Leo's POV
Leo spent his night wrestling with a forty-foot-tall Athena. Ever since they'd brought the statue aboard, Leo had been obsessed with figuring out how it worked. He was sure it had primo powers.
There had to be a secret switch or a pressure plate or something. He was supposed to be sleeping, but he just couldn't. He spent hours crawling over the statue, which took up most of the lower deck.
Athena's feet stuck into sick bay, so you had to squeeze past her ivory toes if you wanted some Advil. Her body ran the length of the port corridor, her outstretched hand jutting into the engine room, offering the life-sized figure of Nike that stood in her palm, like, Here, have some Victory!
Athena's serene face took up most of the aft Pegasus stables, which were fortunately unoccupied. If Leo were a magic horse, he wouldn't have wanted to live in a stall with an oversized goddess of wisdom staring at him.
The statue was wedged tight in the corridor, so Leo had to climb over the top and wriggle under her limbs, searching for levers and buttons. As usual, he found nothing. He'd done some research on the statue.
He knew it was made from a hollow wooden frame covered in ivory and gold, which explained why it was so light. It was in pretty good shape, considering it was more than two thousand years old, had been pillaged from Athens, toted to Rome, and secretly stored in a spider's cavern for most of the past two millennia.
Magic must've kept it intact, Leo figured, combined with really good craftsmanship. Annabeth had said...well, he tried not to think about Annabeth. He still felt guilty about her and (Y/N) falling into Tartarus.
Leo knew it was his fault. He should have gotten everyone safely on board the Argo II before he started securing the statue. He should have realized the cavern floor was unstable.
Still, moping around wasn't going to get them back. He had to concentrate on fixing the problems he could fix. Anyway, Annabeth had said the statue was the key to defeating Gaea. It could heal the rift between Greek and Roman demigods.
Leo figured there had to be more to it than just symbolism. Maybe Athena's eyes shot lasers, or the snake behind her shield could spit poison. Or maybe the smaller figure of Nike came to life and busted out some ninja moves.
Leo could think of all kinds of fun things the statue might do if he had designed it, but the more he examined it, the more frustrated he got. The Athena Parthenos radiated magic. Even he could feel that. But it didn't seem to do anything except look impressive.
The ship careened to one side, taking evasive manoeuvres. Leo resisted the urge to run to the helm. Jason, Piper, and Frank were on duty with Hazel now. They could handle whatever was going on.
Besides, Hazel had insisted on taking the wheel to guide them through the secret pass that the magic goddess had told her about. Leo hoped Hazel was right about the long detour north.
He didn't trust this Hecate lady. He didn't see why such a creepy goddess would suddenly decide to be helpful. Of course, he didn't trust magic in general. That's why he was having so much trouble with the Athena Parthenos.
It had no moving parts. Whatever it did, it apparently operated on pure sorcery... and Leo didn't appreciate that. He wanted it to make sense, like a machine. Finally he got too exhausted to think straight.
He curled up with a blanket in the engine room and listened to the soothing hum of the generators. Buford the mechanical table sat in the corner on sleep mode, making little steamy snores: Shhh, pfft, shh, pfft.
Leo liked his quarters okay, but he felt safest here in the heart of the ship—in a room filled with mechanisms he knew how to control. Besides, maybe if he spent more time close to the Athena Parthenos, he would eventually soak in its secrets.
"It's you or me, Big Lady," he murmured as he pulled the blanket up to his chin. "You're gonna cooperate eventually." He closed his eyes and slept. Unfortunately, that meant dreams.
(Y/N)'s POV
They were having a tough time keeping pace. Empuosa were far from the fastest walkers, and were definitely not very stealthy by nature, so the aspects of tracking they would normally struggle with were a breeze.
Oh gods, he had to think it didn't he, breeze, what he wouldn't have given for a cold breeze to blow by right now, even just for a second. The heat of the river of fire stuck with them, for every step and every mile.
For the past few hours, the river had been burning them through being in its proximity alone. Small blisters forming along their skin and a disorienting light constantly in their eyes.
It was the worst kind of tan, the blazing banks made their skin feel dry and worn, like old leather, while at the same time exhausting them, drenching them in sweat, a sickly sheen of moisture caked on their bodies.
Through all that, they had managed to keep pace with the group of monsters they followed. This was still beginning to be too much, they were both swaying on their feet, barely able to remain awake.
Their voices kept in a low hushed whisper, they spoke to one another as they struggled through the rocky terrain, unsure just how far they had gone, or how close they were to their destination.
Each other's voices were the only thing keeping them both awake. "-So, it's only the ten?" "Yeah, at first. He gets more later though, like one that rolls around and stuff. A plant one, god, discount Godzilla, crazy stuff."
"But that doesn't make any sense." She spoke. "Having more than ten. It goes against the whole point of the show." "Yeah." "So, what's the point then? If he can just pull out a new one for every challenge, why should we care?" "It's fun." "It's dumb."
"Sometimes, that's why it's fun." Annabeth rolled her eyes, apparently not enjoying his way of killing time while trailing the vampire cheerleader. "How do you remember all this nonsense" She muttered; he was unsure if he was meant to hear that part.
