Where You Go ― Jason Grace

iv. instincts

Off the port bow, the cherry-flavored sea monster spewed steam.

"Yeah, it's definitely checking us out," Percy decided. "Maybe we should take to the air for a while."

"Airborne it is!" Leo said. "Festus, do the honors!"

The bronze dragon figurehead creaked and clacked. The ship's engine hummed. The oars lifted, expanding into aerial blades with a sound like ninety umbrellas opening at once, and the Argo II rose into the sky.

"We should reach Sparta by morning," Leo announced. "And remember to come by the mess-hall tonight, folks, 'cause Chef Leo is making his famous three-alarm tofu tacos!"

❖

Ophelia wasn't sure who was worse—the real Coach Hedge or the hologram of Coach Hedge on Buford the table.

When Jason visited her cabin that evening, she made sure he kept the door wide open, because Buford the Wonder Table took his duties as acting chaperone very seriously. After catching Ophelia in Jason's room the night before (they were just sleeping—seriously), the sentient table had declared war. If he had the slightest suspicion a girl and a boy were in the same cabin without supervision, he would steam and clatter down the hall, his holographic projection of Coach Hedge yelling, "CUT THAT OUT! GIVE ME TWENTY PUSH-UPS! PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"

Jason sat at the foot of her bunk. "I was about to go on duty. Just wanted to check on you first."

Ophelia rolled her eyes, nudging his leg with her foot. "The guy who got run through with a sword wants to check on me? How are you feeling?"

He gave her a lopsided smile. His face was so tanned from their time on the coast of Africa that the scar on his lip looked like a chalk mark. His blue eyes were even more startling. His hair had grown out corn-silk white, though he still had a groove along his scalp where he'd been grazed by a bullet from the bandit Sciron's flintlock. If such a minor scrape from Celestial bronze took so long to heal, Ophelia wondered how he'd ever get over the Imperial gold wound in his gut.

"I've been worse," Jason assured her. "Remember the giant scorpion?"

Ophelia let out a groan. "Unfortunately," she muttered. "I had to carry you back to Camp Jupiter because your dumbass got stung right in the leg."

They held hands in comfortable silence. For a moment, Ophelia could almost imagine they were normal teenagers, enjoying each other's company.

"I never thanked you." Jason's expression turned serious. "Back on Ithaca, after I saw my mom's... remnant, her mania... When I was wounded, you kept me from slipping away, Phee. Part of me..." His voice faltered. "Part of me wanted to close my eyes and stop fighting."

Ophelia's heart did a slow twist. She felt her own pulse in her fingers. "Jason... you're a fighter. You'd never give up. When you faced your mother's spirit—that was you being strong. Not me."

"Maybe." His voice was dry. "It's just... I have my mom's DNA. The human part of me is all her. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I make a mistake I can't take back when we're fighting Gaea? I don't want to end up like my mom—reduced to a mania, chewing on my regrets forever."

Ophelia's heart twisted again. She knew all about not wanting to turn out like one's mother.

She leaned forward and cupped her hands around Jason's. "You'll make the right choices," she said. "I don't know what will happen to any of us, but you could never end up like your mom."

"How can you be sure?"

Ophelia cracked a smile, but it was hard to maintain. She thought about something Hazel had confided to her a few nights ago: I think Jason is the linchpin to Hera's whole scheme. He was always her first play; he's going to be her last. It made sense—it was supposed to just be Jason who ended up at Camp Half-Blood. Ophelia had been a snag in the plan, but she doubted that changed the end of the goddess's plan.