. “I do believe you are deserving of the praises they chant. And the curious eyes from the ladies .”

Mr. Jackson’s face contorted in something similar to distaste and despair, a deep frown taking over his features. His nose crinkled, and he shook his head — to vanish some thought, she believed. The man quite quickly then schooled his expression, a small, very soft smile, almost imperceptible, took over his lips as if it was something he did often.       

“Oh, I do not seek praise. Much less the curious eyes,” he said, and a second later brought shuddering upon his shoulders. “Curious eyes mean questioning and questioning often leads to marriage conversations. That I will gladly put off.”

It was a confession, almost — or really. Annabeth did not believe he had meant to say the second sentence, so honest and breathless it had been; an honesty she did not believe she had done anything to deserve from him. Moreso, it was an admission quite difficult to get from anyone, and to hear it from the most talked about and desired bachelor in town was certainly a surprise she could have not, by any means, have predicted.

Annabeth decided to look over it, though, for a while.

“I believe they headed north. It is safe for you to leave, now,” she announced, stopping a few inches away from where the ocean kissed the shores. It was an attempt to reassure him, of sorts. “Without praises and curious eyes.”

  Mr. Jackson huffed some laughter, and then stepped away from the beam, closer to the woman’s side. He stretched his neck to look in the direction of where they had been a while before, checking if her words were true and it was safe to carry on his escapade.

“Odd,” he said. “I did not think they would give it up so easily. It is usually worse,” the man commented.

Annabeth could not avoid arching an eyebrow.

“Is this usual?” she asked. “Being chased by astonished crowds?”

He seemed to blush once he chuckled softly. But with the way he had turned his face away, she could not be sure.

“It has happened a few more times than I would like to remember or acknowledge,” Mr. Jackson told her. “And not all of them were astonished crowds.”

Annabeth could not help the widening of her eyes.

“Should I ask?”

The smirk on his face was not as ashamed as he had planned it to be, she reckoned.

“Not so soon into knowing me, I would not recommend it,” he said. She hummed, hiding a smile as she shook her head. “Would you walk with me?” Mr. Jackson asked after just a beat of silence as he adjusted his coat over his arm. “I appreciate your company. More than the praises and the curious eyes.”

And it was not like Annabeth to feel the heat rush to her cheeks. It was not like her to avert her eyes from someone else’s for the sake of their words, and it was surely unlike her to force a wide smile to become only a grin at Mr. Jackson’s words.

It was even less like her to accept his request.

“I would like that, yes,” Annabeth agreed, far too eager according to her usual self. She averted her eyes from him one more time once Mr. Jackson smiled at her acceptance. “Should we head back?” she suggested.

“There are rocks further south that offer quite a sight of both the ocean and the town,” he said. “Have you ever been there, Miss Chase?”

“I have not,” she said. “I was not aware of it, in fact.”

“Many people are not. It is quite further down, I should warn you,” Mr. Jackson said. “It is the side of the town close to New Rome.”

It made sense, then, Annabeth thought, that she did not know about any rocks that overlooked the sea. New Rome was the newest neighborhood in town, completely planned and to where part of the elite — the new money people that came to the capital — decided to live. It was secluded from the rest, as if it was its own town as it was its own community, and most of the long-time residents did not know much of the place.

Annabeth had never been there, for once, because she did not like the rumors that reached her ears about the people and the neighborhood itself. Of course, she did not believe everything she heard — but rare interactions with some of the residents that went to meet the University did set her mind up to stay away from them.

“I do not mind walking,” she assured him. “And I do wish to see the rocks, now. It has been a while since I last saw a new sight around here.”

“This town can get dreary, uh?” he asked, grinning playfully. “I can understand.”

She frowned. But a soft smile did not leave her face.

“Truly?” she inquired. “Have you not been away for these past seasons, Mr. Jackson?”

“Aye,” he confirmed. Then, he gestured with his hand to indicate the path they would follow, opposite to where they came from. “Shall we?” he offered, and Annabeth nodded softly, then. Once she started walking, Mr. Jackson followed suit. “I have been away, yes. Because things around here can get dreary,” he explained.

And it was a joke, yes. At her expense.

Somehow, it did not bother her as it usually would, for it was clearly not intended to shame her or her questions.

“Quite a stupid question of mine. I apologize,” she did not resist saying.

“Whatever for?” Mr. Jackson asked. “It was a good question, in fact. How could it be dreary for me if I have been away?” he put it in words, the question she had meant. “It is easy to remember everything I grew up seeing, once I am back. But, of course, it is always good to see it again.”

She hummed.

“It gets tiring faster, I suppose? The more you come back?”

“It does,” Mr. Jackson agreed, laughing softly.

And after that, they fell into silence. For a couple of seconds, Annabeth despaired and wondered if she should somehow start another conversation, find another topic to talk about. But Mr. Jackson seemed content, his eyes never stopping to analyze one place for too long — he seemed to have interest in everything, from each grain of sand to the waves that reached the shore one after another.

There was a smile on his face as he caught sight of everything around him, and it was amusing to watch. From what was talked around, the ocean was nothing but familiar to Mr. Jackson; it was odd, and oddly endearing, to see just how much he could still appreciate the shore and the details around him.

The silence, Annabeth noticed, was not quite uncomfortable — not at all, surprisingly so. The waves were loud in their ears, and their steps were not light over the sand; and still, the absence of words was not bothersome. Mr. Jackson seemed rather content with just walking by her side, and Annabeth would have to admit it to herself that she did not mind it in the slightest, either.

And still, she could not help her curiosity. If anything, the comfortable companionship was just an invitation — and the eerie man beside her made a lot of things seem plausible to ask. One, in particular, seemed to be in front of her mind.

She could not help her inquisition.

“Do you not wish to marry, Mr. Jackson?” she asked, her eyes likely as curious as the ones he had rushed to avoid a while before; and, so, Annabeth stared at the sand, watching her steps.

The question was spoken before she could hold back — she was curious, naturally, because there was not the slightest fraction of logic in a man like Mr. Jackson fleeing the possibility of marriage. It did not make sense, whatsoever, that a handsome, wealthy, cordial man would be terrified enough to hide under a pier just so women would not stare at him or consider a relationship.

And Annabeth would forever claim it was curiosity, and curiosity alone that led the question to be asked.

Mr. Jackson, always polite, shook his head softly in denial. His coat was thrown over his lower arm, as his shoes hung in the fingers of one of his hands — the other arm opposed the movement of his legs, and he stared, too, at his feet.

“Oh, that is not it,” he told her calmly. “I do wish to marry. In fact, I am quite a dreamer, quite a fool when it comes to the subject. Mother says I was built a romantic,” he laughed, his cheeks slightly pinker than the second before, Annabeth noticed when she dared to turn her head in his direction. “But curiosity, around here, usually comes for the name and for the title. Not the person behind it.”

Annabeth hummed. It was not hard to ponder it to be correct — she had heard lots from other ladies and gentlemen alike about the Jackson name, the Jackson family. Gossip, mostly, and more than unkind regards coming from her mother whenever there was something about them on the papers; and, so, there was nothing to do but agree.

The repute was something held at high stakes, of course, and there was no better around the town than the Jacksons. The balls, the clothes, the behavior — Annabeth did know how everything was somehow compared to the family.

It sounded exhausting to just hear about it. She could barely conceive how it would be to live with such expectations hanging over one’s head.

"It sounds quite gloomy,” Annabeth stated, her voice slightly lower. She could have added something more, but it seemed enough to summarize her thoughts.

Mr. Jackson thought the same, apparently.

"Aye,” Percy agreed readily. “Worst it is to know that it is the truth. See, Miss Chase, I am not looking for a strategic marriage. I would never marry for wealth, repute, a page on the morning’s paper. But that is everything I hear about whenever someone mentions the topic.”

Annabeth hummed, her brain slowly processing the words. There was no rush, she realized, while they walked and as they spoke — there was not a reason whatsoever that the conversation needed to follow a certain pace, and that was quite a lovely thing to realize. Mr. Jackson’s steps were long and slow, as were his words; and he was sincere, more than simply cordial.

For some other mysterious reason, also, it was a rather interesting point of view, the one he shared. Mr. Jackson was wealthy — the wealthiest bachelor, miles beyond that town — and Annabeth had always believed that wealth could only and always seek to have more. Whenever the Jackson family was a topic within the range of her hearing, the ladies spoke of stance, power and politics for their family.

It was quite a revelation to learn that none of that seemed to cross the Jackson heir’s mind.

“You search for a love match, then,” she concluded. “Rather uncommon, would you not think?”

Mr. Jackson chuckled softly, his cheeks rosé with an embarrassment that came with a certain degree of vulnerability.

“If I believed it to be impossible, I would still search for it hopelessly,” he confessed, his voice as soft as the sea that reached close. “I have a philosophy, see. There are two things one cannot fight, Miss Chase, and those are Time and Love. Forces of nature that thrive alone, in parallel, and might never meet. They can, regardless, be put together for better and worse: an endless sentiment of happiness, or a forever sentiment of hurt,” Mr. Jackson laughed softly. “I would forever wait for any ounce of any of them.”

Annabeth would never dare to mention how the passion and honesty of his tone stole her breath momentarily. He was well educated, of course, and she was aware of such; but he spoke with more faith than knowledge, it seemed, and it was something sweet to witness.

"You speak like a poet, Mr. Jackson.”

The man laughed softly; his lips shut in a smile.

“My mother is a poet, Miss Chase. I grew up among verses and the happiest, bluest tint of the days,” he replied. “It would be a tragedy, had I not learned my way with words, somehow.”

Perhaps she was being tested.

