84 reviews! You guys rock! :DDD Congrats to fabulouslaughter, who was 75th! And thank you so so so much to the rest of you, too! :DDDDD

Anyway . . . eight days . . . That's close enough to a week . . . right?

Sorry about the slow update; I'm kind of making this up as I go along. . . . But I still hope to finish this before House of Hades comes out. (Although I'm kind of doubting that it'll happen. :P)

Also, you might have noticed that I changed the rating to T. I just kind of realized that getting whipped and tortured probably counts as T-rated material, and there may or may not be more cursing later on, so I decided this should be T, just in case. ;)

That's all! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: "Hello, dearest readers. I do not own PJO. I am not Rick Riordan. Not male. Don't have gray hair. Don't have a book published. I claim rights to nothing except the plot." *pause* "This message will be repeated for each chapter. Please leave a message after the tone."

Part VI

Percy had thought that yesterday's victory would be exciting enough to ward off any lingering memories of Tartarus. But that had obviously been wishful thinking.

He had panicked at lunch today, somehow believing that his burger was attacking him. He had stabbed it with the closest butter knife before Annabeth had managed to calm him down. An hour later, he had been sitting on deck when a pigeon landed next to him. Instantly he had jumped to his feet and drawn his sword, sure that it was a Stymphalian menace. Once again, it had taken Annabeth to make him see sense.

Percy felt like an idiot—which, okay, was pretty normal for him, but this was different. It was irrational, like his stupid fear of water had been after his quest to Alaska. If there was one good thing about his trip to Tartarus, he had stopped being hydrophobic—the fact that there was hardly any water in Tartarus made him realize how much he loved it—but that had just been replaced with these crazy hallucinations.

Annabeth could bring him back to reality, but that was another part of the problem. He was supposed to be taking care of her. He was supposed to be the invincible boyfriend, strong enough to ward off armies of monsters and the terrors of darkness. How could he fulfill that requirement if he turned into a nutcase?

Everyone said he would get back to normal soon, but Percy knew they were just trying to be supportive. He could stop hallucinating tomorrow, or next week, or never. Nobody had any clue how to help him.

That was why when the first bird-monster attacked, Percy didn't think to sound the alarm. He figured it was just another figment of his imagination.

Then it clawed his shoulder, and Percy felt the blood running down his arm. It wasn't a hallucination after all.

Once again, Percy felt like an idiot. He jumped backwards to put some distance between them, grabbed his pen out of his pocket, and uncapped it. The weight of the sword felt comfortable in his hand. He had been fighting monsters for years. It was one of the few things he was good at. He could take this flying bird-thing easily.

So he did. The next time it swooped towards him, Percy reached up and sliced it in half. Yellow dust rained down on his head, and for a moment, Percy allowed himself to relax. Then the rest of the flock flew in.

There was no time to get his friends or call for help. Everyone else was downstairs, eating dinner, the ship was on autopilot, and Percy needed every ounce of breath he had to dodge attacks and swipe back. He fought alone, shrugging off cuts and coughing up feathers. As he twisted and turned, other monsters seemed to appear in the mix—a hydra here, a Laistrygonian there—but somehow, Percy could tell that they weren't real. Maybe their skin didn't reflect the setting sun like the birds' feathers did. Maybe their eyes didn't gleam quite right. Whatever it was, it distinguished them from the real enemies, and Percy didn't bother with them. He just slashed apart the birds.

In maybe five minutes, the flock was gone, and golden dust was drifting through the air. Only then did Percy realize what had just happened. He had separated real monsters from hallucinations. He had realized what was imaginary. Did that mean—was there hope for him after all? The thought was almost too good to be true.

Suddenly, the door from belowdecks banged open. Percy whirled around at the noise, and for a second, it looked like a Cyclops was barreling towards him. He hefted his sword in his hand, ready to strike—and then he realized how ridiculous he was being. There were no monsters inside the ship! He squinted, concentrating on the vision. Slowly, the frizz of brown hair on the monster's head darkened and resolved into a stricter military cut. Its skin lightened. The single red eye split into two dark brown ones.

"Frank!" Percy said in relief, quickly sheathing his sword. "What's up?"

The son of Mars skidded to a stop in front of him. "Why are you covered in feath—? Never mind. Come with me. Your camp friends are Iris-messaging us inside—they say it's urgent."

"Leo! Leo, wake up."

