Chapter Four

As soon as I reached the library, I began to hunt for a book that might give me a clue of what other gods there were. Suddenly, my hands touched a dusty, large, and incredibly old book. The cover said, Οι Θεοί του Κόσμου. Of course. The Gods of the World. A small smile came over my mouth and I skipped over the Greek and Roman gods. The next section was Egyptian gods, but none of them matched the description of the person on the hill.

The section after that was Norse gods. I wasn't totally sure what that was, but as I started reading, I began to laugh. It had to be made up. It wasn't possible that there were Egyptian, Greek, Roman, AND Norse gods! My mind swirled slightly, but I looked through the Norse gods.

As I flipped through, suddenly, the pages wouldn't move. It was stuck on one god: Loki. Frowning, I tried to pry the next page up but it was all glued down somehow. Grunting, I decided to read that page. As soon as I read it, I realized that this was the god I was looking for.

Loki.

I closed the book and put it back, turning around and taking a few steps before I realized I wanted to check one more thing. Unfortunately, when I turned around and searched, the book had disappeared into thin air. It was like it had never existed. Had I gotten Divine Intervention?

Frowning, I turned away and walked as fast as I could out of the library, only to run into no one other than Peter Brown.

"Woah, cool it, August," he gave me his goofy grin, ruffling his black hair with his hand, "I was just looking for you. Chiron wants us. Not sure why but he won't tell me until you're there. So come on!"

I sighed and shook my head. "Fine, let's go."

Peter grabbed my hand, sending a blush onto my cheeks and dragged me to the Big House. As soon as we got there, I spotted Chiron up on the porch, rubbing his hands together.

"Peter! August! I'm afraid that you have to… Well, visit Rachel. She's been wanting you. Knows something.." he said, grimacing.

"Alright! We're off. Thanks, Chiron!" Peter smiled and dragged me off to Rachel Dare's cave.

Rachel Dare's red haired head popped out of the edge of the cave as we neared it, her green eyes shining.

"You're late! Come, come!" She waved us in and sat us down quickly, throwing us juice boxes.

As usual, Peter took mine and drank both in less than ten seconds. Dionysus kid thing… Besides, I didn't love juice boxes anyway.

"So, why do you need us?" Peter asked, wiping his mouth on his dark green hoodie.

"I… I had a dream. About you two and… Well, another person that I couldn't recognize. I'm coming tonight to the campfire and you two need to come too. You're… You're going on a quest."

I froze in my spot, staring at a painting covered wall, where my face poked out somewhere. "I have to?"

She nodded, "Unfortunately, yes… I suppose we should go tell Chiron and Mr. D."

"Why didn't you just tell them first?" I asked, frowning.

She grimaced. "I thought that it would only be fair to let you know first."

I sighed and nodded, standing. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go?"

Peter grabbed both of our hands and whipped us out of our spot, teleporting us to the Big House.

I spaced out, trying not to pay attention to Chiron's reaction. It was only until Mr. D began talking that I forced myself to focus. It wasn't good to ignore a god, of course.

"A quest? With Peter and August?" He seemed upset but if he was, his face didn't show it. "And some mystery boy.." Sighing, he rubbed his temples. "Fine. I guess I can't control it anyway." he muttered, turning and walking out of the room.

Rachel glanced at me, looking at the dark circles under my eyes.

"You should get some sleep. We find out tonight who the mystery boy is and you leave tomorrow morning."

I nodded and Peter grabbed my hand, squeezing it once and making a blush creep up onto me.

"Sleep well." he let go and watched me as I left.

I still felt the imprint of his hand on mine as I walked and I couldn't get rid of the slight adrenaline it had given my heart. I decided to go to Poseidon cabin, where a large statue of my dad couldn't loom over me, giving me nightmares I didn't necessarily need.

"Home sweet home." I grumbled sarcastically and flopped on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed when I'd gotten in.

I thought back to the fire of my home and shoved all my emotions down, shifting my sheets over my head and falling asleep, praying to the gods that I wouldn't have nightmares.

