When Lea woke the next morning, she and Tyson were greeted with the sight of Percy shivering in front of the saltwater fountain. Salome was wrapped around him, carefully out of the way the great stone font, but close enough to offer comfort.
"Percy," Lea murmured, kneeling down beside him.
He was almost cold to the touch even with Salome pressing against him. He was a bit unresponsive. "Tyson, start the shower in the bathroom. Turn it all the way up on hot." Her half-brother went to do as she ordered while she pushed the remains of the fountain away. "Salome, come lay on top of him. We need to get him a little warm before we placed him in the shower."
While they were doing that, Lea turned to the pieces of the great stone front. Her hands hovered over it uneasily as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was an easy spell. She used it all the time. It was simple. She reached within her for her mageia, concentrating on the feel of it. She need a lot, but not too much. She needed less, but not too little. She molded it carefully and surely. "Personal loss should not be mine," a green glow flickered around her hands like a spluttering lightbulb. "Restore this fountain and make it fine."
The glow burned brighter until the three siblings watched as it pieced itself together like someone pressed rewind. Lea turned to her brother, taking in the bags under his eyes and blank look that settled onto his face. "Tyson, help him into the shower. I'll pack his things." As they left, she set about carefully placing tracking spells on literally everything he had especially Riptide which didn't like her messing around with it, but submitted to it anyway because Lea was not losing her brother to the killer maze. She packed his knapsack—thermos with nectar, baggie of ambrosia, bedroll, rope, clothes, flashlights, and lots of extra batteries.
She pulled some clothes out for him, knocking on the bathroom door for Tyson to past to him before following her half-brother out the cabin to go to the community bathhouse. She walked into the female side while he entered the male side. Lea took her time in the shower, making sure to lather her hair in the newest products from Khryseê, Drew's personal care product line. Using only naturally grown ingredients and using one of her Mother's epithets, the products are always going out of stock within minutes. She also took the chance to use a few of the serums from Kythereia, the personal care product line was created by the entire Tenth Cabin which also acts as scent neutralizers.
Once she was dressed, she met up with her brothers as the quest group headed for Zeus' fist. It was a clear morning. The fog had burned off and the sky was blue. Campers would be having their lessons today, flying pegasi and practicing archery and scaling the lava wall.
Lea had other plans that would be put into place as soon as she was able to ditch the others.
A somewhat easy thing to do as Drew and Ethan were walking arm and arm through the woods, no doubt they were going for a breakfast picnic.
Lea brushed her arm against Percy's, a subtle spell lingering around his bellybutton as she turned to fuss with his clothes. The wristwatched shield that Tyson made was sitting snuggly on his wrist. Lea turned to her other brother, brushing back a few strands of hair as she brush lint away from his shoulders.
Juniper and Grover stood apart from the group. Juniper had been crying again, but she was trying to keep it together for Grover's sake. She kept fussing with his clothes, straightening his rasta cap and brushing goat fur off his shirt. Since we had no idea what we would encounter, he was dressed as a human, with the cap to hide his horns, and jeans, fake feet, and sneakers to hide his goat legs.
Chiron, Quintus, and Mrs. O'Leary stood with the other campers who'd come to wish them well, but there was too much activity for it to feel like a happy send-off. A couple of tents had been set up by the rocks for guard duty. Beckendorf and his siblings were working on a line of defensive spikes and trenches. Lea knew that she should go over there to be guided by Lou Ellen and Alabaster to place defensive spells around them also. A couple of proximity spells and whatnot. Chiron had decided that the Labyrinth needed to be guarded at all times.
Once she sure was that it was good as it was going to get for her siblings, she backed away, watching silently as they approached Annabeth. Her friends immediately flanked her as she stared intently at them. She didn't acknowledge them as she watched Percy and Chiron step to the side to speak quietly with each other before they rejoined the group.
Percy looked over at her. He gave her a small smile and she raised her hand in farewell.
"He'll be okay," Alabaster stated as the group walked over to the rocks. Lea didn't reply and soon, the four of them descended into the darkness.
Hermês eased his wife from a top of him as he climbed out of the bed. Her hair splayed out around her and he gave her one last look before stepping into the shower to bathe.
When he came back out already dressed, she was still asleep.