The son of Hephaestus blinked up at her with bloodshot eyes. "Oh, hey . . . Reyna . . . " he said groggily. "What're you doing?"

"You look awful, Leo," she said, getting straight to the point. "Your skin is pale, you're sweating, and you were shivering in your sleep. How do you feel?"

"I'm"—his whole body shook, and Leo gasped when his back hit a rock—"fine."

Reyna shook her head. "Why do I not believe you?"

He grinned weakly. "You know . . . I look fine, Praetor. . . . You're just . . . in denial. It happens . . . to the best of us. You'll come around . . . eventually."

"What? I don't even know what you mean by that. . . ." Reyna said, trying not to turn red. "Look, Valdez, you can't even string a full sentence together. You're obviously delirious. I'm worried that the cuts on your back are infected or something."

"Worried . . . about me . . . ?" Leo muttered. "How . . . sweet. . . ."

"Oh my gods," she said, hoping the darkness hid her blush. "Since you're delirious, I'll forgive you this once. But next time, Gaea won't be the only one trying to kill you."

"Fair . . . enough . . . reina," he said.

"Don't call me that," she snapped.

"What?" he asked innocently. "That's your name . . . isn't it?"

Reyna had to refrain from smacking him. "You are an idiot."

He grinned. "Why . . . thank you . . . Praet—" Before he could finish, he spasmed again. This time, his head cracked against a stone, and he winced.

All thoughts of being angry with the repair boy flew out of Reyna's brain. She lifted his head and unwrapped his bandages, checking to see if he'd done any more damage. Unfortunately, he had. Most of the blood matting his hair had clotted by the time Reyna had dressed his wound, but now a wet dark substance was coating the remains of her cloak. Some of it got on her fingers, warm and sticky, and Reyna frowned. Fresh blood. Even with her very limited medical knowledge, she was sure that could not be a good sign for head wounds.

Not knowing what else to do, Reyna wrapped up Leo's head again, worrying about how clammy his skin felt. She had used her cloak for bandages because it was the cleanest thing in Tartarus, but even it had been coated in its fair share of dirt and grime. It was entirely possible that bacteria had invaded Leo's body. Maybe if she could just wash out his injuries, he would get better, but there was no water in Tartarus . . . was there?

Reyna turned to the two empousae standing guard on either side of the clearing. "We need to get to the closest water source," she said bluntly.

The closest vampire-monster bared her fangs. "Why?"

"Leo's back is infected. I have to clean his injuries with fresh water."

"So?" the other empousa laughed. "He is a prisoner. His health is of no concern to us."

"No concern, other than the fact that you need him alive to be sacrificed on August 1st," Reyna countered. "You can't kill a demigod on an altar if he's already dead. And if I don't get him to water, Leo isgoing to die."

The nearest monster hesitated. "We must ask the mistress—" she began.

"No time," Reyna interrupted. "I need a quick decision to be made here, vampires. I have to wash out his back as soon as possible. The longer I wait, the worse he'll get." As if to prove her story, Leo shivered violently and let out a rasping cough. Reyna waited until he calmed again before continuing. "See what I mean? If you don't lead us there now, Leo will die, and you will have no male demigod to sacrifice in Athens. And then what will your mistress think?"

They hesitated. Leo coughed some more. "The clock is ticking, vampires," Reyna said, trying not to sound desperate. "We need to get going now."

The farther empousa fixed her with a deadly red glare. "We will lead you to the hot spring," she said slowly, "but if you try to escape, we will find you even faster than before. And this time," she added with a fang-filled grin, "the son of Hephaestus will not be able to volunteer to be punished in your stead. Do you understand?"

The thought of escape hadn't even crossed Reyna's mind. They couldn't escape if Leo was too weak to stand on his own. "I understand," she said immediately.

"Good," the nearest monster said. "Then we will fetch a Cyclops to carry this godspawn."

And they did. Within minutes, Leo's chain was clasped to the Cyclops's arm, and he was dangling limply six feet off the ground. Reyna's chain was attached to two different chains that clamped onto both of the empousae's legs. The first empousa gave Reyna one last warning about trying to run off—like she could even try without dragging the two vampires along with her—and they set off.

When Percy walked into the dining room, Annabeth watched as the expressions on the camp counselors' faces lightened by ten notches.

She knew exactly how they felt.

Percy did a double take. "Gods . . ." he said. "You're all here!"

