LEO

It seemed that taking off was pretty much a useless move.

By the time I got to the deck, the dwarfs were being held by their feet with water and being shaken. Whatever they stole would fall off them and, while they struggled and squealed, their attempts to get free of keep a hold of items were useless.

"Woah," I murmured, stopping in my tracks, blocking the stairway. Soon, the others would bump into me, forcing me to move or fall forward.

"Do we have everything we need?" Percy asked, but you wouldn't be able to tell it was him if you didn't know it was his voice. His voice sounded as empty and hopeless as Nico. No offence to the son of Hades, of course.

"Uh well, I guess I'll check," I answered, starting to collect whatever was now lying on the floor in the dwarfs' bags.

I started to put aside whatever was ours—Piper's dagger, the Archimedes Sphere, and so on. While looking in the box, it occurred to me that Hazel had said something about finding a useful piece of treasure, though, whatever it was was beyond him. There was a bunch of treasure in the bags, ranging from coins to paper clips to foil wrappers. Whatever was shiny, they took.

I kept coming back to a couple of things that didn't seem to belong in the pile. One was an old bronze navigation device, like an astrolabe. It was badly damaged and seemed to be missing some pieces, but it was still very fascinating.

"Take it!" One of the dwarfs said. "Odysseus made it, you know! Take it and let us go!"

"Odysseus?" Jason asked, walking beside Leo. "Like, the Odysseus."

The dwarf nodded feverishly. "Yes! Made it when he was an old mad in Ithaca. One of his last inventions, and we stole it!"

"How does it work?" I asked.

"Oh, it doesn't," another dwarf said. "Something about a missing crystal?" He glanced at the first dwarf.

"'My biggest what-if,'" the dwarf said. "'Should have taken a crystal.' That's what he kept muttering in his sleep the night we stole it. No idea what he meant, but the shiny is yours! Can we go now?"

I wasn't sure why I wanted the astrolabe. It obviously didn't work, and I had no idea if it was what Hecate wanted us to find, but I took it anyways.

I turned my attention to the other strange pieces of loot—the leather bound book. Its title was in gold leaf, in a language I didn't understand, but nothing else about the book seemed shiny. I didn't think the dwarfs would be big bookworms.

"What's this?" I asked them. They seemed to be getting dazed from staying upside down.

"Nothing!" Dwarf 2 said. "Just a book. It had a pretty gold cover, so we took it from him."

"Him?" I asked.

The two dwarfs that I had been talking to exchanged a nervous look.

"Minor god," Dwarf 1 said. "In Venice. Really, it's nothing."

"Venice?" Percy piped up, walking to Leo's other side. "Isn't that where we're supposed to go next?"

"Yeah," I answered, examining the book. I couldn't read the text, but it had a lot of illustrations: scythes, plants, the sun, a team of oxen pulling a cart. I didn't know how any of it was important, but if the book had been stolen from a minor god in Venice—the next place Hecate had told us to go—then it had to be what we were looking for.

"Where exactly can we find this minor god?" I asked.

"No!" Dwarf 2 shrieked. "You can't take it back to him! If he finds out we stole it—"

"He'll destroy you," Jason guessed.

"Which is what we'll do if you don't tell us," Percy threatened, his voice low. He squeezed the water tentacles he had used to wrap around the dwarfs. "And we're a lot closer."

I didn't like this side of him. I had never seen Percy this mad before. The past couple days—sure, he's been upset and absolutely devastated about Annabeth, but he wasn't angry. Well, he didn't look angry… until now.

But now, I understood why he was angry. This was just some inconvenience to him—something deterring us from getting to the Doors and saving Annabeth as fast as we could. This was an obstacle, and he couldn't wait to get past it.

"Okay, okay!" Dwarf 2 shrieked at the pressure Percy was putting on him. When the dwarf surrendered, Percy loosened the pressure a bit. "La Casa Nera! Cale Frezzeria!"

"Is that an address?" Leo asked.

The two dwarfs nodded vigorously.

"Please don't tell him we stole it!" Dwarf 1 begged. "He isn't nice at all!"

"Who is he?" Percy interrogated. "What god?"

"I—I can't say—" Dwarf 1 was saying, but Percy tightened the grip around them again.

"You'd better," Percy growled.

"No!" Dwarf 1 said miserably. I was almost feeling sorry for him. "I mean, I really can't say. I can't pronounce it! Tr—tri—It's too hard!"

"Truh," Dwarf 2 tried. "Tru-toh—Too many syllables!"

They both burst into tears.

If I wasn't feeling bad for them before, I definitely was now. Looking at Jason, he kind of was too. When I looked at Percy, though—

Man, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was Percy.

His jaw was clenched and he glared at the two dwarfs so much that you'd think lasers would shoot out of his eyes to kill them. If looks could kill, the dwarfs should have been dead ten seconds ago.

"What do you want to do with them, Leo?" Jason asked. "Send them to Tartarus?" Beside him, Leo could see Percy wince at the name. For the most part, though, he held his angry stature.

"Could always drown them," Percy suggested.

Percy was scaring me. He didn't even sound like he was pretending to threaten them—he really meant it. If I had said yes, he'd do it without a second thought.

"Please no!" Dwarf 2 wailed. "It might take us weeks to come back!"

"Assuming Gaea even lets us!" Dwarf 1 sniffled. "She controls the Doors of Death now. She'll be very cross with us."

I looked at the dwarfs. I'd fought lots of monsters before, and I never felt bad about dissolving them. Looking at these little guys, though… It was different. I had to admit, I kinda admired them. They played cool pranks and liked shiny things—I could relate to that.

Besides, Annabeth was in Tartarus, hopefully still alive, trudging toward the Doors of Death. Sending these two little guys to face the same nightmarish problem… It didn't seem right. That, and if Annabeth would ever run into them, it would make her job ten times harder.

I imagined Gaea laughing at my weakness—a demigod too softhearted to kill monsters.

"Nothing can slow them down," I mused. "I wonder…"

"What?" Jason asked.

I looked at the dwarfs. "I'll make you a deal."

Dwarf 2 lit up. "We'll give you thirty percent and you let us go?"

"We'll leave you all your treasure except for what's ours, the astrolabe, and the book, which we'll take back to the dude in Venice—"

"But he'll destroy us!" Dwarf 1 wailed.

"We won't say where we got it," I promised. "And we'll let you go free, unharmed."

The two dwarfs rejoiced.

"But!" Leo interrupted their celebration. "In return, you have to do something for us. I'm going to send you somewhere to steal from some people, harass them, and make life hard for them any way you can. You have to follow my directions exactly. You have to swear on the River Styx."

"We swear!" Dwarf 1 agreed. "Stealing from people is our specialty!"

"I love harassment!" Dwarf 2 said. "Where are we going?"

Leo grinned. "Ever heard of New York?"