Soon, he was moving on to do his deliveries when Artemis stopped him.
"You should check on your blessing," was all that she said before continuing on to her temple. He stared after her before peaking down many-folded Olympos and cast his gaze upon his Leaneíras. She was hiding away in her cabin, brushing her hair back into a high ponytail and dressed in leathers like some sort of fantasy viking. If he knew her obsessions with Marvel comics would lead to this, he would have introduced her to DC comics to turn her closer to the greek side of things.
(Though she was already aware of both comics absently, especially the DC comics to know that Jason Todd was her favored amongst the Robins.)
She was moving around with a purpose, filling up a bag with her favored potions and few enchanted knives that Kirkê had taught her how to make so long ago. He had a feeling that he knew what she was going to do, and inwardly cursed as he was the one to give her the idea. She wrote a note in the small amount of Kıbrıs-Minoan syllabary that she and Drew both learned. She then left a small message in the hieroglyphs of Krḗtē before digging under her bed.
"Do not," he murmured as she climbed onto the back of Salome. Her eyes slipped close before she concentrated on the circle of sigils that she drew into the floor.
"Separated by time, separated by space." she murmured. Hermês wanted to reach out to stop her, but he knew that even if he managed to, she would just do it over and over again unless her powers were bound. And while he would never do that, he knew that if any other would try then she would slip past the others to sneak into the maze if she really wanted to pursue this course of action. "Reunite Salome and me, in Medea's current place." Her mageia flared a bright green that could be view outside of the cabin. Unfortunately for her, the recoil from her still uncontrollable mageia just about destroyed the room and Hermês quickly moved to stop the various potions from mixing together lest she wipes the entire east coast and then some.
Campers were coming to investigate her cabin so Hermês quickly left to follow after her as she reappeared within New Haven, Connecticut.
Great. He put her on the path of the exact people he would rather never knew she existed.
Thankfully, it was one of their more local covens which was honestly, just a small amount of their family that preferred the east coast. She moved quickly and purposely and the Williams family took note of her pretty quickly. Salome, however, was a very good deterrent in keeping people away from her.
Medea appeared in a flash of blue smoke.
"Lea?"
She scowled at the other girl. "That's not my name."
"Lea," the girl repeated ignoring her words. "What are you doing here? How did you—"
"You wanted my help to find Trent didn't you," Lea sneered. "Well, here I am."
"Why did you change your mind?"
Leaneira stared at her silently for just a moment before casting a glance at the people around her. She looked back at her old friend. "Your brother kidnapped me," she stated calmly, not minding the darkening faces of the coven. "My Father very angry about that alongside my soulmate which your family seems to already know." Medea's facial features tightened. "I had a demigod dream just last night about him planning an attack. He wants to draw me out, but Medea, I'm telling you this here and now. I'll do everything in my power to put him down like a rabid dog so unless you want to see your brother dead, you'll help me find him and rip his powers from his blood."
Medea opened her mouth to interject, but Mercurius allowed himself to appear before them. "Tis was not a request," he spake and the mortals immediately dropped to their knees in a bow. Lea didn't even spare him a glance, shifting only a bit to allow him closer while Salome immediately cuddled against him.
"I.." Medea stammered, fair eyes widen in shock. "Of course, mi'lord. I... Lea..."
"Leaneíras," he interrupted. And he did not have to look at her to know that she was smirking. "Her name is Leaneíras or you may address by her proper titled bis beati Leaneíras."
Medea stammered, nodding her head quickly. "Of course, my apologies. I... I shall go get what we need and we can go search for him?" Mercurius nodded his head, dismissing her easily. The other mortals rushed away alongside her though he knew that they were not far off, eyes lingering on their forms as he turned to his beloved. Lea wrinkled her nose at him as she took in his appearance.
"What's with the getup?"
"Another form of armor," he stated smoothly. No need to inform her of the truth just yet. She will learn about the romans in due time. Lea hummed turning away from him to eye one of the couples that were staring at them. With her distracted, he summoned some boar meat for Salome. The whelp — which in the span of six months was not the size of a cub anymore — devoured the food in four quick bites. Lea turned back to him unimpressed. "I must take my leave now, Sussebass."
