The House of Hades - Frozen

“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?

[...]

And this wintry weather bothered her too.… She felt certain it was being caused by something more than just Diocletian’s scepter. The cold wind, the mix of ice and rain seemed actively hostile, and somehow familiar.

That smell in the air, the thick smell of…

Piper should have understood what was happening sooner, but she’d spent most of her life in Southern California with no major changes of season. She hadn’t grown up with that smell…the smell of impending snow.

Every muscle in her body tensed. “Leo, sound the alarm.”

Piper hadn’t realized she was charmspeaking, but Leo immediately dropped his screwdriver and punched the alarm button. He frowned when nothing happened.

“Uh, it’s disconnected,” he remembered. “Festus is shut down. Gimme a minute to get the system back online.”

“We don’t have a minute! Fires—we need vials of Greek fire. Jason, call the winds. Warm, southerly winds.”

“Wait, what?” Jason stared at her in confusion. “Piper, what’s wrong?”

“It’s her!” Piper snatched up her dagger. “She’s back! We have to—”

Before she could finish, the boat listed to port. The temperature dropped so fast, the sails crackled with ice. The bronze shields along the rails popped like over-pressurized soda cans.

Jason drew his sword, but it was too late. A wave of ice particles swept over him, coating him like a glazed donut and freezing him in place. Under a layer of ice, his eyes were wide with amazement.

“Leo! Flames! Now!” Piper yelled.

Leo’s right hand blazed, but the wind swirled around him and doused the fire. Leo clutched his Archimedes sphere as a funnel cloud of sleet lifted him off his feet.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Hey! Let me go!”

Piper ran toward him, but a voice in the storm said, “Oh, yes, Leo Valdez. I will let you go permanently.”

Leo shot skyward, like he’d been launched from a catapult. He disappeared into the clouds.

“No!” Piper raised her knife, but there was nothing to attack. She looked desperately at the stairwell, hoping to see her friends charging to the rescue, but a block of ice had sealed the hatch. The whole lower deck might have been frozen solid.

She needed a better weapon to fight with—something more than her voice, a stupid fortune-telling dagger, and a cornucopia that shot ham and fresh fruit.

She wondered whether she could make it to the ballista.

Then her enemies appeared, and she realized that no weapon would be enough.

Standing amidships was a girl in a flowing dress of white silk, her mane of black hair pinned back with a circlet of diamonds. Her eyes were the color of coffee, but without the warmth.

Behind her stood her brothers—two young men with purple-feathered wings, stark white hair, and jagged swords of Celestial bronze.

“So good to see you again, ma chère,” said Khione, the goddess of snow. “It’s time we had a very cold reunion.”

[...]

Zethes winced. “Alas, beautiful girl. We all are working for Gaea now. I fear these orders are from our father, Boreas himself.”

“What?” Piper didn’t want to believe it, but Khione’s smug smile told her it was true.

“At last my father saw the wisdom of my counsel,” Khione purred, “or at least he did before his Roman side began warring with his Greek side. I fear he is quite incapacitated now, but he left me in charge. He has ordered that the forces of the North Wind be used in the service of King Porphyrion, and of course…the Earth Mother.”

Piper gulped. “How are you even here?” She gestured at the ice all over the ship. “It’s summer!”

Khione shrugged. “Our powers grow. The rules of nature are turned upside down. Once the Earth Mother wakes, we shall remake the world as we choose!”

“With hockey,” Cal said, his mouth still full. “And pizza. And muffins.”

“Yes, yes,” Khione sneered. “I had to promise a few things to the big simpleton. And to Zethes—”

“Oh, my needs are simple.” Zethes slicked back his hair and winked at Piper. “I should have kept you at our palace when we first met, my dear Piper. But soon we will go there again, together, and I shall romance you most incredibly.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Piper said. “Now, let Jason go.”

She put all her power into the words, and Zethes obeyed. He snapped his fingers. Jason instantly defrosted. He crumpled to the floor, gasping and steaming; but at least he was alive.

“You imbecile!” Khione thrust out her hand, and Jason refroze, now flat on the deck like a bearskin rug. She wheeled on Zethes. “If you wish the girl as your prize, you must prove you can control her. Not the other way around!”

“Yes, of course.” Zethes looked chagrined.

“As for Jason Grace…” Khione’s brown eyes gleamed. “He and the rest of your friends will join our court of ice statues in Quebec. Jason will grace my throne room.”

“Clever,” Piper muttered. “Take you all day to think up that line?”

At least she knew Jason was still alive, which made Piper a little less panicky. The deep freeze could be reversed. That meant her other friends were probably still alive below deck. She just needed a plan to free them.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t Annabeth. She wasn’t so good at devising plans on the fly. She needed time to think.

“What about Leo?” she blurted. “Where did you send him?”

The snow goddess stepped lightly around Jason, examining him as if he were sidewalk art.

“Leo Valdez deserved a special punishment,” she said. “I have sent him to a place from which he can never return.”

Piper couldn’t breathe. Poor Leo. The idea of never seeing him again almost destroyed her. Khione must’ve seen it in her face.

“Alas, my dear Piper!” She smiled in triumph. “But it is for the best. Leo could not be tolerated, even as an ice statue…not after he insulted me. The fool refused to rule at my side! And his power over fire…” She shook her head. “He could not be allowed to reach the House of Hades. I’m afraid Lord Clytius likes fire even less than I do.”

