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tsarisfanfiction · 18 days ago

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Truth Comes Out of His Well (Chapter 21)

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more) RL has delayed this week's podfic, unfortunately. I'll update this when it's out! << Chapter 20

It didn’t take long for Joy to return with their siblings, sans Will. Lee ached at the absence, but he didn’t even know where Percy and Will had gone, so until they got news on that, they didn’t know where to go – but once they did know, Lee was going to work out how to transport all of them wherever there was, as long as it was away from the front line.

If it wasn’t away from the front line, he was going to have words with Percy about dragging Will into more danger.

It was a subdued procession of siblings that approached him. They’d rigged up some sort of stretcher out of a blanket or two – no doubt requisitioned from some unguarded cars – and between them, Joy, Robyn, Sally and Elias were carefully bearing a still-unconscious Nathan. He’d been patched up more since Lee had left him with Tris, clean bandages wrapping the worst of the exposed wounds. It didn’t do anything to hide the missing arm – if anything, the sudden mass of bandaging around the mauled shoulder highlighted it, instead.

Alice had Kayla under one arm, the youngest’s eyes rimmed red with tears still spilling down her cheek. Sam was similarly holding onto Austin, and Tris alternated between hovering next to Nathan and darting forwards, leading the way instead.

And that was all of them. Ten siblings, not including Michael or Will, for a total of twelve. Thirteen, including Lee.

Lee had never seen the Apollo cabin number so few in all his years at camp, and feared the reason why.

“Lee!” Tris was the first one to reach him, darting forwards ahead of the rest and slamming straight into Lee’s chest, wrapping his arms around him tightly. Lee gripped him back, burying his face in his brother’s dark, damp hair, and taking a moment to breathe before he had to face everyone else, and the realities that went along with them.

A young voice shrieked “Michael!” and frantic feet started to run, before stopping sharply.

“He’s hurt,” Alice said, almost a snap but gentle enough that it wasn’t, quite. “Be careful, Kayla.” Lee raised his head from Tris’ hair to see the young girl tugging away from Alice’s restraining hand and racing towards him, skidding to a stop on her knees next to Michael in a move that made Lee wince slightly.

“Michael?” she tried, her fingers lacing between Michael’s cautiously. “Michael, wake up.” He didn’t stir and she dissolved into tears, gripping his arm more firmly and starting to shake it, only for Alice to swoop in and grab her.

The older girl didn’t look much better. She’d forgone the make-up she’d refused to leave the cabin without for the whole of the previous summer, but Lee thought that if she hadn’t, the mascara would’ve long since smudged, so it was probably a good thing, even if it made her look younger, more like the barely-teenager that she was than the older teenager she’d been trying to emulate back when she’d only been twelve.

But Alice was sending him looks, like she couldn’t believe he was real, and while he knew she liked Michael, he also knew that for most of their siblings, he had been their first head counsellor, and their longest head counsellor. Alice wasn’t the only one looking at him like he was a minor miracle.

Lee didn’t feel like a miracle of any degree.

“Is this everyone?” he asked, belatedly tacking on, “aside from Will.”

“Yeah,” Robyn threw over her shoulder, one of the few not looking at him. She was kneeling beside Nathan, still fussing over his bandages. The pair of them had been thick as thieves ever since Nathan’s arrival, two years ago, and Lee wasn’t surprised at all to find her sticking to his side like glue now. “Everyone else left.”

“They didn’t come back,” Elias corrected, sitting himself down on Nathan’s other side, cross-legged on the asphalt and hands flopping lazily in his lap. However he’d tied his long locs up before the battle had started to fail, and some of them were escaping confines to pool on the ground next to him. “After… you… Phoebe and Morton decided that was it. They didn’t want to spend their last summer fighting again, so they said goodbye last summer.”

Joy gestured sharply, catching Lee’s attention before her hands started to flicker. “Nye and Xavier got pulled out by their moms,” she signed. “Last we heard they were all still alive. I think Xavier went back to Spain.”

It was those two signs, the hands with three fingers curled and thumb and little finger extended, pulsing and rotating into mirrored thumbs’ ups that settled Lee’s heart.

