Park Chaeyoung knew she was different from the other kids when she told a boy who was bullying her on the playground to go jump off the top of the monkey bars. He broke his arm in two places and never bothered her again.

Still, it wasn’t until these kinds of things kept happening that she began to suspect that something was well and truly off. She’d confronted her father about it multiple times only for him to brush her off and dismiss it as a result of an overactive imagination. But she’d seen the look on his face: he wasn’t telling her everything.

Things had eventually gotten so bad that one day she’d broken down in front of her father and told him that this wasn’t the kind of life she wanted to live. He’d finally taken the hint and within a few weeks she found herself traveling all the way from Australia to New York to a place her father had called Camp Half-Blood.

It was there that her entire world had turned upside-down. And yet despite the turmoil that had come from finding out she was legitimately part-god (though her father had never told her how he met Aphrodite) everything suddenly began to make sense.

She had half-siblings that took her under their wing, teaching her the ins and outs of being a demigod. She was given private classes on how to control her persuasion ability, which her siblings called charmspeaking. Sure, her father was no longer a part of her daily life but she’d found a new family.

Her life was going pretty well too, until the day Kang Seulgi arrived at camp. When Seulgi had gotten claimed by Apollo after their team had won the capture the flag game it seemed like that would be the end of it. Until Seulgi had run away with an unclaimed demigod named Son Seungwan in order to hijack someone else’s quest. The rest of the details were a little murky to everyone not intimately involved in the quest but all Chaeyoung knew was that Seulgi had run away and then a few days later their camp had come under siege.

The strange shadow creatures began assaulting the camp’s borders relentlessly, wearing everybody down and even seriously injuring a few campers. A squad of Apollo campers had even gone missing, and it wasn’t until Joohyun and her girls had returned that they’d learned of their true adversary: Nyx.

A primordial goddess hellbent on recovering the four missing shards of her scepter. No one knew what her true objective was but even after Seulgi and Joohyun had defeated the goddess it was plain to see that Camp Half-Blood would have to prepare for the possibility of war.

So they prepared. The time set aside for combat classes had doubled, and the various campers had been divided into brackets based on their combat power. Chaeyoung didn’t mind honing her skills, but thanks to her rather unique ability she’d been given a place in the highest tier combat class.

She wasn’t by any means the best fighter at camp, her combat prowess was far outstripped by both the Ares and Athena kids, as well as a few other notable campers (namely Joohyun, Seulgi, Seungwan, Sooyoung and Yeri). Still, her charmspeaking was strong enough to earn her a place in the top combat class at camp, where she learned how to weaponize her power in close quarters to do things like force her opponents to surrender their weapons.

Unfortunately for her, that meant her instructor was Joohyun and the daughter of Hades was well-known for driving her class to the brink of exhaustion every lesson.

Which was why she was currently sprawled on a chaise lounge in front of the Aphrodite cabin in her swimsuit, enjoying the warm sunlight with a couple of her siblings and trying to ignore the heavy, tired feeling in her limbs. Next to her, her brothers Seokjin and Jinyoung were also sunning themselves. The two of them had begun joining Chaeyoung when she sat out here and had begun attracting the gazes of interested demigods. The three of them had since formed an unofficial club out of the activity, though Chaeyoung was pretty sure the boys had ulterior motives, judging by the small group of demigods that were pretending to hang out by one of the nearby weapons lockers and were instead taking turns looking at the boys in their swim trunks.

As a child of Aphrodite Chaeyoung had quickly become accustomed to some of the rather unfortunate stereotypes that came from being a child of the goddess of love and beauty. Not the least of which was the power of Amokinesis, an ability that allowed them absolute power over love and desire. Some of her siblings took full advantage of it and loved being the center of attention, and Chaeyoung never judged them for it. It just simply wasn’t her style.

She wanted to find a partner organically, without the help of any of her powers. So many demigods seemed to harbor a sort of idol-complex against Aphrodite kids, always looking but never caring to really try and get to know them. Chaeyoung had long since accepted her journey to find a partner would be an uphill battle and only hoped that she would find someone who saw her for who she truly was.

Luckily for her though, not everyone was enamored with her. Chaeyoung was easily able to make friends with people who were already in committed relationships for obvious reasons, which was why she enjoyed spending time with Joohyun and Seulgi. Being the third wheel didn’t bother her in the slightest. And just because many demigods were afraid to approach her didn’t mean all of them were.

Case in point: Kim Jisoo, daughter of Hecate.  

“I take it Joohyun didn’t take it easy on your class today?”

Chaeyoung opened her eyes to see a shadow blocking out her sunlight. She furrowed her brows and pouted. “Jisoo unnie, you’re blocking my sunshine.”

Kim Jisoo, daughter of Hecate and Chaeyoung’s best friend leaned over her with a smile on her face. “You always sun yourself out here when you’ve had a rough day, but now’s not the time to sit around and look hot. Didn’t you hear? We’re wanted up at the Big House.”

That piqued Chaeyoung’s interest. She peered over her sunglasses at the raven-haired girl, looking skeptical. Jisoo was fond of getting her excited over things and then ruining the moment but this time the older girl looked dead serious. “Wait, really?”

Jisoo held out her hand and easily hauled the younger girl to her feet. “Yup. So hurry up and go put on some actual clothes, I think today is finally our day.”

