| definitely not snow white |
—Piper woke at a table at a sidewalk café.
For a second, she thought she was still dreaming. It was a sunny morning. The air was brisk but not unpleasant for sitting outside. At the other tables, a mix of bicyclists, business people, and college kids sat chatting and drinking coffee.
She could smell eucalyptus trees. Lots of foot traffic passed in front of quaint little shops. The street was lined with bottle-brush trees and blooming azaleas as if winter was a foreign concept.
In other words: she was in California.
Her friends sat in chairs around her—all of them with their hands calmly folded across their chests, dozing pleasantly. And they all had new clothes on. Piper looked down at her own outfit and gasped. "Mother!"
She yelled louder than she meant. Jason flinched, bumping the table with his knees, and then all of them were awake.
"What?" Hedge demanded. "Fight who? Where?"
"Falling!" Leo grabbed the table. "No—not falling. Where are we?"
"Fuck me, was the Aeolus thing a dream?" Camilla rubbed her eyes.
Jason blinked, trying to get his bearings. He focused on Piper and made a little choking sound. "What are you wearing?"
Piper probably blushed. She was wearing an orange and pink flannel shirt over a white tshirt with black comfortable jeans and black leather boots. She had on her favorite silver charm bracelet, even though she'd left that back home in L.A. She pulled out Katoptris, and judging from the reflection in the blade, she'd gotten her hair done, too.
"It's nothing," she said. "It's my—" She remembered Aphrodite's warning not to mention that they'd talked. "It's nothing."
Leo grinned. "Aphrodite strikes again, huh? Plus you could probably make a trash bag look fashionable, Pipes."
"Hey, Valdez." Camilla nudged his arm. "You look at yourself recently?"
"What... oh."
All of them had been give a makeover. Leo was wearing pinstriped pants, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses, and a porkpie hat.
"God, Leo." Piper tried not to laugh. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."
"Hey, shut up!"
"I think he looks good," said Coach Hedge. "'Course, I look better."
The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fit over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-colored shirt, a baby blue tie, and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.
Jason was wearing jeans and a clean purple t-shirt— the one he'd worn at the Grand Canyon. He had new track shoes on and his hair seemed trimmed. But Piper glossed over him to look at Camilla.
She wore a black t-shirt with three hearts— pink, purple and blue, and her dad's leather jacket that Piper had been wearing, was back on her. She wore baggy jeans cuffed at the bottom and converse shoes.
Her hair was done down in two dutch braids which made Piper realize she had rarely seen the hair pulled away from Camilla's face.
After the dream she'd had and the talk with her mom, Camilla staring right back at her was the last thing she needed.
"Well," Camilla shrugged, "at least I look better than Leo and Coach, so your mom overlooked me."
Piper knew that wasn't exactly true. Looking at her, her heart did a little tap dance. Camilla's eyes were the same shade as the sidewalk— no they looked like the greenery around them— no they looked like amber. Aphrodite's message was clear: This one needs no improvement.
And Piper agreed.
"Anyway," she said uncomfortably, "how did we get here?"
"Oh, that would be Mellie," Hedge said, chewing happily on his carnation. "Those winds shot us halfway across the country, I'd guess. We would've been smashed flat on impact, but Mellie's last gift—a nice soft breeze—cushioned our fall."
"And she got fired for us," Leo said. "Man, we suck."
"Ah, she'll be fine," Hedge said. "Besides, she couldn't help herself. I've got that effect on nymphs. I'll send her a message when we're through with this quest and help her figure something out. That is one aura I could settle down with and raise a herd of baby goats."
"I'm going to be sick," Piper said. "Anyone else want coffee?"
"Coffee!" Hedge's grin was stained blue from the flower. "I love coffee!"
"Um," Jason said, "but—money? Our packs?"
Piper looked down. Their packs were at their feet, and everything seemed to still be there. She reached into her coat pocket and felt two things she hadn't expected. One was a wad of cash. The other was a glass vial—the amnesia potion. She left the vial in her pocket and brought out the money.
Camilla whistled. "Allowance? Piper, your mom rocks!"
"Waitress!" Hedge called. "Six double espressos, and whatever these guys want. Put it on the girl's tab."
It didn't take them long to figure out where they were. The menus said "Café Verve, Walnut Creek, CA." And according to the waitress, it was 9 a.m. on December 21, the winter solstice, which gave them three hours until Enceladus's deadline.
They didn't have to wonder where Mount Diablo was, either. They could see it on the horizon, right at the end of the street. After the Rockies, Mount Diablo didn't look very large, nor was it covered in snow. It seemed downright peaceful, its golden creases marbled with gray-green trees. But size was deceptive with mountains, Piper knew. It was probably much bigger up close. And appearances were deceptive too. Here they were—back in California—supposedly her home—with sunny skies, mild weather, laid-back people, and a plate of chocolate chip scones with coffee. And only a few miles away, somewhere on that peaceful mountain, a superpowerful, super-evil giant was about to have her father and Camilla's for lunch.
