I don't own this. Enjoy.
PIPER DIDN'T RELAX UNTIL THE GLOW OF Quebec City faded behind them.
"You were amazing," Jason told her.
The compliment should've made her day. But all she could think about was the trouble ahead. Evil things are stirring,Zethes had warned them. She knew that firsthand. The closer they got to the solstice, the less time Piper had to make her decision.
"Just tell them." Aphrodite mumbled.
She told Jason in French: "If you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't think I was so amazing."
"What'd you say?" he asked.
"I said I only talked to Boreas. It wasn't so amazing."
"Liar." Apollo sang.
Aphrodite glared at him. "Piper is not a liar."
"She just lied." Apollo pointed out.
Aphrodite huffed. "You don't have to point it out."
She didn't turn to look, but she imagined him smiling.
"Hey," he said, "you saved me from joining Khione's sub zero hero collection.
"I just love how that rolls off the tongue. Sub Zero Hero collection." Hermes said.
Apollo said it. "I agree."
I owe you one."
That was definitely the easy part, she thought. There was no way Piper would've let that ice witch keep Jason.
Aphrodite smiled happily.
What bothered Piper more was the way Boreas had changed form, and why he'd let them go. It had something to do with Jason's past, those tattoos on his arm. Boreas assumed Jason was some sort of Roman, and Romans didn't mix with Greeks. She kept waiting for Jason to offer an explanation, but he clearly didn't want to talk about it.
Until now, Piper had been able to dismiss Jason's feeling that he didn't belong at Camp Half-Blood. Obviously he was a demigod. Of course he belonged. But now … what if he was something else? What if he really was an enemy? She couldn't stand that idea any more than she could stand Khione.
Aphrodite's grin got wider.
Leo passed them some sandwiches from his pack. He'd been quiet ever since they'd told him what happened in the throne room. "I still can't believe Khione," he said. "She looked so nice."
"Trust me, man," Jason said. "Snow may be pretty, but up close it's cold and nasty. We'll find you a better prom date."
Aphrodite beamed.
"What's got you so happy?" Hephaestus asked in Greek.
"I'm just thinking about Calypso and Leo. They make a good couple, right?" Aphrodite asked timidly. She didn't exactly know what Hephaestus thought about the girl for his son.
Hephaestus went silent for a moment. "I think she's good for him. She pulls him down to earth when his head's in the clouds, she can cheer him up when he feels down. So, yeah. I think she's good for him." Hephaestus said.
Then they noticed the others staring at them.
"What?" asked Aphrodite.
"Oh, please continue." Hades said.
"Continue what?" asked Hephaestus.
"Oh, I don't know maybe continue ignoring us and talking about Leo and his girl, and being completely rude to the mortals here." Hades elaborated.
The two gods blushed. "We are so sorry." Aphrodite said. "I just got excited about something and wanted to talk about it."
"It's alright." Sally said with all of the other mortals nodding behind her.
"Now, can I read or are there going to be more interruptions."Hades asked.
"Keep reading brother." Hera urged.
"Okay, now." Hades began reading again.
Piper smiled, but Leo didn't look pleased. He hadn't said much about his time in the palace, or why the Boreads had singled him out for smelling like fire. Piper got the feeling he was hiding something. Whatever it was, his mood seemed to be affecting Festus, who grumbled and steamed as he tried to keep himself warm in the cold Canadian air. Happy the Dragon was not so happy.
They ate their sandwiches as they flew. Piper had no idea how Leo had stocked up on supplies, but he'd even remembered to bring veggie rations for her. The cheese and avocado sandwich was awesome.
"That sound good." Demeter said, wistfully.
Nobody talked. Whatever they might find in Chicago, they all knew Boreas had only let them go because he figured they were already on a suicide mission.
The moon rose and stars turned overhead.
Artemis smiled softly at the thought of the night sky.
Piper's eyes started to feel heavy. The encounter with Boreas and his children had scared her more than she wanted to admit. Now that she had a full stomach, her adrenaline was fading.
Suck it up, cupcake! Coach Hedge would've yelled at her. Don't be a wimp!
Piper had been thinking about the coach ever since Boreas mentioned he was still alive. She'd never liked Hedge,
Dionysus and Hermes huffed. Hedge was a good satyr.
but he'd leaped off a cliff to save Leo, and he'd sacrificed himself to protect them on the skywalk. She now realized that all the times at school the coach had pushed her, yelled at her to run faster or do more push-ups, or even when he'd turned his back and let her fight her own battles with the mean girls, the old goat man had been trying to help her in his own irritating way—trying to prepare her for life as a demigod.
See. Hedge is a good satyr, perhaps a little violent, but good.
