The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(95)

Leo was walking in the hills, following a little brook that ran between two big cedar trees. He liked this area—it was the only place on Ogygia where he couldn’t see the sea, so he could pretend he wasn’t stuck on an island. In the shade of the trees, he almost felt like he was back at Camp Half-Blood, heading through the woods toward Bunker Nine.

He jumped over the creek. Instead of landing on soft earth, his feet hit something much harder.

CLANG.

Metal.

Excited, Leo dug through the mulch until he saw the glint of bronze.

“Oh, man.” He giggled like a crazy person as he excavated the scraps.

He had no idea why the stuff was here. Hephaestus was always tossing broken parts out of his godly workshop and littering the earth with scrap metal, but what were the chances some of it would hit Ogygia?

Leo found a handful of wires, a few bent gears, a piston that might still work, and several hammered sheets of Celestial bronze—the smallest the size of a drink coaster, the largest the size of a war shield.

It wasn’t a lot—not compared to Bunker Nine, or even to his supplies aboard the Argo II. But it was more than sand and rocks.

He looked up at the sunlight winking through the cedar branches. “Dad? If you sent this here for me—thanks. If you didn’t…well, thanks anyway.”

He gathered up his treasure trove and lugged it back to his campsite.

After that, the days passed more quickly, and with a lot more noise.

First Leo made himself a forge out of mud bricks, each one baked with his own fiery hands. He found a large rock he could use as an anvil base, and he pulled nails from his tool belt until he had enough to melt into a plate for a hammering surface.

Once that was done, he began to recast the Celestial bronze scraps. Each day his hammer rang on bronze until his rock anvil broke, or his tongs bent, or he ran out of firewood.

Each evening he collapsed, drenched in sweat and covered in soot; but he felt great. At least he was working, trying to solve his problem.

The first time Calypso came to check on him, it was to complain about the noise.

“Smoke and fire,” she said. “Clanging on metal all day long. You’re scaring away the birds!”

“Oh, no, not the birds!” Leo grumbled.

“What do you hope to accomplish?”

He glanced up and almost smashed his thumb with his hammer. He’d been staring at metal and fire so long he’d forgotten how beautiful Calypso was. Annoyingly beautiful. She stood there with the sunlight in her hair, her white skirt fluttering around her legs, a basket of grapes and fresh-baked bread tucked under one arm.

Leo tried to ignore his rumbling stomach.

“I’m hoping to get off this island,” he said. “That is what you want, right?”

Calypso scowled. She set the basket near his bedroll. “You haven’t eaten in two days. Take a break and eat.”

“Two days?” Leo hadn’t even noticed, which surprised him, since he liked food. He was even more surprised that Calypso had noticed.

“Thanks,” he muttered. “I’ll, uh, try to hammer more quietly.”

“Huh.” She sounded unimpressed.

After that, she didn’t complain about the noise or the smoke.

The next time she visited, Leo was putting the final touches on his first project. He didn’t see her until she spoke right behind him.

“I brought you—”

Leo jumped, dropping his wires. “Bronze bulls, girl! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

She was wearing red today—Leo’s favorite color. That was completely irrelevant. She looked really good in red. Also irrelevant.

“I wasn’t sneaking,” she said. “I was bringing you these.”

She showed him the clothes that were folded over her arm: a new pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, an army fatigue jacket…wait, those were his clothes, except that they couldn’t be. His original army jacket had burned up months ago. He hadn’t been wearing it when he landed on Ogygia. But the clothes Calypso held looked exactly like the clothes he’d been wearing the first day he’d arrived at Camp Half-Blood—except these looked bigger, resized to fit him better.

“How?” he asked.

Calypso set the clothes at his feet and backed away as if he were a dangerous beast. “I do have a little magic, you know. You keep burning through the clothes I give you, so I thought I would weave something less flammable.”

“These won’t burn?” He picked up the jeans, but they felt just like normal denim.

“They are completely fireproof,” Calypso promised. “They’ll stay clean and expand to fit you, should you ever become less scrawny.”

“Thanks.” He meant it to sound sarcastic, but he was honestly impressed. Leo could make a lot of things, but an inflammable, self-cleaning outfit wasn’t one of them. “So…you made an exact replica of my favorite outfit. Did you, like, Google me or something?”

She frowned. “I don’t know that word.”

“You looked me up,” he said. “Almost like you had some interest in me.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I have an interest in not making you a new set of clothes every other day. I have an interest in your not smelling so bad and walking around my island in smoldering rags.”