Chapter Text
The storm collapsed inward on itself.
What had been thunder and rain became something worse—a screaming, spiraling force that clawed at the skywalk like it wanted to tear the glass apart piece by piece. Funnel clouds dropped from the clouds, thin and writhing, like the tentacles of some massive sea creature reaching down to claim its prey.
Kids screamed and ran for the building. Notebooks, backpacks, jackets—everything that wasn’t nailed down was ripped away and hurled into the canyon. Jason slid across the slick glass, barely managing to stay upright. His foot slipped, his balance tipped—
He nearly went over the railing, but Leo grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him hard.
“Don’t die!” Leo yelled. “I’m not emotionally prepared for that!”
Jason stumbled back, heart hammering. “Thanks!”
“MOVE!” Coach Hedge roared. “Everyone inside! Now!”
At the far end of the skywalk, Piper and Dylan held the museum doors open, shoving terrified kids through as fast as they could. Piper’s snowboarding jacket snapped wildly in the wind, her hair plastered across her face, but she stayed calm—hands firm, voice steady.
“Keep moving! You’re okay! Go!” she cried, and maybe Jason was going crazy, but the little flecks in her eyes started to faintly glow.
Jason ran toward her, but the wind fought him every step, shoving him backward like he was pushing against a wall of air.
The last kid scrambled inside—and the doors slammed shut.
Piper grabbed the handles, yanking hard. Inside, students pounded on the glass, panic etched across their faces, but the doors didn’t budge.
“Dylan, help!” Piper yelled, pulling hard.
Dylan didn’t move.
He just stood there. Smiling.
“Sorry, Piper,” he said, smirking. “I’m done helping.”
He flicked his wrist, and the air exploded.
Piper flew backward like she’d been hit by a truck, slamming into the glass doors and crumpling onto the skywalk.
“PIPER!” Jason surged forward.
Coach Hedge shoved him back with surprising strength. “Stay behind me!”
Leo stared, wide-eyed, hyperventilating. “Okay. Nope. I officially hate this field trip.”
The coach’s baseball cap ripped free and vanished into the storm. Two curved shapes rose from his hairline. Coach Hedge lifted his bat, but it twisted in his hands, bark spreading across its surface until it became a crude wooden club.
“That,” Hedge snarled, “is our monster.”
Dylan laughed, the sound cutting cleanly through the wind. “You’re slow, old man. I’ve been right here all semester.”
Hedge growled, something feral and furious. “You’re going down, cupcake!”
Dylan gestured to Leo, grinning wildly. The wind grabbed him.
Leo screamed as a funnel cloud wrapped around his body and flung him off the skywalk. He twisted midair, slamming sideways into the canyon wall with a sickening crack. His hands scrabbled wildly before finding a narrow ledge far below.
“HELP!” Leo yelled. “Preferably soon!”
Coach Hedge swore violently and shoved the club into Jason’s hands.
“I don’t know who you are, kid,” he said, voice tight, urgent, “but I hope you’re good. Keep that thing busy—” he jabbed a thumb toward Dylan. “—while I get Leo.”
Jason stared past him at the canyon, at the small, terrified shape clinging to bare stone.
“Get him how?” he demanded. “Are you planning to fly or something?”
Hedge snorted. “Not fly. Climb.”
He kicked off his shoes. They hit the glass with a hollow clack.
Jason’s brain refused to process what he was seeing. Where feet should’ve been, there were hooves, goat’s hooves. His gaze snapped upward.
The bumps on Hedge’s head weren’t bumps.
They were horns.
Jason’s chest tightened. “You’re a faun?”
“Satyr,” Hedge snapped. “Fauns are Roman. We’ll talk about that later.”
Before Jason could ask any of the dozens of questions screaming in his head, Hedge vaulted the railing.
For half a second, Jason was sure he was about to watch his coach die.
Then Hedge hit the canyon wall hooves-first and ran down it, bounding from ledge to ledge with impossible precision, dodging snapping wind currents like they were living things. Within seconds, he was already halfway to Leo.
Jason barely had time to breathe before Dylan laughed.
“Well, isn’t that adorable?” the storm spirit crooned, turning slowly toward him. “Guess that makes me your problem now, boy.”
Gods, he hated this guy. Jason hurled the club without hesitation.
The wind should’ve ripped it away. Instead, it cut through the gale like it knew where it was going, curving midair and smashing into Dylan’s skull with a crack that echoed across the skywalk.
Dylan dropped to one knee.
Piper moved fast. Her fingers closed around the club as it skidded across the glass.
Too slow.
Dylan rose. Golden blood streamed from his temple, glowing faintly even through the rain. His smile never wavered.
“Nice try,” he said, grinning wildly through the pain. “But you’ll need to do better than that.”
The skywalk groaned beneath them.
Fine cracks spiderwebbed through the glass. Inside the museum, the banging stopped. The kids backed away from the doors, eyes wide, silent now—watching, unsure if they were seeing real life or just hallucinating.
Dylan’s body unraveled. Skin dissolved into smoke. Bones vanished. His shape stretched and twisted until he was no longer solid at all—just a roiling mass of storm-dark vapor, eyes burning white-hot, wings tearing free from his shoulders like shredded clouds.
Jason’s stomach dropped.
I know this, something in his head whispered.
“You’re a ventus,” Jason said, the word slipping out before he could stop it. “A storm spirit.”
Dylan’s laughter sounded like a building tearing itself apart.
“My mistress told me to wait. Leo and Piper?” He shrugged. “Could’ve killed them weeks ago. But you—you were worth waiting for.”
Two funnel clouds slammed into the skywalk beside him, solidifying into more venti. Jason took a step back, cautious.
“She’ll be very pleased,” Dylan said. “When you’re dead.”
