──── chapter twelve

{ ☀️ } · speak now . ݁ ٬٬ ࣪

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL DIDN'T WANT TO let an unscheduled helicopter land at the Oakland Airport ─ until Piper got on the radio. Then it turned out to be no problem. They unloaded on the tarmac, and everyone looked at Piper.

"What now?" Jason asked her.

Piper looked at them, a bit uncomfortable. Madeline could see the conflict rising inside Piper's body on what she was to do ─ go with her dad or save the goddess. Today was the solstice. They had to save Hera. They had no idea where to go or if they were even too late.

"First thing," she said. "I-I have to get my dad home. I'm sorry, guys."

Madeline smiled softly, "Don't worry. Your father needs you the most right now. We can take it from here."

"Pipes, no." Piper's dad had been sitting in the helicopter doorway, a blanket around his shoulders. But he stumbled tohis feet. "You have a mission. A quest. I can't ─ "

"I'll take care of him," said Coach Hedge.

Everyone turned towards Coach Hedge.

"You?" Piper asked.

"I'm a protector," Gleeson said. "That's my job, not fighting." then Hedge straightened, and set his jaw. "Of course, I'm good at fighting, too." he glared at them all, daring them to argue.

"Yes," Jason said.

"Terrifying," Leo agreed.

The coach grunted. "But I'm a protector, and I can do this. Your dad's right, Piper. You need to carry on with the quest."

"But. . . Dad. . ." he held out his arms, and she hugged him.

"Let's give them a minute," Jason said, and they took the pilot a few yards down the tarmac.

Madeline walked ahead of Jason and Leo, back to a place they hid beforehand, away from the mess that they caused. She leaned down to grab onto the cardigan that was thrown away earlier, the blisters on her back hurting just a bit as she bent down. She cursed herself, her eyes finding her backpack where all her necessities were. 

Sitting onto the ground, her fingers moved towards the zipper, opening the bag and reaching inside, her hand disappearing like many times before, going into the depths of her bag. She thanks Endora every day for charming her backpack so she could fit as many things as she wanted with little to no weight on her shoulders as she carried it around. She felt the bag where her ambrosia was, pulling it out with a sigh of relief. The cubes where smushed, but the godly food never went bad. Taking small piece of it, her tongue felt the familiar taste of cinnamon rolls, ones Austin's mother, Latricia Lake, makes for her when she visits their home in Oberlin.

"You okay?" a voice asked from above her and Madeline looked up at the newcomer. Jason had his lips pressed into a thin line as he gazed at her, hands inside his pockets. He had a guilty look on his face as he spoke, "I never got to thank you back there." he crouched down and sat in front of her, "For saving my life."

"It's okay," Madeline said, backing back the leftover ambrosia, "There's nothing to thank me for. I will always protect my friends. . . if we are that even. . ." her voice became small by the end.

Jason pursed his lips, his eyebrows furrowing slightly, "Of course we are. Why would we not be?"

How can he ask such thing? Was he not mad with her for not telling the truth? If he wasn't, why was he ignoring her all the way here, why was he just trying to keep the would from bleeding more by covering it with more lies as a bandage? It was confusing her so much. He was confusing her. . . and she didn't like that. She couldn't read him like the rest. And it irked her that she couldn't.

"I can't say I was not surprised when you said you knew what we will deal with when we come here," Jason said, resting his arm on his bent knee, "But I should have figured it out when you said you can see the future in your dreams during the campfire. Don't know why it took us so long to piece everything together."

Madeline let a laugh escape her, "People sometime don't really listen to me."

"They don't?" the blonde raised his eyebrow.

She shook her head, "I'm not Annabeth or Endora, I'm not seen as a leader. Even now as a Head Counselor of my cabin, people don't really view me as such, only my siblings and people that know me. . . And honestly, I'm okay with that. It's better when people don't know rather when they do."

"Why do you think like so?" Jason asked, wanting to know more about the girl in front of him. He felt something pulling him towards her, something he couldn't identify, and he wasn't afraid of it; maybe scared just a bit, but it was from the unknown of it. 

"With more people that I get close to, the more I'll know," Madeline confessed, "It's how my curse, power, whatever you want to call it works. It's not some random visions that I get, but it's those of people that I care the most. . . either that or some weird ones that I won't speak of because they're embarrassing."

