The House of Hades(Heroes of Olympus, Book 4)

PERCY



AKHLYS LUNGED AT PERCY, and for a split second he thought: Well, hey, I’m just smoke. She can’t touch me, right?

He imagined the Fates up in Olympus, laughing at his wishful thinking: LOL, NOOB!

The goddess’s claws raked across his chest and stung like boiling water.

Percy stumbled backwards, but he wasn’t used to being smoky. His legs moved too slowly. His arms felt like tissue paper. In desperation, he threw his backpack at her, thinking maybe it would turn solid when it left his hand, but no such luck. It fell with a soft thud.

Akhlys snarled, crouching to spring. She would have bitten Percy’s face off if Annabeth hadn’t charged and screamed HEY! right in the goddess’s ear.

Akhlys flinched, turning towards the sound.

She lashed out at Annabeth, but Annabeth was better at moving than Percy. Maybe she wasn’t feeling as smoky, or maybe she’d just had more combat training. She’d been at Camp Half-Blood since she was seven. Probably she’d had classes Percy never got, like How to Fight While Partially Made of Smoke.

Annabeth dived straight between the goddess’s legs and somersaulted to her feet. Akhlys turned and attacked, but Annabeth dodged again, like a matador.

Percy was so stunned he lost a few precious seconds. He stared at corpse Annabeth, shrouded in mist but moving as fast and confidently as ever. Then it occurred to him why she was doing this: to buy them time. Which meant Percy needed to help.

He thought furiously, trying to come up with a way to defeat Misery. How could he fight when he couldn’t touch anything?

On Akhlys’s third attack, Annabeth wasn’t so lucky. She tried to veer aside, but the goddess grabbed Annabeth’s wrist and pulled her hard, sending her sprawling.

Before the goddess could pounce, Percy advanced, yelling and waving his sword. He still felt about as solid as a Kleenex, but his anger seemed to help him move faster.

‘Hey, Happy!’ he yelled.

Akhlys spun, dropping Annabeth’s arm. ‘Happy?’ she demanded.

‘Yeah!’ He ducked as she swiped at his head. ‘You’re downright cheerful!’

‘Arggh!’ She lunged again, but she was off-balance. Percy sidestepped and backed away, leading the goddess further from Annabeth.

‘Pleasant!’ he called. ‘Delightful!’

The goddess snarled and winced. She stumbled after Percy. Each compliment seemed to hit her like sand in the face.

‘I will kill you slowly!’ she growled, her eyes and nose watering, blood dripping from her cheeks. ‘I will cut you into pieces as a sacrifice to Night!’

Annabeth struggled to her feet. She started rifling through her pack, no doubt looking for something that might help.

Percy wanted to give her more time. She was the brains. Better for him to get attacked while she came up with a brilliant plan.

‘Cuddly!’ Percy yelled. ‘Fuzzy, warm and huggable!’

Akhlys made a growling, choking noise, like a cat having a seizure.

‘A slow death!’ she screamed. ‘A death from a thousand poisons!’

All around her, poisonous plants grew and burst like overfilled balloons. Green-and-white sap trickled out, collecting into pools, and began flowing across the ground towards Percy. The sweet-smelling fumes made his head feel wobbly.

‘Percy!’ Annabeth’s voice sounded far away. ‘Uh, hey, Miss Wonderful! Cheerful! Grins! Over here!’

But the goddess of misery was now fixated on Percy. He tried to retreat again. Unfortunately the poison ichor was flowing all around him now, making the ground steam and the air burn. Percy found himself stuck on an island of dust not much bigger than a shield. A few yards away, his backpack smoked and dissolved into a puddle of goo. Percy had nowhere to go.

He fell to one knee. He wanted to tell Annabeth to run, but he couldn’t speak. His throat was as dry as dead leaves.

He wished there were water in Tartarus – some nice pool he could jump into to heal himself, or maybe a river he could control. He’d settle for a bottle of Evian.

‘You will feed the eternal darkness,’ Akhlys said. ‘You will die in the arms of Night!’

He was dimly aware of Annabeth shouting, throwing random pieces of drakon jerky at the goddess. The white-green poison kept pooling, little streams trickling from the plants as the venomous lake around him got wider and wider.

Lake, he thought. Streams. Water.

Probably it was just his brain getting fried from poison fumes, but he croaked out a laugh. Poison was liquid. If it moved like water, it must be partially water.

He remembered some science lecture about the human body being mostly water. He remembered extracting water from Jason’s lungs back in Rome … If he could control that, then why not other liquids?

It was a crazy idea. Poseidon was the god of the sea, not of every liquid everywhere.

Then again, Tartarus had its own rules. Fire was drinkable. The ground was the body of a dark god. The air was acid, and demigods could be turned into smoky corpses.

So why not try? He had nothing left to lose.

He glared at the poison flood encroaching from all sides. He concentrated so hard that something inside him cracked – as if a crystal ball had shattered in his stomach.

Warmth flowed through him. The poison tide stopped.

The fumes blew away from him – back towards the goddess. The lake of poison rolled towards her in tiny waves and rivulets.

Akhlys shrieked. ‘What is this?’

‘Poison,’ Percy said. ‘That’s your speciality, right?’

He stood, his anger growing hotter in his gut. As the flood of venom rolled towards the goddess, the fumes began to make her cough. Her eyes watered even more.

Oh, good, Percy thought. More water.

Percy imagined her nose and throat filling with her own tears.

Akhlys gagged. ‘I –’ The tide of venom reached her feet, sizzling like droplets on a hot iron. She wailed and stumbled back.

‘Percy!’ Annabeth called.

She’d retreated to the edge of the cliff, even though the poison wasn’t after her. She sounded terrified. It took Percy a moment to realize she was terrified of him.

