He brought Marcus to camp for a weekend in March, with Chiron's invitation and Marcus's somewhat cautious agreement.
'Cautious' was the right word. Marcus Osei was a rigorous thinker and a person who trusted evidence, and the evidence he now had — the hieratic proof, the subsequent weeks of slowly becoming aware of the depth and specificity of his Thoth-legacy abilities, the conversations with Kael that had expanded steadily from the initial revelation into a sustained education in the structure of the divine world — was extensive and convincing. He accepted the truth of his situation. He was still working out what to do with it.
The camp in March was the small winter population — fifteen year-round residents, Chiron, a visiting trainer. It was a quieter version of the camp that summer produced, with more of the camp's own character visible without the summer population's energy layered over it. He thought this was a good introduction: the essential camp, without the overwhelming summer version.
Chiron met Marcus at the barrier with the specific attention of someone who has been meeting new kinds of divine bloodlines for three thousand years and found each one interesting. He spent forty-five minutes with Marcus in the Big House library going through the Thoth-legacy documentation, which was thin — Egyptian divine bloodlines were underrepresented in the camp's records, which had been built primarily on Greek tradition — but sufficient to establish the shape of what Marcus carried.
'The problem,' Chiron told Marcus, 'is that we have no formal structure for Egyptian divine bloodlines. We are organized around the Greek tradition because that is the tradition dominant in this part of the world. Your bloodline is real and your gifts are significant but I cannot assign you a cabin that does not exist and I cannot give you a formal training structure built for your specific heritage.'
'He's been telling me,' Marcus said, nodding at Kael, 'that this is a problem you're working on.'
'We have begun,' Chiron said. 'The claiming edict has formalized the Olympian minor gods' cabins. The question of divine traditions other than the Greek is the next challenge.' He looked at Marcus steadily. 'You are not the first person with non-Greek divine blood to come through this camp. You will not be the last. I should tell you honestly that I do not yet have an adequate answer for what this camp can offer you. What I can offer is: recognition, documentation, and the beginning of a structure that does not yet exist.'
Marcus was quiet for a moment. Then: 'Kael told me you would be honest about the limitations.'
'He has always appreciated directness,' Chiron said.
'He has also been telling me,' Marcus said, 'that the way limitations get addressed here is by someone doing the sustained work to address them. Which is how the Hecate cabin happened.'
Chiron looked at Kael with an expression that contained, among other things, something that was not quite amusement but was close to it. 'Yes,' he said. 'That is precisely how it happened.'
Kael met Chiron's eyes. He thought: I did not plan this. I genuinely did not plan this. But he thought it without the alarm he might have felt in the planning years. He thought it with something that was closer to: of course. Of course the work continues. Of course there is a next thing.
He thought: the difference between Phase 1 and Phase 2 is not that the work stops. The difference is that Phase 2 work is chosen rather than prophesied. I am not obligated by foreknowledge to do this. I am choosing it.
He thought: I choose it.