On the skywalk, Dylan the storm spirit had said something about the coach, too: how he'd been retired to Wilderness School because he was getting too old, like it was some sort of punishment. Piper wondered what that was about, and if it explained why the coach was always so grumpy. Whatever the truth, now that Piper knew Hedge was alive, she had a strong compulsion to save him.
Don't get ahead of yourself, she chided. You've got bigger problems. This trip won't have a happy ending.
She was a traitor, just like Silena Beauregard.
Aphrodite looked down.
"You're not a traitor, Piper. Just tell them." Tristan whispered.
It was only a matter of time before her friends found out.
She looked up at the stars and thought about a night long ago when she and her dad had camped out in front of Grandpa Tom's house. Grandpa Tom had died years before,
Tristan looked sad at the mention of his dead father.
but Dad had kept his house in Oklahoma because it was where he grew up.
They'd gone back for a few days, with the idea of getting the place fixed up to sell, although Piper wasn't sure who'd want to buy a run-down cabin with shutters instead of windows and two tiny rooms that smelled like cigars. The first night had been so stifling hot—no air conditioning in the middle of August—that Dad suggested they sleep outside.
Aphrodite shuddered at that. "Who likes sleeping outside?" she asked.
"I do." Artemis said.
"So do I." Apollo said.
Aphrodite shuddered again. "More power to you then. I hate it."
The archer twins smirked.
They'd spread their sleeping bags and listened to the cicadas buzzing in the trees. Piper pointed out the constellations she'd been reading about—Hercules, Apollo's lyre, Sagittarius the centaur.
The gods smiled at the mention of the constellations.
Her dad crossed his arms behind his head. In his old T-shirt and jeans he looked like just another guy from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a Cherokee who might've never left tribal lands. "Your grandpa would say those Greek patterns are a bunch of bull.
The gods looked offended. Their stars were not bull.
He told me the stars were creatures with glowing fur, like magic hedgehogs. Once, long ago, some hunters even captured a few in the forest. They didn't know what they'd done until nighttime, when the star creatures began to glow. Golden sparks flew from their fur, so the Cherokee released them back into the sky."
"You believe in magic hedgehogs?" Piper asked.
"Do you?" Hermes asked.
"I- I don't know what to believe anymore." Tristan said softly. "I thought you guys weren't real and now . . .? I just don't know what to believe."
Hermes sobered up at that. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Tristan said. "I just need to think for a while."
"When we finish one book we can take a half day break to think and reflect on what we've read." Zeus said.
The mortals nodded thankfully. They really needed breaks.
Her dad laughed. "I think Grandpa Tom was full of bull, too, just like the Greeks. But it's a big sky. I suppose there's room for Hercules and hedgehogs."
They sat for a while, until Piper got the nerve to ask a question that had been bugging her. "Dad, why don't you ever play Native American parts?"
"Yeah, why don't you?" asked Sally. In all of the movies she has seen with him in them, she never saw him play a Native American role.
Tristan opened his mouth but Hades cut him off. "It says further on. If you would just be patient Ms. Jackson."
Sally nodded.
The week before, he'd turned down several million dollars to play Tonto in a remake of The Lone Ranger. Piper was still trying to figure out why. He'd played all kinds of roles—a Latino teacher in a tough L.A. school, a dashing Israeli spy in an action-adventure blockbuster, even a Syrian terrorist in a James Bond movie. And, of course, he would always be known as the King of Sparta. But if the part was Native American—it didn't matter what kind of role it was—Dad turned it down.
He winked at her. "Too close to home, Pipes. Easier to pretend I'm something I'm not."
Tristan looked sad.
"Doesn't that get old? Aren't you ever tempted, like, if you found the perfect part that could change people's opinions?"
"If there's a part like that, Pipes," he said sadly, "I haven't found it."
She looked at the stars, trying to imagine them as glowing hedgehogs. All she saw were the stick figures she knew—Hercules running across the sky, on his way to kill monsters. Dad was probably right. The Greeks and the Cherokee were equally crazy. The stars were just balls of fire.
"Not exactly, girl." Hephaestus mumbled.
"Dad," she said, "if you don't like being close to home, why are we sleeping in Grandpa Tom's yard?"
His laughter echoed in the quiet Oklahoma night. "I think you know me too well, Pipes."
"You're not really going to sell this place, are you?"
"Nope," he sighed. "I'm probably not."
Piper blinked, shaking herself out of the memory. She realized she'd been falling asleep on the dragon's back. How could her dad pretend to be so many things he wasn't? She was trying to do that now, and it was tearing her apart.
"It tears me apart too, Pipes." Tristan whispered.
Maybe she could pretend for a little while longer. She could dream of finding a way to save her father without betraying her friends—even if right now a happy ending seemed about as likely as magic hedgehogs.
