Wow. I'm an awful person.

WHO YOU LOVE!

Kind of. Because I totally have not done anything with Favors of Shadow since October. And that is completely because I am possibly the laziest person on this side of the universe. And also a procrastinator.

So, what's new with me since I last updated this?

Wellllllllll...

Guard ended, but it's coming up soon (we're doing Cirque du Soleil this year). I'm no longer a freshmen in high school (class '14, ftw). I joined choir for the last semester of school. I auditioned for and made chamber choir. I auditioned for and made jazz choir (which is way harder). I tie dyed a t-shirt or two. And I wrote this chapter!

YAY!

Ella Grace, daughter of Nyx

I must really be an awful person. How can I be so awful and yet so awesome at the same time? That's the question you philosophers should tackle next. How can Ella Grace be so awful and so awesome at the same time?

Why am I awful, you ask?

I have no idea.

Clearly, though, awful enough to be submitted to torture by the hands of fate. Curse you, fate!

And this, my dear readers, is what I was thinking while I sat in that awful office, on that awful couch, with the awful smell. That I was an awful person.

Because only awful people are subjected to therapy.

"It's nice to see you again, Miss Grace."

I sat up straight, my hair curling around my shoulders like it had been when I woke up and decided I was too awful to look good. I chewed Trident Layers. It's like candy that you can chew for hours and hours!

Really, only like, an hour and a half. But still. I would totally get paid in gum.

Back to the [awful] topic at hand.

"I know. A week is just too long to be without your wonderful company, Mr. Goldsdmitt." I gave him a winning smile.

No one gets my particular brand of sarcasm anymore. Being happy all the time is very hard. No one understands. Except for Bobby McFerrin. He's way legit.

"So, how are you coping?" He looked at me as he adjusted the bobble heads on his desk. He had a notepad in front of him with notes scribbled on it. I wondered if I was interesting enough for him to do a case study on me.

Probably.

I looked at him, confused. "Coping?"

He sighed, running a hand over his balding head. "Do we have to go through this every session, Miss Grace?"

I answered with an enthusiastic, "Yes!"

"Please, Miss Grace."

"Why do you keep saying my name all the time?" I asked, tugging at my hair. "It's kind of funny."

"Miss Grace."

"Sorry." I grinned. "I'm an instigator."

"I noticed."

"You wouldn't be the first one to do so." I smiled again. Of course, I had fallen from instigating psychopaths to instigating therapists.

And those aren't that far away from each other.

"You know," I started cheerfully, "being a therapist always seemed masochistic to me. I mean, who would want to sit around listen to people's feelings all day? There are some really messed up people in the world. I wouldn't want to have deal with really messed up people all the time." Dealing with one long enough to kill her was hard enough.

He scribbled on his notepad. "Do you know any messed up people?"

I choked back the "I am one," answer growing in the back of my throat. "Yes. I think the human population is pretty messed up. I can't think of anyone who isn't." He scribbled again, smiling slightly. Which meant that, that was way more inwardly revealing that I could allow. "I mean, some people like mustard on their French fries. That's all kinds of freaky."

He stopped writing mid-letter. Then he looked at me, real serious. "I'm sure you have some kind of personality disorder, Miss Grace. It will be a delight trying to find it."

I cocked my head to the side. "I like to think I'm my own personality disorder. One day, it might even be named after me. That's when I'll know I made it in the world."

He raised an eyebrow. "I think you might have more than one."

"Can I be a narcissist? I've always thought that was a fun word."

Like he always did when I was particularly rambly, Dr. Goldsdmitt changed the subject abruptly. "Tell me about the past few months?"

"Well..." I bit my lip, thinking. "My dad grounded me for making a bunch of marshmallows explode in the microwave. Nathan taught me how ski. I went on a trek to find the Fountain of Youth with Captain Jack Sparrow, where I accidentally stole my pirate father's life while trying to save it. There was also a Norse god with a hammer thrown in there somewhere. Same old, same old."

"Your wit is staggering."

"Isn't it just?" I grinned, swinging my feet.

"I was referring to the months before that."

"Of course you were!" I said happily. For I, Ella Grace, am a happy, awful narcissist. Yay!

