Chapter 4: What Chiron Chose to Call Metaphor

The morning came in sideways through the infirmary windows, the kind of early light that doesn't so much illuminate as expose, and Edmund was still there when it arrived. He had not moved from his cot except to accept, sometime around four, a second cup of the diluted ambrosia that tasted like tea brewed from a memory of warmth. Annabeth had left at five-fifteen, her seven pages of notes expanded to eleven, her handwriting compressed toward the bottom of each sheet in the way that meant she'd been writing faster than she intended. She had said goodbye with the slightly abstracted formality of someone whose attention was already several steps ahead of their body, and Edmund had appreciated this more than any warmer farewell would have warranted.

He had spent the hour between her departure and full sunrise doing something he was good at, which was making a list of what he needed and a separate list of what he was prepared to do without.

The restricted archive was on the first list.