{Jason}
Jason dreamed of wolves.
He stood in a clearing in the middle of a redwood forest. In front of him rose the ruins of a stone mansion. Low gray clouds blended with the ground fog, and cold rain hung in the air. A pack of large gray beasts milled around him, brushing against his legs, snarling and baring their teeth. They gently nudged him toward the ruins. Jason had no desire to become the world's largest dog biscuit, so he decided to do what they wanted.
The ground squelched under his boots as he walked. Stone spires of chimneys, no longer attached to anything, rose up like totem poles. The house must've been enormous once, multi-storied with massive log walls and a soaring gabled roof, but now nothing remained but its stone skeleton. Jason passed under a crumbling doorway and found himself in a kind of courtyard.
Before him was a drained reflecting pool, long and rectangular. Jason couldn't tell how deep it was, because the bottom was filled with mist. A dirt path led all the way around, and the house's uneven walls rose on either side. Wolves paced under the archways of rough red volcanic stone.
At the far end of the pool sat a giant she-wolf, several feet taller than Jason. Her eyes glowed silver in the fog, and her coat was the same color as the rocks—warm chocolaty red.
"I know this place," Jason said.
The wolf regarded him. She didn't exactly speak, but Jason could understand her. The movements of her ears and whiskers, the flash of her eyes, the way she curled her lips—all of these were part of her language.
Of course, the she-wolf said. You began your journey here as a pup. Now you must find your way back. A new quest, a new start.
"That isn't fair," Jason said. But as soon as he spoke, he knew there was no point complaining to the she-wolf.
Wolves didn't feel sympathy. They never expected fairness. The wolf said: Conquer or die. This is always our way.
Jason wanted to protest that he couldn't conquer if he didn't know who he was, or where he was supposed to go. But he knew this wolf. Her name was simply Lupa, the Mother Wolf, the greatest of her kind. Long ago she'd found him in this place, protected him, nurtured him, chosen him, but if Jason showed weakness, she would tear him to shreds. Rather than being her pup, he would become her dinner. In the wolf pack, weakness was not an option.
"Can you guide me?" Jason asked.
Lupa made a rumbling noise deep in her throat, and the mist in the pool dissolved.
At first Jason wasn't sure what he was seeing. At opposite ends of the pool, two dark spires had erupted from the cement floor like the drill bits of some massive tunneling machines boring through the surface. Jason couldn't tell if the spires were made of rock or petrified vines, but they were formed of thick tendrils that came together in a point at the top. Each spire was about five feet tall, but they weren't identical. The one closest to Jason was darker and seemed like a solid mass, its tendrils fused together. As he watched, it pushed a little farther out of the earth and expanded a little wider.
On Lupa's end of the pool, the second spire's tendrils were more open, like the bars of a cage. Inside, Jason could vaguely see a misty figure struggling, shifting within its confines.
"Hera," Jason said.
The she-wolf growled in agreement. The other wolves circled the pool, their fur standing up on their backs as they snarled at the spires.
The enemy has chosen this place to awaken her most powerful son, the giant king, Lupa said. Our sacred place, where demigods are claimed—the place of death or life. The burned house. The house of the wolf. It is an abomination. You must stop her.
"Her?" Jason was confused. "You mean, Hera?"
The she-wolf gnashed her teeth impatiently. Use your senses, pup. I care nothing for Juno, but if she falls, our enemy wakes. And that will be the end for all of us. You know this place. You can find it again. Cleanse our house. Stop this before it is too late.
The dark spire grew slowly larger, like the bulb of some horrible flower. Jason sensed that if it ever opened, it would release something he did not want to meet.
"Who am I?" Jason asked the she-wolf. "At least tell me that."
Wolves don't have much of a sense of humor, but Jason could tell the question amused Lupa, as if Jason were a cub just trying out his claws, practicing to be the alpha male.
You are our saving grace, as always. The she-wolf curled her lip, as if she had just made a clever joke. Do not fail, son of Jupiter.
Jason woke to the sound of thunder. Then he remembered where he was. It was always thundering in Cabin One.
Above his cot, the domed ceiling was decorated with a blue-and-white mosaic like a cloudy sky. The cloud tiles shifted across the ceiling, changing from white to black. Thunder rumbled through the room, and gold tiles flashed like veins of lightning.
Except for the cot that the other campers had brought him, the cabin had no regular furniture—no chairs, tables, or dressers. As far as Jason could tell, it didn't even have a bathroom. The walls were carved with alcoves, each holding a bronze brazier or a golden eagle statue on a marble pedestal. In the center of the room, a twenty-foot-tall, full-color statue of Zeus in classic Greek robes stood with a shield at his side and a lightning bolt raised, ready to smite somebody.
Jason studied the statue, looking for anything he had in common with the Lord of the Sky. Black hair? Nope. Grumbly expression? Well, maybe. Beard? No thanks. In his robes and sandals, Zeus looked like a really buff, really angry hippie.