Still alive.

The absences weren’t because they were dead, it was because they had fled the war while they could, and Lee could never be upset about that. He’d have loved it if all his siblings had been able to flee and get away from it, but that wasn’t really an option for those of them with nowhere else to go, and some of them were too loyal to stay away even if they did have the choice.

It was a choice that had almost killed Tris. Robyn making the same choice would probably save lives even though it risked hers. Alice was young but too stubborn not to come back, and Sally was quieter but still got her own way most of the time.

He didn’t even know if Sam had gone home at the end of last summer. He’d barely known the younger boy at all; he hadn’t even arrived at camp a whole month before the battle that tore Lee away for so long.

The rest of them, the year rounders like Michael, Will and Joy, the new kids Austin and Kayla – none of them had really had a choice. Lee wouldn’t have done, either – but he knew he would’ve chosen to fight even if he had. Michael and Will would have been the same, and so would Nathan. But the others, Joy and Elias… Given the choice, they might have preferred to stay away – they were musicians, and not fighters.

They were fighting anyway.

Lee hated it.

“So what happened to you?” Alice asked, and she was trying to sound sharper, like Robyn would have done if she had been the one to ask the question, but it came out as less a demand and more a plea. “Who did we burn, if it wasn��t you?”

It didn’t feel like the right time for a story, but they were stuck waiting, anyway – even if most of his siblings didn’t know that – and with so many pairs of eyes on him, Lee knew he couldn’t just brush them off. His siblings, at least, he owed the truth to.

He’d tell Michael and Nathan later, and hope that the two of them could stop sniping at each other long enough to listen, because they weren’t anywhere near as bad as Michael with Clarisse, but Nathan loved to push Michael’s buttons and Michael never failed to push right back. Lee was pretty sure he was at least partially doing it on purpose, because he knew Michael did actually like Nathan, or at least accepted him as family – and for Michael, that was a big thing. He still needed to tell Will, too, and maybe Will would be enough of a buffer to stop the sniping.

He tapped Tris on the shoulder, asking him to let go long enough so that he could sit down. He wasn’t telling the story on his feet, with his siblings gathered around on the asphalt like it was story time in elementary school.

Tris grumbled but obliged, giving Lee just enough range of movement to sit himself down, next to Michael, before curling back up in his lap again, the same way he had done back in Kronos’ stone cavern, except this time Lee had the use of his arms and legs, and used the former liberally to pin his little brother in place, almost like an oversized plush. He rested his head on Tris’ shoulder, trying not to feel like Tris was a human shield against the judgement of his siblings and hating himself for the idea even worming itself into his head, because they were his siblings.

The few that hadn’t yet sat followed suit, settling into a loose and sloppy horseshoe that somehow also encompassed the unconscious Michael and Nathan.

“I was told the guy’s name was Marcus,” he started, latching onto Alice’s question as a way to start because it was as good as anywhere else, he supposed. “I don’t know anything else about him. He was never a camper.”

No-one looked particularly surprised at that – if he had been a camper, he’d have been recognised, and not mistaken for Lee. At least, Lee liked to think that his siblings would’ve recognised it wasn’t him if it had been someone else they knew.

“Why go through that effort?” Robyn asked. “Don’t get me wrong, Lee, you’re awesome and I know it, but why did Kronos go that far?”

Lee felt Tris burrow deeper against his chest, a silent support that Lee appreciated more than he could ever say, even though the movement caught the attention of most of his siblings, whose eyes sharpened, clearly knowing they were about to hear something different. Interesting, perhaps, if it was in another context and didn’t directly involve Lee. Apollo kids generally liked interesting – they weren’t often as obvious as Athena kids, but most of them were veritable sponges for new information, too.

He really, really didn’t want to tell them. Didn’t want them to start looking at him differently, using him as a lie detector even if it wasn’t malicious, or even on purpose. Didn’t want to have to deal with the guilt of knowing their lies, of them knowing he knew when they’d lied, and feeling bad for it, or conflicted, or even betrayed. Because he’d never told them, let them lie to his face when he asked them if they’d cleaned their bunk properly or just shoved everything haphazardly under the bed (it was almost, almost always the latter) and smiled and pretended to believe them.

