Sorry, this is a short chapter, but I was really busy today!
I love you guys, that's all I need to say. Oh yeah, and that I don't own PJO/HoO.
Enjoy and thanks for the reviews!
xx

Chapter fifty-three: The Right Doorway
~Leo's POV~

Entering the temple wasn't as easy as Leo had pictured it. There was not one, but three doors, all made of the same black stone, and all with a silver doorknob in the middle.
Somehow Leo knew he would have only one chance to open the correct one.
But which one was it?
Slowly, one after the other, Leo checked the doors out, letting his hands glide over their surface, trying to feel his way. They all felt the same, cold and smooth.
The only thing that distinguished them from one another was the way they made Leo feel.
Standing in front of the left door, Leo felt more confident, more trusting in his abilities. It was a great feeling. He wasn't worth any less than Jason or Percy, after all! He was just as much as a hero as them! With a grin on his face, Leo continued to the door in the middle.
As soon as he stopped before it, the confident feeling vanished, replaced by a sense of purpose.
Leo suddenly knew what the way to proceed was, how they would be able to defeat Gaia, how everyone of them could go home.
This enlightenment flashed through his mind so quickly, he couldn't grasp the ideas. Yet he knew that if he chose this door, the solutions would be his.
Before he walked over to the door on the right hand side, Leo hesitated. So far he had little idea which way was the right one. The confidence on the left would help him in battle, and make him believe in his ability to save Penelope. The middle door would offer him solutions, and so far he was more inclined to chose that one. Yet he didn't want to chose without having tested every door,
and so he walked over to the right hand side.
The moment he put his hand on the knob, Leo knew this was the correct door. This was the way he should go, and without hesitation or consideration of the other options, he turned the doorknob and
pushed the heavy stone door open.
Inside Leo could see a dark hallway, lit only by torches with the kind of flames Penelope could produce, except they were completely purple and not blue-tinted.
A shiver ran down Leo's spine as he stepped inside the temple of Hecate.
Shouldn't there be any guardians or something? he wondered. Somehow the lack of security made him more nervous rather than reassure him, and he walked along the corridor with slow, careful footsteps.
Behind him, he could hear the stone door shut, yet he kept his eyes straight ahead.
After a few minutes he relaxed a tiny bit, just enough to notice the markings on the walls.
Odd symbols, people and weird writing covered the walls, but it didn't look like a mess. Instead, it looked like a giant well calculated plan, stretching on for ever, and Leo got the feeling that the whole fate of the world was hidden in these walls.
He knew Annabeth would go crazy if she could see him now, walking along side what was probably more wisdom than any library could ever hold, and not even stopping to decipher some of it.
But Leo had a purpose here, and it was not trying to make sense of magic formulas.
The longer he walked along the corridor, the more he got the feeling that he wasn't actually making any headway.
His mind started to wander as his steps got more monotonous, and he found himself thinking back to the days before the Argo II had sailed for Camp Jupiter, when everything had been so good.
Somehow his mind came up with Chleo's face, and Leo felt a wrench in his gut as he thought about the fact that Chleo had been right with her dark prediction after all. Penelope had gotten killed.
But now Leo would bring her back. There was simply no other option.
The thought of Chleo made Leo's mind wander back to Hecate herself. Personally, Leo didn't understand why the goddess of magic wasn't the most powerful one of the Olympians. She could
control the Mist, for Zeus' sake!
The Mist... With a jolt, Leo stopped in his tracks. He'd been so observed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed he was still walking along the same corridor.
Or so it seemed.
The moment he thought that, the walls around him started to melt. The torches took to the air,
floating ghostlike above his head, underneath a ceiling strewn with stars and one crescent moon.
If he hadn't known it was day outside, Leo would have thought the ceiling was open to the sky.
His surroundings had now shifter into an odd, circular chamber, and as Leo watched, little balls of light formed in mid-air, as big as oranges maybe, but glowing a pale white-blue light. He was tempted to touch one of them, but decided it would be best not to.
In the centre of the room stood a black marble altar, and on it lay...a pendant necklace.
Without thinking, Leo rushed forwards, but before he could reach out for the altar and the piece of jewellery on it, a figure materialised before him, a figure which emanated such an aura of power, Leo backed away, completely taken aback.
"Hecate." he whispered, awe-struck.
The goddess had sleek, dark purple hair which flowed down her back. She looked beautiful and completely timeless, the way gods always seemed to do.
Her face was pale, so much it almost glowed, and her eyes were a bright shade of silver. They were
regarding Leo with an emotion he couldn't read, and he found that holding her gaze for long was
difficult. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Leo noted how much Penelope resembled her mother.
Then the goddess spoke, her voice calm and just as ageless as her face1:
"Yes, Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus. I am somewhat surprised to see you here. My defences did not stop you then. But your trials are not over yet, I fear. Now tell me, what do you seek in this most
sacred of places."
For a moment Leo couldn't find the will to speak. The goddess was so...divine, as weird as that sounded, that he felt insignificant and small in comparison.
But he knew he must answer if he were to save Penelope, and so he spoke, looking Hecate
straight in the eye with difficulty.
"I'm here for your daughter. I've come to bring Penelope back to life."