"Forget that, Percy," Grover bleated. "You're there!"

Clarisse glared at him. "All this time, and not a single IM. You're inconsiderate as Styx, Jackson."

Percy raised his eyebrows. "What? Do my ears mislead me? Was Clarisse la Rue worried about me?"

"We were all concerned at least a little bit," Travis put in, "but Clarisse was the first to go search for you."

"Yeah, if storming through the woods yelling, 'Jackson, stop scaring your girlfriend and get your sorry insert-some-colorful-language-here back to camp' counts as searching," Connor snickered.

Now Clarisse directed her glare towards the Stolls. "As soon as this meeting's over, I'm going to haul you two outside and kick your sorry a—"

"No you won't," Katie interrupted quietly.

Clarisse stared at her, eyes blazing. "Gardner, you're nice and all, and I know you have a thing for Travis, but you can't stop me when they just—"

"It's not that," Katie insisted, blushing furiously. "Gods, that's not even true. It's just . . . we . . . you know . . . need all our fighters to be in good condition right now."

"Yeah," Travis said, grinning and leaning towards her, "but you know you have a thing for me too, Katie."

"Absolutely n—"

"Wait!" Percy said, holding a hand up and furrowing his eyebrows. "Why do you need all your fighters to be in good condition?"

The mood sobered again. Seeing Percy alive and well had relieved the counselors (plus Grover, who was there as a Lord of the Wild) temporarily, but his question brought the situation back into focus.

Clarisse was the first to answer. "It's those idiotic Romans," she spit out.

Instantly, Katie looked at Frank and Hazel. "She doesn't mean you," she clarified kindly.

"No," Clarisse growled, "I mean that stupid kid with that stupid straw hair and those stupid stuffed animals."

"Octavian?" Annabeth asked in surprise. They had refrained from discussing the reason for the IM until everyone (read: Percy) was in the room. She was just as confused as everyone else. "What's he up to now?"

"What's he up to?" Clarisse raged, chucking a pencil across the room. "I'll tell you what he's up to. The damn Roman is leading his legion to march on our camp in two flipping days!"

"His legion?" Hazel asked, frowning. The same thought was on Annabeth's mind—and on everyone else's in the room, judging from their expressions. "But . . . isn't Reyna still in charge?"

"Not anymore, she's not," Clarisse proclaimed. "According to that psychopath, she's missing, presumed dead. And the idiot would have the Romans believe that we killed her! Can you believe that?"

"Considering that it's Octavian," Frank muttered, "yeah. I can believe it."

"But I don't understand," Hazel said slowly. "Reyna is missing?"

A cold hand closed around Annabeth's heart. "She's not really missing," she said slowly. "I have a feeling I know exactly where she is."

Everyone in the room looked at Annabeth, their eyes wide. "You're not saying . . ." Jason said finally.

"You know exactly what she's saying, Jason," Nico said grimly. "We warned Camp Half-Blood about the fact that Gaea wanted a girl sacrifice. But nobody told the legion."

"In other words," Annabeth said, "Gaea killed two birds with one stone. She made sure the Romans would attack Camp Half-Blood and got her sacrifice. She kidnapped Reyna and brought her into Tartarus as well."

"Styx," Piper said softly. "Now Leo's really done for."

Jake, who was filling in the head counselor spot in Leo's absence, shook his head. "If this Reyna doesn't find a way back to the surface in two days . . ." he started.

Clarisse finished. "We all are."

The whole journey took maybe half an hour, but with Leo shaking and moaning the entire time, it felt much longer. Reyna fretted helplessly. He had been so selfless, lying to protect her from getting whipped like that. . . . If he died from those wounds, Reyna wasn't sure she would ever forgive herself.

Lost in her thoughts, Reyna didn't notice when the monsters stopped, and she nearly crashed into the monster in front of her before she managed to halt. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. If she had even brushed it, the empousa might have thought she was attacking her and killed her as a reflex.

"We are here," the empousa announced.

Reyna bit her tongue to hold back a stupid retort like "Really? I thought we were stopping to pick daisies". That could get her killed as well. "All right," she said instead. "Um, can the Cyclops bring Leo over to the spring and lay him beside it? I can take over from there."

"No," one of the empousae said sharply. "I will clean his back."

"Really?" Reyna snapped. "Do you have experience in demigod field medicine? Have you ever tried to heal a demigod before? Would you have any idea what you were doing?"