‘Stop …’ she pleaded, her voice hoarse.

He didn’t want to stop. He wanted to choke this goddess. He wanted to watch her drown in her own poison. He wanted to see just how much misery Misery could take.

‘Percy, please …’ Annabeth’s face was still pale and corpse-like, but her eyes were the same as always. The anguish in them made Percy’s anger fade.

He turned to the goddess. He willed the poison to recede, creating a small path of retreat along the edge of the cliff.

‘Leave!’ he bellowed.

For an emaciated ghoul, Akhlys could run pretty fast when she wanted to. She scrambled along the path, fell on her face and got up again, wailing as she sped into the dark.

As soon as she was gone, the pools of poison evaporated. The plants withered to dust and blew away.

Annabeth stumbled towards him. She looked like a corpse wreathed in smoke, but she felt solid enough when she gripped his arms.

‘Percy, please don’t ever …’ Her voice broke in a sob. ‘Some things aren’t meant to be controlled. Please.’

His whole body tingled with power, but the anger was subsiding. The broken glass inside him was beginning to smooth at the edges.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, okay.’

‘We have to get away from this cliff,’ Annabeth said. ‘If Akhlys brought us here as some kind of sacrifice …’

Percy tried to think. He was getting used to moving with the Death Mist around him. He felt more solid, more like himself. But his mind still felt stuffed with cotton wool.

‘She said something about feeding us to the night,’ he remembered. ‘What was that about?’

The temperature dropped. The abyss before them seemed to exhale.

Percy grabbed Annabeth and backed away from the edge as a presence emerged from the void – a form so vast and shadowy he felt like he understood the concept of dark for the first time.

‘I imagine,’ said the darkness, in a feminine voice as soft as coffin lining, ‘that she meant Night, with a capital N. After all, I am the only one.’
XLIX





LEO



THE WAY LEO FIGURED IT, he spent more time crashing than he did flying.

If there were a rewards card for frequent crashers, he’d be, like, double platinum level.

He regained consciousness as he was free-falling through the clouds. He had a hazy memory of Khione taunting him right before he got shot into the sky. He hadn’t actually seen her, but he could never forget that snow witch’s voice. He had no idea how long he’d been gaining altitude, but at some point he must have passed out from the cold and the lack of oxygen. Now he was on his way down, heading for his biggest crash ever.

The clouds parted around him. He saw the glittering sea far, far below. No sign of the Argo II. No sign of any coastline, familiar or otherwise, except for one tiny island at the horizon.

Leo couldn’t fly. He had a couple of minutes at most before he’d hit the water and go ker-splat.

He decided he didn’t like that ending to the Epic Ballad of Leo.

He was still clutching the Archimedes sphere, which didn’t surprise him. Unconscious or not, he would never let go of his most valuable possession. With a little manoeuvring, he managed to pull some duct tape from his tool belt and strap the sphere to his chest. That made him look like a low-budget Iron Man, but at least he had both hands free. He started to work, furiously tinkering with the sphere, pulling out anything he thought would help from his magic tool belt: a drop cloth, metal extenders, some string and grommets.

Working while falling was almost impossible. The wind roared in his ears. It kept ripping tools, screws and canvas out of his hands, but finally he constructed a makeshift frame. He popped open a hatch on the sphere, teased out two wires and connected them to his crossbar.

How long until he hit the water? Maybe a minute?

He turned the sphere’s control dial, and it whirred into action. More bronze wires shot from the orb, intuitively sensing what Leo needed. Cords laced up the canvas drop cloth. The frame began to expand on its own. Leo pulled out a can of kerosene and a rubber tube and lashed them to the thirsty new engine that the orb was helping him assemble.

Finally he made himself a rope halter and shifted so that the X-frame was attached to his back. The sea got closer and closer – a glittering expanse of slap-you-in-the-face death.

He yelled in defiance and punched the sphere’s override switch.

The engine coughed to life. The makeshift rotor turned. The canvas blades spun, but much too slowly. Leo’s head was pointed straight down at the sea – maybe thirty seconds to impact.

At least nobody’s around, he thought bitterly, or I’d be a demigod joke forever. What was the last thing to go through Leo’s mind? The Mediterranean.

Suddenly the orb got warm against his chest. The blades turned faster. The engine coughed, and Leo tilted sideways, slicing through the air.

‘YES!’ he yelled.

He had successfully created the world’s most dangerous personal helicopter.

He shot towards the island in the distance, but he was still falling much too fast. The blades shuddered. The canvas screamed.

The beach was only a few hundred yards away when the sphere turned lava-hot and the helicopter exploded, shooting flames in every direction. If he hadn’t been immune to fire, Leo would have been charcoal. As it was, the midair explosion probably saved his life. The blast flung Leo sideways while the bulk of his flaming contraption smashed into the shore at full speed with a massive KA-BOOM!

Leo opened his eyes, amazed to be alive. He was sitting in a bathtub-sized crater in the sand. A few yards away, a column of thick black smoke roiled into the sky from a much larger crater. The surrounding beach was peppered with smaller pieces of burning wreckage.

‘My sphere.’ Leo patted his chest. The sphere wasn’t there. His duct tape and rope halter had disintegrated.

He struggled to his feet. None of his bones seemed broken, which was good, but mostly he was worried about his Archimedes sphere. If he’d destroyed his priceless artefact to make a flaming thirty-second helicopter, he was going to track down that stupid snow goddess Khione and smack her with a monkey wrench.

He staggered across the beach, wondering why there weren’t any tourists or hotels or boats in sight. The island seemed perfect for a resort, with blue water and soft white sand. Maybe it was uncharted. Did they still have uncharted islands in the world? Maybe Khione had blasted him out of the Mediterranean altogether. For all he knew, he was in Bora Bora.