He shrugged as he was unable to answer "And when on earth do you have time to watch it? We've been on quests pretty much nonstop since you came back." "What do you think I did when I was in Elysium? I thought I told you this."
Annabeth actually stopped walking she was so dumbfounded. "Wait, you were being serious. Elysium, paradise in the afterlife. The thing every demigod dreams of, to you, was just watching TV shows?"
He nodded, "Yeah, it was awesome. They have every season of everything, even cancelled stuff. Don't act like I'm the weird one here. I am the only person alive who has seen Firefly season six, which was its best season. That's bragging rights."
"I think you're the only person that cares that you've seen season six of Firefly." She muttered, he let that go, with a great amount of restraint on his part. "I didn't watch TV all the time...I watched you too sometimes, but you were all mopey so that got old fast." He joked, she glared at him.
"Kidding..." He said in a small voice as her eyes pierced him like red hot flames. "I watched Grover rebuild part of the Amazon, which was cool, miss that guy...uh, what else, saw Percy do stuff before he took a dirt nap, watched your brothers learning to ride their bikes, normal stuff."
"Hang on. You didn't spy on me when I was in any compromising positions did you?" She asked, "Hey we should keep moving or we're going to lose them." He said quickly. "(Y/N)!" She hissed.
He could feel the heat of her glare on the back of his head again, hotter than the river of fire. It died down a few minutes after that though, because they had much bigger problems, a problem that made everything they'd done today pointless.
Just as (Y/N) was zoning out, his attention was pulled back, "She's going in circles." Annabeth said, he was perplexed, "You mean the Empuosa?" She nodded in response, her voice full of anguish. "We've been here before."
To (Y/N), that didn't make sense though, "How can she be going in circles we've followed the river in a straight line since we started trailing them. They haven't changed direction at all."
Annabeth nodded again, "I know, it doesn't make any sense, but we've been here before, look." She said, pointing to a spot beside the phlegethon where small shards of broken bloodied glass lay mixed in with the normal 'sand.'
(Y/N) didn't get it at first, until he saw the stump like rock that he had carved into to make a seat for Annabeth, confirming her suspicions. "There's no way, it has to be a trick, Tartarus trying to get us to double back or something."
"Maybe," Annabeth bit her lip as (Y/N) deeply sighed, mourning his sore feet, "We've been walking for hours, there is no way we haven't made any progress." He was just being hopeful; it did seem like the kind of thing you'd see happening in Tartarus.
(Y/N) wanted to scream, though he knew he couldn't risk alerting the roaming band of vampires. "Let's just keep going, we'll get there eventually, this place is just messing with us, it's a mirage from the heat or something."
So, they carried on, for what must have been at least the length of another marathon. Another long trek while discussing anything and everything just to keep upright, whenever the conversation dwindled and their eyes lulled, the other would strike up a conversation.
(Y/N) had learned more about architecture in this one walk than he had in all his time in school and felt ready to pass out while both walking and talking by the time they reached a landmark.
The soul crushing reality hit them there, because this landmark was the same landmark they had seen twice before, the same misshapen and beaten pillar and the same glass that lay in a bloody pool beside it.
He tried to take a deep breath, trying to calm himself, he knew that this was what Tartarus wanted, that it was the whole point, but he was so tired and so angry, he didn't care.
(Y/N) wanted to find that vampire and choke her to death by feeding her the final meal of her own cheerleader pom poms. He wanted to throw Kelli into the river of fire to be tormented forever, not because of the past, solely because of her lack of any perceivable sense of direction.
He almost fell to his knees, his head was throbbing with pain, his mind full almost exclusively with the most foul and repulsive curse words he could think of for this place. He almost began sobbing.
His knees jolted, ready to give out, until his demigod reflexes caught him. Something passed by him, over his shoulder almost, he wheeled his head around, expecting an attack from behind, or a flying monster.
Annabeth just looked at him with a worried expression, "Did you see that?" He asked, "What?" He paused as she looked around in search of what he had seen, "What was it?" She asked, a hint of nervousness in her tone.
"I'm not sure, but I think..." He trailed off, trying to recall what he had seen in that glimpse. It wasn't a creature, humanoid or otherwise, nor was it any sort of ghost or phantom, just a sort of presence.
He wasn't even sure it was real; he was so tired he almost expected hallucinations by now part of him was just grateful to have an excuse to stop walking, another part of him was unnerved. "Oh no."
Until it clicked in his mind, something deep down in his gut told him what that was. "She saw me as she left." He muttered, coming to an understanding, though not really knowing how or why.
He was put on edge. That little shot of adrenaline kick started his thundering heart as it began, louder than before, angrier. With the symphony of sounds finding his ears, (Y/N) knew that their struggles in Tartarus just got a whole lot worse.
Leo's POV
He was running for his life through his mother's old workshop, where she'd died in a fire when Leo was eight. He wasn't sure what was chasing him, but he sensed it closing fast— something large and dark and full of hate.