"You've avoided the subject ever since we started these sessions," he said seriously. "Even though this is why you were put in therapy."

"I don't need therapy." I flapped my hand at him. "Go find someone who eats French fries with mustard and therapute them."

Mr. Goldsdmitt cleared his throat and looked at my file, like he hadn't already memorized it word for word. "You were missing for two months, Miss Grace. You, your brother. Mr. Jane was also gone. As was your friend Karson."

"Karson and David had nothing to do with what happened while we were gone," I reminded him gently. Karson was quite conveniently on a trip to Florida around the same time. David was with his ailing grandmother.

That was ridiculous, of course. The whole situation was kind of ridiculous.

But the Mist over the mortals eyes was enough to convince everyone otherwise. Heck. We were able to convince them that the twins had been with my dad the whole time!

But the Mist couldn't hide the fact that Nathan had an ugly scar roughly the size of a sword on his stomach. Or that, when we'd gotten back, my entire right arm was covered in burns. On the way home, I tried to do my little explodey trick on something that breathed fire (still not exactly sure what it was). For future reference, if you want to be as awesome as I am, pick something else to do. Because that was one of the few bad ideas I'd ever had.

Karson and David weren't exactly unscathed. But it was all little things; wounds that had partially healed into cuts and scraps, things that could be hidden. Pez was a freakin' miracle worker!

Nathan and I did our best to cover it up. Tried to pull it off as a car crash.

Then someone got into their little heads that we had been kidnapped for two months. I'm not really sure how that worked. Did Nathan get gutted by sword in our daring escape? Maybe he fell on a fallen log with a really sharp protruding branch. And maybe I dipped my hand into a vat of burning oil! Because that's we do in our spare time.

Yep.

Actually, at first they thought Nathan had kidnapped me. But that just wouldn't do. So now, we were being forced into therapy for trauma. Or something.

I didn't really feel traumatized. Unless you counted what trauma I received from the therapy itself.

When I walked out the door (thankfully), Nathan was sitting in the waiting room, already finished. "So," I asked him. "Did you have fun torturing therapists today?"

"When is that ever not fun?" he asked, flinging the magazine he had been trying to read on the table in front of his and getting up. He dusted off his pants. "I told them I was a ninja today."

"What? You didn't mention that you were a half-human, half-god who was destined to die young at the hands of a monster?"

"Or a crazy psychopath."

"That was redundant."

"Yes. Yes, it was." He smiled.

And for a little while, everything was normal.

But I knew, deep down in Nathan's happy little Grace-heart, he was not so happy. And he hadn't been since we'd left camp.

"You ready to go?" he asked, twirling the car-keys around his index finger.

"And leave this wonderful place? It might be hard."

"Think of it as character development."

"Oh! In that case, lead the way," I said, bowing to him as he pushed opened the wooden doors.

"Come, young padawan. You have much to learn."

Cass had been in a coma for almost six days. I'm not sure how much of it was real and how much of it was her biding time. Maybe she had never really been in a coma at all. Maybe she had just been trying to collect herself enough to leave us again. Leave Nathan.

On the sixth night, when the Apollo kid went in to check on her, her bed was gone. Neatly made. Obviously devoid of a comatose demigod. Lee was gone, too. There was nothing to prove that there had ever been anyone named Cass Hart at Camp Half-blood at all.

I had been in as much of a rage as I ever am. Seething silently. "Masked by cheer and witty remarks," as my therapist often tells me. I was so angry, I started cursing her in Ancient Greek while I slept, which wasn't as often as I would have liked, but often enough to show off my impressive vocabulary to whoever I shared a room with.

And all of that rage was totally messing with my light-hearted behavior! It really is a tragedy to see someone so amazing brought down so low.

So now, a little over a month later, school had started anew. I was now a sophomore. I'd been introduced to the monster that was geometry. And Cass was gone.

Nico was gone, too.

It hadn't really made sense for him to stay with us so long. He didn't live there. He didn't go to school there. At least he'd had the piece of mind to tell us he was going, beforehand. Didn't keep Karson from getting angry.

Those two are in denial of their loving worship of one another. Next time they're together, I'm working a little Match Maker magic.

