Chapter 20

Grandpa Feeds Me Cookies

I wasn't really an appointment guy. The closest I ever got were old Parent Teacher Conferences, and those all finished notices of expulsion. I tried to imagine the lord of time looking severely at me over a wooden desk, pulling down his spectacles as he delivered the bad news.

Shaking myself I asked, "Right now?"

Luke nodded. "Yep. He was pretty clear about it. I'll show you to the place."

I glanced at Dedalus. He didn't look particularly worried, which made me feel a bit better.

"Remember what I said about your being important?" he asked.

"A little hard to forget."

"This should just be to do with that. Nothing to worry about yet."

Fun fact about reassurances: they work better when the word 'yet' isn't tacked on at the end.

The main building's interior started off about how you would expect: marble flooring and a grand arched ceiling with constellations painted across it. There was a welcoming desk, but it stood empty. A Drakon could've curled up for a nap inside the room, yet it was deserted save for us. By the time we reached the exit, I was relieved to leave the eerily-still atmosphere behind… for all of three seconds.

Furry carpet. Familiar beige walls. Looking around the hallway, it felt as if someone had grabbed my heart with two hands and squeezed. I had seen it all before so, so many times. Not for years, but the memories were still fresh and probably always would be. "This is…"

Luke nodded. "The interior looks different for everyone. Whatever you think of in your heart as home, it mimics. That's its way of telling you you're where you're meant to be now. For good."

So that was it. Looking left and right, I couldn't fight a frown. The carpet and wallpaper weren't why my old Manhattan apartment meant home to me. What I really missed couldn't be replicated with magic or interior decorating.

"What does it look like to you?" I asked to distract myself.

"Are you willing to tell me yours?" Luke asked.

I kept silent.

"There you go," he said, chuckling.

Someone stepped on my heel and I stumbled. Looking back I found Dedalus with his mouth open and his eyes unfocused, walking like a zombie.

"You okay?" I asked him.

It was like my voice yanked a bag from off his head. He blinked a few times, took a shaky breath, and then his expression was normal.

"Just a reminder of something I preferred buried." He looked at his surroundings, one step off glaring. "Out of curiosity, is there any way of changing what one sees?"

"Not that I know of," Luke said. "Although I never tried too hard to find out."

"Wonderful."

There were dozens of closed doors along the way. A few weren't complete, and I peaked through a gap in one. On the other side was a void, like a night sky without even stars. I leaned back and didn't try again, feeling very small and cold.

Eventually we came to an elevator at a spot where two paths branched. It looked totally out of place wedged into the apartment style walling, and I hoped we would walk straight past since it was kind of weirding me out. No luck. Luke stopped right in front and faced us.

"The workshop is this way." He pointed to the right, at a hallway identical to the one we'd arrived from.

"And where am I going?" I asked with a sinking feeling.

Luke wrapped his knuckles on the steel doors. "Straight up in this. Top floor, you can't miss it."

I must've looked pretty nervous, because he reached over and gave my arm a squeeze. "I'll be right outside when you're done. I've done it a bunch of times- you'll probably come out with all your appendages attached."

If the joke was meant to help me relax, it was in bad taste. At least I hoped it was a joke. I took a deep breath and pressed the up arrow. The button glowed green, and the doors slid open with annoying promptness. I walked inside.

There were spaces for twenty buttons. Only about eleven were there, the other nine just empty gaps. Incomplete was a really bad quality in something that was about to take you hundreds of feet into the air, but I swallowed and pressed the button for twenty. It dinged, and the doors started to close.

I managed a smile. "Well, see you guys soon." The doors shut, and I added, "Hopefully."

I've been on cab rides shorter than that elevator trip. Classical music played the whole way, the kind you only ever saw ninety-year-old men listening to. My foot tapped nervously as the digital display above the door ticked slowly up- 2, error, 4, 5, error, 6, error, error.

It gave me a lot of time to think. I wasn't a fan of thinking. Not only was I bad at it, it had a way of letting me realize just how screwed up my life was. I wondered what Kronos would be like, why he wanted to talk to me. Maybe…

Victoria had covered for me, for some reason, but was that really enough to fool a titan? Maybe he already knew I'd spared the kallikantzaroi, and this was all to give me some horrible punishment, like forcing me to memorize the quadratic formula.