Leo pulled something out of his pocket—the old crayon drawing Aeolus had given him. Aphrodite must've thought it was important if she'd magically transferred it to his new outfit.
"What is that?" Piper asked.
Leo folded it up gingerly again and put it away. "Nothing. You don't want to see my kindergarten artwork."
"It's more than that," Jason guessed. "Aeolus said it was the key to our success."
Leo shook his head. "Not today. He was talking about... later."
"How can you be sure?" Camilla asked.
"Trust me," Leo said. "Now—what's our game plan?"
Coach Hedge belched. He'd already had three espressos and a plate of doughnuts, along with two napkins and another flower from the vase on the table. He would've eaten the silverware, except Piper had slapped his hand.
"Climb the mountain," Hedge said. "Kill everything except the dads. Leave."
"Thank you, General Eisenhower," Camilla grumbled.
"Hey, I'm just saying!"
"Guys," Piper said. "There's more you need to know."
It was tricky, because she couldn't mention her mom; but she told them she'd figured some things out in her dreams. She told them about their real enemy: Gaea.
"Gaea?" Leo shook his head. "Isn't that Mother Nature? She's supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and deer and rabbits doing her laundry."
"Leo, that's Snow White," Piper said.
"You know, the real villain in Snow White was the pedophile prince" Camilla snapped her fingers. She had black nail polish on, and her fingers were longer than Piper's. She wondered how she had never noticed that.
"Okay, but—"
"Listen, cupcake." Coach Hedge dabbed the espresso out of his goatee. "Piper's telling us some serious stuff, here. Gaea's no softie. I'm not even sure I could take her."
Leo whistled. "Really?"
Hedge nodded. "This earth lady—she and her old man the sky were nasty customers."
"Ouranos," Piper said. She couldn't help looking up at the blue sky, wondering if it had eyes.
"Right," Hedge said. "So Ouranos, he's not the best dad. He throws their first kids, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus. That makes Gaea mad, but she bides her time. Then they have another set of kids—the twelve Titans—and Gaea is afraid they'll get thrown into prison too. So she goes up to her son Kronos—"
"The big bad guy," Camilla said. "The one they defeated last summer."
"Right. And Gaea's the one who gives him the scythe, and tells him, 'Hey, why don't I call your dad down here? And while he's talking to me, distracted, you can cut him to pieces. Then you can take over the world. Wouldn't that be great?'"
Nobody said anything. Piper's chocolate chip scone didn't look so appetizing anymore. Even though she'd heard the story before, she still couldn't quite get her mind around it. She tried to imagine a kid so messed up, he would kill his own dad just for power. Then she imagined a mom so messed up, she would convince her son to do it.
"Definitely not Snow White," she decided.
"Nah, Kronos was a bad guy," Hedge said. "But Gaea is literally the mother of all bad guys. She's so old and powerful, so huge, that it's hard for her to be fully conscious. Most of the time, she sleeps, and that's the way we like her—snoring."
"But she talked to me," Leo said. "How can she be asleep?"
Gleeson brushed crumbs off his canary yellow lapel. He was on his sixth espresso now, and his pupils were as big as quarters. "Even in her sleep, part of her consciousness is active—dreaming, keeping watch, doing little things like causing volcanoes to explode and monsters to rise. Even now, she's not fully awake. Believe me, you don't want to see her fully awake."
"But she's getting more powerful," Piper said. "She's causing the giants to rise. And if their king comes back—this guy Porphyrion—"
"He'll raise an army to destroy the gods," Jason put in. "Starting with Hera. It'll be another war. And Gaea will wake up fully."
Gleeson nodded. "Which is why it's a good idea for us to stay off the ground as much as possible."
Leo looked warily at Mount Diablo. "So... climbing a mountain. That would be bad."
Piper's heart sank. First, she'd been asked to betray her friends. Now they were trying to help her and Camilla rescue their dads even though they knew they were walking into a trap. The idea of fighting a giant had been scary enough. But the idea that Gaea was behind it—a force more powerful than a god or Titan...
"Guys, we can't ask you to do this," Camilla said, reaching across the table, brushing the back of Piper's hand until she gave in and covered Piper's hand with her own. "This is too dangerous."
"You kidding?" Gleeson belched and showed them his blue carnation smile. "Who's ready to beat stuff up?"
Aphrodite just made Piper a walking lesbian flag, but yk, our girl is a bit slow, so she has a long way to go to accept herself and her crush.
Camilla's not a lesbian, but this is basically them after the Aphrodite glow up (We stan a supportive queen):