"We will never make it," Zoë said. "We are moving too slow. But we cannot leave the Ophiotaurus."
Yes, that'd be very bad, Bessie said. She swam next to Y/N as they trotted along the waterfront. They'd left the shopping center pier far behind. They were heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge, but it was a lot farther than they'd realized. The sun was already dipping in the west.
"I don't get it," Percy said. "Why do we have to get there at sunset?"
"The Hesperides are the nymphs of the sunset," Zoë said. "We can only enter their garden as day changes to night."
"What happens if we miss it?"
"Tomorrow is the winter solstice. If we miss sunset tonight, we would have to wait until tomorrow evening. And by then, the Olympian Council will be over. We must free Lady Artemis tonight."
Or Annabeth will be dead, Y/N thought, but he figured it was better not to add insult to injury.
"We need a car," Thalia said.
"What about Bessie?" he asked.
Grover stopped in his tracks. "I've got an idea! Bessie can appear in different bodies of water, right?"
"Well, I think so," he said. "I mean, she was in Long Island Sound. Then she just popped into the water at Hoover Dam. And now she's here."
"So maybe we could coax her back to Long Island Sound," Grover said. "Then Chiron could help us get her to Olympus."
"But she was following me," he said. "If I'm not there, would she know where she's going?"
I don't want to leave you, my Lord, Bessie said forlornly.
"I—I can show her," Grover said. "I'll go with her."
Y/N bent down and explained the plan in Bessie's ear. Bessie shivered, then said, All right.
"The blessing of the Wild," Grover said. "That should help with safe passage. Percy, pray to your dad. See if he will grant us safe passage through the seas."
Percy frowned, as if he didn't really get what he had to do. "Dad," he said. "Help us. Get Bessie and Grover safely to camp. Protect them at sea."
"You're sure that's enough?" Y/N said doubtfully.
Percy shrugged. "Well . . . I don't have anything else."
Grover took a deep breath. "No time to lose."
He jumped in the water and immediately began to sink. Bessie glided next to him and let him take hold of her neck.
"Be careful," Percy said.
"We will," Grover said. "Okay, um . . . Bessie? We're going eastward. Over that way."
To Long Island? Bessie said.
"Long Island," Grover answered. "It's this island. And . . . it's long. Oh, let's just start."
Okay!
Bessie lurched forward. She started to submerge and Grover said, "I can't breathe underwater! Just thought I'd mention—" Glub!
Under they went, and Y/N wondered if Percy's prayer would work. And if it did, would it extend to little things, like breathing?
"Well, that's one problem addressed," Ethan said. "Now, how do we get to those Hesperides' garden?"
"Thalia's right," Percy said. "We need a car. But there's nobody to help us here. Unless we, uh, borrowed one."
That wasn't the worst option, since this was a life-or-death situation. But still, stealing a car . . . that was bound to get them in trouble.
"I think there is someone in San Francisco who can help us," Thalia said. She started rifling through her backpack. "I've got the address somewhere."
"Who?" Percy asked.
Thalia pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper and held it up. "Professor Chase. Annabeth's dad."
After hearing Annabeth gripe about her dad for two years, Y/N was expecting a man with devil horns and fangs. He was not expecting a man wearing an old-fashioned aviator's cap and goggles. This man looked so weird, with his eyes bugging out through the glasses, that they all took a step back on the front porch.
"Hello," he said in a friendly voice. "Are you delivering my airplanes?"
Y/N exchanged looks with Ethan—phew, he wasn't the only one thinking this guy was nuts.
"Um, no, sir," he said.
"Drat," the man said. "I need three more Sopwith Camels."
"Right," he said, though he had no clue what the man was talking about. "We're friends of Annabeth."
"Annabeth?" The man straightened as if he'd just received an electric shock. "Is she all right? Has something happened?"
None of them answered, but their faces must've told him that something was very wrong. He took off his cap and goggles. He had sandy-colored hair like Annabeth and intense brown eyes. He was handsome, for an older guy, but it looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and his shirt was buttoned wrong, so one side of his collar stuck up higher than the other side.
"You'd better come in," he said.
It didn't look like a house people had just moved into. There were Lego robots on the stairs and two cats sleeping on the sofa in the living room. The coffee table was stacked with magazines, and a little kid's winter coat was spread on the floor. The whole house smelled like fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. There was jazz music coming from the kitchen. It seemed like a messy, happy kind of home—the kind of place that had been lived in forever; at least from what Y/N had seen in movies.
"Dad!" a little boy screamed. "He's taking apart my robots!"