He stumbled into workbenches, knocked over toolboxes, and tripped on electrical cords. He spotted the exit and sprinted toward it, but a figure loomed in front of him—a woman in robes of dry swirling earth, her face covered in a veil of dust.
"Where are you going, little hero?" Gaea asked. "Stay, and meet my favorite son." Leo darted to the left, but the Earth Goddess's laughter followed him.
"The night your mother died, I warned you. I said the Fates would not allow me to kill you then. But now you have chosen your path. Your death is near, Leo Valdez." He ran into a drafting table—his mother's old workstation.
The wall behind it was decorated with Leo's crayon drawings. He sobbed in desperation and turned, but the thing pursuing him now stood in his path—a colossal being wrapped in shadows, its shape vaguely humanoid, its head almost scraping the ceiling twenty feet above.
Leo's hands burst into flame. He blasted the giant, but the darkness consumed his fire. Leo reached for his tool belt. The pockets were sewn shut. He tried to speak—to say anything that would save his life—but he couldn't make a sound, as if the air had been stolen from his lungs.
"My son will not allow any fires tonight," Gaea said from the depths of the warehouse. "He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech."
Leo wanted to shout: "And I'm the dude that's all out of here!" His voice didn't work, so he used his feet. He dashed to the right, ducking under the shadowy giant's grasping hands, and burst through the nearest doorway.
Suddenly, he found himself at Camp Half-Blood, except the camp was in ruins. The cabins were charred husks. Burned fields smoldered in the moonlight. The dining pavilion had collapsed into a pile of white rubble, and the Big House was on fire, its windows glowing like demon eyes.
Leo kept running, sure the shadow giant was still behind him. He wove around the bodies of Greek and Roman demigods. He wanted to check if they were alive. He wanted to help them.
But somehow he knew he was running out of time. He jogged toward the only living people he saw—a group of Romans standing at the volleyball pit. Two centurions leaned casually on their javelins, chatting with a tall skinny blond guy in a purple toga.
Leo stumbled. It was that freak Octavian, the augur from Camp Jupiter, who was always screaming for war. Octavian turned to face him, but he seemed to be in a trance. His features were slack, his eyes closed.
When he spoke, it was in Gaea's voice: "This cannot be prevented. The Romans move east from New York. They advance on your camp, and nothing can slow them down." Leo was tempted to punch Octavian in the face.
Instead he kept running. He climbed Half-Blood Hill. At the summit, lightning had splintered the giant pine tree. He faltered to a stop. The back of the hill was shorn away. Beyond it, the entire world was gone.
Leo saw nothing but clouds far below—a rolling silver carpet under the dark sky. A sharp voice said, "Well?" Leo flinched. At the shattered pine tree, a woman knelt at a cave entrance that had cracked open between the tree's roots.
The woman wasn't Gaea. She looked more like a living Athena Parthenos, with the same golden robes and bare ivory arms. When she rose, Leo almost stumbled off the edge of the world.
Her face was regally beautiful, with high cheekbones, large dark eyes, and braided licorice-colored hair piled in a fancy Greek hairdo, set with a spiral of emeralds and diamonds so that it reminded Leo of a Christmas tree.
Her expression radiated pure hatred. Her lip curled. Her nose wrinkled. "The tinkerer god's child," she sneered. "You are no threat, but I suppose my vengeance must start somewhere. Make your choice."
Leo tried to speak, but he was about to crawl out of his skin with panic. Between this hate queen and the giant chasing him, he had no idea what to do. "He'll be here soon," the woman warned.
"My dark friend will not give you the luxury of a choice. It's the cliff or the cave, boy!" Suddenly Leo understood what she meant. He was cornered. He could jump off the cliff, but that was suicide.
Even if there was land under those clouds, he would die in the fall, or maybe he would just keep falling forever. But the cave... He stared at the dark opening between the tree roots. It smelled of rot and death.
He heard bodies shuffling inside, voices whispering in the shadows. The cave was the home of the dead. If he went down there, he would never come back. "Yes," the woman said.
Around her neck hung a strange bronze-and-emerald pendant, like a circular labyrinth. Her eyes were so angry, Leo finally understood why mad was a word for crazy. This lady had been driven nuts by hatred.
"The House of Hades awaits. You will be the first puny rodent to die in my maze. You have only one chance to escape, Leo Valdez. Take it." She gestured toward the cliff. "You're bonkers," he managed.
That was the wrong thing to say. She seized his wrist. "Perhaps I should kill you now, before my dark friend arrives?" Steps shook the hillside. The giant was coming, wrapped in shadows, huge and heavy and bent on murder.
"Have you heard of dying in a dream, boy?" the woman asked. "It is possible, at the hands of a sorceress!" Leo's arm started to smoke. The woman's touch was acid. He tried to free himself, but her grip was like steel.
He opened his mouth to scream. The massive shape of the giant loomed over him, obscured by layers of black smoke. The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream. "Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder.
"Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?" Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep.
He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.) He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face.