It frowned slowly. "Very well, Reyna Concessi. You may clean the son of Hephaestus yourself. But we will be watching you carefully."

"As long as you give us enough distance," Reyna cautioned. "He'll need room to breathe."

Reluctantly, the empousa complied. The Cyclops set Leo down at the edge of the spring—relatively gently, thank gods—and Reyna knelt next to him.

As soon as she started unraveling his bandages, Leo opened his eyes. When he registered who she was, his mouth broke into a grin. "Hello, Praetor," he said. "Nice to see you again."

Reyna didn't comment. "They brought us to a hot spring, Leo," she said instead. "I'm going to clear out your injuries to try and stop the infection."

She finished taking off his head wrap and reached over the water to rinse it. Before she could touch the spring, Leo grabbed her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong for such a skinny guy—especially a sick, malnourished skinny guy. "Wait, reina."

"Wait?" she asked incredulously. "Wait to heal you? Are you kidding?"

"Drink the water first," he explained. "Before you get my blood in it."

"What? Why?"

"Oh, come on, Rey," he said. Reyna flinched at the nickname but didn't say anything. "They're not exactly spoiling us down here. They only give us water every other day, and they feed us every three days. Don't tell me you aren't thirsty and hungry 24/7. When you get a chance to drink a reasonable amount of water for once, you have to take it."

Reyna couldn't argue with that. "Fine," she said. She dipped her hands in the water—gods, it was hot—and brought some to her lips. She would have preferred an ice-cold glass, condensation forming on the outside, but in Tartarus, she would take what she could get. And she was parched. Before she knew it, she had gulped down several mouthfuls. The liquid burned her tongue, but she didn't care. For the first time in days, her throat wasn't dry and scratchy. She wasn't hoarse with thirst. It was a miracle of godly proportions.

"All right, Leo, you next," she said when she was done.

"Huh?"

"You said it yourself," she said. "When you get a chance to drink a reasonable amount of water for once, you have to take it. Dip your hands in the water and get some."

Leo smiled weakly. "What, you can't do it for me?" But he did as she said, sighing in satisfaction when he was done. "Thank gods for hot springs," he muttered.

As if the water had made Reyna's brain start functioning again, something clicked into place. "You're not shivering anymore," she told him, "and you're speaking in complete sentences."

"What—?" Realization dawned in his eyes. "Oh, Styx. The water made me forget." Immediately, he started shaking again.

Reyna stared at him. "Are you telling me you have been pl—?"

Leo screamed something unintelligible, cutting her off. "Keep it down, Reyna!" he whispered when he stopped. "I wasn't playing you. I just couldn't explain with all those guards around. I had to think of a way to get us alone so I could talk to you. This was what I came up with."

Reyna's brain short-circuited. She said the first thing that popped into her head. "Do you mean to say that your stupid—denial—looking fine—Gods, Leo, I thought you were just delirious, but now that I know, I am going to kill . . ."

"I'm sorry!" he protested. "I was trying to make it realistic! I had to make you buy it, so you could convince the empousae to bring us out here."

Reyna shook her head and turned away from him, dunking his head rag in the hot spring. And to think she had been concerned for him. . . .

Without meaning to, she took in a ragged breath to try to calm herself down. Leo heard it. "Reyna . . ." he said. She didn't answer. To her surprise, she felt his hand touch her elbow. She stiffened in shock. "Reina, I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you. There was just no way to tell you."

With the pretext of looking at the bandage to make sure it was rinsed properly, she swiped a hand across her eyes before turning back to the son of Hephaestus. "Start shaking again," she told him briskly. "You don't look sick at all."

He grinned at her and shivered convincingly. She rolled him onto his stomach and started rinsing out his hair. Then she hesitated. "Wait," she said. "If this was all an act . . . How the Styx did you get fake blood?"

He laughed shakily. "Funny thing," he said. "The rocks that I ran into as I was shaking weren't part of the plan."

"Oh gods, Leo," she sighed, gently scrubbing at the dark substance matting his hair to his skull. "What could be so important that you would hurt yourself just to get out here and talk about it?"

"Escape," Leo said simply. "We can do it."

Reyna's hand accidentally banged against his head in surprise, making Leo wince. "Sorry!" she whispered. "You just . . . Escape? Do you have a plan?"

"'Course I do," he said, grinning slightly. "I'm a genius."