The larger crater was about eight feet deep. At the bottom, the helicopter blades were still trying to turn. The engine belched smoke. The rotor croaked like a stepped-on frog, but dang – pretty impressive for a rush job.

The helicopter had apparently crashed onto something. The crater was littered with broken wooden furniture, shattered china plates, some half-melted pewter goblets and burning linen napkins. Leo wasn’t sure why all that fancy stuff had been on the beach, but at least it meant that this place was inhabited, after all.

Finally he spotted the Archimedes sphere – steaming and charred but still intact, making unhappy clicking noises in the centre of the wreckage.

‘Sphere!’ he yelled. ‘Come to Papa!’

He skidded to the bottom of the crater and snatched up the sphere. He collapsed, sat cross-legged and cradled the device in his hands. The bronze surface was searing hot, but Leo didn’t care. It was still in one piece, which meant he could use it.

Now, if he could just figure out where he was and how to get back to his friends …

He was making a mental list of tools he might need when a girl’s voice interrupted him: ‘What are you doing? You blew up my dining table!’

Immediately Leo thought: Uh-oh.

He’d met a lot of goddesses, but the girl glaring down at him from the edge of the crater actually looked like a goddess.

She wore a sleeveless white Greek-style dress with a gold braided belt. Her hair was long, straight and golden brown – almost the same cinnamon-toast colour as Hazel’s, but the similarity to Hazel ended there. The girl’s face was milky pale, with dark almond-shaped eyes and pouty lips. She looked maybe fifteen, about Leo’s age, and sure she was pretty, but with that angry expression on her face she reminded Leo of every popular girl in every school he’d ever attended – the ones who made fun of him, gossiped a lot, thought they were so superior and basically did everything they could to make his life miserable.

Leo disliked her instantly.

‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ he said. ‘I just fell out of the sky. I constructed a helicopter in midair, burst into flames halfway down, crash-landed and barely survived. But by all means – let’s talk about your dining table!’

He snatched up a half-melted goblet. ‘Who puts a dining table on the beach where innocent demigods can crash into it? Who does that?’

The girl clenched her fists. Leo was pretty sure she was going to march down the crater and punch him in the face. Instead she looked up at the sky.

‘REALLY?’ she screamed at the empty blue. ‘You want to make my curse even worse? Zeus! Hephaestus! Hermes! Have you no shame?’

‘Uh …’ Leo noticed that she’d just picked three gods to blame, and one of them was his dad. He figured that wasn’t a good sign. ‘I doubt they’re listening. You know, the whole split-personality thing –’

‘Show yourself!’ the girl yelled at the sky, completely ignoring Leo. ‘It’s not bad enough I am exiled? It’s not bad enough you take away the few good heroes I’m allowed to meet? You think it’s funny to send me this – this charbroiled runt of a boy to ruin my tranquillity? This is NOT FUNNY! Take him back!’

‘Hey, Sunshine,’ Leo said. ‘I’m right here, you know.’

She growled like a cornered animal. ‘Do not call me Sunshine! Get out of that hole and come with me now so I can get you off my island!’

‘Well, since you asked so nicely …’

Leo didn’t know what the crazy girl was so worked up about, but he didn’t really care. If she could help him leave this island, that was totally fine by him. He clutched his charred sphere and climbed out of the crater. When he reached the top, the girl was already marching down the shoreline. He jogged to catch up.

She gestured in disgust at the burning wreckage. ‘This was a pristine beach! Look at it now.’

‘Yeah, my bad,’ Leo muttered. ‘I should’ve crashed on one of the other islands. Oh, wait – there aren’t any!’

She snarled and kept walking along the edge of the water. Leo caught a whiff of cinnamon – maybe her perfume? Not that he cared. Her hair swayed down her back in a mesmerizing kind of way, which of course he didn’t care about either.

He scanned the sea. Just like he’d seen during his fall, there were no landmasses or ships all the way to the horizon. Looking inland, he saw grassy hills dotted with trees. A footpath wound through a grove of cedars. Leo wondered where it led: probably to the girl’s secret lair, where she roasted her enemies so she could eat them at her dining table on the beach.

He was so busy thinking about that he didn’t notice when the girl stopped. He ran into her.

‘Gah!’ She turned and grabbed his arms to keep from falling in the surf. Her hands were strong, as though she worked with them for a living. Back at camp, the girls in the Hephaestus cabin had had strong hands like that, but she didn’t look like a Hephaestus kid.

She glared at him, her dark almond eyes only a few inches from his. Her cinnamon smell reminded him of his abuela’s apartment. Man, he hadn’t thought about that place in years.

The girl pushed him away. ‘All right. This spot is good. Now tell me you want to leave.’

‘What?’ Leo’s brain was still kind of muddled from the crash-landing. He wasn’t sure he had heard her right.

‘Do you want to leave?’ she demanded. ‘Surely you’ve got somewhere to go!’

‘Uh … yeah. My friends are in trouble. I need to get back to my ship and –’

‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘Just say, I want to leave Ogygia.’

‘Uh, okay.’ Leo wasn’t sure why, but her tone kind of hurt … which was stupid, since he didn’t care what this girl thought. ‘I want to leave – whatever you said.’

‘Oh-gee-gee-ah.’ The girl pronounced it slowly, as if Leo were five years old.

‘I want to leave Oh-gee-gee-ah,’ he said.

She exhaled, clearly relieved. ‘Good. In a moment, a magical raft will appear. It will take you wherever you want to go.’

‘Who are you?’

She looked like she was about to answer but stopped herself. ‘It doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone soon. You’re obviously a mistake.’

That was harsh, Leo thought.

