by Rick Riordan
And he told them about the strange woman in earthen robes who seemed to be asleep, and seemed to know the future.
Leo estimated the whole state of Massachusetts passed below them before his friends spoke.
‘That’s … disturbing,’ Piper said.
‘’Bout sums it up,’ Leo agreed. ‘Thing is, everybody says don’t trust Hera. She hates demigods. And the prophecy said we’d cause death if we unleash her rage. So I’m wondering … why are we doing this?’
‘She chose us,’ Jason said. ‘All three of us. We’re the first of the seven who have to gather for the Great Prophecy. This quest is the beginning of something much bigger.’
That didn’t make Leo feel any better, but he couldn’t argue with Jason’s point. It did feel like this was the start of something huge. He just wished that if there were four more demigods destined to help them they’d show up quick. Leo didn’t want to hog all the terrifying life-threatening adventures.
‘Besides,’ Jason continued, ‘helping Hera is the only way I can get back my memory. And that dark spire in my dream seemed to be feeding on Hera’s energy. If that thing unleashes a king of the giants by destroying Hera –’
‘Not a good trade-off,’ Piper agreed. ‘At least Hera is on our side – mostly. Losing her would throw the gods into chaos. She’s the main one who keeps peace in the family. And a war with the giants could be even more destructive than the Titan War.’
Jason nodded. ‘Chiron also talked about worse forces stirring on the solstice, with it being a good time for dark magic and all – something that could awaken if Hera were sacrificed on that day. And this mistress who’s controlling the storm spirits, the one who wants to kill all the demigods –’
‘Might be that weird sleeping lady,’ Leo finished. ‘Dirt Woman fully awake? Not something I want to see.’
‘But who is she?’ Jason asked. ‘And what does she have to do with giants?’
Good questions, but none of them had answers. They flew in silence while Leo wondered if he’d done the right thing, sharing so much. He’d never told anyone about that night at the warehouse. Even if he hadn’t given them the whole story, it still felt strange, like he’d opened up his chest and taken out all the gears that made him tick. His body was shaking, and not from the cold. He hoped Piper, sitting behind him, couldn’t tell.
The forge and dove shall break the cage. Wasn’t that the prophecy line? That meant Piper and he would have to figure out how to break into that magic rock prison, assuming they could find it. Then they’d unleash Hera’s rage, causing a lot of death. Well, that sounded fun! Leo had seen Tía Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let’s unleash her rage. Great idea.
Festus kept flying. The wind got colder, and below them snowy forests seemed to go on forever. Leo didn’t know exactly where Quebec was. He’d told Festus to take them to the palace of Boreas, and Festus kept going north. Hopefully, the dragon knew the way, and they wouldn’t end up at the North Pole.
‘Why don’t you get some sleep?’ Piper said in his ear. ‘You were up all night.’
Leo wanted to protest, but the word sleep sounded really good. ‘You won’t let me fall off?’
Piper patted his shoulder. ‘Trust me, Valdez. Beautiful people never lie.’
‘Right,’ he muttered. He leaned forward against the warm bronze of the dragon’s neck and closed his eyes.
XVIII
LEO
It seemed he slept only for seconds, but when Piper shook him awake, the daylight was fading.
‘We’re here,’ she said.
Leo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Below them, a city sat on a cliff overlooking a river. The plains around it were dusted with snow, but the city itself glowed warmly in the winter sunset. Buildings crowded together inside high walls like a mediaeval town, way older than any place Leo had seen before. In the centre was an actual castle – at least Leo assumed it was a castle – with massive red brick walls and a square tower with a peaked, green gabled roof.
‘Tell me that’s Quebec and not Santa’s workshop,’ Leo said.
‘Yeah, Quebec City,’ Piper confirmed. ‘One of the oldest cities in North America. Founded around sixteen hundred or so?’
Leo raised an eyebrow. ‘Your dad do a movie about that, too?’
She made a face at him, which Leo was used to, but it didn’t quite work with her new glamorous makeup. ‘I read sometimes, okay? Just because Aphrodite claimed me doesn’t mean I have to be an airhead.’
‘Feisty!’ Leo said. ‘Since you know so much, what’s that castle?’
‘A hotel, I think.’