"Have you ever had a vision of. . . ?" his voice trailed and Madeline squinted her eyes in disgust and nodded her head. Jason breathed out a laugh, "Wow. . . It's not one of your siblings. . ." the look she gave him said it all, "oh, it was."

"I want to forget it," the girl mumbled and Jason fully laughed now.

Madeline looked at him and couldn't help a smile adore her face too.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment, capturing his eyes with her own.

"About what?" he asked so innocently.

"About hiding the truth," Madeline breathed out, "I do know where you come from and who you truly are, but gods. . . do gods like to mess my life. They forbade me from saying anything, making me swear on the river Styx I won't say the truth to anyone ─ anyone expect Chiron. And it hunts me that I cannot tell you or Dora or Beth, but I want to and I feel like such a bad fucking person and ─ "

"Hey," Jason said softly, leaning towards her more and grabbing a hold on her hand. He was so close to her she could feel his breath gently fanning her lips, "It's not your fault. It's not. It's theirs."

"But, Jason ─ "

The boy shook his head, "It's their fault, Mads. They made this mess, not you. And I know, I believe you want to say everything you know but we don't know what that will do for our future. Maybe things could change if you say them now. I don't blame you for not speaking about it. I never will. So, please, don't blame yourself, okay? Please don't."

He was pretty, she could never deny that ─ not in her dreams, not in real life before her. She found many people beautiful around her, but something about the boy sitting in front of her made her heart flutter, made butterflies swarm inside her stomach and made her feel like she was the only girl alive when he looks at her. He made her feel. . . something she couldn't figure out just yet.

They were so close. . .

"Guys," Leo's voice called for the two of them and the pair instantly backed away and averted their gazes. His face appeared behind the wall of rock where they were sitting, his eyes looked from one to another, eyebrow raised, "Was I interrupting something?"

"No!" Jason voiced ever so quickly and Madeline cleared her throat, pulling the cardigan over her scarred skin, "Not at all."

"Okay. . ." the son of Hephaestus said in a suspicious tone, not believe the blonde's words, "The plane is about to go and Piper needs all the help now."

"Yeah, of course," Madeline nodded, accepting Jason's hand that pulled her up and they walked back towards where Piper and her father were saying their goodbyes.

Hedge and the flight attendant got Piper's dad on board. Then Hedge came down one last time to say his good-byes. He gave Piper and Madeline a hug and glared at Jason and Leo. "You cupcakes take care of these girls, you hear? Or I'm gonna make you do push-ups."

"You got it, Coach," Leo said, a smile tugging at his mouth.

"No push-ups," Jason promised.

Piper gave the old satyr one more hug. "Thank you, Gleeson. Take care of him, please."

"I got this, McLean," he assured her. "They got root beer and veggie enchiladas on this flight, and one hundred percent linen napkins ─ yum! I could get used to this."

Trotting up the stairs, he lost one shoe, and his hoof was visible for just a second. The flight attendant's eyes widened, but she looked away and pretended nothing was wrong. Piper figured she'd probably seen stranger things, working for Tristan McLean. 

When the plane was heading down the runaway, Piper started to cry. She'd been holding it in too long and she just couldn't anymore. Madeline opened her arms for the girl and Piper instantly fell into them, hiding her face behind the layers of the girl's hair. 

"Easy, just breath. Slow and easy," Madeline said, her hand resting on Piper's head, "Your dad's in good hands. And you did amazing, really amazing."

Piper sobbed into her cardigan, before she took in deep breaths, calming herself down, "Thank you, guys," she said. "I ─ "

She wanted to tell them how much they meant to her. They'd sacrificed everything, maybe even their quest, to help her. She couldn't repay them, couldn't even put her gratitude into words. But her friends' expressions told her they understood.

Then, right next to Jason, the air began to shimmer. At first Piper thought it was heat off the tarmac, or maybe gas fumes from the helicopter, but she'd seen something like this before in Medea's fountain. It was an Iris message. An image appeared in the air ─ a dark-haired girl in silver winter camouflage, holding a bow. 

Jason stumbled back in surprise. "Thalia!"