"Bobby," Dr. Chase called absently, "don't take apart your brother's robots."
"I'm Bobby," the little boy protested. "He's Matthew!"
"Matthew," Dr. Chase called, "don't take apart your brother's robots!"
"Okay, Dad!"
Dr. Chase turned to Y/N, Ethan, Percy, Thalia, and Zoë. "We'll go upstairs to my study. This way."
"Honey?" a woman called. Annabeth's stepmom appeared in the living room, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was a pretty Asian woman with red highlighted hair tied in a bun. "Who are our guests?" she asked.
"Oh," Dr. Chase said. "This is . . ."
He stared at them blankly.
"Frederick," she chided. "You forgot to ask them their names?"
They introduced themselves a little uneasily, but Mrs. Chase seemed really nice. She asked if they were hungry. They admitted they were, and she told them she'd bring them cookies and sandwiches and sodas.
"Dear," Dr. Chase said. "They came about Annabeth."
Y/N half-expected Mrs. Chase to turn into a raving lunatic at the mention of her stepdaughter, but she just pursed her lips and looked concerned. "All right. Go on up to the study and I'll bring you some food." She smiled at Y/N. "Nice meeting you, Y/N. I've heard a lot about you."
Upstairs they walked into Dr. Chase's study, and Y/N thought, Whoa!
The room was wall-to-wall books, but what really caught his attention were the war toys. There was a huge table with miniature tanks and soldiers fighting along a blue painted river, with hills and fake trees and stuff. Old-fashioned biplanes hung on strings from the ceiling, tilted at crazy angles as if they were in the middle of a dogfight.
Dr. Chase smiled. "Yes. The Third Battle of Ypres. I'm writing a paper, you see, on the use of Sopwith Camels to strafe the enemy lines. I believe they played a much greater role than they've been given credit for."
He plucked a biplane from its string and swept it across the battlefield, making airplane engine noises as he knocked down little German soldiers.
"Oh, right," Y/N said. He knew Annabeth's dad was a professor of military history. She'd never mentioned he played with toy soldiers.
Zoë came over and studied the battlefield. "The German lines were farther from the river."
Dr. Chase stared at her. "How do you know that?"
"I was there," she said matter-of-factly. "Artemis wanted to show us how horrible war was, the way mortal men fight each other. And how foolish, too. The battle was a complete waste."
Dr. Chase opened his mouth in shock. "You—"
"She's a Hunter, sir," Thalia said. "But that's not why we're here. We need—"
"You saw the Sopwith Camels?" Dr. Chase said. "How many were there? What formations did they fly?"
"Sir," Thalia broke in again. "Annabeth is in danger."
That got his attention. He set the biplane down.
"Of course," he said. "Tell me everything."
It wasn't easy, but they tried. Meanwhile, the afternoon light was fading outside. They were running out of time.
When they'd finished, Dr. Chase collapsed in his leather recliner. He laced his hands. "My poor brave Annabeth. We must hurry."
"Sir, we need transportation to Mount Tamalpais," Zoë said. "And we need it immediately."
"I'll drive you. Hmm, it would be faster to fly in my Camel, but it only seats two."
"Whoa, you have an actual biplane?" Ethan said.
"Down at Crissy Field," Dr. Chase said proudly. "That's the reason I had to move here. My sponsor is a private collector with some of the finest World War I relics in the world. He let me restore the Sopwith Camel—"
"Sir," Thalia said. "Just a car would be great. And it might be better if we went without you. It's too dangerous."
Dr. Chase frowned uncomfortably. "Now wait a minute, young lady. Annabeth is my daughter. Dangerous or not, I—I can't just—"
"Snacks," Mrs. Chase announced. She pushed through the door with a tray full of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and Cokes and cookies fresh out of the oven, the chocolate chips still gooey. Y/N and Ethan inhaled a few cookies while Zoë said, "I can drive, sir. I'm not as young as I look. I promise not to destroy your car."
Mrs. Chase knit her eyebrows. "What's this about?"
"Annabeth is in danger," Dr. Chase said. "On Mount Tam. I would drive them, but . . . apparently it's no place for mortals."
It sounded like it was really hard for him to get that last part out.
Y/N waited for Mrs. Chase to say no. What mortal parent would allow five underage teenagers to borrow their car? To his surprise, Mrs. Chase nodded. "Then they'd better get going."
"Right!" Dr. Chase jumped up and started patting his pockets. "My keys. . . ."
His wife sighed. "Frederick, honestly. You'd lose your head if it weren't wrapped inside your aviator hat. The keys are hanging on the peg by the front door."
"Right!" Dr. Chase said.