Reyna didn't even bother with a retort. "So what is it?" she hissed, wrapping his head up again. "Spill, Valdez, or I swear to all the gods. . . ."

"Calm down, Rey, I'm getting to that," Leo muttered. Reyna ignored the nickname again. She could only clean Leo's wounds for so long before the empousae got suspicious. They had to speak as quickly as possible. "Anyway, like I was saying, I have a plan," he continued. Reyna turned him over and started unraveling the bandages around his torso, listening carefully. "I used to keep any spare parts for the Argo II in Buford—my flying table—long story—but this one time he ran off with one and almost caused the engine room to explode—longer story—so from then on I kept the bigger pieces in a normal cabinet. But that's not really important. What matters is that I kept the smaller parts in my tool belt."

Reyna paused in confusion. Sure, the pockets on that belt were large, but there was no way he could keep complete parts in there. . . . "I don't—"

"Oh, I forgot you didn't know about that," Leo said, shivering as he spoke. "To make another long story short, this tool belt is magical. It can store any mechanical parts or devices I shove in there and also generate simple items of its own—anything that can be found in your basic machine shop, plus breath mints, for some reason."

"Oh . . . kay . . . " she said slowly, doing her best to absorb the gist of Leo's shortened long stories. "Flying ship's parts stored in a magic tool belt, not in a flying table. Got it. What does that have to do with escape?"

Leo grinned. "You know that monsters were getting out of Tartarus because the Doors of Death were open, right?"

Reyna raised her eyebrows. "Were?"

"Yeah," Leo said casually. "I closed them a couple days ago, along with Nico. Nico stayed topside. I went down here. How do you think I ended up being Gaea's most precious prisoner?"

Reyna was speechless. Romans valued selflessness and bravery, but closing the Doors of Death while knowing that you would be stuck in Tartarus—possibly forever—was taking courage to a new level. Gods, Reyna would do anything for her legion, and even she wasn't sure if she would have the strength to go through with such a dangerous mission. This new revelation made Reyna view the unassuming repair boy in a completely different light. And then she finished untangling his bandages and came face-to-face with another worrisome Leo-related revelation.

"Iūpiter nōs audiūvat," Reyna muttered.

Leo's head cocked to the side "What? Am I totally lost here, or did you just speak Latin? I don't know if you remember this, but I'm Greek, Reyna."

Reyna shook her head. "Sorry, Leo . . . It's just . . . your back . . ."

"What? What's wrong with it?" Leo twisted around to try to look at it—actually, he tried to twist around. Instead, he gasped and winced in pain, and Reyna could tell it wasn't an act this time.

Reyna sighed and started rinsing his bandages in the spring. "Your cuts are still bleeding, Leo! Sure, it's slowed down a lot, but still. They should have clotted by now."

Leo laughed weakly, trying to play off how much his back obviously hurt. "Well, you know how it is, reina. One moment you're getting whipped, and the next thing you know, an angry earth goddess decides that isn't a good enough punishment and chucks a rock at your back too. What else is new?"

Reyna pursed her lips. "Look, Leo, I don't want your back to get infected. Otherwise, your shivering might just become real. So I'm going to have to rinse off your cuts. But this is a hot spring we're next to. The water is so scalding that it might burn you, and I don't want to make your injuries even worse. . . ."

Leo chuckled again, a little stronger this time. "Trust me, Rey. I don't burn easily—at all, actually. Don't worry about it."

Too confused to comment, Reyna just dipped her hands into the water and poured it over Leo's back. He hissed accidentally.

"I warned you about burns," she muttered.

"Not that," he whispered, shoulders tense. "Just . . . stinging . . . ouch. . . . That's all. . . ."

Reyna shook her head and used the clean bandages to try to scrub off some of the crusted blood on Leo's back. But when his back arched and he cried out before he could help himself, Reyna decided to leave the dried bits be. They weren't really scabs, but they were connected to scabs, and she really didn't want to tear those off his back. He would start bleeding badly all over again, which would be nothing less than a disaster.

Instead, Reyna just poured water over Leo's back again, hoping it would be enough to clean out his injuries. The son of Hephaestus shook suddenly.

"Leo, are you okay?" she asked, eyebrows furrowing and hands hovering over his back.

"Fine, reina," Leo grinned. "Did you forget that I'm supposed to be playacting intense pain for our guards over there?"