A great company, a lovely person, a poet. And Annabeth could not pretend that the man was not good-looking — his hair was often disheveled, but the curls were adorable over his head; his kind eyes were always glimmering, and an easy smile would often find its way to the man’s sharp, though welcoming face. His jaw was angled, and the lines on his young face seemed to always remember a smile.

As if his muscles were used to it. The kindness, the joy, the sweetness.

“Oh? That is quite amusing,” she chose to say, instead of her thoughts about him. She was intrigued, to say the least, and that much was sincere. “Color me curious.”

“About poetry?”

“About you,” she corrected, quite honestly, with a soft smile on her face and a quick look in his direction. “A shark savior, a hopeless romantic, a poet; what else are you hiding underneath heavy coats and blue vests?”

His eyes sparkled when she looked at him again.

“Recklessness and fish, some would say,” Mr. Jackson laughed. “And oddly random facts about even more random subjects.”

Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

“Fish?” she asked, rather rhetorically. “That would explain the shark.”

“It would,” he chuckled. “Indeed. It was a thresher shark, the one I helped back there. It is not considered to be a violent species, much less in such a state.”

         “Honestly?” she questioned, intrigued by the ease with which the information rolled off his lips, as if he never knew something simpler. “Not only did you dare to help a shark, but you know which species it was? That is quite impressive, Mr. Jackson.”

The man chuckled softly, a sound that, somehow, harmonized strangely with the waves so nearby.

         “Hence, the fish under the coat and vest,” he said. “I am an ocean enthusiast, if you will. Quite fond of the unknown. And of sharks.”

         His voice was covered in a smile, and Annabeth could not help but ask further questions.

         “And why, should I ask?”

         “Because of my father. He is a sailor,” he explained, a sweet smile on his face as he eyed the sand. “We have sailed together quite a few times and, even on land, Mother would always find us by the ocean. He taught me most things I have learned. I have learned some I hope to teach him, as well, and there is always something new to know about the seas.”

         Annabeth hummed, quite interested in whatever he had to say. Mr. Jackson’s excitement while speaking of simple things, and how talking about himself seemed something comfortable was admirable — he did not mind opening his mind and heart, apparently, and it was one more thing Annabeth listed under his name inside her head.

         She did not dare ask why the last portion of his sentence was coated in hopeful melancholy. They were strangers, regardless of easy conversations, and Annabeth knew it was not her place, despite the curiosity, to wonder further than what he chose to share with her.

         “I must confess I do not know much about the ocean. Nor have I ever sailed,” she chose to say, then. It was a safe choice, to carry on the conversation while offering something for him to keep talking about that was not very particular or intimate. A safe choice, and the truth; she did not know much about the ocean, and he seemed to love talking about it.

         At least, the gleam in his eyes and how his bare feet were always in reach for the waves reaching the shores collaborated to such theory.

         “Are you one of the fearful people when it comes to the sea, Miss Chase?” Mr. Jackson asked.

         She tilted her head slightly to the side.

         “I was taught not to trust it,” she reasoned. “Those waters can be temperamental, and one never knows truly what lies on the sand or underneath the waves.”

         Mr. Jackson hummed, quite amused and thoughtful. A second passed in silence, and Annabeth waited for whatever he was thinking about to get to a conclusion.

         “Do you trust the night, Miss Chase?” he asked, then. “Do you ever look up at the stars, when there is no light but theirs, and wonder?”

         Annabeth frowned, intrigued and confused by the questioning.

         “Why, of course,” she said as if it was an obvious thing. “I am quite fond of the night. I do not believe there is a soul that does not appreciate gazing at the stars, Mr. Jackson,” Annabeth reasoned.

         A witty smile found its way into Mr. Jackson’s face, suddenly.

         “Then whyever are you scared of the unknown when it comes to the seas?” he asked.

         The question took her off-guard.

         It was what he had intended, apparently, so sure was the smile on his face. Annabeth frowned, the lines soft on her forehead, as she tried to make an argument to defend her own affirmations.

         “The stars are constant,” she chose to say.

         “So are the tides,” he retorted quickly.

         “Oh, I am not quite sure of it,” she said. “They change.”

         “So does the Moon,” he smiled, certain of the point Annabeth knew he was about to make. “And, yet they remain loyal to each other. The inconstancy of the nights shapes the tides as we know,” Mr. Jackson continued. “And there is not much we know about the skies, other than their beauty.”

         She did not, by any chance, stand breath taken as he spoke, again, as if the world was just a poem to be interpreted and recited at will.

         “The ocean has killed people,” she stated.

Mr. Jackson, oddly kindly, scoffed in amusement.

         “So has darkness. So has rainfall. So has thunderstorms,” the man shrugged, the response easily rolling off his tongue. “So has the world around us. The ocean is not alone in its demands for respect.”

         And, honestly, Annabeth had no arguments or wishes whatsoever to try and prove her own point. She was wise enough to understand when a debate was won, and she felt no grief whatsoever for such; he had solid, heartfelt and passionate reasons to believe what he believed in, and he made a clear, solid point.

         “Quite a fierce soldier of the water, are you not, Mr. Jackson?” she smiled sideways, chuckling softly.

         Mr. Jackson laughed, also. His smile seemed to agree with her words.

         “It has led me to wonderful places, Miss Chase. I cannot help being quite defensive, that is true.”

Even if Annabeth was not curious by nature, there was something in his tone, in his voice and in his grin that invited more questions to be voiced aloud.

“Oh?” she asked. “How many wonderful places have you ever been to, I wonder?”

She hadn’t meant for it to sound as curious as it did, but her words slipped from her lips before she could gather them, like water from a tilted glass. There was something about the way he spoke — that blend of certainty and fondness — that made her want to ask, just to see what he might say next.

For a rumor, Mr. Jackson seemed a tad solid in what made him an inquirement. 

A soft breeze brushed past the edges of her hair where it rested, tied low behind her head, and Mr. Jackson seemed both astonished and delighted at her question. His large eyes widened for a moment, as if he would never expect someone to speak to him as just another person rather than a collective hallucination — as if he would never expect a stranger to be interested in whatever he had to say.

Annabeth did not know the man, but she did know the feeling that crossed his face. Her words had been an invitation to storytelling, and God only knows how much something simple as that might turn lightweight the stones on a loner’s shoulders. God only knows how much it helped, how much it softened her edges when love shone in her eyes and someone else was willing to hear her speak of it.

And while she would never assume that Mr. Jackson was lonely — she did not think he was, for his presence must have drawn at least a few loyal friends in —, Annabeth could suppose that if the man was enough of a gossip that his face was only fabulated by the crowds, then he was not very likely to socialize as much as his charisma would allow him to.

Mr. Jackson seemed astonished for only a couple of seconds before a grin made itself present over his face.

“I lose count of it, Miss Chase. There is not a corner of this Earth that is not wonderful,” he said, and his eyes glimmered as, she imagined, memories crossed his mind. “And I have been to more places than I have fingers on my hands to point out.”

He did not boast when he said it. It wasn’t in the tone or the smile, nor in the way his posture shifted — he leaned back slightly as he spoke, his gaze now somewhere in the horizon, as if retracing steps across invisible lands. His voice lowered just a bit, not for secrecy, but for reverence, as if he still carried sand in the seams of his coat and moonlight behind his ribs. As if the world had left its mark not on his boots, but on his heart.

“Now, that is quite a lot,” Annabeth said, sincerely admiring. “I imagine you have spent a long time at sea.”

“I have, yes. Years,” he said. “But I have traveled far through land, as well. Some of the most beautiful places I’ve seen have been surrounded by forest, not salt. A village at the edge of a desert, where the sand glows like fire. A city built into cliffs. A temple grown into the roots of a mountain.”

She watched him carefully. The more he spoke, the more she realized he held the world in pieces behind his eyes, like a cartographer of memory — except his maps were made of feeling and scent and sky, not ink.

Annabeth blinked. There was a peculiar ache in his voice, barely a note, but she caught it. It was not sadness — not exactly. Something quieter. Loneliness, perhaps. Or something older than that.

She did not dare ask more right away.

Instead, she reached forward to turn the page of the book they had both abandoned. She didn’t read the words. Just gave her hands something to do.

“You speak of the world as though it is a story,” she finally said.

Mr. Jackson’s smile was smoother still.

“Aye. Is that not what it is?” he asked, tone light again, but the softness still lingering. “A collection of stories we pass to one another, hoping they might matter when we are gone?”

She paused at that. Annabeth could not help herself when she looked at him again, more carefully this time.

“I think some people never try to tell their stories,” she murmured. “Or feel that no one would listen.”

“Then they ought to meet someone who will, uh?”

The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was weightless. Respectful. A small moment in which the breeze spoke in their place and the distant cry of gulls swept gently through the open air around them.

Annabeth smiled — not outwardly, not fully. Just enough for herself.

“You are far more philosophical than I expected, Mr. Jackson.”

“You are far more curious than I expected, Miss Chase.”

His tone sounded like a compliment, and an amused one at that. She gave a soft hum of acknowledgement, eyes lowering to the page again. 

“I try.”

“And you do it well,” he said.

She looked up. 

“Thank you.”

The conversation did not rush forward. It had no need to. 

They walked as if time had agreed to wait — as if the slow, deliberate pace of their steps could stretch the day just a little longer. Words were exchanged between pauses, and pauses were filled with the hush of the wind and the distant break of waves. It was not silence, not truly — not awkward or forced — but a kind of breathing space between thoughts. Annabeth found she did not mind it. 

In fact, she appreciated it.