Zoë grabbed a sandwich. "Thank you both. We should go. Now."
They hustled out of the door and down the stairs, the Chases right behind them.
"Y/N," Mrs. Chase called as he was leaving, "tell Annabeth. . . . Tell her she still has a home here, will you? Remind her of that."
He took one last look at the messy living room, Annabeth's half-brothers spilling Legos and arguing, the smell of cookies filling the air. It wasn't so bad. He would have given a lot for a place like this.
"I'll tell her," he promised.
They ran out to the yellow VW convertible parked in the driveway. The sun was going down. He figured they had less than an hour to save Annabeth.
"Can't this thing go any faster?" Thalia demanded.
Zoë glared at her. "I cannot control traffic."
"You both sound like my mother," Percy said.
"Shut up!" they said in unison.
Zoë weaved in and out of traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was sinking on the horizon when they finally got into Marin County and exited the highway.
The roads were insanely narrow, winding through forests and up the sides of hills and around the edges of steep ravines. Zoë didn't slow down at all.
"Why does everything smell like cough drops?" Ethan asked.
"Eucalyptus." Zoë pointed to the huge trees all around them.
"The stuff koala bears eat?" Y/N said.
"And monsters," she said. "They love chewing the leaves. Especially dragons."
"Dragon chew eucalyptus leaves?"
"Believe me," Zoë said, "if you had dragon breath, you would chew eucalyptus too."
Ahead of them loomed Mount Tamalpais. In terms of mountains, it was a small one, but it looked plenty huge as they were driving toward it.
"So that's the Mountain of Despair?" Percy asked.
"Yes," Zoë said tightly.
"Why do they call it that?" Ethan said.
She was silent for almost a mile before answering. "After the war between the Titans and the gods, many of the Titans were punished and imprisoned. Kronos was sliced to pieces and thrown into Tartarus. Kronos's right-hand man, the general of his forces, was imprisoned up there, on the summit, just beyond the Garden of the Hesperides."
"The General," Y/N said. Clouds seemed to be swirling around its peak, as though the mountain was drawing them in, spinning them like a top. "What's going on up there? A storm?"
Zoë didn't answer. He got the feeling she knew exactly what the clouds meant, and she didn't like it.
"We have to concentrate," Thalia said. "The Mist is really strong here."
"The magical kind or the natural kind?" Percy asked.
"Both," Ethan said.
The gray clouds swirled even thicker over the mountain, and they kept driving straight toward them. They were out of the forest now, into wide open spaces of cliffs and grass and rocks and fog.
"Look!" Percy said, pointing at the window.
Y/N turned around in his seat, trying to see what Percy showed. But whatever it was, they turned a corner and hills hid it.
"What?" he asked.
"A big white ship," Percy said. "Docked near the beach. It looked like a cruise ship."
Thalia's eyes widened. "Luke's ship?"
"We will have company, then," Zoë said grimly.
"Kronos's army, if you please!" Ethan said.
Suddenly Thalia shouted, "Stop the car. NOW!"
Zoë must've sensed something was wrong, because she slammed on the brakes without question. The yellow VW spun twice before coming to a stop at the edge of the cliff.
"Out!" Thalia yelled.
Y/N opened the door and pushed Ethan hard. They both rolled onto the pavement. The next second: BOOOM!
Lightning flashed, and Dr. Chase's Volkswagen erupted like a canary-yellow grenade. Y/N probably would've been killed by shrapnel except for his lion coat. He felt something like metal rain hammering his back and fell onto Ethan, but when he opened his eyes, the both of them were still alive. They were surrounded by wreckage. Part of the VW's fender had impaled itself in the street. The smoking hood was spinning in circles. Pieces of yellow metal were strewn across the road.
"Y/N! Ethan! Zoë!" came Percy's panicked voice.
"Silence, fool!" came Zoë's from somewhere on the other side of the road. "Do you want to wake Ladon?"
Percy didn't seem to care. "Y/N! Ethan!"
"We're here!" Y/N said. He tried to push himself up. Crack. "Ow! My back. . . ."
"Will you shut up?" Zoë grumbled. She stood next to him with Percy and Thalia, pulling him by his arm. "We're very close. Follow me."
Sheets of fog were drifting right across the road. Zoë stepped into one of them, and when the fog passed, she was no longer there.
"Great," Y/N said. "How do we follow her, now?"
"Go straight into the fog and concentrate on her shape," Ethan said.
"Perfect," he said.
He stepped into the fog, followed by the others.
