Chapter Text
Perseas,
If you are reading this, then the transition is complete, and you are, by all definitions that matter to the gods, mortal.
There was no easy way for this to end, and I commend you for your bravery in making this decision. You have been through more in these past few months than any child should go through in a lifetime, and instead of falling further, it relieves me to know that you chose to let go. I fear that if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have lived much longer.
For the truth is — and you know this too — my fellow Olympians fear you.
They always have. Even as a child, there were whispers in the throne room. You were powerful. Unpredictable. Loyal to a fault. But it wasn’t until the aftermath — after the girl, your best friend, died in Tartarus; after your mother and Paul were taken from you — that they truly began to grow restless.
Your grief unmoored something ancient. Your powers changed. Deepened. Became something even we could no longer name. You moved through the world like a storm with a heartbeat. And we watched the bodies fall in your wake.
They said you were becoming something dangerous.
They said you already had.
And so, I did the only thing that might save you: I bargained. Your life in exchange for an end to their greatest fears.
The only way I could keep you safe was to take what made you a threat in their eyes. Your strength. Your blood. Your birthright. I did not do this lightly. Know that. I did it because the alternative was watching them destroy you, and I would not allow that .
You are not a child of Olympus anymore. There will be no more monsters tracking your scent, no more quests, no more godly burdens. You are free now, in a way you never were before.
I do not expect this to be enough to deserve your forgiveness for all that you’ve suffered these past years. But know this, Perseas: I did not give you this choice because I was ashamed. I did it because I was proud.
You were my greatest achievement. My strongest daughter. Not just because of what you were born as, but because of who you became in the face of everything we took from you. You will go down in history as the greatest demigod to ever live, and I could not be prouder of you.
I do not know what kind of life the Fates will give you from now on. But I hope it is quiet. I hope it is yours. I hope it is full of things the gods cannot touch — memories, safety, dreams. Love, even. I hope you find peace, Perseas.
I have not earned the right to call myself your father, but if I have ever loved anything in all my long life, it was you.
You will not hear from me again. That is the price of your safety. No monsters. No gods. No Olympus.
But I will be watching from the waves.
Be well, my daughter.
—Poseidon
Percy’s POV
As Percy fiddled with the keys to Paul's hoof-dented car, she noticed that no one from either of the camps was there for the funeral.
Not that Percy could blame them, of course. Her mother, Sally, had been dearly loved by the residents of Camp Half-Blood, well-known for her confectioneries and warm smiles and tight hugs. After everything Percy had done, the legacy of warmth and love and compassion her mother had left behind was stained with too much blood to remember what had been there before. Maybe it was a mercy her mother hadn’t lived to see what Percy had become — the girl who came home from war with blood on her hands and no love left to give.
Percy tucked her hands into her pockets, swallowing against the ball of grief in her throat. She had cried all her tears in the months following Sally and Paul’s deaths, but her hands still shook and her breathing still labored tremulously as she found her seat at the front of the procession.
The funeral was a small, private affair. Organized with a meticulous care that Percy hadn’t known Poseidon could even muster. In the week following the loss of Percy’s powers, she’d been in some semi-coma as the divine blood had slipped from her bones. As a final goodbye, Percy supposed, Poseidon had arranged everything while she’d been unconscious — the little Percy inherited from her mortal parents, the funeral arrangements, a generous fund set up in her name, paperwork to fix her attendance record and make sure she could re-enter school as a senior. It was almost touching.
Almost.
Her parents’ caskets were a dark, ornate wood, large pictures of their smiling faces on either side. Flowers had been placed atop the dark brown lids. It was a closed-casket ceremony. Their bodies had been too brutally maimed by their murderers to be shown. Percy was sure Poseidon could’ve repaired their bodies with a wave of his hand. Though, it wouldn’t have mattered. No amount of repair would change that the only thing Percy would have seen when she gazed upon their bodies was her mother’s empty eyes. Their terror-stricken faces. Paul’s crumbled body as they had laid there, sprawled in their bed. She’d never forget the smell of their blood as it had soaked into the floorboards.