I shook my head, forcing myself to calm down. That couldn't be it. Luke's orders had been too old. Besides, maybe it wouldn't be so bad? Coeus hadn't been too scary. Sure I always felt one move away from ending up a popsicle, but at least he had a cute polar bear face and stopped Kelli from slicing me up like lunchmeat.

I was jarred from my thoughts by a resolute ding! The monitor read 20. With a hiss, the doors opened.

The room on the other side wasn't anything like my old apartment. It had a hardwood floor and white walls, and the air smelled faintly of mint. Benches lined the edges. Opposite the elevator stood imposing cream-colored double doors. Stanchions led up to them like the security line at an airport, turning back and forth to accommodate long lines.

To my right, just outside the elevator, was a ticket dispenser. A bit of paper was sticking out of the base, and I pulled it free. It read EIGHTEEN in sharp, angular letters.

I walked through the switchbacks, my footsteps echoing in the empty room.

At the end of the stanchions was another machine and a thick line painted across the floor with the words Do Not Cross.

"Guest number eighteen!" A woman's voice boomed, sending my stomach to say hello to my throat. I looked around but couldn't spot any sort of speakers. "Will guest number eighteen please insert their ticket!"

My heart beating wildly, I fed the ticket into top of the machine. It whirred and clinked before eventually spitting a new paper out of the base. Pulling it free, I found a cartoon illustration of a winking dracaena next to the words You have earned the right for an audience. You may now die with no regrets!

I swallowed. Before I could get cold feet, the double doors slammed open and something like a tractor beam sucked me inside.

Having my eyes open or closed made no difference, everything was black either way. I couldn't feel a floor underneath me. I was like a satellite floating in space- weightless, moving, and completely incapable of changing direction.

Because I was moving. Forward, specifically. There was no way of telling how fast, but I could feel the air washing over my face and rippling my clothes. It might've been fun if I wasn't worrying whether it was the last thing I'd ever feel.

"You're here. Wonderful."

The voice came from every direction, so deep it vibrated my fingernails in place. I tried to respond but the noise was lost behind me, torn away by the wind and carried off to who knows where.

"I admit this is exciting," said the voice. "I am supremely patient, but in recent times, as things draw near enough to taste… Well, I find emotions getting the better of me. Seeing you here makes it feel all the closer.

I tried to speak again and failed the same way, but this time the voice noticed.

"Ah! My manners are absent, this is no way to hold a conversation. Here."

The sound of a snap thumped my eardrums and everything changed.

The wind was gone. The darkness, too. I was sat in a red recliner, a coffee table in front of me covered with platters of more cookie types than I knew existed. The room was square with blank walls, a smaller version of the waiting room I had passed through.

Across from me, on the other side of the table, was the figure of a man. He was perfectly three-dimensional and even had a cup of tea in his hands, but there were no features on his face. Not even a nose or a mouth. It was like someone had drawn the outline of a person, then forgotten to fill them in.

"I know this form isn't the most hospitable," the figure said in the same deep voice I'd heard before. "It's unfortunate, but options are limited when your body is chopped up and scattered. Even this much is an improvement."

"You're Kronos," I said.

"Just getting that, are you? Perhaps not the brightest dagger in the arsenal then, but that isn't what we need you for." Kronos took a sip from his cup, which was a neat trick with no mouth. "I do not wish for you to feel ill at ease. Go on, take a cookie."

I grabbed a sugar cookie with yellow icing dribbled over it, but couldn't bring myself to take a bite. Persephone's myth flashed through my head, how her stomach got her stuck in the underworld. Eating could be dangerous business.

"It's nothing so nefarious. I'm not looking to entrap you."

I jumped. "How did you…"

"Know what was on your mind?" Kronos cocked his blank head. "I know a lot of things. How to rule. How to paint. How to read body language and guess at one's thoughts."

"But not how to read minds?" I checked.

"No, not that. Not for now." He set his cup on the table, leaning forward. "Why? You wouldn't have something to hide, would you?"