But they deserved to know, and they deserved to know first, before he had to repeat it to Clarisse, and probably most of the rest of camp, too, before they even started to consider believing he hadn’t gone of his own free will – because Lee wasn’t a fool. He could see where some of the other campers, the ones that didn’t understand cabin seven’s mutual adoration for their father, might draw those conclusions.

That didn’t make it easy.

“I…” he started, but a lump formed in his throat and forced him to stop, trying to swallow it back down again.

“I can tell them,” Tris volunteered, his too kind little brother, and Lee choked up again.

“No, no,” he said weakly, clearing his throat a little and swallowing painfully. “No, it’s okay, Tris. I can do it.”

“If you’re sure,” Tris assured him, and Lee hated that his little brother felt the need to try and reassure him, to try and help him with this. It wasn’t on Tris, it should never be on Tris. Tris should never have been involved in this at all.

“I’m sure,” he said, and his voice was thin but it was still true. Still, he kept his eyes on the top of Tris’ head, where his hair was plastered to his scalp and still dripping wet – if Tris had his way, that would be his natural state. Looking at Tris’ parting was much easier than facing his siblings, right then. He wished Michael was still conscious, the one that had known for years and never judged him for it.

None of his siblings pushed him, not even Robyn, who alongside Nathan and Michael could be the pushiest of the lot. Lee appreciated that.

“Not many people know… knew,” he corrected, because thanks to Kronos the number of people that knew was far, far too high, much more so than Lee would ever be comfortable with. “But I inherited… something rare from Dad.” He took a deep breath, then faltered and dived down a sideways tangent. “Luke knew. He was… when I was younger, when Luke was nice and didn’t show any signs of wanting to raise Kronos and kill us all… I told him about it.”

“And he told Kronos,” Alice guessed, but from her tone it was less a guess and more a foregone conclusion.

Strictly speaking, Kronos had somehow dragged it out of Luke’s brain after taking over his body, rather than Luke telling him of his own accord, but it was close enough that the difference didn’t really matter. It mattered a little bit, that Luke hadn’t thrown Lee’s secret straight to the titan as an offering, but also if Luke hadn’t raised Kronos in the first place, it would never have been an issue at all.

“Yeah,” Lee confirmed, figuring the simple answer was best. They didn’t need to hear about the rest of it. That bit wasn’t important. “Kronos decided it was useful.”

“But Lee wouldn’t use it for him,” Tris piped up, and he sounded so proud that it almost broke Lee’s heart. “He held out, even when Kronos hurt him.” Then his voice faltered, and Lee had the horrific feeling that his little brother was crying. “That’s why Kronos grabbed me,” he sobbed, and the entire gathering of their siblings took a single, indignant intake of breath.

Clearly, neither Lee nor Tris needed to say anything more on that subject. Lee glanced up at them to see a ring of furious faces. Even Austin and Kayla seemed to understand enough, and they’d never met Lee before now.

“That bastard,” Robyn growled, one hand balling into a fist. “I’m going to punch that bastard in his smug face.” There were various murmurs of agreement from the rest of Lee’s siblings, and Lee couldn’t take that, couldn’t have any more of his siblings in Kronos’ vicinity.

“Stay away from him,” he begged, and it felt like a low blow to gesture at Michael in a reminder of how easily Kronos could take any of them out, but he did it anyway, because he needed them to stay safe.

The silence that followed was a heavy, awkward one, until Sally broke it, her voice small but steady, asking the one question Lee had been dancing around answering even though he knew he had to.

“What is it you can do?” she asked. “It must be powerful, if Kronos wanted it.”

Lee made a disagreeing sound, one hand letting go of Tris to see-saw.

Tris, his amazing little traitor of a brother, nodded vigorously. “It is,” he said, and he didn’t sound like he’d stopped crying, but he did sound proud of Lee, like he didn’t find it somewhat unsettling and potentially terrifying.

There was no way he was going to escape answering now. He also knew that if he didn’t answer it now, he wasn’t going to at all.

