The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1)(63)

“Yeah—yeah, sure.” He dug around in his tool belt and pulled out a wad of gauze and a roll of duct tape—both of which seemed too big for the belt’s pockets. Piper had noticed the tool belt yesterday morning, but she hadn’t thought to ask Leo about it. It didn’t look like anything special—just one of those wraparound leather aprons with a bunch of pockets, like a blacksmith or a carpenter might wear. And it seemed to be empty.

“How did you—” Piper tried to sit up, and winced. “How did pull that stuff from an empty belt?”

“Magic,” Leo said. “Haven’t figure it out completely, but I can summon just about any regular tool out of the pockets, plus some other helpful stuff.” He reached into another pocket and pulled out a little tin box. “Breath mint?”

Jason snatched away the mints. “That’s great, Leo. Now, can you fix her foot?”

“I’m a mechanic, man. Maybe if she was a car …” He snapped his fingers. “Wait, what was that godly healing stuffthey fed you at camp—Rambo food?”

“Ambrosia, dummy,” Piper said through gritted teeth. “There should be some in my bag, if it’s not crushed.”

Jason carefully pulled her backpack off her shoulders. He rummaged through the supplies the Aphrodite kids had packed for her, and found a Ziploc full of smashed pastry squares like lemon bars. He broke off a piece and fed it to her.

The taste was nothing like she expected. It reminded her of Dad’s black bean soup from when she was a little girl. He used to feed it to her whenever she got sick. The memory relaxed her, though it made her sad. The pain in her ankle subsided.

“More,” she said.

Jason frowned. “Piper, we shouldn’t risk it. They said too much could burn you up. I think I should try to set your foot.”

Piper’s stomach fluttered. “Have you ever done that before?”

“Yeah … I think so.”

Leo found an old piece of wood and broke it in half for a splint. Then he got the gauze and duct tape ready.

“Hold her leg still,” Jason told him. “Piper, this is going to hurt.”

When Jason set the foot, Piper flinched so hard she punched Leo in the arm, and he yelled almost as much as she did. When her vision cleared and she could breathe normally again, she found that her foot was pointing the right way, her ankle splinted with plywood, gauze, and duct tape.

“Ow,” she said.

“Jeez, beauty queen!” Leo rubbed his arm. “Glad my face wasn’t there.”

“Sorry,” she said. “And don’t call me ‘beauty queen,’ or I’ll punch you again.”

“You both did great.” Jason found a canteen in Piper’s pack and gave her some water. After a few minutes, her stomach began to calm down.

Once she wasn’t screaming in pain, she could hear the wind howling outside. Snowflakes fluttered through the hole in the roof, and after their meeting with Khione, snow was the last thing Piper wanted to see.

“What happened to the dragon?” she asked. “Where are we?”

Leo’s expression turned sullen. “I don’t know with Festus. He just jerked sideways like he hit an invisible wall and started to fall.”

Piper remembered Enceladus’s warning: I’ll show you how easily your rebellious spirit can be brought to earth. Had he managed to strike them down from so far away? It seemed impossible. If he were that powerful, why would he need her to betray her friends when he could just kill them himself? And how could the giant be keeping an eye on her in a snowstorm thousands of miles away?

Leo pointed to the logo on the wall. “As far as where we are …” It was hard to see through the graffiti, but Piper could make out a large red eye with the stenciled words: monocle motors, assembly plant 1.

“Closed car plant,” Leo said. “I’m guessing we crash-landed in Detroit.”

Piper had heard about closed car plants in Detroit, so that made sense. But it seemed like a pretty depressing place to land. “How far is that from Chicago?”

Jason handed her the canteen. “Maybe three-fourths of the way from Quebec? The thing is, without the dragon, we’re stuck traveling overland.”

“No way,” Leo said. “It isn’t safe.”

Piper thought about the way the ground had pulled at her feet in the dream, and what King Boreas had said about the earth yielding up more horrors. “He’s right. Besides, I don’t know if I can walk. And three people—Jason, you can’t fly that many across country by yourself.”

“No way,” Jason said. “Leo, are you sure the dragon didn’t malfunction? I mean, Festus is old, and—”

“And I might not have repaired him right?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jason protested. “It’s just—maybe you could fix it.”

“I don’t know.” Leo sounded crestfallen. He pulled a few screws out of his pockets and started fiddling with them. “I’d have to find where he landed, if he’s even in one piece.”

“It was my fault.” Piper said without thinking. She just couldn’t stand it anymore. The secret about her father was heating up inside her like too much ambrosia. If she kept lying to her friends, she felt like she’d burn to ashes.