"Thank the gods," said the Hunter. The scene behind her was hard to make out, but Madeline heard yelling, metal clashing on metal, and explosions. "We've found her! Where are you?"

"Oakland," he said. "Where are you?"

"The Wolf House! Oakland is good; you're not too far. We're holding off the giant's minions, but we can't hold them forever. Get here before sunset, or it's all over."

"Then it's not too late?" Piper cried.

"Not yet," Thalia said. "But Jason ─ it's worse than I realized. Porphyrion is rising. Hurry."

"But where is the Wolf House?" he pleaded.

"Our last trip," Thalia said, her image starting to flicker. "The park. Jack London. Remember?"

Jason looked like he'd been shot. He tottered, his face pale, and the Iris message disappeared.

"Dude, you all right?" Leo asked. "You know where she is?"

"Yes," Jason said. "Sonoma Valley. Not far. Not by air."

Piper turned to the ranger pilot, who'd been watching all this with an increasingly puzzled expression. "Ma'am," Piper said with her best smile. "You don't mind helping us one more time, do you?"

"I don't mind," the pilot agreed.

"We can't take a mortal into battle," Madeline shook her head, "It's too dangerous."

Jason turned to Leo. "Do you think you could fly this thing?"

"Um. . ." Leo's expression didn't exactly reassure Madeline. But then he put his hand on the side of the helicopter, concentrating hard, as if listening to the machine. "Bell 412HP utility helicopter. Composite four blade main rotor, cruising speed twenty-two knots, service ceiling twenty-thousand feet. The tank is near full. Sure, I can fly it."

Piper smiled at the ranger again. "You don't have a problem with an under-aged unlicensed kid borrowing your copter, do you? We'll return it."

I ─ " the pilot nearly choked on the words, but she got them out: "I don't have a problem with that."

Leo grinned. "Hop in, kids. Uncle Leo's gonna take you fora ride."

"I hated that so much." Madeline scrunched up her nose

FLY A HELICOPTER? SURE, WHY NOT. Leo had done plenty of crazier things that week.

The sun was going down as they flew north over the Richmond Bridge, and Leo couldn't believe the day had gone so quickly. Once again, nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly.

Piloting the chopper, he went back and forth between confidence and panic. If he didn't think about it, he found himself automatically flipping the right switches, checking the altimeter, easing back on the stick, and flying straight. If he allowed himself to consider what he was doing, he started freaking out. He imagined his Aunt Rosa yelling at him in Spanish, telling him he was a delinquent lunatic who was going to crash and burn. Part of him suspected she was right. 

"Going okay?" Piper asked from the copilot's seat. She sounded more nervous than he was, so Leo put on a brave face.

"Aces," he said. "So what's the Wolf House?"

Jason knelt between their seats with Madeline resting herself on his back so she could see them too, "An abandoned mansion in the Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it ─ Jack London."

"He an actor?"

"Writer," Piper said. "Adventure stuff, right? Call of the Wild? White Fang?"

"Yeah," Jason said. "He was a son of Mercury ─ I mean, Hermes."

"No, Mercury, you said it correctly," Madeline nodded, giving Jason's arm a slight squeeze. Leo couldn't help but look between the pair with suspicious eyes. Something definitely happened before he interrupted them earlier.

"Yeah, he was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion ─ the Wolf House."

"Named that 'cause he wrote about wolves?" Leo guessed.

"Partially," Jason said. "But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves ─ he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There're a lot of holes in his life story ─ how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much ─ stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod."

The bay slipped behind them, and the helicopter continued north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as Madeline could see.

"So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood," Leo guessed.

"No," Jason said. "No, he didn't."

Madeline pursed her lips.

"Are you remembering your past or not?" Leo asked.

"Pieces," Jason said, side-eyeing Madeline just a bit. "Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It's where London started his journey as a child ─ where he found out he was a demigod. That's why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn't meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site."

"So," Piper said, "how do you know all this?"

A shadow crossed Jason's face. Probably just a cloud, but Leo could swear the shape looked like an eagle.

"I started my journey there too," Jason said. "It's a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion ─ that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully."

The helicopter shuddered. Metal creaked. Leo leveled out the chopper, and the creaking stopped.

