Chapter Text
As the boat sped down the Columbia River, Hazel helped Ella make a nest out of old books and magazines they’d liberated from the library’s recycling bin.
They hadn’t really planned on taking the harpy with them, but Ella acted like the matter was decided.
“Friends,” she muttered. “‘Ten seasons. 1994 to 2004.’ Friends melt Phineas and give Ella jerky. Ella will go with her friends.”
Now she was roosting comfortably in the stern, nibbling bits of jerky and reciting random lines from Charles Dickens and 50 Tricks to Teach Your Dog.
Perseus knelt in the bow, steering them toward the ocean. He kept one eye on her, listening for more lines of prophecy.
Hazel and Frank were whispering to each other behind him. He already knew most of it, so he focused on the water. Soon, the river widened into the ocean and he turned them north.
The sky started to darken, the sea turning the same rusty color as Ella’s wings. June twenty-first was almost over, Perseus knew. The Feast of Fortuna would happen in the evening, exactly seventy-two hours from then.
When Hazel stopped speaking, he turned to fully face them.
Frank had taken her hand. “You sacrificed yourself to stop the giant from waking. I could never be that brave.”
Hazel’s face spasmed. “It wasn’t bravery. I let my mother die. I cooperated with Gaea too long. I almost let her win.”
“Hazel,” said Perseus firmly. “You stood up to a goddess all by yourself. You were just a little girl; It shouldn’t have even been on you to do so.” His voice trailed off.
Hazel looked close to tears.
(It wasn’t your fault.)
(It wasn’t your fault.)
(It wasn’t your fault.)
Frank hesitantly spoke up, “What happened in the Underworld…I mean, after you died? You should’ve gone to Elysium. But if Nico brought you back—”
Perseus shook his head grimly.
“I didn’t go to Elysium.” Her mouth felt dry as sand. “Please don’t ask…”
But Perseus could see that it was too late. She was remembering.
The world was starting to slip away.
“Hazel?” Frank asked.
“‘Slip Sliding Away,’” Ella muttered. “Number five U.S. single. Paul Simon. Frank, go with her. Simon says, Frank, go with her. Not you, Perseus. Find the god.”
“Oh no,” Perseus said, and then all three of them slumped to the ground.
This time, Hazel was nowhere to be found.
Instead he wandered, lost, through black poplar trees, over and under clawing roots, to the edge of a wide churning river.
There was no one there.
He knew this river, but he also didn’t.
A woman stood on its edge.
It wasn’t Styx.
This woman looked kind, maybe a little sleepy. Her eyes were closed. She had long wavy blonde hair which pooled down to the floor and trailed into the river, and pale, nearly translucent skin. Her chiton was long and grey, as wispy as the ends of her hair.
She opened her arms, as if ushering him closer.
But he buried his feet into the ground and backed away instead.
A slight smile ghosted across her face. Her closed eyes cracked open, swirling swirling swirling—
He turned and fled back into the trees.
Gentle laughing followed him.
The forest grew dark. The trees got closer and closer, until he was squeezing through.
Just when he thought he’d get stuck, he crawled through a crack between two tangled trees, and tumbled onto harder ground.
In front of him were the remains of a house.
(A…mirror of it exists down here.)
There was something there in the remains. Something that smelled like the dark.
Perseus pushed himself up and followed it. He climbed over the piles of rubble that formed the front gate.
A large front garden greeted him—one not entirely destroyed.
And in the center, with shadows digging through the remains…
“Hail,” Perseus said, still picking his way over the rubble, “Orcus.”
The being whirled around.
The air turned frigid. Perseus’s head snapped up.
“That is not quite the name you want,” the god smiled cruelly, eyes glittering like steel. “Though you’ve nothing to fear from me, little oath-keeper.”
Perseus squinted at him. “...Dis?” He tried. “Dis Pater?” The god laughed as the ground trembled, and he changed once more.
“Please,” this one murmured, no less amused but noticeably more gentle, “for the sake of my realm and my sanity, call me Pluto.”
“Pluto,” Perseus greeted sheepishly, “sorry.”
The god didn’t change so much as…shift. He looked like someone Perseus knew, but only around the edges.
He was a pale, tall man. He had short, black hair that was slicked back out of his face, and a well-kept beard. Perseus found himself expecting to see horns, but the god only wore an intricate gold crown with spikes that fanned outward, as if being held in several different directions by ghosts.