"Nothing," he muttered. "We were just cuddling. Um, what's going on?" Jason didn't tease him. That's one thing Leo appreciated about his friend. Jason's ice-blue eyes were level and serious.
The little scar on his mouth twitched like it always did when he had bad news to share. "We made it through the mountains," he said. "We're almost to Bologna. You should join us in the mess hall. Nico has new information."
(Y/N)'s POV
The sound found his ears, he was both scared and relieved, "She found us." He said, as he heard the howls echoing through all of Tartarus. He never wanted to hear it again.
It chilled the soul, instilling a sense of dread and foreboding that lingers long after the last haunting echo faded into silence "WHAT WAS THAT?" Annabeth screamed, holding her ears.
He frowned, "So you can hear it too huh, not good." "Is Tartarus trying to keep us awake?" She asked, "No, it's not Tartarus, it's Nyx, she saw me as she left. She thinks we've been hiding from her. The hellhounds are calling to us, it's the howling again."
"So, she's going to send the hellhounds after you again, like last time?" "No, this is different. There aren't many hellhounds in Tartarus, most of them hang around Cerby. That was just for us."
"Worst case, after tonight's over, she'll hunt us down herself, or get one of the others to do it for her, but most likely...she knows were here. She wants us to make our way over to her."
"But that's good right, if she knows we're here, she can help us, she loves her family, right?" "Right but seeing as the last time we met in person I had her head cut off in front of the whole family and you essentially cussed her out at my funeral. I wouldn't bet on her love extending that far."
"So then why does she want to see us?" "I don't know, and I don't want to, we are staying as far away from her as possible. We'll keep making our way towards the doors, her place is on the way, so she won't stop us."
"Speaking of Nyx. It's going to be night soon; we should try to get some rest even if we can't sleep." He said, Annabeth looked at him a bit perplexed, "How do you know it's night." He couldn't explain exactly but tried to.
"That just now, it was Nyx leaving Tartarus. She saw me as she passed. She's going to her chariot now to pull the night across the sky, which means it's about to be night up there."
"I get the feeling that the whole place is going to get a little brighter as soon as Hemera's back. So, we should try to rest now before she gets here." He said. Just the word 'sleep' made him want to curl up in the rock and broken glass and do his best Clovis impression.
"We can't, we'll lose the Empuosa." "No, we won't, they aren't making any progress. They need to rest too; they'll probably do it now. Monsters like Empuosa won't move much in light that bright even down here."
"That old myth about sunlight isn't true with Empuosa, it doesn't hurt them at all, but it had to come from somewhere, if I were a betting man. I'd say they'll slow down in the light."
"Remember Thorn, the manticore?" Annabeth shrugged, smirking as she said "Vaguely." "Right, I guess he'd be pretty hard to forget for you. Well, he had to use the mist to conceal himself right."
"Empuosa must do that too, even down here, they might find that harder to do in the sunlight. That could be why they hang out in schools, indoors, surrounded by people, easy to miss flickers of the mist fading."
Annabeth seemed more reluctant "But that's just a theory-" "-A demigod theory-" (Y/N) cut in, she ignored him, "-If you're wrong, we'll probably never catch up with them again."
"But if I'm right, we get to sleep" he said, and all the reluctance in Annabeth's eyes faded away. "Okay, we rest here." She said, almost toppling over with how fast she sat down. Then she said, "Wait."
Annabeth almost chuckled, "So Nyx leaves at night and Hemera in the day, which means when it's night down here it gets brighter, and it's darker in the day. Figures, even our circadian rhythm isn't safe in this place."
"I know, sucks right? But don't worry. Hemera won't be for long; she'll book it to Olympus as soon as she can. She's practically glued to that throne recently, she loves it, says it makes her feel appreciated. Really she just likes the parties." He said to put her at ease.
"I'll take first watch." "While I do what, sit here?" Annabeth said, the tiredness clearly getting to her as she was much snappier than usual. "We can't go to sleep. Even if I try to rest, I'm not resting."
"Yeah, I think I may have a temporary solution to that. What if we go into death trances instead." Annabeth stared at him blankly, "What if we just die, you mean." "No, if I put you into a death trance, your body will go into a restful state as you try and heal yourself."
"It's like being put under when you go to the dentist" He said, "A forced state of sleep rather than a natural one. Since we're not using any seeds, I can control how deep you go under and for how long. We'll be asleep a few hours tops."
"I hate going under at the dentist." Annabeth muttered, "Well, I'm sure you'll hate dying of sleep deprivation more." "What if you mess up and kill me?" "Then you can catch up on your TV." He smirked.
"Can you not be a jerk for two seconds please." She said, that was when it occurred to him that she was genuinely afraid of this process. "Please tell me you aren't going to kill me, you already said magic is weird down here."
Then he realised that he couldn't blame her, the only experiences she had with death trances were far from the most comforting, only times when he had been severely injured, and most recently, seeing Nico reduced to the thin form he was now.