She still hadn’t managed to get rid of all the stains.
It must’ve looked odd for the daughter of the victims to be sitting there on the sidelines, watching as others — strangers, distant relatives of Paul — managed the entire funeral. Thankfully, Paul’s relatives didn’t push though. At some point, Percy vaguely recalled the Blofis relatives going up to her, trying to offer some semblance of comfort. The memory was a distant thing though, and Percy was certain that she’d brushed it off.
People started to get up to pay their respects. Percy fiddled with the lilies she’d brought — her mother’s favorite — and somehow found the courage to go up as well. Her hands were shaking, she realized, as she placed a lily on each of their coffins.
“I love you,” she whispered, brushing a hand down the smooth wood, imagining that she was holding her mother’s hand one last time. She hoped that neither of them were watching her from the Underworld, that they couldn’t see what Percy had become.
The Hearteater of New York City, Mr. D had called her, his lips twisted into a mocking sneer. It was the nickname the Olympus press had dubbed her with as she had wreaked havoc for months. All of it ended when the remainder of the Seven, along with a coalition of the strongest demigods from both camps, finally caught her after two months of her being missing, leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. The Hero of Olympus, finally gone rogue. Luke Castellan was probably laughing from where he was burning in hell.
Percy’s mind was in a fog, not quite comprehending everything she was thinking, feeling, seeing. Her feet led her outside, following behind the pallbearers as they carried Sally and Paul’s caskets outside. She didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t even look at anyone. Just stared at the caskets. Wondered where everything had all gone wrong.
Then again, Percy already knew the answer to that question. She’d stopped being a hero the day Annabeth had died in her arms from Arachne’s fatal blow, the expanse of Tartarus closing in on them.
“Percy?”
The voice was one Percy hadn’t heard since they were children. She almost felt guilty. Here Elena and Jeremy Gilbert were, with Aunt Jenna in tow, attending her parents’ funeral. Meanwhile, Percy hadn’t come to Aunt Miranda and Uncle Grayson’s funeral when they died early that summer.
She swallowed, lifting her chin and turning to face the Gilberts for the first time since she was ten. Despite their mothers being sisters and the three of them being close in age, their families had drifted apart years ago. Some fight between her mother and Aunt Miranda, though Percy wasn’t sure what it had been about. Her mother never spoke about it. The guilt of never making amends with Aunt Miranda had haunted her mother to her dying day though. Even though she never spoke of the argument that had split them apart, all Percy’s mother had done in those few weeks between the end of the Second Giant War and her death was talk about the Gilberts.
“I’m so sorry, Perce,” Elena said softly, her expression soft with grief. There’d always been a particular compassion about her, an outpouring of kindness and love that she’d never quite known how to tame.
Elena pressed a hand to Percy’s arm, squeezing in some semblance of comfort. There was that familiar grief in her eyes, that silent understanding. Not half a year before, Elena and Jeremy had lost their parents too, Elena almost dying with them. There was something morbid about it, the horrendous luck they all had.
“I’m sorry too,” Percy finally said, the words dry in her mouth. She gazed back at Elena, trying to imbue some sense of that same empathy into her deadened face and tired eyes. She doubted she’d succeeded, but something about Elena’s expression said she understood anyway. “I wish I could’ve come to your parents’ funeral.”
“Weren’t you still a missing person at that point?” said Jeremy, raising an eyebrow. His lip twitched upwards in a half-attempt at a smile.
“Jere,” Elena hissed, elbowing him in the side. Behind them, Jenna let out a silent sigh, and Percy almost — almost — smiled.
“Yeah, I guess I do have a pretty good excuse,” said Percy. No smile found its way to her face, but the edges of grief softened around her eyes. She’d forgotten how nice it was to not be alone.
