“Nope,” Ella said. “Nope, nope, nope. No more blackouts. More books for Ella. Books in Seattle.”
Hazel gazed over the water. They were sailing through a large bay, making their way toward a cluster of downtown buildings. Neighborhoods rolled across a series of hills. From the tallest one rose an odd white tower with a saucer on the top, like a spaceship from the old Flash Gordon movies Sammy used to love.
No more blackouts? Hazel thought. After enduring them for so long, the idea seemed too good to be true.
How could Ella be sure they were gone? Yet Hazel did feel different . .. more grounded, as if she wasn’t trying to live in two time periods anymore. Every muscle in her body began to relax. She felt as if she’d finally slipped out of a lead jacket she’d been wearing for months. Somehow, having Frank with her during the blackout had helped. She’d relived her entire past, right through to the present. No wall she had to worry about was the future—assuming shehad one.
Percy steered the boat toward the downtown docks. As they got closer, Ella scratched nervously at her nest of books.
Hazel started to feel edgy, too. She wasn’t sure why. It was a bright, sunny day, and Seattle looked like a beautiful place, with inlets and bridges, wooded islands dotting the bay, and snowcapped mountains rising in the distance. Still, she felt as if she were being watched.
“Um…why are we stopping here?” she asked.
Percy showed them the silver ring on his necklace. “Reyna has a sister here. She asked me to find her and show her this.”
“Reyna has a sister?” Frank asked, like the idea terrified him.
Percy nodded. “Apparently Reyna thinks her sister could send help for the camp.”
“Amazons,” Ella muttered. “Amazon country. Hmm. Ella will find libraries instead. Doesn’t like Amazons. Fierce. Shields. Swords. Pointy. Ouch.”
Frank reached for his spear. “Amazons? Like…female warriors?”
“That would make sense,” Hazel said. “If Reyna’s sister is also a daughter of Bellona, I can see why she’d join the Amazons. But…is it safe for us to be here?”
“Nope, nope, nope,” Ella said. “Get books instead. No Amazons.”
“We have to try,” Percy said. “I promised Reyna. Besides, the Pax isn’t doing too great. I’ve been pushing it pretty hard.”
Hazel looked down at her feet. Water was leaking between the floorboards. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Percy agreed. “We’ll either need to fix it or find a new boat. I’m pretty much holding it together with my willpower at this point. Ella, do you have any idea where we can find the Amazons?”
“And, um,” Frank said nervously, “they don’t, like, kill men on sight, do they?”
Ella glanced at the downtown docks, only a few hundred yards away. “Ella will find friends later. Ella will fly away now.”
And she did.
“Well…” Frank picked a single red feather out of the air. “That’s encouraging.”
They docked at the wharf. They barely had time to unload their supplies before the Pax shuddered and broke into pieces. Most of it sank, leaving only a board with a painted eye and another with the letter P bobbing in the waves.
“Guess we’re not fixing it,” Hazel said. “What now?”
Percy stared at the steep hills of downtown Seattle. “We hope the Amazons will help.”
They explored for hours. They found some great salty caramel chocolate at a candy store. They bought some coffee so strong, Hazel’s head felt like a vibrating gong. They stopped at a sidewalk café and had some excellent grilled salmon sandwiches.
Once they saw Ella zooming between high-rise towers, a large book clutched in each foot. But they found no Amazons. All the while, Hazel was aware of the time ticking by. June 22 now, and Alaska was still a long way away.
Finally they wandered south of downtown, into a plaza surrounded by smaller glass and brick buildings. Hazel’s nerves started tingling. She looked around, sure she was being watched.
“There,” she said.
The office building on their left had a single word etched on the glass doors: AMAZON.
“Oh,” Frank said. “Uh, no, Hazel. That’s a modern thing. They’re a company, right? They sell stuff on the Internet. They’re not actually Amazons.”
“Unless…” Percy walked through the doors. Hazel had a bad feeling about this place, but she and Frank followed.
The lobby was like an empty fish tank—glass walls, a glossy black floor, a few token plants, and pretty much nothing else. Against the back wall, a black stone staircase led up and down. In the middle of the room stood a young woman in a black pantsuit, with long auburn hair and a security guard’s earpiece. Her name tag said kinzie. Her smile was friendly enough, but her eyes reminded Hazel of the policemen in New Orleans who used to patrol the French Quarter at night. They always seemed to look through you, as if they were thinking about who might attack them next.
Kinzie nodded at Hazel, ignoring the boys. “May I help you?”