Lea's nose scrunched at the endearment as he knew that it would. To her ears it would sound strange, but alas it was no different than the ones he had used before. "Though before I leave, I must say the amount of beauty you hold is so beyond any words. You're so ethereal, so wonderful and without any effort, you always manage to take my breath away." Her face burned red with every word that made its way from his tongue until her face was an interesting shade of color that he was sure not even on the spectrum. "Au revoir, mon coeur."
He faded from the view of the mortals, leaning to brush his lips against the cheek of Leaneíras before taking flight once more to visit Déspoina. He wondered absently how long it would take her to realize the tracker spell that he placed upon her.
Lea leaned against Salome as she waited for Medea to emerge from wherever she had disappeared to.
It was for that reason that the girl's family decided that it was safe enough to come bother her. Why they thought that, Lea didn't know considering that Salome's snout was still covered in blood from her meal.
"I want to wring your neck," one of them said. Her eyes flickered over to them, moving from the top of their head to their feet before immediately dismissing them from mind. There was nothing special about them. A plain blond with blue eyes like some type of aryan fantasy himbo.
Lea yawned as she turned away. "Mm, what you want to do is not necessarily what you're going to do. So, watch your mouth."
"Why should I? It's because of you that our family is divided and being hunted down and tormented like dogs."
"I'm sorry," Lea mocked sarcastically. "I'm not sure how me being kidnapped is my fault?"
"Trent cares about you a great deal. He would not have hurt you."
"Oh, this white strip in my hair that emerge as I held the sky on my back and the months long physical therapy that I had to partake were definite signs of his care," she nodded and their mouths snapped shut. "I understand. Well, I must thank him the next time I see him."
No one had anything to say to that and Lea inwardly scoffed. "You're awfully quiet now. Can I buy a vowel?" She looked around at their sour faces before turning away dismissively.
It was only moments later that some other person had to comment and just let her know how much she ruined their life and a bunch of other stuff that Lea didn't care to listen to.
"I don't even know why it's so much attention being placed on you," they sneered. "So what you are the blessing of one our principal gods. You are still nothing but a mortal. I say—."
"You should watch your words," Medea cut in, standing behind them with narrowed eyes. "Our Family is suffering enough. Do you want to make it worse?"
Her family member sneered. "Its your brother's fault and soon he would have to face the consequences and there is nothing you can do about it." Medea's eyes tightened in pain and fury before she turned her back on him completely. "And you, twice blessed, make this your last time interfering with this family least you face my wrath."
Lea gave a sharp laugh as Salome growled loudly. "Man, if you do not get out of my face looking like something straight out of the jungle book. Like be fucking forreal, if you look like a great dane with a wig on, please don't come for me. Quite honestly, you should be glad that I don't have this family wiped from the face of earth from the oldest member to the nearest damn fetus and any affair babies."
"I'm far from ugly."
"You're actually neighbors with it. Got more problems than a math test and worried about me," Lea sniffed turning to look at Medea who was fighting back a smirk. "Are you ready?"
Medea nodded, holding up some sort of amethyst pendant. Lea climbed back atop of Salome and made room for the other. She could feel the girl's mageia being called up. "When you find your path is blocked, All you have to do is knock."
And right before their eyes, an actual door appeared before them.
Lea did not want to lead her baby into the weirdly floating door, but Salome was already bounding forward before she could even protest.
The door led to a corridor with a ceiling of solid stone. It seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions.
"Where are we going," Lea asked.
The amethyst pendant was thrown into her lap. "This will lead us to Trent, hopefully. You may need to charge it up with your own powers because I'm not strong enough. There's a bit of interference that I keep hitting."
Ha! As if Lea was going to do something as stupid as that.
She hadn't ruled this out as a trap.
"It'd shine and dim the closer we get to him or the further."
"You know the labyrinth is meant to confuse you, right?"
"My mother is the goddess of crossroads and of magic. She is a protectress. This Maze will only scare me if I gave it permission to."
Lea looked down at Arkas and she swore that the tortoise rolled its eyes. The pendant shined a light down the hall and the group of them continued through it. And they made it about hundred feet before another doorway appeared before them. It opened into some kind of sewer-like area. She could hear Salome's paws splashing in water and Lea grimaced. Oh, she was leaving her bath to Hermes.