They spoke of the architecture of old cities, of ships with names like poems, of favourite books and unfamiliar languages. He told her about a bird that once landed on his shoulder in Italy and refused to leave him for a full day, and she laughed — genuinely — at the image. She shared how her first attempt at designing a bridge collapsed on her drawing board after four hours of careful planning, and he winced for her, then grinned.

The sun lowered by the minute, drawing streaks of gold and rose across the water’s surface. Shadows stretched longer over the shore.

Eventually, she looked toward the path that would lead her in the direction of her house. Her mouth pulled slightly, not into a frown, but something close to reluctant resolve.

“I must go,” she said.

She glanced down, considering the task ahead — the boots she had left just above the tideline, now no longer as dry as she had hoped. The sand would cling to her stockings and the leather, and grit at her heels, and—

She made a quiet, dissatisfied noise.

“I truly dislike putting my boots back on with sand still on my feet,” she confessed, with a sigh that made it sound like the ocean itself had offended her.

Percy let out a laugh, warm and faintly guilty.

“I suppose I should apologize for keeping you this long on the shore, then,” he said. “But I admit I have never quite learned that struggle,” he gestured down, and she realized — he had not put his boots back on at all.

They sat, untouched, just where he had left them.

“You walked the whole time barefoot?” she asked, not hiding her astonishment.

“I always do,” he said, with a shrug that was nearly boyish. “It feels wrong to wear shoes this close to the sea.”

She shook her head, lips twitching. 

“You are a strange man, Mr. Jackson.”

He smiled, unfazed. 

“So I have been told.”

They stood together, slowly, brushing sand from the backs of their clothes. She gave one last glance at the ocean, as if trying to memorize it while it was quiet. They stepped side by side until the path had no more sand and the ocean was no more than a gentle whisper in the distance — it was the city, only a few streets away, that echoed around.

She stopped there, and he stopped with her, instinctively.

“I will leave you here, Mr. Jackson,” she said gently, her voice not sharp but final.

He nodded, not pushing. Not asking. Only a gentle bow of the head. 

“Until we meet again, Miss Chase.”

Annabeth smiled, and offered the smallest nod.

“Until we meet again,” she greeted back — and walked.

Behind her, she knew, he waited for a few moments before taking his own path. 

She did not turn to see. 

But she could feel it.

Chapter Text

Truth be told, it was not that Percy loathed social situations.

He did not. In fact, he found them to be rather amusing — if only he had not spent half his youth being a walking fire hazard in ballrooms, dining halls, and every polite gathering his mother dared bring him to. For years, his reputation had been stitched together not by scandal, but by smoke.

Most of the commotions were not his fault, let it be known.

He was merely very fortunate when it came to the lack of fortune.

“Saying it aloud does not make it any less true,” Grover said now from his chair, one leg thrown over the other. “You once set Lord Ryland’s coattails on fire.”

Percy pointed a stern finger. 

“I was eight.”

“You were ten,” Grover corrected, grinning. “And you were trying to see if you could hold the candle closer without burning yourself. Do let me tell you, Percy: you could not.”

Sally sighed with the exhaustion of a woman who had lived that memory, not merely heard it.

“And did you not also nearly bring down the Montford chandelier?” she asked sweetly.

Percy winced. 

“In my defense, it was loose.”

“You were swinging from it,” Sally replied.

“I was young!”

“You were twelve,” Grover said. “Old enough to know that chandeliers are decorative objects, not climbing ropes.”

Percy threw his hands up, scandalized.

“How was I to know? It held. Mostly.”

Sally pressed her fingers to her temple. 

“It held because your father caught you mid-fall, and then proceeded to charm the hostess into believing you were practicing acrobatics for a play.”

Percy had the audacity to look proud. 

“Father always knew how to talk us out of trouble.”

Sally shot him a look, both fond and exasperated. 

“Do not expect me to do the same now that you are a grown man. Your days of blaming adolescence have ended, Percy.”

He slouched deeper into the settee, muttering.

“I only ever caused trouble by accident.”

And that, at least, was true. It was not that he sought chaos — chaos simply recognized him and extended a hand in friendship. Which was precisely why she was being cautious about him stepping fully back into society, Season looming and expectations circling like hawks.

But all of that, every worry, every memory of flaming coattails and swinging chandeliers… all of it paled compared to the matter at hand.

New clothing.

He did not loathe social situations, no; he found them rather amusing.

But he did loathe needing new garments.

“Mama, the clothes I own are enough,” he said for what might have been the eighth time. “I see not the reason I should need more clothing.”

Sally’s eyebrow arched in a way that could have silenced kings.

“Perseus,” she began, voice dangerously calm, “your wardrobe was tailored when you were last living here. How old were you, could you remind me, son?”

Percy opened his mouth, as if he was ready to protest his own age, and then he closed it again.

Grover did not miss a beat. 

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen,” Sally confirmed with a nod, just to make a stronger point. “And you, my son, have grown since then.”

“Not that much,” Percy tried weakly.

“You have broadened around the shoulders,” Grover said, straightening his back only to mock his best friend.

“You have filled out in the arms,” Sally added, the playful gleam also present in her eyes.

“You ripped the seam of your old coat last night putting it on,” Grover pointed out, and Percy gasped in offense.

“That was a coincidence,” Percy said, crossing his arms.

“No, that was the universe begging you to stop wearing children’s garments,” Grover replied.

Sally cleared her throat, reclaiming the floor with the authority of a reigning monarch.

“Quit acting as if it pains you to try cloth on and having your limbs measured, young man,” Sally said, her voice coated in entertainment.

“It does pain him to be still, Sally,” Grover laughed. “It always has.”

He grimaced as though the notion were violent.

It was not the clothing itself — though he had long despised needing to stand still while people tugged and measured, prodded and pinned. He hated the part where strangers circled him like watchful hawks, touching his arms, adjusting his sleeves, telling him to straighten his spine.

He liked the clothes once they existed — the layers, the structure, the comfort of fabric meant to shield him from the fickle weather.

But the process?

Pure torture.

He dramatically sank deeper into the cushions. 

“Mama, I truly would rather face a hydra.”

“Thank the gods, then, that you are not a demigod,” Sally moved her hands, pretending to thank the heavens above them.

Percy pouted, very maturely.

“I could be.”

Grover snorted. 

“You would trip on your armor and be eaten before the first act.”

Percy scowled at him. 

“Very supportive, brother. Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” Grover said, taking a sip of tea.

Percy sighed.

“Is there really a need for this? I mean not to engage in social events whatsoever,” he told them, stretching his legs out like a man preparing to flee. “There is not a real reason for such fine cloth and thread to be wasted on me.”

Grover made a thoughtful noise as he set his teacup down. 

“You do realize that rumors would wither much faster should you present yourself to the ton?” he suggested. “People are more likely to lose interest in something once it has lost its novelty.”

Percy blinked, considering that. The image came too easily: stepping into a drawing room full of eyes that had already invented versions of him — some made of flame, some of shadows, some missing limbs, some stealing hearts — and watching all those stories crumble into disappointment because he was, at the end of the day, simply… Percy.

He almost laughed.

“Half of me does wish to agree with you, Grover dear,” Sally said, lifting her skirts slightly as she moved to the sofa beside her son. “But I do fear that it would cause the last of his peace to slip through his fingers. At least, as it is, he can walk the town without being bothered.”

“Hm, that might be,” Grover conceded. “At least he does not cause commotions whenever he steps out of the estate.”

“Oh, those times are long gone, thank the good God,” Sally laughed, shaking her head as though remembering a parade of disasters stretching back years.

Percy frowned, affronted. 

“I was not that bad, Mama.”

“You were terrible, my dear,” Sally replied with affectionate certainty.

Grover did not hesitate to add fuel. 

“Do you recall the time you tried to help Mrs. Whitby carry her baskets and ended up sending the entire load of laundry flying into the pond?”

Percy pointed at him. 

“That was not my fault. The duck—”

“Oh, the infamous duck,” Grover interrupted. “The one creature in this town who has faced more blame than you.”

Sally pressed a hand to her lips to hide her smile. 

“Or the incident at the christening? The one where you knocked over the punch bowl?”

“That table moved,” Percy insisted.

Grover snorted. 

“Tables do not move on their own, brother.”

Percy crossed his arms stubbornly. 

“Well, that one did.”

Sally reached over and smoothed a hand over his arm in that small, practiced gesture that always softened whatever edge the world had carved into her son. 

“My love, you had a talent for appearing at exactly the wrong moment. But we survived it. And you grew older. And, somehow, you grew gentler.”

He looked at her, surprised by the softness in her tone.

She smiled knowingly. 

“Though perhaps not less accident-prone.”

Grover nodded solemnly. 

“A chandelier never forgets.”

Percy groaned. 

“Must we bring up that again?”

Sally looked between the two men she adored — one her child, one her child in all ways that mattered — and her smile grew tender, touched with that blend of amusement and resignation that came only from raising Percy Jackson.

“Still,” she said, patting his knee, “that is precisely why I worry. You have improved immensely. But the ton can find disaster where there is none. And we must be certain that if you do step into society — whether for a ball, a dinner, or some dreadful tea — you do so prepared.”

Percy let his head fall back against the sofa cushion, staring at the ceiling as though it might save him.

“I am not some creature to be unveiled,” he muttered. “I have no grand desire to be observed.”

“You will be observed, regardless of whether you choose to take part in The Season or not,” Grover said bluntly. “You are Lord Jackson’s heir, and you have spent years at sea, and no one knows a thing about you except the stories they invent. People will want to see what parts are true.”

Percy groaned again.

Sally tapped his boot lightly with her slipper. 

“And my dear, if you must endure the ton peering at you, judging you, whispering about you, which will happen no matter what, then at least let them look at a man whose coat fits.”

