This Cold Year ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase²

―viii. making camp in a surprisingly cozy sewer

FOR THE ONE WITH THE MOST EXPERIENCE QUESTING, Naomi was certainly struggling to hold her own weight.

She didn't wake up from her Cyclops-induced coma until they were already back on the flying dragon.

She startled awake, nearly smacking her face against the back of Leo's head.

He turned at the movement, grinning at her. "Morning, Sleeping Beauty!"

"What..." Naomi clutched the back of her head, which was still tender. "What happened?"

"Three Cyclopes tried to eat us," Piper explained from the back of the dragon. Jason was still knocked out in front of her. "Leo saved us."

Leo feigned humility. "All in a day's work."

Naomi looked back at Leo. "How did you—"

"Cyclops!" Jason's eyes snapped open.

"Whoa, sleepyhead," Piper said, holding his waist to keep him balanced.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you and Naomi got some nasty concussions."

"This is why Tyson's my favorite Cyclops," Naomi muttered under her breath, scowling.

"How did you—the Cyclops—" Jason seemed to have trouble putting together a full sentence, which didn't bode well for his head trauma.

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said, grinning. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"Fire?" Naomi repeated.

"It was nothing," Leo said bashfully.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell them. Get over it."

And she did—she told Jason and Naomi how Leo had single-handedly defeated the Cyclops family; how they'd freed Naomi and Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form already; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.

Naomi was understandably impressed—taking on a family of Cyclopes by yourself was not something to blink at—but even more, she was worried.

Monsters weren't supposed to reform that fast. The fastest Naomi had ever seen a monster reform was Mrs. Dodds back in seventh grade, and that had still taken a few days—plus she was a Fury, one of Hades' servants, so she got special privileges when it came to re-formation. Regular monsters...

Something was wrong in the Underworld. She just didn't know what.

Then Piper told them about the other kid the Cyclopes had claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin.

"I'm not alone, then," Jason said. "There are others like me."

"Jason," Piper said gently, "you were never alone. You've got us."

"I—I know," he said. "But something Hera said. I was having a dream..."

He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage—something about a sleeping enemy who would destroy the world if she wasn't stopped, and something about an exchange, a way to bridge some ancient divide between two worlds that had never gotten along.

Naomi chewed on her lip. "An exchange?" she asked. "What could that mean?"

Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble was me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"