There wasn't much light, but the cavern looked like a cross between a construction zone and a flea market. Scattered across the cave were crates, toolboxes, pallets of timber, and stacks of steel pipe. There was even a bulldozer half-sunken in the mud.
Gross.
From further into the cavern, Lea could hear some voices echoing its way back to them.
"How would you like to bed the beautiful-cheeked Leaneíras?"
She tensed, eyes narrowing.
"Oh Hippolytos, if only!" someone else cried. "Bind me down with triple those endless chains! Let all you gods look on, and all you goddesses too – how I'd love to bed beautiful-cheeked Leaneíras!"
Lea was a goddamn minor. How dare they?
She didn't even have to concentrate much as her anger called her mageia up quicker than she could blink. She reached into her knapsack for something. She pulled out a marble that was in there for some reason, but it was going to have to do. She coated it in her power just as literally right next to them was another door that Salome immediately bounded through. She threw the damn marble further into the cavern and Medea wisely said nothing as whatever exploded behind them.
They came up on the side of a goddamn mansion. It was a bit smaller than the one that Drew inherited yet refused to acknowledge its existence but had plans to turn it into a mall once she turned eighteen.
It was massive though. About six stories. Brownstone with gargoyles on the corners of the roof, stained-glass transom windows, marble front steps and all the other blah, blah, blah, rich-people-live-here details and things only Annabeth would yap on about. Boring.
Speaking of Percy's wise girl, familiar figure was leaning against the frame of the mansion. An older man with sandy-colored hair that looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and his shirt was buttoned wrong, so one side of his collar stuck up higher than the other side. His tie looked like it had been tied while he spun around in total darkness.
Beside him, hidden a bit by his larger frame was a gorgeous korean woman with red highlighted hair falling over her shoulders.
"Mr. and Mrs. Chase," Lea called out politely. She slipped from a top of Salome. Absently, she could hear Medea do the same, but she ignored it. As she got closer, she could see that both of them looked as if they had been crying.
"Leaneira?" the woman gave a shaky smile and Lea shifted a little uncomfortably. "Are you, um... are you okay?"
Their faces crumbled a bit more and they turned into each other's embrace a bit. It was very sweet if Lea was being honest. "No, I... I just learned that my sister passed. She was... she was killed a few weeks ago."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Lea told them. "Have you told Annabeth?"
Mrs. Chase shook her head. "We haven't been able to reach her."
Lea nodded her head. "She's on a quest." Lea doubted the Maze had cell phone coverage if the girl even packed her secret phone.
The couple looked at her in worry. "Will she be okay?"
Lea gave them a reassuring smile. "She's with Percy and as long as they stay together, then I can track them from the spell I placed on Percy."
"A tracking spell," Mr. Chase murmured. "Leaneira, my nephew. Magnus. Did Annabeth tell you about him?" Lea inclined her head and took a few steps back closer to Salome. There was something desperate and crazed in his eyes. Lea would hate to hurt them, but like, she believed in self-defense. "He's missing. Do you think you can track him down, please? I'll pay whatever."
Lea coughed as Mrs. Chase fumbled around the fanny pack on her waist to bring out a check book. "Wait," Lea spluttered. "No... there's no need for that. Please put the checkbook up." Her cheeks were a furious shade of red. "Do you have something that belongs to him? A picture or necklace or something?"
Mr. Chase nodded, gesturing for them to follow them to the front of the house. At the front was a barrel-chested man with a trim white beard and a skullcap of grey hair. He wore a beige cashmere overcoat over a dark wool suit. His gloved hands gripped the handle of a polished wooden cane with an iron tip. "Frederick, who is this?"
"A friend of Annabeth's," Mr. Chase—Frederick—said absently as he moved towards the piles of crap on the decorative table. Salome growled at the newest dude and Lea looked at him in suspicion. He didn't look like a monster. His eyes dropped down to Salome who Lea soothed as best as she could. Not that helped much. The tiger was keeping both him and Medea in her sight. Frederick pulled out a photo of a very attractive young man. He looked similar enough to Annabeth that they could pass for siblings instead of cousins and Lea could quickly understand why Percy had a crush on Annabeth.