When the fog cleared, he was still on the side of the mountain, but the road was dirt. The grass was thicker. The sunset made a bloodred slash across the sea. The summit of the mountain seemed closer now, swirling with storm clouds and raw power. There was only one path to the top, directly in front of them. And it led through a lush meadow of shadows and flowers: the garden of twilight.
An uncomfortable feeling of foreboding nagged at Y/N.
If it hadn't been for the enormous dragon, the garden would've been the most beautiful place in the world. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light, and the flowers were such brilliant colors they almost glowed in the dark. Stepping stones of polished black marble led around either side of a five-story-tall apple tree, every bough glittering with golden apples. Real golden apples. As soon as the wind brought their fragrance to Y/N's nostrils, he knew that one bite would make any other apple taste bland.
"The apples of immortality," Ethan said. "Hera's wedding gift from Zeus."
To hell with all the talk about immortality being boring—if it was the price to pay to bite into one of these apples, it was a cheap one. Problem: the dragon coiled around the tree.
The serpent's body of the dragon was as thick as a booster rocket, glinting with coppery scales. It had more heads than you could count, as if a hundred deadly pythons had been fused together. It appeared to be asleep. The heads lay curled in a big spaghetti-like mound on the grass, all the eyes closed.
Then the shadows in front of Y/N began to move. There was a beautiful, eerie singing, like voices from the bottom of a well. He rubbed his ring, but apparently it didn't see any danger—it wouldn't be the first time it did only as it pleased.
Four figures shimmered into existence, four young women who looked very much like Zoë. They all wore white Greek chitons. Their skin was like caramel. Silky black hair tumbled loose around their shoulders. It was strange. Y/N had never considered Zoë beautiful, but her siblings definitely were, and they looked just like her—gorgeous, and probably very dangerous.
"Sisters," Zoë said.
"We do not see any sister," one of the girls said coldly. "We see three half-bloods, a satyr, and a Hunter. All of whom shall soon die."
"If I were you, I wouldn't bet on that," Y/N said. "Gods and a bunch of other stuff couldn't defeat us. Your dragon certainly won't."
The girls studied him. They had eyes like volcanic rock, glassy and completely black.
"Go back," one of them said.
"Not without Annabeth," he said.
"And Artemis," Zoë said. "We must approach the mountain."
"You know he will kill thee," the first Hesperid said. "You are no match for him."
"Artemis must be freed," Zoë insisted. "Let us pass."
The girl shook her head. "You have no rights here anymore. We have only to raise our voices and Ladon will wake."
"He will not hurt me," Zoë said.
"No? And what about thy . . . friends?"
Then Zoë did the last thing you'd have expected. She shouted, "Ladon! Wake!"
The dragon stirred, glittering like a mountain of pennies. The Hesperides yelped and scattered. The lead girl said to Zoë, "Are you mad?"
"You never had any courage, sister," Zoë said. "That is thy problem."
The dragon Ladon was writhing now, a hundred heads whipping around, tongues flickering and tasting the air. Zoë took a step forward, her arms raised.
"Zoë, don't," Thalia said. "You're not a Hesperid anymore. Ladon will kill you."
"Ladon is trained to protect the tree," Zoë said. "Skirt around the edges of the garden. Go up the mountain. As long as I am a bigger threat, he should ignore thee."
"Should," Y/N said. "Not exactly reassuring."
"It's the only way," she said. "Even the five of us together cannot fight him."
Ladon opened his mouths. The sound of a hundred heads hissing at once sent a shiver down Y/N's back, and that was before Ladon's breath hit him. The smell was like acid. It made his eyes burn, his skin crawl, and his hair stand on end. It was like a dead rat inside a wall in the middle of the summer. Except it was a hundred times stronger, and mixed with the smell of chewed eucalyptus.
"His breath stinks!" Ethan exclaimed, pinching his nose and squinting his eyes.
"No kidding." Y/N wanted to have his sword in hand, but it must've gotten that it could be of no use against that dragon. He had to trust Zoë's judgment.
Thalia and Percy went left. He and Ethan went right. Zoë walked straight toward the monster.
"It's me, my little dragon," Zoë said. "Zoë has come back."
Ladon shifted forward, then back. Some of the mouths closed. Some kept hissing. Dragon confusion. Meanwhile, the Hesperides shimmered and turned into shadows. The voice of the eldest whispered, "Fool."
"I used to feed thee by hand," Zoë continued, speaking in a soothing voice as she stepped toward the golden tree. "Do you still like lamb's meat?"
The dragon's eyes glinted.