Percy spent more time talking to them than she would’ve anticipated. She and the Gilberts hadn’t been close in years. Despite that, talking to them felt… easy. Natural. Like she was ten years old, chasing Elena and Jeremy around the Gilberts’ backyard while her mother and Aunt Miranda laughed in the background. It felt like childhood again. Like family.
As her parents were lowered into the ground, Percy expected to feel something — anything. But all she felt was emptiness, the chasm of exhaustion yawning open in her chest. When Poseidon had taken her powers, her demigod blood, the legacy of scars that mapped a timeline of her life since she was twelve years old, it felt like he had taken her will to live along with it. She knew her father had done it both to save her from the Olympians’ ire and in some attempt at giving her the life she’d deserved, a life where she didn’t have to look over her shoulder or deal with meddling gods. Still, some part of her felt restless and twitchy. It wasn’t necessarily a desire for the blood rush that came with quests. It was sort of like muscle memory, her very bones itching for Riptide in her hands and the tug in her gut as she summoned the ocean to her side. Not because she wanted it, but because it was all she knew.
Without that, what was she? Who was she?
“Hey,” a voice said quietly from behind her, pressing gentle fingers into Percy’s elbow to get her attention. It took everything in Percy to not jump back, turning to face Jenna.
“Can I talk to you?” Jenna said quietly, her brows furrowed and eyes softened and sad. Percy couldn’t imagine what she was going through right now, having lost both of her sisters in less than a year. Technically, seeing as Percy was only seventeen, she was supposed to be taken in by Jenna in the same way Elena and Jeremy had been. It was only her father’s intervention that kept that from happening, likely to give Percy more freedom.
“Sure,” said Percy, following Jenna to a quiet clearing, away from the rest of the group. Percy noticed Elena and Jeremy glancing not-so-subtly at them from where they sat with everyone else. She frowned, her eyes narrowing when she turned to Jenna.
“I know this might be a bad time,” Jenna said in a hushed tone, “but I wanted to broach the topic with you anyway. Our flight leaves tonight, and I didn’t think this was the kind of thing that should be discussed over the phone.”
Percy’s frown deepened. She leaned in closer, her arms crossed over her chest. “Is something wrong?”
Jenna shook her head. “No, no, of course not. It’s just… y’know, with everything that’s happened, I can’t imagine how alone you must feel. Sally… before– well, before everything, she mentioned to me how hard things were going for you, and—”
Jenna cut herself off, wincing. It dawned on Percy then. Her mother must’ve told Jenna, in some form, that Percy had lost her best friend, Annabeth, during the war. Obviously, she wouldn’t have mentioned the war itself, but Annabeth’s death must’ve been what Jenna was referring to.
“Look,” said Jenna, taking a deep breath and trying to collect herself. She blinked rapidly, trying to force the sadness away and become the parental figure she’d never asked to become. “I don’t know how many friends you’ve got up here or if you have some sort of support network, but regardless of if you do or not, I just wanted you to know that you’ll always have a place with us. If you ever need it.”
It took Percy a moment to process what she meant. “You mean… in Virginia?”
Jenna nodded, reaching out to take Percy’s hand. It took everything in Percy to not flinch at the contact.
“Mystic Falls is… it’s quiet, compared to Manhattan. It doesn’t have the same rush of city life, and you’ll be with us. With family.”
“Family?”
Percy didn’t mean for her voice to splinter on the word, like she hadn’t said it in years, but something inside of her broke at that word. In the past few months, Percy had ruined everything, lost everyone. If they weren’t dead, they hated her. If they didn’t hate her, they feared her. Everything she’d lost in this war had taken something vital from her, stripped away her humanity and turned her into a monster. There was no fixing all the relationships she’d ruined, not after what she’d done. She was all alone.
Something in Jenna’s expression cracked. “Oh, Percy…” she whispered. Before Percy could react or so much as think to pull away, Jenna was drawing her into a hug, her hand going up to cradle Percy’s head.
“With Miranda and Sally gone, all we’ve got left is each other,” whispered Jenna, her voice constricting in her throat. Percy screwed her eyes shut, but the tears slipped through anyway, tracing a line of cold down her reddened cheeks. She wasn’t sure if it was from sadness or relief.