“I’m a truth sensor,” he said, tempted to murmur it into Tris’ hair but forcing himself to say it clearly, just so he didn’t have to repeat himself. “Or more accurately, I can tell whenever anyone says a lie.”

The silence that fell felt damning. Lee didn’t risk looking at them, burying his face back into Tris’ hair, aware he was definitely using his youngest brother as a human shield and hating himself for it but unable to pull away. Tris gripped hold of his arms, not letting him move even if he tried.

It was Austin that eventually broke that silence, the little brother that Lee didn’t know, had no idea what to expect from.

Also the only little brother that had never lied to him, if only because he’d never had the chance.

“That sounds pretty cool,” he said. “No-one gets to lie to you and get away with it, right?”

Lee winced, but before he could say anything, Alice let out a horrified gasp.

“That means you knew I was lying that time you asked me what I’d been doing with Tiana behind the Hephaestus cabin that one time!” she exclaimed, sounding almost mortified, and Lee winced again.

“I try not to call out lies,” he admitted. “Lying is normal, it’s natural. I don’t police them. And just because I know you lied doesn’t mean I know what the truth is, either,” he added, glancing at Alice with her horrified face. Given Tiana was an unclaimed kid with a fondness for making things out of metal, he imagined it was probably something innocent enough – he seemed to recall there had been some incident or other shortly afterwards with fire and mechanical creatures whirring around.

“So why did Kronos want a human lie detector?” Robyn asked. “Did he not trust his own followers?”

“No,” Lee said bluntly. “He didn’t.”

“Was he right not to?” Austin leaned in, looking eager. Lee comforted himself with the knowledge that Austin was too young to put things together, and that he didn’t know Lee. Some of the older ones, the ones that had known him longer, were starting to give him considering looks that he didn’t think he liked.

“Michael knows,” Joy said, her quiet, rasping voice cutting across the silence before Lee had to answer. “Doesn’t he?”

Lee glanced at their brother and nodded. “He figured me out a few years ago,” he admitted.

Robyn snorted. “Of course he did.”

He risked looking back at his siblings again. None of them seemed to be looking at him like they suddenly hated him, so that was a good start.

Then Tris twisted in his arms, and gave Lee a tight, tight hug. “He hurt him,” he said, turning his head back to everyone else, and there was intent in the movement. An expectation, and Lee wasn’t sure what for, but then there was a sea of movement and he once again found himself in the middle of a pile of Apollo kids, all of them clinging to him somehow.

It was acceptance, sincere and warm, and Lee didn’t mean to break down, had hoped that his siblings wouldn’t hate him, but with the proof and the love and everything…

Tris’ hair was already wet with saltwater. It wouldn’t notice if it got any wetter.

Chapter 22>>>

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tsarisfanfiction · 11 days ago

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Truth Comes Out of His Well (Chapter 22)

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more) RL has delayed this week’s podfic as well, unfortunately. I’ll update this and chapter 21 when they're out! << Chapter 21

The sun was higher in the sky when the first of his siblings pulled back, far enough across that Lee could estimate with a certainty he'd missed that it had been somewhere between half an hour and an hour since they'd all dogpiled him.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. Kayla had floated between the hug and poking at Michael with muted desperation, and Robyn had kept peeling off to check on both their unconscious siblings, but barring those, no-one had released him for a long, long time. Long enough for his latest bout of tears to expire and the evidence dry from his face. Tris' hair was still damp, as was Lee's own, but they were both drying off at a fair speed now that the sun was in the sky and shining down on them.

Sally was the one to brandish a hair tie in his face. "Your hair's long," she said, and always had a supply wrapped around her wrist, so it was with no effort on her part, and no resistance on Lee's, that she tied his long and messy hair back into something that doubtless wasn't neat, but at least stopped hair falling in his eyes inconveniently. With everything else going on, Lee had hardly noticed it, but he certainly noticed the lack when the hair was pulled back, out of the way.

"Thanks," he said warmly, and she stole another hug, worming her way between him and a vaguely disgruntled Tris to get it. Tris seemed determined to stay glued to Lee's side, and while Lee was glad for the constant reminder that his little brother was with him, the fact that he knew it was mostly triggered by trauma hurt.