He took her hand, "Don't worry, a death trance is usually used to avoid death, there is no possible way it can kill you, Nico almost died because of lack of oxygen, food and water-"
"We don't have food or water." She cut him off. He rolled his eyes, "Yeah, but you're also not going to be in the trance for multiple days. I'm not even making it that deep. It'll be just like sleeping, you'll barely notice you're out. When you wake up, I'll be right here beside you I promise."
(Y/N) held her hands tightly, she nodded and pressed herself up against the jagged pillar of rock, not the most comfortable of places, but certainly not the worst when taking into account the glass covered ground.
Doing this to another person was strange. The sensation was different but vaguely familiar, as Annabeth closed her eyes like he instructed her to, shadows seemed to sprout from nowhere, like vines growing from cracks in the floor.
They encircled their way around her as if to ensnare her, covering everything from her fingertips to her feet, encircling her like a constricting snake, but never actually making contact with her skin.
(Y/N) chanted the words in ancient Greek for both his father and his uncle Hypnos, which was pretty easy, as they were essentially the same, and then he poured what little magical power he had into Annabeth.
This was a merging of the two twins' powers, death and sleep combined, the shadows were essentially just the glue between the two powers, something they could flow through.
When (Y/N) saw Annabeth's eyes moving under her eyelids, he knew it was working, a death trance could put you in a sort of liminal space, unless you give it structure, your body would rest as your mind wandered away.
(Y/N) tried to make the experience pleasant, but to be simple about it, this was not his area of expertise, Clovis had tried to explain it to him once but most of it went over his head. To him it was just another tool to use in emergency.
(Y/N) didn't mean to fall asleep in the process, but he was just as tired as Annabeth was, and the moment they stopped walking all he could think about was shutting his eyes, the moment he did, he fell into that place too.
Leo's POV
Leo had designed the mess hall's walls to show real-time scenes from Camp Half-Blood. At first he had thought that was a pretty awesome idea. Now he wasn't so sure. The scenes from back home—the campfire sing-alongs, dinners at the pavilion, volleyball games outside the Big House—just seemed to make his friends sad.
The farther they got from Long Island, the worse it got. The time zones kept changing, making Leo feel the distance every time he looked at the walls. Here in Italy the sun had just come up.
Back at Camp Half-Blood it was the middle of the night. Torches sputtered at the cabin doorways. Moonlight glittered on the waves of Long Island Sound. The beach was covered in footprints, as if a big crowd had just left.
With a start, Leo realized that yesterday—last night, whatever—had been the Fourth of July. They'd missed Camp Half-Blood's annual party at the beach with awesome fireworks prepared by Leo's siblings in Cabin Nine.
He decided not to mention that to the crew, but he hoped their buddies back home had had a good celebration. They needed something to keep their spirits up, too. He remembered the images he'd seen in his dream.
The camp in ruins, littered with bodies; Octavian standing at the volleyball pit, casually talking in Gaea's voice. He stared down at his eggs and bacon. He wished he could turn off the wall videos.
"So," Percy said, "now that we're here..." He sat at the head of the table, kind of by default. Since they'd lost Annabeth, Percy had done his best to act as the group's leader.
That being said, it was something that Leo was sure the whole group agreed, they could have done without. Since Annabeth and (Y/N) had fallen, Percy had become a little more serious than usual.
That wasn't a bad thing at all, Leo was sure Percy was doing the best he could, and the others all appreciated him for it, but he had sort of overcompensated. Insisting on taking charge with just about everything.
It wasn't like him at all, Percy was normally a pretty laid-back guy, but his friends falling into Tartarus had rocked him, anyone can see that, and to avoid anything bad happening again, Percy insisted on doing everything he could himself.
It wasn't in a mean or vindictive way, as though he didn't trust anyone else, as Piper had once put it, it was just 'overprotective brother mode' to the max. It was clear he just felt useless with Annabeth and (Y/N) and was trying to be useful to them.
But it got old fast. Leo knew a lot of control freaks, he had only just met one that genuinely was trying to be helpful for a good reason, that's what made it all the more irritating.
The guy was just trying to help but trying to teach Frank how to properly string his bow, and help Leo rebuild an engine was not playing to Percy's strengths, he did it anyway.
There was even one time he'd tried to cut Zoe's breakfast for her. While she was eating it. She then proceeded to give him the verbal beatdown of a lifetime, but that just made everything worse.
Because now, he wouldn't hand you a soda without asking if it was too cold, or if you were ready first. Leo could tell his friend was stressed. His eyes were more sunken than usual.
His hair was uncharacteristically neat, like he'd tried to comb it. As if having a hair out of place would make everyone lose their faith in him. Leo glanced at the others around the table.
Jason sat beside Leo, drumming his fingers along the table absentmindedly as he waited for instruction like the good roman soldier he was, say what you will about Jason, the guy knew how to follow orders.
Zoe was sat closest to Percy, but looked entirely non-plussed about being here, come to think of it, she probably got the whole Percy 'big brother act' the most, so she was no doubt sick of his voice.
Hazel was bleary-eyed, too, but of course she'd been up all night guiding the ship through the mountains. Her curly cinnamon-colored hair was tied back in a bandana, which gave her a commando look that Leo found kind of hot—and then immediately felt guilty about.