“That is a crime against comfort,” Percy said gravely.

“No,” Grover countered, “that is a crime against Sally, who must pretend not to know you.”

Sally nodded with all the dignity of a long-suffering mother. The glint in her eyes was familiar to Grover — the same he always saw in his best friend’s eyes.

“Imagine the shame. People would assume I raised you in a barn.”

Percy lifted his head, scandalized. 

“No one would assume so! And I do not look like I was raised in a barn.”

“You will if you walk around the Season wearing the same coat you wore when you were sixteen,” Grover pointed out.

Percy glared at him. 

“You used to be on my side.”

“Sally feeds me,” Grover said simply. “And she does not give me grey hairs by playing stunts or starting ghost stories.”

His mother snorted, much less gracefully than she did whenever there were other people around.

“Have we not come to a conclusion that I am much less prone to commotion just now?” Percy whined, tilting his head to the side.

“Aye, son; less. God help me when I find out exactly just how much less,” she said.

Percy placed a hand over his own chest, feigning absolute betrayal on his face. His eyes widened and he pressed his eyebrows together as if it hurt him to even look at his mother, who merely smiled innocently.

Oh, the cruel doubt of where he got his theatrics from.

“Mother,” he let out in a breath. “You absolutely wound me. You cast doubts upon my honor, my reputation, my growth as a civilized man.”

“You wound yourself by pretending you ever possessed such qualities in steady measure,” Sally said, patting his knee with a fondness that dimmed any sting her words might have carried. “Besides, darling, no amount of poetic phrasing disguises the fact that you once set the mayor’s wig on fire.”

“That was an accident!” Percy cried.

Grover raised a hand. 

“Actually, that one was my fault. Percy merely… facilitated it.”

Percy pointed triumphantly. 

“See? Precisely. A completely innocent bystander.”

“You handed me the candle,” Grover reminded him.

“And I suppose the candle walked itself to the mayor’s head afterward,” Sally said dryly.

Percy opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“…It was a windy evening,” he muttered. “Even the wind wished that the mayor spoke faster. It tried to help all of our souls.”

Grover lost it then, laughter rolling out of him in that bright, unstoppable way Sally always said sounded like sunlight through a window. Percy groaned dramatically and flopped back against the divan like a man mortally wounded.

Sally watched both young men with softened eyes, the corners of her mouth lifting despite her best attempts to maintain some manner of maternal sternness.

“You two are going to age me beyond repair,” she said, though the affection was unmistakable.

“You already look younger than half the matrons in town,” Grover said honestly.

“And they hate her for it,” Percy added. “Quite viciously.”

Sally lifted her chin, thoroughly pleased. 

“As they should.”

For a beat, the three of them laughed together — easy, unguarded, safe. It was the kind of laughter Percy knew he never would have survived his youth without.

But just beneath it — stitched into Sally’s glances, lingering in the quiet between words — was something else. A weight she carried every Season. A worry she masked well.

He had caused her enough sleepless nights to know the difference between humor and hope trying not to look like fear.

Percy adjusted the cuff of his coat — the new coat he was still refusing to admit he liked — and cleared his throat.

“Mama, you are aware that, even with the coat,” he said lightly, “they will still talk. They always talk,” Percy continued. “Why, then, must I suffer through this?”

Sally’s smile dimmed into something softer, steadier.

“Because I wish you to,” she said. “And syre, they will talk; we have decided such. But I would rather they talk while you are standing upright before them, rather than lurking like some ghost they can twist into whatever shape suits their fantasies.”

Percy stilled. Something in the room shifted, nearly imperceptible. Grover’s laughter faded, leaving only the fireplace crackling behind them.

“And, my dear,” Sally continued, gentler now, “I would rather you choose how the world sees you than allow whispers to make the choice for you.”

Then, as if she herself sensed the heaviness lingering too long, she snapped her fingers at Grover.

“And you—leave my son’s future coat out of the fireplace.”

Grover froze mid-motion, one arm suspiciously close to the grate.

“That was one time,” he defended.

“You scorched the entire left sleeve!”

“I was trying to warm it for him!”

Percy groaned, throwing a hand over his face. 

“This is why they think I was raised in a barn.”

“You were raised in a perfectly respectable house,” Sally said, “with only the occasional explosion.”

“One explosion,” Percy muttered.

“Three,” Grover corrected.

“That last one was lightning, and I can hardly control the skies,” Percy argued.

“That last one was you yelling at lightning,” Grover said. “You do not need to control the skies to get into an argument with light.”

Percy paused.

“Grover, the lightning clearly started it.”

Sally sighed the long, patient sigh of a woman resigned to her fate.

“God help me.”

Percy leaned over, nudged his mother’s hand with his, and grinned — softer this time, honest.

“Fear not, Mama,” he asked her. “I am older now. Wiser. Calmer.”

Sally snorted so hard she nearly doubled over. Grover slapped his knee. 

“You are none of those things.”

Percy lifted his chin indignantly. 

“I am a man of restraint.”

“Percy, please. When we were last in Italy, you once chased a cow because you thought it insulted you,” Grover reminded him.

“It did insult me.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Sally whispered toward the ceiling. “So much for being less of a commotion,” Sally murmured, bringing two fingers to her temple as if in prayer — though her voice, even in exasperation, held the temperate warmth she never lost. The kind that felt like a hearth going steady through a storm.

“Mama,” Percy protested.

“No, no,” she said gently, patting his knee as if soothing a child who’d tripped over nothing at all. “I am merely reflecting on the evidence you both continuously provide. A cow, Percy. Truly.”

“It was a very rude cow.”

Grover nodded solemnly. 

“If I can offer my input, it did look at him funny.”

“That is not helping your case,” Sally said, her tone sliding into that delicate balance between maternal composure and a very amused smirk she tried — and failed — to stifle. “And yet you insist you have become a beacon of serenity.”

“I have,” Percy insisted.

Grover snorted.

Sally lifted a brow, though her eyes softened. 

“My love, the last time you declared yourself ‘a beacon of serenity,’ you climbed onto the roof to retrieve a kite and got stuck.”

“I did not get stuck.”

“You did,” Grover said. “And you yelled at the wind again.”

Percy pointed accusingly. 

“It tangled the string!”

“Oh, heavens,” Sally muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose — but even that gesture could not disguise the fondness threading through her voice. “I suppose one must celebrate progress where one finds it.”

“I have improved,” Percy insisted, shoulders lifting in a stubborn shrug. “Truly.”

“Mm.” Sally’s hum was low, thoughtful, the sound she made whenever she loved her son too much to believe him blindly. “Perhaps. But improvement still leaves room for… certain lapses.”

Percy opened his mouth to protest, but Sally continued — calm as a quiet tide, warm as sunlight on a winter morning.

“For, you see, it did reach my ears,” his mother began, a minute later. “Something about a young stranger and a shark, two afternoons ago.”

Percy immediately averted his eyes, studying the pattern on the carpet as though it were a complex navigational chart demanding his entire attention. He seemed to consider—deeply—whether or not he had heard a story even remotely resembling what his mother was describing.

“Does it ring any bells, Percy?” Sally asked, far too lightly.

“Should it, Mama?” he replied, innocence dripping like honey.

Grover pressed his knuckles to his mouth, failed to disguise his laughter entirely, and ended up coughing into his sleeve.

Sally pretended not to notice either reaction, though the slight upward twitch at the corner of her lips betrayed her awareness.

Percy, however, behaved as though he had been turned to stone.

He examined the carpet with profound fascination — as if the faded woven pattern held secrets about the universe, navigation, philosophy, destiny. Anything, really, other than the subject at hand.

He tilted his head, thoughtful. Contemplative. A scholar of rugs.

Grover watched him like one watches a cat about to topple a vase.

Sally waited.

Percy blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Then, with the innocence of a man hoping to escape a noose by smiling very politely at it, he murmured:

“…I am unsure if I have heard such a tale, Mama.”

Her brows lifted. Her voice, now, curled into amusement — gentle, familiar, unhurried.

“Are you indeed?” she asked. “Because, as the rumor goes, a shark was found stuck in the sand near Orion Beach. And a stranger, with damp hair, no boots, and clothes in no discernible order, marched straight into the water with it in his arms.”

Grover wheezed.

Percy studied the carpet harder.

Sally folded her hands neatly, like a woman asking a perfectly ordinary question about tea blends rather than near-death marine rescues.

“Such an interesting story, do you not think, Percy?”

Percy nodded gravely. 

“What a kind unknown person, Mama, are they not? Let us hope that he forever keeps his heart as pure and his soul as unguarded for the sake of gentleness and merciful actions towards all creatures,” he said, his voice too serious for his choice of words.

Grover collapsed sideways on the settee in silent laughter.

Sally’s eyes, full of patient affection and utter disbelief, narrowed ever so slightly.

“This unknown person,” she said, “also seems to share your exact height, build, and terrible habit of forgetting footwear.”

Percy pressed a hand to his chest. 

“A coincidence, Mama. There are so many people with yellow hair, and it is criminal that one would wear shoes to step on the sand.”

Sally allowed him exactly three seconds of that illusion before leaning closer.

“Mm-hm. I see,” her tone was velvet, but the kind that wrapped around iron. “Tell me, my dear… should I worry about sharks? Or strangers? Or you?”

Percy swallowed.

His mother’s hand brushed his wrist — a touch feather-light, warm, grounding.

“My sweet boy,” she said gently, “you know you cannot hide from me.”

And Percy — caught, adored, exasperated, and helplessly fond — sighed. Grover seemed to be fighting for his life as he tried to recompose himself to a fine gentleman capable of conversation. Sally breathed in long, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of her kids.