His blond dreads were parted down the middle, hanging to his jawline. He had gray eyes, much like Annabeth, were bright and lively but intimidating, too, as if he were analyzing the best way to take Lea down in a fight. But Lea could see a few sparks of differences between them with his pointy ears, a cheerful, elf-like face. He reminded Lea of one of those willowy elves in fairy tales; like the dryads at the camp.
And then she froze. She didn't think it was a coincidence that they were spat out here. "I think... I think I may know where he's at."
The three adults looked at her.
Lea flicked her eyes to the other dude before looking back at Frederick. "Does he?"
"Know the truth," the other guy said. "About Annabeth and the rest of you. Yes."
Lea wondered if she was the only one who heard the disgust when he said "the rest of you". She dismissed him immediately, turning back to Annabeth's dad. "Annabeth's on a quest within the Labyrinth. And from what I've heard and learned, if he ran away, well, the maze attracts the homeless."
"The Maze from the myths," Frederick murmured. "She was always reading about that thing." There was small pained smile on his face as he got lost in his memories. Probably thinking about a younger Annabeth running away from home and using it to escape. Though that didn't happen, it was still a thought. A look of horror appeared on his face. "Isn't it designed to draw people mad?"
Well, Lea hadn't wanted to mention it. She winced as the other two mirrored his expression. Medea patted her shoulder and Lea fought the urge to flinch away from it as the girl took the pendant and walked away a bit. Lea sighed, giving a small nod. "Yes, it does, but..." She held her hands up. "But... like I said, I have a tracking spell on Percy and it monitors his vitals. If anything happened to him, it can be rightly assumed that it was happening her too. It's actually why I'm not at camp." She tilted her head in Medea's direction. "Her brother is missing also. We're tracking him down right now. I can look for Magnus while we're doing that and I'd be able to go in and find Annabeth so that she can contact you all and let you know if she came across him also."
"Okay," Frederick breathed. "Okay. I—"
"And I highly doubt that Magnus is dead," she said watching the way that all three instantly relaxed. "Did she ever tell you about Luke?"
"The one who took care of her when she ran away," Mrs. Chase remembered. "She said that—"
"He was an evil bastard?"
"That you were Luke's Father's soulmate," the woman smiled. Lea flushed instantly.
Of all the goddamn things to tell them...
Lea cleared her throat. "Well, while that is technically, um, true. Um..." She was stammering and she could just imagine that green-eyed asshole laughing at her teasingly. "Anyway, Luke is kind of the enemy right now. And he wants to make some of us switch sides and join him in his overthrow of the gods. That's why Annabeth is in the maze. Luke's trying to find a way into the camp past the barrier protections."
"You think he'll come after us?"
"I doubt that," Lea snorted. "That's a suicide quest if he went after our families. No, if he wanted to do that, he would have done it already. But Magnus..."
"Magnus isn't here and if he really is in the maze..."
"He's free game," Lea said. "Luke can manipulate him. Demigods... we have these dreams. And well, I had one. Luke needs one more person before their side was strong enough to really begin their plans."
"And Magnus could be that person, making him all kinds of promises." The other dude murmured. Lea nodded. And if Luke got her cousin, Lea kind of doubted that Annabeth wouldn't hesitate to kill him. Lea would. Probably. She didn't necessarily wanted to make Hermes sad.
Salome rumbled once more and Lea kept her face carefully blank. Maybe Luke had already gotten to her family... just not who they thought.
Medea made her way back over to her. "Found another entrance."
Lea nodded her head sharply before turning back to the small family. "Anything else should I know about him?"
Mr. and Mrs. Chase turned to the other dude. "A few people said they saw him on the streets for a few days before he ran into Beech Forest." Beech Forest? Which sounded like Beach Forest. Which an entrance into the maze was found in a forest by Percy, the son of the sea god. And the sea is connected to what? Beaches. Wonderful.
"We'll find him," Lea assured before climbing back on top of Salome. The adults blinked before jerking back in shock. Lea raised a brow, looking down only sense something a bit different. Like the mist thinned a bit.
Medea climbed on behind her.
"That's a... that's..."
"A sabertooth tiger," she quipped with a smug smile. "Her name is Salome."
"I... okay."
Lea snickered before Salome carried them away. "Where are we going?"
"A convenience store up ahead," Medea murmured in her ear. "I did a bit of snooping. The entrance seems to be in a basement area."