The words were like a light at the end of the tunnel. Percy knew she didn’t deserve another shot at family, but what was the point of a do-over if she spent it punishing herself? It was the same thing her father had said in his letter. Maybe it was time Percy took his advice.
And yet… some part of Percy wasn’t sure. She turned her head from where it rested on Jenna’s shoulder and gazed at the expanse of Manhattan. New York was her home. She knew these streets better than she knew herself. Was she really ready to leave this all behind?
Jenna must’ve sensed her hesitation because she hugged Percy tighter and whispered firmly, “Think about it.”
When they finally pulled apart, it was reluctant and burdened by a shared grief. Jenna reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.
“Do you have a phone?” Jenna asked, scribbling her phone number on the paper and pressing it into Percy’s limp fingers.
“I… yeah. Yeah, I do.” Along with the fund Poseidon had set up for her, he’d gotten her a few electronics, including a state-of-the-art phone. Being mortal now, her use of technology wouldn’t attract any monsters.
Jenna smiled then, just shy of tremulous, masked by that air of maturity she’d had to take on since Miranda’s death.
“Perfect,” she said and handed Percy another paper, this one with Jeremy and Elena’s phone numbers on it. “If you ever change your mind, just give one of us a call, okay?”
Everything felt like it was moving too fast for Percy to comprehend. Still, her mouth opened and somehow managed to reply, “Okay.”
Percy returned to her family’s apartment alone. The roar of the city below trembled in her bones, its familiarity curling in her gut. The papers were still clutched in her hands, she realized then. Crinkled and smudged, but Percy could still make out Jenna’s phone number in the messy scrawl.
She laid the papers out on the kitchen counter, focusing on the rumble of car engines and the intermittent honking below. The counter was cold beneath her arms as she leaned against it, and she appreciated the shock as it absorbed into her. Something she’d always loved about this city was that it never quieted. When silence became the only thing that surrounded her, all she was left to were her thoughts — and there was nothing worse than that.
Still, even with the noise beneath her, it was still too quiet. Gone was Paul’s intelligible muttering as he graded essays in the living room. Or her mother’s humming as she made dinner in the kitchen. If Percy closed her eyes, she could almost picture it — them. Her mom, Paul.
Annabeth. Gods , Annabeth.
Percy screwed her eyes and pushed off the counter. Her skin was buzzing beneath her skin, her thoughts screaming. There was too much begging to be released, no outlet for it to escape.
Once, she had her powers to draw on. The tug of the ocean sapped at all the feverish anger and grief in her blood. Now, she had nothing. She was truly mortal.
Percy slipped out of the kitchen, tracing her fingers across the walls and remembering all the things she’d lost.
How had she gotten here? How did she once have so much and now have nothing at all?
Was this how Luke had felt?
She was so tired. And yet, so restless. She wanted to live for something. Yet, the thought of doing anything felt daunting.
“Percy.”
She’d noticed him a few minutes before, as she’d made to turn the corner into the hall where the two bedrooms were. But it wasn’t until Nico’s voice, quiet and older and stronger and sadder, sounded behind her that she acknowledged his presence.
He was sitting on the windowsill. Percy had a flash of a memory, to him there on her birthday a few years ago. It felt so long since then. Had it really only been a few years?
Nico slipped off the windowsill and landed silently on his feet. His sword hung at his side, shadows curling toward him with his every step. She regarded him impassively, noting the little tells in his expression. There was none of the anger or betrayal characteristic of the other demigods in the panes of his face. He didn’t look happy to see her either, but Percy had a feeling he’d just returned from the funeral, hidden away in a corner even she hadn’t noticed.
She wondered then if she’d lost that too when she gave up her powers — her instincts, her intuition, her heightened senses.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to keep the guardedness from her voice. Even if his face didn’t reveal it, she knew how the camps felt about her these days. Percy didn’t necessarily blame them, but that didn’t mean she was about to let any of them back in with open arms.