Next to her sat her boyfriend Frank Zhang, dressed in black workout pants and a Roman tourist T-shirt that said CIAO! (was that even a word?). Frank's old centurion badge was pinned to his shirt, despite the fact that the demigods of the Argo II were now Public Enemies Numbers 1 through 10 back at Camp Jupiter.
His grim expression just reinforced his unfortunate resemblance to a sumo wrestler. Then there was Hazel's half brother, Nico di Angelo. Dang, that kid gave Leo the freaky-deakies.
He sat back in his leather aviator jacket, his black T-shirt and jeans, that wicked silver skull ring on his finger, and the Stygian sword at his side. His tufts of black hair stuck up in curls like baby bat wings.
His eyes were sad and kind of empty, as if he'd stared into the depths of Tartarus—which he had. The only absent demigod was Piper, who was taking her turn at the helm with Coach Hedge, their satyr chaperone.
Leo wished Piper were here. She had a way of calming things down with that Aphrodite charm of hers. After his dreams last night, Leo could use some calm. On the other hand, it was probably good she was above deck chaperoning their chaperone.
Now that they were in the ancient lands, they had to be constantly on guard. Leo was nervous about letting Coach Hedge fly solo. The satyr was a little trigger-happy, and the helm had plenty of bright, dangerous buttons that could cause the picturesque Italian villages below them to go BOOM!
Leo had zoned out so totally he didn't realize Percy was still talking. "Wonderful job with the steering last night guys, didn't need anyone's help despite the giant rocks that could have crushed you,"
He tried and failed to spur a round of applause. "Well done for that, so if you're all okay with it, I think Nico wanted to talk, that is if he wants to, about the House of Hades, Nico?"
Nico sat forward. "I communed with the dead last night." He just tossed that line out there, like he was saying he got a text from a buddy. "I was able to learn more about what we'll face," Nico continued.
"In ancient times, the House of Hades was a major site for Greek pilgrims. They would come to speak with the dead and honor their ancestors." Leo frowned. "Sounds like Día de los Muertos. My Aunt Rosa took that stuff seriously."
He remembered being dragged by her to the local cemetery in Houston, where they'd clean up their relatives' gravesites and put out offerings of lemonade, cookies, and fresh marigolds.
Aunt Rosa would force Leo to stay for a picnic, as if hanging out with dead people were good for his appetite. Frank grunted. "Chinese have that, too—ancestor worship, sweeping the graves in the springtime."
He glanced at Leo. "Your Aunt Rosa would've gotten along with my grandmother." Leo had a terrifying image of his Aunt Rosa and some old Chinese woman in wrestlers' outfits, whaling on each other with spiked clubs.
"Yeah," Leo said. "I'm sure they would've been best buds." Nico cleared his throat. "A lot of cultures have seasonal traditions to honor the dead, but the House of Hades was open year-round."
"Pilgrims could actually speak to the ghosts. In Greek, the place was called the Necromanteion, the Oracle of Death. You'd work your way through different levels of tunnels, leaving offerings and drinking special potions—"
"Special potions," Leo muttered. "Yum." Jason flashed him a look like, Dude, enough. "Nico, go on." "The pilgrims believed that each level of the temple brought you closer to the Underworld, until the dead would appear before you."
"If they were pleased with your offerings, they would answer your questions, maybe even tell you the future." Frank tapped his mug of hot chocolate. "And if the spirits weren't pleased?"
"Some pilgrims found nothing," Nico said. "Some went insane, or died after leaving the temple. Others lost their way in the tunnels and were never seen again."
"The point is," Jason said quickly, "Nico found some information that might help us." "Jason I'm sure Nico was getting to that-" Percy began only for Zoe to mumble "Shut up"
"Yeah." Nico didn't sound very enthusiastic. "The ghost I spoke to last night...he was a former priest of Hecate. He confirmed what the goddess told Hazel yesterday at the crossroads."
"In the first war with the giants, Hecate fought for the gods. She slew one of the giants—one who'd been designed as the anti-Hecate. A guy named Clytius." "Dark dude," Leo guessed.
"Wrapped in shadows." Hazel turned toward him, her gold eyes narrowing. "Leo, how did you know that?" "Kind of had a dream." No one looked surprised. Most demigods had vivid nightmares about what was going on in the world.
His friends paid close attention as Leo explained. He tried not to look at the wall images of Camp Half-Blood as he described the place in ruins. He told them about the dark giant, and the strange woman on Half-Blood Hill, offering him a multiple-choice death. Jason pushed away his plate of pancakes.
"So the giant is Clytius. I suppose he'll be waiting for us, guarding the Doors of Death." Frank rolled up one of the pancakes and started munching—not a guy to let impending death stand in the way of a hearty breakfast.
"And the woman in Leo's dream?" "She's my problem." Hazel passed a diamond between her fingers in a sleight of hand. "Hecate mentioned a formidable enemy in the House of Hades—a witch who couldn't be defeated except by me, using magic."