“Perseus,” she spoke. “Shall we be serious for only a moment?”

Her eyes bore into his, and Percy pressed his lips together. He averted his gaze, and breathed in a deep breath, almost defeated.

“It was a tiger shark, Mama, do not worry,” Percy added after her long stare, his voice now not jesting anymore. “I knew what I was doing.”

His mother closed her eyes for a second.

“I worry, son; of course I do,” she said. “Your kindness might blind you at times. As well as your loyalty to the ocean.”

He exhaled, tugging at the sleeve of the new navy coat Grover had helped him shrug into — though Percy still looked as though the coat personally offended him. 

“I was not trying to rule over chance, Mama. I promise. It was simply that help was within my reach; the shark was stuck, and I knew it was a harmless creature that I could aid back to its place,” he assured her. “Besides, the shark was not the biggest danger at the beach.”

Percy pretended to shiver, as if the memory itself got to the edge of his nerves. Grover tilted his head, curious.

“Pirates again?”

Percy shook his head softly, immediately knowing what it was that Groer referred to, while Sally froze mid-movement, her already pale face getting even paler.

“…Pardon me; again?”

Grover and Percy exchanged a look—one of those effortless, silent exchanges forged only after a lifetime of shared idiocy and misadventures.

Percy cleared his throat.

“Mama, did Grover not mention that he, too, needs to put on a coat?” he said too quickly. “A new one, perhaps. A thick one. Quite urgent. He cannot survive the Season without fresh garments, I believe; imagine the talking that would reach Juniper, about her own bethroded being raised in a barn.”

Grover glared at him. 

“Do not drag me into—”

Percy straightened the cuffs of the new coat, still feeling the stiffness of unfamiliar fabric despite Grover’s gentle tugging and smoothing. He hardly had time to appreciate the way the navy-blue wool complemented his eyes before Sally’s voice — warm, stern, knowing — cut through the room.

“Boys,” Sally warned, with the sternness of a woman who had raised them both and knew precisely how much trouble they could cause even while seated.

Percy tried to conjure innocence in his expression—successful only in the way that made him look exactly less innocent. Grover folded his arms behind his back like a schoolboy attempting his best posture in the face of a lecture.

“It is an old story, Sally, and suited for another afternoon,” Grover said quickly, offering her one of those practiced, placating smiles he had perfected in his years under the Jackson roof. “Preferably a cold one.”

“Definitely a cold one,” Percy muttered, tugging once more at the sleeve. Grover nodded, agreeing a bit too emphatically.

“Perseus and Grover,” Sally said, narrowing her eyes, “whatever is it that you mean?”

The young men exchanged another look, and shook their heads softly, simultaneously; a silent agreement to not let a word out for her ears to hear about the memory they shared of the travels.

“That such tales,” Percy replied, returning her gaze with a disarmingly boyish smile, “have a specific time to be told, Mama. The times shall come when we share commotions such as those.”

Sally was not convinced. She never was—not when it came to those two. But she let it slide with the faintest, motherly hum, choosing—for now—to prioritize the present mystery instead.

Grover cleared his throat. 

“If not pi— uh, other very well-behaved sailors,” Grover pretended to cough, redirecting his sentence. “Then what was the danger worse than a shark?”

“The shark was not dangerous,” Percy objected immediately, affronted. “Quit tarnishing its reputation. It is already difficult as it is, with people screaming as if a fish would create legs and go snacking on their legs,” he paused only long enough to brush a nonexistent fleck of dust from the lapel of the coat. “And it was a crowd.”

Grover blinked. 

“Since when are you afraid of those?”

“I am not,” Percy insisted. “As long as they are not chasing after my rumored self.”

“Again?” Sally asked, voice sharp with maternal alarm.

Grover raised an eyebrow, amused. 

“Did they have pitchforks too?”

“Not this time,” Percy sighed, leaning back as if exhausted merely by recounting it. Sally’s eyes widened at the implication that pitchforks had ever been an option at all. “But they did ask quite a lot about whether or not I would be at the first ball of the Season.”

Grover, who had been half-lounging against the mantel, straightened at once.

“Oh? And who shall be hosting this one?” he asked, suddenly invested.

Percy scoffed, waving a dismissive hand.

“I did not care to learn, man.”

“Lady Valdez,” Sally supplied, smoothing a wrinkle from Percy’s shoulder with the grace of someone who had raised a chaos-magnet with infinite patience. “She is more than eager to present her son, Leo. Though I believe he is already smitten,” she laughed lightly. “So it might all be solved in that ball alone.”

Both Percy’s and Grover’s eyes lit with immediate, childish intrigue.

“Ooh,” they exclaimed in unison, leaning forward like poorly disguised eavesdroppers. “Who is it?”

Sally clicked her tongue. 

“Such tales have a specific time to be told, kids,” she teased, delighting in the simultaneous groans that filled the sitting room.

“Mama!” Percy protested.

“Sally!” Grover pouted, deeply offended.

“Now, now, boys,” she said, far too pleased with herself. “As you were previously saying, Percy. The screaming crowd was asking about the first ball of the Season?”

“Evil woman,” Percy muttered under his breath — only to yelp when a stray button flicked from her hand hit him squarely on the forehead. 

He burst into laughter, and Grover applauded her aim. 

“It was loud, mostly,” Percy said once he recovered, rubbing the budding spot on his brow. “Not a soul asked what my name was, but they did wonder if they would find me to be a suitor to marry.”

Grover’s face was thoughtful, suddenly.

“It bothers you a lot, does it not, Percy? The idea of getting married?”

Percy felt, rather than saw, his mother’s eyes sharpening in interest. At Grover’s question, something warm flickered through him—quick, quiet, unmistakable. His thoughts drifted gently toward Miss Chase.

Not her, exactly — not her face or her voice alone — but the conversation they’d shared on the sand, days before. The light wind in her curls, the way the ocean had seemed to hush itself so they might speak. Her question had been innocent, simple curiosity, yet unlike the crowds he had run from for most of his life, she had carried no expectation, no agenda, no weight that sought to trap him into anything.

It was peculiar, how a topic he had avoided for years had resurfaced twice in the span of days—and neither instance had made him wish to flee.

Miss Chase had merely laughed—softly, kindly—when she learned that he had sprinted away from a group of overly eager townsfolk rather than risk being mistaken as a potential suitor. She had seemed more amused by his running than by his rescue of the shark.

He had expected mockery, or pity, or polite dismissal.

Instead, she had offered conversation. Simple. Friendly. Free of the tangled motives that so often accompanied his name or his reputation.

And he had enjoyed it.

Grover was still watching him, waiting for an answer—Sally too, though she pretended to busy herself folding a waistcoat that had not needed folding.

Percy inhaled slowly and let the air settle in his lungs like something he needed to feel before he dared speak.

“It is not marriage that bothers me,” he said, truthfully enough. “It is people who insist upon it as though it were the only path. As though it should be hurried, or forced, or decided merely because others wish it so.”

Sally’s expression softened in that quiet way it always did when he revealed the deeper edges of his thoughts.

“And,” Percy added, looking toward the window as though the sea hid behind it, listening, “it bothers me when people assume they know what, or who, would suit me.”

Grover raised both eyebrows. 

“So you are thinking about it.”

“Thinking about what?” Percy asked, feigning innocence badly.

“Nothing,” Grover said, but the smirk spreading across his face said everything. “Absolutely nothing.”

Percy tossed a cushion at his head. Grover dodged it expertly, because of course he did.

Sally laughed—a warm, full sound that filled the room and tugged Percy back into the comfort of home. Though her eyes were still thoughtful, curious, hopeful in the quiet way only a mother could be.

Percy looked away again, lightly tugging on the lapel of the coat Grover had forced upon him. His mind drifted once more — not unwillingly — to the memory of Miss Chase’s company by the shoreline, genuinely interested in him and not the rumors she had surely heard.

He had not expected that conversation to linger.

Yet it did.

Chapter Text

The afternoon was not cold, yet the wind that stirred the open windows of the Chase home carried a bite of sharpness, like the very breath of judgement. 

The study, where Athena Chase kept her desk and her silence, was shrouded in that particular stillness of tension. Annabeth stood just beyond the threshold, her fingers laced before her, her posture measured, though her mind was elsewhere — still wandering the sea, still echoing with a quiet voice that had spoken kindly beside the waves.

Her mother looked up from her seat, spectacles perched upon her nose, pen paused mid-word.

"You are late," Athena said simply.

"I did not realize the hour, Mother," Annabeth replied. "I was reading."

"A fine use of time, if true. But I believe you have done little reading these past few days. You seem distracted."

Annabeth said nothing, merely met her mother’s eyes. That was always a dance between them — Athena’s sharpness, Annabeth’s restraint.

Athena set the pen down and leaned back in her chair. 

"You are aware that the Oxford society is hosting a salon in two days' time."

"Yes," Annabeth said, too quickly.

"I have secured your place there. Dr. Hinds will be speaking on the classical influences of modern structures. And Lady Balmoral — whose work on marble restoration you so admired — will attend."

Annabeth swallowed lightly. She had read about both those names with deep admiration. Still, something in her hesitated, as though her heart was elsewhere.

"Mother, I—"

"I do not intend to debate the matter, Annabeth," Athena interrupted. "We are not of the sort who waste seasons on tea and titles. Your presence at this gathering will solidify what people are beginning to forget: that you are a scholar in your own right. A Chase by name and nature."

Annabeth shifted, the hem of her sleeve twisting beneath her fingers. 

“I do not wish to be paraded more than I wish to be caged, Mother.”