"I missed you," Sally told him, and Lee gave her an honest smile.

"I missed you, too," he said.

"So what's the plan now?" Robyn asked, squatting down next to Michael with a hand over his broken ribs. Next to her, Kayla once again had one of Michael's hands in a white-knuckled grip, and unlike Lee, she didn't seem to be completely out of tears yet, although they were far less prevalent than they had been earlier. The red rimming her eyes was just as stark, though. "Percy said something about a ceasefire until tonight, but what are we doing in the meantime?"

Lee had missed the ceasefire thing – either Percy hadn't mentioned it, or he hadn't been listening when the son of Poseidon had said it. If it had come out of Kronos' mouth, he'd certainly missed it, far more interested in saving his brother's life instead.

Still, a daytime ceasefire would help them. All of them needed rest – they'd been up all night and had to be exhausted. Will was hopefully already asleep, as long as the rest of the campers weren't overworking him.

If they were, Lee would take great delight in siccing Michael on them the moment his brother was conscious again. Michael didn't need to be uninjured to verbally tear someone apart, and wouldn't wait to be, either.

"Does anyone know where the current headquarters is?" Lee asked, and all eyes went to Joy. After Michael and Will, she held the most seniority, after all.

She shook her head. "There isn't one," she signed, the jerk of her thumb from beneath her chin harsh. "Percy spread us out across Manhattan."

So they had no idea where Will was. Great.

That hadn't been something Lee had considered when he'd let Percy take his younger brother away. They also didn't have transport to go anywhere, not that would take the thirteen of them, including two unconscious bodies that had to be transported with care. All they could do was walk, but without a target to aim for, that wouldn't do them any good.

"Someone call Annabeth," Robyn ordered. "Either she'll know, or whoever's got her phone will know. There's got to be a phone around here somewhere."

They were using cell phones to communicate? Lee had seen Percy with one, but Percy tended to be a law unto himself and could also take care of himself when monsters tracked him down. Then again, he supposed that monsters finding them was probably the least of their worries, especially with Kronos already knowing their movements – oh gods, he hadn't mentioned Silena yet.

He didn't know how.

"I'm on it!" Alice called, scrambling to her feet and running over to the nearest mortal, ransacking their pockets until she pulled out a flip phone. "What's the number, again?"

Robyn rattled it off, and with more ease than Lee usually saw with demigods, Alice punched them in, not even hesitating before finding the call button and holding it up to her ear.

Alice did live in the mortal world for most of the year. Lee supposed she'd had to learn to blend in, even if she didn't own one herself – unless she did, and just didn't bring it to camp. Lee wouldn't be overly surprised, even if the idea of his younger sister carrying around a personal monster beacon terrified him.

The conversation was quick.

"Plaza Hotel," she reported, snapping it shut and stuffing it back in its owner's pocket. "I don't know where that is."

"I do," Sam said, their resident New Yorker. Lee didn't remember whereabouts, exactly, in New York his mom lived, but the paleness of his brother's face probably had something to do with the battle being far too close to her for his comfort. "It's on the south east corner of Central Park."

Ordinarily, that wouldn't be too far to walk, but with Michael and Nathan unconscious, that became a tall order – and with the streets jammed with cars, Lee couldn't conveniently borrow one to transport them.

Maybe Clarisse would have a solution, when she arrived.

"Some of you need to head over there and keep Will company," he said. "Make sure he's not being overworked."

"I have patients here," Robyn said immediately, and Lee nodded at her, expecting nothing else. Joy raised a hand, volunteering herself, and Alice followed suit, quickly followed by Elias and Sally.

Lee turned to Sam. "Can you lead the way?" he asked, and his brother nodded. A glance at Austin and Kayla made it abundantly clear that Kayla was going nowhere without Michael, and Austin was sticking closely to her, so Lee didn't bother trying to persuade them.

"What about the rest of you?" Alice asked.