He’d spent enough time thinking he was a mistake – as a demigod, on this quest, in life in general. He didn’t need a random crazy goddess reinforcing the idea.

He remembered a Greek legend about a girl on an island … Maybe one of his friends had mentioned it? It didn’t matter. As long as she let him leave.

‘Any moment now …’ The girl stared out at the water.

No magical raft appeared.

‘Maybe it got stuck in traffic,’ Leo said.

‘This is wrong.’ She glared at the sky. ‘This is completely wrong!’

‘So … plan B?’ Leo asked. ‘You got a phone, or –’

‘Agh!’ The girl turned and stormed inland. When she got to the footpath, she sprinted into the grove of trees and disappeared.

‘Okay,’ Leo said. ‘Or you could just run away.’

From his tool-belt pouches he pulled some rope and a snap hook, then fastened the Archimedes sphere to his belt.

He looked out to sea. Still no magic raft.

He could stand here and wait, but he was hungry, thirsty and tired. He was banged up pretty bad from his fall.

He didn’t want to follow that crazy girl, no matter how good she smelled.

On the other hand, he had no place else to go. The girl had a dining table, so she probably had food. And she seemed to find Leo’s presence annoying.

‘Annoying her is a plus,’ he decided.

He followed her into the hills.
LEO




‘HOLY HEPHAESTUS,’ LEO SAID.

The path opened into the nicest garden Leo had ever seen. Not that he had spent a lot of time in gardens, but dang. On the left was an orchard and a vineyard – peach trees with red-golden fruit that smelled awesome in the warm sun, carefully pruned vines bursting with grapes, bowers of flowering jasmine and a bunch of other plants Leo couldn’t name.

On the right were neat beds of vegetables and herbs, arranged like spokes around a big sparkling fountain where bronze satyrs spewed water into a central bowl.

At the back of the garden, where the footpath ended, a cave opened in the side of a grassy hill. Compared to Bunker Nine back at camp, the entrance was tiny, but it was impressive in its own way. On either side, crystalline rock had been carved into glittering Grecian columns. The tops were fitted with a bronze rod that held silky white curtains.

Leo’s nose was assaulted by good smells – cedar, juniper, jasmine, peaches and fresh herbs. The aroma from the cave really caught his attention – like beef stew cooking.

He started towards the entrance. Seriously, how could he not? He stopped when he noticed the girl. She was kneeling in her vegetable garden, her back to Leo. She muttered to herself as she dug furiously with a trowel.

Leo approached her from one side so she could see him. He didn’t feel like surprising her when she was armed with a sharp gardening implement.

She kept cursing in Ancient Greek and stabbing at the dirt. She had flecks of soil all over her arms, her face and her white dress, but she didn’t seem to care.

Leo could appreciate that. She looked better with a little mud – less like a beauty queen and more like an actual get-your-hands-dirty kind of person.

‘I think you’ve punished that dirt enough,’ he offered.

She scowled at him, her eyes red and watery. ‘Just go away.’

‘You’re crying,’ he said, which was stupidly obvious, but seeing her that way took the wind out of his helicopter blades, so to speak. It was hard to stay mad at someone who was crying.

‘None of your business,’ she muttered. ‘It’s a big island. Just … find your own place. Leave me alone.’ She waved vaguely towards the south. ‘Go that way, maybe.’

‘So, no magic raft,’ Leo said. ‘No other way off the island?’

‘Apparently not!’

‘What am I supposed to do, then? Sit in the sand dunes until I die?’

‘That would be fine …’ The girl threw down her trowel and cursed at the sky. ‘Except I suppose he can’t die here, can he? Zeus! This is not funny!’

Can’t die here?

‘Hold up.’ Leo’s head spun like a crankshaft. He couldn’t quite translate what this girl was saying – like when he heard Spaniards or South Americans speaking Spanish. Yeah, he could understand it, sort of, but it sounded so different that it was almost another language.

‘I’m going to need some more information here,’ he said. ‘You don’t want me in your face, that’s cool. I don’t want to be here either. But I’m not going to go die and in a corner. I have to get off this island. There’s got to be a way. Every problem has a fix.’

She laughed bitterly. ‘You haven’t lived very long, if you still believe that.’

The way she said it sent a shiver up his back. She looked the same age as him, but he wondered how old she really was.

‘You said something about a curse,’ he prompted.

She flexed her fingers, like she was practising her throat-strangling technique. ‘Yes. I cannot leave Ogygia. My father, Atlas, fought against the gods, and I supported him.’

‘Atlas,’ Leo said. ‘As in the Titan Atlas?’

The girl rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, you impossible little …’ Whatever she was going to say, she bit it back. ‘I was imprisoned here, where I could cause the Olympians no trouble. About a year ago, after the Second Titan War, the gods vowed to forgive their enemies and offer amnesty. Supposedly Percy made them promise –’

‘Percy,’ Leo said. ‘Percy Jackson?’

She squeezed her eyes shut. A tear trickled down her cheek.

Oh, Leo thought.

‘Percy came here,’ he said.

She dug her fingers into the soil. ‘I – I thought I would be released. I dared to hope … but I am still here.’

Leo remembered now. The story was supposed to be a secret, but of course that meant it had spread like wildfire across the camp. Percy had told Annabeth. Months later, when Percy had gone missing, Annabeth told Piper. Piper told Jason …

Percy had talked about visiting this island. He had met a goddess who’d developed a major crush on him and wanted him to stay, but eventually she let him go.

‘You’re that lady,’ Leo said. ‘The one who was named after Caribbean music.’

Her eyes glinted murderously. ‘Caribbean music.’

‘Yeah. Reggae?’ Leo shook his head. ‘Merengue? Hold on, I’ll get it.’