Leo laughed. ‘No way.’
But, as they got closer, Leo saw she was right. The grand entrance was bustling with doormen, valets, and porters taking bags. Sleek black luxury cars idled in the drive. People in elegant suits and winter cloaks hurried to get out of the cold.
‘The North Wind is staying in a hotel?’ Leo said. ‘That can’t be –’
‘Heads up, guys,’ Jason interrupted. ‘We’ve got company!’
Leo looked below and saw what Jason meant. Rising from the top of the tower were two winged figures – angry angels, with nasty-looking swords.
Festus didn’t like the angel guys. He swooped to a halt in midair, wings beating and talons bared, and made a rumbling sound in his throat that Leo recognized. He was getting ready to blow fire.
‘Steady, boy,’ Leo muttered. Something told him the angels would not take kindly to getting torched.
‘I don’t like this,’ Jason said. ‘They look like storm spirits.’
At first Leo thought he was right, but as the angels neared he could see they were much more solid than venti. They looked like regular teenagers except for their icy white hair and feathery purple wings. Their bronze swords were jagged, like icicles. Their faces looked similar enough that they might’ve been brothers, but they definitely weren’t twins.
One was the size of an ox, with a bright red hockey jersey, baggy sweatpants and black leather cleats. The guy clearly had been in too many fights, because both his eyes were black, and when he bared his teeth, several of them were missing.
The other guy looked like he’d just stepped off one of Leo’s mom’s 1980s rock album covers – Journey, maybe, or Hall & Oates, or something even lamer. His ice-white hair was long and feathered into a mullet. He wore pointy-toed leather shoes, designer trousers that were way too tight and a god-awful silk shirt with the top three buttons open. Maybe he thought he looked like a groovy love god, but the guy couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds, and he had a bad case of acne.
The angels pulled up in front of the dragon and hovered there, swords at the ready.
The hockey ox grunted. ‘No clearance.’
‘’Scuse me?’ Leo said.
‘You have no flight plan on file,’ explained the groovy love god. On top of his other problems, he had a French accent so bad Leo was sure it was fake. ‘This is restricted airspace.’
‘Destroy them?’ The ox showed off his gap-toothed grin.
The dragon began to hiss steam, ready to defend them. Jason summoned his golden sword, but Leo cried, ‘Hold on! Let’s have some manners here, boys. Can I at least find out who has the honour of destroying me?’
‘I am Cal!’ the ox grunted. He looked very proud of himself, like he’d taken a long time to memorize that sentence.
‘That’s short for Calais,’ the love god said. ‘Sadly, my brother cannot say words with more than two syllables –’
‘Pizza! Hockey! Destroy!’ Cal offered.
‘– which includes his own name,’ the love god finished.
‘I am Cal,’ Cal repeated. ‘And this is Zethes! My brother!’
‘Wow,’ Leo said. ‘That was almost three sentences, man! Way to go.’
Cal grunted, obviously pleased with himself.
‘Stupid buffoon,’ his brother grumbled. ‘They make fun of you.
But no matter. I am Zethes, which is short for Zethes. And the lady there –’ He winked at Piper, but the wink was more like a facial seizure. ‘She can call me anything she likes. Perhaps she would like to have dinner with a famous demigod before we must destroy you?’
Piper made a sound like gagging on a cough drop. ‘That’s … a truly horrifying offer.’
‘It is no problem.’ Zethes wiggled his eyebrows. ‘We are a very romantic people, we Boreads.’
‘Boreads?’ Jason cut in. ‘Do you mean, like, the sons of Boreas?’
‘Ah, so you’ve heard of us!’ Zethes looked pleased. ‘We are our father’s gatekeepers. So you understand, we cannot have unauthorized people flying in his airspace on creaky dragons, scaring the silly mortal peoples.’
He pointed below, and Leo saw that the mortals were starting to take notice. Several were pointing up – not with alarm, yet – more with confusion and annoyance, like the dragon was a traffic helicopter flying too low.
‘Which is sadly why, unless this is an emergency landing,’ Zethes said, brushing his hair out of his acne-covered face, ‘we will have to destroy you painfully.’
‘Destroy!’ Cal agreed, with a little more enthusiasm than Leo thought necessary.