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When I woke up, the dinner bell was ringing and my head was pounding because of it. Shaking my head, I walked across the room and shoved on a hoodie, heading out the door and to the dining pavilion. I figured Peter had told a couple friends because many kids stared at me as I walked toward the Dionysus table. Quickly, I shoved my hood over my head, hiding my face as I walked up to Peter and slipped beside him, glancing around nervously. He put his arm around me and ate, talking to his friends and otherwise ignoring me.

When a dryad dropped my food off, I decided not to eat. Peter had obviously scraped a portion of his food into the fire already, so I stood up and kept my head ducked as I brought my plate to the fire, dumping it all in and giving the empty plate to a nearby dryad.

"Anything new?" a voice came from the side of me and I spotted Paxton, though I decided to ignore him, shaking my head.

After doing so, I slumped back over to Peter, gaining back my original position I'd been in previously. Normally I wouldn't let someone touch me, but he was a completely different case. I liked him, though I wasn't sure why. Glancing around, I spotted Paxton looking at me from a corner. My eyes narrowed and I glared back until he turned away.

When dinner was over, we still had thirty minutes left until the annual campfire. Peter somehow convinced me to come with him and dragged me around camp with his other friends, just talking and having what they called 'fun'. My fun was shooting targets with knives… that wasn't what we were doing though.

The campfire time came and I rushed back to the cabin, changing into the only dress I owned; a black knee-length one. It was sort of small, but I had to deal with it. Going on a quest was a big thing and besides, most girls tried to look good for campfires. This was the first time I was actually trying. Sighing, I pulled my hair back into a low ponytail and put on the minimal amount of makeup you could. When I was finished, I slipped on my black tennis shoes and walked out the door, straight into Peter.

"Wow. I- Wow. August with her hair down and even makeup." he teased, grinning though his eyes sparkled.

"Oh, shut up. We're going to be late." I glared at him and set off ahead, reaching the fire first.

Peter teleported next to me and put my arm into his, making my face burn more than it had ever burned in my life. Unfortunately, we were the last people to show up, meaning that everyone was staring at us. Especially me. Why were they staring at me?! It didn't help much that Rachel had decided that we had to stand right next to her and Chiron. Being in front of everyone with Peter's arm around mine made me so embarrassed that I just pulled my arm out of his, folding my arms and putting my hands under my armpits uncomfortably.

My eyes shifted over the crowd until I spotted Paxton and, for reasons I couldn't explain, I watched him talk to his friends for a while before I turned away and looked up at Chiron, who'd begun to talk.

"I'm afraid that we've got another quest to dish out to some unfortunate campers. They will be informed later but I regret saying that you won't be able to know any more than who is going. Peter Brown and Augusta Argyros will be two of our questers-"

He was cut off suddenly by Rachel, who'd surprised everyone by gasping. "THAT'S IT. THAT'S HIM." she ran quickly over to Paxton and wrenched him out of his seat, dragging him over to us.

My eyes darkened. Great. Paxton.

"So… Parker is the last person on this quest?"

Rachel nodded vigorously, "I guess so! Welcome to the team, Parker."

"Uh, it's Paxton actually." Paxton said, his hands beginning to shake.

"Oh. Well, then welcome to the-" Chiron froze as two signs appeared over Park- I mean, Paxton's head.

There was a Hades sign above his head and Eris sign, and a gold one that was too fuzzy to make out, causing Chiron and I to frown.

"Curious. Most curious. That three people with qualities unheard of are now going on a quest together…" he shuffled his hooves. "Let's speak about this in the morning. For now, let the campfire begin."

All chaos and music erupted at that point.

Overwhelmed, I turned around and walked away, letting Peter chill with his friends. I walked until I got to the strawberry fields, where I sat on a hill with a tree. Leaning against the tree, I watched the stars quietly.

This had to be it.

The thing that would kill me…

I should've been happy, but instead, I felt emotions rising in my chest. I buried them deep down again, refusing to let them take control of me. They had no right to do that.

Slowly, I curled my knees to my chest and let myself tip over, laying on the ground and falling asleep.