He snapped his fingers. ‘Calypso! But Percy said you were awesome. He said you were all sweet and helpful, not, um …’

She shot to her feet. ‘Yes?’

‘Uh, nothing,’ Leo said.

‘Would you be sweet,’ she demanded, ‘if the gods forgot their promise to let you go? Would you be sweet if they laughed at you by sending another hero, but a hero who looked like – like you?’

‘Is that a trick question?’

‘Di Immortales!’ She turned and marched into her cave.

‘Hey!’ Leo ran after her.

When he got inside, he lost his train of thought. The walls were made from multicoloured chunks of crystal. White curtains divided the cave into different rooms with comfy pillows and woven rugs and platters of fresh fruit. He spotted a harp in one corner, a loom in another and a big cooking pot where the stew was bubbling, filling the cavern with luscious smells.

The strangest thing? The chores were doing themselves. Towels floated through the air, folding and stacking into neat piles. Spoons washed themselves in a copper sink. The scene reminded Leo of the invisible wind spirits that had served him lunch at Camp Jupiter.

Calypso stood at a washbasin, cleaning the dirt off her arms.

She scowled at Leo, but she didn’t yell at him to leave. She seemed to be running out of energy for her anger.

Leo cleared his throat. If he was going to get any help from this lady, he needed to be nice. ‘So … I get why you’re angry. You probably never want to see another demigod again. I guess that didn’t sit right when, uh, Percy left you –’

‘He was only the latest,’ she growled. ‘Before him, it was that pirate Drake. And before him, Odysseus. They were all the same! The gods send me the greatest heroes, the ones I cannot help but …’

‘You fall in love with them,’ Leo guessed. ‘And then they leave you.’

Her chin trembled. ‘That is my curse. I had hoped to be free of it by now, but here I am, still stuck on Ogygia after three thousand years.’

‘Three thousand.’ Leo’s mouth felt tingly, like he’d just eaten Pop Rocks. ‘Uh, you look good for three thousand.’

‘And now … the worst insult of all. The gods mock me by sending you.’

Anger bubbled in Leo’s stomach.

Yeah, typical. If Jason were here, Calypso would fall all over him. She’d beg him to stay, but he’d be all noble about returning to his duties, and he’d leave Calypso brokenhearted. That magic raft would totally arrive for him.

But Leo? He was the annoying guest she couldn’t get rid of. She’d never fall for him, because she was totally out of his league. Not that he cared. She wasn’t his type anyway. She was way too annoying and beautiful and – well, it didn’t matter.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you alone. I’ll build something myself and get off this stupid island without your help.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘You don’t understand, do you? The gods are laughing at both of us. If the raft will not appear, that means they’ve closed Ogygia. You’re stuck here the same as me. You can never leave.’
LI





LEO



THE FIRST FEW DAYS WERE THE WORST.

Leo slept outside on a bed of drop cloths under the stars. It got cold at night, even on the beach in the summer, so he built fires with the remains of Calypso’s dining table. That cheered him up a little.

During the days, he walked the circumference of the island and found nothing of interest – unless you liked beaches and endless sea in every direction. He tried to send an Iris-message in the rainbows that formed in the sea spray, but he had no luck. He didn’t have any drachmas for an offering, and apparently the goddess Iris wasn’t interested in nuts and bolts.

He didn’t even dream, which was unusual for him – or for any demigod – so he had no idea what was going on in the outside world. Had his friends got rid of Khione? Were they looking for him, or had they sailed on to Epirus to complete the quest?

He wasn’t even sure what to hope for.

The dream he’d had back on the Argo II finally made sense to him – when the evil sorceress lady had told him to either jump off a cliff into the clouds, or descend into a dark tunnel where ghostly voices whispered. That tunnel must have represented the House of Hades, which Leo would never see now. He’d taken the cliff instead – falling through the sky to this stupid island. But in the dream Leo had been given a choice. In real life he’d had none. Khione had simply plucked him off his ship and shot him into orbit. Totally unfair.

The worst part of being stuck here? He was losing track of the days. He woke up one morning and couldn’t remember if he’d been on Ogygia for three nights or four.

Calypso wasn’t much help. Leo confronted her in the garden, but she just shook her head. ‘Time is difficult here.’

Great. For all Leo knew, a century had passed in the real world and the war with Gaia was over for better or worse. Or maybe he’d only been on Ogygia for five minutes. His whole life might pass here in the time it took his friends on the Argo II to have breakfast.

Either way, he needed to get off this island.

Calypso took pity on him in some ways. She sent her invisible servants to leave bowls of stew and goblets of lemonade at the edge of the garden. She even sent him a few new sets of clothes – simple undyed cotton trousers and shirts that she must have made on her loom. They fitted him so well, Leo wondered how she’d got his measurements. Maybe she just used her generic pattern for SCRAWNY MALE.

Anyway, he was glad to have new threads, since his old ones were pretty smelly and burnt. Usually Leo could keep his clothes from burning when he caught fire, but it took concentration. Sometimes back at camp, if he wasn’t thinking about it, he’d be working on some metal project at the hot forge, look down and realize his clothes had burned away, except for his magic tool belt and a smoking pair of underpants. Kind of embarrassing.

Despite the gifts, Calypso obviously didn’t want to see him. One time he poked his head inside the cave and she freaked out, yelling and throwing pots at his head.

Yeah, she was definitely on Team Leo.

He ended up pitching a more permanent camp near the footpath, where the beach met the hills. That way he was close enough to pick up his meals, but Calypso didn’t have to see him and go into a pot-throwing rage.

He made himself a lean-to with sticks and canvas. He dug a campfire pit. He even managed to build himself a bench and a worktable from some driftwood and dead cedar branches. He spent hours fixing the Archimedes sphere, cleaning it and repairing its circuits. He made himself a compass, but the needle would spin all crazy no matter what he tried. Leo guessed a GPS would have been useless, too. This island was designed to be off the charts, impossible to leave.