"Do you know magic?" Leo asked. "Not yet." "Ah." He tried to think of something hopeful to say, but he recalled the angry woman's eyes, the way her steely grip made his skin smoke. "Any idea who she is?" Hazel shook her head.
"Only that..." She glanced at Nico, and some sort of silent argument happened between them. Leo got the feeling that the two of them had had private conversations about the House of Hades, and they weren't sharing all the details.
"Only that she won't be easy to defeat." "But there is some good news," Nico said. "The ghost I talked to explained how Hecate defeated Clytius in the first war. She used her torches to set his hair on fire. He burned to death. In other words, fire is his weakness."
Everybody looked at Leo. "Oh," he said. "Okay." Jason nodded encouragingly, like this was great news—like he expected Leo to walk up to a towering mass of darkness, shoot a few fireballs, and solve all their problems.
Leo didn't want to bring him down, but he could still hear Gaea's voice: He is the void that consumes all magic, the cold that consumes all fire, the silence that consumes all speech.
Leo was pretty sure it would take more than a few matches to set that giant ablaze. "It's a good lead," Jason insisted. "At least we know how to kill the giant. And this sorceress... well, if Hecate believes Hazel can defeat her, then so do I."
Hazel dropped her eyes. "Now we just have to reach the House of Hades, battle our way through Gaea's forces—" "Plus a bunch of ghosts," Nico added grimly. "The spirits in that temple may not be friendly." "—and find the Doors of Death," Hazel continued.
"Assuming we can somehow arrive at the same time as (Y/N) and Annabeth and rescue them." Frank swallowed a bite of pancake. "We can do it. We have to." Leo admired the big guy's optimism. He wished he shared it.
"So, with this detour," Leo said, "I'm estimating four or five days to arrive at Epirus, assuming no delays for, you know, monster attacks and stuff." Jason smiled sourly. "Yeah. Those never happen."
Leo looked at Hazel. "Hecate told you that Gaea was planning her big Wake Up party on August first, right? The Feast of Whatever?" "Spes," Hazel said. "The goddess of hope." Jason turned his fork.
"Theoretically, that leaves us enough time. It's only July fifth. We should be able to close the Doors of Death, then find the giants' HQ and stop them from waking Gaea before August first."
"Theoretically," Hazel agreed. "But I'd still like to know how we make our way through the House of Hades without going insane or dying." Nobody volunteered any ideas. Frank set down his pancake roll like it suddenly didn't taste so good.
"It's July fifth. Oh, jeez, I hadn't even thought of that...." "Hey, man, it's cool," Leo said. "You're Canadian, right? I didn't expect you to get me an Independence Day present or anything...unless you wanted to."
"It's not that. My grandmother...she always told me that seven was an unlucky number. It was a ghost number. She didn't like it when I told her there would be seven demigods on our quest. And July is the seventh month."
"Yeah, but..." Leo tapped his fingers nervously on the table. He realized he was doing the Morse code for I love you, the way he used to do with his mom, which would have been pretty embarrassing if his friends understood Morse code.
"But that's just coincidence, right?" Frank's expression didn't reassure him. "Back in China," Frank said, "in the old days, people called the seventh month the ghost month. That's when the spirit world and the human world were closest."
"The living and the dead could go back and forth. Tell me it's a coincidence we're searching for the Doors of Death during the ghost month." No one spoke. Leo wanted to think that an old Chinese belief couldn't have anything to do with the Romans and the Greeks. Totally different, right?
But Frank's existence was proof that the cultures were tied together. The Zhang family went all the way back to Ancient Greece. They'd found their way through Rome and China and finally to Canada.
Also, Leo kept thinking about his meeting with the revenge goddess Nemesis at the Great Salt Lake. Nemesis had called him the seventh wheel, the odd man out on the quest. She didn't mean seventh as in ghost, did she?
Jason pressed his hands against the arms of his chair. "Let's focus on the things we can deal with. We're getting close to Bologna. Maybe we'll get more answers once we find these dwarfs that Hecate—"
The ship lurched as if it had hit an iceberg. Leo's breakfast plate slid across the table. Nico fell backward out of his chair and banged his head against the sideboard. He collapsed on the floor, with a dozen magic goblets and platters crashing down on top of him.
"Nico!" Hazel ran to help him. "What—?" Frank tried to stand, but the ship pitched in the other direction. He stumbled into the table and went face-first into Leo's plate of scrambled eggs.
"Look!" Jason pointed at the walls. The images of Camp Half-Blood were flickering and changing. "Not possible," Leo murmured. No way those enchantments could show anything other than scenes from camp, but suddenly a huge, distorted face filled the entire port-side wall.
Crooked yellow teeth, a scraggly red beard, a warty nose, and two mismatched eyes—one much larger and higher than the other. The face seemed to be trying to eat its way into the room.
The other walls flickered, showing scenes from above deck. Piper stood at the helm, but something was wrong. From the shoulders down she was wrapped in duct tape, her mouth gagged and her legs bound to the control console.
At the mainmast, Coach Hedge was similarly bound and gagged, while a bizarre-looking creature—a sort of gnome/chimpanzee combo with poor fashion sense—danced around him, doing the coach's hair in tiny pigtails with pink rubber bands.