"I mean, doesn't everyone?" Then, to help appease him, I took a bite of the cookie. It was good. Tangy.

Kronos chuckled. "True enough. No being alive wants all of themselves exposed to the light. Not mortals, nor titans, and especially not the gods. What do you know of them, Percy? Of the Olympus's buried secrets?"

"Some," I said, thinking of Dedalus's screwed up life. Then there was mine, Thalia's, Luke's, the Phonoi… "Scratch that. Quite a bit."

Kronos nodded, humming. "I assume you're thinking of the attempts on your life. Maybe the killing of your latest teacher, even?" I fought to keep a poker face. We already knew they were keeping track of you, I reminded myself.

"What if I told you that was but the iceberg's barest tip?"

Kronos breathed in deeply, though I could only tell from the noise and a slight swelling of his torso. Then he exhaled, and a massive gust blew the room away, the walls fading like smoke. All that stuck around were our chairs and the table of cookies.

We were outside. To the left the ground fell sharply away along the bank of a rushing river. Songbirds sung, and the sun was low and near on the horizon. The smell reminded me of camping trips, but more extreme, like someone had distilled all the aromas of the woods just to inject them into my nostrils.

"Quite beautiful, no?" Kronos glanced at the surroundings. "Believe it or not, the entire world resembled this before mortals left their stain. That is a separate tale, though, best saved for another day. Look! Our actors are arriving."

From around a bend in the river came a woman. She looked about twenty-four, with cascading blond hair framing a gorgeous heart-shaped face. She was holding up the bottom of her dress to run… right along the surface of the water. Her footsteps made little splashes, but she didn't sink.

Her legs weren't moving all that quickly and yet each bound could've covered a basketball court. Still, I could tell she was tired. Her hair was matted with sweat and her dress clung tight at the shoulders. She was panting, and when she pulled level with us she stopped, laying her hands on her knees.

"Daphne," Kronos said, eying the exhausted girl fondly. "One of the most beautiful women in Greece at one time."

"A naiad," I said, not totally sure how I knew that.

"Indeed. Her mother was Creussa, another nymph. And her father…"

In front of Daphne the water's surface rippled. It began to shine and bubble. A man rose from it as if standing on an elevating platform.

He was all white hair and muscle, like a mall Santa that spent the offseason pumping iron. His biceps were the size of my torso, his legs like cannon barrels, and he looked angry.

"Who!" he bellowed, his loincloth fluttering in the wind. "Who dares make daddy's little girl cry!"

He looked around, flexing aggressively. I was glad they couldn't see us. A headlock from him would've popped my skull like a water balloon.

"And here is Peneus," Kronos said. "No jokes, please. That name is far older than the word. He truly loved his daughter, which only made the tragedy worse."

That didn't sound good. As I watched, Daphne continued to cry.

"He's coming," she choked out. "He's still there! He won't stop!"

Peneus looked torn between going on a rampage and wrapping his daughter in his arms. "Who? Just say the word, and they'll never see it coming!" He gave the air a series of quick jabs. "One! One two! Just like that!"

"You can't!" Daphne pulled up her head, and her golden locks shown so brightly in the sun that I nearly looked away. "Whatever you do, don't fight him. Promise me that!"

"What!" bellowed Peneus. "How could I-"

"Just Promise! Please!"

Peneus looked away, grinding his teeth. "Fine. I promise it."

Daphne sagged, sighing in relief. Meanwhile her father was only getting antsier. He, like me, couldn't seem to figure out what was going on, and it was making his pecs twitch.

"My daughter comes running to me, all shook up," he started, "but she's begging me not to touch the twerp that did it. Don't… Don't tell me… Do you love this guy?"

"No!" A shutter shook Daphne, as if she were about to vomit. "That's not it at all!"

"Then what? C'mon, there's got to be something you'll let daddy do. Anything."

"Yes! Some way to-"

"Daaaaphne!" called a voice in the not-so-distant distance. I tried to look and nearly went blind.

I said before that the sun was on the horizon. That wasn't quite right. The reason it had looked so low, the reason Daphne's hair was glowing so brightly, was a man. A man shooting through the air like superman, glowing like a lightbulb. Trailing behind him were banners, all with Daphne's name and varying amounts of red hearts scribbled on them.

