The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(85)

“Exactly,” Piper said. “Just like a hockey team. The whole is greater than the parts.”

“Like a pizza,” Cal added.

Piper laughed. “You are smart, Cal! Even I underestimated you.”

“Wait, now,” Zethes protested. “I am smart also. And good-looking.”

“Very smart,” Piper agreed, ignoring the good-looking part. “So put down the wind bomb, and watch Khione get humiliated.”

Zethes grinned. He crouched and rolled the ice sphere across the deck.

“You fool!” Khione yelled.

Before the goddess could go after the sphere, Piper cried, “Our secret weapon, Khione! We’re not just a bunch of demigods. We’re a team. Just like Festus isn’t only a collection of parts. He’s alive. He’s my friend. And when his friends are in trouble, especially Leo, he can wake up on his own.”

She willed all her confidence into her voice—all her love for the metal dragon and everything he’d done for them.

The rational part of her knew this was hopeless. How could you start a machine with emotions?

But Aphrodite wasn’t rational. She ruled through emotions. She was the oldest and most primordial of the Olympians, born from the blood of Ouranos churning in the sea. Her power was more ancient than that of Hephaestus, or Athena, or even Zeus.

For a terrible moment, nothing happened. Khione glared at her. The Boreads began to come out of their daze, looking disappointed.

“Never mind our plan,” Khione snarled. “Kill her!”

As the Boreads raised their swords, the dragon’s metal skin grew warm under Piper’s hand. She dove out of the way, tackling the snow goddess, as Festus turned his head one hundred and eighty degrees and blasted the Boreads, vaporizing them on the spot. For some reason, Zethes’s sword was spared. It clunked to the deck, still steaming.

Piper scrambled to her feet. She spotted the sphere of winds at the base of the foremast. She ran for it, but before she could get close, Khione materialized in front of her in a swirl of frost. Her skin glowed bright enough to cause snow blindness.

“You miserable girl,” she hissed. “You think you can defeat me—a goddess?”

At Piper’s back, Festus roared and blew steam, but Piper knew he couldn’t breathe fire again without hitting her too.

About twenty feet behind the goddess, the ice sphere began to crack and hiss.

Piper was out of time for subtlety. She yelled and raised her dagger, charging the goddess.

Khione grabbed her wrist. Ice spread over Piper’s arm. The blade of Katoptris turned white.

The goddess’s face was only six inches from hers. Khione smiled, knowing she had won.

“A child of Aphrodite,” she chided. “You are nothing.”

Festus creaked again. Piper could swear he was trying to shout encouragement.

Suddenly her chest grew warm—not with anger or fear, but with love for that dragon; and Jason, who was depending on her; and her friends trapped below; and Leo, who was lost and would need her help.

Maybe love was no match for ice…but Piper had used it to wake a metal dragon. Mortals did superhuman feats in the name of love all the time. Mothers lifted cars to save their children. And Piper was more than just mortal. She was a demigod. A hero.

The ice melted on her blade. Her arm steamed under Khione’s grip.

“Still underestimating me,” Piper told the goddess. “You really need to work on that.”

Khione’s smug expression faltered as Piper drove her dagger straight down.

The blade touched Khione’s chest, and the goddess exploded in a miniature blizzard. Piper collapsed, dazed from the cold. She heard Festus clacking and whirring, the reactivated alarm bells ringing.

The bomb.

Piper struggled to rise. The sphere was ten feet away, hissing and spinning as the winds inside began to stir.

Piper dove for it.

Her fingers closed around the bomb just as the ice shattered and the winds exploded.

PERCY FELT HOMESICK FOR THE SWAMP.

He never thought he’d miss sleeping in a giant’s leather bed in a drakon-bone hut in a festering cesspool, but right now that sounded like Elysium.

He and Annabeth and Bob stumbled along in the darkness, the air thick and cold, the ground alternating patches of pointy rocks and pools of muck. The terrain seemed to be designed so that Percy could never let his guard down. Even walking ten feet was exhausting.

Percy had started out from the giant’s hut feeling strong again, his head clear, his belly full of drakon jerky from their packs of provisions. Now his legs were sore. Every muscle ached. He pulled a makeshift tunic of drakon leather over his shredded T-shirt, but it did nothing to keep out the chill.

His focus narrowed to the ground in front of him. Nothing existed except for that and Annabeth at his side.

Whenever he felt like giving up, plopping himself down, and dying (which was, like, every ten minutes), he reached over and took her hand, just to remember there was warmth in the world.

After Annabeth’s talk with Damasen, Percy was worried about her. Annabeth didn’t give in to despair easily, but as they walked, she wiped tears from her eyes, trying not to let Percy see. He knew she hated it when her plans didn’t work out. She was convinced they needed Damasen’s help, but the giant had turned them down.

Part of Percy was relieved. He was concerned enough about Bob’s staying on their side once they reached the Doors of Death. He wasn’t sure he wanted a giant as his wingman, even if that giant could cook a mean bowl of stew.