On the port-side wall, the huge ugly face receded so that Leo could see the entire creature— another gnome chimp, in even crazier clothes. This one began leaping around the deck, stuffing things in a burlap bag—Piper's dagger, Leo's Wii controllers. Then he pried the Archimedes sphere out of the command console.
"No!" Leo yelled. "Uhhh," Nico groaned from the floor. "Piper!" Jason cried. "Monkey!" Frank yelled. "Not monkeys," Hazel grumbled. "I think those are dwarfs." "Stealing my stuff!" Leo yelled, and he ran for the stairs.
(Y/N)'s POV
Falling asleep in Tartarus was a terrible idea. He would have preferred death by sleep deprivation. As it turns out there were no dreams in the pit, only nightmares, and the nightmares in Tartarus were so vivid they could kill you.
Added bonus, as of very recently, apparently all of (Y/N)'s encounters with monsters were part of his greatest hits collection. Because all he had seen of significance since coming here had been old familiar faces.
As he slipped into the death-like trance, an overwhelming sense of stillness enveloped him. It was as if time had come to a standstill, and the world around him faded into a hazy oblivion.
His body felt heavy and unresponsive, as though it was suspended in a liminal space between life and death. he could hear a distant, muffled sound echoing in the darkness, like a haunting lamentation that reverberated through his very soul.
It was a strange and unsettling sensation, to be both present and absent at the same time, disconnected from the physical realm yet acutely aware of his own existence. In that moment, he felt eyes on him.
He felt a deep sense of surrender, letting go of all control and allowing himself to be enveloped by the unknown. That was when (Y/N) knew that his dream was a trap meant for him and him alone.
He came to that conclusion and in the next moment, no, the same moment, found himself running as he navigated the maze of human statues, he felt a mix of awe and eeriness.
The stillness of the sculptures created an illusion of being watched, with each frozen figure seeming to hold a secret or an unspoken message. But all of them had the same expression, the same warning, "Run!"
The sensation of weaving through the intricate patterns of the maze heightened his sense of fear and uncertainty, unsure of what lay beyond each new turn. He didn't know if he would escape, if he could escape.
The feeling of being surrounded by the frozen expressions and silent gestures of the statues evoked a long-forgotten fear in (Y/N), he knew what this was, he knew who this was. Probably his least favourite adopted aunt.
(Y/N) felt a chilling sensation run down his spine as they heard the hissing of Aunty M's serpentine hair slithering behind him. The fear of being turned into stone by the Gorgon's gaze spurred him to run faster, his heart pounding in his chest.
Every corner turned brought the possibility of encountering the petrifying gaze that could spell his doom. The feeling of dread and urgency fuelled his adrenaline as he frantically searched for a way to escape.
He was weaponless, defenceless. He could not run, he couldn't fight, he didn't know what to do, he didn't know if there was anything he could do. He was trapped, he couldn't get out.
His body tensed in terror as he felt Medusa's cold grip tighten around him, her serpentine hair winding around his limbs, paralyzing them with fear. "Oh my, how you've grown." The same sickly-sweet voice spoke.
"The beautiful boy has become a beautiful man. Perfect in every way, perfect for my collection that is. I do need to rebuild you know." She said casually, as he slammed his eyes shut, her hands traced over his shoulders.
She leaned into him, her voice in his ear. "Oh, don't do that my sweet. There's no need, you aren't going to escape me this time, just like your pretty little girlfriend didn't escape me. Oh, those lovely eyes of hers, wide with terror forever. Lovely isn't it."
He didn't answer, obviously, "it's a lie," He told himself, "Just a dream!" However, Medusa seemed privy to those thoughts. "Yes, for now my dear. But not forever. We're coming for you; we're all coming for you."
(Y/N)'s knees almost buckled again. "They added me to their ranks as a personal favour. They hunt you even now." (Y/N) tried to gouge at her eyes, "How cute. Why didn't I think of that?"
Suddenly a 'hiss' filled the air and something stung at (Y/N)'s eye like fire, he instinctively opened them, knowing it would be his last mistake, he gasped. As the snake reeled back from biting at his eyelid.
He was transfixed by her stare, before her power even worked, Medusa truly was a beautiful woman. That was his last voiced thought. The last thing his mind could voice that wasn't just fear.
Despite her fearsome nature, he couldn't help but feel a pang of empathy for her lonely existence, forever isolated by her cursed power. He knew how that felt, but not to the same extent, not for the time she had endured it.
A suffocating sense of impending doom washed over him as his eyes stared into the Gorgon's eyes, feeling himself slowly turning into stone. He heard her words, "See you around, Loverboy."
The feeling of powerlessness and despair consumed him as he realized they were now trapped in an eternal prison of stone, forever frozen in a moment of terror. As medusa walked away, he saw the statue across from his.
Annabeth, frozen in place, lifeless, with one last word still etched on her lips, he didn't know how he heard it, but the dream made it clear, the last word she had ever uttered was his name as she died.