“You are not being paraded. You are making ground to become respected. There is a difference — one I expect you to learn if you are to navigate the world with your mind intact.”

The wind picked up again, curling into the corners of the room.

“You have not been yourself in the last couple of days, Annabeth," Athena added, voice lower now. "I notice. Others will, too, it goes on recklessly. If there is something pulling your attention away from your studies, I expect it to be brief and inconsequential."

Annabeth’s spine straightened further. Her jaw set. 

"There is not a thing, Mother. I have simply had too many ideas in my head."

A pause. Athena studied her, eyes narrowed not necessarily unkindly, but precisely. She had always been like this — the kind of mother who wielded truth like a compass, and the kind of woman who never wanted to wield motherhood.

“You will attend the salon,” she said, finally. “Two days from now. Wear the green dress — the one with the silver detailing. It flatters you less, and allows your words to attract more than your image would.”

Annabeth nodded.

Dismissed with no further word, she left the room with the storm of her thoughts following her, and the certainty that she would not be found at that salon, nor wearing any shade of green.

The hallway outside her mother’s study felt impossibly narrow, though Annabeth had walked it all her life. Today, its rugs muted her steps but did not soften the tension threading her chest. She moved through the house like someone avoiding their own reflection, keeping her hands busy, her eyes forward.

By the time she reached her room, the air felt lighter — not by much, but enough.

Her sketchbook lay open on her writing desk, exactly where she had left it that morning: a half-finished drawing of a vaulted library, sunlight falling through high arched windows, dust suspended like stars. She sank into the chair as though lowered into water, and the weighted silence settled around her shoulders.

Her pencil hovered.

But she did not draw.

Not at first.

She exhaled, slow, and only then did her hand begin to move — gently, precisely — darkening a line here, softening another there. It grounded her, the work. Each stroke a reminder that her mind was still her own, even if her path rarely was.

“Annabeth?”

The voice cut through the quiet, accompanied by a sharp rap on the door before it swung open.

Thalia stepped inside without waiting. She never did. Her dark curls were windswept; she must have come straight from outdoors. Boots muddy. Cheeks flushed. A hurricane made human, in the best sense.

“You look like a ghost,” Thalia said, dropping onto Annabeth’s bed with all the subtlety of someone collapsing after battle. “Tell me you’re not feeling ill.”

“I am well.”

“You don’t look well.”

“I said I am well.”

Thalia raised a brow.

“You are drawing a library. That is your third this week. When you’re overwhelmed, you draw libraries.”

“It is hardly a crime.”

“It is when you are meant to be excited about this salon your mother keeps mentioning.”

Annabeth’s pencil paused mid-shading.

“I am not—” she began.

“Do not lie to me,” Thalia said, softer now. “I know that face. The ‘I would rather vanish into the floorboards’ face.”

Annabeth tilted her chin downward, focusing on the corner of a window arch.

“It is not a matter of disappearing. It is simply that I…” she hesitated. “I know I cannot avoid it.”

“Ah,” Thalia sighed, flopping backward dramatically, arms stretched above her head. “The eternal Chase predicament: brilliance in abundance, freedom in short supply.”

“Thalia.”

“What? Someone ought to say it.”

Annabeth pressed her lips together. 

“Mother means well.”

“Does she?”

Her friend's gaze was fiery.

“Thalia.”

The name was not a reprimand, but a plea — quiet, restrained, delicate as a hand pressed against glass. Annabeth set her pencil down, fingers trembling in the slightest way that only someone as perceptive as Thalia would notice.

Thalia pushed herself upright again, sitting cross-legged on the bed, studying Annabeth with a frown that was half worry, half indignation on her behalf.

“You know I am right,” she insisted. “You never say it aloud, but you know.”

Annabeth’s eyes remained fixed on the desk, on the faint smudge her thumb had left on the paper. 

“Thalia,” she said again, more firmly this time, though her voice never lost its gentleness. “I would prefer if you did not speak so ill of things I cannot change.”

The silence that followed was brief but sharp, like the moment after a glass cracks.

Thalia blinked. Not offended — startled. Then her shoulders dropped, and she huffed out an incredulous breath.

“Annabeth,” she said slowly, “you act as though all things are immovable. As though you have never lifted a stone or a wall or an entire idea with your own hands and proved everyone wrong.”

Annabeth’s jaw tightened. 

“This is not a stone or a wall.”

“No,” Thalia agreed. “It is a woman who built walls so tall even she cannot see past them anymore.”

“Thalia” Annabeth’s voice carried warning now. A quiet one. A soft one. But real.

Thalia softened immediately. She always did. 

“I’m not saying she is unkind,” she clarified gently, even if Annabeth knew that it was what her best friend thought. “Only that she expects the world to shape itself into something worthy of you before she lets you step into it. And that is a nearly impossible task.”

Annabeth closed her eyes for a moment, as though each word pressed against a bruise she’d kept hidden.

Thalia waited. Finally, Annabeth spoke — barely above a whisper.

“You speak of rebellion as though it were a small thing, sister,” she said. “As though I could simply refuse her expectations and the world would… make room.”

Thalia leaned forward. 

“You could argue. Or push back. Or tell her she is wrong.”

Annabeth looked up then, meeting Thalia’s gaze with something tired and heartbreakingly honest.

“And what good has that ever brought?” she asked.

It wasn’t said bitterly. Or angrily. Or even sadly. It was said like a fact — a quiet truth spoken by someone who learned early that her resistance would always be measured, weighed, and found wanting.

Thalia’s breath caught. She looked away, troubled. “Annabeth…”

“I am not made for quarrels,” Annabeth said softly. “Mother and I… we do not argue. It has never been our way.”

“Maybe it should be.”

“No,” Annabeth said, shaking her head, her curls shifting with the motion. “You know her ways, Thalia, but you do not know it all. The moment I push, she pushes harder. And I am much more easily hurt by words than she could ever be, and Mother knows how to wield them. In the end, nothing changes, except that I wish I had not opened my mouth, and she wishes I did not even know how to speak.”

Thalia fell silent.

Annabeth continued, quietly unraveling a confession she’d never dared to speak aloud.

“I cannot change her,” she said, barely audible. “And she cannot change me. So we meet in the middle, because there are concessions I am aware I am the only one who shall ever make. She expects, and I obey. It is not rebellion she fears. It is…” Annabeth swallowed. “Disappointment. And I cannot bear to be the cause of that.”

Thalia’s expression softened into something aching. She rose from the bed and walked to Annabeth, lowering herself to the floor beside the desk so they sat at eye level.

“You are not a disappointment,” Thalia said. “You are a marvel. Everyone sees it.”

Annabeth kept quiet, and shook her head.

“Could we— could we avoid speaking of expectations? I will attend the salon, and I do not wish to speak more of it.”

Thalia studied her in silence for a moment, weighing how far to push and how far to yield. Annabeth could always feel it — the calculations Thalia made in conversations like this, not unlike her own mother’s calculations, but warmer. Gentler. Less exacting. Thalia loved like a storm loves the sky: fiercely, but not with precision.

“Fine,” Thalia said at last, settling back on her heels. “For now.”

Annabeth nodded once, relieved.

But relief was a fragile thing.

As she lifted her pencil again, her hand hovered above the page and did not move. The weight in her chest returned, heavier than before. Thalia noticed the hesitation instantly — she always did — and narrowed her eyes.

“Whatever is it?” she asked, leaning closer. “I know that face, Annie. You are pretending something means nothing so you do not need to voice it and let me know.”

Annabeth exhaled softly, her shoulders dipping.

“It is ridiculous,” she warned.

“So are most things that bother you,” Thalia said cheerfully. “Go on.”

Annabeth shot her a look, but her lips curved upward for a fraction of a second. Then the smile faded, and she stared down at her sketchbook, tracing the corner of a drawn window frame with her fingertip.

“It was not the salon that upset me most,” she said, voice low. “Which is definitely ridiculous, because I am to attend without the slightlest, smallest wish to.”

Thalia straightened, alarm and curiosity flaring together. 

“Then whatever it is that bothers you most?”

Annabeth hesitated. It felt foolish to say it aloud. Frivolous. Embarrassingly small in comparison to the larger constraints of her life.

But the truth pressed forward anyway, gentle and insistent.

“The dress,” she admitted.

Thalia blinked. 

“The dress.”

“Yes.”

Thalia frowned.

“But you love fancier dresses, Annabeth,” she said, and Annabeth nodded, then tilted her head to both sides, softly and slowly. “Oh.”

Annabeth pressed her lips together.

“Yes.”

“The green one?”

“The green one.”

A beat.

“Why?” Thalia asked, genuinely puzzled. “You did not hate it when you acquired it.”

Annabeth swallowed. 

“I do not hate it. That is much a strong word, sister. It bothers me because she demanded me to wear it,” she said. “And of all the things she dictated today — my attendance, my role, my behavior — that was the one that felt quite a tad unbearable.”

Thalia tilted her head. 

“Annabeth…” she said slowly, “you do realize that sounds backwards.”

“I know,” Annabeth murmured quickly. “And I told you it was ridiculous. But Thalia—” she broke off, frustrated with herself. “Even my image… even the color I place on my skin… even that is hers to choose. And today, for some reason, that was the thing that—”

Her voice caught, not on a sob but on the quiet breaking of something tightly wound.

“—that hurt. Oddly enough.”

Thalia softened immediately.

Annabeth continued, words spilling in a fragile, careful stream.

“I know she means well. I know she wants me to be respected, to be seen as an intellectual like herself and Father are. But the way she said it — it flatters you less, and allows your words to attract more,” Annabeth closed her eyes. “It sounded as though being myself would be… inconvenient.”

