misplaced || l. valdez

29 || honestly, i would've liked the box of chocolates

° ~ •. ♆ chapter twenty-nine ♆ .• ~ °
"honestly, i would've like the box of chocolates"

None of them were in a good mood as they climbed up the staircase. Well, except for Coach Hedge. He kept bouncing up the slippery staircase and trotting back down. "Come on, cupcakes!" he'd say. "Only a few thousand more steps."

Jason and Leo had told them about what Thalia had said on the bridge— how they could save Piper's dad and Hera— but Mari had no idea how they were going to do that.

The three of them had distanced themselves from Jason, just to give him some space. Mari could tell that he was in the worst mood out of all of them. Piper would occasionally glance back at Jason in worry. Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs of fire. He didn't seem to notice the smoke coming out of his ears or the flames dancing through his hair.

Mari was nervous for what awaited them at the top of the stairway. Something was nagging at her in the back of her brain, telling her that going up was dangerous, that facing Aeolus would be like facing her death. Looking out at the view wasn't doing much to ease her anxiety. As beautiful as it was, she knew that one wrong step and she'd be taking a long hard fall, and this time, there would be no river to save her.

Finally they arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though Mari couldn't imagine who would possibly attack this place. Twenty-foot-high gates opened for them, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel— a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington, D.C.— except for the cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof.

"That's bizarre." Piper said.

"Guess you can't get cable on a floating island." Leo said. "Dang, check this guy's front yard."

The rotunda sat in the center of a quarter-mile circle. The grounds were amazing in a scary way. They were divided into four sections like big pizza sliced, each one representing a season.

The section on their right was an icy waster, with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, and while it was funny to watch, Mari couldn't tell if they were alive or just decorations. To their left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. Mounds of leaves blew into patterns— gods, people, animals that ran after each other before scattering back into leaves.

In the distance, Mari could see two more area behind the rotunda. One looked like a green pasture with little flowers poking up from the grass. There were sheep made of clouds grazing on the little field. The last section was a desert, where tumbleweeds scratched strange patterns in the sand like Greek letters, smiley faces, and a huge advertisement that read: Watch Aeolus Nightly!

"One section for each of the four wind gods." Jason said. "Four cardinal directions."

"I'm loving that pasture." Coach Hedge licked his lips. "You guys mind—"

"Knock yourself out." Mari said. She kind of wished she could also go to the field and pick flowers. She could feel her hands shaking of fear for their meeting with Aeolus.

While the satyr ran off to attack springtime, Jason, Leo, Mari and Piper walked down the road to the steps of the palace. They passed through the front doors into a white marble foyer decorated with purple banners that read Olympian Weather Channel, and some that just read OW!