Yeah, Cabin One. A big honor, the other campers had told him. Sure, if you liked sleeping in a cold temple by yourself with Hippie Zeus frowning down at you all night.
Jason got up and rubbed his neck. His whole body was stiff from bad sleep and summoning lightning. That little trick last night hadn't been as easy as he had let on. It had almost made him pass out.
Next to the cot, new clothes were laid out for him: jeans, sneakers, and an orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. He definitely needed a change of clothes, but looking down at his tattered purple shirt, he was reluctant to change. It felt wrong somehow, putting on the camp shirt. He still couldn't believe he belonged here, despite everything they'd told him.
He thought about his dream, hoping more memories would come back to him about Lupa, or that ruined house in the redwoods. He knew he'd been there before. The wolf was real. But his head ached when he tried to remember. The marks on his forearm seemed to burn.
If he could find those ruins, he could find his past. Whatever was growing inside that rock spire, Jason had to stop it. He looked at Hippie Zeus. "You're welcome to help."
The statue said nothing.
"Thanks, Pops," Jason muttered.
He changed clothes and checked his reflection in Zeus's shield. His face looked watery and strange in the metal, like he was dissolving in a pool of gold. Definitely he didn't look as good as Piper had last night after she'd suddenly been transformed.
Jason still wasn't sure how he felt about that. He'd acted like an idiot, announcing in front of everyone that she was a knockout. Not like there'd been anything wrong with her before. Sure, she looked great after Aphrodite zapped her, but she also didn't look like herself, not comfortable with the attention.
Jason had felt bad for her. Maybe that was crazy, considering she'd just been claimed by a goddess and turned into the most gorgeous girl at camp. Everybody had started fawning over her, telling her how amazing she was and how obviously she should be the one who went on the quest—but that attention had nothing to do with who she was. New dress, new makeup, glowing pink aura, and boom: suddenly people liked her. Jason felt like he understood that.
Last night when he'd called down lightning, the other campers' reactions had seemed familiar to him. He was pretty sure he'd been dealing with that for a long time—people looking at him in awe just because he was the son of Zeus, treating him special, but it didn't have anything to do with him. Nobody cared about him, just his big scary daddy standing behind him with the doomsday bolt, as if to say, Respect this kid or eat voltage!
He suddenly thought of Kiara. She had run out of the amphitheater after Rachel had announced the last part of the prophecy, the unknown part. Jason wondered where she was. Out of everyone he'd met, he felt closer to Kiara. Maybe it was because she had the same tattoo and purple shirt as him.
He thought of Piper again. After the campfire, when people started heading back to their cabins, Jason had gone up to Piper and formally asked her to come with him on the quest.
She'd still been in a state of shock, but she nodded, rubbing her arms, which must've been cold in that sleeveless dress. "Aphrodite took my snowboarding jacket," she muttered. "Mugged by my own mom."
In the first row of the amphitheater, Jason found a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. "We'll get you a new jacket," he promised.
She managed a smile. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, but he restrained himself. He didn't want her to think he was as shallow as everyone else—trying to make a move on her because she'd turned all beautiful.
He was glad Piper was going with him on the quest. Jason had tried to act brave at the campfire, but it was just that—an act. The idea of going up against an evil force powerful enough to kidnap Hera scared him witless, especially since he didn't even know his own past. He'd need help, and it felt right: Piper should be with him. But things were already complicated without figuring out how much he liked her, and why. He'd already messed with her head enough.
He slipped on his new shoes, ready to get out of that cold, empty cabin. Then he spotted something he hadn't noticed the night before. A brazier had been moved out of one of the alcoves to create a sleeping niche, with a bedroll, a backpack, even some pictures taped to the wall.
Jason walked over. Whoever had slept there, it had been a long time ago. The bedroll smelled musty. The backpack was covered with a thin film of dust. Some of the photos once taped to the wall had lost their stickiness and fallen to the floor.
One picture showed Annabeth—much younger, maybe eight, but Jason could tell it was her: same blond hair and gray eyes, same distracted look like she was thinking a million things at once. She stood next to a sandy-haired guy about fourteen or fifteen, with a mischievous smile and ragged leather armor over a T-shirt. He was pointing to an alley behind them, like he was telling the photographer, Let's go meet things in a dark alley and kill them! A second photo showed Annabeth and the same guy sitting at a campfire, laughing hysterically.
Finally Jason picked up one of the photos that had fallen. It was a strip of pictures like you'd take in a do-it-yourself photo booth: Annabeth and the sandy-haired guy, but with another girl between them. She was maybe fifteen, with black hair—choppy like Piper's—a black leather jacket, and silver jewelry, so she looked kind of goth—which reminded him of Kiara—but she was caught mid-laugh, and it was clear she was with her two best friends.
"That's Thalia," someone said.