Thalia’s expression cracked into something raw. 

“Annabeth…”

“It should not matter,” Annabeth went on, almost whispering. “I have obeyed such instructions all my life. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Wear this, stand here, speak only when your mind is sharp enough to justify being heard. But today… the idea of that dress… ” she shook her head. “I am not sure. It is ridiculous.”

Thalia reached out again, grounding her with a touch to her arm. 

“You do realize,” she said quietly, “that none of this is ridiculous.”

Annabeth’s eyes lifted to hers — surprised, vulnerable.

Thalia huffed softly. 

“You think your frustrations are trivial just because they are subtle, which is impressive because I am the one in that position, typically. So allow me to be in yours, Annie, and tell you that they are not. They are the kind that build over years.”

Annabeth swallowed, throat tight. 

“I do not wish to resent her.”

“I am not sure that it is quite avoidable, sister,” Thalia told her. “To resent a parent is part of the ritual of being human and growing up.”

And for once, she did not answer.

Thalia arched a brow, amused and not fooled in the slightest. 

“Huh. Silence. That is new.” She nudged Annabeth lightly with her elbow. “Dangerous, too.”

Annabeth huffed something between a sigh and a laugh, brushing sand from her skirts as she rose. The wind tugged at her hair, pulling gold strands free from their pins, and she let it. The morning sun glazed the shore in pale honey, turning the waves into rolling mirrors. 

“You should probably try silence more often,” Annabeth told her friend, who gasped a surprised sound. “It is quite ridiculous, Thalia. I should not resent her over a dress, and yet I am filled with bitterness this afternoon. Whyever would I ever wish to wear something that flatters me less?”

Her friend frowned softly.

“According to Mrs. Chase, perhaps because it would mean that your mind is more evident than your image.”

Annabeth shook her head.

“Surely. But I am seen before I am heard. And that dress leaves almost no room to breathe, must I say,” she grumbled, the last sentence lower than her other words.

There was a moment of silence, when both women just sat, staring at different things. Annabeth seemed focused on her skirt, and her friend had her eyes glued to Annabeth’s face for a second, then another, and one more. It was sudden, though, that Thalia stood and stretched, hands on her hips, surveying her like a general assessing a soldier’s readiness for battle.

“Well,” Thalia said declaratively, “there is only one solution, then.”

“A solution to which of the things we have been discussing?” Annabeth asked, wary.

“To all of your problems. To every single thing plaguing your tiny, overstuffed, brilliant mind,” she flicked a hand toward the town clustered along the cliffs. “We are going somewhere by tomorrow morning.”

“Somewhere?” Annabeth repeated.

Thalia nodded with the solemnity of a priest delivering an oath. 

“To town. To the dressmakers. You, my dearest Annabeth, need a new gown.”

Annabeth blinked, frowned and tilted her head to the side.

“Whyever would I need a new gown? And however have you gotten to such conclusions?”

Thalia arched an eyebrow.

“Because you are not wearing green for the salon,” she spoke. “And your wardrobe is a sadness of grays. Therefore, you need a new dress.”

Annabeth shook her head.

“Absolutely not.”

“It was not a request, Annabeth dearest,” Thalia said, already brushing off her gloves, already speaking as though the decision had been approved by the crown itself. “We are going into town, and I am buying you a dress. Something that complements your skin and your eyes; not one of those gray horrors your mother approves of.”

Annabeth stiffened. 

“I am perfectly capable of choosing my own attire.”

“Oh, I know,” Thalia said, waving that away. “But you don’t. You choose what keeps the peace. And frankly?” She shrugged. “I am bored of your peacekeeping.”

Annabeth stared, caught between indignation and bewilderment. 

“Thalia—”

“This is my first act of rebellion,” Thalia announced, chin high. “I have decided. A new dress for my dear, put-upon friend, and heaven help whoever tries to stop me.”

Annabeth’s mouth fell open. 

“Your rebellion involves silk?”

“And lace,” Thalia added firmly. “Something that makes you look like you know you are alive.”

Annabeth sputtered. 

“Thalia!”

“What?”

“You cannot simply—” She gestured at the whole impossible situation. “Gift me a dress. You do not even like choosing cloth and shapes and skirt lengths.”

“It does not matter whether or not I am fond of it. I can and I will,” Thalia said. “Accept your fate.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Thalia.”

Thalia crossed her arms. 

“You have saved me from boredom for three entire summers. You’ve kept me sane, listened to me ramble, and stopped me from setting fires out of spite. Figurative fires, mostly," she jabbed Annabeth’s arm. “Let me give you a dress.”

Annabeth shook her head.

“It is inappropriate.”

“It is generous,” Thalia corrected. “And I refuse to be shamed for generosity.”

Annabeth groaned softly. 

“Your mother—”

“My mother and my father won’t know. And even if she did, she would applaud my good taste.”

Annabeth pressed her palms to her face. 

“Thalia really.”

“And besides,” Thalia added breezily, as though remembering something trivial, “the town is absolutely overrun with ladies desperate to catch the eye of that one Mr. Jackson.”

Annabeth’s breath caught — not visibly, she hoped, but enough that her heartbeat stuttered. She was not sure why her lungs misbehaved in such way, but she did not dare to think further about it.

Thalia continued without noticing, rolling her eyes. 

“Every morning, they parade up and down the square, batting lashes and pretending they just happened to be out shopping at dawn. Dawn! As if any sane woman voluntarily rises before breakfast.”

Annabeth laughed — too quickly, too easily, and entirely to cover the small burst of panic in her chest. 

“That does sound exhausting.”

“Oh, it is,” Thalia said. “Watching them is exhausting.”

Annabeth smiled, looking toward the sea so Thalia would not see too much. She kept her expression light, gave nothing away. Not about the beach. Not about the quiet mornings. Not about the salt on her skin or the memory of blue eyes reflecting waves.

Not about the fact that she already knew far more about Mr. Jackson than the parade of hopeful strangers ever would.

Thalia dusted her hands. 

“So. The town. The dress. My rebellion. Come along.”

Annabeth hesitated — but only for a breath. The tide murmured against the shore, nudging her forward like a teasing whisper. She smoothed her hair, exhaled, and nodded.

“Fine,” she said. “But I am choosing the color.”

Thalia grinned like she’d won a duel. 

“Darling, you can choose whatever you like. As long as it is not gray.”

Annabeth laughed, and this time it wasn’t hiding anything. Not completely.

But her secrets — the important ones — remained tucked safely behind her ribs, warm as a pulse, soft as a tide, and far too new for anyone else to touch.

“Come on,” Thalia said, linking their arms. “Let’s start planning to commit something mildly scandalous.”

The house was unusually quiet that morning.

Annabeth noticed it the moment she woke — the kind of stillness that only came after purposeful departure. Athena and Frederick had left before the sun had fully claimed the sky, coats already on their shoulders, minds already elsewhere. Lectures, halls, long corridors filled with expectation. The day had begun without her.

She dressed slowly, deliberately, choosing comfort over precision. The air drifting through the open window carried the scent of salt and early bread, the distant clatter of shutters being lifted in town. Somewhere below, footsteps crossed the gravel path — familiar, impatient.

Thalia, then.

They left the house together just as the morning was warming into itself, the light pale and forgiving. Annabeth fell into step beside her friend, content — at least outwardly — to listen.

The tide murmured against the shore, steady and patient, nudging her forward like a teasing whisper that had learned her name.

She smoothed her hair. Exhaled.

Then nodded.

“Fine,” she said. “But I am choosing the color.”

Thalia’s grin was immediate and victorious, sharp as sunlight off glass.

“Darling, you can choose whatever you like,” she said. “As long as it is not gray.”

Annabeth laughed — and this time it wasn’t hiding anything. Not completely.

They walked on, arm in arm, shoes tapping lightly against the stone path. The town opened itself to them, generous and curious. Annabeth watched faces pass — some eager, some weary, some quietly hopeful. She wondered how many of them carried secrets just as carefully, tucked away beneath practiced expressions.

Her own remained safely behind her ribs.

Warm as a pulse, soft as a tide, far too new for anyone else to touch.

Annabeth allowed herself one last glance toward the sea before turning fully toward the town.

And followed.

They moved deeper into the town, away from the salt-heavy air and into the warmer tangle of stone and voices. Annabeth let Thalia set the pace — quicker than necessary, as if momentum itself were part of the rebellion — while she absorbed everything around them with quiet attention.

The streets were already busy. Too busy, Annabeth thought, for such an early hour. Carts rattled over cobblestones, a baker leaned halfway out his doorway to argue cheerfully with a flower seller. Somewhere, a bell rang once, sharp and declarative, as if reminding everyone that the day was officially underway whether they liked it or not.

Thalia talked the entire time.

She complained about gloves that were too tight, about sleeves cut to flatter rather than function, about how the entire concept of a Season seemed designed to turn women into decorative objects with rehearsed smiles. Annabeth murmured agreement where it was expected, smiled when prompted, laughed when the rhythm of conversation required it — but her mind drifted, snagging on details.

The way shop windows reflected fragments of the sky the way people looked at one another when they thought no one was watching, the quiet tension beneath the brightness, like a performance everyone had agreed to uphold.

“You are doing it again,” Thalia said suddenly.

Annabeth blinked. 

“Whatever am I doing?”

“That thing where your eyes go distant,” Thalia replied. “Like you have wandered into a better conversation without inviting me.”

Annabeth huffed softly. 

“I assure you, if I had, it would have involved fewer opinions.”

Thalia laughed, bumping her shoulder. 

“You are allowed to think, you know. Even on days where I drag you into town.”