Then again, this was Nico she was talking about. Of all people, he understood more than anyone what it was like to be consumed by grief, to let it take over. Perhaps he didn’t fear her like the rest of them. Perhaps he didn’t begrudge her behavior after her parents’ deaths.
Percy shouldn’t be letting herself get optimistic, but it was hard not to. She had no one anymore. The barest scrap of friendship made her feel like a starved dog begging for food.
“Just wanted to check on you,” Nico said with a shrug. He tapped his fingers against his sword hilt and glanced out the window to the setting sun. Percy’s eyes narrowed.
“I figured you could use some support,” he added, looking at her this time. There was something in his expression, an understanding that made her relax just slightly.
She hadn’t realized how much she needed something familiar through all of this. These past few weeks since losing her powers, she’d settled into a fog of muscle memory, running on steam and the shadow of spite.
“Thanks,” Percy said softly, and Nico — Nico smiled.
Percy didn’t know how long they spent like that, idle in the kitchen, just… talking. Nico didn’t bring up her parents or Annabeth, and Percy didn’t either. For a few hours, she could just pretend things were easier. Normal.
At some point, Percy finally worked up the courage to ask: “How’s everything? At the camps, I mean.”
Nico had a drink in his hand and paused in taking a sip when Percy asked the question. She could see all the answers running through his head, all the things he should and shouldn’t say. She hated that he felt like he needed to filter things with her. A few months ago, Percy would’ve been at the front of everything. A few months ago, asking a question like that would’ve gotten her a laugh. Now, she was on the outside looking in, all but exiled.
“They’re… getting better,” said Nico slowly, each word coming out like he was handpicking them, deciding which ones would hurt the least. It didn’t matter. Percy could hear all the things he wasn’t saying. They were rebuilding, licking their wounds, healing from all the damage she’d done and the pain she’d caused.
Percy nodded, staring down at her drink, regretting having asked.
The conversation had flowed somewhat easily before. Now, they were stuck in a tense silence, filled with all the things neither of them were ready to say.
Percy twisted her drink between her hands. Her gaze trailed across the counter, looking at anything but Nico. Then, suddenly, she spotted the papers on the counter, flattened out beneath her fingers, smudged at the edges. Before Percy could stop herself, she reached for it, twisting it between her fingers and debating whether to say what she was thinking.
Nico picked up on it before she could though. He jerked his chin towards the papers and asked, “What’s that?”
Percy opened her mouth. Closed it. The paper was rough against her fingers, and she could feel the raised ink if she brushed gently enough.
“My aunt and my cousins, they came for the funeral,” Percy said and raised the paper, holding it lightly between two fingers. “My aunt Jenna gave me their contacts before they left. Said I could… talk to them, if I ever needed it.”
Percy wasn’t looking at him anymore, staring blankly at a spot on the counter in front of her. Nico’s gaze never left her.
“That’s nice of them,” was all he said.
Then: “I didn’t know you had any other family.”
Percy shrugged. “My mom got into a bad argument with my aunt, and we stopped seeing them for a while. I’m sure they would’ve reconciled sooner, had it not been for me discovering I was a demigod and saving the world and all. At some point, things just got hectic, and we lost contact. This was the first time I’d seen them since I was ten.”
Percy didn’t know why, but once the words started flowing, they wouldn’t stop. “After the funeral, Jenna pulled me aside to give me her contact. While we were talking, she… she offered me a place to stay with them. In Mystic Falls. That’s where they live. It’s this little town in Virginia.”
There was an incessant tapping coming from beneath them. It was from Percy’s foot bouncing against the wood of the kitchen seats.
“You should do it.”
Percy lifted her head, and this time, she did look at him. She knew she probably wasn’t wanted in Camp Half-Blood anymore, not after everything she’d done, but his lack of hesitancy still stung a little.
