LVII
JASON
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 got 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 to 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, none of them knew how 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 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 towards Epirus, assuming she’d got 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 sceptre 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 practise raising spirits with Diocletian’s sceptre, 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.’
Jason had been having the same feeling, but hearing Nico say it made him even edgier. ‘You sense something?’
‘Percy is close to the Doors,’ Nico said. ‘He’ll need us if he’s going to make it through alive.’
Jason noticed that he didn’t mention Annabeth. He decided not to bring that up.
‘All right,’ Jason said. ‘But if we can’t repair the ship –’
‘I promised I’d lead you to the House of Hades,’ Nico said. ‘One way or another, I will.’
‘You can’t shadow-travel with all of us. And it will take all of us to reach the Doors of Death.’
The orb at the end of Diocletian’s sceptre glowed purple. Over the past week, it seemed to have aligned itself to Nico di Angelo’s moods. Jason wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
‘Then you’ve got to convince the king of the South Wind to help.’ Nico’s voice seethed with anger. ‘I didn’t come all this way, suffer so many humiliations …’
Jason had to make a conscious effort not to reach for his sword. Whenever Nico got angry, all of Jason’s instincts screamed Danger!
‘Look, Nico,’ he said, ‘I’m here if you want to talk about, you know, what happened in Croatia. I get how difficult –’
‘You don’t get anything.’
‘Nobody’s going to judge you.’
Nico’s mouth twisted in a sneer. ‘Really? That would be a first. I’m the son of Hades, Jason. I might as well be covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me. I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not even from this century. But even that’s not enough to set me apart. I’ve got to be – to be –’
‘Dude! It’s not like you’ve got a choice. It’s just who you are.’
‘Just who I am …’ The balcony trembled. Patterns shifted in the stone floor, like bones coming to the surface. ‘Easy for you to say. You’re everybody’s golden boy, the son of Jupiter. The only person who ever accepted me was Bianca, and she died! I didn’t choose any of this. My father, my feelings …’
Jason tried to think of something to say. He wanted to be Nico’s friend. He knew that was the only way to help. But Nico wasn’t making it easy.
He raised his hands in submission. ‘Yeah, okay. But, Nico, you do choose how to live your life. You want to trust somebody? Maybe take a risk that I’m really your friend and I’ll accept you. It’s better than hiding.’
The floor cracked between them. The crevice hissed. The air around Nico shimmered with spectral light.
‘Hiding?’ Nico’s voice was deadly quiet.
Jason’s fingers itched to draw his sword. He’d met plenty of scary demigods, but he was starting to realize that Nico di Angelo – as pale and gaunt as he looked – might be more than he could handle.
Nevertheless, he held Nico’s gaze. ‘Yes, hiding. You’ve run away from both camps. You’re so afraid you’ll get rejected that you won’t even try. Maybe it’s time you came out of the shadows.’
Just when the tension became unbearable, Nico dropped his eyes. The fissure closed in the balcony floor. The ghostly light faded.
‘I’m going to honour my promise,’ Nico said, not much louder than a whisper. ‘I’ll take you to Epirus. I’ll help you close the Doors of Death. Then that’s it. I’m leaving – forever.’
Behind them, the doors of the throne room blasted open with a gust of scorching air.
A disembodied voice said: Lord will see you now.
As much as he dreaded this meeting, Jason felt relieved. At the moment, arguing with a crazy wind god seemed safer than befriending an angry son of Hades. He turned to tell Nico goodbye, but Nico had disappeared – melting back into the darkness.