"Quick!" Daphne said fearfully. "There is no time! I must escape, anyway you can offer."

Peneus was staring at the sky like he was having second thoughts on his promise. But when he spoke his voice sounded less fiery, much grimmer. "There are not many ways of placing one beyond the reach of an Olympian. Those I've access to are not the happiest."

"I do not care!" Daphne insisted.

"Hellllooooooo!" cried lightbulb man. He skidded to a stop in the air with a boom. "My lovely, my dearest blossom, your beloved has arrived!"

I could see him better now, the light having faded when he stopped moving. His hair was hay yellow. He wore a white toga decorated with drawings of a certain blond naiad. Draped banners hung from his shoulders like the world's creepiest most obsessive capes, and his perfect teeth glinted with the force of a flash bomb.

"Apollo," Kronos said. "God of music, archery, poetry, healing, the arts… so many beautiful things. Such a being should surely mimic his domain. Tell me, Perseus Jackson, is he beautiful to you?"

I stared at the god. His ideal cheekbones were contorted to form a manic smile. His plump lips dribbled with saliva. Eyes watched unblinkingly, the color of liquid coolant.

"No," I said. "He's good looking and all, but… vulgar."

"Exactly." Kronos nodded vigorously. "Tear away the gods' masks, and what is left but the ugly."

I hummed, focused on watching things unfold. With Apollo's arrival Daphne had turned to her father with renewed desperation.

"Do it now!" she cried.

Peneus hesitated. His fingers grasped at the air, unsure what to do. Apollo yipped like a coyote and prepared to dive bomb.

"You said you would do anything!"

"But-"

"Daddy you liar!"

Apollo howled and fired toward Daphne, puckered up. She looked over her shoulder and shrieked, cowering behind her arms. The distance between them shrunk- thirty feet, twenty, ten…

"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" Peneus screamed, jerking his arms into the air. Daphne floated up and Apollo crashed into the water, smooching a passing fish.

As she levitated toward the riverbank Daphne grew taller and thinner. Her hair lumped together and thickened, turning from golden to green. Her skin darkened. Both legs fused and covered over with a hard exterior. By the time she touched down, the naiad had become a fully-grown laurel.

"Is fathers turning their daughters into a tree like a thing, or something?" I asked.

"Pardon?" Kronos said.

"Never mind."

Apollo came up for air, spat out water like a fountain, and looked left and right. "Where'd she go?"

"Figure it out yourself," Peneus growled. I got the feeling he was holding back from saying a whole lot worse. He dispersed into a cloud of bubbles and sunk back into the water, glaring at Apollo the whole time.

For his part the sun god waded out of the stream looking confused. He stood a minute on the riverbank, rubbing his chin. Finally his eyes landed on the fresh laurel tree, and I saw a spark in them.

He held his hands out wide as if preparing to shrug, and the scene froze. Kronos had hit the pause button.

"Do you see?" he asked. "This is a tale of Olympus. He told others of the affair, willingly, bragging of the time he harassed a maiden to her final resort." There was passion in his voice. I found myself sitting up straighter, just from the sound of it.

"What was it you said? Something near to 'He ate his children, did he not?'"

I jolted, but Kronos only chuckled. "Yes, my ears are quite good. A millennia in the dark will do that. And you were correct- I am not good."

"You're… not?" It wasn't that I struggled to believe it, but I never expected to hear it straight from his mouth.

"Of course. I did eat my children. I would do so again in the same situation. But do you know what separates me from the gods? There are two things. One, I make no secret of who I am. I do not sit upon a throne of gold, preaching benevolence while practicing whatever I please. I admit it, freely, before I do as I please. Second, and much more important for you, is that I pay my debts."

He leaned forward, placing his hands on the table between us. Just for a second, two eyes flashed in his blank sockets- golden, bottomless, older than I could fathom.

"What is it you wish for? Wealth? Power? A world that doesn't create children like you?" He lowered his voice. "There will be much chaos when we assume control of the world, enough that a soul or two could even slip from the Underworld unnoticed. See me restored to my throne, and all of it is yours."