‘Wait!’ Piper said. ‘This is an emergency landing.’
‘Awww!’ Cal looked so disappointed that Leo almost felt sorry for him.
Zethes studied Piper, which of course he’d already been doing. ‘How does the pretty girl decide this is an emergency, then?’
‘We have to see Boreas. It’s totally urgent! Please?’ She forced a smile, which Leo figured must’ve been killing her, but she still had that blessing-of-Aphrodite thing going on, and she looked great. Something about her voice, too – Leo found himself believing every word. Jason was nodding, looking absolutely convinced.
Zethes picked at his silk shirt, probably making sure it was still open wide enough. ‘Well … I hate to disappoint a lovely lady, but, you see, my sister, she would have an avalanche if we allowed you –’
‘And our dragon is malfunctioning!’ Piper added. ‘It could crash any minute!’
Festus shuddered helpfully, then turned his head and spilled gunk out of his ear, splattering a black Mercedes in the parking lot below.
‘No destroy?’ Cal whimpered.
Zethes pondered the problem. Then he gave Piper another spasmodic wink. ‘Well, you are pretty. I mean, you’re right. A malfunctioning dragon – this could be an emergency.’
‘Destroy them later?’ Cal offered, which was probably as close to friendly as he ever got.
‘It will take some explaining,’ Zethes decided. ‘Father has not been kind to visitors lately. But, yes. Come, faulty dragon people. Follow us.’
The Boreads sheathed their swords and pulled smaller weapons from their belts – or at least Leo thought they were weapons. Then the Boreads switched them on, and Leo realized they were flashlights with orange cones, like the ones traffic controller guys use on a runway. Cal and Zethes turned and swooped towards the hotel’s tower.
Leo turned to his friends. ‘I love these guys. Follow them?’
Jason and Piper didn’t look eager.
‘I guess,’ Jason decided. ‘We’re here now. But I wonder why Boreas hasn’t been kind to visitors.’
‘Pfft, he just hasn’t met us.’ Leo whistled. ‘Festus, after those flashlights!’
As they got closer, Leo worried they’d crash into the tower. The Boreads made right for the green gabled peak and didn’t slow down. Then a section of the slanted roof slid open, revealing an entrance easily wide enough for Festus. The top and bottom were lined with icicles like jagged teeth.
‘This cannot be good,’ Jason muttered, but Leo spurred the dragon downward, and they swooped in after the Boreads.
They landed in what must have been the penthouse suite, but the place had been hit by a flash freeze. The entry hall had vaulted ceilings forty feet high, huge draped windows and lush oriental carpets. A staircase at the back of the room led up to another equally massive hall, and more corridors branched off to the left and right. But the ice made the room’s beauty a little frightening. When Leo slid off the dragon, the carpet crunched under his feet. A fine layer of frost covered the furniture. The curtains didn’t budge because they were frozen solid, and the ice-coated windows let in weird watery light from the sunset. Even the ceiling was furry with icicles. As for the stairs, Leo was sure he’d slip and break his neck if he tried to climb them.
‘Guys,’ Leo said, ‘fix the thermostat in here, and I would totally move in.’
‘Not me.’ Jason looked uneasily at the staircase. ‘Something feels wrong. Something up there …’
Festus shuddered and snorted flames. Frost started to form on his scales.
‘No, no, no.’ Zethes marched over, though how he could walk in those pointy leather shoes, Leo had no idea. ‘The dragon must be deactivated. We can’t have fire in here. The heat ruins my hair.’
Festus growled and spun his drill-bit teeth.
‘’S okay, boy.’ Leo turned to Zethes. ‘The dragon’s a little touchy about the whole deactivation concept. But I’ve got a better solution.’
‘Destroy?’ Cal suggested.
‘No, man. You gotta stop with the destroy talk. Just wait.’
‘Leo,’ Piper said nervously, ‘what are you –’
‘Watch and learn, beauty queen. When I was repairing Festus last night, I found all kinds of buttons. Some you do not want to know what they do. But others … Ah, here we go.’
Leo hooked his fingers behind the dragon’s left foreleg. He pulled a switch, and the dragon shuddered from head to toe. Everyone backed away as Festus folded like origami. His bronze plating stacked together. His neck and tail contracted into his body. His wings collapsed and his trunk compacted until he was a rectangular metal wedge the size of a suitcase.
