( ✓ ) Evermore, Piper McLean¹

03. iana & witchcraft

Butch flicked the reins. The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Iana felt her stomach being clawed from the inside as her vision went black, though when it came back to normal, they were in a totally different place.

A cold gray ocean stretched out to the left. Snow-covered fields, roads, and forests spread to the right. Directly below them was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on three sides and water to the north. Iana saw a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake, and a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire. But before she could really process all she was seeing, their wheels came off and the chariot dropped out of the sky.

Annabeth and Butch tried to maintain control. The pegasi labored to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of six people was just too much.

"The lake!" Annabeth yelled. "Aim for the lake!"

Iana's brain short-circuited as a thought came to mind; crashing into water from a high distance would be just as bad as crashing into cement.

And then—BOOM!

The biggest shock was the cold. She was underwater, so disoriented that she didn't know which way was up. Iana tried blowing bubbles in the water to see which way it would go up. Then faces appeared in the green murk—girls with long black hair and glowing yellow eyes. They smiled at her, grabbed her shoulders, and hauled her up.

They tossed her, gasping and shivering, onto the shore. Nearby, Butch stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off the pegasi. Fortunately, the horses looked okay, but they were flapping their wings and splashing water everywhere. Jason, Leo, and Annabeth were already on shore, surrounded by kids giving them blankets and asking questions. Somewhere in her peripheral vision, she saw Piper being tossed ashore and was about to get up before somebody else pulled her up by the arms.

Apparently, kids fell into the lake a lot, because a group of campers ran up with big bronze leaf blower–esque things and blasted Iana with hot air; in about two seconds her clothes were dry.

There were at least twenty campers milling around—the youngest maybe nine, the oldest college age, eighteen or nineteen—and all of them had orange T-shirts like Annabeth's. Iana looked back at the water and saw those strange girls just below the surface, their hair floating in the current. They looked like mermaids, just without the Disney flare. They waved like, toodle-oo, and disappeared into the depths. A second later the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.

"Annabeth!" A guy with a bow and quiver on his back pushed through the crowd. "I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!"

"Will, I'm sorry," Annabeth sighed. "I'll get it fixed, I promise."

Will scowled at his broken chariot. Then he sized up Iana, Piper, Leo, and Jason. "These are the ones? Way older than thirteen. Why haven't they been claimed already?"

"Claimed?" Leo asked.

Before Annabeth could explain, Will said, "Any sign of Percy?"

"No," Annabeth admitted.

The campers muttered. Even before the chariot ride, Iana didn't wonder to think who the hell this Percy guy was, but his disappearance seemed to be a big deal. Another girl stepped forward—tall, Asian (presumably Japanese), dark hair in ringlets, plenty of jewelry, and perfect makeup. Somehow she managed to make jeans and an orange T-shirt look glamorous.