Bewitched || P. Jackson

𝕃osing touch

Nicki spread the different pages across her bed. She was sat in the middle trying to make sense of the information laid out in front of her.

Using simple magic, she was holding things in the air in front of her like a magical corkboard.

Hermes curled himself into a ball on Nicki's lap. He happily accepted the stress-induced pets that Nicki would offer him whenever she read something she didn't like.

She picked up a crumpled page entitled Daedalus' Maze. She floated that up toward the rest of the pages. Her jacket pocket grew hot and using her free hand she pulled out her magic paper. It read two words:

- heads up.

Nicki stuffed it back into her pocket, returning her focus to her work.

"Ouch, I see where I stand." Nicki jumped, almost sending all of her pages flying. "Whoops, sorry."

Nicki sighed heavily but looked up at Percy's disembodied head nonetheless. "You have to be more careful about that. I'm not sure how you think this works, but being a spy tends to mean being subtle."

Percy flushed. "I was just excited to talk to you, sorry."

"No, Percy you don't need to apologise. I'm just exhausted. How's camp?"

"Well as you know there's the new guy, Quintus and he gives me the creeps with a capital C."

Nicki kept sorting through the mountains of paper around her, nodding at exactly the right time to show Percy she was still listening.

"—Then we fell into this pit and there was a Greek Delta on the wall." Nicki's head snapped up at Percy's sentence.

Nicki let out a shaky breath. "You found the Labyrinth." She looked more relieved than Percy had ever seen her look.

"You knew the Labyrinth lead into camp?"

Nicki nodded. "That's what I meant when I said that we knew on the first note I sent you. Magic is still Hecate's territory so I have to be careful what I say using it. It's why I couldn't outright tell you."

"So Luke's planning an attack to the heart of Camp?" Percy asked.

"No. Kronos is, not Luke. Not the same thing, yet."

"Yet?" Nicki's eyes welled with tears. She stared pointedly at the ancient map in her hands, blinking profusely. "Hey, it's okay. Forget I said anything. I trust you."

She smiled sincerely at Percy for the first time in days, and to him, that made it all worthwhile.

"Do you have a quest?"

"Do you think so little of me? Of course, I have a quest. Wanna hear it?" Nicki hummed, floating the map into the air carefully. "It's Annabeth's quest so it's her prophecy but the prophecy goes:

You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,
The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise.
Olympus' rebirth shall delay.
You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand,
The Child of Athena's final stand.
Destroy with a hero's final breath and then I don't know the final line."

"The middle line doesn't rhyme," Nicki muttered, scribbling the prophecy onto a scrap page. "Why doesn't it rhyme?"

"Maybe it doesn't belong there?" Percy offered, biting into a cookie.

"Then why would it be there..." Nicki trailed off. "Oh gods, Percy you're a genius!" Nicki began scrawling something else under the new prophecy.

Percy grinned at the girl. "I'm sure I am, but can I ask why?"