Two more funnel clouds touched down on either side of Dylan and turned into venti—ghostly young men with smoky wings and eyes that flickered with lightning.
Piper stayed down, pretending to be dazed, her hand still gripping the club. Her face was pale, but she gave Jason a determined look, and he understood the message: Keep their attention. I’ll brain them from behind.
Cute, smart, and violent. Jason wished he remembered having her as a girlfriend. He clenched his fists and got ready to charge, but he never got a chance.
Lightning exploded into Jason’s chest.
The world went white.
He hit the glass hard enough to knock the breath out of him. His mouth tasted like metal and smoke. Somewhere nearby, something burned.
I’m dead, he thought distantly.
Then pain registered.
He lifted his head.
His shirt was smoking. His left shoe was gone. His foot—charred black, soot-streaked—should’ve been ruined.
But . . . it wasn’t.
Jason staggered upright, heart hammering so hard it hurt.
“How,” Dylan hissed, flickering, “are you still alive?”
Jason wasn’t sure either.
“My turn,” he said anyway.
The words felt wrong in his mouth—too calm, too certain—but his body moved before doubt could catch up. His hand slid into his pocket and closed around cold metal.
The coin.
Gold, warm against his skin, heavier than it should have been.
Without thinking, he flipped it into the air.
The motion was smooth. Familiar. His fingers caught it cleanly, and the instant the metal touched his palm, it changed—unfolding, lengthening, solidifying into the weight of a sword.
Jason sucked in a breath.
The blade was double-edged and wickedly sharp, its surface gleaming even under storm-dark skies. Gold ran through everything—hilt, grip, blade itself—as if it had been forged from lightning. The ridged handle fit his hand perfectly, like it had been waiting there all along.
Dylan recoiled. For the first time, his grin faltered.
“Well?” he snarled at the other venti. “Kill him!”
The storm spirits hesitated. They exchanged flickering glances, lightning pulsing uncertainly beneath their smoky skin. Then, with a collective hiss, they lunged.
Jason didn’t think. He just moved.
The first spirit reached him, fingers crackling with electricity. Jason slashed—and the blade didn’t pass through smoke so much as cut the storm apart. The ventus shattered, its form unraveling into streaks of gold dust that scattered into the wind.
The second spirit screamed and hurled a bolt of lightning straight at Jason’s chest. He braced instinctively.
The blade absorbed it.
The impact rattled his bones, but the lightning vanished into the sword, coursing harmlessly along its length. Jason stepped forward, heart pounding, and drove the blade through the spirit’s core.
Gold dust exploded outward, glittering briefly before the storm tore it away.
Silence.
Dylan screamed with pure rage. He stared at the empty air where his comrades had been, as if expecting them to reform. When they didn’t, his face twisted—rage bleeding into fear.
“Impossible,” he hissed. “Who are you, half-blood?”
Piper had gone utterly still. The club slipped from her fingers and clattered against the glass. “Jason,” she breathed, “How . . .?”
Before Jason could answer, Coach Hedge vaulted back over the railing and dumped Leo onto the skywalk like a sack of grain.
“Spirits, fear me!” Hedge bellowed, flexing.
Then he blinked, looking around. “Aw, damn it, boy!” he snapped at Jason. “Didn’t you leave any for me? I like a challenge!”
Leo groaned, pushing himself upright. His hands were scraped raw and bleeding, his face pale with fear. “Yo,” he rasped, “Coach Supergoat—whatever you are—I just fell down the Grand Canyon. Stop asking for challenges.”
He was shaking. Jason would have rushed to hug him, but he was too scared to move a muscle. He just shot him a glance—You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine—and hoped that would be enough.
Dylan backed away, smoky wings twitching. Jason could see it now—real fear, flickering beneath the storm.
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Dylan snarled. “You’ve awakened enemies you cannot defeat. My mistress will destroy all demigods. This war—”
The sky answered him.
The storm surged, winds screaming as cracks raced through the skywalk. Rain slammed down in sheets, forcing Jason to drop into a crouch to keep his balance.
Above them, the clouds split. A vortex opened—black and silver, spinning violently.
“The mistress calls me back!” Dylan shouted, laughter sharp with triumph. “And you, demigod, will come with me!”
He lunged towards Jason, claws slashing—
Then Piper tackled him from behind.
Jason barely had time to register it. Piper slammed into the storm spirit with a shout, hands gripping smoke that somehow held. They crashed into the glass together.
“Piper!” Jason surged forward.
Dylan shrieked.
A blast of wind detonated outward, hurling all of them back. Jason skidded across the skywalk and landed hard. Hedge slammed down beside him with a grunt. Leo hit the glass headfirst and curled in on himself, groaning.
Jason’s sword went spinning, skidding out of reach.
Piper fared worst.
She slammed into the railing and went over it, catching herself at the last second—one hand clamped desperately around the edge, legs kicking over open air.
Jason’s heart seized.
“I’ll settle for this one!” Dylan screamed.
He seized Leo’s arm and rose, dragging him upward as the vortex’s pull intensified. The wind howled, lifting them like debris.
“Help!” Piper screamed.
Her fingers slipped.
“Jason, go!” Hedge roared. “Save her!”
Hedge launched himself upward in a blur of hooves and fury, striking Dylan hard enough to knock Leo free. Leo dropped, hitting the glass in a boneless heap.
Dylan grabbed Hedge instead. They spiraled upward, grappling, vanishing into the storm.
“I got this!” Hedge shouted, even as they disappeared. “Save her!”
Save her?
Piper.
Jason didn’t hesitate.
He ran. He jumped. He just had time to think one thought.
If I’m wrong, we’ll both die.
Then the canyon swallowed him whole.