"Clarisse should be on her way here," Lee said, and immediately the cabin erupted into multiple tirades, none of them complimentary. He raised a hand for silence, and after a few moments, they unwillingly gave it to him, still simmering. "I don't know what, exactly, went down between her and Michael, but Kronos knows the Ares cabin isn't here and they're our best melee fighters. We need them."

"Tell that to Clarisse," Alice muttered darkly. "Stupid bitch."

"I intend to," Lee said. He gave the rest of his siblings a look. "Anyone who thinks they can't be civil when she turns up, go with Sam and the others to the Plaza Hotel. I need a civil conversation with her."

"I'm staying," Tris piped up stubbornly. He still hadn't completely let go of Lee, still clinging to his arm, and Lee hadn't expected anything else. Tris clearly didn't know any more about the latest, massive, Clarisse and Michael argument – one that seemed to have spread to at least most of their cabin, this time – than he did and Lee rather thought it might take a crowbar to separate his littlest brother from his side any time soon.

"I'm not leaving Michael," Kayla said stubbornly, and Robyn repeated the sentiments with both their unconscious brothers. Austin hesitated, looking at Kayla but then at Lee, and clearly he didn't think he could be civil with Clarisse. Lee made a simple gesture for him to join Sam, and with dragging feet, he did.

In the end, most of the cabin went, leaving Lee with his unconscious brothers, Tris, Robyn and Kayla. That lifted a weight off of Lee's shoulders; he loved his siblings, but all of them together was a lot after a year of isolation, and being put back in charge because their new head counsellor was down for the count was a familiar feeling, but also somewhat overwhelming.

Kayla and Robyn mostly kept to their self-appointed charges; Kayla clearly hadn't been at camp long enough to be trained, and wasn't a natural healer, but she was trying her best, checking Michael's pulse and talking to him, while Robyn mostly fussed over Nathan's ragged stump, with occasional visits to Michael's side instead to make sure his healing was going in the right direction.

Lee had tried to flit between the two as well, only for Robyn to tell him if he tried she would sit on him, then moments later change her mind and ordered Tris to sit on him anyway. Tris had, of course, been more than willing, and Lee once again had a lap full of little brother.

"Are you okay?" Tris asked him quietly, resting his head on Lee's shoulder.

Lee hummed lightly, considering his answer. No, he wasn't, not really, but he had several of his siblings back, they were all still alive – even if two of them had been scarily close calls – and they still loved him, despite the secret he'd kept from them for as long as they'd known him.

"It's the right direction," he eventually replied, which probably wasn't the answer Tris was hoping for, but it was an honest answer, and Lee was done lying to his siblings. He was done with lies in general, if he thought about it, and part of him wondered if his siblings were going to start getting more creative with the truth rather than outright lying, now they knew he could catch the latter.

He thought he'd prefer it if they did; he didn't mind teenage white lies, and if they could tell him those without actually lying, that would be much, much better. But that was a problem for later, once the war was over and Kronos back in Tartarus where he certainly deserved to be.

For now, Lee's biggest concern was getting Clarisse on side, and movement in the sky indicated something drawing close.

"Stupid chariot," Robyn muttered under her breath, and Lee remembered reports of a flying chariot being stolen, remembered Michael's indignancy that he'd given Clarisse 'the chariot' – sans expletives – and put the pieces of the puzzle together just in time for the pegasi to glide to a stop in front of him.

Clarisse hadn't brought any of her siblings with her, but despite that she wasn't alone, either. A tall guy, easily Lee's height, stepped out, shuffling sideways and out of Clarisse's way as the daughter of Ares dismounted and stalked straight over to Lee.

He stood up, shuffling Tris away because Tris didn't need to be involved in this particular conversation, and watched her approach.

Much like Silena had been, in that last call he'd witnessed as Kronos' prisoner, Clarisse was dressed for war. Both wore gleaming armour that was well cared-for and wouldn't fail them in the heat of battle, but that was where the similarities ended. Where Silena had been grace and beauty, Clarisse was strength and brawn. Her spear crackled loudly, electricity coursing through it and promising immediate pain in Lee's future if Clarisse so chose.

