The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)

I shook my head. ‘Leo had the cure ready at the moment he died,’ I said gently. ‘He went through many hardships in advance to get the ingredients. Even then, he needed Asclepius to make it. That wouldn’t work here, not for Jason. I’m so sorry, Piper. It’s too late.’

‘No,’ she insisted. ‘No, the Cherokee always taught …’ She took a shaky breath, as if steeling herself for the pain of speaking so many words. ‘One of the most important stories. Back when man first started destroying nature, the animals decided he was a threat. They all vowed to fight back. Each animal had a different way to kill humans. But the plants … they were kind and compassionate. They vowed the opposite – that they’d each find their own way to protect people. So, there’s a plant cure for everything, whatever disease or poison or wound. Some plant has the cure. You just have to know which one!’

I grimaced. ‘Piper, that story holds a great deal of wisdom. But, even if I were still a god, I couldn’t offer you a remedy to bring back the dead. If such a thing existed, Hades would never allow its use.’

‘The Doors of Death, then!’ she said. ‘Medea came back that way! Why not Jason? There’s always a way to cheat the system. Help me!’

Her charmspeak washed over me, as powerful as Meg’s order. Then I looked at Jason’s peaceful expression.

‘Piper,’ I said, ‘you and Jason fought to close the Doors of Death. Because you knew it was not right to let the dead back into the world of the living. Jason Grace struck me as many things, but he wasn’t a cheater. Would he want you to rend the heavens and the earth and the Underworld to bring him back?’

Her eyes flashed angrily. ‘You don’t care because you’re a god. You’ll go back to Olympus after you free the Oracles, so what does it matter? You’re using us to get what you want, like all the other gods.’

‘Hey,’ Meg said, gently but firmly. ‘That won’t help.’

Piper pressed a hand on Jason’s chest. ‘What did he die for, Apollo? A pair of shoes?’

A jolt of panic almost blew out my chest plug. I’d entirely forgotten about the shoes. I tugged the quiver from my back and turned it upside down, shaking out the arrows.

The rolled-up sandals of Caligula tumbled onto the beach.

‘They’re here.’ I scooped them up, my hands trembling. ‘At least – at least we have them.’

Piper let out a broken sob. She stroked Jason’s hair. ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s great. You can go see your Oracle now. The Oracle that got him KILLED!’

Somewhere behind me, partway up the cliff, a man’s voice cried out, ‘Piper?’

Tempest fled, bursting into wind and raindrops.

Hurrying down the cliffside stairs, in plaid pyjama pants and a white T-shirt, came Tristan McLean.

Of course, I realized. Tempest had brought us to the McLean house in Malibu. Somehow, he had known to come here. Piper’s father must have heard her cries all the way from the top of the cliff.

He ran towards us, his flip-flops slapping against his soles, sand spraying around the cuffs of his pants, his shirt rippling in the wind. His dark dishevelled hair blew in his eyes, but it did not hide his look of alarm.

‘Piper, I was waiting for you!’ he called. ‘I was on the terrace and –’

He froze, first seeing his daughter’s brutalized face, then the body lying on the sand.

‘Oh, no, no.’ He rushed to Piper. ‘What – what is –? Who –?’

Having assured himself that Piper was not in imminent danger of dying, he knelt next to Jason and put his hand against the boy’s neck, checking for a pulse. He put his ear to Jason’s mouth, checking for breath. Of course, he found none.

He looked at us in dismay. He did a double take when he noticed Crest crouched nearby, his massive white ears spread around him.

I could almost feel the Mist swirling around Tristan McLean as he attempted to decipher what he was seeing, trying to put it into a context his mortal brain could understand.

‘Surfing accident?’ he ventured. ‘Oh, Piper, you know those rocks are dangerous. Why didn’t you tell me –? How did –? Never mind. Never mind.’ With shaking hands, he dug his phone from the pocket of his pyjama pants and dialed 9-1-1.

The phone squealed and hissed.

‘My phone isn’t – I – I don’t understand.’

Piper broke down in sobs, pressing herself to her father’s chest.

At that moment, Tristan McLean should have broken once and for all. His life had fallen apart. He’d lost everything he’d worked for his entire career. Now, finding his daughter injured and her former boyfriend dead on the beach of his foreclosed property – surely, that was enough to make anyone’s sanity crumble. Caligula would have another reason to celebrate a good night of sadistic work.

Instead, human resilience surprised me once again. Tristan McLean’s expression turned steely. His focus cleared. He must have realized his daughter needed him and he couldn’t afford to indulge in self-pity. He had one important role left to play: the role of her father.

‘Okay, baby,’ he said, cradling her head. ‘Okay, we’ll – we’ll figure this out. We’ll get through it.’

He turned and pointed at Crest, still lurking near the cliff. ‘You.’

Crest hissed at him like a cat.

Mr McLean blinked, his mind doing a hard reset.

He pointed at me. ‘You. Take the others up to the house. I’m going to stay with Piper. Use the landline in the kitchen. Call nine-one-one. Tell them …’ He looked at Jason’s broken body. ‘Tell them to get here right away.’

Piper looked up, her eyes swollen and red. ‘And, Apollo? Don’t come back. You hear me? Just – just go.’

‘Pipes,’ her father said. ‘It’s not their –’

‘GO!’ she screamed.

As we made our way up the rickety stairs, I wasn’t sure which felt heavier: my exhausted body, or the cannonball of grief and guilt that had settled in my chest. All the way to the house, I heard Piper’s sobs echoing off the dark cliffs.





35


If you give a pan-

dos a ukulele, he

Will want lessons. DON’T.





The news simply went from bad to worse.

Neither Meg nor I could make the landline function. Whatever curse afflicted demigod use of communications, it prevented us from getting a dial tone.

In desperation, I asked Crest to try. For him, the phone worked fine. I took that as a personal affront.

I told him to dial 9-1-1. After he failed repeatedly, it dawned on me that he was trying to punch in IX-I-I. I showed him how to do it correctly.

‘Yes,’ he said to the operator. ‘There is a dead human on the beach. He requires help … The address?’

‘Twelve Oro del Mar,’ I said.

Crest repeated this. ‘That is correct … Who am I?’ He hissed and hung up.

That seemed like our cue to leave.

Misery upon misery: Gleeson Hedge’s 1979 Ford Pinto was still parked in front of the McLean house. Lacking a better option, I was forced to drive it back to Palm Springs. I still felt terrible, but the magic sealant Medea had used on my chest seemed to be mending me, slowly and painfully, like an army of little demons with staple guns running around in my ribcage.

Meg rode shotgun, filling the car with a smell like smoky sweat, damp clothes, and burning apples. Crest sat in the back seat with my combat ukulele, picking and strumming, though I had yet to teach him any chords. As I’d anticipated, the fret board was much too small for his eight-fingered hand. Every time he played a bad combination of notes (which was every time he played) he hissed at the instrument, as if he might be able to intimidate it into cooperating.

I drove in a daze. The further we got from Malibu, the more I found myself thinking, No. Surely that didn’t happen. Today must have been a bad dream. I did not just watch Jason Grace die. I did not just leave Piper McLean sobbing on that beach. I would never allow something like that to happen. I’m a good person!

I did not believe myself.