Leo tried to lift it, but the thing weighed about six billion pounds. ‘Um … yeah. Hold on. I think – aha.’
He pushed another button. A handle flipped up on the top and wheels clicked out on the bottom.
‘Ta-da!’ he announced. ‘The world’s heaviest carry-on bag!’
‘That’s impossible,’ Jason said. ‘Something that big couldn’t –’
‘Stop!’ Zethes ordered. He and Cal both drew their swords and glared at Leo.
Leo raised his hands. ‘Okay … what’d I do? Stay calm, guys. If it bothers you that much, I don’t have to take the dragon as carry-on –’
‘Who are you?’ Zethes shoved the point of his sword against Leo’s chest. ‘A child of the South Wind, spying on us?’
‘What? No!’ Leo said. ‘Son of Hephaestus. Friendly blacksmith, no harm to anyone!’
Cal growled. He put his face up to Leo’s, and he definitely wasn’t any prettier at point-blank, with his bruised eyes and bashed-in mouth. ‘Smell fire,’ he said. ‘Fire is bad.’
‘Oh.’ Leo’s heart raced. ‘Yeah, well … my clothes are kind of singed, and I’ve been working with oil, and –’
‘No!’ Zethes pushed Leo back at sword point. ‘We can smell fire, demigod. We assumed it was from the creaky dragon, but now the dragon is a suitcase. And I still smell fire … on you.’
If it hadn’t been like three degrees in the penthouse, Leo would’ve started sweating. ‘Hey … look … I don’t know –’ He glanced at his friends desperately. ‘Guys, a little help?’
Jason already had his gold coin in his hand. He stepped forward, his eyes on Zethes. ‘Look, there’s been a mistake. Leo isn’t a fire guy. Tell them, Leo. Tell them you’re not a fire guy.’
‘Um …’
‘Zethes?’ Piper tried her dazzling smile again, though she looked a little too nervous and cold to pull it off. ‘We’re all friends here. Put down your swords and let’s talk.’
‘The girl is pretty,’ Zethes admitted, ‘and of course she cannot help being attracted to my amazingness, but, sadly, I cannot romance her at this time.’ H
e poked his sword point further into Leo’s chest, and Leo could feel the frost spreading across his shirt, turning his skin numb.
He wished he could reactivate Festus. He needed some backup. But it would’ve taken several minutes, even if he could reach the button, with two purple-winged crazy guys in his path.
‘Destroy him now?’ Cal asked his brother.
Zethes nodded. ‘Sadly, I think –’
‘No,’ Jason insisted. He sounded calm enough, but Leo figured he was about two seconds away from flipping that coin and going into full gladiator mode. ‘Leo’s just a son of Hephaestus. He’s no threat. Piper here is a daughter of Aphrodite. I’m the son of Zeus. We’re on a peaceful …’
Jason’s voice faltered, because both Boreads had suddenly turned on him.
‘What did you say?’ Zethes demanded. ‘You are the son of Zeus?’
‘Um … yeah,’ Jason said. ‘That’s a good thing, right? My name is Jason.’
Cal looked so surprised, he almost dropped his sword. ‘Can’t be Jason,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t look the same.’
Zethes stepped forward and squinted at Jason’s face. ‘No, he is not our Jason. Our Jason was more stylish. Not as much as me – but stylish. Besides, our Jason died millennia ago.’
‘Wait,’ Jason said. ‘Your Jason … you mean the original Jason? The Golden Fleece guy?’
‘Of course,’ Zethes said. ‘We were his crewmates aboard his ship, the Argo, in the old times, when we were mortal demigods. Then we accepted immortality to serve our father, so I could look this good for all time, and my silly brother could enjoy pizza and hockey.’
‘Hockey!’ Cal agreed.
‘But Jason – our Jason – he died a mortal death,’ Zethes said. ‘You can’t be him.’
‘I’m not,’ Jason agreed.
‘So, destroy?’ Cal asked. Clearly the conversation was giving his two brain cells a serious workout.
‘No,’ Zethes said regretfully. ‘If he is a son of Zeus, he could be the one we’ve been watching for.’