I swallowed. That was a pretty hard insinuation to miss. "Why?" I asked. "Why so much? Why to me?"

He tilted his head. "Because you are important, for one reason if not another. I prefer important pieces on my side of the board. I find they prefer it too, eventually."

"But why am I an important piece? I know my dad's powerful and all, but you probably have tons of monsters as dangerous as me in a fight. What is it about me that you want so badly?"

Maybe it was a bad idea to push him when he was being so accommodating, but I had to know. Dedalus said the Big Three stopped having half-bloods because they altered history too much. That they were too powerful. Then he told me Kronos wouldn't kill me, and Luke said the same. It didn't add up.

Surely I wasn't that powerful. So what was it?

Kronos was silent for a time. I gripped the armrests on my recliner, hoping I wasn't about to be immolated for impertinence.

"You sell yourself short," he finally said. "Your interactions with demigods are too limited. Once you integrate with our forces you will understand. You know only three of your kind, and two of them are exceptional. The competition will show you what you are missing."

"The competition?"

Kronos leaned back, waving his hand dismissively. "Luke will give you the details, to explain it would be a waste of our limited time. Instead, I wish to hear it from your mouth. I tell you that you are valuable, so be sure that you are. No more questions. Do you swear to support my cause?"

There was something he was holding back, and I didn't just mean the details on whatever this 'competition' was. But I was lucky to have gotten away with as much as I had, so I let it drop.

Which left the question of what to say. Dedalus was the one the Titans had convinced with their recruitment pitch. Up until this moment, I had just been along for the ride. Sure hitting the gods where it hurts sounded pretty neat, but neat enough to swear myself to a cause I barely knew anything about?

Luke believed in Kronos, but I found that didn't mean as much to me as it would have at one point. Dedalus believed in their promises, but with how desperately he wanted what they were offering, I didn't quite trust his judgement this time around. Which left, I guess, what I thought.

Kronos was offering a chance to get my mom back. There was a real chance he was lying, or at least exaggerating – his offer still sounded too sweet – but then again, since when did that matter?

There was a chance what he said was true. That was more than I'd had for years.

"I'll do it," I said.

"Ah ah ah. That wasn't what I asked." He laced his fingers and rested his chin on them. "The words from your mouth."

"I'll help you," I said, more firmly this time. "I'll fight the gods."

"Perfect."

At just the moment of my oath a mouth flashed into place on his barren face, grinning from cheek to cheek. Like my words had given shape to the feature. Hairline fractures spread across the images of Apollo and the forest, culminating in their shattering. They gave way to the same darkness from the start, except now the wind was reversed and even stronger, gusting against my back.

"Goodbye for now, Perseus Jackson. I pray your uses will be many and indispensable."

I heard the sound of doors opening behind me before I was spit out into a backwards somersault, coming to a stop flat on my back.

Luke's face appeared, coming between me and the waiting room's plaster ceiling. "It's a fun trip, huh?"

I blinked. "Does the landing ever get softer?"

"You get more used to it."

That wasn't a yes. He walked to the other side of me and held out his hand. "C'mon. Up and at 'em, soldier."

I took his hand, rubbing the back of my head.

"Don't look so glum!" Luke wrapped his arm around me and steered us toward the elevator. "You just left an audience with the Lord of Time. Alive! How many people can say that?"

"You, for one," I said.

"Exactly why it's so exciting. Don't you want to grow up just like me?"

"Not really."

"Aw, I'm hurt!" He laid a hand over his chest, leaning in with a smirk. "And after I went to the trouble of getting you the best tour guide I could."

I glanced at him worriedly. "What did you do?"

We entered the elevator, and he looked proud as could be. "You'll see. Just never say I don't do anything for you."

I pressed the button for 1 glumly. "That's what scares me, though. The things you'd do for me."

The doors shut, obscuring the waiting room from sight. It should've been a relief, but instead my conversation with Kronos was stuck playing in my ears.

And, more unpleasantly, Daphne's frightened face in her last non-tree moments.

(-)

Twenty chapters of The Inventor's Legacy. That's a decently cool benchmark.

Anyway, we're still weekly, and have the first of the Mt. Orthry's chapters. Excited to keep things progressing.