“I am thinking,” Annabeth said. “That is precisely the trouble.”

They passed a modiste’s window, dresses arranged like still lives — pale muslins, structured bodices, ribbons carefully draped to suggest effortlessness that had clearly required a great deal of labor. Annabeth slowed despite herself, eyes tracing seams, proportions, the clever geometry hidden beneath softness.

Thalia noticed immediately.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Do not tell me you are analyzing the architecture of a gown.”

“I cannot help it,” Annabeth replied. “Someone made choices. I want to know why.”

“That is exactly why you need a new one,” Thalia said. “Something chosen because you wanted it. Not because it was deemed suitable.”

Annabeth’s fingers curled briefly at her side.

Suitable. Appropriate. Flattering without distracting.

The words followed her like shadows.

They turned a corner into the main square, where the crowd thickened. Annabeth felt it then — the subtle shift in awareness, the way conversations softened when men passed, the way laughter sharpened when certain names were spoken. The Season lingered over everything like perfume: invisible, unmistakable.

She straightened instinctively, posture settling into something careful and practiced.

Thalia noticed that, too.

“Breathe,” she murmured. “You are not on display yet.”

Annabeth smiled faintly. 

“I always am.”

Thalia’s expression softened, but she did not press. Instead, she tugged Annabeth toward a narrower street lined with smaller shops — bookbinders, fabric merchants, places that smelled of ink and dust and possibility.

“Here,” Thalia said. “Somewhere sensible. Somewhere your mother would never think to look.”

Annabeth felt a flicker of something — not fear, not quite excitement — but awareness again. Of stepping outside the expected route. Of choosing, even briefly, a different path.

She nodded once.

“All right,” she said. “But if this is your idea of scandal, I am deeply disappointed.”

Thalia grinned. 

“Oh, give me time.”

The modiste’s shop announced itself with a narrow façade and a window crowded with half-finished ideas: muslin pinned into daring shapes, ribbons draped and re-draped as though someone had changed their mind mid-thought, sketches tucked into the corners of the glass. It did not look like a place meant to impress. It looked like a place meant to create.

Thalia slowed, eyes brightening.

“This is it,” she said. “My mother mentioned her once. She said the modiste had the sort of mind that refused to behave. Which, frankly, is the highest praise.”

Inside, the air smelled faintly of starch and citrus oil. Bolts of fabric lined the walls in careful chaos, colors stacked beside one another without regard for convention. A woman stood at the central table, dark hair twisted into a loose knot, sleeves rolled up as she argued gently with a length of cloth.

She looked up and smiled like she’d been waiting for them.

Thalia did most of the talking — introductions, assurances, declarations of intent — while Annabeth observed. The modiste’s eyes flicked to Annabeth not as one might inspect a client, but as one might study a problem worth solving. There was no rush in her movements, no performative enthusiasm. Only interest.

Measurements were taken quickly and without ceremony. Annabeth stood still as the tape slid around her waist, her shoulders, the gentle curve of her back. It felt strangely simple, for there was no commentary, no weighing of worth, no advice about what would or would not be “appropriate.”

When the question of color arose, Annabeth answered without hesitation.

Something warm. Because it felt correct to choose such.

The modiste nodded, already reaching for fabric, and when the burnt orange was unfurled, Annabeth felt it immediately — the way it caught the light, the way it echoed against her skin rather than competing with it. Thalia made a satisfied noise, vindicated.

The shape followed just as naturally. Clean lines. Movement where it mattered. Nothing excessive. When the modiste brought out the croquis — the sketched draft of the dress — Annabeth leaned forward despite herself.

It was right. The lines were soft around the skirt, and sharp when they would meet her waist and shoulders; it was as precise as her thoughts felt, and loose enough that it would twirl when she did (and she loved when skirts did such for some reason she was never quite sure of).

“I like this,” Annabeth said, surprised by the steadiness of her voice.

The modiste smiled. 

“I thought you might.”

Payment happened faster than Annabeth could protest. Thalia was already pressing coins into the woman’s palm, expression daring Annabeth to argue.

“Do not,” Thalia warned lightly. “I will consider this a personal affront if you try.”

Annabeth sighed, but there was no real heat in it. Only a quiet gratitude she did not yet know how to articulate.

They left hand in hand, the bell over the door chiming softly behind them. The street felt brighter somehow, the noise less oppressive.

Annabeth exhaled.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that I would like some new pencils.”

Thalia laughed.

“Of course you would.”

“I am nearly out,” Annabeth added, defensively.

“And I,” Thalia said, “require a few things myself — necessities, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

They agreed to meet by the fountain in an hour’s time, and with a quick squeeze of Annabeth’s hand, Thalia vanished back into the crowd.

Alone now, Annabeth wandered.

She moved without urgency, letting the town unfold at its own pace. She stopped at a stationer’s shop, fingers lingering over rows of graphite and paper, selecting pencils by weight and balance. She tucked them carefully into her bag, along with a small notebook whose pages felt sturdy enough to hold ideas.

Outside again, she walked on.

The fountain came into view in the distance, water catching sunlight in fractured patterns. Children darted around it, laughter ringing out, skirts and coats blurring into motion. Annabeth slowed, watching.

For a moment, she felt untethered — not lost, but unclaimed by expectation. No one was watching her posture. No one was dictating her choices. The dress was ordered. The pencils were new. The day stretched open in front of her.

She did not know, then, that she was about to collide with something entirely unforeseen. She only knew that the town felt different, as if it were holding its breath along with her.

Annabeth drifted onward with no particular destination, her steps guided more by instinct than intention. The town, at this hour, felt like a living thing — stalls opening and closing like blinking eyes, voices rising and falling in uneven rhythms, the sea murmuring just beyond the buildings as though it were listening in on every conversation. She traced the lines of rooftops with her gaze, noting where stone gave way to wood, where age had softened sharp angles into something kinder. Even here, in the chaos of commerce and chatter, there was design. There always was.

Her fingers brushed the strap of her bag, checking, unnecessarily, that her new pencils were still there. They were. Solid. Real. A small, grounding weight.

She passed the fountain without stopping, choosing instead a narrower street that curved away from the square. It was quieter there, shadows pooling at the bases of buildings, sunlight slipping through in narrow bands. Annabeth slowed, letting her thoughts wander where her feet did not dare.

She thought of lines and structures, of how some things were built to endure while others existed only for a season. She thought, briefly and without meaning to, of the way the tide carved patterns into sand — precise without ever intending to be. She pushed the thought aside before it could settle. Some ideas were better left untouched.

Annabeth exhaled, long and measured, as if releasing a breath she had been holding since morning.

Her mother would not approve of the dress.

The thought came easily, without sharpness — simply a certainty, as established as any theorem Annabeth had ever learned. Burnt orange was not practical. It was not subdued. It did not retreat politely into the background and allow intellect to speak first. It announced itself, warm and unashamed, catching light and eyes in equal measure.

And yet.

Annabeth felt a small, treacherous thrill bloom in her chest at the thought of it.

The modiste had pinned the fabric with careful hands, murmuring about balance and line, about how the cut would follow Annabeth’s shoulders and fall cleanly at the waist. Annabeth had watched the chalk move, fascinated — always fascinated — by how intention became form. For once, the result had felt like hers. Not a compromise. Not a correction. A choice.

She tightened her grip on the strap of her bag, grounding herself again. The pencils were still there. She had checked twice already, though she could have sworn she felt them with every step. A ridiculous habit. Comforting, nonetheless.

The salon loomed in her thoughts like an approaching storm — inevitable, navigable, exhausting.

She would attend. Of course she would. She always did.

She knew how to speak to intellectuals. She knew how to listen, how to frame her thoughts so they were received rather than dismissed. Years of quiet observation and sharper study had taught her that brilliance was not enough; it had to be palatable. She had learned when to interject, when to hold back, when to let a man repeat her idea so it would be praised when it came from his mouth.

And she had work she was proud of. Work that mattered.

She knew — not arrogantly, but certainly — that her name was beginning to carry weight. Not merely as Athena Chase’s daughter, but as a scholar whose drafts were passed hand to hand, whose sketches lingered longer than the conversations meant to surround them. There were professors who sought her opinion now, who asked after her projects with genuine curiosity. That knowledge sat in her chest like a steady flame.

Still, it was tiring.

There would be people at the salon whose brilliance was brittle, all polish and no depth. People who spoke over others not because they had more to say, but because they could not bear silence unless it belonged to them. Men with their noses tilted skyward, arrogance trailing behind them like an unpleasant scent. Women who wielded wit as a weapon, not a bridge.

Annabeth had learned to endure them with grace. But endurance was not the same as joy and, sometimes — and she rarely admitted this even to herself — she wondered if her mother was wrong.

Not about the value of intellect, never tha because she knew she was right about such, and agreed entirely with the woman. But Annabeth would wonder if Mrs. Chase could ever be wrong about the world surrounding it.

The Season, for all its frivolity, was at least honest about its intentions. It was filled with laughter that did not pretend to be profound, with dances that existed for the simple pleasure of movement, with daydreaming that did not need footnotes to justify itself, with wondering of life and love and future. There was something human about it. Something warm.

She turned down another quiet street, the sound of the fountain fading behind her, and allowed the thought to linger.

Perhaps there was room for both.

For mind and movement. For work and wonder. For salons and seasons.

Her steps slowed as she reached the end of the lane, sunlight opening up ahead of her like an invitation. Annabeth lifted her face slightly, feeling the warmth brush her skin, and allowed herself one small, private smile.

Some structures were meant to last.

Others existed only to be lived in — briefly, brilliantly — before the tide came in again.