“It’s not that I want you to go,” Nico said, disrupting her thoughts. His expression had this careful guardedness about it, like he was trying not to let his expression reveal too much. “And I’ll miss you, I will, but I can shadowtravel anywhere in the world . Virginia is nothing compared to what I was doing during the war. I can visit you whenever I want.”
What about everyone else? Percy couldn’t help thinking, but she didn’t dare saying it. The campers would probably throw a party when they learned Percy had left the state entirely.
“Besides,” Nico continued, “giving up your powers was supposed to be a do-over. Moving somewhere completely different, where almost no one knows you, would be the blank slate you need.”
Percy didn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see the look on his face. When had the tables turned? When had Nico become the person giving her guidance?
Instead of turning to face him, Percy’s gaze found itself drawn to the window opening to the expanse of Manhattan beyond. This city was her home, her everything. She’d give everything for this place. Everything washed over her then — all the things that she had poured into the city and all that it had given back.
Manhattan was everything to Percy, a reflection of her heart and soul. There were memories of laughter and joy in the turn of each alley, familiarity that was written into her bones at the mention of every street, smiles and the whisper of family in every block.
But there were also the bad things too. The smell of blood creeping into the air, the rotting corpses propped against buildings and scattered golden dust in the wind, the sound of clanging swords and pained screams echoing in every ambulance wail and shrieking child. Once, the bad had been drowned out by the good, faded into a thin scar on her heart, the pain dull and manageable.
That was back when Annabeth had been alive. When her mother was making dinner at home and Paul was grading papers in the living room.
Now, it felt like a weight she was dragging with her every step. This was the place she didn’t want to let go, but every second she stayed carved another wound into her skin. Percy would have died for this city.
Perhaps that was the problem.
The sound of a chair scraping against wood brought her back. Percy looked up, watching Nico stand.
“I’ve got to go,” he said quietly, the same intensity in his gaze that scared off so many people. “I hope whatever choice you make finds you happiness, Percy. Of all people, you deserve it.”
Percy’s throat had gone thick with all the things she couldn’t say. She had a feeling that if she tried to open her mouth and thank him, all that would come out was a sob. She was so tired. Gods above, she was so tired.
Even with Nico’s approval, it still took three days, a dozen pacing circles, and two false starts before she finally picked up the phone. Her new phone, set up and paid for, was sitting on the living room coffee table. Percy stood on shaking legs, still clutching the papers in her hands, and collapsed into the living room couch. The phone gleamed in the setting sun’s glow. She mouthed the numbers under her breath as she typed them in, one by one.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. Percy considered hanging up. Then—
“Hello?”
“J- Jenna?” she croaked, biting back a wince. “It’s me. Percy. Is your offer still open?”
Elena’s POV
Jenna got the call at dinner.
They were all eating together, the four of them. Her, Jeremy, Jenna, and Alaric. He’d taken to staying over a couple times this past week. Elena hadn’t pressed Jenna for too many details, but something about their relationship had changed recently. She just wasn’t sure what.
“Percy? Yes, of course it is!” came Jenna’s voice from the kitchen. She’d left the dining room to answer the call, but they could still hear her.
Jeremy turned to look at Elena and Alaric, his eyes wide with alarm. “I thought you guys talked her out of inviting Percy to come stay with us?” he hissed, his eyes darting back to the kitchen every so often.
“Yeah… Uh huh… No, of course,” continued Jenna from the other room. At her side, Alaric pinched the bridge of his nose.
“We tried,” Elena said, wincing. “But she was… insistent.”
“Understatement,” Alaric corrected. Jeremy leaned back, staring at them in disbelief. Elena couldn’t blame him. Jenna had broached the topic with Jeremy and Elena after they’d gotten the news of Aunt Sally and her husband’s deaths. Elena had tried to approach the subject delicately, but Jenna was oddly insistent on this. It was unlike her. She wouldn’t usually push such a big change on them like this.
“It’s hard enough hiding this vampire stuff from Jenna, and she’s not even here half the time because of school. How are we supposed to do it with Percy here too?”