His robes were dark purple. He had on gold bracelets and necklaces that glittered in the dark. The shadows clung to him like ribbons.
“What’re you doing?” Perseus asked curiously.
“Searching.” Pluto’s eyes were a softer black than he expected.
“Searching?” Perseus questioned. He jumped down to the ground.
“For a gift.”
Now that he was looking closely, he wasn’t sure Pluto’s mouth was moving at all.
The god huffed. “Do not look too closely,” he advised. “Most of us Roman gods are…not used to holding solid forms.”
Perseus averted his eyes. “What kind of gift?” He asked.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Pluto’s form disappear, swallowed by the dark, becoming the dark.
The god’s voice came from everywhere, “For my lovely daughter. I want to ensure that she is protected.”
The darkness surged forward. It twisted around Perseus.
“Do you know where they are?”
“You wandered away again?” The god sounded amused.
Perseus huffed. He turned on the spot, finding the twinkling pale crystals around him. “It’s not like I did it on purpose.”
Pluto chuckled. “No,” he allowed. “Come along. I will take you to her.”
The darkness closed in on him. One minute, they were in the ruins of a house; The next, they were surrounded by trees.
“You gave up Elysium,” Frank was saying in amazement, “so your mother wouldn’t suffer?”
“She didn’t deserve Punishment,” Hazel said.
“But…what happens now?”
“Nothing,” Hazel said. “Nothing…for all eternity.”
“Why would you leave her there?” Perseus asked. “Could she not have stayed with you? I…I remember running into her. You warned me not to say anything, didn’t you?”
Pluto’s eyes were dark. The trees near them bent away from them. “If I had had a say, she would not have not been anywhere near this place. But even I must bend to the will of the Fates.”
He looked at Hazel again, and the shadows in his eyes cleared. “I helped where I could,” he said quietly. “Oh, she doesn’t remember—she couldn’t—but I was there.”
“Will this be the last one?” Perseus asked after Frank gave Hazel his life stick. “Will she have any more of these?”
“No,” Pluto said. “The Underworld burrows into all who enter its doors—unless they are protected. When she entered the forest, she instinctively buried everything that made up her so she wouldn’t lose it. And now she has acknowledged that by sharing it. Those pieces have become free.”
In a blink, Nico stepped out of the shadows, a wolf on his heels. “We found you!” He said. “You’re the girl Percy was talking about.”
“Percy?” Hazel questioned.
The wolf barked.
“He’ll be so excited to meet you,” Nico said. He held out his hand. “Come with us.”
Pluto watched them go, a soft expression on his face.
When they disappeared, he addressed Perseus. “It is time for you to go now, too.”
“I don’t have your—”
But there was a new gleam of gold floating in the darkness—a band with two ends woven in black string and outlined in white string. A single gem of obsidian sat in the center of the band.
Pluto chuckled at his face, and the sound followed Perseus into waking.
“That one was new,” he groggily commented. “Ugh…” He pushed himself up toward the edge of the boat, and hung nearly half-way off it to touch the water.
The waves smacked against his hands gently, as if scolding. He blurrily remembered the ground shaking when he had called Pluto ‘Dis Pater.’
“For someone I haven’t even really seen yet, you sure are a jealous god,” he muttered, and got a face full of salt water in return. “Refreshing.”
He pushed himself toward the other two, carefully navigating around Ella so as not to disturb her make-shift nest. The harpy pointed at the two. “Sharing,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He shook them. “Hey, you two. We’ve reached Seattle.”
Hazel sat up groggily, squinting in the morning sunlight. “Frank?”
Frank groaned, rubbing his eyes. “Did we just…was I just—?”
“We all passed out,” Perseus said. “Ella said you were sharing.”
“Sharing,” Ella agreed. She crouched in the stern, preening her wing feathers with her teeth, which didn’t look like a very effective form of personal hygiene. She spit out some red fluff. “Sharing is good. No more blackouts. Biggest American blackout, August 14, 2003. Hazel shared. No more blackouts.”
“No more blackouts sounds nice,” Perseus mused.
Hazel pressed her hand against her coat pocket and looked at Frank. “You were there.”
Frank nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
“Nope,” Ella said. “Nope, nope, nope. No more blackouts. More books for Ella. Books in Seattle.”
Hazel gazed over the water. They were sailing through a large bay, making their way toward a cluster of downtown buildings. Neighbourhoods rolled across a series of hills. From the tallest one rose an odd white tower with a saucer on the top.