"Thirty minutes out," Leo told them. "If you want to get some rest, now's a goodtime."

Madeline sat back into her seat as Jason strapped himself into the back of the helicopter and the girl laid her head on his shoulder, both of them falling asleep almost immediately.

Piper and Leo stayed wide awake. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Leo said, "Your dad'll be fine, you know. Nobody's gonna mess with him with that crazy goat around."

Piper glanced over, and Leo was struck by how much she'd changed. Not just physically. Her presence was stronger. She seemed more. . . here. At Wilderness School she'd spent the semester trying not to be seen, hiding out in the back row of the classroom, the back of the bus, the corner of the lunchroom as far as possible from the loud kids. Now she would be impossible to miss. It didn't matter what she was wearing ─ you'd have to look at her.

"My dad," she said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know. I was thinking about Jason. I'm worried about him."

Leo nodded. The closer they got to that bank of dark clouds, the more Leo worried, too.

"He's starting to remember. That's got to make him a little edgy."

"But what if. . . what if he's a different person?"

Leo had had the same thought. If the Mist could affect their memories, could Jason's whole personality be an illusion, too? If their friend wasn't their friend, and they were heading into a cursed mansion ─ a dangerous place for demigods ─ what would happen if Jason's full memory came back in the middle of a battle?

"Nah," Leo decided. "After all we've been through? I can't see it. We're a team. Jason can handle it."

Piper smoothed her blue dress, which was tattered and burned from their fight on Mount Diablo. "I hope you're right. I need to trust him."

"I know," Leo said. After seeing her dad break down, Leo understood Piper couldn't afford to lose Jason as well. She'd just watched Tristan McLean, her cool suave movie star dad, reduced to near insanity. Leo could barely stand to watch that, but for Piper ─ Wow, Leo couldn't even imagine. He figured that would make her insecure about herself, too. If weakness was inherited, she'd be wondering, could she break down the same way her dad did?

"Hey, don't worry," Leo said. "Piper, you're the strongest, most powerful beauty queen I've ever met. You can trust yourself. For what it's worth, you can trust me too. And Madeline too, she's proven that she can be trusted. I have no clue what she has been through, but it seems a lot. I can tell she's closed off and everything with her curse. . . I would be like that too."

Piper hummed, "I can't imagine what she has gone though, what she's going though. Having gods forbid her from saying something important to her friends. . . I can only imagine the guilt she must be feeling when, in fact, she should not. It's not her fault."

"Yeah," Leo voiced, "But she's probably thinking it is. . ." for a second, Leo thought of saying what he heard as he walked towards the rock wall where he found the pair, but, with better judgment, he decided against it. Madeline would say it when she's comfortable saying such things.

It was a comfortable silence that fell upon them before they hit the storm clouds.

"An ice storm?" Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

Madeline and Jason woke up quickly. They crawled forward, grabbing their seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."

Suddenly it wasn't so easy to drive the chopper. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude. Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.

"There!" Jason shouted.

A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Leo of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.

Leo set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. They were about to relax when they heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.

"Out!" Leo screamed.

They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Madeline off her feet. She landed on something soft, her body sprawled upon Jason's when she looked down at him. His cheeks were dusted pink and she could feel hers were too.  

She quickly got to her feet and looked around, her eyes widening when she saw that the world's largest snowball ─ a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage ─ had completely flattened the Bell 412.

"You guys all right?" Jason and Madeline ran up to Leo and Piper.

"Yeah." Leo shivered. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."

Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." then she frowned. "No. . . it's all around us."

She was right.

The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House. Behind them loomed Jack London's dream home ─ a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. Leo could imagine how it had looked before it burned down ─ a combination log cabin and castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel.

"Jason!" a girl's voice called. Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre ─ one of the Earthborn ─ burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

"Look out!" Leo yelled.

They rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.

Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off. "That was my last one." she kicked the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre."

"Nice shot, though," Leo said.

Thalia ignored him as usual. She hugged Jason nodded to Piper, but the look she gave Madeline was one of both hurt and understanding as they wrapped arms around each other.

"I'm sorry," Madeline said, unwrapping herself from the Hunter.