“Believe me, Jere, we thought about that.” Alaric rubbed his hands down his face, glancing back to the kitchen. Jenna was still talking to Percy.
“Makes sense, yeah,” came her muffled voice.
“Bringing Percy here seems really important to Jenna,” Elena interjected, keeping her voice hushed so Jenna wouldn’t hear them. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get her to budge on this.”
“But having Percy here will be dangerous,” Jeremy insisted. “She could get hurt. Worse, she could—”
“Great, I’m eating dinner right now, but I’ll call you back in an hour and we can talk, alright? Alright, yeah. Talk to you soon!”
Jeremy snapped his mouth shut, and they all went back to their food, pretending like they hadn’t been panic-whispering amongst themselves two seconds before that. Jenna sat down with them, her smile so stunningly optimistic that Elena felt guilty for getting on her so much about inviting Percy to stay with them.
Still, as much as she hated upsetting Jenna, bringing Percy here could put her in serious danger. Elena would’ve loved to be closer to her cousin again, but with Katherine running around, it just wasn’t safe.
Jenna took another bite of her dinner — spaghetti that Alaric had picked up from a nearby restaurant on his way here. Her eyes darted up to look at them, and her fork stilled on its way to her mouth as she saw the hesitant looks on all their faces. Elena bit back a wince when Jenna leaned back, sighed, and said, “I take it that you guys all figured out who I was talking to then?”
Alaric glanced briefly at Elena before pausing his eating too. His voice was carefully delicate as he said, “Jenna, I get that you want Percy to come stay here, but with all the new animal attacks happening recently, is that really wise?”
She sighed. “Haven’t we been through this? Percy lives in Manhattan . I promise you the occasional animal attack isn’t any more dangerous than anything she encountered in that city.”
“Look,” Jeremy began, “we get that you want to help her get on her feet now that Aunt Sally is gone, but—”
“Do you?” snapped Jenna. Elena blinked, staring at Jenna. Her aunt’s voice had gone sharp and defensive, and she glanced warily at Alaric. “The three of us, we had each other when Miranda and Grayson died, but Percy? She’s all alone up there.”
“Jenna,” started Alaric, holding out an easing hand and looking between the three Gilberts.
Jenna’s shoulders slumped, and she leaned back, her own exhaustion seeping through her body. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, “I didn’t mean that. It’s just… Sally and I were really close. When she moved to New York to pursue her career, it was hard for her because she was all alone. Then she had Percy, and there was that whole falling out with Miranda when you guys were little. So for a while there, Sally didn’t have many people, and I did my best to support her, but I never visited very often or tried to have a relationship with Percy because I was so busy with school… And all Sally would ever tell me about Percy was that she struggled to make friends, she was always the odd one out, and she’s been through so much with her dad leaving and all. For the longest time, Sally was terrified that when she was gone, Percy would be even more alone than she was and there would be nothing she could do about it. I can’t let that happen. I can’t.”
Elena stayed quiet. Her heart broke for Percy, just imagining all of that. Losing her best friend and her parents right after, with no one up in New York to help her, it must’ve been so lonely. She could tell from the steely resolve in Jenna’s expression that nothing they could say or do was going to make her change her mind on this. Alaric and Jeremy, she could see, had come to a similar conclusion.
Jenna shook her head, swallowing thickly. There were tears welling in her eyes, but she blinked rapidly in an attempt to push them back.
“I had no idea,” Elena said softly, “I’m so sorry.”
Jenna shrugged, letting out a watery laugh that failed to lighten the mood. “It’s fine, you guys couldn’t have known. I know it’s a lot to ask, making you guys live with someone else so soon after everything with your parents.”
“It might be nice having Percy here,” Jeremy said, though Elena could tell he didn’t believe it. “As long as she doesn’t get eaten by animals.”
He said the last part as a joke, but Elena could hear the foreboding in his voice. She made eye contact with Alaric. Whether they liked it or not, Percy was coming to stay with them. Elena just hoped it wouldn’t lead to her losing any more family.