She seemed mystified at the idea of no more blackouts. To Perseus, she looked more…settled. The smell of owl hovering just above her shoulders was clearer.
Maybe those little feathers that seemed to appear above her eyes weren’t his imagination after all…
Perseus steered the boat toward the downtown docks. As they got closer, Ella scratched nervously at her nest of books.
It was a bright, sunny day, and Seattle looked like a beautiful place, with inlets and bridges, wooded islands dotting the bay, and snow capped mountains rising in the distance.
Hazel shifted. “Um…why are we stopping here?” She asked.
Perseus showed them the silver ring on his necklace. “Reyna has a sister here. She asked me to find her and show her this.”
“Reyna has a sister?” Frank asked, like the idea terrified him.
Perseus nodded. “Apparently Reyna thinks her sister could send help for the camp.”
“Amazons,” Ella muttered. “Amazon country. Hmm. Ella will find libraries instead. Doesn’t like Amazons. Fierce. Shields. Swords. Pointy. Ouch.”
Frank reached for his spear. “Amazons? Like…female warriors?”
“That would make sense,” Hazel said. “If Reyna’s sister is also a daughter of Bellona, I can see why she’d join the Amazons. But…is it safe for us to be here?”
“Nope, nope, nope,” Ella said. “Get books instead. No Amazons.”
“We have to try,” Perseus said. “I promised Reyna. Besides, we might get another army out of it. And…I could admittedly use a break from directing the boat. The further we go north, the less help the ocean is.”
“Then a trip it is,” Hazel agreed. “Ella, do you have any idea where we can find the Amazons?”
“And, um,” Frank said nervously, “they don’t, like, kill men on sight, do they?”
Ella glanced at the downtown docks, only a few hundred yards away. “Ella will find friends later. Ella will fly away now.”
And she did.
“Well…” Frank picked a single red feather out of the air. “That’s encouraging.”
They docked at the wharf and unloaded their supplies.
When they were done, Perseus stared at the steep hills of downtown Seattle. “Let’s hope the Amazons will help.”
They explored for hours. They found some great salty caramel chocolate at a candy store. They bought some coffee so strong, both Frank and Hazel had to sit down. They stopped at a sidewalk café and had some excellent grilled salmon sandwiches.
Once they saw Ella zooming between high-rise towers, a large book clutched in each foot. But they found no Amazons.
Finally they wandered south of downtown, into a plaza surrounded by smaller glass and brick buildings. Perseus sniffed.
“There,” Hazel said.
The office building on their left had a single word etched on the glass doors: AMAZON.
“Oh,” Frank said. “Uh, no, Hazel. That’s a modern thing. They’re a company, right? They sell stuff on the Internet. They’re not actually Amazons.”
“Unless…” Perseus walked through the doors. Hazel and Frank followed.
The lobby was like an empty fish tank—glass walls, a glossy black floor, a few token plants, and pretty much nothing else. Against the back wall, a black stone staircase led up and down. In the middle of the room stood a young woman in a black pantsuit, with long auburn hair and a security guard’s earpiece. Her name tag said Kinzie. Her smile was friendly enough, but her eyes were hard.
Kinzie nodded at Hazel, ignoring the boys. “May I help you?”
“Um...I hope so,” Hazel said. “We’re looking for Amazons.”
Kinzie glanced at Hazel’s sword, then Frank’s spear, though neither should have been visible through the Mist.
“This is the main campus for Amazon,” she said cautiously. “Did you have an appointment with someone, or—”
“Hylla,” Perseus interrupted. “We’re looking for a girl named—”
Kinzie moved fast, but Perseus had been ready. She kicked Frank in the chest and sent him flying backward across the lobby. She pulled a sword out of thin air, and it clashed against Perseus’s trident so hard there were sparks.
Hazel reached for her sword, but just then a dozen more girls in black flooded up the staircase, swords in hand, and surrounded them.
Kinzie glared at Perseus. “First rule: Males don’t speak without permission. Second rule, trespassing on our territory is punishable by death. You’ll meet Queen Hylla, all right. She’ll be the one deciding your fate.”
Perseus sneered. “Who says I’m a boy?”
The lobby went dead quiet, but Perseus raised a single eyebrow, daring Kinzie to question him.
(It is very rare that we would have boys in this camp.)
Kinzie grit her teeth. “Are you a girl?”
“No,” Perseus pleasantly, “but I think I’ve proven my point.”
Behind him, he heard Hazel snort.
He dropped his trident, and surrendered.