He remembered the old bronze astrolabe he’d picked up in Bologna – the one the dwarfs told him Odysseus had made. He had a sneaking suspicion Odysseus had been thinking about this island when he constructed it, but unfortunately Leo had left it back on the ship with Buford the Wonder Table. Besides, the dwarfs had told him the astrolabe didn’t work. Something about a missing crystal …

He walked the beach, wondering why Khione had sent him here – assuming his landing here wasn’t an accident. Why not just kill him instead? Maybe Khione wanted him to be in limbo forever. Perhaps she knew the gods were too incapacitated to pay attention to Ogygia, and so the island’s magic was broken. That could be why Calypso was still stuck here and why the magic raft wouldn’t appear for Leo.

Or maybe the magic of this place was working just fine. The gods had punished Calypso by sending her buff courageous dudes who left as soon as she fell for them. Maybe that was the problem. Calypso would never fall for Leo. She wanted him to leave. So they were stuck in a vicious circle. If that was Khione’s plan … wow. Major-league devious.

Then one morning he made a discovery, and things got even more complicated.

Leo was walking in the hills, following a little brook that ran between two big cedar trees. He liked this area – it was the only place on Ogygia where he couldn’t see the sea, so he could pretend he wasn’t stuck on an island. In the shade of the trees, he almost felt like he was back at Camp Half-Blood, heading through the woods towards Bunker Nine.

He jumped over the creek. Instead of landing on soft earth, his feet hit something much harder.

CLANG.

Metal.

Excited, Leo dug through the mulch until he saw the glint of bronze.

‘Oh, man.’ He giggled like a crazy person as he excavated the scraps.

He had no idea why the stuff was here. Hephaestus was always tossing broken parts out of his godly workshop and littering the earth with scrap metal, but what were the chances some of it would hit Ogygia?

Leo found a handful of wires, a few bent gears, a piston that might still work and several hammered sheets of Celestial bronze – the smallest the size of a drink coaster, the largest the size of a war shield.

It wasn’t a lot – not compared to Bunker Nine or even to his supplies aboard the Argo II. But it was more than sand and rocks.

He looked up at the sunlight winking through the cedar branches. ‘Dad? If you sent this here for me – thanks. If you didn’t … well, thanks, anyway.’

He gathered up his treasure trove and lugged it back to his campsite.

After that, the days passed more quickly, and with a lot more noise.

First Leo made himself a forge out of mud bricks, each one baked with his own fiery hands. He found a large rock he could use as an anvil base, and he pulled nails from his tool belt until he had enough to melt into a plate for a hammering surface.

Once that was done, he began to recast the Celestial bronze scraps. Each day his hammer rang on bronze until his rock anvil broke, or his tongs bent, or he ran out of firewood.

Each evening he collapsed, drenched in sweat and covered in soot, but he felt great. At least he was working, trying to solve his problem.

The first time Calypso came to check on him, it was to complain about the noise.

‘Smoke and fire,’ she said. ‘Clanging on metal all day long. You’re scaring away the birds!’

‘Oh, no, not the birds!’ Leo grumbled.

‘What do you hope to accomplish?’

He glanced up and almost smashed his thumb with his hammer. He’d been staring at metal and fire so long he’d forgotten how beautiful Calypso was. Annoyingly beautiful. She stood there with the sunlight in her hair, her white skirt fluttering around her legs, a basket of grapes and fresh-baked bread tucked under one arm.

Leo tried to ignore his rumbling stomach.

‘I’m hoping to get off this island,’ he said. ‘That is what you want, right?’

Calypso scowled. She set the basket near his bedroll. ‘You haven’t eaten in two days. Take a break and eat.’

‘Two days?’ Leo hadn’t even noticed, which surprised him, since he liked food. He was even more surprised that Calypso had noticed.

‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll, uh, try to hammer more quietly.’

‘Huh.’ She sounded unimpressed.

After that, she didn’t complain about the noise or the smoke.

The next time she visited, Leo was putting the final touches to his first project. He didn’t see her approach until she spoke right behind him.

‘I brought you –’

Leo jumped, dropping his wires. ‘Bronze bulls, girl! Don’t sneak up on me like that!’

She was wearing red today – Leo’s favourite colour. That was completely irrelevant. She looked really good in red. Also irrelevant.

‘I wasn’t sneaking,’ she said. ‘I was bringing you these.’

She showed him the clothes that were folded over her arm: a new pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, an army fatigue jacket … wait, those were his clothes, except that they couldn’t be. His original army jacket had burned up months ago. He hadn’t been wearing it when he landed on Ogygia. But the clothes Calypso held looked exactly like the clothes he’d been wearing the first day he’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood – except these looked bigger, resized to fit him better.

‘How?’ he asked.

Calypso set the clothes at his feet and backed away as if he were a dangerous beast. ‘I do have a little magic, you know. You keep burning through the clothes I give you, so I thought I would weave something less flammable.’

‘These won’t burn?’ He picked up the jeans, but they felt just like normal denim.

‘They are completely fireproof,’ Calypso promised. ‘They’ll stay clean and expand to fit you, should you ever become less scrawny.’

‘Thanks.’ He meant it to sound sarcastic, but he was honestly impressed. Leo could make a lot of things, but an inflammable, self-cleaning outfit wasn’t one of them. ‘So … you made an exact replica of my favourite outfit. Did you, like, google me or something?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t know that word.’

‘You looked me up,’ he said. ‘Almost like you had some interest in me.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I have an interest in not making you a new set of clothes every other day. I have an interest in you not smelling so bad and walking around my island in smouldering rags.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Leo grinned. ‘You’re really warming up to me.’