Lea patted her hand where she knew that she placed her knives. Medea might not have originally known that Trent was a traitor, but Lea wasn't stupid enough to trust that she wouldn't try to get revenge for her brother.
When they made it to the store, it gave her the vibe of Dollar General where just about every corner was filled with them. There was a hand-painted sign over the door: RAINBOW ORGANIC FOODS & LIFESTYLES.
"I swear if you're taken me to a tofu-shop, I will drop you into the ocean," Lea grumbled, jumping down from Salome's back. There was another sign on the door that said: NO PETS ALLOWED. Lea scoffed, slipping a pair of black shades on her face and holding on Salome that the mist hopefully covered enough to look like a seeing-eye animal. She didn't usually utilize that kind of disguise, but Drew had been on a mission for Apóllōn once in a place where you had to be visibly disabled to get in. Drew didn't know how to pretend to be paralyzed and well... the shades were infrared so Lea joined for that one quest to help her get access to whatever it was she was getting.
Lea didn't ask questions.
(It was thankfully the only mission that she had like that because honestly, Lea felt very uncomfortable being around so many physically disabled people when she wasn't even physically disabled. It felt like she was making a mockery of them, and Lea prided herself on being an asshole but she was not an ableist piece of shit.)
As they stepped through the door, flute music started up like they'd walked onto a stage. The wide aisles were lined with bins of nuts and dried fruit, baskets of apples, and clothing racks with tie-dyed shirts and gauzy Tinker Bell–type dresses. The ceiling was covered in wind chimes. Along the walls, glass cases displayed crystal balls, geodes, macramé dream catchers, and a bunch of other strange stuff. Incense must have been burning somewhere. It smelled like a bouquet of flowers was on fire.
Lea kind of wished for anosmia if it meant getting that smell out of her nose.
"I couldn't get passed the casher," Medea murmured. Lea nodded her head, ready to call upon her mageia. They moved through quickly until they got to the counter. When the cashier showed up, Lea realized that it would be easier than she thought.
The cashier had opaque green colored eyes on a pretty elfish face with a thick cluster of plaited discs like green quarters sitting a top of their head. They were wearing a dress made of the same stuff, so they appeared to be clad in a shower of chlorophyll coinage. They were smaller than Lea to the point that the demigod knew that the cashier was standing on a step stool. A dryad. Their name tag read: ROFLcopter: My name is Money Maker.
That was a stripper name, but okay.
Lea smiling, a palm filled with fire. Medea and Money Maker both yelped backing away. "Excuse me, kind lady. If you could point to me the elevator that leads down to the freaky basement, I'll be out your atmosphere."
Money Maker shakily pointed her towards a door hidden behind a bunch of tie-dyed purses and dried fruit leather shoes. Lea extinguished the fire, not wanting to call out the fact that she wasn't actually going to set fire to anything. She knew that the aliens would punish anyone that harmed or killed a dryad and listen, Leaneira was not about to get lobotomized. The doors moved like elevator doors.
Lea pursed her lips, feeling a bit vindicated. "I knew it. I fucking knew it! The aliens are out to fucking get us!"
The three of them walked into the lift and Lea threw a pouch of drachmas onto the counter for the trouble. She grimaced as the doors closed. Lea wasn't really fond of confined places. They drove her nuts.
But once they dropped to the bottom, the newest doorway looked a bit like those weird gateways that show up in the middle of the force and you just know its going to send somewhere you have nowhere business being.
Of course, it made sense for it to be a labyrinth entrance. Of course.
WORD COUNT: 5211
Words to Know:
1) Mercurius - latin form of Mercury, the roman equivalent to Hermês. While I loudly showcase and respect the differences between the Olympians and the Dii Consentes, this will be following alongside the more common thought that the Greek and Roman gods were one and the same. They're not, but that's for another story.
2) bis beati Leaneíras - twice-blessed Leaneíras
3) mon coeur - French term of endearment that means "my heart"
THINGS TO KNOW:
1) The Cypro-Minoan syllabary (CM) is an undeciphered syllabary used on the island of Cyprus during the late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1050 BC). The term "Cypro-Minoan" was coined by Arthur Evans in 1909 based on its visual similarity to Linear A on Minoan Crete, from which CM is thought to be derived.
2) Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history.
3) Trent's etymology stems from more than one possibility. Initially a surname for people living along the River Trent, this sturdy title means "the flooder" or "traveler, through, trespasser" because of the river's gushing waters. And well, we already have a glimpse of his fate.
4) Hippolytus, one of the Gigantes, slain by Hermês who was wearing Háidēs' helmet of invisibility.
5) Cacus, a fire-breathing giant and the son of Vulcanus. He was killed by Hercules after terrorizing the Aventine Hill before the founding of Rome. Rick sets him up as a son of Hḗphaistos which is really Plutarch's fault but since Cacus only existed in Roman myths and Plutarch lived during the Roman Empire (and later became an actual roman citizen) he is the son of Vulcanus.
Searching for Location - Location Found (Time Stamp: The Beginning of the Chapter):
1) Percy and the Questers are speaking with Hḗrē at the Beginning of the Chapter. It's not really stated where but since the next part puts them at Triple G Ranch, I'm going to say that they're somewhere near TX and Lea is currently in Boston. About 30 hrs away by car. About 4 hours 20 minutes by plane.
1A) What I really want to believe though is that they're in the catacombs of Rome and then the Maze just shot them off to Texas. That would really give the "Maze is Alive" vibe off. I got my own plans for that though obviously.
2) At the end, they are at Triple G Ranch which is located somewhere in Texas.
COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR:
1) SURPRISE! One Mister Magnus Chase. I have not read his books, but I have stolen him away!
1A) Because of him we will be getting a lot more norse references. And since I have not read his books, however Rick characterized him won't show up here, sorry.
1B) Reminder that the Norse gods do not exist in this verse, BUT lmfaoo, it will be explained on how the norse gods came to be worshipped.
1C) There will be an explanation on his godly parent soon.
2) Lea is fluent in english, can speak a passable amount of latin and ellinika, she knows a few phrases in japanse, she speak short conversations in french, she knows just enough cypro-minoan to make simple sentences, and she recognize cretan hieroglyphs.
2A) Don't ask her to write or read anything in any other language than english unless they are very simple sentences. "I am fourteen." "In the Maze." simple. Otherwise, she'll pretend you didn't say anything.
3) (if you do not get out of my face looking like something straight out of the jungle book.) is reworded from Madea Goes to Jail play where she says "if you do not get out of my face looking like something straight out of the lion king."
4) ("Excuse me, kind lady. If you could point to me the elevator that leads down to the freaky basement, I'll be out your atmosphere.") comes from the Netflix Original: They Cloned Tyrone. ("Excuse me, kind sir. If you could point to me the elevator that leads down to the freaky laboratory, i'll be out your atmosphere.")
5) The conversation that Lea overhears is a play on the conversation that Apóllōn and Hermês have in The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 380-384. It's told by a bard name Demodocus. And its after Aphrodítē and Árēs were caught in their affair while she was still married to Hḗphaistos.
6) Like Magnus, Lea still considers herself to be an atheist even after meeting the gods though in her case, its mainly because she believes that they are aliens.
7) Yes, it's implied that Hermês and Peithō slept together. I mean, you guys. She is still technically his wife. They haven't gotten divorced yet. For Hermês though, this is more like friends with benefits thing. He's not in a relationship with Lea so no sexy times for them, but like if he had to choose, he was definitely choosing his Leaneíras.
7A) It's also like ppl keep accusing Hermês of grooming her and at this point, while Hermês does very much want what they have to end in a relationship... He is very content with what they have and just satisfied with being her friend.
7B) He still wouldn't accept anyone flirting with her and will probably most definitely kill any suitors, but if Lea said that she wanted to try a relationship with someone else, he would very, very, very reluctantly step aside. I wouldn't even be surprised if he looked for any evidence that they're a shitty person, but like Lea doesn't know he would do that and she's also not interested in dating so, yeah.
8) According to the wikia, The Sword of Summer, it is said that Natalie died two years prior to the events of the novel. Given the timeline of events in the Riordan universe, as The Sword of Summer takes place after the events of The Heroes of Olympus, it could be estimated that Natalie was killed between the events of The Battle of the Labyrinth and The Last Olympian.
9) And since I don't care about all of that, everything has changed.