That might be a long time from now. No one's been able to get a hold of him since he left.

So, Nathan and Karson were both sulky. On the inside. Well, Karson is always sulky on the outside, too. You can't really notice anything different. Except she has a hotter temper, which I didn't think was possible.

And it makes my job as her eternal tormenter so much easier!

Should I slack off in my job because she's going through a tough time?

...

Of course not!

Who do you think I am?

Well, I'll tell you one thing. Ella Grace is not a slacker. I refuse to slack. Unless it's on my geometry homework. Then slacking is warranted.

When I walked into our house, Karson was there, standing up in the kitchen, looking intently at something.

I crept in with my usual ninja stealth, which involved not falling over, and peeked in at her. The kitchen faucet was running, a sliver of light from the window just bright enough to make a meager rainbow. She was watching a blank Iris Message. I mean, the whole screen was white, like when you look outside in the winter and all you see is snow. Unless she was looking at the climate of Antarctica, she had tried to get a hold of Nico again.

Then, without warning, she threw a book at it. The whole thing dissolved.

"Easy there, partner," I said, waltzing into the room. "I'm feeling a taco."

"You always want tacos."

"You're right," I admitted, looking in the pantry. "I should start stocking up."

I glanced over at her. "You're at our house quite a bit, lately."

"Where else am I supposed to go?" she asked snappily.

"Maybe your own house?"

"Why are you so anxious for me to leave?" Now, that one wasn't snappy. It was depressed.

Depressed! In my own home! She was totally throwing off the fung shui of my lovely household.

"Hey, no need to be a Gloomy Gus!" I said cheerfully, picking out a Hot Fudge Sundae pop-tart (the snack of champions and awesome people).

"Well," she replied, once again rather snappily. "We can't all get over things as quickly as you do. It's like it never even happened."

"It did," I reminded her. "But it's over. Thea is dead. Cass is gone. Nico is back where he came from. We're still here."

"It's not over!" Karson said, pounding her fist on the kitchen table. "I'll be reliving it every day of my miserable life."

"You're a hero, darling," I said absently. "It's an occupational hazard."

"How can you not care?" she practically screamed. I thought she was going to throw a chair at me.

"Because I'm secretly an automaton?"

Then, she really did scream. She also threw a spoon at me. Once that was done, she stomped out of the room, blowing past Nathan, who was lazing on the couch, and slamming the door on her way out.

I undid the wrapper of the pop-tart and munched on it, hopping up so I was sitting on the kitchen counter.

Nathan walked in. "Was that-"

"Yes," I answered.

"Was she—"

"Angry?" I finished. "Yes."

"Was it—"

"Because of me? Of course." I smiled at him, but even I could tell it was a little off. Having a spoon thrown at you can really mess with a girl.

Nathan sighed. "Why do you always do this to her? She's having a hard time."

"Because angry is something different than sad," said a small voice from the living room. Alan walked in and reached up for the fruit bowl on the counter. I handed him an apple. "She's been sad for too long."

I looked at my baby brother. "That's way too deep for my shallow, awesome little heart."

"You're a better person than you think you are, sister," he said with a small smile, and then he walked into living room again.

"I hate that kid," I said fondly.

Nathan grinned. "I'm sure the feeling is mutual. Throw me a plum."

NO NICO! WHAT IS THIS OUTRAGE!

Yeah, yeah. I know. I know. Believe me. Callie's given me enough grief on the subject.

But should you be worried? Of course not! I'm too much of a fan girl myself to keep him away.

He will return! And Cass. And Lora. And David.

Maybe.

The maybe is just in case I don't get enough reviews telling me that you want them back. I'm at the whim of popular demand. While you're at it, tell me if you want any other old characters back. I'm well aware I had too many.

Sorry if Ella and Nathan weren't quite as awesome as they usually are. I'm still getting back into the swing of things.

I'll have you know I wrote this chapter in less than 24 hours! I'm not sure if that's good or not. -.-

Also, did anyone else read the sneak peek of Son of Neptune? Mr. Riordan is even more of a tease than I am!

If you haven't, there is a link on his twitter and his blog somewhere.