She leaned back against Jason's warm chest. He didn't complain. As soon she closed her eyes, she drifted off to sleep.
In her dream, she was back on the mountaintop.
Everyone shivered. "Why?" A few asked.
The ghostly purple bonfire cast shadows across the trees. Piper's eyes stung from smoke, and the ground was so warm, the soles of her boots felt sticky.
The gods looked upset.
Frederick frowned. The earth being sticky . . . He gasped. "No!" He said out loud. "They're fighting the earth mother!" He exclaimed.
The other mortals gasped as well. Queen Marie looked sad.
"The earth itself. They are fighting the earth." Sally whispered. Her poor Percy. She hoped he was alright.
The gods nodded. "Yes. This recent war was between the demigods and the Earth Mother." Athena said.
The mortals looked worried. Sally pulled herself together. "Guys. They won. We will win." Sally reminded.
"Yeah, but how much do we lose as well." Emily asked.
"Don't think of that. We can change things, right?" Sally asked the gods.
Esperanza looked hopeful.
"I think we can-" There was a boom and a paper fell from mid air onto Athena's lap. "It's from the Fates." She said scanning the letter. "It says:
'You can change some things. Like parent's deaths and such, but some things must stay the same like Percy and Annabeth's fate. They must fall.'"
Athena's face went white at hearing that. She steeled herself and continued reading the note out loud.
'We will be bringing in more people soon. Enjoy your reading. Signed The Fates.'"
"Percy and Annabeth's fate? Falling? What is their fate?" asked Frederick.
Athena looked sick. "No. We won't tell you. And Frederick? I urge you to not figure it out. It will come all in due time. Now, Uncle?" Athena said firmly.
Hades picked the book back up.
A voice from the dark rumbled, "You forget your duty."
Piper couldn't see him, but it was definitely her least favorite giant—the one who called himself Enceladus. She looked around for any sign of her father, but the pole where he'd been chained was no longer there.
"Where is he?" she demanded. "What've you done with him?"
The giant's laugh was like lava hissing down a volcano. "His body is safe enough, though I fear the poor man's mind can't take much more of my company. For some reason he finds me—disturbing. You must hurry, girl, or I fear there will be little left of him to save."
Tristan looked pale.
"Let him go!" she screamed. "Take me instead. He's just a mortal!"
"But, my dear," the giant rumbled, "we must prove our love for our parents. That's what I'm doing. Show me you value your father's life by doing what I ask. Who's more important—your father, or a deceitful goddess who used you, toyed with your emotions, manipulated your memories, eh? What is Hera to you?"
Piper began to tremble. So much anger and fear boiled inside her, she could hardly talk. "You're asking me to betray my friends."
"Sadly, my dear, your friends are destined to die.
"No they're not." Aphrodite said determinedly.
Their quest is impossible. Even if you succeeded, you heard the prophecy: unleashing Hera's rage would mean your destruction. The only question now—will you die with your friends, or live with your father?"
The bonfire roared. Piper tried to step back, but her feet were heavy. She realized the ground was pulling her down, clinging to her boots like wet sand. When she looked up, a shower of purple sparks had spread across the sky, and the sun was rising in the east. A patchwork of cities glowed in the valley below, and far to the west, over a line of rolling hills, she saw a familiar landmark rising from a sea of fog.
"San Francisco?" asked Frederick.
The gods nodded.
"Why are you showing me this?" Piper asked. "You're revealing where you are."
"Yes, you know this place," the giant said. "Lead your friends here instead of their true destination, and I will deal with them. Or even better, arrange their deaths before you arrive. I don't care which. Just be at the summit by noon on the solstice, and you may collect your father and go in peace."
"I can't," Piper said. "You can't ask me—"
"To betray that foolish boy Valdez, who always irritated you and is now hiding secrets from you?
Esperanza growled. She hoped Piper wouldn't betray him.
To give up a boyfriend you never really had? Is that more important than your own father?"
"I'll find a way to defeat you," Piper said. "I'll save my father and my friends."
The giant growled in the shadows. "I was once proud too. I thought the gods could never defeat me. Then they hurled a mountain on top of me, crushed me into the ground, where I struggled for eons, half-conscious in pain. That taught me patience, girl. It taught me not to act rashly. Now I've clawed my way back with the help of the waking earth. I am only the first. My brethren will follow. We will not be denied our vengeance—not this time. And you, Piper McLean, need a lesson in humility. I'll show you how easily your rebellious spirit can be brought to earth."
The dream dissolved. And Piper woke up screaming, free-falling through the air.
"Done." Hades said. "Ares? You haven't read yet. Here." The god tossed the other the book.
Ares looked ready to throw it back when he saw all the faces looking at him. He sighed and started reading. "Chapter 22 Piper."
Addy