Where You Go ― Jason Grace

ii. ophelia's boyfriend almost dies (not clickbait)

OPHELIA WAS PRETTY sure this was the worst possible way to meet your boyfriend's mother.

Miss Grace's eyes were blue like Jason's, but they gleamed with fractured light, like she'd just come out of a bunker after a nuclear war—hungrily searching for familiar details in a world she no longer recognized.

"Dearest," she said, holding out her arms.

Jason's Mist disguise burned off. His posture straightened. His walking stick turned back into an Imperial gold gladius.

"Mom?" Jason managed. His broken voice made Ophelia's heart twist like a tornado.

"Yes, dearest." His mother's image flickered. "Come embrace me."

"You're—you're not real."

"Of course she is real." Michael Varus stood just a few feet away from Jason, smirking cruelly. "Did you think Gaea would let such an important spirit languish in the Underworld? She is your mother, Beryl Grace, star of television, sweetheart to the king of Olympus, who rejected her not once, but twice, in both his Greek and Roman aspects. She deserves justice as much as any of us."

The suitors crowded around Jason and his mother, watching.

"Jason," Ophelia said, almost yelling to be heard from twenty feet away. "Look at me."

Jason's eyes eyes moved to her.

"That isn't your mother," Ophelia said. "Her voice is working some kind of magic on you—like charmspeak. Can't you sense it?"

"She's right." Annabeth climbed onto the nearest table. She kicked aside a platter, startling a dozen suitors. "Jason, that's only a remnant of your mother, like an ara, maybe, or—"

"A remnant!" Jason's mother's ghost sobbed. "Yes, look what I have been reduced to. It's Jupiter's fault. He abandoned us. He wouldn't help me! I didn't want to leave you in Sonoma, my dear, but Juno and Jupiter gave me no choice. They wouldn't allow us to stay together. Why fight for them now? Join these suitors. Lead them. We can be a family again!"

Hundreds of eyes settled on Jason, waiting with bated breath.

"You left me," he told his mother. "That wasn't Jupiter or Juno. That was you."

Beryl Grace stepped forward. "Dearest, I told you I would come back. Those were my last words to you. Don't you remember?"

Jason shivered.

Across the table from him, Antinous raised his goblet. "So pleased to meet you, son of Jupiter. Listen to your mother. You have many grievances against the gods. Why not join us? I gather these two serving girls are your friends? We will spare them. You wish to have your mother remain in the world? We can do that. You wish to be king—"

"No," Jason spoke. "No, I don't belong with you."

Michael Varus regarded him with cold eyes. "Are you so sure, my fellow praetor? Even if you defeat the giants and Gaea, would you return home like Odysseus did? Where is your home now? With the Greeks? With the Romans? No one will accept you. And, if you get back, who's to say you won't find ruins like this?"

Ophelia looked around the courtyard. Without the illusory balconies and colonnades, there was nothing but a heap of rubble on a barren hilltop. Only the fountain seemed real, spewing forth sand like a reminder of Gaea's limitless power.

"You were a legion officer," Jason told Varus. "A leader of Rome."

"So were you," Varus said. "Loyalties change."