Reyna refused to admit that when Leo had cried out, all thoughts of pretend had rushed out of her head, and she had only felt worried. All she said was, "Did you forget the reason that you started playacting in the first place? What's the escape plan, Valdez?"

Leo spasmed. Reyna hoped it was just another act. "Right," he said. "Uh . . . where was I, again?"

"You had just told me that you risked your life to close the Doors of Death," Reyna supplied.

It was hard to tell in the dim light shed by one of the empousae's torches, but Reyna thought Leo might have reddened then. "Right," he repeated. "Well, I had been about to say that everyone thinks that the Doors of Death are the only exit out of Tartarus. But I know for a fact that there's another entrance."

Slowly, Reyna started to understand Leo's plan. "The pit in the Underworld . . ."

". . . that leads straight to Tartarus," Leo finished, nodding slightly. "Exactly. And just think about it. Where there is an entrance, so must there also be an exit—as long as one is sufficiently brilliant to reach said exit."

Reyna rolled her eyes, trying to contain her happiness. "And I suppose you're about to tell me that you are sufficiently brilliant enough for that particular task."

"Actually," Leo said, "I was going to say that if we work together, our combined brilliances should be enough for that particular task." He grinned. "But I like the way you think, Praetor."

Reyna glared at him, but she couldn't hold the expression for long. It quickly cracked into a smile. "We're going to get out. . . ." she breathed. "We're going to get out. . ." Suddenly, her excitement—and her expression—froze. Her hands stopped wrapping Leo's bandages.

Leo seemed to feel the tension. "What is it, Rey? Didn't I just tell you the most fantastic news you've ever heard?"

She forced her hands to relax. "Yeah," she managed. "It's just . . . Well, you said you had parts in your tool belt."

"So?"

"Parts, Leo," she said. "Not a fully-formed contraption."

This time, she felt him hesitate before he repeated "So?" again.

"So," she said, feeling the edges of panic, "Octavian wants to destroy Camp Half-Blood in three days—two now, actually. We have no time."

"Don't worry. I started building the machine the other day—you know, that time I forced my guard to lead me to a bathroom. I slipped out of her view and worked on it until she called me back. Made a ton of progress." Leo sounded soothing . . . but was it just Reyna, or was there a note of anxiety in his voice as well?

"But . . ." Reyna fought to stay calm. "Two days, Leo. Can we finish the whatever-it-is, and get out of these chains and distract our guards, and make our way past Gaea's massive army, and travel through Tartarus until we find the hole that leads to the Underworld, and make it back to the surface, all in two days?"

Her question was met with a silence that dragged through the darkness. Reyna's hands shook as she wrapped Leo's back in bandages again. So that was it, then? The deadline was too impossible? It couldn't be done?

But he had gotten her hopes up. . . . He had promised that they could escape. . . .

"Yes." The word was whispered to keep it out of the monsters' earshot, but it was enough to cut through Reyna's despair. "Just you watch, Reyna. I'll finish building the machine by tomorrow. I'll get you out of here. This escape plan will work. It has to. We have to stop Octavian from leading your camp into civil war. We have to save my friends and yours. We have to save the entire world. And if you escape, you can do all that. You're praetor, after all. Your supposed death was the reason your legion got all worked up and set such a crazy deadline in the first place. If you show up alive and well, you can stop them from destroying my camp. In fact, you can get Romans and Greeks to work together."

Reyna hesitated. "Are you sure about that? I mean . . . even if we do make it back to New York . . . Leo, Octavian is a persuasive speaker, and if I have to beat him with an argument . . . I don't know if I could win."

A grin stretched slowly across Leo's face. "Don't worry about that either, reina. You won't have to persuade Camp Jupiter with only your words. I have some for you too."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I—" Suddenly, Leo started shivering. His head rolled to the side, and his eyelids fluttered.

In the next second, a huge shadow loomed over the pair. Reyna looked up and found herself staring straight into a single eye. She looked back down and realized that she had finished tying the final knot. Styx. They were out of time.

The Cyclops picked him up and started walking away. Reyna watched as Leo cracked one eye open and looked at her. I'll explain later, he mouthed. We can do this!

Then Reyna felt four hands haul her roughly to her feet. The two empousae flanked either side of her. "Will the prisoner live?" one hissed.

Reyna couldn't help but smile. "Oh, yes," she answered. "In a few days, I think Leo Valdez will be just fine." And so will I.

"BEEEEP."

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