She wouldn't hurt him, not once she knew it was him. Lee was sincerely hoping they'd get the identity proving out of the way before the violence started.

The boar's head shaped helmet glared at him menacingly, and from the eye slits Clarisse's own brown eyes duplicated the effect. She didn't look impressed at all, a twisted scowl on her face doing nothing to make her look attractive, but attractiveness had never been part of Clarisse's charm. That was in her strength, her personality, the way she fiercely protected anything that she saw as hers.

"Fletcher!" she barked, back to surnames again, and the sharp point of her spear whistled through the air, coming to a halt just under Lee's chin, far enough from his skin that he wouldn't accidentally cut himself on it if he moved, but close enough that she would have his head in an instant if he put a step wrong. "After the Labyrinth, which wound did you tell me would leave the worst scar?"

Lee remembered that clearly, patching up the girl that was more interested in Chris' welfare than her own, spitting and cursing at him as he patched her up, because someone had to, and Will might have been the better healer, but there were secrets at stake, too, and Lee wasn't letting Will carry so much weight on his shoulders. He'd been twelve.

Clarisse had barely cooperated with him, not even when he'd told her that her wounds would scar, and not nicely, if she didn't behave. He'd worn her down in the end, and while there were several scars hidden beneath her armour that he hadn't been able to completely eliminate, the one that he'd thought at the time would be the worst had actually healed up nicely, once he got hold of it. The scar that had actually ended up the worst had been one across her left hip, deep enough to scour bone but thankfully not break it.

But at the time… "Your lower back," he said. "A telekhine caught you from behind." It had been one of the worst wounds, and certainly one of her biggest blood loss contributors, but once she'd finally let Lee at it, he'd managed to reduce the scarring far more significantly than he'd expected, to his relief.

She eyed him for a few more moments, searching his face for what he could only assume would be some sort of falsehood, before the electricity faded from her spear and she tilted her helmet back.

"You didn't die," she said. "What the fuck happened?"

Lee told her, pausing whenever her eyes drifted over to where Kayla was still kneeling beside an unconscious Michael, and more than once trailing off himself as he looked at the boy behind her, one he'd never dared hope would be safe and sane again. Still, despite the interruptions, he got enough of the story out to give Clarisse the footnotes.

She barely blinked at the revelation of his truth sensing, seemingly more incensed with Luke for spilling the knowledge than Lee for hiding it in the first place. Then again, Clarisse had always been a straight-forward girl, with no time for falsehoods. Lee had only very rarely heard her tell a lie.

There was a moment of silence once Lee finished his recap, and at some point Tris' fingers had found Lee's, twisting between them and gripping them tightly. Clarisse studied him intently, her brain clearly digesting the new information and compartmentalising it, before she asked the question his siblings had all missed, either because they hadn't known or because they'd been too scared to ask.

"Kronos had a spy in camp," she said bluntly. "The idiots didn't tell me directly-" she glared at Michael again, and Lee knew it would be a long time before he got this particular feud of theirs detangled, if he ever managed it "-but too many of our plans kept going wrong. Kronos was using you to check their reports."

Behind him, he heard Robyn take a sharp intake of breath, although he didn't dare turn away from Clarisse to check on her.

"He was," Lee admitted, and the weight of it almost forced him to sit, because Kronos had been using him for that, and at some point or other he'd actually got Lee to work for him, in a strained capacity. Silena might have given the information, but Lee was the reason Kronos had been able to retaliate so hard whenever she tried to keep something from him.

"So who was it?" Clarisse demanded, still as blunt as ever. Who do I need to kill echoed into Lee's mind, even though she hadn't said it in so many words.

Lee didn't want to tell her. Saying it out loud felt like a finality, even though he'd been watching Silena betray camp for over a year. He didn't know where she was now, whether she'd finally joined Kronos' forces properly, or was still pretending to fight for the gods, alongside the Aphrodite cabin.

But he couldn't keep it to himself, and Clarisse wouldn't thank him for trying to protect her from the truth, so he met her eyes squarely and cursed his eyes for somehow finding more tears to fall from somewhere.

"Silena," he said. "It's Silena."

Chapter 23>>>

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