Her face got even redder. ‘You are the most insufferable person I have ever met! I was only returning a favour. You fixed my fountain.’

‘That?’ Leo laughed. The problem had been so simple he’d almost forgotten about it. One of the bronze satyrs had been turned sideways and the water pressure was off, so it started making an annoying ticking sound, jiggling up and down and spewing water over the rim of the pool. He’d pulled out a couple of tools and fixed it in about two minutes. ‘That was no big deal. I don’t like it when things don’t work right.’

‘And the curtains across the cave entrance?’

‘The rod wasn’t level.’

‘And my gardening tools?’

‘Look, I just sharpened the shears. Cutting vines with a dull blade is dangerous. And the pruners needed to be oiled at the hinge, and –’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Calypso said, in a pretty good imitation of his voice. ‘You’re really warming up to me.’

For once, Leo was speechless. Calypso’s eyes glittered. He knew she was making fun of him, but somehow it didn’t feel mean.

She pointed at his worktable. ‘What are you building?’

‘Oh.’ He looked at the bronze mirror, which he’d just finished wiring up to the Archimedes sphere. In the screen’s polished surface, his own reflection surprised him. His hair had grown out longer and curlier. His face was thinner and more chiselled, maybe because he hadn’t been eating. His eyes were dark and a little ferocious when he wasn’t smiling – kind of a Tarzan look, if Tarzan came in extra-small Latino. He couldn’t blame Calypso for backing away from him.

‘Uh, it’s a seeing device,’ he said. ‘We found one like this in Rome, in the workshop of Archimedes. If I can make it work, maybe I can find out what’s going on with my friends.’

Calypso shook her head. ‘That’s impossible. This island is hidden, cut off from the world by strong magic. Time doesn’t even flow the same here.’

‘Well, you’ve got to have some kind of outside contact. How did you find out that I used to wear an army jacket?’

She twisted her hair as if the question made her uncomfortable. ‘Seeing the past is simple magic. Seeing the present or the future – that is not.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Leo said. ‘Watch and learn, Sunshine. I just connect these last two wires, and –’

The bronze plate sparked. Smoke billowed from the sphere. A flash fire raced up Leo’s sleeve. He pulled off his shirt, threw it down and stomped on it.

He could tell Calypso was trying not to laugh, but she was shaking with the effort.

‘Not a word,’ Leo warned.

She glanced at his bare chest, which was sweaty, bony and streaked with old scars from weapon-making accidents.

‘Nothing worth commenting on,’ she assured him. ‘If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Whenever an engine malfunctions, I like to tap-dance around it. Works every time.’

She took a deep breath and began to sing.

Her voice hit him like a cool breeze – like that first cold front in Texas when the summer heat finally breaks and you start to believe things might get better. Leo couldn’t understand the words, but the song was plaintive and bittersweet, as if she were describing a home she could never return to.

Her singing was magic, no doubt. But it wasn’t like Medea’s trance-inducing voice, or even Piper’s charmspeak. The music didn’t want anything from him. It simply reminded him of his best memories – building things with his mom in her workshop; sitting in the sunshine with his friends at camp. It made him miss home.

Calypso stopped singing. Leo realized he was staring like an idiot.

‘Any luck?’ she asked.

‘Uh …’ He forced his eyes back to the bronze mirror. ‘Nothing. Wait …’

The screen glowed. In the air above it, holographic pictures shimmered to life.

Leo recognized the commons at Camp Half-Blood.

There was no sound, but Clarisse LaRue from the Ares Cabin was yelling orders at the campers, forming them into lines. Leo’s brethren from Cabin Nine hurried around, fitting everyone with armour and passing out weapons.

Even Chiron the centaur was dressed for war. He trotted up and down the ranks, his plumed helmet gleaming, his legs decked in bronze greaves. His usual friendly smile was gone, replaced with a look of grim determination.

In the distance, Greek triremes floated on Long Island Sound, prepped for war. Along the hills, catapults were being primed. Satyrs patrolled the fields, and riders on pegasi circled overhead, alert for aerial attacks.

‘Your friends?’ Calypso asked.

Leo nodded. His face felt numb. ‘They’re preparing for war.’

‘Against whom?’

‘Look,’ Leo said.

The scene changed. A phalanx of Roman demigods marched through a moonlit vineyard. An illuminated sign in the distance read: GOLDSMITH WINERY.

‘I’ve seen that sign before,’ Leo said. ‘That’s not far from Camp Half-Blood.’

Suddenly the Roman ranks deteriorated into chaos. Demigods scattered. Shields fell. Javelins swung wildly, like the whole group had stepped in fire ants.

Darting through the moonlight were two small hairy shapes dressed in mismatched clothes and garish hats. They seemed to be everywhere at once – whacking Romans on the head, stealing their weapons, cutting their belts so their trousers fell around their ankles.

Leo couldn’t help grinning. ‘Those beautiful little troublemakers! They kept their promise.’

Calypso leaned in, watching the Kerkopes. ‘Cousins of yours?’

‘Ha, ha, ha, no,’ Leo said. ‘Couple of dwarfs I met in Bologna. I sent them to slow down the Romans, and they’re doing it.’

‘But for how long?’ Calypso wondered.

Good question. The scene shifted again. Leo saw Octavian – that no-good blond scarecrow of an augur. He stood in a gas-station parking lot, surrounded by black SUVs and Roman demigods. He held up a long pole wrapped in canvas. When he uncovered it, a golden eagle glimmered at the top.

‘Oh, that’s not good,’ Leo said.

‘A Roman standard,’ Calypso noted.

‘Yeah. And this one shoots lightning, according to Percy.’