Piper gripped her dagger.

Fire, she thought. Thanks for reminding me, you witch.

She scanned the deck. How to make fire? A box of Greek fire vials was secured by the forward ballista, but that was too far away. Even if she made it without getting frozen, Greek fire would burn everything, including the ship and all her friends. There had to be another way. Her eyes strayed to the prow.

[...]

Delay, Piper thought. When in doubt, talk some more.

“You’re afraid of my friends,” she said. “So why not just kill them?”

Khione laughed. “You are not a god, or you would understand. Death is so short, so…unsatisfying. Your puny mortal souls flit off to the Underworld, and what happens then? The best I can hope for is that you go to the Fields of Punishment or Asphodel, but you demigods are insufferably noble. More likely you will go to Elysium—or get reborn in a new life. Why would I want to reward your friends that way? Why…when I can punish them eternally?”

“And me?” Piper hated to ask. “Why am I still alive and unfrozen?”

Khione glanced at her brothers with annoyance. “Zethes has claimed you, for one thing.”

“I kiss magnificently,” Zethes promised. “You will see, beautiful one.”

The idea made Piper’s stomach churn.

[...]

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.

[...]

JASON WASN’T SURE WHAT TO HOPE FOR: storm or fire.

As he waited for his daily audience with the lord of the South Wind, he tried to decide which of the god’s personalities, Roman or Greek, was worse. But after five days in the palace, he was only certain about one thing: he and his crew were unlikely to get out of here alive.

He leaned against the balcony rail. The air was so hot and dry, it sucked the moisture right out of his lungs. Over the last week, his skin had gotten darker. His hair had turned as white as corn silk. Whenever he glanced in the mirror, he was startled by the wild, empty look in his eyes, as if he’d gone blind wandering in the desert.

A hundred feet below, the bay glittered against a crescent of red sand beach. They were somewhere on the northern coast of Africa. That’s as much as the wind spirits would tell him.

The palace itself stretched out on either side of him—a honeycomb of halls and tunnels, balconies, colonnades, and cavernous rooms carved into the sandstone cliffs, all designed for the wind to blow through and make as much noise as possible. The constant pipe-organ sounds reminded Jason of the floating lair of Aeolus, back in Colorado, except here the winds seemed in no hurry.

Which was part of the problem.

On their best days, the southern venti were slow and lazy. On their worst days, they were gusty and angry. They’d initially welcomed the Argo II, since any enemy of Boreas was a friend of the South Wind, but they seemed to have forgotten that the demigods were their guests. The venti had quickly lost interest in helping repair the ship. Their king’s mood got worse every day.

Down at the dock, Jason’s friends were working on the Argo II. The main sail had been repaired, the rigging replaced. Now they were mending the oars. Without Leo, they were unable to repair the more complicated parts of the ship, even with the help of Buford the table and Festus (who was now permanently activated thanks to Piper’s charmspeak—and none of them understood that). But they kept trying.

Hazel and Frank stood at the helm, tinkering with the controls. Piper relayed their commands to Coach Hedge, who was hanging over the side of the ship, banging out dents in the oars. Hedge was well suited for banging on things.

They didn’t seem to be making much progress, but considering what they’d been through, it was a miracle the ship was in one piece.

Jason shivered when he thought about Khione’s attack. He’d been rendered helpless—frozen solid not once but twice, while Leo was blasted into the sky and Piper was forced to save them all single-handedly.

Thank the gods for Piper. She considered herself a failure for not having stopped the wind bomb from exploding; but the truth was, she’d saved the entire crew from becoming ice sculptures in Quebec.

She’d also managed to direct the explosion of the icy sphere, so even though the ship had been pushed halfway across the Mediterranean, it had sustained relatively minor damage.

Down at the dock, Hedge yelled, “Try it now!”

Hazel and Frank pulled some of the levers. The port oars went crazy, chopping up and down and doing the wave. Coach Hedge tried to dodge, but one smacked him in the rear and launched him into the air. He came down screaming and splashed into the bay.

Jason sighed. At this rate, they’d never be able to sail, even if the southern venti allowed them to. Somewhere in the north, Reyna was flying toward Epirus, assuming she’d gotten his note at Diocletian’s Palace. Leo was lost and in trouble. Percy and Annabeth…well, best-case scenario they were still alive, making their way to the Doors of Death. Jason couldn’t let them down.

A rustling sound made him turn. Nico di Angelo stood in the shadow of the nearest column. He’d shed his jacket. Now he just wore his black T-shirt and black jeans. His sword and the scepter of Diocletian hung on either side of his belt.

Days in the hot sun hadn’t tanned his skin. If anything, he looked paler. His dark hair fell over his eyes. His face was still gaunt, but he was definitely in better shape than when they’d left Croatia. He had regained enough weight not to look starved. His arms were surprisingly taut with muscles, as if he’d spent the past week sword fighting. For all Jason knew, he’d been slipping off to practice raising spirits with Diocletian’s scepter, then sparring with them. After their expedition in Split, nothing would surprise him.

“Any word from the king?” Nico asked.

Jason shook his head. “Every day, he calls for me later and later.”

“We need to leave,” Nico said. “Soon.”


- The House of Hades, Chapters 41, 42, 43, 44, and 57