End of the Line

#22 - Limnos

Chapter 22 - Limnos
published: Monday, 24 April 2019

Leo gave the steering wheel a whirl as he stared into the horizon. The sun had become simply a spot in his vision.

"We're almost at Limnos," he said nervously. "And we still have no idea where the ring could be. Not even a general direction."

Piper, who was sitting on the deck with a jar of cookies tucked under one arm, groaned as she seemed to reach the same conclusion. "You're right. Mnemosyne didn't leave us any clues."

"Limnos is a whole island," Leo added. "One of the biggest in Greece. What are we supposed to do? Scour every square mile until we find it?"

Piper snorted. "It's worse than looking for a needle in a haystack."

Leo chuckled. He placed Festus on autopilot and walked over to join Piper on the deck. "You feeling better?"

Piper made a face. She'd been through a whole flurry of vomiting, leaving her in the bathroom for majority of the previous evening. "Well, I'm not throwing up anymore."

"Thank gods," Leo murmured under his breath, letting out a yelp as she elbowed him pointedly.

"I'm getting all sorts of weird cravings now," Piper told him.

Leo shrugged. "That's not too bad. Everyone wants a skittle now and then."

Piper snorted and shifted to face him. "Last night, I cried because Jason couldn't find me any Oreo cake on the entire boat." She spread her arms in frustration. "Leo, I don't even like Oreos!"

He wrapped an arm around her and let her lean into him. "Think about it, when you're done with this, you'll have a beautiful baby to make up for it."

Piper looked down at her feet. "Yeah, I guess."

"Don't even try to lie to me."

"When the baby's here," Piper started slowly. She groaned and interrupted herself, "Oh, I can't say it! It's too horrible. You'll think I'm a bad person."

Leo laughed. "Yeah, you're a bad person," he said sarcastically.

"I won't even be able to help with the quest," Piper continued, visibly upset. "Leo, I feel so helpless — useless, even — whenever I have to stay on the boat. It's just like the first time we went on a quest."

Leo kissed her forehead. "You're not useless. You're Piper McLean. You help us in different ways, Pipes. Everyone has a place on this team. Everyone."

"You too," Piper reminded him. "Without you, we wouldn't even have made it off of Long Island."

He chuckled. "That's right. I'm the Iron Man of the team."

Piper rolled her eyes as she struggled to her feet. "Okay, don't go getting all arrogant now."

Footsteps sent vibrations through the ship deck as Hazel and Jason came up the steps, deep in discussion.

Leo glanced in between them. "What's going on?"

Frank came up behind them, his face a pale white and eyes bright with alarm. "I think I'm going crazy."

Leo held up his hands with raised eyebrows. "Okay, Frank. Bold first statement."

Piper coughed discreetly and kicked Leo in the shin.

He shot her a look of betrayal. "I was getting to the better part." Leo turned back to Frank. "But did you wonder if — maybe — you aren't going crazy?"