As soon as he said Percy’s name, Leo regretted it. He glanced at Calypso. He could see in her eyes how much she was struggling, trying to marshal her emotions into neat orderly rows like strands on her loom. What surprised Leo most was the surge of anger he felt. It wasn’t just annoyance or jealousy. He was mad at Percy for hurting this girl.

He refocused on the holographic images. Now he saw a single rider – Reyna, the praetor from Camp Jupiter – flying through a storm on the back of a light-brown pegasus. Reyna’s dark hair flew in the wind. Her purple cloak fluttered, revealing the glimmer of her armour. She was bleeding from cuts on her arms and face. Her pegasus’s eyes were wild, his mouth slathering from hard riding, but Reyna peered steadfastly forward into the storm.

As Leo watched, a wild gryphon dived out of the clouds. It raked its claws across the horse’s ribs, almost throwing Reyna. She drew her sword and slashed the monster down. Seconds later, three venti appeared – dark air spirits swirling like miniature tornadoes laced with lightning. Reyna charged them, yelling defiantly.

Then the bronze mirror went dark.

‘No!’ Leo yelled. ‘No, not now. Show me what happens!’ He banged on the mirror. ‘Calypso, can you sing again or something?’

She glared at him. ‘I suppose that is your girlfriend? Your Penelope? Your Elizabeth? Your Annabeth?’

‘What?’ Leo couldn’t figure this girl out. Half the stuff she said made no sense. ‘That’s Reyna. She’s not my girlfriend! I need to see more! I need –’

NEED, a voice rumbled in the ground beneath his feet. Leo staggered, suddenly feeling like he was standing on the surface of a trampoline.

NEED is an overused word. A swirling human figure erupted from the sand – Leo’s least favourite goddess, the Mistress of Mud, the Princess of Potty Sludge, Gaia herself.

Leo threw a pair of pliers at her. Unfortunately she wasn’t solid and they passed right through. Her eyes were closed, but she didn’t look asleep, exactly. She had a smile on her dust-devil face, as if she was intently listening to her favourite song. Her sandy robes shifted and folded, reminding Leo of the undulating fins on that stupid shrimpzilla monster they’d fought in the Atlantic. For his money, though, Gaia was uglier.

You want to live, Gaia said. You want to join your friends. But you do not need this, my poor boy. It would make no difference. Your friends will die, regardless.

Leo’s legs shook. He hated it, but whenever this witch appeared he felt like he was eight years old again, trapped in the lobby of his mom’s machine shop, listening to Gaia’s soothing evil voice while his mother was locked inside the burning warehouse, dying from heat and smoke.

‘What I don’t need,’ he growled, ‘is more lies from you, Dirt Face. You told me my great-granddad died in the 1960s. Wrong! You told me I couldn’t save my friends in Rome. Wrong! You told me a lot of things.’

Gaia’s laughter was a soft rustling sound, like gravel trickling down a hill in the first moments of an avalanche.

I tried to help you make better choices. You could have saved yourself. But you defied me at every step. You built your ship. You joined that foolish quest. Now you are trapped here, helpless, while the mortal world dies.

Leo’s hands burst into flame. He wanted to melt Gaia’s sandy face to glass. Then he felt Calypso’s hand on his shoulder.

‘Gaia.’ Her voice was stern and steady. ‘You are not welcome.’

Leo wished he could sound as confident as Calypso. Then he remembered that this annoying fifteen-year-old girl was actually the immortal daughter of a Titan.

Ah, Calypso. Gaia raised her arms as if for a hug. Still here, I see, despite the gods’ promises. Why do you think that is, my dear grandchild? Are the Olympians being spiteful, leaving you with no company except this undergrown fool? Or have they simply forgotten you, because you are not worth their time?

Calypso stared straight through the swirling face of Gaia, all the way to the horizon.

Yes, Gaia murmured sympathetically. The Olympians are faithless. They do not give second chances. Why do you hold out hope? You supported your father, Atlas, in his great war. You knew that the gods must be destroyed. Why do you hesitate now? I offer you a chance that Zeus would never give you.

‘Where were you these last three thousand years?’ Calypso asked. ‘If you are so concerned with my fate, why do you visit me only now?’

Gaia turned up her palms. The earth is slow to wake. War comes in its own time. But do not think it will pass you by on Ogygia. When I remake the world, this prison will be destroyed as well.

‘Ogygia destroyed?’ Calypso shook her head, as if she couldn’t imagine those two words going together.

You do not have to be here when that happens, Gaia promised. Join me now. Kill this boy. Spill his blood upon the earth, and help me to wake. I will free you and grant you any wish. Freedom. Revenge against the gods. Even a prize. Would you still have the demigod Percy Jackson? I will spare him for you. I will raise him from Tartarus. He will be yours to punish or to love, as you choose. Only kill this trespassing boy. Show your loyalty.

Several scenarios went through Leo’s head – none of them good. He was positive Calypso would strangle him on the spot, or order her invisible wind servants to chop him into a Leo purée.

Why wouldn’t she? Gaia was making her the ultimate deal – kill one annoying guy, get a handsome one free!

Calypso thrust her hand towards Gaia in a three-fingered gesture Leo recognized from Camp Half-Blood: the Ancient Greek ward against evil. ‘This is not just my prison, Grandmother. It is my home. And you are the trespasser.’

The wind ripped Gaia’s form into nothingness, scattering the sand into the blue sky.

Leo swallowed. ‘Uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but you didn’t kill me. Are you crazy?’

Calypso’s eyes smouldered with anger, but for once Leo didn’t think the anger was aimed at him. ‘Your friends must need you, or else Gaia would not ask for your death.’

‘I – uh, yeah. I guess.’

‘Then we have work to do,’ she said. ‘We must get you back to your ship.’
LII