Y/N, Ethan, Percy and Thalia were about halfway around the garden. Ahead, Y/N could see a single rocky trail leading up to the black peak of the mountain. The storm swirled above it, spinning on the summit like it was the axis for the world. Still this feeling of foreboding.
They'd almost made it out of the meadow when something went wrong. The dragon's mood shifted. Maybe Zoë got too close. Maybe the dragon realized it was hungry. Whatever the reason, it lunged at Zoë.
Two thousand years of training kept her alive. She dodged one set of slashing fangs and tumbled under another, weaving through the dragon's heads as she ran in their direction, gagging from the monster's horrible breath.
"Run!" she panted.
The dragon snapped at her side, and she cried out. Thalia uncovered Aegis, and the dragon hissed. In its moment of indecision, she sprinted past them up the mountain, and they followed.
The dragon didn't try to pursue. It hissed and stomped the ground, but it was well trained to guard that tree. It wasn't going to be lured off, even by the tasty prospect of eating some heroes.
They ran up the mountain as the Hesperides resumed their song in the shadows behind them. The music didn't sound so beautiful now—like the soundtrack for a funeral.
The more Y/N walked, the more he felt uneasy.
At the top of the mountain were ruins, blocks of black granite and marble as big as houses. Broken columns. Statues of bronze that looked as though they'd been half-melted.
"The ruins of Mount Othrys," Thalia whispered in awe.
"Yes," Zoë said. "It was not here before. This is bad."
"What's Mount Othrys?" Percy asked.
"The mountain fortress of the Titans," Zoë said. "In the first war, Olympus and Othrys were the two rival capitals of the world. Othrys was—" She winced and held her side.
"You're hurt," Ethan said. "Let me see."
"No! It is nothing. I was saying—in the first war, Othrys was blasted to pieces."
"But how is it here?" Percy said.
Thalia looked around cautiously as they picked their way through the rubble, past blocks of marble and broken archways. "It moves in the same way that Olympus moves. It always exists on the edges of civilization. But the fact that it is here, on this mountain, is not good."
"Why?" Percy said.
"This is Atlas's mountain," Zoë said. "Where he holds—" She froze. Her voice was ragged with despair. "Where he used to hold up the sky."
They reached the summit, and Y/N froze. A few yards ahead of them, gray clouds swirled in a heavy vortex, making a funnel cloud that almost touched the mountaintop. The twilight sunlight added touches of orange and purple to the clouds, making it an impossible color. The sky was going to crush everything under itself. They were going to be smashed to pulps, just like in his dream. He didn't want to believe it—dreams were dreams, not reality. And yet, the sky was trying to touch the earth, to crush the whole world in their embrace.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out of it. What was he supposed to do, now? Turn around and run away, his mind told him. But his body would not obey, and he couldn't move. He could only stare at the clouds—green flashed across them, like an aurora borealis—and pray for all this to be a nightmare.
The sky rested on the shoulders of a twelve-year-old girl with auburn hair and a tattered silver dress: Artemis, her legs bound to the rock with celestial bronze chains.
"My Lady!" Zoë rushed forward, but Artemis said, "Stop! It is a trap. You must leave now."
Her voice was strained. She was drenched in sweat. Though she was a goddess, the weight of the sky was clearly too much for Artemis.
Zoë was crying. She ran forward despite Artemis's protests, and tugged at the chains.
A booming voice spoke behind them: "Ah, how touching."
Y/N whirled. The General was standing there in his brown silk suit. At his side were Luke and half a dozen dracaenae bearing the golden sarcophagus of Kronos. Annabeth stood at Luke's side. She had her hands cuffed behind her back, a gag in her mouth, and Luke was holding the point of his sword to her throat.
Y/N met her eyes. She was sending him only one message: RUN.
"Luke," Thalia snarled. "Let her go."
Luke's smile was weak and pale. He looked even worse than he had three days ago in D.C. "That is the General's decision, Thalia. But it's good to see you again."
Thalia spat at him.
"The General chuckled. "So much for old friends. And you, Zoë. It's been a long time. How is my little traitor? I will enjoy killing you."
"Do not respond," Artemis groaned. "Do not challenge him."
"Wait a second," Percy said. "You're Atlas?"
The General glanced at him. "So, even the stupidest of heroes can finally figure something out. Yes, I am Atlas, the general of the Titans and terror of the gods. Congratulations. I will kill you presently, as soon as I deal with this wretched girl."
"You're not going to hurt Zoë," Y/N said. "You won't hurt anybody here."
The General sneered. "You have no right to interfere, Son of Hera. This is a family matter."
Percy frowned. "A family matter?"
"Yes," Zoë said bleakly. "Atlas is my father."