The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(79)

“We can’t talk up here,” Jason decided. “Let’s postpone the meeting.”

They’d all gathered on the quarterdeck to discuss strategy as they got closer to Epirus. Now it was clearly not a good place to hang out. Wind swept frost across the deck. The sea churned beneath them.

Piper didn’t mind the waves so much. The rocking and pitching reminded her of surfing with her dad off the California coast. But she could tell Hazel wasn’t doing well. The poor girl got seasick even in calm waters. She looked like she was trying to swallow a billiard ball.

“Need to—” Hazel gagged and pointed below.

“Yeah, go.” Nico kissed her cheek, which Piper found surprising. He hardly ever made gestures of affection, even to his sister. He seemed to hate physical contact. Kissing Hazel…it was almost like he was saying good-bye.

“I’ll walk you down.” Frank put his arm around Hazel’s waist and helped her to the stairs.

Piper hoped Hazel would be okay. The last few nights, since that fight with Sciron, they’d had some good talks together. Being the only two girls on board was kind of rough. They’d shared stories, complained about the guys’ gross habits, and shed some tears together about Annabeth. Hazel had told her what it was like to control the Mist, and Piper had been surprised by how much it sounded like using charmspeak. Piper had offered to help her if she could. In return, Hazel had promised to coach her in sword fighting—a skill at which Piper epically sucked. Piper felt like she had a new friend, which was great…assuming they lived long enough to enjoy the friendship.

Nico brushed some ice from his hair. He frowned at the scepter of Diocletian. “I should put this thing away. If it’s really causing the weather, maybe taking it below deck will help…”

“Sure,” Jason said.

Nico glanced at Piper and Leo, as if worried what they might say when he was gone. Piper felt his defenses going up, like he was curling into a psychological ball, the way he’d gone into a death trance in that bronze jar.

Once he headed below, Piper studied Jason’s face. His eyes were full of concern. What had happened in Croatia?

Leo pulled a screwdriver from his belt. “So much for the big team meeting. Looks like it’s just us again.”

Just us again.

Piper remembered a wintry day in Chicago last December, when the three of them had landed in Millennial Park on their first quest.

Leo hadn’t changed much since then, except he seemed more comfortable in his role as a child of Hephaestus. He’d always had too much nervous energy. Now he knew how to use it. His hands were constantly in motion, pulling tools from his belt, working controls, tinkering with his beloved Archimedes sphere. Today he’d removed it from the control panel and shut down Festus the figurehead for maintenance—something about rewiring his processor for a motor-control upgrade with the sphere, whatever the heck that meant.

As for Jason, he looked thinner, taller, and more careworn. His hair had gone from close-cropped Roman style to longer and shaggier. The groove Sciron had shot across the left side of his scalp was interesting too—almost like a rebellious streak. His icy blue eyes looked older, somehow—full of worry and responsibility.

Piper knew what her friends whispered about Jason—he was too perfect, too straitlaced. If that had ever been true, it wasn’t anymore. He’d been battered on this journey, and not just physically. His hardships hadn’t weakened him, but he’d been weathered and softened like leather—as if he were becoming a more comfortable version of himself.

And Piper? She could only imagine what Leo and Jason thought when they looked at her. She definitely didn’t feel like the same person she’d been last winter.

That first quest to rescue Hera seemed like centuries ago. So much had changed in seven months…she wondered how the gods could stand being alive for thousands of years. How much change had they seen? Maybe it wasn’t surprising that the Olympians seemed a little crazy. If Piper had lived through three millennia, she would have gone loopy.

She gazed into the cold rain. She would have given anything to be back at Camp Half-Blood, where the weather was controlled even in the winter. The images she’d seen in her knife recently…well, they didn’t give her much to look forward to.

Jason squeezed her shoulder. “Hey, it’ll be fine. We’re close to Epirus now. Another day or so, if Nico’s directions are right.”

“Yep.” Leo tinkered with his sphere, tapping and nudging one of the jewels on its surface. “By tomorrow morning, we’ll reach the western coast of Greece. Then another hour inland, and bang—House of Hades! I’ma get me the T-shirt!”

“Yay,” Piper muttered.

She wasn’t anxious to plunge into the darkness again. She still had nightmares about the nymphaeum and the hypogeum under Rome. In the blade of Katoptris, she’d seen images similar to what Leo and Hazel had described from their dreams—a pale sorceress in a gold dress, her hands weaving golden light in the air like silk on a loom; a giant wrapped in shadows, marching down a long corridor lined with torches. As he passed each one, the flames died. She saw a huge cavern filled with monsters—Cyclopes, Earthborn, and stranger things—surrounding her and her friends, hopelessly outnumbering them.

Every time she saw those images, a voice in her head kept repeating one line over and over.