The daughter of Zeus shook her head, a soft smile on her face, "Don't apologize, you're not to blame. . . Fiona told me everything and I don't want to hear you saying you blame yourself." she turned towards the rest, "My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute." 

"By Earthborn?" Jason asked.

"And wolves ─ Lycaon's minions." Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits ─ "

"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.

"Who tried to kill us," Leo reminded her. "Maybe he's helping Gaea again."

"I don't know," Thalia said. "But the monsters keep reforming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera."

"Where is she?" Jason asked.

"Inside," Thalia said. "We tried to free her, but we can't figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Hera soon ─ "

She didn't need to finish the thought. Madeline, Leo, Jason, and Piper followed her into the ruined mansion.

Jason stepped over the threshold and immediately collapsed.

"Hey!" Leo caught him. "None of that, man. What's wrong?"

"This place. . ." Jason shook his head. "Sorry. . . It came rushing back to me."

"So you have been here," Piper said.

"We both have," Thalia said. Her expression was grim, like she was reliving someone's death. "This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared."

"She gave me to the wolves," Jason murmured. "At Hera's insistence. She gave me to Lupa."

"That part I didn't know." Thalia frowned. "Who is Lupa?"

An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.

"Maybe this isn't the time for questions," Leo suggested. "Show us the goddess."

Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.

One of the spires was much bigger ─ a solid dark mass about twenty feet high. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils she could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck ─ rising.

On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Isa doubted she could've gotten her arm through. Still, she could see inside.

"Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?" Leo said.

She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"

Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste ─ or maybe she was looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it was up to me, I'd just leave her in there."

"I highly agree on that," Madeline hummed, crossing her arms, "Maybe we'll finally have peace."

"Ohh, you two," the goddess said angrily. "When I get out ofhere, you'll both be sorry you were ever born."

"Save it!" Thalia snapped. "You've been nothing but acurse to every child of Zeus for ages."

"You're not quiet nice to the rest of us too," Madeline added.

"What have I done to you, Madeline You?" the goddess asked with a glare.

"I don't know, sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friends ─ "

"They were disrespectful!"

"You dropped a statue on my legs." Thalia said.

"It was an accident!"

"You were willing to let Dora fall into Titans' hands!"

"She will be the death of us if we don't do something."

"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracked with emotion. "Here ─ on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!"

"Hey," Jason intervened. "Thalia ─ Sis ─ I know. But this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters."

Thalia clenched her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it." she turned, leaped out of the pool, and stormed from the building.

Leo turned to Hera with grudging respect. "Intestinally challenged cows?"

"Focus on the cage, Leo," she grumbled. "And Jason ─ you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."

"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?"

He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag. Was Isa imagining it, or had it grown taller since they'd gotten here?

"That, Jason," Hera said, "is the king of the giants being reborn."

Madeline made a disgusted face, "Gross."

"Indeed," Hera said. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again ─ my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."

"So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guessed. "Or fertilizer."

The goddess glared at him, but Leo didn't seem care.

"Joke all you wish," Hera said in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken."

Leo frowned at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?"

"Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."

"Done that once today," Jason said.

"Just hurry up and let me out!" Hera demanded.

"Do we have to?" Madeline asked under her breath.

"Do not tempt me, girl."

Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do it?"

"I don't know." Leo tried not to panic. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"

Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. "Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you're intelligent. Once trapped, a god's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg ─ beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."

"Sounds fair," Leo said.

Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."

"But it's not a machine. It's like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and. . . Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."

The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, Madeline's lips cracked and her breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in ─ but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Madeline pulled off her earrings and let her bow appear in her hands, the quiver full of arrows on her back. Piper drew her dagger. Jason grabbed an ice-covered plank off the pool floor. Leo reached into his tool belt, but he was so shaken up, all he produced was a tin of breath mints.

One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see ─ a nice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

"Thalia!"

Jason rushed forward, but Madeline, Piper and Leo pulled him back. The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice. Madeline feared if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.

"Who did this?" Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. "I'll kill you myself!"

From somewhere behind the monsters, Leo heard a girl's laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded them with those deep brown eyes Leo had thought were so beautiful in Quebec.

"Bon soir, mes amis," said Khione. She gave Leo a frosty smile. "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I'm afraid time is one tool you do not have."

"Fucking bitch."