The Lost Heroine (Heroes of Olympus/Kane Chronicles crossover) [2016]

Chapter 23: Annabeth

I COULDN'T SEE. My vision was completely white. It was as if I was under the curse of the arai in Tartarus all over again. I couldn't remember what had just happened. Leo got frozen, I charged at Khione, and then she grabbed my shoulder and... oh, gods. That was it. She turned me into a statue!

I had no idea how much time had passed. Then I felt energy swirling around me, warm and cold at the same time. Starting with my feet, my body became very warm, as if life were flooding through me. When the sensation reached my chest, I felt my heart start up, which was really creepy, because it basically meant that I was dead. I decided I wasn't a big fan of being dead.

The warmth finally reached my head, and my vision came into focus. It was still mostly white, but there was this pulsing rainbow light, swirling around me and two other figures. I blinked a few times. Then I heard a voice.

"Annabeth?"

I jumped. After hearing nothing for so long, the voice startled me. I turned around and saw Leo staring at me.

"Leo! You're alive!" I yelled.

"Yeah, so are you! What happened?"

"How much do you remember?"

"I told her I wouldn't join her, then she grabbed my wrist and I got super hot and then super cold, and that's all I can remember."

"You turned into ice!"

His eyes widened. "Oh, gods! You did, too?"

"Yes! And..." I turned to the third figure, a dark haired, dark skinned boy in a white coat. "Carter?"

"Yup," Carter said. "I turned into ice, too, I guess."

"How did we turn back?" Leo asked.

"I think they broke the crystal," I guessed. "Our power was in the crystal, as well as hers, and letting our powers loose all at once must have been enough to turn us back."

"Where are the others?" Carter asked.

"The others..." I repeated. "Khione! Where is she?"

"They must have successfully execrated her!" Carter exclaimed. I stared at him. He told me and Leo what execration was.

"Then where are they?" Leo asked.

"They must have gone back!" I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Oh no. Three left behind, forever alone. You don't think..."

Carter's eyes widened. "No way! We can't be here forever!"

"We need a plan," I decided.

"What kind of plan would help us here?" Carter groaned. "Gods, I'm so stupid."

I cursed in Ancient Greek. "We don't have food. How are we going to get food?"

Leo held out his hand, and it ignited. He grinned. "Hey, I've got my powers back!"

"That solves the cooking problem," I said, "so we could catch fish."

"We're near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, right?" Carter suggested. "We could catch fish!"

"Good idea," I replied.

"We need a fishing pole," Leo said.

"No," I said, a grin forming on my face. "I'm a child of Athena. We're going to make a fishing net."

"Ooh!" Carter pulled some string out of his magician's kit. "Here!"

I cut off part of the string with my teeth, and started to weave it into a net. I used another length of string to anchor a piece of ice, a makeshift raft, to the shore, so that we didn't drift away. Then I tossed my fishing net into the water and waited. Soon, fish began to flood in. I hauled the net back up and showed Carter and Leo the seven fish that I'd caught. We found an icy cave to put our limited supplies, not too far from the water.

"We won't need a refrigerator," I realized. "It's basically freezer temperature right now, so that won't be a problem. Leo, cook duty?"

Leo grinned. "Got it, Wise Girl!"

I scowled. "Hey, only Percy is allowed to call me Wise Girl!"

He stuck his tongue out. "Whatever, Owl Head."

I rolled my eyes. Leo held a fish by the tail with his right hand, and suspended it over his left hand. Then he ignited his left hand, cooking the fish. After that, he said, "Gimme three plastic forks, three plastic knives, and three napkins. And a Swiss Army knife."

I was about to ask what the Hades he was talking about, but then he reached into his tool belt and grinned. "Yeah!"

"Smart," Carter said. "That is incredibly cool."

Leo cut the meat off of three fish skeletons with the Swiss Army knife he'd gotten from the belt. He distributed pieces of meat, forks, knives and napkins to each of us.

"How long is 'forever' supposed to be?" he wondered. "Like, a few days? A week? A year? If we have to do this every day..."

"We'll be fine," I said. "Ask for three plastic water bottles, full."

"Even better, Owl Head." He pulled out three stainless steel water bottles. "Reusable!"

"Great!" I smiled. "And they're full?"

"Yup!" he said proudly.

"I know a way to make salt water into fresh water, if you can get cellophane and maybe tin foil."

"Gotcha. What's cellophane?"

I rolled my eyes. "Saran wrap, idiot!"

"Oh!" He asked for a roll of Saran wrap and a roll of tin foil. I used the tin foil to make two bowls, one slightly larger than the other. I put the smaller bowl inside the larger one. I filled the large bowl with salt water and left the other one empty. I put the Saran wrap around the rim of the bigger bowl, and placed a slightly heavy piece of ice on top of the Saran wrap. Then I explained what it would do.

Leo also made an oil lamp out of metal, and he lit it. He took a piece of hot rolled steel and a hammer out of his tool belt. Then he gave his tool belt some cool-down time, because he couldn't get any more supplies out of the belt for the moment.

"What are you planning to do with the hot rolled steel?" I asked.

"I'm going to make a hook to hang the lamp from the ceiling of the cave," Leo explained.

He heated up the metal and bent it with his bare hands. It was probably really hot, but he didn't seem to mind. Having a heat-resistant companion was useful. Then he hammered the hook into the ceiling and hung the oil lantern on it.

"Awesome!" I declared.

Our science experiment was complete soon after that. The water in the bigger bowl had evaporated, leaving salt behind. The water condensed on the inside of the Saran wrap, which was weighed down by the ice slab, and dripped down into the inner bowl. That water was fresh.

"Boom! My tool belt is smart!" Leo announced. "It's got filters in the water bottles!"

Carter whistled. "Smart tool belt."

I smirked, balling up a wad of tin foil and weighing it in my hand. It was fairly heavy. I swapped the ice out for the tin foil ball, because it would melt if we did it multiple times.

"What if they do come back for us?" Leo asked.

"We should find the sphinx," I said. "They can anchor a portal on it after twelve hours have passed."

Suddenly Carter gasped. "No, Annabeth! You can!"