XXX

“New Jersey? How the Hades are we supposed to get there?” Jisoo asked, looking at the dossier Director Kim handed her and skimming over the girls’ information. They’d arrived at the Big House only to be greeted by Director Kim Jong Kook, who ushered them into the parlor and handed them two thick manila folders.

They hadn’t been called on an official quest, much to their disappointment but they had been given an important mission. Usually whenever a demigod was discovered the camp had enough time to send a couple of agents to slowly introduce the person to the world of the gods but sometimes whatever system the camp used to locate demigods didn’t pick up a usable trace until the camper was much older.

Which was the case with Kim Jennie and Lalisa Manoban. Both sixteen, and for whatever reason they hadn’t been picked up before now. The whole situation seemed fishy to Chaeyoung, who recalled that the last person who’d been picked up at a late age was none other than Kang Seulgi. Who ended up being the Dawnbreaker.

“Usually I’d grant you access to call upon Iris but since this academy is only a couple of hours from here I’d rather not bother her. Besides, Miss Park already has a car.”

Ten minutes later saw Jisoo and Chaeyoung out by the stables, getting ready to head out. Chaeyoung’s car wasn’t technically classified as a mount but the camp lacked an official garage so she’d taken to parking the car with the camp’s Pegasi and other stabled beasts.

“You know when Director Kim said ‘car’ I was expecting a heap of crap on wheels, maybe a sedan if we were lucky…” 

“My mom gave it to me,” Chaeyoung said proudly, running a loving hand over the hood of her precious car.

“Aphrodite gave you a Tesla?” Jisoo sounded skeptical, but honestly things like this were pretty on brand for Aphrodite. Chaeyoung remembered waking up on her sixteenth birthday to find the keys on her bedside table and the rest was history.

“What? She gave Jinyoung three different Rolexes for his sixteenth birthday,” Chaeyoung countered, like it was normal for kids to receive lavish gifts like she had. “And Seokjin got a wardrobe full of Givenchy for his.”

“You Aphrodite kids are not normal,” Jisoo shook her head in disbelief. Still, the daughter of Hecate couldn’t help but stare at the fancy blue car in front of her. She could only dream of her godly parent being as devoted as Aphrodite was to her children. It’s not that Hecate wasn’t a good mother as far as gods went, she did a hell of a lot more for her children than some of the other gods, but Aphrodite was on another level. “Seriously, I think this thing is worth more than my entire family.”   

XXX

Their first snag came as soon as they reached the locked gates of the fancy academy where the girls were rumored to attend.

“Huh. Wow, these rich people really want to keep everyone else out, huh?” Jisoo said, leaning out the window of the Tesla and looking around to see if there was a way to get in. It didn’t look like it would be easy; the imposing wrought-iron gates stood more than fifteen feet high, and the walls surrounding the school had warning signs plastered every few feet that promised a shocking consequence if touched. “What’s our plan, Rosie? I could try and magic the security system, but electronics are pretty fickle and I have no idea if it would work or not.”

“Don’t worry, I got this,” Chaeyoung replied, gesturing to the glove box on the passenger side. “There should be a box in there, can you hand it to me? Oh and be careful, it’s rather fragile.”

Confused, Jisoo reached in and pulled out a tiny black box and slowly handed it to Chaeyoung, as if she was afraid that it might blow up. “What’s this?”

“A little present courtesy of Yeri and Felix. It’s amazing what kinds of things the Hephaestus kids can make, especially when they’re being inspired by chaos incarnate.” Chaeyoung gently opened the box and turned it around so Jisoo could see. Nestled in the box were three round silver spheres. “Behold, their latest creation.”

“Ball bearings?”

Chaeyoung snorted. “No, but you’re right, they look similar. I forget what stupid name Yeri came up with but they’re basically teeny tiny EMP bombs.”

Jisoo recoiled. “Bombs?!”

Chaeyoung picked up one of the spheres and stepped out of the car, sticking it onto the gate’s security system. A second later there was a tiny boom and a bright pulse of electricity and the gates opened. Jisoo nodded appreciatively as Chaeyoung slid back into the driver’s seat, leaving behind the faintly smoking wreckage of the security system.

“As Kim Yerim is fond of telling anyone, ‘You never know when you’ll have to break into something.’” Chaeyoung chuckled.

“No wonder everyone’s low-key terrified of her,” Jisoo shuddered, taking back the box with the remaining two bombs and tucking it in the glovebox again. “There, I think I see them.”

Chaeyoung looked over at where the daughter of Hecate was pointing and saw two figures casually passing a ball around underneath the bright lights of the school’s soccer field. Dimming the headlights so they wouldn’t be seen, she pulled into an empty parking space.

“Well, they’re already outside, that makes this first part pretty easy.” Chaeyoung was a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to show off her charm speaking, but she had to admit it made their plan a lot easier. “Hey, hide the car, would you? I don’t have a permit for this place and I am not getting my baby towed.”

Jisoo rolled her eyes but complied nevertheless, laying her hand on the hood of Chaeyoung’s car. Wisps of silvery energy emanated from her fingertips and with a muttered word in Ancient Greek the car disappeared from view.

As a daughter of Hecate, one of Jisoo’s abilities wa